by RuPaul
Most of the time on the road you’re in the airport in transit and you wake up in the morning and don’t know what city you’re in. To offset this Twilight Zone feeling, I have things I bring with me to create a home away from home.
The first and most important toy to have at one’s disposal is a stretch limosine. Now I know what you’re thinking: “That old queen likes a big old stretch so she can feel important.” Exactly right! But the truth is with the hair, heels, and attitude I am through the roof. In the early days of the tour my manager tried to cart me to the gig in his Volkswagen Rabbit. We couldn’t put the roof down because it was raining, and even with the front seat all the way down, it was quite a crush. As we pulled up outside the club there was a line all the way around the block, and they could all see me, laid out like something out of Frankenstein. Not a glamourous way to make an entrance.
And that—apart from the leg room—is the other attraction of stretch limos: tinted windows. What is the use of getting all dolled up to make a spectacular entrance if you blow it by arriving in a VW for all to see?
I always take my stuffed donkey Jimmy with me. He’s the ideal companion—old and loved. He has only one eye. I found him dumped on the street after Christmas in ‘86. There were bags stuffed with old toys just discarded. Someone must have gone through them because they were scattered all over the street. I saw him lying there in the gutter and said, “I’ve got to have him.” He goes with me everywhere, and I guess he has seen everything.
On the road, and at home, I entertain myself just like a child. I’ve always loved pop culture, and I think that the tools of pop culture—the VCR, camcorder, and CD player—are like crayons in a child’s playroom. I use these toys in the same way to color my world and keep myself entertained.
From the time I was twelve I would cut pictures out of Vogue magazine and paste the pictures of my favorite models on the wall. I still do that today, sticking up pictures from magazines on the walls of my hotel and dressing room.
Around the same age my father gave me a Panasonic cassette recorder, and I would make homemade comedy tapes like the famous ones,Superfly Meets Shaft, where they would say, “Superfly, I’m from the National Examiner, how do you feel about Superfly’s wife?” and then, for a reply, they would play a snatch from “Me and Mrs. Jones.” I would make my own cut-up tapes. Although I no longer make those tapes, I do make compilation tapes of my favorite artists. I have a Walkman and CD player with little, portable, battery-operated speakers, so I can hear music wherever I go. I always bring incense with me too—it goes with the music and adds to the atmosphere.
I also bring my compilation video tapes of Diana Ross, Cher, and others. Although there is always television in the limos, the reception can be lousy, so I just pop in one of my tapes. Contemplating my heroes in this way is also a good way for me to psych myself. It helps me visualize the superstar inside, and get me ready to prance around on stage.
Throughout the whole Supermodel tour I had my Hi-8 video camera with me, and, inspired by my friend Nelson’s example, I taped everything and everyone. We used footage from my travels exclusively for the video for “A Shade Shadey (Now Prance).” I have also transferred my favorite movies to Hi-8. In case my room does not have a VCR, I can hook my camcorder up to the television and watch movies that way.
The only other thing about being on the road is this: When staying in hotels, always remember to bolt and chain the door. At any given moment hotel maids, staff, and personnel can burst into your room, unannounced, either to check the minibar, turn down your bed, or any number of things. I can’t tell you how many times I have been shocked shitless by someone barreling in to service the room.
Shooting the videos for the singles proved to be a welcome break from the treadmill of life on the road. Perhaps “break” is the wrong word, because they were so exhausting! The concept for the Supermodel video was a simple narrative beginning with the little girl who lived in the Brewster projects of Detroit. She is discovered by an Ebony Fashion Fair talent scout and goes on to become the Supermodel of the World. Her life is a glamourous whirl of fashion shoots, although gradually it all becomes too much and she goes crazy, cavorting in the fountain and finally closing in on the camera, a dead ringer for Gloria Swanson doing her closeup in Sunset Boulevard. Sound familiar? Of course it does! Any similarity to Mahogany is totally deliberate.
We used Alphabet City on the Lower East Side for the Brewster projects, and the first thing we shot, as soon as it was light, was the little girl supermodel, because she had to be at school by 8:30 A.M. This gave me a little bit more time to get ready for my first take. In this scene my character returns for a triumphant fashion shoot to the very same spot where she was discovered as a little girl. The shoot begins as she steps out of the trailer. This scene was a big thrill for me, not only because I was wearing a sparkling Todd Oldham dress but also because it was the first time I had had my own Winnebago, which is the hallmark of any high-class location shoot. From there we went all over the city shooting exteriors, from the West Village to Central Park, from rooftops with the Empire State Building in the background to the sidewalk outside the Moondance diner. For that particular shot I was wearing a red gingham French waitress number. I was supposed to be cuddling a small dog. However, the props department came up with a dog that was almost bigger than me. Lifting that sucker nearly broke my back.
My favorite shot in the whole video was with the little girls who had just got out of school and were hanging out in their uniforms of gray pleated skirts and blue blazers. I said, “Hey, you guys want to be in a shot?” In unison they said “Yeah!” and we all joined hands and sashayed down the sidewalk right outside the Plaza. It’s such a beautiful shot. You can see straight down Fifth Avenue for blocks and blocks and blocks with crowds of people all around. Epic.
Later we found out that one of the girls was the daughter of Naomi Sims, the world’s first black supermodel. But the real star of that group was the little cocoa-brown girl with straight golden hair. I was holding her hand, and she looked so happy, moving her hips and shaking her hair like a real supermodel. She was fabulous!
We shot the video in October—so it was a little chilly for the infamous fountain scene in Mahogany where Diana falls in and splashes round happy as a bird in a bath. Instead of the Trevi in Rome that they used in the movie, we had to make do with the fountain outside the Plaza. Randy Barbato, my manager who was directing the video, fully expected me to be arrested since we had not dared get permission to film in the fountain. In the eventuality that I was arrested, he had secretly planned to carry on filming, and cut in the footage of me being led away shivering and in handcuffs into a waiting police car. I think he was disappointed when I did not get arrested. It was very New York, no one seemed to think anything of a drag queen prancing round in a fountain at sunset. Mercifully, it was the last shot of the day, because after I had been under that fountain I was a shivering wreck, my makeup ruined beyond repair.
We shot the video in two days—one day of exteriors in black and white and one day in the studio in color. All in all I had about eighteen costume changes and nine hair changes. Mathu and Zaldy were my stylists and made appearances in the video too.
When I saw the rough cut I got up out of the editing suite and did that dance that football players do when they make a touchdown, screaming and howling for about five minutes. Finally, I had arrived. I was a star. I cried. Real tears. The video became a staple in all the clubs, and went on to win two Billboard video awards and a bunch of others. It was also nominated for best dance video on MTV Music Video Awards.
The video for my second single, “Back to My Roots,” was much more ambitious, even though I opted out of doing any exteriors and went instead for two days of interiors, thinking that this would be more practical. How wrong I was. This time we had twice as many costume changes, three times as many hair changes, a cast of thousands of extras, and a stretch limousine so long it only just fit into the studio. In s
hort, all the elements of disaster. But the video was fierce.
The song was all about the black hair revolution. Black hair really is the most fabulous over the top thing that there is. Growing up, the myth was you couldn’t do anything with black hair. WRONG. Today there are the most incredible hair sculptures, braids, and accessories. I sample some of them in the song—but I really only just scratch the surface.
Again the concept was a loose rags to riches narrative, and it was dedicated to my mother. The video began with Mama doing people’s hair in the kitchen and went on to show my brilliant career as a hairdresser with my own home shopping show. At the end I went back to my roots in Atlanta, to my Mama’s own hair salon. Lawanda Page played my mother, and because my real mother was such a big fan of hers, I could not wait for her to see the finished thing. To top it off, I gave Lawanda a big hug at the end of the video, and the words “I love you, Mama” were written across the screen. Even though she would have just said, “Aw, nigger, you are crazy!” I knew Mama would love it.
Because we had been shooting, I hadn’t slept in three days. Before any big day I never sleep the night before—I am simply too excited. I perform best on overdrive, running on empty. But once it was done there was no time to refuel! It was straight off to the big march on Washington where over a million lesbians and gays were marching on the White House to make their presence known to the new administration and the people of America. On Friday night we flew to Baltimore and performed at the Hippodrome for
thousands of queens; the next night I performed at the Post Office in Washington, D.C., for thousands more; and then on Sunday at the rally for what seemed like the entire gay population of the planet.
I woke up that morning feeling refreshed in an antique bed at the Jefferson, a hotel not half a block away from the White House. The first thing I put on—even before ordering breakfast—was Martha Wash’s “Carry On,” which for me is one of the truly great anthems of self-love and perseverance:
Still can hear the way
Mama used to say
Never
Never let your spirit bend
Never
Never give in to the end
I CARRY ON
When I heard it I just started crying. And for some reason I could not stop playing the tape over and over. I was standing there in my hotel room, holding my hands up in the air and saying, “Yes, yes,” with tears pouring down my cheeks. While I got ready I continued to listen to it— there just didn’t seem anything else to play that day.
I arrived at the march wearing a black tube dress and Birkenstocks. Thank God for sensible shoes, because we arrived in this big field with no one around to tell us where to go. So we had to hike across this field toward this big backstage tent. I found refuge in a trailer full of the world’s most powerful dykes: Martina Navratilova, Melissa Etheridge, Lea Delaria, and practically every other lesbian celebrity in the western world. I was safe, but sweltering. I snuck into the back and changed into my Wonder Woman American flag outfit from the Back to My Roots video. It’s incredibly snug-fitting, rather like wearing contact wallpaper. Now, when it’s hot most women glow. I, however, sweat like an absolute pig. It was a miracle my entire face didn’t fall off in a makeup landslide.
Practically melting, I decided to wait outside in the open air by the side of the stage until it was my turn to go on.
So there I was, waiting by the staircase to the podium, when I saw Jesse Jackson walking in my direction. I was sure he was looking at someone behind me, but when I looked around there was no one there. He was heading my way and closing fast! Oh my God! “Oh no, you’re not going to get away from me!” he said, shaking my hand, and introducing me to the rest of his entourage. Before we could really get acquainted they announced my name. As I made my way up the ramp Cybill Shepherd was just coming off stage. She screamed when she saw me and said, “You look incredible.” As I went out on stage and looked out, all I could see was this cloud of dust as people rushed to the front of the stage. I launched into the beginning of “Supermodel” and noticed someone on the side of the stage waving their arms frantically. I thought they were trying to get my attention, but it turns out that they were doing sign language. When the song was done, I said a few choice words: “People always ask me where I’ll be in ten years, and I say ‘In ten years I’ll be in the White House.’ Miss Thing goes to Washington! Paint the mother pink!” I left out “fucker” because we were on television worldwide.
About an hour later, still riding high on the experience of performing, I got a call with the news that my mother had passed away in the night, and that’s when it all came together—playing that Martha Wash track over and over, and crying like a baby. Mama was saying goodbye and telling me that everything was going to be all right and that I should carry on.
In a way I was glad because she had been sick for a long time. The last time I had seen my mother was in February. At that point she could not hear in one ear, and she couldn’t walk, so they put her bed in the living room so that she could be at the center of things. We watched the piece MTV News did on me at the mall in New Jersey together. Introducing the piece, Kurt Loder made some lame he/she pun, and me and my mother looked at each other laughing.
I think she finally understood the whole thing, and she was so proud. Not that she would ever admit that if she were here today. She went to her grave as Leo the lion, fierce and ruling. Even at her funeral, people got up and said, “You know, Toni was the kind of person you either liked or you didn’t.” I couldn’t help laughing when I heard that.
As long as I live I will not forget standing on that stage and looking out over a sea of people—it looked like millions—toward the Washington Monument. The clouds were piled up on either side, and in the distance a plane was coming in to land at National Airport. It was a heavenly moment, standing there on that stage on the same spot where Martin Luther King had once stood before me.
I really feel that on that very special day, my mom and I both found freedom.
Having successfully toured America, the challenge for me now was to conquer Europe. The first stop was the Cannes Film Festival. I was there to perform at a very chichi benefit for Cinema Against AIDS. The dinner was to be held at a fancy restaurant in the Camargue, high in the hills above Cannes. My appearance went smoothly, but was nothing compared to my rendezvous with Elizabeth Taylor. Meeting her was like being ushered into the presence of God herself. I think I said something stunning and dazzling like, “Hello, how are you?” She seemed to know who I was. We were both standing on the photographer’s seamless backdrop being arranged and positioned for our photograph to be taken, when she said, “I think I’d better get you a chair, otherwise I’ll be dwarfed by you.” I nearly collapsed. She was going to stand and I was going to sit? In the presence of the goddess herself? It was inconceivable. Anyway, someone else got the chair, I sat down, and said, “Do you think I should cross my legs or keep them like this?”
She said, “I think they look better just like that.”
And that’s why I did not cross my legs.
We took about eight pictures, and Liz stood there radiating her stately supernova glamour. Then we shook hands and she was escorted out. As she left the restaurant everybody fell silent, watching the queen leave. She glided past the tables and then was gone.
For the “Back to My Roots” maxi single, I did a bonus track called “Strudelmodel,” a joke version in which the young girl grows up in Hamburg instead of the Brewster Projects. It has a life-is-a-cabaret-style piano arrangement and I say, “You better vork” instead of “You better work.” Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d actually end up in Hamburg. But I did. And I will never forget it.
I had just come off a week of promotion hell in England. It had rained all week, and the record company had had me on a treadmill. Child, I barely had enough time to take off my face before I had to put it back on again. I swear you could see black rings under my eyes through my foundation. It was
from this experience that the concept of monkey time comes. Monkey time is when you’ve been up for days doing interviews doing shows and it all rolls into one. Monkey time happens when you have to get up at 3:00 a.m. to do a 6:00 a.m. appearance on Breakfast TV, and then you have press interviews all morning—one every twenty minutes—same questions, same photos, and then you have to go off for soundcheck, and then you do not one show but two shows, with TV interviews both before and after the show. Oh yes, it’s all supposed to be in a day’s work, and I know you mustn’t grumble, but there comes a point when you finally lose your marbles. There comes a point when you have been going “Blah blah blah” all day, and suddenly the words won’t come out right anymore and all you can do is go “Blah blah blah” for real.
In fact that was word for word the answer I gave when I was asked in one interview what my feelings were about something or other. That’s monkey time. Your energy turns inside out and everything’s funny because you’re so giddy. As I prattled my “Blah blah blah” answer I remember the interviewer looked truly stunned. As he fumbled for his next question, I screamed, “Please, please—does anyone have a gun? Shoot me!” I was only trying to make him feel better, but I think I just scared him all the more. The interview ended shortly after that. But it was only midnight, and this old horse had two more shows to go!
I made it through the week. Somehow. But things only got worse. After finally leaving England and making it to Hamburg, I found myself putting on my face in a weird hotel room where the doors opened the wrong way, and eating sausage sandwiches for lunch. The phone rang. It was management calling with an update.