Last night, I went to go see Lucy Lawless at the Gay Pride festival in Los Angeles. Before Lucy came on, I also caught Ce Ce Peniston and Deborah Harry performing onstage.

The night made me think back to the first time I attended the Gay Pride festival in L.A., more than 20 years ago. (Did I just write that?) It was a very different time then, and the gay scene was much more underground. There were no celebrities onstage back then, that's for sure. In fact, if I remember correctly, the highlight of the performance schedule on Saturday night was a drag group called "The Mandrew Sisters," who sang covers of golden oldies by the Andrew Sisters.

So it was really exciting for me to see acts like Peniston, Deborah Harry and Lucy Lawless performing at Gay Pride. I wrote last year about how excited I was by Lucy's appearance at the Gay Pride Run. I wasn't expecting her to come back this year to sing, but I was certainly happy she did. Especially as I didn't see much else in the way of lesbian-centric entertainment this year.

Lucy was wearing a costume that included a long, luxurious golden blond wig. I actually think the audience was a bit unsure it was Lucy at first. But since I've seen Lucy in different wigs and costumes at the various Xena conventions it didn't throw me off one bit. In her costume and wig, I felt I could see a certain physical resemblance between Lucy and The Ultimate Sex Goddess of All Time, Ann-Margaret. Lucy sang a single disco song--I wish it had been a longer set, but it was still great to see her.

I was sort of hoping that someone from the L Word might make an appearance at Gay Pride but that wasn't the case. However, it makes me appreciate Lucy's willingness to perform for a lesbian crowd all the more. It's still an act of bravery for a celebrity to appear at Gay Pride, and I'm grateful to Lucy for having the guts to do it.

Further proof that video games are the new film: the Hollywood Bowl is hosting a program called Video Games Live on July 6. According to the schedule listing, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra will perform themes from a wide range of video games, including Tron, Tomb Raider, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Halo. Like the L.A. Phil's earlier performance of Final Fantasy game music,the program will incorporate video footage and laser light sequences.

For some time, the Bowl has held movie soundtrack programs and special movie screenings with live orchestra accompaniment. Perhaps we'll see game music programs become a regular season feature in the years ahead.

It's true what they say about Los Angeles. Living here, one frequently has celebrity sightings. What you probably don't know about celebrity sightings is that 95 percent of the time, you run into someone who is of no interest to you. Like Carrot Top, to give an example from my own history of sightings.

That's why I felt incredibly blessed this weekend when the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend came wheeling around the magazine rack of a local bookstore and whispered fiercely to me, "You will never guess who is here." We then calmly sauntered over to the shelter magazine rack, where we pretended to be deeply engrossed in various architectural glossies while secretly stealing glances at the incredibly hot Sarah Shahi, who plays the incredibly hot Carmen on The L Word.

Speaking of The L Word, many people continue to complain of the lack of realism on the show. Last week, for example, I noticed that LAist was skeptical of the nude sex scene in the pool at the Chateau Marmont. Although realism was not particularly on my mind while I was watching that scene, I do take your point.

However, let me counter by drawing your attention to the scenes involving the Hollywood executive, played by Camryn Manheim. For instance, take the scene where she trails Shane in her limo, calling to her as if she were a housepet, or the scene from last night's episode, in which she flies into a screaming rage and throws her cell phone at her obsequious underling. That's pure reality television, baby.

In case you were watching The L Word last night, let me point out that I've previously blogged about Lisa Yuskavage , the painter discussed in the scene between Tina and the Creepy Lawyer as they tried to estimate the value of the couple's household.

Over the weekend, I read what some of the DykeWriters were saying about The L Word and I was dismayed to realize how many people dislike the character Bette. I fear I have been blinded to Bette's faults by my identification with her. Even though my gender stylings are a bit more towards the Shane end of the spectrum, I think I identify more with Bette's artsy-fartsiness and her tendency to verbally bitch-slap those around her when she's angry. I wish I was her best friend.

My sympathy for Bette has only become more intense now that's she's wallowing in depression and has started acting out with liquor and women. If the lesbian phone tree is active, please pass along to Jennifer Beals that her character needs to call me immediately. Hideous break-up? I've been there, Bette, and I'm willing to listen.

I actually missed my chance of proximity to the cast of The L Word last week. There was a fan event here in L.A., and although I didn't go, I hard about it from someone who did it. Supposedly it was like Beatlemania when the cast came out: TINA!!! IVAN!!! SHANE!!! JENNIFER!!! Shane is our Paul.

After a long wait, season two of The L Word starts tomorrow night. It's been such a long wait that I've had ample time to waste mulling, debating, rumor-mongering and experiencing the backlash over the first season.

I was so relieved to read that After Ellen has reviewed the full second season and gives it a thumbs up. Most importantly, the sex is back! In case you have not been following the story closely, after the Janet Jackson/Super Bowl incident, there was talk that the hot-and-heavy lesbian scenes would be cut from the next season in order to avoid problems with the FCC.

Do you see how censorship trickles down, ripples out and eventually washes over us all? Just because some outraged family-values sports fans couldn't handle seeing Janet's nipple, everyone's supply of soft core lesbian erotica is threatened. I hope all my straight male readers will take this idea to heart--I expect to see at the next gay rights rally wearing "Hands off my lesbian porn" t-shirts.

The L Word ringtones and graphics, yay! What a perfect Los Angeles tie-in. Wallpaper and IM icons, yay! Bet that guy character doesn't get downloaded much.

Did I mention the backlash? In addition to the usual griping (summary: too beautiful, too femme, too dysfunctional), there's also The D Word, a filmed parody that Showtime has apparently tried to stop. Which of course makes us want to see it more, yay! You can watch the trailer here.

I was at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art recently and went to see a retrospective exhibit of work by photographer Robbert Flick. I had seen some of his work before and was curious about its visual resemblance to comic book or story board layouts.

According to the curator's notes, Flick found single image photographs to be dissatisfying and started to develop different techniques to illustrate context through multiple images. As I walked through the show, it was interesting to view the chronological development of Flick's worlds.

An early selection of photos was called "Sequential Views," and showed how Flick used the urban street grid to develop a path for taking multiple photographs of an area from different vantage points. Having mapped his path, he would then follow it, taking photographs at given geographic and temporal points.

Los Angeles is the subject of many of Flick's photographs. I liked his colorful images of downtown Los Angeles, as seen in this small selection from a series of photos taken along Central Avenue.

Interestingly, the same technique applied to a rural setting has a completely different effect. In work documenting waves hitting a beach, in one instance, and a long stretch of empty highway in another, the consecutive photographs convey temporal steadiness or repetition. However, in the L.A. series, the images give a sense of constant motion and activity.

I read several obituaries for Susan Sontag today, but the best I thought was at the L.A. Times, which I found through the Wikipedia entry on Sontag. Written by the Times book editor, I felt it had a more personal tone to it than the other pieces. It also gave more space to Sontag's connection to Los Angeles. I especially liked reading about her attachment to the old Pickwick books that once graced Hollywood Boulevard.

I stopped blogging for a little while a few weeks back, and a number of people inquired to make sure I was okay, you know, mentally. My friend Joe, who suspected the presidential election had made me go off the deep end, worried, "I haven't heard from you...you were blogging about turning in to a zombie...I thought, 'Maybe she's taking this really hard.'"

Actually, I was sick, and then I got sick again, only much, much worse. But since you asked--thank you--there is something that has been driving me insane the last few weeks. And now I'm going to tell you about it.

First, if you don't live in Los Angeles, I need to give you a little background information. Because if you live in a small town, for example, a movie opening is not such a big deal. There will be TV ads announcing the movie, yes, but the movie may not even be playing in your town on opening weekend!

Movie openings are not like that here in Los Angeles. Here they are major cultural and news events. Here, it's like the publicity company for every movie being released sets up shop inside your asshole so they can make sure you know their movie is coming--that's how invasive it is. It's constant non-stop hype for weeks prior to the event.

So it is that I began to see this billboard for the forthcoming Fat Albert movie on my daily drive to work some--I don't know--six weeks ago. The location is the entrance to the Fox Studio. For a sense of scale, notice the SUV at the bottom of the picture, and the regular sized billboard advertising Kinsey next to it. I can see it from three long blocks away.

This abomination was burrowing its way into my skull for weeks when, all of a sudden, there were more of them.

One day I left my house and drove onto Venice Blvd., a major cross street near me, and started to turn right: huge Fat Albert billboard. I abruptly decide to turn left: another Fat Albert billboard. Beneath the enormous Fox Studio billboard, there is now also a Fat Albert poster on the side of a bus stop.

It reminds me of the time I visited Moscow before the fall of the Soviet Union, and everywhere I looked there were billboards and posters of Lenin staring back at me. Except here, in the country that won the Cold War, it's Fat Albert that gazes down on us workers like an overstuffed Big Brother.

That is not even the worst of it. What bothered me so much about the Fat Albert billboard was the terrible moment I knew would have to come. And come it did, while I was innocently watching a bit of Entertainment Tonight. I was hoping for a word or two about the Michael Jackson trial, only to be sucked in further with the promise of news about Ellen DeGeneres's recent breakup with her girlfriend in an upcoming segment.

Then the moment I had dreaded came: the appearance of Bill Cosby, offering his sentimental perspective on the movie. Please, please, please let this not be a comeback. A girl can only take so much.

Showtime has The L Word Season 2 preview trailers up on their site for your viewing pleasure. Was that Arianna Huffington in a guest spot on video 3? If you haven't subscribed to Showtime already, do this girl a favor and sign up so they can keep the sapphic televisual candy coming my way.

That was a debilitating election. I've been struggling with what to say in the wake of Bush's re-election. The standard responses have been: "we need to keep fighting," "it's not as bad as you think," and "it's been this bad before." All are different ways of saying "stay hopeful, don't get discouraged" to those on the left.

Rather than being prescriptive, I'll be descriptive. Let me tell you what it was like in one of the indigo-blue pockets of the U.S. during the week after the election. It was like being in a zombie movie. A glazed look clouded people's eyes, and people seemed to stagger forward rather than walk, as if unaware of their surroundings. Few broke the mood of heavy gloom by speaking to others. I found it eerie to imagine that huge swaths of the U.S. population were in a similar condition. Pass the soylent green, please.

As I was driving the busy 405 freeway the other day, I was taken by surprise by the work of the freeway blogger, whom I've written about before. To the side of the highway, there was a huge reproduction of the infamous hooded figure from the Abu Ghraib prison, an ominous reminder of the war.
Later that same day, I picked up the new issue of L.A. Weekly with this soulful portrait of a young John Kerry on the cover. By visiting the web site, I discovered it was one of two alternate covers, the other being a graphic representation of the Abu Ghraib photo.

On a recent Saturday, the Cute-Little-Red-Headed Girlfriend and I were stumbling out for breakfast at a local restaurant when I spied a mark on the sidewalk that looked familiar. It only took me a few seconds to recognize the blue 5 stenciled on the ground as the logo for 5., listed on my blogroll. (Incidentally, if you visit 5, check out Federico's hilarious photo essay documenting his work environment.)

I had just read Federico's post on making stencils, so I had a weird sense of deja vu, or perhaps virtual deja vu, about seeing this sign on the ground. His post had introduced me to Stencil Archive. This participatory site lets you browse stencil graffitti from around the world, including my hometown. From there I explored Beautiful Decay, which is about "Interior/Exterior Subculture," or street art. I was happy to find it online. I had once seen a 'zine with this intriguing title at my local newsstand and wanted to check it out, but I didn't pick it up at the time and then I could never find it again.

Next weekend, the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend and I are once again going to Disneyland's gay days at the park. I'm determined that we will get hats this time. The Girlfriend wants a Peter Pan-style hat with a really long feather, or else a Davy Crockett hat. I suppose the weather will be a deciding factor, since fake racoon skin could be oppressive if the ninety degree weather keeps up. I'm thinking of getting a pirate hat for myself, or perhaps pooh ears.

If you're going and would like to meet up for a pineapple spear outside the Tiki Room or something similar, please e-mail. And let me know if you like roller coasters, because I need someone to go on Space Mountain with the Girlfriend. I'm a big 'fraidy-cat and won't go. I'll wait and hold the balloons.

This past Sunday, the Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend and I went out for coffee and buttermilk donuts at the Farmer's Market on Fairfax. Afterwords, we walked over to the Grove so I could visit the Apple Store, on the chance that the new iMac would be on display. The store hadn't opened yet, but a small crowd was visible outside the store from a distance. I guessed that they were staring at the new model in the window. As it came closer to opening time, the crowd swelled noticebly.

When I first saw the new iMac online, I was a bit disappointed. I'm not a big fan of the all-white aesthetic, and the design seemed kind of predictable. Plus, over the last few years I've found my Mac addiction waning. Migration problems, forced hardware upgrades and high prices have all eroded my loyalty to Macs. That being said, once in the store, I found the iMac was a beautiful beast to behold.

Prompted by a post at Boing-Boing, I decided to check out the L.A. appearance of Kaiju Big Battel at the Avalon Theater in Hollywood. What is kaiju? you may be asking. Xeni Jardin provides a much better explanation than I ever could in her article on Wired, but in brief, it's a performance piece featuring Japanese monster wrestling.

I enlisted the Sister to attend with me, since her inveterate gaming habit has brought her great familiarity with the Japanese monster species. We dressed down for the occasion, since we had read that there was some risk of getting slimed by a monster.

The main event began with a short film describing the origins of the kaiju, monsters from outer space whose destructive force is kept in check through periodic wrestling bouts organized by a mysterious group known as the Kaiju Regulatory Commission.

In general, there are two types of kaiju, heroes and anti-heroes. However, within the anti-hero group there are two major factions, those who follow the incredibly evil Dr. Cube, kingpin of the kaiju dark side, and independents, rogue monsters acting on their own behalf.

I was hoping to see the kaiju anti-hero Sky Deviler, whose "Hello, Kaiju" bio describes him as "ravenous dimwit space bug." Although Sky Deviler did not appear in the wrestling cage last night, I did enjoy seeing the anti-hero Super Dimensional Slug One (SDS-1), a 6-foot long slug bearing a large model tank on its back. It perched precariously at the top of the wrestling cage before flopping its slimy body to the mat.

The Sister and I were very impressed with the performance of agile hero Dusto Bunny ("unclean home result hero") and the fan favorites Los Plantanos. Though he was a poor fighter, we were especially thrilled by the introduction of new kaiju hero Superwrong!, who made his entrance dancing his own special dance and tossing psychedelic teddy bears into the crowd.

The final match-up turned into something of a free-for-all, with multiple anti-heroes turning out to take a swipe at the sinister Dr. Cube. The most impressive was Kung-Fu Chicken Noodle, whose graceful maneuvers and distinctive theme music put all other contenders to shame.

But it was the spiky Unibouzu who succeeded in pulling off Dr. Cube's boxy, tofu-like headpiece, revealing the scarred, misshapen form beneath. Even the announcer recoiled from his distorted visage, shouting, "DR. CUBE IS A HIDEOUS FREAK! DR. CUBE IS A HIDEOUS FREAK!" as the audience watched in fascinated horror. Yet Dr. Cube proved triumphant and won the match.

There are many resources available on the kaiju.com web site, including manga about the various monsters and video that gives you a sense of what a kaiju wrestling match is like. The most descriptive thing I can think of to say about it is: while watching the show last night, I was suddenly reminded of the Banana Splits. It was just that good.