07 July 2012

The Fully Functional Cabaret: Trans Women's Secrets... Revealed


Last night my friend A. and I went to see The Fully Functional Cabaret: Trans Women's Secrets...Revealed!  For those of you who have been going to small Bay Area theater for awhile, you know it's always a toss up.  You are just as likely to see some self-indulgent, self-therapeutic, feel better garbage that is ill-crafted or possibly some really abstract, conceptual contemporary dance that you will have to pretend to "get" in order to save face with your friends, colleagues, community, what have you as you are to see a really quality production.
Well ladies, gentlemen and everyone on the gender spectrum, The Fully Functional Cabaret is the show you have been waiting for.  This is the gold, the jackpot, that raw and real balanced equation of laughter and isolation, comedy and pain that makes for a theatrical experience that stays with you.  Annie Danger, the Emcee is a seasoned performer and rabble rouser.  She really brings it!  Seriously, it's like watching Joel Grey on acid.  She and the rest of the ensemble (Bryn Kelly, Red Durkln, Ryka Aoki, Shawna Virago, and Star Amerasu escort you through the humour and tragedy, the power and terror of their human experience.  The show is so well-crafted in this way.  First they make you laugh, you get broken open, then there is a bit of heaviness, then laughter again.  And it cycles through like this 2 or 3 times until you don't get to laugh anymore because shit gets REAL!  I swear, I almost had to leave at one point when Star Amerasu was portraying an attack by "doctors."  She kept screaming for help and no one helped her.  I swear, I know it was "not real," but at one point I really thought I was going to run up on stage and help her, take her away from the "men."  (Just so you know, folks in the show, that part is so super-intense that it is just as likely that you have someone try to save Star.  Be ready.)
I also really liked the part about saying, "I'm sorry."  Interesting, when you think about it.  How many times a day do you apologize for the space you take up?  Are you trans, queer, female, a person of color, otherly-abled?  How much of your energy goes to trying to assimilate, to just fit in?  How often do you apologize for who you are?  I loved screaming, "I'm not sorry!" At the top of my voice with a hundred other people.  And I'm not.  My queer, "disabled," female-identifying deserves to take up the space it does!  We all get to take our space!  Stop saying "I'm sorry," unless you really are apologizing for something.  It's just as easy to say, "I can make room for that," or "There is space for you here."
What I really loved about this show was that I did not feel like the performers needed any sort of confirmation of themselves from me.  They brought me confirmatin of myself.  I'm not a trans woman, but I saw myself and my struggle represented on the stage. 
This isn't just queer theater/trans theater/other theater, folks.  This is theater!  I would put it up there with Hedwig and the Angry Inch in terms of universal appeal.  It's not just for a queer crowd.  Gay, straight, trans, cis-, whoever you are, you understand Hedwig and the Angry Inch as a human story, and The Fully Functional Cabaret commands the same appeal.
In short, I had an awesome night at the theater!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the show, A. and I go to Lucky 13 for a beer.  Not my favorite bar in the Castro, but the least crowded on a Friday night.  We discuss the show a bit.  She says, "I don't want to be bi or gay or straight.  I don't like any of these labels.  I just want to be me."
"Sounds pretty queer."  I offer.
"No, just me.  I have a boyfriend.  People won't like it if I say I'm queer."
"Queer just means that you reject hetero-normative culture as a default setting."
We finish our beers and are getting ready to go.  Some drunk guy at the table next to us says to me, "I can tell you're a really good person."
I say, "Thanks!  Hey, what are you doing tomorrow night?  You should go see this."  I show him my program from the show.  His friend comes around to his side of the table, curious.
"What's the show?"
"The Fully Functional Cabaret: Trans Women's Secrets...Revealed!"  I give a little flourish with my hand. 
And all the safety I felt a moment ago vanishes as his features steel over in disbelief and he takes a step back.  "You guys aren't trans, though.  Are you?"
I feel my body tense, my chest puff out a little, "Maybe."
"No, you guys are real girls!" He laughs.
I make a fist.  First off, trans women ARE "real" girls.  Secondly, don't call me a girl, meathead!
"You know, that's really rude to question what's in my pants.  I mean, what's in yours?  Huh?  Don't I seem rude for asking?  Or assuming?" 
A. steps between us, mumbles to the guy, "You really don't want to start this with her."  And ushers me out of the bar. 
"Wow," she shakes her head in disbelief.  "We just saw that onstage."
"Yeah, well.  It's real.  Welcome to the life of a Gender Warrior."

06 July 2012

The Big Burn

Journal Burn at Ocean Beach


I'm staying in the outer sunset in a small apartment.  It is so thrilling to be in a safe neighborhood with Sunset Super (huge Asian grocery) only two blocks away.  I have made productive time of my week off by setting up my sewing machine and beginning to work on my PJ's Pussies again.  I have an exhibition coming up on November 2nd at Other Nature in Berlin.  I've walked to the beach and stared out at the Pacific Ocean a few times.  You know, it's exactly the same as when I left it?  Something about the sea has always been comforting to me.  In the grand scheme of things, I am so unimportant.  Whether I keep breathing or cease, am happy or sad, am here or not, the ocean keeps rolling in and out to the gravitational pull of the moon.
It seemed only right that I should have my book-burning bonfire next to the ocean. 

Yesterday was spent salvaging a handful of pages from two big storage crates of notebooks, for that night I would take them all to the fire pits at Ocean Beach and burn them.  I spent the majority of the day either on Skype with Robert, reading him things from my past, or with my friend Ra.
Ra!
At 17:45, my old friend Lilli picked me up and we loaded up her car with my journals.  I was nervous about the evening.  Was I erasing my past or freeing myself of old demons.  I had wanted to create some sort of ritual aspect, but the practicality of the venture, the ridding myself of the material possessions, seemed at the forefront for me.  I wish I had organized the event better, picked out certain passages for myself and others to read.  The evening pulled together nicely anyway, with there being the focus of beginning on starting a fire in high wind to center my chaotic flurry of thoughts and direct my energy in a forward moving fashion. 
I had spent all day with the material, all my writing: shame, secrets, fantasies, dreams and regrets.  All of the loneliness, isolation, alienation, strength, compassion, and absurdity that I have ever felt was between the pages of 1993 to 2011.  I learned things about myself.  In the past, I have allowed people to treat me so badly.  I have accepted the treatment of chauvinists and manipulators without question, always trying to look inside them, find excuses for their behavior in some tortured past, some internal struggle.  I struggled with substances and addiction?  Who knew?  I've been writing about sexuality, gender, otherness, drawing pictures of vaginas since I was 18 years old.  As we age, our form may change, our technique improve, but we work with the same themes over and over again.  14 years of these themes, questions, emotions.  Among the things I kept are several drawings and poems, some specific moments, and maybe an entry to share and burn with Robert when I return to Berlin in August. 
I also realized that, damn, I used to write!  All the time!  With a pen!  On lined paper!  I was really good at it.  Really good!  Why, oh why am I not doing that anymore? I will get a new journal and attempt to start a new practice.  I will not be afraid to write about the things I used to write about.  I will write about how I feel about everything.  I have a lot to say. 
Goodbye self-hatred and not fitting in.  Goodbye shame and insecurity.  Goodbye isolation and believing I am too different or weird or freaky or unique for people to love and understand.  Goodbye addiction and suicide.  Goodbye letting men treat me like garbage. 
Goodbye abuse! 
Goodbye bad boyfriends!
Hello self-worth, self love and self-empowerment!

My life: an intense and radical experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone but I don't regret at all.

And now, photos:
Box 2
                                                                        The Journals
Box 1
We arrived early enough to get a pit!

Lilli stoked the fire

Burn, Baby, Burn!

Me!  The beach in San Francisco is not warm!

It took a little while, but we finally got a nice steady burn going on.

Part of a perk to writing in notebooks vs. a computer is that a journals are so sensual, not only stimulating for the eye but for the tactile senses as well.

The sun begins to say goodnight.



A LOT of ash!

I think this journal is from '99 or 2000? Maybe 2002?  Somethings never change.

Everything burned.  Let's sit, watch and go home.