Finding and Feeling the Neal Medlyn Way

jayder — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 21:50:03 -0800

"Sloppiness is my palette." Neal Medlyn is the self-proclaimed "Paris Hilton of Performance Art" who looked for "bits and pieces of coolness in normal things or in anything" when he was growing up in small-town Texas. Now performing regularly in New York City, Medlyn played a nude Dubya shacking up with Karen Finley's nude Martha Stewart in George and Martha (here's a review and another review; photos NSFW). According to the 2000 Austin Chronicle profile (written by his future wife) Medlyn came off as a lunatic in his early performances, many of which were sparsely attended, and involved "music, little routines, and group activities, like having everyone sit in the dark and listen very closely to a song he likes." Medlyn has performed, with Kenny Mellmann, a show of R. Kelly songs (watch him performing one; Google Video); he loves (NSFW) Lionel Richie (whose songs he finds strange and beautiful; watch mpg here); and he wrote a book inspired by his own buttocks (NSFW). Medlyn is currently doing, with Carmine Covelli, a somewhat Peewee Herman-ish video series for Nerve called Neal Medlyn's Land of Make-Believe (NSFW; videos depict group sex, performed by various animal puppets). Here is a 2004 interview with Medlyn. And Medlyn has a Myspace profile.

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