New York, NY – Okay, it's been a crazy few days. I'm sitting in a Starbucks in Chelsea trying to recap the flurry of happenings before catching the train to Newark for my flight home.
Catherine Opie's exhibit at the was amazing. Catherine Opie is a talented documentary photographer who explores notions of communal, sexual and cultural identity through portraiture, landscape and urban street photography. She's also a pervert and her work includes imagery of kinky queers and dykes. I won't go into detail about the mid-career survey of her work, but I will point out two of my favorite pieces. Both are self-portraits. The first, Self-Portrait/Pervert features a permanent cutting of the word 'pervert' across her chest. The second, Self-Portrait/Nursing is a photo of her breast feeding her son with the scars from the cutting still visible years later. I can summarize the collection in its entirety in two words: fucking brilliant.
On Sunday, I got a very special treat. Derek and I did a Photo shoot with Joe Oppedisano. Derek had done a couple of shoots with Joe and is featured in his new book, Uncensored, but I had never met him. I was beginning to get a little envious; it seemed like I was the only one of my close friends in the 'art film' industry not to have done a shoot with Joe. I've always loved Joe's work and everyone speaks very highly of him. Now I know why. Joe is really quite awesome. I totally enjoyed the shoot and can't wait to share the photos with you.
The event in Philadelphia was a lot of fun, although I think the cold, rain and holiday weekend burnout played against attendance. The boy and I sold raffle tickets in traditional 'Boots-to-Balls' fashion, did an impact play demo and some performance rigging. I also got a chance to have a nice chat with boy Sharky, who to my surprise was working the door. Sharky is the current Mid-Atlantic Leatherboy. I met him and his Sir, Andy, while judging the International Leather Sir/boy contest in San Francisco this year. I was impressed by their 'Get Out & Get Laid' initiative that encourages people that connect on the internet to meet up in person at local bars. I was happy to hear that it is still going strong and that he and Andy are both doing well.
Derek had to fly out early Monday morning so I was sans-boy for the final event at the View Bar here in New York. It was a much larger event than I had expected for a Monday night. I signed autographs and did pictures with fans most of the evening. For my 'set' Max got me a shirt, tie and slacks to cut off on stage with my knife as a tie-in to Folsom Undercover. Since I'm not much of a go-go dancer, I pulled a cute Dominican boy out of the audience for a little rope work and teasing (photo top). In an effort to raise some extra cash for the charities I agreed to let Travis cut my hair into a half-hawk like the one I'm sporting in Funhouse if we raised two-hundred dollars in a bucket we passed around. The bucket came back with almost three-hundred so I'm sportin' the hawk again (photo left). Toward the end of the evening I got to do some rigging with go-go boy, Mike Dreyden as well (photo right). Woof!
I want to offer my special thanks to Max Scott and his crew for pulling these events together in the tri-state area and to Titan Media for their support in helping us raise money for the Aid for AIDS Foundation and other local AIDS organizations this past weekend.
