MUSIC VIDEO PREMIERE: Jimmy Somerville Will Have You On Your Feet With 'Some Wonder'

MUSIC VIDEO PREMIERE: Jimmy Somerville Will Have You On Your Feet With 'Some Wonder'

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Towleroad is happy to present the U.S. premiere of “Some Wonder”, the new video from pop icon Jimmy Somerville’s forthcoming album Homage, set for release on March 10.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP

Said Somerville of the album: “I’ve finally made the disco album I always wanted to and never thought could. If I was 15 again I’d buy it, sit on my bed, slowly open the gate-fold, slide out the vinyl, place it on the turntable then jump off the bed and imagine someone just passed me a tambourine…I’d be in heaven!  The horns, the strings, the bass, the guitars, the drums, the backing vocals and the melody….the escape. So open your ears embrace the groove and pay homage to an all too easily derided sound … I LOVE Disco!”

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Andy Towle

www.towleroad.com/2015/03/music-video-premiere-jimmy-somerville-some-wonder.html

Adam Carolla Says He's 'Done Apologizing' For Jokes About Race And Sexuality

Adam Carolla Says He's 'Done Apologizing' For Jokes About Race And Sexuality
Adam Carolla is not sorry about his jokes that others find offensive.

When he stopped by HuffPost Live on Thursday to chat about the new film “Road Hard,” which Carolla co-wrote, co-directed and stars in, the comic responded to a viewer who asked for his take on Calling Out Carolla, a Tumblr blog that documents “anti-LGBT language” Carolla has used.

“Go find a politician or somebody who’s in charge and poke a popsicle stick up their butt,” Carolla answered. “I’m a comedian. I’m done apologizing, I really am. … And by the way, everyone who apologizes is faking it. They’re only doing it because they’re gonna get canned.”

Carolla added that he doesn’t feel responsible for how anyone interprets the things he says.

“You are in charge of your own feelings. I’m not in charge of your feelings. I’m here to make jokes. I’m here to make commentaries. I’m here to share my opinions,” he said. “Tough shit if you don’t like it.”

When host Josh Zepps suggested that activist groups may find Carolla’s jokes about race or sexuality offensive because he’s a straight white man, Carolla rejected the idea that “white privilege” colors his work.

“I worked cleaning up garbage on construction sites. I got welfare and food stamps. I was as poor as it could be,” Carolla said. “And there’s no, ‘Oh, you don’t have to dig because you’re white.’ … There’s no, ‘You don’t have to pick up garbage because you’re white.’ No, you pick up garbage because you’re poor. You guys focus on color. Focus on poverty.”

Carolla’s problem with the outraged response to jokes made by himself or other comedians is that he feels it distracts from truly harmful comments.

“There’s never been a better time in this country’s history to actually be a racist, because I’m a racist, according to you guys. So if I’m a racist — a guy who’s never done anything bad to any race — and you get to go be a racist too, and I’ll be the racist and I’ll take the heat [in the media],” Carolla said. “If you’re an actual racist, these are your salad days, because you’re busy pointing at comedians, calling them racist.”

The comedian closed out the discussion by saying society should turn its focus from entertainers to people who actively seek to damage minority groups.

“If you want to treat it like a problem — and it is a problem — let’s focus on where the problem is. Who are the actual racists? What is the actual homophobia?” he said. “I’m with you. I’ll grab a pitchfork and be with you.”

Watch Adam Carolla’s full HuffPost Live conversation.

Sign up for Live Today, HuffPost Live’s morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before!

www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/06/adam-carolla-done-apologizing_n_6811940.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Meet 'The Check It', America's Only Documented All-Gay Gang: VIDEO

Meet 'The Check It', America's Only Documented All-Gay Gang: VIDEO

Checkit

Filmmakers Toby Oppenheimer and Dana Flor spent the last three years documenting America’s only all-gay or trans gang, a group of approximately 200 African-American teens in Washington D.C. called ‘The Check It’, according to a crowdfunding appeal for their new film.

WarrenThe film follows three bullied teens and tells the story about how they started the gang, VICE reports:

The group formed to provide members safety in numbers and let people know that if you jumped a gay kid in DC, you’d likely get jumped back in retaliation. … Unlike other gangs, the Check It aren’t tied to a specific geographic location. They hang out at each others’ houses, mostly, as well as a local Denny’s and the Chinatown and Gallery Place Metro stations. And they didn’t have to do much to spread their name. A local go-go band called ReAction wrote a song about the gang and name-checked individual members. That meant people like [Trayvon] Warren (pictured) had a certain amount of notoriety, which allowed him to go to pretty much any neighborhood in DC without people giving him much trouble for being, as he and his friends put it, “faggie.”

Write the filmmakers:

At first glance, The Check It, our documentary subjects, seem to be unlikely gang–bangers.  Some of the boys wear lipstick and mascara, some stilettos. They carry Louis Vuitton bags, but they also carry knives, brass knuckles and mace.  As vulnerable gay and transgender youth, they’ve been shot, stabbed and raped.

Once victims, they’ve now turned the tables, beating people into comas and stabbing enemies with ice picks. Started in 2005 by a group of bullied 9th graders, today these 14–22 year old gang members all have rap sheets riddled with assault, armed robbery and drug dealing charges.

Led by an ex-convict named “Mo,” The Check It members are NOW creating their own clothing label, putting on fashion shows and working stints as runway models. But breaking the cycle of poverty and violence they’ve grown up in is a daunting task. So when The Check It are not taking small steps forward on the catwalk, they too often take massive steps backwards. CHECK IT captures the struggles and setbacks, but also the progress and triumphs of these kids.

The doc is produced by RadicalMedia and actor Steve Buscemi.

Watch their trailer, AFTER THE JUMP

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Andy Towle

www.towleroad.com/2015/03/thecheckit.html

8 Revelations About 'House Of Cards' From Creator Beau Willimon

8 Revelations About 'House Of Cards' From Creator Beau Willimon
The third season of “House of Cards” premiered on Netflix last week. And while most fans — guilty — have likely binged through all 13 episodes already, the experience was undoubtedly a different one than before: a slower pace and lack of eye-popping moments distinguished Season 3 from its scandalous, murderous predecessors.

To unpack all of the marital drama, sexual intimacy and tonal shifts in the new season, The Huffington Post hopped on the phone with “House of Cards” creator and executive producer Beau Willimon to discuss everything from Frank’s ambiguous sexuality to the Underwood’s first-ever sex scene.

Spoiler alert for all of “House of Cards” Season 3.

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1. Making Season 3 different was intentional
“In the first two seasons we devoted a lot of time to Frank and Claire’s political effort. What we really wanted to focus on this season — because now they’re at the top of the mountain and there’s nowhere higher to ascend — is how these characters feel about that. The stress that it puts upon them and their marriage helped us discover new layers that we haven’t had access to before. […] I think that if Frank wasn’t on the ropes in Season 3, that would’ve been false. […] From where we stand, if we didn’t try that then we would be getting comfortable in the groove and not challenging ourselves or the audience.”

2. Frank’s sexuality is supposed to be ambiguous
“People have asked me straight up, ‘Is Frank Underwood bisexual? Is he gay?’ And I don’t think Frank Underwood really puts much stock in those sort of labels. As he says in the Sentinel episode [in Season 1], ‘When I’m attracted to someone, I’m attracted to them. Period.’

“He’s a man with a large appetite, he’s a man who does not allow himself to be placed in any sort of milieu or with one definition. I think he’s incredibly guarded with who he lets get close to him, whether that’s platonic or whether that’s sexual. And when he does, it’s not necessarily a gender or preference, it really has to do with trust. There’s very few people in this world that we’ve created that he can trust. […] We try to approach Frank the way he approaches himself, which is not to sort of pin him down.”

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3. What did that intimate moment between Frank and Thomas Yates really mean?
“It’s an emotional connection. Not necessarily a sexual one, but it could be. It depends on how you look at that moment and I think there’s a lot of grey area there. […] At least for that moment, he can trust Thomas Yates, whether it evaporates quickly or not.”

4. We finally saw Frank & Claire have sex … but it wasn’t about sex
“In that scene Frank is perhaps the most vulnerable we’ve ever seen him and Claire recognizes that. Not to sound a little flippant about it, but she’s fucking the hope back into him, and the strength. We see the strength move from her to him. Sex is one way to do that.”

claire bed

5. But wait, what was that almost-rough-sex scene about?
“Later in the end of the season, we see it reversed. Claire wants Frank to fuck her, to be rough with her and sort of shake her out of this limbo that she’s in. And he doesn’t, in a way, return the favor. There you see the failure to consummate that moment, being one of many things that leads to the end of the season.

I often talk about love as being a transactional thing in the sense that if I give you my love, I expect your love in return. If I give you my vulnerability, my hope is that I will get your strength in return, and vice versa. That’s a good kind of transaction and more often than not, that’s the kind of transaction we see with the Underwoods. The problem is when that transaction breaks down and you’re not getting the love or strength you need in return, you’re vulnerability is simply vulnerability with no return on it. That’s when you see a union start to dissolve.”

6. So why did Frank reject Claire?
“It’s a difficult scene to jump on the phone and analyze without robbing it of its power. But if you put yourself in Frank’s shoes, this is coming out of the blue. This is a violent moment psychologically, emotionally, physically. You can’t necessarily blame him for not wanting to treat his wife the way she’s asking him to be treated.

“David Fincher told me this maxim and it’s so true and one of the best writing lessons I’ve ever learned: In a great scene everyone is right. And I think they’re both right in that scene. She needs something, something that is beyond language, something that is primitive and even violent. What he needs is order, he doesn’t need more chaos. He doesn’t need this violence. He is put off balance by it. You can’t blame him for that. When both people are right, but not right to each other, then you have conflict.”

7. No, Frank isn’t a sociopath. He can feel empathy
“We’ve seen Frank show his human side a lot. We’ve seen how strong of a connection he had with Tim Corbet. We’ve seen the way his friendship developed with Meechum and then in this season with Thomas Yates. Even when Peter Russo met his end, in his own sort of perverse way, Frank would’ve called that a mercy killing. He would’ve felt he was relieving this person of suffering.

“The big difference [between Frank and Claire] that you see in the sixth episode of Season 3 is that Claire, for the first time allows that side of her to display itself on the world’s stage, literally. Where Frank may have empathy, he also has an incredible ability to compartmentalize it, to compress it, to make sure it doesn’t threaten his goals. The reason he’s so upset with Claire is she allowed her empathy to derail something they’d both been working towards.”

clare leaves

8. If there’s a Season 4, can the Underwoods possibly exist without each other?
“If there is a subsequent season that’s precisely the question one should be asking. […] I think [Claire] is very much in love with her husband when we start this series, and she may still be in love with him when we get to the final episode of Season 3. But this union is not making her the person she wants to be. And maybe this man is no longer the man that she needs in order to fully be her complete realized self. That’s where we leave it.”

“House of Cards” Season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/06/house-of-cards-beau-willimon-frank_n_6810828.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Matt Baume's Field Guide for Spotting Sneaky Homophobic Laws (And How to Stop Them) – VIDEO

Matt Baume's Field Guide for Spotting Sneaky Homophobic Laws (And How to Stop Them) – VIDEO

Baume

In a special two part video, Matt Baume takes viewers on a safari adventure through the country as he points out the four major types of anti-LGBT laws that are stealthily stealing away civil rights for everyone and what we can all do to stand up to this homophobic backlash.

Said Baume:

“Anti-gay discrimination is going extinct. But it’s not going without a fight. A beast is at its most desperate when its facing starvation. So it will do anything to adapt, to survive, and to pass itself on to the next generation.”

Check it out, AFTER THE JUMP

Previously, “Matt Baume Tackles Arkansas’ New Anti-LGBT Law and the Terrifying Roadmap Towards Future Discrimination” [tlrd]

 

 

 


Kyler Geoffroy

www.towleroad.com/2015/03/baumefieldguide.html