 |
| John Cameron Mitchell (screenshot) |
When I was a young man I tried to give myself a blowjob when
I discovered the trick to fellating yourself is not to put a pillow
beneath your head, but beneath your neck.
I did as instructed, lifted my legs up against a wall, threw
them over my shoulders, then promptly threw out my back.
I lay cussing in agony for about 20 minutes, later wrote a
column about it and made a fortune for every acupuncturist in the city.
So you can imagine my amazement at the flexibility of New
York actor Paul Dawson, who gives himself a lip-smacking blowjob in the first
10 minutes of John Cameron Mitchell’s 2006 film Shortbus, which just about
every mainstream movie critic in America at the time compared to hard-core porn.
Now, I’ve known a few great pornographers in my life –
Wakefield Poole, Toby Ross, Chi Chi LaRue and Flash Conway, to name but a few –
and John Cameron Mitchell ain’t no pornographer.
But I will say that Paul Dawson has a pretty nice dick.
I also remember that before I stepped into the cinema for a
media screening of Shortbus, I didn’t really want to sit next to anybody
(I ended up sitting next to my fab drinking buddy John Griffin, then movie
critic for The Montreal Gazette) just in case I got a hard-on (Ex-Centris wasn’t
exactly the place for a quick tug-and-poke and, besides, John had to leave
early).
I told that to my buddy Paul DeBoy – who co-stars in Shortbus and
became Paul Dawson’s real-life boyfriend – when I caught up with him in October
2006 at the Hôtel de l’Abbaye in Paris where John Cameron Mitchell and the cast
premiered Shortbus.
"I was worried about pulling a hard-on in front of
everybody!" I cried.
"That’s my Bugs!" Paul laughed.
The thing about watching real sex on the big screen in a
theatre full of people is that I’m a product of the video age. I admit I had
never seen real porn in a theatre – and that’s why Shortbus was
somewhat radical, in a Warhol Factory/Paul Morrissey Flesh kinda way.
That’s because I grew up on a steady diet of VHS and DVD
porn screened in the private confines of my living room. Now we all watch it on
the web.
 |
Mitchell, DeBoy and Dawson
at a NYC Mattachine Party
|
Which is why it should be a lot of fun to watch Shortbus at Montreal’s
last-remaining porn theatre, the historic Cinéma L’Amour, on August 12 at the 11th
annual Pervers/Cité Festival. The cinema alone is worth the price of admission,
and be sure to visit the toilets downstairs.
But wait, it gets better: No less than John Cameron Mitchell
will appear in-person to provide live 'director's notes' throughout the
screening.
"The sex in Shortbus isn’t meant to
titillate," Paul told me.
Clearly Paul didn’t have a problem showing off his own dick
and ass, which for the record look pretty good.
I stuttered, "You’re, well, you know, you’re – "
"Extroverted!" Paul chimed in.
"Yeah – extroverted!"
It takes one to know one, I guess.
Join John Cameron
Mitchell for a Pervers/Cité midnight screening of Shortbus at Cinéma L’Amour on August 12. Mitchell will appear in-person to provide live
'director's notes' throughout the screening. Click here
for tickets.
The screening is the
first of two events at which Mitchell will appear. The second is a Mattachine MTL for
Pervers/cité with John Cameron Mitchell, a Montreal edition of the monthly
queer NYC dance party Mitchell established with Shortbus co-stars Paul Dawson
and PJ Deboy. Mattachine MTL takes place on August 16 at Sala Rossa. Mitchell
will be joined in the DJ booth by Amber Martin, a longtime
co-DJ of the New York Mattachine parties, and Montreal's own J. Ellise Barbara. Special guest performances
by Alexis O'Hara and BiG SiSSY.
Check out the official
Mattachine Party website at mattachineparty.com.
GET HED: JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL UNCENSORED
From the archives: Actor and director John Cameron Mitchell gave me a memorable
HOUR magazine cover story in July 2001 when his cult film Hedwig and the Angry Inch screened at Montreal’s Just For Laughs International
Comedy Festival.
We talked about how Hedwig really began back in 1994 at
NYC’s famed drag-punk nightclub Squeezebox, where Stephen Trask – who would
write the music and lyrics for Hedwig (John Cameron Mitchell wrote
the text) – headed the house band and Mitchell’s boyfriend, Jack Steeb, played
bass.
Mitchell worshipped the rock’n'roll singing drag queens at
Squeezebox. So he began to rewrite covers of such songs as Fleetwood
Mac’s Oh Well, Cher’s Half Breed, David Bowie’s Boys Keep
Swinging and All the Young Dudes by Mott The Hoople,
incorporating them into Hedwig‘s original concerts.
In fact, Mitchell’s second gig at Squeezebox also featured
singer Debbie Harry on the bill, and Hedwig’s trademark wig was famously
created that night with toilet paper rolls wrapped in synthetic blond hair!
By 1998, Hedwig and the Angry Inch debuted at the
gloriously rundown Jane Street Theatre in NYC’s West Village as a fully-fledged
original punk/glam rock musical about a lonely girly-boy named Hansel from
Communist East Germany who, after a botched sex change (which leaves him with
the titular angry inch), flees Germany before the Wall comes down. Hansel
morphs into Hedwig, who is neither completely male nor female, but a glam
rock’n'roll queen reduced to playing dives while her former protégé and lover
Tommy Gnosis performs in stadiums across America.
After Hedwig won a Village Voice Obie Award and
the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical, the film
adaptation won an award for best direction and the Audience Award for Best
Drama at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, Mitchell told me about the time he
took a piss during one performance at the Jane Street Theatre: In the middle of
the show he walked into the men’s john – in character, of course.
"I kept talking into the mic while I was
urinating," Mitchell said. "Generally there was complete shock as I’d
interview people in the toilet. But this old Irish drunk was both delighted and
outraged and followed me on stage. So I let him regale his wife – it was her
birthday – and sat down. Then when it was time, I gave him a big hug and sent
him off on his merry way."
I also really like John because he also genuinely prefers diverse,
mixed audiences.
"It just makes for a more interesting party,"
Mitchell told me. "You know, I think I needed to be more with gay people
when I came out, in a more monolithic way. But then you grow up and realize you
want a little variety. A lot of gay people only hang out with people who listen
to the same music and have the same body and same gender. That’s boring and
quite annoying. I feel like a freak among a majority."
Mattachine MTL for
Pervers/cité with John Cameron Mitchell takes place on August 16 at Sala
Rossa. Mitchell will be joined in the DJ booth by Amber Martin, a longtime
co-DJ of the New York Mattachine parties, and Montreal's own J. Ellise Barbara. Performances
by Alexis O'Hara and BiG SiSSY. Cover: $5 - $10 (Sliding scale, no one
turned away for inability to pay).
Check out the official
Mattachine Party website here: mattachineparty.com.
The 2017 edition of Pervers/Cité runs from August 10 to 20. Click here for all of their events.
No comments:
Post a Comment