My good friend and co-star from Butch Jamie, David Au, now has a short film that he wrote and directed on LOGO called Fresh Like Strawberries. It already premiered on the channel (I found out about it too late), but it'll be re-running periodically. You can also watch it on LOGO's website.
David shot the film while we were at L.A. Film School, during the time I made Half-Laughing. Our production schedules conflicted with each other, but I was able to edit his film in addition to crewing on some of his other films, and he worked on my other films as well.
He's now in the process of finishing up a feature-length version (still untitled) of his short. It's a great character-driven script with a strong gay subplot, lots of comedic relief (something not in the short), and some hot guy on guy action as well (also not in the short - sorry guys). If all goes well with finding money for the production, we could be working on it at some point next year.
If you came here to read something Butch Jamie related, my producing partner recently wrote a "Fun Facts" post that you can read here. Otherwise, I wanted to share with you some points of interest about Sarah Palin that were brought to my attention since my last post.
If you want to read more about the Palin controversy, check out a blog called Women Against Sarah Palin. Today there's a great post by Republican women who refuse to vote for McCain/Palin. My favorite was a quote that somebody included from Mark Twain - "Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it."
You can also read a posting about Palin that my Christian yet pro-Obama friend wrote on her blog here. Since she has many Christian friends, her posting sparked some controversy, although I'm glad to know that not all Christians are "against" us.
My mom sent me a link to a PSA that was put out independently by the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. Palin has a terrible pro-wildlife record, from shooting wolves by aircraft to even arguing with Bush to remove polar bears from the endangered species list. Since Palin is a supposed advocate of "pro-life," I would urge her to realize that life does not just refer to people.
I used to work in the media center for a non-profit environmental and consumer advocacy organization called PIRG, and I still occasionally take on assignments for them. Last month, I videotaped interviews of former PIRG employees and asked them, "What do you think is the most important environmental issue today?" 4 out of every 5 people said the same thing - global warming.
Sarah Palin, however, doesn't believe in global warming, as if it's some sort of passe theory. Or rather, "part of God's plan," as she calls it. I wonder if unnecessary human violence against wolves and other animals is part of God's plan as well?
Two people have passed along to me a moving essay about all of this that was written by Eve Ensler, pasted below from The Huffington Post. I hope you will pass it along as well.
Drill, Drill, Drill By Eve Ensler
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.
She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?
As usual, it's been far too long since I last wrote. With the presidential campaign in full swing, I wanted to post a great SNL skit with lesbian heart throb (as I call her anyway) Tina Fey as Gov. Palin and Amy Poehler as Senator Clinton.
When I first learned that McCain had chosen Palin for his running mate, I thought it was a smart move for the Republican party to choose a woman. Then of course, after I found out more about her, I realized it wasn't such a smart choice after all. I hoped that would mean good news for us Democrats, but ironically, people seem to be taken with her. As much as I don't like McCain, it's scary to think that I actually like him more than Palin. If he kicks the bucket while he's in the White House, we're all in trouble. If he even gets to the White House, we're all in trouble. My Dad, who's been a Republican all his life, eventually swung over to the left after W came along. As he keeps saying, "Come on people - it's the 21st century - wake up."
My good friend and co-star from Butch Jamie, David Au, now has a short film that he wrote and directed on LOGO called Fresh Like Strawberries. It already premiered on the channel (I found out about it too late), but it'll be re-running periodically. You can also watch it on LOGO's website.
