9/30/09

Last night I came into your home to break some ice and throw some stones.

IT. FEELS. ALL. RIGHT.

Some things I'm thinking about using my eyes.



Laura and Alba Zapatero, daughters of Spain's Prime Minister. This is not the extreme goth radical chic that everyone is making it out to be, but they are super cute and inspiring.



Finally found the dream Comme des Garçons glossy black limited edition neon teal interior wallet for well under $100 and I got it and it really does make me happy. Happy-ish. Happier than before I had it. I guess. Whatever. Fuck your mother.



Combining this week's themes of Japanese design and kooky political families, Miyuki Hatoyama is so totally in my thoughts lately. She's the wife of Japan's new Prime Minister, a very snappy dresser who also dabbles in design, and also is into really freaky woo-woo stuff like intergalactic psychic travel and meeting celebrities in past lives. Yes, Miyuki! Ex-fucking-actly! IIIIIII know!



Ambular. A perennial favorite and daily inspiration to me. Like, to a probably delusional extent. I really identify with this character. One of the things that I most identify with both myself and the fictional character originated by Elisa Donavan known affectionately as Amber is that in one episode of the much-underrated TV show "Clueless", there are free tickets to some Luscious Jackson concert, and Amber makes a grossed-out scrunched-up face, says something to the effect of "Ew I hate Luscious Jackson". Then, through the twists of fate that could only befall glamorous Beverly Hills girls, Amber winds up getting a ticket to the concert and totally loves it. [SIDENOTE: In this episode I remember Amber sort of vogue-ing along to the band in the concert scene and if memory serves (it probably does) she was wearing some kind of bodysuit and I remember thinking that it was very Lady Miss Kier-inspired, just noticing notes as I hear them played, people). So that's one thing Amber and I have in common: we both act like we're too cool to get into Luscious Jackson. But secretly? We're also both really into Luscious Jackson.



Sunday afternoon I met with the kids to do a photoshoot of the Birdsong collective folks. While we were on the roof of the McKibbin Lofts setting up a big group shot I ran over to the graffiti'd wall and started posing cause it reminded me of the Natural Ingredients cover art and my good friend, amazing visual artist and Certified Beautiful Person Isabelle Payne-Rancier snapped this photo of me, posing.



Over / out.

9/28/09

Letting It

Thursday night was the East Village Boys party and I was up too late. I think I was maybe just cranky on Friday, or something, but I had the distinct feeling that shit was getting a little bit too real. What is a nicer or more articulate way of putting it? I could feel something slipping out of alignment. I a psychic chiropractor. A psychopractor. I bet those actually exist. I could feel the crazy coming out, in other words.

Friday night, begging off lest I dig into those I so dearly love, I stayed in. I folded copies of the new limited edition mini-zine, Lingua, that are going to be available at the NY Art Book Fair this weekend. I watched Glitter, which was actually a lot better than I thought it was going to be. Part of the experience of watching the film is the knowledge that the film failed (for a number of reasons, mostly because it came out right around 9/11/01) and that the film's failure precipitated the heartbreaking and public "nervous breakdown" of Mariah Carey. It was an actually really nice movie, and made me really root for Mariah (as if I need a reason) and it totally cheered me up.

Saturday I woke up really early, cleaned my kitchen, went to the gym, did some grocery shopping, came home and recorded some backing vocals for a new performance, went with Tommy to the Strand (where I got a first edition of Erica Jong's Fanny), and to the Greenmarket where I got houseplants and exotic vegetables. I borrowed Tommy's microphone, went home and did some gardening, cooked my weird veggies, and recorded backing tracks for "Intimidation". In the evening I met up with Tommy and PLD for pie, then we retired to Tommy's house to drink rum and diet coke and listen to the wind comin in through his window. We went to a party at Bobo and Jiddy's new house, and saw PAPS play a particularly amazing set in the basement. I high-tailed it to the city to go to a party at my office, which was typically off the fucking hook. All in all, a really amazing day. Throughout the day I kept thinking "This feels really good, I'm amazed at how great I feel. I'm getting to do all of my favorite things, everything is lining up so beautifully for me in this moment."

Then I went back to Brooklyn to meet up with Tommy at Metro. I want to describe my thought process but I am not sure that it's really compelling enough to even blog about. What I had been scared of, losing my mind, more or less came to pass. I was drunk and I was upset, I guess. MY cell phone broke. It had been breaking for some time now, but at a very inopportune moment, gesticulating wildly to Tommy while simultaneously complaining and trying to get this boy I really like to come over, I went to read his text message and my phone just snapped in half. This seems like the right time to end one's tirade, call a cab and draw the evening to a close. I see that now. At the time, it seemed more along the lines of inconrovertibale proof that the Universe Was Indeed Fucking With Me, and I Must Have Done Something to Deserve That. My panties were in a knot. I remember being in the exact same situation when I was in college, explaining my emotional distress to a newly-assigned school therapist, one who definitely did not want to be meeting with me (so of course I took this to mean that I would just have to convince her to love me by showing her how pure and real my feelings were-- happy to say that it worked, by the way, but that's not the point). I was describing the uniquely painful situation in which I then (and now) find myself and how awful it makes me feel and she put down her pen and notebook and said "You know, you don't have to feel bad about this. This has nothing to do with you and you shouldn't let this make you feel bad."

Okay. Alright.

Tommy managed to steer me out of the bar where we smoked and I complained and got rowdy, then we walked home in the rain. I woke up after four hours of sleep with a blistering hangover and no cell phone. Stumbled through midtown to find a replacement and got the Shittiest Phone Ever to replace it, only to find that not one of my contacts had been saved. Not one. This is a little depressing. But now I really feel like this, more than anything anyone else does or doesn't do, is the Universe Sending Me A Message. And the message is this: let it go, Billy. Do you really need to save the phone numbers of people who you never really want to speak to? Does saving the phone numbers of friends who have died really make you any closer to them? Why risk accidentally sending a drunken text message to one of the many international celebrities that had been filling your address book for the last few years? Let it go.

So I'm going to recommitt myself to letting it go, "it" being everything and everyone with whom I am done. You know if you are one of these people. On that note I am listening over and over again to "Letting Go", the first single from the underrated debut album (The Audition) by America's next brightest star Janelle Monae.



Here's a video of her performing the song live. I am such a fan:



I am consciously deciding to not feel bad. To not let it get to me. And I mean, it's working. It would work better if mitigating circumstances were different but we all have to be thankful for everything all the time. On Sunday I had a really strong urge to dye my hair black and luckily Dan sort of talked me down from that. In times of emotional distress, I am not the healthiest responder. When confronted with emotional pain I sort of go all PJ Harvey (wailing dark nasty hair blues howl cannibalism). I'm trying to find a better way to be and I think Janelle's is pretty right on.

SO for now: I'm okay. I think. Maybe not. Ask me later.

9/25/09

Give It Better, Billy

Lifts like red clouds. Parts. I wake up in a frothing rage. The bad taste of cusswords in my mouth when I got out of bed. I brush my teeth and I forgive and I decide to chill out. I'm exhausted. I was up all last night having so much fun at the East Village Boys party at the Hose and got too little sleep and I guess I'm cranky.

Or something. I feel like my skin is made out of onion skin or something. I need to toughen up.
On my way to work this morning I actually thought about writing this blog post because I was thinking of making a list of all the nasty things people say about me behind my back. Either real things that people say (on the internet too) or things that I imagine people might say about me. I thought "Maybe I should make a list, afterward, of all the positive things too, just to be fair" but then I couldn't think of any nice thing that anyone would ever say about me. Or, I couldn't think of anything nice about me that I couldn't explain away. So I guess that sort of illustrates a bigger problem in itself and then again no one wants to read the list of all the nasty things I could imagine about myself. S'boring.

And then I was walking to work and I got a really good idea for part of a song. And even though probably no one, or a number between no one and twenty people will ever hear this, it makes me feel really good. Mood lifted. List dispelled. I feel a lot better.


"If you stick to your work it will take care of you somehow." -- Kiki Smith

I want to talk, again, about when I was a junior in college Robin Winters invited me to sit in on one of his classes. I had taken his course as a sophomore and again as a senior, but this time he just asked me to come to class, which was held around dinnertime. Kiki Smith was the guest lecturer, and when I arrived she was holding court over chinese food. Everyone was mesmerized and she was gorgeous and sweet and very down-to-earth. She did a presentation of her work from a slide machine. She wouldmove through the slides, some of which were fuzzy bluury upside down or missing, talking about various projects she had done, and her philosophy on art. It was maybe one of the more inspiring / 'turning point' moments in my life. She was clicking through images of nearly iconic images, and talking about when and how she felt inspired. She said that sometimes she would worry that she was done. That she'd never make another piece of art, that she'd never have another idea. "Then," she said "then, later, I usually do. So it's okay." That was really cool. I am trying, in the middle of a very funkadelic funk, to hold on to this and try to record some backing tracks on Saturday afternoon. We'll see.

9/24/09

Where I Love You



BILLY'S DREAM OF AUTUMN:

Now he is dead and buried I have a fistful of the gravedirt in a jar underneath my bed, to keep him from coming back. No monsters for the monster home down there, I've sealed the doors and every Saturday burn sage and rub bright red agua guerra on the doorframes windowsills my temples wrists and heart. I know he is gone but still Scott Panther shows up in the dreams I brag about not remembering.

Last night Scott and his best friend Katie are visiting, studying abroad, imperial and occidental and rude at the restaurant. We are at the cafe in Berlin on Marianenstrasse and I am in town, have been for some months before. It's night, or it's winter so even midday is black. It's crowded but I see them from across the room and I sit down at their table. They are speaking to each other in English, quietly. I order myself drinks and sit at their table and wait for them to notice me, they do not. I eventually say hello to Scott and when he replies to me, sighing and cutting casually like landmines in my open mouth he does not break his gaze from Katie. Everything is in black and white. My skin is dirty, I'm grimy from having rolled around in the streets. I am desperate to get Scott to notice me, here. Look! I've made it here! First! Come back, Scott! He is angry at me for ruining his vacation by turning up. I realize in the dream that there is no one unturned rock which I cannot locate Scott underneath. Every shape becomes pointed ears a striped tail and paws with claws. Every boy-shaped hole is the one through which he appears and not (ever) alone. I wake up and stumble to the bathroom. My eyes look red from crying.

In the dream I sit at their table and get angrier and angrier at them ignoring me. I want to take one of the knives from the place-settings which are going unused since they don't speak German and are too scared to order in English and I want to take the knife and stab it into the wooden table, to get Scott's attention. He is describing to Katie a boy he had seen earlier that day who was checking him out. But I'm right here. I'm looking into the scene from outside the glass windows of the cafe. I gather my coat and people crowd the sidewalks around me. I want to bang on the windows knock him over I know you're gone but pay attention to me like I am to you. In the dream I am aware I'm asleep and I fantasize about a leapoard print coat I want to reduce you to leather make you into a covering and keep you cleaned folded and seasoned away in my closet, Scott, turn you into an old thing I once wore the way you have done to me. I wake up and stumble to the bathroom. My eyes look red from fury.

9/23/09

WHAT A BAM-BAM

Oh yes, Jeremy Scott.
These looks will soon be coming to a Kylie Minogue music video near you, and It Girl Johnny Makeup has already been photographed with the new stuff in hand. Why does this shit rock? Let's get into it: it's nostalgia (in a post-irony sense), cartoon-y clubkid wear, a nod towards the recession and it's reappropriation of the word "luxury" (it's fake fur, darling, designer fake fur patterns). It's adolescent on the outside but made for girls who have already fallen from grace. It's fucking ridiculous and almost unwearable, but any attempt to pull off these looks would qualify as super cute. I am super duper into it. I especially love the denim shorts that are short in front but long in the back. They're like capes for your legs. The tiger-print pants that Mr. Scott wears at the end of the show remind me of NYC's favorite historicist, Joseph Keckler's style. Begin transmission.







I WAS ALWAYS WITH YOU

So much to say and do. Let's see.

Saturday night was QxBxRx and I was fucking ecstatic because a) it was the first time in a long while that my friend Richert and I go-go danced together, and b) the first band of the night was none other than Tayisha Busay. Allow me to begin gushing about them.

Maybe a year ago, I was contacted by rising electropop wonderkid Brandon LaLaVek about playing shows in NYC. It was really inspiring to meet another young queer artist doing cool shit in NYC. His music was amazing and he was really sweet and genuine. His music is also amazing. He makes these really beautiful, intense, layered pop gems. In at least one of them he loops Kathleen Hanna singing "I wish I was-, wish I was-, wish I was-" into a gorgeous noise. Double extra swooncore. He booked my band Max Steele and the Party Ice (I think I might change the name of my band, to either Silvertooth or Isadora Wing-- thoughts?) to play with him and my good friend / constant source of musical and spiritual inspiration PASH(ly) at this club in Greenpoint called Europa. He had also booked another band for that night, three young beautiful ladies by the name of Tayisha Busay. Susan Pash(ly) has said that Tayisha was apparently really great, she had checked them out on MySpace. Susan has exquisite taste, is usually ahead of everyone else in this god-fearing country in terms of What Is Rad (just, when you get a sec, peep some of Susan's legendary sartorial prowess). Just before the show I found out that the girls in the band and I had a mutual friend: the Dance Darling of Downtown, Miss Joey Kipp. Anyone who is friends with Kipps Ahoy is a winner in my book. I felt instant sympatico with the Busay Ladies and I hadn't even met them yet.

My band and I showed up at the club and were summarily blown away by LaLaVek's set. I kept telling my friends that night "See? See? I told you! I fucking TOLD YOU HOW GREAT HE IS!" I could barely contain myself. The dancers and I did our stretches and got into our outfits, getting ready to perform. We schmoozed with Pash(ly) and assorted Rock Luminary Audience Members and it was a really good time.

Then Tessa, Ariel and Hope showed up.
In costume.
We (actually) gagged. As in: our mouths were stopped.
The talkiest band in NYC was speechless.

I am, or try to be, a sweet and generous person. When I'm playing shows I usualyl try to meet the other bands and strike up a convo and find common ground. When I had gathered my wits and lifted my jaw from the floor, I nervously approached Tayisha and introduced myself. They were so fucking sweet. We chatted about school and Joey and life in the city. I was bemused and curious about the band. Maybe it's my deep, dark insecurity, but when I see a Really Good Looking, Well-Dressed band I am doubtful. I figure "Well, they look good but they can't possibly deliver on all the promises that their metallic silk hoodies and neon leggings are making, can they? I think not." Without even meaning to, I pulled my Ageism card with the girls and got all matronly and wished them a good show that night. Pash(ly) did some really intense, smoldering groove-rock new songs, taking us deeper into our hearts. My band performed and we were pretty good, I thought.

Then Tayisha Busay hit the stage. It's like someone set me on fire. When I was a teenager I religiously went to puck rock shows. I went every week to 924 Gilman Street, even if I didn't know any of the bands. I was desperate and starving to see other performers and bands, got a definite thrill out of live music. I didn't smoke or drink or do drugs (well, not a lot) in high school. Music was my drug of choice. In college I stopped going to events that weren't on campus, and when I graduated I had played so many shitty shows in NYC that I wasn't really interested in going to see bands I didn't know or have some prior investment in (say, a bassist I really wanted to fuck). Seeing Tayisha Busay that night reminded me what I love about live music, what I love about New York City. Only here could you see and hear something this amazing. In addition to absolute A+ Honor Roll 4.0 GPA Correctness in terms of outfits, the girls had these incredible synchronized dance moves. My dancers and I were weeping tears of joy and inspiration. Their songs were witty, bounce-y, funny, sweet, and perfectly articulated. These girls could crack a mean joke, but they can also sang. Tayisha Busay are a real fucking party. I was an instant fan.

I played with them and LaLaVek again at Europa some months later. By this point, the girls had been regulars at various NYC venues such as Santo's Party House. They were blowing up. They arrived at the club again in costume this second night, but this time in a decidedly Uptown 1970s / Janice-Dickinson-When-She-Was-Hot / Vintage Glamourpuss effects. A vision in Black and gold. Their performance was again, seared into my mind. I think of it often. They are maybe my favorite NYC band these days.

They performed on Saturday night at QxBxRx, and now Brandon has joined the band full-time. I scored a copy of their new demo with beautifully appropriate Lisa Frank touches (which YOU KNOW I LOVE):

Their performance on Saturday night was nothing short of spectacular. The live show incorporates more live musical performance, finding Ariel, Tessa and Brandon alternating rapping verses and jamming on drums samplers keyboards and computers. They once again looked phenominal, and their new songs, clear-throated glitter anthems all, blew me away. I was there on Saturday to go-go dance in between the bands, but ten seconds into their set I was already exhausted and sweaty from dancing like the exuberant fanboy I am on the side of the stage. They performed a pitch-perfect synth-pop cover of Weezer's "Sweater Song". The girls had told me that in one of their songs I would get a shout-out, and when that part happened I fucking lost my mind.

I think that everyone should go to their myspace page and listen to the songs and buy their demo and go to all of their shows. They are perhaps the most important band happening in NYC right now, and in about five seconds they're going to be insanely famous, so check them out now before their records and concert tickets are really expensive.

I scored a copy of their new demo at the show and have been listening to it on repeat for the last few days. In one song, they do in fact sing "Sunday morning, void of Jesus Christ / When out last night with the Party Ice". I was listening to it this morning and when that line came-on I almost started crying on the L Train. What can I say? There is almost no greater compliment. I am amazed. Their demo is fucking beautiful, beautifully produced and engineered and the songs, man, are fucking phenomenal. This is the record that you should be hearing. Check out this really cool video on them:



Just giving you all the heads up. This is What Is Cool. Tayisha Busay, we love you.

9/22/09



I'm now trying to write down something called truth. Which isn't my truth because I'm not an enclosed or self-sufficient being. My conclusion: You're no longer behind everything that happens. You, sexual love. Since you're no longer at the bottom of everything, where I know I can always find you, no one can mean anything to me anymore.
-- Kathy Acker, My Mother: Demonology


9/21/09

STYLE ICON: ANJELICA HUSTON

I mean, obviously.

















Also up to and including / makes me think of:







Good morning.

9/18/09

ONE OF THESE MORNINGS AND IT WON’T BE LONG,
YOU’RE GONNA LOOK FOR BILLY, AND I’LL BE GONE.

I’M GOING TO GLORY TO SING AND SHOUT.
NOBODY THERE IS GONNA TURN ME OUT.

TALK WITH THE FATHER, CHAT WITH THE SON.
TELL THEM ABOUT THE WORLD THAT I’VE JUST COME FROM.
LOOK UP DAVID, THE HEAT OF THE DAY.
I’M GONNA TUNE UP MY HARP AND BEGIN TO PLAY.

I KNOW MY ROLE’S GONNA FIT ME WELL.
I TRIED IT ON AT THE GATES OF HELL.

Before

Tonight I'm performing with the VGL Gay Boys in their new show at Joe's Pub. In the show are thee Legendary Rachel Shukert, Erin Markey, Moi, and of course Jeffery Self and Le Grand Dame Mme. Cole Escola. I am really happy and excited to be included in this cast. Everyone in the show is really inspiring and it's so much fun. If yr reading this, please try to come to it.

Jeffery and Cole have made a new video, check it out:



And then Saturday, I am really excited to be go-go dancing, reunited with my genius friend Richert onstage as the official QxBxRx go-go boys. Also, one of my absolute favorite NYC bands, Tayisha Busay, is performing. This is going to be literally crazy. I don't want to give away anything about their set, it's been a while since I've seen them (the last time I saw them, teen heartthrob Brandon LaLaVek had not yet joined the group full-time). All I will say is that the last time I saw them the show involved a limbo contest and fresh pizzas were delivered mid-set, just as lead singer Tayisha started rapping "Have you ever had a pizza?! It's so warm and cheesy!" over and over again. I lost my shit. The Party Ice and I have played with them a couple of times before and it is just too much fun. I can't wait.



Then Sunday I'm gonna sleep a lot. Right? Right.

9/15/09

I NEED YR SKULLZ



In middle school and high school I did not listen to the Misfits. I was and am a punk rocker but I just never got into them. They were like Nirvana for me-- pretty vanilla. I imagined that I already knew what they sounded like. That was my excuse for not listening to them, I thought they were 'boring' and I'd much rather listen to the new Allison Wolfe side project (this preference remains).

But really I was making excuses about not listening to them because I felt ashamed for not being into them. All the punk boys and most of the punk girls I knew, the tough girls who wore big leather jackets and defended me from mean straight boys through the use of cigarette butts, mean words and smeared eyeliner, the girls liked the Misfits too. There was a pretty popular Misfits cover band from my town, Plan 9, and I'd go to see them all the time at 924 Gilman St., mostly just cause it was the place to be, not because I knew the songs.

The Misfits, and the boys that listened to them, intimidated me. Then in college, I became queerer and queerer and could make my piece with rockabilly and early punk rock and I discovered I liked to party. And that I really liked the Misfits. And then I got more interested in who they were and what they looked like.



And I can say now that Glenn Danzig at the outset of his career was probably as close to My Perfect Boyfriend as anyone is going to come. I mean, gosh.





I don't know what I was so scared of. Whatever. Glenn Danzig and the whole idea of the Misfits is predicated on such a profound movie-collecting dorkiness that I can't help but be attracted to it. Thinking of renowned Girl Philosopher T. Vail's writings on "the dork" or "the frump". I think Glenn and I would have made such a great couple. I basically only date boys who sort of look like him, but none of the guys I date are ever in really cool bands. And none of them have the utter commitment to such a ridiculous (in context) but fashion-forward (futuristic, style-definining) look. I wish my hair wasn't so curly so I could grow a devillock. In high school boys and girls, even well into 2002, wore devillocks without a fucking trace of irony and for teenage hormone Glenn Danzig to have that much influence over disaffected American youth makes me really want to make out with him. Or at least the Imaginary Boyfriend version of him that I've been conjuring up these last few years as I fall asleep, jerking off to "We Are 138".





Seriously, Glenn.
I want your skull.



Super cute, and shy onstage:

9/14/09

See that host, dressed in red?

Friday night after work I went to rehearse with Jeffery and Cole for their new live show at Joe's Pub. There's another performance this Friday night, please come out. We had a nice time doing a li'l read through. The cast is the VGL Boys, moi, the fucking incredible Rachel Shukert, and we were joined for the first performance by Susan Blackwell. Really nice times. Check out this cool interview I did with them at East Village Boys.

Trudged through the rain home to eat and shower and change into fancier clothes. Went to the Dossier party at the TriBeCa Grand and got sort of emotional. Or something. I guess the emotion I was feeling was "stubborn". If there's one thing I hate in the world it's waiting in lines, so when I find myself waiting in line I have to really psych myself up for it, like "I AM IN THIS LINE BECAUSE BEING AT THE END OF THE LINE IS WHERE I AM DESTINED TO EVENTUALLY BE". It was a ok-amount-of-fun party, but I was sort of over it sooner than later. Someone asked to take my photo as I was guzzling a vodka soda. Cute.

Ran into the impeccably-dressed boy genius Max Vernon and his gorgeous friend Lisa, who were also debating leaving. We went outside for a smoke and bonded over our love of Laura Nyro. Tendaberry is his favorite as well as mine. A sort of drunk but very nice girl in high heels and a big fake blond wig stumbled over to us. She had not been inside the hotel, where everyone was wearing black. She interrupted us to bum a smoke, then invited us to join her at a speakeasy around the corner. We followed her three dark and wet blocks (I wondered, had she stumbled all the way to the hotel just to bum a smoke? it seemed like fate that she'd run into us, so we sort of felt obligated to follow her). We got to the speakeasy, which was of course invisible from the outside, but gorgeous and huge inside. Filled with girls in wigs and men in business suits. Max and Lisa and I had these really weird drinks made out of vodka, coconut juice, lime and basil. It was delicious and bizarre. We took a cab up to the Bowery Hotel, where Lisa whispered some kind of secret password to a doorman and we were whisked into the nightclub upstairs. Who knew? There were a lot of models there, it was a good time. I eventually said goodnight to the kids, caught the train to Brooklyn and went to Sugarland. Romantic interlude.

Saturday I had a mean hangover. Bobo and I went grocery shopping in matching outfits. Someone recognized me on the street, it was very sweet and a little bewildering. I don't know if I will get used to responding to "Becky". Strange. I finally had the chance to cook myself a meal for the first time in weeks, and went out to the Tim Hamilton video presentation, of two films by Collier Schorr. It was really cool, and they gave everyone free t-shirts / tank-tops (see previous post). How nice.

After the show Ptrick the Witch and I met up with Pico to get Mexican food and margaritas. My hangover lifted! We went to the party at our friend Roy's house. It was a super duper time. All of our friends were there, almost. It was really too much fun and I drank a lot. They made this really good punch from apple juice and ginger vodka and I kept thinking that seasonal meant special meant scarce so I should really down as much as I could. I have kind of a crush on one of the guys at the party but I'm really chicken shit and I think he knows I like him, so it made me feel awkward, like he was silently mocking me. I diffused the situation by getting so drunk I couldn't stand up, then more by getting so drunk I couldn't even sit up. I made (what I think of as) a graceful, swift exit into a taxicab and home for the night.

Felt pretty okay in the morning, actually. Woke up and smoked a joint on my roof, wearing short shorts and my t-shirt with panda bears on it. I smoke a pink cigarette and listened to Dusty and the Thrones. I made a conscious decision to really acknowledge the feeling I was having right then: glamour. It sounds fucked-up, but it's true. I never like my body or the places I think to put it, but Sunday morning in mottled sunlight stoned and hungover with Dusty complaining about not having to say you love her back, I thought "it's okay, right now it's okay, for like a second." That was really nice.

I saw the September Issue with Isabelle in the afternoon. It was just okay. Ran downtown to Joe's Pub to do the show. It was so much fun! I was so excited to get to go backstage at Joe's Pub and perform and it was just so cool. Thrilled to be in it. We're performing again on Friday night, so come check it out.

I'm having a really hard time organizing my thoughts lately. I'd like to blame this on Mercury being Retrograde but I'm not positive that's the reason why. I feel really petty, mean, easy to anger. And unproductive: I've got a lot of work to do, a lot of people to get back to.

I think maybe it was cause I just finished Juliana Hatfield's pretty amazing memoir, When I Grow Up. It was sort of unnerving. She writes very clearly and easily about complicated emotions. She perfectly describes the feelings of an adult tantrum, she articulates antisocial depression so well it's hypnotic and dangerous. I don't like to really talk about it, because our culture is biased against all forms of unorthodox thinking, but as you may know I am a Crazy Person. After a lot of work and time and money, I am happy to say that I'm now A Lot Less Crazy, almost Not Noticeably Crazy. But reading Hatfield's memoir really brought a lot of those feelings back to me. Sometimes without meaning to, we operate under these fucked-up assumptions about the world. Hatfield puts it really well when she's getting into a fight with one of the members of her touring party and feels sad "What right do I have to never feel upset? What right does anyone?" It's hard. You don't notice what you're sort of ransoming to the universe. You think the world is basically a painful and mean place and that people are selfish and if not exactly out to get you, will bruise and destroy you without mercy. You think that your birthright is suffering and that complaining only makes it worse. It sounds ridiculous when you verbalize it but there it is. This book made me think a lot about these things.

I am trying to be very clear about what is actually happening and what has happened, might or might not happen, or is otherwise beyond the realm of things I should bother worrying about. To put it another way: I have written down every sweet thing every boy has ever said to me and the lists I've been keeping feel a lot heavier and negative ('heavative'?) than they ought to. I guess that's the problem with remembering anything, ever.

I have always impressed my lovers with my memory. I'm bragging, but it's true (so that technically makes it okay). My first boyfriend was amazed that I would remember every single thing he'd said to me at a party weeks beforehand. I had a detailed memory for dialogue because I was always ready to point out someone's insufferable hypocrisy. How could you say that you really liked me when at that party I heard you tell your friend Cameron that you thought that girl Lisa was a babe and if you were single you'd go out with her? (Aside: my first boyfriend was Bi. More later.) I still remember everything. I've almost put effort into forgetting: drinking and smoking and having my tooth taken out, which I'm told is supposed to affect memory but mine remains painfully clear. Joke about broken glass. Joke about cooking with broken glass. A 1970s joke about the Sylvia Plath cookbook, it uses broken glass. "Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Insert head."

Anyways I'm wishing I didn't remember so much. That's probably why I never dream. Too many memories. Everyone says I do dream, I must because doesn't everyone? My problem is that I have dreams, probably really cool ones (I've got a really great imagination) but I just don't REMEMBER my dreams.

Getting a massage tonight. That ought to fix it.

9/13/09

MIDHEAVEN MAILORDER CATALOGUE

Mercury Retrograde is supposed to be the worst today. It's like an ozone warning in Australia or a smog forecast in Los Angeles. You wouldn't think they'd be able to measure that, but they can and do predict them. Today is unlucky. The 13th. Sara Winchester and I take different approaches: I won't let it in my house, personally I try to avoid it but anyways, today, here it is. I'm not gonna wear any black.

The weather is really weird. I'm listening to Dusty in London.



Feeling like I was really identifying with the song "I Start Counting" then realized I had no idea what that song is about, it's sort of nonsensiccal and Dusty is singing it so convincingly, and I know from my readings about Dusty Springfield that she always felt she had to be really emotionally invested in a song, the emotional impact of the lyrics, she felt, were crucial for her to give a good performance. She would do hundreds of takes of songs to get it "just right". So what is "I Start Counting" about? My first thought is of course: SUICIDE! I always envisioned doing a drag routing to this song as Dusty Springfield cutting her arms when she's counting because that's what I envision the lyrics to have meant to her. I have absolutely no idea why that is. I was sitting on my roof with the weather changing very quickly, feeling glamorous and young / free and sexxy. The sky and stars and weather are pulling something out of the ground like the opposite of when lightning puts nitrogen in, something's sucking our nitrogen out of the atmosphere it's like the Santa Ana winds in California (makes people go insane).

I think I might be going insane.

found on the internet:

"Tall, lean vgl guy ... 6'1", 175, br/br, masculine ... looking to hang out, play around, whatever. I tend to be on the more submissive side, so guys that are at least my size are preferable; otherwise, i feel weird having a little guy trying to dominate me. Lol. Hmmm, what else ... I love guys with some hair on their chests and a nice happy trail, and I am a sucker for a hottie in tight briefs. Not looking for friends here, just someone to fuck around with. Thanks :) Uncut latins to the front of the line :O *Boyfriend and I are visiting NYC from the 20th until the 24th. ME:6'1", 175,BR/BR,MASC,BTM
HIM: 6'0",170,BR/BR,MASC,DOM TOP, 8"uc "

makes me feel crazy, too. things like that.

just in time for an unlucky day, Tim gives us a tank top of our mantra.



Thanks!

Want It





(Lydia Lunch and Clint Ruin (a.k.a JG Thirwell) by VD Hulst)

9/11/09

RUFF NITES

I just found out that tonight is the final night of the Ruff Club at the Annex. Apparently the Annex is closing, and Ruff Club is leaving with it.

Just yesterday I was talking with my friend Dan about how I never go out anymore, how it doesn't feel as exciting to be n nightclubs right now, not so urgent. But I take it back! I haven't been to Ruff Club in about a year or so, but this news makes me kind of sad.

Ruff Club started in April 2006. I remember my glamorous and genius artist friend Isabelle Rancier told me about it when I moved to NYC full time that May. (She always knows the coolest things to do, way before anyone else). When it started, it was fun in an almost low-key way. The biggest game in town, to my mind, was the Misshapes party. At the Annex, there wasn't as much of a scene, people didn't necessarily wear their best clothes, cause they'd get sweaty at Ruff Club. Someone might spill a drink on you. Kids were getting wasted and there was lots of dancing and the basement of the Annex was wood-paneled, it looked like a suburban rec room from the 1970s. After midnight, they let people smoke cigarettes down there. It was sweaty and exciting.

Shortly before Misshapes ended in 2007, Ruff Club started to get bigger and bigger. Ruff Club always had really good DJs and live acts. It was no longer just a party for NYU hipsters and their admirers, it was a bona fide Place To Be. After Misshapes ended, I guess the Ruff Club ascended as the coolest spot. As the party's co-host and photographer, the legendary Brad Walsh noted around this time, people would come to the Annex just to hang out on the stoops that lined the street. They wouldn't even bother (or be able to?) get inside the club. They'd put on their fanciest clothes, call a car and have themselves dropped off on Orchard Street, and sit on the stairs of the boutiques on the block, wearing tight white jeans and smoking cigarettes.

I was never really a regular there, or anywhere. But going out to nightclubs used to be a lot more important, urgent, for me. Ruff Club was, for a time, a sure bet. You always knew you would have a wild and wonderful time there. Almost without fail. There aren't many parties in New York that you could say that about. Ruff Club won much more often than it failed. I never got to perform there, try as I might, but I always had an amazing time. It was really the first nightclub I started going to when I graduated from college (the summer of 2005, Isabelle and I religiously went to the Rated X Panty Party at the now-closed Opaline in the East Village, another story for another day). I identified with it. I made some good friends there. I regularly met lovers there, and often went to second and third base at the club. My first night, in the smoky basement, among rainbow-plaid throngs of hipster superstars, I got a blowjob (well, most of one) while dancing to the Talking Heads. That was really awesome. I knew who I would see if I went there. Sometimes we were on the list, usually, and got to cut to the head of the line. Sometimes we'd be waved in my Ian Cogneato, who worked the door. And then we'd apologize to our friends who weren't on the list and had to pay the ridiculous cover.

Sometimes they'd give us the stamp for the club, and the special blacklight-only additional stamp that would get us into the upstairs "V.I.P." lounge, where there would be all manner of NYC downtown luminaries, celebrities real and imagined, movie stars, DJs, rock stars, supermodels and glamorous folk. Ruff Club was where I met the inimitable Sophia Lamar.

Here are some photos taken at Ruff Club, all by Brad Walsh.



T-shirt party.



I was really into this outfit at the time, with my hair all big.



With Sister Pico, drunk.



My former back-up dancers Miriam and Alex, upstairs at the Annex for Brad's birthday party. I just found this photo after like two years. I really love it.

As I said, I haven't been back in a while. I'd thought about it a lot in the last few months, dropping by to check it out, but never got it together. It feels sort of like the end of an era. Another nightclub closes, another nod to the Disappearing Downtown. I'm 25. It's also a recession. Things changing endlessly. There are tons of new and fun and exciting clubs, but tonight being the last night of Ruff Club feels like a closing chapter. I won't make it to the Annex tonight, but I will be going out dancing somewhere else. Somewhere downtown, secret, where you'd have to be on the list to get in, so I can't talk about it.