wow — a lot of death on the blog this week. On Saturday, one of my favorite people in the world passed on from AIDS complications (yep, it still happens — drugs aren’t magic, people). Willi Ninja, voguer extraodinaire, mother of the House of Ninja, superfamous spokesperson for utterly fabulous butch queen love, was FIERCENESS itself. We’ll miss you Willie.
THE QUEEN OF BUTCH FEMME REALNESS
Check out this awesome YouTube tribute.
I met Willi when I was but a wee thing in NYC in the late 80s. I was at the height of my first club kid phase, doing the door with the IT TWINS at the World and Save the Robots, a mere teen hanger-on to all my glittery heroes, when he crossed my path — and crossed and crossed it! Girl, he was a human pretzel, a cyclonic blackalicious blur. All those flailing limbs! This was before Paris is Burning or Vogue came out (it was right around the time of Malcome McLaren’s awesome “Deep in Vogue” dancefloor shaker), and he wasn’t all internationally famous yet — but he was ROYALTY, you could smell it. He briefly commented nicely on my gold sequined short-shorts and blue afro (he thankfully said nothing about my giant Burger King crown) and moved through the party like a Swiss Army Knife thru butter. She moved thru the FAIR. I was star strucked.
He was only 45, but what a world of inspiration he leaves behind. The kids never die. FIERCE N HEVEN.