Excerpt from a JustOut article
New Drag 101, Part 2
By Erin Rook
June 18, 2010

After kicking off our crash course in the next generation of drag with the June 4 issue, Just Out profiles a few more rising star(let)s…

Cabiria Jones (CJ and the Dolls)
Cabiria Jones belongs to her own school of drag, thankyouverymuch. In Cabiria’s school, the music is the star of the show and the drag, the visual icing on the cake.
She considers herself a drag performer, to be sure, but a queen? Not so much.
“Queen always implies other things, but I’ll take what I can get,” she says. For Cabiria, drag is about gender and character play, and a welcome opportunity to dig through the costume closet.
Drawing presentation cues from Boy George and “the ‘80s in general,” and musical inspiration from the “no muss, no fuss” sound of Olivia Newton-John, Cabiria brings an edgy androgynous front to a pure pop sound.
But don’t be distracted by the sequins or the scantily clad “dolls.” This is about the music.
“In my performance, it’s music first, then the performance, then the visual,” she says, as opposed to conventional drag, where the focus is often on the visual packaging. Cabiria goes so far as to book herself as a band—CJ and the Dolls—even when performing solo because she’s found it’s the only way to ensure she’ll get the equipment she needs for her live music performances.
“Someone asked me to perform in drag,” she says of her introduction into drag performance five years ago. “I asked if I could do my own song and they said ‘okay.’”
Since then, Cabiria’s been writing and performing her own brand of “tranny pop” or “Q-pop,” electro-beats with a heavy dose of diva.
Cabiria’s not the only drag performer to use the word “tranny” to describe herself or her performance, and like many of those who do, she does not necessarily identify as transgender.
“Before there was ‘transgender’ there were transvestites,” she says, explaining how she feels the term still applies. “I feel like my gender is really kind of split down the middle. Everything is in the in between. I’m not going to apologize for using a word that applies to me.”
While some find the word pejorative, Cabiria says she uses her transgender friends as a barometer for whether or not she’s crossed the line.
“Some of them have snapped at the term, but they all think it’s hilarious,” she says. “None of them take it that seriously.”
A sense of humor is vital to the former comedian—especially since Cabiria, the alter ego of 38-year-old Mickey Pollizatto, walked away from the group caught in candy and lightened up.
“She’s gotten a lot brighter. She used to be a lot darker,” she says of the character that originated in the caught in candy musical Fatal Flaws performed at Portland’s Time-Based Arts Festival in 2006.
The name Cabiria comes from the film Nights of Cabiria, which she describes as the Italian Breakfast at Tiffany’s. In Italy, where Pollizatto’s family is from, Cabiria is considered an ugly name, one that’s given to very few children. It comes from cabir, or “big” in Arabic, a connotation she says she’s willing to embrace.
Her character is Italian, German and Jewish and “busted her way to the top of the pop scene,” Cabiria says. But all that has faded somewhat since the beginning as “she’s become me—with sequins and glitter and a wig.”
Still, no one can deny that Cabiria has taken Pollizatto places Mickey might not have. She currently books more shows out of town than in Portland, but has performed at Blow Pony, Dante’s, the Eagle and the E-Room (Homomentum) as well as in Rome, Berlin and Scandinavia.
“My mantra is to perform and travel. Otherwise I have nothing to live for,” she says.
Cabiria is performing as CJ and the Dolls June 18 at Rotture for the Menz Room Pride BBQ and party, headlines at the Havana Club June 26 for Seattle Pride, and after she returns from a West Coast tour, Cabiria will appear at the August 28 installment of Blow Pony.
For all her travels, Cabiria still likes Portland best, largely because it is an “anything goes” city. The town inspires her to live up to her principles: “Keep pushing, do what you want to do. You don’t have to follow anybody’s rules.”