This kind of second line rhythm comes out of the New Orleans tradition of the jazz funeral. On the way to the cemetery, the bands play dirges, slow and solemn. But after the internment, on the way out, after they have “cut the body loose” the music abruptly changes as does the mood of the mourners. It becomes raucous and festive, with a second line of dancers following the band as the crowd shifts into a full-on celebration of the life of the departed.
Iko Iko (Jockamo) was written in 1953 by James “Sugar Boy” Crawford. It describes a confrontation between two groups of Mardi Gras Indians. It has been performed, covered and recorded by dozens of artists and has become a NOLA standard. Here the Neville Bros. perform a live medley at the New Orleans Jazzfest 2010. Oh…Cyril is the super-hot one.
Soft Cell: just another way of saying “differentially permeable membrane.” Biology’s version of the club doorman. You get In. But You: Keep Out. No, really. Here’s slinky kinky Marc Almond as a young thing back in the day, fetishizing and valorizing monstrosity in the underground hit Sex Dwarf. David Ball on synthesizer. Together, they were Soft Cell, best known for their hit cover of Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go. Coming at you live, this gem was also covered by Nine Inch Nails, among others.
Originally published in 1981 as part of the album Non Stop Erotic Cabaret, the lyrics to this kink classic by Marc Almond and David Ball:
Sex Dwarf…Isn’t it nice
Sugar and spice
Luring disco dollies
To a life of vice
I could make a film
And make you my star
You’d be a natural
The way you are
I would like you on
A long black leash
I would parade you
Down the high street
You’ve got the attraction
You’ve got the pulling power
Walk my little doggy
Walk my little sex dwarf
(Here, doggy, doggy)
We could make a scene
We’d be a team
Making the headlines
Sounds like a dream
When we hit the floor
You just watch them move aside
We will take them
For a ride of rides
They all love your
Miniature ways
You know what they say
About small boys
Sex dwarf…
I’m in my Rolls Royce
Look it’s so huge
It’s big and it’s gold
With my dumb chauffeur
Looking to procure
Run little doggy
Lure a disco dolly
Run my little sex dwarf
I feel so lonely
Get my little camera
Take a pretty picture
Sex dwarf
In a gold Rolls
Making it with the dumb chauffeur
Sex dwarf…
We could make an outfit
For my little sex dwarf
To match the gold Rolls
And my dumb chauffeur
We’ll all look so good
We’ll knock ’em cold
Knocking ’em cold
In black and gold
We can have playtime
In my little playroom
Disco dollies
My sex dwarf
And my dumb chauffeur
I would like you on a long black lead
You can bring me all the things I need
Friend of this site Tim’m T. West is a fly-brotha. He is also a poet, a philosopher, a professor and a gay rapper. Et cetera and then some. This is the video version of his score for Hearts Break Open, an independent feature film that asks the question what would Jesus do if he were alive today…and an HIV+ gay man. “What would be his cross to bear? How would we crucify him? Would he crucify himself?”
It’s called Smile. Sure it is. A cold-war gumshoe dandy delivers ear-splitting wails while theatrically clutching a violin we only hear simulated on the high end of his five-octave range. A noose swings provocatively, a caged canary escapes, glass shatters. This one from the always strange and inventive Vitas Bumak. Nostalgia, loss, grief and rage filtered through an arch sense of cornball drama. The stuff of opera and life and good enough reason to…Smile! More Vitas here and here.
Friend of this site Mx. Justin V. Bond is featured in this week’s New Yorker magazine. Congratulations, Justin!
In “Justin Bond performs his life and ours”, theater critic Hilton Als runs through a history of Mx. Bond’s early history, focusing on the “Kiki and Herb” days, and reviews the current show at Joe’s Pub, before summing things up: “Bond’s message: we must celebrate diversity, or die.” Good words for today – or any day. New Yorker requires a subscription to read full articles on-line, but you can see an abstract of the article here.
In celebration of the past, enjoy this classic Kiki and Herb video of their vintage rendition of Total Eclipse of the Heart. Beautifully produced and directed by Victoria Leacok. For recent work, there is the very biting New Depression. A live version. And in anticipation of the future, check out Bond’s site. It’s been a ride. And it’s not over yet. Hang on tight!
This anonymous group of soldiers re-does The Beach Boys Kokomo with a hyper-critical anti-war edge. Plus they dance with their shirts off.
“Croatia, Albania, somewhere near Romania. It’s Euro. And NATO. Why the hell do we go? Somalia, Grenada, a rescue in Kuwait, well screw you, Rwanda. Wish we could have helped you.
Protecting human rights. Air strikes and firefights. And we’ll be dropping our bombs wherever Serbian bad guys hide, right up from Kosovo.”
So it’s a dated war. Meet the new war. Same as the old war. These guys got it.
For a parody of Lady Gaga’s Telephone by soldiers in Afghanistan, click here.
“You’re driving me crazy and I can’t think str8. Be my mate.” Sexy Aussie Gay Leather themed music video produced at the Laird Hotel in August, 2010. Loka Nunda. St Vladimir. With Michael Lauer. Camera Steve Radic. Vedic Beats! Hot stuff from Down Under.
The venerable and generally conservative National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian has been playing things a little closer to the edge of late. A 2009 exhibit on the self-portraiture of Marcel Duchamp has been followed with this year’s “Hide and Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” – a show broadly based around love on the Gay side. After being pressured by The Catholic League and assorted unnamed “conservatives” the museum has removed the David Wojnarowicz video “A Fire in my Belly” a beautiful and chilling piece with music by Diamanda Galas and which includes an eleven-second sequence of ants crawling on a crucifix.
Gallery Director Martin Sullivan has issued the following statement:
“Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” is an exhibition of 105 works of art that span more than a century of American art and culture. One work, a four-minute video portrait by artist David Wojnarowicz (1987), shows images that may be offensive to some. The exhibition also includes works by highly regarded artists such as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Thomas Eakins and Annie Leibowitz.
I regret that some reports about the exhibit have created an impression that the video is intentionally sacrilegious. In fact, the artist’s intention was to depict the suffering of an AIDS victim. It was not the museum’s intention to offend. We have removed the video.
I encourage people to visit the exhibition online or in the building. Public comments can be directed to National Portrait Gallery PO Box 37012 MRC 973 Washington, D.C. 20013 or npgnews@si.edu Martin Sullivan, Director, National Portrait Gallery.”
In reference to screening the video in the first place, Mr. Sullivan writes that it was “not the museum’s intention to offend.” Fair enough. We wonder, though, what the intention was in removing the piece. In placating one set of sensibilities, the Gallery has managed to offend a lot of other sensibilities and a lot of other people. Our people. Gay people. On World AIDS Day. Charming, Mr. Sullivan. And thank you…for the clarification. Anytime a group acquires a bit of political clout, false allies emerge. It is important for us to know who are friends really are. Friends don’t throw friends under the wheels of the Vatican Express. Or the Happy Rainbow Pride Float. Shame on the Smithsonian and the NPG. They sure blew it this time. Really icky! Not fun and sticky…
A good counterpoint to the feel-good Bush love-fest splashing across the media grid in response to the launch of his biography. As Kiki of the notorious Kiki and Herb, Justin Bond tore into the media-fed adulation that erupted at the passing of former president Reagan. “The legacy, the legacy…” s/he snarled while recounting his long silence during the devastating peak years of the AIDS crisis. “That’s the legacy, Ladies and Gentlemen!” Bond has shed the Kiki persona for now, but the fierce political wit that has long infused his performances remains strong as ever.
Enjoy the Bush book. I suggest reading it by candlelight with a little cat-food pate and a juice-box. You can sit on a milk crate. Of course, you won’t find these things at your local market because it went out of business. But you can get them all at Walmart along with a wave from the elderly social security recipient who really needs that greeter job…to buy that cat food, those juice boxes and that book. It is the New Depression after all. And it is FUN, dammit!
The Gay Highwaymen 