While fulfilling my jury summons this afternoon at the Harwood Avenue municipal courthouse, I checked out Guns and Roses, a blingy, kicky-casual unisex boutique on Commerce Street that opened six months ago.
One display, above, seized my attention: Suspened from the ceiling are upside down, armless-naked mannequins with their mouths taped shut.
IRVING, TEXAS — While researching an upcoming “214 Trans4m” project, my collaborator, Bryan Amann, and I spent the afternoon framing shots at Trinity Broadcast Center's 23-acrestudio facility off Airport Freeway.
Along with some gargantuan “salvation satellites,” TBN mostly consists of a two-building complex that pays architectural homage to the White House.
TBN’s “North Portico” homage.
In between the presidential-looking cribs is the International Production Center, which includes the lush, sparkling fountains of “Angel Gardens,” the Virtual Reality Theater, where y’all can waltz through a reproduction of Via Dolorosa (the old, walled Jerusalem city where Jesus carried his cross to Calvary) and the IPC Studio Auditorium.
While strolling the grounds, the parking lot filled up.
People pulled over to ask us where “Joel” was. We noticed folks heading toward the “South Portico” building.
Irving, Texas’ nod to Pennsylvania Avenue.
I tried to figure out why a Texas televangelism center was so concerned with Federalism and Washingtonian neoclassical design...
I noticed all stripes of different people — some sloppily dressed — entering the building, so we decided to crash the joint just to get a peek in side.
What a delight!
TEXAS TALKSHOW: Studio audience awaits TBN’s “Praise the Lord” panelists.
We entered as ushers began seating audience members for “Praise the Lord” — TBN’s multi-panel talkshow hosted by the younger members of the Jan & Paul Crouch dynasty, Matt and wife Laurie Crouch.
Tonight’s guests included Joel and Victoria Osteen.
TBN didn’t disappoint.
Both the lobby and the studio decor was a riot of “crystal” chandeliers, marble floors, corinthian columns, sweeping staircases — all complimented by purple fabric embroidered with gold tassels.
A large part of this “White House” contained galleries filled with TBN’s many presidential seals of approval.
The voluminous exhibition is all about the union of “church” and “state.”
Throughout its 40-plus year history, there were letters addressed to Paul & Jan sent from Ronald Reagan, both George Bushes, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Kay Bailey Hutchison.
There were proclamations about the “National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving” (1989); Reagan’s 1983 official “Year of the Bible” announcement; a wall containing portraits of all the executive chiefs; and the 1990 SCOTUS decision that okayed school prayer clubs.
The “Praise the Lord” taping is an extravagant production, which didn’t drag on too long.
My favorite quote of the night came from Victoria Osteen, who said God’s not about rigid rules — “God is not condemnation. God is transformation.”
ATX drag anarchist welcomed at Big D debut Her filthy-gorgeous dubstep triumph included a barroom brawl, an airborne buttplug and ‘jock-headed faggots’ screaming for more
SPREAD ’EM REAL WIDE: Christeene Vale (Paul Soileau) in glamorous repose at Double Wide, the Expo Park venue that hosted her first North Texas appearance. [Photo: Kusner]
By DANIEL KUSNER
On the opening day of the State Fair of Texas, Expo Park introduced Dallas to something way freakier than deep-fried beer: Christeene Vale, whose Sept. 28 gig at the Double Wide is sure to go down in the Big D history books.
Christeene’s the cracked-out drag artist whose grimy beats and skanky rapid-fire rhymes compliment instant classics, like “Fix My Dick” and “African Mayonnaise.”
Austin resident Paul Soileau is the genius who morphs into Christeene.
And for the past three years, he’s launched Christeene’s ass-shaking singles with raunchy, sidesplitting videos directed by Texas filmmaker PJ Raval, whose work on the 2009 documentary “Trouble the Water” won an Oscar nomination.
Christeene’s videos have enticed fans worldwide.
Soileau says San Francisco has more “Team Christeene” diehards than his hometown, Austin — where Christeene’s been the toast of South By Southwest for the past three years.
The viral videos are just an appetizer.
It’s Christeene’s daredevil live shows that draw comparisons to the raw energy of Peaches and the sleazy silliness of early John Waters movies.
Fans have lured Christeene to perform in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Vancouver, Toronto, Stockholm, Berlin and even Paris — where Christeene and her crew were flown to the French capital to perform for punk couturier Rick Owens during Paris Fashion Week.
As for Texas, Christeene had never booked a gig outside of Austin ... until last month, when Dallas got lucky.
On Sept. 20, Christeene announced she was making her Big D debut at Double Wide. Facebook and Twitter exploded.
To preview the gig, Dallas Observer ran a full-page Christeene profile.
On the day of the show, Gay List Daily dedicated a dispatch to “Christeene does Dallas: Live & Raw.”
Unfortunately, those who didn’t score advance tickets were out of luck because Christeene’s Double Wide gig quickly sold out.
What did y’all miss?
Music maestro J.J. Booya started the evening with a creepy instrumental lullaby as Christeene made her entrance.
Clad in hooker boots, a black-shag wig and mud-stained legs, Christeene sported a pair of soiled panties that only covered her crotch.
While presenting her bare posterior to the audience, Christeene revealed a shredded length of fabric that dangled from between her buttocks.
As she bent over to tug on the cloth, Christeene extracted a surprise — an Aneros prostate massager, which she promptly hurled into the audience, thereby receiving thunderous applause.
She kicked off her set list with the hammer-pounding scratches of “Damn’d Right,” the first track from Christeene’s recent “Waist Up, Kneez Down” album.
Barely five minutes into her show, the jam-packed Double Wide erupted into pandemonium.
At first, the nature of the chaos was hard to decipher: Were people slam-dancing?
Nope.
It was a fight.
Two sweat-stained corpulent women — with asses as big as Texas — started throwing punches.
As an eyewitness, I can attest that these heavyweights connected with hard blows.
(It was later determined that the brawl ensued because one of the chubby ladies shoved the other plus-sized chick while trying to rush the stage.)
Dirty sex-toys? Overheated bitches ready to throw down?
Christeene couldn’t have asked for a better audience.
“It smells like Nell Carter up in here — and she’s dead,” Christeene laughed in her boozy, Carol Channing-like baby voice.
Toying with an Austin vs. Dallas urban rivalry, Christeene continued, “Now this may be the first time y’all get to see what me and J.J. do. And this is definitely our first time to see how y’all prove yourselves as Dallas Texans!”
Probably referring to stereotypes of North Texans portrayed as “douche-bag label queens” in the recent string of Dallas-based reality shows, Christeene continued, “But I gotta say, all that bullshit on the TV shows got nothing to do with y’all bastards out here tonight.”
In the interest of full disclosure, this writer has been a Christeene fan since Austin’s 2009 GaybiGayGay music fest, which inspired a rave SXSW review I was commissioned to write for a Dallas publication.
Christeene dedicated the second song of the night to Yours Truly, describing me as “That stupid jock-headed faggot, who was there at the beginning — when J.J. and I started this wagon train across the United States. Daniel, I hope you enjoy this as much as you did when I first performed this three years ago."
J.J. Booya ramped up the clobbering beats to “Fix My Dick,” and it seemed like the whole crowd was shouting rhymes along to Christeene’s signature track.
During “African Mayonnaise” the floor-humping energy inside the Double Wide got more extreme. As overwhelming bass lines ripped through the sound system, Christeene crouched into a sprint position and launched herself into a stage dive. While Christeene crowd surfed, two beefy bears at the foot of the stage immediately fled to the back of the venue to avoid the overhead danger.
After the sentimental R&B-flavored ballad “Tears from My Pussy,” Christeene offered her Dallas supporters a gift — a brown onion. Scrawled across the edible bulb’s papery skin was her autograph.
Christeene explained that her onion is like an olive branch — to be regarded as a symbol of peace from “Keep Austin Weird” to “Keep Dallas Pretentious.”
She recalled that at a previous performance, she tossed the onion to an inebriated concertgoer who was so drunk, he chewed on the stanky vegetable like it was an apple.
FUNION: Christeene, olive-branch-like offered, Big D an autographed onion.
When Christeene tossed the onion her Dallas fans, it headed towards a gaggle of West Village-looking gays, all decked out in long-sleeved button-down shirts.
As it landed on one of their well-tailored shoulders, a shriek of surprise echoed across the room — which then turned into gales of delightful laughter.
Welcome to Dallas, Christeene.
[Photo: Kusner.]
QUICK QUESTION
Christeene hasn’t officially announced her next Dallas gig.
However, it’s been confirmed that the sellout Double Wide crowd included several local venue managers, who’re anxious to book her for a return engagement.
Christeene writes in a signature filthy ebonics-laced dialect.
And her answer to an email question, below, remains unedited. (FYI: “T Gravel” and “C Baby” are Christeene’s furry backup dancers.)
HOW WILL YOU SURPRISE DALLAS AT YOUR NEXT PERFORMANCE IN BIG D?
When me n JJ Booya rolled up tooo Dallas town we shurr as fuck did not expect to git da hawt mess dat yall put up on a stank platter at dat double wide ferr us.
U see iz my favorite thang too roll into town me n JJ style an drop a stank nugget, see whut da water brangs, an then git all my shit in line ferrr da next takeover on dat nay nay.
Dallas proved itself sum hungry muthafuggers an dat means dat when i cum back Im gunna be brangin a full out fuggin assault wit T Gravel an C Baby an JJ Booya throwin down a show dats gunna twurk out dat brain pain an brang in da hawt mess of it all. It aint to be reckoned with yall an if u can keep up den we will throw it da fuck down.
LAS COLINAS: Church of Scientology of Dallas, 451 Decker Dr., Irving, Texas.
After reading about Scientology’s jihad against Anderson Cooper, I looked up the church’s North Texas chapter and realized that they moved from their old East Dallas address and into new digs in Las Colinas (pictured above, only now without the exterior featuring the huge crucifix-looking logo and all those tacky bows).
The new Scientology Dallas center is right off of TX-114 at Rochelle Boulevard.
All the action is up on the second floor.
After exiting the elevators, I found myself in a steroided-out church bookstore with plasma-screen kiosks, flanked by an endless supply of Lafayette Ron Hubbard, Jr.-sanctioned literature and DVDs.
Everyone was especially polite — even while suspiciously asking me, Why in the hell are you visiting today...?
I answered honestly.
I was interested in the new building — to see if the design or architecture directly reflected their core belief system... or their spirituality, or ideology, or philosophy... or whatever the hell Scientology or Dianetics are.
Like, how a Catholic church usually features the Stations of the Cross in the design, with the 15th Station as the altar....
No such luck.
The Big D Scientologists moved into a pre-existing office building.
First, I met Brice, who just wanted me to suffer the video kiosks, which are so butt-numbingly awful.
I asked Brice if “Ron” ever visited Dallas.
Brice didn’t know.
Instead, Brice led me to “something special” — my own screening room to watch “the only filmed interview of L. Ron Hubbard,” which was conducted in the U.K, circa 1965.
It was interesting to watch Hubbard in action.
Ron’s not at all conventionally attractive.
He speaks like he’s wearing dentures that are about to come unglued.
And he wears a leisure suit with a flared collar and an ascot, along with a bracelet and a pimped-out finger ring.
After I emerged from the film, I was greeted by Tess, who also wanted to know why I decided to visited the center.
I explained my interest in the design of the new building and to find out if Hubbard ever visited Dallas.
Tess was smooth. But Tess really just wanted to me to take the “personality test,” which I did: 200 questions to answer “yes,” “maybe” or “no.”
I kept my copy of the test.
Here are questions from the Oxford Capacity Analysis Test that seemed like they were constructed by a wordy lard-ass:
• 50. Have you a definitely set standard of courteous behavior in front of other members of your family? • 56. Does "external noise" rarely interfere with your concentration? • 81. Are you usually undisturbed by "noises off" when you are trying to rest? • 89. Are there some things about yourself on which you are touchy? • 90. Do you have few interests and activities that are your own choice? • 91. Do you ever get a single thought which hangs around for days? • 116. Does a minor failure on your part rarely trouble you? • 129. Are you in favor of color bar and class distinction? • 166. Does the idea of fear or apprehension give you a physical reaction? • 180. Do you make allowances for your friends where with others you might judge more severely? • 189. Having settled an argument out do you continue to feel disgruntled for a while?
By the way, I bombed the test.
Tess said my critical skills sucked.
I asked, “Does that mean my critiques were really weak?”
Tess said no, that my I was overly critical — that I find too much fault in stuff and that my “outpoints” were screwy.
I said “overly critical” doesn’t mean pointing out faults, per se.
I mean, critics could say something was “terrific” because it was “perfectly constructed,” “breathtakingly concise” or “tasted yummy.”
A critique means you're just analyzing something to see how it measures up.
Some critics rave about stuff.
Tess just pointed back to my score on the test and said the results are “scientifically” measured.
I also took an IQ test, which I totally bombed.
And then Tess subjected me to an E-meter test, which I think I miserably failed or just frustrated the heck out of Tess, since I tried so hard to distract her or make her laugh.
Tess was nice, though.
The Church of Scientology of Dallas, 451 Decker Dr., Irving. Open seven days a week: 9 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Walk-ins welcome. 214-524-5300.
I eventually arrived in Texas and drove from the massive Dallas-Fort Worth airport (it’s larger than Manhattan) across the flat plains of northern Texas.
The gracefully curving highways were the color of the surrounding earth — a sort of warm beige. After about 20 miles, I turned north on Highway 75 on what might be the mightiest and most awe-inspiring interchange I’ve ever seen.
At least five levels of roads are stacked up, all swooping over, under and around each other as if in some mighty concrete mating dance. It’s a truly incredible work, graceful, and of a scale so large that it is impossible to see the whole thing from any one vantage point.
When driving on the upper levels, you are almost completely unaware that you are arcing and swooping and curving in a ballet with all the other vehicles exiting and merging down below. You simply see the curve of the road ahead, and some signs alerting you of approaching merging lanes and future exits.
And after 9/11, the funny-gal Jewish intellectual says she got “Dixie Chicked” and was essentially blacklisted in Texas.
Now as we dive deeper into recession, Dallas is in for a bargain.
On Saturday, Bernhard returns to Big D for a surprisingly intimate and affordable chance to experience her brand of standup, monologue and bomb-throwing as La Bernhard plays the Rose Room.
With her pal Dallas radio-jock Jack E. Jett as emcee, Bernhard promises to deliver an improv act and songs.
I caught up with Bernhard, who was at her New York home.
•••
KUSNER: Are you preparing any rants about the financial crisis? And whom we should throw stones at? BERNHARD: Everyone should just throw stones at themselves.
So everyone must get stoned? [Laughs.] Yeah. And everyone needs to stop blaming others and take on more responsibility.
Can we rant about our current financial situation? It’s the same thing I’ve been saying for eight years. First, George Bush stole the election. And because of 9/11, everyone just stood there with their thumbs up their asses. To me, 9/11 was a total manipulation. And to this day, I don’t fully buy it. We knew 9/11 was going to happen. We had the intelligence. And nobody heeded the warning. But everybody just brushed that under the rug. Then we got into Iraq. Then George Bush wins again, narrowly…. It’s the nature of politics. People are finally realizing that they have a voice. I don’t understand why they had to be kicked in the teeth for eight years to get the point.
Are you afraid to criticize Obama? Why would I criticize him?
For starters, Obama’s against gay marriage. Plus, that inauguration crap with Rick Warren while Bishop Robinson got shafted. I don’t think that’s the issue. The gay community needs do what they did since Prop 8 passed. They need to start organizing. Everybody who has fought any battles — whether it’s the black community or whomever— has had to fight. Now we have to fight. Marriage is a state-to-state thing. And it will evolve. And I don’t think Obama will ever stand in the way of that. Obama is a black man. I mean, most black men are in the closet. They are on the DL, honey. It’s a cultural and religious thing — a Jesus thing. And everybody needs to wake up to that shit.
Should gays hand Obama’s ass back to him and say, “What’s your beef with gay marriage?” It’s fine if people want to tell Obama, “We’re going to effect these changes — and don’t stand in our way.” But until everyone gets past this religion thing, nobody is going to be on board.
Do fundamental Jews ever irritate you? No. They don’t bother me. Anybody who takes the Torah literally is out of their minds. It’s written by man — it’s man’s definition of morality. God wasn’t sitting up there with a big chisel and hammer.
So it’s just the Christians? They’re fucking crazy. [Laughs.] Everybody is nuts, Jesus Christ.
What’s the truth that you’re speaking to power in 2009? This is the message: Get up every day, and do what you can to change your life — change your consciousness. Power up on an emotional and spiritual level. Take responsibility for your actions. Enjoy your life by embracing what you already have.
Has the financial crisis impacted your world? It’s affected everyone. I think it’s the best thing that’s happened to this county. People have to stop looking to material things to find happiness. We need to stop making movies about women who have traded their intellect for shopping — women who have spent the last 10 years resculpting their bodies by injecting chemicals and having surgeries. The whole consciousness has been wrong.
When it comes to fashion, Dallas could benefit from a sensible bitchslap. I pick from a wide variety. Friends give me stuff to wear. I like things I just buy off the rack. There have been so many great things on sale. I’ve bought fabulous dresses. And great shoes. I bought two pair of Manolo Blahniks on sale for $450. This is a time to buy stuff and capitalize on great sales. I can’t tell people in Dallas how to dress. They’ve got their own weird — kind of like, big, big hair and big things happening. It’s a big place. Mix it up — go high and low. It’s about good taste. Like Michelle Obama — she mixes J. Crew with new cool designers. She knows how to mix it up.
Did having to tighten your belt surprise you? Honey, I’ve always lived below my means. Since I was 18 and making my own money, I’ve never — ever — owed one dollar in my life. That’s my whole point. Live at the level you can live, and be comfortable. If that means not being grand and cooking at home every night and doing what you go to do, then that’s what you got to do. And don’t have 10 kids. Have one or two kids. That’s enough. Be a great parent to one kid instead of a lousy parent to 10 kids.
Besides listening to Suze Orman, are you looking for lightning rods of wisdom Yeah, myself. If I already haven’t given you enough stems of wisdom… I don’t need to look to anybody else. I look at my girlfriend and my daughter — we’ve never lived ostentatiously. That’s the best advice I can give — live below your means. If that doesn’t resonate, I don’t know what does. That’s what Suze Orman tells everybody. But I’ve been saying it for 20 years — when we were in the middle of having these, like, big, fabulous extravagant moments. I kept saying to everybody, “You know what? Don’t go there — you don’t need a $5,000 purse.”
You were ghetto fabulous before it was fabulous. You know it. Your Dallas gig will be dramatically intimate. And for die-hard fans, it’s only $20. Over the holidays. I just did a week at Joe’s Pub in New York. And it’s only 155 seats. I did some of my best shows in those settings. People like to be up close. I just have one request: That people aren’t completely drunk or high on drugs. Can you just wait until I’m done performing? Sometimes these late-night gigs bite you on the ass because everyone’s so fucked up. If you want to hear what I have to say, don’t talk while I’m talking. And don’t be falling all over the place while I’m trying to be the star. When I’m done, do what you want. When I’m onstage, please, shut up and listen to me. And don’t make me have to say this when I’m onstage.
SATURDAY WITH SANDRA
On Feb. 21, 2008, Bernhard performs a midnight “Carnivale” show at The Rose Room Theatre at Station 4, 3911 Cedar Springs Rd. Tickets, $20 (includes $10 cover to S4). Rose Room cast performs at 11 p.m. Proceeds benefit AIDS Arms and Resource Center of Dallas. 214-526-7171.
