Miss Manhattan Hangs Out with Maxxx Pleasure

A never-guilty pleasure.

Waiting for Maxxx Pleasure in C’Mon Everybody, it occurs to me I’ve been to the bar countless times, but rarely to sit and chat. It’s a welcome change. Maxxx is a GLAM-award nominated drag king who’s also opened for Chappell Roan. He hosts a show called Guilty Pleasures, also at C’Mon Everybody, and the next one is March 18. You may have also seen him at Bushwig, Sasha Velour’s NightGowns, and even in a Kim Petras music video.

Traversing drag with my camera, I’ve photographed him as a rockstar twirling red fans and a baseball player studded in rhinestones, but his oeuvre includes everything from Batman to Edward Cullen to Harry Styles to Brad Majors of Rocky Horror fame and so much more.

Tonight Maxxx is out of drag. A sculpted torso print graces his t-shirt. There’s black polish on his nails. A hand is heavy with a skull ring he often feels unbalanced without, he says, not to mention an XXX ring that mirrors his name.

C’Mon Everybody twinkles with bright colors and a Pride flag. An art-deco style illustration of two lovers hangs in our booth. Posters from forthcoming drag shows line the wall. Broadway tunes play overhead–a similarly themed drag show will go on tonight in the back room. Perhaps fittingly, Maxxx is also reading Wicked by Gregory Maguire, but the experience is not exactly as he’d hoped.

I like that it’s kind of dark here–taking the pictures will be a challenge, in a good way. Maxxx is unafraid of the camera. He speaks into my lens as if it’s my face and he knows how to pose himself in front of it. It’s nice to just sit and have a conversation, to learn about his relationship to drag, his artistry, his passion for the form, how it fills both his thoughts and his costume collection.

I don’t remember the last time I sat and talked to a person I’ve only met briefly for two hours, but here we are. We discuss drag and more drag (book more kings!), social media, and what becomes a legend most. There’s chatter behind us as people make their way into the show, and then it’s quieter, save for the voices of Broadway divas of yore still coming through the speakers. People come by to say hello, some sit and stay awhile.

At the show’s intermission, Maxxx pulls on a black hoodie and we step outside the bar with a host of others. There are kisses on cheeks, pulls on cigarettes, hugs, laughs, how’ve you beens. People who know each other with more than a passing fancy. A community.

Maxxx will stay and watch the show, he says. While it’s often hard to keep me away from a drag show, my eyelids are starting to droop and I feel the pull toward home. It’s the right time–a drag artist joins us outside and says part two of the show is about to begin. I wave goodbye and leave Maxxx to it.