Cirque du so Gay is Stuck in VT

Cirque du so Gay [35]

Cirque du SO ME!

Sigh, short lil' me and a statuesque Miss Chastity. This super model dame has some mighty gorgeous long legs, all the better to run marathons with. MC Chastity is probably over 7 feet tall when you combine her bouffant hairdo and nosebleed heels. Va va voom!

Burlington rounded off a heady celebration of 25 years of Pride at Higher Ground on Saturday with the mighty Cirque du so Gay (be on the look out for the Stuck in Vermont vlog Tuesday).

Naked sexy people, plenty of pasties, sequins galore, whip-wielding hotties, glamorous ball gowns, a community love fest, balls out dancing, lots of squealing (mostly from me) and so many new and old friends! When I wasn't running into someone I haven't seen in forever, I was making all sorts of new pals for life.

I met some sassy strangers who watch The Deadbeat Club on cable access or the Stuck in Vermont vlog at Seven Days. Random people in the hall or bathroom telling me they loved my mom and my sister and watch all this crap I churn out regularly!? What? Really? Moi!? * Blush, blush *

Above is me and the fabulously talented songbird, Dana Smitten. If you watch Stuck in Vermont you get to hear her dulcet notes over and over again (someone even sung this to me at a party the other day!?).

"We're trapped in, trapped in Vermont." Can you believe that I am still not sick of this song tidbit, even after hearing it about a gazillion times!?! You can see The Smittens at Metronome this Friday - woot!

Above is the amazingly talented dancer, singer, musician, go go dancer and Pistol Packing Papa, Miss Sarah Mell. The go go girls were working it so hard that their pasties fell off from all the sexy sweat! They had a back-up pair but by the end of the night, who knows if they were still attached?!?!
Above is the sultry diva, Allison the Mistress of Ceremonies who explained that she prefers to give orders, not take them - DUH! Please don't use the whip Mistress!

Below is the Order Giver, Master of Ceremonies and event organizer, Shawn Lipenski. I have never felt so short in all my life. Shawn, Chastity and the Sisters LeMay towered above me. It felt delicious to feel so small but next time I am wearing taller shoes and higher hair!
"Meow," says Don the sexy pink-eyed roller boy. Not everyone can pull of a headband, headphones and Hello Kitty - Don is special like that. Ffft!
My friend Tracy got me the wildly popular book Eat, Pray, Love and I read it cover to cover in days. One of the main themes is learning how to BE YOURSELF. This sounds easy enough to do but still, DAMN IT, it is so blasted hard.

It is easy enough to say, "I am being me." But who the hell is "me" and how the hell do you be ME when you are so busy trying to think what to say, do and how to respond in the moment. ME is complicated. Me takes thought. Maybe I am over-thinking this!?

I asked many of the revelers at Cirque du so Gay what "pride" meant to them. Many of them defined pride as BEING YOURSELF, or being someone else, or being whatever the hell you want to be in this moment without fear of repercussions.

So in honor of Pride and 25 years of protesting, celebrating, dressing up, and having the guts to be who you are openly - I am going to say what I like, act as I please and not waste time trying to impress people.

I pledge to squeal loudly, dress brashly and make a big, utter fool out of myself. Yeah, yeah, I know, how is this different than my normal behavior? Damn good question.

Cause I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me."

PS It will be tough to whittle 1.5 tasty hours of Cirque footage down to a 5 minute bite sized Stuck in VT chunk. The secret? Equal parts obsession. caffeine, Ben and Jerrys, sleep deprivation, nicotine and kitty purrs. Meow.

PPS For more Pride fun, visit the House of LeMay blog. They have lovely Cirque du so Gay pics as well as pics from the entire fun-packed weekend! Oof!

Moonriver Revisited

Turntabalist Kid Koala is playing at HG tonight. Two minutes into this video, the song gets heartbreakingly pretty. Moonriver like you have never heard Audrey before:



PS Thanks Fancy.

Stuck in Vermont 5: Sonic Youth

At long last, the Sonic Youth vlog detailing the post-show activities Sunday night at Higher Ground.

This show kicked some major VT ass. What could be more inspiring than seeing/hearing artists still rocking the shit out of life decades into their career? Hells yeah.

Thanks to Sonic Youth for coming to VT, to Higher Ground for bringing them here, to JDK for making their super cool, thought-inspiring posters and to all the psyched SY fans who talked to me after the show (many of whom were Canadian...hmmm).

This marks the first episode of Stuck in Vermont that "officially" falls under the grand auspices of Seven Days - the hottest paper in town if you ask me. It is a partnership I am super excited about and there is no where else STVT would rather live! So be on the look out for a Stuck in VT vlog/blog on the Seven Days site in the future and many more vlogs about local artists, events and shows!

That is the thing about VT, even when you are buried under a mountain of snow, it isn't so bad because there is so much to do while you are stuck, waiting for the snow to melt...



And on a legal note, a huge thanks to Sonic Youth for letting me use their killer song "Incinerate" off their hellah hot new album Rather Ripped and also to Geffen Records, Universal Music Enterprises and Silva Artist Management for filling out all the very complicated paperwork and giving me a much needed lesson in copyright laws.

And to the Jennifers at UMe and SAM for making this all happen - and in record time!! You are both getting VT care packages in the mail, mark my words, maple syrup and flannel. Oh yes, beware!

Sonic Youth Kicked Some Vermont Ass!

What on earth were Sonic Youth doing in Vermont you may ask? Beats me but I think it has something to do with Higher Ground being AWESOME! Oh yeah!

I was up all night vlogging some post-show fan interviews so this has to be brief (yeah, yeah, not my style). Mid-week there will hopefully be a Seven Days-approved Stuck in VT episode about the post-show festivities after the epic Sonic Youth show (cross those fingers).

In the meantime, here are some of my whacked out show pics (oh, to be flashless, ouch). I stood up close to the speakers and felt the vibrating sounds wash over me like Niagra Falls mixed with crack cocaine. It was like being underwater and swimming in an undulating sea of dissonant noise. Delicious and refreshing, Sonic Youth always satisfies.

And what other band asks the audience for book recommendations mid-show? A rock band that reads? They are one of a kind, yes siree.

Thanks Sonic Youth. You made it okay to:
Ask scary hipsters questions on camera.

PS Kim Gordon is my Superhero. Can I grow up to be her? Now?

Casey Rea Has Balls

When I was dragged to open mic comedy night at Higher Ground last night, I expected an empty room, a lot of loud coughing and some painfully bad mother-in-law jokes. I figured there would be a lot of booze needed to make the evening worthwhile.

It's a good bet that the first joke was a combination of schadenfreude and toilet humour. When the first group of punters gathered around the original village idiot and started laughing at him, it was probably because he was exposing himself or eating turds or bellowing obscene nonsense. - Tony Allen

So I was more than a little surprised when we walked in to a packed house - standing room only - and a familiar face up on stage: Casey Rea, our dear music reviewer and blogger from Seven Days was working the mic and cracking jokes in a surly, monotone.

"Hey wait a minute, I know that guy! Is that...Casey on stage? Wha...??"

Sadly, his set was almost done by the time we got there but my first impression was that Casey Rea has a feel for comedy. Who knew?! I'd say that he owned that stage which is no small feat. In a worst case scenario, if his writing gig/music career/blogging mastermind/dwarf hamster chronicler routes fall through, he has another path on the backburner. And as tough a mistress as comedy can be, those who master her must feel on top of the world.

Lenny Bruce delivered his witty insights and opinion in a spectrum of personal voices all in close attendance, but none getting to solo for more than a few seconds. While it wasn't always immediately funny, it made for a decidedly vital performance. He chatted honestly and openly, confided conspiratorially, wisecracked asides, mused soulfully, shared very personal observations, pleaded world-weary bewilderment, groped earnestly to understand and laughed delightedly at his own conclusions.

He also rattled off opinionated short-hand information, sampling two decades of popular culture with comments, quips, quotes, snapshot characterisations, imagined official conversations and references to the local-immediate. Any of it could escalate into flights of nonsense and surrealism or slow to thoughtful reflection.

There was a continual reprising of some of these references throughout in a range of fresh contexts. Another part of the textural glue uniting his act was a generous peppering of Yiddish slang, hip slang, jazz slang, showbiz slang, concocted language and verbal sound effects.

All of it a deliberate artifice to help release his stream of consciousness and its free associations. He even alludes to this fact in his act, one voice offering an ongoing explanation of his comedy technique. Listening to Lenny Bruce, you get the feeling there was nothing in his life or art that he couldn't express through stand-up comedy. - Tony Allen

All stand up comedians have to find their own unique "voice," the one that can effortlessly deliver jokes without making you feel like they've been rehearsing the damn thing for hours. The voice that makes their monologue feel fresh and real. The natural, comfortable, I'm-just-chatting-with-you-here sort of ease that only a truly skilled comedian can capture (Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Conan O'Brien).

It must be a hard voice to master. It can't be forced or pushed. It has to be carefully learned, adapted and honed to each audience it encounters. It has to stay flexible and lithe like a rubber band and bend with the ebbs and flow of the room.

Stand-up comedy is considered difficult to master, because the stand-up comedian is at the mercy of the audience, which is an integral element of the act. An adept stand-up comedian must nimbly play off the mood and tastes of any particular audience, and adjust his or her routine accordingly. - Wikipedia

There was an odd assortment of comedians trying their tricks last night. They were generally male with some high school students thrown in the mix as well. One guy was so nervous that you could almost hear his voice shivering but he managed to pull off a good set nonethless and the audience responded well to him.

I am amazed that high school students can be so confident at such a young age. Wish there had been some girl high school students up there but I know I was too shy at that age to try something like that.

Each comedian had his/her own voice which totally changed the mood of the crowd. Hysterical, fast talking, frenetic, monotone, high pitched, angry, spastic - everyone had their own way of relating. And then there was the guy who brought up a UVM female student and made her read some gross newspaper headline before taking out his AX and brandishing it.

The ax got him kicked off stage and that became the MC's joke of the night, "The man with the ax has been taken off the premises, really, I am not kidding."

All in all, not a bad night after all. And my hat goes off to all the gutsy comedians who had the balls to stand up in front of a room full of blank faces waiting patiently to be entertained. And now for some British birds who always make me laugh with their effortless sketch comedy, 3 Girls in a Boat: