Our Mission, Our Industry

Joined at the hip; pain, hunger and I,
Leave our gift to the world
'neath the phosphorous sky.
A labor of love is the truest of all.
But will I be forsaken after the fall?...

Oh industry! Whatever will become of me?
- C.C. Bloom, “Oh Industry”

Friendship. Love. Work. Keeping it real after you’ve been sucked into the machine—whether or not it’s the record industry, the institution, or the health care system. Yes, we’re talking about the 1988 weeper, Beaches. And we’re telling you why this, our shared labor of love, is named after a forgotten but in no way forgettable moment in that movie: a moment that spawned our suburban immigrant fantasies of growing up “all sophisticated” and avant-garde.

C.C. Bloom (Bette Midler), clad head-to-toe in Bohemian chic, is draped coyly over an office desk. Her gal pal, Hillary Whitney (Barbara Hershey), is sporting an Annie Hall tie-n-vest ensemble and working her white liberal guilt away with a “bag lady” client.


C.C.: Guess who got the lead in the Falcon Players’ new musical?



Hillary: Certainly not the hand-walking queer!!?

Hugs and squeals of joy ensue before post-apocalyptic synth-horns segue into a Brechtian wonderland of pop-lock dystopia, deep thoughts, and even deeper performance. Drum machines beat the call of a new dawn bathed in the flames of old-school special F/X—a bed sheet flickering in the glow of orange stage lights. C.C. blooms singing “Oh Industry” as she makes her legit stage debut. Almost twenty years later we’re stealing “Oh Industry” for our own illegitimate debut, away from the narrow corridors of the academy.

We’re stealing it because there’s something about C.C. Bloom that can’t help herself; that keeps bursting beyond the parameters of the avant-garde’s tiny moves, while threatening to leaven all the papier-mâché profundity with not-so-secret jazz hands. And let’s face it: it’s a sham avant-garde to begin with. It already belongs to the industry—the music industry, the movie industry, the hipster industry, the culture industry. In the end, eyes stained with tears and souls buoyant with the wind beneath our wings, we really don’t give a fuck.

In the spirit of the too big and too pop; of failed avant-gardism; of “hand-walking queers” and girl parts too ample for either Titslings or brassieres; of too many tears and too many walls; of too much hair; of too much processing; of too many accents and too much brown; of too much gigglesnorting through too much debt; of too much suburbia, of too much pant-leg in a skinny-jean world; of too many blogs [stage gasp]…it is in THIS spirit that we give you OH! INDUSTRY.

OH! INDUSTRY is a virtual slumber party where we can chatter late at night using our lingua franca (or is it just our Pig Latin?), pop culture. In our fellowship, real and imagined—our A.L.O.T.R., or “Audre Lorde of the Rings” of queers/women/of color/of sentiment/of the suburban diaspora—we can cross-talk for hours about, through and between nations, generations, sexualities, hairstyles, time zones, personal libraries, politics and happy hour preferences. For us, the transnational lives in the suburban and vice versa. And our utopias queer, brown and otherwise can be found in the domestic zones of our living rooms, backyards, garages, in our cars, or even just between our headphones.

OH! INDUSTRY is our taste-making experiment. We’ll tell you every week about the songs we can’t get out of our heads, old and new. Once a month we’ll tell you about the TV shows that are our anesthesia as well as our stimuli, and about the movies in our mind, as well as in the moody arthouses, dilapidated movie palaces and mega-mall multiplexes near you. Also once a month, we’ll have special guest stars from our A.L.O.T.R. show and tell you about what makes their hearts go Pop! In short, look no further for your guiltless, all-you-can-eat, “uncivilized,” pleasures.

Well isn’t love primitive?
A wild gift that you wanna give
Break out of captivity
And follow me, stereo jungle child
Love is the kill
Your heart’s still wild
Shootin’ at the walls of heartache,
Bang, bang!
I am the warrior.
Well I am the warrior,
And Heart to heart you'll win
If you survive…
-Patty Smyth & Scandal, "The Warrior"


No diss to Patti Smith, but we warn you now that we’re a little more Patty Smyth. Our “stereo jungle child” palates have been honed as much by food courts at the mall and late-night Denny’s dining, as they have by farmers' markets and international travels. But we don’t fancy ourselves cheeky “taste rebels” simply because we can scarf a bloomin’ onion in seconds flat. Our tastes run the gamut from salsify and foie gras (but not together), to Sizzler cheese toast and Red Lobster cheddar bay biscuits. From homemade gelato and quiche, to Hostess cupcakes and Winchell's donuts. From lechon asado, adobong manok, arroz con pollo, bistec and all our post-colonial uses for the Fry Daddy, to In & Out burgers, surf & turf dinners, and Shakey's pizza parties. Taste is not something we take lightly, and we promise never to underestimate the politics of the palate, including our own. We know we go hard with the carbo, fructose, palm oil, nitrates and protein. But we believe along with Patty Smyth that “Heart to Heart we’ll win.” If we survive.

We can’t go on just running away
If we stay any longer we will surely
Never get away (whoah-oh)
Anything you want we can make it happen
Stand up and turn around
Never let them shoot us down…
NEVER
NEVER
NEVER
Never run away…
-Heart, "Never"

OH! INDUSTRY, when it all boils down to it, is (like Beaches) about friendship and the nourishment it provides in the face of adversity. It’s about an “us” that has finally decided never to run away from the industries that make, and then try to break us. We will never run away from being serious about “non-serious” things; never hide our irreverence towards objects and industries that others take too seriously. We believe there’s no shame, for example, in forgetting to put our LPs back in those plastic sleeves, in misremembering dates and names, or even in laughing out loud when a critic harrumphs as we talk. It doesn’t mean we don’t know our shit. For years we’ve sat in the back of the room with our arms crossed looking suspicious, or stood in front of the room wondering when our involuntary jazz hands would kill our bids for legitimacy. We’d like to put that time (and the notes we’ve passed between one another) into something more generative, critical and creative. OH! INDUSTRY is inviting you to raise your butanes and rock horns—or simply flash some jazz hands from wherever you are—and join us for a bumpin’ ride.

xoxo,
CBB, KT, ATV