It's Pride week and weekend, so S.F. is a zoo.

One big event of the week is the Frameline 32 San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, which is so big it runs in four theaters over a period of 11 days. Well, I didn't attend much of it, in fact, all I saw of it was crammed in today!

I zipped over to the Castro Theater and (surprisingly) found easy parking in time to go see the film "Ja Zuster, Nee Zuster" or "Yes Nurse! No Nurse!", the (to date) only cinematic musical ever made in Holland. I thought it was cute, but parts of it seemed really illogical and out of place. The musical number about the circus, for one. I later on read up on the film and found that it was a nostalgic revist to characters from a short-lived children's show from the late 1960s, and with that context I *got* the overly broad characters and the silly musical numbers.

The film's no masterpiece, but it's got 60s retro all over it and a kind of winsom charm to it.  View the trailer HERE.

One of my friends Christopher (I have several) came in late for the show, and after it was over we ran out to move his car out of a metered space and to grab some food. Sandwiches secured, we went back into the Castro Theater to see a program wherein the creator of the play and film Sordid Lives (film trailer HERE) screened the first two episodes of the upcoming TV series based on the film. The show was cute, but being made for the gay cable network Logo, looked pretty low budget. Wait...is that Olivia Newton John playing a lesbian who just got out of jail?

Between the episodes the creator called several members of the cast on stage: Beth Grant, Ann Walker, and Jason Dottley. As she reached the stage, Ann Walker lifted her top to reveal a funny polka-dotted bra. The audience roared. Jason Dottley decided to follow suit and pull his pants down, but he accidentally pulled too hard and flashed the audience more than he meant to. Oops! I'm sure that's on YouTube already...

Ok, with that over, I have to run back across the city to my neighborhood because I promised Matt I'd come by for the beginning of Diana's 40th birthday bash. I drop in, give Diana much huggage (and a bottle of agave necter), meet the other guests, check out Matt's new home studio, have some wine, visit with Diana, then have to run out again.

And it's back to the Castro, where I am meeting Becky and Christopher to see the premier screening of the documentary "The Kinsey Sicks: Almost Infamous", about the group's history, and the story of the show they mounted at the Las Vegas Hilton in 2006. It's a good film and contains some great vintage video of the group's early days. When it's over the filmmakers and the Kinseys take the stage to answer audience questions. What I'm happiest to hear is that former Kinsey Chris Dilley, who's here for the screening, if back to play Trampolina for the summer tour, so he'll be in the show I've a dozen tickets for on the 11th! Yay!

As the Q&A ends Becky rushes out to catch a ferry, and I manage to saw hi to Chris Dilley (Trampolina) and Irwin Keller (Winnie), both of whom I met some years ago. Irwin and I discuss the bad quality of the theater sound for this perfomance.  I say goodbye to Christopher and exit.

Outside I find the big Pink Party underway. Castro and adjoining streets are closed for several blocks and people are missing around on the street. I run into a few people I know, but I find the whole spectacle kind of depressing. I'm not a big "party" guy, and alone, I feel out of my element.

I want to get back to my neighborhood to revisit Matt and Diana's party, but when I get to my car I can't move it, because paramedics and cops are trying to get some derelict onto a stretcher, and the ambulance and firetruck have my car pinned in.  I dawdle 15 minutes and am finally able to escape.

Annnnnnnd I cross the city once more. Back to Matt's. Diana's kind enough to feed me before they clean up from the party, and I hang with them and several of their guests until the party peters out.

It's 11:15 when I get home. I find my bed.  CRASH!

Posted by molyneaux at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Thursday, 3 July 2008 11:04 AM PDT

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Mood:  celebratory

My friends David and Don went to City Hall today to get their marriage license.

They’re getting hitched July 25th at said City Hall.

They can only invite six guests.

Yet they asked me!

They also want me to be their photographer. Now I know the real reason they asked.

Kidding.

My first gay wedding...but still a bridesmaid...sigh!

Posted by molyneaux at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 1 July 2008 7:51 PM PDT

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 The email to Scott read, in part:

We are very pleased to inform you that Secret Identity Crisis has been selected for the 21st Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival, from September 3-7, 2008.

CONGRATULATIONS!!! We are excited to include you in our program. 

Hooray!

The website for the Austin festival, or AGLLIF is here (clicky).

Posted by molyneaux at 8:53 PM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 10:26 PM PDT

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My friend Russ arranged a birthday dinner for his other half Christopher and their friend Jamie for today. A third birthday boy was invited, but cancelled at the last minute. As it happened, the party was about 18 people, a few of whom I knew, a number of whom I didn't, and some I'd just met in passing at Russ & Christopher's annual holiday parties. The venue was Schnitzelhaus (http://www.schnitzel-haus.net), a SoMa (South of Market) restaurant serving German and Austrian food.

I ordered the Knackwürste mit Linsen und Spätzle (German-style knack sausages with lentils and German pasta), along with the potato soup.  Russ's invitation email warned that "the awesome potato soup will have you farting garlic for two days". The soup was indeed awesome, but, as to the latter claim, I'll have to get back to you...  The food was good, and I enjoyed it, managing to almost clean my plate.

Unsurprisingly, the party went crazy with the beer.  After the initial round we ordered, they started ordering pairs of 2-litre "boots"... big beer glasses shaped like a boot. There ensued a rather silly set of drinking games around the boots. The idea is you'd take a drink from the boot and pass it to the person next to you. But if second boot caught up to you while you were still holding the first, you were obligated to drink the entire contents of the boot in your hands. Needless to say, as people got busy chatting they're sort of hold onto one boot, and then react with horror when they realized the other was nearly upon them. Deer in headlights time. You've never seen men drink and pass the buck so fast as when threatened with having to guzzle down a beer that big.

Every time someone would look close to finishing one of the boots, people would start chanting "Das boot! Das Boot!", which, of course, means "the boat". I suspect they should have been shouting "Die Aufladung!" ("the boot"), but that's too much for a bunch of drunk Americans. The fellow to my left ended up polishing off the bottom of two boots, and I ended up finishing off the end of boot #11.

The entire affair was documented by continuously passing Russ's camera up and down the table. I dread seeing some of the photographs...

All in all it was a loud, fun evening. After warning us that breaking a boot would set the breakie back 60 bucks, our waitress joined in drinking from a couple of the boots, and even climbed up on our table at one point. Our party got very silly very quickly, and every time a party would walk into the restaurant we'd cheer and applaud their arrival. That got some fun reactions. The whole table would break out singing to a few of the songs heard on the sound system, and one of these had out waitress prompting us to do Y M C A type arm movements to the lyrics. Surprisingly, given all that flailing, only one glass was a casualty of the evening, and no boots were broken. Oh, and as to the boots: our party went through 14. That's 28 liters of beer... or an average of a half dozen bathroom runs per attendee.

Danke schön? Gute Nacht!

Posted by molyneaux at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 1:47 AM PDT

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Dana and I were talking about the night sky a while back, and I told him about two "astronomical" experiences I had earlier in the decade, one viewing a lunar eclipse, and a second Total Perspective Vortex moment with myself and the Milky Way.  I think what I wrote about the moon is lost to the ages, but I found the one about the Milky Way.  The date it was composed is lost, but I'm fairly certain it was July 2003.

I wrote this to someone I was once close to, but I'm not going to rewrite it, so here it is, unedited. 

I’m writing this (on my palm pilot) just before bed on Sunday night. I’ll email it to you when I get home.

Tonight I had another "astronomical" experience, one on par with my experience with the moon. I'm here at my mom's, and while I intensely dislike the town and it remoteness, the one thing I love here is the sky. I was disappointed the first two nights here; it was overcast and rainy and at night there was nothing to see. But tonight nature smiled on me and the sky was clear but for a few small, whispy clouds.

I was leaving my friend Vince's house and looked up to see a sight I'd not seen in years: the amazing, incomparable heavens as seen from the high desert. My memory was a pale and shabby substitute for what I saw. Literally THOUSANDS of stars: bright and faint, distinct to barely detectable, and the Milky Way a glowing ribbon of light going right overhead.

I left Vince's and went to my mother's. I parked my car but could not bring myself to going inside. Instead, I walked around the corner into the darkness where no nearby streetlamp reached. There I stayed, walking in small circles, head tilted back and going around and around, marveling at what I saw. It was so clear and there were so many stars out that it was actually somewhat difficult to make out the best known constellations in all this stellar grandeur. I had to squint my eyes to make the dimmer stars vanish so I could find familiar celestial landmarks like Cassiopea and Cygnus.

And, as if this wasn't amazing enough, I saw no less than five shooting stars, two of which were no mere specks, but visibly flaring and fading. The word magical has so many wrong connotations, but it's the best word I can think of at this late hour.

Then, as I looked straight up and the Milky Way directly overhead, I found myself shifting my focus from its glowing parts to its darker patches...and that's when it happened. By shifting my focus I suddenly realized what I was seeing, and that the dark areas were the dust and other material of the interstellar medium, and that the glow was, in many cases, coming from beyond and behind it. In that moment the whole sky became dimensional. There was this sense of things both near and far -- although even "near" is impossibly far. As with the Moon, it became real in a way that stunned me. Its immenseness struck me on a very deep, animal level, and I felt as if I could fall into it. There was a fleeting moment of almost primal fear. I felt overwhelmed, impossibly tiny. And a moment later, exhilarated and awed by what I was seeing and feeling.

As I stared heavenwards I wished you were at my side, holding my hand, and sharing this moment of staggering beauty with me. I know you would have appreciated it at least in some way that I did. I wanted, in that moment, to share that with you. I hope that someday I may.

Posted by molyneaux at 12:58 AM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 10:27 PM PDT

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For some time I've been stymied in my quest to find a wine rack or small liquor cabinet for my dining room. Nothing seemed right for my (admittedly) eclectic tastes.

A couple of weeks ago I was in the a shop called Given (http://www.givenonline.com)—it occupies what was once Harvey Milk's Castro Camera—where I saw some beautiful but gawdawful expensive credenzas of which I was enamored but which were just too big and not a match for my dining room furniture.

However, the same artist (www moderncellar.com) who made the credenzas (credenzae?) made these interesting wine racks—no two alike—called Sporadic, which hang on the wall.  I went back twice to look at them, then finally decided I had to have one (especially after being told they were not going to be made any more).

Here it is, in its new home. 

 

Posted by molyneaux at 6:37 PM PDT

Updated: Saturday, 10 May 2008 10:48 AM PDT

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While doing research on immediate family history and places we lived. I rediscovered the old (and currently shuttered) Huntridge Theater, and other movie places we attended as kids. This made me think of films we saw in those theaters, which fired up some old synapses about things related to it.

One thing that popped to mind was a die cast toy I had from the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I don't recall what happened to mine, but I recalled it was roughly Hot Wheel sized and had wings that would fold out and snap on plastic airfoils at the front and back. My friend Sherri had one back in Fallon.

Out of curiosity, I Googled it to see if I could figure out who made it, and, as with the Sizzlers, it turns out it's being made...again.

Holy Transformers...of the past!

A few bucks to an online toy retailer and here it is. Just like I remember, but less banged up.

I'll make a parking space for it near the Batmobile...

 

 

 

Posted by molyneaux at 12:01 AM PDT

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...it's not flat...

 It's crazy not flat.

Above is an art piece which illustrates the terrain in relief. I have one of these in my living room.

Click here for webpage where you can buy one (not cheap!)

Click here for a video with the artist making fun of Google Earth for making S.F. look flat.

 

Click HERE to View Reason #1

Posted by molyneaux at 3:01 PM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 10:30 PM PDT

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Was looking for something on YouTube today and found some videos people had shot while Dana and I were extras for the filming of Milk.

This one is from our 2nd time playing extras.

There I am!

Click to watch the video.

In the video I'm in a brown corduroy flat cap, shirtless. I'm visible in various points of the linked video above, but if you watch between 3:43 and 3:50 you can see me pumping my fists in the air.

And here's some video of the recreation of the Candlelight March we did, shot by someone parallel to the marchers.

Posted by molyneaux at 11:03 PM PDT

Updated: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:40 AM PDT

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A while ago something else from my childhood popped into my head...it was an architectural construction toy we had. I think Mom got it at a thrift store or from the church or something, because I never knew what it was called.  Anyway, it consisted of white plastic frames, beams, transparent panels and textured plastic panels.  Even as a kid I realized we had what appeared to be an incomplete set.

I did sketch in my notebook to remind me of it.

Tonight I remembered the sketch and decided to search for Architectural Toys via Google. I quickly hit on a page that catalogs many dozens of them. I systematically paged through each one until—eureka!—I found it!

The toy was called Super City by Ideal. Click here for more!

I'd know those yellow plastic domes anywhere...

Another childhood mystery solved.

At this rate, I'll have them all solved about the time I forget them all.

Posted by molyneaux at 2:03 AM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 19 May 2009 10:28 PM PDT

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