RIDING HIGH | Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, shown on horseback in this year’s gay Pride parade, is seeking re-election to a third four-year term in 2012. (Chuck Dubel/Dallas Voice)

JOHN WRIGHT  |  Senior Political Writer
wright@dallasvoice.com

Seven years ago, she became the first female, first Hispanic and — of course — the first openly LGBT person elected sheriff of Dallas County.

She remains the only lesbian Latina sheriff in the nation, and she’s one of only two female sheriffs in the state.

But as she prepares to seek a third four-year term in 2012, Lupe Valdez said she no longer gives much thought to her pioneering status.

“I don’t even pay attention to that anymore,” the 64-year-old Valdez said recently. “What I want to hear is, ‘She’s a good sheriff.’ What I want to hear is, ‘She’s making a difference.’ What I want to hear is, ‘Changes are for the better.’ That’s what I want to hear. It doesn’t matter whether I’m Latina or lesbian or whatever I am. The important thing is that we put in place a good, functioning sheriff’s department, which is what we’ve done.”

In 2004, Valdez was one of four Democrats — along with three judges — who broke a Republican lock on countywide elected office. Her victory over Republican Danny Chandler shook the Dallas establishment and served as a harbinger to the countywide Democratic sweep of 2006.

Since then, the county has remained solidly blue, and with President Barack Obama again atop the ballot, the incumbent sheriff is a heavy favorite to win re-election.

But Valdez, long a preferred target for Republicans as they seek to win back the county, said she isn’t taking anything for granted. For one, there are rumors she could again face a challenge in the Democratic Primary — as she did in 2008.

The candidate filing period begins Nov. 28 and runs through Dec. 15.

“I’m worried about both,” Valdez said when asked whether she’s more concerned about the primary or the general election. “I don’t ever assume anything. That’s how you lose, so I never assume anything. I’m really hoping that I don’t have a primary opponent.”

Not having a challenger from within the party would allow her to “focus and save money and go ahead and gather more money so I can hit whatever’s coming on” in November, Valdez said. She confirmed recent reports saying her fundraising is lagging and that she’s failed to amass much of a war chest.

“We all know that I’m going to be the [GOP’s] target for Dallas County,” Valdez said. “Last time I was the target for the state of Texas. I wouldn’t doubt that’s going to be the case again.”

“We know there’s a pendulum switch every so often,” she added. “I’m not going to assume anything, because I may be right on that pendulum.

“And even in 2004, when a lot of Republicans were elected, I was elected. So that says to me, whichever way it goes, I need to work so that I can get elected. I don’t assume anything. The only thing that I’m assuming is that I’m going to work as hard as I possibly can.”

The only Republican who’s publicly declared his intent to run for sheriff, former State Rep. Thomas Latham, said this week he doesn’t believe Dallas County is as blue as some may think.

“I think what this county has is a large number of swing voters,” Latham said. “I think the flow is going the other way.”
Latham said he believes Valdez’s Republican challenger in 2008, Lowell Cannaday, “got caught up in the Obama situation.”

“There was so much enthusiasm for him [Obama], and I don’t think that enthusiasm exists any longer,” Latham said. “I think the enthusiasm is now on the other side.”

Latham, 64, a former commander for the Garland Police Department, called Valdez “a nice lady” but said she doesn’t have the experience to effectively oversee the department.

“I think there’s a lack of leadership in the sheriff’s department,” Latham said. “I think there are some management issues down there that need to be addressed.”

In each of her previous election campaigns, Valdez has come under attack for her sexual orientation, and she said she fully expects that to happen again in 2012.

“What can they attack me on?” she said. “They can’t say I’m not doing my job … so what are they going to attack me on? ‘She’s a lesbian and she’s trying to push the gay agenda.’ Please tell me what the gay agenda is, so I can figure out how not to push it.”

Latham, for his part, said he doesn’t plan to bring up Valdez’s sexual orientation and doesn’t think it’s an issue in the race.

But he added that if someone else brings it up, he’ll respond by saying, “I wasn’t raised that way.”

Asked what he meant by that, Latham said: “I’m Southern Baptist. Southern Baptists don’t believe in that.”

LUPE VALDEZ’S CAMPAIGN KICKOFF
6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8
Conduit Gallery
1626-C Hi Line Drive
www.LupeValdez.com

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition November 25, 2011.

Joe Solmonese, Eric Alva, Jessie Tyler Ferguson, Marlee Matlin, Caroline Rhea, Taylor Dayne, Chet Flake and the late Bud Knight are among those who will be honored or will speak at The Black Tie Dinner on Saturday.

Solmonese fears 2012 setback

LAST NIGHT | Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese speaks at a previous Black Tie Dinner in Dallas. Solmonese will be leaving HRC next March, making this weekend’s event the last Black Tie Dinner he will attend as president of the national LGBT advocacy organization.

Outgoing HRC president says community must fight for Obama

JOHN WRIGHT  |  Senior Political Writer
wright@dallasvoice.com

Joe Solmonese admits he’s “very concerned” about President Barack Obama’s prospects for re-election.

But Solmonese says he’s equally concerned about how the LGBT community — and his successor at the Human Rights Campaign — would respond if Obama loses.

Solmonese will step down as president of HRC after seven years in March. On Saturday, Nov. 12, he’ll make his final appearance as the group’s president at the Black Tie Dinner, of which HRC is the national beneficiary.

In an interview last month with Dallas Voice, Solmonese focused largely on the importance of 2012 elections, saying that depending on their outcome, major advances during his tenure could be all but erased.

“I don’t think that he’s going to lose,” Solmonese said at one point, attempting to clarify his assessment of Obama’s chances. “I think that if everybody does what they need to do, I think there is just as good a chance that Barack Obama will be re-elected, but I’m as concerned that he could lose.”

Solmonese said Republicans already have a majority in the House, Democrats have only a slim majority in the Senate, and “everything about these [2012] elections points to us having real challenges.”

“I think that if everybody who has gained from the Obama administration does everything they need to do over the course of the next year, he’ll get re-elected,” Solmonese said. “But I would be lying if I said I’m not very concerned about the prospects of him getting re-elected.”

Solmonese said the message he wants to send to the LGBT community is that Obama has done more for us than any other president, and that the movement has seen more gains under the current administration than at any other time in its history.

“If we care about continuing with the forward motion that we’ve experienced, then we as a community need to do everything possible to re-elect Barack Obama,” Solmonese said. “And we can talk about and debate and press the administration on his ability to do more, and him coming out for marriage, or anything else that we want to talk about, but now is the time to sort of decouple that from all of the work we need to put into getting him re-elected. Because at the end of the day, it comes down to a choice, and the choice isn’t even hard for me: It’s Barack Obama or any of these other people who are running against him.”

Despite his concerns about Obama’s chances, Solmonese said he has no misgivings about leaving HRC seven months prior to Election Day. He said he made a commitment to give the organization six months notice, and his contract expires in March.

He said announcing his resignation at the end of August allowed HRC to begin the transition process, which will be completed when his successor takes over, midway through the Republican primary. Solmonese also said he’ll continue to be involved with the organization through next year, assisting with its efforts around the November election.

“I’m a lot more concerned about what happens the morning after the elections,” Solmonese said. “I’m a lot more concerned about this organization and its leader being in the best possible position to navigate those waters, and either we are contemplating a second term with Obama and a continuation of our agenda and perhaps a decidedly different Congress, or we’re contemplating President Mitt Romney and all of the implications that means for our community, and I want whoever is in this seat leading this organization contemplating where we go from there, to have had some time under their belt to figure that out.”

Asked whether that means he believes Romney will be the Republican nominee, Solmonese clarified that anyone claims to know definitively “doesn’t’ know what they’re talking about” — but he added that he thinks the former Massachusetts governor is the “odds-on favorite.”

And while Romney may appear less anti-gay than some other GOP presidential hopefuls, Solmonese said called him “someone you have to be careful of” because “he’s essentially beholden to no issue.”

“He adopts a position that works best for the political predicament he finds himself in,” said Solmonese, a Massachusetts native who’s watched Romney’s political career closely. “So, while he was seemingly pro-gay as he attempted to unseat Ted Kennedy, and his rhetoric isn’t harsh and he doesn’t have the same sort of narrative that a Rick Santorum has, he’s effectively said that he doesn’t believe in the repeal of ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ and that he would support the federal marriage amendment. But what we don’t know, just like we didn’t really anticipate with [President] George [W.] Bush, is how beholden he is going to feel to the hard right once he becomes president.”

It was Bush, of course, whose administration was pushing a federal marriage amendment when Solmonese joined HRC in 2005.

The marriage amendment, Solmonese said, represents the worst possible thing that could happen to the LGBT community, because it would enshrine discrimination into the Constitution.

And although the threat of the amendment may seem like a distant memory to some, Solmonese warned that it could easily resurface. Which is why, he said, the 2012 elections are the biggest challenge HRC faces going forward.

“I think the elections loom largest because what the elections really represent to me is the potential for us to really stop, potential derail and ultimately set back a lot of the progress that we’ve made,” Solmonese said. “What also concerns me then is that the community be braced for that, and we understand that we’ve been in these places before, and the measure of who we are and how we’ll be defined, is how we react in those moments, the degree to which we stay in the fight and make sure we continue to press forward regardless of the outcome of the election.”

Solmonese said he fears the progress of the last several years may lead to complacency. And he said based on his experience, when the LGBT community suffers setbacks, instead of regrouping and uniting, people have a tendency to lose their way and point fingers.

“If we lose, if the outcome is negative, if we go from the march toward marriage equality and the repeal of DOMA and the positive direction that we’ve been in, to a president and a Congress who decide they’re so troubled by all the success we’re having with marriage they want to take up the fight again to pass the federal marriage amendment — well, boy, we’ve come full circle from where we were back in 2005, the last time that happened,” he said.

“And you can react to that in one of two ways. You can say this is the inevitable ebb and flow of social change, so pull up your boot straps and let’s get going and turn that around again — and understand that that sort of energy that the other side has around something like that is a reaction to their own fear of the progress we’ve made — or you can become very dispirited and depressed and disenfranchised and decide that it’s our own doing, it’s our own lack of progress, it’s our own failing. And that would be the worst possible thing that we could do.”

Caroline Rhea: From the hip

Caroline Rhea

From her role as Noleta Nethercott on Del Shores’ campy queer Texas-based sitcom Sordid Lives to taking over Rosie O’Donnell’s talk show, Caroline Rhea has long has a strong connection to the gay community. This week, she breaks new ground again, becoming the first professional comedienne to serve as soup-to-nuts emcee for the Black Tie Dinner.
Rhea took a moment this week to discuss her involvement with the LGBT community, her Texas ties and her new (like her, Canadian) reality TV show.

Dallas Voice: You’ve always seemed to be close to the LGBT community. Where does that stem from?  Rhea: I am not a direct member of the LGBT community, but I have had a BLT. In the Venn diagram of life, there is a lot of crossover between gay men and female comedians. It’s a mutual lovefest.

How different is it to do a gay event like Black Tie vs. a comedy show on the road?  The audience is much better looking.

For special events like this, do you bring your family?  Not if it involves bringing a toddler on a plane.

What in you is fulfilled to do an event such as Black Tie Dinner? I want to support the LGBT community in all that they do.

If you were to rank all you do — acting, hosting, voiceovers, comedy, etc. — how do you rank your priorities?  Motherhood first. Then comedy, and working with people that I like.

You have hosted a new reality competition series in your native Canada, Cake Walk: Wedding Cake Edition. How did you enjoy that? Did you get to taste the goods?  Believe it or not, I didn’t taste the cakes.

Will there be a same-sex couple on the show?  I hope so.

How do you think that would fly with the show’s audience?  Same-sex marriage has been legal for years in Canada. It would be another beautiful wedding.

Having now worked with Del Shores on the Logo series Sordid Lives, how do you perceive Texas in general? Dallas in particular? Any misconceptions you had that were proven wrong?  My dad’s family was from Texas and my father looked like J.R. Ewing. I am not a fan of your toll roads and every time I am on the George Bush Turnpike I feel like I am going backwards.

—Arnold Wayne Jones

Taylor Dayne can’t stop the music

More than 20 years after she packed the gay bar dance floors with her debut hits, the songstress is still going strong, and says her performance at Black Tie is a ‘win-win’ for her and her fans

Taylor Dayne

Rich Lopez  |  Staff Writer
lopez@dallasvoice.com

Helping out LGBT people is nothing new for singer Taylor Dayne.

She can’t quite recall when she knew she was a hit with the gay community: Over the course of her 23-year career in pop music, she’s played venues of all sizes, but she did notice early on how a certain fan base seemed to keep showing up.

“It’s kinda hard to remember, but I would perform very specific shows and then some gay clubs and it dawned on me,” she said.

With an explosive debut, thanks to her platinum selling 1988 debut Tell It To My Heart and the more sophisticated follow-up Can’t Fight Fate a year later, Dayne became a quick force to be reckoned with on the charts.

But her pop hits were just as big on the dance floor, and Dayne was resonating across the queer landscape.

“I’ve had wonderful relationship with gay and lesbian fans for years. I’m so glad to be doing Black Tie because I have a great core of fan base here,” she said. “It’ll be a good show with lots of fun and for a good cause. It’s a win-win.”

Dayne’s performed at gay bars and Pride events in Boston, Chicago and the Delaware Pride Festival. But appreciation of her work in the community was clearly evident in 2010 when she was asked to record “Facing a Miracle” as the anthem for the Gay Games.

“That was quite an honor and then they asked me to perform at the games,” she said. “It was very emotional for me. The roar of the crowd was great.”

Even after two decades, Dayne remains just as committed to music as she was in 1988. She’s embraces her sort of “elder” status in pop music and instead of seeing the likes of Nikki Minaj and Katy Perry as rivals, she enjoys what they are bringing to the landscape of music now.

“I love listening to all the new stuff going on. There is some great talent out there. It’s nice to know I was some inspiration to them, the way ladies like Debbie Harry and Pat Benatar were for me. The cycle goes on,” Dayne said.

But they still push her to keep in the game. She admitted, “I’m pretty competitive that way.”

This year, Dayne released the single, “Floor on Fire,” which made it to the Billboard Dance/Club Charts Top 10.

At 49, Dayne doesn’t show signs of slowing. Along with a rumored second greatest hits album, she recently wrapped up filming the indie movie Telling of the Shoes and she’s a single mother to 9-year-old twins. Juggling it all is a mix of emotions, but her confidence pushes her through.

“I can say I’m a great singer, so when it comes to decisions, I’m fine about recording and performing,” she said. “But I would say I work really hard at acting. It’s nerve-wracking but it’s also amazing. But I’m not a novice at any of this.”

With her children, she doesn’t make any pretenses about the difficulty of being both a musician and a mom — as long as she instills the proper principles in them.

“We don’t try to get wrapped up in small time crap,” she said. “At the end of day it’s about having a good heart and they have great heart.”

It’s likely she’ll show the same at Black Tie.

……………………

BLACK TIE DETAILS

The 30th annual DFW Black Tie Dinner will be held Saturday night, Nov. 12, at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel. The event is already sold out.

Special guests at this year’s dinner include Academy Award-winning actress Marlee Matlin as keynote speaker and Emmy Award-winning actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson as Media Award winner. Singer Taylor Dayne will perform.

Chet Flake and his late partner, Bud Knight, will be honored as recipients of the Raymond Kuchling Humanitarian Award, and gay military veteran Eric Alva, the first U.S. serviceman injured in the Iraq war and an advocate for repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” will received the Elizabeth Birch Equality Award.

Dinner organizers this year decided, for the first time, to bring in an emcee for the evening, choosing popular comedian Caroline Rhea.

This year also marks the final time that Joe Solmonese will attend the dinner as president of the Human Rights Campaign, the national beneficiary of Black Tie, which each year receives about half the proceeds of the event. Solmonese has resigned as head of HRC, effective next March.

Seventeen local HIV/AIDS and LGBT organizations have also been designated as beneficiaries.

Black Tie Dinner includes a silent auction, a live luxury auction and an after-party at the hotel.

For more information, go online to BlackTie.org.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition November 11, 2011.

ARNOLD WAYNE JONES  | Life+Style Editor
jones@dallasvoice.com

The story of Tyler Scoresby and Jonathan Ingram, like all good gay love stories, started at the gym.

That’s where Ingram, a graphic designer, and Scoresby, a physician, met more than three years ago, not long after Scoresby came out and divorced his wife of seven years. Scoresby dated a few men before Ingram, “but he was the first to express a definite interest in meeting my kids.”

“Before he’d let me get involved with them, he kind of interviewed me!” Ingram says.

“I told him, there are times when I’ll have the kids but you may want to go out with friends. But he was really clear about wanting to be a dad with me,” Scoresby says.

And that’s exactly what they are now.

Currently, the couple (they legally wed in Provincetown, Mass., last September) share custody with Scoresby’s ex-wife, getting the kids — Ella, 8, and Brett, 6 — every Thursday, the first, third and fifth weekend each month, select holidays and all of July (“a traditional set-up,” Scoresby calls it). And they will have them this Sunday, June 19 — Father’s Day. But honestly, they don’t expect to make a big deal out of it.

“We have no major plans,” Scoresby says, 35. “We have fun every weekend. When there are two parents [in a heterosexual household], the woman usually the kids to celebrate Father’s Day. But it’s just us celebrating each other.”

“We keep them active all the time,” Ingram adds. “We do crafts, play on the trampoline, take road trips,” including one next month to California to see the Redwood Forest. And being that there are two fit, athletic men leading this household, roughhousing is the rule, not the exception. The kids seem to love it.

Scoresby calls Ingram “a perfect partner in parenting. Neither of us has a defined role. We don’t try to compare it to a straight relationship.”

The children have taken to Ingram whole-heartedly. They call Scoresby “Daddy” and Ingram “Jonathan,” but both act, and are treated, like full parents.

“A lot of times I think they like him better than they do me,” Scoresby jokes. “They respect him like a parent and he loves them like one.”

Ingram, now 41, had been interested in having children when he was younger, “but you put it aside when you come out. If I was going to have kids, it was not going to be an easy road.” He came from a fairly large family himself, which included one adopted sister.

Meeting Tyler, Ella and Brett presented an opportunity to be the dad he always wanted to be.

“Parenting comes naturally for me,” he says. “I get to do the same stuff as Tyler without dealing with the divorce. Everything else I deal with — motivating them, teaching them how to ride bikes, cleaning up after them, reading books to them at night or dealing with a nightmare — is the same.”

But they do try to operate under a different set of rules. Both had been reared in nurturing but conservative straight households that put an emphasis on values, and saw aspects of parenting they liked. But they wanted to achieve those goals their own way.

“When there aren’t set roles, it gives you a lot of freedom,” Ingram says. “For instance, there are many ways to be a moral person that are not tied to religion. So every Sunday morning [when we have them], we spend about an hour and a half on what we call ‘human time.’ We like to think of it as the next generation of parenting.”

They did worry at first about how to introduce Ingram as Daddy’s partner, though that has ended up being unexpectedly easy.

“Because they were so young [when we met], they really don’t remember what their lives were like before me,” Ingram says. “We certainly show affection around them like any straight parents would.” About a year into the relationship, they read Ella And Tango Makes Three, a children’s book about a family of same-sex penguins.

“Ella was already around clearly defined families and we wanted to make sure she could always tell her friends, ‘Yeah, I have two dads,’” Ingram says. “We said, ‘Do you understand our family is a little different, but that doesn’t mean we are less or bad?’ She pointed at the penguins and said, ‘That’s me, that’s you, that’s Daddy.’ It was like she already got it.”

That’s one reason you won’t hear the dads talk down to Ella and Brett. They explain honestly why someone is there to photograph them, and both kids pose like burgeoning runway models. And they are excited to start human time soon.

It’s all going so well, in fact, the couple have talked about having more kids, whether through adoption or surrogacy. But whatever they decide, one thing is certain: With two men in the house, every day feels like Father’s Day.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition June 17, 2011.

Q Cinema is bringing sexy back.

Its 13th annual festival, which begins on Thursday and runs over next weekend, is flush with sexy, fun and campy films, as well as smattering of dramas (gay, lesbian, trans and bi) through shorts and features. And, for a festival of its size, it manages to attract loads of talent, from stars like Bruce Vilanch and Charlie David to filmmakers like Casper Andreas.

And, in true Cowtown fashion, it finds a way to make it all yee-haw fun, with a bowling party and dishy programs.
Here’s a preview of some of the programs.

Going Down in LA-LA Land
OK, let’s be honest: A lot of gay cinema falls in too-easy pigeonholes and familiar clichés. Twinks getting shirtless. Over-the-top, homo-hating bad guys (who often turn out to be in the closet). Romantic encounters, both cheesy and predictable. Sitcom-y jokes — or else, tortured melodramatic emoting.

But we watch them, and even like them, because they have shirtless twinks. And romantic encounters. And bad guys who turn out to be closet cases.

So sue us. We like our mindless, lightweight fantasies as much as straight folks.

So, when Going Down in LA-LA Land starts with new kid Adam (Matthew Ludwinski) moving to Los Angeles only to be put off by back-stabbing, dating trouble and career misfires, it looks like it’ll be another of its genre: The sappy, silly, easy comedy.

And then something happens: It gets good.

Sure, you can see some of the plot turns easier than at the Texas Motor Speedway, but there’s also a canny, insider quality that adds some heft and authenticity to it all — largely with not-so-subtle references to real Hollywood (including Bruce Vilanch as a Chi Chi LaRue-esque porn director). Writer-director Casper Andreas has crafted a sexy but also funny and wise squinty-eyed look at Tinseltown, from the seductive side to the seedy (often one and the same), from the glamour to the pitfalls.

Andreas gets good performances from Ludwinski and Allison Lane (and himself as a methed-up photographer), but it’s the whole package of nudity, humor and pathos that makes it come together.
— Arnold Wayne Jones

eCupid
Marshall (Houston Rhines) and Gabe (Noah Schuffman) are both cute, young and seven years into their relationship — and, to Marshall at least, it feels as if that’s as long as it has been since they had sex. Hoping to spice up his love life, Marshall downloads an app called eCupid, which promises to match him with the love of his life. But, in traditional genie fashion, you need to be careful what you ask for.

The biggest problem with the film eCupid is that it’s a silly, supernatural romantic fantasy, but Marshall never seems weirded out that his phone seems to be sending text messages on its own, or that everything going wrong could be fixed with a system reboot.

Still, that’s also about the worst thing you can say about this breezy, sexy rom-com, filled with half-naked boys, familiar couples problems and easy-to-digest complications.
— A.W.J.

Trigger
A bad breakup will leave major scars, whether it’s the failure of a band or a couple. In the case of Trigger, it’s both.

Kat (Molly Parker) and Vic (Tracy Wright) reunite over dinner 10 years after their girl band Trigger suffered an onstage blowout. Vic is harder edged, battling her demons, while Kat has moved on to a glossier, pretentious life in Los Angeles. Both are different people; the tough part for them is figuring out if they are better people.

The movie is mostly a series of conversational vignettes between the two but director Bruce McDonald treats the scenes carefully, so as not to turn them into a gimmick. We learn about their backgrounds apart and relationships with each other: They were bandmates, they were lovers, they both got fucked up by drugs and alcohol.

Parker gets the flashier role as the bitchy but loveable Kat, but this is Wright’s show. As Vic, she delivers depths of frustration and hope while still eking out flashes of exhilaration. Her voice is heartbreaking and genuine. (The role was her last — Wright died of cancer shortly after filming.)

McDonald and screenwriter Daniel McIvor have churned out a very feminine film without pandering to clichés. There is no unnecessary delicacy added here. Minus some kitschy touches that missed

the mark (an after-party at a high school?), Trigger ends up being a surprising reality check that isn’t about a rock ‘n’ roll band, but how getting older is inevitable.
— Rich Lopez

Bloomington
Bloomington is about a student-teacher lesbian relationship, which falls under the still-lingering taboo of May-December romance with a strong sense of sexual exploitation. Jackie (Sarah Stouffer) is a 22-year-old college student; Prof. Catherine Stark (Allison McAtee) bears an almost creepy resemblance to Jackie’s mother, who was virtually absent during her daughter’s teen years.

Jackie spent those years as an actress in a TV series, Neptune 26, which ended four years earlier. Now Jackie’s in college, and although her fellow students are awed by her celebrity, her problems fitting in stem more from her own standoffishness. She hears rumors about the notorious Prof. Stark, who beds her female students, only to have them disappear. So when the two meet at a student-faculty mixer, they waste no time hooking up. The power dynamics change when Jackie is asked to reprise her role in a feature version of Neptune 26 and it becomes Catherine’s turn to worry about being discarded.

Perhaps out of fear of the creep factor, none of the displays of affection between the women even approach soft-core porn. They kiss a lot but when they take their clothes off, Brazilian-born writer-director Fernanda Cardoso gets coy about camera placement. Even Jackie’s bathtub scene has her well covered in bubbles.

Cardoso has supplied a lot of surprisingly intelligent dialogue about psychology, show business and academia, to shore up a plot that’s purely emotional. The ending may not be what you expect, but

it’s in line with Cardoso’s constant clash between intellect and emotion. A couple of Ani DiFranco songs are well used to boost the film’s lez appeal, but your overall reaction will depend on whether you buy the central relationship. I didn’t.
— Steve Warren

Judas Kiss
It’s been fun to watch Charlie David mature as both an actor and a producer. He first shot to prominence in the supernatural gay soap Dante’s Cove, where being hot and naked were the primary criteria. He parlayed that gig into hosting duties for the Logo travelog Bump! and the gay romance Mulligans.

Now, in Judas Kiss, David gets to show off his strongest acting chops yet. He plays Zach Wells, a once-promising filmmaker who pissed away his potential on drugs and bad decisions. When he returns to his alma mater for a film festival, Zach meets his younger self, and gets the chance to fix the errors of his youth.

The supernatural element is more subtle here than Dante’s, which allows the idea behind it to come through: How difficult it is to be someone you aren’t, no matter how much information you have.

The production values are as slick and sophisticated as gay cinema gets, and there’s a deliberative, smart style to it.
— A.W.J.

The Schedule

All programs at the Rose Marine Theater, 1440 Main St., Fort Worth, except as noted

Going Down in LA-LA Land.
A gay newcomer find his way in Los Angeles, from porn to closeted movie stars. Filmmaker/stars in attendance.
Preceded by the short On the Bus.
June 2 at 7:30 p.m.

Going Down in Cowtown Opening Night Party
At the T&P Tavern, June 2 at 9:30 p.m.

Our Shorts Are Showing 1.
Program includes: The Colonel’s Outing, Nothing Happened, Freak, Slip Away, I was a Teenage Werebear,
plus a sneak peek at the new project from Israel Luna and Toni Miller, The Zombie Project.
June 3 at 6:30 p.m.

eCupid.
An app takes over the romantic life of a 30-year-old gay man suffering from the seven- year itch. Filmmaker/stars in attendance. Preceded by the short Waiting for Goliath.
June 3 at 8:45 p.m.

There’s an App for That Party.
At The Usual, June 3 at 10 p.m.

Our Shorts Are Showing 2.
Program includes: Amen, Tools 4 Fools, Stay, The Defenders, Under Pressure, Bedfellows, and It’s Just a Community Place.
June 4 at noon.

The Cost of Love.
A gay escort craves genuine love.
June 4 a 2 p.m.

Trigger.
Former lovers from a girl band reunite after a decade. Preceded by the short Allison My Love.
June 4 at 4 p.m.

2 Frogs in the West.
A French-Canadian hitchhiker finds herself attracted to a man and a woman at the same time. Preceded by the short Refuge.
June 4 at 6 p.m.

An Evening with Bruce Vilanch.
The LA-LA Land co-star dishes (followed by a bowling after-party with Vilanch at Lucky Strike).
June 4 at 8 p.m.

We Were Here.
Documentary about the early days of the AIDS crisis in San Francisco. Preceded by the short Fucked.
June 5 at noon.

AIDS at 30: Panel Discussion.
June 5 at 2 p.m.

Bloomington.
A college professor engages in a romance with her female student, a child star.
June 5 a 3 p.m.

Gun Hill Road.
A Latino man, newly out of prison, discovers his son is now transgender. Preceded by the short Professor Godoy.
June 4 at 4 p.m.

Judas Kiss.
Charlie David stars as a time-traveling filmmaker given a second chance. Filmmaker/stars in attendance. Preceded by the video Like It Rough.
June 4 at 6 p.m.

The Q Awards/Closing Night Party
June 4 at 9 p.m.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition May 27, 2011.

Starlight

Ranch Hand Rescue is a sanctuary for abused and neglected farm animals. They have been removed from their current situation by a county humane officer, sheriff or law enforcement official.

In December, we wrote about a fundraiser for the organization to help owner Bob Williams feed and give the animals the medical care they need. Their goal was $10,000 and they raised more than $15,000.

“The place was packed,” Williams said.

This past week was a particularly difficult one for them because of the cold weather.

“Our animals still need their medications and feeding,” Williams said.

Frozen pipes and additional staff increased costs.

Lips is a 1-year-old mare they believe was beaten in the face with a feed bucket and suffered nerve damage to the face. When a horse has been beaten it takes a long time to rebuild the trust with humans.

Lips has now been adopted and is living elsewhere is Texas. The nerve damage has gotten better and she has gained almost 750 pounds.

Starlight is 7 years old and has a colt. She was near death when she arrived seven weeks ago. She has gained 150 pounds. The colt is doing well also.

Williams has been extremely creative in his animal care. Midnight was walking on three legs. They designed a prosthetic and he’s been in touch with Scottish Rite Hospital about developing a therapy program for the horse.

“For the first time, Midnight is running,” he said.

Caring for one horse costs $250 per month. For $3,000, you can sponsor a horse.

To raise money to care for the animals, Ranch Hand Rescue is holding a garage sale in March. To contribute, contact the organization at 940-464-0985 or email at info@ranchhandrescue.org. Also, call to arrange a visit to the ranch.

Williams said to look for them at the TGRA Rodeo in Fort Worth in March. They’ll be selling the “Save a horse — ride a cowboy” T-shirts.

Your weekday morning blend from Instant Tea:

1. On Wednesday we told you how Rhode Island’s new governor, Lincoln Chafee, called for marriage equality during his inaugural address. Well, it turns out that Rhode Island legislators plan to introduce a same-sex marriage bill today, and Chafee’s support is crucial to their strategy. The Human Rights Campaign says Rhode Island is one of three states — along with Maryland and New York — where marriage equality is possible this year. At the same time, there’s been a marriage equality bill introduced in Rhode Island’s Assembly every year since 1997, but none has ever made it to a floor vote.

2. Longtime Boston Herald sports columnist Steve Buckley came out as gay in a column published today. Buckley says he regrets that he told his mother he would come out seven years ago, but then she died and he kept putting it off — until now. “It’s my hope that from now on I’ll be more involved” in the LGBT community, Buckley writes. “I’m not really sure what I mean by being ‘involved,’ but this is a start: I’m gay.”

3. Neil Patrick Harris wins People’s Choice Award, recognizes husband and kids on stage (video above).

TARA DANNEHL Team Dallas Voice

Look out 150 miles, here I come!

My name is Tara Dannehl, and I am very proud to be apart of the 10-year anniversary Lone Star Ride Fighting AIDS!

Life for me revolves around health and fitness. So when I was asked to participate in this year’s ride, there was no reason in my mind to say no.

My friend and SPIN professional, Arlen Miller, is the man that got me on a road bike. I know Arlen from The Texas Club located indowntown Dallas, where I am a personal trainer and group fitness instructor.

I have been working as a trainer and instructor for seven years. I get fulfillment in aiding and watching the changes people make in their lives for the better.

Many of my clients have come to me for assistance in reaching personal goals of completing a half or full marathon, a triathlon and other distance events of running or biking. I’ve also had some friends starting running for the first time in their lives to raise money for charities dear to them.

And finally, it is my time. I decided that if all these individuals of different ages and abilities can achieve such incredible goals that I needed to make one for myself.

I’ve always enjoyed bike riding and the outdoors. I have spent my time on a hybrid mountain bike, so at the beginning, I didn’t really think there would be much difference in a road bike — wrong! I’ll share that experience with all of you hardcore road bikers in just a second.

Next, I am going to brag about the wonderful bike loaner program.

I was so eager for the ride and this new experience, but I didn’t have a road bike. So Arlen put me in touch with David Minehart and the Loan Star Locker.

And I was set! I now have a wonderful, royal blue Marin to put my miles on.

I took it to the shop and after a little touch up and some new clip shoes, I was almost ready to begin putting miles on the odometer.

While the bike was in the shop, I took my clips and began regularly attending a spin class at the gym. I also would hop on the spin bike in my spare time. I wanted to get comfortable with the clips and felt this would be good practice.

Once I picked up my bike, I must admit that it spent a few days in the garage as I dealt with some small anxiety about this new experience, clips and all, that was looming in the back of my mind.

Then one beautiful Saturday morning, my husband and I finally geared up and headed out. Wow! It was such a completely different experience than what I was used to from a mountain bike!

That first ride was great. What made it even better was that I hit the one stop light between our house and the lake while it was green, both ways, and didn’t have to unclip.

Yes, I told you I was anxious!

But not to worry fellow LSR bikers, as I have been practicing with my clips. I will be a pleasant and respectful rider with you on this amazing 150 mile ride.

Yes, 150 miles — I can’t wait!

The icing on the cake for me is that this experience is an opportunity to raise money for organizations fighting AIDS and supporting those affected by HIV/AIDS.

The Lone Star Organization reaches out to so many and continuous support is needed to make significant progress in research and education. It is an incentive to be backed by family, friends and acquaintances to raise money for an organization such as this one.

I am ready to hit the road and be apart of the 10-year anniversary ride this September. It is going to be an experience of a lifetime, and it will be so wonderful to share it with so many other supportive riders and crew.

Thank you to the organization and those that have gotten me this far. I especially appreciate my husband for going on practice rides with me and my parents for believing in me.

See you on the road! Go LSR 2010!

Tara Dannehl is a member of Team Dallas Voice. Donate to her by going online to LoneStarRide.org.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition August 13, 2010.