AutoNom(ad)y

Tired of mooching rides? Unsure who's gonna stop? Come on down to the Milch School of Motors and we will make Monad a nomad in a few short lessons.


Work with our seasoned driving instructors. Our instructors have experience driving at unsafe speeds and in dangerous situations, they can share their success stories with you.



Now let's get hit the road.

First hit check your mirrors. Shape Shifters included.


Look for blind spots. Or unknown plot devices that never get explained.


Hands at 10 and 2. Do not whip the skippy while driving.


Traffic? Don't worry Milch School of Driving teaches how to deal with traffic.


Stick head out of window.


Proceed to insult the driver, his driving and his mother. Refer to someone as a monkey or donkey. Sprinkle diatribe liberally with profanity and references to stick and mud, circles and lines. Hand gestures may be necessary and are strongly encouraged. Props such as glasses to let the driver know they need them or a surf board to show where to stick it. Use of iambic pentameter may be a nice touch.


You are ready to drive now!

Let me drive, I've been to the Milch School of Motors, I'm a very good driver.


Listen I know he made you Rain Man, but there is no way in hell I'm letting you drive Dylan McKay's Porsche.

See God Cass. See God.


And when all else fails , slap on the wet suit, stick out the thumb, and see who comes.

Fly Me to the Moon

When you thought it looked scrubbed the Moon Project is back on the launch pad with a new writer brought onto the film, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Up and coming writer Dan Mazeau has been hired to redraft the action film about lunar colonization that was originally written director Doug Linman and John Hamburg. Mark Bowden revamped Linman's and Hamburg's script first, now Mazeau challenge is working on a script "based on an original story by Liman, Bowden and Simon Kinberg," Kinberg will be executive producing with Linman, the pair have had box office success with "Mr & Mrs. Smith" and "Jumpers".

So Astronaut Jake will get to suit up soon enough it looks like.

Astronaut, Soldier, Prince, Cowboy, Football Star... sounds like action figures, but in reality recent roles and projects in Jake's career. What little boy didn't dream of being at least one of those? Acting gives the chance to be all things taking some of those boyhood dreams of really being the astronaut, the cowboy, the Prince and bringing it to the role. It is the magic of that sometimes is the spark to such roles, that translated it from the page to the audience. Wonder if Jake will ever get to be the bird he wanted to grow up to be?

Are the astronaut and the Prince boyhood dreams or a way of providing security in his career with big box office projects? Jake has said he admired Matt Damon's career, that of balance big box office with smaller critically acclaimed roles and indie projects. Is he making his own version of the Damon plan?

And if not acting then what for Jake? Would it be serious run at cooking? Or woodworking? Or gardening? Or would be behind the camera? Do you think he would be able to walk away from acting completely? Or would he always keep acting a part of his life?

Out Spotlight XXIX

Arthur Ashe. Brad Davis. Robert Reed. Alison Gertz. Freddy Mercury. Keith Haring. Halston. Ryan White. Easy E. Wayland Flowers. Pedro Zamora. Liberace. Rudolf Nureyev. Slyvester. Rock Hudson. Nomination for Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. An Academy Award in for a documentary about it in 1989. and the largest community art project in the world. What one thing has all this of in common?

The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt

It is a powerful visual reminder of the AIDS pandemic. More than 46,000 individual 3-by-6-foot memorial panels -- most commemorating the life of someone who has died of AIDS -- have been sewn together by friends, lovers and family members brought together as tribute, memorial and celebration of the lives lost to AIDS.

Its conception came from another memorial. The Annual candle march honoring San Fransicsco Supervisor Harvey Milk and SF Mayor George Moscone killed in 1978, by their friend and gay rights activist Cleve Jones. During the 1985 vigil he found out that over 1000 SF residents had been lost to AIDS at that time. He asked fellow marchers to put their names on placards of their friends lost and when gathering all together it was reminiscent of a patchwork quilt. The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt was born. A little over a year later the first panel was created in memory of his friend Martin Friedman. In June of 1987, Jones teamed up with Mike Smith and several others to formally organize the NAMES Project Foundation. Public response to the Quilt was immediate. People in the U.S. cities most affected by AIDS -- Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco -- sent panels to the San Francisco workshop.

On October 11, 1987, the Quilt was displayed for the first time on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., during the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. It covered a space larger than a football field and included 1,920 panels. Half a million people visited the Quilt that weekend.

The overwhelming response led to a four-month, 20-city, national tour for the Quilt in the spring of 1988. The tour raised nearly $500,000 for hundreds of AIDS service organizations. Local panels were added in each city, tripling the Quilt's size to more than 6,000 panels by the end of the tour.

The Quilt returned to Washington, D.C. in October of 1988, with 8,288 panels displayed on the Ellipse in front of the White House. Celebrities, politicians, families, lovers and friends started the tradition of reading aloud the names of the people represented by the panels. The reading of names is now a tradition followed at nearly every Quilt display. In 1989 a second tour of North America brought the Quilt to 19 additional cities in the United States and Canada. That tour and other 1989 displays raised nearly a quarter of a million dollars for AIDS service organizations.

By 1992, the AIDS Memorial Quilt included panels from every state and 28 countries. In October 1992, the entire Quilt returned to Washington, D.C.. and in January 1993 The NAMES Project was invited to march in President Clinton's inaugural parade.

The last display of the entire AIDS Memorial Quilt was in October of 1996 when The Quilt covered the entire National Mall in Washington, D.C. The 1,000 newest blocks - those blocks received at or since the October 1996 display - were displayed the weekend of June 26, 2004 on The Ellipse in Washington D.C. in observance of National HIV Testing Day.

Today there are NAMES Project chapters across the United States and independent Quilt affiliates around the world. Since 1987, over 14 million people have visited the Quilt at thousands of displays worldwide. Through such displays, the NAMES Project Foundation has raised over $3 million for AIDS service organizations throughout North America.

The Washington, D.C. displays of October 1987, 1988, 1989, 1992 and 1996 are the only ones to have featured the Quilt in its entirety,

• Funds Raised by The Quilt for Direct Services for People with AIDS: over $4,000,000 (U.S.)

• Number of Visitors to The Quilt: 15,200,000

• Number of 12'x12' Sections of The Quilt: 5,748

• Number of Panels in The Quilt: over 46,000

• Number of Names on The Quilt: More than 91,000*

• Size : 1,293,300 square feet (the equivalent of 275 NCAA basketball courts with walkway, 185 courts without walkway)
  
  
• Miles of Fabric: 52.25 miles long (if all 3'x6' panels were laid end to end)

• Total Weight: More than 54 tons

• NAMES Project Chapters: 18

• International Affiliates: 43

The information for this Out Spotlight is provided by The AIDS Memorial Quilt

The OMG Movie Club

This month's movie is Maurice.

An adaptation of E M. Forster's book by the same name, it tells the story of coming of age as a homosexual in restriction English Edwardian society, through the lives of Clive Durham (Hugh Grant) and Maurice Hall (James Wilby). "As two Cambridge undergraduates who fall in love, the film is set amidst the hypocritical homoerotic subculture of the English university in Forster's time. In an environment in which any reference to " the unspeakable vice of the Greeks" is omitted, and any overture toward a physical relationship between men might be punishable by law, Maurice and Clive struggle to come to terms with their own feelings toward each other and toward a repressive society." (Merchant Ivory Productions)

Not confined to just the front rooms, the story turns to find the undergameskeeper Alec Scudder (Rupert Graves) and his influence in the telling of this story of discovery, acceptance and denial.

E.M. Forster's story, which he began writing in 1913, was not published until his death in 1971, is same sex love story, that was not used to teach a moral lesson of condemnation but of sharing the beauty of love found.

_____________________________________

Original Theatrical Trailer for Maurice

Come join and discuss!

Do you know who?

uuDo you know who ?

Got my colors.



Got my signs.



Got my boys.


Got my bling.


Got my look.


Got my lean.


OMG MOVIE CLUB TOMORROW
We will be discussion the Merchant Ivory movie, Maurice,
starring James Wilby, Rupert Graves and Hugh Grant.

Why? For the Love of God. Why?

At the moment S. Darko is filming, the sequel to Donnie Darko. Based on the Donnie's litle Samantha, played by Daviegh Chase, Samantha from original, who's now 18 and abandoning her commitment to Sparkle Motion. She heads to Las Vegas with her best friend Corey, but the two are plagued with bizarre visions. What? And it takes place in Vegas in the early 90's? Are they kidding?

Wait it gets better, recently brought on to the cast is Elizabeth Berkley, yes that Elizabeth Berkley, Nomi of Showgirls infamy. The only thing to top it would be Joe Eszterhas to be involved. He would make Berkley a "dancer" named Sparkle Motion and create a number about a rabbit, that has nothing to do with Donnie, Frank, a rabbit named Harvey or anything that lives in a hutch.

What's you worst case scenario for a Darko sequel? Jar Jar Binks as Frank? Donnie comes back because of time travel and isn't Jake? Grandma death doesn't die alone?

But the biggest question is: Why would anyone make a sequel to Donnie Darko? And why would Kelly let them?

Testing, testing,.... 1... 2... 3

The Informers was test screened last night, and looks like there will be some work to do to get it ready for release.

Bret Easton Ellis adaptations are indeed hard to do and a loose collection of short stories makes it even harder. That maybe the criticism of the test audiences, not the performances, but bringing all the stories together. Earlier reports have said that the vampire storyline with Brandon Routh has been cut completely, and that Ellis had made the decision to do so after the reception that it got as a subplot. While Ellis wanted to show the interconnection to the life of LA in the 80's translating that from page to screen is easier said than done. There is a fine line between capturing that energy and taking the energy and interest out of the audience. The have been some mentions of good performances from Mickey Rouke, Brad Renfro, and Winona Ryder, in her slow return back to the big screen. No word on the Austin as performance as Martin. Despite the first impressions of a few about the movie as a whole, most would agree just seeing Austin back on the big screen is something all are waiting for.