I fell into Greer Lankton’s exhibition DOLL PARTY at Company—or more precisely, I stumbled. I don’t mean I stumbled upon the show at random. I actually caught myself before I went tumbling off the bottom step of the steep staircase that led to the dim black-walled gallery space, stabilizing my unsteady legs before my joints … Continue reading
“Well, fuck you! You wanna fuck me, don’t you? I know. I know. I don’t blame you. If I was all of you, I’d want to fuck me too. You don’t see too many of THESE in Dayton, do you, honey?” Who could deny the demented allure of our putrid and preeminent filth deity Divine? … Continue reading
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeehaw!! *spins cowboy hat around* Ahem…*cough* whoa! What’s that? What’s with my fringed and rhinestone-studded jacket, bolo tie and boots? Well, I want to be a cowboy, baby! Here, grab some whiskey, preferably from a dusty and potentially dangerous saloon, while we celebrate the birth of our country by diving headfirst into fanatical cowboy mania. … Continue reading
Recently, I realized I was abused as a child. No, I didn’t discover some satanic ritual trauma while going through repressed memory therapy. I visited La MaMa Galleria’s current exhibition Lost Merchandise of the Dreamlanders, which confronted me with an idyllic John Waters-infused childhood I never had–a childhood where I could play tea party with … Continue reading
“To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt,” says Susan Sontag in On Photography, who was one of many Downtown fixtures captured by photographer Peter Hujar. Present in Lost Downtown, an exhibition commemorating the devastatingly impressive … Continue reading
I’ll never forget the first time I laid eyes on Harris Glenn Milstead, better known as the cinematic terrorist, the filthiest person alive, the queen so fucking beautiful she cant stand it herself, Divine. She was strutting, sashaying and sneering her way through the streets of Baltimore, leaving a trail of shock and sleaze in her … Continue reading
Toasting our Filthy Dreams glasses back to Dolores De Luce, her rallying cry for those inhabitants of the Island Of Misfit Toys powerfully describes the individuals filling the pages of her moving and hysterical memoir, My Life, A Four Letter Word: Confessions Of A Counter Culture Diva. Continue reading