Michael Cavadias gets political.

There's a point near the beginning of filmmaker Rose Troche's recent adaptation of A.M. Homes' The Safety of Objects when actor Joshua Jackson (portraying Glenn Close's doomed rocker son) performs a striking tune called "Paul's Song" at a club in a suburban California shopping mall. It's not the set-up here that grabs you, nor is it Jackson's performance. What really makes the scene work is the music, a totally original, psychedelic-pop blend, and the unexpectedly commanding voice thundering from Jackson's lip-synched mouth.

That voice belongs to Michael Cavadias, otherwise known as the androgynously beautiful club artiste Lily of the Valley, and the band you hear on the soundtrack is Bullet, founded in 1996 by Cavadias, Itchy Trigger Finger's Barb Morrison and guitarist Ena Kostabi. In the years since its formation, Charlie Nieland (of Her Vanished Grace), bassist Rob Kim and drummer Doug Steinberg have hooked up with the group, and Bullet is now recognized as one of the best acts around in these chronically flat musical times. It's played such venues as CBGB and Arlene Grocery and shared the stage with notable musicians like Rufus Wainwright and Antony and the Johnsons. Most important, unlike so many of today's listless indies, Bullet actually knows something about writing music, putting on a show, and keeping audiences awake.

Much of the band's success comes from Cavadias' disarmingly sweet charisma?there's something refreshing about a lead singer who's as transfixed by Andy Warhol's legendary transvestite superstar Candy Darling as he is by more typical indie icons like David Bowie or Iggy Pop. But then he has never allowed himself to get stuck in any one mold. Perhaps that's because of his schizophrenic California childhood, as the son of a supportive, progressive mother and a rigidly right-wing, disciplinarian dad. Or, maybe that's just the way he is.

He escaped to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1990 and the first day there struck up a friendship with classmate Antony (later of the Johnsons). Together, they helped form the notorious Black Lips Performance Cult, which, appearing at the East Village's Pyramid Club from 1992 to 1995, profoundly affected a generation of avant-garde artists. It was here that Cavadias developed his drag persona Lily, inspiring and being inspired by such fellow Black Lips cultists as Kabuki Starshine and Page.

He's also been a member of the Mabou Mines Experimental Theatre Company, acting with the likes of Ruth Maleczech, Terry O'Reilly and Black-Eyed Susan; performed at the famed cabaret Squeezebox with fellow "gender illusionists" Mistress Formika, Sherry Vine and Justin Bond, and been a fashion model for photographers like Stephen Klein and Mario Testino. But it was in the 2000 film Wonder Boys that he made one of his greatest marks, when, in a memorably off-beat performance, he costarred with Michael Douglas and Frances McDormand as Robert Downey Jr.'s transvestite lover. His life hasn't been the same since.

These days he's become increasingly involved with progressive politics. But in contrast to other rocker-politicos, like, say, some of those DC punks from the 90s who go for dogmatic (and alienating) political posturing, Cavadias is what he calls a "pragmatic liberal," volunteering for mainstream politicians like Mark Green in order, he says, "to affect policy and elect people (however flawed) who will move us closer to a just society."

This pragmatism doesn't mean that he's not ardent about his beliefs. Don't even get him started, for instance, on former mayor Ed Koch ("Watching him talk is like watching a dragon vomit") or, in particular, failed presidential candidate Ralph Nader and his supporters, many of whom, Cavadias believes, are privileged, white heterosexual college kids or clueless stars. He feels they should be held partially accountable for George W. Bush's election and its negative consequences.

"All those rich celebrities can move to France if things go really bad," he says, "while the most oppressive presidency that I have seen in my lifetime destroys less fortunate human lives, and the most vulnerable of our citizens suffer."

Bullet has released a CD and is providing backup for Rufus Wainwright's cut on the forthcoming Hedwig and the Angry Inch tribute album. In the meantime, Cavadias is pouring his anger and disillusionment?as well as his hopes?into an absurdist, subtly political screenplay, The Return of Clay Woman, which takes off from a character he first created back when he was at NYU.

"It's surreal science fiction," he explains, "with sadness and ridiculousness dripping all over it. It's the one project that's allowing me to use so many of the people I love and admire. I want to make something that brings all the acting and music and politics into one cohesive statement about our very disturbing world?but with a fair amount of laughs."