7 Minutes in Heaven with Bazima and MIKE ALBO, Seer of the Feel
There hasn't been a 7 Minutes in Heaven with Bazima interview in a year because my team of editors are so lazy have a life! But 2007's cherry is being popped today, and who better to stick it in and move it around then writer, monologuist, performance artist, and Dazzle Dancer Mike Albo. When I asked, "If you could sleep with someone without anyone ever knowing who would it be?" Mike replied, "I feel like I do this already." Now there's a man after my own heart.
Lately, Mike has been spotted as Gawker's own Underminer, a character upon which he based his most recent novel
We know that we only get seven minutes -- that is, seven questions -- but we are such horndogs for Mike that we reset the timer for two bonus questions. Kind of like when you're rolling around naked with someone and you don't actually think you're going to have sex, and you are even thinking, for whatever reason, that maybe you shouldn't, but you let him put it in just a little bit for a second. Bazima.com, going that extra mile.
And so we begin with the most important subject matter: me.
1. Out of all of the times that you and I met up at a local cafe under the guise of working, and ended up mostly talking about boys, magazines, and music, which time do you think I looked the most fetching?
Well, let me preface this by saying you always look fetching, but if I had to choose... 1) When you were smitten with the dorky philosophy [guy] who was SO into you and you had your hair in two cute little side-buns. 2) Last spring when you were so allergic and sneezing and your sinuses were melting out your nostrils. No one has ever made allergies look so sexy.
2. The Dazzle Dancers. Please explain.
This is true: My friend Gregg and I were at a party and we wanted to do something for Wigstock but we are too ugly to be drag queens. So we were thinking of male drag of some sort. Meanwhile, my roommate had a copy of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg that she had rented from Kim's Video (this is before Netflix for all you Myspace generation people) and as a preview before the film, there was this PATHETIC pilot promo for this show called Dazzle Dancin! Starring Rick Dees! With special guests Maureen Jahan (the choreographer of Flashdance!) and Sylvester Stallone's brother! It was the most hilarious pathetic thing. Anyway, Gregg and I were at a party and for some reason we had a bottle of poppers. So we sniffed them and suddenly in a rush we thought: we would be DAZZLE DANCERS!!! And thus we were born.
[Editor's note: I have a lot of fave parts of this interview, not the least of which is "...and for some reason we had a bottle of poppers."]
3. What is the most challenging thing, for you, about being a writer/performer?
1) Getting fucking paid from magazines that owe me money like Blackbook (1400 dollars) and Mens Vogue (1715 dollars)
2) Coping with the fact that people think you are always "getting laid" when you aren't because you are too busy running around before the show, during the show, and then after the show.
3) Coping with the fear that you are giving too much to a public audience and not focusing on giving to one person, thus remaining single for the rest of your life.
4. You're a spiritual person, a purveyor of magicks, and a true believer in the cosmic unconscious. If you were the author of The Secret, what would be the book's message?
I am so glad you asked that. The message would be stop thinking about yourself so much you greedy motherfucker! While you "wish" for a new car there is some 5-year-old child in Somalia scraping salt into a pile with a stick for 1 dollar a day! Why don't you for once try to wish for something generously expansive beyond your greedy ass obese luxury bullshit life?
5. What (or who) are your current obsessions?
• Laura Veirs
• Battlestar Galactica
• A dancer boy who is dating someone but I don't think it is going to last, and I can tell there is something between us. (That is so bad, but you know when you feel some spark, you can't back away from it. But I think in this situation one needs to just be patient and wait it out because if its actually worth it, it will sustain through the next couple of months. Of course this way of thinking has rarely worked for me, but I am just not a pushy annoying manipulator when it comes to this kind of thing.)
• The fact that I owe over 20,000 dollars in taxes and lived so frugally, meanwhile Foxy Brown walks around scratching beauty counter salespeople in the face and throws her money around. I don't understand; there is no way that girl is better with her money.
• Whether I should move to LA because I don't have any money even though I have finally, after 15 years, made it to the point where I am writing for the Times and NY Mag and whatever. I can't live off writing for magazines. So I would rather write crap for TV and get fucked over for 30,000 dollars than 2,000 (see above question about writing/performing).
• Shear Genius with Jaclyn Smith. Will it be good like Proj Runway? Or not so good like Top Design?
• My new Marc Jacobs pants that I got on sale for only 35 bucks.
• Jose Saramago
• Desktop scale personal fabricators
6. It seems like if you're not writing a column or a new story you're doing stand-up or improv, or a one-man show, or TV pilot, or making short films, or offering love advice, or handing out horoscopes, or running for office. Where does all that drive come from?
I am a double Gemini with a Leo rising. I have this insane need to communicate and constantly worry that I am the only one who thinks a certain way, and that I may be going crazy. So I need to duplicate my thoughts in multiplatform media outlets and try to connect with other people and make sure that I am not that proverbial caterpillar alone in his cocoon dreaming.
7. Tell us a story about something that happened at your last performance.
Well it just so happens that I just came in from a show at The Box -- the new venue downtown where you can get a table for 900 dollars and a glass of wine costs 17 dollars. The show was an after party for The Pierces, this sister duo who were SO camera-ready and pretty. I don't want to denigrate them, because they seemed to have talent and their heart was in the right place, but they were the kind of act where you can't wait for them to become bitter [and] screwed over by the music industry (like Aimee Mann or somebody) and emotionally thrown around a little and then begin to write real music. Anyway, I was performing with Angie Pontani of the Pontani Sisters, Julie Atlas Muz, and The Wau Wau Sisters -- three of the greatest burlesque acts ever. I love those women. Well, actually I love women in general, and it was so fun being backstage with them, all of us naked and them talking about their pussy hair and all that. All four of them are so so so gorgeous. I mean really beautiful, from the inside out with tons of light pouring out of them -- big big auras. Sometimes I step back and think, wow if I was a straight guy I would be jerking off so hard right now.
8. Where do you hope to be five years from now?
Above water.
9. If you were the interviewer and the interviewee, standing in front of the mirror alone in your apartment, maybe using a Mr. Microphone, what would be your final question to yourself, and what would be your answer?
Q - Despite it all, do you STILL believe that there is love in the world and that people can get along in multiracial harmony like you were told they would from Free To Be You And Me?
A - I do! What is wrong with me?
Try and keep up with Mike's inner world of ululating truths at mikealbo.com. Make sure you watch some of the hilare videos, especially if your name is Amanda. Photo of Mike by Erica Freudenstein.
