"Suze Orman was Going Down on Me"

"Suze Orman was Going Down on Me" was just one of the hilarious set up lines in KATE CLINTON'S 25th ANNIVERSARY, a fabulous comedy film directed and produced by Andrea Meyerson. Elton John may be the Godfather of the Gay Mafia (or Queen, if you will) but Kate Clinton really is our Godmama.

CLINTON screened Friday night here at Fresno Reel Pride along with the romantic comedy, A FOUR LETTER WORD. Jesse Archer, cowriter and star was there to introduce the film.


Every year us filmmakers are assigned a "host". Here is Drew, who was my host last year, and this time is assigned to Jesse. He showed up at the party in MY outfit, so I called him Eve Harrington the rest of the night.


I am way too tired to write cute captions for all the photos because I have to dash off to the Film Maker Brunch.

But... all the stars and filmmakers rolled into town including Anne Renton (with gf Sahara), Michelle Wolff, Linda Fusco, Lee Friedlander, Cathy DeBuono, Michaline Babbit, Gabriel Romero, Paula Goldberg...and probably more!


Here the filmmakers are meeting each other. Notice how carefully Anne checks out Jesse's card. On right is Steve from EAST SIDE STORY. I had never met him before, and he was not only fantastically handsome but a wonderful guy as well.

Jesse had just been telling me the stories from the party the night before. "I woke up this morning so hung over!" he started with a bit of horror in his voice, "I rolled over and opened my eyes to see the remnants of a Jack in the Box super size meal. Dear God, why couldn't it had been a stranger!!??" I laughed and shared my own story, "Um, well I woke up and rolled over to find the empty hot fudge sundae container from Frosties". We both had done a bit of midnight drive thru. Kids, a lesson...don't drink and do carbs!

Here is Gabriel Romero in front of the TOWER THEATRE. You'll notice a lot of photos of him in my blog because, well, he's just so damn cute and I adore him!


Lee and I doing our thing. Lee (director OUT AT THE WEDDING, exec producer EXES AND OHS) and I have been doing the LGBT film festival circuit now for 5 years. We were chatting with Anne Renton (wonderful director, LOVE IS LOVE) about how we met Anne Renton at the Miami Gay and Lesbian FIlm Festival back in '02 at the Laundry Bar in South Beach.

Above - Anne with Sahara and Michaeline (director, SOLACE)

It was very interesting that three of the wonderful BOYS SHORTS were directed by lesbians (the other was Orit Schwartz who was not in attendance)...and both SOLACE and LOVE IS LOVE were shot by Patti Lee.... a lesbian DP!!!

Boys... y'all better start making lesbian films now! Another interesting note was that Jane Lynch was in two of the shorts!


I dragged Wolfie, Linda, Michaeline and Gabriel to the Sequoa Brewing Company for beer tasting.
















Then it was off to the WORLD PREMIER of the 3rd Season of DANTE'S COVE!

Michelle Wolff and Gabriel Romero introduced the episode.

After the show, they were mobbed by teenagers!


FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO was playing at the same time so half our crew saw that (and wept. Clearly, this is always the best film at every festival) and the rest of us got to see penises set to disco music (Dante's Cove. My review of that is...best fake orgasm award goes to Jon Fleming for his sex scene with Reichen)




Here are some of the staff and BOARD of the festival. Hey! You guys...you did a great job this year. The progamming is exceptional - the shorts programs are just stellar. I have not seen a bad movie since I've been here. KUDOS!!!


With AJ and a Ho I picked up at the festival.









Saturday morning's screenings were all absolute tear jerkers and really set the tone for the day (which was crying). I cried through FREEHELD and THROUGH THICK AND THIN, and everyone else cried through FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO.

It is still so astounding that gays do not have rights in this country, as established in this documentaries. These filmmakers took the time to tell intimate loving portraits of our brothers and sisters who are being horribly oppressed in this country. It sparked a lot of heart felt conversations at the parties about how lucky some of us are to live freely, and how we all need to stick to our guns with our rights in this country.

FREEHELD won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance this yaer and it chronicles the struggle of Laurel Hester, a detective in New Jersey dying of cancer and her battle to leave her pension to her partner. THROUGH THICK AND THIN is about 5 couples torn apart because of the immigration laws and our inability to be able to marry our foreign partners in this country.

A perfect "palate cleanser" came in the middle of boy's shorts, when local filmmaker Daniel Loera showed his short documentary about a local relationship that has lasted fifty years. 50 years!!! It got a standing ovation, then the couple took the stage.

Please, listen to this!!! There are no naked boys or movie stars in this clip, but it contains a very important message!



Did you watch it? Good. Then check back here tonight or tomorrow as I conclude my coverage of Fresno Reel Pride. We have another WHOLE day to go folks!!!

Also, if you want to watch more LGBT videos, trailers of LGBT films and the interviews I've done with LGBT celebs, check out my youtube page at http://www.youtube.com/GPPictures