Travel Queeries

Post-Production

2007-12-11T00:58:00.000-08:00

Hello all...

Travel Queeries has finally finished all filming and we are moving into post-production! (A creative yet long process). Our goal is to do some focus group screenings in Seattle/Olympia and in Europe in Spring/Summer 2008.

Fall 2008 we will do the finishing touches with sound and color and then have it done either for Oct. 08 or Jan. 09... then premier, tour film festivals and community spaces/events, look into broadcasting and touring universities also and then to DVD.

We are in the process of looking for an editor and transferring tapes to dvd so we can just sit down and watch everything and get ready for editing. Also looking at post-production grants, coming up with fundraisers, doing research on pr, etc.

We have added an additional Producers (Lindsay Martin) and two new interns/translators (Marianna Rossi and Yuhei Miyauchi). It's exciting to have such a large and strong group of people working on the project!!!

We also have our new 8 min. extended trailer and it will be up online very soon (will add link on the blog also).

***If you would like to come to any of our focus group screenings, please contact us via the website. Also, please pass the word along for our call for an editor!!!!

thanks!!!! team tq

NEW MAIN BLOG!!!

2007-07-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone....

You should know that we are now posting all our main Travel Queeries Blogs on the website now!!!!

GO TO: www.travelqueeries.com
and sellect BLOG (click on each subject to read full blog and see photos).

Link:
http://www.travelqueeries.com/?q=blog

*There are still updates being made to personal blogs of team TQers also... links on travel queeries blog site also.

xoxoxooxox, team tq

New Blogs and Podcast!!

2007-03-29T16:35:00.000-07:00

Check out elliatmarie.blogspot.com for Elliat Marie's Travel Queeries (updates on travels through pre-prodution). Also, check out travelqueeries.mypodcast.com - new podcast coming soon (and you can subscribe for free via itunes!).

xo, team tq

ps. coming soon- blogs by Margaritte and Sid!!!

Update on Travel Queeries Mid Production (3.07)

2007-03-08T15:41:00.000-08:00

Hello all....

We have been using the blog space more recently to give updates on your production but I wanted to give a little update on how our pre/post production has been going in Seattle the past 6 months and what our next steps are!!!

Travel Queeries is a two phase project- meaning, we are filming for two summers in a row (2006 and 2007) and then will go edit and have a finished product in Spring 2008 to show to everyone and tour!!!

We are wrapping up post-production on 'phase one' currently, which entailed editing a 2 min. trailer with the footage we have:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrYIXe-YID0
as well as fundraising, making merch (post-cards, buttons, t-shirts), planning our next steps and doing all the other administrative things involved in putting together a big production like this film!

We have had some title changes also and brought on some new folks.
Currently Elliat Graney-Saucke is the project lead for Travel Queeries as the Director/Executive Producer with co-founder Margaritte Knezek as our fabulous Co-Producer/DP. (Margaritte is also a full time student at the Evergreen State College and living in Olympia now!).
We have brought on the fabulous and amazing Sidney Jo as another associate-Producer/DP and she will be joining part of filming production this summer as well. Amy Mahardy, who is currently a full time editor at PBS (Public Broadcasting Station) is responsible for editing our fab new trailer!

This summer (2007) we will be filming in the following locations! Please contact us if you are from any of these places, planning on attending the same events, etc! We are interested in filming performances, getting to know new folks to interview and having places to stay/hosts- we are also interested in finding collaborative artists who would like to be a part of Travel Queeries (animation, video art, visual art, music, footage of queer events, etc.)

Locations 2007:
BELGRADE (Serbia)
COPENHAGEN (Denmark) www.queerfestival.com
BARCELONA (Spain)
MILANO/ROMA (Italy)

__________

In the month of March (2007) we are having a few fundraisers that folks in Seattle and Olympia, Washington are highly encouraged to attend!

Shhhh! Secret Cabaret and Cafe
Friday, March 16th, 2007
@ Richard Hugo House
7 & 10pm shows
RSVP: secretcabaret@gmail.com

Private Donors Cocktail Party
Saturday, March 25th, 2007
@ TBA
2pm
contact: elliat_graneysaucke@yahoo.com

Secret Cafe
(Eastern European fusion Cuisine)
Saturday, March 31st, 2007
@ 523 Central Street (eastside corner of Legion)
OLYMPIA
1-5pm
contact: margarittephoto@gmail.com

*We are going to be tabling and screening our trailer at:
Out Dancing
Friday, March 23rd, 2007
@ The Century Ballroom
9pm-1.30am *screening at 10:30pm
contact: elliat_graneysaucke@yahoo.com

*Look for our fundraiser at Central Cinema (Seattle) with GLAM (screening 'Third Antenna'), Queer Dance Party (OLY) and Bands Night (Portland) Fundraisers in April/May.

There will also be Soli Parties in Berlin and screenings of Third Antenna- more info on that soon!!!
_______________

Kisses!! Team TQ

*Please contact us if you have any ideas, comments or concerns... let us know your thoughts on this project, if you want to help out, etc.!!!!
Contact: elliat_graneysaucke@yahoo.com

Berlin Part 1 (the first 2 days) July 31st- 30th, 2006

2006-09-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

(Margaritte)

We arrived in a fuzzy state: awaking at 2:30 am to catch our 7:30am easy Jet flight into Berlin. I was taken out of my fuzzy state by the sounds of birds chirping loud like insects. The sun was hotter and there was an ad on the metro against homophobia, showing two football players kissing. We took in our new surroundings with the ease of Brazilian music on my disc-man. Elliat was confident in Berlin; we were going to her other home, her other life with all the little secrets to reveal. She pointed at graffiti/street art that she loved, told me the direction we were going to Liebigstrasse. I started to get a taste of the German language. Berlin is spread out in large block buildings creeping with stairways and ally-ways, long Avenues with red brick bike paths.

Elliat's house X-B, a fraunen.lesben.trans (womyn, lesbian, trans) housing project, is where we were headed. Housing projects are gigantic communal apartment buildings where people can live communally for cheap. Since squatting became illegal in Berlin many former squats have been bought and not developed; the occupants pay little rent and live similarly to how they did before. The housing collective is in the process of trying to buy the building so it can be even more collectively run. To find out more info visit http://squat.net/liebig34/. When we got there we were greeted by a phone call from our friends in Leeds, Helena and Bob of the band Gene Jenet. They were considering doing our Travel Queeries theme song! Familiar British voices in a land of new. It’s funny how Britain started to feel like home.

The housing project was set up like a typical apartment building except everything was open. You walked up a flight of stairs to a hallway leading to a kitchen and toilet for that floor as well as 2 living rooms. The people living on that floor shared the communal space. Another hallway led to the bedrooms—generally large rooms with big windows overlooking picturesque European cityscape—with a big coal-burning furnace in the corner. I had already fallen for Berlin. It’s a somewhat quiet city with the rich smell of trees. Its concrete for sure but there is so much public DIY art on the concrete, it’s as if the flowers were painted in.

We headed to Schwartz Canal, a frauen.lesben.trans (womyn, lesbian and trans) wagon platz—the squatted land by the river where people live in caravans. This wagon platz is under threat of eviction. We did an interview with a womyn living at the squat when we came back to Berlin the second time. On that fresh summer day they were having a small secret café. German vegan food is rich and filling. We ate hearty bread with 6 different kinds of spreads ranging from light gray to bright yellow and tasting of curry, garlic, eggplant and beans, chocolate cake and chocolate musslie for dessert and apple juice and tea to drink. We sat down outside with a group of new friends as I was introduced to people I had been hearing about for 6 months. The new friends—happy polite faces all—came into my head with the stories I had listened to many Thursday mornings in Seattle, while waking up to conversations with Elliat.

That night we went to The Mitmoch Drag Show (by Kings of Berlin) at AHA Café in the Gay Museum. Yes, there is a Gay Museum in Berlin. We were greeted by another large building with a grand stone archway. Elliat was performing in the show so I was in charge of shooting. We brought visiting Seattle friends Savvy and Roscoe to see the performance and help with the microphone (thanks you two!). We walked up 2 flights of stairs (everything in Berlin was up a few flights of stairs) to a crowded hole-in-the-wall room of sweaty queers. The room was full of moisture and German. Elliat was whisked to the back room as soon as we walked in. I squeezed myself in-between people, completely forgetting the word for “excuse me” in German, and set up the filming equipment on top of 2 people’s heads. The show began.

There was a trans womyn doing male drag with a fake mustache on a split stage. She stripped in front of a mirror, put on a strap-on and proceeded to gyrate onto the mirror with her dildo. On the other side of the stage a womyn doing male drag with a huge sock cock covered in xmass lights punched a balloon ball sac hanging from the ceiling. There was also a bio gay man doing boy drag to a song from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, “Touch me touch me, I want to be dirty.” Then there was Elliat’s shower curtain performance “Exactamente ganow”. It was overall one of the most genderqueer cabarets I have ever seen: only what I would expect from Berlin.

The next day we had to do errands like picking up the tickets to Poland. Elliat made it fun by having us stop at an outdoor B&W photo booth to take pictures, eating dripping fresh nectarines, and later, Gelato when we were really tired. We had the Gelato by a Poseidon sculpture fountain at Alexander platz in Mitte, the city center of Berlin.

On our walk home we went past the Berlin wall. This really affected me; I did not know such strong feelings would come up. I remembered watching it fall with my parents on TV in the 80’s. It meant something to my Czech heritage family and I: watching people liberate themselves; thinking at the time that one of our greatest feats against oppression was being accomplished. I remember learning later that it just paved the way for more capitalism. I still think we need to break down boarders between each other, but I don’t think the story was painted in the most truthful way in the USA, as usual.

I thank the Berlin wall for bringing all this up in me. The wall is now covered in murals: some about the struggle, some just beautiful art pieces and some tag graffiti. There are hole pocks marking the crumbling cement. My favorite Mural is one of the more famous ones of two men kissing. I got into the middle of the street to take a picture of it. I peeked my head out one of the holes, examining the canal beyond. This made me think about oppression and land and property. I started to think of all the times in history when a wall has been erected to keep people away from each other. I thought of Dr. Seuss’s “butter battle book,” a fixture in my young life, about keeping people away from one another and making them believe others are having a better or worse life then them. I thought about Palestine and Israel and how walls are still being built today to separate people.

After puzzling over boarders all afternoon we returned to X-B for a delicious dinner with all our new Berlin friends and old Seattle friends, Katinka, Roscoe and Savvy. We all went to play our second game of Queer footy at a park near the house. The game was fun and more of a close match than last time, with all the good players. I got more confident in my playing and even tried out being goalie, while Elliat kicked butt as usual. It was so nice having a break from talking to people, connecting instead on a purely physical level. Afterward we all got club matte—the drink of Berlin, a non-sweetened carbonated matte tea drink that keeps you buzzing all night—and hung out in front of X-B.

Our first interview in Berlin was scheduled that night with Lotta, a Swedish activist friend who had lived at X-B for the past 2 years. We interviewed her in the room that she was moving out of in a week, that we would inherit when we returned. The interview went smoothly, discussing the history of X-B and how the collective was trying to buy the housing project. We went to sleep that night knowing we would be in Poland the next evening.

Londonia Part 2 July 23rd-30th 2006

2006-09-05T14:39:00.000-07:00

(Margaritte)

We left Leeds in a flurry of goodbyes and kisses and headed for Londonia. This was the city’s original Roman name.
Oh scattered chaos of people and bundles of luggage,
Trash and aching shoulders from too much equipment,
Australian/South African friends,
Bethnal green and east London.

We found ourselves in a historic gay neighborhood. East London may not seem like the place, with all the Lezzies in Stoke Newington and Gay boys in Soho but when we discovered Jennette Winterson’s deli within two days of arrival we knew we were in the right place. Our lovely Australian friend Kate, the lesbian librarian, gave me the book tour of her neighborhood taking me to Quilter street the historic street in Sarah Waters book “Tipping the Velvet” the main character in the book is always trying to go back to Quilter street. The modern Quilter Street is lined with typical English row houses, complete with skinny trees surrounded in rot iron. The only distinguishing factors of houses like these were there doors. One was painted bright pink; we deemed it the flat (the girl in the book) was looking for.

Our first interview was planned to be with some Polish queers living in England, 2 on a farm close to London and one in London proper. This was an interesting element of interviewing Poles; most Polish people have to leave Poland to get work. There are tons of Polish people living in London and other major cities across Europe. Goisa and her two roommates lived in a squatted apartment complex. We had a yummy vegan dinner and discussed the political climate in London for squatters.

In 2010 the Olympics will be held in London. Because of this fact city councils in all the neighborhoods are currently looking at land to develop to make way for the money that will be coming into the city. The first places they are targeting are squats, the only sustainable form of low income housing in London. This is a classic battle of the rich verses the poor the only new twist is these homes are facing being torn down for luxury hotels and condos to house people for the games. This is all about sports! Goisa and her roommates are not the only ones looking at eviction; a similar experience was happening at the Clifton mansions where we stayed in Brixton the first time in London. Squatting is becoming harder and harder but people are not going down without a fight. Since squatting is legal still in England they can take there cases to court and a lot of people are choosing that. Goisa and her roommates are trying to save their homes and be a voice for the illegal immigrants that cannot speak up for their rights to housing.

After are big talk we did not feel like interviewing so we set up an interview with Goisa to talk more later in the week. The next day we got more acquainted with the city and prepared for Elliat’s first performance in England at Bar Wotever. The bar was a gay mans bar in a cute older part of town, it looked like an old brick pub. I filmed while Elliat prepared and friends we had made trickled in to watch. After a lovely show there was an open DJ booth and some hot queer dancing to good good music.

The following day we did an interview with Paisley an ex-pat Drag queen from NYC who just moved to London from Berlin. Elliat knew him from performing in Berlin and the organization he started there called the “Black Girls Coalition.” We conducted our interview in a club that he was performing at under a light that changed from blue to red throughout the interview creating a new cinema graphic shot for the film.

After this it was time for my first game of London queer football. Sometimes called “ Queer Footy.” I had forgotten how much I liked group sports with people who keep the competition light and are flex about the rules. At first I sat out and used filming as the excuse to watch the players and see how competitive they were. I gathered that with this crew I could join in even though I did not really know any of the rules. There were many gay injuries in this game, including an Italian bloody knee, an almost dead 10 year old boy with a hurt leg and head injury, and a limping lesbo named Nemo, but we were able to enjoy ourselves with tons of laughing from excessive bad moves and too much running down hill to get the ball. In the end we all “Won” and celebrated by rolling around in the grass and getting bug bites (namely Elliat getting another especially scary spider bite in almost the same spot as the week prior)… and exchanging contact info and chatting on the bus ride back to our respective homes.

On Thursday evening we had an interview with Scratch our queer footy buddy, who was djing this night called Qrush. I met up with Elliat and Scratch and we did our interview in the Qrush basement space before the evening began. Scratch told us about trans-culture in London, growing up in the city and watching it change, Djing and doing art projects with youth for his work. On Friday we went to the queer squat Dolston lane. After taking two buses we found ourselves at an old storefront that looked closed down. Luca one of the two French people living in London that we planned to interview greeted us in the doorway. He offered us French cheek kisses, everyone in London seem to kiss on the lips, and brought us up the stairs to a cozy and hot kitchen. Cueva was making breakfast in the summer heat with a cigarette and black nightie on. We helped clear the back yard table for breaky. We had potatoes, cheese, bread, juice, coffee, and veggies. The interview was done in the pink living room where Cueva dressed as a French cancan girl complete with little cardboard fan and Luca played a USA football star. The interview was long and covered all aspects of their lives, queer identity, and performance, being a femme, being a fag and healing work. We all got closer and uncomfortably hot so we made our way to the back yard again after the interview. Elliat, Cueva, a friend PG and I discussed femme and butch dynamics in London verses the US and the ever-present drama of our community until the sun had scorched us enough.

Our final day before going to Berlin had arrived. We did our interview with Gosia as planned in a park in Bethnal green. Goisa talked about growing up in Poland and being queer, moving to London and the conservative political force running her home country right now. She also gave us some good contacts for our trip to Warsaw in a few days. After the interview we walked her to work and went home to grab Kate and visit one of London’s info. shops. Kate had been at home starting the design for the comic she wants to do of us for Travel Queeries! We took the long bus journey to the borough Elephant and Castle. I love the names of the boroughs. After our outing we went home and prepared for our 7am flight to Berlin the next morning. This included us getting up at 2:30am to catch a taxi to a bus to the airport, where we caught a flight and two trains to our final destination, X-B the queer/trans/womyn housing project in East Berlin.

Leeds, England (squats, queer mutiny north, and the hobbit homeland…) July 19-23, '06

2006-08-03T04:49:00.000-07:00

(Elliat)
About an hour away from Manchester England Northeast by bus is Leeds, England. We passed through the hills that were spotted with wild flowers and green pastures with cows, sheep and horses. The hills would part to show us valleys with lakes and old stone farmhouses with amazing views of the landscape and it’s expanse.

As the National Express bus pulled into the downtown station of Leeds, Helena and Melanie stood awaiting our now 15 min. late arrival. Margaritte and I were very glad in deed to see these friendly faces and to know that we were going to receive some help in transporting our now a bit excessive amount of luggage to the squat we were staying at with folks we had met at the queer film fest in Manchester.

After greeting, Helena led the speedy way to H.S. where we would spend the next 4 days (which felt like more than a week at least). The address for the squat was in “little wood house,” which we thought was a description of the actual house (how quaint we thought) but in fact it is the name of the district. The space its self was a large brick building that was once an old Sunday school that was then renovated into student flats that had about 30 rooms. The space had been squatted for about 1 year, but when they moved in there was already some furniture and even old food in the refrigerator. The squat included common space of kitchen and living room, an internet lab, 5 bathrooms (including one for dress up), a free shop, a dungeon/workout room, canning/brewing kitchen, art room, library and last but not least the lavender ‘healing room’ with prayer flags, drying herbs and crystals where Margaritte and I would be staying. We got a mattress from the workout room, set up our stuff and got ready for the film screening that evening where ‘Travel Queeries: Queeruption, Barcelona’ and the new ‘Gean Jennet’ video “Piss on yourself” would be screened along with others.

People began showing up and we helped to cut garlic and onions outside in front of the building to make a big bean curry diner that was being cooked up in a fire pit in the front of the house where about 20 people were gathering. On a bunch of different kinds of chairs in various states of dis-repair people sat and ate next to piles of potted plants and veggies that needed a bit of watering. We ate and went inside to watch the films in the now transformed living room turned Movie Theater with our plates of food and glasses of cider.

The next day we wondered around the kitchen gathering up breakfast from the dumpstered (or ‘skipped’) bread and tea with amazing homemade soy milk made by a guy at the house from El Salvador. I wanted to get out of the house so I borrowed a bike and rode to the new squat in town with Jack It was so nice to be on a bike again I have to say, and I was also very glad to be riding with another person so that I didn’t get hit by a car. I was still confused about which sides of the road cars were driving on. The new squat in C.T. had a path of black berries leading to the front door where the locks had been replaced and where there was a post put up by the new inhabitants declaring this space theirs now (this is an actual legal posting since squatting is legal in England). They had been there for less than a week and were still moving in the necessary things like dishes and different pieces of furniture. We had skipped (dumpstered) some veggies on our way back and presented them to Sasha who had opened the door for us and was the person on ‘squat sitting’ duty at the moment. Sasha made us some red bush tea and the three of us talked about trans movements in different cultural context (a.k.a. UK and US). It was nice to hear what people were thinking about in other places, to have a fresh perspective to some degree, people talking about being more gender queer and between genders. After finishing tea sasha and me rode back to H.S. since she was late for kickboxing class and I had to return my borrowed bike.

We got back to the H.S. squat and Margaritte and I proceeded to the park across the way to do interview check-ins with each other. We ended as the sun was setting by filming each other prancing through the lawns of the park with pre-teen boys half watching while playing football and finally we left when a drunk man talking to himself went into the bushes near us and started undressing. Soon after we left with Anarchy Bob on another speed walking adventure (the people of Leeds walk like New Yorkers) to a friend of a friend’s house to watch the new UK lesbo TV drama ‘Sugar Rush’ (which is available on DVD… for those interested in lesbo trash TV!!!). We finally went back to the squat again after discussion turned into strange tech. stuff and we were getting tired. The rest of the evening was spent obsessively e-mailing people about interviews in London and talking to some people from the house, eating too many ‘crisps’ (chips) and finally going to bed at 3am, way after Margaritte had already put herself to bed.

Friday we got up a bit early (before 1pm) and got ready for our first Leeds interview with Anarchy Bob. After the interview we spent some time wondering around looking for food and finally came back to the house to eat some soup and bread before catching a bus to C.T. squat for our next interview with Sasha, Jack and G. While we were on the bus a woman in a beaded orange and pink dress got on with a group of random folks and began to talk very loudly on her cell phone to a friend. She was talking about her son who I guess was a toddler or so. He was asking to wear dresses and telling her about how nice her shoes are. Margaritte and I looked back at each other with big smiles. The woman proceeded to say that people could fuck off if they thought certain things he wore were ‘gay’ and how our society was so homophobic and people were “excepting of gay people” unless if was their child, etc. It was a beautiful bus eavesdropping conversation moment!

We finally got off the bus and I found myself back in the blackberry hedge garden front of C.T. where folks were hanging out on mattresses among the brambles. We waited for about half an hour and then finally started our interview of Sasha, G., and Jack. After we went up into the house and interviewed Sasha a bit more about her visual art and ‘The Screaming and Kicking Collective’ (a radical artist collective that puts on shows in squatted spaces, example- an old Nunnery). We put away some of our stuff and headed over to a garden party down the street at a housing co-op where there was a bbq with amazing salads and stuffed peppers and pies and vegan ice cream. We made jokes about being gay, kept on asking ‘what?’ ‘What did you say?’ because we couldn’t understand Sasha (or more that Margaritte and I had trouble understanding the northern dialect, admittedly I had a harder time with it). We went back to the C.T. squat; some folks went back to the garden party, I stayed behind for some bonding time of my own… We spent the night there, becoming better acquainted with our Leeds friends and then woke to an egg breakfast in the morning.

We had planned to go to a waterfall outside of town the next day but in the night there was a big lightening and thunder rain storm, making us less enthusiastic about the treck out to see nature. We compromised and decided to go to a potluck with the ‘Screaming and Kicking Collective’ kids and go for a walk along the ridge in the woods with Sasha.

We began to walk in the light rain the same direction we had gone for our ‘Sugar Rush’ evening and walked through a park that at the entrance had the gayest statue ever. It was a man with a little jacket on (some kind of military uniform) and little tight pants with his hand saucily placed on one hip. With the other hand he held a large feathered hat. His boots, although he was made of gray stone, were painted bright red! He was the faggiest statue Margaritte and I had ever seen and we instantly deemed him one of our main T.Q. mascots!

We then took off on our little adventure walk in the woods. We made our way to the part of the woods called ‘Mean Wood’ where ‘The Holly's’ are, the woods where J.R.R. Tolkin spent much of his time while writing “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”… we had finally found our way to the hobbit homeland!!! Sasha told us about some of the rocks in the woods, how there are some that have very strong energy “Dolmans.” Friends and people go there a lot to get high, but that even being there can make you feel high. We learned how to salute the birds ‘Good morning Mr. Magpie, how is your wife and children,’ saw ponies and chickens and fields of wild flowers and stopped to sit by a little crick with a water fall to eat some pastels (pot pie like pastries). After a pee break in the bushes we headed back to the bbq, with Margaritte jokingly making out with a dolman rock along the way. The bbq moved inside due to the rain again and I passed out on the couch for about half an hour due to lack of sleep. We ate great food, met fabulous people from the KSC and then headed back to the H.S. squat to start packing for our departure to London the next day and for our interview with Leeds hot queer band ‘Jean Genet.’ We set up for the interview in the dungeon/workout room and had Bob and Helena get into ‘costume’ upon arrival (a.k.a. underwear and sparkly ‘tit tape’). The interview went really well and we ended with a little photo shoot and bonding sleepover.

I woke Margaritte in the morning, searching for our films that I lent to someone to copy and we had to leave in a few hours. We rushed downtown and met up again with Helena (of Jean Genet) for a quick breakfast and for Margaritte and Helena to reunite before we got on our lovely Mega bus back to London that had no working toilette. With some lunch snacks and pee break, a half hour dead stop due to an accident and phone calls from Retha in London (a friend from South Africa who I met at Queer Festival Copenhagen); we finally arrived at Victoria Station. We headed over to Liverpool Street where we met Tonia and Retha and then ran into Kate and George (Australian Lesbian twin sisters who we would be staying with) and then hit up a Bangladeshi restaurant for our first big meal in quite a few days….

Manchester-Margaritte and Elliat explore the north of England - July 15-18, '06

2006-07-27T07:01:00.000-07:00

(Margaritte)
I realized this morning that I want to be a writer again. I want to spend my time at Evergreen writing stories and taking pictures. Sound like a good life plan at the moment.

Hear we are in the midst of northern England memories. Lets start at the beginning.
We left on the mega bus, a double-decker long distance bus with a pig like conductor painted across the back of the bus winking at us as if to say “welcome to the hellish ride of your dreams.” After an hour of combating traffic through city center the bus abruptly stops on the side of the road, another scratchy British voice comes over the intercom, sounds familiar doesn’t it? “Due to engine troubles the bus will be paused until another bus can come and take you the rest of the way.” After about 5 min. the bus starts again and keeps going with no explanation. This repeats 3 times through out the ride until another bus meets us half way there and we unload bags onto our second mega bus. As this happens it is also a “Wee” pee break. Being used to the grey hound routine and a little fuzzy in the head from a nap I walk off the bus to “take a wee” and inspect my surroundings. After finding the perfect black current juice I walk out to no mega bus. In a moment of horror I realize I don’t even have Elliat’s number because we have been joined at the hip for the past few days, and I don’t even know where I am, plus all my stuff is on the bus, oh yes and I have all the money for both of us on me. In a state of shock suddenly I see a red faced Elliat running towards me shouting, “get on the bus we are leaving.” In a state of embarrassment and relief we board our bus and laugh most of the rest of the way there.

Manchester, our sweet industrial city. “The Basement” the info. shop and queer film festival, Primark our cheap cute clothing hookup. We arrive with heavy bags and make our way to the awesome info. shop “The Basement.” Nice people with northern accents and a place to stay for the night immediately greet us. The space itself is colorfully painted and full of resource and queers. There is a vegan café with sparkling elderflower drink, yummy and cheap big meals with cake. 3.50 pounds for 2!

We watch gay cinema including a movie called “the pink mirror” a campy Bollywoodesque film about drag queens in India. We plan to distro it in the states. After the film we went back to the organizers house, Humey where we hung with Manchester queers and talked about Kafe Queeria, the collective that put on the film festival. They also put on a café for queers at the info shop with performance, knitting and socializing.

The next day we explored Manchester. We had our first official British breakfast that morning, baked beans, eggs, tomatoes, sausage, thick bacon, shhh don’t tell the vegans, tea and brown sauce, something similar to ketchup with dates that has a vinegary taste to it. It was all-good and we finally felt full. The city center contains a large green with dead grass and a fountain full of kids running around in there underwear and teenage boys filling bottles with recycled water to splash there mates and girlfriends with. We took pictures and watched the children play until it got to hot and was time for some air-conditioned shopping. Primark was the cheap clothes hookup. Polka-dot belts for 1 pound, pants that fit Elliat, skirts that come right up to your bum with big red buttons, we were quiet happy.

That night we had our first interview with Humey talking about race and the queer community, all the organizing in Manchester for ladyfest and the work between Leeds and Manchester. I could already see that I would be learning a lot from the interviews. I usually try to explain that queer identity is about having no barriers around who you love. To be open to being with anyone not just one sex or the other but gender queer folks and other identities. Humey described it as uniting all the facets of gay identity. Like not being segregated to one identity but uniting under an umbrella term that brings people together. I really liked that.

Our last night in Manchester was the Gossip show they were a fun piece of the Pacific Northwest in a far away city. We hung out with Bob and Helena from Jean Genet and all danced hard and sweaty in a crowd that looked exactly like the Northwest except for the British accents and all the smoking inside. After the show we went downstairs to hang with Beth, Hannah and Nathan the band members. Elliat made a date with Beth to hang out in Portland and eat hamburgers and get earrings. We then went home in a cab. This was our first cab in England. They are large, enough room for 7, and I am still getting used to this opposite side of the road thing.

We left Manchester that morning a fresh start to Leeds.

London- travel queeries film begins... July 12-14, '06

2006-07-24T07:02:00.000-07:00

(Margaritte)
London: Margaritte’s Arrival
I arrived in London on Wednesday night in a sleepy state already to be put into a real bed. Elliat picked me up later then I wanted after being on a broken down tube train. No matter, we were off to a good start hugging and sharing in the new somewhat blurry landscape (from lack of sleep) around me. We waited for our train that never came. A crackly British voice over the intercom told us that the last train had broken down which forced us onto an over crowded city bus through the suburbs of London. Welcome to a big sprawly city where you don’t know the stops because they are not clearly marked and the bus driver will not shout them out. We made our way to the back and squeezed in with all my gear as Elliat filled me in on the details of Copenhagen and her first day in London. Which included juicy tidbits of big squats, queer football (soccer) and fresh filming ideas. We arrived at Sherry’s tiny flat in Brixton at three am and immediately cuddled into the couch for seven hours.

The next morning we awoke to her flat mates cooking up a breakfast under our noses as we, and all of our equipment, were squeezed in between the fridge rater and the door to the hallway. We took showers and found a market to buy mangos, 3 varieties including one called Alphanzo, and some bread and eggs. Atop Sherry’s apartment is a little bit of Eden. It is a beautiful garden full of flowers and magical tables and chairs and sunshine between roses and borage plants. We talked for hours and then went in to take naps before going on a proper British evening walk round the Jamaican neighborhood. We saw a church steeple made of stone, found Shakespeare Street and got to know a few dogs.

That night we slept at the apartment squat across the street, the “Clifton Mansions.” It was a huge old and dusty apartment complex with a fake horse head above the door. When we came in a courtyard with various sculptures and plant bits growing out of old bathtubs greeted us. On the left was Arika’s apartment, which she shared with her girlfriend, a friend and a very jumpy dog, named Mollie.

Arika shared stories over mint tea of squatting in London for the last 10 years and how Britain has been the best place in the EU to squat because of some old squatter rites law. We talked about the history of the building, how the landlord disappeared and most of the tenets just stayed and didn’t pay rent for the last 20 years. More recently the city council decided to evict all the people there and the half block of squatted apartments around the corner to make way for development this fall. This has become a problem as the gentrification of cities is becoming a worldwide issue, pushing poorer folks out of their homes. Squatters are also under a lot of pressure from the government threatening to change this old law, many cases are brought to court each year trying to save free spaces. The forced move will be hard for the tenants of Clifton Mansions but Arika said in a way it was good because of some recent harassment from a neighboring businessman and his friends. They were dealing crack and verbally assaulting the queer folks in the building as well as the women. Though this was some of the harsh reality of city life on the fringes plenty of people have squatted securely and viably throughout the city and country. We hope to visit more squats in the countryside and city’s in the north.

Our last day in London, the first time through, was full of fun sweet moments. Including Sherry’s musical performance at the White Chapel Gallery. She does a combination of electronic noise art and performance with a screen in front of her projecting images across her body. We met up with some of Elliat’s friends from Queer fest Copenhagen and Sherry’s lovely flat mate Joe. We all watched the next band together leopard legs, an all gurl drumming sound art band. Our friend Scratch and I stood on top of benches fanning off cigarette smoke with postcards and taking in the intense bass of drums and ten howling womyn all dressed in white with thick black eye makeup.

Afterward, after a two hours of coordinating, we all walked to a gay bar in Central London called the Joiners. The walk was the best part, it took us through a Bangladeshi neighborhood full of young people and restaurants then quiet side streets that made us feel like we were utterly lost, then losing half of the seven people when they turned the wrong corner and two others when they went to get bagels without telling anyone.
We finally made it to the over crowed very smoky pub and tried to sit down on some couches. A sexiest older gay man refused to move, being used to taking up SPACE and laid his body across the couch to reserve “his space.” We stood for some time, then when he went up to go to the toilet Elliat and me, the un-polite Americans, snagged the couches and told him and his friends they could share the space, which they did before leaving.

We all giggled and talked and took pictures into the wee hours when kisses were exchanged as well as numbers for when we return to London at the end of July.

Queer Festival Copenhagen- July 4-11, '06!!!!

2006-07-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

After the hour long plane ride into Copenhagen with Mel (a person I met at the airport and recognized from around) we got a train into town. I picked up a guild to the city since it had a city map on it and for fun was looking through it on the way into to the Central Station and in the events and things to do was… Queer Festival! I was a bit shocked and was feeling unclear as to what to expect from the event, but when I got to the space I instantly recognized tons of folks from Queeruption Barcelona and felt right at home.

The fest was in a big stone building the organizers had rented with money they had gotten from a grant from the Copenhagen City Arts Council. It was a part of a whole square with other venues/spaces connected to it and there were triangular benches in the middle of the square along with a stage with kiddy pools on it and a large tent where people were lounging. On the side on the main building was a tent set up also with a kitchen space that was open and where people could go get tea and coffee and make sandwiches and help cook meals (with suggested donation). When I walked in the space there was a room on the left with a rug and couches and three huge pictures on the wall, to the right was the main performance space/stage (where later there was a huge amount of lights and sound equipment loaded in), up some stairs from the stage there was a bar and some chairs, down the hall behind the living room was bathrooms and a storage room. On the next floor up (1st/2nd floor) there was an amazing gallery space with an info booth with rad zine/program guides. I think that total there were 5 gallery rooms with pictures from tons of events and sculptures and exhibits by different trans women, documents of performance, drag queen costume patter designs, a chair made of stuffed socks, found art and graffiti, and so forth. There was also a dress up room which was a very helpful and a well used part of the festival through out the week. Lastly, in the stairway between the gallery and the attick was a computer station with free internet and the attick was where some people were sleeping, storing their bags, and later in the week was turned into a dungon. The basement was kind of a lot of rooms full of electrical boxes and amps but serves also as the ‘dress room’ and had a shower for the lovely squatting kids who needed to bathe.

The first day I hung out in the courtyard and caught up with old friends, listening to DJs and some performances. Mel and I ended up staying at a flat down the street with this woman named Sara who was really super nice. I stayed up and talked to Sara some- she is a painter and we mainly talked about the fest and Danish Culture. I think the main thing I remember about her was this dish she made for me the last night I slept there. It was a traditional Danish dish to have when it’s hot and you make it with sort of hard sweet biscuits broken up in a bowl with buttermilk and lemon juice in it poured on top. It was really nice- a kind of combination of cereal and cheese cake batter! I stayed there for two days until the other performer in Mels group came to take my place, then making my way to the squat where other folks from the fest were staying, called ‘The Youth House.’ It’s really the only squat in Copenhagen and apparently there have been fights over it for years between the punk kids and the city government. It’s a really amazing space that was about 5 miles Northwest of the main festival space. The basement had a industrial sized kitchen and the main floor had a huge hang out space and the bathrooms (which I have to say made everyone a bit sick with the smell of piss). We all were sleeping on the next floor up in a huge old ballroom that was all painted black with a large banner of a first punching through an swastika handing on the stage. There was also a banner for K Town Festival (a hardcore/punk fest that had happened a week or so before Queer Festival in that space). I slept on a gym mat next to the windows, other folks slept on the bleachers, the stage, balcony and other parts of the ballroom. I usually went to bed sometime between 3am and 8am and we were usually woken up by people moving cabels in the space or someone having band practice/playing drums around 11 or 12. There were city bikes in Copenhagen that were mainly I guess for tourists- you would put in a 20 Kroner coin and then the bike would release and you could ride it around for however long (but not be able to lock it) and then when it was returned you would get the $ back. I saw quite a few bikes out though that were missing the coins, so I guess some people had figured out how to get them out and just take the bikes (it’s a same system for shopping carts they have in germany). You could also rent a bike with a deposite or pay for the bus (20 kr. A trip) or take a taxi with 4 people (20 kr. Each).

The second day I was there, Wednesday, I ended up doing kitchen crew with a bunch of kids from Australia/London, Denmark and Sweden and the went to sit in the audience of the live broadcasting of Queer Tv-Tv, a queer tv show on Copenhagens public access station where they were interviewing people about Queer geography and queer architecture (for example talking about the genders of different spaces and buildings and non-heterosexual structures). In the evening I performed as Sr. La Muse in my shower curtain naked costume and blond wig. I went a watched the corpses bride in the movie tent and waited for Sara to go home, which ended up happening around 3am.

Thursday there was the pussycafe hosted by Pia from the Kings of Berlin outside in a tent where people ate chocolate vanilla pussy shaped cake, took candid shots of their pussies as rock stars with glasses on and made pussy art. That day there were also public performance pieces by Miss Fish from Dunst falling into a fountain in the main square and an impov Soap opera, more workshops on queer geography, and another Queer Tv-Tv show. I went with my new friends from Amsterdam, Bastiaan and Krista (User), back to the squat on bikes (with all my bags on my back!) and then we got ready and head over to the women/trans play party that was happening that night. It was at a Womens Community Center (which I found out later was specifically there because some people were pushing for the space to be more sex positive). The space had a smoking room/hang out area on the second floor, the main play space on the third floor and more bathrooms on the 4th floor. The play space had a kind of mesh that reminded me of a military boot camp hanging from the walls to make up different spaces. There were some couples/groups going for it already when we got there, others spending time behind the bar, folks leading other around on leashes and then there was a larger group of folks from the fest who I was with. We ended up playing spin the bottle since people were not really initiating anything and then we played spin the bottle with people shouting out what scene to do next like doctor nurse (which is my new favorite game ever and one of the most entertaining things I have done in a long time). Not much else really happened, people walking around topless, restling (where I kinda fucked up my knees) and lots of talking and just getting to know folks more. Some other people of course took advantage of the opportunity and space a lot more, but over all it pretty chill.

After trying to sleep some at the squat I headed over to the main space for Queer Festival again and had breakfast and showered and checked e-mail. It was then Friday and I believe that’s the day I went out on the queer bike tour of Copenhagen where they had barrowed a bunch of bikes and people were all dressed up and we went around to see the palace and different government buildings and the little mermaid statue (which apparently has been decapitated about 3 times or more). I helped out a bit more with kitchen crew and also went to the drag workshop by the kings of berlin, where Kris Ko helped me do powder shading techniques on my chest, put on a silver dress that was way too small, some clips in my hair and a pink skirt with the back open, make-up and finally a golden picture frame as a necklass. This super punky Danish girl I met while working in the kitchen was wearing a pink Barbie shirt and I ended up helping her spiff up her outfit also with a pink mini-skirt and belt, high heel mock snake skin books and we ripped open the shirt more to have it open on the side and then some make-up. She became ‘Barbie’ from that point on (with another make over the next day as well). That evening Team Plastique played (Berlin/Australia) plus others. That night I caught a cab home with some London kids at around 5am back to the squat.

Saturday night was the biggest party for the fest, happening in a venue down the street. I signed up for ‘general help’ and hung out backstage with the kings on berlin and dunst kids, telling stories about breathing out of my eye. I got some footage of the Dunst performance for Travel Queeries and saw other amazing performances by the Kings of Berlin and Ocean, which looked great, especially in that large of a space. The night lasted for a long time, there was fun to be had on the dance floor and in the bathrooms, people going back and forth between inside and outside and when all the booze was sold, the clean up crew started to do their work and the party moved to the main space where I heard it went until 1pm the next day! I got a cab home again with the London kids at around 7am, we looked for a breakfast spot with no luck and finally found our way to our beds. Sunday was the beginning of our recovery, people wondering around after too much drinking and looking for food. It was a cloudy day and we ended up inside around candles telling stories with a woman with some kind of mental illness yelling about people having too many legs and such. I ended up singing some jazz songs and talking about breathing through my eye again, feeling a bit off with angsiety by the end of the day for all the emotional confusion one can get from being around so many good lucking gays, ending it all with hugs and a nice walk back to the squat with Barbie and friends. The next day there was laundry to be done, internet to be checked, breakfast to be had with another US as we talked about making another anarchist queer gathering in the US and about our experiences as traveler and with the festival. Cleaning up the space was dominated mostly by people going through all the left overs of the dress up room and putting on as much as they could and then packing it back into bags again. The rest of the queers at the squat made a huge dinner and everyone left over from the fest came over for dinner as we got drunk on red cherry wine in the back yard while rosy played us the violin and sam yelled at me for mixing up the names for noodles and pasta. The next day, Tuesday, I hung out in town a bit with rosy and peter and caught my flight finally to London where I found my way to Sherrys house in Brixton and awaited the arrival of Margaritte and the beginnings of production for Travel Queeries Europa 2006!!!!

Vienna... (American Queer Studies Class and Pride)

2006-07-17T16:52:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Vienna on a Tuesday and went from the airport to my friend Marikas’ place in the 10th district of town. I met Marike at X-B in Berlin while she was traveling through with her friend Tobi (from Ireland/Canada) this past winter. She is getting her PhD in American Studies and has currently been a TA for an American Queer Studies Class. We had talked about what each other did and I had mentioned that I do performance and it turned out they were looking for something to top off the class (http://homepage.univie.ac.at/astrid.fellner/queertheory.htm). It was a very special occasion that there was a guest performer at the University, especially for a Queer Studies class, since the systems work very differently in Europe compared to the US, so that was really an honor as well. They were really great to work with also and there was another show set up for me at a venue called 'Schikaneder'(http:/ www.schikaneder.at/) in the 3rd District. Both shows were well received and well attended. After both shows we went out in groups to talk and get drinks and the professor of the class was really a fabulous person who has been publishing research papers on gender construction in American culture in the 18th century. So, there was lots of acedamia but people had good ideas and Marike was also really rad about connecting politics to academics and theory. We ate lots of roles and ate Austrian vegan food, looked at old buildings in the ring center, and talked about femininity and gender and sexism and queer politics and cultural differences like US and Austrian political histories and social movements.

On the Saturday that I was there, there was the Vienna Pride where there was quite a few people in traditional Austrian garb, doing their little dances and songs on floats and then later on the main with an ABBA cover band and my absute favorite was the carage drawn by 12 people in Sm garb with bits in their mouths.

Some things in Vienna that I was surprised by were that there were more homeless people, than for example in Berlin, lots more people with tattoos and several times a week your train would be delayed or canceled because people often were trying to comit suicide by jumping in front of the underground trains. I ended up staying with my friend Anna for the last couple days in town at her parents house in the 3rd district. The apartment was really nice with a super old elivator, a shower where you could watch yourself in a full length mirror and was right above a huge market street. I went and got a ton of produce and made a huge dinner for Anna and her friends one night, which was really fun. I did get lost quite a bit in Vienna, but found my way around some how. There is really no control also on public transportation and you don’t really have to pay for it ever which was rad.

I left Vienna the following Monday for Berlin, got in late and it took about 1.5 hours to get back from the airport, did some laundry and met up with some people. In the morning I had to leave all the laundry I had done and then went to catch the train to the airport after trying to burn a film I had. It was a not quite day of craziness. Thankfully at the airport I met up with someone I recognized from the queer scene/queeruption and we sat together on the plane. Then there was queer festival Copenhagen…

Berlin Transgenialer

2006-07-01T06:20:00.000-07:00

So.... where did I leave off? I think that besides going to the german lakes and swimming across them with my friend Lotta, there was the Transgenialer!!!! The Alternative CSD (Christopher Street Day)/Pride! Berlin moved back it's "normal" pride to July because of the VM/World Cup, but not the crazy radical queers! I have to say that I am soooo glad I was there and a part of that experience.

The day started off with going to shops and getting supplies for a breakfast with my friend Suzanne from Olympia (who also lives in Berlin) and we ate eggs and fruit and toast and tea and talking about living abroad and Olympia and the whole bit! I brought her back some B&B coffee (batdorf and bronson... capitol blend to be exact) and then we went out to the main intersection of Franfurt Tor down the street from x-b where there were hundreds of queers everywhere!!! They made some anouncements from one of the main floats (with banners about being gender queer and 'eat the state'). Most of my friends were passing out fliers for the Dyke/Trans march that is happening July 15th in Berlin and finally hunted down some sun screen to protect myself from burns in the hummid summer sun of Berlin in June!

The Parade started off around I guess 3pm or so and went down Wassaurstrasse, stopping spontaniously as citizens watched off thier balconies along the road. At Wassaur str. (where the S/U-ban run) we stopped and had another 'demo'/performance where everyone had white balloons they all popped at the same time as a mentephore for what the people on the float were talked about )gender conformity and bianaries, etc.) At one point there was some guy taking pictures at the march who was some kind of fasict activist and the made announcements about him over the intercom system while he waves with a huge smile on his face, but people made him feel pretty uncomfortable after that and I guess he finally left. At one point also I saw two people I had interviewed for the 'Travel Queeries: Queeruption, Barcelona' doc. and got thier contact info since I had not gotten it before and they still hadn't seen the film!

The march stopped again after we crossed the canal infront of a huge Nike building and people wheat pasted 'Nike Kills' posters over the Nike adds and people talked about how there was a space in that building 'for artist' but how the company was really exloiding people and that we should not support them- which I thought was personally very cool to see as a part of a Pride/CSD parade! (At this point also I went and got an ice cream with some friends). And so on and on the march goes, down into Kroezberg and the main float started to play QUEER TURKISH MUSIC!!! (Kroezberg is the Turkish/Queer neighborhood and there is not much mingling between the two). It gave me goose bumps and felt so amazing to walk along with almost 2 thousand freaky queers in the streets to queer turkish music with all the turkish men looking at us from the bars where they were sitting in awe. When we finally got to Kotbuza Tor we stopped again under the large apt. building that goes bridges the street and queer turkish people talked about arranged marrages and oppression of being queer and turkish. People also spoke in german again about allyship in not letting kroezberg get gentified and working on racism! It was so amazing I cannot even tell you! A lot of my friends were getting really emotional and there was a turkish woman on the side of the march who was crying.

THEN.... some people from the march came down into the croud a bit more and demonstrated how one could cut off the yellow part of the german flag (which is yellow, black and red) and instantly you had an anarchist flag! Amazing! (had other friends who were also talking about doing this at some point to the millions of german flags around town, on peoples cars, businesses and homes.. and even on many backs as capes... some shops in Berlin are even sold out of flags now). I think this action really made me aware of how people with more political conciousness were truely feeling about all the german flags, which of course have a different cultural context in regards to nationalism since it is so closely linked to Nazi history. In Germany it is pretty much a taboo to be patriotic, unlike for example in the US (where is is maybe taky... I think it would be more the equivalent of the confeterate flag or something). After cutting the flag though, there was one flag with a bid on it and they burned that one (while wearing ski masks).

Then there was more Turkish Queer Music (one of my new favorites!!!) and hot turish gay boys danced on each other on the float stage as we moved along to the final desination in the main square of Kroezberg on Oronianstrasse. There were booths set up all over and a huge main stage with drag performances, speakers from different social and political groups, hip hop performances, and so on. Saw tons of friends (some of which were a little too drunk) and finally had to head home and then realized that it was infact 9pm but so light out it could have been 5pm. Got some more water and headed back to the house where one of the after parties was going to be. People from x-b had cleaned up the courtyard and bar and it looked amazing. I felt totally spent though so I went upstairs and got into my pjs, but started to listen to neko case and got a kick of energy so I got dressed up like a drag queen a in gold leme gown and went downstairs to shock people. Some people from the house did a performance about fußbol/soccer and and then there was dancing and time to go to bed for me.

The next day I went swimming at a nudist beach with friend from the house and some visiting gals from Lipzec and Warsaw/Poland. Had some good talks about Poland and London and ate lots of strawberries and went swimming tons in the water, doing all kinds of wierd flips off of sholders, etc. Afterwards me and the polish gals went to swarza canal (the women.lesbian.tran wagon platz... like a caravan radical queer feminist trailor park in the middle of berlin) and found they had no more föku (food). Went back home and ate and I thought I was leaving the next morning for Vienna, but infact the calendar in my room started on mondays not fridays so as I was working on e-mail at 2am I realized my mistake and wrote notes to everyone that apparently I could not count or read a calendar so I would infact be there another day. In the morning everyone just laughed at me, but it was actually really good because then I got a chance to catch up on work, etc.

I finally did catch my flight to Vienna and am here now... am going to let this blog sit for a bit before I do my Vienna update... hope everyone is doing well and enjoy the pictures!!!
xo, elliat

First Back in Berlin, June 2006

2006-06-26T05:25:00.001-07:00

I am finally back in Berlin! It is humid and beautiful and there are many amazing and familiar faces surrounding me in my big 30 person housing project of X-B Liebigstrasse!

I was supposed to take a flight on Tuesday, June 13th, but in fact my flight was messed up and I ended up leaving the next day with a new ticket from Seattle to LA to Munich to Berlin. My luggage got lost also but was delived to my house later that evening. I am staying in my own room with a loft bed and double door balcony looking out on Liebigstrasse (which is also
above the bar in our house with loud punks till 4 or 5am almost daily. It is also the World Cup in Germany right now (or the VM) and there are country flags everywhere, tons of people standing around bars up and down the streets and TVs in almost every window with the games so you can keep score as you walk along.

My first night I was back, my roommate Lotta (from Sweden) came to the airport to get me and we then went out to a hill in the park to watch the sun set with people from our floor/WG and other friends (Anna, Nossa, Catalina, Courtney, Angie, and Me). Then we went to Barbie Dienhoffs (the barbie doll themed bar next to the wassaur strasse canal) and I saw tons of friends and met more filmmakers and filled up my party schedule for the weekend! We rode bikes back in the hot night with boys in jersys waving flags while coming off the S-ban (subway) and the wind blowing our hair.

Today a group of people from the Stock 4 (4th floor WG) will be going to the park again for a picknick and then we will our to a classical/country concert at Himmeilrich (gay bar) to hear my friend Christina's new performance group.

The rest of my weekend is full of meetings and birthday parties and BBQs and then a 'sex(y) party' on monday to meet up with more old friends. Next weekend is the alternative pride (called Christopher Street Day- CSD in Europe) and then a 'Mitmoch' drag show with the kings of berlin on sunday! (which I may perform in).

I leave for Vienna on June 27th for a performance at the University of Vienna for an American Queer Studies Class
(http://homepage.univie.ac.at/astrid.fellner/queertheory.htm) and then at a Club/Movie house on June 30th
(http:/ www.schikaneder.at/), the day before Vienna Pride. Then I head back to Berlin for a day and then off again to Queer Festival (www.queerfestival.org) in Copenhagen.

That is the update at the moment... will send more detailed updates again soon and hope you are all well!!!

XOXOX, Elliat

long awaited update...milano, warsaw, and back home to berlin!

2005-12-21T13:49:00.000-08:00

Hey again from berlin.... and have to say that things are going really well at the moment. So... it´s been awhile since I last made an update, so I will do what I can to recall all that has happened.

First off, I was in Milano and Bologna the first weekend of Dec. to do some drag shows with my friend Tina (DJ Tony). We got into Milano on Thrusday, took a bus into town, saw our friend who was working at a sex shop off the main shopping strip and then went back to the central station to take a train to Bologna... it really blew my mind though to be in another country with another language, etc. in 2 hours. The train ride was really nice and we were eating great focaccia! YUM! We got into Bologna and got picked up by this girl from Portland named Dannie or Daniela and made our way to the this crazy huge space which is the gay and lesbian community center in Bologna. I kept on hearing that is was a more liberal or ´red´city with the university also there and got to have great conversation about italain culture and living with your parents till you are 30 as a norm... but back to the space. It was also the archive and as you pass through the main entrance we met lots of folks who were getting ready for the show... the space apparently is really great, but you have to pay a membership fee to come to things and then on top of that you have to pay to come to shows and it gets kinda pricey... a little profit off community..? Anyways, we made our way to the back door and then down the metal sheeky staircase to the back area and into the bottom story where there was a HUGE space with a stage and bar and projection booth and really high ceiling. This is where the show was going to be. I then met another person from the US, who of course I KNEW! It was Angelo (or Angela) who made the costumes for ´The Transfused´the rock opera that Nomy Lamm and The Need wrote that I was in when I was 16... and then it turned out the Dannie had seen it and both of them had lived in Oly... and yet again the world was a small place. The performed a peice at the show that was a ´James Bond´ esk thing and then I performed a character that is based somewhat on Napolian Dinomite...oh yeah! I come out and take off my shoes as I am pulling a little tinny rolling suite case that I found for free at the flöwmarket and I take it to the center of the stage very slowly, take out some things and then put on a ´boy´outfit in bright orange and then dance to kris kross.. jump jump, switch back to slow while undressing and then put on purple and white polka dot shirt with a headband and dance to brandy... and then take my stuff and leave the stage.. it was a really fun show and it was great performing. We finally got to bed after Tina and Chira finished DJing at 5am and then I slept! In the morning we went to Angela and Chiras house for an amazing breakfast of potatoes and eggs and pancakes and tea and I was back in the US for a moment.. totally reminded me of pdx and it was very nice. Went back to Milano on the train as we very closely made it to our train on time. That night we went to a house of this woman who has this crazy experimental womens band where they wear alien masks and dresses. From then on it was mainly lots of italian, which was nice to listen to, but I didn´t really catch most of what was being said. The next day I stayed in the apt. and then we went to dinner at the house of the women who was booking out show in Milano and who paid for our tickets there. She had lots of vintage gore posters and black furniture.. we watched some of the movies that Tina had brought and she made us drinks of Absenth and it was so strong I really couldn´t even make myself drink it. Finally we went home and it was snowing so hard... we walked along the water way, under bridges and it was beautiful and quite in the snow and the late night of milano. The next day we went out to the studio of the woman we were staying with and then went out for food...again, amazing focaccia! Met some really nice people and I am so bad at names, so I cannot tell you that much. Went then to the space and figured out the staging, ate some really good oranges and then agelo and dannie came, as they were going to do the performance as well that night. The party was fun, lots of straight guys, but it was in a nice space and people liked the shows... I always think it´s great to be in drag around people who aren´t used to it also. Went home and in the morning got up early to get some food and then tina took me to the main station where I caught the bus to the airport and then finally was back in Berlin and felt at home with the german mentality coming from the sheeky milano fashion state. It was good though to get out and get this breath or fresh air.

The next week was a bit down, not loving my job, but looking forward to the next weekend. We weren´t so prepaired, but we finally caught the train to Warsaw at 6:42am. Catalina and I sat next to these two girl from Australia who were traveling and also saw Petal and Lota on the train. At the boarder Catalina realized she had forgotten her passport and got taken off the train by the boarder control, but promised she was going to work on coming after she went to the house for her passport. A few stops later Petal got off with the police for wanting to pay the originally advertised price since you have to pay more when you are on the trian with no ticket and the ticket office at our station had been closed... then it was me and Lota. We got into town and made our way to the space.. and there was no one there. At first we thought it was because there was a demo that day and then a newly married couple came in and was having their pictures taken... we decided to ask more and we were in the wrong place. we went back to the station to meet up with petal who had gotten his way with the tickets and we went to the new location where we saw familiar faces right away. The space was great.. in a three story builing with great bars, bathrooms and basement...haha, and got to attend a fab DJing working by Prisc from france (where there were dudes... and this is at ladyfest mind....who were all about jumping up on being first to try things). After this we sat at a table and talked and then saw some of the shows. At this point Catalina was not there and I was hoping she was OK and I was thinking about still performing alone. We found out a way for me to perform between DJs and a polish woman who was there said she wanted to take some pictures of me the next day in drag...which didn´t ever really happen, but back to the story. Catalina did show up and we did perform, but the croud wanted people to get naked, but I trying wowing them as a drag king putting on the moves in long underwear and it actually worked quite well. I have to say that the band were not the best but I really love the polish hip hop group of ladies and the hardcore band from Barcelona called ´Drama´with a kick ass singer. We had found a place to sleep .. where 11 other people were staying also and I think we got home at around 5am. In the morning we all had a great breakfast in the living room... picknick style in the PJs with people from Poland, France, Germany, and the US. It was bitter cold as we made our was through the street and on the rickety trolly back to another space for a day of watching films. I had decided at this point that I really liked Warsaw/Poland as all the people I had met were really nice and had a good spirit about them. The films were great and I was able to see a few that I wanted to showcase in Berlin and in the states. Lota and Catalina and I went out to a great vegetarian resteraunt where they were playing enya and it totally reminded me of my mom. We then had some kick ass cakes with tea and then went back for more movies. The night ended and we came home, got up early and ended up catching an earlier train than we had thought we would so we were not able to see more of the city. I would like to go back an visit though, it was very nice there. The train ride back was chill with good converstation and while we were drinking hot water in the resteraunt train an nice older woman came to say hello who was from Minnesoda.

Since then I have been feeling up and down and all around, but have finally landed on the fact that I really am enjoying myself here. Of course I miss people and places, but I´v realized that I have options and am not stuck here, that I can move around to different cities and countries.. that all these things are possible if you just keep your wits about you and decide you are in it for a good time. Last night I got two new tattoos- the one on my left arm is a leo symbol for my passion and strength and being fierce and the one on my right is a needle and with a red thread pointing inward for healing and creativity and mending and for remembering my good friend sailor. I am working on getting my visa, which will be for most likely a year and am looking for more work so I can have some change in my life also. I am hoping to come back and visit some time in the spring... march or so? So, until the next update, which will hopefully be a bit sooner than this one. Big kisses and thinking about you in Berlin...!

farms, performance art drag and winter

2005-11-21T19:55:00.000-08:00

I will start with the drag... I saw an amazing show on saturday night of this group called ´Larry Peacock´who was doing performance art music drag.. out of control. Here is the link for their picture: http://www.ausland-berlin.de/offen/viewEventEntry.do?blog:blogid=3641.
There were songs about cows and their milk, butt plug microphones, experimental electro lesbian music, alphablets and symphonies for trousers, and more. That said. There is also a farm in berlin next to the place I tutor english and on saturday I am taking my roommates on a feild trip to the farm to pet the goats and horses and the huge cows... the also have a store where you can buy fresh free range milk, eggs and cheese from the farm. Things like this make me very happy... makes me want to live more in the country with an earth house and chickens and yet there is the contradiction here with this big city life... two loves.

I am most likely not going to be coming back to seattle in jan. to visit anymore, but sometime later in the spring. I bit sad about this, but this next weekend I have a performance and then the next weekend is milano and then warshaw, poland. and the x-mas at X-B. more on all that later....

polish families, lots of cake, bike rides to the forest and a nice dream state

2005-11-13T16:33:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Things are well.. have been working tons (6 days a week) with different polish families teaching english and such... and being offered a lot of cake. Most mornings I wake up and feel out of myself and then after I dress and come into the kitchen and find some of my roommates I am reminded of how amazing my life is and I feel in such a good mood. The other floors of the house are on a different value system than me in so many ways and it feels best to be with the othe people who are artists and foreigners as well. Funny how I also don´t really have any german friends here... how the people from all over come together around their ´different-ness.´I have many thoughts on living on farms or communes and learning about how to make more things when I get back to the US... urban life here is good at the moment though and I love taking the train to work... snaking around berlin, through all the fall leaves and old buildings in the gray air.

Yesterday, catalina, courtney and I all went on a very long bike ride to the forest outside of berlin... started getting craby with getting lost and being cold, but once we got to the river and saw the amazing view, it was worth all the amaying smells of the leaves and dirt of the forest. We made out way down to the river and rode along it until we found a good place to stop for lunch. We sat on logs by the water, watching squeeky black ducks and posh people who were boarding a docked boat that served as a resteraunt. We stayed outside eating bananas, raisins, apples, carrots and sandwiches from the bakeri then going to the bathroom in the bushes, then leaving behind the people in the boat to thier food and watching of nature through glass. The bike ride back was so nice... mainly I think because we knew the way and were all bundled up, then as we came closer into town we started passing all of these amazing buildings and then the huge city centers with christmas decorations everywhere and a deep comforting cold in the air. The sky was so dark, but as we rode home I could catch glimpses of the moon through the clouds, shining bright in contrast to the sky and all the city lights.

Today I taught one of the girls I watch how to sing ´the insy weensy spider´song and the baby kept on crawling to me and then later was trying to bite her moms nose, and then I had cake and went home. Tonight I have a performance with Catalina at a local club that is having a womens sex party that tina and angie are organizing. I am still working on getting pictures posted... especially to show you my new euro hair cut! There is a chance I will be coming back to seattle for a quick visit in jan as a part of an artist residency at the university of mn... but more on that later.

kisses, elliat

Squat bars, zines, the gossip, spider in the web and system of a down...

2005-11-08T12:32:00.000-08:00

so much to say with all that in a title... I guess I can start with the squat bars. There is one in my house called X-B to start with and everytime I am there I think of how it would be the ultimate dream for all my punk friends in seattle... have been doing little sketches of the house and other spaces and think I will be doing a zine about the house. Have learned a lot also about how housing projects work here... there are socialist-leftist organizations that help buy houses with projects and that is what my house is in the process of doing. There is also an info zine that comes out monthly with all the events happening at squats and other radical spaces and housing projects and I have decided that I need to start exploring more of these things going on here... revolations about what I am doing here, thinking about things as a bit more of research, etc.

Friday night at a bar called Suppamolly, spider in the web (oly-ex bikini kill) and party line (dc- new name for bratmobile) play and I chatted for a bit with Chris from spider in the web who I know from working at rainy day records for a long time while I was growing up in Oly. Strange to be seeing people from the US and I also have started to meet all these people from olympia who live here.. but I´m getting ahead of myself. Saturday not much happening, stayed at home and watched the breakfast club with my friend sara from sweden and the sunday was the prenzlaurburg flowmarket and then the house plannum after talking to my aunt on the phone for an hour. It looks as though I will be going with her to minneapolis in jan to do an arts residency and then come back to berlin... there is also a good chance that I will be coming back to seattle for the planning of the recidency... but nothing is set in stone. It is a strange feeling since I was planning on not coming back to see the US for 6 months at least and now I will be back for a visit sooner.... anyways.

So, last night (monday, 7.11) the gossip played at this really strange club called Knaack Klub and I went with my roommate Catalina. Before the show we went to Vöku (basically a secret cafe situation) at this space called ´the black girls coalition´and I met 6 people from Oly there... craziness. The space has two main rooms, one is a little bar in a black room with a little disco ball light and the other room had this Amazing trans woman who was djing and there were films abot the sisters of perpetual induldance playing in the background as all these kids sat eating. After that we headed to the club where the gossip was playing and as we pulled up on our bikes I saw stan and beth and nathan outside the club and basically ran stan over to give her a hug. It was so great to see them and I was able to sit down and talk with stan for awhile before the show.. about all her hot swedish eye candy actions and what not. As we were sitting there with our becks from Bremen, these really kinda tough looking dudes came and sat near us and I could hear that they were american also.. and it was ´system of a down´who I personally am not super familiar with, but they are an mtv hardcore band from what I hear... what the f*ck. After the show we were supposed to go do karaoke at this amazing bar in kreuzburg, but no one ended up going cuz there was drama with shitty equipment and some guy also came up to nathan and pulled out a gossip record and broke it and threw it on the ground... but anyways, and I ended up staying there with Catalina and these two german girls I met (one of who had been at the last homoagogo) and we stayed there talking about gender till 2:30am.

This morning I got up at 9am, took and shower and rode my bike to the hotel where the gossip was staying and we ate breakfast and talked gossip..haha. and about 70´s berlin fashion bound terrorists (... beinhofs). It was strange to again see so many people from home and on my bike ride home I stopped in the park for a minute and cried, missing the familiar. Now I am finishing this up and then going to work.. an now 5 day a week gig and the going to barbie dienhof tonight to see wassan dj.

till next time....

Drag Scene...

2005-10-31T13:09:00.000-08:00

Today is my first day of work as a Nanny for a Polish family in a neighborhood south of here- two girls who don´t speak english yet and who have shaved heads. It´s sunny but still very cold and I keep on having performance fantasies when listening to bad radio in the morning with my tea and bread in the kitchen at X-B.

Last night I went with my roommates Lota (swedan) and Catalina (NYC) to a drag show at the club ÁHA´(www.kingsofberlin.de) . It was an open stage and I went with the idea of just checking out the scene... but inspired by the german line dancing and bad romio and juliet, plus some singing drag queens, I decided we needed to perform. Catalina went to NYU for drama and we quickly put together a performance with some stuff we both had done in the past. I was not wearing anying very special, so I just decided to perform in my bra, singing ´crying over you´ with Catalina coming out crying over me and then we did a sassy little southern girl act about our hats being happy and sad. It was really fun and I think people liked it- Catalina and I will most likely come up with more performances also, which I am looking forward to. Afterwards one of the bar tenders kept on kissing my hand and trying to get me drunk and I got to chat with lots of different people at the club. Afterwards we went to pizza and then to the gay disco club SO36, which was on the way home.

This morning Nossa came back to the house and told that all went well with her interview about the wedding (the one from Friday) and then I said my good byes to Nossa and Elisa who are going back to Amsterdam today- hopefully they will be setting up a show for me and friends as well.

One of Tinas friends in Milan wants us to come and perform at a party called ´Fetish Art´(www.fetish-art.it) for ealy dec. and I am working on an Alice in Wonderland theme for it- it looks like we are also going to perform in Balonia while in Italy. Also, after the show at AHA last night, I talked with this girl named Elliot (france) who works at the Barbie Dienhof and she asked me to be in the cabaret for late November. So great how many opportunities there are here for performing and trying new things.. I´m having lots of fun with trying new performances and getting to work with new people.

I´m not looking forward to working and getting enough money to get a bike and my new room... there is also a lamp at the flee market that I have my eye on... little things that make life feel nice sometimes.

Barbie Dienhof, Swedish Karaoke, Opera Drag Queens and Queer Weddings in Berlin!

2005-10-28T22:20:00.000-07:00

Yes, and this is only the beginning. Where to start. It is hard to me to keep up on all these things, trying to recap, but at an internet cafe I am not always feeling the Berlin life that now runs through me. More drag shows coming up, one in Milano in Dec. as well at the cabarette at the Barbie Dienhof (http://www.bader-deinhoff.de/).. the most amazing bar/place ever... There is a huge Gala tonight at X-B, the huge building I live in in east berlin and we made lots of vegan cakes for it and now people are decorating and mixing up the bar in the ground floor, as well as the bike shop with has been converted into another bar. Wow, I really am not even knowing where to start in explaining what has been happening. Most of my friends here are still swedish and italian and we go out to karaoke bars with private booths and sing ´time of my life´ and britney and I go to the library tons and drink lots of black tea in the morning with my nice german bread. I think a lot about the US and being in Germany, think about why it´s different, what about this life that makes it so freeing and amazing. Right now I´m at an african owned internet cafe and there is a guy working here speaking an african dialect, at home it´s french, italian, german, swedish, and more. I ride my bike around this city and wonder where I really am. There is a huge Turkish population here also, some kind of agreement between germany and turkey... we eat lots of falafels and bakery goods. Stores are small and food is made fresh and it´s starting to get really dark at 6pm-18 hrs. I know I am jumping around, but I wanted to give an update of some kind, and this is what I have. I also went to a queer wedding this morning and the other wedding next to us was also queer... I think german and spanish with two girls and there were all these great fags there and this one trans girl who had amazing bangs and I wanted her to be my new bestfriend. I thinkI will go to my house for the gala now and make a big party with all the women and queerions of berlin. I have also found a job here finally.. watching polish girls who don´t speak english and also don´t have hair, so it will somehow grow back better. this is the story for now.

Take care and keep in touch!

Berlin... at last!

2005-10-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

And where do I begin...? First of all, I love it here, not sure I want to leave ever even though the nights are getting colder and colder and I am having trouble getting a job. I live in a big building that used to be a squat, and is now legalized, in what used to be East Berlin in Friedrickshain. The building has 4 floors and is a huge womens collective house called X-B Liebig, with a bar on the first floor which is open some days of the weeks. I am living on the 4th floor, which is known as the queer/international floor and there are girls from Norway, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and the US, and all of whom are extremely smart and talented artists and craftspeople. There are many realities to living here... the people you meet and the relationships built, the day to day activities and making of pasta and such in the kitchen, wondering the streets and looking at all the beautiful buildings and spaces, being around so many mixed languages and stories, the personal thoughts and ideas that come from traveling and questions one has about self, life, purpose, goals, direction, time and so forth. I long to stay here and yet worry about everday survival and also long for traveling more and at the same time am creating stability for myself here. I am tired and restless, longing for certainty and looking for adventure.

I will write more later... more on love and bikes and maps and big euro cities...

xo, elliat

Hamburg, Germany

2005-10-14T08:14:00.000-07:00

¨That fishy town¨as they say, so at least in the chicks on speed song. I spent almost a week there, staying with my friend Eleni, who I met at Queeruption in Barcelona. It took me about two days to finally get to her house from my house in Seattle, but it was great once I landed. Germany is an interesting country and for the most part I really like it here. Hamburg was more sleepy that I had expected and my main memory of it is the wall of vine leaves on the building across the way from the kitchen window at Eleni´s house, turning a deep red as the air was growing colder. I stayed in their guest room, on the 1st floor (in the US it would be the second floor) and then the kitchen, living room (home of the guine pigs) the bathroom and the two boys room were on the 3rd floor, and lastly, Eleni, Joy and Andrea lived on the 4th (next was the attick where you went to hang your closes to dry). The bathroom was divided with the sink and shower/bath and then a room on the other side of the hall with the toilette. We ate lots of bread with a wide array of spreads for the morning and I have found that the most popular meal in Germany is Falafel as it is only 2 euros for a quick dinner.

Eleni introduced me to her friend Christina and we went to the womens art/video archive in Hamburg. They had an amazing space next to the central station with a huge room full of books and zines on all sorts of subject matter, a room full of 5,000 films by women starting from the 1970´s, an office, a kitchen/filing room, and a viewing room with a huge tv and large rolling boxes with pads on them for sitting on. I went the next day with Christina to watch some films and get some ideas for things I might be able to screen in the US later... my favorites so far are the one from the this woman in London who goes for a walk with a huge purse and a pink coat, goes into a office in a building and then takes out half a pizza from her purse and eats it, of course saving some for later after she is done. The other was called ¨Women in Black¨- a play on men in black, about two butch femme couples who basically kill gross guys who try to fuck with them.

I will finish my update soon, and then I can tell about Berlin, where I am now!

xo, elliat

Home

2005-09-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

is home a place you find one day or leave behind you along the way. I always think about that poem from the lord of the rings, about how stepping out the door can be a dangerous thing because you never know where the road might sweep you off to.

I'm stuck in a room full of boxes and mixed feelings. Tina has finally e-mailed me again and I feel so much more grounded- knowing that berlin is real- singing kevin blechdom in my head as I wake up from dreams about hospital beds and irritated people. I can't wait for the lack of responsibility- no more bad kid feelings, letting go of this place and this moment of life, relaxing the clench in my jaw. I just need to get grounded again, write out a plan, stop editing myself, finding my trusting place again while in the unknown.

I went to 'Mission Creek' prison on Friday as a part of my new job that I will be working until I leave on Oct. 3rd. I'm coordinating a project at my aunts dance Co. called "keeping the faith" and we did an intro to the program for the women inmates there. I saw someone I knew in there, but it was not strange to see one of my people in there- queers and street kids, people who get screwed over by the system and then end up in prison- this is how it happens. Of course, as it was minimum security, it was mostly all white... the 'low crime' population. I remember when I went to Purdy (WCCW) in Gig Harbor the past two years and the overwhelming feeling I had as a queer young woman- that I belonged there somehow. I felt the culture- that on some level I got, I felt the institutionalized environment and the scheduled life and I understood it, the simplicity of self that becomes real while dealing with a space that contains such complexity. I had a good amount of friends end up in Juvie when I was in middle school and when I worked on KTF in 2003 I found out that one of the inmates was cousins with a friend of mine from middle school and I had hung out at her house. It feels healing to just even walk through the doors there and to say hello with a warm smile, to introduce yourself, to show that you even care at all- what that means to people who are' locked away'- it's beyond words. I feel so fortunate to be able to do some of this work before I leave for germany and it has already been some of the most meaningful work I have ever done. I will continue to set up the program and be able to work on the first two days of classes, then leave.

At this point, I will be flying out on Oct. 3rd and get into Hamburg via London on Oct. 4th- head over to my friend Eleni's house and have a films screening there. I might stop through Bremen, but I will for sure be on my way to Berlin to meet up with Devon and Tina/Tony and all the rest of my amazing people there.

I so glad that I have stayed to be with my friend Sailor, that I could be present with her in her healing and be able to see her. She is now doing so much better and although it will be a very long road to recovery, she is already showing us how strong she is, pulling through and trying to communicate, but she needs her rest now. I might go and sit by her tonight, but although today has been simple I am very tired and may go in the morning.

Until I find my words again.

tramatic events...

2005-09-14T15:22:00.000-07:00

It's less than a week before I am scheduled to leave for berlin and I have had some very bad news. A very good friend of mine, Sarah Block/Sailor (in picture-right), got hit by a drunk driver on her way home from Portland late sunday night. She is in intensive care at Harbor View and just went in for brain surgery this morning. It has been really hard, going back and forth on thinking she is fine to 'we don't know' and I'm just keep my faith in her strength and ability to heal- to believe that she will come back to us. I'm on brake from visiting her, but I will be back there again soon. I have no idea if my plans will still go through and there is a good chance that I may push back my tickets.
I feel so tired and yet I feel like I still need to cry so much. It is so scary to have the potential of loosing someone near you and I'm just trying to stay open to what ever happens here.

Please keep her in your thoughts and I will of course send out an undate on my life and all of this when I can.

Much Love,
Elliat

Here's the Plan...

2005-09-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

It's now a quick count down till I leave for Berlin and things are going well so far. I set up this blog to talk about my trip through Europe for the next 6 months and will be reporting on all the amazing things I see and people I meet, hopefully convincing you to drop everything and join me for the party!

This specific trip started with an invitation to perform in a drag show in Bremen, Germany while I was at Queeruption 8 in Barcelona, June 2005. I performed 'Crying over You' by Roy Orbeson on a whim (as I'd been practicing that song) and with no background music and a magic marker mustache I sang to a squat wear house full of international queers. So, here I am, heading back again... making the dream real, performing and showing films, going to find parts of myself across the sea.

My trip will begin on September 20th- seattle-nyc-london-hamberg and then staying with my amazing friend Eleni. After that I have the drag show in Bremen on September 24th and then I go to Berlin! I have two shows set up in Berlin right now- Oct. 10th I will be doing a half hour set of drag/burlesque between dj's at a Lesbo night in a gay/lesbo bar in Berlin-Friedrichshain called "Himmelreich." It will be written up closer to the date is a German magazine- so check it out: (http://www.siegessaeule.de/index.html) The next night I will be screening a porn I recently shot/directed/edited in Seattle with a friend called "Grinding Gears." It will be showing at a queer night at one of Berlins sex clubs.

After that, I think I will be heading for Milan with my good friend Devon Divine from San Francesco (of JUNK and Mala Queerque- www.malaqueerche.com) and my dearest Tina (dj Tony) who is a part of the Pornflakes Italian queer collective. Pornflakes (www.pornflakes.it) is throwing a party in Milan that we will be going to and Devon is screening JUNK and I will be screening my films as well!!!
"Travel Queeries," the feature length documentary film I am working on producing with my friend Margaritte Knezek, about European queer art and activism, will find out if grant funding comes through in November, and if so then I will be traveling more to do pre-production research on location in Nov/Dec!

That is the plan for now. I will most likely try and work some in Berlin and write and such. I'm really excited to see what will happen.

Please stay tuned to hear about what happens next and tell your friends about this site!