Murder at the Pink Tarantula
Carmel Sanger's death -- a walk-in shooting at a SOMA hair salon called the Pink Tarantula -- was professionally brutal. Her life was a wondrous combination of the drag queens and musicians and druggies and gays and bikers and lesbians and tattooists
The hustling came in many forms. A boyfriend who did advertising voice-overs got her a similar gig. Soon, her young voice was heard on Australian television, shilling for an ambulance service. She made and sold jewelry and sang in punk bands, but her true talent -- her eye for the outlandish edge of fashion -- was already emerging. On her own body. Her head was totally shaved; outrageous mascara and eyeliner swoops launched out from her eyes and whooshed back across the temples, twin ocular flames that met at the back of her skull. She modeled for the hip '70s Australian designer Zandra Rhodes. British photographer Norman Parkinson came to town, in the midst of putting together a book on punk fashion called Beautiful Women. Although his finished product focused on the street-rat scene of London, two shots were included from Australia. Both were of Carmel.
http://www.sfweekly.com/1997-06-18/news/murder-at-the-pink-tarantula/2/
