It makes sense to me that Michael Alig, the notorious Party Monster, King of the Club Kids has passed away on Christmas. When I woke up to this news a million different feelings washed over my body...but mostly it was deep sadness. Addiction is a thing that claims lives every second and something that has blackened many parts of my life. Goodbye MIchael. I will never forget you.
This is a re-post of a live show I did with him in 2017.
I met Michael shortly after he was released from Prison for his 1996 murder of Angel Melendez. For some background, this is the same man whose life that the 2003 movie Party Monster was based off of. He was a brilliant Pied Piper who was able to create a social movement that swept over the nation calling small town rejects and societal misfits to join he's legion of worshipers called the "Club Kids."
Reviled by some, worshiped by others, he's like the trump of 90's. As someone who intimately knows the New York Party scene, let me tell you the kind of charisma and raw unique creative chutzpah this takes. It can only happen with a brilliant, ruthless visionary with a calculator brain. Every single person I know whose above 35 got their party flippers wet at Limelight, or Tunnel. HE wasn't a to start monster, he was a God, for years.
Then he fell, like Icarus, into the abyss not be be seen or heard for 17 years. He was in solitary confinement for years, and managed to stay on heroin, due to the prison guards slipping him heroin into his sell with his food.
So in 2017, I was able to host a live show at the Marcy North and interview him about his life, speak with his family and friends, and provide some light into what a world soaked in heroin and solitary confinement would be like.
We spoke endlessly, about life, prison, addiction, redemption, his art, he's dreams and his nightmares.
Michael is a rainbow of colors. He has a kind of brutal honesty through his humor that can be sharp and cutting, while being dull and blunt. He reminded me constantly of the Cheshire cat from Alice and Wonderland, both hands pointed in opposite directions whenever I would try to ask him about difficult subjects.
We are all chasing a different white rabbit that is represented in our different addictions, whether helpful or harmful. We are all playing hide and seek with the ultimately elusive meta concept of "happiness." We are all constantly scraping up and crashing against each other, harming ourselves and others to varying degrees.
The question becomes not if we will harm others it's merely when? Subsequently, how can you ever atone, when the repercussions of your mistakes leave lasting scars on the ones your love, your community, and the world. Furthermore what's really tricky is even if you’re absolved judicially, how do you forgive yourself?
I don't claim to answer any of these questions. All i can do is ask them, and when I make mistakes try to put one foot in front of the other, find news ways to live my life, as my mother always says, with gentle loving kindness.
Throughout this journey I kept two quotes in mind:
From My Neck So Free The Albatross fell off, and Sank Like Lead Into The Sea
Dorthy: OZ we're you frightened?
Oz: Frightened? Child you're talking to a man who's laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe, I was petrified
Thank you to Zev and Gadi for allowing me to do the live show at their beautiful Marcy North Hotel in Williamsburg.
Thank you to David Herman, and Emily Brodtman who helped me weave this story together.
Songs: Neil Diamond: Damage Done
