The Other American Dream – 12.3.12
My friends over at the sex art cult that is Darling House want to turn their website into a print magazine so the founder JM Darling decided to throw a fundraiser. He asked his photographer friends for some photos to sell for extremely cheap prices and then threw a big party at Galapagos Art Space around that. I donated eight images because I am always down to support perverted causes and I was excited to be included in a show with some of my favorite photographers like Steve Prue, Bob Coulter, Corwin Prescott, Dave Naz and Tony Stamolis.
Aside from the art their was tons of performances. Bastard Keith hosted the performances and did some fantastic songs of his own. The amazing Stoya did two aerial routines, getting naked hanging upside down 2o feet in the air. Two of my favorite NYC burlesque performers, Stormy Leather and Madame Rosebud did several fully nude routines and included Darling House member Sovereign Syre in them. Eric Walton did magic that was not nearly as painful as most magic is, Brandon B told funny stories about terrifying gay sex experiences and the sex-comedy band The Reformed Whores did two extremely offensive country ditties. JM Darling himself told an amazing true story about how he and his entire family was murdered by pirates. I am pretty sure he should stop shooting naked girls and just write several books because his life growing up was far more interesting than any set of boobs.
The night ended with a discussion on sex work with Sovereign Syre, Stoya, Lux Alptraum, and Buck Angel. Sov led the discussion and Stoya talked about how the internet helped her become one of the biggest stars in the adult industry. Lux is the editor of Fleshbot, Gawker’s porn blog and one of my favorite websites. She talked about how she started combining her interest in sex and sex education with the internet from starting a porn site to writing about sex to finally taking over Fleshbot several years ago. Buck Angel is a man you should be familiar with. He was born a woman but had the most convincing sex change ever except for one thing… he still has a vagina. This guy who looks like a gay fantasy of a construction worker took down his pants on stage and showed everyone his vagina. It was pretty awesome. At the end of the conversation all four people on stage showed the crowd their vaginas, an amazing photograph that I totally missed because my leg fell asleep and I stood up and walked away from the stage about 3 minutes before it happened. Tragic.
The whole show was pretty amazing and the photos are extremely NSFW. The photos on stage are pretty awful because the lights were clearly controlled by a criminally insane person who kept it way too dark most of the time so I had to shoot at 4000 ISO and then when it was bright enough would shine super hot lights on the performers faces. It made for constant frustration and mediocre photos. But honestly none of that matters because what is happening in the photos is way more important than the actual photos. I assure you these photos are worth checking out.
Is it just me or does Buck Angel strongly resemble Louis CK in that last picture?