The Gays* Only Thread

[JorgeC]

I've made a few friends and "friends" on there. In a smaller city you may only see the same people over and over again, so that does get boring pretty fast. I deleted mine back in December and haven't really missed it, but it is great for window shopping and 3am hookups if you're ever out of town.

[SoulDischarge]

I met this guy I like a lot (that's looking like it's taking a hard turn into the "just friends for now" zone) on Growlr. Any dating site is what you make of it, just so long as you realize that most people are going to be making of it primarily a source for cruising.

[JorgeC]

So if you're into bad gay romcoms, the new Eating Out (5?) Open Weekend is on netflixx DVD (not streaming). It was an okay way to spend a Wednesday night at home. I do applaud the portrayal of Harmony Santana (also in Gun Hill Road) as the trans friend who is 1 of 2 straight females in the movie. She seems like she'd be a cool person and the script surprisingly handles the typical trans-phobic reactions with actual sensitivity and just the right dash of humor. Say what you will about this trashy series, at least the production values on it are way ahead of your normal "gay film".

Anything else you've seen on netflix lately that I should check out. Haven't seen a really good gay film since Weekend and that's been a while.

[HandBanana]

Y'all should be ashamed of yourselves

[RageAgainstTheAoki]

Oh boy. She's adorable, HB.

So if you're into bad gay romcoms, the new Eating Out (5?) Open Weekend is on netflixx DVD (not streaming). It was an okay way to spend a Wednesday night at home. I do applaud the portrayal of Harmony Santana (also in Gun Hill Road) as the trans friend who is 1 of 2 straight females in the movie. She seems like she'd be a cool person and the script surprisingly handles the typical trans-phobic reactions with actual sensitivity and just the right dash of humor. Say what you will about this trashy series, at least the production values on it are way ahead of your normal "gay film".

Anything else you've seen on netflix lately that I should check out. Haven't seen a really good gay film since Weekend and that's been a while.

Jorge - I used to program an LGBT (well, mainly "G") film series. I think I still have a long list of good to great films. I'll dig it up later and upload it for you.

[RageAgainstTheAoki]

Okay, SD's gonna hate me for all this embedding, but I had 90% of these bookmarked and ready to go, so here you are, Jorge.

Maurice (UK)
Merchant/Ivory adaptation of the EM Forster film about a forbidden romance in Edwardian England. Forster didn't want the book published until after his death. If you want a gay version of Remains of the Day or Howard's End, you'll love this. Lots of Edwardian repression of true feelings, gorgeous English scenery, stolen glances in the corridors of great halls, etc.



C.R.A.Z.Y. (Canada - in French)
Wonderful film about a young man coming of age in 70s Quebec with a loving but conservative father, mother and four brothers. In other words, lots of testosterone. The film makes great use of period music like Bowie, Pink Floyd etc.


Urbania (US)
Really interesting puzzle of a movie. A bit noir-ish. Man in NY has a sleepless night has he seeks out a stranger who has some sort of connection to a tragic event in his and his former lover's life. His wild night is accented by a series of urban folk legends (real or imagined?) and flashbacks to his old, happy life with his lover and the night that something changed. Dan Futterman is really great in the lead role.


Undertow (Peru)
Lovely little film from Peru about a fisherman leading a double life (aren't so many of these films about that?). After an accident, the forbidden romance turns into a ghost story. Quite unlike anything else I've seen.


Line of Beauty (UK)
Actually a UK mini-series, but frankly, better than most LGBT feature films. Based upon the wonderful novel by Alan Hollinghurst about a young middle class gay man who somehow winds up living with a wealthy London family. Set in Thatcher's Britain, you see him grow from a somewhat sheltered middle class kid into a cocaine addicted sex maniac as AIDS slowly starts impacting the lives of the people he holds dear. Lots of great stuff about Britain's class system as well if that tickles your fancy. Stars Dan Stevens from Downton Abbey.


Keep the Lights On (US)
Saw a screening of this recently. Don't know if it's been released yet. Ira Sachs based the film (kind of) on his ex's memoir about his struggle with drug and sex addiction. This film is about a fictional relationship between two similar men. Worth seeking out when/if it's available.


Wild Reeds (France)
Beautiful coming of age story/love triangle set in France in the 50s/60s. The French Algerian War is the background.


The Witness (France)
Wonderful film from Andre Techine (same dir' as Wild Reeds). Set in France in the 80s, the film centers on a group of friends -- straight and gay in the early days of the AIDS crisis.


Kiss of the Spider Woman (US/Argentina)
Based upon the Manuel Puig novel about two wildly different prisoners trapped in an Argentine jail -- one a somewhat effeminate window dresser and the other a gruff, political dissident. The window dresser escapes his grim reality by recalling elaborate sequences from the films of his favorite screen goddess. Both men end up relying upon (and using) each other to survive. Raul Julia and William Hurt star. Pretty startling film for two big stars to have made in the 1980s.


Aimee and Jaguar (Germany)
Based upon the true romance of a Jewish woman and the wife of German soldier in Nazi Germany.


Fire (India/Canada)
One of three films from Deepa Mehta's elements trilogy (Earth, Fire, Water). This film is about two brothers and their wives -- all of them in emotionally empty marriages. The sisters-in-law make... quite a connection.


Prick Up Your Ears (UK)
Stephen Frears film from the 80s about the popular British playwright Joe Orton. Set in "swinging" 60s London. The film largely focuses on the strange and violent relationship he had with his lover, a frustrated and somewhat mentally ill man who, for some reason, had a hold on Orton. Gary Oldman is endlessly charming at Orton, Alfred Molina is his obsessive lover and Vanessa Redgrave has a minor role as his agent.


Burnt Money (Argentina)
Based on a true story. 1960s. Two men become lovers and then bank robbers. The two lead actors have amazing chemistry.


The Hanging Garden (Canada)
A man comes home to his repressive, Catholic family for the first time in decades for his sister's wedding -- years after losing an enormous amount of weight and finally getting free from his family. It's a quiet film largely about the passage of time and the power of memory.


Love and Death on Long Island (UK/US)
John Hurt plays a repressed, old-fashioned English author who accidentally walks into a cinema and catches an American teen B-comedy and gets so taken by the leading man that he flies to the US to stalk him. Funny and odd film.


Teorema (Italy)
Damn strange film from Pasolini about a demon like figure who enters a family's life and ends up seducing everyone in the family -- the father and son included.


Swoon (US)
The story of Leopold and Loeb, two gay lovers (and murderers) from the 1920s.


Sunday Bloody Sunday (UK)
Story of a love triangle between an older man (Peter Finch), woman of a certain age (the incredible Glenda Jackson) and a beautiful younger artist (Murray Head). Directed by John Schlesinger, director of Midnight Cowboy. Although there is anguish and ennui for the characters, no one is particularly ashamed or conflicted about their sexual orientation. Kind of refreshing and surprising for a film that came out in 1971. Nothing to do with the Irish Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland. It's sad to think that the last film from brilliant man behind Darling, Midnight Cowboy and Sunday Bloody Sunday was that dreadful Madonna film The Next Best Thing. Oh and watch out for Daniel Day Lewis' uncredited cameo. I think this was his first film.


The Slaughter Rule (US)
One of Ryan Gosling's early films. He plays a high school kid adrift and without much of a father figure. He joins a community football team after being kicked off his high school's team and forms a strange bond with the coach who has a somewhat dark past and wants more out of the relationship than the boy does. Even back then Gosling was a wonderful actor.


Sixth Happiness (UK/India)
Set in the Parsi community of Bombay in the 1960s. Based on Firdaus Kanga's autobiography. Kanga plays himself. A young man with brittle bone disease who is permanently bound to a wheel chair and will never grow taller than 4 feet. A good deal of the film deals with his family life and his growing awareness of his homosexuality. Not a great film, but pretty much unlike any other Indian film you'd see. All in English.

[JorgeC]

Rage, i've seen about half of those (Burnt Money is a Laemmle theater that's now closed actually), but i'll definitely be adding the others to my netflix when available. Thank you!

Also, anyone going to Long Beach Pride this weekend? I'll be there on Sunday if anyone wants to grab a drink. I'll be the one taking care of my friends as they take turns being sloppy messes. I have to work Monday, so I volunteered to stop drinking early.

[RageAgainstTheAoki]

I might hit up Long Beach Pride. Never been. Have a friend who has a nice place along the route I think. So is this officially Queen Latifah's coming out?

So, on Saturday this handyman was at my apartment fixing some stuff for my landlord. Cute hipster-beard guy. He noticed a flyer on my counter for an LGBT history exhibition. After about 10 mins of fun conversation, he mentioned that he was supposed to be seeing that very same exhibition with his roommate next week and before you knew it he had asked me out for dinner. I'm not usually this spontaneous, but I said yes right away. He said he'd call me when he got done with work to set up the place/time. He calls me about 6 and suggest Wurstkuche. This seems like an odd choice to me, but I don't want to be difficult, so I say sure. It's good for a first date in that it's totally low pressure -- just good beer and sausages, casual but fun atmosphere, right? But it's also a converted warehouse so it gets REALLY loud when full; not conducive to intimate conversation.

Anyway, I get there before him. There's a long line, so I text him to say I'm in line. He responds and says he's just coming around the corner. A minute later, I see him approach. He's holding hands with a lovely young woman. Waddling behind them is a 400+ lb man. Oh boy. Cute handyman introduces me to his girlfriend. She was just lovely. And then he introduced me to his best friend and roommate. As we're waiting in line and making the usual small talk ("What do you do?", "where'd you go to school?", "have you been here..." etc.) I'm desperately trying to figure out what's going on. The best friend is one of those loud, flamboyant, which-girl-from-Sex-and-the-City-are-you?, Appletini, Lady Gaga-obsessed queens whose every other statement is punctuated with a "GIRRRRL!" or a "OOOOH-WEEEE!" Now, I have nothing against this sort of thing. As young men come out they go through all sorts of stages including the loud-and-proud-and-in-your-face phase. But this man was 34. And still acting like this. Clearly we're dealing with some developmental issues. By the time we got seated with our beers it became apparent that handyman was one of those nice, super supportive straight dudes who had decided to try to set his undateable gay friend up. It was excruciating and when they invited me to join them for some bar-hopping, I made my excuses and quickly left.

When he'd asked me out, he'd never mentioned setting me up and certainly didn't mention that he had a girlfriend. He basically entrapped me. My landlord called me to today to ask how the repairs went. I told him that the guy did a terrible job and recommended using someone else next time.

[SoulDischarge]

Good lord, that's tactless (on his behalf).

[Mugwog]

I might hit up Long Beach Pride. Never been. Have a friend who has a nice place along the route I think. So is this officially Queen Latifah's coming out?

So, on Saturday this handyman was at my apartment fixing some stuff for my landlord. Cute hipster-beard guy. He noticed a flyer on my counter for an LGBT history exhibition. After about 10 mins of fun conversation, he mentioned that he was supposed to be seeing that very same exhibition with his roommate next week and before you knew it he had asked me out for dinner. I'm not usually this spontaneous, but I said yes right away. He said he'd call me when he got done with work to set up the place/time. He calls me about 6 and suggest Wurstkuche. This seems like an odd choice to me, but I don't want to be difficult, so I say sure. It's good for a first date in that it's totally low pressure -- just good beer and sausages, casual but fun atmosphere, right? But it's also a converted warehouse so it gets REALLY loud when full; not conducive to intimate conversation.

Anyway, I get there before him. There's a long line, so I text him to say I'm in line. He responds and says he's just coming around the corner. A minute later, I see him approach. He's holding hands with a lovely young woman. Waddling behind them is a 400+ lb man. Oh boy. Cute handyman introduces me to his girlfriend. She was just lovely. And then he introduced me to his best friend and roommate. As we're waiting in line and making the usual small talk ("What do you do?", "where'd you go to school?", "have you been here..." etc.) I'm desperately trying to figure out what's going on. The best friend is one of those loud, flamboyant, which-girl-from-Sex-and-the-City-are-you?, Appletini, Lady Gaga-obsessed queens whose every other statement is punctuated with a "GIRRRRL!" or a "OOOOH-WEEEE!" Now, I have nothing against this sort of thing. As young men come out they go through all sorts of stages including the loud-and-proud-and-in-your-face phase. But this man was 34. And still acting like this. Clearly we're dealing with some developmental issues. By the time we got seated with our beers it became apparent that handyman was one of those nice, super supportive straight dudes who had decided to try to set his undateable gay friend up. It was excruciating and when they invited me to join them for some bar-hopping, I made my excuses and quickly left.

When he'd asked me out, he'd never mentioned setting me up and certainly didn't mention that he had a girlfriend. He basically entrapped me. My landlord called me to today to ask how the repairs went. I told him that the guy did a terrible job and recommended using someone else next time.

Since you were my secret santa: you may call me for emergency cock blocks - no really.

[Stickjohn]

Now, I have nothing against this sort of thing. As young men come out they go through all sorts of stages including the loud-and-proud-and-in-your-face phase. But this man was 34. And still acting like this. Clearly we're dealing with some developmental issues. By the time we got seated with our beers it became apparent that handyman was one of those nice, super supportive straight dudes who had decided to try to set his undateable gay friend up.

Or maybe ...you do have something against this sort of thing, you got your hopes up and misunderstood the invitation from cute hipster bearded boy, and you think flamboyant overweight men are undateable. I get the disappointment in the lack of intimate conversation with Mr. Tool Belt, but why take it out on his friend? Or if you think Mr Handy misled you why describe him as nice and super supportive?

And using terms like "phase" and "developmental issue" to describe gay mannerisms you find undesirable is cliche as hell.

[SoulDischarge]

Acting like a 14 year old girl who looks forward to the MTV Video Awards every year is a developmental issue as an adult, regardless of sexual orientation or gender. You can be effeminate or high camp without being a dull stereotype. And don't act like when someone offers you a steak dinner and then brings out sloppy joes, you're cool with it. If the gipster wanted to set RATA on a blind date, he should have been upfront, regardless of the type of person the blind date ended up being.

[RageAgainstTheAoki]

Stickjohn, sugar, I think you're misreading me there. I have love in my heart for the whole spectrum of lgbt identities out there. We all come in different sizes, shapes, colors, gender identities and behaviors and even degrees flamboyancy. I know that and appreciate that. I recall spending the better part of a day defending those out-and-proud "in your face" kids in some other thread a while back. I think a well meaning gentleman from AZ had asked why gays have to be so flamboyant. I recall having a pretty civil discussion about how for some gay men that's a really important stage in the coming out process and for some gay men it's just who they are and it's not a stage or a phase. (Too lazy to look it up now)

What I have a lower tolerance for is the men in their 30s, 40s and beyond who still behave like little club kids. There's a difference between being camp or loud and acting as though you're still 21. I guess the straight boy equivalent would be a 34 year old guy who still goes to keggers every weekend and acts like a total frat bro. We all know those boymen on either side of the spectrum.

Anyway, at the end of the day I was totally set up and ambushed. Not cool. No matter who the guy in question turned out to be.

[JorgeC]

I also recall Rage defending the full spectrum of the gays. While I wouldn't use the word "undateable" (fat bitches need love too y'all!), at the end of the day, a bait and switch = not cool. Sounds like he was polite and made the best of it that he could. We've all had stuff like this happen to us, maybe the cute beard fucked with his gaydar for a moment.

[Drinkey McDrinkerstein]

That is a bummer, but i really enjoy Rage's ability to tell stories. That's certainly a good subplot for one of the characters in an episode of Gay Sex And The City.

[Stickjohn]

The only thing I can think of is Mr Handy saw something in Rage that caused him to think this would be a match made in heaven. Maybe something about the decor of his apartment?

OK I'm teasing now but seriously the post did seem a little out of character for you and I'm gonna guess you were both disappointed and maybe a little bit insulted that someone thought you would be compatible with the love child of Harvey Fierstein and Cameron.

Be better, not bitter.

[CrimesceneCookie]

And using terms like "phase" and "developmental issue" to describe gay mannerisms you find undesirable is cliche as hell.

they're not really "gay mannerisms" though. gay people aren't predisposed to acting that way. it's learned behavior.

[RageAgainstTheAoki]

Sorry, folks.

[caeden]

i don't know exactly how i feel about rageaoki's story. but i do know that the bait-and-switch tactic used by the handyman was out of line. most definitely should've been upfront about he might have a friend you might click with or somesuch thing

[Stickjohn]

they're not really "gay mannerisms" though. gay people aren't predisposed to acting that way. it's learned behavior.

Good points. I'm still thinking about the "learned behavior" one though and it's leading me back to developmental issues and phases.

[caeden]

i just realized that i didn't thank patrick for meeting up with me when i was in chicago last week. we traipsed through the museum of contemporary art for a bit, then took the scenic route to the map room for a couple of beers. great meeting you, mr. souldischarge. hope everything works out for you so you can move back to chicago

[SoulDischarge]

Thanks. It was a pleasure. Hope you enjoyed the rest of your stay.

[caeden]

he made me buy his beers for him. and i didn't even get a handjob out of the deal...

[SoulDischarge]

My hand job card was already full for the day. I'm blowing up like Coachella. You gotta reserve a year in advance.

[RageAgainstTheAoki]

May 17, 2013, please.

[SoulDischarge]

Payment in advance. You have my PayPal.

[caeden]

would you take food stamps in exchange?

[SoulDischarge]

I seriously would right now. So broke.

[SoulDischarge]

Just had to lie about my sexuality to sell plasma. That's a confidence boost.

[getbetter]

he made me buy his beers for him. and i didn't even get a handjob out of the deal...

some tour guide