TRUMPET & BADMAN Mix for Dummy Mag

LOVE LOVE LOVE these guys! Bringing the old school NY/NJ 90s house flavour back - as I mentioned below, their EP is one of my faves of the year and always gets rinsed when I play out. Expect an interview with these guys soon, and in the meantime here's a mix wot they dun for Dummy Mag: 



Trumpet & Badman - I Got The Love
Toyboy & Robin - Everything You Want
Montel - Can't Go Wrong
Shadow Dancer - Hydrate
Mista Men - All Of You
Pal Joey & Earth People - Reach Up To Mars (Martian Remix)
Bicep - Courtside Drama
KODIAK -  Dragon Drop (Eliphino Remix)
Trumpet & Badman - Love Keeps Changing
Leftwing & Kody - You Were (Original Mix)
Steve Poindexter - Happy Stick
Sinden - Ring Around The Moon
KODIAK -  Egyptian Kings
Trumpet & Badman - Go
Walter Ego - Heaven
Blake Baxter - Touch Me
Steve Poindexter - Chillin With The P
Trumpet & Badman - Bang Dis
Daniel Bell & DBX - Losing Control
Palace - Astral
Celeda & Danny Tenaglia - Music Is The Answer
Pal Joey & Earth People - Dance (Club Mix)

DJ SPRINKLES in-depth interview part 3

And so we come to the final part of CVNTY's epic interview with Terre Thaemlitz aka DJ SPRINKLES; artist, lecturer, highly respected deep house producer, and someone with more than just a passing interest in trans*/queer/gender issues. In this part of our epic sit-down, courtesy of the kind folks at Arika in Glasgow, we talk about Terre's history in activism, more on the difference between political organisation and activism (especially in relation to being trans*), how Terre got her start in the world of voguing and ballrom in early 90s New York, and the complex effects of "Paris Is Burning" and Madonna's "Vogue" on that world and its people: 

 Sprinkles in action at Arika Episode 5, Glasgow, photo by Michael James

I think we agree in that we recognise that there is a political element to everything, but I feel "activists" can often come across as quite patronising...

Well part of that is because most people don't want to hear another person telling them how to live, and if the thing they are being told is not something they are personally invested in, it becomes just one more cultural demand. Most cultural commands are coming down from a position of domination, but I think people find it easy to mis-direct anger at activists because everyone is already so beaten down and alienated from each other under capitalism. Any self-conscious social organizing initially registers as annoying, because we are conditioned to respond to it as inappropriate and anti-social. This is all assuming we're talking about left-wing activists we would hypothetically like to embrace, as opposed to right wing radicals whom I think are patronizing in completely different ways via their amplification of mainstream cultural dominations. I think, again, it comes down to an inability to distinguish what is political organising versus activism. Organising does not always mean sitting on a committee in a room inventing rules and protocols. It could also be as familiar and seemingly innocuous as the structuring of lives within familial units. These are also political organisations. Constructing "family" is one of the most common organisational frameworks in the Ball scene, right? So, how do we learn to fathom all the seemingly innocuous aspects of our lives as forms of political organisation? If people can get in touch with that, then I think a lot of the "anti-activist" resistance to political engagement fades away because we realise political engagement is not just some external imposition by others. It's something we are doing, hearing, speaking and teaching all the time within daily life - often unwittingly. So that's what I would offer to someone who feels that frustration [with political activism]. 

I think genderfuck is a good example of that because I don't fell like it's overtly political, but I think the act itself is political because it is going against society's dominant, patriarchal ideas of gender. To me it seems like a very simple, direct way of doing something political without having a bullhorn. 

Actually I am shocked that you are phrasing it as not overtly political, because from my own experiences, it effects not just how people react to you on the street, it effects your ability to get work, it effects your ability to even buy things when people refuse to serve you… 

What I mean is not that it isn't political, as of course it is, it effects every aspect of your life. But what I am trying to articulate is that it doesn't fit into people's perceived notions of what "politics" is, which, as you mentioned, is people in suits, talking down to you, telling you how to live…

Well, maybe also because people perceive it as perversion, and therefore a personal choice. Within the public/private sphere that we have constructed so well around ourselves, this notion of choice is supposedly the indicator of freedom and de-politicised motion - basically, the opposite of activism. I think genderfuck doesn't register as traditional "politics" because it is seen as our "choice" to do genderfuck, simultaneously announcing and inhibiting our free movement within public spaces. As an action, it blurs the lines between "public" engagement and the perhaps shameful disclosure of something usually kept "private." I mean, most people think of "public spaces" as a forum for the political, whereas what happens in our bedrooms is considered private, "fuck you, it's my business and you have no say here." But in fact what happens in my bedroom IS directly related to what is not socially able to happen elsewhere. Much as the politics of the public fill private spaces, genderfuck seems to bring the politics of the private into the public. So yeah, there is that whole public/private thing of seeing genderfuck or certain other forms of transgenderism in relation to perversions, choices, illnesses to be treated, etc. - not standard political disourse. Of course, the minute we say these things we realise we cannot separate them from real material struggles. It's impossible. Especially when you are talking about perversion and illness. These are morally and politically laden terms. 

Right, we have been talking for over half an hour and we haven't discussed voguing or your roots in New York! I should probably start by asking how you got into that whole world? How did you discover voguing and ballroom? 

Ok, well I was doing activist work in NY in the late 80s. I guess it was around 1988 that I did a mix tape for the API contingent of the Gay Pride parade (API stands for Asian Pacific Islander, my partner at the time was one of the founders of the API Caucus at ACT-UP). I started DJ-ing at benefit events, and out of that, I started getting DJ gigs. I got a DJ residency at Sally's - actually Sally's II - which was a notorious midtown sex workers club at the Carter Hotel on 43rd St. It was a really different scene from the [East] Village, from the 'art queen' type of scene. Sally's was a place where there were sometimes balls, but mainly I worked two nights a week with Dorian Corey, and another night was with Miss Sherry from Las Vegas. So that was such an amazing thing - to be so young, in my early 20s, and working with these icons… I mean Dorian Corey [star of "Paris Is Burning"]… she really stood up to her legend! But because Sally's was very much a "post-op" scene, and Dorian and a few others were in their 60s (there were many first wave transexuals around), I also had a lot of early exposure to people in all different stages of life and transition. Not just people who were young and good looking and had the right surgeons, but also people who had been living for decades with implants. Of course, a lot of things are done on tight budgets and go wrong, so this is when I also came to conclusions on my own that I would remain "non-op". Based on not only the economic suffering I saw people getting themselves into, which is really like mortgaging a house (and a lot of the girls were homeless), but also just the general health difficulties I saw people getting into. I saw the different effects of aging on transitional procedures, that I think a lot of people don't see. And heard a lot of stories of health troubles from girls whose treatments had lapsed or were sporadic for years at a time, due to a lack of finances and health insurance. Although I worked full-time during the day as a secretary, I also had no confidence in the financial security of my own future, so it was a really intense experience for me, at a point when I really needed to make certain decisions about the course of my own life. 

How long were you at Sally's? 

I was DJ-ing there between 1991 and 1992, but it was probably around a six or seven month span. I got the Sally's II Grammy for Best DJ in 1991 in January or February of 1992, and then a month later I was fired because I refused to play a Gloria Estefan record! This was because it was requested by a big-cash John. So, Sally pulled me aside and said to me, "You gotta start playing Madonna and the Pet Shop Boys, and more of that stuff". At the time I was only playing underground house from New Jersey and the Lower East Side, mostly instrumental stuff, so I said "No, I''m not gonna play it," and she said "Well I'm gonna have to let you go". I mentioned that only a month earlier I had gotten the underground Grammy, so I couldn't be doing that bad, and she said, "Well, the girls voted you best DJ, but the Johns pay the bills." And that right there sums up a lot of my scepticism about how certain parts of ball and vogue scenes preach that it's all about acknowledgement and visibility and being named and breaking through. I mean, for me as a transgendered person, what better acknowledgement could I have had than being voted Best DJ by the girls themselves? Yet the Mother of the House Of Magic herself, Sally Maggio, then almost immediately turned around and invalidated that acknowledgement from the girls. Those two conflicting dynamics are tied up in the award. And that's why I hype it up on my website still, not because it is the symbol of some great achievement - which I realize is how most people will simplistically perceive it. For sure, mentioning the award after it was basically invalidated is like a "fuck you", ha ha! But in many ways it symbolizes the complete opposite - hypocrisy and even shame. At the same time, for those who understand the nuances of those kinds of situations, I don't want that "invalidated" initial meaning to be totally erased. It's very bittersweet. So yeah, the real reason I bring that story up is because it represents my concerns about how most people rely on representational strategies whose value systems are almost exclusively rooted in acquisition and visibility. Of course, the ball scene has a very long history with problems of exploitation, mis-representation and commodification, and those abuses are interwoven with very deeply rooted desires for acceptance, acknowledgement and visibility. The general tendency is to maintain face, and identify those problems as solely coming from without. But, through the internalization of violence, those problems are also part of the very practices through which the ball scene self-organizes. That award story kind of sums up the hypocrisies I think many people are struggling with in the ball community. 

That's interesting, because the period you were djing at Sally's would have been around the time "Paris Is Burning" came out? 

Just after, I think. 

That film has a very mixed history: on the one hand it is a huge amount of people's introduction to this whole world of houses and voguing, but also a lot of people say it only shows you a very small aspect of this world, and it's not doing it full justice. Did you see any of that in your time at Sally's? 

I think one of the problems of how people deal with representational issues within house communities (also, of course, within histories of racial and gender discrimination) is that it's easy to slip into a belief that representation can occur in an unbiased and fair way. Of course, every representation is a deception, and who should know that more than drag queens? So did I see it? Yeah of course I did, and at the same time I was actively arguing with queens who wanted me to play "Vogue" every night. It wasn't as though the scene as a whole had its shit together and knew all the problems with "Paris Is Burning" and Madonna's "Vogue" or whatever. There were people who were on the ball with that stuff, and I'd like to think that I was maybe one of them. But at the same time, there were a lot of people who really wanted to participate in that pop moment and celebrate it, simply because any visibility registered as good visibility. It's a kind of juvenile fandom fantasy, you know? So, in any representation of ball scenes, the question then becomes, "how does one really map and represent complexly overlapping communities that deploy languages of authenticity?" That authenticity can be tied to what kind of transgendered person you are, for example post-op realness versus butch queen realness versus a total train wreck person like myself. And, of course, authenticity in relation to issues of race, of class, etc. So, if that is the kind of language that's going on (and this was in the 80s and 90s, when identity politics with an essentialist twinge was in its heyday) how does one actually represent more complex relationships of community? And even myself, being someone who is White in a Latina and African-American club - if you want to boil everything down to essentialist race relations, what the fuck was I doing there, right? Well clearly that is not a very nuanced way to understand social relationships that bring people - even unexpected people - into specific spaces. It leaves you speaking of identity as a claim to territory, rather than speaking of social movement, interaction, organization, domination and violence. So I think unless you enter very precise conversations about why particular things failed or succeeded in terms of media representations, then the boundaries of that conversation becomes too broad and fall into sweepingly essentialist categories.

Terre Thaemlitz "Meditation on Wage Labor and the Death of the Album" (Sprinkles' Unpaid Overtime) 

Find out more about Sprinkles/Terre (and buy her music!) at Comatonse Recordings. 

Much thanks to Barry, Bryony, everyone at Arika! 

PARIS HAS BURNED (New York Times, 1993)

After the death of Angie Xtravaganza in 1993, Jesse Green wrote this piece for the New York Times about the impact of “Paris Is Burning" on the people whose lives it chronicled. Thanks to Matthew Hill for the link. 

 

 House of Xtravaganza

 

LOOKING like endangered birds, the drag queens tottered on their heels as they entered — “a bit early in the day for we girls," said one. It was noon on a recent Saturday at the Sound Factory Bar on West 21st Street, and they were attending a memorial for Angie Xtravaganza. One of her children, Hector Xtravaganza, kept breaking down in tears. “It’s not just her, it’s all of them," he said. “My entire gay childhood is disintegrating before my eyes." Indeed, as some of the 100 mourners rose to reminisce, it was as if their whole world, the world of drag queens and voguing and ecstatic, elaborate balls, had died along with Angie.

Though she was only 27, Angie had been a mother more than a dozen times. Not in the usual way; she was biologically male. “But a mother is one who raises a child, not one who borns it," Hector pointed out. And as mother of the House of Xtravaganza, Angie had taken many rejected, wayward, even homeless children under her wing; she had fed them, observed their birthdays, taught them all about “walking the balls." Competing in categories like High-Fashion Eveningwear and Alexis vs. Krystle, Angie was legendary, a Queen among queens, achieving in fantasy what the world had denied her in reality.

Drag balls, the product of a poor, gay and mostly nonwhite culture, had been held in Harlem since the 1920’s. But it wasn’t until Jennie Livingston’s award-winning documentary, “Paris Is Burning," was released in 1991 that anyone outside that world knew much about them. By then it was almost too late. For Angie Xtravaganza, such fame as she achieved in the two years following the film’s release could not be savored: the AIDS-related liver disease that eventually killed her was already destroying her hard-won femininity. “She had spots all over, like a Dalmatian," Hector said. “And she had to stop taking the hormones that made her look soft, because they’re what really ate her up." In later pictures, you can see the masculine lines of her face re-emerging despite the high collars and makeup.
But it wasn’t just Angie. Before filming was even completed in 1989, her “main daughter," Venus, a frail transsexual who in the movie dreamed of marriage and a home “in the Peekskills," was found strangled under a bed in a hotel. Since then, Kim Pendavis, filmed sewing his costumes, has died of a heart attack though he was only in his 20’s. Of nine featured players, five are gone or going.

Paris is no longer burning. It has burned. And not only because of the casualties. No one needs to go to a ball to see drag anymore: Dame Edna Everage has television specials, Ru Paul mugs on the covers of magazines, fashion shows feature drag acts on the runway. No one needs to go to a ball to see voguing either, not since Madonna gobbled it up, appropriating two Xtravaganzas in the process. Once mainstream America began to copy a subculture that was copying it, the subculture itself was no longer of interest to a wider audience, and whatever new opportunites existed for the principals dried up. After one show last year at the jazz club Sweetwaters, Octavia St. Laurent, for instance, returned to dancing behind glass at the Show Palace. And the balls, which had moved downtown in their moment of fame, have mostly moved back to Harlem.

The film’s critical and financial success should therefore not be taken for the success of its subjects. “The truth is, though I didn’t get rich, I am now a film maker," said Ms. Livingston, 31. “And that’s something I wasn’t before. It doesn’t mean it’s easy to get money. But I am educated and I am white so I have the ability to write those grants and push my little body through whatever door I need to get it through."

And drag queens can’t. “If they wanted to make a film about themselves, they would not be able," said Ms. Livingston, who grew up in Los Angeles and is a graduate of Yale University. “I wish that weren’t so, but that’s the way society is structured." In fact, other than Willi Ninja, the movie’s star dancer, who has stitched together a career including choreography, fashion and music, the characters Ms. Livingston presented remain, at best, where they were when filmed.

Angie Xtravaganza’s memorial made that all too plain. A shrine had been set up in the back of the room: flowers, photographs and, on a pedestal, a pair of Angie’s favorite earrings. Behind them stood a huge funeral wreath, a giant X of blood-red carnations that seemed to stand for more than Xtravanganza. Almost unnoticed was a simple basket of white and purple lilies. “To all who loved Angie," the florist’s card read. It was from Ms. Livingston and her co-producer, Barry Swimar, who were in England to raise money for new projects, including a satirical drama about the way movies depict violence against women.

Perhaps it was just as well they couldn’t attend. There is a lot of anger in the ball world about “Paris Is Burning." Some of it concerns what a few critics have called exploitation: making the lives of poor black and Latino people into a commodity for white consumption. “The complaint is somewhat unfounded," Ms. Livingston said, “as it was largely a gay audience, which included blacks and Latinos, that made the movie successful."

"Anyway," Ms. Livingston continued, “I don’t believe you have to be one thing to make a film about it. I’m white, yes, but I’m an openly queer, female director, and I can’t think of anything more out of the mainstream. I’m sorry, but I do not think I have the same relationship to the ruling class as a straight man."

But most of the anger centers on money. “I love the movie, I watch it more than often, and I don’t agree that it exploits us," said Pepper LaBeija, 44, whose braggadocio and fierce but fey style made him a standout in “Paris Is Burning." “But I feel betrayed. When Jennie first came, we were at a ball, in our fantasy, and she threw papers at us. We didn’t read them, because we wanted the attention. We loved being filmed. Later, when she did the interviews, she gave us a couple hundred dollars. But she told us that when the film came out we would be all right. There would be more coming.
"And that made me think I would have enough money for a car and a nice apartment and for my kids’ education. Because a number of years ago, to please my mother, I took a little break from being a 24-hour drag queen, and so I have a daughter, 15, and a son ready for college. But then the film came out and — nothing. They all got rich, and we got nothing."

Miramax, which released the film, said that “Paris Is Burning" grossed slightly more than $4 million at theaters in the United States. This is not much compared to a Hollywood hit but is exceptional for a documentary that cost only $500,000, including $175,000 for music clearances, to make.
Ms. Livingston would not say how much money she made from the movie. “There was a rumor in the ball world — and this delights me — that I now have a house on Long Island next to Calvin and Kelly Klein," she said. “But the truth is I live about the same as I did, except that I used to be chronically about three months late in paying the rent, and now I’m more or less on time."

STILL, all but two of the movie’s surviving principals — Willi Ninja and Dorian Corey — hired lawyers to try to cash in on the film’s success. The largest claim came from Paris DuPree, who sought $40 million for unauthorized and fraudulent use of her services. Though she is never named on camera and appears for less than three of the movie’s 76 minutes, her 1986 ball, called Paris Is Burning, provided the title for the film and is extensively featured in it. But like all of the others, she had signed a release, and her lawyer dropped the matter.

"There’s no obligation, in a documentary, to pay your subjects," Ms. Livingston said. “The journalistic ethic says you should not pay them. On the other hand, these people are giving us their lives! How do you put a price on that?"

Somehow, she did. Ms. Livingston said that even before the threats of lawsuits, she had decided to pay about $55,000 to 13 performers, based on how long each appeared on screen. And in 1991, after the claims against her had been dropped, the money was distributed.

"I think Jennie has complied with the spirit and with the literal representations she made along the way," said Peggy Brady, a lawyer who represented Ms. Livingston’s production company. “Besides, in our society, we try to encourage the free exchange of information."

Pepper LaBeija was not appeased: “The $5,000 I got was hush money. We didn’t have no choice but to take it. And $1,500 went to my lawyer for doing nothing." He paused, and the musical, swaggering tone familiar from the film returned to his voice. “But at least it brought me international fame. I do love that. Walking down the street, people stop me all the time. Which was one of my dreams doing the drags in the first place.

"What hurts is that I’m famous but not rich. A California magazine said I had sued Miramax and won untold millions and was seen shopping with Diana Ross on Rodeo Drive in a Rolls. But I really just live in the Bronx with my mom. And I am so desperate to get out of here! It’s hard to be the mother of a house while you’re living with your own mother. Why couldn’t they give us $10,000 apiece?"
Ms. Livingston defended the size of the payments. “If they’d been actors in a dramatic film the size of ‘Paris Is Burning,’ they would have made a whole lot less," she said. Of course, if ‘Paris Is Burning’ had been a drama, Ms. Livingston might have earned a whole lot more. As it is, she said she had seen nothing beyond her guarantee. “If we get more money, in all likelihood we’ll distribute more money." Mr. Swimar said. But nothing is likely to smooth Pepper LaBeija’s feathers. If the best documentarian never fully captures her subjects, it’s also true that best subjects never fully accept being captured.

"Oh yes, to this day a lot of the girls hate Miss Jennie, but that’s just greed," said Dorian Corey, by all accounts the star of the movie. She is sitting in a makeshift dressing room at Sally’s II, a drag bar just west of Times Square on 43d Street, applying stage makeup over her street makeup — there’s not much difference — in preparation for her Thursday night show. “Junior LaBeija pitched a bitch in The Amsterdam News, saying he wanted $50,000 because he was the star of the movie. But the Bette Davis money just wasn’t there. I’ll tell you who is making out is those clever Miramaxes. But I didn’t do it for money anyway: I did it for fun. Always have."

She dabbed white greasepaint on her eyelids. “You see I was in show business for years, so when my 15 minutes finally came, it was gravy. And what I got from the publicity tour you couldn’t buy. They paid the hotels and limos. I didn’t even buy cigs; I just signed. I got to be a star! In Boston, the black children were coming up to me with tears in their eyes! It did whet my appetite, and I hoped that crazy little Jennie would have done a sequel, because once you do something big, you want to do it again. But what I got was plenty, and the rest is just bitter onions."

The room in which Dorian would emcee her “Drag Doll Review" was dim and dingy, encrusted with the detritus of many louche incarnations: amorous murals, go-go lights, mirror balls, boudoir lamps. Drag queens of every size and style huddled around the bar, trying to stir up business from average-looking men in dull business attire. From “Paris Is Burning" it might not be evident that this is part of the drag world, too; yet more than one of the movie’s leads can often be found here, looking for customers.

"Welcome to Sally’s II," said Dorian drily. “The original, just down the block, burned down." She narrowed her eyes. “And when this one burns, we’ll move on up the way."

At 55 — “Put me down as 27 and say it’s a two-for-one sale, honey," — Dorian comes from a different age of drag than most of the others in “Paris Is Burning." “These children, it’s a new world now. Most of them make their money turning tricks. It’s that or starve! I myself" — she pulled off her red shift and shimmied into a sequined floor-length magenta dress with rhinestone spaghetti straps — “am lucky to have avoided all that. I’m an old farm girl, from Buffalo, and when you’ve had that healthy beginning, you don’t go the same way."

Dorian slipped into a pair of gold pumps, then poured jewelry from a bag onto the Formica counter. “And today it’s so risky, with the almighty shadow opening the door." She arched one enormous eyebrow in deference to AIDS. “Even I have to the worry. I’ve had such a torrid past. So now I’m a VCR queen, if you know what I’m saying. You don’t have to give a VCR breakfast."

She examined some delicate fake pearl earrings, then rejected them in favor of a pair with four-inch dangling rhinestone strands, which kept falling off. “I’m not trying to look real," she said, getting out the glue. And, true enough, with her platinum wig and elaborate eyes, she looked like a cross between Tina Turner and Barbara Cartland, albeit with stubble in the cleavage of her silicone-enhanced breasts.

"I love all that madness," Dorian said. “Ru Paul, Lypsinka, Liz Smith. But I tell the children to think very serious, and if it’s at all possible avoid the drag life," Dorian said. “It’s a heartache life. If you do pursue it, make sure you get your education, some kind of skill. I always supported myself with my sewing. But the oldest profession is still the easiest, though there’s nothing so pitiful as a 50-year-old prostitute. It’s a one-way street with a very bad end."

But her advice seemed to go as unheeded as her show at Sally’s. Opening with “It’s Today" from “Mame," she had to signal the sound man to turn up the volume in hopes of commandeering attention. Occasionally, when one the patrons did take notice, he would approach Dorian in midsong and stuff some dollar bills down the front of her dress. Dorian didn’t even blink.

She got a better response at Angie’s memorial. It had been a painful afternoon, but when Dorian walked toward the shrine in her fur hat, sunglasses, rain jacket and purse, she was greeted with a huge round of applause. She was, after all, another legendary mother. “It’s O.K., children," she drawled, “because Angie’s got something now that we’ve lost: a little beauty, a little peace. And it’s gonna be hotter and better up there."

Drag is variously explained as destruction of the male within or the female without. For Dorian and for many of Angie’s other mourners, drag is not a means of destruction but of rescue — a little beauty, however perverse and rococo. This is the achievement that Ms. Livingston indelibly recorded: the victory of imagination over poverty. But the victory is Pyrrhic at best. The movie’s title may come from the name of Paris DuPree’s ball, by which she meant only that the competition would be hot, but the phrase itself has a darker history. “Paris brennt?" ("Is Paris burning?") Hitler asked , wondering whether the city had fallen. And though Paris, France survived, the Paris of Ms. Livingston’s movie — and all it depicted — may not.

The mirror ball kept spinning at the Sound Factory Bar. It wasn’t until after 3 o’clock that everyone who wanted to speak had spoken. The crowd went quiet. A man asked everyone to hold hands in a circle. “Remember," he said. “We are all legends."