ElaineMiller.com

A Personal Drag History

Seems I remember the good old days, in my foggy, creaky, ancient brain.

Let’s see if I can roughly reconstruct my personal drag history timeline, without going into my voluminous paper archives of show flyers…

I started doing drag in 1985 or so, but not in the queer community — I hadn’t found it yet. I was performing masculinity at airband shows in roller-derby contests, and at churches, school gymnasiums, etc.
One of my performances was disqualified for setting fire to the hall, with our flashpots (Yes, it was the mid-eighties). But the flames were quickly extinguished.
I had no word nor any politicized framework for what I was doing, yet refused to perform female roles, and defended my right to wear a studded jockstrap and bind my breasts. So…

Fast-forward to 1991 or so… me going to Celebrities every freaking Wednesday night to watch the drag queens perform. Somewhere in there, I had a bright idea… “Hey!” I thought “I could do that here! They’re drag queens… I could be a… um… a… drag KING! Yeah!” See, I’d never heard the term in my life, but it was a simple jump from drag queen, no?

So I created a persona (Joe Craig, no clever puns) and worked on a male look that was less glam rocker and more… passing dude. But I didn’t join/form a community or step on stage yet, because I ended up working up north for a bit. When I came back to Celebs, there was Crema, all TomJones-ing and suave, and I was delighted! They called her a drag king (whoa!), and referenced her having done this for a while, so I’d simply been missing her other performances. I’d had no idea she was out there.

Round about 1993 or ’94 so, I was hanging in The Lotus, and Trigger was pushing the idea of a drag king show. I can’t recall who was organizing it…. I just showed up. Hooray! I did a Meat Loaf number, from Bat Out of Hell. There were quite a few of us, some good, some bad.

I performed sporadically over the next few years, doing dyke sex shows and readings and such more frequently than my drag stuff… and in 1997 started dating a boi who was the onstage king “Joey, The Italian Stallion”. I remember Crema saying to Joey — “Hey, *I’m* the Italian Stallion!” The scene was really popping by this time… lots of drag shows, kings and queens.

	This photo taken by Steve Benson. This was the early days of “full” drag for me… somewhere around 1991
	Pic above taken by Tricia McDonald in 1996. She’s a talented photographer friend of mine. Contact me to get in touch with her.
	I think this one is from 1991 as well… Go ahead. Ask me about the bathtub. I dare you.
	A performance as Jimmy Page (note the ugly shirt). 1998-ish
	Out on a date with my then-gf at Le Meridien. She was so lovely I was trying to get a pic of her, when a friendly couple of tourists offered to take our pic together. They thought we were honeymooning. [grin]
	Don’t I make an attractive figger of a man? The smoke was killing me. So was the chest hair.

More foolish pics of me (past and present) are kicking around on my website. (requires a password — drop me a line to get that from me…).

Try also Shaira Holman’s GID site.

Aside:
Here’s some stuff I wrote under my drag persona — “Joe Craig”?
The Collected “Opinions By Joe” Articles – Appeared in Diversity Magazine 1994 – 1997.