RS: It's almost like dance music lost its groove for a while.
Lady Bunny: For quite a while, because I'm not out there hearing
everything but I don't hear that many stand-out hits anymore, which is
a pity. I'm not even aware of track acts being booked in clubs and I
think it is because there's been a real shift away from vocal records
and it's all about the DJ getting all of the budget and there's no
budget for a track act or live performer. Maybe ten years ago, there
was a Kim English, Vernessa Mitchell, or Deborah Cox record that was
the big hit and that the singer was booked everywhere. That doesn't
happen now, track acts aren't getting booked.
RS: They may not be getting booked, but you seem to be getting
booked for your comic routine. The girls aren't working the road
anymore but I know you are, you travel a lot as a performer, don't
you?
Lady Bunny: Some of the girls do if they're career dance artists,
like Kristine W or Pepper Mashay, and some of the housier singers
like Barbara Tucker travel extensively in Europe and Asia. If I'm
making people laugh, then I don't have to have a record in the charts.
I've never had a hit record so it's not just about that.
RS: I love the way you make people laugh with your song spoofs.
Where do those ideas come from?
Lady Bunny: Drugs. Oviously you can't parody a song and make fun of
the lyrics unless you're choosing a song that people know, because
they need to know the lyrics to get the joke that you've changed from
the lyrics into. So obviously I target big hit records.
RS: What songs out there right now are big for your parodies?
Lady Bunny: Well, I've been knocking them dead with my version of
"One Nut Only" from Dreamgirls and I'm also working on a little Justin
Timberlake. I mix old songs and new songs, as long as they're
well-known.
RS: Which of your spoofs has been the most popular – that you
get requests for?
Lady Bunny: Definitely Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Smoke You"
with the crack pipe.
RS: Nice! I loved you DVD. How long did it take to put that together?
Lady Bunny: It includes performances from three different years at
Wigstock, so I'd say at least three years of gathering footage.
There's odds and ends, like one night I was performing in San
Francisco when Pink, who had done a concert, was at the show, and I
got her up on stage and embarrassed her and her security guard a
little bit. So it's really just a hodgepodge, rather than a single
performance, and it took me three or four years to get all the pieces
together and edit them. It was fun and I love doing video projects.
I just did a video for this song that is on my MySpace page and on ladybunny.net that people seem to like and many of them have put it on their sites called "Sneak In." Whenever I was in a different city, I just told someone shoot me sneaking around this corner or jumping up out of a dumpster, running on a beach or whatever. It's a low budget but kind of a funny video which I should have up on MySpace and YouTube soon.
RS: I love the way you're using digital media, the website and
your MySpace page to get your point out. There are very few in the
gay, lesbian, bi and trans world who are so outspoken yet intelligent
in their critique of modern day events.
Lady Bunny: Well I think that there's a lot of rotten things going on
and if anybody has any sense they need to speak out against it.
RS: What kind of advice or what do you want to say to the gay
kids of today?
Lady Bunny: These protease inhibitors are not a cure for AIDS so
they're crazy if they're barebacking and thinking these pills are a
cure.
One thing that I love about MySpace is it enables you to connect with kids who are really cool. It inspires me and restores my faith in people when I can speak to or eMail someone in Arkansas who's into something this different from the top forty like Bjork or Scissor Sisters. It lets me know that kids are not just buying what they are sold, because kids have really become marketing machines and so many times on these MySpace pages I'll see a kid's profile and they've got Absolut Vodka or Prada I could understand if they've got a picture of their favorite pop star like Madonna or whoever on their page, but to have ads for liquor or fashion, it seems like they were just reared to be a consumer and never ask questions, to just buy what you're sold. I think that's really sad and I think the kids need to ask more questions and be a little bit more aware and not just buy what they're sold, whatever kind of crap it was.
I'll never forget coming off the stage at a show in Ohio and these kids ran up to me and they wanted to touch me because I had met Britney Spears and done that thing on MTV with her. I was like "Honey, I've just done a forty-minute show and you might want to start off with 'I enjoyed your show' when you approach a sweaty drag queen." But all they wanted to do was touch me and not that I'm going to turn down any kid that wants to touch me, as long as they're over eighteen. They said "Oh, don't you love Britney's new song with Madonna?" And I was like it's horrible - not only was that song a complete flop, there wasn't a hook in it. It never occurred to this kid that this song was crap. His attitude was it's Britney and Madonna, what's not to like? I don't think that the kids even have the ability to critique, they're just buying what they're sold, even if it's complete crap.
