EIN ANONYMES PRODUKT
Aaron Shock the 28 year old junior congressman from Illinois is a Vaginal Davis fan. Yes, according to my young cute intern Gleeson Brevard the congressman ordered several of my unique posters from performances, and wanted them autographed. He asked for a copy of the Six Sex Weeks poster from Hamburg in 1996, a CHEAP It Happened to Me Poster from 2005 and one of my Vision of Excess and the Philosophy of Gifts posters from the Fierce Festival of 2003. How he knew about these specific posters is beyond me, as I don´t advertise them on the web site. He also asked for any other weird posters. Ain´t life grand?
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David Pendleton who is the wonderful and sweet director of the film archives at Harvard University came through Berlin on holiday. I adore Mr. Pendleton who use to work for many years with UCLA´s archive, and also was a member of Mark Simon´s heritage musical group The Boyfriend who were so charming performing regularly at my club Bricktops at the Parlourclub. Speaking of Bricktops I did an interview with Charity Hope Valentine one of the Bricktops girls for Maximum RocknRoll Magazine for their Queer Issue.
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Bud Schulberg who wrote the amazing book What Makes Sammy Run died at age 95. He also won an Oscar for his screenplay for the Marlon Brando film On the Waterfront in 1954. I was never a big fan of his 80s movies but director John Hughes(Breakfast Club/Home Alone) also died at age 59. Also passing at age 92 the last of the beat poets Harold Norse who besides being lovers with writer Paul Bowles also had a thing in the early 70s with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is now the governor of California. People forget that The Terminator use to ply his muscular self as a bodybuilding piece of trade at Muscle Beach in Venice.
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Listened to a lovely radio report on the California desert from my former LA Weekly collegue, the cute and dorky Ben Adair. The program was called Hearing Voices on NPR. Hearing Ben´s voice on the radio always gives me a chuckle as he still sounds like a weenager.
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My beautiful and extremely talented young art son Jonathan Berger is curating a show in New York in the fall called Nothing Up My Sleeve which is based on the work of the widely unknown yet highly influential artist Stuart Sherman. Sherman was an early member of both the Charles Ludlam and Richard Foreman theater companies. Over a 30 year period he compiled an immense body of his own work in performance, film, video, writing, sculpture and drawing until his death in 2001. The exhibition focuses on the notion of artists using various forms of deception. This will take place at Participant Inc. Gallery in November/December, 2009 as part of RoseLee Goldbergs PERFORMA Biennial. I will do an installation at the gallery but will also perform a reunion show with my legendary homocore band Pedro, Muriel & Esther (PME) featuring all the original members Glen Meadmore, Bique Dick Sneaky Pete and Dean the Babe Opseth. Other artists in the exhibit include Harry Houdini, Andy Kaufman, M.I.A., James Lee Byars, Carol Bove, Matthew Brannon, Superstudio, SITE Projects, Nancy Barton and Mrs. Michael Glass with Allison Somers and Eric Van Speights, Katarina Burin with Eileen Gray, KIOSK/Alisa Grifo and Marco Romeny, Albert Cullum and Robert Downey Sr., Little Switzerland, Stefanie Victor and Jeff Weiss/Hot Keys. This will be my first storming of New Yorika since I was in the Womanizer show at Deitch Projects in 2007. So watch out Manhattan I will be coming to get ya!
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Those of you who are coming to Berlin for vacation and are looking for something interesting to do you might want to check out the Up Your Ears-Queer Music Festival that takes place from Sept 4-6th at the Schwarzer Kanal. Up Your Ears is a true grassroots queer event by some wonderful young activist kids living and working in olde Berlin town.
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Oh kiddies wish me pluck as I´m off to Scandanavia for some private exhibitions, lectures and performances. As Cousin Sebastian says in Tennesse Williams Suddenly, Last Summer, “I´m tired of the dark ones and famished for the light ones”