Bi The Way in the New York Times!

Are all women bi? Is sexuality as fluid as we guessed? Is Lindsay Lohan just following an evolutionary trend?

All the questions we hoped our film would spark are suddenly popping up in blogs and newspapers everywhere! The New York Times covered Bi The Way and its NYC premiere party in an article that came out last Thursday.

See all the illicit findings in our film and the ramifications for your own love life in Thursday’s New York Times:




As of right now, we have bumped up to the 8th most blogged about article in the Times! Check out the article, as well as a bunch of other articles that have sprung up in response. At the very bottom of this e-mail, you can find a link to photos from the party.

New York Times
“What Women Want (Maybe)”


Excerpt from the New York Times article “What Women Want (Maybe)”

---“For heterosexual women,” a researcher, Meredith Chivers, says in a new documentary about bisexuality called “Bi the Way,” which was shown at the NewFest film festival in New York last Friday, “looking at a naked man walking on the beach is about as exciting as looking at landscapes.”---



New York Magazine
“New Documentary Finds Women Turned On By Pretty Much Anything (Except Dudes)”


HuffPost
“Why Straight Women Dig Women”



New York Observer
“Times Says Lindsay’s Bisexuality Is Way Normal”


Excerpt from The New York Observer:
---Poor, Lindsay. No matter how hard she tries to be edgy with her girl-love, she's actually totally ordinary.---




Team Bi The Way can finally rest easy knowing that we’ve made the world a better place for Lindsay Lohan to express her sexuality…!

Salon.Com
“Are All Women A Little Bit Bi?”


Parlour Magazine
“Bi-Sexuality: Maybe Lindsay Lohan Isn’t the Only One”


Gawker
“Edgy Filmmakers Explore Girl-On-Girl Kissing”



Media Bistro
“The NYT: Validating All Your Girl on Girl Fantasies”


Excerpt from Media Bistro:

---The NYT's Style Section, ever the bearer of cutting edge cultural revelations, today brings us what is sure to be the most emailed article for the foreseeable future, not to mention the new corner stone of every man's late night argument that a little "lesbian" love is completely natural!---


It starts so innocently. You have a New York premiere. You have a few drinks. You have a lot of drinks. You give long interview to New York Times reporter. You become bisexual poster-child. Next to Lindsay Lohan.

See our photos from the party HERE!
http://picasaweb.google.com/bithewaymovie/NYCParty

Festival Screenings

Upcoming Screenings

Picture House

Pelham, New York

175 Wolfs Lane

Just 30 minutes from NYC

Pelham stop on Metro North's New Haven Line

Thursday, November 13th

7 pm

Buy your tickets here:

http://www.thepicturehouse.org/event.asp

GirlFest Hawaii

November  7 - 15

image + nation film festival

Montreal, Canada

November 20 - 30

Past Screenings

IN AMERICA

South by Southwest Film Festival
WORLD PREMIERE

March 2008
Austin TX

***AFI Silverdocs***
Washington DC

Provincetown International Film Festival

Frameline Film Festival
San Francisco CA

OUTFEST
Los Angeles, CA

Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival
Philadelphia PA

Maui Film Festival
Wailea, Hawaii

Boston International Film Festival

Newfest (NYC)
Covered 12 June in the New York Times!

Maryland Film Festival

Reel Pride Film Festival

Fresno, CA

Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival

Vail Film Festival

Birmingham Shout Festival

Tampa GLBT Film Festival

IndieMemphis Film Festival

West County Film Festival

Detroit Docs Festival

ABROAD

Atlantic Film Festival

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Queer Lisboa Film Festival

Lisbon, Portugal

Rio De Janeiro Film Festival

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Cambridge Film Festival

Cambridge, England

Women Make Waves

Taiwan

The Premiere Was Awesome !!

Howdy to all those in Austin who attended our premiere! It was a blast. We sold out the theater and got a standing ovation! But the highlight was after the screening, at our afterparty in the Enchanted Forest (ripe with burlesque dancers, beatboxers, body artists, and a whole host of elves creating art all around us). I got to dance with Tyson, who is apparently famous on YouTube for his incredible robot moves, but the best part was that someone who had seen the film came up and thanked me. "Your movie gave me a safe space. For those two hours, I could just relax and be myself and laugh and have fun, and I didn't have to worry. Those were the best two hours I've had in the last nine years." Yeah, it kinda tore me up. I suppose everyone cries at their afterparty. But most afterparties don't have mimes.

-- Josephine

Photos from the Premiere

we had a premiere pre-party at jim's place, a great old house at the top of a hill in south austin, not far from the alamo where we had our first screening. Pam, Taryn, Rage, Josh, & Joan were all there to gather for a quick "cast" photo. we were happy to have them all meet!

there were lots of friends at the premiere and many of them had cameras-- Brittany, Wilmot, Audrey, Jon, Eve, and lots of others: we're gathering pictures on picasaweb. we'll be adding them as people e.mail them to us.

Check out the photos we've posted already!

a few reviews online

I noticed reviews in the Austin Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, and online at indieWIRE and GreenCine Daily. Check 'em out! It's Exciting!

UPDATE: there's an interview by Real TV Films, a review on Cinemablend, and a metromix review for the upcoming baltimore screening.

Bi The Way Premire at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin TX on Saturday March 8th at 9pm

Well, we made it! Bi The Way is finally going to have its World Premiere, and man, what this really tells us is that it's good to have a deadline! We've been working on the film for almost three years now, and you can imagine how happy we are to see it all come together... especially at such a great festival! Of course, we still have to deal with animation, color correction, sound mix, and all the other ridiculously expensive factors that someone threw onto the tail end of filmmaking to make life insane just one more time...



COME TO OUR PREMIERE at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas! It's going to be so fun. We're having the biggest premiere party you've ever seen -- in a forest, with body art, elves, flame throwers, burlesque dancers, Bastard Fairies, and some bisexual shepherds. The World Premiere screening is Saturday March 8th -- a 9 pm showing at the Alamo South theater. It's a great venue and a really great time at the festival. Getting a Saturday night screening is a huuuuge deal. The other screening times will be Tuesday March 11th at 7 PM, and Thursday March 13th at 6:30 PM

Thanks for all your support!
Josephine & Brittany

So Much Has Happened

Since we last posted, so much has happened! We edited in New York. We moved to L.A. to edit. We moved to Portland OR to edit with Matt Clarke. And in-between we made a bunch of follow-up trips to our main characters' houses. Then we moved back to New York to put on the finishing touches and have more screenings. We picture locked just a few days ago!

back to new york

just off the plane from austin texas back in new york city, we left behind the spider house cafe, the stunted juniper trees of central texas, and jon & wendy's house-- one of the thousand places we've found the strong tradition of hospitality, particularly for those who travel purposefully. we miss filming, but we've just added more footage to our pile by the editing grindstone.

lobsters

i am a lobster.
no really.
we are all very very sunburnt.
because we spent today on a beach, filming a scene that may or may not go in the movie... but the ultimate plus was that as we were packing up, a man with a hookfull of catfish came past, and agreed to an interview.

when i asked him if he could get better fish with the longer rod, many standersby assumed i was being metaphoric. and i was. but not in the way that you think.

you see, the farther out you go, the more likely you are to get what you want. the fisherman said the same: "if you grow up in mississippi and never leave mississippi, and your soulmate lives in ohio, you probably won't find 'em." i would say the same about the rod.

how can you make a documentary if you only stay in new york city? you just can't. i didn't know the country until i went to the country. not that i know it all that much better... but at least instead of feeding it peanuts, i'll drop it some apples. you know? if you didn't know, america LOVES apples.

did you see forrest gump? they ate lobsters. we're going to submit ourselves to a well-known restaurant chain and then at least our crisp skin will become part of the economic system. in the mean time, we will be casting our lines, rubbing one another's backs, and hoping that part three of the road trip around america lands us closer to (or further from) our idea for this documentary. please submit your thoughts. i'd love to know if you think america is divided... or just a little sexually confused...

--josephine

russlerville arkansas witch

she calls herself a witch-- a title she is reclaiming from it's historically negative associations. here she explains and reads a fortune for brittany. she lifts up addicts, prepares healing herbs, studies archeaology, keeps two "husbands", practices alternate agriculture, runs a loose intentional community in the manner of ancient matriarchies of the steppe. she used to be an out and proud feminist lesbian, then she was a "back-sliding" lesbian in relationships with men and women alternately, and thirty years later is quite surprised to find herself with two different men at the same time, both of whom tolerate her relationship with the other. she says that her relationships with men are lower maintenance than her female-female relationships and that she doesn't have time for the intrigue.

we meet her through day brown who is one of her partners. she says they met over the internet more than seven years ago, and initially she was under the impression that he was a female lesbian living alone in the arkansas woods. she was struck by the power of "her" feminist ideas. when she went to meet "her" with the intention of connecting "her" to community so that "she" wouldn't be living all alone, she was surprised to discover that day was in fact a man and on the strength of thier intellectual connection they began a mostly friendship right away. this is our introduction to one point in a web of counter-cultural connections that extend throughout arkansas, tennessee (short mountain), missouri, ohio, and perhaps further if we look.

Ozark Pagans

here in the ozark mountains we find a rural area where, we're told, some counter-cultural elements from the 1960s and 70s moved in. now, day brown tells us, they run the schools and the local ACT scores are in the 90th percentile. day brown is a 70 year old man who's lived in the ozarks for the last 30 years. in the last seven or eight years he's become involved in breeding varieties of artichoke, potatoes, blessed thistle, and other herbs for effectiveness and affinity to the ozark climate. he believes there will be a growing market for herbs and, if his prognostications of the apocalypse come true, his living situation will scarcely change. he still eats mostly off the land. when the currency collapses, and war and famine ravage the cities, only a select few with any wherewithal will even make it out to this far off corner of the ozarks. the rest will die in the cities without medication, food, or any help.

via the internet, he stays quite well informed. when we ask a leading question of ours, "why do gay people exist, given that evolution selects against them," he fires back, "hold on a minute, being gay doesn't prevent you from passing your genes to the next generation." and we continue into some discussions of bisexuality in males and females, serial monogamy, poly pods, and the stabilizing influence of sex on men and women. and as we talk into the night, day tells us that the whole world is a matrix-- a projection out of the mind of the goddess. it's like movie the matrix, he says, except there's no world outside, just the goddess. then the real catch of this theory is that all the people you run into are in fact just avatars there to help you work out your karmic knots. you in fact wrote the script of your own matrix a long time ago, and you get little glimpses of your script in dreams. yes, the time you spend on the internet reading this was scripted by you a long time ago.

longhorn cattle

out on a ranch near ennis, we don't find exactly what we expect. there was some talk of the old red-blue dichotomy, but i'm not sure how many expectations we actually had given the unpredictability we've seen everywhere we've been. we discover the rancher here is a travelling audio engineer who raises longhorn cattle not for the meat but for the horns. and that there's an extensive trading network for these cattle. "tonight," he says, "they're puttin on a pretty good foreplay for you. they'll probably do it sometime after dark." it's the solstice, and the sun has just set out over the texas highlands. we ask if there are any lesbian cattle. he chuckles at the question and says, "wouldn't that be great."

bi conference in toronto

bi the way goes up toronto to film the annual bisexual conference. after a complicated turn of events, the details of which i'm not sure of, as i wasn't there, and probably wouldn't be sure of even if i was there, the directors realized the camera was GONE! STOLEN! and this photo of three filmmakers in the conference bathroom is all that remains of the trip.

along the big muddy in Memphis TN

there's all kinds of people and habits all up and down the mississippi. among them of course are our favorite kind, the bisexual kind. we're here in memphis following a subject. we've met girls who just assume that all girls like girls too. we've met baptist girls who say they see all kinds of girls together. they may think it's wrong, but they don't judge.

bronques at bitanic

he was one of many photographers roaming the boat, and he posted some pictures on his site. i think some were already taken down by request.

BI-TANIC the ship where everybody goes down

BI THE WAY a documentary on bisexuality in America, produced by Michael Huffington PRESENTS...

BI-TANIC:
THE PARTY THAT GOES DOWN ON YOU!
~A Burning-Man-meets-Valentine's-Day type of evening~

Double your pleasure on a night of endless potential and support a film that will change the world. Board the Bi-Tanic...

Next WEDNESDAY MARCH 22nd, 7:30pm-12:30am
at the FRYING PAN LIGHTSHIP --

a boat that floats right beside the West Side at Pier 63 on the Hudson River in Manhattan (23rd Street and the West Side Highway, One pier north of Chelsea Piers, just north of Basketball City) Just to be clear, the boat doesn't ever leave port, so come whenever you want and the party takes place INSIDE the ship, where it is HEATED.

OPEN BAR 7:30-8:30 pm with catered food from various nyc restaurants

Featuring:
* SNEAK PREVIEW clips from the documentary "Bi the Way"
* Bisexual performance artist/comedian NEAL MEDLYN
* DJ FINGER ON THE PULSE featured at SXSW
* JONAH BOKAER's acclaimed "NUDEDESCENDANCE" dance (featured in last
week's Village Voice)
* Free BODY ART provided by NYC BODY ART
* THE WAU WAU SISTERS cabaret
* APES AND ANDROIDS rock band
* The RED HOTS BURLESQUE
* A big bad bisexual DATE AUCTION! Sell yourself for the good of the
cause. Some celebrities may be available for purchase.
* Also with painted dancers, capoeira, and crumping.
* Raffle and auction featuring some incredible photographs and airline tickets!

With surprise CELEBRITY GUESTS (think bisexual ROCK STARS and comedians!)

and PEACHES will be there "unofficially"...

Ticket-Donations $25 Purchase tickets here.

Event sponsored by
Babeland (www.babeland.com)
NYC Body Art (www.nycbodyart.com)
Bombay Sapphire Gin

www.bithewaymovie.com
contact: bythewayproductions@gmail.com

Santa Catalina, Panama

a village on the jungle edge of the tropical pacific-- that's where Josephine & I stay for much of our time in panama. just before the end of the dirt road that dead ends on the beach is a thirty yard driveway that goes to the top of a small bluff. painted yellow, clay, red, & blue, frequently mopped and sheets drying in the breeze there's Las Cabañas de Rolo on a bluff from which you can see through the jungle garden to the bay. it's not the consistent surf break that put santa catalina on the map, that's around a point a bit to the east, but it's the home for our long satisfying days of exploration, discussion, & image-making. we meet locals, people from the states, swiss, israelis, french, australians, argentineans, portuguese, travelers, surfers, and travelers who have made a new home. and we're here to follow our insightful subject for bitheway. he has found many excellent reasons to spend time here . . . we have but one camera here -- the DVX100A -- and no computer. we'll have to get stills off that to put up here, later on.

espresso royale cafe, ann arbor

last night we had some dessert with ann arbor friends. this morning i'm in the espresso royale cafe. josephine just woke up & we're about to cut out for new york city. brittany is already in new york. jane is in toronto. nils on lopez island. i imagine there are going to be some big discussions of what we have on film now and what else we need to get on film. the sun is bright and the snowflakes are all six sided crystals whipping through the air.

pop-test: gay or straight? check your fingers.

here we are in ann arbor MI, we just got back from east lansing interviewing the professor who studied finger length as a marker for pre-natal testosterone. his research has been re-appropriated into pop-culture: "give me your hand or the hand of your two year old. i'll compare the length of your pointing finger and your ring finger, and i'll be able to tell you if you're gay or straight." or so you might think. unfortunately a little thing called statistics is in the way of the mighty pop-brain. this mis-interpretation is akin, statistically, to saying if you are over five foot seven you are a man and if you are under five foot seven you are a woman. all the study really found was that on average women whose pointing finger length to ring finger length ratio is smaller than average are more likely to be lesbian. on average means some of the time, but not all of the time or even most of the time. there is a better test to see if a woman is a lesbian that's at least 90% accurate. assume she is straight. and there's an even better test that's 99.9% accurate. if she feels safe enough to answer, ask her.

war & peace in documentary filmmaking

josephine has had a revelation about conflict, exploitation, and humanity in documentary filmmaking. we're here to follow a person's life. this may sound obvious to you abstract thinkers out there, but you can't just walk in and say to whoever's in front of the camera: "act naturally." people say, "it may sound mercenary, but you've got to go in and get your shot. you're making a movie. you trample things. people may make fun of you, but what can you do?" they may think they're just laying plain the realities of documentary film-making, but while driving south on interstate 65 from chicago in some epiphantic fit of envisioning, josephine exclaimed that you don't have to listen to those people.

no no she says, it's about the relationship you make with the person on film. if you care about the fate of the person and your own work as fitting in their life as a positive influence, the person will feel cared about. he'll know you have good intentions, that if he finds a way to be in front of the camera, it's for a postive reason, and that your work is a positive force in the world. he'll be happy to be in front of the camera. only then can a film-maker capture unguarded, real feelings that move audiences. and at that point the film is secondary to the friendship anyway. it's the actions of communication off camera between film-maker and actor that enrich the scenes that go on in front of a documentary camera.

of course good documentaries may already exhibit this. but there is a vast number of documentaries that exhibit inhumanity and tension between the film-maker and the filmed. here it's obvious to any audience that no one in front of or behind the camera is ever able to achieve any height or depth of human expression.

pre-thanksgiving evening lullaby

kevin really plays the piano. jospehine and i woke up to Gershwin this morning coming from kevin and his piano upstairs. josephine and kevin talk about composers and favorite pieces to play a fair bit, and here josephine is playing for kevin.
they've been talking about old piano teachers and influential people in our lives and loves. now it's time for more music. kevin's sister a political scientist and two friends and collagues are here for thanksgiving and interested in the documentary. earlier, it made for interesting discussion on sexual desires and their ebbs and flows in various people.

chicago now

many things have happened and i don't know if my memory can hold it all. luckily we have more than 100 hours of footage to supplement it. we've just arrived in chicago with Kevin our 2nd subject. some of the crew is still in los angeles with our 1st subject Taryn.

so busy i haven't kept up with my posts; so much has happened; so much there to tell. good thing we have lots of footage of it. but now i'm going to fill in important parts from the past and continue with the present. i've actually been saying i'd do that for a while now. i'm going back and filling in some posts still written in the present tense as if just happening. it's just that there are only 24 hours in a day and only one me, and yes i'm a living breathing human being. that means sometimes i eat; sometimes i sleep; sometimes i do one of 1,000 other tasks; sometimes i take a long dinner & just hang out and talk.

film-makers' stories filter into scenes

everything from the birthday is strewn all over the room. taryn and rage went home before we all went to sleep. the ukranian girls, home to their husbands. the screenwriters, home to their work-boards and plot-outlines. the actress and director left together. the people we met by the pool, gone together. all night long Brittany invited people to the avalon hotel after-party. unfortuneately they got the wrong room number written down and only a select group found their way to the penthouse; still, there were more than enough to fill the room, the dance floor, and the bed for some discussion and enjoyment.

the camera filtered throughout the limo, up, down, and between the dancers all night. today it's become even clearer that there is a strong meta-level in the documentary. scene after scene includes the directors themselves stirring up trouble to go in front of the camera. at least on that level us film-makers are in our own film, and more than likely on other levels too. jane and nils moved the camera around and made some beautiful tape of the scenes, colors, and movements.

wigs, dressing, & champagne; avalon hotel

the hour fast approaches. we're in our hotel room putting up some lights and decorations. i'm about to go collect some tonic water, cranberry juice, ginger ale, & coca-cola with the vodka, gin, & rum to back them up. wine and champagne to kick off the celebration. brittany's burning a party mix of music. jane is sorting through the wigs, boas, and knee high metallic boots or flip-flops. Taryn & Rage are on their way. Dave & Maggie too. Steph & Scott will meet us, our crew of 5, at Cha Cha Cha's in about 2 hours. There are too many voices and too much buzz to hear any one conversation. Taryn and Rage just came in. Rage is dressed as a scottsman and taryn is trying on a purple wig we have.

[...]

i just got back and now i hear maggie just popped a cork.

birthday party invitation, camera involved

On the fuzzy foggy feathery saturday night upon us in just two days here in the crossroads city of Los Angeles California, one Brittany Blockman is celebrating the beginning of her next quarter century on earth. She's an open-minded experimental woman. All her guests are open-mind and experimental too. She speaks fast and moves faster. All her guests are likely to do the same. In case you're one of them here's an outline of the night. call for specifics; i'll post more later, too.

5 November 2005
7:00pm Dinner at Cha Cha Cha's
9:30pm Clubs and Dancing
Midnight Hotel Avalon Penthouse

bythewayproductions@gmail.com

vietnamese restaurant

this buddha watches over us as we eat steak noodle stew, speak of the nature of only children, and plan our flight to a portland oasis. jane is here now and we're all excited to have another. the schedule changes frequently: we are unable to catch Dan Savage but those we do interview give us some good connections for other interviews further down the coast. our original plan had us going up to Vancouver BC where we had a few leads and a large film community, but harshly, we realize there are only 24 hours in a day and some of them are reserved for sleeping. in Portland we'll have a beautiful place to stay and some time to catch up on the footage that's piling up and get more of a handle on what's actually been digitized. it's decided. right after dinner, we pick up interstate 5 going south. it's misting lightly and after a hundred miles or so we pull off for a cup of tea. while the water boils, i have a good moment to set up my tripod and stand and drink tea while the shutter is open-- a good moment to realize where we are before hurrying to our next city and next interview.

auspicious arrival at pacific ocean

down the road from the Twin Peaks Motel in snoqualmie WA, we are charging a camera computer and cellphone batteries at a "mid-century kitsch" over Chai Tea and BLTs. the husband and wife who ran the place, it slowly came out, have had quite a few ups and downs in their relationship. "he drinks all the smoothies before the customers get a chance to order them," she tells me. we're waiting for a professor to arrive. Blue Suede Shoes and other oldies are on endless repeat, and the red colors are bright.

no matter, none other that sociology professor by day, sex doctor by night, pepper schwartz is in the door in a flash and we jump straight into her relationship paring ideas over a little something to eat. the woman who works there is riveted by every word about matching different personality types. if you're the type who reacts to eyes, she can nail you to the wall with a simple lingering look from her eyes. we're already in love. we follow her bright red car that zips around every corner through some back roads to her house. her interview makes you wish the movie was longer. she covers all manner of sociological issues and at the same time holds a sense of possibility suspended above our heads. love, excitement, ecstasy, could be around any corner. she never says impossible; she invites mystery; she closes no door.

Poke Free Bikes

as we drive, the temperature drops with every beam of warmth and light that folds itself behind some nearby hill, you can almost say cold. we pull off the old, brick and neon mainstreet, and drive a few blocks deeper into a small residential area. the streets are narrow and packed with cars; we slow and fill the only open spots by the side and back of a big white building. the duo we're following jump out into the cold air and we follow with some of our camera equipment. they're smart enough to be wearing knit hats-- an article that we, coming from the mid-fall southern desert, lack. we follow them down a lawn that funnels from three directions down to a basement door on the side of the old building. out of those doors pours bright light, a few metal clangs, and many voices high and low.

nate's preparing the houka; someone's getting a jug of cider from the welder who lives next door; two girls avidly discuss something-- what i cannot hear. my attention jumps to the tall circus bike they've built, to the t-shirts that say poke-free-bikes, to the thrift-store masterpieces worn by one of our guides, to the space earrings, to the history of the 95 year old former hydro-electric plant we're in, to the flower-garlands and black muskrat cat she's painted on the old stone walls. the couches are old and comfortable and someone sitting there is playing a long copper tube with a plastic-leather mouthpiece making long deep vibration sounds. now the houka is running and the couches are full of people and conversations. you can hear some hard metal music playing pretty low: people here are around college age in or out of idaho state university and they talk of a opening music venue elsewhere in the building and the history of the opened and quickly failed venues. when we bring the circus bike out into the street, the welder comes out to his doorway and calls out, "hey you never know what kind of activities you hippies will be up to next." nate sparks back, "we're not hippies." again: "what are you then?" ... "i dunno," he says more calmly as he rides the circus bike down the street under the sodium lights and we chased after with a camera and boom mike.

brigham young U at provo ut

sometimes you can feel the spark in the air-- a little electric feel of openness and willingness. you see a stranger next to you and you figure you can just try doing something together. the world is open for any experiment. if we have ideas, energy, a way to channel energy, mutual support, what can't be done?
you feel that way in Provo at the coffee house and music venue on university ave. kids are milling in and out of the place. there are 3 bands and assorted acoustic guitars being passed around. the ambient chatter here somehow seems full of possibility. many people here are BYU students with strict religious guidelines on sexual behavior. we meet three girls who want to discuss some of these very issues, excitedly, from the hour of 1am to 3am. the three sat in a row on the easy enveloping couch at the back of Giff's Corner, their friend's thrift store. they're giggly and excited to talk about feelings and experiences. they have some kind of trust in this experiment of human communication, some kind of trust that something of import is happening. there is less fear here in some ways, even as they speak of repressing & stamping out feelings that we all agreed are perfectly natural. it's a coexistence of open-mindedness and dogmatism we've now seen more than once on our trip.

does a direct interview approach incite our subjects to resort to their dogmatism? can we disarm them and give them space to open? i'm thinking of the Georgia O'Keefe's Angel's Trumpet or August Lily, or something, that opens up at sunset and closes again at mid-morning.

out of sedona northbound

we drive like a bat through the fine city of flagstaff az on our way to salt lake city. or we thought we were going to drive like some bird, but we see a mexican restaurant there and pull in for some sustenance. sitting in a booth nearby are four more good interview subjects. we quickly set up and exchange our bedtime for a few more words of love and life on film. brittany and josephine get a good rapport up right away, and the waiters and cooks wander around kind of wondering what's going on but not asking a word. they only smile, discuss among themselves with hushed voices, and generously replenish any empty water glass before any drinker or speaker notices. we close the place down and we're back out on u.s. highway 89 for northern arizona. it's roaring songs on patti smith's 2002 album trampin' that carries me though the wee hours into Page AZ for the night.

xanadu at oak creek sedona

mr. bracken of xanadu has painted his house many colors and he has as many goals for his house as there are colors of it. he has architectural CAD renderings of his future red rocks paint scheme, renderings of it's architectural history and architectural future, and a website for anyone who's interested. he briefly mentioned a few deals that went well some years ago that allows him the time to make his visions here on a roadside near sedona.

the domes are curved everywhere and shaped like a half buried egg. the dining room is sunken to the same level as the floor and a deep bench wraps around the table's edge. one bed is on an alice in wonderland toadstool about 4 feet off the ground with a ladder to get up to it. right there under the dome, my voice resounds back to me. we meet iamjoy nowjoy and starjoy, his three daughters. they are in home-school and each has an internet terminal molded into the wall. mr. bracken has ended the use of the words "war" and "hate" as well as some others within his domes. It's a partial vision in my opinion; it's a work in progress in his words.

sedona arizona

there is some mythic, mystic connection in sedona arizona. and in some people it brings out the question: do you believe in energy vorticies? energy centers? esp? spiritual healing? some kind of christian god? healing itself? the retired guy cleaning his window calls it all god's beauty. but the beauty at the restaurant is here for massage therapy. she believes in other more ancient powers. and all over we run into the influence of an older generation of hippies. maybe it's just because nils and i are pick-and-choose hippies. we love some bits, like the better groceries, but would rather forget others. but nevermind all that. the air smells like mountain pines. the cool crisp morning feels a bit like some ski town. josephine goes for a run. soon we're taking some southwestern green chile omeletes and grits in a spanish garden behind The Coffee Pot. we're just there digging the color casts on the cameras, talking to our future interviewees on the phone, and having a second cup of decaf.

I Heart Head

we heard tell of these two at the e.joy cafe in tempe. someone called them for us and we set up this meeting, planned for the hour it takes to apply the make-up, and got underway. now we're lost on the way to some apartment complex north of downtown phoenix. our directions say make a left to the cul de sac, but we just see an empty lot some non-descript bungalows and a circle K. some cell phones, some intuition and we're at the foot of an apartment complex with a half make-uped Austin out front. he's getting ready for us. he shows us in to johnny noir's apartment and goes to finish putting on make-up. we set up the place. all prepared, in comes the glam duo, Austin Head and Johnny Noir. they've been painting the Phoenix scene recently. they do songs. they make fun. they are the reason to hit the town in downtown Phoenix. they've put their bi - gay back & forth banter into a band called I Heart Head. Austin sings; Johnny does music. they're building a repertoire and planning to go international.

artists love & hospitality in tucson

Tucson treats us well. Last night, we met Revo Lution and discussed a grand caravan of bi-sexual love that would travel the country. Here she is thinking about the possibilities. Revo: in case you forgot, you were the Hula Girl dressed in white. I was the girl with the guy with the camera. That was a wild night and this morning, a bit slow to start, we take a brunch at the Good Egg, or the Bland Egg more accurately, that stretches into a long meal of discussing the zodiac and a longer day of more discussion, technology errands, and food stocks. Back in the car, we soon find Solar Culture mentioned in the previous post. from there we continue to the Pride Parade getting underway just as twilight turns to night. Lo and Behold, many of the people we met the previous day at Outoberfest are here again tonight. Our table at Casba Vegetarian Café grew from just us four to old and new acquaintances. Revo Lution is back with her hoops dancing to the music in the street. More interviews flow. "These labels are restrictive," many say, "I just am who I am and I feel how I feel." For the most part everyone here is very open. We interview one man who carried a ten foot two by four with two posters with bible quotes: he wasn't forcing anything on anyone, he was moved, he tells us, by the fact that the lord saved him from a life-threatening drug addiction fifteen years ago and that the lord helps him every day. moving along we hear about the hippie migration that converted this street in tucson to the amenable place it is today in the early 21st Century.

shop owners on 4th ave, tucson az

we just wanted you all to see this duo who has a shop on 4th ave in tucson. they were just on the porch enjoying the festivities. we discussed changes in tucson, the winter weather, and the uses and mis-uses of the internet until, mid-sentence, more interviews pulled me to task. what's you're favorite thing about Tucson?

here is a mask from tucson

a beautful mask made by a man in tucson who believes beauty will heal each human one by one. he believes the earth is unloved and the scale between the female and male gods has been out of balance for the last 2000 years. He has just come back from a trip to Greece to learn of the equal balance of masculine and feminine divinities. he feels that today, returning to the feminine will help re-balance the earth and bring peace among humans. it starts on a personal level and a personal friendship level, then maybe the local level. he runs & lives at an art gallery and music venue in downtown Tucson called Solar Culture. It's a collective of artists' work and his own work. And they have a pretty regular schedule of interesting musicians coming in. There's no doubt he's doing his part.

sexual fantasies

let's post up some sexual fantasies whatever kind you have. this is here for YOU to CONTRIBUTE. where should we start? we've collected a few to get going::

cats are pretty sexy but they tend to claw you and run off too soon.

group sex with four people i'm ACTUALLY ATTRACTED to.

sex in sacred places. like a burial ground. a church. stone cold floor. kind of near the altar.

in the train from kyoto to tokyo for just a minute and a half. or a place where you have to be quiet and discreet like staying at someone's house and controlling your passion so no one hears.

i haven't seen her in ten years. she comes into this cafe in new york. we'd been on opposite sides of the globe. she recognizes me. on the flash of seeing her what's about to happen is just obvious and any moment is too long to wait.

eyes wide shut style, anonymous, strict, unknown, masked.

i'm riding the bus home, just standing. a girl i've never seen before is sitting. we look at each other. we're both brave enough to keep looking into each others eyes. i get off at my stop. she gets off behind me. she says, "can i follow you home?" she follows me to my house and there's no stopping. we can't get out of our clothes fast enough.

i'm on beach at california, and we just sort of look at each other. he just sort of leads me down the beach to these rocks. we admire each others bodies ... he is hot.

i want to dominate a woman ... like ripping off the clothes of a girl where there's been a lot of tension for a long time. it's almost a public situation. i just start putting my hand down her shirt, forgetting all her buttons. up her skirt into her panties. warm. wet. my tongue in her mouth, her hands on my breasts.

roswell new mexico

we interviewed a high-school couple who knew many bisexuals at thier school. we moved on to an alien merchant who had been interviewed many times and was quite open-minded on the varieties of alien beliefs. when we asked about the sexuality of aliens he pointed out that they are usually grown in tanks. on second pass though he recalled a woman who says she was an alien in a past life and that aliens live and breed among us.

at the Out of This World Cafe there was a group of five who managed to steer any mention of bisexuality back into a conversation about the corrupted self-perpetuating government, the slide of morals, individuality, and political revolution. they called themselves rural people, self-educated legal scholars and they were all over the age of 50. they insisted there were bigger problems in our country than kinds of sexuality. soon enough we were off to meet a poly-amourous trio 150 miles away.

filmmakers doing what we do

we've got to run (again). but here's us just messing around some more.

Open Question: Do You Have Bi-dar?

The first of some open questions we're putting up for you to answer is this. Do you have bi-dar? Some people swear by their gay-dar, but what happens on the spectrum between gay and straight. Can you tell?

ride to roswell nm

we made a bee-line from dallas to roswell nm because we heard tell of sightings. not just alien sightings, but bi-sexual alien sightings. some of us in the car are surprised at the large distances between these points. we napped. we talked. we shot some scenery. we spent time in some regular west texas diners. we rolled past fields of funny looking oil pumps, too.

looking around the car, you could could see all manner of interesting sights.

when we got close to roswell and saw the lights on the top of the ferris wheel of the state fair we knew. ... we knew.

missed connections

you were out and you made the connection of a lifetime. now you're not sure if it was a dream or if it actually happened that one wild night:

you were cosmic kat at the cosmic cafe across from office depot. we were four diners who didn't want you to leave our table every time you came over. you have great tatoos. we were leaving for the road.

dallas TX -- it's time

we are pulling together our bags and people and microphones and communications devices and we are setting out before dawn tomorrow morning. the road will take us out into the texas highlands to new mexico and i am going to make some audio recordings and still images. and we're setting up for filming anywhere that looks good.

birds eye view

Here's looking out the plane window approaching Dallas Fort Worth. Non-descript & relentless yes. But when you think about it, these dwellings are filled with more ideas than you or i could imagine-- good bad & beautiful. We don't know what we'll find, but we know there's more than meets the eye. We all know people have more feelings of love than they express.

something to say

Perhaps you read or heard about our documentary and you've feel there's something you want to say. post here or e.mail us about getting on camera at the following address: info@bithewaymovie.com.

where we are

The road trip has had two phases so far. I say "so far" because there may be future travel filming elements just no longer in the car. there may be a trip to panama with Kevin along the pacific coast for new year's. there may be a trip to the south for another character. there may be return trips to follow up in los angeles and chicago. The road trip became two phases: Dallas to Seattle to L.A. and then a division of the crew. Two stayed in L.A. to film and two took off eastbound for Kevin in Chicago, eastern university professors & New York. Here are the cities of the phases and a map of phase one of the road trip to Los Angeles, the city where much happened and unfolded, and a map for phase two to chicago & new york.

Wed Oct 05: Dallas TX
Thu Oct 06: Roswell NM
Fri Oct 07: Socorro NM
Sat Oct 08: Tucson AZ
Sun Oct 09: Tucson & Tempe AZ
Mon Oct 10: Tempe AZ
Tue Oct 11: Sedona AZ

Wed Oct 12: Page AZ
Thu Oct 13: Beaver UT
Fri Oct 14: Provo UT
Sat Oct 15: Salt Lake City UT
Sun Oct 16: Boise ID
Mon Oct 17: Seattle WA
Tue Oct 18: Portland OR
Wed Oct 19: Portland OR
Thu Oct 20: Portland OR
Fri Oct 21: Portland OR
Sat Oct 22: Portland OR

Sun Oct 23: Crescent City CA
Mon Oct 24: San Francisco CA
Tue Oct 25: Sonoma CA
Wed Oct 26: Berkeley CA
Thu Oct 27: King City CA
Fri Oct 28: Los Angeles CA
Sat Oct 29: Los Angeles CA
Sun Oct 30: Baker CA
Mon Oct 31: Las Vegas NV
Tue Nov 01: Venice Beach CA
Wed Nov 02: Los Angeles CA
:
: 2 Weeks 2 Days
:
Fri Nov 18: Los Angeles CA

In those weeks, Nils flew back to Lopez WA. Brittany developed a relationship such that two subjects became important people in her life, and her in theirs. When the day came to leave, it was obvious that Brittany would stay with the 2 subjects and Jane, too, to film and heal her ankle. Josephine and Wilmot (me) took to the road again chicago-bound for Kevin's house and eastern university interviews. While Brittany and Jane live in Los Angeles, Josephine and I cover more cities, in the 2nd part of the road trip

Sat Nov 19: Littlefield AZ
Sun Nov 20: Laramie WY
Mon Nov 21: Des Moines IA
Tue Nov 22: Chicago IL
Wed Nov 23: Indiana Dunes IN
Thu Nov 24: Indiana Dunes IN
Fri Nov 25: Indiana Dunes IN
Sat Nov 26: Chicago IL
Sun Nov 27: Chicago IL
Mon Nov 28: Bloomington IN
Tue Nov 29: Lansing MI
Wed Nov 30: Ann Arbor MI
Thu Dec 01: Ann Arbor MI
Fri Dec 02: New York City

ok, josephine travels to panama with wilmot to film kevin in january. for mardi gras, brittany and jane leave to film new orleans and many bisexuals who live there. then in late april brittany travels to memphis with wilmot to film new main character pam. in june, it's time for a new roadtrip in the south to cover more of the country's ideas and practices. we include a return to main character, pam, and pick up a new potential main character, garrett.

Tue Jun 20: Arrive Dallas TX
Wed Jun 21: Dallas TX
Thu Jun 22: Morillton AR
Fri Jun 23: Memphis TN
Sat Jun 24: Memphis TN
Sun Jun 25: Memphis TN
Mon Jun 26: Memphis TN
Tue Jun 27: Oxford MS
Wed Jun 28: Jackson MS
Thu Jun 29: Hattiesburg MS
Fri Jun 30: Gulfport MS
Sat Jul 01: Pensacola FL
Sun Jul 02: Loxley AL
Mon Jul 03: Austin TX
Tue Jul 04: Austin TX
Wed Jul 05: Austin TX
Thu Jul 06: Austin TX
Fri Jul 07: Depart Austin TX

contribute

Things cost too much and our accounts are below empty, but we have one choice-- to keep going. If you're interested, if you can, contribute something so we can keep rolling, uncovering, interviewing, and loving. e.mail us at info@bithewaymovie.com or use the PayPal button on the sidebar.

what's the film about?

It's a doc on bisexuality, and it may just be the first glimpse into a whole new battleground. Young people, instead of packing their pickups and heading out to protests, are organizing in another way. They're rejecting labels. They're experimenting with new chemicals. They're practicing sexual uncertainty.

In a political climate that promotes absolutes, in a country that thinks in gay and straight, are we witnessing the newest kind of revolution?

Produced by former California Congressman Michael Huffington, "Bi The Way" traces the roots, transformations, and "comings out" of bisexuality in American culture and responds to the recent scientific studies and newspaper articles that have been interrogating or affirming the prevalence of bisexuality--through a roadtrip-style anthropological cum pop-cultural exploration of the phenomenon. We're determined to find out if the new 'fad' of bisexuality (in high schools and colleges across America) is really just a fad, as it's being portrayed in many articles (Ms., Glamour, Teen, the Washington Post), or if it's a systemic change in young people's perceptions of their own sexuality.

Our film intimately follows four young (ages 15 - 29) lives in different parts of the country and then also 'tests the waters' of our country's tolerance and its concept of the bi through interviews with the makers of "The OC," Ani DiFranco, sex researchers, Dan Savage, Angelina Jolie, teens, politicians, activists, Alan Cumming, a cage fighter, 'change' therapists, the director of "Planet of the Bisexuals," George W. Bush (ok, his agent's calling me back), college students, religious leaders, musicians, historians, the guys at Burger King, and the list goes on.

We're highlighting young people who are 'under the radar' questioning their sexuality without really drawing attention to it, or even necessarily being aware that they're doing it...

We aim to find out why and where some young people get to choose a life beyond definitions, and can question the way they love without social and emotional consequences, while others still fight a raging battle for acceptance. Learning how this generation of teens challenges social definitions will increase understanding of how outrageous and indeterminate sexual categories are, and will let us know which parts of the country still need help in accepting their sons and daughters, and themselves, as they are.

We use our main characters' stories as a jumping off point to explore the larger issues of bisexuality: What does the word bisexual really mean? What are the stereotypes of and challenges to a bisexual lifestyle? Can any label on sexuality really describe a person? And where is our society's sexuality headed?


So let's do it! Involving lots of underwater equipment and the cameraman from The Squid and the Whale, "Bi the Way" is a truly hip, strange, beautiful documentary with the potential to change the world... Or at least spread a little chaos.

The Directors