In love with Love

Last night bordered on magnificent. I’ll never think of Friday the 13th the same again. I arrived early for my volunteer shift at the Love Show, and got to take a spin through the whole building and see all the art before any of the public arrived. Then a magical night began. Amazing art everywhere I looked, great connections with people I hadn’t seen in a long time - Kaj-ann, Vicky, Bruce from the PCM class that certified me as a producer, Richard who literally GAVE me the coat off his back, Jules who made an amazing 3D piece for the show of two kissing suspended jointed figures (I’m going to her bday at the Florida Room Monday night), S.I.D. (the artist formerly known as Jona) who wants to buy a copy of my book, Kjerstin who said she liked the Art Police script enough to want to help us film next weekend, Haberman who is always very affectionate, Ben Pink himself (I really wanna grab that guy and say, “Dude, RELAX for a second,” but I know the mountain of responsibility he has makes that impossible). Just truly a fantastic night and the most fun I’ve had at a public event in as long as I can remember. I was in love with Love. And aside from shoring up old friendships I made a bunch of new friends, including a very friendly dark-haired skater boy who was, shall we say, NOT UNATTRACTIVE, and said he wished he could take me with him when he left to smoke a bowl! (But I was stationed at the front door making sure no one left the building carrying an alcohol receptacle.)

I discovered a precious young maiden who had climbed into the middle of one of the installations (photo above).

I did my double volunteer shift (Leigh greeted me in the volunteer lounge afterwards with “The best alcohol monitor ever!” and gave me a sip from her flask of whiskey), got my two drink tickets, but by that time the bar had run dry and I was pretty tired anyway, so I bailed, but not before giving Vicky a big hug, because she is certainly in the top 10 of people I care most about in Portland, and now she’s made the most amazing offer to take care of Lucy for me (despite already having four cats!) until such time as I have my own place in San Fran and can take her back! Plus she said, “I’m always looking for an excuse to visit San Francisco,” meaning she might even be able to bring her down to me when I’m ready to reclaim her! This is nothing less than a miracle for me. My excitement about the future and the great things awaiting me was alloyed by sadness at having to leave behind this girl with whom I have bonded so strongly over the past few years. She really is a little person with as much personality as a human being, and I don’t care if it makes me a crazy cat lady/dude or not, I love her, and the prospect of never seeing her again was hard to bear. And now, because of the friendship of someone who empathizes with and understands my bond with this animal, I don’t have to! Everything is coming together beautifully. I’m still going to make an attempt to find someone else with less pets already to take Lucy until I can have her again, since Vicky already has so many pets, and her husband is opposed to it, but it’s so good to know there’s an option in the background in case nothing else works out. I’m going to sleep easier, or happier, from now until I leave.

I figured out my taxes today in about 20 minutes (so far the 1040EZ form still takes care of me nice and simple), and the IRS owes me $210, except they’ll just take it and apply it to the money I still owe them from years ago, that one weird year where I somehow ended up owing them over $1000. (I still wonder if I figured that wrong and screwed myself over, but it’s too late now.)

Made my weekly call to mother tonight, after a lovely dinner of stuffed bell peppers, asparagus, broccoli, lemon bars and sparkling juice with Scott, Meghan, their dad, and Meghan’s friend Brian. Dear Mother is her ever-lovin’ loopy old self. “I’m getting into younger guys again,” she told me. “I think the Jonas brothers are really cute.” So we’ll both be watching SNL tonight: her for the Jonas brothers, and me for Alec Baldwin. I bought some brandy for hot toddies to celebrate the occasion.

Anthony said he coined the word “murse” for a man-purse and it made it all the way onto The View! He’s paranoid about people stealing his ideas so I won’t be blogging about our titles and ideas for the book until after it’s all ready for public consumption.

I had nothing in the planner today, but decided to make a lazy day productive by going to the media center and doing some editing on “Monsieur LeTigre Speaks,” the short film I shot with Emie a while back, the night we went to Slabtown for Sam’s birthday (or was it Audra’s?) To my surprise I found that we’d shot 45 mins. worth of footage, and some of it is quite hilarious! It’ll probably be about 10 mins. long when finished and I’m going to try to have it done for viewing by next weekend so we can watch it before filming Art Police, and hopefully I’ll be able to put it up on YouTube by then too.

A further rant on media's lack of ethics / Love Show / acting!

The local media is still gleefully gorging itself on the Sam Adams imbroglio that they created. It’s like when a hippo carcass washes ashore in Africa and the crocodiles have a time of plenty, feast upon feast. Our very own Bill Clinton scandal! Ain’t it grand? Who do you identify with? Most of the media obviously identify with Kenneth Star, but I identify more with Clinton/Adams. New revelations include Adams kissing Beau Breedlove in a bathroom at City Hall when Breedlove was only seventeen! (ABSOLUTELY IRRELEVANT! HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THE MAN’S ABILITY AS MAYOR!) The funny thing is, with most people I hang out with, who are not part of the press corps or involved in city politics, this issue just doesn’t even come up. If it does at all, it’s only a response to how much it continues to be plastered all over every type of media in town (which is also the reason I blog about it! I’m on my way home from somewhere, pick up a paper, there’s WW at it again, it makes me mad, I have to write it out!) Many people just don’t care and see this for what it is: the media whipping up a controversy so it will have something to write and talk and be outraged about. Well, there are certainly SOME people who are eager to voice their opinion – the ones who demanded Adams resign immediately, the ones who are easy to stir into this knee-jerk reaction, the ones who are always happy to jump up on their high moral horse at a moment’s notice, THE ONES WHO VOTED FOR MEASURE 36! (You can say “It’s not about the sex!” all you want, but those ARE your allies in calling for Adams to resign!) Are you SURE you want to ally yourselves with those people? The media doesn’t care about ethics, it cares about having a story. And from the beginning, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve seen the whole thing as an interesting example of the lack of ethics in journalism and other media – even right here in supposedly liberal and enlightened Portland! – rather than of Mayor Adams. WHEN SOMEONE LIES TO PROTECT THEIR PRIVACY, IT’S DIFFERENT THAN WHEN THEY LIE FOR POLITICAL REASONS. Sam Adams is not Richard Nixon, and this is a sorry stand-in for Watergate!

Bottom line: the media likes power. They like to feel that they control things, that they manipulate reality according to their own designs. They set people up on a pedestal – Sam Adams the media darling! On every TV channel! In every paper! – and then knock them off, to exercise their contrived omnipotence – Adams in disgrace! How could he! He must resign immediately! Anyone stepping back and taking a look from outside the snow-globe can see exactly what’s going on. That’s why I will always be happy to remain in the background, a voice to be sure, but not on a pedestal, not a media figure – I won’t let people put me on a pedestal, because I don’t trust their motivations in doing so. I’m happy right where I am, thanks. Funny thing is a while back I sort of played the role of a person who craves fame for its own sake, in a tongue-in-cheek way, and some people who know me here think that’s what I am. I have to laugh, ‘cause that’s sooooo not what I’m about. Of course I want recognition, and I’m going to have it, but for solid artistic reasons, not the empty instant fame of modern celebrity culture. I find that kind of culture fascinating, but at the same time, unutterably pathetic. I’m going to set the bar a little higher. That’s why my blog isn’t 100% shallow coverage of every little thing that celebrities do, say, and wear, as is the case with a lot of other bloggers out there, particularly the gay ones. (I DESPISE Perez Hilton! Down with stupidity chic! "Intellectual" is not a synonym for "pretentious!" It simply means that you use your brain and devote yourself to things that actually matter!) Don’t take this personally, I enjoy your blogs sometimes, but maybe try branching out a little? Get out of the herd. Think for yourself. There are other things even more interesting than Angelina Jolie’s latest catfight with Jennifer Anniston.

I saw “The Beaches of Agnes” yesterday and it was SUPERB – gave it an A. Walking through the park blocks afterwards I saw someone had placed a sheaf of yellow flowers in the hand of Honest Abe.

This morning I was out again and saw “Dean Spanley,” a good movie for dog-lovers. Lots of close-ups of Peter O’Toole’s glassy-eyed, thin-lipped, occasionally drooling, skull-like face. But as an actor he is, of course, first-class. I’ve been thinking a lot about acting, lately. Reading Christopher Plummer’s memoir is factoring in here as well. I’ve often had the feeling that I missed my course and should have gotten into acting in high school, but I was too shy and withdrawn. Perhaps it’s not too late, though, eh? Is acting the new medium awaiting me in San Francisco? We shall see...

Had a good phone chat with Anthony, and we even touched on compensation and credit for the book, and I said I’d like to have my name on the cover, even if it’s in smaller letter than his, because I am trying to get my by-line out there, too. He said if it gets big and we do book readings he may have to send me to do them, ‘cause he doesn’t want to!

I have a few hours’ downtime before the Love Show. Autumn called to remind me of my alcohol monitoring shift. My job is to keep Olympic Mills and Pink/Haberman from getting in trouble with the Oregon Liquor Controlfreak Commission.

What should I wear?