Tags: d4c, destroyed for comfort, destroyed4com4t, dfc, gender identity witch
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So What Is Up With The Upside Down Crosses?
28 Mar
This is the most common question I get that doesn’t involve my genitals, so I figure I should finally take a shot at answering it.
Your humble narrator: Rani “No, I Don’t Literally Worship Satan” Baker.
So let’s just get this out of the way: spiritually, I consider myself a pantheist. What I mean by that is that I believe everything that exists is an aspect of the divine. I also reject the idea of a physical manifestation of the divine outside of the realm of metaphor. That said, I don’t have a functioning definition of divinity that I consider satisfactory. I also consider myself amoral in the sense that I don’t externalize the source of my empathy, desire to to do as little harm as possible, and basic social decorum. I also reject appeals to some sort of universality of said “moral” behavior, mainly because most appeal to some sort of chauvinism. Philosophically, I attempt to remain open to a dynamic situational universe and respond thusly. A lot of my positions are influenced by Robert Anton Wilson’s ideas about Model Agnosticism.
So I’m kind of like an atheist, except I kinda believe in everything, except for the concept of a god or morality. Simple, right?
And I’m no fan of Laveyan Satanism either. Too rooted in Objectivist thought for my taste. In reality, what I believe and practice is closer to Luciferianism than Satanism, but most people don’t know the difference and “HAIL SATAN” is more fun to say and gets more people’s undies in a twist. I also appreciate that thanks to my hometown, “Hail Satan” has turned into an informal pro-choice mantra. I swear to Satan I had nothing to do with that… but friends of mine might have. :3
I’ve also always been fascinated by religions that choose to include Lucifer into their rituals, like the Process Church Of The Final Judgement for instance. But long before I dared wear or utilize an inverted cross (which tbh always used to make me uneasy), I’d been drawn to the image of Baphomet (for probably a ton of blatantly obvious subconscious reasons).
In any case, for a while I associated both my gender identity (and my attempts to repress it) with black magic, demons, things like that. It terrified me, and the more my body and mind made it clear I needed to confront and do something about it, the more terrified I got.
So anyway, I don’t worship Satan, and I don’t hate Christians either. Because I guess that also needs to be clarified.
That said, I make no secret of the fact that I’m pretty church-damaged. I’m the first-born daughter of a preacher’s first-born daughter, and was raised Assemblies Of God, an extremely strict charismatic Presbyterian sect (that apparently Sarah Palin belongs to, lol). I remember church services being terrifying spectacles of histrionic performance, people slain in the spirit and speaking in tongues and dramatic faith-healings being a weekly occurrence. When I was 13, I voluntarily converted to Southern Baptist because it was more “liberal” if you can believe that.
The thing that really began to erode my Christian faith, however, was the suicide of my uncle Jim, a gay Christian pop singer. I couldn’t (and still can’t) come to terms with a God that wouldn’t want him in heaven, much less reconcile my own sexual orientation and gender identity issues with same. His death shook the faith of a lot of my family members. My mom (the aforementioned preacher’s daughter and one of my favorite people in the world), while still retaining a reverence for the teachings of Christ, currently follows a spiritual path influenced by the medicine of the Lakota Indians. My uncle, a Mennonite pastor, is now actively working to make his denomination more welcoming and inclusive of LGBT people. So, you know, this part isn’t entirely an unhappy ending.
So maybe we’re getting to the bottom of why the inverted crosses, but why pink? Well first of all because it shouldn’t exist. I’ve been obsessed with that idea for a while. There’s probably yet another trans metaphor in there somewhere. Hell, the name Destroyed For Comfort is probably an unconscious trans metaphor. Anyway, this is the first recorded time the pink inverted cross was a thing, and wouldn’t you know it I’m wearing a fucking dress (I swear to Satan this shit is unintentional)-
So yeah this was at Flipside 2009. It’s a pretty safe bet there were drugs involved in this decision to include new iconography in the Destroyed For Comfort performance oeuvre. It didn’t start to become a prominent image until the months leading up to and especially shortly after I’d begun transition, however.
A sort of symbolic acknowledgement yet rejection of my past while retaining momentum. Confrontational, yet cute. Like me.
Speaking of momentum tho, I think I’m bored with talking about this. Pretty sure I got the point (or as close to one there is) across.
So #D4C Recently Scored Some Portland Press… Sort Of.
28 Mar
Photo via Portland Mercury. You can find a list of everyone pictured here.
I recently attended a photoshoot/press event thing for Sonic Debris Media PDX, a Portland noise label I’d previously contributed to for a compilation and subsequent live performance. The original idea was a lineup pic and a pic of our various instruments in a pile, the latter of which didn’t make it into the article. The article itself was to cover a regular experimental music showcase to be held upstairs at Habesha Ethiopian Restaurant. As an exercise in meta-journalism (or just fucking around) I took a few pics myself, to document the event as well as my amazing outfit that the muggy, drizzly weather kind of hindered from being seen very well in the final pic.
So Hot Damn I Found A 10 Year Old #D4C Live Review.
11 Mar
In the oddest of coincidences, I managed to recover this screenshot out of the Internet Explorer cache of my ancient COMPAQ Pentium that I’ve maybe hooked to the internet a dozen times, tops. It’s a review of an early Destroyed For Comfort show (February 21,2004 to be precise), back when the band was myself on vocals and David Bates on guitar. The review was written by Profytt T, singer from the band Another Liquid Ramble, an all-girl industrial band I almost joined (no seriously). The whole extended crew from Austin/San Antonio industrial band Sleep Now Yes was in attendance to this punk rock barbecue benefit show Destroyed For Comfort had become regulars at.
The review was posted at the now defunct site darkaustin.com-
If it’s difficult to read, this is what’s posted:
This past weekend, the 21st, I went to go catch Destroying [sp] For Comfort, a recent arrival on the Austin industrial-punk scene. It was my first visit to Ego’s and I have to say, I was impressed. The atmosphere was very eclectic – punk, lounge, night dweller, and general Austin types can mix and mingle comfortably. The Saturday afternoon b-b-q and bands is a real winner with me; I have no qualms with spending $3 for all you can eat b-b-q, while drinking beer and checking out some bands.
Only formed three months ago, Destroying [sp] For Comfort is stepping up quickly to show off what they are made of. The band is comprised of only two members, a vocalist and guitarist performing to pre-recorded backbeats. The guitar is loud and repetitive, and the punk-style vocals are heavily distorted, giving the band an edgy, industrial sound. At one point during the set, a woman and her young son entered the bar, and as his mother talked with friends, the boy stood, draped in Marti [sp] Gras beads with both his fingers in his ears and I thought, “yeah, this must be good stuff”.
The band did have some sound issues, which is to be expected from a new band using vocal effects, but they were not swayed by the uneven mix or intermittent feedback. In fact, one of my favorite things about this band was their relentless spirit (their “fuck it; let’s go” attitude). Overall they put on a good, fun show.
Destroying [sp] For Comfort is definitely worth checking out. I know I’m going to be keeping my eye on them; I anticipate some cool, unique sounds and entertaining shows from these guys.
I could have sworn I had a pic lying around of that kid with the huge Mardi Gras beads with his fingers in his ears looking miserable. I know Linda took a picture of him at one point and it was used for something. I thought it had wound up a cover of an issue of My Favorite Bullet, but I may have just hallucinated that.
Aw Shit Y’all, I’m Finally Getting The Hang Of .JPG Glitch Art. Look Out.
2 Mar
Yeah, I know I’m a bit late to the game on this whole thing, but I’m now on the train of adding glitch art image aesthetics to my repertoire. Images were created using this thing and occasionally layering images with Photoshop (like above).
Destroyed For Comfort/#D4C 1st Show Of 2014. The Old Girl’s Still Got It.
6 Feb
This past weekend saw D4C/Destroyed For Comfort’s first performance of 2014, my second in Portland. The show took place at industrial art warehouse Watershed PDX, and was for promotion of my appearance on the winter compilation from Sadomascus Records.
Seen here.
Originally, my cover of “Clothes Hoist” by Foetus was to appear, but at the last minute it was changed to “No Wife No Horse No Mustache” from Chevalier D’Eon because of licensing issues. I was also stoked cause I got to bring this outfit out of storage:
Which I then accentuated with with a wig and additional accoutrements:
While there, met up with my friend Jani, who was kind enough to have snapped pretty much all the photos/video for this show:
I was actually kind of nervous while performing, but despite missing few vocal cues because of a lack of monitors I think the show as a whole holds up as one of my best. The visuals were amazing, tho I wish there were more pics of my Chad writhing around on the floor with a pig mask on. All in all I’m really excited for what the rest of this year holds in store.
Let’s Talk About Negativland’s “TRUE/FALSE” tour; Spring 2000
26 Jan
THESE GUYS ARE FROM ENGLAND AND WHO GIVES A SHIT
Lemme tell you about one of the most important formative experiences of my adult life. It was May 16, 2000, at Stubbs BBQ in Austin, Texas, where I was to finally experience the band Negativland for the first time. I was almost 23, living in Copperas Cove, putting together the 7th issue of my comic Why I’m Not An Artist, and working as a flow solder operator. It was also about a year into my first attempt at living full time as a woman. It was a pretty exciting time period in my life, all things considered.
Before then I’d had sporadic attempts at doing live music with a short, chaotic noise music project called DEVIANCE that I performed in with my brother and a high school friend. That’s an entirely different story that may get explored next time I get nostalgic. At this point, I was satisfying my urge to do performance art by being a drag queen, and rarely recorded, much less performed, music. Little did I know this show would change damn near everything I thought I wanted to do with myself as an artist.
Keep in mind, I’d never had a chance to actually hear their music before. I’d only heard of them a couple years before from a review of their album Dispepsi, a concept album about advertising oversaturation, which simultaneously sounded like the stupidest and most brilliant thing ever. I was only aware of their reputation: booted from Black Flag’s SST label, nearly sued to oblivion by U2, etc. I visited their website regularly, however, and found out about the show there.
The show itself was amazing on a level I still have trouble describing. From the moment they started, they got a couple hundred people to sit the fuck down in the dirt and shut up for two hours straight, with a short puppet show intermission in the middle. There was simply no choice, the whole experience was so overwhelming it was impossible to concentrate on anything else. The entire stage was draped with white sheets where dozens of videos played at once behind, in front of, and on top of the band. Most of the songs they performed were from Dispepsi, but there was also stuff that wasn’t released until “No Business” and a few tracks that were never released in any format I can track down (such as the “Loop That Goes On Forever” song, as well as “Breathe In, Breathe Out”).
I was completely stunned. I’d never seen anything like it. I recall thinking “I don’t know what the fuck that was, but that’s what I want to do with my life.”
I stayed in contact with them through email and at one point even exchanged letters with them-
Their whole aesthetic of seeming chaos and indifference covering such heavily-calculated intricacy redefined my approach to, well, damn near everything.
Cyberpunk Dysphoria.
25 Jan
Reading over theories and aesthetic projects on how to use makeup and fashion and such in order to subvert facial recognition software and otherwise alter facial mapping, I realized a few things. Outside of the frequently made new-wave/cyber-punk connection, I also realized that I’d consciously endeavored to distort my facial plane constantly in my public presentation. I’ve worn makeup near-daily, and nearly 100% of the time I’ve appeared in public, since I was 17. More often than not it was garishly done and asymmetric.
Compare to this chart of facial-recognition thwarting makeup:
It would be as inaccurate to say that trying to live as a man meant I was not gender dysphoric as it would to say that a monogamous relationship would suddenly make me not bisexual. My dysphoria colored and recoded a lot of my experiences, and I have to wonder if this conscious nullifying of identifiable features was a product of it. It’s became so seemingly obvious that I nicknamed the stage makeup/facepaint I’ve been wearing the past three and a half years as “dysphoria monster” (also the name of the cover image of the album Chevalier D’Eon).
Rani Baker Digs You. 