Driftwood

Answering your question, Describing my fantasy meeting

2010-01-03T17:21:00.000-08:00

This fall I was given the assignment of answering the question, "What is your fantasy meeting?" My friend EE Miller posed the question and organized a public event part of the MIX Festival which included screening a video piece she made called Cash Free as well as footage of meetings, all kinds--ACT-UP, group therapy dramatized for film, and some young wimmin in the late 70s talking about sex.

This is my response to Describe your fantasy meeting

I was on tour with my bandmates for the past six weeks while I pondered this question, in the minivan fully surrounded, so my mind went to jam band, fantasy jam band, and the jam band as a meeting space to explore something in private. Well I guess I assume meeting as private, a space for people to explore ideas together only with each another, with intention. Of course jam band can also be public, a public improvisation, but that's not really where my conception of meeting was happening. I took fantasy seriously, my first participant who I pulled from the past being Gertrude Stein. GS on vocals, or writing lyrics for someone else? And then I was stuck. Do I want to be in this jam band, or am I just pulling together an all-star fantasy band? I mean, I think I would want Joan Armatrading there and one of the Raincoats, Yoko… It is kind of endless.

When I got back from tour I did my usual ritual, sweating it all out at the Russian Turkish baths on tenth street. I went alone because I had hardly been alone for so long. I used to have to convince myself to go to the baths for four hours alone, trying to round up friends to go in groups and massage one another. But now all I wanted was total independence from anyone else’s interests I might have to compromise with and the obligation to talk to someone about tour.

So I was sitting in the cedar sauna and realized maybe my meeting would take place in a sauna, not with the musicians, but with a group of people who could potentially meet in my reality. Literally the inspiration was where I was. I was sitting in this dark wooden room half naked sweating and breathing, and thought this would be the perfect way to start a meeting. Am I imposing my pleasures though? I thought of people I would invite to a meeting, people who are in this room now, and realized there are those who would not want to take their clothes off and sweat together. And how can I shift my ideas around imposing pleasure to sharing pleasure? How can I shift my thinking about personal pleasure as a burden?

What about a hot spring, a meeting in a hot spring on undeveloped land? New Mexico? Nevada I think has loads of hot springs… And then we move from the water to the land, laying on blankets, wrapped in blankets. Some people can submerge in the water, others can dip their feet and even others teetering on the edge.

What kind of meeting do I want?
I have fantasized organizing a meeting on queer land, an intergenerational gathering of separatist wimmin living communally and people living on queer land with those who fantasize about it, that’s my category, the dreamers still.

My dream meeting is the last meeting of a group starting communal land together, the meeting before we all move. The land is secured, it is our last conceptual meeting, we are down to practical logistics. We are where our situations will shift into one common. A shift from private to shared private. We are about to inhabit some chosen place together and share our cereal and yogurt and quinoa. Of course we will continue to meet and shift relations, but this meeting is the last meeting in a certain configuration. What happens when our landscape changes and we are coming together with more in common regarding our shared basic needs, we’re not going to all go home to our apartments again. We’re gonna have to talk about your five cats and all my shoes. Do you keep your nut butters in the fridge and how often do we wash the dishtowels?
Are we? Do we? Basically we’re moving in together.

Harvesters in the Pacific Northwest

2009-12-09T08:28:00.000-08:00

In early November I followed my friends on a mushroom foraging trip outside of Seattle. We came back with baskets brimming with chanterelles and lobster mushrooms. Sadly I had to jump in the van and head down the highway to Portland. Bridge and Calvin, what did you make for dinner that night?

Before the roof was compost bin

2009-09-05T05:55:00.000-07:00

Roofing Dreamers

2009-07-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

Last week we spent an incredible time with something
we had been wanting to do for many months. We went
onto the roof of a store in Braddock near Pittsburgh and
started to repair the roof. Megan, Dean, Dana, Ginger
and Emma, all working out how to do this for the first
time, with help from local friends Joel, Kristin and Tony.
We took off part of the existing roof, and added new
parts and joined new part to old parts. We worked on
the rafters and the beams, which support the roofing
materials.

Whoa, Amsterdam

2009-05-06T02:39:00.000-07:00

Wanderlust, wandering, walking and getting lost and finding oneself on the way home 11:30 pm in front of a fuschia sign with a man/woman/tranny symbol reading "Same Place" the club where we were maybe going to meet a friend. Latin night at the Sex Club. Bed Booths with paper towels and big pump bottles of sanitizer or lube? Basement with two beautiful leather slings (we need one for Lez Com, ok?) vinyl beds, strange angled corner made into a cell, oh and a smoking room upstairs with a window to look in at the two men there (straight, sadly) wanking and smoking. The Sunday of each month was women's S/M but no longer? We were wishing it were more queer. I was wishing for a Girl Monster night hosted by Steiner. And back at home I fell asleep getting off while thinking about humiliating the guy who wouldn't leave me alone at the bar.

Manchester, The Deaf Institute

2009-05-06T02:13:00.000-07:00

This is an ample stage, how I like
and more space is always welcome

London

2009-05-06T02:10:00.000-07:00

The candle that melted and clogged the bathroom sink !
We fixed it sans plumber

handful on the ferry to Dover

Metz, France

2009-05-06T01:55:00.000-07:00

Old, Old Hotel
phone in the toilet
mechanic shoe shining kiosk, i used it

After a show at a cafe that looked like open mic night
After a disaster soundcheck where our beats and bass were too much for the system
And a full sheet of sheet metal curled off the wall like a wave and knocked one of the speakers to the ground, narrowly missing Michael

Mülheim

2009-05-06T01:04:00.000-07:00

Our show in Mülheim was at AZ Mülheim, an anarchist compound rented from the city, with a heavy queer contingent. We slept in a room filled with bunkbeds which led me to some serious fantasies, scouting the audience for possible players. No takers. It was just us, the band, in bunks. And see the below the bounty presented to us in the garden for breakfast. That's guacamole, salsa, fried tofu strips and sprouts, yes it is best breakfast thus far.

Got back the Leather Daddy cap, Mongolian boots--delivered from Lyon to Paris, and the Peace suspenders never lost. Some others replaced. Others, we are still waiting.

Gay Power in Freiburg!

2009-04-24T01:55:00.000-07:00

At our third show in Freiburg, a small town with many students, but not many queers, a room of strangers turned into a gay dance party. The opening band Sons des Disco told us about their old show where they would makeout with one another on stage. So during our set we asked them to join us, and here is the documentation of the night.

ON MY WALL AS I GO (Thank you Emma)

2009-04-22T16:39:00.000-07:00

EH made me this beautiful folded folding structure to pack in my suitcase and unpack and embrace while travelling. Here it is in two different venues, different situations. Tonight I can smell my feet--I am wearing my oxfords on stage without socks now. I left my stage boots on the boat after our first show! And waiting for them to meet me in Paris. Tonight I am happy after an incredible show, with friends in the audience for the first time, people psyched. It makes such a difference to me.

And tonight I gave a first? solo performance, opening for Vaginal Davis, who opened for us. One of the organizers of the event, Melissa, asked me to WHIP her and I made a flogger in the van and talked about her asking me to perform a service and talked about the process of making the flogger and then inviting people there to come hit Melissa who was tied to a wall in the space. She was turned on. I think we were all excited.

OFF OUR BACKS

2009-04-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

O U R F I R S T M U S I C V I D E O !!!

Munchen

2009-04-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

DAY OF ARRIVAL

DYING, FOLDING SHIRTS

SUNBATHING, JET LAGGING, AND PICKING FORSYTHIA LEAVES FOR TOUR TEA

the night before

2009-04-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

one boot on

half my foot

suitcase half open but all outfits decided

even though the suitcase is open nothing can be added

destination middel gender festival lyon on a boat

sipping coconut water off the floor