February 2005

I didn’t get out of the Fillmore last night until around 1am. The entire band, and David, and David’s band had left, and I counted out the merchandise with the Fillmore staff, finally exchanging hugs with the big, mean security guards on my way out — they nicknamed me “baby-doll.” When I finally made it to the after party, I was beat from three nights of 7-hour work for the band, gallons of beer, and gleefully dancing until I was sore (every chance I got). I walked into the party, famished, exhausted and thirsty, and all the food and beer was gone. A man was opening a bottle of wine at a table, so I sidled up to him. He turned, looked in my eyes, and smiled, just smiled. We’d seen each other and exchanged smiles many times over the past few days, and finally we were saying hi. I grinned and said, “Hi, I’m Violet.” He popped the wine bottle, took my hand, and said, “Hi, I’m David.” Later, the band played, we all danced, and I got home at around 5am.

I loved every minute of working for Extra Action, even when a waitress dumped an entire large-sized gin and tonic on me last night (it was cold; soaked my shirt, skirt, left shoe, and my hoodie that was on the ground). And even when I got kicked out of the empty VIP seating area. I made it to my horrendous book deadline last tuesday, for the really, really incredible Best Sex Writing 2005, which happened to be the same day as Horboy’s birthday. The book is an astounding collection of bizarre-but-true tales from journalists and writers about collisions between sex and life (examples: a woman who works in a sperm bank writes about sucking off guys in the sample rooms and the insane staff, a woman spends 24 hours in an all-prostitute Mexican town, Carly Milne illustrates the collision between porn life and “normal” life, etc.). But I shut myself off from the world to edit, and edit and edit, and once I was done, I just wanted to completely lose myself — and how perfect to find a way to work for Extra Action for a really big gig.

David Byrne actually contacted them a while ago, but even though i was excited beyond myself, and Hornboy was coming home with music to Burning Down the House that David had sent, I was expressly forbidden from letting the cat out of the bag. Apparently this was a very, very small tour for Byrne (New Zealand, Australia and here in SF), and he contacted the band to play with him for his only American show — and no one else, just Extra Action. Which is so fucking cool. And I could tell how much he loves the band, besides the fact that he danced and drank until 4am with all of us last night. At each show he’d play for two hours — lots of Talking Heads songs — and then introduce EA, and he’d sort of hide offstage and watch them play. Then he’d come on and play Don’t Fence Me In with the drummers, and then everyone would play Burning Down the House. But then EA would take over the stage and audience (don’t forget there’s 40 of them), and David would stand in the back by himself and watch and dance the whole time, every night, clapping and smiling with a big, open-mouthed smile like a shiny happy little kid in a big angly body. But last night the flag girls (and boys) had had enough, and they pulled him onstage and gave him pom-poms, and danced with him, ran him around the stage, crawled all over him — it was one of the most joyful things I’ve ever seen.

I didn’t get any pictures (these are by Biata). Thursday night someone got their camera confiscated, and the Fillmore staff was really watching last night, and I didn’t have a photo pass (next time I have to pose as press or something), so I just danced and enjoyed myself instead. And while I considered it, I didn’t snap any pics of David at the after party because, well, it just didn’t feel right. We were there to have fun and relax.

Back to reality, whatever that means. I’m doing my best to stay unemployed, but I’ve been getting some seriously juicy offers since I quit my day job. I also quit a freelance job — part of the blow-up doll copy writing gig — because that kind of writing is fun for like a minute, and the bosses are so disorganized and high stress that it just takes the joy out of describing satisfying love holes. Because deep down I believe in my heart of hearts that when there are three holes, I should just be feeling, seeing and smelling the love, and feel like I’m making the world a better place with the J-Ho Love Doll, not delivering landfill unto the world at a breakneck speed.

Okay, I’m tired and digressing. Time for hair of the dog before I have to face the ten million deadlines I have Monday — a piece for Playgirl, a book jacket quote for a new Alison Tyler book, a piece for a New York lit journal about public sex. I know there’s more; I’m in post-party denial. But I’m excited about a few near-future things that materialized for me this week. For sure and SRL show in April at an undisclosed location — let’s just hope the volunteers can keep their mouths shut and not blab to their friends so we can keep it secret long enough to actually pull it off. And my super-happy news: I’ve been asked to speak at Dorkbot SF again! I’ll be giving a lecture/demonstration on Teledildonics on March 23! W00t!

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