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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 15, 2004)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- nctnfaaf 15 2004 DIVERSIONS ................ ▼................. Look into this Krystal ball A match made in heaven G ary Benoit*is no stranger to the Imperial Sovereign Rose Court. He reigned as Emperor X 21 years ago. Two decades later, he hopes to he Emperor again, and it seems there is no one out there to challenge him. Benoit is the sole candidate for Coronation 2 0 0 4 , Matches Made in Heaven— Famous Marriages Through History. There are no candi dates for Empress, so Benoit will rule alone. As they say, sometimes self love is the best love. As it turns out, Benoit is single. But he cer tainly isn’t short on social life. T he 48-year-old works at Safeway, is the representative for his union and is an avid community volunteer. He has volunteered with the Friends of Pec pie with A ID S Foundation for four years, deliver ing dinners and Christmas presents to low- income families affected by AID S. This year, he volunteered for both Sam Adams’ and John Kerry’s campaigns. Benoit says his main goal as Emperor will be mainly “to create a foundation for people who want to he involved in fund raising for commu nity organizations,” particularly organizations that serve children. Here is the action-packed schedule for this year’s Coronation festivities: • Voting Day: Noon to 8 p.m. Oct. 17, Darcelle XV, 208 N.W. Third Ave. • Casino Party: 3 to 6:30 p.m. Oct. 17, Embers Avenue, 110 N.W. Broadway. • Awards Dinner and In-Town Show: 6 p.m. Oct. 20, Darcelle XV. $15. • Movie Screening: Ttke a trip hack in time with Possum in the Willows, which was filmed in Laurelhurst Park hack in the 1970s by Empress XVII Elsa Daniels. 7 p.m. O ct. 21, Embers Avenue. • Monarch Reception: Raise your glasses for outgoing Emperor XXX Scoty Foxx and Empress XLVI Lotta Marie Liquor with compli mentary champagne and hors d’oeuvres. 6 p.m. Oct. 22, Embers Avenue. • Out-of-Town Show: 8 p.m. Oct. 22, Embers Avenue. $15. • Coronation: 6 p.m. O ct. 23, Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W. Burnside St. $35 reserved tickets. • Victory Brunch: 11 a.m. O ct. 24, Embers Avenue. $20. • Mad Scientist Party: 3 p.m. Oct. 24, Sil verado, 1217 S.W. Stark St. • Denver Diva’s Victory Show: 7 p.m. O ct. 24, Embers Avenue. To purchase tickets, contact the Imperial Sovereign Rose Court at www.rosecourt.org or P.O. Box 4864, Portland, O R 97208. Intersex films document fledgling movement n celebration of the first-ever Intersex Awareness Day, Port land-based advocacy group Intersex Initiative will present a free Intersex Film N ight from 7 to 9 p.m. O ct. 28 in Room 290 of Portland State University’s Sm ith Memorial Union, 1825 S.W . Broad way. T h e program will feature three docu mentaries and one piece of “erotic spoken word video art.” Yellow for Hermaphrodites: Mani's Story introduces us to New Zealand’s first out inter sex person, Mani Bruce M itchell, who was subjected to both genital and ear surgery when it was discovered that the “wrong” gender had been assigned at birth. M itchell— who was horn Bruce and turned into Margaret thanks to dumb doctors and nosy neighbors— now goes by Mani, a Sanskrit word meaning both male and female. It’s a powerful story about a person who, considering M ani’s horrific back liana Hamilton plays a lesbian college student backstage in between lap dances in Pure Qold ground and brave activism, remains positive and humble. Also screened will he XXXY, about a bike messenger and a clinical psychologist who take very different approaches to their intersexuali- ty, and Hermaphrodites Speak!, a historic docu- ment of 1996s first international intersex meeting— with only 10 people in attendance. Th6 anger in Heidi’s voice is palpable: “I get so mad that I just wanna get a dull, rusty knife and start hacking off other doctors’ genitals and say: ‘Here, you son of a hitch. Now how do you think it feels?’ ” T he night will end with Bom Queer: dear doctors, a poetic, sexually explicit short by Shorona se Mbessakwini. It’s reassuring and frustrating to see how intersex people face the same struggles as other queers: shame, silence, secrecy, isolation and most of all lies— but in their case the lies aren’t being told by Bible bangers hut by trusted med ical practitioners who should know better. These gripping films demonstrate that we’re all ■ in this together. I Aaron Kirk Douglas ay Portland indie filmmaker Aaron Kirk Douglas will hold a benefit to support the production of his lat est project, Krystal: a short com edy o f epic proportions, from 2 to 4 p.m. Oct. 24 at Holly wood Theatre, 4122 N.E. Sandy Blvd. T he event will feature a screening of D>uglas’ short documentary My Days o f Awe arui Q rief, P art I: D irk and Me, which took home the Best Documentary prize at Portland’s Forest Film Festival in May; an ani mated storyboard of a scene from Krystal; a per- fonnance by Schicky Gnarowitz and the Trans parent Wings of Joy, whose music has been described as “stomping Greek/klezmer/Ukraineo- Russian frenzy-folk”; and refreshments. T he sug gested donation is $15. Aspiring producers, take note: Contributions of who knits and studies $100 or more will earn you a screen credit. Baby If you can’t make it to the benefit, check out Dirk and Me at a Forest Film Festival fund raiser from 7 to 9 p.m. Nov. 11 at Clinton Street Theater, 2522 S.E. Clinton St. Tickets are $6. To R SV P for the benefit, e-mail akdouglas@msn.com by Oct. 20. To make a tax-deductible contribution, call 503-493-1128 or visit www.hollywcxxlrheatre.org. Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, 5340 N. Interstate Ave., will present staged reading o f Pbying Tom at 3 p.m. Oct. 17 and 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18. For reservations and rickets, call 503-823-4322. Iff I strip ffor you ■■■ esbian stripper romance ensues in Pure Qold Baby, an all-women-produced play about exotic dancing that runs through Nov. 13 at Milk &. Honey Community Studio, 2512 S.E. Gladstone St. The play was conceived of by Portland actors Sherry Okamura and Michelle Keil, who met as nymphs in a 2001 Tygres Heart prixluction of The Tempest. “We Kith shared an interest in the subject of exotic dancing,” says Okamura. “Michelle worked in the industry 15 years ago and has since become a wife and mother of two beauti ful girls.” Okamura danced for six weeks as research for the prixluction. She says she’s thankful, though, to he behind the scenes as director rather than performing on stage. The plot follows a young girl named Melissa (Kayla Van Allen) on her path do becoming a stripper. O ne of her tutorials includes learning how to do a lap dance— the instruction takes place in the live audience. The lesbian character, Dylan (liana Hamil ton), is a college student who knits and studies backstage. She is wixxxl by Claire (Joslyn Erickson), the bisexual riximmate of Melissa. Okamura says Dylan and Claire’s romance is “one of the happier” parts of the show. “Much of the play is aKiut people’s scars.” She and Keil used Sylvia Plath’s ptx:m “Lady Lazarus” as a source of inspiration. “There is a charge for the eyeing of my scars," reads one line in the poem. L See Tom play ichael Teufel wowed us in 2001 as Tom Wingfield in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. Now Teufel is playing the gay playwright himself in a one-man show with the appropriate, double-entendre title, Playing Tom. m You could say the Portland gay actor has a unique affinity for all things Tennessee Williams. “In so many ways I feel that my life is blessed by comparison to his— in my ability to live as an openly gay artist, to love, to perform, even to marry,” says Teufel, who appeared most recently in Stark Raving Theatre’s Thmst. “In this day and age when we live in danger of having some of these essential freedoms encroached upon and even obliterated, I can only marvel at the fear and frustration that Tenn suffered under,” he adds, using an affec tionate nickname for the famous playwright. Lesbian playwright Sandra de Helen (Burn ing Up, Witch! ) says she was haunted by Teufel’s performance in Menagerie. W hen she had the chance to meet him, she told Teufel she thought Williams would have loved seeing him in the role of Tom. It was an easy leap for de Helen to envision Teufel as Williams, and from there the play was Kim. “I believe that Tenn’s inability to come to terms with and tmly embrace his own sexuality is one of the driving forces behind the pain and suffering that many of his characters experi ence,” says Teufel. M Imperial Sovereign Rose Court Emperor X Gary Benoit will be rechristened as Emperor X X X I during Coronation 2 0 0 4 on O ct. 23 at Crystal Ballroom “We tixik this [line] literally for use with strippers,” says Okamura. “All of the charac ters...are scarred in one way or another...from physical or sexual abuse, which many dancers have a history with— scars of the female expe rience— aKirtions, breast cancer, self-mutila tion or psychological scars.” How Pure Gold Baby — which champions its titillation appeal— differs from an actual strip club is up for debate. Okamura says the differ ence is that “all of the women in our show are gorgeous. You’re not always going to get that in a real club!" A play by women exploiting their own beauty to rell a tale of women’s beauty being exploited? Wasn’t it bard-of-the-nymphs William Shakespeare who noted that “beauty provoketh thieves sixiner than gold” ’ J H ( ormpded by M ec ; D aly and JlM R adosta
