* * *
Dear Bianca,
My BF and I are going to Germany on vacation. He wants us to take a German language class so we can be conversationally fluent when we get there. I have no interest in taking the class, and we’re fighting about it. Any advice?
Lisa
Monroeville, Pennsylvania
Most “outdoorsy” types of gals are lesbians. Not moi!
© Jovanni Jimenez-Pedraza
Dear Leisl (notice the Germanic twist I put on your name? How fabulous am I?),
If your BF wats to spreken zee Deutsch, let him. No need for you to take the classes. Not your monkey, not your Black Forest. I travel the world and I can barely speak English, and no one seems to care. As long as my dick stays taped to my butt and the jokes work, I’m as welcome as FEMA at an earthquake, or paper towels in Puerto Rico. (Google it.) There are only a few expressions you’ll need to know to navigate your way around Germany (your linguist BF can do the rest of the talking):
Wo ist das Badezimmer?
Where is the bathroom?
Wo ist das beste bar?
Where is the best bar?
Ich bin verloren. Kaanst du mir helfen?
I’m lost. Can you help me?
Ich bin nicht Juden. Warem fragst du?
I’m not Jewish; why do you ask?*
*Then run for your life.
* * *
Bianca,
I’m addicted to Discovery ID TV. Where would you hide a dead body?
Casey
Florida
Casey,
I’m very impressed that you’re addicted to TV. Whitney Houston had a hole in her sinuses just from doing blow, yet you somehow manage to snort a fifty-two-inch LED flat screen without so much as a sneeze? You go, girl!
I’ve never killed anyone (certainly not with kindness) but it sounds like you’re thinking about it. If so, can I give you a list of people to start with? I’m just kidding (I can hear my lawyers peeing themselves reading this) . . . but if I were to off somebody, disposal would depend on how I killed them, where I killed them, and who they were. Let’s say, for example, that I shoved Martha Stewart into an oven and baked her to death (at 350 degrees for ninety minutes). When she came out of the oven she’d be so stiff from baking her—so I wouldn’t have to dispose of the body. I could put an apron on her and leave her in the kitchen and people would think Martha was just being her usual self.
There are lots of good places to dispose of a dead body. For example, let’s say you kill your baby daddy and you’re a fan of Fargo. I say, “Time for the wood chipper!” This one’s easy-peasy, because once you’re done with the annoying gruesomeness and it’s time for a BBQ, the baby back ribs might actually taste like your baby daddy’s ribs! (And if the police want evidence, they can come back the next day and sift through your shit.)
If you need more information on body disposal, please check out my upcoming website, www.where’dthebitchgo?.com
Chapter 9
TMZ or TMI?
I’m not interested in fame, at all.
CRYSTAL REED
Who the fuck is Crystal Reed?
BIANCA DEL RIO
Every Tuesday night I dress like Evita and stand on my balcony and sing. And every Wednesday morning my doctor comes to the hospital to get me out of lockdown.
© Kevin Thomas Garcia
On the celebrity food chain, I fall somewhere between Bethenny Frankel and the midget on Game of Thrones. For now, it’s a good spot to be in. I’m famous enough that I can get good dinner reservations, cut lines at airports, and park in disabled parking spots (even though there’s nothing fucking wrong with me. I don’t limp, wobble, or drag a leg. Can you imagine walking a runway in stilettos with a deformed foot? EEEwwww!). The questions in this chapter are about fame, fortune, and felching.—Okay, okay, there are no questions about felching, but I wanted to make an alliteration and the word felching is so sadly underused in today’s society I figured, “Why the fuck not?”
Dear Bianca,
Winning Season six of RuPaul’s Drag Race has made you famous and successful. How has that changed your life?
Andre D
Chicago, Illinois
Dear Andre,
First off, thank you for your predictable question. I’ve been asked this almost as often as I’ve been asked, “Is sperm fattening?” (No. If it were, Anderson Cooper would weigh six and a half tons.) Winning RuPaul’s Drag Race changed my life. Success has turned me from a snarky, thirty-seven-year-old man who tucked his junk into a cheap dress and gave blow jobs in bathrooms into a snarky forty-two-year-old man who tucks his junk into a cheap dress and gives blow jobs in nice hotels.
Before I go further, have a cocktail, or a Xanax, or a line of whatever, because this is going to be a VERY long answer. And not because your question is so scintillating (YAWN!) but because it’s about me. And success. Which go together like Michael Jackson’s hand and a nine-year-old cock.
I remember the moment when RuPaul announced my name as Drag Race winner as though it was yesterday. Which it actually was, because I watch the fucking thing online, over and over and over again, every single day. Not because watching it makes me feel better about myself, but because it makes me feel better about all the bitter twats I left in my dust who now loathe and resent me and covet my things.
“And the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and America’s Next Drag Superstar . . . and winner of $100,000 is . . . Bianca Del Rio.” I collapsed in one of the runners-ups’* arms, and while blinking frantically as my mind raced through all the ways I could spend the money, I accidentally knocked one of my fake eyelashes into my eye and began tearing up. Everyone thought I was overcome with emotion when in reality I had a slightly scratched cornea and a fabulous sense of false pride—which has served me well these past few years and made it easier for me to climb the ladder of success without having to claw my way over anyone standing in my way . . . unless I wanted to.
I’ve always believed there were two kinds people in the world: 1. rich, successful people who had pretty clothes and nice things, and 2. people who resented them, otherwise known as everyone else. And I mean everyone; as much as I like Pope Francis for his kind heart and basic inclusiveness, I don’t believe for a second that when the pontiff sees Donald Trump on TV he’s not thinking, “Rich prick. All that money, fix your hair!”
Go get another cocktail, I’m not done yet.
Time to address the elephant in the middle of the room—and no, Adele’s not here—I mean the age-old question: What exactly IS success? This question has been asked by generations of people for hundreds of years. A question asked almost as often as “What the fuck is it that the Kardashians DO?”
Of course, the people who ask this question are usually altruistic failures, trying to justify their lowly stations in life by bathing themselves in the notion of the greater good. For example, poets, philosophers, and lesbian do-gooders who have given up shaving, air conditioning, and Netflix to go live in African huts where they pick the nits off of bloated children and their constantly pregnant mothers. Those spiritual losers will tell you that success is not tied to the material things you have gathered in this world, but to the good things you have done to make this world a better place.* Even Einstein, the brainiac physicist, was not immune to such bullshit. He once said, “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.”
I know what you’re thinking: “Einstein had a lot of value—he made huge contributions to the world with his work in quantum physics.” True. But do you know what I’m thinking? That Einstein had a credit score of 240 and his hair was a fucking mess. That’s what.
The Walk of Fame today, the Betty Ford Center tomorrow. A girl can dream.
© Jovanni Jimenez-Pedraza
Why wait?
© Jovanni Jimenez-Pedraza
To any sane person (or mildly damaged person who’s on the right meds) success does involve having nice things. When I’m on t
our, going from city to city spreading the hate to people who watched me on Drag Race (or people who didn’t watch me on Drag Race but just came to my show wondering if they could see my dick through my dress), I’ve never once driven through a low-rent slum and thought, “My God, I’ll bet the good folks who live in these bombed-out shacks are really successful motherfuckers.” There’s nothing fabulous about not having money. Be honest—would you rather live in a house overlooking the beach in Malibu, or on the beach in Malibu looking up at a house?
I learned to have misguided values in spite of my parents’ best efforts to teach me otherwise. At a young age, sometime during my formative wonder years (one to twenty-nine), my mother sat me down and lovingly said, “Sweetheart, money can’t buy happiness.” And I lovingly replied, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Of course it can. And if it can’t, I’d rather be miserable in Chanel than happy in polyester.” Even then I knew.
Now, please understand that I’m not rich . . . yet (I have plans) . . . but I’m doing well enough that I no longer have to ask the waiter if the salad is extra or if it comes with the meal. I have my people ask that question for me. I no longer talk to the staff. Yes, I have people. Okay, person—I have one people, but he does everything for me. He answers my phones, checks my mail, manages my calendar, and tells me at least five times a day (like a Muslim facing Mecca to pray—which they do when they’re not blowing shit up) that I’m talented and fabulous and don’t need to take selfies with audience members who are ugly, fat, or in desperate need of a depilatory or dermabrasion. By the way, I think everyone should have people—I mean underpaid sycophants who do everything for you while allowing you to berate and scold them, minimize their contributions, and cripple their self-esteem. If you think I’m kidding, there’s a show-biz urban legend that on the original 1990s Rosie O’Donnell Show (when she was still the “Queen of Nice,” as opposed to the 2018 Rosie, who presents as an angry lesbian with eight thousand children and severe control issues) one of the guests was the puppet Witchiepoo from H.R. Pufnstuf fame. Things were running late in New York that day when the head segment producer ran through the office looking for Rosie, yelling, “Everybody shut up! I have Witchiepoo’s people on the phone!” The story goes that every staff member stopped whatever they were doing and began sobbing at the realization that they, college graduates, were toiling eighteen hours a day in windowless cubicles while a fictional cloth hand puppet had “people.”
But success is not just about having money or people, it’s also about being famous enough to get into clubs you could’ve previously never gotten into, even after you blew the owner, the doorman, the bouncer, and the bouncer’s fat, “bi-curious” cousin, Lazy-eye Eddie. It’s about being able to get out of traffic tickets or court appearances or hotel rooms with DNA evidence all over the bedspread.
In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J. K. Rowling wrote, “Tut, tut—fame clearly isn’t everything.” To which I say, “Really? Go tut-tut yourself.” If Bill Cosby . . . I mean, DOCTOR Bill Cosby . . . was a fry cook, not a famous comic, I’m pretty sure he’d be serving hard time for his hard-ons . . . Hmm, if Cos did go to jail, I wonder if he’d make his cell mates call him Doctor?
Your password is frumpy, now hurry the fuck up!
© Jovanni Jimenez-Pedraza
* * *
Dear Bianca:
Being famous looks like so much fun—the parties, the clothes, the paparazzi. Are there any downsides to being famous?
Bobby J
Memphis
Dear Bobby,
Other than answering questions like this, NO! I’m just kidding, Bobby; there are plenty of downsides.
First is the “being nice thing.” Wow. That is so not easy for me—hateful is my default mode. When I wake up in the morning, my first thought isn’t “oh, what a beautiful day,” it’s “Jesus Christ, not again.” I have to work at being nice, especially offstage. Being nice offstage is important to my business, because if I’m snarky when I’m out and about—shopping, loitering, having cocktails—it ruins the illusion I create onstage, and why should people pay for my sketchy attitude in a club or theater when they can get it for free by simply staring at me when I’m shoplifting at Talbots, or loudly saying “tsk tsk” when they see me roll my eyes at a blind beggar lying in front of a Ronald McDonald House. I can’t be giving it away for free. Penn & Teller aren’t walking through the mall magically pulling quarters out of kids’ ears, are they?
Also, I’m not famous enough . . . yet (I have a plan) . . . to get away with being difficult offstage. I call this the “Katherine Heigl” effect. Here’s a refresher: Katherine Heigl was in the original cast of Grey’s Anatomy, the long-running TV show about doctors and interns who are way too young and pretty to be doing brain surgery or resecting bowels. After making a few movies, Katherine Heigl got confused and thought she was Katharine Hepburn and became all pissy and snotty and impossible. And suddenly she was no longer on Grey’s Anatomy, she was on food stamps. (Okay, I don’t know for a fact that she was on food stamps, but I do know she wasn’t on TV or anyone’s radar.) She became the Helen Reddy of her generation. Don’t know who Helen Reddy is? That’s right, you don’t. Here’s why: Helen was an Australian pop singer who had a string of monster hit songs in the 1970s. She was all over the radio and the pop charts. Then she turned into a monster. And then she was just over. Last I heard, Helen was back in Australia, shearing sheep and trying to get people to recognize her. If you want to be a diva like Barbra Streisand, you have to have the talent of Barbra Streisand, and the only person with the talent of Barbra Streisand is Barbra Streisand. Babs has turned cunty into a cottage industry. Good for her.
Another downside of semifame is that everyone thinks you’re rich, and they expect you to pay for everything. Which is bullshit, with a capital F. I’m not rich (although I’d like to think I’m richer than you—and you buying this book will help me get there), but even if I was, I wouldn’t pick up every check, or treat all the time. And not as a matter of principle or fairness, or because I don’t want to enable your codependency, but because I’m selfish. Look, you all know how much I care about you, and I do. But as much as I care about you, I care about me just a little bit more. So, with all due respect and lots of hugs, pay for your own fucking dinner.
The third biggest downside of success is that it’s exhausting. You have to act successful ALL the time. At the store, at the restaurant, at the free clinic. You can never fuck up and be yourself and act like a turd, or you’ll wind up at the unemployment office, on line next to David Caruso and Helen Reddy. I miss the old days when I could play “pull my finger” at a funeral and not worry about it winding up on TMZ later that night.
* * *
Hey,
First off, big fan! I think you may be my spirit animal.
I have a severe case of resting bitch face, and a lot of the time people think I am angry or I hate them . . . what advice would you give? Yours is glorious, might I add!! ♥♥
Roisin xx
Scotland
Dear Roisin,
I love that you started your letter with “Hey,” like we’re friends, or we have that kind of a relationship. Hahaha. We’re not and we don’t. Just kidding. You bought my book, of course we’re friends. But I have no idea what a spirit animal is—I’m hoping you mean an epileptic with a horse dick. Think of the fun ride! And the endless teeth. You’ll be like twins.
I think resting bitch face is an asset, not something to be changed or apologized for. Who needs perky and smiley 24/7? Uggh. Can you imagine being with Kelly Ripa for more than five minutes? . . . Really, Kelly Ripa for five minutes. Pull the trigger with your toe!
Don’t apologize for or change your resting bitch face. In fact, I suggest you up the ante, and start developing a resting cunt face. If most people think you’re angry or hate them, good! The people who understand resting bitch face are the only people worth hanging with anyway! Ask Faye Dunaway. I’m kidding, that’s not her r
eal face.
When you’re paying for it, my favorite drink is all of them.
© Jovanni Jimenez-Pedraza
CELEBRITIES WHO ARE WAY TOO PERKY
KELLY RIPA: She makes Kathie Lee Gifford look like Sylvia Plath. She is way too bubbly for six in the morning. If I want bubbly at that hour, I’ll crack open a bottle of Dom Pérignon.
ROBIN ROBERTS: A lesbian with cancer and a dead mother. And yet she’s perky. What’s up with that? I’m perfectly healthy and looking fab, and I’m not half as upbeat as she is. I don’t get it. Maybe she eats Prozac for breakfast.
MARIO LOPEZ: Great guns, killer abs, big smile. Good marriage, healthy kids, great career in spite of no talent. I get it. He’s happy. But the constant go-go-go perkiness? At some point he’s just rubbing it in.
THE SLOPPY BLOND GIRL ON TMZ: I have no problem with her being happy. She gets paid to gossip about stars on TV all day long. But she’s kind of a slob. I don’t imagine she’s got a hot boyfriend. So calm down, missy; things could be better.
RICHARD SIMMONS: Although the fitness guru has become a bit of a recluse (think Howard Hughes with better nails), on the rare occasions when he IS spied in public he is just as disturbingly bubbly and chipper as we remember. I’m just glad he got rid of the tiny striped shorts. Last thing I need to start my day is a ninety-year-old elf with his junk hanging out of his pants.
SHERYL UNDERWOOD: She is the fat, jolly black woman on The Talk, the type of fat, jolly black woman you only see on TV. Sheryl is playing her role on the show perfectly. She’s upbeat, she’s chirpy, and she’s funny, in an “Mmhmm, girl” kind of way. I know she’s making good money, which might explain some of the perkiness, but truth be told, Sheryl’s cholesterol is probably higher than the ratings. Something tells me she won’t be quite so perky in a mahogany box.
Blame It on Bianca Del Rio_The Expert on Nothing With an Opinion on Everything Page 13