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Photos from the weekend’s Mattachine party with John Cameron Mitchell

John cameron Mitchell spins at Portland's Mattachine Saturday August 6, 2011. Photo by Ty Chance.

While yours truly may have conked out early due to sun exposure it seems like everyone else made it out to last Saturday’s Mattachine party with John Cameron Mitchell. Thanks to Ty Chance for providing us with some great photos.

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A weekend of John Cameron Mitchell’s Mattachine, Crush’s anniversary block party, a Genderf***ing takeover, and some sweet, sexy and dirty regulars

John Cameron Mitchell (center) in the DJ booth at Mattachine in NYC with PJ DeBoy and Amber Martin. Here this Saturday at Mississippi Studios. Photo by Mark Tusk.

Thursday

Monthly QPOC social – It’s hard being a person of color in Portland, Oregon, so much more even as a queer POC. I have my own inner-ish with the whole idea, but I’m down to meet others in a summer filled patio session. Perfect beginning to your evening and weekend.

I still haven’t been to the ST Johns queer monthly Sweet Tea at the Fixin’ To but I hear such good things about it. I haven’t been to one of my faves, Dirtbag!, either, and damn if I don’t have a gay ol’ time at that neighborhood party when I do. So if I manage to drag myself out, it’s gonna be a tough call.

Friday

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John Cameron Mitchell interview: Though he’s a New Yorker at Heart Hedwig creator thinks Portland is a model for the future

While John Cameron Mitchell, creator of Hedwig and the Angry Inch was in town for a screening of his new film Shortbus (see review below), I was able to sit down with him and keep him from having fun… […]


Oh so much more than a Splendora review

I have been quite lax in my duties as blogger. Could I use the excuse that John Cameron Mitchell just tuckered my poor little queer brain out? Possibly, but I did want to tell you all how fabulous Lee Kyle’s sold out "Maybe I’m Just Like My Mother" show was, though going to the second to last performance made it a bit less useful. Nevertheless I enlisted the help of my darling gf Jane Larson to do a guest post review of the show. This is what I got back. And though it portrays me as something of a moron, its bizarre and amazing wit is worth any mocking I may endure.

So I told my partner, girlfriend, sugarpants the other day that things come in threes. She was puzzled by this statement, so I said it two more times.

"You know," I said, "Like when you hear a word that you don’t know and then you hear it again and then you hear it a third time and it’s sealed in your memory?"

Pregnant pause…

"Okay, okay," I say, "How about that movie Candyman, when the lady says his name three times and then he comes screaming out of the mirror to kill ya…."

Nothing.

It’s at this point that I just continue along whatever yellow brick road of thought I have created for myself and she listens, ’cause she’s good like that.

"Well, first of all we went to that Splendora show, Maybe I am just like my Mother, on Friday night at the Back Door Theater, and he shows a film clip of himself in the shower (grrrr) singing that song from the Little Mermaid.

She replies with the standard, "uh huh…"

"Then we went in our little girl bike gang to the Irvington neighborhood garage sale and since we were on bikes I had to buy a bag to carry my booty in. Remember that I found that kiddie backpack…The Little Mermaid one…and then all of us road our bikes and sang the song…"

She replies, "Riiiiight…"

"And THEN, we were watching TV and it turns out that The Little Mermaid is being re-released on DVD this week and we heard the song again!! TaDa…Three!"

This is usually when I sit back in whatever chair I am in and fold my hands behind my head and revel in my smarty-pants-ness. And she smiles at me blankly. Sometimes I think she’s afraid…it’s one of those frozen smiles, you know?

The rollercoaster that is a conversation with me continues as I take a sharp left and careen back to the beginning of my list, which was really what I wanted to discuss in the first place but I thought the filler story was a delight as well. That beginning being the Splendora show, "Maybe I am just like my Mother."

Goodness, Mary…it was delicious. Like drinking a champagne cocktail in a vat of créme brulee. It was a feast for the eyes as Lee opened with an excruciatingly slow piece of performance art that involved stacking rocks at the hair shrine of what can only have been his mothers wig altar. What came next was a casual, coffee chat between Lee and about 70 of his closest friends. He breaks the audience/actor barrier in a way that would have made Bertholt Brecht weep and beg for mercy. He spoke to us over ice tea in his sunroom. He spoke to us while getting ready for a show in the cramped dressing rooms at the Wonder Ballroom. He talked to us about his life, his family and himself while we played Nintendo in his basement on beanbag chairs. There was no pretense or sing song in his speech, there were no lines, there was only easy conversation. And when the conversation died down, as it tends to between friends, he brought on the multimedia festival of gross. A gross that was so deliciously funny that I smile in business meetings just remembering his turning his mother’s sheer Legg’s pantyhose into a man’s most important part and drinking a mysterious yellow liquid from a bottle. The songs that accompanied these two pieces were pants-peeing funny. Disturbingly so. I do find myself humming these occasionally but the tunes always turn into the little mermaid….singing her heart out…slapping her tail on that big rock for emphasis….sing it with me now: " I wanna be where the people are…"

PS: When you type in Solendora into Google it corrects it for you.
PPS: Clay Aiken is gay. His new name is Gay Clay.

Love Always,

Jane

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Get on the Shortbus

Though the Portland Gay and Lesbian Film Festival isn’t until October, tonight kicks of the pride of fall with a Cinema 21 screening of John Cameron Mitchell’s (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) eyebrow… […]


Is this really goodbye Just Out?

John Cameron Mitchell holds a copy of Just Out featuring him. Just one of many memorable JO covers over the years

In a sudden move today Just Out, Portland’s first LGBT publication, announced it will cease publication with the already released 12/9 issue. Despite that issue talking about new delivery methods in 2012 and not indicating an imminent shut down, JO has posted on their website as well as posting this more thorough statement on their Facebook page:

It is with great sadness that I have to announce today that Just Out newspaper, having put up a helluva fight against this dammed “Great Recession”, will be unable to continue publishing. Our 12/9 issue was/is our last publication. Thank you for being our “Friends” and for reading Just Out, these past 29 years.

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Interview with ‘Delusional Donovan’ producers Devan McGrath and Mark “Zebra” Thomas

Portland may not be a film and television capital on the scale of New York or LA, but we’ve got an increasing number of small screen shows filming here. And while we’re excited for the big releases, everyone knows Portland’s heart lives with the indie production. It’s only one of the many reasons I’m so excited to see Delusional Donovan a new locally made TV show premiering its pilot this Saturday at Mississippi Studios.

The darkly humorous sitcom follows the hallucinations of 8-year-old Donovan, who lives in in an imaginary world after witnessing a traumatic event. He is aided by his enabling mother, who tries to craft the world to his delusions, and his stoner neighbors. Writer and Producer Mark “Zebra” Thomas described it to sponsor publication BePortland:

The story is based on this overbearing very bizarre mother who does everything she can to manipulate the world around her, so Donovan only sees these sweet innocent visions. It’s not about her building a bridge between the real world and his world, it’s about making the entire world what his world sort of really is, and bringing that world to him.

qPDX took a break to sit down with Thomas, along with Director Devan McGrath to tell us more about the Episode 1: Stray Cat and people behind the scenes of DD, including producer and writer John Camacho, production manager Allison May, director of photography Josh Kletzkin, production designer Eric Sellers and actors Amber Martin, Splendora, and Dylan Hall as Donovan.

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A weekend of art and music with lesbian softball stories, Fruitillion, the Bathers, Tender Forever, Mattachine and more

Wayne Bund's photo series 'The Bathers' opens Saturday at East End

Check back for our preview of Siren Nation festival, which will encompass the entirety of the weekend. As if you didn’t have enough to work with below.

Thursday

Thursday may not see a whole bunch of new nights but there’s always the stellar, incredibly danceable and Smiths-loving Dirtbag! at the Know (with special guest DJ Ill Camino) and the mellower Bobby Jo Valentine just down Alberta street making his Portland debut and the popular St Johns Thursday night gay hangout Sweet Tea where you can drink in southern style for only 4 bucks.

Friday

Deep Cuts – Only in its second iteration, DP has already become a music conisseurs good time. Good music without pretentiousness this party is hip and fun without being the kind of hip and fun that makes you uncomfortable, nervous and…no fun. I think that’s proved well enough by this week’s DJ of the Week, which profiles Cuts’ special guest DJ L-Train.

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PLGFF film review: ‘Romeos’

­­­When I arrived in the rainy late afternoon to see PLGFF’s premiere of the German film, and first from Director Sabine Bernardi Romeos, to be released later this year it was not to a packed house. Organizer Gabriel Mendoza didn’t consider it one of the fest’s blockbusters, though he loved the film. Indeed, compared to the line around the block when I left for 7pm’s Weekend, it wasn’t. But it was a triumph. Small it may seem, but every review I’ve read thus far of the film following a young trans man struggling with life and attractions through his transition, has been celebratory, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Another common sentiment I share about the film is that the well-written story is carried off flawlessly by lead actor Rick Okon. Okon plays the 20-year-old Lukas who is “accidentally” put into the female form during his year of German service. He wants desperately to get out and just be one of the guys, even though it is here that he has a Ine (Liv Lisa Fries) an old best friend (former lover?), who is also an out lesbian. In her sexually fluid, but not necessarily trans-inclusive, group of friends, Lukas falls for alpha hottie Fabio (Maximilian Befort).

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Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival starts Friday

program.inddPride may be the gayest time of year but Portland gets another shot at a week of all queer all the time (well, that might be all year truthfully) when the Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival rolls into town at the summer’s end.

This year’s fest seems a bit short and sparse but there’s sure to be some gems stuffed in there. I’ll be previewing each night and offering reviews when possible.

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