When country singer Chely Wright came out as a lesbian a couple of years (already???) ago, many people I know scoffed. "Who?" was one response, as was, "Who cares?" It was just another example of the tunnelvision through which we see popular culture. If you're young, old people are off your radar, if you're a white suburbanite hip-hop culture might seem foreign (or, conversely, you might be obsessed with it) and if you're not into or surrounded by country music, it barely exists.
But Chely Wright was a major country star for a decade when she decided to come out, which she did with a big media splash courtesy of Howard Bragman—she was on magazine covers, on the radio, on morning shows and she was selling a memoir. Some gay people find this kind of...out-resourcing, let's call it...repulsive, taking offense that an artist's sexuality is being used to make money.
I disagree, and I think watching the new documentary Chely Wright: Wish Me Away—opening from First Run Features in NYC and Los Angeles June 1—a great argument is made for my way, and Chely's way, of thinking. It's not only about maximizing your buck because you might be out of work for a while, it's about using your public capital to draw attention to an important cause rather than squandering it in a completely self-centered, easy-way-out way.
I liked the idea of "Express Yourself" featuring elements of "Born This Way" on The MDNA Tour—gracious. But containing elements of "Born This Way" and "She's Not Me"? Not so gracious. If she were acting out against the media for conflating Gaga with Madonna, that's one thing. But making a statement with a song about a copycat boyfriend-stealer is another and feels like she's stooping.
Unless it's fake, then...never mind!
Love all the photos...great looks for this tour. I haven't thought, "Wow, great looks!" from early Madonna tour shots in forever.
This is one of those days when I think I'll want brunch, yet no one will want brunch with me. I know some things are great alone, like sex, but brunch alone cannot be compared to masturbation.
Imagine being a gay man (are you with me?) visiting a shrink for depression and instead having him tell you emphatically that the problem is you only think you're gay. See, you're actually straight. And keep in mind this is a person you're paying tons of money to. Talk about depressing! That's what happened to Max Hirsh, 22, pictured above. I can tell he's gay just from this photo. I mean, a striped shirt? Such a cocksucker. (Kidding, Max.) Meanwhile, let's hope this psychiatrist gets in trouble so deep even hypnotism can't bring him out of it.
With thanks to Cait: Don't keep reading if you don't wanna be spoiled—quite a few fantastic pictures of Madonna's dark-as-hell-looking MDNA Tour. From this taste, it looks to have more in common with Drowned World than her more recent outings. Looks amazing to me—modern and edgy. Love the dancers...
"Back to Me" (always an inviting position) is an editorial starring Jordan Regalado by Troy Wise for IA Privée Edition featuring pieces from Versace for H&M Cruise 2012...
Us (June 4, 2012) introduces the men of Magic Mike, as if we're not already intimately acquainted with every pore. But it never hurts to meet someone again and again...
I realy wouldn't kick any of them out of bed—we're talking Adam Rodriguez (who isn't even mentioned), Joe Manganiello, Matthew McConaughey, Matt Bomer, Alex Pettyfer and Channing Tatum. But tell me Bomer doesn't call to mind John Rocklin from Big Guns:
I love this James Bond-but-gay image of Matt Bomer from TV Guide (May 28—June 3, 2012). And yes, I cropped it. Below, the same mag offers a cute shot of the cast of Teen Wolf, which has Colton Haynes, Tyler Posey, Tyler Hoechlin and Dylan O'Brien:
National Enquirer (June 4, 2012) has been on Stephen Ira Beatty's case like a paparazzo's lens on Britney's fingernails. Now, they're reporting that Annette Bening and Warren Beatty's transgendered son is missing his femme side and has put off gender-reassignment surgery indefinitely in spite of already having his breasts removed. Chaz, it's your move. Here's hoping that at least one shred of the story is true, that being that Stephen Ira is happy and "loves his body."
I definitely fall in love every 10 minutes, but for real, Hector is one of my all-time favorite models. Troy Wise gets him in a hotel room (and shower) and styled by Rick Guzman for some amazing shots that were originally for Butt but rejected because Hector's too perfect and good-looking. I'm much more accepting of these flaws.
José is freaking out about what hideous rubes we look like in this 13.5-year-old picture so much that it takes him a good 30 seconds to realize the reason it's interesting is it's a photo of us taken at the top of the World Trade Center in September—thankfully, of 1998. I remember going up there vividly because it struck me as odd that you could press right up against the glass and see straight down. It didn't feel like other tall buildings I'd been in. I remember what this area looked like, and the area where they had the TKTS booth (for cut-rate Broadway shows). I wonder if the person who took this was still working there on 9/11. It's a horrible picture all right, but not just because I'm fat, we're in baggy clothes and my hair is unstyled.
According to a wildly homophobic piece in National Enquirer (June 4, 2012), John Travolta dressed in drag at a 1997 party, surprising all the guests, and this is more proof that he's gay. That and the fact that he also dressed in drag in Hairspray...you know, which was his job.
An anonymous pal says:
"It's one thing for John's lawyer to say the men making gay sex allegations are opportunists out for a quick buck. But pictures of John dressed in drag will open the curtain on the weird life he's apparently been living for years. It makes you wonder how often John dresses as a woman—and if Kelly has caught him doing it. It's sick, twisted stuff."
Sick and twisted? God, the bar is low for that these days.
But anyway, it's still fun seeing what a horrendously ugly woman Travolta makes even when he's not playing Edna Turnblad.
Via Sticky (Work Unfriendly): The PhD Underwear boys are here. By the way, don't scoff—getting a doctorate in underwear is hard. As a rock, in some cases.
Last night, I got last-minute tickets to Gossip at Terminal 5. Who haven't I seen there in recent times—I've enjoyed Lady Gaga, Scissor Sisters, Erasure, Yaz...the list goes on. Grabbed my friend Craig and we had a great time, even though my hate affair with G.A. continues.
Longer snippets in the middle of the vid
It actually wasn't grotesquely crowded, but we wound up behind a pair of attention magnets (round guy in gold lamé, among other things; tall guy with Adam Lamberty hair) who happened to take up a lot of space standing still, let alone doing what they were doing, which was shaking their raised fists through every song (at least at first). It's a rock concert, so what are you gonna do, complain? Ask people to enjoy themselves less? Might as well wear a button-up shirt with "OLD MAN" on the back. But it sucks to stand behind a girl who has to hold her hand in the air and wave it in large circles all around her head, barely missing yours and everyone else's. It was all very, "We GET this! We LOVE this!" more so than just pure personal enjoyment. To the boys: No disrespect intended and I admire your self-expression...I just don't ever want to stand behind it again. xoxo
Welcome to Gossip's "Perfect World"—read on for details
Then a couple of tiny girls moved ahead and past us and considering my history of serious issues with shorties pushing their way in front of me at concerts, I couldn't resist joking to Craig, "And here come the short girls." Unfortunately, one heard me and called me on it. I felt bad! I'm usually really good about talking trash inches from a person's face without them hearing, and in this case it wasn't really trash since as she pointed out she wasn't stopping in front of me or bugging me in any way. Sorry, woman.
But the good news is we soon shifted and wound up in front of the human trees and I had no more distractions.
Anyway, we had shown up in time to catch opening act The Ssion (say "SHUN" as in "passion") even though we'd missed Creep (who had the only good T-shirt for sale of all three acts). I actually loved The Ssion—very dancey and with a total genderfuck vibe on stage. Their sound is very catchy and very Book of Love. I'm now humming "My Love Grows in the Dark" every 10 minutes.
I was tickled to recognize that their dancing boys recreated Madonna's 1982 track-date choreography during the stand-out song "Clown" (which is already a dead ear-ringer for "Holiday"). The band also wound up incorporating some lines from "Keep It Together". (The strawberry blond dancing boy was fucking hot, BTW, in his Castro clone cut-offs.)
When silent movie star Ramon Novarro was murdered by lowlife brothers Paul and Tom Ferguson in the '60s, it became a notorious case of how the mighty can fall. Navarro, a staunch Catholic who was nonetheless gay and fond of gobbling up rentboys like some people go after a bunch of grapes, met his end due to a severe beating, but the bleak ends his killers met/are in the process of meeting at least match the crime.
According to William Van Meter—in a de-sensationalized, almost detached, always interesting piece for Out—the brothers disagreed over what happened, but both went to jail. Younger brother Tom wound up reoffending on parole (incredibly, the brutal killers were out after just seven years) and later committed suicide. Paul, a former beefcake model and experienced hustler, earned degrees in prison and yet also reoffended, apparently raping a woman in the '80s, a conviction he denies was fair. Of course, he always denied killing Novarro and now says it was a case where he hit the amorous actor once too hard resulting in his unfortunate demise.
Read the whole piece to find out why the real story is even more interensting than that laughable urban legend that Navarro arrived at the pearly gates with Rudolph Valentino's lead dildo in his gullet.
A documentary filmmaker thought composer and ultimate '70s celebrity Paul Williams (loved seeing him on game shows like Celebrity Sweepstakes) had died too young...until discovering he is still alive. The result is Paul Williams: Still Alive, and it looks to be right up my alley...
It may be a valid story that The Coalition of African American Pastors has announced its disagreement with the NAACP over marriage equality, but did Yahoo! have to make this particular story—complete with a helpful link to an anti-equality petition—a lead story? If that doesn't already smack of bias, the entire tone of the article is like a press release against gays, quoting the Coalition's head ad nauseuma and approvingly noting his ideas come from Martin Luther King Jr., God and St. Thomas Aquinas (not necessarily in that order). It's shockingly unjournalistic.
Even more interesting, as pointed out by a reader, the author of the piece, intern Meagan Clark, has a Twitter on which she states she loves Texas and Jesus.
I actually love this restaurant, but not enough to get naked for it.
And even though Mary Ann's in Chelsea is my all-time #1 favorite restaurant since moving to NYC 20 years ago, I'll never set foot in it again unless this manager gets his gay-hating ass fired. (My understanding is he still manages the Chelsea location despite losing a $1.6 million suit for harassing a lesbian chef by getting other employees to help pray away her gay.)
Enter for your chance to win 1 of 5 copies of eCupid from TLA Releasing! Just comment this blog with your thoughts on which two famous men (gay, straight or otherwise) would make an ideal fantasy couple. I'll pick 5 of you to win at random a week from today at 5PM EST. Good luck!
TLA Releasing presents
eCupid
A J.C. Calciano film featuring Morgan Fairchild
Available on DVD now
From the director of Is It Just Me? comes this sparkling romantic comedy which takes online dating to the extreme! Marshall is an overworked ad exec suffering from a serious case of the seven-year itch with his loving boyfriend. As Marshall's thirtieth birthday nears, he gets hell-bent on changing his life and comes across a mysterious dating app called eCupid which quickly turns his world upside down, overwhelming him with sexy guys at every turn! Firing on all cylinders with a sharp script, hot cast and even an extended cameo from Hollywood legend Morgan Fairchild, eCupid will win your heart!
Download the eCupid iPhone app for free here! Like eCupid on Facebook here!
Emmy-winning Big Bang Theory actor Jim Parsons—so brilliant in The Normal Heart and currently plugging his turn on Broadway in a revival of Harvey—has officially come out in a New York Times profile. Commenters on my site have for a couple of years insisted he is already out based on information that they have about how open he is in private. However, being professionally out—on the record—is different (and better) than a glass closet. Great news, and he did it in a way similar to how Matt Bomer did it, organically and without any mincing of words.
Belinda Carlisle is releasing her Belindia line at Bergdorf Goodman, but did you know she was also pitching a show with the same title? I felt fortunate to see the pitch over a year ago in the privacy of her collaborator's apartment (Dan Rucks of Dan-O-Rama fame). Now, everyone can see a cut of it—and can comment below why you think this is not on TV. It's very entertaining in a fish-out-of-water way even if you're not particularly familiar with Carlisle.
Belinda looks great, but those other Go-Go's really let themselves go!
Rucks says:
"Shopping this show has been a delicate process. Belinda and I have passed on several offers because a network wanted a 'back-stabbing drama or bitchiness' and we're not into producing a product like that. I think people are just about over these types of shows and Belindia will eventually find the right network or Internet venue. Don't forget, it took over five years to get RuPaul's Drag Race on the air—and now look! We're looking and open."
In the show, she lets go of her ego (well...almost!), gets her coccyx realigned (well...almost!) in a way that would get a thumbs-way-up from John Travolta and saves animals in India...
With the #1 debut of his album Trespassing, Adam Lambert becomes the very first out gay artist to debut at #1 and the first to have a #1 album at all. (Not counting that out gay artist who did it during Reconstruction.) Others like Melissa Etheridge or George Michael hit #1, but never after coming out. Congrats, kid!
Speaking of out singers, Matt Zarley is offering his fans a chance to co-star in his new music video for "Change Begins With Me".
Enter to win the co-starring gig by shooting and uploading a video of yourself displaying a written phrase (five words or less) that explains how you can make yourself a better person. Creativity counts, people! Matt will pick his 25 favorites to be used in his video.
Submit your film (10 seconds or less) here. (Log-in and password are both changevideo.) The contest is open through June 10th. Good luck!
Robert today, Robert in Times Square, Robert in DSS
Pretty sure I spotted Robert Joy the other day fleetingly in Times Square. He's worked steadily for 30 years, but to me he'll always be the nearly cuckolded Jim from Desperately Seeking Susan. Hating that I didn't grab him when I had the chance.
In spite of my slavish coverage of Broadway Bares for years and years, I find I simply can NOT get the org to send me press releases and treat me as actual press. Anyone have any contacts who can help in that regard? Until then, I just read on Queerty that there will be a Fire Island spin-off soon featuring some of my favorite dancers. I've never even set foot on Fire Island in all my 20 years in NYC...sickening, right?
Adele's Vogue UK cover tanked—it was one of the magazine's worst sellers ever in spite of her huge success in the world of music. Theories are that it was "over-edited" (too PhotoShopped) and that women known primarily for music don't usually sell well for the magazine. But couldn't another reason be that women reading Vogue are interested in being slim, and she isn't? Or maybe being Vogue is all about being classy and elegant and Adele is so earthy and real? (This is not a judgment on my part, this is my reading of what I think Vogue is all about.)
It's not about looking young but rather about living longer—a lot longer. Check out this piece on radical life extension. (Warning: You may age 18 months reading it!) How old would you want to live to be?
Quinn Christopher Jaxon & Co. are back in another Andrew Christian video. Christian seems to be taking over the Calvin Klein innovative-beefcake-marketing mantle with his never-ending series of sexed-up viral ads, no? Set to (the annoying) Kat Graham's (annoying) song "Put Your Graffiti On Me," this one is one of the more sensual clips in the series...
