I am a Fruit Fly... A Story of Acceptance

Fruit Fly definition: "A woman who is friends with a gay or bisexual man but who does not have an interest in seducing them like many fag hags do. (Could be for a variety of reasons, they themselves maybe lesbians or may just enjoy being friends with a man who isn’t trying to get in their pants)"
As the readers of my blog and those who are very close to me know I have a very deep respect and appreciation of gay culture. It has raised a few eye brows over the years from conservative family members to potential boyfriends that turned out to be too homophobic for my taste and were axed right away.
I love my fruit fly status and will gladly explain the whys right here.
Upon my arrival in NYC I was completely alone and as much as I adore my own company at times I was very lonely. But the Big spirit was surely watching out for me as within a month of my arrival I landed at Twilo (read: Best Gay Party in the World hosted by Junior Vasquez).
I was a clueless girl from periphery, naive, shy, anxious, completely lacking style and beyond insecure.
From the first party I attended I felt acceptance. I loved the theatrical production of the club as a whole. The Drag Queen's exuberant stylish representations of themselves have woken up in me a ballet dancer I have long forgotten about. I knew the warmth and pleasure of the stage spotlight, the anxious anticipation of a performance, magical costumes and the adrenalin rush that came with the whole experience; but...it was such a distant smoke of a memory for me at that point. I was too burdened to remember the magic.
Coming to America was a toughest rebirth of all and in trying to fit in I have axed the most beautiful, creative parts of myself. I somehow wanted to get lost in the crowd, thinking I'd be accepted if I was monotone.

Twilo was a place where my love affair with gay culture began...
I understood right away that I could be as creative as I wanted to in this environment and no one was trying to grab my ass while I was at it.

I've always knew one thing: people who have been persecuted or faced some real hardships become more aware of others pain and are usually much more accepting than people who have always had a green light in life. I am no stranger to adversity, my own life has been filled with drama after drama and as strange as it may sound I found respite among a thousand of sweaty gay men, gyrating on the dance floor. They were freer that anyone I had met at that point. They were creative beyond my tunnel vision of imagination and yours as well and they were oh so courteous, stylish, glowing and gorgeous.
This is why year after year I make sure I make it to Gay Pride Parade; waving my Pride Flag, taking pictures and cheering on from side lines. It is my expression of eternal gratitude for truths that I discovered on that dance floor. For friends that I made there; for ones that were teachers, simply because they were being themselves. Transfer of knowledge and wisdom most of the times happens without words, it happens by observation. I was accepted and learned acceptance in the process, I was set free from years of brainwashing.
We as humans have the deepest capacity for understanding each other yet on daily basis we can judge each other mercilessly without knowing or even being curious about the story of a human life right next to us. We are all guilty of it. Being brainwashed into thinking that somehow one life is more precious than another is a malaise of our existence. 40 years ago Stonewall Inn riots in NYC spurred the gay rights movement, rights we are still fighting for.

Just as racial inequality had to be fought tooth and nail, it took a long time to see the the real shift of consciousness. The shift occures one person at a time and everything depends on how you choose to view the human next to you. It so happens that my liberation occurred at a gay party, yours could have happened somewhere entirely different, doesn't matter where as long as it happened. And if it didn't happen yet, seek out those who will alter your perception and don't think that they will come in a perfect package. As long as you are open to a possibility you are half way there.
Thank you my gay friends for making me see the world from a different angle, for making me free and fearless while I felt like Cinderella at the Ball and learned my best dance moves. This is my tribute to you, your never ending creativity, love of life and acceptance of all. I have to add that as always the music was amazing on every single float and I was dancing in the streets :)

My Weapon of Choice!!!

I am wondering if FatBoy Slim's intoxicatingly addictive personal energy of sheer positivity and joy can be bottled? As far as I am concerned the man is drug and once you have understood his approach to music you are hooked for life. A friend of mine gave me a live FatBoy Slim mix and after 3 straight run trough's I fell in love. I had to see him in person, but he has not made it to NYC till last night...

His stage presence is delirious... he lives music, he feels it so humanely deep that as a listener you have no other choice but to be swept into his hurricane of blissful insanity. He is a lightning jolt of freedom, happiness, creativity and above all authenticity. The man is fearlessly true to himself, unafraid of taking chances and it shows...

His appearance at Terminal 5 last night proves that 1,500 people can be mobilized on a Wednesday night, but you have to be FatBoy Slim to pull it off!

Terminal 5 is old club Exit and despite bad reviews I have seen elsewhere, the sound was impeccable. I did not hear a single mistake in the sound system, not an echo, not a faulty speaker, not one distortion. Perfectly proportional to the space and robust, full range sound. Pretty sure that FatBoy Slim's sound engineer had something to do with it because there was a second sound check right before he started playing. I have nothing to say about Shinicho Osawa as I only heard 5 minutes of his set, found it absolutely toxic to my ears and was happy when it was over.

10 minute pause for sound check before Norman Cook appeared on stage gave the audience the tease of anticipation and enough time to get ready to be swept away. We were all fully aroused by the time he did appear and from the first beat he and the crowd were in sync.

He started with Praise You clearly paying homage to all his fans, gesticulating his appreciation of the crowd with his hands; he made it well understood that we were loved, cherished and about to be taken on a treat of a trip. The crowd was soon drenched in glow of cosmic lights plus strobe and the 3D images projected on a screen behind him gave plenty of ponderous moments.

His talent goes way beyond mixing, he is a delightful energy transmitter surely connected to the spirit or cosmos or whatever you want to call it. Although his mixing is not always perfect, his creativity makes up for any flubs. He played a part of Thriller behind some jungle of beats never letting it escape into the vocal part and quickly switching to something else. His style of playing was an extended mash up if I can call it that, with high energy throughout and vocals for respite.

He played all his classics: Right here right now, Put your hand up in the air, Weapon of choice, He's Frank by Iggy Pop, Rockafeller Scank and then there were a few surprises: Let me clear my throat by DJ Kool and Back to Life by Sol II Sol, which he played while dancing infectiously himself. And what a dancer!

The real highlight of his set was a surprising choice of El Mariachi song from Desperado, it was so unexpected that the crowd went complete bananas and seeing it he played it twice back to back. Hands in the air the whole night, digital camera flashes adding to strobe lights, Christopher Walken video and many interesting 3D projections, everyone singing along non stop...

He closed his set with Praise You completing the circle of love and did not play an encore even though the crowd was vehemently demanding one by chanting his name. I must add that the crowd was the most cool and down to earth kind, super polite. FatBoy Slim takes the crown for originality and authenticity, I am inexplicably enchanted with his brand of delirious magic.

I am tempted to call him a Wizard but he is way beyond that; he is the Alchemist whose experiments of taking the party energy to the next level are often explosive and that is why is he so loved and honored by fans and peers worldwide.

A Love Affair

Just like Ravel’s Bolero when music starts so quietly you can hardly detect it and then very slowly growing louder and firmer all of a sudden becoming like a hart beat, just like that my love affair with music started. They say you love either with your eyes or with your ears, for me it’s definitely the ears. They are highly attuned my ears, like alien locators I sometime can pick up conversations in a different room or hear a few conversations at once, which I really don’t like because my brain gets quickly overworked. But music really relaxes my mind and it does not matter how many undertones go into a musical piece all will be detected and savored.
At the age of three I was singing love songs on a bus or a train to the amusement of my fellow passengers. Amused they were to see a child sing “I remember when I was young and in love…” with a very serious face. Mom was amused as well, so here I was loudly pouring my heart out. Between the ages of 4 and 6 I vividly remember my aunt and mom getting ready to go to out, putting their makeup on, spraying their perfume, running around in their underwear trying on different dresses and shoes all to the sound of ABBA and Bonnie M records. Oh those soft slightly scratchy sounds of record player.
Record player was always my friend and even at the age of 5 I could change records and clean needles. Even when the record is scratched or a little warped from lying on the sun, or when it ends and goes into an unexplainable muffled sound its music to me, it will automatically transport me back to those days, when I was in my first initial giddy stages of my love affair. But everything has to grow and change otherwise it will die so here comes ballet and with it an enormous ocean of wild classical music performed in class by an elderly woman on piano of course. How fortunate was I to grow up in a way that I did I only understood later, by then music was so deeply ingrained in my soul that now the fire was inextinguishable.
Our teachers took their job very seriously in every single area of studies and my ballet teacher was out to cultivate souls besides the perfect and at time excruciating plies, arabesques and glissades. She made us listen to the pieces before hand and then question our understanding of the feeling in these serious classical pieces. To dance beautifully besides having a good technical skill your soul has to be free. And your soul will not be free until you fall in love with music. We also had home work and listening to classical pieces was the requirement and that was besides once weekly music class that we all had mandatory in school where once again it was classical music listening, history, comprehension and discussion.
Whether I was overly emotional from birth or because of such an intense upbringing I will never know because somehow it all got so intertwined that it really does not matter anymore, all it matters is that when I feel something it goes very deep. They always say that classical music makes people smarter; well I think it makes people more open and in tune with this universe and that in turn makes people more curious and sensitive. Classical music is the base and at that it’s a very sturdy one.
40 hours a week of Vivaldi, Chopin, Strauss, Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Ravel, Bach, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Schobert, Stravinsky, the list is long and as some kids would go crazy from this, I thrived on it, and it was my life. I learned to love with my ears.
Love affair continues…
My dear mother falls in love with a Frenchman who is an engineer building oil rigs and gas processing plant in our town. He is tall, dark and handsome and with him flies in an era of Edith Piaf, Jaques Brelle, Joe Dassen, Mireille Mathieu, Serge Ginsburg and countless other names I can’t recall anymore. This is when I begin to understand the pain that love brings, because essentially all French music is purely love songs. “Ne me quitte pas” (Don’t leave me) is on repeat a lot of the times in my household as mom and the Frenchman go through ups and downs, but my favorite is always Edith Piaf. There is so much strength and character in her voice, so much pain and heartbreak. I love her, I feel her and all my friends think I am crazy. No matter… Years later I learn of Edith Piaf fascinating life story and totally understand everything I felt listening to her songs. While I am listening to all this I must add that I am in love with a 12th century poet, philosopher, astronomer, mathematician and generally a wise Persian man named Omar Khayyam. I love him so much I can quote my favorite Rubaiyat in Russian by heart. I am now 13 years old and ballet is still very important, but I am slowly drifting away from classical music. Away, into a world of music of the World, French, Italian, American, Indian, Spanish, Israeli, Hungarian and one of my real favorites Gypsy music. I become a citizen of the world just by listening to all these great melodies of life and love and all that encompasses it.
Years go by and my internal music library continues to grow every single day, it feeds me, it’s always there through pain and sorrow of leaving my home land, trough heartbreaks of love, through triumphs and bold moves I allow myself to make. Through numerous road trips across the country by myself or with a friend, music is always there for me. It never cheats, it always tells the truth, it’s always passionate, it makes me grow, it makes me better, it makes me sensitive, it makes me fly and sometimes it makes me cry. It is my only true love, it gives and gives and gives and in return I share it with as many people as possible.

Full Moon

For the life of her she could not decide which playful personality was supposed to dominate this very important evening? Smoking a cigarette and trying on a pair after pair of shoes that were now occupying half of the tiny living room which was filled with the most glorious moonlight coming from the only window. Oh those full moons, always stirring up troubles, making people yearn for things that may not even exist, she thought. Standing in front of the mirror like a little girl wearing two different shoes, posing, turning a little from right to left to see which one was finally going to make the cut? The pretty one with a big red flower on the side that she always wore with a gypsy dress or the super slick needle skinny stiletto which made a beautiful sound when hitting the cold hard concrete? That clicking sound was so unique, so authentic especially when running down the stairs it always evoked a premonition of a night filled with dancing, champagne and careless laughs until the sky turned light purple and then pale blue. Stiletto won, and she disappeared into the bedroom to put on the dress. Exactly five minutes later the keys turned the lock and you could hear her running down the stairs, clicking away, the sound slowly disappearing into the night. I stuck my head out of the apartment and caught the passing breeze of intoxicating dream that was gone way too soon. Ah those full moons always stirring up emotions that can be hardly expressed….

Just Vinyl

In a world of Pro Tools and mp3 mixing, you have to respect the people who throw a party named Just Vinyl. Pure and simple, sometimes life doesn't need the bells and whistles, just a decent sound system and a 2 record mixer. It was a small gathering, again because of building regulations, but the music was heart wrenching and soulful. It's very nice to have Greg Cuoco back on the scene after such a long disappearance. I could not make it to Aqua Booty on Thursday at Le Lupanar, but I hear it was quite a spectacle. So last night I made it to Mixx lounge on 7th Ave to get a doze of vinyl.
The leaves were falling down, the sky was crying...was playing when I got there and I haven't heard this haunting beauty in years. Great taste in music and a collection of rare records like those of Greg Cuoco can't stay locked up for long, they need to breathe. He went on to play Butterflies, by Alicia Keys (Sanchez Mix) and then The Cure and The Cause by Fish go Deep, that summed up the theme of the night. Don't take your love away, your love away....
I must have been lucky last night because that one of my favorite songs and it was played at another party I went to after, as if the DJs were tugging at my heart strings, reminding me of what really doesn't need a reminder. There is only one cure for it and it's music.
As usual the vibe at Greg's parties is so relaxed, you feel like you are at your best friend's living room and he is playing some records just for you. Great to have you back Mr. Cuocco, thank you for the soulful set of classics. I was deeply touched by the performance.

The New Ibiza

New Yorkers love to complain, that is nothing new. We want the best, we feel that we work way too hard not to get the best of everything. We also love to reminisce about the good old days when New York was really free and wild and the parties were not restricted by some ridiculous building code or regulation. New York is the city that never sleeps and yes we have had some difficulties with nightlife...but
I am beginning to think that NYC is the new Ibiza. Every day of the week there is a staggering selection of parties and DJs for every taste. I am getting lost in the sea of invitations and need at least 3 assistants to cover everything. Jeff Mills, Satoshi, Guetta, Behrouz, Tenaglia, Sanchez, Vasquez, Calderone, Lawler, Fatboy Slim, the list goes on and on. Besides the big names that you can find on any given week, there are hundreds of less famous, but just as talented DJs that keep Manhattan busy with outrageous beats every day of the week. We now have 3 beaches with sand and house music that are accessible by water taxi. You can't swim, hey it's East River after all, but you can play volleyball, dance, tan, or build a sand castle all while enjoying a delicious mix of sangria, house music and an intoxicating view of the city skyline. Beach hopping by water taxi? No problem, try doing that in Ibiza without a yacht. New Yorkers truly celebrate summer and this year despite of recession or perhaps in spite of it, we are celebrating harder than ever. So please trust me on this: you are not missing anything in Ibiza, this summer it's all about New York!

United Front

NYC clubs have been harassed for a while now and it's great to see that someone finally found a voice to stand up to a bias system. So Nightlife Preservation Community was created and they are standing up for our rights to dance in peace! I was amazed to see the club community coming together like this. The DJ line up is insane, but the party will kick off at 1am Monday and there are a lot of people who can't attend because of work. Just knowing that there is a movement happening to save NYC nightlife from obliteration is enough to feel elated without actually being at the party.
Please read this short article fully explaining the state of clubbing in NYC
http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/good-night-mr-lewis-the-sky-is-absolutely-falling/8251
It's very interesting that this is happening 1 week before the 40 year anniversary of Stonewall Riots that spurred Gay Rights movement. Gay Pride Parade happens at the end of June to celebrate the anniversary of Stonewall and serves as a reminder that if we are not willing to stand up to the system and challenge preconceived notions nothing will ever change.
I love New York!

Wonderland

As far as rabbit hole disappearances go the experience can change you and your life. Be careful what you wish for, because that is exactly what happened to me at Satoshi party last week at Sullivan Room. In a switch of a button Satoshi hypnotised everyone at Sully including himself. It's a rare occurrence when you can actually see the energy being passed from the DJ to the crowd and back to the DJ. Sullivan Room was breathing and no, I did not eat magic mushrooms.

At some point even Satoshi seemed overwhelmed by the energy of his own creation, if only for a moment.

Pure voodoo was in the air and it manifested in different ways. There were couples on the dance floor that could not stop touching each other in all the right places. I forgot about the bathroom for hours, my feet were performing a crazy number as if they were separated from my body all together and I lost my date.

Satoshi peppered his set with surprises; twisty techno sounds right in the middle of an outrageous vocal you've never heard before and just as you were about to start thinking you knew where he was going, he'd switch it up again and leave you begging for more. He teased, he dropped, he brought it back, besides the music he was really spinning the crowd. One moment you felt light and fluffy sitting on a cloud and the next was a roller coaster of beats that made you feel dizzy. Hypnotic roller coaster ride, that's the only way to describe it.

Down the Rabbit Hole

For weeks the club scene was abuzz, clubbers informing each other: Jeff Mills at Sullivan Room, June 6th...

Anticipation was excruciating and time seemed to slow down as we got closer to Saturday.

Heart pounding, walking really fast, almost running through Washington Square Park I have arrived at the door of Sullivan Room at 11:00 pm on the dot, weak in the knees from adrenaline; anxious to run down the stairs and vanish into the rabbit hole. I say hi to the door man and catch my breath. I make it in and as I slowly walk down the staircase step after step the sounds are getting clearer and clearer, calmness washes over, heartbeat is normal, knees feeling better, ready to dance. As my eyes adjust to the lights and the sounds take control of my brain, last thought on my mind is: Aaaaaaah I am home...

Welcome to Sully!

2 more hours till the Wizard of techno arrives, but the crowd is gathering already and Sleepy & Boo are warming us up. The sound is crisp and full, seems that the system has been tuned yet again. Mirror like, reflective silver material is covering the whole club making it feel like a warehouse underground techno rave of early 90's or a vintage sci-fi movie set. Can't decide.

Sleepy & Boo are serving perfect progressive tech house with driving beats that really make you move. Best set I have heard them play so far and the crowd was thrilled, dancing non stop. Groovy girls with stylish imagination, tourists from Europe hardly beleiving their luck in finding a true underground club, New Yorkers and visitors...

I strike a conversation with a guy from Germany. He informs me that Jeff Mills parties in Germany cost $50 to get in. He shouts in my ear: I love NY!

I smile and think: So do I...and we only pay $20

Finally Jeff Mills arrives and starts with moody haunting instrumental piece of cosmic techno. The crowd is transfixed as if they have seen a UFO, till someone screams:

Dance Mother F%#&*s! And Sully erupts...

Mills moves into his signature twisted beats, where he stays 3 hours straight. The crowd is glued to the dance floor, no one is leaving. Mr. Mills is very much out of this world, from the gaze in his eyes to the long alien like fingers; there is a calmness about him that is very fluid.

His set was moody and gripping yet uplifting and transporting.

Magician? Sure... Alien? Maybe...

In any case this was one of the parties after which you say to all friends who missed it: You had to be there!

Team Sullivan continues surprising us with tantalizing treats. Next stop down the rabbit hole is Satoshi Tomiie this Saturday...get ready to fly and don't forget your dance shoes ;)

Permanent State of Tourism

Riding a subway yesterday, solidly glued to my NY magazine. Two teenagers walk into the subway car, one of them exclaiming: God! I HATE tourists. This phrase sliced my ears and I had to raise my head to stare at the perpetrator of such animosity. Catching the look in my eyes, uncomfortably he sits right next to me as I say: Excuse me I wanted to ask you why exactly do you hate them so much? His facial expression turns to horror as he now thinks that I am one of the tourists.
He tries to put his thoughts together for a few seconds and finally blurts out: Well, because they do things others (he meant us New Yorkers) wouldn't normally do! Great reasoning, followed by a blank stare...
15 years old, with a pale, pimply face and mouth full of metal zig-zag braces he represents a new generation of a "Rude New Yorker" stereotype. Stereotype I thought was long extinct, sitting right next to me on a subway.
Yeah, we don't normally appreciate the architecture, or Broadway shows, or the magic of Central Park. We don't take pictures or go out for dinners; in fact we hate Empire State building, Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, all the lovely bridges, museums and we never ever take the water taxi. Right?
Putting more profound thought: "We are all tourists here on planet earth" aside, on daily basis I feel exactly like any tourist except for the enviable fact that they are free to roam the city while I am going to work. In NYC every neighborhood is a different country, thus all New Yorkers remain in a permanent state of tourism.
Maybe I was lucky that I was born in Russia and had to jump through hoops only to be able to come and live here. Maybe that gave me an undying appreciation and love for all things New York. Maybe every time I look at this city I see it with fresh eyes, the eyes of a tourist.
Maybe all of us should start calling them guests, after all you love your guests and want to show them the best of the best.
Whether they are sitting in lawn chairs in Times Square, or trying to score tickets to the latest and greatest Broadway show, or walking around in their bright crocs, randomly stopping to take a picture and thus causing fury of someone who is running late to a board meeting; these guests of our city are an inspiration to never take NYC for granted.
We all know that love wanes the moment you start taking it for granted and what happened to "I ♥ New York"? If we truly love New York, we should love and respect it's guests as if they were our own, always, even on our worst day.

Are You Feeling Frisky?

OK, it's Tuesday morning and everyone is working on something, I am sure...
Not the best time to feel frisky, cause frisky usually happens after work, or on a weekend and sometimes perhaps in the morning right before going to work (if you know what I mean)...
That's when Frisky Radio comes in and saves you from the daily grind.
Tune in for 2 Damn Cheeky at 12:00 pm EST TODAY on http://www.friskyradio.com/ for a perfect 2 hour lunchtime mix and start dreaming about those weekend parties.
Feed your imagination kitties!