Jonathon Delacour is is talking about t.A.T.u., the Russian teenage possibly-lesbian musical sensation that has, I’m sure, kept a lot of lonely men awake at night. Their first single, All the Things She Said, was recommended to me a few months back by a number of friends almost simultaneously as “soft porn with lyrics” (and by recommended I mean that I got a number of IMs that, to paraphrase, told me to stop everything I was doing and watch the video right now).

It is certainly provocative, “portraying Tatu as nubile schoolgirls engaging in passionate embraces while being watched from behind a wire fence by a disapproving crowd of stony-faced adults” (to lift a quote Jonathon used from the Sydney Morning Herald). Despite the fact that the entire lesbian thing is just a marketing ploy (from the same SMH article: “In Russia, this whole lesbian thing has never been taken seriously. When they’ve been interviewed on talk shows and asked, ‘Are you really lesbians?’, they’ve said, ‘No, it’s a trick, we have boyfriends, we are normal girls, we do this for image.’”), it makes for quite an experience if you’re into nubile schoolgirls making out in the rain. If I wanted to watch porn, however, I would simply watch porn, so beyond that initial piqued interest I didn’t think much of it.

Cue to months later, in an exceedingly cramped bar (more like a breezeway with a bartender, absolutely packed with people) in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood of Washington D.C., just south of where 18th Street NW crosses Columbia Road. Four of us had gone to a trendy little club earlier in the evening but left after it had been inundated with patrons. A Scottish guy whose name I can’t recall (all I remember is that he sounded almost exactly like Francis Begbie (Robert Carlyle) in Trainspotting) suggested that we just get some beers and bring them back to the hostel, but after finding out that you couldn’t purchase alcohol in stores after 10 (but you could buy it in bars), we decided to wedge ourselves in the throng of people that occupied the cramped ‘breezeway with a bartender’ mentioned above. After trading six or seven rounds, we were quite thoroughly hammered and began to talk about all sorts of inane things.

After commenting on the features of countless Georgetown and GWU coeds, he brings up t.A.T.u. quite out of the blue.

“Have you ever seen those lesbian chicks from Russia, like tattoo or something?”

Yeah, I think so. Making out in the rain?

“Yeah, that’s them. Fucking unbelievable, no?”

Indeed. It’s not the sort of thing you’re going to see on MTV, that’s for sure.

“Fuck no, you Americans are too sensitive about that sort of thing. It was the most popular video back home for months, though.”

Really?

“Aye. My flatmates would watch it instead of going to fucking church on Sundays. They said it was fucking religious experience just the same, and I’d have a hard time disagreeing with them.”

Yeah, no shit.

“I’ve heard that they were like fourteen when they filmed that, too. Even better, no?”

Umm, no.

Posted by John on Sunday, May 25th, 2003 at 8:54 am.