People love to touch real bow ties.

And they attract drunk models.

But they cannot charm certain art-porn filmmakers.

But first I stopped in San Francisco to recover and I was bombarded with green guilt at every turn.

this paint job actually worked for me.

Excellent succulent wreath at Paxton Gate.

Then i landed in BUR and a friend needed an emergency rescue from WeHo, which I provided, then we went to Diamond Dogs at Hwood (notice the bondage bling canine at the bar)

and I didn’t get home ’til the sun was coming up (again). The LA Times was there and looky here, they shot one of me (in the red) dancing behind Santino and Tony Ward – who btw, gave me a stick of cinnamon gum so intense i actually got chemical burns on my tounge. What is it with America’s obsession with INTENSE EXTREME IN YOUR FACE FLAVOR!? Christ just give me a stick of zebra stripe that looses it’s flavor after 5 chews.

I had a lesbian friend at Disney that would always come over and bend my pinkie finger down. I can’t help it, it just likes to be up. It makes everything fancier.

All the cool Nordic people were in red plaid.

I never considered myself a party animal but I’m now sick as a dog and i sound like a broken down tar-throated tranny.

Wild dogs look deep into their diorama at the Natural History Museum. The dioramas of “native peoples” didn’t use taxidermy – big letdown.

The Hayden Planetarium is not named for Hayden Panettiere but I pretend it is. The show inside the top part “Cosmic Collisions” was not worth $25. Mya Angelou introduces u to the big bang in the bottom part for free (a fair price).

5000 Crystals hang overhead at Greenhouse. When I walked in THIS was playing on their GREAT soundsystem. The basement club was covered in fake leaves and felt like a scene from Tokyo Disneyland’s Winnie the Pooh ride. A Dutch tourist delivered the best quote of the trip, “You know the designers Viktor and Rolf? Alot of people here dress like them.” So nailed it.

Saw Jesus in the subway working a hot look.

In the financial district there’s a memorial to the Irish potato famine for some reason. Highly reccomended.

A Virgin Airlines bathroom photoshoot break on the flight to SF. Notice deep bags under the eyes. U did this NYC!

The piece is here. This is an unrelated photo of me covering my mustache with a mustache with a mustache.

I did this in 1999 and was not paid, I had one assistant part time and a budget of $3000. It’s not really my design because the director wanted the drained swimming pool bedroom from the 1972 film “Ciao Manhattan” starring Edie Sedgwick so I just gave him exactly that. That’s my illustration below (which the record company called “too cartoony.”)

The ONE thing I did get to design was the custom neon microphone that would glow in response to her voice. I had an effects guy from Imagineering fabricate it. When unveiled on set it got an applause. I was very happy about that. I still have it in a box.

But the record company treated me horribly and referred to me as “that theme park guy.” However the singer, Ambrosia Parsley, was very sweet and has a great look. (I have a prop notebook I had her decorate while she was getting her makeup done if there’s a fan out there that wants it.)  This song also plays over the end credits of Kill Bill Vol 2.

OMG I just watched it again and realized the black satin pillowcases on my bed came from this video. Also I’d forgotten how when I showed up the second night of the shoot, the pool was still being drained and had several feet of water in it. I waited a half hour for the pumps to drain it but then the record company started to freak out and demanded that I start placing the furniture and building her water bed IN THE WATER! I pointed out that this would ruin some of their set decorating but I guess they were fine paying the repalcement fees. So I took of my shoes, rolled up my jeans and prayed none of the electrical cords would fall in and electrocute me. The boards floated around and it was like trying to build a bed in zero G. It’s a miracle it didn’t collapse later.

Also, the director wanted to have Ambrosia spray a can of hairspray over a lighter to make that mini-flamethrower effect. I knew this was horribly dangerous (I have a scar on my nose from an aerosol can exploding when I was a kid). So, what I did was wait until all the record label people got there and then I handed the director the lighter and hairspray knowing he would immediately begin playing with it to show off to the execs. Sure enough, he did just that and they FREAKED THE SHIT OUT and said NO FUCKING WAY. So Ambrosia, you can thank me for saving you from Aqua Net exploding in your face.

So last month the most romantic thing in the world happened to me. I’d gone to the World of Wonder Christmas Rollerskating party at the Moonlight Rollerway dressed in appropriate winter wonderland gear and was skating around by myself. Drag queens were in abundance. RuPaul was the DJ. And I saw this cutie leaning over the edge so I smacked him on the ass as I rolled by. A few revolutions later and this cutie skates by me and our eyes lock and he just grabs my hand without a word and then we’re skating and holding hands like it’s nothing at all and THAT’S CRAZY isn’t it? Did he know I was the ass smacker? (Later I learned, no.)

We form a train with other skaters, take turns swinging each other out on the turns. THEN RUPAUL PUTS ON XANADU, one of my most favorite songs EVER and the BEST song to skate to IN THE UNIVERSE! So the cutie and I who haven’t said a word between us other than “whoa!” and “wheee!” grab hands AND SKATE TOGETHER TO XANADU IN A CINEMATIC MOMENT OF EXQUISITE GAYNESS! We haven’t reached the first chorus and I’m thinking DREAMS DO COME TRUE when another skater zooms by the cutie causing him to release my hand as he falls forward. I fall backwards and land on my hand and elbow. (Later I’d be told I hadn’t learned how to fall. Metaphoric AND true.)

I get off the ice, I mean rollerskating rink, and the cutie rushes over and sits with me while I go into shock and nearly vomit. He gets me a bag of ice from somewhere and a couple pills. I tell him he doesn’t have to drug me to have his way with me. And I press the ice to my wrist which I’m holding on top of my head to keep the swelling down. I tell him I think he should kiss me and he does, and does, and undoes my shirt buttons, and people are giving us some extra room and I say ok you need to stop cause you’re causing swelling somewhere else now. I start shivering and I ask him if he could go get my hat and scarf that I tossed on a bench on the other side of the rink. He goes and gets them AND THEN PUTS THEM ON AND GOES BACK TO ROLLERSKATING, which was not how that was supposed to go.

The next morning x-rays showed my wrist was not broken but severely sprained. Over a month later my elbow still hurts enough I scheduled an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. But I did get the guy’s name, Matt Alber. He’s a singer and here he is performing his mega romantic song “End of the World” in his MEGA ROMANTIC video that’s been misting eyes of grown gay men since it was released a few days ago.

This was my first of a series of music video jobs where I was a one man art department. Not that there was much to on this aside from the velvet curtain, renting some lamps you never see, and aiming a fan at the stripper girls that got cut from the final edit because MTv said it was no longer acceptable to feature girls dancing on poles. (Side note: The girl, unaware of my presence lying on the floor aiming the fan at her, kicked her chair off the stage which flew legs-first towards me shattering the fan sending the blades flying across the set and everyone thought I’d been horribly injured.) 

Also the fight you see with the guys was real; this was filmed at Three of Clubs in Hollywood; and the fire was my thing and here’s how you do it: Spray-paint a sheet of plywood flat black and let dry. Squirt it with charcoal lighter fluid (it burns the right speed), flip it over onto two sawhorses and light the fluid on the underside. Film the whole thing by shooting into a mirror placed at an angle under the plywood. This lets you keep the camera a safe distance from the fire. Just watch for drips onto the mirror. After doing this a few times the board will start to burn so you have to watch that. And let it cool before reapplying lighter fluid. When the video ran on Beavis and Butthead they were mostly interested in the fire.

It started with just rubbing the butt but he liked it more the harder I got so now I just smack his but like I’m violently playing bongos and he goes into orgasmic fits and falls off my lap. We do this like 3 times a day. 

I had this Tyvek paper jacket in high school and wore it to every geography and history test. Teachers would hide the globes, roll up the maps, but no one ever noticed my jacket. Where’s North Korea? Let me scratch my elbow. What’s the capital of Paraguay? I’ll check my belly. I always did well on those tests and I’m sure the kid behind me did too. Found it at that shop on Melrose that used to be Aardvarks.

But a warning to cheaters:  I don’t know if it was the jacket, the teachers edition of the history text book I stole that had all the answers to every quiz, or the test I snatched off the teachers desk – xeroxed – and put back, but until recently I’ve had recurring dreams/nightmares that some “error” was discovered that voided my whole adult life and I had to quit work and go back to finish high school. (Friends have recounted similar dreams – what does it mean?)

Finally, when I was 32, the teacher in this one dream (who was my same age) looked up from her desk and noticed me taking some test with the rest of her class, and said, “What are you doing here? You graduated. You’re done.” And I got up all embarrassed, and left. I’ve never had the dreams since.

It’s the day after and I’ve gather all the spent fireworks I liked and am pretending to run a fireworks store and sell them to Eva, my neighbor. The thrill was describing in great detail what each would do after it was lit, which is what we pretended to do after I “sold” them to her. 

This cat walked in a couple years ago and lives here now – I call him Meow Meow and we’re like regular roommates except for the frequent face nuzzling.

When I’m done it should look like this Photoshoped mock-up:

and here is the Monday afternoon reality: