8/30/08

Gang War Turf war

Mess: Gawd, how long have we known each other?

Me: I don't know. Years? Did we meet in college?

Mess: No. Two years ago at the Bushwick Country Club.

Me: Um, I don't remember.

Mess: You're such a fucking bitch! We met. I thought you were such a fucking bitch I totally hated you. I really really hated you.

Me: Um.

Mess: And then you banged my friend ******* and I liked you.

Me: What?

Mess: Well, then I liked you. When you banged him.

Me (to my friend): Wow, this guy's like two for two over here. (to Mess) You're not being very nice to me, you know.

Mess: What? Then I liked you.

Me: You know, Mess. There're a lot of reasons to like me. We don't know each other very well-- you might not be aware of this: I'm a kinda fabulous person. There are a lot of reasons to like me. The fact that I used to date your friend ******* is not one of them.

Mess: Okay...

Me: Look, what did you eat for lunch on September 9th, 2007?

Mess: Balthazar's! Ha ha ha. No, really, I don't remember.

Me: Yeah, exactly. It was, like, a year ago. I'm a totally different person. It's totally boring.I don't remember.

Then Mess proceeded to pick a fight with me about politics, how it's all really a sham, all politicians are alike and I'm a "fucking idiot" to think Obama's speech was cool. I tried to make nice and say that some of it is yeah, PR stuff or whatever. I made a snide remark about Hillary's speech, trying to make light of the situation, make a joke or whatever and Mess said "What'd you see that on Gawker.com? I hate flip-floppers. You either watch all of it or you don't. You're disappointing me. You're so fucking stupid." Getting all "aggro" like her ugly was going to rub off on me or something.

And. I. Almost. Hit. A. Motherfucker.

I wouldn't do that, fight with someone weaker than me. You know, we're not exactly evenly matched. What's Mess gonna do? Sic my ex-boyfriend on me? Anyways, Mess leaves the bar because I'm A Bigger Bitch and I Will Not Back Down.

So I'm in this gang. Or, I should say gang / coven, because we don't use knives. Some of us do. S.E.C.R.E.T.G.I.R.L.C.O.N.S.P.I.R.A.C.Y. I am practicing forgiveness. Letting go, and being nice even when I don't want to.

But my gang slash coven and I are also practicing voodoo and don't like shady bitches.

8/29/08

I don't like your boyfriend and I can't stand you.

So much sense in relativity. Comparing myself to other people is a sure-fire way to bring myself down. Usually, anyways. The random, silly thing I measure myself against. Today, though, I'm looking at these old rulers, these pre-metric measures of quality, progress, change, growth.
This is all to say that despite what I would change about myself, the things about me that I'm less than thrilled with, I am totally and happily glad to not be you, or anything like you, even a little bit.

We find these wells within ourselves, sometimes. Think about this: at what point in your artistic process do you use the feeling and then just make something? Pain is compelling. Love and fear and anxiety are all compelling because we all feel them. I'm so tired of writing or singing or taking a photo or something and have to answer the question "Who is this about?" It's about me.

A last week I was walking to work and something shiny caught my eye. (Story of my life). I watched this sparking thing move towards me down 23rd Street. As it got closer, I realized I was watching a diamond, blinging in the last summer sun. It was embedded in Marc Jacobs' ear. He was tan and tattooed and shorter and much, much hotter than I would have ever hoped. He had (I'm assuming) just come out of his gym, and was leisurely walking towards a cab. I read the feature on him in the New Yorker this week, in which he says "I am perfect being in a perfect world." Which isn't just a value judgment, but statement on being what you are. He is just right for his world. and he is pretty much objectively perfect I mean look at the guy. Anyways: say him on the street, transfixed by someone who is so realized. There is something to be said for getting a sign from the universe and that was it. I am gonna be perfect.



Not just perfect in terms of looking hot and being talented, but perfect in realizing one's own self. This is sort of hard to describe so I'm going to use another YouTube music video to describe my inner state. Part of being in my element, being a perfect being in a perfect world, is feeling like this:

8/27/08

Come up, table. Table, come up.

On the phone last night with La JJ, who's in San Francisco:

"I was thinking of getting a tattoo of my friend Legs Malone on the inside of my left arm. Wouldn't that look nice? Then I can get a tattoo of you on my right arm. I can show everyone, and tell people 'These are my friends!' And then when I slit my wrists I'll be thinking of you!"

8/25/08

Same Fuckin Day, Man

Friday night I went to the gym for fucking ever and almost fell and ate shit on the treadmill because I got overexcited listening to Pink's "Feel Good Time" (did you know its originally a Beck song? In fact, everything but the vocals is played by Beck). After wiping myself down I met up with Sister Pico at his house. We drank Veuve Cliquot and smoked cigarettes and talked in cool, calm, somewhat sober tones about how much we hate certain acquaintances and how it so excellently, precisely appropriate it is for us to talk shit about them. Patted ourselves on the back. Met up with Brandon B and friends and headed to Sugarland for Johnny Darling's birthday party. They serve cocktails there in these tiny little dixie cups and I kept drinking everything as if I was in a race.

Shot boy kept coming over to entice us with plastic vials filled with "Blue Hawaii margaritas". Whenever I got to Sugarland I always tell the shot boys that I used to work there, in fact as a shot boy. I sort of hope that then they'll be nice to me, give me a free shot or something. It hasn't worked yet, and none of the new shot boys are amused even a little bit when I tell them that I used to work there. I don't think they believe me. It sounds sort of unbelievable. The one on Friday really didn't wanna hear it because a) he didn't seem to speak English and b) I wasn't tipping him, because I happen to know that shot boys keep all the money from the $1 shots and that tipping is therefore optional and I wasn't getting the kind of service that really necessitated a tip. I will say that when I was a shot boy there, people hadn't yet caught on to the fact that the shot boys keep all the money, so I would go home with my underpants stuffed with so much cash I didn't know what to do with it.

Saturday I went to brunch, then Bobo and I went out to Bedford avenue to get groovy. Beatnik days at the waterfront, then Nasser invited us to DJ at Eastern Bloc, they needed someone to fill in. We did a quick costume change at my apartment before going out for pizza at my favorite pizza join (you have to go on a date with me to find out where) and on to Eastern Bloc. We both wore red and black and sunglasses. Mordecai showed up and brought us potato chips and M&Ms. We played a lot of Motown, the owner asked us to turn down the bass (never!). Nasser made us whiskey sours and we had a great time. Went with Bobo and Liz to another bar in the East Village, then chickened out. Watched a crazy nature / human life documentary, Baraka, then went to bed. Romantic interlude.

Yesterday I helped my cousin move into NYU. In the afternoon Laz came over and I chickened out about the Metropolitan BBQ and stayed in, listening to PIzzicato Five really really loud, and cooked spaghetti sauce. Which is about as much a perfect evening as I can ever hope to imagine.

Apparently this song's title ("Try (just a little bit harder)") came from an encounter Janis had with a hooker on the street. I don't have it in front of me, but she explained it at a show once. It was apparently a hooker who looked ragged or unattractive or something (at least,
according to Janis Joplin) and Janis wondered out loud how she could get so much action, looking the way she did and how Janis could fare similarly. Try just a little bit harder.





Doesn't this just make you want to run out into the street and start FUCKING?

8/22/08

I May Be Delayed

Last night Sister Pico, Chantal, Machete, Lauren Wilkes and I all went over to Paps' house. We watched the most recent episode of Project Runway, the drag challenge. I'm sort of glad that Daniel got kicked off. is it mean to say that? I wrote about this before: I find him really attractice, and him losing sort of humanizes him. It's a really strange, beautiful, and gratifying feeling to watch someone you're sexually attracted to cry. On national television.

On my way to the train last night I was walking along McCarren park practicing my revenge face, for some reason. Like, "this is the face I would make when I want to be really mean and I don't care about it at all." I guess the 'look' worked, some guy did the whole turn-around-every-ten-feet shuffling thing to me. I don't know.

Grace Jones added me as her top MySpace friend this afternoon. Which is always nice.

My amazing coworkers and I ate our lunches, three matching salads, in the conference room this afternoon. We threw the I Ching and I had some difficult, but not at all surprising conclusions. Oddly, the message was "don't be such a fucking bitch". Or, actually "don't be such a fucking bitch unless it's in your nature, in which case, be such a fucking bitch." Actually it was kind of hard to explain, and I don't feel like sharing it with any of the freaks who actually read this thing (hi!!). Basically: everything happens. You know, that whole thing: be true to yourself. Et Cetera. Whatever, I'm starving.


I'm going out drinking tonight with Sister Pico and Brandon the Miracle. I dunno. Gym after work. Feel a little bit more present thanks in part to mystical divination and philosophy, and part to just clearing my head. I don't know what's going to happen.

Here is what my weekend is going to be like, this video. Isn't it weird how in the late 80s/Early 90s, her look totally changed? Apparently she was bombarded with offers to do a solo album, but it just didn't feel right. Clearly breaking away. Look, it's not even "Siouxsie" here, it's... Susan! I almost like her look in this video better than the owl-goth thing she's famous for. This song always cheers me up.



8/21/08

Talk about me like a movie. You're so dirty.

Woke up extra early this morning so I could go to the gym before work. Made it as far as the kitchen for a glass of water, where our cat Quin greeted me and implored me to take him back to bed with me. Ate fake sausage and toast for breakfast. Feel like I had a fever and the fever broke.

My Favorite Record is Pirate Prude by Helium

When I was in high school and my first boyfriend broke up with me, I used to stay up until midnight every night, laying on the floor of my parent's living room staring into the ceiling fan and listening to this record. The six songs, Mary Timony, says, should be though of as three singles, rather than an E.P., which makes sense ("Baby Vampire Made Me" b/w "Wanna Be a Vampire Too, Baby", "XXX" b/w "OOO"). It's sort of a concept album, there's this weird narrative in reverse chronological order. Vague story of woman seduced by money and prostitution, becomes pregnant with a vampire, ends up as a monster. Themes of feminist discourse, capitalist culture, beauty. It's also before Ash Bowie joined the band, as the other main contributor to Helium's sound. Timony's signature Dungeons & Dragons-themed lyrics and prog-rock arrangements really kicked in the next year, with 1995's The Dirt of Luck. The first record is kind of metal. The counterpoint between the droning grunge-y guitars and Timony's quiet, plaintive vocals is really gorgeous. Especially since the lyrics are really violent and fucked up (Favorite lines are the blog subject heading and: "I'll be the pirate if you'll be the loot. I'll jump out a plane if you'll be my parachute. You better catch me or I'll kill you." c'mon I was 16!).This was my favorite record during a pretty rough part of my adolescence, and I listen to it all the way through at least once a week. There wasn't really a single from the record, but the video for "XXX" (the only real standalone track) got played on Beavis and Butthead, which is sort of neat.





8/20/08

Speaking about Herself

Bitch deserves a gold motherfucking star for keeping it even a little bit together.

Black wave comes to take me away. Ride it almost to the grave. Landing on a crowded shore. High-fivin'.

I've been thinking about Juliana Hatfield. I feel like she has this bad rap, in the way that women artists often do. Namely that she's "crazy" or whatever. To be fair she apparently has had a nervous breakdown. But if she were a guy she would be, y'know, Evan Dando or something. Just emotional, not crazy. I'm really excited for her memoir, When I Grow Up, to come out next month. She put out a record yesterday. Someone has apparently been sending racist and anti-semitic e-mails, singing them Juliana Hatfield. I just read the most recent entry in her blog, in which she describes in excruciating detail watching a baby rabbit die in her hands. Sort of pretty, but awful if you think about it. Tough stuff. I just feel a bit weepy lately, I don't know why. My friend Joanna once went to a party in Boston where Juliana apparently was. If I remember correctly she was at a part for her boyfriend? Maybe not boyfriend but some male friends of hers, apparently significantly younger than she, and in a band. In any case, Joanna had only two tidbits on Juliana, when I pressed her to tell me everything. Joanna relayed that a) she looked great (I say: she always does and always has and probably always will. The curse of good genes, I guess), and b) something happened at the party to really upset Juliana, and she apparently locked herself in the bathroom, while friends pleaded with her to come out.

So obviously Juliana Hatfield is my hero. Or one of them. I'm kind of actually really into her blog. Even if you're not a huge Juliana Hatfield / Blake Babies fan, I think it's worth checking out. Her work gets such a weird critical response, like the one consistently negative thing people say about it is that it's too personal or something. And "crazy". I don't know. It's a lot like the way people talk about early Throwing Muses and Kristen Hersh, who had the guts to admit that she was manic-depressive. Juliana writes about the influence of Throwing Muses on her blog. Also: she has this really intense and articulate way of writing about herself, her songs, and her feelings:

So I have established that I feel very Other and yet I’m trying to live in the world. Because I have to. And I really do want to make the best of my time in the world. I may be a downer, but I’m not a nihilist. I don’t not care. I worry about what people think of me and how I come across and whether or not I am doing the right thing. I really want to communicate, to connect, to understand and be understood, but I don’t know how so I often walk away because it all just seems too impossible.

This is the video for "Universal Heartbeat", another of my Favorite Songs OF All Time That Inexplicably And Always Cheer Me Up No Matter what. The lyrics are about being in tremendous pain, which is always nice to hear affirmed. Apparently the tour to promote this album, Only Everything, was canceled because of Juliana's nervous breakdown. I want to find out more from her book. The video is this cutesy funny thing, where Juliana is a grungy-goth aerobics instructor (I think she needs to be smoking a cigarette, but, you know, the 1990s and all). On television monitors above the gym is Juliana glammed out like a diva. The joke, of course, is that the caricature mean girl is the "real" Juliana and the television screen one is the fake. Hilarious.



8/19/08

Eff Tee Dubs



FUCK THAT SHIT


CHIT CHAT WITH FRANCINE

from: Max Steele
to: Dan Fishback
date: Monday, August 18 2008 at 10:33 PM
subject: idea for the play

dan

you said to think of things i would want to see / do onstage and i found one. i hope it's stil ok to get this to you. no pressure to put it in your play BUT i think it'd be really good to include because

a) it's about, you know, the difficulty of authentic human communication (QL: is it really impossible? A: yes, pretty much) and
b) it's pretty funny and
c) most of all it would i think be fun for us (you me and spooky) to do.

my big idea refered to in the e-mail subject line is: to have one of the characters talk in a funny voice (like, british accent or something) and justify it while speaking in that voice. does that make any sense? like, someone talking in baby voice sayingg how they like to talk like that at parties because it makes people think they're small and vulnerable and adorable and makes them want to fuck them.

that's an example but you don't have to use it.

but do you get where i'm going with this? you named your new record "twemble qwef" so i think you understand the voices i'm taliking about. and i think you understand why those voices (or, really, the one voice. the four year old adding w's to everything voice) is such a good thing to use.

ok but it's just an IDEA for your play.
no pressure to use it.

love always
max

p.s. i know you're recording a record and you won't get this for like a week but i'm still sending it.

pps. i'm going to put this on my blog, i hope that's okay.

p.p.ps. i have another idea: eating onstage! so simple! i think we (or some / one / whatever) of us should EAT A MOUTHFUL OF SOMEHING onstage. dick or shit doesn't count though. don't be a perv.














basically, tuesdays





Ok I'll Bite

You know what? I don't even care that everyone and their mom has already seen this. I think this is a fucking gorgeous video and I think Santi White is super talented. The thing, really, that I think makes her like M.I.A. is not that they particularly sound similar (um, hello?) but really that they both have really annoying fans. Like, I'll just be more specific: white Brooklyn hipsters listen to M.I.A. and Santogold and then affect the vaguely "ethnic" (should I have said "brightly colored"?) garb, accents, references as if it's okay. I mean, I'll also blame fucking Vampire Weekend or whatever, for telling American teenagers that South Africa is so kooky and Wes Anderson-pretty, ripe to be misappropriated. But anyways, most of my vitriol is saved for M.I.A. fans, rabid for "authentic" third-world beatz but can't point to Sri Lanka on a world map.

Sorry. This is all to say that I really love this video and this song and I hope Santogold goes on for a very long time.



8/18/08

These burns of ours

This wasn't always just a diary. I didn't start this with the intention of analyzing my dreams, bouncing around revenge fantasies, and glorifying my friends. I used to use this as a sketchbook of ideas. I'm still having ideas, I just think that my friends and my dreams and my revenge fantasies are more interesting.

An English stranger, on reading my blog (without having ever met me or anything): "Totally fucking mental." Not to brag or anything. Just saying.

For a brief second, this was going to be a style blog. I still have
Bobo's tiny screed about where her fashion style comes from (a mishmash of inspirations: third-world glamor, L.L. Bean, and shoplifting). I wanted, today, to write about La JohnJoseph, particularly about his hair and particularly about two of his hair styles: the Jackie Curtis-inspired afro puff and the Isabella Rossellini-inspired bun. I single these two out because I've had some involvement in early iterations of both hair styles. I teased JJ's afro for a photo shoot, which looked amazing though not in keeping with the spirit of the shoot. And I implored JJ for weeks (maybe one week) to please, please wear his hair in a bun. It's my blog and I write about me and my collaborative art projects even if they happen on someone else. But I can't find good enough pictures of JJ's hair in these styles.

So rather than actually talking about what I want to talk about I'll cut to the chase and give you the general impression. La JJ and I are self-styles celebrities in the vain of Lillian Hellman and Joan Didion, Bowie and Reed. Everything we do is sexy, "deep" and glamorous.

After discovering that my roof has been locked, we spent the bulk of yesterday taking drugs, coloring, listening to reggae, staring into space, eating burritos and horchata (do you want to know the way to my heart? hint: it involves horchata), talking about plastic surgery and gossiping about saturday night.

I want to write more but I don't feel particularly like "sharing". Tonight I'm going to cook kale for dinner.

8/17/08

Offer

Had a nightmare last night that you and I were real estate agents. We had to sell our house to a rich Hollywood couple. It was "my house", but it didn't resemble anywhere I'd ever lived or even seen in a movie. It was a mansion. For some reason, maybe because we had to work together to sell it, you were nice to me. Leading everyone down a white staircase you smiled at me. In my room, in my closet I found two friends of mine fucking. I locked them in. I was scared that if you saw them you'd get mad at me, it'd start all over again. And just, I thought in the dream, just when you were starting to be nice to me again. Just when I thought we could get along again.

I woke up to the sound of car breaks screeching, the sound of a car running into a fire hydrant in front of my house.

8/13/08

Come here: listen

I wanna slay the dragon!
I wanna kill the night!

For some reason today I'm REALLY FEELING Zeek Sheck. She was my hero when I was in high school.

Something really inspiring, always, about an artist whose work creates it's own world. Zeek Sheck's group of albums comprise this epic opera about universal chaos and identity, etc. It's really crazy and it makes sense only in it's own logic. She also makes these hotlines, which I think are really cool.

I mean also, my god. The costumes alone.









Today I feel kind of sassy. Not vindictive, because vindictive would imply that I'm doing it to be mean and I'm really not. I do, however, feel like if I don't exercise my muscles, then I'll lose them. I'm going to the gym in exactly five minutes. The other muscle I want to exercise is the muscle that I use to complain instead of holding a grudge. Sorry kids. I think I'm allowed to feel however.

I want to make things easier. For everyone.
Starting, I guess, with communicating. Ease! Easier!
Two letters: N-O. That is a lot simpler than giving my usual tentative Y-E-S then reneging on it later, mid panic-attack. A negative answer saves much more time and energy than me agreeing to something through a haze of blubbering, right? So: no. Easy. Done.

My point is this: everything, even unpleasant and unbearably bad feelings, are finite. I am actually an optimist and like the Utah Saints remix of the Kate Bush song that La JJ played for me so many months ago: I Just Know That Something Good Is Gonna Happen.
Had a dream that we were locked inside a building together. I had just shown up, but you had been locked there for a while. I asked you to show me the door, to show me how it works. You described how the door was jammed in these various places, locks with no keys. Then you casually pushed the door and it opened.

In the dream I thought it was so impressive that you could do that. I asked how it opened just like that and you said "I don't know. Maybe you being here? maybe you have a magical presence or something." Crooked smile and daylight, finally. I woke up at five am missing you a lot.

8/12/08

Bitch Fest

If every time I set someone up with someone else it ends badly, why do people keep asking me to do it? How did I find myself in the position of having to listen to everyone's sex life and be super supportive and set them up on dates and tell them how virile and cool and funny they are?
Quick, someone get me a thesaurus. It can be your late birthday present to me. What's the opposite word for "adopt"? Like, if you adopt a child and then change your mind?

Cause I want to un-adopt.

One one hand, I want less baggage. I don't want to be responsible for peoples' well-being.
I mean, I enjoy and feel fulfilled by supporting my friends, but on the other hand, on the BIGGER hand, why am I constantly the support vehicle, which no one else supports? Why am I the match-maker? The person who has to hear and witness and validate everyone's sexual selves? This isn't rhetorical. Since when did I sign up for fucking VOLUNTEER WORK?

What everyone wants to hear from me: Oh baby you are so sexy of course the boys wanna fuck you your dick is so big yes it is who is a funny clever big dicked boy oh you are so great let me see if i know anybody who can get your big huge awesome super cool but not in a hipstery or trendy way just in an authentically cool way awesome big dick wet for you.

What I actually feel like saying: When is it my turn to feel good?

I'm not, I should be clear, talking about JJ or Pico. Yinz are off the hook.

It would not be so bad if folks were, like, reciprocal. Like, when La JJ and I complain to each other we feel supported. Pico and I know that we can share our feelings and check in with one another and respect each other.

When people talk about me as being funny and fabulous like a kooky old aunt or some kind of mom / yenta, it makes me feel really unsexy. And I don't want to feel like an unsexy mom. It feels like people want me to be supportive or validating or helpful and affirming, but they're not willing to offer any of this. Like, where's MY blind date?

Or, how about: if you want me to feel gross then I really don't want to help you out. I'm not just talking about you in the singular, Steven.

Maybe it just never occurs to people to treat me the way they'd like to be treated. I can't, though, give the benefit of the doubt to the entire world.

New Strategy: What we can't fuck, we'll eat.

On the plus side it's raining and I have somewhere to be where the drinks are free.

8/11/08

She laid her hand in his

So, I feel a bit better. I started working in earnest on a new issue of my porno zine, Scorcher. Never mind that no one wants a new issue, or that I only have one idea ever. New issue by Winter. Or Spring. The only thing that feels good is having another feeling.

Moving on: who knew? I should try it more often.

I'm not losing the fight. I'm just not holding a grudge. It feels like surrender, but the fight was with me. So I waive the white flag and I also put the guns away. I've destroyed myself this way and I don't have the energy today. I feel really disgusting, so I assume this must be indicative of something. If I feel awful, something must have happened. I feel dysfunctional, I must be wrong somehow.

I go out looking for empirical proof of my feelings. We cannot arm ourselves, I think, with only our pain. Something to look forward to. I wish I had one.

At the same time, for days now, I've had the quiet suspicion that something is about to happen.

The Work We Do

And in the painting or coloring book, they will be green. Long after I die from jumping into traffic or accidentally poisoning myself or just getting sick and turning off. It'll be green: the crayon kids color my eyes with. Black-thoughted little thing, you knotted rope. Any muscle gets bigger if you use it.

And what can you do for this? The horrible suspicion that the thing that hurts is real. Who can confirm for you that it's really happening? Can anybody hear me? I want to type the word "BODY" but I type it as "BOY" and if any "BOY" could hear me things would be different.

How much of your happiness, like what percent, hinges on other people? I'm not a liar, I'll tell you that in no small way I see clouds part and darken the evening sky depending on how sick you get and how lonely I happen to feel. The distinct pleasure of being recognized is a small step away from being followed down the street. I want to expand, breathe deeper and test my capacity for sweetness. I want to practice patience and loving kindness for everyone, especially my enemies. But when the phone rings all the time and not for me, it's hard. With weekends of chaste sleepovers, it gets tricky to be nice. How can I increase my potential for peace at time likes this? Strangers and their strange lovers, they draw maps of affection and tame beasts of lust and You Stay Home. How can I put my compassionate energy out into the world? I eat ativan to numb myself, read postmodernist theory to make it hurt a tiny, little bit less. When the computer and television and every machine in the room, wants to moan you into me. Here is what they are singing: you lose. You loser. You ache-void. What kind of mess are you building for yourself? What do you deserve to feel?

Dear World, I want to love you and I want to feel safe in your arms, wish you well and know that in doing so you'll take care of me.

But today my heart is just not big enough.

8/10/08

My Baby's Face

The look. The look in his eyes.



8/8/08

Dance You Out Your Doggone Shoes

Started work on the new zine. The new thing is called NAMER. It's about how to turn someone on by getting turned on. I don't know how to put it. It's about desiring desire? Sort of like, teaching someone how to teach. I'm interested in pushing the fucking so far out of my writing that the sex only happens in people's heads. I think it's an interesting site. Talking about it, I said that I started go-go dancing and writing sexually explicit zines because I wanted to participate in my own fantasies. Which is really what it is. I want to be the subject of desire, but I also want to have some agency in the language with which we talk about the desired objects. I've been both, you know. (I mean, everybody is both all the time anyways, but it took me go-go dancing to feel like I could be an object). I've been the talker and I've also been Who She's Talking About. This space of knowing how to shoot a gun and how it feels to get shot? Of how to take a photo and how a flash bulb feels, that's what I'm going for. It's in my own language, I mean.

I have this weird sense of dread. A
"here we go again" kind of feeling. I sort of feel like I'm incapable of having a normal conversation with anyone. Last night Bobo and I went out for dinner and ice cream, which was fun.

Tonight I'm going to see Glenn Marla and La JohnJoseph perform, then go to bed early. Tomorrow is my birthday party. I'm really excited. If we're good enough friends that you know where I live, then you're probably invited. I'm sort of worried that no one will come. And I'm also worried that people will come. I don't know. I just worry.

I forgot what my theme song for 2008 was, but the theme song for age 24, so far, has got to be "Honey" by Mariah Carey. I can't link to the YouTube video of it, but I thought I'd post this, instead. It's Malcom McClaren's World Famous Supreme Team's video for "Hey DJ" from whence "Honey" lifts that sweet piano sample. I thought it appropriate, since at the photo shoot on Tuesday they put me in an over sized leather jacket with no shirt, just tons of necklaces, saying I reminded the stylist of a young Malcom McClaren. (It's my birthday, I can't shut up about myself).This is also among my Absolute Favorite Songs Of All Time. The video is super corny. I like how the beat sounds sort of blah, kind of melancholy or something? Like, not a big dance-y house jam, and the raps aren't totally brilliant. But the girls in the video? Are LOVING it.



So yeah. That's what my birthday party is gonna be like. Get really excited (if you're invited). I realized as I'm writing this that I was going to mention all the people who are not invited to my birthday party, but I don't have time or energy for enemies. I'm a lover. I'm a flower child. I turned 24 I don't have time for this trifling. I'll still flip out and do really freaky fucked up shit when I'm mad, but I don't have the wherewithal to hold a grudge. Boring!

Let's go dancing. Instead.

8/6/08

To Fix My Teeth

I've mentioned it a couple of times before on the blog, I constantly post pictures from it. My favorite movie Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo?, William Klein's 1966 mod-inspired critique of the fashion world. I know I've posted this scene before, but it bears watching again and again:



Discretion prevents me from really getting into it, but yesterday I had a similar experience to the one pictured in the movie clip. First a woman and a cameraman interviewed me about my life, my work, what I like to listen to, how I got to New York and who / what I think is cool.
They filmed my response to the question: "How important to you, on a scale of one to ten, is fame?" Then a team of photographers really did dress me up and ask me about myself. There were three people being shot yesterday, and the assistant came over to me, looking up from her BlackBerry, to say "You know, your rack is the best." Meaning, rack of clothes ("looks", for those of you in the biz) picked out for me to wear. "Also," she added, "you're the only one with accessories." Which was nice. I'm very shallow, what can I say? It's totally thrilling to be in a world, even just for an afternoon, where gorgeous girls lead you to a rack of clothes and refer to things by first names. "These Jil's are nice. The Marc's are really cute too, huh?" I took a portrait at the studio, then the photographer and assorted people-who-actually-know-what-they're-doing hauled me to a few neon locations in East Williamsburg. They put me in some really awesome clothes. At one point someone said they thought I looked like a young Merce Cunningham. When I donned my sunglasses, at night, wearing a metallic gold hooded track jacket, and really high-heeled pointy boots, I heard someone say the magic words, the Ultimate Compliment.

From where the photographer and stylist and assistants were milling around, examining the photos, I heard someone say the name Grace Jones.

I don't have some big point, this, unlike my favorite movie, is not a rumination on the evils of fashion and art and high commerce. What I mean to get across by writing this is that I got to have a bunch of people ask me which clothes I'd like to wear, then take my photo. Due to the nature of the world, I have no clue when these things will see the light of day. But I do have a few gritty Polaroids to show for it. Sorry to brag. I'm really just documenting stuff.

I came home and watched the very, very end of a Marianne Faithful documentary. Fel asleep as it started to rain, but I left all the windows open. around six or seven this morning, I woke up for some reason and it was really coming down. I remember, being half-awake, thinking how great it was. You know, how great. How lucky, I am, to be able to smell what rain smells like from my big safe bed. To roll around in the cool gray morning and fall back asleep. I don't know why I was so into it. It's just rain. I got a videotape of my performance at Dixon Place. It came out surprisingly well. It's so weird to watch myself move. I used to hate to watch or listen to the sound of my own voice, but now I've made peace with it. But how I move, my posture, horrifies me. My center of gravity is inexplicably low, and forward. I don't understand. But the tape is good to have. It's proof of something that happened.

Today I can't focus on anything. I'm doing very poorly at work. Constant errors. Something feels sort of 'off' and I'm hard pressed to figure out what. I'm having lunch with Marcus tonight, we're getting Thai food. I haven't seen him in a long time. He's almost my only straight male friend, and is more of a Soul Sister Down-Ass Bitch than most of my gay boy friends. Go figure.

I don't know what I'm going to do. Like, generally. I guess it's time to start a new thing. To wait until you notice the new feelings you're having. Have the feeling, then make something with it. I mean, right? There is no such thing as success, I'm realizing. There's no end-point. I'm more or less exactly where I wanted to be when I idealized my future 7 / 4 / 3 years ago. For the most part. That's the thing about New York, and about everything ever. The thing about desire is that we talk about it like some burning, impossible thing. Like a holy grail or something. But really it's more like a paper lantern, or ring of fire or something. You pass through it.

The real tragedy of desire is not when you don't get what you want. Or, when someone else gets it. That's fine, that is a part of life. The one sad thing about desire and having dreams or something (although, I mean sexual desire too-- don't get me wrong) is that you want something. And either you get it or you don't get it but the point is eventually you go on to want something else. Either instead of or in addition to your first desire. And once you start realizing this, then you see the horrible inevitability of wanting something you haven't even imagined yet. I'm trying to figure out what I want next.

Tomorrow is my 24th birthday.

8/5/08

A Harder Body. A Hard Body.


from THE HORRIBLE TIME (you tried to kill me)

8/2/08

Rain Storm

There's lightning and thunder outside. I'm in my room drinking cold coffee with the air conditioner on and burning rose incense. And burning candles. Listening to Laura Nyro really loud. It's dark out from the rainclouds.

Grey called and told me that one of the contestants in the new season of Project Runway, which I haven't seen yet, is this guy from Brooklyn, Daniel Feld, who I had seen around for ages. He used to go out with Grey, I guess, and when Grey lived here I kept begging him to introduce us. Which, you know, he did. But this Daniel cat just could. not. give. less. of. a. care. he was always sweet though. I rode the train with him last week and we glared at each other. But now I know we'll never be able to be together. He'll think I'm just flirting with him because he's on teevee. Which is a shame because it's not true. But I do like that he's on television.

Isn't it strange to think that in our culture, the most important noble thing you can be is... on television? How funny.

Anyways. Back to work. You know, "Up On The Roof", incense and all that. Gosh it's really pissing down outside. Wish you were here. I mean, you wish you were here. I'm reading my horoscope and it's fascinating.


Not to brag, but everything's coming up me.