9/29/08

Friday night I went to Paps' house with Chantal, Lauren, Sister Pico, and Machete. We watched, at Sister Pico's behest, a really fucked up, scary, politically problematic and entirely confusing 1983 horror movie called Sleepaway Camp. It pretty much ruined me, and I was the least brave of any of us. I covered my eyes during the death scenes, wish I had covered my ears too. Gurgling blood noises are no fun, but we ordered pizza. Drank a bottle of white wine. Watched part of the debates. While I was depressed about our political future, the economy in crisis, and the ongoing culture wars we all find ourselves on the losing side of, it was a good night. I was struck by how proud I was to be friends with the people I was with. Everyone is a feminist, writes, studies psychology or does direct action homeless outreach. Teaches at NYU or writes award-winning fiction or has a fucking Master's at 24 or organizes insane literary journals. Very inspiring.

Saturday I woke up early to meet with Richert and Miriam at Richert's new apartment in Bed-Stuy. It was totally empty, giving us lots of space. We sort of warmed-up, got into our groove, and shot the new Graphic Glory video. Richert planned it, structurally, in a really cool way, and I think it looked amazing. He kept urging us to dance harder, faster, more violently. Miriam was really awesome to watch, and I think we got some wonderful footage. Really nice to have vigorous exercsie first thing in the morning. Spent a few hours hurling myself at the floor. Made a quick change then went on a date. had lunch and walked downtown from the park.

It occurs to me that I don't want to talk about my weekend anymore.

I'm really worried about the state of the world and money. Sorry-- I'm worried, only, about my own financial security. I have nothing, really, to worry about. In the sense of, economic crisis doesn't really affect me as much, since I have no real money to speak of. I do have, however, around $40,000 in student debt and very little hope of ever having a life that will allow me to pay it back. I wonder, sometimes, if I am making the wrong decisions. Sometimes I meet other people my age who have corporate jobs, or work in "media buying" (shoot me, in between the eyes, please). And these folks seem to be making enough money. They can live in swanky neighborhoods and shop at whole foods. I think to myself: I'd like a piece of that. A retirement account? That sounds pretty cool. Being able to take a cab home when you're drunk? Instead of waiting for the train in the middle of the night? AWESOME. New jeans that no one has worn before? So cool. Super cool. Great.

But then again, I kind of like having an "art" "career" or whatever. I like not having to act like I care about that kind of commerce and shit. Suck up to bosses. Whatever.

Scary times.

Own Rock. Get Your.

"What I really want to do is what you do."

9/26/08

Real Sleep

My senior year of college I got really sick and almost died over christmas vacation. I returned for the spring semester anemic. I had quit smoking cigarettes and had to take a cocktail of stomach medicines, antibiotics, painkillers and cough syrup every day. I started smoking pot, too. In earnest. The first book I read, curled up in my dorm room bed in the New York snow, bloodless, pilled and stoned out of my mind, was Shelley Jackson's excellent short story collection, The Melancholy of Anatomy. One of the stories, "Sleep," personifies it as a light, sort of golden snow-substance. That comes down from the sky. Children sculpt statues of themselves out of sleep. These twins can take over for them, while the original leaves or sleeps or dreams. It's really gorgeous, and at the time really made me think a lot about sleep, dreaming. Rest.

This is all to say that while Shelley Jackson might be in my top three favorite writers, that is not at all what Sleep is like. Not real Sleep. I'm an insomniac, I go for days or even weeks getting only a handful of hours of fitful tossing. I never remember my dreams. It's more like passing out. I wouldn't even call it sleep. I'd call it napping.

Last night, though, I slept. I got good Sleep. For a few hours, anyway. After five.

Real Sleep isn't light. It's not relaxing, it doesn't float down from the sky like snow. It's not dusty. It's heavier than wind. It's not a place you drift off to. It's quantifiable, you can mark it and measure it. Read it on a chart. Make a graph of it. Its like glue. It is condensed, viscous, purified. Boiled down like maple syrup. Slow, sweet and sticky. Maybe it is like drugs then: it hits you, you know it, and it's over too soon. You wake up. It's like someone getting out of bed, except for the fact that when good Sleep is over, he's still there. You can watch it fill up his lungs next to you. It's better than drugs. It's not subtle, you don't forget it's happening. When you get good Sleep you feel it. You know where you're going, and you're glad. It's like that old wives' tale, Love: you just know. All this description paints a picture of just a fraction of the feeling. There is a distinct logic to it. It uncovers itself. And it goes without saying, that knowledge of pleasure can give you a head ache.

And in the morning, they'll know. They'll see it in your face. On your way to work, when you run into your friends? When strangers stare a moment too long at the corners of your mouth? Not your droopy eyelids, but something just behind them. Your Sleep will be plain, conspicuous. It will have been an overt pleasure and you cannot have been keeping it a secret. It reeks, too. They will smell it on you. It will be like, what did David Wojnarowicz call it, over and over again? The rude perfume of sex. It stains, sort of. It stays behind your ears and underneath your fingernails. Today, I can't wash it off.

9/25/08

You've Changed (For the Better)

I'm gonna add my voice to the chorus here. Again. Lauren Flax, people. I've seen her DJ a bunch and always had a fabulous time. She used to throw that U.N.I.T.Y. 90s party in Brooklyn, which was always too much fun for words. Maybe my room mates know her (they are mild-mannered but well-connected soft butch celebutantes). I had no idea that L. Flax made her own songs. Is that stupid of me? I know DJs make mixtapes. Maybe I just don't know a lot about DJ culture / world.

Anyways.

Lauren Flax has made a song with Sia, called "You've Changed". It's supposed to get official release soon. It might already be out, I don't know. You can hear it on my favorite music blog
BIG STEREO.

This song might be my favorite song of 2008. It's really uplifting in a not-at-all-corny way. It's pretty simple, but totally effective. It sort of has everything I like about dance music, all the elements compiled. And jsut, as a song, I think it's a really smart, well exectued thing.



So anyways. If you have the good fortune to be invited over to my house, expect to hear "You've Changed" like a million times. New favorite!

On The Wall

I'm reading fashion blogs: we all agree to talk about these things like they're actually happening. The force of will, I mean IMAGINATION is astounding. I am inspired to say this: don't hate me because I'm beautiful. I don't really consider myself a beautiful person, outside or in. But you know, beauty, eye of the beholder, haters are jealous, etc. Save it!

I'm wondering: Would you rather be beautiful or happy?

I wonder if I'm really a vain, petty, empty person. I can probe the depths of me and I find that I am not so shallow. But then again, do shallow people realize they're shallow? Probably not. I think I have something here. I'm onto something.

I mean, it feels good to be right. Empirical and triumphant. And clairvoyant. I really to use adjectives as verbs. Today I'm into the verb "true". Like: I saw this big huge awful thing and I trued it. I tame it. I don't know.

Optimism isn't a lot more than a few hunches confirmed.

9/24/08

A machine for your affection

The fabulous guys at East Village Boys are serializing my zine, Scorcher. I am really excited and flattered that anyone reads this, so it's totally thrilling that people are actually hosting this. The first story, "Brother", is up online now. It's about sleeping with a nightclub personality. See if you can guess who it is. On the website there are really great illustrations of underpants and bruises and it feels like a gift I haven't even earned. Please: CHECK IT OUT.

I'm revising my list of SHIT I DON'T NEED. Possibly adding a sub-heading so that it will read SHIT I DON'T NEED (FROM YOU). Topping the list: to be the custodian of your fucking "feelings". Clean up after your own self. I am a karmic lover. My heart is a lot like a pendulum ( and a pendulum, as everyone knows, is a lot like a wrecking ball). I only ever treat people the way I expect and hope to be treated. I treat people better than I hope to be treated, most of the time. As such I can't tell if it's callous or not to just work with the assumption that haters are jealous. Is that dismissive? How would I feel if someone said that to me? I guess I would feel alright if it were the truth. Some of the time it is the truth.

Mercury is officially retrograde today. I woke up in the middle of the night, furious. I thought I broke my back. I had not. At 5am I rearranged my bed, switching where I lay my head and where I put my feet. That seemed to work, I fell back asleep. Quin came in in the morning and approved of the new layout as well.

I thought I saw you this morning, on the street. That I had recognized you from behind, but it wasn't you.

One thing that gives me simple, guiltless, and easily-replicated pleasure: Youtube videos of models falling down:



9/23/08

I knew you were sitting in your room all along

So listen to the radio. Smoke a cigarette. Same old thing, yeah I know. Everybody does it.






Um, the door. And um, the window. And the zipper in front.

I guess I decided some time ago that broken bones do not ever heal, not really. That any injury sustained is a permanent one. A wound signals a lifetime of recuperation. At some point in the I came to the conclusion that 'pain,' or the emotion of 'suffering' or whatever is unremarkable because there is no endpoint. It is a loop.

I am interested in worst-case scenarios. There is such a thing as a practical use of imagination and one practical use is to imagine what the apocalypse will be like. What it will sound like when the other shoe drops. And in fact, to ask your lover questions along these lines. Some common third-date questions from me are:
  • Have you ever been arrested for drugs?
  • Have you ever had sex for money?
  • Have you ever tried to kill yourself?
and of course I always want to know WHY.

At some point I considered myself "cool" or something. I did not believe that something as stupid as this would upset me. I won't belabor the point but I sort of feel like: If something (say, me for example) has been revealed to be a sham once before, then isn't this revelation not only once again possible, but inevitable? Every bad thing that a person has ever thought about themselves can be revealed to them by a finely-trained lover. Any and all weaknesses can be exploited. All things flow in one direction only. I discovered my capacity for distress: it is limitless, I can't get enough. I found out that I could come unhinged. I could be disassembled. I could be taken apart, if he wanted to. And sometimes he does want to.

So now I'm laying around and my bones are (metaphorically) broken. And I'm just eating these fucking nasty calcium chews that taste like chalk. There is no consolation because I do not understand it. I'm going to blame this on Mercury going retrograde tomorrow.

And I'm hoping that something will grow back but like the wisest gardeners faced with poisoned soil and scorched grass I am not what we call "optimistic".

9/22/08

Functioned like a robot for your love

So we're like standing there ignoring each other

Or the way you take to get there

Is it wrong to want to use my blog, titled FAG CITY, as a repository for pictures of myself? This is an exercise in uselessness. I hate photos of myself. I think of myself as patently unattractive, and not photogenic in the least, no matter how hard I try (and I try). The reason I want to get pictures of me, then, is really about how I'm pulling off a really good trick on the rest of the world. Like, 'Joke's on you, you're wasting film on this!'. Okay. No one even really uses film anymore. Today, though I feel particularly lumpen and unformed. Slept with my windows open again. Mosquitoes got into my room and woke me up every hour or so, in blinding pain, to reapply cortisone cream. After managing to take care of the welts across my arms neck and legs, I managed to get about thirty-four minutes of 'sleep'. Woke up, an hour late for work, with half of my face covered in bug bites, pink purple and swollen. I feel like someone strapped water balloons to my face. Gross. Anyway.

One exciting thing about today so far is that my dear dear friend Arizona has started a blog. I may be the last of a handful of people who ever knew this funky soul as Arizona, and to me she will always be. She and I founded Bang! Bang! Indians!, a high-gothic country band, at Sarah Lawrence. A typical Bang! Bang! Indians! show usually involved abandoning songs mid-verse, screaming at each other onstage, prostelyzing about the War, performing with our backs to the audience and generally fighting a lot. It was also very magickal. Arizona's songs are these beautifully-crafted sharp little gems. I still perform one of her numbers, "Bloody Saddles". Anyway, she has moved from her native San Francisco to (of all places) Kansas. She writes in a really beautiful way about her artistic process, and this is exciting to me. It will probably be exciting to you too.

Tonight I'm going to the gym them I'm going to hang out with Bobo and Jiddy. Hopefully we can talk about our favorite colors. Mine is purple but I think I want to change it, now that everybody and their mother is into purple. I feel like a real Leo: everybody is ripping me off. I don't know whether or not that's actually true, but I often feel like my ideas are completed by someone else.


Mercury goes into retrograde the day after tomorrow. Which may as well be today. My alarm clock didn't go off this morning and my computer is acting funky. No use, I guess, in trying to ask anybody on dates. Much as I might like to.

9/21/08

Even the real

Friday night Dan and I made dinner, watched music videos and talked about boys (what else?). Met Tommy at the bar. A sort of shady dude gave me his business card. I thought "If that's how people are going to start hitting on me, slipping me their business card in a handshake when they leave, then I feel really old." Had an early night.

Saturdays I get my picture taken. Saturday morning I woke up with all my windows open. it was freezing and white and bright. I had a dream like I was time traveling, going back a couple of years. I dreamed the morning he wanted me back. I thought about my night. I woke up in love with you. Not even the real you, I guess. Some fantasy version of you, minus, like, half the you-ness. This is what I mean about Scott Panther and imaginary boyfriends. Like I am so into the version of you that doesn't exist. I'm really hurt by the fact that you remain different than the fantasy in my head.

Go-go danced last night. It was great. Bar after. Some people, it seems, are born to hate me without ever knowing me. It bums me out. Just a couple of guys, I guess. But they're your friends and if we're in love (and in my imagination we are) then how can I disapprove of your friends? This is so frustrating.

Last night I had a dream about getting into a fight with someone. We were in the lobby of the Conde Nast building. I had to go up to Vogue and unnecessary and vain and for some reason. It was something embarrassing and glamorous, like I had to approve my photos or something. The receptionist in the lobby was being real mean and said she would have to accompany me she didn't trust me. My former lover showed up in the lobby and we got into a fight. He said he worked at SAG which was in the same building. What was I doing here? He hated my outfit and made fun of me. He was drunk and it was only noon. Not even lunch yet. I asked "Are you drunk?" and he replied yeah of course, like it was a good thing. His boyfriend, his real life boyfriend, hit on me. Asked me for a drink. Stood behind me and grabbed my butt while my former lover was chewing me out about my outfit. He was wearing a plastic raver shirt. I didn't tell them why I was going upstairs. I walked out of the building because I didn't want to brag to him about how famous and important I was that I had to approve photos of me for Vogue.

So yeah I woke up in a good mood.



I got some secret things to tell you, lover.

9/18/08

Fool Enough

Let me off of this crazy thing. I feel like I've swallowed a belly full of glass or something. Shaky and shiny and sharp. Triple S.

I'm performing a show tonight at Don Hill's and I'm really excited to sing my new song "Intimidation" about asking for what you want or something. I don't know.

Here's me and Jiddy tonight:

9/17/08

Hey Peter: REPTILIAN

This is how I feel today: like a bag of meat. Hacked up and disassembled. With clear skin: you can see my contents. Blood pooling and bits of bone and gristle. Gnarly, dead, and raw. It is a wonder that people find this appetizing, yet they do. How is that, Peter? Almost as good as "reptilian", I guess. Today I want to drink a lot of booze and start fights, take pills and get lost in the park somewhere, drop acid and run into traffic or something. Instead, I'm going to the gym after work and cooking myself dinner and sleeping.

Marsha Lenahan is really important to me, sometimes. This morning is one of those times. Again: blog = coded messages. Today I've been thinking about "splitting" as a mental process. A way of processing information and social experience. It's not a very good way to do it, but it is a habit. People being elemental, good or bad, friend or foe. But not me. I'm just caught bouncing in-between the two. Like: how can you like me and be my friend, when at the same time say mean things to me when we're out in public together? How can you want me to be happy, to like you and then try to sabotage my happiness and start a fight with me? Aren't aggression and empathy mutually exclusive? This is so hippy-dippy.

Often Bobo or JJ or Pico or Jenny or Jiddy (inner circle) will be listening to me complain about someone. Some stable of frienemies who constantly upset me. And they all always ask "Why are you friends with him if all he does is be awful? Why do you keep hanging out with him?" I am trying to parse this out. I don't know anymore how much bullshit I want to sift through, just for the occasionally nice remark.

But back to Lenahan. Today's DBT Skill Lesson is the most difficult and advanced of the cycle, Radical Acceptance:
"Freedom from suffering requires ACCEPTANCE FROM DEEP WITHIN. It is allowing yourself to go completely with whatever the situation is. Let go of fighting reality. ACCEPTANCE IS THE ONLY WAY OUT OF HELL WHICH MUST NOT BE INTERPRETED AS APPROVAL OF THE DISTRESSFUL SITUATION. Pain creates suffering only when you refuse to ACCEPT the pain. Deciding to tolerate the moment is ACCEPTANCE. ACCEPTANCE is acknowledging what is. To accept something is not the same as judging it to be good. By stopping your self from fighting, the rage or anger you feel will dissipate as long as you continue to accept your condition or your faulty perceptions to events or interpersonal communications difficulties. You will be amazed at how much better you will feel when you are able to accept."
I'm working on knowing conflicting truths at the same time. Living with disparate feelings and not, y'know, judging that. Or more realistically, not letting when people around me judging that bug me so much. Having conflicted thoughts Finding common ground with enemies, and being able to fault my friends. There is a lot in the world that falls into the category of "nuance" and I want to be able to appreciate some of that stuff.

In the brilliant New Yorker piece this week, Cindy McCain talks about her addiction to painkillers. She said that during a Senate hearing in which both she and her husband were being indicted, that the cushion of Vicodin made her feel "euphoric and free". So, in the spirit of accepting conflicts, at least we seem to have something in common.

Our ever-insatiable yearning for freedom, and the drugs we take to get it.



9/15/08

À Cause Des Garçons

Must stop starting my weekend on Thursday night. It just ruins me. Last Thursday was worth it, though. Even having to explain a hickey at work. Friday night I was far too miserably tired to go out or do anything exciting, Bob and James of Fey Friends fame came over. We all hung out in JuhNeeFuh's room and put on her dresses. We talked about Citizen Ruth for a while, and eventually got around to watching it when I fell asleep.

Saturday I went to the gym, then Ves came over to take photos. We ate donuts (they were a prop, first) and I tried to look good. At night I met up with Richert and Miriam for Tingel Tangel. Richert's movies and performance went splendidly, I thought. I'm so flattered to have been involved even a little. Darlinda Just Darlinda did a really great number, giving birth to then destroying the image of Sarah Palin. Johnny Darling read a beautiful, heartbreaking / funny piece. Went out to the bar afterwards. A cute boy told me I was very handsome, gave me his number, wanted to have a kissing contest with me, but I'm too competitive to get involved. Sunday I visited Jiddy at her job at the New Museum. Saw the much-ballyhooed show, "After Nature." Stood under Zoe Leonard's tree for a while, it was pretty profound. Almost started crying. Gotcha.

A lot in my life hinges on me not feeling ridiculous. There is a willful suspension of disbelief that runs the spectrum of my life experience. At one end of the spectrum I am getting onstage to sing in front of strangers, having my photo taken. At the other end of the spectrum is just me getting up in the morning. But the whole thing relies on my not know, constantly un-learning and disremembering how ridiculous and awful I am. And I generally do a good job of this. I'm getting better every day (certainly in the last two years) at knowing a different thing about myself, instead of being awful. So it's frustrating when people want me to feel awful. Being, like all Leos, generous in nature, I can understand that when people are doing nasty things including calling you nasty that it is often a function of their own problems. You are forgiven.

This blog is so funny. I write under the assumption that this is all anyone will ever read of this, and so I keep working out the same equation which is: try to hate yourself a little bit less. But this is a good, productive equation! If we all practiced it, I know my life would be a bit easier. i wouldn't have to kick so many folks out of my life, if they just liked themselves a little bit better.

So maddeningly busy. A year ago around this time I stayed in every night with my room mates. Did a lot of drugs and listened to Lisa Germano's Geek the Girl really loud every day. The kind of life, one in which I have the luxury of wallowing in depression, is like a fantasy. It's exciting. I get to play shows, I get to write songs. It's great. It's amazing. I'm involved with a bunch of projects involving lots of other fabulous folks and it's all good and community excitement intrigue. It's just hard, though, to make time for everything. Like, tonight. I'm going to be interviewed on Sirius radio. On their LGBTQ station, Sirius OutQ, on the Diana Cage show. I'm a girl in a hurry, no doubt about it.

Still feel sort of stymied when it comes to my love life. I wonder, am I allowed to complain about boys? Is it fair to feel rejected, really? I am trying to find a nice way to muse over this in a public way without incriminating or insulting anyone. I'm not finding it. Let's move on.

I wrote a new song, my first in a while. And I don't want to sound awful, but I really, really like it. I'm still working out the kinks the way I do with anything. But I'm pleased. I want to make more anthems of love. This one is called "Intimidation", for now, and it's about being shy. And lower-case-l love.

Really, I just wanted to write a blog entry about Yelle. I know, its totally old hat. I never said I was hip or cutting edge. I've never called myself a hipster. I don't know anything about what's cool. How boring. But Yelle's record is pretty important to me. Whoever is working for her, the label or whatever, is trying to spin it like she has these really dirty lyrics, but I don't think that's really true. She's not, as some lazy press people have said, anything like Peaches or anything. "Je Vuex Te Voir" is actually a sort of sweet song. The lyrics ("I wanna see you in a porno film") are about, like, demystifying the body. I find her totally charming and unassuming and sincere and nice. And if the bright colors are a marketing ploy, then I totally fall for it and I am a big fan. Random: her favorite band is Rage Against the Machine. How cute is that?! I went to her debut NYC show, actually. Like, a year ago, when my friend Susan was opening for her at the Knitting Factory. I was too into Susan's set to even pay attention to Yelle and now I'm really kicking myself for it. That song? "À Cause Des Garçons"? About the crazy things we do for boys? LOVE IT. Sold! Here's the video for "Ce Jeu". Which is about as perfect as a thing like a music video can ever really hope to be:



9/12/08

LUXURY GOODS

(I want to preface this by saying that originally I was just going to send this as an e-mail to JohnJoseph, but I figure I can kill two birds with one stone, leaving out some of the spurious details for the blog readers. Hello Future Employers)

In keeping with my last post, the erotics of traversing levels of meaning, I'll admit it: fashion week is interesting to me. Now, I can't buy designer clothes, but Fashion Week in NYC is kind of a big spectacle and being a Leo with a personality disorder, I always feel left out. I want to participate but have no real reason for being at these runway shows, parties, etc. Last spring during Fashion Week, I resented the fact that there was this big world going on and I wasn't invited. I went to my acupuncturist to quit smoking (which didn't work) and took diet pills all week. Through some miracle of circumstance, my friend Mordecai suggested we go to "Agyness Deyn's birthday party", and because he's glamorous and well-connected we got in and Brad took the photo to my right while I was there. I felt like I was participating.

Last night, I worked at a party at for folks in the Fashion Week milieu at a swanky downtown hotel. I had never before really encountered paparazzi before, but there were definitely cameras, on a roof top of the building across the street, taking photos of everyone going into the building. I can't get into details of why I was there, because I'm still waiting to get paid, but suffice it to say that it was very upscale. I'm not really sure what I was there for, but I was given a list of important names (ones, even, that I recognized), then promptly told to forget the list. The hotel manager was furious that the guests would have to suffer the indignity of waiting while someone checked a list. So, then: everyone up to the roof deck!

This is the type of crowd that doesn't say "I like what you're wearing" or even "Where did you get that?". Again, this world is: "
Who are you wearing?" I showed up in my work clothes (H&M and Gap). Big important party fashion man, the run running the show, the one who invited me to work last night after seeing my face, invited me up to his hotel room and got me a key card so I would have access to it. We smoked cigarettes and drank gin while waiting for the party to start. He had me wear the following outfit and memorize where things came from so that I could tell our guests who I was wearing. This is what I wore:
  • Maison Martin Margiela bracelet
  • Louis Vuitton belt
  • Dior Homme jeans
  • Paul Smith socks
  • Vintage shirt from La Rosa
  • Payless shoes, circa 2004 (model's own)
Everybody kept talking about how wonderful it was, the show. They had all come from the Zac Posen fashion show, I guess, but it took me a while to gather this since no one mentioned it by name. I like alliteration. That's why I like conceptual and minimalist art. I like being able to say a thing without saying it. Or saying a number of things by saying one thing. Passive-agressive, kinda. So i greeted people and got stared at for a few hours, sneaking drinks in the hotel lobby, before the general consensus was that even those of us "working" could go upstairs.

Maybe it's because I only ever "work" in the fashion industry as a model (or I should say near-model, faux-model), but the reality is that "work" in fashion is comprised of only three things:
  • Smoking cigarettes that people give you
  • Drinking free booze
  • Wearing clothes that don't belong to you
Pretending, in other words. As you can imagine, "work" was exhausting so I was excited to be let off the hook. On the roof top I saw exactly none of the celebrities I had been promised, but I wouldn't have recognized them anyhow. I'm sure there were a ton of very important people there but I don't know about European designers or fashion magazine editors so I was a bit lost. I kept getting served these weird, wonderful vodka mojitos. I arrived at the penthouse part of the party with the other people I was working with, but promptly ditched them to flirt with a cute boy. If there's one thing anyone should know about me, it's that I sometimes (but rarely) feel bold. In my designer clothes jewelry cologne face product cigarettes booze I felt bold.

Bold enough, in fact, to chat up this cute party guest all night. (You understand that by "bold" I now mean drunk). Bold enough to spend the rest of the evening tearing this guy away from his boss (who brought him to the party) and make out with him all over the party. In front of numerous photographers, and at least one video journalist who wanted to get a quote from him when we had taken a break from sucking face. I don't know if my coworkers were particularly amused by me necking all night, but to be fair I'm not, really, a model.

9/8/08

She's gonna make it, you know she will

Working at a fashion event last night. I was the only one of the boys serving drinks who wasn't from a modeling agency. In fact, they all have the same agency. This is something I felt embarrassed about, then angry about my embarrassment. When I admitted, reluctantly that in fact I am not a professional model, one of the very nice teenager model boys reassured me, "Well, you have a really young look. Y'know, my friend told me there's this one agency? They take guys from 15 up to, like, 26!" Which was sweet. Although they were pretty and had some serious complaints about the evening, when it was time to serve drinks, they all excelled at being sweet to people. Which totally blew my mind. Very impressive, boys.

Trying to match their zeal, I seized upon a pile of limes to cut into wedges for the well-heeled crowd's cocktails. Proceeded as if on cue to slice my thumb in half lengthwise, in front of an audience. With considerable grit I managed to make it backstage to the bathroom to wipe up blood. Praying that I didn't get too much of my precious voodoo priestess DNA into people's drinks. Fashion! It's dangerious! Who knew?

I don't know. I feel sort of scared and sort of turned on by this pattern, and this space I'm noticing. I'll describe it for you, blog readers.

I once said that my art form is the Imaginary Boyfriend, and that is still true. I think I do my best work when I'm making an effigy of affection, right? When I'm waxing poetic about something that only I am ultimately qualified to speak about (cause no one call tell you your feelings are "wrong"). This space between the object and the subject is really what I do. Being the go-go boy and being the person who talks about the go-go boy. Like, would you rather be a model, someone really pretty with only a small stake in the project, or the journalist who writes about the fashion show, relaying the experience and ideas to the world at large? The space between the creater and the viewer is what I think is compelling. Reading about postmodernism as essentially double-coded. The value of aesthetic expression is not privileged over, but rather alongside, the discourse surrounding everything else in that expression. Like, having a pretty picture is cool but you also should know that the pretty picture is sort of referencing another picture which you may or may not have seen in which case your experience of the picture will depend on what you know. It sounds mean, but it means that you can have anything mean anything, sort of. Like in New York: Anna Wintour walks down fifth avenue to look at what girls on the street are wearing. Girls on the street are reading Vogue to see what Anna thinks girls reading Vogue think Anna think's is beautiful. The inertia of this kind of continuum is what I'm talking about. I think I want to call my next record, maybe even change the name of my band to NO REAL MAX STEELE.

And I'm not the only one that's onto this "hunch". I'm far from articulate about it, crazed as I am on caffeine. But look: there are a lot of us out there, in this intercourse discourse fucking mindspace between the object and subject of high-low culture. Last night I passed as a model (people kept asking for my "card", which agency I'm from, do I want to go to their after party with them am I Swedish), sorta. But then, you know, I go home and eat chinese food. Listen to punk records. Do "un-cool" things. I can go up or down pretty easily and most people can but not many people want to or feel, as I do, the necessity of fucking the looking-glass. What is the name for people who, because of cultural / social / political structures, are simultaneously creating culture while being banned from it? What is the name for folks who are complicit in the the chaos of their own desires, because we can and must move to either side of the view-finder of American culture? Queer, obviously.

Do I sound like a snob? I've been thinking of Through the Looking-Glass, in the way that Luce Irigaray uses it. Like, this idea of moving back and forth within the discourse of subjectivity is really cool--and, I'll admit it-- sexy, to me. THIS, the incredible shrinking distance, between self and "self", is what turns me on. The mirror, the object is fucking it's own context. Moving back and forth between the double-coded messages, that is the kind of fucking I want.

9/3/08

It won't be long now

After work last night I ran down to Eastern Bloc to DJ. Nasser gave me big gin and tonix which made me feel kind of gross at first, but after the second one it started to make sense. La JJ was there, he gave me a stuffed heart that has "You'R #1!" printed on it, he got it in California. Regaled me with tales of booze, sex, drugs, and shopping in Hollywood. Dan came by before his show at Sidewalk, wish I could've seen it. Thain came and gave me some witch tips.

Lately, people have been asking me about witchery and voodoo. Like, "You don't really believe all that, do you?" So let me say for the record; in the words of Justin Bond quoting Yoko Ono (see how I did that?) "Yes, I Am A Witch". Hail to the Guardians of the Watchtowers of the West.

DJ-ing was good. Mordecai came in, after work, apparently not realizing that I DJ happy hour at Eastern Bloc, he had just stopped in for a drink. He's so shy! Tommy and Brandon and Kasey all came. We're starting a gang, but really only so that we'll have an excuse to perform horribly painful initiation rites. Johnny Darling showed up, I haven't seen him since his birthday party and who knows how long it had been before that (I guess since my birthday party).

We ate falafel and went to the Metropolitan where I promised I would only stay for a second but stayed kind of longer. Go-go superstar Pony was there. A slug hung out with us for a little while and we all had a good laugh about that. I begged off at midnight, complaining about being too tired to hang out any more.

On the subway platform reading about plurality and postmodernism and cultural crises, two boys who had been at Metro came over and said hi, that they recognized me from the subway stop where we live. Invited me to hang out with them on their roof, where we stared at the Manhattan skyline and talked about movies until 2am. I felt confident (drunk?) and social. Bought plantain chips on my way home and ate them in bed, reading an article about Kurt Cobain. Woke up at 6am with my stereo playing and with the lights on. Ever-so-slightly hungover and really glad for it. Gathered my favorite of our four cats, Quinn, into my arms and went back to sleep for a couple hours.

Tuesdays are really the worst. I feel so much better today. What is it, Wednesday? Awesome. I ate oatmeal with black raspberries this morning and I feel really fortified. Putting hair on my chest. Part of why I feel so good is in getting in touch with folks. People writing back. Cute boys telling me I look familiar, people offering me drinks or cigarettes or candy. Hugging. Meeting new people and getting along with them. Listening to my friends tell me about what they've been up to. It's like my life is a big button and I just keep pressing it.

Baudrillard "We live in the ecstasy of communication. And this ecstasy is obscene."

The photo on the right is from my performance at Dixon Place. Hunter brought me a big sunflower
(which I think I left "to dry" somewhere in my room and I'm sure it's rotting in some forgotten corner -- oops!) and Jiddy took the photo. In this picture I feel really grateful for my friends, for attentive ears and the words to get to them.

Dig it.

9/2/08

Talk More Junk But Won't Look My Way

I wanted to write a long, seething blog post in which I complain about my life, but I'm not going to do that today because:

a) It's boring for other people to read, I guess, and
b) I don't want to give these fuckers any more air time.

Suffice it to say that sometimes people really are out to get you. They really are only saying that to make you mad. They really are trying to get you to see who they're making out with because they want you to be jealous and want you to hate yourself. Look: I could go on my whole Buddha trip about forgiving everything forever. And I could also get all Psych 101 and figure out that really, deep down, he's not trying to hurt MY feelings, he just hates himself.

But y'know what? Fuck that. Haters are categorically jealous, boring and a total waste of time. They'll get theirs and I have no time for anything other than the swiftest, most hilarious revenge. Luckily I've so totally got it covered.

On that note, a guide on how to read my blog and thus interpret my personality:








I got my cello fixed over the weekend. It's been almost two years since I've played it: it's hard! Sunday night was Bobo's birthday party / science fair. I had a pretty great time. In fact, Jiddy and I had a really splendid time, arriving early at 9pm to drink a bottle of sake on her stoop. We had so much fun that by midnight, when the guests were still finally arriving, Jiddy and I had passed out in Bobo's bed, fully-clothed.

For some reason Tuesdays are really hard for me. I've tried to figure out why but I can't. Every Tuesday I have a near-identical panic attack about how awful I feel. Good thing I DJ on Tuesdays right after work. Nasser always gives me big fancy drinks. And I don't care how bad the day is, how broke you are, who you got dumped for, what kind of sprain you might have: there are few things in line that are not ameliorated by the combination of triple sec, gin, and Sarah Cracknell's voice.