MTV was once amazing! Not to go there or anything, but what I miss most are the cartoons. Aeon Flux, The Maxx, Liquid Television (Nietzsche Pops!), and yes, even Beavis and Butthead had its moments (like when they watch the music video for Bull in the Heather and think that Kathleen Hanna is a 5-year-old who can’t dance). But the show that came back to haunt me this year? Daria. Smart as a whip and cynical as a roomful of reporters, Daria “misery chick” Morgendorfer was my age when the show first aired, and quickly became my hero. Recently, I decided to revisit the show now that 10 years have passed, and happily found that it’s as funny and true now as it was back then.
This time around, my favorite characters aren’t Daria and her artsy sidekick Jane, but the adults. Hands-down, my favorite character is Mr. DeMartino, the Chrisopher Walken-inspired history teacher with some anger-management issues and a serious gambling problem. A classic example of DeMartino’s temperament can be seen in early on in Fizz Ed, an episode in which the school runs out of budget and seeks sponsorship from a cola company. Then there’s Helen – Daria’s workaholic lawyer mom, whose parenting techniques backfire terribly but hit the mark when it matters.
Until the music liscencing issues get worked out, the show survives only in bootlegs. In the meantime, the legend lives on; if the obsessiveness/slash quotient of the fan art is any measure of a work’s impact, then Daria rivals Harry Potter. Actually, the show itself presented a myriad of character alter egos at the end of every episode during the credits. Every week, familiar denizens of the Daria-verse transformed into R. Crumb characters, historical figures, athletes, dinosaurs and canned vegetables. Amidst her turns as Mother Goose and Bella Abzug, Daria was sometimes shown in a more realistic context: a journalist, an author, a talk show host. Watching the credits roll, I always wondered: what will happen to Daria when she leaves high school? Is life really better after that? What will she be? What will I be? Now, I kinda know.
When you arrive the door will be open. Please come in close and lock the door and close the shades if they are still open. I will be in the bathroom and the door will be closed. Turn on the TV and the Nintendo. Remove all of your clothing. Turn off all lights in the room and kneel down on the bed so you are directly in the light of the TV.
After a bit of Goomba-stomping, platform-jumping, brick-smashing foreplay, Serious Business ensues:
When you reach the end of level one, make sure to trigger the fireworks. This is vital to the entire experience. I must hear the fireworks. When level 2 begins and Mario walks into the pipe, I will penetrate you.
But it’s not all fun and games! “I will continue having sex until the level ends. DO NOT take the secret level skip. If you die I will pull out and spank you until the level restarts.”
Creepy? Hilarious? Awesome? Fake? Whatever – I’ve found his soul mate!
“Pardon! Bonjour! Fromage!” (photo by Rafe Baron.)
One balmy summer’s eve a couple years ago, Herr Titler came into my life. I was standing in the wings of an ancient Brooklyn theater, reeling in the chaos of Amanda Palmer’s boisterous Fuck The Back Row film/music/theater revue night, when I beheld a broad-shouldered figure in a slinky cocktail gown and perilous high heels. With his sultry voice, his sharply parted/pomaded hair and villainous moustache, Titler was simultaneously demure yet forceful, domineering yet somehow… dainty. I tell ya, he KILLED it that night.
Having basked in his commanding presence, I have trouble understanding what zealots on either side of the ongoing Dr. Steel vs Dr. Horrible debate are getting their jodhpurs in such a twist over! For my money, Titler is all anyone could ever want in a singing musical madman, with the unexpected (but welcome) bonus of a truly fetching décolletage.
Like every other sentimental mooncalf who watched too many Merchant Ivory flicks as a young girl, I continue to allow the actor Julian Sands to occupy a very special place in my heart, despite everything. Never mind Warlock. Or Harem. Forget Boxing Helenaand Biker Mice From Mars. Put these sundries from your minds, my dears. Recall only A Room With A View, and Sands’ convincingly heterosexual ravishing of Helena Bonham Carter in a field of poppies.* It remains, to this day, one of my top picks for Most Romantic Moment in Cinema (seconded only by this tender scene from Myra Breckenridge).
I also happen to be a HYOOOGE fan of the Italian horror director, Dario Argento, so when I heard that he and Sands worked together ten years ago on an adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera, I was quite curious! Why had I never heard about this movie before? Why?! I promptly Netflixed it.
“I gotta be MEEEEEEE.” Julian Sands in Il Fantasma.
Why, oh, why, indeed. Yes, Sands and Argento work seamlessly together… in a So-Bad-it’s-a-Festering-Masterpiece kind of way, their combined efforts cradling the budding psychosexual genius of Asia Argento like two slices of moldy sourdough bread wrapped around a generous dollop of indeterminate ooze in a rat salad sandwich.
The movie is quite long, and something tells me few of you will appreciate the full length version as much as I did. Luckily, Genevieve, a brilliant columnist over at Defenestration Magazine, has provided us with this MST3K-worthy “abridged version”. I laughed, I cried, it was better than… that other Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. Enjoy:
I have this dear old chum in NYC who’s a bit of a troublemaker in the best possible way, and I’ve been pining to bring him into our Coilhouse endeavor for months now. A brilliant writer, teacher and libertine, he’s not afraid of asking difficult questions or enduring awkward silences, and has a knack of getting to the juicy, palpitating core of an ethos more swiftly than you can say “subvert the dominant paradigm.” He will make you smile, he will make you think, he will make you shift uncomfortably in your chair. Ladies and gents, he’s “Double Agent Oh No, Your Spy in NY”, and here is his premiere piece for Coilhouse, a provocative interview with Mark Mothersbaugh. Stay pruned for more upcoming features. – Mer
De-evolution in the 21st-Century: The Avant-Garde as Derriere-Garde
Whereas the “modern” sensibility envisions a future of ever-greater human freedom and understanding brought about by political, scientific, and aesthetic avant-gardistes who lead, educate, and shock us, some “post-modernists” mock these notions as harmful delusions. The concept of “de-evolution,” introduced by the postmodern “sound and vision” cultural cabal known as DEVO, suggests that human dependence on technology renders us increasingly dependent and dumb. Just recently, Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo showed some of his recent visual art at The Third Ward Gallery in Brooklyn. His show occasioned a conversation between me and Mothersbaugh on art, the culture of consumption, and the aesthetic avant-garde in post-modern times.
The avant-garde in the arts is historically rooted in the early 19th Century financial emancipation of artists from their patrons; Beethoven had the freedom to explore dissonance in his later works whereas Mozart wrote commissioned works.* Immediately, art came to occupy a place of greater personal expression and has had an enhanced potential to join the political avant-garde in challenging the received wisdom of the day. What, then, becomes of art and the avant-gardiste in 21st Century America?
Does de-evolution turn the avant-garde on its head so that it is now the derriere-garde? In other words, in a society growing dumber, do the most mass-produced and contrived artifacts of pop culture actually contain its most advanced ideas? Under de-evolution, are commercials the most revolutionary art form? Is the way to change a society based upon consumption through a “rear-garde” action – by planting subliminal messages through the subconscious, the Freudian backdoor?
What makes Viktoria “bizarre”? Is it her amputated leg? Is it the fact that she has an amputated leg and is still incredibly sexy? Or is it that she has an amputated leg and still considers herself a sexual person? Is this empowering? And to who? Surely the disabled are desexualized in this country, so it’s nice to see that challenged even, I suppose, in a magazine about weirdos. And yet, I suspect her sexuality is acceptable, fetishizable, only because she conforms to expectations of feminine beauty. In the big scheme of things, does she reproduce the standard of beauty, unattainable for most women, that crushes women’s self-esteem and sense of self-worth? And will disabled women, most of whom (like most non-disabled women) could never dream of being so beautiful, actually look at her and be able to identify? Or will this just draw attention to another way in which they don’t match up?
Now really, I think that SocImages went a little overboard with Viktoria (especially when they dismissed her comments about sexuality as “standard porn star talk”). Maybe it’s because I know her little better than they do, but I think that they oversimplify the genuine place that she comes from in choosing to be a model. However, they do bring up an important discussion that’s been nagging me for some time. What is an alternative model, and what is an alt model’s role in visual culture? In my life, at various points, I came up with 3 different definitions. I believe in each of them, and I have a problem with each of them as well. Here they are below. Which one resonates with you? Do you think it’s a combination of the three below, or something completely different? Opinions, please.
1. The model who challenges society’s notions of beauty.
I love these models, but the issue here is that, while they appear to push the boundaries of beauty in some direction, they usually wind up brutally reinforcing another traditional notion in the process. For example, trans models make us rethink gender/beauty, but with their self-presentation they usually reinforce the ideal of a sleek, hairless feminine figure, thus fueling the hair-removal industry. In fact, epilator-manufacturer Philips Norelco has already found a way to to capitalize on this to great effect – just watch this ad. And large models like Velvet D’Amour and skinny-by-comparison but still-considered-plus-size recent ANTM winner Whitney Thompson help to redefine weight in modeling, but what makes them “legitimately beautiful” in the eyes of the mainstream world is their “correct” bone structure, their blond hair. Without some “redeeming quality” of this sort, the world doesn’t recognize them as models, and wouldn’t even give them a shot at making a difference. Mainstream media often presents them as beautiful “in spite of,” not “because of.” While their individual messages are empowering (I love Velvet’s interviews), I don’t find our culture’s use of these models empowering at all.
Impeccable live sound, eye-poppingly elaborate costumes and hot ladies – what more could you ask of a Japanese visual rock band? Alright, so the ladies aren’t exactly ladies, but blast it, can they shred! These days, most old school visual bands have, for better or worse, abandoned their frills and velvet for a more modern and somewhat more masculine look. I didn’t think I’d ever get to personally witness the kind of gloriously indulgent showmanship as I did last night.
Versailles in full regalia. Click image for a large version.
As it turns out, while Japan’s visual rock scene’s been winding down for a long time now, some goodness is yet to be reaped. Yesterday this was proven once and for all at a sold out show here in Hollywood. My jaw hit the floor when Versailles, a supergroup formed last year from ex-members of Lareine, Sufuric Acid and Sugar Trip, entered the stage. I was a wee kid in a candy-shop as this straight out of an acid-tinged Anne Rice cosplay vision appeared before the shrieking audience. The hair? Huge. The outfits? Hand-beaded and perfectly gaudy. The singer? Oh yes, he wore a cape. And pantaloons. And heels. Where the hell was Poppycock?
They had this “visual” thing, undisputedly, down. It did not end there, however. Unlike another supergroup I saw live last year, Versailles worked it. There was no phoning it in for these poised professionals; not a missed note, cracked heel or torn hem – the show was excellent from beginning to end, powder breaks and all. Between Hizaki and Teru’s metal guitars, Kamijo‘s crooning and intense cape maneuvering I was reminded of Barry Manilow, Las Vegas and Lestat in all the right ways. Watch the ten-minute opus below and be transported to a darquer side of French royalty (had French royalty been Japanese and used flatirons) as you bask in the grandeur of Versailles.
Phyllis Lyon (left) and Del Martin, lesbian activists who have been together for over 50 years, embrace during their marriage ceremony at San Francisco City Hall in 2004. (Chronicle photo by Liz Mangelsdorf )
It’s a beautiful, balmy evening here in the east bay, but the mood in my neighborhood is uncharacteristically quiet, even somber. In a few hours, the California Supreme Court will publicly rule on the legality of this state’s ban on gay marriage. The tension is palpable.
In 2004, in a remarkable act of civil disobedience, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom allowed thousands of gay and lesbian couples to wed before the courts stepped in and disallowed the marriage licenses. Debate has been raging ever since, with civil rights activists and SF city officials challenging the state family code law that restricts marriage to a man and a woman, and a SF trial judge declaring the ban unconstitutional. In 2006, a conflicted appeals court upheld the ban, stating that it should be up to voters or legislators to legalize same-sex marriages, rather than judges.
Conservative interest groups and the state attorney general are defending the ban, and the justices have remained divided. It could go either way. Regardless of what happens at 10am, Pacific Standard Time, it’s going to be a historic day.
