RAVEN-O

 

I have very fond memories of being in NYC back in the mid to late 90's when the bar and club scene was at an all-time religious peak. One of the most magical times of my life. There was just nothing like going out, especially in NYC. The New York City drag, and performance scene has had many famed names and queens grace stages and clubs all over the city with their presence, but there is simply no one like the divine Raven-O. I can remember seeing her often at Twilo, The Tunnel, Palladium and Boy Bar, where she started with Joey Arias and her drag daughter, Sherry Vine. If you ask me, these queens are true talent. They didn't have the luxury to seal their fate on a reality drag show. These queens had to make it on their own, and dance to their own drummer. That they are still around speaks volumes that they didn't need to rely on a tv show, or before social media. And Raven-o is one of them. This queen just might have invented the gender hybrid queen, before we knew what it was, or what it was called. Raven-o was a gender bender who consistently gives and still does, the finger to the establishment and the world of fishy drag...this dynamic performer can still be seen out on the town, but she had her curtain call back in January with his final show titled, One Night Only, where he went out on the final night with his sister Sherry Vine and Joey Arias. He got his start as the chorographer for the Boy Bar, and one night one of the queens didn't show up. The legendary Princess Diandra was doing her amazing Diana Ross and the Supremes number. Raven-o ended up filling in for one of the missing queens, and from then on, his fate was sealed as a downtown club fixture and personality from there out. His style was always gender bending, twisted, and who for decades, has channeled pop icons from David Bowie to Sinatra all the while remaining extremely androgynous, boundary-shattering exemplar of alternative cool. I can still remember seeing him out thinking that this broad is on to something. He could be drop dead stun one time and a hot alternative boy the next. I was enthralled. But for a stage artist he doesn't like to be compared to as a drag queen, but a performance artist, and has said he doesn't mind going by he or she, but they is definitely out, as he has said for a while, "they" just doesn't make sense to him. Since the 80's he has choreographed, directed, hosted, danced and sung- in his warmly dusky, rangy voice, that eventually became his primary asset as well as his very gender bending style. After Covid, he finally decided to retire from the arena and has since moved back to Hawaii. Not a bad career for someone who had to forge their own path and work for it. He trailblazed and didn't even know it. These kids today don't know what they missed.