"MILK" The Movie

Gus Van Zant directed this bio pic about SF's first openly gay city supervisor, Harvey Milk. Unfortunately it stars Sean Penn in a super fake looking prosthetic nose as Harvey. I'm really hoping they can do something to his face with special effects or something because every time he wrinkles his face its just so Sean Penn.

Someone told me that James Franco (That guy from Freaks & Geeks and Spiderman) plays my friend Danny Nicoletta who was a shop assistant in Harvey's camera store.

I looked on IMBD and found out that Danny is being actually being played by Lucas Grabeel from the High School Musical franchise. Funny to see that Josh Brolin plays the right-wing villain in MILK and his next project is playing George W. Bush in the film "Bush" - are one word political bio pics a new trend in Hollywood these days?

It was really fun to see the 70's era Castro somewhat recreated. The sets looked amazing though on my way to the post office one day I overheard some old timer's complaining about some of the historical details and the absence of "Castro Clones" - guys that tried to look like Tom of Finland drawings with the mustaches, tight blue jeans and white shirts.. Apparently they don't understand Hollywood's disdain for historical accuracy when it doesn't jibe with any aspect of their storytelling. IMDB lists one guy as a "Castro Clone" which probably means he has some lines to speak but how sad that his character doesn't even have a name - it's almost like playing shrub #3 in Christmas pantomime. Actually, from everything I know about gay culture, guys that go in for the clone looks in any era are usually the most sexually motivated and apolitical so it will be interesting to see what they give the character to say.

It was fun to be rowdy and angrily marching in the streets for the recreation of one of the anti Anita Bryant marches - it certainly brought back visceral memories of my homocore days in the late 80's & early 90's angrily marching in the streets either for or against whatever issue called for direct action.

The funnest march for me was the candle light march that recreated the silent march down Market Street the night after the assassinations in 1978. As I walked along the very same street almost thirty years later, inspired by the pep-talks from Cleve Jones, Danny Nicoletta and Gilbert Baker, I couldn't help but feel touched by the ghosts of the past. The solemn nature of the march and all of the waiting around between takes gave me time to reflect on the people who took to the streets. They were just normal, everyday type of people: gay, straight, black, white, and brown. All touched by tragedy and taking their grief to the streets. I've known the comfort of communal grief and recreating this historic event reminded how important it can be to honor those who came before us.