Click on photo for naughty naughty slide show by Michael Forester.
Guess what? You went to the wrong party.
Indeed, while you were at home glued to the couch or out with your Young Republican friends, weeping in a sports bar, YJ's Snack Bar owner and adventurous 18th Street artist David Ford was presiding over a crew of strippers, freaks, bikers and musicians at a living art installation called "I Love This Country." Ford's known for setting up things like this -- symbolic eye-candy feasts of motion, color, sound and absurdity. He's taken his at to New York and locally has been responsible for some crazy goings-on around the Crossroads. Last night, he took over Mercy Seat Tattoo at 16th and Grand.
Outside, attendees lined up in front of a spotlit U.S. flag and signed releases saying basically that it was OK with them if they had their photo taken and if things got claustrophobic inside. Gruff and surly biker dudes checked IDs and let people in a few at a time, barking "go" when it was your turn. I found that I could see inside the place. Once through the door, you were met with a shot of tequila, administered by a girl in a red-and-white-striped outfit who told you to lean your head back. And then everything exploded in your face all at once.
Lingerie-clad dancers swayed and shimmied high on a platform; at their feet, a bob-for-dollars tank into which you could insert your head through a hole and put your mouth where the money was. A hammy announcer stood on a platform, welcoming you and telling you to relax and enjoy America. A drunk guy in a mechanic's shirt and glittery KC ballcap (actually local tenor Nathan Granner), would grab the mic and belted out the national anthem or some improvised vocal funk jam. Pieces of white wonderbread with things written on them were everywhere. There was a spinning wheel, a couple of small TVs, and too many symbolic objects, people and happenings to take in, period. It had the engineered randomness of a David Lynch movie.
Over by the window was a guy in red underwear, sitting on a paper cutter, offering to make "alterations" to things. He suggested I let him alter my hat. I said no thanks. Then he offered to alter my camera wrist-strap. I said OK, and he took it and sliced it off using the blade of the paper cutter. "That's much better now," I said, wanting to get in the spirit of the thing. "Well, maybe, we'll see," said the half-naked man.
The piece de resistance was the black hospital-patient guy sitting in a wheelchair with his leg in a cast positioned right up below the dancers. Underneath him, in a box lined with fake grass, a tiny American flag rustled in a fan-generated breeze.
After a bit, you were ushered into the back alley, where the local Afrobeat ensemble Hearts of Darkness jammed into the endless American night.
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