this is fyf

Pride? The Khary Polk Response.

For Pride 2010, we asked an eclectic group for their take on Gay Pride.   From living to loathing, the responses cover a wide spectrum - a rainbow of opinion, perhaps?

Writer, deejay, and Ph.D. candidate in American Studies at NYU, Mister Khary Polk will be in Berlin for the rest of the summer finishing his dissertation on the travels of African American soldiers around the world. Here's his take:

A good friend of mine believes Berlin’s denizens dream of New York City while New York’s queers dream of Berlin. With this in mind, I’d have to say my own dreams for Pride 2010 exist somewhere in the space between two of my favorite YouTube video clips featuring the recent political activism of queer theorist Judith Butler in Germany and the bodies of black Californians dancing their asses off to Jimi Hendrix circa 1973.

Earlier this month, Judith Butler shocked the city of Berlin (and the larger queer world) by declining an award for civil courage given to her by the organizers of the Christopher Street Day Parade during Berlin’s Gay Pride. Arguing that the event had become too commercial, Butler said—in German, boo—that the award would be better served recognizing organizations that expressly and unabashedly fought for the rights of immigrants, queers of color, and trans folk in Germany, including GLADT, LesMigraS, SUSPECT, and ReachOut. Watching the clip, I became incredibly moved by the crowd’s cheers as Judy enumerated the challenges that continue to face queer people of all stripes throughout our world.

 

The second clip in question is a video and music mash up of the Jimi Hendrix/Curtis Knight song “Happy Birthday” layered over footage of black people dancing taken from the film Wattstax (1973). Originally conceived as a concert film commemorating the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots in Los Angeles, Wattstax became, in the words of director Mel Stuart, “a deeper reflection of the black experience.”  While Hendrix never actually played at Wattstax, I find something so moving in this fusion of song and video, a two-minute tour de force where Afros and booties groove unrepentantly, necks pop and bodies run and come together in celebration of a life that had ended only three years earlier.

As different as these two clips may seem to some people, together they articulate perhaps the fullest expression of pride I’ve ever felt as a person who happens to be black; as a man who happens to be gay; and as a human who feels blessed to be both.

Critique is rarely ever easy to give or receive, and good people shouldn’t have to go to war over Gaza, Gaga or gay marriage. Yet there are times when offense must be taken. After that, let’s hug it out on the dance floor. Because if I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.

This weekend...

 

Tonight (Thursday):

It's  a booty-fest at Headz Will Roll tonight after last week's crazed late-night Spank Rock appearance. I can personally attest: the crowd is pleasing! Ladyfag and Roxy Cottontail host while Jason plays pa-pa-pa-paparazzi(1opm, Bar 13)

After last week's premier during Urban Bear Weekend, Behr, the paint themed(?) bear party from Robert Valin, holes up in the basement at Elevate for week two. (10pm)

Tomorrow night (Friday):

The Bunker is a Friday night party at Public Assembly that's held in high esteem among clubbers/dancers/DJs already. This Friday, they inaugurate a quarterly residency series where they'll host the residents of Berghain and Panorama Bar, two Berlin clubs (who just happen to be under the same roof) that - according to general consensus - throw some of the best parties, playing the best music, in the world right now.  (10Pm)

The kids who put on Unisexi love a theme (as do I!) and this week's is Batty Bwoy with Michael Magnan and DJ Will Automagic joining residents Jools Palmer and Sugartitz behind the decks, and a special performance by Jamaican-born Lawrence Graham Brown.  Bring your best Dancehall/Dutty Wine moves and your best ass! (10pm, Le Royale)

Bi-weekly, bi-curious (?) but not bi-polar, Snaxx is back and waiting for you in the dark. (10pm, Westside Tavern)

Will Athens become the new Berlin?

Should we be learning Greek instead of German?

Despite being in the red (or perhaps because of it — cheap rents!), the Greek city is starting to steal the cultural spotlight from the increasingly gentrified Berlin, which seems more interested in spawning an outpost of London’s Soho House than in nurturing the careers of creative types. ... Athens’s Kerameikos/Metaxourgeio neighborhood — which still has its share of drug dealers and prostitutes, like any good arty neighborhood should — along with the run-down Kypseli district have become the new home for influential galleries like the Breeder and Rebecca Camhi, as well as the biannual ReMap art festival, which included installations in abandoned buildings last summer.

Me? I like warm weather and swarthy fellows, and living on the sea, and ... hmmm.

Image via National Geographic.

Tough Luck, Alexander, 2010

Here's something out of Berlin that has me intrigued.

Via FYF Friend Malcolm.

Spin the Deejay - Mark Louque

Your trusty correspondent took a week off last week, partially to recover from his trip to Berlin, where he attended the noted dance emporium Berghain, a club in the direction of which some ‘heads probably bow and pray five times per day'.   As you've read before, Berghain, located in an abandoned power station in East Berlin could easily stand in for any number of sets from the Tim Burton Batman films.  Seriously the venue is no fucking joke. This week’s featured jockey Mark Louque will be playing at Berghain in a few weeks!  So don’t step.

How do you organize your music collection? UGH...this is the hard part, but in a nutshell I organize my digital files in playlists and my vinyl by genre then alphabetized. I do not own any CDs.

What are the top five tracks in your iTunes, all time?

• Wax Poetic – “Sea Grass” (60 plays)
• LCD Soundsystem – “Yeah (Pretentious Version)” (54 plays)
• Matthew Herbert – “Foreign Bodies” (52 plays)
• Voices of East Harlem – “Right On Be Free” (49 plays)
• Britney Spears – “Boys” (48 plays)

What's your current typical tech set up for playing out? At home?   When I play out I use Technics 1200mK2 turntables with Ortofon Nightclub E styluses and my Black MacBook (which I've nicknamed 'Oprah'), Traktor PRO, and an Audio 2 DJ sound card. The only difference at home is that I use a Presonus Firebox for my sound card.

What requests won't you take?  I will not consider playing any artist whose name sounds like a baby's first word and other vomit of that nature.

You’re bombing. What's the next track?  Gwen McCrae – “All This Love”.  More importantly, what was the record that caused me to bomb? Get rid of her!

Who should play your funeral?  I would like a giant orchestra playing Chopin's 'Funeral March' at half speed for 24 hours straight.

What are you when you're not a DJ?  Full-time friend & lover, part-time know it all.  Oh, and I make music, buy/sell records, bartend, and argue with my dad about the effects of a patriarchal society on a man's ability to love - he doesn't understand.

You're trapped on a desert island. Which diva have you brought along to eat?  Aretha - DUH!!!

Top ten:

1. Falty DL – All in the Place (Rush Hour)
2. Pilooski – Rvng of the Nerds Vol. 10 (I Get Rvng)
3. Discodromo – Ionio (Hnysndsysm)
4. Erdbeerschnitzel – Tonight is Today (3rd Strike Records)
5. FCL Let's Go (Wax Recordings)
6. Unknown – Get to My Baby (TBD Extension) (Golf Channel Recordings)
7. Nick Chacona – Be Like Olive (Levon Vincent Remix) (Mood Music)
8. Rodion & Hugo Sanchez – Tape Oxyde (Hnysndsysm)
9. Brend Harris - “Making Love” (Dream Records)
10. Red Lion – “Living Together” (Claremont 56)

In addition to his impending dance with the bears in the pale Berlin moonlight, Mark has a busy April planned. New York dates include Rebel with Alon Geva on 4/16 (hey, that’s tonight!) XOO at Tandem in Bushwick on 4/17 (hey, that’s tomorrow night! (236 Troutman, Jefferson Stop on L Train), and the Cock on 4/30. He’ll also hit the Roxy in Boston on 4/29 and he’ll be playing Fag Bash in P’Town at the Fo’c’sle from 5/26 through the end of the summer. For more info, check Mark's website and his biweekly radio show and podcast “The Crave Club”.

Mister Dave Hughes has lived in Chinatown, the East Village, Tribeca, Long Island City, and Harlem, and he currently hangs his hat in Williamsburg. He likes politics, disco and whiskey. His writing has also appeared in Slant, New York, and other fine publications.  

Image via Mister Isauro Cairo

"The whole entry process is creepy. A winding cattle pen funnels you in pairs towards the door, where the bouncers loom, radiating all the approachability of an IED. One is short, brown-haired, nondescript. The next is 7ft tall, bald, with a sloping forehead, wearing a stevedore cap and jackboots, like a cartoon of evil. And the last guy you can't even see until you step, blinking, into the spotlight. His name, appropriately, is Sven, and he sits on a chair behind the first two, dark and hulking, long hair flowing, bullets of metal stuck into him at various points. He's difficult to look at for more than a second because of the tattoo of barbed wire crawling over his face."

- This description of entering Berlin hotspot Berghain has me longing for days when giant trannies reigned at every club door. Also? The peak hours are from four to ten, a.m. Lastly? The club is a former power station. Let's go to Berlin?