For the first time in my adult life: a job I LOVE

I am very, very, extremely excited to say that starting today, I have a job that I love. In my final semester at TCNJ I interned with PhinLi Bookings, LLC, a talent agency which represents LGBTQ and Sex Positive artists, performers, and authors, and now I am working for them.  Since I am both writing a book and pursuing acting, with a full run of a play happening in May, I have been seeking a job that would provide some stability, but is flexible and part time.  I didn't dream that I'd not only get it, but that it'd be a place that I have already enjoyed working! Additionally, how I came to find PhinLi is one of those "isn't if funny how life works out?" stories.

Giovanni's Room photographed by uwishunu

It must've been about two years ago that Giovanni's Room was first having their fundraisers to rebuild a structural wall that cost over $50,000 to repair.  I happened to tweet a musing that it would be awesome if Kate Bornstein did a reading as a fundraiser for them.  Little did I expect that a few minutes later I'd get a reply from Kate saying that that sounded like something she'd be very excited to do, indeed!  I went and saw her perform at Hot Fest that summer.  She did a special piece that was coupled with  Sean Dorsey's stunning "Uncovered: The Diary Project," as a one-time pairing for the festival only.  There we met for the first time, and I also met Serpahin, one of the two women behind PhinLi.  Both Seraphin and Lisa came down to Kate's reading at Giovanni's Room that fall, and though I didn't know how at the time, I knew it'd be a lasting relationship.

If someone had told me then that I'd be working for them, but that it would take a few years to work out the details, I wouldn't have had the patience for that, though I might now.  However, I didn't know, and the details were all interwoven with everything else going on in my life.  I made the decision to go back to school in November of 2009, lost my job a few days later, and both got accepted to school and started interning with First Person Arts a few weeks later.  I don't know exactly how things came together in the summer of 2010 but I knew I needed an internship in the fall, PhinLi needed an intern, we got in touch, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Gender Queeries Logo by JAC Stringer

Since then I've met more of our talent than I had expected, including Johnny Blazes at the International Drag King Extravaganza (IDKE); Ivan Coyote, S. Bear Bergman, Jessica Halem, Sassafras Lowrey and Sinclair Sexsmith at Sideshow in NYC; and Kelli Dunham at an event co-hosted by Queer Memoir and First Person Arts.  In addition, I've been hankering to perform with a few (OK as many as possible) of the folks on our talent roster, and in fact, that's happening! On March 5th the Liberty City Kings are having our Vixens & Vagabonds Queer & Kinky Cabaret and The Gender Queeries are our guests!  They are a traveling troupe that include the aforementioned and immeasurably fabulous Johnny Blazes, Ignacio Rivera (also repped by PhinLi), and Midwest GenderQueer, who is not repped by us, but who've I've recommended to be at our next expansion, and whom I also met at IDKE.  I am so super stoked to perform with these amazing artists and be the MC for the show.

Life's a Drag - and I *LOVE* it!

This past Sunday, I was the MC for the 2011 calendar release party for The Liberty City Kings, aka LiCK. They are Philadelphia's only drag king and burlesque queen troupe, and I was extremely excited to be invited by their fabulous leader and co-founder, Heather Coutts, to be the MC for this event. I met Heather two years ago at QFest, and worked with her immediately thereafter on my first ever film set. She is one of my favorite Philadelphians and when she invited me to her favorite playground - gender - I wasn't about to turn her down.

I take my lessons in gender identity and drag from the great post modern theorists and New York performance artists: Kate Bornstein, Justin Bond, http://taylormac.net/TaylorMac.net/Home.html. Each in her/his/hir own way helped explode the binary gender system for me. Each is like an angel or a prophet from a future where sissies are as celebrated as the captain of the football team, a butch diesel dyke is the President of the United States, and nobody has to be anything but what makes them feel safe, loved and happy. They are so beautiful that they're sometimes almost too much to take in.

In truly post modern fashion, it doesn't exactly interest me to be a "man" in "women's" clothing. I think there's still huge value (and just plain fun) in drag queens and drag kings. For many audience members, it's still subversive. For those performing it, it's still a thrill to act in roles that aren't readily available in daily life. However, as Stephen Heath once wisely observed, "the difference inverted is the difference maintained."

Don't take that to mean that I think that drag artists are reinforcing the patriarchy, far from it. But at a certain point it is the destiny for some of us gender warriors to move beyond the binary entirely. Sometimes this looks like painting from both palettes at once; some go so far beyond anything recognizable in culture and fashion as to like more an alien species than another sex. This is what I yearn for in my performances. I'm not interested in being a drag queen exactly; I intend to ascend my throne as genderfuck royalty.

The really magical part, for me at least, is to realize that not every member of the audience lives in the gender fluid world that I do. For some, it is their first drag show. Probably, for many, they have seen many a drag queen belt out (or lip sync) a hundred and ten Liza Minelli songs, but never seen a drag king sing Buddy Holly. Many of our audience members may be gay and lesbian, but may have never considered living too far outside their gender norms. Whether it's the endless gay porn sites fetishizing "real straight men fucking" or another singles ad from a "discrete masc dude" who wants "no fats or fems," so many lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have been so busy telling straight people (and themselves, including a younger version of myself) that our sexuality doesn't make us any different, that we've jumped through gender normative hoops to prove it. In the process we've wounded ourselves and our own, and drag isn't just fun; it's healing.

As binary gender disintegrated practically before my eyes with every chapter of Gender Outlaw and every gender transcended performance I saw in New York, I found new things to love about myself and others. As it turns out, glitter accentuates chest hair, as opposed to somehow tarnishing it with "femininity." Never mind the point that we all come from mothers and are taught to hate femininity expressed pretty much everywhere but straight porn and Swiffer commercials. And let's face it, six inch heels are the only shot I've ever got to be taller than my Dad. (In fact, they make me the tallest man in the whole family! Well, whatever a man is anyway, and assuming, for the moment that I am one.) So there you go. If one more person leaves a show that I've performed in finding new and more beauty in the world, then I've succeeded not just as a performance artist, sassy queen, and hot leather boy, but also as a human being.

This Week in Fabulosity

Thursday - I interviewed with my favorite Philly arts org, First Person Arts, for an internship.  I'm not sure yet when I'll start with them but I really look forward to picking up a whole new set of skills and learning about the behind the scenes work of event production, contract writing and all of the nitty-gritty of making art happen.  More on that as it unfolds!  

Saturday - An almost indescribably amazing trip with my flatmate and fabulous sex blogger Sarcastabitch to see Justin Bond and the Pixie Harlots perform their original show "Christmas Spells," based on the short story "Dixie Belle" by Kate Bornstein.  Now I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, Pistol, is it possible for you to talk about fabulosity without mentioning Justin AND Kate?  Well, I suppose it is, but why try?  I want to see great art, they make great art, and they  often collaborate to make and/or present it together.  Who can argue with that?

In addition to telling a new gender-bent Huck Finn story the way the only such an assemblage of artists and queens can, we were treated to:

• solo and ensemble  performances of holiday songs, written by artists from The Gossip to Richard Carpenter to Irving Berlin
• Justin performing songs from his EP "Pink Slip,"
• Justin's outrageous tales and incomparable, fucked-up humor.  Try on for size this punchline from one notable (true) story: "And when they finally caught him and asked him why he had been punching these babies he answered, 'they were stealing my glamour!'"  

With tears rolling down my cheeks, I was grateful that Sarcatabitch uses only high end makeup and that my waterproof mascara was not running.

In addition to the sheer fabulosity of Justin's high heels and the hot and hairy Pixie Harlots in jockstraps and fishnets and glitter (well all of my favorite pixies were hairy anyway), I played another round of "It's a Small, Queer World."  I not only spotted a recent Philly to NYC transplanted Faerie friend, but also noticed that Sean Kennedy, previously known to me only via his Twitter stream, was tweeting from the same theater as I!  After some online coordination and at least one follower breathlessly waiting to see whether we'd find each other in the crowd, we met up and headed out to Yaffa Cafe for some post show food.  (Why yes, I was just there for breakfast last week with Kate.  It seems queer writers and creamy hummus go together like Lady Gaga and fake blood soaked avant garde costumes.)

Somewhere in transit, a Faerie whispered in my ear (with a little help from text messaging) "Wanna come to Justin's?"  Bless her heart, Sarcastabitch and her short little legs managed to keep up with my dead sprint from Yaffa to the after party, catching her breath as I grabbed some ale because I was NOT showing up to Mx Bond's empty handed!  We arrived shortly before the Pixie Harlots had to make their way out to Brooklyn for a second performance and I was surely pleased to make their acquaintance. 

Machine is just as sweet as pie and an excellent conversationalist to boot; PamperZ confirmed what a queen told me on Halloween about applying glitter to one's lips and added the essential information of how to remove said glitter!  So yes, the party was great. A performance artist and indie film actor here, Mx Bond's favorite rockstar there, Faeries and general faggotry abound.  The room represented ten times more artistic achievement than your standard soiree, yet without one iota of the pretension.  AKA, my personal heaven.

Sunday - My dear friend, mentor and Faerie elder Chris Bartlett and his gay history wiki project were written up in the New York Times.  In fact, my understanding is that this was on the front page of the style section of the print edition.  I am so proud and excited of and for Chris and his work.  I look forward to how the wiki will grow and eventually go viral over time.

With love and fabulosity, and body glitter adorning body hair,
xoxo