Austrian Airlines flight #007 is now leaving for Vienna…

Actor and singer Cheyenne Jackson, who is one of this year's featured performers.

NYC nightlife personality Johanna Constantine in chic traveling attire.

Fabulous gals Codie and Ladyfag enjoy a pre-boarding cocktail.

Actor Antonio Banderas making a V.I.P. entrance.

Model Paulina Porizkova

Hairdresser Danilo and model Alek Wek.

Amanda Lepore departs for Europe in grand style!

LIFE BALL

How do you say “drag queen reporter” in German?   Today I’m on my way to Vienna, Austria to cover the Life Ball—the famed annual gala fundraiser for AIDS organizations!

Each year the event whisks over a plane load of New Yorkers—press, party promoters, creatures of the night, etc.—and meine freundin Anett, who’s working for the Ball this year, has arranged for me to attend as a member of the media.  Dankeschön!

Everyone I know who has attended in the past raves about the fabulousness of it all!

Honey, I wouldn’t be schlepping half-way across the world for a two-day trip if it was just any old wienerschnitzel roast!

I’m treating my reporting job with the utmost seriousness!  (Can you hear me clicking my World War II knee-high black boots together?)  Look for my up-to-the minute coverage here on my site, as well as on my Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Gotta go!   I still have to pack my lederhosen and Heidi wigs!

It’s been a whirlwind lately for me of art, music and film!  Among my recent activities…

*Michael Bilsborough’s new exhibit of geometric drawings at Invisible Exports gallery on the Lower East Side.  Great opening—tons of socializing!

Artist Michael Bilsborough (right) and friend.

*Performance at Public Assembly by minimal electronics duo Xeno and Oaklander.   My first time hearing and seeing them—I can’t wait to catch them again!

*Trans artist Wu Tsang at the Whitney Museum discussing his quasi-documentary Wildness, about a transgender bar in working-class L.A. and its various patrons.   The movie is fascinating—lots and lots of layers!

*Plus I managed to sneak in a night on the town hanging out with Natasha a.k.a. Madison Payne.

It didn't take much to convince Natasha to pose!

Me in a classy crotch shot!

So much to do and see!  I’ll rest when I’m dead!

Yay! President Obama has endorsed gay marriage!

But, uh-oh, according to polls, the majority of Afro-Americans disagree with Mr. O. because of their Christian beliefs.

So now the media is pitting blacks against gays—which is ridiculous.  First of all, there are lots of people who fall into both categories!

But regarding those black people who adamantly cite the Bible—and I realize this is a touchy subject—I’m always baffled by their gung-ho endorsement of Christianity in the first place.  Why exalt the religion of your historic oppressor?  An oppressor that justified slavery with Old Testament verses—and whose image of Jesus was white as snow!  (Can you tell I’m not down with religion?)

Oppressed people embracing the tools of the oppressor… How strange.

But wait a minute!  Aren’t gay people doing the same kind of thing?  After years of being victimized by straight people, gays now desire the holy grail of heterosexuality—marriage—which queer radicals decry as just as out-dated and enslaving as religion!

Two creaky old sacred institutions—religion and marriage.

Of course, the difference is that no one is denying religion to anyone.  And shouldn’t everyone have the right to choose whatever creaky old institution they want?

I didn’t attend the marriage of burlesque performers Julie Atlas Muz and Mat Fraser this past weekend, but by all accounts it was quite the spectacle.  Per Julie’s request, all the bridesmaids dressed as zombies!

Yay, team spirit! 

I was determined to escape the city and clear my head.

So I hopped on a train at Grand Central heading for Beacon, New York, which is home to the Dia museum.  The space used to be an old Nabisco factory and it is absolutely vast.  In fact, it’s the largest contemporary art museum in the world.

Approaching the museum, surrounded by the scenic Hudson Valley.

The football-field size galleries, lit mostly by naturalistic lighting, are devoted to stark, majestic and minimalistic works of art.

Richard Serra

The museum is so big that you often feel like you’re the only one there, and the experience is like touring a zillionaire art collector’s private home.

Louise Bourgeois

Imi Knoebel

Lawrence Weiner

The museum also includes outside plazas where one can peacefully contemplate what the hell one is doing with one’s life.

Irwin West Garden

Afterwards, I took a stroll down Beacon’s charming Main Street, which has been gentrified with coffee shops and galleries, but not obnoxiously so.

Then I took the hour train ride back to Manhattan.   Total cost of my ticket was $28.  Museum admission was $10.

Inspiration and a sense of calmness and clarity: Priceless.

Some great press mentions for BINGO-GO!  (This Friday, May 4th!)

I’ll add them later to my cyber scrapbook.  Right now I gotta million other things to do to get ready!

From Gay Letter:

From Next Magazine:

And in a funny mix-up, the listing for the The Village Voice uses a photo of Mimi Imfurst and Candi Shell!  Which one am I supposed to be?

Hey, I’m happy with any and all press!    Mimi Imfurst isn’t the worst person to be mistaken for… I think.

As I entered XL nightclub last night for the official wowie-zowie party for the final episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, there she was!   Performing on stage!  Sharon Needles, the brand-new winner!

After a spirited lipsynch of Marilyn Manson’s “Beautiful People,” Sharon, clad in an American flag, got all Gaga-ish with some “proclamations” about how her victory was a rallying cry for freaky outcasts and how it was time to overthrow mall culture.  Down with Strawberry’s!

Then she acknowledged some of the freaky NYC club personalities who had gathered with her on stage.  Statuesque Jordan Foxx was hailed as the “new Michael Alig,” which was a bit creepy considering that Alig, who was the ringmaster of the 1990s club-kid scene, is currently in prison—for murder!   Veteran Susanne Bartsch got a shout out for “putting RuPaul on a go-go box when no one else would.”  (So she’s to blame!)   Transsexual nightlife icon Amanda Lepore received the most praise of all—and now that Sharon is $100,000 richer she can afford the plastic surgery to look like her!

“These people are magnets of pop culture,” said Sharon, “These are the people I’m drawn to.”

Then she got into her prop coffin and was carried off stage.  The queen is dead, long live the queen!

This past weekend I attended both nights of the first ever New York Boylesque Festival.

Lots of male flesh imaginatively displayed!   Among the performers who I enjoyed seeing for the first time was The Evil Hate Monkey.

In an amazing coincidence, Monkey’s main squeeze is burlesque performer Trixie Little, who just so happens to be performing at my special show this coming Friday, May 4th—BINGO-GO!

Both members of the fun-loving couple are  totally committed to their art!

The couple hails from Baltimore, renown for its appealing eccentrics.   Nowadays they reside in New York!