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Friday, November 20, 2015

Fear and Loathing in New Yorika




As World War III morphs into WW4 and beyond its strange to be in this raging metropolis staging a performative installation of the Magic Flute. Fearlesss leader of kollektiv CHEAP Susanne Sachsse and I have been working seven days a week with an outstanding crew of young talented and lovesexy artists. I am completely exhausted at all times, but what can I do? Had a break from Magic Flute when invited by Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies to give a formal lecture. A nice warm day to take a train out of the city to enjoy the magnifi views of the Hudson River Valley with my companions the illustrious Lia Gangitano of Particiant Inc. Gallery and the legendary downtown figure of John Kelly. So nice meeting the handsome foreign born center director Tom Eccles, Deutsch socialite Marieluise Hessel of the Hessel Museum, delightful Ann Butler who is the directrix of Bards Library and Archives. The students were all just lovely. Our train was delayed by almost two hours in returning back to Manhattan so we occupied our time in a bordello looking bar enjoying Asian fusion snacks and drinks with the ever joyous Ms Gangitano and Mr. Kelly.

I made my first appearance to NYU’s Performance Studies Dept since the death of Jose Munoz. Performance Studies is a place where I have a lot of magical memories that go back over 20 years. Susanne Sachsse and I were in conversation with professor Tavia Nyongo of the famous Kenyan Nyongo family that produced the Oscar winning actress Lupita. Tavia had just got back to New York from London so the poor dear was completely jet lagged and out of it, which was cute in a nutty professor kind of way. Tavia had taken us for a festive dinner at the incredible Mexican boite Papatzul on the day he arrived to town. At our presentation Susanne showed for the first time in Amerikkka clips from various CHEAP projects like It Happened to Me, CHEAP Blacky and Communist Bigamist---- the audience seemed to be quite interested in what we’ve been doing in Germany for the past 14 years. Scene and heard in the audience and later enjoying a wino reception: Karl McCool (from Dirty Looks) Dance Professor and writer Barbara Browning with her music collaborator Imre Lodbrog, downtown legendina Carmelita Tropicana, Robert Campbell, hunkster Malik Gaines of My Barbarian, art goddess Lia Gangitano and lover T, juicy professor Joshua Lubin-Levy, beautiful Aliza Shvarts aka: Prinzessin Pamina in the Magic Flute, Damien Davis the handsome and stately grandson of Sammy Davis Jr. and Altovise, art collector stud Mark Morgan Perez,Kalle Westerling (the blue eyed Swedish aristocratic cutie)Maria Katharina Wiedlack who I first met at a queer art conference in Oldenberg Germany who gave me a copy of her new book Queer-Feminist Punk-An Anti-Social History which I can’t wait to read, Brandon Fischer, Patrick Sweeney and The Psycho Geography Initiative, Robin Alex McDonald of the Turbines Curatorial Collective in Kingston Ontario Canada and Dan Rosen the deliciously young and perfect lover of Tavia Nyongo.



Susanne and I had only one day where we had a few hours to ourselves so we attended an exclusive cocktail party at the Chelsea Hotel of the fashion designer and creator of the Mermaidpunk TM look the delightful and sexy Nile Cmylo. Also invited to the intimate soiree fashion scribe Glenn Belverio and humpy art collector Mark Morgan Perez. Ms. Cmylo is downtown royalty, she dated Dee Dee Ramone and has worked with every known celebrity. She has lived in the Chelsea Hotel which is currently under renovation since the 1980s and was mentored by the legendary designer Charles James who also lived in the Chelsea. The fab Ms. Cmylo is a New York treasure with a gifted mind who not only understands fashion but also politics and is an enchanting storyteller and just the most fascinating woman in New York. The gossip she told us cannot be repeated here its just too scandalous. Plus she mixes some stiff cocktails that really left me mamma say knock you out! Love that New York moxy!

My solo visual art exhibition opens 2nite at Invisible-Exports Gallery at 89 Eldridge on the lower east side 6pm so stop by and say hey!