I got up at 6:15 today, and left for Joe’s at about 6:35. We loaded our bikes and gear into his SUV, and headed to Hillsborough for our 31-mile ride in Bikefest 2005 sponsored by the 
.
This group has a reputation for putting on the best one day ride in the state, and this year was no exception. It’s just a well-done ride. While the homemade goodies at the pit stop are definitely noteworthy, and delicious, for me, what makes this ride so good is the organization and implementation of the route.
The route is organized such that one pit stop caters to the entire ride, and the pavement markings are subtle yet clear, and are always at the right place at the right time. There’s virtually no need for cue sheets (which are generally a pain in the ass to keep track of) at all, and we never used ours.
At right about half way, it occurred to me that I had done a major no-no, and that was to put on a pair of jockey underwear this morning. At this point in the ride, the ridges of the leg bands were seriously irritating my butt.
Taking advantage of a long rural stretch where we hadn’t seen any cars for a while, and there were no bikers in sight behind us, I pulled over to take off my underwear. I was just standing by the side of the road, and Joe said, “Here comes a car. Oh, and three riders are coming up behind us.” Shit.
I walked further back into the brush to get behind a tree, stepping into thick underbrush, and said, “I hope to god there are no snakes in here.”
To which Joe replied, “There’s going to be at least one now.”
I freed the boys, balled up the wet pair of underwear, and crammed them into the fanny pack attached behind and under my seat. Ah, instant relief.
We basically hit the pit stop every 10 miles, which kept us from getting too over-heated and too tired. I was tired coming down the last 5 miles, and I finished both feeling pride in having been able to do it, and sad that there was no way in hell I could have done another 30 miles, which I could have easily done in 2003. Oh well.
The only thing that really hurt was my 
.
We drove back to Cary, and had lunch at 
I took a two hour nap this afternoon. Joe arrived at 4:30, and we left for the Carolina Theater to see a 5:00 movie. He called to make sure it wasn’t sold out. “We have about 700 seats left,” he said.
We went to see 29th & Gay. We took our seat after it started, so it was dark, and after our eyes adjusted saw Steve and Jay sitting across the aisle from us. Steve was in the row in front of Jay, and there were two empty seats next to him, to which we moved.
Synopsis: 29th and Gay is the gay movie for the gay everyman. Following a year in the life of James Sanchez, it’s a story about a guy who doesn’t have a six-pack, a full head of hair or a boyfriend. James is an unemployed actor stuck in his role of tour guide at a movie studio / theme park. He finds himself rapidly approaching thirty years old and wondering what happened to his plans for fame, fortune and love. With twenty-seven dollars in his bank account and two hundred and twenty-seven thousand miles on his decrepit car, he finds himself asking the question that many of us find ourselves posing – is this all there is?
Between secretly stalking the local coffee boy, discovering the world of online dating, and earning extra cash dressed as a giant bunny, James finds comfort in the arms of his friends. While his best friend Roxy, an actress-turned-activist, struggles with showing him there is life beyond the glitz and glamour of the disco ball, his other friend, Brandon, one of those gay boys comfortable in his own gay skin, works on getting James to at least talk to a boy.
Feeling out of place in the gay world of circuit boys, caught in the middle of his Hispanic-American heritage and staring in from the outside of Hollywood, we watch as James finds his place in the world, realizing that life is in the journey, not the destination.
I started off not liking this movie too much, but as it went on, I was able to muster some empathy for the main character, and it turned out to be quite good. The lead actor was in the audience, and he along with the director and producer took Q&As after the film, which were quite interesting.
After the movie, Steve asked Joe and I to join his friend, somebody with a name that begins with a “Z,” whom neither Joe or I have met or heard of before. He was coming by to pick up Steve to take him to meet Brian G. and Will for dinner.
My stomach had been acting up the entire film — making very loud noises at least three times — so I passed on the offer. We drove back to Raleigh, Joe went home, and I took another nap.
I left for the 11:00 show at about 10:15. When I arrived, Robert was talking with Gordon, and we listened to his movie snapshot today, consisting of about 5 Lesbian films out of the 36 total films he’s seeing at the festival this year.
Synopsis: Starcrossed is an atmospheric story of Darren & Connor who’s relationship develops into something more then society could ever handle. Unable to deny there feelings for each other the two brothers try to hide there relationship from an unkind world but fail. The boys decide that a world that can’t understand them is a world
that’s not for them.
This film was short and disturbing on several levels. It had my kind of ending, though.
Shiny
Synopsis: Local Playwright Anthony Garcia-Copian’s play SHINY has been turned into a film and will have a debut at the North Carolina Gay Film Festival this August 2005. The film was shot locally in Durham, NC, and has a local cast! It is about a gay youth fighting the demons of sexual abuse and homophobia while trying to find love.
This movie was awful, awful, awful. The dialog was stilted, and the acting was terrible. And, unfortunately, the writer and one of the actors was in the audience.
After about 10 minutes, a couple of people walked out. Robert and I went next, along with another few. When I reached the Wade Avenue exit, my phone rang and it was Kevin saying he, Glenn, and Eric had just walked out.
They were having Q&As after the movie, and I fear the first question might have been, “Where did the audience go?” Sad.