[MUSIC] Bob The Drag Queen feat. Alaska Thunderfuck, “Yet Another Dig”

Bob The Drag Queen, winner of season 8 on RuPaul’s Drag Race, continues to be one of my favourite listens. Her 2017 single, featuring All-Stars 2 winner Alaska Thunderfuck, is a song that I keep playing again and again.

The song is a glorious performance, a fluently-performed dissection of some of the different fan-driven controversies and tropes of LGBTQ culture, profane and smart and funny. (The show’s Reddit group rates a mention.) Fans, mind, are not the song’s only constituency; the humour and wit is portable beyond that.

Yet another dig, I’ma get another gig
I’m gluing down my lace front, yet another wig
Collecting coins, getting yet another big paycheck
Who’s next? Tell me who’s on deck
You’re sippin’ on the Hater-ade, yet another swig
Frying up some bacon, bitch, yet another pig
I’m a Redwood and you’re yet another twig
All Stars 2 was yet another rig

As for the fantastic video, directed by veteran Assaad Yacoub, what can be said but that it has enough pitch-perfect humour to make first-time watchers burst out laughing?

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: queercore, lesbian pulp novels, drag, Church closeted, #MeToo

• Hornet Stories looks at the history of the queercore punk movement.
• Sarah Fonseca at them examines the subgenre of the lesbian pulp novel.
• CBC carries the argument of drag queen Halal Bae that, after RuPaul made drag mainstream, it’s up to new artists like her to broaden the scope of the genre.
• I am strongly inclined to agree with Andrew Sullivan that the closeted corruption documented by Frédéric Martel in the Roman Catholic Church is morally repugnant. His New York blog has it.
• Kai Cheng Thom writes at Daily Xtra about the #MeToo movement in the context of queer communities, and the extra burdens it–and we–face.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: advertising, fluidity in art, George Quaintance, Francophones, RuPaul

• The Conversation looks at the question of how to increase the representation of same-sex couples in ads.
• Them looks at how queer artists are representing their fluidity.
• Hornet Stories looks at the art of George Quaintance.
• CBC Windsor reports on why some non-binary people Francophones in Windsor-Essex avoid treatment in the French language.
• RuPaul’s Drag Race turns out to be playing a key role in keeping many gay bars in New York City thriving, Punchdrink reports.

[VIDEO] On Bob the Drag Queen and Dark Phoenix

Over the past couple of months, I’ve begun to seriously watch RuPaul’s Drag Race. There is something profoundly compelling to me about watching queer people work so hard to recreate themselves. One drag queen I’ve been particularly interested in watching is Bob The Drag Queen, a season winner who has since gone on to put out great music and comedy.

I recently came across one Bob The Drag Queen video drawn from his stint on the Werq The World tour.

There is a voice at the start of Bob’s routine, a woman talking about the new sensations she feels, the new power. I am quite certain that this voice is taken from X-Men animated series of the 1990s, from the dialogue of Jean Grey as voiced by Catherine Disher in that series’ recreation of the The Dark Phoenix Saga. Right?

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: Fathers Project, Valentina, Winnipeg, cities, chemsex

• io9 reports on the Fathers Project, a new alternate history project imagining what might have become of queer people in North America if HIV had not existed.
• Them interviews Valentina, fresh off of RuPaul’s Drag Race and now appearing in a TV version of the classic Rent.
• CBC reports on two people in Winnipeg who want to build a library there for queer people of colour.
• Guardian Cities takes a look at the question of how gay-friendly different cities are. Locals’ opinions, not just public policies, matter.
• Tim McCaskell writes at NOW Toronto about the threat posed by the growing presence of chemsex in queer Toronto (and beyond, too).

[URBAN NOTE] Five Tornoto links: homelessness, cohabiting, TTC, fashion, Brooke Lynn Hytes

• Paul Salvatori writes at NOW Toronto about the homeless encampments beneath the Gardiner, surely a call for some meaningful action at the municipal level.
• VICE reports on how six young Torontonians dealt with the housing shortage in Toronto by buying a home together, cohabiting.
• blogTO takes a look at the ease of fare evasion on the TTC.
• Jamie Bradburn takes a look at some vintage fashion ads from Toronto in the 1980s.
• Etobicoke-born Brooke Lynn Hytes has become the first Canadian to compete on RuPaul’s Drag Race, in Season 11, CP24 reports.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: Moncton, Toronto drag queens, Pete Shelley, refugees, zines

• A new LGBTQ lounge is set to open up in Moncton, filling a much-needed niche in the nightlife of the city, nay region. Huddle Today reports.
• Toronto Life shares some photos of eight top Toronto drag queens.
• NOW Toronto takes a look at the out queer life of musician Pete Shelley.
• Hornet Stories notes the growing difficulties LGBTQ refugees face getting asylum around the world, even with ostensibly pro-LGBTQ countries.
• Hornet Stories looks at how queer zines continue to thrive.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: Atlanta. My.Kali, cross-dressing, Glennda Orgasm, Pride Toronto

• This Guardian Cities article asks, rhetorically, if the LGBTQ community of Atlanta has a problem with racism.
• VICE tells the story of pioneering Jordan-based LGBT magazine My.Kali, the first in its country.
• Taylor Hosking at VICE writes about how cross-dressing on Hallowe’en, for her as a queer cis black woman, was a perhaps unexpectedly powerful experience.
• Mark Simpson praises Glennda Orgasm, the drag journalist persona of his friend Glenn Belverio. Is it time for her to come back?
• Florence Ashley argues at NOW Toronto that Pride Toronto is too corporatized to be salvaged, and that it would be best to start fresh.

[NEWS] Five LGBT links: Freddie Mercury, Carly Rae Jepsen, Craig Russell, Toronto police, Pride

• This Daily Xtra article makes the case for Freddie Mercury as a radical, queer, brown icon.
• This CBC Arts article features six men talking about why Carly Rae Jepsen can claim such a strong fanbase in queer audiences.
• CBC Arts reintroduces readers to Canada’s first drag superstar, Craig Russell.
• Carolyn Strange at The Conversation looks at the background, recent and otherwise, behind tensions between Toronto LGBTQ communities and the police, rooted in the neglect and outright criminality of the police.
• Dorianne Emmerton at Daily Xtra argues that the Pride Toronto organization may be coming to a natural end, as its financial dependency on politicized funding means that it can no longer speak to the needs of queer and trans communities.