Ryan Trecartin

Oh my god, so I read the review of Ryan Trecartin in the New Yorker and went to his PS1 show expecting the worst, how often is anything with good reviews actually good? The great Chris Archangel show at the Whitney which was also highly touted turned out to be nothing much ...

So I get to PS1 and I go into the show and I have no idea what the hell it is. The review couldn't really tell you. It appears to be some idiot girls yakking away in high pictched squeals into their cell phones.

Anyway, it was great. Now watch big chunks of his videos DAILY. I can't live without it. the only thing that seems to confirm for me what I think I am seeing daily. No, I am not crazy. Another person sees it too!

Anyway, here's a tiny clip.

Ryan Trecartin

Symphony of Berlin

Just got back from a week in Berlin, hanging out with my mom and mostly doing tourist stuff. Saw interesting film SYMPHONY OF BERLIN, at the Neue National Galerie.

Hung out with a writer from TAG DE ZEIT and distinguished myself by not knowing anything about American Politics. Not even knowing who was running for president. She said people in Germany don't do anti-depressants, they drink. "It is opposite in your country?" she added.

Funnest stuff was just walking around. I lived here for a month in 1984. During the wall days. Thought about pitching someone an article, something like BERLIN REVISITED, or whatever, "then and now" but found I just liked thinking about it and didn't want to spend a week trying to figure out how to accurately portray myself twenty-some years ago. Impossible anyway. All I could think to say about myself was how I dressed then. Black everything, slicked back black hair, chain smoking, so Berlin was a good place for me back then....

Also in Berlin in 1984 I used to copy people's conversations down in notepads. The english conversations. One time this couple at the youth hostel were having a pretty serious love spat and I was sitting nearby scribbling along, and the guy turned to me with annoyance said "Are you getting all this down?", and I said, "I'm up to the part where she said: You never ask me how I feel."

RECOVERY ROAD REVIEW

Awesome review from "Picks of the Week" ...

DAY THIRTY FOUR: SISTER SPIT: CHICAGO

Pictured (sigh), the last set list (or one of the last set lists) from Sister Spit 2011.

So we headed back from Minneapolis, heading sound again, trying to escaped the snow and the bleakness, though I will forever hope to return to Minneapolis again to revisit the Seward Cafe because I think it changed my life, I think from now on I am going to become a partial foodie just because I realize that foodies are the most interesting diners, and it's just time for me to get on board this food stuff.

As Michelle Tea said about several things over the course of the trip: "You don't want to be on the wrong side of History" meaning your little jealous corrupted brain full of prejudices and preconceived notions and what not, cannot always be trusted.

I didn't like foodie-ism because I didn't feel like it fit in with my curmudgeonly view of myself, but it's time for me to adjust and change and try something that might stretch my brain.

This is why I quit smoking in 1989. Because I sensed that the smoking days were over. Smoking was going to change and become alienating and expensive and uncool. I was not going to want to be smoker in 1999. And I was right about that one.

The Foodie thing though I have been wrong about, and too cheap to indulge in and will probably remain so, but I am now officially interested in it or at least looking at the people who are .... which is a long way of saying I think I like the vibe of vegan restaurtants now .... I sure liked Seward Cafe.

So anyway. Back in the van. We land in Madison. The space is small, a cool little collective, sort of grungy and Portland-esque. Everyone was ill or something so poor BESSIE our host had to do everything herself, including setting up the chairs which I re-spaced for her because people often don't know the secret to setting up chairs is SPACING. Nothing worse than stuck in a chair with no room in front of you.

So we dicked around and got food at this super comfort food diner called Monty's that was Queer friendly, or at least had a queer waiter, and a highly eclectic menu. We came stumbling out of there late and got back to the space and had that wonderful SISTER SPIT occurence of A TOTALLY PACKED HOUSE. As a writer and goer to of writer things I have never seen anything literary consistently PACK THE SPACES like SS. Anyway.

So all went on. We killed. The standing room only crowd gave us a standing ovation!!!

Afterward I met Kelly from STACKED.COM which is a cool book site .... that interviewed me. That was fun. And some other fans. I never quite got the hang of hanging out after the show, I often hid in the back room, but whenever I did I always seemed to find several fans milling around. GIRL lives on, which is so cool, and so flattering.

The next day it was on to Chicago for our final gig. Things started slow as we all stood outside in the freezing cold waiting for the SUBTERRANEAN CLUB to Open. This was in trendy Wicker Park. Michelle was shaking with cold. They let us in finally. Things looked bad at first and there was a big blow up with some club people. But everything got done, as happens...

So then the show. We KILLED. AGAIN. It was great. I read the final scene in RECOVERY ROAD where Maddie tries to talk to Stewart and I CRIED !!!!!!!

Well I didn't actually shed tears but I kept having to step away from the mike and re-compose myself. I finally told the audience: "I'm sorry. I'm a cryer." I don't know if they were won over by that. They seemed to be with me though, in terms of the story. I did achieve that great thing of total silence from the crowd which is hard to do in a bar. But that scene is good and heartbreaking .... anyway, so that was the end of the tour and the end of the book and everything kind of wrapped up nicely.....

I am so glad I went on this tour. It was so fun and so interesting in so many ways. And I will never forget my crew!!!! What a great time. I am sad it's over but feel exhausted in a good way, in the best way. I LEFT EVERYTHING I HAD OUT THERE!!! Awesome!

DAY THIRTY-ONE: SISTER SPIT: MADISON, WI

Ali Liebegott, one of our fearless leaders, was alas not able to pass through Wisconsin without paying a price for culinary crimes....

MARYS! We only have two more dates on the tour!!! Everyone is so sad!! It's been SO FRICKIN' FUN!!

"Mary", by the way, is what everyone calls each other in the van. It is one of those spontaneous slang things that happens in such group situations.

One can be addressed as "Mary". "Can you hand me those cheese balls, Mary?"

One can express things to the Gods in the form of Mary. "Mary, is it ever going to stop raining?"

And one can simply say the word to oneself as a kind of protection from all human trials and tribulations. "Mary!" And it works.

BACK TO THE TOUR: So we left Bloomington and drove up to Ann Arbor where we had PHOEBE GLOECKNER as a guest performer!! MARY!! We are all INSANE fans of hers. The gig was weirdly not packed--we are spoiled--but it didn't matter and created a loose fun, whatevs kind of atmosphere which I like.

Phoebe went on last and told us about her knew project and she was a little tired but spoke interestingly about her life as an artist. It was more like a big conversation really, all of us chirping in, asking questions, etc. And then we had a great dinner after, paid for by the awesome gay bookstore COMMON LANGUAGE who helped put on the show.

Then back to one of the less nice hotels, but comfy for us as we all have gotten used to each other and don't mind stepping over each other's underwear on the way to the bathroom ... etc....

Then to Milwaukee where I found the greatest bookstore ever. RENAISSANCE BOOKS, in Milwaukee, google it, go there, make a special trip.

It is like Powell's used to be before it was online, and there was still crazy first editions of your favorite books, hidden behind a stack of UFO books. Plus it was HAUNTED. Plus NOBODY SEEMED TO WORK THERE. And then when you did find an employee they couldn't really talk to you because they were busy listening to Crystal Castles on their headphones. When I first walked in I thought I had walked into some crazy HORDER nightmare but everything turned out to be meticulously in place and findable. The whole experience was just extraordinary. I wished I had more eyepower left to read and poke around there, I lasted about three hours but your brain gets fried on tour and your eyes go ....

The Milwaukee gig was fun, it was in a nice newer bookstore called Boswell's. I read a piece from my memoir about meeting and hanging with Courtney Love in Portland when I was a wee little Portland scenester. I thought the local queer kids might notice who I was reading about but they didn't seem to, having been born after the whole Kurt and Courtney era. And probably not caring anyway, despite the HOLE-worship still practiced by Tavi and her ilk. (Self Constructed Freak)

Then it was back into the van and onto Minneapolis which holds an important place in my history and yet which I have never been to! Also F. Scott is from here and Garrison Keillor. Mostly I think of it through F. Scott's eyes though, but of course the world of rich kids riding around in motorboats on the lake is not anywhere I am going to be. Isn't that always the case? You go to some famous spot that is so alive in your mind only to realize, Truman Capote's New York is not on the subway....it's no where you can get to .... that's why people love it so much .... inaccessible ....

We did get to see a little bit of rich kid cool at Seward's Cafe though which is the trendy foodie hipster restaurant that Sister Spit frequents on all trips to the Twin Cities. I don't go to such places usually, but I have to get over that because this place was full of such interesting people, the Volvo/Oberlin/Crafter crowd as far as I could tell. Beautiful young women in their Minnesota Woolen Chic. MARY! I was dying with envy and falling in love with everyone. Why do I have such little interaction with this world? So nice. So cultured. So FOODIE FRIENDLY. Why can't I be a normal person!!?? I want to be like these people. Saturday brunch with friends! Everyone equal and happy and well adjusted and having good jobs and having just graduated from excellent liberal arts colleges. Oh I am such a mess compared to these people. But perhaps I am comparing "my insides to their outsides" which is never recommended....

Oh yeah, the gig. We sold out Bryant Park Theater, or whatever it was, in the Uptown section of Minneapolis. It had a bowling alley/bar/restaurant/theater. I'm totally serious.

And it was fucking cool. We packed it. Kicked it. KILLED IT. We were great. The people loved us. Then we hung out all night until the wee hours. Kirk Read and I bowled. More beautiful kids .... hanging out ... on dates ... with friends ... smoking cigarettes outside the club in their $400 MARMOT down coats. Maybe F. Scott's dreams are still alive here. Despite the strange feeling at times that no matter how hard we row, "We are boats being born backward, ceaselessly into the past."

Karaoke

Michelle sings Fleetwood Mac ...