Look and Learn: An Interesting Story from 1980's New York Black/Hispanic Gay Culture

Dorian Corey was a 'legendary' transexual in New York , who in the 1980's - early 1990's was head of the House of Corey, one of the many Houses that dominated the New York Ball scene.

If you haven't seen the documentary 'Paris is Burning' then you really should, it's an utterly fascinating view of an underground world that doesn't exist anymore. Young, mainly black and hispanic gay men flocked to New York City in the 70's and 80's where they could be free to be who they wanted to be...within limits. These were aspirational times, when you didn't just want to be yourself, you wanted to be you but better, a banker, a yuppie, Joan Collins in Dynasty. Being poor, gay and an ethnic minority meant you had the faintest chance of this happening, except at the Balls, where you could dress fierce, compete in catwalks or vogueing competitions to win prizes and for that evening you WERE fierce.

Most of these young men were rejected by their real families for their homosexuality or transexualism and so saught solace in a new sort of family. Called 'houses' and named after the great fashion houses of Paris such as 'House of Dior' or 'House of Chanel', they consisted of a house mother (usually an older transsexual a.k.a a Legendary, a veteran of the ball scene) and a house father (usually an older butch gay man), and all the other members were the children.
They would all take the surname of their house, and compete in Balls for them.

Anyway, back to Corey. Wikipedia had this unusual little tidbit:

After Corey's death in 1993, a mummified body with gunshot wounds was found in Corey's belongings. The body, which had been shut in a trunk for more than twenty years, had a note attached to it which read "This poor soul broke into my apartment and I was forced to shoot him." It was later identified as Robert Worley.

For more on Ball Culture, which is quite frankly fascinating, see:

Wiki entry on 'Paris is Burning'

NYT article on the aftermath of the documentary.. Paris has Burned

Article on Angie Xtravanganza and Dorian Corey

Wiki entry on Ball Culture

Wiki entry on Venus Xtravaganza

or look up Willi Ninja on youtube

Sometimes it's just too easy...

Amazon strikes again..

A Breath of Fresh Air, October 25, 2007

By	Greeze (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews

A refreshingly simple entry into the cookbook publication industry, this book brings affordable gourmet cooking to the masses by focusing on a single inexpensive and abundant ingredient. It finally answers the nagging question of "how much sugar does it really take to make my food re-edible?" It also teaches us valuable lessons about the beautiful and endless cycle of life.

Truly a breath of fresh air!....

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

At long last, October 25, 2007

By	D. Gilbert (Colorado, USA) - See all my reviews

Finally a cook book that tells you how to complete the human digestive process. After your meal has been processed by your body, only waste remains. "Cooking With Pooh" shows you how to take that waste and recycle it into delicious treats. I had no idea that pooh could be used in so many dishes! Every recipe is low in fat although they all taste like crap.

Horrific Painting of the Day

Now I will admt I have a penchant for wall art featuring trannies/gold cats/pelicans/Judy Garlands who stare down at you with big boss eyes as you attempt to watch Hollyoaks, but even I would not put this headfuck of a painting on my wall. It's like being raped in the eyes.

I once read that a sign of schizophrenia is an obsession with starey art. But then I once read that if you suck your thumb a man with scissors for hands will come and cut your fingers off and that eating algae will make you lose weight. Yes, those are two things that I have also read at some point in my life and completely believed. So basically the moral of this tale is that I am a mug.

The Perry Bible Fellowship

Is a fantastic way to piffle away time, as not only is it very funny, the illustration is superb (should you care about that kind of thing) Okay, it's just very very funny.

You can see a huge collection of pbf comic strips HERE


I think there is also a book of them all you can buy from Amazon*

*Biche covers her back for using images without permission

Amusing Religious Facebook Groups

I'm very bored yo...

CRUNK 4 CHRIST (and dont care who knows it!!) - or who understands what the hell that means?

If it wasn't for jesus christ i don't know what i would do - I have a lovely image of these people just running around in a circle clucking like panicked chickens until Jesus comes along with some faith grain and mmmmm everything is okay again.


Boys Who Love Jesus are Sexy - And so much fun! Love the drama, the facepaint and the ketamine! Oh wait, that is Jesus the door whore at Heaven though..

I'm Saving Myself For Wild, Passionate, Awkward Honeymoon Sex - suprisingly, this is not actually a piss taking group, and for that, I salute them.

Richard Dawkins Is a Bastard - but kinda fly for an old guy

I Like Being A Mormon Girl Because I Don't Have To Shave Above My Knees. - Booking the tickets to Salt Lake now...

When God Writes Your Love Story - I think he would get more readers if he wrote that cartoon strip in the back of the Sun where the woman always has her baps out.

White Girls Who Love Hot White Guys - okay, not Christian, more like 'eh?'


I like Jesus...and cheese.
We Christians love our coffee! - voila! My breakfast via the medium of Christian facebook groups
Look Who's Toast Now?

The Google Image Search Blog

I both love and hate this website in equal measures - I love it because it is frankly flipping brilliant in it's simplicity, but hate it because I noodle around on Google image search all the time and never thought of the idea first. Basically, it is a site of pcitures found when random words are entered into GIS.
For example, here are some of the results for the word 'turp':

Anyway the website is HERE should you be as terminally bored as me.. it's made by the same 'funny blog man' from the HOT LINKZZZ section who wrote the blog about the gothic personal ads on top of many other amusing entries, and who I should probably pay royalties to, if more than three people a day (two of whom usually upon recieving a pathetic email from me on the matter) read the poor little Speeches..

Person of the Day - Pril.

Because it's her birthday, she's lovely, and she pulls the best faces of anyone I know!

"Hands off my cadaver, bitch"

I'm thinking this is possibly a subtle reference to a biblical painting of Mary as she holds a post-crucifixtion Jesus, replicated three times to symbolise the holy trinity. The denim and leather symbolising that the work of a woman is never done, the red lipstick denoting the passion and power of the female sex and ummm... the bad roots representing that one can never hide one's true character from sprouting mousily out of one's head.

Or it is simply a terribly misguided necrophilic attempt at a 'sexay' album cover.

Girl Power! (plate)

Thanks to a free voucher from work I went to a Powerplate class for the first time yesterday. To those of you who are not vapid urbanite females aged 20 - 29, working off Oxford Street, disposible income, no kids, Sex and the City boxset owners blah blah blah*, a 'powerplate' is the object to the left; a platform that vibrates really fast causing your muscles to spasm and so tone as you squat, thrust and do other faintly embarrasing exercises on it.

Now I have never really gone in for this kind of thing before, and by that I mean I have never owned one of those weird belt things that similarly cause muscle spasms via electric shocks or been wrapped in mud and clingfilm..basically expensive activities only a brandname away from medieaval torture. There was the incident with the 'Slimatea' where I didn't consider exactly how drinking tea could make you slim**, but on the whole I generally subscribe to the idea that if you want to be slimmer you have to get up off your fat arse, leave any notion of pride at the door and head down the gym.

But I digress. So what is a powerplate class like? Basically it is a group of five or so of slightly hippy (as in pelvis) deskladies plus the obligitory buff northern trainer to shout 'eey oop lasses yer doin' great!', a small room which is akin to the inside of a discoball and five or so pink little faces with expressions like horrified kittens confronted by a bee as they stare transfixed at their own wobbling images in the many reflective surfaces. Oh and there is mint tea on tap.

It was a little bit harder than the website suggested (more on that later) but thankfully the 25 minutes flew by.

What was weirdest was the sensation after the class, which I can only really liken to being in shock...a weird weightlessness/shakiness which I haven't experienced since I was evacuated from Kings Cross and saw a bus explode a couple of years ago, but without the obvious FEAR and mental skulduggery that 'shock' usually entails.

So yes, now it is 24 hours later, and I guess it worked as I am practially crippled - well my bum keeps twinging and I can't lift my arms, the usual masocistic signs that I take to mean GOOD.

So will I go back? Not sure. If anything it is an expensive (£20 for 25 mins!) way to lose any sense of self esteem and get an achey bum, but I think in these vapid grande skinny wet double latte times we all need to be taken down a notch or two. Even if it does mean you will shell out a whole load more on other pointless weightloss quackery.

p.s you can check out the website HERE if you so wish, but I warn you now, you will want to beat the web designer, PR company and whoever else was involved over the head with a metal bound version of the Female Eunich until they are a bloody pulp. It is the most patronising, chic lit More magazine lambrini HELL of a website. Quite why they haven't marketed it to the wannabe Carrie and Samanthas who at least possess half a brain and maybe an unread copy of the Female Eunich is beyond me.





* Biche does not own aforementioned boxset, sadly she does not need rolemodels for her slide into superficial oblivion
** laxative

...or How to Make Friends and Influence People in Soho

I'm sure I've seen the blue guy in the John Snow...

'Speeches of Biches - they come for the calming pink background but stay for the stating the bleeding obvious'

"That is like, massively disrespecting of your trousers"

The Armstrong and Miller show has moved to BBC1 primetime, which, as any fan of comedy knows, means completely selling out and becoming rubbish and crap an' 'at. I haven't seen many episodes, but have actually been pleasantly suprised by how not rubbish it is, which has quite a lot to do with these characters:

Burning (ho ho) Questions of the Day

* Who keeps on burning the pile of refuse sacks full of chicken bones outside KFC in Crouch End?

This appears to happen about once a week and leads to the further query as to why a giant smoldering heap of orange plastic and bones smells distinctly like overcooked bacon.

I somehow doubt it is an organised protest like this photo rather than a load of little scallywags on their way to school. The ruffians!

*Why people are so shocked that that young girl was kicked off X Factor for happy slapping?

She's from North Finchley for chrissakes. There is not much to do in the 'armpit of london'* apart from smoke weed in carparks, try and get served in the Tally Ho and mooch up and down the grey streets looking for a brightly tracksuited youth to give you one round the back of Hollywood Bowl, so really her violence is proabably an artistic act of self expression at the grey futility of her homeland. Probably. In any case, she should be thankful. It's not like she lives in Friern Barnet.

* (c) Biche 2001

*Why there are so many ginger people in Eastenders?

I haven't seen this programme in a while but when I did I began to wonder if it was some special Comic Relief Episode or something. Bradley, his dad, Sean, Mickey, that kid who has the Manc dad...okay well that's it, but I heard that Patsy Kensit is coming back with a load of kids, at least one of which WILL be a ginge.

It has to be noted that I bare no ill will towards people of the gingery persuasion, hell, after a freak dying accident a long time ago I was one of them and was saddled with the nickname 'ginga' for at least four years, by which time I had blonde hair and anyone new who met me wondered why the hell I was nicknamed thus.

I do however find the ginger ratio in Eastenders, which purports to be a realistic soap set in the east end of London, quite amusing. At last count there were approximately four asian people and one black person in Eastenders, versus the four gingers. In the real east end of London there approx 77,885 asian people and only 1,956 ginger people*.

*based on my calculations of asian-white population percentages of Tower Hamlets plus the fact that 2% of caucasians are redheads. Thank you Wikipedia!

Belated Halloween Post 2007!

Halloween costume ideas for the disabled child in your life:

Lots more tips and tricks for costumes here!

What can I say? I'm just bitter because my costume consisted of a pink wig which I have had for three years... I decided to cut it into a bob this year for a 'fresh new look' (aka it was getting all ratty) and ended up looking like the girl from Lazytown rather than the 'Natalie Portman in Closer' look I was aiming for. The girl from Lazytown if she wrapped her pear shaped arse in a black mac and trudged around Whitechapel looking at carparks where 119 years ago some prostitutes were killed rather nastily. *

*Jack the Ripper tour, in case that wasn't clear. Pretty interesting, but only because of what the guy said, which I think would have had the same effect said on a warm coach instead of wandering around law firm carparks and back entrances to office blocks. Although I suppose there were a couple of old buildings that gave a sort of atmosphere, until we had to move on as another Ripper group was on our tail.

Richard Littlejohn - He writes for the People

The second in an occasional series of amusing amazon.co.uk book reviews. This week:

Littlejohn's Britain: 'a themed collection of pieces that fires broadside at Blair's Britain and the absurdity of petty bureaucracy' - The cover

'the racist xenophobic witterings of a fool' - The Biche
finally someone gets it, 10 May 2007
By
pablo dombrowski "wewillcomebackasfire" (london) - See all my reviewsat last, a man with the visionary skills to realise how dangerous the London Eye is. So many people don't realise that this is an evil eye. Look at the patterns... it's clearly the eye that the freemasons use to signify control. They're laughing at us people, laughing. They're in league with the communists that make up the so-called labour party, and have ACTUEALLY erected this monument to their control, and we like sheep, actually RIDE IN IT. oh, i could weep for the stupidity of humanity. Buy this book AND LEARN THE TURTH before they get you.

the intellect of this man hath no bounds, 12 May 2007
By
Mr. B. B. N. Farrant "natural history fan" (uk) - See all my reviews One is reminded of Orwell, who once said "Every book is a failure." Well Orwell was clearly a fool and had not stumbled upon 'Littlejon's Britain' whilst browsing on Amazon, for no educated man could dare claim this seminal piece of literature a failure. If, as H.G. Wells assures us, that "Good books are the warehouses of ideas" then this book is a vast chasm of a warehouse, overflowing with such a smorgasbord of enlightened ideas that may liberate us from the shackles of contemporary liberal Britain. Oh how i feel complete having read this book, now i truly understand the meaning of Bernard Shaw's musing, "Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty." LittleJohn i am indebted to you. hurrah



A new world dawns at the turn of a page., 12 May 2007
By
Mizake - See all my reviewsWith this insightful, visionary, and - I am not ashamed to say - celestially inspirational commentary on modern life, Richard Littlejohn has rendered the entire canon of Western literature, philosophy and ethical discourse entirely moot. On finishing the book - in one sitting, I might add, its compelling majesty renders one utterly incapable of laying it down - I had no choice but to burn each and every one of the other books I own. Such trinkets are simply unnecessary in the face of such brilliance, in this new and glorious era of "Anno Littlejohn". Yes, I cry, cast Hamlet and Macbeth into the fire! Render the Iliad and the Kalevala into dust! Drive away the librarians and book sellers! No other works are necessary; all knowledge and truth is contained herein. Praise you, Sir Richard, and long may your wisdom guide us all.

Thought provoking stuff!, 12 May 2007
By
Mangina Reilly-Hurtz (Misogyny) - See all my reviewsI read this while awaiting clearance in a terminal at London's Heathrow. By the time I turned over the last page I realised Britain was not for me. Thank you Mr Littlejohn. You have saved me from a squalid life living in a small studio flat above yet another Indian Takeaway or Pizza Delivery service. As for the neighbours I would have had according to you. Well it is not worth thinking about. So I asked for the Immigration Service to return me on the earliest flight back to where I came from. I just wouldn't want to live in a country that produced Littlejohn. Plain and simple

Brilliantly exposes the bonkers values of socialist Britain:, 1 Jun 2007
By
Brian Ginnity (Colchester) - See all my reviews
This book exposes the way we are now governed, which is why a lot of socialists can only respond with mockery and insult. It hits home and they can't handle it. It's the old "we're right (by definition) so anybody who doesn't agree with us must mad, bad or both. That's how the old USSR was able to justify locking up it's political opponents in mental hospitals. The book was a funny and merciless description of the self-serving, hypocrital antics of the likes of Prescott, Blair (Mr and Mrs), police chiefs who refuse to fight crime, councils who refuse to collect rubbish and all the other useless so-and-sos who have got us to where we are now.



Oh wait, that last one could be serious... well anyway, you can find all the reviews here

This Charmless Beeb (or Biche takes a metaphor too far)

Now they say BBC 3 is the televisual equivalent of your boyfriend making you pasta for dinner - it's cheap, a mix of bland and tasteless and you will only eat it when you really can't be bothered to interfere or suggest something else. But for all the disparagment and sneaky bitching to your friends, you realise that there is a certain charm in its homemadeness and that mixed in with the overcooked penne and raw mushrooms there is hope of a better tomorrow - the onions at least were nicely fried and in only half a bottle of oil this time. 'What the hell?' you think, 'I'll stick with it. By next month he might try something more risky and perhaps foreign. An Old El Paso Fajita kit perhaps.'


But yes, BBC3. So much potential, but potential doesn't always pique your interest or allow your bowels to move for two days. So here I suggest my tips for making BBC3 good:

1) Line up the cast of 'Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps' and shoot them. Erase all the tapes, burn all the evidence and then bury it all in the wastelands outside Elstree, which I think that would be Stanmore. Okay, so we can never truly forget, and if we go on holiday to the Rhineland we will have to endure crackpot Bett und Fruhstuck owners swaggering around like Mancs going 'Eh Deneeese get meh kecks will ya oh Jonneh you knobend' but we will merely stare down at our gekochtes Ei with the quiet dignity of those who know there is no point dwelling on our shameful past, but that we look on towards greater things.

2) Fire this Charmless Bellend. For those who don't know (it's not hard, he's so personalityless he often gets upstaged by soft furnishings or the little red light on the bottom of your telly that indicates that it is on) this is Benjamin Fry. He is a 'psychological coach' who gets wheeled out on such magnus opiae as 'Spendaholics' and 'Freaky Eater: Addicted to Spaghetti Hoops' to walk around in a big coat talking to a fat bossy woman about whatever working class oik (and it always is) is being subjected to wanton analysis that week. He then murmurs at aforementioned oik lots of difficult questions like 'so what do you like about Spaghetti Hoops?' before nodding his big luminous head like one of those sunlight activated 'ornaments' you get in Clinton Cards and are found soully on the dashboards of 16 year old girls.
Now I quite like programmes where I can pick up lots of stupid little tips that I think will tremendously benefit my life but that do not in any way shape or form(make a healthy burger bun out a lettuce leaf/don't piss away money on expensive pesto etc) but this vapid nodding gonk makes 'fun factz!' about stuff seem about as interminable and useful as the lord's prayer said through a balaclava. And yet dispite this irrifutable fact he has been on two (and counting!) 'documentary' series for the beleagured channel.

3) Don't Lie! Now we all like our telly to be Glasnost these days, death to nodding shots, death to editing the Queen, death to the Blue Peter cat etc, but BBC 3 wantonly flouts this 'nu truth' with great titles that do not follow through. I will hold my hands up and say yes! 'Addicted to Cheese' and 'Addicted to Spaghetti Hoops' were kinda good in their 'look at the freaky oik' way, but 'Addicted to Chicken'?? That was just a fat girl who occasionally had some wings in between all the pizza, pie, chips and unreformed lard she ate. 'The Real Hustle'? They give them their money back at the end! 'Sex with Mum and Dad'? LIES!!!1!!!

4) Bring back good comedy like 'The Mighty Boosh' and 'The Smoking Room'. Bring back which ever great person commissioned them. Fire the bellend who obviously thought there was a dearth of shite poor sketch shows that further purpogate the myth that women can't be funny and commissioned Touch Me I'm Karen Taylor AND Little Miss Josslyn.

Boots' Tips for Getting Gorgeous..

This is my flatmate. As you can see she is a an average 22 year old who studies art, smokes rollies, drinks warm beer and gets her hair cut into crazy shapes by Vidal Sassoon trainees.

Yesterday she received this bit of direct marketing in the post from Boots. This in itself is not odd as she is the proud possessor of a Boots Advantage card, although one does have to wonder why someone would want to treat themselves to a gorgeous Christmas in the middle of October...

So what are Boots proposing the dear flatmate should use to get herself ready for an aforementioned gorgeous Christmas?

LoLyoaks

Now I love Hollyoaks in much the same way as I love my novelty alarm clock shaped like a cat - it's hilarious, cheap, crap, pretty to look at and has an infuriating jingle. In fact, the only thing I love more than Hollyoaks is the photos the cast have to pose for to illustrate the stories of the week for the various tv listings magazines.. observe:














So here we have Rhys perving on Hannah's ear in the harrowing plotline that culminates in 'Pushing Brain' a late night Hollyoaks special featuring British tv's first simulated earfuck while other cast members get it on rather implausibly in soft focus to somehow pad the action out to half an hour, and Michaela and that guy whose name I can't remember in the episode where she rehabilitates him back into society via the medium of salsa after his repetitive wanking injury. Duh. Worth a thousand words people..

Well anyway, the rather marvelous www.lowculture.co.uk has taken these photos and parodied lolcats in a way that is either utterly amazingly fantastic or completely incomprehensible, depending on how up on your low culture you are:

So simple, yet great!

On the merry streets of Soho

For some reason it pleases me immensely that Bathing Ape - sorry Bape - 's flagship store in Soho, perveyor of limited edition £500 trainers and baseball caps that cost £100, is next to a Greggs, perveyor of sausage rolls and steak bakes for less than a pound.
I fondly imagine that I will troll down there one day to see a standoff between the queue of faux Japanese trendies outside Bape and the queue of grey wheezing proles outside Greggs, but that's just the stuff of Jason Nevin's nightmares.

Cape Wrath - Cape Whaaa?

My head, it hurts! This programme is really well acted to a T but literally makes no sense! Dramatic confrontation after dramatic confrontation, always with a dash of pointless sex or violence and always with a twist! It's like watching thirty Drama A level assessments in an hour, which at least explains why most of my drama teachers have been barking.

Still main guy, whose name I forget as it's something boring like David Blah, is oddly attractive. So I will persevere.

I'm going to put my neck on the line here..

..no, no I'm not even in the slightest, but I had an epiphany that I first had at Glastonbury again on the bus this morning - the Arctic Monkeys are really fucking great. Like, really, really great. Like, great enough that it makes me really want to live up north again, away from the snideypoos of London Town who don't say what they think and don't know what they feel. Not, admittedly enough to bring up a child in the North, but that's Tom from Hollyoaks fault. Mind you, Ben from Eastenders is pretty much killing my love of southern kids too, so perhaps I will have to run off and have a kid with someone whose accent doesn't feature in a soap opera. Not that this is exactly an immediate concern I hasten to add, before my male friend start covering their crotches in the pub and I find a boiled bunny on my desk tomorow.

But anyway, I digress. Arctic Monkeys - ace. Totally ace. And anyone who laughs at me for being really middle of the road, or boring or obvious can sod off. I can't hear you anyway because I'm singing along to my ipod in a reet terrible norvern accent.