Clea's Cave

Card Du Jour - I Know The Feeling

A fotofolio card from the Bettman Archive, "Miss Depression", Lawrence, Kansas, 1931.  Photographer unknown. This gal pretty closely resembles my grandmother.

Technorati Tags: postcards

Art Card Du Jour

i heart Jenny Holzer.  There are lots of her postcards around here, as well as a set of rubber stamps.  Though i haven't been to this installation, i did see the one at the Guggenheim Bilbao, or as Paco has dubbed, the "Crazy Guggenheim".  These things are so beautifully tailored to the architecture of the sites, that the feeling of viewing them is almost spiritual in intensity.

Technorati Tags: postcards

Marilyn Chambers 1952-2009

i'm nearly the same age as Marilyn, and remember seeing Behind The Green Door in the theater when it was new.  At that time, films like Green Door and Deep Throat were considered by many people to be part of a sexual, and a larger cultural, revolution.  The fact that it had a sordid and exploitative side, or that it didn't change everything, doesn't distinguish it from the politics or other aspects of the 'revolution' of the 60's and 70's.  It turns out that often what we think is significant, isn't, as we overlook something else which might be. This interview from 1977 gives a peek into how Marilyn viewed herself and was viewed, back in the day.  Back then she seemed very much the sort of person i wished i could be.

Many years later, my beloved Studio North art film theater (now The Magic Bag) had become an adult cinema.  The videotape revolution was drying up porn palace revenues, and the place had begun having live burlesque and stage shows.  A girlfriend of mine attended a performance with Marilyn Chambers headlining, and returned raving about what a fabulous gal she was - so funny, friendly, and generous to all the other females.  As my friend wasn't usually so effusive about other women, or people in general, for that matter, i remembered this endorsement.

So about ten years ago, i found myself at The Cinema Wasteland Movie and Memorabilia Expo with Took, who snapped the photo above.  It's a great, great, convention, but it gets kind of dull when you're sitting at a vendor's table all weekend.  It was even duller, i think, for Marilyn Chambers, who was a guest primarily because she was the lead in David Cronenberg's Rabid.  (If you haven't seen Rabid, please add it to your queue NOW.) She wasn't selling a ton of photos or autographs, and she was all alone at her little table.  We would get up and pace the room, doing the circuit like caged animals, and would gravitate to each other's tables every day.  Perhaps it was because Took and i were ladies of her age, or maybe because we all liked to laugh, but Marilyn treated new acquaintances like forever friends.  i remember meeting her not so much because she was famous, or infamous, but because she was a blast.  Also, pushing fifty at that time, she was still really sexy.  Yes, the years of ups and downs, struggles with drugs and alcohol, had taken a toll, but the Marilyn essence was an inside-out sexy.  The attractiveness of a person who is alive to possibility never dies.

Yesterday when reading the shocking news of her death, i noticed a bit of emphasis on her living alone in a trailer.  Perhaps to family, friends, fellow professionals, she was bitter or sad.  But i never got that from her in an environment which certainly reminded her of the mainstream film career her adult films capsized.  It seems to me that a person with her dignity and class deserves celebration, not pity or cheap moralizing.

Susie Bright has a good remembrance in that vein here.

See, I Didn't Even Have To Go To DragonCon

All right, it is more exciting to be there, but it's usually at least a four hour wait in line to get into these things, after you're already at the convention.  Gratitude to the Browncoats who make the trip and record and upload it every year.  Stars of Firefly @ DragonCon 2008

Breyer P-Orridge in Radar

The Wild Hunt points us to Technoccult, pointing to this excellent Radar story on the ongoing pandrogenous relationship between Genesis P-Orridge and the late Lady Jaye Breyer.  An epic tale of identity, destiny, magick, music and kink, the Radar piece by Aaron Gell is also in the current newsstand issue.

Lillian Ellison, The Fabulous Moolah R.I.P.

Sad news that Lillian Ellison, better known as The Fabulous Moolah, died on November 2 in her home on Moolah Drive in Columbia, S. C., probably due to complications following recent eye and shoulder surgery. She was 84, and had spent over 50 years in and around the squared circle, not only as a wrestler and performer, but as a trainer and sponsor of new talent, including Wendi Richter, who famously challenged her with manager Cyndi Lauper during the WWF "Rock 'n Wrestling" golden era.  Born in South Carolina, she was the youngest and only girl of 13 kids.  Her mother died when she was 8, and she and her father bonded over pro wrestling matches they attended in Columbia.  She leaves behind her partner, Mae Young, one daughter (born when Lillian was only 14), six grandchildren and six great grandchildren, as well as an extended family of wrestlers who became daughters and sisters.

Moolah was trained by Mildred Burke, the most famous wrestler of her day, and then went on to become the biggest women's wrestling star of all time.  She held the championship for 28 years, from 1956 to 1984, then reclaimed the title a year later for two years, and came back yet again at the age of 76 for a final championship year in 1999! WWE hype is that she has the longest continuous championship in pro sports but this actually discounts 'temporary' transfers of belts in minor bouts during a season, a common feature of pro wrestling drama. Still, it's difficult to see how any womn will ever approach her record.

Most of the time Moolah played a heel, but coming up in the 50's, she was old school and believed strongly in standards and decorum, of a sort.  i'm sure her chosen persona enhanced and developed her poise - she liked to say she was called "Moolah" because she was "in it for the moolah!".  She was always well turned out, with a taste for bling in and out of showbiz. She was a friend of Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley, a clean liver yet a risk taker, and is the only big name female wrestler to successfully span wrestling's move from sport to entertainment.

Anyone as successful as Lillian Ellison is bound to meet with a little controversy, and Moolah's detractors usually point to her long association with the McMahon family, Vince Sr. and Vince Jr.. There is no question that she owed a great deal to the McMahon wrestling empire, which encompasses the WWF/WWE, and absorbed the WCW, and ECW, eventually making the WWE the only major wrestling group in North America.  Vince McMahon Sr. worked with Moolah to reinstate women's  professional wrestling in New York after it had been banned, and she was at the center of the women's drama which was the catalyst for Vince Jr.'s first WrestleMania in 1985, which changed wrestling, and sports entertainment forever.  Women's pro wrestling has always been a precarious career at best, and due to her close personal relationship with the McMahon's and her loyalty, she was rewarded with a seat at the table for events or at least a few camera shots, even when women's bouts were out of style. It's valid to point out that Ellison cultivated and exploited a special relationship to advance herself and her protoges, what's less clear is what alternate path to success existed for women - or men - in pro wrestling.

The wonderful 2005 documentary Lipstick and Dynamite - The First Ladies of Wrestling touches on the tensions between Moolah and other gals who knew her back in the day, when there were lots of small promotions and everyone's horizons seemed limitless.  In her delightful 2002 autobiography, The Fabulous Moolah:First Goddess of the Squared Circle, there is a great deal of gushing about Daddy Vince, and more about Vince Jr..  To this reader her love seems genuine, in spite of the fact that without the WWE, the book would never have been published. There is no question that Moolah put her own interests and those of the McMahon's first, as demonstrated by her collusion to take Wendi Richter's title without advance notice (and you naysayers believe it's all set up) at Madison Square Garden in 1985.  The WWF had a contract dispute with Richter, and this infamous bout was hence known as the "original screwjob", followed by the "Montreal Screwjob" of  Bret Hart by McMahon and Shawn Michaels in 1997, and subsequent real and faux "screwjobs".  Moolah and Vince Jr. have both exploited their image as heavies to stir up the fans and the money. But as she's remembered today by those of us who saw her perform, as a heel with a touch of class, and most definitely one of a kind.

The Return of Roller Derby

A few weeks ago i was lucky enough to see the first game of the Detroit Derby girls 2007/08 season.  Just wanted to say i had the time of my life, will be back, and can't think of a place where you can have such a fun night out for so little money. 

The next bout will be the Devil's Night Dames vs, the Pistol Wippers on Saturday, November 10, at the Masonic Temple Drill Hall.  Advance tickets are recommended; available at Meijer stores and Danny's Pub in Ferndale along with other locations listed on the Detroit Derby Girls website. 

When i was younger roller derby was my favorite sport after wrestling - for a time it was my favorite.  The revival of derby in the form of skater-owned flat track clubs has brought it back with a DIT grassroots twist.  To find out if there's a league in tour area, check out the Women's Flat Track Derby Association!

Saying Farewell To Zinks

TV Guide reports that All My Children is concluding the Zoe/Bianca storyline on April 26.  The controversial MTF transgender/lesbian romantic storyline has been collecting viewers, but both actors have other commitments and were signed to short term contracts.  Since late 2006, Eden Riegel has reprised her role as Bianca (Binks or Binx) Montgomery, and Jeffrey Carlson was cast as the rock star Zarf, who came out as the female Zoe.  Riegel was working on the N.Y. based show while living in California, and Carlson is beginning Hamlet in Washington D.C. in June.  Still, it's sad to say goodbye to the brightest stars in an increasingly dull show.

Though daytime drama fans may have a reputation for conservatism, horror at the idea of a man who is a woman inside isn't all the rumpus surrounding Zinks.  AMC has always been socially progressive, and used lesbianism in a story in 1983, an AIDS story in 1987, and Bianca coming out in 2000.  AMC has received GLAAD Media Awards for Outstanding Daily Drama in 2002 and 2004, and again for 2007 just last week.

One of the issues for some Riegel fans is that the love story could have been between Binks and Maggie, played by Elizabeth Hendrickson. Back in 2001 the actresses were so hot that Hendrickson's Frankie character, who was basically a plot device created to be killed off, had to be recreated as a twin sister, Maggie.  Fan response was unexpectedly warm to both actors and their characters, and an enduring fandom for BAM.  Some (but not all) of these fans have a real hate-on for Zoe.  It's partly because the show has been so poorly written in recent years.

Zarf's arrival in Pine Valley coincided with one of those idiotic serial killer sweeps plots soap writers resort to when cast salaries rise and imaginations fail.  By the time the dust settled this year and Zarf was Zoe, a beloved character Dixie, who had returned after years was callously dispatched, along with 6 cast members great and small.  Also Babe was supposed to be killed, but then actually turned out to be a survivor in hiding, another sweeps stunt i've seen trickle up to prime time this year. The killer was revealed to be a supposedly dead, tiresome character with completely baffling motivation, even for daytime drama.  But there was an upside.  You can see Zoe singing at Dixie and Babe's funeral here. 

During Zarf's development as a character, but just before Zoe told us her name, a friend asked me if "he" could be the Satin Slayer.  That, of course, would have been impossible, because no matter how craven the writers become, they will never portray their first trans character as a villain.  In fact, when the writing is superficial and silly, Jeffrey Carlson's acting chops round it out and sell it.  And in the time honored Agnes Nixon tradition, research is done, communities are consulted, and millions are educated and enlightened.  Here's an unscripted scene at a transgender support group. 

This level of intensity, propelled by powerful acting, generates a lot of passion.  For the past several hours i've been lost on YouTube, going over fan videos asembled from AMC footage.  The soundtracks may be Dixie Chicks, Nine Inch Nails, Linkin Park or Muse, but they all recognize the universal need to find ourselves and where we belong.  Below is one of my favorites is below - by Heather, using "Answer" by Sarah McLachlan. If it leaves you frustrated, here is one where they kiss!

Waiting For 'Lost Girls'

It's been preordered for months, and i'm impatiently waiting for Lost Girls Collected.  Like a lot of folks, i've only seen previously published bits, and pre-publication reviews have me excited - and concerned that some eleventh hour legal horseplay might suppress the book.  Top Shelf has remarked on greater than expected early orders, and i think that's because people worry there won't be a reprint.

There are good pieces all over the web.  Neil Gaiman's review for Publisher's Weekly is here.  But the most exciting thing i've seen is Susie Bright's Blog Entry.  A good interview with Alan Moore AND Melinda Gebbie (who goes way back with Susie).  The best part is the gallery of Melinda's past and present work, including Wimmin's Comix, which was the first place i saw her comics, and became an instant fan.  Check it out, and become geeked as so many are, at the publication of a true graphic novel sixteen years in the making.