The True Story Of Mr. Kiss Express And Lisa Mary
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Who… What… Is Mr. Kiss Express?
It’s a bird, it’s a plane…
It’s a worm, it’s a train…
Jill Soloway (United States of Tara and Six Feet Under): Yay… Kiss Express. It’s a river of joy. There’s the raw passion of the early Dancing Queen days, but from the complex outpost that is today’s Lisa: a woman who’s grown up, raised a couple kids, and developed the confidence and perspective of a mature artist. I love that she’s experimenting with form: some of it is scrawled, some typed, some drawn from the depths of her guts. She inspires me to be a better writer– hell, forget that, I straight on imitate her wild style whenever I want to conjure up women who take themselves seriously. Lisa Carver is a poet, artist, genius, wolf, animal, goddess, ruler.
Lorrie (Lisa’s cousin): Hummmm, I just read it. Trying to think….
Kathleen Hanna: In 1993 I dropped half a hit of acid, climbed under a dining room table and read Lisa Carver’s zine ‘Rollerderby’ over and over. Shortly thereafter, I bought everything I could find that had her name on it.
I was 25 and on tour in England with my band Bikini Kill. I was getting kind of famous and had recently been elected the de facto leader of a new feminist movement called Riot Grrrl. The pressure was intense (hence the acid) and I felt compelled to give up my wildness and turn myself into “a positive female role model.” Enter Lisa Carver.
I eyed Lisa the way Arthur Ashe must’ve eyed John McEnroe as he smashed his tennis racket into the ground. I longed to escape my sanitized identity and live with wild abandon the way Lisa did in her writing. While I worried about backlash and consequences, Lisa strutted around focused on blood, guts and wanting more sex.
She’s influenced tons of people and become a bit of an icon herself, but she’s never let it affect her work. I haven’t always agreed with her (we even had a letter writing argument in ‘Rollerderby’ about whether or not something she’d written was racist) but one thing is for sure: Lisa’s writing is alive. It’s desperate, exploratory and hungry. Reading it is like going into a cave with her and not knowing if she’s gonna stab you in the mouth or hug you.
At this point I should probably contextualize ‘Mr. Kiss Express’ and talk about the Clarence Thomas hearings or Sonic Youth or psychoanalysis or something, but Lisa’s work isn’t important to me because of those things. Sure, the 90′s would’ve been a waveless ocean of girls-kick-ass-sameness without her, but what is more important is that Lisa lets us watch the act of a woman saving her own life with humor, imagination and courage.
7 April 2010
Electronic File (PDF) | 27 pages | 13.9 MB | Primarily text, includes photos and illustrations by Lisa C. Carver
