I'm lookin' on the brite side, but...

Some video highlights (okay, actually, just whatever I managed to shoot from my distant seat) from the True Colors Tour's Radio City Music Hall stop. The clips are saturated with Debbie Harry, my favorite of the three main artists, but include a fast flash of Beth Ditto, a morsel of Erasure and a fantastic Cyndi Lauper peek.

I enjoyed the show, but the audience made me want to break down and...cry...cry...cry...CRYYYYY. How can I erase hate when that's all I feel for every moron who treats a concert (even an admittedly long one) at Radio City as if it were an Olivia Cruise or a P-Town teadance? Fucking. Stay. In. Your. Seat. Want to stand up and dance? That's cool! But don't chat with your pals, get up and down for booze and wander aimlessly. Just ask yourself: What would Matthew Shepard do?

Debbie Harry True Colors Tour Part 2 of 3

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Maybe she'll know...I'm dying to hear "When U Were Mine."

Seeing the True Colors Tour at Radio City Music Hall was hit, miss and hits I’ve missed.

The tour was conceived by Cyndi Lauper and featured Erasure, Debbie Harry, The Gossip and The Dresden Dolls by way of music, and the comedy stylings of Margaret Cho and Rosie O’Donnell. Put on by LOGO and put on for (well, to the tune of a buck a ticket) the Human Rights Campaign, it’s considered an LGBT tour, and that is who showed up, displaying their true colors...like a rainbow.

When I was 13, Cyndi Lauper was it for me. I had seen “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” on MTV and decided she must be a whore; this was because I was 13 and secretly gay, and this is how secretly gay teenage boys sometimes react to females who are socially allowed to let on that they enjoy the company of males. But then I’d seen the video a few more times and decided I was in love with her voice, with the amateurishly choreographed offbeat tomboys in makeup, with her paradoxically playful sneer.

To walk in the sun...

I became obsessed with her album, East Village Vogue on the front, pumps with Van Gogh swirls on the back, rockabilly pop on the inside. She’s So Unusual...me, too. It felt like code. It even sounded like code: “I hope He will understand.” I did even if He didn’t.

Then I discovered Madonna and it was her battle to lose from that moment on. As quirky and unique as Cyndi looked, she was like the happy-go-lucky version of independence, whereas Madonna was more about the fuck-you-all version, the version to which we angrier gay boys could relate. True Colors came out later and while it was good, it was already a step down. Cyndi was not singing as wildly, returning with safer songs (even one repeat from her previous band, Blue Angel), and she was looking too glamorous. It was okay for Madonna to look glamorous, to sell out, to sing safe songs. She had never promised she wouldn’t, and somehow, proclaiming her unusualness, Cyndi had.

As a teen, I sent this original drawing—along with a copy of Blueboy Magazine for her to sign—to Cyndi Lauper. Dave Wolff sent it all back and curtly requested I not send more "pornography." I wondered if he'd ever even heard "She Bop?"

Over the years, Madonna far surpassed initially low expectations, and Cyndi fell short of initially high expectations. At least for me. But I never lost my affection for Cyndi, not by a longshot. Instead, I dutifully supported all of her music and even her forays into film—was that you I saw in the audience at Vibes?)

It’s silly to compare Cyndi Lauper to Madonna, and I hate when the media does it. But for me, I have no choice because they were my #1 and #2, and then my #2 and #1, favorite musical artists of the 1980s.

Erasure was a group I seem to remember discovering while in art class. I heard their music and heard gossip it was gay, which was exactly what had compelled me to buy Bronski Beat and Depeche Mode blind. These investments in “alternative” sounds turned out to be transformative. Some of the best music I’ve ever heard is on Wonderland, and unlike Cyndi, Erasure proved to be remarkably consistent over the years...perhaps to a fault. There are times when it seems all their music blurs into one big song. But if that’s true (and hearing some again reminds me it isn’t), it’s a pretty great song.

In love with a passionate heart...

Debbie Harry...where do I begin? I’ve written before that my Blondie devotion came after the band had split, and was motivated by my understanding that a much respected older cousin liked their music. It was helped along when my mom joined a record club and got Debbie’s KooKoo album for a penny. I was mesmerized by the Geiger cover of Debbie’s Garbo visage bloodlessly pierced through by spikes, and I dug the punky pop music, pierced through by that insouciant voice.

I was obsessed with Casey Kasem’s Top 40 and spent every dime I earned at Coconuts or Sam Goody or whatever the place across from Genesee Valley Mall was at the time, which made me hyper aware of new releases. When Deborah Harry popped up with Rockbird, I was on it. I put it on and immediately embraced her new sound, which was all set for mainstream saturation despite still retaining what I’d eventually realize is Debbie’s undercurrent of perversion. I mean, the single was “French Kissin’,” which was the kind you did with...tongue!

There is a new musical based on the delusional fanbase of Clay Aiken called Idol: The Musical that already wowed ’em in Syracuse (if you can make it there...well, try and see where else you could make it ’cuz ya never know!) and is now coming to Manhattan.

All the info is after the jump—they're looking to cast understudies and "future cast replacements," which must be comforting to the stars.

Who am I kidding? I'd pay to see it. I fucking paid to see Xanadu. Seriously.

As a movie, Xanadu made a great poster.

Camp is a wonderful language we can use to reassure others that we, too, see the ridiculous pomposity of a work of art, a person, a situation. It is a mean-spirited but satisfying, unifying laughter.

But sometimes, when camp is the goal, it’s like the gay version of frat humor, an LCD way to wallow in our shared inability to be better, smarter, wittier.

This week, I saw two Broadway shows, a record for me (and damned if I don’t have a third coming on Wednesday). Both shows have a queer sensibility among other sensibilities: the Tony-winning Spring Awakening and Xanadu, which is still in previews.

The former represents how exciting it is when we aim high and score, and the latter—at least for me—represents why aiming low sells ourselves short.

I have a love/hate relationship with Broadway. People say it’s dying, and I say it deserves to die if it’s going to be dominated by terrible, unimaginative, overpriced fare. It’s gotten to the point where worthless debacles are crowd-pleasers (Mamma Mia!) and pretty good shows are considered beyond brilliant (Wicked, The Drowsy Chaperone). When something as exciting as Spring Awakening comes along, there is invariably the backlash of “it’s not as great as they say.” But then whenever I decide to bite the bullet and check out something that sounds like crap to begin with (Grease, Saturday Night Fever, Xanadu), people are saying “it’s great if you don’t expect anything.”

Sorry, but I think you should expect something—anything—from a Broadway show, a TV show, a movie, a conversation or a walk in the park. Even escapist fluff can be fresh and funny. I’d rather see a show that’s challenging or even one that tries and fails, than to completely give up and allow stupidity to wash over me for two hours. I guess some people find it comforting to get all the jokes.

What a topsy-turvy world we live in where the best is never good enough and the worst is not half bad.

Spring Awakening is among the best things I’ve seen on Broadway. Revolving around a group of German youths in the 1800s struggling with verboten sexual urges, the rock-infused show has an unlikely setting, subject matter and sound, a cast of newcomers (well, new if you don’t count their long histories with this production) and an almost eroticized sense of the risks it takes with the stale musical medium. It’s a beautiful thing to see something take so many chances and to succeed. It’s inspirational.

Knowing is better than not knowing?

The woman and her daughter who sat behind me at Spring Awakening were insufferable know-it-alls who’d seen the show ad nauseum and wanted to chat about it before, during and after. The one useful thing they murmured was when the mother called the show depressing and the daughter said, “No, it’s not depressing! It’s uplifting!” I agreed with the daughter even as I hoped for a stray piece of scenery to decapitate them—the show has dark turns, but for me, I feel uplifted by any show, no matter how bleak or angry or negative, when part of it speaks to me. In the same way camp lets you know other people get the joke, a transcendent experience like Spring Awakening connects you to other people who get that it doesn’t always have to be a joke. It’s reassuring to know not everyone wants LCD. Not everyone aims low, gets drunk on New Year’s Eve, sings “Louie, Louie” at a toga party, takes meth and bangs anonymously, gets married and stays married only because it’s what’s expected. It’s uplifting to find other people who appreciate aiming high. Sure, they’ve achieved it and I’m only paying to watch them achieve it, but it’s a temporary bridge to their heights.

I won’t spoil any part of it, but I can’t recommend Spring Awakening highly enough. Believe the hype. Better yet, don’t let hype or anti-hype inform your expectations of anything.

With Xanadu, I went in knowing it was a spoof of the campy 1980 Olivia Newton-John bomb movie musical. Despite the film’s bad reputation, I used to think it was quite enchanting, and regardless of its sometimes stilted Gene Kelly interludes, it boasted some pretty exciting music. Even within the confines of parodying an existing work, there’s plenty of room to cook up an inspired work in its own right.

I don't like ripping anything a new asshole. I was ecstatic when I saw Spring Awakening, partly just so I could finally say out loud, "I LOVED THAT." But as happy as that made me, it's upsetting to have to say that Xanadu is Xanadoo-doo.

Original Xanaduers Michael Beck, Olivia Newton-John & Gene Kelly.

Actually, the best way for me to say it is that it’s a painfully unfunny show that everyone laughs along with because we’re making fun of ourselves for having loved the movie so much as kids and never realizing at the time how insipid it all was. One line in the fourth-wall-busting show refers to itself as “children’s theater for 40-year-old gay men.” It’s supposed to elevate things by acknowledging the show’s own basement-level goals, but for me, it was beyond cynical. I almost wondered if the writer—Douglas Carter Beane—was releasing some resentment over the idea that writing a Xanadu revue is coming after mounting original works like As Bees In Honey Drown and The Little Dog Laughed, but he has gone on record attacking those who looked down on him for taking this job.

I’m sure some people reading this would find my take snobbish. What, am I too good for Xanadu? Yes, I am too good for (this) Xanadu. What, don’t I have a sense of humor? Yes, I do...that’s the problem. Leg warmers in and of themselves are not funny enough. How can I embrace a show that uses “baby daddy,” “bitch” and “oh, no you di’nt” in under 90 minutes? Oops, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up! And neither can Broadway, now that it’s stooped so low that a no-brow franchise like Xanadu is in the ‘hood.

Butler Kerrys the show.

A few positives about Xanadu: Kerry Butler is brilliance on wheels (literally) and has a beautiful voice. Also, she mimics Olivia Newton-John perfectly, although I felt the show relied too heavily on the hilarity of her Australian accent and exaggerated emoting as Olivia. James Carpinello is out permanently with an injury, so we had Curtis Holbrook, an understudy who is not going to be allowed to take over (ouch) and who knows it (ouch). And you know what? He was excellent. He’s got a fine voice, the same energy level as Butler, mad skating skillz and he looks superb in shorts. I think it’s insulting for the producers to let anyone think that they think he’s not up to the material, considering the material is made up of lame ’80s jokes and Clash Of The Titans references. I actually liked the whole cast—Xanadu, for me, wound up being a beautifully executed, dreadful show.

Nothing makes a gay man laugh as fast as a woman.

And to me, there is something even sadder and more wasteful about the fact that the cast is as good as they are. I just wish the talents of Broadway would stop telling us we have to believe they are magic...and start showing us real magic a little more often.

Actually, the original Xanadu made more money than Fame at the b.o., the modern-day equivalent of about $55 million. Not a bomb.

The promotional video used for Madonna's "Hey You," the official Live Earth tune. It doesn't do anything for me because I don't think it creates a specific narrative. Some of the images are powerful, but stitched together, they become like a stock gallery. The most interesting part is the bold typography with dollar signs in place of the letter S.

Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple In All The World is looking like it will become a big hit for LOGO; I base this on the cult following behind the original piece (by Boy Culture director/co-writer Allan Brocka) and on the pretty fuckin' hilarious trailer.

Rick & Steve boasts A-list voice talent, including Margaret Cho, Wilson Cruz and Alan Cumming, plus original music by the makers of Avenue Q.

My favorite line is, "Promise me you won't have sex with anyone else after I die!" followed by, "But I have sex with other people now!" I like that the project is post-post-gay—the approach is not "let's assimilate" but "let's rub our faces in it." But more importantly, the trailer is a good indication that it's hysterically funny. "Rick is a man and I love him and we are gay, homosexual men," Steve tells his mom. Her reply is, "I don't understand," but gay people do and should. It looks like a great opportunity to put some of the mirth back into being gay.

Check it out July 10th on LOGO.

One thing I like about Rosie O'Donnell is that she will say in public the kinds of cutting things that I would say in private but am too concerned with being liked to say in public. In response to Barbara Walters telling (of all people!) Ryan Seacrest that she's "quite happy" with Rosie gone and that the panelists are able to discuss a variety of things that they couldn't discuss with Rosie on, like "heterosexual sex," Rosie's reply, from her highly entertaining personal blog:

And by the way—no way do I buy that ratings have been up since Rosie's departure. Perhaps up from the immediate plunge they took once she cleared out of there. But not up. Making Paris Hilton out to be a human being will only get you so far with Nielsen.

I saw and really liked Knocked Up. For me, it didn't quite live up to its hype as an A+ reinvention of what romantic comedies can be, but it's incredibly insightful, quite funny, original and surprisingly poignant. The performances are offbeat and natural, including an undeniably (movie) star-making turn by Katherine Heigl. Most impressive to me was the fact that the film generously allows time for the supporting cast to develop their parts. Perhaps thanks to the fact that she's married to the director (Judd Apatow), Cheryl Ladd look-alike Leslie Mann in particular gets an unusual amount of screen time in a part that could easily have been cookie-cutter. To her credit, she proves worthy of that focus, making the married sister into a complex, neurotic, self-doubting, bossy, emotional person. I know it's nuts, but I'd support the idea of a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her. Realizing this is the lightweight from George Of The Jungle reminds me of how when I was a kid I'd fantasize that one day I'd write movies and cast washed-up stars in them, allowing them triumphant comebacks.

But I have one bone to pick.

In one of the film's most hysterical scenes, Mann's character goes head to head with a pragmatic doorman who will not let her and Heigl's character into a club because the former's ass is old and the latter's womb is already spoken for—she's like six months or more pregnant. The tell-off and ensuing smack-down are classic, but when Mann sputters that the doorman is a "fag" with a "faggy" clipboard, I experienced that embarrassed feeling I always get when negative gay commentary pops up in a movie.

Is Knocked Up damaged goods?

I know post-gays would argue that it's my problem if my ego is so fragile I can't take the abuse, but I'm not going to pretend that nothing offends me just to seem cool and anti-PC. It doesn't bother me when characters speak or act in ways I find repugnant yet which are essential to who they are, but it's usually clear when the filmmaker is using those actions to comment on a character and not to endorse them. In a case like this—and it's not like this is the only film to do this—the repugnant behavior, gay slurs, is different. It's slipped in there unconsciously. When it's not in there for a reason, the content of a film is read by the viewers as being the acceptable norm. I believe Vito Russo wrote eloquently about this.

Now, it could be argued that Mann's character's outburst does inform her character, especially since the film is so centered on male/female relations—it could be that as a woman being devalued by a man would of course resort to childishly attempting to emasculate him. It definitely doesn't not work.

But it was disheartening for me, as it always is, particularly since I don't believe that the cast and makers of Knocked Up hate gay people (unless anyone knows something I don't). It's always a depressing moment because I tend to feel really stupid for being so wholeheartedly suckered into thinking "I really love this film and relate to it!" only to have this sort of sophomobic vein present itself.

The main reason it struck me and I bothered writing about it is: If Katherine Heigl is so fuckin' cool (as she seems to be) for sticking up for co-worker T.R. Knight when another co-worker calls him a "fag," why can't she also stick up for all the rest of us when a co-worker calls all of us fags?

Not calling for a boycott, just calling for awareness. Perversely, the funniest thing in Knocked Up isn't even in it—the Brokeback Mountain scene that is all over YouTube is dirty, hilarious and is pro-gay while being decidedly un-PC about it. The decision to remove that (possibly because it was too gay?) along with the "fag" references are not enough to make me despise the filmmakers or to hate on the film. But they're also not insignificant. Nothing is insignificant in even a brain-dead movie, let alone a brain-alive movie like Knocked Up. When you're making a film and sending it out into the world to be seen by millions of people forever, every frame is a statement, intended or not.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision ruling that interracial marriage could no longer be banned, Loving vs. Virginia. Incredibly, as late as 1967, 16 U.S. states outright banned interracial marriage. And people wonder why we've never had a black president yet.

I was tipped off by Mike Rogers to a matter-of-fact Freedom To Marry ad campaign that is using the Loving case as an apples-and-apples comparison to gay marriage. I know there are people of color who flatly reject any kind of use of their historical struggles with those of gays and lesbians, but the language used in the ’60s to defend the archaic laws is surprisingly similar to that used to demonize gay marriage today.

A famous interracial couple not used in the ads: Supreme Court "Justice" Clarence Thomas and his second wife, Ginni.

Gay marriage is happening, little by little. Over time, its existence as commonplace is a foregone conclusion. Polls regarding acceptance of gay people suggest it's just a matter of how quickly the old people die off. But I would like for it to come sooner rather than later, even if I don't take advantage of it. It wasn't so long after the Supreme Court stood up for interracial marriage that objections to the practice became as socially taboo as the practice itself had recently been; if gay marriage were supported the same way today, legally, it would have a dramatic impact on our society's already dramatically changing views on the subject.

Let's hope all the current liberal Supreme Court justices take their vitamins for the next 17 months, and that someone—anyone—on the left succeeds the failure that is George W. Bush. Hopefully, America will stop flirting with the idea of another Democratic president, pop the question and settle down for the kind of bright, progressive future that Bill Clinton's presidency initiated, but which was forestalled when Bush stubbornly decided to divorce our government from reason.

P.S. Bloggers are eligible to win two Brokeback Mountain DVDs for posting anything on the Loving anniversary; I own it already, so if I win...they're yours (or somebody's).

Q. Allan Brocka, Portuguese-award-winning director.

Boy Culture has won another award, its first non-specifically gay laurel: The City Of Setúbal Prize for American independent films at Portugal's Festroia. (Yes, I know Setúbal is not Lisbon, it's to the south, but the pun was irresistible.) The committee told Allan that this was a very hard year in that the members passionately argued about several films they deemed worthy, but that Boy Culture came out on top. What an amazing honor. Here is an extremely insightful description of the film from the fest's program, an award in and of itself. In particular, I like this:

"BOY CULTURE, almost uniquely among the current crop of gay films, explores the ways that issues of class, age, race and identity affect self-image of both youthful teenagers who must tame their hormones and elder statesmen who express regret for longings never clearly expressed. In its probing tenacity to get at the heart of matters of the heart, the film is attuned to both the best and the worst of what it means to be gay in the first decade of the new millenium."

No wonder the dolphins dig that place so much.

A positive Portuguese blog mention entitled "Trainspotting for youngsters."