The Story of V
Justin Vivian Bond found downtown fame as Kiki DuRane, decrepit drag chanteuse and comedic prophet of gay rage born out of the AIDS era. Then he killed Kiki to try to become the woman (and man) he always wanted to be.
By Carl Swanson
Published May 8, 2011
http://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/features/justin-bond-2011-5/The first time Justin Vivian Bond sang a song he thought he'd written was in the second grade in Hagerstown, Maryland. He'd heard, maybe in the family car, Karen Carpenter singing "Long ago, and oh so far away, I fell in love with you before the second show," and he so identified with the mordant heartache of a groupie singing about a rock star she'd slept with that he dreamt about it that night. At school the next day, he told his teacher he wanted to sing a song he'd composed. He sang that song: "Superstar."
Nearly 40 years later, Bond, dressed in a silky black cocktail dress, is telling this story from the stage at the Bowery Ballroom, recounting how he realized his mistake when he heard the song again on the radio and was "mortified"—he drawls the word with arch, old-Hollywood soundstage grandeur. Bond is a cross-dressing cabaret singer and raconteur of the gay condition who's become, in his phrase, "a world-class artist to a very boutique audience."
