No, I did not hear this brontasaurus-sized man in a warm support group room, a sweaty weight lifter’s gym or in the fiery hot Outback. I was, in fact, seated in a cold, damp, sparsely populated theater in New York City, watching a documentary, entitled “Liberty in Restraint”, concerning a Down Under fetish photographer and his sadomasochistic subjects. One of his models was this professional male “dom”, who related matter-of-factly how he got into the giving and receiving of pain, while a woman threaded a half-dozen hypodermic needles - sans the syringes - through the flesh of his upper arm, which was roughly the size of Russell Crowe’s torso.

This masked beast's inoculation inspiration was notable in light of the flu vaccine shortage that was plaguing the United States that October of 2004, thanks to incumbent Presidential candidate George W. Bush’s injecting billions of dollars intoinjecting billions of dollars into destructive and wasteful American military campaign since the Vietnam War. In fact, more than a few members of Little George's

As for myself, my motives for attending this, the final, awards night of this three day carnival of carnality, were only slightly more honorable than Bill’s were toward his harried assistant. I had come to see if by some chance my science fiction short, Proinhibition, which had screened the previous evening, had a shot at being crowned Best Short, or at least getting an Honorable Mention. By the end of the evening, the fact that I received neither honorarium did not bother me as much as the fact that I spent my last night in the City of Busby Berkeley watching people subject themselves and others to offenses of the mind, body and credit card.

Mind you, I initially attended the CineKink Festival with much enthusiasm, as it provided the first New York premiere in my cinematic career. While my previous features, “Made in Berlin” and “Vixen Highway”, have played at various festivals and showcases around the world, the City of Martin Scorcese had always remained elusive. I actually entered Proinhibition - whose story concerned Dr Rich S, the head of a rehab center in the year 2050 who must battle his own return to the bottle while obsessing over Mistress Maggie M, a dominatrix detained for treatment - to CineKink as a lark based on a friend’s recommendation. When the festival’s director, Lisa Vandever, accepted it for the 2004 edition, I was as thrilledas a submissive winning a year’s worth of free physical abuse.

Though the festival’s web site and its sponsors - mostly societies, periodicals, designers and real estate agents (I’m not kidding) devoted to “pain for pleasure” - made me uneasy, I flew to the metropolis with high hopes. My hopes, bear in mind, were not to get a distribution deal or my face on the covers of magazines - you have to get your film into Sundance, Cannes, Toronto and a couple of other places to get those baubles. Rather, I was looking forward to making some contacts for future productions, circulating amongst members of the sexual underworld and perhaps observing an impromptu flogging or two. When I entered the location of CineKink’s opening night party, a small dance club in the East Village called Remote Lounge, things looked only moderately promising.

For starters, I was greeted by a balding, forty-ish doorman who looked like Miguel Ferrar (Jose’s actor son, best known for his roles as the coke dealer in the Witness

CineKink’s founder confirmed my identification, and I introduced myself as the creator of the film that must surely have been the mildest entry in the schedule. “Oh, no!” Lisa replied, without a trace of irony, “Your movie is far from the mildest!” Considering that the other titles on the menu included “Slaves”, “Carve”, “Born in a Barn” - and, for the kids, “Mango Kiss” and “Hershey Kiss” - I was dubious about this.

In any case, within about a half hour, the place began to fill with patrons, only a few of whom were decked out in anything remotely “kinky.” The crowd was so ordinary,

who also hailed from Ireland. As Fiacre, Fiona and I chatted about pain, torture and Tom Jones, a long and quite annoying auction of metallic and electrical devices went on by the dance floor.

The annoyance was due entirely to the shrill voice of the auctioneer, a bloated, middle-aged S and M enthusiast named Lolita Wolf. This mad woman loudly called out bids for items, while a strapping young stud named - what else? - “Boymeat”, stood nearby covered in nothing but swaths of duct tape. Every time a successful bid was made on some article of clothing or confinement, the bidder could rip a piece of the duct tape off the stud, presumably causing some hair and flesh to go along with it. Boymeat’s pain, though, was nothing compared to the torment everyone in the room felt at the fingernails-on-blackboard screech of Lolita, who eventually drove me, Fiona and Fiacre out of Remote Lounge. I should note that Ms. Wolf did make up for her caterwauling a few weeks later by making special note of my film in her weekly blog. Admittedly, she crowned it “worst of the fest”, but it was good of her to help in promotion.

As for myself and my Irish compatriots, we walked to a bar across the street that Fiona had enthusiastically recommended, and that Fiacre was agreable with. I, however, was not so eager to sample its menu, as the management required that all patrons surrender their pants to the staff at the coat room before going in. Though I am up for a good cooling off of the legs now and again, and customers were allowed to keep their wallets in whatever makeshift pockets they had, the fact that Fiona was clearly the only woman in the very crowded canteen forced me to insist we head somewhere - anywhere - else. Besides, I only brought one pair of pants with me!

Whether any movies in CineKink 2004 were as intimidating - or welcoming, depending on your point of view - as this underwear factory was, I’m not sure, as I passed on the films that would be shown the following night, and day thereafter, of the festival, whose screenings were to take place at Anthology Film Archives in the East Village. Oh, some of the titles - namely “Dominatrix Waitrix” and “Alice in Footland” - sounded fun, and a couple of more - “Bush Beatin’” and “California State Recall - Folsom Street Style” - were certainly politically relevant. But, honestly, most of them indicated they might contain material which would cause me to explode with vomit at one of the city’s fine restaurants.

It wasn’t until late Saturday night when I finally entered the Archives, where my movie would begin the last block of screening of the day. Neither Fiacre nor Fiona, who had to fly back to Minneapolis that morning, were in attendance, and Miguel the doorman must have been busy protecting Remote Lounge. No reporters were present

I presumed this group belonged to one of the fetish societies that got a discount on tickets. This was not based on anything they wore - almost everyone in the house was in jeans and T-shirts - but on the serious discussion they had about thumb screws, studded clothing and, most particularly, the challenges of indoctrinating new recruits into the army of “kink.” To the concerns expressed on this final subject, one pear-shaped fellow of forty, who looked like he enjoyed after-school snacks while doling out pain, declared, “Hey, you gotta be patient! I mean, I went out with this one chick who was really reluctant about getting into my thing. Well, it took me a year, but, let me tell you, this girl was beggin’ me to fist her!”

As I gave this creep an expression I usually reserve for Halliburton executives, Lisa, standing behind a microphone on a podium near the stage, said, “Welcome to the final screening of today’s installment of CineKink.” Creep and his cell mates, as well as the rest of the crowd, sat down obediently. After thanking those especially obsessive types who endured that day’s slate of over thirteen creature features, Lisa announced the two remaining exhibitions of that night - my work and the main attraction, Bob Zak’s “The Asylum.” Though Proinhibition is thirty minutes long and involves live actors, I figured it must have been serving as “Asylum’s” cartoon trailer.

However, for the first fifteen minutes of my dark comedy, this didn’t seem to be the case, as the house was dead silent. It was not until the appearance of voluptuos

Jennifer Burleigh- Bentz as Mistress Maggie M in full fetish gear that the audience responded with appreciative chuckles. When the Mistress declared herself “the best non-skat dom in my district”, the roars of laughter were loud enough to cause me to wonder if dominatrixes who choose not to use their clients as outhouses are regarded as yellow-bellies. During

As the closing credits rolled, I felt good enough about this belated but enthusiastic response that I was ready to watch “The Asylum.” The program description of this hour-long piece, which dealt with a woman, Anastasia, who is “held captive in a fetish netherworld, totally under the latex-clad domination of the evil Doctor Darenzia” initially made me queasy. But, I figured if I could survive all two-and-a-half hours of “Caligula” - and God knows how many minutes of footage of Ron Jeremy nude - I could at least check out the first fifteen minutes of Anastasia’s ordeal.

I left after five.

Despite my ducking out on Doctor Darenzia’s aggressive examination of her patient - and despite my wariness about being in the company of Creep, Miguel, Lolita and Boymeat - I owed it to Lisa to attend the awards show on Sunday, the final night of CineKink 2004. Though I certainly did not expect it to be a “Night of a Hundred Stars”, I assumed there would at least be a few guys in zipper masks trading zingers before a house full of roustabouts. Instead, the screening room that was so well stocked the night before had a mere twenty exhausted looking occupants. I eventually realized the meager turnout was due, in part, to the fact that the films presented this hour had already been screened during the previous three days, and also that only
two of the award winning directors were in attendance.

One of those directors, Ryan J. Wolowski, who received an Honorable Mention for his short, “I Sit on Acid” gave the proceedings the only blast of awards-show zaniness when, just before the film screened, he warned, “Watch out, folks - this is for adults only!” As the three minute video unfolded, it was painfully clear he wasn’t being cute. After thirty seconds of close-ups of phalluses in action, I closed my eyes and contented myself with enjoying the fast, pulsating music on the soundtrack. This, of course, meant that I would never find out what the hell the title meant, but it was a small price to pay.

Once the “acid sitting” came to its screeching halt, and I opened my eyes, I was rewarded with the much more serene “Dream Human”, winner for Best Animation. The work was a computer-generated depiction of various metal parts floating in a futuristic universe that meet and meld together, before transmogrifying into a fully equipped sex pot dominatrix. Though I still dreaded the appearance of flying turds or violated sphincters, the work luckily climaxed with the dominatrix taking a bath in what appeared to be moisturizing cream. The only disappointment was that the film’s

director was not present to accept her award, a let-down in that I figured anyone who goes by the name “tsubasa” has got to have an acceptance speech worth hearing.

Alas, physical suffering reared its ugly head again with the next film, the official winner for Best Short. The director, Bryan Jackson, was on hand to accept his trophy, but unlike his predecessor, he did not provide any “adults only” warning. He would have been more than justified in doing so, as his eight minute endurance test, “Haircut”, gave new meaning to the phrase “a little off the top.”

As I emerged from the chamber of the Archives and headed toward a nearby bar that - thanks to its tropical “Gilligan’s Island” theme and grass-skirted waitresses - offered a rejuvenating breeze of tenderness, I wondered if Kona had chosen the best festival for my premiere in the City Where Russell Crowe Pounded That Poor Hotel Desk Clerk. I decided, in the end, that Lisa Vandever had run a very well organized and well attended showcase that, in addition to receiving quite a bit of press attention, should cause more than a few eyebrows to be raised and cocktail glasses to be dropped.

I also decided that, next time I get a flu shot or other vaccination, I’m going to make sure a female medical person is on hand to give me a big hug.

STARS______GUNS ______DRUGS______DOMS______ROOMIES