Wire in my wallow...
A large part of this post was reused and rewritten for a post-hiatus piece written in 2009.
I've rather been wallowing in the past in the last few days for which I'm sorry, though I hope the results of my unearthing of the old photos was diverting.
I have (in common, I think, with a lot of transgender people) a complex relationship with my self image. The way I've insistently and obsessively photographed myself since the mid-nineties is, let's face it a bit weird.
Course, there's more than a cursory element of creative exploration about the process, but I sometimes wonder if beyond that is a kernel of something a bit stranger and, dare I say, sicker?
Sometimes, looking back over the galleries of photos of myself that I appear to have accumulated, there is an part of me that is reminded of those classic movie and TV scenes of the revelation of the stalker's room, plastered with voyeuristic shots of their intended target.
Friends ask me amusedly why I do what I do - not the dressing up, I think most enlightened people realise that there's no point in trying to explain the transvestic impulse (there certainly isn't enough time in the day) - but why the photos? And why so many?
And why shouldn't they ask - most would consider such humongous levels of vanity humorous, with more than a nod in the direction of the deranged box. And it is vanity of a monstrous kind. But why is it that I (and many other trannies) am so bloody vain?
Maybe I am deranged?
It's probably too late to change really. And of course, flickr is paradise for the deranged obsessive, obviously. We encounter them daily and the tools pander to the obsessive's need to classify and categorise, with the sets, collections, geotagging, archival tools like the EXIF/dating system.
Despite my misgivings though, I've of course really enjoyed finding the old photos and tracing my development and the physical and stylistic changes I've gone through in the last decade or so.
Our collecting of our images helps us validate our desired self images. Comments we receive help build on those wobbly foundations of validation.
Trannies are insecure individuals, prone to self doubt and long, dark nights of soul searching, purging and worse.
The doubt comes from the fundamental mismatch we feel between our self and our image. The images help us heal those mismatches in our heads. I'm not a hand-wringing, tortured, insecure, guilt-ridden tranny - I'm pretty happy in my skin - but even I can see that the avalanche of photos is a barrier against self-doubt. A wall built of yearning to keep the fear at bay.
No wonder the wall around my wallow gets bigger all the time. It's almost like that picture that Dorian Gray used to keep in his attic. But in reverse. As I decay, the pictures remain pristine, colourful, shiny and mysterious, the way I want to perceive myself.
Now what was The Picture of Dorian Grey a parable about?
Oh yeah. Vanity :)
So I've finished posting my old photos on flickr. The last one I posted, of me rather bizzarely, if coyly sucking my thumb (God knows what possessed me), was taken in April 1999.
See, Six Inch Killaz had (unknown to us at the time) just played our last gig. It was our one and only gig as a four piece after sacking Jasmine for well documented reasons.
The band drifted apart and we eventually called it a day couple of months afterwards.
I have trouble sleeping after getting home from playing gigs. I'm often awake, enervated and full of nervous energy (and booze) and I have developed the bizarre, narcissistic habit, which persists today, of pointing the camera drunkenly at myself and taking shots like this one.
This night was when that habit commenced.
That's the end of the stroll down memory lane. I hope I didn't outstay my welcome.
What going through these memories has done is made me want to dress again after a very long time.
So I think I will...
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Krchive part 5 (1999)
I recently found a bunch of old photos, mainly pre-digital, on an old CD-ROM. It was interesting looking back at the emergence of the "Miss K" character during the 90s. Here are a few of the ones that caught my eye...
Having got the digital bug, I decided I wanted a better camera and plumped, with Christmas money assistance, on the new Casio QV7000-SX, which had pretty amazing image quality for a compact of the time. This meant I could get arty with my vanity portraits.
Up till 2003 when I moved onto the first of my two Nikons, all my photos were taken with this trusty camera.
I was now definitely a redhead (under the wig as well)
You'll be relieved to hear that this prolonged jaunt down memory lane is almost at an end now...
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Krchive part 4 (1998)
I recently found a bunch of old photos, mainly pre-digital, on an old CD-ROM. It was interesting looking back at the emergence of the "Miss K" character during the 90s. Here are a few of the ones that caught my eye...
I took this (→) I was getting ready to go out, sometime around Christmas.
It isn't a particularly nice picture but it's kind of significant for me at least, being I think the very first "arm's length" self-portrait I took with my very first digital camera.
It was a Casio QV-10A and I got it very very cheap in New York as it was over a year old and already obsolete. It only took 320x200 pixel shots and the JPEG artefacting was something atrocious, but it gave a certain luminescent quality to the closeups it took which I liked.
It had a swivel lens which allowed you to look at the LCD while shooting. Which was nice.
I replaced it with a 1.3 megapixel model soon after, but the digital floodgates had been opened...
A friend was fiddling with the new camera and took this (→) nice angle, Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still-esque, I felt.
After a bit of mucking about in Photoshop to reduce the colour it's got a nice atmosphere, to which the crappy quality actually adds.
I got stupendously drunk later this night. Luckily I left the camera at home.
Soon, I was going mad with my first digital camera. I like these shots.
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Krchive part 3 (1996 - 7)
I recently found a bunch of old photos, mainly pre-digital, on an old CD-ROM. It was interesting looking back at the emergence of the "Miss K" character during the 90s. Here are a few of the ones that caught my eye...
1997
By 1997 I was an ex-blonde. This is turning into the story of my hair, isn't it?
» Undated shots from 1997... + those where the date is known.
1996
Not many Miss K photos from 1996. I guess I was busy with the Killaz that year.
This shot was taken for my company's website on some sort of early digital camera we had knocking about - not great quality but the days of the proper digicam were looming now.
Only thing else to add is that clearly, I was generally looking rather androgynous around that time.
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Krchive part 2 (1994 - 5)
I recently found a bunch of old photos, mainly pre-digital, on an old CD-ROM. It was interesting looking back at the emergence of the "Miss K" character during the 90s. Here are a few of the ones that caught my eye...
1994
I went very blonde for a few years. I quite liked this severe hairstyle!
While I had my blonde crop, I hardly ever wore a wig.
I had this hairstyle when I first joined Six Inch Killaz (about a year after these photos were taken) and at the first gig I played, people apparently mistook me for (and I quote) "a pretty lesbian"!
Cough
1995
These four images from 1995 were taken by a friend with the web in mind. For the very first incarnation of my personal site, the draGnet in fact, which has over the years mutated into my current blog.
This was also around the time I joined Six Inch Killaz, my first "proper" band, which of course I've written about at great length.
I still have this horrible fun fur jacket somewhere. It cost about a fiver from C&A on Oxford Street.
I guess I was starting to develop my 'rock and roll' look around this time. Shampoo were a popular band at the time and this outfit kind of reflects that, I guess.
This is still one of my best pictures I think. It was the home page image of the first version of the draGnet. I love my hair in it:
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Krchive part 1 (1990 - 1993)
I recently found a bunch of old photos, mainly pre-digital, on an old CD-ROM. It was interesting looking back at the emergence of the "Miss K" character during the 90s. Here are a few of the ones that caught my eye...
199?
This one is the first documents of me dressed. It's from a student video which I made with some friends. Never finished, long lost.
It happened one summer while my parents were away from home for a while. I spent most of that summer dressed (not very well, by the look of things). Can't remember if it was when I was at foundation or at art school proper. Or perhaps in between.
It was an inbetween-ish kind of time. A lot of the fiction on my blog is inspired by this time and the years immediately following.
1993
The following two images are from a photo project by an art school friend:
I always loved the colours and lost-ness of this shot and am really happy to have found it again.
I was pretty chubby at this time, and my look is pretty naive, but this is a cute shot, I think.
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The grimy world of Deathline feets
Come and see our feet in person this evening when we play the Windmill Brixton.
» More details
» Deathline MySpace
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Deathline
Our next gig is this Sunday at the Windmill in Brixton, one of their famous Sunday BBQs. More info...
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Where's Shaggy?
(my company has been working to bring Mr Boombastic into Second Life this week. All was well, until...)
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Kei Mars
This is Kei Mars. She's my avatar in Second Life. Kei has been a resident of Second Life since January 23 2004.
I'd perviously been posting all my Second Life pictures to a separate flickr account that I have with my friend Thea Donovan, but I've now decided to merge all my real and imagined lives into my primary flickr account.
Over time, I'll migrate my other pictures into there.
Don't all applaud at once.
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"Some sort of homosexual department?"
If you're not watching the new season of the sublime The IT Crowd on Channel 4, you're really missing out on the best comedy around.
This is rapidly reaching the levels of greatness that creator Graham Linehan previously scaled with Father Ted.
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Second Life Grid launches
Introducing the Second Life Grid.
Sounds impressive but it's really a bit of marketing repositioning SL in a targeted way to marketers and organisations in general.
The programs Linden Lab talk about have been in existence for months / years, but it's obviously more comprehensible for those seeking to take advantage of them by presenting them in a vertical, targeted website.
Interesting that they are launching this channel initiative now, when perception of SL in the wider world is riding quite low.
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Heavy Weather - tour diary #3
Chicago / Madison, 23 August 07
Previously...
We drove out of the lot and onto the freeway, it was hot and sunny and we had over four hours before we had to be there. The aircon was on and the FM radio was blasting. It was all good.
Nothing could possibly go wrong...
Could it...?
We finally seemed to have left the 'British' weather behind.
As we took the ramp onto the i-90 that would see us all the way to Madison, though, clouds were already scudding over from the East. It was unbelievable how quickly the storm gathered, but suddenly we were gridlocked in gingerly crawling traffic, being lashed by unbelievable rain and wind. The water was standing on the surface of the freeway's tarmac making any movement perilous.
Having missed a turnoff earlier and doubling back, we were still within Chicago's city limits. The news on the radio was rumbling ominously about "historic" levels of rain and urging Chicagoans to stay in their homes.
It was terrifying.
I called Tyler back home in New York to see if he could get us more detailed forecasts. He was in the laundromat but he assured us that Midwestern storms tend to be savage but to pass quickly, so we decided to press on for a while.
Crawling along at about 20mph we seemed to come to the end of the storm which gave way to grey drizzle after about half an hour. Soon we'd picked up pace and left Chicago behind in brightening skies and I was starting to think about grabbing a bite to eat. I tend to get hangry (hungry-angry) if I get too low in blood sugar and we hadn't eaten since breakfast at LaGuardia about 8 hours earlier.
The radio was still rumbling about potential flooding in the counties north of Chicago but the weather didn't look that bad.
Then we began to see it on the horizon.
At first a darkening, then as we got closer, an absolutely colossal stormhead, the likes of which I'd never seen before. A curved wall of cloud, almost pitch black underneath though it was barely 4.30 in the afternoon. IN the flat midwestern countryside where you can literally see for miles, it seemed to have no end.
"I don't like the look of this," said Jennie, "and we're driving straight into it."
Droplets of rain began to strike the windscreen. Taillights began to disappear in the murk ahead. Traffic slowed to a crawl as the downpour began.
I rarely use the word "Biblical" but this rain made the previous deluge we'd been in seem like a light shower. We literally couldn't see the front of our car, the rain was so heavy. We struggled on at walking pace but after an hour or so it became clear that we'd have to get off the freeway. It was too dangerous.
Fortunately all the drivers around us were going responsibly. We pulled off at a service area hoping to sit out the storm with some food, but all the food outlets seemed to be closed. We heard there had been power cuts. It was academic anyway. If we'd left the car we would probably have drowned.
I was unable to decide what to do. In fact I was so hungry that I couldn't even think straight and we had our first big argument of the trip as we waited in the eerie silence of the rainswept services, barely able to see the cars all round us, full of hunched figures waiting for the rain to lift.
Time passed and there was a lightening of the sky to the North as the edge of the storm finally began to reach us. Jennie bravely decided to press on. Probably wise as all the storms seemed to be happening behind us in Northern Illinois so if we'd turned back we'd have run into them again.
It was now coming up to half five (we were due at the venue by six) and we were probably about two hours away from there. We pressed on, finally stopping to quell my 'hanger' at the next services which thankfully were open.
The sky was almost bright as I ate a slice of spinach pizza and drank some water. Jennie tucking into a chicken gyro. Food never tasted this good.
Soon we were through Rockford at the north-western edge of Illinois and into Wisconsin. Thanks to Google maps, the rest of the journey passed uneventfully and we arrived at the Annex club in a dry, hot and humid Madison soon after 7pm.
We knocked on the door to find the promoter, Darwin, mopping the floor of the entranceway. Apparently the storms had passed through earlier and flooded the basement earlier.
He came out and looked at the car. "Jesus, that's a fucking tank" he said. It was indeed the biggest saloon car that either Jennie and I had been in.
We unloaded, checked details with the sound guy, then sat in the cool bar for a while, drinking some cold beer, trying to chill out.
Stage time was after 11, so we had a fair bit of time to kill and we chatted a lot with the other bands. Headlining were The Pistols at Dawn, a local surf punk band. Very friendly guys who introduced us to some of the local brews, including a very tasty wheat beer called Spotted Cow. Also there were Ersa Miner, a fine, grungy rock duo from Chicago who'd arrived before us, also delayed by the weather.
Tyler had told us that the Annex served the best Bloody Marys in the USA. He wasn't wrong. They were bloody good. Apparently the secret ingredient is a dash of Guinness. Hmmm.
The show was really good. The Annex is for us a big venue, somewhere in the region of the size of The Forum in Kentish Town. As the students were still not back from vacation it was quite quiet but a bunch of local kids had come especially to see us so we got a really warm reception. We played a longer, heavier set and were overwhelmed by the reception we got.
The excellent Pistols at Dawn closed the night with a deafening set of instrumental surf punk covers and originals. We felt a little like we were in a David Lynch movie, especially when they launched into a version of The Pink Room from the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me soundtrack.
We drove back to Darwin's apartment where we were staying the night sometime after 2.30am. Two cats greeted us. We slept.
The Annex (set)
- We Took Paris
- 7-1 Regime
- I Cannot See
- Labradoodle
- YTFU
- Funtime
- Have the Dust
- 17
- Lacka Lacka (Firecracka)
Madison → Chicago, 24 August 07
Jennie woke me at just after 8. She'd not slept a wink due to stress, my snoring, cat shenanigans. We decided to get an early start and head straight back to Chicago. Turned out to be a lucky decision in the end.
Once on the open road things felt good. It was less humid, bright. The car needed to be back at the Downtown Budget car lot by 2.30 so we had shitloads of time.
Or so it seemed. To avoid fuel penalties (an extra day's rental) we had to fill the car up and to avoid paying an extra day's rental, we had, like I said, to get it back by 2.30.
Unbelievably, we hit traffic so bad going into Chicago that we actually only made it into the Budget office at 2.29pm. I kid you not, we made it by less than a minute. The two and a half hour journey from Madison to Chicago took over five hours.
It had been a stressful 24 hours.
More by luck than design, the Budget lot was on the same block, just across the road, from the Hilton where we were staying as part of the Second Life Community Convention, so we dragged our flight cases and weary asses across the road and wearily checked in. MIracle of miracles, it was hot and sunny.
Jennie hit her bed and deservedly slept the next few hours.
I was also at the convention in a professional capacity (my company does development in Second Life) so I hit the bar and started doing some networking over a beer, meeting some friends form back in the UK as well as other people who I knew from in Second Life but had never met in person.
Apparently the storm had been spectacular the afternoon before as it broke across the skyscrapers of downtown Chicago. One person described how they'd seen it hurling sheets of plywood and other building materials from the roof of a nearby skyscraper under construction. Other more stoic Chicagoans claimed it was pretty normal for the city.
Later, when Jennie rose, we strolled round the South Loop area for a while and fetched up at a pretty restaurant called The Chicago FIrehouse (a converted fire station) and had some very very good food before a nightcap at the hotel bar and early bed.
Second Life Community Convention, 25 August 07
For logistical reasons we had to get up at 7am to soundcheck (sigh). We found a room of bleary eyed musicians but the gear had only just arrived, we were informed by a stressed looking Elle Waters, the magnificent music organiser for the convention.
We popped off to get some coffee and breakfast. There was bedlam in the concourses of the hotel. Apart from the 1,000+ strong Second Life convention, there was also an induction for the students of nearby Columbia College, an ESPN fantasy football convention and the hotel was also playing host to the participants of the Accenture Chicago triathlon, meaning that amongst the nerds, students and sports nerds were hundreds of fit, tanned people with race numbers on their muscular thighs carting bicycles and swimwear around.
And there was a wedding reception being prepared for later. Madness.
We soundchecked after breakfast and Jennie went back to her room to wash up while I wandered around listening to various strands of the convention and doing some more networking. Later I found out that Jennie had fallen asleep again.
We met again briefly for lunch with the other conventioneers and then she split to stroll around the downtown area.
By four I was conventioned out and I sat down with Ken Hudson, a really nice artist and educator doing Second Life based teaching projects at Toronto's Loyalist College and hit the beer. Jennie came and joined us soon afterwards.
After a few drinks we went back into listen to some of the music that was being performed to a smattering of fans in the Boulevard Room where we'd be playing later. Particularly impressive was jazz singer Ankari Holder, doing mainly unaccompanied jazz and blues standards as well as some beautiful original compositions. She has a crystal clear, expressive voice reminiscent of the likes of Astrud Gilberto.
Our slot from 8 - 9pm turned out not to be the best, as it seemed to be when people were off eating or napping after the rigours of the convention day. We had a few people enthusiastically supporting us and once again we enjoyed a terrific sound. The sound in all our gigs was terrific. The engineers in the US really seem to know their shit.
Elle informed us that there was a biggish crowd listening to us in Second Life as well, so it was good. We played all our songs, and played them very well.
That night was the only night of the tour we got really drunk. After wrapping up and taking our shit back to our rooms, we hit the bar big time, drinking frozen Margaritas with a nice German lady called Brigit who'd given one of the most interesting talks earlier that day. We looked in at the masquerade ball (a fetishy affair), but the bar arrangements were too complicated so we joined a bunch of people back in the hotel bar and continued until the small hours.
Jennie went on somewhere but I had reached my limit and staggered back to my room. I was beat and we had to fly back to New York the next day. The next morning she told me she'd done the same. Had one more drink, felt she'd had enough, and gone to bed.
The tour was done.
SLCC (set)
- We Took Paris
- I Cannot See
- 7-1 Regime
- Labradoodle
- YTFU
- Funtime
- Have the Dust
- 17
- Lacka Lacka (Firecracka)
- Cmon Cmon
The rest, 26 - 27 August 07
Leaving the conference early on a sunny, hot day, we had an uneventful journey back to New York. It really felt like coming home as we waited on the stoop of Tyler and Kate's brownstone in Park Slope for them to return from an afternoon stroll. It was lovely and warn. Sunny.
That evening we had a meal and a drink in the area before an early night.
The next morning we packed up and had a last visit to Manhattan, and a stroll around Brooklyn's beautiful Prospect Park before saying a sad goodbye to New York.
It was a dazed two Deathliners who, to save costs, boarded a Piccadilly Line tube from Heathrow back to Kings Cross the next morning. The flight had arrived at 6.30am. London was ten degrees cooler and a lot drabber than the places we'd left behind.
We had a great time. We'd certainly not claim that it did our profile or our finances any good whatsoever. We pretty much lost money all along. But we played with some great bands and were overwhelmed by the friendliness and hospitality we encountered throughout the trip.
Special thanks must go to Tyler and Kate who put us up (and put up with us) for so long and Tyler especially who organised most of the dates for us. To Elle (aka Nethermind Bliss) who booked us for SLCC and started the whole ball rolling. To Nell and Frankie at Otto's who made us so welcome, and Darwin who looked after us so well at The Annex. To my company The Guild, who gave us some much needed financial support. To all the cats we met, but especially Phi and Ella, New Yorkers with attitude.
And to the fantastic bands we played with, many of whom you can find on the friends space on our MySpace now. Have a listen, they are all shit hot.
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I'm a Musician, writer, photographer, designer, transgendered z-list celebrity. Insomniac's boyfriend. Tragic glamour and sleepless nights are my fellow travellers. Skinny jeans and pointy shoes are my mode-us operandi. I like cats. Especially the ones who talk. Oh, and David Lynch.
