Yes, that's me with two of my producing heroes Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Annie, Gypsy, Cinderella, Chicago and Hairspray) and another gay I adore - TR Knight.
TR was just so sweet. When I walked up he immediately looked at me and extended his hand, "Good to see you again." To which I responded, "Oh don't start with the Hollywood crap, you do NOT remember meeting me!" to which he responded, "Yeah, The Advocate party."
My jaw dropped. Yes, that's where we met before! My god, he remembers his lesbians. What a nice gay man - talented, out, lending his support to a gay org and remembering the little lesbians to boot!
Then of course, a bit later I wondered....what exactly did I do to make him remember me? We were all pretty toasted at that Advocate party. Dear god, I sure hope I didn't flash him my breasts. No, wait, if I recall, that's what I did to get a drink at the bar....
The event took place at the Jim Henson Studios in Hollywood, so there were tons of tired muppet jokes all night. Meanwhile, people, this used to be the CHAPLIN STUDIOS! Duh. Why no Chaplin jokes?!
Okay, let me just start at the beginning of the evening. As with most big bashes, I sometimes just tend to hide in a corner because there are just too many people. So I spotted my buddy Parker hiding, so I went over and hid with him.
Parker runs a great company called Q Theory which puts on all the silent auctions for non profits. We met years ago (he had to remind me it's now been TEN YEARS ago) doing our time at another great non profit, Outfest. We had a lovely conversation where he filled me in on all the wonderful things that POINT does (which we'll get to in a bit).
Then Thea Gill saw me hiding, so she had to come over and hide with us. As did my date, Tom. Our hiding out crowd got a lot bigger.
So the four of us stood around and talked about...what else...our cats. We had a whole PET discussion. Thea has just about as many cats as I do. She asked me the names of my cats, to which I responded, "Fucking free loaders," and yes, they do respond to that when called.
Thea told Parker all about pet insurance and what a good deal that was. Yes, I have to say, I truly enjoyed standing in the corner of a Hollywood party and talking about animals. Call me sentimental.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a paparazzi found us hiding behind that tree and snapped this photo.
Photo by Faye Sadou.Then I spotted Jorge Valencia, the ED of POINT across the room so I had to rush over and take a picture (because I fucking adore him!!!)
Alot of the people I spoke to at the pre party said they weren't familiar with POINT but came over because we have all been supporters of THE TREVOR PROJECT, where Jorge had been the ED previously. He does such wonderful work for our community, so when he endorses something, we are all at this point going to take notice.
Good thing too, this organization is sensational. But more on that later.
Whilst I was at the red carpet, I also spotted Jane Lynch. I tried to take a secret photo, but she caught me and had to ham it up.
Another one of my favorite people, Nic Wauters (RYAN'S LIFE). We are doing a short gay film together now.
He's warming up for the WGA strike... talk about Mercury in retrograde. He just got a staff writing job on EUREKA like two weeks ago - now the strike happens. He'll be out there at 4 am on Monday, and I told him I'd come down and do a little video bit.
Judith Light was there because let's face it, as I always say - like a tree falling in the woods: if a gay event happens in Hollywood and Judith Light isn't there, did it really happen at all?
Here's Judith with her husband Robert. Lovely, lovely people.
Okay, the biggest dish (that I can repeat) from the night was "is Michael out?". He was the host of the evening and he even made a weird joke that I think was suppose to allude to his bisexuality. Wait, grammatical error....bisexuality?! There were conflicting reports as to whether he has come out in print. My thinking was, if he hasn't been on the cover of The Advocate, he's not out.
Who knows. He was a great host and it's lovely to see him donating his time for this good cause, so you know, stay tuned for other news on that. Personally, I really enjoyed his rather sensitive portrayal of a gay man looking to sublet his Brooklyn apartment immediately following the World Trade Center crisis in the film, WTC VIEW.
Click on the link below to check out that film.
Click here to read more about WTC View
Okay now seriously, is it just me?! Look at Gabriel Romero and Jorge Valencia above. I took that picture then told them, "If I was a gay man I'd been chasing your asses all over this party." Jesus, and they were speaking Spanish too. So hot.
I wasn't the only one after Gabriel that night. At all these gay fundraisers, you always have a deep voiced announcer which we call THE VOICE OF GOD, because you never see them but, you know, you hear them through the whole show. Well the voice of god this night kept flirting with Gabriel during his introductions and announcements through out the show.
Firstly, the VOG introduced Gabriel as his future husband. Then later when introducing someone else announced, "Gabriel, I'll see you in the green room." It was truly hysterical.
This is Candis Cayne with Ashely Love of the YPC. Candis got a huge round of applause when introduced because - as far as I can tell - she is the first T to portray a positive T in a recurring supporting role on a network tv show - ABC's DIRTY SEXY MONEY.
ABC got an award this night, and rightfully deserved. They do have an incredible line up of positive LGBT characters on all their shows, and their news programs also cover our issues and rights struggle.
These three bright, young smiling faces are some of the Point Scholars (Jesus Christ, so YOUNG. I took the pacifiers out of their mouths before snapping this photo). What are Point Scholars? Oh, you are going TO LOVE THIS:
Okay, so what the Point Foundation does is provide scholarships and mentor opportunities for LGBT youth of merit. Firstly, most of these kids have been disowned and tossed on the street for being gay. One even had to go give the speech at his graduation in in sweats (he was president of the student body, but his parents had literally kicked him out of the house when he came out).
So not only do these kids get scholarships for college, but they also have to perform community service and POINT gets them involved in LGBT organizations. Their goal is to build LEADERS in our community. Love this, love them.
I don't remember the names of these pupas, but from left to right, their majors are: Gay History, 20th Century America; Opera at The New England Conservatory; and Interior Design (I told him, like yeah, good luck breaking into that traditionally homophobic business, you trailblazer!)
The opera singer performed a fabulous piece from Die Fledermaus. Which threw me off since, like, I listen to classical and opera in my car but absolutely never hear it everywhere else (being gay I am awfully sick of the THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA scratch shriek I usually have to try to talk over at LGBT parties).
Here's Tom and I with some of our table mates.
Jorge pulled me onto the red carpet to get a picture together. I strongly objected stating, "Dear god, no, Jorge, I am not posing with a handsome tall drink of water like you. I'll look like your little Italian grandma next to you!"
Which, by the way, HELLO, I DO!!!
Here is Ana Ortiz from UGLY BETTY trying to pilfer some of Jennifer Lewis's gays (more on that below).
Gabriel and I getting to chat at the after party. He gave one of the best speeches of the night, which he wrote. It was very heart felt and really touched people. Here we were talking about great this organization is, but we were kvetching, "where the hell was this when we were getting thrown into the streets as kids!"
Man, we have come a long way, and it was wonderful seeing someone like Gabriel up on stage with a young man who is the next generation of gay that will hopefully move us closer to equal rights and acceptance by this damn, red state country!
Photo by Faye Sadou.
Okay, now another one of my favorite moments, Jennifer Lewis. Dame Jennifer Lewis. So the guy sitting next to me leaned and asked, "Who's Jennifer Lewis?" when she was introduced, to which I responded, "Oh darling, in about ten minutes, you are going to be in love with her too".
She came out on stage and her first two sentences included "Fuck", "shit" and "god damn". LOL. I love her.
She said that they called her and asked her to sing at this event and she was like, "Okay, what the hell is this for?" Scholarships for LGBT kids.
She slinked her hip to one side and said, "Okay, so earlier tonight I was at the AMERICAN GANGSTER premiere standing with Denzel and all these big Hollywood stars, but I told them, 'I gotta leave. I have to go sing for the children'! So here I am."
I dare you not to get goosebumps here as she sings I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING, I KNOW WHERE I'VE BEEN.
The audience could not jump to their feet fast enough. Of course, a black woman singing about equal rights, what gay man is not going to go nuts? If you notice...her mike goes out towards the end. Can you even fucking tell?! She just fucking belts above the entire choir without a live mike.
So at the end, the guy next to me leaned over and very calmly said, "You were right. I love her."
So now I am on a new mission. Some of my friends are part of her "gays". As you might know, some of these Diva Straight Women have "their gays". I told one of them, Jim, that I really wanted to be one of her gays. "Well you have to serve a certain purpose. Mine is I follow her around at events and when she says, "God damn, jesus, it's fucking packed in here" I translate and say, "Ms Lewis is truly amazed at the turn out for this event".
He asked me what my special skill was. "My special fucking skill?! Are you kidding? How about token fucking lesbian! How many lesbians does she have! We're gay too. I can be her gay that's a dyke".
So I'll keep you posted as to how successful I am wheezingly into Jennifer Lewis's entourage.
If you don't know La Lewis, I'm here to educate you gays. Here is a clip of her singing HOME (another one of my fav show tunes, from THE WIZ) My favorite part, you can hear someone in the audience say, "She's out of her fucking mind". I also love it when she says, "You know, the way is narrow. Don't even start with me. But when you see and feel somebody else fighting the fight and speeking to it...honest shit. It is a great feeling." And when someone tries to sneak into the room during the song she goes, 'Don't try to sneak in, you might as well walk down those stairs like Norma Desmond!"
I first fell in love with La Lewis at a fundraiser for the LGBT Center. She was talking about the foster child she adopted and how she knew nothing about raising children at first. "What do you feed them?! A martini?" Then she invited the lovely young girl up on stage and sang, acapella, "You're the best thing that ever happened to me"...which I have to tell you, there was not a dry eye in the house. It was impromptu, heart felt, and just fucking lovely.
Another part of the evening was the Courage Award given to director, Adam Shankman (A WALK TO REMEMBER, HAIRSPRAY, THE WEDDING PLANNER). I cut a reel together with clips from all the films he's produced and directed for the presentation that night. Here's a bit of the video (the dance sequence. I could cut shit like this together all day 'cause it's like A MUSICAL!!)
He was very humble in his acceptance speech and everyone loved how he kept saying, "Listen, I'm stoned on vidocen right now!" (um, he's not an addict, his arm was in a sling from an injury!).
Okay, so after talking to everyone I have to say, I endorse this org! Please consider visiting their web site, and as we are at the end of the year, when you write your charity checks to clear your conscious of all the horrible things you did this year (and to insure a full refund) this will give you a 100% karam return:
http://www.pointfoundation.org
Then we all headed over to the after party at ELEVEN, where Candis Cayne rocked the house with a big performance that had all eyes on her.
AFM - Okay, so I know it seems like all I do is go to parties, but I do some work as well. This past week I've been hanging at AFM, The American Film Market in Santa Monica.
This is all about the selling and marketing of films. Interesting stuff. Basically, it's how you make posters, dvd box covers and SELL SELL SELL your movie.
In addition to SHELTER, two other films I worked on were being peddle there: BLONDE AND BLONDER and NUMB.
There I am at the Regent room standing next to the new poster for SHELTER. I asked them how it's doing in foreign sales and they said the one new and interesting thing was that after handing out the screener, a lot of people called them back and said, "Hey, this is a really good movie". Which is nice.
Basically what I did there was spend all day telling people with money to give it to me to make another film. Knowing how these guys SELL films actually helps me in PITCHING them films (I just use the same techniques, since they don't care that I am trying to make quality LGBT films that uplift our community and celebrate our experience, they just want to make MONEY).
I did run into Marco Dapper, who starred in the film I produced last year EATING OUT 2.
Photo by Tony at www.ipartypix.comThis photo is actually from the week before at the WICKED event with our friend William. At that party we snuck into the corner and got to have a long, detailed talk about movies from the '70s (really some of my favorites) and he told me about a new film he was doing.
Then a few days later, there he is at AFM with the producer and director peddling his wares. I would have a photo of that (we had cocktails overlooking the ocean), only the producer SAID he'd email it to me and he hasn't yet. Listen buddy, BLOG waits for no man, do you hear me? You missed the boat!
GLAAD TIDINGS
Then it was off to the Wattles Mansion for the Glaad Tidings Event. Standing in line to get in, the gentleman in front of me commented, "You know, the house across the street? That used to belong to Charles Laughton and Elsa Lancaster". "Really? The best beard couple ever?" If you know Hollywood history, the longest marriages are sometimes attributed to these beard couples because, basically, they were best friends so they stayed together forever. You know, like WILL & GRACE.
Here I am with Jason Woodruff who keeps trying to sell me a house. I'm like, Jason darling, I can't afford a porta john. If I want to buy a house in Southern California I'll have to go into a field other than producing gay film!
I love this kinda thing. Do you ever notice at a gay event, the pastry trays are UNtouched? Of course. Carbs. The boys won't go near them!
If anyone can guess how many of these I stuffed into my face, I will send you a copy of DANTE'S COVE SECOND SEASON on dvd.
Here I am with Bing Tell, the only other lesbian at the event. I'm kidding. There might have been one more.
Bing was recently highlighted in FRONTIER's Magazine as one of the most elligible bachelorettes in WeHo. I asked how that was going since I ran into the cover boy of that issue, Marcellas, the night before and he said he got 26 viable emails. She said, "Are you kidding? No women read that magazine! I got 5 emails from gay men wanting to pitch me scripts." (she works in entertainment)
Okay, these two! Gotta tell you, the highlight of my night. I was already punchy because I had stayed out WAY TOO LATE the night before (curse you Tom and that Moet. He got me to stay at East/West until closing by buying a bottle of Moet. Curse me for being so easy when it comes to champagne. I'm always like, "I can't waste it when there are children without Moet in India!)
Anyway, Michael and Brian somehow came up with the gay version of Pretty Woman, which I called Pretty Daddy and then they just took off recreating scenes from the new gay Pretty Woman. I took a call, and when I got off my cel phone they said, 'Hey, we even turned into into a musical!' Then proceeded to do the scene where he hands him a credit card to go shopping. "What's the limit?" "There is no limit!" And that was the cue for the show stopper, "THERE IS NO LIMIT!!!"
I think a hit. I told them it's the best fucking pitch I've heard all year.
Then, I don't know how, but we digressed into Madelaine Kahn movies and Michael (who has a photographic memory for movie dialogue, as do I!) started doing entire scenes from YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and WHAT'S UP DOC? with me.
Here's LK and Ashley.Was my night over? No, because IT'S NEVER OVER! I then ran 'cross town to go to an AFM party. This was for the film STUCK.
With Robert and Heather.
Robert with Renee, the owner of this fabulous establishment. The place was fantastic...like being outside in New Orleans.
GIFT BAG REVIEW
We all do it. We totally dish about the gift bags we get - who has good ones, who has shitty ones. God, I really have to stop using "shitty" as an adjective, what with that $60,000 education I have. "Lackluster" gift bags. "Repugnant" gift bags. Gift bags that INSULT the fact that we just coughed up $250 to go to this event.
So here is my first ever "video blog", as the kids call it. It's my review of the Glaad Tidings Gift bag. With assistance from some of the animals that live with me.
Don't give me a fucking hard time about having my cats in the video*. At least I am not writing books with my cat like some lesbians (look up Rita Mae Brown).
( I did find out later that the Point Foundation gift bag had dvd's of the entire first season of UGLY BETTY. HOW COULD YOU PEOPLE RUN OUT OF GIFT BAGS!)
*By the way, now that the cat has been in the video I can write off that ridiculous vet bill by claiming it as a business expense. The cat is my cohost. HA! Laughing all the way to the bank! Can you see me telling this to the IRS man and explaining how I need a pussy to lure in all my lesbian readers?! (that's right before I say, "More champagne Mr IRS man...")
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