How You Get Famous by Nicole Pasulka

Author:Nicole Pasulka
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2022-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Velourian Scream

Initially, most of the established Brooklyn drag queens took little notice of Sasha and Johnny’s efforts to build a drag dynasty. However, one fateful evening in December 2014, Scott Dennis, a drag queen who went by Madame Vivien V, or Viv as she was known to her friends, watched for twelve minutes as Sasha performed during an eclectic drag show in a converted armory in Brooklyn. Sasha’s skirt was covered with Keith Haring–style figures and, with the help of a skinny, charismatic backup dancer in boy clothing, the performance told the story of the Haring drawings come to life.

After the armory show, Sasha had a stand selling her art and Stonewall-inspired comic books. Viv introduced herself to the backup dancer—Johnny Velour—and complimented the performance. Johnny explained that Sasha’s goal in drag was to be one of her comic book characters.

“That’s brilliant,” Viv replied. Viv described herself as a “shooting star here to ‘viv’ her best life” and had an elegant, old-Hollywood style that she undercut with crude onstage stories about disastrous sex. She had fled to Brooklyn in her early twenties after growing up on a pig farm in Washington State. Her first gig ever had been as the opening act at the inaugural Bushwig festival in 2012, and she had been doing drag ever since. She no longer spoke to her father, but her older brother, who used to make her feel awful about being gay, now proudly showed his friends photos of Viv’s looks on Instagram.

That night at the armory, Viv was looking for new acts to book at Bordello, her monthly show at Bizarre Bushwick. It was the type of creative outlet she’d dreamed about as a little kid playing in her mother’s red patent leather six-inch heels. Bizarre was right in the middle of one of Bushwick’s busiest intersections and had a prewar charm complete with glowing sconces and antique tin ceiling tiles. There was an actual stage with lights and a professional sound system. It had originally been conceived of as an absinthe club, and the seedy aura of that illicit, mildly hallucinogenic spirit permeated the space. Viv’s monthly show was sexy and theatrical with a rotating cast of performers, many of whom came from Brooklyn’s edgy circus community and did things like swallow swords, spin fire, and contort their lithe, obsessively conditioned bodies. Viv often had a packed house, and she preferred to only book one other drag queen for each show. She thought that most all-drag lineups were boring.

Sasha and Johnny Velour were not boring, however, and Viv invited them to perform at Bordello. There were plenty of reasons to be excited about the opportunity. Not only was Bizarre a few blocks from Sasha and Johnny’s apartment, but it was a sit-down-shut-up-and-enjoy-the-show kind of place where a performer didn’t have to fight for the audience’s attention. On the night of the show, Viv, in a red angular wig and a tight mesh crop top over a gold sequin bra,

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