style council

Madame X

The Santa Monica Museum is currently exhibiting a collection of  Exene Cervenka's journals, sketches, and assorted ephemera from the past several decades, and on Thursday night the lady herself gave a reading at the Bergamot Cafe next door. Still beautiful, the elementary school-teacher-by-day, punk-icon-by-night wore all black, her wrists stacked with colorful vintage bakelite-and-rhinestone bangles. Exene explained that the clothespin clipped to her sweater was in memory of her friend Biscuit; "I took all his clothespins, so I'd never run out." Befitting a punk rock queen, her tights had a hole in the knee.
    "I don't have anything to read from, it's all locked up," she joked, before launching into a selection of poems about love, death, politics, war, pop culture, and frequently, all of the above. "I was dating a war correspondent," she said, pausing for a moment and then continuing: "I'll tell you who it is, it didn't last very long. It was John Hockenberry from NPR. He talks in his sleep and says death, death, death over and over."
    The still-prolific artist was gracious, funny, and willing to indulge the rabid fans in the audience. "Anything you want to ask me, while I'm here?" She revealed that she was listening to Joni Mitchell, Stravinsky, and Laura Nyro in her "Walkman thingie," and she said she thought the whole '70s punk revival thing was bizarre. "It only happens when it happens; it would be like if everybody dressed like beatniks." A Venice resident since the '70s, when she lived and worked at Beyond Baroque, Exene said she finds L.A. "unliveable" today. "The Paris Hilton factor is really bad...Do you know the Day of the Locust? It's exactly where we're at now."
Yeah, it's bad, but there's always hope. Look at these two adorable aspiring Exettes. A friend of theirs asked Exene how she stays creative "with all the bullshit going on." And the wise woman responded, "The bullshit is the creative force." Go get 'em, girls!

Posted by Steffie Nelson

Kifune You Up

They say Kifune, on Washington Blvd. in Venice, was much more fun before sushi chef Hide (Hee-day) stopped drinking Jack Daniels, but after a few of what he calls  "Japanese mineral waters" (Sapporo)and some hot sake, a show starts none-the-less.  Hide starts off with a  little Elvis, I hear it's always the same, "Wise men say, onry fools rush in..."  Hide's partner is Shoe who smiles and his eyes become two half moons.  Though Shoe's side of the bar is quieter just like him, every now and then he pipes in with something that takes you by surprise. He points his sushi knife at my friend Mark. "Oh, Mark is here all the time. He come like two times a week." Mark shakes his head proudly. "OH yeah," says Shoe, "he come two times a week and always alone." Mark stops him, "Wait a minute. I'm not always alone." Shoe interupts, "oh yeah. two times a week, always alone, because he's a homosexual."  Mark, who is not a homosexual (not that there's anything wrong with that) takes it in stride as Shoe and Hide, and me, laugh at him. Together, they're like this Japanese Laurel and Hardy, some kind of sushi vaudeville team.

And soon the sushi bar fills up with people, all regulars. A guy with a diamond as big as The Ritz in his ear sits on the other side of me and orders a GIANT platter of albacore with spicy tuna sushi, there's like 50 pounds of raw fish on his plate, and he takes his silver skull bedecked fingers and shoves each slice in his mouth- sans chopsticks. Hide points to him, "This guy is Cochran. He's Shapiro" I tell the tatooed dude he doesn't look like a lawyer.  "Criminal defense, my clients are mostly gang members," he says as he chews his kingly meal. Ah, I see. He comes here every night. I even run into my lovely co-worker and car-pooler, and her bofriend. They come in all the time too. But unfortnately they have to sit next the crazy French lady, with a plasticy face, who laughs at all of her own jokes. Then in walks two lesbians, one's a facialist, one just got a facal. and believe me I wish I was making that up. The facialist kept yelling, "I want a tuna taco." She smiled at me, leaned in and asked, "have you ever had a tuna taco?" I replied I wasn't quite sure she was talking about the special dish. She thought "tuna taco" was so funny, she repeated it until finally the words had no meaning at all.

Toward the end of the night, it's common for free bits of raw fish to fall from heaven onto your plate, and Hide usually ends his show with a grand finale, his "Bad Ass Mutherfucker Huge Dick Roll."  He loves saying this as much as the "tuna taco" lady. And if you're really lucky, really lucky, Hide might flash his "shocking pink" (his nipples) at you.

If you go to Kifune, sit at the sushi bar, as much for Hide and Shoe as for the regulars that populate the ringside seats, and please tell the crazy French lady I said hello.

Posted by Linda Immediato

UNMASKED

   

"What are you going to be for Halloween this year?" I asked a friend of friend last week.
    "I'm gonna be a 'ho," she replied matter of factly.
    "That should be easy," I answered, not even thinking.
    Later, our mutual pal pointed out just how bitchy my reply sounded.
But I hadn't meant it as an insult. Rather, I was just pointing out what little effort it takes for a fairly attractive female to slut it up. A short skirt, fishnets, and a low cut top... even moderately conservative gals have these items or some semblence of them in their closets.
     I have a few of each (but I swear, I never wear 'em all together).
    As for Halloween costumes, I've done all the typical girlie getups: the devil, the angel, the princess, the fairy, the (sexy) witch... anything that did not require me to be ugly or too scary.
    Is that vain? Probably. But Halloween is all about fantasy and who fantasizes about being an ogre?
    Still, some people take it too far. This past weekend I saw my share of pasties and panties, and while I'm no prude, some of these get-ups just had no imagination. It was just a bunch of attention whores pretending to be something more.
    Even when me and my girlfriends did the whole Pimp n' Ho thing (10 years ago), we had a sense of humor about it; we decked our "pimp" out in authentic 70s garb, not the cheesy stuff they sell on Hollywood Blvd these days. We wore real vintage sequined hot pants and platforms, along with bad wigs, bright blue eyeshadow, big spidery false eyelashes and sticky bubblegum pink lipgloss. We wanted to look like we walked out of a time machine.
    This year I was way too busy to put that much effort into the whole Halloween thing. I pulled out two quickie getups: a cave girl and a lady bug. Both were easy enough to put together with stuff I already own. I tied my hair up in a plastic bone and threw on a leopard dress and prestro chango... I was Pepples.
    And while guys will always take advantage of the opportunity to be creepy and many girls will do the same to be foxy, others use Halloween as an excuse to shock.    Post-acquital, Wacko Jacko's still popular. This dude actually had a doll tied to his lower portion (yes, he's BAD). Below, two other tasteless costumes that caused quite a stir on Saturday night.

Yup, it's Matthew Shepard and Jon Benet Ramsey. Totally offensive yes... But is it any worse than going as a serial killer like Jeffrey Dammer or John Wayne Gacy?

    Bad costumes aside, Halloween's a weird holiday isn't it? All our lives we're told not to take candy from strangers and one night a year, parents dress up their tots and take them to strange homes to do just that-- and in murderous costumes to boot (like that ghost mask from the Scream movies...I had a kid who couldn't have been more than 4 years old in one of 'em at my door this year).
     Still, there's something about the mystery of it all. A room full of revelers all in disguises and masks. It's no wonder Halloween has become the ultimate eve of debauchery and mischief. Whether it's due to clever marketing by costume manufacterers or simply our own desires for escapism, this holiday's tricks and treats stopped being merely kid's stuff a long time ago. For more Halloween-themed mayhem see Nightranger in this week's paper.

Posted by Lina Lecaro