Showing posts with label GayVN awards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GayVN awards. Show all posts
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
My Life On The F List
I am not really that famous. True, I host a radio show on SIRIUS Satellite Radio but so do about 700 other people. It is hard to feel special in that kind of environment. There is Howard Stern, and then there is everyone else, and then there is me. Romaine and I have been hosting this show since April 2003, almost five years now. It has been a lot of fun for us, and I hope the listeners too. There have been some high moments for me (dancing with Charo, meeting Olivia Newton-John, being called a “faggot” by my beloved Meredith Vieira) and some low moments (interviewing Amy Sedaris was worse than a root canal). But overall, I think it is a body of work that I can look back on with a certain amount of pride in accomplishment. After all, it is the second longest running talk show at SIRIUS (Mike is the longest) and it can’t be that bad if we are still around.
This doesn’t mean we haven’t received our fair share of criticism over the years. The former head of programming at SIRIUS famously predicted early on that our show would be the first one on the OutQ Channel to wash out (we didn’t). In the outside world, Datalounge.com in particular has been filled with some genuine and for us even hilarious vitriol. I particularly enjoyed the gay face vs. carb face debate about me some years ago, and who among us can forget when they said of Romaine pictured in the Long Beach Pride Parade, “I didn’t know whales rode in convertibles.” More recently they have taken aim at my gay voice and my obnoxious laugh, two points that while I would probably not start a datalounge thread about, I am generally in agreement on (and if you want to know what I am packing datalounge.com, drop me an email). But the hatred really kicked up a notch when we announced this week that we would be co-hosting the GayVN Awards this year.
From the beginning of our show, we have had porn stars on with us. Our closest and longest running porn friendship has been with John Rutherford of Colt Studio, dating back to the summer of 2003. John’s boyfriend Tom is a long time SIRIUS subscriber and he encouraged John to take a listen and then to have Colt stars on our show. Colt even did an early ad buy on our show for Buckleroos, and the on-air interview about the film spurred listener phone calls that encouraged John to make Big Rig under his Buckshot Productions line. John even offered us both cameo roles in the film, of which mine, the lascivious motel manager who tries most unsuccessfully to bed Colby Taylor, earned me a GayVN nomination last year. I lost in a tie to industry favorites Paul Barresi and Savanna Samson.
This was not our first brush with the GayVNs though. We did a broadcast of the 2005 GayVNs on our show when it was hosted by Chi Chi La Rue. From that original recording, we captured Chi Chi’s desperate attempts to keep the drunken show moving with a wide variety of line readings on the word “alright!” which now populate our canned phrases database on the show. Since then, Chi Chi has also become a SIRIUS subscriber and frequent listener of the show (and as you have seen from my previous blog entries something of a delightful travel companion for me).
After several years as host, Chi Chi would appear to be done with the duties for the time being and offered to help the GayVN folks find another host. The bar was set insanely high last year with comedian Kathy Griffin, so almost anyone after that was bound to feel like a letdown. And that was the moment Romaine opened her big mouth. John Rutherford was a guest on the show and we got to talking about this year’s show and talk turned to the search for a host. Ever the egomaniac, Romaine naturally suggested us, which sparked John to call Chi Chi who called the GayVN folks. The next day I got a call from Chi Chi asking us if we would like to do it in the company of another host, ideally one in a dress. In a way, Romaine and I are perfect non-political hosts for the show, I thought. We are supportive of the industry but unlike other better known names inside the industry (Jason Sechrest, Tim and Roma, etc) we have no built in associations and allegiances. Even Michael Lucas likes us! Plus we have the added advantage of a national radio show to help promote the awards on. I knew we would be a disappointment after the Griffin, and as I could tell from my GayVN appearance last year, porn stars are not early adopters of satellite radio, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how rapidly we would be sent down the river.
During the show tonight, I got an IM from Jason Sechrest, who we have had a long and very mildly complicated relationship with. I first met him in 2003 in Chicago (which he won’t remember) when he and Chi Chi (who also wouldn’t remember it) were hanging out in a VIP room at some nightclub. I tried to introduce myself to him and to Chi Chi, but I never got past Jason. Our show was completely unknown and SIRIUS had fewer than 200,000 subscribers at the time, and his icy reception reflected our very low status on the media totem pole. Since then, as our subscriber base and profile have risen, so has Jason’s warmth toward us. It is a version of celebrity geometry I became quite familiar with when I lived in Hollywood and I don’t take it personally. Most recently, Jason facilitated booking Ben Andrews and Jonathan Vargas on the show, both of which were great additions to the show and I am much appreciative of him in his efforts.
His IM tonight during the show was one of quick apology. He wanted to assure me, as he already had posted online, that his video blog about us as the new hosts of the GayVNs was all in good fun. We don’t have sound in the studio so I had to wait until after the show to give it a good viewing. Romaine and I sat upstairs and watched it and frankly, he didn’t say anything I wouldn’t have said about it myself. He held his hands out over and over weighing the two shows. On the one hand Kathy Griffin. On the other, Derek and Romaine. No comparison! Even with the addition of Lady Bunny, the unconfirmed additional host (who I adore), still no comparison. Kathy Griffin is a gay icon (despite her recent awkward run-ins with the community)! Jason’s video blog was all in good fun and we got that (as he knew we would), but it was the posting on TheSword.com that he knew was going to piss us off.
Written anonymously, and clearly by someone who (like Jason) had never heard our show. They had done nothing but read our show one sheet and my latest blog entry and pronounced sentence on us. Romaine was a “steroidal puffin” and I am “Reichen-fawning”, and both of us are interchangeable houseplants. Wow. Bold choice calling a woman who had a baby six months ago fat in an anonymous web posting. But what they said about Matthew Shepard was really below grade. I know you are upset about not getting to host the porn awards (that must be the end of the world), but is it necessary to discount the work someone did on a global scale to combat homophobia? You know, to make the streets safe for a low life piece of shit like you. Oh and she had a fucking baby! What have you done with your life? Frosted your tips? Finally fit into a size 32 pair of jeans? Got out of bed this morning? Sorry she has been too busy to have an eating disorder or a meth habit, she is raising a baby and hosting a national radio show. And by the way, I know Romaine can be a pain in the ass, loud-mouthed bitch sometimes, but she came out as a lesbian at 13. In Wyoming. Still the only openly gay person in her high school's history. Then she got to endure the death of her brother, her father and her friend all within a matter of a couple of years. But you didn't get to host The Pornies, so I guess it's all even now.
Our little radio show is not for everyone. Hell, most days, I don’t think it’s even all that worth listening to. But we have been doing it for five years. And even if I don’t always think its great, do you know who did? Time Magazine. They said our show was “suggestive of radio’s party days, before big radio ate the AM/FM dial… and sucked the fun right out of the control booth.” Oh and the Washington Post. They said our show was “frisky, freewheeling… a distinctly different brand of radio.” The New York Times even called me “handsome” and my ego has been dining on that for five years now. What have they said about you? And what will we say about you when we get on stage at the GayVN Awards? I guess you will just have to come by on February 16th and find out. If you dare show your face. Tickets are still available!
This doesn’t mean we haven’t received our fair share of criticism over the years. The former head of programming at SIRIUS famously predicted early on that our show would be the first one on the OutQ Channel to wash out (we didn’t). In the outside world, Datalounge.com in particular has been filled with some genuine and for us even hilarious vitriol. I particularly enjoyed the gay face vs. carb face debate about me some years ago, and who among us can forget when they said of Romaine pictured in the Long Beach Pride Parade, “I didn’t know whales rode in convertibles.” More recently they have taken aim at my gay voice and my obnoxious laugh, two points that while I would probably not start a datalounge thread about, I am generally in agreement on (and if you want to know what I am packing datalounge.com, drop me an email). But the hatred really kicked up a notch when we announced this week that we would be co-hosting the GayVN Awards this year.
From the beginning of our show, we have had porn stars on with us. Our closest and longest running porn friendship has been with John Rutherford of Colt Studio, dating back to the summer of 2003. John’s boyfriend Tom is a long time SIRIUS subscriber and he encouraged John to take a listen and then to have Colt stars on our show. Colt even did an early ad buy on our show for Buckleroos, and the on-air interview about the film spurred listener phone calls that encouraged John to make Big Rig under his Buckshot Productions line. John even offered us both cameo roles in the film, of which mine, the lascivious motel manager who tries most unsuccessfully to bed Colby Taylor, earned me a GayVN nomination last year. I lost in a tie to industry favorites Paul Barresi and Savanna Samson.
This was not our first brush with the GayVNs though. We did a broadcast of the 2005 GayVNs on our show when it was hosted by Chi Chi La Rue. From that original recording, we captured Chi Chi’s desperate attempts to keep the drunken show moving with a wide variety of line readings on the word “alright!” which now populate our canned phrases database on the show. Since then, Chi Chi has also become a SIRIUS subscriber and frequent listener of the show (and as you have seen from my previous blog entries something of a delightful travel companion for me).
After several years as host, Chi Chi would appear to be done with the duties for the time being and offered to help the GayVN folks find another host. The bar was set insanely high last year with comedian Kathy Griffin, so almost anyone after that was bound to feel like a letdown. And that was the moment Romaine opened her big mouth. John Rutherford was a guest on the show and we got to talking about this year’s show and talk turned to the search for a host. Ever the egomaniac, Romaine naturally suggested us, which sparked John to call Chi Chi who called the GayVN folks. The next day I got a call from Chi Chi asking us if we would like to do it in the company of another host, ideally one in a dress. In a way, Romaine and I are perfect non-political hosts for the show, I thought. We are supportive of the industry but unlike other better known names inside the industry (Jason Sechrest, Tim and Roma, etc) we have no built in associations and allegiances. Even Michael Lucas likes us! Plus we have the added advantage of a national radio show to help promote the awards on. I knew we would be a disappointment after the Griffin, and as I could tell from my GayVN appearance last year, porn stars are not early adopters of satellite radio, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how rapidly we would be sent down the river.
During the show tonight, I got an IM from Jason Sechrest, who we have had a long and very mildly complicated relationship with. I first met him in 2003 in Chicago (which he won’t remember) when he and Chi Chi (who also wouldn’t remember it) were hanging out in a VIP room at some nightclub. I tried to introduce myself to him and to Chi Chi, but I never got past Jason. Our show was completely unknown and SIRIUS had fewer than 200,000 subscribers at the time, and his icy reception reflected our very low status on the media totem pole. Since then, as our subscriber base and profile have risen, so has Jason’s warmth toward us. It is a version of celebrity geometry I became quite familiar with when I lived in Hollywood and I don’t take it personally. Most recently, Jason facilitated booking Ben Andrews and Jonathan Vargas on the show, both of which were great additions to the show and I am much appreciative of him in his efforts.
His IM tonight during the show was one of quick apology. He wanted to assure me, as he already had posted online, that his video blog about us as the new hosts of the GayVNs was all in good fun. We don’t have sound in the studio so I had to wait until after the show to give it a good viewing. Romaine and I sat upstairs and watched it and frankly, he didn’t say anything I wouldn’t have said about it myself. He held his hands out over and over weighing the two shows. On the one hand Kathy Griffin. On the other, Derek and Romaine. No comparison! Even with the addition of Lady Bunny, the unconfirmed additional host (who I adore), still no comparison. Kathy Griffin is a gay icon (despite her recent awkward run-ins with the community)! Jason’s video blog was all in good fun and we got that (as he knew we would), but it was the posting on TheSword.com that he knew was going to piss us off.
Written anonymously, and clearly by someone who (like Jason) had never heard our show. They had done nothing but read our show one sheet and my latest blog entry and pronounced sentence on us. Romaine was a “steroidal puffin” and I am “Reichen-fawning”, and both of us are interchangeable houseplants. Wow. Bold choice calling a woman who had a baby six months ago fat in an anonymous web posting. But what they said about Matthew Shepard was really below grade. I know you are upset about not getting to host the porn awards (that must be the end of the world), but is it necessary to discount the work someone did on a global scale to combat homophobia? You know, to make the streets safe for a low life piece of shit like you. Oh and she had a fucking baby! What have you done with your life? Frosted your tips? Finally fit into a size 32 pair of jeans? Got out of bed this morning? Sorry she has been too busy to have an eating disorder or a meth habit, she is raising a baby and hosting a national radio show. And by the way, I know Romaine can be a pain in the ass, loud-mouthed bitch sometimes, but she came out as a lesbian at 13. In Wyoming. Still the only openly gay person in her high school's history. Then she got to endure the death of her brother, her father and her friend all within a matter of a couple of years. But you didn't get to host The Pornies, so I guess it's all even now.
Our little radio show is not for everyone. Hell, most days, I don’t think it’s even all that worth listening to. But we have been doing it for five years. And even if I don’t always think its great, do you know who did? Time Magazine. They said our show was “suggestive of radio’s party days, before big radio ate the AM/FM dial… and sucked the fun right out of the control booth.” Oh and the Washington Post. They said our show was “frisky, freewheeling… a distinctly different brand of radio.” The New York Times even called me “handsome” and my ego has been dining on that for five years now. What have they said about you? And what will we say about you when we get on stage at the GayVN Awards? I guess you will just have to come by on February 16th and find out. If you dare show your face. Tickets are still available!
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Stars Fell On Alabama
Someone's friend, by way of getting to know me, recently approached at some night out and said, "I hear you know every gay celebrity." While it is true that I am a shameless name dropper, especially in my blog, it sort of surprised me. When I reflect on my life, it is always the quiet moments that ring out the loudest for me. In biographies, it is the stories of stars meeting stars at cocktail parties and movie sets and the like that pad the otherwise dull adventures of a life lived. But when I think back on my own life's biography, it is rare that a celebrity encounter or friendship leaps out as a defining moment.
I think about the many overnight trips I took driving at night alone from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, my car winding through the darkened canyons that make up the narrow Nevada/Arizona/Utah connection, dramatically illuminated by my headlights under a starry night sky. I think about the dead kittens I found in my barn in Michigan, ripped to shreds, and kneeling alone in the yard to bury their tiny parts behind the abandoned chicken coop. I think about riding the rockets in Tomorrowland with my friend Geoff singing "Fly Me To The Moon" at the top of our lungs. But tonight I think about Danny Roddick.
I never really knew Danny. I met him briefly a few times, most memorably earlier this year at the GayVN awards. He sat behind me during the show, making catty gay comments about people that I strained to hear over the noise of the crowd. I don't think he knew I was eavesdropping but I doubt he would have cared.
There was a screening tonight of Brotherhood, his last film for Buckshot Productions, over at Jerry Douglas' perfect New York City apartment. When I called Jerry to RSVP on Friday, he said something about "concerns about exploiting the situation with Danny" but I had no idea what he was referring to and I made a mental note to ask him about it tonight at the party. Before the screening, Jerry said a few words, as a director is wont to do at their screening, and it was then that I learned that Danny Roddick was dead. Moments later, there he was, youthful, smiling and beaming on Jerry's TV, as though nothing had changed.
Tonight I came home and decided to look for some information on what had happened. He was so young and it seemed such a surprise. Drug overdose is the apparent cause, although according to some, it was the porn industry itself that took him to the edge and beyond. I don't work in the porn industry so I only know what I have seen first hand. It's a business, and one in which the performers have a very short shelf life, and I don't mean that in a callous way. Erik Rhodes is right. Once they've seen your pussy (Britney!), what else do you have to show them? Those who have stayed in the industry for decades have done so because for them it is a career, and not a short term ego boost, an infusion of quick cash, or publicity for their escort business. I don't think the porn industry has a drug problem. I think the gay community has a drug problem. And having the kind of job where you can make a grand in a single day is just the kind of work drug addicts love: short hours, quick money and plenty of time off.
It would be impossible for me to know every gay celebrity, or even most of them. Not really know them anyway. After all, how much do we really know about anyone? Even in our tabloid culture, we still know more about Britney's pubic hair than we do what's going through her mind. Danny Roddick's MySpace page lists "Children: Someday" but that someday is never going to come. It's just too late now. Maybe I should have turned around in my seat at the Castro Theater, introduced myself, and gotten to know him better but I always assumed he would be on the radio show on that very same someday and I would have gotten to know him then. Then again, Reichen Lehmkuhl and Jenny Shimizu were both on the show on Friday and even after 40 minutes, I can't honestly say I know the two of them either. I even spent some time with them later in the VIP room at Splash, putting them on the spot to spell each other's difficult last names (they both succeeded with flying colors). But I don't think I understand them any more now than I understand why, among the DVDs and VHS tapes of Madonna videos and camp classics that Splash had a copy of "Schindler's List" on the shelf.
Maybe I will never really know anything or anyone. The late Gene Siskel used to end every celebrity interview he conducted with the same question, "Tell me something you know for certain." The answers would often be something like "I know that I love my children with all my heart." One thing I know for certain: I will never know Danny Roddick.
I think about the many overnight trips I took driving at night alone from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, my car winding through the darkened canyons that make up the narrow Nevada/Arizona/Utah connection, dramatically illuminated by my headlights under a starry night sky. I think about the dead kittens I found in my barn in Michigan, ripped to shreds, and kneeling alone in the yard to bury their tiny parts behind the abandoned chicken coop. I think about riding the rockets in Tomorrowland with my friend Geoff singing "Fly Me To The Moon" at the top of our lungs. But tonight I think about Danny Roddick.
I never really knew Danny. I met him briefly a few times, most memorably earlier this year at the GayVN awards. He sat behind me during the show, making catty gay comments about people that I strained to hear over the noise of the crowd. I don't think he knew I was eavesdropping but I doubt he would have cared.
There was a screening tonight of Brotherhood, his last film for Buckshot Productions, over at Jerry Douglas' perfect New York City apartment. When I called Jerry to RSVP on Friday, he said something about "concerns about exploiting the situation with Danny" but I had no idea what he was referring to and I made a mental note to ask him about it tonight at the party. Before the screening, Jerry said a few words, as a director is wont to do at their screening, and it was then that I learned that Danny Roddick was dead. Moments later, there he was, youthful, smiling and beaming on Jerry's TV, as though nothing had changed.
Tonight I came home and decided to look for some information on what had happened. He was so young and it seemed such a surprise. Drug overdose is the apparent cause, although according to some, it was the porn industry itself that took him to the edge and beyond. I don't work in the porn industry so I only know what I have seen first hand. It's a business, and one in which the performers have a very short shelf life, and I don't mean that in a callous way. Erik Rhodes is right. Once they've seen your pussy (Britney!), what else do you have to show them? Those who have stayed in the industry for decades have done so because for them it is a career, and not a short term ego boost, an infusion of quick cash, or publicity for their escort business. I don't think the porn industry has a drug problem. I think the gay community has a drug problem. And having the kind of job where you can make a grand in a single day is just the kind of work drug addicts love: short hours, quick money and plenty of time off.
It would be impossible for me to know every gay celebrity, or even most of them. Not really know them anyway. After all, how much do we really know about anyone? Even in our tabloid culture, we still know more about Britney's pubic hair than we do what's going through her mind. Danny Roddick's MySpace page lists "Children: Someday" but that someday is never going to come. It's just too late now. Maybe I should have turned around in my seat at the Castro Theater, introduced myself, and gotten to know him better but I always assumed he would be on the radio show on that very same someday and I would have gotten to know him then. Then again, Reichen Lehmkuhl and Jenny Shimizu were both on the show on Friday and even after 40 minutes, I can't honestly say I know the two of them either. I even spent some time with them later in the VIP room at Splash, putting them on the spot to spell each other's difficult last names (they both succeeded with flying colors). But I don't think I understand them any more now than I understand why, among the DVDs and VHS tapes of Madonna videos and camp classics that Splash had a copy of "Schindler's List" on the shelf.
Maybe I will never really know anything or anyone. The late Gene Siskel used to end every celebrity interview he conducted with the same question, "Tell me something you know for certain." The answers would often be something like "I know that I love my children with all my heart." One thing I know for certain: I will never know Danny Roddick.
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