John Cameron Mitchell moved from NYC to New Orleans?

ballroom 🙄🤡

New Orleans is on my short list for retirement. I have lived in NYC for the last 30 years. It is a vibrant city with a lot of history, culture, food, etc... but certainly not without significant challenges related to crime, weather and homogenization. In the end, I will probably end up somewhere easier than the big easy. But still a possibility.

Affordable, but it just needs one strong hurricane to be obliterated. It seemed like it was a draw for creatives after Katrina, but haven't gotten the sense that people have been moving/staying there more recently.

New Orleans is corrupt and violent wiht a crim e rate many times higher than New York. It is still of city of casual racism and strangled credit, pollution and cancer clusters.

Nice place to visit. Everyone i know who has lived there says day to day life is a huge challenge.

He talks too much.

I fucking love that house - they did a really good job and have some very unique pieces, but not cluttered or overly fussy. They did a great job.

Now, living in New Orleans year round? Hell no. It's a hot and humid swamp that makes Florida feel like Arizona.

But I understand the need to live in an inspiring place with a creative scene that is relatively inexpensive.

It IS a gorgeous city - but it has a lot of drawbacks that I don't think I could get over.

New Orleans is a helluva lot cheaper than NY or LA.

[quote] very unique

I had an opportunity to see him in action filming an episode of The Good Fight. He was a lot. Started improvising and when the director tried to correct him he pretty much told her he liked his take on the scene better. Just got a really bad vibe from him.

Funny. I just learned he’d moved to NOLA in June. Was visiting for the first time and ended up two tables down from him at dinner one night.

Fuck him. New York City gave him a career. These idiots who move to the south will suffer when the Repug supreme court overturns all their rights and sends it back to the states - Marriage equality will be first - Sodomy next.

New Orleans is a failed city. It has never recovered from Katrina. It is smaller, poorer, more unequal and with very little to show for the tens of billions of dollars wasted there.

I find John Cameron Mitchell rubs me the wrong side of creepy, and listening to him is quite possibly worse, but good for the two of them. It was a fairly ordinary house of its period (but for the one big room) and they've made it into an expression of their own tastes and interests. How much better to succeed at that than to have slavishly copied the taste of a group of arbiters of the moment, to have achieved yet another mathematically correct but cold as a witch's tit arrangement of Mid Century Modern, dropping all the best sort of designer names and pedigrees? It's personal, it's loud, it's tacky in some parts and onto something in others. There are some clichés of those who move to New Orleans, but fundamentally they created a cohesive and considered house where a lot of people with more money to splash around would have failed. If it's not entirely to my taste, that's not important, it has some depth and says something about the owners and make a place that's right for them. That's a greater victory than polite and safe and in the mode of the moment.

NOLA reminds me of early 90s NYC - crazy crime, a little dirty, edgy but fun and interesting filled with creatives and alternative lifestyles

R10 - personally, I don't think he's that talented. He had one weird hit that became famous for being weird. (I've seen Hedwig twice and it just has never done anything for me - including the film).

I will say he looks good for 62. But Wiki says he splits his time between New Orleans and NYC - so he doesn't live there full time, which makes it more believable.

[quote]Fuck him. New York City gave him a career.

NYC is expensive AF and Mitchell hasn't had the kind of career where he would be exceedingly wealthy. Good for him for moving somewhere that his money can go much further.

Also, with many people, NYC loses its allure as they get further into middle age.

Now that she's older Miss Mitchell never turns heads in the NYC bars so she has moved to New Orleans where she can play the great lady, sipping mint juleps on the porch.

The weather in the summer is unbearable.

Yes, a deep red. shithole poor state with super high crime and the tendency to get wiped off the map with massive storms and guaranteed disastrous relief efforts to follow.

Sign me up!

Apparently he's non binary and friends with rapist male feminist Neil Gaiman and freeloading narcissist Amanda Palmer

R20 - you forgot political corruption and racial tension so thick you can cut it with a knife. And it is below sea level - so flooding happens easily without Hurricanes.

But New Orleans has its own unique charm - it is eccentric, it is fun, it loves a party, it loves an excuse to dress up. Despite all the problems, I do see the allure. For a few months out of the year.

You stupid queens!

New Orleans has some of the highest rates of violent crime in North America! It is absolutely NOT safer than NYC!

Its population is falling at a faster rate than any other big US city.

There's a new doc on Hurricane Katrina on Netflix.

Well, I like his house. The art nouveau bed is unbelievable.

He ate a lesbionic vagine in Shortbus.

R36 the bed could be anywhere….

What do we know about Mitchell? How long have they been together?

Mitchell or Mitchell Mitchell?

Is that painting a genuine Egon Schiele or an homage?

(You wouldn’t believe how much resistance my spell-checker puts up to “Egon Schiele.”)

No. Not Elon. Not Helen. Egon.

This dandy gentleman calls a big room decorated in Halloween Store appliques his Ballroom, so you just know that's a real Egon Schiele.

It is neither genuine nor an homage. It is a reproduction.

AI answers all these days.

Not sure why the link is off above

Trying once more.

Well, I was trying to link to a video of Michell unboxing his big Schiele replica.

It exists, but apparently does not want to be linked here.

[quote]Now that she's older Miss Mitchell never turns heads in the NYC bars so she has moved to New Orleans where she can play the great lady, sipping mint juleps on the porch.

More like a lemon Coke with chipped ice as he listens to the streetcar bells in the distance..

[quote]NYC is expensive AF and Mitchell hasn't had the kind of career where he would be exceedingly wealthy.

Uhm, not exactly. Aside from any other work he's done, the Broadway production of Hedwig ran at record breaking box office for sixteen months. As the librettist and creator he had to be taking home 25-50 thousand a week or more for sixteen months and another nine months on the road, plus another decent chunk for the six months he played the lead himself as well as productions around the world.

If invested half decently, Mitchell is quite well off, certainly compared to the majority of working New Yorkers.

Has John ever showed his dick?

r38 that was many years ago. He probably made a few million but not a huge fortune and much of it would be spent by now.

He's pretty narcissistic. Everything he said was "I" and not "we". His partner is just a pool boy apparently.

I like the house minus too much yellow. I could do without the creepy shit but it is NOLA. Is JCM *always* going to have that same hair?!?!?

It was less than ten years ago, r40 and a few million earned quickly can earn millions more if not squandered.

Owning the rights to a hit show is a decent annuity.

Michael Cerveris, who is friends with JCM, also splits his time between NYC and NOLA.

They occasionally perform together in small venues there. I saw them at Chickie Wah Wah a few years ago.

It's available for minimum month-long stays on AirBnB, about $7500/month.

I’m sorry but that house is awful.

Also, yeah good luck living in Louisiana when sodomy laws are overturned.

[quote]The weather in the summer is unbearable.

Also worth noting that the summer is 9 months long. The weather does feel nice in February, however.

My guess is this house is experienced in person with more pleasure than one gleans from photos. The rooms have striking graphics that, in photos, jar the eyes. But there probably are too many bold art nouveau pieces. The dim "ballroom" looks like every boho coffee house of the 1990s - collection of ratty sofas and chairs. I have nostalgia seeing it. But what made tattered charm in one's 20s and 30s, does not always work in one's 60s and 70s. How does the aging gay demimondaine keep YOUNG PEOPLE AROUND, to have any kind of "salon". The house is set up for it, but will they come. A will they be up to snuff?

[quote]How does the aging gay demimondaine keep YOUNG PEOPLE AROUND, to have any kind of "salon".

In New Orleans, drink and any hint of having once been semi-famous will do very nicely.

Doesn't he get paid royalties for whenever Hedwig is put on stage - even local theater?

I know theaters have to pay to put on works - I just don't know how much or what his take is.

There is usually a minimum fee theaters have to pay and then potentially a percentage of box office.

So he still has money coming in from Hedwig. The flat fee can be $100 to $1000 or more and 8-12% of box office receipts. Any place that is putting on Hedwig is paying him money.

There were 3 local productions of Hedwig this month in the US - how much he gets from that, I don't know. But money keeps coming in.

I LOVED Hedwig ,but I didnt like his other stuff at all . I also wouldnt live in New Orleans again if they gave me a free mansion. Its a great town when you are young and a party monster but not so interesting when you dont drink anymore. One can only enjoy so many restaurants and the museums are a one and done deal . Not to mention the insane humidity . Nope,I had a grand time there but no way would I move back,or even visit at this point. Everyone I knew who lived there has since moved .

[quote] A unique but interesting place to move - makes sense to me. New Orleans seems like it still has an edge and a freedom and a focus on creativity and arts that NYC has lost.

Oh brother, OP. Please give examples to support your statement, or is "seems" the key word here? And where do you live?

I like New Orleans for its architecture, but the city's veneer of jollity atop fundamental sadness would exhaust me. Like Atlanta and Charlotte and other lesser Southern cities, it's a regional magnet, the place that attracts the only gay from Metcalfe, Mississippi who moves there to launch his career as hairdresser, or tattoo artist, or the tiny little vintage shop that smells of mothballs, rat fur stoles, and chipped Fiestaware. It's a town of professional drunks who might have had a law degree at one point and cavort as gentry, making the circuit of happy hours and drink offers, and open bars, and "I heard there's a party at that Yankee writer from New York's place in Bywater, let's all go!" It's artists who paint the same bad painting again and again and again. Where it should be artsy and eclectic and a great mix of things, it's mostly sadness masked in drink, lots of drink. If it's a mecca --and it should be-- it's unfortunately a rather sad one, not so vibrant at all.

Seems like a very tedious kaween. Best of luck to Mitchell. I cannot imagine.

R53 sounds like San Francisco in the 1980s. But worse.

Since it has the most uneducated population in the whole country, as well as sky-high crime, it probably won't be a good move for him.

Ew.

R53 - I agree with a lot that you say - but I definitely would not put N.O. in the same boat as Atlanta or Charlotte, which are regional economic powerhouses. New Orleans is just a tourist town with some financial and oil industry but there aren't good jobs there. A creative hub or magnet - sure.

It's a shame but I think it always was and will always be that way. Part of that is because of the laid-back, let's have a drink culture that isn't serious about much.

It is one of the top, most unique cities in the United States without a doubt - music, food, architecture, language - it really is like no other US city in how distinct and different it is in so many ways. But it is all style and no real substance. Alcoholism is RAMPANT there on a level you can't believe.

R58 in the six months I lived there back in the late 80's not one person I met didnt drink. A lot. And I met untold amounts of people. It was tawdry still,lots of drugs and open sex .Even then everyone knew to never stray out of the quarter if your drunk (and who wasnt) nor after dark either . The Quarter was a no go zone for the local criminals but from what I see thats no longer respected .

R58: Atlanta is the dullest place imaginable. It's full of gays who are too afraid or incurious to go anywhere else. I'd imagine Charlotte is similar. Atlanta has been losing population for the first time since the real estate bubble--not the powerhouse it once was. It's never replaced its tech sector and the corporate HQs it attracts have been small operations.

I love how people like r40 think about money. The notion that he made millions but it was many years ago so the assumption is that it has all run out. It's as if r40 never invested a dollar in his life. Millions made many years ago is many more millions now, if invested even somewhat properly. Like a NYC apartment or some Apple, Amazon, Nvidia stock!

New Orleans has a lot of dark energy. I'll go for a few days to visit but living there would not be good for me.