LIEBE-IHRE WEGE UND UMWEGE
Got together with Joel Gibb the Baby Diaper of the Hidden Cameras to discuss working on my LIVE FILM! JACK SMITH! Five Flaming Days in a Rented World project. Joel will be on tour in late October with Hidden Cameras supporting his new album Origin: Orphan which drops on September 22, 2009. A 12 inch EP will be released of the song “In the Na” with remixes by Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters, Stuart Price and Dolby Anal. Joel won´t be able to perform with me for LIVE FILM!, but Little Alex of Macedonia and his hot half French half German pal Julian Radlmaier came up with the idea of filming their parts and somehow mixing it with my live performance. Of course that means I have had to scrap my original Tenderloin rock band concept in exchange for something more showtuny, raw edged and organic. The new title of the piece is Memory Island which sounds more Smithian.
Next year Mr. Joel Gibb will present a stage version of Origin: Orphan that will feature Susanne Sachsse, Val of Noblesse Oblige and the Doll. Joel is hoping to recruit the outrageous award winning Norweigan theater duo of Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller to design the sets and costumes.
Was taken to brunch and drinks by my former student from NYU Ricardo Montez. Young Senor Montez is now 34 years old and is a professor at Princeton University. How my children grow up. Ricardo is a Tex Mex from San Antonio, and is in Berlin for a month working on a special post doc project interviewing expats. We had a delightful time eating at Zam Zam Pakistani Restaurant and having drinks and snacks at tired Cafe Berio in NollandorfPlatz. Both of us got completely wasted and it was so much fun.
*
Rising Stars, Falling Stars Sunday at Arsenal Institute fur Film und Videokunst was packed to the rafters with celebutants like Berlin legendina Zazie de Paris, with expat Downtown New Yorker great John Heys,experimental film guru Wilhelm Hein with art photog girlfriend Annette Frick, prima ballerina Beatrice “Trixie” Curdua, art historian Christina Rosnersky, intermedia actress Susanne Sachsse, film historian Marc Siegel, Daniel Hendrickson the Scandanavian Muslim, Katja Maya, dreadlocked British Live Artist Richard Hancock, visiting Princeton scholar Ricardo Montez, Nadine of Neu Kölln,super cute Tunisian/Austrian musician Karim Ben Abdelkader with Axel Scheele of the band Lewinski, New York Experimental Film couple Sherrie Millner and Ernie Larsen´s young daughter Nadja Millner-Larsen, Nanna Heidenreich of Arsenal Experimental and curator Stefanie Schulte Strathaus.
The Blue Bros Tim & kJohnny provided a unique live score to the cubist film classic Manhatta along with Rrose Selavy´s Anemic Cinema, the experimental short The Life and Death of 9413 A Hollywood Extra and comedies What a Dish and Pool Shark, W.C Fields film debut from 1915. It was great seeing a skinny W.C. Fields before he got his bulbuous nose, and his mustache seemed to be taking flight right out of his nostrils.
*
The young NY artist Dash Snow died of an overdose a few days ago. I first met him back in the late 1990s through Bruce “Judy” La Bruce when he was a raucaus teenage grafitti artist along with another kid named Dan. It was also at this time i met Ryan McGinnley who has gone on to become a very well known and successful international art photographer. Judy can party down with the young children in a deluze a daze of booze and pills, but I´ve never been that kind of Grace Jones style party negro. Young Dash and Ryan McGinnley were always giving me pieces of their work, so I have acquired quite a sizeable collection. Judy did tell me that Mr. Snow was related to the uber wealthy philanthropist Christophe de Menil and that his auntie was actress Uma Thurman. I feel fortunate that I was born into the welfare class, i t s less complicated then the world of wealth and priveledge.
*
A few months ago I was invited to a special preview screening here in Berlin of comedian Sasha Baron Cohen´s new film Bruno. I had completely forgotten about it until recently hearing all this commotion about the movie on NPR and getting several mass emails from queer pundits attacking the flick. Mr. Cohen´s Bruno character is definately his least interesting persona from his BBC comedy program The Ali G. Show. I was only able to watch the TV show a few times at Andrew Gould´s house, my British partner with Bricktops at the Parlour Club. Andrew had cable television and BBC America. What brought the comic actor to world wide fame was his film Borat and the ribald antics of that character. The mock-u-mentary format is a bit played out at this stage of the game, but the sheer lunacy and I Love Lucy shlapshtich still can bring out a chuckle. A lot of Bruno was definately staged. With my Fertile La Toyah Jackson Video Magazine of the early 1990s I was a pioneer of reality TV. I just went out amongst the people with a a shaky tiny camera and did my thing with no budget and certainly no frills. My earliest stage performances were literally on the street as a teenager in the late 70s and early 80s just interacting with people in nutty Jack Smithian situations wearing crazy outfits and just following the flow. The best part of Bruno was the ignorant stage moms and dads willing to sell the souls of their babies to get them on a TV program.
*
Had a lovely birthday brunch with film historian Marcu Siegel at the Kreuzberg cafe Azul with our favorite Jamaican waitress. Later we were joined by Marc´s beautiful girlfriend actress Susanne Sachsse looking wonderfully summerific. We paid a visit to the young Scandanavian art couple Katja & Simon who live in a glorious penthouse split level compound with a sumpteous view of the TV tower and river. They just gave birth to a bouncy baby boy named Cornelius who is one of the cutest infants I have seen in a long time with personality plus. I instantly fell in love with this child, and that says something as I am usually not a fan of children. We all had a wonderful visit, and Katja´s mother was also there helping with her grandchild. I loved her mother´s gallows sense of humour. Later in the evening i got together with Daniel Hendrickson and his lover Piero Bonhomme for dinner at the Bahu Indische Spezialiltäten restaurant. Both Daniel & Piero will be off to Italy for holiday. Piero gave me some gorgeous shirts from his latest kollezione that I can´t wait to wear. Waiting for the bus home I started chit chatting with a hot muscular Gaysian boy on a fellowship from the University of Washington. What a sweet beauty he was wearing flip flops and a muscle hoody with a booty and rack you could build a dream on.