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Preview Pix

The images of Tim and Dallas came out fine. Here are a few images of Tim that I’ll possibly be working with. (Keep in mind that these scans are of my contact sheets, so the tones and contrast are uncorrected):
and a few of Dallas:

I’m very excited to be working with real images again, after a five or so month break. Interestingly, my relations with these two gents has been conducted almost entirely in virtual space, involving an interaction with their innermost thoughts and only briefly their exposed bodies.

Stay tuned to see what happens.

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Back in the Studio

Meanwhile, back in the studio… Today I processed the film of Tim and Mr. Dallas. I should be printing contact sheets later in the week, but can’t guess how long it’ll be before I have anything in progress to show. Tim has a magnificent swirl of hair in the center of the small of his back, and Dallas’ forearms are swathed in delicate hairy whisps. There’s so much possibility… After these two (or so) pieces, I may move away from the rigidity of the grid format that I’ve been working with, and introduce different-sized images, or even color, within each piece. I’ve been thinking a lot about the boundaries of identity, and specifically Leo Bersani’s “shattering of the self.” I’d like to explore a balance between the recognizable and the fantastic, or even the absence of the body.

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Povero Berlusoni

“It’s a great sacrifice to do what I’m doing,” said Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s richest man, “I’m not having fun at all… I have a sailboat, but in two years, I’ve only been on it one day… and I haven’t been to my house in Bermuda for two of three years. And the same goes for my house in Portofino… Do you understand? My life has changed? The quality has become terrible. What a brutal job… How much longer do I have to live this life of sacrifices?”

Mr. Berlusconi said he was confident that his government would last a full-five year term. “It’s never happened before,” he said, referring to postwar Italy, “but it will happen to me.”

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Great First Times

I saw a delightful little film tonight, Raising Victor Vargas, Peter Sollett’s first film about a Dominican-American family in the lower east side, very much a slice of life taken from reality and not from Hollywood cliche. There’s so much tenderness, as well as a lot of young male posturing and sexual agressivity that remains playful, never threatening or escalating into violence. When I was very young, very naive, and very into glamour, in 1985, I took my first trip to New York with my friend Augustine. His “Nanna” offered to put us up in her apartment on West Moshula Parkway. We had no idea that West Moshula Parkway was in the Bronx, and thus an hour away from anything, nor that Nanna lived in the projects. We arrived at 2:00 in the morning with our 5 suitcases and Augustine’s furs (it was May), and my chandelier drop earrings. As soon as Nanna opened the door, she looked us up and down and said “I got someone I want y’all ta meet” and in the morning took us downstairs to meet Winston, her skinny queeny hairdresser, snap snap, who showed us fabulous New York. The guys in the projects would whistle at Augustine, and call him “Miss Thing” but it was all in fun, and we never felt threatened. And some guy always opened the door for Augustine. Maybe we were just lucky, but I did go away thinking that the media had created an illusion that was out of synch with reality. Raising Victor Vargas is a very real and very familiar New York family snapshot, if not completely original, and loads of fun.

I saw another interesting first film this week, Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow, which borrows heavily from film narrative, but creates very rich portraits of bored Asian-American teenage over-achievers who get involved in drugs and crime. An incredible first film–very well-written, with excellent performances.

I also saw Sex and Lucia this week, which I also liked, particularly for its integration of pornographic content, and more particularly for one scene of an enormous mud-smeared glans slowly emerging from an equally enormous mud-smeared foreskin. I am so in favor of this recent European tendency to challenge any distinctions between nudity and pornography. I am not that fond of genre porn because the sex is presented in a language that doesn’t draw from my reality, or even an abstraction of it that moves me, aside from the brilliant “art” films of the Brothers Gage, where you see guys playing with stereotypes and really enjoying what they’re doing.

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180#

Well, it looks like I’m a 180 pound person. I’ve weighed 165 pounds since high school. My excess weight corresponds directly to my post-twinkie pre-midlife crisis of 2000-2002. I’ve always felt unattractively thin, and given my preference for the full-figured, never particularly understood how men found me attractive, the ones who did, that is, but now it’s sort of thrilling to see jiggling in my own mirror. And is there more hair, too? I remember when Steve turned 50 and said that he was becoming the man he loved. There’s much more urgency in my work-outs now. I have to maintain the musculature trapped but slightly visible beneath the layer of cushioning fat, and battle the pre-destined eastern European/Italian pear. And gravity seems realer. After playing the twinkie card for 20 years, I’ve entered the ‘tween years, no longer a boy and not ready to be called anybody’s daddy. The arbiters of gay taste passed up this little category when handing out objective monikers. Twink, daddy, bear, cub, and me. I’m happy with my extra 15 pounds of love.

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Mysterious Skin, Little Things

Just got in from seeing a dramatic interpretation of Scott Heim’s novel, Mysterious Skin, at The New Conservatory Theater, with Bob and Kevin Killian. It was really good, with excellent acting and lots of gratuitous nudity. The story centers around a young man, Brian, puzzling out vague memories of being abducted by aliens–turns out that he mistook fisting the baseball coach for being probed by extraterrestrials. At one point in the play, Neil, his childhood friend and the one who releases Brian’s suppressed memories, is raped by a john (he’s a hustler), and everyone removes his clothes. The nudity does nothing to heighten the realism of the rape–all the pee-pees on display are Mister Softies–but lordy if the john didn’t have the cutest little button–furry chest and bald head, too!

Earlier I stopped in to see Barry McGee’s opening at the Luggage Store, and bumped into an old fellow LAB Board member, Jen Levy, who is opening a bakery in Berkeley with the former pastry chef from Hawthorn Lane. They’re specializing in savory Czech pastries, kalaches (spelling?). She says they’re the next bagels.

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Live Nude Action!

Okay, I was just trying to get your attention, my thrill-seeking friends. My nude-free exhibition is finally up and viewable now at the Marjorie Wood Gallery. It’s called Out of Breath. It’s slightly different from my beta version–I’ve added different voices, including the sexy aspirations of Iain and the post coital murmurings of Manny.

Enjoy!

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Bad timing, tired, but lots of fun

Well, yesterday I screwed up my timing, whisking Mr. Dallas to SFMoMA at 10, when it opened at 11, trying to get him in and out and back for his lunch date at noon, and then shifted gears and decided to conduct a little tour of the Embarcadero, the new Oldenburg/Van Bruegen sculpture, and the remodeled ferry building, which also turned out to be not open, the official opening a day away, although a door was open, so in we wandered… only to be escorted out by a very friendly woman who asked us gingerly if we had passes, to which I replied, no, but would you like to escort us out of the building? She did, but we did get to see the entire interior before being booted, and it’s great–In the early 90’s, I frequently had to meet Port Authority officials there to secure permits for various Secession Gallery installations, and remember feeling very disoriented–as if offices had been plopped into some grand architectural space with no relation to it whatsoever. Now you can see what’s been hidden for the past 50 or so years. They’ve uncovered the skylight, which spans the entirety of the vast interior, restored the mosaic floors, and are now opening various commercial spaces to local vendors, and the Saturday Farmer’s Market is now going to happen right in front.

So anyway, continuing with our touristing, we ventured to the wharf to see the sea lions at Pier 39. Dallas and I held hands while making our way through the gawking visitors waiting to board the ferries, intent on guiding them into an awareness of homosexual affection. The only way to change the world is to be visible, and it was empowering, if not my homosexual duty, to hold hands with this big hairy tourist. Two fairies strolling past the ferries. A Japanese tourist even took our picture.

I got Dallas back in time for his lunch with Loren, a successful bear porn artist guy, who was a real sweetie. Loren returned Dallas to me in time to get to Reese’s 4th grade production of Really Rosie (Reese played Pierre). I had to pry Loren and Dallas’ lips apart to get them out of my garage, I never thought of my garage as a particularly romantic spot, and to the play on time. But we made it, and they play was sweet. Reese was, of course, completely fabulous, projecting and gesticulating enthusiastically. I was the embarrassingly proud step-dad laughing and clapping way too loudly. My little star.

We met up with Big Chris for martinis (a virgin Cosmo for Dallas), dinner at Basil Thai, and then an evening with Matmos and Victor at the Stud. I’ve only conversed with Victor electronically, so it was a supreme pleasure to finally touch that incredible beard of his and admire his smartly coiffed poof of neck hair. Alas, our evening of dancing at the Stud with Victor lasted a full 15 minutes before the eyelids of the tired bears started drooping, and to home we split.

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Furry visitor from the Lone Star State

Peter from Dallas is coming to town. You better watch out, kids. I’ll be picking him up in a bit at the airport. I’m going to photograph some part of him this weekend, not sure which, for the new series of disjunct portraits that I mentioned a few days ago. He’s so into all things related to bottomness that I feel compelled to explore that territory. I haven’t decided yet on a structural framework for the project, just that I want to work with about six guys, and make one composite portrait of each–then perhaps a Frankenstein portrait made of two images from each of the six portraits.  Tim’s back hair swirl is next, and I’m toying with the idea of refering to Van Gogh’s Starry Night in some way, those whorls tumbling across the night sky, serene and tumultuous.

I’m continuing to study French and train for the major caloric input that my body will suffer through in Paris. I can’t say no to a pastry. Or a crepe or a cheese or a wine or a goose liver… I want to die like the guys in La Grande Bouffe, of gastronomic excess.

My French tapes, alas, are preparing me and my wife, and our two children, one large boy and one small girl, evidently, for renting a car and filling the tank with 30 litres of gas. L’essence, (lay-sawnce) in French. Did you ever hear such a beautiful word for gasoline? I’m getting a little nervous. Thus far I’ve learned nothing of practical use. How do you say “Those are nice furry shoulders, Monsieur–perhaps you’d like to join me for a coffee and a tooth flossing?”

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Ce Soir

Bonsoir, mes amis! I’m well on the way to making shopping in France. I can now order an Orangina for my femme, some wine for me, four of those, and a booklet of tickets for le Metro. I still can’t get with the rolling r’s. My poor little uvula. Wrapping it and my tongue around trente trois is, sadly, the only challenging flex of those muscles of late. One would think that my oral dexterity would lend itself to trilling and trenting, and the Italian r isn’t all that different, but instead I spit and choke, gurgle, honk, and aspirate. Italian is the language for me. There’s a delight in every sound, every letter given clarity and purpose, delivered with gesticulation and emotion, tasted as leaving the mouth. French seems to challenge my gag reflex too much. It’s actually a beautiful language–I only wish it would sound beautiful passing my lips. And I love the idea of all those silent consonants, existing only in the mind, or wed briefly to passing vowels.