Sylvia Interviews Old Witch about Miss Bacon Strip 2018 and the future!

Sylvia O'Stayformore:
Good Morning peeps! This is Sylvia here. I’m a local producer and new partner of the Palace Theater and Art Bar. I’m of course interested in spreading the word about the Palace Theater and Art Bar ( my new space). So I figured I could do stuff for the Palace and I wanted to interview Old Witch and her year as Miss. Bacon Strip 2018. Miss Bacon Strip is a different kind of pageant. We run Bacon Strip every first Saturday of the month at the The Palace but since it has grown to be one of our biggest shows we have moved this one to the South Park Hall.
 
Any way, Old Witch is a drag artist with the bio - Old Witch is a community organizer, producer, and an evil drag queen. She serves the Three Mothers: Sighs, Tears, and Darkness.  She won my Unpageant last year with her number – Her winning Bacon Strip number was a piece she wrote called "The Lonely Schoolteacher Declines" that was a combination of musical pieces form "Hello, Dolly" and Scott Walker's experimental compositions. A lot of her performances center around grief and the trauma, both in her life and the time she has spent doing community organizing and working as a foster parent. The world is an awful, nasty place. And she wants to reflect that in my art. 
 
So I called her up and started our chat.
Sylvia O’Stayformore:
Good Morning darling, maybe a little bit about your history as far as how long you've been doing Old Witch. I mean, you've been going to Bacon Strip since the beginning of the show, right? Since at least 2005 when we started out.
Old Witch:
2005, yeah.
 
SO:
and uh you were friends with Alvin and Aaron during that whole thing. (The First DJ team of Bacon Strip) Cause you guys were good friends... you were doing more of your band stuff back then (Name of Band?).
 
OW:
I went to my first drag show in 2000 um in Hawaii when I moved there and went to College and that was my first exposure to drag outside of RuPaul in the 90s. *laughs* I moved to Seattle and you know at that time there was practically no drag happening there was the pageant court system that I was never really too familiar with at the time and Julia's I think maybe was doing their celebrity impersonation and then there was like there was this thing Bacon Strip. So I started going to that back in the beginning, with Maxine Delacunt, you, Colony and Bliss, all of those drag freaks. It’s interesting because everything that was kind of happening back then with the avant garde, kitsch, and punk drag scene, was in your face. I see a lot of the newer queens in the underground scene doing a lot of the same stuff that I've seen at Bacon Strop so I've turned into that person that says 'Oh! I've seen that a decade ago on stage.' *laughs* 'Show me something new!' It all comes full circle, but I love to see them put their own new spin on drag.
 
SO:
No, I think that that's important though I mean it's kind of fun that the younger queens come out and that they're trying new stuff that is new to them that they have not seen. A lot of it, you know anything that we since have been doing, a lot of the new stuff has probably been done by somebody else before in a different way. It's always good to pull inspiration from your elders and uh learn from them. I think you expose yourself to a lot more younger new performers because you're out there a lot more than I am. I tend to just get settled in to the clubs that I work at or Bingo. (Senior Centers) So yeah... That's obviously not going to bring out new drag queens for me!
 
OW:
Well it's hard because you, you have your life and then you have your art and it's hard to kind of take a step back and like you said, actively seek out those things and get exposed to them. I try as much as possible because there's always something new. I don't expect people to do something completely original, never thought of before, but it's all about how they put that twist on it? It's really exciting.
 
SO:
What made you decide to go for Ms. Bacon Strip last year?
 
OW:
I hate competition. I absolutely hate it. I hate competing as an artist. I hate that whole aspect of it but I was inspired by the monumental changes that the city is going through. All of the near and dear places, people, community that are vanishing, I wanted to do whatever I could, whatever clout I had in the community, whatever clout I have as a performer to bring more attention to Bacon Strip because I want it to, no offense, I want it to outlast you, I want it to outlast me, I want it to be something that people carry on as a tradition. That whole idea of outsider art and celebrating it, especially outsider queer art is essential to preserving our community story.
 
SO:
Oh very nice. I agree. So we had, last year, we had the crazy tabulation scandal; boys that were accountants in real life so I thought totaling up the points would be easy. When we got all the score sheets back Honey  and I were both looking at the numbers and it seemed a little off but we figured that they could not be wrong so we took that total and announced the winner. A different winner, and you didn't even place!
 
OW:
Right.
 
SO:
It was actually a kismet kinda situation. It was ala marvelous journey. Ms Texas 1988 was a newish queen last year, I didn't really know of her? She was brand new and it just kind of forced the brilliance of what she does as far as her performance and I just kind of like 'this is amazing...' and it's been a really wonderful year of seeing her grow through the whole thing even though she was just the first runner up instead of Ms. Bacon Strip it was just really interesting because I had no idea what she was doing, We all just kind of watched it unfold as a full story in front of us. For those that did not go to Ms. Bacon Strip last year, Miss Texas 1988 came as a contestant new contestant playing the character of a failing pageant queen. She even did an audition tape, and while she performed fell and just kind of fell flat. That was Ms. Texas 1988 which was overtly a failure in pageants, I believe is what was the story without interviewing her directly. She even came out in the final winning gown which was a gunny sack that had the word painted “she's a loser” which is very ironic because we crowned her. *laughs* And then we took the title away from her because you were actually the winner and it kind of worked out for everyone cause we all got different news coverage and it became more of a theatrical thing than he or we ever thought it would be. It was kinda cool!
 
OW:
Right
 
SO:
And then to realize what kind of artist he is and the stuff that he does, I thought was pretty ground breaking and he still does amazingly creative things but that was kind of one of my favorite things that happened last year.
 
OW:
Anytime there's drama it's good for drag. *laughs* I mean the only thing that could have made it better is if a fight would have broken out. That would have really elevated it, the cherry on top of the shit sundae. *laughs*
 
SO:
And I love that you did a couple performances that first month where you kept coming out and stealing her crown.
 
OW:
Yeah! I think like the week after the pageant she was at Cucci's Critter Barn and she was like 'Will you come out and do this?' and of course for me I'm never like 'Oh what will people think about me?' I'm like YES! So I got to come out and do that... what's his face... the guy who is on Drag Race... Todrick Hall and do his song the Wrong Bitch song and take the crown. Like I said, death to false idols! Nope! Sorry ma'am!

SO:
Totally Works. How have you felt that your character as Old Witch has kind of grown over this last year?
 
OW:
Gosh, I think a big part for me is you don't come out fully formed, you have to find your sea legs and voice for your character and that's what makes Drag such a unique art form because you're not you but you are you you're different part of you or you are highlighting different parts of you. For me, I think the biggest part of growing is both kind of seeing kind of not just what I'm good at and what I like doing and what the audience likes but what feels right and for me it's been a lot more about actually getting to more classic drag lip syncing, the storytelling of the song itself and less of that like gimmicky type of thing. Like there was a period of time where Seattle drag scene was about a gimmick, you know? It's got to have a gag, a wig reveal, a costume reveal  or a this or a that, you know? A death drop, a shablam, confetti, whatever it is. I think you can still incorporate those things in some smart ways but what I've really started to do this year is kinda focus more on that story telling through movement and inhabiting the song and bringing emotion in different ways which comes from confidence and comfort performing. Not only has it been personally fulfilling but I also think it's something that we need more of in this industry. Story telling through what we do and not so showy, not cheap thrills. I like to bring people in and take them on a journey.
 
SO:
Make the performance a little bit more meaty.
 
SO:
Adding another level to it, which is good.
 
OW:
Some people like looking pretty and acting slutty, which is cool. *laughs*
 
SO:
Yeah, that's not part of the story. I mean it's good for what it is and those are... different performers have different ways of doing things so it's just you know..
 
OW:
Absolutely
 
SO:
They're feeling comfortable in that and that's where they are. That's certainly a successful thing for other venues and so forth but um.. doing the different levels. The levels came across my head like 'oh you're different levels of makeup!'. When you started off as Old Witch, you were doing those masks.
 
OW:
Yeah.
 
SO:
Eyes or the top portion of the mask for... what was that 6 months or something and just decided not to do those anymore what was the progression of that?
 
OW:
I dabbled here and there back then but all the masks I would make and they were hand made, carved and painted. I would use each different makeup techniques and blend them into my face to give that very plasticy to give that huge huge apple cheeks that would just protrude.
 
SO:
Wow.
 
OW:
So that's how I started getting into masks. I did some other ones that weren't quite like that, they were more special looks or whatever but I just wanted it to look like this... emaciated.. you know that picture of that witch from Snow White when she was in full witch form when she had those big giant cheeks that were just so gross and they almost looked like they were filled with more pus than it is like a bone. That's what I was going for. Then for practical reasons, they were giving me horrible headaches and during performances, they gave me headaches from industrial strength elastic so that's squeezing my head with the wig cap and a wig strap on top of it so it was giving me the worst migraines ever from doing drag so I thought 'Ok, I have to find a way how to do this illusion through makeup.' I was already fine in makeup, nothing special but that was actually a good thing because it forced me to.. it kinda kicked my ass to practice my art in that way and I don't really have great.. fine motor skill control, I never have, it's something especially in my fingers so I don't feel stuff really well. I had the same problem playing music with guitars and everything like that so it was good because it forced me to just be like well either figure out how to do it, stop performing, or you'll have a huge migraine. That made me play a little bit more with it and now I think I'm pretty damn good at what I do with it. I've been able to... also in the era of 'Rupple's Drag Race' I've been able to learn how to do the same face that everyone else is doing but it's harder and harder to do your own thing and I've worked very hard to make sure I'm doing 100% me and still growing and learning new things but not looking to look like everyone else or use all the face techniques. Let the character, let Old Witch tell me how she wants to look. How she wants to be. That has been a really fun transition. It's not that I would never do the masks, it's still fun to throw them on every once in a while.
 
SO:
A lot of squeezing. You're pretty corseted into everything anyway.
 
OW:
Yeah.
 
SO:
You're squeezing all parts of your body!
 
OW:
Well you know, I think that that's... it's one thing that I really... I try to be very detail oriented. You know there is a lot of like... I don't consider myself like a spooky queen per-say, you know what I mean? I'm not the kind of person who's gonna like dump blood on me and do all of this kind of stuff. Occasionally but I really like to focus on those little tiny details of what would Old Witch actually do. Of course she's never going to go out of the house without a corset, she's never going to go out without her tits lookin right and these are really the details that make the character fully realized and they are really important because I don't like... she wouldn't be sloppy so I don't make her sloppy and I could get away with a lot of it, there's times when I wear big things where you wouldn't necessarily see my body or the fact that I'm wearing fishnets that don't have holes in them but I'll still make sure it's that way because I don't want to piss of the Witch! Not gonna do it! Nope!
 
SO:
Ok! What was your biggest thing that you accomplished this year that you think was your biggest growth?
 
OW:
I think my biggest growth is probably in hosting. It's something that I really shied away from because it's not something that I love doing and I've done more and more of it this year just by the fact that I am produce a lot of shows and my greatest accomplishment this past year is that I have had numerous successful shows. Being able to produce that and showcase artists that I love is what absolutely brings me so much joy. Personal growth is hosting more and being comfortable in that role because it's not really me and you know, I'm pretty shy outside of drag. I'm not really a social person or whatever but somehow I make it work because of drag. I love talking to people and connecting with them after the shows, I love hearing how fun any of the shows that I either perform at or produce. I love that, I love being able to create community in that way but outside of drag it's like I don't ever want to be recognized, I want to just hide away in a corner. *laughs*
 
SO:
Do you find yourself getting recognized outside of drag very often?
 
OW:
You know what, I've had numerous people say to me that I am unclockable outside of drag. Another performer, I won't name who it was, I was at a show they were at outside of drag and I came up to them and gave them a hug and said 'Hey girl!' but they were like 'Who are you? Don't go up and hug people you don't know.' *laughs* and I was like 'Girl it's me, Old Witch!' and they said 'Oh my god, Bitch, what?!' *laughs* and this is someone I've been performing with for like... a year and they were just .. they didn't recognize me and I get that a lot. I love it that way and I want to keep it that way!
 
SO:
Well I don't even think I recognized who you were in the beginning of the whole... because you came in as a guest spot when you were doing... you were doing a different name you were at the pizza place, weren't you?
 
OW:
Yeah but I think the first time... yeah... that was when I got back into drag and I was going to do comedy stuff but I wasn't really feeling it. I'd only performed once or twice. You know it was
kinda fun but it just didn't feel right? The first time I performed at Bacon Strip was as Old Witch still.
 
SO:
Oh, Ok.
 
OW:
I think so, yeah..
 
SO:
But you had just actually changed your name to Old Witch because it was more memorable than the other one.
 
OW:
Yeah.
 
SO:
What was it before?
 
OW:
Pizzarina Sabaro
 
SO:
Pizzarnia Sabaro!!
 
OW:
The heir of the Sabaro fortune. *laughs*
 
SO:
I don't think I realized who it was until you progressed on and I was like 'OH MY GOD! NOW I KNOW WHO THIS IS!'
 
OW:
Yeah! Yeah.
 
SO:
It had been a year since I had seen you so I was just like at that point, I was like 'Oh my god! Where have you been this whole time?!' Having children and settling in and all this other stuff.
 
OW:
*laughs* Pumping out children like a termite queen!
 
SO:
So what would you, as you step down this year, what would be your recommendation for the 2019 Ms. Bacon Strip this year?
 
OW:
For what they should do if they win or who should like…
 
SO:
Or just you know just like a word of wisdom. It's all organic, you'll just figure it out as you go.
 
OW:
Yeah... I would say be your... be the best you you can be because nobody else can do what you do as long as you are staying true to that . I could never do what you do. I could try to do it, it would be fun to do a tribute night and play dress up as Sylvia for a night but I could never do what you do. I could never do what Ms. Texas does and she does things that are very her and I could never do that but there is a reason why I won because the other bitches can't touch what I can do! *laughs* Let's just be real! I do exactly what I do and I don't try to change... I'm lucky enough to be able to perform in different venues but I'm able to perform at Lashes and R Place which is a very different crowd than Bacon Strip but I do it with confidence and with complete
understanding of who I am and what I am doing and whatever piece I'm performing, whatever song I'm doing, whatever number I've put together because I know that nobody else is doing what I'm doing in my space. That's enough for me. To me conformity is death. Conformity is death. I really think that as long as they are being true to themselves and being true to whoever their character is, true to their art... Don't change what you are doing because you think it's what the audience wants to see. The audience wants to see an artist, so be an artist.
 
SO:
True, true. Good alright! Perfect! Thank you so much for your time! Come see this year’s Miss Bacon Strip May 4th at South Park Hall. www.baconstripseattle.com for tickets.