My sweetie modeled t-shirts as a fundraiser for a great documentary film THE QUEEN FROM VIRGINIA, about a Vietnamese refugee who wins the Ms. Virginia Senior America pageant. Message? We're all Beauty Queens; so go buy your t-shirt and wear it with pride!
Oh, and Dumbledore is gay (a whole other kind of queen)!
Last night we frolicked in West Hollywood in support of our friends (Michelle Wolff & Jill Bennett) who frolicked on-screen in tight clothing in beachy surroundings for the premiere of Dante's Cove.
Imagine my delight this morning, when I found an email from Clay Drinko with a YouTube link to the Lesbians: The Video where my sweetie and I cavort around in tight clothing in beachy surroundings!
[2 of my favorite redheads... Ida Dunham (aka Todd Sherry) + my Sweetie]
It was fabulous and hysterical and touching all at once...
My sweetie interns for the incredible gentlemen (Patrick Rush Casting) who put the amazing
"Best in Drag Show" shindig together, and it was an honor to be there
supporting their hard work. And as the crack sportswriter Kaki Flynn
puts it: since we "were four lesbians in a sea of thousands of gay men"
it was even more of a hoot, especially watching the celebrity judges
out-$-pledge Kathy Griffin to annoy her in the best way possible.
Sitting in the audience of the AID for AIDS benefit last night, tossing wadded-up dollar bills at drag queens and tearing up as check dedications like "In loving memory of my twin brother David" were read aloud from the stage, I realized that I hadn't attended an AIDS fund-raiser in person in years. If I'd written a dedication, there would be too many names to fit on the check. These events are always entertaining and always fun, and always tend to rip my heart out in the end.
My 20's are hitting me like a Mack truck lately; My salad days back in NYC, writing coming out plays off-off-Broadway, attending lesbian avenger kiss-in's, volunteering at GMHC, writing for Total New York, caring for my contemporaries with HIV and AIDS, discovering the City and myself and the outer boundaries of human suffering, cruelty and kindness. That was when I went to several AIDS benefits a week.
Guns have trigger locks; shouldn't memories? Some warning, at least - caution: emotions in mirror are closer than they appear.
Driving home from the benefit last night I realized how much I needed the literal change of perspective to L.A.. I had to break out of my comfort zone back East and scramble my point of view. It's a shame that it took all this heartache and money and frequent flier miles to figure it out. Can't wait to write NOW.
You asked for it, and now w/o further ado... Top Gun: The Musical (promo for the 2007 Seattle L&G Film Fest)!
I spent the holiest day of the year contemplating my life while driving to the dealership to get my 5,000 mile tune-up. It had been 316 days since I "moved" to L.A. In quotes because I've been in the Jet Blue NeverNeverLand of bicoastal limbo for most of those moons.
All the milestones of Los Angeles - getting a car, an apartment, a writing gig - didn't wed me to this place like I thought they would. Then I thought "Once my girlfriend and cat join me out West, THEN I'll really be here." But packing up my NYC apartment to sublet two weeks ago was a terribly final act. Now each trip East will be a visit, not to "Home." The day we left with packed bags felt like the true Yom Kippur. I surveyed the eerily empty space and thought of the loved ones lost, the loved ones ill, the loved ones far away and the amends I need to make. During the High Holy Days I write up a list, New Year's resolutions of sorts. This year I scribbled mine, behind schedule, while sitting in Toyota of Orange's service waiting room.
I began 5768 with family and the big move, only to fall down en route to an important meeting and be whisked away in an ambulance. I'm not a fan of hospitals, but at least nothing was broken and I got a nifty pair of crutches that my sweetie insisted I actually use.
Immobile on the couch, I got a chance to catch up on Tivo and contemplate being inscribed in the Book of Life for the coming year. Mostly, I just prayed that my ailing friends and family recover and return to life in all senses. And that no more of my beloved pets would perish in the near future. It's been a bumpy 5,000+ miles.
You know what was at the end of this stormy Yom Kippur? A freakin' rainbow over the 101. Now THAT'S the way to start off the year right.
It's happened again. This performing thing. Since virtually all theater geeks start out on the stage, and I'm a theater geek (Broadway Musical Theater Geek, no less), it seems inevitable that I'd wind up singing (well, lip-syncing) and dancing (yes, me dancing) in a musical. It's not unprecedented, but certainly surprising, given that I moved to L.A. to write films, that I'd be playing Iceman (Val Kilmer - that's me on the left, a little more butch than usual) in a short musical spoof of TOP GUN. It'll be a trailer for the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, directed by David Quantic and scored & choreographed by a gaggle of talented guys. It's truly a hoot. No doubt inspired by this gay recut of the original TOP GUN's trailer here...
This week I've been editing clips of my lovely and talented gf for her reel, but it occurs to me, that I could probably string together a few hysterical bits for my reel, if I had one. And this would now be the featured clip, as I'm one of the "stars." OK, writing that just makes me crack up. I'm sure I was like the 4th or 5th choice, considering I'm uncoordinated and there is quite a lot of dancing going on - behind me, to make me look good. So nice of those very talented and trained triple threats to back a ham like me.
As I told the director, I'm just happy to support queer film, esp anything musical. I haven't been such a goof since... since... playing an uncoordinated dancing dyke in LESBIANS: the music video.
How appropriate that I worked at NewFest, then Outfest, and will be seen onscreen at Seattle L&G FF. I'm just doing the queer film circuit again, in a manner of speaking. I'll post screening/viewing info when it becomes available.
OK, so I was sitting here at my computer trying to do some rewrites. OK, so I was sitting here researching making a homemade in-car camera-mount. OK, so I was watching car-mounted video online. OK, so I was sitting here at my computer when my first real L.A. earthquake rolled through, shoving my chair around the office and nearly bonking my head with a falling lamp. Blaaaaaa!!!
Like any good geek, I logged on to the US Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program and found that I'd just experienced a 4.5 local magnitude shock from an epicenter about 25 miles away in Chatsworth.
Now, I lived through a much more violent 5.5 quake in Hiroshima, Japan back in 1989, that literally shook me out of bed and buckled the local roads. (OK, so it didn't help that I was still slightly drunk from the opening night party a few hours prior...) It was then that I swore never to move to a geographically unstable part of the world, so, of course I set up house in Los Angeles. Not that New York City was such a disaster-free zone, esp considering the flooded subways and Brooklyn Tornado this week...
I'm just saying, in an already not-my-favorite day, capping it off with an earthquake just before bed does not add to the favorability factor. Makes me glad I was paranoid about assembling an emergency preparedness kit. I know it's only the transplanted East Coasters who do it, much to the non-challance and slight dismay of native Angelenos, but I think it's money well-spent for a little peace of mind.
And now I'm off to try and get some shaky sleep.
