Dear androids, glamdroids, fembots, gaybots, alien sex fiends, tattooed love gods, Westwoodians, butt pirates, and vicarious voyeurs:
Somehow I survived my first night on this Vienna trip, donned my American astronaut suit and headed over to the Life Ball with Bruce Benderson. (FYI, last year the Life Ball raised 1,200,000 euros for the fight against AIDS. The stats for this year's take-in have not been calculated yet.) Sharon Stone, the annual co-chair of the event, made her appearance during the over-the-top opening ceremony along with special guest Linda Evangelista and Kim Cattrall. I find it rather heart-warming that the entire city of Vienna officially hosted and embraced this, the largest, AIDS fundraiser in the world, which was held at Vienna's City Hall. It's something you would never see on this scale in conservative New York/America. I doubt I will ever see the day when Mayor Bloomberg ordains a giant AIDS benefit at City Hall which celebrates and flaunts deliciously blatant hedonism as flagrantly as the Life Ball does.
Bruce and I arrived early to catch every second of it. It all began rather bizarrely with the Vienna Boys Choir, scantily clad Agent Provocateur models, a green spaceship descending Broadway-show-like on the stage, and ballerinas dancing with aliens dressed in traditional 19th-century bohemian attire to "Vienna Calling." Things returned to a certain degree of normality when the divine Debbie Harry hit the stage and the simulated acid trip was put momentarily on hold....
Joe Corre of Agent Provocateur (right) with marching model
Sharon Stone
Debbie Harry
Me in my spacesuit
Bruce Benderson went as a human cash machine. His Marxist, anti-corporate America message was, "Capitalism supports AIDS."
Coffee,
Tea, or Me meets Deep Space Nine: Inside City Hall I ran into Beno, one
of the Austrian flight attendants from our plane.
After the opening show, Bruce and I went backstage before the Agent Provocateur show....
The Agent Provocateur show had various themes: naughty French maids (of course), the Night Porter look (very Euro), tattooed rough trade, and pirates (a nod to mum Vivienne Westwood's legendary Pirates collection from the '80s). Joe Corre sang onstage (we all watched on the monitor backstage where it was more comfortable) and Amanda Lepore sang a song with Chicks on Speed which was written by Larry Tee. During the show, model wranglers where screaming out the names of those who needed to get onstage NOW: "LYDIA!!! WHERE IS LYDIA!?!", "NINA HAGEN!! I NEED NINA ONSTAGE NOW! NIIIIIINAAAAA!!" As the models rushed back and forth in front of us and hair and makeup people scrambled around with their instruments, I truly felt like I was in an emergency room at a hospital instead of a fashion show.
I
was very happy to see that Lydia Hearst made it to the Life Ball this
year. (She was on a modeling assignment in Japan last year). She was one
of the sexiest models in the show.
I did not get a photo of Nina Hagen, whom I revere, unfortunately. "She's not doing photos now," Roxanne Lowit told me. "Too sweaty."
Terence Koh soaks up, contributes to the glamour.
Marcus
Schenkenberg and George Wayne. When George pinched one of Marcus's
eraser nipples, it swelled to three times its normal size. I think they
should take this show on the road.
Amanda Lepore in Vienna trip outfit #265
International superstar Andre J
The fantabulous Codie Ravioli is on a just-off-the-runway high.
If this isn't "Fellini-esque" I don't know what is!
Andre and Marcus
.
.
Obvious photo caption: Horny model.
Oh, Suuuuperman...(I think they are Austrian TV hosts....like Kathy and Regis, but 3 billion times sexier.)
After
hearing reports that Patricia Field would not be attending, we saw her
magically appear at the VIP after party in the backstage area.
Codie and I ended up at the after-after party at Volksgarten. The sun was coming up as we sat in the outdoor terrace.
Vienna morning and almost time to get back on the plane and collapse.
Love,
Glenn Belverio
hi
this is Danai from Vice magazine. I was brousing through your blog and thought that you might be interested in some of VBS.TV 's videos (VBS is Vice magazine's online channel).
You can watch a video interview of Terence Koh on "Art Talk" here:
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1488634031
and another one featuring Princess Xtravaganza on "Vogueing":
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=570333483
Feel free to share any of our video material! We'd be happy to hear from you at some point,
best,
Danai
Danai Vardali
VICE
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London, EC2A 4QS, UK
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Posted by: danai vardali | May 21, 2008 at 10:51 AM
sooooo inspiring......"celebrates and flaunts deliciously blatant hedonism" is my new favorite phrase.....NY really really really needs something like this.....
Posted by: Sylvia | June 07, 2008 at 03:01 PM
Crazy party,Crazy people!
Posted by: wholesale handbags | November 30, 2010 at 03:45 AM
I guess your Vienna trip had been very happy. I can see it on the images that you've posted. Their great!
Posted by: khaki suits | May 13, 2011 at 03:55 AM