December 2008 Archives

"Behold Israel According to the Flesh!"

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Listen to this crazy prayer from the Rabbinic Jews of late antiquity:

Blessed art Thou O Lord, King of the Universe, Who has made the human with wisdom, and created in it orifices and hollows.  Revealed and known it is before Your Throne of Glory, that should any of these be opened or shut up, it would be impossible to live before You.  Blessed Art Thou, the Healer of all flesh Who does wondrous things.

You're supposed to say it after urinating or defecating.  Being Jewish is awesome. 

Please go to JStreet.org to help protest the current Israeli bombardment of Gaza.  I, like the Israeli leadership, am horrified by the Hamas rocket attacks into Israeli towns.  But this kind of response solves nothing and will continue to solve nothing.  No fewer Israelis will die because of these actions.  If anything, the death toll will be higher.  And the hundreds of Palestinians that have been murdered in the past few days will certainly stay dead. 

Love
Dan

I'm Here to Recruit You.

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Upon watching Gus Van Sant's "Milk," I realized many things, including this: It was easier for Harvey Milk to dedicate himself to social change when he had a hot, supportive boyfriend:


I know, right?  Families/couples make sense, because some tasks are too big for one person to accomplish by themselves.  Sometimes you need James Franco to make you dinner, cause otherwise you'll either starve or just stop.  Hell, if I had a hot, supportive boyfriend, I think even I would run for office.  Especially if that hot, supportive boyfriend was Emile Hirsh-as-Cleve Jones:


Woof!
Love
Dan

Veiled in Flesh the Godhead See

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Last night, Matt and Jordan and I went to midnight mass at a Methodist church on the Upper West Side.  It was really beautiful.  Judaism is all about KEEPING IT TOGETHER, but Christianity is all about being NICE.  There were lots of "peace be with you"s, and the minister had long hair.  At midnight, we got to ring bells.  One of the cute gay boys in the pew behind us winked at me.  Wunk at me.  Or maybe he wasn't gay, maybe he was just Christian.  Also, I cannot imagine being Christian and singing about VIRGINITY for my whole life!  All of those songs are about VIRGIN WOMBS.  What do you tell a five-year-old who asks what that means?  And what do you do when she becomes this?:


After the service, we went to Grant's Tomb, but for some reason it wasn't open at 1am on Christmas morning.

So anyway, tomorrow is Kimya's big 10 year sobriety party!  Underthrust will be joining her on stage for three PRODUCTION NUMBERS, which involve THREE TOTALLY DIFFERENT COSTUMES and even some light set pieces.  It's gonna be epic.  Buy your tickets now, in case they sell out!  Here's the official info:

Kimya Dawson's 10 Years Off The Sauce Extravaganza!
w/ special performances by Akida Junglefoot Dawson, Malcolm Rollick, Joie DBG, Underthrust, Ish Marquez, Pablo Ratliff (ex-Testosterone Kills) and more!!!

@ Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY
A celebration of recovery and being alive!!!
All Ages, but under 16 needs to come with an adult
8pm, $13 adv./$15 day of show


And here's the whole Kimya/Underthrust crew singing "Tomorrow" last summer:


Love
Dan
Yawn!


I am not impressed that Rick Warren visited a gay bookstore, nor am I impressed that he wants to have dinner with Melissa Etheridge.  What would impress me would be if he publicly recanted his statements comparing homosexuality to pedophilia.  What would impress me would be if he retracted his support for Proposition 8.  What would impress me would be if his actions matched up with his ALLEGEDLY VERY OPEN AND LOVING DEMEANOR.  I don't care how polite you are if you have actively campaigned to strip me of my civil rights

Politics speaks louder than hugs, people!

If you're going to be my friend, but you still want to oppress me, then you're just Lumbergh from "Office Space," the FRIENDLY BOSS, who CHATS YOU UP, and tries to BE YOUR PAL, and then lets you know that you have to come in for extra work on Saturday.


And the thing is: EVERYBODY HATES THAT GUY.

Am I right?
Love
Dan
12:05 PM Max: ya i saw
  he gives good face
 me: speaking of FACE, have you ever seen face/off?
12:06 PM with nicholas cage and john travolta and margaret cho?
12:07 PM Max: not in a long time
12:08 PM me: RECOMMENDED
 Max: did you read about the country's first FACE TRANSPLANT tho?
  in the nytimes?
 me: they did one in france last year, right?
      it's not like in the movie.Max: this lady? they gave her a DEAD WOMAN'S FACE
      i think a newer one
  in the usa!
 me: oh cool!
  i think it looks nice!
 Max: yeah but in the article they wouldn't give out details
  so they just kept referring to how little of a face she has "from the trauma"
  and i am so curious what trauma would take your whole face
12:09 PM but NOT YOUR LIFE
 me: maybe a bear ate it
 Max: did she get her face caught in the drain?
  no bears wouldn't stop with the face tho
  they'd keep munching
  i mean, right?
  it's gotta be weirder
 me: maybe she had peanut butter all over her face and gasoline all over the rest of her body
 Max: that's probbably how i'll lose my face someday
12:10 PM me: it's almost inevitable
 Max: it is this, not HIV, that I see as the unfortunate but inevitable end of a gay man's life in this country
  getting my face eaten off by a bear
 me: :-)
  BEARS
 Max: ronald reagan never talked about THAT either
  i'm from california dan
  bears are real
 me: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
   RONALD REAGAN NEVER TALKED ABOUT THAT EITHER Max: when we were kids we were warned about them
  well
                       in LA we were warned about coyotes
  yeah
  i'm a genius
  when i'm in my sweatpants
12:12 PM me: did i ever tell you about my old performance piece where ronald reagan leaves a message on my answering machine apologizing for AIDS?
 Max: hahaha
 
 me: so there's gonna be a new play where
12:13 PM where:
  where:
  i'm madonna and yr britney spears and i teach you kabbalah.
 Max: huh
  somehow
  you WISH you could teach me kabbalah
 me: haha
  OH OH OH
  so in some of the scenes it's that
  and in OTHER SCENES
  yr SANDRA BERNHARD
  teaching ME kabbalah!
 Max: i was bookshooppping yesterday for witchy stuff and reading qabballistic crowley stuff
  that shit makes NO SENSE AT ALL
12:14 PM me: that's what i love about it
 Max: the fact that madonna "gets" that is insane
 me: it's just feedback
 Max: that shit is FICTION
  OF NUMBERS
 me: BLACK FIRE ON WHITE FIRE
 Max: SCIENCE FICTION INVOLVING THE PLANET MATH
  totally insane
  it's roisin murphy mooning her polish fans
  awesome
12:16 PM me: while this is loading, let me tell you
  i figured out the reason why tyson corrigan FASCINATES me
12:17 PM which is that he cannot hear / cannot listen, and i am preoccupied with gay boys who don't listen / are caught up in their heads / constantly monologue / are narcissistic.
12:18 PM Max: hm
  you are. it's weird.
  and hair
  if i was going to do a piece inspired by dan fishback
12:19 PM it would be me plucking my eyebrows on the internet
  i hope that doesn't sound mean
  i think you get that i get you?
  i may go ahead and do that piece
  "after d.r. fishback"
 me: oh i like that
  that makes sense
  although my eyebrows are the only things i would never pluck
 Max: hahaha
 me: i used to pluck my shoulder hairs on stage
12:20 PM Max: no those are awesome
12:21 PM me: i like (appropriately) the idea of people doing performance pieces inspired by me
  it would just be a bunch of tense people freaking out and shaving
12:22 PM Max: it wouldn't just be that i don't think
  there would be religion too i think
  like maybe UP MY GOD-HOLE: A DAN FISHBACK RETROSPECTIVE
 me: ooooh!
12:23 PM Max: my new friend Daniel who is my penpal made a piece on his blog (i can't find it) that ssays "there is a god shaped hole in all of us" and it's a closeup picture of a butthole
 me: i always wanted my retro to be called "DAN FISHBACK: LEGAL, TENDER"
  oh god find it!
 Max: hahaha
 me: brb
12:24 PM Max: i think he made this thing tho
  his name is daniel portland
12:25 PM but that's not his real last name
  i dunno
  he's nice
12:27 PM me: wow.
  that is such a beautiful picture
 Max: yeah
  12:31 PM me: sometimes i wonder what my life would be like if my general aesthetic was more austere and        simple and unexplanatory
 Max: this seems like something you'd like. not the butt part but the "we never encounter this part of ourselves" thing
 
12:33 PM me: maybe in my next life i will be a quiet-looking, opaque blogger.
12:34 PM Max: mm
12:35 PM me: i think i am maybe jealous of visual artists
  people who don't have to be there for their own stuff
12:36 PM it's like leaving poo on someone's doorstep and then hiding behind a bush
  when i make art, everyone is right there in front of me/
 Max: yea sorta
  yes
  but you can sort of have it both ways, i think
12:37 PM like if the idea of having yr woork explain itself appealas to you then you can treat yr performance that way
 me: hm.
  explaining is my work :-)
12:38 PM that'll be my zine: EXPLAINER.
 Max: hah
  but you know, that's like with any art thing you just have faith that the viewer is gonna get it
  i feel like we're all going for that miranda july "macaroni" moment
12:39 PM me: i am gradually honing the art of SMELLING the macaroni in the air
  and not needing concrete evidence like laughter
 Max: yeah yeah

Put Your Feeling to the Ceiling!

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1. I love Christmas because Jews get a DAY OFF.

2. Phoebe and I were talking about how stupid it is when people use Jewish content as the punchline to a joke.  You know?  Like on a bad sitcom where someone says, "Don't be meshuge!" and then there's a laughtrack.  It's like: That's not funny, it's just Jewish.

3. I couldn't sleep last night because, though I didn't know it at the time, I was gestating a new Cheese On Bread song called "Stretch Out With Your Feelings."  It finally slid out at 3am, fully formed, with a nicely-shaped skull.  If you Google "stretch out with your feelings," you will discover that it's a line from Star Wars, and that someone has already written an INSTRUMENTAL PIANO PIECE called "Stretch Out With Your Feelings, Luke."

4. The fact that Melissa Etheridge had a nice private conversation with Rick Warren doesn't make his invitation to Obama's Inauguration any less insulting to queer/LGBT people, or at least to this queer/LGBT person.

5. For a lot of people, the worst part of the holiday season is buying presents for people.  I have an idea to make it REALLY EASY.  Try donating to a charity in someone's name!  Some recommendations: 

a. Care is a great international relief organization!  They focus on empowering and supporting women and children in dangerous and damaged areas. 
b. ABC Home and Planet Foundation is also amazing.  Through them, I once bought 9 months of literacy education for a girl in Afghanistan, in the name of my Aunt Gail and Uncle Mel.  What a great present, no?!
c. Heifer is a lot like ABC, but with more celebrities!  You can use Heifer to buy animals and supplies to farmers in developing areas.  For only $20, you can give a flock of baby chicks to a needy family!  Imagine all the eggs and things!  Chicks!  So cute!  Until you eat them!  But I guess that's another story.
d. ME!  I'm still raising (tax deductible) money for my play.  ...Hm, maybe I should have put that one in a different post.

6. I would like to watch Face/Off with this guy:


Love
Dan 

"I Am Not a Christian in Christian Sands."

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It's almost Christmas, which means Daoud, Phoebe, Casey and I got together recently to watch the greatest movie ever made, which - you may be surprised to learn - is "Face/Off," a movie that you think stars John Travolta and Nicholas Cage, but which actually stars Margaret Cho and a poster of Tori Amos.  I'm not even kidding, guys.


Merry Christmas.  I'm gonna go light the freaking menorah and go to bed.

Love
Dan

As if I needed another reason to hopelessly adore Gareth from Los Campesinos!, who I was too shy to meet this summer in Manchester:


He is my own personal Leif Garrett.  Let's hope he don't end up the same way.  Anyone wanna be my date to the Los Campesinos! Valentine's Day show at Bowery Ballroom?

Love
Dan

"Did You Forget About Me? Mister Duplicity?"

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I've thought a lot about Obama's decision to have heterosexist pastor Rick Warren speak at his inauguration.  I wanted to give myself some time to mull it over, before I said or did anything rash.  But I don't need to ponder it any longer:

I'm angry.

I keep hearing people excuse this decision, citing it as just another move to "embrace our opponents," "widen the conversation," and "unite America."  And that's all well and good.  But it's ignoring the fact that queer/LGBT people in this country are still reeling from the trauma of Proposition 8.  We're still angry from that insult, which, not unimportantly, fell on the same day as Obama's election.  So while I understand the impulse to have more right wing voices "at the table," I do NOT understand the impulse to put them on display SO SOON after such a horrific blow to our civil rights, nor to I understand the impulse to throw them on stage at the first symbolic event of Obama's presidency.

To do so feels like an enormous, and completely UNNECESSARY slap in the face. 

If the inauguration is supposed to show us what kind of administration we have to look forward to, I must admit, I'm not sitting here thinking, "What an open-minded guy, to invite his opponents to his own celebration!" -- to the contrary, I am thinking:

This man is completely out of touch with a significant segment of his supporters -- people who are hurting, people who don't need him kicking us when we're down.

I will not be attending this inauguration as planned.

I will be preparing for four years of vigilance.

Love
Dan

"Bob Dylan Liked Polka-Dottz"

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DAN FISHBACK DOT COM NEWS UPDATE

1. George W. Bush is so punk rock.


2. This freaking Jew stole five BILLION dollars from all these other freaking Jews, many of whom would have done REALLY GOOD THINGS WITH THAT MONEY!

3. A bunch of kids in Greece literally stormed the local TV station, stopped programming, and aired the slogan, "Stop watching, get out onto the streets,"  I don't approve of all the bombing and rock-throwing that's been going on in Athens lately, but this is a tactic for the ages!  Does anyone remember the old TV show in the 80s where a bunch of kids took over an abandoned station and made their own music videos?  I know, it's slightly different, but still.


DAN FISHBACK DOT COM RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Anna Foss Wilson's performance in "Potatoes of August" at Dixon Place.

2. Adam Green's blog.

3. Having reasons, or at least reasons for not having reasons.

Love
Dan

I Want To Paint It Orange

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My living room used to be white.  It is now orange and purple.  The transformation feels miraculous somehow, divine, even though I accomplished it myself.  I guess that's why I feel so powerful.  It's been making me think about the I'm-Crushing-Your-Head Guy from Kids in the Hall.  He would "crush people's heads" like this:



He would place his fingers between himself and another person in order to see them differently.  Just like I place paint between myself and the wall.  This, in turn, makes me think about he old cliche that you should imagine your audience naked to conquer your fear of speaking.  I rarely ever want to do this.  Like paint and fingers, I generally want to imagine clothing into the world, not out of it.  I imagine you wearing impossible layers of overcoats, stretching out, ballooning forward, ultimately vanishing beneath fabric.  Textiles, I can talk to. 

I recommend painting your room.
Love
Dan
Today I painted two walls.  It took all day.  Putting up tape, laying down the primer, waiting for the primer to dry, blah-dee-blah-dee-blah, over and over again.  Coats n' coats n' coats.  All day.  Tomorrow morning, I paint the trim.

As soon as I finished the second coat, I sat down on the floor and instantly felt the need to see someone who knows me very well.  Something about painting makes me want to see old friends.  I picked up the phone and managed to snag an audience with Dibs.  We ate burritos and watched "The Court Jester."  I showed him the source material for my next play, which got me all riled up, and now I'm feeling desirous.  I can't bring myself to go to bed, even though I'm exhausted.  I just keep watching the same YouTube videos over and over again.  I know every moment by heart.  And I know I need to turn it all into theater somehow.

It's been a long time since the creative process felt like this.  Like there was something PHYSICALLY inside of my body that I needed to extract somehow.  The strange thing is that, this time, the "something" is already outside of my body.  So while I can see it on my computer, I can also feel it inside like this:


Owy!  I feel like I'm just waiting for it.  Like in high school, when I'd stay up late, on my parents' computer, waiting for my internet boyfriend to sign on.  Just staring at the Buddy List.  Hair trigger.  Bam, bam, bam.

As Dibs was leaving tonight, we were trying to figure out, as simply as possible, why the Deal twins are so captivating to watch.  Maybe, once I figure that out (like, with specificity, economy and precision), I'll figure out everything else as well, in one fell swoop.

Feel so violent at night.
Aliens. 
Love
Dan
Things I've Enjoyed Recently:

1. Casey's 30th Birthday Party, especially his cover of "Us" by Regina Spektor.

2. Walking down 2nd Avenue with Thain, listening to him complain about the snow.

3. Walking down 2nd Avenue with Dibs and Phoebe, praising the snow.

4. Sitting around a kitchen table with Dibs and Phoebe, recounting the plots of bad movies.

5. Bringing Dibs to QxBxRx, watching him hug go-go boys.

6. Almost getting thrown out of the chassidic grocery store with Max, then watching a VHS copy of "The Great Muppet Caper" (taped off of TV in 1985, with the original commericials) while eating the babka we got there.

7. Underthrust rehearsal.

8. Singing to my roommate's turtle, Lev.

9. The new VGL Boys video:


10. Kimya's official video for "I Like Giants," featuring Underthrust:


11. Sitting on my parents' couch, watching my high school production of "Oklahoma!" starring me as Will Parker.

12. Getting interviewed by Elizabeth for her gestalt class.

13. Watching sci-fi movies while renovating my apartment.

14. Watching paint dry.

Love
Dan

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Last week, in the West Bank, Israeli settlers marched into a Palestinian neighborhood and indiscriminately shot people, destroyed property and burned trees.  Even out-going Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is willing to call this atrocity a progrom.  I've been waiting to write about this, because I've been waiting for my own outrage to bubble up and turn into words.  But I still feel completely numb.  Every once in a while I look at this video of settlers shooting an unarmed Palestinian man, but I've yet to actually click "play."  I just stare at the still image.  I can't bring myself to watch it actually happening.  Can you?


Love
Dan
I thought about titling this entry "On Max Steele," but that felt lewd!  Anyway, check it out: Interview Magazine has taken note of our friend Max.  December/January issue, page 42, enormous photo.

Photography truly is god-making machinery, no?  Oh I was just listening to "Free Man In Paris" today.  ("I would go back there tomorrow, but for the work I've taken on, stroking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song" -- Jeez.) 

I've been making lots of notes lately for my next theater project ("next" as in "far in the future"), in which Max and I will probably play the Deal twins.  As I was scrawling down ideas the other night, sitting on my parents couch, barely noticing "Manhattan" on the TV set, I suddenly looked up to find Woody Allen arguing with Diane Keaton.  Then I started thinking about all the other Woody Allen movies that involve Woody Allen arguing with Diane Keaton.  Then I started wondering what would happen if THEY played the Deal twins instead of us.  I guess Woody would be the Kim and Diane would be the Kelley, but I'm willing to hear arguments for the other way around.

Thinking a lot about impulse vs. ambition.  Wanting something vs. desiring it.  Thinking about how George W. Bush wanted to be president, but didn't desire it.  Thinking about how someone could want to be in porn, but not desire to be in porn.  How a person could want a specific life without desiring it as such.  Thinking, also too, about firearms, specifically shotguns.  Thinking about murder.  Family.  Knowing someone too well.  Knowledge as violence.  Content as violence.  Violence in general.


Love
Dan

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