The Birthday Queen

Today marks my 45th year on this earth, this time around (wink).  5 years ago I had my 40th in the Columbian theater. It was reservation only and was to be a karaoke/lip sync competition; the winner walking away with a grand prize of Marco's Sex Book PDFMN; which was inspired by Madonnas Sex Book.  The party was amazing!! Balloons floating in the entrance with streamers hanging down, finger food in the VooDoo Room; family and friends- all of my worlds colliding at the same location for a party that was a mystery to everyone.

I can still recall the nervous excitement of my mom! She loves to see me perform, but she also knows how vulgar I can be;) her favorite (even though her favorite would have been for me to be a god boy without a foul tongue) phrase for me was, "rude, crude and vulgar." I always have been. I am pure in spirit, I just have a vulgar way of shining sometimes...I have just learned to allow both space within me.  I try to not be too ashamed of how I speak, sing, write or dance.  Even when I am singing about angry hand jobs, I do it with playful kindness in my heart. For me, artistic expression is all about working through all of my pent up fears, frustrations, laughter and sexuality issues. I believe that if we continue to find the strength to share our fears, questions and joys with one another our world is going to continue to blossom and release it's sweet drag stance ( that was to read: fragarance; but I love drag stance!!) to all and let them drink in the beauty of what we all have to share.

I felt that on the 25 of January, as a group of like 15, all dressed in our drag for the night; walked off my front porch and through downtown to the Columbian Theater for this years DRAGALUTION! It was a powerful moment for me and my greatest gift I have ever been given

DRAGALUTION EVE

I'm sitting at 'my spot' at the jetty.  I'm just taking it all in... Picture me sitting with a huge smile on my face as I let the warmth of the sun cut through the crisp air and sooth my soul.

On the drive out, I was singing along to the numbers in the show, visualizing the dances and feeling the moment; and I was hit by a rush of tears.  Tears of relief.  I'm my mind, I've been calling this show my therapy show.  I have used some very painful moments in my life as the basis for this show, I'm not saying this show is painful( wink)

On the contrary, it is a beautiful show, with some very sexy and honest moments..anyway, the tears were welcome...

And sitting here, at the beach, I am just full of so much love.  I feel good!!! 

I'm so excited to share this show with you! To get to dance for and with you! To have all of our combined energies vibrating in the theater and lifting Astoria off its axis for a moment in time.

Until tomorrow,

Yours always,

Daylight

Dancing it out, bitch

Hey y'all!! I don't know if it is because I'm about to have a birthday or my eyes are opening and I'm able to see the more hidden complexities of my patterned life; but this show is really opening my eyes to so much about who I am!! I love that about art!  And really, that is what I am making and putting on stage with the great performers I have with me for this DRAGALUTION!!!

I didn't plan it, but this show is really all about working through the suppressed issues of my sexual awakening and abusive situations I have been in, along with some incidents of being beaten up for living out loud; all with a sexy comedic twist- which is how it always helps me cope with the pain. By putting a little laughter in it, I find it easier to look at.

Anyway, last night, at rehearsal, we were working on the finale for the show; a new song, " the song of my life" and as we are going through the choreography, I had a moment where I almost fainted because the song and movement all unlocked something in me.....

The song was written while I was with my aunt and her friend at Salt Spring.  I got up one morning and my aunt said she had heard me singing in my sleep, she couldn't hear what I was singing, she just heard the song. I was stunned to hear I sing in my sleep and I wondered if it was the song of my life or just something random... The song was written that day.

Then, I get together with Tyler and Olaf who have put this amazing music together and we recorded the song.

One part in the song, I'm reflecting on the big attack in my life, which caused me to live in fear for about 10 years; almost directly after recording the song I run into said individual and realized he had no power over me anymore! It was an incredible moment.

I've lived by the thought that as we learn about ourselves, live our lives, we are able to see the patterns, or cycles, we get stuck in and by noticing the pattern we are able to step beyond it and be free of whatever was keeping us stuck in that loop.

This also struck me strongly last night as I was teaching the movement.  Sometimes I feel like I am just doing the same thing to different music. Theme and variation is one thing but I wonder if there is enough variation to my themes? I guess as soon as I figure out that pattern I will step beyond it too( internal wink).

I have pushed myself to bring you a show that is different than the last, but still recognizable as my work. I hope that you will love it!! For me, getting to be on stage and share myself with you in all the crazy ways I like to do is what makes me whole and feel most alive!! You feed my drive to live a full, expressive and creative sexy filled life and I thank you all so much for that!

Mush love and I hope to see you on January 25 at the Columbian Theater!

Facing an old fear

The most incredible moment took place in my day today:

I'm making these silly cut out mirrors for DRAGALUTION and was looking for adhesive aluminum. So, David and I went to utzingers true value cause they have everything you can think of!

Well, we are standing by the register waiting for some help when the biggest fear of my 1986-1996 came into focus... At that moment I had the whole frightening past he put me through flash before my eyes. The intimidation in the halls, the shoving in the lockers and down the stairs.  Having him follow me In his truck yelling the most hateful and evil things.  The night he came into McDonalds after a game when there were two buses of kids standing in there waiting to be served by me and two others and he comes in yelling " fag!" And everything else gay and hurtful to say as I'm waiting on people and me looking at him, swallowing my fear and tears and saying, " I don't care what you think of me because I don't value your opinion as a human." And him jumping across the counter to grab me and having to be pulled out of the restaurant by the managers on duty yelling he is going to kill me.. The moment he his standing behind me in Peter Pan on his tip goes so he could breathe down my neck which made it even more frightening whispering how I better watch my back because he was going to get me. Peeling out of the driveway scaring me to death.  And the day he ran me down on 8th and threw me to the ground and punched me and beat my face on the pavement until I got on my knees to oppologize for embarrassing him in front of his friends.  I had no choice but to beg him to forgive me.

Even though I had Dean and Sari as my constant body guards.  Honestly, I have so many that still to this day watch my back and know when they need to walk me home.  But Dean had my back and saved my ass more than once!! Still, I couldn't walk alone for 10 years because of him.  No matter how strong I was getting he still had so much fear driven into every fibre of my being.

I saw, no lived, all those moments in that flash of seeing him and I did not have one wavering moment of fear. I felt so chill and powerful and healed and free!!!!! It was incredible. And I said, " well hello (insert name)" bought my rubber cement and left feeling more incredible than I could even possibly imagine.

Ain't life grand!