Scene and Herd - Pink Slip’s Premiere at the Stud
Current mood: cheerful
Category: Parties and Nightlife
The first time I attended Trannyshack, it was summer of 1997.
I was taking my friend Mike from Australia. We came in, bought a drink, danced, saw a couple of acts, and left. We went to a couple other places, too. He'd never been to a gay bar, so I wanted him to have a variety.
T-shack had already had a few elemental moments, but the non-event crowd was largely comprised of holdovers from the Club Kid era.
My old familiars were still making due with their SOMA hovels and part-time jobs, willfully resisting immersion in the dot coms. They were laughing at the drag queens (who obviously were not getting laid!) and furiously cruising people they still hadn't checked off their lifetime to-do list because of hiv serostatus or past drug abuse.
M4m4sex was but a glimmer on the glans of it's founder. Occasionally a young gay tourist from France or Turkey would stumble in from one of the discount hotels in the neighborhood having read about The Stud in guidebooks, not knowing the difference between Tuesday and Wednesday night at the venue. That kind of randomness kept people coming back.
Probably because of this, many people my age never full appreciated Trannyshack mania. Perhaps, we saw the night as desultory entertainment for people who'd chosen "being cool" over "making it."
Perhaps, we didn't recognize it for what it was: the seed bed a new San Francisco drag culture, the outgrowth of a project begun by celebutantes like Betty & Pansy, Jerome Caja, GGreg Taylor, D'arcy Drollinger, and the Klubstitute crew. Those were people I had admired and spent a great deal of time with when I first came to SF.
Some of Trannyshack's success was circumstantial. First, Tuesday was the wasteland of club nights. Suddenly, there was something to do on a Tuesday. Second, by hosting at a dive bar instead of a dance club or a cabaret, no one worried about spilling their drink on a subwoffer or a rug. Heck, you could getting feces on the audience and they'd cheer.
But most of it was the entertainers.
Pipi Lovestocking, Peaches Christ, Juanita More and others tried out their best ideas in front of their peers. Trannyshack was like a loose weekly drag workshop.
As the years went on, Trannyshack spilled out of the Stud for big events. So did the behind-the-scenes dramas. Heklina vs. other drag queens, Heklina vs. the Stud, Heklina vs. the djs, the door person, the bartenders, the.... You get the picture.
It became an institution too big for one dedicated person to represent.
Yet, it became clear Tuesday night, San Francisco craves and deserves more such institutions.
Sometimes when one represents an institution, instead of insisting on maintaining control one chooses to delegate authority. For the good of the institution, but also the City and the people who give up their time and dollars to support it.
Perhaps that means hiring a different PR firm or hiring a tax attorney. Perhaps that means taking money from United Airlines or AVIS or Red Bull when they can serve your interests.
Perhaps that means taking that money or gifts in kind and seeding other projects. Throwing it into a friend's full length feature film project, for example.
The fact that San Francisco is so historically allergic to the idea of capitalizing on it's most influential ideas is on of the reasons why the City is also so historically transitory. Photographs and cinema were pioneered here, television was invented here, but the the millions of jobs and opportunities those industries represent didn't stick around.
Recently, the Chronicle speculated that it was "too early" to spot the next Trannyshack, using divorce as a metaphor.
That didn't stop Virginia Suicide from trying.
Though she showed up a half-hour late for her inaugural hosting gig at Pink Slip, the new Tuesday night party, there were already signs that the drag winds in San Francsico were changing.
Suppositori Spelling dressed in a skin-tight black backless sheath to resemble the iconic women of Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" video and lip synced the song. Veronica Fake performed a Charleston flavored strip tease to "Raunchy." These performances were excellent and expected.
Downey's sing-a-long take on "Irreplacable" could have used some clipping, but it was a step in the right direction. Troupe Azul's belly dancing gave the Stud some of the alt circus vibe str8 folks have been indulging in this year. These were small departures.
But it was Pipi Lovestocking and Suicide herself who delivered a new meaning for the gathering.
Lovestocking's typical stand-up, ("I try to serve the gay community as a hole,") suddenlly homed in on the elephant in the room. She called out Heklina's name several times with a litany of insults. Lovestocking suggested "burning sage to cast out the old demons" and then began to an ageist riff.
No one, certainly not Lovestocking, cared how old any of the performers or the crowd were in years, it was freshness in their attitude and bearing that mattered. Lovestocking was a meta-example of that. With attendance and laughter, she and Bebe Sweetbriar and other revered names in the room demonstrated their willingness to shoulder others on their platforms.
Suicide's sang three numbers in elegant black dresses. First, the theme from the "Rocky Horror Picture Show." Not a few virgins looked bewildered when the bartenders put up their hands, waving them back and forth during the chorus.
Her other two choices were more reverent: "Wicked Game," and "Crying," the latter which she sang a cappella.
What suicide demonstrated was a willingness for San Francisco drag to move beyond a "show in the barn" concept, to take advantage of it's wealth of willing entertainers and a built in audience eager for both down-at-the-heel experiment and aspirational quality production.
Her pitch and delivery were consistent and, for maybe the first time in twelve years on a Tuesday night at the Stud, that mattered.
Scene and Herd - Midnight Mass features Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
Current mood: artistic
Category: Art and Photography
When Peaches Christ introduced Saturday's Midnight Mass it was exciting and a little sad.
"I'm feeling very emotional," she said as Troll girl humpped her leg.
Dream Warriors was the last presentation of this summer's series.
While Christ has many other irons in the fire (namely touring Midnight Mass and working on film projects), the crowd and the wonderful array of local drag talent will not coalesce for the purpose of celebrating cult film for another eleven months.
The pre-show, identical to the prior evening's, proved better the second time around.
Many of the audience members attended Friday's event and recalled Katie. She had been loud and disruptive throughout both pre-shows.
While many members of the audience were verbally aggressive or at least lovingly taunting of Katie, Christ came down hardest with a c-bomb. Still, it was clear Katie only wanted to be a part of the show. Christ professed, "I'm going to forgive her," and permitted Katie to come up on stage and sit in the Wizard Master wheelchair.
The two shared words after the Friday NOES screening. Katie confessed being fueled by cheap beer and peppermint schnapps. According to Christ, "I tried to 12-step her."
Three men entered the trivia contest: Jerry Lee, Coleman, and "Debauchery." Jerry Lee, dressed in a neat white shirt, red tie, and pullover vest looked especially gruesome drenched in fake blood shot from Troll Girl's water gun.
While this print demonstrated a lot of threading wear, the movie holds up over time as one of the best of the franchise.
Dream Warrior's invented a half-dozen terrifying new ways for Freddy's victims to die. Christ admitted, when it was released, she snuck into a movie theater many times to see it. She reported back to playground chums, "they rip a guys veins out and make him into a puppet."
Freddy pulls a would be television actress up eight feet and into a television screen which leaves a black mark on the wall. The visual joke of kids loitering in the television room without a television afterward justifies the hospital's implausible belief that the death was suicide.
My favorite demise happens to be a drug overdose. The arms of victim Taryn flicker with ten pink sinuses eager to accept heroin. Freddy's fingers, newly fitted with loaded syringes, jab into her arms and bliss her away.
It would have been interesting here (and in the case of the Wizard Master) to see the corpse afterward.
Other innovations in NOES 3 include an early use of wire assisted tumbling (one of Patricia Arquette's dream powers) and a sophisticated use of green screen (Arquette's decapitated mother.)
Oddly, these are juxtaposed beside later examples of anamatronic puppetry (the Kruger head eating Arquette) and stop-frame miniatures animation (Freddy's bones in the auto yard.)
Dream Warriors could be considered the first superhero team movie. The film provides a proving ground for concepts that would be used a decade later in X-men.
The teenagers use their dream powers sparingly and typically with the group interest in mind. The kids are outcast, but Freddy is more outcast. The oldest male demonstrates a kind of sympathy to the situation of the villain. Like the X-villains, Freddy is far more visually arresting that any of his good-doer counterparts. Tellingly, Taryn works through a few dominatrix cliches that were contemporary to the comic book look of X-men character Storm.
Next Friday at midnight, Peaches and Vinsantos co-host San Francisco's Underground Film Festival at the Bridge.
Scene and Herd - Midnight Mass presents Nightmare on Elm Street
Current mood: cheerful
Category: Art and Photography
One of Peaches Christ's bigger coups for this year's Midnight Mass was obtaining a new print of the orignial Nightmare on Elm Street from New Line Cinema.
New Line became known as "The House That Freddy Built" for it's ability to use the successful Elm Street Series to bankroll important but less popular material.
In the early 1980s, scandals regarding childhood sexual abuse began to grace the pages of the daily papers. Once a taboo subject, everyone new the name of the latest high profile pedophile. And, in their fear, the public attributed all manner of unknown powers to them.
A father and son on Long Island were alleged to have hypnotized students enrolled in their private computer courses with sexy Ascii games. A daycare center in Texas was alleged to have utilized pre-schoolers in Satanic rituals.
Vigilante justice prevailed in prisons where alleged perpetrators were abused or killed often before their cases could be plead. Many suspects prefered suicide to living with the stigma of unjust accusation.
Nightmare on Elm Street was a powerful metaphor for a time where sexual abuse at the hands of one's parents was still unthinkable and adults maintained paranoid suspicion of homosexuals, the heterosexual unmarried, and childcare providers.
When I entered the Bridge, Hugz Bunny was handing out green programs with Elm Street trivia. Did you know NOES was Johnny Depp's first film and he was selected by the casting director because he was cutest among the final three auditioning for the role?
The pre-show began with Martiny, in her play dress, pulling items out of a dollhouse with which to stay awake, including a mug of coffee and a spoon in which she illustrated how to freebase cocaine. Naturally, this was to no avail and she fell asleep. A scrim pulled away to reveal the "Troll Dancers" (which included a most wan and ashen Syphilis Diller) singing the Freddy Kruger jumprope song.
Shortly thereafter Peaches "Kruger" emerged and began lipsyncing Metallica's "Enter Sandman". Just like the NOES 3 solo vignettes set in Nancy's house, the Bridge stage grew thick with billowing down feathers.
Peaches welcomed the crowd which was especially warm to the occasion. She releated how she'd been photographed earlier in the day for The San Francisco Chronicle in her "Kruger" drag: red and green frayed sweaterdress, blacked-out teeth, fingerknives on one hand, and vericose veins painted over her usual drag face. "As if this were just my everyday."
A second number reintroduced Troll Girl, especially done up for the evening in a burn-victim version of her troll mask and her own set of fingerknives. A breif trivia contest followed where losers were sprayed by Troll Girl with fake blood from a squirtgun.
I'd forgotten many scenes from the original movie including the establishing dream in which Nancy's classmate tiptoes through Freddy's dreamtime boiler room.
I was also surprised at how much of the fashion and hair is coming back in style again after 25 years. Midlength cuts and big headphones for men, naturally curly hair and ruffles for women.
After the film, the Bridge screened a humorous "Nightmare on Castro Street" short featuring Martiny, Heklina, Sir Korks and Peaches as victims of a blackout-drunk Squeaky Blonde.
Women’s Will Presents "The Good Person of Sezchuan" in Dolores Park
Current mood: cheerful
Category: Art and Photography
When I told a friend about the all female Shakespearean theater group Women's Will he said, "That sounds really butch."
If in practice this seems to be the case, it could be because we expect to see men when we think of Shakespearean acting.
Or perhaps male playwrights have been putting words in the mouths of actresses for so long that we're only aware of the limitations for women in theater when they seize the opportunity to play Hamlet or Othello.
Perhaps it's even weirder than that.
I recall working teleprompter for a travel video show with a long haired leggy female anchor in the '90s. The male producer scripted lines for her such as, "I'll tell you how to get more bang for your buck." I told the producer it was unfair to expect a woman to say those words on television.
Still, the anchor dug into the solicitous lines. And her skirts got shorter and shorter with each passing week of production.
The producer and the anchor were optimizing a performance of femininity to appeal to an audience of largely sex-deprived senior men. Would the audience have changed the channel if the producer had made a different choice? Would the anchor have kept her job if she had "gone butch" and insisted on short hair, pantsuits and rewrites? The expectations were unfair to us all.
In this context, Women's Will feels like an all around give away. It's a chance for women performers to choose and enjoy archetypes of gender performance. In exchange, the audience creates a meta-culture of respect where, for a change, the stakes are not the performer's careers or social comfort.
Tony and I took in "The Good Person of Sezchuan" Sunday afternoon instead of working on our documentary project. The politics appealed to us both. I recognized the large number of small characters in the play make it an infrequent professional selection.
Brecht's play takes an unflinching look at the confluence of gender, poverty, and religion.
Three gods are questing after one good person. If they find that person, they will leave the earth exactly as it is. If they do not, there will be ominous consequences.
Shen Te is a prostitute who houses the gods for the night simply because she is unable to say, "no." The next morning, the gods reward her generosity with a large sum of money.
Shen Te buys a tobacco business with the windfall but is unprepared for the burdens of that accompany her new position. As friends, neighbors, and townspeople conspire to advantage themselves with her wealth, she invents a male alter-ego, Shui Ta, to do what she cannot do: reject their claims and proposals.
El Beh, a graduate of Cal's Performance Studies Department, performed the title role. Maryssa Wanlass stood out as Yang Sun, the suicidal, unemployed pilot whom Shen Te falls in love with and risks her livelihood for.
Like many of Brecht's other plays, "Sezchuan" ends with disgraced authorites, a flurry of ensemble activity, and a ukase to the audience to create their own moral from the fable with which they've been presented.
Later this year, Women's Will performs "Macbeth" and "Holiday Memories." "The Good Person of Sezchuan" has three remaining performances: August 15th at 5pm and August 16th at 4pm in the Yerba Buena Children's Garden and August 17th at 1pm in Dolores Park.
John Edwards’ Penis is Not Yours
Current mood: determined
Category: News and Politics
Why should gay men, or anyone for that matter, care about the recent admission of an extramarital affair by Senator John Edwards?
Well, they ought not to.
Except that his situation outlines the limitations of their own situation.
I am not one who subscribes to the idea that how one lives one's romantic or sexual life determines how one may be received in public life.
So, this does not diminish my tepid opinion of gay rights reluctant Edwards (whom I identified with relative to Anne Coulter in a previous blog entry.)
Further, I feel our collective obsession with these admissions are rooted in three things:
- a desire to publicly enforce the Medieval constraints of private marital contracts. - a disrespect for our bodies - a failure to accept sex as an appropriate and unexceptional recreational activity.
Receptive partners of the world, please note:
When John Edwards puts his penis in your mouth, asshole, or vagina it does not become your penis.
When John Edwards ejaculates on your dress or your tie it does not become your sperm.
And, yes, even when John Edwards impregnates you and you choose to carry the fertilized egg to term, that does not make that child John Edward's baby.
Which is why impregnated women need such generous legal protection. If sperm finally and legally belonged to the man who issued it, there would be no question that man could either relinquish ownership to the impregnated woman or insist on an abortion.
That he can do neither is a convenient finesse of his bodily rights. Further, it's unfair to a 50% unwanted child.
So, as long as abortion is legal and our justice system is flawed I would suggest abortion to the world's Rielle Hunters to avoid confusion. It's the only responsible option.
No, John Edwards, his penis, his sperm - that all belongs to John Edwards.
The sooner we all get used to that the less likely we will be to tempt him and scores of other public figures.
We tempt them to be an extension of our morality when we must all be our own moral representatives.
We tempt them to be representative of masculinity when we must all dissolve the connection between those characteristics we feel are masculine and male biology.
We tempt them to believe their semen is a property marker when we must retire the idea that a spouse or a sex partner is chattel.
I too, dislike the endless daisy chain of press conferences where male political figures confess their infidelity.
But what is at the heart of these displays is our collective inability to address the disordered structures of compulsory heterosexuality.
I reject the tacit conclusion that the public futures of these confessors are settled. Just one "unblemished" high profile figure embracing them rather than cultivating distance from them would do the trick.
If Barack Obama truly wanted to be a maverick he could do this. He would stop the continuing drain on his political party and define the Democrats as the party of forgiveness going forward.
In doing so, he could even been seen to support gay rights without backing gay marriage if he spoke directly about the situations of Bill Clinton and John Edwards in the context of compusory heterosexuality.
But he will not.
Even though the infidelities of these men (and Republican Bob Ryan and indirectly Eliot Spitzer) have helped clear his way to the Democratic Nomination.
Why?
In part, because he doesn't need to in order to get elected and the Democrats won't insist on it.
But also because Barack Obama, like every other official elected to national office in the United States has no analysis of compulsory heterosexuality, a thirty year old concept, or the inequities inherent in a pro-family political position, which are far riper.
Instead, Obama and the "Good Democrats" will regroup and distance themselves from the "Bad Democrats" whose years of public service can be negated based where they chose to drop their load.
That does not represent either change nor hope in my book.
What's worse, based on the above outlined structures, extramarital affairs will probably seem perfectly natural to all going forward.
The continuing parade of failures will surprise us is because we are still waiting for a messiah to deliver us from compulsory heterosexuality.
In order to find that person, however, we must first reject the idea that such a person exists.
Scene and Herd - Midnight Mass features Purple Rain
Current mood: cheerful
Category: Art and Photography
Aficionados packed the house, in varying shades of violet and degrees of 21st century Jheri curl, eager for the opportunity to sing along with a cinema classic. This was not The Sound of Music or West Side Story, for the first time in four years, Peaches Christ was presenting Purple Rain at Mindnight Mass.
Steve, the liturgical musician I brought as my guest was in for a triple shock.
- He'd never seen Purple Rain - He'd never attended Midnight Mass - He'd never met a drag queen
The pre-show began with Christ lipsyncing to "When Dove's Cry," while Martiny, flapping huge white wings dotted with pompons, performed an interpritive dance as the dove from the iconic video.
Apparently, Christ lost a contact lens during the performance. A blast of air from a handheld fan, used to blow her wig and ruffles back dramatically, caught the lens, leaving her blind in one eye for the remainder of the festivities.
Putanesca first appeared as cooch grabbing, vibrator twirling "Nicki", from the infamous masturbation song that spawned Tipper Gore's PMRC. She next popped up from behind a cardboard drum set to impersonate Sheila E. and then ducked down again for a quick costume change. She peeked up again as Appolonia and performed moves from Purple Rain's "Sex Shooter" scene with a pair of dancers.
Later in the pre-show, Christ introduced Fruit Bomb. The local designer, had created a series of looks inspired by the movie, replete with fitted iridescent print toreador pants and a jacket festooned with white scarves, which models wore up to the staqe and posed in.
The slowest moving model, stepped in a manner imitating a bridal. She turned on the platform and opened her long dark cape to reveal lingere and a special lining. Fruitbomb had silkscreened the Nagel-esque face associated with "When Dove's Cry,"onto the interior fabric of the cape.
As the film screened, I recalled my own introduction to Purple Rain.
In 1984, "When Dove's Cry," was one of the songs I listened for on my Sony Walkman. A radio station in Massachusetts, where my family was visiting for the Forth of July, played the Prince song almost every hour. The video was on heavy rotation on Mtv even in advance of the film's release.
While Prince was not conventionally handsome, his performance of sexiness, his hot bath and rose petals, permitted me to conceive of a world where a person could be sexy because of their way of thinking and relentless creativity. One could achieve instantly recognizable success and it could be enduring.
By the time I finally saw the film that September, it had already prompted confessions of lesbian experimentation among my peers, inspired one fellow to school to dress like the Purple One every day and take up breakdancing, and emotionally unified leaders of various races in my Colorado high school.
Steve said Saturday's entire event was "terrific" and said his "greatest pleasure" was to meet Peaches Christ in the lobby after the show.
So now you too are cleared to bring your overworked buddies, drag deprived parents or pop culture illiterate to the show. Not only will they speak to you afterwards they will likely thank you.
Next Saturday is the Midnight Mass premiere of "Jawbreaker," this years secret treasure pick. Stars from the movie will appear in person as will a special guest singing an original song.
Scene and Herd - Tingel Tangel featuring Basil Twist
Current mood: artistic
Category: Parties and Nightlife
Chi Chi Valenti from New York's Jackie Factory was hosting the evening of performances at Bubble Lounge Wednesday as Tingel Tangel touched down one again in North Beach.
I entered the club around the time Kalita took the foyer's makeshift stage. Kalita was smiling, teeth bared, through her burlesque dance. Clad in a lace up red chiffon top and a matching sarrong, she stripped down to pasties and a g-string in under three minutes. Her final flourish was letting down her hair and shaking it out. Kalia had already won 2008's Miss Carnival title when this week's Bay Guardian named her dance troupe Hot Pink Feathers as Best of the Bay.
Several Local notables were in attendance including jewelry designer Auberon of Va-Shee and cabaret star Veronika Klaus.
I introduced myself to Basil Twist, whose stage blacks consisted of viscose slacks and a mandarin silk jacket. As he was shaking my hand, it felt like his grand entrance. It was a superior shake - a neutral grip that was commanding but permitted both parties to loll under the natural weight of the other man's hand.
While the handshake is an art diplomats aspire to, I am privileged to have had a few such handshakes from creative personalities in my lifetime.
Brian Freeman of the performance group Pomo Afro Homos definitely possesses one of the best. On this second occasion we met, I told him, "You have the softest hands I've ever touched," which unfortunately brought some embarrassment and necessitated explanations to his companion just behind him in line for coffee.
Matthew Barney was memorable, though a girlfriend of his from high school was present at the time. when I related a story that conflated my coming out story with his modeling career, I created some mixed-company discomfort.
My friend Shawn arrived and joined me for seven-ups in the back room (we're both non-drinkers). We enjoyed conversation on one of the Bubble Lounge's many couches fluffed with copious pillows.
A little more than a half hour later, Twist was performing a seductive dance with a 12 inch tall marionette. The marionette's ballet began with an arabesque à la hauteur and ended in a ascending spiral, turning the notion of the ballet dancer's death into a kind of joyous astral life. I don't know that the cabaret crowd was really tuned into the way Twist's character did and did not dance with him. His final grip of the marionette suggested the puppeteer's godly power; the ascension of our earthly work limited by the hand of the unseen, or at least that which is made invisible by our stupefication.
Johnny Dynell was spinning off a CDJ all night. The set was not his usual gospel infused house, but more in neo-disco mode. The crowd danced to remixes of Mika's "Grace Kelly," and Madonna's "Give It To Me," and new takes on Sylvester and Michael Jackson.
Charlie Horse impresario Anna Conda lipsynced to "Fly in The Ointment." Three assistants hoisted up Japanese paper lanterns on sticks to hover around her. The lanterns had been decorated to resemble flies with iridescent wings and faces of Bush administration notables pasted on. Conda ultimately swatted at them until they exploded in a riot of red glitter.
A second less elegant number found Conda eating but not swallowing Milkbone dog biscuits and blowing out billows of dog-scented gravel as she sang.
Twist himself returned to the stage for a second, simpler number in which he animated a white silk scarf to dance in river-rapid-like peals.
Tingel Tangel takes place the last Wednesday of each month.
Scene and Herd -Midnight Mass features Starrbooty
Current mood: cheerful
The last time Ru Paul Charles visited San Francisco, I was working as Creative Director at the Nob Hill Theater. She came in while I was helping at the front counter and paid for two admissions: one for her and one for an admirer who was turning 18 years old that day.
Our terse interaction was informed by her sleeplessness and my irreverence. She complained that I didn't "nicely" give her the change from her purchase in her hand. I noted that change on the counter was consistent with theater policy and reflected out loud that the world was full of rude people so she better get used to it.
This exchange scandalized the dancers, all of whom respected me and worshiped Charles. Though Charles couldn't have known it, both she and I had enjoyed a kind of worldliness and success in our measure. We were both role models for them. To paraphrase Anne Sexton, I was their "have-to-have," Charles was their "momentary luxury."
Saturday, when I saw the closed curtain at the Bridge Theater, I tuned into the glitter gutter vibe right away. Two black and white banners illustrated the faces of Ru Paul Charles and Peaches Christ with cardboard cutout letters reading "Hookr Pride" underneath.
This evening, I would have the chance to make peace with Charles within myself, by standing in support of her achievement and by having traveled onward personally.
The lights dimmed and Peaches Christ appeared amid lasers and fog lipsyncing to a drag-themed rap tune "Gangsta." The production was replete with be-thonged cheerleaders and a variety of costumed interlopers, echoing the hip-hop theme.
A montage of short clips reminded the audience of memorable occasions in Charles' career: the Barbara Walters interview, several videos, M.A.C.'s "Viva Glam" promotion, sitcom cameos, and Charles' own VH-1 gabfest.
Charles entered, with a moustache, striped shirt and espadrilles, to a standing ovation. She confessed her favorite cities were "Sydney, Vancouver, Rio and San Francisco." Christ noted the changing climate for gay men in these and other cities where open sexuality now meant mothers pushing baby carriages. Christ encouraged Charles to purchase an apartment in The City and noted that Midnight Mass had previously prevailed upon John Waters on this score.
During a Q and A, Charles reflected on encounters with Milton Berle (altercation backstage), Cher ("beautiful up close"), and Elton John (sharing a Leer jet).
As Charles retired to the lobby to sign memorabilia, Christ introduced the last portion of the night's floorshow: The San Francisco Hooker Pride Parade.
More than a dozen contestants took the stage and posed including Pollo Del Mar and Marina Bitch. One contestant, dressed in a orange and green jumpsuit and garish pink wore make up that made her appear to have lost an eye gouging fight. This inspired Christ to recall a humorous incident in a sex club where a similarly made up friend was caught in flagrante delicto as the lights came up.
Winner Sandra Onoshedidn't was the overwheming crowd favorite, with short shorts, rainbow stockings, a straight black wig, and a baby blue t-shirt adorned with the politically incorrect slogan "Rice To Meet You."
Immediately following Starrbooty and featurette Zombie Prom screened.
The first iteration of Starrbooty was shot on Hi-8 camera in Charles' hometown of Atlanta. I recall the date as being around 1989. My first exposure to the Blacksploitation send up was in 1992 at Paula's Clubhouse (now Kilowatt) where every Thursday the 99 cent Queer Video would screen. Though the original was a modest production, Charles stood out. The 1993 song "Supermodel" would soon challenge us all by making drag and gay presence palatable to a conservative public wary of activists and Club Kids.
Last year, Charles remade Starrbooty with director Mike Ruiz. This version slathers on a whole lot more make up and clothes. The plot involves a kidnapping, incest, and the malfeasance of corporations. It's the movie Charles might have desired to make in the 1980s, replete with porn stars in supporting roles and several scenes of comic sexual situations.
Starrbooty feels like a joyous opportunity to play cops and robbers in the artist's adopted home of Manhattan. I strongly recommend viewing it alongside a video from the orignial Starrbooty series. Side by side they are an undeniable testament to drag's transformative power.
Midnight Mass next presents Sing-a-long Purple Rain on August 1st and 2nd.
Jennifer Jajeh’s "I Heart Hamas" World Premiere
Current mood: artistic
Category: Art and Photography
Actress Jennifer Jajeh begins her solo show "I Heart Hamas" with a fantasy of "Proud To Be A Palestinian Day" which places her on a pedestal. A likely American celebration of ease, complete with a parade, plaque, and funnel cakes, Jajeh wanders through the festivities at first bewildered, then delighted and even a little pushy.
Our lives are fantastic and detached, saturated with goods and immodesty, drunkeness and relative safety. To deliver us to the unreality of a war zone in Rammalah, where houses down the block are obliterated instantaneously by missiles on any given day and children cease their play to throw rocks at soldiers, Jajeh delivers us a slice of our own unreality for comparison.
Next, Jajeh relates a thumbnail history of Palestine, famously conquered and conquered again until the present day. Establishing a wikipedia-esque base narrative, rooted in war and religious event permits the audience to accept Jajeh's personal experience as authoritative.
A third vignette concerns the religious affiliation of a cat. Will Jajeh's conventional wisdom, the impositions of the grocer at the corner store, or the entreaties of Jajeh's Jewish friend ultimately decide what name the cat takes? The power of The Word, the first authority according to the Torah, demands the traditional, while the grocer's pride demands the cat be named consistent with neutral Jajeh's Arabic ethnicity.
The remainder of the performance concerns Jajeh's visit to Palestine where nightclubbing, singing children, and a welcoming can-do attitude prevail until Ariel Sharon establishes checkpoints throughout the Palestinian homelands to curtail the activities of residents. Jajeh's decision to live in Rammalah becomes suddenly fraught with a feeling of international importance.
Coping takes varying and not altogether consistent forms. A bomb devastating a house at the end of the block requires the indifference of simply going out to dinner. Witnessing the shooting of a 15 year old boy means running for one's life through a crowd. Jajeh surveys the checkpoints with a video camera.
It's a personal ritual that buttonholes the Jewish cat dispute nicely. The authority of viewing, the wisdom of the eye, demonstrates itself to be the current locus of power and belief.
Since the vast majority of the world's Jewish population lives in the United States, we tend to broadcast news within our boarders favorable to the Israeli government. Further, the diminished expectations of Palestinians engaged in a life of ceaseless war means their assertion of their righteous Semitism falls flat on American ears.
The air in Palestine, and the faux-elegant chintz favored of her mother, finally convinces Jajeh she's found her Home. This effective show welcomes us into it with boozy warmth and human soul.
Jajeh will perform "I Heart Hamas" in New York City as part of the Fringe Festival August 8 through the 24th at the Player's Loft.
Scene and Herd - Lilofee and The Bloody Beetroots at Mezzanine
Current mood: content
Category: Music
all photos courtesy Tony Foster
Mezzanine's owners decorate their low slung space to create industrial drama. The bartenders pour flanked by mirrors and antiqued shadow boxes. Mixmasters sweeten the audio north of a large divider. Patrons take breaks from the stageside dancefloor to sit on quilted leather couches and poufs in the super trouper lights flaring from the stage in red, green, and hot white.
Lilofee took the stage Friday to a crowd of friends and fans. Lead singer Kimi Recor wore a mercury lipstick black latex jumpsuit with oval fishnets and CDs arranged from breast to the mid back along a arrowhead front piece. Rob Easson, Cyrus Etemad, and Dan Aquino struck up the set with a much richer midrange, reflecting the venues electro optimized audio system.
Recor's vocals on the opener "She Breathes Electric" expressed a deeper promise from Lilofee. Simply having the proper tools for one's work often make the difference between a competent performance and a superior one. Recor, while not pounding the stage in Brunhildian grandeur as she might were she a double d-cup stripper, definitely seized her opportunity to present the song as a dedication and personalize it's meaning for the assembled.
I'm looking forward to the band taking advantage of the long prelude at the beginning of "Electric" to give a grand entrance. The entrance of Recor ought to be like landing in butter or a box of chocolates. Perhaps there is a way to present her to the stage through the crowd in a processional manner.
The band followed with "Runaway," their stardom chasing narrative with the popular "Lock and Key." While the crowd lip-synced "Lock and Key" verbatim, the boldness of Recor's lyric assuredly will have more punch outside the Bay Area. For this reason, it's probably a better song for listeners to digest midway through the set.
Though the band kept good time and pitch and the synths for the show have long been automated, assigning each member a removable inner ear monitor would contribute to a few missed cues. As ever the group recovered from their missteps adeptly.
Lilofee wound the show down with "Get Your Fill" and "Destroy Me".
The writers have imbued each of these songs with a catabolic vigor. In "Get Your Fill" Recor warns "Hey you/Hey you, You're about to Fall" with a descending arpeggio that sounds like a voice ingested down an empty well and excreted back to haunt the listener at the same time. "Misfire with no control," could easily lend itself to sexual potency jokes, but the implication here is that the protagonist of the song will invariably trouble him or herself regardless of Recor's cautions.
Lilofee's question in "Destroy Me" repeats with percussive suffering, the subject whittled down though the chorus. The band's brief verses ending with queries such as "Take my name what were you thinking?" suggest an anti-ego drama within each respective object of affection. Onanism? Prostitution? What violations of coital possibility have replaced the marital understanding? The band member's youth anticipates less mature subject matter: consumerist fascinations perhaps or nuanced impressions of pre spoken race and class identity. However, as our definitions of relationships, marriage and family change collectively at once, everyone becomes disposed to the possibilities of these lyrics.
The Bloody Beetroots, an Italian dj duo, appeared to capture and mix from CDJs during their entire set. They appeared on stage in matching Venom masks. Rather than their original "Fucked From Above 1985" shirts they wore new ones featuring the band's name in a toothpaste squeeze.
While other djs might play pre-recorded mixes and occasionally tweak a nob or two, the Bloody's were very active. They swung their hands and encouraged the crowd.
The Bloody's twist a thick gassing liquid sound to the bass tones. They tweak the keyboards high to toy piano range. They cultivate gothic organ samples only to rearrange them in minor keys and distort the bass samples until they sing like sawteeth. As a result, the Bloody's sound is a loud dancable haunted house.
Crowd favorites included a remix of the Preset's "My People", "Pump Up the Jam," and Daft Punk's "One More Time." I'm not sure the toystep revisions lend much to the original versions. Similarly, MSTRKRFT's "Paris" was all but undistrubed until the bridge.
The Bloody's most identifiable remixes were mostly absent, one of three, "Choo Choo," coming late in the set. I would have enjoyed hearing one of the Bloody's remixes "Someone, Somewhere." which uses solfege to construct the words "La" "Te" and "Sol" "Re".
The djs ended with an enjoyable pitch-bent version of Chuck Berry's "Shout," where they dipped under the turntables and back up again though the extra long sample lasted about one minute.
cheerful
artistic
determined
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