Swelter

Hit girl and drag legend RuPaul at Van Dome, Marky Mark at Warsaw: it's a mixed-up crazy world. RuPaul, seven feet or so with all that hair, heels, and attitude, turning in a stellar performance, bringing aspiring supermodels up on stage for the ride: "Experience the illness that is RuPaul. Sashey Shante, you better work, girl . Men are the most beautiful women in the world . The power of love can change everything. It's going to be a gay white house of love. Now, you know Clinton and Gore are lovers: face it, honey, it's true . Can you give me a big hand please?"

Afterward RuPaul and her legs -- the most splendid limbs imaginable -- lounging backstage, recounting the whole working girl saga. Growing up in Atlanta, defying a Ku Klux Klan rally in full drag, migrating to New York with Larry Tee, La Homa Van Zandt, and Lady Bunny, traveling with "high heels and a dream." The early incarnations, RuPaul and the U-Hauls, hits like "Starr Booty" and the current Tommy Boy hit single "Supermodel." A new album on the way, drag as the new political manifesto: "Drag is for everybody. It's loud, shiny and bright, just perfect for children. It's not a sexual fetish -- well, sometimes it is -- but a celebration, a movement in society, a global thing. It's a look, from the ghetto to the White House, like Barbara Bush. And everybody in the pop life, everybody, is a drag queen.