Pictures from SF Pride

I've put my pictures from SF Pride up on my other website. No pictures of overly-tanned, naked men covered in Crisco, but if you're a Matthew Rush fan, be sure to check out row five, column two and onwards.

A Brief Interlude

My life has been pretty busy for what seems like forever. Between work, filming, my reading, auditions for the New Works Festival, playwriting class, plays, San Jose Pride, San Francisco Pride, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and my parents' cat, I've been doing a lot of running around.

Just last night I submitted a ten-page play of mine to a contest run by a theatre group in nearby Santa Cruz. It involved printing and binding five copies of the play, bundling all that into an manilla folder, and then going to the post office to weigh it, buy the $4.20 in postage and send it off. I also baked lemon bars for this quarter's playwrighting class final, which is tonight. And I squeezed in an hour of gay volleyball.

Whew!

And on Thursday I have...

Nothing.

I'm taking Friday off of work, making this weekend a five-day weekend. I've got a BBQ on the Fourth and a movie in the San Francisco on the second, but other than that, I have nothing to do.

It will be nice.

(Until I start getting antsy, which will happen at about 4:00 Friday afternoon. At which point I'll continue my revision of Swimming the River).

And then, on Wednesday, July 5, rehearsals for the New Works festival begin.

SF Pride

Wow, what a weekend. I started with D*Face, which I enjoyed a lot. I've got to to keep a eye on its author/performer, Michael Phillis.

On Saturday, I met up with the members of the 2006 great gay blogger round-up:
Adam, Atari_Age, Chad, Dan, Darin, Daryl, J.R., Jeff, Kalvin, Kelly, and Rey. I also met various friends and partners of the aforementioned bloggers.

It was really cool meeting in person all these folks that I've only read about and heard for the last year or so. And given the reactions, I think I made a wise choice in my evening apparel.

My favorite line of the evening: "Boy, you really are big!" Received, in various forms, from a variety of people. Truth in adverising, folks. Truth in advertising ;-)

Sunday I met up with a subset of the bloggers and watched the parade for a while. Just as they tired of it, another set of friends arrived, so I bid the bloggers adieu and watched another hour of the parade. Unlike previous years, they kept the parade well-organized. 188 floats, done in three hours, with virtually gaps between floats (I think the longest gap I saw was 3-4 minutes, and there was only one of those).

After it ended we went to the festival for a few hours, then finished with dinner at Fuzio. I bid my friends farewell, took in the Castro for a bit, then headed home myself. Unfortunately I had to miss the end-of-pride blogger send-off tentatively planned for about 10:00 this evening (as I write this) in the Castro; such is the price of living outside of the City.

We Have a Cast! (For Real)

We had one person decline our offer, but our second choice accepted. So we're all set! Rehersals start on July 5.

D*Face, or The Play By the Coat-Check Guy at Badlands

A few weeks ago I was in San Francisco when I saw the above poster. The face looked a little familiar, but it wasn't until a friend of mine pointed to it and said "that's the coat-check guy from the Badlands" that I recognized him.

Whatever other sins the Badlands may be guilty of, one thing I've always liked about it is their coat-check guy, Michael. I've can't really say that I know him per se (being at the head of the coat-check line at the Badlands doesn't leave a lot of time for idle chatter), but he's always been nice, and never demonstrated the attitude that pervades just about everyone else there.

Michael's show is called D*Face (I'll let you guess what the "D*" stands for). It's a one-man show, and it's playing at the New Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. His website describes it as

...a whirlwind tour through personal and universal events from grade-school to graduation...

I'm going Friday night. Not a bad way to kick off the Pride weekend.

We Have a Cast! (I Hope)

We had our second round of auditions last night. We're not doing callbacks, so after the audition we (the directors, authors and producer) gathered into a room and decided whom to cast.

This production consists of six plays, each of which has 2-5 people. For practical reasons the producer put a limit of two plays per actor, so the directors needed to negotiate over who would be in what play. There was one person whom four directors wanted, and 2-3 whom three directors wanted. The good news is that my director and I got all of our first choices for Community Property, so I'm really happy. There's still an issue about whether they'll accept (one of them has unresolved schedule issues, and another asked to be considered only for specific roles, and the role in my play isn't one of them). I should know for sure by the end of the week.

BTW, it's true what Faustus said about actors being good yet not right for a role. One of the best actors at the audition didn't get cast in anything, because he wasn't right for any role.

Jenny

Jenny died today.

Jenny was my parents' 19 year-old cat. She was born in January of 1987, during my sophomore year of high school. We got her in March of that year.

We had just lost another cat to feline leukemia, and were thinking about a replacement. Having just gotten my driver's license, I was looking for a reason to drive, so I went to a pet store in a nearby shopping center to look to see if they had any kittens. They did, so I went home and convinced my parents to get her. They agreed, and she came home that night. Jenny settled into our home quite easily, and was adopted by our longhaired fifteen-pound tomcat, JJ.

When she was about 18 months old, she was struck by a car. I ended up finding her in the rafters of the garage with the left side of her face smashed up. We rushed her to the vet, and she made a full recovery, except that she lost her left eye and a couple of teeth. Other than that, she lived a very healthy life until a couple of weeks ago. She went in to get a cyst removed and some bad teeth pulled and she apparently never recovered from the anesthesia.

Her organs started to fail last week. After a couple of trips to the vet for fluids and medicine, and a visit by me last Friday, she perked up somewhat. But this morning she couldn't walk and had to be put to sleep.

I'll miss her, but I take comfort in knowing that she had a good life.

New Works Festival Auditions This Week

Now that my reading is out of the way, my next project is starting: the second-annual Foothill New Works Festival. Auditions are tonight and tomorrow night. I will attend the auditions; as a playwright, my role is to advise the director on casting, though he will have the final say.

Rehearsals start on July 5, and opening night is August 4. I'm still a little hazy on what happens after the run at Foothill finishes. The Tech Museum may or may not produce some or all of the plays for area schools next year, but it's still up in the air.

Gay gay gay.

So I was running errands this morning. Target, Costco, etc. It was warm and sunny, so I put the top down on my cherry red Audi convertible. I then started looking through my iPod for music and settled on the dance remix version of the theme to Brokeback Mountain. After about a minute, I had a realization:

Could I possibly be any more gay?

The answer, surprisingly, is yes. In a couple of minutes I'm going to up it a notch by driving my gay car with its gay music to the annual picnic for the gay activities club I belong to. This is the same club with which I marched in last week's gay pride parade.

Tired Today

Thanks to left-over adrenaline from the reading, it took me a long time to get to sleep last night. Less than six hours later, I was woken up by a magnitude 4.7 earthquake this morning. Unfortunately I couldn't get back to sleep, because while a 4.7 isn't strong enough to do damage (at least here in California), it is strong enough to get the adrenaline going. Or maybe that's just a side effect of having lived through the '89 quake.

Anyway, I'm full of tea and diet cola today.

P.S. The wall above the head of my bed is bare. No picture, and certainly no bookshelf. This morning's earthquake should make it clear why.

Done

Wow, what a rush. My reading went very well last night. Before going in I had a pretty good idea of what the weakest part of the script is, and so I directed the post-reading discussion towards that. I got a lot of good comments, and I think I know what I need to do to fix it.

Swimming the River is a comedy, so a friend who came asked me if I enjoyed seeing the audience laugh. I did, but I told what was better was watching the audience being captivated. I sat at the very back of the theatre for the entire show so I could watch the audience, and there was very little rustling, reading of programs, etc. Everyone was watching the play. That's what a playwright aims for.

Reading

• 100 copies of the written comment form? Check.
  
• 50 pens? Check.
  
• (Properly labeled) box into which audience members will put their completed comment forms? Check.
  
• "Please take a comment form" sign? Check.
  
• Signs to put up so that people can find their way? Check.
  
• Written list of questions I will ask during the discussion period (including a pre-written "thank you for coming, this is how the discussion will work" speech)? Check.
  
• Actors? Check.
  
• Director? Check.
  
• Friends coming? Check.
  
• Parents coming? Check.
  
• Director of new works for a local semi-professional theatre coming? Check.
  

I think I'm ready for my reading.

R-minus four hours and counting.

Pride (Reprise)

Today I marched in the San Jose Gay Pride Parade and worked the Rainbow Rec booth for a couple of hours, as promised. I really got a kick out of doing both. I don't know what it is—camaraderie, the feeling of being a part of something bigger than myself, or just the warm glow that comes from volunteering—but I enjoyed SJ pride more than I have in years.

I took my big chunkalunka camera with me on the parade route and got some pictures.

A bunch of us, before the parade.

Volleyball is probably the most popular Rainbow Rec event, so a couple members hit a volleyball back and forth while we marched.

Part of the Healthy Penis anti-syphilis campaign.

The booth where I worked.

The parade route runs right in front of St. Joseph Cathedral. There were a few people outside protesting the parade, and one marcher responded in probably the best way anyone could.

Pride

This picture is from Kelly's Blog, from a challenge he posted on June 1, the start of gay pride month.

This Sunday, June 11, I will be marching in the San Jose Gay Pride parade with the Rainbow Rec contingent.

Despite being out since 1994, this will be the first time I will march in a gay pride parade. The last time I considered marching in a pride parade was 1996, but my grandmother died less than a week before and I was still on the airplane flying home that Sunday morning. For some reason, I haven't given much thought to marching in one since, but when a friend at Rainbow Rec asked if I'd be willing to march this Sunday, I said yes.

He also got me to agree to man the Rainbow Rec booth at the post-parade festival for an hour. So I'll be there from 3:00-4:00. Or is it 2:00-3:00? Damn, I'd better check...

I'm Evil! Evil, I tell you!!!

Well, not really:

You Are 14% Evil

You are good. So good, that you make evil people squirm. Just remember, you may need to turn to the dark side to get what you want!

How Evil Are You?

(I credit my score to the lack of questions regarding swearing in the car at stupid other drivers, cruising the Internet at work, or hanging out at Badlands).

I am weird, however:

You Are 60% Weird

You're so weird, you think you're *totally* normal. Right? But you wig out even the biggest of circus freaks!

How Weird Are You?

(I think my score on that would have been even higher had they asked about Doctor Who, acting, or my 2002 trip to Disney World for Gay Days).

Touching the Screen

Now that our electronic voting machines here in California have with paper records, I'm finally comfortable voting touchscreen. After I voted, I got to see a paper copy of my voting results behind glass. My vote was official only after I looked at the paper and confirmed that the results were correct, at which point the paper disappeared into the machine.

A Clear Day in Silicon Valley

(Click on the picture for a much bigger version)

Mountain View, CA from Page Mill Road. That's NASA Ames, Moffett Field and an adjacent Lockheed facility in the center.

It's Magic!

Last night, I sent a play of mine, The Offsite, off to Magic Theatre in San Francisco. The Offsite is my first full-length play (Swimming the River is my second). Quite frankly, I think getting it accepted at Magic is a real long shot, but after reading it, a friend told me that it seemed like the sort of new work Magic likes to do. So, I figured, what the hell.

I finished The Offsite a year ago, but despite that, I've sent it off to only one other local theatre (which didn't accept it). Another local theatre, City Lights Theatre Company in San Jose, does readings of new works, so I'm thinking I'll send a copy there as well.

In order to get a play produced, someone like me needs to send unsolicited copies to theatres. Preferably a lot of theatres. And I'm really not very good at doing that, which is why The Offsite has sat on my shelf for a year, unproduced.