The HOMO-CIDAL Horror of Chelsea Horrendous

Around 2010, in the Pawn Shop on Whyte, a boy had to use the bathroom. The men's room was a dump: it stank, none of the toilets worked, or if they did, the water was to the lip of the bowl. The boy thought to himself "no one would mind if I used the ladies room". However, they did mind. The solution? Do drag. And so Chelsea Horrendous was born, to be able to use the ladies rooms at straight bars.

Oh sure, in grade seven, she wanted to go as Morticia Addams for Halloween, and after promising her mom never to become a drag queen, she did (and looked like her sister). But of such lies are legends made.

You may have seen Chelsea about, looking like a Mad Max prostitute on LSD. Her drag, inspired by men like John Waters, Billy Van ("Grizelda" from TV's camp classic The Hilarious House of Frightenstein), and director William Castle, definitely isn't what you would call glamour drag. Chelsea stands out, and thrives on making others uneasy and on challenging their assumptions.

Entertaining people is the main thing for Chelsea, who hates being bored and being boring. Drag most assuredly isn't the only creative thing Chelsea wants to do. "I'd love to write, do some crazy conceptual art, make music, direct a movie, become a sign language interpreter". The HOMO-CIDAL movie is still in the cards, of course.

HOMO-CIDAL is how the city of Edmonton really got to know Chelsea.  When Chelsea started HOMO-CIDAL in October 2013 (with drag sister and friend Lilith Fair), they didn't expect it to take off like it did. To what do they attribute the cult following they have developed? "There's no way I can answer this without sounding like an arrogant fuck face. I think we brought back camp drag in the city. Not to say other queens aren't campy, but we look like crazy tranny clowns and speaking for myself only, break a lot of rules on what being a drag queen is, which is why I think our shows gained momentum so fast. We don't take ourselves to seriously and as frightening and grotesque our appearances are we seem to be more approachable to people because we don't have the intimidating regal look about us like most other queens have. We're Mickey Mouse, Ronald McDonald and Santa in a blood stained dress."

Chelsea finds the local drag scene "stellar, small but huge in heart in comparison to other cities where everyone hates each other." She feels she has pushed new performers as much as more experienced performers pushed her. There's a lot of advice Chelsea has accumulated over the years and she doesn't mind passing that on. While some are simple, like waxing your asshole and never wearing more than two spurts of perfume, some are less obvious but still very true. "Never do a routine thinking everyone is going love it because that'll never happen. Do it to make you happy. You having fun means the audience will have fun with you" is one of the biggest things Chelsea wishes all queens would learn, and another is that "there's no wrong way of doing drag. If a queen says that you, ask to see the "drag queen rule book" and call her a cunt."

Chelsea finds drag queen lingo annoying and wishes people would just stop. What bugs her is when people think" throwing shade" and "reading" are synonymous. "Being shady is being an asshole. Reading is an exercise in wit while (sometimes) giving constructive criticism. I think queens should do the opposite of throwing shade and say nice things about each other and call it "flashing rays" or something stupid like that".

There are things the world simply needs to know about Chelsea: 1) eyebrows are the nipples of your face, 2) trigger warnings are in fact triggering, and 3) Taco Bell can make a wonderful water based lubricant when eaten a couple hours before sex. With that being said, where does Chelsea see herself in five years? "Eating Taco Bell at a bath house in Toronto with immaculate eyebrows having panic attacks about panic attacks while reading about panic attacks."

Until then, catch Chelsea behind the bar at Evolution Wonderlounge or performing monthly in HOMO-CIDAL and Saturday Sucks.