Mind Caviar Rant & Rave Reviews by Aldonza

"I'm cocky. I know I can sing. I give an impression of all this strength.
Maybe that's why the lesbian crowd likes me and the gay boys spill their
guts to me. I act like I'm ready to kick anyone's ass who's in my way."
-- Etta James

Mind Caviar, Vol. 3 Anniversary Issue, 2002

Aldonza Does It Again

As you may already know, Mind Caviar has a Bitch Goddess Queen, and that is the one and only Aldonza. Aldonza is also a rock starlet, a performer and a collector of toys, dolls and drag queen memorabilia. She loves make-up and cheap jewelry, the gaudier the better. She was once a hippie and a go-go girl and got a fab tattoo before it was a chic thing to do.

Wacky is the order of the day as our resident and exclusive Diva Extraordinaire presents the most ludicrist, decadent, silly and enticing buys and sites on the Web. Her rating system is at the end of the reviews, and what Aldonza says GOES!

"DIE SCREAMING WITH SHARP THINGS IN YOUR HEAD"
Web Site Review

I completely love the title of this website! It involves severe and fatal cruelty to Garden Gnomes so if you belong to the Anti-Defamation of Outdoor Sculpture Club...do not look!! I wish I had a gnome now. I used to set my Barbies on fire and fuse small things to their bodies when they were all melty. Is there a website for that? Click here to witness the Lawn Gnome cruelty.

Two Crowns for "Die Screaming..."
Because the site is well done and disturbed me in that fun-tickle way.

The Langely School Project

Music Review

Here's how I heard this story: A musician in Canada in the mid-seventies who performed cheap gigs on weekends found out his wife was pregnant, and figured he'd better get a better job. So, he starts teaching music to rural schoolchildren in British Columbia. He decides they should choose their own music to learn to perform, and they chose songs like "Major Tom" by David Bowie and "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys. The teacher (Hans Fenger) then recorded the different groups of children in the school gymnasium with just a xylophone and guitar and gym-floor stompin'.

Then, last year, a man found a copy of the dusty old LP in a thrift store, fell in love with it, and sent it to a radio DJ. The DJ got it reproduced by an overseas company, without cleaning it up and ruining the spontaneous quality. Now it's selling in huge amounts under the title "Innocence and Despair".

Don't you love that story!?

I think the "despair" in the title refers to a plaintive little voice in a vacuous room singing "Desperado" or "Long and Winding Road". There is something so haunting and raw there... like this is the voice of your deepest, most vunerable self. Ooops... got a something in my eye... gotta go now...sniff!!

This site tells you all about the recording and links to pages of comments by the former music students.You can also listen to music clips at the site.

Two Crowns for Innocence and Despair... because you wouldn't want to listen to it to mellow out or to boogie, but it's a must-have oddity that's fun to share.

Wonderfully Wacky

Web Site Review

The Diva's always looking for new and weird places to shop for gifts, so I tried Wonderfully Wacky. This site maybe focuses a little too much on the scatalogical...but here's a few things you can buy me that made me giggle:

Kung-Fu Hamster-- So cute in his little robe while he spins his Nunchakus and sings "Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting"
Gummy Handcuffs and Bullwhip-- in Strawberry and Green Apple flavors... I don't know what more to say.
Donut Cologne-- I would really LOVE to smell like donuts all the time... wouldn't everyone love me then?

One Crown for Wonderfully Wacky... because, jaded odd-toy shopper that I am, I've seen lots of this stuff before, but I REALLY REALLY want some of the stuff... or I want to inflict it on my unfortunate friends.

Selena Sirena
by Mayra Santos-Febres
August 2001
ISBN: 0312263929
$10.40

Selena Sirena

Book Review

A book which creates a complete movie for your mind, invigorating all the reader's senses-- that is Sirena Selena, by Mayra Santos-Febres.

A fifteen year-old singer of his grandma's boleros... a street boy with unnatural beauty and talent, is tranformed by Martha Divine into a creature of dreams and longing. Glistening creams, flowerpearl-kissed colors, dramatic ebony outlines, gender-disguising gauzes... step by step creation of a Goddess. She slowly descends the stairway and eyes cannot believe, cannot look away... mind cannot think. Then, when she sings, she is inside you, sinuously caressing your secret emotions. The audience will never be the same.

Read this book slowly so you can taste it all. Here is an excerpt to savor:

Las dragas, the drag queens, listening to the bolero just stood there with their mouths hanging open. They were working the street, negotiating with clients, when suddenly they heard a sorrowful murmur, a heartbreaking agony that invaded their flesh and kept them from being sufficiently alert to negotiate prices for their couplings, or for quickies with husbands escaping their homes. They couldn't do anything except remember what made them cry, and their false lashes began to come unglued from their eyelids. They spun around on their high heels and loosened their wigs to hear better.

Three Crowns for Selena Sirena... because this book described the Supreme Power of Divadom better than any I've ever read.

Aldonza Diva Bonus!!!

Get Your Own 15 MINUTES OF FAME!

If you go to the Tate Modern Museum in London and click on "Chairman Mao" you can submit your own photo, and if it is selected, you will be WARHOLIZED for 15 minutes on their website. Just think of the possibilities! Computer wallpaper, huge framed blow-ups, tee-shirt transfer for all your adoring friends. Have a 15 minutes of fame party at which everyone will have to wear masks of your purple or turquoise Warholized face... endless possibilities. If you win and you save a copy of your graphic, Mind Caviar will print it in Aldonza's next column.

Good Luck!!

Aldonza's Measures:

crown crown crown = Flawless, Fabulous Product.

crown crown = Very Good; I'd Recommend It To a Friend.

crown = Decent but Flawed. Some Shortcomings.

air freshener = This Stinks!