This Sunday, March 20th, East Village Boys teams up again with art collective BLVCK AMERICA for the third installment of their BLVCK EYE film screening series at Liberty Hall at Ace Hotel New York. As guest presenters, EVB will be showing the cult classic Boys in the Sand by legendary director Wakefield Poole. Since we’re so excited to be showing this classic flick, we invited the film’s director to join us for a very rare Q&A session at the screening. To get your juices flowing for the upcoming event, we decided to double team Wakefield for an interview and get some insight on his body of work.

Saheer Umar: You are a respected filmmaker within the experimental film realm, yet your cult status is owed to your earlier work as a pioneering gay porn director. Is what you make “art”? Is it “porn”? What is the difference?

Wakefield Poole: A film is a film is a film. Every film is made in the same way. Film, camera, subject, shooting, developing, editing, distribution, and exhibition. This can be accomplished with thought and great care, or not. Billy Wilder once said, "That any film gets completed is a miracle!" When I made Boys in the Sand I 'd never made a film before, so I'd say it was an experimental film. I even edited the original film. I didn't know what a work print was. However the content was sexual and it gained it's reputation as the first crossover sex film, straight or gay. Bijou [above] was very experimental, as was Bible [below]. I learned more with each film I made. But, there’s always a “but”. I always say "Once a pornographer , always a pornographer!"

Saheer: Do you consider yourself part of the experimental film community or the porn community? Where do you feel more accepted?

Wakefield: I'm finally getting some recognition as an experimental filmmaker, sharing the bill with some of the best - [Andy] Warhol and [Kenneth] Anger. A short film I made for Andy's exhibit at the Whitney Museum is now in the film collection at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
Richard Welch: In your films there is a lot of tenderness and kissing, was that important to you?

Wakefield: What I filmed was real and the actors knew that I wanted a romantic feel to it. The first section of Boys in the Sand is about innocence and experimentation, the second about falling in love and finding a partner, and the third about freedom to be everything. Top, bottom and both at the same time. No role-playing. Each film I made was what I was thinking and where I was at the time.

Richard: There was no Viagra in those days - who was the fluffer?

Wakefield: I had no fluffer. There was only the cast, my camera and me. I didn't even have a crew much less a fluffer. I made sure that there was some attraction on the part of the actors. They really wanted each other.
Richard: For the sex scenes how many takes were there - or was it just one?

Wakefield: I didn't do multiple takes. For the sex scenes, I set up the action and just filmed. What I saw was what I got. I never instructed the actors as we were shooting. My camera only held 100 feet of film so when I had to change reels, I didn't even call cut. They just continued. I never said, "Now you fuck him for awhile". I really knew what would happen. The only direction I gave was in the exposition.

Saheer: What was the cultural climate like in regards to "Porno Chic" when you released Boys In The Sand?

Wakefield: There was no "Porno Chic". Marvin Shulman and I created it by treating Boys in the Sand like a real movie. We were the first to put our real names on porno, take ads in the New York Times, while risking arrest in doing so. We gave an advance screening for the fashion industry and invited all the legitimate press to previews. This was unheard of at that time. Remembe, Deep Throat opened almost a year after Boys, and they followed our lead in the way they promoted their film. They saw that big money could be made. I believe that Deep Throat wouldn't have happened in the same way without our lead.

I was interviewed for Inside Deep Throat and was asked what I felt about not getting credit for what I did for the porn industry - not just the gay industry but the whole industry. I answered that with their film it just might happen. I didn't make the cut of that film because they decided that it wasn't valid for what they were going for. I hope that all this comes to view with the release of Dirty Poole a new documentary based on my book, directed and produced by Jim Tushinski (That Man: Peter Berlin), which will have its festival premiere hopefully this fall.

Richard: From cruising to hunting: In Boys in the Sand there’s a romantic quality to the cruising. Now, with digital technology we are always on Grindr and the search for a partner has become more like a hunt than a cruise. In the film, a letter is sent and the guy awaits its return - weeks later. How do you think technology is changing the way we play and the way we form and maintain relationships?

Wakefield: You have to remember that these films are 40 years old. Things were not as pat as they are today. People related more to their partners then. We didn't have straight gay-for-pay performers in those days. We had bathhouses, but most cruising was done by just walking around. That's why there is so much walking in my films. I always said my films are about walking, taking off and putting on clothes with some sex thrown in. They are very much about foreplay. Today, that's not important. Take a Viagra, suck a little while, fuck a little while, and shoot you load! Not much more, with exception of Joe Gage who is still turning out some very erotic films. But again, remember, he is part of my era.

Richard: pre-AIDS innocence and carefree attitude - how was Fire Island in those halcyon days? Do you still vacation there? Any secret spots you recommend?

Wakefield: Fire Island was and still is one of the most beautiful places in the world. In the 1970s, there was no other place where you felt as free as you did there once you got off the ferry. I returned there in July of 2010 and the feeling was still there. I felt that at only one other time and place - that was at Woodstock. There the freedom dealt with drugs as much as the freedom to be yourself. No judgment at all.
Saheer: If you were to make a “porno” film today what would you do? Would it be different?

Wakefield: I couldn't make another film today because my films all deal with fantasy. The mood is broken once you suddenly appear out of nowhere wearing a condom. It's a very real thing and always brings you back to the health situation no matter how hot it might be.

Richard: What do you think about the gay porn scene today, with all the amateur content, etc?

Wakefield: I don't watch much porn anymore. I love the fact that young guys are filming themselves now. I believe that once you see yourself in a sexual situation you can never again say "I'm not hot." I'm 75 and while I still enjoy seeing beautiful men, I've been celibate for many years. I've had the best, so why keep trying to top it.

Check out Wakefield Poole’s work and documentary Dirty Pool here dirtypoole.com

Portraits and collection photography for EVB: Austin Green

Accessories and styling: Telfar Clemens
Boards and bikes: Model's own
Models: Frey Mudd, Abiah Hostvedt, Noma Han, and Ambrose Carter at Red NYC; David Thomas at Adam NYC; and Tyler White (unsigned)

I remember faces really well. It's a gift I never really asked for. It's been said that I can spot a bit actor who had appeared on some random episode of Wings or Six Feet Under, walking down West 4th street, and remember exactly what show and episode he or she was in. Again, I never asked for this gift. But, if you were to ask me what their name was, or more accurately, if you were to ask me what 70% of the people I encountered names were, I'd not only draw a blank, I'd most likely shift the focus to New York City's zoning laws or something equally drab. To put it plainly, when it comes to names, I've got room for improvement.

When I first met Telfar Clemens several years ago, I knew the name/face conundrum that had plagued me for years would be laid to rest. Telfar's persona practically begged for single name recognition, not unlike Madonna, Prince or Strangé (Grace Jones' character from the 1992 hit film Boomerang, naturally. C'mon, keep up with me people). He was young fashion hopeful that carried himself with an uncanny level of confidence and unwavering direction. At the time, I remember he was living in lower Manhattan, going to school and spending what time he had left over scouring the underbelly of Chinatown in search of materials to craft his designs. Over the years, I watched Telfar grow, not only as a young designer, but as a single-name-in-waiting.

A little while ago, EVB sent me on an assignment to chat with the Queens-to-Liberia-and-back-again New Yorker. During the course of our brief exchange, I got the sense that this drive, this need to design clothing, is a veritable "do or die" action for him. The mentality Telfar approaches design with is not unlike a bulldozer, blindly leveling ancient relics to pave the way to the future.

"In my life, (fashion) came before other aspects such as education or financial situations" he said. "I guess I had no choice but to give in to natural instinct and create my vision." His vision is simple: the progression and redefinition of American sportswear. From dabbling in his very outsiders take on the suburban grunge aesthetic, to transforming American sportswear staples into avant-garde drapery, his collections recall and almost pay tribute to the past, while quietly putting it to rest.

Recently, while working on one of his own collections for a guerilla showing during New York Fashion Week, Telfar was asked by American Apparel to collaborate on a small limited collection of garments that were made only using contents from a box of used T-shirts and scraps.

The collaboration, titled UN.DER T by TELFAR  is his first collaboration with a brand of AA's scale. And the task was welcomed with open arms. He said about it, "American Apparel was gracious enough to support a young designer... It's great for a major company to support those who are up-and-coming".

Though fashion is clearly in his DNA, it has not been the only industry to get his creative juices flowing. If you've been around downtown New York City in the past five years, chances are you've danced to the sounds of TELFAR, not the designer but the DJ. "I started DJing in 2004. My friend Melisa Burns thought I would be great at it", he recalls. "Shortly after, I began my own party called 'Something Tight'. The rest is Lower East Side history".

But it was no Larry Levan bootleg nor Madonna studio outtake that he would sling as his secret weapon to get the crowds to a fever pitch. The clever (and shall we say 'naughty') young man would wait just until the crowds were swelling with sweat and hunger and drop trou, exposing himself to the crowd for the remainder of the night. I guess it was a rather literal take on the term "full frontal fashion". "I think that's history for me", he said when speaking of hanging up his 'naked DJ' title. "I thought it was hilarious for someone to be completely naked at a club, which it was. But this was before party photo websites. It loses it's edge if you see "IT" too much."

While he still DJs regularly around downtown, his pants now stay up, and his shirt is safely buttoned. By conversation end, I sensed that there was little chance he'd renege on his descision to stop the strip show. And I don't think it mattered to him one bit. There just isn't enough time for Telfar Clemens to stop and ponder the past. He's aggressively looking toward a future where his name is in lights, six letters long and recognizably solitary. Surname need not apply.

If anyone could take an art school studio, plop seven near-naked, tattoo-speckled boys in front of blank canvases, give them blank paint brushes and have them "perform" the act of "blank painting", and actually make it work, (i.e. not bore the shit out of us), it's gotta be Terence Koh.

Photographs of the launch event shot for EVB by Elizabeth Lippman

This past Friday, EVB fought torrential wind and drizzle and trekked over to New York City's Cooper Union to catch a glimpse of the Terence Koh for Converse 1HUND(RED) Artists Chuck Taylor All Star launch. In typical Koh fashion, the event was exclusive, contextually odd and rather intimate (I think we knew everyone in the room... some of them, well, quite intimately). A select group of Downtown NYC so-and-so's and who's-who's mixed, mingled and marveled at the spectacle that was Koh's presentation of his vision of the iconic Converse Chuck Taylor.
Of course we staked out a spot equidistant between the booze and the boys and had perfect viewing of the arriving guests facial expressions. Ranging somewhere between befuddlement and childlike wonder, guests greeted friends and friends-for-the-night with kisses, bee-lining to the bar to prime their pumps for a night of possibility. While a few brave souls shed their inhibitions and danced to selector A-ron Bondaroff and his gang's bizarre, albeit hilarious mix of early-90s house hits and chopped up opera records, most played voyeur on the sidelines.

Finally, after an hour of sizing up eye-candy and awaiting the evenings honoree to arrive, in walks the Koh Bunny, draped of course in a festive fur vest, stretch pants and his (now) signature shoes (everything white, natch). Cameras rushed to Terence, quickly snapping pics as he played the coy centerpiece - it was like that scene in La Dolce Vita when Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni arrive at the tea party in her honor, battling off reporters and photographers with effortless style and grace, except whiter and whole lot weirder.
As a contributor to the 1HUND(RED) project, which donates a percentage of the net sales towards helping fight AIDS in Africa, Koh took a decidedly reductive approach to his shoe design. “I wanted to keep the DNA of the Chuck Taylor intact, while reducing the seams, and smoothing out the shoe’s surfaces as much as possible”.

As with the design, the stock list is also quite minimal. Available Saturday November 21 at select stores worldwide. So, if you've got $150 bucks rattling around your pockets, are between a size 7 and a 13 (that's SHOE size) and you're gagging for a pair, we'd suggest getting your pretty little asses down to Opening Ceremony in New York or Los Angeles because these will be gone like bunnies in winter.

Let the frenzy begin...

Let's first start by saying that not everyone loves Rufus Wainwright. I know, I know your brow just furled up in an "EVERYbody likes Rufus!" sorta way, but for "every body" that loves Rufus; there is an equal amount of haters on the other end of the spectrum. He is easily one of the more polarizing artist actively performing today. But in my opinion any artist worth the ticket price needs to be able to invoke an intense emotional reaction through their work that tugs at both ends of the rope. If not, we'd end up with a world overrun with Muzak and Everybody Loves Raymond reruns.

Today we bring you a track from Rufus that may (or may not) bring the two opposing, Pro/Con Rufus worlds to their knees and lovingly create singularity in this crazy world. I know it's a long shot, but I'm a faithful person.

This ones been floating around for a little bit, but today EVB nails it down long enough to give everyone chance to listen. This is "Tiergarten" remixed by super duo Supermayer (respectively Superpitcher and Michael Mayer). Enjoy!

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