THE WRINKLE ROOM’S Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, Michelle Juliette Carr and Liz Garo
THE WRINKLE ROOM finally had it’s biggest event yet last Sunday night, March 26, at the Zebulon Café in Silver Lake. This particular TWR event was held to celebrate our much beloved gender bending queer, punk, performance artist and now we know, teenage diarist, Sean DeLear (aka Anthony Robertson), whose “I Could Not Believe It: The 1979 Teenage Diaries of Sean DeLear”, will be published posthumously in May by independent publisher Semiotext(e). DeLear, who was lost to us in 2017, was a powerful presence at the Zebulon, obviously not in physical form, but in the many hearts and minds of friends and others gathered who had heard of the legend.
THE WRINKLE ROOM, founded by Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, who co-produces it’s events with longtime culture creators Michelle Juliette Carr and Liz Garo, was started to center and promote artists who are 50+ years of age. There are always seats, the events start early and end early and always mobility accessible spaces. Those of other ages are always welcome, however the age was restricted to 21+ at this particular event. Adding a light touch, everyone attending had to enter through the Pill Bottle Curtain fashioned by artist Tawny Featherston – who also invited prescription pill takers to hang out at her craft table to add some dazzling gems to their own rX bottles.
There was a who’s who of many who knew DeLear from his punk, queer, drag, AIDS activist, Silver Lake, Hollywood, SFV worlds and beyond in attendance. The event started with the the electronic sounds of Chip Kinman’s Electrical Parade giving us some really cool crazy-creepy-carnival music meets noise-experimental stylings, and he closed his set with a version of Kid Congo and The Pink Monkey Birds’ garage rockin’ “Sean DeLear” song – you had to be there! Next up was a screening of The Desolation Center’s film short “Sean DeLear Superstar: A Conversation with Seandy” that includes their own musings of childhood shenanagins with plenty of photos and video clips included.
The centerpiece of the night was an onstage panel hosted by Kuiland-Nazario of close DeLear friends who read excerpts from “I Could Not Believe It…” or told funny and touching stories of hanging out, some going back many decades. We heard from musician and longtime Sean friend Jeppe Laursen, Cesar Padilla, also a longtime friend, musician, Cherry Vintage clothier and co-editor of “I Could Not Believe It…”, Bill Tutton who was a bandmate in Sean’s 1990s band Glue and screenwriter Richard Pursel a longtime friend going back to the 1980s punk days.
There was mixer time as well, friends catching up with each other in our tentative post-covid climate, while Oskar De La Cruz of Luxe de Ville DJ’d between program events. Personally, it was my second club outing in three years and seeing and chatting with old friends in person was so liberating. Also, it was fun taking snapshots of those who showed up for THE WRINKLE ROOM we had all been looking forward to for such a long time. Some of those on hand not previously mentioned: Art curator/writer Amelia Jones and artist Paul Donald, Bratmobile’s Allison Wolfe, performance artist Divinity P. Fudge, The Golden Poppy’s Brian Wotring, costume designer Sybil Mosely, ICA LA’s Asuka Hisa, literary and film producer Amy Scholder, performance artist Ron Athey, LA Eyeworks co-founder Gai Gherardi, performance artist and filmmaker Nao Bustamante, ex-Jim Carroll band member Stevie Linsley, fashion designer/Sex Tape Records’ Stacy Ellen Rich and musician Eric BigArm, DJ Paul V. and other Sean friends, neighbors and the curious.
True to THE WRINKLE ROOM’S word, I was home by 9:00 p.m.
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©Photos by Judy Ornelas Sisneros. All rights reserved.
