Editor’s Note: We’re re-upping this great Worn Out piece on Seattle drag legend Jackie Hell, who is leaving Seattle forever for New Orleans. While we will never forgive her, you can wish her goodbye Thursday night at her 500th Birthday Extravaganza. Have any favorite Jackie Hell memories? Send them to us!
David Latimer’s stage persona, Jackie Hell, stars in unhinged spectacles—with bleary dancing and words, and strange songs that are upsetting and hilarious. Propelled by jerky energy, unrealized fantasies, and violent drugs, Jackie’s character has “a grotesque figure,” and to evaporate into her, David rings his body with taped-together pillows. “If I add to myself, I can’t see myself,” he says, and he sustains this transformation with a collection of Jackie-appropriate masquerades.
Lyrics sometimes address her fashion requirements directly. “Expensive” describes a specific outfit, worn to an all-you-can-eat shrimp scampi buffet at Red Lobster: a beige jacket with matching pumps—the better to strut through another abasing journey with. The song’s callouts inventory treasured items: butterfly tattoos, cans of Almond Roca, yellow silk roses.
