GAYLETTER

Producer and nightlife curator Earl Dax have been throwing his party Pussy Faggot! since 2009. It’s been a place where many artists and performers have the opportunity to showcase their art and express themselves freely. We’ve been fans of Earl’s drag personas for a while. As we learned Earl believes in the more the merrier when it comes to performers, he doesn’t have one drag persona, he has two, meet Enya Buttox and Indigo Earl.

Why did you decide to create a party called Pussy Faggot? How did you come up with the name? It was 2009, and I was looking for a venue to throw a benefit for the HOT! Festival. The Delancey turned out to be the best available option, but I hadn’t set foot in the place since the demise of UNISEX Salon, a weekly party I had thrown there in 2006/07. That party infamously came to an abrupt end during a contretemps with my co-promoter that ended with me in a fetal position on the floor of the bar where I was kicked three times, spat upon and called — you guessed it — a “pussy faggot!” Going back two years later was strange and surreal, and I wanted to acknowledge what had happened there.

How did people respond to the name Pussy Faggot? I was completely surprised by the response to the name. People loved it. I knew that it was provocative, but I didn’t fully understand that there are actually a lot of people who embrace the term, “pussy faggot.” …

We met Max Steele, the day after 4/20, at BAX in Park Slope where he’s performing his show ‘Encourager‘ this Friday April 26 and Saturday April 27 at 8pm, and this Sunday April 28 at 6pm. We played a round of “Kill, Marry, Fuck,” discussed his current favorite Spice Girl songs, and talked about how self-help might be the new porn (or how self-help and porn might not be that disparate at the end of the day).

Hi Max. Where are you from? California. The Bay Area.

And then you’ve been here since 2006? Yeah well I went to college and then I moved here after college.

When did you start performing? I started performing when I was about 15.  So a long time ago when I was living in California in the Bay Area, in punk bands. And then I started doing more theatre-y, performance art stuff when I moved to New York in 2006.

What were the names of the punk bands that you were in? I was in a twee band called Scatterplot when I was 15 and then we joined my punk boyfriend’s band, The Diaries when I was 16 and then for a long time I was in a band by myself called The Icebergs which is now just Max Steele & the Party Ice.

So it continues on? It does continue on. And I’m also in a gay goth rap band called B0DY H1GH which I play a lot with. …

I met Joseph formally last June at a GAYLETTER Interracial party. He sang one song, or maybe two, and I was totally transfixed. He gave me his business card and I put it in my ‘special people’ pile I keep in my drawer in my filing cabinet. When Abi assigned me to photograph him to help promote his new show, I was thrilled.

I immediately got a vision—Joseph in my bed, crisp white cotton boxers, new white Hanes ribbed tank top, clean/clean (in hair and make-up terms that means no make-up, freshly washed hair, no product). So I set about prepping, I spent all day Sunday buying the boxers at Brooks Brothers, I walked up and down Madison Ave. to the flagship store twice to get the right size….anything for my Joseph, I playfully thought.

So the shoot day arrived and it was gorgeous—so was Joseph, he arrived in all black, the same way he takes his coffee. We discussed many things as I sipped prosecco and snapped a few pics at the coffee table. Then it was time for the bedroom. I had my favorite Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi streaming on the stereo and daylight in the bedroom.

One camera had color film and one had black and white. I guess I got lost in the prosecco bubbles and the moment, pushing the camera shutters as Joseph reclined in various positions until the film ran out.

As he changed back into his street clothes, I looked around my space and had a sensation something special had gone on. …

Marc Arthur is a 28 year old playwright/director originally from Tucson, Arizona. He is about to debut his latest piece, Mascot, an ambitious large-scale performance that “investigates perception, loss and the nature of violence through live painting.” We had the opportunity to chat with him about his process, his doves, his inspiration, and his haunting dreams.

How did you get involved in the arts?  My mom is a costume designer so I’ve always been around the arts. But I definitely have always felt a calling, or just known deep down that this is what I need to do. There were a lot of rehearsals I sat and watched in a dark theater that were very influential.

How old were you when you first watched a rehearsal? I was really young, probably around 4 or 5.

What did you go to school for? I actually studied playwriting.

Is this the first piece you have directed? How did you get into directing? I started directing in high school, so around 2000. Whenever I wrote plays in playwriting school they were too crazy and weird for directors to take on so I ended up directing them on my own. But I already has some experience. In highschool I directed a version of Oedipus that involved many gallons of honey being poured over me.

When was the first time you felt that someone in the “art world” was interested in what you do? The Kuchar brothers came to one of my early performances. …

We first saw RobotMoon Juice perform in Brooklyn during the Δn1morphs (animal drag competition) party that we were guest judging. We were impressed by his stage presence, vocal talents and personal style. We were like — who is this boy? Where did he come from?

Recently we had a chance to chat with the rapper and artist about “looking mad cunt on top of mad trash,” his music and his 70’s inspired style. We sent photographer Cyle Suesz to Harlem to capture the artist in his neighborhood. Robot showed us how you twerk a photoshoot!

When did you come to New York? I came to New York when I was 12, my mom was already in New York so I had to fly to New York by myself—scary as fuck airports are too big.

Do you remember the first thing you did when you first arrived? I don’t remember exactly what I did but I remember the first song I heard on the radio in the car driving to Harlem.

What was the song? Fuck I forgot that bitchz name, but its that disco song “…at first I was afraid I was petrified…” it’s sad how I know every word to the song but I don’t know who sings it—I think it’s Donna Summers…

Did you speak english then? I did a little, but not very well. Because of my American cousins, they would come to Dominican Republic in the summer and Christmas.

When did you start rapping? …