The gay bar of my dreams

Is there a gay bar in San Francisco for guys who prefer vintage and thriftstore outfits to department store/designer chic, Nina Hagen to Britney Spears, and Ben Whishaw to Brad Pitt? If so, I want to go there. Often.

My crush just got crushier...

Check out young Brit beauty Ben Whishaw with his newly shorn locks! I'm loving the cropped look on this elfin thespian maestro...currently on stage in "The Pride" (directed by Alexi Kaye Campbell) in which he plays gay, again (and apparently rather explicitly) with Hugh Dancy. Here is a titillating interview with the two of them talking about the play from New York Magazine.

Whishaw as 'Ariel' in Tempest

Ben Whishaw is going to play "Ariel" in the new all-star film version of The Tempest! A role which, according to Wikipedia, was played by women from the 1600s up through the 1930s, when men reclaimed it.

Also, here is an update on "Kill Your Darlings," the movie about the Beats that Ben is supposed to have a role in, playing Lucien Carr, who murdered the older man that Allen Ginsberg was having a relationship with during his college days at Columbia University. A noir-ish account of a murder involving the Beats (with Jesse Eisenberg as Ginsberg and Chris Pine as Jack Kerouac)? Could be a groaner, but...I'll watch it, if it ever gets made. (Ben doesn't sound too hopeful of that happening in this interview clip.)

Bright Star DVD release

Out on DVD on Jan. 26th here in the states is Bright Star, Jane Campion's beautiful and heartbreaking cinematic rendering of the brief and star-crossed love affair between poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, starring Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish. I saw it in the theater, and left a little misty-eyed. I can't handle movies this achingly romantic and sad very often, but every once in a while, you've got to, just to remind yourself you're human. Of course, I will see (and own) every movie that Ben Whishaw appears in, but I have to say, if there's one performance in Bright Star that cries out for an Oscar nod, it's that of Abbie Cornish. She makes Fanny Brawne the sort of independent, creative soul you really care about, admire and feel for.

Ben wins Emmy / Happy Thanksgiving!

Congratulations to Ben Whishaw on winning the International Emmy two nights ago for best actor for his recurring role on British TV series Criminal Justice! (Julie Walters won best actress.) There's little doubt this guy has a bright future ahead of him. He missed the awards ceremony because he's currently appearing on stage in Mike Bartlett's play "Cock" at London's Royal Court. (Production photo above shows Ben with co-star Katherine Parkinson.)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, one and all. Don't eat too much, or you'll get super fat and no one will love you.

xo

glam aka Tony

Ben Whishaw's "Cock"!

Oh, I wish I could see this on the stage!

"Cock, a new play by Mike Bartlett, will open in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court on 18 November (previews from 13 November). Directed by James Macdonald, the cast will include Ben Whishaw, with design by Miriam Buether and lighting by Peter Mumford."

Here's the link.

Veljo Tormis

First of all, today is le quatorze juillet, so HAPPY BASTILLE DAY, French people and francophiles! Joyeux Fete Nationale.

And now something completely different. Part of the reason I like having friends is that they introduce me to all sorts of new things. Their obsessions and interests become mine, and thus I expand and enhance my horizons. My favorite actor, Ben Whishaw (hot), is into this composer, Veljo Tormis (photo above). He says of him, "I'm enjoying this Estonian composer, Veljo Tormis. It's strange choral music based on Baltic folk melodies. It's very intense, pure and hypnotic."

Listen to a clip of this haunting, epic, spectral music here. The song is "Raua needmine / Curse Upon Iron," from the new CD "From the Baltic Coast." Reminds you of something from the soundtrack of Baraka, yeah?

Bright Star Ben

So, in case you didn't know it, I'm totally gay for Ben Whishaw. His new film "Bright Star" (directed by Jane Campion) recently premiered at Cannes and is an early favorite for the Palm d'or. Here's a link to a video clip from the Guardian UK with Ben talking about what he relates to in Keats (the English romantic poet who died at age 25 that he portrays in the film). You can tell how articulate and sensitive and intelligent he is. Doesn't it just make ya swoon? The rest of the world can have Robert Pattinson. I'll take Ben. (Although I am looking forward to "Little Ashes," as well.)

Rimbaud reincarnated?

I should like to offer my belated congratulations to Mr. Ben Whishaw for winning the BAFTA award three nights ago for his work on BBC-produced TV show Criminal Justice. Et j'adore les cheveux ébouriffé comme ca. If you don't know who "Ben" is, you haven't been reading my blog.

Spiritual Rampage

Another short film by director Alnoor Dewshi, starring Ben Whishaw as a dancing Hare Krishna!

Picture quality is pretty bad, but you get the idea.

77 Beds

A great short film by Alnoor Dewshi, starring Ben Whishaw.

The ghost has no home

Yesterday was Auntie April’s birthday. I wished a Happy Birthday to her urn, which rests on the fireplace downstairs. J. got in yesterday, so I finally got to meet him. I was a little nervous beforehand, but not as soon as I met him. He’s very down-to-earth and has a Continental charm and we were all laughing within minutes of meeting. I had really good sashimi for lunch, because we went to Costco for grocery shopping in the morning before J. got in. It came to $1100, including a $540 case of Veuve Clicquot champagne, cousin’s preferred brand. (He says he likes Cristal too, but Dom Perignon is gross. He’s like me in this respect: it doesn’t matter how much something costs or how high it ranks as a status symbol, if it doesn’t taste good, that’s all we base our opinion on.) So we should be set with food for a while, especially since I’ve whittled down my eating to one big meal and a couple snacks per day. (Staying slim!) Nice and sunny yesterday at last, too. My Ben Whishaw portrait number one (“Her Beautiful Son” is the title) has become quite nice indeed since I started over on it. I’m almost to the point of adding text, which is the last thing. Alex Grey says somewhere that a work of art made with love and spiritual intentions will radiate love and warmth to those who view it, so that’s what I’m going for with this painting. I want to see if people will sense that from it, even if they’re not crazy for the subject like I am. I’ve started on the second BW portrait as well. J. said if he had to guess my nationality and didn't know me he would say I was English, otherwise possibly Dutch (because I'm so tall and, formerly, blond). This meshes well with my increasing anglophile sentiment. J. also said there will be lots of opportunity for me in San Francisco (jobs, love, creative outlets, etc). I spoke with Mother yesterday, and broke the news gently that she will probably have to get her own urn, since Auntie April isn’t going to be giving hers up any time soon. Cousin says we'll go on a drive and visit various abandoned places, which there are a lot of here. I love old houses and buildings that used to belong to people and have now been reclaimed by nature. They are ghostly in a good way. I'll take photos.

Alex Grey / dog drama / Hare Krishnas

Last summer a friend gave me a copy of Alex Grey's book "The Mission of Art" before I left to work in Glacier Park. I finally started reading it on the flight to Maui, since it had been preordained in my mind that leaving Portland would be the turning-point when I would return to visual art, which I'd largely neglected for the past couple years in favor of writing and film work (not to mention being consumed with other problems). I am working my way through it in my slow way, reading a little bit each night before bed. My reaction is mixed. I love his clear, concise sections and easy-to-read style of writing, his obvious command of art history, the fact that he uses lesser known names as examples more often than the ones we all know, and the way he takes art-making seriously as a spiritual calling in the service of leading humankind to the next rung on its evolutionary ladder. Most of what he says rings true, and I've highlighted many passages, like this one.

"Any work of art or body of work that successfully runs the gauntlet has the potential to influence the worldview of many individuals, thereby subtly transforming the entire culture. So take care, artist, you shoulder responsbility for affecting the collective mind. Even a tiny drop of a powerful tincture can change the color of an entire glass of water."

Passages like these are making me think more carefully about the "energy" I want to put out into the world by way of the art I create. So, I'm enjoying the book, even if my distaste for organized religion occasionally raises a red flag. My ambivalence comes from my reaction to his art, as reproduced (mostly in black and white) in the book. My first reaction to it, and part of the reason I laid it aside for so long, is that I thought it was really bad. (Example above.) The style reminded me, and still reminds me to some degree, of the sort of bad new age/hippie fractal art that Deadhead types had on the walls of their dorm rooms during the summers when I worked in Yellowstone. I still don't really like it much. It's clear that he's drawn a lot of inspiration from LSD, DMT and similar naturally occurring drugs, and my psychedelic phase ended more than a decade ago. But I do find his work slightly more palatable after reading about how he arrived at the style and what he's trying to communicate with it. I'm also ambivalent about the seeming megalomania with which he presents his work alongside that of established masters like Van Gogh, William Blake and Michelangelo. But then I'm acquainted with the merits of audacity, so I have to go easy condemning it in someone else. Overall, though, I'd say Grey is a combination art critic/philosopher and practioner whose art criticism and philosophy I prefer to his own personal work. As with everything else, I will take what I like and leave the rest.

We are having dog drama out here right now. The people next door have two full-blooded pitbulls that have a history of causing problems in the neighborhood. Not long before I came out, they got into a tangle with our dogs (both pitbull/ridgeback mix) resulting in injuries on both sides. But their dogs are the aggressors and have caused trouble with many other peoples' dogs resulting in calls to Animal Control before. (Walking up the driveway yesterday evening, they were so menacing as they barked at me over the fence I almost walked back to the main road and called Cousin to come pick me up in the truck, because if they'd gotten over the fence I have no doubt they would've attacked me.) Elio's ear was ripped during the previous altercation, and that wound is still plain to see. From what I hear, the neighbor's dogs were in OUR yard when this happened, and they never came over to talk to us about it or take responsibility. Enter this morning. Cousin came charging out of his room in a rage and ran outside: they were at it again. Later the woman who owns the house finally drove over and talked with Cousin. He said they need to get a kennel, but she was uncooperative and let drop that she'd called animal control, because this time Nikita and Elio were on THEIR property. After hearing this Cousin was not happy and the conversation ended abruptly.

It was certainly rotten of them to call animal control, before talking with us, when their dogs have a history of violent behavior (the kind of dogs that give pitbulls a bad name), and Cousin says they only did it to forestall Animal Control coming to take their dogs away, since that's what will happen if they get one more complaint. Ugh. Just when I was starting to warm up to dogs, this shit has to happen and remind me why I hate them. I hate the feeling of being threatened by someone else's pet. If your animal is dangerous, you'd best keep it tied the fuck up, because if it attacks me, I will prosecute you for first-degree assault with a deadly weapon, and it will be YOUR fault if that dog is put down.

My solution: get rid of all the dogs and give everyone cats.

Allergies schmallergies.

My new friend Lawrence (who lives in Pittsburgh where the Andy Warhol museum is) turned me on to a couple cool little short films starring Ben Whishaw (by director Alnoor Dewshi) that are up on YouTube: "77 Beds" and "Spiritual Rampage." In the latter he is a dancing Hare Krishna in the orange garb and punkish shaved hair the HKs wear. He abstains from sex as part of the religion, and of course that only makes me desire him more, the way I used to get so hot and bothered by Mr. Spock on the classic Star Trek when I was a teenager. (Judging by the amount of "slash" fan fiction available on the internet, I'm not the only one. There are lots of perverted Trekkies out there.) I have this weird feeling that IF I was ever to undergo some sort of religious conversion/180-degree lifestyle change purification, I could see myself becoming a Hare Krishna. I like their discipline, and let's face it, lots of them are pretty attractive (well, I speak of the ones I used to run into selling books in downtown Portland...I don't know how authentic Hindu they are). All that dancing and chanting and getting up at 5 a.m. Discipline makes you hot (and off-limits, in the case of the HKs).

Speaking of Ben...I wish I hadn't put up that photo of my portrait-in-progress of him the other day, because I decided it didn't look enough like him and basically started over last night. I'm so glad I did, because it already looks a lot better, and now it's going to be really good. But no more pix until it's done.

xo

glam aka tony

Victor, Victoria, Victory!

Easter Sunday, but no Easter dinner for us – just a slothful day of recovery from last night’s festivities. Yesterday we finally got a nice, mostly sunny day (back to rain again today) so I mowed Cousin’s lawn using his Craftsman sit-down mower – really the first time I’ve driven ANYTHING, not counting video game cars, so that’s a big step for me, and once I got used to it, it was fun...don’t think I’ll use a push mower again if I can help it. Wouldn’t it be weird if I ended up learning to drive and LIKING IT after all these years of avoiding anything to do with the steering wheel of a car? Around 4pm Cousin’s friend John (the one who helps Cousin make doll genitals out of sculpting clay) came over to get ready for the Victor/Victoria party with us.

Each time I do drag (apparently that term comes from Shakespeare?) I take it a step further. This time I fully shaved all facial hair, Cousin did my makeup, and gave me fishnets and a sweet purple sequin minidress that fit me like a DREAM and big blonde princess hair and a pair of old black pumps that subsequently BROKE. I put on fake eyelashes (with eyelash glue) and long, pretty fingernails (with super-glue) and made fake breasts out of rolled-up socks and attached a pair of clip-on earrings, since I’ve never had pierced ears (just eyebrow, nose and lip – and I am now completely over facial piercings). My drag name for the evening was Taffeta, Taffy for short; Cousin was Nicole (Nikki) and John was Camille. Cammy, Nikki and Taffy out on the town. And when we got to the party, my goodness, what an entrance we made! EVERYONE wanted photos with us, and at one point there were so many cameras flashing on us that it was like paparazzi on the red carpet. K., the host and birthday boy, lives in a beautiful house up in the hills with a panoramic view of the town below – even at night it was beautiful, I can only imagine in daylight. I had a little trouble with the long nails. When we first arrived and hit the food tables I said “Oh good, deviled eggs!” and snatched one up but sliced right through it with the nails and it fell to the floor in two pieces. A nice little woman, noticing my predicament, started making little snacks and handing them to me so I could eat (so sweet of her). We spent most of our time on the open-air deck, so Nikki and Cammy could smoke, so that became the drag queen smoking deck, and people kept coming out to get photos with us, girls especially just seem to love drag queens. One kept telling me that I looked SO MUCH like her 14-year-old niece. We handed out flyers for our Auntie Mame party in May. (I hope we gave one to the cute boy in the DIY bluejean getup – the one from Switzerland. He was a hottie.)

Then as we were leaving, first one of my shoes and then the other completely lost their soles, and I was stumbling along with the soles flapping on the ground, trashy as hell and most inconvenient. We drove to Gian Don's, the one club on Maui that has occasional gay nights (there is NO full time gay bar on the island, one reason I may actually be ready to leave by October), where a very nice man at an Easter crafts table in the bar (the DJs boyfriend) used his hot glue gun and glued my shoes back together! I danced a little – started the dance floor, in fact! – but Cousin didn’t want to stay long at the club, so then we headed over to his friend DJ’s house, and DJ was asleep and naked, but didn’t seem to mind that we woke him up, but we didn’t stay there long, either, so finally we headed home, and were followed for a long ways by a police officer, which was really unnerving (three inebriated drag queens going over the speed limit – oh, that would’ve made an officer’s night – Cousin joked that if they put us in jail we’d have to ask to be put in with the women). Luckily we got off scott-free. But I had a bitch of a time taking my super-glued nails off this morning. Couldn’t get the thumbs off, in fact – ended up just trimming them down with a nailclipper. Tomorrow morning, back to business: gonna get up early and go in to Kahului to continue the job hunt, and get a new canvas for another Ben Whishaw portrait I’m going to do (using a photo from Interview magazine) that’s going to be the best yet. Oh yes. It’ll make him fall in love with me for sure.


xo

glam aka tony

Art, Spam and stem cells

Just got back from a trip in to town (Kahului), and I have a bunch of new art supplies. We went to the Golden Palette, about the saddest, most decrepit little art store I’ve ever seen: the only shop left in a little ghost strip mall that was evacuated because of the fire that destroyed the Salvation Army. They don’t have much of a selection and I can’t think how they do enough business to stay open (Cousin says they’ve been there forever), and I bought a canvas because I felt guilty about leaving without buying something, it’s the sort of underdog business you feel sorry for. Then to Ben Franklin’s in the Queen Kaahumanu Center where I got another canvas and some paint and mineral spirits, then Cousin drove me to meet this guy who put an ad on Craigslist, offering 14 tubes of oil paint (including three of the really big sized ones) plus a bottle of linseed oil for $25, a killer deal, so that was a score. Then we went to Denny’s for lunch. Cousin said, “This is the good Denny’s,” meaning not the Bad Denny’s in Kihei where he broke his arm a few years ago. Two of the dishes on the Specials list came with – no kidding – SPAM. (Cousin said the food the natives eat here is really bad, and I’m afraid it looks that way. There are also these really gross red hot dogs that are sold everywhere and are made with meat possibly as gross or grosser than Spam.) I’m already finding it hard to stay motivated here, and the job hunt has yielded no success. It’s also proving hard not to eat bad (fattening, greasy) food, since it’s everywhere. But I haven’t fallen down on the exercise program yet, and the pants that used to be uncomfortably tight around the waist are falling off if I don’t wear a belt.

So, about that art. I have nearly completed a large portrait of Ben W. over a background of the Union Jack; oil over acrylic, and the oil is drying right now before I go in for the finishing touches. Cousin showed me how to print the photo I was working from on a transparency and then project it onto the canvas so it came out better than I can draw free hand. This is a revelation for me and will lead to all sorts of new and improved ideas, because the thing is I need to paint humans (or animals), figures motivate me, they’re the subject matter I’m drawn to; when I try to do landscapes or abstracts or still lifes I invariably get bored and don’t finish them. If there isn’t a relatable human or living figure in it, I lose interest. Then I’ve started another of an Egyptian style cat, gold/yellow color with lapis lazuli (really pretty blue) bangles and adornments. And with the two canvases I bought today I’m going to do two more: another of Ben over a background of candy hearts (the ones that say BE MINE and DO TELL and SO DREAMY, etc) and one of a tiger-striped hippo. So I’m back in full creative flux. Right now I’m doing a drawing of a box of Boo Berry cereal, because we started talking about things that symbolize our childhood at lunch, in the context of Cousin’s book, and I came up with the idea of illustrating the book not only with photographs of all the old times we’re talking over (which Cousin has a lot of ), but also with drawings and paintings of some of the products and toys and foods that we remember from growing up – hence the Boo Berry cereal drawing. (My sister sent me a box of it last Halloween, I ate the whole box, and remain of the opinion that it is certainly the best-tasting of the monster sugar cereals.)

Did a little more yard work for Cousin yesterday and I’m going to mow the lawn (with the kind of mower you drive) later today or tomorrow. The Victor/Victoria party is this Saturday and I don’t know what to do about shoes. Cousin has a big pair of white thigh-high leather platform heels that fit me in the feet, but they don’t fit around my legs, so they won’t work very well, and there aren’t really any other options. We were going to go to the beach today but it isn’t nice enough; it’s been cloudy and rainy and relatively cool (K. says it’s “freezing”) the last few days. And I just started getting my nice island tan!

I saw Michael J. Fox on Jon Stewart the other night. My Mom told me he was on Oprah recently and Oprah's new doctor (I gather Dr. Phil has been replaced?) told him that with the new stem cell research bill that Obama signed (to use stem cells from ADULTS and not just dead babies or whatever) he will be CURED of Parkinson's within the next decade. Mom hopes they'll be able to cure her of her stroke damage within that same amount of time. And I started thinking about how strange it would be if she suddenly, at age 65 or so, regained the ability to walk and the left side of her body was un-paralyzed, meaning she no longer qualified for disability checks, and had to find a job and start her life over again - at the very age when most people retire.

Script idea, there.

Aloha, Maui!

Here I am on the islands! Oh, Maui, how I love thy semi-tropical climate, and persistent rainbows, and continuous breeze! It was certainly worth the white-knuckled terror of the flight. But I’m just being a big ol’ drama queen now. As a matter of fact I’m in danger of becoming one of those people who doesn’t bat a lash about getting on an airplane. It’s only the takeoff and descent that suck, the entire middle part is fine, and even soothing, especially since I had earplugs in this time. Coming down on Maui was the only turbulent part – it’s windy here! Anthony met me by the baggage claim conveyor and wreathed me in a green tea leaf lai that he made along with a tuberose one, creamy white colored and fragrant of vanilla and honey. It made me want to quote aloud lines from Shakespeare. (I’m finishing “Wuthering Heights” finally and I think it’s influencing my writing style.)

Cousin Anthony (who I will henceforth refer to simply as “Cousin”) took me to his and J’s “project house” this morning (photo above) to get new smoke alarms installed for the people coming over to look at, and hopefully buy the house. It’s been on the market almost 2 years now, and the asking price is down to $1.8 million from well above $2 million. It has a steep paved driveway and exquisite decoration and a pool and three floors, the top two both with wide spacious patios sporting breathtaking panorama views of the town and lush foliage below, and beyond them the glowing azure ocean stretching to the horizon.

Afterwards Cousin took us to the only restaurant in town serving breakfast at 10:30 a.m. where he said he’d had such a bad experience last time that under TIP on the check he wrote “Find a new job,” but he gave it another chance for my sake, and he had florentine eggs benedict (florentine basically means “spinach”) and I had a stack of golden buttermilk pancakes with fresh strawberries, and everything was fine, the server was attentive, in fact almost overly servile, I thought, but Cousin is imperious and impatient in demanding compliance from people, whether it’s restaurant servers, the agent who has failed to sell their house so far, or the people in front of him on the road who purposely block him from driving as fast as he’d like in his giant F350 white pickup truck. (So big that he took up two parking spaces when we went to the restaurant.) We stopped and chatted with a couple exuberant older Hawaiian ladies who run an art gallery and are planning a Victor/Victoria themed party for a mutual friend.

Then we went to Secret Beach, which was clothing-optional, and Cousin lounged naked in the HOT sun (it's between 60 and 90 all the time here), while I body surfed and got too much sun (my head is turning bright lobster red – I put “Green Ice” aloe gel on it). He pointed to one house and said “That’s David Bowie and Iman’s house,” then pointed to another on the hill above us and said “That’s Sharon Stone’s house.” Bowie’s house has its own little point or spit of land jutting out onto the water, landscaped all the way up so people can’t climb into their yard and it’s semi-private while being also directly in view of a public beach – with naked people. Sharon Stone’s house looks like cheesecake – same color and consistency. Cousin thinks the water here is cold and was only in it for a few minutes, but I spent a solid hour or two body-surfing the waves, and the water is heaven to me - exactly what I dreamed of and longed for the whole time I kept trying to swim in those glacial 40-degree lakes in Glacier Park last summer. Cousin finally called me ashore after J warned him on the phone not to let me stay in the water too long or my scalp might burn. On the walk back from the beach to the parking lot I felt like a sensitive, pale water creature burning myself on hot coals. The soles of my feet felt soft as the underbelly of a reptile, scalded by hot rocks as I walked along barefoot.

Back at Hohani Place, Cousin had a nap while I organized and put away everything in my room, then took a dip in the pool. He has corned beef simmering in a pot on the stove for tomorrow night’s dinnner. They have a friendly, skinny, tan, blonde Russian girl roommate named K. who goes to a community college nearby, studying to be an IT person. She warned me not to go anywhere without suntan lotion, a rule I failed to observe today, but I didn’t know we’d be hitting the beach when we left. I did my regular exercise regimen this morning, then also did a 15-minute run on the exercise bike with the Resistance set to 7. It’s easy to sweat here with the high humidity. Cousin started to play “Brideshead Revisited” but I said “Let’s save that for another night” because I just can’t watch that movie without a commitment to fully experience it, such is the bond I’ve formed with it. I just read Benji is going to make a movie about the Beatniks next with Jesse Eisenberg from Adventureland. He’s going to play Lucien Carr, a less-well-known figure from the Beats’ early days who nonetheless played an integral role in bringing them together. So I have that and Bright Star to look forward to. Well, I’ve got to go try on some diaphanous gowns Cousin laid on my bed in preparation for our upcoming parties. Looks like I’ll be doing drag before San Francisco after all!

Cousin told me the first night that he and J both walk around the house naked from time to time. K. does, too, occasionally. That's how it goes here! Being the shy thing I am, I’ll probably keep my underwear on at least.

Hat Party / acting / Mercury vs. Village Voice

The Hat Party was fun, but the after-party crowd didn’t turn out. Neither did several of the people I went to the trouble of putting on the guest list. (Grrrrrrrrrr. I’m not mad at Vicky, though. She had a valid excuse, plus she’s going to let me store my boxes in her basement until I can have them shipped to San Fran, which is a lifesaver.) It was exciting until 10 or 11pm, then tapered off sharply, and I left around 12:30. Got great footage of the performers and the hat contest. Seventh and Element showed up early and made quite an entrance, since Element was wearing nothing but a leather harness and black jockstrap, and shaking his bare ass on the dance floor. I was glad when they appeared, though, ‘cause the party needed that extra push into un-inhibition. Sean and LeeAnn both snapped mass photos. The cute go-go boy from last year wasn’t there, they had other ones instead. I met a girl named Alison, Baby LeStrange’s friend, who is a film editor and photographer and gave me her card. Also a guy named Gregor, a former Silverado bartender, with whom I traded old memories of the City Nightclub and Portland back in the day. He said when My Own Private Idaho was filming River and Keanu would come to the City and Keanu would smoke pot in the bathroom constantly and River was “a weird guy.” (He’s also the first person I fell in love with, before Dylan, and before Ben Whishaw, unless you count Krystal Capps, but that was a different, platonic sort of love.)

Joel showed up after 10pm and said he loved the way Art Police turned out. He said every time Justin was on screen it made him laugh, and that Emie has the quality of a silent movie star – those big, expressive doe eyes. (“You should make a silent film with her.”) He also praised my editing, saying “You created spaces that didn’t exist.” It’s true that editing is where the magic really happens: you can take a bad movie and make it a good one through editing, that’s how potent it is to the final mix. Kirk said I should check into doing some community theater when I get to San Francisco, which is something I was already considering. Acting will help bring out my emotions more. I’m already starting to come alive again. I feel like the last eight years or so have been a slow recovery from the time I almost died from drugs, and for a long time after that I was in a sort of semi-zombified state, half alive you might say, which is why I related so much to Andy Warhol (post-assassination attempt Warhol, I mean). But I think I’ve finally made a full recovery. And corny as it may sound, it’s a certain English actor I’m obsessed with that brought me the final step back to being fully alive. Because if you lack the ability to love you can’t be full alive as a human being.The moment I first saw “Brideshead Revisited” in the theater it instantly became one of my favorite movies of all time. I’m going to do a series of expressive portraits of Ben when I get to Maui, I’ve decided. I did a preliminary drawing last night, and it came out really well. I think I’ll send it to Ben, in fact. I believe I am actually friends with him on MySpace.

Yesterday after seeing "Sunshine Cleaning" Joel and I had lunch at the Sunshine Cafe (where I had one of the worst gyros I've ever eaten and a semi-decent peanut butter cookie) and I brought up newspapers, saying I'd like to find one to write for in San Fran. I said the Village Voice would be my ideal, and Joel said the VV is only so revered and important because it's in New York, "If the Mercury was in New York it would be the Village Voice," he said, and I said I thought most of the writing in the VV is better than what's in the Mercury - the Stranger might be a better comparison - and I went off on the relentless snarkiness of the Mercury, and Joel said he likes that their reviews of bad movies are brutal, just tearing the film to shreds, but I said yes, they do that well, but they don't have the OTHER side of it. Let's say I wanted to write a review of "Brideshead Revisited," a film that truly moved me, that I think is beautiful and the highest cinematic art. I want to write a review that expresses that in a sincere, passionate, truthful way. And the sort of review I would write about a movie I loved wouldn't fit in the Mercury. They're too concerned with proving their coolness by being cynical and snarky to genuinely and unselfconsciously praise the beauty of a film. That is a LAME definition of cool and not one I will ever accept. I want to write for a paper where I can express the full range of my responses to art without tailoring them for a mentally deficient or emotionally lopsided audience. If you've read my film reviews in Just Out, you know I can decimate a shitty movie with the best of them, but that is hardly the range of my abilities.

All I care about is telling the truth as I see it.

I ran into Cliff at PSU yesterday – little Cliff who I made “Pestilence” with last year for our video class with Holly Andres. He said, “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else?” I guess I copied him on the email I sent out before I left for Glacier. Melanie arrives late Thursday night, and Lisa next Tuesday (St. Patrick's Day), and then it's only a week until I'm leaving on a jet plane for the islands! Oh, joy! My adult life begins NOW.

anglophilia / "Bad News" / community media

Today I spent three more hours editing the footage Emie and I shot last month, and I have another session scheduled for tomorrow. I plan to have a rough cut finished by the end of that session, and have reserved a dub rack as well so I can burn a DVD copy of that rough cut to watch with Emie and Justin this weekend, during a break in filming "Art Police."

It started as a funny throwaway, a B-side to Art Police, and it's turned into a fairly intense trainwreck of a mini-movie. The working title was "Monsieur LeTigre Speaks" but I changed it to "Bad News" tonight. It could be a PSA for why people shouldn't abuse alcohol. But I kind of like its trainwreck intensity. I'm afraid when Emie sees it, though, she's going to want me to cut all of her parts out, because she's definitely not the charismatic person she can be when sober. But there's something very compelling, to me anyway, about completely raw footage of someone having a drunken meltdown on camera, and being just totally emotionally naked and vulnerable. I hope I can convince her to keep some of it in.

Most of it is not very flattering footage of me, either. I intended this film to be about self-doubt, conflict, contradiction, negativity, drunken retardation, the voices in your head that argue and cause you to engage in self-warfare. It ain't supposed to be pretty, and it sure as fuck ain't.

Then I helped "Alexandra Paris" with her studio production - speaking of trainwrecks! - and it had that "we're winging it" feeling as always, especially since her co-host never showed and didn't even call, so her Leprechaun-like little boyfriend (who I think must be bisexual at LEAST) stood in for the co-host, and actually did a pretty good job. Alexandra was working the Adams/Breedlove fiasco pretty hard, of course - apparently Beau is posing naked for Unzipped, a men's adult magazine. So he's doing the same thing the media are with the controversy: exploiting it for everything it's worth. At one point after she'd been reaming Breedlove for his shameless self-exploitation, a caller went on the air and hissed the words, "Horse shit!" and then hung up.

I couldn't help it, I blurted out: "IT'S BEAU BREEDLOVE!" in the midst of the live show.

That's what's fun about that show, though - you can do things like that and they just become part of the DIY anarchy of community media.

I hope they have a facility like this in San Francisco. I'm sure they do. Probably more than one. (Photo of the Portland Community Media Warhol-style "Staff Wall" above.)

Alexandra used her televisual platform to rebuke some rowdy (black) kids on the bus earlier that day who had been disrespecting other passengers on the bus, putting spitballs in their hair and such. I've witnessed some pretty depressing behavior on the number 6 bus myself, including a cracked-out lady and her giggling little brat of a child who attacked a gay guy sitting in front of her, calling him a faggot and blaming him for being responsible for AIDS and stuff. The guy held his ground pretty well, but I felt bad for him all the same, and got the hell off that bus at the first opportunity.

A side effect of my intense love for Ben Whishaw is that I'm becoming an anglophile. I may have to move to England in five years or so when I'm done with Maui and San Fran. But I've been talking with Anthony almost daily lately, and my excitement grows exponentially with each conversation. We are going to have so much fun. We really are two of a kind...and FAMILY, on top of that.

I have this interesting premonition that during my six months on Maui I'm going to actually be HAPPY, in the truest and deepest sense, for the first time since....I was a kid?

Or ever?

PIFF

Up early for a Portland International Film Festival (PIFF) screening (“The Beaches of Agnes,” 11 a.m. at the Whitsell) and just had breakfast: Trader Joe’s banana waffles, a banana, and tea. Saw “Tulpan” yesterday, another PIFF movie (whence the above photo). I forgot how snooty PIFF is, so today I’m going to wear nicer clothes. I heard “Tulpan” was supposed to be really funny but I suspect the humor must have been subtle or stunted by cultural barriers ‘cause I didn’t laugh much. It was pretty well made but bleak and a bit slight in terms of story. A scene in which Tulpan crudely assists a pregnant goat in giving birth was...painful. On the way to the movie I stopped at the Philly Cheesesteak/burger cart in Pioneer Square and got a bacon cheeseburger. Guy working the cart said business was slow, only 7 burgers sold (by 2 p.m.) I asked him what a good number would be and he said 20 would be great, but he added burgers aren’t their big seller, more people come for the cheesesteaks. The burger was REALLLLLY good, they always are, I’ve eaten there before. I added a boom mic to our equipment reservation for 2/21 to be sure we get good audio for Art Police. I’m now trying to line up a photographer and videographer for the Hat Party on Pat’s behalf, and may end up being the videographer myself. If so, then between the Hat Party, Art Police and the other little film Emie and I shot a while back – “Monsieur LeTigre Speaks” – I’ll be completing three more short film projects before leaving, which I’ll feel good about. Tomorrow is the Loveshow, I’ll have to put together some nice little outfit for that. It looks like Vicky and I will just miss each other: she starts her shift as an alcohol monitor at 11pm, just when I’m leaving. I’m debating what to do tonight: either attend the screening of “The International” at Lloyd Center just because Ben Whishaw has a small part in it (Tom Tykwer, director of Run Lola Run and PERFUME starring Ben, obviously enjoyed working with his young star), or stay home and watch the Thursday night line-up, which is probably what I’ll end up doing, since they’re all new, and I’m lazy. Sorry, Ben, I’ll catch it on video. I sent out my going-away email last night and the people I expected to reply right away didn’t at all (except Kara), and a bunch of people I hardly expected to reply at all replied immediately. Funny stuff! Oh, and my valentine got printed in the Mercury! But which one? A ha ha ha ha ha.

Goldilocks and the three laptops

Spent some time at the Fireside Coffee Lodge yesterday, which kind of has the feel of a hostel. Actually with the fireplace and all the stout hairy men it kind of feels like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” except that Goldilocks is nowhere in sight, and the three bears are fixated on their laptop computers. I’m waiting for a call back from Kevin Reedy and still brainstorming questions for “Daddy Donner” about How To Be A Gay Porn Star. I put the Sluts and Squares performers in touch with Pat, who will hopefully line them up for the Hat Party, and in so doing I’ve realized that I’m pretty good at this connecting-people thing, juggling different people I know in my mind and thinking “you would work good with so-and-so,” and I’m thinking that may be a career path I should pursue, a way to make money while I devote my free time to various creative endeavors of my own. Meghan said she read a book recently by a guy who talks about different personality types and the “connector” type, which I guess I am, is not something everyone has, it’s a talent.

Prior to getting caffeinated at the Fireside I dropped off the final version of What I Really Want Is at Minuteman (man I hate the #72 bus, the one that runs along 82nd Ave: always crowded, always the most depressing collection of people imaginable), so I will soon have 50 copies hot off the presses to give away and sell. I’d like to give away half at my going away gathering and sell the rest for $5 each, that way I may just make back printing costs. I got off the #4 bus on Division and 35th and walking south to Powell I passed a house that had an upside-down mannequin embedded in the yard with her legs pointing straight up to heaven – photo above. Texted Melanie to say they were playing Grey Gardens free at Pix Patisserie – I happened to be walking very near her old house (still her house, but no one’s living there right now, weirdly).

Posted my list of things to sell and give away on Craigslist and within minutes had several people inquiring especially about the Super 8 camera, which I realize now I should’ve sold instead of given away, I just figured they’re so old people can’t really use them any more, but the kids who ended up picking it up (along with the desk and lamp) said they saw one go for $50 just the other day. Oh well, I got it free, I pass it on free and share the wealth. They seemed like nice kids who’ll put it to good use. It is so nice to get rid of stuff. Only the office chair left now, and then the “for sale” stuff, which of course is going to be harder to unload. Scott is taking my bike pump for $30. I left Fireside at 4pm to meet Kirk at the Berlin Inn for happy hour – we had the whole place to ourselves. Kirk pointed to this club called Blue Dragonfly that we could see from our window and asked if I’d ever been in there, and the waitress coming by told us about the one time she went there and had a really bad time, and they cut her off even though she wasn’t drunk, because she was dancing like a hippie – I guess it’s a reggae/dance hall/hiphop joint, but they don’t like hippies. I picked up a bottle of gluhwein from Edelweiss on the way out (I’m taking a little break from sobriety...but no more heavy drinking.) After Berlin we stopped by Biddy’s for a pint and Kirk took more of his glass-enhanced photos of me. At home I got stuff ready for the guys who were coming to pick it up, and now a lot of nice space is opening up in my room. Lucy, of course, is getting nervous.

I sketched my future plans for both Kirk and Scott: Maui for six months, then San Francisco, then maybe I’ll dip down into South America for awhile, polish up my Spanish, maybe visit the rain forest where Terence McKenna and his brother had the experiences detailed in True Hallucinations, then stop by New York for awhile, visit some people I know there, then across the pond to England, where I’ll investigate Bloomsbury and Hogarth House and other haunts of Virginia Woolf (ending of course at the River Ouse), then over to Spain where I will do the Camino de Santiago pilgrimmage and NOT die, then nip up to Germany for some of the world’s best beer straight from the source – find the Schwelmer brewery – luxuriate in the artistic decadence of Berlin for awhile – then to Italy, which everyone says “changes you,” by which point I will have shacked up with Ben Whishaw, and we’ll travel together, and finally when I’m pretty old and the artistic mission is fully accomplished, Ben and I will settle down in Africa – Botswana or Kenya, not sure exactly where yet – to observe and live among hippos in their natural habitat. Yeah. It’s all pretty much planned out.