GAY MAY DAYS: Friday Night

Cody, Jason, April, Jared. Click on photos for larger image. All photos by Travis Wood.

GAY MAY DAYS got off to a beautiful start on Friday night with an evening of special performances in tribute to LGBTQ icons in "HOMO HEROES." Several LA based performance artists got to honor the spirits of gay greats alongside the Legacy Garden Altar that was constructed from the stage to the back wall.

Neil, Jol, Brian, Tyr

The evening started off with the lighting of the bonfire, a traditional element of Beltane. Tyr Geoffrey Jung-Hall brought a fun assortment of twisted candles that were used in a previous ritual and so several of us got to stand in a circle and pass the fire around as we said blessings for a wonderful weekend.

Jol Devitro and Brian DeShazor pass the fire around

Everybody lights the fire as one

Honored guest Malcolm Boyd in the fire's glow

 

Then Ian MacKinnon propelled us into the evening with a segment of his Gay Hist-orgy, his tribute to Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, which was also the first piece that ignited his entire tour-de-force series.

This was followed by the darling of the underground music scene, Monica Howe, aka La Muff, paying tribute to the iconic cross-dresser and provocateur, Marlene Dietrich.

Keeping with the Weimar Republic of Germany theme, we moved on to honor the renowned German psychologist Magnus Hirschfeld. Neil Eliot read from his original script about the "Einstein of Sex."

The audience was then treated to the cabaret-stylings of Jose Promis who sang the song "Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves" from the cult classic movie "Querelle" with lyrics by the one and only man of wit, Oscar Wilde.

Then I took to the stage to present a specially formatted section of my play "Cavafy's Caress" about the intimate world and words of Constantine P. Cavafy. With the help of Jason North, we helped deliver a sexy tribute to one of the most celebrated modern poets.

 

Then to add a bit of performance art variety to the evening, Doug Hammett performed his crowd-pleasing playful striptease number, "Softman", which includes a stunning quilted costume sewn by the multi-talented artist himself.

Act Two got off to a rousing start with the comic stylings of R. SKY Palkowitz and a raunchy tribute to the gay icon, Mae West, whom you should definitely come up and see sometime.

Then Ian took to the stage once again and presented a very heart-felt song "I'm a Man" by the first openly gay pop star, Jobriath, a man far ahead of his time and who sadly was shunned by the public for daring to be too effeminately out in the 70's.

Broadway Playwright Robert Patrick then took to the stage and gave us a little history lesson about early Broadway lyricists and how they depended on female characters in musicals to sing about their sexual longings for men. He charmed audiences by singing a cappella.

Then Brian DeShazor shared an audio clip about the early Radical Faeries movement from the vaults of Pacifica Radio KPFK, where he is in charge of the archives.

Jean Spinosa and Mike Penny paid tribute to one of the greatest rock bands in history, Queen! With Jean as frontsman Freddie Mercury and Mike as guitarist Brian May. Jean explained how well Freddie took care of his many lovers throughout his life and sang "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" with backup dancers Ian and Jason.

Terrence Luke Johnson paid homage to his friend the beat poet Robert Duncan, who was an essential part of the San Francisco Renaissance.

The final performance of Act 2 was Coral Lobera and a tribute to the Grammy-Award winning Ranchera musician, Chavela Vargas.

Of course we finished off the night with the audience participating in a festive may pole dance. Check the next blog for photos from that!