east-village

As we celebrate 16 years and 3,000 episodes of Feast of Fun, we’ve asked one of our all time favorite drag queen guests, Miss Understood, to join us to look back at the early years of drag on TV and film.

In the 90s, Miss Understood was a regular on the daytime TV talk show circuit. When Sally Jesse Rafael or Geraldo Rivera wanted to showcase eccentric kooks from the New York City nightlife scene, Miss Understood was there in her psychedelic pink and green looks to wow the audience.

Miss Understood was cast as one of the contestants in the pageant scene in the first major Hollywood film to focus on drag queens “To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Love Julie Newmar.”

This bright colored wigged gal has been in a lot: Miss Understood was featured in the documentary Wigstock and the premier episode of Sex and the City. She was also the first drag queen we had on this podcast to talk about drag queen make up long before all the makeup tutorials made it onto the internet.

MISS UNDERSTOOD: http://www.screamingqueens.com
MAGICTEEZ: https://magicteez.com

Today Miss Understood joins us to look back on her life as a drag queen and manager of Screaming Queens Entertainment and her new fashion line Magic Teez.

HELP FEAST OF FUN REACH 3000 SHOWS: https://gofundme.com/feastoffun3000

Episode #2978

Even though folks have been crossdressing for entertainment since the dawn of time, the rise of the modern drag queen can be traced back to a some relatively recent events and a few key artists.

While American society in the 1960s was opening up to the many possibilities offered by the sexual revolution, a lot of drag artists took the art of female impersonation very seriously, and didn’t stray too far from a feminine ideal. It was folks on the fringe like Divine, Sylvester, the Cockettes, Holly Woodlawn and David Bowie who shaped drag into a multi-faceted art form we see today.

Today, queer educator, doctor of drag Lady J Martinez O’Neal Davenport joins us to take a look at the rise of the modern drag queen, from Holly Woodlawn and the Warhol Superstars to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust persona to RuPaul who made her-story by being the first drag queen to get signed by a major record label.

In the mid 80s, at the height of the AIDS crisis, New York City experienced a drag revolution. Cheap rent, fabulous clubs and a wide variety of people from all around the world living shoulder to shoulder, and girdle to girdle, created a drag explosion that released a mega ton of glitter and talent, leaving in its wake a culture that embraced drag like never before.

In the center of the action was drag queen Linda Simpson, who took pictures of all the kooky kids in the club scene with her portable camera. To Linda it was all casual fun but to the rest of the world now, it’s legendary.

Best known as a journalist for her indie magazine My Comrade, Linda Simpson gathered in-depth interviews with entertainers and nightclub personalities who would have otherwise been left forgotten in the dark corners of the club.

In her new book, The Drag Explosion, Linda Simpson reveals hundreds of full color photos of the New York Drag scene of the ‘80s and '90s including many legends when they were just stepping out in high heels onto the world.

Today, Linda Simpson gives us a look into her new book The Drag Explosion, her queer underground magazine My Comrade and why we still feel all these years later the shockwaves of the Drag Explosion.

Plus, why did Fran Lebowitz call drag queens childish?

LINDA SIMPSON: http://www.lindalovesbingo.com

📘 FEATURED BOOK:
Linda Simpson - The Drag Explosion: The Drag Explosion
http://www.thedragexplosion.com

Qatari Diar and Delancey have unveiled their private rented initiative, Get Living London, and promised transparent lettings to all tenants. Delancey’s Stuart Corbyn, chairman of Get Living London, vowed to own, manage and let the private homes direct at East Village, E20, the site of the Olympic Village. Corbyn speak with EG's residential reporter Annabel Dixon at the Chelsea Flower Show.