Meanest Review

Ijust read the review of my film I0
Attitudes (“Ten Bad Attitudes."
December, 2004). I worked very
hard on this project. We [won] sev-
eral Awards and have been received
fairly well in most publications. And
it was the worst, meanest. bitchiest

 I have ever read of anything I
have done in my whole career! I felt
like I was I2 years old and that cool
kid who beat me up wrote the
review of my little film. If his inten-
tion was to make me feel bad. it

worked. But I also laughed because '

it was so over the top and [II got
over it.

In defense. I guess the
reviewer. Scott Sherman. did not do
much research on the film because
he said I wrote the script. Which I
did not. As you can tell I am not a
great writer from this letter! I pro-
duced it and created the story with
Michael Gallant. The film was
almost totally improvised. He also
said I was OK in it but a better
writer. Well. I guess I am a better
actor than I thought because all most
of my work was improv.

The film is a dogma style
experimental project. which was
spelled out in the Press Release.
which I guess he did not read. I
believe everyone has the right to
have an opinion and like or dislike a
piece of an. But when I took my
shirt off in a scene and he said
"What was I thinking?"  that's just
plain mean. I am 5' I I" I85 pounds
and have a 33-inch waist and 4-3-
inch chest. So there!

No I am not a muscle god
but that was the point of the film.
lie also said that all the dates I went
on were hot guys and that I was try-
ing to inflate my ego. Many of the
dates were average guys like myself
who are looking for love. So I guess
he did not watch the whole film!
And that is the point of the story.
We did have some hot guys in the
film don't get me wrong. but many
were just like the guys who read
your paper. And they are the people
this film was made for.

Thanks for reading this
and letting me say my piece in print.

Jason Stuart
Los Angeles. CA

Scott Sherman responds: Awwww,
ifl really wanted to make Mr. Stuart
feel l)tI(l. I would lmve (lated ltittt.
not written (I review of his tnovic.
And while I tnuy have been a little
mean. I was not inaccurate. The l()
Attitudes webxite

( www.10attitudes.com) lists Jason as
a writer. So there. As to whether his
improvising his own lines counts as
“writing" or "acting," that I leave
to the scholars at UCLA.

I'm sorry if Mr. Stuart is
hurt by my comments about his
appearance, but if you're gonna
play the lead in a romantic comedy,
and most of your suitors are hotter
than the 4th of July. it does raise the
issue. I didn't consider the majority
of his co-stars "average." If they
seem so to Mr. Stuart. I'd like to
move his neighborhood. And. just to
be clear. Stuart is cute and likable,
just not in a "leading man" kind of
way.

And I did watch every
frame of his movie. The minutes flew
by like hours (just kidding.’ ). A5 I
said in my review. the movie has
some entertaining moments. and
some funny performances - one of
which was Mr. Stuart's. But the pro-
duction is a mess. Ofcourse. now
you'll have to see for yourself. won't
mu."

Leahy Pro-Gay?

In Paul Olsen's wrap-up of the 2004
election he mentioned “pro-gay"
Senator Patrick Leahy and his state-
ment that he would “continue his
fight for equal rights for gay
Americans." Next time Olsen inter-
views Leahy I hope he’lI ask him to
explain his vote for the Defense of
Marriage Act in I996. That was an
anti-gay vote.

Ross Laffan
Rochester

In his May 2004 intcnticw with Sen.
Leahy, Olsen asked the Senator
wlwther he regretted his vote for the
Defense of Marriage Act. Leah_v'.r
somewhat evasive answer seemed to
lean toward regret. while recogniz-
ing that DOMA was providing polit-
icul cover for others to oppose the
Federal Marriage Amendment. He
indicated that his pro-DOMA vote
war about .rtatc.r retaining the right
to define marriage. Note that Leah)"
has introduced the Permanent
Partners" Immigration Act to give
immigration recognition to same-sex
partners. — Ed.

Wlth Friends Llke
Th

III

Post mortems on the November
elections fail to see past the hoopla
and lies of the two parties and thus
don‘t address the real political ques-
tions facing our community. 

Democrats certainly want
gay votes, and will promise any-

 

out in the mountains gaotzarig  5

letters

thing to get them, but in reality our
agenda isn't something they’d ever
work up a sweat over. On the con-
trary, they're eharacterized by
duplicity and deceit. For 200 years
they’ve promised everything but
delivered only for themselves and
the rich.

In spite of Stonewall day-
dreams and HRC perfidy, and in
spite of their promises, the work
done for them and money given
them. the leaders of the jackass
party are not our allies — quite the
opposite. Clinton and the congres-
sional jackasses approved ‘Don’t
Ask. Don't Tell‘ and led the effort to
put the first national anti-gay mar-
riage law on the books. Kerry caved
on gay marriage, paving the way for
state anti- gay marriage laws. In
Michigan. Gov. Jennifer Granholm
happily betrayed us to the bigots,
taking back state benefits from gay
families. That’s shoddy, hypocritical
and cowardly. but hey, they're jack-
asses. what did you expect.

The truth is that the
Republicans unashamedly hate us.
while Democrats put their arm

around us, call us friend, and only
later comes the trip to the ER to
treat those stab wounds in the back.

Put this in perspective.
These jackasses march to the right
in lockstep with the Republicans.
Both support the criminal murders
of over a hundred thousand Iraqis,
and almost 1500 GI’s in their illegal
oil war. Neither support[s] gay mar-
riage, or ending the attack on work-
ing people’s standard of living, and
neither give a darrm about civil
rights, the problems of immigrants,
Native Americans, or the aged.
Secondly, and not down-

playing the danger of the Christian
right wing, we’ve made remarkable
progress in changing laws and how
people view us. Not because we’ve
been timid, but because we’ve
fought for decades, on the job, in
school, in the armed forces, and in
the courts and in demonstration, big
and small. Those fights, many with-
out allies or hope of immediate vic-
tory, and not support of this or that
jackass candidate, are what’s fueled
our progress.

When we take the path of
militant uncompromising mass
mobilizations to get what we need to
survive — equal rights — then we join
a long line of winners and heroes in
American history.  We were
sometimes silent or not seen, but we
were there. That’s our real heritage,
and now it’s our time, our tum» we
need victories for our benefit.

Still, people will want to
know what to do on Election‘ Day.
We need to tell them to vote for our
supporters, not our betrayers or our
enemies. We need to vote for com-
munist or socialist candidates who
support us and we need to back
efforts to create a labor party in the
US, like Canada’s NDP or the
English Labor Party. A party like
that could unite all the groups now
wasting their votes between I
Tweedledum and Tweedledee and

.provide some real progress for a

change. And, let’s face it, not hav-
ing to vote for evil, even a lesser
evil, would feel soooo good.

Bill Perdue
Las Vegas, Nevada V

At Witt’s End

Leah Wittenberg

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