Nothing’s shocking: Femina Potens and Dave Navarro

Twincest and Dave Navarro.

Last week I had the honor of being Twincest‘s guest for a private taping of IFC and Dave Navarro’s upcoming show, “Body Shots”. They were in town and went to a few places, but spent an entitre evening at Femina Potens featuring local porn and art heroine (and friend) Madison Young, the gallery and what it does in the world, Sadie Lune and queer porn stars / performance artists Jiz Lee and Shawn. I was really excited to be invited and be there, but I was thrilled that everyone in that evening’s episode — a vital slice of outsider San Francisco queer culture — will get exposure. My impression of Navarro’s series is that it’s him going around and finding “freaky” or fringey stuff and experiencing it, in his Hollywood celebrity way. The theme last week, and that night, was blood and fetish performance. Some of the blood was real, and some of it fake.

We were told no photos were allowed, but then again, I wasn’t asked to sign a release and I’m in many of the shots — Navarro was near, right in front of me, or talked to people I was talking to throughout the evening. Not one for saying hi to the person standing in front of him unless he is supposed to, I guess. Too bad; I was a huge Jane‘s fan long ago. He’s a friendly enough guy, but he’s one of those Hollywood people who keep themselves removed from the rest of us; he was polite and gracious with the performers, but ignored the rest of the room and didn’t mix, mingle or even talk to anyone else. Over the past year or so I’ve had a lot of encounters with mainstream celebs, I have even become friends with a couple, and I’ve noticed that there are two kinds of these people. One is like Margaret Cho, who talks to everyone, hangs out and spends time getting to know — and this is key — participating in the room, and the culture she’s encountering (and getting free footage out of). The other kind is like Tyra Banks or Navarro; divas who make an entrance, don’t mix with the natives, and stay removed (thought it feels like “above”) the rest of us. Navarro was a sort-of friendly diva. It was lame, and everyone talked about it, but he wasn’t a total dick. And I have to give the guy props for blogging. It was really noticeable when he made his entrance; we were coached by a staff member that “When Dave walks in, the room tends to get quiet, so just try and keep talking when he walks in.” I rolled my eyes and joked that if he was simply in the room with us the whole time, like the rest of us, being normal and getting to know us, they wouldn’t have that little “problem” when the cameras were rolling.

Navarro asking Madison for her contact information while the cameras roll. Suzanne Forbes said, “oh shit! Lotsa luck Dave, our Madison’s out of your league!”

At any rate, Twincest did an intense, and gorgeous blood drawing performance that had me clenching my thighs, and a nice touch to the piece was them passing a video camera back and forth, showing the view of whoever was active in the performance on a screen between them. Sadie Lune drew blood from Navarro and painted his portrait, and yes, he helped with the vein finding and just *had* to mention that he’d been a heroin addict for 17 years. I was in the background chatting with some well-known Kink.com professionals, and we just kind of sighed when we overhead that, and went back to our conversation about sex blogging and Best Sex Bloggers and I was invited to contribute (yay!). At the end, Lochai (Hogtied) and Madison Young did a sexy and riveting bondage piece while Navarro sat at my feet (below image, left).

What’s crazy to me is that the episode won’t air until next June. I joked to Shawn that everyone’s hair will be different and someone’s bound to have a new sleeve (tattoo) by then. I wondered how the hell this is a sustainable model for media. How can things be relevant when they’re that delayed?

I wondered this outside with Shawn and Jiz, and then they told me what Takeshi Miike films I needed to see (all of them). Meanwhile as taping continued inside and we chatted, we watched a guy and a girl on the other side of Market Street rip down and steal the abandoned Washington Mutual “coming soon!” banner. Which was truly punk rock, if you ask me.

There are more photos here. “Body Shots” should really have a blog (or even a link), and a Twitter feed, you know? (Navarro is on Twitter but it’s sadly abandoned.) It’s not like they’re moving through the world invisibly. Those days are long gone.

All photos taken with my Helio Ocean.