Conversations with Skirt Cocaine

Today we’d like to introduce you to Skirt Cocaine.

Hi Skirt, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
In 2015, I started going to Exposure Drag in Highland Park regularly to support my friend at the time who had started doing drag. Before I knew it, I was going weekly and had become a steady fixture in the audience. Even after my friend quit performing, I continued to go to the show religiously every Monday night to hang out and drink and watch whatever batshit take on the theme the huge lineup of largely walk-in performers would do that week.

I’ve always been a sl*t for a themed party, so every show I would dress up and occasionally do drag looks myself. After a few of those looks and friends’ prodding, I painstakingly came up with the name ‘Skirt Cocaine,’ after Kurt Cobain since I’m from Olympia, WA and am a big Nirvana fan. I wish I could say I finally started performing after a lengthy and meticulously planned debut.

In February 2018, for an Oscars-themed night at Exposure, I teased to everyone that I might perform. I was in a black dress with eyeliner running down my face for a hysterical starlet look. But secretly I actually had no intention of performing that, instead plotting to drink until I was unable to do anything but go home and continue to put off the idea of me actually starting drag. I thought my plan had worked as the next day I had no memory of the night before. Until the videos started pouring in. It’s still on Exposure’s YouTube channel! The next week I decided I HAD to perform in earnest to prove I hadn’t just been some drunk audience member who had stumbled onto stage. And the next week I performed again. And now nearly five years later, I think I’m finally considered a serious drag artist.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Performing as a drag king as opposed to queen, or in fact, existing in many queer nightlife spaces as someone other than cis, white, and male, is never easy. I think any drag artist will tell you this. I could talk about the opportunities that passed over me, the discrepancies in pay, the disrespect in the dressing rooms and on stage, the lack of king representation in show lineups not just back when I started, but even now in 2023, even from people I respect in the scene, but I think they all stem from one underlying issue.

I believe a big cause as to why there was and still is this lingering hostility or apathy toward drag kings is that our art form is still largely misunderstood. We are NOT just ‘the opposite of a drag queen,’ aspiring to pass the closest to a white and patriarchal idea of masculinity (many kings DO play satirically with this idea, though). Using drag queens as a standard to judge kings of course shouldn’t make much sense, but this is further exacerbated by competition shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race and Dragula, who have now popularized drag “standards” in mainstream culture. Everyone thinks they know what drag ought to look like, but they’re just f*cking wrong when it comes to drag kings, and it ends up hurting us when producers and audiences snub us for not fitting a mold that was never made with us in mind anyway.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a drag king, which means I perform an expression of gender by dressing up in outrageous makeup and costumes while lip-syncing and dancing to popular music in bars and other performance venues.

These days I’ve been specializing in an Asian boy group aesthetic, specifically K-pop and P-pop (pop music from the Philippines). I’ve been inspired by their more androgynous, but still very powerful form of masculinity, their culture of hard work and dedication to constantly refining their craft, and just, like, how hot they are. I’ve definitely stolen entire outfits from the band Stray Kids.

In the drag scene, I’m mainly known for my energetic performances that feature a lot of dancing and athletic tricks. I grew up in a dance studio, and now I incorporate that training in my performances (as much as my 32-year-old body will allow). I think my aim in drag has always been to undo this perception that drag kings and masculinity in general are ugly or boring or not as polished as queens, so I always try to make my performances as over the top as I can. I think that’s what also sets me apart as a performer. I’m always trying to improve and make every performance something unforgettable. I also have a habit of making my numbers very aggressive and political at times, at the peril of some audiences who just wanted to drink and look at silly costumes.

These days, I think I’m most proud of my ability to set goals concerning my performance career and meeting them. Last year, my goals were to produce a drag show, release merch for the first time, perform drag in a state outside of the West coast, and release more video content on my Instagram. I ended up meeting all of them in 2022! This year in my quest for an international success life, I want to perform abroad (my eye is on Taipei, Osaka, or Manila), start a Patreon, launch a Twitch channel, and produce a recurring show in LA. Writing all of those down at once right here out loud makes it all very real, and I’m now sweating just looking at this list.

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
As my drag career progresses, more elements of my childhood seem to line up like puzzle pieces. I think that may be true for every queer person discovering themselves.

As a kid and teenager, I always had my special interests like anime and manga, Disney, old Hollywood, and punk music. Extra points for anything fashion-related or where the characters had a transformative alter-ego like Sailor Moon or Cinderella. Predictably, I was loud and always getting in trouble for being loud and the center of attention. Catholic school was rough.

I never aspired to be a professional performer growing up, but looking back at all the ways I put myself in front of other people, it’s hard to see how I could have ended up anywhere else. I grew up in a dance studio and reveled in the attention we got at local county fairs and competitions, I always hogged the karaoke machine at Christmas with my Filipino family, my sister even tells me I grabbed the mic at a village school during a trip to the Philippines and sang Britney Spears’ …Baby One More Time to the entire assembled town. In short, I was a nerdy attention-seeker.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @skirtcocaine
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/skirtcocaine

Image Credits
Images 1-2 – Viper Fengz Image 3 – no credit Images 4-5 – Sara Sparkle Images 6-7 – Misty Steppe Image 8 – Salvador Ceja Garcia