MILK - does a body good

I don't know if there's been a historical movie that has so accurately spoken to a present day situation as MILK. The parallels between the movie and the recent activity over prop 8 is so similar that it's uncanny. It's almost as if the film is in direct response to the current political situation, yet it was filmed before any of it happened.

Of course, it's been "happening" for a very long time. A different decade, a different proposition, but the same idea over and over again. Do we deserve equal treatment, do we have a right to be protected under the law, do we have a place in our democracy and in our country.

The rallies and protests in the film against prop 6 closely echoed my experience with prop 8. The signs were the same, the chants were familiar, the emotions were identical. Just seeing the group of people in the movie rallying for GLBT rights got me choked up. It was the same feeling I had when I marched in the protest downtown last month. Feeling the energy of a group of people all passionate about the same thing is very moving.

MILK humanizes the gay political movement in a way that I believe no other movie ever has. What is the "gay agenda?" For Harvey Milk, it was helping to prevent suicide amount young gay people, who are 2-3 times more likely to be at risk. For people who say that the GLBT movement is selfish, that we don't think of the children and the family, or the impact any of this will have on the "fabric of society," I think it's clear that they aren't looking at the entire picture. We are the children, we are the family, we are part of society. We are a part of all those things. To not make a place for us undermines the value of all of it.

I sometimes think it's funny that I'm a lesbian, that I drew the right card at birth that enabled me to experience this on a personal level. But how wonderful it is, how much richer your life can be. You're forced to deal with yourself, your life, your family and friends. With your government, your media, your religion, your stereotypes, and your own rules and regulations. It's not always easy, but it is empowering. To go through this process that so many of us do, and come out the other side better because of it.

I think this is the same process that society is now struggling with, not just with GLBT rights but with the change that accompanies it. We've come to a point where we all have to deal with our government, our media, our religions, our stereotypes, our rules and regulations. It's won't be easy, but it will be empowering. And we will come out the other side better because of it.

Korea Day #2

My second day in Seoul was my most eventful. I woke up that morning completely rested and ready to start exploring the city. My volunteer translator/guide wasn't available until late afternoon, but I looked forward to touring around a little on my own.


First stop was Insa-dong, a street full of antique shops, art galleries, and traditional Korean souvenirs.




Above is a picture of Buddhist monks buying something to eat.


This guy is pounding a mixture of rice and other things with a large hammer to turn it into a treat.



After looking around for a couple of hours, I walked over to Changdeokgung, one of the five palaces where kings of the Joseon Dynasty lived. This particular palace was built from 1405-1412.



The palace grounds had a one and a half hour English speaking tour that I went on.






The building structures were all very interesting, but the grounds as a whole felt very deserted, with vast spaces of sand and stone landscape along with mostly empty buildings.






Near the back of the palace was the Secret Garden, where the grounds became a little more lush.



After my tour, I met up with my guide Eun Joo to go to Deoksugong, a much smaller but well-landscaped palace.




After that, we headed to Sinchon, a college area where Butch Jamie would be shown.




Eun Joo and I went out for Korean BBQ, which is thinly sliced meat that you cook in front of you. Along with our meal we drank Soju, liquor made from rice that tastes similar to vodka but with less of a bite.


After dinner, we went to the theater for the Friday night screening of Butch Jamie, which was sold out. There I met a translator who would assist with the Q&A after the screening. The film seemed to be very well-received - I got a lot of compliments and thought-provoking questions, took many photos with fans, and signed several autographs. I sensed that this film meant something more to Koreans than it did in America where gay and lesbian issues have become more mainstream.

After the screening, a young lesbian come up to me and told me (in English, as many people speak at least a little English) that I am a butch role model for Koreans - a very flattering statement, however one with a lot of responsibility. I thought more about this afterward. I often wonder if I'm butch enough to really be *that*, whatever *that* is. However, I got an interesting Q&A question at my second screening a couple of days later where I was able to discuss my thoughts on the issue. Someone asked me - "What do you think butch is?" I told her that I will start to answer her question by saying what I think butch isn't - it isn't any one thing or set of things. I told her that while I identify as butch, part of accepting that label for me also means accepting the fact that I don't have to be *that*. I can be myself, whoever that is, without changing or modifying myself to fit into the category. So in essence, butch is what you make it.


After the screening we headed over to a club for Queer Night, which was organized by the festival. There I met several women who had seen the movie and we continued various conversations about sexuality and identity with one of the festival programmers translating most of it for us.



Things I learned today about Korea:

- It's considered rude to pour your own drink. Beer often comes in large bottles that you share with your friends and the idea is that you pour their glass when it becomes empty and you wait for them to do the same for you.

- You can drink alcohol outside on the street as well as in a cab - so liberating! My Korean friend told me that you can drink anywhere except in a stranger's house. "You mean you can't drink there because you broke in?" I asked. "Yeah," she laughed.

- While there is a gay and lesbian subculture in Seoul (bars, clubs, etc.), people aren't out to their families, co-workers, or many of their friends. Same-sex couples who live together do so under the pretense of being good friends. Queer sexuality is generally not discussed in public and one of the festival programmers wasn't sure how people would feel at my Q&A about asking questions for fear that they may out themselves (people ended up asking me a lot of great questions, which worked out well).

One guy asked me in the Q&A if I was a lesbian (I answered yes and was given some applause) and later a Korean butch lesbian told me that she was angry that he had done that. While the vast majority of the Korean audience already knows that I'm a lesbian, she thought it was an inappropriate question to ask me in public. I told her that it wasn't a big deal and that everyone knows in my country - my family, employers, all my friends, etc. She was a little surprised, but perhaps also a little envious. The U.S. seems to be a few decades ahead with gay and lesbian issues, although I do think Korea will eventually catch up.

It was late when I got back to my hotel and I had to wake up fairly early in the morning for an interview. I went right to sleep, amazed at how much ground I had covered that day.

Gary, Gary, Not So Contrary

A couple of months ago I interviewed with Gary Garver. Gary does entertainment PR for Howard Stern and he has a weekly internet show called "Almost Live with Gary Garver."





I've been waiting quite awhile for the interview to be uploaded, and now I'm thinking that it may not be uploaded at all. I'm not sure why; I do have some theories but I can't say for certain. Nevertheless, the experience was quite entertaining, so I'm going to go ahead and briefly tell you about it.

I was one of 5 guests; the others included a rap group, a singer/songwriter, a producer/actress, and the Ukulady. The Ukulady is, quite simple enough, a lady who plays the ukulele. She makes up her own comedy-type songs to go along with it.

Interestingly, Gary didn't know that I was a lesbian before we shot the interview. And perhaps even more interesting, I didn't know that Gary had recently had a fight with a gay guy whom he called a f***in' faggot.

Here's the gist of our interview:

Me: Butch Jamie...yadda yadda yadda....lesbian.
Gary: Oh. So... are you a lesbian?
Me: I am.
[Pause. Gary's usual sarcastic wit has failed him]
Me (smiling): It's OK, Gary. You can make jokes; I can handle it.
Gary: Oh no. No, no, no. Nope. Uh uh. No way.
Me: I see; so that's forbidden territory, huh?
Gary: Uh huh.
Then Gary launched into what seemed like a 10 minute monologue about how he got into a fight with this gay guy - not necessarily because he was gay, mind you.

However, all things considered, our interview went more or less well despite the fact that Gary seemed uncomfortable for most of it. After detailing the fight he had, he apologized to the gay guy and to the gay community for what he did. Then we had a semi-intellectual conversation about gay rights and the progress we've been making in our country. He somehow went off on an impassioned tangent about homeless veterans, and I chuckled at one point because his seriousness was so out-of-place with his usual crass remarks and crude jokes (and also because I had consumed two to three cans of Bud Light backstage along with the rest of the guests, having made the decision that nothing that night was really anything to be taken seriously).

Indeed, Gary's assistant was like a half-awkward, half-bad ass 1990s grunge rocker guy taken out of Wayne's World.


Everytime he came backstage, he would make sexually inappropriate comments; but his Wayne's World-esque boyishness did make him somewhat endearing despite his lewdness. After he left the room, the Ukulady would look at me with her Fraggle Rock-type outfit (pigtails, orange fur coat, turquoise tights), and say in her high-pitched voice - "Michelle, we're in Man-Land!"

The whole night was definitely a surreal experience, and the fact that I don't even have the video to prove it makes it all the more elusive...

But I do have a video of the Ukulady singing the theme song from the Golden Girls. It's not as good as watching the actual show (Gary's show, the Golden Girls, or Fraggle Rock) but - well, you get the idea.


Hollywood - gotta love it :)

If You're Gay and You Know it, Clap Your Hands

I just found out that Butch Jamie won the Jury Award for "Best Narrative Feature" at the Chicago Reeling Film Festival! The festival was in November, but they just announced the winners (you can check out my blog posting about Chicago here).

As I posted last week, I interviewed with Tello Films while I was in Chicago. Below are some outtakes from our interview. I wish I could say that I was drunk or something - I mean, whatever I'm laughing at, was it really necessary to clap, laugh, and twirl around?



I also have another section of the interview to show you (the video screen size is smaller because of the way it's uploaded). The first section of the interview was posted in last week's blog if you haven't seen it yet. This second one's not bad if you can get past me plugging my websites for the first half of it...

Coming Soon to a country near you!

I'm happy to announce that Butch Jamie is now being represented for foreign sales by MultiVisionnaire. MultiVisionnaire is a sales agent, meaning that they shop the film around to various distributors worldwide. They are taking the film to the European Film Market in a couple of weeks to try and sell it.

Each distributor may decide to design their own key art for the movie, although for now MultiVisionnaire has designed this for sales:



I'll keep you updated about when and where the film will be released. In the meantime, you can check out our screenings page for upcoming showings.


On a quick tangent, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I'm in Curve Magazine this month -


I wanted to show you this cute little icon that they sent me the other day. They call it a button -


I suppose if you printed it out, you could make it into a button.

-

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!

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...