2/29/12

We still don't have internet at our apartment. It's supposed to be fixed Friday, I sure hope it is. I'm having a kind of hard time. Kind of a productive time, though, too. Last night when I got home from work I had a nice long phone conversation with my original San Francisco homegirl Cotton, which was great. I used to talk on the phone (to him) all the time. It was so good to reconnect and to check in with someone who you get and who gets you. I spent a lot of time writing last night after I got off the phone.



I keep switching between a handful of things I am working on, these days. Which I guess is okay. it's better than not working on anything. I mean, a bunch of half-baked ideas are better than no ideas at all.
It's really hard to know what you want and what you want to do. As soon as you think you know, it changes.



Speaking of changes and things you want and want to do: JEFFERY SELF has a new website blog TV show project avatar baby love child: SELF-OBSESSED. Expect big things, America. Jeffery Self is adorable and I love and miss him very much. I am glad, though, for this site new portal into his brain.



I do wish I didn't have to watch this at a coffeehouse, but que sera sera. Someday everybody on Earth is going to die, and when we get to Heaven if you're the only person that didn't bother to watch Jeffery's videos, then all the other angels are going to think you're really fucking lame. Especially me. This angel, right here.

hey speaking of GETTING INTO HEAVEN: check out this video as well of Bernadette Peters, made by our lovely little sister Miss Baby Girl Cole Escola. She's a (fucking) star so you should pay her:





Another dear heart buddy, Ben Rimalower wrote a really rad blog post for the Huffington Post about Whitney Houston's passing: "I can no longer hope that she makes it, that she's OK. There are no more comebacks to root for. Now, there is just her music. It's ours now." You can see the rest of the piece HERE.

Whitney and someone who's music you liked passing away is an opportune time to look at things you value in your life. I know some people who are dead, and I miss them very much. I'm really freaked out by a lot of things, but I am not freaked out of dead people. Maybe I'm more freaked out by the way people who are alive try to make the dead into something else? Is that okay to say? I think it's really easy to speak for the dead, because they can't speak for themselves.



It's sort of hard and also easy. I guess, just like anything else in life. Yeah, no, life is just like it's opposite: death. I sometimes feel really shitty for no reason. Like, things bother me that have nothing to do with me. I'll convince myself that someone else has something which I want. This is a delusion. This isn't real. It's hard to, like, continually train yourself to realize this, to learn this over and over and over again. Maybe I should say it's hard to realize it, it's hard to get into the pain and joy of this realization. Like: you're not so special. This is  a theme I was discussing a lot with Cotton last night: you don't have to be so special. It sounds like a read, and it maybe is, but a loving read.

You're not special. You do not have this special unique voice/gift that only you have that makes you you and must be shared with the world. This myth that only you matter, that you have some uniqueness, this sounds pretty and in fact could encourage a certain type of personality for a bit. But this myth of uniqueness inevitably sets you up for disappointment. Would a more radical, more interesting, cooler, more fun and nicer strategy be to, say, connect with other people? Rather than simply find the beauty in your own individuality, why not find a way to connect with one or infinity other people? I guess I am just wrestling with the fact that my boredom sometimes confirms these hunches I have about the world and culture. It might be a little bit morbid. We might be corpses. We're already in Hell. This might be it, I mean. So why bother striving and rewarding something as abstract as ambition. Why wait?

And I am just sitting up here, basking in sunlight, playing my harp.

2/27/12

SOMEBODY BEEN HEXIN'

I'm sick. It feels like I have a cold. Or maybe bad allergies. But I'm not allergic to anything! I took some cold medication (which I NEVER do) last night, and again this morning, and I still feel awful. My first thought was that I wish I knew some doctors, or witches (or witch-doctors) to fix me.

My second thought was, I bet somebody put a hex on me and made me sick. Maybe I hexed myself. Could be. Made me think of this song by Judy White:



Which of course makes me think of Babes in Toyland's "He's My Thing"



I first heard "Somebody Been Messin'" on a mixtape cassette of the same name, which Calvin Johnson used to sell on tour. It's a compilation of a bunch of lady soul singers. It's really great. And hey, look, someone put it online for you to download. Thanks!

Anyway, yeah. I'm sick. I'm sick and I have no internet. I feel like such a baby. I am really loathe to ever call in sick, to anything. It's much more in my nature to just show up for things, sick, and complain a lot. In an ideal world, I show up sick, complain, get a lot of sympathy, and then make a miraculous recovery and everyone congratulates me. For a long time, at various jobs in the past, I would never, ever call in sick (I sort of wasn't allowed to) and I was miserable and resentful. So, now, I'm not wasting my life anymore. I'm sick. I need to be in my bedroom drinking a fuck-ton of lukewarm water and lemon and ginger and garlic. Lots of disgusting things I need to do to myself today.

Despite feeling sick I had a pretty good weekend though!

Friday night I went to go see Sinead O'Connor perform. I was kind of indecisive about going but I decided at the last minute, despite feeling kind of under the weather, to go for it. I was so glad I did!

Like many people, I got into Sinead O'Connor in college. Which is nuts, in a way. I should've gotten into her much earlier. I saw a video of a show of hers on a flight to California during college, and it changed my life. I had never really listened to her music, and I had no idea how weird and intense she was. And, I don't know, happy, in a way.

I remember driving around Yonkers going to thrift stores with the Duchess and Mr. J, and we were looking for parking (it was snowy and industrial ugly in Yonkers) and Mr. J wanted to keep driving around because we were listening to "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" and she wanted to hear "Jump In The River". I love that song.

Anyway. Sinead. For a lot of people of my generation an older, Sinead was one of the first women with shaved heads that we had ever seen. I don't know how to talk about this in a way that doesn't betray my age. Sinead is iconic. And she is a great performer. I felt like I was in church or something. I ran into my good old buddy Johnny Darling at the show. He and I run into each other so often at Mature Rock Diva shows. It's great.

After the show we high-tailed it back to Brooklyn and I went to bed. It wasn't even midnight. Oy.
Saturday I got up really early and went to the gym, came home to take a nap. Used the wireless internet at a cafe near my house, took another nap. Cooked lunch. Nap. I knew I was getting sick. I'm not just discovering this in hindsight. I was flagging. I chugged one of the lovely complimentary 5-Hour Energy shots I got last week and went to the Jane Hotel to celebrate James and Juhneefuh's Birthday.


I love them so!

It was a nice little affair. The Jane is so swanky. I miss living with Juhneefuh so much, you guys. And having James as a neighbor. They used to have their joint birthday parties at our house. Those were the days. Being 24 and worrying, worrying that we'd never find a reliable drug dealer. And now I am a grown up and we go to little parties in hotel lobbies. I would never in a million years imagine this would be my life. I say this a lot lately, but I'm mostly just admitting it more and more. The hotel had very expensive and delicious drinks, and I had two. And I was exhausted. At, like,  11 we went back to  Brooklyn. I had a dumb beer at the Metropolitan and looked at exactly zero cute people. Zzzs. Did spot Miss Hedwig herself in a Bourough Jaunt, and good college chum John Michael, which was nice. So sleepy! Ate a sandwich and read the new Murakami in bed. Okay.

Sunday I got up early, again, played video games and drank an insane amount of coffee, then got dressed up to go meet Jiddy for our Museum Friend Date. I wore this new BLACK Comme des Garçons t-shirt dress that I got last week from their new collection.



It's my new favorite thing in the world. It's like a dress, and like a t-shirt. And I really like the BLACK line. They have a new sub-line, called, as you may be able to guess "BLACK BLACK". This shirt, although it says "black black" is actually just from the BLACK line. Keep up! I do think that the whole thing of "Black Black" or Kawakubo's claim that she works with "four shades of black" is really adorable, and hilarious. And I think: is it a translation thing? It might be. Anyway. I love this and I am wearing it all the time so now you know what I look like.

Met up with Jiddy No-No. Gorgeous as always! We went uptown to the Met. Here she is showing me around the American wing.


It's nice, but it's no Jane Hotel.

And here's a cute photo of Jiddy with the Starbuck's Mermaid.


Sheela-Na-Gig!

I almost never go to the Met.



It reminded me of that Bongwater song "Obscene and Pornographic Art"



Which I was never super into, as a song, until I saw Ana Matronic do this fantastic drag number with that song, at this show at Deitch Projects Long Island City which I played, sort of. It was a nuts night! Anyway this song about getting turned on by art at the Met. I mean: hello! genius.

After the Met Jiddy and I went to MoMA to see the new Cindy Sherman exhibit. It was really great! I love Cindy Sherman obviously. The exhibition seemed maybe a little small to me. I coulda used more! But that might just be me. One thing I did notice though, is that one of Cindy's go-to facial strategies is the Reddened Eye. Like, sometimes the characters in her photos have really red eyes.

And, look, I'm not saying that I think she is a stoner witch. I'm not saying that Cindy Sherman gets the best weed. I'm not saying that Cindy Sherman smokes Intergalactic Moon Weed out of a Volcano, while listening to heavy metal, alone in her palatial studios, trying on wigs and make-up. I'm not saying that. What I am saying is, is it really so crazy to dream?

Maybe this has been the secret thread throughout her work. Can we get Cindy Sherman on the cover of High Times?

The exhibition, as well as a bunch of the press about her that's been coming out in conjunction with the retrospective, seems to talk a lot about Fashion. About how Fashion has been this big through-line for Sherman throughout her career. And I'm like... I guess so? I mean, sure. But not any more than, like, so many other things? The exhibit included some of her photos commissioned by Comme des Garçons, Balenciaga, and Chanel, but -get this- didn't indicate that's what they were. I dunno. I mean, I guess I see how fashion has been important to the work of Cindy Sherman, but I think that this and any conversation of Fashion is obfuscating the deeper truth, which is that she smokes weed grown on the moon.

After the museums, I came home for one second, then went over to Jess Paps' and Gigi's nice little house for their Oscar party. I had deep hesitation about going cuz I was feeling GROSS but I went anyway. I felt sort of shitty and worse and worse as the night went on. But everyone there was so adorable, so:


Red Carpet Lola


Lola Savitz wearing a beautiful striped ensemble stealing my fucking heart. Unf.



Hostess Gigi in Look One. Those bangs. So pretty! She made a million sandwiches with Jess, and a bunch of cupcakes. It was kind of a big deal. I wish I knew more about the Oscars or the movies these people were talking about!

Hey also check out Jess' new tattoo:


ROAR!

I mean, HELLO LEO. Also check out her nails. I'm so jealous! Of the tattoo and the nails. She said it kind of hurt though, the tattoo part, and I definitely think it would. Ouch. But so worth it!

Anyway during the oscars I felt progressively worse and worse and worse. And now I feel Officially Bad. Hoping to take care of this today. Don't know what else I need to do. Bummer. I just want to be well.

Okay to end, check out this cute page form Girl Germs. It's Tae Won Yu's contribution, and he might be the cutest boy in indie rock? Whatever. There're some cute photos of him with Liz Girly Sound Phair. Oh for 1991 when things were different.



Also, I guess, the magick of Chicago, you know?

2/21/12

Boys Keep Swinging

At Friday night at Splatterpool gallery for deer heart Walt Cessna's opening for WOLFPACK. It was such a cute show! Nicholas Gorham performed with Kyle Kupres and I was very impressed, as I usually am. Could it be that Nicholas is quietly becoming the most interesting performance artist in New York City? It might be happening. If you have the opportunity to see him perform in any capacity, you should go do it and don't wait.

Ran into Perfect Little Daniel and Bejamin Ha'Bear. Got a cute photo snapped.



Reminds one of the last photo of the three of us, also at Splatterpool, from this past summer.



Some things never change. Except everything.

2/16/12

Let's Do This

I got the double-LP version of the first Earth album, the one that Kurdt sings on (even though the liner notes do not mention this) and I can't sit down to listen to the whole thing. I know I ought to but I can't. I get distracted. You can love something and still not like it very much. And vice versa.

I was originally going to make this into a little video where I talk to the camera, but I realize that my internet sucks right now and I can't really upload a video. Even doing this blog entry will be a miracle.
Anyway I feel a million times better than I did when I posted earlier and it's because, when I went to the gym, they were giving out 5-Hour Energy samples.


I got two!

Okay, I know and love the Berry Flavor, doy. The Pomegranate thing is new to me. Why does everything have to be Pomegranate? It's a little played-out. Like, what are they going to make an Açai Berry Flavor one too? They should think outside the box and do like a Pineapple, because then if you made it with Pineapple people would drink it for the additional benefit of better-tasting semen (I don't make the rules). Gosh, economics. Yes. I love 5-Hour Energy and I think they ought to make me their spokesperson in their commercials.

Anyway that's all it took to cheer me up: getting free shit I didn't have to ask for but do definitely want. I'm sure I could have found a reason to not get pumped but I do feel relieved in a way. My gym is not super chic, so it was a surprise to see the 5-Hour Energy Team there. They were cool and nice. Apparently, as per a flier they handed out, you can invite 5-Hour Energy to your office or job or something and they'll do a demo and give everybody tons of free samples. Am I dreaming? I don't know if it'd be kosher to invite them to my office. Although, once, we did have Silk do a similar demo, and we all went home that day with like 8 gallons of soymilk each. It was intense. I could use an unlimited supply of 5-Hour Energy. I almost never take it, especially now that I'm not a go-go boy anymore (sort of). One of the things I love about 5-hour energy is their marketing. This is clearly a product for people who enjoy to use drugs. And I guess some super-savvy marketing intern had the brilliant idea to just cast a bunch of junkies in their commercials.

Like, okay:


You know, FINALLY there is a product for those of us for who just can't do anything. Those of us for whom making coffee (homeboy has an AUTOMATIC COFFEE MAKER) is "a hassle". In another one of their ads, some of the benefits of 5-Hour Energy are described as:

  • No Mess
  • No Waiting
  • No Making

 (No Making). I do especially love at the end of the clip above, how totally nuts the guy looks. Not at all excited to go start his day. Excited to go take some drugs. I'm with you, sister! "Let's do this."

5-Hour Energy: call me. I can sell the shit out of your new little pineapple-flavored hangover cures. I'll help you break into the Raver niche market. I can do things like that. I'm cute and believable and charismatic. Send my ass to Art Basel, Coachella, wherever, with a backpack full of B12. Let's do this.

Thinking a lot about Junkies lately, I think cuz of just having read Laurie Week's Zipper Mouth. I didn't drink the 5-Hour Energies at the gym but I did listen to this song so many times:


Whatever, he's totally cute.

The point is I am feeling a lot better from getting a gift from the Universe. In the form of caffeine supplements. I want to go shopping and or fall in love. Probably unrealistic. I'm going out dancing tonight, I just decided. And if I am hungover or tired tomorrow morning: I have an idea of what to do.

2/15/12

Invisibility Cloaks

How to turn invisible, using clothes. How to turn invisible using clocks, time. Reading Yohji Yamamoto's My Dear Bomb. It's awful. All he talks about is the innate characteristics of women and men and how men can't stand to suffer women who might deign to be a man's equal, etc. I was sort of hoping, which I realize now is silly, that there'd be some personal reflections on being Rei Kawakubo's boyfriend, but so far: nada. At least I got to the part of the book where he's talking about making clothes, rather than getting blowjobs from younger women who tire him out. Sheesh. 



Feeling paranoid, jealous, sad. Bored. I stayed in last night. I wanted to go to at least two parties but I stayed in. I laid on my bed and felt too shitty for words. We have only very spotty internet at home, which sucks as it's a constant source of distraction. I guess it's good to go without it (or try to) sometimes, so force myself to actually deal with myself. Still it's no fun. Maybe Valentine's Day will be like Thanksgiving, and every other year will be great. This past Thanksgiving was fucking AMAZING. The one before that I spent home, alone, and very sad to be alone and not invited to things. Valentine's Day last year was quite romantic and thrilling. And yesterday was not. Fuck it. I hate holidays.

I feel pretty frustrated with myself for being so sad. I wish I knew something that would make me happy. Like, say, if I wanted to be a bigshot filmmaker, I would understand the world I'd have to throw myself into. If I wanted to be a Buddhist monk, I also understand that there would be a way to move in that direction. I just don't know what I want to be, or do. Things like writing stories or making performances are sometimes fun, sometimes there's a nice payoff, but I'm getting increasingly sensitive and, frankly, insane. I feel like I'm being a creep and alienating people. What do I even want? I don't want a whole lot of money or fame or attention or solitude or sex or something. I guess I want to want something. I hate waiting. I hate feeling like I'm waiting. I know it's not supposed to be fun, nobody promised that life is all fun.

Ok. I guess what I mean is that I'm looking for new values. Or new passions. Or new friends. Or old friends. I don't know. It sucks. Part of me wants to burn everything I own and quit my job and move to Europe or something but I don't know what that would change except upset my family. Kate Bornstein talks a bit about the idea of "Serial Suicide" to kill off particular, outgrown parts of yourself. Like competitiveness, which I definitely wish I could kill. I wanna kill all the bad stuff. Kill all your little darlings.

I knew a girl in a fiction workshop in college that had an iteration of that slogan (Kill All Your Little Darlings) as a tattoo. She was way cool, and after college she joined an indie rock band and got famous. I do not know if she is still in the band or if she is happy. A tattoo of instructions though, intrigues me. Once, in response to a story I wrote, which was incidentally a true story (about a kid in my high school running away from home on his bicycle), she said in front of the whole workshop that my writing was trite, that I didn't earn her interest, that she didn't believe me. I felt then and feel now that this line of criticism is usually more about the critic that the ideas or work being discussed (she seemed like the type of person who never felt that her interested was adequately earned, noticed or rewarded). But more than that, I feel like it's a political cause for me: it's okay to be trite. It's okay to be insincere. It's okay to be a loser. I'm a loser. And I'm just fine! See? I mean, I am fairly miserable, but it is also okay to be miserable. It's okay to not be okay. This is my mission in life, it feels like, and it fucking sucks, and I want a new one.



In one of those moods where I want to get my own tattoo removed. I want to turn invisible. Like actually. Sometimes I feel like the thing that is most scary (invisibility) is probably the best place to start/end up. The places that scare you, etc.

2/14/12

Don't You Wanna Dance? Say You Wanna Dance. Don't You wanna Dance? (Dance!)

Friday night I went to New Wilderness, a fantastic new performance party which is the mutant lovechild of NYC queer art stalwarts New Humans (thrown by my awesome birthday-twin Jesse Gold) and Snowy Wilderness (thrown by the equally awesome, if sadly not Leonine Johnny Sagan). I was exhausted from my Thursday night adventure and only got to see the first act, which was Lotus Eater Machine. So great! I hadn't seen Ben perform before and had no idea he was such a good singer!



Actually that's not true, I did have an idea he was a good singer. The second time I ever met Ben was at Birdsong last summer. I had been sitting a few rows behind him, and Ptrck the Witch who was sitting next to me pointed out someone with a butterfly tattoo on their neck, which was Ben, but I didn't know it yet. Ptrck thought this was because of Mariah Carey, which says more about Ptrck but he was right, it was about Mariah Carey, Lotus Eater Machine sounds like maybe a cross between Nine Inch Nails and Mariah Carey. Is that okay to say? It was a great show! The shitty photo above is before the shit hit the fan of the performance. There were literal explosions, in the best meaning of the word. After the show I got a sandwich ("Still a Virgin!") and went to sleep. Yes.

Spent most of Saturday doing chores and getting ready for our house party that night, when I heard the awful news about Whitney.



The first record I ever owned, and what I am realizing is probably my first clear memory of music, at all, is when my dad brought home this 7" of "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)". I remember him coming home from work one night, I couldn't have been more than three years old, and putting on the record. I remember very clearly that this is one of the very few memories I have of the apartment my parents and I were living in at the time, in East L.A. I think my little brother had just been born. Just barely. I remember loving this song so much, from the gate, that I (this is a very specific memory) literally rolled on the floor with pleasure at hearing the song for the first time. I remember rolling on the kitchen floor. The song remains one of, if not my favorite song of all time. I had never and still haven't heard anyone sing like that. It blew my mind. In later years it did seem strange to me that my dad (who's really into opera) should even have that 7" but I never questioned it. The song has been a central part of my life and I am so sad to hear about Whitney Houston passing away. There are tons of tributes everywhere, as there should be, and I'm actually quite sad about it. I can't bring myself to listen to the song again yet.

So yeah we had a party at our house on Saturday. I was a little nervous for there to be strangers in my bedroom, mucking about. But then I cleaned all day on Saturday, realized that i'd be among friends, and opened my room. Of course then some friends of friends of friends moved into my room, set up a party on my bed comprised entirely of strangers, who spilled wine and candy all over my nightstand, somehow wedges gummy bears all over my bedding, and actually burnt a whole through my vintage Vera Neumann pillowcases (which you know I got as a set and you know I fucking live for) with a cigarette. I'm glad these kids left when they did (after some medium hostess shade thrown by yours-truly) and didn't, you know, burn down the house. Anyway I am probably not going to be in the mood to have another party at my house probably ever again. I love entertaining my friends. But cleaning up after strangers who want to deliberately trash my fucking bedroom is not fun. I saw a girl open my dresser and put her empty cup in my sock drawer. What the fuck?

Other partygoers found my peanut butter in the fridge and helped themselves to some. When I found the jar on the counter, I put it back in the fridge. Someone must have seen me because they promptly stole it from the fridge afterward. And someone stomped on our modem (which was installed in a stupid place, to be fair) and so now we have no internet. It's a little nuts.

We all grieve differently. Working on new internet at home. I bet I could be more productive. We'll see!

I got these really cute TAO Comme des Garçons pants last week in the mail.



So pretty huh? I am using them in this new performance piece I'm writing. Slash: trying to write. SLASH: giving myself permission to finish thinking about writing. I guess without the internet to distract me I will get a lot done! Or find ever more creative ways of not doing work I ought to be. Anyway: how many performance ideas sprang from an outfit I wanted to wear? Most if not all. I think this is probably true for everybody, ever. My new performance is (without giving any of it away yet) about talking about the things we all have in common. But I've said too much!

Sunday I meant to go watch the Grammys but was too tired from the party the night before. All I did, really, was bum around Williamsburg and eventually make my way into Manhattan to go grocery shopping. I decided to make my favorite dish, sausage and peppers, the way my mom does whenever I come home to visit, adapted from the Silver Palate cookbook.



With fake sausage, obviously. I pretty much never cook anything outside of my repertoire of six easy dishes that I cycle through every week, and I never ever cook from recipes. So this was a challenge for me. It wasn't difficult so much as involved. I gotta say, though, that I tried really hard and it paid off and the food came out fantastic, almost exactly as I remember it. It is so good! And I've gotten at least 3 meals out of one recipe, probably another two yet. The only bummer is it took forever. Like, two hours. I know, I know: cooking takes time. Anyway I was so exhausted from cooking I missed the Grammys, which my buddy Jess Paps had a little shindig for. But whatever I watched Black Godfather and ate my favorite meal and got some sleep. A taste of childhood. So much about being a kid today, huh?

Hey speaking of how amazing Jess Paps is, check out this performance and interview video of her band, Heavens Gate:



Finally, here is a beautiful Valentine's Day poem written by the woo-woo shaman extraordinaire, Living Artist and one of my personal Drag Mothers, Robin Winters:
Black flowers Red flowers 
I am older
But my heart has not grown cold
Every morning I invent
A theater of flowers in a room
My longing is my wake up call
There is no homeland security
The other is always unexpected
This is what excites me
The other shoe
And the hanging sword
Give me delight
Not all news is bad
Sometimes it is just the shift in the weather
Plants continue to bloom
I still love to take a bath
Fried eggs amaze me as they transform
Old flames are with me always
Yet nothing overshadows this moment
I am so excited that I forget my own name
The best way to learn new tricks is to share the ones you know
A message is carved into a green staff
When plunged into the ground it begins to sprout
There is always time for music
And also
I thank you in advance. 
Valentines day 2012
RW
Happy day, lovers.

2/10/12

Take Us to the Future

Well, Jennifer Herrema put out a new record last week, and not a moment too soon!

Introducing BLACK BANANAS:


My friend Ryan clued me in to the title track from the brilliantly-titled Rad Times Xpress IV:


I love this! It totally makes sense as the next step in Ms. Herrrema's Intergalactic Time Travel Lifetime Gesamtkunstwerk, but it also feels very modern. I love that this song keeps coming back to the phrase "take us to the future." I also love that she sounds like more of a rapper than she ever has before. The record is really all over the place and fairly great. The last song ("Killer Weed") is high-larious. I think that Jennifer Herrema's whole trip about retro styles is really smart and well thought-out. Remember how each Royal Trux record for a while was about a different decade? But not sonically. Like, each record sought to articulate that decade or that generation's feeling about the future, their place in time. It's kind of brilliant. Rad Times Xpress IV is in some ways a very late-1980s  flavored gem, drawing equally from Freestyle and Hair Metal. The cover art perfectly articulates this sound (as all the RTX albums' art has). Here we see Jennifer with the accouterments of 70s rock'n'roll lifestyle, decadent and decorated in way a burnout or troublemaker in the 1970s would typically look, but of course as a fantasy. The drawing perfectly depicts Herrema as she should be/really is: an idealized rock Goddess, painstakingly scribbled on the cover of a high school notebook. Now imagine that the person who made that drawing kept making them, and they got really good, and in fact turned into real life? Note that the cigarette doesn't hang from her lip, but rather sticks defiantly up, like a lollipop. Instead of hoisting the boombox on her shoulder, she has a paean to Satan. But, of course, these symbols (especially the retro D&D "occult" mystical references) have been recycled by our more recently as fashion trends, signifying otherworldly luxury, the louche trappings of the idle. She reveals the arcane degenerate trashy roots of things we celebrate as new and sophisticated today: Jennifer's groovy demons have big muscles and sharp teeth, they wield guitars like axes (and also weild actual medieval actual double-sided axes, the chosen mystical weapon power symbol of 1970s lesbian separatists). Her fringed and be-raccooned look suggests motorcycle trips through the southwest, an actual encounter with some kind of wilderness or hunting. She predicts and emasculates puny Witch House and turns up like a back country bastard daughter at a BoHo Chic Olsen Twins family affair. Jennifer Herrema lives outside of time and wants to tell us what it's like, but will we understand?

In other news it's Friday and I'm a little bit hungover because I went to Fashion Week last night after therapy. It was kind of insane at Milk Studios, they had a bunch of shows starting at the same time, and only one big line for all of them. I heard someone say that the Libertines were playing? There was a really long line, full of people who all felt that they did not deserve to be in a line, especially in fancy clothes and uncomfortable high heels, and especially in frigid weather. And they were all right! Nobody deserved to wait in line, but at least we were all in it together. We all had that in common. There was of course a gigantic crowd by the front of the building, the doormen insisted that we'd all have to wait in line, but it became clear you could probably just push your way through. Anyway. I was a good sport about people letting their friends cut in front of me. I eavesdropped on a nice young girl talking to these older developer dudes about how much fun it is in Mexico, and a cigarette butt fell from the night sky and landed on my (thankfully, covered) head. SO that was the line. Okay!

Once inside there was a brief moment of panic when I realized that I might in all likelihood not get in. You never know with things like this. I did RSVP but I'm not exactly a famous person, I have no official right to go to Fashion Week other than the fact that I like pretty clothes and want to write about them. Anyway after a moment of confusion I was waved up to the 8th floor, where all the shows happen, and immediately ran into DJ Lambchop, who I always see at Milk during Fashion Things, and she asked if I was going to the Wu-Tang concert on the first floor. What? I couldn't wrap my head around it. She said as long as I had one of the wristbands I should be fine to get in. I didn't have a wristband of course, and I wanted to actually just see the clothes. No more crowds! No more waiting!

I was there primarily to see the Tim Hamilton Redux presentation, which was way cool! I have much love for Tim Hamilton's work, ever since I first found out about him when deer heart Weston hooked me up with a gig serving drinks at his first presentation at Milk, oh so many years ago. (SIDENOTE: That gig ended up being life-changing, I met my good friend Kevin there, I got a free Tim Hamilton shirt which I love a lot, and I sliced open my thumb very badly. While waiting in the bathroom line to get more paper towels to soak up the blood I had dripped all over myself, the floor, etc. I met a drunk CEO who "liked my look" and hired me on the spot to work at his fancy hotel party the next week where I got paid a lot of money to stand around in fancy borrowed clothes and get drunk, I wrote a neat story about that night called "LUXURY CITY." This was before the recession hit.)

Anyway I also like to wear Tim Hamilton's clothes! A lot. His Redux line, a sort of diffusion and recapitulation of his greatest hits, is rad and I liked the presentation a lot.



These photos might suck a little. I was running around and snapping as fast as I could!





As much as I do admittedly like to dress like a crazy person, one of the things I like about Hamilton's clothes are that they're not particularly "busy". They seem a bit easier. Especially the women's looks. This girl doesn't look like she's trying too hard or like her beautiful clothes are restricting her movement or something. She just looks like a really well-dressed girl.



I feel like his clothes are a sort of more American Margiela. Without the batshit recycling/deconstruction fetishes. Whenever I wear his clothes out, people always stop to ask me where I got them (sample sales, baby). The Redux line is lower-priced, but still a little pricey. It feels like a much more workable Raf Simons silhouette, or for people who would wear Marc by Marc but have a bit more severe taste.

I'm generally not part of Fashion Week but it was fun to go to the presentation last night. The only other show I'm going to see is, of course, my Favorite Designer Ever: BCALLA next week. I can't wait.

2/1/12

PAPIER MACHE MAN


I came home early from work today cuz I'm sick.

I had no idea this alternate video existed. I think I like it better than the other one?


SO CUTE right? Love the excessive shots of actual hammers. You would never know what this song is about. I've loved this song for so long, and for much of that time, I didn't know what it was about.

It's hard to know what things are about. I also never knew that this existed:


Alright I'm going to go to sleep.

FAREWELL QXBXRX

This Saturday, 2/4/12 is the last Queers, Beers and Rears. I am very sad to see it go, but I want to take a second to celebrate this wonderful party.


I started go-go dancing at QxBxRx about five years ago, and it totally changed my life. QxBxRx is the type of party that I dreamt about as a teenager. A place where being queer and being punk weren't mutually exclusive. A place where you didn't have to be rich or well-connected or cool or popular or beautiful to be included. A place where you wouldn't get picked on for being different, for not fitting in.

QxBxRx is also a place where I got to see some incredible bands and meet many of my heroes. It was backstage at QxBxRx that I met Allison from Bratmobile and, while the other go-go boys and I were putting on makeup and giving ourselves punk sharpie tattoos, I asked her to write "PxRxDxCxTx" on my stomach (PunkRockDreamCumTrue DUH). She rolled her eyes and said "Um, really?" It was kind of the most important moment in my life and I still haven't lived it down.

I've met some really amazing people at QxBxRx, especially the three darling boys who throw the party; Stephen, Erik and Andrew. It's really hard to throw a monthly party, and it's especially hard to wrangle a bunch of bands every month. This has been a labor of love, and like all good things it must come to an end. But it is sad.

Five years is a long time. To the extent to which anybody knows who I am in any way, they most often know me as a go-go boy. I do a lot of things which seem really interesting (to me, at least) but the thing I have most consistently done over the last five years has been go-go dance at this party. It's been a fantastic time and has absolutely made me a happier and better person. I have fallen in and out of love while dancing at this party, I've been there during good times and bad times, it's been a constant source of awesomeness and good-feeling in my life.

Here is some more info on the party, below.

QxBxRx (Queers Beers & Rears) | 5-Year Anniversary | FINAL PARTY!
February 4, 2012
Glasslands Gallery | 289 Kent Ave at South 1st | Williamsburg
Doors @ 8:30PM - going til 4am! | 21+ | $10 adv | $12 door
Advance tickets available HERE

Live performances by:
MAKING FRIENDZ (feat. Tami Hart)
PEOPLE AT PARTIES (ex-Von Iva)
TWO TEARS (ex-Red Aunts)
THE RUFFIAN ARMS (Reunion show!)
BABY YOUR BABY (Go-Karff's new band w/members of Falsies on Heat, Space Cookie & the Rosebuds)

DJ Sets by:
DJ LUIZA SÁ (of CSS)
DJ LGBT (of MEN)

Resident DJs/Hosts:
A.MARTINI
GO-KARFF
SIR LOINS

Plus QBR Go-go Dancers Max, Johnny & Travis!!!

Lovely Johnny Darling, deer heart as well as fellow QxBxRx go-go boy wrote a really nice article about the party.

If you're in NYC this weekend, please do come dance with me one last time at QxBxRx.