Hetro- Metro- Retro-sexual

Festival activity has died down for the holidays, so I've been focusing on writing a follow-up movie to Butch Jamie. I guess you could call it a sequel, but that makes it sound so cliche, like it's the same movie twice. It's not like Jamie gets cast in another film as a man and dates another straight girl. No, we've been there, done that. This movie simply takes various plotlines from the end of Butch Jamie (which I won't give away if you haven't seen it yet) and creates a whole new movie out of them. This one I've tentatively titled Heterosexual Jill.


As you may know, one of the plotlines in Butch Jamie is about Jamie and Jill's relationship. Jill is straight and thinks Jamie is a man. Jamie isn't a man, so you can see the dilemma. Now...if they end up together, if they don't, how, why, what, who, where -- there's plenty of surprises to be had, so I won't go into much detail (the story isn't as cliche as it may sound). But regardless of how things turn out, there is obviously something interesting about that situation, something that deserves to be explored; that little something called sexuality....


Was Jill attracted to Jamie because she thought she was a man, or was she attracted to him because he's really a woman? If we want to get deep about it, we could say -- what is gender -- the way you present yourself, or who you are? And how does who you are change depending on the way you choose to represent yourself and how other people perceive you and relate to you?


So the film is a romantic comedy. I think the words "romantic comedy" are almost as bad as "sequel" -- cliche, generic, same-ol, same-ol. So...let's just call it a comedy with a "romantic element." The #1 question that people ask me is -- "Is there sex in it?" Well, let's say for now that...I'm trying. I'm trying to have sex in it. We'll see how that goes. I tell people that there often isn't sex in comedies, but that doesn't seem to make any difference to them. Then somehow we always end up talking about the LWord, and even though the LWord has a lot of sex in it, lesbians do like to complain about how the women are represented on the show. So picky, those lesbians.

But let's get back on topic. Heterosexual Jill. A follow-up comedy with a romantic element. The tagline might read "Hetro-sexual is the new Metro-sexual" (I don't really like that, but I'm just brainstorming. Maybe it could be something like "Hetro-sexual is so Retro-sexual." Although don't be fooled by the title -- the film will have lots of lesbians! Maybe the tagline should be "Lesbians may have sex in this movie." That will probably be better for sales). There may be some singing involved (not a "musical" as one may try to label it, but rather a film with singing....) We have Jill dealing with her sexuality, we have Jamie dealing with Jill, somehow we'll have Lola and David in there (again, I don't want to give away the ending to the first movie, so I'm tip-toeing around the plot with all four of the characters), we'll have a new character named Jose whose name rhymes with gay, we may have a girl named Ruby whose name rhymes with booby, and of course, we'll have Howard, the cat actor (Hey - Howard ryhmes with coward. I just noticed that. That must have been a subconscious choice on my part).



The story is still in development so anything can happen. But so far in my rough draft, we have Howard running around in mini tap shoes, Howard being chased by Jamie who is wearing a big black cat suit, and possibly Howard in a sombrero at some point. We'll see how it all goes down. Howard is shooting a movie, so the costume choices are endless. As Glen suggests in this draft, we could even dress Howard up as a dog. But -- that's just a little much, don't you think?

GLEN
Think of it - if we cast a cat in a dog's role, that would be something original. No one has ever done that before. Have you ever seen a movie where they've done that?

JAMIE
No.

GLEN
They have all sorts of small dog costumes - toy poodles, Chihuahuas, min pins...what was that other one? I suppose we could find a Pomeranian outfit.

JAMIE
(cracking a smile)
Maybe you could dress him up as a Great Dane and then build a really small set so that he looks bigger.

A dyke, a wig, and a funeral

As some of you may know, I have a short film out now on The Ultimate Lesbian Short Film Festival DVD. The film is called Half-Laughing, and it's a dramatic story with streaks of satiric humor. It's about a young dyke who goes home with a shaved head for her grandfather's funeral only to confront her mother, who wants her to wear a wig.



The story isn't what I'd call autobiographical, but I did have a very surreal experience with a wig and a funeral at one point. The film is more interesting than what really happened, so here's the trailer if you haven't seen it yet:



Also, here's the behind-the-scenes video with interviews with some of the actors. We shot the film a few years ago, and I just finished putting these interviews together! Finally off my to-do list! :)

Chi Kind of Town

Right before I went to the Long Island G&L Film Festival (here's a link to my Long Island blog entry), I went to Chicago to represent Butch Jamie at Reeling, the Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival. I'd never been to Chi-town before (that's what the locals call Chicago; at first I thought it meant Chinatown, but it doesn't. Also, the "chi" is pronounced like "shy."), so I stayed a couple extra days to sight-see.



Above are pictures from Millennium Park, an outdoor center for art, music, architecture, and landscape design. I loved it -- it was one of the highlights of my trip. The park cost $145 million to build although it's free to go to, and it opened only a couple of years ago. It gives Chicago a very modern feel. I spent several hours looking around, taking photos, listening to this awesome soundscape thing they had (shown in the second picture above), and then after it got dark, I watched an artsy video presentation with images of glaciers and human figures. The whole place was kind of like an outdoor museum. There were several sculptures, including a big, metal sphere/blob thing that reflect's Chicago's skyline.




Here are some reflections of the sphere taken from my camera phone at night:



As for the film festival, it was a lot of fun. We had a Friday night screening of Butch Jamie with an after-party at a local hangout. Saturday night I went to another party where I met Peter and CeJae, two guys who had seen the movie the night before.



CeJae (the one in the second picture) wanted to pretend that he was my girlfriend for the night. I let him kiss my cheek for the photo, but that was it.

Sunday I interviewed with Tello Films, a new online video site that features films for/by/about lesbians. The interview isn't up yet, but I'll keep you updated.

After my interview, I met up with some other filmmakers and actors for brunch.


So that's it for Chicago--I hope to be back again soon. It's my new favorite city!

I Fought the Cat and the Cat Won

I found out a few days ago that Butch Jamie won The Long Island Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Jury Award for "Best Female Feature"!


(if you want to see a couple of photos from the festival, here's a link to my blog entry about Long Island)

This is the second award for the film; last July, the film and I won the Outfest Jury Award for "Outstanding Actress." I have pictures from Outfest posted on our webpage, so I won't bore you with those. But I do have one special one that has never before been seen. I had to bribe my stalker to get a copy:


It's a pic of me signing some autographs after our Outfest screening in L.A. a couple of months ago. I know it kind of looks like one of those obscure photos of Big Foot or a UFO sighting since it's far away and a little blurry, but if you look really closely, you can see the back of my shoulder.


Now those of you who have seen the film know that my rival in this biz is Howard, the cat actor. Make no mistake about it - in real life we are no different. Howard has not won an acting award or signed any autographs, yet people often tell me that the cat is the one who steals the show. Posted below is an outtake from the film of me and Howard improvising a scene where I'm trying to convince him to eat cat food at an audition. One lady told me that the cat's brilliance is that in every single argument he and I had, the cat won. But take a look at the clip and see what you think; I think I may have won this one.

The F Word

I found out today that I will be a contributing author for a feminist anthology! I wrote an essay a couple months ago about my relationship to feminism - how it's changed over the years from my women's college days and Sociology studies, to now with the representation of gender roles and stereotypes in Butch Jamie. The book is called What We Think: Gender Roles, Women's Issues and Feminism in the 21st Century: An Anthology, and it is being put together by Liquid Words Productions. They contacted me after seeing Butch Jamie at The Michigan Womyn's Music and Film Festival. They are currently looking for a publisher, and it is expected to be released in the Spring or Summer of 2008. There will also be a book tour; I want to attend in a couple of cities if possible, so I'll keep you updated!

BTW, the "F Word" in my blog title refers to feminism. It's kind of a joke but also kind of not since apparently the word is somewhat of a stigma for younger generations. Part of the book's aim is to determine where feminism has gone wrong and what the solutions are. Although the other F word, the original one, is cool too. Fuck yeah.

In other news, my sister Kirsten is pregnant with twin girls!


Kirsten has a small part in Butch Jamie as the producer in Femme Jamie's audition; she's the one who yells at my character. I tried to tell her that she wasn't type cast but I don't know if she believes me.

At any rate, those will be her first kids and my first nieces, so that'll be exciting. She lives in Missouri with my parents. We grew up in the O.C. but they all moved to the Ozarks. I told a friend of mine a couple of years ago that my family lives in the Ozarks and after I talked about it for a minute she said - "Dude, I thought you were joking!" So I guess it's a joke all in itself, no punchline needed. To round out this lil' discussion, I'll throw in a couple of pics from the Ozark shootin' range taken awhile back.




The last pic is me trying to look bad ass, but really I just look bad.

Long-Giland, lesbian style

A couple weeks ago Butch Jamie screened as the Closing Night Women's Film at the Long Island Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. I've never been to Long Island before and I thought it was really pretty. After the screening for the movie, there was an after-party, or "Gala" as they call it.


Here's a pic with my friend Sabra who took the train in from NYC. We went to Smith College together back in the 90's. That was in the 1900's before wireless internet and text messaging (I had a new computer ten years ago that had a 1GB hardrive; now I have a chip in my cell phone that is 1GB. I don't know if anyone else thinks that's amazing, but I sure do!) I haven't seen her in several years, but she read about the film in the Alumnae Quarterly and we got back in touch.


This is a pic with me and some of the other women at the party. As you can see, it's pretty casual for a Gala. It's called "lesbian style." Sabra is kind of dressed up but she's not a lesbian. Although it is true that you can't generalize because "lesbian style" in L.A. where I live is pretty fancy. They're a different species out here. Although being one of only a few butches in a city full of femmes does have its perks...

Below is a pic with Casper Andreas, the director from "A Four Letter Word," which was the Closing Night Men's Film.


...I think Casper is standing on a step or something. That must be why I look so short.

After the party, I interviewed for a local show called The Long Island Rainbow Connection (does that remind anyone else of Kermit the Frog? I looked up that song on YouTube but it's kind of boring. Kermit's cute, though. I used to want to be him when I was a kid). The interview won't be ready until January, so I'll post it then.

Well, that's all for today. I'll be back!

Naked Men in LA LA Land

Naked Boys Singing, the movie that lives up to its title. When I got back from the Portland festival, I went to the L.A. premiere of Naked Boys Singing. I met one of the directors, Troy Christian, and 2 of the actors at the film festival in Tampa, so I wanted to check it out and see what all this penis hype was about.

I do think I was the only lesbian there. I don't mind representin' my peeps, although I don't know if I can speak for everybody when I say that I was fascinated at the spectacle! 10 bouncing penises for an hour and a half -- it was unlike anything I had ever seen! I'm sure I found it much more educational than the gay men or straight women in the audience, although they may have gotten some other benefits out of the whole experience as well. Oh, and the singing and dancing were good, too...


Above is a pic taken with one of the film's actors, Kevin Stea, now fully clothed. He's in the middle and on the left is Chad Allen. Chad and his penis are not to be seen in this movie, although he does appear in several other movies without his penis. Well, he doesn't appear without his penis, but he appears while he penis doesn't. Ok, 'nuff said.


A few days after I went to Naked Boys Singing, my friend Karen and I did the L.A. AIDS Walk. For those of you who don't live near West Hollywood, the nun-looking people in the pic are the infamous WeHo drag nuns. I'm not sure what name they go by, but I guess WeHo drag nuns makes sense, or maybe something like "drag queens with bad habits."

The walk was a lot of fun -- if any of you are thinking about doing it next year, you definitely should. You walk 6 miles while eating free ice cream, cookies, and potato chips. I think I gained weight during the walk, but what the hell - it was for charity.

Ballerina Butches and more - oh my!

Hey, hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. I went to my friend David's, the same one who's in Butch Jamie. He played my gay, Asian friend named David in the movie, so the role was quite a stretch for him. David is an amazing cook and he made the biggest Thanksgiving dinner I have ever seen! He's not even an American, so that makes it extra cute. I don't have any photos from the dinner, but here's a pic of him onset:


So I'll pick up where I left off with my last entry. After I went to Tampa, I flew directly to Portland to represent the movie at their Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Portland was more low-key than Tampa, but still cool. There I met Kathy Belge, who is "Dipstick" from the Lipstick and Dipstick advice column in Curve magazine. She lives in Portland and was there to introduce the screening.


Here's a picture of us butchin' it up. I just noticed how both of her hands are in fists and mine has that slightly femmy straying pinky. Well...I guess I may as well come out and say it. ...I'm not really all that butch. Take a look at this video (it's terrible, I know) --



That's an excerpt from Ballet Diesel, a mockumentary short I made a few years ago. The film is fictional, but it is true that my girlfriend used to call me "Ballet Diesel" because she thought I looked like a diesel dyke but walked like a ballerina. I don't really walk like a ballerina, but I suppose everyone's entitled to their own opinion. Anyway, Iron Rod Motion Pictures is planning to distribute it soon on a DVD compilation, so I'll keep you updated on that. The other woman in the film is Leah Williamson (she's the one who said I looked like a ballerina in real life; she used to be my girlfriend but now we're just good friends. I live in L.A. and she's in Upstate NY, so I make sure to tell her on the phone how butch I am now). Leah helped me produce Butch Jamie and when I was in Tampa, she was representing the film at the Image Out festival in Rochester. Here are some pics:





So that's it for today. I'll be back again soon!

The Tampa Paparazzi

Welcome to my first blog entry! I've had some fun adventures lately in conjunction with my film, "Butch Jamie." For those of you who aren't familiar with the film, you can check out the trailer and more at www.butchjamie.com

OK, how about we start with the Tampa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival which I went to last month. It was a blast -- lots of cool people and great parties.















This photo above is great. I look like I just escaped from the hospital with my blotchy face, wrist band, and dixie cup. The gentleman on the far left is Duncan Roy, the director of "The Picture of Dorian Gray." I think he is pretending that he's Kenny from "South Park."


















Here we are onstage. The festival programmer, Roberta Munroe, introduced us at all of the screenings so that we could promote our films. I guess no one told me that we were all supposed to look off to the right...















Here we are hanging out in the Green Room backstage. This photo is a great one of Duncan picking his teeth and me looking up at the ceiling with a goofy look on my face. I think that if we ever get famous enough to have the paparazzi care about us, Duncan and I should take classes.















These are from the "Frisky Friday" girls party. Here I met Elizabeth and Jill who had seen two of my shorts, "Ballet Diesel" and "Half-Laughing." They told me that they were very excited to see my new movie; I had no idea that I already had fans! Elizabeth, the one on the right, interviewed me for ImGay.tv, featured at the top of this page.


Well, that's all for today. I have some more festival photos that I'll show you soon! To be continued...