Website : "The effort, called the Encyclopedia of Life, will include species descriptions, pictures, maps, videos, sound, sightings by amateurs, and links to entire genomes and scientific journal papers. Its first pages of information will be shown Wednesday in Washington where the massive effort is being announced by some of the world's leading institutions.
The project will take about 10 years to finish."
Most Americans : "The reason the public supports a timetable for withdrawal may be because the four-year-old war remains unpopular, with nearly two-thirds of the public opposed.
Of those polled, 34 percent said they support the war, while 65 percent expressed opposition. But while previous surveys show Americans are pessimistic about the outcome of the war, a majority of 55 percent said they were not yet willing to declare it 'lost.' The prevailing view, held by 63 percent of Americans polled in April, is that neither side is winning.
Fifty-four percent said they don't believe the Bush administration's assertion that the war is the "central front" in the war on terrorist groups that was launched after al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Forty-three percent said they agreed."
Potential jailbird Paris Hilton forgives, . Mintz: "Paris and I met last night, I am still her media rep. She is still my client.
She is also a dear friend."
Rudy Giuliani : "Giuliani's old contributions could echo throughout the 2008 GOP nomination battle, as he seeks to lessen the political impact of his support for abortion rights -- an unpopular position among the social conservatives who in recent elections have weighed decisively in the primaries and caucuses.
The issue was raised anew at last week's debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, when Giuliani gave a noncommittal answer to the question of whether it would be a good day for the country if Roe v. Wade were overturned. 'It'd be OK,' Giuliani responded, adding that it would also be all right if the Supreme Court decided the other way.
"
Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Richard Parsons : "The Googles of the world, they are the Custer of the modern world.
We are the Sioux nation. They will lose this war if they go to war. The notion that the new kids on the block have taken over is a false notion.
"
Reed Prescott, last seen as a contestant in Grease: you're the One That I Want, is set to play a gay porn star in I Google Myself, : "The play is the unusual story of three very different men with the same name. One is a gay porn star with a dirty little secret.
One is a stoner mechanic who blogs poetry and has anger management issues. And another is a wily stalker with a balloon fetish, desperate to make a connection. Their worlds collide when one man Googles his own name to find others who share his moniker.
What he discovers leads to an unforgettable, ripped-from-the tabloids chain of events that will leave you asking yourself: what would I do to become a top search term on Google?"
Edmund White has written a new play, Terre Haute, based on an imagined series of conversations between Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and author Gore Vidal. Both subjects have had their names changed in the play.
The provocative approach White takes is raising eyebrows.
: "Given its UK première last year by theatre company Nabokov in Edinburgh, it imagines a series of conversations between McVeigh (restyled Harrison) and a distinguished seventysomething American writer called James (modelled on Gore Vidal) in the run-up to the mass-killer's execution at Terre Haute Penitentiary, Indiana, in June 2001. Inevitably the piece grapples anew with the familiar theme of whether acts of terrorism can be justified - but what makes it contentious, possibly incendiary, is that it flags up the possibility of sexual attraction between the two men: 'If I thought you'd never know, I'd unzip that orange jumpsuit just a bit so I could see your chest.
Touch it,' says James. In the context of what his interlocutor has done, even notional physical contact carries a huge transgressive charge."
"The desire to write a play was not, in the first instance, prompted by shared outrage but by the urge to provide a starring role for a young actor with whom he had embarked on a torrid affair, the details of which are relayed in an entertainingly un-self-censored chapter of [White's autobiography] My Lives entitled 'My Master'.
'I said: 'All you have to do is tell me to do something and I'll do it.' He said: 'I look like Timothy McVeigh, why don't you write a play about him, then I can be in it?''"
The play has angered some who have seen it for White's humanizing of McVeigh, whose truck bomb detonated outside the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in April '95, tragically ending the lives of 168 people, including 19 children, and injuring 850 others.
It's no surprise that White's drama has touched a nerve.
White tells the Telegraph that he feels McVeigh was "vulnerable sexually" without saying flat out whether or not he believes the terrorist might have been gay.
He also reveals that it wasn't difficult for him to write from the point of view of his friend Gore Vidal, but that the perspective evolved into White's.
White finally drops an explosive confession of his own:
I thought: 'Well, they never met, but wouldn't it be interesting if you changed the names and let them meet?' I've known Gore. We're roughly the same age group, we're both Europeanised Americans, we're both gay.
I was presumptuous enough to write things from his point of view but as I went on writing the play, it became much more about me. Gore later told me: 'I would never have been attracted to someone like that.' But I would have been.
"
"The admission is so frank, so unapologetic, that for a moment I'm stunned into silence," admits White's interviewer.
and now White. What is it with gay literary authors sexually fetishizing their murderous subjects?
Has anybody out there seen the play? What's your review?
Terre Haute is at the Trafalgar Studios, London SW1 (0870 060 6632), from May 8 until June 2.
Barack Obama , earliest ever in an election cycle: "Two sources said that security concerns, including large crowds and unspecified threats against the candidate, were the reasons for the security detail. But a Department of Homeland Security official said there is no known viable threat against the senator "at this time.
" The FBI confirmed that there was no specific threat against Obama. According to the DHS, the candidate's campaign requested the security detail, an advisory committee approved that request and the Secret Service initiated the protective detail."
Beau Clarke, New York philanthropist and partner to DJ Tony Moran : "Clarke was well known on the party circuit as the partner to superstar DJ Tony Moran. The two met in 2000. They shared a large apartment in Soho, a residence in the South Beach section of Miami and a bayfront home in Fire Island Pines that hosted several benefits, including Dancing on the Bay (for the LGBT Center in Greenwich Village), the Zenith Party (to benefit the new Pines community house) and the Fire Island Dance Festival (to benefit Dancers Responding to AIDS).
Clarke also gave significantly to GLAAD and Care Resource, Miami’s principal AIDS service organization, among other charities. He served on the board of several organizations. He was one of the earliest and biggest backers of the bid by out-gay attorney Sean Maloney to become Democratic candidate for New York State Attorney General last year.
"
Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal . Rapp: "Yep, it's true.
I've always said it would take some extraordinary circumstances to bring me back to the show, (because many people over the years have asked me if I would go back), and I consider the opportunity to be on stage with Adam again to be a big time extraordinary circumstance. In all my years of being in this business, (and we're talking over 25 years now), I've rarely felt the kind of connection on stage that I do with Adam. We just click, and I think it will be amazing to get to work with him in that environment again.
The dates we'll be back are July 30th until September 10th. So book your tickets..
."
iTunes exclusive track : "The track was "I'll Stand By You" performed by Carrie Underwood during last week's American Idol "Idol Gives Back" charity episode.
Macworld reports that the song has been purchased over 100,000 times in less than a week."
Can culture ?
"Researchers found that the brains of older East Asian people respond less strongly to changes in the foreground of images than those of their Western counterparts. They suggest this difference is due to an increased emphasis on the background, or context, of images in some Asian cultures. But other experts think the study does not firmly establish culture as the cause for this divergence.
"
High school in South San Francisco celebrating 'Gay-Straight Alliance Week' and observing the national 'Day of Silence' this Wednesday : "There was Nazi symbols on some teachers' doors, there was the Star of David circled and then crossed out. There were a couple Bible versus which I found personally offensive.
On the side of the gym there was a big hand spray painted with the middle finger sticking up saying 'Day of Silence This."
You're on the air: Canada's first radio station for gays and lesbians, , goes online, and : "The people behind 103.
9 Proud FM say they hope to add diversity to the radio dial by exploring issues and stories relevant to Canada's gay and lesbian community — voices they say are largely unheard elsewhere...
.Proponents of the new station have been working to get the project off the ground for about 10 years."
Musical theater : 'Life is a Song' will give people who have major announcements to make or questions to ask the opportunity to do so via an elaborate song and dance number. It's based on the tuner tradition of characters breaking into song when emotions become too strong for words. Each half-hour seg will chronicle the backstory behind the person doing the singing, as well as show that person learning how to sing and dance.
Scout's Metzler and Collins came up with the idea for 'Life' and then recruited Zadan and Meron because of their decades of experience with musical productions. Zadan and Meron in turn enlisted help from past collaborators, including 'Footloose' writer Dean Pitchford. Scout has brought on Evan Weinstein to serve as co-exec producer.
" Imagine coming out to your family like this! Now that's gay.
BBC in San Francisco's Castro district: "In the service to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Fr. Donal Godfrey SJ of the University of San Francisco will preside. James Alison, Catholic theologian and author of 'Is it ethical to be Catholic?
– Queer perspectives', will be preaching. 'It is the style of ministry and liturgy at places such as MHR that influenced many of us familiar with these parishes, and so inspired us to develop the kind of parish-set ministry with LGBT Catholics that we now celebrate in Central London' said a statement from the Roman Catholic caucus of the lesbian and Gay Christian Movement in the UK."
Although had been rumored to be next up to take over in 's revealing , it now looks like the torch will be handed off to Jamie Bell.
: "'Jamie is really excited about taking over and isn’t at all daunted about stripping off,' says a source. The same can’t be said of Orlando Bloom who, I hear, turned down the raunchy role."
you may have missed.
..
Moscow to gay parades: "'We have exhausted our options for reversing this illegal decision within the Moscow court system,' gay rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev told Interfax, adding that the ruling 'opens the way to the Supreme Court.' Alexeyev said the parade organizers would appeal to the Supreme Court as soon as possible, and that they hoped the court would reach a decision before May 27, when the parade was to take place."
Kevin Spacey and Sam Mendes : "Mendes, 41, who made his name in British theatre before going on to find success as a Hollywood director, will direct six classical plays in three years for the Old Vic, of which Spacey, 47, is the artistic director. Titled the Bridge Project, the plays will feature some of the best British and American stage actors, starring in a double-bill of classic works shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Old Vic and a third international venue, starting next year in the Piccolo Teatro, Milan."
Need for community : "DeWall and Mortensen agreed in a recent interview that Madison's lesbian and gay community is so integrated into the general population that there's no central area, like the 'gay ghettos' of other cities. 'It's somehow set the gay community back,' DeWall said. As an example, added Mortensen, 'when the (marriage amendment) vote went through, everyone felt defeated.
But there wasn't a hub where people could gather the next day to talk about it.'"
stroll guarded by 100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead to prove that Americans are "not getting the full picture" of how safe the city is: "They were laughing and talking to people as if there was nothing going on in this country or at least they were pretending that they were tourists and were visiting the city's old market and buying souvenirs.
To achieve this, they sealed off the area, put themselves in flak jackets and walked in the middle of tens of armed American soldiers.
AfterElton , the latest team to get knocked off The Amazing Race: "From that first season, we got vilified, and that caused a lot of problems within the gay community.
We've never really been accepted like Reichen and Chip were because they were in a different genre than we were. Being a villain is a hard thing, personally, to go through. We thought we were lovable, believe it or not.
After that experience, we thought, 'Okay, at least we got on.'"
Matthew Bourne, who dazzled audiences with his all-male version of Swan Lake in 1995, plans to tackle Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in an upcoming production entitled Romeo, Romeo, .
"It’s more to do with dancing than with sexuality.
A male dancer, whether he’s gay or straight, fits into a relationship with a female partner very happily. Getting away from that, making a convincing love duet, a romantic, sexual duet, for two men that is comfortable to do and comfortable to watch — I don’t know if you can. I’ve never seen it done.
..I have a way of approaching it so as to make it — I hate to say ‘acceptable’, it’s a terrible thing to say — but so that people don’t run screaming from the theatre.
I let them find their own way with it, take it as far as they want in their own heads."
Bourne plans to begin rehearsals early next year after a summer of improvisation and testing of scenes with small groups of dancers.
Utah's shameful : "Next month, a 17-page law will take effect governing just about every nuance of public school extracurricular clubs, from kindergarten jump rope to high school drama. How groups can form, what they can discuss in their meetings, who can join, and what a principal must do if rules are violated are addressed. But the school clubs law, signed last week by Gov.
Jon Huntsman Jr., was not really intended to rein in the rowdies down at the audio-visual club, some lawmakers said. The real target was homosexuality.
'This is all about gay-straight alliance clubs, and anybody who tells you different is lying,' said State Senator Scott D. McCoy, Democrat from Salt Lake City, who voted against the law."
Despite the fact that Bush promised of Valerie Plame leak "I want to get to the bottom of this. If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," a White House official revealed at hearings late last week that (surprise!) .
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn . Quinn: "The fact I'm here in Dublin and able to march and participate in inclusive events should send a message of how backwards the New York parade is.
John Dunleavy obviously isn't interested in compromise. Last year he said allowing gays and lesbians into the parade would be the equivalent of letting the Ku Klux Klan march in a civil rights parade or the Nazis march in an Israeli Day parade. But he only represents a very small minority of people in the Ancient Order of Hibernians, so we eventually will get beyond this.
The vast majority of AOH members, like the vast majority of Irish New Yorkers, are open-minded."
Riot strategy : "Police and LA Galaxy officials fear the arrival of Goldenballs could spark an invasion by English football hooligans.
"
Staten Island playwright about a NY cop who falls in love at a SI gay bar. Anthony Wilkinson: "Staten Island has a true reputation of being conservative and Republican and homophobic.
Nobody who is gay in Manhattan, or even in Jersey, is going to run to Staten Island to spend the night in a gay bar. But as a whole Staten Island is very family-oriented, and that’s one of the positive things about it."
Decorated war veteran and Pennsylvania congressman Jack Murtha responds to : "Why would I believe that? I mean, all the things that they have predicted have — everything I predicted turned out to be true. Nothing they predicted turned out to be true.
Why would I believe there's going to be chaos in the Middle East just because they say it? The Iraqis don't believe that. The countries on the periphery don't believe that and the public doesn't believe it.
The public wants us out. They spoke in the last election."
Corrupt politicos do battle as Tom Delay , citing Clinton impeachment. Delay: "It is now public knowledge that Newt Gingrich was having an affair with a staffer during the entire impeachment crisis. Clearly, men with such secrets are not likely to sound a high moral tone at a moment of national crisis.
"
Amid the seats at 37 Arts Theater in midtown Manhattan, where In the Heights is currently playing, Miranda (who is straight) talked to Josh about the show's gay plotline that was written out, the future of the American musical, and the seven-year journey to Off-Broadway — that may just lead to the Tonys.
What would you say is the essence of In the Heights? What's it really about?
I think the show is about home, and I know that's the corniest thing in the world, but I grew up here [in New York], my parents were born in Puerto Rico, but I didn't know what I was supposed to do here. I had heard about Puerto Rico as this paradise and I spent every summer there. I was like, 'Am I supposed to be here, am I supposed to be there, and if I'm supposed to be here am I really Puerto Rican?
' Where's home is really the big ol' question, I think.
So you're the creator of the show. This is your baby.
Take me back to your undergraduate years when you wrote In the Heights.
I had been doodling In the Heights in all my notebooks in college. I had written a song or two [and] I applied for the student-run theater space at Wesleyan [University].
That winter break I locked myself up and wrote everything I knew about. I grew up in Inwood, but I wanted to write about Washington Heights, this really dynamic landscape, and I grew up in the neighborhood. The music was very Washington Heights—it was salsa, merengue, hip-hop, and all that stuff that's still in the show—but [originally] it was not so much about the community as it was about a love triangle.
It was this tortured love story. Nina had a brother named Lincoln [who] was closeted and in love with Benny [who was Lincoln's best friend and in love with Nina]. It was a totally different show.
The show was a huge hit [at Wesleyan University], mainly because I was one of the only Latino theater majors at Wesleyan, so to get my cast I had to go all over campus. I got people from the Latino Program House, from the gospel choir, so everyone had a friend in the show and the whole campus came. It was an original musical my sophomore year.
I was 20. Two guys who were seniors at the time, Neil Stewart and John Mailer, loved the show and said, We want to help you bring this to New York. They were able to take a CD of the musical to Tommy Kail [the director].
They got in touch with me my senior year and they were like, We started our [theater production] company and we'd love to work on In the Heights with you as soon as you graduate. And so I graduated, and the next week I was in the basement of the Drama Bookshop. Kevin McCollum came to a reading we did in June 2003.
Yeah. He said, I'd like to invite you to the preview of this new show we're working on, Avenue Q. It was like the third preview and I literally turned to Bill, my co-arranger and said, Fuck.
It was the same plot but it was so much wittier and better done than the tortured adolescent version [of In the Heights] I had written. That was the beginning of the end of the [closeted gay] Lincoln story. It turned from a love triangle into two parallel love stories.
Not many college sophomores are writing musicals. Was writing a musical something you always wanted to do?
I saw The Little Mermaid when I was a little kid and it changed my life.
I dragged my parents over and over to see it. I just felt so transported to this other world with people bursting into song—like what life should be. I had a great theater program in high school called Brick Prison where it's student-written plays, student-directed, all student-run.
I had written one-act musicals, these twenty-minute things, and I wanted to write a full-length musical. The soundtrack of In the Heights is really the soundtrack of my life. My parents were both born in Puerto Rico, so Latin music is a staple of our household, but I grew up with hip-hop and all my friends listened to hip-hop.
It was Fat Boys and Beastie Boys when we were little, and then it was Far Side and Tribe Called Quest and Biggie in the 90s. I came of age with hip-hop.
It was a seven-year journey to get to In the Heights on this stage.
What was it like when you finally opened here in previews in January 2007?
So strange. Very emotional.
I really lost it when we did the first rehearsal with the band and I could hear the brass in the songs and we got to that section in the finale where [my character is] like There's a breeze off the Hudson and I started bawling my eyes out. It would hit me when I first saw the set and it was this mind-blowing thing.
Every time I think it's an endangered species I hear some new music and I'm blown away.
I like to try and write music that I listen to. I want music that I'm not ashamed to blast on my car stereo. I love hip-hop and I love Latin music and I love every genre of music, and so that's the fun part of using contemporary music and figuring out how to tell stories with it.
Musical theater [used] to be the popular music of its day. Half of these music videos are stealing from old school musicals. You look at Usher's My Way video and it's West Side Story.
Smooth Criminal is wearing the exact same suit as Fred Astaire wore in the dance sequence in Bandwagon. So it's not dead, it's just hiding.
Do you have more musicals in you?
Oh yeah. I got musicals for days, and I'm really excited about that. I don't know if they're necessarily stage musicals, I don't know if they're music for TV or for an album or for movies, but yeah, that doesn't stop.
Since I was little that hasn't stopped. I'm not worried about that. I do have more musicals in me, but I don't know what they are yet.
IN THE HEIGHTS ( ), at 37 Arts, 450 West 37th Street, New York City. Shows are Tuesday-Friday at 8 p.m.
, Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.
m., and Sunday at 2 p.m.
and 7 p.m. Tickets from $36.
25 to $76.25.
NOTE from Andy: Josh Helmin, who also co-writes the blog , will be writing occasional posts on entertainment and other topics for Towleroad on a regular basis.
I'm happy to welcome him aboard.
Those of you looking for something different on Broadway may want to check out . I had the opportunity to catch this show last week and wasn't really sure what to expect. And I left the theater still trying to figure out exactly what I had just seen, which in this case is a good thing.
The show is a meditation on the struggles of adolescence and the disconnect between children at the age of burgeoning sexuality and parents who aren't quite ready to unlock the secrets of that world for them yet. And the troubling disconnect is the place from which all the drama of this exuberant show springs.
It's a little bit Rent, a little bit History Boys.
It's set in the 1890's in Germany (based on an 1891 play by Frank Wedekind that was banned for nearly 100 years) and deals with first love, masturbation, suicide, homosexuality, and growing up. The musical score by Duncan Sheik is angsty, raucous, melancholy, and with numbers like "Totally Fucked", amusingly irreverent.
There are only two adults in the entire cast, played by Christine Estabrook and Stephen Spinella. It's great to see a young cast on Broadway being allowed to really take on adult themes.
John Gallagher, Jr., who plays the ne'er do well, misunderstood Moritz (and starts the clip above 'The Bitch of Living'), is the cast's standout.
If there's any gripe I have with the show, it's that I wish some of the more minor characters had their stories brought out more at the expense of the romantic leads, whom I found far less interesting than some of their co-stars.
Also, there are a few tragic plot points that are resolved too conveniently for such a mature production. The story is rendered in such broad strokes that it's hard to feel intimate with any of the characters. As a coming-of-age rock opera, however, it succeeds on a purely musical level.
Upon reading the Playbill I counted nearly 30 producers. When this show makes it to the Tonys, as it should, we'll be waiting a long time for them to rattle off that list of names, which includes Tom Hulce and Maverick Records founder Freddy DeMann.
Spring Awakening is an engaging, often challenging, energized production that I found to be a breath of fresh air.
I recommend it.
Warsaw gay groups to honor homosexuals killed in the Holocaust.
Some city council leaders, like Marek Makuch of the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość party, are outraged: "It is a devastating idea and we shall not agree to this. I have not seen in Warsaw a monument for Catholic priests or disabled people. The triangle would be a promotion of homosexuality.
We cannot compare Warsaw with Berlin – Berlin is the capitol of European homosexuality, and here we have our values."
Senate .
John Kerry: "With this vote, we are preventing members of Congress who steal or cheat from receiving a lifelong pension that is paid for by the taxpayers." Amen.
Rarely-produced : "And Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Queens is set in New Orleans' French Quarter, where Williams lived as a young man. When he moved there in 1939, the area's cheap rents and air of age and decay attracted artistic community and alongside them gays, transvestites and other people on the margins of society. The play concerns a gay transvestite who tries to mend a broken heart by taking up with a short-tempered younger sailor.
"
Log Cabin Republicans . California LCR head: "When it comes to marriage, we believe in the fundamental fairness of the American people.
There has never been a major civil rights movement that has failed in the United States."
Czech masseur .
Groundbreaking case is the first time a Czech court has awarded damages for discrimination based on sexual orientation: "Mr Sydor had been promised a job as a masseur at a health centre, but when the manager found out he is gay he refused to hire him. In court the centre's management said they had found a better qualified candidate for the job."
Dead artists getting new life in fashion. Jewelry and leather goods designer Chrome Hearts is : ""We have been very conservative about licensing, limiting it to paper products like calendars and note cards, and not many of them. Robert on the other hand was very enthusiastic about licensing products.
One reason he hired me is that I was Salvador Dalí's lawyer, someone who had the licensing empire of the world."
Plan for : "Boosters of gay condo developments say they have no plans to heap on straights the kind of discrimation they’ve suffered over the years.
But it’s unclear how welcoming heterosexual singles and couples would find these communities. 'What if I was saying this building is just for heterosexual people, or Muslims, or Jews or Catholics. What’s the difference?
,' asked Michael Carucci, head of ERA Boston Real Estate Group. 'To take it the next step and say this building is just for gay people - it’s a bit much.'"
Matt Damon on Hardball tonight : "I don't think that it's fair, as I said before, that it seems like we have a fighting class in our country. That's comprised of people who have to go for either financial reasons or..
.I don't think that that is fair. And if you're gonna send people to war, ahh, if, if we all get together and decide we need to go to war then that needs to be shared by everybody.
You know and if the President has daughters who are of age then maybe they should go too…"
Jennifer Holliday, who originated the Dreamgirls role of Effie on Broadway, wants to make sure that despite the raves for that other Jennifer H., just yet.
She appeared on Wendy Williams' radio show recently and went on and on about the injustices she's experiencing this holiday season, which include being left off the invite list for the :
"Actually I was sort of invited to the premiere tonight and then I got called and said that it was a misunderstanding and that I wasn't invited to the premiere, but that it was an actual screening that I was invited to but they didn't have a date for that screening.
"
"I'm also still a young woman still out here trying to work so if you're trying to cancel out my existence and my contribution to Dreamgirls...
so then if you're trying to do that then what is to become of me, are you trying to say that two people can't be out here singing the same song? It's like, I'm not a millionaire and I don't have any kind of precious possessions, no children, this legacy, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" is the only thing I do have and I do need to work so it's alright if they have a movie so can't they just have me be wonderful too? Can't both of us just be wonderful?
My thing is, please don't try to kick me to the curb."
"One guy who's working on the music with the movie..
. he was saying, well, Jennifer Hudson has an absolutely wonderful gift and I think the torch has been effectively passed..
. I'm not passin no torch, 'scuse me, are you all trying to force me into retirement? Because.
.I still need to work so if we both sing..
.can she sing it..
and I sing it..can we both sing it?
"
"Give a Dreamgirl a break, I did give the girl the opportunity to do this...
I created the role, no one gave me the role, I created the role."
"This story of Dreamgirls, we also want people to understand, is not the same as the play, what they've done is taken the brand of Dreamgirls and our fans and done a bait-and-switch."
"Fortunately for me, I owe most of my survival, towards going into this new millenium, to the gay community.
They have kept me, they have supported me, they have given me work, they have given me great respect. They also are really the ones who kept this whole thing going until it could be rediscovered."
Wait till Holliday hears that Hudson will be in NYC on December 30th.
The NYT yesterday for the star of the new Broadway revival of Company, Raúl Esperza. The paper notes that in this case, life imitates art:
“Company”: The story of Bobby, a charming single man, who is unable to commit to a relationship and who may have questions about his own sexual identity.Esparza's recent separation from his wife came after finally acknowledging that his attraction to men wasn't something transient. It's a journey he observes in his stage character as well: "I think the real thing that Bobby is going through is that he’s trying to grow up, and that means accepting things you can’t change, and it also means that in spite of all the messiness and failure you make a choice to love someone and live your life in the way that’s right for you. It’s messier than the pretty picture you painted for yourself.
Raúl Esparza: No longer truly married but not entirely separated, whose romantic conflicts go far deeper than that of the character he plays and have no easy fix.
I had a romantic idea of what it means to be an adult: all husbands and wives who love each other get to stay together forever, love is enough."
Esparza's certainly to face this particular music. But Company, which opens Wednesday will surely be more resonant because of it.
"New York, New York, it's a helluva town": . "Comden and [Adolph] Green wrote for nine films including the musicals 'Singin' in the Rain' (1952), 'The Band Wagon' (1953), 'It's Always Fair Weather' (1955) and 'Bells are Ringing' (1960).
..Among the songs written by the Comden and Green team were 'Just in Time,' 'The Party's Over' and 'Make Someone Happy.
'"
The Killers on December 5. Flowers: "There are some great Christmas tunes that have been recorded over the years from the likes of George Michael and John Lennon.
Sometime you forget. You get so caught up in business and being an adult that you forget to have fun and enjoy things and be nice to people."
Princes William and Harry to mark tenth anniversary of their mother's death: "It is understood that the Princes hope that by celebrating their mother's life on what would have been her 46th birthday, the sting will be taken out of August 31 - the date on which she died in Paris. Because next year is the tenth anniversary of her death, they are aware that the date is bound to resonate publicly more than ever."
: Discrimination law passed, gay adoption allowed, a campaign against homophobia funded, and a big step toward civil unions in Sao Paolo.
Page Six : "Anderson Cooper was friendly at a Brazilian airport on Friday.
'Hi, I'm Anderson,' he said to the 'attractive' man standing next to him at the flight connection monitors in the Salvador terminal, a spy told The Post's Braden Keil. The 25ish fellow was wearing a tight T-shirt, cut-off shorts and an earring. According to our witness, the unshaven, solo-traveling CNN star chatted for 20 minutes with the stranger before the fellow had to say goodbye and board his flight to Rio.
"
It'll be a gay ol' New Years in Edinburgh when their collaborative homage to Madge, called "She's Madonna". The song is to be released as a single in January.
Actor just in time for Rome wedding. Of course, timing had nothing to do with it: "Understandably, Mark is trying to completely avoid the media coverage of Mr.
Cruise's Scientology wedding...
"
In Regrets Only, Paul Rudnick asks, ? Rudnick: "Certainly there are plenty of straight designers and straight caterers.
But still, I think if we were being absolutely realistic, if all the gay people at a certain level of Manhattan socializing decided to take the day off, they could make a lot of trouble."
Gay penguin book : When it came to the point where the zookeeper saw that the penguins were in love, I redirected (my daughter).
That was the end of the story for her."
George Michael : "Almost 10 years ago, during the last week of my mother's life, I told my friends and family that if I ever played my own concerts again, I would make sure to do a free one for NHS nurses.
The nurses that helped my family at that time were incredible people, and I realised just how undervalued these amazing people are."
Looking for some new threads?
designed by Steph Alek at will benefit people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) in developing countries .
Record shop in small Michigan town : "Ever since the parade, the record store’s business has been non-existent.
Several of our regular customers, who previously ignored the fact that we carry gay pride stickers and other (similar) items, now have informed us that they will do everything in their power to boycott and hurt our business. We are now known amongst the town as the store that publicly ‘promotes queers.’ These ignorant people have been spreading vicious rumors about our store and a mass-scale boycott has come into effect, courtesy of these parade-goers.
We cannot financially deal with this. We are struggling daily to even make a couple sales. This boycott is founded on ignorance, and because of it we literally will shut down in a matter of time.
That is not the message we want to send to the community; that hatred and homophobia, if in the majority, will accomplish its intended destruction."
Since and have been in the news, I thought I'd point out that Douglas Carter Beane's starring Tom Everett Scott as a closeted Hollywood actor and Johnny Galecki as his rent boy, just moved to Broadway.
Haven't seen the show yet, but Julie White, as a "Mephistopheles in Manolos" as a movie agent, reportedly steals it.
Says reviewer Ben Brantley: "What sets Mr. Beane apart from aspiring successors to Neil Simon is the comic poetry he finds in hypocrisy, deception and denial. Having toiled in the artificial vineyards of Hollywood as a screenwriter, Mr.
Beane has understandably become an authority on these subjects."
Hypocrisy, deception, and denial: can a musical based on Haggard be far behind?
NOTE: As noted by our vigilant reader Brian in the chat box to the right, Ted Haggard 'exposer' Mike Jones was invited to the opening last night.
I was able to dig up this shot of Jones arriving.
Carol Channing's publicist has responded to published over the weekend in the , saying that he and Channing were "misquoted" and that the writer was "clearly trying to bash an Icon and make a name for himself."
In the interview, Channing reportedly said about her gay fans: "I don’t think about them.
I’m grateful that they seem to like me. They’re terribly loyal to me. But I’m knee-deep in the Bible and you know what it says about that.
"
Channing's publicist says that the writer left out a key word to make it look like the performer was anti-gay: "With reference to the Bible - she said about gay marriage 'You know what the Bible says about it ...
Nothing.'"
Boll says the writer, Kaizaad Kotwal, was "quoting from a transcript which he doesnt have" and was asking questions "that were clearly traps."
He insists that Channing's support and gratitude for her gay fans and friends is solid.
Full press release after the jump.
***PRESS RELEASE from HARLAN BOLL, publicist for CAROL CHANNING***
"Is a sad statement on our community when they so quickly choose to believe bad things about people without checking the facts. Especially when they are about individuals to whom we have received nothing but support over the years.
In this case the less than accurate interview done with Carol Channing comprised of a series of half quotes and twisted statements.
The reporter misquoted Tim Rowe and me and clearly misquoted Carol. Feel free to call me if you want 323-xxx-xxxx or call Tim Rowe the event director at 937-xxx-xxxx.
He says he is quoting from a transcript which he doesnt have. He was asking questions of Carol that were clearly traps. She initially thought she was doing an interview with The Springfield News.
I hadnt told her I had switched the two and when the reporter started asking questions about her gay friends, she thought it was going to be one of those interviews where she would have to defend her friends, but when she realized it was a gay trade, her defenses were already up and confusion ensued.
When I spoke to the reporter afterwards he told me that Tim Rowe of the organization producing the Springfield event, had said that because of his interview, Carol wasn't going to do the event. When I immediately called Tim he said he never said anything of the sort and when Tim spoke to reporter, the reporter told him equally outlandish things that I never said.
The comment about how she wasnt going to do any future interviews is crazy, because she did two more immediately following his. The guy was clearly trying to bash an Icon and make a name for himself. Sadly these people with ulterior motives exist and have since before Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper.
I suppose this gentleman has a great future at the National Enquirer.
FYI - what she actually said when asked about gay marriage was that she wasnt necessarily pro gay marriage, because why would we want the government involved in our business and most of her gay friends were in agreement - this include myself. She thought civil unions and civil rights were more important, but "if this is what gay men really want then its their business and I dont care, they can take care of themselves.
"
With reference to the Bible - she said about gay marriage "You know what the Bible says about it ...
Nothing." The interviewer failed to add that last comment in the quote to the interview.
Her history of support speaks for its self.
As a gay man myself, who has worked for her for years, she has supported my 7 year relationship from the beginning and of her other gay friends and colleagues agree. For example, longtime friend, Mr. Blackwell, says that she was one of the first to be there for he and his partner Spencer and continues to be for what will soon be their 58th anniversary.
"
"I don’t think about them. I’m grateful that they seem to like me.
They’re terribly loyal to me. But I’m knee-deep in the Bible and you know what it says about that."
After she realized she was talking to a gay publication, she was asked what she thought about the battle for gay rights.
Said Channing: "I don’t think about it. If they can’t take care of their own problems, why should I bother. It’s not my problem.
"
Frank Kameny, who helped organize the first gay rights protest in front of the White House in 1965, . Kameny: "Nearly fifty years ago, the United States Government banned me from employment in public service because I am a homosexual.
This archive is not simply my story; it also shows how gay and lesbian Americans have joined the American mainstream story of expanded civil liberties in the 20th century. Today, by accepting these papers, the nation preserves not only our history but marks how far gay and lesbian Americans have traveled on the road to civil equality."
When concertgoer heckles her for mocking George Bush, : "Why don't you shut the f- - - up. If you can't take a joke, why don't you leave and get your money back." And apologies to audience: "I'm sorry.
I shouldn't have lost it."
Angels in America scribe : "It’s been a long time since I’ve written about gay issues.
I guess I feel that corners have been turned for me personally and also for the [gay] community and we’re in a different, though unfortunately, not improved era."
Tennessee Williams, whom many assumed to be a self-loathing, conflicted homosexual in the early years of his life (because of writings that contained characters "cloaked in heterosexual disguise") was actually more in touch and open with his sexuality than people think, on the .
The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer, mirrors an ill-fated relationship Williams had one summer in Ptown with a 22-year-old named Kip Kiernan as they roomed together on the rickety bohemian outcropping known as Captain Jack's Wharf.
When the relationship ended, Williams put aside the one-act for two decades. The 1940 draft, Williams wrote, "is a document of what he later called that 'pivotal summer when I took sort of a crash course in growing up,' a chronicle of how he 'had finally come thoroughly out of the closet.'"
The rescued final version adds a frame to the beginning and end of Williams' 1940 draft, according to theater director David Kaplan: "He strengthened the Chekhovian nature of the script and the classical unities.
" This new play should interest any lover of Williams, anyone who has ever spent a summer in Provincetown, or anyone who has ever experienced the unrequited love that is one of Williams' recurring themes.
According to the article, Williams' alter ego in the play, Don, laments that love is like a circus parade that has never come: "My neck’s getting stiff from straining forward. I’m beginning to think the parade isn’t going to stop by.
It must have been halted somewhere. The elephants turned hugely, impassively aside at the wrong intersection."
In other theater news, the NYT writes up .
Gay fraternity at University of Arizona : "Delta Lambda Phi, which completed rush this month, is not exclusively for gays. Membership is also open to men who are bisexual.
'We were one of the fastest charters in history because we were dedicated to this,' said Christopher Newman, 23, a senior education major and founding member. UA is now one of a few schools in the nation with Greek letter organizations geared toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students."
AfterElton's review of the homoerotic Jackass: Number Two : "In it, viewers will see the Jackass cast--often naked or almost naked--getting into every possible position with one another and delighting in all sorts of bodily fluids. But not once will viewers hear the cast utter the word 'fag.' It's no secret that the word is regularly thrown around by homophobic men when justifying and denying their own clearly homoerotic behavior with one another.
So one would almost expect to hear “fag” or other such slurs bandied about when, in the film, the rest of the guys watch Steve-O consume a beer via a beer bong—and not with his mouth."
Macy's ?
After asking San Francisco's Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center (LYRIC) to design and operate three HIV prevention games for youth at the Passport Teen Night, Macy's officials the games developed by LYRIC because they had .
The Trocks, a group of drag ballerinas, : "They are expert at lampooning the flashy self-marketing techniques of ballerinas - the shameless way they will upstage their put-upon Princes, the fake "What, all this for me?
" coyness with which they will milk an audience's applause. And the Trocks make wicked comedy out of the competitive manoeuvres of the corps, spiking each other's steps, messing with their costumes and angling to make eye contact with the audience."
The first annual kicks off in Provincetown one week from today.
"Tennessee Williams spent the most productive years of his life in Provincetown. From 1940 until 1947, this small town at the outer edge of Massachusetts is where Williams found himself artistically, acted boldly on his sexuality, and fell unguardedly in love for the first, and perhaps only time. Writing at Provincetown, sometimes on a wharf in the bay, sometimes in a shack on the dunes, Williams crafted his masterpieces The Glass Menagerie and Streetcar Named Desire - along with jewel-like poetry, short stories, one-act and other full-length plays.
"
During a new, unpublished one-act by Williams called The Parade or Approaching the End of a Summer will be performed. Provincetown fixture Ryan Landry will put on a likely cracked and irreverent parody play called Plexi-glass Menagerie, performed by members of The Gold Dust Orphans. Folks will hear Andre Previn's opera of A Streetcar Named Desire, performed by Capitol City Opera Company from Atlanta.
And Yellowbird, a short film by none other than Mommie Dearest herself, , will be screened. No word on whether she'll be there .
A gay time will be had by all.
Went to see a fun little show called on Saturday night at the South Street Seaport. The revue, which takes place in a sort of mini-Moulin Rouge circle in the round, is made up of a series of freakish cabaret acts, most of which are acrobatically-inclined.
After comparing notes with some friends who had seen the show a few weeks before I did, it appears that the show's acts vary somewhat from night to night.
Unfortunately, we missed an act in which a woman pulls a very long ribbon out of her nether regions.
Saturday night's show began with a pair of male gymnasts dressed in pinstriped suits performing a complex and intimate acrobatic routine to "Pomp and Circumstance" which evolved into a strip tease as they whittled their outfits down to a pair of boxer briefs emblazoned with the Union Jack.
Among the numerous twisted acts that followed was a scruffy contortionist with a handlebar mustache who managed to squeeze his entire body through the heads of two empty tennis rackets.
This required much stretching and the actual dislocation of body parts.
A red latex-clad harlot named Miss Behave chugged three audience members' drinks, put a cigar out on her tongue, stuck a long-stemmed rose through a hole in same tongue while twisting it around three times, and chugged a stein of beer before she was upstaged by..
.
..
.a woman playing a kazoo with her vagina. There was a debate among our group whether or not her pussy was actually doing the singing or whether it was lip-synching, so to speak.
We decided on the latter.
Finally, the show ended with a shirtless male acrobat (pictured above) performing a wet and wild aerial routine in and around a bathtub, soaking his tight jeans and a circle of audience members as he splashed in and out of the tub, and up to the ceiling of the tent. He succeeded admirably in titillating the audience, using a back scrubber and a yellow rubber duck to infuse the act with comedy.
So, if you're in New York and you're looking for something a bit different, this is it. The show plays till October 1st at South Street Seaport. We were able to get same-day tickets.
It's general seating and they have lesser priced tix for standing room only.
Drinking is encouraged.
as it expands its urban presence in a "sincere effort to reach out to...
a significant part of our customer base." Conservative public policy group balks: "I don't think this is something that will sell on Main Street America, where most Wal-Mart stores are located. I don't think cheap prices on goods from China will be enough to stop a rollback in their customer base if they choose to go down this aisle.
"
: "There was a fascinating gay culture on ships which was very different from life on shore. For a camp man a place such as the dining saloon was his stage, cruising place, playground, club and theatre for informal entertainment throughout the meal.
Gay dining room stewards minced, flirted with passengers and made a camp show of waiting at table. When camp seafarers came ashore, particularly in the 1950s and early 60s, they were like colourful butterflies in a drab world."
"Lewd" hazing at Massachusetts football camp : "...
includes allegations that players tossed semen from a cup onto the victim during the alleged assault in the dormitory-style barracks at Camp Edwards...
"
In New York and haven't seen ? Think about going on Tuesday, August 29th, when a batch of tickets from that night's show will go to benefit the Ali Forney Center, an organization that provides housing and services for homeless LGBT youth.
Your $100 ticket will get you the show and an afterparty down the street at Etcetera, Etcetera with Kiki Herb (Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman). Get 'em ..
.
Hugh Jackman recently brought his Tony award-winning performance of the late Peter Allen to Australia, but some , present in the American version of the show, failed to materialize.
Said Bartlett of the omission: "We just wanted to keep it very simple and very pure.
It's reaching so many people and sending out a message of tolerance and that love is the most important thing, regardless of where you stand. We're very proud of that."
Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby Gerard Brody called the censorship move a step in the wrong direction: "People are going to go and watch The Boy From Oz and they are going to definitely know about Peter Allen's life and I think a simple kiss, if that's offending Australians, there's something wrong with progressive Australia.
It's just strange; Peter Allen was an Australian icon and his sexuality was well known and I can't see how Australians could be offended by it, in any way. I hope they change their mind and let the true story be told."
Melbourne audiences are puckered up and this week.
You may have missed...
Gay superheroes are really hot right now. , whose new play, The Fabulous Adventures of Captain Queer, takes no prisoners in that area.
In Gomolvilas' play, Captain Queer must contend with Reginald Screamingbottom, the leader of an ex-gay ministry, and Screamingbottom's sidekicks, Dr.
Octopussy and Nazi war criminal Gustav Lederhosen.
Gomolvilas won't give up all the play's secrets, however, particularly the ones surrounding his hero's special powers: "You just have to mull over, what kind of powers could a radioactive ladybug pass on to somebody?"
Gomolvilas recently adapted Scott Heim's for the stage.
The Captain Queer play evolved from a suggestion he got from 's artistic director Ed Decker. With on the summer docket, the idea couldn't be more prescient:
"Gomolvilas thinks also takes on a particular resonance in the gay community, in which so many people have at one time or another felt they had to hide their sexual identity from the world at large. But he also says he hasn't put too much effort into analyzing his comic book habit as a gay Thai American kid growing up in Indiana and Southern California.
'I think it was mostly me escaping from reality more than anything else, as a kid who was very closeted and repressed,' he says. 'Maybe subconsciously a lot of the secret identity stuff? I don't know.
'"
Wayne Besen , a national organization that will counter the "ex-gay" movement:" With the president embracing the leader of the ex-gay ministries, there has never been a more crucial time to expose the faith-based folly of these harmful programs."
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