[Movies] Dream Boat (2017) Review

The gay cruise is a concept that I've yet to fully wrap my head around. Then again, it's not like I understand why people go on cruises, period. But it really does seem to be a major thing as we are all reminded whenever Al and Chuck Travel sponsor something on shows like RuPaul's Drag Race.

Enter Dream Boat, a documentary about gay cruises that popped up in our Netflix suggestions. It wasn't an American documentary, which sort of added an interesting angle to it as well as it'll often feel like most LGBT-related documentaries seem to be American in nature and thus very US-centric. This one follows a more international crew with gay men from many different parts of the world all on a single cruise ship.

This felt like one of those more low-key documentaries that didn't quite want to push a particular agenda or message. So we get a very slice-of-life approach to things and a heck of a lot of individual interviews as opposed to narration by some unseen observer or something else like that.

[Pink Culture] #LGBoTo Twitter Convo Today!

PinoyG4M, Metro Manila Pride, and Feist Magazine have organized another timely Twitter convo entitled "#LGBoTo: How Will You Vote?" to talk about the upcoming elections and how the pink community intends to vote. The Twitter convo will be hosted by Syephan Punong Bayan (@Watdahel_Marcel).

Convo starts at 01:00pm today, so weigh in by using the hashtag #LGBoTo so your tweets will be part of the larger social media discussion!

[Technicolor Musings] O Bar's Theater of Drag

The ever fabulous O Bar celebrated its 10th anniversary last Friday and it was quite the phenomenal night indeed. They put on a rather massive show featuring all of their talents - the Alab Poi Dancers, the O Gogo Boys and of course the O Divas in what was pretty much close to 3 hours of entertainment divided into two sets.

While watching the show and being continually amazed by every new performance, I got to thinking in my head how O Bar has really done something different here. Sure, a lot of bars have drag queens performing and past bars have had ledge dancers and all that good stuff. But the sum of what O Bar has created goes beyond this individual pieces and you have a unique entertainment experience that is hard to describe. I guess the discipline and training that go into the preparations and rehearsals have really paid off to hone the team into something quite phenomenal.

Tobie and I have often joked that O Bar is the closest that we can get to having a dinner theater experience here in Manila. But maybe that's not entirely incorrect. If we look at O Bar now versus maybe five years ago, we now have a true entertainment experience that has elements taken from the likes of theater and even ballet. We have large group numbers, precise choreography and quite complex lighting. We have elaborate costumes and well thought-out set lists. We have theme nights and performances that truly celebrate the theme in a remarkable way. We have all this and more - and even the Go Go Boys have the occasional choreographed number that's a part of the overall experience! It's seems too crazy to believe, but it's all very true and the team kills it every single night.

I'm very proud to be a loyal patron of O Bar and quite a devotee of the all the performers who call the bar home. And when people ask me what it's like to go to O Bar since they've "never been to a gay bar before," I think I'm better off telling them that O Bar isn't a gay bar. O Bar is a unique gender-bending entertainment experience. O Bar is where drag has been elevated into a different sort of performance art form. O Bar is the Theater of Drag and the higher entrance fees are worth every Peso since what you're actually paying for is the privilege of watching one of the best entertainment experiences in the world.

[Technicolor Musings] What Makes A Bear a Bear?

The LGBT world is full of many silly labels, just like the straight one. And whether or not you agree with such labels, they're still quite in use and help people further define their identity with people of a similar nature/

One of the trickier labels has been the BEAR, which makes more sense in more Caucasian countries but not so much in Asian countries like the Philippines. The concept that first comes to mind is someone rather burly with lots of body and/or facial hair. But such hair is not quite as prevalent in Asian countries and I feel like the definition has shifted.

In local discussions, one can't help but bump into cases where chubby hairless guys identify as bears. You have someone who's slightly overweight who just happened to develop a bit of a mustache that gets called a bear by other people. When does a fat person stop being fat and starts being considered a bear? Is a pencil mustache enough facial hair to qualify? How about a goatee? Does all this apply when the amount of body hair that you have barely rivals that of a pre-teen white American male?

So that's today's silly question - how do you define what a bear is? Are you a bear? Do you identify as bear? Do other people call you a bear? WHY?

[Technicolor Musing] #HelloPoz Twitter Convo

The monthly LGBT Twitter conversations organized by @PinoyG4M, @MMPride_, @FeistMagazine and @ShakiraSison continue to be an interesting venue for people to talk about topics of interest to the community. And last Thursday the discussion was centered around the hashtag #HelloPoz given it was all about getting to know more about what life is like for people living with HIV. The typical discussion tends to be pretty focused on HIV prevention and not so much what happens for those who have it. And thus this conversation felt pretty important for the community.

As before, the conversation was steered by a series of guide questions for those tuned into the hashtag. In addition, the guide questions were also presented in a way that those with HIV had something to address while those who still test as non-reactive (or haven't gotten tested) also had a variant of the question to think about.

So for those of you who didn't catch the Twitter convo last Thursday, here are the six guide questions for you to think about this afternoon.

[Community Poll] What Should Technicolor Musings Discuss Next?

When I dedicated Sundays to LGBT content here on the Geeky Guide, I figured it would be a nice outlet for discussing relevant LGBT issues, news and other bits of queer culture. It led to a number of interesting posts along with me getting into a number of different LGBT movies, books and other media. It has been an interesting experience to be certain, but time is rather limited.

As of late I haven't had much chance to watch more movies or read more queer fiction, so most of these posts have been somewhat short and at times rushed. I sometimes get lucky and have a news article to react to or something along those lines. But beyond that it has been a bit of a struggle.

From experience comments are quite limited since most folks prefer to react to the social media side of things and not necessarily here on the blog. But I would like to reach out to you few readers and ask - What do you want me to write about? What sort of LGBT concerns or subjects do you want to read about? Do people have questions or things that they want to consult about and maybe have "Dear Abby" style posts here?

I'd really love to hear from you.

[TV] Grace and Frankie: Season 1

As much as I try to remain rather thoughtful about which shows to watch, sometimes I can get pretty shallow and just jump on stuff. This was a good example of me being all campy gay guy and being totally willing to watch a series featuring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin together. Sure the premise of the show turned out to have some interesting LGBT angles to it, it was more important to me to see what these two actresses would do with this particular show.

Grace & Frankie is a unique Netflix comedy that had a premise that could have gone in any number of directions. Despite how silly things look on paper, the show actually got to explore some interesting angles about relationships for older individuals, especially given the little twist that I'll get into formally later on.

It's always quirky to look at comedies like this and notice that you're not exactly rolling on the floor laughing. There's a quirkiness to things, but don't expect a laugh track or your traditional setup and  punchline structure that you see in more traditional sitcoms.

[Pink Culture] The One and Only Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury by Gabriela Rondon via Flickr.

So this past week I finally got to watch Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender, which is a 2012 feature length documentary about the life of Freddie Mercury, particularly focused on his efforts to have a solo career. Most folks remember him as the front man for British rock band Queen. But this feature looked a little deeper into his personal life - something that has largely been rather private given Freddie Mercury's seemingly unusual shyness in contrast to her public persona.

And the whole feature got me thinking about my own love for Queen and ultimately Freddie Mercury given his tremendous contributions to music and more importantly for how his many songs just felt like they really spoke to me along with everyone else who came around to loving their music. And while Freddie Mercury may be considered a somewhat controversial figure in LGBT history because of how he handled his sexuality as perceived in the public.

But I think they really broke the mold when Freddie Mercury came to being and he certainly had some interesting and quite unique methods of personal expression that really blew the imagination away.

[TV] Tofu: Series 1

So apart from Cucumber and Banana, we have Tofu, the last part of the triumvirate of shows created by Russell T. Davies. Whereas the 2 prior shows are pretty much regular TV releases, Tofu is distinct given it's a companion web series for the show. And now, let's not get into the ridiculous argument where I berate the point that the medium of a show does not really define its genre. A show is a show whether online or on TV.

If you want to talk about genres, then we have to look at Tofu as a documentary series where we have various individuals expressing their opinions about various topics, a lot of which have to do with changing views of sex and things of a sexual nature.

As much as the series connects to the other shows, admittedly it's not all that compelling and feels like it sticks out a little oddly. Then again, this is a documentary series while the others are fiction-focused pieces, thus it's bound to be different. But it does have fun with itself as needed.

[TV] Banana: Series 1

Alongside Cucumber and the web documentary series Tofu, there's Banana as the other TV show created by Russell T. Davies for Channel 4. While Cucumber is a more traditional serial series with a clear character focus, Banana is something completely different. It's actually an anthology series whose mood and tone seems drastically different from episode to episode. And this is what makes it rather different.

Sure, the show remains connected to Cucumber by virtue of how many of the characters in Banana also appear in Cucumber. And we're not always talking about the primary cast. Beyond the first episode, the stories seem to be more about background characters including the guy they passed on the street or the girl you see in the background. The connection between the two shows is a cute one, but is not essential to the plots of the two shows.

Of the three shows in this block of programming, I have to admit that this surprised me the most, confused me the most but in the end it's the one that I love the most. It's such a brave, bold series and in the end it really had something powerful that it wanted to say.

[TV] Cucumber: Series 1

I'm part of that "generation" of gay men who grew up with Queer as Folk to some extent. Whether you were more of a fan of the original UK version or the longer US version, the show had a significant impact on our social history. The show helped bring the whole LGBT life to a wider audience and demonstrated that we're more than just our sexual organs. Sure, the show had a lot of sex, but it all served the greater picture it was painting.

Cucumber is one of three shows that QAF creator Russell T. Davies has created that once again address LGBT issues. The three shows a distinct and certainly stand alone, but they also interconnect to varying degrees. It's a pretty bold concept for a network to gamble on three different productions at the same time, but I suppose you could argue we said the same thing about Peter Jackson filming the different The Lord of the Rings movies in quick succession.

Of the three shows, this one is the one that more or less follows more "traditional" TV show formats. And the story is something pretty epic in scope when you really sit down with it.

[Movies] Edge of Seventeen (1998)

It's easy to dismiss LGBT coming of age movies as a trope of the pink film industry that has probably worn out its welcome. But for as long as there are still young gay men and women who still need to come out and stand up for who they are, these stories will always deserve to be told. For many of us, it's these movies and TV shows and other pieces of media that act as inspiration. For many these are road maps in terms of how to figure out who we are and come to terms with being different.

Edge of Seventeen has been lingering in our movie collection for some time now - something I had acquired because it appears on a number of popular LGBT movie lists. And I wasn't expecting too much when I finally loaded it - I figured it would be a decent enough movie to watch just for the purpose of writing a review.

But then, well, it's hard to explain. The movie didn't just play - it happened. And my own blogging efforts got a little delayed as the movie played on and the story keep me glancing up from my computer. It's not necessarily a perfect movie, but it's one that feels wonderfully familiar.

There's something to be said about watching a coming of age movie once you're finally out of the closet. It gives you a little perspective.

[TV] Please Like Me: Season 2

There's something about the unique charm that Please Like Me brings to the table that had me and Tobie enjoying the first season so much. The main issue with the series was its brevity - beyond that it was quite the phenomenal piece of work that maintained a somewhat light tone despite the narrative decision to tackle some pretty heavy subject matter.

This second season of Please Like Me continues with that distinct tone and builds on what had been accomplished in the first series and added even more depth of story through its different characters.  And while it had more episodes to work with in this season compared to the last one, it still wasn't all that much by conventional standards.

Normally I'd same something about how this works as a family story, but perhaps that's not quite a perfect way of explaining things. And while most of the primary cast are all related to Josh in one way or another, I don't think the story necessarily works around a classic family dynamic. If anything, the show is pretty unconventional in terms of how it approaches each character and tells their respective stories. Ultimately, they all live very human lives with some pretty typical challenges.

[Pink News] Quezon City Comes Out to Support the LGBT Community

So I've been pretty stoked about the fact that the Quezon City's City Council has pretty much passed an Anti-Discrimination Ordinance meant to protect members of the LGBT community. Extending beyond the context of the workplace, the Gender Fair City Ordinance is a pretty comprehensive city ordinance that offers a variety of ways to extend greater protections for LGBTs along with accompanying programs to educate people about the SOGIE concepts. It's a lot to tackle all at once, but for the most part it sounds pretty good.

But beyond the ordinance itself, which has largely been associated with members of the Council alone, it was nice to have Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista release comments not just in support of the ordinance, but also in support of same-sex marriage and greater LGBT rights. He's one of the few (if not the only) city mayor who has come out in support of LGBT rights in such a clear and definitive manner. In addition, these statements come backed by action in the form of the ordinance and the fact that the QC LGBT Pride March is actually one of the many events listed as part of Quezon City's 75th anniversary.

Under Mayor Herbert Bautista, Quezon City has suddenly become the only city government to publicly support LGBT rights. And if they keep this up, I totally see this as a serious effort by the city as a whole to make members of the LGBT community feel truly welcome and safe. And now I have even more reasons to be happy to be living in Quezon City. And I can see this as a key reason for more folks to find a home here - something that we've never really had up until this point. In the US they run annual lists for the top ten best cities for LGBT individuals but thus far we haven't really had any options around here.

And all the more I want to support the QC LGBT Pride March this year. Beyond the formation of the QC Pride Council last year and the city council wins now, there's certainly a lot to celebrate.

[Pink Culture] Limited LGBT Benefits in the Philippines

So I was kinda surprised to see little banner ad on my way home recently - the message is both direct and subtle, depending on who sees it. For queer individuals such as myself, it's clearly an ad targeted to the LGBT demographic and states a message of support and inclusion. For folks unfamiliar with what the rainbow can also represent, it's just another recruitment ad with two rather chummy call center agents.

And as much as some foreign companies operating in the Philippines have made headlines by extending HMO benefits to same-sex partners of employees, it hasn't really struck me as something that is aggressively being used as a recruitment strategy. And given the few companies that do offer this, you'd think that they'd try to capitalize on these niche benefits more.

It's interesting to note that in other countries such as the US, employee diversity has extended beyond equal rights for women to a lot of focus on employing many different disadvantaged groups. Thus in order for a company to appear to be more diverse, they need to actively engage with minority partners representing women-owned business, those run by ethnic minorities and of course LGBT individuals, to name a few.

Thus far the expansion of company benefits to same-sex couples has been largely limited to multinational companies operating in the country such as the different BPO and ITO businesses and of course the captive centers as well. But beyond that, we haven't seen any particular engagement by local businesses to recognize their LGBT employees in a greater way.

But who knows, perhaps with the multinationals taking the lead, local companies will eventually follow in their footsteps. We tend to copy a lot from the US after all, so why not this aspect of running a business in an inclusive way?

[Movies] Touch of Pink (2004)

I'm pretty sure that I've already written a review for this movie, but since I can't find it here on the Geeky Guide, it was probably during the old Multiply days of reviews. Yes, I totally posted reviews on that now-dead social network. So again for the sake of completion, let's try drafting an updated review of this rather charming movie.

Touch of Pink will always have a special place in my heart for one reason or another. Sure, it's not a perfect movie and there are many better LGBT romantic comedies out there. But at the same time this movie is just so, um, I need a word other than charming, but that's really it. And I guess I feel so strongly for this movie primarily because it's not exactly a movie that a lot of people know about. We all have little niche movies like this that we enjoy celebrating.

And while far from perfect, there's a lot to like about this movie. It has some pretty solid writing that went into its creation and thus resulted in some of the wittiest one-liners that you'd expect to be delivered by a gay man but instead mostly come from a mother. Oh snap.

[Books] How I Paid For College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Musical Theater

I maintain an Amazon Wish List for various Kindle books of interest. Around my birthday and Christmas, I remind folks that this list exists so that we can open the door for giving me gifts without the need to actually see me in person. This genuinely appeals to me.

I added How I Paid For College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Musical Theater to my wish list after it had come up on my Amazon recommendations while I was "window shopping" around the site. And a book that promises to tackle the whole LGBT teen coming of age type of story and making sure there's a lot of musical theater sounded like a good deal.

My "gay mother" finally selected this book from my wish list some time back and it was only recently that I finally found myself in need of another book to review. Rather than post another discussion of the sad state of LGBT rights in the Philippines, I figured a lighter book review might make for a nice change of pace.

And while the book wasn't quite what I was expecting, it was still a fairly interesting ride.

[Technicolor Musings] Escaping The Power Of Words

Laverne Cox is on the cover of TIME Magazine. Sure, she didn't make it into this year's TIME 100 list of Most Influential People, at least she has become the face of TIME's issue focused on the transgender community and their fight for equal rights.

The quick summary above reflects the fight for LGBT rights as a whole, when you really think about it. We make a few advances here and there - that's worth celebrating. But at the same time there are still instances where we're not doing too well, and thus we are reminded of how much further we have to go.

But as much as we have a long way to go in terms of equal rights in the global community at large, the amount of internal homophobia that continues on is rather frustrating. And what's worse is how we can't even agree when the homophobia begins - the LGBT community is actually a rough effort to tie together so many different groups whose only common ground is the fact that we don't easily fit into the "traditional" male and female gender roles.

So let's talk about the supposed discrimination related to language.

[Technicolor Musings] Let's Take A Moment

On this calm Sunday afternoon, let's take a moment and think about how far the LGBT struggle has come both worldwide and here in the Philippines. Think of this as counting our blessings - practicing the fine art of being grateful for the good in the world instead of forever regretting what has yet to be.

The Philippines is still a country where we can walk the streets as members of the LGBT community. Sure there are still risks of violence and ridicule and we're still trying to address the number of hate crimes out there, but for the most part we can walk the streets with our heads held high. There are other countries that have it far worse given greater anti-LGBT violence and even laws that have criminalized being LGBT entirely.

Media representation of the LGBT community has made some interest steps forward in terms of going beyond comic relief. And while shows like My Husband's Lover, That's My Tomboy or I Am Pogay, we've reached a point when LGBT individuals are presented during prime TV viewing spots. And while we can never claim that any of these shows represent the full LGBT spectrum (nor are they obligated to), they're all still steps in the right direction.

We may not have a universal understanding of SOGIE just yet but we have made great strides forward in terms of raising awareness related to LGBT issues and getting a few politicians actually trying to spearhead the charge to get some actual LGBT-centric legislation pushed forward. Actually getting any of these bills made into laws will still take a lot more work, we're getting there. And all this but a taste of the many good things that we've accomplished over the last few years.

We've come a long way and we're pretty much able to come out of the closet with a lot less risk and strife. And any night where we can celebrate our freedom in LGBT clubs or laugh at drag queen shows with our friends are all good things. So smile, savor the moment and recharge to continue the fight for LGBT rights tomorrow.

[Technicolor Musings] Should LGBT Couples Bother Buying Property?

Rainbow over the house in the sugar cane fields by B.navez via Wikimedia Commons

I'm one of those people who dream of owning property. And I'm not talking about some condominium - that feels like a lie. I'm talking about an actual house standing on a plot of land - even if it's just a townhouse or something like that. I guess I'm a little old-fashioned that way.

A friend had once argued that it's a more practical to just rent a home versus buying one for various reasons. But eventually, the argument sort of boiled down to the fact that home ownership for LGBTs may not be the most practical thing, especially since it's not like we can get married and such.

My recent house-hunting efforts sort of revived this particular memory. And thus today's blog post.