SF's Trannyshack Changes Name

San Francisco's famed performance art and drag event Trannyshack is changing its name.

Drag impresario and Trannyshack founder Heklina (Stefan Grygelko) announced via Facebook on Tuesday that the 18-year-old club night will henceforth be known as “T-Shack,” bowing to pressure from the transgender community who have long felt the use of the word “tranny” to be pejorative in any context. “I generally loathe to be political, but whether I like it or not the very name of my legendary nightclub has become political.” Heklina said in the post. She went on to explain that the use of “tranny” was never meant to be offensive to the trans community but was a reflection of common slang use of the term within drag circles at the time of the club’s founding. The intent of the name was to shock (usually straight people) but not offend. For Heklina, the event’s core was always about inclusion.

Read Heklina's full statement at her Facebook page. (Tipped by JMG reader Keith)

Steve Kardynal - Raining Food

From the guy whose most recent ChatRoulette video has gotten over 111M views. For this clip, his YouTube followers are arguing about food wasting.

TRAILER: We Cause Scenes

Trailer recap:

Since their humble beginnings in New York City in 2001, Improv Everywhere has grown from a small gang of restless jokesters into an internationally recognized prank collective and a viral video-making machine. From the No Pants Subway Ride to Frozen Grand Central to the MP3 Experiment and beyond, their publicly staged scenes of chaos and joy are beloved by the hundreds who witness them, the thousands who participate in them, and the millions who watch and share the videos online. We Cause Scenes: The Rise of Improv Everywhere is the inside story of this groundbreaking group and its founder, Charlie Todd, who has turned the world into a stage, inventing an art form for the Internet age.

Ze Frank - If You Are In A Shell

Dandy Darkly At Dick Dock

Last night my housemates and I attended New York City performance artist (and my real life pal) Dandy Darkly's third annual show under Provincetown's famed Dick Dock, where audience members were handed mini flashlights to train on Dandy as he spun elaborately rhythmic and alliterative story/poems, one of which was about the Stonewall Rebellion. "Oral traditions are not something found on Manhunt, my darlings." Dandy Darkly will play the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for most of next month.

Dear Straight People

Beat poetry from Denice Frohman.

(Tipped by JMG readers Alan and Denise)

At Burning Man 2012

(Via JMG reader Jeff)

Burning Man Sues Over Fee Tripling

The operators of Burning Man, which begins next week, are suing their Nevada county hosts who have tripled their charge to provide police protection for the event.

Though this year's event, which runs Aug. 27 to Sept. 3, will not be affected, the 2013 festival is in jeopardy after Pershing County allegedly hiked the fees from $154,000 in 2011 to $448,000 this year. Defendants have acted not out of a neutral and objective concern for public safety issues, but because of their opposition to what they consider to be the content and culture of Burning Man, in violation of the First Amendment," the lawsuit states. Black Rock City has held Burning Man event in the Black Rock Desert of Pershing County, Nev., since 1991. According to its website, the experimental arts event - which runs on a "free market" system and bans advertising - draws more than 50,000 people each year.

Burning Man has sold out for the last two years. Tickets ran from $240 - $420 depending on the date of purchase.

Dandy Darkly At Dick Dock

One of the more interesting things I've done here in Provincetown was attending a show by performance artist Dandy Darkly under the infamous Dick Dock, where audience members were handed mini-flashlights to train on Dandy as he spun several tales that riffed on masculinity, pirates, and other themes half-sung in hilarious rhymes. His final piece, Bear Skinner, was a Silence Of The Lambs-esque story of woefully hairless bear serial killer who harvested his victims to make a fur suit. You can catch Dandy Darkly later this summer at the New York Musical Theater Festival.

Oral Roberts' Gay Grandson Launches "Boring" Performance Art Piece

Randy Roberts Potts, the openly gay grandson of televangelist Oral Roberts, has launched a traveling performance art piece meant to demonstrate the normalcy of gay home life. Details reports:

Randy Roberts Potts is pushing the gay agenda by watching TV. And by ironing a shirt. Also by doing a puzzle, vacuuming a rug, simmering stew in a slow-cooker, and intermittently stroking the nape of his boyfriend Keaton's neck in a subdued, abstracted manner, the way his Munna might have stroked his hair when he was a child. It could be a typically staid and eventless evening for Randy, with one fat exception: He's doing all this on a 6-by-16-foot set on a patch of downtown sidewalk, surrounded by drifting crowds of passersby. With folded arms and befuddled frowns, the onlookers try to make sense of the scene—to the right, atop rugs laid directly on the concrete, there's a farm table and a bookcase stocked with cans of black-eyed peas and stewed tomatoes; to the left, a leather couch sits before a black-and-white television on which a silvery episode of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp is flickering.

Potts says: "It's a visual that people haven't ever really seen in conservative towns. A lot of people immediately jump to images of sex or a pride parade. Well, here's another visual. This is what gay couples look like when we're together as a couple in love. There's really nothing to watch, and I want to leave people with that impression."

The show will tour across the red states in rented storefronts. I'll post some video as soon as I get it. (Tipped by JMG reader Justin.)

Bye June - Shades Of Purple

Shadow puppets demand gay rights! Cute!

(Via - Zack Ford)

Oh The Places You'll Go At Burning Man

A new take on Dr. Seuss.

(Tipped by JMG reader Jeffrey)

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Randall Terry Gets Glitter-Bombed By Performance Artist

Vermin Supreme is a performance artist and perennial candidate for public office. According to his Wikipedia page, he is campaign for president on a platform of zombie awareness and the promise of a pony for every voter. Randall Terry is running for office in order to force television stations to air his gruesome anti-abortion clips.

Clip description: "Vermin Supreme turns Randall Terry "gay" with fairy dust! Both are Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination. They took part in the Lesser Known Candidate Debate December 19, 2011. St. Anselm's College, Manchester New Hampshire."

Burning Man To Launch Ticket Lottery

In 2011, Burning Man sold out for the first time in 25 years. Next year, there will be a new way to get tickets.

The process will require ticket seekers to register by price tier during a two-week period that has yet to be announced. They will then go through several lottery rounds for each pricing tier, and the ones that are picked will be billed, organizers said in the Burning Man newsletter, Jack Rabbit Speaks. The announcement was reposted in a discussion forum run by the Burning Man team. The new lottery system will eliminate “the annual ticket sales rush” and begin to “address the challenges of scarcity,” organizers explained.

The federal government limits attendance to 50,000.

Burning Man Sells Out

For the first time in the long-running event's history, tickets to this year's Burning Man have sold out.

Shortly after tickets started selling at the fastest pace ever on Jan. 20, officials with Black Rock City LLC, the SF-based company that staged Burning Man in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, privately warned that they may sell out this year. The event, which last year peaked at almost 52,000 attendees, is limited by its permits with the US Bureau of Land Management and BRC's own desire to control its ever-growing size. A couple months ago, the company announced that tickets would not be available at the gate (which had happened only once before, in 2008) and urged burners to get their tickets because it could sell out. Then, over the weekend, that's what happened. "This is new territory," BRC board member Marian Goodell told the Guardian, noting that its BLM permit (which is up for renegotiation after this year's event) calls for capping the population at last year's level. "If we didn't have the BLM permit restrictions, we could manage an increased population."

This year is the 25th anniversary of Burning Man. When I was younger, I used to think about going every year. Now, I can't imagine enduring the discomfort.

Naked Cowboy: I'll Marry Gay Couples

Famed NYC street performer the Naked Cowboy says he'll marry gay couples for free in Times Square. ​

Ever-ready for publicity, the Naked Cowboy, Robert Burck, has thrown his support behind the movement for marriage equality in New York and declared July 3rd "Gay Marriage Day." To celebrate the holiday, Burck, who happens to be an ordained minister, will be performing free same-sex wedding ceremonies in Times Square all day on Sunday, July 3 -- and every July 3 that follows. Via press release, he said "I'm not a homosexual or a hypocrite, I am an American. It is hypocritical, in my opinion, for our legislature to discriminate against gays and lesbians regarding same-sex marriages.

Burck has previously pulled stunts like declaring his candidacy for mayor of New York.

Unmarried Until Gay Marriage

About a dozen married straight couples were "umarried until gay marriage" yesterday in a Central Park protest staged by performance artist Reverend Billy. More photos here.

UnMarriage Until Gay Marriage

Popular performance artist Rev. Billy and his Church of Life After Shopping will stage a mass un-wedding in Central Park this Sunday.

Straight, married supporters of same sex marriage will un-marry in a mass ritual at New York City's Bethesda Angel this Valentine's Day weekend, sending a strong message to New York State's leadership for the for the second year in a row and holding Gov Cuomo to his recent campaign promise:“I want to be the governor who signs the law that makes equality a reality in the state of New York.” The mass ritual will be administered by Reverend Billy, an officiant of the rites of marriage in the City of New York. The massive "unwedding," in the style of Reverend Moon's mass weddings, will be accompanied by music and love songs and a choral anthem called "I Do, I Do".

Rev. Billy's group marched in front of us in last year's NYC Pride Parade and he was so tickled by the name of this here website thingy that he shouted it repeatedly from his megaphone. I do believe I'll be at the Bethesda Fountain this Sunday.

BRITAIN: Performance Artist & Author Sebastian Horsley Dies Of Overdose

Notorious performance artist, model, and author Sebastian Horsley has been found dead of a heroin overdose in his London home.

Sebastian Horsley, the dandy, writer and artist who found fame by being nailed to a cross in the Philippines, has died at the age of 47. The colourful self-publicist was found dead at his flat in central London this morning, days after a play adapted from his memoirs – Dandy in the Underworld – opened at the Soho theatre. A spokesman for the Metropolitan police said the cause of death was unexplained but reports suggested Horsley died from a heroin overdose. In 2002 the artist traveled to the Philippines "to see what it was like" to be nailed to a cross before he embarked on a painting of the Crucifixion. The foot support on his cross gave way after he had been nailed to the wood, prompting him to remark later: "I have been punished by a God I don't believe in and he has thrown me off the cross for impersonating his son, for being an atheist, and for being a disaster. I have made a complete fool of myself." He wrote in the Observer of his fondness for having sex with prostitutes. "Prostitution is obscene, debasing and disgraceful," he concluded. "The point is, so am I."

Horsley was recently denied entrance to the United States based on a prior drug conviction. A quote from his memoir: "You may look back on your life and accept it as good or evil. But it is far, far harder to admit that you have been completely unimportant; that in the great sum of things all a man's endless grapplings are no more significant than the scuttlings of a cockroach. The universe is neither friendly nor hostile. It is merely indifferent. This makes me ecstatic."

Philip Huang - Rentboy

San Francisco performance artist Philip Huang gives us his take on the Dr. George Rekers scandal. I love it.