Notes on my fruitful relationship with music & RuPaul's Drag Race
Jumpstarting memory with music is just something else, isn't it?
The act of remembering things is a game; an ever-threatening and often arbitrary activity for my silly cutie brain. If you ask me how was life in 2017, I would swear on my mother I had no idea whatever happened to me. But if you point out that the first season of Big Little Lies came out that year or that SZA’s Weekend was my top song of 2017 from Spotify Wrapped, there they were—vignettes of my life playing out in my head. Flashes of images, sounds of lips emulsifying into saliva, whispers of glass-shattering gossip, and racketeering heartbeats pulverizing in my ears. It is just the funniest thing, memory. I wouldn’t remember a name if you pull out a gun to my face. However, if you happen to mention about an anecdote of how this man was banging someone else while his boyfriend is at home waiting and posting a romantic song on Instagram Story about him? I would declare who they are, what their facial features are like, and what specific song was the boyfriend posted at that time.
But, surprise surprise, this is not an original thought. This came to me during the pandemic when I had taken Ashley B. Ford’s Skillshare class on creative writing, specifically on personal essays. In one of her expansive chapters, she talked about how to pull your past into present and create a memory that’s the closest to your remembrance. The assignment was to write an essay on the year you turn 13 years old. She told to base it out on the music that came out that year, using a website called The Nostalgia Machine. Full disclosure [!!!] I didn’t actually finish—or rather, start—on the essay, because my Skillshare free trial had ended and I didn’t want to subscribe for an amount of US Dollars. The exchange rate is crazy, compared to Rupiah! I was one year into my first real job and I wasn’t about to spend it on something frivolous (which in retrospect, I should’ve just subscribed. Well.)
Typing 2007 into the website, I was surprised by the result. My first thought was, 2007 was a really good year for music! Pop music, especially. After my dad’s passionate effort on influencing his musical palette on mine, I ventured on my own on finding the kind of music that kids my age listen to at the time. Limewire, Waptrick, and the shady bootlegged DVD/CDs sellers near my house, Ratu Plaza and Blok M were my very best friends. Think about it! Rihanna’s Umbrella, Beyoncé’s Freakum Dress, Carrie Underwood’s Before He Cheats, Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend, Nelly Furtado’s Say it Right, Mims’ This is Why I’m Hot, Elliott Yamin’s Wait For You, Fergie’s Glamorous, Paula DeAnda’s Walk Away, the whole Timbaland’s Shock Value album, and many more, came out in 2007!!!
My God, as Barry Keoghan once said:
As it turns out, even when I tried to fit in with kids my age, I was still an anomaly. Nobody listened to the music I was listening to. They either called me a snob or worse, just outright ignored me. One time, I found a Norah Jones album from my dad’s one of many CD storage racks. I brought it to school with me as an attempt to befriend my deskmate at the time. He took one look at it, and said to me “Oh, [her name is] like you, Norak!” Swear to God and cross my heart, that was probably one of the very first time I can feel my heart sank. I kept thinking, what did I do? What prompted him to say that to me? Even if it was a friendly joke between classmates, we were still in the beginning of the semester, I got lumped into sitting next to him, and it was just like.... I don’t think that’s how middle school kids socialized, right? Well, I thought wrong, I guess. Middle school was probably the time where I was astray and betrayed for the first time, from my once-friend, let’s call him Pras.
Pras and I were the bestest friends, in the sense that we were both chubby and flamboyant. Even though he was raised by ultra-religious parents, he was as exuberant and jolly as the sun rays percolating through thousands of leaves in trees. His outgoing persona earned him flocks of friends. By the time eighth grade came, we weren’t talking as much as we used to anymore since our classrooms were on different corridors. Sometimes we talked, mostly about music and the cellphone craze that was sweeping through the school. All of a sudden, we weren’t close anymore. He ignored me, gave me a bunch of cold shoulders. The disregard was so prevalent, that the people I used to talk to with Pras followed the zephyr of his obvious spurning. It wasn’t until later that I found out that he thought I was lying for my own sake because I couldn’t afford an N-Gage phone (literally who cares) and that he already had much better and smarter friends (maybe).
Suddenly, I was alone, again. Best way for me to deal with that betrayal was again, music. This is where I found, let’s call him Luigi. When senior year began, he brought me upon to his friends and we chatted about music. Reluctantly, I shared my love of Mariah Carey, scared of being mocked again, only to find out that Luigi also adored the divas as much as I do. He loved, loved, Celine Dion like no other. Thankfully, he also was (and is) well-versed in English. There we were, in front of our class door at recess, gabbing about whatever, sending songs to each other via bluetooth, it’s like our friendship would never end. Until we were separated as we enter different high schools.
I honestly had forgotten the last time I saw him in real life, I think it was for a wedding of our old classmate back in 2019? There were so much I wanted to talk about, does he struggle with the adulthood of it all? Was he struggling as much as I were in junior high? How is his life now? Who is his romantic partner? Is he still into Celine Dion? So many questions left deserted in the back of my mind. Maybe someday we could talk about it, and talk about music blithely. In my head, he’s still the big polar bear of a friend of mine, the one who smiles with his eyes.
It was 2006 or 2007. Some of the very first songs stored in my off-brand mp3 player were Got to Be Real by Cheryl Lynn. We Are Family by Sister Sledge and I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor. Along with Nelly Furtado, Fergie, Gwen Stefani, Mariah Carey, Rihanna, and all the other pop stars—these songs raised me and shaped my musical palette. It wasn’t until I grow up, and I became very submerged in stan world on Twitter. That was quite the dark times, where political correctness hadn’t come in vogue and people were extending and ensnaring hatred to those who disagree with their opinions. I myself was a victim of it, wanting to be edgy and unbothered. Clearly it failed for knowledge and sincerity won in the end.
As a way to broaden my horizon, I wander around to new people on my Twitter timeline and I see tweets with the hashtag #RuPaulsDragRace. I clicked on the hashtag and it was a world I had never seen, a world of sequin dresses, bold and contrasting makeup, some of the beautiful people I’ve ever seen and the weird yet intoxicating people. Because it was 2014, the Twitter feature was still functioning, so I perused through the accounts tweeting this hashtag, trying to find out what it was. RuPaul’s Drag Race, what a fun name, I thought to myself. Then I saw this lip-sync that would forever, changed my life.
Whoa. I could still feel my jaws agape the first time I watched it. It was a stellar performance by Trinity K. Bonet. There it was, my first understanding of drag as a culture and entertainment, the music. I didn’t know a lot about the artists that are Salt-N-Pepa and En Vogue, yet I felt like I have always known and memorized it. Amazing how music provides me again with language most intense that streams into my veins, but in a languid fashion. But also it’s a testament to how great Trinity K. Bonet is as a performer.
Since then, I torrented almost all of the Drag Race seasons (not the first one because the torrent sucked). There it was again, a world unknown and unchartered but it was welcoming. Once again, the music becomes the gateway to the edification of my queerness. It was a little late in the game, but RuPaul’s Drag Race didn’t really come into the zeitgeist until season 6, which is the season that I first saw that masterful lip-sync. For about 3 months, I devoured all the seasons that I can get. I learned about Edith Bouvier Beale, Anna Nicole Smith, Paula Abdul, Rosalind Russell as Auntie Mame, Cece Peniston, Debbie Gibson, Alannah Myles, Klymaxx, all the women I have never really discovered fully, until Drag Race.
Looking back, 2014 was quite a fruitful year for me. Worst year to be in college, but also the year I met my best friends whom to this day, I still am friends with them. They’re my family and also each other’s tutelages. I taught them gay icons and anthems and culture based on my knowledge from Drag Race, and they taught me how to spot scammers on hookup apps and how to steer away from homosexual drama. It was also the first year I tried doing drag (because of the Drag Race of it all)
I chose the name, Clementine the Chanteuse. I didn’t even know where Clementine was from but Mariah’s album just came out in 2014, so you guys can do the math. I debuted in June 6th, 2014, at a yearly retreat for the radio club I was in at college. Because I was in the committee, they wanted entertainment. I said, fuck the gloomy guitar-playing guys and their homemade cajóns, wait for my entertainment. With the help of my female friends, some cheap makeup from the pinky retail shops Naughty & Strawberry, I sauntered down to the living room with a loose gown, a shake-and-go wig, and a dream. Brave wasn’t even in my mantra coming in, I was fueled with adrenaline and excitement. I thought to myself, these people have never experienced being in a drag show, so let’s give them one! Of course, it was a mixed reception. I mean, it was a college radio club whose members consisted of scene boys and girls. They were a little bit disgusted and terrified by a masculine-presenting person performing Paula Abdul number in a feminine getup. I can’t say I was disappointed but I did a split with a 15cm shocking pink platform heels, though. Isn’t it cunt?
After all, the next day they patted me on the shoulder saying that was a performance they had never seen before, or at least that’s what my memory would make me believe. It was either that or convincing myself that I wasn’t safe in a space I thought was safe. I was already one of the out kids anyway back in college and I was raised by the internet, nothing could hurt me, except the loneliness that would surge onto my body and impinge with the strength of a caricature of quicksand.
The only time I felt alive is music, forever the companion. So, to end this essay, I will leave you with some of the playlists that have been my confidantes throughout the years. Enjoy.