america's next top rentboy

The Real Divas of Dade County, the ballad opera I recently reviewed, got me to thinking about TV and my relationship to it. At this point in my life I have not owned a TV, or had one in my home, since July 2007. My TV was very old. It died at that time and I guess I had no desire to replace it. I decided to get a small portable DVD player instead and it has suited me just fine.
    The kind of DVDs I watch are, thanks to the drag-queen goddesses above, commercial-free! When I'm in the mood for pure entertainment I watch movies and TV series like: Dark Shadows, Frasier, The Golden Girls and Keeping Up Appearances. The types of reality shows I watch are the more competition style: Rupaul's Drag Race, Project Runway and Hell's Kitchen. I have no desire to be a drag superstar, a fashion designer or a top chef but I relate to their having goals, dreams, ambition and working under pressure. It doesn't really matter to me what the goal, dream, etc. is. The competitors want to get somewhere and their going for it! I'm interested in the struggle to get there and the concentration and focus of energy.
    Now if there was a show called America's Next Top Rentboy my interest would be less with watching ''this weeks challenge'' and more with ''being'' this weeks challenge!
     My question is why is there no reality show for authors: America's Next bestselling author. Maybe their is such a show and I just don't know about it. I hear you can get up to 500 channels, or more, these days. There seems to be a channel/show for just about every subject imaginable. But how would a show like America's Next Bestselling Author work? How could they make the challenges visual and entertaining and what would they be? Can writers be colorful and entertaining enough to keep people watching them? I guess all I do for now is keep using this blog as my sounding board. I think I'm colorful, just look at me, and engaging enough to do that!

oprah in my dreams

This post is an interview, with myself, about an interview I did on Wednesday via e-mail with SGL Booklovers Magazine.
Q. Hi Robert. Thank you for speaking with me today.
A. Oh, your welcome. It's really no problem. I talk to myself all the time!
Q. Tell us a little about SGL BookLovers Magazine.
A. Well it's an African-American LGBT magazine out of California that showcases the literary work of  African-American LGBT writers.
Q. You mean they publish book reviews, author interviews and profiles and book excerpts, etc.?
A. Yes, and there are print and on-line versions.
Q. How did you connect with SGL BookLovers?
A. Well, back in January of this year I set a goal to get back into my writing and book promotions after my three year Hyades. The first thing I did was set a gaol to surf the web everyday in search of potential book reviews. SGL BookLovers was just one of the 32 that I found and contacted.
Q. What is the process you use to find reviewers?
A. I put key words into a search engine like: gay lesbian lgbt book review or black gay lesbian lgbt book review. Then I sift through every web site/blog that comes up until I find something that seems suitable.
Q. So, you went through hundreds of web sites/blogs, etc. before you found the 32 that you contacted?
A. Yes, and out of those 32 only 7 replied back to me. SGL BookLovers was one of them.
Q. That sounds very time consuming.
A. It is. I was at it for six weeks straight anywhere from one to four hours a day. Web surfing for anything more than four hours makes me crazy!
Q. I'll bet! Did all seven reviewers/responders want to review your book?
A. No, I ended up sending review copies to four of them. One of the four was a PDF. One was a radio station I contacted for an interview but it didn't pan out. The other was a blog. He said he was backed up with too many books and to send him a copy around June. Then there was a web site that basically said ''thanks but no thanks.''
Q. They declined to review your book?
A. Yes. It happens. You just have to shrug it off and move on. It's not personal. It's the nature of the self-promotion beast. At least they replied at all!
Q. That's a humble attitude to have.
A. It's an essential attitude to have! Getting reviewed is tough. Especially for self-published authors. You have to have a thick-skin. It's like an actor going out on auditions. If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen! Well, I can take the heat! And all that actor needs is one good role. Right?
Q. Sounds like your on your way!
A. I hope so!
Q. Besides SGL BookLover, who were the other reviewers you sent author copies, and the PDF, to?
A. Connextions Magazine out of New England, Shelly's LGBT book review out of Ohio
 and queerreviews@outinprint.net
Q. How can we read these reviews?
A. People can either just find them on-line or wait until I post links to them. Some of them, as of this interview, are not out yet. I do have a link to one of them on my March 17 post entitled ''at rainbows end? fat chance!''
Q. Well thank you for chatting with me today, Robert. I wish you much success in the near future.
A. Your welcome, Robert. And thank you!

the rock-n-roll city !

My two week vacation in Wisconsin is over and I'm back home in Cleveland. I left a day later than planned because I mixed-up my return schedule. I had to take a different bus line to Milwaukee to update my greyhound ticket, for a fee, then take the greyhound to Chicago A.K.A Chiraq  for a two hour layover before heading home to the rock-n-roll city! It was a bit of a costly, fifteen hour ordeal but I have nobody to blame but my self. So, I guess it is what it is. I love to visit other places but I am what you would call a proud Clevelander.
    Since I finished re-reading my sequel draft last week I must confess that I have not done anything with my fiction since. I have not even really ''spoken'' to my characters. But as I get settled in I'm having conversations with Kumi about where to take his story from where I left off. In the draft I stopped mid-sentence at the end of longhand page 181, typed page 90. So, unless I intend to publish a handwritten sequel I need some serious consultations with my characters because 90 pages does not a novel make and, quite frankly, I don't know what to write next!
    If when I sit down to write again nothing comes out I will just do something else like study my Blogging for Dummies or my blog itself. There's nothing like hands on training. Or, I can get on my bicycle and salivate at all the sweet male treats on the Cleveland streets! No, I'm liable to lose control and crash into a tree something. Trust me, It has happened before. The eye candy here is that dangerous! Anyhow, the point is that I must remain focused on the project and not the prospects.

the real divas of dade county : a review

I love innovative art and parody and this ballad opera fits the bill perfectly. The Real Divas of Dade County is a parody on such reality shows as: Jersey Shore. The Real House Wives of Orange County and The Real World to name a few. The cast included two jersey girls and a Guido, three valley girls, a closeted flamer, an uptown diva, a biker chic, a goth girl, a new age stoner, a washed up teen idol, a county girl and a lazy slob all living in a house together. There was no concrete plot because reality shows don't have concrete plots. The story was the usual reality show %$@#& ; cat fighting, unrequited love, shopping and partying, ''my life is crap'', etc.
    As if paroding reality TV weren't enough innovation the writers, Frank Cain, Melanie Cain, and Jeff Turk spliced in musical numbers from famous operas spanning the baroque era to the twentieth century. For me , this was a new idea and I found it very exciting. My excitement did not come from a hope that my favorite Aurea would be included since I am not opera savvy and I don't have one. The excitement came from realizing that songs, written decades or centuries ago and having no connection with each other, could be fused together to create a cohesive parody of a comparatively recent phenomenon as reality TV. Brilliant!
    No composer was turned in his grave over the singing either. I found the female voices most memorable but in pop music I have always been partial to female voices and I guess that is the case with opera, too. For me, Melanie Cain, Allison Hull, Nancy Davis and Jessica Timman stood out the most. If  the Overture Center is going to allow these divas to sing in their venue they need to install safety belts because I was almost blown out of my seat! If I was deaf I would feel the vibrations of their vocals penetrate my cells. That is how powerful they were.
    One of the male performers penetrated me in another way [pun intended]. George Abbott played the flaming closet case with comedic precision and I found his rendition of Lonely House, from Street Scene, moving. It brought depth to his otherwise bubbly character.
    My detraction's are few. However, I must mention a scene in which a performer broke character during a duet. It disrupted my illusion. The announcer did not instruct the audience to turn off their cell-phones and proved that adults need their hands held like children. I also felt that funny commercial parodies would have added alittle spice to the show. After all, can there be any TV without commercials?
    The Real Divas of Dade County is a Fresco Opera Theater Production. For more information about the Fresco Opera Theater go to www.frescooperatheater.com

deja vu for two: a review

Yesterday I went back to the Madison Overture Center for the arts. The center not only offers Broadway shows and concerts but it also has three art galleries where professional artists can display their talents, and hopefully make a sale or two.
    The exhibit was called Deja Vu For Two and was a joint exhibit showing the paintings of transgender artist Nicole Bresnick and Todd Olson. Olson's partner, 1970's and 80's colt skin mag model and accomplished painter in his own right Lon Michels, also had a piece or two displayed. No pun intended!
    The theme of the showing, which I found very interesting, was that both artist took the same scene or object[s] and painted them from their own perspective. I found it fascinating to see two different impressions of the same subject displayed side by side. A friend of mine told me fairly recently that if you have two people looking at a coffee mug on a table they are not seeing the same thing. I did not understand what she was saying at the time but this exhibit brought it home for me. It also gave me a new appreciation for all visual art in general. I realized that visual arts are the eyes of the artist. When looking at a piece of visual art your literally seeing the world through that artist eyes. You are inside their head/ retina and no two retinas, except those of the same person, are the same. It's like fingerprints and signatures.
    Both artist used vivid and bright colors and both had a strictly modern aesthetic yet there style's were unique and undeniable. The one and only problem I had with the exhibit, and I stress the word exhibit because I found the work itself to be truly inspiring, was that the pieces were available separately. I saw these pieces as something like siblings in an adoption home. You really can't separate them because they need each other. They need to be together because they are linked and if that link is broken there is a since of loss.
    If you would like to see the world through the eyes of  Nicole Bresnick and/or Todd Olson go to www.nicolebresnick.com and/or toddolsonart.tumblr.com

the Francis Farmer syndrome

With my writing resumed I find myself having to do something I've not done in awhile, talk to my characters! Yes, I actually talk to them out loud as if they were in a room with me. I find that it helps me to unearth my story, overcome writers block and get to know my characters and their world. I can also vent my frustrations to them and ask for guidance. Call me Francis Farmer but it works for me. For anybody who doesn't know, Francis Farmer was a 1930's and 40's movie star who had been frequently committed to insane asylums.
    If unearthing my story suggest that the story already exists somewhere then good, because I believe it does. I think all stories exists in the aether's first. The writer is selected by the characters to bring it into the world. The author is merely a channel and I believe they are carefully selected based on very complex and specific character traits that they themselves have that enable them to tell the story exactly as the characters want it told. If I try to write a story and it is not working no matter what I do I think that is because the story is not suited for me as an author. Timing factors could be involved, too. So, I don't think writers should give up writing all together because one story went south. I can just ask my characters if I'm suited to write their story or not! It also does not necessarily mean that the story was bad idea.
    It is important for me to understand and remember that my characters are my friends and I am in partnership with them. They have an interest in the work turning out well, too. So, they should be consulted with regularly. Sometimes It might take a couple hours or a couple days to get an answer but I always get it. What really intrigues me is when I write something that seems to make absolutely no since whatsoever. I'll say to myself  ''why did he or she say or do that?'' But I leave it because a few pages or chapters later that character will always justify their words or actions.
    I also believe that characters are not of our realm/dimension, So they have no need or use for money or notoriety. They Only want their story told in our reality/realm. If there are any accolades to be enjoyed the writer reaps them all. So I just look at my stories/characters like I would a sexy guy I want to go home with and I say- use me!
    

spectors of the buffet flat

Last night we went out club/bar hopping in downtown Madison. We went to three of Greg's regular haunts but this one place called Plan B was especially jumping. When I go out I love to dance and my 45 year old tale can still move and groove with best of these early twenty somethings, which is what was mainly in the club. While Greg, and the other people we were with, focused on the booze I focused on the boogie! The club was very diverse in terms of race, color and sex which I liked. By the time we left for the next haunt it was packed and there was a line around the building of people waiting to get in.
    It made me think about LGBT people and how we love to strut our stuff and party! We have our own unique sub-culture that must be age old no matter what legal risk existed. The question is how and where did LGBT people in bygone times and places do it? The drag queens and go-go boys are nothing new. The music they danced to must have been bouncy, rhythmic, fast-paced, and live!  But I can't find documentation on this subject. I have found information going back as far as the early to mid twentieth century but that's it. For example, in the 1920's and 30's there were places called  Buffet flats. These places were alot like speakeasies, in which illegal drug, alcohol and gambling went on except buffet flats catered to marginalized people like LGBT's and people of color, and included illegal sexual activities. The word ''buffet'' was used because it meant ''everything'' ... everything in the life. Flat is just another word for apartment which is where these places were. I'm sure they charged a fee to get in and were known by word of mouth. Bi-sexual blues great Bessie Smith often went to them as I'm sure many other famous LGBT people did. They were today's community center, support group, bar/club, bath-house and pride festival all wrapped in one.
    Anyhow, I finished reading the sequel draft today. Now I have to dive into finishing it, the draft that is. I can't say I know exactly what to write though. I know the continuation and ending of the story is inside me. I just have to pull it out. One thing I also must study is the continuity of the two stories. For example I can't have a relative of Kumi's die before Jonathan returns to Rainbow Plantation and then, in the sequel, have that relative working on the plantation when he gets back. And the historical facts have to be consistent. There are alot of those kind of things that must be watched. That's also why my re-reading was important. I might even find myself re-reading the book and the sequel draft again as I'm writing. The books must be as cohesive as I can make them.