Raspberry Revolution

Bruce LaBruce is a funny motherfucker. The other night my roommate and I watched The Raspberry Reich, which I hadn't seen before - surprisingly, Netflix has it! Where Otto: or, Up with Dead People is sort of a softcore porn gay zombie movie with satirical and political underpinnings, Raspberry Reich is more of the sort of film Andy Warhol may have made about midway through his film career if he had been working in East Berlin in the early 2000s and simultaneously more overtly political and more hardcore pornographic than Warhol ever was.

There's no denying it's a very homoerotically - no, homosexually - arousing film, and at the same time, I found it more entertaining than I expected. There were definitely moments where I felt, "LaBruce is just using the appearance of political subtext to satisfy his desire to see cute 'straight' young dudes get it on with each other." Well, no harm there, imho. BLB obviously has the same taste in guys that I do. The film is replete with hypersexualized Marxist propaganda and slogans such as "Out of the bedrooms and onto the streets!", "Heterosexuality is the opiate of the masses!" and "The Revolution is my boyfriend!" Of course, historically in Communist countries pornography has been outlawed and repressed, but that would only enhance its usefulness as a talisman of the sort of rebellion and revolution yearned and struggled for by the film's characters (particularly the hilarious Gudrun, portrayed by Susanne Sachße, who is much like the figure of Medea Yarn - an anagram of Maya Deren - in Otto.)

No doubt about it, this is fun stuff, bridging the gap between art and hardcore porn, with a heavy dollop of radical socialist politics thrown in. Not everyone's cup of tea, no doubt. I won't be recommending it to mum any time soon. But somehow, despite the explicit sexual sequences, I never found it more than...innocently charming. If you enjoy/can stomach films such as Shortbus, Caligula, Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom, Warhol films like Flesh and Chelsea Girls, and early John Waters movies like the infamous Pink Flamingos, this may work for you. If not, just play it safe and read about it here.

As for my own attitude, Perry Farrell summed it up best years ago: Nothing's shocking.

texas chainsaw / lesbian separatists / japanese monsters

It's all downhill from here. Last night Lucy went to her new home. I also finally sold my computer yesterday. Today I returned books to the library and went shopping at Everyday Music with the gift certificate Kirk gave me at my party the other night. I bought A Dirty Shame (John Waters' best movie since Serial Mom, which was his best movie since his 70s heyday) and King Kong vs. Godzilla on DVD. The latter was a big favorite of mine as a teenager. I've always loved those Japanese monster movies with the hilariously bad English overdubs. Then I distributed copies of my zinebook at Powell's, Reading Frenzy and the IPRC. (I still have copies, if anyone wants one!) Then strolled down to Saturday Market and enjoyed walking about in the sunlight watching people buy things. I bought a nice little ring for $10 that fits my middle finger. This young girl kept trying to get the seller to tell her what size of ring to buy for her boyfriend, and the seller kept coming back to, "Without knowing what size your boyfriend's fingers are, it's hard to say."

After the market I light-railed it to Chameleon and met with Pat for the last time, and to give him the corrected DVD copy of the Hat Party footage. I drank water with a slice of lime and ate a delicious slice of carrot cake with white chocolate frosting...I've always loved carrot cake, but this was like a whole notha level, a carrotcakegasm. Pat and Aaron were mixing a new drink while I was there, trying to get the taste right. The third version was great: scotch with saffron, a little sugar, and tuaca. They needed a name and I suggested "Scotch Saffron" or "Mad About Saffron" (after the Donovan song), but they went with Aaron's suggestion of "Scotchbroom." Pat said he would give me a reference so I can get a server/host/bartending gig in S.F. That will really help, since my resume over the past few years is like a road badly in need of repaving.

I cried a little after Lucy left last night, for the first time in forever. It's probably good to do that once in a while. I sure will miss that girl. I keep expecting her to be there, thinking I glimpse her out of the corner of my eye. "Cat love is one of the strongest kinds of love," as Kaj-ann told me during the opening party of the Love Show. Which reminds me: I also volunteered (again) for the Love Show closing party last night. Got a hug from Chris H, gifts from Kara (including a hilarious musical card), handed out copies of my book to various people, briefly saw Molly, but there was no warmth. Break my heart. I sent Nataliya Kaye a friend request on Facebook as an experiment, and just as I expected she didn't accept. So I deleted Siren Nation from my list of friends.

I wrote the FIRST ARTICLE about your then-incipient festival in the local press years ago, and you're too good to be my online friend? Fuck that. As far as I'm concerned, support is a two-way street, even if you're a lesbian separatist here in Lesbos, Oregon.

Tomorrow night I'm going to see one of my all-time favorite films, "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974 original, not the dumbass Michael Bay remake from a few years back that Tobe Hooper had nothing to do with) at the Bagdad Cafe. I first saw it at age eight and can't count the number of times I've seen it since. It is a work of warped genius, and if you haven't seen it, you should really grab this opportunity to experience its full brilliant insanity on the big screen! It is the single most raw, intense and unrelenting film I've ever seen, but few films with its budget have ever packed such a stylistic punch or impacted our culture as much, and the final shot literally brings tears to my eyes. As insane, violent, and inexplicable as it is, it also possesses a crazy beauty like nothing else before or since.

This girl named Allison I met at the Hat Party was at the media center the other day when I saw Chain Saw was playing, and she seemed like the kind of girl who might like it (a little crazy and abrasive - I always gravitate towards those people), so I asked, and sure enough she has, and she said she's going to see it tomorrow night, too, and maybe we'll get a drink afterwards, and discuss Tobe Hooper's one and only unequivocal masterpiece. (They're also screening part 2, but I don't think I can take that one ever again.) As Kinsey said, it's miraculous that they're screening it right before I leave PDX.