Give piece of ass a chance

I was in Calgary last week for Fairy Tales, the city’s gay and lesbian film festival, with a short film I made with Bruce LaBruce called Give Piece of Ass a Chance. The film has actually been selected to screen at several international queer film festivals—L.A. and New York included. Here’s my sex/career advice for the week: if you ever want your movie to be in a million international queer film festivals, just get Bruce to direct it. He is venerated on this circuit.

Bruce and I were at a party the week before and we got to talking about Fairy Tales. I confessed that I was terrified of Istvan Kantor, with whom Bruce and I were on a panel called Established Queer Rebels Fighting Integration and Assimilation: Oxymoron or Chimera? The one time I’d seen Istvan out in public was at the opera (I believe it was Gotterdammurung), and he was eating off people’s plates and drinking their half-finished wine in the lounge afterwards. “God,” I thought, “could he be more calculatingly anti-establishment?”

Bruce admitted that he too had misgivings about Istvan. “I was at a gallery in New York in the late ’80s and he set a sofa on fire,” he said, then added archly, “and it wasn’t part of the art.” I told Bruce I was worried that Istvan might attack me physically during the panel. “I know,” he replied, “I mean, what if he suddenly decides that murder is a relevant art statement?” We discussed a possible series of secret hand squeezes in case things got out of control. (If you don’t know who Istvan Kantor is, go to his Web site at www.istvankantor.com. He’s a real shit disturber.)

Istvan, it turns out, is a gem. He is an eloquent and evenhanded speaker on the topic of art and artists, and cheerfully mentioned during the talk that he had been in a porn film rather by accident many years ago that I’m dying to get my hands on. Bruce asked him about the Governor General’s award that he had recently won, coyly suggesting that it seemed a bit odd for such an emphatically outsider-artist to accrue such mainstream success. “I suppose they’re just trying to ruin my reputation,” said Istvan with a sly grin.

Friday night we presented Give Piece of Ass a Chance. The film is about a group of lesbian terrorists who kidnap a munitions heiress and persuade her to join their gang. Despite its graphic content and affectionate yet caustic nods to militant early ’70s and ’90s feminism (two brands that I had pictured still flourishing, almost thrillingly so, in a town like Calgary), nobody walked out in a huff and the two lesbians sitting in front of us turned around and told us they really liked it. It screened before Itty Bitty Titty Committee, an adorable salute to the riot grrrl movement by Jamie Babbit, and it turned out to be a perfect double bill since most of the actors in Give Piece of Ass a Chance are aging riot grrrls themselves. Dust off your rage sisters, radical feminism is making a comeback and this time it’s got a sense of humour.

The post-screening gala was at a bar called Twisted Element and the Middle Eastern cab driver, upon being told our destination, said in a joshing, conspiratorial tone, “You probably don’t want to go there.” “Why?” I barked, “Because it’s a gay bar?” “Ah…er…” he replied nervously, looking into his rearview mirror at the glamorous couple in his backseat. “Well that’s too bad because you have two homosexuals in your taxi,” (Yes, I used the word homosexual. When you’re being inadvertently bashed, you have to go textbook), “and you’re a Muslim and we can all either hate each other or we can get along.”

The cab driver seemed to dig my jive and I felt like a total established queer rebel fighting homophobia, but as soon as we entered the club we were assaulted by a cataclysmic laser light show. We looked at each other, and as Bruce held his hand over his eyes, he said what we were both thinking, “I wonder if this is what he was actually warning us about.”

E-LOVE

Sean Pajot has been hard at work on our dating Web site, averagewalkingcliche.com. “It’s now online with upgrades in the near future,” he reports. And guess what? We already have subscribers. The AWC revolution begins!

Got any questions for Sasha? E-MAIL: POULEDELUXE@YAHOO.COM