Filed under: books, gay, hookers, hot, music, people from rhode island, personal | Tags: art, rhode island, pride, kate bush, a newfound interest in massachusetts, solange, bearapalooza, stonewall, michael jackson, the coup, chuck barris, flickr
Two years after a hatchet-and-gun attack in a gay bar, New Bedford, Massachusetts, had its first-ever gay pride event last Saturday. New Bedford used to be one of the world’s major whaling ports, and it’s still a very surly, very Portuguese Catholic, city. (If you’re curious, it’s also the city where I bought the cutest pants ever, as it’s also become kind of an antique/vintage haven.) Here’s a tedious photo montage thing of last weekend’s events. I don’t mean that in a mean way, and I’m glad they’re doing it. But really, what a tedious photo montage thing.
San Francisco Pride, happening tomorrow, is bound to be infinitely more exciting, though.
Speaking of festivals, in the unlikely event that you happen to be near Longfork, West Virginia, next weekend, it’s Bearapalooza. (And, if you do get there, I’d like to see pictures!)
Joe.My.God reports on the fortieth anniversary of Stonewall riots and incudes a really condescending Daily News article from 1969.
With so many people rushing to their blogs to broadcast their love of all things Michael Jackson, I’m glad that somebody remembered to mention “Lisa, It’s Your Birthday.” [via Art Fag City]
As I’ve noted before, both anti-prostitution bills in Rhode Island might stall, with the legislature wrapping up before its summer break and spending some of its last hours debating whether or not we should be allowed to have Yankees license plates. (On a brighter note, they might finally legalize MMA fighting in Rhode Island.)
Irish Kate Bush fans attempt to co-opt James Joyce’s holiday, for some reason. (Okay, that happened two weeks ago, but still, why?)
For some reason this song, which appeared on a mixtape someone made me about ten years ago, started running through my head the other day.
Chuck Barris, former game show host, alleged former CIA agent, and inspiration for the wonderful, wonderful Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, has a new mystery novel out.
Check out the Nudie Blues, as pictured above. I’m not sure who made them; the Flickr profile just says it’s a male in Berlin who is taken. I’m assuming his name is Alain, but I don’t know anything beyond that.
Filed under: books, gay, heterosexuals, hot, magazines, not hot, porn | Tags: hiv, sarah palin, books, porn, commercials, murder, david letterman, matt lauer, sex trafficking, wrestlers, assholes, meteorites, le tigre, christina aguilera, steven klein, the jews
The Sarah Palin-David Letterman feud fascinates me; the Alaska governor told Matt Lauer all about girls having low self-esteem because of comments made by older men, which maybe isn’t necessarily wrong, exactly, but holy shit does she have a horrific way of conveying her ideas. Also I don’t believe she ever thought he was talking about her fourteen-year old daughter. And it’s completely unfair to claim that Obama’s family got away with shying away from media scrutiny and her family didn’t, since the Palins actively sought it out; also the Obama children aren’t working examples of why his political stance is flawed. Letterman’s response to Palin’s insanity was extremely well-handled and actually pretty funny, considering the subject matter.
The Curvature reports on a horrific story about a father and son who kidnapped women and held them hostage as sex slaves; when they were finally arrested recently in Nashville the three women–at least one of whom had not seen freedom in several years–were all booked on marijuana possession charges.
The two Nebraska wrestlers that appeared on naked-dude website Fratmen.com said in an ESPN interview that they’re surprised anybody even found out what they had done. That’s the cute-ish Paul Donohoe pictured up at the top of this post.
A Fox News writer in a speeding SUV hit a cyclist in Central Park and dragged him on his hood for 200 feet before speeding off.
A 14-year old was hit by a pea-sized meteorite traveling at about 30,000 miles per hour.
Le Tigre are apparently not broken up, and apparently they’re not completely mired in the major-label bullshit they for some reason seemed really anxious to get into, but they are working with Christina Aguilera. Personally, I’m hoping this results in Xtina covering The The Empty.
After working out, choosy robots choose instant mashed potatoes.
Timothy Boham, who performed in gay porn under the name Marcus Allen, was found guilty of murder the other day. His lawyers had argued that the victim, Denver businessmen JP Kelso, had committed suicide, and that the murder scene was staged later to collect insurance money.
Perez Hilton leaked naked pictures of a drug-addled-looking Dustin Lance Black barebacking and giving somebody a blowjob. As with Milk, the film that made Black famous, I was largely unimpressed. Even though I thought this warranted a mention, I still can’t bring myself to link to Perez Hilton.
Towleroad reports on Steven Klein’s new cover for Electric Youth magazine. I have no idea how big EY is, that it can afford to send a famous fashion photographer to South America to shoot something like this, but the whole thing sort of gives me the willies.
A porn performer tested positive for HIV recently; the LA Times wrote a story with conflicting ideas about what that might mean for the industry.
“Like Jews elsewhere, the four represented varying degrees of Jewishness.”
Last summer I decided only to read Harlequin romances when I went to the beach, and I started with one called The Virgin And The Unicorn, which was about a princess and a boxer with meaty thighs who wanted to open a home for wayward children in her evil father’s castle. This year, I think I might have to investigate Tess Mallory, who writes time-travel romances about Scottish rogues.
Filed under: books, people from rhode island | Tags: go back to cranston, love will tear us apart, sarah rainone
Someone that I used to ride the gifted minibus with in elementary school just released her first novel; I haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet, but it’s called Love Will Tear Us Apart and it’s set in our hometown. According to the Phoenix, which this week featured the book on its cover, it’s one of those stories about a group of old friends who reunite one weekend and overcome personal demons and have meaningful life-changing discussions about it; actually, Group Of Former Friends Who Are All Fucked Up Now But For One Reason Or Another Find Themselves Spending Time Together Talking About Their Problems One By One is one of my favorite film genres (see: Peter’s Friends, Come Back To The Five And Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean, etc.) so I’m kind of excited to read a book in that style.
Cranston, the place we’re from, has few remarkable characteristics; it’s immediately to the south of Providence, but for a lot of people (ie. my parents) trips to the city occur very irregularly. It’s very strip-mallish, but in the older strip-mall style where the stores are all bakeries and dry cleaners and tackle shops; the big box stores are all in Warwick, to the south. Culturally, Cranston’s historically a very Italian place, though now it’s also the nexus of one of the country’s largest Cambodian populations (and also home to number of really awesome Cambodian restaurants.) Annoyingly, it’s also more or less the town where Family Guy is set. Famous natives include assy Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? director Robert Aldrich. Oh, and it’s where Ali McGraw’s character in Love Story is from, if you’re old enough to remember that sort of thing.
Mary Wollstonecraft, author of the classic Vindication of the Rights of Women and mother of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, turned 250 last week. And now she’s on Twitter.
Filed under: books, mixtape, personal | Tags: love notes, rachel kramer bussel
I made a new mixtape, but thanks to various other deadlines (and trying to skip out early today) I don’t think I’ll be posting it until Monday. Just so you know.
Also related to music and sex, when I have a little more time I plan to read and review this anthology, which is apparently only $4.99 in e-book form. Not that I’ve ever read an e-book before. Featured authors include:
* Jocelyn Bringas
* Eve Carpenter
* Heidi Champa
* Jeremy Edwards
* Mark Farley
* Greydancer
* Delilah T. Jones
* Shanna Katz
* Janne Lewis
* Zach Lindley
* Jincey Lumpkin, Esg.
* Madlyn March
* Mia
* NookieNotes
* J. M. Snyder
* Craig Sorensen
* Jack Stratton
* Elizabeth St John
* Mariana Tolentino
* Brandi Woodlawn
* Rachel Kramer Bussel
I have no idea what kind of stories are in it, or who 90% of the writers are, but it seems like something I should be aware of.
[via Writing Dirty]
The shortlist for the next round of 33 1/3 books is up and, um, my proposal didn’t make it… Which is kind of bumming me out, because I actually thought it was pretty good. (And I rarely think that about things I write…) And 170 out of 497 proposals made on the shortlist, which means that I wasn’t even in the top third of the proposals. I didn’t even test in the seventieth percentile, if you will. So, that’s sad. And I had also picked an album that I thought might be popular (sold millions of copies, critically acclaimed, Grammy-winning) and not, say, something obscure-ish like the Au Pairs’ Playing With A Different Sex, which I also contemplated writing about. So I think I’d have to chalk this one up to unexceptional writing skill and not a bad album choice…
Anyway, I should stop before this turns into something ranty and/or morbid. Let’s be positive: on the shortlist there’s proposals for albums I’d instinctively like to read about (She’s So Unusual, Los Angeles, Odessey and Oracle), albums I wouldn’t (The Drift, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner (?!)), and albums I’ve never heard of (the Bill Fox and Young Jeezy albums). Of course, that has nothing to do with the quality of the books; as I’ve said before, my favorites in the series (Carl Wilson’s Let’s Talk About Love and Kate Schatz’s Rid Of Me) are about albums I don’t know, and the books about some of my favorite albums (If You’re Feeling Sinister, say) let me down because I don’t think any 120-page book could quite satiate my longing to know more about those albums, and also the authors’ opinions about individal songs kept getting in the way.
By the end of this week, I’ll either be happy/anxious or unhappy/unanxious, since the folks at Continuum will soon be announcing the (very long) shortlist for the next batch of books in their 33 1/3 series. And I’ll know whether or not my proposal was any good or not.
I was re-reading it the other day and I think it’s okay, though I have nothing to compare it to. Still, it was the only time I’ve ever been able to use “once worked in a Hallmark store” and “once judged a facial hair competition” as relevant biographical materials.
Last night I missed Rich Franklin’s UFC fight because I was at a couple of birthday parties, warming up for a very, very bad Sunday. Seriously, I was puking until about four this afternoon and I still feel like there’s essential nutrients missing from my body. I also missed the first part of Wuthering Heights on Masterpiece Theatre tonight, because I was eating pizza. It’s not supposed to be very good but, you know, it’s the kind of story that I could easily watch twenty different adaptations of and not regret a minute of it. (Though, for the record, I really like Luis Bunuel’s the best; it’s very unlike his other movies, and set in Mexico; Cathy becomes Catalina and Heathcliff is Alejandro. It’s very dramatic, but probably a disapppointment if you’re looking for sliced eyeballs or people trapped at the dinner table or other Bunuel-ish shenanigans.)
I also haven’t seen any football this weekend, although I did watch Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day this afternoon. (It’s good! Not great, mind you, but the sets were beautiful, the costumes and hair were great, Amy Adams was hilarious, Frances McDormand was wonderful as ever, and the love story bits took my mind off the awful hangover.) I also saw the Obama concert thing this afternoon, which my friend was smart enough to record so we could watch it later and fast-forward through Garth Brooks’s American Pie/Shout/We Shall Be Free medley of shit, and also James Taylor’s dreck. By the way, though John Legend usually bores me to tears, and today was no exception, he looked really good. Everyody looked really good, actually, except James Taylor and Garth Brooks, whose pants were tighter than Shakira’s were. I really like that everybody decked themselves out in super-elegant winter wear, and most everyone had excellent scarves and coats and especially belts. Sheryl Crow even looked less like Skeletor than usual, though why anybody thought she and Will.I.Am and Herbie Hancock should all do a Bob Marley song together I can’t say. Mary J Blige looked amazing in crazy boots, so much so that I almost forgot that she has made exclusively terrible music for the last five years. She sang Lean On Me, very well, though her pre-recorded backing track sounded like it was made on Songsmith. Bono acted like a twat, the way he does, and Jon Bon Jovi didn’t really annoy me in his duet with Bettye LaVette.
Anyway. You probably saw it, so I don’t know why I’m explaining it that much. In other news, I started reading Janice Galloway’s Blood yesterday and, while I’m bad at reading short-short stories in the sense that I’m not mentally capable of reading more than one without a break, I think I’ll head back to it now.
Part two of the Mixtapes For Hookers Awards For Awesomeness:
The Kills
I’ve already talked about my love for the Kills’ Midnight Boom album ad nauseum: here and here, for instance, and before that I mentioned them here. And shortly before the album came out I was raving about them here. So I’ll avoid being overly repetitive and boil it down to a few words: album of the year, song of the year, video of the year.
Dennis Kucinich
So, he didn’t win the election. I guess nobody expected him to, really. But rather than wallowing in despair that Americans have no sense in their damn heads, or that you don’t win elections in this country–hell, you might not even get invited to debates–unless you’ve got kajillions of dollars pouring our of your ears–let’s focus on some of Mr. Kucinich’s achievements this past year. He brought thirty-five articles of impeachment against the worst president in history. And, as if that weren’t enough (and that is enough, for what it’s worth), he warned against starting wars in Iran and Pakistan, thought that Wall Street should be responsible for bailing out Wall Street, and on December 29th called for the UN to look into Israeli attacks on Gaza. In addition to being suave and debonair (and Catholic, and willing to do interviews with Eddie Izzard), he’s politically fearless.
Zachary Lazar
According to my convenient GoodReads, I read twenty-five books last year, which is one less than half of my goal. But one of the more intriguing reads was Sway, a book that weaves together the stories of real-life stars Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charles Manson and Kenneth Anger. I have no idea about the historical accuracy of the book, or how much of it’s fictionalized, and honestly I don’t really care. I just like how the whole story is condensed into something so very readable, even for someone like me with only a very vague interest in the Rolling Stones. (Of course, after I read the book I immediately went out and rented a bunch of Kenneth Anger movies, accidentally forgetting to return 1969’s Invocation of My Demon Brother out for forty-six days. Which is remarkable, since the whole damn movie’s only twelve minutes long.)
(PS–Dude. Put a decent-sized picture of yourself on the Internet. Seriously.)
Billy Miller
I met Billy Miller at the debut party for his magazine No Milk Today in New York back in May. He was smaller than I imagined, and better-looking (although I can’t find a picture on the whole damn internet to demonstrate that.) Or, you know, maybe I just swayed because it was my first-ever New York gallery opening/party thing. Whatever. No Milk Today’s another example of the arty/weird/trashy/super-gay aesthetic he’s been pushing for a while now with publications like Straight To Hell, the Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts (which he took over awhile back) and When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again, which is where I first heard his name. No Milk Today features lots of people I’ve never heard of, as well as a few that I have (like Slava Mogutin and Cynthia Plaster Caster, to give you an idea of what he goes for.) I’ve actually been meaning to send a story to Straight To Hell for about a year now, although what with my letter to Susannah Breslin and writing assignment for Wayne Koestenbaum (plus, you know, other things I write) who knows when I’ll get to it.
Solange
If only I’d gone to Circuit City a few weeks earlier, and seen the second album by Beyonce’s sister for $7.99, it would have probably made my top five albums of the year. It’s so good. It runs the whole gamut of what good R&B should sound like, from bouncy soul numbers like Sandcastle Disco and I Decided to the wonderfully melodramatic T.O.N.Y. to the epic six-minute closer This Bird, a wonderfully-delivered autobiographical empowerment song laid over a Boards of Canada track. There’s not a dull track in the bunch, and the whole thing’s wonderfully cohesive, considering how many people were involved (Cee-Lo! Thievery Corporation! Mark Ronson!)
I’d also like to take a minute to single out some other people that made this year awesome: Tina Fey, for taking the edge off the grueling election season; Barack Obama, for not losing; FakeSarahPalin, for taking a surreal situation to its surreal extreme; whoever directed the video for the Utah Saints’ Something Good ‘08; Christopher Schulz, for PINUPS magazine; CNN, for getting the phrase “weiner poopie” on the news; TI, for being wicked hot; Paddy Johnson from Art Fag City, for making me occasionally feel knowledgeable about art; Tilda Swinton and George Clooney, for being as memorable in Burn After Reading as they were in Michael Clayton; Portishead, for being back; the Comics Curmudgeon (and the writers of the fab Apartment 3-G, which I would have never known about were it not for that blog); Diesel Washington, for inventing a new position (albeit one I will never, ever be physically capable of performing); Ludivine Sagnier, for Love Songs in particular and for existing in general; and probably many people I’m forgetting. I’d also like to say that my year would have been less cool if I hadn’t been able to see Burt Jansch, Calvin Johnson, John Cameron Mitchell, the Martinez Brothers, and Angela Y Davis.
And I’d also like to take a moment to mourn the passing of Eartha Kitt and Dave Clark Five founding member Mike Davis. And sulk some more about the Long Blondes breaking up.
And, not to end on a sour note, but I’d like to say that with the end of 2008 I’d like to also pray for some things to go away: Katy Perry, for one; Sarah Palin, for another (because I have a morbid fear that she’ll be getting a reality show any day now); also the teenage mothers of Gloucester, Massachusetts; and anyone requesting (and getting) billions of dollars from the government.
Thank you! You’ve been a great audience! Good night! Get home safe! And remember to have your pet spayed or neutered! Thank you! See you next year! (etc.)
Filed under: Italians, books, heterosexuals, hookers, movies, music | Tags: 2k8, cai guo-qiang, estelle, michael cera, pia covre, stephen elliott
While I’ll spare you some of my more esoteric ruminations on 2008, I thought I’d take a quick moment to look back at ten of the year’s more awesome individuals, who in one way or another helped make my year.
In alphabetical order, my first five picks for the 10 Most Awesome People of 2008. (Picks six through ten will follow sometime soon.)
Cai Guo-Qiang
I made it to New York four times this year, but I still act like a tourist every time I go; I can’t help it. Despite living just a couple of hours away for my whole life, it was always such a weird and magical place that I’m still awed every time I go.
Maybe that’s why I like when I’m in New York I like my art to be awe-inspiring, too. This year I got to see Banksy’s amazing pet store and the so-so Home Delivery show at MoMA, both of which were probably humdrumto the average Gothamite but the scale of which was still super-exciting to my provincial New England eyes. I was also quite taken with Cai Guo-Qiang’s I Want To Believe at the Guggenheim: cars suspended in the air, lifelike stuffed tigers pierced with arrows, paintings made by igniting gunpowder and, best of all, a mysterious, enormous fishing boat filled with broken crockery at the end.
I got so excited about the whole thing I was even briefly tempted to buy the t-shirt he designed for Gap.
Michael Cera
I must confess that I’ve only ever watched about ten minutes of Arrested Development and never got around to seeing Juno. But I will confess that I have a giant crush on Michael Cera, the very funny and disarmingly hot actor that I first saw in Superbad. (Well, I first saw him as the young Chuck Barris in the awesome Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, but he was only thirteen at the time, so that doesn’t really count.)
He and Kat Dennings were awesome together in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, as they drove around in the dreamy kind of New York that’s full of happy teenagers and readily available parking. Despite the fact that he’s basically a twink known mainly for trashy teen comedies, I’m totally smitten with him.
Pia Covre
A sixty-one year old Italian activist, Covre’s the founder of the Comitato per i diritti civili delle prostitute (Committee for the Civil Rights of Prostitutes.) This year, Rome decided that scantily-clad women were a threat to society (mainly because male drivers might get distracted and cause car accidents.) Covre and the city’s prostitutes responded by dressing as nuns. And in Florence, where police were cracking down on women walking down the street, prostitutes planned to respond by riding bicycles. (Not sure whether they actually went through with this or not.)
Covre’s had her hands full lately, with sex-hating ex-showgirl Mara Carfagna doing her best to rid Italy of prostitution. I’m almost tempted to learn Italian just so I can follow this woman in the news.
Stephen Elliott
When 2008 started I promised myself I’d read at least one book a week. And I read, um, slightly less than half of that. But possibly the most beautifully-written book I read all year was Stephen Elliott’s 2006 novel My Girlfriend Comes To The City and Beats Me Up. Not because I’m particularly into reading about straight people’s bondage escapades, but because the prose is mind-blowingly wonderful. Every sentence is like a revelation, and I don’t mean it’s anything like The Secret, either.
But, you know, that was 2006 and I’m just slow to jump on that bandwagon. And while this probably wasn’t Stephen Elliott’s biggest or most prolific year, he did take the time to release the anthology Sex For America. Starting with a story where Dick Cheney cruises a Wyoming gun shop, the book tackles what Elliott considers the Bush administration’s eight-year war on sex. War, torture and racism have all been glorified since 2000, but the slightest suggestion of sex outside of procreation drives people to madness, for some reason. I reviewed the book here when I read it back in September, and some of the stories have a lot of lasting power.
Estelle
I’m not changing my mind about Kanye West, he’s still a completely annoying fool and if he were a sugary beverage for children he’d be called Douchy Juice. But, I will say that I don’t completely hate Love Lockdown, even if he did feel the need to workshop it on his Myspace after he released it, and I certainly don’t hate American Boy, the song that united hipster blogpeople with pop radio audiences in the UK and the US. Of course, I sort of pretend he doesn’t appear on that song, because who wants to listen to a sniveling jackass when they could be listening to the PRETTIEST LADY EVER.
Okay, not quite, but this woman is phenomenally gorgeous. I hate to be the gay man that’s all “OMG, Lady Singer X is so pretty and her voice is gorgeous and I love her style and the way she makes everything her own,” but that’s exactly how I feel about Estelle. American Boy, though I hate to admit it, is a great single, and Come Over (which has Sean Paul and no Kanye) is even better.
And she’s SO PRETTY I can’t stand it. Pretty! Prety pretty pretty! I hope she becomes Beyonce-famous so I’ll have excuses to look at her all day, even if she’s trying to sell me DirecTV.
