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There was actually a bit of debate about whether or not to remain at the foot of the stage when The Cramps finally came on and the inevitable moshing began. The debate wasn't between me and Horehound; as far as I was concerned, I was his date (platonic though it was, since he's into girls about as much as I'm into boys), and wherever he wanted to stand was fine with me. Rather, it was Horehound with himself. He'd gotten knocked around pretty well at the Buzzcocks the previous evening, also at The Fillmore, and wasn't sure he was up for it again. If nothing else, he wanted to be get a good look at Lux's shoes, and he also insisted that Lux simply had to get a look at me. I did probably fuss with my appearance before going out more than I should have. But, you know, I knew there'd be a wide array of ego-killing girls, so I wanted to feel like I'd at least tried to hold my own. I wore an Annie's tank top which I'd converted into a crop top—Annie told me she does the same thing, since they're too long to begin with—and a cheerleader skirt which I'd found at the Salvation Army in Fresno. (Though I like the skirt, I narrowly missed on what would have been a real score: a cheerleader skirt from Bullard High which was several too sizes smaller than I'll ever be. You'd have to have grown up in Fresno to understand why that would be significant, especially since I went to Edison.) A number of people commented on the blouse, including one from the bartender who said that Annie had been at the Buzzcocks show and was expected there again. Never did see her, sadly.
You can dress to the eights Anyway, Horehound and I may not have lasted more than a couple songs in if it weren't for our guardian angel, a woman standing behind us who cushioned most of the blows from the flailing moshers. The fact that she was full-figured helped considerably; it would have hurt a lot more to have someone as bony as myself constantly slamming into my back. Only once did I get pushed into the stage hard enough to squeeze an "oof" out of me, and I know that it wasn't intentional on her part. Thanks to her, we were able to ride it out, although Horehound was more than a little punch-drunk when it was over. That probably would have been case wherever we stood though, given the high energy of the show. It was one of the wildest things I've seen on stage in a long time, even moreso than Penis Flytrap, since there was nothing along the lines of props or effects—it was all in Lux's energy. He was wearing fairly tight salmon-colored snakeskin pants and matching shirt, with black PVC gloves and (I must admit) fairly nice shoes, plus a lot of foundation and eye makeup. I hadn't seen any pictures of him later than the seventies, but for some reason I was expecting to be a little more...I don't know. Butch or something. Not that I'm complaining. (Of all things, it made me wish I could have seen one of the very early Marilyn Manson shows, back when they played smaller venues like that.) Probably owing to the fact that I'm tall and striking and was in plain view, Lux sang directly to me quite a few times. (I got the impression from Horehound that he did it even more than I realized.) I also had his ass and crotch in my face on at least one occasion each. For the latter, I wasn't aware of it at first; I was rocking out with my eyes closed, and I opened them to find his bulge filling my field of vision. I think the line of the song had something to do with his genitals, but I could be mistaken about that. When he moved back away I made a show of grabbing at them (and missing by a large margin), just so nobody would think I completely wasted the opportunity. Again, the fact that I'm tall probably helped keep me on his radar, moreso than the sullen little goth girl (me being a big perky goth girl, by contrast) standing to my left, who was at least a head shorter than me but almost made up for it with her long fake eyelashes. For "Fucked Up"—as in "let's get," one of the few Cramps songs I know well—Lux kneeled down, put his gloved right hand on the left side of my face, and sang the opening to me. Feeling not unlike a cat, I leaned into the glove and nuzzled it, at least as much as is possible with wet PVC. It was a Moment, and I was going to milk it for all it was worth. (Horehound had a Moment of his own the night before. It was towards the end of the show, and he'd moved away from the front stage for some breathing room. He was already exhausted, but soon found himself doing what he termed "gay swing dancing" to the song "Ever Fallen In Love With Someone You Shouldn't've Fallen In Love With?" with a gorgeous young man. At that Moment, he very much knew the answer to the question.) Lux has a thing about slamming the microphone stand on the stage and walking away, leaving it in such a way that it wobbles and occasionally falls down. I always kept an eye on it, in case it decided to fall in our direction, and inevitably it did. Now, in order to keep myself steady against the buffeting waves of the crowd, my right hand had a firm grip on a conveniently placed handle on Lux's monitor. So when I saw the stand coming down at us, my left hand shot out and caught it. A few seconds later Lux turned around and saw that I was holding the stand, so I (wobbled? bounced? is there a proper verb?) it back to him. Horehound said I was very professional about it, like a part of the show, plus mention I probably spared him a broken nose. Not bad for a myopic right-hander who'd taken her glasses off for vanity reasons. All this, and I haven't said a word about Poison Ivy Rorshach? That's not right.
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It is not my custom to be at the front of the starge at a punk show. That, after all, is where the mosh pit usually forms. Not particularly. Yet, that's where I tend to find myself, since that's where the people I accompany want to be, like when Maddy and I saw Penis Flytrap in January. This time around, it was Horehound at The Cramps. The first opening act was, as Horehound described them, a pale, watered down ripoff of Iggy and the Stooges. (They weren't too original fashionwise, either; the lead singer's style was Alice Cooper-slash-Marc Bolan, the guitarist was Sid Vicious, the bass was Duran Duran and the drummer was Oasis.) The music wasn't bad, just extremely unoriginal. On the other end of the originality scale was the second opening act, the one I was particularly looking forward to, Mr. Quintron. Loud and raucous and discordant, a one-man band from New Orleans on organ and high hat. Plenty fun, although it was almost as amusing to watch the vaguely punk kids to my left who put so much effort into not enjoying it. They were there to see The Cramps, damnit, and would dare show interest in anyone else. Now, by virtue of being among the first people in line, Horehound and I were at the front center of the stage. And rumor has it I'm hard to miss. So it's no great surprise that when The Cramps finally came on, lead singer Lux Interior did in fact fail to miss me...
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From my notebook on Thursday night.
6/5/03And it just sorta ends, as most things do.
9:48pm My gay boyfriend Horehound is taking me to see The Cramps tomorrow night. He's so cool.
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The fly0r for the reading on my birthday. One of them, anyway, as they're in several different colors. The majority of them have the partial borders along a side or two like this one. It's arguably sloppy, but I kinda like the asymmetricality of it. (That's a convenient excuse, isn't it? "It's not sloppy—it's asymmetrical!") (Okay, Invader ZIM fans, get it out of your system: "It's not stupid—it's advanced!") Anyway, it's remarkable how cheaply you can get a quasi-slick look with colored paper and the "negative" option on a copier. It costs the same but uses up a lot of ink, though, so be sure to do it at Kinko's and not an indie place.
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I don't know what the odds were. I'm not sure I want to know. They're probably incalcuable, like the odds of, say, a dog spontaneously transforming into basketball-sized onion with a laser-guided cannon. (Just an example. I'm sure you can come up with something really unlikely f you try.) I'm not going to say it can't possibly happen, but, let's face it, it seemed improbable at best. Here was I, being so sooo original—who would think to wear a Lexington Club tank top to Death Guild? It's wild! It's wacky! It's an unexpected juxtaposition of two seldom-overlapping subcultures which will surely lead to unpredictable hilarity and hijinx! Except someone else had the same idea. On, it should go without saying, the same night. That'll teach me to think I'm any kind of a rebel. Perki asked if I've heard of Meow TV. Whooboy. Something is going to need to be said about that. I got to Death Guild around ten, after a dinner with Buz which Dax had arranged but wasn't actually able to attend. (She said it was because it took so long to get dressed, and when I finally saw her, I believed it. Even by her usual standards, she was well constructed.) By midnight, though, I'd decided to go the Lex. I reckoned I was dressed for it, if nothing else. Besides, part of the incentive for going out in the first place was to put out fly0rs for the reading, and my work there was done. (Not the only reason, of course, but it does somewhat explain the unusual occurence of me going out to the same club two weeks in a row. It's very '99 of me.) It wasn't that there weren't friendly faces at Death Guild, because there were, but I was feeling the need for a scene change. The first face I saw upon arriving at the Lex was Sini Anderson, with whom I've crossed paths many times—we even party-hopped together with Lynnee this last New Year's Eve—but have never been properly introduced. (It's a bitch to keep track of these things; I just operate under the assumption that I've met most people in these circles and simply don't remember their names, and it usually turns out to be true.) Sini said that she's heard me read a number of times at K'vetch and really likes my writing. Being a total slut I always appreciate compliments, but coming from a founder of Sister Spit, it means a lot. We exchanged fly0rs, and I gave her a chapbook. Although I probably should be, I'm not in the habit of carrying chapbooks with me; I had it because I'd originally meant to give it to a girl I'd met at K'vetch the night before. When I went by her work earlier in the day for that very reason (not to mention it was a coffehouse and Maddy wanted something to drink), she wasn't there. So, I gave it to Sini, and not five minutes later, the girl walked in. Given the size of this town, and especially the size of the dyke community, the odds of that happening seemed a little more calculable. The Lex is a good place to sit and compose, especially during the week after midnight when it's died down a bit. I'll have to remember that. I do wonder, though, what it says about me that at the only full-on lesbian bar in town, a guy hit on me. Again, I probably don't want to know.
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It's scary to think that someone who actually does it for a living is reading my writing. Caitlín R. Kiernan, to be precise, who was even kind enough to link to my silly little page in her journal. Of course, all the typos and grammatical errors and general stylistic gaffes (I swear, I can't stick to a tense to save my life) leap out in stark relief. No, really, I do know how to structure a sentence. Usually. It reminds me of something Horehound told me last night regarding the previous K'vetch. One of the features was a big-time slam poet, and evidently he was bothered by the audience's reaction. It wasn't that they weren't polite—they're always polite at the very least, and usually much more—but, perhaps, that they were too polite. He didn't get the energetic response he's accustomed to, and it messed with his head. Horehound's theory was that, while the performance was polished and quite professional, that's not necessarily what the K'vetch audience responds to. They like the rough edges that make it seem more personal. So that's what my copious errors are: the rough edges that make it seem more personal. Hell yeah. And at least I know the difference between "lose" and "loose."
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