As I tried to log in this morning to InstinctMagazine.com, nothing was working. I sent a message off to the powers that be and told them our site was down. Then, for some reason, my brother decided to reset his wifi and router, thinking that it would work a little faster if he did so. No dice. He lost the whole thing. I'm staying with him for a couple of weeks while on vacation. Needless to say, I was beside myself. I waited while he worked on his connection in his condo in New Orleans and the bosses worked on Instinct in California. Do I go to Starbucks? McDonalds? A local hotel?
Finally everything is up and running and I pull up a message from one of our readers. It basically said, "Hi guys, Check out the new insider Film #EKAJ about LGBT Youth Homelessness and HIV/AIDS online for a limited time only! BEST FILM." Not everything we get is in English (my French is little rusty) nor is is appropriate, but I decided to take a look.
…
Of course, after viewing the video. I felt like shit, me and my first world problems (is that saying still okay to use?). My worry about not having the internet. My dependency on someone else to fix my problem as I tapped my toes and wondered if I was having an anxiety attack.
Have a look at the preview for EKAJ. There's some adult language and content in it, but nothing too offensive at all. It made my problems seem insignificant.
In the film, Ekaj, played by first-time actor Jake Mestre, is hoping to find someone to take care of him but ends up forced to trade sex for money in order to survive. His only friend is Mecca, another outcast who takes Ekaj under his wing but is struggling with his own challenges, including AIDS.
The story, Cati Gonzalez said, was inspired in part by Mike Gonzalez's real childhood experiences. His mother died of AIDS in the 1980s when he was just 6 years old, and he ended up living on the streets for three years when, at age 13, he had no family that would care for him, Cati said.
It was also inspired by Mestre himself, who Cati Gonzalez met during her 20-year career as a photographer. She describes him as "this beautiful kid loaded with problems, and shy."
"At the time, I wanted to make him a model," Cati Gonzalez said. "I never felt that way about discovering anyone before. I photographed some of the greatest faces in my career, but never got hooked as I did for him."
But Mestre would sabotage himself, she said.
"Even though he had a good response in the modeling industry, he would shave his eyebrows right before a casting, or he was always cutting his hair," Gonzalez said. "Always changing unexpectedly, never listening, impossible to control."
Still, she added, "The more that people told me to give up on him, the more I loved him. I identified with him in a mysterious way."
She wrote the script for "Ekaj" with Mestre in mind, along with many others she has known and loved — and sometimes lost — in New York City. – dnainfo.com
What a powerful clip. The movie came out last year but has been making the rounds n the film festivals and the like. Yes, it is a movie, but as it states above, it is based on someone's experiences. And this is one side of being LGBT and homeless. It is not what every one goes through. Imagine though, as we search for an internet connection, there are LGBT youth looking for their next place to sleep at night, next meal, next trick, next way out.
Sorry to be so gloomy, but it was a pretty big reality check I thought.
Have you been a homeless LGBT person?
Have you helped out a homeless LGBT youth or organization?
What organization do you respect to help homeless youth?
Do you have one in your community that needs a shout out?
h/t: distrify.com , dnainfo.com
id give EKAJ a homeÂ
id give EKAJ a home
Hi Adam, Thanks so much for
Hi Adam, Thanks so much for sharing the Film with your readers. Yes, it is a sad reality that many kids go homeless and hungry each night but being able to talk about it definitely helps raise awareness on the issues.
it’s so sad that there are so
it's so sad that there are so many homeless gay youth out there, when i was hanging in NYC in the 80"s i made a ew friends with a few, it was so sad some of the stories they told, I did open up my place to a few of them 🙂 but they drifted away