Life on the J List

After more than a year of film festivals and community screenings, ‘ASK NOT’ (the landmark new documentary from PBS on DADT, gay troops and veterans, and the DADT Repeal Movement) is making its national broadcast debut next week on PBS. It’s a little sad, in a way, because having ‘ASK NOT’ on the film festival circuit has been quite a thrilling ride.

The first screening of ‘ASK NOT’ that I made it to was in Miami in May of last year, which was actually the second screening of the film (the first was in SFO that April). Miami was an absolute blast, and a much needed vacation from the rigors of Ph.D. course work at USC. We also had a group of friends fly in for that screening, so let’s just say HM08 was an inaugural event that will surely spawn many subsequent HMs, including the upcoming HM09 in September (that one’s for you, Suzanne).

The next big screening was in NYC. That was another great trip, as the film was featured as part of a New York Times TimesTalk event on DADT and was screened at a Loews Theater (mainstream!!) in Manhattan. After this second film festival appearance, I began to notice that there were other films besides this one going on around us, and other subjects, directors, and actors appearing at these festivals with these mysterious other films too. Then I got the novel idea to actually check out the programs for these two festivals. Lo and behold, I began to realize that these film festivals were hotbeds of sneak peaks at amazing new documentaries on some of the most fascinating topics. Who knew? Ok yes, I really did know that there were other amazing films at these festivals too, but I was so busy doing appearances, press, and Q&A sessions at these first two festivals that I didn’t even think, much less have time, to actually take advantage of my credentials (i.e., free all-access passes) to get into many of these other film events.

No worries, though. Provincetown made up for my film deficits in Miami and New York. I turned the Provincetown Int’l Film Festival into a decent little [free] vacation, and managed to see a grand total of 8 films in 4 days, in addition to the 2 screenings at which I had to officially appear AND on top of the festival parties, receptions, and vacation-esque activities provided complimentary for guests of the festival. Although Jarrod couldn’t attend, I was fortunate that Suzanne could join me so that I didn’t have to have all of this fun alone. And if it weren’t for Suzanne, I wouldn’t have known that we were actually hanging out with Quinton Tarantino, John Waters, and Gabriel Garcia Bernal the whole time (ok, I did at least recognize the last one). I think Ptown really put me on the J List, up from the R List. I’m still working on making my way up to you, Kathy.

After these big events, I did a lot of smaller events that were also quite a lot of fun. Portland stood out among them as an amazing trip. One interesting, albeit sad, note about the Portland trip is that I flew out of the Columbia, SC airport on a Friday and back into it on a Sunday; on the day in between, however, the jet carrying Travis Barker and DJ AM crashed on take-off at that very same airport, killing two staffers with them as well as the pilot and co-pilot. It was an eerie feeling flying back into CAE that next day, just hours after the runway re-opened.

The brief on my year-long stint on the film circuit as a movie star (ok, documentary star… yes, I’ll admit, there’s a difference) wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the community cinema screening blitz in May. PBS and Independent Lens choose 9 of their 30 or so films that they air annually for month-long, local screenings in 50 cities around the country in the month before they air nationally. Since ‘ASK NOT’ airs in June, it was chosen for the community cinema slot for May. Among these events, Philadelphia stands out as an amazing overall production and great post-film panel, and the last of the DC screenings was quite fun as well, although I really love any opportunity to talk about our experiences with the military, SU, and DADT.

Now that the national broadcast is approaching, the PBS-facilitated media opportunities are picking up again, and it looks like we’re doing one more big round of publicity, including an 11-stop “radio tour” on Thursday and an appearance on NPR’s ‘Fresh Air’ on Monday. It has been an amazing year, and the thrill of having a major film in which I appear air on national television is only dampened by the realization that ‘Life on the J List’ will be winding down. Or maybe not… I hear the film just got picked up by a national distributor and is debuting internationally – in Israel – around my birthday later this month. So maybe the international exposure will bump me up to the I or H List???

The official air date for ‘ASK NOT’ is Tuesday, June 16th, but evidently PBS offers their programming a la carte to local affiliates, and those affiliates are free to air any given show or not, and to air it during the official time slot or on another day and/or time. Complicated, yes, I know. It looks like most stations are airing it, but the times and days are actually varying, so please do check local listings.