Life and Loves of a Kitchen Devil

I don’t think I can do justice to the strength of David Hoyle’s performance at last night’s Magazine the Reprint. I think you had to be there to witness the majesty of a mad man in smudged make-up throwing food and paint at a wall, ripping off his wig and seeming remarkably bold and naked in front of an enrapt audience who were hanging of his every word, while laughing and cheering uncontrollably.

I think you had to experience the machine gun of opinion, abuse, vulgarity and killer one-liners that led to that celebratory centrepiece that it felt we had created together, after confronting and assaulting our emotions over the course of a hectic evening to work towards the final crescendo.

The original premise of the evening was to talk about cookery, which it kind of touched upon. Well, in as much as a man in an apron with full make-up raping and murdering a teenage boy, ranting against the greetings card industry, encouraging us to eat faeces and doing interpretive dance can be related to food preparation. He did have a nice chef’s hat on.

There was no special guest for this issue, so the cooking was a foil for a shambolic monologue about Christ knows what. I can only remember a fraction of the dialogue, but I know I was laughing cos my cheeks still hurt.

At some point a “teenage boy” (40 if he was a day) climbed on stage to be taunted, ridiculed and fucked violently, leading to his sudden demise. Oh yeah, I remember, he also pulled vegetables from his arse that he’d stolen from the ingredients for the cookery.

Eggs were thrown, some people were insulted, some people were lauded and we all feared for our lives as we watched smoke rise from the hot oil in the frying pan. I guess what I’m trying to say is, there was a strong feeling of *community*.

David’s talent is a talent that defies description – his ability to express contempt and admiration in the same sentence, and the way he makes his audience love and hate themselves equally. I once described Kiki and Herb as being an emotional exorcism. David is more like a spiritual uplifting.

Don’t miss the rest of the series.

Beauty and the Beast

I love Mark Lanegan. I’ve loved him for years. Mostly it’s for his deep, soulful, bear-like growl of a voice, but also for his self-contained, misanthropic stance on stage and his self-deprecating mannerisms. I’ve seen him perform maybe 15 times and I think I’ve seen him glance at the audience … ooh, twice?

I used to quite fancy him when I went through my dodgy bi-sexual phase in my late twenties / early thirties. Some of you may remember my old fake male ID on Out in the UK where I pretended to be my own son and the bastard child of an American rock star, well Mark was my virtual father.

Anyhoo, tonight I went to see him for the third time in as many weeks. The first two were with Soulsavers but last night he was at Queen Elizabeth Hall with Isobel Campbell.

She and her band are the primmest, most proper and polite looking group of people you could imagine. By contrast, Mark looked like the woodcutter who’d been invited to a party at the big ‘ouse by the sex starved eldest daughter. She would have observed him from her bedroom window, growing lusty at his silent strength and rugged looks. He prowled the stage with a vague air of menace, all eyes to the floor and self conscious postures, while she played with her hair and gazed out into space.

Their voices worked better together live than on their Ballad of the Broken Seas album, largely because he was higher in the mix. I find her meek, fluffy girlishness irritating and I’m sure a right cow lurks beneath. I’m convinced that after the wasp-breath singing and the cutesy giggling she marches backstage to bark “WHERE THE HELL IS MY ICED TEA?” to her third personal assistant of the tour, the first two having quit due to nervous breakdowns. She certainly shot the sound guy a *mean* dirty look when the tiniest bit of feedback emanated from the speakers. HEADS WILL ROLL, you mark my words.

I think they did all of the songs from the album, they also did some new stuff so it looks like there could be another. Lanegan did his cover of I’ll Take Care of You, and the wonderful Wedding Dress from Bubblegum. Isobel did some solo tracks too, but whatever. She was so shrill I was worried about bats swooping.

I’m being unfair, I didn’t hate her too much, but why do girls have to be so ineffectual? She’s a talented musician, as she proved playing many instruments, and she’s obviously strong or she wouldn’t be in her current position. Why the wussy act I really don’t know, I’d much rather have a hot chick with some attitude.

The Lovebox is a little old place

You might think after last weekend I'd have had enough of festivals and wandering round a field knee-deep in beer cans. Well for the first few hours of Lovebox, I kind thought I had too. It was the same old food stalls, the same comedy hats and the same annoying heteros, only this time there was a reason d’etre. It was time for the long awaited return of intergalactic pop troupe the B-52’s!

Long before this blog was born I bought tickets for not one, but *two* UK tours that they subsequently cancelled because they got all boo hoo cowardy about flying. They must have been for hypnotherapy or something because suddenly with a "HEY" there they were!

They didn’t have such big barnets as the olden days and, as Stephen pointed out, they look like the Scissor Sisters mums and dads, but they did have a natty wardrobe of sparkly dresses, peacock blue t-shirts and basque tops with flame-printed flared sleeves.

Running through a greatest hits set that was peppered with a few brand new numbers, they made my smile so wide it stretched into my tear ducts and made me have a watery wobble. I loved Roam, Private Idaho and Strobe Light … I nearly screamed at Loveshack (tiiiinnnnn rooooooofffff, rusted) and swooned horrifically during Planet Claire. It was here I had an attack of the vapours for, be still my beating heart, I have found a brand new lover.

I didn't make a formal announcement, but my engagement to Ana Matronic is long over. Now I've decided it's time I learned to love again, and am proud to declare my betrothal to Kate Pierson. The cascading red hair, the curvaceous frame and the smile that can make my heart melt ... I feel sure we will be wed before winter.

There are two minor obstacles that might impede this. 1) She doesn’t know I exist yet. 2) She already has a girlfriend and they run a cosy hotel together. Whatevs.

I have started plans for our nuptials by picking out rings from Elizabeth Duke. For the engagement I think a diamond and sapphire cluster to match the eyes of my sweet Kate - the prettiest Kate in Christendom. Perhaps she will choose me something in amber to compliment our hair. You can never have too much red hair in a relationship and I see it as a representation of our fire.

Shall I let you into my darkest secret? OK, but I’ll have to whisper... You know those "waaaaa-aaahhh-aaahhh-aaahhh-ah-ah" sounds she makes at the beginning of Planet Claire? Well I like to imagine that is the noise she would make if you were to have sex with her. Can you imagine anything more delicious? I would never see daylight again.

Do you think a 3-tier wedding cake would be OTT? I wouldn’t want anything garish. Perhaps we will honeymoon in Hawaii, and then there's the cars to organise … *wanders off*.

Fire Tusk Pain Proof Circus

If I were a religious type I would get down on my knees and pray to my God and say please, please, PLEASE can I become a member of the Fire Tusk Pain Proof Circus.

Except it’s not just a case of applying, it would mean the current me would have to be destroyed and be replaced by an altogether cooler, more voodoo, much more talented and far, far braver edition.

I have held one half of Fire Tusk – Lucifire – in high regard for several years, and what I saw of her at Latitude over the weekend has elevated her to icon status.

I only saw part of their show on Friday night, I was in the car park when I heard them announced so ran to the stage as fast as my chubby arse would allow me. I got there in time for Luci’s fire eating act. She had skewers of fire she was extinguishing with her mouth then when she got down to the last one she rolled it over her body before putting it into her mouth and tossing her head back so a huge ball of flame shot from her mouth toward the ceiling. It looked amazing.

Then came Dave, her husband / work partner, who had huge staffs with fire at the ends that he whirled around his shoulders and body. Luci returned and used some of the fire to light the ends of chains she was holding. By now, she had enormous balls of flame that she was swinging round in circles and as Dave kneeled submissively at the side of the stage, she slapped his back viciously with the fire to the accompaniment of Ministry’s Burning Inside.

Not only was it powerful and violent performance, it was also very real. Dave showed us his scars the next day – they were NASTY.

I spent the whole of Saturday telling everyone how great they’d been, then went back that evening for the big show. This was Lucifire’s Aerial Tree Suspension Act and was my highlight of the entire weekend.

At about 1am she appeared on the cabaret stage dressed as a bride and started singing a song. As she was performing, Dave pushed six large meat hooks through her shoulders that she took without so much as flinching. We were then led outside to the gallows.

From a large tree flanked magnificently with red and green light, Luci was hoisted into the air on six rope pulleys. Looking incredibly beautiful and serene, she hung like an angel performing strip tease and a fan dance.



Watching attentively from below, Dave swung her ankles so she flew over our heads and she was lowered to the ground so a young woman could clasp her waist and the two could be raised up together. You could see the skin stretching and a little blood was starting to run down, but still she kept on smiling.

You can see more pictures in my How Fucking Cool is Lucifire gallery or watch my short video of the suspension on You Tube.

Afterwards she was knee deep with admirers and I was too awe-struck to say anything coherent, so I saved my congratulations for the next day when she and Fancy Chance – aka the Furry Bitches from Hell – were doing an animal act for our VauxhallVille Children’s Party.

Luci was wearing the kangaroo suit that Dave wore when I boxed with him last year, but she had adapted it with a fluffy tail to become a rabbit. Fancy was a cuddly rat who Luci clubbed to death, was haunted by and then later brought back to life for a tear jerking happy ending to the tune of Bright Eyes and Total Eclipse of the Heart. Hilarious!

If that wasn’t enough, I also saw her playing sax with a fantastic rockabilly band – Urban Voodoo Machine - as there is clearly no end to her talents.

Join me in stalking Luci online at Lucifire.com

Wardrobe Malfunction

Thank sweet Jesus and a host of heavenly angels, I am returned to civilisation. My feet are walking on good, solid concrete ground and I am residing in a habitation that doesn’t require entry via a zip fastening.

While I mostly enjoyed Latitude Festival and I’m glad I had the experience, back to nature is NOT for me. Despite my prior assumption, it was neither the camping nor the crowds that were my downfall, it was the goddamn bastard SUN. Burned to a crisp, I am, with head, neck and forearms that are even redder than my hair, and a nose that could signal to ships in the night.

But it’s not just my skin tone that bothers me, something curious has happened to my wardrobe. When I set off I was resolute I would not, under any circumstance, be persuaded to buy a comedy hat. By approximately 2pm on day one, I was sporting the following:

The thing is, something happens to your brain at a festival and you are led to think that such items are cool. I became desperately attached to my black and white leopard print headwear, to the degree I stored it safely for the journey home to avoid the trauma of crushing. In the cold light of a Crystal Palace bedroom, I can now observe that it looks foolish, but it has been my signature piece for days. Well, that and my polka dot wellies, but I refuse to be embarrassed about them.

Yet this is not the end of the story. Some 3 days into the festival there was a sudden and considerable downpour. There was only one thing for it, it was time to buy that most ghastly of festival items - THE EMERGENCY PONCHO. Imagine my horror to view my reflection and find myself looking like this - *points left*. Can you now understand how relieved I am to be home??

So that’s the bad, but what were the good bits? The best was the FIRE TUSK PAIN PROOF CIRCUS, but they’re so good they need their own blog with visuals, so you’ll have to hold your horses for that.

Queued for ages for the Gawkagogo Freakshow but it was worth the wait. They offer 15 minutes of freak puppet fun in a purpose build side show booth. They had Norma Guntz and her Tom Jones tumor, Elephant Man Elvis, the squealing Pig Girl and the Human Fly - half fly, half stand up comedian. Fantastic!

There was also the fabulous SOULSAVERS with my long-time hero Mark Lanegan. I managed to get into the front row for this and have realised that Mark’s voice sounds exactly like the devil would sound if he fell in love and started writing poetry – dirty, deep, gravely and sexy. Seeing them again at Bush Hall tomorrow.

There was also, of course, VAUXHALLVILLE. To be honest some of our performances worked and some didn’t. Timberlina’s bingo was a resounding success and the Bears’ Bearlesque Workshop was well received, but some of our stuff was a bit wordy for a bunch of drunken hedonists.

For one of the shows I wore a scary clown suit and some kid punched me on the nose. Most of them had the good nature to be terrified but this one must have thought it was a bit hard or something. I hope it dies of syphilis.

So all in all I have good memories of relaxing into camping, pissing in fields in the rain, being aroused at the sight of Lucifire in a kangaroo suit, watching Dickon Edwards curious mix of DJing and crazy dancing, and the Bears singing Kate Bush songs when on helium. But will I be going back for more next year? Probably not.

Send in the Clowns

So I don’t have to work Wednesdays any more and neither, apparently, does the wife beater upstairs. As there’s no one there for him to have fights with during work hours, I’m delighted to note he has his radio blaring ALL DAY LONG. Don’t you often find, with certain people, that there’s almost *too much* to hate?

All this is not helping my frazzled nerves that are becoming more tightly wound by the second. I’m off to Latitude tomorrow, you see - VauxhallVille are headlining the cabaret tent - and right at this point in time, I really don’t want to go.

I don’t want to drive all the way (though it’s a better option than dragging things on the train) and I certainly don’t want to spend four nights in a tent.

I’ve bought one of those pop-up ones, being a complete camping novice, and set it up in the sitting room at the weekend. I sat in it for about 5 minutes and felt completely claustrophobic - I’m convinced I will suffocate if it’s sunny. I’m also annoyed there’s nowhere inside to hang a mirror ball. Is it not possible to be house proud in a tent?

If I don’t die of nylon and heat asphyxiation, then the crowds will get me I’m sure. There will be people ruddy well everywhere, and a lot won’t even have the decency to be gayers. This is no place for the self-sufficient, queer-loving misanthropist.

Hopefully it’s just last minute nerves and I’ll be back here next week screaming “FABULOUS” while planning a dramatic return. If all else fails, I’m borrowing a clown suit from Le Phreeque and will spend the entire trip incognito. Everyone loves a scary clown.

An Audience with Buck

I felt a bit sick with nerves when I set off for Buck Angel’s meet and greet at Kudos yesterday. My plan was I would get there quite early so there would be less people there and I would get a better chance to talk to him. I didn’t realise that arriving within the first half hour would mean than me and my escort, Mr Wee Don Kerr, would be the only ones there and thus have an hour-long private audience!

I was scared I wouldn’t know what to say so I bought him a cigar as an ice breaker. I know sod all about cigars so had to ask advice from the shop man. Of course this meant I was sold one that, while not quite top of the range, certainly didn’t come cheaply, but Buck’s little eyes lit up when I presented it, so it was well worth the expense in the end.

After thank you hugs we all sat down and I said how I enjoyed Buck’s appearance on This Morning. When I heard he was appearing on mid-morning primetime with Fern Britten and Philip Scofield, I admit I had feared for the worst. But the interview was fantastic and it seems they are much cooler than I given them credit for. They both seemed generally interested in Buck’s story of growing up a girl then having enormous social problems during adolescence leading onto drug and alcohol problems in his early twenties.

In fact, this seemed like the only part of the show Philip Schofield perked up, he spent much of the first half looking like he was waiting for the reaper to take him, but when Buck came along he chatted happily and revealed an impressive knowledge of gender issues. Go Philip!

They were bold enough to talk frankly and about his genitalia. While Buck had been primed to be polite and talk about his “bottom”, Fern proved that she’s not one to choke on “penis” and was bandying the word around with gay abandon. He was even allowed to plug his live sex shows which he says would never, ever happen in America.

We were joined by a couple of Buck’s friends and the conversation led to the wider topic of gender, transgender, how boring and tame gay people are these days and how uptight they are about how they are represented in the media. Buck gets lots of hostility from people who chose to assume he is representing them, when he’s really not interested in representing anyone but himself.

I was asked how I knew Buck which gave me a prime opportunity to pull out some copies of Tranny Hag. I hadn’t had a chance to show Buck a copy and he was really interested, scanned through it from cover to cover, asked questions about my articles on Pete Burns and Peaches Christ and said he thought it was a great mag. He’s also offered to advertise in the next issue. Hurrah!

There were lots of photographs taken but I have to wait to get them from the photographer, so in the meantime I have to make do with the one above. Don’t we look lovely?

Future Me

Sunday found me in a theatre above a pub in Battersea watching a play about paedophiles. It opened with a soppy couple billing and cooing and at first I wasn’t sure I could sit and watch them playing with each other’s hair and talking in drippy voices for 2 hours and 35 minutes including interval, but it soon transpired there was more to one of them than met the eye.

Future Me, now showing at the Latchmere Theatre, is based around the story of Peter - a promising young barrister who’s life is turned upside down when his computer sends an email with a child-porn attachment to everyone in his address book. The police are called and at first I was assuming his innocence, he seemed such a drip, but then he confessed to not only using child porn, but also to having raped a twelve-year-old girl.

Despite the contentious subject of the play, it is remarkably non-judgemental. Two other offenders that Peter meets in prison help to offer a balanced view of the topic. Firstly, there’s Peter himself who is wracked with guilt and desperate not to re-offend. His cell mate, Harry, is an older man who has been in and out of prison all his adult life for sex offences and, despite his best intentions, can’t deny his feelings and keeps developing crushes on pretty young girls he sees. Eventually he tries to castrate himself to relieve the problem.

Another prisoner, Tim, (played by David Benson from the Kenneth Williams play) is a homosexual who feels no guilt whatsoever for his actions and believes that children are sexual beings. Having lost his virginity at the age of 10, he feels his “abuser” showed him more love and tenderness than he had ever received from his parents. He feels that the age of consent is just oppressing children and denying them the right to express themselves.

The play is fast moving and engaging, switching from scenes about therapy sessions, visits from Peter’s ex-girlfriend and the effect of his arrest on his father and the rest of his family. Some of the therapy sessions are gruelling and yet fascinating as they deal as much with human weakness as abuse and help you get inside the mind of the offender.

You are left with a lot to think about around a subject that is rarely treated without hysteria in the mainstream media.

Pride London 2007

One of the things I like best about Pride day is walking around after the parade seeing gayers everywhere – in groups, in couples, alone - but all with their heads held high and looking … well PROUD, for want of a better word.

This year’s march seemed a bit shorter than last year’s but was equally colourful and diverse – drag queens, leather boys, femme dykes, all manner of ethnic groups and representatives of HM Forces. OK so it pissed down pretty much the whole time, but that’s just god’s way of reminding us we are all filthy sinners and will all burn in hell one day. Never mind.

I always tear up a bit at the beginning of the march, I think it was the gay police set me off this year. Thankfully they were followed closely behind by the drag queen above, my favourite of the year, who prevented me from actual eye spillage.

The trannies were well represented, which I thoroughly approved of, and there were some incredibly beautiful thai lady boys. One of my other favourites was this glitter ball man, who wins my prize for best outfit.

I got so excited, yelling and cheering, when Buck Angel’s float whizzed by that I didn’t even get a decent photo. He was wearing a greek-style headdress with gold leaves and was accompanied by Ashley Rider. His manager, Danny, was head of his troupe of slaves.

After the march we ran into Danny later on Regent Street with a rather sorry looking chariot. “Hi Danny”, I said, reaching to shake his hand. “We lost a wheel”, he replied glumly. Oh dear, it seems Buck and Ashley took a bit of a tumble and had to complete the march on foot. I was tempted to take a photo of the derelict vehicle to post here, but poor Danny looked so forlorn I didn’t have the heart.

We stopped by the cabaret stage in Leicester Square for a little bit of Lola Lasagne, but were bothered by some annoying twat with a whistle and decided to move along.

After a brief visit to the highly overcrowded rally at Trafalgar Square and a troll round the stalls in Soho, we decided we were a little bit tired and it was time to go shopping for sex toys at Clone Zone. What better way to end the day?

See my fabulous photos of the parade here.