Festing with the Best of 'Em

Nashville has a pretty damned good film festival (NaFF for you anagram addicts), and every year I go apeshit trying to see as many movies as possible. I read the synopses and scan the schedules, planning my method of attack with an eye for maximum celluloid exploitation. Sadly, this year I only have plans to attend three screenings for reasons both good (too many conflicting social engagements) and bad (very tight budget).

Last night I attended the opening night screening of Weekend, a British film about two men who, after a one-night stand, find themselves spending the majority of the next two days in each other's company. They drink, screw, talk and do a LOT of recreational drugs. In their short time together, despite having very different approaches to life, they become very close.

The film was shot in a primarily hand-held camera/cinema verite style, and that, coupled with the very solid acting by the two leads, made the movie seem more like a documentary than a narrative film. I found myself having very visceral reactions to what was happening, as if they were real people making bad decisions right in front of me. This speaks strongly to the quality writing, which was very solid and never brought attention to itself - something that is especially important when it comes to this sort of film.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the movie's refreshing approach to the sex, specifically gay sex. The filmmakers did not shy away from showing any aspect, from pit-licking at the beginning to wiping up at the end. Everything was just ... there. It always seems that movies will sidle up to showing gay sex, but there's still a great deal of mystery to it, provided by a convenient bed sheet or creative shot framing. It's like the character Glen says: "Oh, we don't want to scare the straights!" Fuck 'em. We're here. We're queer. And we have sex. More films need to adopt this take-no-prisoners approach. Perhaps then big movie stars would finally be able to justify how much money they make.

One last thing: I'm in love with Chris New, who played Glen. He's the one with the tape recorder in the trailer, which you'll find below. I found him on Twitter today and complimented him on his stellar performance, and he responded almost immediately, thanking me and wishing me well. Isn't that sweet? Yup. Insta-boner.



Fun Fact for folks who scrolled past the video: Remember when I mentioned they show the guys wiping up afterward? Yeah, well, the lady behind me was absolutely scandalized by the sudden appearance of fluids. She gasped once loudly and then quietly at least four more times. I hope someone got her a paper bag to breathe into after the movie.

The Dangers of a Hyperactive Imagination

I have passed a man standing alone on the side of the road on several occasions as I make my way to work. I realize a man standing alone on the side of the road isn't all that unusual, but hear me out.

He is always standing in the same place. I see him just as I turn to get on the interstate, leaning slightly against the guardrail at the beginning of the on-ramp. The location would suggest that he might be thumbing for a ride, but he never seems to acknowledge the cars passing by.

I go to work very early in the morning. Typically, I like to get to work around ten minutes to six, which means I pass this man at roughly 5:40 a.m. At this time of year, it's still dark outside that early, so if he's just hanging out looking at the cars, wouldn't they be easier to see a few hours later in the daylight?

Speaking of this time of year, who in the hell hangs out next to an on-ramp when it's so freaking cold outside? The guy has got to be freezing!

There are a few businesses nearby, so you might think that perhaps he's just passing the time on a smoke break. There's a motel and a Waffle House within walking distance. If he's the night auditor at the motel, he's completely deserting his post. That leaves Waffle House, but he doesn't wear the WaHo uniform.

So, yeah, I'm stumped. And not a little bit creeped out. Damn that Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the Air. Back in the early 1940's they performed a radio play by Lucille Fletcher (who also wrote the chilling "Sorry, Wrong Number") that featured a phantom hitchhiker haunting Orson Welles' character as he drove alone cross-country. The man appears on the side of the road over and over and over again, and Welles is eventually driven from mild anxiety to the brink of madness. (Pun intended.)

I wish I'd never listened to that damned episode of Suspense, because now I get genuinely freaked out when I turn onto the on-ramp and my headlights pass over this lonely soul standing stoically in the cold darkness of the pre-dawn hours. This, my friends, is what sucks about having an active imagination.

Interesting way to meet people, I guess

I just found the following ad on Craigslist under Missed Connections:

I let Fluffy out this morning to go tinkle. Little did I know, the hot neighbor kid must have left my gate open when he came to play on my swing set, because Fluff ran right out of the yard! I can tell you're a real determined, goal-oriented guy, because when you hit my dog you didn't even tap the breaks! I know we didn't get a proper introduction, but I'd like to take you out for dinner. You're a blond, middle-aged guy who drives a big truck with a pair of those rubber nuts hanging off the back. Respond and tell me what kind of dog I had so I know it's you. PS: Fluffy died on contact, but I'm not mad at you. He was already blind in one eye and walked with a limp, so maybe it's best that this happened when it did.

I'm ... I'm speechless.

Redefining "vague"

I just saw the following ad on Craigslist in the "Missed Connections" section:

--------------------------------------------------
This past Saturday Night - m4m - 32 (Nashville)
Date: 2009-07-29, 7:00AM CDT

We met Saturday night and I didn't get to say goodbye. I had a good time. Lets hang out again. What's your name? What's mine? What did we do?
--------------------------------------------------

Wow. Could you vague that up a bit more for me? Met where? At what point in the evening? What were you wearing? What was discussed?

How the hell is anyone supposed to reply to this ad? There are no specifics to latch onto whatsoever. This kind of thing drives me crazy, and sooooo many posters make the same mistake.

What really cracks me up about this ad is the fact that you can imagine the last few sentences in a desperate sort of way. "Heavens to Betsy, I can't remember your name. I can't seem to recall yo--Wait. My God, I can't remember mine either! Whatever has happened? Whatever have I done?!"

Amnesia will wreck a fledgling relationship every time.

Oh, 69!

I hit up MadDonna's in East Nashville for Drag Queen Bingo with the bestie last night. Adam said it started at 8ish, so we planned to get there at 7:30 so that I could grab some dinner beforehand. I ended up running behind, so we didn't get there until about 10 to 8, making me nervous that I wouldn't have time to eat before the festivities began. Such an assumption was terribly silly of me, of course, since as we all know, "drag time" is not real time. I don't think things actually got rolling until 9:15 or so.

It was a damn good thing, too, because the task of ordering food proved be a true test of patience, since the poor bartender had to take care of every single person in the upstairs area. She was serving around 35+ people, and she wasn't writing anything down! This led directly to her not putting in my new friend Monique's full order; the poor dear had to make due with hummus until her entree arrived.

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the inimitable Bianca Page arrived wearing a white, green, and black catsuit that would make Pollock puke. She lip-synced to a country version of "Irreplaceable", and then proceeded to make enough blue references and off-color comments to peel the paint of any church within twenty miles. There were a couple of teenagers in the audience, but Bianca didn't tone down her shtick one bit. I'm kind of glad she didn't, since those kids shouldn't have been there anyway.

Finally, the bingo-ing began. Bianca called out letter/number combos, and different parts of the room reacted according to their good or bad fortune. I didn't have much luck; whenever I got within one square of winning, someone invariably hit the one they needed first. Ironically, "B5" came up several times ... and not once did it help me. Poor Adam had one round where he was one away in three different directions, and he still got beat out. That's just fine by us, though. We didn't want any stinkin' prizes anyway.

I hope that guy who won the penis-shaped lollipop chokes on it.

BEDA, Day 9 (But written on the 10th)

Damn, drat, curses and various other exclamations that signify frustration on behalf of the speaker! I missed another day of the B(log) E(very) D(ay in) A(pril) blogathon. Blast! To make up for it, I'll blog about some stuff that happened yesterday that I planned on blogging about last night. That's almost as good, right? ... No? ... Well, it will just have to do, by gum.

Work was pretty normal. The usual "put Tab A into Slot B" stuff. When I got off at 2 o'clock, I randomly decided to take the long way home, since it was sunny and nice. Along the way, I decided to stop by a shop that I noticed the day before. Actually, I saw a Blues Brother out on the sidewalk the previous day, which takes a little explaining.

There are quite a few thrift and secondhand shops on my side of town, and there used to be a particularly neat one called Crystal Dragon. The wall outstide boasted "Cool Stuff / Weird Things", and that was the truth. You could find all sorts of weird, kitschy stuff in there, which means it was right down my alley. On the sidewalk in front of the store, there would usually be two or three especially odd bits of statuary to lure folks in.

A couple of years ago, the owners decided to pull up stakes and make a new home at the Bellevue Center Mall. If you live in Nashville and have any knowledge of that particular shopping mecca-cum-ghost town, you understand why my reaction to the move was "What the hell are they thinking?" Predictably, abdicating their well-known digs and setting up shop on a sinking ship proved to be a horrible decision, and the store soon closed its doors.

So I passed the Blues Brother "dancing" on the sidewalk and resolved to go inside, thinking that, yay, the old shop has returned! Boy, was I wrong. There was junk strewn about and in no particular order. Only about .05% of the items had price tags on them, and the rest ... well, you wouldn't want 'em anyway, so what would be the point? I was very disappointed. To add insult to injury, I was the only patron in the "store", which meant I had the focused attention of the man running the shop. Sitting in low-profile lawn chair behind a glass display case, he could see me before I could see him, so when he spoke, he startled me. We exchanged a few pleasantries as I walked around thinking, "Great. Now I have to slowly make for the exit without being too obvious about what I'm doing." He asked, "What part of town you from, pardner?" Yes, he actually said "pardner" with a hard "d" sound, no lie. I checked his feet for cowboy boots (ding!) and, in the most vague possible fashion, I told him I lived in the area. Some more forced conversation followed as I got closer and closer to the door. As I finally got to the point where I felt I could get out cleanly, I looked over my shoulder and said, "Thanks." (As in "Thanks for not guilting me into buying these used baby bottles.") From behind me I heard him call, "Tell your friends!"

... so I am.