Last night’s performance as Ophelia in Drew Cushing’s Hamlet Variations was a smashing success! The critics raved, “A bright new talent burned the stage of CCA as newcomer Chris Komater tossed aside convention and presented his daring Ophelia as a slightly ravaged black runway model to the stunned masses gathered for the third night of Small Press Traffic’s Poets Theater.” Actually, it’s a miracle that words came out of my mouth and it was all over in, like, a minute, with just enough time to change out of my dress and into my sheepskin to play Fortenbras. I nearly played Hamlet, too, as she didn’t show up until the play started. I was very nervous singing “Papa, can you fuck me” to the little girls in the front row, though. Who brings their kids to experimental theater? Geoffy, BC, Ted, and Brian were there to laugh when others weren’t quite sure what to do, and then we all ducked out after the two just god-awful self-indulgent repetitive ramblings to follow. Nominations for the Sarah Siddons Award are around the corner…
The Play’s the Thing
I’m going to appear in Drew Cushing’s “Hamlet Variations,” perhaps as a variation of Ophelia, Drew hasn’t told me yet, eek I hope he does soon, as part of Small Press Traffic’s Poet’s Theater…
Friday, January 30, 2004 at 7:30 p.m.
$5-10, sliding scale
Timken Lecture Hall
California College of the Arts
1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco (just off the intersection of 16th & Wisconsin)
Season your admiration for a while. And keep you in the rear of your affection.
Gratitude
It looks like the holiday season has muscled into my birthday season again. I saw a brilliant production of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the SF Opera last week, with a very humpy Sergei and a minimal constructivist set, striking social realist tableaux, and interesting music. Dean and Emily came over for the first birthday dinner, which Bob made, including his close interpretation of the tomato tarte tatin that we had in Paris this summer and a super rich cheesecake. Big Chrissy treated me to a nice dinner at Watercress, formerly Watergate, which has moved to the Gramercy Towers, where Le Bistrot used to be. Watercress is notable for the consistently mixed-race couples that mirror its East/West fusion cuisine. I had the family over a few days later when sister Sue arrived from Florida, making my Linguine Seafood Bolognese for them. We’re getting together later today at brother Mark’s for the big Thanksgiving dinner. I’m making brussels sprouts with chestnut–in perhaps a maple butter glaze. Not sure yet.
I have been working, on this new video, which I’ve re-edited several times already, but I think I’m on a good track. Still not sure of the sound, though. I’ve been experimenting with breathing sounds, lapping waves, purring, and the orchestrated beginnings of Dean Martin’s Italian Love Songs. Nothing is quite right, but I’ll figure it out. Suggestions welcomed. Remember the plan to borrow from the visual structure of the cropduster scene in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest? Well, things have evolved in a different direction, quite. Although I will come back to that idea for the next video. This time, the camera pans slowly across the surface of super furry D’s super furriness, up and down his neck and arms, the nine-second pans dissolving slowly into each other so that you get only one-second of clarity. I want to maintain a dreamy blurry intoxicating closeness, but frustrate the desire for consummation. I’d love to present this in Smell-O-Rama.
On this day of thanksgiving, I’m very grateful for all the backs out there that have escaped depilation. And dihydrotestosterone and male pattern baldness. Thank you also for Nicephore Niepce and silver bromide. And cheese.
Gertrude, Virgil, Bob, Carla, Kathleen, Su-Chen, Mark, Big Chris
I saw the Gertrude Stein/Virgil Thompson opera The Mother of Us All last night, with Bob, Kathleen, and Carla. It was a great follow up to Carla’s play, Stein truly the mother of Carla’s sensibility, at least her step-mother. The opera is about the suffrage movement, with Susan B. Anthony as the central figure. The SF Opera put on a humdinger of a production, with much whimsy and humor, delightful word play, a great deal of homoeroticism thrown in here and there, and hilarious anti-male language, and everybody gets drunk at the end! Today I and Su-Chen went to see Mark Morris at Zellerbach, and were mildly entertained. His first dance was structured around the music of Bob Wills, and whimsically illustrated the songs, but we weren’t so thrilled with the other dances, which seemed to again just illustrate the beat of the music rather than extend it in any way. It was fun to see him dance one solo piece, set to Lou Harrison’s music, and comprised of movements taken from spanish dances, castanets and everything, his rotund body whirling dynamically around the stage.
The waiter with the kilt, the “nudist” belt, and pierced septum at Orphan Andy’s, in some Victorian twist of Castro restaurant etiquette, this morning addressed all questions and innuendo to Big Chrissy–“Would you like more water, sir?” “Too much meat for you, sir?”–while I sat there with my empty glass of water, quip-ready, just the Little Chrissy. Big Chris should ask for the menu without the prices next time.
So I’ve been sick for the past few days. A really yucky cold that has progressively become more and more uncomfortable. I don’t take to pain very well, or even slight discomfort. You can’t even pinch my nipples without getting a slap on the wrist.
Carla and D
My houseguest Carla’s new play, Performing Objects Stationed in the Sub World premiered last night. The piece is a collaboration with visual artist Amy Trachtenberg, director Jim Cave, and composer Erling Wold. It’s thoroughly entertaining, and completely devoid of anything concerned with narrative, a collage of social and cultural relationships and interactions, combining poetry, theater, song, language and a really cute bald guy with an adorable accent and hairy forearms. Afterward, I congratulated Jocelyn on her very moving delivery of a Spanish monologue, to which she relied, “Thank you,” and then, looking around, asked me “So could you tell me what the play was about?” She’s a talented writer herself, and the publisher of an interesting line of experimental prose and poetry books, Krupskaya Press. (I did one of their covers, Laura Moriarty’s Nude Memoir.) She’ll be accompanying a silent porn film with a benshi narration in October at ATA. Benshi provided live narration to films during the silent era in Japan, but extended the narration into an art form, delivering dialogue and thoughts as well. I’m creating a soundtrack of breaths to accompany her narration.
So D isn’t Bi-polar or even Borderline, after all, just depressed. And he has something like a “dependency syndrome,” I can’t remember exactly what the dysfunction is called, but good grief, are all insecurities diseases now? My favorite non-related diagnoses are Frank Bigelow’s “toxic luminous poisoning” and Scottie Ferguson’s “acute melancholia together with a guilt complex,” which I’m sure I’ll die of. Anyway, I’ve asked to be present when decisions are made for D about his care following his release from lockup. Tuesday was freaky, man. He was very disoriented from the shock therapy, talking gibberish and unable to tell his doctor the story of Goldilocks and the three Bears. (I’m so glad the doctor didn’t ask me for my version.) They say this was “normal,” but will be plugging him in only once a week now, rather than three times. It scared me to see him so vegetable-like, but he seemed much better yesterday, certainly more lucid. I’m going to pop in on him and my crazy new friends again this afternoon.
Poet’s Theater at the LAB
Tonight the LAB hosted a fabulous evening of disjunct and experimental poetry and theater, put together by Carla Harryman. Dodie Bellamy read from her Cunt Ups, a novel of cut ups, that contrasted well with Camille Roy’s dynamic poems called “Grenades,” based on the Iraq war. Dodie’s work is so well-written and interesting, but the extreme pornography in her work is rendered in terms that are practically devoid of emotion, just the sensation of sex, while Camille’s words are little bombs of feeling, starting with the line, “Dude…. I mean dad…” delivered with kittenish bravado. The headliner was Kevin Killian, who presented a play in collaboration with Craig Goodman, about the “Smith” family–featuring Wayne Smith as father Wayne Smith, with daughters Susan (who drowned her two kids) Smith and Liz Smith, son Jack (experimental filmmaker–Flaming Creatures) Smith, sister Jaclyn Smith, Morrissey (of The Smiths), etc… Kevin’s plays tend to be camp extravaganzas with characters and situations culled from contemporary pop and highbrow culture, featuring local artistic and literary celebutantes. I had a little fling with Wayne long ago, who recently broke up with his boyfriend (I knew it wouldn’t last), and had fun watching his lips move as the other characters delivered their dialog. He’s so like a little boy. With a cute belly, a deep voice, a little gray goatee, and a nice package. I ran into Sandy (MoMA chief photo curator) Philip’s boyfriend, who always calls me Tim. “Tim, Sandy says you’re doing great work! They’re buying something, right, or something like that?” Right.
Gay Day
This weekend got off to a nice start with the Joe Goode Performance Group at Yerba Buena, the perfect opener for the gay festivities to come. Joe’s performances contain spoken word, dance and theater, whimsically intertwined, drawing from American icons like Agnes DeMille, twisted with a gay sensibility. Sometimes narrative seems to intrude too much, though, and then gets lost in sentiment. The best thing he ever did was a performance I saw years ago at Theatre Artaud called 29 Effeminate Gestures, that brilliantly deconstructed the gay self into a series of highly articulated movements and facial expressions.
Big Chris and I went to the gay parade, and had a great time, one of the more festive parades in recent memory. At a BBQ that I went to afterwards at Peter and Luis’, I had an interesting conversation with this guy named Bradford, who used to have one of the largest Barbie clothing collections but is now collecting and selling vintage couture from the 50’s and 60’s, an interesting character himself. Anyway, we both related the upswing in mood to the visibility and acceptance of gays by mainstream culture and to the recent Supreme Court decision, everyone thrilled and hopeful, in a party mood.
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence won my vote for favorite float, based on a USO show, called “U Ass Ho,” featuring lots of big hair, a caged pope, (a play on this year’s theme–“Gotta Give Them Pope,” instead of hope) the Andrew Sisters, and Dick Cheney as Slim Pickens from Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, straddling an enormous “Weapon of Ass Destruction.” Other faves were the Sunset Scavenger dudes and their trash can ballet, more big haired drag queens, the GAPA “sushi boat” float, Armistead (I’ve got to photograph him–he’s too cute) and Laura Linney, a very scary buxom Dorothy screaming “I’ll find my own way back home!!” and of course all the furry bellies.
People were saying that this parade was more political, but it was a political sensibility closer to compassionate conservatism than to the Lesbian Avengers or ACT-UP style political activism.
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Mysterious Skin, Little Things
Just got in from seeing a dramatic interpretation of Scott Heim’s novel, Mysterious Skin, at The New Conservatory Theater, with Bob and Kevin Killian. It was really good, with excellent acting and lots of gratuitous nudity. The story centers around a young man, Brian, puzzling out vague memories of being abducted by aliens–turns out that he mistook fisting the baseball coach for being probed by extraterrestrials. At one point in the play, Neil, his childhood friend and the one who releases Brian’s suppressed memories, is raped by a john (he’s a hustler), and everyone removes his clothes. The nudity does nothing to heighten the realism of the rape–all the pee-pees on display are Mister Softies–but lordy if the john didn’t have the cutest little button–furry chest and bald head, too!
Earlier I stopped in to see Barry McGee’s opening at the Luggage Store, and bumped into an old fellow LAB Board member, Jen Levy, who is opening a bakery in Berkeley with the former pastry chef from Hawthorn Lane. They’re specializing in savory Czech pastries, kalaches (spelling?). She says they’re the next bagels.
A Great Play, a Sister, and Off to Florida
Thursday night I saw a delightful play at Intersection; Soul of a Whore by Denis Johnson. He’s been a playwright-in-residence there for several years. Watching his development is like witnessing Sam Shepard at the Magic Theater years before. You get the feeling of being in the presence of a major talent and grateful that you’re able to see these little productions with only 50 other people in such an intimate setting. When the Eureka Theater produced Angels in America, there was a similar buzz. Denis has a tremendous grasp of american vernacular speech and creates poetry of dialogue and manner. This particular play takes place in a small town in Texas, following several men who have just been released from prison, including a humpy bald evangelist with a goatee and a hairy back, a woman they meet at the bus station, and a demon who alternately possesses the woman and several other characters before blowing everyone up.
I’m at Big Chris’ now, enjoying a moment of serenity before hopping on the plane to Tampa, to visit my sisters and work on that tan line. Last night an old friend’s sister was in town from Miami, and Bob and I took her and some of her buddies out to the mystery Chinese restaurant for a 20 course ($35) meal. The best kept restaurant secret in town. They now have someone working there who speaks english–kinda. Following our last course, she came to our table and asked with a smile, “Enough?” When we got home, our guest told me and Bob that one of our sweet dinner guests had the biggest endowment that she’d ever seen or played with and that in bed he’s a tiger and very verbal, imploring her to tell him how much she wants it, “Oh you like that big %$&@#,” etc, etc… She said that she was so surprised because, prior to bedding him, and after frequent visual examinations of his package, she and her sister concluded that his endowment was considerably smaller. She couldn’t figure out “where he puts it.”
Okay, off to bob around in the Gulf.
Woo hoo!
Stanley and Giuliano came over for dinner on Sunday night–duck legs. Stanley was fretting about his play which had just opened in New York, The Chinese Art of Placement, which I mentioned a while ago when they were over here last. Well, a review came out today in the New York Times–a really good review. I can’t imagine anyone not liking it–loving it–it’s a brilliant work. So it does happen, and to people who deserve it. Congratulations Stanley. He says he’s working on a new play about a couple in a highrise, completely surrounded by glass walls. He’s got vertigo, she’s a voyeur.