11/30/13



Sister Pico, Lola, Chantal, Perfect Little Daniel, Dr. Perez, Christopher and Charles and I all rented a house in the Catskills, in Narrowsburg, for the weekend. I ended up canceling the B0DYH1GH show tonight because it would have been too much of a hassle for me to get back and I'm also broke. I'm having the most fantastic time. We're eating a lot and making big fires in the fireplace and drinking and smoking and hanging out and watching "Dallas". There's been no internet in the house. We're in a cafe in town. We went to a distillery and I bought some fancy buckwheat whiskey (though I suppose it's not officially whiskey if it's buckwheat? I don't know the rules).

I've been in such a dark place this week, this month. This is good for me. To relax. Just laying around the house, nibbling, laughing at my friends' jokes. Wearing my eminently comfortable Eileen Fisher pants. I feel good. I want to bring this good-feeling back with me when i come home tomorrow night.

I'm sort of stressed out about some stuff in my life, but it's this thing of I don't know whether or not it's worth it to try to address it. I was hanging out with Erin and she said that as she gets older she has a better sense of what's worth it and what's not. In terms of how to spend your energy and which impulses are productive or not. My impulse is to Speak My Truth and Get Real, right now. But it might not be worth it? I don't want to complain. I don't want to talk about this anymore.

I'm tired of feeling bad. I'm tired of feeling tired. Maybe it's time (really) to get on meds. I don't know. I want to feel good and what makes me feel good is constantly changing.

I feel good now though. I feel okay. There's a tree-lighting ceremony in town tonight. I hope we watch more of "Dallas" and that I can catch up. I want to make more stuff. I want to suffer less? Whatever. The heartbreaking and fucked up part is that it hinges, at least a little, on me standing up for myself. Okay. Enough of this. Battletalk.

One thing I'm excited about is going home to California for Christmas and seeing my homegirl Cotton. The slippery thing of there being something no one can take away form you is that some people want to take stuff away form you. Some people are out to get you. This is natural. Let's not stay there.

I'm feeling a little foggy. I want to go explore the town a little bit more. I feel good. That's not me screwing up my courage. I'm relaxed. So, just putting a little pin in this to remember this moment.

11/27/13

These two art guys I know. One is an artist and the other is a critic. I know them both personally and like them quite a bit. They were talking about how there are no real performance artists anymore. On twitter. Ones working with words. With logic, or something. They named a few, I hadn't heard of them, and said where are the ones working with logic. I'm frustrated, because I feel like I know tons of performance artists working today and working with logic, and that I would be one, right? Like, I'm an artist. But I'm not among the ones that spring to mind because me and my friends perform in bars, in theaters, in clubs. Even in galleries, even in art world circles, but still there's something different. Something that distinguishes it as not real art. I feel like Lynda Barry. So I was walking through Chelsea last night, going to the CdG sale, but I didn't buy anything because I'm super broke and I want to wait until the Christmas stuff comes out. I passed by this gallery and one of the artists these two guys were talking about had a storefront exhibition or durational performance. I didn't go in. I wondered: ok what do they do for a living? Do they live off of performance fees? Do museums pay their rent? Do their parents pay their rent? It's frustrating. There's this invisible thing. Like, I'm not a real artist. The Art World people don't care and wouldn't care and it seems sort of natural. But I see other things that seem to take off. I'm tired of going to art shows for 25 year old photographers who do a lot of drugs. It's not that that's not cool and it's not that I'm bitter, but it's just that why does everything have to be so cool. This cult of youth, I get it. It's not that I resent it because I'm aging. Intrepid readers of the blog will know that I've always been pretty skeptical of it. It's that in the olden days we'd sacrifice virgins to the gods, right? That's one way of worshiping it. I wonder if it's me, personally. What am I doing, how am I not positioning myself better to be part of the thing I want to be part of.

Like this person I know who turned into a performance critic last year. They refuse to come to my shows or look at my work-- I want them to write about my work. They write about other work that's similar to mine. Knowing them I know that they'd get something out of what I'm trying to say. But they refuse to see me as a peer, an equal, a person or something. Maybe it's paranoid but I can't help thinking this is a result of my personality. I must really turn people off? It has to be my fault, right? It couldn't be that someone else is just checked out, doesn't care, wrapped up in their own thing. It's so annoying when someone won't take you seriously, once they realize you won't sleep with them. Maybe that's the kind of thing that turns people off, right? That flippancy? There's a subset of people who aren't turned off by that, who can handle that. Who can have a conversation which doesn't constantly and reflexively reaffirm them. Some people live in this place with me-- outer space. The vacuum. It's cold and it's dark and there's no air out here. And there's no sound. And we out here, you know? Some of us get it. I hate drawing lines in the sand. I resent feeling like it's my fault, innately, that I can't get my shit together and be who I want to be. I resent the idea that it matters, being real or not. Maybe I sort of just resent the entire conversation of looking for artists. No one's doing it these days, right? What a shame. The presumption of not looking. Because to look means to have to defend the rubric, I guess.

And then again, it's also this skepticism I have of taking yourself seriously. It's so weird-- I feel like this is the big thing, the big failure on my part, the thing about me, personally, specifically (just to make it about me for a second) that turns people off is the idea that I take myself too seriously. I guess I do bust mostly as a joke; mostly just to be nice to other people and not have to accuse other people of stuff. The idea that you could know you're a serious artist. Referring to your own work. That thing of knowing that what you say matters. That you deserve to be treated with respect, that you deserve to be happy. I don't know if that's really true, for me. Again, I'll leave other people out of it. The grass is so much greener, but I don't think I could in all honesty think to myself "I am a real serious artist". Maybe that's my problem, a kind of pessimism. But no, I mean-- I don't deserve to be happy. If I really deserved to be happy then I'd be happy, right? It's so silly. I see the logical fallacy here but I can't like... get through it. My whole thing is if you think you have your shit all the way together then you're wrong. Don't get too comfortable. I've been, I think, throwing myself into discomfort. Trying to really let the chaos inside reverberate out. Hoping to reach, as we all must, the logical conclusion of the feeling. Hoping to let the chaos and the uncertainty be a point of departure; this is something we surely must all feel, right? This uncertainty? Right? Like, we all don't know, deep down, what's going to happen and who we are. Right? If we didn't have our art careers or our identities, who would we be, right? It's scary. I sometimes feel like I'm the only one admitting it, and it's like upsetting to other people. Or like I'm being overly fatalistic because of some weird "death drive" (I heard that expression at my open studios) I have. I sometimes think it's only a matter of time before I'm diagnosed with some chronic or terminal illness. Or it's only a matter of time before I have some horrible injury. Some new disfigurement. Like, then, finally, my circumstances will justify my pessimism. That thing of precluding disappointment by refusing to get your hopes up. Is that why I can't be a real artist. Why people can't take me seriously? Because it seems like I'm taking myself too seriously? Because I'm trying to turn invisible? Is it gross? Does it freak people out? I feel like it would be so much less freaky in a gallery context, though. Is the thing. I think it makes more sense for me to get to perform in the white box.

They say you can't time travel but I know they're wrong. I know how to time travel. It's not as much fun as it sounds. You can't go back, or to the future. But you can stay still. It's tremendously painful and I would not recommend it. But, again, I'm unreliable. It's the kind of thing no one should take my word for. You'd have to try it yourself but I'm telling you; it's awful.

11/20/13

Lunar

What a truly awesome and insane weekend. I definitely learned a lot and it felt like my heart was growing so fast that it would explode. On Friday I went to sweet baby Cole's show at the Duplex. It was totally fantastic and deeply inspiring. I'm consistently impressed by the connections he makes, the totally fucked-up and weird places he decides to stick a landing. The places he decides to be really brave and to take a stand are nearly always surprising and fantastic. I felt actually honored to get to see his show. It had the energy of one of those mythic, legendary experiences you read about. A "you had to be there" thing. Like Bette at the Baths, right? That weird liminal sense of "Oh shit this is something that's only going to happen right now, so y'all had better fucking tune in and remember it." A real treat.



I feel like I'm getting sick. My sinuses, no, my throat. Is it from the radiator? I hate being uncomfortable. It's a typical thing, that thing of not getting mad at myself for being sick. I want to blame myself. My mattress, too, needs replacing. Already. I blame myself for these things. My body hurts, I can't think straight: it must be my fault.

My horoscopes (I check only Astrobarry and The Yaddoo) said that I needed to resist the urge to wallow in self-pity. It's tempting. I want very much to complain about feeling like a failure, left out. But I'm not gonna. I'm just going to complain about my physical condition right now. It sucks. I did a neti pot for the first time last night and it helped a lot. Kind of life-changing. So few things in life offer instant relief like that. Really. I'm being a little hyperbolic but only a little.



But you know, that advice was good. I saw so many really brilliant and smart people talk and present their work in the last week. One person, Kembra Pfahler, said how important it was to forge your own path-- not let someone style you. Do your own thing. I think that's good advice. I'm trying to find a mentor, or someone or some people who can give me advice. Essentially, I want to get out of my head a bit. I'm too familiar with my patterns of thought and feeling. I want to know how other people figure out how to do stuff. I'm not looking for outfit or art project ideas per se, I still want to do my own thing. I just want to hear how other people do their own things. How do you know when you're done editing. How do you know when to push through with an idea and when do abandon it?

How do you deal with feeling petty and competitive? How do you feel present in your own life? I feel silly, a little. This weekend was a Full Moon. Maybe that's why everything felt so crazy. A convenient excuse.





This thing, I want to say. this clarification of: I'm not fishing for compliments, I'm trying to drown myself.



A Diver’s Rise, and Swift Death, at the Limits of a Growing Sport

A kind of awful article on diving, death, and the Rapture of the Deep.


Reminder

Tonight I'm going to go see Mazzy Star. I'm excited and a little confused about that. Really? Really. I want to find something drape-y and dark to wear.

Everything feels weird and sensitive and temporary. Like water. Wet feelings.
Behind the ears, still. I guess.

11/14/13

I'm not waiting

Oh shit there's so much to catch up on and look forward to. And in between, the meat of the sandwich, the condiment (the spread) is right now, today. This second is the middle part. So last week I went to go see miss Penny Arcade and miss Mink Stole in Tennessee Williams' The Mutilated. I was raised by actors. It's not that I saw them perform a lot (though I did, sometimes), but my parents are artists, aesthetes. They know how to appreciate and understand acting. They don't go for cheap thrills. They think my admiration of Sharon Stone is cute, but I remember my mom specifically remarking how great this new actress Reese Witherspoon was in her big break Freeway. My point is: Penny and Mink are fucking fantastic in this show. They give deeply emotional, striking performances that more conventional actors would probably be too chicken to do. I was utterly transported and definitely inspired. It's kind of a mind-fuck, the show. The starring ladies have fantastic chemistry onstage. There's a lot of other things in the show, all of which comes together beautifully, but for me it's all about Penny and Mink. Literally a legendary show. In addition to miss Pennifer's fantastic feature in the Style Section last week, the show gets a very nice review from the Grey Lady. It's up until 12/1, and if you're in New York you should definitely go see it, very much.

Last Friday, I went to the opening of the new Yayoi Kusama show, I Who Have Arrived In Heaven at Zwirner. It was, of course, fantastic. It will be a madhouse throughout it's exhibition. I didn't even get to go to the infinity rooms or darkroom installations, as there were lines around the block to get in. The paintings are fantastic, there're a couple darling sculptures, it's Kusama. You kind of have to go.


Love is Calling


Party in the Dead of Night

Not quite an unknown quantity, but fantastic nonetheless. You cannot fuck with Yayoi Kusama. This is, in a way, almost as good as the retrospective last year, because this is totally $free, and all brand new stuff. I definitely love Kusama's work throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s-- don't get me wrong. But it's also pretty rad to see the energy and force of her creative mind today. As a woman, as a non-American, as a poet, multidisciplinary artist, abstract thinker, person with mental illness: Kusama is an inspiration and an indictment of so much institutional ignorance. Her work is (I know I use this word a lot) scintillating. Such a treat to live in New York City where, on a Friday night, you can go to a Kusama art opening and see all this really fantastic work for free. Like "Oh yeah, that's why I live here. Okay then."

Saturday night I had dinner with dear heart Ben Rimalower and we went to go see Mike Albo's new solo show, The Junket, at Dixon Place. I've long been a fan of Mike's work, and have been lucky enough to perform at the same events as him a few times. I remember specifically that I read on the same bill as him at a reading at the Hose, once, because that was the reading where I wanted to experiment with getting drunk before I read, and it seemed to go pretty well until I fell off the stool I was sitting on during my reading. Mike did great that night as usual. I'd never seen a full-length solo show of his, and I was totally blown-away. I'm specifically impressed with the way his sensibilities combine a few different practices. That sounds fancy-- he's a really brilliant writer, who's also a really wonderful, engaging performer, a painfully rare combination. The show seems like it moves pretty quickly; it covers a lot of ground. It's deeply funny and also kind of scary. I saw a really interesting interview with Mike about the show and the experiences that spawned it over on The Slant. The show and the novella that spawned it are about culture and media, but the bigger questions Mike is asking, about consumer culture, are really exciting to me. In the interview, he says "Shopping has turned into a lifestyle and we don’t know when we aren't shopping anymore because we shop for everything." I'm really interested in the ways in which the modern imagination and shopping have come to shape one another. I think the notion of shopping moves way, way beyond actually buying sweaters, for example, and I'm curious to see Mike Albo explore this. Anyway, The Junket plays again at Dixon Place this weekend, you should go see it!

Afetr the show we met up with PLD and went to the Phoenix to celebrate Guy's birthday. The Phoenix is fun and weird, huh? I couldn't remember the last time I was there-- then I did remember: the time I ordered a beer and it smelled like feet. This time the drinks were fine. After Phoenix, we went to Brooklyn to go to Clump, where the theme was Electroclash, and where I heard so many early 2000s favorite songs. It makes a girl feel old, but I was so young when those songs came out, so I guess maybe not all that old. After a little Clumping, moseyed over to Metropolitan for GAG!, where  La'Fem LaDosha was the featured performer:



God, I love her. I love that shirt. I love her make-up. I loved her new SONGS (including a very cute one she wrote on tour in Australia-- down under, you know?). The House of Ladosha is so near and dear to my heart. I'm VERY excited to see them listed in the OUT 100. I normally don't really care too much about the OUT 100, for a number of reasons (100 reasons) but if they're upping these kids then I think it's cool. So, kudos all. Right?

Sunday I rehearsed some more and then I went to go see The Blow perform at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. It. Was. So. Amazing. I had seen them do a few songs at the Kitchen a couple weeks ago, but they've spent the last month on tour supporting the new self-titled album, and they did the full set and it was just so fucking cool. Again, I'm biased: I've been a fan for over a decade, but the new record is so different, and complex, and exciting. It was really gorgeous to see the songs taken apart and put back together live. It definitely made me excited to see and make more performances. It reminded me of the possibilities of what you can do onstage, or around stage. What constitutes a song. I was surprised, as I am often am with The Blow, by the sudden poignancy of the work. Things will be coming together in a way that seems pleasant or easy to understand, and then all of a sudden everything kind of clicks into focus, and I have a kind of "oh shit" moment when I realize what's going on; when what's going on is suddenly revealed, to itself. The new record is a lot, to my mind, about thinking through things. It's a lot about reckoning; about figuring stuff out, about changing your mind. About deciding. They played all of my favorite songs from the new record, and at least a couple old chestnuts for the fans. A totally excellent showing. Afterward we hung out and I drank a lot of beers, and then we went up the street to This'n'That, where Hamm Sandwich was hosting Karaoke. I sang "Ooh La La La" (like I fucking always do). Carla sang "Just The Two of Us" because it's her and D's special song. Otherwise, she said, she'd do a New Jack Swing song. I met a very nice computer literate boy named Max, and he took the Tori Amos Challenge and sang "Jackie's Strength" and KILLED it. Another contestant sang Karaoke and we all cheered him on and it was a fantastically fun night and I got home at like 3:30 in the morning. Monday I was a ZOMBIE but eventually I made it to Max Bernstein's APOCALYPSE WOW comedy night at it's new home at Cameo Gallery. He was hilarious. I'm so glad that show happeend again!

SO NOW, today Thursday 11/14 is the beginning of NEXT TIME, a series of symposiums, screenings, events and performances hosted by Envoy Enterprises and Macie Gransion. Organized by Colin Self with help from Caroline Contillo, Isaac Pool, David Geer, Jessi Probus, & Max Steele, and Hannah Daly. Check out the site linked above or the Facebook Event Page for a full schedule of events.

In addition to the event series, NEXT TIME has put out a publication featuring: Bradford Nordeen, Brian Droitcour, Caroline Contillo, Crystal Palmer, Gordon Hall, Isaac Pool, Jamillah James, Jessica Posner, Jessi Probus and Charlotte Perkins Gilwoman, Johanna Fateman and David Geer, K8 Hardy, Marie Karlberg, Max Steele, Ratty St. John, and Sam McKinniss. You can purchase it at Envoy this weekend or online HERE. I have a new story in it, "KLLEPTO." It's my first attempt at drag.

I'm performing in  a reading at NEXT TIME this Sunday at 4pm, alongside Anthony Thornton and Isaac Richard Pool. I'll be reading my new story KLEPTO, and I really hope you can come! Isaac just put out a really cool new eBook called Alien She on Klaus eBooks, which is SUPER cool.

ALSO this weekend, I'm performing some new material at the BAX / Brooklyn Arts Exchange open studio series. My presentation is this Saturday 11/16 at 1pm. I'll be doing a few songs from my upcoming cabaret noir project MAPPLETHORPE. I hope you can make it. I'm pretty nervous.

Also this weekend is the legendary MIX NYC festival, celebrating it's glorious 26th year. There are amazing shows and screenings and parties happening literally every night this week at MIX. I'm particularly excited to see Valencia as well as this Saturday 11/16 at 8pm, when, in addition to screening Jasan Yamas' Not Me, Murphy, there will be screenings of two brand new short films by lovely boy genius favorite Jonathan Caouette, including a new music video for April March. What? Totally exciting. There's so much to do this weekend!

OK this is the end. There's a new single released by Planningtorock!



I'm excited. I can't wait. I'm too excited to wait.

11/6/13

Got Their Something

Two cute new videos from Wynne Greenwood, from the "More Heads" show that was up a Soloway. I wish I had hung out at the opening more! But I had to go to a performance I was doing. I love Wynne Greenwood's work. It made me, in part, want to move to a big city ("The City. Apocalypse. The Cit-TEH! Apocalypse!"), and now it maybe is making me start to want to live in the country? In the suburbs? In my own head. MORE in my own head, I mean.





Good old buddy James Brooks sent me the vinyl LP version of the Judy Experience album in the mail earlier this week. It features artwork by my homegirl Cotton. I had the CD version, but I'm so excited to get the full surround sound deep vinyl effect.



This record, which includes the songs used in James' film HI BI GIRLS is fucking amazing and one of my favorite things ever. You can buy it on the Judy Experience page. I'm excited to spend the winter sitting on my floor and listening to the vinyl over and over again. And burn incense. Like Carta d'Armenia.

Miss Greg Potter took this lovely photo of B0DYH1GH performing at La MaMa over the weekend:

 

I woke up at 5:30 this morning and listened to this song at the gym. I couldn't shake the feeling that the opening riff reminded me of another song.



It took me inordinately long to realize it reminded me of this song:



They're both from 2001 so go figure, right?

After reading the somewhat dismissive (if not downright damning) article about Eileen Fisher in The New Yorker a few months ago, I've been kind of obsessed. Then I started seeing ads for their harem pants. Made (joyously!) in the USA. I want them so bad. I watched this commercial about them this morning before I went to work.



Doesn't that make you so excited to go to the office? I decided that since I don't have my own pair of dignified, uptight yet relaxed professional female Eileen Fisher harem pants (at least not yet) to wear the closest thing in my wardrobe. Even though it's a little dressier than I normally wear to work.  I made it all the way to the subway this morning before the found a moth cocoon stuck my pants. My very favorite black wool BLACK CdG pants. I got to work and found two tiny pinprick holes in them. I'm really hoping that this moth problem can be solved. I JUST put my wool sweater back in the closet, and I bet it's getting eaten as I type this. I'm pretty mortified and definitely miffed. Ah well. At least I found a pretty cheap and very nice dry cleaner. Hopefully he can patch up these pants, my favorite pair. If not, then this gives me an excuse to replace them (probably with the Eileen ones, but knowing me with another pair of BLACK CdG pants in more moth-proof polyester). Fuck wool. Fuck cashmere and fuck wool. I want to only wear vegan clothing. But I do like leather shoes. I've made my peace with the animals.

The other night I went to go see Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore read from her new book The End of San Francisco. I've never owned one of Mattilda's novels, but I want the newest one, the memoir, real bad. Obviously, growing up as a queer in the bay area in the early aughts, Gay Shame was hugely influential to my thinking and feeling about queerness and power and the world around me. OBVIOUSLY, I'm a huge admirer of Mattilda's thinking and writing and voice and spirit and her work means a tremendous amount to me. We're not friends, we don't know each other. I saw her do a really fantastic reading at Dixon Place a few years ago (I think it was when Lady Miss Genius Sara Marcus was still curating the Queer Text series there), and I think I gave Mattilda a copy of my zine. I'm intimidated, a big fan, this is all to say. SO! The talk was great. I wish I had seen the other readings in NYC which Mattilda gave. The chapter she read was scintillating, literally, in the sense of throwing off light; illuminating. The questions and answers were also really great. Mattilda talked a bit about nostalgia, and how it's a kind of violence, and also talked about Patti Smith's Just Kids and how nostalgia figures into that too. I'm pretty much never trying to talk shit about Ms. Patti, and I didn't bother to read Just Kids because I thought it would depress me, and I don't want to paraphrase what Mattilda said, so I will point to this except from her most excellent blog (which is totally crucial reading, always):
"I’m talking about Patti Smith’s Just Kids and how she perpetuates this myth of New York in the ‘70s, that she was just hanging out and somehow propelled into the upper echelons of permanent stardom. That doesn’t happen to people who are just hanging out. It doesn’t happen to 99.9% of people who are trying to make it happen. There are many flaws in the book, but perhaps the most egregious ones in me is the way she keeps the mechanisms that propelled her to stardom invisible – she was just in the right time at the right place, right? We can never be there, will never be there, again."
And then again, in an interview with the LA Review of Books:
"It’s talking about a pre-gentrification New York, but through a gentrified lens. She makes it seem like she was just hanging out at the Chelsea Hotel and suddenly met every famous male artist of the moment and rose to fame by coincidence. Everybody knows that in order to get famous, you need to work at it. It’s interesting because she talks about all that Mapplethorpe did to get famous, but really doesn’t expose the mechanisms that enabled her to get famous. It’s a dishonest book: she doesn’t punctuate the glamour, and in that way she creates this nostalgia for a New York that never really existed. It’s a kind of dishonesty that participates in the mythology of New York. It was a different New York, and things were possible that are not possible now, but the romanticization shuts off the possibilities for honesty, and that’s something that I want to avoid in my own writing. I want to expose the dynamics in an honest, revealing, and vulnerable way, rather than participating in a nostalgia for the possibilities of the past.
A lot of people relate to the idea of the end of bohemia. My question is more: can it ever exist? For me, the end of San Francisco was the beginning. I never moved to San Francisco and found community and everything I wanted and felt amazing and transformed. There were moments, and then [whatever was created] was destroyed, and that destroyed me."
I feel really excited and inspired by these quotes, and not just because they're critical. Though, obviously, I do think that it's exciting to be able to appreciate something critically.I think there's a kind of  sleight-of-hand that people are expected to withhold cognizance of, and it's kind of infuriating. So it's a big relief to have someone articulate the elephant in the room, even if it's an elephant which has been turned invisible by the power of the elephant-lovers' imaginations. I find, as I often do reading Mattilda's writing, that I wanted to jump up and say "Yes. Yeah. Right on!" But we don't necessarily have all of the same political beliefs. She was pretty clear about referring to going to the gym as a kind of luxurious trapping of consumer lifestyle, and she's not wrong. I guess I'm not critical of my gym membership because I don't think of it as an aesthetic experience, I consider it a cheaper alternative to Prozac? I'm sort of backpedaling here. I guess I feel guilty sometimes. Like talking about wearing designer clothes. Does this mean I'm a hypocrite. If I'm a hypocrite does it mean I can't be right about stuff or do you need to be entirely consistent to make a point. This isn't productive. I like the idea of embracing a more nuanced, less easy to digest version of history. That lived experience is always so much more complicated, and that glossing over it, or romanticizing it, does erase that nuance, in a way. I mean, look: I get it. I see that impulse and in many ways I live there. But it was bracing and exciting to hear about how and why we can try to do something different.

Ok. Having some afternoon coffee since I'm fading. I guess I only got five hours of sleep. I'm going to go see The Mutilated featuring my heroes Penny Arcade and Mink Stole tonight. I want to wear my CdG pants even though they have a hole in them. It's a tiny hole. Is that gross? I PROMISE to take my pants to the dry cleaner tomorrow.

Finally, here's a video for the new song by The Blow:



I love this song and their new record so much! I can't wait to see them perform in New York on Sunday night. I wonder if there will be a pit. If there is a pit, a mosh pit or a dance pit, I wanna go be in it.

I just don't know what pants I'll wear into the pit.

11/5/13

Weaks

Halloween was fun. I wasn't feeling it, actually, before. I didn't feel excited about it. But on Thursday I went to my analyst and we had a pretty good talk about bravery and being mean and being funny, or something. On the one hand, I feel like we're going around in circles, but on the other hand I do feel like that's kind of the point, it was a good talk. Then I came home and had band practice, then went over to the Halloween party at Mafew and Ryan's. They have a third room mate who I must have met at some point, but it's all about them. They're really good at being funny, having fun, apartments, and parties. I mean they're good at all sorts of things but this is relevant. I was totally blown away by their Easter party a few years ago, but I heard they moved and so when I went to the Easter party this year I was very pleasantly surprised. They have maybe the nicest house in all of Williamsburg? Insanely decorated. Amazing spread. Snacks, candy, everywhere. Candles on every single surface. A band of guys dressed in big fuzzy Sesame Street costumes played in the basement. The band was a stand-up bass, a xylophone and a ukulele. Spooky and old-timey. They had little dishes with cigarettes (for anyone!) on every single table. Insanely classy. My definition of luxury. There was also lots of booze. There's always some kind of freaky punch thing. When we got there, Ryan was making the punch so we had to wait for him to finish making it before we could have any. I watched him make it, but after he added like the 34th or 35th ingredient I stopped paying attention. Eventually it was ready and it was delicious! I don't know what was in it and I don't know if I want to know? It seemed like there was a lot of really important stuff in the punch. I had one glass and felt pretty insane, watching the band in the basement and chatting with dear heart Chris S. the writer-cum-publisher. Oh yeah, I was gonna go as Lou Reed but instead I went as a sexy Cheshire Cat, for like the 5th year in a row. I'm always a cat. What's new. Teebs and Deegs came, we had some more punch and ate some more candy and found a hammock in the backyard and played in it for a little while. I was going to go home early because I had work the next morning, and declared that I was calling in sick! to work! And proceeded to have two more glasses of punch and also two glasses of champagne and also a beer, I think. I had a beer in the basement, while I was hanging out with Rob boom boom Roth the legendary face. Such a fun night! Swollen with booze and candy, we made our way home around 4 in the morning.

Get this: I went to work the next morning anyway, like an asshole. It actually wasn't so bad, it makes me wonder if I should be going out at night all the time, right? Cuz fuck it, I hate everything. Whatever, Halloween's only once a year.

I'm in kind of a bad mood today, I realized. I guess it's a Tuesday thing?

So Friday was kind of hard, I was super duper tired and pretty hungover. I went to a screening of The Women which was introduced by Mx Justin Vivian Bond. But I got there too late to see vs introduction and just watched the movie. Which is, of course, amazing. I must have subconsciously known but this time I was acutely aware that there are no men in that movie. That's just great. More movies should be like that! Another thing I like about The Women, aside from everything Joan Crawford says or does in it, is that the moral of the story is sort of about how if you're an asshole and go around bullying people around and being mean, then unfortunate things will happen to you and the people you were mean to won't want to be your friend about it. This sounds rough, and it is, in a way, I guess. But it does resonate with my own values, which is that if you want to be a jerk, then that will be its own punishment. It's not up to me (or anyone else) to make people suffer. I'm all about karmic retribution -- see the 'revenge' up at the top of the screen, natch -- but that's more about having a conversation than about suffering, per se. You wanna be hard, then you will fall hard all by your hard self. Hardie. So the movie was fun.

Went to the Boiler Room to meet up with dear heart Max. Had fun talking to him and all sorts of cute interesting gay boys. Had that kind of nice, kind of weird experience of meeting new guys (this happened more than once that night) and thinking "Wow they really want talk about their lives in this kind of unguarded way, that's cool!" and then have the conversation start to veer with a kind of awful perfunctory rhythm back to their boyfriends, over and over again. Are you being nice or are you trying to make sure I'm not flirting with you, because you're boyfriend is here? By the way I wasn't flirting with anyone, I pretty much never flirt unless it's already a done deal. I mean, right? But whatever, meeting new nice interesting guys. Saw someone from my past I'd rather not have seen, whatcha gonna do. I begged off early instead of going dancing and I'm glad I did, I was hungry.

Saturday I went to the gym and then went to rehearsal at Dixon Place for the rehearsal of Roy Garrett's Hot Rod to Hell. SUCH a fun night! The other readers (Mike Albo, Jonathan Daniel Federico, William Johnson, Brian Kenny, Scooter LaForge, Casey Spooner, Joey Stocks) were amazing, of course. Here's a photo of us that Slava took in the dressing room after the show:


We're cute. It's fun to be cute. But it's also a big responsibility. 

Ms. Albo came to the reading straight from her show earlier that night at Dixie Pee, The Junket, which has HIT written all over it. I heard it was amazing and I'm excited to see it this weekend with my homegirl Ben Rimalower. Here's a great interview with Mike about the show. It sounds so exciting! I'm interested in his upcoming book, too. About shopping. I used to hate shopping, but then at some point in the last few years, it became about something else and I started to like it. I guess I've always loved shopping for certain things. Groceries. Records. Those are probably past-times for me. But only insofar as cooking, eating, listening to music or reading books are also pastimes. Can a love of shopping be hiding, actually, a love of libraries? I wonder. It somehow reminds me of this awesome blog post about shopping that Susan Ploetz aka Pash(ly) wrote. This thing of being simultaneously transfixed and repulsed by the spectacle. Like, seduced and also nauseated? Been thinking a lot about consumer culture and how consumer culture is sometimes used (at least in my imagination) as a kind of proxy to mean these other things. Like maybe a place or a way to ask different questions. Shouldn't be the point, though? Shouldn't that be possible? I guess there's no getting around the fact that it does boil down to capitalism, to some of us having more or less resources. Even if it's a resource that's more difficult to quantify like taste, or time to shop. This thing, I see it a lot in my social circles and in the world today in general. This thing of recreational shopping. Like with your free time. i'm fascinated and horrified and I guess reminded anew every time that these feelings are far from mutually exclusive.

Anyway after the hilarious and exciting reading, I went to Gio's house with some very nice kids and met his and Neil's cat, Too Shy, who wasn't too shy to say hi. We listened to music and talked about art and boys and traveling and it was great. I should have stayed up later but I was pooped! I never save any energy for the weekend. I went to bed at what felt like a really early time but I realize that it was because of daylight savings time.

Sunday B0DYH1GH did our show ALIEN AFTERLIFE at La MaMa. I think it actually went so much better than I thought it was going to, and I think we're fucking fantastic. We wrote some new songs which I'm really proud of, and we polished up some old gems which I'm also very happy with. Perfect Little Daniel made some delightful stage banter, I think it was a pretty perfect show. We got a lot of amazing feedback. I want to record another mixtape. We have so many good new songs that no one's heard outside of our shows. Not that people don't listen at our shows, but you know. Came home and ordered takeout and went to bed ridiculously early.

Such a whole bunch more to say, but I feel better now, and I'm late anyway, so I'll stop here.