It's a nice bit of coincidence that Academy Award-winning documentary-maker Errol Morris has opened his new film Tabloid in theaters during this Tabloid Scandal summer of 2011, but the movie has nothing to do with amoral media magnate Rupert Murdoch and his minions. Morris gives new life to a tale that captivated the British tabloid press in the 70s: did American Southern belle Joyce McKinney kidnap the object of her desire, young Mormon missionary Kirk Anderson, tie him up to a bed in rural Devon county, and make juicy, mad love to him without his consent?
You can see why Fleet Street seized on this story, for it has everything: daring blonde beauty queen, S&M hardware, possible sex crime, magical Mormon underwear, a "sordid" past of model/escorting. Even more bizarrely, in a kind of coda, years later McKinney delivered DNA from her beloved dead dog Booger to a clinic in Seoul, South Korea, where it was successfully cloned into five Booger replicants. We're not making any of this stuff up.
Anderson did not consent to be interviewed for Morris' film, so there's none of the "he said/she said" dynamic you'd expect. McKinney parries accusations of raping her manacled Mormon by suggesting that a woman can't rape a man: the analogy she uses is, you can't stuff a marshmallow into a parking-meter coin-slot. We had to puzzle that one out, but finally got it: there was no Viagra or Cialis back then. But even just hearing her own version of events forces viewers to the conclusion that, as one writer for the British scandal sheets puts it, McKinney is, was, and always has been "barking mad." Still, she makes for great copy.
Many musical offerings have helped us get through this mad summer, but none quite so chirpily as Blue Songs, the second album from Hercules and Love Affair, releasing Aug. 16 on Moshi Moshi. Their self-titled 2008 debut blew us away with its neo-disco sound: "He took us to town, pushed us around, little boy Hercules." Their club hit "Blind" featured falsetto vocalist Antony: "As a child, I knew that the stars could only get brighter." Soon Antony was popping up everywhere, a true avant-garde darling.
We remember dancing loose-limbed to the glamorous sounds of Herc & Love Affair at a long-past YBCA opening-night party. But that was then, this is now. There's no Antony on Blue Songs, but Hercules founder Andy Butler tells the press his sophomore effort is a growth thing. "There's definitely jacking house and there's definitely even more full-blown disco, but there's also more experimental, softer music." Still, we like the new album best when it gets carried away by insistent rhythms. An anthem of sorts: "I won't bear this cross, I won't wear these chains. I will find my own fire!" Kirk Anderson's theme song?
We're loyal to recording artists that have brought us aural pleasure through the years, no matter what the format. Songwriter/singer Sam Phillips has just issued Solid State, the first physical release from her digital-only Long Play project. Solid State is a sampling of material written and recorded for Long Play between Aug. 2009 and Feb. 2011, dressed up for those of us who enjoy physical releases.
Speaking of, scene and style icon Grace Jones has a new release, Hurricane, out Sept. 6 on [PIAS] America. Jones was a muse to no less than Andy Warhol , who created a series of iconic portraits of her. Produced by Jones and Ivor Guest, Hurricane has received widespread praise in the U.K. and Europe, where it was released in 2009. The video for the track "Corporate Cannibal" was directed by Nick Hooker. The new release will also include a bonus-disc dub version of the entire album.
Meantime, record label-less Morrissey played down his recent appearance at Glastonbury festival, telling Pitchfork, "Every time I opened my mouth, I swallowed rain. Under such conditions you can't really expect much from an audience. I think they were there for U2 anyway, understandably. U2 have an enormous Star Wars set with drumsticks that light up northern Africa, and a sound system that would drown out an earthquake. I can't compete with that. Not with my post-office savings account. All I have to offer the world are songs."
On the local front, out gay entertainer Jason Brock will be bringing his campy, wild style to the traditionally straight audiences of the Bubble Lounge in SF this month. Brock headlines a monthly evening of Champagne and Follies at the Lounge, located at 714 Montgomery St., SF. This month's event, on Aug. 10 at 7 p.m., will highlight Bollinger Special Cuvee NV. In addition to appearing in venues such as the Rrazz Room and Martuni's, Brock recently appeared as a demented flower in the Magic Theater production of The Lily's Revenge. For reservations at the Bubble L., contact Suzanna Koolidge, (415) 434-4204.
DVR alert: "In Sept. 2009, a select group of fans and friends had the rare opportunity to experience Barbra Streisand 's performance in the ultimate up-close and personal setting," announces KQED Public Television, somewhat breathlessly. "Accompanied by piano, bass, guitar, and drums, this is the artist at her most intimate." Barbra Streisand: One Night Only at the Village Vanguard, the legendary Greenwich Village club, airs on Sat., Aug. 6 at 7 p.m. on KQED, Channel 9.
How humiliating!
Humiliation by Wayne Koestenbaum (Picador Paperback Original) is the essayist's collected musings or "fugues" on the title topic. He considers public humiliation in the abstract and in specific cases (Bill Clinton , Larry Craig, Eliot Spitzer). Sample fugue: "Repeatedly I watch clips of Liza Minnelli on YouTube. I want to see her humiliation. And I want to see her survive the grisly experience and turn it into glory."
In a collection of fugue thoughts on personal, sexualized humiliation given the chapter title "I Want to Be Your Bitch," Koestenbaum considers some postings on Craigslist, an arena where, he notes, "the Marquis de Sade would have had a field day." "A man wants a man to humiliate him over the phone: 'i have a 5 inch skinny dick and i need a big dick man to tell me what a loser and pussy i am.'"
"Humiliation, like a pigeon, travels in every conceivable direction: guy > guy, guy > girl, girl > girl, girl > guy. But because, historically, women have been (let's generalize) more often the recipients of bad treatment – that's the way patriarchy's cookie crumbles – I detect more radical frisson in situations when a man grovels."
To his credit, the author concludes his slim volume with a litany of his own personal humiliations, inspired by the SF avant-garde writer Dodie Bellamy, who made such a list of her own in her 2006 book Academonia. Vintage cringeworthy anecdotes involve bodily fluids like snot, urine, and vomit, gender confusion, and childhood bullying and cruelties. Good times! "A kid in seventh-grade gym, on the soccer field, called me a 'wop faggot.' I was flattered to be mistaken for an Italian."
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