Grimly Fiendish

In case you are sitting on lots of holiday cash and don’t know what to do, I wanted to point out that Dave Vanian of seminal (huh huh) punk band The Damned has co-founded a high-end goffic makeup line called Illamasqua. Who better to do it than Dave? He’s been blending clown white and smudging black liner since Billy Joe Armstrong’s parents argued over whether the condom would hold. Anyway, Dave’s makeup line is is the culmination of my dreams in many ways.
Awesome things about Dave:

1. He is married to Patricia Morrison, formerly the bassist of Sisters of Mercy, and together they are the gothest couple ever. Everyone else should give up.

2. He once threatened to beat the tar out of Bauhaus’ Peter Murphy, for copying his “Vampire schtick”, not realizing that there was enough of it to go around for the UK, Germany, and the States for many years to come.

3. I have been in love with him, body and soul, since I was fifteen years old. All five foot six of him.

4. Screw you, Patricia Morrison!

Favorite Things

This flyer, featuring a mash-up of G.W. and a Smiths album cover, has been making me laugh on my bike commute for a week, so finally I post it, 24 hours after the event occurred.

Catching up with the Jones!

Up and Coming: Halloween! I love Halloween. It’s like Christmas to me. Our costumes are ready. We are Lene Lovich and Nina Hagen!)


Eugene! I am excited about the all-girl laugh-fest coming up, and looking forward to meeting more funny ladies!

Chariots of Rubber! I have recently been cast in Jeffrey Wonderful’s musical about Demolition Derby, love, and Cindy, the Erotic Pleaser as a Backup Dancer, so I can add that distinction to my resume! I have NO idea when or where it will premiere, but it is going to be FANTASTIC. They told me I could tap dance in it. Equal parts Hedwig, Rocky Horror, Grease, and giant, talking nipples.

I leave you with a Fact-of-The Day quote from John Hodgman’s very funny new book, More Information Than You Require:


HALLOWE’EN: Originally called Samhain, this is the traditional Pagan-American holiday when we ask our children to consider the fragility of life by dressing them in darkly colored costumes and vision-impairing masks and encouraging them to walk around in the road.

Monster Letters!


You can get your name in monster letters here! I love I-mockery at this time of year.

How Children Ruin Halloween!

I Love Halloween

I have always loved Halloween. I think it’s tailor-made for girls- who doesn’t like dressing up and being rewarded with candy? Maybe I love it because I snared my first boyfriend in 8th grade at a Halloween party while dressed like Cleopatra and kicking serious asp.
In college, I rocked an Egyptian Cat Goddess (Bastet for the nerds) look with face fulla paint and a head fulla acid and met a different guy. We made a date for a couple days after, but I didn’t keep it when I realized he did not actually know what I looked like. Of course, being a suburban gothgirl meant that the day after Halloween was the optimal time to head to Michael’s MJDesigns and stock up on cheap-azz clown white and fishnets. Day of the dead, indeed!


Historical Document from 1987.

Modern Adult Costumes

I like that in America, adults still get to dress up, although women’s costumes are limited to some combination of Goth girl and whore.

Maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s not a giant difference between the two. But really- I’m a sexy witch, I’m a sexy maid, I’m a sexy corpse- and then the guys are all sumo wrestlers and ketchup dispensers? How is a sexy witch supposed to hang out with a sumo wrestler? All the guys are so into pirates, but they’re not into dressing as hobos, the disabled, cross-dressing transient muggers of today.
It’s not fair.

But my point- and yes, I have one.

Children Ruin Halloween

1. There is a new horrifying phenomenon when sometimes lazy, whorish Mom’s outfits are handed down, so you see an eight year old dressed as Spooky Nurse Fuckalot. Here’s some candy, honey. No, I don’t want an enema.
2. Halloween is about fantasy, and children don’t need any more fantasy. I’m tired of hearing their bullshit stories about what supposedly happened at Grandma’s.
3. Kids refuse to keep their costumes on. Last year, I met a ninja who had lost his sword and taken his hood off, so what we were dealing with was: a little person in black pajamas. I ask you. Pirates have their eyepatches upside down on foreheads.  What kind of commitment is that to a “look”? No commitment at all.

Trick or treat is a farce, and as far as I can tell, it’s our fault.

The little ghosts and goblins are home having their stashes rifled through by their paranoid, chocolate-starved parents by the time the street lights come on.  Let me say- most of the time that candy is, god forbid, poisoned, it’s the kid’s own parents who do it, and I’m sure they have their reasons.

Ain’t No Party Like A Birthday Party!

Although I work hard at keeping this page from being of any real use to anyone, I wanted to let you know that Nick Cave tickets are on sale today for a show at the Crystal Ballroom for Monday, September 22nd.  Aww! Nick’s spending his birthday with us! Reasons to love Nick Cave:

* He’s so goth, he wore flip-flops on Ron & Fez’s radio show, and was STILL goth.

* He has had amazing rock-n-roll hair for 30 years. Unfortunately, now all his promo shots are cropped at the temples.

* Dig, Lazarus, Dig is a record that makes other middle-aged rockers cower in shame.

* Nick wrote the story and soundtrack for the incredible and bloody cowboy movie, The Proposition.

* He did the soundtrack for another great movie, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, and did a cameo as- wait for it- a musician.

* He’s also doing the soundtrack to the film of Cormac McCarthy’s book, The Road.

* Nick wants to be a cowboy, and you can be his cowgirl.

An alert reader sent in an NPR article on Nick! Thank you!