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Yikes, that's a hard one. In the hurly-burly world of drag where everybody wants to be the best and most refuse to take second place to anybody, to make a statement about who is "the best" is sort of like saying "I like her, and everybody else is Kmart." Nobody wants to be excluded. Nobody wants to be Kmart. Expressing a "best queen" opinion pretty much results in alienating or insulting everybody you didn't choose.

Part of the problem with making a decision like this is that there is more than one kind of queen, with more than one kind of performance. Some are more skilled at dancing than others, and some are more creative, and some are great at vocal delivery, crowd interaction, glamour, kookiness, comedy, drama, costuming, props, or what-have-you. I would never venture a guess as to who is the best overall...I could only do a sort of "top 5," which I won't do because I don't want a shoe in the eye next time I'm backstage. It would be much easier to single out queens who are "the worst," because they tend to be bad at everything. But I digress. Let me just say that picking the "best queen" is sort of like picking the "best musician," without regard to what sort of instrument they play or how they play it. Bach queen or Sex Pistols queen? Spice Girls queen or Laurie Anderson queen? Like apples and oranges (though their both fruits).

I haven't performed in many places, I'm still very much a local queen. I've never even seen a show in Toronto. When I'm at a show I'm too busy stressing about my own performance...I don't feel like sitting and watching anybody else's. So "the best Canadian drag queen that I've seen" I need to decline naming because I haven't seen enough to make a really good decision, different queens have different strengths, and I don't like making enemies for silly reasons.

As for who I've enjoyed working with, I need to pick a person I've only worked with twice but was a delight both times: Beverly Buffet, from Hamilton. The woman gives out candy in the dressing room, for goodness sake. She seems selfless, cheerful and relaxed. Maybe I've just caught her on good nights but I wish her many more killer B-52 numbers in the future, and if you see her at a show tell her Muffy thinks she's fab.

So as far as i can tell, your hair is all natural, and cut in a rather feminine style. What do you do with it when you're not performing?

Awww yikes, this is a bit of a tragic story, and it goes back to my childhood. For the first few decades of my life I didn't give a damn what my hair looked like, as my parents made me wear hippy-clothes, and what sort of hairstyle matches hippy-clothes? Cornrows? A 'fro? At that point I opted for the sort of hair that you saw on many arcade-dwelling pre-teens in the early 80's: feathered (yes, it's true!) and tapered at the neck, sort of like a turkey without a head or legs. It looks funny in pictures but back then I was the KING of Donkey Kong with that hair.

Then, in highschool, I decided I wanted a mohawk. I had obviously seen one-too-many Skinny Puppy videos. This was one of my more disastrous decisions and -- after a drunken session with the clippers at a friend's house -- I wound up with a sort of crooked, lop-sided flap of hair that would stand on end when I got nervous. At that time I decided: I would never cut my hair again, not being the sort of person who takes chances (and sometimes running away with my tail between my legs when things go wrong). A stupid reason to have long hair, perhaps, but better than my abortive mohawk.

This lasted until the late 90's when I had butt-length hair that I thought was a real asset to drag...you can still see a few shots of this hair in the old "Photojourney" pictures. Other folks could do fabulous things with it but I simply didn't have the upper-body strength or the know-how to style it myself. Sometime in 2002 my heaven-sent hairdresser -- Dann Haner -- finally achieved what all hairdressers seem bent on achieving: forcing you to cut your hair much shorter than you ever wanted to. He got me good and drunk and, holding the hand of Vanilla (there for moral support and to make sure Dann didn't do anything sneaky), my three feet of hair was chopped off in favour of a "reverse gradiated bob."

We discussed this a lot, and my primary worry was the one that you voiced: what the heck was I supposed to do with it while not in drag? But we decided that since I already tend to walk around with pointy painted fingernails and gobs of old eyelash glue on my face, and since young children ALREADY yell "hey lady" at me on the street, I might as well go all the way.

The first week with "the bob" was horrible. Everybody looked at me askance, the way dogs look at things they don't quite understand. People on the street no longer yelled "hey lady" at me, they just made wide circles to avoid getting in my way. "The bob" was my Mark Of Cain. I was stigmatized. But part of the problem was that I was so insecure about my hair that I'd slink around everywhere and was constantly fussing at it, the way that crazy people do on street corners when they're getting ready to push you in front of a car. And most of the people who were staring at me were just shocked that I'd cut off so much hair overnight.

Now, I'm comfortable with it. It looks a bit funny but that's okay. During the day I just let it do what it wants to do and if somebody stares, why should I care? It's not SO far out, even though it's gotten shorter and shorter over the past few months. Some people glare at me, but I think they always did. I don't know what Dann has in store for 2004 but even he is worried about what I consider to be hair nirvana, and my eventual descent into total public ostracism:

Have you ever heard of a pee shiver? Do you have any freakin' idea what that is?

Biologically Uneducated

I know exactly what a pee shiver feels like, though I don't believe I've had one in years. For the uninitiated, some folks will occasionally feel an almost orgasmic "shiver" run through their body while urinating. In my experience it's quick, runs from your belly to the tips of your fingers, and feels like a really fast spread of goosebumps. It feels like somebody running bunny-fast fingers up your body, albeit an invisible person with no fear of being peed on.

As for what causes it, though, I have no clue. I can't even steal somebody else's explanation because -- wonder of wonders -- nobody on the internet seems to have tackled this one! I can't find any information about it! In a time when we can put folks on the moon and smash atoms together, we're still ignorant about the miracle of the pee shiver. Even stranger is that very few people seem curious about the issue at all, as opposed to life's other great unsolved mysteries (like "how do cats purr?"). If I were a more paranoid, stupid, or deranged person I might think there was some sort of conspiracy involved. If we knew how the pee shiver worked, we might contrive a way to achieve it all the time (using kegel-esque workout exercises) and then we'd be in the bathroom 24/7. I know I would be.

My guess as to the cause? Something to do with the prostate gland, and the equivalent gland that women have in that curious and surreal labyrinth that they call their sex organs (apparently pee shivers happen less often in women than in men). When the pee is the right temperature or the right pressure, and the nerves are feeling frisky -- zoom! Like a tuning fork touched to a vibrating piano, like Louis Armstrong's trumpet echoing across the Mississippi from a tranquil riverboat, a beautiful melody emerges. Zing! go the strings of your spine. An orgasm without the work or mess, unless you fall over while you're still peeing, which probably happens.

This sounds plausible to me, and until somebody comes along to research this phenomenon I'm afraid it will have to do.

My my, this is a difficult one! How to answer this one without being all boring and semantic? I'll try not to write an essay but please excuse me if I ramble on a bit.

First off, what is a "drag queen?" Everybody probably has a different opinion, but mine would be simply: a man who does some sort of performance while trying to appear feminine. The operative term, I believe, is "performance." If you're a man who gets up and sings, or lip-syncs, or acts, or masturbates with a pumpkin, or dances in front of an audience, and you do it in a dress, then I would classify you as a "drag queen." This gets a little confusing for me because I considered myself to be a drag queen long before I started performing...but if you want to split hairs, just getting done up in a gorgeous way and taking the bus or hanging around a club can be a performance of some sort.

Beyond that, it's generally accepted that drag queens are flashy and somewhat larger than life...often cartoony. Much has been made of the continuum between "clown drag" and "glamour drag," but what separates a glamorous drag queen from a pretty boy in a dress is that the drag queen performs in front of an audience, or has performance ambitions.

The more difficult term to nail down is "boy in a dress." Is a boy in a dress a transsexual, or going out for Hallowe'en, or involved in the fetish scene? Or is he just looking for attention? There are as many different types of "boys in dresses" as there are "drag queens," I'm sure (possibly more), so without specific examples it's hard to really nail down what makes them different.

But for the sake of convenience and not being wishy-washy, I'd simply say: drag queens want to perform and be noticed, whereas a boy in a dress doesn't necessarily. You might say that drag queens are a subset of boys in dresses, the ones who probably have a larger audience than the rest (or at least wish to).

    Dear Muffy,                                                                                    November 12, 2002

    Do you ever have trouble with bouncers at bars? I mean for someone as young as you I'm sure you get carded every time. Do you shock the hell out of them and show them this beautiful person infront of them has a "M" on their drivers license or do you act all worried searching through you purse and claim to have lost it? Does this ever cause a scene??

    Carded and confused.

As long as one has a valid driver's license, one never needs to worry. And despite my vivacious and youthful appearance I'm happy to say that I am old enough to drive a car, vote, drink alcohol, and have sex with whichever creature I choose within the homo sapiens over-18 genus. Wow, freedom! So I have never, ever had a problem with a bouncer...though they still occasionally ask for my ID so they can spend more time basking in my presence.

If one doesn't have a valid driver's license, you can always fall back on every woman's "get into the bar free" passport: tits. Though depending on the bouncer, showing some leg may be more effective, and if the bouncer's boss is standing right there to make sure that the bouncer doesn't shirk his duties, I would suggest you skip the middleman and show your tits to the boss instead. Voila! No scene! If the bouncer is not interested in any of this and continues to insist that you show them some "valid ID," then you can fall back on verbal abuse and nonsense like "they let me and my tits in last week."

    Dear Muffy                                                                                    November 11, 2002

    I am inexplicably addicted to Bollywood films and headdresses made from peacock feathers. The real problem, however, is that all my friends can travel alone anywhere whenever they want but I can't because my parents treat me as if I am a baby. They have to be with me wherever I go. I tried to talk to them but they can't understand me because they only converse in a rare form of 18th century Swedish. Please help me!

    Akhmed

    P.S. Have you reached to state of God-hood yet? I will help your other followers build a temple dedicated to your wisdom and keen fashion sense.

What a coincidence, I am addicted to Bollywood films and peacock-headdresses as well! But since these addictions do not prevent me from forming relationships, being happy, or making money, I don't believe I have a problem that needs addressing. You, on the other hand...

Parents. You can't live with them, and without them you wouldn't exist. I'm trying to discern your ethnic background so I can understand any socio-cultural context between you and your folks, but the 18th century Swedish reference combined with your middle-eastern name makes me think that you probably got picked on a lot in school, what with your pickled-herring samosas and your lingonberry lassi during lunch hour. But I digress.

None of us who aren't parents can possibly relate to the fear and anxiety of seeing your mongrel, Bollywood-obsessed and possibly insane son striving for independence and leaving the nest. While the Swedes don't have much of a record for coddling their children, the 33-year-old Pakistani man who still lives in his parent's basement and sometimes sucks his thumb is an enduring cliché. Far be it from me to speculate on the reasons for this, but if my parents had me under their thumbs the way that yours do...well, let me just say there'd be two dead parents in the freezer and one Muffy heading straight to Mexico. Throw an inexplicable language barrier into the mix and you have a recipe for complete disaster.

Since you can't speak with mom & pop, try explaining your issues in pantomime. Show them the physical signs of your current age (armpit hair, wrinkles, receding hairline or Depends Adult Undergarments, as the case may be), and then communicate your frustration by screaming and slapping your forehead. Finish this performance by packing a suitcase and running out the front door. If they don't immediately understand what you're getting at , they might figure it out when you never come home again.

If you can't bring yourself to do this...well, try learning their rare form of 18th century Swedish. You might feel that this particular Swedish dialect has no practical application, but I'd like to point out that regular modern-day Swedish is useless as well, unless you'd like to understand the studio-chatter on your ABBA bootlegs ("Benny, is the milk particularly sour this morning?" "Oh yes, Agnetha, it is delicious!" "Mmmmm! Det är underbrå! Tack så mycket, Benny!") So, if you're really bent on actually COMMUNICATING with your folks (instead of just hurting them or alienating them, like the rest of us do), then you may need to bite the bullet and learn to talk to them.

PS: As much as I'd enjoy the temple you're willing to build, I would appreciate a monetary donation instead as I have very practical needs which must be met within this lifetime.

I recently went to a wedding. Namely my brother-in-law's. Hence all of my brother-in-laws were there. I personally feel they are all assholes - except the BIL getting married - that should have been removed from the gene pool in a Darwinian positive fashion. Does this mean that I have to find something in common with them or is it best to continue on believing they are a bunch of assholes?

Squishy Monkey

Oh, I feel your pain. My sister was dating a hockey player when I was in high school (see the November 5th question about hat tricks to understand why this was so galling). The guy had hockey hair, was in love with Samantha Fox, said "ain't" and "huh?" all the time, and was a big all-around joke, intellectually. Though, to his credit, his head was more-or-less symmetrical.

When she decided to marry this lug we were aghast. There were vague suggestions about picketing the wedding. My dad brought his knife. My mother spent more time than usual cleaning the kitchen, a method of dealing with anxiety that I wish I'd inherited. But guess what? That hockey-haired lout is now the only reasonable and sane person in my entire family. Sure, he still says "ain't" now and then, but he's a great guy during family dinners, he can repair your sink in a jiffy, and now that he's cut his mullet off I can actually stand to make eye contact with him.

Unfortunately you're in the unenviable situation of having a whole PACK of disreputable brothers-in-law to deal with, all gathered together in one spot, all no doubt farting and bragging about their cars and squeezing the butt of the poor woman serving the drinks at the reception. For the sake of the bride and groom, I hope you did your best to smile and make small-talk and even pull any fingers that you were asked to pull, all in the name of making that special day "special" (as opposed to the "special day" that one of my cousins had at his wedding, where the reception turned into an enormous fist fight and knocking-over-of-tables, thanks to everybody on that side of the family being alcoholic).

But does this mean you shouldn't think your brother-in-laws are assholes? No-siree! In fact, I would go so far as to say you have ever right to call them assholes to their faces. You have a right to do this in most social settings as well. I would only urge you to show restraint if the social setting is somebody's "special day," or if the asshole in question moves very quickly and punches very hard. (In that case, try calling him an asshole when you're in your car and just about to drive away, or when standing next to a police officer).

Keep in mind, however, that some meat-heads can become gentlemen through years of positive reinforcement. The operant conditioning methods mentioned in the October 29th question about cats will also work on errant brother-in-laws. I would suggest electrical shock for starters.

Why is scoring three goals called a "hat trick" in hockey? Does the hat have feathers? Is it stylish?

Very little about hockey appeals to me. It's cold, loud, echoey, and it goes on for far too long. People fight, and other people stand up and encourage the people to fight. The people who fight can barely be classified as people in my book, they're more like puck-dented golems and behemoths. The only good thing about hockey is that it keeps hockey fans off the street for the evening, and it gives the puck-damaged golems something to do besides terrorize villages and fill up strip joints.

Having made my stance on the sport perfectly clear, I can now tackle your question. I work with somebody who watches hockey -- let me call him "Papa," just to creep you out -- and his answer was "they call it a hat trick out of respect." This didn't make much sense to me and I knew you'd lynch me if I gave you such a lame answer. So, I turned to the obvious font of hockey wisdom -- the "Pensacola Ice Pilots" website -- and discovered that hockey pucks are made from vulcanized rubber, goalies protect an area of 24 square feet, and "hat tricks" had their origin in another sport: the cricket player who took three wickets with consecutive balls was given a new hat. Hockey borrowed this convention early on, probably because the people involved with hockey aren't clever enough to make up their own traditions. (Oh yeah, they do throw squid, I stand corrected)

Regarding the hat itself, I seriously doubt whether anybody actually gets a hat anymore...but if they do I'm sure it isn't stylish. Most hockey players have such permanently lopsided, asymmetrical heads that they can only wear toques or special-ed helmets. And have you ever seen a toque with feathers in it? No self-respecting bird would allow his or her feathers to be used in such a way, let me tell you! (The feathers on Oktoberfest hats have been taken from such profoundly damaged birds that they could never be used for any other purpose, except for cheap pillows).

I have a terrible problem with my cat. Normally she is so well behaved but when I have my Rabbi friends over she refuses to wear her Yarmulke! Then, just to add insult to injury she'll encourage the parrot to murmur anti-semetic slander and once she convinced the tropical fish to switch the unleavened bread with peameal bacon! It is very embarrasing for me and the synagogue is actually talking about debarring me! I know you are good with animals and hopefully you can share some of your training methodologies! Oi!

Rabbi Nolenstein

Oy vey, such problems! I start kvetching when my cat will drink only out of the bathtub faucet, and here you are with a mutiny on your hands! Well, you've asked the right person, and I think we can tackle these issues in a humane and timely fashion.

First, we need to figure out whether your cat has political / ideological / religious issues with Jewry, or if she's just engaging in undesirable learned behaviours. One important question is: is your cat actually Jewish? If so, I don't feel you should be making her wear a Yarmulke. It just doesn't make sense. Far be it from me to argue with a rabbi, of course, but forcing her into a religious choice, not to mention wearing something that squashes down her ears, may be the source of her resentment. Have you made it clear to her that she has other options? Most cats I know are Pentecostal, which explains why they yodel in the night.

If your cat is harboring deep anti-Semitic feelings you might try engaging her in a discussion about these issues. Being a rabbi, I'm sure you've dealt with these sorts of things in the past and can handle them in a sensitive manner. If things get too heated between the two of you I would not, under any circumstances, recommend partition of your household...it's so 1940's. Where would the fish and the parrot want to be, in terms of the newly-defined territories? How would everyone maintain access to places of worship and the litterbox?

I have to say, however, that I doubt your cat is actually anti-Semitic, because the average cat's brain is about the size of a walnut. Instead, I feel that she has simply learned these behaviours over time and that you can "extinguish" them through operant conditioning. Next time she refuses to wear the Yarmulke, place it firmly on her head, and then give her a tasty treat to eat. When you see her being a bad influence on the parrot or the fish, spray her with a squirt gun... cats hate that! Most importantly, ignore her when she acts up, and reward her when she behaves well, and over time she'll be the perfect kitty you've always dreamed of. You might also consider not keeping your unleavened bread in the fishbowl as this is only asking for trouble.

Explain to your synagogue that you are working on these problems and I'm sure they will give you time to implement a solution.

    Dear Miss St Bernard                                                                    October 28, 2002

    Sometimes I go to the restroom, and I run into individuals that I know and they start a conversation with me while I am going about my business. For not being rude, I respond them while I am in the restroom booth but feeling uncomfortable since I don't think it is appropriate. I would like to know if this is rude, and should I say something about it?

    Ticked While Tinkling

Can I share, just for a moment? The most horrifying thing that ever happened to me in a bathroom was when a co-worker of mine -- who I barely know and rarely speak to -- cornered me near the sinks and confessed, without any prompting or provocation, that he had a chronic, painful rash on his arms and neck, and then proceeded to roll up his sleeves and hold his arms under my nose to prove that he did, indeed, have a REALLY gross, scabby, oozing and probably infectious skin condition. All in the secluded privacy of our office bathroom.

Well, this sort of thing can strain the workplace, that's for sure. I don't know about other cultures, but here in the west, people -- I'm talking mostly about men here -- tend to view the bathroom as a private, euphemistic-laden place where we "go about our business" and "powder our noses." If we can't even talk openly about what we're doing in there -- ie, "taking a shit" -- how can we deal with somebody getting all chummy with us while we're doing it? So yes, I agree that it's rude for someone to chat with you in the bathroom, unless you're both just standing at the paper-towel dispenser and washing your hands: a cleansing, transitory ritual much akin to standing in an airlock just before leaving the mother ship.

Some people don't understand this, though. Maybe their fear of appearing rude by ignoring you overpowers their fear of "interfering with your business," which leads them to unwelcome bathroom monologues. Maybe they were raised by wolves. Or, more likely, they might just be clueless knobs who have no concept or concern for social norms...the sort of people who try to "pick up chicks" at a funeral, for instance, or talk about their vaginal discharge during lunch. I say that if they're that clueless they need a good sucker-punch in the bathroom to teach them a lesson. Just make sure you don't leave any marks. Go for the belly.

I consulted an expert on Bathroom Etiquette -- a man I'll refer to only as "Squishy Monkey" to protect his identity -- and his advice was to tell any unwelcome chatters that you're busy and you'll get back to them later. I suppose this would best be said in an extremely efficient and business-like tone, to communicate that you're taking what you're doing very seriously and must not be disturbed. Or, you might try moaning pathetically in the stall and saying "oh God...please...make it stop..." which certainly sends me running out of the bathroom, let me tell you. If you come right out and say you don't feel comfortable having a conversation in the bathroom, the person just might call you a prude, at which point you might try the punch-in-the-belly thing ("Plan B.")

I should point out that it's almost a cliché that women operate differently in bathrooms than men do. If you're in a woman's bathroom and not prepared to share baby pictures and tie each-other's frilly bows then you will be the strange one. And vaginal discharge is certainly a viable subject in there.