Sundance Gay Film Dispatch 2: Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Rex Lee, and a Taxi zum Xanax

World of Wonder's Fenton Bailey and Frameline's Michael Lumpkin 

In Park City, Albertsons’ supermarket is the great leveler: stars and plebeians alike, without braving guest lists, swing by and mix it up. My cashier had spotted Jessica Alba and Patrick Stewart amongst others coming through.

There was certainly no shortage of food at Sunday’s Outfest Queer Brunch, which was presented by here! Networks. Expected guest Paris Hilton was a no-show (“she slept in,” I was told – but she did manage to show up at Regent’s party for upcoming release The Hottie and the Nottie, in which she stars, later that eve), but the place was hoppin’ with schmooze, friends, and some disco dancing. Oh – and a brief bite of politics regarding the importance of digitizing queer film and ensuring its permanent survival.

The altitude isn’t the only thing high around here. World of Wonder’s Fenton Bailey and I shared a taxi cab driven by Park City’s most Zen-y drug dealer. After offering us bottles of V8, he very politely asked us if we needed “party favors.” Then he elaborated on what’s on tap, interjecting compliments like, “You guys have positive energy! You’re shining stars!” I was also running late to the Queer Lounge. Oh, he had some other things to offer as well. “If you want I can bring some of my friends, young, beautiful, pure.” As a parting gift, he handed me a Xanax. Fenton was lucky enough to stay in the taxi and head to a second stop, an even longer trip (so to speak) riddled with wrong turns, during which our new friend revealed he was a trauma nurse! Alas, Fenton was way, way late by the time he arrived at his destination to meet WOW partner Randy Barbato, whose energy was not exactly positive by then. They didn’t get Xanax swag, either!

Ah, swag take two. Rex Lee has been making out quite well. He even had himself a facial at the lovely, art-filled St. Ives Sensory Spa & Gallery. “I enjoy facials,” he later told me. “I love being pampered!” And I love the new moisturizing cleansers I managed to take away (this mountain air is drying!).

I ran into Lee at the Queer Lounge’s panel (moderated by The Advocate’s fabulous Anne Stockwell) for HBO’s upcoming WOW production, “When I Knew,” which will air this June. GLBTQ guests could record their own accounts of that pivotal revelation in a QL booth, which will later appear online (as well as accounts shot for the production).

A few queer interest films have been screened over the past couple of days. Sunshine Cleaning, about a couple of sisters who start a crime scene cleanup company, had a lesbian character in Mary Lynn Rajskub (24, Mysterious Skin), but its allegedly filmed lesbian kiss – between Rajskub and Emily Blunt - had been snipped.

Mysteries of Pittsburgh also had quite a lot of its queer content removed, at least from its Michael Chabon source novel. Peter Sarsgaard plays bi again. As for the mystery? It’s a snoozer!