Gay Marriage from a videographers perspective

For years I worked as a videographer and I shot A-Lot of weddings. I saw bride-zillas, drunken uncles, inconsiderate grooms who really could give a shit about the wedding that they were willing to participate in because it's what their partner and society at large expected of them. I saw waste and snootiness and occasionally I saw something beautiful that I'd want to be a part of. Unfortunately the later was a rarity.

I haven't filmed many weddings in the last couple of years, but when my friend Tina told me that she was finally gettin' hitched, well I wouldn't have missed it for the world. No, really, never mind that I totally owe Tina for all the design work she's done for me.

So, I showed up at Capitol Park on Saturday morning, hoping that the rain would wait until after I'd gotten my camera packed safely away, and I witnessed some of the most beautiful nuptials ever. Tina and her partner Kate had their sisters officiate.

Yes, Kate is a woman's name. This wedding wasn't in fact a wedding but rather a commitment ceremony, as our Governor has vetoed the legislation that would have let it be a wedding.

The community of people brought together for this event were so happy and full of love, it was easy to let go of the politics that might've hung over the proceedings. I was pulled back for just a moment though during the kiss when someone from the Russian wedding that had just finished rehearsing in the park spotted the two women kissing, "OH MY GOD!" they yelped. It was perfect and I hoped my microphone picked it up.

After the ceremony was lunch where long term couples, most of them gay, took turns giving their advice for Tina and Kate. All these happy, successful couples sharing and well wishing, it was most inspiring.

Things started up again that night with a party at Kate and Tina's home where I was moved by the toasting, moved to tears. Friend after friend shared their stories of triumph over adversity. There was the woman who thanked Tina for her help and sense of humor in dealing with breast cancer (Tina sweetly made her a book of black and white nude photos taken a week before the women was to undergo surgery. Tina mischievously titled the book Thanks For The Mammaries.) There was the couple from Texas who found Tina by googling "Sacramento Lesbian." They deemed her Queen Lesbian and moved to Sacramento after the Queen gave them such a wonderful introduction to our lovely town and it's wonderful inhabitants. There were many, many more.

When Tina, who is not actually a Queen but more of a King, a Drag King, sported a goatee and lip-synced a love song to Kate, an exuberant young women couldn't help rushing the stage, dragging friends with her, and an impromptu ring of dancers circled the couple. It was beautiful.

I filled three hours of tape, cried several times, laughed harder than I have in ages. "So this is gay marriage?" I thought to myself. "This is that thing that so many people are so violently afraid of?" Well no wonder. Who wants to have to live up to this high standard? Who has the energy?

Atheist vs Muslim vs Hindu vs Christian vs Jew

Video from The Coexist? Comedy tour's premier weekend.We were surprised to find that the atheists outnumbered the Christians and more surprised when the Hindus in attendance outnumbered the atheists. Great fun was had by all and an extremely low percentage of us were killed during or as a result of the show.

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Ashland Scares Us

Ashland Oregon, home of the world famous Ashland Shakespeare Festival. A seemingly nice place to stop between Sacramento and Portland.
Creepy hotel room on the way up. We both saw an extra light glowing when we sleeping. A light we couldn't find a source for when awake. Like a camera behind the mirror type deal. The little blue light was from the smoke detector, but the little red light... ?

The we found Chai Hut and the sweet, innocent, happy kid just back from burning man. He's Ashland's one redeeming quality at this point.

Ashland part II, the journey home. We stopped there again, just for groceries.
The kid took FOREVER to make my sandwich. He had bad teeth. Crank teeth. I looked at produce while waiting. Some guy smelled so strongly that it stank up the entire produce section. Seriously. I stood by some savory nice smelling stuff to cover the stink. Walking through the store later I'd know what row he was in. The row that stank when you walked by. I don't know what was going on with this guy but he smelled stronger than I smell when I smell as much as I'm capable of smelling. Not rot or urine, it was clearly just BO and he looked like a normal dude. In fact his long hair looked freshly shampooed and tangle free.

Then a thin long haired guy made a way too obvious pass at me as I headed to use the restroom. Someone was spending their retirement in the men's room so I used the women's. Meanwhile the guy that rang Bryna up showed her the "inmate" sticker he'd placed on the back of his name badge. "Inmate Bob at your service" he said or something like that. And when he rang up the magazine she was buying he held it up and moved it forward and back, "Congratulations on you impulse buy." Very weird.

Bryna was the one to notice that the sandwich the kid with the bad teeth had made me was TEN BUCKS! What the hell?! I went back to crank boy, who was hard of hearing it seemed, or just didn't like hearing much, so I asked handle bar mustache guy if the sandwich was really supposed by ten bucks. "Yeah, the small is six bucks." he answered.

I wanted to be back on the road so I restrained the urge to demand my money back. Then I noticed the sandwich didn't even have on it the avocado that was to be it's main ingredient. I took it back. The one sane person in the place was at the customer service desk. She gave me my ten bucks.
We got the hell out of Ashland.

Hi from Ashland

We're at the Cedarwoods Inn in Ashland Oregon.
Getting ready to head up to Portland where we'll have dinner with our good friends Bob and Irina before continuing on to Seattle.
The drive has gone well so far. We packed lots of good food, so other than one highly offensive cup of gas station coffee we have avoiding yucky road food and the yuck road gut that comes with it.
At least the coffee was free. When the guy didn't want to charge me for it, that was the second sign that it might not be drinkable. Sign one; the creamer was actually in big dispensers just like the coffee as if to say, "You'll need quite a bit of this if you're gonna try to drink that."

Sayonara

Bye Everybody.
Bryna and I are off to SketchFest Seattle for the rest of the week. YAY.
www.sketchfest.org

And don't rob my house. My friend Lou is staying in it while we're gone. Sorry.