Hearsay
One in Ten's Museum Project, Blowoff with Morel at 9:30
One In Ten gathers the artsy fartsy folk in support of their
Museum ProjectÂ…
Blowoff plans a temporary hiatusÂ…
Have you ever considered how a night out at a gay bar can and often does resemble a day strolling around a museum? At the museum you see one proclaimed masterwork and think, "You call that art? I could do that." While at the bar you see one proclaimed hottie and think, "You call that art? I could do that." Or you see a fine specimen and you scrutinize it for hours: at the museum you analyze how it looks hung on a wall, while at the bar you analyze how he would look well hung.
That said, Keith "Everyone’s Gone to the Louvre" Clark fully appreciates the similarity. And last Saturday, May 15, he corralled one hundred or so others to prove to Hearsay that others do as well. The occasion was local gay culture vulture One In Ten‘s fundraiser for its Museum Project and its grand plans to create a National Museum of Homosexual Objects d’Arte. Rumor has it the museum will be known as The Rainbowtorium, and will carry the subhead, A Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Questioning Gender Variant and Friends Museum of All Things Rainbow Brite. Planned exhibits include "So Over the Rainbow: A Study in Greytones," "Hidden Rainbows in Dutch Masterworks" and "The Fruit Stripe Pony: He Plays for Our Team." One of the most eagerly anticipated installations will be a ten billion dollar diorama entitled Late Night Woodsy Adventures featuring a fully pose-able Kevin Spacey figure who gets hustled out of his cell phone and then trips over his dog, banging his head on a Rodin-inspired rock and ending up in a compromising position, at which point squirt guns come into play. For the gay Trekkies out there, the museum will offer a hands-on "Please State the Nature of the Proctological Emergency" hosted by a hologram replica of Richard Gere. And the Gift Shop will sell nothing but Colin Winterbottom’s Snowy Washington Postcards. For the event, Carolyn "Precious Gemstone" Lochhead turned her spacious Upper Northwest home into a virtual museum, complete with many art pieces on display, none of them velvet (okay, only one of them velvet, but those card-playing dogs are so cute!). The pieces were part of a "live auction," as opposed to a dead auction. If One In Ten Master & Commander Carlos "Picasso" Arias were a museum piece, what would he be? Hearsay’s guess is a Rembrandt. Or a Chagall. Or a Matisse. Or a Warhol. Or a finger painting by Madonna.
You know, perhaps "virtual" isn’t the appropriate word to best describe Lochhead’s living museum for a day, since the Museum Project is aiming to create an actual Virtual Museum — by way of the Internet — before it ever even gets too serious with concrete. It’s working with local museums and local gay organizations around the country to develop exhibits that could travel the nation. The first of these is to be next year’s reported "Erecting Pride: Our Penises, Ourselves" to be curated by Bruce "Supervixen" Vilanch (who everyone knows is really Chi Chi LaRue with her pubic hairs pulled up to her ears). Saturday night’s fundraiser took in $15,000 to help subsidize the costs of buying frames, nails, hammers, scissors, Elmer’s Glue, all the things you need to construct an art exhibit. Among the artists whose masterpieces were sold: Brian "Broad Strokes" Petro, K. Mitchell "Fast Focus" Snow and Kimberley "Glazed Over" Bush. Hearsay adored the brownies and petit fours and crème puffs provided by CakeLove, a place where you will never find a Hostess Ho-Ho, but not far from the street where you used to find plenty of plain ol’ HosÂ…
Later that evening, Hearsay descended into the 9:30 Club’s dungeon of desire, its basement of basic instincts, its pit of titty-twisting, otherwise known as its Back Bar. Every Saturday night, it packs in the butt boys who flock to the sounds of DJs Bob "Boom Boom" Mould and Richard "Zoom Zoom" Morel, musical celebrities who throw a cause celebre invitingly called Blowoff. Morel joked that each week draws a different scene. One week it’ll be "metrosexuals," the next it will be "heterosexuals," the week after that "polysexuals," and the week after that "gollygeesexuals." Sometimes even bears venture into the woods in search of Morels. Christopher "This Magic Moment" Vazquez is one who regularly storms these prime picnic grounds for quality pop music. Morel and Mould even play their own tracks, since each is an acclaimed independent musician. Morel, he of the unmistakable, ominously mellifluous voice, leads his own dance-rock group (they’re called Morel, duh), while Mould is the formerly Minneapolis Sound indie-rock legend behind Husker Du, but these days the tremulous tenor is submerged in dance music, recording and remixing as himself and as LoudBomb.
The two are finishing up work on their very first Blowoff artist album of dance music, and both are promoting solo albums over the summer, which is why this Saturday, May 22, is the last Blowoff party until fall — well, except for the occasional special event around town. Mould, who was out of town last Saturday, wrote on his well-rounded "Boblog" — a guilty pleasure for any local nightlife regular — that they’re planning some surprises for the night. But when Hearsay asked, Morel wasn’t sure what Mould meant. Perhaps the surprise has to do with the pair spinning in the nude, a la Sunday Mass? Perhaps everybody will get naked! Maybe it will be a big naked sendoff for Blowoff. Let’s just hope the Metrosexuals don’t get stiffies…
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