Mark Montgomery French: How tall are you?  

Alexa Fraser-Herron: I am 5′9″ and a half.

You seem taller. 

I think it’s my gravitas (laughter), and my taste in shoes.

Where are you from? 

I’m from Los Angeles. I was born in a natural birth clinic in Azusa, California. My parents were living in Hollywood, in an apartment down the street from Hollywood High, but for whatever reason they wanted to have me there. So when my Mom went into labor they drove an hour out to Azusa. I was born in the “Oasis Room”. There’s a photo of the doctor that birthed me, holding me, and he’s wearing jeans. And it looks like we’re just in some cool hippie bedroom.

Is your family tall? 

On my mother’s side a lot of us are Scottish, and us Scots are pretty tall. She’s taller than me, maybe about 6′. My father, on the other hand, is about my height and his mother is this teeny tiny Austrian woman. So I’m a mix in terms of background.

How old were you when you ended up reaching 5′9″? 

I was about twelve.

WHOA! 

I’ve been this height for a really long time.

How, how, how was that change? 

That was…fucked. I was in seventh grade, I was this height, I had glasses, I had crooked teeth and I felt super awkward, not attractive and definitely not athletic. Every other person and a lot of adults would share their opinion of what I could do with my marvelous height, and it never failed to either be modeling or basketball. I was like, “awesome”. Even though I was a kid, I knew enough to know that if I went out for modeling jobs I would probably get fully roasted for not being thin. And the basketball thing was a joke because I was not athletic at all. And then if there was any interest in your pre-pubescent love life, it was “Oh you should be with that guy. He’s tall like you.”

I remember sitting in the front row of my high school geometry class with terrible vision—I was wearing glasses but they must not have been the correct prescription—and my teacher Miss Berger was trying to pressure me into sitting in the back of the class. I said “I can’t see the board” and she said “What are you talking about? You’re so tall”.

Because height and distance are totally the same. Well, she wasn’t the physics teacher… 

No, not at all.

Your mom is tall, so I guess her reaction to you being tall and shorter than her was probably not a big deal. 

She was very protective of me. For school photo day—where they get all the kids together to take a group shot—I was always, always relegated to the back row. And she’d always say “That’s so fucking stupid”.

When I was 12 years old we went to New Orleans for the first time. We took the Amtrak train and my mom got a little cabin for us since it was a three day trip, and I used to take off around the train by myself. Part of being that height at such a young age is that a lot of men just assume you’re older (or maybe they don’t because there are plenty of grown men that are gross that like younger girls anyway).

I remember seeing this guy around the train that was kind of cute, and I was too young to understand how old he was. He would like kind of, you know, notice me and watch me and I kinda got this feeling like that we liked each other. And then when we got into New Orleans, I saw him out in the crowds of people looking for their bags. I was separated from my parents for like a second and he swooped in to make his move. And his line was—in 1992—“hey, were you ever at a party in Florida in 1981?” It was the most random assemblage of facts as he was trying to figure out if we’d ever met before. All of a sudden my mom was right there, and she said “She was a year old in 1981 so no, that wasn’t her.”

Creepy. 

A little bit.

Do you still get people coming up to you in public about your height? 

Oh, totally. It’s mostly men that I think are interested in me and maybe use it as a way to kind of get in and pick me up, or make an idiot of themselves. I don’t know. One of the most recent memorable examples was when a guy sidled up to me while I was waiting across the street and said “You’re my height! How tall are you?”

Wow. He really thought that one through. Did you actually end up playing basketball or modeling? 

Of course not. If I’ve modeled anything it would’ve been in the early days of Etsy when I made stuff, but definitely nothing professional.

Did your height change how your friends related to you?

Growing up I bounced around a lot in terms of friend groups. Sometimes I had friends that were bigger and more Amazonal than me. I often was the tallest in the group, and like the funny fat girl trope I do think that when you’re not conventionally attractive or “normal” it does make you work harder to get accepted. I’ve been a crack-up funny person for as long as I can remember so that might have been a part of it. I never had trouble making friends or keeping them necessarily because I was fairly fun to be around. But every now and then there’d be the whole “Ooh, Alexa, go for that guy. He’s tall too!”

Because that’s how it works. (laughter) 

During my time in art school I sat through so many inane critiques and I saw when people really aren’t that engaged—I don’t want to say when they’re not intelligent because I think there’s more to it than that—they just hone in on the most obvious thing. “You’re tall. What’s that like? Oh, your hair is red.” Mm-hmm…

Since your height has helped you be a crack-up, how do you think it’s helped you as a filmmaker? 

Oh wow. That’s kind of a deep dive. (mimes plugging her nose and jumping in the water) I love film. I watched tons and tons of TV and movies from a very young age. I was an only child until I was ten and to my parents I was the guinea pig baby where they maybe did all kinds of stuff wrong and they’re were too young to know. One of those things was that the TV would come on as soon as I got up and no one told me to shut it off. And once I got home from school it came right back on again and stayed on typically until after I fell asleep. I fell asleep watching television all the time and I’ve watched sooooooo much stuff: all different kinds of genres, highbrow, lowbrow, what have you.

I feel like a lot of that informed my point of view as a filmmaker. Being tall—obviously I don’t think that’s all there was to it—but my height and always feeling different when I was growing up,  maybe worked in tandem with the kinds of music and film and TV shows I ended up being attracted to and identifying with. And once I started to actually make movies, I definitely became drawn to stories that are a little bit different with characters that you don’t often see.

I got teased a lot for my appearance, my height hyping part of that. Growing up in L.A. in the eighties and nineties, I feel very fortunate that instead of me being “Oh, I’m ugly and useless so I’ll just go hide until I go to college”, I leaned into stuff and was like, well, “fuck you”, and embraced certain aspects of myself. You start picking aspects of pop culture and film and music that builds you up and protects you, right?

What were you watching that made you say “THAT is something I’m going to take and inspire me to make something else”?

It’s funny now revisiting stuff that I remember watching growing up, not realizing it back then that it totally was contributing to my identity as a storyteller. One of the big ones was Jonathan Demme films. Silence of the Lambs came out when I was twelve and I was like, “Oh my gosh, the Something Wild/Married to the Mob guy made this like really slick movie with Jodie Foster.”

If you remember, Married to the Mob and Something Wild all had these really kooky, weird characters with really rad clothes. A lot of it was counterculture-y and different. And there was Sister Carol, who’s like the Jamaican woman that was always a peripheral character in his stories, and if you watch Rachel Getting Married she sings in the wedding. I always love that, not necessarily inside jokes, but if you like a certain filmmaker and you watch their work you’re sort of rewarded with those in-jokes and those Easter eggs and those themes that keep coming up, like “Goodbye Horses”. He made that song famous with the Buffalo Bill stripping scene in Silence of the Lambs, but he actually used that song in several of his films before he made that.

What other music were you listening to at the time?

I really liked The Crow soundtrack that came out when I was in junior high and kids were discovering bands just by listening to this.

Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots…

Jesus and Mary Chain, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. But more important for me was the touchstone that it provided. I got the James O’Barr graphic novel that The Crow was based on and there are Joy Division lyrics all over it. And the song that Nine Inch Nails does on that soundtrack is “Dead Souls”, which is a cover of Joy Division. Joy Division was a big band to me—I remember there was one kid in my high school that wore a Joy Division t-shirt, I think it might have been the statue of the woman that’s lying back with her hand over her eyes.

Back then if you wanted to listen to music you’d have to go buy it, you’d have to commit, and I didn’t have a lot of money. So I remember asking him “Do you listen to Joy Division? Are they any good?” And he’s like, “they’re awesome”. I bought Substance and I still think it’s a near-perfect album.

What do you think regular-sized people are surprised about that’s normal to you because of your height?

How much it’s a topic of conversation, but I think that if you’re below a certain height it’s a topic of conversation for you too. “You’re so small and blah, blah, blah.”

The effect is that you’re not actually a human being, you’re a thing for them to comment and gawk at. “You’re adorable! It’s so wonderful that your tiny hands can turn the wheel!”

My thing that surprises regular-sized people is how much effort it takes to actually transport myself anywhere. If I fly it has to be a first-class seat. 

Oh my God.

First-class isn’t even comfortable, it’s just doable. My knees are up against the seat in front of me but I’m just able to walk upright after three and half hours in the air. 

I’ve been flying a lot in the past year and I usually end up in the cheap seats. I guess it’s my hips or something but I really prefer to have my legs crossed, and trying to cross my legs back there is just…(laughter)…my knee comes up to my ear and hopefully I’m not kicking the person next to me.

I just helped one of my oldest friends move out of L.A. where she’d been living for 17 years.

And by oldest, you mean she’s 95.

Yeah, she’s 95, super old…(laughter) She mentioned she was driving to Oregon with her cat, and I said “Do you want me to come with you”? I thought it’d be a really good bonding thing and I could also be there to support her. Then it dawned on me that she has a fucking Fiat, and I said I would help her drive! I’m glad I did it, but ho-ly shit. I’m 55 percent legs by the way. I did the math. (laughter) That should be a question for your interviews. You should start bringing measuring tapes.

“Pardon me, what percentage of you is leg?” 

I do remember when I worked retail that a friend of my boss came in one day and he was incredibly tall. He had to have been 6′7″, 6′8″. And because I’m tall too, and I’ve had people falling over my height, I just blurted out—as a comrade—“Oh you are magnificently tall. That is so wonderful”.

That’s nice.

Instead of saying “Ya FREAK! How tall are you? Is there the opposite of lifts you can wear for your shoes?” (laughter)

Dips!

It just carves out the floor wherever you go.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

The post Interview With a Tall Person: Filmmaker Alexa Fraser-Herron appeared first on CircusTall.com — Very tall pop culture writing at its funniest.

Mark Montgomery French: How tall are you?

Tresca Behling: I’ve been 5′11″ in my life. I’m 55 years old, so I am probably a little under 5′10″now.

Does extreme height run in your family?

Yes. I am a mix of somewhat tall, doughy Midwestern people and then very tall, rangy Kentucky Midwesterners. I got a little of both unfortunately.

How old were you when you first became 5′11″?

When I was in eighth or ninth grade, so at 13 or 14 I was as tall as I was going to get. I grew fast and for a long time it was awkward. It took awhile before I found power in it. When I was 14 I went to a Rather Ripped Records’ anniversary party, which was at a bar. I got in because I was tall and I had makeup on. I saw Snakefinger and Little Roger & The Goosebumps, and it was basically one of the best nights of my life. It was like—“My God, this is the best”—simply because I was tall.

When you reached this incredible height, were coaches running after you for sports?

There was a little bit of that, but I think I looked too much like the stoner/rocker type, and there was going to be no cheese down that tunnel. I got asked all the time. Do you play basketball, do you play volleyball?

I’ve never been asked to play volleyball, ever. And I like volleyball.

I think they imagine you with ponytails and shorts, and…

I used to pull off the ponytail-and-shorts look, back when I had hair. Was there a time gap between being tall and realizing you were tall?

I’ve always been one of the tallest kids in my class. And I was thinking about this—as a girl—girls are cute. At some point, girls become beautiful. Being tall, I just felt like an ogre for many years. It just was never really a positive thing, except when I wanted to go do something rad like hitchhike up to Oregon to go hang in a pot farm when I was 13. I could go do adventurous things, but I didn’t feel feminine.

About the power thing, one day in eighth grade there was this girl named Robin who was hanging out with me and all of a sudden, we were surrounded by girls who terrified me. These were the tough girls, and I had never been tough, and I abhor violence. They surrounded me, they looked at her, and they said, “We’re still going to kick your ass! You think we’re not going to get you because you’re hanging around with Tresca? We’ll get you one day.” I realized that my height was protecting this little woman from five of the scariest people that I knew. That was the day that I kind of realized that I was tall and that it meant something else.

Did you notice a change in relationships with family or close friends when you went from a certain height to your final height?

My mom loved my height. She would hug me and always say, “my enormous Amazonian daughter.” As for friends, in ninth grade I had a crush on this guy Kevin. I liked him, and he liked me too. But it got to this crucial point where actually he said, “listen, I cannot do this because you’re just too tall”. I punched a wall, and I broke my hand.

Oh no!

I had a cast up to here (pointing at her wrist). I was just so pissed off and heartbroken, but I also thought, “what a pussy”. I know very tall women who will not date guys who are shorter than them. I know tall women who won’t date guys under 5′11″. Like, they don’t have to be taller than them, but they have to be at least 5′11″. I have never been that person.

It’s really weird, and it rubs me the wrong way that these women are so…

Height-ist?

Height-ist. I want to feel feminine. I want to be held. When I do date a big guy, it’s fantastic to feel that. It’s not required, but it’s fantastic. Some women really need to feel like the more feminine member of the team and that is completely measured out in height. Which is very abstract to me.

I could imagine someone needing an amusement park style Yosemite Sam poster on the wall stating “you must be this tall to date me.”

My current boyfriend is 6′2″, but my last boyfriend was 5′3″. Basically, what I learned from breaking my hand over that guy was that he was just a big fat pussy and couldn’t handle it. I could handle it but he couldn’t.

I once got out of a car to talk with a guy who was cruising in the car next to me. He stepped out, then I stepped out and he went “Whoa! Whoa!” and got back in his car. I said “Sorry”. I felt like Sasquatch. It was pretty fucking awful.

Do strangers approach you about your height?

Strange, when you’re a 55-year-old woman people don’t approach you much at all. There’s a certain invisibility that starts to happen. But when I was young, absolutely.

How has your height changed your perspective of the world?

I realize that there’s a certain privilege involved with it in terms of feeling safe, as a woman. There probably have been times that I’m completely unaware of when I was coming back from some place late at night by myself where some guy looked at me and went “no, not her” because I was more than he was prepared to handle. If he wanted to dominate something, I was not going to be that dominatable one.

A lot of small women I know have not felt safe in the world. I’m talking as young women. Young women are always the ones that are…

Preyed upon?

Preyed upon. When I was young, guys would flash me.

Whoa.

Oh God, it happened so many times. Right on hiking trails, whatever. There’s so many smaller women who’ve experienced so much more harm than I think I have. I have been date raped by a guy who was 6′7″. Like he had to be that big, you know what I mean? There’s a whole lot of privilege that I’ve experienced, so much that I thought sexism didn’t exist to the degree to which it exists.

I was molested as a kid. Some guy dragged me off the street when I was 10 and tried to do stuff to me behind a house. This shit happens to women all the time, and at some point it really just stopped happening to me as much. That change definitely shaped my world view. Feeling powerful, feeling privilege. When I feel a little bit unsafe on the street, I pull myself up and I add a little swagger and I know that I can look more intimidating. It’s a little power and privilege in not being as vulnerable as a woman.

When I go to concerts, and this has been since I was 15 years old in punk rock, I will look around me, because I am big and obscure vision, and I will pull all the smaller women around me in front of me. And they’re always very, very grateful, but what this does is clear the line of vision for me, because there’s suddenly a gap of a few feet where there’s nothing but short people, so I can see the stage better.

At The Cocteau Twins there was this very tiny, very stoned woman who I put in front of me and it was sort of like a kangaroo-in the-pouch situation. She was so whacked out on Ecstasy and it was such an amazing show, that I was just kind of a tree and protected her the entire show. So there is a certain amount of protectiveness that comes out with height. And I’ve jumped into some fights, too. It’s the noblesse oblige, except it’s the height oblige.

I assume the fight you jumped into was not at The Cocteau Twins.

No, no, no. This is was something completely else. And what I got for my trouble was I got punched twice in the mouth and my lips wrapped around my teeth, and I went to COMDEX in Las Vegas the next day.

Wow. Heavy. Speaking of heavy, I was curious if the size of the electric bass attracted you to playing it.

No. Why is Barry White so fucking irresistible? Because he’s got that…

Bass!

Women are much more sensitive to high frequencies, so that we can hear our babies crying. When the winds are blowing through the Savannah grasses, back when we were all fucking in Africa, we just had to be tuned to a higher frequency. So it wasn’t the size of the bass but definitely the big comforting sound. It’s also easier to play, even though I’ve got long hands. I love how the bass goes in a song, and I love the feel of bass strings. They’re big and comfy.

I’ve had heavy basses, and eventually it feels everything’s pulling me down, my spine is compacting. I use an elastic strap which allows the bass to move without pulling my body down.

I’ve never heard of this.

They’re the best. When you’re just standing around talking, you can kind of hold it up and bounce it a little bit and take the weight off. It’s really nice.

What surprises you about height that average-sized people don’t realize?

Being pregnant was awesome. I was easily getting in and out of cars, I was still hiking, and I was still washing the car when I was nine months pregnant because I had so much more leverage. My arms were so much longer and my legs were so much longer that I just had more levers. Whereas these tiny women are like…

Useless.

…they’re buried under this giant egg. They’re like “Argh”. I’m like “I’m still doing things”.

Also, in the ’70s, remember those nice high-waist bell bottoms that just totally covered your platform shoes, how cool that looked? Never fucking happened for me. Number one, there were no pants long enough. Levi’s did make a 29-36 for a minute, but I don’t know where those went because they barely have any 36 inseams anymore. Number two, wearing platform shoes, no, that wasn’t going to happen. That was just going to put me in a different alien fit…

When vintage clothes were big in the early ’90s it could never become part of my lifestyle.

The occasional Hawaiian shirt, perhaps.

Yeah maybe, right? I’m not going to find some nice XXL ’30s blazer that just happens to show up from someone’s attic…

I just had a recent insight about that, which was I thought everybody was insanely tiny back then because that’s what we see from vintage clothing. Those are the clothes that survived, which means all the normal-sized people wore their clothes out. These are the size ones and twos that didn’t get a lot of play.

That makes total sense.

At the Rosie the Riveter Museum, there’s a newsreel that says husky girls everywhere are encouraged to work in the factories [inferring] the little petite ones, they can’t possibly do that. They’re too cute to do that, so they hired the husky girls, back in the ’30s and ’40s …

Who were working their clothes until they fell apart.

Exactly.

Riveting things.

It wasn’t like the onset of McDonald’s or anything like that. There were fucking big people all the time. There were some really great late ’60s, early ’70s golf pants that were in really long sizes, bizarre polyester patterns that I found in vintage. I just think that bigger people, maybe we were harder on our clothes and we wore them out.

I totally believe that. It holds so much more weight per square inch.

Those seams don’t have a chance.

Have you met a famous person and they’re like, “My God, you’re so tall?”

I was at the SIGGRAPH convention, watching a computer animation at the Apple booth. All of a sudden I noticed that there’s some little guy who’s leaning on me. I tried to move away from him but for some reason he’s still leaning on me. I looked down and it’s Jerry Brown, who was the Governor of California at the time. I kind of nudged him off of me but I really just felt like a piece of furniture.

Another time I was in the gift shop of the New York Modern Museum of Art. I was from California and it was the ’80s, so I had a blond brushy flattop and I was wearing a vintage Hawaiian shirt and hot pink shorts. I look across the shop and there’s my cousin, who going “Look, next to you”. I looked down and it’s Diane Keaton who was like, miniature. She’s looking up at me like I am an object that she’s never seen before.

Like an alien landed?

Alien. Because in New York at that time everyone wore black.

Right.

I was enormous and colorful. I just looked down, and she kind of smiled surprisedly up at me. Anyway…I have been enormous to some people.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

The post Interview With a Tall Person: Bassist/Stylist Tresca Behling appeared first on CircusTall.com — Very tall pop culture writing at its funniest.