Identity Is Malleable. Become That Version You Love: What You Create

Because of my attendance/involvement with Jessicka (from Scarling.)'s wedding:

She looked gorgeous, and I'm honored she asked me to speak at the event!

Of course, I'm also glad anytime there's an event to whip out the Jared Gold couture. ;)

Speaking of which, he's on the far right in a photograph with Dita. I'm in the shot beneath him, and my dear friend Adele (with the megasweet Miss M'Lynn) are directly under me.

I love that so many of my chums appear in the same two-page spread for the second most-read paper in the country!

MASSIVE CONGRATS, JESSICKA AND CHRISTIAN!

(If you're interested in reading the text in a muuuuuch easier way, please scroll lower.)





A pink-haired drag queen scattered rose petals before the bride as she glided toward the altar, looking every inch the goth princess -- vampy eyes, raven bouffant, black lace gown and black Dutch rose nosegay. She swooshed with funereal drama past her guests -- burlesque diva Dita Von Teese, pop surrealist Mark Ryden and Bauhaus drummer Kevin Haskins among them. Waiting at the altar was her dapper, inky-haired groom. The DJ, lowbrow artist Tim Biskup, faded out the music -- a dirge by Sigur Rós -- and the wedding officiant cleared his throat. He was wearing, naturally, a giant Easter Bunny head.

"Ladies, gentlemen, friends and fellow bunny lovers," he intoned. "Welcome to the wedding of Jessicka Fodera and Christian Hejnal."

When goth rockers Fodera and Hejnal decided to get married on Valentine's Day 2006, the usual white satin thing was definitely not happening. Fodera, known professionally as simply Jessicka, once sang with Marilyn Manson, and went on to form a noise-pop outfit called Scarling with Hejnal, a guitarist and visual effects producer at Sony. At the heart of Hollywood's goth rock scene, they were introduced seven years ago by their mutual friend, best man Lisa Leveridge, who thought they would make a good couple because they were both "small musicians with black hair."

Goth culture has thrived for more than 20 years, but nowhere more than in Los Angeles, where America's first goth club, the Fetish Club, opened in the 1980s. Now there are more than 20 goth and death rock club nights a month, a goth-industrial roller skating event called Wumpskate and goth days at Disneyland. There are a slew of goth bands in Southern California, and goth clothing boutiques such as Necromance, Shrine and Panpipes selling the dramatic velvet and leather looks to devotees. Some of L.A.'s most relevant fashion designers have a goth bent, Rick Owens and L'wren Scott among them.

So a goth wedding was pretty much inevitable.

Fodera and Hejnal booked the deco-decadent Oviatt penthouse in downtown L.A. for Oct. 13, and artist friends began pouring their talents into the details -- the invitations, the creepy bunny centerpieces and the goth-rock playlist.

Jessicka's dress was a blend of influences -- "Addams Family" and turn-of-the-century vintage. Costumers Adele Mildred and M'Lynn designed a silhouette that was slimmer on top and flared at the knees with a small train, made of champagne silk overlaid with black French Chantilly lace. Mildred had also made the dainty veiled doll hat worn by guest Liz McGrath, the diminutive downtown sculptor known by friends as "Bloodbath McGrath." McGrath had, in turn, designed the dozen or so creepy little rabbit centerpieces, each ghoulish bunny elaborately attired in top hat, polka dots and pink lace collar.

Ryden's wedding gift was a miniature portrait of the couple -- a faithful adaptation of Jan Van Eyck's "The Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini" that was reproduced on the invitations. Gifts to the couple included a cuckoo clock, a mannequin head and an anatomically correct model of the human heart. Iconic horror comic book artist Roman Dirge gave them a framed sketch of a woman with vampire teeth and a fur-lined jacket.

It was Jessicka's idea to have a rabbit, a symbol of fertility since pre-Christian times, officiate over the ceremony, and in his sermon, the bunny described how the star-crossed lovers first met seven years ago, on Friday the 13th. Then came the vows. Jessicka promised she would comfort Christian "in times of sorrow and insanity," while Christian swore never to try to "restrain" his wife in any way, causing chuckles among many guests. As they slipped simple white gold wedding bands onto each other's fingers, the couple vowed to "embrace each other -- but not to the point of smothering" and to "say I love you a lot, and let go of the stupid little things."

The mother of the bride sniffled through the ceremony. Then the bunny declared them husband and wife -- and high-fived the groom.

The party was on.

The guests were fabulously attired, largely in 1940s siren style and, of course, black. There may have never been a wedding with so many black fishnet stockings, Vivienne Westwood heels and black crucifixes, unless it was in a Billy Idol video. Naturally, there was an abundance of body art, and complexions were fashionably milky.

Von Teese, who met the bride through her former husband, Manson, was a vintage vision in a 1940s clingy cap-sleeved black knit dress with tiny turquoise beads on the shoulders, Weiss costume clip earrings and a striking miniature aqua felt hat, adorned with a single saddle brown ostrich feather. In choosing her outfit, Von Teese was inspired by the 1944 classic "Cover Girl," starring Rita Hayworth.

"I don't often get to wear top-to-toe vintage," she said, showing off even her nylon stockings, as Biskup DJ'd on his Mac laptop.

There was a pause in the action for speeches from the best man, maid of honor and author Clint Catalyst, who waxed lyrical. ("Jessicka and Christian's union is an integral part of an ancient umbilical cord, connecting multi-talented musicians to visual artists to writers to performers to designers, in a symbiotic relationship that academics of future days will pigeonhole as a 'movement. . . .' "

Then Jessicka took the mic and commanded guests to "go forth and drink." Most were happy to follow her orders.

Meet the Addamses

JESSICKA and Christian had decided that once married, they would both lose their family names and start afresh. After considering Bubblestorm, Awesome, Applebottom and Deathblow, they settled on Addams, an homage to the macabre TV family. "It was time for a new bloodline," Jessicka said with a shrug. "Plus, the name Addams just fits well, like an old goth T-shirt."

No, their actual families weren't horrified. Nancy Gissing, the mother of the bride, could barely contain her emotion throughout the ceremony, which she said fitted Jessicka's personality exactly. "I would have been shocked if she'd done this any other way," she said.

Samantha Maloney, bridesmaid and drummer for Peaches (and formerly Mötley Crüe and Hole), graciously assumed the role of tour guide, showing guests around the space. Surrounded by twinkling views of the L.A. cityscape, the penthouse was built by haberdasher James Oviatt in 1927, whose high-end shop once occupied the ground floor. The place oozes decadence. Oviatt and his wife, Mary, were known for their lavish soirees, and signed photographs of their friends -- John Barrymore, Errol Flynn, Howard Hughes -- still line the walls.

Downtown continues to be a destination for hedonists. As the Addamses and their goth royalty entourage celebrated at the Oviatt, around the corner indie folk hero Devendra Banhart was onstage at the Orpheum theater, while members of the Strokes and Mexican heartthrob Gael Garcia Bernal looked on.

At the former St. Vibiana's cathedral, fashionistas had gathered for EcoNouveau, a green-themed runway show. And a stone's throw away, on Santa Fe and Fourth, trance freaks dressed in garish neons and Mylar danced off the last of the playa dust at the Burning Man Decompression party. Back at the Oviatt, the music segued from Sisters of Mercy to Christian Death to Kajagoogoo. Even at this iconoclastic affair, one wedding tradition refused to die -- crazy dancing. And the prize for best moves went, unsurprisingly, to the Easter Bunny, who by this point had revealed himself to be screenwriter Jeff Buhler.

"When Jessicka asked me to officiate the wedding as a rabbit, I thought it was a great idea," he said. "It exactly sums up our group of friends, you see."

Later he made a brave attempt at the splits.

♥

Massive thanks to Winter Rosebudd, who created the hat
And to Janet Fitch, without whom I would not have known of the article/mention...
(With all the magazine subscriptions I have, I hate to admit I rarely read the Times. Regardless, I'm stoked to be in it, of course!)

Since I don't have a fancy scanner, here's how the piece looks on-line:

Here's what I wrote/read/"performed" at Jessicka and Christian's Wedding (In Its Entirety):

October 13, 2007

    Oh, Los Angeles.  Your sky hangs as heavy with toxic fumes as it does with the clichés; your reputation precedes you like a small-town harlot.  It’s not so much that you’re a specifically sinister imperilment, but more of a territory perceived as ‘Beyond the Safety Net.’   A turbulent region infested with the sting of con artists and bite of Industry sharks, where ugly secrets get whisked away in swift yet graceful turns of the trains on glittering red carpet dresses.

    Yes, this so-called ‘City of Angels,’ and its bad reputation.  We know all about it.  About the populous cities within this city posing as a city, about what an illusion you are, less an urban locale than one huge propped-up movie set under constant construction: the ‘principal,’ ‘supporting,’ and ‘background’ talent as erratic in fluctuation as an actor’s StarMeter ranking on imdb.com.

    But back, back past the klieg lights…Beneath the tawdry, the terrible, the tinsel-drenched: all of it.  Somehow, in this city that allegedly has ‘no center,’ I’ve been fortunate throughout the years to discover a different gravitational pull: that of a unique and spectacular collision of individuals.  Friends.  Or, said another way: the family we choose.

    These are the people who see things instead of just look at them.  Denizens who distinguish the art from the artifice, who know things can appear one way and mean another—yet value the meaning of each, the camouflage.  The masquerade.  It can be marvelous, really.  All notions of reality are relative in the context of the community Jessicka and Christian inhabit—a place without space for the ‘fakes’ and the ‘flakes,’ but rather those who create…and recreate it.

    Jessicka and Christian remind me of what I love about Los Angeles, how the longitude and latitude of this wildly contradictory place is where I’ve come realize that an individual can have a relationship with a work of art.  Scarling’s “Band Aid Covers The Bullet Hole,” Liz McGrath’s “Truth Decay,” Mark Ryden’s “The Creatrix,” Adele Mildred’s “Accident”—even one of Dita Von Teese’s ephemeral acts of art by way of performace.

    These ‘little pieces of perfect’  belong not to me, but travel through me in my day-to-day: as I crawl in traffic on the 405, or when I clench a pen and watch which consonants and vowels unravel themselves on scraps of paper.  These are the sights and sounds that bounce around in my mind and send my blood rushing, amped with the urge to conjure up works of my own rather than subsist as a spectator.

    The relationship I have with these works of art is not unlike the relationship the betrothed are celebrating this evening, as each aliiance illustrates an elementary fact too often overlooked.  All ornate prose pushed aside, here’s the bottom line: at this very moment, this sliver of time shared between us here in the Oviatt Penthouse, history is being made. That being said, Jessicka’s marriage to Christian represents more than the formulaic ‘Guy, Girl, Sermon, Ring.’  Instead, it’s a metaphor for the camaraderie gathered in this room, the art and artists of which they’re consummate supporters.  The visionaries who themselves are married to their craft…and, in some cases, to each other.

    Fill your lungs with the magic of it.  No, seriously—breathe in, immerse yourself in the air around you, ease into the notion of being completely present.  Dial the knob on your senses to the brink of overload;  take a dare and stop thinking about the agent who hasn’t called, or that bitch who lost ten pounds and garnished all the attention you feel your outfit entitled.  Try it.  I dare you, even: sit completely still for the span of just a few blinks, and gratify your senses.  Indulge your faculties of the stimuli around you: what you see, hear, smell, the texture of wherever your fingertips rest, the taste—pleasant or otherwise—inside your mouth.

    Maybe it’ll feel as if the air around you is charged, as if the cumulative force of  the innovative and ingenious gathered here is fiery, full-blooded, alive.

    Maybe you feel you’ll just die if this rambling queen perched in front of you doesn’t clap his trap and let the festivities “throw down.”

    Or maybe, just maybe, you won’t be sure how to articulate what’s going on with your mind and your moods…but still you’ll grasp the notion of how Jessicka and Christian’s union is an integral part of an ancient umbilical cord, connecting multi-talented musicians to visual artists to writers to performers to designers in a symbiotic relationship academics of future days will pigeonhole as a ‘movement.’

    Leave the glance backward to historians, for they are the ones for whom classifications can be “bagged and tagged” in a linear, logical manner. We’ve already had their “ism”s, regardless the medium: Impressionism, Surrealism, Feminism, Futurism, Deconstructurism, Post-Modernism.  That’s what makes this evening, this fragment of time, so extraordinary—for tonight there are no yawning clichés.  There are no boundaries, no established parameters by any so-called authorities.

    Just like the love shared by Jessicka and Christian, there is no stamp of approval needed.  There is no “-ism.”  There simply is.

    And for bringing us all together, I say thank you, Jessicka and Christian.  Thank you—and congratulations.