David Archuleta Apologizes After Showing Support for Anti-Gay Beliefs
David Archuleta has sent an apology to his fans after he echoed some anti-gay beliefs, which some believe were to support the new Indiana law that could have harmful effects to the LGBT community. The new Indiana law has received widespread backlash as it is seen as a way for people and businesses to discriminate […]
Daily Archives: April 6, 2015
Town hall meeting to address RFRA's impact on LGBT families
Town hall meeting to address RFRA's impact on LGBT families
How the Religious Freedom Restoration Act impacts LGBT families in Indiana is the focus of a town hall meeting Monday night in Lafayette.
Spring Lilacs
Ireland Approves Adoptions by Same-Sex Couples Ahead of Marriage Vote
Ireland Approves Adoptions by Same-Sex Couples Ahead of Marriage Vote
Ahead of a marriage equality referendum slated for May, Irish lawmakers passed a bill extending adoption rights to same-sex couples by a sweeping majority.
Thom Senzee
www.advocate.com/world/2015/04/06/ireland-approves-adoptions-same-sex-couples-ahead-marriage-vote
The Night a Gay Don Draper Called Peggy Lee
The Night a Gay Don Draper Called Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?” opens and closes Mad Men’s mid-premiere of its final season, and it’s the perfect anthem for the talented but self-destructive alcoholic, 40-something Don Draper. I was ahead of Don. It was the perfect anthem for budding alcoholic me when I was five in 1973.
That’s when I saw Miss Lee singing it on some variety show. I stood on the shag carpeting of my family’s living room in small-town Texas mesmerized. She stood in a white fog on the Zenith TV screen, like a glamorous ghost in a platinum-blonde Cleopatra wig wearing about 200 yards of white, diaphanous chiffon and blue-tinted sunglasses, lenses the size of my little head. She had a black dot on her right cheek, just like Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke.
The haunting, fatalistic song had me hooked from the first verse. Even though it was a very grown up song, it wasn’t that odd that it spoke to my five-year-old gay mind. It was a story song, after all.
In “Is That All There Is?” she assumes a louche, seen-it-all demeanor, and in a whispery purr of a voice as if she is singing only to you in bed, she sings verse after verse about a life of tragedy and disappointments, and when her father takes her to the circus, she describes it with an ironic wink in her voice as “Greatest show on earth.”
Her voice rises at the end in a question, so that you can almost hear her ask “Right?” But she doesn’t say it, it’s implied. Her bored assessment of the spectacle of clowns, and dancing bears, and pretty ladies in pink tights? “I had the feeling that something was missing. I don’t know what.” Her little girl, pragmatic answer to that disappointment: Let’s keep dancing… break out the booze, and have a ball.
Wow! That’s my kind of little girl.
Like a gay Don Draper, I escaped the sticks and landed in New York City in 1990 where I chased the Mad Men lifestyle long after the Mad Men era had ended but long before the term had become a beautiful cliché. I wasn’t in advertising in the 1960s. I was in the publishing world in the 1990s — less glamour and less money, but the same amount of sex and liquor. While I broke out the booze and had a ball, Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?” followed me wherever I went like ghostly cigarette smoke in a bar.
On one of those break-out-the-booze nights in 1996 at four a.m. — when it was all still fun, but the ice was just beginning to melt — I found myself in my Manhattan brownstone apartment with my best friend, Mr. Parker, playing “Is That All There Is?” over and over and over.
Mr. Parker chimed in with a bray, “My God, that song is brilliant! She’s brilliant! You know, most people think of this as the ultimate downer song. I don’t. Conversely, I think it’s a celebration of the spectacle of life in all its joy and tragedy.”
“Well, she does say that she’s not ready for that ‘final disappointment.'”
“Oh! ‘That final disappointment.’ What a brilliant line. It’s a total alkie song!”
We took gulps of drinks and marinated in the meaning of the song as we let Peggy finish it uninterrupted. In the final verse she says that as fatalistic as her outlook may appear, she’s not going to end it all, and when that “final disappointment” comes she’ll face it, like she has faced the rest of life. She re-phrases the song’s question as a statement that she’ll keep dancing and drinking, “If that’s all.” Pause. “There.” Pause “Is.” Followed by a final vamp and bump bump of the tuba.
We sat in silence and drank, staring ahead.
Then Mr. Parker looked at me with a spark in his glassy eyes. “You know, I have her number.”
“What do you mean you have her number?” I asked incredulously.
“I mean to say that I have her phone number. Right here in my wallet. A friend of mine managed to get it from some hospital she was in. You know she’s always in and out of the hospital.”
“Oh, I know. I read her autobiography,” I said with pride. “She described more ailments and near-death experiences than… than Elizabeth Taylor.”
Mr. Parker pulled out her number and waved it at me.
“Give me that!” Fueled with liquor courage I picked up the cordless phone and dialed.
Ring. Ring. Ri–
“Hello,” a young-sounding woman answered.
“Hi. May I speak to Peggy.”
“Who’s calling, please?”
“Jamie.”
“Okay. Hold on.”
Hold. Hold. I’m hold for Miss Peggy Lee.
And then: “Hello? This is Peggy.”
“Hi Peggy. This is Jamie.”
“Jamie… Anderson?”
“No. It’s Jamie Brickhouse. I’m a huge fan of yours. I met you back stage at one of your New York concerts,” I lied. I never was lucky enough to see her perform. “Peggy, I missed you at Carnegie Hall last year and I’m still sick about it. Do you have any upcoming New York dates?”
“No. Ever since the fall I can’t even get out of bed…” Her words seemed to sink into what I imagined was a cumulus, king-sized cloud of a bed where she was nestled in a quilted, white satin bed jacket, a princess phone cradled between shoulder and ear. She let her words lie there for a beat. And then with a twinkle in her voice she said, “But I’ve still got the voice.” I could almost feel her breath in my ear.
“Yes, Peggy, you’ve still got the voice.” I mouthed “Oh. My. God,” to Mr. Parker. “Am I catching you at a bad time?”
“No? What are you doing?” Her voice was so sexy, the question could have been, “What are you wearing?”
“I’m sitting here in New York with my best friend. Drunk. We’ve been listening to ‘Is That All There Is.’ Peggy, I can’t tell you how many drunken nights you’ve gotten me through with that song.”
“Well,” breath, “I guess my life was worth living.”
I don’t remember the rest of the conversation. After that, I didn’t need to.
“I guess my life was worth living.” What did she mean by that? Was it a sarcastic slap in my face that if she got some lush through another drunken night, then perhaps her purpose on earth was fulfilled, or was she truly acknowledging my reverence for her and the song, meaning that if she could move people so profoundly as she had me, then her life had meaning? I suspect she meant a bit of both.
I thought about the life I had been living in the six years I’d been in New York. This was long before I finally got sober or even thought I needed to get sober. I was living the kind of life I’d always fantasized about back in Texas: the charming Brownstone New York apartment, a career working with writers, a boyfriend (with some boys on the side), and a recirculating waterfall of booze and parties and more booze.
Greatest show on earth. Right?
But at the end of all those parties, after the last guest had gone, I’d always stay up for just. One. More. I’d survey the mess of the party and sit there listening to Peggy as I replayed what had become of my life. The people showed up. We broke out the booze. We had a ball. And then it was over.
I felt like Peggy at the circus. Or Don Draper in 1970. I had the feeling that something was missing. And I didn’t know what.
This essay is adapted from Jamie Brickhouse’s memoir Dangerous When Wet.
One Million Dollars To Whoever Can Make Sense Out Of This Hilarious Iggy Azalea Freestyle Rap
One Million Dollars To Whoever Can Make Sense Out Of This Hilarious Iggy Azalea Freestyle Rap
Eternally fancy Australian musician Iggy Azalea holds the title of female rapper with the longest-leading number one single on the Billboard Hot 100, but it seems her talents might best be served with a script.
An entirely indecipherable ‘free-style rap’ (if you can call it that) from Iggy recently cropped up online.
Here’s one attempt at transcribing it:
One expert in indecipherable music (we’re talking about dub step, naturally), REVOLVR, did their best to crack Iggy’s code, offering this partial remix:
Iggy Collab?REVOLVR & Iggy Collab? Lyrics: [unknown]
Posted by REVOLVR on Thursday, April 2, 2015
REVOLVR was shocked to discover his video reach over 5 million views so quickly, and has since promised a fully completed remix. He solicited potential track titles from fans, and received such gems as:
- Window Winner feat. Iggy Azalea
- Raptor Badger Window
- Badger raptor powpow
- Raptor Badger ft Igloo Australia (the Papa Johns Remix)
- When I win a window
Perhaps Iggy is best left to Sean Hayes and his hubby.
Dan Tracer
Guerilla Artists Erect Massive Bust of NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden in NYC Park: VIDEO
Guerilla Artists Erect Massive Bust of NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden in NYC Park: VIDEO
A massive bust of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden made of hydrocal was erected overnight in a park in Fort Greene, Brooklyn by a group of guerilla artists and their assistants, ANIMAL New York reports:
The group, which allowed ANIMAL to exclusively document the installation on the condition that we hide their identities, hauled the 100-pound sculpture into Fort Greene Park and up its hilly terrain just before dawn. They fused it to part of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, a memorial to Revolutionary War soldiers. As of press time, the sculpture was still there.
The idea for the Snowden tribute was conceived about a year ago by two New York City-based artists with a history of pulling off notable public interventions. They linked up with a renowned sculptor on the West Coast who was sympathetic to their cause. The artists admit that Snowden probably wouldn’t approve of the project, since he never wanted the leaks to be about him, but they hope he’d understand why they did it.
The group released a statement about why they did it:
Fort Greene’s Prison Ship Martyrs Monument is a memorial to American POWs who lost their lives during the Revolutionary War. We have updated this monument to highlight those who sacrifice their safety in the fight against modern-day tyrannies. It would be a dishonor to those memorialized here to not laud those who protect the ideals they fought for, as Edward Snowden has by bringing the NSA’s 4th-Amendment-violating surveillance programs to light. All too often, figures who strive to uphold these ideals have been cast as criminals rather than in bronze. Our goal is to bring a renewed vitality to the space and prompt even more visitors to ponder the sacrifices made for their freedoms. We hope this inspires them to reflect upon the responsibility we all bear to ensure our liberties exist long into the future.
Watch the video of the installation, AFTER THE JUMP…
NOTE: The bust has since been covered with a tarp. Towleroad’s Michael Goff walked over to it this morning and took the photo below. He reports that the area was crawling with police and additional personnel who looked like Secret Service.
Andy Towle
Church Says It Was Barred From Easter Parade
Church Says It Was Barred From Easter Parade
An annual Easter parade was marred by controversy, after an Arkansas church congregation was asked not to participate.
COTTONBALL CHALLENGE | LGBT
COTTONBALL CHALLENGE | LGBT
We did the Cottonball Challenge while we were slightly tipsy! It was pretty funny! We think it would make a good drinking game!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3r9PVMqDvw&feature=youtube_gdata
Early Lilacs
