What a weekend. Did I have a run-in with hippies? Yes I did. I wish I could’ve had a bit more of Halloween weekend left over, which I did not blog about but probably because I’ve been waiting for my blood-alcohol levels to return to "normal" before I even begin to think about it. The pictures speak for themselves. A big group of people came to my house; we drank; we all made each other up as zombies, then we hit the streets and parties. We all wound up at a famous dominatrix’s house (same place/party as last year). Naughty Vixen came along — remember her? She’s still hot. Now she strips and makes movies, sheesh. We made out a little (out of view of her date, in full view of Hornboy), and boy was that fun. Yummy! (pics are from Halloween)
No, last weekend was a mixed bag ‘o porno weirdness. It’s all about the PornOrchestra event. I arrived at the gallery early — too early, but it’s in the East Bay, so I was stuck. Which was fine. The mysterious, always disguised, shadowy figurehead Shannon Marriemont was in fine form. Being early gave me a chance to go over the questions she had prepared for me. I lingered in the gallery. There were three stinky hippie white Rasta guys hanging out; I avoided them like any other hippies. I was introduced to them and found out they were part of the evening’s lineup of performers, joy.
But, I knew I was going to be interviewed onstage, and didn’t know what I was going to say. At present I have reached a strange point of critical mass with journalists and people in general; I am overwhelmed with work, very tired, yet quite nervous about speaking in front of people. It has turned into a state of mind where I no longer care what people think about how I come off — though as it turns out, I come off relaxed and funny. Go figure. At least, that’s what happened in the intro to the evening’s entertainment for PornOrchestra. Shannon and I talked onstage about porn music for 20 minutes — why I write about it, what I think of it. I write about it because it’s extreme. I think no one knows how to define it, and that’s what makes it interesting. The idea behind PornOrchestra is to radically re-interpret porn scores, and for each event performers take scenes from porn videos and make their own music to the scenes, live. The finale is a 15+ person orchestra and live conductor. So in our talk Shannon and I listened to the music that was being re-interpreted that evening, and I talked about the porn cultures each music selection speaks to (and comes from). I also talked about the cultures around each selected scene. It just so happened that I’d seen all the selected films except one. The one I hadn’t seen was from 1976, so I talked about the porn culture back then to give the film some context for the audience.
The visuals began with a scene from the Japanese anime video Teacher’s Pet (gleefully re-scored by Militant Children’s Hour); then the film I don’t know; then a scene from Full Load (great dyke/boi/FTM porn); and finally the orchestra was to score my favorite, The Operation. The hippies were going to re-score the dyke scene. I noticed that from my vantage point onstage, they looked uncomfortable when I talked about the film’s merits. I contextualized by explaining the wonderful DIY to female sexuality approach these indy lesbian films have, as a reaction to not seeing their real sexuality expressed anywhere else. The hippies’ nervous fidgeting set off my radar, but I just kind of filed it away for later.
Being onstage was fun. Next time — and there will be a next time — we might provide commentary throughout the show (with a few caveats, read on). The re-scoring to teacher’s Pet was awesome. The eerie techno re-scoring of the bizarre Satanic porno from the 1970s was hilarious. Then the hippies took the stage, with their giant expensive-looking soundboards. Full Load began. Then there was a scene of a giant cock — wait a minute, that’s not in the film. I remembered that when Shannon cued up their tape, they said they accidentally recorded over the scene, but "just for a minute." Okay, then back to the Full Load scene. Then back to the cock. What the fuck? They had clearly tampered with the scene. It was beginning to be less and less the dyke scene, and more and more a really weird cock-worship scene. And it was going on forever, and their music was boring. I was kinda confused. I mean, it looked like they put work into re-editing the tape. Why would they lie? I felt my anger rising. They lied. Fucking hippies. How typical. I looked around the room. I told all those people that they were going to see hot dyke porn, indy DIY porn. And they weren’t. I hoped they didn’t think the kinda gross spliced in footage was what I meant, or that I had anything to do with it. Then another change, oncreen. A scene began that was a close-up of a man nailing his penis to a board. I got up and went behind the merchandise table. My blood was cold, and the audience was getting loud with noises of disgust. I felt sick — why? Because I never, ever wanted to see what they were showing onscreen.
I know intellectually that the scenes were of a man named Bob Flanagan, known for extreme masochistic body play and performance art. I knew the scenes were out there, I had just done my best to avoid them. I am an open-minded sex educator — with boundaries. I’ve seen the beginnings of shit porn, but I turned it off because I just don’t want to ever see it. I know that there is a porn starlet who gives herself paint enemas and then paints paintings using her distended colon as a brush, but I never want to see it, either (though I wrote Spinal Tap style article about it as an "art movement").
I kept my back turned to the screen, to the audience, trying not to see even out of the corner of my eyes what was onscreen. I kept seeing snippets of nail, a purple penis, and copious amounts of blood dripping onto the camera lens. Fuck, it was awful. People were leaving the gallery. Not surprisingly, someone asked for their money back — a statement when you consider that the event was a much-needed fund-raising benefit for the gallery. I felt sick, and I was furious for reasons it would take me days to understand. One man leaned over to me and said, "You know, I have a kid. And I wonder just what you have to do to make a kid that fucked up." I didn’t know if he meant the activity onscreen, or the hippies. "Yeah," I said. "I’m open-minded, but–" he interrupted "–but, ‘as long as you harm no one, or yourself.’" I replied, "–and this is *nonconsensual*."
By the time the orchestra hit the stage to re-score my favorite adult film, there were plenty of places to sit. Which was unfortunate, because the orchestra’s performance was incredible. I mean, truly amazing improvised live music that at one point was really swingin’. *And* with a stand-out trombone solo by Hornboy.
After the performance ended people left quickly, and right then my friend Pixie showed up, at about midnight. He asked if we were just getting started; I asked if he just woke up, or what. He realized that he’d walked into an agitated group, me and four others talking about what happened. Pixie asked, "What happened?" I said, "Well," I pointed at the hippies, fifteen feet away, and continued loudly, "*Those* selfish fucking white Rasta hippies over there decided to lie about the tape they brought, and instead played a tape of a guy nailing his dick to a board. So the presenters and I look like big fat fucking idiots, and the audience won’t be back. Fucking selfish hippies." Pixie smiled wickedly, being no stranger to my temper, or my unending supply of bile for spoiled hippies. He liltingly said, "How typical."
I have to wonder, is it porn and sexuality that make dipshits like those hippies revert to 15-year-old reactions, such as trying to gross everyone out? Or were they trying to prank or ruin the PornOrchestra performance/gallery benefit? Were they trying to insult the dyke porn? Likely, they’re just selfish pricks in every aspect of their lives. I guess I’m just wondering "out loud" when I’m going to be able to have a fun, experimental, grown-up public discussion about porn without someone acting like a total fucking retard.
I’m still a little disturbed by what I saw, and that sucks. But I have pretty good coping mechanisms for this kind of stuff.
Thankfully, I got a lot of writing done over the weekend, coming to a finish on a couple of book contracts. Only three more to go. I can’t remember what it’s like to have a life without a book contract. I wonder if this is what novelists feel like. Someday I hope to write a book that’s personal. On Sunday I took a break to meet one of the coolest guys I’ve hung out with in a long time, Allen, creator of the web-controlled sex machine, The Thrillhammer. We talked about machines and robotics and controls. I regaled with tales of working in robots in Tokyo (tales that are probably getting old by now). A few SRL people and a sex machine inventor and a few beers — now that was a nice way to end a weekend.
