Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

A Buddhist Blessing in honor of Harvey Milk as mindful protest.

Rainbow in the desert: Israel's first gay pride event in the Negev

While over at JoeMyGod there have been 70+ comments on the banning of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from Pride parades in Canada, in Be'er Sheva, Israel's third largest city, in the Negev desert, held its first official Pride event, officiated by the city's mayor.
Oh yes, the religious right went bat shit crazy. But the mayor stood his ground and even put city funds into the event. Because Israel is a secular democracy.
The New Israel Fun reports that: there are plans to create a LGBT teen hang-out in Be'er Sheva—an open house for young people in search of support and community.  Local activists will work toward making the festival an annual event and bringing it 'out' with a high-profile parade.

Shai Gortler, a gay activist wants to see the LGBT community work with and on behalf of other marginalized communities in Israel such as Arabs, people with disabilities and manual laborers.  "No one is free if not everyone is free," he says. 

Yasher Koach.

NewFest 2010 — Go-Go Reject (With Cute Go-Go Boys) Should Be One of Your Selections

The LGBT Film Festival in New York has a program of shorts under the theme Singing, Dancing, Waiting. Who loves short shorts? I certainly do. Especially if there’s a film about cute go-go boys.

Okay, so this fun little film is about the heavy subjects of body image, body fascism and fantasy  in the gay male community. Except that it’s sweet, funny and filled with self knowledge and compassion. Not to mention hot go go dancing boys: See the trailer below.

Another film on the program is one I wrote about last year: EZ Heeb, from Ali Coterill, star and director of Fagette, which I loved when it screened at NewFest a couple of years back. It's pure queer Jewish fun. Buddhist I don't know. But queer Jewish? Yup.

There aren’t a lot of places you can see films like this with an appreciative audience, and a chance to meet the filmmakers, who are often there. Ali Coterill will be that's for sure.

The Singing, Dancing, Waiting program plays on Sunday June 5th at 2:30pm. You can buy your tickets at the LGBT Community Center on 13th Street, at the SVA Theater on 23rd Street, or online at NewFest.org.

South Park Meets Chelsea In Violet Tendencies, Giving Mindy Cohn a Hilarious & Politically Incorrect Star Turn

Remember Mindy Cohn from The Facts of Life? Well, director Casper Andreas did, and gave her a part that she goes to town with in Violet Tendencies.

Cohn plays, to use the language of the film, “the oldest living fag hag.” Which means she has sacrificed her own love life to live through the loves and lives of her younger gay friends. She doesn’t seem to mind until she finds herself as the last fag hag standing when another female friend of the friends of Dorothy gets married.

What happens next? Well amidst the swirl of Chelsea boys who haven’t grown up and don’t seem like they will ever reach emotional maturity, Cohn’s character Violet starts seriously looking for love in other places. Problem is, she has so much fun with the gay boys that the straight men pale in comparison.

Sounds serious huh? All I can tell you is I sat with a group of gay men watching this film and we all literally screamed with laughter. And occasional horror at how politically incorrect it truly is — think South Park meets Chelsea. 

There will be moments that make you cringe with embarrassment that you are actually laughing at this, but laugh you will. Out loud. The dialog is sharp and the cast is pure pro. You’ll recognize soap stars Marcus Patrick and Samuel Whitten among others. Mindy Cohn gets to be center stage and matches comic timing and delivery without holding back on the central emotional isolation she feels. She may be neurotic, but she is a fully developed character: I wish I could say the same for any of the gay men in this film. They are horrifically shallow. But if I think about the film as a live action cartoon in the mold of Family Guy, well then, it’s brilliant.

It’s the closing night film at NewFest 2010 this year, and there will be a party after the screening with much of the cast since this is a pure New York City production. It promises to be a wild night, so get your tickets for Violet Tendencies here; don’t miss it.

NewFest 2010 at the JCC: Gay Jewish Film, Uncut.

NewFest, New York’s LGBT Film Festival has hooked up with the Faigele Film Festival, New York’s Jewish LGBTQ Film Festival: presenting Gay Days and The So-Called Movie.

A Movie About A Gay Hip Hop Cowboy Klezmer DJ Video Artist. Say Nu?

The NewFest program describes Josh Dolgin, the subject of the documentary "The So-Called Movie" as the love child of Woody Allen and Lil Wayne. Uh huh. Okay. Well, What I can say is that Dolgin is one very interesting character whose passion for music of all kinds is infectious, and whose beats just make me happy. Makes me want to get up and dance.

Along with Gay Days, a documentary about the lgbt movement in Israel, this NewFest trek uptown represents a move to recognize the fact that the lgbt community is made up of many communities around the city. So on June 8^th, NewFest will be at the Jewish Community Center on the Upper West Side.

The night before, on June 7^th, NewFest will be at Harlem Stages showing Children of God, a high-tension romance that takes places in the midst of a homophobic crackdown in the Bahamas. Complete with a right-wing preacher on the down-low, this film captures the claustrophobia of life in a society where shame, secrecy and the threat of violence are always present.

Tickets are available now at Newfest.org

Glee Fan? Here's your cheat sheet to seeing movies at NewFest, New York’s LGBT Film Festival.

Gleeks Have Plenty to see at the LGBT Film Festival, Starting With After The Storm

After The Storm: What happens to a real community when natural disaster strikes and the local high school students are separated from families? Not to sound glib, but they put on a show. In this stunning documentary, After the Storm, the playwright and director of the Broadway production of Once On This Island, went to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and helped the rebuild a community center and young lived by staging a local production of the show with the teens. This is Glee for real.

Tickets are on sale now for members, and will go on sale for non-members on Monday, May 24th. You can get your tickets at NewFest.org And you can see trailers for many of the films at the NewFest YouTube channel.

Broadway Show Queen Alert: Put Gypsy in a blender with Hairspray and you’ve got Leading Ladies.

Leading Ladies: An over the top backstage mother pushes her daughter to be a star — on the ballroom dancing circuit. Her sister fades into the background. The gay boy dance partner brings the “ugly duckling” sister to a gay bar where he dances up a storm with his boyfriend and she discovers she’s a lesbian. With a stage mom straight out of John Waters territory and hot dance numbers, this is one fun movie. The boy is played by last year’s So You Think You Can Dance winner, Benji Schwimmer. Cute, very cute. So this is a lesbian love story with a gay male sidekick and is a movie that both lesbians and gay men will enjoy.

Fruit Fly: From the people who made the indie hit, Colma, Fruit Fly has 19 original songs in a story that follows Bethesda, a young Filipina woman, who like Rachel in Glee, is searching for her birth mother — in San Francisco while living with a house full of gay men. The opening number is also the title of the film, about how she gets dubbed a fag hag and what it means for her.

Singing, Dancing, Waiting: There’s a shorts program that are all musicals! I always love the shorts programs.

Prima Donna: A documentary about Rufus Wainwright putting on his opera. If you’re a fan, this is a must see.

The Topp Twins – Untouchable Girls: This is THE LESBIAN FILM EVERY GAY MAN WANTS TO SEE! Imagine if Dolly Parton had children with Lily Tomlin, and those children would be the lesbian twin singing sister act from New Zealand, the Topp Twins. They do drag king character sketch comedy. Country singing. And yodeling. Yep, yodeling that you just have to hear. Trust me on this. Oh, and after the film, the Topp Twins will be there in live performance. This is an event. And you won’t want to miss it.

A Gay Men’s Cheat Sheet to Seeing Movies at New York’s LGBT Film Festival - Part 1

My Top Picks For Gay Men at NewFest 2010

NewFest 2010, the Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in New York (or more accurately New York’s LGBT Film Festival) has just posted their movie schedule. There’s a great line up of gay movies with cute boys and hot men. Not to mention sizzling stories, provocative documentaries and men in sexy shorts (short films that is).

So with so many movies to choose from, how can you know what to see? My taste is entirely subjective, but here’s part 1 of my quick overview of the must-see movies for gay men (more will follow tomorrow). I wanted to share my top picks with you now, since tickets go on sale exclusively to members on Monday, May 17th. If you want to buy your NewFest tickets this next week, you’ve got to be a member. And there are some really hot films this year, so if you can join rather than wait, I say go for it.

Must-see movies for gay men:

David’s Birthday: A hot Italian story about a jaw-droppingly sexy 18 year old boy whose hormones awaken suppressed desires on a family beach vacation — I you liked Call Me By Your Name, think of this as a similar story from the adult’s point of view.

I Killed My Mother: Lets start with the shallow — lead actor 20 year old Xavier Dolan is such a sexy boy with pouty lips it’s stunning to discover he is also the writer and director of this award winning film debut. Award winning? Over 30 awards internationally, including 3 at Cannes last year. It’s a great movie about the tension between a young man coming into his sexuality and the tension it creates in his close relationship with his mother. Intense. Funny. Moving. Go.

Is It Just Me? Cyrano de Bergerac for the modern online age, with gay men. Need I say more? Cute guys, sweet romantic story, go-go boys, muscles and true love. Go and feel good falling in love.

Release: What kind of release are we talking about here? Well, this is a prison movie. And for those of you who miss your Oz fantasies, this movie tackles a relationship between a prison guard and a jailed priest that other inmates suspect was guilty for molesting boys. A film both violent and spiritual, it’s going to be an intense experience.

Boys Will Be Boys: If you like cute boys in shorts, you’ll see them. But lets be serious for a moment. Some of these shorts explore important stories that don’t often get told, which is why I love NewFest and support lgbt film. One film, Billy and Aaron is about the African American jazz composer Billy Strayhorn and the consequences in his life of living openly as a gay man the 1940s. That’s a lot of drama to pack into ten minutes. And that’s why I love short film. When done right, it’s powerful. Powerfully moving, or funny, or provocative. And the shorts in this program run the full range. You can be sure I’ll be in the audience for these films.

By the way, you can see trailers for many of the films at the NewFest 2010 YouTube channel. And check back here tomorrow for part 2 of my cheat sheet of top picks for gay men.

Surprising thought balloons and condoms

Taking off from a porn film fantasy, this print ad for condoms from Switzerland plays with the convention that appears in comic books — the thought balloon or bubble. WIkipedia calls the thought bubble a "the almost universal symbol for thinking in cartoons. It consists of a large, cloud-like bubble containing the text of the thought, which is connected to the area next to a character by a chain of increasingly smaller circular bubbles"

In this ad however, the thought does not appear in the balloon — the condom/balloon/bubble is the thought! And the headline then encourages to go beyond thought into action: "Don't just think about it." Or as Rocky Horror would say it: Dont' dream it, be it.

Hilarious. Attention getting. Playful. Proud. Love it.

As often the case, ad grabbed from adsoftheworld.com

Sunday morning cartoon: The UnGay

If you don't check in regularly at Mark Fiore's site to see his weekly animated political cartoons, you're really missing something. Like this for example:

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar — and sometimes it's not: simulated oral sex in advertising

This anti-smoking campaign from France certainly does what most public service ads do: go for shock value and push the edge in order to win an award — since it certainly isn't going to stop anyone from smoking.

 

The headline translates as "Smoking makes you a slave to tobacco." There are no master/slave accoutrements, but then that whole scene can be a head game anyway (pardon my French).

By the way, the campaign includes two other ads posted on adsoftheworld.com — two of the ads have boys and one a girl. Paging Dr. Freud, Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine.