REISETIPPS DE LUXE

Reisetipps de luxe

Uncle Fishhook Jonas Mekas got the fullblown celebratory treatment with the recent culture festival Edit Film Culture at silent green Kulturquartier and Arsenal Institut fur film und video kunst.

Film Culture and After Dark Magazine were the mainstays I first discovered in the 1970s at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Biblioteca in Beverly Hills. 

Well actually, After Dark Magazine you could get at the newsstand or supermarket checkout as it was officially known as an arts/entertainment periodical, but one along with Dance Magazine that you could see full frontal male nudity in. 

Film Culture and After Dark were my models for queercore zine Fertile La Toyah Jackson.

The curatorial team for EFC: Christian Hiller of the deep manly vocal chords, Daniela Kinateder, Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Marcuse Siegelstein, Bettina Ellerkamp & Joerg Heitmann of silent green.

The excellent film program was at Kino Arsenal while the exhibition was at SAVVY Contemporary until July 22. 

 I was laughing hysterically at the Letters of Louise Brooks to Uncle Fishhook where she kept reminding him to send back her publicity stills. The opening of the festival featured a brash, loud and compelling concert by CHEAP’s Susanne Sachsse and Gina D’Orio of Cobra Killer with asphalt cuties Anton Garber and Robin Behling of Puff.

Wish I could have seen the documentary film about Barbara Rubin.  She was like the Sadie Benning of the early 1960s.

Thrilled at any chance I get to gaze upon that beautiful hot sex stud Abi Nilamber of SAAVY. He is one juicy piece of male joy.

Since my deadline for my next solo exhibition on the west coast at Adams&Ollman is pressing I couldn’t attend everything in the festival program.

Was able to witness the Saturday morning program which started off bright and early with the brilliant Juan Suarez. 

Was really impressed with Kalani Michell who gave a spot on dissection of Film Culture in a Box.  Pure geniustrata.  Miss Kalani is the young, gifted star scholar that everyone has been talking about. Kalani is very glamorous like my fav underated late 70s early 80s  actress Veronica Cartwright.  Veronica is best pals with actor Dennis Christopher of Breaking Away and Chariots of Fire fame.  I had such a crush on him when I was a teenager and later became his friend as he lived in Silverlake and has come to many of my events like Platinum Oasis where he introduced me to Miss Cartwright who is the younger sister of the child actress Angela Cartwright from the 1960s TV series Lost in Space and the movie The Sound of Music.  Sixty Six Degrees of Seperation with the Vagimule Doll.

There was a bit of intrigue in the presentation by Suliman Mohamed Ibrahim Elnour of Khartoum with his young lovesexy filmmaker translator.  Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus as moderator expertly kept the peace.  Didn’t get  to see the Thurston Moore concert, but heard fab things about it.  Thurston is a neighbor of The Love Camel, Andrea Novarin in London.

Crushed to find out that my neighbor Elga Sorbas, the Fassbinder star passed recently.  I ran into her life partner Eddie of  Australian punk band The Busby Berkeley’s who relayed the sad news.  Miss Elga was quite a striking presence in my kiez, and also acted as the social conscience of the neighbourhood, putting a stop to the loud unruly Sylvester Fireworks of a bunch of men in defference to the Syrian refugees who could be further traumatized by the earsplitting display.  It was always a joy to see her sitting in front of her storefront atelier holding court in a regal and majestic manner.  As an early Fassbinder star she was there with him in his theater days but didn’t allow him to abuse her.  She was in the Fassbinder films Katzelmacher, 1969, The American Soldier 1970, and The Merchant of Four Seasons, 1971.  I will miss Miss Elga.  She was a great lady, loving and very very generous.  She gave me some of her old real hair wigs and gorgeous fabrics that I used to decorate the piano at the last Rising Stars, Falling Stars.

Marcuse Siegelstein and I had a delightful time in conversation at the Friei Universitaet with the fourth in the No One Leaves Delilah Series.  The klatch this time was a (W)rap on Desire.  I started off with a poem I wrote using films with desire in the title.  Then I screened the “Take Off With Us” erotic musical number from Bob Fosse’s 1980 film All That Jazz featuring Sandahl Bergman, followed by Marcuse reading a poem by Frank O’Hara, then showing our art-punk band Ruth Fischer,  the experimental short My Levitating Arse, then our talking and riffing off of each other, and other hijinks when our nutter minds collide.

 I showed a scene from the 1961 Slovenian film Dancing in the Rain, Marc pulled out of his ass the incredible video short subject Lezzie Flick, more riffing and chittle chatting, questions and comments from the audience and then the big production number “You Stepped Out of a Dream” from Ziegfeld Girl 1941 directed by Robert Z. Leonard.  We had a very large audience that included my blood of Abraham son Assaf Hochman, glam girl Akira Knightly, fearless leader of CHEAP Susanne Sachsse, ultra fit British Chav actor Harris Dickenson with fellow English thespian Sam Claflin, Richard Gabriel, Trixie Schoenherr, Uli Ziemons and Spex journalista Franzika who had interviewed Marc and I a few days earlier.  Afterwards the wonderful curators of the event Susanna Huber and Christian Liclair of Asthetic des Begehrens and their crew took us to a nice fancy dinner at a cute Italian boite in Dahlem.

The next morning I was still groggy and exhausted but had be ON to meet the Norweigan journalista Bjorn Hatterud for an interview at the Schwartzer Café on Kant Strasse.  We had a divine time chittle chatting.  The next day I met with the very sweet American writer Robert Karron who is a friend of writer and artist Lisa Teasley.

More sad news via my old dance pal, the lovely  Marilyn Welch who was a member of the VooDoo Williamson Inner City Dance Theater of Lynwood.

Marilyn also studied under Miss Denise who taught classical ballet at the Stanley Holden Dance Center in West Los Angeles.  I also took ballet with Miss Denise with the delusion that I could become a prima ballerina.

Miss Denise aka:  Patricia Denise Galion died age 96.  She was quite a powerful woman, loving and serene.  I was definitely in awe of Miss Denise when I took classes along with Miss Denise's younger relations Michelle Karlich and Dina, two Hollywood Punkrock “It” girls that I ran around with in my wild youth.

Miss Denise also had quite a career assisting the greats in Hollywood like film choreographer Eugene Loring and Gene Kelly, whose son Tim Kelly was the mastermind along with the late Matt Dike of the famed LA clubs Nairobi Room and Power Tools.

Miss Denise was born in Canada and became a naturalized US citizen in 1997.  I will miss her.

Now I have to go off to an artist retreat where I will have use of a secluded studio in the Finnish Countryside to finish my new solo painting series Invitation to the Dance that features abstractions of famous female dancers.  This exhibit will open Sept 13^th at Adams & Ollman Gallery in Portland Oregon.  I also have ten paintings in a group show that opened at the Portland Museum of Art.  PICA the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art will welcome my artist talk on Sept 12^th.

Before running off to my retreat I had drinks with journalist Michael Scaturro who use to work for Bloomberg News and before that Deutsche Welle and NPR.  Now cute little Michael who looks like a teenager even though he is 36 is working for an Australian activist and politician as her speech  writer and main public operative.

Special thanx to my dearest angelis Skot Armstrong and his hot lover James Tallon of Science Holiday and The Museum of Fun for sending me this fascinating new book Between Friends-The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy 1949-1975.  Skot and James can literally read my mind, and are always sending me the most scintillating tomes for my nightstand book review.

Just heard the shocking news that Jonathan Gold died of cancer at age 57.  Jonathan was one of my colleagues at The LA Weekly back in the 1980s, 1990’s up until the early aughts.  We also were the same class at UCLA along with Heather Locklear.  When I first met Jonathan he was this cute, nerdy ginger haired Jewish kid who was in a couple of arty punkish bands.  He was super competitive and snarky when it came to my art band The Afro Sisters and poked some mild fun at us.  My Afro Sister “Pop that Cherry” Jefferson aka: Priscilla Hazelwood who worked in the art department at the Weekly wasn’t exactly featuring his constant teasing. 

Like a lot of nerds I thought Jonathan wanted the attentions of a rock star.  He achieved this in sorts as a Foodie guru and restaurant reviewer par excellance.

Back in the 80s Jonathan was my editor of one of the most exciting Best of LA editions I ever participated in, and asked me to write about Funkytown aka:  South Central LA.  Which was a first at the time as no one was interested in the Darktown Strutters area of Los Angeles before.

The LA Weekly publisher Jay Levin had blacklisted me for some reason I don’t remember now.

It was Jonathan who got around Jay as Mr. Levin didn’t know my legal name so I just wrote my articles with that byline, and Jay Levin was never the wiser. Jonathan definitely had a streak for defying authority.

I also was on hand to witness the courtship of Jonathan and cutiepie Laurie Ochoa at eateries like Millie’s Diner in Silverlake, Gorky’s Downtown, and that amazing little Japanese restaurant on Beverly Blvd next to the Beverly Cavern.  Later Laurie became editor of the Weekly before I moved to Berlin.

Jonathan’s Foodiegeist writing was most compelling, but I felt his music journalism was even better.  I’ll never forget arriving to the original LA Hip Hop club Radio at MacArthur Park one Friday eve with my Afro Sisters and regular club crew in tow wearing our Buffalo Gal look.  Jonathan saw us enter together as a group and proclaimed out loud, “Oh my god look at them, they are doing Two Mules for Sister Sarah!”