Rockergrrls

As I promised Gracie a while back, the whole issue of women & music has been chafing my ass a lot lately.

I’ve been a musichead all my life. I love music, I love bands, I love seeing live shows. I’ve been to more concerts than I can count; the list I kept when I was a teenager blows even my mind, these days, as I rarely get out to see a show anymore (since Betty isn’t big on concerts, sadly).

Moreso, I love aggro rock, & always have. I’m a punk at heart, and while I have my love of New Wave and Caberet, there’s nothing like a good garage band as far as I’m concerned. Loud, out of tune, I don’t care. Just bring it on, and with major cock attitude, too.

So I watched when Betty found a “100 Best Hard Rock Bands” show in VH-1 the other day, because I was curious about how they’d mix metal and grunge and punk and glam. I’ve never been a metalhead but I’ve had friends who are, but grunge and punk and glam – well, HELL YES.

What puzzled me not at all was that Carmen Electra was the host, even though that doesn’t make any sense at all, since she’s famous, of course, for being one of Prince’s finds, and has otherwise become a professional Pretty Face. What was weirder is that all the voiceovers – you know, the smart bits about the bands – were done by a guy. I’m sure she has talent, I just don’t know what in. Anyway, she was wearing a leather minidress and reading blandly from the teleprompter – there’s nothing quite as ridiculous as someone delivering the phrase “Rock On!” with no passion whatsoever – and I got more and more aggravated by her presence.

Because they were interviewing people like Lita Ford and Penelope Spheeris (director of the Decline of Western Civilization movies, amongst other things; in other words, a woman with real rock n roll bona fides). I couldn’t understand why Carmen as host, when there’s all these cool rock women around, and then it hit me: oh, Carmen is there for the audience. You know, the guys who like rock. You know, cause it’s only guys who like rock. You know, cause women like me don’t exist. Neither does the woman I met in St. Louis who told me every cigarette she couldn’t have caused her to turn up her Black Sabbath that much louder on her headphones.

Women in music are scantily-clad Rolling Stone covers (please notice the paucity of women on the covers, & the paucity of their clothes when they are), pretty girls in leather minidresses that can’t deliver a “Rock on!” with any conviction whatsoever. They’re the ones who sleep with the bands, with the roadies. They don’t actually know anything about music; they’re only in it for the boys.

Anyway, Carmen Electra tires me. It’s not her fault. It’s a million years of rock & roll history. No matter how many Jordans, or Poly Styrenes, or Chrissie Hyndes or Wendy O. Williamses or Joan Jetts, aggro rock will always be the domain of the boys. And you know, FUCK THAT.

After You Give Thanks

Here’s some other things you can do:

#36 Get involved in the political process: Volunteer for a Candidate
#37 Plan and conduct a Day of Remembrance event
#38 Support or create a radio show or podcast
#39 Hold a House Party for NCTE or another trans organization
#40 Make Jails Safer for Trans People
#41 Hold a Job Fair
#42 Support a Drag Community Event
#43 Engage Media Coverage of Transgender Issues
#44 Conduct a Community Needs Assessment
#45 Vote!
#46 Start a discussion group on gender related books
#47 Respond to Alerts from Other Organizations

For all of the 52 things (thus far!), go to NCTE’s website.

& Have a great Thanksgiving (for those of you who celebrate it today).

No Thanks

In case anyone’s deluded into thinking all’s well in genderland, someone named Arlene Starr decided to take me to task for my post on the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

She writes:

I must be too sensitive, be that as it may I was totally offended by Helen Boyd’s first line of her blog entry for the 20th. It read;

“Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, when we honor our dead.”

We Helen? What gives you the right to stake any claim to this day? This is your husbands day, my day and others like me. Is nothing sacred? Let us remember our dead as only we can do. Try as you might to be one of us you are an outsider and always will be. Once again you have proven how little you really know about “Trans.”

Charming person, eh? It’s this kind of attitude that makes partners (and family) of trans people feel unwelcome in the trans community. Of course I’m not trans, but if she thinks violence against gender variant folks isn’t my problem, she’s off her rocker. It’s true: I’m never scared for Betty. I’m never worried we’re targeted for violence as a same sex couple because of Betty’s transness. & Of course I’d never find myself needing to protect Betty if some jerk figures out she was born male.

Holy hand grenades, Batman: we’ve got a bitter dimwit on our hands.

His Hotness, Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp on the Actor’s Studio, being asked about playing Ed Wood: James Lipton, the interviewer, asks him if some of the fun of the role wasn’t dressing up in women’s clothes, and Depp responds, “Getting paid to dress like a woman? Yeah. And get away with it? Yeah.”

Or something close to that. Then when asked how he came up with the way he played Ed Wood, he said it was a little bit of the optimism of Ronald Reagan, some of the Tin Man, and – Casey Kasem.

& Only after that does he admit he played Ichabod Crane as “Girl Detective.”

& There’s one more question asked him, by a student, about women, and crossdressing, that my readers would probably appreciate his answer to, which starts with the unlikely phrase, “The most trouble I ever had crossdressing…”

& (ahem) Buster Keaton was a huge influence on Edward Scissorhands.

Overall, a great interview, going over all his major roles, & not to be missed by any Johnny Depp fan.

Done.

I handed in the final proof pages of She’s Not the Man I Married today.

There’s always this moment, after I finish a project, where I just want to sleep – and often do, quite a lot. I’m not sure if its like post-natal depression, or just a kind of mental exhaustion, or even anxiety – after all, what comes next are reviews – but it happens.

Either way, it won’t be very long now until I have the actual book in my hands, though that doesn’t make the pub date come any quicker for anyone else. (Sorry.)