Baby Alvino

Our friends Tara and Jack are about to be parents (one week away). They had a baby shower/party on Saturday, it was great fun. These guys are two of the best and sweetest people I know and deserve all the happiest they can get. I wish them all the best and I can't wait to see baby Alvino (Jack Jr. or Bella).

Thrills, Chills and Fender Benders

Harry and I went to Magic Mountain tonight for Gay Night. I have gone almost every year for the past six years or so. Harry and I are huge roller coaster fans but since we got Daisy (our dog) we haven't been able to go. Now that Daisy is a little better about staying home alone and the event was only five hours, we decided to go. It was awesome and so much fun. We manage to ride seven roller coaster in a few hours. Magic Mountain opened a new roller coaster last summer and we have been dying to ride it. Tatsu is a roller coaster where you hang from the track like you are flying. After X (the best roller coaster ever) I didn't think this was going to be all that great. We waited over two hours in line and the excitment grew. We finally got on and it was fun. Towards the end of the ride there is a inverted backwards loop. And all I have to say is OH MY GOD!!!!!

I love roller coaster and have never really been surprised or scared of any of them. Well we were going along and it was fun and then we hit that inverted backwards loop and my heart started to race as we picked up a huge amount of speed and G's. I started to freak out and yell OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD. This had the best drop I have ever felt. I got off this ride and was shaking. IT WAS AWESOME.

After a great night we started to head home and while exiting Magic Mountain and before getting on the freeway there was bumper to bumper traffic. I finally got down the hill and was about to go through the light to the freeway and the person in front of me slammed on her breaks and I did the same but hit a dip in the road and couldn't stop in time and rear ended her. We pulled over in a parking lot where another accident involving three other cars were park and exchanged info. There wasn't much damage to her car and my front right side was dented a bit. So a great night didn't end the way I planed. Now I have to see how much my insurance is going to be raised and I have to see how much it's going to cost me to fix my car. Oh well.. life happens.

It Finally Happened

My brother finally married his long time girlfriend Lora. It was a beautiful wedding, Lora looked fantastic in her wedding dress, so beautiful. Michael was the charming groom greeting guests as they entered. The wedding went off without a hitch. I was one of his groom's men and after the wedding I almost fell down the a few steps while walking out but other than that everything went great. The reception was a blast. Michael's and Lora's friends are wonderful. Fun, crazy and a bit wild. My brother is a huge Star Wars fan and so are his friends. Several of his friends came to the wedding dressed up as Star Wars characters. Beside the ususal first dance and cutting of the cake, we had a light saber limbo. It was a great wedding and reception. I wish them all the best.

Happy Birthday To Me

It's my 36th birthday today. It's been a good birthday. I had a Birthday BBQ with a few friends. We had some hot dogs and hamburgers and watched my favorite romantic comedy Guys and Balls. It was a nice relaxing day.

Filming Heroes outside my office

They are filming a scene from an episode of NBC's new series Heroes right outside my office/edit bays. I saw all these people in the hall way and one of the workers told us that they were shooting a scene pretending they are at FBI headquarters. Greg Grunberg plays a LA cop who can read people's minds and he teams up with an FBI agent.. those are the two principles actors here. It's very cool...

Wedding Rehearsal

Well as some of you may or may not know.. after 12 years of courting, my brother is finally getting married to the lovely Lora. They had planned to get married on my birthday Saturday Sept. 23rd but the reception area wasn't available so they moved it to Sunday Sept. 24th. Of course I am part of the wedding party so I have to be there on Wednesday for the rehearsal. It was alot of fun. My brother has said in the past that he is not nervous about his ceremony, but he was nervous during the rehearsal. I also picked up my tux today, black suit with black shirt, lilac vest and lilac tie. So I have my tux and I know where to stand.. I'm ready for Sunday.

New Job

Well I started my new job today on Curl Girls. It's about 1pm and I'm still waiting for my computer and desk to be dropped off. Getting off to a slow start but the people I have met so far seem pretty cool. The best part is that I'm still working at Sunset Gower Studios, the same place I did Gene Simmons and the even better part is my office along with the edit bays for this new show is under Stage 14 where they are currently shooting HEROES, the new NBC/Scifi/Fantasy TV show that I'm so looking forward to. I've already seen several of the Stars of Heroes. This is going to be a fun job and should take me up to the Christmas holidays.

Favorite Gay Romantic Comedies

Just wanted to share with everyone my two favorite gay romantic comedies. I saw Touch of Pink about a year ago on DVD and just fell in love, it's funny, sweet, caring and just a great movie.

Here's a synopsis of Touch of Pink; Alim is an Ismaili Canadian who lives in London, thousands of miles from his family, for one very good reason--he has a boyfriend. His ideal gay life begins to unravel when his mother (Nuru) shows up to find him a proper Muslim girlfriend and convince him to return to Canada for his cousin's extravagant wedding. Nuru was born and raised in Africa. She was fond of watching Doris Day and Cary Grant classic movies, and wanted to be like her. After the death of her husband, Nuru leaves her young son Alim in Africa with her sister and immigrates to Britain, hoping to leave behind her grief and start a new life. Alim is four when she leaves him. Nuru returns after being rejected by the England, and suffering racism. Nuru and her sister Dolly immigrate to Canada with their families and Alim grows up in Toronto. Fast-forward to the present. Nuru is going to attend her nephew Khaled's wedding but feels that she is missing part of herself because of her separation from Alim. She longs for him to marry a nice Ishmali Muslim girl and raise a family in Toronto. She goes to London to convince Alim to come home. What she does not know is that Alim is living with someone in - but that someone is not Muslim, nor a female - but a male Caucasian. Watch as events unravel this mystery for Nuru when she finally gets to meet her son's life-mate.

Harry and I went to see Guys and Balls in the theater. It's in German but has English subtitles. And since Harry is from Austria this was a must for us. We walked out of the theater and both of us were willing to go right back in and watch it again. I LOVE THIS MOVIE. Here is a review of Guys and Balls that I really liked; Guys and Balls, another German import, about a star goalie named Ecki who's booted off a "straight" local soccer team after he's caught tongue-wrestling with a guy. This old-fashioned, feel-good flick, which chronicles Ecki's scheme to exact revenge, nabbed a bunch of honors, including a 2005 Outfest LA Audience Award for best feature. Sort of a cross between The Full Monty and Bend it Like Beckham, this sweet, irresistible root-for-the-homo-team story lives up to its clever title. I compare it to The Full Monty not because the guys bare all (sorry, fellas) but because Ecki's revenge plot involves assembling a motley crew of misfits to take on his former soccer team in a big grudge match. Unlike much of queer cinema, which relies on buffed eye candy to gloss over the shortcomings of a film, Guys and Balls has cast normal guys with beer guts, shabby clothes and—gasp!—body hair.

Among Ecki's new teammates are the closeted barfly soccer fanatic, the beautiful Turkish waiter with a crush on Soccer Adonis David Beckham, the wiry soccer whiz who looks like a boy but is really a lesbian, the pair of hunky Brazilians, and the effeminate bookseller who is really straight. Got all that? My favorites are the leather-daddy threesome that Ecki finds at the dungeon-esque Steel Pipe bar. The tender scenes of them snuggled in their black vinyl waterbed together, shot from above, are oddly heartwarming. One of them is actually a real daddy, now divorced, who has a thing or two to prove to his distraught young son. The star of the newly formed gay team, at least in Ecki's eyes, is Sven, the male nurse. The two boys fall head over heels for each other, but complications arise when Sven discovers that Ecki is using the team more for personal vengeance than for the love of the game.

The team finds a coach in an alcoholic, homophobic, has-been soccer star who warms up to the boys after watching their pathetic practice attempts. Predictably, when Ecki reveals that he's gay, his father pretty much disowns him. He finds loving support from his sister, Suzanne. In the do-or-die showdown between the bros and the homos, the stakes are high. Not only is Ecki fighting for respect as a gay man (and, by extension, for all gays) but he's desperate to regain his stature as an athlete, and as a son. Remember, this is Germany where, like much of the entire world besides the U.S., soccer is not just a sport, it's a religion. Will the gays prevail? Will Ecki win back Sven's heart? The climax may not be a surprise, but it's engaging nonetheless. Like a kick-ass soccer match, Guys and Balls wants nothing more than to entertain, and on that level it scores big. Though the screwball comedy is yet another take on a coming out tale in the "I'm gay, so what!" vein, the refreshingly appealing ensemble and richly textured narrative elevate it beyond standard fare. The curly-locked Brückner makes a winning screen debut as the innocent yet determined Ecki. To be sure, the film churns out annoying been-there-done-that gay platitudes, such as when Suzanne says about Sven, "Why the heck does every nice-looking guy have to be gay?" And the logic of actually assembling such a gay team is painfully strained. But, for the most part, these lapses are easy to forgive.

Directed by Sherry Hormann, who reportedly knew nothing about soccer when she signed on, the film boasts lively field action sequences that register as authentic. Unless you're a pro, you'd never know the actors also had no soccer experience and were required to join a training camp to polish their moves before cameras started rolling.

Watching Guys and Balls, it's easy to see why films with sports themes are such a hit with gay audiences. It's about the triumph of the underdog, overcoming prejudice, self-discovery, and extracting the hidden joys out of life. And, of course, helping to dissolve the taboo of gays playing sports in a straight world.

Happy Birthday Star Trek

Happy Birthday Star Trek (Sept. 8, 1966)... 40 Great Years and counting.

I can't believe it's been 40 years already. Being 35 Star Trek has always been apart of my life, I don't know a world without Star Trek. I remember sitting in my parents car at a drive in and watching The Motion Picture. I can remember staying up late and watching TOS in syndication and really enjoying it. Then came TNG and it was LOVE. Every week I was pulled into this world of "Star Trek". The stories, the characters, and the underlying themes is what made this show so great. It was escapism at it's best. Whenever I was feeling down or when "real" life was getting to be a bit to much, I could count on Star Trek to bring me back up and always put a smile on my face.

We live in a very sad world at the moment and Star Trek always showed what the human race could achieve. It had a crew that said discrimination was a thing of past; it had a future with no poverty; it had an economy that was driven by progress and achievement, not simple wealth accumulation; it had science as a guiding force, not mysticism or superstition; it had technology as a means to explore, not just make life easier; and, perhaps most importantly, it had a peaceful mission at its core, not one of conquest.

With The Original Series, the Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and finally Enterprise. And along the way 10 motion pictures. I couldn't imagine a world without Star Trek, let's hope for 40 more great years.