Born On This Day- November 30th... Gay Ally Elliott Blackstone

Our allies can come from the most unexpected places & change the daily lives of gay people through the dignity that they bring to the work they do.

Sgt. Blackstone was born in Montana on this day in1924. After finishing high school, he served in the Navy during World War II. He joined the San Francisco Police Department in 1949.

Sgt. Blackstone was a pioneer of community-based policing, once remarking that being a cop was like being "a social worker with a badge." In 1962, after the "gayola" scandal involving police demanding payoffs from gay bar owners, he was appointed the first SFPD liaison to the gay community. He was present during a police raid of a gay New Year's ball in 1965, where an officer shoved his wife, assuming she was a drag queen.

Asked why he, as a straight man, took such an active role on behalf of gay & transgender people, Sgt. Blackstone replied, "Because it was the right thing to do."

Blackstone was the 2006 San Francisco Pride Parade Grand Marshal. He also received commendations from the California State Senate, the California State Assembly, & the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.

He says he was just doing his job, although at the time police brass gave him no support.


Elliot Blackstone planted a seed to grow San Francisco into a city that was welcoming & a place that all people are treated equal. He became the first retired officer to receive a commendation from the Police Commission. Blackstone was the first police liaison to the GLBT community in 1962, after a bribery scandal involving gay bars & the police. At that time, the issue for gay rights at the department was different.

Blackstone: "They hated me. They thought it was wrong for a policeman to associate with these faggots, but they needed help, so I helped."


Blackstone worked with what were then called "homophile" organizations, such as the Mattachine Society & the Daughters of Bilitis, to end police entrapment of gay men in public bathrooms. He trained police recruits on how to handle the community by bringing in gays, lesbians & transgender people to talk about their lives.

He helped establish an anti-poverty office in the Tenderloin that employed transsexual workers. When the city was unwilling to pay for hormones for transgender people, Blackstone took up a donation at his church & distributed the drugs for free. He attended gay galas and was the face of the department for the community. He was a pioneer & somebody whose amazing accomplishments have been forgotten for too long.

Blackstone fought against prejudice & stigma at a time when the rights of gays were ignored, & helped to create a ripple of positive change.

Elliot Blackstone died in late October 2006 at the age of 82.

Born On This Day- November 26th... Artists & Friend George Segal

"I'm trying to be a human being. I used to idolize artists as demigods, I thought when I was younger that was one of the most magnificent ways a man could spend his life, I still think so, inspite of everything, I don't know why. But gradually it has dawned on me that that art is made by men, not gods or demigods, & ...I'm simply a man speaking to other people."

Straight but not narrow, what a perfect description of a gay rights ally, a casual, approachable man known for his sense of humor, George Segal worked for much of his career in a 300 foot long former chicken coop on his farm near South Brunswick, N.J. He applied Johnson & Johnson cotton bandages dipped in plaster to the faces & forms of family members, friends, neighbors, & friends in the art world. His wife, Helen, whom he married in 1946, was one of his most frequent subject models, having first sat for her husband in the 1940's & 1950's when he was still a painter. They remained together until his death at 76 in 2000.



I am a real fan of the ghostly sculptures that I have viewed in museums & as public art. George Segal was the most important pop sculptor of his time. I the monument he had created in Sheridan Park to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots.


Like so many of Segal's sculptures, Gay Liberation is unassuming, simple plaster casts of ordinary Americans: a pair of women sitting on a park bench & 2 men standing in front, the historic Stonewall Inn in the background. You might not notice anything unusual about the sculpture at first, but if you study it, there is something going on, something that takes a few moments to register: these are casts of gay couples in caring, romantic poses, the embraces of committed relationships, of deep love & companionship. A man firmly holds the shoulder of his lover; a woman has her arm on the lap of her partner, whose hand is resting on hers.

The couples in Gay Liberation are ordinary, designed to depict gay relationships as normal, a revolutionary statement for a mainstream artist when the 1st version of the sculpture was created in 1983. Segal's sculptures have always appeared to me as petrified remains of ancient Romans left in suspended animation after the explosion of Pompeii. Just like the volcanic dust in that ancient Italian city, they give the viewer imprecise, impressionistic figure. Physical gesture is often the main symbolic force in his work, & Gay Liberation is all about touch, & tender embrace.


Segal created sculptures of everyday American scenes & people: Walk, Don't Walk, depicts pedestrians, whitewashed, like a plaster leg cast, waiting to cross a street, & The Diner, with a man ordering a cup of coffee from a waitress, Segal was sort of the Norman Rockwell of pop sculpture for the 2nd half of the 20th century. It seems significant that in 1983 he had already sought to include gays as a part of his vision of the USA.

Gay Liberation brought protest. Segal: "Early on, local residents, mostly aging Italian Catholics, objected furiously to gays moving into their neighborhood, flouting their religious beliefs. I even got a letter threatening to blow up the sculpture when it was installed. Mayor Dinkins finally approved the installation. At the dedication on June 23, 1992, amazed at the lack of religious protest, I asked a local resident, how come? He laughed & said that the older protesters had mostly died; the younger ones were indifferent. But protests started pouring in from gays. What right did I, non-gay, have to make a sculpture on this subject? Why wasn't a black lesbian woman included in the sculpture? Why weren't all the gay groups consulted? The cacophony was shrill, & nowhere was there any mention of freedom of expression or any discussion of delicacy, restraint, regard for fellow human beings, and a long list of values important in my life."


Gay Liberation has had a a bit of a tough life. In 1994, a bunch of frat jocks at Stanford University decided to take out some frustration on an earlier cast of Gay Liberation, which has been installed on the campus since 1984. The vandals, including the championship football team's quarterback & linebacker, were at the center of a national scandal that, ironically, garnered more media attention than any real-life gay-bashing ,short of murder, ever could. The Stanford installation was the first public monument to gays in the USA, & the deeply embarrassed university took the attack seriously. For ramming the sculpture with a park bench & soaking it with paint, the men were prosecuted & sentenced to a year of probation & community service, which the judge suggested ought to include a gay studies class.


Segal: "The statement I tried to make in the sculpture is not a political one. It's rather a human one regarding our common humanity with homosexuals. I'm distressed that disagreement with the statement took this violent, brutal form." In 1987, someone spray-painted "AIDS" on the statue's male couple.


Segal's sculptures of gays, which are on view for the tourists, children & teenagers who visit Greenwich Village & Stanford University each year, are an important contribution to the mainstream works of art & literature that make an extra large affermation to the self esteem of young people who are discovering their sexuality.


Gay Liberation, with its subtly powerful embraces of gay couples, suggests that, rather than the classic stereotypes of loneliness & mental illness that have for too long been falsely associated with being homosexual, a normal, caring relationship with society is within reach. Thank you, George Segal, for your art & your humanity.

Bruno Tonioli Turns 55 On This Thanksgiving Day. I Know That I Am Thankful For Gay Italian Dance Judges.

 From the Give Up Clothes for Good campaign to raise money for cancer research.

For me, Dancing With The Stars (always a show that sought to stretch the very definition of the term- STAR) finally really jumped the shark this season. It was the Bristol factor, for sure. I was not happy to share a night of TV viewing with call-in fans who have no fear of celebrating mediocrity. Her mother has followers that support her because: “She is just a regular person. Sarah Palin is just like us.” Excuse me, but I want my leaders to be the brightest of the bright. I don’t want them to be anything like me. I want them to have studied Constitutional Law at Stanford, Yale, Princeton, or Harvard. I want them to have practical experience on many levels… & I want my finalists of DWTS "Stars" to be terrific dancers.



Bruno Tonioli makes the show really just sing out. His critiques make me laugh, but put out with the Italian accent, they reach a whole new sublime level of wit. He used that wit to beat his childhood bullies.


Toniolo was born in Ferrara, northern Italy, the only child of a poor bus & seamstress who also made car upholstery. The family lived with his paternal grandparents until Bruno was 12.


Toniolo: “Other babies learn to stand & then walk. I just danced. At the age of 3 I would leap on the table & dance if I heard music. It was something I had to do, as if my legs were moving for themselves. We didn’t have a television until I was seven but my father loved Fred Astaire & Gene Kelly. I used to watch Hollywood musicals at the cinema & in the evenings I would go to the ballroom & watch my parents dance.”


He also knew from an early age that he was gay, not so easy in macho Italy during the 1960s. Toniolo:“It was frightening. I really was the only gay in the village. Everyone was football mad but I just wanted to watch musicals & look at art. I was labelled ‘the queenie guy’ & ‘the queer’, which was the worst thing anyone could say in Italy in those days.”


Much of the bullying came from the fact that he studied dance. Toniolo: “The really good-looking girls liked to hang around with me because I always danced really well but this made some of the lads jealous. One night they chased me out of a club with a broken bottle & pinned me up against a wall. I managed to chat my way out of it with a bit of wit “imagination but I was very lucky. I realized then I had to reinvent myself. So I grew my hair, started smoking, always wore the latest gear & had the best looking girls as my friends & I became very popular just by putting on an act. Instead of being an object of derision I became an object of admiration so the bullies couldn’t attack me any more.”


He never discussed his sexuality with his parents: “It was not in the realm of things my parents could compute.” Years later they came to stay with him in London when he was living with partner Paul. They were together for 20 years but he now resides alone in North London.


Toniolo believes they knew: “I never had a girlfriend & there were always men hanging around the house. I don’t think they were ashamed but I do think they were worried about what people would think.”


In 1972, when the film version Cabaret was playing, Toniolo saw it many times & it helped him decided to be a performer. His parents refused to send him drama school, & left for Rome to study ballet, & at 18, he moved to Paris to dance with La Grande Eugene Company. 2 years later he moved to London.


In 1983 he appeared in the pop video for Elton John’s hit I’m Still Standing, dancing in a leotard & hot pants. He went on to become a choreographer & did the dancing for the film Absolute Beginners, a favorite of mine, & for music videos, stage shows, & tours for artists such as Tina Turner, Sting, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Freddie Mercury, Boy George, Duran Dura, & Bananarama. Film credits: Ella Enchanted, The Gathering Storm, Little Voice, Dancin' thru the Dark, Enigma, The Parole Officer & What a Girl Wants.


You look like a crazy bear lost in a swamp.”


“The cha-cha-cha needs a slut.”


About Apolo Ono & Julianne Huff: “They made love on the dance floor!”


"Do you have extra batteries in your pants?”


“You look like you’re riding a bike.”


“Your rumba was so hot, I need an ice bucket.”


“I want you to be a dirty girl.”


 “I want you to push more on the sex and become more dirty.”


To Drew and Cheryl: “You 2 can ride each other like no other!”


“Kristi Yamalicious tonight!”

To Niecy Nash after shaking her stuff during her jive: "There was so much going on on the upper deck, it was hard to look anywhere else."


To Jake Pavelka after he put his pants back on about 2 seconds into his "Risky Business" cha cha: "Jake, you cheeky bugger! Why did you put your pants on?"


To Kate Gosselin on her uber-low energy during her foxtrot: "Dahling, I think Tony could have more life with a frock on a coat hanger."


Another Gosselin zinger (because one is simply not enough): "What you need is a postmortem, not a critique."


To Nicole Scherzinger after a tango (delivered with unbridled enthusiasm while standing up): "2 players at the top of their game! Riding the fine line between love & hate, bursting with sexual tension!"

Born On This Day- November 25th... John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr

The above photograph, torn from People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive 1998 issue, was on my fridge for half a decade before it tuned yellow & brittle. You see, I really loved him. I loved his father & his uncles. I adored his mother. I admire his sister. I do not believe in Monarchy, unless I end up to be the Monarch, but I was fascinated & drawn to our country's close-to-being-royalty. The entire big brood: Shrivers, Bouviers, Radziwills, Smiths, Lawfords. I like to think that most of them were honorable.

I watched him grow up, & then I watched him grow up. I started tearing out photos of him from magazines.

Back in the 1980s, as I saw it, there was a huge cosmic error that I didn't have John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. as my boyfriend. On that summer day in 11 years ago, his tragic death knocked the wind out me & at first I didn't believe it was true, & then I actually grieved, cried & felt sick.  He was a lawyer, a publisher & I pilot. He would have been 50 years old today. Can you even conceive of how hot he still would have been? Can you imagine what he might have achieved?

My Screen Goes Dark

I love reading other blogs & getting to know interesting, opinionated people from around the world. Even a decade ago, I never would have imagined a world like the one we live in today. We are all so connected & yet so hostile to anyone who is seen as different. Despite all the knowledge at our fingertips, we continue to live on a planet torn apart by religious fanaticism, fellow humans killing each other, passing laws & attempting to make life miserable for those that they find contrary.

I write these words as I agonize over the fact that my beloved laptop is dying. When I open the applications, the screen is often to0 dark to read or see the cursor. My 6 year old Dell XPS M1210 will finally open with a clear view about every 15th try. I tried not turning it off, but it will sometimes go dark while I am using it.

The Resume Photo Of Your Host a 25 Years Ago.

Composing & posting on Post Apocalyptic Bohemian gives me clarity, helps me work out my priorities & just plain makes me happy. That anyone reads it seems like a little miracle to me. I may soon loose the amazing device that opens the world to me. This scares & confuses your bohemian host. If I loose you for a while, dear readers, it is not by choice, I am not ignoring you, & I will miss reading you & I will miss you checking in on me. A new computer seems close to impossible at the moment, but I am always up for a miracle. They have touched me before.

Thankful

My tea's gone cold, I'm wondering why

I got out of bed at all

The morning rain clouds up my window

& I can't see at all

& even if I could it'd all be grey,

but your picture on my wall

It reminds me that it's not so bad,

it's not so bad

I drank too much last night, got bills to pay,

my head just feels in pain

I missed the bus & there'll be hell today,

I'm late for work again

& even if I'm there, they'll all imply

that I might not last the day

& then you call me & it's not so bad,

it's not so bad &

I want to thank you

for giving me the best day of my life

Oh just to be with you

is having the best day of my life

Push the door, I'm home at last

& I'm soaking through and through

Then you hand me a towel

& all I see is you

& even if my house falls down,

I wouldn't have a clue

Because you're near me &

I want to thank you

for giving me the best day of my life

Oh just to be with you

is having the best day of my life

Dido

 2001

Born On This Day- November 23rd... Bruce Vilanch

Large, Jewish, hairy & very funny, Bruce Vilanch has rarely been seen in public wearing anything more formal than blue jeans and one of his many smartass T-shirts. His own website calls himself- "the man who put F U in funny."

 

Vilanch's career as the man who writes funny things for funny people to say began when he was writing celebrity features for The Chicago Tribune, & schmoozing with whatever celebrities or semi-celebrities were in town. It was there that he met then-struggling nightclub singer Bette Midler, & the pair became fast friends. It was Vilanch who gave Midler some helpful career advice: "You’re pretty funny. You should talk more onstage". He wrote for Midler's 1974 Broadway show, Clams on the Half Shell, then moved to Los Angeles to write for The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. When that show ended, Vilanch wrote jokes for anyone who'd hire him, including Lily Tomlin, Billy Crystal, Roseanne Barr, Rosie O'Donnell, Paul Reiser, Elizabeth Taylor, & Robin Williams. He wrote Midler's Divine Madness act of 1980 & has been the Oscar Broadcast head writer, pulling off quips backstage, on the fly. Vilanch is a notable “script doctor”, who is brought in to punch up other writer’s screenplays. A prolific comedy writer, his resume includes classics like The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, The Star Wars Holiday Special & The Brady Bunch Hour, plus numerous awards shows, including several Emmy winning gigs with the Oscars.


He was head writer & a panelist on Hollywood Squares for 4 years, writing gags for the other panelists while his friend & client Whoopi Goldberg ran the show. Vilanch has also toured as Edna Turnblad in stage productions of Hairspray, shaving off his trademark 30 year old beard. A 1999 documentary, Get Bruce, chronicled Vilanch's day to day life. He has the amazing distinction of having acted in Mahogany & Ice Pirates. Vilanch works tirelessly for gay rights.

Born On This Day- November 22nd... Composer Benjamin Britten

I do not have a driving passion for “serious” music, symphonic work, coral pieces or what is blanketed as “classical music. I am interested in Benjamin Britten, one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, because his story is also one of the great loves stories of the last 100 years & because he was working during a golden age of gay, mostly American & British compser who all knew & fed off of each others artistic energy: Aaaron Copeland, Virgil Thomas, Paul Bowles, Samual Barber, & Leonard Bernstein. Britten composed a series of masterpieces ranging from works for solo piano, oboe & cello, to pieces for chamber ensemble, to concertos & compositions for orchestras both tiny & monumental, even a full ballet. His vocal works encompass folksong arrangements to several song cycles setting poetry by Michelangelo, William Blake, W.H. Auden among others, to the great choral masterpiece, War Requiem. The form for which he is best known is opera: Peter Grimes is arguably one of the most powerful musical dramas of the last century, & he wrote at least 5 other landmark operas that are a part of the major Opera companies' repertory.

The extraordinary tenor- Peter Pears, was Britten's musical partner, life partner & muse. Britten wrote many of his greatest vocal works, from his song cycles to his finest operas, specifically for Pears & his unique & expressive voice. Pears seems a man who has found the acceptance that eluded Britten; in a way, the always present yearning that is a major defining element of Britten's music (he does yearning better than any composer since the also gay Tchaikovsky) is resolved in Pears's comfort with his life & Britten's death. Pears & Britten were understandably reticent to talk being gay, they had lived in a Britain where sodomy carried a career & life destroying prison sentence. It was an era where they were forced to hide their love.


Benjamin Britten visited North America in the spring 1939, & found more than he hoped for. He came from Britain to perform & present some of his compositions in Canada & the USA. It was planned as a relatively short trip, but ended up lasting several years. War broke out in Europe while he was away, & he not to come back to England. Britten was 26 years old, & he would have had to enlist in the military in some form (he returned to England in 1942 & claimed conscientious objector status).


During this visit, Britten & his traveling companion, the tenor Peter Pears, started the love affair that lasted 40+ years, until Britten died in 1976. There is a hotel room in Grand Rapids, MI, that is a place of pilgrimage for gay musicians, where they supposedly consummated their union. Pears wrote later: "I shall never forget a certain night in Grand Rapid. Ich liebe dich, io t’amo, jeg elske dyg, je t’aime, in fact, my little white-thighed beauty, I’m terribly in love with you." How mushy, but Britten was a Brit, & of course his legs were probably very white.

Pears with Britten at the piano

The Britten/ Pears had gay “marriage” that gave life to some of the most magnificent music of the century. Homosexuality was altogether prohibited in England at the time. Still, in a letter to Pears in 1943, Britten writes to a traveling Pears: "Think of all the other married couples who are separated for ever so much longer!" When Britten died, a decade after the repeal of the buggery laws, Queen Elizabeth sent condolences to Pears under the thinly veiled guise of sharing sympathy with "a representative of all who had worked with Lord Britten."


This prohibition of homosexuality is partly responsible for Britten's monument of the 20th century music, the opera Peter Grimes, whose conception started 2 years into the Britten/Pears relationship. It's during the US trip that George Crabbe's poem- The Borough, was pointed out to Britten, & became the inspiration for the opera. The libretto gives us a Grimes not as a murderer, but an outsider, alienated from the life of his fishing village which rejects him, as Britten's homosexuality had isolated him growing up in the conservative seaside.

Britten was recognized as a gifted composer all through his life. He won the only scholarship offered by the Royal College of Music in 1930, at 17. The following year he met W. H. Auden with whom he collaborated on the song cycle Our Hunting Fathers, radical both in politics & musical direction, & other works. Of more lasting importance was his meeting in 1936 with the tenor Peter Pears, who was to become his musical collaborator & inspiration as well as the partner with whom he was to spend the rest of his life. In early 1939, the pair followed Auden to the USA. There Britten composed Paul Bunyan, his 1st opera, with a libretto by Auden, as well as the 1st of many song cycles for Pears.


The Britten/Pears returned to England in 1942, Britten completing the choral works- Hymn to Saint Cecilia, his last collaboration with Auden, & A Ceremony of Carols during the long voyage. He had already begun work on his opera Peter Grimes, & the premiere at Sadler's Wells in 1945 was his greatest success so far. Britten was encountering opposition from sectors of the English musical establishment & he withdrew from the London scene, founding the English Opera Group in 1947 & the Aldeburgh Festival the following year, partly to showcase his own works.


Peter Grimes marked the start of a series of operas, including Billy Budd (1951) & The Turn of the Screw (1954). These operas share common themes, with the theme of the 'outsider' particularly prevalent. Most feature such a character, excluded or misunderstood by society.


In the last decade of his life, Britten suffered from  bad health & depression. His late works became progressively more sparse in texture,including the opera- Death in Venice (1973),


Having previously refused a knighthood, Britten accepted a life peerage in July 1976 as Baron Britten, of Aldeburgh in the County of Suffolk. A few months later he died of heart failure at his house in Aldeburgh. He is buried in the churchyard there.

Jeff Buckley doing Britten...

Jake or Jake?

I am having a particularly lovely, low key Sunday. The Husband has watched A Summer Place & Hitchcock's Suspicion, leaving me to consider People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive Issue. Although I am a fan of Mr. Reynolds, to really appreciate his talents he needs to be showing his nipples. I find a variety of men, of different ages & body types, attractive & sexy. On this late autumn cold & rainy Sunday, I am trying to decide between my 2 favorite Jakes. Which Jake would you take? If you were forced to choose just one... Gyllenhaal or Shears?

A Few Of My Favorite Things

I love my bed. In a nod to Pee Wee Herman, I call it “beddy”, my beddy. Even with my love affair with my sleeping place, it is used exclusively for sleeping & well, you know…I don’t eat, read or watch TV in bed.

The bed frame is from West Elm, & the headboard is by the Husband, made from pieces of a vintage door from Indonesia. The mattress is a California King by Royal-Pedic. The mattress retails for about $3000, but was purchased by the Husband at cost. The current blanket is a coverlet by Peacock Alley & the Duvet cover is from West Elm.

The Husband sleeps with his feet outside the covers & the duvet pulled up to his eyelids. He wears a tee shirt & curls up into a little ball. I sleep naked in corpse position with my upper chest outside of the covers. I share the bed with my man & 2 canines. Larry, the fat dog, likes to sleep on my feet, & junior sleeps curled up between us, making spontaneous affection between the husband & me mostly impossible. In fact, we rarely run into each other in the night.

I like to sleep. I can easily sleep 9 hours a night, & I love to nap in my beddie, slipping just under the duvet layer.

My childhood headboard re-used in the guest room.

A bed by the Husband in the guest room, circa 2001

I have always had a pretty cool bed. I still have my childhood headboard. It was the guest bed in the 2nd bedrrom until the Husband claimed the room as his studio. I make my bed every day & I have since I was 4 years old. One day in 2007, in an effort to prove that I am not the rigid control freak I was accused of being by the Husband & a friend, I chose not to make the bed. I went to work with the bed a morning tangle. I did well for the 1st hour, & then I thought about nothing else but the unmade bed all day until I got home in the evening. I made the bed just a few hours before I would get in it again. Never again.

Our bed in our Seattle cottage, circa 1986

Sleep tight & don’t let the bed bugs bite.

A bed that the Husband designed & built the headboard for WCK3 in October 2010.

A bed the Husband did for a photo shoot.

Considering Jodie Foster On Her Birthday

I like her well enough. I certainly appreciate her talent & dedication to the craft of acting. I don’t love her enough to shoot a President, although it was a sad day for me when John Hinckley missed. I 1st noticed her as Becky Thatcher in a crappy musical version of Huckleberry Finn (produced by Reader’s Digest!) in 1973. I thought- “wow, that little girl sure is butch, just like I want my girls!”  But, I turned around & she really held my attention & interest in the wonderful Scorsese flick- Alice Doesn’t Live Her Anymore.



Alicia Christian Foster began acting in commercials when she was 3 years old, & her first important role came in 1976 in Taxi Driver as a preteen prostitute. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Also that same year she starred in the cult film The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. She finally won that Oscar for Best Actress in 1989 for playing a rape survivor in The Accused. In 1991, Foster received a 2nd Oscar & international acclaim for The Silence of the Lambs as Clarice Starling. She received her 4th Academy Award nomination for playing a hermit in Nell (1994) a film that I truly disliked, although I do a 1st rate imitation of her work in this film. Other popular films: Maverick(1994), Contact (1997), Panic Room (2002), Flightplan (2005), Inside Man (2006), The Brave One (2007) & WTF?-Nim's Island (2008), all of which I found dreadful or at least peculiar.


Foster's films have spanned a wide variety of genres, from family films to horror. She has also won 3 Bafta Awards, 2 Golden Globes, a Screen Actors Guild Award, & has received 2 Emmy nominations.


Deeply in the closet, Her recent "mid-life crisis" was probably the subject of much speculation at soft ball practices, therapy sessions & over wholewheat muffins in bakeries around Hollywood by the entire lesbian community of L.A.


Foster had dramatically ditched 55 year old Cydney Bernard, her partner of more than 15 years - for Cynthia Mort, 33, a highly intelligent big deal writer, who has made a name for herself by giving viewers some of the most explicit sex talk on TV. She made her way in the business as a writer on Roseanne, where she worked for 4 years in the late 1990s, & was later hired as the supervising producer. She wrote Tell Me You Love Me, the show for HBO about couples in therapy, which garnered an enormous amount of publicity for its frank depiction of sex. Mort served as the executive producer of Will & Grace, & is currently writing a bio-pic about the singer Nina Simone, to star Mary J Blige.

Cynthia Mort

The relationship with Foster started when they met 3 years ago on the set of the The Brave One, which Mort had written the screenplay. Now they are going to set up a home together.


The former couple have already agreed to raise their 2 boys together. Bernard & Foster are still living together while Jodie makes plans to move out. A sad end for a romance which for a decade & a half, was as happy as it was private. Foster: "Thank you to beautiful Cydney, who stuck with me through all the rotten & the bliss".


Their partnership seemed to have been the very model of a modern lesbian couples. Foster had the babies, which were conceived with a sperm donor, her friend, openly gay film director- Randy Stone.They raised them in the comfort of West Hollywood, where they & their dogs went for walks in the local park & lived as a "regular" family, given the circumstances & Foster’s fame.


About the breakup, Foster: "Look, it's terrible, I know, but weakness really, really bugs me, to the point that if there is a wounded bird on the sidewalk, I look at it & I go: 'I think I'll just kick it.'"


More peculiar than Foster’s inability to fully come out of the closet is her recent defence of crazy, abusive, homophobic, anti-semetic Mel Gibson. Foster & Gibson have a history, they appeared together in Maverick & co-star in the yet to be released comedy The Beaver, directed by Foster.

A production still from The Beaver.

When her good friend Gibson is given to sexual abuse, threats, & racial slurs, & with a history of drunk driving & accusing the Jews of being "responsible for all the wars in the world," maybe she could as quiet about him as she is about her private life. Foster has had a lifetime of "no comment", why stop now?


Foster: "When you love a friend, you don't abandon them when they are struggling. Of course, Mel is an undeniably gifted actor & director, & 'The Beaver' is one of his most powerful & moving performances. But more importantly, he is & has been a true & loyal friend. I hope I can help him get through this dark moment. Mel is honest, loyal, kind, but alcoholism has been a lifelong struggle for him & his family. I just wish I had been there, that I had been able to say, 'Don't do it, don't take that drink. He is incredibly loved by everyone that's ever come into contact with him or works with him. He is truly the most loved man in the film business, so, hopefully that stands for something."


The thing that really gets to me about Foster, is that besides publicly thanking "my beautiful Cydney who sticks with me through all the rotten & the bliss" she has never acknowledged her personal life or relationships. For somebody of her power, influence, & fame being silent is cowardly.  She thinks Mel Gibson is "incredibly loved." Why are her gay fans, who fell in love with her in Bugsy Malone, not saying that she is no longer our role model, & hold that applause?

Born On This Day- November 19th... Webb Parmelee Hollenbeck

I love the euphemism from the 20th century for homosexual- Confirmed Bachelor. Clifton Webb is the very definition of the term. It shocks me, the films I missed when I was younger, even as I studied Film History. I caught Laura on Turner Classic Movies this autumn. Wow! What a terrific film!

A remarkable character actor, Clifton Webb was a familiar presence on Broadway in the 1920s & 1930s & in American movies of the 1940s & 1950s, a leading New York ballroom dancer, & a respected actor in stage roles both  drama & musical comedy. In his mid-50s director Otto Preminger chose him over the objections of 20th Century Fox to star as the elegant but evil radio columnist Waldo Lydecker in the film noir Laura (1944). His performance won him wide acclaim, & Webb was signed to a long-term contract with Fox. Clifton Webb’s deliciously eccentric, snobbish performance, as both a criric & Laura’s mentor is amazing. Patterned after real-life New York drama critic Alexander Woollcott, Webb’s dialogue is quotable from start to finish.

With Dana Andrews in Laura.

In the golden era of Hollywood,the sissy was usually a sexless fussy foil to the straight star, who entered briefly to liven things up with a quip & a raised eyebrow or a dramatic exit. In Laura, the sissy retains all the old characteristics: sophistication, brittleness, cynicism, while adding a new element of suppressed violence & sexual passion that threatens not only the other characters but also widely held cultural assumptions about the passivity of the effeminate male.

Webb played this role to perfection; as Waldo he is at once droll & scary, capable of pitifulness & viciousousness: "I should be sincerely sorry to see my neighbors' children devoured by wolves". He is both held in contempt & mollycoddled by a straight policeman, who doesn't realize until it is almost too late that this sissy is also a killer. Webb had the charisma & authority to rescue the sissy from minor roles; he is either the star or a major player in all of his films that followed.

On stage, Webb's  home was the Broadway theatre. He was tall, thin, & sang in a clear, gentle tenor. Webb appeared in 23 Broadway shows. He introduced Irving Berlin's Easter Parade & George & Ira Gershwin's I've Got a Crush on You, Schwartz & Dietz's I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan. Most of Webb's Broadway shows were musicals, but he also starred in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, & his longtime pal- Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit & Present Laughter, in parts that Coward wrote for Webb .

He was a major Hollywood star, remarkable considering that he was not particularly handsome or a real leading man. 2 years after his role in Laura he was reunited with his co-star- Gene Tierney as the elitist Elliott Templeton in The Razor’s Edge (1946). He received Oscar nominations for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for both his performances in Laura & The Razor’s Edge. Webb also received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 1949 for Sitting Pretty, the first in a 3-film series of comedic Mr. Belvedere movies with Webb portraying a difficult but wise babysitter.

Webb was most certainly homosexual,  it was an open secret in the Hollywood community. His most important relationship appears to have been with his mother- Maybelle, to who served as his secretary, business manager, & his constant companion at parties. I can't imagine how he met guys. When Maybelle died at age 90, Noël Coward famously remarked that Webb was “the world’s oldest living orphan.”

Happy Birthday To The Supermodel Of The World- RuPaul Andre Charles

It has been pointed out by some friends & some readers, that my blog is all abut love, love, love. Not always, I am often crabby & I have a long list of things, people, events & behavior that get under my skin... but, I do love drag queens, & I love the Supermodel Of The World- RuPaul. I love her & I love him. I love RuPaul's Drag Race on Logo. I love the music. I truly love the gender-fuck. Happy Birthday, Ru!

Born On This Day- November 17th... Hunky, Handsome Rock Hudson

Leroy (Roy) Harold Scherer, Jr. was born on this day in 1925. Rock Hudson was blessed with the urbane charm, dashing good looks, & virile masculinity of Hollywood's classic matinee idol image. His image & talents were used to great effect romantic comedies, often paired with the equally magnetic Doris Day. One of the most popular movie stars of his era, Hudson's screen career spanned 5 decades & was a true example of Hollywood's classical "star system" style career promotion. His early success was the result of careful cultivation & nurturing by major movie studio executives. While generally underappreciated for his skills as an actor, Hudson showed unexpected glimmers of brilliance, as in George Stevens' 1956 epic- Giant for which he received an Academy Award nomination. Known for his easy going demeanor off-screen, Hudson was well thought of by colleagues & seemed to enjoy a rich & happy life in the public eye. In truth, Hudson endured a deeply troubled private life, living a lie for the sake of his career, including going along with a studio arranged marriage. Manufactured to be Hollywood's ultimate ladies man, Rock Hudson was a lifelong gay man. It could be claimed that Rock Hudson was one of the greatest actors who ever lived: a gay man who became an international symbol of heterosexuality. In the more open 1970s, Hudson did become more visible in bars & bathhouses on the West Coast, & was even included post-coitally, anonymously but with his blessing, in Armistead Maupin's newspaper serial Tales of the City.

Tragically, after contracting HIV & dying of AIDS in 1985, his private life was thrust public for the world to see. Hudson would become the first major Hollywood casualty of the misunderstood & widely feared disease. Hudson's sex life received detailed attention posthumously when a lover, Marc Christian (who died last week from a drug overdose), whom he had not informed of his diagnosis, successfully sued his estate. But he would not die in vain. His death not only opened people's eyes to the disease itself, it inspired his good friend Elizabeth Taylor to begin her decades long role as a prominent AIDS activist, raising millions in the fight against the feared disease that had robbed her friend of his golden years. He was always a favorite of mine & his passing brought me much sadness. I like the frothy comedies, but I most appreciate him in Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955) & Written on the Wind (1956), which were directed by Hudson's mentor, Douglas Sirk.

Rock pretends to be gay to get the girl in Pillow Talk.

The Tragic Tale Of Glenn Burke On His Birthday

"They can't ever say now that a gay man can't play in the majors, because I'm a gay man & I made it,"
Glenn Burke

In 1970, Byron Burke helped lead his Oakland high school basketball team to an undefeated season, a state championship, & all-tournament honors. He was a great all-around athlete who reportedly ran the 100 yard dash in 9.7 seconds & was also an outstanding baseball player.


It was his baseball skills that caught the eye of the Los Angeles Dodgers. One coach labeled Burke as "the next Willie Mays."  Besides being a great baseball prospect, Burke also was gay, a gay man in professional sports, in the USA, in the 1970s.


Burke made his debut with the Dodgers in 1976. Early in his career, Burke felt he had to hide his sexuality from his teammates. When he began to reveal bits of his gaynes, it naturally drew the disapproval of baseball establishment.


Ironically, the very team that courageously challenged baseball's status quo of racism in 1947 as it stood behind Jackie Robinson, did not make the same stand when it came to Burke's gayness.


In an attempt to cover up his homosexuality, the Dodgers' management offered Burke $75,000 if he agreed to get married, to which Burke slyly responded: "You mean to a woman?"


Not only did Burke refuse to participate in any closet charade, he began an affair with homophobic Dodgers Manager Tommy Lasorda's estranged gay son. Lasorda would introduce Burke as:The Faggot.


Burke was traded to the Oakland A's before the 1979 season. Though back at home, things in Oakland didn't improve much for Burke. He refused to live the lie.


By the end of the 1979 season, Burke was no longer in baseball.


Many of Burke's teammates & managment were aware of his homosexuality during his playing career, & that his sexuality & the reaction that it provoked, led to the early end of his baseball career.


Burke’s honesty & courage ran ahead of society’s There's no way Burke's story, circa 1979, could end any way other than it did, a promising career ending before it truly began.


It wasn't enough for Burke to be a Major League Baseball player, if it meant compromising who he was. With the Dodgers, Burke possessed a very nontraditional attitude while playing for one of the most corporate sports franchises at the time. But, it wasn't just the Dodgers; homophobia continues to be the norm in Major League Baseball, & attitudes were consistent, & in most cases intensified, in locker room.


Burke's wanted to be a professional athlete & an openly gay man, but the conflicting emotions too much, despite Burke's enormous personality & athletic prowess.


After his premature retirement from baseball, Burke found solace & acceptance in San Francisco's Castro district. In the Castro, Burke was a celebrity acknowledged for his athletic ability & his gay identity, which for a while, seemed to be what Burke needed. he continued in sports after retiring from baseball. He competed in the 1986 Gay Games in basketball, & won medals in the 100 & 220 meter sprints in the first Gay Games in 1982. His jersey number at Berkeley High School was retired in his honor.Burke came out in a 1982 article published by Inside Sports magazine.

Burke turned to drugs to fill the void in his life when his career ended. An addiction to cocaine destroyed him both physically & financially. In 1987 his leg & foot were crushed when he was hit by a car in San Francisco. After the accident his life went into decline. He was arrested & jailed for drugs & for a time was homeless man living on the streets in the same Castro neighborhood that once celebrated him. He died of AIDS complications at age 42.


The tragic story of Burke is a tragedy faced by many gay people- unfulfilled dreams. Itseems even more so for Burke; his dreams were in sight. Burke was not the first gay athlete in professional sports. He was the first who was unwilling to compromise. I wonder if Burke gave much thought to the price his courage would demand of his life. Burke would have been 58 today.


Out: The Glenn Burke Story, is a new documentary produced by Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, it tells the tragic story of Burke's legacy as the first openly gay Major League Baseball player. Look for it on the Evil Comcast this month.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

The Mississippi District, a section of the quadrant- North Portland, is one of my favorite things about the city I live in, a place full of interesting neighborhoods. Locally owned & operated businesses line Mississippi Avenue in North Portland, boasting Portland talent. When we moved here 9 years ago, this street had The Rebuilding Center & Sunlan Lights & boarded up street fronts. Now N. Mississippi Avenue & its side streets are filled with Portland-centric shops, music venues, bars, coffee & restaurants, including a shop that sells salts & a sex toy shop.

The Husband had to cajole me out of the house for an outing, even to nearby Mississippi. But the rain broke, the sun slipped through & I embraced the afternoon. We walked a bit, & over lunch I must have really impressed the Husband with my smarts & my wit, because within a half hour, these were mine:

By Palladium

Purchased at Manifesto on North Mississippi Avenue in NoPo

What do you think, hot or not?

Words To Live By

"Sample everything that life has to offer,

 except incest & folk dancing"

George S. Kauffman

Do You Know Your ABCs?

I have life long been captivated by alphabets, type-sets & fonts. The Husband & I have a nice set of books from different eras of lettering. We subscribed for decades to a now defunct publication- Upper & Lower Case, dedicated to the subject. I thought this alphabet, made from Google Earth images was fun & refreshing:

Click to Enlarge. From Nelde @ Devianart

Beverly D'Angelo Has A Birthday Today

I am a long time admirer of Beverly D’Angelo’s beauty & talent. The film version of Hair is in my Top Ten Films of all time & she really shines in that movie. Remember her Oscar nominated turn as Patsy Cline in Coalminer’s Daughter? But my favorite performance by Ms D’Angelo is from the little seen & vastly under appreciated Neil Jordan 1991 film-The Miracle. This film is dreamy & expressionistic & although I only saw it once, I have never been able to shake it.

 The Miracle is an unsung yet crucial point in Neil Jordan’s film career, a departure because it takes place entirely in Dublin. Perhaps it was a return home that prompted him to create a film about Ireland itself, & more specifically, the Irish family unit.


The film begins at the start of summer, a season with expectations, & the promise of excitement following the school year. Jimmy & Rose, childhood friends, spend hours daydreaming & making up stories for the people that surround them. No one is safe from their attempts to make sense of their world as they invent fantasies to interpret the mundane happenings of their seaside Dublin suburb. Each person they encounter is fodder for their notebook, a kind of sketchpad they use to develop the people around them into characters for their writing. Despite their dreaming, the young pair are still defined by their circumstances & they never contemplate escape or running away from home. Instead, they make the world around them conform to their vision of how it should be, creating their own chance encounters, happy endings, & ridiculous plot twists. This summer, however, they begin to lose control over their imaginations, and the stories they create seem to take on a life of their own. Beverly D’ Angelo plays an American actress who returns, after a long absence, to Dublin to appear in a local stage production of Destry Rides Again. The young people are drawn to her & she has secrets & mysteries to offer.


Neil Jordan’s films: The Crying Game, In Dreams, Breakfast On Pluto, Interview With The Vampire, always surprise in their ability to communicate their complex realities, whether stylized genres or stark realism, & often a combination of both. In The Miracle, the clash between the fantastic & the everyday occurs when we do not fit our ideal types. By the end, almost everyone has removed their mask, only to slip back into their accepted roles once more.


Check out this version of Stardust with just D’ Angelo & bass: