Hast Du Lust? Klar, aber Safer Sex! Drinking free wine at the Black and Blue Gallery Event B y Jo s é L o
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Ah me, the Black & Blue gallery event. This is the fourth year that Black & Blue has includ ed a gallery event in their sched uled "World’s Largest All-Night Gay Dance In One Indoor Venue & Week-Long Socio-Cultural Festival." Every year for the past ten years, circuit party people in the house from all four corners have migrated to the Montreal Bad Boy Club’s hallmark event to revel, dance, and spend some of the money that they’re not putting in the bank for little Timmy’s college fund. The festival brings more money to the city than the Montreal FI event, and enough people to populate a small town. A small town where you don’t have to pretend you "just haven’t found the right girl yet." Never having been to the gallery showing, I pictured a large room filled with work by indepen-
dent artists whose insights toward and capturing the flavor of afterthe gay community would produce hours partying. Zïlon, a Montreal-born graffiti some original paintings. I was wrong. What I got was poorly artist (and the guest of honour) pre painted men in leather hats and sented two particularly intricate chaps. The only way these particular works could have been more cliché was if there were word balloons coming out of their mouths saying, "We work hard, we play hard." A particularly uninspired canvas depicted thin, hollow-eyed ravers (with requisite phat pants and toques) looking sad, surrounded by ecstasy, speed, poppers, coke, and ketamine. Get it? Drugs make you sad and pathetic. You’re still not sure? Look again. You see how the artist surrounded them with drugs? Wow. Not all of the pieces were paintings, thank the Lord. As soon as you cut the paintings out of your Explosive art by the untouchable Zilon field of vision, the photos, photo pieces that gave the showing a art, and poster art were more than little dash of youth. Apparently he enough to brighten up any jaded has some major pieces thrown up in the city center, but he was too cynic’s day. Several photographers con busy being surrounded by people tributed pieces related to circuit for me to get close enough to ask parties. Works by David Morgan him where. Kenneth Hemmerick’s work is and local boy Luc Richard use intense lighting and lagging shutter indescribable. Let’s you and me speeds to produce blurred and ignore that pesky little adjective jagged visuals, simulating memory and give it another go: Oddly beau
All my exes live in Texas Richard Gere probes an answer to his woman-troubles down south B y Rebecca D
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Would you want your gynecol ogist to be sexy? If he were, would you "go for a check-up" every few weeks instead of the requisite six months? This is the basis upon which Richard Gere's new film, D r. T a n d th e W o m e n , is set. Apparently, he is such a fabu lous doctor, and so irresistibly handsome, the wealthy women of Dallas throw themselves at him. They are the rich of the rich. The kind of ostentacious wealth they possess is only found in Texas. Skinny things propped up in Gucci shoes, clothed in Chanel suits, coiffed, primped and primed, with Prada bags to boot. They only drink champagne, shop and play all day. It is these same women that Dr. T (Gere) professes to adore. Dr. T, himself, is quite a catch. A very successful doctor, talented golfer, avid hunter, faithful husband and self-proclaimed woman wor shipper. His life is filled in every way with women. Within half an hour into the movie, they all begin to make his life hell. In the opening scene, his gor
geous wife Kate (Farrah Fawcett) goes bonkers in the mall and strips down naked to jump in the fountain. Apparently, she’s regressed into a childlike state because her life was too happy and perfect. His eager-toplease sister-in-law, Peggy (Laura Dern), moves in with their three small daughters while she goes through a divorce. One of his two grown daughters, Dee-Dee (Kate Hudson), is getting married to someone who is totally wrong for her. The other, Connie (Tara Reid), who works at the JFK conspiracy museum, comes to him with an unbelievable "conspiracy" more likely fueled by jealousy than fact. Then his clients get boisterously demanding, and his head assistant, Carolyn (Shelly Long), tries to seduce him in the middle of his cri sis. Before you know it, his perfect wife is in a mental institution and Mr. Fidelity is cheating. That’s all in the first half of the film. The likable characters at the beginning of D r . T a n d the W om en , got on my nerves before the end of the two hour-long film. The movie makes women out to be mindless gold-diggers. If these are the kind of
women a man would surround him self with voluntarily, he is not the "perfect" guy depicted by Gere. Realistically, no one could survive the constant shallow chatter or sup ply the attention these women required. The only seemingly sane woman is Bree (Helen Hunt), the new female golf pro at Dr. T ’s country club. She seems down-toearth, low maintenance, and gen uinely honest. But even she eventu ally disappoints. There is not one respectable woman in the entire film. The unbelievable collection of characters is sewn together with unrealistic plot threads. Although the story looked to be heading somewhere interesting, it stagnated, stretched itself out, and withered into a disappointing end. The few sufficiently amusing twists were sadly predictable. Though this film boasts many big actors, it doesn’t compensate for the fact the story is a little ridiculous. I wouldn’t recom mend this movie for a Friday night. See in on Tuesday or wait until it comes out on video.
tiful and entertaining photo art that added the necessary urbanity to the show. Three pictures from his 300strong series "The Body Internet" were on display. The artist said that the series "is about deconstructing and reconstructing gay pornographic images found on the Internet." Reconstruct them it does. I stared at a four legged flower on a white background for a solid six or seven min utes before my friend John anticipated my question and said "It’s an asshole." And people say pornography isn’t art. Luckily for every body who showed up to the gallery event, the organizers had covered one wall with AIDS and safe sex awareness posters from around the world. The poster col lection was on loan from the Gay Archives of Quebec. Entitled "Adding up AIDS: Images From The Pandemic," it was no accident that this section was the most diffi cult to navigate. Almost everybody in the room was crowded together examining the obscure and the out rageous campaigns. You could have painted the group of us and
hung it on the wall. My favorite posters were the ones from Germany; homoerotica, domina tion, and a socially responsible message. Take that, Stockwell. The classic "All of Us Fuck with Condoms - Every Tim e!” was another crowd-pleaser. Under standably so; who doesn’t like con doms? Looking back on it, the event was a little queer. Chilled red wine? They might as well have poured it from a boot. When I tried to resuscitate my ailing tongue with the white, I was shocked to discover that some mischievous imp had replaced the wine with cat vomit. I hate imps. The Bad Boy Club of Montreal stated that 80,000 people participated in Black & Blue this year-there were about 40 of us at the gallery event. I do not mean to say that an art showing is not worthwhile, it’s just not what your average Black & Blue aficionado is looking for. Many come to dance, few come to look at gay art. The gallery event could pick up a little steam next year if there was a featured DJ in the room. And dancing. And a light show. And a Rothschild 1997 Merlot. Boys just wanna have fun too, you know.
Soaring to the top while redefining rock We see inside Baltimore band SR-71 B y J e n n if e r T
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Imagine a plane coasting its own path between a series of extremes: pop vs. rock, obscurity vs. fame, introspective turmoil vs. rip-roaring ecstasy. That piece of aircraft is the SR-71, the fastest plane ever made and the name of a power pop-rock band from Baltimore, Maryland whose new single "Right Now" is busting its way up the charts. If you haven’t already heard SR-71’s carefree anthem, it proba bly won’t be long before you do. The single peaked at number two this summer on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart in the U.S., and although "Right Now" was only released a couple weeks ago in Canada, it has already estab lished a spot on 98.5 Cool-FM’s playlist. SR-71 frontman/songwriter Mitch Allan explains the song "Right Now" - the debut single from the band’s album N o w Y o u S ee In s id e .
"[It’s] about [when] you meet a girl and you like her and she’s a great lay, and she wants more than just sex out of the relationship and you don’t. You end up fighting and arguing all the time about the same thing, but also you don’t want to break up with her." Allan admitted. He later added, "’Right Now’ isn’t about the deepest subject in the world, it is a great song to drive in your car real fast to." The music video is consistent with the song’s lighthearted sensi bilities, playing off of such musical influences as the Beatles - in a "Hard Day’s Night" spoof - and Queen - in a symphonic quartet straight out of "Bohemian Rhapsody." But as much as SR-71 loves goofing around and singing about sex, Allan insists that N o w Y ou S ee In s id e covers a much wider emo tional terrain than "Right Now" demonstrates. The SR-71 front man’s favorite track on the record
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