Show-mance

Learned a new term on the movie set, "show-mance". It's a romance that happens during a show. I shared a sweet, flirtatious show-mance with my co-actor, Matt, who plays my boyfriend Jonathan in the movie. Here we are, two handsome young men, dressed in purple velvet like a pair of princes, standing in the warm summer air on a Mardi Gras float, pretending to kenoodle. Well, I didn't have to dig very deep to find attraction and emotion for Matt. He's quite pretty, whip smart and funny. He thinks I'm a laugh riot. In our scenes, we were very romantic. Not acting, much.

Off-set, we reverted back to our usual selves. He'd put on his iPOD ear buds, and I'd take out my Uncle Vanya script. Any romance we experienced only happened in the context of acting, during the show. Hence, a show-mance.

After 4 nights of long hours, I was wiped out. Took me 36 hours to recover my sleep. I worked 12-hour nights, from 6pm to 6am, bicycling home with the bartenders. Despite the fatigue, I did enjoy the newness of the whole experience. What a great first film experience! Dressing room, hair and make-up people on me, a production assistant shlepping me water and coffee. Thank you Sony Pictures! Everybody was super nice, and only a couple fakey-fake "L.A. types".

Today I rode my bicycle in the French Quarter, and a young woman shouted "hey, you're Prince Charming from the Mardi Gras float!" Recognized! She was probably another extra or lives on the location of our shoot.

"Why yes, ma'am, that's me. That's exactly who I am."

Mardi Gras - The Movie

Last night I did my first-ever acting job on a movie. "Mardi Gras" stars Carmen Electra, some hot young guy from "Heroes", and yours truly. Actually, I'm an extra, but an Extra-special extra, a VIP extra. I have a dressing room! And a name. I play a character called "Jonathan's boyfriend" who has no lines but is important to the plot. Which all means that I get a dressing room, eat steak with the principal actors, and hang out in the air-conditioning between takes.

I get paid like an extra though.

Last night I worked 12 hours, from 5pm to 5am, all thru the night, staging a fake, but very convincing Mardi Gras parade (except the part about it being June.) I rode aboard the Queen's float, standing beside Empress Electra, handing her beads and holding her sceptor. My boyfriend Jonathan and I wore matching purple: velvet Duke's robes, capes, and plumed hats (did I mention the part about it being June?) Empress Electra was dressed like a cross between Queen Elizabeth I and Ann Margaret. Big collar, shapely gams.

Film is an odd acting experience, stop-start. The camera rolls for 10 seconds, they yell "cut", re-set the shot for 20 minutes, then roll the same scene for another 10 seconds. Cut. Totallly different than stage, where you inhabit the life of a character for a continuous hour-and-a-half, and interact with a live audience. Totally different buzz. I was buzzed last night after the movie too, but mostly from the new experience. I was so fatigued I felt nauseous.

Reviews Are In

"Insanely involving. When you're not laughing, you're watching with your mouth agape." David Cuthbert, Times-Picayune

The reviews of Butch are coming in. Very positive. We've decided to extend 2 weeks. We'll also be adding a Sunday matinee, but have not yet announced it officially. Things are going great!

"This surprisingly entertaining oddity is delivered with complete commitment by Frederick Mead, whose subtle, gender-specific, ever-changing vocal inflections, physical stance and crazy-eyed performance is a knockout."

Out Comes Butch

Tonight I debut a one-man show to New Orleans, Out Comes Butch, a 50-minute monologue written in San Francisco in the 1970s about gender identity and self-creation. Over the course of the monologue, I transform into 6 different characters, with costume changes happening in real time. I'm working with 6 very distinct voices for the men, women, straights, gays, lesbians, transgendered.

I adore the costumes. Veronica Russell, who costumes the Louisiana Living History Theatre and of course made my John James Audubon clothes, really worked with me and the script to develop visual transformations. Some pieces tear off, some tie on. For each of the "Butches", Veronica developed a strong look. My favorite piece is the leisure suit jacket with the pink flamingo on the back.

The space is quirky, but works well for the material. It's a notorious former drug den, the Voodoo Lounge, on the very edge of the French Quarter. The name sounds like underbelly glam, but Voodoo was pretty icky. They shut down and nobody noticed. Michael Martin, my director and friend, is taking the risk of re-opening the Voodoo as a theatre folks hang out, with performance and rehearsal space for rent. Out Comes Butch is the debut show. Overlapping my rehearsals, Michael's housemates have been mopping, dumping, and wiping yuck out. Smells like Pine Sol now.

More to come...

Pulling Up Trees by the Roots

I wrote Crossover in a heat, 5 days of sustained concentration, waking up in the morning to peck at keys, arranging and expanding the tropes on my lunch breaks at work, at night delaying sleep to smooth out the diction and reveal more meaning.

It’s odd to have a relationship with a poem. I recite it aloud to myself several times every day, exploring its resonance with me. At times it feels like an emotional touchstone when I feel churned up. Other times it feels like the memory of intense emotions. Reading it feels like a statement. I’ve said something meaningful. That’s what I ask most for from myself in my writing, that it be meaningful.

Now that I’m done with the first draft, I’m ready to read it aloud in public. Had 2 opportunities so far, but neither came to fruition. So far, only Michael Martin has heard the poem aloud. I’ve emailed it to several other friends, mostly in Seattle where the poem is set, but also to Victory, the older man who was very influential on the poem (and on me), and to Boychick, its catalyst.

The poem seems to communicate with gay men in particular, men my age. I’ve received a few email comments, especially calling out the phrase “desire pulling up coastal trees by the roots.” Must be a common enough experience.

I’m learning from this poem. About my ability to discern between desire and circumstances, about drifting versus conscious navigation through life, about my emotional maturity, and about my relationship to desire in the larger, existential sense, or Buddhist sense.

Crossover

This summer I turned 40. I returned to Seattle to celebrate. The imagery of this poem comes from that time and location.

Crossover
by Frederick Mead

It takes a heretical, decisive step
to become a man, to crossover water
without caveats, insecurities, failed courage,
our need weighing heavily on the iron horizon,
or mad infatuations. Without desire
pulling up coastal pine by the roots,
unquenchable desire discarding trunks
like flotsam to the shore, constructing a barricade
of driftwood, which only fog can wash over.

Yet through this dense fog, our ferryboat
bravely navigates the chain
of San Juan islands, green quartz
emerging then receding, jagged-edged
in the fog. We can see no stars or sun
to guide us. Is it heresy to trust
an unseen Captain? Whose permission do we
need to take command?

Breathless on the farther shore, surprised
by the brevity of the journey, we disembark safely
at the terminal. We trace a finger over contours
of the relief map, apprehending in retrospect
the winding, circuitous path we have traveled.
What guidance do the stars and sun provide?
Stars are wishes and dreams achieved
through possibility. The sun? Merely an egg yolk
melting through our fingers. Food for the next voyage.

A Poem Coming On...

These are phrases and bits that may become a poem. Don't know how they fit together yet. Check back for progress...

original impulse
new text
deleted
________________________________

It We It takes a decisive,
heretical step
to become a man
to cross water yes, with without caveats
insecuritiesy, failed courage fails
seeing only my our need on the iron horizon,
mad infatuations, desires forever
pulling up small coastal trees
by the roots, yet then dissatisfied but unsatisfied,
discards them the trunks like so much flotsam building along constructing on to the shore,
constructing a driftwood barricade of driftwood
that only fog washes over

In a Through the this dense fog,
a the our ferryboat navigating bravely navigates
the chain of San Juan islands in the fog, emeralds
emerging then receding, emerging then receding in the fog.
in the fog. We can see, no stars or sun to guide us.
anxiety Is it heresy to trust an unseen Captain?
in the fog. Who's permission do we need
to take command?

breathless on the farther shore, surprised,
when safely we safely arrive safely Upon safely arrival at the terminal,.
breathless, we see trace a our a finger over the relief map
and realize apprehend in retrospect realizing in retrospect
the winding, circuitous path we have followed all along.

heresy
What guidance can do the stars and sun even give provide?
and that stars are merely wishes
and dreams achieved manifested
through possibility,
the sun, melting like merely an egg yolk
melting through my our fingers,
food comfort for the next voyage