Hey Cal-pals! My friend Patrick Wolf has released his latest album, Lupercalia, today on iTunes UK. I don’t recommend music very often here on my blog… I listen to a lot of popular stuff that everyone already knows about, or stuff that’s so personal that I don’t expect others to go for it like I do. Patrick’s music is the best of those two worlds.

If you know me at all, you can probably guess why I took to his music immediately: Patrick plays a mind-boggling array of acoustic instruments like violin, viola, piano and harp. He has a rich, gorgeous and sexy singing voice. And he writes his own music, about his own life and things that matter to him.

Just give his songs a listen and I’m sure you’ll find something you like. As a lifelong slave in the cult of Kate Bush and a fan of Tori Amos, The Cure, Nick Cave, balladeers, troubadours, Jane Siberry, Suzanne Vega, Amanda Palmer and others, I took to Patrick’s music right away and I hope you will, too.

Hear Patrick Wolf on iTunes

Visit Patrick’s Website

Here’s one of his older songs, showing off his ability to play the violin/viola like a harp:

Calpernia's Blobs. This data was pulled right off my computer, stored there from my iPhone by iTunes.

Sigh. Apple, I love so many things about you, but an evil heart beats within that pretty shiny body. Your iPhone is storing a file containing geolocation data of everywhere you’ve been, whether you want it to or not.

I love my iPhone. I’ve jailbroken it, made it over in my own image and pushed it to do things that other smartphones can’t. But I don’t love things like this.

Wanna see an animated(!) map of everywhere you’ve been, as secretly stored by your iPhone? If you’re on a Mac, download this free program and take a peek:

http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/

Jahna Steele was a world-famous Vegas showgirl who passed away a few years ago, before I had the chance to meet her in person. This is an old video, but I came across it again today and had to post it. This woman says everything I’ve wanted to say over the last few years about transition, living comfortably with one’s past, and demanding respect. She was an entertainer, not afraid of a little makeup and sequins, undeniably female, and a true inspiration.

Thanks to Christine Glamazon for posting the video!

Some of you may have noticed that my last few projects have been overly made-up, overtly sexual, gay-friendly and deeply connected to freak culture.  A few trans prudes and squares certainly have!

To sum up a set of major life decisions in a quickie diary post, this is the new me, kids. Get into it!

The secret fact is that this is the old me, too. I’ve spent the last 10 years suppressing my lifelong irreverent sense of humor and hedonism for very good reason, and my record of activism stands on its own. But as I said, it’s been 10 years and I’m gonna let loose a little.

Freaks are beautiful to me. Makeup? Cake it up! Hair? Dyed, fried and laid to the side, please. Music? LOUD. Alcohol? Yes, please. Sexy sexy? HELL YES! It’s FUN to be sexy! It’s fun to act sexy when you’re actually ugly… because that makes you sexy!

So attention all community prudes, censors and TWAATS: You’re on notice. I’m going to continue to raise money for women’s, youth and GLBT causes, provide information and support online, counsel young people, and stand against haters. And I’m going to burn brightly while doing so, while fully and rightfully claiming both my trans history and my womanhood. If “they” don’t like the way I live my life, “they” can choke on it. Cal-pals, full steam ahead!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ90LRaEIt0

September Issue

Tonight I watched “September Issue“, the documentary about the creation of Vogue magazine’s legendary annual coffee-table buster of an issue in 2007, usually made up of 500-700 pages of fashion and advertising. Of course, it featured legendary editrix Anna Wintour (and the sublime Grace Coddington, whose vision I’d much rather see on paper). Anna famously served as the inspiration for Meryl Streep’s icy “Miranda Priestly” in “The Devil Wears Prada”, and as the documentary began there was a palpable air of “Ooo, girl, she is the numbah one queen bee diva bitch! Ooo you have to watch how you step when you’re dealing with her! Ooo she is fierce!” etc etc etc.

Considered  alongside  the rapturous adoration of the behavior of Streep’s “Miranda Priestly” character, this kind of worshipful attitude shown women famous for being dragon-ladies inspired me to share a magic secret with everyone: People like Anna Wintour or “Miranda Priestly” have exactly as much power as you attribute to them, and not an iota more. If you stop caring which pictures of shoes she likes, then she becomes just another old lady with a weirdly perfect hair cut. This goes for almost anyone you’re afraid of in your life, so write it down.

I’m not saying AW isn’t amazing at her job. But I bristle at being told who to fear and respect. In this case, unless you aspire to a career in that most ephemeral and (at best) art-adjacent thing known as the business of fashion, then being afraid of someone like the “Pope” of fashion is ridiculous to me.

I am never going to work at Vogue. I am never going to be a high fashion model.  I am never going to spend $20,000 on a purse or a dress. Any art I ever have or wear will probably be something made by myself or my brilliant, underground, artistic friends. Any success I ever have will always come at great personal cost,  in spite of the efforts of the majority of society, and it will be the imperfect, quirky, outsider kind of success that people like Anna Wintour will never value. So who cares how AW likes her fucking coffee? Not me.

Now, “Anna Wintour” isn’t a name to which I ever really gave any thought… this little piece of writing really isn’t about her or any name in particular. It’s about rejecting the idea that respect and fear should happen unconsidered. Perhaps that idea goes back to being raised to believe that I should respect and fear a god for whom I had never seen any indication or proof in real life. I suppose I need a little more than someone else’s word before I believe certain things nowadays.

And must one be rude to be successful? It just seems so terribly unnecessary. Ugh.

Aside from rejecting the idea that I need to fear and jump for people who have zero impact on my life, the documentary reminded me how gross conspicuous consumerism can be. Even after having rejected most every other tenet of my difficult religious upbringing, I still feel revulsion at images of people buying or showing off purchases for the sake of the label or price. “September Issue” presented me with an entire tale of grotesque vulgarians clothing the corporeal vessels for their souls (?) in calculated bits of art, taken out of the hands of the artists and sealed into little rectangular photographs to be arranged like refrigerator magnets on a whiteboard  and sold to empty climbers. It was so gross… Andre Leon Talley’s horrible diamond watch and the ubiquitously boring Louis Vuitton accessories on the tennis court were the pinnacle of revolting for me. “Look at me! LOOK AT ME!” Honestly, put that crap away and exercise, if that’s what you’re there for.

I grew up relatively poor, and at the same time we were actively taught to reject clothing with conspicuous labeling. Jeans and shoes and shirts emblazoned with the names of designers and brands were seen as “vain”, and although I am a world away from that childhood mindset now I still prefer not to wear someone else’s name as my own personal style. Do they make a Chanel purse that doesn’t say “Chanel” on it? Probably not, alas. Not that I could afford one anyway!

Many people don’t realize that my song, “Stunning“, is making FUN of vanity… something that always cracks me up. I DO want beautiful things, but mostly because they are beautiful and fun. I don’t care who makes them.

As a fringe sub-lebrity, I’ve been attending events in Hollywood that take red carpet photos since 2002, so unfortunately there is a record of the “looks” I’ve worn to them, and especially in the first six years or so you’ll see that I’m either wearing something home-made or something that doesn’t really work. My hair was just awful, and my makeup rarely suited to the specific requirements of the red carpet camera. I could have used a stylist (some budding Grace Coddington II?) and may have benefitted from studying a few issues of Vogue. But I’ll never join anyone in trembling before Anna Wintour or other manufactured gods.

I now know people in real life who have real, living appreciations for fashion, glamour and beauty and though I will never “fear” or “revere” them, I will most certainly try to learn what I can from them. Here are things that I consider worthy goals for me in the realm of the aesthetic: Feeling and looking pretty, and wearing clothes that make me feel glamorous, beautiful and exciting. I think that can be done without ever dealing with Anna Wintour or Andre Leon Talley or anyone who drags a profusion of Louis Vuitton bags and diamond watches to their tennis lesson. Not that they were offering me their time, anyway, ha ha. I guess it all works out perfectly, which life has a way of doing sometimes, if you just let it.

Madness

I came across a link to this page full of gorgeous historical prints, engravings, woodcuts and all kinds of other renderings of madness. The images are striking, gorgeous and even horrifying at times. I thought I’d share!

A Large Collection of Historical Prints & Painting Depicting Madness