Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, not unlike
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, is apparently neither endorsing nor
opposing the medical marijuana initiative that will be on the state ballot this
November. This suggests that voters will approve
it, as polls suggest, and that politicians don't want to lose popularity. After all, voter support in Massachusetts could potentially match or even exceed the landslide support that decriminalization received in 2008. However, in response to a question from the famous Massachusetts activist known as Mike Cann, Governor Patrick DID confirm (or, at least, “strongly
suggested”) that if the initiative DOES pass, he will follow the will of the
voters and sign it into law.
This is AMAZING news.
Twenty years after former Massachusetts Governor William Weld endorsed it and after 12 years of overwhelming approval from voters in non-binding ballot questions, Massachusetts could finally have a medical marijuana
system in operation by this time in 2013. Of course, that’s assuming that nothing
happens between now and year’s end to reverse the movement towards taxation and
regulation over arrest and imprisonment. Let’s not forget that marijuana
legalization, adult films, and gay rights all had growing mainstream support
the late 70s and early 80s before a resurgence of conservatism restored the 'taboo' stigma to all of the above. My prayers
are going out that nothing will happen to change the tide. But assuming history
doesn’t repeat itself in that (frightening) regard, things are
looking pretty damn good for medical marijuana in Massachusetts. This is great news in ANY state, but Massachusetts has an almost unparalleled reputation in America for its contributions to medicine and education. There are decades of documented evidence demonstrating the efficacy of cannabis in treating patients suffering from cancer, AIDS, and MS. New findings show the benefits of cannabis in treating patients with Bipolar Disorder as well as staving off the progression of Alzheimer's and stalling the growth of cancerous tumors. The world of opportunities which would open up to Massachusetts researchers, and the benefits that findings would have on countless lives, is truly thrilling.
It would appear that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick is
following in the footsteps of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel, and Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in gradually distancing himself from hard-lined Prohibitionist
rhetoric on issues that pertain to reforming marijuana laws. That he is the
latest politician to choose a neutral or even moderately supportive position when
it comes to some form of legalization confirms an exciting and long overdue
trend. Perhaps I am being overly optimistic, but the fact that Governor Patrick
is famously good friends with President Barrack Obama gives me hope that the
White House will join the growing number of political forces in America who are
finally listening to the masses instead of arresting them.
Someday, I dream that Boston will be as peaceful and tolerant as Amsterdam...
“High School Honor Student By Day. Hollywood Hooker By Night.”
My parents’ worst nightmare. My greatest fantasy.
I have always loved movies about prostitutes, and have always related to them in ways that made little sense
to others. Maybe it’s because I wanted to please everyone and
didn’t feel that I’d done a good job unless I left a room smiling. Perhaps it’s
because I felt I had to play so many different roles with so many different
people in order to achieve such a goal. Whatever the reason, I definitely loved
that tagline from Robert Vincent O'Neill's Angel every time I passed it in the video store. It would not be until the 2003 DVD release that I finally saw the movie and
loved it. But by then I’d already formed a fantasy, based on the concept, and on the cover, and on Roger Ebert’s oft-reprinted original review. The movie lived up to that
fantasy. I myself could not.
In 2000, I was working at a store that sold rare laserdiscs
and DVDs. Before throwing out a batch of semi-defective laserdiscs, the owner
asked me if I had ever seen the film pressed onto all of the slightly marred
copies: Ken Russel’s Crimes of Passion. Then and now, I am ashamed to say I
had not. It was yet another film that I had formed a video store fantasy
around, and even my own version of the movie in my head that starred Andie
MacDowell and Madonna and had absolutely nothing to do with the plot of the
actual movie. I didn’t even know that it was about a career woman who shields
herself from heartbreak by masquerading as a streetwalker named “China Blue”
and engaging in outrageous encounters.
Seeing the movie was a turning point, not least of all because I better understood
where my desire to be a streetwalker came from: I wanted to be wanted, but didn't want to need that.
I don’t remember when I first wanted to be a prostitute, but
I do remember when I first put up an ad for myself online. I had been reading
about the escort industry and looking into reviews of some of New York’s more
popular male sex workers. I even befriended one through a chat room, a nurse
from Maine who I could have seen myself falling in love with at the time. I was
flagrantly open with friends and even family about my sex industry ambitions because I found nothing about them dishonorable. In my school of thought, being a whore is nowhere near as sinful as being a freeloader. I also felt that
it would be an invaluable insight for my writing, a means of understanding some
of the “fallen women” in film who had most inspired me and to get a view of
life from the other side of privilege. Of course, such an endeavor has since
become a stereotype for naïve young college students and overambitious
journalists. I could have lost my life. I could
also have gotten arrested. Between the two, I would have taken the former: death scares me way less than cops.
The closest I came
to being a male escort was the closest I came to being arrested, and so that’s
why I ultimately closed up shop right before the grand opening. I put up an ad
online—ahem, on an “AOL Personal Homepage” no less—and included pictures I’d
taken of myself looking pouty and sweet. I don’t remember much about my
description, but I do remember that my rate was $100/hr. At that time,
in 2002, the going rate for male escorts was around $300/hr, so I thought that
I might have a shot at establishing a good customer base thanks to being twenty
years old and relatively low-priced. I was insecure about being overweight, but even so, I thought I was a bargain. After all, I ALWAYS aim to be fair.
Rob '02: Trying to sell myself on AOL as a precocious boy next door.
I was so proud of myself for thinking of my customers that I failed to remember prostitution is illegal in this particular country. I remembered that reality vividly when an “interested customer” called me up and seemed a little too interested in the details of my one-man business operation. So I told him I’d decided to give up being a male escort and, at that moment, I did.
I often regretted not being brave enough to do what I wanted
to do in spite of the warnings of everyone in my life and, indeed, the state
and federal government of the United States of America. I can admit now that
they were right and I was wrong—not because it’s bad to be a prostitute, but
rather because I would have been bad at it. I had never even met a sex
worker until a visit to Amsterdam in 2006 lead me to one of the most popular
male brothels in the city: Singel 21. There I met one of the most interesting fellows I
have ever encountered, and the one who made me realize that prostitution was
not nearly as appropriate a line of work for me as I hoped it would be.
His name was Zortak, or that’s what it sounded like.
Something Hungarian. He was thirty seven and a twenty seven year old Dutchman, the youngest of the employees, was shocked that I wasn’t going off with
him. But I didn’t know that I had a choice. Zortak spotted me first, and I
thought that it was only right that I should go with him, despite the fact that
the twenty-seven year old was beautiful enough to remain in my dreams forever.
As we enjoyed mixed drinks in the lounge together, I told
Zortak that I had such tremendous respect for his profession, and that it had
in fact been my dream to be a sex worker. He looked at me in stunned disbelief.
I could see that he was at once confused and insulted, so I just smiled and
looked at the twinkling city of Amsterdam outside. I had dreamed of being a sex doctor to beautiful male patients. But Zortak's reality was entirely scripted and rooted in money, not sexual adventure. He and his co-workers were
all laughing and joking with one another in Dutch while we waited for the room
to be free, and I was convinced they were making fun of me. It bothered me because
I wanted to be viewed as an ally, not a john, and also because I really wished
I’d learned to speak the language before I left America. For a wannabe sex worker like me, nothing could be worse than rejection by Dutch prostitutes. However, a year
later, one of my friends said they were probably laughing over the only twenty-four year old in the establishment being a client.
From the moment I walked into the room and until the time I
walked out of the place, I put on a show. I got to be Marilyn Chambers, and I
got to give back to an experienced sex worker all of the attention and
affection that he had given to countless men before me. But that was the
problem, too. I was throwing off the whole transaction by playing the part of
“desirable one”, and upon realizing this I had to switch gears. That’s where
the guilt came in.
Spending time with a sex worker is like getting a massage or a pedicure: you can feel guilty about it, or you can
enjoy it. My experience with a prostitute was a combination of the two. After
our intimate encounter, we somehow got into a discussion of AIDS minutes before I left.
I forget the full context, but I believe that the man who owned the brothel had
inherited it from his partner, who had died of AIDS. It was an awkward
intrusion of reality, one which instantly burst the fantasy bubble moments before the fantasy was complete.
As I walked down the steps, I somehow managed to
accidentally make a call on my cell phone. I looked and realized someone
was on the other line, and it was my best friend’s father. My best friend, I
might add, was also my first love. We had broken up six months earlier, but remained as close as ever. With that having been said, I had no intention of calling he or
his parents after my evening with a sex worker. All this came about only
hours after I had arrived in Amsterdam, so between jet lag, White Widow, and afterglow, my
mind wasn’t absorbent enough of the details for me to recall whether my phone
got an answering machine or if I actually spoke to his father that
night. I’m still convinced that that gorgeous young Dutchman, who took my
politeness to Zortak as a rejection, cast a spell to cause the snafu.
He could only be a witch, for as I walked back to the hotel that night, his was the spell I was under.
I write films that are violent, romantic, and rooted in my fascination with sex and cinema. I think it’s ridiculous to ascribe artistic traits with an ethnicity, yet I cannot deny that I link being Italian with the passions that shape my work.
"Ik ben Angelo".
“Angelo de Vries” is the the name I use as a screenwriter. It is the purest side of myself, the constant essence of who I am, and it is only visible to people through my writing. I don’t want to suggest that I “created” Angelo to take some share of the load in a semi-schizophrenic, Stephen King’s The Dark Half kind of a way. It has more to do with presenting the sides of myself that won’t immediately come off to people unless they meet me through my work.
I first conceived of the idea for a new name after a humiliating experience that I had brought upon myself while living in Miami. After allowing myself to become romantically attached to someone whom I barely knew at all, someone who disappeared from my life with lots of my money and all of my self-respect, I felt like a different person. So different, in fact, that I wanted to separate myself from my lifelong identity by giving birth to a new one.
I created "Angelo de Vries" in Miami in August 2008. My birth name never felt like my own to begin with, but rather a gift which I inherited as the grandson of Robert Emerson Jeffrey. My father’s father was a fine man whose passing in 1976 left a gaping hole in my father’s family, one that I certainly could never fill. I’ve always felt a very literal closeness with my grandfather, whom I consider to be a guiding light in my life, but I’ve always felt a great insecurity about the fact that my name is really his name. I think that that must be part of why I have always felt such a need to be perfect—by “perfect”, I mean always able to make people feel happy, regardless of who they are or where they come from or how I feel around them. Robert Emerson Jeffrey is who I am, but it’s also a sort of post-modern riff on what I assume my expectations are. Coming up with a new name felt natural because I felt that there was a name out there which could describe "the real me"—I just had to find it.
When I was a child in the 80s, we spent summers on Cape Cod and frequented a grocery store that many will fondly recall: “Angelo’s”. Best known for their baked goods, I knew Angelo’s for their video section. That was the wonderful era when video stores thrived so much that supermarkets got in on the action. I still recall the now-classic films I could once only fantasize about as a child wandering down the 'Horror' aisle: The Company of Wolves, Demons, A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2, Creepshow, Piranha, Eaten Alive. But above all other videos, I most vividly remember the Media VHS for Creepers, an infamous New Line Cinema re-edit of Dario Argento’s Phenomena. The cover art, of a beautiful girl with half of her face taken off by flying insects, stuck out to me at every video store I frequented in my youth. But those images stood out most within the wholesome, brightly-lit, air-conditioned little universe of Angelo's Supermarket.
My childhood introduction to my future favorite filmmaker in the horror aisle of Angelo’s Grocery Store was half the reason I decided upon "my other first name". The other half was based on a lifelong insecurity about my ethnic identity. My ancestry is predominantly Irish-Scotch and Italian. My inherited face speaks to the former. But nothing about me physically speaks to the latter. So I chose the name “Angelo, because it is a distinctly Italian word for “angel”. I believe in angels, I’m a huge Buffy/Angel fan, and writing “Angelo” flows more naturally than my own name does. What I did not realize at the time was that the full name of my father's maternal grandfather, an Italian immigrant, was Angelo Callandrella. I had unconsciously gone from being named after my grandfather to naming myself after his father-in-law.
My paternal grandfather, after whom I was named, and my paternal grandmother,
whose father was also an 'Angelo'.
Sadly, there is no Dutch blood running through my veins, but the affinity I feel with The Netherlands and Dutch people goes much deeper than the flesh anyway. What I most connect with in the Dutch is the love of freedom, of tolerance, of embracing humanity and learning to flow with it, not against it. As such, I adopted “de Vries”, an extremely common Dutch surname, which translates to “the free”. I also chose this name after Xaviera de Vries (aka Xaviera Hollander), one of my heroes and author of one of my favorite books of all time, The Happy Hooker.
Madame Xaviera: AGELESS!
On April 12th, 2010, my favorite Dutchman of all almost literally Christened my creation at my favorite movie theater in the world. I attended a Q&A/screening at The Brattle Theater when my second favorite filmmaker, Paul Verhoeven, brilliantly paired a discussion of his book Jesus of Nazareth with one of the many Christian parables that define his film career: Robocop. I bought a copy of his book after a fascinating discussion and I asked him to sign it to “Angelo”. It was the first time I publicly identified as Angelo and the first time that name had been written in relation to me—and in a book about Jesus, no less! This photo, taken by my friend Danielle, captures how truly delighted I was that Paul Verhoeven got to meet "Angelo de Vries".
4/12/10: When I met Mr. Verhoeven, I wore my "Marilyn Chambers For President"
Paul Verhoeven is a magnificent artist and a beautiful human being who has been a huge influence on my creative development since I was ten years old. But he is “my second favorite filmmaker" because I can only have one favorite. That person, my idol and my “artistic father”, is Dario Argento.
I should note that my pride in being Italian and my connection to Italian cinema is very Dario-centric. All of my favorite Italian filmmakers worked in either Argento’s giallo oeuvre or some other subgenre of Italian horror. And I can’t say I loved any of their works until high school, when I gained a truly life-changing appreciation of Argento. My desire to appeal to an Italian audience is largely a tribute to the auteur from whom I have learned the most. Thus, when I read that Dario Argento would be at the 2010 Weekend of Horrors in Los Angeles, I flew across the country to meet him. I stayed in LA for months, trying to launch a writing career, before going home disillusioned and broke in the grand tradition of failed East Coast transplants. But all the time and money were worth it to meet the man of my cinematic dreams.
5/23/10: From left to right, it's my sister, my idol,
my muse, and me! :)
My sister Jennifer joined me in meeting Dario. She generously had him sign my copy of Opera, the film that most influenced my writing, “To Robert”. I am forever grateful to Jen for that, for it gave me the opportunity to have my copy of Phenomena, aka Creepers, signed from Argento “To Angelo”. That signature insures that I--as in Robert AND Angelo--will die with a smile on my face.
The Quentin Tarantino-meets-Tony Scott masterpiece True Romance was one of the defining films of my life. My dream of meeting my soul mate in a movie theater probably existed before that movie, but I credit Tarantino because his screenplay gave me incentive to believe it could, should, and WOULD happen.
Love In Conversation: Nine Minutes of True Romance
On September 10th, 2006, exactly thirteen years after “TRUE ROMANCE” opened in the US, I spent four hours conversing with a brilliant, dashing Greek journalist at my favorite Amsterdam coffee shop: “The Other Side”. Nothing tangible came of that epic night of rolling cigarettes and learning about one another, except that I couldn’t believe I was living my life as opposed to rewatching Casablanca. It all seems more surreal now, as I never saw him again. I gave him a glass pipe I had dubbed “Mr. Pointy” (after Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s stake), but I left Andreas with nothing else to remember me by.
Two years later, in Miami, a less idealized reenactment of True Romance would be spread across 36 hours of my life. I was living in South Beach, working on a screenplay, tracking the relatively disappointing chart performance of Madonna’s Hard Candy album. In an effort to show whatever support I could, I emailed a favorite Madonna site to tell them about an upcoming release party for the “Give It 2 Me” single, being held at the popular gay nightclub Twist.
Monday, July 28th was the release party for “Give It 2 Me”. I showed up alone and crushed hard on the bartender, a Madonna fan who bought me a drink for being the “Robert” who spread the word online. Upon realizing that his politeness and charm were still not to be taken as interest, I embarrassedly snuck out and walked home alone down Washington Street.
Two nights later, I decided to go back to Twist because I wanted to go home with someone this time. I still had the same foolish mentality—sit and wait at the end of the bar just like Jessica Walter in Play Misty For Me. That night, someone played the role of Clint Eastwood.
I’ll call him ‘Renoir’, for he was a rapper who adopted the name of a legendary painter. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to ask Renoir what his real name was, but that didn’t stop me from falling in love at first sight. In such a state, names don’t matter. Neither do logic, tact, nor self-respect. Renoir took a lonely boy at the end of the bar and made him feel like “the most beautiful girl in the world”. I was literally swept off my feet. Renoir was part of a group celebrating a friend’s birthday at Twist, and he immediately spotted me from across the bar and honed in.
We exchanged hardly any words before he said he’d like to talk to me in a place where we could hear each other. He went on to say his good-byes to friends while I patiently waited and watched one of my all-time favorite movies that so fatefully happened to be playing on the TV in the bar: SHOWGIRLS. I kid thee not, it was the scene where Nomi decides to throw away her ethics and go home with Zak. I don’t remember how much I saw that night of the infamous pool sex scene, for it wasn’t long before Renoir was leading me out of the bar and into my new life. It began with a stroll through South Beach, to the stone ledge between Ocean Drive and the sand. There we sat talking and smoking, just like Clarence and Alabama. His voice was beautiful and comforting. So were his eyes. He told me that he had to kiss me, and I felt so safe that I couldn’t fathom not falling in love.
Indeed, Renoir turned out to be a con artist. ANYONE could have picked up on that. Anyone, that is, who had not been so driven by the enduring adolescent fantasy of making True Romance an adult reality.
I could tell he was brilliant, and when he played me his music, I knew he was talented. The combination is deadly to an artist in love. Over the course of a day spent getting to know each other and a night spent clubbing, I found that he was sweet, witty, smart-alecky, sexy, carefree, protective, and bursting with enthusiasm. In my head, I swore off every other man, knowing I’d be faithful to Renoir alone.
Renoir and I were inseparable—for exactly a day and a half. Making plans that included my best friend seemed to prompt his sudden exit. Renoir disappeared while out running an errand, making up a story via text messages for why he would never be back. I was devastated, having lost a man I loved and intended to spend the rest of my life with. Even though I didn’t know his real name.
When I realized just how fantasy-oriented the preceding thirty six hours had been, the dark weight of reality caved in on me. I went to my laptop and looked at what he’d left on my screen: the fanpage for his music career. Reading the online biography, I finally learned his full name. I had already gotten his birth date, being an avid astrology fan, and so armed with this information I used an employment screening website to do a background check on Renoir.
Reading this stranger’s horrifying criminal record, I was suddenly paralyzed by the fear that the man behind the dead painter’s name would break into my apartment at any second to slit my throat. Renoir, who disappeared with a great deal of my money after we had been so intimate both physically and emotionally, turned out not only to be a career criminal but a sex offender as well. Reality invaded my being, and left me hollowed out. For over two years, I had no intimate relationships with men. The thought of having felt the way I did about a sex fiend temporarily snuffed out my libido. I became every bit the bitter, frustrated stereotype that one might expect a sexually deprived twenty-something to be: the aftershock had left me dismantled.
Renoir walked out of my life on August 1st, 2008. I subsequently lived in Boston and Los Angeles, and not until Valentine’s Day 2011 did I return to Miami. While there, I became intimate again, finished (most of) a screenplay, and made peace with memories of the experience and of the ensuing shame.
"Amid the chaos of that day....": The Ending of True Romance
Renoir was arrested several days after I last saw him, for failing to register as a sex offender in the state of Florida. But, as it turned out, that wasn't all. It would not be until 2012 that I learned he had committed an armed robbery in Boca Raton the day before I met him, and was using my apartment to hide out while on the run. Since then has been behind bars in a federal prison, where I often can't help but wonder if he remembers me.
Perhaps Renoir viewed me as a john and himself as a prostitute, having no idea that I believed him when he said he’d be with me forever. But I choose not to look at the story this way. The last words that Renoir sent me, in a text message, were “Don’t worry about me. I love you”. Renoir may have been a sociopath, a criminal, and even a sex offender, but deep in my heart, I was convinced these last words were not a lie.
"You're so cool, you're so cool, you're so cool....."
