Womens’ correctional facilities are the ultimate sleep-over party with all the trappings: pajamas, bunk beds, in-fighting, sloppy joes, getting touched up under the covers, and being told when to go to bed. Some prisons even let the girls play dress-up. Miss America, meet Miss Demeanor:
To be fair, it’s primarily inmates who organize these shows. It’s an increasingly popular phenomenon, with womens’ prisons hosting beauty pageants in Russia, Brazil, Peru, Honduras, Angola and the Philippines, amongst others, with working titles like Miss Captivity. The idea is to ‘boost’ the self-esteem of (at least the better looking portion of) the prison population.
There is arguably an obvious exploitative angle in this, one which perpetuates gender and class divisions in a place where women are their most vulnerable. The media is only too happy to join in, throwing the spotlight on the tragedy of a pretty young woman in distress, putting herself on display. A beauty contest under these conditions probably does next to nothing for the self esteem or prospects of the contestants in any meaningful way.
It’s almost a perverse caricature of a parole board hearing in a Van Halen video, an effort to charm your way into garnering favour from you captors and respite from your situation by any measure necessary. Having said that, spending years trapped like an animal in a gray, clinical dorm framed in razor wire, any warm-blooded woman would thirst for anything beautiful in her world. Participation in these productions transiently refashions the contestant from a shoplifter or drug addict into a graceful, sophisticated and beautiful person of seeming worth, if only for one evening. Who could condemn the contestants for their humble aspirations and for enjoying an event which breaks up the tedium of Gilligan’s Island re-runs on prison TV?
Brothers and sisters, I have a terrible confession; I was once A GAY. Lord have mercy! Lucikly, my parents had the good sense to ship me off to Love in Action, an ex-gay recovery camp for teens in Memphis, Tennesse. I learned many things at this camp; that homosexuality doesn’t exist, that men with bios like this and this make great mentors for kids, and that a 4-week course called WIVES’ TRACK can change your life forever. The reason I’m telling you all this is because I recently re-watched the 2000 film But I’m a Cheerleader and I was outraged. Outraged! How dare they ridicule something as holy as conversion therapy?
The entire cast is going straight to Hell: RuPaul (as camp counselor, completely out of drag), Clea Duvall (thou shall not tempt me!), Mink Stole, Natasha Lyone (damned since ’86 for appearing in Pee-Wee’s Playhouse), Bud Cort (Harold from Harold and Maude – here in a dad role, and I can’t believe how much he’s aged), and all the rest of them. Inspired by that filthy pervert John Waters, the film’s mockery of gender identity and the sacred institution of marriage is unforgivable.
The team that created this film has a new film out called Itty Bitty Titty Comittee. Lord Jesus, it hurt to even type that! As soon as I get the chance to see this one, expect an angry write-up. In the meantime, I urge you all to focus your anger at Singapore for frowning upon cosmetic products that promote Our Lord. For shame!
I’d love to be one of the greatest actors in the world. But acting often equates with fame. If you could be an actor, yet not be famous, that would be brilliant. – Jaye Davidson
I do believe I feel a painting coming on.
The reluctant star is a well-worn concept in the movie business. Half-shielding ones face while making an “unexpected” appearance in some hotspot, huge sunglasses and faining horror after accidentally flashing one’s bare crotch to paparazzi are de rigueur these days. I’d be hard-pressed to fall for such pretense delivered by anyone except perhaps Jaye Davidson, had he not disappeared entirely.
As our photo-evidence shows, Jaye is a deserving icon of sexual ambiguity. A striking unique appearance combined with natural acting talent landed this sometimes-destitute London fashion assistant three film roles and even an Oscar nomination, but more interesting is just how much Jaye genuinely hated his sudden fame.
Before The Crying Game even started filming in 1991 he attempted to break his contract, the only thing stopping him was advance money he’d already spent. After the Oscar nomination and media hullabaloo that followed he went off the radar, saying “The reason I haven’t got an agent is so that no one can contact me to offer me a film part”.
We’ve never met, and your ashes have long since been scattered above Manhattan, so I guess it’s pretty weird for me to be writing you this letter. Then again, everyone always says you seemed to hail from another planet. Let’s pretend for a minute that you didn’t die alone in a hospital bed in 1983. It’s comforting to imagine that you simply returned to your home world and maybe, somehow, you can read this.
If you were still here, you’d be 64 years young today. No doubt your friends would be gathered around you at the piano to sing Kurt Weill and Chubby Checkers tunes. Perhaps you’d share some of your delicious homemade pastries with them and spend hours reminiscing about those hazy, crazy post-punk days in NYC.
Ruff and ready.
I wish I could fold time and space to sit in the balcony at Irving Plaza the night your brief, bright star ascended during a four night New Wave Vaudeville series. It was 1978. Up until then, you’d been supporting yourself as a pastry chef for well-to-do Hamptons types. They say that you emerged from the fog machine vapors like an alien from another planet, stiff and somber in a silver space suit and clear vinyl cape. My old friend Jim Sclavunos was there, manning the spotlight. He once told me that when you opened your Clara Bow mouth and sang, no one believed it was really you. The MC had to keep assuring the audience that you were not lip-syncing…
I never thought I’d ever see my two favorite music scenes, riot grrrl and industrial, intersect more than than when I saw Bonfire Madigan open for Laibach in 2004. There she was, pink hair in pigtails and stripey socks and her screeching cello, with ominous black banners of gear-contained NSK crosses hanging on either side. But that very special industrial-meets-riot-grrrl moment was matched (if not surpassed) when I received a link from a group called Experiment Haywire this morning:
Does that sound like Kathleen Hanna’s long-lost EBM project or what? It’s not polished, but neither was riot grrrl, and that’s exactly what made it charming. The musician behind Experiment Haywire, Rachel, has also started a record label called machineKUNT. While I’m not crazy about the name (I just hate that spelling! I hate it!), the idea is great. Their first release, a compilation called “Extreme Women from the Dark Future,” features various female EBM musicians. It’s a nice contrast the dumb, misogynistic “Shut Up and Swallow” bullshit of bands like Combichrist.
The idea of women in industrial music isn’t new; they were there from the very beginning. Most female EBM musicians who came before, such as Shikhee from Android Lust, deliberately made their gender a non-issue in interviews. That was a powerful and positive statement of a different sort, but it’s interesting to see someone, perhaps for the first time, make gender the primary focus of their industrial/EBM project.
And just because I love it, since we’re on the topic of riot grrrl, here are Jem and the Holograms performing Le Tigre’s Deceptacon:
Have you ever been filled with the burning desire to see your favourite ’80s rocker step out of a massive, glowing vag and use his tongue to make sweet love to another man’s eyeball?
I knew it. You people disgust me.
I give to you the 1993 tour-de-force of homo-erotic gluttony that is Seth et Holth. Set to the backdrop of some actually rather wicked industrial rock, the 43 minutes of beautiful confusion that follows is staged by one Hide (X-Japan) and Tusk (Zi:Kill) as Angels who communicate with their blood, struggling after being cast out of heaven and eventually executed by earthlings. It’s kinda like a less pretentious Cremaster Cycle done in the style of a New Wave music video but with cooler-looking dudes.
Don’t make too much of an effort to ‘get’ this movie — seriously, it would make David Lynch cry — as it presents itself to be more of a visual and musical experiment. It’s worth a look as an unusual piece of rock nostalgia alone.
Dee is an unknown superstar, casting songs like blessings… She is one of the most remarkable and unclassifiable artists I have ever encountered. Muse, manic, maniac, possessed by such beauty and pain, so intensely real and yet so mythical. Songster, trickster, breaker of hearts, with songs so cruel and kind that it leaves me spinning.
–David Tibet of Current 93
A gusty spring evening in Manhattan in the late 90s. It’s sort of dead in the East Village, not a lot of people out. I’m sitting at some sidewalk cafe nursing a hangover when I hear the distant wheeze of an accordion and this implacable, warbling voice. At first I figure it’s music on the cafe stereo so I don’t look up, but I’m thinking… who on earth does that vocalist remind me of? Mel Torme? Biff Rose? My great auntie? Such an oddly comforting sound. Gradually it dawns on me that the music is actually coming from up the street and getting louder. I finally look up from my cappuccino to see this wild-haired, cat-faced lady gliding up to the curb, perched 12 feet in the air on a custom-built tricycle with an enormous gilded harp lashed to the back.
She parks her trike next to a Harley Davidson, carefully dismounts with her accordion and croons a sad, sweetly funny song about a sailor… or a girl… a small crowd gathers, beaming her beatific smile back at her. At the end of her ditty she graciously curtsies, accepting coins and small bills from all of us, then gets back on her tricycle and pedals away, cackling insanely. She is an irresistible creature. The cheers and applause continue long after her waving form has disappeared around the corner.
Fast forward a couple of years. A band called Antony and the Johnsons is taking the city by storm, and I recognize the harpist by her contagious cackle. Her name is Baby Dee, and apparently she’s made it her life’s calling to charm the pantaloons off everyone she meets, including Will Oldham, Michael Gira, Marc Almond and David Tibet, the last of whom started releasing Dee’s solo albums on his record label Durtro a few years ago.
It’s Monday morning again. Drag yourself up from that Ambien fog with some wholesome, manly arena rock:
(Broken link updated.)
Fuck a bunch of Flashdance. 1984 belongs to Billy Squier and his no-holds-barred performance in the “Rock Me Tonight” video.
In all seriousness, I give this man infinite kudos for venturing waaay out of his comfort zone. Shame on all the repressed homosexuals who renounced him at the time. Take into account the concupiscent gender confusion of those hazy days. Times were a’changing for classic stadium rockers. Let no one cast a stone at Budokan Billy for trying to scramble aboard big hair metal’s bandwagon, for who among us has not been seduced by some unfortunate 80s trend, either in their unquestioning past, or the ironic now? (Not I, says the girl clad in fluffy mohair legwarmers.)
This dance is a good dance. A dance of reckless abandon, vulnerable and radiant. On this dour Monday morning while the coffee brews and the sun beats down upon my satin sheets, I will do your dance, Billy Squier, and do it right.
(Wearing elbow pads, of course. With the shades drawn.)
Comrade Lev has left on a special Coilhouse mission for about a week. While obligations prevent me from saying more, site rest assured it is a task of high caliber!
Now, in conjunction with this post, let us dwell for a moment on Polish artist Maciej Osika. Osika has dedicated several years of his photographic career to portraying himself as a beautiful feminine creature. These stirring images are a combination of digital and film work, intended to display beauty that is other, beyond standard queues of male or female. Exposed shoulders and silk combined with closely cropped hair in the image below are a good example of this, devoid of dramatic makeup and hair typically associated with cross-dressing. Maciej says of these portraits: “This does not mean that I want to be a woman at all costs: all I really want is to show that by photographs I can be beautiful for at least a moment. But the beauty contained in my portraits is merely a play of light and shadow…and I decide whether in the given situation I will be beautiful or ugly.”
What follows is one of the sexiest commercials I have ever seen. May not be work-safe depending on where you work, but there’s no nudity.
There’s also another ad in this series, but the one above is the one that truly stands out. This ad caused a predictable amount of discomfort for the conservatives, but what’s more interesting is the debate it sparked amongst people interested in queer/gender theory. When the word “hir” gets used, you know it’s Serious Business! Love it.
