They’re Going To Say, “Look How Good This Service Is, Even Death Bear’s Own Ex’s Are Using It.”

note the knife hole in the above picture (read on…)

The following is addressing an event that occurred Sunday, January 10th, 2010, at 8:45pm, in Bushwick.

Hello this is Nate Hill, performance artist in NYC. I haven’t posted here in a long time. I didn’t have anything to say until now.

Near the end of a day visiting ten or so homes as the character I created Death Bear, (dressed in a black jumpsuit, black boots, a heavy, scary black bear mask, and carting off the objects that bring people pain), I was ambushed by one of my ex-girlfriends, Bailey Nolan aka Moan of Arc along with the performance art group she leads BabySkinGlove. That night, in the apartment, they did a performance intended only for Death Bear, and Bailey gave me a box containing the following (among other items):

For pictures of some items scroll all the way down

1. One of my tied off used condoms (with dried sperm crystals)
2. A swatch of her bloody bed sheet (blood from my testicles from an accidental, unfortunate hair clippers incident—the band-aid came off during sex)
3. A colored paper heart with one side glued her pubic (?) hair and the opposite side small bits of weed and perhaps specks of feces (?)
4. The complete collection of our text messages transcribed into eight pages or so
5. A Trey Songz CD
6. A figurine of two elephants in love
7. Letter to the “Mother of My Death Bear”
8. A diary style drawing
9. Our married names written in different permutations

I am responding to this incident as Nate and not as the character Death Bear:

A little back story…I dated Bailey for about a month. My memory is terrible but I think it was about a month. I had to end it because I started to get feelings for her, and I knew that I should be with another girl that I’ve been dating off and on for seven years. Ok, that sucks, but it was the right decision. I probably fucked Bailey over. I didn’t mean to. I told her this. Truthfully, I wanted to date her, but I told her all the real reasons I could not. But saying honest things like that is the reason a girl once asked me, “Does every woman you’ve ever been with think you’re an asshole?” I was as honest as I could be. I told her I still had feelings for my ex the moment it occurred to me that she should know. Go ahead and hate me. My conscious is clear. It still hurts.

So that night, Bailey lured me (as Death Bear) to her friend’s apartment whose address I did not recognize. I happened to be with a blogger friend who wanted to tag along at some stops, though Death Bear usually travels alone of course. When we entered the apartment door, I thought it was a goth party or something. There was only candlelight, and the girl who led me inside had bloody gothic makeup on and a skirt like a vampire, but I didn’t recognize her in the dark as someone I knew. But once I was inside and the host (she goes by Birthday Sex) said to me in a psychotic nurse voice, “Hi Death Bear,” I knew something was wrong. Think surprise Death Party if that exists (and it should not!) Then I saw Bailey and understood what was happening pretty quick.

They had staged some kind of vampire/witch seance. I think one girl was just in the corner laughing hysterically the whole time. One girl was standing on the kitchen bar counter to add some intimidation. It’s all a bit blurry because I was peering out the eye holes of my bear head, and I was in shock. Not scared, but just wondering how far they were going to take this. For example, would it get physical? I think there was also a loop of a recording of some girl’s laughing in the background too, or maybe more girls I couldn’t see. Honestly even though I expected that Bailey, a performance artist with balls herself, would do something to me eventually, it was fucking terrifying for a minute because I was caught off guard and wearing my mascot head which very quickly became very, very claustrophobic. I couldn’t fucking see what was going on! But after the horror passed, part of me was like… this is exactly why I liked this crazy motherfucker in the first place—she makes art that speaks truly from her life at the moment and she submerses herself in it. Just like me. So even as I was freaked out, part of me just wished I could sit down and watch everything unfold. Part of me wanted to look around that room. How many of them are in here? What are those pictures over there on the wall? There’s panties all over the place.. what? I wanted to appreciate the makeup on their faces better. It looked good. They looked good. They looked sexy. I couldn’t do any of this because I was afraid to take my eyes off Bailey who had begun to cry and flail her arms wildly. Real tears? Then (I had to be told later) she took a knife and drove it into the box that she had for me. My blogger friend got off a blurry picture, but before I knew it, it was over. Bailey slapped me in the mask a couple times, and screamed for us to get the fuck out.

When we got on the street, I wanted to go back. We went to another house to make the final pick up of the night. It was a real party this time and the couple that called me looked like they had been drinking, so I chastised them to look Death Bear in the eye, and take the exchange seriously. I don’t know why I did that. I might have just been shaken up from earlier. I couldn’t open Bailey’s box for about an hour. I opened it on the train home.

The point of Death Bear is to cure pain. So when someone that I used to date gives me a box of our things that signify our relationship, I guess that’s a good thing?

I hope that staging this drama and involving Death Bear was cathartic to you in some way, Bailey. I know you’ve had some bad experiences with men. I told you I wanted to collaborate with you after we stopped dating, and I guess that’s what I got. Relationships are messy. This is why Death Bear will always be valid. He will always be welcome in this world. People need him. I know this now more than ever. I have to take something positive from this experience and keep it moving.

The End.

Pictures:

The box (note the knife hole):