RuPaul's Drag Race: Reviewed & Analyzed

I don't need to tell you that I love "RuPaul's Drag Race".  I've written about it before.  For a while I've been wanting to write a post, reviewing and analyzing all the queens who have been on the show, seasons 1-4.  We're now in a new season (the fifth), so I want to finish this up before another season passes and I have new queens to review.

Without further ado...

Most-Loved (By Me) Queens: 

These are the queens who I've enjoyed the most.

Ongina & Nina Flowers (s1), Pandora Boxx, Jujubee, Raven (s2), Yara Sofia, Alexis Mateo, Manila Luzon, Raja (s3), Jiggly Caliente, Chad Michaels, Sharon Needles, Latrice Royale (s4)

“Moment” Queens:
These are queens who had their moment on their respective seasons.  I liked them well enough, but they had one particular moment where their light really shone brightest.

Jessica Wild - Jessica was a great queen, but her best moment had to be her appearance as the chicken in the episode where they had to do a commercial.  Unlike Raven (who really sucked in this episode), Jessica went all out and her chicken character was hilarious!

Stacey Layne (Bryant) Matthews - Stacey never really impressed me, except when she was Monique on the Snatch Game.  The character couldn't have been a better fit, and thank God she ended up doing Monique instead of Anna Nicole Smith.  She stayed in character perfectly.

Dida Ritz - I thought Dida was an overall pretty sickening (good thing) queen, but her best moment was when she had to lip synch for her life and turned it out to "This Will Be" by Natalie Cole.  She worked it out and showed her true fierceness.  It was a great moment.

“BLAH” Queens

These are the queens who I neither hated, nor loved, nor loved to hate.  They were just blah and never left much of an impression.

Alisa Summers, The Princess, Victoria “Porkchop” Parker, Akashia, Jade, Nicole Paige Brooks, Mystique Summers Madison, Sonique, Venus D-Lite, Phoenix, India Ferrah

Less “BLAH” Queens
These are the queens who made an impression, and were fierce, but still don't fall into the "Most Loved (By Me)" category.

Morgan McMichaels, Sahara Davenport, Mariah, Delta Work, Carmen Carrera, Willam, Milan

Bitchy/Whatever Queens: 

These are the queens who made a lot of noise, threw a lot of shade, had huge personalities, but never made themselves all that likeable... at least not by me.

Shangela Laquifa Wadley - I know Shangela made a lot of noise on her season (especially with her dramatic return to the show after being the first eliminated on season 2), but she just didn’t really excite me on season 3.  She had her catchphrases and some decent moments, sure, but having heard so much about her (from friends who'd watched this season before me)olujhyi, I definitely expected more.  And for the record, I don’t consider her a Bitchy Queen as much as I think of her as a Whatever Queen.

Tatianna - Ugh, Tatianna.  She had a few decent moments, too (case in point: her Britney Spears impression on Snatch Game was pretty good), but she really bugged me throughout most of season 2.  She was bitchy, not always that fierce, and just relied on her fishyness.  Oh, and her dumb segment on All-Stars, “T with Tati”, was extremely stupid, too.  Whatever!  I’m so glad she didn’t make it into the top 3 like Rebecca Glasscock did before her.

Speaking of which…

Rebecca Glasscock - Rebecca Glasscock… just plain bitchy, and made it far but just never got me especially excited.  Whatever.

Phi Phi O’Hara - Phi Phi WAS bitchy, though I found I was more sympathetic to her than to Tatianna and Rebecca.  She was young, clearly putting up a front, and had some tender moments (for example, giving Chad her phone call so he could call his partner).  And then, as a queen, I saw her have some amazing – never mind fishy – moments on the runway.  However, she overall gave me a "whatever" feeling.  She deserved to be in the top 3, but I was just kinda bored by her at that point.

“AAAGGHHH” Queens

These are the queens who you just wanted to slap across the face and say "Snap out of it!"

Tammie Brown - Occasionally I found Tammie Brown inexplicably magnetic, but the same moment I would realize she's bat s**t crazy.  She has got some kind of bizarre drag, and I was happy to see her go (both times... how she made it on All Stars is beyond me).
Mimi Imfurst - She is just plain annoying!  A weird queen, a bad actress, a cry baby, and a general annoyance.
(Kinda but not really) Madame LaQueer - Reminded me of Mimi Imfurst in some ways.  Her acting skills were also brutal (remember when she tried a British accent... hers was almost as bad as Yara Sofia's, but 10 times less funny).

Queens who didn’t deliver on “All Stars” like I wish they had: 

Self-explanatory.

Latrice Royale & Nina Flowers

It was really a shame; considering how much I lived for these queens while they were on their respective seasons, I really expected more from them on AS.  In Nina’s case she had a brutal partner (Tammie), but Latrice had no excuse.  Oh well!  That's what separates fierce queens from All Stars.

Queens I wish were on All Stars:

Ongina

Queens I wish were NOT on All Stars: 

Shannel (even more so than Tammie & Mimi, because at least they were eliminated quickly... only Chad could carry Shannel that far).

Winning Queens I didn’t get too excited about:
BeBe Zahara Benet & Tyra SanchezDon't get me wrong - both of them are fierce queens, and I'm not saying they didn't deserve to win, because I think they probably were.  Both of them were fierce, funny, and delivered consistently.  However, they just didn’t excite me in the way someone like Latrice or Jujubee did.

Most-Deserving Crowned Queen

Sharon Needles – I wasn’t always a Sharon Needles fan during season 4.  First I didn’t know what to make of her, and then even when she was consistently amazing, I was still more excited by Latrice (mostly personality-wise).  But as it became clear that Latrice wouldn’t – and didn’t deserve to – win, I was rooting for Sharon.

Runner-up: Raja – Raja was just so incredibly fierce.

FAVOURITE QUEEN OF ALL

If it wasn't slready clear...

Miss Latrice Mothaf**kin Royale – Latrice hands-down gave me the most joy, happiness, laughter, and emotion of all the queens to grace the runway.  I realized – especially during “All Stars” – that she wasn’t the fiercest queen of all.  She had her rough moments, bad wardrobe choices, etc., but she was the realest queen on the show, and I loved her.

FIN.

#Swoon4Spoon

I have a cat.

I've never had a real pet before in my life.  By "real pet" I'm referring to anything that lives outside of a cage or a bowl.  My mom is nervous around cats and dogs, and so we never had them... and truthfully, I was pretty nervous around cats and dogs, too.  Maybe I imagined having a pet in the future, but not really... I can maybe remember dreaming that I'd one day have a dog, but as I moved into my twenties it wasn't part of my future plans.  Pets just seemed like too much work, and they represented permanence.  In the past 8 years I've had 6 different homes... permanence isn't something I've felt for a while.

But the more serious I got with my girlfriend, the more I realized that I'd likely have a cat one day.  My GF has had cats for her whole life, and so I accepted that a cat would be in my future... I just didn't expect to have a cat so soon.  That's how life goes though... here's how it went down...

Our friend L. fosters cats through the Annex Cat Rescue, so she'll take care of a cat for a few months and help find it a "forever home", even involved in the screening process of the potential new owner.  Back in November, L. started fostering a cat named Spoon.  My GF went to visit the l'il guy and fell in love.  She gushed about Spoon when she came home that day, but that's where the story could've stopped.

Two months later, L. posts a photo of Spoon on Facebook and says she'd love to find him a forever home, and would prefer that he go to a friend.  K. (my GF) was so hoping our home could be Spoon's forever home, but I needed some time to consider this.  I wasn't at all opposed to having a cat... I wasn't even concerned or nervous... just apprehensive, perhaps.  I needed to ask a lot of questions - weird ones!  "Will I be surprised a lot, i.e. will the cat jump onto random places, frightening me?"  "How much will it cost?"  "Are cats inherently evil?"  And so on, and so forth...  After a lot of discussion, and a lot of patience on K's part, we decided the next step was to meet the cat.

When I met Spoon, I had to hold him.  He's just got such a great demeanor: cuddly, mellow, sweet, friendly, etc.  We cuddled with him, asked L. lots of questions, and then afterwards, when we got into the car, I told K. we should go for it.

That evening, K. called the Annex Cat Rescue and had a screening, wherein she answered some questions, and then was approved on the spot for adoption!  The next day we went to Petsmart and bought everything we could possibly need to care for a cat (including a few special things to enhance Spoon's life).  A week after our initial meeting with Spoon, we came back to L's place, armed with our new collapsible cat carrier, allowed L. to say her goodbyes, and then brought Spoon into the car to take him to his forever home.

We've now had Spoon for almost two full weeks.  It seems like he's been here forever... in a good way.  I thought I'd need to sleep with the bedroom door closed for a few weeks before I was comfortable with him having the run of the apartment... turns out it only took one night! I love having Spoon around.  He's so funny and cuddly and sweet and I couldn't believe how quickly I fell in love with him.  I frequently find myself lying on the floor petting him... I've brushed him for 10 minutes before (he loves it!)... I love knowing that he sleeps near me (or on me)... and I love how happy K. is to have a cat.

So... I'm a pet owner, and there's no going back now.