Back in about 2000 – 2004 or so, I was on LiveJournal a lot, and through a friend I met a most fascinating person named Shaye St. John. Shaye created and starred in movies I had never before seen the likes of….deeply disturbing, at times hillariously funny, movies that made statements about our consumer culture and commercialism, about celebrity obsession, about outsiders and the shunned and disabled and unwanted. Shaye herself was very mysterious, and although she could be seen on videos and she blogged quite a lot on LiveJournal, her origins and location, and the story of her life were never revealed. Shaye was an internet celebrity and instant phenomena among all who took the time to read her blogs or watch her movies.
Who or what Shaye was exactly was a topic of discussion among me and a few friends. Was she a puppet? A truly handicapped and/or amputated person inside of a rigged costume of some kind? A little person? A man, a woman? Were these movies the result of the inner workings of a truly disturbed person or performance art, or maybe a little of both? We knew she was friends with Carl Crew and speculated that maybe Carl Crew was actually Shaye….and we also saw a name associated with some of the movies: Eric Fournier….who we didn’t know from LiveJournal or anywhere else, but were very curious about.
Shaye’s website: http://www.shayesaintjohn.net
Somehow out of our LiveJournal association, Shaye and I struck up an email correspondence. We talked about many different things, her for the most part keeping up the Shaye persona, but sometimes letting it drop a bit. I tried my best to stay respectful of her wish to keep an air of mystery around herself even though my curiosity was intense! She seemed to be online a lot….often late at night, or overnight. Sometimes I thought I could feel a kind of sadness or loneliness coming from her, of the staying up all night by yourself on the internet variety. She loved seeing pictures of my son River and especially liked one I sent her of him wearing a feather boa. We got around to discussing Shaye as an art project eventually, and one thing that she told me that I remember very clearly is that the fact that none of her videos contained blood, extreme violence or gore, no swearing, yet were able to scare and creep out so many people was something she took pride in and strove towards. I don’t remember a lot of what else we wrote to each other about. I do remember at one point when she slipped out of the Shaye persona and said to me, “You are a person who really “gets me” as an artist, you understand what I am doing and what I am about.” and I felt like that was the one of the biggest compliments I ever could have gotten.
At one point she asked me to make some digital recordings of my son making noises and send them to her, which I did happily. I can’t remember if Shaye asked me to have him say “Kiki!” (the name of one of her doll companions,) or if I prompted him to do it…however the result of the recordings I sent her was a song called “Kiki – AHHHH!” – a version of which ended up on her dvd “Shaye St. John – the Triggers Compilation.” The version of the song on the dvd was redone with my son’s voice taken out and a digital voice replacing it. At one point after she had made the original song, she asked me if I could send her more sounds made by my son – maybe asking him to say “Help me!” or sound scared or something like that. I was all about to do it, then for some reason I was hesitant about it and I don’t remember why. Maybe I didn’t feel good about the idea of a song going out that sounded like child torture…..maybe the fact that I really didn’t know one single thing about who Shaye was, or who the person behind her was, gave me pause… anyway it never happened, and I do regret that I didn’t carry on with what she wanted. After that things kind of died down a bit between us. I believe she asked me one time about the song, if she published it would I care, maybe if I would sign a release and things like that and I remember telling her to go ahead and use it, but she must not have felt 100 percent around that because the version that did come out publicly was the one with the digital voice:
Between 2004 and 2009 we occasionally exchanged friendly “what’s up” greetings online…..and in the summer of 2010 I was informed that Shaye had passed away. That Shaye was in fact an artist named Eric Fournier who was my age, and who struggled with alcoholism and eventually lost that battle.
Somewhere, on one of my old computers, I believe I have the original song file of “Kiki – AHHH!” and also I am hoping to find some of our correspondence. I would like to put the song in its original form online for Shaye’s fans to hear and appreciate. I would not share any private correspondence, however I would like to have it to re-read it.
A very good friend sent me a link to the video below earlier this month….which I just got around to watching today, with interest and amazement….maybe Shaye did not perish with Eric after all! The very thought of it is mind blowing. Shaye….if you’re out there….struggling in the witness protection program…..know that I am thinking of you often and praying for your swift return.
reportsfromthedancefloor 