THE POLAR WHORETEX

Just received this note from my friend Aztec Warrior in Los Angeles. So glad I don’t live in that tired city anymore.

      I overheard the following conversation:
     Ass Hole says: I used to make fun of HIV+ gays, and now I'm Positive. I can't handle it. I used to   be an Actor but the rejection was so hard for me. Now I'm a Casting Director and I get to reject people.

I wanted to kick this mother fucker in the mouth.
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Will be teaching a workshop soon in another German city. Not going to tell you the name of the town till after its over as I have some aggressive stalkers. Attended the birthday soiree of Scandinavian Muslim Daniel Hendrickson at his Neu Koelln compound. The food was delicious and the drink was forever flowing. I hardly drink alcohol anymore but I did imbibe a bit of French Champagne. The guest list included Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Nanna Heidenreich, Chloe Griffin who has written a book on Cookie Muehler, Marc Siegel and his lady fair Susanne Sachsse, Senol Senturk, Uli Ziemons whose birthday is also Dec 8th and has just turned 32, kJohnny Blue and his beautiful Italian girlfriend who will soon be his wife. The hot couple just returned from visiting the Blue Klan in Portland Oregon during the holidays where kJohnny’s older brother Tim just turned 52. Tim and burlesque queen Kitty Diggens were both born on the same day Dec 30th. Send them presents.

Received a nice missive from the fabulous British artist and curator Elly Clark:

Dear Friends & Colleagues,

I'm delighted to report that I have been awarded a grant of nearly £15,000 from Arts Council West Midlands to take my ongoing George Richmond Portrait Project to the next stage. A documentary photo & audio piece that I have been working on since 2010, the project involves my tracing family portraits by Victorian portrait artist George Richmond RA (1809-1896) to private homes in order to photograph both the portraits and their current guardians (descendants of those portrayed) in situ, and to interview my subjects about what they know both of the portraits themselves and the people portrayed.

As someone interested in the place and role of the physical object in our increasingly digitally-experienced and mediated world, (explored through my art and curatorial projects alike), here I am focussing upon family portraits three/four/sometimes five generations down the line. George Richmond produced more than 3000 portraits during his lifetime, of which 200 are in the National Portrait Gallery in London, but most remain in private collections, many never officially recorded. The artist is my great-great-great grandfather.

A separate website will be launched at the end of the month, which will host more detailed information about the project in progress. In the meantime you can see some of the images and audio gathered so far here.

I have two fabulous assistants working with me on this project - William Davie and Julie Tsang. But I could not have kept going for so long were it not for the support and encouragement of friends, fellow artists, curators and family, as well as of my participants.

To make room for this, Clarke Gallery activities will be slowed down for the time being. (Although plans to take FRAME_ to other places are still quietly afoot and will be announced in time..)

To receive updates on the George Richmond Portrait Project and other non Clarke-Gallery specific activites I'm involved with, please sign up to my artist mailing list: http://eepurl.com/LZKsf.

Finally may I take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy New Year and all the best for 2014.

With best wishes,

Elly

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To all my New York Tri-State area fans I will be performing at MoMa PS I on Jan 26th as part of Girls Against God event featuring Bianca of Coco Rosie and Joanna Constantine and on Jan 28th at NYU I will present a version of Vaginal Davis is Speaking From the Diaphragmn this time called Physique Tutorial: VD’s BM- Vaginal Davis is Speaking from the Perinium. My co-host is Billy Miller of Straight to Hell Magazine in conjunction with the exhibition Devotion-Excavating Bob Mizer curated by Billy Miller and Jonathan Berger.

SO JUNG UND SO ERFAHREN

Received a lot of emugs asking me what I did for New Year’s Eve. Well I hate New Year’s Eve or Silvester as its called here in Germany and when I say Silvester I am not referring to the disco singer of the classic song “You Make Me Feel Mighty Real” This year I spent the evening in quiet contemplation and working on my apartment which is still in disrepair from my electric heater explosion back in November. The fireworks and cherry bombs went into hyperdrive from 11:30pm till almost 5 in the morning. The Berlin government has allowed fireworks to be louder and more destructive. About 500 people are injured every year on New Year’s Eve. The only thing better about the holiday in Berlin as oppose to Los Angeles is that people here don’t shoot firearms. Lately I have been getting foreboding thoughts of a pending world battle as its now 2014 a century after the first world war. I would not be surprised if this becomes a reality. Add to war, pestilence, and plague. The general outlook for this planet of ours is not pretty. Sorry to be such a Debbie Reynolds Downer, but the Cybelle soothsayer demanding gonads to make a necklace of testicles in me is one Whoracle et Delphi that can't be silenced.

HEFTIGE SAUGSPIELE

The Vagimule doll is only keeping her giant Vesuvius Flytrap of a mouth shut when she is stuffing vast quantities of food particles into it. Such was the case being treated to an upscale Chinese Feast of Perconius at Restaurant Ming Dynastie at the Jannowitz Center at Bruecken Strasse 6 across from the Chinese Embassy. Joy and more joy was the festive results of being in the hallowed company  of the great Susanne Sachsse, semetic studkin Marcuse Siegel, radiantly electric Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Muslimaic principal Daniel Hendrickson and the gifted Nanna Heidenreich. Earlier in the day I received a post Christmas gift package from Dr. Professor Jennifer Doyle (on an academic fellowship in Prince Harryland of England) which included her newest tome, Hold It Against Me-Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art which I immediately started reading and can’t put down. There are some brilliant essays examining glossy new perspectivas on artists like big Daddy Love God Ron Athey Jr.,David Wojnarowicz, Thomas Eakins, Carrie Mae Weems and the young and spirited beauty Aliza Shvarts who I had as a guest on my award winning talkshow/installation Vaginal Davis is Speaking From the Diaphragm back in 2010 which was the first time Ms. Shvarts publically talked about the scandal that ensued when she was a student at Yale University. Dr. Doyle also sent me Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood, Halstead Plays Himself which is about legendary gay porn/art filmmaker and gorgon Fred Halstead written with a strange tone to it by the nebeshy art cineaste William E. Jones and The Morrissey autobiography which from the opening pages is a literary gangbangular.

TUNTE UND TECHNIK

Just received some end of the new year Berlin gossip about the drug and last chance Texaco Nollendorky gay bar Bull. It seems that the place has been closed down by the cops because the owner has been using it as a front for his very lucrative Crystal Meth selling business. Crsytal and all nitelong Berlin equals a bad combination as people already smoke, drink,drug and stay up too late here in this party town. Recently a person was found dead in the darkroom which isn´t something exactly new to the Berlin gay scene. Even supermarkets like Kaisers has a darkroom and many times people are discovered to have OD´d while engaging in various acts of coitaldruggeninterruptus. Also the gay sauna The Broiler Room which has the nicest staff of any gay bathhaus in the world discovered a tweeker who had gone into the orbit of post retirement. Usually gay bathhouses are staffed by the worse dregs on the planet but all the men who work at The Broiler are very sweet and friendly, and personable service workers in Berlin is certainly not the norm. The best times to go to The Broiler are on Sunday afternoons or on Tuesday when you pay for one entrance and get a free visit within the month. The regulars who go to the place are hit and miss, but once in a great moon there will be some sexxxy tourist especially when Berlina is hosting a mega event and then the place is packed to the rafters with youthquakers and body bountifuls but the average age of men at gay saunas worldwide is 40plus as it’s a scene not typically featured by the young and desireable. Word to America! The owners of saunas in the States are usually elderly men living in Florida who just see the places as money cows and never update or maintain. If you continue in this direction you will wind up losing your business. Just something to consider. Personally I like gay saunas and bathhouses just because of the history that goes back to the pre-Stonewall era and beyond. And in the winter its nice to be in a warm place where men are running around naked in a towel. In some cities in Europe the business for gay saunas is so bad that most have opened them up to straight or bisexual nites once a month attracting swinger couples. In theory this seems like its an interesting way to re-adapt their usage, but hetero swingers are not very attractive and at the places I´ve checked out in Zurich and Hamburg it was very korny kollins.

My dear old LA friend the beautiful artist Karen Lofgren aka Kara Hunger is involved in a very fascinating new art project the details below. If you in the Southland in January please check it out you will not be disappointed:

Hi friends!

I've been working on this project for a couple of years, and on January 11 at 1PM, High Desert Test Sites is launching the completed installation and accompanying publication for Trajectory Object in Pioneertown, Yucca Valley. Directions to the site can be found through this link at HDTS: http://www.highdeserttestsites.com/projects/trajectory-object-c-2000-2050 It is relatively easy to get to off of Pioneertown Road. We will have a smaller afterparty at a local TBD venue when the sun is heading down on the 11th. Now, not to confuse you, but there is another, non-public event, during which we will work to bury the big bronze sculpture and build a stone cairn on January 5, from 9AM through 3PM. If you are interested in joining us for the burial action or if you plan to be in the area and want to come lend a hand, please email me for details or with questions. So the public event to launch the publication and the installation is January 11 at 1PM; the non-public, burial action is January 5 at 9AM. You are welcome to join us for either or both! x Karen

TRAJECTORY OBJECT C. 2000–2050
KAREN LOFGREN JANUARY 11, 2014, 1PM Trajectory Object c. 2000-2050 is a work permanently buried and positioned to associate with archaeo-astronomical constellations visible in both the distant past and far future as we rotate on earth's axis. It is shrouded and accompanied by the earthly goods needed to guide it through the ages. Placing contemporary cultural objects in a broader history of the world, it uses extensive research and our moving stars as a guide. Giving life to the unseen object and process, an editioned artist publication encapsulates the work for consideration in the present.

The project is organized and presented by High Desert Test Sites. Contributors to the publication include designer, Willem Henri Lucas; with writing by Ben Ehrenreich; ancient language translations by Jacob Hobson; and photographs by Robert Crouch. Trajectory Object c. 2000-2050 is made possible by the generous support of The Ranch Projects; West of Rome Public Art; and Royale Projects Contemporary Art.

WHITE SUPREMACY XMAS

I´m dreaming of a white boyfriend . . . yes that’s what I was crooning last night before the packed Rising Stars,Falling Stars-We Must Have Music screening of the 1954 Michael Curtiz Paramount Pictures holiday musical White Christmas starring the divine Rosemary Clooney with dancing assist from tiny wasp waisted Vera-Ellen, alcoholic turkey necked Bing Crosby looking long on the proverbial tooth, and ‘Sister-boy` Danny Kaye with appearances by everyones favorite spinster Mary Wickes, faggoty chorus gurl George Chakiris(West Side Story), and Oscar winner Dean Jagger(12 O´Clock High) playing an elderly general when he is exactly the same age as Bing Crosby-go figure! The audience was loving every hokey minute of this film extravaganza. I joked that the movie was a documentary about how neo nazi´s celebrate the season, and one lady in the crowd told me White Christmas was the first film she ever saw as a child. The last time I saw the movie was in 1980 so I forgot all about the Martha Graham spoof “Choreography” that features Vera-Ellen´s high tech dancing skills. Ms.Ellen wasn´t a singer so her vocals were dubbed by someone else accept on the song “Sisters” where Ms. Clooney sang both parts. After the screening everyone got lubricated with vino and a smashing time was had by one and all including Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus looking radiant and keeping secret the surprises for this year´s Forum Expanded program for The Berlinale. Quite a lot of VIP celebs in the haus including genius genius Antonia Baehr aka: Henry Wilde aka: Werner Hirsch,art filmmaker and great beauty Pauline Beaudry and her aerospace rocket building GF Sylvia. Booty Scholar Nanna Heidenreich and her entire famous clan including lovesexxy mom Teresa, film experten bros Andreas and supershtar sister Dodo.The luscious Black Market/Mobile Academy diva goddess extroidinaire Hannah Hurtzig, award winning French gamine and filmlass Marie Losier with entourage that included new beau Simon Damour a performer from Paris via Marsailles with his buddy the handsome Gallic actor Romain Duris,Aily Nash the New York Film programmer and Berlinale Talent Campus Coordinator with musician/boyfriend Aaron,Laurie Anderson´s film editor Ruth Schönegger with her hot girlfriend, Italian clothing designer Piero Bellomo with Dr. Professor Ingo the hip psycho-therapist to the stars, Effie Wu, the filmmaker and artist(Supersmile)with fellow art stars Ken Okiishi, Andrew Greene, Elizabeth Peyton, collector Dasha Zukhova and Venice Biennale President Paolo Baratta, Nadine Voss of Arsenal Experimental, Anja Lueckenkaemper of KW, Uli Ziemons of Forum Expanded, Daniel Hendrickson the Swedish Muslim and the Arsenal´s cute bigdicquethickerous projectionist Axel Lambretta who did a great job compensating for the fact that the 16mm print has degenerated into the red zone and we weren´t able to project the film in its original VistaVision wide screen process. Next month Jan 22nd RSFS presents a rare screening of Otto Preminger´s madcap Skiddoo from 1968 starring Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Mickey Rooney, Frankie Avalon, Groucho Marx as God and the first black supermodel Donyale Luna as God´s Girlfriend. This presentation will be interactive and ill so don´t miss it and tell all your friends.

Oh and check out this short interview i did in the German leftistnewspaper Taz:
 
http://www.taz.de/Prominente-ueber-ihr-Fest/!129898/