4/28/14

Cardinal Cross

So as you maybe know, April was supposedly going to be a difficult month, with the Cardinal Cross and all. I read all the forecasts (and wrote one myself) but took everything with a grain of salt. Change is constant and inevitable and I figured everything will be okay.

I'm more than a little terrified about my show this weekend. That's the number one drama for me. I thought I was deflecting all my fear about it onto everything else. And I probably was to an extent, but there's been a lot of upheaval as well.

I thought I had my footing two weeks ago, at the first eclipse. But then I did a show and on my way home I twisted my ankle real badly. It was weird. I hadn't done that since I was a kid. It was hard to walk; I couldn't go to the gym. Soon after that, just when I got the knack of the arnica, tiger balm, ankle brace routine, I got sick. I had a pretty painful and very disgusting and disfiguring infection on my face. It hurt a lot. The doctor gave me a topical antibiotic, and it did not work. My lymph nodes were so swollen I couldn't sleep. The infection spread. I got an oral antibiotic and it sort of started to work, eventually. During this period I did a reading and had a performance and hosted a party. All ostensibly to promote MAPPLETHORPE. All were excruciatingly awkward and uncomfortable, socially and physically. I couldn't drink alcohol. I refused to cancel anything-- they were great shows, but it was rough.

I wore my fancy CdG BLACK pants out on Friday night. On my way home on the G train, I sat in gum. Freshly chewed, likely Orbitz bubblemint, gum. On my black wool fancy pants. SO now these pants have been:
- Ripped by the zipper and repaired (at great expense) by a "couture" dry cleaner who was kind of a total scam.
- Eaten by moths. (A second dry cleaner wouldn't even bother with repairing them).
- Stained by oil paint (I sat down in an art studio and got grey oil paint on the pants. I "fixed" it by coloring over the stain, once it dried, in a black Sharpie marker).
- And now, stained with bubblegum. I froze it, I scraped it, I did the peanut butter thing. A woeful waste of peanut butter if you ask me. It sort of worked, not really. They're crusty and stained and I have them stashed in the freezer.

Time to replace them. Except oh no-- I'm broke! How'd that happen? Well, I had been saving up to replace them for about a month, but then my turntable broke and I replaced that, and as it turns out I couldn't save quite at the rate I was trying to. So I've had to put my CdG savings back to my checking account just so that the check to my shrink would clear. I've been eating groceries and buying everything else with my credit card until I get paid.

I normally don't smoke during the week but this week I am letting myself smoke. Rehearsals are coming along well, I feel good about the show. And mortified, but solid in my choices. Last night, I got to bed at a reasonable hour, but was awoken by a blinding pain on my toe. I got bit by a mosquito on my toe. I thought it was maybe a spider. I used to be allergic to spider bites. It itched a lot but it also hurt a LOT. I got an ice pack to tie to my foot, I put on cortisone cream. I eventually passed out and kept waking up fitfully.

I begin tech tomorrow night. This was my last free night to go to the gym, to cook dinner, to get ready, to relax. But this morning, I got some news about a change in my domestic situation happening basically right now. I do not have a free second to think about it until Sunday night, which is not good, friends. I spent all day today trying not to hyperventilate, and trying to reassure myself that everything would work out okay. I got a haircut and I went to the gym, and I bought groceries (on my credit card). I washed the shirt I want to wear onstage and I hope I can get it wrinkle-free by then, or I'll have to buy a new one. I came home and I dyed my hair. While I was waiting for the dye to set, I tried to pack up the suit I want to wear. I went to get a paper bag from underneath our kitchen sink, and noticed they were wet. The drain pipe underneath the kitchen sink was leaking. I thought it was the washer, but in fact the pipe itself is rusted through and has a gaping hole. I put a bucket underneath the sink and called the maintenance cleaning guy as well as the super. At least the maintenance guy will come by tomorrow morning, but we'll likely need a plumber as well. I have an important meeting at work tomorrow so I can't stay home all day, but I guess I'm going to stay home in the morning and, I don't know. Not make coffee. Meditate. Chainsmoke out the windows.

I washed the dye out of my hair. My face is healing, but I think I'm going to have permanent scars. Just how bad remains to be seen. I did my insane moisturizing routine. I did my Vitamin E oil thing. I tried to visualize how I was going to, at 10pm, start making dinner. Could I rinse and assemble a salad using the bathtub faucet? I decided to treat myself to a burrito.

Tomorrow night I start tech for MAPPLETHORPE. I feel crazy and out of control and yet certain that I can handle this because I pretty much have to. I feel like I can do it. I don't know that I can do it, I just sort of feel that way, I guess.

I'm the one. You don't have to look any further. I'm the one. I'm here. Right here. For you. 
I woke up in a blind rage and threw a tantrum.

I remember last year when I did ENCOURAGER, one of the big lessons I learned was that freaking out won't help anything, will only make me miserable and make doing my best job more difficult. I KNOW that freaking out won't help, but I can't help freaking out.

I'm scared because the show is so minimal, so cut down. It's just me and I have to trust myself. I have a very hard time trusting myself. I don't think I deserve to trust myself. I'm afraid that it's easy to overboard with trusting yourself. What am I so afraid of? What would that look like, someone clearly trusting them self too much, in the wrong ways, for the wrong reasons? And what would be so bad about that? And what good things could come from that, from the other side of that? This is what lead to MAPPLETHORPE.

4/23/14



Today would have been S' birthday. He would have been 28 years old but he died (three?) years ago. We went out on a date. I don't remember why, I think he might have asked me out. I met him at the EastVillageBoys party at the Hose. I was recently cleaning my room and I found the flyer for it this weekend, actually. And I remember he had a necklace made of one of his molars, one of his wisdom teeth. Let me back up-- he was go-go dancing, and I was introducing the performer that night (Gio Black Peter). The EVB guys led me to the back of the Hose, to the store-room, where the go-go boys were. They had them in the back room with all the bottles of vodka. That seemed like a bad idea. I was dressed because I wasn't go-go dancing, but I was just hanging out back there for a minute, and S came over to me and introduced himself and asked if I was Max. He had that necklace of one of his wisdom teeth, all wrapped in gold wire. We talked about teeth-- I had just gotten mine taken out but was dismayed that they wouldn't let me keep it. I introduced Gio's performance, and I don't remember it, but apparently I was drunk and messy. I don't know when S asked me out but probably around then. God how old was he, then. 23. That was five years ago. And I was 24.

I remember we went out on a date to see a movie at Kips Bay. He told me he was a go-go boy sometimes, for other places too. He was maybe still in school? He did something with math, some high-level intellectual weird thing. No-- he worked at a start-up but he worked from home. Doing something in computers that I didn't understand. I think we saw either a horror movie or a superhero movie. I think he chose it. We went out afterward to a kind of insanely bad and loud restaurant in Murray Hill. But he was really cute and really charming and we talked about eating food and how, I was eating tortilla chips, those chips' molecules were becoming part of me, and the burger he was eating was becoming part of him.

He and I went out a few times. One time I brought him home with me and we had sex at night, and it was great. And then in the morning we sort of tried to have sex but didn't, really, try, and gave up. And that was disappointing. He lived in a very fancy expensive building, which no one I would ever know could afford, but he lived in a three bedroom with I think 8 or 9 other people. That was how they made it work. So he had a room mate for his bed. I remember coming home with him and making out and going to third base while his room mate slept on the mattress. Eventually he got up and left. It was awkward, but S told me that it was okay because sometimes he and his room mate had sex. I don't remember where we ended up the first night we went out but I remember him saying "I'm so glad you ate those tortilla chips and now they're a part of you."

S was very smart and very sweet and very weird. He would sometimes be at parties or shows and would be very calm and sweet and attractive and kind of mysterious. Once he was at a party I performed at, and I think he liked the lyrics to one of my songs (he tweeted them during the show). As I got offstage, (we had stopped dating by this point) he told me he loved me. I said that's probably not true but very sweet. He said no, no he did. I said you just think you do. He said I don't know. It was actually really really sweet.

I remember on two different occasions, being out at bars or parties with him and introducing him to other friends of mine, who immediately fell in love with S. I was a little jealous, both times. He was that kind of guy, he was really intense looking and funny and cute and made a very strong impression. I remember he went by his first and middle names, because his first and last name was also the name of a recently convicted killer who had gotten a lot of news coverage. I know he had gotten a boyfriend at some point, and they were very much and intensely in love, and I think lived together. Then I think they broke up? I'm not sure, we hadn't been in touch in a while. And then I was in touch with him and asked him how he was, online, and he said that he had tried to kill himself. He had jumped off of a building but had kind of miraculously survived, and was recovering at a hospital in NY before going to stay with friends in the midwest. He asked me to come visit him and I said that I would, and then he asked me to bring him weed, and I said I don't know about that. I felt uncomfortable and I didn't go visit him and I regret it and I don't know why I didn't. I'd visited other people in the hospital many times. When I was in the hospital, I really enjoyed being visited. I think it was the suicide thing. I think it was the scale of the thing. I made excuses, he was very nice. He went to the midwest to recover. He said no matter what happens, he wanted me to know that I was really cool, even if I was a little bit selfish. I later found out that in the ensuing months he had attempted suicide again and died. Today would have been his 28th birthday. I wonder, how to celebrate? I might eat some cake to celebrate his birthday, and then the cake will become part of me.

4/18/14

MAPPLETHORPE by Max Steele


Photo by Ingo Lamm

BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange
421 5th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215

Friday-Saturday, May 2-3 @ 8:00pm
Sunday, May 4 @ 6:00pm

Tickets: $15 General | $8 Low-Income

Mapplethorpe is a kind of service, a product or device. A disposable personality, a soulless soul-singer, a TV character set to self-destruct, a eulogy to stay alive, a pop star designed for rancor. A lover who cannot bear the weight of the spotlight and whose incineration glimmers on command.

MAPPLETHORPE is about a singer, who chose the name Mapplethorpe (pronounced MAP'llthorpe) because he wanted a powerful name. A name that was about power. Plus it has the word "Map" in it, so you know where to go, where you are. And he's here to pay your ransom. And this show tells how.

He's a rising young talent, here to introduce himself through his Gay Ofay Reggae Cabaret.

Last year in my first year as an Artist In Residence at BAX, I made ENCOURAGER, a self-help seminar led by a sincere but inexpert guru. The theme of ENCOURAGER was that the only true self-help possible is self-destruction.

In MAPPLETHORPE, I'm using cabaret, comedy and popular music as ways to investigate morality, charisma, power and the impoverishment of imagination.


Photo by Ves Pitts

I've lived in New York since 2006, and have been performing music in nightclubs, writing and doing spoken word from my zine Scorcher, and making performance art for theaters, galleries and museums. In this new show, I'm trying to tie together the various ways I've been making and presenting work. MAPPLETHORPE represents a shift from the narrative and thematic work I've made in the past, towards a more abstract, dance-influenced and experimental type of performance. I'm willfully conflating minimalism with deprivation, and rigor with discomfort. This is the most experimental and riskiest artwork I've made, and is the truest distillation of my values, and the questions I'm reckoning with right now.

I wanted to make a cabaret show that was about alienation, rather than intimacy. I'm interested unpacking the so-called passivity of the audience. I'd like to find the logical conclusion of charisma, and to activate the values of the viewer. As audience members, we so often carry our own psyches and baggage with us into the experience of watching live performance, and I want to make artwork that doesn't disregard that baggage, but instead calls on it. I want the audience to feel activated, stimulated, and encouraged to judge, decide, and choose how they feel about the performance they're seeing. The subjective experience of MAPPLETHORPE depends entirely on the suspension of disbelief, on the conscious denial or acceptance of one's own tastes and beliefs.

The title of the show seems to reference a famous photographer, but is pronounced differently. This is a show about getting things wrong all the way. This is a world in which there's no excuse for ignorance. It's not an accident if it's a choice. This is a show about getting things wrong, on purpose, to see the other side of a mistake. This has less to do with failure, iconoclasm and revolution, and more to do with self-sabotage, disappointment, frustration, impatience and slapstick humor.

Using the constraints of a nominally accessible form, I want to create a situation in which someone could be loved for the all the wrong reasons, and hated for all the right reasons.

Some more information about me and the project:
http://artistservices.bax.org/max-steele
http://helixqpn.tumblr.com/post/75894224999/the-helix-interview-max-steele

I've made a video playlist of songs and videos which inspired the project, you can check it out below:

4/15/14

SCoS



A week of sick. A week of injury. Week of blood. A week of ooze. Of dripping. Seeping, crusting. Explosions, gushing. A week of geysers. A week of Old Faithful. Week of oil well. Like in the Wizard of Oz, when the Tin Man is whining. I want knuckle tattoos that say O I L C A N.



A week of fever. A week of swelling. Of sweat. A week of white blood cells. Some shivering, a bit of tenderness, periods of exhaustion. Momentary failures. I wonder: is it because of the eclipse? A week of ointments.



I want to make the gay idiot version of shibuya-kei. I want to make the gay idiot version of bossa nova. Those might be next. I want to disappear into something I love, but I know it can't ever all the way happen. Gay ye-ye. Y'know? It's also about modernity, how 1960s modernism seems so old now, and to me, so idealistic. Even and especially the cynical, the cool, the "hip". The thrill of the "new". I see it as optimism.

Will this get better? Will it infect my bloodstream. Will it be drug resistant. Will this kill me. I do think I'll be perfectly ok though. But I am supremely uncomfortable. The other night I couldn't sleep. Isn't that bad, when the pain wakes you up? That's when you know to call the doctor. I already went to the doctor. I'm just waiting for the antibiotics to kick in. The treatment. I told the doctor at the clinic that my lymph nodes hurt and he told me that they're draining the infection, they're full of white blood cells. They're just doing their job. Is it bad, always, when pain wakes you up? Not always. It's better than when the pain puts you to sleep.

That's the thing about being sick. When you're sick, you start to notice other sick people. Then you can't stop noticing. You're part of a community of sick people, a secret underworld society. And some of us are crazy and some of us aren't. Some of us are just passing through. Well, we're all passing through. The community of sick people is like a hospital or a fast food restaurant-- it's not exactly there to be comfortable. Being comfortable isn't part of it. You're all passing through. Either you become a well person again or you don't, in which case you spend the rest of your life sick. In which case you die. But you're not alone! My mom once told me that's what being pregnant is like; you start to notice other pregnant people. They seem to be everywhere. That's what it was like when I quit smoking, it was like everyone was either a smoker or had quit and I was trying to suss out everyone's feelings about tobacco. I talked to everyone about it.

My ankle hurts, too. I think I somehow re-sprained it? From not wearing the brace all weekend? Friday night I went to see Melanie Jones' show at BAX. It was the first show of the BAX AIR season, and I was totally blown away. It was so fantastic and intense and smart and patient and just... really wonderful. I've honestly never seen anything like it, in terms of how intense and personal and freaked-out it was. I have never seen anyone go there like that and stay there along enough to even make it a thing. It was really masterful writing and acting and performing and thinking and yeah. Totally impressed. I'm still kind of dumbfounded.

After the show I went to Ryan's going away party. He's moving to LA. At the party we ran into our old college chum Ari who is ALSO moving to LA. Everyone is moving to LA. Because of the winter, I suppose. But jeez. We had a good time catching up and gossiping with Bennet and so many boys from Williamsburg, the extended network of Ryan's friends. So sad that he's leaving, we're losing a good one. I did not feel good when I went home Friday night, I felt real bad actually.

Saturday I went to the gym (my ankle felt better, then), and then I had brunch at Caroline and Jessi's house, which was lovely. I felt kind of out of it from sick, but we had a great time. C made waffles and I had a beer for brunch and we talked about upcoming projects and meditation and hanging out. It's so funny to me that we were internet friends from message boards 15 years ago. And now we live in New York and hang out. I'm always so blown away by how much funny stuff life contains. And the world is so big.

I went home after brunch and laid with an ice pack on my neck, feeling very poor. I eventually scraped myself together. Looking back on it I felt really bad, actually. Just putting a pin in that. I went to dinner and then I bummed around in a daze, leaving flyers for MAPPLETHORPE at bars. I got a drink by myself at the Metropolitan and sat in the back and chainsmoked, drafting this post. I was killing time. Eventually I went to Bradley's party, where I met Max B. CoCo was also there, and she had (as Max B. sagely pointed out) the best lines of the night. At one point someone was talking about drinking, our favorite types of alcohol to drink, and this guy was saying how his sister and her friends took him to the Hamptons and they brought a cooler full of prosecco and how bad of a hangover he had. Coco said: "Oh, of course! It's the only way to do the Hamptons." I'm trying to remember the rest but I can't. She was great, Bradley's great, they're all great. His room mate was nice and his friends were nice. They were really into dancing. I love a house party where you're dancing and sometimes with the lights on. They had a great DJ and when he played "Drunk in Love" the kids (the babies, the babes) went wild. I mean just W-I-L-D. Everybody screaming the lyrics along to the record. I love Beyoncé and I love her fans as well. And they love me. That's another secret underground society, right? The Beyhive?

I sneaked out of the party and stopped by GAG! at Metro. Did y'all know it's the 10 year anniversary of GAG later this month? How nuts is that. I remember going to the 3 year anniversary and thinking that it was such a big huge deal (it was) and so sophisticated and cosmopolitan. I don't know what I'm gonna do for the 10 year. I hope I'm healed by then.

Sunday I felt not better and not worse. I went to rehearse MAPPLETHORPE at BAX. I'm worried about the show. I'm excited about the show! It's a cabaret, and it's scripted, but it's like. It's a hard script for me to act, in a way. It looks natural but the logic of the character isn't my logic, it's made-up, so it's counterintuitive. But I'm looking forward to the show. And I hope you can come.



After rehearsal I came home and did my chores and got ready and went to go celebrate Lola's Dirty 30 Birthday Party at a local speakeasy. There was a photographer from a magazine there covering the speakeasy, she took a lot of flash photos, it was unnerving. The bartenders made expensive and very strong drinks and they wore vests. Our friends all came, Lola looked beautiful. I met some of her friends from graduate school. Her lil sister, who is now movie mogul (do y'all remember my short story CASINO? Cuz...) was there and she brought fancy donuts instead of cake (she asked what Lola wanted). We sang happy birthday and she blew out candles and we ate donuts. And then I came home and ordered take-out and watched this movie about communist Romania, Amintiri din epoca de aur.

Monday I was sick, I was worse. I started taking new antibiotics. My ankle hurt more, somehow. Like it got worse? It was getting better and then it got worse. It's very swollen and weak. It feels like my tendons are tangled up. It was a Blood Moon or something. At night I turned off the lights and I sat in the moonlight and I tried to visualize myself healing. But to be honest, I feel like the Moon doesn't give a fuck and I don't blame her. But it was nice and relaxing. I set an alarm to get up during the eclipse to see the blood moon. And I woke up, in the middle of a dream (forgot it already) and I couldn't see the moon. Maybe because it was behind the clouds, or behind a building, or I couldn't see it from my placement. But it was there.

It's funny. Last week I told my mom on the phone that my health was fine, it came up that I hadn't had to go to the doctor in a long time. And I also incidentally mentioned that I'm not celebrating Easter nor Passover because I don't believe in God. Mom, who's not particularly religious, but is superstitious, said "Oooh, honey, don't say that." And then I promptly started to injure and infect myself. Seems fitting. The laundromat on our block shut down for unspecified health code violations. I'm broke, ish. The window in our kitchen, which has been broken for a long time, got stuck open. And it's Passover so my superintendent (who is Hasidic) can't come and fix it even if he wanted to. I found a way to jimmy it shut again. And with my disfiguring mutilated afflictions, I have a reading tonight and a performance on Thursday night. Not a good week. Despite all this, I told my mom last night when we spoke, I'm in a good mood. I'm upbeat. I'm in good spirits. I've dealt with shit like this before and totally fallen apart, and so my ability to nominally keep it together this time is, to me, a sign of maturity and strength. I mean, I am incredibly uncomfortable, both physically and emotionally, but that is OK.



I love this song. The composer, Frank Churchill, apparently killed himself, on the piano bench, shortly after writing it.

4/9/14

Packed, Packing

It feels like I had a wildly unproductive weekend, but I guess that's not really true. I just feel sort of unproductive because I'm so exhausted.



Thursday night, I went to ClampArt to see Pages, the new photo exhibition by Linda Simpson. Linda is definitely my favorite drag queen in new York City, maybe in the whole world, and has been making NYC a fantastic place to be for a minute now. She is a performer, a hostess, and a writer. She published the legendary zine My Comradefor many years, and has thrown some of my favorite events in the City ever. I'm so excited that her sort of living archive of documenting New York has been given this life as Fine Art, thanks to ClampArt and Peradam (Pages is also being published as an art book by Paradam).

After the show I went to Analysis and talked about my new show MAPPLETHORPE at Brooklyn Arts Exchange. TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE NOW. I'm so nervous, and excited. And nervous! I hope you can come to it. After Analysis I went to the Monster to go to dear heart Aaron's new party LOVER, but it was already over. K&M came by with cute boy cousins, though, and we all had some drinks. Then we went on to one of the cousins' house, in the Village, and I saw his cute little dog and he put on a Star Wars movie and fixed cocktails and we hung out a bit more, talked about movie actresses we like/don't like. I sneaked home when they ordered dumplings.

I came home and tried to sleep but my neighbors got a new sound system or something; the courtyard was blasting music all night. I couldn't make most of it out (salsa?) but I know they played "Rock the Boat" a few dozen times. I didn't sleep, I felt horrible the next day.

Friday after work I went to James Fuentes to see the re staging of the Real Estate Show.



It was a madhouse! It was totally great. Obviously I love Colab. I studied with Robin Winters for two years in college and am deeply inspired be this group of artists and this show, their bodies of work in general. Definitely get into it. The show was packed. It was so much fun.

Came back to Brooklyn and went to a surprise birthday party for Diego in Greenpoint. He was really surprised! It was great. His BF organized it and did a bang-up job. We all had a great time. I ordered a pizza to be delivered to the bar, I felt so fancy. What a strange, quiet, weird bar in Greenpoint. Some lady at the bar, a regular, I want to say her name was Marie, had a special shot made, named after her, and didn't explain what was in it, but bought one for Wilkes, who drank it and then went on an international vacation (before the pizza got there). I did a lil' flirting and I also ate two birthday cupcakes. Sister Pico brought macarons, the fancy kind, and I had one of those too. It was awesome. I was so sleepy though, from Thursday night. I only drank tequila with the thinking being that it would keep me awake. I guess it sort of did.


Sam McKinniss, Ghostface

Saturday I met up with my friend Daniel R. to talk about making a video for MAPPLETHORPE and we got coffee in the East Village. Then we went to Good Work Gallery in Bushwick to see "First responders", a group show curated by Zach Smith. From the curator's statement: "Reflection doesn’t guarantee thorough results. Impulse can be refined, but flashes of the uncanny are rarely if ever reverse engineered." He's clever. I had only ever met him socially, but was really bowled over by his thinking about the show. And the show itself. Such cute work! Sam is obviously a favorite, I'm totally a fan, and I also loved Deanna Havas' pieces. It's a tiny gallery, I drank some beers and chatted with some kids. No one could get into the bathroom so we kept running across the street to go to the bathroom at the bar.

It was a kind of Spring-y, lovely, and kind of cold night. And I was exhausted and I went home early. It's so weird. I was like, in bed and passing out before midnight. I don't feel old, I've always pulled shit like that. I just really wanted to sleep, you know? I really wanted to sleep and I didn't really want to drink or anything else. So I didn't.

Sunday I got up early and I went to the theater writer / performer support group organized by the lovely Lady Rim. Always such a nourishing and grounding and hilarious time. Kudos to everyone for meeting, y'know, at noon on a Sunday. We did it! Then I came home, got a sandwich, took a lil nap and went to the gym. I thought I had booked a rehearsal for myself, which I definitely sorely need, leading up to the show. No such luck. I had, it turns out, rescheduled my Sunday rehearsal for Saturday, and forgotten about it. So that was neat. I came home after the gym, did some chores and errands, and then went on over to Joe's Pub.

At Joe's, we were celebrating Earl Dax' blessed birth with an epick cabaret line-up. Performers included the legendary drag faux-king MorrisSHE, citizen Reno, Justin Sayre, Machine Dazzle, Amber Martin, Nick Hallett, Phoebe Legere, Joey Arias, John Kelly Needles Jones and yours truly. SO much fun. I did a little bit of MAPPLETHORPE, so I guess it's ok I didn't have rehearsal that day, but still.


Photo by Albert Mitchell 

You guys I'm a singer. I had a few glasses of wine, and then we went upstairs to the Library and hung out a bit more. I gushed over how obsessed with Amber Martin I am (so obsessed). I went home at a reasonable hour, I thought.

On my block, a few dozen yards from home, I twisted my ankle, really badly. I heard and felt a loud crunch sound. It really fucked me up. I hobbled home and into bed. How awful, you know? I watched a documentary about Heavy D & The Boys. I don't know why. I didn't finish it.

Monday I took the day off work for feeling tired and burnt out. I met with someone about a new secret web project (watch this and all spaces), came home and lulled about the house, answering e-mails and catching up on work. Some exciting things coming up! Even beyond MAPPLETHORPE which is the big ugly scary exciting thing looming in my life. Though, of course, there are the events in the post below (Tommy's app release party and an event with Rumi). If you come to these events, 4/15 and 4/17 respectively, I'll be name-dropping a discount code for MAPPLETHORPE tickets so that you can buy them for $5 instead of $15, so. You know. You want to come.

Yesterday I went to work and it was just okay. We had waffles. Afterward I went to the dentist and got a clean bill of dental health, which means the world to me. He cleaned my teeth using high-powered baking soda. It tasted disgusting but it made my teeth look nice. Then I went to the Kitchen for this art talk featuring the Blow. People were talking about audiences. It was in conjunction with Gerard and Kelly's new piece there, Timelining. They talked briefly about notions of the audience versus the public. And about getting over relational aesthetics. I'm still not over it either! Still not over them.

On the train there, a young girl dragging a guitar case sat down next to me and propped up her guitar to hide her backpack. I could see, since she was sitting next to me, that in her backpack she had a tube of uncooked chocolate chip cookie dough, which she was sort of slurping on the train ride. At the Kitchen, I hadn't eaten all day, since the work waffles, and they had drinks there. I had one beer and I felt a little drunk. And then I had another and then I had a glass of white wine and then I had a glass of red wine and still! No dinner yet. A cute guy sat down next to me when I first arrived, and took off his overcoat. He was wearing a cute little red blazer underneath. After a few drinks, towards the end of the Art Talk, I noticed that while the nails on his right hand were plain, unadorned, the nails on his left hand were very long, very pointy, and painted a shiny dark blue. A gorgeous surprise, right.

I hung out for a tiny bit after the talk, I met a nice girl from New Zealand. Talked a little bit about Lorde and the Tall Poppy Syndrome. I went home and made a big salad for dinner. I woke up extra early this morning, 5:30am, and went to the gym. My ankle felt okay, I only did elliptical. But then at work I was talking and I somehow twisted my ankle again. I hate paid. I'm leaving work soon and going out to dinner and I feel optimistic and a little bit freaked out.

So many events, shows, performances coming up. Really exciting stuff, but yeah. Just a lot.

4/8/14

MY LOOK FOR SUMMER

I like wearing underpants. And nothing else. Just a pair of lil bikini briefs. European tourist in a speedo. And that's it. Maybe a faux-silk kimono or kaftan for the nights. A pair of sneakers, slip-ons. And a cigarette or something. That's what the fuck I want to wear to the beach, this goddamn summer.















4/7/14

Some Dates

I've been sleeping and then not sleeping. I am working on a bigger update, but in the meantime there are some shows I want to talk about. If you haven't signed up for my hopefully not-too-annoying e-mail list, you can do that on the right hand side here. I will be right back with real news, updates.

*Tuesday, April 15*
Absent Mindr app release party
Mellow Pages Library (56 Bogart St. 1S, Brooklyn)
7:30pm
FB Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1393155927627988/

Absent Mindr is a poetry chapbook by Tommy Pico of Birdsong Micropress, and the first one made into an APP for iphones/ipads and such--which you can download from yr friendly neighborhood app store starting the 15th. Tommy's throwing a part for the release, featuring readings by: MAX STEELE, MAUD DEITCH, LAUREN WILKINSON, SEAN H. DOYLE & TOMMY PICO.

The app is 24 poems, audio of Tommy reading each one, and features art by Cat Glennon, and was developed/published by VERBALVISUAL. For more info:
ABSENTMINDR site: absentmindr.com
Developed by VERBALVISUAL: verbalvisu.al
CAT GLENNON art: catglennon.com

*Thursday, April 17*
A Cocktail of Glamour and Anarchy
Bureau of General Services-Queer Division (83A Hester Street, New York)
7PM
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/843970615619212/

A COCKTAIL OF GLAMOUR & ANARCHY an evening of performance featuring original Cockette RUMI MISSABU in person! Accompanied by AGOSTO MACHADO, JARVIS EARNSHAW & JOE E. JEFFREYS and Special Guests RACHEL MASON, MAX STEELE & MARK GOLAMCO.

Rumi Missabu, actor/male actress, performance artist, director-producer, mentor and original member and archivist for the gender-bending early 70s counterculture troupe The Cockettes, once described as like the Little Rascals in drag doing Busby Berkeley on acid, Rumi Missabu, hosts an evening of conversation, spoken word, film clips, and musical interludes withspecial guests. Guaranteed to be a fun-filled romp laced with pure nostalgia that bridges the gap between the Summer of Love and thetimes of Harvey Milk.

*May 2-4*
MAPPLETHORPE by Max Steele
BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange (421 5th Avenue, Brooklyn, New York)
Friday-Saturday, May 2-3 @ 8:00pm | Sunday, May 4 @ 6:00pm
Tickets here: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/933517

Mapplethorpe is a kind of service, a product or device. A disposable personality, a soulless soul-singer, a TV character set to self-destruct, a eulogy to stay alive, a pop star designed for rancor. A lover who cannot bear the weight of the spotlight and whose incineration glimmers on command.

Visit artistservices.bax.org/max-steele to learn more about BAX Artist in Residence Max Steele