Saturday, December 27, 2014

Restraint

For me, 2014 was definitely the year of restraint.

I'm definitely not the same person I was in show business from back in 2003.

I can gladly now say, "this ain't my first gay rodeo" . (thanks for that line Chris Ferdinandson)

This past year, I had so many chances to pop off on different people, mostly comedians who needed an ego check, but like the older & wiser person I am, I just had to let a lot of that shit go.

Am I going to bring any of the crap up in this blog, uh no.

For 2014, I did the best job I could to keep positive working relationships with Bay Area comics no matter how many times I got screwed over by their usual, "what can you do for me and I won't do nothing for you" , attitudes.

I guess my role in the comedy community has really changed and I have to get use to the role of being a provider of quality stage time.

There is one comment among my haters that really does bother me, I'm starting to get a rep for getting new male comics to do my #HellaGayComedy show with their shirts off.

I can only respond to this statement in one way:

#its #hard #being #a #gay #pimp

xoxo






Thursday, December 25, 2014

The Interview - Movie Review

This evening we ventured very far, from Oakland to Pittsburg, a lot further than we normally would to see this years most controversial movie, "The Interview" , starring Seth Rogan and James Franco TV.

"The Interview" , is about a news anchor and his producer who get a chance to interview Kim Jong Un of North Korea while the U.S. Government asks them to assassinate him.

The hype of this movie is unexaggerated, many National movie chains decided to forego any screenings after an, "anonymous hacker group warned it intended to target cinemas showing the movie"  . (DW)  North Korea denied any involvement in the hack. (CNN)  

I can see why the North Korean government could view this movie as an act of war, this movie basically lampoons our entire relationship with the North Korea government and their dictator.  But .... the question everyones been asking themselves is whose infringing on who?

Before I get to the movie review, lets take a quick look at some other countries and their rules on free speech.

Jonathan Swift, who is considered the father of modern day sarcasm, famously wrote, "A Modest Proposal" , which is basically a satirical prose about how the Irish should eat their babies to avoid famine.  This piece was written in 1729.  So what I find strange about how satire was invented in the UK but there is a National law that no one can make fun of the Royal family.  WTF ????

In Canada, "The Criminal Code prohibits, 'hate propaganda' ,The Canadian Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination on various grounds, and forbids the posting of hateful or contemptuous messages on the Internet"  . (wikipedia)

In grade school I was taught that the Russian dictatorship of Joseph Stalin was never made to make fun of by their own citizens because reverency was one of their highest morals.  And those dissidents who spoke up were killed off. 

I can think of one country, not going to say who (Tunisia) where four people were killed over the youtube movie, "Innocence of Muslims" .

And thats when America was founded.  Our Bill of Rights pretty much guarantee our basic civil rights to free speech along with many other liberties, even if it comes at the expense of others.  Our U.S. Democratic government is based on checks & balances, our free speech is protected so that no other group or person could ever monopolize our views and opinions. (this is why other countries either love us or hate us)

Our American laws were also created so other regimes could never use fear to intimidate us, even if those bullys would come from our own country, which they have.

Getting back to the question at hand, did, "The Interview" , infringe upon North Korea's political & moral ideals, duh.  But this movie was made in our country, for our citizens, to be viewed and enjoyed in our country.  If other countries don't like the content, they have the option not to show it.

Do we need some kind of world resolution where other countries should be more tolerant and sensitive to other countries moral and political agenda's, yes.

But first, lets make a world resolution for all of those other countries and have them stop committing human rights violations against their own people.

And by the way, the movie was okay if you like dick jokes.

If you guys really want to go see a funny movie, go see, "Dumb & Dumber 2" .

xoxo




Work Cited:
http://www.dw.de/sony-cancels-the-interview-opening-after-threats-from-guardians-of-peace/a-18137436
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/21/world/asia/north-korea-us-sony/
http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_Canada

Christmas Flashback

Its Thursday afternoon and while I patiently wait to go see, "The Interview" , in Pittsburg tonight, here is a quick Christmas memory that I would like to share with you guys.

1995 - Thats when Michelle was living in the Bay Area, she was stationed in Alameda off Coast Guard Island.  I met Michelle thru some friends while living in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

So while Michelle was living here in the Bay, we would hang out and get to know each other really well.  And her girlfriend, Mary would come up from San Diego from time to time to visit when she was enlisted in the Navy.  I also met Mary in Albuquerque.  So anyhoo, on one night when Michelle had to work, me and Mary twirled off to SF to get hammered, this was when I was a big drinker.

I remember us going to the Depot, which was a cruisy leather bar in the Castro, the Depot is no longer there but when it was, it was fun.  The Depot was known for hanging their plastic Christmas trees upside down from the ceiling during the holidays and I remember this one queen commenting about them, "this is very New York" .

That year, me and Mary got fucked up at the Depot.  We hobbled around the Castro getting more and more fucked up and thats when it hit me, "whose going to drive us home"  ?

Like a dumb ass, it eventually ended up being me.

I had some experience drunk driving so I was up for it.  I told myself that I would never do it and somehow I did it many times from 1994 - 1998 without hurting myself or anyone else on the road.
Don't get it twisted, I'm not proud of this feat.

The thing that I remember most about that night was driving carefully driving around the Duboce/S.Van Ness curve ramp in SF.  That had to be the longest curve ever.  I guess when you're drunk, time slows down and what normally would only take 8 seconds to drive around the curve ramp seemed like eternity.

And while the constant loop never seem to end, I remember looking at my co-pilot for help and Mary passed out completely, I knew it was on me to get us back home safely.

We made it home safe that night.

In 1998, thats when I decided to give up the bottle because my life was getting out of hand.

I knew another lady who sobered up because she was involved in a DUI car crash, I'm just grateful I was able to stop before I was able to do harm to other people and myself.

#learning #to #walk #the #red #road

Happy Holidays everyone.

xoxo




All I want for Christmas is Louis Smith, naked.

All I want for Christmas is Louis Smith, naked.

Louis is a gymnast for the U.K., his specialty is the pommel horse.


Happy Holidays everyone!

xoxo

Thursday, December 11, 2014

New Gay Acronyms for Texting !!

I've created new gay acronyms for texting:

BP - Bitch Please
HDPD - Homo Don't Play Dat !!
DYLFG - Do You Like Fat Girls?
IH - I'm Hungry
MPATT - My Pants Are Too Tight
WB - Whatever Bitch
TA - Troll Alert
SOC - She's On Crack 
ICFMBP - I Can't Find My Butt Plug
CIBYBP - Can I Borrow Your Butt Plug

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

2014 Year in Review

Hey everyone,
heres my annual year in review.  Before I get into it, I will say that 2014 totally did not end the way I thought it would.

January started off with a couple trips to L.A.  Moms had to see the Eagles at the Forum so I tagged along as the chauffeur.  I also got booked with Nick Staddlers LOL Show in North Hollywood so that gave me some personal time to run around and do some shows.  This was a good one!


When I came home from Arizona in December 2013, my breathing was off and found out that I had picked pneumonia somewhere on the road.  For the next 2 months I was definitely on the mend.  So in order to get better I had to completely cut myself off from anything stress related.

I really wanted to turn #hellagaycomedy into a podcast for 2014 but the timing wasn't right so I decided to carry on with the shows, we started off with the Gang Bang Comedy Show at the Playland Bar in SF and of course I can't do a Hella Gay Show without having some kind of controversy, I had a very politically correct Lesbian friend comment on Facebook that this show title was, "gross" , so I politely responded back to her, "well you know what they say, as long as one lesbian disapproves, everyone else will like it" .


February pretty much sucked.

The month of March gave me a lot to look forward to, especially with Sausage Fest.  I really really love all the support I get from all my straight guy comedian friends in the Bay Area.  I'm pretty sure I'm the only booker, male or female, gay or straight, that can get a bunch of straight guys to perform in their underwear or without their shirts in a gay bar.  I really treasure that special trust that these guys place in me which really means a lot to me, thanks guys.  (but sometimes I secretly think these straight guys only want to do my show so they can say they did it) (I think that makes me some kind of weird gay status symbol)


Heres one of my favorite status updates from March 30:
"just came back home from flirting with the liquor store clerk and got him to give me some free candy. ‪#‎slut‬ ‪#‎skills‬"

In March, yes bitches, I'm still in March, I had really good hair.  I had an umbre faux hawk that grew out really cute.  The hair color and placement was totally my idea.  I had my hair colored & cut by 3 different people to achieve this look and it was all worth it. (did I just quote a Clairol commercial) ???


and heres how it looks from the side ...


fuck you, its my blog ... I love it!

Little did I know that the month of April was going to be super fun.  We planned a family trip to New Mexico for the Gathering of Nations Powwow and I was interested in hosting Stage 49 again but this time I wanted to do it in drag and thats exactly what happened! So working up to that weekend I began prepping my drag persona at the SF open mics and had tons of fun doing it!


Somewhere in the Mohave Valley desert on our road trip to Albuquerque I had this really great idea to take a drag press photo!  OMG, this photo turned out to be one of the most iconic drag photos I have ever taken because as soon as I posted it, several people on Facebook copied that same, "hitchhiking" , pose which I thought that was very #flattering


And when we got to New Mexico for Gathering, heres what all that hard work culminated too!  I just couldn't believe how well I was received by all the people.  I kind of felt like Selena too.  Remember in the movie, "Selena" , when she was in that big stadium and she was paraded around in a horse carriage, well minus all that except the big crowd. #amazing #dreams #do #come #true


May & June were pretty memorable.  I decided that I was burnt out on producing the Hella Gay Shows and I was done.  I planned on finishing out our 4 year run with the SF Gay Pride All Star Comedy Show @ The Magnet, little did I know that I was going to handle over the reigns of the show to Ash Fisher, an up & coming comedian from the East Coast and she was going to carry the #hellagaycomedy flag for a year while I caught my second wind.

This is Lesbian comic extraordinaire - Ash Fisher, what an incredible find.


For our SF Gay Pride All Star Comedy Show I wanted to go all out and give free cake & ice cream to our crowds for supporting our shows over the years.  Heres what our cake looked like:


There is definitely a little theme going on the cake, a gay couple is celebrating their kids birthday with their friends.  (I know, just cute)

In July, I developed an addiction to Ramen noodles. Uhhhhh, so good.


August definitely snuck on me.  Even though I was supposed to be on hiatus from producing shows, in the back of my head, I kept thinking to myself, "why not produce a gay comedy festival, I mean after all, I do have all of the experience and success to pull it off, so why not go for it" ??  So thats exactly what I did.  I enlisted the help of Ash Fisher, Jesus Fuetes, Carrie Avritt, Tommy Arnold, Kimberly Rose Wendt and we went for it and we ended up producing 12 shows in Oakland & San Francisco that were packed out and all well attended! #amazing


Also in August was my moms bday, I had to hook her up with the, "Princess Cake" , from Victoria's Bakery in North Beach. #delish


Finishing out the month of August was a blast, I decided to take my drag persona - Nasty Ass Bitch, to new heights and give a return lap dance performance in Peaches Christ's annual, "Showgirls" , event, I got so many nice compliments on my trash bag outfit.


And thats when she started to come around ... the one and only Margaret Cho!  For September Margaret did a surprise pop in performance at Club Deluxe, which would later lead to her busking for the homeless in SF for November & December! #pretty #cool


Muthafu*ka's, I did not forget October.  I don't really feel like need to post a photo, tell you guys a story or share a funny anecdote for the month of October because well, I'm sure you can tell it was PRETTY FUCKIN GAY just like the other 11 months of 2014.

xoxo