Kitty Kitty Bang Bang – The Pleasurecraft

October 7, 2008

It makes sense that Francis Ford Coppola would make a respectable wine – not just because he’s Italian and lives in San Francisco but because he’s unquestionably enjoyed some bacchanalian excess. Over the years, his body has become a huge, hairy dirigible advertising the dangers of la dolce vita. Ironically, Coppola is carrying roughly the same weight Marlon Brando was when he played Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. No need to throw stones, but perhaps the paparazzi should shoot Coppola entirely in the shadows – like he did Brando in the movie (well, at least the scenes where he wasn’t using a manatee as Brando’s body double). Really, when you’re paying a couple of million dollars for a sweaty sumo wrestler with a speech impediment, what’s a few hundred thou more to maintain a saltwater stock tank full of hydrilla and turtle grass? If a manatee contract rider seems excessive, maybe you’re not cut out for Hollywood. Movie-making isn’t for the faint hearted. Ask Martin Sheen. At 36, he suffered a heart attack during the filming of Apocalypse Now – probably because at some point he found out what Brando was being paid. That might also explain the drunken, improvised Elvis-kwon-do hotel room scene at the beginning of the movie – the one where he breaks the mirror with his fist while Jim Morrison slurs the apocalyptic lyrics to “The End” in the background. Sheen should have probably won an Oscar for that scene, but unfortunately, he wasn’t acting. It was his birthday, and he was depressed and alcoholic. Plus, it was fucking monsoon season for Christ,s sake. Coppola himself threatened suicide on several occasions, not only because Brando gave him a frightening vision of his physiological future, but because back in ’78, $30 million was a lot of money to flush down the toilet on an ego trip. Of course, how could he know that nearly 20 years later Kevin Costner would make that figure look like chump change with his idiot-epic Waterworld (aka Fishtar), which tabbed out at $176 million, a stark illustration of what happens when you trade Thai Stick for blow. As a result, no one in Hollywood returns Costner’s calls anymore, not even Flavor Flav. You can see how after more than 200 days of slogging around the Philippines in monsoon season, Coppola would get serious about stomping grapes. Who could have guessed he would blow up like one? Big as he is, Coppola’s films are even bigger, and Apocalypse Now might be the biggest of all. If not, it’s at least the most ambitious. Bottom line is that art takes balls … unless, of course, you’re a burlesque troupe, in which case balls aren’t a requirement. You still need moxy, chutzpah, nerve, and cheek, though, and nowhere will you find more cheek than the Kitty Kitty Bang Bang burlesque troupe. This Saturday at 9pm, they will be performing a new show called Apocalypse Wow! at the Compound, which sounds like the set for a Rambo movie, but it’s really just a performance space next to the Scoot Inn on East Fourth. Apocalypse Wow! pairs the Bangers with Tom Waits Peepshow cohorts the No Salvation Army Band in an “apocalyptic musical romp” that may be the most artistically ambitious thing you’ve seen that doesn’t involve killing a water buffalo.

OCT. 8, 2007

If you really want to look at naked people, they’re all over the place. No more so than on the Internet. If you don’t believe it, try typing the word “bazookas” into Google’s image search. The result is a cross between a carnival freak show and a chiropractor’s wet dream. Nobody in your office probably remembers it, but there was a time when looking at naked people at work involved drilling a peephole into a restroom wall. You can still make that kind of thing happen, but unless you’re willing to wait quietly in the janitor’s closet for an inadvertent money shot, you’ll probably want to take advantage of digital technology – if only to install a web cam in the peephole. But really, why go to all the trouble? You don’t have to work nearly that hard. There are literally millions of pictures of spectacularly endowed, relentlessly turgid, beautifully air-brushed naked people on the Internet and you barely need to lift a finger to get at them. It’s every schoolkid’s fantasy come true – like finding a whole Dumpster full of nudie mags. Of course the down side of the whole deal is the inevitable real-world letdown of finding out that most real people don’t have rock hard, toned physiques, glistening, hairless nether regions, double D breasts, or 10-inch peckers. In fact, most naked bodies fall well short of the Internet standard, even on the Internet. You don’t have to drive out to Hippie Hollow to see cellulite, saddlebags, leathery skin, faded tattoos, or wild, unkempt tangles of pubes. There are plenty of sites devoted solely to amateur exhibitionists who apparently don’t have access to a soft-focus lens or acne medicine. Gone are the days of crouching in the bushes beneath the neighborhood MILF’s bedroom window every night hoping she’ll lotion the razor burns on her privates. Thanks to the internet you can tell her how to shave and where to apply the lotion, as long as you have a working credit card and a box of tissues within reach. Not surprisingly, with the increase in readily available porn on the Internet has come a corresponding interest in and acceptance of porn in real life. More people than ever are taking control of their sexuality and trying to actually live out the crazy donkey/goat/monkey/gerbil/midget/Vaseline/rope swing/jackhammer/gimp mask/gorilla suit fantasies they see online. It could be society is paving a landing strip for the four horsemen of the apocalypse or it could be that it’s merely pulling a big bug of Victorian repression out of its ass. Either way the end result is more skin for everyone – at least until it’s burned off in the lake of fire. Until then, expect things to get a whole lot freakier – sort of like this weekend when local burlesque troupes Kitty Kitty Bang Bang and Burlesque for Peace present the Texas Burlesque Festival. Over 50 performers and nine troupes from Texas and beyond will be baring their wares on Friday and Saturday night at the Parish and Antone’s respectively. If you like to unwind with a little bump and grind, this is definitely your festival. In between performances will be seminars on how to burlesque for success: makeup, hair, choreography, costuming, and chutzpah. Who knew showing off your bazookas involves so much smoke … and mirrors? Don’t worry, somewhere underneath it all is some live, naked flesh worth your money.