Dave Garcia nicknamed the coolest hetero dude he met during his U.S. road trip. It's simply "Rock Star," a name the Swartz Creek-resident gave the guy due to his band involvement. "He's just the most liberal straight (guy) – like, 'everyone needs to leave people alone if they're not hurting you,'" Garcia gushes.
In Garcia's 75-minute documentary "Fences," which time-warps to the LGBT advocate's altar boy days through his 2005 road trip, he heads to Portland, Ore., in search of fave director Gus Van Sant.
"I wanted to talk to him about 'My Own Private Idaho,' 'cause when I was a junior in high school, that (movie) changed my life," he says.
Along the way, Garcia, 33, yaks with well-known religious right people and random folks – jugglers, a bartender and "Rock Star" – drawing out their take on LGBT issues. Some opinions, like Rock Star's, remain sincere, not tainted with even a smidgen of prejudice. But as Garcia discovers, most people aren't playing for the same band.
On LGBT prejudices among liberals
Even the liberal folks at some point, as I kept talking, somewhere in their own psyche, man, they too hold a prejudice. (Like) the bartender in Portland who was very pro-gay but doesn't want us to be able to get married. So, it was interesting to me that whether we would perceive them as liberal or conservative, somewhere, they had their own seed of prejudice and that was interesting to find – in everybody, in everyone.
Everyone's got a little something, a little prejudice against the gay community that I ran into – except for "Rock Star" – even if they seem like the most positive individual. As you kept talking to them, they would say something like, 'Yeah, but they (gay people) don't need to be kissing in public.' It's like, 'Well, where are you? OK, so you're not (Fred) Phelps. You're not (James) Dobson. I get that. But where is your seed or prejudice against the gay community?' That's what I hope comes across in the film. That it's not about Dobson. It's not about me. It's about people who are still on the fence.
On his inspiration for the documentary
Fred Phelps was out there blaming Hurricane Katrina on the gay community, and I was just tired of it. I decided I was gonna go around and get the average person's opinion on street corners. I just kind of wanted to get a normal, average opinion across the country about that kind of rhetoric.
On his three-week road trip
I went all over. To small towns, big towns, bars, street corners. I interview jugglers in the park, anybody that caught my eye. The whole time, I'm trying to find Gus Van Sant … 'cause I know he lives there and I did some research and found out what neighborhood he lives in. So once I get out here, I'm asking people questions about Gus, but also the same questions I've been asking all over the country. So the movie kind of continues to take you back to Portland, you keep going back and you see I'm getting closer and closer to where Gus is at.
On finding Gus Van Sant
By the time I actually get out to Portland – 'cause I just met the craziest, most interesting people and had these conversations – I really only had a day left. Of course, I had been doing a lot of research to pinpoint where he (Gus Van Sant) was, so I had a day once I got into Portland, to actually go and find him, and that ends pretty terribly.
On what shocked him the most
There were some very liberal people, pro-gay people in some of the smallest hick towns you can think of. In the middle of Montana, I meet this really cool lady who's very pro-gay (and) her husband's very anti-gay, and I'm having a conversation with them in a bowling alley in Montana. And so there are some very liberal people in small towns, conservative towns (where) you wouldn't expect to find (supporters), and then there are some very bigoted people in big towns, like Seattle and Portland and Albuquerque and Chicago. So I guess that was the one thing that sort of surprised me.
'Fences'
8 and 10 p.m. Aug. 24-25
2 p.m. Aug. 26
Cabaret and Gallery (across from aut BAR's patio)
325 Braun Court, Ann Arbor
Donations will be accepted at the door, and all proceeds will benefit the Washtenaw Rainbow Action Project (WRAP) and the Matthew Shepard Foundation.
