Why I set up Hot Laser (Queer Arts Community)

Every year for the past four, there has been a tranny exodus to the Glastonbury Festival where we've gone and run amok in the NYC Downlow. After laughing my ass off the first year in 2007 (which continually pissed it down but has been one of my favourite lost weekends) I thought to myself, why is nobody documenting this?

The queer American scene has prolific films such as Paris is Burning, Wigstock, The Cockettes, Trannyshack, The Queen, and SqueezeBox! so I decided it was time to document the alternative drag scene that has recently emerged and thrived from east London.

While bobbing around in the Arabian Sea, I asked my friend Colin Rothbart if he'd be interested in making a film about the British queer scene and we started filming at the Downlow in June 2009. Realising we needed to do this properly, we set about becoming a Community Interest Company and received official status this summer.

During this process, my own focus shifted. I wanted to do something that incorporated more than the family of trannies and freaks that the film was documenting and extend it to queer creatives around the UK. For me, queer and gay have become so distant from each other that they're hardly related. Gay has become a commodity, queer is where the others, radicals and creatives live.

Queer is empowering. It's less to do with sexuality or gender, more about being different, other. Queer incorporates gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, intersex, transvestite, whatever....its less about what you do with your genitals, more about your outlook.

So what are we doing? We're making an amazing documentary about a bunch of queers and misfits, the lives behind the masks and to show mainstream culture being queer isn't confined to the safe asexual, inoffensive and bland generic vision what the BBC or the media perceive it to be.

We aim to link British based queer creatives together. Those working in art, music, writing, dance, design, fashion, anything creative. Britain is full of queer creatives, the aim is to bring everyone together, create links, encourage productivity and help isolated queers through the arts. This will eventually be done in the form of a website (exhibition, events, tour, book, album.. possibilities are endless) but for now we're doing it through fund-raising events where London's finest queers give their time for free to raise money for the group. (Next one Saturday 27^th November at Vogue Fabrics).

Of course all this will take time and money. I have the passion and ideas but I'm a creative honey and need help with the official side of things. Fund-raising, legal, financial...all the important stuff that needs to be done so the fabulous stuff can blossom.

We need fund-raisers who know how to access people who'd like to invest in this amazing project. Professionals who can give us advice and help. Interns to help get this project off the ground and out there.

I'd like to see things being pushed forward and the extended family come together. People collaborating instead of protecting their own little scraps of land, hooking up with other groups and projects, taking it internationally, having fun and being amazing through the arts in all its glorious forms.

x

More info at www.hot-laser.com
If are interested in helping, please email me at holestar@gmail.com

Being a Female DJ

Article originally written for Bad Feminist
http://badfeministuk.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/being-a-female-dj-by-holestar/

Here is the trailer for a film that makes The Human Centipede look like Citizen Kane, ‘DJ Girl’.

From what I gather, the synopsis is thus; party girl fancies hot DJ, he’s not interested. To get his attention she decides to become a DJ because to be one ‘is like so hot right now’. He becomes her Mr Miyagi and teaches her the ways of the discotheque jockey. She blags a gig, rocks the house, hot DJ snogs her, wins the DMC World DJ Championships by swishing her hair on the vinyl and flipping it onto the deck before stunning the crowd by scratching with her nipples. The last part may not be true.

If only being a DJ, particularly a female one was so easy.

Being a lady DJ can be a double edged blade. You may get a booking because of your gender, a female name stands out on a line-up and it’s unusual. But on the flip side, you can be ignored and looked over because many presume girls don’t know anything about music. In a male
dominated industry, female DJs are still very much a novelty especially when you look at the largely Russian phenomenon of topless DJs. A sexist yet genius concept where for one fee, you get hot tits dancing to a pre mix CD, pretending to fiddle with the cross fader.

After you’ve hustled and start getting gigs, you get patronising nerds who stand, arms folded analysing and sneering, waiting for you to make a bum mix. Then there are the old school vinyl die hards who would prefer if women would stay well away from the decks (I once had a man
shout at me for not using vinyl. It is a superior format but its heavy, expensive and easily damaged so I only savour a few classics) and on the odd occasion, you might have hassle getting into your own gig or onto the decks from misogynist bouncers who think you’re on the
blag.

People can be rude and demand you play that song again / Lady Gaga /Bavarian baseline. I wonder how these people would react if a stranger entered their work place and ordered them to do something. Despite the supposed glamorous nature, DJing is a job and the aim is to entertain a room of revellers, not one individual (my latest response to these types is “I am not a jukebox”).

You’ve also got to compete with the ‘celebrity’ or instant DJ. In the age of technology and mp3 downloading, anyone can profess to be one. You don’t have to plough through hours of crap and suffer the snobbery of record shop staff, you can sit in the comfort of your underpants, download everything from the latest hip music blog, burn to CD (or laptop for the lazy) and play to a rapturous dance floor. Now this may work a few times but eventually the instant DJ types who are in it for the glory soon filter away because they know jack about music, how to cook a floor and haven’t got the patience to learn about and source it.

There’s something quite fierce about female producers and DJs, much like any woman who does a job that is predominately done by men and I’d like to see more of us out there. I don’t expect to see more female DJs being booked just because they are the minority but I’d like to see them smash through their own glass ceiling and compete with the boys on even terms. But then again,
how can we be expected to be taken seriously when there are plenty of DJanes (a hideous term) who abuse their feminine wiles by posing in headphones and bikinis or are happy to shag a promoter to get a gig?

As for DJ Girl and others like her, if you have a passion for music, willing to work hard, face rejection and misogyny, then go for it lady and get out there, otherwise please support your sisters from the dance floor.

x

Fashanker...The Song

To accompany the following article...

Respect...Peter Tatchell

Peter Tachell has spent over 30 years fighting for human rights and particularly the rights of LGBTQ people. The apathetic gay disco bunnies who enjoy their freedom have a lot to thank him for.

Just as I had started to come out to myself (I was a late bloomer), I remember him and members of Outrage! storming the Archbishop of Canterbury's Easter sermon in 1998 and found it intimidating. The negative reactions to the confrontational work of Outrage! influenced my decision to remain in the closet for a few more years as I didn't want to associate myself with their radicalism. When I finally came out, I sent money to Stonewall, went on a few marches and supported gay rights albeit passively.

How things have changed. I'm no longer a fan of Stonewall (their strap line now being 'Working for equality and justice for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals”. Nothing about our Trans sisters and brothers whose fore Mothers from the Stonewall Inn help kick start the queer rights movement that they take their name from.) I now realise it's thanks to people like Peter, who constantly puts his neck on the line, that today I can enjoy the freedom of being an outspoken, queer woman. I'm all for peaceful lobbying but sometimes you need to be big and bold to be heard.

Tonight, Channel 4 broadcast his documentary 'The Trouble with the Pope', discussing the negative impact the head of Catholicism has on the world. It could have been predominately about Ratzinger condemning gays as evil, but this was but a small part and the whole documentary was balanced and very informative. In a society where being on TV is the ultimate medium to gain presence, I hope more people are now aware of the issues raised and of Peter and his work.

Peter has been abused, arrested and suffered serious physical injury in his fight for the rights of others. Rather than lay down, he gets up again and continues. I may not agree on all of his views but for doing what he does for humanity, I salute and thank him.

P.S. I'll be joining him on Saturday 18^th September to protest the Pope's state visit to the UK.

http://www.protest-the-pope.org.uk/

Fashankers and I Love Dalston

(In response to the article http://www.sabotagetimes.com/life/why-i-hate-dalston/)

Fashanker*

Noun; A form of idiot. Combination of someone who is fashionable and an utter wanker.

I love fashion but hate the crap that comes with it. The snobbery, the shoulder surfing at fashion week parties, the desperation to be seen and photographed. However, I have great admiration for anyone who spends time putting a look together day to day. It must takes hours of research, locating, collecting clothes and accessories before trying to weave it all together.

What I don't like is the ones who come loaded with arrogance and rude to anyone they deem less than worthy, these are fashion wankers.

Many can be seen at Broadway Market and nearby London Fields. Despite it being quite a large park, they converge on an area the size of a stamp to preen and judge, happy to pay £5 for a watered down mojito before converging on their temple, the Cat & Mutton. I visited the area recently and sat right in the middle of it all, watching fashanker warfare take place, everyone gets scanned up and down, where information is compiled and the output is a pout (yeah you're cool) or scowl (you are so not cool). Also see the take over of Hackney Wick. A low rent area that used to thrive with artists and creatives but soon quickly filled with cool kids wanting to live the bohemian dream in converted warehouses.

Many come across as spoilt and obnoxious with no regard for anyone who isn't in a variant of the hipster uniform. Some really are clueless and lucky to have Daddy's credit card on standby should their media job go tits up (I met a hideous example recently who sneered that his shoes cost more than someone else's entire wardrobe. Well hurrah for you, you soulless shit). Then again there are some absolute sweethearts who under the pretence are genuinely lovely, bright, caring people and actually quite shy.

It's obvious that most of London's creative types aren't originally from the capital. Unhappy with provincial life and attitudes, we flock here from all corners of the globe to find others like us, where we can be who we want to by forming tribes to feed a sense of belonging, an extended family that nurtures common interests. People will always complain about the trendy kids, but fashion tribalism has always occurred in London. Chelsea, Camden, Islington, Notting Hill, Soho and Shoredicth have all had their fashionable set heyday and now its Dalstons turn. In a few years it may well go back to somewhere in West London (heaven forbid).

I agree with the cited article that only a minority of fashankers are actually creating anything but so what? I'd rather be sneered at by insecure hipsters who will soon move on to the next big thing than go up against the kind of tribe that frequents manic boozy areas of most towns and cities in the UK.

Unless the fashion kids are being vile, and therefore fashankers, I say leave them be. It's just fashion mixed with naivety. They aren't going to hurt you.

As for slagging off Dalston, what a load of twaddle. It's an amazing area of incredible diversity, creativity, innovation and has some of London's best nights out (Sssh though, we don't want to turn it into Shoreditch). To toot my own horn, I'm privileged to run a night at Dalston Superstore where gays, straights, casual types and fashion hipsters come to get down. There have been times when a group of fashankers have sneered at someone dancing like a loon but they soon shuffle elsewhere when they realise everyone else is having fun and they are the ones who don't fit in.

If you really are adverse to hipster kids playing dress up, well there's always Wetherspoons.

x

P.S. In the TV series Nathan Barley set in Hoxton (ahead of its time and largely over looked), the shows every-man, Dan declared the hipsters 'Idiots'. Towards the end of the series, his paranoia became a mantra of 'the idiots are winning'.

No Dan, they won a long time ago. Just let it go.

* I coined 'fashanker' some time ago. A friend told a friend and it has since been mentioned by a broad sheet newspaper, without credit I hasten to add.

September 11th Update

Honourable mention must go to The Grand Spectacular, makers of 'Being a Dickhead's Cool'. Sums it up in a catchy song.