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.

Talkangelic

My winning streak continues. This morning Scott drove me to UPS where I shipped my two boxes off to Maui for a whopping $95 – damn! And that was the cheapest rate, parcel post. I insured the clothing box for $300. Could tell it was shaping up to be a beautiful day. Then he was so kind as to drop me off near Emie and Justin’s house. We had our cast meeting for Art Police, and it went well: I felt much better afterwards. Both of them did really well delivering their lines, funny and professional at the same time. I underestimate them because of how messy their lifestyle can be. We’re filming the weekend of the 21st, and I called PCM and made the equipment reservation with Pam, who said she thought I’d moved already. Audra will not be participating in the film (omg) so Emie is going to play both roles: Ann Athema and the gallery owner, which actually I think is going to be really funny, and I’m looking forward to her change of costume and makeup. There’s a gallery right across from their house they think we may be able to film in to avoid the cramped quarters of Emie’s salon. Justin was very interested in my book “How To Be A Gay Porn Star” which I’m writing up for J.O. We decided we should get a fourth person to work the camera while we film. They were playing a show at The Know tonight and invited me but I’m avoiding drinking and that pretty much means avoiding going out. I brought them my space heater, the one I got from Wal-Mart last year, since their house is always freezing; this way they don’t have to turn the gas on and heat the whole house. I was going to sell it but wtf. After the meeting I went into downtown and picked up the Christopher Plummer memoir “In Spite of Myself” which I had on hold. The MAX routes were screwed up because they’re preparing to open the green line, so they had bus shuttles bringing people along what is normally the MAX route. Nonetheless I got out to Chameleon by 4pm for my meeting with Pat. He made me food as always, and it was really good – spring rolls and chicken and cabbage on rice, nice and spicy. We talked over the Hat Party and he confirmed I can have the patio for my birthday/going away soiree on March 18th! He doesn’t have special guests planned for the Hat Party this time – Sam Adams probably won’t work this year, for obvious reasons – and is looking for new performers, so I suggested some of the burlesque performers of Query/Sluts and Squares, and need to put them in touch with him. I’d love to see them rock the Hat Party. I suggested he auction off Beau Breedlove as part of the festivities, which got a big laugh, but uh, I don’t think that’ll actually work. Why do cars always almost hit me when I’m crossing Sandy, legally, in the Hollywood District? It’s happened many times, something about that particular area. My new contacts are working out great. I’ve missed the freedom of not wearing glasses. Portland was great for glasses – “When in Rome,” you know – but Maui just says contacts to me. (Gotta be able to wear sunglasses.) My sobriety is strong right now. I even resisted the lure of free drinks when I visited Pat at Chameleon this afternoon. Although I’ve rediscovered the ritual of smoking weed before bed. This stuff is mellow and non-paranoid and makes me feel like a big, lazy cat. Scott just invited me to the Talkdemonic concert at Doug Fir, but I’m feeling too stay-at-home. Gonna work on stuff, smoke a bit of herb, watch SNL, which is new tonight, with TV on the Radio as the musical guest. Cuddle with my sugarpuss, who seems to be growing ever sweeter as our time together draws to a close, as if to be certain to break my heart when the time for separation arrives.

Another amazing day

Another amazing day, my third in a row. The kind of day where you keep getting to the bus stop RIGHT BEFORE the bus arrives. I sort of only have two speeds: ultra-focused or a complete mess. But when I’m really focused, I am unstoppable. In just three days I’ve done a considerable portion of what I need to do to get ready to move, including lots of sorting of clothes, boxing of stuff, selling my bike, got 4 big apple boxes from Safeway yesterday, and may have found a good home for Lucy as well – she’s going to get back to me this weekend. Woke up this morning, had a light breakfast of Caesar salad (been eating it morning noon and night since I bought a big bag that will go bad soon) and tea, exercised, worked on my artist resume which I hadn’t touched since I lived in the Melcliff, submitted “Mistress Violet” to Butt Magazine (I sent them “Natural Born Faggot” a while back but it’s too long and I’m sure they won’t be able to use it). Spoke with Pat yesterday, I’m meeting with him tomorrow for the Hat Party piece, also discussed my birthday/farewell gathering and he said we can probably have the patio which is AWESOME, the Chameleon’s patio would be perfect! I took the "art pig" photo above the other day on NW 23rd Ave while scouting my cousin's old house. Had my optician appointment at 2pm and went in with a combative attitude because I get so angry about how the PSU insurance doesn’t help one bit with vision and apparently there’s a law that says you have to update your eye prescription once a year (who wrote that law? opticians?) and then the guys turned out to be pretty nice and assured me I can have a copy of my prescription to transfer to Maui/San Fran and it will be good for a year, so then I calmed down and things went pretty well. Doc said my eyes have actually improved ever so slightly so my glasses prescription is a little too strong for me, but the stigmatism in my left eye has gotten a little bit worse, so it pretty much evens out. I asked him about the prescription law and he said for contacts its federal but for glasses it’s not and varies from state to state. He did that numbing/dilation test on me so for the next few hours I felt like everywhere I looked I was staring straight into the sun. I got a pair of lenses to try for a week and then go in and see if we need to change to something else. Then I bussed up to Minuteman where Patrick very kindly printed me a proof copy of my book on the spot as I waited in the showroom, and it looks really fantastic! Really I wasn’t expecting such quality for the price he quoted me, the images especially came out way better than I thought they would, since I hadn’t even prepped most of them for black and white. I’m going to make the final adjustments this weekend, then go back in Monday to drop off the absolute final version for printing. Then I went to the bead store on 48th & Division and fixed the bracelet I made ages ago when I worked for Susan Matlack Jones (before being fired due to my personality conflict with the incredibly annoying lesbian receptionist who picked at the scab under her nose and complained after coming back from a lengthy vacation), the girl working there was very nice and did the crimping and clasping for me, the part I don’t know how to do, so I gave her a little tip. The bracelet will be good to wear on the beach, I made it very African looking without consciously setting out to do so. Tomorrow I think my roommate will take me to UPS to ship my two boxes off to Maui. One thing I will NOT miss about Portland: walking along 82nd Ave. every day breathing car exhaust (benzene inhalation = hello leukemia!) On the way home stopped by Trader Joes and picked up some groceries including those butter waffle cookies that are devastating. There’s a cute boy working there who’s probably much too young for me. All in all, a productive day. I think it’s going to be like this from now until I leave. I’ve been sober for a week or two except for weed, and I’m going to stay that way, except that I will allow myself to drink on my birthday, if I’m good til then.

Temporal dissolution and gold styrofoam

Man alive, what a beautiful day. I sold my bike! Guy came over this morning, examined it, took it for a little spin up the road (he asked if I wanted to hold his wallet, but some people you just trust immediately), and said he’d take it! (One thing I’m going to miss about Portland: cute, skinny cycle boys.) He was only the second one to look at it, too. Now I’m trying to unload my computer but I don’t know if it’ll happen since the day of the desktop is over. Its selling point is that it comes with lots of expensive software (InDesign, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc.) pre-installed.

It was beautiful today in more than one way: the weather, for sure – an encouraging glimmer of spring. And also I was more active than I’ve been in awhile, fully emerged from my recent spell of winter doldrums. I spraypainted a mannequin head gold (for reasons known only to myself). It looks oddly beautiful, like a crumbled Egyptian statue. Afterwards I went out and about and had myself a productive day. Stopped by Justin & Emie’s to talk Art Police and get a new blue cloth bandage on my recent knife wound, which has healed very well. Then went to Goodwill in search of props for the film: a badge and bad art. Didn’t find either – well, there was plenty of bad art, but nothing that quite grabbed me the right way. (The perfect thing would be a painting of a cop hanging from a tree or being shot, then you’d have the art police in the film objecting to art depicting their death, it would make it kinda darkly funny.) Jean called to say she’d found the coolest vintage book on Lou Reed and the V.U. at Goodwill (which I had just left!) and asking if I wanted it but I stood firm by my policy of NO MORE STUFF. (I’m going to sell some of my books at Powell’s this week, except the precious few I just can’t live without.) Then to PSU where I took advantage of my dwindling student privileges to print out free copies of the finalized Art Police script. We are having a cast meeting I believe on Saturday then filming (at long last) next weekend.

After PSU I road the streetcar into Northwest, on a mission to find the house on the corner of 25th & Kearney where my cousin used to live. He can’t remember the house number and needs it for the book. I found it all right (photo above), a massive many-windowed dark old house with a gnarly witch tree in the hill-shaped front yard. There I felt an eerie sense of what I might call “temporal dissolution” – the sense of time being unreal, and of the lingering presence of another person who once stood right where you stand now. In other words, I tried to imagine my cousin walking out the front door as I stood on the steps. I didn’t bring a pen to write the house number down, just memorized it, then walked away and started thinking of other things and like a moron had forgotten it within ten blocks, so had to walk back and get the number again! (Memory isn’t what it used to be.) Nice day for walking, though, I didn’t much mind. Finally I picked up a few groceries at Trader Joe’s and checked to see if they had any boxes I could take for moving, and the stocker girl was very sweet to stop what she was doing and check for me, but they didn’t have any usable ones. (Where does one find cardboard boxes? Aside from buying them, which seems silly.)

Yesterday cousin Ant called from Bora Bora where he & J. are vacationing, he said there’s a place that opens into a hole in the ocean, so apparently there was a big round glass window IN THEIR HOTEL ROOM that opened directly into the sea – underwater! – and as we were talking a manta ray swam up and was playing right outside their window! Ant was yelling for J. to get the camera. The life they lead is the kind we used to watch on television shows about rich people. But I’m happy for my cousin. He and I both know what it’s like to live in evil welfare apartments in the small-town Midwest, where dreams are crushed and people cut off one another’s legs with lawn mowers for sport. He deserves his happiness. And he works hard, too. And I’m going to work while I’m there. It’ll be a vacation to be sure, and I’m sure as hell going to enjoy six months on Maui, but it’ll be an active enjoyment, not idle.

Now, let’s see, what do I have to get done before I leave? I’ve been stacking the deck heavily of late. I have three articles due to J.O. on the 23rd, including a substantial one on a gay porn star who has written a book about how to be a gay porn star (he just offered to put me in front of the camera after our interview!), plus three films I’m reviewing from PIFF; I’m volunteering at the Loveshow next Friday as an alcohol monitor (lizard?); shooting and editing a short film; publishing my book; hosting a going-away gathering on March 18th (with friends from Glacier visiting – Lisa who shares my birthday!), plus school stuff and everything I have to do to be ready to move. Hot damn, it’s a good thing I like being busy!

And on that note, I think I better go do some work. Kiss meow, glam

Art Police Revisited

I woke up the other night with two funny little fragments in my head, 1) "Gayness and alcoholism both run in my family. But alcoholism runs faster." 2) "Like a crackwhore without her crackpipe." The first one is almost good enough for a bumper sticker, but I don't have a car.

The image above was borrowed off the internet, I believe the title is Flyff Art Police by Artoki.

My laptop is back up after suddenly shutting down a couple weeks ago. Thank goodness it was just the power cord, and I've got the new one now. I had a momentary panic that the hard drive crashed, which would be devastating as my entire book that I've been working on for months, and many other things, could be wiped out in an instant. Now I can finally bring it in for printing! And then there's my little movie, "The Art Police," which has suffered from a lot of recent emotional turbulence and problems that have gotten in the way of being successfully creative for a while now. But something wonderful and unexpected has happened, and it turns out now that the recent delays and flake-outs on my part and changes of cast were for the best, possibly. What I mean is that I woke up this morning, after conjuring ideas for several hours, and wrote an entirely new and vastly better draft of the film. I now see that the first version was a rough draft and I hadn't held it in my mind long enough to really clearly envision it all. After finishing writing it in one burst (it's only about a 10-minute film anyhow!) I read it over and got excited, and became fully committed to it for the first time. Every single thing is better now, more fully fleshed, detailed stage directions, I THINK I finally have the perfect cast (if Audra agrees to take the part of the gallery owner, which I've totally written with an in-joke just for her), and most of all, the ending is actually....almost amazing. Much better than the others. And it makes a kind of intentionally ambiguous point, on the one hand condoning the need for self-love when you're an artist, and at the same time commenting on narcissism as well. So. I'd despaired of making this film several times recently, and thought how low I'd fallen if I couldn't even make one more short film before I leave Portland. And now I know it still IS going to happen, and better than before. I have to have it all edited and copied by March 1st so we can win the top prize at the Golden Coyote!

All righty then. I need to stop self-analyzing and go live my life now. My next post will be about politics or economics or rare imported China or something relevant like that.

The Only Faith I Need. And Being In Love. (Me??)

Where to pick up the pieces, and which pieces to pick up, those are my questions right now. Creatively I’m finally almost back on top. School, on the other hand, is not good...not good at all. I am so burnt out on it and have no motivation. Kind of stuck in this unpleasant stage between leaving one place and starting a brilliant new chapter. Six months on Maui! And San Francisco afterwards. I am the luckiest S.O.B. ever, and it's weird to have this one family member - and one so fabulous it's like I invented him myself out of some psychic need - care enough to extend this invitation to me, after living a life in which "family" has always been pretty much nonexistent, or else depressing and tragic to the point where I just have to shut it out to keep from going to pieces. And I've kind of been going to pieces lately.

Oddly - but not oddly for me, really - it's a new movie that's instigated a sort of landslide of emotions that has been threatening to bury me lately. It's Brideshead Revisited, the new film version, which came out late last year - I saw it alone in a theater full of elderly nursing home church people of some kind (I had to pick a Sunday afternoon!), who were probably all hooked on the '80s miniseries, and watched the film in total silence, then shuffled out, possibly completely offended by some of the bold changes in the new version (including the one brief kiss between Charles and Sebastian that brings the gay subtext to the surface, and the brilliant ending that switches Charles' conversion to Catholicism into a tolerance of faith despite his own professed atheism) - but it is these very changes that I love so much, I know I've been one of those people in the past who vehemently protests when someone does a modern "update" and changes an author's work, so this is an example of seeing the other side of that debate. Then again I haven't read the novel yet, although I purchased a copy I plan to read on Maui - with the poster imagery from the new film version on the cover! I may be the only one talking so passionately about this film, but hey, never stopped me before. And then of course there is Ben Whishaw, who I've already sung a thousand love songs to before, and his, in my opinion almost astonishing performance as Sebastian in the new version. I'm in the peculiar place of being enamored of this character on the one hand, wanting him to be real, wanting to know him, wanting to save him from self-destruction, and on the other hand feeling that he represents me, in some ways, more than any other character I've seen in a film in half of forever. But he's different than me, too, and Ben's performance is helping make me a better person. I've watched it a number of times recently with four different groups of people - definition of friendship: people you share your obsessions with! - and I study his character - his gentleness, his manner of speaking (God the British accent is hot! Maybe the hottest of all), just the look in his eyes - and take from it things I can use to improve my own personality. This is a roundabout way of saying that I'm in love - I really am, like head over heels, and this never happens to me - with a character from a film, and by extension, with the actor who portrayed him (there's no denying looks are part of the equation!) The unfortunate thing is that this being in love business can be dreadfully depressing - the worst soul ache a human can feel, I think, except maybe a mother losing her offspring, I'm guessing. It happened to me long ago with a real person, ONCE, and I simply couldn't bear the pain of it and made a resolution to never let it happen to me again, so I gave up love and sex and relationships and the whole thing and just said it's better to be alone, and that's how I've been forever. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe it's a harbinger of good things to come. I'm definitely approaching a major turning point.

I am so glad Sam Adams didn’t have to resign in the face of this artificial, tawdry, tabloid-in-a-teapot controversy. At the same time, I will say that I would never advocate damaging newspaper boxes because people don’t agree with your opinion, which apparently happened to Just Out. Marty Davis posted something a while back cautioning people to beware that everything they post on Facebook can be read by every major media outlet in Portland. I’m sure that caution wasn’t intended for me, because it’s probably pretty obvious that I’m not very shy when it comes to revealing personal thoughts as well as vehement opinions on virtually any subject. I COPIED my letter to WW’s editor to every major media outlet in Portland! I also sometimes write about some really personal stuff and put it up on public websites. I’m not fully sure why, some form of mass confession maybe, but also simply because I want people to know me, warts and all, and then I guess I really write a lot of it for myself, a self-psycho-analysis thing, and in case it's interesting enough for anyone else, why not share it? I don't really care if people know the less savory things about me or the sometimes severe mistakes I make or the more unhealthy impulses I sometimes succumb to. I don't want to hide anything. I disclose everything and I like people who are similarly honest and strong enough to make themselves as vulnerable as I sometimes do. I believe in myself and that is the only faith I need.

The prologue of my book - final version

I posted this a while back but I'm putting it back up because it's changed so much. (Another example of how the second or third or fifth draft is almost always much better than the first - don't let me forget that!)