BISCUIT I returned to Austin from San Francisco in 1980 after ending the tumultuous Seventies in a haze of what my friends and I referred to as the Three Ds: drugs, disco, and dick. It was a very different Austin than the one I had left a few years before. Punk ruled the scene and the first thing Sister Margaret did was take me to Raul’s to see the Dicks and the Big Boys play. Afterward, Margaret introduced me to Gary Floyd and Randy “Biscuit” Turner. I was dazzled by the raw power of their onstage performances, and they treated me like a star because my job in San Francisco had been to dress the notorious transvestite star Divine for her production of The Neon Woman. They interrogated me like I was on the witness stand, wanting to know everything they could about Divine, and I was awed by their attention. Especially Biscuit’s. I came to know Biscuit as someone who took the blank canvas of the world and slathered it with violent expressionism in color and creativity. In all of his pursuits, he made the world his own as if it had been designed for him and threw it back at us, not caring whether we liked it or not. And we did like it. And we loved him. Endless, boundless, and eternal. Good night, sweet prince; you’ll keep the angels in stitches.
KATRINA CUT-A-THON Join Avant Salon (Guadalupe and 34th, 458-5231) today, Thursday, Sept. 15, 7:30-10pm, as they raise money for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina! Enjoy the sounds of the ECFA Quartet as you get a top-shelf hairdo for only $35. All proceeds go to displaced families living in Austin. Plus, all Avant Garde locations will be donating 10% of their total Thursday sales to the Aveda Hurricane Relief Fund to assist their Aveda brethren also displaced by the storm. www.avantsalon.com.
This article appears in September 16 • 2005.