[transgendernews] [People] [USA] Freak List
S. Stevens
New York Press, NY, USA
Vol.20 Issue 20
May 16,2007
FREAK LIST
By Jerry Portwood + Gerry Visco
Wayne/Jayne County
Transsexual punk rocker Jayne (formerly Wayne) County has, over the
span of more than 30 years, worked as a singer, actress, stripper,
journalist and prostitute. A pioneer of glam and glitter rock, Wayne
straddles the worlds of gay and punk subcultures. She was called
"sissy boy" growing up in the backwoods town of Dallas, Ga., and after
arriving penniless in NYC, rioted at Stonewall, grooved at Woodstock,
roomed with Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis (who tutored her in the
art of extravagant and absurdist cross-dressing). Wayne also DJed at
Max's Kansas City and performed there in a glitter rock band in 1972.
A rock 'n' roll eccentric, her raunchy shows relied on her theater of
the absurd training, featuring portable toilets and prosthetic
devices. David Bowie, Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten, Debbie Harry and
Sting were all friends and enemies. In 1977, County left New York to
return to London and formed the popular Wayne County & the Electric
Chairs but returned to the U.S. in 1979—when Wayne became Jayne. After
resuming her musical career in NYC, she recently returned to Georgia.
Man enough to be a woman, Jayne never cut off her natural
attributes—though she takes hormones.
Klaus Nomi
The countertenor landed on planet Earth ever-so-briefly from a far-off
galaxy, though he grew up in the German Alps, with birth-name Klaus
Sperber. When his spaceship landed in NYC during the mid-1970s, we
marveled at his elfin looks, his white Kabuki-painted face, his
thunderbolt hair. But it was his superhuman voice—ranging from
operatic soprano to Prussian general, baroque theatrical performances
worthy of La Scala—that truly amazed. Nomi was one of a kind, but what
kind, we're not sure. Wearing black lipstick and nail polish before it
was fashionable, he liked to say, "I think a man without makeup is
like a cake without icing." His death in 1983 from AIDS sealed his
fate as a cult figure and the 2004 documentary, The Nomi Song,
cemented his reputation as a New York eccentric. Despite his bizarre
appearance, he was down-to-earth, naive but naughty, an oddball
optimist. Man or Martian, new wave or opera? Nomi held out his hand,
ET-like, and waved good-bye.
Kembra Pfhaler
Originally from California, the artist and musician has been a fixture
in the East Village for years and is best known for her group, The
Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. The frank sexual nature of Pfhaler's
performances—TVHKB women are naked, brightly painted, have their teeth
blacked out and wear two-foot high fright wigs—is cracked enough to
freak out most everyone who comes across their path.
Jackie Curtis
The wild pre-punk performer, poet, playwright and Andy Warhol
Superstar never tried to be a woman. "Jackie Curtis is not a drag
queen. Jackie is an artist," Warhol said. This gender-bending
cross-dressing performer with off-stage antics way wilder than those
on-stage was built like a linebacker at 6-foot-2-inches. Occasionally
posing as a macho James Dean, her trademark look was frizzed-out red
hair, wigs sprayed with Raid, sequins around the eyes, a noticeable
stubble, shredded gowns and stockings. Trash, glam and glitter—Curtis
invented it. Born John Holder Jr., he was raised on the LES by his
bar-owning grandma Slugger Annie. Out of the Warhol Factory "trannie"
trio—which included Candy Darling and Holly Woodlawn—Curtis was the
brains and appeared in Women in Revolt and later in Flesh with Darling
and Joe Dallesandro. But she spent more time in the theater, acting
and writing plays like Femme Fatale and Vain Victory. Curtis swapped
ciggies for blow jobs with firemen, "rearranged" (trashed) friends'
apartments, shot amphetamine and heroin (detailed in Superstar in a
Housedress). After dying in 1985 from a heroin overdose at age 38, a
friend found Curtis' note: "You are not truly a Warhol Superstar
unless you are dead."
Hattie Hathaway
Hattie Hathaway (aka Brian Butterick) is a founder of Wigstock, began
the Pyramid Club during the 1980s and co-founded the fun and
outrageous Jackie 60 party frequented by hos, drag queens,
fashionistas and artists of all stripes at Mother. She began by
performing in the post-punk band, 3 Teens Kill 4, in 1980, then
performed and produced acts at La MaMa and P.S. 122. A former roadie,
Hathaway helped establish Dee-Lite, RuPaul, Dean Johnson and The Red
Hot Chili Peppers. At 6-foot-4-inches, she knew she couldn't pass as a
woman, so she had to be funny. But creativity is tougher in the New
York of today: "I've been fortunate I've had a really low rent for the
past 26 years. I live in Hudson Square: it used to be No-Beca, not
Tribeca." Butterick currently runs the lively 2,200-square-foot
Rapture Café and Bookshop on Avenue A, featuring performance art and
readings.
Moondog
Who would have thought a blind musician, roaming the streets of NYC
garbed in a Viking get-up—replete with horned hat—would turn out to be
a musical genius, the king of contrapuntal composition? He was a poet
who knew it, a music philosopher well above six-feet-tall, inhabiting
W. 54th and 6th Avenue day and night. Moondog (aka Louis T. Hardin)
claimed he was from Sasnak (Kansas in reverse), a mostly self-taught
composer who crafted chord structures by ear and became one of the
legends of the streets of New York, where he lived from the late 1940s
until 1974. It was rumored musicians seeing Moondog playing in front
of Carnegie Hall got him in to sit in on rehearsals. He left New York
for Germany in 1974, where he recorded numerous albums until his death
in 1999. He last visited NYC in 1989, when he conducted the Brooklyn
Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra at the invitation of Philip Glass. He
called himself "Moondog," after a dog he had owned. "We used to howl
at the moon," he said.
Michael Alig
Is Alig a true freak or just a demented murderer? Plenty of people
have their own opinions about the party promoter and ringleader of the
'90s Club Kids scene. The fact is he had the personality and magnetism
to draw thousands to the city, all wanting to partake of his wild
lifestyle. Alig made Peter Gatien's Limelight the epicenter of wild
energy with his themed parties filled with hedonistic displays of
drugs and nudity that rivaled tales of '70s-era Studio 54. But it's
because of his ability to wrangle drugged-out kiddies to mob trains
and fast-food joints for spontaneous parties that he can be credited
with a more subversive streak. Yes, it ended up with him murdering
"Angel" Melendez, his drug dealer (Alig still resides in Attica
Correctional Facility because of it), but there's no denying that
Michael's energy crafted an entirely new lifestyle for many.
Penny Arcade
A penny arcade is a coin-operated device for entertainment, but Penny
Arcade the woman is also a bitch, dyke, fag hag and whore—at least
according to one of her signature pieces. She's a broad who doesn't
give a shit about offending, a funny talented actress, a sexy street
fighter combating sexual repression, censorship, small minds, the
vacuity of the "Amerikan" lifestyle and New York's current state of
gentrification. Arcade (née Susana Carmen Ventura, she named herself
Penny Arcade coming down from an acid trip) ran off to the LES in the
late 1960s when she was 16. At 17, she landed a role in director
Jackie Curtis' play, Femme Fatal, at John Vaccaro's Playhouse of the
Ridiculous. She later collaborated with Quentin Crisp, Jack Smith and
Charles Ludlam in various productions. Her 2002 New York Values was an
"autopsy" on the death of bohemian NYC during the Giuliani years.
Diagnosed with the hepatitis C virus in 2003, she's become an
unofficial spokeswoman for sufferers of a disease that often strikes
people living on the margins. She's co-founded the Lower East Side
Biography Project, a video production and oral history workshop
preserving the stories of Lower Manhattan artists and activists. As
for her being a "freak" of New York, she says, "I just assumed if I
got better and did more work, eventually the mainstream would
recognize me. Instead, I've become a legend, a mythic iconic figure
that still hasn't been absorbed by the mainstream."
Rev Jen Miller (aka Electra Elf)
New York is the land of fairies—but also elves. And lots of trolls,
too. Patron Saint of the Uncool, ordained by the Universal Church,
Reverend Jen Miller is curator of a Troll Museum displaying 400
wooly-haired imps in her sixth-floor walk-up on Orchard Street.
Suggested admission: $3,000—but most give 50 cents. She's an adorable
sex symbol of the insane. Elfess, poetess, preacheress, painter,
prophet, performer, 17-year-old Jennmoved from Maryland to the land of
New York in 1990, "where I could talk to puppets." In 1995 she began
the Anti-slam open mic (now Wednesday nights at Mo Pitkin's). On her
weekly public access TV show, "The Adventures of Electra Elf &
Fluffer," she and her Chihuahua play superheroes taking down senators,
sleazy frat boys, satanic cults, landlords, zombie-tourists and other
miserable malcontents.
Taylor Mac
The performance artist/musician/actor is one of the greatest current
proponents of a grassroots call-to-arms to create a counterculture in
the city. He does it through pansexual displays of glitter and glam,
strumming a ukulele and singing smart, political lyrics. Last year,
Taylor Mac's Red Tide Blooming, which critiques the homogenization of
Coney Island (specifically the Mermaid Parade) and New York and the
U.S. as a whole, was produced at P.S. 122. He's mesmerizing to watch
and is one of the best performers (and freaks) the city has to offer.
Jack Smith
Sometimes hailed as the father of performance art, Jack Smith was a
filmmaker, photographer and iconoclast who created a world—what he
called "Baroque art"—that inspired many and continues to feed
counter-cultural artists. Warhol stole from him, and Fellini was
inspired by his best-known and only finished film, Flaming Creatures.
He was a non-conformist, intense and difficult (he and Jonas Mekas of
Anthology Film Archives had a nasty feud) and, although he influenced
numerous musicians, artists and filmmakers, he died from AIDS in 1989
in poverty and relatively unknown by the mainstream.
With Mary Jordan's recent documentary, Jack Smith and the Destruction
of Atlantis, and a planned book, Jack Smith: The Visual Biography, it
may finally be time for Smith's legacy to be better understood—or at
least appreciated.
©2007 New York Press. All rights reserved.
http://www.nypress.com/20/20/news&columns/feature2.cfm
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