by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Nat King Pole a.k.a. Nathalie Theoret

Age: 44

Occupation: Drag king

Bio: When this affable Ville Emard spunkster isn’t busy working her day job as a licensed practical nurse—“That’s what they call us professional ass-wipers”—she’s out wowing the masses as Nat King Pole, a delightfully raunchy drag performer whose unique interpretations of karaoke standards have been winning over the hearts and minds of the local lesbo community as of late. The daughter of a pro chanteuse who occasionally worked alongside none other than Québécois C&W legend Willy Lamothe, Nathalie first discovered the stage as a little girl, and later, before giving it all up to pursue her passion for ice hockey, fronted her own Top 40 band in the backwater Ottawa Valley town where she grew up. “I really only started doing this because I wanted to sing again. But people got such a kick out of it; there’s a whole bunch of us drag kings doing these shows now. We’re thinking about getting together soon to do some group numbers, maybe calling ourselves New Cocks on the Block, but I’m not sure yet.” You can hire them for your next children’s party via nathalie_theoret@yahoo.ca. She drives the chick magnet otherwise known as a 1995 Toyota Tercel.

How her shtick differs from the typically dull drag show where some sissy slaps on a wig and lip-synchs Carol Channing numbers: “Well, for starters, I sing live, and I make the lyrics funny. Like, Sweet’s ‘Ballroom Blitz’ is now ‘Balls on Chicks’ and the lyrics go, ‘And the king at the back/Said everyone attack/And we all put on our balls and dicks/And the king in the corner/Said boy I wanna warn ya/You’ll have to deal with us chicks with dicks/Balls on chicks/Balls on chicks’. You know, I do ‘Whole Lotta Love’ as ‘Whole Lotta Lube,’ this kind of thing.”

Was growing up gay in small town 1970s Ontario as idyllic as one might imagine? “Hell, it was hard! Although probably 70 per cent of my hockey team were gay—closeted, but gay.”

Does she ever go out in drag and trick straight chicks into lifting up their skirts for her? “When I was 13 or 14, I’d do stuff like that because I thought it was the only way I’d ever get a girl. I’d pretend I was a guy to the new girls in town. It actually worked out pretty good, but you know, in my day, you didn’t do much [sexually] at that age.”

Which gender tends to be more threatened by her sexuality? “Males, definitely. It’s like a personal affront to some of them. Women, on the other hand, are always very nice about it. They’ll go, ‘Oh, I have no problems with it, but it’s not normal.’ One co-worker once told me, very politely, all friendly, that if her own child were gay she would’ve killed her.”

Last book read: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience, by Henry Lewis Gates Jr.

Musical preferences: Dennis Brown, Gentle Giant.

Words of wisdom: “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Comments? dimwit@hdot.net