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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 6, 2006)
44 . JUStjOUt JANUARY 6. 2006 January Storewide WOMEN seeking WOMEN? The Sundance Kid Portland gay filmmaker ready to rub elbows in Park City WM 5’7”, 145 lbs, BR/BR. scruffy, u I easygoing, seeking partner in crime. include drinking, not exer- i I cising, therapy and waiting for you to Skip the trolls, creeps and straight guys on craigslist. front of the line, but really anyone bigger than me Post your profile al ♦ j ustoutpersonals.com ♦ Respond with your height, weight and an embarrass WBHm call. Genius knuckledraggers go to the (common) and smarter than me (rare) is eligible. ing story about yourself.” Not your type? How about this one: shirts and pants and dresses and skirts and lingerie and corsets and clubwear and costumes and accessories and wigs and gloves and jewelry and make up and toys and books and james and gifts and cards and party supplies and a fun start to your New Year! “GWM, 5’7”, 145 lbs, seeking someone to pretend to be my boyfriend. It’s easy, just ignore me. 1’11 do the same. No talking, no sex. I’m happy enough being alone. I’m just looking for someone to be alone with.” Or, even more succinct: than a year—and started to collect all of these words “GWM, 5’7”, 145 lbs, BR/BR, scruffy, easygoing. that I was writing, and the film came out of that,” he Seeking someone as desperate as I am.” SPARTACUS 300 SW 1 2 th AVE. OPEN LATE M-W 10am-11pm Th-Sat 10am-12am Sun 12pm-9pm “I just spent a really, really lonely year—more says. “I didn’t really know what I was doing.... It Those are real personal ads placed by Andy wasn’t until [later] that I realized it was really about Blubaugh, a Portland indie director who turned his words and that it was going to have this focus on the frustrating search for a soulmate into the confession idea of putting so much creative effort into something al film "Hello, Thanks.” In November the eight-minute that’s essentially ephemeral and transient and short received an Honorable Mention at the 32nd disappears.” Northwest Film & Video Festival. (Full disclosure: The short also features a frank discussion with his Blubaugh ran the festival in his role as regional serv- 31 -year-old sister, Amber, who admits that she revises ices coordinator at the Northwest Film Center. He her personal ads to address shortcomings from past recently stepped down after five years with the non relationships. profit organization to concentrate on filmmaking.) "We’re very close,” says Blubaugh, 25. “She’s fea Later this month, "Hello, Thanks” will be in com- I tured prominently in another film that I made called www.shopspartacus.com </ Arthouse ★ Foreign * Cult Classics * Gay & Lesbian Documentaries ★ Asian Cult ★ The Latest Chart Busters petition at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in The Burden,’ which is about our mother, who died Park City, Utah. It was one of 72 shorts selected from when we were pretty young. The entire film is based 3,400 submissions, but Blubaugh doesn’t anticipate around a conversation that we had on the phone.... any awards or film deals coming his way. She allows me to verbalize what I’m thinking really “Nothing is going to happen with this film. It’s too well.” experimental, it’s too rough, it’s not going to get pur The siblings grew up together in Cleveland until chased by anybody. It’s not sexy, so a gay film distrib Blubaugh dropped out of high school because he utor is not going to want to pick it up,” he says. “I just couldn’t stand the slow pace. He moved to San want people to see it and to know my name for the Francisco and soon had a film accepted in a festival— next project. I think it’s really great that this film got at the age of 16. in, but it’s by no means my opus or anything.... It’s an honor just to be selected." “It was a really dramatic, heavy-handed thing called Of Roots, Ghosts.’ It was based on this essay “Hello, Thanks” juxtaposes twisted text, taken that was in a free weekly paper in Cleveland that I real from more than 100 actual personal ads, with re ly liked, about what it meant to be Midwestern and enacted images of Blubaugh getting to know potential relating being landlocked to being trapped.” paramours in his downtown studio apartment. His favorite films include Atom Egoyan’s Calendar, Appropriately, the men are played by friends he met Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy and Henry through personal ads. Jaglom’s Last Summer in the Hamptons. But his biggest artistic hero is Adrian Tomine, creator of the cartoon Optic Nerve. “He’s a huge influence on my storytelling and my POP IN! editing technique,” Blubaugh says. "He has a really cinematic eye.” As for queer directors, he digs Lisa Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon). "What I really liked about her films.. .was that they essentially were films about class rather than sexuality.” Speaking of sexuality, how goes that quest for love? Blubaugh admits he’s given up on personal ads. “It just came to the point where the search was really exhausting, and I wasn't getting much out of it.... I think the conclusion is that I don’t like people very much,” he laughs. “I’m doing very well alone.... My life’s going pretty well.” • H ello T hanks can be viewed online at wwu.hellothanks.com after Jan. 19. 2310 N Lombard 11136 NW Lovejoy I 1990 SE Ladd 503-289-8400 I 503-796-2825 I 503-231-1181 I 7522 N Lombard I 2640 NE Alberta I 503-247-3433 I 503-288-4067 Andy Blubaugh (insat) puts away his bed after another lonely night in "Hello, Thanks." Arts and Culture Editor J im R adosta needs your feedback. Write to jim@justout.com.