(JESSE on the BRINK) Weekend Tripping!

by Jesse Archer

And now for something a little bit different.. because how many firsts do I have left? On Saturday, Australian Rules Football... Sydney Swans vs Port Adelaide at the cricket grounds. There is something creepy in the mighty roar of a crowd. Bloodthirsty. Reminds me always of rooting for the lions to kill the Christians.

But then you have a couple drinks and kind of get into it. Especially when the outfits are attractive and sporty and not all padded up like an armored knight as in American football. They also don't have lots of whistles and time outs. If they fumble, they're not allowed to actually hold onto the ball. If they do, the whole bloodthirsty crowd starts chanting "Baaaaallll". And anytime they pass it, they don't throw it. They sort of pop it, like you'd serve a volleyball.

(Jesse on the BRINK) Eurovision 2014 #unstoppable!

by Jesse Archer

Wind machines, raised platforms, shameless key changes, Latvian cake bakers, removable hair pieces, 360-degree pianos, human hamster wheels. Eurovision will put you in a gay coma. As with the World Cup, Eurovision is disturbingly huge the world over – but virtually unknown in the USA.

Baltic nations and even Russia are allowed to compete and this year's biggest controversy surrounded the Austrian entry, a bearded drag queen named Conchita Wurst, alter-ego of Thomas Neuwirth, who sang a James Bond style power ballad, "Rise Like A Phoenix", looking pretty as a champagne flute.
For some reason, this look is violently confronting - especially to Russia, who took time out on their invasion of Ukraine to declare war on Eurovision's degeneracy, crying for bans and President Putin threatening to secede from the contest.

(JESSE on the BRINK) Safety First!

by Jesse Archer

Just TRY drowning!! Or stepping on a blue-ringed octopus, or swimming outside the flags... because guess who's North Bondi's newest lifeguard!!??

After months of training on CPR, First Aid, boards plus loads of Run-swim-runs and signals, I finally got my certificate and join the rest of my amazing squad of Bronze Medallion lifesavers! Huge thanks to our incredible and incredibly patient trainers Drew, Jodie, Rhys and Rhys! Season is over, but I start patrolling next summer... Is your faith restored in the safety of Sydney's beaches?

ceremony inside the clubhouse. Those windows look like paintings!

(JESSE on the BRINK) a Bondi Classic!

by Jesse Archer

Almost exactly 1,000 people decided on a particularly perfect day to jump into the water, thwack and be thwacked, gulp seawater, undulate with the rolling tides and compete in a 2km ocean swim race. I was one of them! And maybe it was just me gulping seawater...

 

I'm in there somewhere – the third heat breaking the surf. Results-wise, I placed #437, so in the top half. Looking to improve the next race... if my party schedule allows time to train for it!

 

I survived!

(JESSE on the BRINK) Just another Saturday in Sydney!

by Jesse Archer

The day started off normally enough. We took our friends Noah and Leo to see the movie Frozen. 

But that evening my straight, lifesaving friend Rhys decided to have a drag celebration for his 30th birthday at the Burdekin. We also had tickets with friends to see a tango concert at Sydney Town Hall that same night. And wouldn't you know – it took so long getting ready that we weren't going to have to change outfits. So this is how we rocked up to Town Hall.

The bevel pose is to die for, no? Such a lady! Simon was none too happy that this kind of exposure was going to happen in front of a discerning live audience and felt all sorts of pressure but somehow, SIMONE got right into it and didn't mind at all!

(JESSE on the BRINK) Alone At The TOP!

by Jesse Archer

Just last month, actress Joan Fontaine (of Hitchcock's Rebecca and Suspicion) died, aged 96. She was the younger sister, and bitter rival, of actress Olivia de Havilland, aged 97. Theirs was Hollywood's premiere family feud, a lifelong rivalry supposedly nurtured from a very young age by their mother.

Fontaine is now dead, but she still managed to get the last word. Fontaine once told the Hollywood Reporter, "I married before Olivia, I got an Oscar before her, and if I die before her she'll be furious I beat her to it."

I'm now concerned for Olivia's health, as I figured it was the hate that kept them alive.

(BEST of 2013) Top 5 Columns!

Movie Freak's Fetters

In 2013, our columns were still holding strong and got more views then ever.  From Hollywood to Sydney to Seattle to Film reviews and beyond. 2013 was not great (Miley, etc.), but it did show that 2014 will be the Best Year ever. The following are the top 5 columns based on page views:

(Jesse on the Brink) Holiday Hunks!

by Jesse Archer

Have you seen Stranger By The Lake? It's a French drama that won the Queer Palm at Cannes...

It's set at a summertime lakeshore gay cruising area where men sunbathe nude and cruise in the nearby foliage.

(JESSE on the BRINK) Game Changers!

by Jesse Archer

 

Finished the Blackmores Half-Marathon Saturday. Gorgeous day racing across the stunning Harbour Bridge and finishing at the iconic Opera House. I came in at 1:27 (158 of 7500), and that includes an unprecedented (but 911 emergency) port-a-john pit stop at around the 12k mark! Not at my peak, but I was happy to have achieved my personal goal to beat anyone wearing headphones, an artillery belt, compression socks or those hideous primate shoes with toes.

 

For some reason, the half-marathon began before the full, which meant getting up at 4:30 and across the harbour for a 6:15 am start. And the spectacular scenery was dulled by the dull (and deadly quiet) streets of the CBD and its raked overpasses... but just look at this finish!

(JESSE on the BRINK) TWELVE Year Pessimist!

by Jesse Archer

Twelve years ago, I was making breakfast in the Lower East Side when I heard a massive crash that sounded like thunder. I looked out the window and saw only a clear blue Tuesday morning, unaware everything had changed.

Am I a pessimist if every year on 9/11, I think of this inspirational quote? "Never doubt a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

(JESSE on the BRINK) The Good with the Bad!

by Jesse Archer

Pop Princesses. The rah rah rivalry over Katy Perry's ROAM and Lady Gaga's APPLAUSE has reached sharknado proportions. I just want to give them both a nice melatonin-infused chai tea, wash off the grease paint, read a bedtime story, pat their heads and put them to bed. Then their nightmares begin: Beyonce reclaims the mantle of planet pop as they sleep with yet another formula guaranteed hit.

Batman. Fucking hell. An entire news cycle on the casting of Ben Affleck as the next Batman? How many Batmans do we have to deal with? Is there another superhero, preferably one who knows how to have a good time? Now he's being paired with Superman, who is just as prolific and tiresome. With three hours of exposition that was all backstory, I should have read the book. Henry Cavill's dreary,  deadly serious Superman had all the thrills of a prolapsed anus.

Lisa Bonet. I might watch Batman if he were Jason Mamoa aka Kahl Drogo from Game Of Thrones in his own superhero suit. Why does Lisa Bonet need to rest? The reason you have not seen hide nor hair from Lisa Bonet since that Cosby Show spinoff is because she's been working overtime laying (claim to) the finest men on the planet. I wouldn't even say she was the most attractive Huxtable (maybe Vanessa, or even mother Claire) but Lisa Bonet and her charms (twerking?) landed both Mamoa and Lenny Kravitz – whereupon she quickly punctuated her success by having their babies. She may be greedy, but the girl has taste.

(JESSE on the BRINK) Getting Serious!

by Jesse Archer

My essay in this month's OUT magazine was one I found difficult to write. It talks about what it's like being diagnosed with HIV later in life, giving voice to a population we don't often hear from. It also focused on my friend Jerry so treading carefully around a touchy topic while being as frank as possible was compounded by feeling the pressure to do justice to, and not misrepresent, his own story. If you don't have this month's issue, check it out online here. Out includes a great illustration by Keith Negley.

(JESSE on the BRINK) Winking IT!

by Jesse Archer

My boss was sick and kindly offered me his tickets to the Helpmann Awards, honoring achievement in live art entertainment - sort of an Australian version of the Tony's. I hadn't seen any of the stage shows, but following the Sydney imperative: take any chance you get to go to visit the Opera House or harbour beaches, I went with Gerald. We saw and heard from Tina Arena, Baz Luhrmann and a bunch of people that were of great interest to a bunch of people in the know.

(JESSE on the BRINK) There Never Was A Woman Like Tallulah!

by Jesse Archer

The unbelievable, bigger-than-life, one woman whirlwind of charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent that was TALLULAH BANKHEAD. Read my crash course on the legend in DNA Magazine issue #162 or click the link here. Thank me later!

(JESSE on the BRINK) A Confederacy of Dunces!

by Jesse Archer

You know one of those books that's always on the periphery, that you've heard recommended but never quite got round to picking it up? A Confederacy of Dunces finally landed in my lap - and at first I wished it hadn't! I wasn't jibing with the humor, it felt alien, and the protagonist, Ignatius J Reilly, is utterly repulsive. He's the definitive anti-hero: a gluttonous, massive, lazy, deluded, pompous, unemployed 30-year old who lives with his mother (who he mistreats).

Yet when given an opportunity to reveal itself, the alien can expose you to a fascinating new worldview. So it was with Ignatius and this book. His mother forces him to get a job, and as Ignatious goes through a series of misadventures in employment, staging abortive coups, revolutions, belching, writing manifestos and railing against the machine, society, manners, decency (you can see why I'm liking this), even his anarchist, absent girlfriend Myrna Minkoff (the Minx), and most of all his mother Irene. He's constantly complaining about his "valve", the latest hideous offense "Fortuna" has wrought upon him, brandishing a cutlass and enlisting a calvacade of characters to his cause - my favorite being half-wit elderly Miss Trixie, who calls him Gloria. More than anything, Ignatius is written with deft, scathing, ultimately wholesome innocent humor. There never was a book like this.

(JESSE on the BRINK) Getting There!

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(JESSE on the BRINK) Why I'm Not A Christian!

by Jesse Archer

Sexy singer/songwriter Steve Grand went from virtually unknown to viral with his country song video for "All-American Boy", about unrequited love. It's touched and captivated thousands, and blown up the internet racking up over a million views on youtube in just over a week.

(JESSE on the BRINK) The Outbreak!

by Jesse Archer

The meningitis outbreak that has hit the gay community and killed a friend and co-star of mine, Kyle Spidle, is not even a sexually-transmitted disease. That's not how it's listed. It can be caught from kissing, or sharing a drink and it kills within days.

Lawrence Ferber at Next Magazine has written up an excellent piece on the outbreak, "Same Band, Different Tune". His title refers to "And The Band Played On", the incredible book by Randy Shilts about the emergence of AIDS, and this is precisely the unwanted association that has put gay media in such a spin when it comes to covering this deadly outbreak (not an epidemic, and a vaccine is available ) that nobody - not even the NY Times - knows why it's targeting our community.

(JESSE on the BRINK) Mayday, Mayday!

by Jesse Archer

Miss Mayday was itching to come out again. And come out again she did at Polly's Follies at Stonewall. The amateur drag queen contest was penetrated once again by yours truly...

(JESSE on the BRINK) Tasmania!

by Jesse Archer 

At the end of the world is Tasmania, and it shows! It's sweepingly vast, wild and desolate. Beautiful. You can drive across it east to west in 5 hours, north to south in 3. With ten days on the island, there was no shortage of scenic views, trail runs, and friendly locals who call the rest of us "mainlanders".

Tasmania was once called Van Diemen's land. And it was the last place a convict wanted to go. Once a notorious penal colony, Port Arthur is now a major heritage site and tourist destination. It's a place that looks so idyllic, but drawn in you discover it's a place of horror... a bit like Ted Bundy's face.

We spent a couple days wandering Port Arthur, learning about various prisoners, hearing stories of escape, of punishment, of how they reformed rogues with "revolutionary" penal practices such as the separate prison, where you were isolated and couldn't speak, see or communicate with anyone, but you were forced to attend church. Apparently, if you reflected upon your sins in silence long enough you would come to see the light. Keep in mind many of the convicts were here chained at the ankles and doing hard labor for having, I kid you not, stolen silverware.