Friday, December 16, 2011

ANDERS ALS DU DENKST
To recover from the Berlin performances of Commie Biggi I treated myself to a 60 minute massage by a tiny Indonesian man who also performed some reflexology on me that rid the doll of her nasal congestion and aching weary bones. The mixture of eastern and western practice was a plus in stabilizing a very worn performance art wo-man.
Had a jam session with Tenderloin that included Baby Diaper Joel Gibb, Felix Knoke, Jan Klesse and Andreas Stoiber a sweet new pal of Felix & Jan who performs regularly as a musical robot and is also a Berlin DJ music producer and arranger. We all hopped into Andreas's compact car to the far reaches of the eastern block to rehearse at his tiny studio. It was a delightful evening of musical camaraderie and passion. After rehearsal we went to Santa Maria for some excellent Mexican grub and Margaritas---Perfection!
Thursday I had breakfast with my sweet Jan Klesse at More Café in Nollendorky Platz. We had a lovely time together and spent most of the morning and afternoon just chilling, and snacking at an Akazien Strasse café eating delicious carrot cake, drinking gallons of coffee and chittle chatting.Jan is in Berlin till the end of January as part of his duties as a tyro lawyer. He is renting a spacious room on Lebener Strasse just around the corner from the Cheese Endique Trifecta in the Rote Insel section of Schoneberg, so we are neighbors which is very pleasant and comforting.
For the Camp/Anti-Camp festival in April the Tenderloin boys may be backing up the legend that is Miss Jayne County who will make her triumphant return to Berlin where she lived in the early 80s. Talk about a coupe! Also Ms. Glen Meadmore is coming back to Europe for some performances in Germany and Austria sometime in February so I am looking forward to see that first lady of kuntry thrash.
Was listening to NPR Berlin the other day to the program Fresh Air with presenter Terry Gross and her guest was Josh Kun, the love sexy Jewish humpy dork who use to teach at UC Riverside as a collegue of Dr. Jennifer Doyle, but who is now working at USC. I have had a long lasting crush on this man for many, many moons. He has the most kissable lips and a very sexy voice. On the radio he sounds like a teenager. He is also one of those academics that doesn’t get enough attention from the academy so he moonlights as a music journalist, radio, club DJ,promoter and general bon vivante. I think he also comes from a very well off middle class family, so he has never lacked anything he should desire in life, and is use to getting his way with everything. He was a bit of a cultural tourist with his interest in Latino music, but seems to be these days mining the riches of his own community and
Terry Gross was interviewing him about his work with the Idolsen Society that promotes rare Jewish recordings,bringing them new life to a younger generation. Josh has also produced a stunning anthology called Songs of the Jewish American Jet Set-The Tifa Records Collection 1950-1973. I haven’t seen Josh in many years, so maybe he hasn’t aged well, but something tells me he has gotten better looking and I sure would love to perform some buttery fellatio upon his smoking hot Jewish penis.
Ms. Angie Anderson aka DJane Olga Damnitz saved the info on my crashed computer and brought it to me in the form of an external harddrive. Thank god for Angie. She is the lifesaver to us technically challenged divas. While I was waiting for Angie to arrive it snowed and rained all within the same time stretch. I took Angie to Papaya to eat some delicious Thai food and to catch up on her adventures she had a fews months back on the Isle of Man in Britain.
Then I had to run to Wedding to see the art exhibition Showtime of one of my British Phd students Allie Carr with Kerstin Honeit who has worked with Gob Squad. They were presenting video letters and documentation in the LoBe Gallery. I love the sense of utter joy and abandon in the video moments presented, and there were some prime guest stars like Master Patrick, the masked artist and gatekeeper at Pork Club at Ficken 3000 and the voice of young Maureen O’Hara from the 1940 Dorothy Arzner film Dance, Girl Dance. The exhibition continues till Jan 14th and the space is open Sat 12pm-6pm or by appointment. LoBe is located at Scherer Str 7 13347 Berlin +49 171 772 450 2 info@lobeart.eu. www.lobeart.eu
Another must see to check out is my other fab Scandanavian student Stine from Malmo Art Academy in Malmo, Sweden. She has a few performances this weekend in Berlin. Here is her agenda below:


dec 17th @Creamcake, Südblock Kreuzberg
dec 18th @Intersoup Prenzlauer Bergheres the music (youtube playlist)http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6866531411D34BBF&feature=mh_lolz

Monday, December 12, 2011

SCHWIMMT SICH IN THE SEA FREI
The premiere week of Communist Bigamist-Two Love Stories has ended with a huge she-bang in Berlin with SRO enthusiastica crowds. Berliners are a notoriously hard audience to crack and our piece which is in English and German provided quite a challenge as it was more of a live installation piece and not a typical theater offering in the way that is expected in the German capital.
The opening night audience was very quiet so I thought they hated the piece, but they were just doing some very thoughtful Lesbian processing of the situation. Each evening of the four night run the audience was more boisterous and whooped it up more which is typical of the response for a lot of our CHEAP pieces beginning in 2001 with CHEAP Jewelry.
The opening night crowd of celebutants included: Tim Stutkin, Marga, Max Jorge Hinderer, the Bolivian/German scholar, curator and Tropi Camp specialist, stage designer Baerbe, Yorgos Sourmelis the handsome Greek/Ottoman painter, Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus with Nanna Heidenreich and her galpal DJ Olga Damnitz aka: Angela Anderson, The Love Camel who surprised the doll by flying in from London to see the premiere and to give her Vagimule loving support and fellowship which was greatly appreciated. Camel took me to delicious brunch at Santa Maria the Mexican boite in Kreuzberg and we also had a nice breakfast at Toughstein Café on Camel’s last day in Berlin. Many thankx and kissy kissyz to that adoreable little Camel. The long list of CHEAP supporters on opening night included: Evie Ruesseler, the divine Alessio and Dragan Asler who were both in the first CHEAP production CHEAP Jewelry, Theadora, Senol Senturk who built the set, Cheetum and the bbooks gang, Uli of Forum Expanded, Trixie Schonherr who gave me some lovely earings from her personal jewelry collection and she also gave Susanna Sachsse my co-star and brilliant director a beautiful vintage top. My Tenderloin boys Felix Knoke, Baby Diaper Joel Gibb of the Hidden Cameras who sadly just broke up with his boyfriend of three years Enrico Dallman who I really loved. Jan Klesse who was such a dear accompanying the doll back home on the subway, hot Israeli artist extroidinaire Yael Bartana and her lovesexxy girlfriend Saskia, Catherine Tiedeman the curator of FFT Duesseldorf where Commi Biggie will travel to early next year, la Sachsse’s lovely twins Salome and Richard and his girlfriend Miss Vicky,Katrin Dodd the beauty of HAU, Hebbel big boss Mattias Lienthal,Daniele Balice & Alexander Hertling of the hot Paris gallery Balice/Hertling. The after party was at WAU café with DJ Jimmy Trash who played an amazing set of 60s girl groups and garage rock. Mr. Trash is a regular DJ at Heiner’s Ping Pong Bar in Kreuzberg and he has become my new all time favorite DJ in Berlin. I danced the night away to songs like Funnel of Love by Wanda Jackson, GoGo Gorilla by The Gorillas, a garage version of Shortening Bread, Don’t You Just Know It by Lee Dorsey, Claudine Clark’s Party Lights and one of my favorite singers of the 1960s Annette Funicello doing Muscle Beach Party. Haven’t heard a DJ play Annette since Rodney Bingenheimer use to DJ regularly in the early 1980s at clubs like Seven Seas and Osco’s.
The performances Friday through Sunday were much better at least for me as I was suffering from opening night jitters and a coughing fit brought on by the fog machine that is used throughtout the piece to diffuse the elaborate lighting. Sighted on these days in the audience: Pauline Beaudry, Antonia Baehr aka: Werner Hirsch, Konstantin Achmed Berger, a real life Paris based Monk who is friends with Wilhelm Hein and is a big Susanne Sachsse fan and has written a film treatment especially for her, Katja Maya nee Hellsdorf and Cristian Forte of the band Leiseylento with his pal Max whose mother is a famous Argentine actress, Yony Leyser a young director who made a documentary on William Burroughs called A Man Within and is now working on some project about the Homocore scene, Aston Brooks the great grand niece of Louise Brooks with her german gal pal, artists Lydia Hymen,Annette Knol, Matthew Lutz Kinoy visiting from Brooklyn, the personable singer Francisca Villela from Chile who is the leader of the band Samanta, architecht Martin Murrenhoff, painter, performer and curator Kaj Osteroth, Laura Lauzemis, German TV producer, Canadian Antonija Livingston of Cat Calender, DJ Snax with beau, gorgeous scholar Juliana Rebentisch with culture writer Diedrich Diederichsen, Christoph Gurk, the music curator and former editor of Spex, Tom Holert the art critic and scholar, Heike Albrecht who use to run the Sofiensaler and who hated CHEAP Blacky in 2007 because it was too music oriented and not theater enough for her taste, the hot Palestinian cameraman from ZDF, Isabel McEwen the Canadian opera director and professor at the Hamburg University, tante Jurgen Bruning, filmmaker Renata Lorenz, Krisza Hanke Media Studies Professor at Potsdam University, Diana McCarty of herbst ReBoot Radio, Hannah Hurtzig of Black Market, artist Christophe Chemin, Yelena the Serbian Jazz singer,Ulrike Bergerman the cultural critic who wrote White Balance and other Unreliable Comparisons and teaches at Braunschweig School of the Arts, Tim the Parisian male model who walks for Rick Owens and Jean Paul Gaultier,beautiful, muscular and well endowed young Technical University student Martin Hadrys,Little Alex of Macedonia. Sexy Sascha and his girlfriend and their hot cliqa and I am sure I forgot someone but I am so tired and I need to clean my filthy apartment. I am sure I will be getting more reports from others as to who was there and what the gossip was.
***
Ron Athey makes a rare stateside appearance in New York City. This is a must see performance don't miss it:

RON ATHEY / JULIE TOLENTINO
RESONATE / OBLITERATE

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2011, 7PM

7pm pre-show artist reception
8pm performance
9pm post-show reception, DJ Scott Ewalt

Allen Street Studios
88 Eldridge Street
(between Hester and Grand)
4th Floor
New York City

Tickets $20

RSVP to lia@participantinc.org

PRESENTED BY PARTICIPANT INC, INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, and HOUSE OF THOUGHT