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Wishing everyone a Divine extra-filthy Valentine's Day! Pic by Laura Levine via.
“To me, beauty is looks that you can never forget. And I’ve walked down the street with Divine and seen car accidents happen.” John Waters on Late Night with David Letterman, 18 March 1982.
“Divine is a real man. And he’s just as charming out of character, walking down a New York street with his balding head and his favourite mechanic’s overalls or a Zandra Rhodes chiffon caftan. Like a platinum and exaggerated overweight Jayne Mansfield, he can wobble into the best parties in New York and Paris, break through glass barriers and charm everyone.” André Leon Talley reflecting on Divine in the 1984 book Mega Star.
Today represents a momentous occasion! Beloved freak diva / drag monster / hog princess extraordinaire / John Waters’ 300-pound leading lady / hi-NRG disco chanteuse, the raunchy Queen Mutha of us all, the artist formerly known as Harris Glenn Milstead – Divine (19 October 1945 – 7 March 1988) was born 80 years ago! Eat a meatball sandwich right out in class today in his honour! (Or perhaps you’d prefer a double egg salad on white toast?). Now sing along with me: “My car is by Ferrari and my body's Jack LaLanne / My clothes are by Armani and my hair is by Elaine / Tiffany and Cartier are telling me the time / This native love is restless, and I'm just not satisfied …” Pictured: Divine photographed by Greg Gorman for l.a. Eyeworks ad campaign in 1987.
“The first time I ever really spoke to Jackie, I saw her walking along Christopher Street, this bizarre creature with frizzy red hair, a ripped dress, no eyebrows, bee-stung lips. A Puerto Rican queen yelled out, “Girl, I could read you from blocks away!” The other drag queens didn’t really understand Jackie. She wasn’t trying to be a woman; she had this totally individual freaky style … She walked around in ripped stockings and big tears in her dresses with threads hanging off but, in her mind, she thought she was Greta Garbo. She knew she was eccentric, a freak, but in some weird way she visualised herself as Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. She had that combination of trash and glamour, and it made a really big impression on me. A lot of her dresses were from the 30s and 40s, things that she’d pick up from thrift stores for 25 cents, and most of them had big BO stains under the arms, because Miss Curtis was not renowned for her personal hygiene. She wore old lady shoes that she sprayed silver, and her tights were always ripped … nobody else was dressing like this at the time. Jackie was a total innovator. She wasn’t trying to pass as a woman; she developed her extreme style as a direct result of the way she lived. I took that idea from her; my whole attitude towards clothes and make-up and everything changed. Everyone started to deck themselves more and more. But it all started with Jackie, really.”
/ Jayne Country reflecting on the influence of her friend Jackie Curtis in her essential 1995 memoirs Man Enough to Be a Woman, co-written by Rupert Smith /
To paraphrase the Ramones: Jackie Curtis was a punk rocker! The pioneering, visionary and outrageous gender-bending underground actor, playwright, Warhol superstar, amphetamines enthusiast and Max’s Kansas City habitué (19 February 1947 – 15 May 1985) died on this day 40 years ago. Search out the 2004 documentary Superstar in a Housedress. Portrait of Curtis by the late, great Leee Black Childers.
“Hagen recorded Nunsexmonkrock in New York with a band that included Paul Shaffer and Chris Spedding. To describe it as wild hardly suffices – the drugs-sex-religion-politics-mystical imagery that spills out is nearly incomprehensible in its bag-lady solipsism, but the music and singing combine into an aural bed of nails that carries stunning impact. It almost doesn’t matter that Hagen sticks to English; what counts is the phenomenal vocal drama. Her range seems limitless, and the countless characters she plays makes this fascinating.”
/ The Trouser Press Record Guide (1991) review of Nunsexmonkrock /
“Nina Hagen’s 1982 album Nunsexmonkrock is one of the single most ground-breaking and far-out things ever recorded and it deserves to be considered a great—perhaps the very greatest—unsung masterpiece of the post-punk era … Nunsexmonkrock could have been recorded 40 years ago, yesterday, or a thousand years from now and it just wouldn’t matter.”
/ From Dangerous Minds website /
Unleashed on this day (12 June 1982): berserk German punk diva Nina Hagen’s debut solo album and definitive artistic achievement, futuristic post-punk masterpiece Nunsexmonkrock – hailed by a Rolling Stone reviewer as the "most unlistenable" record ever made. Au contraire! Hagen’s confrontational Exorcist-style vocals and crackpot flights of fancy are (mostly) grounded in experimental but tough and danceable New Wave rock. Opener “AntiWorld” invents an operatic / Biblical / gypsy punk hybrid. Spooky anti-heroin diatribe “Smack Jack” nails a sense of junkie panic. "Iki Maska" is anchored to the same Henry Mancini / Peter Gunn guitar riff as “Planet Claire” by the B-52’s. The irresistible “Born in Xixax” bristles with paranoid conspiracy theories predicting World War III but vows, “One day we will be free!” Best of all, the extraterrestrial “Cosma Shiva” marries blaxploitation funk bass with samples of the gurgles and squeals of Hagen’s baby daughter, and concludes with Hagen declaring, “And my little baby, I tell you—God is your father.” Nunsexmonkrock still sounds like bleeding-edge science fiction!
It was pounding with torrential rain Sunday afternoon, but that didn’t stop Pal and I from making a religious pilgrimage to genuflect before THIS sacred artefact – the bright orange “octopus” dress worn onstage by drag terrorist Divine (1945-1988) when John Waters’ “hog princess” leading lady toured the United Kingdom’s dive bars and fleshpots in the 1980s! Divine’s dress is in the permanent collection of the Queer Britain museum in Kings Cross. Pictured: Pal wearing his Divine t-shirt in tribute!
A moment of silence for a hog princess, please! The fabulous Divine (formerly known as Harris Glenn Milstead, 19 October 1945 – 7 March 1988) died on this day precisely 33 years ago. Underground actor / actress, drag monster, hi-NRG disco chanteuse, all-round freak diva extraordinaire and eternal role model for punks, queers and misfits everywhere - Divine is the mutha of us all! Do something extra filthy in his memory today!
“Divine is a real man. And he’s just as charming out of character, walking down a New York street with his balding head and his favourite mechanic’s overalls or a Zandra Rhodes chiffon caftan. Like a platinum and exaggerated overweight Jayne Mansfield, he can wobble into the best parties in New York and Paris, break through glass barriers and charm everyone.”
/ André Leon Talley on Divine, from the 1984 book Mega Star /
Happy birthday to beloved freak diva / hog princess extraordinaire, the raunchy Queen Mutha of us all, the artist formerly known as Harris Glenn Milstead – Divine (19 October 1945 – 7 March 1988), born 75 years ago today! Do something extra filthy in his memory!
A moment of silence for a hog princess, please: the fabulous Divine (formerly known as Harris Glenn Milstead, 19 October 1945 – 7 March 1988) died on this day precisely 31 years ago. Here is the underground actor, drag monster, disco singer, all-round freak diva extraordinaire and eternal role model for misfits everywhere photographed at the premiere of John Waters’ Pink Flamingos in San Francisco on 14 June 1972. Divine is the mutha of us all!
