HEXENSCHLUSS

Spent a lovely day with Manuel Schubert of FilmHighlights Radio Magazine and his pal Olivier Novitzky shopping on the K-Damn and brunching at Dolores the California Burrito emporium. The boys told me all about the new cruising application Scruff which has taken the place of Grinder in the gay sex search cosmos,and about a mutual local friend of theirs who is quite the entrepreneur hosting Tupperware style dildo parties that feature dildo quality testing with The Dildo King boutique as well as continental pharmaceutical management. I am not a fan of the sex stimulant Poppers, but I had no idea that Austria has such harsh laws that one cannot purchase Poppers legally in that country. 
Went to Berghain’s Cantina to see Baby Diaper Joel Gibb and his musical collective The Hidden Cameras perform Saturday night. The Baby D and his posse featuring Tenderloin guitarist Landgraf Jan Klesse majestically enveloped the intimate confines of the Cantina. It was a moist, sticky and lovesexy queer affair celebrating the 7inch vinyl EP Gay Goth Scene and took me back to my own gothic youth spent in Hollywood venues like Cathay De Grande, Vinyl Fetisch Club and The Veil. Enjoying the cumraderie: visiting academic royal Heather Love with childbride scholar Mara Mills and their lovely and vivacious teenage daughters, NYU’s Tavia Nyongo, Manuel Schubert, Malte & Cavalero, sweet Felix Knocke & Jan Klesse's pretty girlfriend Marie, the rock star film producer extroidinaire who just moved permanently to Berlin--Michael Stipe of REM fame was looking all ready for summer with his art photog Gallic beau Thomas Dozol. 
Caught the final presentations of the Frieda Grafe series of film screenings at Arsenal Inst fur film und Video Kunst Sunday eve with my dates Nanna Heidenriech,Uli Ziemons, Susanne Sachsse and Marc Siegel. An actual psychiatrist from Munich introduced the 1944 Mitchell Leisen Technicolor helmer Lady in the Dark. My German isn’t very good but the unnattractive therapist who goes by the name of Marcus Coelen spoke with such a pompous tone like a prickly Evangelische pastor.

I have always wanted to see Lady in the Dark which is more a drama with musical bits then a knockout sluggo musical film. Based on the 1941 Broadway show of the same name by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin with book and direction by Moss Hart it’s a complete WW2 oddity featuring Ginger Rogers, an icky Ray Milland, barrelchested Jon Hall and a shrill queen playing a photographer in a role which seemed tailor made for Paramount’s top pansy character actor Billy DeWolfe. The war years shortage of male top men led Hollywood to go into a miscogeny frenzy in terror that women were taking over the work world.

Charles Walter’s 1950 musical Summer Stock from MGM features the unnatural naturalness of Baby Frances Gumm aka: Judy Garland in all her spirited economy. At the end of the musical number “Happy Harvest” the camera lingers on the inflamed larnex of La Garland which is a hoot. Surrounded by a sterling cast that includes Phil Silvers, Hans Conreid, Gloria DeHaven, Majorie Main, Eddie Bracken,Ray Collins and Carleton Carpenter as well as Gene Kelly’s handsome buttocks that voraciously clears a path of all obstacles.