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Hello again. I am officially a crappy blogger. I have some kind of
problem. It all started with the Project Runway blog I did for Elle
Magazine. I couldn’t just write a few lines. I had to write an insanely
thorough recap of every episode. It took me forever to write that damn
thing every week. I would sit on the floor of my living room with the dvr
and the remote for what seemed like 19 years. I loved what I wrote and the
readers did too. I think I am feeling that same pressure for brilliance
for this blog. Did I seriously just write that? I need some humble pie or
something. I need a reality check. I know you don’t care how I write or
even what I write as long as I am writing something. I know I know. Ok, so
what have I been up to you ask? Well, I’ve been a busy little beaver.

I, for the record, right now am listening to the new Madonna album Hard
Candy. It has been playing on repeat for the past 5 days. I am kind of a
Madonna fanatic. She could make an album about using Q-tips and shoveling
snow out of the driveway, and I would be all over it. As with most Madonna
albums, the music and beats rock and the production value is insane, but
the lyrics are pretty stupid. I mean who could forget “go to Texas, isn’t
that where they play golf” on I love New York off of the Confessions
album. I don’t give a shit, I blare it and sing along and love it! As for
this album, I am really digging it, I must say. I love Candy Shop, Miles
Away, Incredible, Beat Goes On and Dance 2night. I skip Spanish Lesson.
Not my favorite track. The beats are awesome though. I was pretty
frightened when I heard that Madonna was teaming up with Timbaland, Justin
Timberlake and Pharell to do a hip hop album, but I think it sounds fresh
and still very Madonna. You gotta give to her, she certainly knows how to
market herself. 50 years old and still relevant and still kicking ass. I
think she is showing a whole generation that nothing in life is
impossible. I’m officially obsessed.

So, this week I got back from my whirlwind film festival trip to Toronto,
Miami and Boston. It was pretty amazing! First of all, I can’t believe I
made it through all of those flights. I am not the best flyer. I need
major drugs to cope and even then my brain still talks to me about the
fact that I am up inside of a tube in the clouds with other people sitting
in rows. Thank you Klonopin. I embarked on this adventure with my pals and
co-directors of the film Michael Selditch and Rob Tate. We had such a
great time in each city. We started off in Toronto at the Toronto Hot Docs
festival. Toronto is so clean and interesting and the people are sexy and
effortless and most importantly nice. I felt like I was in Amsterdam
again. I would definitely love to go back and spend some time there
exploring the city. The screening went great and I appreciate all of the
great feedback we got about the film and the tremendous support from the
all of the awesome people we came across. I could totally imagine myself
fleeing America and living in Canada. You never know. I’m too old for the
draft right? I am fat and have flat feet anyway, so I’m not worried.

Next we went to Miami, which couldn’t be more of a polar opposite setting
than Toronto. We went from barely budding spring trees and brick mixed
with modern glass architecture to lush palm trees, pink buildings and the
amazing blue ocean. In like 3 hours. Ahhhhh, flying! The Miami Gay and
Lesbian Film Festival was much different because we had a fashion show to
do while we were there so the stress level was a little bit higher. Not
much higher though. I refuse to let myself freak out about these things
anymore. I went through that once and you can watch it all play out in a
little film I’m in called “eleven minutes”. We stayed at a cute boutique
hotel called the Dorset in South Beach. We went to the opening ceremony at
a beautiful theater in Miami and afterparty at some kind of bird
aquarium…parrot something, parrot bay? Why cant I remember this? I’m a
dumbass. We saw penguins and drank peach vodka. I think I talked to a
million people that night. The weather was pretty amazing. The next day I
hung out with my co-pilot in crimeville, Mr. Dan Renzi, who some of you
might know from the real world Miami. Dan, if you are reading this, I
apologize. The true story, of seven strangers picked to live in a house
and have their lives videotaped to see what happens when…..I just had to.
We ate sushi and spent the afternoon preparing for the rooftop fashion
show.  We steamed clothes and did model fittings. Somehow intermingled in
there I had to go to the screening and then back to the hotel for more
preparation and then back to the screening for a question and answer
session. I made it back to the hotel just in time to finish up my duties
and get to the fashion show. I didn’t even have time to take a shower.
Nasty! The show went great and all of the models were fabulous and so
sweet and accommodating. I would also like to give a big shout out to the
amazing team that helped me out. All of the dressers and make-up and hair
teams and of course Lisa and Dan who put the whole thing together. I
totally couldn’t have done it without all of you! There are so many people
that make it possible for me to put my name in the back of a shirt. I
thank you! We then had a free day in Miami so I got caught some rays and
chatted with some nice folks. We walked around for hours and got food in
this little Spanish area. I was going to say it was called Little Areola
but somehow I don’t think it was called that. Little espana way? I don’t
know. Anyway, we had a nice time in Miami! We really made an effort to go
out and party it up but it seems we were all too tired. Just a bunch of
old men. Good bye Miami! Next stop, Boston.

I felt like I was in a time warp here…from spring and sunny to hot and
palm trees to cold rainy and cloudy, all in three days. The next and last
festival we attended was the Independent Film Festival of Boston. We
landed and then went to an animation studio that Michael is friends with.
It was pretty awesome. It was in an old warehousey artist studio
environment. They do animation for all sorts of companies. Really cool
stuff! Guess what, I cant think of their name either. I need to start
paying attention to these things. They were very accommodating and showed
us the behind the scenes animation laboratory that they create all of
their magic in. they even let me take a snooze on their couch. We went to
the hotel and went to California Pizza Kitchen which was damn good! I tend
to love chain restaurants. Don’t even get me started on the amazingness
that is Red Robin. A tower of onion rings with yummy salty dipping sauces.
I can think of nothing finer in life. I’m totally serious! Anywho, we had
the screening in the beautiful Somerville theater. The screening went
great and again, thank you to all of the nice people who I met and that
took time to come out and see the film. I appreciate it! I must apologize
to all of you out there that came to the first screening thinking I would
be there. I guess there was a mix up with the day I was coming by some
media outlet. Hopefully I will be back in Boston for something or another
someday. PS: the lounge area that they had set up at the theater was mind
blowing! We got all sorts of goodies, t-shirts and buttons and a great
looking bag and jelly beans and ate Chipotle veggie burritos and most
importantly played rock band which completely blew my mind! I played drums
and sang and totally sucked at the bass guitar. A shout out to my band
mates that I jammed with. So f#$%ing fun!!! That was it. Back to the
hotel. Caught a train back to Philly in the morning.

The train from Boston to Philadelphia is really cinematic. From the small
town city look of Boston through the seaside shanty Martha Stewarty
Connecticut to big ole New York and then Philly. Really interesting!  I
got back in the evening on Tuesday and crashed. The next day I spent
planting flowers, herbs and veggies for my back patio and roofdeck and
then I was off to the annual Philadelphia University Fashion Show at the
gorgeous Academy of Music. The show went well. It’s always kind of
challenging for me to see so many different points of view on one stage.
The DJ was great and there were some really nice moments in the clothes.
It was also good to see some of my students not wearing sweatpants and
really celebrating their first big fashion moment. Hopefully it will be
the first of many. Francisco Costa of Calvin Klein received an award and
was in attendance. I of course didn’t meet him. Everyone said he was nice,
which is good to hear.  I met up with my friends Jeremy and Sven after the
show and we reeked some havoc. I will say the highlight of my evening was
finding a whole pizza in the garbage at a little pizza joint by the after
hours gay bar and putting it on someone’s bike wheel. It looked like the
wheel was made out of pizza. We now refer to it as “pizza wheel”. How
clever right? Its so stupid but we took pictures of it and drove away and
then drove back and parked and watched to see if anyone would notice the
pizza wheel. We were waiting to see the owner of the bike would come out
and what they would do. We took even more pictures of it. If I could
figure out how to do it, I would post some pictures here of it for your
enjoyment. We will see. We passed it the next day and the bike was in the
same spot but the pizza was gone. We figured that someone probably ate it.
Why not? It was a perfectly good pizza pie. It just so happens to have
been a wheel too. On that note. I am outta here. Thanks for stopping by.

Later dudes!