Denice Bourbon Cheers! Stories of a Fabulous Queer Femme in Action
zaglossus
denice bourbon
Stories of a Fabulous Queer Femme in Action
zaglossus
We thank an.schläge – das feministische Magazin and fiber – werkstoff für feminismus und popkultur for permission to reprint slightly modified versions of columns and articles that were published between 2008 and 2013. We thank Team Gina for permission to quote some extracts from the song “Butch/Femme” (Team Gina, Gina Gina Revolution, 2007). We thank all copyright holders of photographs for permission to reprint.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.
© Zaglossus e. U., Vienna, 2013 Third printing, 2015 All rights reserved Copy editors: Nicole Alecu de Flers, Erika Doucette, Katja Langmaier Cover photo: Moira Hille Book design: Patrick Anthofer Print: Prime Rate Kft., Budapest Printed in Hungary ISBN 978-3-902902-07-8 Zaglossus e. U. Vereinsgasse 33/12+25, 1020 Vienna, Austria E-Mail: info@zaglossus.eu www.zaglossus.eu
Contents
Foreplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9
Born This Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
14
Am I Famous Yet? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Experience the Divine and Kiss My Brass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Oh Cry Me a Fucking River . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 There’s a Party in My Pants and You Are All Invited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Crimson and Clover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
66
Some Girls Are Sluttier Than Others • Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
69
Hände weg von meiner Badewanne!! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
91
Bighearted Slut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Some Girls Are Sluttier Than Others • Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
101
Bedtime Stories: Tales of a Pillow Queen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
(Not So) Funnylingus . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
132
DykeJuliet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
134
Some People Are Just Not That Nice . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
137
I Know I’m Gorgeous . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
156
If You Shave Shave Shave … . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Why Can’t I Be You? . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
170
Meet ze (Green-Eyed) Monsta . . . . . . . . . . . 185 How My Cool Went Down the Toilet . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
188
I’m a Creep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 The Brutal Truth? No, Thank You, I Don’t Like the Taste of It. . . . . . . . . . . 198 Romy and Michele on Repeat . . . . . . . . . . . 204 I Definitely Get No Credit in the Straight World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 The Lies of My Heart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . You Can’t Pour Bourbon Into a Martini Glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
231
234
Free Your Tits and the Rest Will Follow . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
242
Bikini Kill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 Guilt Trip to Bobo-Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 Say My Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 Oh Vienna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 Wien 4 — 2 Berlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 Dreaming, Innocent Me vs Cynical, Cyanide Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Rather Stupid Than Straight . . . . . . . . . . .
307
Fool’s Gold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
324
Butch/Femme: A Neverending Love Story (An Educational Short Story) . . . . . . . . . . . 327 Straight to Hell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
334
Out Is the New In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336 Things I Wanna Do Before I Die . . . . . . . . . . 339 Thank You Thank You Thank You! . . . . . . . . . 349
Foreplay*
I can’t fucking believe you just bought my book!!! Cheers! I hereby declare that I will love you forever. So. What is all this about? Why have I written an autobiography? I’m not even FAMOUS (yet), for Christ’s sake, so who the hell would be interested in reading about me? Believe me. You are. Let’s take this one step at a time, okay? Who am I? My name’s Denice. Although I’m trying to make people call me Boobie Bourbon. Big Bossman Boobie. But it doesn’t seem to catch on.** But maybe this will do it. I was born in Finland in 1976, but I grew up in Sweden. In other words, I am super-Scandinavian. Although I am quite the entertainer, that is not the reason why this book exists. * Usually I’m not a big fan of foreplay myself. I prefer to get right to it. Hit the fruit without peeling it, so to speak. But this Big Bang of a book that we are all going to enjoy together just screams for a proper foreplay. A tease. With instructions on how you should treat this demanding queenof-queersluts book in the best way possible. ** Except with my fabulous burlesque-colleague Denise Kottlett. She calls me that with sweet honey in her voice. Boooobie. The reason for this could be that we share the same name and she wants to be the only one called Denise. Could be. I, however, choose to believe that she’s doing it out of love.
9
Cheers !
This book is in your hands because my life has taken me down some quite funny roads, and I thought I should better write them down before my passion for drinking mixes it all up into a large undefined cocktail, not much different from a Long Island Iced Tea, and just downs it all in one swallow. You see, I have never been much of a “sipping” person. I don’t “sip”. I gulp. I moved to Vienna in 2002, and this is where my home and heart is nowadays. Here I savour life as a singer, performer (burlesque and other stuff ), show hostess, DJ, and columnist. I love living, I do it to the fullest, and I want this ride to never end. Which is another one of the reasons I wrote this book. I hope that my lust for life rubs off a bit. Why is this written in English? I’m not a native speaker! Well. Let’s put it this way: I will never ever again make fun of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s or Dolph Lundgren’s* inabilities to speak their mother tongues. Because that is what happens to you if you spend enough time away from a language, it slowly disappears or morphs into some kind of weird gibberish. What I’m trying to get at is that I can’t really speak or write proper Swedish anymore. Besides, that is quite irrelevant since I would never ever have been able to write this in that language anyways. It sounds good when the band Kent sings in Swedish, but for the rest, I’m not a big fan of that primitive language. I do speak German though. With the emphasis on “speak”. I almost never write in German. It’s too exhausting.
* You remember “He-Man”, right?
10
Foreplay
And it is my opinion that one can’t be funny in that language. At all. Name at least three GOOD German-speaking comedians!! Not possible? I thought so … (This is probably the reason why the stand-up comedy culture never really made it big here. The language is built in a way that makes it fucking impossible to deliver punch lines. Verb am Ende. That’s all I’m saying. Plus there are not enough swearwords in German. And I can’t frickin’ write or even think without cussing. That’s a Swedish heritage, by the way. Ask anyone.) So. I have written a whole bloody book in a language that isn’t really “mine”, and here is what to expect: My English is what you would call film-and-television English. The jokes, way of talking, and way of swearing are all collected or maybe rather inspired from TV series or movies. I prefer British English, but you will read a LOT of American slang here as well. Also, the spelling will jump here and there between British and American, depending on what mood I was in when I was writing. If that particular day was aaaaawesome or bloody bollocks. If you find a word that you don’t understand and can’t find anywhere in a dictionary, I can safely say that I probably made it up. But no worries. I can guarantee that you will understand the context of it all anyway. And voilà: you even got yourself a new word to add to your vocabulary! Feel free to use it! No copyright. You’re welcome! Is this book about other things as well besides my sex stories? Yes. It has so many layers, let me tell you. Of course there are autobiographical parts, where I share stories from my life. Sex and singing. Dates and death. Pretty and punk.
11
Cheers !
But it also contains a lot of my thoughts about normativity, politics, and just basically everyday-life stuff. Call it Kitchen Philosophy! (A term that I think has got an unrightfully bad reputation. The kitchen is my favourite place! This is where I drink, smoke, write, entertain, and never cook.) Most of them are stories that I wrote down specifically for this book, but there are also a selected number of columns and articles that were published between 2008 and 2013. The columns are from a monthly Austrian feminist magazine called an.schläge – das feministische Magazin, for which I’ve been writing the column lesbennest* since spring 2008. When I write the column, I usually end it with a snappy little comment written in third person. (In case you wonder what that is all about.) For this book I’ve also added an author’s note after every column except for “Born This Way”. (In case you wonder what that is all about.) The other magazine which has published my writing is the feminist pop-culture magazine fiber – werkstoff für feminismus und popkultur, and I have included two articles from that. Both magazines are awesome, and you should all support them! Now! Do you need to read this book in a chronological order? Nope! Freedom of choice! If you start one chapter and find it too boring, too sexless, too blabbery, don’t throw the book at your cat!
* I don’t need to translate this, right? You get it, I’m sure! You’re smart people! You bought my book! But I can give you this much: Wespennest is “wasps’ nest” in German. Just sayin’ …
12
Foreplay
Just change to another chapter. In a way this book is like me: I’d like to think that there is something in here for everybody. And who knows, after having read about my endless rows of lovers coming and going and going and coming (and always too soon), maybe you will find it refreshing to hear about my obsession with the 90s! Hmm … what else should I inform you of …? (Oh how I love to give instructions on how to do things the right way …) Oh. The photos!!! There are a LOT of photos!!! And there are a lot more where those came from. And the ones that didn’t make it in here (I’m not making a bloody picture book. Yet.) are neatly saved in a classy and very modern PowerPoint presentation, which I’m planning to bring with me to all the readings that you people will book me for. Just sayin’ … just sayin’ … These stories are all my stories. This is how I remember things happening. If you recognise your name in here and wonder what the fucking fuck I’m talking about because that was not AT ALL how it happened, I apologise. So before you decide to either sue me or punch me in the face, let’s talk about it over a drink (my treat), and I’m sure that we will find a suitable way of compensation so that you can go back to adoring me. And last but not least: no names have been changed because there are no innocent people. Except if I’m gonna get into trouble. Then you can consider all of this a lie, a figment of my twisted bourbonsoaked imagination. I always plead “not guilty”. Unless I am. Then I run. So with these words:
Cheers! for everything and Cheers! (Open that can of beer already!!) 13