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!

Honoring Ancestors & the In-Between

This is a time to honor our ancestors, to honor the shoulders we stand upon for our physical and spiritual life, to honor the cycle of life and death, to honor space between those worlds, and to honor our connection to them. And it may seem strange to honor that in half glittery drag face and half day of the dead, but I am honoring too the nature of being a two-spirit, of male and female, of living in two worlds, of feeling life and death in every moment and action and purpose of being.

I've lived my whole life trying to make sense of the various emotions and feelings, thoughts and ideas, experiences and abilities that support someone who feels so strongly a sense of connection between worlds and the space in between. That path can seem an unusual one, and it requires diligent effort to follow, but it I am not alone. Many other brothers and sisters are doing our part to search for the strength to pursue our spiritual and sexual lives consciously and artistically, to pursue a path of love among darkness, through the fear, through the threats, through the chaos of the world. We are all creatures of duality and of more than merely flesh, so listen closely to the spirits from beyond and the history that has written us. I honor those who have influenced my story.

Today I give thanks to my brother, Solaris, my miscarried twin, the Polydeuces to my Castor of the Gemini archetype. He is my guide and my true love, and yet we shall always dance between life and death. His is a story of which there is always much more to tell.

I give thanks to my physical ancestors, the cherished memories of those whom have now passed. To Glenn and Gerry Lackender, who influenced me dearly. They were the grandparents I looked up to so fondly, and who disappointed me, but also allowed me to recognize ultimately that the disappointment was an illusion and that their love for me was true and their contributions to the community they served so very real and still valued to this day. I feel them through me seeking to address human mistakes, and help restore connection to the beautiful family they created. I struggled so hard covering up my two-spirit sexuality from them, but they recognized the true essence of me regardless and loved me and love me still from beyond; this I know.

So to I honor and feel the love of my great grandfather Julius, whom I visited as a child many times on the way home from school in the local nursing home. We bonded closely during his last years and even after his death I felt so connected to him in the other world. If he hadn't moved to America from Switzerland after WWI, I would not exist.

I honor all of my ancestors, and the lives they lived, the hardships they endured. I do not seek to let their work go forgotten or unrecognized. I thank them for giving me the opportunity to experience this life in this present day. I seek to make the most of it, in the way that feels right for me to blossom creatively and uniquely. Through their struggles, they have given me the freedom to be of choice and possibility. I hope to leave similar choices for future generations.

I honor my cousin, Mike, a dear friend growing up and to whom although we drifted apart, were connected in spirit. I hope he will have a long lasting legacy for his bold and brave vision that was being a true steward of the Earth.

I am two-spirit, and I owe my life to so many ancestors. While I may not carry on their legacy through the process of the bloodline, I serve a role and carry on the spiritual pursuits and contributions.

I give humble appreciation to so many spiritual brothers and sisters, not related by blood. So many artists, philosophers, creators, inventors, leaders, soldiers, lovers, poets, writers, activists, historians and the like who have given us this world of riches beyond imaging. Our life is filled with their contributions and I do not wish to take that for granted. I appreciate how my life has been influenced and affected by their lives. They live on beyond in various ways.

There are so many that I seek to honor throughout my blog on this day and others. And too there are so many living cherished ones who I am honored to be connected to and celebrating this experience of life with. I seek to bridge the worlds through living fully and artistically. Art is the language of life. It is through the understanding and appreciation of life, that we come closer to understanding death as well.

Much gratitude for the gifts given.