The PISS fest

Thursday night was the gala opening of the PISS FEST!
That's Portland International Short Short Film Festival. Yeah, dogie!
Our short film, "Dingo the Stuff Fixer," directed by me, written by me, starring me and my friends, with an original score by me, was included in the illustrious lineup.
We got a late start, but we made it to the theatre in time to entertain many of the movie goers. Since the Fabulous Franc is in Indonesia and couldn't be here to see his movie on the big screen, Will Workforf Ood had to take one for the team by painting Franc stripes on a shirt, changing his makeup to Franc's, and being gay for a night.
For those of you who don't know, Franc produced and starred in the Clown Shorts that we put out last year. In his honor, we decided to bring our version of Fab Franc the 1940's gay French soldier clown.
Franc and I took tallbikes and Merica, Sprout, and Bizzy Bawdy rode in a car.
We don't usually ride in cars, but it was wet and we wanted to bring the banjo, guitar and film equipment.
The bikes arrived at the venue first, and boy did the Hollywood theater look grand.
My improvised plan was to do some tricks on the tallbike while the others did stunts and did the meet-and-greet thing.
My lighter took a dump right as I started my stunt routine, so when it was time to light the pyrotechnics, nothing happened. As the people filed, in we did the bullet catch, some silly hoop tricks, and Sprout did her hoola hoop act, playing the recorders with these huge clown gloves on.
After a bit, the organisers told us that we had scared off enough people, and asked us to come in. Tony Fuentes, El Presedente de Zonker Films, and father of the PISS Fest, opened the show with a heartfelt rendition of the "Different Strokes" theme song, which he referred to as an old Negro spiritual. Some of the more "artful" flicks incorporated a lot of blurs and focus shifts, and that gave me a headache in the front row, so I was darting in and out a lot.
The after party was held at the Jupiter Hotel, next to the Doug Fur.
We saw a group called Fleshtone. Will/Franc put it best when on the bike ride home, he said "They came out swinging!"
I won't tell you much about how they did, other than they are my new fav act. They don't mind camel toe, face paint, wierd noises, a driving beat, and a dude in a diaper. I also love a group who requires a program, like an opera. Ya gotta go see them when you get a chance.
Bizzy Bawdy, cheerleader and photographess exrordinaire will have some pics for me soon. I'll get them up as soon as I can.
After they finished, they announced: "And now the Alberta Street Clowns!"
We had made no paticular plans, so Caffeine scrawled "Whats Up Your Ass?" on a large piece of cardboard, then we got on stage and started begging for volunteers. The two gals who were pushed up first had no idea what was going on. Caffo/Merica said they had a deer-in-the-headlights look to them. The last person was a volunteer called John, who turned out to be on the crew that planned the party (This guy took it in the BUTT for the team, thanks John.).
We had them all drop trou, and one by one, put stuff in their butt cracks. It was fun as hell to do that old routine, but what we didn't know was that in the crowd was Phil Busse, former editor of the Portland Mercury: he's the reigning champ of W.U.Y.A. since at a gig during his mayoral campaign. He was able to guess that Doc Chopper had stuck a computer hard drive in his butt.
When the party was over, the girls took the car home, and I got to take one last ride with the Fabulous Franc.
In a NE Portland Neighborhood, if anyone was watching, they would have seen two clowns come out of the darkness on tall bikes and jump in a dumpster.