Category Archives: Entertainment

Ancestors, Arts, Bo Young, Books, Community, Culture, Entertainment, Fellow Travelers, Friends, Gay History, Literature, Men, Music, White Crane Institute programs

What kind of Gay man are you…?

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Because we publish both this blog and the "hard copy" magazine, White Crane, we get on a lot of press lists for various publicists in the entertainment, publishing, recording and fashion business. The sheer stereotypical nature of the kinds of press releases we receive is stunning, really. The only metric that seems to make any difference whatsoever to whoever is sending out the press releases is that they see the word "gay" somewhere in the search, and their feeble little minds automatically assume "fashion" "sex" "consumers" "vacuous dance music" and the most superficial kind of idea of "beauty" imaginable. In fact, using any variation of the term "imagination" in the same sentence is a stretch. Actually having looked at a copy of the magazine, or exploring our website to determine something of what our interests might be seems to be too much to ask.

Fellow_travelers_book_coverThis morning was a perfect example of the stark dichotomy of choices with which we are presented virtually every day. In yesterday’s mail we received the first run of Mark Thompson’s newest book, a beautiful book of his own photography. More on this in a moment.

[Full disclosure: White Crane Institute helped with the production of this book, and we have been sponsoring a touring exhibit of some of the photography in the book, providing it to LGBT communities around the country.]

We were also in receipt of a press release…the second one, now…about some pretty boy cranking out monotonous "dance music" (I love to dance, but what passes for ‘dance music’ these days is, quite simply pathetic.) Shirt open to his six pack, sexuality ambiguously alluded (I’m not big on "sexual allusion" myself…Rosie O’Donnell "alluded" to Tom Cruise for years…and that’s just too weird for words).

Anyway, silly me, I decided to give it a listen, since the publicist (a little more full disclosure here…yours truly was a publicist in the music industry, and a band manager at one point, no less…so I have a soft spot in my heart — not my head, though — for music publicists, and artist trying to break into the biz) had gone to the trouble to send a MP3 file.

The lyrics say it all: Hey…you remember when / I read your mind? / Thoughts of you run through my George  head / and make me want to touch myself / The odds are so right / I know you know I’m the special one…Let’s make love like / we’re strangers…

Like strangers. Wow. Great. With HIV/AIDS making a comeback like it’s a viral Taliban, I hope they use a condom. What a great musical message to put out to young Gay men…a population that is seeing a significant uptick in sero-conversion, we should note. What really burns my admittedly senior citizen ass is the marketing of this cookie-cutter pretty boy, all pumped and smooth like every other cookie-cutter pretty boy, draped in female flesh (used like skin props) and expecting that just because this fellow is (debatably) a) young and b) attractive, that every red-blooded Gay man is going to run right out and buy his drivel music because he has digital abs. Let’s be clear here: his voice is unremarkable. The music is indistinguishable from any other cut on just about any other current "dance music" disc. There is nothing about this–and I use the term very loosely here–"singer" that recommends him other than his shaved body. If you like that sort of thing.

Look at the photos accompanying this post…one is the cover of Mark’s book, Fellow Travelers: Guides & Tribes [Fluxion Editions, 2008] and "the Stranger" with the models who are so weak from hunger they have to lean on him for support. Tell me…which huddle would you want to be in? You want to "make love like we’re strangers," like this bimbo (I really think "bimbo" ought to be the male version and "bimba" the female) suggests? So OK…maybe you don’t want to get all muddy…but those are definitely not "strangers" in that picture. You might actually connect with someone…your own self, for instance… your own history as a queer, like Mark Thompson is documenting in his beautiful book Fellow Travelers?

I hesitated to even talk about the singer, who shall remain anonymous here. Why give shallow exploitative product placement any kind of publicity at all? But the contrast between this dreck, and Mark Thompson’s new book was so dramatic to me, I thought they ought to be thrown into contrast. Mark’s Fellow Travelers book is available in limited edition at http://www.markthompsongayspirit.com/

The empty nutrition of the mess of potage with the six-pack is available…anywhere. In a word: feh.

Bo Young, Dan Vera, Entertainment, Gay History, History, Humor

Tim Gunn on J. Edgar Hoover – REDUX

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Vivianhoover_2Dan first put this on the blog way back in March of 2008. But because Tim Gunn's story relates to a Thanksgiving in his family, I thought it was a worthy piece of humor for this Thanksgiving. Enjoy…

 I recently came across this video of Tim Gunn being interviewed at the 92nd Street Y by Budd Mishkin.   

If you're a fan of Project Runway than  you know Gunn for his sartorial wit and this clip presents an excerpt from what seemed to be a lovely conversation.  Gunn speaks sweetly about the awkward relationship with his father who worked for the FBI. 

Gunn also tells a great story about his father perhaps enabling J. Edgar Hoover's cross-dressing.  It involves Vivian Vance and is quite funny.  You've got to watch it!

Arts, Bo Young, Culture, Current Affairs, Entertainment, Friends, History, Literature

Beebo Is Back!

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Beebo_brinker BEEBO BRINKER!…in the form of the Beebo Brinker Chronicles, a wonderfully realized play by Kate Moira Ryan and Linda Chapman based on the estimable Ann Bannon‘s series of books (who. by the by, will be honored along with Malcolm Boyd and Mark Thompson at the Lammies this May in Los Angeles) …IS BACK!

That’s the good news. The bad news is it’s only around for ten weeks and this time it is live on stage at the 37 Arts Theater, 450 West 37th Street. Tickets are available here. Or you can call 212-307-4100 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.

This is a delicious evening of theater and LGBT history all rolled into fantastic performances and beautiful bodies. 01big_2 It’s sexy smart and fun. You may recall we wrote about this when we first saw it last October. Since then it’s been nominated for a GLAAD award.

All I can say is…nothing’s changed…it’s just gotten better!

Arts, Bo Young, Culture, Current Affairs, Entertainment, Gay Wisdom, History, Literature, Religion

Edward II

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I had the immense pleasure of seeing an amazing play recently. What makes the pleasure all the more thrilling is that the play was written more than 400 years ago, by an ancestor who was nothing less than Shakespeare’s chief competition! As we plan the spring issue of White Crane on Ancestors, it was deeply satisfying to see this production made possible by no less than three major Gay allies or ancestors, Christopher Marlowe, Garland Wright and Edward II himself (kudos to the still with us — and with it! — Red Bull Artistic Director, Jesse Berger, too, of course!)

Starting with the historical Edward: he was the first "Prince of Wales." He is the king who established colleges in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge; he founded Cambridge’s King’s Hall in 1317 and gave Oxford’s Oriel College its royal charter in 1326. And yes, he did have a tendency to sort of ignore his "nobility" (pre-shadowing Whitman’s "working class camerado’s" by a couple of centuries) and run around with sexy, young minions. Marlowe took a collection of "favorites" and created the archetypal character of Piers Gaveston to represent Edward’s "proclivities." Companions had been brought over from France to teach the young prince how to be a gentleman. If they only knew. Ahhh…if we only knew.

Edward_iiThe late Garland Wright was the visionary director and a leading figure in both the New York theater scene and the regional theater movement in America, most famously as the Artistic Director of The Guthrie Theater. He died at the tragically young age of 52 while in the middle of preparing this production of Christopher Marlowe’s legendary Edward II. His commitment to Gay causes, particularly his opposition to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell brought him to an interest in Marlowe’s Edward.

There is no way I can improve on the review of the play in the NY Times and other places. Does it ring any bells to say this is the story of a leader whose lover distracts him from his duties, tells the story of sexual obsession, religious power and the intersection of the political and personal lives of a flawed leader. Throw in some church/state tensions and you might well be talking yesterday, not 400+ years ago. Add Queer As Folk’s blond boy Randy ("Justin") Harrison in a featured (and, I might add, impressive…newly hirsute-for-this-play Mr. Harrison is virtually unrecognizeable, "boy " no more…this man can act!) role, and you have a damned sexy and theatrically fascinating evening.

It is tempting (and wrong) to believe  that the modern GLBT civil rights movement is the first time a movement has attempted to upset the social order (and despite what the assimilationists would have you believe, this is what it’s about, dear ones) and create an alternative to traditional gender roles, definitions of sexuality and hierarchal power structures. It is bracing to realize that Marlowe was doing this 400 years ago, before there was any other word for who we are than "sodomy." There was no "Gay," no "homosexual," no "same-sex love." It was sodomy, plain and simple, and a clear demonstration of the implicit role church has played in statecraft since its earliest days.

Further, this is the story that first turned this writer off Mr. Mel Gibson, waaaay before his drunken, entitled, anti-Semitic outbursts. His gratuitous and flat out historically wrong-headed re-telling of the murder of Edward’s beloved, Piers Gaveston, in Braveheart, where Gibson has Edward’s father (who was dead before any of the gist of the story we know happened) throw Gaveston out of a tower to his death made Gibson persona non grata in my eyes. Hollywood’s traditional "kill the queer" has never been more distasteful to me than it was in that horrible movie.

But, back to happier stories…the king and his beloved frolic on a wildly sexy set, in costumes (and the tasteful lack thereof) that reinvents the whole "suit and tie" Shakespeare fad. This play is gripping, intellectually and visually, from the dimming of the lights to the last ovation.

In a word: Run, don’t walk, to see this play at the Red Bull Theater on 42nd Street. Its run has been extended through the end of January. This is a must-see.

Bo Young, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Dan Vera, Entertainment, Friends, Gay Wisdom, History, The Magazine, White Crane Institute programs

Rainbow Radio!

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Scglpm_96dpi White Crane was on the radio waves recently. Reader and frequent contributor, Ed Madden, an Associate Professor of English at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, produces a wonderful community radio program called Rainbow Radio and was kind enough to talk with Dan and me. You can listen to the show here.

Arts, Bo Young, Books, Community, Culture, Current Affairs, Entertainment, Gay Wisdom, Health, History

A Lesbian Pioneer

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Jane_rule_2 Author Jane Rule has died at the age of 76.

Jane Rule’s books, including "Desert of the Heart," and the film version ("Desert Hearts") were, in 1986, pretty much some of of the first truly Lesbian affirming literature and film. It may be hard to believe now, but twenty years was an Ice Age ago in terms of media, culture, and Gay people. If you grew up seeing stuff like The Children’s Hour (the message being that if you are a female and realize you are in love with another woman you need to hang yourself), Desert Hearts was way more than a breath of fresh air, it was revolutionary.

And how’s this for an exit? From The Globe and Mail: "Ms. Rule retreated to her bed in the middle of November with a bottle of Queen Anne whisky and a bar of good chocolate on her bedside table, hundreds of love letters from friends and admirers and a circle of friends and family who cared for her physical needs."

The Globe and Mail has a lovely tribute and obit.