This Week's Guest: Pollo Del Mar
For most of us, it's fun to speculate about the drag character we have hidden within. But what do you do if you've got multiple characters kicking around inside you -- and you suspect they might not get along with each other? This week's guest is Pollo Del Mar, who is both a drag queen and a professional wrestler. It took a long time for her to get comfortable making those worlds overlap -- and there were times that she had to call out other wrestlers for their homophobia. But now Pollo's happy to strut out in front of audiences in high drag -- whether it's at a gay bar or in a wrestling ring.
So if you're in San Francisco, you can see this week's guest Pollo playing a Dungeons & Dragons adventure live onstage with me, as well as Erika Klash from Dragula, Kitty Powers of the game Kitty Powers Love Life, and local star KaiKai Bee Michaels. It's drag queens playing an epic D&D quest with lots of twists and surprises at Oasis on March 20th. Tickets for Queens of Adventure: San Francisco Edition are now on sale now at DungeonDrag.com.
And if you can't make it to the live show, don't worry -- we've just launched a Kickstarter for a podcast featuring our Seattle queens playing Dungeons & Dragons! If you've enjoyed the D&D bonus episodes of Sewers of Paris, it'll be like that -- but more. And better. We're expanding the leg-and-dairy journeys into an ongoing game featuring death drops and death saves. There are some amazing backer rewards, like bonus episodes, an activity book, and a gorgeous foil-printed postcard by celebrated drag artist Chad Sell. Visit QueensOfAdventure.com to join us in bringing this new show to life.
Also, listeners, I hope you'll join me for another Sewers of Paris livestream on March 10! Last month's stream was a real delight, and I loved chatting live with Sewers listeners about the entertainment that changed your life. This time we'll be talking about queer role-playing games with past Sewers guests Carlos Maza and Josh Trujillo! Mark your calendar for March 10 at 2pm pacific. I've pinned a link to the livestream at the top of the SewersOfParis Twitter feed. You can head over there now to RSVP and get a reminder when we go live.
A huge thanks to everyone who makes The Sewers of Paris possible with a pledge of a dollar or more a month on Patreon. There are rewards for patrons who support the show, including early access to content, a signed copy of my book, and Sewers of Paris buttons. It's easy to sign up -- just head to SewersOfParis.com and click "support the show on Patreon."
This Week's Recommendation: The Cream Always Rises to the Top
Thanks again to Pollo for joining me. And I hope to see you at our Queens of Adventure live show in San Francisco -- it's March 20th at Oasis and features Pollo, Erika Klash, Kitty Powers, and KaiKai Bee Michaels playing an epic D&D campaign before a live audience. Tickets are now on sale at DungeonDrag.com.
For my recommendation this week, I hope you'll become as obsessed as I am with this one clip of Randy Savage that I want you to look up on YouTube. Look for a video entitled "The Cream Rises to the Top." I've probably watched it about a hundred times: it starts with a very serious announcer named Gene who looks a bit like the blue-headed Muppet that Grover harasses in the restaurant on Sesame Street.
With great dignity and professionalism, he approaches Randy Savage, who is wearing a lavender t-shirt and bandana, gigantic sunglasses, multiple hankies, and is for some reason carrying creamer packets. Randy launches into a growling manifesto about how he is the cream and will rise to the top, accompanied with some sleight-of-hand that produces additional creamer packets.
Throughout this, Gene is completely unflappable, asking sensible questions about Randy's professional intentions. And Randy is completely flapped, staring and spinning and distributing creamers as he makes apocalyptic declarations regarding his skill.
It's an absolute delight. We have two professionals working in extremely different genres and yet perfectly complementing each others' performances. And although it's not what you would consider a drag show, I'd be willing to consider it one given that Randy is engaged in a hilarious and clearly intentional performance of gender. His nickname is "Macho Man" -- it's written in giant letters on his pink shirt -- and he is serving an extravagant critique of what it means to be macho. He's frantic, grasping, snarling, a trembling cloud of muscle and beard. It's as over-the-top masculine as Trixie Mattel is over-the-top feminine. And I'm enchanted by the idea that this fantastic joke about gender roles came from, of all places, 80s professional wrestling.