Venus DeMars

Venus DeMars
Glass Plate photo

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Fetish while on tour...

A little over a week ago, while I've been tour... I was invited to write an artical about Glam-Fetish... I don't know if it will be published yet, and/or if anyone who doesn't have a subscription to the magazine will be able to read it... but it's relivant to this tour in a number of ways...so I thought I'd post it here.

IF I get word that it was published, I will send out info on where and how to access it in it's full form.

- Venus
PS I will be writing a end of tour blog after I return home sometime after Oct 21st.
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GLAM-FETISH

A Month before, I was freezing in Wellington NZ waiting backstage for the set to start. Now I'm sitting with my dancer Stacy watching "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" while hiding from the 90-plus heat of the Phoenix sun in my friend Paul's house. We're on tour now, out to the west coast.
And enjoying a few days off before the big Scottsdale fetish event we will perform at.
I'm watching the movie.
I'm thinking about Glam.
And now I'm thinking about Gender,
And now I'm thinking about Life.

I am a self-made, transgender, Dark-Glam, Rock Star. (did I say...?)
"Rock-Star."

When I was 10, I wanted to be a "Rock Star."
When I saw David Bowie on the Midnight Special with his orange hair and plastic wrap-a-round hands over black?-glitter fishnet bodysuit.
When I knew I wanted to be female.
When I wore dresses in secret.
When I was 10.
A "Rock Star."
A GLAM 'Rock Star."

And now I'm thinking of the classic fetish photos I've made a point of collecting, and remembering... That time when I was on that art tour up to Canada? And was given that art photo book by that photo artist who took those self portraits of himself crossing? Remember him wearing all that classic "Stiletto-Silk Black-Patten" beauty?
And when the border guard was digging through my bags trying to find just one excuse to hold us all just that little bit longer? wanting to enjoy his power just a little bit more, just a bit more as we re-entered the US.

He missed this book.

And now I can't find this book anymore. I know. I've looked.

And here I am hiding from a Phoenix sun watching Hedwig.

Can I say now that I love doing what I do? ...Can I say now that I am conflicted by what I do?

I drive 20 hr's getting to the last gig...through a sleepy windy night.
I'm turning the radio/CD player up LOUD!
And now, onstage, I feel dissolved into emotion.
I'm performing alone with my guitar. Balancing on a ply board covered table supported stage. Each step in my thigh-high, black shiny 4 inch-ers working hard not to cause the microphone stand to tumble off. Catching my breath from the 'waspy' corset I'm wearing. That spiked short belt I tied tight over my forearm because of the torn elbow muscles. Torn from too much heavy equipment lifting, and careless fast strumming. (I hold that damn pick way too hard!)
It's cutting in now.
Too Tight.
I feel the numbness.
I take it off.
Still pure emotion.

I only know these 10 square feet of stage. ...All that really exists.
This stage,
This time,
These people,
This caught breath.
This torn muscle pain,
This story I tell of a trans-woman shot.

And I'm gone.

Make up in my eyes now.

And gone... I'm simply gone.