The Night I Saw A Man Light His Penis On Fire

05/14/09 2:34pm

by Amanda Palmer (CHARTattack)

The Bloor Cinema
Toronto, Ontario
August 2, 2006

The Dresden Dolls shows have always been this breeding ground for whacked-out whatever onstage. No auditions, just drop me a line, and if it sounds good, you show up and do your thing. Sometimes it's brilliant (like the Cirque Du Soleil aerialist who showed up one night in L.A. or the bad-ass drag queen opera singers) and sometimes it's just painful (like the bad mimes and magicians and the not-bad-ass drag queen opera singers). But this is the point. It's everybody. If it was always good it wouldn't be what it is. We call this The Brigade.

One night in Toronto we had the motherlode of all performances. This guy Ulysses Castellanos was dug up from somewhere and hosted a night of films I'd put together. He was a rather manly man and came out in a babydoll dress and sat in a chair next to a freestanding clothing rack, upon which was hung several random garments. There were obviously some mother issues. Freud would have had a blast with it. After an excellent operatic performance set to the backdrop of some really terrible B-horror movies, he lit his penis on fire.

It was one of those moments where I realized I'd finally found my people, because everyone in that audience was very happy and gave him a raucous round of applause (and several screams for encores). I decided that every hour I had sat behind my computer to try to find performance artists was finally getting paid back in fiery penis karma and I could now die happy.

There are some things that are so bad they're good, but this wasn't one of them. Some pieces of performance art are simply painful to watch because there is absolutely nothing redeeming or talented about the performers or the content. This one... well, nobody could say quite why, and it certainly seemed terrible on paper, but for whatever reason it just worked.

Please, kids, don't try this at home and don't assume that lighting your genitals on fire will make you an instant “performance art star.” It is very likely that it will not work at all. People will simply laugh at you and, to boot, you'll end up sterile. If you're going down the road of terrible performance art clichés, do like I did in college and just cover yourself in blood and show up naked and dead in different parts of town. Much safer.

The following feature is from the July 2007 issue of Chart Magazine. To purchase the issue, go to the CHARTattack Shop.