www.ExpressGayNews.com • December 16, 2002 Q1 CYMK Q_COVERstory From U-tah to Porn-Stah BlueDoorFlixxx.tv Porn Star Takes it Off for ‘The Express’ By John Bryson to Catholicism when I was young. So, I ended up going News Editor to Catholic school and really just felt like I was in some ome people take strange and intriguing roads to kind of time warp. I’m serious! They are way behind the get to where they are in life, and rising porn star times there. Sand model Sam Tyson is no exception. Calling life as a kid in Utah akin to “living in a So how did you get out of there? Hitchhike? time warp,” Tyson has lived in Los Angeles since Greyhound? 1997 and is one of the featured models on the new (laughing) I moved out to go to Gonzaga University website www.BlueDoorFlixxx.tv—an innovative in upstate Washington. Unfortunately, it was the same site where customers can rent high-quality, full- type of area I had just left behind in Utah. I started there screen erotic movies or scenes for home viewing in ’92, where I basically lived until relocating to LA in ’97. for as little as $5.99 per movie or $1.99 per scene. Tyson has been recognized by Instinct What did you do once you got there? online magazine as their best male XXX Well, I have worked a lot as a bartender at a local LA newcomer of the year, and will be featured in nightclub. It’s only been fairly recently that I decided to four films for various production companies in foray into modeling and acting in the adult industry. Bar the coming weeks. patrons would mention that I should go see so and so or To gain some perspective on this experience, this guy, and finally I did get in with a local photographer The Express caught up with Sam last week and asked who eventually helped me to get where I am now. him a few questions about his life, how he came to When I was younger, I was a bigger kid. After I came work in the erotic entertainment industry and his out and moved to LA, I definitely came into my own. I role in the new website: started working out and eating well, and I fed off the change. What will you be doing for the website? I’ve been asked to be a spokesperson So, not only will you be appearing on the website’s for the website and to serve as one of its videos as a feature model, but you will be traveling around feature models. It’s been fun working with promoting the website at various events? them so far, and I hope that relationship Yeah, that’s right. Hopefully I’ll be able to have an continues. impact on the website and help them market an attractive product. For those of us not lucky enough to experience it, what was growing up in Utah So, when will the website be available? like? It’s available now! They’ve got categories for every I often felt like a stranger in my own house. type of guy, and the selection—especially since Bjorn My father was Mormon, but converted us all videos are being used—is awesome! Photo: Raymond Vino © 2002 Blue Door Productions, Inc. Q2 • www.ExpressGayNews.com • December 16, 2002 CYMK Q_MOVIEreview 8 Women: Watch the Fur Fly French Murder Mystery Is Delightful By Mary Damiano women quickly realize that the person Arts & Entertainment Editor responsible must be among them. As There’s a genre of movies called chick accusations and suspicions fly back and flicks, movies that you go to with your forth, enter the eighth woman, Pierrette girlfriends, kick back, chow down on popcorn (Fanny Ardant), Marcel’s sister, who has her and cry or reminisce about what it means to own secrets and agenda. be a girl, or get all empowered and want to When Pierrette arrives, the fun really kick some bad guy butt. Chick flick classics begins. The audience is treated to cat fights, include Sleepless in Seattle for crying, Little soap opera worthy secret revelations, girl- Darlings for reminiscing and Thelma and Louise for butt- kicking. Even though the new French film 8 Women features an entirely female cast, it is not a chick flick. It is a film for the woman in all of us. The French film, which boasts a stellar cast featuring beautiful, doesn’t-seem-to-age Catherine Deneuve, is a valentine to women and their special Photo by Jean-Claude Moireau dramas. It’s clear that out director Francois Ozon loves women, in Virginie Ledoyen, Danielle Darrieux, Fanny spite of, or rather, because of, Ardant, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, their underhanded, scheming, Emmanuelle Beart and Ludivine Sagnier manipulative and secretive ways. on-girl action—in short, a wild ride through It’s Christmas time in the 1950s, at a grand the many dramas of being a woman. Plus, house in the country. Luzon, (Virginie there are these really cool and quirky musical Ledoyen) has just returned home from school numbers that seem to come out of nowhere. for the holidays. Her mother, Gaby (Catherine Each character gets her own moment in the Deneuve), sister Catherine (Ludivine Sagnier) spotlight and reveals something about and grandmother Mamy (Danielle Darrieux) are herself through song. thrilled to see her. Her spinster aunt, Augustine What’s really great about 8 Women is (Isabelle Huppert), could care less. All the ladies that each character is fully drawn—a real in the house are attended to by their servants, flesh and blood woman. There are no family fixture Chanel (Firmine Richard) and the cardboard cutouts, just fully realized, maid who is a young double for Gaby, Louise complicated women. (Enanuelle Beart.) The cast is excellent, and the script is Suzon’s homecoming is going well until clever and original. 8 Women is a shoo-in for her father, Marcel, who has been in his room an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. resting, is found with a knife. The phone lines Don’t miss this classy, delightful film. 8 are cut, and they are snowed in, and the Women means eight times the fun. From Housewives to Lovers Lesbian Documentary Screened at West Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival By Tony Plakas Board of Education in 1987 for domestic partner Palm Beach Correspondent benefits and $1 million. When she won the Over 300 people watched a screening of suit in 1994, city of New York employees were the 55-minute lesbian documentary, Every granted domestic partner benefits. Today, Room in the House, on Monday, Dec. 9, at the Ruthie and Conie live “happily ever after” in Carefree Theater in West Palm Beach. The film, Brooklyn and West Palm Beach. made possible in part by the generosity of The festival was presented at the Carefree Beulah and Jack Friedman, was shown as part of the 13th annual Palm Beach County Jewish Film Festival, which took place Dec. 5- 15. The documentary follows two very funny, rather traditional housewives who turn their lives upside down as they discover passion, politics and each other. Both Beth and Connie came from working-class Jewish backgrounds in the 1950s, and Beth and Connie in ‘Every Room in the House’ followed the path that many women took: They got married and raised Theatre by the Jewish Arts Foundation. The families. Living in a New York development Carefree is known throughout Palm Beach called Contello Towers, referred to as the County as one of the oldest movie houses Jewish Ghetto, they met in 1958 and became and a favorite venue among West Palm Beach friends. locals. It has seating for up to 750 people and But in this case, the story takes a twist is a frequent site for art film screenings, acoustic when they leave their husbands for other guitarists, reggae bands and other live women, each other. For Connie, it was performers. liberating; for Ruthie, wrenching. As a teacher To find out more about the West Palm in the New York City schools nearing Beach’s Jewish Film Festival, visit their web retirement, Ruthie sued the New York City page at www.palmbeachjewishfilm.org. www.ExpressGayNews.com • December 16, 2002 Q3 CYMK Q_CONCERTreview Lambda Delights with Holiday Concert Handbell Choir adds a Festive Touch Lambda Chorale Women Photo by Steven Shires Lambda Chorale Men Photo by Steven Shires By Mary Damiano a festive sound to the singers’ soaring vocals. Arts & Entertainment Editor The performers, wearing crisp white gloves, The sights of the season and the sounds also performed several solos, including “Ode of the season came together Saturday, Dec. to Joy” and “O Come All Ye Faithful.” 7, as Lambda Chorale presented its annual In the second half of the show, Lambda holiday concert at the First Congregational eschewed their formal garb for more whimsical Church in Fort Lauderdale. attire—gay apparel, as the song says—Santa The church provided the perfect setting hats and antlers, red and green sweaters, for Lambda’s holiday songs. The walls and blinking stars and shirts depicting holiday windows were festooned with wreaths, scenes. candles, holly and lights, making for a warm They added their own brand of comedy and cozy concert. with “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas,” Lambda Chorale’s musical selections ran in which singers in pajamas and slippers sang, the gamut from little-heard Renaissance danced and did a soft shoe routine with giant carols to modern favorites, with a piece from candy canes.