6 recent LGBTQ+ films to check out

Posted: October 30, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: coming out | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

My spouse and I just attended the 27th annual LGBTQ+ film festival in our town, and we saw some pretty great films.  Overall, we both preferred the documentaries over the fictional narratives, but we did like all the ones we ended up picking out.  I’ve had a varied relationship with this festival over the years – when I was younger, I wasn’t sure I belonged, and it was just so thrilling to even be there at all.  I volunteered one year, and formed some lasting relationships through doing that.  Then I kind of shunned it for a few years, deciding I didn’t have time for it, and the ticket prices were too pricey.  In the past 4 years, I changed my tune and realized we are lucky to have this festival in our hometown, and we should make the most of it.  We pick out a handful of films each year now, and pre-pay (to get a slight discount).  I’d have to say that at this point, the novelty of being there as a super-fan has started to wear off, but I do still look forward to it each year, regardless…  here are the films we saw this time around (links are to film websites, trailers, or reviews):

Zen in the Ice Rift –  This was a narrative drama from Italy about a transmasculine teenager who is really just at the beginning of their journey into who they really are.  They’re on the boy’s hockey team (only because their town is so small and that’s the only option), are getting bullied, and are acting out a lot in response.  It was pretty hard to watch, but definitely well done – themes of victimization and violence, definitely a trope at this point.

The Ground Beneath My Feet – This one was from Austria, about a workaholic woman who’s sister has suffered yet another psychotic break and is hospitalized.  The woman starts to question her own sanity while trying to juggle all aspects of her super stressful life (a lesbian affair with her superior being only one small tendril of her falling-apart-life).  Really well done, edgy, gloomy thriller-drama.

Label Me – From Germany, this one was about a refugee from Syria who begins an ongoing money-for-sex relationship with a man who seems very well off and very isolated at the same time.  It gets interesting when the two men navigate that line between intimacy, sex, money, and everything else that falls in between.

Leave it to Levi – This was a documentary about a porn star who works exclusively with Cocky Boys.  It was just totally fun, but there was depth too, when the film explored his relationship with his mother and his forays into dressing in drag and going totally against the norm of the Macho Porn Star.

Gay Chorus Deep South – This documentary was full of heart.  The San Francisco Gay Men’s Choir toured 7 southern states in order to raise awareness of anti-LGBTQ+ laws that have been popping up in the wake of the 2016 election.  Along the way, we see some amazing personal stories of some of the chorus members, specifically from people who were born in the south and made it to the (relatively) safe haven of SF.

Changing the Game – By far, this one was our favorite.  So many strong emotions going on.  Between this one and Gay Chorus, I did a lot of crying!  This followed the trajectory of 4 transgender teens from 3 different states (which all have different laws about transgender people competing in sports) and how they navigated what they had to do to keep pursuing the sports they love.  They all came up against so much hate, but also so much love and support, specifically from coaches and parents / guardians.

Drag king stories #8

Posted: August 31, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Drag King, Drag King Stories | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

**Potential spoiler alerts for Orange is the New Black, season 7**

My spouse and I were watching Season 7, Episode 8 a couple of weeks ago, and a familiar face suddenly popped up! In Piper’s story line, her sister-in-law gets the two of them to go on a transformative wilderness retreat.  The leader of the retreat, Rio, is someone I used to perform drag with!!!  When I saw her, on TV, I wanted to shout, That’s Windz!  But since I’m historically bad at face recognition, I waited until the credits, to confirm that the actor, Linday Coryne, was for sure the person I’m remembering.

In the scene, she is teaching Piper and a group of ladies, how to hunt with a bow and arrow.  She has a handful of lines, one of which is, ““Recognize the bow as both arbiter of death and provider of life; recognize the multitude that exists within each of you; be proud of it.”  She’s like, part hunter, part spirit guide.

We didn’t have a whole lot of overlap, in real life.  By the time I started performing in 2006, she was moving to Baltimore (if I’m remembering correctly).  But she’d come back home to visit periodically and perform with the “Muthers Boyz.”  I was also there, some of those nights, performing and/or watching.

Windz was the star.  Within the context of this dark and dingy gay dive bar, he seemed more like a megastar.  The crowd ate it up, everything he did.  I definitely felt some envy toward him, at times; I looked up to him.  On the other hand though, our approaches, attitudes, and motivations seemed so far from each other that it wasn’t much use to try to compare myself to him.  He was  doing his thing, which was very different from my thing.

The following are just my impressions and things I remember (which might be fuzzy).  We didn’t actually know each other or have many conversations…

Sometimes, he put a lot of work into his costumes, especially when he was emulating Michael Jackson, which was one of the things he was most known for.  His impression was spot on.  Other times though, it seemed like he went on stage in just what he might have been wearing that day anyway, business casual or whatever, with no drag make-up, facial hair, or flourishes.  His repertoire of songs was small.  I definitely saw plenty of repeats within the few times I did see his performances.  But what he did, he had it down, and he always looked like he was having a blast up there.  Really drew in individuals from the audiences, creating special moments.

I, on the other hand, struggled to connect with audience members.  I didn’t particularly want to; sometimes I wished I could be doing my performances in a vacuum instead.  Being at a bar, at that time, was uncomfortable for me, but I was driven by the gender-play; the opportunities to try out being someone else.  And for me, it was a one and done kind of thing.  Once I did a song, I never did it again.  (There are a handful of exceptions to this.)  Like, it was onto the next thing.  I was going to learn another song, try a different vibe, try new costume elements, get the essence of the original performer or time period or mood of the song or whatever.  A lot of times, for me, it was silly or it was out there, robotic or other-worldly or very much effeminate or even aggro/punk.  I wanted to get the whole range of gender expressions, try it all, experiment.  I also used drag to work through a lot of feelings at the time.  But that’s a story for another post…

I remember one time, the two of us were backstage together, and Windz said, “Maybe you should do some Duran Duran.  People would be into that.”  I thought to myself, “OK, at least my ’80’s vibe is shining through, but I’ve already done Duran Duran!”  Haha.  In Windz’s world, maybe it was more like, you collect a handful of “signature songs,” and you cycle through them.  Like a radio station.  For me, it was more like I was a kid in a record store, pulling out vinyl and looking for the next thrill.

I am, essentially, a kid in a record store, pulling out vinyl and looking for the next thrill.  I literally do this a lot.

These photos are not the best, but they’re all I got.  This was from a time before digital photography.  Do you remember,way back when, taking a photo and not being able to instantly see if it turned out well or not?  And then you really have only 24 chances (or 36 if you splurged for a 36 shot roll of film), and then you’re gonna pay around $7 for those 24 pictures, and after you pay, then you finally get to see whether it’s a good shot or not???  OK, so I’m fibbing a little bit.  Digital photography was a thing (this was probably 2007.)  It’s just that I didn’t yet have a digital camera.  I brought my Pentax film camera with flash, down to the bar to try to capture some of the performances.

Windz was very aspirational.  And it paid off!  Holy shit – she (the person, not the drag king) is an actor on TV and stuff!!!  I was super floored to recognize her on TV!  I hope to see her in lots more stuff; I want to see more gender-nonconforming people in more roles in the media, like, all the time!

The PTWC (Philadelphia Trans-Wellness Conference), 2018

Posted: November 24, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: coming out, mental health, top surgery | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I’m waaaay behind on this post (the conference was Aug. 2-4), but I had a lot of notes and always meant to type them up.  I was clearing off our dining room table and unearthed them, so here we go!

It’s been a couple of years since my spouse and I attended, and this time around, we made it a part of a bigger vacation, which I definitely am going to want to do again in the future – this time, we stopped in the tiny town of Narrowsburgh, NY, for 2 nights and went on a lazy river tube ride down a 5 mile stretch of the Delaware river.  Then we continued on to Philly, where we reconnected with friends we hadn’t seen in a while.  Fortuitously, they happened to be dog-sitting / house-sitting at a really swanky and spacious condo that was only a 20 minute walk from the conference center.  Way more convenient than all those times we walked in the heat and humidity from South Philly, in the past.

The first workshop I attended was called Trans Community in Crisis:  Mental Health and Peer Support.  It was led by IV Staklo, who is the Hotline Program Director at Trans Lifeline.  This was totally worthwhile because before attending this workshop, I never seriously considered volunteering for a hotline.  And in the process of learning about it, I could completely wrap my head around that possibility – I actually do have what it takes.  (All it takes for Trans Lifeline is:  you yourself have to identify as trans, you need access to a phone and internet, you need to have follow-through and accountability and be active in the online group.)  I’ve been going through the online training to become a volunteer operator.  It’s about 32 hours of self-guided slides and webinars; it’s going way slower than I anticipated, but I’ll get there eventually.  The workshop itself was a lot of distressing statistics – things like 60% of trans-clients have had to educate their therapists.  53% of trans-people have avoided going to the hospital when it was necessary because of past trauma and harassment.  88% of trans-people have had suicidal ideations throughout their lives…  (All of these statistics are coming from the 2017 National LGBTQ Task Force Survey – I’m only isolating a few of the more alarming ones…)

Next, I went to Token:  The Role of Trans POC Within the LGBTQ Community.  The presenter was Giovonni Santiago, a transman living in northeastern Ohio.  His style was more of a motivational speaker, full of energy and personal stories to accent his points.  I especially liked the Q and A, where people asked him about burnout and how best to say, “No,” when to know that you need to say, “No,” etc.

Friday, I started out by going to Top Surgery Show and Tell.  It was my third time at this particular workshop – it’s always crowded and full of anticipatory energy.  I didn’t participate (but stay tuned for my summary of another conference, in which I did participate!)  These types of workshops are sooo important because the info that’s out there online is fairly sparse, and this is one of the few chances to take a close look in person, at real people’s bodies.

Then I went to Let’s Talk About Our Junk, led by Dalziel Leone, a transman from Kenya.  He started out by talking about his own path and then opened it up so that it was more of a group discussion.  An older person who just recently started his transition talked about choosing celibacy out of necessity, and how incredibly, he was starting to reassess all of that.  Someone else talked about transitioning within a long-term relationship, and really got into the nuts and bolts of how that played out in his case.  A younger person shared about how their parents are immigrants from Liberia, and they can’t even accept their kid being gay, let alone trans.  They said their parents’ reactions have been that Africans aren’t gay, and maybe you need to get in touch with your African roots, go back to Africa to find yourself, etc.  I found the immediate assumption of intimacy in this audience to be pretty extraordinary – oftentimes people need a long time to gear up to tough and frank conversations like this.

After that, I then went to FTM Bottom Surgery Show and Tell.  I’ve considered going many times in the past, but I always felt too intimidated.  This time I just went for it.  It was just like Top Surgery Show and Tell, but with far less people actually standing up there.  I think there were 5 guys, whereas with Top Surgery, it’s more like 40 or so.  This led to just more time to hear more from them afterwards, as audience members kind of clustered around, asking questions and getting a closer look.  At this time, it did not lead me to feel more motivated to pursue bottom surgery, but the experience was still invaluable.

I ended the day by going to Trans On Set, a panel discussion among trans media makers.  We watched 15 minutes of footage first, film reels and portfolios of sorts, from the panel members.  Then we heard about how they’ve navigated disclosing their status or not, dealing with transphobia in the workplace, stuff like that.  For me, this felt like a more passive workshop, a good way to end.

Then we didn’t go on Saturday at all!  We enjoyed time with our friends more and just had a much less anxiety-inducing time of it, overall!  Another thing that was new – my spouse attended a bunch of workshops in the “professional track” cluster and learned a lot of pertinent stuff for their future career!

5 recent LGBTQ+ films to check out

Posted: October 23, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: coming out | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My spouse and I had a lot of fun going to a bunch of fims during this year’s local annual LGBTQ+ film festival!  I liked all the films we picked out this time around.  Here’s a little more about them (some of the links are to trailers while others’ are for the films’ websites:

Pulse – This Australian film was part of the “ImageOut There!” series, it definitely took some interesting twists and turns.  What if people could surgically switch bodies, like for example go from a disabled teenaged male body to a “picture perfect” teenaged female body?  This is what Olly chooses to do, with his/her reasonings unfolding slowly throughout the movie.  A different and unique perspective leaning a little too heavily on the fantasy of what it means to be a woman:  not much insight but plenty of pitfalls.

Man Made – This may be my all time favorite movie I’ve seen at the festival over the years.  I cried a lot (and that’s saying something because lately tears are super hard to come by!)  It’s a documentary that follows the journeys of 4 transgender men as they prepare for the only all-trans bodybuilding competition, in Atlanta, GA.  Their stories are heartwarming, heartbreaking, and they hit on a bunch of emotional points in between.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cola de Mono – This Chilean film was also part of the “ImageOut There!” series.  It’s a feature length that focuses on one family on Christmas eve, 1986.  The men in the family have been “cursed” by homosexuality, and the next iteration is now playing itself out.  It’s super melodramatic, definitely campy, but not in a fun way.  They undertones are full of hypersexuality, perversion, ritual, and horror.  The film takes its name from a traditional drink similar to egg nog, which translates into “monkey’s tail.”

 

Studio 54 – I didn’t really know anything about the behind-the-scenes, so I learned a lot!  The documentary featured a lot of interview time of the more “silent” partner, Ian Schrager (the more public partner, Steve Rubell, passed away from AIDS / hepatitis in 1989.)  My spouse pointed out that it was a smart idea not to rely on a bunch of famous people being interviewed about it – that seemed like the easy choice, but this way the film spoke for itself a lot more.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post – My spouse was super psyched this was part of the festival, because they had heard of it and had just finished reading the novel that the film is based on.  It takes place in Montana in 1993; when Cameron is caught in the backseat of a car with her girlfriend, she’s sent to a conversion therapy camp called God’s Promise.  It was awesome to see this with a theater full of people because there were so many sound bites that got big laughs (although the writer and director didn’t seem to account for those interruptions, there wasn’t a beat for us to catch up, meaning we ended up missing dialogue because we were laughing so much.  At one point, the audience burst out with a round of applause!)  This was thoroughly entertaining and also disturbing – a more dramatic partner piece to “But I’m a Cheerleader.”

 

Janitors in pop culture #4

Posted: April 23, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Janitorial work | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

I haven’t written one of these since 2014!  That’s way too long!  My spouse and I just watched Another Earth for the second time, and I had forgotten that the protagonist, Rhoda, is a high school janitor.  Heads up – this post might contain spoilers!  And also, although I’m being critical and having fun with it (the portrayal of a janitor), I actually really do love this movie (hence, the wanting to watch it for a 2nd time!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She doesn’t start out as a janitor.  She’s a promising student that just got accepted to MIT, but her path takes a sharp turn when she kills a wife and child in a drunk driving accident.  She spends the next four years in prison, instead of college, and when she gets out, she struggles with even wanting to be alive.  When talking to a social worker about a job placement, she says,

“I don’t wanna really be around too many people or do too much talking.”

And that is, in a nut-shell, what being a janitor is all about!  She gets placed at West Haven High School.  We see her in a bunch of scenes at work.  I’ll try to break it down a bit:

Uniform:  She’s wearing workboots in the style of Timberlands.  She has a hoodie and a full-body jumpsuit on over that.  Plus a beanie.  It is winter, but this is what she’s wearing while working in the building, and she is WAY overdressed!  I’d be sweating bullets in this get-up, plus the footwear is too heavy-duty.  Even running sneakers would be better – you do a ton of walking as a janitor.  I wear a t-shirt, pants, and sneakers, and I still get hot – school buildings are usually kept super warm.

The Work:  We see her pushing her cart through the building, mopping halls, and scrubbing at bathroom grafitti.  This is fairly realistic, although where I work, we have an auto-scrubber for halls, and I’d never use that much elbow-grease on anything the way she’s going at that grafitti – I’d blow out my ligaments!  I already struggle with “tennis elbow” from regular repetitive motions.  Not worth it!

Storyline:  There’s a sub-plot where her co-worker, Purdeep, is noticeably blind, and you’re left wondering how he gets his job done without seeing.  Then, one day, Purdeep isn’t there, and Rhoda asks about him.  The reply?  He’s not coming back because he poured bleach in his own ears.  This was the 2nd incident – he had previously blinded his own self by pouring bleach in his eyes.

“He said he was tired of seeing himself everywhere.”

Later on, there’s a scene where Rhoda visits him in the hospital, and she writes letters on the palm of his hand in order to communicate with him.  It’s a tender connection, but other than that, I’m not sure what’s being coveyed through this other than here was a janitor who incrimentally lost his mind and self-destructed.  ???

There’s one other scene, early on, that I think is really relevant.  She runs into an old classmate at a corner store, and from his demeanor, it’s apparent he’s super surprised to see her, and he knows all about what happened to her, going to prison and everything.  Their dialogue reads, starting with him asking,

“So, are you working?”
“West Haven High.”
“Yeah? What do you teach?”
“I clean.”
“What?”
“I clean the school.”
“Oh, that’s cool.  …That’s probably very … therapeutic.”

It might not be apparent from the words, but his tone is sooo condescending, his classism is really shining through.  I often tell people that I’m a janitor, and I feel fortunate I don’t come up against this kind of bias, generally.  But there was a long period of time where I did feel shame about my job, especially because I work for the same school district I went to school at, and I too was a “promising” student, and I actually did go to college (and not prison), and I would brace myself for those moments where I might run into someone I knew from school.

Recent books I’ve read with mental health content

Posted: January 29, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: mental health, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Back in November, I lamented about not being able to find much writing out there that really portrays what can go on in someone’s head while they are in the middle of a psychotic episode.  In the past few weeks, two such books sorta fell into my lap, so I want to mention them!

My spouse picked up a book called Mental:  Lithium, Love, and Losing My Mind from the library last weekend.  They pointed it out to me, like, eh?  You’ll want to read this!  This weekend, I was super sick, and I binge read it in 2 days, while trying to stay warm on the couch.  It was compelling for so many different reasons, one major one being that I could relate to so much of it.  The author, Jaime Lowe, was also hospitalized for a good chunk of her senior year of high school, and she also just took the pills without much reflection for years and years.  Like, it’s something that is a thing now.  (Although, for me, it was Depakote, and not Lithium.)  She had another manic / psychotic episode when she tried to get off Lithium at age 25.  I successfully(?) did get off all my pills in my early 20s, and that was my new normal for a long time, until I had 2 subsequent manic / psychotic episodes in my 30s.  She had to switch off of Lithium because it was killing her kidneys, and she had a really hard time stomaching Depakoke, but she finally did get through it.

Having to switch sent her on a spiritual journey to learn about Lithium as not just a psychotropic drug but as an element, super common in nature.  Which made the book encompass much more than just her mental health trajectory.  The best thing about it though, was how thoroughly and deeply she gets back into that headspace of being so completely out of her mind.  The slightest suggestion toward a minuscule thing could send her on an all-day (or longer) journey to do and/or be that thing.  She devastated every aspect of her life that second time around.  I was surprised by the fact that everyone around her wanted to keep her out of the hospital for a second time because she was no longer an adolescent and the adult ward was apparently to be avoided at all costs.  As a result, she was in that state much longer – days, weeks…  I was brought to the hospital like, BAM!  So fast my head didn’t get a chance to spin out too far too fast with too many repercussions.

The second book I’m reading with a portrayal of a breakdown is called The Petting Zoo, by Jim Carroll (of The Basketball Diaries fame).  He wrote this book in 2010, and according to the forward by Patti Smith, he died at his desk while writing.  He had finished it at the time of his death, but it was still in the editing process.  A few people had their hands in trying to edit as close to Jim’s style as possible.  It’s fiction.  It’s hard for me to get through (probably largely because it’s fiction – I almost always gravitate toward non-fiction and memoir).  The book opens with the main character, Billy, in the midst of a manic frenzy.  I didn’t know the book would be about that at all – nothing about that on the back cover summary – I bought it on a whim from a record store that was going out of business.  So it was interesting to get thrown into that unexpectedly, but I gotta say it felt lacking in… something.

Billy has some kind of crisis over an art opening at the MET and how what he saw of this one artist affects how he’s approaching his art for his own upcoming show.  He careens off down the steps, on his own, into the Central Park Zoo, more specifically a side spectacle, an outdated petting zoo.  From there, he flees down the street, in his tuxedo and fancy shoes, to a building that reminds him of an Aztec temple.  He then hits his head and his eye on branches or something and starts shouting something about a knife.  He has a momentary black-out and the cops pick him up.  At which point he comes back to reality, and that’s it.  Although the aftermath ends up taking longer, red tape and everything.  He has to stay overnight in a mental ward, which is just kind of looked at as a novelty, a curiosity, a stop-over.

In conclusion, real life is zanier (or at least more compelling to me) than fiction.

6 recent LGBTQ+ films to check out

Posted: November 1, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: coming out | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

This year was the 25th anniversary of our local annual LGBTQ+ film festival!  We made an effort to invite friends to different films this time around, which was fun – connecting with some people we hadn’t seen much lately was nice.  Most of these links are to trailers, and a couple are to the films’ websites.

Beach Rats – I went to this one by myself, and I was surrounded by gay men, for the most part.  There’s something about that that I really embrace; it doesn’t happen often enough.  The general story-line is that this young man is living a double life – hanging out with his friends drinking, smoking pot, playing handball, going to Coney Island, getting a girlfriend.  When he’s by himself though, he turns to online websites to hook up with older men.  I like the way it was filmed.  Really sparse.  And the story-line takes an unusual twist.

 

Tom of Finland – This is the Finnish entry for best foreign language film for the upcoming Academy Awards – how cool is that?!!  This was a really well done bio-pic.  I really didn’t know much about him other than what I saw of his drawings.  He fought in WWII.  He had a complex and interesting relationship with his sister.  He had a long-lasting partner.  He had fans all over the world, but especially in California, and they made sure he knew he was celebrated, flying him in for parties he inspired, etc.  Highly recommend!

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson – You can watch this movie on Neflix if you want.  So, this is really only some of the story.  There is a lot of controversy surrounding the production of this film and who’s work is being credited, which we only found out about the day before we were going to see it.  Here’s one article that gets into all the details:  What Would Trans Art Look Like if it Was Only Made By Trans People?  To sum it up in one sentence, a trans-woman of color – Reina Gossett – has been working on a film about Marsha P. Johnson, and she had done a ton of legwork and archival studying.  Then this dude – David France – swoops in with his finances and his connections and essentially steals the work that had been made thus far.  So, our experience was a little bit soured, but I have to admit it was still a good film.  And I hope Reina Gossett is still feeling empowered to move ahead and create her own film – the more films that will educate people about transgender people and issues, the better.  I just realized I didn’t say anything about what this film is about – so go watch it on Netflix!  Haha.

Alaska is a Drag – This one was kinda campy.  It features twins who are stuck living in Alaska – a gay guy working at a fish cannery, learning boxing, and fantasizing about making it big as a drag queen, and his sister who has cancer and is getting regular treatments, but her spirits are high, indulging in the world of drag her brother creates.  It was so-so.  Definitely different, but not all that compelling.

Freak Show – This was SUPER campy.  Directed by Trudy Styler (Sting’s wife!)  A kid has to move to a southern state and attend a super conservative high school.  His mom is Bette Midler, er, I mean, a mom played by Bette Midler.  He endures bullying on top of bullying and hate crimes and more and more violence.  He then decides to up the ante and run for homecoming queen.  Laverne Cox has a small role – that was one of the best parts.  Also, costuming was stunning, but otherwise, I wasn’t a huge fan.

Saturday Church – This centers on a 14 year old boy named Ulysses.  Similar themes as Freak Show, but the approach is a little more realistic.  He starts to question his gender identity amidst bullying at school and conservative viewpoints from relatives.  He meets other gender variant people of different stripes, they all convene at a youth service / shelter on Saturday nights.  Kate Bornstein plays the person in charge of the space!!!  They eat together, attend “balls” together, and talk about hardships.  I liked this film a lot!

 

Real Boy: A Son’s Transition, A Mother’s Transformation

Posted: June 19, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: coming out, mental health, top surgery | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tonight at 10PM (9PM central time), PBS is screening a documentary called Real Boy.  If you’re hanging at home tonight, check it out!!

I had the opportunity to see this film twice now:

Last fall, my neighbors and I went, as part of the annual LGBT film festival where we live.  I’d have to say that I was a little bit jaded at that time – here is yet another story about young, white, binary, trans-masculine people.  Seen that / heard that!!!

The parts about his (Ben’s) mom, and family dynamics were what held it together for me.  My neighbor was really touched by it in a different way – there was a lot about singing/songwriting/creativity, and also about recovering from substance abuse and other destructive behaviors.

Then, two weeks ago, I went with my spouse and her parents.  It was a free showing, and the two main “characters” were there in person to answer questions and play some of their music as well.  I felt really happy that we all saw it together – we then went out to eat and talked about how we related or didn’t, with the movie.  Awesome conversations.

I would say that, for me, the second time’s the charm, haha.  For one thing, closed captioning was on, so we could all listen and read the dialogue simultaneously, which was kinda necessary because some people mumble more than others.  I got a lot more out of it – the way that Ben’s navigating his new life / roles / perceptions as a very young person (I can’t imagine transitioning at that age!!!  Hormones are already on full alert and then to mix it up so drastically, must be stressful – both positive and negative stress.)  And the male bonding that was going on between the characters felt a lot more touching to me this time for some reason.  He has a mentor / protegee dynamic going on with an older musician, and then a housemate / brotherhood with a trans-guy he met through mutual friend.

In terms of content notes, I would give this warning:  Topics that are potentially sensitive to those in recovery are brought up:  mostly grappling with drug and alcohol abuse, as well as self-injury and family issues / rejection.  Also, we follow along as Ben and his housemate move forward with getting top surgery with Dr. Garramone in Florida.

I’d say catch this movie if you can!  Although it didn’t really speak to me the first time, I came around to really like it!

Gay Pirates EP

Posted: April 22, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: coming out | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by a singer/songwriter from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, named Evan Westfal.  He said, “Thanks for sharing your blog with the world,” and he directed me to his website where you can stream his music.  He recently put out a new EP, called “Gay Pirates.”  He says, “I was hearing a lot of love songs, but none of those love songs had any queer representation. I wanted a narrative that spoke to my identity as a gay man. So that is how gay pirates came to be. I describe the EP as a series of lamentations and exaltation of a very gay love.”

You can check it out here:  Evan Westfal

The music is fun and catchy; the lyrics are full of stuff like coy promises and sweet deceits, treasure chests and booty, tight shirts, resiliency, and a “raging sea of hormones.”  My favorite is probably the title track.

I asked him a couple of questions, because he’s got a lot going on behind the scenes, and because I was really curious what it’s like to live in Edmonton.  He said,

If I had to explain Alberta to an American, I would say that, culturally, it’s the Texas of Canada. Politically Alberta is fairly conservative, and it’s also a Province that is rich in oil. A lot of our citizens are tradespeople that work on oil rigs.  As for my city, Edmonton itself is a really cool city. A river valley runs through the centre of the city, it’s rich in wildlife and flora. The city has a fantastic pride centre, and lots of other queer organizations. To answer your questions regarding weather and topography, Edmonton is really cold in the winters, and really hot in the summers. You are correct, the surrounding areas are prairies.

The pride festival is really cool. Edmonton had it’s first parade in the 1990’s, and it was very small, and most of the participants wore bags over their heads to hide their identities. Flash forward to the millennium, and things have changed quite a bit. In the last few years our city hall has raised a pride flag, the Edmonton public school board was a marshall for the parade, and the Canadian Forces Base in Edmonton raised the pride flag. Each year over 30’000 people attend the parade. This year the pride festival’s theme is “one pride many voices.” The festival says they’re taking strides to become more inclusive. I think this is a great approach, as pride could definitely stand to be more intersectional and welcoming.

I asked what his musical background was, and also what instruments he plays / does he collaborate?  He said,

My background with music begins with my schooling. I am a graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts, it’s a musical theatre program in Victoria, British Columbia. I think you’ll notice some heavy influences of musical theatre in my songwriting. I then decided to focus on commercial contemporary music, I achieved that through matriculating at MacEwan University. As a musician I’ve had the opportunity to sing backing vocals for Josh Groban, to play for the opening ceremony for the Edmonton Pride Festival, I’ve performed with Opera Nuova (an Edmonton based opera company), and I’ve produced and performed in many cabarets. Right now I’m working on a music video for my song “Gay Pirates,” it should be out in a month or two. As for instrumentation, I play the piano and sing. On my track Gay Pirates, I wrote all the song, but I had some great musician’s record with me. I have to send a thank you to my drummer Julissa Bayer, guitar player Andrew Brostrom, and Bassist David Pollock.

He also mentioned that he volunteers with an outreach program called fYerfly, so I asked him to elaborate on that too:

fYrefly is a great program. The name is an initialism that stands for: fostering Youth resilience energy leadership fun leadership yeah! You might notice the Y is capitalized, that’s because youth are the most important part. fYrefly originated as a summer leadership camp for LGBTTQ2SIA+ youth between the ages of 14-24. I attended the program as a teen, and it changed my life. For the first time in my life I got to be surrounded by people like me, I got to share a sense of camaraderie, and I got to feel pure acceptance. I loved the experience so much that I spent over a decade volunteering for fYrefly.  Every year it’s a treat to see the difference the camp makes for youth.

I’m just going to repeat that acronym:  “fostering Youth resilience energy leadership fun leadership yeah!”  Haha, I love that!  Evan will be performing for the opening ceremony of the Edmonton Pride Festival, coming up on June 10th.  If you’re able to get up there – I just looked it up, and for me, it’s 34 hours away, by car!  It’s up there!

Also, related, here’s one of the first posts I ever wrote – an experience I had at a wedding:
Effeminate Pirate Orders Fruity Drink on Party Boat

7 recent LGBTQ+ films to check out

Posted: October 18, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

My spouse and I attended more films than ever before, at the annual LGBTQ+ film festival in our town, recently.  Most of these links are to trailers; a couple are to the film’s website directly.  I highly recommend the first 6, and then I don’t recommend the 7th at all.

Suicide Kale – This film was shot in 5 days, with no budget.  Even without stipulating that, it’s an intriguing and complex look into the dynamics between 2 lesbian couples at a lunch party, and what happens when one of them finds a suicide note tucked away somewhere.  Sounds like it’d be intense, but it’s actually fairly lighthearted and humorous.  Very well attended, mostly women in the audience.

Paris 05:59: Theo and Hugo – This film takes place in real time, as two men fall for each other in a love/lust at first sight type-of-way.  Things start out in a laid back, sexually explicit environment / vibe, but quickly become complicated as the two grapple with an emotional twist, and whether the connection is worth working through it.  Super well attended; roughly 98% men, 2% women.

closet-monsterCloset Monster – This might have been my favorite one this year.  It’s a coming-of-age story of an 18-year old boy coming to terms with his gay identity, complicated by flashbacks of a hate crime he witnessed as a young child.  There were body horror elements to the film, which I was really into.  Plus, Isabella Rossellini’s voice is featured as a talking pet hamster!  Well attended, very diverse audience, including young adults, which isn’t usually the case.

strike-a-poseStrike A Pose – This also was possibly my favorite one this year.  It’s a documentary about the 7 dancers who went on tour with Madonna in 1990, and where they’re at now.  Not all of them are gay!  Some of them had a lot of secrets at the time, and they are now much more open about things.  Way more emotional than I would have thought, going into the film.  Very well attended, diverse audience but definitely mostly men.

Girls Lost – A film from Finland.  Magical realism.  3 tight-knit female friends, about 14 years old, are frequently bullied at school but find solace in each other and a greenhouse they regularly retreat to.  Suddenly, a magical flower appears; they drink the nectar and turn into boys, for about 12 hours.  One of them realizes he is transgender, and he becomes addicted to the feelings the nectar brings.  At the same time, he is self-destructive, in an effort to understand himself.  Really well attended, diverse audience.

Real Boy – This is a documentary spanning over a few years, as a singer/songwriter FTM person starts his transition.  It focuses on the relationship between him and his mom, between him and a best friend who is also trans, and between him and another trans singer/songwriter who is a little older and acts as a mentor of sorts.  Issues that are discussed:  hormones, sobriety, top surgery, family dynamics.  Also really well attended, diverse audience including young adults, which is not generally the case.

Lovesong – This was a flop.  My spouse and I were attracted to it partly because it stars Jena Malone, and also it seemed like a complex story-line.  It was fairly complex, but they characters were not at all likeable.  Two female friends who go way back, dabble in acting on their attraction to each other, at various points spanning a few years.  Kinda boring.  Sparsely attended, mostly women.

My spouse and I diligently filled out audience participation ballots for each film, and a survey about the festival in general.  My most important feedback:  more films with trans characters please.  And also, please make it more affordable.

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