During Thanksgiving Break of 2013 I was on my laptop.
Looking up videos on Narcolepsy.
Mainly because I was into discovering what that was.
Anyway, I had watched some videos.
And I suddenly saw a video that was all about her.
And of course I was curious.
It was called "The Best Of Jinkx Monsoon on RPDR".
Short for RuPaul's Drag Race.
And I clicked on the video and decided to watch it.
Immediately, I was hooked.
She was so funny that I laughed at everything she did,
I also learned things.
I learned that she had Narcolepsy and coped with it.
That had me intrigued.
And then I learned that she takes being funny seriously.
She's a campy queen.
But she's also extremely sweet and very humble.
She taught me about drag.
I began watching videos that she did about herself.
She had a film series.
It was called "Drag Becomes Him" where she talked.
And I learned so much.
I learned that there was more to drag than just make-up.
Or hairstyles and clothes.
She really puts her all into everything she does in drag.
Jerick Hoffer is the creator.
He's the one who gets in drag and becomes Jinkx.
And I love his story.
Because he was able to come out and express himself.
Sure it was hard for him.
He would go to his Grandmother's house to change.
His mom knew he was gay.
But she thought that dressing in drag was pushing it.
But his Grandmother didn't care.
She was the one who taught him how a lady should act.
He just does the opposite.
He, as Jinkx, says anything without a filter quite often.
He loves doing drag.
He said that it's something he started doing at age 15.
He was on RPDR Season 5.
Switching back, Jinkx took every single change head on.
Had some trouble along the way.
But won her first challenge while acting on ****** Game.
She portrayed Little Edie.
I suggest looking her up if you don't know who she is.
She had a condition as an adult.
And it caused for her to soon lose all of the hair she had.
Jinkx really loves her.
I also know that she is a huge fan of Adams Family Values.
She has a song about Debbie.
It's called "What About Debbie?" and it explains Debbie.
Talks about why she kills.
Jinkx performs that song a lot now when she performs.
But that's not all.
She opened my eyes in terms of how drag is conceived.
It's really a process.
It takes a great deal of time to get ready and she knows.
She spends three hours!
Just getting into drag because of the time it takes to do so.
Best of all, she loves it.
She has a genuine respect for drag and does it in her way.
She knows a lot more now.
Jerick says that Jinkx has improved since being on RPDR.
And I agree with that.
The make-up has gotten way better and so have the clothes.
I watched Season 6 last year.
And I can talk about what I thought and who I liked.
Tell me if you want me to.
Anyway, Jinkx has taught me so much since I found that video.
And so has Jerick.
Who wants drag to be known as more than impersonation.
He wants to break stereotypes.
He wants for men to be able to play girl roles in more than comedy.
And what's wrong with that?
If a woman can read as a man, why can't a man read as a woman?
He even asked that himself.
And I for one think that is a very fair and true question to ask.
Okay, I'm rambling now.
All I'm trying to say is that Jinkx opened my eyes to drag.
And now I get it.
I know what drag means and why it's really a form of art.
Do I know everything about it?
Of course not, I'm still learning as I discover drag queens.
There are so many styles.
And one of them is campy, which is the style she has.
I can talk more about her.
But I would need to have her as the main topic to say more.
So tell me if I should.
And then I can get into more detail about her and her style.
All I can say right now.
Is that because I found that video of Jinkx, I now am a fan.
Of her and of drag.
I don't think of drag as a weird and bizarre thing anymore.
It's an art form.
And I understand that it's acting as someone else, form of acting.
And that's thanks to Jinkx.
And to Jerick Hoffer, the mastermind behind Jinkx Monsoon.

Photography,
Photo journalistic,
Everyday, realistic.

Commercial, architecture, landscape, artistic,
Industrial, fashion, ethnographic, pornographic.

Big Brother, fallace, stealer of souls, vouyer.
News seller, instant gratifier, man pleaser, woman abuser.

Barthes, Sontag, Cindy Sherman,
Virginia Woolf, Warhol. Weegie, Francesca Woodman,
Leibovitz, Adams, Arbus, Tina Modotti,
Nan, Evans, Hoffer and even the Paparazzi.

Cheap *****, digital manipulator, image poser,
Center fold, coupons, Jackie O and Marilyn Monroe.
Where did they go:

Lifeless paper product, painter's picture mess,
C-type, digital archival,
Sepia, black and white, hard drive retrival.

Image addict,
Image taker,
Image maker,
image seller,
image buyer.

Newspaper, magazine, graphics and ads,
TV, dreams, even the trash.

Billboards, subways, phones and buses:

Utopia:
Surreal, crop, stretched and air brushes.

Modern ideal.
Surface manipulator.
Brain conditioner.
Consent manufacturer.

Oh Photography,
I got you in my eye.
A few thousand dollars,
A BFA, A critical scholar.

Or maybe a nerd,
Just boys with toys.
Telephoto genitals, with motor drive action.
Studio lights, umbrella traction.

Oh Photography,
You proprietor of obscene.
Detailed, de-sensitized.
Court ordered, jury analyzed.

Click, image, copy, edit, paste, print or post.
Myfacespace, twitter, flicker,
An internet media overdose.

Pry, spy, your friend's friend's acquaintances.
Parties, picnics, reunions and shows.
Visits, vacation, style, shoes and clothes.


Pics, photos, images, jpegs and giffs.
Snap shot, portrait, panoramic, Kodak kiss.

Exacerbate:
Divorce, break-ups, jealousy, envy, love and fears.
Devour and captivate society for years.

Slaves to Western and Capitalist desires,
Destruction of Earth with psychological, monetary empires.

"There's a bit of ******* at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness."                          Denis Diderot

"I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind."
                                                          ­                           Eric Hoffer
                  
"A writer who presents men and women as creatures truncated below the waist is exposed as one who goes about without his trousers saying, 'see, I have had my testicles removed."        Norman Lindsay

"If it has tires or testicles, you're going to have trouble with it."
                                                                ­                         Linda J. Furney

"I saw some amazing, beautiful, invigorating parts of America, but I saw some dark parts of America, an ugly side of America, a side of America that rarely sees the light of day. I refer, of course, to the **** and testicles of my co-star, Ken Davitian."     Sacha Baron Cohen

"One hundred women are not worth a single *******."     Confucius

"You’re such a crybaby. (Tee) Let me almost shoot off one of your testicles and see how you cope. (Joe) You shouldn’t have moved, Joe. It was your fault. (Tee) Yeah, everything’s my fault. (Joe) Good, then we agree. (Tee)"                                                    Sherril­yn Kenyon

"Women don't have ***** and they don't want *****. That amateur psychology crap that women want penises. And they certainly don't want testicles. Because you know no women in her right mind is going to carry around a bag that she can't put stuff in."  Bobby Slayton

"I had an ASU student looking for it in my shop last week, and he defined the Bacchants for me as 'those drunk chicks who killed that one dude because he wouldn't have *** with them.' His professors must be so proud. I asked him if he knew what maenads were, and instead of correctly answering that it was just another name for Bacchants, he bizarrely thought I was referring to my own testicles - as in, "'Ere now, mate, don't swing that bat around me nads.'" The conversation deteriorated quickly after that."             Kevin Hearne

"I am not a fan of Sigmund Freud because his theories are not *******."                                                       ­           Richard Wiseman

"I noticed that all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answered at about the same fifty percent rate. Half the time I get what I want, half the time I don't...Same as the four-leaf clover and the horseshoe...same as the voodoo lady who tells you your fortune by squeezing the goat's testicles. It's all the same...so just pick your superstition, sit back, make a wish, and enjoy yourself."                        George Carlin

"My voice is the only material thing in which I can still reveal myself. Go ahead and cut off the hand or the testicles of a voice. Try to find the head of a voice, the orifice through which it passes, or even the ******* to which you can attach the clips of your electrodes. Nothing. Resonant tooth."                                                         Abdellatif Laabi

"Beware of averages. The average person has one breast and one *******."                                                       ­ Dixie Lee Ray

"I would rather eat my own testicles than reform The Smiths, and that's saying something for a vegetarian."           Steven Morrissey

"We all know what feminists are. They are shrill, overly aggressive, man-hating, ball-busting, selfish, hairy, extremist, deliberately unattractive women with absolutely no sense of humor who see sexism at every turn. They make men's testicles shrivel up to the size of peas, they detest the family and think all children should be deported or drowned."                                 Susan J. Douglas

"Touch her, and I'll freeze your testicles off and put them in a jar. Understand?"                                                     ­ Julie Kagawa

"My writing routine is everyday I put a record on, the same one since 20 years. Then I burn a stick of incense, I put perfume here on the insides of my soles, I paint my left ******* red, and I write."
                                                         ­       Alejandro Jodorowsky

"The ******, which has come to represent Canada as the eagle does the United States and the lion Britain, is a flat-tailed, slow-witted, toothy rodent known to bite off it's own testicles or to stand under its own falling trees."                                         June Callwood