Diggin' To China

So the little blog is growing up! Digging to China (www.dtcklaus.blogspot.com) is turning into Diggin' To China (www.diggintochina.com) Basically we are just morphing into a slightly more professional slightly more prolific site and hope to add more features and a few more contributors in the coming months (and some surprises!). I dropped the last "g" in the title as a nod to my roots in the deep South (I grew up on a farm in Georgia- no really I did!)

Stay tuned and thank you all for so much support.

xo

Obama and You

Clearly the honey moon is over, but as LGBT activists and advocates contemplate how to proceed and put pressure on the White House for equality I think we should put the pressure on our LGBT COMMUNITY. Let me be clear- you want full and equal rights? Get off your (politically) lazy gym-toned asses, park your Subaru, and demand them. WORK for them. Protest, rally, and earn them! Writing a check and whining over brunch is no longer enough. Sorry folks. It's not. You want "hope"? We need to give it to each other and to ourselves. Step up , step forward and stand strong. Instead of organizational and personal backbiting lets remember that we are due our constitutional rights. File lawsuits demanding them, withhold your taxes, boycott, letter write, protest take it to the streets. The drag queens and dykes of Stonewall threw bricks in the street and took us all out of the closet, Harvey Milk walked proudly , head held high in the street- not just on a nice summer drunken Pride weekend, but everyday-demanding not acceptance,not tolerance no- EQUALITY. Quit your bitchen- I'll see ya in the streets.

Dorian Gray

Here's our international teaser/first look at Dorian Gray director Oliver Parker's (An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest) take on yet another Oscar Wilde classic, The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel (and one of the greatest novels ever written in my opinion certainly a personal favorite.) It's a tad more action-horror than you'd expect but it certainly has that element. I've seen better trailers- It's a typical rushed together poorly edited cheap looking early European festival trailer but the footage it's self is promising as is the cast and crew's pedigree with such material. Also kudos to Ben Barnes for taking this after Prince Caspian, nip that kiddie idol tag in the bud.

Ryan O'Neal

Ryan O'Neal is such a fucking mess that he actually made a pass at his own daughter Acadamy Award winning actress Tatum O'Neal at the funeral for his long-time on-again-off again love Farrah Fawcett, gag.
Check this selection from Vanity Fair.

Recalling Fawcett's funeral, O'Neal says, "I had just put the casket in the hearse and I was watching it drive away when a beautiful blonde woman comes up and embraces me. I said to her, 'You have a drink on you? You have a car?' She said, 'Daddy, it's me — Tatum!' I was just trying to be funny with a strange Swedish woman, and it's my daughter. It's so sick."

"That's our relationship in a nutshell," Tatum says when asked about the incident. "You make of it what you will. It had been a few years since we'd seen each other, and he was always a ladies' man, a bon vivant."

Bat for Lashes- Sleep Alone

Dreams of Art installations?! Oh Ms. Khan you steal this man's heart! Sleep Alone is the third single from Bat for Lashes' sophomore album, the brilliant Two Suns. Enjoy

Tragic Magic comes to Portland!

"Tragic Magic was so good it hurt…Thank Goodness I brought moist towelettes!”
Justin Bond

The fact they are cool enough for Justin Bond (Kiki and Herb, Shortbus) to write their blurb tells you that Portland is in for a treat! The Milagro Theater is proudly hosting three stellar solo shows under one banner Friday August 7th 2009 at 8:00 pm!

Performance artist Heather M. Ács' brilliantly titled "what the brain forgets and the heart denies, the body remembers…" explores death, grief, sexual and ethnic identity in a multimedia performance sure to stun and enthrall.

"... time and testimonies loop and break apart, sparrows descend, tortillas and tears sizzle on the comal, a river flows with dirt and glitter, and 60s girl groups croon cotton candy lyrics while dust gathers in an empty house. "

Glenn Marla's Tragic Magic takes us on the exploratory discourse of how we feel and interact with our bodies, both past and present. Marla has been called a downtown prophet, and an obese transvestite in tights" who's work has been marveled as performance art that pushes the envelope without pushing the audience away. Glenn Marla in this dark and hilarious work dares to ask important questions like:

"Have you ever wanted to fuck your therapist at age 14 because she loved you more than you ever could? How many years have you spent trying to break up with your body?"

And in Thank You For Being Urgent punk rock transman icon Silas Howard explores the American Dream, punk rockers, trans men outsiders, burlesque dancers with dementia and more . Silas bio itself reads like a introduction to the piece, an amazing and riveting fantasia of self-reliance, perseverance and chance.

"Silas Howard, (writer, director, and musician), co-directed his first feature, By Hook Or By Crook, with Harry Dodge. The indie classic was a 2002 Sundance Film Festival premiere and five-time Best Feature winner. Silas Howard's next film, Exactly Like You, (co-written with Nina Landey), is based on the life of Billy Tipton. Howard's short documentary, What I Love About Dying also premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
For eight years, Howard toured with his band Tribe 8, the notorious queer punk band (a band boycotted by republicans and women at Michigan womyn's music festival). The band has been featured in Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, and The Los Angeles Times. You can check out Howard's music videos, short musical and documentaries which have aired on MTV and LOGO networks and at Disneyland, Anaheim (weird, yet true). Howard's writing is also featured in the anthologies, "Without a Net: Growing Up WorkingClass" and "Live Through This ," as well as the artists' journal, "LTTR." Currently Silas is working on a novel set in San Francisco's mid-90's homocore scene"

I urge Everyone to come out for this one night performance direct from NYC (you know the big city!) If you miss this you will REGRET IT FOR EVER! and I will be posting a post show interview with all three artists just to rub it in your faces just what great theater art you missed!

What: TRAGIC MAGIC – An evening with three different solo performance artists from New York City — Heather Ács, Glenn Marla and Silas Howard — sharing three separate, but complementary excerpts of new works

When: Friday, August 7, 2009, 8:00 p.m.

Where: Milagro Theatre, 525 SE Stark Street, Portland, Oregon 97214

Admission: $12 from 503-236-7253, www.pdxtix.net/milagro or the PDX Ticket Network box office at the Hollywood Theatre daily 1-9 p.m.

More information: 503-236-7253 or www.milagro.org

Dark Night of The Soul

The art of album making is a dying one, especially with the interference of record execs and compounded by the digital download age. It's all about hit singles and remixes of said singles. Artists used to make great concept records (some still do!) but most these days try very hard to create a neatly packaged collection of hits. Danger Mouse the brilliant producer/multi-instrumentalist knows the fine balance (Dangerdoom, Gnarls Barkley, Gorrillaz) of creating best selling artistically adventurous ALBUMS. Ones that you listen to over and over again, high concept (often ass shaking) records that seem into your subconscious. So does Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse (Good Morning Spider and It's A Wonderful Life are jaw droppingly amazing song cycles that you should already own! Totally judging you... ) So when these two great minds met to discuss a collaboration concept album they came up with the idea of doing an art book to go along, with the record being the soundtrack. Enter film-maker, author, artist, transcendental meditation lecturer, coffee enthusiast David Lynch (swoooon! I currently have INLAND EMPIRE just randomly playing in the background) to shoot a photography art book resulting Dark Night of The Soul . Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse share the credits for the music and vocal duties fall to an impressive lineup of guests:

Nina Perrsons (A Camp, the Cardigans) Julian Cassablancas (the Strokes) Black Francis (Frank Black, the Pixies) Wayne Coyne (The Flaming Lips) Jason Lytle (former Grandaddy) Suzanne Vega, Iggy Pop, Vic Chestnut, James Mercer (The Shins), Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals, Neon Neon, Candylion) and David Lynch himself all lend a hand.

While some tracks are a tad jarring in context with the the rest of the album - notably Angel's Harp's vicious vocal attack by Frank Black the full effect is a breathtaking , beautiful slightly uncomfortable album that begs for repeat listening... and there's the the catch. It begs for repeat listening if you can get it.

Due to longstanding tensions between EMI and Danger Mouse the book will be published with a BLANK CD-R !!!! The album was leaked online for fans to find and download through whatever means necessary and then burn onto the furnished blank CD accompanying the book , effectively saying FUCK YOU EMI! This is how we roll! ( - I bet they said something better but its still hot I'm not firing on all cylinders here.) I have it. I'm bragging. I love it. My pick for one of the best records of 2009, though sadly it may never see a proper release. BUT....
you can hear the whole thing here at National Public Radio (God Bless NPR!!)


Enjoy.