SCHERBEN BRINGEN GLUECK

Scherben bringen Glueck

Yes my darling darlings the year of 2017 is almost at a close and for the past two weeks I have been singing over and over again the Tin Pan Alley song “Meloncholy Baby”.

Its grey and bleaker then usual in Berlina as I have been in rehearsal with the new CHEAP Kollektiv project Original Sin that premieres Dec 8th at silent green Kulturquartier in Wedding.

I like to dwell only on positivity like famed cult star The Goddess Bunny, who never lets anything get her down. Its been difficult though with one of my dear friends the sweet and talented Ms. Lauren Pine in the hospital after getting run over by a trash truck on her bicycle in Manhattan. Lauren is the ultimate perenial teen angel and such a giving and lovely lady. After years working in the fashion industry as a model, muse and stylist with the likesis of Thierry Mugler, and being the right hand gal of Patricia Field. She gave up the world of glamour and went back to school in the 1990s and became a dedicated registered nurse. Her pals kidded her with the moniker Nurse Pain. I feel so fortunate to having known this beautiful lady since the mid 1980s. During my recent pit stop in New York I had a fab time with Miss Lauren, Glenn Belverio and The Lobster Lady, Rebecca Goyette hanging out for hours at the East Village diner Remedy on Houston Street. I want to send Miss Lauren all my love and kissyz and I know she will make a speedy recovery returning to care for all her patients, plus New York and international familia of devoted friends.

I still can’t get over the recent passing of David Pendleton. David was a much beloved film scholar and film programmer who worked for ten years at the Harvard Film Archive. Before that he was with UCLA’s Melnitz Film and Television Archive. He also performed internationally in the two singing sensations created by actor, director, impressario-- and bon vivante Mark Simon --The Boyfriend and Leave it to Jane that performed regularly at my performance space in Hollywood Bricktops at the Parlour Club. David was such a sweetie pie and when he performed on stage he really cleaned up nicely. The other evening CHEAP kollektive did a salute to David called CHEAP Mourning on our regular radio program CHEAP Funk on Reboot FM out of the Haus de Kulturen des Welt.

Grab a listen with this link:

http://reboot.fm/2017/11/18/cheap-funk-14/

Another death that happened recently that has brought a tear to my eye was that of icon Mother Flawless Sabrina of the 1968 documentary The Queen. Mother Flawless had worked on many projects with my daughter ZacKary Drucker and she was an inspiration to millions as a true freakazoid and bonafide kooky personality. Flawless starred along with Holly Woodlawn and myself in ZacKary’s award winning film She Gone Rogue. Flawless was born the same year as my late oldest sister Gracie Lee Taylor and reminded me a lot of my nutty sister, who in the 1960s and 1970s was a major fag hag and worked as the PBX operator for Rock Hudson. She even attended his infamous Beauty Parties at his home that featured some of the most handsome, well endowed men in Hollywood of the early 1970s. The only women at these parties being Nancy Walker, Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day and Rock’s black housekeeper and cook.

So many deaths in 2017 and the year still has a month to go. Here is just a partial list:

Della Reece the singer and actress who starred on the TV series Chico and the Man and the long running TV drama Touched By An Angel. Whenever I was in a hotel in the States I would watch Angel and it never failed to move me even if it was a little corny with Della and Roma Downey Jr. as spirit creatures sent to earth to make supernatural intervention. The third angel was a man, but I didn’t find him very interesting. Ms. Reece is quite the natural acting talent. Her abilities also stem from being a fantastic interpreter of songs in the American canon. I got to see her once when my Afro Sister Clitoris Turner(Mark Maxwell) treated me for my birthday to her show at the Cinegrill at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. She was backed by a fine jazz trio. And I thought I sweated on stage. Ms. Reece was perspiring rivers and streams and had a cute system that I have tried to copy. She would place on the piano about 30 hankerchiefs to help her wipe the sweat away.

One little known tidbit about Della Reece is that she is the first African American woman to host her own TV show. I will always regret giving away my album of hers from the 1950s as a gift to Johnny Noxema and Rex Boy of Bimbox Magazine.

Other 2017 passings: Adam West of TV’s Batman, age 88, Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers, age 69, Roger Moore 89 the cheesiest of the actors who played James Bond. I much preferred him in TV’s The Saint. Michael Parks of Then Came Bronson, Chuck Berry, John Hurt who played Quentin Crisp in the Naked Civil Servant and also in the movie Alien, Harry Dean Stanton, 91 of Alien and Paris Texas, film director Jonathan Demme, 73 who came on to me at the premiere of his Talking Heads film Stop Making Sense, comedian Don Rickles, 90, Churck Barris of The Gong Show, Mary Tyler Moore who I adored in her long running TV sitcom named after her. Mary Tyler Moore was very much like my sister Gloria Jean. Miguel Ferrer who was the actor son of Jose Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney. Too bad he didn’t get his mothers looks. Country singer Mel Tillis the Coca Cola Cowboy, David Cassidy of The Partridge Family. When I was young I never liked The Partridge Family being more of a fan of The Brady Bunch and Nanny and the Professor but Love Camel gifted me a box set of the series and I rediscovered it and I adore the show and the songs. I didn’t remember that the show tackled some issues in that 70s liberal way, but one episode set in the hood was really good that featured Richard Pryor and I had completely forgotten about it though I am sure I watched it when it first aired as Friday in Los Angeles in the 1970s on ABC was devoted to Brady Bunch, Patridge Family, Nanny, Odd Couple, Room 222 and Love American Style. I’d better stop now as I am completely dating myself. Tom Petty, 66, Monty Hall 96 of Let’s Make a Deal TV Game Show, Grant Hart of the band Husker Du who I met a long time ago in LA in the 1980s when the band played at that Sunset Starlight Ballroom and Rollerink at Sunset and Western. Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audio Slave who came to my Club Sucker at the Garage a few times in the 90s and Chester Bennington of Linkin Park who came to Bricktops at the Parlour Club. Linkin Park’s touring company was Bill Silva Productions during the same time when they worked with Margaret Cho and I was her opening act in the early Aughts. Both Cornell and Bennington committed suicide.

George Romero of Night of the Living Dead fame and my fav his vampire film Martin, sexy Nelson Ellis of the vampire TV show True Blood who was the best thing on that program, him and that cute little muscle puppyAustralian actor whose name escapes me now. Walter Becker of Steely Dan. I liked Steely Dan though the two leaders of the band I found insufferable. Glen Campbell, June Foray 99 the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel one of my fav cartoons as a child and Jerry Lewis 91 whose films I hated when I young, but now I have complete respect and appreciation for. Though I still think Dean Martin was the bigger talent of the two.

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Had a nice reunion with my two lovely children of high art Wu Tsang and Boychild at the Schwartzer Cafe on Kant Str in Wilmersdorf. Wu will be the artist in residency at the Martin Gropius Bau Museum for a year which should be really exciting as she has some great ideals to shake that place up a bit now that they are under new leadership. Wu and I are both featured in the big group exhibition Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon at the New Museum.

Thank you so much my precious Wu for treating your mama to a fab breakfast and it was lovely catching up.