The Diva Rules Page 7
I never got rich off of Seduction. In fact, I never got a dime from any of those songs. I never liked that business part of show business, and I still don’t. But I can say with an honest heart that even though I was taken advantage of, in other ways I’m grateful for it. In what lifetime does a young girl from Jersey get to live out her dream like that? If I hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t have the experience of performing in front of gazillions of people. I wouldn’t have learned how to work as part of a team, even when your team is losing and the members are fighting. I wouldn’t have had the chance to see the entire country, plus Japan. I wouldn’t have the patience I have today to deal with the queens whom I tour with for Drag Race, who think they’re entitled to a private jet, a personal chef, and a suite at the Four Seasons—and complain when they don’t get it.
rule no. 13:
NEVER GIVE UP ON YOURSELF. NE-VER.
There will be a time in your life when you want something (or someone) so badly you think you might keel over and die if you don’t get it. Then, like the badass you are, you steel your nerves and risk everything you’ve got to get it: your ego, your heart, your time, maybe even your money. Now, in the Lifetime made-for-TV movie version of your life, you’d totally triumph. There’d be a swell of music, a slow clap started by an enemy-turned-friend, and then happy tears all around. In real life? Sorry, baby, it just doesn’t always work that way. Massive, messy, sloppy, heart-crushing, tear-inducing, soul-sapping failure is just a part of life, and if it isn’t a part of yours, then you’re either the luckiest doll on the face of the planet or you’re doing something wrong. That is, if you never, ever fail, you’re playing it way too safe. And safe is boring. Safe is stagnant. Safe leads to nothing but pure, unadulterated mediocrity, and divas are anything but mediocre. You’ve got to take risks. Big ones. That’s how greatness happens. And if you f*ck up, well then, try again. And again. And again. And again. Failure is part of what will make you great.
In my life, I’m proud to say I’ve risked everything—and failed spectacularly. After Seduction broke up in the winter of 1991, I had nothing to my name but a bruised ego and pile of credit card debt. No savings, no investments, no royalties, no fairy godmother (or record label bigwig) opening doors for me, and basically no clear path forward. Everyone I knew—my family, my South Plainfield crew, my musical theater classmates, my gays, my Casablanca coworkers, Madonna Louise Ciccone—had watched me “make it,” landing a record deal, filming music videos, and touring the country, and then less than two short years later, they all watched me fall as quickly as I’d risen. My lifelong dream of becoming a pop star was officially dead, and I had nowhere to turn. Or so I thought.
While I had no plan, luckily, I still did have friends, and one of my closest, let’s call her Jennie (changing her name as her family has no clue she stripped), made it her personal mission to help me get back on my feet. She and I were living next door to each other in a four-unit townhouse complex in Belleville, New Jersey. Oh, the glamour! (Incidentally, the other two units in our complex were occupied by Angel “Love” Vasquez of the Latin freestyle group TKA, which featured me on its 1990 hit “Crash,” and Roger of 2 In a Room—you know, the “Wiggle It” boys. If reality shows had existed back then, I’m sure we could’ve landed our own. We could’ve called it Full Freestyle Townhouse.)
Anyway, Jennie was a stripper at a seedy but well-known joint in Queens called Goldfingers, and she was earning in four nights as much as I had in an entire month with Seduction. So when she offered to make some introductions for me, I took her up on it without hesitation. Stripping seemed like my only option at the time. It was the only job that I was qualified to do that’d pay me that kind of cash, and dancing was something I knew I did really well. So why not shake my moneymaker and actually make some money?
Goldfingers was in a squat, black-and-tan building nestled between a Burger King and a car wash on Queens Boulevard in Rego Park, Queens, just across the East River. And when Jennie opened the door and nudged my ass inside, it was the first time in my life I’d ever stepped into a titty bar. The interior of this one was darker than I’d ever imagined—black walls, black tables, black chairs, black carpet, barely there lighting—and it was full of lonely businessmen in cheap suits, drinking even cheaper whiskey. They each sat around the foot of the stage, in the middle of any given afternoon, ogling these voluptuous but vacant girls, who were baring their big ones for their crumpled dollars.
By the time I set foot in the club on that snowy day and saw the girls swirling around those greasy poles, I’d changed my mind. I couldn’t put myself out there like that. So instead, Jennie, who was always quick on her feet, told me that she had something else up her G-string. She had heard that the hot-oil wrestlers were in need of a new announcer because the current girl was pregnant and was starting to show, so she had to leave. Jennie then dragged me down into the basement of Goldfingers and introduced me to a guy named Phil, who ran the hot-oil wrestling. Phil was a chunky, obvious former steroid user who wore a bandana to hide his hair plugs and a girdle to hide his paunch. And as if you couldn’t have guessed from that description, we hit it off right away. He needed an announcer, and I needed a job, and the moment he found out I was a former member of Seduction, he hired me for $500 in cash a week, plus whatever tips I’d earned.
So from that day on, six nights of the week, I’d make that hour-long drive to Queens (on a good night, leaving Jersey at three p.m. to avoid Lincoln Tunnel and Midtown Tunnel traffic) in my white ’92 Nissan Pathfinder, and take my place in the basement outside of the boxing ring. We usually entertained a slew of drunken bachelors and horny twenty- to forty-year-old men two times a night—one show at nine p.m. and one at eleven p.m.—and it was my job to use my big mouth and cutting sense of humor to auction off a round in the ring with each sexy wrestler. Usually, I’d start the bidding at thirty dollars, but by the time I was finished coaxing the crowd, the girls would always go for between one and three hundred dollars (and the girls loved me for that). Once we had our highest bidder, the chosen wrestler would spray him down with oil and then shove her tits in his face and hump him in the ring until he couldn’t take it anymore. Afterward, the wrestlers would then go into the audience and bounce on the other guys’ laps (code word for “penis”) for a dollar. I know it sounds crass, but this is the honest-to-God truth of what these poor girls literally did. No exaggeration. I had two jobs: Keep the crowd spending, and call out the creepers, who’d start fondling themselves pretty much out in the open, which was against the rules. On lucky nights, I’d walk the room for tips, and if I let the boys stuff them into my bra, I’d often collect an extra few crisp hundreds. I considered that quite a talent, as I was the only one fully clothed.
This. This, was my new life. No more arena shows, singing in front of sixty thousand screaming fans. No more cushy private tour buses. No more tricked out dressing rooms. No more music-video shoots. No more love affairs in fancy hotel rooms with a Grammy-award-winning pop star. Nope. Instead, I was working a cordless RadioShack mic for an audience of drunken bachelor-party boys in a claustrophobic strip club basement so moist you’d get herpes if you touched anything. I fell so fast I almost got black eyes from my own bozooms.
One day I’m a world-famous pop star. The next, I’m a sub-ground not quite- stripper, car commuting to the most soulless club in New York City’s second most soulless borough—no offense, Queens.
You’d probably call this my rock bottom, and I totally see why. But you know what? I don’t see it that way, because I never gave up on myself. I may have failed to become the pop star I’d dreamed of, but I was a survivor, and this was me surviving. I never saw my new gig at Goldfingers as something that was beneath me, because nothing was beneath me. Not then, not now. I was putting food on my table, and I was proud of that. I was taking care of business. I was doing what I had to do to get by, and I did it like a diva with my head held high. As the late great Maya Angelou once said, “You may not control all th
e events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” She’s right. A diva will never allow herself to be reduced, no matter how shitty her circumstances get.
Besides, I was learning, and making friends. The hot-oil wrestlers at Goldfingers were to the strippers as drag queens are to beauty-pageant winners. While the strippers had their established routines and mindlessly went through the motions of what was expected of them (over and over and over again), the wrestlers were confident, campy, and full of personality. Picture the Village People in G-string bikinis and you’ve got a pretty good idea of my new coworkers. One would dress as a construction worker, another as a football player, another as a cop. And they welcomed me into their family with open, albeit greasy, fake-tanned arms. Together, we had a supportive, uncomplicated relationship, which was something I never had with Seduction. And these wrestlers were some of the strongest girls I’ve ever met. They taught me how to stay foxy and fierce no matter what, and they taught me how to find the fun in any situation. And most important, emceeing there taught me how to use my voice in a whole new way. I’ve held on to every single lesson I learned there to this day.
After about five months gigging in that disgusting Queens basement, Goldfingers opened a ritzy new club in Manhattan on 11th Avenue in Chelsea. It was the opposite of the Queens outpost: clean, bright, not at all seedy. They recruited me, along with a select few star wrestlers and strippers from Queens and a few new strippers bussed in from Houston, Texas, to open the club, and we catered to the celebrities who’d come by with their entourages every night. LL Cool J, who had recently released “Mama Said Knock You Out,” was a regular. So were Axl Rose, Slash, and also my imaginary boyfriend, Sean Penn, who’d divorced Madonna a few years prior. His bodyguard actually approached me one night and said, “My client wants to meet you. He thinks you look like his ex-wife.” By the way, worst pickup line in the history of the universe. I said, “Who is your client?” When he told me it was my dream man, I absolutely lost my shit. But rather than rip my clothes off and sit on his lap, which is what I really wanted to do, I played it super cool. “If he wants to talk to me,” I said, “tell him to come here.” He never did, and that was the end of my relationship with Sean Penn. (He couldn’t have handled me anyway. Obviously.)
Anyway, I emceed at that strip club six nights a week for a year and a half straight, and eventually David Cole and Robert Clivillés had the nerve to approach me again with the grand promise of launching my solo career. Clive Davis, the founder of Arista Records, was a fan of mine, they said, and he wanted to meet with me right away. Of course I agreed to the meeting. Who wouldn’t? I was getting a second shot at my dream, and this time, I was even hungrier for success.
Robert and David hired alleged backup singers for me (remember, this was pitched as a solo gig)—the amazingly lovely and immensely talented Octavia Lambertis, Jamal Alicea, and Gary Michael-Wade—and though our vibe was a little too Michelle and the Pips for my taste, we all got along great. The only catch was, after a few rehearsals, David and Robert broke it to me that we’d be marketed not as Michelle Visage but as S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M., featuring Michelle Visage. I was enraged. I remember arguing with them: “What? This was to be MY turn! My solo shot!” and “What’s with all the stupid periods anyway? What the hell is it supposed to stand for?” But they didn’t care, and eventually, realizing I had no other choice, I got over it.
THE
PEOPLE HANDLE DISAPPOINTMENT IN DIFFERENT WAYS. Some people get depressed. Others get angry. Others get self-destructive. But guess what? If you go out and get loaded night after night or if you curl up in bed with a half a gallon of Dreyer’s French Silk ice cream and justify it because it’s lower fat (what??), and give in to those voices that tell you you’re a loser, or if you start acting like an asshole to everyone you meet, you’re still going to have to face your failure the next morning. It’s not going anywhere. And while it’s nice to have friends and family to cry to in these dark moments, you cannot count on them to fix it for you. Only you can do that. You are stronger than you think, and now is the moment when you’ve got to dig deep and summon all the strength you’ve got.
So, if you f*ck up, if you humiliate yourself, if you try for something great and fall flat on your flawless face twice, here’s what to do: First, take comfort in knowing that you’re in great company, including mine. I guarantee you that every single diva you can think of has stumbled not just at some point in her life, but at many points in her life, and it’s part of what makes them all so strong and so divine. The bigger the failure, the closer to greatness. Second, acknowledge just how incredibly shitty you feel, because you’re going to feel really shitty for a while. Scream, punch a pillow, do what you need to do to get it out of your S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M.—I mean system—and then let it go as fast as you can. Do not hold on to those negative emotions for one millisecond longer than you have to, because all that negative energy will destroy your mind and your body. Third, figure out what went wrong so you don’t repeat the same mistakes. That’s what wisdom is all about. You’ve got to earn it to learn it. There’s no other way. And last, take action and move on. I swear to you, things will get better, but only if you make them better. You can’t expect your life to change without you doing the work it takes to change it. Don’t just sit there and cry. You are not a victim. You’re a diva. And don’t wait either. Yesterday does not exist and tomorrow may never come, so it’s up to you to figure out how to make your life better today. There is always something you can do at any given moment to spark the change you want to see, and it doesn’t have to be big. If you’re not happy at work, dust off your résumé. If you’re not happy in your relationship, open your own bank account, and start putting away a few dollars at a time so you have the money to leave (SO important to have). If you’re not happy with your weight, set aside a half hour to take a walk. I don’t care what you do, as long as you do something. Your journey does not end with one stumble. Or two. Or three. Or a hundred. Divas never quit. Divas never give up. Divas always rise up, preferably on hydraulics with pyrotechnics shooting above an arena of adoring fans. But you know what? Sometimes just rising out of bed will do.
After a few great gigs on the road, we went into the studio and recorded seven kick-ass songs, only one of which ever made it on air. “It’s Gonna Be a Lovely Day” was featured on The Bodyguard soundtrack—Track 9, baby!—and, in 1992, it became one of the longest-running #1 hits on the Billboard Hot Dance Club play chart.
Unfortunately, when it came time to deliver the other tracks, including a duet with Mark Wahlberg, to Arista, they never delivered the album for reasons that are to this day still unknown to me. The thing is, the songs that I recorded were SO amazing, like waaay-before-their-time amazing, which kills me, since I know how much the world would’ve flipped over the tracks. As you can deduce, without an album, Arista dropped us faster than you can say “Ice Ice Baby.” I watched my dream die again, and let me tell you, it doesn’t really hurt any less the second time around.
rule no. 14:
KEEP IT REAL, EXCEPT FOR YOUR TITS.
Girl, you know I’m a fan of facades. I love me some men dressed as women, women dressed as men, women dressed as men dressed as women (ahem), and everything in between. Just by playing with our appearance, we can express ourselves, change our own self-image, challenge society’s rules, and, let’s not forget, have a ton of genderf*cking fun. But here’s the thing: You cannot live a lie and be happy. And to be one million percent clear, living a lie means you’re not being completely, soul-baringly honest with yourself. Drag is not a lie to yourself, unless you’re trying to be a pretty queen and pretty is not your thing, or you’re trying to be a comedy queen and you can’t even tell a knock-knock joke. A fake nose? Not a lie. Cheek implants? Not a lie. Fake tits? Please. Your truth lies in your heart and soul, not under your skirt or in your push-up bra.
Speaking of truths, I have to tell you a secret, so sit down and steady your pretty littl
e self: The titties you see jacked up to my chin every Monday night on Drag Race did not come to me naturally. I bought my first pair when I was twenty-one and still in Seduction. I’d desperately wanted boobs since I was ten and saw my first Playboy, which was conveniently stashed under my dad’s side of my parents’ bed. I couldn’t believe my eyes! As time went on I realized that Dad had a serious Playboy addiction. I went through each and every one of the hundreds of them stashed behind his workbench in the basement and dreamed of what my boobs would look like once I hit puberty.
By the time I turned fifteen, I still hadn’t gotten my lady cycle and there was not a breast to be found. Yet I never gave up hope. Since my friend Susan had moved on to B-cups already, surely I wasn’t far behind. Susan was stunningly gorgeous, model gorgeous, and she was as boob-obsessed as I was. In the eighth grade, she and I chipped in whatever allowance money we had and secretly sent away for a breast-enlarging cream from the back of a magazine called La Vive. When it finally came, we rubbed that cream into our boobs daily after school and whammo! Not a thing happened for either one of us. Talk about a letdown. Susan grew older and her boobs grew larger, just as Mother Nature planned, but apparently Mother slept through her alarm the day she was to make me a “woman.” She finally came to me when I turned sixteen, but she stayed in the basement. I literally never grew a breast larger than a training bra. Not even an A-cup, and for me that didn’t work. All I ever wanted was a set of Playboy boobs, and instead I got National Lampoon. As you may remember, when I talked to my biological mom for the first time, my very first question was, “Why do I have no boobs?” I’d had them on my mind until I literally had them on my mind, and my first set cost me eleven grand, which I put on my Visa card and never looked back. In my mind this was what credit cards were created for.