Today

I may grow to regret posting a link to my blog on my website, but hey, if you found me, chances are you'd want to read my blog. So here we go together. I've never been a fan of writing fiction. Even in my undergraduate English degree days, I was much more comfortable with technical writing and poetry. And now as I cheekily glance at my bookshelf, it doesn't surprise me that no fiction titles are winking back at me. Well, The Natural History of Love written in 1957 contains chivalry and courting rituals that I've never been the subject of, but I think that has more to do with time than anything else. So if you do choose to read my blog and you'd like some fiction, look elsewhere.

1957. The burlesque and pinup world owes a lot to the fifties. Many of us, myself included, don retro--vintage if we can get them--garments and false eyelashes on a regular basis. I have stockings that are so old they barely make it out of the packaging let alone make it past my dancer's feet. I cherish them and I have to ask myself why. When I was a child I hated being a girl.

Being a girl meant being fragile and looked after very closely. I was absolutely not the fragile flower that loved curls and lace that my mother wanted me to be. I was made to wear a dress in preschool on picture day. I was used to running around with the trouble-making little boys and they were quick to make fun of my poofy dress. I still enjoy looking at that picture because little Jimmy has a bandage on his chin from being pushed on the ground by yours truly and I'm quite certain that I was in mid-guffaw as the bulb flashed. I have since made my peace with poofy.

There's a drawer full of vintage stockings in my room. They've been delicately placed in sandwich bags. I have taken an uncharacteristic amount of care of these leg-shaped nylon tubes. Maybe I'd like to experience what those glamorous ladies in 1957 experienced. Did they realize how we'd be dreaming of a day where we'd have enough time to sit at our dressing tables and spritz expensive perfume on our freshly powdered bodies? Did they know their movie scenes of silk stockings and twirly skirts would be so deeply entrenched in our memories that they would define what it means to be deliciously vulnerable and superhuman at the same time? How did these visions come to mean "woman" to me when there are many more accurate definitions, including the one I see in the mirror every day?
(photo by Shoshana Portnoy, Dallaspinup.com)

A whole lot of shakin' going on

My life has been a whirlwind of changes and adjustments for the past few years. I quit performing, had my son, went back to college, resumed performing, graduated, went back to graduate school, got divorced, became obsessed with burlesque and fell in love all in a few years. Any one of those things would be life changing, and they all have been. I've been taking everything in its own time and pace. I've been amazed by so many moments, especially lately. Now my performances reach more people in more places in the world, and wouldn't ya know it? People are enjoying what I have to give them

I am so grateful for everything burlesque has given me--new friends, a passport to a passionate lifestyle, a chance to discover myself in the relationship I have with the audience. Performing in such an honest and passionate way is revealing and makes me a little more nervous than other forms of performance I've done. It's not the body exposure that makes me nervous, that's really the only thing a burlesque audience expects, it's the all of the components that make a performance really good. That really has to do with you...and my vision of what I want to bring to you.

While I strive to bring you cleverness and beauty, I mostly want to bring you something truly genuine. When I perform I open myself up to experiencing my vision with my body and my emotions. I'm not remembering some great idea that I had and going through the motions, I'm really experiencing it at that moment. Our moment. If I walk off the stage and I couldn't totally get into the moment, I feel as though I've failed. If you don't respond to me, I feel I've failed, too, but that's a different thing. I always blame myself for a less than stellar performance and it rarely has to do if I landed a stunt or an article of clothing came off smoothly, it has everything to do with if I connected with you.

While a lot of performers do what they do for self-gratifying reasons or to push your boundaries, I mostly want to give you what I'd like to have given to me.
Honesty. Passion. Connection. Respect.

I'll see you at the next show.

Hugs,

Coco Lectric

No one's looking

Good thing no one's reading this. Heh. i don't talk a whole lot about my life outside of what you all see on stage, but it's my experiences and, every so often, my escape from those experiences that all of my numbers are born. It is true that I perform because I must. I have a choice in the matter, but it's something like, "perform or be miserable," which really isn't a choice at all, is it?

Experiences. Boy, do I have some. Every day is a new journey-adventure-clusterfuck. I'm a single mom. It's not something I publicize, but it's a constant and axe-picking thought that injects into my Catholic reared mind throughout my days and nights. I work in a place where someone I care about dies every week. I'm passionate. I'm a lover. I love my man...deeply. He often inspires me to stay "on top of my game," not only because he'll be in the audience most of the time, but because if I'm bored, he might be, too. I can't have my man bored. I'm not very insecure about performing or even what I look like, though I recognize I'm not the American ideal. I think enough people are insecure about their appearance, I don't need to be one of them. That's what our adolescence and twenties are for, right? I'm done with that. I've got to show folks that it's unnecessary. I don't believe you can be truly sexy and insecure at the same time and, damn it, I'd rather be sexy.

Vulnerable is not the same thing as insecure.

Be real. Be delicious. Why?

Because I said so.

Coco