The Worlds Most Dangerous Mind: The Dolly Dharma Story

The King has sent away the royal party. He goes back to his quarters in accordance with his kingly sleep. The family is content with what has transpired throughout the day. Not an unpleased soul in the land. The castle is quiet, with nary a thing to be heard, save for the overwrought sigh of a Jester having fulfilled her duties that night. The night doesn’t end there however. The most critical part in the tale has yet to take shape. In the moonlit after hours, the Jester returns through a crack in the wall. Tiptoeing the great halls, and slinking through a splendor she had the honor of entertaining earlier. She finds her way into the main hall where the throne sits, and there she begins to don the kings robe and scepter, dictating what it would be like. Supplanting herself in the throne and enacting the power through great wistfulness and loneliness, putting on quite a show to an empty room. It is that very same image, that same drive which brings us to present time. For these are not the workings of one having sacrificed themselves to monotony or misplaced sense of entertainment. This is an inner look at something few are privy to have known, let alone exist, yet is always. This is the worlds most dangerous mind at play. This is Dolly Dharma.

Now the story can be told.

“I believe that performance is this and it is also very that, or so Ive been led to believe. Both of which Im cool with, but I also think it is this way other thing out there it could possibly be” he says, as he applies another coat of acrylic paint to his box. The notoriously reclusive artist is gearing up for another fun-filled Easter. Constructing another chapter in what has become a commentary between him and the people he meets on a nightly, or eventful basis. It is as Ive been told, a direct line into who he is, granted that what you wear makes your talent more readily apparent than having to converse, recite poetry, play music, etc. Its a form of expression that takes into account the attention span of todays generation. “To be frank with you, Dolly is the only time Im really around people, so I have to make my moments with them as best as it can be. Im a very private, introspective type, I don’t spend enough time with people to know how to be around people. At max, I’ll have two friends I see a month?, and even that feels intrusive. But its allowed me all these open schedules to work on pretty much everything. Nowadays, theres this air of a golden standard, or golden pressure on me to deliver every time though. So I have to play by golden rules, and really go to town on detail, because you know, that helps me NOT get noticed or paid more… Ive seen people get more money for being smug and unfriendly, and here I am ready to hand my soul over every day to an audience for not even enough money to take the train home“. The phrase should comes as a shock to most but not me. Ive known Dolly for about seven years now. In that time I have seen her ride a tricycle around a club, start a “mosh pit” at a drag festival, and lock herself in a glass coffin for five hours blindfolded. Somehow, I can’t help but feel sorry for my friend given how much quality and care is infused with what he does; to how masterful he is at remembering people, to seeing this dejected soul submit himself to an unwelcoming atmosphere, and subsequently come home night after night to fall into the arms of his beloved dog for comfort.

“A few more coats of paint so that I’ll be forgotten less”.

The year is 2010 and I am in room downtown filled with everything from Club Kids to “Drab Queens”, and then all the way down the line to your general goodie bag of mercurial Night Life attendees. It is here that I pray for more than apps to tide me over. I never saw him enter. He was just there. Im sure an argument can be made that he was always there. “Must feel like our god abandoned us, right?“. As I laugh at his remark, I also catch something else about him. I inquire as to who the bouquet of flowers in his hands were for. “Its not a who – its a what. These are for the audience. Im going to light each one and throw them out as a Thank You. Im not evil, by the way. The crowd loves me for a reason. If you stick around for an hour, you’ll find out why“. This night was crucial in my understanding of him. Not for his performance, which was breathtaking, but for how considerate and apologetic he was to the audience after most had left, or rather, fled. I saw a heart that to this day, in my opinion is more popular than who he is. He’ll hate me for saying that. He’ll hate me for talking about anything other than the list of places and people that won’t let him perform. But these are the parts in the story you should also know.

It is the year 2011. We are now past “circus sideshow excuses”, as he would refer to it as. My friend claims he now seeks to “up the ante with the lip sync”. It is here Dolly begins to choose the most challenging array of songs to perform for upcoming shows. They range from Swedish to German, to EDM and to one that just repeats one line over and over: ‘very seldom I wait for love but you are trouble’. The plan is to get to these, then tackle the other things in his notebook. He will spend the next few years fine tuning and crafting a heartfelt rendition to each he so chooses. In the meanwhile, I am witnessing him being crucified for performance. Actual crucifixion, with nails passing through the insets in his palm, a practice he’ll live to regret and wish to be absolved from. “This isn’t my first go at christ. But these days are my last. You’d seethe with anger if I detailed all the places Ive done this for no body/or money“. As I seethe with anger, I wonder when will it be time to give it all up, to “get a real job”/assimilate. To even entertain the question of love?. I am met with claims that were it his aspiration to have money, he’d have money, but his is to be that of an artist to the burningest plumage degree, and with accordance to love, of ‘Asexuality’, and being ‘Artsexual’. The idea is that a relationship with art will always be dependable; will never cheat, or betray, it will always be there, and the worst of what it has to dish out can never hurt us. He passionately declares what he does is all, and has become the lover. That he went into it thinking he may fall in love, but the very thought of love was now a numbed impulse for a straight man, having been around predominately Homosexual energy, and all other “wayweird” walks of life. I distinctly remember the first time he said he wanted to escape from a world that didn’t get him or didn’t love him in return; a place where they would not follow, or a position where he couldn’t be hurt once he got there. A place of ever-green appreciation.

The Dolly I know has a keen sense of Performance Art ritual because of this sharpened, violent disinterest towards him all his life. I gathered from him that if we are losing interest, one must create the most interesting thing around, and solidify the people in life. Do the most with yourself. And you must know what all the most interesting things are in the world in order to be it. To grow beyond it. It has been said disenchantment is larger than death or rejection. You can be told ‘no’, but for someone to lose interest in the very thing that made you special to them, the absolute worst. He is marred by horrible examples of this, – friendships and other. Of love and the want to love, that he sees what he does now as the world being this great big significant other he gives back to, now that a lot of people have left him with none to no answers as to why. A reciprocation of which, not being so kind sometimes. “It is a weird cosmic curse on my head. Many have left my life for different reasons; they move, they believe what they want about me without hearing me out, they dont like one funny video I send, or they feel they’re in danger by even associating with me. I’d like to think people are stronger than that, to see past my facade and get my humor. The sweetheart is there, the criminal isnt, the arrogance isnt real. Im a very well-oiled fraud. I have oily skin in that regard. But believe me when I say its cosmic. The universe will intervene, always, fuck my shit up, to make sure people are gone from my life, its weird. I dont have to lift a finger. Im not surprised anymore, but no less shocked. They have their version of me they have to believe in order to justify their not wanting to deal with me. Its called ‘Confirmation Bias’, when you only look towards signs that help you believe what you want about someone. A forensic examination of these interactions will show that I maintained a good hand here. The ones who get me truly do, and stay. Im not the one at fault, this isnt delusion or not being able to own up. Its just neighboring feelings towards what I face regularly. Believe me, I more than anyone want to break the cycle/curse. I want to eradicate evil and “up” appreciation. Even these places and people have become so discriminatory towards those who aren’t individuals or creative types. Like being creative, queer, or whatever new word for it, will safeguard you from most of the distaste most scenes or, people have to offer. If you are off by even a little red flag – you are off completely, no trial to determine your innocence. If you told them you follow Football a blood feud would ensue, its ridiculous. Most people when isolated aren’t even that bad, but the protocol in the scenes Ive seen is that you ‘be cunty’, ‘serve fish’, whatever BS, to entertain your friends. To be talked about by them, solidify your drag status, defend or reinstate your wit, and be remembered a certain way. On paper, that as an aspiration, is fucking whack. I want I should be so fucking welcoming and interested in whom Im speaking with. I didn’t grow up with bad people until much later. I had great examples of people I wish I could extrapolate certain qualities of and become. But that would be inauthentic. I thought if there is one thing I pride myself on, its authenticity. I am harboring the truth everywhere I go, and it is one they dont want to sit and have dinner with to know, let alone examine. I decided to keep it real, real often, and set a good enough example for a Queen, even if I am a straight Drag Queen“.

A straight Drag Queen. An idea not commonly explored by most, and can easily leave one open to discrimination, but being this is one of my favorite lone wolves, I see no other person fit to take on the challenge. It is 2013, and I am seeing concepts coming to life at such a fast pace one can’t help but become fascinated seeing the visionary enact his impulses at last. The person who experimented with makeup, and a Facebook account for this pivotal role long ago has now reinvigorated her life. “Dolly Dharma has always been in the picture. No, she wasn’t my AIM screen name, but a vehicle I would utilize for any other artistic endeavor that wasn’t of the rap or poetry genre. She was my answer to performance, the ‘thinking mans Drag Queen’, among other dense explanations I can give, (and hopefully not delay when speaking about – so that my artistry doesn’t pass off like fraud/I know what Im talking about.” Little does he know Ive already been proven of this affirmation time and time again. Some of the aforementioned talents is worth checking out. What she does with words, songs is remarkable. I speak having had such luck with her, and having overheard so many other things. The intelligence translates into almost everything. “Well. I believe talent is a hub that you can pull from, and pool into anything you want. The brain does everything else your hands can do, so why wouldn’t a creative writer not be able to become a creative boxer?. Its all talent, from one ventricle to the other“.

I listen intently each time he speaks, given the constructs of what Ive learned so far. I am always on the verge of learning something new. Ive learned how to press on an idea till you get all the nutritional value out of it, to expelling a nail from your nasal cavity. I would soon learn something else I didn’t expect. A hiccup in operations. At some point, I began to see my friend fall in love with something other than his demographic. His actions and feverish desire to make things as good as they can be was wavering. Spiraling. The signature looks gone for the sake of something radical, to as it were “shock the people out of complacency”. He was also falling fastly in love, or at least had indicated as much. But that wasn’t the hiccup. It was the year 2014, love had forsaken him again, and Dolly Dharma decided to die.

And she wouldn’t be going quietly. This was the Little Miss Mierce All Star Cycle 2 winner, and the 2013 Glam Award Breakthrough Artist nominee here. He wouldn’t go quietly. What, with cutting an American flag into paper dolls in the year before, 2014 definitely saw the most interesting developments yet in a storied, eleven year plus tenor of a need to entertain. Not long after, did she begin “stalking” these parties from across the street. A commentary that began with protesting the Brooklyn Nightlife Awards, this saw a riff on that idea; having stayed across to illustrate separation, or rather, physical embodiment of what mystery the scene had needed lying just beyond the pond, these felt like allusions to returning. There were even different alias’s, which involved growing out a beard and setting foot in these familiar places. There were blow up dolls blowing bubbles and balloons, a nine foot long penis dragged, and even a fetish pig fashioned to be a piggy bank, with real apple in mouth crawling on the floor of a museum party. But something didn’t take. Some granule about it all didn’t quite fall to the bottom of the hourglass. It was in the parameters of what he desired, but the wraith wasnt enough. Something was missing. SHE was missing.

Was she ever even wanted?. “It was a question I was willing to explore. I was told time and time again that its sacred territory; that it was sacrilege toying with the idea of revisiting her. But that excited me. Breaking self-imposed rules, was tremendously exciting. I see things largely as a math equation. Some form of algorithm that can be solved. There is a few key ways to being a formidable performer, as there is a perfectly beautiful way to bring Dolly Dharma back that wouldn’t encroach on her herstory… Thats a wonderful line – you’ll have to include that, I don’t think I’d be able to come up with it again!“. But if anyone was going to do it, and had all the provisions, proper reasoning, and most importantly, looks and performances prepared, it was this mind. It was this sharp turn in the tale that was needed.

For more months than I can remember I saw “missing posters” for Dolly Dharma go up around outside most of the Manhattan and Brooklyn parties that were hot at the time. I saw “wanted” posters; this impending doom that a “lord was coming”, and that a date had been set. By now it was May 2015, and an anxious crowd had gathered in the Lower East Side, to see if the real Dolly would be in attendance. A few hours had passed with no visible signs of life. Was it all just a wind up from beyond the grave?. One last prank from the mischievous one to drive it home?. Every scheduled performer had already went on, that there was only one thing left to happen. As the audience were thanked for coming that night and directed towards the exit, a gong had sound. Monks began to sing. And someone, presumably Dolly’s real mother, had come out clad in Dolly’s first original garb. In her hand was a prayer candle, the same candle used in a vigil that year for the ‘outcast of the outcast’, outside the Brooklyn Night Life Awards. This was the only time it had appeared since. Surely something more was at work. Then another woman, presumably Dolly’s real sister, had come out carrying her wig. All the while, the monks were blaring through the speakers, whilst the two women were on their knees praying for ?. The attendees grew restless… But then. Another figure appeared to darken the stage. With an ivory grin, a hooded skull-like figure akin to the one seen stalking these parties for the past few months. In classic Dharma style, there was a shift in music and a more operatic aria took the place of chanting. The robe came off to reveal a Toile straightjacket, as seen in her last performance at the Soho Grand. It could only be her. It could only be a comeback, now come into play. It could only be right. The jacket came off, while the renown pregnant pauses resumed in a familiar body movement, and allowed for the next portion of the lip sync. The music came to a screeching crescendo, the hands grabbed for the skull, which at the behest of the singing cherubic hands, slowly lifted the mask to reveal a cleanly shaven face, with signature black lips now joining in. Lastly, the hands grabbed for the wig, and all the gyration ceased as it was put on, and the music died down. As the crowd screamed for having had their loved one returned to them.

We arrived at the midway point in the year 2015, coming to really know the capabilities that lied within her witch hand. It was to be another of her reincarnations, and she had come back for them all to cast a much-needed spell. We were dealt with robes now to replace toile, yet the toile would go on to come back later. Only this move in her playbook; this look, was the welcomed upheaval in witch-like imagery that year, now compiled as the brooding and cold version of her, albeit, with a warm twist. It wouldnt be long until that warmth would double as remorse and nostalgia following another lengthy protest, of which I had to endure with him over the phone. He and I share so many versions of the chaos he ensues. He has the ones he tells me, and the ones you all know. “They’ll never know the truth. And if they did by now, they wouldnt believe the words hitting their ears. Belief is harder to come by than trust. They dont trust me, but worse – they’ll never believe me“. Then the pipebomb Ive kept from everyone along with him resurfaces, “There was no fight at Bushwig. Is it that simple?. You think they asked around enough, or, figured it out?. I mean they saw what you and I wanted them to see, but if they’re like us, you think they know the truth?. At what point should we tell them?. Do I have your permission if I ever wanted to come out with it at some point and use it for something?. I mean, I feel like at times I let this play out longer than I should have, but I needed this “evil” to separate myself from them. Feels like I do things now as if to tidy up and maintain whatever horrible thing they think of me now“. It was true. What happened at the event in question, the one that got Dolly exhumed from all those Brooklyn events you havent seen her at, is the result of an elaborate scheme, made up by three friends, and sworn to maintain the secrecy surrounding what happened. Until this interview. “I mean you can tell them, but I doubt anyone would read it, they dont have the patience or interest in me enough to want to seek out the truth. Or maybe.. could you bury it towards the end?? Make them work for it!“. Far as Ive been told, he was going to use it in an acceptance speech of an award there in Brooklyn; hoping to win under the guise of criminal first, but he made the mistake of solidifying himself as the bad guy almost too well. Those closest to him know that theres no way that could ever be the case. As well, the man that he fought at this event was a close friend of ours. We had discussed the fight, rehearsed even, everything for weeks. We had committed to a script earlier that day, to knowing what would be heckled, what would they say, and what would we say in the years to follow if anyone asked. Any naturally occurring blood would only lend to the realism. He explained that he set out to “stop the motor of the nightlife world” that day. (The fact that the very next day began the “witch-hunt” for peoples names on Facebook, and the accusatory comments he got for it; the followers that fell away rapidly. Pure coincidence… And yet – only lent more credence to the nasty rumors about him). It all created this useful aura. An allure of real danger that would wake the audience up to preparing for real threats to come at future events should they happen, and at the same time, showcase the use of negative space within the performance foreground. There is much to play with, so much we can do with what is around us. Dolly saw everything. Dolly sees everything, and accepts the repercussions long before they come about. It was as well a cover, I should add. How a performer actually hid a shameful secret as to not being able to make the money to visit the borough that loved her most, and so, a story was concocted to blanket her exit. He could not open up about the discourse of being too poor to visit, he needed to be banned. He ran out of money, and was always losing money funding this character, that he couldnt afford to go on the train or be her often. No one would pay him, and even less than no one. He grew the worst in their eyes, and yet a far cry be it from me. I knew the heart of the person, I saw the pain no one else did in his decisions. I saw tears for years. Our beloved witch would go on clamoring for a chance to tell her tale. Of woes that included reimagining her favorite wrestler’s speeches in performances and posts over the years, and having to throw things into a fireplace at a club just to maintain the illusion “theres something wrong with him”; to do bad on occasion lest they grow wise to who he really is.

Its getting harder for our own secret genius to thrive in a world unbeknownst to the effort and struggle commonplace with most artists. There are many powerful imposing figures, yet we do not document them, we do not ask to know more. Majority of us are happy not knowing who these people truly are. All it takes is an article or a lack thereof, a post, a ‘like’, to undo their magic or to not have any at all. All you need is something so simple as a flawed portrayal, and the world will be none the wiser you existed. Think of how many artists, performers, kids you love, and think of what they would be like without the glorification of who they are – great pictures, and exposes about them, and how you overlook what is right in front of you because you are so accustomed to what you know are the implanted triggers for when you see something “cool”; what appears shiny and great online among big publications. While the workhorses are being taken out to pasture. Think of how many more of them are actually with us, but will never be accredited due to personal distaste of them, the choices they made, no proper photos, no money to spend on cameras, and the dictation who gets uplifted and who gets sent down based on articles/who gets to be written about. This is an article and a tribute. A written vigil. I got to know their patron saint. I now know not only the man, but I get to be around the complex sight of one the last leaves on a dying tree. Of a witch, of a return to familiar form. Of a thing I wish many more knew.. Of a friend.. It will seem like I pontificate too much about the person in question, but fuck it. Persons be damned, this isn’t one. He would go on campaigning for awards he never saw nominations for, and begging to be part of shows that wouldn’t respond for years. For all his extremism, he would go unnoticed. Much of you what read here so far is probably new to you. It takes a lot to be fed shit, having to learn to like the taste, and still come back. It takes more than just a witch crippled by her communities to stifle, and still be able to operate a remote controlled head in a crowded gallery. And we have reached 2016-2017, and the gallery of people are more concerned with the art that is presented to them, not the one battling for their attention. With ladders in place of dresses; with a hot air balloon in place of a neck piece. With her as a spider, in place of . . . a spider.

It is the year 2018, the here and now, and I am still marveling at the most underrated, “broken”, and perhaps under-appreciated person I might’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Since the resurrection, since resurrections, reincarnations, her every reboot and reiteration, Ive seen a crown of children reaching for the high heavens. Ive seen a human head turned into an egg in a basket with twigs shooting out the sleeves, and a guitar made of a doll torso and head. I see the now “broken” form she’s taken from the worst of what our love has to offer. Its no surprise Im excited for what his future holds, be it being banned from more Bushwigs or getting fired from more Jazz Parties. But I remain invested in what I saw the first time. The quality of the man never left me that night. Something about him stays with you for years to come if you are lucky to see it, be it himself or what he gives off. “I want my heart to stand out. I don’t think I want to be remembered for what I did, but for who I was that did what I did. I play by golden rules. Being polite should be anyones focus, not just something you read about in an article that inspires you to do so. I’d rather save someones life. I’d rather save someone from a burning building than be the person responsible for the fire for a change. I already know how to move the needle, I think. Once you accept your current circumstance, you can move forward. Im all about forward thinking. You are going to have inescapable misery, so why not make the best of whats been allotted?. Misery is a gift. Its my gift to you all (laughs/cries)“. With this antidote, that gets repeated frequently siting various levels of flair, the new outfit seems just about ready for the public eye. Its a claw machine, but also something more. A reminder. This ultimate grab for attention, if not the very top of “success” itself. An informative glimpse at the inner workings of a mind that continues to have masterstrokes, despite having little to no rewards. Much of what we see today is dependent on a light being promised to us at the end of it all. I have seen first hand what its like now when entireties of these strokes are created in complete darkness. It is a cold and hollow shell, where artists are put to die, under the joyful screams of less grateful and undeserving people above you. And then a beautiful thing occurs. The realization that the light comes from within yourself. To aid in either using it for your own joy, lighting the way up to there, or, finding a way out of there entirely. What you do with who you are, with your time on this earth, is all up to you. Your light, your way.

It is the year 1588, and the Jester begins to twirl to such a degree, that she cries over this small shenanigan she’s allowed her self. That somehow this would be right, if this is what it would be like all the time; hijacking regality every night. And that no matter what happens to her, or whatever consequences she faces, she will have already had this moment. A spin here. An impression of leadership there. A comfortable throne from which to entertain them all, everywhere else. A racket sounds in the deep recesses of the stronghold, and no doubt she has stirred something in one, if not a few of the bedrooms. And just like that, she sifts and walks so gayly back out the crack of light from whence she came. Nothing more than a mess of articles left behind to tell the tale.

Now the story can be told.

By Florence Nasar

Comments