by mitch phillips
I was graciously invited to attend the third CD release party for Stephanie Loveless' debut entitled, "Steffie Sings For Her Sex Change" which took place at her house in Ferndale last Saturday night.
About twenty people were there when I arrived with prog-rocker John Ludi. I dragged him with me in case I didn't know anyone else there. John knew Steffie in a previous lifetime and incarnation when he was known as "Tim" in band called Soft War. Seems we all changed names or identities at least once since we'd met; evidence of a perpetual search for our place in the world, I suppose.
As it turned out, Storm Records point man Norm Andreson was in attendance, as well as Cyndi Summers of Veggies in Mottion, three transsexuals, a handful of activists, and friends in every size, shape, age, gender and color.
I ordered my Steffie' CD months before the party, but it never arrived. Apparently, the first recording was scrapped in order to capture some better performances - which made me wonder what I was about to hear. After all, Stephanie (or Tom for that matter) hadn't touched a guitar in fifteen years and who knew what hormonal therapy did to vocal chords.
But in several of her e-mail confessionals (i.e. "Steffie's World"), many of which included the sordid details of a promiscuous pre-op transsexual on the prowl, she insisted the songs were just pouring out of her and she couldn't wait to share them with friends. Every life-changing, life-challenging, life-affirming, and even life-threatening event seemed to produce a new song and she'd be performing many of them tonight.
By the time I made my way to the well-stocked food table (which, if you've seen me lately, is where I seem to be spending much of my time), people were being seated on folded chairs in the living room for the coming performance. I found a chair close to the food.
A small Traynor P.A. and two mics were set up in the corner of the living room and Steffie took her place behind them. With typical humility, but an atypical feminine voice that bordered on affectation, Steph thanked us all for our continued love and support and began her first song entitled, "A Girl Like Me".
I was pleasantly surprised. It didn't suck. In fact it was pretty damn good; the song was simple, the performance was clean, the chord progression was effective and the delivery was sincere. It was a well-crafted song about a transsexual looking for love and acceptance. When it was over, Steph breathlessly thanked us for our kindness over and over again, patting an open hand on her budding chest, then in front of her face like a proud mother trying to stifle a bad case of the misties, lest it destroy her carefully applied mascara.
Steff followed with "Fairy In A Jar", a song about being treated like a curio by an insincere paramour, something to be trotted out as a novelty for friends. It was good too. She sang and played almost entirely with her eyes closed, as if opening them in the middle of the performance might cause the whole room to evaporate. Again, the crowd was enthusiastic, clapping as she blushed and thanked us repeatedly.
I was still a bit bewildered by the whole trans-gender thing. I couldn't stop looking through Stephanie for some hint of the guy I knew and respected as Tom Ness, music magazine publisher and fearless activist. I found myself searching for remnants of his physical identity; the sinewy arms, the strong jaw line, the pronounced adams apple, the determined intensity in the eyes and the inexhaustible energy. The important stuff was still there, but the context had changed and I couldn't help but mourn the loss. I was certainly willing to accept and support his decision to live his life as he saw fit, but it would take a little more time for me to re-program the neurons previously reserved for Tom. I'm a proud liberal; tolerant, accepting, inclusive and all that. But I'm a redneck liberal - it takes me a little longer to make the jump.
John Ludi, my date (I'm sure he'll thank me for that), begged-off after a few songs to go program some drum tracks on his laptop at a local coffee house. He told me it was a better space for being creative, the comforts of home having proved too distracting. I think he was just ditching me. Other than disbelief and a bit of winking amusement, I'm not sure how he took to the Steffie experience. "We'll talk later," he said with a smile as he disappeared through the back door.
While the first couple of Steff's songs were light-hearted pop fare, "I'm An Idiot" and "Serenity" expressed thoughts of self-loathing and suicide, which never seemed to be far from her mind. Living with the courage of your convictions can be a soul-wrenching experience, especially when those convictions are in direct opposition to majority norms during a nasty culture war. The psychic weight of fearlessly being who you are, and not who people think you are or should be, can be crushing. Sometimes it can seem more practical for everybody involved to end the fight on your own terms. But the intermittent despair, like the intermittent joy, is the stuff of life that makes us who we are. The one mercy of the material world is that nothing lasts forever, not even the suffering.
After the first five tunes, I realized that none of them were actually on the CD I was now holding in my hand. But soon she performed "Treat Me Like A Lady", "Blessing & A Curse" and "Jean", the last a sorrowful song about the recent death of her mother and the fears, hopes, regrets and forgiveness they were unable to express. Despite what I consider to be a throwaway guitar motif, I could hear the conflicted emotion and inescapable finality of the lyrics permeate the room. It was intensely personal.
While some of Steph's songs sank into melancholy, that tendency was thankfully absent in the vegetarian-inspired silliness of "If You Love Your Friends (You Should Eat 'em)". This is the kind of song you'd sing with forty other people on a bus headed for a PETA rally in Washington D.C. Better than B-I-N-G-O. The cleverness of the lyrics prompted much laughter and merriment.
She closed with "Liar, Liar", a violent tirade inspired by unrequited love, but not before succumbing to a complete brain-fart and forgetting the lyrics. She laughed at herself unitil we kick-started her with a hint from the lyric sheet. Soon she was off again, eyes closed, head back, hammering the nylon strings on her classical guitar like there was literally no tomorrow.
A wash of sincere, supportive applause filled the room. It was a fine performance, after all. Steffie looked overwhelmed by the reaction.
"This is the last of three shows here at the house, so it's like the end of the tour for me," she quipped into the mic. "But I want to tell you this was absolutely the best night of all! You guys were just super! I want to thank each and every one of you. I was soo nervous!"
When the show was over, people got up and stretched; some wandered into the dining room to pick on the food trays, some headed for the bathroom while others stayed to chat with Stefffie. One of the tranny's picked up the guitar and gave an ad-hoc performance for two of her sisters who were wowed by her digital dexterity. Most of us, including yours truly, dug into their pockets to contribute to the cause - in this case, an operation to take place someday that would permanently change a penis into something resembling a vagina. Whatever - either one will get your ass into trouble if you do your thinking with it.
Copies of the farewell issue of Jam Rag (which includes an interview of "Steffie" Interviewing "Tom") were strategically placed around the room. I picked one up to take home with me to read what "Tom" had to say abut it all, but mostly just to keep it as a memento.
I wasn't really mourning the loss of Tom anymore, but celebrating the accomplishment of Stephanie who looked perfectly happy to enjoy the fruits of her hard-earned labor.
- Mitch
Visit SteffieLoveless.Blogspot.com
Visit Steffie on Myspace
If you'd like to obtain a copy of "Steffie Sings For Her Sex Change", write to steffie at Loveless@JamRag.com
Photo of Tom Ness used with permission from Metro Detroit Green Party
-- Mitch
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