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	Dear Diary,	Jan. 2001-Aug. 2002

	March 1 - August 1, 2003
	Melt With Me I have a really absurd story to tell you but I want to talk about two things first then I'll get to the sweat lodge fiasco I went to in very early spring.
	To begin with what is of the utmost importance, I haven't begun my 360 degree fans! I haven't even imagined a start to a pair, I've been to preoccupied with job/work searches to think creatively. I have been creative, but it's had to be restricted to work related activities. Things are so grim here that I become uncomfortable when I stray from work/image positive actions. So, focusing on web stuff and physical fitness is my life for now.
	But once again Candida, wholly unbeknownst-like, comes along with a timely out-of-the-rut experience for me (us) which turns out to have something to do with the pier dance. The final event of New York Gay Pride is the Dance on the Pier and fireworks which follow. Candida was asked to manage the fan-flaggers stage, she was to have her people see to the flow of fanners on and off the stage, and, keeping the non-fanners and drunks off it, and to do it with dignity, grace and fairness to all. This stage was situated midway lengthwise and on the southern end of the pier opposite the main stage. Naturally I volunteered to help and as a result, I spent my first time IN the dance floor area since it's inception, 16 years ago, Dance One was very civilized. (The years I spent at HOP I was only ever in the backstage/work areas.)
	The mix music was OK, nothing spectacular but to be fair it was perfectly infectious as dance music should be. There were two live performances that left me completely unimpressed, (a matter of personal taste,) I don't know, they did nothing for me. I spent most of the time in the buffer lane between the crowd and the stage by the main entrance for the fan-flaggers, and exercised my Candida given right to ask people who were no longer spinning to get down and let someone else up for a go. I went up once during a Latin flavored number with my fans, did it, got down and spent the rest of the time at my post with my fans occasionally in hand for a little spin here a little flare there. Altogether a good way to have attended the dance. The fireworks were also OK, the highlight being the use of Erin Hamilton's disco cover of Cheap Trick's "The Flame" the song is a brilliant choice to accompany fireworks, it soars like rockets from the onset. There was the usual orchestral break with the finale being a return to "The Flame". I loved it! PS: I also love her song "Melt" which was not played that night I just want it out there.
	Well with that done I went home, refreshed myself and went back out to the official after party at, where was it? B'LO I think, in Chelsea between 7th and 8th Avenues 17th street? I don't remember exactly, it wasn't even in the main dance room but upstairs in the pool room (billiards) among the lounges and easy chairs, seemed to be an afterthought for the fanners. Philip Kimble mixed it was OK (he did an interesting thing with the Jefferson Airplane's old hit "Somebody To Love" at first it was weird but it worked it was good).
	A few weeks later Sea Tea made it's smelly, humid tug available for a thank-you party which I attended. I hate Sea Tea for the aforementioned description and for the fact that once you remember how much you hate it your trapped until it lands again. But..... the party after that at Cielo made up for everything, the music was very good a bit to intense at the start but it morphed towards more interesting stuff, and that made it into a richer experience and much more fun to fan to. I literally worked my ass off, it was great I'm sorry to say I can't remember the DJs name, you'll have to ask Candida.
	The third weekend in July I went with Candida (met up with Barbara Good and a pal) to a Pow Wow in the boonies of Queens. Really, way the hell out there beyond Jamaica near Nassau County on a real farm "The Queens County Farm Museum". This was a very positive day took LIRR to get there, got there, and I swear the woman at the gate was a dead ringer for Joey Tribianni's agent Estelle on the TV show"Friends" -- she even chained-smoked. The Place is a real farm, crops and animals, and it was a real Pow Wow, which as it turns out is really a dance contest.
	Not surprisingly men are the more featured dancers with the more flamboyant outfits and moves. They have several categories, and, as per the announcer, everyone is great. The event begins with an all tribes round, they enter the circle mostly as cohesive tribes but one doesn't have to stick to the program stragglers mix in. After this opening ceremony then they have the categories, girls, boys, women, men, with the occasional call for all tribes to dance. Later they have specialties, like visiting peoples, this day there were representative from Mexico.
	All the costumes were really splendid, and I have to say with all the fringe and fabric there was surprisingly very little Mylar and sequins--that is until the "Straight Dance". This specialty dance was performed by men from Oklahoma. In the group was a guy with a coat covered in Mylar sequins! A coat that could be worn for a fabulous party or by a musical performer of the concert stage. The next Pow Wow I go to I will pay even more attention to the garment decorations because I only noticed to late that one guy had in his headdress the face of Tweety-Pie (it was also on his arm ornament). A fun thing, at the very end, for the last dance the announcer invited everyone to join in the last round including guests like you or me.
	The Sweat Lodge In an effort to further bond with Parashakti, for whom I have designed, uploaded and maintain a web site, I accepted an invitation to a sweat lodge being held in Saugerties, New York. I am quite sincere, when I say I try to experience as closely as I can anthers passion for (in this case) spiritual fulfill ness. If they sing and swirl and stomp, I will not stand back and observe, I'll partake, I don't want them to think I find them in anyway odd this also extends to other things like fashion, sports, worlds I don't pursue on my own because for me there is no interest there. However if I have to work in it or offer some sort of support, I will go the extra mile to understand their cause.
	When Parashakti made the offer I accepted, then I received an email announcing the sweat lodge with the info for where to meet etc... included was the cost to those attending--$50. When I read that I emailed her that if she found too many people going she could take me off the list (I could go to the next one) so she wouldn’t lose any money. She quickly replied that that wouldn't be necessary there would be room for everyone.
	It was a cool drizzly April Sunday when we all met in front of the Integral Yoga Center on west 13th street--22 people in all in two vans to descend on this cool sweat lodge place upstate. We left two hours late, once there we found ourselves on the private property of two women and their two sons. Twenty-two people, drizzle, a private house with NO mud room. Right away they started barking orders about where to go and not go, touch and not touch, flush and not flush! The height of ass-hole-ism, 22 people, mud, no where to go, oh did I mention that they didn't have a sweat lodge? Well, they did, the one for the kids which could hold 4 people tops. Yes, we would have to build the sweat lodge.
	You know women are independent until something heavy has to be done, then it's, "hey you big strong men we have lots of firewood and stones to move to the area where you will also be building us a sweat lodge to house you all."
	Well it was either help with that stuff or have to talk to the other people there so I helped. The woman in charge of the event (not the pill who stayed in the house fretting about the toilet) directed us to the pile of stones and ordered one of the vans to be loaded for transport to the back portion of their property. Their water-logged muddy property. We loaded then got in ourselves and away we went until we could go no more--we unloaded and toted the stones the rest of the way through the brush about 200 feet. Emptied of the stones the van guy backed away towards the house, he erred, he tried to turn around and got stuck in the mud. We tried for two hours to push him free, until the firewood delivery truck came. The firewood delivery truck got stuck in the mud trying to pull the van out. No matter, we had firewood to haul through the brush and a sweat lodge to build. There was a lot of firewood, even with six of us making round trips it took an hour to complete. That was about when the tow truck came to pull both van and delivery truck out of the mud and back to the house. This activity left huge ruts in the property, which gave the pill something else to fret about, I assume it beats worrying about the septic system.
	Now, this was a real sweat lodge event, Parashakti arrange for a Varlo to officiate. Varlo is a native-American shaman (I forgot his particular tribe, if we were even told it) and a very amiable, believably sincere person who oversaw the construction of the lodge and the preparation of the space. All was important the kind of wood cut for the frame, the position of the door in proximity to the fire which fronted on the altar. We followed his instructions and redid things that we did inadequately without complaint--frankly it beat being in the house with the pill and the other 14 people who lifted not a finger to help. I must hand it to Parashakti and her friend Michal Adi for being there in the cold, rain toting wood, smoothing and clearing soil and preparing the lodge.
	The day began at 8am, the lodge was finished at about 9pm. Wet, cold and muddy be gathered around the fire, yes about now the rest of the people came out to the lodge area, and the more spiritually motivated started chants. They were all kinds of chants from yoga to christian to some hebrew songs and even gospel flavored numbers. I repeat, I do not rain on others parades, or make a point of not partaking in their fevers, it's interesting seeing them at their passion plays, I wish I could be a part of their experience instead of always in my own world, but I just don't feel it.
	An aside here, I have done TranceDance twice now, the second time I was able to disassociate myself and I think I had a vision, a visit by my Totem for the dance that night The Crow. The Crow came into my head and intoned the thought "opportunity" to me, this was in March.
	Finally around 11pm the first sweat was to begin, 18 crammed into the lodge, I begged off thinking I would do the second sweat, I didn't know it wouldn't start until 3am. I couldn't stay for that the next day was Monday and I didn't arrange for not being home. What I did do was help with the fire, and when Varlo called for fresh heated stones from the pit I helped dig them out. All told a full day, not as expected, but I look at it as a day out of town. Oh, hovering over the fire for three hours smoked my clothes like a ham, they reeked until I laundered them. A very different type of day for this native New Yorker from Second Avenue.

	August 11, 2002 - February 24, 2003
	Going Through Life Blind-folded Things just don’t seem to move forward predictably. Disaster or success you would like to have a good seat to witness it instead of being left behind some column supporting the balcony.
	Semi-depressing news came in an e-mail from Candida announcing her leaving amfAR. Not a surprise since she has been unhappy with her position for some time now but it is through her that the two fan/flag friendly events in the NYC area are produced and they were fundraisers for amfAR. So one wonders where our partying for a cause will be next. I think she should continue to produce the events as wild cards on the scene, like the Imperial Courts "Night of a Thousand Gowns." And, once over donate the proceeds to the org at the top of a list of worthies.
	The people that grace these events are usually into doing something good with their hedonistic ways. So they’ll go to the party and let the organizer dole out the monies as needed. It would be agreeable that there be a list of worthies that people can submit an org to, and that the list be handled in a first come first serve basis with the possible exception of "dire need" superceding normal procedures. Dire need could be the threat of eviction from their space, zero funds to process their good deeds etc… . Furthermore, dire need would be decided via petition from trusted source. There all solved, now let’s dance.
	TranceDance -- an alchemical adventure in two parts, was splendid. I missed the first part TRANCE which involved Paraskati-Siglit as facilitator over the group as they danced blind-folded. There are spotters whose job is to see to the dancers relative safety from bumping into walls, each other etc…. The aim is to attempt a level of trance that can involve a deeper spiritual enlightenment or just a period of self-discovery in the manner of bringing issues to fruition. There is a period of rest and discussion that follows. I think it’s fascinating from a dancer point of view in that you dance in one way to make a spectacle (good or bad) of yourself. But, in order to do that someone has to be watching yourself included, and everyone is blind-folded. The spotters and Parashakti don’t count in this respect since they are not an audience.
	So you are dancing for another reason and this is partly what you ponder while there.
	The White Party 2003 most notable for it’s new venue way downtown in the old Dime Savings Bank building on Grand Street and The Bowery. It was a little icky for the fanners at first because they were penned in a tiny space in the back which wasn’t even kept clear for them. The usual array of drunks and dopey wandered and lingered in the space making it hard to dance.
	I didn’t arrive until 6:30AM (the party goes from 11PM to the following day 3PM) so I really didn’t hear the first spinners (Thunderpuss) to make a judgment of their performance but one person I know Kitten was still waiting to hear something good when I had arrived. At 7:00AM Warren Gluck took the turntables and turned the party out. I don’t remember any sections of boredom or gratuitous noisy crescendos, just a steady stream of good dance music to which I played my new fans to death.
	My new fans are actually a reconstruction of my flags from two Black Parties ago. I wanted to construct fans that would flare open like wide petunias instead of being flat arcs. You know, like a wide funnel. They were successful and I am in the process of adapting my fans of two White Parties ago to be more petunia-like. I’ve also started the process for making another new fan which uses 360 degrees of fabric – a circle – it’s a very different experience to use one of these fans and I will be taking my time to produce one. I had a pretty good time at the party once we broke out of our pen and onto the dance floor proper and there were no problems because there is no other entertainment for the revelers who do appreciate the visual.
	I’m still on the job-hunt, that what the whole forward thing was about at the beginning of this, it is so hard right now there are times I think I may not survive this period. I have no where to go, I do not know how I will continue to pay bills, rent with no money. Whenever there is a glimmer of hope it blows out in the wind. I really have no clue to the future if it were possible to "start over" I would, it seems that the only restart available is to die and to be reborn.