We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers
And sitting by desolate streams;
World losers and world forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

The above stanza is one which I’ve long had committed to memory, from a poem by Arthur O’Shaughnessy which is named “Ode.” In my adult life, I have often found my mind drifting to the subtle truths of these words.

In some ways, it still feels strange and incredible to me that I could know so many people, in so many far-flung places, who are all connected–many of whom, long before the advent of the internet and constant technological connectivity via social media platforms and mobile devices–people who, while perhaps not considered famous by the measure of television and film, are certainly names which are widely recognized in certain circles: drag queens, porn models, performance artists, clothing designers and creators, tattooists, BDSM community leaders, musicians, jewelry makers, poets, songwriters, club kids…particularly in the gay world (or perhaps more accurately, the queer world), there is a tightly-knit web of such people. No matter where I travel in the world, it seems I always run into these same people…or people connected to those people…casual conversations reveal the common contacts, the wild stories of past relations with these movers and shakers of the world…

I have never made any secret of my enduring love and admiration for Penny Arcade, the legendary performance artist and voice of New York City artistic history, who I am blessed and deeply honored to call a friend and collaborator. She in particular is a person who I respect for remaining a living part of history; to me, she embodies the concept of legacy. When I hear her stories of throwing bricks at the Stonewall riots, or conversing with Quentin Crisp, or missing her friend Jeff Buckley, or fighting to help her fellow Warhol’s Factory girl, Holly Woodlawn, it’s hard not to be in awe of the tapestry of history into which she is woven.

Though I will not presume myself to be as luminary as Penny, I am thrilled to be a part of her legacy; just as I am thrilled to have a body piercing which performed by “The Father of the Modern Primitive Movement” himself, Fakir Musafar, or a copy of the book Modern Primitives which is signed both by Fakir and the book’s publisher, V. Vale (who is a longtime patron of The Hypnodrome), or for that matter a copy of The Ethical Slut signed by its co-author Dossie Easton (who I was privileged to see speak at the old location of The Center For Sex and Culture)…then of course, there’s my theatrical legacy: being a modern-day member of The Cockettes and being voice-trained by original member (and great mentor) Scrumbly Koldewyn, and performing alongside Sweet Pam and Rumi Missabu.

I’ve been saying a lot lately that it’s difficult to see history while you’re inside of it. This holds true not only on a personal level, but also from the angle of cultural movements both social and political. In the wake of so many recent outrages of racial and economic inequality, it feels so certain like something is going to give soon…just like it did on a sweltering hot day in June at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, 1969…or even in downtown LA on a fateful day of decision in 1992.

Interestingly, for all my love of the poem I opened this entry with, it wasn’t until I looked it up today to check my own transcription that I discovered that the first stanza does not constitute the entire poem. Today, I will leave you with its final stanza:

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.