Sharon Needles performed at Trannyshack in Los Angeles on August 31, and it was a punk experience that took her "scary" image to new levels. Dressed in a studded pink leather jacket with a leopard print fur swath on the back panel, Needles paced the stage in front of a television with a "white noise" playing until she beat it with a bat. Although the crowd seemed to be eating it up, the video posted on YouTube of the Friday performance does at points oscillate between abuse and praise--which seems about right.
In a spoken word piece, Needles rants: "You can love TV; TV will never love you...I don't want to work for money, I want to work for me./ Fame is a grownup lie. Fame is a grownup fairytale. "
At one point Needles even references her recent profile, "The Devil and Miss Needles," in the September issue of Out, the one in which she was quoted as saying: "I thought fame was going to feel good, like drugs. I thought I'd be consistently creating adrenaline and serotonin. And I thought that since I had a chance, I was going to be the punkest bitch on the block. I am not. I am the beacon of hope. I am the standard for getting over whatever you have to get over and becoming an adult."
All this talk about fame, from a performer who made her name in Pittsburgh (Andy Warhol's hometown), is turning into some fascinating performance art. We just wonder where it's all going to lead.
Watch the video of the performance below.
