Fingered (Richard Kern, 1986)

Always encased in the tightest fishnets money can buy (though, truth be told, I sincerely hope she shoplifts them), the supple legs attached to the torso belonging to the irascible Lydia Lunch (Vortex) will severely test the durability of the synthetic material that covers your pathetic crotch. Unless, of course, you're wearing sweatpants. If that's the case, may your bulge be large and fruitful. If, however, you happen to have self-respect, and are wearing real pants when you watch this film, then may god have mercy on your groin and its uphill battle to stay lukewarm and well-ventilated. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about all you ladies out there. Dangling in a manner that will no doubt drive discerning lesbians wild with cunt-drenching desire, Lydia Lunch's powerful, Smithsonian-worthy stems will surely compromise the impermeability of the fabric that surrounds your soon to be damp pussy. Either way, whether being poked with unplanned hardness or drowned in wave after wave of tepid vagina water, your stain-laden pants are going to have to be put in the wash after they get through watching Fingered, a sleazy, disgusting film that begs the question: Does Lydia Lunch moisturize her thighs, or are they just naturally creamy? Mmm, creamy thighs throbbing on my plate, oozing thickness from every pore. Um, yeah, anyway. I know, pants can't watch movies (they don't have eyes, or a central nervous system, for that matter). But they're going to feel like they have after they experience the Lydia Lunch-a-thon that is this short but sweet trip to Scumbagville, U.S.A., population: Who gives a shit.
 

 

Told to stomp, kick, straddle, run, twitch, and some times told to just plain walk, Lydia Lunch's gams are put through their shapely paces in this film. The person instructing her legs to stomp, kick, straddle, etc. is none other than underground filmmaker Richard Kern, a man who probably knows a thing or two about photographing Lydia Lunch's world famous organic structure whilst under duress. 
 

 

After being subjected to a lengthy disclaimer, one that includes the words, "shock," "insult," and irritate," Fingered opens with a shot of Lydia Lunch–whose character's name is never mentioned, so let's just call her Lydia Lunch–talking on the telephone. Asking one of her regular phone-sex customers for their credit card number, Lydia Lunch slowly starts to lose patience with him. "The fucking credit card number," she yells at him at one point. When the card number is finally divulged, the caller (Emilio Cubeiro) goes on this long tirade about "human garbage" and "human excrement." I guess he didn't like the sarcastic tone she used when she said, "yes...mommy's here."  Hey, you call Lydia Lunch for phone-sex, you're bound to get some sarcasm. At any rate, Lydia Lunch hangs up on the caller after his three minutes are up.
 

 

While I liked the weird energy of the opening scene, and I could have sworn the "human garbage" line was sampled on a Skinny Puppy song (Velvet Acid Christ, perhaps?), I thought we spent too much time in the caller's squalid apartment and not enough with Lydia Lunch, who looked super-foxy in her black see-trough negligee.
 

 

The self-proclaimed "hottest slut in town" has no trouble getting another caller on the line. Bent over a table, Lydia Lunch tells Marty Nation all the wonderful things she would do if she had access to his genitals. Stroking his cock in, what looks like, an auto-body shop, Marty Nation can't wait to stick his "fat juicy cock" in Lydia Lunch's "greasy little hole." Call me sane, but I love the way Lydia Lunch says "cock" in this movie. It's one of my favourite words, so to hear it uttered by one of the sexiest women on the planet was a real treat.    
 

 

You know these two aren't going to be fully satisfied until they meet face-to-face, or, in this film's case, hand-to-muff, so they arrange to rendezvous with one another. Sitting on a table, her black heels gripping its surface with a quiet desperation, Lydia Lunch hurls her fishnet pantyhose/black panties-adorned crotch two and fro in an attempt to unfurl the hopefully bulbous contents that lie on the other side of a complex series of jagged metal teeth. Teasing a clearly flabbergasted Marty Nation, the owner and chief proprietor of said hopefully bulbous contents, to the point of madness, Lydia, who is also wearing black opera gloves and black vinyl footless suspender tights over top of her black fishnet pantyhose, ceases to mock thrust her dewy undercarriage.
 

 

Pulling out his trusty switchblade, Marty Nation cuts a path to Lydia Lunch's vagina. Declaring, "I want your pussy now," Marty Nation plants his face in her lap just as Lydia Lunch instructs him to "take it."
 

 

When they finish with the foreplay, Fingered starts to live up to its name.
 

 

"Words all fail the magic prize / Nothing I can say when I'm in your..." ~ "Add It Up," The Violent Femmes

 

The black suspenders attached to Lydia Lunch's vinyl, footless leggings tear across her pale hindquarters like bad gothic poetry.
 

 

When a guy waiting for a bus asks Lydia Lunch, who has since changed into a short black skirt and a black short-sleeved blouse, where her "faggot boyfriend" is, Marty Nation sneaks up behind him and slits his throat with his aforementioned trusty switchblade.
 

 

Getting into his 1950s-style automobile, Marty Nation and Lydia Lunch, as my spirit animal Frank Booth would say, "hit the fucking the road."
 

 

You're not going to find a more beautiful image of Lydia Lunch than the sight of her arguing with Marty Nixon (who looks like Paul Barker from Ministry from certain angles) in the passenger seat of his car. Her hair is perfect. Her legs are crossed. Her earrings are divine. She's wearing fishnet pantyhose. And, most importantly, her trademark sneer is in top form.
 

 

When Marty Nation stabs his redneck friend in the leg after dry straddling Lydia Lunch for longer than he was comfortable with, I started to get the impression that is Marty Nation fella is a bit of an asshole. What am I saying, "a bit of an asshole"?!? He's a fully formed asshole. Which got me a thinking, why is Lydia Lunch hanging around this guy? He's repulsive.
 

 

Take the next scene, for example, where he shoves the barrel of a gun into Lydia Lunch's vagina. I mean, that was totally not cool. Then it dawned me, Lydia Lunch loves his cock. Only problem being, she has to put up with a lot of his "macho bull shit" to get it. Now, I realize being raped by a gun isn't your typical "macho bull shit" by any means. But the world of Fingered is anything but typical.
 

 

As a visibly annoyed Lydia Lunch and a more smug than usual Marty Nixon are talking about his revolting cock, we're introduced to a frazzled hitchhiker played by the luminous Lung Leg. Looking like she's been through hell, Lung Leg gets into their car. I know, she couldn't have picked a worse car to bum a ride from, but that's life. Sometimes we're picked up by Donnie and Marie Osmond, and sometimes we're picked up by Lydia Lunch and her sleazy as fuck boyfriend.
 

 

While I don't really want to go into what happens next , but let's just say Lung Leg is quite the trooper. Thrown around like a dishevelled ragdoll, Lung Leg gives a frighteningly real performance as an emotionally fragile woman on the brink of a complete and utter mental breakdown. The final minutes of Fingered had a sort of snuff film vibe about it. Not that I know what a snuff film looks like. But I imagine it would look something like this. Ugly, grimy, sick and twisted. It's slowly dawning on me that I just watched Fingered.

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Vortex (Scott B and Beth B, 1982)

Whether I'm doing my laundry or dangling helplessly on a precipice overlooking a deep chasm, you can pretty much guarantee that one of the thoughts floating around inside my brain while I'm doing either of those things will be related to the worship and appreciation of Lydia Lunch's substantive thighs. However, since I've already explained my love for Lydia Lunch's meaty stems many times in the past, I'll just state that her... Oh, how should I put this? Okay, how 'bout this? Her curves were a huge influence on me as a teenager. Yeah, I like that; vaguely specific. Find a copy of the Stinkfist EP, take a look at the pictures that adorn the cover and the back cover (study them long and hard if you have to), and you'll know exactly where my head was at as a sex-starved fifteen year-old. Along with Boy George, Markie Post, and Winona Ryder, Lydia helped nurture my wayward hormones during a critical period. Yet, unlike the people I just mentioned, Lydia Lunch's physical structure was always seemed allusive to me. You see, whereas Boy George could be seen cavorting about in Culture Club music videos on television channels that were originally designed to show music videos around the clock, Night Court reruns gave me my daily allotment of Markie Post goodness, and Winona Ryder's movies were as an ubiquitous as a head cold, Lydia Lunch and her world class thighs were nowhere to be found in the realm of visual media. All I had was the sound of her snarky voice on the records I owned, and that was it. Well, I'm hoping to change all that by seeking out and finding as much Lydia Lunch material as I possibly can. My first step in this process was to watch a recent documentary called Blank City (Celine Danhier, 2010), a detailed account of the movies that made up the No Wave and Cinema of Transgression movements during the late 1970s/early '80s. If any film is going to give some ideas on where to start my cinematic journey, vis-à-vis, the films of Lydia Lunch, this is going to be it.
 

 
In the film, as expected, there's a lengthy segment on Lydia Lunch and the important role she played in both scenes. Showing clips from a wide range of No Wave and Cinema of Transgression movies, I was somewhat alarmed when I discovered that the majority of the films looked like unwatchable, non-titillating trash. Which, I'll admit, are exactly the type of films I seem to be gravitating towards as of late. But I'm not just gonna watch something because Lydia Lunch is in it. I mean, did I buy Waking Up with the House on Fire? (Culture Club's third album.) I don't think so. Did I watch Hearts Afire? (The sitcom Markie Post starred in after Night Court.) Nope. And did I go see The House of the Spirits? (The movie where Winona Ryder plays a Chilean woman.) Are you high? No, I need the film to have a certain quality about it that transcends its trashiness.
   

 
All of a sudden, the documentary started to focus on a film written and directed by Scott B and Beth B called Vortex, a futuristic film noir starring Lydia Lunch as a private investigator named Angel Powers. Now this is what I've been waiting for. A film full of artistic flourishes and big ideas, yet providing me with me shots of a leggy Lydia Lunch behaving in a leggy manner in the presence of a peckish boa constrictor, the film, not to be confused the awesome used record store of the same name (still going strong at Yonge and Eglinton, baby!), depicts a world where corporations have taken over the government.
 

Opening with a U.S. congressmen (David Kennedy) making incriminating statements to an unseen individual on a grainy security camera feed. Watching this grainy feed with an eerie sense of malevolence is Frederick Fields (the reliably gaunt Bill Rice), the Howard Hughes-esque CEO of Fieldco., a company that manufactures state-of-the-art weaponry. Visibly annoyed by what the politician is saying, Fields sends Peter (Brent Collins), the height-challenged bartender who works at a nearby pub, an encoded e-mail instructing him to eliminate the congressman. And the reason for this? Well, apparently, he was talking to Navco, a rival weapons manufacturer, so, goodbye.
   

 
Given that Fields is a recluse who is confined to a wheelchair, that means he has to depend on others to carry out the physical aspects of his bidding. While it's obvious that Pete the bartender is his go-to man when it comes to taking out his enemies (he uses what would now be construed as a taser to kill his victims), Tony Demmer (James Russo) is the man who handles his everyday affairs. Whether he needs milk and donuts delivered to his door or requires his office drones to be sufficiently scolded, Tony is the man for the job. Now, the reason his other employees, like, Pamela Flemming (Ann Magnuson), look at Tony with suspicion is because he used to be Fields' chauffeur. Which begs the question: How did a lowly chauffeur end up being the confidant to a man who designs satellite weapons and unmanned aircraft for a living? I don't know, but Fields seems to trust him.
 

Just as I was starting to wonder where Lydia Lunch fits in in this murky world of corporate espionage, legislative corruption, and congressional cronyism, we finally see her soaking seductively in an analogue bubblebath of her own creation. (Keen observers will notice that her thighs are poking through the bubbles ever so slightly). Smoking while reading notes attached to a clipboard–one that she held aloft over her no-nonsense nipples–Lydia plays Angel Powers, a private investigator who, it would seem, does her best sleuthing while submerged in soapy water.
   

After checking herself in the mirror (gorgeousness oozes from every pore), she answers the door to a man who wants her to investigate the murder of the recently tasered congressman. Standing amidst her collection of stuffed animals (the gal seems to have a thing for taxidermy) in a gunmetal outfit that looked amazing paired with her jet black hair (her bangs mean business), Angel listens to the man prattle on and on about Navco and Fieldco, and something called the "BFW," a super secret space weapon the two companies are trying to manufacture.
 

In order to create a film noir vibe, Scott B and Beth B shoot the scene in Angel's apartment through set of blinds. In fact, almost every scene in Vortex is shot in an irregular manner. In some cases, the only thing on-screen at any given moment is Lydia Lunch's beautiful face floating within an all-consuming field of impenetrable darkness (her profile is coarse yet angelic at the same time). Giving her the skinny on the eccentric millionaire and his chauffeur, the squirrely man tells Angel that he wants her to nail Fieldco, and nail them hard (he probably works for Navco). Meanwhile, back at Pete's bar, Tony is giving a group of Fieldco execs, including the lovely Ann Magnuson, a refresher course on how to act while in the presence of Mr. Fields; the idea is for the execs to watch a demonstration of the BFW in action.
 

As with most private investigators, Angel uses her so-called "connections" to help her with the tougher cases. Only problem is, a junkie and a paranoid shut-in are she's got. Sure, the former is constantly asking her for money, and the latter seems to enjoy watching swing helplessly in a net (a crude security system he uses to trap intruders), but unreliable connections aren't going to prevent Angel Powers from creating an aura that reeks of noirish cool. Sifting through a weapons catalogue supplied by the shut-in (using today's lingo, he'd be considered a "hacker"), while, of course, soaking in the tub, Angel learns more about the case.
 

Heading down to the "company bar," Angel, after telling her junkie "friend" to leave her alone, finally meets Tony Demmer, the world's most powerful former chauffeur. I won't lie, I've been waiting patiently for these two volatile characters to hook up ever since they were introduced. Asking Tony, "Do you want to fuck or not?" Angel is clearly a woman who prefers not to mess around. The film's jazzy electronic score ("Black Box Disco") and dark cinematography accentuate their off-kilter courtship, as the two make their way to his apartment. Unlike her apartment, there are no stuffed animals. But he does have a pet python, which Tony shows to Angel as she lounges leggily on his bed (he feeds it a dead rodent).
 

It would seem that Tony, much like the audience, has developed moderate to strong feelings for Angel (he showed her his snake, I bet he doesn't do that for all the ladies). And, as a result, he has lost interest in taking orders from Fields. Tired of catering to his every whim, Tony has started to ignore his master. This, of course, upsets Fields, who accuses Tony of being a sex maniac bent on destroying his work.
 

 
Sex maniac?!? No, actually, what Tony is doing is what any man with eyes would do, and that is fall hopelessly in love with Lydia Lunch. Granted her personality can be a tad grating at times, but you don't squander the opportunity to be ensconced in Lunch-based loveliness when given the chance, and that's exactly what Tony does; he ensconces the fuck out of her.
 

Except, Tony gets greedy. He wants to run Fieldco and be in love with Lydia...I mean, Angel Powers, at the same time. And we know that's impossible. The truth comes out during a confrontation between Tony and Angel on a shadowy rooftop. The scene is noteworthy for many different reasons, but it's mainly known, at least in my mind it is, for the brief shots of Lydia Lunch's legs encased in black silk stockings. To the surprise of virtually no-one, the sensation that came with watching the moonlight penetrate Lydia Lunch's garter belt, its black suspenders tearing across her ashen thighs with an air of sweaty desperation, was as close to heaven as I'm ever going to get.
 

The budget may have been limited–though, I hear it was quite high as far as No Wave movies go ($80,000)–but the ideas it tries to convey were anything but. Oh, and the fact Ann Magnuson (Making Mr. Right) is in it, even though it's only a small part, increases the film's coolness quota by at least ten points.

Mondo New York (Harvey Keith, 1988)

Following the seductive line of enviable filth that snaked along her sturdy thighs with my finger as the muck made its way down the pale nooks and ashen crannies of her pronounced calve muscles was one of my favourite past times as a withdrawn, easily entertained youth. Held aloft in order that the guy from Foetus could pretend to probe her pulsating pussy with a certain degree of comfort, the sight of Lydia Lunch with her brawny legs in the air was a huge influence on me. Looking directly into the camera as she braced for the pelvic onslaught that was about to be unleashed onto her genital flight deck, it was almost as if Lydia's eyes were speaking directly to me as I stared at her lying spread-eagle on the back of the Stinkfist EP ("The push, the panic, the pain, the poison!"). I like to think that her eyes were trying to tell me something. Perhaps something like, stay true to yourself, and maybe, one day, you'll get to penetrate someone like me. People often never ask me, "What's the deal with your obsession with vulgar words and phrases?" Of course, I wouldn't classify my vocabulary that way at all; it's unrefined language expressed without fear. Anyway, hearing this half-crazed woman one night ranting about wanting to destroy the pathetic cock currently seeking shelter and warmth inside her dangerous vagina, I remember my ears perking up in a manner similar to the way they percolated when I first heard the menacing throb of a Skinny Puppy song on the radio. Well, I soon found out that the half-crazed woman spewing verbal diarrhea all over my tinny speakers was Karen Finley, and just like that, my linguistic outlook was changed forever. Oh, and the reason I used the word "dangerous" to describe Karen's second most popular opening had nothing to do with its appearance or reputation as an unstable structure, but because of the sheer conviction of the voice attached to the vagina led everyone who listened to it to respect its raw power.

What, may I ask, happened when you discovered that not all women are like Lydia Lunch and Karen Finley? Did you, like, freak out and stuff? Since my intense shyness has prevented me from meeting an insane amount of people over the years, it's entirely possible that I haven't met this profane angel yet. However, in a universe replete with delusional pop stars who ripoff Madonna for a living and highly paid morons who paint themselves orange for the amusement of smug mouth-breathers with low self-esteem, I'll admit, my chances of meeting an unhinged performance artist, one who is just waiting to slit my throat with human kindness, are pretty slim. In the meantime, I guess I'll have to settle for watching Mondo New York, the only cinematic travelogue to feature lanky drag queens, BDSM, angry poets, human trafficking, and, of course, Lydia Lunch, who looked absolutely gorgeous laying the groundwork for the weirdness about to unfold for the next eighty or so minutes, and Karen Finley, who spends most of her time doing what she does best: railing against yuppies while covered with animal by-products.

Wait a minute, back up the truck (a truck that is hopefully crammed super-tight with defective dildos), you mean to tell me that there's an actual movie out there that features both Lydia Lunch and Karen Finley?!? You better believe it. Sure, so one of the loquacious lovelies is only in the film for forty-five seconds, but forty-five seconds is still better than nothing. Okay, as far as justifications go for the lack of a person's screentime, that shit is pretty weak. But you have to understand, just because you wanna live in a world where the sight of Lydia Lunch slowing asphyxiating a bound Kate Hudson with the mouth-watering circumference of her unclothed derriere, while Karen Finley tries on irregular pantyhose in the background are daily occurrences, does not mean that world will ever exist. Take the scraps of Lydia and Karen you given and be grateful, you pompous prat.

Conceived by filmmaker Harvey Keith and Night Flight creator Stuart S. Shapiro, the film, a veritable hodgepodge of New York cool, focuses on a wide array of artists, poets, musicians, comedians, perverts, criminals, and drug users at a time when being any one of those things actually meant something. Our guide on this tour, a nameless blonde woman in denim (Shannah Laumeister), quietly walks from one unorthodox venue to another, soaking up the city's unique culture over the course of a single day. Yeah, that's right, she walks quietly. On top of having no name, our guide seems to go unnoticed wherever she ends up, despite the fact she also turns heads (her physical appearance meets many of the rigid standards held by those whose populate the male branch of the heterosexual realm of existence). This anonymous temperament, including the overtones that seem to contradict her anonymity at every turn, gave her presence a decidedly non-judgmental air. Of course, I don't mean to imply that she's some kind of mindless observer, on the contrary, our guide does express her feelings every now and then. But for the most part, she simply absorbs what's put in front of her like she were a sponge or a moldy piece of bread.

You'll notice that I mentioned "New York cool" as supposed to just plain "cool." Well, the reason I did that was to keep to the two distinct types of cool separate from another. My coolness, let's get one thing straight, has never been in doubt, yet the cool that existed in New York City circa, oh, let's say, the ten year period between 1978-1988, will intimidate even the most ardent of cool people. Let me put it this way, there's a reason no one has bothered to make a movie called Mondo Etobicoke.

We open on New York City's world famous skyline, it's around 4 or 5 A.M. in the morning, when, all of a sudden, Lydia Lunch enters the frame, which, by the way, is bathed in mist. She doesn't identify herself as a "Lydia Lunch," but we know who she is. Clutching her jean jacket with a feistier than usual brand of determination, Lydia proceeds to tell us all about the hopes and dreams of the residents of the fair city she stands before. You see, apparently there's this giant garbage pile, and the outcasts, misfits, rejects, loser pervert lunatics, gangsters, pranksters, and outlaws all want to claw their way to the top of it. Standing in their way, however, are bunch of neurotics, psychotics, maniacs, brainiacs, hippies, yippies, yuppies, flunkies, and even monkeys. In other words, it's a war zone out there. The very soul of Mondo New York is up for grabs, and only the most self-absorbed of citizens will be able to claim it.

After Lydia is finished with her prologue, we quickly hook up with our red sneaker-wearing guide. Making her way through a crowd of punks and freaks, our guide enters what looks like a concert venue, positions herself amidst the jaded audience, and watches Phoebe Legere writhe about in an erotic stupor while performing "Marilyn Monroe." Even though the lyrics of the song mostly involve singing the deceased movie star's name over and over again, Phoebe's ebullient stage presence more than makes up for the song's lack of lyrical diversity. Sporting one pink opera glove (dig the black frays, girlfriend), fishnet stockings (which were held up by narrow bands of dark fabric), a gold chain belt, and strumming a guitar with a leopard print strap (yeah, I noticed her guitar strap), Phoebe thrusts and heaves her body across the stage like a raving banshee with rag doll ambitions.

Leaving the concert (I guess she'd seen enough of Phoebe's protruding pubic hair for one day), our guide enters a church-like structure, takes a seat in one of the pews, and watches Joel Coleman, performance artist, Richard Speck fan and all round weird guy, bite the heads off two rodents, utter the phrase "syphilic cunt fossils," and lights the firecracker that was sewn into his poncho. Question: If our guide leaves during a performance (she got up and left just as the rodents were about to lose their heads) does that mean we should go as well? Obviously she wasn't that offended by Joel's mouse abuse, because we see her at his apartment moments later, but it does give the audience something to think about.

Animal lovers will want to avoid the aforementioned rodent decapitation scene, the cockfighting sequence (one rooster is killed by another rooster), and the voodoo ritual (a live chicken has its head bitten off). There's a scene that features the always beguiling Ann Magnuson beating a dead horse with a mattenklopper, but the horse she was pummeling was clearly fake. Fans human cruelty, on the other hand, will want to make sure they catch the scenes that show our intrepid guide peeking through a crack in a wall to catch a glimpse of nipples being clamped and asses being spanked and another where she spies on an illicit gathering where women are being sold at an auction. The former was just your average early morning S&M party (lots of leather and some mild heel sucking), it was the latter scene that threw me for a bit of a loop. At first I thought they selling cheongsams. But then it dawned on me, the body-hugging garments weren't for sale, it was the shapely women poured into them that were being sold.

Tired of whips and chains, our guide heads down some stairs to watch a mentally challenged individual, one who took blithering and twitching in a wheelchair took a whole new level of spasticity, get his special needs penis serviced by Veronica Vera (her womanly epicentre eventually wrapped in cellophane) and Annie Sprinkle (her lumpy, bumpy frame covered in body paint), as Sabine Reithmayer (or it could it been Linda Mac) recites poetry.

It's around noon, and our guide is about to get an earful from a random collection of the Lower East Side's most civic-minded residents. Some yell out the standard "I love New York," while others, like one angry-sounding woman, declare, "I will fight for the Lower East Side." A former East Londoner, who now lives in Alphabet City, thinks the fact that you can now get rap music on compact disc is a sign of the apocalypse. Which, of course, will manifest itself when the yuppies inevitably takeover. Walking into a junkyard, I mean, an outdoor art installation (it's hard to tell the difference sometimes), our guide runs into Joey Arias, who, while as dressed like a flamenco-inspired devil, serenades her with a song called "Fish Out Of Water."

Heading over to the fountain in Washington Square Park, our guide finds a seat on the steps and prepares herself for the ethnic comedy of Charlie Barnett (Miami Vice) and Rick Aviles (Ghost). Announcing that he loves a New York audience, Charlie's routine revolves around jokes based on racial stereotypes (white guys walk this, black guys walk like this), while Rick's schtick was...pretty much the same (black gay guys talk like this, white gay guys talk like this).

Since I've already alluded to the Ann Magnuson scene, which takes place in a pastoral field and has her reciting a poem about prime interest rates to a giant turkey (which, surprisingly, isn't brutally murdered), I'll just mention that I regret not including Ann in my opening bit about Lydia Lunch and Karen Finely. If anyone deserves to be drowned in lavish praise, it's Ann Magnuson, especially a pigtail-sporting Ann Magnuson. Quirky fun-fact: The only audible sound our guide makes in Mondo New York are the screams she lets out as a result of being chased by a carpet beater-wielding Ann Magnuson.

Sandwiched between Joey Arias' elegant, jazzy interpretation of "A Hard Days Night" (I loved the mid-song costume change) and an abridged version of "Hustle With My Muscle" by John Sex ("I'll cram your box 'til it's good and smelly"), is the enchanting Karen Finley, whose scathing spoken word piece was, in my opinion, the moment when the film's overall mission statement (the soulless chunks of yuppie scum who desperately want to corrupt the cultural integrity of our beloved neighbourhood must be stopped) was expressed in a succinct manner. In a work called "I Hate Yellow," Karen strips down to her panties (all good performance art involves nudity), covers her body with egg yolk and glitter, and begins to attack the yuppie mindset ("I'm not gonna let you gang rape me, yuppie!"). The gist of her diatribe is that yuppies and their pastel clothing are the bane of human existence. It's not exactly the most groundbreaking concept, but it's done in a such an entertaining manner, that you're willing look past its apparent banality. I liked the part where she scolds the yuppie's children who are, according to her, a bunch of "nine year-olds who only talk through their computers."

Fully enlightened, and probably hankering a pair of chocolate-covered yuppie balls, our guide observes a crowd slam dancing to "New York New York" by Manitoba's Wild Kingdom ("Everyone's an asshole, everyone's a creep!"), and, like most nights in New York City, ends her evening standing before a bald, long-legged drag queen. Unafraid to drink in every square inch of his fabulous frame, Harvey Keith's camera immortalizes Dean Johnson as he performs "Fuck You" with the Weenies. I can't think of a better way to end Mondo New York than to have a rawboned dandy in shades say "fuck you" to Union Carbide and Mary Tyler Moore, as it sums up the film's anarchistic attitude perfectly.

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