According to The Guardian, with about a fifth of constituencies returning official results, Ireland appears certain to pass the gay marriage rights reform with close to 65% in favor! The biggest support so far was recorded in Kildare North with a 69.67% majority for the Yes side, while the closest contest was in County Mayo where only 52% were in favor.

Voters were offered the chance to amend their constitution to:

“Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.”

The streets of Dublin are starting to get busy, with whistles, car horns and impromptu street parties as the Yes camapign really starts to dare to believe it has won. Many were really reluctant to accept it was true even as the tallies emerged. Joey Kavanagh, who organised the #gettheboat2vote campaign said:

“I’ve ben so inspired by the creativity, the vibrancy and the love of the yes campaign. Just to see the messages of support I’m getting from around the world. Wonderful day. The most wonderful day. I hope Ireland can now play a key part in the global conversation about equality.”

Ireland has become the first country in the world to legalize gay marriage by popular mandate – in what the nation’s only openly gay minister has described as a “social revolution”. For more live coverage check The Guardian, here.

(Top image, Getty; via The Guardian)

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Jessica Chastain just bought into one of Manhattan’s most desirable luxury buildings, The Osborne. Chastain and her boyfriend, Italian fashion executive Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo, just bought the four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath duplex for $5.1 million. (I nearly bought into the building a dozen years or so ago, so I happen to know that the co-op board is very strict and requires a 50% deposit, as opposed to the standard 20%. Yes, you don’t have to be a math whiz to know that they just plopped down over $2.5 million in cash.) The 9-room, 3,200 square foot apartment is just down the street from Carnegie Hall and was once home to the late composer, Leonard Bernstein and has plenty of luxury details; a 50-bottle wine refrigerator, 14-foot ceilings, a dining room with room for 20 guests, and a custom-designed kitchen. And look at that lobby… nice to come home to after a hard on the set, right?

(via Elle Decor)

The post #RealEstatePorn: Jessica Chastain Just Bought Leonard Bernstein’s Osborne Duplex – For $5 Million appeared first on World of Wonder.

Alfred Molina
Bob Dylan
Bobby Lockwood
Jim Broadbent
John C. Reilly
Kristin Scott Thomas
Mark Ballas
Maru
Patti Labelle
Prince Poppycock
Priscilla Presley
Roseanne Cash
Sybil Danning
Tommy Chong
Will Sasso

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

May 24, 1944– When I consider the Gay Icons, I always consider Patti LaBelle. Born Patricia Louise Holte-Edwards in Philadelphia on this day, Labelle was a member The BlueBelles, regulars on the bill at The Apollo Theater in Harlem. In the early 1960s, the girl group had success doing covers of chestnuts like You’ll Never Walk Alone & Somewhere Over The Rainbow. In 1967, the aptly named Cindy Birdsong left the group to join Diana Ross as one of The Supremes, leaving the other BlueBelles to pull it together.

In 1970, The BlueBelles were dropped from their label. The girls: LaBelle, Nona Hendryx & Sarah Dash changed their name & their look to reflect the 1970s glam-rock fashion, & pushed the limits with their songs. The first single off their 1974 album, Nightbirds was about a special lady down in old New Orleans. Lady Marmalade became the LaBelle’s first #1 hit in 12 years. They become the very forst pop act to play at the Metropolitan Opera House, & the first black vocal group to be featured on the cover of Rolling Stone.

At the close of the 1970s, Patti LaBelle went it alone,  scoring a #1 hit with the lovely On My Own, ironically, sung as a duet Michael MacDonald. The 1980s were LaBelle’s decade with hits songs like New Attitude (1984) & Stir It Up (1985).

LaBelle, the girl-group, reunited in 2008 for a top-selling album & world tour. Patti LaBelle was inducted into The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 2009.

The Grammy-winning Diva has survived 50 years in the music industry while never losing support from her friends in the GLBTQ community. LaBelle:

“That’s why I think I’m still in this business because my gay following keeps me going. I’m every gay man’s mother, come & sit on mama’s lap! It ain’t no sugarmama stuff either… we just really connect. Maybe because I looked like a drag queen back in the day & I still can go there if I want.

“Gay people, they can keep you in style. You better have a queen up there in that closet, honey. Trust me: It’s not that only gay people have style. I’m straight & I have style. I can dress myself, but it’s good to have a queen with a great eye. Most straight men can’t do hair, they can’t do makeup & they can’t be a stylist. I don’t know if there are any lesbian stylists, but it’s usually men who want to emulate a woman. I know some of my gay friends, they make their faces up & they put on drag. Like RuPaul: you can’t find a woman that looks as good as RuPaul… not many! So they practice what they preach. That’s why, honey, if you say a straight man is coming to do my hair or my face…leave them home! When I wore those outrageous hairstyles, I guess they said: ‘She’s really out.’ I’m not a gay woman; I’m just a woman who loves people.”

LaBelle is an accomplished writer, with a memoir Don’t Block The Blessings (1997), & 2 cookbooks aimed at diabetics: LaBelle Cuisine: Recipes To Sing About (1998) & Recipes For The Good Life (2008).

LaBelle is a darn good actor, with a bunch of film & TV credits, including the 4^th season of American Horror Story: Freak Show. As one of the few to actually deserve the title of “star”, LaBelle danced with yummy pro Artem Chigvintsev on this year’s Dancing With The Stars, making it halfway through this season before her LaBelle had been rung. Pretty darn good for a 70 years old diva with diabetes.

“You can do anything at any age. Don’t let 70 stop you from having a life. I’m 70 years young & I feel great. Plus, I lost a few pounds on DWTS!”

Today also marks the birthday of Bob Dylan, turning 74 today, who is decidedly not gay, or in any way a Gay Icon, but a favorite at my house. So I have paired them together, LaBelle doing Dylan:

The post #BornThisDay: Patti LaBelle appeared first on World of Wonder.

After more than 30 years together, Eric Fischl just left Mary Boone Gallery. Ron Warren, a director and partner at the gallery says:

“Eric has wanted to change his working relationship with the gallery. I think he has decided that the art world and the market have changed so much that he wants to concentrate on making his work, and distance himself from being represented by a gallery. We have had a long relationship with Eric, but relationships evolve. Right now, Eric says he wants to concentrate on his work, not be affiliated with a gallery. We respect that and will continue to have a good relationship with him.”

Both Boone and Fischl voiced concerns about the state of the market in a recent article in Interview magazine. The article, written by Fischl, details a conversation between the two about their long working relationship, and the various shifts that have taken place in the art world over the decades. Lamenting the lack of vision of today’s collectors, Boone says many collectors…

“often just want a laundry list of the top names”

Fischl agrees, adding that

“artists are treated more like brand names… There has become this kind of collecting hysteria.”

In the interview, Fischl talked about wanting to work with Boone because he saw her gallery as…

“a nexus for my generation of artists” who shared a “deep belief generationally that art could change society, that it could change culture. So it had an idealism to it. Your gallery had a glow about it of something really new and fresh. It felt like something different was starting to happen.”

The Art Newspaper could not reach Fischl for comment, but as artist Alan Belcherhas noted, his recent work just shown at Frieze Art Fair this says volumes. Take a look here. For me, these public statements are NEVER what’s really going on. In reality, how does leaving one gallery change the art world or your place in it? Well, for one thing, if Fischl is not represented by a gallery now, he’s free sell his work directly and potentially profit greatly. Galleries take 50%, as a general rule, but as an artist gets more established, this can be negotiated. Fischl is obviously established, whatever you may think of his work, and he’ll now be free to manage his career and see what that’s like.

(via The Art Newspaper)

The post #PlanetArt: Eric Fischl Leaves Mary Boone After 30 Years – But Why? appeared first on World of Wonder.

Spoiler Alert: I think MAYBE a week later, it’s safe to talk about the Mad Men series finalé…? If you were going to watch, you would have by now. New York magazine’s Matt Zoller Seitz summed it all up beautifully – better than I can:

Mad Men closed with its hero, adman Don Draper (Jon Hamm), sitting lotus-style on a hilltop in 1970, experiencing bliss, or something like it. Don had proclaimed ten years earlier that love was a lie invented by guys like him to sell nylons and that we’re all born alone and die alone, and now here he was in California, shorn of his job, his home, his marriage, his apartment, his car, and even his suit, meditating on a hilltop overlooking the ocean. Our final glimpse of Don was a close-up of his face as he smiled somewhat mysteriously, whereupon series creator Matthew Weiner, who wrote and directed the finale, cut to Coca-Cola’s 1971 musical ad, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.”

That grin plus the Coke commercial added up to the perfect ending for a drama that was consistently hard-edged yet essentially compassionate, and more perceptive about the realities of human behavior than almost any show in TV history. It hinted at renewal and deep change even as the rest of the episode carefully assured us that Don was still Don: that he wasn’t about to execute an about-face and become a selfless and tender mate, a sensitive and responsible co-worker, a doting dad to his soon-to-be-motherless kids, or anything else that smacked of audience pandering. Earlier in the episode, Don had considered going back to New York and fighting Betty for custody of his children, then decided not to — perhaps because, as Betty reminded him in an agonizing phone conversation, he’d never shown much interest in them over the years. Only in simpleminded entertainments do liars transform themselves into completely honest men, commitment-phobes into ideal mates, and bad parents into great ones. The implication of that cut from Don’s smile to the ad was that Don would go on to create that famous Coke ad (an impression confirmed by Weiner a few days later in a conversation at the New York Public Library; he’d warned us that, unlike the Sopranos ending, nobody would have to argue about what happened on a plot level). The cut was funny because this was the same Don who’d confidently told his then-boss Roger Sterling in 1960 that ‘if I leave this place one day, it won’t be for more advertising.’

For the rest of his brilliant recap, go here.

FYI, the real-life person behind the Coke ad WAS a creative director at McCann Erickson named Bill Backer, who was inspired by seeing some formerly irate air travelers communing over Cokes. Backer connected with Billy Davis, a music director for the Coke account, and they and a few other songwriters refined a jingle around the chorus:

“I’d like to buy the world a Coke.”

The visuals didn’t come quite so easily. A shoot in Britain, and another in Rome were aborted because of bad weather. On a then HUGE budget of $250,000, a second shoot in Rome was a success, featuring a lip-syncing chorus of 500! Then came a pop song that capitalized on the popularity of the commercial. And so, if I may, I’d like to buy the world a coke… enjoy. It’s the real thing.

(Photos, AMC, via Vulture)

The post #MadMen: The Ending Looked Like a New Beginning… (Plus, The Real-Life Guy Behind That Coke Commercial) appeared first on World of Wonder.

I’ve posted this (twice) before, but now that Mad Men and Don Draper are history, I thought it was worth another look. One of my favorite YouTube videos of all time.

“Hello, I’m Shelly Duvall.”

“What?!”

I know. You’re welcome.

The post #MadMen: “Hello, I’m Shelly Duvall.” “What?!” appeared first on World of Wonder.

Aly Raisman
Anne Heche
Cillian Murphy
Connie Sellecca
Ethan Suplee
Eve Ensler
Frank Oz
Ian McKellen
Jacki Weaver
Jamie Kennedy
Leslie Uggams
Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush
Mike Myers
Molly Sims
Neon Hitch
Octavia Spencer
Stacy London

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

May 25, 1933– Sir Ian McKellen is one my acting idols & one of my highest regarded gay activists. Today is his birthday.

“I remember losing only one job because of my coming out. I was supposed to play one of the lead roles in Harold Pinter‘s Betrayal who eventually were given to Ben Kingsley & Jeremy Irons. The producer Sam Spiegel dropped a sexist comment about wives during a meeting & when I replied I was fortunate to be gay, I was quickly shown the door.”

We both belong to Actors’ Unions & we both became passionate about the theatre after seeing a stage production of Peter Pan. We both started acting as a child, did university theatre, moved on to regional theatre & came to work in films & TV later in life… & we are both big old homos who thought working in the theatre was a good place to meet guys. The similarities end there. McKellen is the greatest actor of last 50 years & I am a dilettante. He is one of the people that I admire the most & inspires me the most on our pretty blue spinning orb.

McKellen became an actor to meet men. He admits that he felt isolated when he was younger, but thought he would meet other gay people if he embarked on a stage career:

“I’d heard that a lot of professional actors were gay. Acting seemed like a chance for me to meet like-minded people. You know, at that time same-sex love in Britain got you into prison. Homosexuality was being completely hushed up. Gay teachers, politicians or firemen – that was something unthinkable. When I was young I thought I was the only gay Brit. That’s why I was glad to find people like me in the actors’ guild.”

Early in his career he was spotted by Dame Maggie Smith. She recommended McKellen to Laurence Olivier, then building his new National Theatre at the Old Vic. His first production at the National was Franco Zeffirelli‘s 1965 production of Much Ado About Nothing, with Maggie Smith, Robert Stephens, Albert Finney, Derrick Jacobi & newcomer Michael York.

McKellen worked his way up through the ranks in repertory theatre & tours of the classics. At the Edinburgh Festival in 1969, Ian performed both the title roles in Richard II & Edward II & blew audiences & critics away, & probably did some blowing of his own. McKellen:

“I remember one heady evening in my dressing room at the Piccadilly, when I introduced Noel Coward to Rudolf Nureyev. I thought, I suppose I’d arrived”.

McKellen was persuaded to join the Royal Shakespeare Company by artistic director, Trevor Nunn. He showed true range by playing Doctor Faustus & Romeo. His Macbeth in 1976, with Dame Judi Dench as his lady, is considered to be the greatest of all time. The company took The Three Sisters & Twelfth Night on tour in the late 1970sm traveking to 26 towns in the UK & then on to the USA. McKellen claims that loved to take theatre to the people: “It is truly was the most enjoyable thing I have ever done”.

On Broadway in 1980, McKellen played Salieri in the Amadeus, the role for which F. Murray Abraham would later win an Oscar. McKellen was consoled with the Tony Award. Also on Broadway, he played Richard III as a wicked plotter creating a fascist state in future England. He brilliantly recreated that role on film in 1995.

Never really in the closet to the theatre community, in 1988, McKellen admitted he was gay while discussing Section 28, Margret Thatcher’s evil legislation that would have made the “public promotion of homosexuality” a crime. He became a one of the foremost campaigners for Gay Rights, co-founding The Stonewall Group. John Gielgud was also a contributor, but only in secret.

McKellen originated the role of Max in Bent (1979), about the suffering of gays under the Nazis. The film version in 1997 featured Clive Owen as Max, with McKellen in the role of Uncle Freddie & with Mick Jagger appearing in drag. In 1993, he appeared on TV in Tales Of The City & in And The Band Played On, about the discovery of & early fight against HIV. As activist Bill Kraus, Ian stood out in a cast including Richard Gere, Anjelica Huston, Steve Martin, receiving an Emmy nomination (his first of 5).

Even as a full blown film star, McKellen continues to return to ensemble theatre for a season, appearing in The Seagull, The Tempest & Noel Coward’s Present Laughter. Forgive me, I have never seen an X-Men film, despite my love for McKellen & Hugh Jackman. I have an aversion to anything with wizards or dragons, so I skipped those Hobbit flicks. But, McKellen is responsible for 2 of my favorite performances of all time in a pair of my very favorite films: hilarious & outrageous in Cold Comfort Farm (1995), & pretty, witty, gay & Oscar nominated, as gay director James Whale in Gods & Monsters (1998).

In the 2013-2014 Broadway season, McKellen & his pal Sir Patrick Stewart in a double-bill of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land & Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, quite the acting hat trick.

Last season, I thought his turn opposite openly gay Derek Jacobi, his classmate at Cambridge in the 1950s, in the British sitcom Vicious, where the 2 friends play a pair of bitter, hilarious old queens in a longtime relationship.

He is BFFs with Armistead Maupin, meeting during the filming of Tales Of The City. McKellen was the best man at Patrick Stewart’s wedding in 2014.

“I have been reluctant to lobby on other issues I most care about- nuclear weapons (against), religion (atheist), capital punishment (anti), AIDS (fund-raiser) because I never want to be forever spouting, diluting the impact of addressing my most urgent concern; legal & social equality for Gay people worldwide.”

I can’t think of a living person that I admire more. 6 Olivier Awards, a Tony, a Golden Globe, a SAG Award, 4 Drama Desk Awards,  & 2 Oscar nominations, Sir Ian McKellen is one of the greatest actors of all time & a relentless activist for equal rights.  He remains happily single as he turns 76 years old today.

The post #BornThisDay: Actor/Activist, Ian McKellen appeared first on World of Wonder.

Memorial Day is all about that backyard barbecue, right? Well, this new map from Foursquare and Mapbox charts the food items statistically most unique to each American state. Their unique algorithm sourced menus, tips, and ratings —which represent some 55 million users and 2 million businesses worldwide— to extract the the items most popular in all 50 states and DC (normalizing for population size.) Developers also used the algorithm to determine a percentage that represents

“the affinity for that taste over the national average.”

In a just few cases, states had overlapping tastes but for the most part, the search app’s massive 6-year-old data is telling story of America’s very specific food tastes.

So, guess where people talk about “avocado toast” at 3,143 % above the national average? New York. (I could have told you that!) But in Tennessee, restaurants and diners mention “banana pudding” at a rate some 318 % higher than the national average. Yes, Pennsylvania likes chicken cheese steaks 1,085 % more than everyone else. The Californians LOVE Chinese Chicken Salad. In Nevada (one imagines, just Vegas) they just want bottle service 842 % more than the rest of us.

This is 1000 % just for fun but you can use it as an excuse to seek out these alleged “conch fritters” and “Brunswick stew” next time you’re in the Florida panhandle. Click map below to enlarge, and for more specifics for state, go here.

(via Citylab)

The post #Hungry?: U.S. Map Shows What Your State Craves – Guess Who Loves “Avo Toast”? appeared first on World of Wonder.

Tomorrowland is a optimist’s peek into our future @Disney-style. Whiz-bang fun for kids & adults. They don’t make them like this anymore. A+” @treynyc

The post #TwitterReview: Tomorrowland appeared first on World of Wonder.

Photo by Andy Cohen

Jim French

New York’s Venus Over Manhattan gallery this month is featuring the exhibit #Rawhide, celebrating the cowboy in art. So, in turn I got inspired to curate my own online exhibition #HeySailor!, here. Today’s the last day of Fleet Week in New York (see Andy Cohen‘s tribute to these 7 days, above) and these visuals tend to skew toward male camaraderie that months at sea must inspire. I settled on this show moniker before I discovered there was a book by a similar name. According to it, from 1945 to 1985 British merchant ships were ‘gay heavens.’ Passenger, cargo and Royal Fleet ships were the main workplace where men could be out (and camp). Who knew? My little visual history runs the narrow gamut from vintage pics to Bruce Weber to Tom of Finland – sort of A to B and back again. Happy Memorial Day!

Vintage photo booth picture

Vintage photo booth

A gay stewards welcome gay stewards, photographer unknown

Vintage photo

Tom of Finland

Vintage tattooed sailor

Sailor tattoo by Geir

Stephen Tennant

David LaChapelle

Ginch Gonch ad

Pierre et Gilles

Pierre et Gilles

Bruce Weber

Richard Pier Petit

The post #HeySailor!: A Memorial Day Celebration of Sexy Seamen appeared first on World of Wonder.

If this isn’t the cutest things you’ve seen all week, I want to know what you’ve been looking at…? This rescued bunny cannot deal with how GOOD this milk is. Yum! Look out if you are diabetic, because this is just TOO sweet! Watch.

The post #2Cute: This Teeny Bunny Just CANNOT Contain Its Excitement! appeared first on World of Wonder.

Tonight two classic American cities get new life in HGTV‘s A Sale of Two Cities: Milwaukee & Savannah!

It’s Laverne & Shirley VS. Forrest Gump!  It’s the beer, brat and cheese capital of America VS. the most-hauntingly beautiful city in America. It’s Happy Days VS. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil! It all premieres tonight on HGTV at 11:00 p.m. eastern/pacific.

It goes like this: Rachel is moving back to Milwaukee from New Zealand with her Kiwi husband, Ryan. They’re looking to buy a Victorian in a city that’s totally re-invented itself since the days when beer brewers Pabst, Schlitz and Blatz dominated the skyline. And down south in Savannah, Laura (a roller derby girl!), is also shopping for a Victorian, but if it was built after 1890 (and isn’t potentially-haunted), she’s not interested!

See how much house these two very different home buyers can get in these totally different cities with the exact same budget:  $300,000.

Tag along on some fascinating home tours in some great cities on A Sale of Two Cities – Monday nights at 11 p.m. eastern / pacific on HGTV.

The post A Sale of Two Cities: Milwaukee & Savannah TONIGHT! appeared first on World of Wonder.

Ashley Massaro
Bobcat Goldthwait
Brandy Cyrus
Doug Hutchison
Genie Francis
Hank Williams, Jr.
Helena Bonham Carter
Henry Holland
Kylie Ireland
Lenny Kravitz
Margaret Colin
Marian Gold
Matt Stone
Pam Grier
Philip Michael Thomas
Scott Disick
Stevie Nicks
Tarsem Singh

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

May, 26, 1920– Norma Deloris Egstrom was born on this day & it is odd to consider how such a sultry sophisticated creature might spring from North Dakota. I mean North Dakota is cold & she is hot.

It now seems just too perfect to that as a 15 year old boy I would be obsessed with a song filled with existentialist angst, a half spoken-half sung opus to disillusionment with life even when the events are exceptional. The singer playing on my parental units’ hi-fi suggested:

“Let’s break out the booze & have a ball… if that’s all …there is”.

I decided to take the singer’s advice.

Lady & The Tramp (1955) was one of my favorite childhood Disney films & I especially loved singing the songs from the movie into the bathroom mirror as a tot. My parents suggested that I might also enjoy the recordings of Miss Peggy Lee, who had written the songs for the Disney tale of canine romance & she had voiced several of the characters.

As a kid, I totally dug her albums: Black Coffee, Dream Street, & I Like Men!. But as became a callow youth I also became a fan of The Beatles, The Supremes, & The Kinks. I forgot about the parental unit’s album collection & favored my own. Then one afternoon in 1969, I heard Is That All There Is? on the radio & I was hypnotized. I bought the single & played it over & over, sometimes stealing little sips of my father’s whiskey from the forbidden liquor cabinet. I was back to listening to Peggy Lee.

Lee was a singer, a songwriter, an actress & an innovator. Her popular music is a map to the best of Jazz, Blues, Swing, Latin, & Rock. She recorded over 650 songs & released 60+ albums. Lee in known these days for her smooth, sultry 1958 cover of the R&B hit Fever. As the current decade began, Lee was back on the Billboard Top 100 album chart for the first time since 1970 with the release of a Starbucks compilation Come Rain Or Come Shine. The album was # 11 on the pop charts, #2 on the jazz charts.

Lee was one of the few of the traditional pop singers to successfully embrace the songs of the kids: The Beatles, Randy Newman who served as arranger & conductor of Is That All There Is?, Carole King, & James Taylor. From 1957 until her last recording in 1993, Lee routinely released 2 albums a year including standards, her own compositions, & material from new artists.

Lee was nominated for 12 Grammy Awards, winning Best Contemporary Vocal Performance for Is That All There Is? In 1995 she was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Lee was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work as an alcoholic jazz singer in Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955).

Lee’s singing voice holds a natural conversational grace, with a smart nod to hipness, wit, nuanced sensuality, & with extraordinarily expressive minimalism. She uses vibrato & volume sparingly. I can hear her influence in recordings of k.d. lang & Elvis Costello. Lee was not known to be spontaneous. She liked to rehearse, & every gesture, lip curl & lifted eyebrow was planned. She kept detailed notes of lighting, costume, cosmetics, & choreography.

Is she already a Gay Idol? If not, I hereby nominate Miss Peggy Lee. She left us in 2002. Is That All There Is?

The post #BornThisDay: Singer, Peggy Lee appeared first on World of Wonder.

Victory Apostolic Church

In January, local police discovered Tennessee pastor Boyd Holder having sex with “an individual” in a van, which was parked in front of a vacant building. The van belonged to Victory Apostolic Church and police let him go with a warning about having sex in public.

After learning of the incident, church members became suspicious of their pastor and began looking into his use of church finances. According to a former church member, after coming to the church in 2010, Holder managed to obtain a “stranglehold” on the church. Board members found that between $70,000 and $100,000 was missing, but when they confronted him, the people who questioned Holder –including church board members– were kicked out of the church by Holder. Authorities were called out to the church after the pastor allegedly assaulted an unidentified man during that day’s church service. According to the Kingsport Times-News:

“A man told police that when he visited to worship, Holder ordered him to leave. Holder reportedly demanded the visitor do so because he, ‘was not there for the right reasons.’

When the complainant again refused — offering that he only ‘wanted to enjoy the service’ — Holder allegedly, ‘grabbed him by his belt and attempted to lift him out of the pew.’ It was after other church members “politely” asked the man to leave that he complied, then called police to report the incident.

Church members took their concerns to the police, who opened up their own investigation and he was ultimately charged with a theft over $60,000 and money laundering. A Sullivan County grand jury returned an indictment against Holder last week.

Representatives of two online websites, Online Buddies and Farmers Only, were brought in to testify during the grand jury hearing. Online Buddies is “the world’s largest gay brand, with over 10 million members around the world” and Farmers Only is a dating website geared toward people who live in rural communities. The site provides dating options for men looking for men and men looking for women.

“We found a profile picture on one of the dating sites that is identical to the picture that was on Holder’s Facebook page Friday morning, before he apparently shut down his Facebook account. The only difference between the two pictures is you can’t see the person’s face on the dating site profile.”

We’ve heard this story before, right? Con-artist in the guise of religious figures are a lot more common than most people are willing to admit. People think that anyone who professes to be religious, really is. What’s the old cliché…?

“Beware of the wolf in sheep’s clothing”

That’s not the Bible… is it? (via Addicting Info)

The post #HypocriteOTD: Tennessee Pastor Steals $60,000 From Church, Spends It On Gay Hook-Up Sites appeared first on World of Wonder.

Earlier this year, the Internet went a little nuts (as it does) when they discovered that Matthew Lewis, who played awkward Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter movies, was looking pretty hot in the BBC series Bluestone 42. Now the 25-year-old actor has decided to show off his form in Attitude (no “Longbottom” jokes, please). In the interview, he talks about playing a triathlete and personal trainer, which required being ripped;

“I spoke to the director and I said it’d be nice to get into the mindset of someone like that, because he’s not drinking alcohol, he’s just eating salads all the time, and I was very interested to know where you go to in your mind to have that level of commitment. So I sort of gave up alcohol – I say sort of, I have given up alcohol [Laughs].” He adds that he’s also off sugar and has given up carbs, but he misses it all. “I can’t wait for a pint of lager, I tell you that! The pizza and beer will definitely be making a comeback over the summer.”
But perhaps the most difficult part for this hairy guy may be the intense personal grooming routine that he has to look forward to.

Apparently triathletes shave their legs for added aerodynamics, to buy you that extra couple of milliseconds. And my character, that is what he would do, so I think I’ll be losing the leg hair! I haven’t waxed before… I haven’t done it yet but we’ll see!”

Apparently, Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, was a little shocked by Lewis’s overexposure and they had this exchange on Twitter:

And yes, Jason Isaacs, aka Lucius Malfoy in the Potter films made the “Longbottom” joke…

(via Attitude)

The post #Attitude: Harry Potter’s Neville Longbottom Grows Up! appeared first on World of Wonder.

Rihanna‘s campaign for Christian Dior is the fourth chapter in the Secret Garden saga was filmed by Steven Klein at Versailles to the soundtrack of the singer’s intro to her new album, Only If For A Night. Klein said;

“Rihanna’s mystery and intrigue combined with her razor-sharp looks and sensibility, are the essential, perfect elements to create the stage for Secret Garden.”

The campaign shows the pop star carrying the Diorama bag, and wearing a silver sequinned dress, and a sheath of a veil while running through the Salons of the Gods and dancing in the Hall of Mirrors. The palace has held a particular significance with the house of Christian Dior, with the designer himself drawing inspiration from its imposing architecture in the Fifties.

For Rihanna, being asked to star in the campaign was exciting. She told MTV News:

“It feels fantastic. It is such a big deal for me, for my culture, for a lot of young girls of any colour. I think, to be acknowledged by Dior is just… it means a lot as a woman to feel beautiful, and elegant, and timeless.”

The place was also the setting for the house’s J’Adore perfume advert starring Charlize Theron, as well as the previous three Secret Garden films below. Watch.

(Photo, Steven Klein; via Vogue UK)

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Photographer Sera Lindsey

Memento of THE first Drag convention in Herstory

Sera Lindsey is a photographer based in Los Angeles.

That’s what her bio says on her website. That’s all most photographers want you to know, as they are ALL ABOUT their subjects and they are NOT the story. Well, Sera went to RuPaul’s Drag Con and took these amazing portraits, and they ARE the story. I got in touch with her, so I could show them to you. Here’s what she had to say about the experience:

For the last two days, I spent the majority of my hours at the LA Convention Center to attend the first RuPaul’s Drag Con- really the first of its kind. I feel tremendously lucky to have been a part of something that is sure to become something much bigger. The impact that RuPaul’s Drag Race alone has had gives a new platform to the gay community, as well as an entire subculture of people just dancing outside the surface of the norm. That’s important.

I didn’t get a chance to take a decent photo of RuPaul (and I’m not about to post anything subpar of Ru!) but I did get to meet him. I felt like I was in the midst of a very special human, an absolute light, and an individual capable of seeing the true beauty in everyone. Today during his Q+A, a sequined boy stood up and asked;

“Even though you seem to have everything and are successful, you probably have to work hard to not get overwhelmed. How do you keep yourself happy?”

The answer was long, floral, poetic, and beautiful. But in essence, RuPaul’s personal requirements are: daily practice of meditation, yoga, and prayer. When describing meditation, he related it to floating above the planet and seeing everything from far away – an experience I often have while in meditation. The entire practice of gratitude was clarified through a metaphor. Ru said, “it’s as if you’re babysitting the most beautiful child. And you know who that child is?” Of course we do.

He talked about the consumerist culture that we live in, and in order to live in it, we have to buy things. Lots of things. Things we don’t need.

“You won’t be clean unless you’re Zestfully clean, isn’t that right!”

He said. And though color and creativity and music and joy involves buying things, his point was this: most of the world will take advantage of the fact that you don’t feel whole. You’ll feed bad, awful in fact. “How do you offset that?” He asked.

“You have to remember that you are made of the power that started the universe.”

Ru usually ends each episode of Drag Race by saying,

“…and remember: if you don’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else? Can I get an amen up in here?”

To which everyone says “Amen!” And the music plays. Credits roll. The show ends. But just as Ru said on stage;

“…it’s a nice sentiment, and it’s easy enough to say- I even saw it on a shirt earlier! But the truth is, living it takes PRACTICE.”

And it’s true! It does. Self love is a daily practice, not a gift that some are born with and others aren’t. Every day it is up to us to distinguish ourselves as our own beautiful beings, uniquely individual and simultaneously part of a collective consciousness. To truly know this changes our actions for the better. Being aware of not just our individuality but how that fits into a beautiful whole is the magic everyone needs to live a fulfilling life. Nobody is ever truly alone.

I can’t wait for next year. 2016 will be sure to slay.

A good photographer AND she can write too! Can I get an Amen!? To see more pics and Sera’s other great work go here.

(Photos, Sera Lindsay)

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