Thursday, January 31, 2013

Goodbye Ladies--For Now


Hillary and Tina, thank you for everything. 
The next ticket for 2016?

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Divide and Slide: Boy Scouts Asunder


I say, let the homophobes who feel the need to leave, leave.

They can start their own National Scouting troupes. Call them what they will. Straight Arrow Scouts, Scouts for a Hateful Jesus, We Hate Boys Who Sing Scouts.

Since the Boy Scouts of America will no longer uphold discrimination, it appears the only way to keep the discrimination pure is to form a divided-but-equal hold on the outdoorsy souls of boys and young men. Go for it. Divide. Like the Anglican Church. Set up HQ in Africa.

And what a better time for such a move than in 2013? Isn’t this the era when it makes perfect sense to make sure the core principle that disallows boys and young men who are not heterosexual to hike and canoe and make lanyard key chains? Take a stand. Do it.

The irony about these God-fearing bigoted people is they think everything is about sex. Hell, what if some very effeminate kid wants to be in the scouts because it gives him a great sense of feeling included and it is not even that much about ejaculate? What if that kid (or counselor) loves the smell of campfire smoked jeans just as much as everyone else? What if a kid DOES get aroused by another kid—which happens to most boys, naturally, sometime between Webelo and Eagle Scout—and it ends up “being consummated?” Well, wouldn’t a simpler rule be, “Hey, no fucking in the tents!” 

And what the hell is a man and/or sexual orientation these days, anyway, when all you see on shopping bags are the gorgeous bare tits of hot young guys that advertisers know turn everyone on?  (And why, at this point, is it at all illegal to show female breasts? Bras on hot young women are the burkas of the last century. Rip off those bras, girls, and let’s see those yummy mounds on every billboard from Bangor to Death Valley.)

This ancient scream of using religion as an excuse for discrimination, the hysteria surrounding the changing idea of male identity, the moronic stance that sexuality can be controlled by contempt and violent rejection, is enough to make me want to help a little old lady cross a street, in earnest.

Boy Scouts---we kind of know you caved under financial pressure. Let’s face it—so many of your former members are queer, gay, bent and bonny—and as we all know, any gay child who succeeds through the boy scouts grows up to become extremely wealthy. You couldn’t turn your back on those greenbacks. I applaud your passive-aggressive half measure. Pull away and let the bigots twist and die, like slugs under a salt pile. Let those shell-less mollusks slither to their graves, leaving a trail of hate-slime as they whither into 2014. (I say with love.)

But onto operational problem solving:

Frankly, my memory of scout behavior is one of chaste, incredibly dorky asexual propriety. All appearances will be maintained if everyone just quietly keeps that up. (But let’s face it---that’s kind of hot, too.)




Tuesday, January 29, 2013

A Saying


Disgust is a cover up for longing.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Even Tough Birds Get the Blues


Sticks and stones and shit like that…

Weird thing is…the scads of humans that are repulsed by homosexuals and let their voice rip loud and clear—some of them even sentencing gay people to death---is something that I try not to think about too much.

Of course, when I hear the “religious” freak haters, I grow furious. But then I have other things to do. When I hear about the Eastern Hemisphere nations that throw gay people into jails and even kill them for their simple nature, I am terrified, furious and sad.

I used to think the look in the eyes of some gay men, you know the look---sort of like they are recoiling from a baseball bat coming at them—a weird frozen look of fear---well, I thought that had to do with some soft girly whatever the hell…

But I think it is the look of alienated terror. They are recoiling from the part of themselves that knows they are despised. That they are targets is too much to bear, so they remove themselves, somewhat, and you can see it in their bolting, fast, sad, darting eyes. At least the men.

Lesbians, in their alienation and fear, their eyes look more flattened out, expressionless.

Of course…I am speaking in generalities and only about a sub-group of these groups. But I do believe gay people are traumatized, still, and they pull in. And in some, you can see it in their eyes.

Poor little dears. They must all come over, young and old, to my house for minestrone.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Hitchcock


I Loved Hitchcock. Thank you SAG-Aftra for the screener. A subtle story…of Hitchcock learning to appreciate his wife while struggling to make Psycho.  I never saw Anthony Hopkins. All I saw was this bloated, wry whack of a Hitchcock man. So brilliant. And Helen Mirren, always good, stood up to him well.

Scarlett Johansson?  Beautiful. And got Janet Leigh down.  I love Scarlett and want to work with her one day. Like, tomorrow?

Beautifully directed by Sacha Gervasi, you didn’t want to miss a single frame. Surprising scenes, which is appreciated in this smart, slowly opening story. Plus, just enough memorable references to Psycho, that you feel grounded. You root for Psycho to be a successful movie. You root for everyone. And not because they are such great people---but because they are flawed in a flawed world, with their eyes wide open. (Toni Collette. How can I forget Toni Collette? The full blown seen-it-all, do-it-all assistant-plus.)


The movie has not made a load of money. But I think it may have a long life. It’s so enjoyable and looks lovely on a big flatty. Get it on your flatty!

See this movie. It isn’t huge. Its charms lie in the fun and fear of movie making and the obsessions that drive people. And, of course, the fabulous acting.

I do wonder if this light positive movie is a riposte to the HBO film The Girl, about Hitchcock’s unsavory behavior toward Tippi Hendren during the filming of The Birds.

But who cares?

Fully satisfying.

Monday, January 21, 2013

First Inaugural Use of the Word "Gay"

Come March, the court should do the right thing and simplify our equality.

Call me gay, but I like things neat. No more patchwork rules across arbitrary lines.

First Inaugural Use of the Word "Gay":

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/first-inaugural-use-of-the-word-gay-86499.html

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Sometimes, You Just Need a Dictator


Thank You King Cuomo for the speedy gun laws in New York.

May the other despots of safety in the other rational states follow suit.

The rest of you, living in those gun loving red states, have fun. Kevlar for breakfast. Kevlar for lunch. Kevlar for dinner.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

FREE TIX ACROSS THE COUNTRY: Chasing Ice

From My Good Friend, Martin. Have at it:

I've just received free promotional tickets though an environmental group (Green Drinks -http://www.greendrinksnyc.com/) for a critically acclaimed environmental documentary called "Chasing Ice" that I think will prove to be an important film and an Oscar contender. Use the instructions below to get tickets for shows this weekend:

Chasing Ice is an environmental documentary film, listed in the top 15 best documentaries for the Oscars, coming to Manhattan/New York City, January 18-24!
"You've never seen images like this: it deserves to be seen and felt on the big screen." - Robert Redford
Generous support of a grant from the Kendeda Fund is allowing people to see the film for  free to support education and outreach. This program features a limited number of  complimentary tickets, on an invitational basis, to openings in select cities - including Manhattan/New York City!

To claim your complimentary tickets, please click on the below link and use the below group code.


GROUP CODE: GREENDR

Please feel free to distribute this offer to staff, students, volunteers, board members, donors, friends and family.

ABOUT THE FILM 
Chasing Ice follows acclaimed photographer James Balog on an epic journey as he deploys time-lapse cameras at glaciers around the world. His hauntingly beautiful images compress years into seconds, capturing ancient mountains of ice in motion. This revolutionary imagery reveals ice disappearing at a breathtaking rate.  Journeying across the brutal Arctic with a team of young adventurers, Balog risks everything to capture the biggest story facing humanity.

After premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the award for Excellence in Cinematography, Chasing Ice has gone on to screen at more than 50 festivals around the world, winning 23 awards from international audiences, and been released nationwide in select cities. To learn more, check out www.chasingice.com and view the trailer.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Jodie Bananas Foster


I mean---wouldn’t it have been so much easier to simply accept that award, talk about her work, keep her life private?

She sort of came out already. Why do that weird dance? It’s like---she was pissed off that she had been forced to come out to begin with and she was letting the world know it. But sort of people pleasing, too.

Deep down, I believe the “keeping things private” thing is a load of hogwash. Sure, you keep your secrets about really private stuff…because much of it is too intimate or embarrassing. But being gay is not that intimate a subject any longer or an embarrassment. Unless, of course, it is to you. And you are annoyed that people are putting you in a crappy position.

In my twenties, when I was sexual bait for all kinds of genders, I knew it was a point of power to not let people know about my exact sexuality. Because I was primarily an actor then, it was also important that I hid the truth about my ass (I use the term as in “my being”). I used to have horrible daydreams that I would be interviewed by Barbara Walters and she would force me, in her B.W. way, to “Tell America what they really want to know,” and I would get furious! Though I might have been a tad insane to even ruminate about such a thing, I imagined she was using my “misfortune” to create some sort of sensational segment on her show—in collusion with the homophobes of America who want to see someone squirm. I was furious that Barbara took on the least common denominator of American opinion about a subject, sat with it as if it was hers, and then exploited it. Yes. I felt exploited.

Yeah, all that. It’s no wonder I was so tired in my twenties.

But instead, I never was interviewed by Barbara Walters and the terrified young gay person I was, having his own regressive Walter Mitty field day, soldiered on until it was no longer uncomfortable. It is horrible to imagine being exposed if in the long run you imagine it will harm you.

Jodie Foster is so talented and smart and beautiful. And appears to be a person with a lot of integrity. I think she should have passed on the half coming out confirming thing and could have chosen to just focus on her life’s work in her speech. By watching her behavior, the whole sexuality thing is something she is not publicly comfortable with…the strange unfocused talking, the repetitive nervous knocking on the dais, that she should have left it alone. She looked scared and unhappy, roasting on a spit of terror. That does not instill confidence in other gay people.

It is not Jodie’s job to be comfortable or uncomfortable. But I do believe there is an art to being truthful. She stumbled with it. I so wish her well. I wish I could calmly hold her in my lap and stroke her hair and say, “Give Me That Hair!”  No, I wish I could stroke her head and say, “Jodie, really, it’s no big deal. You are loved. Let it go. Sexual preference announcements are so 2011. Carry on, girl and love yourself, fully, for who you are. That’s what we want to see.”

Sometimes, too, humor works. 

Monday, January 14, 2013

Spring Thoughts


As it rains---and warms, the trees are going to bud. Before Ground Hog Day. When the ground hog rears its head to look around, it will probably screech and escape back into its hole as it will assume Armageddon has arrived.

For many days, it was as cold in Los Angeles as it was warm in New York. Within a degree. The lemon tree at my Los Angeles house is dead, probably more from an iron deficiency than from the weather. I wish it had lived. Dying by lack of iron is a long slow death. Dying by frost is zippy.

I have a book here, Cheever’s biography, given to me by people I no longer care for. It is propping up my computer. Perhaps it is time to spring clean it out.

Speaking of books…it is weird to be of the generation that went from complete paper to almost entirely digital. I long for felt boards, finger paint and craft days.

2013 is the year of Lena Dunham. I hope she is being responsible. She is so smart and talented. I imagine she has made some ass kicking dioramas in her life.

Less caffeine. More sleep. Less worry. More devil-may-care.

What else is there but the planet? Without it, we won’t even have a place to experience time.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

The Impossible


It is impossible to me that this movie was made at all. It was so real looking, and so horrible, that I have to say: it was the best movie I have ever seen that I wish I never saw.

When disaster films were over-the-top, fictional and somewhat campy, you could take them. Think Poseidon Adventure. But when you make it as real as possible, somehow, it ceases to be entertainment and just becomes pure torture.

I applaud the movie. It was harrowing. But it was extremely disturbing at the most basic level of survival and engaged my lizard brain a bit too deeply. Natural random destruction (the 2004 tsunami) followed by injuries and separation from family, then chaos with a refugee feeling followed by possible death from infection. We screamed and cried. There is an ending that would make you think it was worth the torture. I don’t know…

These HD televisions can be personal electronic trauma machines.

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Sometimes...

Even the Gold Mime Statue Guy needs to rest...


Monday, January 07, 2013

I Like GIRLS


I am sure there have been many things written about GIRLS, Lena Dunham’s HBO hit…but I have read none of it.

For the new year, we buckled down and got ourselves full-on cable. We’ve been catching up with on-Demand HD enjoyables night and day.

I love ENLIGHTENED.  I love GIRLS.  Judge me. Whatever you need to do.

But frankly, every time “Hannah” rips off her shirt to reveal her small yet fat boobs in a state of sexual excitability, I just want to scream, and I do, “You brave soul.”

Hate or love these Brooklyn baffoons…I think that’s the point. It’s kind of both. And it’s funny and sad and it won’t end well for any of them, not really. And they know it.

What a generation.

But you know…people grow up and they leave Brooklyn…or at least move to Park Slope.

Until then—watching misspent youth misspend it is enjoyable.


Sunday, January 06, 2013

Illness is Existential


I am not ill, though my husband is as are so many other hacking filthy sneezers on every street corner.

I believe in flu shots and vitamins.

However---I think people are suffering from a few varieties of cold/flu/hell right now. Poor things.

So I got to thinking about life forms that cause misery. And really, these nasty viruses are only doing their nasty dance by accident. I mean---by random mutations, these little beasts, which are barely animals, cause people to sneeze and hack so they can go on living in other beasts. There was no reason for this. It is not intelligent. It was a mistake that turned out to cause the continuation of these things. They don’t know what they are doing. They have no intention. They simply are. Like the lilies in the field?

Some people are freaked out by randomness. It gives me peace. Accepting what is random is really the highest form of acceptance. And then, there is no need to talk of God. Because when you are in that state of full acceptance, that “God feeling” of oneness is all around you.

Frankly—there is no real argument between atheists and God-lovers. There is only one absolute truth: We are here.

Thursday, January 03, 2013

BOX gets a SPOT...at THE HOOVER DAM!

Hello Friends,

Though I have not been announcing our rejections, because, you know, that's not fun...

Here is our first acceptance, which is, of course, joyful:

BOX will be screened under the Avant-Garde Billing (oh Yes---)...on Friday, February 8, in the afternoon. 12:15 - 1:15 PM. as part of the the DAM SHORT FILM FESTIVAL in  BOULDER CITY, NV. at the Boulder Theater.  (Which is owned, naturally, by Desi Arnaz, Jr.)

I'm gonna go. Join me for the west coastish premier of BOX.  :)

http://www.damshortfilm.org/

http://www.damshortfilm.org/2013-schedule-avant-garde-off-the-wall

Thanks for the support, all!



http://boxthemovie.wordpress.com/


Wednesday, January 02, 2013

Happy New Year!

From Charleston, SC.
Where the tides are wide.