Respect the Boss

Dorothy K NYC from Dan Isaacson on Vimeo.

A draft résumé from 1999 translates as: “Am pornographer, columnist and wreck. Would like to talk.”

IV Fan Tracey Guinsburg says:

Hi all at Implied Violence. I saw your performance piece at the island in NYC and was impressed enough to buy the book and enjoyed the DVD very much and all the information provided about this group.
The photos I have sent here are of the 19th of Sept taken in NYC at the New Island Festival by my sister Tania Guinsberg, and I have just made a montage of the images as an expansion of the conceptual vision. All the best on this production and others for the future.

When I was visiting Manhattan for the Dorothy K, I went to the Cake Shop one night to see The Pharmacy. While sitting though a paralyzingly boring noise rock act, I started talking to this tiny guy in a neon windbreaker-thing and one of those gold sticker baseball caps.  The conversation began when we made eye contact by chance and noticed that we each had the same pained look on our face.

“I like all kinds of music,” he said, “but not like when you ask a little kid what kind of music they like and they say everything. I mean, it’s something I really think about. I’ve studied sound design at three different universities and been kicked out of all of them.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I like to drink. And I don’t like authority. And sometimes I sell pills.”

I was impressed when he was able to predict exactly when a beat-long silence in a song would occur, and use this beat to yell, “Not impressed!”

He told me that though he liked everything, he had a certain preference for rap, so I told him that recently I had been really into Wu-Tang. This obviously pleased him.

“You know how they do a Behind The Music about Britney Spears or Madonna or whatever. There’s a reason there’s never been one about Wu-Tang. It’s because they’re on hallucinogens all the time. Every one of their albums was recorded while on mushrooms or acid.”

“I wondered how they thought of some of that stuff,” I said.

“Yeah. They did some crazy shit. They were making a video one time, and every night during the production of the video, Ghostface bought a bucket of chicken and buried it in the director’s yard.”

“Why?”

“For luck, I guess. I don’t know, he was fucked up on mushrooms. But anyway, at the end of the week, the director saw his cat scratching around in the yard–which, you know, is really unusual for a cat–and he found them, all the buckets of chicken.”

The Pharmacy came on, who didn’t impress him either, and then I went upstairs, where a woman from San Francisco asked me where all the lesbians are around here.

“I’m only visiting,” I said.

We’re exhausted, and we have been for an entire week. But we are also patting ourselves on the back because thousands of people came through our installation at the New Island Festival on Governors Island, and a sizable portion stayed to watch our performance of The Dorothy K. The house was full each and every night.

Plus, we collected a bunch of weird stories: the Living Jukebox; those fucking crazy Dutch; the theft of 40 pounds of our pork fat; a thrilling hospital visit with special guest Bob from Twin Peaks; no running water; children running in and out of the house like crazy; C. Ryder Cooley and her beautiful saw; WINE; “Boulevard of Broken Dreams;” The Sheriff; Silent Disco; the Goat and Sheep ferry; “Where is The Pharmacy?;” The King of American Breakfast; wisdom teeth; Rufus Wainwright and TV on the Radio in attendance; small bounces; and on and on and on and on and on and on.

We’ll talk more about the show later, but we know everyone is aching for photographs of the actual production, so here’s some to whet your appetite.

William D. in the Shaker Headdress

Dorothy K; Large Jumps; Caul Fat Kitchen

Marcus; The Ether Machine; The Jar Room

The Leech Closet

The Leeching of the King

Allie Hankins; Large Bounces

Slobbering Trina; Head-in-Crotch

Pile of Meat taking a ride

The Birdcage in the Birdroom

The Ethering of Trina

The Plague of Marcus

All photos by Tod Seelie. Are there more? You betcha.

More talk later. Mandie, Ryan, and Ari are posting this from the bus to Boston to meet with American Repertory Theater. Mandie and Ryan will continue on to Detroit to meet with the Museum of Contemporary Art of Detroit. We have a lot to tell you, but we can only tell you in bits.