But that's all in the past. As I consider the man sitting across from me, I'm forced to wonder: What happens when a club kid grows up?This I know for certain: Michael Alig was recently released from jail, and James lives a peaceful, party-free existence in Los Angeles, California. James is now happily employed at World Of Wonder (a.k.a. WOW), the company that produces the television show of another former club kid: RuPaul. James hosts an onlineaftershow for Drag Race, pens a column for WOW's website, and authored Freak Show—a young adult novel recently adapted into a forthcoming film starring Bette Midler, Laverne Cox, and Abigail Breslin. James has clearly moved on, so why can't I?Read More: Behind the Scenes with Virginie Despentes
This quote, from a1986 Chicago Tribune article, missed the point entirely (as did many other reporters of the era) by focusing on "what his parents must think." The thoughts of his old family no longer mattered because James had finally found a new one.Unfortunately, that family was dying. It was the early 80s, and AIDS was ravaging New York City, which only fueled James's desire to party: "We were always dancing on the cliff of a volcano, because people were dying all around you and it might be your turn next." Warhol too would die (though not from AIDS), and with him, the scene on which James had built his identity.We were always dancing on the cliff of a volcano, because people were dying all around you and it might be your turn next.
The scene had a name, and so did its self-created stars: RuPaul, Amanda Lepore, Richie Rich, and Sophia Lamar were just a few of the outrageous personalities to become both New York and national celebrities. Alig's goals (as stated to Interview magazine in 2010) were Warholian in nature, at first directly and then derivatively: "We were all going to become Warhol Superstars and move into The Factory. The funny thing was that everybody had the same idea: not to dress up but to make fun of people who dressed up. We changed our names like they did, and we dressed up in outrageously crazy outfits in order to be a satire of them—only we ended up becoming what we were satirizing."James would soon rise from downtown orphan to mummy queen, leading nightlife's youthful undead back to glory.
Here, again, is a garbling of Warhol's message. Warhol too was interested in the scam of capitalist culture, but there was a depth to his one-dimensionality. His work was an ironic commentary on capitalism, fame, and image. Pop Art, as Warhol put it in Popism, "took the inside and put it outside, took the outside and put it inside." In Michael Alig's work there was no "inside," no greater meaning, no ironic remove. There was just an "outside," an artless scam.But there is another facet of the Club Kid legacy that is equally, if not more, important. The Club Kids brought queerness, gender fluidity, and groundbreaking fashion to the national dialogue in a subversive way. This was not a scam; it was genuinely important work. And James St. James was at the heart of this effort.In 1993, Phil Donahue attacks a 16-year-old girl on his long-running talk show, The Phil Donahue Show. The girl sits onstage wearing a black rubber mask with small slits for her eyes and mouth. She is surrounded by a group of strangely attired freaks, but Donahue has chosen to focus on her. To the girl, the rubber mask feels like home, a manifestation of her desire for fantasy, celebrity, freedom. To the majority of America, the mask is terrifying. The anonymity that it supplies allows American parents to envision their own daughters under that mask, joining this horrific parade. Now, Donahue is demanding answers on behalf of America. Where are her parents? How could they not know? How could she behave so outrageously? A fellow freak comes to her rescue:Club Kids were very current to the 80s, of the packaging, press, publicity, corporation, out for yourself, money, you know what I mean? For nothing. It was very American. You know, 'give me money, because I'm fabulous, because I say so.' I mean it was great for a scam for a while, and the 80s were all about scams.
Alig has made his own attempts to translate the Club Kid legacy into art since his release from jail in 2014. But a perusal of Michael's new website reveals paintings that openly appropriate Warhol's aesthetic (Amanda Lepore done in the of Warhol's Marilyn) and in some cases blatantly steal Warhol's most famous subjects (this portrait ofEdie Sedgwick). Alig's paintings are empty ventriloquy of Warhol's style, with none of the substance. They are, in short, a scam. But then again, if we are to take Alig at his word, the scam is the point.When I ask if the two sustained a connection while Michael was in jail, James responds passionately. "We have stayed in touch the entire time," he says. "Michael is my brother. Michael is family. Anyone who knows me for more than ten years is family. You don't have to like your family, but you stand by them and you are there for them. I hadn't seen him in 17 years, and I was tickled pink to go to New York and see him when he got out [of jail]."For James, it comes back to the makeshift family he created in the vacuum of his parents' disapproval.Money, success, fame, and glamour all come and go. But family is forever.I could get a Nobel Peace Prize tomorrow, and people would still want to talk about Michael. When I'm 80 years old, people will still be asking about the goddamn Club Kids.