Okay! Okay! Alright! Enough already!
 

I know I haven’t blogged since Neil Arnott invented the waterbed, and I appreciate the many of who have lovingly asked me, “What the hell, loser?” but if you knew the LIST of reasons why I haven’t been able to write here, you’d have a greater sense of compassion.

1.)    I was busy researching the origin of the waterbed.

2.)   I switched to decaf. But the not normal kind. The kind that makes you forget to breathe. So you collapse. You almost die. (Available in whole bean from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.)

3.)    I was in the hospital on a respirator that artificially kept my lungs going.
 

Not my best photo, but I like it 'cause I look slim.

4.)    I was busy inventing a version of the waterbed that could be used in hospitals.

5.)    I almost died of electrocution while testing a hospital waterbed (or, as I call them, Surf-a-Sufferer). As fate would have it, the electrical shock got my lungs to start got my lungs to start working again but also did something to my brain so that I now unwittingly repeat words sometimes.

Thursday night, after a sexy and glorious workday at Amoeba Music Hollywood, my boyfriend Corey picked me up and whisked me away to the premiere party for Outfest, held at the historic Orpheum Theatre in downtown LA.

Outfest is LA’s most popular film festival for the GLBT community. (GLBT stands for Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender and should never be confused with the BLT, a popular sandwich.)


"Outfest is the only nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring that the extensive but threatened LGBT film heritage is preserved. Since the beginning of the struggle for LGBT equality, visionary filmmakers have recorded their lives, challenges and triumphs on film. Outfest is committed to saving, preserving and providing access to that precious, affirming heritage for generations to come." - quote from their website

Put another way, this is a chance to see lots of muscle hunks come to terms with bullies and remakes of “Pretty Woman” that could be called “Pretty Women”.

If I sound cynical, it’s because I am, a bit. But that’s not a reflection of Outfest, rather, a problem I often have with queer cinema. I’ve never been a fan of romantic comedies, and because the definition of gay is indicative of sex, so many gay films are “romantic”.

That’s just one issue I have. On the whole, queer cinema suffers from the same things that mainstream films do. Clichés and what-not. It’s particularly discouraging to see gay films that mimic straight films but, you know, with gay people in ‘em. It’s rare to find a film that is distinctively “gay” outside of the love scenes.