Your Only Directive

The first sentence spoken today on NPR, after my alarm went off: "Your only directive is to tell the story to the best of your abilities." I lay there wondering how many writers were avoiding their work by napping and waking up to NPR, only to discover that it too was telling you that you're need to get back on track.

At a BBQ in Bushwick this afternoon--technically a "grill party," as there was food cooked for short amounts of time over direct heat as opposed to actual BBQ, which is food cooked for long amounts of time with indirect heat--I found myself in the middle of telling a bunch of strangers what my novel was "about." It's a fair question--it's the first thing non-writers will ask you. I am always surprised at what comes out of my mouth. It's never quite the same "about" and it's always slightly skewed depending on the audience. In this case, the audience was a bunch of people I'd just met, all of them straight (as far as I could tell.)

Some advice: If you find yourself at a party with a writer who's finished a novel, instead of asking "What's it about?" say something like "What can you tell me about it."

Kip and I saw Spider Man 3 today--and so did the whole world, apparently. It took in somewhere in the ballpark of $148 million. But if you ask me: Spider Man 3 = Boring as hell.

The Martian Child

About five years ago I was strolling through The Strand, and I came up on a book by David Gerrold, called The Martian Child. They've now made the book into movie starring John Cusack as David, and directed by Menno Meyjes, who among other things, also wrote the screenplay for "The Color Purple."

The trailer is out now. I watched it the other night at Kip's house, wondering how they'd make this lovely, small, quiet-with-big-impact semi-memoir into a mainstream film. It's about a single gay man who adpots a kid who thinks he's from Mars. And not like, he pretends to be from Mars. He actually believes it. Much to the dismay of social workers and David's friends, of course. No dismay to David, naturally. Well--some dismay, but you get the idea.

The trivia section for the The Martian Child's IMDB listing, explains this:

In David Gerrold's semi-autobiographical book The Martian Child, the character that was eventually played by John Cusack in this movie was, like Gerrold himself, a gay single father of an adopted son. The producers of the movie insisted that audiences would not accept the main character as a gay man and changed him to a heterosexual widower. Gerrold lobbied (unsuccessfully) for the character to remain gay, but ultimately he decided that it was more important that a film promoting adoption, foster parenthood, and attention to neglected children get made than to disallow the whole project on the basis of the main character's sexual orientation.

Doesn't that make you want to puke?

I wonder sometimes if audiences would "accept the main character as a gay man" if they saw a lot more gay men on screen. If, for example, gay men weren't just witty sidekicks, hairdressers and serial killers. (Okay, so I like the whole lesbian-serial-killer thing, but whatever.) I wonder if, in my lifetime, all the old, fat, rich, white, assholes who run Hollywood will finally just die already, and a newer, younger generation of producers and film studio heads will actually want to make movies about real people doing real things--regardless of the arrangement of their sexual behavior.

What they really mean when they say "accept the main character as a gay man" is that the audience would disagree with the idea that gay people can be parents, are worth making films about, scream pedofilia, ask for their money back and tell their friends not to see this liberal piece of commie trash. Well, isn't that what they'd say? More or less?

One Sentence Sunday, #1

She felt his lips press against her skin, one of the few places on his sturdy, grown-up body that wasn’t covered in thick brown fur.

When I Go

My friend Meg had the smarts to tell people what she had done to ensure that after she had died, (Did she know it was coming soon? Had she sensed something?) we would do what she wanted, nothing less, nothing more. She wrote it all down in an envelope, and she told her sister where to find the envelope. We did everything she asked. And it was beautiful. I recently read this article by Joan again, in which she lays out the Terry Schiavo debacle, and wonders just who has the right to decide what makes a life worth living.

So.

I don't want there to be any confusion. Here's what to do when I go. It's quite simple, really.

1) Give away everything that science/medicine/organ people might want. Eyes, spleen, kidney, liver, collectible first editions, etc.

2) Cremate the rest of me. Then share me. Let everyone take a tablespoon.

3) Scatter me around; I want to be in a bunch of different places. Choose the places yourself. Pick a place because I liked to sit there, or you think I would have liked to sit there. Or pick a place that you would like to visit, so that when you want to think of me, you can visit that place. Or when you visit that place, you think of me.

4) Gather everybody in whatever geographical locales are easiest. Have a party. Everyone tell stories. Tell bad jokes. Tell good ones. Make jokes about me being a control freak. About my grumpiness. About my affinity for mail waiting to be sent. Play music.

5) Eat. Eat lavishly. Eat yourself sick and tired. Be ridiculous in your menu planning. Have it catered by the best. Or have everyone cook. Have french fries. Have tiny boursin and avocado sandwiches. Have manchego and quince paste. Have fried baby artichokes with lemon sauce. Have something with flour tortillas. Have gay-sounding ice cream flavors.

That's it.

Happy Birthday Andrea!

Excitement!

This evening, Kip and Cheryl and I are off to see Patty Griffin at the Beacon Theater. One of my favorite musicians in one of my favorite venues!

Coming up: birthday dinners for Robert and Andrea, my friend Mark from Melbourne is coming to stay with me a for a few days, and then Kip is off to Atlantis in the Bahamas with his brother for a long weekend. Add in all these meetings and ticket tracking for GLAMOK!, the upcoming Circus Amok benefit on May 21, and sheesh, when does a guy have a moment to relax?

My agent emailed with another round of rejections--which is actually good news, or at least I can take a positive perspective on it--because two years ago, I was rejected by nobody. Nobody had even read the novel, and the feedback I'm getting isn't totally horrible, though nobody's clammoring down my door offering me a contract.

Still, I whittle away slowly on this new monster. One word at a time.

Witold and I saw The Reaping, which was, in some ways, the best movie I've seen since December. I knew exactly what I was buying a ticket for: satanic cults, biblical ridiculousness, cliched plot twists, and Hilary Swank giving the Look Of Wonder a lot. (PS, Laura Dern totally has the Look Of Wonder trademarked.) Thus, it was great.

And I just ran into Stephen Daldry on the street corner. He's in pre-production on The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

Shut Up & Sing

On March 10, 2003, Natalie Maines, lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, said to a London concert audience: "Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas." The quote was abbreviated, printed first in The Guardian, taken up by the AP, and thus subsequently set off a thoroughly ridiculous media firestorm.

Shut Up and Sing is a fascinating documentary feature directed by Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, which follows the Dixie Chicks through "The Incident," as the Chicks themselves refer to it, the aftermath, and later the recording and promotion of their newest record, "Taking the Long Way." Run, don't walk, to your local video store, or to your Netflix queue, and see the movie.

There's a lot of husbands and babies in the movie, a lot of Simon Renshaw, the Chicks' manager, shouting for them to put a baby down and get on stage, a lot of hair and make-up, writing and re-writing lyrics, structuring their musical arrangements, and so forth. There's also, perhaps more interestingly, a lot of discussion about their careers. They are very career-minded ladies. I guess it surprised me--I fell for the patina of their music, maybe--to see that they're ambitious, calculating businesswomen with clear goals and high standards.

The movie has big emotional impact--especially for me since I'm a big fan--following Maines down the arena corridor in Dallas, at the performance which followed a credible death threat. She doesn't address it dirrectly in the film, but the show goes on. The indirect repercussions of the threats are felt throughout the band, and fiddle-player Martie Maguire later breaks down when discussing how hard it might be on Maines. "If she came to me today and wanted to quit..." she says.

It's a shame the film can't end with the 2007 Grammy Awards, in which the Dixie Chick's sweep every category that they're nominated for--five in total--after having been vilified in the music industry to such a degree.

Of course, what you take away from the movie in the end, is what huge effect a few words can have, and how fragile Freedom of Speech actually is in America--when the speech is contrary to the popular opinion.

Ode to BL/CR

More Magical Thinking

I've been reading all the reviews of Joan's play, The Year of Magical Thinking. I actually pretty much agree with all of them. Even the ones who focus on the failings of the production--and I think there are several large failings--tend to get the bigger idea, and none of them are completely offended, for example, as they were with The Pirate Queen. Ben Brantley started out his review of that show by saying: "Many and exhausting are the physical activities that occupy the long hours of “The Pirate Queen,” the loud and restless musical that opened last night at the Hilton Theater." He later referred to the "stage-bruising" choreography.

Ms. Redgrave, the consensus seems to be, is the wrong actor for the part. The subject matter makes a book, not a play. Grief is a personal journey, and doesn't make for theatrical pathos. Though we can't imagine why it wouldn't.

Brantley called "Magical Thinking" "arresting yet ultimately frustrating." He's right. Oh well. What can you do?

Save the Date!

Circus Amok is hosting a fantabulous, extravagentistic, glamourlicious, glittertastic benefit at PS122 on Monday, May 21, 2007.

Mistress of Ceremonies, Carmelita Tropicana!

Performances by Justin Bond, Peggy Shaw, Basil Twist,
The Dazzle Dancers, Julie Atlas Muz, and the Swiss Misses!

Live music by The Circus Amok Band!

Silent Auction featuring work and goodies by Inner Princess,
Nautica, Babeland, Liz Bear, Town Shop, Birkram Yoga LES,
Mikey’s HookUp & more, more, more.

Run for your Lives!

Buy tickets HERE.