post apocalyptic bohemian

Don't Stop, Don't Stop... I Think I'm Cumming!

2012-01-27T14:56:00.000-08:00

The Husband & I caught the film- The Anniversary Party the other evening, while channel surfing & we decided to stay with it, although we had rented it years ago. One of the stars is Kevin Kline, one of the great loves of my life. But I kept riffing on the the career & personality of Alan Cumming. I was 1st aware of Cumming in 1998 through his Tony winning turn as the emcee in the Sam Mendes-Rob Marshall revival of Cabaret. He certainly seemed to be a very arresting figure when I saw him on the Tony Broadcast.

Photo by David LaChapelle

Cumming has played classical roles in an extremely eclectic career, including a very well received Hamlet in London, but his main image seems to be: naughty impish scamp, a persona that holds my interest. Cumming has done nothing to discourage this, playing a variety of louche characters: Dionysus, Mack the Knife, the Devil, in theater & film. He wrote a semiautobiographical novel-Tommy's Tale, about a sex obsessed, drug ridden bisexual; & starring in a provocative campaign promoting the fragrance line that bears his last name. I have yet to see the Good Wife, but I understand that he really bites into his role of Lawyer Eli Gold.

I downloaded his rather good album- Blue Car, with songs of love & loss by such songwriters as John Bucchino (A Catered Affair), William Finn (Falsettos) & pop singer Jimmy Webb as well as originals by Cumming himself with his musical director, Lance Horne. I am impressed with his non-theatre singing & his surprisingly touching interpretations.

I can be so very juvenile, I still giggle as I type his last name. Cumming lives in NYC with his husband, graphic artist Grant Shaffer, & their dogs- Honey & Leon.The couple dated for 2 years before entering into a civil partnership in Britain. Cumming and Shaffer married in NYC earlier this month, the 5th anniversary of their London wedding. Cumming turns 47 years old today.

Cumming is himself a Blogger. Check out his entertaining spot on the Internet.

Born On This Day- January 27th... Ethan Mordden

2012-01-27T14:28:00.000-08:00

Photo by Charles Higgins Jr for NY Times

His section in my bookshelves takes up quite a bit of space with more than 20 volumes of Theatre & Film commentary & history, with deeply held beliefs & blistering opinions. His fiction, includes the highly addictive, waggish & woeful Buddies series. For me Ethan Mordden is my era’s Charles Dickens.

Still in his 20s, he published his Better Foot Forward: The History of American Musical Theatre. He continues to write about his obsession with the performing arts. I relished his series on Broadway musicals, each one covering a decade. Other show biz books, out of dozens: Movie Star: A Look At The Women Who Made Hollywood (1983), Demented: The World of the Opera Diva (1984), & The Happiest Corpse I’ve Ever Seen: The Last 25 Years of the Broadway Musical (2004).

When I first started reading Mordden, he was writing reviews & semi-autobiographical pieces for Christopher Street magazine (Gosh, I wish I had not tossed my complete collection of Christopher Streets during a move). The stories were written in the voice of Bud, a gay man in NYC telling stories about his chosen family of other urban gay men. Mordden collected the sketches into- I’ve Got a Feeling We’re Not in Kansas Anymore (1985), which started a series that is rather like a NYC Tales Of The City. Mordden published the Buddies serial: Buddies (1986), Everybody Loves You (1988), Some Men Are Lookers (1997), & How’s Your Romance? (2005). Other novels that are smart & engaging: How Long Has This Been Going On? (1995) & my favorite- The Venice Adriana (1998), set in the world of Opera.

In Fall 2010, Mordden released- The Guest List: How Manhattan Defined American Sophistication, from the Algonquin Round Table to Truman Capote’s Ball. This one of my favorite books about my much loved NYC, with anecdotes of: Algonquin Hotel, Stork Club, Alexander Woollcott, Irving Berlin, Edna Ferber, Arturo Toscanini, Leonard Bernstein, Cole Porter, Dorothy Parker, Truman Capote, the Lunts & Helen Hayes. Their books, plays, performances, speeches, dinner parties, masked balls, loves, hates, likes & dislikes became the stuff of dreams for the rest of the nation, Mordden chronicles the city’s most powerful, potent, persuasive period.

Along with the Armistead Maupin books & Felice Picano’s Like People in History, Mordden’s Buddies Series remains an inviting way to remember an important era in urban gay male history. Start with the first & spend a season moving on to the others. I recommend him highly. Mordden makes his home in Manhattan. Her turns 63 years old today.

"I Don't Seem To Be Able... To Depart."

2012-01-26T18:46:00.000-08:00

ESTRAGON: "I can't go on like this."

VLADIMIR : "That's what you think."

Samuel Beckett, from Waiting for Godot

How To Look Terrific When You Are Over 50

2012-01-26T15:35:00.000-08:00

"I never really have a plan. My point is, by the time I was your age, I thought I knew who I was. But I had no idea. Like for example, when I was your age, I was dating men.... So, what I'm saying is, when you're older, most of you will be gay! .... The way I ended up on this path, was from a very tragic event. I was, maybe, 19, & my girlfriend at the time died in a car accident. & I passed the accident, & I didn't know it was her, & I kept going.... I started this path of stand-up, & it was successful, & it was great but it was hard because I was trying to please everybody, & I had this secret that I was keeping that I was gay. & I thought that if people found out they wouldn't like me, they wouldn't laugh at me. Really, when I look back on it, I wouldn't change a thing. I mean, it was so important for me to lose everything because I found out what the most important thing was it to be true to yourself.''

From a commencement speech delivered by Ellen DeGeneres at Tulane University, in her hometown of New Orleans.

A decade & 1/2 ago, DeGeneres was on top of the show biz world, with a popular sitcom, club appearances, dipping her toes into feature films, & then came the Oprah confession (Winfrey would go on to play her therapist when DeGeneres came out herself in an episode of her own show), & the public was drawn to the drama of a Hollywood celebrity coming out, a revelation that was not as common or acceptable then as it is now. Her coming out ignited a storm of controversy, prompting ABC to place a parental advisory at the beginning of each episode of the show & then show took a dive in the ratings, & Ellen was cancelled in 1998. Pop culture pundits suggested that her public coming out, her heartfelt admission of her homosexuality on The Oprah Winfrey Show, had killed her career.

DeGeneres returned to standup &, in 2001, rebounded in prime time with The Ellen Show, a sitcom in which she portrayed a lesbian. The show lasted only a year, & many dismissed it as a good try, but conservative America probably just wasn't ready for a loud & proud lesbian TV star. But, times did start to change, & sexuality became somewhat less of an issue in Show Biz.

In 2003,with the closet door wide open door, DeGeneres stepped out as the host of crisp new daytime talk show. The Ellen DeGeneres Show is not only a ratings winner but it has turned the comedienne into a much loved mainstream star. I adore the way she mentions her wife as a toss off. She never pushes.

The times, they are a-changin'. These days it seems that everybody loves DeGeneres. I do; I am watching her show at this moment. She just had Mario Lopez strip to show his Underwear. Thank you, Ellen!

Her distinctive hip populism cuts across divergent demographics without dividing. As an interviewer, she is sweet & naturally funny, a perfect host who just happens to be a lesbian. Middle America, to my surprise, embraced her uniqueness & today, DeGeneres has a bunch of Emmys, & represents American Express & Cover Girl in commercial campaigns. She hosted the Emmys & the Oscars, the 1st openly gay person to do so.

DeGeneres' has given passionate, persuasive & poignant voice to the position of gay people, especially gay youth.of the show's appeal, of course, is that DeGeneres does not apologize or shy about being gay, joking & sharing details about her life with Portia de Rossi. They legally married in a ceremony at their Beverly Hills home in 2008.

I have always found DeGeneres to be funny & original, & think that she is a true hero to gay people. She looks smashingly good on her 54th birthday! I guess lots of money, a hit show, awards, a personal trainer & a beautiful spouse is the secret to looking good after 50.

DeGeneres shares her birthday with someone special in my life. MGC has been my friend for nearly 40 years. We met when we were both puppies, undergrads at Loyola Marymount University in L.A. We attended 2 different universities together & we have lived in 3 different cities at the same time, not because of each other & without consulting each other; we just kept ending up at the same spot. We worked on, in various capacities, several theatre projects together.

MGC circa 1974 & today... pretty adorable, huh?

MGC has never been anything like my best friend, but we are good friends & honest friends. We lived together once & we have known each other in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, the Aughts & now the Teens. MGC & I have never had a fight, a fuss, or egos, amigos. We once had a flirtation, & that didn't even dent our friendship. It is my understanding that he has bragged that I was one of the most inventive lovers that he has experienced.

We have gone a few years without seeing each other, but we always seem to find our way back again. When we are with each other, I enjoy his company so much that I always ask myself- "Why is it that I don't spend more time with this handsome, smart, strong, spiritual, sweet man?"

I would like to think that Ellen would persuade MGC to strip on afternoon TV.

2012-01-25T18:56:00.000-08:00

I experienced it this summer, like many summers before. A perfect summer evening with sunset at 10pm, 80 degrees, & a sky slowly hanging out its stars. I am a bit lubricated, in the back garden & the soundtrack for the twilight is Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim (1967). This curious collaboration brought forth a nearly perfect album. I love Brazilian music & I am enamored of the Portuguese language, & most significant for me, Jobim is the composer of one of my favorite songs, a composition that I wish to be played at my memorial service. Take Note.

Antonio Carlos Jobim was brought in to our relationship by each of us separately. While taking a break from making out, The man that would become my husband & I were already madly in love with the same man. He was the best export from Brazil since coffee & the waxing of ladies’ Copacabana parts.

Even if they can’t name him right away as the composer, just about everybody knows some of the bossa nova music of Antonio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim. His seductive melodies have become part of the standard song repertoire throughout the world.

Jobim was born in l927 in Rio de Janeiro. He was a "beach boy" hanging out in the bars & coffeehouses along the white sand of Copacabana and Ipanema. He was immersed in his first love & he never did get around to becoming an architect as he had planned. So many kinds of music were popular in Brazil when Jobim was a young man in the 1940s, including the delicate harmonies of the French impressionists & American jazz. Jobim absorbed them in the the music of Brazil: the fast & fiery Afro-Brazilian sambas & the lush if lazy, Moorish ballads of Portuguese settlers.

Jobim creatively combined elements of all these styles into a fresh new “now” sound. He had his first big international hit with Desafinado, recorded by tenor saxophonist Stan Getz & guitarist Charlie Byrd in 1962. Check out Getz/João Gilberto album with Jobim’s creation that made musical history-The Boy From Ipanema featuring Getz, guitarist João Gilberto, &, as a last-minute addition, Gilberto’s wife- Astrud, on vocals. The entire album is stocked with superb Jobim songs, marvelously arranged.

I have a large selection of music form Brazil in my collection & Jobim’s work has been covered by many American artists. Add at least one of his albums to his collection.

His composition- Águas de Março is one of the most important songs in my life filled with songs. It is a collage, the musical version of The Husband’s assemblages. It is also a list song, & I love a list.

In both the Portuguese & English: a stick, a stone, a sliver of glass, a scratch, a cliff, a knot in the wood, a fish, a pin, the end of the road. The Waters Of March, the rainiest season in Brazil & the end of summer. This song gives me the image of the passing of daily life & the progression towards death. In both langauges, the lyrics speak of "the promise of life”. Regretful/Happy.

Jobim made sublime music to the end of his life. He died in 1994.

Águas de Março

2012-01-25T18:55:00.000-08:00

Your Host & the Husband circa 1980

A stick, a stone,

It's the end of the road,

It's the rest of a stump,

It's a little alone

It's a sliver of glass,

It is life, it's the sun,

It is night, it is death,

It's a trap, it's a gun

The oak when it blooms,

A fox in the brush,

A knot in the wood,

The song of a thrush

The wood of the wind,

A cliff, a fall,

A scratch, a lump,

It is nothing at all

It's the wind blowing free,

It's the end of the slope,

It's a beam, it's a void,

It's a hunch, it's a hope

& the river bank talks

Of the waters of March,

It's the end of the strain,

The joy in your heart

The foot, the ground,

The flesh & the bone,

The beat of the road,

A slingshot's stone

A fish, a flash,

A silvery glow,

A fight, a bet,

The range of a bow

The bed of the well,

The end of the line,

The dismay in the face,

It's a loss, it's a find

A spear, a spike,

A point, a nail,

A drip, a drop,

The end of the tale

A truckload of bricks

In the soft morning light,

The shot of a gun

In the dead of the night

A mile, a must,

A thrust, a bump,

It's a girl, it's a rhyme,

It's a cold, it's the mumps

The plan of the house,

The body in bed,

& the car that got stuck,

It's the mud, it's the mud

Afloat, adrift,

A flight, a wing,

A hawk, a quail,

The promise of spring

& the riverbank talks

Of the waters of March,

It's the promise of life

It's the joy in your heart

A stick, a stone,

It's the end of the road

It's the rest of a stump,

It's a little alone

A snake, a stick,

It is John, it is Joe,

It's a thorn in your hand

& a cut in your toe

A point, a grain,

A bee, a bite,

A blink, a buzzard,

A sudden stroke of night

A pin, a needle,

A sting, a pain,

A snail, a riddle,

A wasp, a stain

A pass in the mountains,

A horse & a mule

In the distance the shelves

Rode 3 shadows of blue

& the riverbank talks

Of the waters of March,

It's the promise of life

In your heart, in your heart

A stick, a stone,

The end of the road,

The rest of a stump,

A lonesome road

A sliver of glass,

A life, the sun,

A knife, a death,

The end of the run

& the riverbank talks

Of the waters of March,

It's the end of all strain,

It's the joy in your heart.

Jobim

1971

I Will Take Dowdy Gay British Writers Of The 20th Century for $1000, Alex...

2012-01-25T16:53:00.000-08:00

"At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, & talk well but not too wisely."

Although W. Somerset Maugham rarely spoke publicly about his sexuality, he has been embraced as one of the most renowned gay authors of all time. Maugham: "I was a 1/4 normal & 3/4 queer, but I tried to persuade myself it was the other way round. That was my greatest mistake."

Maintaining the habit of writing for several hours each morning, Maugham produced 30 plays, 24 novels, & more than 100 magazine articles. With his cynical wit & straightforward style, he was more popular among masses than the literary set, & he always felt like an outsider to the establishment. Although Maugham's highly acclaimed works – including Of Human Bondage (1915), The Constant Wife (1927), & The Razor's Edge (1944) made him the most famous & wealthiest author of his day, he never received the honor of knighthood.

There are over 50 film & TV adaptations of Maugham's work, even into the new century with The Painted Veil (2006), Being Julia (2004), Up at the Villa (2000). Try 1934's Of Human Bondage with Bette Davis & Rain (1932) with Joan Crawford.

The moment I put down Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, I picked up Mrs. Dalloway to follow the connection, It was the 1st time in decades that I had read any Virginia Woolf, but in my early 20s, I went on a serious Bloomsbury Group jag, reading everything by & about this remarkable group.

The Bloomsbury Group has gone down in history for the many contributions its members made to literature & art. The group's intellectual core was Virginia Stephen, who became Virginia Woolf when she married in 1912. Today she is recognized as one of the great modernist novelists. She & her husband, Leonard, founded Hogarth Press, a publishing house that brought some of the most significant literature of the era into print including T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland.

The group was also interesting because they demonstrated a sexual freedom that was very ahead of their time. Beginning in 1925, Virginia Woolf had a passionate affair with the dashing Vita Sackville-West. In the first flush of romance, Woolf wrote what has become a classic of gay fiction, the experimental fantasy Orlando (1927), which argued that love & passion ignore gender, & that gender itself is fluid.

Others in the Bloomsbury group gravitated to new ways of looking at love. Although Vanessa Stephen married Clive Bell, the great love of her life was Duncan Grant, who was gay & had been sexually involved with her brother Adrian. During World War I, they lived together at a country estate with David "Bunny" Garnett, who was a lover of both.

3 way relationships with a gay twist were common within the Bloomsbury circle. Strachey was gay, but in the early days of Bloomsbury, he proposed marriage to Virginia. In the 1920s, he lived in platonically with painter Dora Carrington. When they both fell in love with the same man, Carrington married the object of their mutual desire, & the 3 set up housekeeping together. The cross dressing Carrington had affairs with women, confiding to a friend that she had "more ecstasy" with female lovers than with men - "& with no shame."

Virginia Woolf was the center, the gravity & the soul of the group, which unraveled after she drowned herself in the spring of 1941.

"I read the book of Job last night, I don't think God comes out well in it."

Woolf, in1882 & Maugham, in 1874, were born on this day- January 25th.

& For My Next Number... Cole Porter's Don't Fence Me In

2012-01-24T22:21:00.000-08:00

I did a post on rising this morning. I wanted to be casual about the anniversary of this little place on the Internet. I worked a 12 hour day & I took a moment to look at the blog on my new Iphone (I can't leave it alone! I have apps!) & I was horrified to see that Blogger had juxtapositioned fonts & the post didn't feel right visually. I am blocked from blogging, porn & Facebook at my place of employment (I know, what sort of job is that?) & I continued to think about the future of my espousing opinions & relating tales on this blog all day.

I started Post Apocalyptic Bohemia as a challenge to myself. I wanted to tell my story & having given up performing, I was craving a bit of attention. I fumbled at the beginning. Promising a post each day was daunting. Looking at the posts from the first year embarrasses me now, but I am standing by them. Like so many events in my life, I was doing the best I could with what I knew at the time.

I wanted to tell my story, because, when I would recounted pieces of my life to others, I was reminded that my life has been awesome & amusing, titillating & touching, sad & silly, but never normal.

I am a pre-Stonewall gay man. I am so old that I remember that the few hopeful points of being a homo were that you wouldn’t have to get married & have children, & you wouldn’t have to serve in the military. I never dreamed in my lifetime that gays would fight a winning battle to be able to be a member of the armed forces & to marry, settle down & have a family.

For me, coming out in my early teens, I saw being gay as a gift. If I had been born straight, I would have been The Man. I would have been an Anglo, heterosexual male, & I was more predispositioned to being an outsider & I thank God for making me distinctive, dissident & deviant.

I wished to acquaint readers with the lives of the famous homos. I desired for readers to like me, & discover me as pretty, witty & gay.

This is the life I dream: I awake early each day & after a power, protein shake, I work out with my personal trainer- Bruno, who works me hard & keeps me at single digit body fat.

I have coffee & spend the morning recounting the lives of famous gay people born on that day, give my opinion on culture & read other people’s blogs.

I enjoy a light lunch of salad & champagne before heading out for rehearsals for Steve! - my saucy, sassy show on HBO. I introduce myself to this week’s guests: Anderson Cooper, Angela Lansbury, Michele Obama, Daniel Craig & Sandra Bernhard.

Anderson & I are going to be singing- Together, Wherever We Go from Gypsy, after our zany sketch where my face is Cooper’s Bicycle seat. Ms Lansbury & I have a spot where we look back on our times working together before breaking into Bosom Buddies from Mame. The First Lady & I do a gardening segment. With Mr. Craig, there is a demonstration of how to mix the perfect Martini & Manhattan, after which we depict Greek lovemaking positions in silhouette behind a scrim. Sandra & I dish delightfully & do a cover of Barracuda by Heart. The entire show wraps up with all my guests in a rousing medley of favorite early rap numbers: Rapture, Woody Rappinghood, & Rapper’s Delight.

This is the reality: rise early, make coffee, & attempt to impart something fresh, facetious & fascinating on Post Apocalyptic Bohemian. I take the terriers for their walk while continuing to write in my head. Then off to the job I must perform to have an income. I will attempt to do this better than anyone else... or at least with more invention & intelligence. Then I will come back, at the end of the day, to my uncommon home, 2 tenacious terriers & one shining, skilled, smart spouse. Not at all, a bad gig.

I am thankful for what I have, most certainly including the readers of my little spot on the Internet. You are loved. Really. Thank you for 3 years. As The Husband once knowingly said: "you never said more than 2 words for 25 years... & now you won't shut up."

Great Moments In Design: Veuve Clicquot

2012-01-24T08:34:00.000-08:00

It is a very sexy shade of yellow/gold. I have long dreamed of having a glass front refrigerator filled with Veuve Clicquot perfectly faced.

I hold the idea that Yellow is one of my least favorite colors, until I remember how much I love the color of the packaging of my favorite champagne, the eponymous Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Yellow Label.

It is a color that captures self confidence, rare emotions & a sense of well-being: Tangerine, Nasturtium. Rothko put away his dark & tortured tone with squares of yellow. India's Yellow tends toward Gold: the setting of the sun to the break of dawn, symphonies of saffron, curry, papaya, amber mustard, pulpy orange. Buddhist monks of Tibet live in the beating heart of yellow, the color of wisdom & eternity.

The yellow of Veuve Clicquot labels came to life in late 1800s to distinguish the sweeter champagne preferred by the Russians whose bottle had the original white label. The yellow label was for the dry Champagne loved by the Brits & Americans. The first yellow was pale of hue, & faded by the time it made its way to the customers aboard cargo ships.

A decision was made to a deep yellow-orange. In 1877 it was officially registered as the Veuve Clicquot color so no other champagne manufacturer was allowed to use it. The color & design of the label has remained the same for over 140 years. It is a daring, dateless, delightful, divine color.The color of autumn of the sun, audacious, anxious, & spiritul.

Today is the 3rd anniversary of Post Apocalyptic Bohemian. I started to blog as a challange to myself on my 55th birthday. It took me 21 days to do the first post. By April I was asking myself to create a post a day. I had supposed that I could post about my fairly interesting life so far & celebrate famous gay folk on their birthdays. I dared myself to put out, into the universe, a mention of the things that I embraced with some passion: Design, Fashion, Music, Books, Film, Theatre, Adventure, & Love.

Nearly 4 months into daily posts, I was delighted to discover that someone on the World Wide Web would stop & read what I had posted. I had no inkling 3 years ago that individuals around the globe would desire a dose of the life of The Post Apocalyptic Bohemian every now & then.

Thanks to The Husband for the photographs & edits & for sticking it out. When I started PAB, we were, quite certainly, on the verge of divorce. The Husband: "I wasn't ever going to divorce. You get through the tough times with your partner..."

Thank you, from deep in being, to every person that ever peeked, pondered, & participated in my little spot on the Internet. When I return home I will toast you, the readers.

Born On This Day-January 23rd... Gay Icon, Chita Rivera

2012-01-23T17:23:00.000-08:00

The husband & I caught the film version of Sweet Charity recently, which prompted a discussion about Chita Rivera’s career. The Husband commented that her looks were too odd & too sharp for the camera & that is why she lost out the movie versions of the roles she created on Broadway to Rita Moreno & Janet Leigh. Best known for her roles in West Side Story, Chicago, Bye Bye Birdie, The Rink, & Kiss of the Spider Woman, she has won 2 Tony Awards for best actress in a musical, & has been nominated for a total of 9 Tony Awards.

President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom on August 12, & she was the first Hispanic ever to win the Kennedy Center Award in 2002. She recently starred in the Broadway & touring productions of Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, & she will begin touring starting this month with her concert Chita Rivera: My Broadway. Her new solo studio album, Now I Swing will be released last year. I never met her, but I saw the original Chicago 5 times. Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero is a force of nature as she turns 78 years old today.

Born On This Day- January 23rd... Pioneering Filmmaker Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein

2012-01-23T11:14:00.000-08:00

Film History class, I loved it. A big “If I could do it over again” in my life would have to be challenging myself as to why & chose Theatre over Film for my undergraduate degree. I received better marks for my work in film classes than in my own major.

Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein was a revolutionary Soviet film director & film theorist, now mostly known for his silent films: Strike, Battleship Potemkin & Oktober. His work vastly influenced early American film makers with his innovative use montage. Eisenstein felt the collision of shots could be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience & create film metaphors. His theories continue to be taught in film schools to this day.

Eisenstein's vision of Communism brought him into conflict with officials in the ruling regime of Joseph Stalin. Bolshevik artists like Eisenstein dreamed the new society would subsidize artists, breaking them free of bosses & budgets, leaving them room to create.

Eisenstein's popularity & influence in Russia changed with the success of his films & the passage of time. The critics of the outside world praised them, but at home, Eisenstein's focus in these films on structural issues such as camera angles, crowd movements & montage, brought him under fire within the Soviet film community forcing him to issue public articles of self-criticism & commitments to change his cinema to conform to socialist ideals.The constraints of Stalinism, led Eisenstein to accepted offers to work in the United States & Mexico.

He married twice in response to political pressure, but his marriages were never consummated. His memoir- Immortal Memories, recounts his infatuations with many young men, including his assistant, Grigori Alexandrov. His infatuations were almost always with young heterosexual men. His drawings include many details of homosexual activity.

Much of his work was destroyed or confiscated, but he remains one of the most important filmmakers in history. Eisenstein suffered a hemorrhage & died at the age of 50. A legend in film history tells of Russian scientists preserved his brain. It was said to bee much larger than a normal human brain, which the Russian scientists took as a sign of genius.

This Is What I Was Listening To 40 Years Ago Today

2012-01-23T10:12:00.000-08:00

No, I can't forget this evening

Or your face as you were leaving

But I guess that's just the way

The story goes

You always smile

But in your eyes your sorrow shows

Yes, it shows

No, I can't forget tomorrow

When I think of all my sorrow

When I had you there

But then I let you go

& now it's only fair that

I should let you know

What you should know

I can't live if living is without you

I can't live, I can't give any more

I can't live if living is without you

I can't give, I can't give any more

No, I can't forget this evening

Or your face as you were leaving

But I guess that's just the way

The story goes

You always smile

But in your eyes your sorrow shows

Yes, it shows

I can't live if living is without you

I can't live, I can't give anymore

I can't live if living is without you

I can't live, I can't give anymore

Nilsson

1971

Sam Cooke, Born In 1931, On This Day- January 22nd

2012-01-22T18:38:00.000-08:00

I was born by the river in a little tent

Oh & just like the river

I been a runnin' ever since

It's been a long,

A long time coming

But I know

A change gonna come

Oh yes it will

It's been too hard living

But I'm afraid to die

I don't know what's up there

Beyond the sky

It's been a long,

A long time coming but I know

A change gonna come

Oh yes it will

I go to the movie,

& I go downtown

Somebody keep tellin' me

"Don't hang around"

It's been a long,

A long time coming,

But I know

A change gonna come

Oh yes it will

Then I go to my brotherSam Cooke

& I say "brother, help me please"

But he winds up knocking me

Back down on my knees

There been times that

I thought I wouldn't last for long

Now think I'm able to carry on

It's been a long,

A long time coming

But I know

A change gonna come,

Oh yes it will
Cooke

1964

Straight But Not Narrow

2012-01-22T16:57:00.000-08:00

Reporter: You’ve been very vocal lately about gay rights, & I was just curious, what’s your opinion of Mitt Romney since he appears to be the frontrunner for the Republicans & he’s been pretty anti-gay.

George Clooney: “Well, I’m not much concerned until there’s an actual nominee… but I think it’s the wrong side of history. I think everyone sort of understands it might be the last leg of the civil rights movement. I do believe that. So I think that at some point, It’s certainly not the wedge issue it was in 2004, so that’s a good sign. So those are important things to me.”

Born On This Day- January 21st... Christian Dior

2012-01-21T23:56:00.000-08:00

What is with the tortured lives of the great fashion designers? Design SuperTalent = personal misfortune?

Christian Dior was one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century. He was born in Normandy, France, heir to a fertilizer fortune. Dior attended a Catholic school, after which he established his main fashion house in 1946 with the backing of a textile magnate. Within 12 years he expanded his business to 15 countries & employed over 2,000 people. He had 3 children & was married 4 times.

Christian Dior is known mainly for the look which employed narrow shoulders, a constricted waist, an emphasized bust, & a long, wide skirt, all in striking contrast to the severity of wartime fashions. His designs represented consistent classic elegance. The New Look revolutionized women's dress & reestablished Paris as the center of the fashion world after World War II. Dior spread his fashions around the world when he & his partner, Jacques Rouet, started franchises in the fashion industry. In 1953, Yves Saint-Laurent became Dior's assistant & was destined to be his successor but was reluctantly forced to leave when the time came for his military service.

Towards the end of his life Dior's life was a hectic round of injections to wake up in the morning, injections for his appetite, & further injections to sleep. His niece, who had once been his favorite relative, openly blamed Christian's Jewish manager who procured his medications, along with a collection of young men, of being part of a Jewish plot forcing him towards his death. Dior would eventulally disinherit all his family.

Dior's last companion was Jacques Benita, a young Algerian singer, who he met in 1956 & who, from that time, had to be included in all Christian's social activities. After the September collection in 1957, Dior was desperate for a rest & decided to take Benita to Montecatinia Italy, despite the warnings of his astrologer, who was against the trip. He was so infatuated with Benita that he decided to diet to try to make himself more attractive, even though Benita said this really was not necessary. Dior was a drug addict who probably died, at age 56, from a heart attack or overdose. It has never been certain. At the time of his death, Dior salons had been opened in 24 countries.The Dior firm, successively led by designers Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, continued to be a fashion leader & is now associated with a much wider range of merchandise: mens' wear, household linens, & fragrances.

He was a classic designer & a star. His life was filled of parties, exquisite things, pretty boys, & cool substances... all the things that only famous people eat, feel, & have.

Born On This Day- January 20th... Post Apocalyptic Bohemian Hero, Bill Maher

2012-01-20T23:48:00.000-08:00

I love him for his politically astute unflinching honesty & commitment to never pulling a punch. I think is cute, looking like little doll with his tiny hands & tight little suits. He is ourspoken in his support of Gay Rights, vegetarianism & atheism. He is one of my favorite people on the planet.

When Real Time with Bill Maher went on hiatus for 6 weeks this winter, The Husband & I sighed with disappointment: “what do we do with no Bill Maher on Friday nights? The show has received multiple 28 Emmy nominations as well as nominations from the Writers' Guild of America & Producers' Guild of America. Some of the outstanding guests who have appeared on the show: Anne Coulter, Andrew Sullivan, Barney Frank, George Clooney, Howard Dean, Michael Moore, Robin Williams, Drew Barrymore, Bradley Whitford, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Gen. Wesley Clark, Susan Sarandon, Kevin Costner, Gary Hart, Pat Buchanan, Ben Affleck, John Edwards & George Carlin.

Each week, Maher's hilarious opening monologue, incisive interviews, stimulating panel discussion, & "New Rules" segment, wrap up the week's most important events in a way that makes me think, as well as cry with laughter.

Maher spoke of good looking, presidential, Mormon- Mitt Romney‘s capitalist ventures have been the subject of much scrutiny, & in his final New Rule tonight, Maher explained such criticism was not anti-capitalist, but was more of a reaction to how Romney attained his wealth. He compared old photos of Henry Ford, Walt Disney, & Steve Jobs with their early creations to the infamous picture of Romney & his business partners with money pouring out of their suits. Maher noted they appeared to be part of a production of “Snow White & the Seven Fuck-Faces.”

The difference between Romney & these early innovators is Romney never actually created anything besides money. Maher suggested that Romney was completely out-of-touch, both because of his answers to questions about issues like income inequality & the fact that the median annual income for an American is $26,000. Maher said if Romney wants to be President, he would have to promise voters he would fight for a system where it is easier to acquire money. “If you elect him, he’ll tell you the secret!”

Maher then asked what the difference was between Romney publicly celebrating his riches & rap artists bragging about their money on album covers & interviews.

Maher: “People who like Romney like him for the same reason other people like rappers who endlessly rub it in that their life is so much better than ours. They’re in the hot tub at the after party with the bling & the bitches. And yet, no matter how clear Jay-Z makes it that the hot tub is only for the coolest & most beautiful people, somehow at the end of the song that is us. But to most average voters, the choice is clear. “What would you rather do: help poor people or have money in your mouth?”

Last Friday, Maher predicted President Barack Obama will endorse gay marriage.The topic of the president's support ,or lack of support, for marriage equality was inevitable with guests: conservative journalist David Frum, Rob Reiner, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz & documentary filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi. Frum stated that he was wrong about gay marriage, saying that his own warnings that it would harm the family have proved unfounded. Reiner is a founding member of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the group formed specifically to challenge the constitutionality of California's 2008 voter-approved gay marriage ban, Proposition 8. Wasserman Schultz & Pelosi, the daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, are also strong gay rights allies.

When Maher noted that Obama was to the right of Republicans Dick Cheney & Laura Bush on the subject of marriage equality, Wasserman-Schutz pointed out that the president had ordered the Department of Justice to no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Wasserman-Schutz: “Believe me, this is a president who has been bold & clear about the importance of equality for LGBT Americans in this country.”

“Maher: I'm just trying to keep it real & keep it fair, I think Obama will come out in favor of gay marriage. I think in the second term, when he's got nothing to lose you're going to see the real Obama come out, including his admission that he's an atheist too.”

Today Maher turns 56 years old. Bill, let’s smoke a joint, a veggie burger, & dish.

Also On This Day In History:

In 1997, Newt Gingrich becomes the first leader of the US House of Representatives to be internally disciplined for ethical misconduct.

In 2008, Black Monday in worldwide stock markets. FTSE 100 had its biggest ever one-day points fall, European stocks closed with their worst result since 11 September 2001. Under the watchful eye of G.W.Bush the economiuc tailspin towards The Great Recession begins in force.

Born On This Day- January 19th... Janis Joplin

2012-01-19T18:12:00.000-08:00

An indelible icon of the 1960s, if not quite a Gay Icon, Janis Joplin had affairs with women, men & Southern Comfort. She cruised the streets of LA in a Porsche 365 Cabriolet painted in far-out psychedelic designs.

I didn't see her in concert, I didn't drop acid with her. I did see Monterey Pop & she did make an impression. I have never owned a Janis Joplin album, not even Pearl, yet I still instantly recognize her voice, her style & her songs. I can conjur up her image on my hard drive. I like to think that if she had been alive today, on her 69th birthday, she would be enjoing the success of her album of standards, including her duet with Streisand on Irving Berlin's Sisters.

Her story continues to tantalize Hollywood. Her life is just crying out to made for a musical film-bio pic... but starring who?

Born On This Day- January 19th... Patricia Highsmith

2012-01-19T17:15:00.000-08:00

"Obsessions are the only things that matter."

During a notable bleak period, late 1990s, having tried to get used to giving up acting & feeling my first crush of the giant boot of depression, I threw myself into a marathon reading session of Patricia Highsmith’s 5 Tom Ripley Novels. I understand it seems like an odd choice for cheering oneself up, but the cruel bite & misanthropy of Highsmith’s books was just the dose I needed to find my groove again.

After her humble beginnings in Texas, Highsmith traveled to Europe from 1949 onwards, moving between England, France, Switzerland & Italy. This nomadic lifestyle seemed to become the inspiration for her Ripley stories.

The first book, published in 1955- The Talented Mr. Ripley, is about a debonair, homosexual, psychotic, habitual liar, who cheats & murders his way around Europe, adopting various identities & playing different personalities in order to elude authorities. My kind of guy. There would be 4 more: Ripley Underground (1970), Mr. Ripley's Game (1974), The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980) & Ripley Under Water (1990).

Highsmith produced 22 novels & 7 collections of short stories by the time of her death from Leukemia, at the age of 74.

Several of her novels were also adapted as screenplays for successful films: Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951), The Talented Mr. Ripley was made into a film- Plein Soleil (1960), starring Alain Delon, whom Highsmith thought was perfect for the role, & again in 2000. Mr. Ripley's Game was also made twice -The American Friend (1970), & again in 2002, as Ripley's Game.

Highsmith has been said to be mean spirited, misanthropic, cruel, racist & misogynistic. Those who knew her claim she was shy & unhappy in life. She was a lesbian with many lovers, none of these relationships lasted more than a few years.

Greatest Achievements: Her stereotype breaking portraits of homosexual people in 20th century literature, 7 awards, including the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award, Le Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, & the Award of the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain.

Her uncomfortable novels of humiliation, delusion & futility dance around between serious literature, pulp fiction, comic books (which Highsmith actually wrote for) & psychiatric clinical case studies. Highsmith’s intimate life & literary life both bolted with an early rise & a slow painful decline. Her books take hostility, guilt, anxiety & resentment & throw them back at the reader, with situations & emotions we would rather not admit knowing.

She preferred women sexually, although she preferred men in all other ways. In 1949 she made an effort to analyze & ''cure'' herself with a fiancé- writer Marc Brandel. Her biographies name more than a dozen affairs with women. As it turned out, her private life was a sexual grand tour. Her love of women is reflected in The Price of Salt, her lesbian romance, published in 1952 under a pseudonym.

In her last years, Highsmith moved to unrequited crushes on movie stars including Tabea Blumenschein, a 25-year-old actress in German films, with whom Highsmith was obsessed after a brief fling in 1978. In the last 30 years of her life, she ate like a sparrow & drank epic amounts of Scotch. She was so stingy that she lugged a pile of firewood from home to home, & drove 60 miles to buy cheaper pasta.

If you are feeling dark, confused & put upon, as I was in the Seattle winter of 1998, I recommend the Ripley novels, read them in order, starting the next as the previous book is closed. They may have you getting in touch with your inner Tom Ripley, which could be just what is needed.

What Becomes A Legand Most?

2012-01-19T15:57:00.000-08:00

I began Post Apocalyptic Bohemia with the idea of setting my story in print, well, in cyber-print. Before I go to that big Green Room on the other side, waiting for my next entrance, sure of my lines, I wanted to tell my story.

Besides anecdotes from my nearly 60 years of life so far (did I tell you that I once had sex in the back of a limo with a major show biz figure or that while living in LA, I got drunk in a Tiki themed lounge & 10 hours later I woke up in Hawaii?), I have been celebrating famous gay people on their birthday, & the birthdays of the figures that gay people love, because I believe that in a few generations there will no longer be Gay-ness. I wish to get my story told & I also want to get our story down.

When homo haters are at their most irrational, I always want to ask if they really want a world without: Leonard Bernstein, Jasper Johns, Michelangelo, Tennessee Williams, Rock Hudson, King James I, Virginia Woolf, Socrates, Lord Byron, Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Cole Porter, Tchaikovsky, Eleanor Roosevelt, Elton John, or James Dean? Probably… religious fundamentalists & assorted other bigots lack reasoning & imagination.

I have been pondering the individuals The Gays give their collective hearts to, asking myself- what makes a Gay Icon or What Becomes A Legend Most?

Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on this day, 65 years ago. I love Dolly Parton. I love her big voice, her big hair, & her big boobs.

I also admire her. She’s passionate about early childhood education, & has done amazing work to give kids who are born in her Appalachian Hills a good start in life with the Dollywood Foundation, which runs the Imagination Library, providing children a new book every month until their 5th birthdays.

Parton is an outspoken proponent of women’s rights. A Christian, like Tammy Faye, she seems to have actually read the Bible & gets the message of the life of Jesus. She supports gay rights & same sex marriage, & has appeared on the cover of Out. Her production company, Sandollar Productions, which she started with her longtime manager/business partner/close friend- Sandy Gallin, an openly gay man, chose as its first project the 1989 Oscar winning documentary about the making of the AIDS quilt- Common Threads.

Drag Queens adore Parton, which is the highest compliment a human being can hold. The wigs, the costumes, the trashy makeup, the over-the-top, larger-than-life hair, & we still believe her sure-enough sweetness & love.

She built a Dolly Parton-themed theme park. I want a Steve theme park- SteveTown!, a place with Mary Jane tasting rooms, whiskey & pizza bars, a Daniel Craig ride & Steve singing songs on the Steve Stage every night . Every evening at twilight, Steve ascends to the top of the Magic Castle with a baby pink spot light following him.

Parton Is Fabulous, & fabulous come from self-invention. This is what the Old Style, Pre-Stonewall Gays cherish, getting kicked in the balls & then having the genius & artistry to remake yourself into a fabulous creature. Don’t you think Dolly Parton fits the bill? She is a Coat Of Many Colors, from her style to her stylish struggle against adversity & prejudice, plus her unabashed sexuality.

Do you think of Dolly Parton as a Gay Icon? What is your favorite Parton project? I am still over the moon for the Trio Albums with Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt.

Style Icon Cary Grant

2012-01-18T19:00:00.000-08:00

“I Think That Making Love Is The Best Form Of Exercise”

This man knew how to wear a sweater

This man knew what to wear at the beach

How to wear a suit 101

He can even pull off submarine casual chic... not many chances to see Grant bare chested. I think he pulls it off.

Born On This Day- January 18th... Archibald Leach

2012-01-18T18:25:00.000-08:00

My favorite era of Cary Grant, handsome & middle-aged.

You know this, of course. Cary Grant was born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England. He remains the embodiment of “movie star”. He has always been a favorite, if not THE favorite male star at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia.

"In my earlier career I patterned myself on a combination of Englishmen: Rex Harrison, Noel Coward, & Jack Buchanan, who impressed me as a character actor. He always looked so natural. I tried to copy men I thought were sophisticated & well dressed like Douglas Fairbanks or Cole Porter.”

"I cultivated raising one eyebrow & tried to imitate those who put their hands in their pockets with a certain amount of ease & nonchalance. But at times, when I put my hand in my trouser pocket with what I imagined was great elegance, I couldn't get the blinking thing out again because it dripped from nervous perspiration!"

"I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at someone I wanted be until I became that person. Or he became me."

These are fascinating statements. He was box office gold for decades, & the Cary Grant persona was a consciously created phenomenon. He did it. The studios didn't do it, the marketing people didn't do it, Grant didn't even have an agent! The fact that he seemed so easy & commanding onscreen is just one of the many miracles of Cary Grant. It is even more startling to see him be awkward & sport a Cockney accent when in his early roles, before he hit the right spot with The Awful Truth. Later in life, he expressed mild annoyance when Mae West would give herself the credit for "discovering" him. She had, indeed, pulled him out of the crowd to be the eye-candy in She Done Him Wrong, & then in I'm No Angel.

Grant was allegedly involved with costume designer Orry-Kelly when he first moved to Manhattan, & he lived with Randolph Scott for more than 12 years. Grant & Scott seemed to have been deeply, madly in love, & alleged eyewitness accounts of their physical affection have been published many times. Arthur Laurents: " Grant told me he threw pebbles at my window one night but was luckless. I was out for the night". Alexander D'Arcy, who appeared with Grant in The Awful Truth: "Grant & Scott lived together as a gay couple. I think Cary knew that people were saying things about him. I don't think he tried to hide it." The pair were frequently each other's dates to parties & premieres.

The Husband & I hada photograph of Cary Grant & Randolph Scott, on their pool’s diving board, in a frame for a long time. Their relationship fascinated us. Ironically Cary Grant & Randolph Scott began their relationship while filming the movie Hot Saturday in 1932 & moved in together shortly after. Press reports during the first 2 years described the actors’ shared celebrity home & domestic life using phrases like: “Hollywood’s twosome” & “the happy couple.” The innuendos provided details about the actors’ personal lives which thrilled fans, making the actors appear to be a couple of men sharing more than a home. They named their house- Bachelor Hall.

The pair continued their domestic relationship even after Grant’s marriage to Virginia Cherrill in early 1934. Reporters noted, “The Grants & Randolph Scott have moved, all 3, but not apart.” Indeed, this choice for living arrangements appeared pre-planned. An item from 2 weeks prior to Grant’s marriage observed that Scott would not seek any permanent quarters until he heard from Grant. Innuendos continued later that year. Shortly after Grant’s divorce from Cherrill, an article proclaimed that Randolph Scott had moved back in with Grant. This article was titled- A Woman Is Only a Woman, suggested that the 2 men forged a home life with each another & that they probably had no room for a woman. These press items associated the actors’ home with a forbidden sexuality, turning the place into an exotic experience.

The Paramount publicity department shot over 30 photographs of Grant & Scott within different rooms of their Santa Monica beach house. The studio focus of these pictures was on the stars’ personalities, bachelorhoods, & use of the house. The caption stamped on the back of each photograph highlighted that the actors were Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors who shared quarters, but lived independent lives.

The actors’ living arrangement lasted until early 1942 when they moved apart for the remainder of their lives. Grant married 5 times. He died, on stage, at 82 in Davenport, Iowa while rehearsing his one-man show.

Is it telling that among Cary Grants films, we find these titles: I'm No Angel, Born To Be Bad, Kiss & Make Up, The Awful Truth, In Name Only, Suspicion, The Talk Of The Town, People Will Talk?

My favorite Cary Grant movie? Hmmm... I think I would have to go with North By Northwest.

Born On This Day- January 18th... Alexander Woollcott

2012-01-18T18:04:00.000-08:00

I have had 40+ year obsession with the Algonquin Round Table Group. As always, I had over researched a stage role I was preparing. I had been cast in The Man Who Came To Dinner, a near perfect piece of theatre comedy confection by George Kauffman & Moss Hart. I played the role of Banjo, a thinly disguised caricature of Harpo Marx. In a crazy coincidence, I would play Harpo Marx a year later in a rather good musical, ready to be revived- Minnie’s Boys. The Man Who Came To Dinner is based on a real incident at writer & closeted gay- Moss Hart’s home involving the well-known radio & press celebrity of the 1930s & 1940s- Alexander Woollcott, who was gay.

Woollcott inspired at least 3 different characters in first-rate famous films with his articulate quips. He was a pillar of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers, actors & personalities who gathered regularly to match wits over a great deal of alcohol. He was a critic & commentator for The New Yorker (he devised the Shouts & Murmurs column still used today), & had his own CBS radio show.

He had famously intense & possessive relationships with many powerful, talented women, including lesbian actress Katherine Cornell & fellow Algonguin Round Table member Dorothy Parker.

Starting in 1929, his “This is Woollcott speaking” became his unmistakable catch phrase on the radio. Woollcott was the first on-air book reviewer, responsible for successes like James Hilton’s Lost Horizon, a power untapped until Oprah. He appeared in advertisements endorsing products & in movie trailers. He was a frequent White House guest, & had his favorite cocktail, the Brandy Alexander, named after him. He was loved & loathed, feared & fawned over.

Woollcott could be bitingly brutal & sourly sappy in his radio broadcasts. The 3 characters based on Woollcott were: Sheridan Whiteside, the sophisticated tyrant tethered to a wheelchair in The Man Who Came to Dinner; Waldo Leydecker, the writer & radio commentator who develops an obsession with his young protégé in Laura; & Addison Dewitt, the contemptuous critic, played by George Sanders, in All About Eve. The gay stereotype of an effeminate, snobby, cultured controller of young ladies isn’t around much in the 21st century.

He was so smart that he toured, rather successfully, in the very play with the wicked caricature of him.

My experience in The Man Who Came To Dinner was 40 years ago, but there in my bookshelf sits The Woollcott Reader & The Letters Of Alexander Woollcott.

Words To Live By

2012-01-18T16:32:00.000-08:00

“All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal or fattening.”
Alexander Woollcott

Eartha Kitt, Gay Icon... Born On This Day- January 17th

2012-01-17T22:05:00.000-08:00

Eartha Kitt had precisely the qualities that make a true gay icon: a history of anguish, abandonment & alienation, mixed with a camp & sexually audacious stage act with the necessary elements are artifice & aggrandizement.

Born 85 years ago, into severe poverty in the rural South, Kitt's beginning appeared as if life was stacked against her. Enduring prejudice from blacks & whites due to her mixed heritage skin color, Kitt never knew her father & was abandoned by her mother at an early age in favor of her darker siblings. Raised by another family that barely noticed her, she grew up with low self-esteem, but the drive to surpass her surroundings & achieve greatness.

Kitt found her way to NYC & became a member of the prestigious Katherine Dunham Dance Company. Her solo spot captured the attention of Orson Welles, who cast her in his Faustus, falling in love with her & proclaiming: "Eartha Kitt is most exciting woman in the world." Kitt blossomed on Broadway in New Faces of 1952 & in the 1960s she worked as her most famous TV persona of Cat Woman on Batman. She was a recording artists with hits: C'est Si Bon, Santa Baby, Monotonous, I Want to be Evil, & Champagne Tastes. It would be her Gay club hit Where is My Man, that would be her only certified gold record, and last month the ringtone of Santa Baby was went certified gold.

I remember my parents & I fighting at the dinner table in 1968, after Kitt expressed her views on the Vietnam War to Lady Bird Johnson, at a White House luncheon. Kitt: "You send the best of this country off to be shot & maimed. No wonder the kids rebel & take pot. The children of America are not rebelling for no reason. They are not hippies for no reason at all. They are rebelling against something. There are so many things burning the people of this country, particularly mothers. They feel they are going to raise sons,& I know what it’s like, & you have children of your own, Mrs. Johnson…we raise children & send them to war.”

Her remarks brought the First Lady to tears. The public reaction to Kitt's statements was extreme, & the media exploited Ms. Kitt's opinions. For the next decade she blacklisted in the United States. Her career continued to soar in Europe & Asia, during her exile, until 1976, when Jimmy Carter invited her back to the USA.

Among her life achievements, Kitt earned nominations for 2 Tony Awards, 2 Grammy Awards & won 5 Emmy Awards for her work on the TV series- Emperor's New School.

Kitt was proud of the label-Gay Icon. Kitt: "After my blacklisting, it was the Gay community that welcomed me back with open arms." She publicly supported same-sex marriage, which she believed to be a civil right. Kitt:"I support gay marriage because we're asking for the same thing. If I have a partner & something happens to me, I want that partner to enjoy the benefits of what we have reaped together. It's a civil-rights thing, isn't it?" Kitt appeared at many GLBT fundraisers & spent a great deal of her time dedicating herself to working with the Gay Men's Health Crisis & other AIDS charities.

Kitt continued to work on stage & screen until the end of her life. In the aughts she returned to Broadway in the The Wild Party opposite Mandy Patinkin & Toni Collette, starred as the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella at Linoln Center, & she replaced Chita Rivera in Nine.

Kitt was a fighter & a force. Describing her own life in 6 words: "rejected, ejected, dejected, used, accused, & abused". Regret was never mentioned. Kitt died from colon cancer on Christmas Day 2008 at her Connecticut, home surrounded by her daughter- Kitt & her grandchildren.

Born On This Day- January 17th... Stephin Merritt

2012-01-17T21:52:00.000-08:00

Stephin Merritt is the dour, diminutive, acerbic, painfully intellectual, imbittered Cole Porter of NYC's Lower East Side. He also has a thing for aliases, having recorded, with various combinations of musicians, as The Baudelaire Memorial Orchestra Orchestra Future Bible Heroes, the Gothic Archies, the 6ths &, most prolifically, Magnetic Fields. The 6ths feature Merritt's songs performed by a selection of his favorite singers.

I was given a gift of his Magnetic Fields 3 CD set- 69 Love Songs by my buddy Eiric (a very handsome, sexy yoga instructor) & I was really engaged by the tender tunes. I downloaded an album released under his own name- Showtunes, the title clearly chosen for its suggestion of Elaine Stritch singing Sondheim at The Carlyle, but Pacific Overtures it is not. The album consists of songs Merritt wrote for 2 Chinese plays, one dating from 1330, the other from 1699 & a "plotless show" based on the life of Hans Christian Andersen, which were performed at Lincoln Center in 2003- 2005. All are performed on traditional Chinese instruments & in Chinese idioms. A warning to Magnetic Fields fans: these are the highlights of “original cast” recordings.

Born on this day in 1966, having never met his father, folk singer Scott Fagan, Merritt was raised by his bohemian mother. Merritt attended high school at the Cambridge School of Weston, where his reputation as a musical genius was established. Merritt is openly gay. At his best, the music is witty & warmhearted. He plays the ukulele. He named his Chihuahua named Irving Berlin.

Everything's Coming Up Roses.. Born On This Day... Gay Icon Ethel Merman

2012-01-17T08:33:00.000-08:00

I only saw Ethel Merman 2 times. On Broadway in Hello, Dolly!, a role written for her that she finally played 6 years after the musical opened. She really was an A+ Dolly Levi & she received several ovations the evening I was lucky enough to be in the house. I was in the audience for a concert at The Dorothy Chandler in 1974, supporting her disco album.

She was a bookkeeper's daughter from Queens, who worked as a stenographer by day & sang at local parties by night.

Eventually, she acquired an agent who got her some cabaret engagements in Manhattan, & 22 years old, George & Ira Gershwin asked her to come & sing some songs they had written for their new musical- Girl Crazy.

At the end of the audition George Gershwin stated, "Miss Merman, if there's anything you'd like to change, I'd be happy to do so." Merman: “No, the songs will do very nicely".

Girl Crazy opened in the autumn of 1930 & when she sang I Got Rhythm, the audience went wild, & demanded 10 encores. Afterwards she took the subway home to Astoria, but the next day she went to lunch with the Gershwins who showed her the reviews & explained that she was now a star. George Gershwin told her: "Never take a singing lesson", & she never did.

She had a huge brassy belting voice, but she also had such impeccable diction that every word, every syllable, could be heard in every seat in the theatre. It was this skill that made her so appealing to composers & lyricists. She was adored by the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Stephen Sondheim & even Igor Stravinsky.

Merman couldn't read music but she was able memorize a song after a few hearings. Cole Porter: "She can sing anything. But I really tailor-made my songs for her because I know her range so well." Her best note was A-natural & he often ended phrases on that note. He knew he could trust her to handle his complicated rhythms & he loved the fact that she could sing "Flying too high with some guy in the sky is my idea of nothing to do" in one breath.

Producers adored Merman. She almost never missed a show. She demanded high fees, but once the contract was signed, she was utterly reliable.

Merman had a long stage career, from Girl Crazy in 1930 to Hello, Dolly! in 1970. She was still belting out There's No Business Like Show Business when she was in her 70s. She released that disco album & The NY Times reviewed it as: "not quite so embarrassing as might have been feared".

Not really pretty or sexy, Merman was also a bit dim. She never read a book, & when someone asked "Is the Pope Catholic?", she helpfully supplied the answer: "Yes". Her favorite drink was champagne… on the rocks.

She did her own book-keeping & counting pennies; her first agent- Lou Irwin: "3 things are important to Ethel, the first is money, & the second is money & the third is money." She disliked travel & once said that her idea of exercise was sunbathing.

Merman would marry 4 times, never happily, her last marriage, to Ernest Borgnine, ended after 5 weeks. She had 2 children by her second husband, Bob Levitt, but devoted little time to them.

I think the best thing about her was her exuberance and willingness to make fun of herself. At 72 years old, she appeared in the movie Airplane! playing a wounded soldier so traumatized that he believed he was Ethel Merman, & she leapt from his/her hospital bed singing Everything's Coming up Roses.

I have read gossip claiming that she was lesbian & Jewish, but I have found nothing that points to either being true. The writer Jacqueline Susann once stood outside her door yelling "Ethel, I love you!"; but Merman never showed the slightest interest in women. The character Helen Lawson in Susann’s novel Valley of the Dolls is based on Merman.

Although my young wards at my job have never heard of her, she remains a gay icon to men of a certain age, beloved of drag artists. There is an Ethel Merman choir, consisting entirely of Merman impersonators, in San Francisco.

As a kid, I thrilled to her appearances on made dozens of television appearances, guesting on variety series hosted by Perry Como, Red Skelton, Dean Martin, Ed Sullivan, & Carol Burnett, on talk shows with Mike Douglas, Dick Cavett, & Merv Griffin. When Merman died in 1984, I lit a candle for her while listening to Gypsy. I do an outstanding imitation of her.

"Broadway has been very good to me. But then, I've been very good to Broadway."

Her final performance.

You Too Can Be A Portland Hipster...

2012-01-16T17:57:00.000-08:00

I believe that one simply must be nice to oneself & holding that maxim close, I am on the hunt for new eyeglasses, very probably 2 pair because I like myself a lot. I have been poking about the cool frame shops in Portland trying on new looks.

I don't intend to get all Aschenbach on your ass, but they break my heart with their careless beauty & their guiless youth. I see this "type" around Portland: their skinny jeans artfully-casually tucked into really great boots that look for all the world to be from a Victorian farmer's mudroom, with a reveal of colorful socks. Add in the ironic tee shirt under suspenders & a vintage vest, a pork-pie hat, fedora, or newsboy cap to top off the "different" look, one of their many wallet chains, & then they are off to a dive bar to order a PBR & blend in with a bunch of guys just like them. I see them on the MAX train with their chunky Buddy Holly eyewear & I think to myself: "Could I be young just one more time?" I love the Portland kid's look; if I were to temper it just a bit to reflect my considerable experience & acknowledge my 6 decades on this blue, twirling orb, maybe I could I pull off a slightly more mature version of this look?

I slipped on the quintessential heavy framed glasses, letting go of black frames & choosing a dark tortoise shell to go with my redhead skin tone. I took 10 steps with my back to the mirror & spun around to surprise myself with my much older version of a James Franco look, or the stylish, but lived-in face of Colin Firth of A Single Man, & there I was... a corpulent, crabby fossil looking like an enfeebled Jewish movie producer in a caftan, circa 1970. A gay Robert Evans or a butch Allan Carr, either way I am learning a valuable lesson: no chunky art school glasses, no Arcade Fire on any playlist & no pork-pie hat.

The dream: Adorkable Darren Criss of Glee... photo by Robert Caplin for NY Times

The reality: Truman Capote by Irving Penn

Considering Dr. King On His Holiday...

2012-01-16T13:13:00.000-08:00

Let us turn our thoughts today

To Martin Luther King

& recognize that

There are ties between us

All men & women

Living on the Earth

Ties of hope & love

Sister & brotherhood

That we are bound together

In our desire to see the world become

A place in which our children

Can grow free & strong

We are bound together

By the task that stands before us

& the road that lies ahead

We are bound & we are bound

There is a feeling

Like the clenching of a fist

There is a hunger in the
Center of the chest

There is a passage through
The darkness & the mist

& though the body sleeps
The heart will never rest

Shed a little light, oh Lord

So that we can see

Just a little light, oh Lord

Wanna stand it on up

Stand it on up, oh Lord

Wanna walk it on down

Shed a little light, oh Lord

Can't get no light from the dollar bill

Don't give me no light from a TV screen

When I open my eyes

I wanna drink my fill

From the well on the hill

(Do you know what I mean?)

There is a feeling

Like the clenching of a fist

There is a hunger in the
Center of the chest

There is a passage through
The darkness & the mist

& though the body sleeps
The heart will never rest

Oh, Let us turn our thoughts today

To Martin Luther King

& recognize that there are ties
Between us

All men & women

Living on the Earth

Ties of hope & love

Sister & brotherhood
James Taylor
1991

Born On This Day- January 16th... Francesco Scavullo

2012-01-16T10:04:00.000-08:00

A copy of the Scavullo portrait of Sting was on my fridge for most of the 1980s, until it turned yellow & brittle, rather like me.

His father, who owned a Manhattan supper club, wanted his son to go into the family business, but when 19 year old Francesco Scavullo landed his 1st magazine cover for Seventeen, he bought his son a carriage house that would remain his home & studio until the end of his life.

Scavullo was best known for his covers of Cosmopolitan Magazine & his celebrity portraits, His big break was working at Vogue magazine under well-known fashion photographers Cecil Beaton & Horst P. Horst. The major turning point in his career came in 1965 when Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown hired him to help develop a new, sexier image for the magazine. He was given complete freedom to select the models, wardrobe, make-up, & hair styling, Scavullo successfully created the image of the modern day Cosmo girl. Scavullo was also responsible for the famous Cosmopolitan centerfold of a nude Burt Reynolds.

Scavullo would go on to shoot every Cosmopolitan cover over the next 3 decades. Scavullo also created memorable shots for various, album covers, movie & Broadway show posters, including one for A Star is Born (the really crummy one featuring Barbra Streisand & Kris Kristofferson, not one of the 2 classic versions with Janet Gaynor or Judy Garland), & of Julie Andrews for Blake Edwards' Victor Victoria.

He was also popular throughout his career for his celebrity portraits with many becoming iconic symbols of pop culture. Scavullo lived for 32 years with Sean Byrnes, who not only managed & styled his shoots, but helped in his ongoing manic depressive cycles, a disease that Scavullo spoke openly about. In 2004, Scavullo died of heart failure while on his way to a photo shoot of Anderson Cooper. I can only imagine, Cooper gives me irregular heartbeats also.

I always wanted to engage Scavullo to do the cover for my album- Jockstraps & Vicodin*.

*Footnote: Scavullo went to the big photo studio in the sky before the recording of Jockstraps & Vicodin was finished. This is the cover art that I am now considering.

Born On This Day- January 15th.... Ivor Novello

2012-01-15T14:47:00.000-08:00

"Lovemaking is an art which must be studied & practiced."

Jeremy Northam as Novello

I love this film & after seeing Robert Altman's brilliant Best Picture nominated film- Gosford Park for the 4th time, I had to explain to a friend that the character of Ivor Novello was not from the imagination of screenwriters Bob Balaban & Mr. Altman. Jeremy Northam's portrayal of the matinee idol was so effortless & elegant that it's easy to believe him to be just another one of Altman's brilliant creations. But Ivor Novello was, in fact, a major & important celebrity in the 1st half of the 20th century, the kind Cole Porter & Noel Coward personified & loved to write about: the smoking jacket wearing, martini drinking, man-about-town, & what a big surprise… Ivor Novello was gay!

He was born David Ivor Davies on this day- January 15th, 1893 in Wales.

Ivor Novello did it all, working on the stage to the silent screen in D.W. Griffith's The White Rose & the early Hitchcock thriller- The Lodger. He wrote popular plays such as The Rat & movies- Tarzan the Ape Man ("Me Tarzan, you Jane" was the invention of Novello). He gave Vivien Leigh her stage name, & wrote the popular British patriotic song Keep the Home Fires Burning. He was the Andrew Lloyd Webber of the 1930s & 1940s, composing lush, romantic musicals- Glamorous Night & Perchance to Dream.

He was as versatile & prolific as his friend & rival Noel Coward. Critics fell all over themselves trying to describe his romantic appeal, which proved to be as powerful to many male theatre & moviegoers as to the legions of Novello's swooning female fans. Coward himself would admit Novello could be "violently glamorous" but also "a little vulgar too”. I think that was the secret of his appeal.

In 1916, Novello met 21 year old actor Robert Andrews. They became lovers & remained together for 35 years. They appeared together in many of Ivor Novello's plays & musicals. Novello bought a house in Jamaica, near Noel Coward’s, where he & Andrews spent time together. They were devoted to each other until Novello’s death & were rarely seen without the other. In 1951, Andrews was with Ivor Novello when he died at their London flat. 10,000+ fans lined the streets of London to say good-bye, & the service was broadcast live.

Noel Coward: "Ivor & Bobby are beguiling, but they also ramble on ad nauseam about 1 topic- the month Novello spent in prison in 1944 for misusing wartime petrol coupons. They forever lamented the ‘injustice’ of it all”. On Novello’s passing Coward wrote in his diary: "Another landmark swept away. Poor, poor Bobby…he will be utterly devastated.”

The Ivor Novello Awards have been given annually, since 1956, to British songwriters & music publishers. Past recipients of "Ivors" include Peter Gabriel, Elton John, Sting & Paul McCartney. Last year the fab song Pass Out by Tinie Tempah won best song.

Novello, 1950

In an era before there was such a thing as "openly gay," Ivor Novello lived an unapologized for life of authenticity & openness. How great is it that his last play, staged in 1951, would be titled- Gay's the Word?

Born On This Day- January 14th... Cecil Beaton

2012-01-14T08:55:00.000-08:00

I have been reading 2 volumes of Cecil Beaton’s Diaries over the past year, in small little doses, choosing to read a few entries here & there. He knew & photographed everyone that mattered for most of the 20th century. As a gay man of his time, & a dandy like Quinton Crisp, he had to reinvent himself & discover a way to survive & thrive. I know that I have always been grateful to be a gay man because it meant that I was an outsider & not a straight, white, WASP male, but how much harder that must have been earlier in the century, when homosexuality was illegal & being exposed could mean the end of a career.

Born in 1904 in London & coming of age at the peak of the 1920s, Cecil Beaton was in love with the worlds of high society, theater, & glamour. Beauty, in his hands, was transformed into elegance, fantasy, romance & charm. His inspired artistic eye led to a following among fashionable society & eventually a full fledged career as the foremost fashion & portrait photographer of his day. He was so attuned to the changes of fashion that his career maintained its momentum for 5 decades; from the Bloomsbury crowd to the Rolling Stones.

Cecil Beaton will always be remembered for his huge influence on the world of photography & fashion. His incredible work the essence of elegance & grace, but his personal behavior was at times, anything but. He was not known to be a loyal friend, a humble talent or a genuine soul of any sort. In fact, his persona & image was fabricated to gain him access to the world that had always just beyond his reach. But everybody loved Cecil, the photographer. He worked for Vogue for more that 30 years. Louise Dahl-Wolfe, who worked for Harper’s Bazaar: "He was such a naughty man. You had to laugh at all the awful things he said about everybody, especially the people at Vogue.” In fact, Beaton laughed at everybody except himself, for whom he reserved much compassion & self-pity. His friend Truman Capote described Beaton as a “total self-creation”.

Clever, but not intellectual, good looking but not quite handsome, he just failed to make the grade in those things that he thought mattered the most. Beaton was vain, & he had his clothes made one size too small to flatter his already slim figure, but never glamorous, despite an international lifestyle that brought him into contact with everyone who was somebody for more than 50 years.

Garbo, who he almost married.

Shooting Keith Richards in LA.

He had a burning desire to be part of aristocratic privilege, still going strong in the 1920s & 1930s. Beaton was, what was known at the time, a pansy. With his ambition focused on the British upper classes & American celebrities, his gayness could have been a disadvantage, but he capitalised on it by aiming not at the men, but at their wives. He was a first rate photographer but he was always seemed too eager flatter & please .Having flattered his subjects' bodies & faces, he flattered their egos by placing them in settings reflecting the latest artistic movement, making them seem of the moment. He even managed to make Queen Elizabeth 2 & her family look beautiful & stylish!

Mick Jagger circa 1966

For 40 decades he was at the center of the creative world: royal photographer, designer of sets & costumes for stage & screen, from Oscar Wilde’s comedies to My Fair Lady (for which he won an Oscar for the film version), a chronicler of showbiz figures from Audrey Hepburn to Mick Jagger, for whom Beaton had a passion, (Jagger dubbed him “Rip-Van-With-it”). & he kept those diaries that I have been reading, noting everything & revealing the true Cecil Beaton, a mixture of insight, petulance & snobbery, much like the world in which he lived. They reveal the other thing that I suspect in his heart he never forgot: those who are born outsiders must always remain outsiders, after all, outsiders can see things most clearly.

Cecil Beaton died in 1980, after spending a lifetime focusing his lens on the most interesting people of the mid-20th century.

"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose & imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary."

Born On This Day- January 14th... Terrific Tom Tryon

2012-01-14T08:25:00.000-08:00

I recollect my fascination with the photo on the back cover of the hardback edition of The Other. The movie star handsome author of the tome was staring back at me from the book jacket & I was all a tingle, with my teenage hormones in overdrive. I was 17 years old & doing summer stock in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho. All 4 shows were up & running by the beginning of August, leaving me with days free to swim, sun, smoke joints & read. I bought the book because of the author’s photo, but The Other turned out to be a very well written thrill ride of a horror story, & I now had quite a crush on the writer Thomas Tryon as well.

Tom Tryon was an American film & TV actor, as well as author of several science fiction, horror, and mystery novels. He was born Thomas Tryon in Hartford, Connecticut on this day in 1926. He used his birth name as an author & the shortened version for his acting career.

At 26 years old, Tryon was on Broadway in Wish You Were Here, a long running 1952 musical starring Florence Henderson & Jack Cassidy. He moved on to Hollywood and was cast in several films, including Moon Pilot, The Longest Day & In Harm’s Way. He appeared often on TV series & made for TV movies.

His rugged good looks & masculine demeanor typecast him as a matinee idol & Tryon was unhappy at the lack of good acting roles. His best known work was as the star of The Cardinal, a role which brought him a Golden Globe. He fought often with the director Otto Preminger, who seemed to take sadistic delight in humiliating Tryon on the set. Preminger actually fired Tryon in front of his parents when they visited the set, then rehired him after being satisfied that Tryon had been sufficiently humiliated.

The experience with the abusive Preminger & lack of interesting roles moved Tryon to put the brakes on an acting career & he moved to writing novels. His first book- The Other (1971), a spooky thriller about a pair of evil twins, was a blockbuster bestseller & became a film by Richard Mulligan starring my good close personal friend- Uta Hagen in a rare film appearance. Next was the equally as scary-Harvest Home, a terrifying tale that was made into a rather campy TV mini-series starring Bette Davis. His collection of novellas on the theme of moviemaking- Crowned Heads featured- Fedora, a thinly disguised tale of Greta Garbo, & was made into a 1978 film by Billy Wilder with William Holden. I think the movie is terrific & true to the book. I loved all his books but I have a soft spot for Night of the Moonbow (1989), about a young kid at camp who snaps after being harassed by his fellow cabin mates. Tryon’s best work revolved around boys, & the mischief they get into.

As a young man, I sensed that Tryon was gay. He struggled with his sexuality throughout his career, but basically came out when he became the lover of Calvin Culver, known in the porn world as the superstar Casey Donovan. At the same time, Tryon also was lovers with Clive Clark, a member of the original cast of A Chorus Line, & an interior designer who decorated Tryon's Central Park West apartment, which was featured in Architectural Digest. Culver helped Tryon finish Crowned Heads on an extremely tight deadline by typing up the revisions & offering suggestions. Their relationship ended because the attention & publicity his lover received made the closeted Tryon fearful of being outed, which he felt could destroy his career as a writer.

But, Tryon never wrote explicitly about homosexuality. He was never part of the gay scene. His feelings on the matter are hidden in between the lines of his strange, moody works. He died in 1991 from stomach cancer. I can still picture that handsome man on the back of the book jacket.

Some Of These Days

2012-01-13T18:03:00.000-08:00

I supervise (& baby sit) a staff of fifteen 20-30 year olds in order to have a paycheck. This is not a position I would have chosen for myself, but I am glad to have a job in 2012. They are by turns, entertaining & exasperating.

They are all sharply skilled at smart phone use, but they have no frame of reference for The Supremes. They heard You Can’t Hurry Love on our sound system & hating it, identified the 1966 hit as a Phil Collins song that their parents liked. My kids know & appreciate the music of The Beatles, because: “I used to hear this at my Grandma’s house all the time. I like it”. What draws the blank looks on their pierced faces is my explanation of The Beatles place in pop history. I claimed: “They were like Lady Gaga X 1000. People’s lives were profoundly changed from having heard their music.” They couldn’t grasp that songs were heard first on the radio.

I have tried to impart to these young people that In my lifetime, on a black & white TV, I was witness to: the assassination of JFK, Martin Luther King Jr. & Robert Kennedy the Vietnam War, the killing of 4 college students and the wounding of 9 others at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard. I cheered the resignation of Richard Nixon, minutes before he would have been impeached (& with with today’s Republicans, Tricky Dick doesn’t seem so terrible). Reagan survived an assassination attempt by a Jodie Foster fan, & ironically, the attempt on a Republican President led to the Brady bill & real, rational progress on gun control.

In my lifetime women were told by the U.S. Supreme Court they could be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies. To be gay & to have been alive during the Stonewall Riots feels like a gift from history to me.

I was lucky enough to be present for the start of space exploration, I watched enthralled as man landed on the moon in 1969. Who would have imagined an international space station? The entire space shuttle program went from the planning stage to being grounded in my lifetime. I remember the thrill of each launch & the shock & sadness of the tragic fates of Challenger & Columbia.

I remember the very first time I saw color TV. Currently we carry more computing power in our phones than existed in the room sized computer that The Husband did design work on in the late 1970s. The Internet has changed commerce, government, journalism, & social interaction. What would these kids think of a phone booth or a world without debit cards?

Today, I attempted, in vain, to explain Vaudeville & Burlesque, even as these art forms are enjoying a sort of renaissance in Portland Oregon.

"I will never forget it you know. I was in bed one night with my boyfriend Ernie & he said to me, 'Soph, how come you never tell me when you're having an orgasm?' I said to him, 'Ernie, you're never around!'"

Sophie Tucker was incredible. It would be hard not to love her. She was brash, bold & sexually bodacious. She was in the rare & rarified world of women of the era who wanted it their way, particularly Black blues singers like Bessie Smith & Ma Rainey who were doing the same thing, except they were Black women during the time of segregation. It was more unusual to be as bold & provocative & self-defining as Sophie Tucker.

Known as ”The Last of the Red Hot Mamas,” Tucker earned a reputation for her loud boisterous voice & risque songs. Tucker briefly appeared in the Ziegfield Follies, but her popularity with audiences made her unpopular with the female stars, who refused to go on stage with her. She suffered a certain amount of bullying for her non-conformist appearance. She celebrated her healthy sexual appetite. Tucker’s stage image emphasized her fat girl image but also a humorous suggestiveness. She sang songs including I Don’t Want to Be Thin, Nobody Loves a Fat Girl, But Oh How a Fat Girl Can Love. My guess is that the gays of her era must have loved her. Here is Tucker singing- No One, But The Right Man, Can Do Me Wrong:

Sophie Tucker entertained from 1886-1966. She was born on this day.

Born On This Day- January 13th... Writer Edmund White

2012-01-13T06:06:00.000-08:00

"As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excuse me or assure me I wasn't the only one, that might confirm an identity I was unhappily piecing together."

When I was young (I was young once, despite what The Husband may tell you), I would scour the library for books with clues about being gay. The material I found was mostly clinical & the information decidedly depressing. It must be so much easier for baby queers in this era, with a shelves if offerings of gay writings by gay authors of every stripe & disposition.

2 of his newest books are on top of a tall stack of books on my side of the bed. He is one of my favorite authors & one of his books is in my top 10 favorite gay themed books of all time. I am looking forward to his just released new novel- Jack Holmes & His Friend & his book of essays- Sacred Monsters, released in November.

His novel- A Boy’s Own Story (I still have my original copy, purchased in 1982 at The Different Drummer Bookstore on Capital Hill in Seattle) was the first important coming out story that I read, & the first to treat the story of a gay boy where the subject was not portrayed as sick or a "problem". As a young man in my 20s, I thought the novel was brazen & intimate. I was very moved.

White is one of the most prominent & highly acclaimed figures of contemporary gay literature, Edmund White works in many genres of fiction & nonfiction.

A Boy's Story is about the search for identity against the expectations of family & friends, White expertly couples the cosmic & the commonplace. The narrator & his friend Kevin explore the boundaries of their common masculinity: “When he turned his face my way it was dark, indistinguishable; his back & shoulders were carving up strips of light, carving them this way & that as he twisted & bobbed. The water was dark, opaque, but it caught the sun's gold light, the wavy dragon scales writhing under a sainted knight's halo. At last Kevin swam up beside me; his submerged body looked small, boneless. He said we should go down to the store & buy some Vaseline."

I’ve always admired White’s refusal to get all PC, & he takes on gay hypocrisy & prudish gays that condemn promiscuity in the hope that this will make them more normal & palatable for straight people. White is a veteran of the early 1970s: NYC bathhouses, back room bars & along the piers. Edmund White is an old style gay guy, proud to be gay, obsessed with coming out, & attacking those that refuse to do so.

White keeps on putting out fiction, biographies & essays. His States of Desire was written pre-HIV, &contains some of the most graphic & moving depictions of gay male America. White feels that "gay" is a very male concept, having almost nothing to do with lesbians or transsexuals (GLBT !). I have read him, followed him, & I appreciate his place in American gay culture as pioneer & story teller.

White shares a cozy, book-lined Chelsea apartment with his life partner, 46 year old writer Michael Carroll, but White says: "I'm a sex junkie; I believe in promiscuity. Am I a sex addict? I guess. But I'm also a prickly moralist & a weak-willed pleasure lover”. White turns 73 today.

His work so far:

Fiction
• Forgetting Elena (1973)
• Nocturnes for the King of Naples (1978)
• A Boy's Own Story (1982)
• Caracole (1985)
• The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)
• Skinned Alive: Stories (1995)
• The Farewell Symphony (1997)
• The Married Man (2000)
• Fanny: A Fiction (2003)
• Chaos: A Novella & Stories (2007)
• Hotel de Dream (2007)

Plays
• Terre Haute (2006)

Nonfiction
• The Joy of Gay Sex, with Charles Silverstein (1977)
• States of Desire (1980)
• The Burning Library: Writings on Art, Politics & Sexuality 1969-1993 (1994)
• The Flâneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris (2000)
• Arts & Letters (2004)

Biography
• Genet: A Biography (1993)
• Marcel Proust (1998)
• Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel (2008)

Memoir
• Our Paris: Sketches from Memory (1995)
• My Lives (2005)
• City Boy (2010)

Ragged Dick & Steve; Or, A Consideration Of Horatio Alger, Jr. On His Birthday

2012-01-13T03:34:00.000-08:00

He may not exactly be a household name these days, but Horatio Alger was responsible for defining & enshrining one of the great values that Americans hold most strongly.

Alger was the son of a Unitarian minister & a Unitarian minister himself, He was kicked out of his post in the face of allegations of homosexuality & pederasty after it was discovered he was having sex with teenage males. Church officials claimed that he had committed the "most heinous crime, a crime of no less magnitude than the abominable and revolting crime of unnatural familiarity with boys." No, that is not the American virtue that I was thinking about, but because of those circumstances, Alger went on to write what many would call the definitive patriotic literature, rags-to-riches stories that gave the original shape to that goal for which we all strive: the American dream. I still hear the right wingers describe someone as a "real Horatio Alger Story." I wonder if they actually know this story.

Horatio Alger was the master of the dime novel in the mid-19th century. He churned out dozens of almost identical tales: a young, poverty-stricken boy is alone in the big, cold city. He works harder than the other shoe shine boys or newsboys & saves every penny, while the other boys gamble & drink & waste their money on trivial pursuits. The boy meets a wealthy older businessman, who recognizes the lad's ethic & pluck & the beam of intelligence in his sad eyes, & takes him under his wing. Soon the boy has money of his own, responsibility & better status in life.

Alger was pretty plucky himself. He started at Harvard at 16 & studied with Longfellow. By his late teens, he had written a number of books for children. After being dismissed from his church, he moved to NYC & over the next 33 years wrote more that 100 books. His hard work never brought him riches though. He associated himself with the street ruffians of the city. & took his meals &slept at the boys’ boarding houses. He gave his money earned from his stories to the young men that he admired & used as models for his tales.. Except for Ragged Dick, his books were not a success until after his death. His family then destroyed all of his personal papers.

Embedded in Horatio Alger's work is the strong Protestant work ethic, the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps American creed, & this mythology of upward mobility in America is central to modern conservative thinking, & much of it can be credited to Horatio Alger & his adoring fans. But who was he?

His popularity dwindled in the 1890s & so did his income. In 1896 he had a nervous breakdown that forced him to relocate permanently to his sister's home in Massachusetts. When he died in 1899, his passing was barely noticed by the newspapers. His literary work was bequeathed to his niece, to 2 boys he had casually adopted.

Since 1947, the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans has bestowed awards & scholarships on the deserving youth. in 1982 Alger's works inspired a musical comedy called Shine!. One modern scholar has described his work as a male Cinderella myth noting similarities with the classic fairy tale. The NY chapter of NAMBLA is named the Horatio Alger club.

Like the Hardy Boys & Nancy Drew series that I read as a boy, his books are all the same, yet all quite readable. Alger had a great gift for narrative. I happened to have bought one at a used book store as an adult because I was amused by the title- Ragged Dick. I suspected that it was a story about my previous weekend, & I was quite surprised at what I was reading.

Among his other colorful titles (which inspire my own):

What Boys Can Do on the Farm for the Camp

Charlie Codman's Cruise: A Story for Boys

Luck And Pluck; or, John Oakley's Inheritance

Rough and Ready; or, Life Among the New York Newsboys

Ben The Luggage Boy; or, Among the Wharves

Do and Dare; or A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune

Adrift in the City; or, Oliver Conrad's Plucky Fight

Joe the Hotel Boy, or Winning Out by Pluck

Born On This Day- January 12th... Favorite Artist John Singer Sargent

2012-01-12T21:34:00.000-08:00

Portrait of Sargent by Boldini

The question remains- was he homosexual? I have always felt that I could tell from his work & sensitivities that he was gay, but we will really never know about one of my favorite American artists- John Singer Sargent.

It seems almost unbelievable now, but I once owned a small pencil sketch of actress Ethel Barrymore by this favorite artist. It was signed- "to Ethel, from JS Sargent 1911”, & it was presented in a small silver art deco frame. It was a gift to me from actress Fay Wray with whom I had an acquaintance in the early 1970s. I eventually gave this piece away to someone that I thought I was in love with. We no longer speak. A lesson learned? No... I continue to give things that I love to people that I love. Do you have your eye on something?

When I lived for a year in Boston (1972-73), I would spend hours wandering the galleries at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, with it's lovely collection of Sargent's. I would sit & wonder at his paintings & cruise the arty type guys. John Singer Sargent's work seem to attract like minded viewers.

The iconic full-length portrait of New Orleans beauty Virginie Gautreau brought Sargent notoriety. Considered brazen, the portrait of Madame Gautreau in a strapless black gown with a plunging neckline was savaged by the critics as scandalous in 1884. To escape the scandal created by the Portrait of Madame X, in 1886 Sargent moved to London, where his paintings triumphed at the Royal Academy & where he established a brilliant career as a society & celebrity portraitist, doing more than 700 portrait paintings.

He had many friends who were homosexual, including Henry James & Robert Louis Stevenson, & associated with aesthetes & dandies such as Oscar Wilde & Robert de Montesquiou. Sargent was known as distant & reserved. As far as we know, he had no great romantic attachments, only flirtations with women & deep friendships with men.

Portrait of Nicola d'Inverno

Rumors circulated about his relationship with his long time model & assistant Nicola d'Inverno, but no physical relationship has been documented. At his death, his family destroyed all of his personal papers, so the evidence for Sargent's homosexuality is largely in his work, especially his paintings & sketches of male nudes. The Husband I & chanced on an exhibit of pencil sketches by Sargent at a small gallery at NYU in the late 1990s. I turned to the Husband (who knows his art history) & asked- “...was Sargent gay? I mean look at the love that went into these male nudes?” I like to think that he was gay. I am going to claim him as one of our own. His work certainly speaks to me.

Born On This Day- January 12th... Patsy Kelly

2012-01-12T16:21:00.000-08:00

She often played The Maid in motion pictures, & she was forced to take work as an actual maid when Hollywood was not able to deal with her loud mouth, her drinking & her openness about being, in her own words: “a big dyke”.

Patsy Kelly was famous for being a screwball, spunky, straight-shooter of film & stage. She is remembered for her comic work in movies, her Broadway credits go back to the 1920s.

Sarah Veronica Rose Kelly was born in Brooklyn 101 years ago today. She was the daughter of Irish immigrants. In 1927, she made her Broadway debut in the vaudeville musical Harry Delmar’s Revels followed by Three Cheers (1928), Earl Carroll’s Sketch Book (1929) & Earl Carroll’s Vanities (1930).

In The Wonder Bar (1931), a play set in Parisian night club, Kelly played Electra Pivonka, a role that required her to sing 2 songs. in 1932 she had several musical numbers in the revue- Flying Colors. She would not return to Broadway for 40 years.

Kelly appeared in films now largely forgotten or lost, often playing the roles of the maid or the nurse. Among her early films: Air Fright (1933), The Countess of Monte Cristo (1934),The Misses Stooge (1935), Pigskin Parade (1936), Wake Up & Live (1937), The Cowboy & the Lady (1938), The Gorilla (1939), Topper Returns (1941).

Kelly was an out & proud lesbian at a time that it was nearly unthinkable, & her outspokenness hurt her career in the 1940s. Her off-screen boozing & public proclamations that she was a lesbian led to the end of her career during Hollywood's golden age. By 1943, she could only get small roles in films at PRC, the most poverty-stricken of all Poverty Row studios.

Her on again/off again lover- Tallulah Bankhead hired her as a personal assistant/housekeeper. Kelly worked as a domestic for Bankhead & others until she found work in TV starting in the1950s. She was a frequent guest on everything from The Love Boat, The Man From U.N.C.L.E, The Wild, Wild West & The Dick Van Dyke Show. The movies discovered her again, with roles in: Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1960), The Naked Kiss (1964), The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966), Freaky Friday (1976) & The North Avenue Irregulars (1979). I especially love her work in 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby.

But her greatest successes came when she returned to Broadway, First in 1971 in the revival of the musical No, No, Nanette. Kelly played Pauline, the maid, & wowed audiences, me included, with her sharp delivery & first rate tap dancing. I liked Kelly & the show so much, I saw it on Broadway & in LA in 1972. Clive Barnes, the NY Times theatre critic at the time: “Kelly, a formidable lady who specializes in maids who have not only given notice but also taken notice, sucks up every scene she is in with the impressive suction of the vacuum cleaner she herself wields with such masterly expertise.”

She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

Kelly followed her hit performance in No, No, Nanette with another star turn in the 1973 Broadway revival of Irene, playing Mrs. O’Dare, the spirited mother of the title character, played by Debbie Reynolds. Kelly earned a Tony nomination for her performance, & she can be heard on the cast recordings of both No, No, Nanette & Irene.

She entered the Motion Picture & Television Country House in 1981 & never left. She died there of cancer Sept. 24, 1981, at age 71.

The moral to Patsy Kelly’s tale? You can try & squash her spirits, but you can’t keep a delightful, dancin’ dyke dame down.

Details Of Post Apocalyptic Bohemia

2012-01-11T20:37:00.000-08:00

A view of the Dining Room. I like to think of it as the front parlor. The rug was my birthday gift from The Husband. It is 20th century Afghanistan. The chairs were purchased at Pier One, for $99 & reupholstered by the husband in a brown/grey flannel on the seats & front & crewel-work with over-laid brocade on burlap in the back. The Husband tells me that crewel-work was a skill learned by all good young European ladies in the 18th & 19th centuries. The Husband: "Very Martha Washington."

The sofa is Flemish pine, circa 1840s, upholstered in burlap with leather cushions. Bought by the Husband when he lived in Belgium in the early 1970s.

He brought it in to the relationship & were we to break up, it would go with him. I love it too much to divorce.

The table was made by The Husband from the stand of an industrial size mixing bowl & an old mahogany table top, silver leafed & studded. The sofa is the domain of Lulu. I like to sit there with coffee & a magazine.

I think I will order the Jack Russell Terrier. Is it free range terrier?

Detail of the rug. Sad, our war in Afghanistan (like the Russians before us) brought the traditional rug making business to a halt. Traders say Afghanistan lacks the processing infrastructure needed to make the carpet industry self-sufficient, raw materials are expensive, & the taxation system is all wrong, with foreign sales penalised by heavy duties while imported rugs are taxed at a low rate. Their government needs to do more to support this traditional industry. Now most of these rugs are made by refuges in Pakistan & Turkey.

Born On This Day- January 11th... Acting Great Eva Le Gallienne

2012-01-11T19:56:00.000-08:00

At Post Apocalyptic Bohemia, we love the lesbians. Butch or femme, softball playing or treading the boards, in therapy or giving therapy, we feel good about our gay sisters.

I was one of the lucky ones who saw her on Broadway in the hit revival of the Edna Ferber-George S. Kaufman comedy- The Royal Family based on the Barrymore family, that was the hit of the 1976 season & a major triumph for the amazing Eva Le Gallienne, who played the mother of the fabled family, skipping girlishly upstairs in Act I & descending like an elderly queen in Act 3. Her performance is one the most memorable in my theatre going history.

She had acted in or directed nearly 150 live theatre productions, given 16 film & television performances, made many of radio broadcasts. Le Gallienne translated many of the works of Ibsen & Chekov. She wrote 4 books, including the memoir With a Quiet Heart- a biography of Actress Eleanora Duse, & numerous articles for magazines. She graced the cover of Time magazine in 1929. A gifted actress who loved her craft, Eva Le Gallienne was one of the most successful & popular figures in American theatre for 6 decades.

In 1918, Le Gallienne had an affair with the flamboyant Hollywood actress Alla Nazimova. When the relationship with Nazimova faded, she became involved with set designer & writer Mercedes de Acosta, a former lover of Nazimova's (reminding me of some of the lesbians in my life now, who have affairs with exe’s exes, it get's so complicated!). Although Le Gallienne had many lovers, she was never comfortable with her lesbianism & briefly considered a sham marriage to actor Basil Rathbone.

Le Gallienne founded the Civic Repertory Theatre in NYC, with the financial support of one of her lovers- Alice DeLamar, a wealthy Colorado gold mine heiress. In 1928 she earned a great success with her performance in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. The Civic Rep disbanded at the height of the Depression in 1935. Le Gallienne continued performing until the end of her life, but after the closure of the Civic Repertory Theater, she mostly lived quietly in the country with her partner of 50 years- Marion Evensen. In the late 1950s, she had a notable success as Queen Elizabeth in Mary Stewart & also appeared in several television specials, even winning an Emmy for a televised version of The Royal Family. In 1964, she received a Tony Award for her production of Chekhov's The Seagull.

At the age of 80, Le Gallienne was cast along with Ellen Burstyn in Daniel Petrie's film Resurrection. Le Gallienne's performance earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She died at her home in Conneticut in 1991. A nice long, fascinating life, she was 92 years old.

Johnnie Ray Sounded So Sad On The Radio

2012-01-10T23:57:00.000-08:00

With a steady string of Top 10 hits lasting for most of a decade, he influenced Elvis, & infuriated Sinatra. He broke through more racial & musical barriers than any other artist in the 1950s. But 50 years after his electrifying entrance on the pop music scene, the name Johnnie Ray now evokes blank stares when I asked if people know of him. Not one person that I mentioned working on this post had ever heard of Johnnie Ray. He was a talented, tragic talent who sobbed & shook his way to international celebrity, & then experienced an equally explosive & inexplicable fall.

Oregon’s own John Alvin Ray was born on this day 85 years ago. Even through the tempestuous years of the Great Depression, his loving family always supported their young son’s musical talents.

As a youth, Ray was the victim an accident where he landed on hard ground during a blanket toss on a Boy Scout camp out. A single straw was driven into his left ear, puncturing the membrane of his eardrum. He instantly lost all hearing in his left ear.

He didn't tell his parents about the accident. The formerly extroverted boy became a sad, lonely teenager. It was from this dark time of loneliness & bitterness that the shameless sadness & fierceness of his singing took hold.

Ray found solace & strength from the latest black music of the era. He found an idol in Billie Holiday. After being fitted with his first hearing aid & regaining the ability to experience the sounds around him, his full focus became his music. Ray’s lifelong hearing problems drove of his thundering, tumultuous, tearful vocal style.

Ray was a tall, fair, alarmingly thin young white man, performing in black nightclubs in Detroit, where he honed his smoky, soulful voice with a sorrowful delivery that would become his trademark.

Ray didn’t write the dynamic 1951 smash hit- Cry that made him a household name, but he wrote a great deal of his own hit records including my favorite Ray song- Whiskey & Gin, the gut wrenching ballad that made the music biz take notice. The recording executives who heard his impassioned, soul inflected vocals thought that they were listening to a black female blues singer & the fact that the voice was coming from a gangly white country boy from Oregon was shocking.

He was signed to Okeh Records where he became the first white artist ever to release pop hits on a blues label, & one of the first to land on the R&B charts. In 1951, Ray was the hottest performer in America, & his buzz would be felt by everyone, everywhere, on radio, TV, magazines & movies.

Ray worked with the most respected singers, arrangers, & band leaders: Doris Day, Frankie Laine, Ray Conniff, & Mitch Miller.

In the summer of 1951, just a few months before Cry would make him a smash, he was arrested twice by the Detroit Vice Squad for soliciting sex with a man at the notorious gay bar- The Brass Rail. The Vice Squad had been on to Ray ever since he played "Black & Tan" clubs earlier in his career, gaining a reputation as a rebel. The damage to his career when the police report & his mug shots were discovered was significant. Teen rebels & bobbysoxers still held Ray as a hero, but to the Establishment, he was the devil. a half decade before Elvis Presley, Ray had buttoned-down Americans fearing for the souls of their children.

Ray’s ferocious, fierce, performances style & his stage shaking zeal endeared him to British audiences. Even after his popularity faded & he was ridiculed in the USA, Ray would always play to a packed house of adoring fans in Britain.

The scandals of Ray’s notorious personal behaviors, his fondness for alcohol & pills that lead to high profile public drunkenness arrests, & the emergence of rock n’ roll diminished Ray’s musical force. He would continue to have records on the charts but the material he was being given by producers like Mitch Miller became increasingly sappy & irrelevant.

Despite her knowledge of the 1951 arrest, Marilyn Morrison, the daughter of the owner of the Mocambo nightclub in LA, California, married Ray in 1952. Morrison was aware of the singer's sexuality from the start, telling a friend she would "straighten it out." The couple separated in 1953 & divorced in 1954. Morrison tried to contact Ray many times in the decades that followed their divorce, sometimes talking on the phone with Ray’s lover/manager Bill Franklin. Ray always instructed Franklin to get rid of her on the phone. Morrison attended the LA memorial service for Ray a month after his death & she refused to talk about Ray until the end of the 1990s.

During a 1956 engagement at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, Ray met up with a young Elvis Presley, who had just bombed at the same venue. Ray had been one of Presley's biggest inspirations as a teenager in Memphis. Elvis had the performance style & stage shaking mania pioneered by Ray. The singers enjoyed a friendship that lasted until Presley's early death in 1977.

Ray also had a “beard” in news columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, despite the wrath incurred on both of them by Frank Sinatra. Ray's conquest of the pop charts in 1951, holding the top 3 spots at once had come at a time when the once, outraged Sinatra. He was a little unhappy to be replaced by a raging, flaming fag cry-baby, & he was maddened by the fact that the love of his life Ava Gardner had an obsession with the singer. Sinatra held a lifelong grudge.

In 1964, Kilgallen, who had nurtured & supported Ray through so many ups & downs, was found dead in her apartment. It was speculated that she was murdered by someone who thought that she was delving deeply into JFK’s assassination. She had reportedly uncovered some very damning evidence that linked Jack Ruby to a criminal plot.

After Kilgallen’s death, Ray was back to booze, pills, & anonymous hook ups with men. His recordings & stage performances suffered. At 50 years old, Ray was diagnosed with cirrhosis.

In 1974, Ray played the London Palladium. In an echo of his friend Judy Garland before him, 20 years after he shook the Palladium audiences, Ray enjoyed an unprecedented come back with a 15 minute standing ovation.

Sadly, like Garland, Ray was one of those performers born to destroy themselves. After relapsing back to booze & pills, he slipped into a coma on February 24, 1990, surrounded by friends. He was only 63 years old.

He was the most controversial performer alive in his day. He captured more imaginations and minds with his heartbreaking voice and tearful lyrics than anybody had before. Ray had taken the formidable handicap of hearing impairment & he used the personal pain to bring out his heartbreaking voice. Ray was a gay man, who some people thought sounded like a girl, with a hearing aid sticking out of his ear. Is there any way that Ray could be any more an outsider? Ray is buried here in Oregon.

Ray: “Above all thing, a man must be masculine But when he has the desire to express emotion, he suppresses himself because he doesn’t think it’s manly. Ordinarily a man can’t be as demonstrative as I am when I sing, people wouldn’t understand it. But I get fan letters from men. Women in my audiences see reflected in me all the emotion & tenderness & thoughtfulness that unfortunately the American male doesn’t have time for today.”

Born On This Day- January 10th... Sal Mineo

2012-01-10T23:44:00.000-08:00

He was born Salvatore Mineo, Jr. in the Bronx, New York on January 10, 1939.

I have a very odd connection to Sal Mineo. In 1976, I was actually an acquaintance of the man charged with his murder. This was nothing sordid. This man was pursuing one of my best friends. WCK3 & I were concerned for our friend because this mystery man seemed especially troubling. Sal Mineos’s death was major news in LA that February. WCK3 & I really had the chills when this creepy man, who had been aggressively working on our good friend, was charged with the movie star’s demise.

Sal Mineo was nominated for an Academy Award 2 times, & he enjoyed success as a stage director & recording artist, but he is mostly remembered for his performance in Rebel Without A Cause & for the brutal murder that ended his life just as he was on the verge of reinventing himself & his career.

You can feel the sexual heat of the actors in this screen test.

He made his first film appearance in 1955, & appeared in many screen productions, usually playing ethnic& troubled youths. Mineo's career was dominated by that single role that eventually achieved mythic status: Plato in Nicholas Ray's Rebel without a Cause (1955). Mineo's homosexuality was a fairly open secret even at the height of his Hollywood success. He had affairs with Peter Lawford, James Dean, & with Nicholas Ray during the filming of Rebel Without A Cause.

With maturity, he sought to explore his homosexuality in his life & his art. Although he appeared in several television productions & films (his last film was Planet Of The Apes), he found the theater more supportive of his aspirations & sensibilities.

From one of my favorite shows of the era- Shindig! in 1967

In 1969, he directed the Broadway & West Coast productions of Fortune & Men's Eyes, John Herbert's exploration of power roles & homosexuality at a prison. Mineo's production was controversial for its nudity & simulated sex.

In 1976, he was cast as a bisexual burgler in a Los Angeles production of James Kirkwood's P. S. Your Cat Is Dead. As he returned to his West Hollywood apartment from a rehearsal on February 12, 1976, he was stabbed to death. The murder remains cloaked in mystery. A suspect who initially confessed later recanted, but was nevertheless convicted. Over the years, & Mineo's friends & relatives have claimed that the authorities, eager to solve a high profile murder case, charged the wrong man. He was just 37 years old when he was murdered.

Details Of Post Apocalyptic Bohemia

2012-01-10T08:53:00.000-08:00

This is not the home of The Husband's Christmas gift to the house, a pair of Italian fruitwood chairs circa 1790s. They were moved while cleaning, but I like how they look with the pine merchant's desk, Flemish circa 1840s. The stand up desk was purchased in a flea market in Belgium by The Husband in the early 1970s.

Photo from T.H.'s Iphone

How To While Away A Monday In January

2012-01-09T22:15:00.000-08:00

The Husband & I had the best of intended plans to make it to a showing of The Artist today, a rare day off together. We each barely made it out of the house for our individual errands. We took a nap in the early afternoon & then chose to stay in for a movie. We watched The Help. I didn't intend to enjoy it. I wanted to remain cynical. I had not read the best seller that the film was adapted from, but I knew what to expect from the film version... Pure Oscar Bait Hollywood Sap. I felt it would be a little trite & twee &, possibly, offensive.

Tate Taylor

Emma Stone stars as a young writer exposing the injustices suffered by black housemaids in 1960s Mississippi in the adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s novel by openly gay screenwriter/director Tate Taylor, his very first full length feature. Stone: “I didn’t live through the ’60s, so one of the ways I was able to really understand that struggle was by looking at what’s happening in America now with the gay community.”

Plans change & preconceived notions are blurred. I loved The Help. I give it a strong B+ on the Steve Report Card. What a lovely experience to watch Sissy Spacek & Cisley Tyson doing quality work in 2011! Terrific roles for women of different races & ages, acted with real commitment & class. I say just hand Octavia Spencer a golden statue. Viola Davis’ Aibileen trembles with a world weary world view & compromised pride of an intelligent woman forced to serve a dangerous & unfair world.

I was cautious because civil rights-era films are usually rousing works. The Help is an easily funny, well acted, sincere film that makes you angry when it’s supposed to, & makes you sad when it’s appropriate. It’s recommend it.

_____________________________________

We then shook off the moving experience of viewing The Help by watching something more typical of the offering I use tune in to- Blazing Saddles. Always a favorite at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia. I couldn't be bothered to get up & do something constructive because I'm Tired:

Here I stand, the goddess of Desire

Set men on fire

I have this power

Morning noon & night it's drink & dancing

Some quick romancing

& then a quick shower

Stage door johnnies always surround me

They always hound me

With one request

Who can satisfy their lustful habits

I'm not a rabbit!

I need some rest!

I'm tired,

Sick & tired of love

I've had my fill of love

from below & above

Tired

Tired of being admired

Tired of love uninspired

Let's face it

I'm tired!

I've been with 1000's of men

again & again

They promise the moon

They always coming & going

Going & coming

& always too soon!

I'm tired

Tired of playing the game

Ain't it a crying shame?

I'm so tired

God dammit I'm tired!

I'm tired

Tired of playing the game

Ain't it a crying shame

I'm so tired

Tired of being admired

Tired of love uninspired

I've been with 1000's of men

Again & again

They sing the same tune

They quote Byron & Shelly,

& jump on your belly

& bust your ballon!

I'm tired

Tired of playing the game

Ain't it a freakin shame

I'm so...

Let's face it,

Everything below the waste is kapput!
Brooks
1973

Born On This Day- January 9th... Richard Halliburton

2012-01-09T20:59:00.000-08:00

In my childhood bookcase was a line of volumes titile Book Of Marvels by Richard Halliburton. I loved them for the color plates of sexy shirtless, exotic men.

During the first half of the 20th century, 3 names came to mind when considering adventure & travel: Lindbergh, Earhart, & Halliburton. Even now, we know about the first 2, but have you known the story of Richard Halliburton?

Halliburton traveled the globe, pushing himself to the limit, all the while writing about his exotic exploits in books that thrilled readers living a less exciting life. He was Indiana Jones crossed with Auntie Mame. The likely reason he isn't part of our history is because this adventurous "man's man" was... a homo

Halliburton: "Realize your youth while you have it. Don't squander the gold of your days. Let those who wish have their respectability, I wanted freedom, freedom to indulge in whatever caprice struck my fancy. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you. Be afraid of nothing. The romantic… that was what I wanted."

In his prime, Halliburton was a daredevil who accomplished feats others only could dream of. He climbed the Matterhorn, swam the 48 mile Panama Canal in 1928, & flew over 50,000 miles around the world in his own airplane. He shot the first aerial photos of Mt. Everest, & hid in the Taj Mahal, where he swam in the pools in the moonlight. He hid from the guards in Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia. In spirited stories, Halliburton fought off pirates off Macao, spent a week in Bali, snuck onto trains in India, avoiding the railway inspectors, joined the French Foreign Legion in Algeria, explored the road from Cairo to Damascus, & arrested for taking photos of the guns at Gibraltar. He slept atop an Egyptian pyramid. He took Iraq’s impetuous Prince Ghazi on a flight over Baghdad & nearly missed the stern curfew of his father, the king. He also rode an elephant, in the manner of Hannibal, across the Alps.

Halliburton starred in his own documentary films & gave many public appearances & speeches. He was daring in the face of danger, enthralling his public, but Halliburton not only kept his sexuality secret from his adoring fans, he went to great lengths to suggest otherwise. His adventure stories were filled with adoring women, leading readers to assume that his conquests continued in his bedroom.

Halliburton was gay. He had a special fondness staying on YMCA's, & it was an open secret that he had a romance with Hollywood heartthrob Ramon Navarro. Halliburton was smitten with Hollywood & was approached by Fox Studios in 1933 about making films based on his adventures. He idolized Rudolph Valentino for his good looks & desired a friendship with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. He knew & admired Amelia Earhart, & they both were in high demand on the lecture circuit.

Halliburton settled down with another "bachelor"- Paul Mooney, his editor & co-writer. He commissioned a modernist-style house in Laguna Beach from Mooney’s other lover, 27 year old architect- William Alexander Levy. The 3 men lived together in a thoroughly modern relationship. The house was named “Hangover House,” reflecting his witty sensibility.

Halliburton in a letter to his father: “Dad, you hit the wrong target when you write that you wish I were at Princeton living ‘in the even tenor of my way.’ I hate that expression & as far as I am able I intend to avoid that condition. When impulse and spontaneity fail to make my 'way' as uneven as possible then I shall sit up nights inventing means of making life as conglomerate & vivid as possible. Those who live in the even tenor of their way simply exist until death ends their monotonous tranquility. No, there's going to be no even tenor with me. The more uneven it is the happier I shall be. When my time comes to die, I'll be able to die happy, for I will have done & seen & heard & experienced all the joy, pain, thrills, every emotion that any human ever had. I'll be especially happy if I am spared a stupid, common death in bed. So, Dad, I'm afraid your wish will always come to naught, for my way is to be ever changing, but always swift, acute & leaping from peak to peak instead of following the rest of the herd, shackled in conventionalities, along the monotonous narrow path in the valley. The dead have reached perfection when it comes to even tenor!”

With the financial success of his books & popular speaking engagements, Halliburton built a Chinese junk named the Sea Dragon. In 1939, he & Mooney set out to sail it from Hong Kong to San Francisco. His last contact was by radio from the Sea Gragon: “Southerly gales, squalls, lee rail under water, wet bunks, hard tack, bully beef, wish you were here, instead of me.”

I believe his story is ready for a movie treatment with Ryan Gosling starring, & me as Paul Mooney.

Let's Dance

2012-01-08T16:07:00.000-08:00

The Husband during a Bowie Period circa 1983

Let's dance,

Put on your red shoes

& dance the blues

Let's dance,

To the song they're playin' on the radio

Let's sway,

While color lights up your face

Let's sway,

Sway through the crowd

In an empty space

If you say run, I'll run with you

& if you say hide, we'll hide

Because my love for you

Would break my heart in two

If you should fall

Into my arms

& tremble like a flower

Let's dance,

For fear your grace should fall

Let's dance,

For fear tonight is all

Let's sway,

You could look into my eyes

Let's sway under the moonlight, this serious moonlight

& if you say run,

I'll run with you

& if you say hide, we'll hide

Because my love for you

Would break my heart in two

If you should fall

Into my arms

& tremble like a flower

Let's dance,

Put on your red shoes

& dance the blues

Let's dance,

To the song we're playing

Let's sway

Let's sway,

Under the moonlight,

The serious moonlight

Let's dance

Let's

Let's sway

Let's

Let's dance Let's dance Let's dance

Let's dance

Bowie

1983

Bowie & Bassey

2012-01-08T15:12:00.000-08:00

They have given me a lifetime of listening love & they share a birthday today. Like your host, they are Capricorns, certainly the brightest & best birth sign. Unlike your host, the pair of Brits have had decades long super careers in show biz. Shirley Bassey feeds my fantasies as I get old, epitomized in beautiful songs like Charles Aznavour's Yesterday, When I Was Young. David Bowie encourages me to stay a young American, bored with my external characters, daring to seek ideas within my alterative egos. He is an artist-hero who kills off his past roles - Ziggy Stardust, spaceman, bisexualist, rebel like out dated clothing.

Both, too, are beyond normal criticism, defying purely musical assessment. Bassey over-sings,but thrillingly, & cannot perform except with total commitment. Bowie over-plays, but rivetingly, & demands attention by his extravagant idiosyncrasy, which is as professionally unrepentant as hers. She devours the listener; he incites the listener. Each powerfully proves the power of personality.

“Interesting…. On announcing that I am bisexual, I don’t think it was a mistake in Europe, but it was a lot tougher in America. I had no problem with people knowing I was bisexual. But I had no inclination to hold any banners or be a representative of any group of people. I knew what I wanted to be, which was a songwriter & a performer, & I felt that bisexuality became my headline over here for so long. America is a very puritanical place, & I think it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do.”

Funny, but I seem to really fully embrace artists when they are at their core fans’ & critic’s low ebb: The Beatles- The White Album, The Rolling Stones- Some Girls, U2- Achtung Baby, REM- Automatic For The People. I have listened to & collected David Bowie since 1969 with the release of Space Oddity (a song I still listen to). That is 40+ years of living with David Bowie in his many incarnations & personas. But, my favorite era for David Bowie was not Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, Alladin Sane, or the Brian Eno lean years of Low. I love David Bowie of the Let’s Dance era of the mid-1980s. That album, along with Tonight were the soundtrack of the very best time of my life. Modern Love, Let’s Dance, China Girl… songs that mixed blue-eyed soul with an Industrial edge & pop sensibilities. I thought David was in his best voice & his sexiest during this time. I saw some serious moonlight in the 1980s.

He always bristled, although I can't imagine why, but in the day The Husband was often told, sometimes by strangers, that he strongly resembled David Bowie. I still think he does, although The Husband always dismisses this suggestion.

"Diamonds never leave you... men do!"

There is a list of British acts that have eluded pure popularity in the USA: Celia Black, Dusty Springfield, Lulu, & Robbie Williams come to mind. But why hasn’t Shirley Bassey caught on in this country after 50 years of recording great pop music & being the #1 Female Artist in Britain? Especially with American Gays? The Husband & I really dig her. We were zany for her cover of Pink's Get The Party Started in the party summer of 2007.

Shirley Bassey won an entirely new generation of fans when she guested on a 1997 song from British techno act, Propellerheads. History Repeating charted in both Europe & North America, & appeared on the soundtrack to the popular 1998 film There's Something About Mary. Yet Bassey had already enjoyed a long, 5 decade career as a performer before this point, recording a string of hit singles in the 1960s & garnering a devoted cult following for her torchy, often slightly risqué songs, glamorous looks, & compelling stage presence. Sometimes called "Bassey the Belter" for her strong alto voice, Bassey had previously enjoyed a huge international hit when she performed the title song to the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. She went on to record 3 Bond themes songs, more than any other artist. Bassey posseses one of the most instantly recognizable voices in popular music.

Dame Shirley Bassey isn't just the biggest voice to come out of Wales, the 74 year old singer remains Britain's most successful female artist. No wonder Rufus Wainwright, Pet Shop Boys & K.T. Tunstall were queuing up to write songs for her.

Bowie turns 65 years old today. Bassey is a fabulous 75. What are your favorite Bowie & Bassey recordings? I go for Bassey's Yesterday, When I Was Young & Bowie's Ashes To Ashes.

The Real Republicans Of The Presidential Primaries

2012-01-08T10:08:00.000-08:00

I have been enjoying this new reality show on... I think it must be Bravo- The Republican Candidates for President Of The United States. It is an absolutely nutty program. These people are more deliriously demented than a weekly dose of any of the Housewives Of Anyplace.

Herman Cain, my favorite when the pilot was aired, was voted off the island early. I still miss Cain. He was a piping hot extra large quadruple cheese pizza slice of fun who likes to talk in rhyme. Cain: "We need a leader, not a reader."

My attention was focused next on batty, bonkers Bachmann. Michele would become my very favorite. What can rivet me to my screen more that the inarticulate & incoherent girl with the pretty eyes? Bachmann was my choice to go all the way to the finale, but you know how it is: One Day You're In, & The Next Day... You're Out. I was shocked when she was voted off, after all, it was God's idea that she be on the show. If the great Vice-President of Original Programing in heaven is behind you, it would be expected that you would win. Michele even was able to have Rip Taylor substitute for her husband. I miss her the most.

Now I have to pin my hopes on Rick Perry, the openly gay Texan with the big gun. Twangy Perry is diverting & droll, with quips such as: "You can always follow me on Tweeter" & "Juarez is reported to be the most dangerous city in America" & "From time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented."

John Huntsman should be on another show, he is so smart. When he has to pack his knives & leaves the show, I hope that he will join next season's Ace Of Cakes.

Icky Rick Santorum always acts like he has just seen something really dirty, filthy dirty, in the woodshed. I hate him on this show, but I would find Santorum provocative on The D List with Kathy Griffin, Color Splash With David Bromstad or Dancing With The Stars.

But the pundits & the critics seem to feel that blandly handsome Mitt Romney will win & get his own show. It seems that he is perpetually second choice to play president when the producers can't get Bill Pullman. At first I was profoundly disheartened & disillusioned that a favorite show would grow to become so boring.

But, The Husband has pointed out Romney's cast includes 5 hot sons who might possible be wondering the grounds of the White House in their special magical underwear, & one of the sons is perchance gay & a hair stylist. Leave it to The Husband to find something sublime in the shambles of this silly show.

I will hold fast to my hunch that there is an alliance between Dr. Ron Paul, a zany diminutive opthamologist from Texas & the amphibian family values guy... one they call- Newt, that will keep this favorite show engaging through the spring.

Born On This Day- January 7th... Jann Wenner

2012-01-07T16:48:00.000-08:00

Because we were just taking about magazines... I gave up on Rolling Stone, a favorite for 35 years, when the artist of the year was someone I had never heard of, making me feel impossibly old.

Jann Wenner set up Rolling Stone in 1967 in a small loft in San Francisco with a $7000 loan. The first print run was 5000 copies. Since then, he has won countless awards & transformed his business into a multimillion-dollar global publishing empire, licensing the magazine in 15 countries & setting up two other lifestyle magazines in the US.

If you believe the tales of impossible deadlines, late nights & general debauchery he experienced with rock stars and hard-living journalists such as his friend the late Hunter S. Thompson, he should be 6 feet under… or at least showing a bit of wear & tear at 64 years old. Here he is pictured describing our 1 evening together, years ago:

In 1995 he separated from his wife of 28 years- Jane, with whom he has 3 children. He then moved to New York & started a relationship with the fashion designer Matt Nye (20+ years younger than Wenner). The couple have adopted three children. He & Jane never divorced & they share custody of their 3 children. She own 49% of Wennermedia.

Wenner: "The mainstream became closer to the counterculture, 50 years ago there were no black people on TV. You couldn't even say the word gay; & then the evolution happened really rapidly, & the mainstream came over & adopted styles of long hair, jeans, rock 'n' roll & the anti-war movement, because it wasn't necessarily counterculture, it was youth culture, it was generational. But now news is on the web as soon as it happens."

Renew Now For The Best Price! You May Already Be A Winner!

2012-01-06T20:20:00.000-08:00

Most of my life I have been having a love affair with magazines. It began with my parent's subscription to Life, at the time a weekly that arrived on Wednesdays. I loved Wednesday afternoon, when I would get home from school & get to the mail first (it still makes me uneasy to have someone look at one of my magazines before I do).

When I was 8 years old, my Aunt Sharon gave me a gift of a year of The New Yorker. She did this every Christmas until she died in the early 1970s.The tradition then passed to her sister, my mother. Can you imagine... I have received 50 issues of the New Yorker a year for 50 years! My parents gave me a gift subscription to Variety at the same age. I was 8 years old & read & studied the weekly grosses of motion pictures & Broadway plays.

At the very height of magazine-aloopa, I was receiving 25+ periodicals a month (this didn't include catalogues, which I treated as magazines), often with my mail carrier unhappy with me. Now magazines are archaic, soon to go the way of analog & VHS & traditional marriage.

I receive some periodicals because a favorite was given a funeral & the publishers fulfilled a subscription with a replacement, which is why get something titled LUXE in the mail 6 times a year, as if it makes up for the loss of Metropolitan Home, which I had been reading since it was Apartment Life in the late 1970s.

Now, in the middle of the Great Recession, I have pared down. In 2012, Post Apocalyptic Bohemia is delivered the following from the USPS:
Elle Home
Dwell
House Beautiful
Veranda
Vanity Fair
The New Yorker
New York
Portland Home
Portland Monthly
Sunset
Entertainment Weekly
Details
Out
The Advocate
Country Living
Interior Design
Architectural Digest
World Of Interiors

Long lost & lamented: Upper & Lower Case, The Face, House & Garden, Home, Communication Arts, Spy, Christopher Street & my beloved- After Dark.

I have a blood draw every week to monitor a medicine I take. My friendly clinic has a dearth of reading material with 100s of copies of Web MD & The Asian Journal as the only choices. Thankfully, I almost always have a book with me, but being magnanimous, I inquired at the desk, manned by a handsome man lucky enough to have the name- Fernando Lamas, wondering if the clinic would wish me to bring in already read magazines. I asked if there were subject matters that were forbidden & I was assured that I could donate whatever I felt I was able to part with. I believe Fernando was hoping my collection would include 5 years of back issues of Inches.

I brought in copies of my monthly, biweekly, monthly & quarterly rags, with my address carefully cut out. Who needs a stalker or an identity lifter? Proud of my unselfishness, I arranged them around the waiting area in perfect stacks by subject matter, spines faced to the reader.

A week later the clinic was bare of anything to peruse outside of Web MD, The Asian Journal, one dirty & tired Martha Stewart Living Easter issue & a 1991 Field & Stream. Was it alarming that fellow patients were offended by my reading materials or was I to be thrilled that the masses took them home thinking that they had hit the periodical jack pot?

Born On This Day- January 5th... Alvin Ailey

2012-01-05T15:44:00.000-08:00

I am always grateful to my college boyfriend & longtime buddy- Walter for giving me an education in Dance History. He is a professional dancer, dancing with the famed Bella Lewitzki Dance Company for decades, & now a professor of Dance at the University of Oregon. Because of our relationship, I am more savvy about dance than most civilians.

Today’s Birthday Gay is Modern dance pioneer Alvin Ailey, recognized for his lasting impact on the American arts landscape, which he achieved despite struggles racial discrimination, mental illness & internal conflict about his sexuality.

On this day in 1931, Ailey was born in Rogers, Texas. Apprehensive & artistic, he was uncomfortably aware of his attraction to other boys at an early age, but his strapping physique spared him from harassment.

Moving to LA at 12 years old, Ailey developed a love for dance after seeing a performance by dancer/activist- Katherine Dunham. He met & began studying with Lester Horton, who created the first racially integrated dance company in the USA.

He transferred to San Francisco State College to study teaching, but Ailey continued to dance, performing at a nightclub with Maya Angelou, at the time, a dancer. Eventually, he chose to leave school, & join Horton’s troupe.

After Horton’s death in 1953, Ailey was named director of the company. A year later, he relocated to NYC. He studied with dance masters, including Martha Graham & Merce Cunningham. His work was well-received, but jobs for black dancers were scarce.

To offer more opportunities for black talent, Ailey started his own company- The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT), which made its debut in 1958. In 1962, the US State Department began sponsoring AAADT on international tours. Ailey integrated the company in 1963, saying he wanted to work with the most talented dancers regardless of race. Even as Ailey continued to develop pieces for AAADT, he mentored several promising young performers, including the powerful Judith Jamison, who succeeded Ailey as AAADT artistic director.

Despite his professional success, Ailey’s personal life was driven by difficulties. His sexuality was an open secret, yet he rarely spoke of his personal relationships, & seemed ill at ease with being gay. He was in a long term romantic relationship with a young white schoolteacher who helped manage his dance company. Ailey spent his time socializing in gay bars. He had numerous short-term liaisons with young men who his friends felt took advantage of his generosity. He suffered from bipolar disorder, which worsened over time, as did his drinking & drug use.

In his 50s, by the time the AIDS crisis struck NYC, Ailey was infected with HIV. Though increasingly ill, he continued traveling to oversee productions & receive awards. He died in 1989 from AIDS-related complications.

In Ailey’s memory, a stretch of West 61st Street was renamed “Alvin Ailey Way.” But his greatest legacy is AAADT, which has performed for more than 20 million people in some 70 countries.

Choreography by the man himself...

Born On This Day- January 4th... Dorothy Arzner

2012-01-04T23:59:00.001-08:00

Dorothy Arzner was the most well known female director during Hollywood’s Golden Age. Arzner began her film career as a screenwriter, eventually rose through the ranks as an editor, & finally became a feature film director. Never hiding her lesbianism, Arzner went against conventions of the time by wearing men’s suits & sporting short hair. She lived openly with choreographer Marion Morgan for more than 40 years.

Between 1927 & 1943, Arzner directed 17 features. Almost all have unconventional heroines, strong & self-sufficient, who must reconcile marriage & career. Like James Whale, her films resonate with gay subtexts.

After an illness in 1943, Arzner never again directed a feature & no one knows exactly why. She made Army training movies & taught film at UCLA, and she shot some Pepsi commercials, probably at the express request of her longtime friend & rumored lover, Joan Crawford. The Directors Guild of America, which she was the first woman to join in 1936, finally honored her work in 1975, 4 years before her death.

Born On This Day- January 4th... American Painter Mardsen Hartley

2012-01-04T23:59:00.000-08:00

He is one of my favorite artists from one of my favorite periods. Mardsen Hartley is one of the great artists & most intriguing figures in the art world. Tall, awkward, driven, he arrived in New York in 1899 at age 22. He was born in Lewiston, Maine in 1877. Hartley later settled in Cleveland to study art, already seasoned by solitude & a sense that he was gay. He survived a childhood of Dickensian proportions: the early death of his mother, abandonded by his father & a life of poverty that forced him to leave school at 15 & go to work in a shoe factory. Hartley: ''My childhood was vast with terror and surprise.”

In true Dickensian style, he would be rescued as a young adult by sponsors & patrons attracted to his obvious talent & charisma. He enjoyed summer retreats in Maine, where he started a lifelong interest in literature & religious thought: Emerson, Thoreau, Henry James & Walt Whitman. They paid for him to study at the National Academy of Design in Manhattan. For several years he studied in New York & painted in Maine, where landscape was his first & last great subject. In 1909 he met Alfred Stieglitz, who immediately gave him an exhibition and made him a prominent member of the select circle of American Modern Artists.

Most of his life he never lived anywhere for more than 2 years, his restlessness taking him to most cultural capitals nearly every Modernist circle or salon, including those centered on Gertrude Stein. He had little critical recognition & never made money from his work; he never had a longtime partner, & never really had a family. The young German soldier that he loved was killed in WW I; the virile, attractive & masculine sons of the fishing family he stayed with 2 summers in Nova Scotia were tragically drowned.

Hartley was an artist with a great love of great paintings who wanted to make his own & have them be viewed as great. He succeeded because he embraced life, painful as it was.

The seminude portraits of swimmers & wrestlers that he made in Maine in the late 1930's are among the most powerfully sexual images of men ever painted. Hartley was also an accomplished poet & essayist. It could not have been easy to face the difficulties of being a gay artist in an era when public admission was taboo & costly. His work is featured in the Hide/Seek exhibit at the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery, as is his portrait by his friend George Platt Lynes.

Photograph by George Platt Lynes

''I want to paint the livingness of appearances.”

Born On This Day- January 3rd...

2012-01-03T23:55:00.000-08:00

It really is a terrible birth date. The tree is curbside waiting to become mulch, the credit cards are maxed out, all your buddies have given up chocolate & liquor for the new year, no one desires to attend one more party... but on January 3rd, these famous people were brought into this nutty world.

Josephine Hull, American stage & screen actor, winner of a Best Supporting Actress for Harvey. She had a 50 year career on stage; in the 1930s &1940s, Hull appeared in 3 Broadway hits, as a batty matriarch in You Can't Take It With You (1936), as a dotty, charming but homicidal little old lady in Arsenic & Old Lace (1941), & in Harvey (1944). The plays all had long runs, & took up a decade of Hull's career.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer, poet, philologist, & university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings. I loved his books when I was 12 years old. I saw the 1st in the Lord of the Ring movies, & (sorry Uncle Prospero) I was Bored with the Rings, I guess because I am not 12 years old, although I still like the 3 Stooges.

ZaSu Pitts, American actor who starred in many silent dramas & comedies, although with the advent of sound, her career consisted of mostly comedy. She overcame her looks & voice, which had served her in silent films to play dramatic roles, using them to invent a new persona in talkies. I was more than a little amused by her name as a child & was given to repeating nonsensically.

Beautiful, talented & underrated Marion Davies, screen star of the 1920s & 1930s. If you don’t know her story, you should. Try the Peter Bogdanovich movie The Cat's Meow, Kirsten Dunst played Davies as a witty, intelligent woman.

Ray Milland was a Welsh actor & director. He had a screen career from 1929 to 1985, & he is best remembered for his Oscar winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend (1945) & as Oliver Barrett III in Love Story (1970).

Anna May Wong was an American actress, the first Chinese American movie star, & the first Asian American to become an international star. Her long (19222-1961) & varied career spanned both silent & sound film, television, stage, & radio.

Sir George Henry Martin is an English record producer, arranger, composer & musician. He was the producer of all but one of The Beatles' original albums. He is considered one of the greatest record producers of all time, with 23 #1 hits, an unmatched achievement.

Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, is an Irish-American actor, film director, producer & screenwriter. He started his career as an intense, original & impossibly beautiful young actor. With a lot of hard work, some religious delusion, & a whole lot of booze, he became one of the nuttiest advocates for homophobia, anti-semitism, racism, & misogyny. He is oddly friends with Jodie Foster. I think this douche’s rants are fun to listen to. & how many times have I said this: "I am going to come & burn the fucking house down... but you will blow me first.

Bruce LaBruce is a Canadian writer, filmmaker, photographer & underground gay porn director based in Toronto, Canada. I like his name. I like porn. I love Canada.

Post Apocalyptic Bohemian is the moniker for a bitter washed up former actor/singer/dancer/ voice-over artist/ nightclub performer/waiter who gave himself over to a life hedonism & cynicism & is now paying the price. He works as a chocolate & wine buyer for an upscale gourmet retail store in the Brooklyn of the West Coast. He is a blogger with a bent towards allegorical, allusional, anticlimactic alliteration in postings of his boorish, bad-ass, barbaric beliefs, recollections & opinions. He is a bit of a crank, but word is out that he is a good kisser. His Husband: "He didn't talk for the first 28 years of our relationship & now he won't shut up. You must have patience, charity & a bit of daring to live with him..."