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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 15, 2010)
OREGON S LESBIAN/GAY/BI/TRANS/QUEER NEWSMAGAZINE OCTOBER IS 2010 39 WHAT A DRAG! saunas steamrooms boxing yoga group cycling tanning personal training TRX more WEST COAST “Portland has room for us and they d o n 't just toss you out w hen you Pic ness d o som ething different. In L.A.. you c o n be in this w eek and out the jlw tree/ & s y s la /99f next. It's all very P ro je c t www.pdxgym.com Runway. " 7522 N Lombard (503)283-5404 -CHICHI PUSSYCULO 2640 NE Alberta (503) 288-4500 call club for specific ameneties “L.A. is just so cliquey,” ChiChi explains. “It really doesn’t matter if you have talent. There, you’re not go ing to perform in any show where the diva thinks you might make her look bad.” The affection Portland has for them is returned tenfold; the pair heap praise upon their peers. “Bottom line,” Chonga declares, “We headlined Peep Show because of Arte mis Chase. She is the most kind, loving drag performer we’ve met. Poison Waters, too— they’re both heroes of ours.” “And God, the Sissyboys!” ChiChi ex claims. “There’s no way L.A. could take them on ‘cause they’re too fucking awesome. Here it’s a real community of performers who are part of a working community of artists who help and encourage each other. That’s why we love Portland.” The duo’s back and forth, head-spinning banter is part organic, part years of work—and working together. After high school, the best friends remained in L.A. but lived far apart, making collaboration a challenge. “We would write skits and email them to each other,” ChiChi says. “Stealing internet is so much harder than stealing cable; no one in the ghetto has internet. They still have pagers. We’d just keep editing [our work] and adding to it and eventually it became what it is now.” “Now we live together,” Chonga says, fin ishing the thought. “We shoot lines at each other while cooking dinner and just hang ing out.” ChiChi and Chonga have come a long way since their days ditching class and hanging out in their high school theater department. “We grew up in East L.A. [Watts], so we spent as much time as we could dreaming, like Selena,” ChiChi jokes, then turns serious; the two talk about growing up poor. Those sprawling suburbs, she explains, are designed for people who have cars. Most residents can’t afford the wheels, and because public transit is so horrible, they can’t afford to get to work. The city, she explains, is designed to perpetu ate poverty, and the city does nothing to ad dress the intersections of race and class. High school, which could have easily been hell for two gender-bending queer kids, wasn’t a complete tragedy, thanks to the pair’s drama teacher, Mr. Wlasick, who offered ulti mately life-changing encouragement. Chonga explains, “We had so much free- KNOW N I - mmmr' dom in our high school plays. He [Wlasick] let us make changes to scripts and put us in charge of skits at assemblies.” “Drag, in high school,” Chonga remem bers. “Now that was a little scary.” They experienced their share of adolescent struggles. At 16, Chonga was kicked out of her parents’ house. “It was a ‘What would the neighbors think?’ kind of situation,” she re calls. “My brothers [were] both cookie-cutter straight boys—I’ve just always been so very different.” The classmates’bond strengthened when ChiChi’s family readily accepted Chonga. “The first thing my mother asked Chonga,” ChiChi shares, “was ‘Do you want me to go beat your mother up? Or cut her?”’ Her mother who, according to ChiChi, is chola (defined by the Urban Dictionary as a “Mexican gangsta girl”) through and through, remains her inspiration. “I am my mother,” she says. “If my family saw our shows, they’d say, ‘Oh shit, girl, you’re talking about me.’ Because that’s how they are." This authenticity has caught the attention of the city—and their politics don’t go unno ticed. According to them, that’s partly the point. “I think you can’t help but be affected by what’s going on today,” Chonga says. “We need more angry queers/potheads/Mexicans/ women/artists/liberals and their supporters. Angry people get things done.” ChiChi, again on cue, adds, “We want to stir something up. People need to get them selves out of the mall, put down their iPhones, take off their headphones and take a long, hard look at what kind of place we’re living in. Maybe then they’ll be angry enough to do something about it.” Somewhere in the bowels of L.A., Mr. Wlasick is beaming with pride. JW C hi C hi and YOUR STATUS Free & confidential HIV rapid tests for gay & bisexual men Oregon City Clinic at 1425 Beavercreek Road Oregon City 97045 Call 503-655-8471 for an appointment Tuesdays 3:30 - 6:30 www.man2manpdx.us CLACKAM AS 10th Anniversary Celebration as the / Northwest's Largest and Most Popular Haunted House! SrPirate Store Pick j | | yer Costumes and Rainbow Gaar here! Haunted House Tours Queens at the Beach Party Pirate's Night Out Contests, Prizes and More! C honga are among the enter tainment scheduledfor Hamburger Mary's grand opening on Fri., Oct. 29. For additional perfor mance information, find them on Facebook. For discount coupons and details visit; www.ScreamAtTheBeach.com At the Jantzen Beach SuperCenter off the 1-5 at the Interstate Bridge
