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lastchancevillagegreen · 28 days

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Wednesday, 1 May 2024:

The Cars Anthology: Just What I Needed The Cars (Elektra) (released in 1995)

The fact that I bought a Cars compilation is a bit funny since I've never liked the band. But over at my new home away from home (or The Winery) I posted a Cars song because the day's them was "post a song you like by a band you hate." I chose Let's Go by The Cars, a song I've always loved but refused to ever buy because I dislike the band.

This gets a bit complicated and reveals how and why we hate certain things. I have also always liked the song Drive and oddly enough both songs were not sung by Ric Ocasek, whose voice I tend to dislike, but by bass player Benjamin Orr whose voice I do like. My main rationale for disliking the band is when their debut came out way back in 1978 and I was in college. My roommates loved this album and one of them even claimed The Cars were the greatest band ever to live. High praise for a band who released one album. That kind of hyperbole was common for the band at the time, at least among the people I knew. Perhaps I felt cantankerous and wasn't in the mood for such hyperbole, especially since my roommates often made fun of what I listened to. A steady diet of Elvis Costello was my mainstay and how anyone thought The Cars were better than Costello and The Attractions still kind of blows my mind.

Anyhow, after much discussion on God's Jukebox about The Cars I decided I'd give them a whirl. I tried buying this particular set before a couple of years ago in Chicago at Reckless but the back of the discs were atrociously scratched. Why would I want a two disc set of a band I dislike? Well, the slipcover is cool and Rhino does a really nice job of presenting artists and bands in their two disc compilations. Who knows, maybe I'll find a greater appreciation (or maybe, I'll just play Let's Go until I'm sick of it and shelf it, the greater likelihood).

Above you see that cool, metallic slipcover taken intentionally in the outside sunshine. Below you can see the front and back of the fatty jewel case.

Normally Rhino puts these two disc comps in a cardboard box and each disc inside it's own jewel case. I'm not sure why they changed that two a fatty jewel case, but they did. The next two shots show you either side of that jewel case being opened up.

Here are two shots of each disc in close detail.

The next three shots reveal the front and the back of the booklet followed by a shot of the booklet opened up to a random page.

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emeryart · 4 years

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The Sissy in The Celluloid Closet

I recently rewatched The Celluloid Closet (1995). it’s a documentary that I have watched countless times growing up. The first time I watched it was a couple of years after it’s release and I must have been in the infant stages of my college years struggling with my own sexual identity. I remember being moved by the keen dissection of films. I found myself relating to experiences of reading into films looking and hoping for a glimpse of someone queer like me.

Of course, there were gay representations in films but they were always super exaggerated or villans. I never identified with those types of characters which naively pushed me further away from me understanding my queer path. After all, it wasn't until April 30h, 1997 that Ellen had come out on t.v. And more than half of America thought the sky was going to fall. That timestamp of Ellen's “big reveal” is an important mark in pop culture as it marked a time that television from that point on would progress in ways that previous gay characters in television couldn’t. To be honest, none of the shows prior were in my obit as a kid so those opportunities to relate were lost on me.

I came out as bisexual at 21. I didn’t fully understand who I was sexually but I knew that I loved deeply and wanted that love to be returned. I was angsty and ready to fight to be allowed to love whoever I wanted. Affection and adoration felt good it didn’t matter who gave it to me. The cleverly ambiguous Backstreet boy anthem of 1997 constantly played in my head:

“I don't care who you are

Where you're from

What you did

As long as you love me”

I soon realized my attraction to men vs woman had a consistent difference. I was attracted to women for their affection and care. I loved being smothered with little gifts and praise. I felt important. With men, I found out It was more physical. The fact that it was a touch from another man was sinful made it exciting and made me feel as if I was down to fight anyone who thought homosexuality was wrong. Even still, with all the energy to take on the world, I couldn’t identify who I was.

Sociologist Erving Goffman wrote The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life in 1959. “According to Goffman, social interaction may be likened to a theater, and people in everyday life to actors on a stage, each playing a variety of roles. The audience consists of other individuals who observe the role-playing and react to the performances.” (Crossman)

We as humans need labels. We unconsciously and consciously make and create labels for everything we experience in life. Long before I learned about his work, I began to understand Goffman's theory of social theatrics as a kid. Paying close attention to mannerisms, voice inflections, appearance. I paid close attention to how people interpreted personality and how they reacted.

Growing up with all women I naturally learned to move and speak as they did. Middle school was the time I began to experience force assimilation into the hetero-normative culture. From then on I would shy away from all things deemed feminine. The sissy character as presented in the film The Celluloid Closest threw a wrench in my consciousness as a young man. The caricature of the sissy was everything I was taught to fear. I felt slightly embarrassed to watch the dissection of the function of the sissy role in the film. I then became outraged when I realized people were taught to mock, taunt, and ridicule him. I actually began to find the character endearing and joyful. I wanted the sissy to be free and proud to be who he wanted to be.

I began to wonder why I was so determined to carefully remove anything feminine from my world. What little joys and bliss have I been missing because I was afraid to be seen as a sissy? I was a newly "out" man who decided to reclaim his feminine side. If I wore the color pink, what was going to happen? someone would call me gay?? Well, I already identified as gay so that has no power.

It was that moment in time that I really started playing with ideas of identity in my artwork. I repelled so hard away from anything feminine for most of my life that I intentionally made choices to change the narrative of my "theatrical show". I began to represent myself in ways that others have never seen. I have always loved comedy and making people laugh so this new venture was a refreshing welcome. The more people were opposed to the work I produced, the more I doubled down on the execution. People who are close to me love that I stopped taking myself so seriously and began to laugh at others who passed judgment on what they are exposed to not knowing I'm controlling the narrative all along.

The sissy has set me free. As an artist, I am not so much concerned with shock value as I am subtly changing the narrative of how people perceive me. I often change identifying features as a shift into a new persona. Intentionally bad photoshopped images of my face regularly circle my social media depicting different genders and identities. Sometimes I lean on gay culture using terms and voice infections I don't normally have to honor and show affection to the community. Sometimes I wear the ugliest clothes I can find to observe how important superficial traits are to people around me.

I hope to bring a carefree lightheartedness to people consuming the work I do. It's not malicious so much as it is performing and understanding that we as humans are malleable. Love, laugh and smile with me. We are adaptive critters not meant to stay in one box. Perhaps it scary or uncomfortable for people who think someone should be one thing and only one thing. Often times new "friends" and new lovers flee not understanding the beauty of not fitting in all the time. The fear of the sissy or being around a sissy or better yet just being "other" is still kryptonite to fragile masculinity.

Reference

“The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” Ashley Crossman https://www.thoughtco.com/the-presentation-of-self-in-everyday-life-3026754 July 01, 2019

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