Speaking From the Diaphragm: 02/02/2014

Thank goddessa for my wonderful webmaster Larry Bob Roberts who is based in San Francisco and who created and maintains my webpage and keeps it updated. I know nothing about technical matters and when I first started blogging I didn´t know that I was blogging. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times were contacting me to ask my opinion on blogging as a phenomena and I didn´t even know what they were talking about. Just shows you how computer illiterate I really am. I recently gave an interview where I incorrectly stated that I have a quarter of a million daily readers of my blog and webpage, well I stand corrected as that is now over 2 million. All this and I have never been on Friendstar, My Space,The Face Book, Twitter, Insta-gram or any of the other social medialic intititties. Just like in the days of queer zines in the 1980s and 90s its word of mouth that has the power to propel this nutty lady forward. I wish I could figure out a way to make it pay the bills better, but whatever. If I made more money I would just waste it on hot hustler boys---so ghetto I was born and ghetto I guess I will remain.

Headed off to New York City during the polar whoretex, afraid my flight would be cancelled but it wasn’t. Remind me never to accept a gig across the Atlantic in the middle of winter. If it wasn’t for Bianca of CoCo Rosie and Jonathan Berger I would have never ventured to the East Coast of Amerikkka. I arrived at Newark Airport Saturday Jan 25th at 1pm freezing cold but clear and sunny. Sweet and highly organized Eric Schmalenberger who was Kembra of VHoKB’s assistant for the Womanizer Exhibit back in 2007 at Deutsch Projects was there to pick me up and sweep me to Man!hattan and the Ace Hotel on 29th Street at Broadway which is a 1904 former single room occupancy turned trendy boutique hotel staffed with stunning young millennials who are very lovesexii. My 8th floor suite had fab views of the nearby Empire State Building. My Chola BFF the Azteca Machaca Warrior, Hectora Martinez flew to NewYorika from Plato Del Lago to help me with the performances and to photograph/document La Reina and her Reinadom and I was happy to have Hectorina and her famous poker face by my side. Hector works as an executive for a large insurance company and he and his longtime lover of 20 plus years Ericla Pierce who works as a therapist at Kaiser Permanente just bought a new home that overlooks the Silverlake Reservoir. I was fortunate that Hector also treated me to all my meals as MoMa PS 1 didn’t provide me with a perdium. I had heard through the artist grapevine that the museum is notoriously shortshrifty and shady when it comes to compensating artists so Jonathan Berger who is a New York City native and child of high art-his father was the Arts Commissioner of New York City in the 1980s and 1990s did most of the dealings with the MoMa administration as being such a ghetto girleen I would have wound up going off big time and shaming them through my international children who use social media as a weapon and involve my editor pals in the mainstream press. New York City can still be exciting, but I don’t see it as the be all and end all. It seems that the only artists that institutions compensate well these days are those who are already rich which is a system I don’t get at all and refuse to condone. On this trip I arrived with a paltry 22 cents in my pocket. While still in Berlin I took the subway to Tegel Airport at 5am before the U-Bahn controllers were trolling about,as my flight was at 9am. I am so 13 cents and forever in the red with my German bank account. Living hand-to-mouth is my reality but I’ve been broker then usual because of betrieben costen that comes at the end of the year. Berlin is still one of the cheapest major cities to live in but there are some hidden costs that can sneak up on you with a powerful dropkick. To give credit where credit is due MoMa did pay for an economy plus exit row aisle seat as that was not up for negotiation. I am 6feet6inches without highheels tall and they did take care of my transport from the aeroport providing Eric who came to fetch me with a car service(they conveniently bailed on the return trip) and put down a credit card for me at the hotel as I don’t have one. You don’t need a credit card for hotels in Europe. Jonathan fought to get me four nights in a hotel but MoMa would only pay for two so GAG had to pay for a night out of their limited and already stretched budget. Why the museum wouldn’t let them fundraise to increase their budget is beyond me, and Hector paid for a night which was ridiculous. Why should Hector subsidize a huge institution? My friends who work for very poor institutions in Berlin were shocked that MoMa wouldn’t pay for four nights for an artist coming all the way from Europe. When an artist comes from the States to Berlin four nights is standard policy. Word to institutional forces---be gracious and generous. Next time I see Catherine Gund Saalfield (I am godmother to her mixed race children)and her mother Agnes Gund I will definitely mention this to them and since they are on the MoMa board I am sure they will set things right. Since I don’t come from wealth and priveledge no one will listen to my gripes, but if it is voiced from a grande olde money Edith Whartonesque family. . .

The next morning Sunday Jan 26th the day of the performance Eric fetched Hector and I and took us to MoMa PS1 via the subway. Sunday Sessions is organized by Jenny Schlenzka, Associate Curator with Mike Skinner Producer & Technical Director and Alex Sloane [Ranger] Live Programming Coordinator. Before reaching the museum we stopped for breakfast at a little cute 1940s style diner that was around the corner from MoMa PS1 which is in Queens. I had never been to the New York borough of Queens which is also known as Long Island City I believe. I was jet lagged out of my mind and was completely excrement for brains. Didn’t know how I was going to perform, but perform I somehow did. The goddess Freya was certainly my homegirl Sunday afternoon and evening at MoMa giving me energy from some little unknown reserve. I felt my performance could have been better if I had more time to recouperate from the flight. Wonderful Eric Schmalenberger found me the delightfully voluptuous make-up artiste and burlesque princessa Miss Cherry Delight of Coney Island aka: Drea Lorraine who beat a fine face on the Doll luxuriating my skin with a replenishing massage and soaking NYC 45&50 Pro longwear on my crusty old mug. She dusted gold deposits on my cheeks and fresh Moroccan on the lips. The eye palette was Indianwood, all make-up by M.A.C and moisturizer by Lush. The museum was packed early on with hordes eager to catch the last days of the Mike Kelley exhibition. I was asked to perform for this event by the divinely gorgeous and mega talented Bianca Casady of CoCo Rosie who interviewed me in the first issue of the new feminist magazine Girls Against God, which is published by Capricious whose owner is Sophie Morner. GAG is co-edited by Bianca who for the performance took on the persona of Mad Vicky and created an intoxicating specialty score for my grand entrance and welcome cantata. Working in collaboration with Bianca was the acclaimed artist Anne Sherwood Pundyk who served the most scrumptious Vagina dentata cookies as D’Meter the goddess of the harvest. The entire event was created as a feminist happening titled Wolf Moon Gathering celebrating the powerful forces in control of the wild female soul. My duties was as hostessa and fairy goddess anchoring the entire experience with my insane Druid Wiccan sorcery. Rick Owens came to my rescue at the last minute and designed my couture menstrual robes which went perfectly with the proceedings. So many young women came up to me after the performance saying that this evening was exactly what they needed to be able to heal from the evils of danger capitalism. The greed and selfishness of the upper echelons of New York society is worse now then the last time I was in NYC in 2012 during Hurricane Sandy Duncan. I am sure this lovely ritual is still moving through everyones arteries and will reside in their inner being for all of eternity. I loved how the first hour of the program was slow and comforting in tone, offering healings of sound,handwashing with many forms of feathered-smoke blessings creeing the magical subterranean Forests of Burzee. Many in the audience came prepared and dressed for the occasion ready to offer items of personal significance to the altar for the casting of spells. In order to tune out the outer-world mobile phones were left at the door so that everyone was present and focused. During the second hour the beautiful and powerful enchantress Bryn McKay guided meditation and prayers, then there was a plant channeling of the sacred feminine by hexen Melanie Bonajo. The legendary enigmatic Black Lipps diva Johanna Constantine looking stunning in a vermillion gown with temple prostitute J.ZaraA evoked the Goddess Allura through dance and conjuring of voice. A group chant was ignited by singers Diane Cluck and Yasmine Hamdan calling the Skeleton Woman brilliantly embodied by Rebecca Wright doing the Dance of Life/Death/Life. The fervent soundscapes and breathtakingly inventive musical accompaniment was by water-soul-barer Doug Wieselman and cellist Danny Bensi. Others who collaborated on the project were: Jamie Fletcher, Angela Dream, Melati Malay,Molly Narnia, Lily Gold, Bianca Butti, Athena Barat, Marine Loimant Sebag, Samantha Samhair, Anna Fitzgerald, Kim Schneider, Asha Man of Moon Church Quarterly the coven and zine, Susannah Simpson, Minka Sicklinger, Marina Beautiful Dreamer, Cheyenne Timpirio, Kyle Morrison, Ben Clotten, Anika Sabin, Ariel Hahn, Emily Yost, Phoebe Pundyk, Julia Fiorino, Chrystal Loyer,Teresa and Eric Schmalenberg who was Bianca’s assistant. Also lighting designers Marika Kent and Karen Walcott, good friends of Miss Bianca who generously gave their design and engineering expertise to the event. Support from the MoMa side: Rosemary Selig-Addiss.

The celebutantes in the audience: Amare’ Stoudemire,Harley Viera Newton,Scotland Zief and his scientist lover Patricio Mujica and posse, Tavia Nyongo, Barbara Browning and Ann Pellegrini of NYU’s Performance Studies Department, bootie pie Chinese actor Daniel Wu with British actress Rebecca Hall, Priyanka Chopra the new Guess Girl, Linda "Les" Simpson who gave me a copy ofher brilliant new chapbook on the late Page Potter Reynolds, the Pyramid Club era transgendered mannequin and performer, Hilton Als of The New Yorker Magazine,writer Bruce Benderson, Mr. Mickey Boardman of Paper Magazine, Guy Trebay of the New York Times Style Section, Thomas Lax of the Studio Harlem Museum, The Lady Bunny, photographer Slava Mogutin and his humpy artist lover Brian Kenny,Viva Ruiz and Gavin Russom of Crystal Ark, Scary Ben of Bushwick Burlesque, goodlooking and large peniled muscle dork Dr. Advenchure,Kae Burke & Elna Delgado of The House of Yes,photographer Jamie Warren, artist Raul DeNieves,designer Wren Britton, musician Damon Albarn, and ballet dancer Adrian Danchig-Waring. Since I never know who anyone is I am still waiting back for the complete guest list so keep checking back to the old blogette in the next few days for updates. Below are the links

www.momaps1.org
www.becapricious.com
www.girls-against-god.tumblr.com
www.facebook.com/GirlsAgainstGod

promotional video for GAG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fabe-v9f1M

It included content from the first issue and footage from a launch event at Printed Matter with Kembra of VHoKB and NoBra.

Before rehearsing in the middle of the day I did a photo shoot for the LA issue of new periodical publication Popular Noize Magazine with the Dutch photographer Gijs Van De Most that was cute and fun. I hope they photoshop my huge eyebags as I wasn’t able to get any sleep before leaving Berlin for New York and looked like a scamp my entire time in the metropolis.

There was no rest for the wicked as the next day I had two artist talks to give. One at NYU Art & Art Professionals Department at the Barney Building where some of the young undergrads were bored and just tinkled through my lecture sending text messages to friends on their mobile devices. I wasn´t offended as I would have probably done the same if I was there age and outfitted with expensive gadgets to play with. I’m sure they are thankful to have wealthy parents who can afford paying the outlandishly high tuition at NYU. A few of the students were attentive and two even asked insightful questions so it definitely wasn’t a bust. My other talk was in Brooklyn at Pratt Institute for the Performance Studies Department headed by Jennifer Miller the Bearded Lady of Circus Amok who was my co-hostess back in 2010 for VD is SFTD at PS122. I was only expecting around 20 people and was shocked to see over 300 eager young faces Yowza!!! Jennifer Miller, Jonathan and the celebrated interdisciplinary poet,sound artist and multimedia performer Tracie Morris who is an associate professor of Humanities and Media Studies at Pratt wanted to go after my talk to a bar for margaritas but with my jet lag I just had to chuck back to the hotel and rest.

The last day of performing in NewYork was Tuesday Jan 28th at NYU which was one long day starting in the morning. Jonathan Berger came up with the brilliant idea of doing a panel discussion in the form of Vaginal Davis is Speaking From the Diaphragm taking the panel format out of the realm of dullard academia. Jeffrey Hilbert of the LA advertising agency Custom Creative came up with the fabshmashtic title VD’s BM: Physique Tutorial-VD is Speaking From the Perineum. The entire event was in conjunction with the exhibition DEVOTION: Excavating Bob Mizer which is at the 80WSE Gallery curated by Jonathan and Billy Miller of Straight to Hell – The Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts. I was so happy to wander through the exhibition which features photos of Mizer that are unexpected like his portraits featuring women, children and animals. Most people are only aware of Mizer as a beefcake photographer but his talents were relentless and varied. One of my fav fotos from 1949 was of Gypsy Boots the LA health food pioneer and eccentric. Gypsy Boots who died not that long ago use to have this famous health food restaurant on 3rd Street near Normandie which was very popular with stars during the 1970s. Mr. Boots also wore his hair long and went around barefoot like a hippie decades before the hippie movement. He was also quite a hornpig and loved grabbing the asses, and tits of women and dicks of young strapping lads. Another portrait that caught my eye was of Bob Mizer’s well dressed yet masculine looking aunt and his young fey nephew ---certainly an FIT, the foto shimmers with a strange kind of formality that is somehow unnerving. Congrats to Billy & Jonathan who are genius genius genius!

For Speaking From the Perineum Billy Miller was my co-host and he was simply incredible with that computer like Encyclopedia Browne mind of his. I adore and love Billy who since he was a teenager has been one of the most desired beauties in America’s homosexual underworld. Billy is in his mid fifties now but still exudes youthful exuberance with an innocent sheen. Helping us with this production was technical expert Dustin Foster, & cute, cuddly Damian Davis both on staff at NYU’s Barney Building. I joked that Damian was the son of Altovise and Sammy Davis Jr. Miss Jean Kim who worked with us in 2009 on Reperations& Retardations and 2010 on VD is SFTD in New York and also in 2012 in Berlin for Camp/Anti-Camp created the animated visualities from my written text and drawings. Jonathan’s pretty gallery assistants Mary Beth,Kate and tall drink of sexwater Hugh worked miracles in a short period of time and Alex Casso the super studly yet sensitive New York “It Boy” was my assistant giving Hector and I much needed aesetic joy as we got to breathe in his sweet smelling young male aromas. Alex doesn’t wear any scents and he doesn’t need to as he has the most exquisite natural and fresh body odor like sandalwood after a spring rain. Yummy!!!

Creating the perfect soundscape score for the event was Ross Menuez of Salvor Projects. Ross has a superior record collection and his DJ-ing was the perfect red carpet for conversation. Serving the audience and panel guests the Ficken Spritzer cocktail was a bevy of juicy NYU art students Jess, Alex, Jackie, Karena & Sawyer. The first two guests were Dennis Bell who acquired the Mizer estate in 2003 and John Sonsini a painter who was Mizer’s studio assistant from 1986 till Mizer’s death in 1992. Remind me never to do a Skype interview again. Skype is very unreliable and causes more stress then its worth. When the technical difficulties started to occur we just played with it and made it seem all mystical which worked but I would rather not have to deal with it, but the two Skype guests were quite inviting and animated and along with Billy’s grilling of them the Skype episode turned out better then I expected.
Our first live guest was Justin Spring who is a handsome and dapper New York based writer. I am sure after enjoying Mr. Springs presentation everyone in attendance will run out and purchase his tomes: An Obscene Diary:The Visual World of Sam Steward and the biography of Sam Steward Secret Historian:The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist and Sexual Renegade. Mr. Spring was followed by the charming Marvin J. Taylor who is the director of NYU’s Fales Library and Special Collections. Mr. Taylor showed us some rare male-on-male erotica from the turn of the century that was quite throbbing to put it mildly. Mr. Taylor’s newest publication is Looking For Mister Benson: The Black Leather Jacket and Narratives of Masculinities.With all these heavyweights this version of my talk show/installation took on a more intellectual tone then with the version I did in 2010 at PS 122 where I was performing analingus on stage. Bringing it on with the content valve fully exposed was the most important photography critic in the world Vince Aletti who writes for The New Yorker Magazine’s Goings On About Town section and following Mr. Aletti the legendary cultural historian and foremost critic of performance art Ms. Cynthia Carr who worked at the Village Voice during its salad days from 1984-2003. C. Carr is one of my personal heroines so having her on SFTP was very important to both Jonathan and I. Ms. Carr specializes in experimental and cutting edge art with a focus on performance art and everyone should have her books Our Town: A Heartland Lynching,A Haunted Town and the Hidden History of White America, and Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz on their bookshelf. Back in the last century Ms. Carr doing a guest stint at the LA Weekly wrote a fab review of one of my poetry readings at Difficult Light Bookstore and it was the best review ever written about my work and showed that she completely got what I am about.
So there wouldn´t be three Skype calls on the program the New York based artist Rachel Mason created a short film where she interviews her parents Karen and Barry Mason who own the Circus of Books adult bookstores in WeHo and Silverlake. The Masons, especially Mrs Mason had the audience in stitches. To further feminize the event I invited the most important woman in the world Bibbe Hanson and her young artist husband Sean Carillo on the panel and they did not disappoint showing a collage of found and collected images that certainly enhanced the goings on. Tonya Blazio-Licorish who works for NYU’s Steinhardt Visual Culture and Costume Studies has been overseeing the preservation of props and costumes in the Bob Mizer archive and her serene presence, glamour and intelligence really illuminated. The wonderous Ed Halter of Light Industry screened a rare Bob Mizer film and was playful yet knowledgeable. The evening ended on the perfect note with the supreme K-8 Hardy showing her Positions Series which uses unexpected cultural references in a similar vein as Bob Mizer. Ms. Hardy is so prolific and has shown everywhere in the world including The Whitney Museum and is a founding member of the influential feminist art collective LTTR. Over 100 people had to be turned away as there was no more room to stuff them inside the Barney Building Auditorium. I was glad that the panellist and audience all got drunk together and it was a very intimate gathering. The VIPs in attendance: my former student Scotland Zief and his lover the famous young scientist Patricio Mujica, Claudia Gonson of the Magnetic Fields with Hal Sedgwick, Benjamin Tischer of Invisible Exports Gallery, the scintillating artist Baseera Khan, LA based video artist, photog and UC Irvine Professor Bruce Yonemoto,rock star suprema Michael Stipe and his handsome French photog lover Thomas Dozol, Steffan Kalmar of Artist Space with beau the British dancer Michael Clark, Lia Gangitano of Participant Inc. Gallery of the Lower East Side, Downtown art royals Uzi Parnes, Ela Troyano and Carmelita Tropicana, Linda “Les”Simpson, dynamic art duo Slava Mogutin & Brian Kenny,Tavia Nyongo of NYU Performance Studies with Dr. Professor Ricardo Montez of Princeton, my former Bricktops at the Parlour Club girlFriday Charity Hope Valentine,Theodore and Asya Berger looking young and delicious, artist Michelle Handelman, videographer Nicholas Jenkins, fashion designer Thomas Englehart, Art Forum Magazines best reviewer the H.L. Menckenish beauty boy Alex Jovanovich, avant garde theatre don Eric Schmalenberger,Travis Chamberlain, writer Hassan Blasim(The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories of Iraq),photographer Ves Pitts, heritage neo burlesque star Gin Minskey, designer Thomas Engel Hart, Circus of Books heiress Rachel Mason,Liza Johnson, honcho James Turrell, cute nebishy actor Michael Zegan with Russell Westbrook, the reclusive genius and Vice Magazine columnist Bob Nickas who also teaches at Columbia University and painter Michael Bilsborough.

Speaking From the Diaphragm

Saturday, February 08, 2014

AUFSCRAUBEN & LOSLEGEN

Sunday, February 02, 2014

DER GUTE GOTTIN VON MANHATTAN