MDLSX at La Mama

MDLSX

One solitary killer performer; one play not labeled or titled via acronyms. This is a journey that doesn't stop tonight, not for the person showing us their life, and not for us. Mini tripod and iPhone in-hand, tandem home videos also translate an education lesson that I will use in my life if ever confronted with its subject. You don't wish anyone a tougher life, you learn, you listen, and you love. The timing is always right. The title? Let's start with the title.   Perhaps a strategic choice reminiscent of our culture lessening important things. Do I think that was strategic?  Brilliance is always fun, in the minds of the brilliant.  Vowels? Why does a word always need one? Formulas are plastic and we need to be able to shape things in a way that we can understand them even though it's not what you're used to. Maybe it's a metaphor for our generation's attention span, or how we speak, or spell, like kindergarteners sounding out words and then attempting their spelling. Why can art be subjective, but spelling can't? Spell how you would like kids, if it translates across generations, great, if it doesn't, who cares, life is short and those whom you love will get it.
Tonight this performer revealed their discovery of their life and exposed the transformation to us. If your life could have a soundtrack, what songs would you pick? Years go by and each song is indicative of the moment - The Cramps, David Bowie, screaming as each kid on the playground asks if you're a boy or a girl. A celebration when a pubic hair surfaces, and an orchestra follows. Same goes for breasts and the ache that may follow growth, and a melodramatic build and confusion play when a penis protrudes; one person. This is their life. You're allowed in. She pulls her hair back to reveal an uncanny look mirroring her brother, and then she sticks the camera inches from her vagina. If you were picturing some play-doh creature you blindly make during a Cranium challenge, you're wrong. You've been up in there and you're not confused. In the end though, she is and she wants to be the person inside. Not what parents have steered or expected; what the person inside is saying.

Alejandro Jodorowsky makes a vocal cameo in an interview with someone equally important considering their opinion on the topic was stellar and well informed. There shouldn't be a label for a man or a woman since there aren't just two, ever. If that's true, than a man or woman are not the only two options so therefore acknowledge. In the end we did. Although this human beings life led to a hitchhiking journey, shaved heads and drugged mermaids in tanks w sheer shiny flippers, a kaleidoscope of colors, songs, beats and philosophies, never could you put yourself in their shoes, and so you stand and clap. I haven't stood and clapped in a long time. I literally jumped out of my beach chair, and threw my jacket down to clap. Not because you're sad, not because it was difficult for the performer to deliver such a show, but because you know you're not that strong. Because you know you just witnessed something above and beyond someone coming out to the public.  Because you know you're a better person for her having been alive, and selfishly walking away with more than what you ever paid.