The cold snap continued although it was nice and mild during the day today. I had to work a regular ol' 9 to 5 shift today but I couldn't sleep last night. After I got home from the festival I watched "Joey" (which is really getting dumb and not in a funny way), "Will and Grace" (which is really getting old - the Tom Cruise jokes in the first two episodes are really dated as if they wrote the scripts three months ago. The live season premiere was drab. It's a good thing this is their last year), and "The Apprentice" with Donald Trump. At least this week Trump fired the right person.

I had gotten the new "Austin Chronicle" last night at the Arbor and I had a chance to crack it open at work today. I looked at the film reviews and found the one for "Waiting..." by Kimberly Jones. This is a girl who looks like a bull dyke but writes reviews for movies as if she were a delicate flower. She is perhaps the stupidest cunt writing about films in America today. She's such a closet lezbo that she can't even appreciate Ryan Reynolds' good looks. What a bitch. She wouldn't know humor if it dressed up like a cat and licked her pussy. She wouldn't know a good movie if it wore a plaid shirt and played softball. God, I hate her. How she keeps a job at the "Chronicle" is beyond me. At least she's not Mark Savlov, who would have compared "Waiting..." to an episode of the "Iron Chef" and some obscure anime.

The drive to the Arbor was easy and there was no traffic. I can make it to the Arbor from Lodgopolis, my downtown, split-level, loft apartment, in 16 minutes on the best of days.

On the way into the theater, I found an Agliff ticket for "Hellbent" laying in some water in the parking lot. I decided to pick it up and take it inside just in case someone was looking for it. I went to the Guest Services table and gave it to this hottie guy who I've never talked to before that was a volunteer. He looks like a alt_rock star. He's totally adorable and when he told me "thanks, "he was not even remotely fem.

I was seeing "29th and Gay" but Johnny had decided to skip it. I didn't see anyone I knew really. I went into the theater and they were playing a 50's educational film about hygiene that I saw at some screening at the Alamo Drafthouse last year when they brought in this guy who collects educational and industrial films. One of the best one I saw was called "Cipher in the Snow" which I would just die to have a copy of.

Jenn Garrison got up and introduced the film. She also had cutie Kevin, the volunteer with her as well as several other people, one of whom I recognized as the star of "29th and Gay."

She introduced him as James, the writer and star of the movie and a woman as Nicole, one of the producers. James spoke and told us there would be no Q&A after the movie but that he would be in the lobby to answer questions. He said that the movie was filmed on the weekends over a three month period and was directed by the actress who played Sally in the movie "Straight- Jacket." She couldn't be at the festival.

Cutie Kevin got up and talked about a group he belonged to called Q-Austin which is for guys under 30 dealing with being gay, bi-sexual, transgendered, curious and questioning. Their website is http://www.qboyz.com.

After the applause died when they left the front of the theater, a trailer for "The Journey" ran. This was a bad slidescreen presentation with pictures and text that described the film as about two young women of Indian culture and one coming to terms with her feeling for the other, or something like that. Nothing about this "trailer" would make anyone want to see the film. There were also promos for "Hellbent" and "Summer Storm." The Agliff "first time" trailer played and I remembered that Johnny had mentioned that the woman at the end, who is giving a tattoo of Kino and turns around and smiles at the camera is named Betty Naylor and she is someone import in the gay community in either Austin or Texas or both. Johnny is so good about keeping up with all the political stuff. He reminded me the other day that the gay-bashing "Defense of Marriage" referendum thingy is coming up near the end of the month. Even though we gays have zero hopes of defeating this, I still hope people go out and vote and keep it close.

There were two shorts scheduled before the film but only "Licking our Wounds" was shown. The filmmaker, Wendy Dallas, was in attendance as well and Jenn had introduced her as well before the screening. I noticed two names from Austin film lore in the credits. Mark David, director of "Sweet Thing" was the editor and Michael Dalmon, who does a lot of work with Mark, was the boom operator.

The film, which begins and ends with the same Pet Shop Boys song (one of their newer ones) concerns a woman who is caring for an AIDS patient. I think it is supposed to be set in the late 80's or early 90's. Anyway, this woman (who reminded me of a young Barbara Morgan, who runs the Austin Film Festival which I'll be covering here beginning October 20th) picks up a young, Hispanic looking male hustler one day and chats with him over coffee. She works with her patient in latter scenes which are set at a place called Haven House and we see that she is a wonderful friend to him. The climax of the film has the hustler coming to the hospice and "being" with the hustler. The patient asks the woman to be in the room while they make love. It is handled wonderfully and doesn't seem false at any point. Later she takes the hustler back to the street and he quickly disappears in the first car that drives by. There's a delicacy and a truly wonderful honesty to the film and its sensitive and unique story is handled really nicely by Dallas and her cast. But the film is ultimately too ambitious and too light for it to succeed well. This is a 16 minute short that should probably be expanded to about a half hour if not more. There's a rich idea here but it needs expansion and it requires a much darker palette. This film should be slightly more dark and gritty.

During the short, of course, there was a problem, a recurrent theme in the last two days of Agliff. This time it was a freeze frame where the image froze although the sound continued. This was rectified quite quickly however.

After "29th and Gay," I called John and he was close by but running late. I looked at the program and it looked like the next show was a series of three long shorts. I saw cutie Arbor boy Brooks selling tickets but didn't say hi. He always seems to be around his co-workers and I didn't want to embarrass him. I switched sides to go into the screening for "Gay Sex in the 70's" and on my way in saw Ryan Cox with some friends and said hello. The pre-show video was already running. I was an old 70's industrial film about selling beer and carding minors that seemed to be designed for merchants. Although the video for "I think I Love You" by David Cassidy started, time was running short, so it was stopped and Raheleh, a woman who is the vice president of Agliff and sits on their board gave a quick introduction. The usual previews for "The Journey" and "Summer Storm" were shown. (What no "Hellbent?")

The first shot began and John came in with a Coke and popcorn. The first short was a mix of "Cabaret" and gay porn (There was really no credits but the program lists it as "Liza Does Berlin" by George Lyter. It was rather slight and typical but seemed well-chosen introduction for the program at hand.

The next short was hilarious. It was called "Feltch Sanders" (note the first name is NOT Fletch) and it was like a trip back to the 70's featuring a gay "Starsky and Hutch." Feltch is a detective and his companion and secretary work on a case where they find a wealthy client's missing boy toy. It was really funny and despite the horrible sound (which seemed more like a projection problem than a source tape problem), a good time was had by all.

The 70 minute titular feature played next ("The Underminer" was listed in the program but, having seen this short at My Gay Movie on Day 2.

I can tell you it seemed wrong for this screening and it in fact did not show.) The feature began (after the bad sound on "Feltch Sanders" with no sound and after a couple of minutes, it was stopped, re- started and ran correctly.

After the movie, John and I went into the lobby and it walked to the other side where "Hellbent" was to show. There were lots of people milling about and long lines outside. Agliff had humorously roped the lobby of with a sign that said "Members only") and so poor Johnny had to go wait out in the cold.

We stayed in the lobby talking before he went out though and as we were chatting, volunteer cutie Kevin got up on chair and started shouting instructions to everyone about lining up and waiting outside if you were not a member. People scattered and he got down and said, "See how they did exactly what I said." I smiled and told him he was very commanding and if he would have said, "Come here and blow me," I would have run over and dropped to my knees. He said, "Oh, really" and feigned going back to chair to do this that for half a second. We both giggled and smiled. He's so adorable. I really love how he plays along and isn't one of those cute guys who acts all grumpy if you flirt with him.

Luckily, the wait wasn't long and we got in without to much problem. I saw the cute odd looking guy from last night and he looked like he had gotten a haircut. He looked even hotter. When I sat down, the video d'jour by Hanson started. Then the 50's educational film about cleanliness began. This time I caught the title, "Soapy the Germ Fighter." Then there was a 80's video (yeah!) by Men at Work for "Be Good Johnny," my favorite song by them. This was followed by a video for some obscure country rock band called Big and Rich.

Johnny came in at some point with refills and just as the announcements were about to begin, this group sat down next to me and the gruff, scruffy young guy who said next to me stunk to high heaven. By now the theater was full and there was no moving about. He smelled like stale cigarettes, cheap aftershave and sweat. He wore a white jacket that, if it were not so clean, I would have swore he had stored in his asshole all summer and just taken out tonight since the weather changed. It was all I could do not to gag. (I have the gag reflex of a straight man).

Lonny Giles got up and told us how he had to negotiate with Here! which is releasing this film theatrically, to get a copy to play at the festival. This was the Southwest premiere as the film has already opened in NYC and presumably L.A. Lonny also hyped the closing night party the next night at 1920's club - or what used to be the 1920's club. Now I think it is some sort of Mediterranean restaurant.

The feature, which was on 35mm, was preceded by a preview for "Garcon Stupide" and I wondered who it was that was smart enough to hype this film during this festival: The Arbor, Agliff, or the distributor. I couldn't tell you a thing about the preview except that the hot kid who is half- naked in the poster was in the preview as well. He's fucking hot.

When I got home I found an e-mail Johnny Oh! had sent during the day about the "Boy-O-Rama" series of shorts he saw last night. Here's what it said:

"Lodg;

"Here's my comments for the Boy-o-Rama collection of shorts: I should've been disappointed; I always expect a bevy of hot young guys when I go to see a boys shorts collection at aGLIFF. To my pleasant surprise, however, the three shorts (of 8 total) to which I gave an "excellent" rating were either about the dearly-departed (or the "nearly- departed"). "Beyond Lovely" was about an amateur psychic who realizes she can actually channel this one recently-departed, ultra-bitchy queen. He finally gets to have a successful TV show after all (albeit post-mortem) - with her help - and the whole thing was hilarious, IMHO.

"'Irene Williams: Queen of Lincoln Road' simply has to be seen - words cannot do it proper justice. Let's just say that this way-cool senior- citizen Coco Chanel wanna-be made her own groovy hats out of lime-green, ultra-plush toilet seat covers - among other things.

"'Mormor's Visit' had me shedding a tear or two, as a grandmother details her life in a repressive Swedish nursing home to her photographer grandson, after escaping and flying to New York City to visit him. Her description of yearning to enjoy some of the freedom she has lost since becoming elderly seemed a beautiful analogy to the freedom her grandson could enjoy living as a gay man in New York.

"Sour Notes: The sound quality on "Eau Contraire" was HORRIBLE!!! And why did the two hotties in "Latchkey" have to cover up with a blanket while they jacked off? ;)

"Johnny Oh!"

Tomorrow is the last day of the festival. I'm only "Giving away the bitter!" for one more day of Agliff!

Lodger2005