BillsWeek Guest Entry: Confessions of a Drag Hag

Sometimes the best surprises come in fabulous packages. Last summer, guest blogger Joey Halligan discovered and recorded one amazing drag queen. Now, he's in the process of helping her go national, including competition in the Logo network's First Exceptional Drag Queen contest. Here's his story:

It all started one scorching day in June during the Denver Pride Festival. Nina Flowers and her band of drag performers took the main stage and performed in front of nearly 275,000 spectators. There I stood, among all the other viewers, wondering just what these girls were about to do.

They performed to songs by such artists as Lady Gaga, Pink and Beyonce. In the spirit of collecting memories of that fun summer day, I took pictures of them all. But when Felony Misdemeanor appeared on stage, I saw something different.

She displayed her signature sartorial elegance. She worked the stage and the audience. But there was something drastically different about Felony. In fact, she was the only one I recorded. She was the only one that looked natural in her element. As the show came to a close, I knew I would be watching the video clip of Felony again, and it would probably end there. I was wrong.

After the show, Nina Flowers introduced her girls to the crowd. She brought them out individually and let each diva have her moment of glory. Felony Misdemeanor, like all the rest, underwent a rapid wardrobe change, and upon her reentry to the stage, wore a tank top with 10 digits. A random selection of numbers? Of course not. She was silently publicizing her phone number, made a phone gesture with her hand and mouthed the phrase: “Call me!”

The next day I was watching all my footage from the weekend with a friend and came across her performance. I couldn’t believe this drag queen printed her phone number on her tank top for all to see!

We had to call. How could we not? At the very least, I had to tell her “good job”. Just as I expected, we went straight to her voicemail but still left a heartfelt message, telling her just how good she looked on stage. To my surprise, she called back.

During the next few days, we exchanged phone calls and text messages. Before I knew it, I was cheering her on at her local performances and bringing along friends to watch (and tip, of course). We then started talking about her plans for the future. We thought of ways to market Felony to the public, created a complete website and supported her along the way. We even created pseudo roles that all made up the Felony Misdemeanor project, aka Team Felony.

Now that I know Felony, and as the boy behind the make-up, I have a new-found respect for female impersonators. The transformation is jaw dropping. But more than anything, Felony is an amazing person - in and out of drag. She loves to eat all kinds of food - the spicier the better, play video games and hang out with friends. Sounds pretty normal, huh? You never quite know when or where you’re going to meet great people.

Visit Felony’s site at http://www.felony-misdemeanor.com/ and vote for her to be Logo’s first Exceptional Drag Queen!

Joey Halligan is an excellent human being and occasional contributor to BillsWeek. You can reach him at JoeyHalligan@me.com.