dv - We fly into LAX rent a Buick. Beverly Hills by noon. Rizzoli Book Store ... " Rizzoli's like the pizza" Chick Cashman says. My picture in the window with about hundred copies of the book. Looks good real good. Best looking window they've had in a long time and they're an ART BOOK bookstore! 2 Rodeo drive. In the thick of it. Milton Berle out walking the dog. Elvis Costello drops by looking for some obscure beats. I'm signing books like there's no tomorrow. Humberto the groovy clerk brings me water from a river in France. Luscious Lori Mattix (Jimmy Page's girlfriend groupie extraordinaire - lost her guy/chick virginity to David and Angie Bowie respectively when we was 13) slinks in and gives me a big kiss and hug. She buys a book and I sign it and then the photographer Scotty Lightner arrives. He takes arty pictures with a fisheye lens. Humberto offers me more water. The actor Mark Boone Junior arrives with his entourage. More people stream in and it begins to feel like a wedding or a real estate closing or some strange ceremony where the meaning of it gets lost in the doing of it. When I leave I forget to take the fantastic purple and orange flowers the vivacious blond manager with the sultry foreign accent bought for me.
We go to Radio Shack for fuses. We eat. The Cocksmen tune their instruments.
Sixish we drop by Jumbo's Clown Room for a drink and pre show greetings. Friends are already there, knowing we'd have to be there eventually. Paul McKinney from LACMA admires our merchandise and makes us give away a Performer® (the custom jelly dildo "molded from an actual cast of author Danny Vinik's tool" that we are using as a promotional item) to all the dancers. And one for the bar. Chick Cashman convinces the management to let us actually perform on stage. As we hop into the spotlight a bull of a man plows into Lucas Mosely's keyboard and it falls on the floor busting into a thousand pieces. After subduing the drunken fool, he somehow manages to get a sound out of it and we perform. Everyone stops doing what they are doing for a minute and jaw agape, stares at us. I read from page 54, "I know a thing or two about Paige..."
Around nine we make it down the street to Les Deux. My friend Michelle, the mysterious and enigmatic proprietor, has booked an Art Forum party for seven thirty, so they are still milling about eating air. Knight Landesman, who is the brother of Wyatt Landesmann (note the dissimilar spellings), a friend of Paige's who we will see in San Francisco a few nights later, has something to do with Art Forum and appears to be holding court. He is dressed, vest and all, in white like Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange or perhaps an elf like Tom Wolfe. I give him a copy of Blue Paige and a Ice Bloo© flavor Performer®. He won't take the Performer®, claiming to be homophobic, which is believable, I guess, when you consider the current state of Art. Still though, we hope for a glowing review in Book Forum.... So finally, the artsters swirl out into the dining room for the big bucks dinner and Michelle is kind enough to come back to the bar and feed The starving Cocksmen and the Hungry for Action writer too, which is great because we all need the sustenance that comes from eating a good french meal. And now our crowd is arriving en masse like teeming cyclops barreling through the pretty maidens and the well dressed aristocrats, buffalo trampling the doe, like field mice gunning down grasshoppers. No really, quite a few people show up.... Honorary cocksman Eddie sans illustrious Bar Marmot doorperson Bon Vivant around town bed buddy Cin who is sick and can't come out flashes us his hard to resist smile. He introduces me to some guy who looks like a handsome Steve Buscemi, hey maybe it was Steve Buscemi, and another guy, a charming flaming fag writer who extra charmingly, actually buys my book and gets me to sign it. Three cheers for Eddie! Jocelyn, a close friend of famous bartender/director/hustler Andrew Reznor, our buxom video programmer, slides a tape into the projector. Kenneth Anger / Klayrotica© / John Holmes/ piss and dogs. Cowgirl Jerde taskmaster building maker Stephanie Smith gives her phone number to John Holmes wannabee Kevin O'Sullivan. From time to time people walk into the room, see the video and run out as fast as they can, including some of the stars of the movie Scream. But more people stay. The deafening roar of the crowd overwhelms and it's about ten thirty so we decide to go on. The show must go on....
The Cocksmen launch into a psychotic drone and I plunge into my novel, reading like there's no tomorrow, feeling quite insane actually. We didn't expect the volume of the massive crowd to overwhelm our performance, but it does,and we can't hear ourselves, forcing me to speak louder, read louder than I intended to. I'm screaming like a southern preacher and the Cocksmen are wailing behind me. It's hot, we sweat like pigs and the Cocksmen disrobe down to their shiny glitter G-strings. I keep turning around to look at them and to wipe the sweat from my brow and my cue ball head. The audience begins to quiet down, to participate.We enrich them....
We finish to loud applause. Pleasant Gehman, temptress/author/belly dancer/book reviewer arrives, just late enough to miss our whole show. We try to inflict enough guilt toward her so she 'll for sure review Blue Paige, The Most Important Novel To Come Out Of Canada in seven years. She says that of course, she will.
wednesday Jan 13
dv - We meet the fabulous Lola Love and amazing Tiana Alexandra. At HUSTLER HOLLYWOOD. But let's hear this story from the beginning. First a small disappointment: Larry Flynt (who liked Blue Paige enuf to program our show as the first ever at his new coffee shop/cum bookstore / porn shop on Sunset Blvd.) is sick and won't be making it. I console Chick who had so hoped to meet one of his all time favorite heroes.
So The Cocksmen schelp the equipment up the elevator and set up. The helpful staff helps. Some stoned Sunset Strip rocker dude sets up the PA. It's a good one. When we play we sound great - even though none of us have slept in over THIRTY-FOUR hours and all the drugs from the night before have completely worn off. While we are playing, few friends of Paige saunter in and have a seat in front of us. Jordan and Tim follow their MUSE, they order tea and browse the anal sex books. Earnest Wag and Horny Lembo share some intimate conversation before Lembo begs off to the leather section to try on the masks. I keep making eye contact with the adorable blonde counter person who was either staring in disbelief, or loving every minute of our performance, I really couldn't tell which. We finish and just about drop from sheer exhaustion.
A fabulous and extremely attractive Negress, calling herself an "erotic poet" buys my book and asks for an autograph. Make it out to Lola Love she says. Lola Love? Not the Lola Love!!!? Chick Cashmen can barely contain himself.... He grabs a seat and pushes in next to her. Lola it turns out, danced with James Brown on stage for ten years. Chick had seen her in that Kings movie. And Tiana... she made a film called from Hanoi to Hollywood that was a hit at Sundance bout five years ago and produced by none other than Oliver Stone (he just lent his name - Tiana says).... So anyway, Tiana is there studying up on Asian porn for a performance she's thinking about doing and she insists we come back to her place for a nightcap. So Lola (whom she also just met - and us head on down Sunset to her apartment which is large and expensive and very nearbye. There is some geek dude there working on her computer and I didn't get whether he was her boyfriend of just a geek for hire, anyway - he takes this picture of us with his digital camera and prints it out immediately for us. We drink up the rest of Tiana's Absolute and skidaddle out of there. What fun meeting new friends on the road!
dv - Arriving in San Francisco by sixish, we race over to the Mission to prepare our ATA show at eight. Confusion reigns supreme. The Marxists appear to not to have delegated any authority to anyone so nobody knows what's going on or even how to turn on the CD player. The PA amp is there but it doesn't work. Finally, Molly, apparently the one through which everything else flows in this place, shows up. She points her finger at a few things and then leaves to see a long lost friend. The show is in half an hour and the PA doesn't work so Chick works the phone, making sound system magic. Lucas Mosely and I drive the buick deep into the South Side looking to score that amp. Chick's magic pays off and we meet up with the good Doctor Corleone, formerly SUPERSTAR LOVER, who produces the key to a rather large red amp. And he gets us stoned in the process. By the time we get back the place is filling up with Appreciative Audience, the kind that doesn't chatter away while you're performing, the kind that listens to every damn word. Craig Baldwin of Tribulation 99 fame is there running around like a madman which he most definitely is, and somehow he gets it together to do a highly charged porno multi scree projection on top of us as we play, which adds quite a bit to the show. I look at the small ocean... well sea... of people at see many many old friends. Erin is there with Gianna and Gianna's aunt Didi who was the girlfriend of Ken at the time many years, decades even, ago when I robbed him.Erin was with Gianna when I met her eons ago in Santa Cruz and became lovers with her. We even had a threeway at one point although I remember that Gianna was not into it at the time. Erin is now married to Oswaldo, a Mexican painter, but she didn't bring him this night.... And my old bandmate Debbie Parkins, from Danny and the Parkins Sisters is there looking lovely as ever. If I ever come across a turntable, I'll make an audio file of one of our songs and include it here. I believe you can still order the album from a San Franciscan Underground record company - but I'm forgetting which one - oh yeah - Subterranean - that's underground for sure... And stern but exciting Nurse Gail who once had blue hair which qualifys her to nurse at San Fran General on the psych ward... the brain is an organ, she was there, sans color in her hair. In the back of the room I spotted Eric Kroll, grinning like the Tasmanian devil, which is the best anyone has ever described him... He didn't bring his whole entourage, but he was escorted... I think he left the bodyguard standing outside.... And then let's not forget Justin Fuckin' Hall with screamingly vivacious (THINK LARGE BREASTS) Amy, who managed somehow to both heckle and charm us at the same time. They invite us to a pre breast reduction surgery party later where their friend was reportedly going to show her big mamas one last time. Justin seems to travel in breasty circles. Anyway, we got there just in time for a photo op - and what a photo it was... hopefully someday we'll get the chance to see it. Write to Justin if you want to see the photo. I know I have.
dv - New York. We came. We saw. We pissed in the streets for our man Guiliani. We conquered. The Cocksmen portrayed in the Time Out New York Listings as "dancing male percussionists" are acting a bit cranky so I promise to take them out for a nice meal later if they perform well. In the A DIFFERENT LIGHT BOOKSTORE listings it says "READING WITH A SEXY BACKGROUND BEAT" and that I'll read from my "erotic novel". I begin to wonder if anyone reads anything these days. A different dyke as Bruce LaBruce says. They spell my name two different ways in the same flyer - once correctly! Actually, I must say - everyone was being very very nice to us. And the bookstore had a nice, very nice, selection of books! Very nice. Under the circumstances we decide to tone down our set. The circumstances being that the PA was from mars and we were on venus. The microphone was of the children's tape recorder variety and I feared that no one would hear me if we played our traditional BALL BUSTING set. So we tried a new passage and The Cocksmen played really low volume and of course it was terribly well received. We were glad, knowing that we still had the full tilt ball busting set ready for our party on Friday. Toby Aimes from MTV was in the front row with Brook a budding BUST photographer who chronicled dildos in her last piece but somehow left out THE PERFORMER. The room was full of photographers, so full in fact, it felt like the dam might break and we'd be photo journalized to death. Harvey Wang, who'd spent the day in a bowery flop house, (and came straight from it without bathing) was self effacingly charming(as he always is) in spite of his smell. Fag wannabeTerry Richardson (Son Of Bob) with there with his savagely beautiful wife Niki; later we went for a ride with them in Terry's fire engine red galaxie 500 and they cruely ditched us in a dangerous neighborhood full of Koreans. Alex from DAP was there with the full force of the DAP publicity machine behind him. Adam Forgash and Kia Eric were there, but not really, having left their souls in Carrol Gardens with the real New Yorkers.
wed Mar 3
dv -Audrey (Richard Kern's ex) invites us to her and Russel Simmons second annual Karioki Grammy Awards at The Elbow Room. We hang with Natasha Lyonne and her Jersey potsmoking bodyguards and Brook again and some seemingly angst ridden but probably just tired Bust magazine babe and Tobias, acting queer. The place is packed. I swear to anyone who'll listen that I don't do Karioki. The people that are doing it are far more into it then they should be. Somehow, against my will and my better judgement, The Cocksmen and I perform MUSTANG SALLY. Chick and Lucas pull off some amazing high and low backup vocals as I grind out the song in my decidely very unmusical meter. In some wierd twist of fate we win a grammy in the "groups" category. Everyone else who performed was better than us, so they must have canceled out the votes, either that or the judges were smoking crack. I know Audrey was smoking crack and it seemed like a good grade, better than street crack, hey maybe it was homestyle freebase! Some wall street types slumming it for the night were buying us drinks, so that was good. New York is expensive and the massive royalities from Blue Paige are slow in coming to me....
fri Mar 5
dv - The paint wasn't dry on Jon Weiss' new 169 BAR when we show up for a soundcheck. In fact, it was still being applied. So we came back later and the paint still wasn't dry, but they had to open the bar sometime. Terry Richardson who was hosting our little book party was stuck in South Carolina with a bunch of marines. But everyone else showed up. Even Sam. Gutter Sam to you and the exotic Katya fly in from Toronto for the night. I'd promised them a place to crash, but by then The Cocksmen and I had worn out welcomes all over town. Sam and Katya end up in a Holiday Inn in the Bronx or something. Performers were selling at least as well as the book, due probably, to the high pressure sales woman we hired for the event. Cocksman Cashman borrowed killer amps from Blues Exploder Judas and Wang showed up with digital video. We'll post some of it here soon. Seemed crowded, maybe 200 or so peoples, cramming into the tight, freshly painted, polish bar.... Many silly faces... Dour Bob from Index, ... and THE MAN Calvin Reid from Publishers Weekly, who actually covered the event! Valerie the gal away, and enlightened Kate hung with the bowery boys. Our performance was louder and faster than usual... bigger better tighter, all that too... The Cocksmen were stunningly rude in their loincloths and feathers.But alas, the Old Polish Ladies didn't have us arrested - so what were we doing wrong?