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Saturday, April 06, 2013

DAS SCHWACHE GESCHLECHT

Taken to dinner by Judy LaBruce with Susanne Sachsse and Marc Siegel to Thueringer Stuebin in the former east. Stuffed myself silly with GDR comfort food hooting hollering and laughing till I burst as Ms. LaBruce told us the proverbial T about Vice Magazine and its recent North Korea connection with former basketball star Dennis Rodman. I had no idea that Vice Mag was partnered with such corporate entities as HBO and CNN. The North Korea incident started off as a prank but then they decided to turn it around as a form of so called basketball diplomacy. LaBruce is in town filming his experimental version of his stage opera of Pierrot Lunaire starring Ms. Sachsse. Judy will be back in Berlin in June to work on editing. Easter Sunday Ms. Sachsse cooked a royal feast complete with abstract Easter Egg decorations. Joining us around her famous luxury table was her beautiful young daughter Salome Gersch, film historian Marc Siegel and writer/director Derek Cianfrance.
After dinner I rushed to the New St. Marks Spa and Culture Center to get a massage from the thick Arab whose powerfull hands can send you floating, but I got there too late and had to look at a bunch of fugled sex holiday touristas and motly regulars. Not a sex champion in the bunch other then one fat tittied, well endowed Brazillian who I caught showering after his post coital connection with a dark steroided teutonic. No one was interested in The Doll, so i just enjoyed the warmth of the Finnish dry sauna and took a long nap on a wooden lounge chair, then had a light snack at the bar and headed home to finish the new series of black,white& silver Princess Marcella Borghese make-up palette paintings for my new exhibition in the States. Ran into Rainer, my sweet homo normative neighbor who is the BFF of the electro soul diva Billie Ray Martin. Rainer works as a steuerberateur or Tax Accountant here in Berlin sharing studio space with Judy LaBruce producer Juergen Bruening on the Haupt Strasse in Shoeneberg. Their office space is being turned into luxury lofts so they have to move by Summer. Rainer sez they may take over a space above the Wintergarten Theatre on Potsdamer Strasse. Several artists and film people share with tante Juergen Bruning including the German director Jochen Hick and that icky porno producer Jorg who runs Cazzo Films. How the mighty have fallen, it seems that Cazzo like a lot of porn studios has hit the skids, as people don't buy porn these days and only download it illegally from the internet. I only met this Jorg creature once, and immediately got a bad vibe from him. Juergen use to be business partners with him at Cazzo Films, but they had a falling out and then Juergen start Wurst Films. Cazzo had produced Judy LaBruce's Skin Flick which started the entire gay porno skinhead phenomena. Other then Skin Flick I never liked the Cazzo porn aesthetic. I love tante Juergen but I've never found his Wurst Films porno very titilating either. Tante Juergen is wonderful but he doesn't come across as a very sexual person, so thats why i always found the blue movies he directs as having a bit of a disconnect. Thats just my little lady opinion. The only kind of gay and or straigt porn that i like is from the 1970s and early 80s.It was through Rainer that I got my flat in the Rote Insel as Rainer was friends with the property manager of my building and was the one who recommended the apartment to Susanne Sachsse of CHEAP kollective. I hardly ever run into Rainer as we don't keep the same hours. Rainer is an adoreable goofball, and quite cute and personable. He instinctly knew for self preservation purposes it was best to keep me at a distance, as he already has a demanding diva in his life with Billie Ray Martin. Billie was living in my building when she first moved back to Berlin from years living in London,and we were hanging out a bit. She is an extremely talented singer/songwriter with a powerful voice and commanding stage presence. We both worked with David Harrow of Onu Sound fame. I did the Technova project with him that did produce my one and only semi mainstream dance hit on a major label Universal/MCA they gave me a nice advance at the time, but I've seen no other money from the project. I like Billie Ray Martin and respect her talent but she is even more self-absorbed than I am so it would be impossible maintaining a close friendship with her as we are both super divas and naturally cancel each other out. She is quite fortunate to have Rainer as a devoted pal and drinking buddy.

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Yanna Vlautin found herself desperately trying to escape the notice of the young Ephesian poetess Minnie Reparte' but couldn't because she was the host of the art event where Minnie cornered her.Yanna liked Minnie, but could only handle her in limited doses. The affected performative voice sometimes used by Minnie made her sound like a re-annimmated connfection or mealy pastry scavenged from a hesitant dumpster dive. Yanna didn't want to believe the gossip that was circulated all of last year that Ms. Reparte has a habit of stealing boyfriends and expensive beauty products from the lavatories and purses of well heeled friends, but now she wasn't so sure.

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So excited by Arsenal Inst fuer film und video kunst's salute to leggy Hollywood musical Texan Cyd Charisse, who is one of the most neglected figures of movie song & dance who because of adept professionalism her unique talent was often overlooked. In both Silk Stockings 1957 directed by Rouben Mamoulian and It's Always Fair Weather 1955 directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen she inhabits determined and intelligent women who are able to overcome the usual Hollywood mid century sexist standard.s Silk Stockings is a remake of Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka , and i actually love Ms. Charisse's performance better then Greta Garbo in the original version of the story. Ms. Charisse whose real name is Tula Ellice Finklea is a much better actor and dancer then Mr. Fred Astaire who co-star in silk Stockings and The Bandwagon 1953 directed by Vincente Minnelli. In Stockings I was loving Peter Lorre looking very much like Heinz Emigholtz and Janis Paige as Lypsinka mugging more then Jules Munschin and Mickey Rooney ever could. The superlative musical orchestrating and arranging by the brilliant Andre' Previn at the peak of his powers.
With Its Always Fair Weather the homo context beween Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd thankx to Betty Comden and Adolphe Green is ravenous, and Dolores Grey is a female female impersonating treasure creating the perfect man in a mixture of Clifton Webb & Marlon Brando. Can't wait to see Van Johnson's homo harpooning in Minnelli's 1954 BrigaOctoroon and Ms.Charisse and Robert Taylor in Nicholas Ray's Party Girl from 1958.