NOTE: Today’s live blog is brought to you by Daniel Villarreal journalism professor, total fagg, and maker of fine blog posts on Queerty as well as NYC’s DJ Executive Realness (aka Robert Maril) now spinning Sunday Socials 2:30-7PM at Eastern Bloc and Friday’s East of Eden party at Vig27.
10 PM – It’s the third season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, y’all. And who is Ru Paul? Gurl, what sort of queer is you anyway? Get outta here with that trash! The Race is about to spin out of control in 3… 2… 1… And hang onto your shoulder pads! We’ll provide background on each of the contestants as the night goes on!
10:02 – The first arrival is Delta Work from Norwalk, California her look is decidedly Lucy Ricardo plus a few extra pounds. The comes Phoenix, from Atlanta, brings major Cruella DeVille realness, minus the money.
10:04 PM – Manila Luzon is a “creative little kid from the Midwest whose creativity was too big for Minnesota.” She’s a New York queen, though I’ve somehow never heard of her. And at this point I thought I knew ALL the queens. She’s an Asian who is proudly taller than 5’2″ and she’s actually dating Zahara Davenport, a contestant from season 2. She says their bedroom has so many wigs and high heel shoes in it that it looks like a drag queen exploded. We wanna see that bedroom… and steal shit from it.
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10:07 PM – Not to be a body Nazi or anything, but we got not one but two beefy queens up in here with the arrival of Stacey Layne Matthews an executive queen who actually sings R&B and Broadway tunes. She has always performed at the same bar and is looking to raise the bar by competing here. Sorry gurl, but having three first names as your drag name does not bode well for your chances, m’kay?
10:09 PM – Yara Sofia is bringing the Puerto Rican realness this season. Luckily the heavily-accented siren doesn’t need subtitles like Rodiney Santiago, last year’s A-List Princess. We’ll sure miss him walking around in briefs though.
10:11 PM – Mariah, also from Atlanta, enters wearing padding that looks like she strapped couch cushions to herself. She’s a bitchy Janet Jackson doppleganger from the ballroom scene. We’re talking about Paris is Burning right here! Then comes in Alexis Mateo, 30 who lives in Texas but is also Puerto Rican. GATOFIGHT!… or should we say GATAFIGHT?
10:13 PM – Finally! The first scent of cat urine sprays the fan as India Ferrah enters, wearing the exact same dominitrix ‘do as Phoenix. GAGGING! We gotta say, India wears it better—girl looks like she would cut you with all that jewelry and crazy sharp bangs! The comes in Mimi Imfurst, the queen repping NYC, bearing a tray of cookies. She wants to make nice before she “takes teh bitches down.”
BTW, Mimi describes herself as a Dolly Parton-Miss Piggy-Bette Midler hybrid. She has some fierce lip-synching skills and two “butchy lesbian moms” who own 13 sled dogs… no, really.
10:15 PM – Raja an Italian vogue queen from Los Angeles says she almost shit herself when she made the show. The oldest contestant, she has been doing drag since age 16; we bet all you’ve done since age 16 is play with yourself. She enters wearing a completely insane homemade cyclops hat that covers most of her face. When she takes it off she reveals she does have actual drag on. Minus the outfit, body, or tits.
10:16 PM – It’s time for our first she-mail from RuPaul! It’s somehow the exact same hair and outfit from last year, but hey: so is the set. Then Ru enters out of drag (always personally disappointing, but we’re suckers for gorgeous drag). She welcomes the queens and announces that the winners recieve a lifetime supply of Kryloan makeup, headline the “Absolut tour” (absolutly drunk), and get $75,000.
WHAT, girl!? This just got REAL. Wasn’t the prize last year a MetroCard and half a set of fake eyelashes?
Ru then declares that it’s “Christmastime at RuPaul’s Drag Race.” LOGO has really gotta work on their seasonal timing. We mean, it was probably winter when they shot this, but seeing as the show is mostly indoors could they not fake that it takes place during January? Just about everything else on the show is made up… why not this? The pit crew—a.k.a. Aussiebum-clad muscle queens—brings in a huge Christmas gift that reveals itself to be…
10:19 PM – … a commercial l for Absolut featuring Raven, who was our personal favorite last season after Pandora Boxx got the boot. (Pandora was ROBBED. We don’t care if it’s a year later. Can we get an amen?)
10:22 PM – And we’re back! Who does RuPaul have stuffed in her big ol’ Christmas box? It’s!!! a queen we have never heard of. Shangela? From last season? Maybe? All the new queens look at her like she smeared glitter-poo on their makeup mirrors. The big twist is that Shangela will be back for a second chance this season. Only the first episode and already bullshitty surprise competitors? Who did Shangela stab to get this opportunity?
10:24 PM – Mike Ruiz has been invited to shoot the girls; unfortunately it involves a camera. We keed! We keed! Violence is wrong… unless it’s pre-scripted. Mike looks like he’s having the time of his life, as the girls jump for Christmas joy on a snow-covered trampoline. But maybe Mike’s only happy because he’s so excited to be away from Derek and Ryan and the rest of The A-List trolls.
10:25 PM – Raja—the one with no body or real drag makeup—BRINGS IT to the photo shoot, making me want her ditch this C-list schlock and skip to America’s Next Top Model. WERQUE!
Delta Work… ahhh! How are we just now getting that she’s referencing Delta Burke? Pass the wine, please. Venus D-Lite, Shangela… the queens just keep bouncing around on this trampoline. They really put the tramp in, aww… forget it.
10:29 PM – The queens are pissed en masse that Shangela is back, and we have to admit that we don’t get it, either: her drag is no better, period. Mac Foundation and mascara ain’t foolin’ nobody. And to nobody’s surprise Raja wins the Mike Ruiz photography challenge. What’d we say? She is OWNING it. Mike Ruiz, by the way, is doing his sexy slicked-back hair, not the aforementioned floppy crazed chihuahua mop. He’s also ditched the matronly blouses for a tight papi-chulo t-shirt! Que guapo!
10:30 – The girls break free of the studio to the streets of LA, which really bothered Carmen Carrera, the classy sexy NYC lady who doesn’t use hip pads and likes to off show her body. She says that even though she likes to work her sex, class is the difference between nude and nekkid. Hmm… if that’s so, we have to say we’d probably prefer gettin’ nekkid! Seems to involve less vamping.
They visit an ordinary thrift store, where it’s their challenge to create a jolly holiday drag look (AGAIN with the Christmas??) using things they find at the thrift store. 100% thrift store couture, darlings. Delta Work says “I don’t go out during the day in drag,” by which we assume means she has to be wasted before she’ll put on a dress.
10:32 PM – Mim’s plan is to “buy all the fabric she can find,” since you won’t find her size on a rack. Yes you will: it’s the rack labeled “mumus.” Shangela has purchased a six -foot tall styrofoam snowman, which I assume she will bear down the runway like a cross. It strikes us at this moment that RuPaul’s Drag Race is kinda like the mutant lovechild of Project Runway, Fear Factor, America’s Got Talent, and that horrible plastic surgery show The Swan… which is why it’s so AWESOME!
10:37 PM – Phoenix has “stolen” another queen’s “idea” to break Christmas ornaments and harvest them for their glitter. Please, we were doing that in 2nd grade. And our mothers were shocked when we came out.
10:42 PM – We needed a quick beer and a fag because live blogging really takes it our of you, gurl! And we’re back from the commercial, and the queens are still working on their outfits. The scene inexplicably beins with Mimi wrapping her head in white trash bag and duct tape. Don’t DO IT, MIMI! Shangela premieres her alter-ego, the… uh… snow man she bought at the thrift store. Looks like Shangela is more a sprinter than a long-distance runner.
10:44 PM – And RuPaul is very impressed by Phoenix’s “shattered glass” look, and the other queen she “copied” is PISSED. Mimi has created a Mary, Mother of Jesus look that we’re really digging, and explains to Ru that she doesn’t sew. Us neither, girl, but grab the duct tape and white plastic bag! Oh, wait.
10:45 PM – Ajna’s look is “Christmas Pudding at Vivienne Westwood’s.” THAT, lady, is some fashion literacy! The outfit Carmen is working on doesn’t look like it’s going to cover much of… well, anything. Remember, Carmen, you have a penis to hide… right?
10:46 PM – It’s revealed that the special guest judge this episode is Vanessa Williams. We hope she talks about the time she lost the Miss America crown because she did Playboy. She probably won’t because that’s too “real” for this show (ha!). Mimi starts having a meltdown and most of the other queens look extremely bored. We knew something was up with that plastic bag over her head. Gurl is probably light-headed. It’s hard being God’s baby mama, gurl.
10:48 PM – Wow, Mimi is seriously flipping out, convinced that she’s going to have to lipsync for her life. Yes, she may be right (in fact, the more she blubbers onstage, the more she basically guarantees that she’ll have to… but still. You’re on TV and all the queens in New York are watching. Pull it together! You put on that Mary, Mother of Jesus monstrosity and OEURQUE IT!
10:55 PM – Oh Christ. We love this show, but we just realized that—much like Project Runway of late—it’s now NINETY MINUTES LONG! We’re in this deep already, so no pulling out now!
10:56 PM – Shangela states that when you have to lipsync for your life it actaully feels like you’re going to die. That’s probably because they pump the room full of carbon monoxide. Ajna comes at as “old” at 36, making her the oldest queen. They’re all shocked. Apparently 36 means grandma in drag years. Then Venus walks in, her face all pumped full of silicone—seriously. Apparently, she did it to look more like Madonna. Nuh-uh, gurl. Have you seen Madonna recently? She is a skin puppet, not a bloated flop queen!
11:00 PM – Instead of watching LOGO’s crummy liquor and home-mortgage commercials, we’re looking at the website Slick It Up, which is apparently a workwear clothing store for sadomasochists. Robert plans on wearing some of their finery while DJing because he DJs mostly naked anyway and a gimp mask or ultra-tight pair of faux-leather ass chaps can only make him look even more fierce. We’re talking classy ass merchandise here!
11:05 PM – It’s finally time for the show, which Ru deems a “family Christmas special.” OH MY GOD, it’s late January. Bruce Vilanch is a guest judge today, which i am GAGGING for. Also returning is Michelle Visage, who I hope you’ll all remember from Ru’s VH1 show back in teh DAY. RuPaul declares that she’s “saved the best for last” and introduces Vanessa Williams. WAh wahhhhhhh
11:06 PM – Carmen Carerra enters wearing lit’rally nothing. Like, she has to have had her penis removed just to go with this outfit. Yara Sofia enters wearing a Rudolf nose and HAIR ANTLERS. Whether she wins or loses today, she has officially won our hearts (which are made from trampled candy canes and cigarette butts).
11:07 PM – Stacy Lane Matthews enters wearing 34 yards of red lame—that’s lame, not lamé. We cannot understand these fake rubber boobs that the queens are wearing these days. They’re kinda terrifying. Like, nightmares… nightmares covered with fake rubber boobs. But Mimi Imfurst rocks, Rocks, RAWKS her Virgin Mary look. She’s carrying the baby Jesus which, now that we look at it, has got to be the ultimate fashion accessory. Who can top that? To think you could is blasphemy.
11:10 PM – Strangela pushes out her huge styrofoam snowman…
… that’s really all we have to say about that.
11:12 PM – Carmen claims that during the photo shoot she swallowed snow, pulled a muscle. Bottom line is she looks horrible. Will our classy nude lady go home early? RuPaul’s declares that Manila’s look is “LaToya Vuitton.” Meanwhile Strangela’s look is remedial. The poor thing is literally falling apart and Santino notices—nothing gets by Santa Santino… he know when you’ve been naughty, betches!
11:15 PM – Michele lets her know that she was upstaged by a papier mache snowman. SNAP. Mimi says, “I only weigh 98 pounds. The rest of this is liver.” Love it! Bruce Vilanch declares that Mimi is what show business is all about–that she’s been carrying that baby Jesus around longer than Rose Kennedy carried 12 children.
11:16 PM – The judges essentially ask Raja to bend over so that it’s easier for them to rim her, and they’re right. She stomped the other queens into the fake snow this episode. She’s got the camera face DOWN! The judges are deliberating. We feel like the send-off HAS to be Shangela, because she was absolutely beaten-down looking, but it could be Venus because she wore a tinsel scrunchie and a mini-dress made out of shiny homemade acrylic—it was more the idea of a dress, really.
11:23 PM – Mimi Imfurst is the first drag racer to be declared safe, causing her to break down again. Mimi Imfurst is one bad bitch—I know this for a fact—what is it with the waterworks? Maybe she’s playing mouse so later she can roar! The first queen up for elimination is Venus, you know—the one who had silicone cheek Madonna implants.
11:26 PM – Raja is our first winner—did we not call it from 10 minutes in? You bet we did. She wins a $2000 gift certificate from sequinqueen.com, not to be confused with tinaqueen.com. Totally different. Carmen is safe, which means that Shangela is already lip-syncing for her life. She is clearly pissed, which only makes her five o’clock shadow glint in the studio lights.
The lip-sync-off is a Vanessa Williams song I’ve never heard of, ever. And we owned “Save the best for last” on tape single, okay? OMG!!! Then Venus begins physically attacking Shangela during the lip sync. LIke, attacking her with her own lampshade skirt… did we really just type that? She has to be disqualified. Right? Are there actual rules here?
Shangela stays, mainly because Venus (“my face looks so much like Madonna now!”) attacked her on the runway with a lampshade. Way to go Venus. We coulda been done with Strangela, but no. You just had to go and make her a victim. Sashay away! And remember: If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gon’ love somebody else? Truer words have never been spoken to such a jankety flop.
11:30 PM – That’s it, folks: the first of a hundred and seven episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race for the season. Next week’s guest judge is Lily Tomlin, which means I will be here. Join us, won’t you?
Image via
T.
Raja was on ANTM. She’s been Tyra’s go to makeup artist for many seasons and runway shows. Actually pretty famous in her own right in the makeup AND drag world.
dm73
Raja was a regular fixture on ANTM, even imitating Tyra for Tyra before they went to Thailand. And by the by, it was PENTHOUSE, where Ms. Williams was eating the fish platter, mmmkay. And AMEN for Michelle Visage. Hallaloo!!!