 Media Credit: Lisle Alderton Monica Moree, aka Dusty Garner, performs as a DJ at Club Heat in PJs Bar earlier this semester. Club Heat is Manhattan's only gay night at a bar. [Click to enlarge]
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 Media Credit: Lisle Alderton Garner works at PJ's Bat on Monday night, pouring drinks and enjoying live music. [Click to enlarge]
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 Media Credit: Lisle Alderton Dusty Garner first visited Manhattan as a national board representative of his fraternity Delta Lambda Phi to open a local chapter. [Click to enlarge]
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Dusty Garner is more than just a set of pretty legs and really big knockers.
"When I'm out and about, I'm actually a horribly shy person," said Garner, the accomplished drag queen, restaurant owner and full-time student.
The regular blond-haired, blue-eyed, jeans wearer said while he's too shy to even go up and talk to people when he goes out, Garner's personality changes 180 degrees when he turns into his counterpart Monica Moree.
"Put on a wig and a dress and about a pound of makeup, and I can do anything," he said. "I'm fearless all of a sudden."
Garner started dressing in drag when he was 15 in Wichita. He thought that's what all gay men did.
"In my head, I had this vision of there being this kind of master sign-up sheet [for dressing in drag] and everybody, you know, took turns putting their name on the list," he said.
However, by the time he realized not all gay men wear bras and skirts, he was hooked by the fun, entertainment and feeling of needing to perform that comes along with being a drag queen.
While Garner said he fits comfortably in women's clothing, his parents had a hard time understanding and accepting his new cross-dressing hobby. He said his mother was afraid he wanted to become a woman - which Garner said was not what he wanted at all. He sees dressing in drag as a chance to take on a different personality.
"For me, it was an opportunity to not just be a character, but to be a character that I created from scratch," he said. "I created [Monica Moree] background; I created her mannerisms, her personality, her zest, her zeal. Everything was of my creation."
High heels, hand-shaped foam "hip" pads, prosthetic cleavage, a denim and stainless steel corset and tight dresses aren't everything up Garner's sleeve.
Before landing at K-State, he lived in Amsterdam, where he did drag; Las Vegas, where he was host to "V the Ultimate Variety Show" at the Venetician; and he also resided in New York City and London as an assistant publicist for the theatrical version of "The Lion King." Most recently, he worked as a flight attendant for National Airlines out of Las Vegas and Comair out of Cincinnati.
Garner said he started coming to Manhattan about four and a half years ago as a national board representative of Delta Lambda Phi National Social Fraternity, a progressive fraternity, to help activate a local chapter.
"When I first came here, I was surprised at how conservative Manhattan was," he said. "It's fun to watch that pendulum swing back the other direction. It wasn't that long ago that Manhattan was a fairly liberal place to be. There used to be a gay bar in Aggieville, for God's sake. It wasn't so long ago; it can't be that unfathomable for people."
Garner started his college career as a political science student last summer. Along with being a full-time student and doing several drag shows each month, Garner also began bartending at PJ's Bar in Aggieville, and in the process, discovered an opportunity waiting to happen.
"I happened to be poking around in the back [of PJ's] one day, and I happened to notice that there's a full kitchen back there that hasn't been used in more than a year," he said. "I thought 'that's just money going out the window.'"
And along came Big Momma's Grill, a hamburger-and-fries joint within PJ's. As Garner himself admits, despite some medical obstacles, he's a mover and shaker, and he looks for opportunities everywhere around him.
As a two-time survivor of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, Garner just recently found out his cancer is back with what appears to be colon cancer.
"I don't do anything small," he said sarcastically. "If you're gonna do it, do it big. I'm also HIV-positive.
"I was raised to believe everything that doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, and I look at things more as opportunities."
He said he does everything he can to help and look out for other people.
"Instead of wallowing in what's going on in my world, I'm very much a, 'Well, let's see what we can do to make this a better situation for other people' kinda guy," he said. "I very much try to use myself as an empowerment tool for other people. I want to inspire people to do things, to get off their asses and make a difference in the world around them."
"The bigger the hair, the bigger the falsies, the bigger the hips, the tinier the waist, the better. And the bigger the jokes, the more you can make people laugh."
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