This will be the last time I will mention our dang Leigh Bowery costumes. Probably.
I put a short film of a dance routine I did on Halloween on Youtube, but I hesitated to post about it, because it’s not really the film I wanted (due to the shaky-cam, tight-zoom effect) but in retrospect, it *is* the best one-minute tap routine in a Leigh Bowery costume ever done to a mashup of “Baby Got Back.”
Or else, certainly it’s in the top ten.
Yesterday, I got a Youtube comment asking if that was really Leigh Bowery. I told my new friend no, it was just little me, and my friend complimented my costume, and I felt all warm inside. However, shortly after that, I got a Youtube comment from an alert viewer pointing out that he didn’t really believe that it was Leigh, and believes the film to be: A HOAX. He noted astutely that:
A. The costume is not as fancy/decorated as it should have been. Shitty, shitty costume.
B. The dancing is graceless, like a drunken elephant in toe shoes. Nothing like Leigh.
C. It could be Leigh at 5 AM in an afterhours bar, snockered out of his mind- but in general, he’s calling a Bravo Sierra on this!
I wrote my esteemed viewer to thank him for his interest and to note that I never intended to pass the movie off as the genuine article, and had re-titled the movie Tribute to Leigh Bowery to avoid this kind of confusion in the future, and did not point out clues that he missed:
A. In both the notes and in the comments I say “This is me, dressed as Leigh Bowery.”
Also, I put the record date on the submit, which is 12 years and 9 months after Leigh took off for parts unknown.
B. Although “Baby Got Back” was released in 1992, 2 years before we lost Leigh, the Benny Benassi mash-up by DJ Tripp was just released in April 2005, and the one minute remix of that version was done over Labor Day weekend of this year. (Thank you, Kid Whatever!)
C. Although Leigh was gifted in many different artforms, I don’t believe that tap dance was ever on his list of interests. He overlooked the fact that I am between 125 and 150 pounds lighter than Leigh. And that’s the unkindest cut of all.
