So I'm making a film about the worlds first traveling gay disco.....on no budget what so ever. Crazy I know but I believe in the Downlow and in creating a piece of British queer disco, drag and performance history.

Here's a video and info about the Fun-Raising Party
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Bistrotheque host a nibble of the NYC Downlow on dry land with DJ sets and performances from the Downlows finest, sideshows and an after-party at The Joiners Arms running until 3am.

And if you can't make the party...please please send us a few quid via paypal. This is an independently financed project and we need all donations, big and small to help make an important piece of British gay, drag, disco and performance history.

See you Thursday!

For donations and further information about the film www.welcometothedownlow.webs.com

Follow the film on Twitter: www.twitter.com/downlowthemovie

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Welcome to The Downlow – FUN-Raising Party

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Bistrotheque, 23-27 Wadeson Street, London, E2 9DR. (Nearest tube-Bethnal Green)

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Entry by donation (all donations go towards making the film)

Thursday 28th May 2009 8pm till Midnight

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DJ Sets - Gideon Berger - James Hillard - Jim Stanton - Nine Bob Rob and Severino

Performances - Amanda Pet – Feral – Holestar – Jeanette - John Sizzle - Jonny Woo - Ma Butcher – Pia – Scottee - Theo Adams and a very VERY special guest

Sideshows – Tranny Tombola, Makeovers and Raffle

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Official After-Party till 3am at Macho City, The Joiners Arms, 116

Hackney Road, London, E2 7QL

 

So as you may or may not know….I’ve been traveling around Southern India for the past month or so. I’m currently in Kovalam (a bit Costa Del Kerela …..full of plump middle aged westerners on package holidays whose only interaction with Indians are in restaurants) and I’m trying to put things in to perspective (albeit for a short time) and do a little charity work.


As much as I love London, its nice to get away from all the faux arse kissing/oh you must come to my fabulous party/I’ll book you soon, honest bullshit that goes with this business we so lovingly call show.


I’m teaching the youngest class (aged 6-8) at SISP (Sebastian Indian Social Projects)
I’ve never been a particular fan of children but these kids are funny, adorable and seem to like that my lessons consist of jumping on tables and rolling around on the floor singing.


Yesterday, one boy in the class slept nearly the whole day as his father had beaten him the night before. Two sisters are forced to go begging on the beach to buy booze for their alcoholic father who beats their mother. One of the girls always goes back for as much food as she can get at meal times as she doesnt get fed at home. I met these kids (who don't even have shoes) on the road back to my cockroach ridden digs and the youngest girl and boy held my hand tightly all the way back. I didn’t want to leave them to go home where they aren’t given much materially or emotionaly.


There is a very poor structure of child welfare in India. Women and children are frequently abused and it’s accepted as the norm. There are few girls in the school as from the age of 12, they are expected to stay at home, tend to the house and in many cases, also work.
I guess I can’t come over here with my western values, stomping around demanding that things change. Feminism in the west is still a recent phenomena and India is still a third world country. Hopefully, time will tell but its going to have to be the women of India themselves to revolt. A Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women is a start in the right direction (a reaction against Hindu Fundamentalists who beat up women drinking in a bar).


SISP try and give these children something positive. Their parents are paid for the kids to attend the school (as so many are forced to work from a young age), they are fed throughout the day and receive a lot of care and attention from the teachers and volunteers. There is also a department that employs and educates women who make bags, earrings and placemats out of recycled materials.
SISP runs on donations alone and receives no government support. If anyone wants to sponsor a child, donate or volunteer you can find everything on the website.


SISP (Sebastian Indian Social Projects)

I've just turned on BBC and watched the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony. Wowsers.
Straight after, the London 2012 Party on The Mall is now on.

It being hosted by the BBC, they've chosen some of the most mundane, safe British acts to 'showcase' British talent; The Feeling, Will Young, Scouting for Girls, Il Divo, Katherine Jenkins (whose screeching goes right through me), James Morrison and Heather Small will no doubt be wheeled out soon.

London is one of the cultural capitals of the world and we're going to have the world's eyes on us when we host the Olympics in four years. We're not going to have the budget the Chinese have spent on their amazing opening and closing ceremonies but are we going to play it safe just so we look nice and respectable? Who actually organises the acts for these things, the same people who book the acts for The Royal Variety Performance? Nice, middle of the road acts that Grannies and middle class suburbanites approve of?

Where are the edgier British acts? Wiley, Estelle, and Dizzee Rascal have spent time high in the charts recently, where are they? Probably too 'urban'. What about Girls Aloud (too sexy), Amy Winehouse (too risky), even Radiohead or The Klaxons (too experimental).

Sending Leona Lewis (who yes has a great voice but is blandness personified) over to Beijing sums it up really. Nice symmetry that she's from Hackney (the hosting borough for London 2012) but does she really represent British creativity and talent? She doesn't write her own material, performs paint by numbers ballads and came from a televised talent competition which typifies how talent is cultivated in Britain right now. Athens closed with Bjork. Nuff said.

Come 2012, I hope that London is able to show the world that we're not all nice, safe, manufactured and dull.
The Olympics has already destroyed the warehouses in Stratford where many creatives lived and worked, Hackney galleries are going down and the regeneration going on in the area is forcing poorer people out of the area to make way for fancy apartments and soulless shopping centres.
I hope not but I feel we're losing the edgy diversity that brings artists and creative's from around the world to London in the name of a three week event that might end up embarrassing us.

For now, lets cringe to Scouting for Girls doing 'London's Calling' and The Feeling performing Bowies 'Heroes'…..

I've been back in the UK for almost two and a half years and have exhibited as an artist, performed and DJed fairly consistently since returning from Vienna. I'm no star but fortunate to have the opportunity to showcase what I do.
Getting the validation of the press is not on my agenda but if the Sunday Times have listed me as a celebrity (something which I certainly am not...yes I ride a Mercedes on a daily basis...it's the number 73 bus), surely a little mention in the gay press wouldn't go amiss.
As I don't aim my work at a singular demographic in an aim to appear accessible to all regardless of sexual , gender or cultural predilection, I guess it's tricky to 'pin me down'. I'm a mistress of many trades, endorse non conformity, fabulousness and not an artist revelling in "wimmin's" issues or a singer/songwriter warbling about an ex, cats, Birkenstocks and mortgage payments...

Anyway....here's the article g3 magazine asked me to write. The subject could be any of my choosing so I decided to write about sexuality. Its in this months issue on the penultimate page.

Defining Sexuality

Defining and labelling sexuality can be a tricky affair.
It took me a long time to come out to myself. I spent years trying to be conventionally heterosexual and despite being in the Army where there were gay girls a go-go I denied my lust for the ladies out of fear. After leaving, I rethought what I wanted and decided to live my life for me by not conforming to anyone's ideals and have done ever since with my career, lifestyle and sex life.

Most of the time, I identify sexually as 'queer' or simply 'sexual'. I don't want my sexuality pigeon holed as I consider it to be undefined.
I don't consider myself a lesbian. I may currently have a female partner but would never rule out being with a man again. I prefer candy floss to lollypops but why exclude any types of candy at the sweetshop? Unfortunately I've known women who identify as lesbian be rejected by their community when they have an affair with a man; their gay gold club card ripped up and are booted out of the sisterhood.

Calling yourself bisexual is less definite but can raise mistrust from both hetero and homosexual communities. The term suggests that who you are having sex with is temporary and you'll eventually revert to the other gender, so that label doesn't suit me either.

I believe as human beings, we're bisexual by nature. How far we slide up and down the scale of gay and straight as a lifestyle is down to personal choice or social conditioning. I've heard gay men and women say they'd never, ever go with a member of the opposite sex as if the suggestion is repulsive but it's hard to know if this is because of genuine preference or sexual politics.

I applaud and support those who continue to assert gay rights and equality and am grateful that I live in a time where I can pretty much be who I want yet perhaps its time for a new 'ism' to describe indistinct sexuality. A term that says "I have sex with people I fancy and want to, not by what is expected by my lifestyle". But then again, should it be necessary to define ourselves for others?

I'm very out about my ambiguous sexuality and by being so, can hopefully encourage young people questioning their sexuality that it really doesn't matter who you let near your nether regions. You don't have to conform to stereotypes or rules and you call yourself whatever you want, just be safe and ideally happy.

I finally handed in my Masters thesis two weeks ago. Its title, 'The Insanity of Modern Celebrity' is named after a series of shows I've performed about the subject of celebrity culture (next part, 'Deluded' premieres at Bistrotheque on Tues 17th). Celebrity culture is something I've spent the last two years critically studying so think I'm well placed to have an informed opinion on it.

Last night I was 'Wardrobe Mistress' for the dressing up box at Smash N Grab night at Punk which is known to be frequented by celebrities. (I must here make the distinction between a star and celebrity, the former often being known and celebrated for their talent or achievement, the later for lesser accomplishments).

Early in the evening, a group of tourists came over to have their photo taken with me ("Ooooh Tranny!" It makes for a 'look what we saw in London photo' I guess) and later in the night one of them slid up to me and the conversation went like this;

Drunk tourist girl: Where are all the celebrities?
Me: Excuse me?
Her: Where are the celebrities?
Me: Is that why you came here tonight?
Her: Yes. Where are all the celebrities?
Me: Hun, I find it really quite sad that you came here just for that.
Her: But where are theeeeeeey?
Me: Probably at home, avoiding people like you.

So rather than go out with the intention of having a good time and enjoy London with her friends, she went to the venue just because she thought there was a chance of rubbing shoulders with someone who appears in the press. Wow.

Model Agyness Deyn was in the club, having a boogie and night out with her mates. For some reason, some people were heckling her. Just because she is a famous, isn't she entitled to have a knees up like the rest of us? At kick out time, she was a little worse for wear and the paps outside went into a frenzy, shouting and snapping away. A TV camera turned up out of nowhere, two mopeds chased her car and the whole spectacle was quite unnerving.
In my drunken state (I'm not much of a drinker but free drinks make it too easy), the whole thing made me angry and shouted "leave her alone, get a job or a conscious you fuckers". How butch.
Photos of her leaving the club appeared on the front cover and inside today's The London Paper (a daily free paper whose centre pages feature celebrities). It's bizarre to witness something quite inane being published as so-called news.

The abundance of celeb based media seem to focus on a core group of London party girls at the moment; Lilly Allen, Kate Moss, Agyness Deyn, Kelly Osbourne, Peaches and Pixie Geldof, Kimberly Stewart (two of them models and the others famous by association) and of course Amy Winehouse (who certainly has talent but its sad she's doing the Billie Holiday/Janis Joplin model of destruction). Kate Moss used to have a mysterious air about her but seeing her so often in the press in these celebrity obsessed times, she and those like her loose their sparkle and what makes them publicly interesting in the first place.

Of my least favourite professions, the paparazzi are up there with traffic wardens and those people who check peoples tickets on the bus (who gang raid London's bendy buses and appear to take great pleasure in pulling people off who haven't swiped their Oyster cards. It's ridiculous how many police they have with them. Their services are required elsewhere, not standing around bloody bus stops). It could be said that they are only just doing their jobs but they have a choice. I studied photography for five years and no amount of money could persuade me to hang around outside clubs and hunt celebrities for the possibility of getting 'that' shot bought and published by the press.

I was photographed by the 'razzi once in Vienna, they are such hateful and rude people. A gang of them aggressively tried to make me pose in ways that suited them so I walked off. I don't mind posing for photos but not when I'm barked at.
Why anyone would aspire to be papped and famous for merely being famous, without any kind of achievement baffles me. But as the new series of Big Brother has just started on Channel 4, it's obvious that there are many fervently wanting just that.

I've got so many opinions on all this but I just wrote a damn thesis about it and this rant is starting to turn into a prologue to it!

If you're in London on Tuesday (17th June), come down and see my new show 'Deluded' as part of Under Construction 3 at Bistrotheque. I'll lip synch, act, do costume changes and maybe sing for you!
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So I was out and about in London town filming an art concept piece about how I'm perceived by others and decided to do a few takes doing a lip synch; DVNO by Justice. The original video by the Ed Banger in-house artist, So Me is well crafted and gorgeous, this is just a bit of fun.



DVNO is a great pop song and though its no longer seen as cool to like Justice because they've gone a little mainstream, I still think there are one of the best and most exciting musical acts of the new millennium. I find people jumping the Ed Banger boat just because they are reaching more people ridiculous. I guess its down to the nature of how music is shared these days, its so quick that there is always a new bandwagon to jump on. Gone are the days of trawling through record shops to find something months before it became 'big, now its just right click and save.
Regardless, I remain faithful to Pedro Winter and his stable of fine fillies.

The main reason for filming was intentionally about the performance artists who stand on boxes on the South Bank and Covent Garden. I intended to go down and ridicule them somewhat but found once I was there in drag, I had a new-found respect for what they do (and hell, they make a lot of money so good luck to them). I wanted to concentrate on the audiences response to my presence and not me but this was difficult to get as once they realised they were being filmed, would act differently so I decided to refocus on me and did a series of vogue poses and cat walks.
Filming in tourist areas was a little 'safe' as there are many people dressed up and acting ridiculously so my being there wasn't particularly fascinating. I suppose I should do it in places where folk like me aren't typically prancing around, like Tumbridge Wells or Dalston market. Then again, I should probably go back to 'her' birth place and do it there, Vienna.

Holestar the artist has been around for about 10 years now but Holestar the Tranny with A Fanny (I should trademark that) is a mere 5 year old.
When I came up with and starting developing the idea, it was all about gender exploration and subversion, but 'she' became a fully formed character and took on a life on of her own. I refer to her in the third person as I, Holestar the artist is the Dr Frankenstein to my drag personae which is my monster, my creation, yet she is me and I her. She as a piece of work isn't specifically about gender for me any more. My initial intention was to question and play with what is seen and perceived yet the audience naturally still view my creation as a gender study which it is but not as much as it was (am I making sense here?)

Anyway...I've got a busy summer coming up; festivals, performance art, live gigs, an interesting new night that I'm involved with and finishing my Fine Art Masters. I'll keep you posted no doubt.

PS The public and private responses to my blogs are surprising. Its just me sat here spewing my brain out and is flattering that people actually read my nonsense so thanks!