There is something very satisfying about watching showbiz people getting married. We are the people who put on shows. We wear funny costumes. We take fancy pictures. We make fliers and short films. We fly through the air. We sing on stage. When showbiz people get married, best man gives a eulogy, the gorilla makes a touching speech, and the bride's ( Read more... )

I'm going to talk about my act ( Read more... )

I'm not a very good punk, because I never liked Black Flag that much, but I like Henry Rollins, especially when he gets up on stage and talks at auctioneer speeds for three hours without even pausing to take a sip of water. Rollins likes to remind his audience that he is old (forty-nine) and possibly facing senility, death, and decrepitude. If this ( Read more... )

I am sitting on my couch in the middle of the week, in the middle of the day, next to the decapitated head of Barney the Purple Dinosaur and parts of a chin strap, sobbing like an idiot because I just had to cancel my rope act for tomorrow's Hubba Hubba Revue ( Read more... )

My severed head arrived in the mail today. I always enjoy receiving packages at work -- well, maybe not the videotapes, DVD's, CD's, stacks of paper and magazine clippings that the crazies like to send to my Mysterious Workplace -- but packages from the eBay Fairy are soothing to my soul, as are boxes with shoes in them, and that new bathing suit ( Read more... )

On Saturday evening, I continued my Mediocre Aerialist tradition. I put my (borrowed, half-length) silks up at a gallery in Alameda, where I did a 5-10 minute improvised set and a duet with a fabulous operatic singer, J. The ceilings were very, very low, which severely limited my repetoire and made separating the tissu at any height rather awkward ( Read more... )

So, I'm standing by the bar at the Marquis Fetish Ball, waiting for my hard-earned lemon drop, when some guy in a latex shirt says, "So, what's your fetish ( Read more... )

On Friday evening, at the DNA Lounge, several feet above the crowd, I achieved a dream that I have been working towards lo' these many years: I became a mediocre aerialist. I performed a relatively simple routine without any particularly flashy drops. I performed it with relatively straight knees and pointed toes, even if I could have wished for a ( Read more... )

I am not one of the world's great self-promoters. This is not the result of any kind of natural modesty - I think I am quite wonderful - so much as a conviction that if you are doing things right, you do not have to self-promote because people will recite your achievements in awed whispers as you walk by. That is why I didn't tell that many people ( Read more... )