Road Map

I love Baltimore. It is a city that pumps creativity into its drinking water, but without the smudge of big-city pretentiousness. I love how it is chronically underestimated, how it surprises people with its quirky-as-hell regionalisms and John Waters pride. And, of course, practical, future-tense Bomb loves its affordable housing prices.

Baltimore has a grittiness that jogs my nostalgia in the direction of Brooklyn and Philly. It’s that post-industrial landscape that is gradually being reinvented and given new life. I wandered into Mt. Washington in the gorgeous sunlight of a Saturday, the absolute perfect song playing through my sunroof, and stumbled across the only Whole Foods I would ever voluntarily move into. A stunning old mill building, converted into a Whole Foods with smaller boutiques surrounding it like wedding attendants.


I was there to perform at Baltimore Pride, which felt like sweet relief to me. Durham doesn’t have much of a queer scene to speak of, a fact that has disappointed me since my arrival 8 months ago. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, since The Bull City happens to be quite diverse, and although a population of 500,000 doesn’t constitute a thriving metropolis, it’s also not a farm town in the middle of Kansas.

Recently my burlesque show roadtrips have been leading me to medium sized cities with surprising underground communities of artists and queers and other sordid folk. It’s been inspiring; I feel like I’ve discovered some secret that everyone else has overlooked, other places where I could find a home.

But my Pride performance landed me exactly where I wanted to be: in a backstage dressing room with dozens of gorgeous drag queens. The main stage was being strangled by throngs of thousands of people, which was, in my estimate, the largest crowd I’ve ever performed for. And they were so into it, and supportive and receptive…as ideal as you like. I had a big burly bear chaperone, and dozens of drag queens fawning over me. And walking down the street to my car after the show, people hung their heads out the window and shouted, “Cherry Bomb!” waving and smiling until I blushed and laughed out loud.


Afterwards I wound up at an enormous house owned by a local artist, each room painted in Technicolor shades brilliant enough to evoke the jealousy of a Crayon box. There was a moonlit backyard pool with conversations overlapping our 2 degrees of separation. No one really knew each other that well, we just knew of each other, but it didn’t matter because we were friends. Which is how you end up a trio in the kitchen, laughing your faces off at absolutely nothing while you share the remainder of a bag of chips. And how, at 2:30 in the morning, after you’ve talked, smoked, and drank, you wind up skinny-dipping in the pristine pool. Because what is a Pride that doesn’t end with heading home much later than expected with your hair all wet?


I needed it. I needed to get out of town and experience the celebration of a Pride with no baggage. I remembered last year’s Pride in NYC, where I fought the heat of claustrophobic masses and the wave of nausea that seized me when my newly-minted ex walked by clasping the hand of the girlfriend she’d procured a few short months after our break-up. I relished the feeling of being around a group of people so easy to like, who warmed to me without any hesitation. The people are who make it easy to love Baltimore.

Really, it’s because one of my closest friends lives in Baltimore that it’s on my heart’s radar. She brought me there, this city that she’s made into a home, and opened the door for me. We’ve known each other for a long time, and of the two pieces of jewelry that I never, ever take off, she gave me one. When I look at it, it reminds me of the ways that friendships shift and expand, sprouting off pathways that intersect with other people. I feel grateful for that, because it’s difficult.

It’s difficult to take something that isn’t perfect and see it through its darker evenings. It’s difficult to stand beside someone in the midst of miscommunication, to trust them enough to take their hand and know that there is “the other side” waiting somewhere. It’s difficult to uncover someone’s imperfections, to be the victim of their transgressions, and to love them anyway.

This is why my friends are at the center of my universe. Because they have made the difficult choice to stand by me, even when there is no starting over, no clean slate. In the world of romance, it is so much more appealing to start fresh, lured by the fantasy that maybe this new person will be the one that wraps to fit perfectly; the one that will never let you down, never hurt you. Our hearts choose the lure of the unknown over the elbow grease of sorting through a dented and damaged history.

I understand it. It is that rush of potential and thrill of creation that I used to feel when admiring a blank sheet of paper…before the pressure of the blinking cursor and the temptation of the delete button. I understand why the future of possibilities with a “her” looks so much more appealing than trudging through the backlog of anger and hurt and frustration with me. That litany of disgustingly human flaws you wish you’d never seen.

But then there’s the fact that I know your favorite candy and find it in all of the convenience stores on my travels. And that I can surprise you by reciting obscure stories of your childhood back to you verbatim. Or that I can be the bedside gypsy that interprets your dreams first thing in the morning.

I can’t take any of it back, but this is the roadmap. And whether it leads to Baltimore or Atlanta or Brooklyn or San Francisco, who knows…

Juxtaposed

By Marilyn Minter, from her solo show "Green Pink Caviar," currently showing at Salon 94.

Last week at Atlanta’s MondoHomo, I debuted my “Scarred” number, which paid subtle homage to my love for the show “Nip/Tuck.” The music was the theme song from that show by The Engine Room, for which I’ve long held a bit of an infatuation. It’s a narrative about the ways that you can change your physical self, modify and smooth and bleach until the exterior causes people to feel that looking any deeper is unnecessary. Most people don’t feel inclined to question beauty; to push further and wonder what it is that hides beneath the pristine exterior.

Planned communities horrify me. They are endemic to the South, their carefully planned cul-de-sacs cropping up across the suburbs that flank the outskirts of our larger metropolitan areas. When flying into RDU or ATL, you can press your forehead up against the plastic-coated glass of your window seat, and watch the veins and arteries of their streets pulse with SUV’s and station wagons. The thing that truly terrifies me are people who want regulation mailboxes, identical to their neighbor’s. I feel they must be hiding something hideous. That their manicured lawns and chipless paint masks the father who drinks too much and bruises his wife, or the child that focuses all of his attention on dousing the family cat in kerosene.

I feel similarly about people with flawless exteriors. We put such a high premium on beauty, and will use its presence to forgive any degree of transgression. Beautiful people are invisible to us, because we only see what lives on the outside, smiling pleasantly as we step aside and allow them to glide through life unmolested.

It is a double-edged sword. To be beautiful and to observe beauty carries an equal burden.

I’ve never been a classically-styled burlesque performer. From the very beginning, I knew that particular brand of unblemished beauty would never suit me, and so I set out to find something that was more authentically mine; with safety pins, gun holsters strapped to my thigh, stretching myself out in the gutters of dirty streets. But it was an itch that I couldn’t quite scratch, a message that couldn’t quite make itself heard. I was never fully comfortable being the bearer of it, because the truth is that I have always wanted to be beautiful. I have wanted that easy, unquestioned beauty, the kind that lubricates the obstacles of life and makes people smile reflexively.

What I got was intensity, a focus that shimmers off my body in waves like Death Valley heat. What I got was power, an engine constantly humming in the background, revving at unsettling intervals without rhyme or reason. What I got was a twisted allure that makes people recoil slightly, a disconcerting kind of presence that evokes tendrils of fear and hatred at the periphery of minds almost instinctively. The people who are attracted to my brand of beauty are the kinds of people you would find picking through the gritty interiors of bombed-out warehouse buildings, angling cameras for the perfect wedge of natural light through shattered chunks of windowpane. The kinds of people who pump ragged heartbeats for the power of deconstruction, and lust the chrysalis of metamorphosis.

I have been told that I am intimidating. I intimidate myself.

After the show on Monday, someone came up to me and said, “I loved your piece…the juxtaposition of the beautiful and the grotesque is very powerful.” It hadn’t occurred to me to phrase it that way, but after the words were uttered, it felt true. To me, honesty is revealing what is also grotesque about beauty, that unsettling itch of deep sadness you feel in the midst of a breathtaking moment. Truth isn’t erasing that bittersweet pain, it’s embracing it and finding the moment of peace in that place.

Whiplashed

I realized after this most recent photo shoot that it had been a solid year since I’d had a solo shoot. I have mixed feelings about most photographers, and I can get awfully choosy about who I want seeing me that close up. I want to love their photos, I want to like their style…I want it to feel right in intimate ways, kind of like a first date.

Eddie felt right. Eddie Pinto of Whiplash Studios fell into my lap at my first show back in North Carolina, when he took some stunning shots of me. I loved the sigh of antique gothdom heaved by his photos and wanted very much to be one of his strange, strange girls. I asked to have him all to myself for a few hours for a photo shoot of one’s own.

Eddie is stylish, impeccably so, but he’s kind and calm. He doesn’t have that unapproachable razor-sharp edge that sometimes protects self-proclaimed “creative” types like barbed wire. And he doesn’t give constant direction, which I love. When I work with photographers who tell me to move my elbow this way or lift my chin up, I get angry and self-conscious. Angry because, seriously, let me do my job and you do yours, ‘kay? And self-conscious because, no matter how I try and rationalize away the feeling, having someone direct the minutiae of my body’s movement and angles makes me feel like I’m not doing it right.

Eddie was perfect. He encouraged my desire to crawl around on the ground and pour soy milk on myself. He wasn’t afraid to trek the midday Raleigh streets with me (in a corset) to suss out the best spots and backgrounds. He was in it to win it, and I adore him. Not to mention the shots that came out of our afternoon adventure.

I love it when photographers get down n’ dirty with me like he did, sprawling out on the pavement to get just the right angle. It reminded me of the shoot I did many years ago with Paule Saviano in Dumbo, BK. I rolled around on cobblestone streets and got so dirty that immediately following the shoot I went and got in the water to wash off. You know you’re pretty nasty dirty when you think the East River is cleaner than you are.


Eddie took me to this little alley next to what can only be described as the jumpin’-ist little mom n’ pop hot dog joint I have ever seen. There was a line out the door and around the block, which may sometimes happen at Magnolia in the West Village, but something I ain’t never seen the likes of this side of the Mason-Dixon. Turns out they were waiting to get in to The Roast Grill, famous for grilled hot dogs since 1940. We parked our gear in the alley and began shooting, much to the interest and confusion of all the nice, certainly good Christian families waiting in line.

15 minutes into our shoot, the side door open and out stepped a man from the back of the restaurant. I expected him to shoo us away, worrying that such an unwholesome sight would be bad for business, but he kindly motioned for us to finish shooting, inviting us in for hot dogs when we were done.

Turns out this sweet man was none other than George, the proprietor of The Roast Grill, which I found out post-shoot while I sat on the vintage bar stools at their counter. I typically don’t eat hot dogs, but I had nothing but coffee for breakfast and had been strapped into a corset until 3:30pm. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to pose for a 2 hour long photo shoot, on a street, in a corset, but it’s hard to breathe and you work up one hell of an appetite.

So, I sat down at the counter.

“How many hot dogs do you want?” he asked.

“Um, one?” I said.

He nodded. “Okay, but you’re going to want another one. What do you want on it?”

“Um, mustard? Ketchup?”

“No ketchup. Don’t need it ‘cause the chili’s so good. Best to get it with chili and slaw on it.”

“Okay then, I’ll do that.”

He fixed the hot dog and sat it down in front of me. “Want a Coke?”

I also never drink soft drinks, especially not of the non-diet ilk, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. When in Rome…

“Okay. Yes please.”


The hot dog was incredibly delicious. And the Coke was tiny and came in one of those old-school glass bottles. I happily stuffed my face while George told me about the place. That it had been around for quite awhile; that they only served hot dogs, but had never served any ketchup. “If you really need it,” he said, “you can bring your own.” I thought about those commercials from the 80’s where the woman pulls her own salad dressing out of her purse, and it made me giggle. While we chatted, a preacher came in to pick up an order of 22 hot dogs, which seems like an awful lot to carry, but nobody blinked an eye. Bulk orders must be common.

The day was about as brilliant as it could be, and it opened up a side of Raleigh that I hadn’t seen. One of the things I loved so much about my little Brooklyn neighborhood is that I could go exploring. Long walks each weekend uncovered some new little store or café that had opened up in an innocuous sidewalk nook. One of the things I was reluctant to come back to were the static, obvious layouts of certain Southern cities. There would be no mystery, no intrigue.

Now I know differently. I’m “discovering” all kinds of new faces to the cities of The Triangle that I thought I knew so well. And I like my face against that backdrop, not to mention the delicious hot dogs I get as a reward for my hard work afterwards.

A to ...

I could tell you about the things I find when I scrape the underside of the night, halfway between here and there. It wouldn’t do them justice. I could settle into these deep, pulsating beats with sugar.ache vocals because that’s what I feel. If I could sign language you the music cranking through my eardrums then maybe you might feel this space with my words.

Always and always missing. I am the babystep in between rebuilt and destroyed. I am nostalgic with homesickness for the places I loved and the people I lived. Forever and ever shifting and eroding into new mountains on top of which new roots take hold. You and me, we chopped this wood. I have the heart now like I never did before.

These deep rainy day aches suffer me the beauty I always saw in us. The greatest beauty hides the deepest ugliness, but in the scarred, in the broken and bruised, is the emancipation of the unflinching, exquisite truth.

tease.

Before I became a burlesque performer, I was an organizer; an activist that organized at a grassroots level. I still consider myself to be an organizer, and this burlesque thing is about as grassroots as it gets.

It’s a daunting task, to build a scene. You have to educate people, convince them that what you’re doing is worth taking a look at, worth spending their precious time and money to come see. You have to somehow transpose your passion onto them, let your internal love affair seep from your pores, enough to be infectious, but not so much as to be crazy.

And you have to enlist the help of people that love you. Or the people that love what you do. Or the people that are just adventurous enough to take a chance on you.

Like Scott Jennings and Ginny Skalski, both of whom covered The Carolina Heartbreakers on their blogs right at the moment of our birth. And Sean Baker, who volunteered his insane design skills to make us this gorgeous flyer for the show this weekend. He cranked it out one late night, and I’m so in love with it that I have a copy ready to be mounted for the wall in my apartment.

It’s these kindnesses that make it easier to do something that hasn’t really been done before. In New York City, things take off so quickly. Audiences have such a short attention span that the problem isn’t getting them, it’s keeping them. Durham is teaching me about building, laying on bricks and gradually becoming a part of something that I’ve helped to create. It feels more organic, and I’m learning the value of patience…and flyering. I’m definitely re-learning how to flyer.

With that said, come out this Saturday night to celebrate The Carolina Heartbreakers’ Durham debut! Not only do we have the genius of the J’Cougarz on hand, an all-vinyl, all-female DJ troupe for the dance party afterward, but it’s also my birthday!

tease.

Saturday, April 25th
9pm

The Pinhook
117 Main Street
Durham, NC

$5 suggested donation

Share.

I’ve always been good at sharing. I grew up in a household with many siblings and little money: sharing was the only way. Though I am too petite for most people to share my clothing, I do help myself to sharing other people’s prized hoodies, sweatshirts, and tank tops. I share my opinions freely and share my favorite stories over and over again. And I share my feelings. Incessantly.

So in the vein of generosity and sharing, I’m going to share with you a few websites that I have been crushing on for the past couple of weeks, in case you’re like me and crave a bit of a springtime love interest.



I don’t tell many people this, but I am obsessed with weddings. I’ve been planning mine for years, right down to the hemline on my dress. This may be a normal pursuit for a woman of my age in life, however, not if you are currently as tangled in a state of single faggotry as I am.

I don’t care, I love weddings. And I love Offbeat Bride because the entire site is dedicated to photos of women just like me indulging in their wedded bliss. Gay chicks, inked chicks, former alt porn star chicks and their punk ass grooms in Italian castles or in their BFF’s back yard in Chucks with a keg. Doesn’t matter. They are creative and brilliant and brave and so against the typical taffeta-encrusted wedding madness that I couldn’t help but fall in love. And imma be one of those brides one day, trust.

Twenty Twenty Hindsight is a blog that I read because it is irreverent and makes me laugh in that way where part of me sort of resists. That hidden little part of me that refused to use the word “bitch” or “whore,” or my inner uptight feminist, as I like to think of her. The writing on the blog is brilliant, and I honestly try to tell the writer that, but she continues to ignore me in that way that drives us homo girls crazy. I may have to commence to stalking her.

The best part about it is that I found her through Craigs List. Last February, in order to assuage the shooting pains of a gory breakup, I was in Brooklyn, reading the missed connections for RDU. She posted a twisted and hilarious MC that evoked disgust in other readers, but which I thought was so on point, that I had to send her an email. I did, and she confessed that not many other people knew it was a joke, which made me feel even more twisted.

When I came down to NC in March, I met her. Turns out I share that connection with an ex. Go figure.

re.create

I adore design blogs.

Those tiny curved corners of visual confectionery. Little bite-sized tidbits of colored life. Every object cohesive within the visual landscape; a wet-dream of what my life could be if only I had unlimited time to browse Etsy and play creative director to the chaos.

I miss weekend pilgrimages for eye candy, trudging to Manhattan book stores in the monochromatic drizzle in search of…something inspiring. Open studio tours in Dumbo with collages made of burnt toast. A recharge for the optical nerve so that, come Monday, it could take another hit or 12.

Williamsburg was an ever-evolving mural of street art, and I was in love with the way I could walk the same route one weekend to the next and find that my neighborhood had already shed its skin. Fuck seven years, Brooklyn’s cells turned over faster than love left the building.

Combing through IndieNC, I serendipitously cyber-tripped on to the doorstep of the Mint Design blog, my eyes opening wide like Alice taking in that White Rabbit. I wanted to run my hand over the screen in the hopes that the corners and edges of all their gorgeous things would read like Braille underneath my fingertips. I wanted to put it all in my mouth to taste; the deliciousness of those greens and blues and greeting cards with thread hand-sewn through the heavy paper. An artisan curated life.

I spend all of my spare time making costume parts. My bachelor pad of an apartment stands woefully neglected, the minimalist aesthetic simultaneously appealing to me and making me feel inept. I want fluffy blankets on my bed that match my walls, painted a gentle shade of blue called “exhale.” I want end tables handmade by friends living outside of Seattle by a lighthouse. I want a house that reflects my impeccable attention to detail.

Instead, I stretch out with ropes of sequins and piles of beaded fringe, threading my needle on a flight for a business trip. My co-workers stare at me, confused, before poking the beginnings of my conical masterpieces and asking, “What’s that?” I hand-stitch my pasties with contrasting thread, make internet-perfect matches on bead and fringe, and calculate how much sparkle can be loaded onto one tiny little circle of nipple coverage. Those petite canvasses can’t help but feel a little bit like me, bare in anticipation of impending shine.




I make all of my own costumes. I used to love spending entire days slutting around the Garment District, touching everything I could put my hands on. I would binge on eye candy before coming home and strategizing ways to make my vision come to life. These days, it’s more difficult. The materials aren’t as readily available, and before I make something I have to scour and match and vet. I have to test the strength of the fabric, the integrity of the color to make sure it won’t bleed at the first hint of blood, sweat, or tears. I have to figure out if I can possibly take all of these foraged semi-scraps and be the alchemist that turns them into the fluttering, shimmering beauty I see in my brain.

But see, that’s just what I do. Give me the difficult dream, and I will find a way to make it come alive for you.