TMZ has the astounding story: The two most famous people ON THE PLANET were forced to do the unthinkable… ACTUALLY WAIT FOR A TABLE at the crowded Shibuya Sushi restaurant in Calabasis! And they didn’t just wait for a minute while they cleared the table and reset it. No. They suffered the indignity for thirty minutes! THIRTY MINUTES! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? Like they were ORDINARY PEOPLE! Like they were PLEBES or something! It’s shameful. It’s disgusting! Did they not know WHO they were dealing with? The couple sat outside on the bench, looking glum. (“Kanye looks like he could use a Snickers” said one commenter). Then – to add insult to injury – when they were finally seated IT WAS AT A TABLE BY THE WINDOW. *Facepalm.* Anybody knows you can’t do that to famous people. You can’t put them on display like they’re in a zoo. Clearly, Shibuya needs to retrain their staff on the proper way to deal with celebrities because this shit is UNACCEPTABLE. I flip out if Arby’s doesn’t have my corner VIP booth available, so I can just IMAGINE what was going on in Kanye’s head. I wouldn’t be surprised if Shibuya’s was accidentally firebombed in the middle night.

See pictures here.

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Just announced!!! Our American Idol Adore Delano has just had an opening in her schedule on Sunday May 17 and will now be able to attend RuPaul’s DragCon! Adore will be arrive at the “Party” and say, “Hello, I Love You” and be totally “DTF”.  And you know she’ll be all “I Look Fuckin’ Cool” (featuring Alaska Thunderfuck) and “I Adore U”. Get your tickets to RuPaul’s DragCon now because they’ll be more expensive at the door!

BUY YOUR TICKETS TO RUPAUL’S DRAGCON!

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Pandora Boxx
Bianca Jagger
Christine Baranski
David Beckham
David Suchet
Donatella Versace
Dwayne Johnson
Ellie Kemper
Engelbert Humperdinck
Jenna von Oy
Kay Panabaker
Lesley Gore
Lily Allen
Mika Brzezinski
Robert Buckley
Sarah Hughes
Stephen Daldry
Theodore Bikel

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Hart on the right with Richard Rodgers at the piano

May 2, 1895- Lorenz Hart

In Autumn 1980, I appeared in a musical revue, Rodgers & Hart. I had the very good fortune to sing: I Could Write A Book, Isn’t It Romantic & Where Or When. It was my understanding that I was quite good in this show. I do have a way with a song, a dance & an audience.

Hart wrote over 500 songs with the most sophisticated lyrics for the most enthralling melodies. But this is a sad story. Hart agonized over life. He felt that he was an outsider. He believed that his occupation was to observe the beautiful people & then put ravishing words in their perfect mouths so that they would sound smart & sexy.

Richard Rodgers, one of the greatest of all Broadway composers, enjoyed long collaborations with the 2 most prominent lyricists of the American Musical. He worked with Hart, from 1919 until Hart’s death in 1943. He teamed with Oscar Hammerstein II from the start of the groundbreaking Oklahoma! in 1943  until Hammerstein left this wretched world in 1960. Rodgers’ earlier work with Hart makes their tunes particularly non-Hammerstein in flavor.

Written 70 to 95 years ago, mostly for now forgotten Broadway shows & films, these brittle & world-weary tunes include: Manhattan, Blue Moon, My Funny Valentine, The Lady Is A Tramp, Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered, & many many more. Today these songs sound both current & timeless, filled with confident wit & confidential despair, songs about hearts ready to break, melt or explode. Rodgers’ melodies make you remember, but the subject & style of these songs come straight from Hart’s heart.

Hart was very diminutive, rather unattractive, & cripplingly self-conscious. Lyricist, Alan Jay Lerner: “Hart was a man who seemed deprived of the happiness his lyrical gifts gave to others.” 

Hart was profoundly alcoholic. He was also gay & more than glad to be unhappy. He found little enjoyment in his experiences with other men. Terrified of intimacy, he would wait for his sex partners to fall asleep, & then creep out of bed & curl up on the floor of his bedroom closet to sleep. Hart’s acquaintances confirmed that he went to special private parties, but strictly as a voyeur. Hart liked watching. It was less stressful than joining in. He sought solace in the company of hustlers & an occasional chorus boy. His erratic behavior, drinking, & gay ways moved the very heterosexual Rodgers to choose another songwriting partner, breaking their long fruitful collaboration.

Offered the chance to write what would become Oklahoma!, Hart sensibly declined. (It’s hard to imagine a less Hart-ish show.) After the 1943 opening night performance of the landmark musical, Hart walked into Sardi’s & told Rodgers: “This is one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen in my life, & it’ll be playing 50 years from now.”

Rodgers & Hart collaborated one more time though. In 1943, they did 5 new songs for a revival of their 1927 hit A Connecticut Yankee. The last lyric Hart wrote was To Keep My Love Alive, sung by a noble lady who tires easily of men, with 15 husbands & 15 early funerals:

“Sir Philip played the harp; I cussed the thing.

I crowned him with his harp to bust the thing.

& now he plays where harps are just the thing,

To keep my love alive.”

Just before the opening of that show, Hart had been on a drinking & hustler binge & when he arrived at the theater an exasperated Rodgers refused to let him enter. Hart sat in the November rain on a curbside drinking & crying. 2 days later, with pneumonia, he was taken to  a hospital where he died 3 days later. He was just 47 years old. Now he plays where harps are just the thing.

His sad story was told as a happy tale in Words & Music (1948) with Mickey Rooney as Hart. This MGM biopic didn’t get to any of the truth, except Hart’s height, & it has no redeeming value other than great Golden Age stars doing first rate renditions of the terrific Rodgers & Hart songs:  Cyd Charisse, June Allyson, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, & Vera-Ellen. The film was a box-office hit with no trace of Hart’s gayness to be found.

For decades, Hart’s bitter sophistication paired well with my own sensibilities & my whiskey-voiced interpretations. When I was performing, I had several Rodger’s & Hart songs in my repertoire. It Never Entered My Mind fit my range & disposition rather perfectly. Maybe I should dust it off.

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Actress Jessica Lange is a seasoned photographer, with an exhibition record that includes shows at Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York and ROSEGALLERY in L.A. The Arts Santa Mònica Center in Barcelona just opened a solo exhibition, Unseen with 150 images that Lange took over the last 20 years, during her travels across Mexico and the U.S. In 1967, Lange got a scholarship from the University of Minnesota to study art and photography, but she dropped out to travel to Europe instead, where she began taking mime and acting classes in Paris in 1971. She became a model, got discovered by Hollywood and the rest is herstory. In the 1990s, when her then-partner—the actor Sam Shepard —gave her a Leica as a present and Lange began shooting again. The work is a bit Lisette Model the teacher of the oft-imitated Diane Arbus. Lange doesn’t date her photographs, and only provides a location as a title, which emphasizes even further their timeless appearance…. and from the subject matter here, you can see why Lange loved American Horror Story. When Anne Morin, the curator of the exhibition, asked her what she had aimed to capture in her photographs, the famously cryptic Lange simply said:

“Oh, things I see.”

Unseen will be on view in Barcelona through June 28.

(via ArtNews)

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Walking through 30 Rock last Monday afternoon, I came out into Rockefeller Plaza upon sculptor Thomas Houseago Masks (Pentagon), which was being installed overlooking the Rockefeller Center ice rink. Right where the Christmas goes every year. It was unveiled and consists of five upright plaster masks, each more than 14-feet tall, joined together to create an interior space. One mask looks like a winking skull, another, formed by overlapping slabs is barely recognizable as a face. Mr. Houseago told WSJ:

“It’s as close as you will get, in a way, to having my studio in Rockefeller Plaza. You become part of the work and the city becomes part of the work.”

It took about a year and a half to create the all of the masks. Mr. Houseago is originally from Leeds, England. He moved to L.A. more than a decade ago and says Pablo Picasso and Darth Vader among his influences. His hulking pieces have been on display in public before, in places like the High Line and City Hall Park to the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Italy.

“It’s so risky, and it’s so terrifying. Hopefully kids will enjoy walking in it. And maybe one of those kids will think about being an artist, and that would be fabulous. That’s always the dream, that you give people that space to wonder.”

(via WSJ)

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The new Whitney seen from the top of the Empire State Building

The Whitney Museum of American Art partnered with the Empire State Building on a one-of-a-kind, one-night-only lightshow last night, marking two historic occasions: the opening day of the Whitney’s new Renzo Piano–designed building in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District and the eighty-fourth anniversary of the Empire State Building. Using twelve iconic works from the Whitney’s collection, lighting designer Marc Brickman interpreted the pieces below by artists Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, Peter Halley, and Barbara Kruger, among others, utilizing the Empire State Building’s LED tower lights. Each of the twelve artworks was showcased for thirty minutes. Most of the works that inspired the light show are on view at the Whitney as part of the new building’s inaugural exhibition, America Is Hard to See (May 1–September 27, 2015). Watch the video below…

Four of the Whitney artists showcased in light last night…

Edward Hopper

Jasper Johns

Peter Halley

Andy Warhol

Mark Rothko

Chiura Obata

Elizabeth Murray

Georgia O’Keeffe

William H. Johnson

Corey Archangel

Barbara Kruger

Mary Ellen Bute

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Six Flags Magic Mountain just announced this week that its highly anticipated Twisted Colossus ride is scheduled to open to the public on May 23. The next generation of “hybrid coaster” combines the iconic wooden structure with what Six Flags Magic Mountain described as a “state-of-the-art Iron Horse Track.” The four-minute-long ride spans roughly 5,000 feet of track, making it the longest in the world. It features a super-steep 116-foot drop, 18 airtime lifts, a “High Five” — where two trains face each other as they pass through an overbanked turn, and a “Top Gun Stall” — an inversion where the train slows while it is upside down. Bonnie Rabjohn, the president of the theme park says:

“At Six Flags, innovation is in our DNA and with Twisted Colossus, innovation will go to an extreme level with record-breaking elements, faster speeds and steeper banks,. This cutting-edge technology marries the best of both classic and modern coaster designs. It is definitely a twist on a traditional wooden coaster experience.”

Even the computer animation is hairy scary, so I can just imagine peeing (just a little) at that first drop… watch.

The post #WatchNow: The New Twisted Colossus “Hybrid Coaster” Drops 116 Feet (& Does a High-Five!) appeared first on World of Wonder.

Check out the latest videos from our WOWPresents Network! Annecy, Josh Rimer, Chris Sapphire, Buck Angel and SO MANY MORE all have new videos! Watch all these and more right now on the WOW Report!

Here are the latest videos from our fabulous partners! Make sure you subscribe to their channels for new videos!

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Yes, today is World Naked Gardening Day and people across the globe are encouraged,to tend their portion of the world’s garden unclothed, as Mother Nature intended. Why garden naked? Well why not? It’s more fun than clothed. And according to their official website:

“…our culture needs to move toward a healthy sense of both body acceptance and our relation to the natural environment. Gardening naked is not only a simple joy, it reminds us–even if only for those few sun kissed minutes –that we can be honest with who we are as humans and as part of this planet.”

OK. I wish I could show you more pics here, but we try to keep it clean here at Wow. Sorry, I gotta say, all bodies are SUPPOSED to be beautiful, but they just aren’t always. Most folks look a lot more like the second couple here, than the first. (Ask Mr. Google.) And no matter what, you might want to wear a nice (non-toxic) bug spray too unless you want bites on your tenders.

The post #NudeNews: Happy World Naked Gardening Day!? appeared first on World of Wonder.

Bobby Cannavale
Cheryl Burke
Chris Mulkey
Christina Hendricks
Christopher Cross
Damon Dash
Dule Hill
Frankie Valli
Greg Gumbel
Jeffrey Sebelia
Kevin Kilner
Levi Johnston
Noah Munck
Nina Garcia
Rebecca Hall
Ron Popeil
Willie Geist

The post It’s Birthday, Bitch appeared first on World of Wonder.

May 3, 1913- I have never performed in a play by William Inge, although I have studied & admired his work. I have it on good authority that my terrier Junior wants the chance to play the title role in Come Back, Little Sheba in my theatre company The Backyard Players summer production of that American classic to be performed at the 12th annual block party on July 4th. It will be playing in repertory the rest of the season along with a production of that 2 character musical about married life I Do, I Do, in which I will be playing both roles, & the musical version of Grey Gardens featuring an all-raccoon cast. It is certainly shaping up to be an astounding theatrical summer on my block.

Inge is our American Anton Chekhov. On the surface he creates common conversation about the smallness of people’s lives, but the characters go very deep. Human pain permeates Inge’s dramas. His major works: Come Back, Little Sheba (1950), Picnic (1953), Bus Stop (1957), & Dark At The Top Of The Stairs (1959) all became successful films featuring top Hollywood stars. Middle-America born & raised, Inge’s wrote plays that reveal rustic small-town Americans struggling with sexual repression, alcoholism, gossip & religiosity. These themes haunted Inge his entire life.

Inge won the Pulitzer for Picnic in 1953 & in 1961 he received an Academy Award for the screenplay of the Splendor In The Grass, a heartbreaking depiction of teenage angst & confusion in the midst of adult pettiness & despair, starring an improbably beautiful, young Natalie Wood & Warren Beatty.

In the 1950s, Inge had quite the run of hits. Even his buddy & mentor, Tennessee Williams, was envious of his success. Yet, he would still spend his lifetime seeking the validation of the citizens of Independence, Kansas where he grew-up & who scorned him for being gay.

Inge was talented & tortured, not that unusual for a gay man of his era. His long struggle with booze, depression, & the profound shame over his homosexuality plagued him before, during, & after his decade of great success.

In 1973, insecure & sometimes unstable, but still famous & considered one of our nation’s best & most successful playwrights, Inge ran out of reasons to continue a life in the closet. He went into the garage of his Hollywood home, shut the door, & behind the wheel of his brand new automobile, he turned the ignition key. He was 60 years old. His final play, The Last Pad, featuring Nick Nolte, was Inge’s only play that openly addressed homosexuality. It opened in LA just 3 days after his death.

“Death makes us all innocent & weaves all our private hurts & griefs & wrongs into the fabric of time, & makes them a part of eternity.”

 

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YouTube star Joseph Harwood gets a surprise ring from Miles Davis Moody, gives problem skin tips, and advice on how to become a successful makeup artist on Ring My Bell. Watch after the jump!

The post Ring My Bell: All-New Episode with Joseph Harwood! appeared first on World of Wonder.

Frank House designed by Andrew Geller in 1961

The Frank House is on its third generation of fame now… designed by architect Andrew Geller in Fire Island Pines in 1958, Geller was inspired by the Franks’ pictures of the Mayan Ruins for this glazed pyramid, set among the rolling sand dunes of Long Island. The result is a small house with huge views of the Atlantic and the bay. Philip Monaghan, an ex-fashion marketing executive (and my ex-boyfriend) restored the house, which up until putting it on the market recently, he used as a second home:

“I always feel like I’m intoxicated when I’m there.”

Boys in the Sand, an “artistic” soft-core porn video directed Wakefield Poole in 1971, was shot in the Frank house. It’s considered a groundbreaking American cinematic work and was the first porn film that was an economic and critical success winning raves from Variety and The New York Times. Even today, it is considered the film that started the trend of successful porn films, a year before Deep Throat was released. Produced with a tiny budget of $8000 it is three episodes starring Casey Donovan and his sexual exploits on the island of fire. It is truly one of the great small gems of a house on the island. It has two bedrooms and two baths in the house and there’s a guest room that has its own entrance off the pool that you can easily rent out. (I’ve stayed there, it’s like a mini boutique hotel room.) Believe me, if you saw it in person and had the dough, you’d be signing a contract today. The house and all this history, now beautifully restored, can be yours for $1,475,000. For more info you can go here…. for once, the tag “real estate porn” takes on an extra layer of meaning.

Casey Donovan, star of Boys in the Sand, in the Frank House, circa 1970

The post #RealEstatePorn: Fire Island’s “Boys In The Sand” Beach House Is On The Market appeared first on World of Wonder.

Just 2 miles off the coast of Dubai, is the the “Heart of Europe” project, a new resort featuring 42 underwater villas. Offered by luxury real estate company, Privilege Dubai, for around $1.36 million apiece. The 3-storey villas are 1,700-square-foot and the first level is underwater, located 13 feet beneath the ocean. In addition to some pretty amazing underwater views of marine life, it includes the kitchen, dining room, living room and bathroom. Upstairs is the master bedroom and bathroom, and above that a terrace on top. If an underwater house isn’t enough to impress you, the development will also d=feature the world’s first snow -filled streets, floating bridges and “European-inspired” plazas, along with a wedding hotel AND the largest open aquarium in the world. But you have to live in Dubai which is kind of a deal-breaker. To say nothing of, God-forbid, a tsunami.

(via Elite Daily)

The post #RealEstatePorn: How About A Floating “Underwater Villa”? It’s Only $1.3 Million! appeared first on World of Wonder.

This is the first offering of this historic mansion in 70 Yrs on this landmark built for automaker B. Everitt and later bought by C. Grinnell, this English Manor-style house has 3 Full floors of living space above a finished lower level. This urban palace of 8800 square feet has 8 bedrooms, 6 full & 2 half baths. The main floor has a gigantic living room with a carved limestone fireplace, a large oak-paneled dining room, a tiled sunroom with another limestone fireplace, and a paneled library with yet another fireplace and a hidden bar. The vintage kitchen area includes a butler’s pantry with a dumbwaiter and the original pink refrigeration room. The grand entry hall is repeated upstairs with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The marble staircase leads the the lower level with a large ballroom, billiard’s room with a bar and a children’s playroom with a vintage mural of the house and its neighbors. Plus, there’s a full apartment above the 3-car garage. It needs to be updated and restored but what a deal at $499,000! The catch? It’s in Detroit. But unlike some “deals” in Detroit, it’s in the posh, East Boston-Arden Park area. This is a $30 million house in the Hamptons… with the difference you can start a community center and buy a jet. Go for it!

(via Old House Dreams)

The post #RealEstatePorn: An 8 Bedroom Mansion With a Ballroom For $500K? (There’s A Catch…) appeared first on World of Wonder.

I know that you’ve been hanging around ALL weekend for the news. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge named their daughter Charlotte (feminine for “Charles”) Elizabeth (Grandma’s name) Diana (the beloved mother of William & Harry) This ought to make everyone happy… for 5 minutes, anyway. Fourth in line for the throne, this is the first daughter that won’t be passed up by a younger brother to wear the crown, although it’s unlikely they ever will, as it seems Queen Elizabeth II is taking the hearty cheer to heart.
L O N G live the Queen!

(Photo, Pacific Coast News)

The post #Breaking: The Duke & Duchess of Cambridge Name Their Daughter, Charlotte Elizabeth Diana appeared first on World of Wonder.

Well this is sad. Grace Lee Whitney, who played the beautiful Yeoman Janice Rand during the first season of the original Star Trek series, died Friday at her home in Coarsegold, California. She was 85. Whitney was kicked off the series early in its run but reprised her role as Rand in four Star Trek films and in a 1996 episode of Star Trek: Voyager. In addition to Star Trek, she also famously inspired the mermaid in “Chicken of the Sea” ads, as well as acted in two Billy Wilder films that starred Jack Lemmon: 1959’s Some Like It Hot (as one of the members of the all-girl band) and as Kiki the Cossack in 1963’s Irma la Douce.

Here’s The Hollywood Reporter on why she was kicked off Star Trek:

“There was much sexual tension between Whitney’s Yeoman Rand and Shatner’s Kirk as the actress appeared in eight of the first 13 episodes of the 1966-69 NBC space drama. But then she suddenly was released from her contract.

“There was a scene that Shatner and I did — and I remember when it happened — that scared the producers, because they said, ‘Uh-oh, they’re getting too close. This is getting too hot,’” she recalled in a 2011 interview. “We have to remove her because he’s going to look like he’s cheating when he falls in love with other women on other planets.”

The post #RIP: Grace Lee Whitney, Yeoman Janice Rand on Star Trek, Dies at 85 appeared first on World of Wonder.

Jeremy Irvine (the yummy young Brit who shot to fame in War Horse) is in the new thriller Beyond the Reach with Michael Douglas. In it,

Douglas plays a rich guy who hires desert local (Jeremy) to lead him on a hunting expedition. But when Douglas shoots the wrong target, things go bad really quick. Soon Douglas is hunting Irvine, but the local kid has some pretty good tricks up his sleeve. (via Slasher)

Which, blah blah blah, all sounds very interesting, but the best part is that Jeremy apparently spends a good deal of the movie IN HIS UNDERWEAR. Check out the screen grabs below.

So, yeah. Looks pretty amazing, huh? Why isn’t this kid a bigger star yet? (Screen grabs via Square Hippies)

The post Must-See: Jeremy Irvine In His Underwear! appeared first on World of Wonder.

That’s right, henny! In addition to screenings, panels, and meeting your favorite WOWlebrities and RuPaul’s Drag Race queens at RuPaul’s DragCon on May 16 & 17 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, you can take home a commemorative plate to remember the first annual RuPaul’s DragCon FOREVER. The plates are limited edition with only 100 made of each of them, and they’ll be $40 each! Only available at RuPaul’s DragCon!

Get your tickets to RuPaul’s DragCon NOW! They’ll be more expensive at the door!

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