By Jeff Walsh
Easier With Practice is one of those movies that is impossible to review on a gay site, especially for someone as spoiler-adverse as me.
Because the distributor sent me this with another title, and I didn't even bother to read about it in advance, I just converted it so that I could watch it on my iPad and review it on the plane to or from Hawaii. And, for 90 percent of the movie, my thought was "Why did they send me an interesting, albeit seemingly heterosexual movie?"
In the back of my mind, of course, I thought, "The only way this would be a gay movie is if..." and, of course, that is what ends up being the case. So, we have a gay movie that is sort of a twist gay movie, except to review it on a gay website almost requires you to tell people the twist, so that it actually seems like a gay story.
The question I have, of course, is... if you watch this movie based on knowing it will eventually be a gay movie, even though it doesn't seem like it for most of the film and, because of that knowledge, figure things out in advance that you otherwise wouldn't or shouldn't, is it still a satisfying movie?
And I don't know the answer to that question.
"Strings Attached" by Nick Nolan is a great story of how a closeted teen's life changes and he becomes a man (see review below).
We have three copies of this book to give away. One grand prize winner will get a signed copy, and two others will win copies of the book, as well.
To enter, send me a private message with a subject line of Strings, before July 6, and you're entered. Only one entry per member. And, of course, if you enter, you have to be Ok receiving a gay book in the mail, obviously.
Good luck!
By Jeff Walsh
Nick Nolan's "Strings Attached" is a fun beach read of a book. I can safely say that, as I read it on a beach all day today. But seriously, this novel starts out like your typical gay young adult novel, but then adds a lot of additional layers and metaphors to make it an even more compelling read.
When the book starts, Jeremy has to call 911 for his drunk mother, who almost died... again. He ends up living with his aunt, with whom his mother had a falling out after the death of Jeremy's father. This aunt is incredibly rich, with butlers and a huge mansion overlooking the ocean. In short order, Jeremy goes from poverty to posh.
As you know is a gay young adult novel, you start lining up all the things that will likely happen, and most of them don't. Or few things happen as you initially suspect. If anything, I'd go as far as to say Jeremy's awakening about being gay, while integral to the story, is less dramatic than the family drama around which it is set.
The most important reason I consider myself a smoker is because I am definately not a non-smoker. What do you call a half smoker? A social smoker? That sounds lame. I make the deliberate choice to spend part of my income on a vice of my choice. I understand the health implications and chose this anyway. As for having the paraphenalia on me most of the time, I always had a lighter. (I didn't smoker but I could *clink clink* take care of the ladies that did). My purse, backpack, pocket will likely have a cigarette in it whether I smoke it that night or not.
I decided last night that sometimes I really am crazy. My mind just doesn't know what's going on, and I completely lose it.
my head hurts. i hate stress. i'm sorry i don't have anything more interesting to say
Little well known that its been a year and a half since my father had a stroke. Untill today he had this nasty chest cold and went to the hospital. Bronconist, not unusual to me since I had it as a kid. But the xray shows otherwise, he also has some abcess on his lung. They are sending it to a speicalist.
I remember writing oasismag about my fathers anarysm and had small partual of his brain removed and how it was a biggest scare for all of us. A year and a half later hes still smoking and they found unknown abonomonly in his chest. How dumb is that? Part of me dont feel sorry, and I feel wicked for it. Hes my father. *Sigh* Men never changes.
yeah, today i was lighting a cigarette with a match in my car and somehow i thought that fire doesn't burn. So two fingers on my left hand have little burns on them. This means i can maturbate only with my right hand. Life's a bitch.
So boobs suck. Well, not everyone's, just my boobs. So recently I have been thinking about a breast reduction, because life would be much easier with smaller boobs. I probably wont get one, because I pride myself in loving myself for who I am, and I want to learn to love my breasts in all their bigness. If they were so big that they caused me serious health problems then I would be much more likley to go through with it, but the're not.
I had the most fabulous weekend. I went to a Margaret Cho show, and oh-my-fuckin-gosh, it was hilarious. She's so...amazing...and admirable. They way she delivers her material is so fresh. In short, Margaret Cho is my hero. She was also an outspoken gay rights supporter, which didnd't really matter to the audience since she had such a huge queer following. It was liberating.
Well, it's getting warm, about 34�F (stupid Fahrenheit, we (the U.S.) should adopt Celsius as our temperature scale of choice). Which means some of the snow is melting. Yay! We got hella lot of snow this year. In February alone we got a record 21.7 inches (yet another scale to replace). Yeah, I know, it may not be a lot to you Northeasterners, but it's still a lot to us. All in all, this has been the 3rd snowiest winter in recorded Indiana history and we have yet to have one single snow day. Bah! I'm sick of it. But, depending on Tuesday's temperature, we are either going to get snow or rain. I'm voting for rain because I simply adore rain, although I wouldn't mind the snow if and only if it came bundled with a SnowDay�. Rain...mmmm, rain....