Krylon Superstar: On Nineties Club Culture, Queer Performance Art, and The Meaning of Life

"God can't catch you if you don't jump." Krylon Superstar has been living by that principle since she left San Diego for New York in the nineties with no plan and a patchwork dress made of spray paint patches safety-pinned together. What followed was a life that looks like it couldn't possibly belong to one person.Today, Piper and David sit down with Krylon Superstar — performer, artist, witch, model, fashion stylist, voodoo and ancestral magic practitioner, and one half of the Bay Area queer hip hop ballroom house duo Double Duchess. Krylon got her start as a performance artist and club kid in New York's East Village in the nineties, spent eight years in Berlin performing, modeling, and doing theater, and now lives in San Francisco.From the Limelight to Berlin to Double Duchess, Krylon's creative life has never followed a map — it's followed a feeling. This conversation covers the decades in between: what it was like to be trans in New York in the nineties, what she had to set aside to survive it, and what she's learned about what art actually is and what it's for.Why she thinks the Wizard of Oz has the wrong title — and what it says about where the good stuff actually happensGoing where your people are, and what happens when you actually do itA quote about the meaning of life that someone named Compost told her — and why she's never forgotten itWhy perfection is just control in disguise — and what she does insteadKrylon Superstar: https://www.instagram.com/krylon_superstar/Double Duchess: https://www.instagram.com/doubleduchess/If this one moved you, our conversation with DDM — on building a creative life entirely on your own terms in a world that doesn't always make room for it — is worth your time. And Keenan Newman's episode asks a quieter version of the same question: what is art actually for, and when does it fall short?Connect with Absolutely Sure, No Idea: Podcast Instagram: http://instagram.com/absolutelysurenoideaCo-Host David Richardson: https://www.davomakes.com/ on IG: https://www.instagram.com/davo_makes/Co-Host Piper Watson: https://www.piperwatson.com/ on IG: https://www.instagram.com/__piperwatson/Season Two Coming - Subscribe wherever you listen