GAYLETTER

I can still see a 20-year-old me, cowering in front of my Facebook screen after the NYC Queer filmmaker and former contributing editor of BUTT Magazine Adam Baran publicly reamed me for posting a status which he found revolting and bourgeois (it was). His endlessly sophisticated proclivities include a deep appreciation for David Lynch‘s iconic TV show “Twin Peaks,” of which I have never watched a full episode. I will, however, be contributing to the Kickstarter campaign he has going for his new film, “Northwest Passage,” which follows the dark and incredible journey of a Twin Peaks super fanboy whose real life becomes as strange and Lynch-ian as….well….Lynch, and you should contribute too. Here’s why.

Nowadays Travis Blue is something of a legend in certain NYC circles, but in the early nineties he was a lonesome and cruelly abused gay boy living in rural Washington, until the magical day when David Lynch shows up to film his new TV show in Travis’s backyard. Stepping through the looking glass into the world of Lynch’s imagination, young Travis becomes a fixture on the set, and then in the passionate subculture of Twins Peaks fandom. As Travis’s fascination with Laura Palmer, the show’s gruesomely murdered heroine, becomes an obsession, Travis falls deeper down the rabbit hole as his life takes on the properties of his drugged-out, trick-turning TV role model, bringing him to the teetering edge of a similar fate.

Transcending Twin Peaks, and more than just a tale of superfandom, “Northwest Passage” is a thrilling/creepy/sexy look at one gay boy’s jaw dropping coming-of-age tale, and Baran sees it as an exploration of “how we as a society process fiction.” It bears echoes of “My Own Private Idaho“ and “Mysterious Skin,” only Travis’s story isn’t scripted, it’s all too real. When Adam fist met Travis he wanted to collaborate on a fictionalized piece, until he realized that the real life of his subject was weirder and more exciting than anything he could script, and the four year documentary process began. The film trailer on the Kickstarter page looks dope as hell, and the prizes Adam’s offering are amazing, especially if you’re a fan of the show (at one level of contribution the actress who played Lucy will record your phone’s voicemail in her iconic nasal simper). To hear Adam talk of his own journey with Twin Peaks (making the teenage pilgrimage from Jersey to Manhattan to gulp down the show at the old Museum of Radio and Television), as well as his flat out awe for the twists and turns of Travis Blue’s amazing life (and it takes a lot to impress this queen), it’s easy to see how the story will make a fantastic movie in his capable hands, full of as many laughs and screams as the show itself was (so I’ve heard).

I might just binge watch Twin Peaks this summer, but before that I’m gonna buy one of Adam’s handsome “Northwest Passage” mugs. I wanna see Travis Blue’s story on the big screen; let’s help Adam put it there. There’s two events where you can pledge to the Kickstarter on site: On Friday May 15, there’s a Twin Peaks Party at Videology at 308 Bedford Ave. BK, NY. from 9:30PM to 11:30PM featuring performances by Macy Rodman, Severely Mame, and A Place Both Wonderful And Strange; Friday May 22 is Twin Peaks Drag Night at Nowhere Bar at 322 E 14th St. NY, NY. with DJ Hot For Crime.

 
Do if for Laura…actually do it for Adam.