Hello Kitty/Asian Hooker Series by Katja Heinemann

Katja Heinemann, a German photographer based in Brooklyn, NY, have been documenting some of my shows such as last year's Asian Burlesque Spectacular and Les Fleurs de Shanghai for a photo essay she is developing. Her work covers topics on women, bodies, and youth issues. She is also involved with Chinatown youth centers and projects since this project as she described to me is "a documentary series on 'Chinatown' both real and imagined, past, future, present.... immigrant day-to-day survival and flights of escapist fantasy". Katja hopes to finish my segment this May and we wrapped it up this last week with a few portraits of my Hello Kitty act which is to a song by Steel Panther called "Asian Hooker". I performed this act at Stormy Leather and Clown's Debauchery show (first Wednesday of the month at The Slipper Room). Katja said this was the initial act that caught her attention.

"Repeal Day 2013" Trailer with Dandy Wellington, Gin Minsky, Perle Noire, and Me at Hotel Chantelle!

This is from our Repeal Day 2013 celebration at Hotel Chantelle where I also have my 4th year running weekly Friday night show! I performed with Dandy Wellington who also has a Tuesday Night Soiree event there with his fabulous self and jazz musicians. Dandy and I work together a lot - he sure is a dandy eye candy! Here we are performing with his band along with Perle Noire and Gin Minsky.

Repeal Day Eve @ Hotel Chantelle from Hotel Chantelle on Vimeo.

Yao Xiao Commissioned to Create Original Artwork for The 2nd Annual Asian Burlesque Spectacular 2014 Poster!

I am thrilled to announce that the very accomplished, NYC-based, illustrator and artist Yao Xiao has agreed to create original artwork for our 2nd Annual Asian Burlesque Spectacular happening in mid-May. I've long been a big fan of her work having seen her at many Dr. Sketchy's events here and at my shows as well. Her Instagram and Tumblr are full of awe-inspiring work that she is making. I don't think she ever sleeps because she seems to be constantly creating beautiful art into the wee hours of the night. I've always been a big fan of graphic novels especially artists like Adrien Tomine (Optic Nerve) and that's what drew me to Yao's work. The complexity in texture and also the narrative. You can make pretty pictures but to have pretty pictures that have a personality and a story that pulls you right in - its comparable to painting.

Here are some quick picks I pulled from her pages to introduce to you how awesome she is! I'm sure she's probably like 23 years old too. Lol. Can't wait to share what she will make for us. I am sure it'll be spectacular just like our line-up which I will announce hopefully by the end of this week. All I can say now is that it's a brand new line-up with new faces and only 2 performers out of 12 are from NYC! Yeah!!!!

Yao's latest work is the cover for Katy Perry's single "Dark Horse" and even Perez Hilton is a fan!

 http://perezhilton.com/2014-01-09-dark-horse-cover-art-katy-perry-single-featuring-juicy-j-prism#sthash.9lWBnIwV.dpbs

Yao created the cover to Wall Street Journal's end of year special ‘Best of 2013’

Her work in Entertainment Weekly August 2013 for the Video Music Awards - http://www.yaoxiaoart.com/106462/blog

Find out more about Yao's work on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yaoxiaoart

Her web site: http://www.yaoxiaoart.com/

Last year's poster art work

Another Photo Set by Jane Kratochvil

Some new photos by one of my favorite live performance photographers Jane Kratochvil who shot me at two Salon NYC events presented by Patrick Soluri between New Year's Eve Eve at The Players Club NYC with George Gee and His Swing Band, and this past weekend at the monthly swing dance party at The Empire Hotel Rooftop with Professor Cunningham and His Old School Band.

With The Minsky Sisters backstage

With Gin Minsky at The Players Club

With Dandy Wellington!

There's George in the corner

This one is one of my favs. The very fabulous and always impeccably dressed DJ Voon and I sharing a moment right before I went on stage.

JK and I post show! Gorgeous isn't she?

It was very foggy that night made a very noir-ish feel on the roof with the hotels sign.

The Empire Hotel Rooftop from my iPhone

Check out all the great vintage events at The Salon NYC! If you like vintage lifestyle anything whether it's the glamour of women's clothing, the debonair gentlemen's clothing, the swing music, big band sound, check it out!

Hotter Than Hell: The Tanyas

Headmistress of NY School of Burlesque Jo Weldon's photos from her headliner stripping days as "Tanya Hyde". This is the photo that inspired this post. Photo re-posted with Jo's permission.

It seemed like every girl I knew named Tanya (or Tonya) where I grew up in Texas was either a bully, white trash or a stripper. Sometimes all three. Let's see. There was a Tanya in my junior high school who made fun of me every day during Home Room by calling me names like "Girl Who Looks Like a Boy" (I had a pixie hair cut back then) and a few times she even called me "chink" along with the other white trash guys in class. It was weird because she was Vietnamese herself so I hope she has dealt with her self-loathing issues by now, or I hope unapologetically, she passed on her self-loathing to her kids ideally a daughter as bitchy and mean as she was. Then there was Tonya Harding. That was one batshit crazy ice skater conspiring with her ex-husband to break Nancy Kerrigan's leg. What was she thinking about? Jeez. Even now when you look at photos of her losing at an event, her crumpled face, slacked mouth and eyebrows comically pointed down to form this impossible and grotesque triangle, you know she cray cray. Poor, poor white girl.


When I was thirteen we lived in a shady part of Grand Prairie, TX in an all-utilities-included apartment complex called Grand Manor Apartments. It was $300 a month for a two bedroom apartment. My older brother got his own room, and my parents bought a sheet of thin plywood from Home Depot and sectioned off half the living room for my room. The carpet was always in a neutral color, thin and moldy. The sliding glass door that opened to a shitty, 3-by-4 wooden fenced balcony was frequently the point of forced entry when other apartments were burglarized. The other people who lived in these complexes were mostly Black and Mexican. The few white families spent their weekends sitting outside by the parking lot or if they had the upstairs apartment, they lounged on plastic chairs drinking beer and wearing trucker caps emblazoned with beer or sports logos. These were the people who called me "chink" or "oriental" and probably why I still hate the hipsters going for the trucker look. I wanna kick their faces! It was what we could afford for two years.



Above us lived a mother and daughter alone. I can't remember the mom much, but I remember the teenage daughter named, you guessed it, Tanya. Oh and what a Tanya she was. She truly lived up to every image, sensation, and impression that a name like "Tanya" can conjure. It is not an elegant name like Sophia or Anne. It does not evoke visions of chandeliers and gowns nor does it perfume your lips as you pronounce it. It is a common, girl-next-door name. Tanya's are all-American, approachable, and easy. My Tanya was a hair metal chic. She had big blonde hair teased way up with dark roots. Black eyeliner. She wore an acid-washed jean jacket, really tight jeans, and I remember her wearing a pair of intimidating fringe high heeled boots. It was the early 90's. It was no secret that she liked Motley Crüe. Her bedroom was above my brother's and she would blast music late into the night. I didn't listen to metal music. I was going through my Madonna-Tiffany-teeny bopper phase, and my brother was strictly listening to only 50s and 60s music. When Tanya wasn't listening to heavy metal she vacuumed. I would lie awake listening to the vacuum sucking away dirt and dust so all you got after was just a pathetic, threadbare carpet.

Tanya went out at night. Her boyfriends would come screeching up to the parking lot in pick-up trucks to get her. Sometimes there were three guys (I peeped out the kitchen window) sometimes two. They were dressed similarly to her and listened to the same music. You heard the music approaching first then the engine idling and the unmistakable click-clack of Tanya's heels as she raced down the stairs to her almighty Ford chariot waiting to whisk her away from Grand Manor Apartments. Once she was coming home as I was leaving for school early in the morning. She passed right by me. She was so close that I could see that she used a blue eyeliner and it was smudged from a night of having fun with boys that noticed you and wanted you and maybe doing drugs or smoking marijuana. She wore tangly silver crucifix earrings and her left ear had a row of more piercings. Her hair was soft, fine, blonde and pretty. Not coarse, thick and hideous like Asian hair. She didn't notice me, but as she walked by, I caught a whiff of what I now know as good ol' yeasty beer from the night before. But even with that bread-y smell and messy eye makeup, her life was SO glamorous.

Tanya must have gotten in big trouble with her mom that night because we heard a lot of fighting and stomping around. My parents were fighting a lot then too mainly over lack of money and how to make more money etc. All the fighting made me feel closer to Tanya like we both shared a "troubled" family life and we both had parents and teachers who didn't get us. We passed by each other again the following day on the stairs. Her mom was screaming at her as she slammed the door and stormed down the stairs to another car waiting for her. She made eye contact with me this time and I said, "Parents suuuuck." To my disbelief, she smiled and said, "Yea right?" I quickly added sarcastically, "Yeah you better go read your Bible and pray to God or something." I hated God. I had just been pulled out of a private Christian school where I actually had friends, but because my parents couldn't afford the tuition anymore I was transferred to a crappy public school where nobody cared about anything (but there were a lot of cute skater boys! another story). I hated the Christian school too to make things more confusing. And I certainly did not believe in God anyway the point was, my little rebellious anti-Christ quip made Tanya laugh. I felt SO cool. We were the same! We were sister rebels together. I could be her.

Tanya must have gotten grounded from missing her curfew, because a few more days later, my brother told me he saw her sneaking out of her second floor window to meet some guys in a pickup. He said he heard something knock on his window really late at night so he looked out and saw her half tangling and half climbing down to meet these guys. This story made an epic impression to my thirteen-year-old mind and inspired me to do the same a few years later when I sneaked out to meet my Jamaican boyfriend to devastating consequences. No one died but...that's another story for another day when the water is shut down in my apartment.

We stayed in Grand Manor Apartments for two years. My parents were worried about the public school education quality in that area. My band teacher called my mom several times about my behavior in class. My brother was getting into fights and his growing collection of porn magazines was starting to worry my parents. We moved to a nicer area. Gradually our financial situation improved. I graduated Salutatorian in my high school class. I went to Cornell University. Settled down in NYC. Met amazing women with storied pasts like Jo Weldon whose photo above reminded me of my own storied past and the women who made impressions on me for better or worse. This is Google Satellite's photo of Grand Manor Apartment. Shocking that this shack is still there. Maybe now its called Palace of Grandeur.

Discothéque Burlesque New Years at Boston Beehive 2013

"Last Night I Dreamt I Went to Manderley Again"

This quote seems appropriate today since Joan Fontaine made it famous in Alfred Hitchcock's 1939 "Rebecca" passed away this weekend at the grand age of 96. It is also appropriate because my co-worker and I evoke this fabulously doomy-romantic quote to describe our work condition under a tyrannical, wildly bipolar boss. And this photo I took last night (via Gemini Rising's fingers) at Mug Lounge after Kitty Night's last show in 2013 reminds me of the same romance as seen in Wong Kar Wai's films.



Lastly, the RED BURLESQUE Calamity Chang lipstick is finally available for purchase just in time for your stocking stuffer or a self-indulgent luxury reward for thyself! I have a small stash available to sale. If you are in NYC you can pick one up from me directly or pay only $5 for shipping anywhere in the US. They are $30 each. Email me "calamity at foxfatale dot com".



Read my previous post about using RED

Happy Spanksgiving! Photos by Chris Koontz

A few months back I performed and hosted in Scottchula's Late Nite Cabaret in Philadelphia and had the honor of doing some quick backstage portraits with photographer Chris Koontz also based in Philly. I finally got to see them and I love the dark dungeon-y feeling he captured.

Check out more of his portraits and other work at http://ChrisKPhotography.net

Photo by Chris Koontz - http://www.ChrisKPhotography.net/

Photo by Chris Koontz - http://www.ChrisKPhotography.net/

Photo by Chris Koontz - http://www.ChrisKPhotography.net/