#whogetsavoice?

Talking about your dick onstage is not edgy. It is not daring. It is not progressive. It is the most mundane thing you could possibly mention, onstage or off.

You likely have not noticed (because part of privilege means not having to notice) that this society - indeed, our entire world - is set up to accommodate your dick. Your dick takes up as many seats as it wants on the subway. Your dick has healthcare. It is up to us to avoid your mismanaged dick in bars, in public spaces, in long-term relationships, in our homes and our schools and our ‘safe’ spaces, or just walking by on the street. Your dick makes laws that apply only to our vaginas. Literally every minute of every day, we are aware of your dick: therefore rest well assured that if you host a show or ten shows or every goddamned show ever in the history of shows there is no point at which we will forget about your dick, even if you go that entire time without mentioning or referring to it even once.

You are the system. And whether consciously or not, you benefit constantly and endlessly from that – even in our own microcosmic female-dominated pussy-positive artstripper world. YOU ARE THE SYSTEM. Getting on stage in front of this gorgeous world of Strong and Opinionated Pussy and talking about your dick is basically standing up and saying, Hey. You built this. This is one small part of the largely heinous world where you could have power, you could have a voice, this could be a system of support and accountability that is potentially revolutionary but FUCK THAT AND FUCK YOU BECAUSE I HAVE THE VOICE AND I HAVE THE POWER AND EVEN AS YOUR VOICE AND YOUR REPRESENTATIVE AND YOUR PROFESSED ALLY I AM STILL GOING TO EXERCISE THAT POWER OVER YOU BY CONSTANT REMINDERS OF THE SOCIAL AND PHYSICAL POWER I HAVE OVER YOU AT ALL TIMES JUST AS YOU EXPERIENCE FROM MY GENDER IN ALL OTHER FACETS OF YOUR DAILY EXISTENCE.


I seem to recall having heard that bit before. Why don’t you call us when you have some new material and if we’re still looking for hosts at that point maybe we’ll take a look at what you’ve got.


Maybe.

A Thanksgiving Thought Of Sorts

--> One of the few perks of being a performer means never having to watch shows from the house. It's not just that I am totally incapable of not starting fights with audience douchebags who don't grasp the simple fact that because sound travels through space everyone around them can hear the vile and asinine things they're saying about the performers ... But ever since my first shows in the back rooms of East Village bars where the only place to watch the other performances was sort of squatting next to over where the curtain was taped to the wall, trying not to get stepped on by the host's 7-inch stilettos, hit by the bathroom door, or whacked in the wig by the occasional out-of-control shimmy belt, I have preferred our unique view-from-the-side-of-the-stage. The paying audience misses so many of my favorite parts of shows: the rainstick rattle of beaded fringe; the wordless conversations between stage and wings; the amazing focus of the most wonderfully engaged performers even when their faces are hidden or their backs are turned. 

Customers always ask if they can come backstage - imagining I suppose lightbulb-bordered dressing tables, headdress-clad dancers ballet-stretching in rooms full of the cheerful clutter of diamonds and feathers, the champagne-fueled wild debauchery of kissing-practice-pillow-fights. I suppose they don't need to actually experience the reality of six performers in a 10-foot-square unheated single-stall bathroom with one exposed bulb, all trying to put on makeup in half a stained mirror while the waitstaff walks through to the kitchen.

It's a small but delightful compensation that the view from there, anyway, is all our own.

Backstage from Nasty Canasta on Vimeo.

An Experiment In Focus Adjustment

 --> My high school drama teacher had a sign on his bulletin board for years,* which read:

Theatre is Life;

Film is Art;

Television is Furniture.

To the half-dozen cranberry-haired teenagers fully immersed in the optimistically-named Drama Department of our predominantly Republican, sports-focused rural-suburban learning institution, this helped solidify our self-congratulatory youthful angst and firm commitment to getting beat up weekly by the gym teachers. These days (nearly a decade after having spent nearly a decade in Theatre-with-an-re) I might amend that sign somewhat, to read:

Theatre is full of actors;

Film is fine but I like movies;

Television is comforting;

Facebook ruined society.

Also I hardly ever wear Smiths t-shirts any more.

Nevertheless, although I’ve escaped Theatre for Wiseass Striptease I remain committed to live performance as my artistic medium of choice - for the simple fact that I am still fascinated by the variations from one performance to the next, and inspired by the constantly-changing interaction between performer and spectator. ** The liminal space in which live performance exists is one of quite literally infinite possibilities: it is where theatre, dance and ritual all find roots. ***

What you don’t so much find in that impermanent transitional space is digital cameras.

I’m a firm believer in the inherent social contract between performer and spectator: We’re here for and because of each other; this experience wouldn’t exist if either of us weren’t present. And “present” doesn’t mean “taking photos of the whole thing so you can status-update about what you did tonight.” If you leave with your own emotional response to my performance and feel moved to convey your impressions to others through your own words, it becomes our experience; if you take crappy cell-phone photos of my entire act, you have crappy photos of me on your phone and not much more.

Now, amidst all of my you-damn-kids-get-off-of-my-lawnery, I will readily acknowledge several things:

1. The average audience at any given titty show isn’t there to experience the ritualistic transformative possibilities of a shared liminal space. They’re there to get drunk and see some tits.

2. At any given titty show we are there primarily to entertain, and not necessarily to change the world. If we can sneak that in too, so much the better.

3. Get a grip, grandma, the world’s gone digital and everyone has phones and Photos or it didn’t happen! and that’s just the way the world works and if you’ll excuse me I have to go text my status location to Facesquare so I can be the mayor of my life.

4. Sometimes people want to take pictures because they think you’re awesome. Also it’s nice to have videos of your acts and stuff.

So I try to find a balance between kicking tourists in the f-stop and just giving up and mugging for the sea of screens and lenses. I’ll always prefer the live experience (years ago I stopped taking a camera with me on vacations, after I realized that I was getting so anxious about missing shots that I wasn’t actually noticing where I was or what I was seeing) and I will never put up with rude, inappropriate or disrespectful photographers at any show, be they professional or casual … but for the sake of my ulcers I realize I do have to chill a little and let people experience the performance in their own way.

Thinking about all this (and, occasionally, being driven to tears of rage by it) led to a variety of ideas about how to do something productive with the frustration. This January I had the chance to begin a hopefully-ongoing project through which I will a: make art out of anger and b: amuse the fuck out of myself. Transformative qualities of live performance aside, I’m pretty okay with that; so, then, here’s part one:

1.13.13 from Nasty Canasta on Vimeo.

* Specifically, several years that started with a “1” and a “9.”

** And not at all because I have the drawing skills of a concussed bee.

*** I just recently paid off my massive student-loan debts. Just as a matter of interest.