Please join me and featured performer Clint Catalyst at what’s sure to be an unforgettable night of delights and debauchery. This installment’s theme is “The Best Little Whorehouse in Los Angeles”, time to bust out those tassels and spurs!

The Poetry Brothel
House of Blues, Foundation Room
8430 West Sunset Blvd. Hollywood, CA
Doors at 8:00 p.m.; event concludes at 11:59 p.m.
21 & over, w/valid I.D.
$15 at the door, $10 with RSVP via thepoetrybrothelrsvp@gmail.com
or via Facebook

I’ll be covering and shooting for Chinashop, so come say hello and get your soul eaten picture taken. More about the event beyond the jump:

Join us on June 5th for steamy readings, cold drinks and lovely ladies performing burlesque for your titillation. In the old fashioned style of everyone’s favorite Dolly Parton flick, dress to the nines and get ready to be sauced and saucy.

All of the resident ‘whores’ are available for these sequestered readings at any time during the event. Of course, any good brothel need a furtive ‘front’ or cover; ours is part saloon and part salon, offering a full bar with music, burlesque dancing, fortune-tellers, and installations from our poets and other artists at each event. [In addition to the featured readers], each night we will also introduce several “New Girls”…[performers] who punctuate the evening with a few special public performances.

Featured performers: Clint Catalyst and Julia Voth
Featured visual artists: Joshua Burian Mohr and Zoetica Ebb
Music provided by Daniel Ribiat

Bringing a new twist to the tradition of poetry reading, The Poetry Brothel showcases a diverse roster of emerging and established poets. Our events are also interactive performance art pieces based on the concept of the prewar brothels in the United States and Europe.

This is going to be good.

The campaign, started in early ’90s, struck out against the “she asked for it” mentality.  With a series of television commercials and stark black and white images with the campaign slogan on them, This Is Not An Invitation To Rape Me dispelled misconceptions of women “provoking” acts of sexual assault and confronted rape within family relationships.

When one of the campaign founders, Charles Hall, approached me about being part of an photography exhibit dedicated to this powerful message I was thrilled and honored. Four of my photos along with many others, including my good friend Lou O’Bedlam a.k.a Lou Noble, will be on display this coming Thursday. Please visit the official show website here.

Fox Art Gallery is located at:
Lower level of Logan Hall on the Penn campus at
249 South 36th Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19104

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P.S. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Charles in a two-hour Skype meeting to discuss the campaign and my photo selection for the show. Ever since I first saw the campaign images, I was aware of the absence of male and transgendered victims, as well as same-sex rape situations. Noticeably, all of my images chosen for the show were of women, too. So, since this Skype meeting was my “chance”, I brought it up because I felt it was the campaign’s responsibility to give these scenarios exposure.

The This is Not an Invitation to Rape Me FAQ states that they set out to tackle the most common stereotype, but I thought that without addressing the full scope of the issue they were reinforcing a few stereotypes themselves. Of course it turned out I wasn’t the only one to ever mention this, and, fortunately, Charles was open to talking about it. As a result, some of the featured photographers were asked to submit work addressing a wider scope of subjects – I’ll post mine here after the reception. I sincerely hope that this important campaign will expand its range in the coming years.