Unpaid Spokeswomen #16

Welcome to Unpaid Spokeswomen, a column where we log what we’ve been into this week. Behind the wigs, makeup, costumes, and several layers of irony, we are two humans who genuinely enjoy doing things. Here is a weekly roundup of our unfiltered expert recommendations.

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Trixie:

The Bootleg RuPaul Ornament

Can I just start this entry by saying something? I do not pity the fool. This ornament presented itself to me through suggested ads and I knew a juggernaut when I saw it.

About two weeks ago, Instagram suggested this “Drag Queen Ornament” as something I, Trixie Mattel, would like to purchase and gently placed photos of this item in my feed. Boy were they right. I immediately saw this item as a source of cosmic power and societal controversy. I have always been a woman with a talent for scouting a trend before it quite “hits” and in this scenario, I was not off-base. 

I immediately bought fifteen. I knew I had about a dozen professional contacts who needed an under-$25 gift for the holiday season and I knew that an unlicensed RuPaul ornament with apparent physical defects would make a humorous and festive gift. I also immediately shared it and tagged RuPaul in an effort to challenge her infinite power:

RuPaul @RuPaul

Catch me outside, bitch!

Trixie Mattel™ @trixiemattel

Just bought a dozen of these LMFAO https://t.co/ym6Uye6UZE

What’s most humorous about owning fifteen ornaments is that they are all vastly different from one another. As a capitalist woman, I am usually the cheerleader of licensed merchandise only. However, this ornament has made me a believer in bootleg merchandise.

If you are unable to find this item, consider my gluttony the culprit of you empty-handedness.

Having Healthy Teeth

Can we for a small moment discuss the unsung hero of our life? Your teeth. I was recently on set at Netflick and I had to leave set during my lunch break to head to my dentist. I had experienced some sensitivity for several days but until the day of the shoot, I was mostly funtioncal. I woke up the morning of Netflix with a mouth full of pain. Via email, I assessed a course of action. My iconic tooth doctor, Dr. Grace Sun, left the grocery store upon my beacon call to meet me at her place of practice on Doherty Boulevard in West Hollywood. In full drag, she looked in my mouth and assessed the situation: an infected tooth in desperate need of a root canal.

I came in the day following the Netflick shoot and laid back in the dental chair. The surgeon said to me with absolute intensity the following words:

“They say that the worst pain a human being can endure is tooth pain, an appendix being inflamed, and pregnancy.”

Since I had my appendix removed two weeks ago and I had stumbled upon an inherent tooth pain, I immediately feared pregnancy. For a girl like me, I do not fear stretch marks or the financial burden of a newborn. I fear the social alienation when I am found out to be a woman who casually tossed her baby into the LA river and immediately retired to Akbar where I threw back Vodka Sodas until I went home with a go-go boy named Ernesto.

Basically what I’m saying is when our teeth are functioning fabulously, we take it for granted. You have thirty-something bones in your mouth that are positioned to function in tandem and provide your body with essential nutrition. When even one of these chompers is afflicted, the entire equation is thrown into a tizzy. Appreciate the beautiful ecosystem of a healthy mouth. Brush, floss, and use mouth rinse. Get teeth cleanings quarterly. Don’t be poor common country trash like me who needs annual reconstructive surgeries.

Katya:

Airplane! (1980) 

I was talking to a dear friend the other day who was going through a really difficult time, having recently lost her twenty-two year old brother in a skiing accident, just weeks after she was laid off from her dream job. As she was droning and moaning on and on and on about her grief, the following thought randomly occurred to me: “I haven’t seen the movie Airplane in a really long time, I wonder if I’d still think it was funny.” So I immediately hung up on my crybaby friend and sat down to watch the classic 1980 disaster genre movie spoof, and boy was I happy I did. I remember my friend Jeff (one of the editors of UNHhhh) having mentioned that one of the reasons he loves Airplane! is because there is an abortion joke in the first five minutes of the film, before the opening credits are done rolling out. The plot revolves around a traumatized war pilot and his former lover who reunite on a disastrous flight where nearly everyone is stricken with fatal food poisoning. This movie truly has it all: girl scouts brawling in dive bars, heart transplants, a nun waiting in line to maim and murder, tons of slapstick suicide, Ethel Merman, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and one of the best over-the-top flamboyant gay characters ever to grace the silver screen.  The movie is absolutely jam-packed with jokes ranging from the incredibly stupid to the darkly absurd, all perfectly delivered by a great cast including Leslie Nielsen, Julie Hagerty and Robert Stack. I don’t know why, but one of my favorite running gags is in the attached clip. 

Giant Big Fat Juicy Babies

Last week I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia to visit my sister and her adorable 6 month old baby Owen. I headed out to LAX on what they say is the biggest travel day of the year, preparing myself for armageddon, and was pleasantly surprised at relatively chill, no-frills vibes. Once I dragged my sweatpantsed ass into the Delta Sky Lounge and waited in line for the restroom, I was greeted by a tall dark masked stranger with an unfamiliar voice. I stared at him for several uncomfortable moments before realizing that it was Bob the Drag Queen! (She had recently undergone throat surgery, so her usual pack-a-day raspy mumble was startlingly clear, as she greeted me in her new, perfectly-clear mezzo-soprano.) We sat down and caught up, and as I inquired about her strange black ear buds, one of them broke in half and part of it got stuck in her ear. She starts to panic, I start to laugh, and I look for a pair of tweezers in my bag. I don’t have any, but I do have a small scissor and so I carefully dig out the piece wedged in her earhole. So then I curiously inspect the Samsung ear bud myself, and try it out, and you’ll never guess what happens next. Yup, it gets stuck in my ear too. Oh we laughed, and we laughed and then she used had to use my scissors to dig it out, all to the horror of bougie onlookers who were no doubt thinking “What about a bunch of F-words, playing ear doctor right here in the lounge” It was a hoot! After surgery, we part ways; she goes to Atlanta to visit family and I head to Decatur to my sister’s. My brother-in-law Ian cooks a fucking delicious feast, because ironically, not one fucking member of the McCook family actually cooks, so thank God for the Kirejcyks (I dare you to try to pronounce that.) And speaking of succulent feasts, there he was–my sister Shannon’s 6 month-old butterball of a baby, a big fat, juicy tub of chunky, fat, juicy cuteness. This little fucking baby is so damn cute and so fat and juicy and thankfully and most importantly smiley, joyful, and overall just a plus-sized Anne Geddes angel baby cover model. I was so overcome with both the urge to eat him and pick him up and roll him down the driveway like a bowling ball. I famously don’t care for children, and though I do technically love my other nephew Graham and will continue to financially spoil that little demon until I’m dead, I had never seen such a big, fat, smiley, joyful bundle of baby fatness like my nephew Owen. So, fellas, if you like good juicy babies, find yourself a big one. Their rolls are good and juicy and a lot of people don’t wanna hold them, because they’re big and heavy and their diapers may stank because their parents don’t wash them too good. But go ahead and give the chunky monkeys some shots; their baby rolls are good and juicy.