I'm back, with a new obsession to share!

Hey everyone!

A big apology to the four whole people who read this blog for my long and sustained absence.

I haven't really been in the head space for writing as of late, as the dance and performance side of my life has picked up in a big way. Basically, at the beginning of the year I had the really crazy stupid idea that I wanted to be a belly dancer.

For those of you who already know me, I bet you're all like "what Rachael? You already ARE a fucking belly dancer! Go have a nap and stop writing blog posts you crazy maa fucka," to which I reply that yes, I do need a nap, but that is besides the point. I know I am already a belly dancer, . what I mean is I want to BE a belly dancer, as in live it, breathe it, drink it, and a wealth of other metaphors that suggest the all consuming power of BEING a dancer.

So for the last four months my head has been really noisy with ideas and fears, but I have finally gotten it to hush for long enough to think about gender.

Yes, thats right; I still love you gender, for realsies. I may have neglected you for a little bit for this new, shiny belly dance life, but I'm back now! Take me back into your loving embrace, gender, my sweetie, darling.

But, in keeping with my new found obsession with performance, my thoughts of gender have not been able to venture far from the stage. I have been thinking pretty hard about gender, performance and boylesque. I've just written a pretty awesome-sauce, heavily theoretical essay on the topic, but I haven't decided on whether its fun enough to share in it's entirety, or if I want to summaries the main points into some fun, easily digestible internet form. Until I make up my mind, here are the videos I used for my analysis. I probably don't need to write much about them, it's all THERE anyway. Enjoy, and I'll be back soon with something better than a rambled apology sprinkled with videos of hot men.

David O'mer

Cherry Loco

War on Monogamy? Fun times on Jezebel

I used to think Jezebel was the best thing on the internet since cheeseburger craving cats.

I also used to be a fucking nob jockey. I don't know if I am getting smarter or Jezebel is getting dumber, but my respect for their content has plummeted in recent months.

And now they are declaring a war on monogamy. Oh yeah, I totally see that. Right now I'm looking out the window and the streets are brimming with angry swingers and polygomists wielding AK 47s and throwing hand grenades at white picket fences. Its terrifying shit.

Does this look like war to you? Or does it look like as much fun as you can have with giant lips and plus signs floating above your head?

(or does it actually just look like two couples making out in the same room? It's kind of the fatal flaw in my Polygamous Sims model)

Since when is defending a relationship model that falls beyond the status quo the same as declaring war?

When those defenses start to eradicate and threaten the normalacy of said status quo, that's when.

 Lamenting that society doesn't have adequate support systems for those dedicated to monogamy because of a few mainstream pro-poly texts* is just as ridiculous and pathetic as insisting that its tough to be a heterosexual in this day and age because Queer as Folk played for five seasons. The fact that the conversation surrounding relationships is minutely and sloooooooooooowly expanding to incorporate non-monogamy as a viable, and maybe even a better, relationship choice does not change the fact that the normative world is built for [heterosexual] monogamists, by [heterosexual] monogamists; everything outside of this is other. 

Instead of getting so upset and threatened by different relationship models, try examining the root cause of your defensiveness. What do you have to gain in the taken-for-granted status of monogamy? What privileges will you lose if this is no longer the case? And what threatens you so much about change, about discussion and debate, that you have to shut it down by labeling it a 'war'? 

*disclaimer: I haven't actually read the texts Schwyzer references in his article, but my critque of this knee-jerk defensiveness remains valid even if the books are utter horseshit.

Le Gateau Chocolat at the Christchurch Buskers Festival

So I was super lazy this Buskers Festival and only made it to one show! Lucky it was the best show I have seen in years!

Le Gateau Chocolat’s one man drag sensation is a show unlike any you have ever seen before. Part social commentary, part flashy extravaganza, this is a show that relishes in ambiguity and confusion. Those in the audience looking forward to straight forward escapism may have regretted not buying tickets to the Buskers Burlesque instead, but for me it was the clashing of genre, medium and mood that captivated me from beginning to end. Le Gateau Chocolat began his show the way he intended to carry it through; stripped bare, honest and refusing to stay within the confines of expectation.

The genius of this show is the sense of slowly building anticipation alien to high energy, give-it-your all philosophy of traditional drag queening. But do not despair; Le Gateau does not shy from sequins, drama and light hearted show tunes. But, refreshingly, this is constantly punctured by more serene moments that cause more thoughtful contemplation than dropped-jaw gaping. The lightest moment had Le Gateau roaming the audience while we danced on our chairs, looking for someone to zip him into his Zebra patterned lycra body suit. The lowest had our performer sitting on a lonely chair in a dimly lit stage belting “Old Man River” in one of the most exquisite baritone voices I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. Never knowing whether to laugh or cry kept you feeling alive and on edge for the entire show; Le Gateau clasps you in his intriguing weave of story-telling, song and poetry and doesn’t let go until the climactic end. Whether it is in extreme sadness or collective ecstasy, we as the audience feel inextricably intertwined in the emotional journey of our star.

The highs and lows of life are a constant source of human inspiration, and Le Gateau Chocolat is no exception. Mimicking the roller coaster that is our journey into the world, and into ourselves, this show leaves you feeling simultaneously ecstatic and as wrung as Le Gateau’s post show make-up towel. But most of all this show makes you question, not the things you don’t understand, but our own reactions to these things. Not satisfied in merely entertaining, Le Gateau Chocolat revels in revealing to us the beauty of acceptance, tolerance and the glorious possibilities of the new. 

How's the Missus?

There are very few things that I loath more than being referred to as 'such-and-such's missus'. Luckily my hairy pits and pendulous, bra-less boobies give off pretty clear 'caution: angry feminist ahead' signals, and not many people use this kind of terminology to refer to me (while I'm around, that is).

But what about when I am not?

"Hey bro, how's the missus?" I know for a fact that my partner is asked this question regularly by acquaintances  work colleagues and even some friends.But the thing is, if a person gave even two of the tiniest shits about my state of well-being, they would bother to learn my name.

What's it going to be after 'missus' runs it course?
"How's Ofmichael"???

Dear Construction Workers of Christchurch

I got my first letter to the editor published in The Press this weekend, exciting! Then I forgot to scan it, and can't find the hard copy. So I am just going to re-print the original here, it is slightly different because The Press scaled mine down a little (I really need to work on colouring within the lines, so to speak). 

And just for you, my fine blog followers, some background: over the summer I have been staying in my home town of Christchurch, which is just month shy of its two year anniversary of the rather devastating February quake which reduced it from a flat, spread out, boring city to an empty shakey shit hole. We are now in the throws of the much anticipated rebuild, which fills this shakey shit hole with large teams of local and outsourced manual laborers  the majority of whom I can only imagine are nice and respectful people. They are all but drowned out by the vocal and disrespectful builders and construction workers who seem to feel entitled to stare, whistle, cat call and abuse every woman who walks past them. And this is why I wrote them this:

Dear construction workers of Christchurch.

Please allow me to begin this letter on a sincere word of thanks. Your skill and hard work fills the emptiness of my most beloved city with the foundations of hope, and for this I am truly grateful.

I do, however, have a few concerns regarding your level of attentativeness whilst on the job. Never in my life have I seen a group of men so fascinated with the female form, with such enamour do you stare at mine as I pass by. Considering that many owners of breasts continue to occupy the city, the time that your gaze is away from the task at is a great cause for concern.

Furthermore, the whistles that follow me down the foot path indicate that you have mistaken me for a canine. The fact that the foundations of our new city rest in the hands of men who cannot distinguish between human and animal does little to reassure me of your competence. I respectfully request that you keep your eyes and cat calls to yourself while the females of the species happen your way.

Yours sincerely,

Rachael Lundy

Speights: The delicious taste of piss water and misogony

How to be a Southern man, aka a "good ol' fashion kiwi bloke," according to Speight Ale House.

1. Be completely incapable of understanding gender outside of limiting binary and hetero normative definitions.
2. Think of women only as passive, obedient breasts.
3. Have no knowledge of your native English language. Come on boys, I know you have an apostrophe on that manly key board of yours (note: the correct use of "your" as opposed to "you're"), because you used one when you said "for all you jaffa's and aussie's". Good try kids.

 P.S:  Ask my bloke's (see, are you picking up this apostrophe business now?) permission?

Ask...my bloke's...PERMISSION!?!?

Go fuck yourself, Speights. Your beer tastes like urine and misogyny.

Enough with your hateful frapes!

We all know the story; we have probably all been there at one time or another. You pop onto facebook while you are at your mates place to check the details of an event or do some casual stalking. Next thing you know you have triple the amount of notifications and a status up date along the lines of this:

“I am a gay man and I love it in my bum! Please put your homosexual penis in my homosexual anus.”

Or, for the ladies out there:

“Hey everyone, just letting you all know that I am coming out of the closet! That's right guys, I’m a bonified rug muncher; someone better be getting me a pair of Doc Martins for Christmas!”

Or even something like this:

Oh, stop! My stomach! I’m laughing more than the stoned gamer from Laddergoat! Being gay or transgender is the funniest joke of all time!

Oh, no, wait a minute...it’s a lived reality for thousands around the world who all experience varying degrees of discrimination, hatred, inequality and violence. Silly me.

Congratulations frapist; you have just contributed to the phenomena known as online bullying. Three guesses as to who the victim is? (Handy hint: not your hetero, cis-sexual friend).

Your frape isn’t funny and it isn’t innocent. You are contributing to a social environment that frames lesbian, gay and transgender people as freaky ‘others’. Something that must be laughed at in order to conceal our all engulfing fear of what we do not understand. Besides, the joke is old. Originality is key to good comedy, and LGBT bashing has been done. Either get some new material (preferably not rooted in fear and ignorance) or do us all a huge favour and just log the fuck out of your friend’s facebook.