We went to the rally at the City Hall today. Serious stuff was going on, and the government wants to cut the funding for the homeless shelters for the transgendered, lesbien, gay, bi-sexual community, which means the homeless are going back out on the streets.
Check out the videos and the photos from the event, and hear Lucky Michaels talk about the cause!
The photos are on Flickr: Homeless rally at city hall

The first video is up on youtube now, the rest will be up very soon!

The 2009 Night of a Thousand Gowns, with the 3 finalists from the RuPauls Drag Race, these videos show each of Bebe Zahara Benet, Rebecca Glasscock and Nina Flowers performances.

The Night of a Thousand gowns were held this saturday at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, New York.

We went there to cover the event and to promote the Documentary Lost in The Crowd, which covers the same topics as the Night of a Thousand Gowns support with the silent auction. Homeless Youth of New York.

It’s very good initiative to host a party to support these organizations, people have fun and at the same time help people who are less fortunate. The night was full of entertainment and some outrageous costumes which is always a hit at the Night of a Thousand Gowns.

You can check out photos on flickr right here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/susigraf/sets/72157615726611287/

Here is the movie from the first performance of the night. The National Anthem.

This Sunday there was a rehersal by The Legendary House Of Ninja. They are having a performance tonight at the Goldman-Sonnenfeldt Auditorium of The JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave @ West 76th St.

Here are some images from the rehersal:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/susigraf/sets/72157615492387642/

And a video is on youtube here (more videos will be added soon):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtE0kP4q1IM&feature=channel_page

Apropos Parallel Universe: are you familiar with the theory of Hugh Everett? While doing work with transgendered youth I found myself developing an interest in quantum mechanics and theories of parallel universes. It helps when you make a documentary and learn a lot about the lives of many people to keep the larger picture in mind.  Astrophycicists have the entire universe as a lab and what can be more fascinating after a long days work learning about the devastating stories of kids on the street than learning about photons and string theory? Anyone interested? I am, by no means an expert but here’s what I found cool. For example, Einstein’s relativity theory proved that objects get pushed  not because there is gravitational pull but because space is pushing, the earth has curved space (remember those fantastic eclipse photographs) space therefore is adjustable. Space and time is the same and this space time fabric is explained in the Theory of Relativity. Once I’m done with this doc and the next that I have to finish and my novel then I have to look into this.

Again our composer Nicholas Wright had to wait. The final cut is a bitch! It’s always and forever taking longer than you think.

There are so many decisions to be made. 

Why make a movie about homeless youth in the first place? Isn’t it an ever expanding problem all over the world? And what can be done about it?

Once I started looking for homeless youth I quickly found out that most people I talked to admitted of being afraid to end up homeless. It’s a scary thought. No bed. 

Homeless youth are hard to follow around. They don’t have money to keep their prepaid phones working. They don’t have an address. They arrange to meet on a streetcorner next Tuesday and forget all about it because of the drugs. Or they get arrested. Or find a sugar daddy out of state. Or a trick comes along. Some OD. They do get in touch but not when you expect it. There were phone calls at 4:30 am hoping to talk me into getting up and sending a Western Union for $ 15 to Hoboken.

The twenty-third annual Night of a Thousand Gowns is coming up!
This is the most lavish, glamorous, outrageous event this side of anywhere!
A lot of special appearances will show up to help support the organisations.

This is a Charity Coronation Ball and Silent Auction to benefit MCCNY Homeless Youth Services and Life Beat – The music industry fights AIDS

You can read more about the event, and buy tickets here:
http://www.icny.org/tickets/

Today I learned that one of the kids in my movie most likely will have to go to jail. Upstate. For a few years. He/she blew it. Couldn’t follow the rules. Was caught selling illegal substances. There seems to be this rumour going around that jail is great if you are a transgender person. That inmates take care of you. That there are weddings in prison. it’s all a blast if you’re transgender and time flies in there. I wouldn’t count on it. What if you are wrong?

This is the first post on the Lost In The Crowd Blog.

Lost In The Crowd is a documentary still in production.
The planned releasedate of the documentary is may 15 2009.

Here you can read about the making of the Lost In The Crowd documentary, news about the production process, and what is happening in the community of the Transgendered homeless youth, in which the documentary focuses on.

Feel free to join the discussion by leaving comments, and stay updated by subscribing to the RSS-feed.