It’s been 13 years since G.B. Jones began her film The Lollipop Generation, but in celebration of it’s long-awaited completion and first New York City screening, East Village Boys took the opportunity to talk with the legendary matriarch of queercore.

G.B.’s life-as-bricolage legend began in the early ’80s with the band Bunny and the Lakers, and the seminal (no pun intended) all-girl experimental post-punk (there are a lot of labels, but I like that one) band Fifth Column. She co-founded the groundbreaking zine J.D.s (Juvenile Delinquents) with fellow troublemaker Bruce LaBruce, filmed a series of influential underground films with her queercore comrades in Toronto, appeared in a few others, appropriated and then one-upped an icon of homoerotic art, and shook-up and pissed-off more people with her zine Double Bill. She’s been wreaking general havoc, disrupting the would-be assimilators of queer culture, and assaulting the values that have been defining the gay mainstream for years. Decades even.

An interview can’t really do this story justice - it really needs a book. Not that she doesn’t have one, it’s just that the Canadian authorities thought it best to seize and ban it. Anyway, we asked her about all of that, so read and watch on.

Weston Bingham: I really want to ask you about your film, The Lollipop Generation, but it wouldn’t be right to not dig into your history a bit. Your band Fifth Column was a pioneering queercore, riot grrrl, pick your label, band in the ’80s and ’90s. Why do you think girl bands like Fifth Column, The Slits, X-Ray Spex, The Runaways STILL get second billing to the boy bands?

G.B. Jones: That’s an interesting question. I don’t know. Why do you think that happens?
Fifth Column, ‘I LoveYou, But…’

Fifth Column, ‘All Women Are Bitches’

WB: Hmm, that IS interesting… In 1985 you guys released your first album, and you and Bruce LaBruce launched the first issue of J.D.s, arguably the single most important catalyst of queercore culture. What was your agenda with the zine?


GB: To disturb and disrupt. And it did. It woke people up and got them thinking and doing things. That was the idea.

WB: Your music, the magazine, the films, the performances and events, are all-media DIY collaborations. Even your “Tom Girls” drawings collaborated with an unwitting Tom of Finland - and Vivienne Westwood for that matter. Was there a tight-knit community? What was the scene like?

GB: Busy! I was always sitting behind my desk working all the time and just kind of watching all these people getting together with each other or fighting with each other, doing drugs and getting drunk, posing for pictures, going to jail and getting out of jail, playing in bands and working on zines. The thing is that a lot of it happened in my apartment, so I took photos of it and filmed it and put it in a zine. I just did things with people who weren’t scared to hang around with me. A lot of people were scared to be associated with me. Even now, some people still are! I don’t know why.

WB: Did the community emerge out of necessity or by design? Did it really exist pre-J.D.s or was it a self-fulfilling prophecy?

GB: Both. It existed in my apartment and then it spread from there. Really.

WB: What do you see as the state of queercore culture now, after more than 20 years?

GB: Well, I showed The Lollipop Generation in Montreal and they had a big party for the movie afterwards with three queercore bands playing, and it was totally packed, with all these kids dancing, and licking the free lollipops they gave out, and having fun. People show me all these bands on YouTube that say they’re queercore, and I get all these letters from people in Greece and Italy and South Africa and all over the world, so I guess it’s still going on. It’s great, cause they’re taking it over and making it their own.

WB: It seems like queercore culture is manifested primarily in music.

GB: At first it was really mainly zine-based, for at least five years in the late ’80s when it all started, before there were lots of bands. And within those zines there was a lot of writing of all different genres, like fiction, essays, diaristic, journalism and so on, and there was many different kinds of art-making as well, such as drawing, sequential art, collage, etc, and there was a lot of work that would be considered bricolage, which was particularly appropriate for us. There was photography as well, and from the very beginning we were making films. I think much of this practice continued on in the work of people who began by doing zines, so I don’t know if I agree that it’s a movement that manifests itself mostly in music.



It has manifested itself in so many different forms that, say, a lot of the queercore comic artists aren’t known by the musicians. And maybe vice versa. In turn, neither group may be aware of a writer like Steve Abbott (and other writers like him) who was part of the zine scene in the ’80s and wrote the book The Lizard Club, which could definitely be considered a queercore novel. And a lot of people have probably never seen any of my movies. But it’s not the type of movement that depends on a knowledge of all its various permutations to be able to be involved in it, and that’s why it’s still going on.

WB: What keeps it from becoming just another codified gay community?

GB: It’s not a movement that’s been directed by the marketplace, it hasn’t been concocted by marketing managers, sales reps, and advertisers, it’s something that people want to do themselves. That’s why there are so many different kinds of genres of music within queercore. It hasn’t been streamlined for mass consumption. It’s outside of the radar of the type of people who want to cash in on the latest craze, who are looking for the ‘next big thing’, because you know mainstream America is never going to like it. You can’t sell it to the mainstream. It’s always going to be very scary to the average mall-shopper. It’s always going to horrify all the religious people. It’s going to upset parents. And that’s what’s so good about it.

WB: You and Bruce LaBruce co-authored a famous punk manifesto for Maximum Rock ‘n Roll zine in 1985 titled “Don’t Be Gay Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Fuck Punk Up The Ass,” you argued that gay and punk subcultures weren’t doing enough to extend the boundaries of gender and sexual politics. Any progress?

GB: Hmm, no.

WB: Is queer culture even more codified now?

GB: Hmm, yes.

WB: After J.D.s ran it’s course, you started making your own films, and acting in your friend’s films. How does the energy of your music and the spontaneity of your zines manifest itself in film?

GB: It’s all linked together, because my movies document everything that’s going on. They really are like my home movies, so they capture the scene around the band and the zines.

The Troublemakers starred Caroline Azar, Bruce LaBruce and Joe The Ho, and it captures the early years of J.D.s. and everyone else who was in the zine, like Stevie Sinatra, Dave-Id, Cizzy Che, Mean Jean and me. It was filmed in the condemned house were we all lived, and it was really all about our lives at the time, all the things we were doing: shoplifting, making out, piercing, getting arrested, doing our hair, getting out of jail. It was just our life.
Caroline Azar also starred in The Yo-Yo Gang with Leslie Mah, Donna Dresch, Beverly Breckenridge, Jena von Brücker, Tracie Thomas, Mark Freitas, Klaus von Brücker, Deke Nihilson, and many other stars, plus me and Bruce. It was the story of a two girl gangs who are at war. They’re at war with each other, with their gay roommates, and with the rest of the world. Most of the people in the The Yo-Yo Gang were also in J.D.s, but it’s got more to do with the Fifth Column scene and being in a girl band. A lot of the stars of the movie, like Caroline Azar, Beverly Breckenridge, Anita Smith and Donna Dresch, were in Fifth Column. Jena von Brücker took lots of photos of the band, did background vocals on a couple of our songs, and appeared on the cover of our CD, 36-C, which was a still shot taken from the movie. Bruce La Bruce was the band’s go-go boy for awhile, so I typecast him in the film as a go-go dancer, and Klaus von Brücker also danced with us, so he’s in the film too. And every girl in the movie has been in an all-girl band at some point. The Yo-Yo Gang is about girl-gangs, and being in an all-girl band is pretty much the same as being in a girl gang.
The Lollipop Generation documents the period of the zine Double Bill that I co-edited with Jena von Brücker, Caroline Azar, Johnny Noxzema and Rex from 1991 to 2001. Jena and Johnny star in the movie, and Mark Ewert, Jane Danger, Vaginal Davis, Torry Colichio, Scott Treleaven, Anonymous Boy, Gary Fembot and Stevec all contributed to the zine in some form, in one issue or another. The Lollipop Generation is all about the Double Bill years. Give or take a few extra years to finish it.
Really, it would be hard to separate the zine scene and the band scene and the movie scenes from one another. It’s all kind of interconnected, and the movies are the documents of those times. It’s the real scene, on film, on the screen right in front of you.

WB: Ok, on to your first “feature film”, The Lollipop Generation. What’s it about?

GB: It’s the story of Georgie, played by Jena von Brücker, who sadly says goodbye to her little puppy and runs away from a horrible home, only to end up in a strange world on the streets of a big city filled with perverts, pimps and smut peddlers. She soon makes three friends; Peanut (KC Klass), who has been kicked out of home and also forced to live on the street; Janie (Jane Danger), a streetwise girl who models for Lollipop magazine and does movies too; and Rufus (Mark Ewert), who is kidnapped and forced to be in an evil porn director’s (Johnny Noxzema) movie with a six-foot-something drag queen named Beulah Blacktress (Vaginal Davis), before Georgie rescues him. Together they have to try to find their way in the big, bad world.

WB: Why did it take 13 years?

GB: Oh, that’s a long, long, long story. You wouldn’t have room to print all the different episodes of insanity that went into making this movie. So may things happened! There were lots of fights, and producers dropping out of the project, and some of the actors didn’t like their characters, and there were numerous rewrites of the story, and floods and nervous breakdowns and other natural disasters. I wish I had filmed everything to do with making the movie, but it would be all so unbelievable people would think I had made it all up.

WB: What about the aging of the teenage cast over that length of time?

GB: The stars of the movie were so relieved when I finally finished it. They felt a little bit trapped in a kind of perpetual adolescence for the sake of the film. Once it was done, they felt like they could finally grow up.

WB: It doesn’t seem like a linear plan of any kind would work out. How do you maintain a sense of experimentation, spontaneity, urgency and story integrity over that long a period?

GB: If you find out at the last minute that someone is coming to town for a couple of days and you want to put them in your movie, you might only have one day to think of a role for them, rewrite the movie so they can be in it, and then get the cast together and film the scenes. It’s not linear, but it is really urgent and spontaneous and experimental!I think the way I make movies is probably similar to exploitation directors like Doris Wishman and Ray Dennis Steckler and Ed Wood Jr., in that you just have to use whatever you have, whatever you managed to get on film, to get the movie done. I mean, I totally relate to Ed Wood trying to finish Plan 9 after Bela Legosi died in the middle of filming, because one of the stars of my movie left the film when we were halfway finished filming and I had to try to work around that in the same way. The only difference is that those directors had a lot more money to make their films than I do. Their idea back then of what was low budget filmmaking is my idea of heaven.

WB: What sort of film would you make with a proper budget?

GB: I’d make more films, lots more films. I’d film everyday. And every one of the stars in my films would get their own movie to star in.

WB: Your favorite format, Super 8, has all but disappeared. Video has come and gone. DIY is now much more hi-tech, and every kid with a computer is making films and publishing blogs and photos. What do you think about this democratization?

GB: I think it’s good. I like all the YouTube stars. I like how they make their own little movies. I do like to use Super 8 though, and I like video a lot, now that I’ve tried it. I really love the discarded, thrown away technologies, all the junk store cameras and ways of making movies that most people don’t care about anymore. But I’m not against trying new technology. I’ll try anything once.

WB: Why exactly was your book G.B. Jones banned in Canada, and where can we get it?

GB: You can see on the Customs form that they’ve typed in “Bondage” as the reason they seized the books. There are only two drawings of people who are in bondage in the book; one is of a police officer, who gets tied up and spanked for giving two girls a ticket for parking their motorcycle in the wrong place, and the other is of a prison guard, who is trying to make it with one of the prisoners, but gets tricked and tied up instead. I wouldn’t want to speculate too much about their thinking at the border, but I suspect it may have something to do with the occupations of the women in bondage, more than the fact that these two women are bound. After all, lots of mainstream pornography gets into the country that’s a lot worse than my drawings.
The book was edited by Steve LaFreniere, and put out by Feature Inc. gallery in New York. I only ever had a few copies of it that Steve smuggled into the country for me, so I don’t have any left. But maybe if you go to the gallery they might still have copies which they would probably give you for free. Someone told me it was selling for $125 on the internet but believe me, I’m not getting the money for it.

WB: Who are you listening to now?

GB: I listen to Mariae Nascenti everyday.

WB: And finally, what does G.B. stand for?

GB: Wouldn’t you like to know? It doesn’t stand for anything, except me. It’s just my name, that’s all.

The Lollipop Generation will be presented by Light Industry, in Brooklyn
Tuesday, December 16, 8:00. $6 at the door - cheap! We’ll be there…

Portraits of G.B. Jones and Andrew Cecil shot for EVB by Mckenzie James

All artwork © G.B. Jones, and/or artist credited
.

Gio Black Peter is a creative force to be reckoned with. His work explodes on the wall, on screen and on stage, directly from his “heart, guts and balls”, confronting personal, cultural, and political issues head-on with abandon - and in the tradition of “Old New York”, never forgetting the sex and the fun. His manic (and maniac) public performances tell one part of the story, while his drawings painting and videos help complete the total picture of a diverse artist engaging in rich dialogues with the audience, his collaborators, and even himself, all with a complete disregard for boundaries and safe-words.

Weston Bingham: You’ve taken the name of the mythical Black Peter, who brings bad presents to bad children at Christmas. What bad presents do you bring to bad boys.

Gio Black Peter: I date them.

WB: Ah! Are you dating anyone now?

GBP: Yes, I’m currently in love with a really amazing and beautiful boy named Squirrel. We’ve been seeing each other for three years and he appears in many of my drawings and songs.

WB: Hey, you said you punished people by dating them. Was Squirrel bad?

GBP: I was just kidding. I’m actually a sweet boy and so is Squirrel, which is why were still together.

WB: How did you get discovered for the role of Charley in Eban and Charley?

GBP: When I was a wee lad I was hired to make paintings on canvas as a live performance at New York’s notorious club, Tunnel. I think word had spread around that there was this young kid making paintings in the middle of this decadent scene, so a casting agent from Eban & Charley came and set up a meeting with me and the director, James Bolton. I went to Portland for the final audition and won the part, though I almost didn’t get it because Gus Van Sant, who was involved at the time, had opted for the other boy. I think Gus can go fuck himself.

WB: What was your experience like working with Bruce LaBruce in Otto; or, Up With Dead People

GBP: Bruce was great to work with. He really knows what he wants so it’s easy to take direction from him. Plus, I’m a big fan of his films, so I was honored when he said he had a part specially for me. The cast and crew were also really amazing and we had a lot of fun shooting in Berlin. Otto is my favorite BLaB film to-date. I really love what it has to say and I am extremely proud to be a part of it.

WB: Who do you play and what’s his story?

GBP: I play Rudolf, Otto the zombie’s ex-boyfriend. He is sweet and loving, at least while they were dating. Without giving away the plot, Rudolph is the final key in Otto figuring out his past before he was undead.

WB: You also have a new film coming out, Glory Holes. Seems obvious, but what’s it about?

GBP: It’s a dreamy short film directed by Robert Smith (no, not him). It’s about the glory holes inside the soul - or at least that’s my take on it. It’s being edited at the moment, so I haven’t seen the final film, but the dailies I’ve seen look beautiful.

WB: There are some recent pics of you on your blog that look like you got beat up. What happened?

GBP: I got attacked by a ninja from the back. It was unprovoked, there was no confrontation, there was no warning, and I didn’t see anyone. I was walking down the street and the next thing I remember was getting up with a fractured nose with blood everywhere. The cops and the ambulance people were shit. It made me realize that all the lazy, bully ghetto fuckers I went to high school with ended up becoming cops or ambulance staff. The only thing good that came out of all of it were the photos Slava Mogutin took of me. I’m using his photos for the It’s Fucked Up! EP artwork.

WB: Speaking of that, lets talk about your Black Peter Group. Is that insanity rehearsed or pure spontaneity?
GBP: [laughs] This is funny because we usually say our sound-check is our rehearsal. We don’t rehearse because the band lineup changes all the time. This is mainly due to geographical differences, not artistic. All together there have been 13 girls doing backup vocals, four guitarists, two drummers and one human beat box. Since being back in New York this year I’ve been lucky enough to have my London guitarist James move here, so our lineup has been consistent, which is ace!

WB: Where have you been the most well received?

GBP: So far it’s been good everywhere we’ve played, and we’ve gotten around a bit. In 2008 we played New York, Tokyo, Berlin, Paris, the UK, Italy, Norway and Belgium. The kids in Berlin and Tokyo were singing along - it was mind blowing to me since all the lyrics come from my heart, guts and balls. It’s true that there have been gigs where we have had to prove ourselves, but by the third song everyone gets into it. I do have to add that I wish more kids in New York came out to see us because I think they would enjoy it. I’m from New York so I try to incorporate a bit of “Old New York” in every show.

WB: What’s the Old New York you throw in?

GBP: Old New York was a time when people were more concerned with having a good time than they were with getting bottle service in a booth.

WB: When is the EP coming out?

GBP: We just wrapped it up and it’s titled It’s Fucked Up!. We teamed up with London producer Andrew Friendly and came out with some really great in your face hard dance tracks. The sound is a mixture of Electro, Indie Punk, Hip Hop and Pop. We pretty much threw everything into the pot and set it to 350. The EP contains three unreleased BPG tracks - ‘It’s Fucked Up!’, ‘Kamikaze Kid’ and ‘Goody Two Shoes’ (an Adam Ant cover), and an extended mix and remix of ‘It’s Fucked Up’ by Australian duo Hump Day Project. It will be digitally released in the US on February 9 through Gulp Communications and you’ll be able to download it from Beatport and iTunes. It will also come with limited edition artwork made by myself.

‘Kamikaze Kid’ free download (for a limited time), love, Gio

‘Flip Flopping’

‘Peter vs. Robot’

WB: Tell us about your recent series of portraits and self-portraits you did on top of New York City subway maps.

GBP: That came about because most the artwork I was doing at the time was based on the current American attack on illegal immigrants. Having emigrated from Guatemala with my family when I was five this affects me directly. I did the paintings on subway maps because a map depicts territory and because New York is the place I call home. The details of the map make up my guts and flesh. The subway line makes up my veins. I’m a part of it and vice versa.

WB: What motivated you and your family to emigrate here?

GBP: We emigrated for the same reason as everyone else, including the first European settlers - in search of a better life. The only difference is that we didn’t kill a nation of Native Americans in the process.

WB: Is being an (big quote marks here) “outsider”, on so many levels, the motivation behind most of your work?

GBP: Funny thing is, I didn’t know I was an outsider until I was made to feel like one by the kids in school who called me a faggot. Or by the government stamping me with an Alien registration number. Or when someone gives me a dirty look for holding my boyfriend’s hand. Or when assholes like Rick Santorum compare gay marriage to a man marrying his dog. My art is a direct expression of my feelings and views. I do make art about other things, but this recurring theme does play a major factor.

WB: Where do you feel like an insider?

GBP: I feel like an insider when I’m in my bubble.
WB: Many of your paintings, drawings, videos and writings are very personal and sensitively crafted - some are even sweet and calm. Your live performances seem very much the opposite. Is there something about these two mediums that just gets you off differently?

GBP: It’s true my music is not sweet or calm. I think this is because for the most part my musical side reflects my views on politics and sinking relation-ships. Relationships not only between lovers, but also the relationships between people and the government, the church, family, neighbors, bus drivers etc. So the songs and physical expressions reflect my cynical side. However, they are all personal, sensitively crafted and as delicately laid out as my drawings. If you read any of my lyrics you’ll notice that there is no filler, and each word is specifically chosen to express a personal story or point of view. My drawings, paintings, videos and writings allow me to express my feelings towards the things that I don’t address in my songs. They might be sweet at times, but I’d have to disagree about them being calm. Calm is ok, it’s just not me.

WB: How different is your private persona compared to your on-stage persona.

GBP: Depends who’s winning at the moment. When I was a kid my family would call me by my middle name, Paolo. When I went to school I would be called by my first name, Giovanni or Gio. It seemed the longer this happened the more I started developing two identities. The same thing has happened with Black Peter. Gio Black Peter completes my yin yang. But to answer your question directly, my private persona and my on-stage persona, at this point, are interwoven. Though sometimes Bruce Banner gets his ass kicked by the Hulk.
WB: Your blog talks about modeling as prostitution a few times - care to rant a bit?

GBP: The way I see it, selling flesh is selling flesh. There ain’t no difference. Just like I don’t see the difference between someone buying pot or someone buying cigarettes. Actually there is a difference since cigarettes will kill you!

WB: Your blog also has a few things to say about the sorry state of the New York scene. What do you see going on and where is it going?

GBP: This is sad for me because I really do miss “Old New York” - before Giuliani Disneyfied Times Square. Speaking of which, what do you think happened to all the hookers? They didn’t magically vanish into thin air. They were pushed out into the poor neighborhoods, which is even more fucked up, because guess who kept them in demand? It wasn’t the poor middle class working man, it was the rich greedy Wall Street coke pig businessmen.

What I miss about Old New York is not that particularly, but the diversity New York City used to represent. New York used to be a haven for artists, filmmakers, writers and alternative-minded people. I just came back from Berlin this summer and had met up with many New York artists who are currently living there. And I don’t blame them. Berlin right now is filled with a great underground art scene, and all the people I met there where really respectful and open-minded. If it weren’t for having such great artists like Slava Mogutin and Brian Kenny in New York, I don’t think I could live here anymore.

I think - I hope - New York is like a pendulum, and as soon as it goes completely one way it will come back in full swing the other. Back to a time when people were more comfortable with their sexuality and more accepting of diversity. I know some asshole somewhere is reading this and saying “Hey why don’t you go back to where you come from if you don’t like it here”. Here’s my answer: When someone breaks into your house and fucks it up you don’t get up and leave. New York is my home, I have as much right to be here as everyone else and I will not let it go down without putting up a fight!

WB: What “Old New York” scene would you like to see return when the pendulum swings back?

GBP: A friend of mine named Debbie used to throw an underwear party in the East Village. She called it ‘Panty Party’ and the slogan was ‘Pants No Dance’. It was lots of sexy silly fun and the crowd was as diverse as the undergarments.

WB: You mentioned Slava and Brian - tell us about your collaborations with them through Americass and Sputnik 3.

Sputnik 3 is the name Slava, Brian and I use when we work together. I don’t think any of us know how we came up with it. It sort of happened one day while we were drawing together. They are both really talented guys and a big inspiration. I feel lucky to have met them and New York is lucky to have them. This summer we went to Bergen, Norway and put on our first show together titled ‘Sputnik 3′ at Gallery s.e. We showed videos, installations, drawings and three huge paintings we made together (based on Slava’s photographs) titled ‘Americass’. I also showed my first series of subway map paintings, Slava showed photographs and Brian showed drawings he had made on shooting targets. After they were framed Brian and Slava actually shot the frames with real guns. I think there will be more of Sputnik 3 coming soon.

WB: What else do you have coming up?

GBP: As far as art, I have a couple of group shows in Europe and a solo art show in a gallery in Berlin in February ‘09. I will also be in Europe on a ‘Flesh Show’ tour for the first few months of 2009 which I will post about on my blog. So if I’m in your town come down so we can party just like they did in Old New York!

WB: One last thing - what’s the story of the ‘DNA’ tattoo on your chest?

GBP: I’m going to tell you a lie - it means Do Not Ask.
For up-to-date info on the It’s Fucked Up release, gallery shows and live music performances (or if you just want to say hi), check out: gioblackpeter.blogspot.com and myspace.com/blackpetergroup and myspace.com/gioblackpeter.

Gio portraits shot for EVB by Maurizio Fiorino
“Pinga Loca” performance pics, Sept 18, 2008 at Envoy Gallery, shot by Richard Welch

All artwork, videos and music courtesy and ©Gio Black Peter

.

Here at the East Village Boys office - actually it’s more a dive bar than an office - we receive a lot of interesting submissions. Some we love, others throw us completely off our bar stools - like the California boy who sent his drawings of pornified Star Wars characters. Yoda has never looked so surprised!

This summer we received a few submissions that all follow a similar vein - that of various shapes and sizes of dicks poking through various holes. Not sure what’s in the air, but the coincidence was too weird to ignore, so here’s a couple of our favorites from this growing trend. The video is by EVB friend Stuart Sandford, and the photographs are from Paul Graves.
Enjoy!

So I can’t lie (well not very well) - I’ve never been to Iceland, although I was supposed to go last November with Søren, the boy I was kinda dating but then he met Marcus, who I was also kinda dating, which of course changed everything. So, no Recyatrip for me and no more Marcus… or for that matter Søren!

So I now have to console myself with a bottle of Brennivín and this delightful video for Sigor Rós’s latest track ‘Gobbledigook’ shot by original EVB Ryan McGinley.

Somewhere in-between the Sacred Band of Thebes’ victory over the Spartans and the premiere of Bruce LaBruce’s first gay zombie film at the Berlinale, was the apex of Western homosexuality. Plato’s Symposium may have inspired an army but it’s been nothing but trouble for homosexuals since the 4th Century BC. And yet, if there’s hope, it’s probably with Bruce LaBruce. The writer and filmmaker first appeared on the art and independent film scenes with his hyperbolic meditations on psycho-sexual theory and post-Marxist slogans, blending left-wing terrorism with fellatio, politics with hardcore porn. The newest addition to his oeuvre is Otto; or, Up With Dead People, in which he follows an “undead” twink around Berlin as he chows on roadkill and frolics with other zombies. Like all of LaBruce’s films, Otto is an overtly political film; he remains staunchly committed to the idea that homosexuality is revolutionary - and that our hetero-dominant culture has a long way to go before same-sex love has a place again in, say, military tactics. The underground hero spoke to East Village Boys recently about making a horror film, gay New York and why Berlin may be the next East Village.

Kate Sennert: Before we start plugging your new film, I wanted to ask you about Berlin, where it was shot. What is your favorite memory from that city?

Bruce LaBruce: I’ve spent so much time in Berlin that it’s become like a home away from home. I first went there when the wall was coming down, so I got to experience the city before it was integrated. It was fun in those days to go and show our films in the former East Berlin which was really hungry for experimental and gay work. But I really fell in love with the city when I shot Otto; or, Up with Dead People there. We shot all over the city so I got to know it better than ever before. It was really amazing to shoot in an old, huge cemetery that was very dark and Gothic, and they allowed us to dig a grave and bury Otto in it. We buried Jey Crisfar, who plays Otto, on his 19th birthday. We put too much earth on his chest the first take and he panicked and we had to quickly pull him out of the grave. He was crying so I had to give him a big hug. That was memorable. Another favorite memory would have to be when we had an event at Schwuz, this really old gay club, where Susanne Sachsse, who plays Gudrun in my movie The Raspberry Reich, read from the letters of Gudrun Ensslin which had just been published by her brother, Gottfried Ensslin. They were the letters that she wrote to her brother while she was incarcerated in Stammheim prison. Gottfried is a gay activist and he was there on the stage with us, so it was really quite something. Apparently it was quite scandalous.

KS: Germany was one of the first countries to allow gay marriage. What do you think is different about that culture’s relationship to sexual freedom versus America’s?

BLB: Well I’m from Canada and we have gay marriage too. In fact, I am married, to a Cuban named Antonio. He’s a Santeria priest. America is really falling behind in many ways. The resurgence of the right wing and of Christian fundamentalism has been a real setback for gay and feminist issues. America is actually the only western democracy that attempts to keep out people with HIV, for example. They can’t even have any international HIV-AIDS conferences in the US because of these policies. It’s really quite appalling. Berlin is exceptional though in terms of its sexual openness and freedom. Sometimes it feels like you’re back in the days of the Weimar Republic.

KS: When RAF’s Brigitte Mohnhaupt was released from prison last year, some press described her as the “most evil woman in Germany.” I know you made some artwork on the subject of RAF. Can you tell me a bit about it, and about your romanticism with militant revolutionaries in general?

BLB: It’s difficult not to romanticize left wing militant movements and groups, especially those from the late 60s and early 70s. Style was very important to groups like the RAF and the SLA and the Black Panthers, as it was later to the punk movement, and their politics were often interpreted through style. Just look at the transformation of Patty Hearst after she was abducted by the SLA. So the combination of a militant, urban guerilla style and an intense political idealism was quite appealing. Also if you look at the manifestos of these groups, the changes they were trying to bring about were very rational and democratic. They were against the rise of corporate power and its control of the media; they favored the rights of the working class and challenged the hegemony of the ruling classes; they agitated for equal rights regardless of race or class or gender. The only problem is that when they started blowing up buildings and killing people, their own moral high ground became totally discredited. My movie The Raspberry Reich is about how signifiers of radicalism have been co-opted and made impotent by pop culture and fashion. It’s really rather sad.

KS: Since we’re chatting under the auspices of East Village Boys, I wanted to ask you about one EV boy in particular: artist Terrence Koh. When did you first meet him? Under what circumstances?

BLB: I’ve known Terence Koh for a decade or so, back when he was Asianpunkboy on the internet. He went to Emily Carr art college in Vancouver, and he came to see a show I was part of there called Red 8. I was doing this performance in which I had a cracked-out hustler draped in an American flag and I was throwing buckets of blood on him and trying to get people to give him a blow job. The problem was that I got the recipe wrong for the blood so it was too syrupy and the hustler couldn’t get a hard on because he was on crack. So when someone was trying to give him a blow job he slipped and fell on his tailbone. It was very messy, but Terence seemed to like it. Later I introduced him to my gallerist Javier Peres at a show I had when Javier still had his gallery in San Francisco. The rest is art history, I suppose.

KS: What’s your favorite memory of the East Village? What’s your impression of the New York gay scene in general?

BLB: Well I hate New York now, and try to avoid it as much as possible. But in the 80s and 90s I used to love it and spent as much time there as I could, often three months of the year. Back then the East Village was still fun and a bit dodgy and not full of boring celubutards and vacuous rich people. I used to go to all the fun East Village back room bars like the Tunnel Bar and The Bar and Wonder Bar and Dick’s Bar and then later the great I.C. Guys. It only lasted a couple of years, but I.C. Guys, which was right beside Cherry Tavern on East 6th Street, was quite special. It was a tiny box of a bar that only served beer and wine, so you had to go next door to Cherry to get your hard liquor, which we did. I.C. Guys had only room for about four people at the tiny bar, and you could really only comfortably fit about twenty people inside. I once had a party there, after the premier of my movie Skin Flick, with about sixty people. You had to be body-surfed over the crowd to order a drink or to get to the tiny washroom. Scrawny blond boys used to pull out a milk crate and do a striptease on top of it. It was so much fun. I saw Jake Spears of Scissor Sisters dance there once or twice. My friend the writer Travis Jeppesen used to work there. He lives in Berlin now.

KS: Just this morning, while I was watching the trailer for Otto online, my flatmate shuffled over to my laptop and made me watch I’m Fucking Ben Affleck, a spoof bit Jimmy Kimmel did with Ben Affleck
in response to Sarah Silverman’s I’m Fucking Matt Damon. It occurred to me that Hollywood has finally embraced homosexuality. Is there such a thing as counter-culture anymore? What’s so exciting about being gay in 2008?

BLB: Well I guess you could say Hollywood has embraced homosexuality if you ignore the fact that movie stars would still rather commit suicide than admit publically that they’re gay or bisexual. Sarah Silverman embraces homosexuality in the same way that she embraces dog poop: it’s kind of gross, but I’ll touch it if I have to. In case you haven’t noticed, there has been a resurgence of anti-gay violence in America. Homophobia in hip hop has become not only common, but it’s considered cool. It’s actually quite nauseating. Suicide rates for gay teens still soar above those of straight kids. Beyond that, as long as you’re well behaved and not too femme (if you’re a guy) or butch (if you’re a girl) and you don’t flaunt it, it’s ok to be gay. Being gay is as exciting as you want to make it.

KS: Tell me about zombies, the Fleischerei and the Badeschiff. Where did the idea for Otto; or, Up with Dead People come from? Why did you shoot it in Berlin?

BLB: I shot Otto in Berlin because it has lots of Gothic locations, like beautiful old cemeteries and churches. I also like the scale of the buildings, with large doorways and staircases. I wanted Otto to be dwarfed by the city and seem isolated. We also had access to a lot of locations that anywhere else would be ridiculously expensive, but in Berlin they are cheap or even free - locations like the Badeschiff and the abandoned amusement park and the meat-processing plant. The idea for the movie came from me running into a number of kids in their late teens and early twenties who told me they felt dead or dead inside. I attributed it to the machinations of advanced capitalism, a system which deems property more valuable than human life.

KS: Have you made the first gay zombie film in history - or are there others?

BLB: There may be others, but Otto is the first melancholy gay zombie movie, I wager. And perhaps the first one with a gut-fucking scene.

KS: Who would you most like to cast in one of your films and why?

BLB: I’m really annoyed by celebrities and celebrity culture these days, so I’m not so keen about working with famous actors. I would rather cast my mother in one of my films.

KS: Last words?

BLB: Up with dead people!

For more unadulterated Bruce LaBruce, visit his blog.