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Monday, 20 February 2006 (mourning sun) 8:53pm Say what you will about the Muni trains—and there's a lot to be said—but sleeping in them is remarkably easy. I was dozed out for most of my trip home this evening, my relative lack of sleep from last night catching up with me. Sunday had been that other kind of San Francisco night, where a zillion neat things happening at once. After Naqoyqatsi (which remains my favorite in the series, and Vash really liked it too), we headed over to The Dark Room. Unfortunately, Bad Movie Night was ending just as we arrived. Ty assured me that I'd missed the best one ever. Naturally. After getting to bed at one and waking up again at five (Vashita hours), I was at work by six. Officer Dave has moved into the not-quite-former Pink Room (intertia being what it is around that place, the sign is still on the door even though the tape library itself has long since been relocated), and there's a huge gap physically and spiritually where his desk used to be. I'm strongly considering moving into physically before somebody else does, even though it would mean (gasp!) direct sunlight. Maybe it's worth it, maybe it isn't. This afternoon was a long-dreaded meeting about the fate of my department (and Charlotte's announcement that she's moving on to other pastures), tomorrow is the long-promised performance review, followed by a long-overdue dentist appointment. It's one of those intense sorta weeks. Last | Top | Next

Sunday, 19 February 2006 (grave to cradle) 1:37pm My experience directing a Twilight Zone episode a couple years back was not entirely pleasant, and I'd decided not to direct another one. A lot of things have changed since then. It helps that not only am I getting genuinely excited about the possibilities of the script, but I also have interest from Anamoly (who played Catwoman in Batman and Lola Montez in Emperor Norton) and Dr. Hal. With folks like that in the mix, how can I not do it? It may not even suck this time around. 4:34pm My Flash instructor, who's really sweet and smart and funny, called me "he." It never ends. Last | Top | Next

Saturday, 18 February 2006 (busting it wide open) 8:15am Last night was a quintessential San Francisco outing. It was supposed to rain, but didn't. (However much I may bitch about the weather lately, the fact of the matter is, it doesn't rain in this town nearly as much as predicted.) Vash and I ate at a taqueria, and even though we at the taqueria, in seats and everything, my Urban Food Log was delivered in foil. From there, we circled briefly looking for parking near the Davies Symphony Hall (on a Friday night, no less) before wising up and using a garage. Outside of Davies there were panhandlers, people looking for extra tickets, and a will-call line around the block, resulting in the show starting a half an hour late. All this for a movie which is nearly a quarter of a century old. Of course, the real draw wasn't just the movie but rather the live performance of the Philip Glass score, performed by the Glassmeister and his peeps (aka Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble). He was treated like a rockstar, both at the beginning and in the extended ovation at the end. Though we didn't actually have to pay for the tickets, the prices were not unlike that of a rock concert, more like something at the Warfield than the 12 Galaxies or the Shoreline. (I haven't been to a show at the Shoreline since R.E.M. in August of '99, and at this point, I'm not sure who or what could get me back there.) We were all there, the lot of us, because we all knew that as good San Francisco Artfags it was the thing to do. It's part of being who we are living where and when we are. And it was good. The real lesson learned, however, was to hit the caffeine before the show, and we will do so for Naqoyqatsi tomorrow night. (And as I am about to do right now, before my BAVC class. Meep.) I can't believe it only occurred to me now to get stoned before the movie. I mean, really, how obvious is that? Man. I know smoking pot has damaged my memory—and I haven't smoked with any sort of regularity for the last two or three years—but this is ridiculous. 1:57pm Halfway through class, with the aid of a venti mocha from Starbucks, whipped cream included. As Vash pointed out, I'm in school on the weekend. I've earned it. 11:33pm Good final show tonight, if a little off the tracks at times, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I also got an hour of Vashita time between class and the show, as she was working a shift at an art gallery around the corner from The Dark Room. We went out last night and will again tomorrow night, but it always feels like a gift. It's also kinda neat to be sitting in a brightly lit room with large windows facing the street so that anyone walking by (or entering, for that matter) can see the impure ways we often touch each other. 'cuz we're like that. Last | Top | Next

Friday, 17 February 2006 (the morning of the ninth night it all ends) 8:20am Supposed to rain today, so grab your tarps. Spent last night at home alone, as I probably will again tonight, the last respite before launching back into stuff. I have yet another BAVC class this weekend, one I'm especially dreading, Flash II. I only barely squeaked through the first one, and haven't really practiced much in the meantime. Saturday night is the final Gong Show, Sunday night is Naqoyqatsi, Lilah's coming over on Monday night, and I'm pretty sure something's happening on Tuesday and Wednesday nights but I'd have to dig out my calendar to check, and quite frankly, turning around and reaching into my bag feels like entirely too much work. These free evenings are being used to work on my Twilight Zone script. It's coming along nicely, I think, though I'm worried that it's a bit too...maudlin, I guess. I don't know. The tricky things about doing plays at The Dark Room (and this was also the case for Spanganga, where I did my last Twilight Zone in 2004) is that the audiences tend to expect there to be a level of spoof or satire involved, and the straighter something is played, the funnier they find it. This is actually a fundamental problem with movie audiences as well, as anyone who attended the re-release of The Exorcist a few years back can attest, or even any movie made before 1996 at the Castro. So it's important that I get the tone just right, that I let the audience know early on that they're in on the joke too, in hopes that the more emotional stuff will be taken at face value. It worked remarkably well in Emperor Norton; although it was a musical comedy, there wasn't a dry eye in the house at end. There's a good chance I'll fail miserably on a tonal level, but still, it's worth a shot. 10:38am Won't be home tonight after all, as I just got (free) tickets to Koyaanisqatsi tonight. With any luck, it'll turn into a celebratory outing. 2:58pm Every so often I'll complain to whoever's in earshot that I miss Stinky's Peepshow. It's rather absurd of me, since I only ever went once, seven years ago. It's not like Shrine or Roderick's, both of which I went to fairly regularly (and miss even more). Anyway, this is what I get for not checking the Weekly's listings more often, because not only is Stinky's back, it was last night at the new location of Annie's. Coincidentally or not, that's the same physical venue it used to be at, back when it was called the Covered Wagon Saloon. Neat. Speaking of timeframes, as of this past Sunday, I've been doing this diary for seven years. I think I was a bit too preoccupied to notice the anniversary this year. Last | Top | Next

Thursday, 16 February 2006 (the news that truly shocks) 6:50am Our Week of Artfaggery continued last night as Vash and I saw Meredith Monk's Impermanence at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. It was beautiful. I 'm not familiar with her work, but the fact that it was about death lured me in. If a piece of art (especially non-pop music) is about death, loss or grieving, I am so there. (There are days when I have Peter Gabriel's "I Grieve" on repeat. I've even come to terms with the fact that it was written for the unfortunate American remake of Wings of Desire. Original sin, y'know?) The show was a mixture of sparse music, dance, a little bit of video, and vocals, more sounds than words, which is fine by me. Dance is one of those things I've never really been able to wrap my head around; it usually feels like there's something going on, some level of meaning, that I'm not just grasping, that I don't have the necessary background to brain structure to parse. Then again, most written poetry goes right over my head, too. (Film students are the drummers of the literary world—ask someone in a rock band to tell you some drummer jokes.) This is not to say that I can't appreciate how it looks or sounds, of course, just that I don't necessarily know what it means. And I don't really have to. This Artfaggery reaches a fever pitch this Sunday with Naqoyqatsi. Between now and then, however, I'll take a blessed dip back down into pure stupidity with the final Gong Show. In addition to being an actual performance of my own as opposed to just being a spectator, it's important to have both smart and dumb in your life. Especially these days, when there's icky work mojo about. Bad decisions are being made, and good people are being hurt. 9:28am I know I'm supposed to be all inclusive and stuff, but sometimes I really hate men. Specifically, I hate ingrained cultural machismo. No, not all men are like that, and there's one in particular whom I want to kick square in the nuts. Right now, though, I'm feeling pissed off at the lot of 'em. Is your anger always perfectly fair? Last | Top | Next

Wednesday, 15 February 2006 (oh so sugarless) 6:50am when i wake up in my makeup it's too early for that dress 8:14am The screening last night was wonderful, as I suspected it would be. Though I didn't get to speak to him personally, during the Q&A I told Tscherkassky that I'd played the soundtrack to "Outer Space" on my radio show. He said that he'd also heard it on the air in Vienna once. But I'll bet I'm the first to play it on these shores. Someone on NPR this morning referred to the gay marriage as having possibly won Bush the election. That always pisses me off. It wasn't gay marriage, it was Nader voters, goddamnit. Credit where credit is due, please. Makes me wish I'd voted for him. Or maybe I did. Who knows? Am I to blame or am I not? Came into the office to find three more boxes of pr0n next to my desk. Which is fine, except that it's...um...well, it's not gay, and it's not tranny, and it's not even necessarily bisexual. (I actually rather like the bi boxes, since they tend to feature incredibly cute girls.) It's, you know, the other kind. Ew. Not to be judgmental, but breederp0n ooks me out. It makes me think that Dworkin was right. 11:26am Well, that was easy. I just called Kaiser and got the doctor I actually wanted, one who specializes in trannies. The last time I called I was told he wouldn't be accepting new patients until today, so I put a rather obvious note on my monitor to remind myself. It worked. My actual appointment with him isn't for another three weeks, but that's fine, since it should give me enough time to have my records transferred over from Waddell. Still blows my mind that I'm going to be leaving Waddell at all. For as grimy and skanktastic as it could get, I rather liked it, and I really dug my doctor. This is also going to be my first boy doctor in years. Couldn't tell you who the last one was. But he knows his shit, and that's the important thing. This is not the specialist who'll be doing SRS there, but one step at a time. I refuse to let my hopes get too far up, because that way lies madness. And it ain't the beautiful kind. 3:06pm Proof that anyone can be made to look good if enough time and money is spent on hair, makeup, clothes, lighting. At least, I hope that's what it proves. 5:36pm And another half-baked idea goes bad before my very eyes: broadcast time on WBCQ, while probably very inexpensive by shortwave standards, is out of my price range. Oh well. It was a nice idea. Meanwhile, Karla (who not only lives in my neck of the woods but has a car capable of reaching the new studio) has suggested we do a show together. So, I may well find myself back on Pirate Cat before too long. Last | Top | Next

Tuesday, 14 February 2006 (signal regradation) 3:29pm So, naturally, I'm getting all sniffly and sneeze-tastic again. Because, well, you know. I went to the Red Vic on Sunday to see the latest Rowling movie. Although the audience was maybe one-twentieth the size of a googolplex audience, it also happened to be the noisiest, most annoying twentieth. I hate it when those people invade my theater space. As for the movie, I didn't like it much, certainly not as much the third in the series. It felt so rushed and condensed, it might as well have been re-enacted by bunnies. I hope that someday it'll be turned into a miniseries three times as long with half the budget. On the other end of the film pretension scale, Vash and I are going to go see a program of Peter Tscherkassky films at the Pacific Film Archive tonight. We'd be going anyway since I love his short film "Outer Space" (I own it on Other Cinema's Experiments in Terror DVD and am excited to get to see it in 35mm), but even more than that, watching a filmic deconstruction of Barbara Hershey getting raped by an invisible supernatural force sounds like a perfect Valentine's Day outing. For us, anyhow. Last | Top | Next

Monday, 13 February 2006 (the discipline of pirates) 7:14am It's a good thing I'm not bratty or petulant, or else I'd be all no! back off! i was here first! mine mine mine! 10:54am Maybe I can move to WBCQ, the freeform shortwave channel. I'd always kinda wished Pirate Cat was on AM, but shortwave is even more romantic. Can't hurt to ask. 12:49pm The Gong Show on Saturday was great. Got a few big laughs here and there, and I don't think the audience realized that that one time it looked I was going to hit the gong but didn't was an accident. I was worried about hitting it too hard and panicked, you see. Don't tell them. And as though working the gong wasn't enough, there's also something highly surreal about getting namechecked by The Unknown Comic. (No, not the real Unknown Comic, nor is it the real Gong Show. That's hardly the point.) (The gong is real, though it's not the Gong. To the best of my knowledge, anyway. I doubt even the (real) Chuck knows where it is.) Before the show, he checked with me to make sure that I wasn't offended by the joke he makes about me on stage. Sweet, but unnecessary, though I don't blame him for being concerned, since some people really are taking it all way too seriously. At least one mermaid will always have a death-grudge against me. Maddy was in the audience, and at a quarter to ten Vash swung by and picked us up. From there, it was to the Edinburgh Castle for the Devil's Valentine Ball. It was old-school night, as both Steven Leyba and Tallulah Bankheist were in attendance, both looking well. (We half-expected Danielle to show up, but she didn't.) There was what appeared to be a good-sized crowd in the small, dimly-lit upstairs room, the acoustics of which were such that you could almost see the sound of the very loud bands bouncing around like a murder of racquetballs. The band going on immediately after me got persnickety about the time (seems they had to catch BART), pressuring Karla into cutting me off before I was done. I've been in the same place myself; I had to cut Dattner short at Wicked Messenger 4.11, even though she was doing fine timewise. So, no biggie, Karla did what she had to do, though I must confess to being amused by the near-exodus from the room after the band started playing. Both The Gong Show and Karla's event were videotaped (or video'd or whatever the verb is these days when actual tape probably isn't used) and the latter also had a photographer. He's apparently taken a lot of pictures of rock stars over the years, and told Karla that I "photographed great." I certainly hope so, but l'lll believe it when I see it. Last | Top | Next

Sunday, 12 February 2006 (keeping her peace) 11:44am My plan yesterday went like this: if I pretended I wasn't sick during the day, if I got up the momentum of a healthy person, then by the time the busy evening rolled around I would be healthy. And it pretty much worked, even though I was continuing to hit the cold medicine and Vitamin C just in case. I went to bed fairly early (by my standards) on Friday night, and as always, ran the risk of waking up entirely too early. Like, around three in the morning. It's not uncommon for me to, say, go to sleep around four and wake up at seven (I'm functioning on three hours of sleep as I write this, in fact), but I was determined to get as much sleep as possible, damnit. All the same, I was out of the house by half past nine on a much-needed Target run, and by noon (after crying over the previous night's episode of Battlestar Galactica like the big femme that I am), I'd embarked on an even more-needed housecleaning project, focusing on the bathroom. In spite of the fact that my current illness could have come from any of a zillion sources, and that I could live in a completely sterile environment and I'd still be at risk the moment I leave my front door, I've decided to blame mildew. So, with the commentary tracks for House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects as background music, I set about purifying my home. Dunno if it's going to affect my health any, but the place sure looks shinier. Last | Top | Next