The Oberlin Review
<< Front page Arts February 22, 2008

Trans, Jewish Performer Katz Kills at the Cat

The one and only member of the Athens Boys Choir, Katz, OC ’81, (who only uses one name), delivered an alternately irreverent and self-revealing spoken-word show at the Cat in the Cream last Thursday night. As a transgender Jewish guy from Georgia, whose performance was sponsored by Queer Jews & Allies, Oberlin Hillel, Lambda Union and Transgender Awareness Group, he repeatedly mentioned his excitement at performing for an audience of Jews, as well as a crowd with trans and queer activists. Most of the Cat’s chairs were filled, and Katz said it was one of the larger college audiences he’s performed for.

The tone ranged from silly to painful, and was sometimes both at once.  His verses cover topics from Nancy Reagan to “frantic sex up against the wall” to nightmares of being beaten up in a rest stop bathroom and commemoration of Georgia’s murdered trans people. He uses his poetry as a tool for advocacy and education, but he clearly has fun with it. A lot of it was immediately personal, with lyrics such as “seems I came out of the womb already self-hating.”

With his own method for creating world peace (“Stop blowing up shit”) and the many references to Jewish and queer pop-culture, Katz’s lyrics got a good deal of support from the audience, particularly for crowd-pleasers like “Tranny Got Pack.” To back up his verses, he used videos featuring Jane Fonda and Barbara Streisand (as Yentl, of course) and killer scenes from Roller Boogie (1979).

Having once drunkenly stumbled around Tappan Square himself, Katz was glad to be back and the Cat audience seemed happy to welcome him. A self-defined “equal-opportunity lover,” he has a new album out called Jockstraps and Unicorns. He is also a happy resident of MySpace.

 


 
 
   

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