Jane Don’t is Seattle’s latest star to compete on RuPaul’s Drag Race. If you’ve seen her locally, you already know she was poised to do well. Her drag style uses vintage aesthetics in contemporary ways, combining her knowledge of queer history, fashion references, and her own innovative sewing skills. With a fully glamorous mug, she delivers high-camp performances full of witty pop-culture and classic diva references. Her talents especially come out when she’s handed a microphone to show off her seemingly effortless grasp on comedy. On the show, that skill in particular led her to high praise from comedy giants such as special guest judges Sarah Sherman and Atsuko Okatsuka. If you haven’t gathered yet, she absolutely crushed it, right up until a shocking elimination in the top 5 of Season 18. She made a record-smashing run of high placements, and claimed the title of Miss Congeniality during the finale. Jane Don’t truly made Seattle proud, and proved to the world she is one of the best in the business.

I sat down with her to chat through her origin story, her experience on the show, and to hear about what’s coming next in her continuing success—including her one-woman show, Don’t Does America,which kicks off in Seattle on September 1.

For anyone who has never seen your drag, how would you describe yourself and what you do?
I’m 33. I’m a Pisces with a Capricorn moon and Capricorn rising. I’m a drag artist and a loud woman living in Seattle. My drag is informed by comedy, glamour, and subculture. Those three elements are always present. I’m very inspired by vintage comedians and funny women. Joan Rivers, Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, obviously. I’m also super interested and informed by the history of drag and the history of the underground. I try to combine a comedic sensibility with a subversive approach to fashion and the work that I make.

Where did you get your start in drag? What was the origin story?
I was really interested in drag for a long time. In high school, I used to go to this 24-hour diner in Spokane called the Satellite. It was right next to one of the two gay clubs in town that had a drag show. We would go around midnight and have dinner and then all the girls after the show would shuffle in and sit at the bar. I think from that point on I was just very intrigued by drag. I also started watching Drag Race in high school. Then I organized my college’s drag show and would go to shows in Tacoma.

When I moved to Seattle I didn’t really have a lot of friends. I would go to shows at Kremwerk all the time. The first Seattle drag show I ever saw was at Chop Suey. It was 2015, right when I had moved to the Hill. All the gals were there. I remember seeing Cucci and Natalie Portal perform, and the drag that I’d been familiar with up to that point had been sort of traditional. I remember being blown away by what they were doing. I think that sort of broke my brain open a little bit.

I started going to shows, and then after a while I wanted to hang out with the drag queens, and you can’t go in the dressing room unless you have a wig on. I would see stuff and be like “I could do that.” So after a couple years, I started doing my makeup secretly in my bathroom.

What was your first real gig like?
My very first number was at Kremwerk with Cookie Couture. I played backup on a fake piano behind her to Gilda Radner’s “Let’s Talk Dirty to the Animals.” Then my first real gig was Queen for Queen at Pony for Pride of 2019. I did an Amanda Lepore song, “Turn Me Over,” dressed as bacon, and Monday Mourning was the sexy chef who was slapping me with the spatula. An auspicious beginning.

What were some of the struggles you faced?
When I started drag, I kind of had to do my own thing. One of the reasons I started hosting so quickly was because it didn’t really feel like people were booking me. It didn’t feel like people were sort of crazy about me, but I knew how to walk into a bar and ask to put on a drag show. So there’s been an ongoing struggle of trying to balance my love, allegiance, and gratitude to the Seattle scene for raising me with my own ambition. Honestly, I don’t think that Seattle is overly fond of people who are outwardly ambitious.

Also, there were just the difficulties of being a broke person trying to make art in this city that’s so hostile to broke people. I’ve lost count of the amount of times that I thought about getting a day job or going back to school or going to hair school. There were moments where I felt very alone or I felt like the scene didn’t necessarily see it for me, but I’m still profoundly grateful to it. So many of the people here are a huge part of the reason that I got to the point where I could get on Drag Race. So much of my time on Drag Race, I thought, “thank god I’m from Seattle, and thank god I have the references and the experiences that I have, and that I come from the sort of place artistically that I do.” I just think there’s something singular about drag here. I think it’s why Seattle girls always seem to do really well on the show.

Was there anyone specifically who inspired you or kept you going?
I’m very much a drag queen’s drag queen. The sisters and the family that I’ve found here are always one of the biggest motivating factors to me. Shout out to Rowan Ruthless, who was there the first night that I performed in drag, and Natalie Portal has always like been a huge part of it. Irene the Alien and Bosco, obviously. I think when the three of us kind of became friends, it gave me a sense that I was on the right path.

Once you got the call for RuPaul’s Drag Race, how did it feel?
Well, the funny thing is, in the interest of transparency, there was never a point in getting the call and getting to the show where I was overly surprised that I was there. I sent my tape in and my brain went, “okay, you’re on Drag Race.” I had started preparing even before I got a phone call. I started commissioning things, getting hair, planning, writing jokes, and mentally preparing as though I’m going to be there. The thing that was hard to compute was how well I was doing.

That confidence and preparation served you well! It was clear you were so prepared for this moment. What were you most proud of during your time on the show?
I’m really proud of the whole body of work that I presented. I had been thinking about it for a long time, I knew my shit, and I had done the work. One of the big lessons Drag Race teaches you is to do what you know. It’s a great showbiz lesson, right? I think that’s something I figured out really early on and that worked to my benefit. I went into everything with the mindset of I’m a comedian, so every challenge is a comedy challenge. It doesn’t matter what the challenge is. Like for the girl group, I’m not a dancer, so rather than try to be that, I was a comedian.

That sense of humor carried through in your out-of-drag moments. How did it feel to be your out-of-drag self on TV?
That was honestly the most nerve-wracking thing. There’s a lot of pieces of myself that go into Jane that are parts of myself that I don’t love. How talkative I am, how loud I am, you know, I can be sort of obnoxious. I don’t love those things about myself, but those are things that are real assets in drag. I think that’s psychologically good and helpful.

But Drag Race asks you to do something that you’re never really asked to do as a performer in any other context, which is being “on” both in character and out of character. It was funny to watch the fan response because people didn’t understand why I was boisterous in drag and then out of drag I’m kind of dry and sardonic. I’m not a person who’s a character out of drag. I spent a lot of time using drag in a way that’s positive for my mental health and well-being by funneling those attributes into it, but then you get on Drag Race and you’re on TV more out of drag than you are in drag. So that was a struggle at points. I think it’s also okay that we don’t expect performers to be “on” all the time.

Can you tell me a little bit more about what the process of filming was like?
I just always try to impress on everybody how fucking hard the show is. People have said it before, but when they say “Drag Race,” it’s really a race! It’s long days of filming. There’s so many times on camera where I’m looking at all of our skin just being like “oh my god, we look like angry little preemies.” We just looked like sad, underbaked breads. Drag is so impactful on your body and to be doing it over and over again in such quick succession is so tiring. Then on top of that you have the stress of eliminations and constantly having to generate. I have the utmost respect for anybody who’s gone through it because it really is an endurance test as much as it is a test of skill.

It’s also incredibly fun. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. The relationships that you form with people—you’re there for a week with these girls and all of a sudden you’re best friends.

You said in episode one you wanted America to know you’re one of the best in the business. Do you feel you achieved that?
I knew I was going to do well. I didn’t know that I was going to do as well as I did. I didn’t think it was an option. I mean, nobody, with all due respect, has ever been in the top for 10 straight weeks. I didn’t know that was a thing that they would let happen.

I really really really wanted to win very badly, but more than that, I wanted to show people—and I wanted to show myself—that I really am very good at this; that I’m as good as I think I am. People can say you shouldn’t need external validation, but I’m not medicated enough to feel like that, babe. I need external validation. So I feel a level of peace in my elimination because I ultimately did what I set out to do. The money would have been lovely, but as far as that goal, I did show people that I am.

What is next for you? How can people support you?
I’m doing a one-woman show tour, Don’t Does America. It’s basically like the whole country. That’ll be in September. Come out and see that. That’s the work that’s closest to my heart, so please come see that. I would love to meet people. I have a lot of work that’s coming out that will exist long past the show. The reality is like I’m a lifer. I have no other skills. It’s cross-dressing or the soup kitchen.

Anything else you want to say, any parting words?
I guess I would say I hope Donald Trump dies soon. And you can put that in writing. 

---

See Jane Don’t perform at Queer Bar on May 23.

The post Jane Don’t appeared first on The Stranger.

After becoming a European destination for adventurous music fans over the course of this century, C2C made its New York City debut last year. The one-day event held a lot of promise but was not without its flaws. As I wrote in my review at the time, the lineup, which historically focuses on electronic music’s bleeding edge, was uneven. And the setup at Knockdown Center in Ridgewood, Queens was less than ideal, including a too-small stage area that was constantly overcrowded. “If C2C returns to Knockdown at some point,” I nudged, “perhaps they could set up the second stage outside, in the venue’s Ruins area, so that people could enjoy more of the night’s music and maybe even have some space to dance to it.”

Apparently I was not alone in this critique, because that’s pretty much what C2C did when it came back to Knockdown Center last weekend. Now spread across three stages, including the spacious outdoor one, C2C NYC’s second iteration was a masterclass in troubleshooting. The lineup was much improved. The mood was more energetic. There was some space to breathe. Last year, C2C NYC was an intriguing experiment; this year, it became an unmissable event.

Friday, the Club 2 Club Festival returned to New York for a second consecutive year. Founded in Turin in 2002, the music fest ventured into North America with a one-day event at Knockdown Center in Queens last spring, reprised this year at the same venue ahead of the 25th anniversary edition of C2C’s flagship Italian event this fall.

The post Italy’s C2C Festival Returned To New York To Remind Us Music Has No Borders appeared first on Stereogum.

There is a moment, after the sirens fade and before the cameras arrive, when grief is still allowed to be grief. But this fragile window is gone much too soon.

Because in this country, and in this city, grief is rarely permitted to remain untouched. It is quickly conscripted into the familiar machinery that tells us what safety is supposed to look like. Pain triggered by tragedy soon becomes justification, and communities already carrying the weight of neglect are asked, almost immediately, what they are willing to trade for the promise of feeling safe.

More cameras? More police? More surveillance?

These questions are posed as if their answer were obvious. As if the menu were complete. But what if the question is itself the problem?

In that moment, when something must be done, almost anything can be made to feel like the right thing.

This year, Seattle has witnessed instances of high-profile violence that have shaken the South End and the Chinatown–International District. Teenagers have been both subject to and instigators of gun violence. Their families have been left holding a grief that no policy can fill, and their communities are trying to make sense of something that refuses to make sense. 

Something must be done, we tell each other. It is the most human of instincts, and also the most dangerous. Because in that moment, when something must be done, almost anything can be made to feel like the right thing.

We are told, often and with urgency, that communities like the CID and Rainier Beach are asking for more surveillance and more policing. That elders want cameras. That residents want more visible enforcement. And some of that is true. Earlier this month, Rainier Beach students spoke at King County Council and asked for more police patrols and metal detectors, and CID community leaders brought more than a thousand signatures to City Hall asking the city to expand the neighborhood’s CCTV program. Seniors spoke openly about fear, and not feeling safe walking through their own neighborhood.

We are told this is a debate about cameras. It is not. It is a debate about what we believe safety is, and who is responsible for creating it.

When the left dismisses these voices, we run the risk of reinforcing the false, but effective, narrative that Seattle progressives do not care about the concerns of communities of color. It’s why we should meet these perspectives with curiosity, not dismissal. 

“I think people feel a lot safer than before,” CID resident Gary Lee told the Northwest Asian Weekly following a March 24th city council meeting where the Chinatown International District Public Safety Council presented a petition in support of the cameras. “Because they feel that there is some surveillance out there.”

To dismiss those fears would be arrogant. Cruel, even. But to flatten them, to treat them as a unified endorsement of surveillance, is something else entirely.

What if what we are witnessing is not consensus. It is the constraint that happens when people are asked to choose from a set of options shaped long before they arrived at the table.

What else can I do to feel safe?

That is the real question. And it is a question shaped not just by violence, but by absence.

We fund visibility because it’s legible. It can be installed, measured, and announced. It gives the appearance of action, produces metrics, and reassures us, no matter if it’s a public safety placebo.

What would it look like to expand that menu of options? What would it look like to invest, instead, in the conditions that make harm less likely in the first place: care-based first response, stable housing, youth programs, and community-led interventions that meet people before crisis, not after? 

Those essentials are the slow architecture of safety. And they’re sorely missing in the areas we’re told need more surveillance. Many neighborhoods in the CID and South Seattle fall below King County’s Self-Sufficiency Standard, meaning even working families often lack the income necessary to meet their basic needs. 

Civil rights attorney Alec Karakatsanis has spent years tracing how these moments unfold and how the stories we are told about safety begin to narrow our imagination before we even realize it. Our carceral state and the narrative machinery that sustains it, he argues, depends on our belief that punishment, and its quieter cousin, surveillance, is the primary response to social problems. So it floods the public with narratives that make that belief feel natural.

“To sustain a system like this, you have to tell stories about what people are supposedly getting in return, for all that violence and spending,” says Karakatsanis, who authored the book Copaganda. “The most effective propaganda isn’t outright falsehood, it’s selective truth.”

Proponents of cameras will point to recent surveillance footage that helped identify two men accused of brutally assaulting a 77-year-old stranger in downtown Seattle last month. But we should be careful not to confuse a tool that helps reconstruct violence after it occurs with a system capable of preventing violence in the first place.

Because the political sleight of hand around surveillance has always depended on collapsing those two ideas into one. A camera helps identify a suspect after a horrific assault, and suddenly the conclusion becomes: so cameras equate to safety. Make no mistake, those are not the same claims.

Once we accept documentation as synonymous with safety, we begin reorganizing public life around evidence collection rather than harm prevention.

The footage did not stop the man from being beaten or interrupt the attack. Most importantly it didn’t address whatever conditions produce two men willing to assault an elderly stranger in public. It documented the violence afterwards.

Once we accept documentation as synonymous with safety, we begin reorganizing public life around evidence collection rather than harm prevention.

But even if cameras occasionally improve clearance rates, we still have to ask what kind of society we are building around that logic.

If the answer to every failure of housing, healthcare, youth support, addiction treatment, and economic abandonment is ultimately “more cameras” then we aren’t solving violence. We’re simply adapting ourselves to living alongside it more efficiently. 

There is a pattern here, one we have learned to accept as common sense. We underinvest in the conditions that actually produce safety, and then we overinvest in the systems that respond to its absence. We abandon, and then monitor what abandonment produces.

Dr. Amy Barden, who leads Seattle’s CARE Department, puts it plainly: “Crime is often tied to mental or behavioral health crises… These are complex social issues, not simple visibility problems.”

And yet, visibility is what we fund.

Because visibility is legible. It can be installed, measured, and announced. It gives the appearance of action, produces metrics, and reassures us, no matter if it’s a public safety placebo. We keep shoveling it down our throat in hopes it might cure our societal illness.

But reassurance is not the same as safety. Legal scholar Brie McLemore underscores how thin the evidence for any connection between the two actually is. Surveillance technologies, she notes, have not consistently been shown to deter crime. Their effectiveness in solving serious violence remains inconclusive. What is less uncertain is what we give up in exchange:” privacy, autonomy, and control over how our lives are observed and interpreted.

“Surveillance itself can create harm and vulnerability… If we recognized that from the beginning, it would open the door to entirely different approaches to public safety,” says McLemore.

It should be noted that crime in the city has declined year over year, with overall incidents dropping by roughly 18 percent in 2025 compared to 2024. But public perception continues to be shaped by highly visible acts of violence. 

Support for more policing and surveillance in marginalized communities is not a contradiction of their history. It is a consequence of it.

Fear is not irrational. It is responsive and shaped by lived experience. And in communities where violence is not conceptual but concrete, where it has names, faces, funerals, and fear, it becomes its own kind of logic.

This is the part of the story we are often reluctant to tell: that support for more policing and surveillance in marginalized communities is not a contradiction of their history. It is a consequence of it.

If the only thing a system reliably delivers is surveillance, people will begin to call that safety. Not because it works, but because it is what exists.

Karakatsanis would tell you that this recurring return to surveillance and policing is not a policy failure at all. It is a narrative success. The most powerful stories in our society are the ones that teach us to look at harm and ask: who should we watch and control?

Meanwhile, the work that actually produces safety, remains under-built: housing stability, accessible mental health care, youth programs at the scale required to interrupt violence before it begins.

Once that frame is set, the range of possible answers collapses. We stop asking about the quiet, accumulative conditions that produce harm long before it becomes visible. We start asking how to catch it, and how to see it sooner next time.

Meanwhile, the work that actually produces safety, remains under-built: housing stability, accessible mental health care, youth programs at the scale required to interrupt violence before it begins. The slow, unglamorous investments that rarely make for clickbait, but instead invite scrutiny from editorial boards, skeptics, and anyone from who mistakes patience for weakness and care for naïveté.

There is a reason for that. They require us to confront inequality, and redistribute resources. To sit with the uncomfortable truth that violence is not an aberration, but a symptom. 

None of this is to dismiss the voices of those who walked into City Hall. Their fear is real. Their grief is real. Their desire for safety is not up for debate. But honoring that fear requires more than affirming the solutions placed in front of them. It requires asking why those are the only solutions on offer.

We are told this is a debate about cameras. It is not. It is a debate about what we believe safety is, and who is responsible for creating it.

Because safety is not simply the absence of harm. It is the presence of something else entirely, including stability, dignity, and connection. The conditions that make violence less likely to occur in the first place.

Those are not things you can install. They are things you have to build.

The post How Fear Becomes Policy appeared first on The Stranger.

Lethal Weapon 4 marked the shift in my film career from Hong Kong to Hollywood. Right off the bat, Hollywood gave me many opportunities to practice nonattachment. Before filming even began, the studio played hardball with the contract negotiation. First, they offered me a million dollars... More »

The post The Alternative Number Ones: Garbage’s “#1 Crush” appeared first on Stereogum.