The Material World

I found this footage of Cheese On Bread's first NYC show, back in 2003, when we were still a duo and I had just moved to the city. If it was an episode of Friends, it would be called, "The One Where Dan Thinks It's a Good Idea to Bang a Knife Against a Glass And Ends Up Gushing Blood From His Pinkie."

We were playing "It Never Felt So Right," a song that Sara and I wrote together in front of a rhyming dictionary. We had built the song around this cool "STOMP STOMP STOMP -WOO!" riff that Sara had come up with, which required me to hit things together over and over again. To make each performance special, I never brought my own percussion to shows, and always just found things in the venue that I could hit together. On this night -- our first show at the Sidewalk Cafe -- I decided to use a glass and a knife. Looking back on this footage, I cannot believe that no one suggested that this was a bad idea.

Some points of note:

That's Danny Kelly helping me get bandaged up! He was the first person to be nice to me in New York, and that night he taught me how to make a splint out of paper towels. He also told me stories about doing sound for Divine at gay clubs in the 80s. I was dazzled. What you don't see in this video is that, in the middle of the chaos, I went to the basement bathroom with César Alvarez, who helped me tape together a make-shift cast for my finger. It was a very rom com moment, and possibly the only time in my life when I felt like Sandra Bullock.

You also might notice that there is an amazing faggot voice in the background screaming, "ART! PERFORMANCE ART!" and cheering every time blood comes dribbling out of my body. That is Justin Tranter because, after all, this was going down at "Justin Tranter's Flaming Sundays." Justin was so supportive of us and me in those years, and I might not have pushed ahead with my theater work if I hadn't known that Justin was always down to book my weird little performance art shows. It was also comforting to know that, if I ever seriously injured myself, there would always be someone there to laugh hysterically and applaud lol. Justin's whole scene was so nice to us. Finding that niche so early in our NYC experience was such a life-saver. I remember feeling so impossibly lucky -- to have instantly found a community of people who embraced us at our dorkiest.

Oh man. Personal archives are intense! Anyway. Somehow we finished that show and I don't even have a scar!

This is all just to say, if you haven't checked out the Kickstarter for our first album in a decade, now is a great time! :-D

https://www.kickstarter.com/…/10176…/cheese-on-bread-returns

To celebrate, we're also releasing A NEW SONG, "The One Who Wanted More," which is featured in our Kickstarter video and is available at www.cheeseonbread.com

Our video features appearances by:

Alan Cumming! (WHAT!) Kimya Dawson! Justin Tranter! PWR BTTM! Cole Escola! Darkmatter! Aye Nako! Susie Asado / Josepha Conrad! Jason Rabinowitz of The Pop Ups! Rafael Bustamante of Bunnies and Kitties! a very nice person named Emma! and various ANIMALS.

Donations will get you FABULOUS REWARDS and also WONDERFUL FEELINGS. Please contribute and also PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!!!!

I wrote this essay in response to the recent controversies about alleged anti-Semitism at Creating Change.

“And so the bigger question isn’t whether any given action was or wasn’t driven by anti-Semitism — it’s whether we as Jews can overcome our collective trauma enough to see the difference, and whether we in the Palestine solidarity movement can manifest a commitment to Jewish liberation that is inherently linked to a free Palestine.”

In History class in my junior or senior year of high school, we studied totalitarian regimes, and how every such regime in modern history maintained its power through:

1. The illusion of perpetual crisis or war 2. Scapegoating of a minority class 3. Manipulative nostalgia for a non-existent past where everything was good and pure

If you use the words "Jews" and "Zionists" interchangeably, you are being anti-Semitic against me, personally.

If you say "this offends Jews" when you mean "this offends supporters of Israel," you are being anti-Semitic against me, personally.

If you believe that any state represents the Jewish people, you are being anti-Semitic against me, personally.