Month: November 2002

Comic Books Fight AIDS

And while we’re on the subject of comics, I was just reading about an event called Comic Books Fight AIDS, being held on Decemeber 1 (World AIDS Day) at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital here in New York Goddamn City. Sounds nifty. It’s being co-produced by the New York City Comic Book Museum, which despite my nerdy background I never even knew about.

So who wants to go with me? I’m mildly curious to see Judd Winick to see if he can finally shed the taint of the Real World in my mind, but I’m very curious to see a documentary they’re showing called Comic Books and AIDS: What’s the Story?,a half-hour piece highlighting the comic book industry’s response to AIDS, and its usefulness as a tool in education, awareness and prevention.

For All the Nerds

Wonder WomanInto comics? Free tonight? There’s a very cool panel discussion at the Center tonight at 7:00 Drawing Closer: Queer Representations and the Comics:

Off Center and the Gay League present what promises to be an exciting, raucous forum on the queering of comics with many of the artists at the epicenter of this growing phenomenon. From Wonder Woman to the Riot Grrls, these bold and brash icons do much more than empower our youth. They forge queer identity and influence our aesthetics well beyond adolescence. You’re invited to this interactive forum with an eclectic group of artists including: cartoonist Jennifer Camper, creator of subGURLZ; Howard Cruse, creator of Stuck Rubbery Baby; Joan Hilty, editor at DC Comics; Phil Jimenez, writer and artist for Wonder Woman; and Ariel Schrag, artist of Potential and Likewise. $5 suggested donation.

Come check it out. It sounds nifty. Off Center is an ongoing series of events that my friend John has been putting together since the summer (“Off Center seeks to provide a forum for a variety of controversial ideas, opinions and experiences exploring what it means to be LBGT today.”), and they’ve been doing all kinds of good stuff like this that would be worth keeping an eye out for. If, you know, you like to think and stuff.

The Price of Popularity

What in god’s name is going on here? Am I really using about 8 to 9 gigs of bandwidth a month at this point? that’s insane. Why do you people bother? Am I really that fascinating? Doubt it. Sheesh!

No, don’t get me wrong. I’m flattered and honored and amazed that I get that much traffic. I never check my stats, so it’s always a surprise to find out that people actually think that’s it’s worthwhile to stop in here from time to time. I guess I’m a little perplexed again, because this is the kind of existential blog angst that seems to happen to all of us periodically about why I do this. It costs me hundreds of dollars a year, it makes me feel obligated to perform whether or not I want to do so, it often sucks time away from other work I’d like to do, it makes me deal with web-site design, which is something I don’t really enjoy much at all.

So what’s in it for me? Why has this site turned out to be the most substantial thing I’ve worked on for these past six years or so? For that matter, why has this turned out to be the only personal endeavor I’ve ever stuck with for so long? I suppose there’s a lot of answers, and not all of them arty and altruistic. (Remember, this is called UltraSparky, a carefully thought out conceit to counter any criticism about whether or not it should be about anything but me, me, me!)

I suppose it’s the people behind those eight or nine gigs a month: the friends I’ve made and keep making (and the social obligations/pleasures that go along with them), the opportunities I’ve had to participate in (and maybe even influence and inspire) the development of a form of democratic media that I really believe in, the people who come here and add their own thoughts to the mix and make this really participatory, the people who care about me who come here to make sure I’m still ticking when I’m too caught up in one damn thing or another to keep in touch regularly. (By the way, I’m awfully happy and doing very well these days, thanks.) I suppose you’re the reason I do it. You make me engage with the world on some level every day, rather than just putter away on my own.

Thanks, ya bastards. But pardon the slimmed-down redesign. Engagements are expensive.

Freaky Gay Porn

No one was more surprised than me, but it turns out that Jackass: The Movie is the funniest gay porn I’ve ever seen in my life.

Johnny KnoxvilleI mean, I was just hoping for a quick glance at Johnny Knoxville‘s butt and maybe a derisive chuckle or two, but I left the theater cramped over from laughing so hard (not to mention cringing an awful lot, usually while laughing at the same time). It strays so often into the realm of all-guy, potty-obsessed lewdness that it really does come across as an edgy porn movie, over and over again. Most of the guys are pretty hot, and they almost never wear much besides droopy pants and sneakers. When they’re doing a lot of the stunts, they’re usually doing them in jockstraps or skimpy underwear. And I thought to myself more than once: “This is pretty funny, but I know people who do stuff like this pretty regularly because it’s a turn-on.” Sure, that may be another variety of edgy behavior altogether, but it was pretty interesting to see how often the big challenge for these guys amounted to be being dropped into the middle of an S/M movie to see if they could take it. For Pete’s sake, one of the first images of the movie is the name of the production company: Dickhouse.

In some ways, it’s a brilliant piece of absurdist theatre, Granted, that may be unintentional, but after reading this article and also realizing that Spike Jonze was involved, I think there may be a whole lot more consciousness of the many layers to this than I would have given it credit for right off the bat.

No, it sure ain’t for the squeamish, but it’s a hoot.