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Dita Von Teese’s ‘Burlesque Strip Strip Hooray’ featuring Murray Hill is Headed for the West Coast: San Francisco! Portland! Seattle! Santa Ana!

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If you happen to be on the West Coast through April, there is a good chance Dita Von Teese and her cavalcade of sexy strippers will be coming to a city near you! Dita’s Burlesque Strip Strip Hooray! show featuring Murray Hill, Catherine D’Lish, Dirty Martini, Perle Noire, Ginger Valentine, and Jett Adore will be coming to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Santa Ana.

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And catch Murray Hill at RuPaul’s DragCon! He’ll be doing a panel “The Wonderful World of Drag Kings” with Landon Cider! Get your tickets to RuPaul’s DragCon now!!!
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The post Dita Von Teese’s ‘Burlesque Strip Strip Hooray’ featuring Murray Hill is Headed for the West Coast: San Francisco! Portland! Seattle! Santa Ana! appeared first on The WOW Report.


#BornThisDay: Leonardo da Vinci

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April 15, 1452Leonardo da Vinci:

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

In his childhood, the Husband was so entranced by a book on the life of Leonardo da Vinci that he taught himself to write in “mirror”, script that can only be read by holding it up to a reflection, a skill practiced by the often secretive Leonardo. The Husband can still do the mirror writing to this day and is himself, a bit of a Renaissance Man.

Leonardo da Vinci was denied an education and a profession because he was born out of wedlock in 1452. One of the few professions available for the bastard son of a middle-class notary and a peasant girl was artist. Despite the stigma, Leonardo mastered anatomy, architecture, botany, cartography, engineering, mathematics, music, science, sculpture, sketching, and painting.

When he was 24 years old, Leonardo and three young companions were arrested on the charge of sodomy. No witnesses appeared against them and eventually the charges were dropped, apparently because the other young men who were charged with him came from powerful and wealthy families.

Although he was not convicted, the accusation tormented Leonardo throughout his lifetime. It seems clear to me that Leonardo was homosexual. He kept his private life very private, but throughout his entire life, Leonardo surrounded himself with attractive men. His relationship with the beautiful curly haired Gian Giacomo de’ Caprotti lasted 20 years. In the last 10 years of Leonardo’s life, his companion was the much younger Francesco Melzi, who would later serve as the executor of Leonardo’s estate.

Renaissance witnesses recorded that he loved to surround himself with beautiful young dudes and that his homosexuality had been an open secret around Florence. Leonardo’s own notebooks confirm that he lived openly with a household of sweet young guys led by Salai, his handsome, thieving apprentice, to whom he left the famed Mona Lisa. It is probably the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the history of Western Civilization. The painting is a half-length portrait of a woman thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a wealthy Florentine silk merchant. It is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel, probably painted between 1503 and 1506. Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. It was eventually acquired by King François I of France and is now the property of the French people, on permanent display at The Louvre since 1797. The painting was stolen in 1911. The thief was caught two years later when he attempted to sell it to The Uffizi Museum in Florence. It visited the USA in spring of 1963 and nearly 2 million people lined up glimpse her for a few seconds. It is currently insured for $782 million, making it by far the most valued painting on the planet.

Leonardo had a theory about art and sex. Of course he did; he had a theory about everything. In his notebooks he included detailed drawings of lovemaking and he argued that painting is the greatest of all the arts because it can set a picture of your lover in your memory. His writings move close to blasphemy. He boasted that he once painted a Madonna so alluring that the man who bought got a boner whenever he tried to pray. The man returned the painting to Leonardo, who delighted in this pornographic triumph.

Leonardo’s paintings often contain characters that transcend gender, with fantasies of androgynous liaisons between our world and the beyond. His Virgin Of The Rocks depicts an angel whose gender is impossible to determine. No other Renaissance artist was so preoccupied with androgyny. From his earliest works, including an angel he painted in a work by his teacher Verrocchio, androgyny and ambiguity became Leonardo’s trademarks.

Leonardo possessed the greatest mind of the Italian Renaissance. He wanted to know the workings of what he saw in nature. His inventions and scientific studies were centuries ahead of his time. He was the first person to study scientifically the flight of birds.

Leonardo’s contribution to art was even greater than his contribution to science. He had a strong influence on other artists, especially Raphael and Michelangelo. Leonardo’s balanced compositions became the standard for later Renaissance art. Painters tried to imitate Leonardo’s perspective, knowledge of anatomy, and observations of nature. His inventiveness, versatility, and intellectual curiosity show Leonardo to be the epitome of the Renaissance spirit. Six centuries later, the world is still in awe.

Of his 23 authenticated paintings, I have seen 10, including his works at the Uffizi in Florence, The Louvre, and the National Gallery in London and Washington DC.  Plus, I have had a long look at some of his manuscripts and drawings at an exhibit in Venice and again when Bill Gates, the owner of Leonardo’s The Codex Leicester shared his treasure with an exhibit in Seattle in the 1990s.

The small number of surviving paintings is due in part to Leonardo’s frequently disastrous experimentation with new techniques, and his chronic procrastination. Nevertheless, the paintings together with his notebooks of drawings, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting, comprise a contribution to later generations of artists rivaled only by that of his homosexual contemporary, Michelangelo.

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Throughout his life, Leonardo da Vinci avoided the intrigues of worldly ambitions and vanity. He was a reserved man, not concerned with attention, happy to live off the patronage of the rich and powerful, and yet absolutely sure of the value of his talents.

Leonardo left this world at Clos Lucé, France, in spring of 1519. King François I had become his closest friend and held Leonardo’s head in his arms as he died. In accordance to his will, 60 beggars followed his casket to the funeral. Leonardo was 67 years old when he left this world.

“While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.”

The post #BornThisDay: Leonardo da Vinci appeared first on The WOW Report.

#FlashbackFriday: “Golden Girls in the City”

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What do you get if you mash-up Sex in the City‘s Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte & Miranda with the Golden Girls‘ Dorothy, Blanche, Rose & Sophia? An oldie but a goodie. Adult Swim’s Golden Girls in the City. Here the gals discuss their most nauseating sexual adventures. Watch.

The post #FlashbackFriday: “Golden Girls in the City” appeared first on The WOW Report.

#WTF!? Cha Cha the Escaped Chimp Terrorizes Japan!

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No, this is NOT a still from the latest Planet of the Apes movie. This is a real-life photo of Cha Cha the chimpanzee who made a break for it in Sendai, Japan. It took police and the Yagiyama Zoological Park staff two hours to track him down. He escaped not only from his own area, but from the entire zoo — and then led authorities on a wild chimp chase through the city. Eventually, they sedated him with a tranquilizer gun and he fell into a blanket on the ground and was not hurt.

There is an investigation underway into just how Cha Cha got out of the park. I know how he got out, from the looks of him he probably opened the door and walked out. Ch Cha does NOT want to be in prison – I mean, a zoo.

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(T/Y Tad; via ABC News)

The post #WTF!? Cha Cha the Escaped Chimp Terrorizes Japan! appeared first on The WOW Report.

Watch Now: A Sneak Peek of ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Shady Politics!

Watch Now: RuPaul’s New Music Video ‘Be Someone’ featuring Taylor Dayne!

Subscribe Now: Newly-Launched Podcast by Guru of Documentaries Thom Powers!

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Pure Nonfiction is a newly-launched podcast hosted by the guru of all things documentary, Thom Powers. The podcast will cover the world of documentary storytelling:

Host Thom Powers leads conversations with documentary makers that are frank, funny and revealing. Once a filmmaker himself, Powers is now the artistic director of the DOC NYC Festival, and documentary curator for the Toronto International Film Festival and SundanceNow Doc Club.  Listen to his Documentary of the Week picks on WNYC.

Subscribe on iTunes here, and visit Pure Nonfiction’s website to listen to the first episode and for more info!

The post Subscribe Now: Newly-Launched Podcast by Guru of Documentaries Thom Powers! appeared first on The WOW Report.

UNHhhh: Trixie and Katya on Dating!


#BornThisDay: Singer, Dusty Springfield

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April 16, 1939Dusty Springfield is one of the most important recording artists of my long lifetime. Her music has moved me, thrilled me and comforted me for 55 years.  For me, the album Dusty In Memphis (1969) is a perfect LP. I cannot fault a single note. Every selection is delicious. It is on my list of Top 10 Albums Of All Time.

Springfield was an unlikely Gay Icon. She was born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien in London just a month before that start of WWII. She started life as an Irish Catholic schoolgirl, yet she gained stardom as a sultry singer of soul, the “white girl singing black music.”

Her love for other women was forbidden in the Britain at the time, illegal actually. Like most of the great gay artists in history, there were innovative ways of maneuvering around the expectations of the straight majority while covertly conveying the constrained emotions in their work. Springfield’s gayness is at the core of the melancholy and vulnerability that she brings to her music. Her songs go straight to my heart: How Can I Be Sure, All Cried Out, I Close My Eyes, And Count To 10, The Look Of Love, You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me, plus my personal favorite, her devastating version of I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself. She does more than sell the song; she inhabits and makes it her own in the way that only the truly great artists can do.

With a strong, almost masculine countenance, but a feminine style, Springfield has always had real appeal to gay people. She studied and copied drag acts, creating an image confusing to a lot of the 1960s listening public. In the press, her image was vigorously protected from her gayness. The press releases always stressed Springfield’s Catholic faith and middle-class roots. The fact she was living with a fellow singer, Norma Tanega, was conveniently overlooked. After she and Tanega split up, there was always another woman keeping Springfield’s bed warm.

She invented a look for herself which became iconic, with tall beehive hair and thick, dark eye make-up. Her style was copied by other recording artists of the time, plus many teenage girls and drag queens. Her career has left a lasting legacy on modern fashion.

Springfield became an expert in all aspects of music recording. The male dominated industry resented having a young woman who seemed to know it all. She had a sharp ear for quality and a perfectionist approach to making records. During her era, women were simply not allowed to use the mixing equipment or to commandeer the production booth. She gained a reputation for being difficult and eccentric. Her headstrong personality and working knowledge of the technical aspects of recording did not endear Springfield to the professional music community, but she certainly enchanted her fans.

In 1964, while on tour in South Africa, and with no prior interest in politics, Springfield found it abhorrent that it was illegal to perform a concert to a mixed audience. But, there was a loophole in the law that allowed live performances for mixed-race audiences as long as they were in a movie theatre. Springfield booked the biggest film house she could find and played to a large black and white audience. When she arrived back at her hotel, Springfield and her entourage were placed under arrest and deported. Back in England the public loved her for it. She was hailed as an anti-apartheid hero.

Springfield was at her apex in the mid-1960s. She had hit albums and her own TV show. She is credited as the woman who brought Motown to the UK. But in the early 1970s, when I was digging her the most, the kids who bought records pushed against Springfield’s style, preferring songs with a strong political message. Her love songs and throaty jazzy vocals began to lose popularity.

At a loss, Springfield was sucked into a spiral of drink, drugs and all-night parties. She abused a variety of substances on a daily basis. The pressure of a closeted life manifested itself in depression and a desire to avoid the spotlight. An album she had started to record for Atlantic Records was shelved due to her “poor mental health”.

Ashamed by the abandoned album, Springfield moved to LA and dropped deeper into drugs and booze. She spent most of the 1970s living late nights of partying. She sometimes woke up in a hospital.

Late in the 1970s, Springfield began to speak openly about being bisexual, although she was never known to have had a boyfriend. The bad publicity devastated Springfield. She came out of the closet to her parents, but far from being outraged; they did not take her seriously. This hurt her even more deeply.

In the 1980s, Springfield’s drug abuse was at an all-time high. She continued to have short-lived love affairs. Her recordings made little impact and had low sales. Springfield was constantly between rehab and the hospital.

Salvation came in 1987 when her longtime fans, Pet Shop Boys, asked her to collaborate on a project. The resulting record, What Have I Done to Deserve This?, was a global smash hit and one of my favorite singles of all time. Suddenly, the fading singer was among the smart set once more. Pet Shop Boys produced an entire album for her. At 48 years old, her life started to get better. She gave up drugs and partying. More hits singles followed.

In 1994, just as Springfield’s career was back on track and a new generation was embracing her sound, she was diagnosed with that damn cancer. She received treatment, but remission was short lived. She spent her final years fighting against another bout of cancer. Springfield moved in with her lifelong friend, back-up singer Simon Bell, who took care of her.

On New Year’s Day 1999, Springfield was awarded an Order Of The British Empire for her contribution to music. Too sick to attend the ceremony, her longtime manager, with permission from Queen Elizabeth II, picked up the award on her behalf. It was carried directly to Springfield in hospice and given to her in front of a small gathering of friends, plus her Oncologist. On the very day when Springfield would have officially received the award, she lost her battle with cancer. Her memorial was attended by thousands of mourners including Elvis Costello, Lulu, Elton John, and Pet Shop Boys. 10 days after her death, her friend Sir Elton inducted Springfield into the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame, stating:

“She was the greatest white singer of all time”.

 

 

The post #BornThisDay: Singer, Dusty Springfield appeared first on The WOW Report.

Trump’s Son-In-Law’s Paper Endorses the GOP Front-Runner, Top Political Reporter Quits

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Trump & son-in-law, Jared Kushner

Trump & son-in-law, Jared Kushner

Ross Barkan quit his job after the paper’s glowing endorsement of the GOP Presidential candidate, Donald Trump. The New York Observer printed a glowing endorsement of Trump, but lost its top reporter in the process.

Barkan, the paper’s national political reporter, announced this week that he is stepping down over concerns with the Observer’s coverage of the GOP frontrunner. Barkan told CNN.

I knew going into this there would be complications with covering Donald Trump and working for the New York Observer. I did not imagine that the events would transpire the way they did.

Here’s the big problem. The Observer is owned by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, which creates a YUUGE conflict of interest.

Barkan also told CNN that Kushner’s recent involvement in writing a speech that Trump delivered last month before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) factored into his decision.

The paper addressed the connection between Trump and Kushner in the endorsement..

“Donald Trump is the father-in-law of the Observer’s publisher. That is not a reason to endorse him. Giving millions of disillusioned Americans a renewed sense of purpose and opportunity is.

The legacy of Donald Trump’s 30 years of leadership is everywhere—not only in the tall buildings that bear his name, but in the kitchens of the thousands of families supported by the jobs he’s created.”

They do mention Trump’s failures, telling readers that,

“Having tried (and sometimes failed) at our own entrepreneurial ventures, we are far more inclined to put these ventures into perspective.”

It ends with this ass-kiss,

“In 1980 Ronald Reagan said, ‘The time is now for strong leadership,’ and by 1984 was able to declare, ‘It is morning again in America.’ Today, Donald Trump says it is time to make America great again. We agree.”

And if you agree too, they’ve got a Trump condo just waiting for your deposit!

Barkan’s last day at the Observer is Apr. 27.

The post Trump’s Son-In-Law’s Paper Endorses the GOP Front-Runner, Top Political Reporter Quits appeared first on The WOW Report.

Mean Bros Trick Li’l Sis Into Thinking a Zombie Attack is REALLY Happening!

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Screen Shot 2016-04-12 at 9.29.37 PMTwo brothers from Virginia convinced their little sister, Millicent (the perfect little sis name) that zombies were taking over their town. She had just had surgery to remove her wisdom teeth and was still high on painkillers.

They were very clever by issuing,

• A fake radio alert from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) saying there was a “viral outbreak warning” and reporting “cases of high fever, nausea, death and even cannibalism”.

• Millicent tells her brother to pack guns to defend themselves on their journey.

• The brothers tell Millicent they can only bring one of their pets and tell her to choose between their cat or dog.

Her response?

The cat, you idiot!

This to me THAT was a tip off that the whole thing might have been faked. Who calls their pets, “the cat or the dog”? Knowing your own pets, you’d say Fluffy or Rover, right? Very suspicious. It was posted by Cabot Phillips who is one of the brothers and trying to get noticed. But it’s hilarious, anyway.

Watch.

(via KeyeTV)

The post Mean Bros Trick Li’l Sis Into Thinking a Zombie Attack is REALLY Happening! appeared first on The WOW Report.

Andy Warhol & Grace Jones Ask, “It’s 10 P.M. Do You Know Where Your Children Are?”

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Screen Shot 2016-04-16 at 7.50.34 AMIn the 70s & 80s, this used to be a thing in New York. Local news station Channel 5 broadcast this message every night,

It’s 10 PM, do you know where your children are…?

Great thing to ask parents, but it takes on a slightly more sinister tinge when delivered by Grace Jones & Andy Warhol. Don’t you get the feeling that they might want to add,

…tell us and we’ll get them and take them to Studio!

Watch.

The post Andy Warhol & Grace Jones Ask, “It’s 10 P.M. Do You Know Where Your Children Are?” appeared first on The WOW Report.

#BornThisDay: Writer, Thornton Wilder

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April 17, 1897Thornton Wilder:

“99% of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion.”

One of my favorite roles was Horace Vandergelder in the musical Hello, Dolly! at Seattle Civic Light Opera in the late 1980s. I also used a funny, grouchy monologue by the same character from the source material, The Matchmaker (1954), for auditions for a decade. It was a role that I was born to play: crusty, irascible, testy, vinegary, bearish, and unable to suffer fools gladly.

The Hello, Dolly! history is long, picturesque, and quite gay. John Oxenford‘s short farce A Day Well Spent (1835) had been adapted into a full length play entitled Einen Jux Will Er Sich Machen by Austrian playwright Johann Nestroy in 1842. Both writers were homosexual. In 1938, Wilder Americanized the Nestroy version and changed it into The Merchant Of Yonkers. The Broadway production was a dismal failure, running for just 39 performances.

17 years later, director Tyrone Guthrie (not gay) commissioned a new version of the play for his friend Ruth Gordon. Wilder extensively rewrote the piece and made the minor character of Dolly Gallagher Levi, a widow who brokers marriages and other transactions, the leading role. Wilder named this play The Matchmaker. Gordon went on to have a smashing success in the play in London and when it moved to Broadway the next year, Gordon won the Tony Award for playing the title role.

The charming 1958 film version starred Shirley Booth, Anthony Perkins (gay), Shirley MacLaine (loved by gays), Paul Ford, and Robert Morse.

In 1964, The Matchmaker became the Tony Award (what is gayer than a Tony Award?) winning musical Hello, Dolly! with a score by the very gay Jerry Herman, starring gay icon Carol Channing. A film version of the musical was released in 1969 starring Barbra Streisand (gays seem to really like her) in the lead role. Tom Stoppard (not gay, but very talented and smart) reworked the story once again, in 1981, as the farce On The Razzle. Did you follow that?

Wilder’s version is my favorite. He won the Pulitzer Prize three times: for the novel The Bridge Of San Luis Rey (1927), for the classic high school favorite Our Town (1938), and for his satire The Skin Of Our Teeth (1942) in which I portrayed a dinosaur in a college production in the 1970s. If I am not mistaken, Wilder is the only writer to win Pulitzers in both theater and fiction.

Our Town, in case your local community theatre passed on producing it, is best known for its bare set, its plain folksy dialogue, and its simplistic lessons about life. Yet, when the dead Emily Gibbs asks the Stage Manager if anyone appreciates the daily mundane aspects of life, the Stage Manager answers with the devastating: “Poets, maybe”. 78 years after it debuted, it is believed that not a day goes by that Our Town is not being performed somewhere in the world. Portland Center Stage presented a well-reviewed production just last autumn. It’s been produced for film, radio and television, and in the lead role, at different times, Paul Newman, Hal Holbrook, Spalding Grey, Helen Hunt and Frank Sinatra. It has been adapted in to a musical three times, plus an opera and a ballet. It has been translated into more than 70 languages.

Emily Gibbs from Our Town:

“Goodbye to clocks ticking… and my butternut tree! And Mama’s sunflowers and food and coffee and new-ironed dresses and hot baths and sleeping and waking up! Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anyone to realize you! Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it every, every minute?”

I love this play so much. Inexplicitly, in the summer of 2012, I took my copy of the script off the shelf and reread it in a single sitting. I cried buckets that afternoon to the alarm of my two terriers. I never really got Emily’s speech until now, in my 60s. The play made me cry in ways that it never could when I was in my 20s, 40s or 50s. It’s something I’ve certainly taken to heart since almost kicking the bucket.

Our Town even has a gay character, Simon Stimson, the church organist, who is a sort of stand-in for the author.

The great theme of Wilder’s works is the lack of awareness about the daily comforts and tribulations of the short time we have on our pretty, spinning, blue orb. Put down your devices and recognize the beauty of all those tiny moments in life that are being passed by.

The Skin Of Our Teeth was considered highly avant-garde when it was first produced during WWII. It is the satirical story of The Antrobus Family battling the Ice Age and other apocalypses. The play has never been more relevant than now when we face climate change, terrorism and religious fundamentalism. The human race might survive global freezing, but maybe not global warming, guns, and Ted Cruz.

Wilder never publically addressed being gay, but his homosexuality was a well-known secret in the theatre circles. He was discreet and passed himself off as “a confirmed bachelor”. His longtime lover was Samuel Steward who wrote very famous and well received gay erotica under the moniker Phil Andros. Andros’ books seem tame now, but in their time they were scandalous stuff.  Wilder was introduced to Steward by their mutual friend Gertrude Stein who had a correspondence going with both men (and they were all from Oakland/Berkley).

Wilder had the coolest friends. He hung out with Dorothy Parker, Willa Cather, Harpo Marx, Tallulah Bankhead and Montgomery Clift. I would like to have been at that party.

Wilder left this world in 1975. He was 78 years old, taken in that best way, asleep in his bed.

“Money is like manure; it’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around encouraging young things to grow.”The Matchmaker

The post #BornThisDay: Writer, Thornton Wilder appeared first on The WOW Report.

#RealEstatePorn: Lauren Bacall’s San Francisco Apartment in “Dark Passage” Is For Sale!

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A 30s Streamline Moderne style apartment in the historic Malloch Building on Telegraph Hill is a drop dead chic, with killer views.

The building is iconic for many reasons — it was featured as Lauren Bacall‘s apartment in Dark Passage (1947) and Alfred DuPont‘s mural decorates the facade. It’s also one of those rare gems known by its address: 1360 Montgomery Street. The one bedroom, one bath pad can be yours for a cool $1.5 million. If I were going to like in San Francisco, I think THIS would be the way to do it.

Bacall's apartment "Dark Passage" was set in 1360 Montgomery Street. In the movie, the exterior view across Irene's patio is a photo backdrop used on the studio soundstage to set the location. In the real apartment at 1360 that view would look east across the Bay towards Yerba Buena Island...

Bacall’s apartment “Dark Passage” was set in 1360 Montgomery Street. In the movie, the exterior view across Irene’s patio is a photo backdrop used on the studio soundstage to set the location. In the real apartment at 1360 that view would look east across the Bay towards Yerba Buena Island…

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Irene's view through the apartment's front door peephole when she hears the doorbell ring shows, behind the visitor (Agnes Moorehead)  the 3rd floor hallway and the stairs leading up to the top floor.

Irene’s view through the apartment’s front door peephole when she hears the doorbell ring shows, behind the visitor (Agnes Moorehead) the 3rd floor hallway and the stairs leading up to the top floor.

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(T/Y Kevin; via Curbed)

The post #RealEstatePorn: Lauren Bacall’s San Francisco Apartment in “Dark Passage” Is For Sale! appeared first on The WOW Report.

#RealEstatePorn: Architect Marcel Breuer’s Own Home Is Brought Screaming Into the 21st Century

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Breuer in 1950

Breuer in 1950


This mid-century modern gem, was originally designed in 1951 by architect Marcel Breuer and it’s been restored and updated by Toshiko Mori, who chaired the Grad School of Architecture at Harvard.

Called the Breuer House 2 it was designed this for his own family after they decided to move from their original house in New Cannan, Connecticut. Breuer’s second house was clad in fieldstone veneer and glass with a U-shaped plan enclosing a courtyard with a flagstone terrace. In 1975, Gerald Bratti acquired the property and hired architect Herbert Beckhard, a longtime associate of Breuer’s, to design extensive renovations, which were completed between 1975 and 1982. A 27’x29′ underground poolhouse/ guesthouse was added in 1981.

It had several other owners and in 2005 Robert Bishop acquired the property, saving it from demolition. The current owners removed the addition designed by Beckhart and constructed a new freestanding glass and steel addition designed by Mori. The square footage was doubled to 5500 and the underground poolhouse was restored.

The new house now has 4 bedrooms and 4.5 baths on 3 acres and is on the market for $5.85 million.

I’m not sure how I feel about the addition, to be honest. At first glance, it seems to what the original house doesn’t do, bring MORE outside in, provide more space and get you up into the trees. But the materials and office building vibe seems a bit flashy and out of place for the setting. More importantly, what would Breuer think? Probably,

Ah, who cares? I’m pushing up daisies. It’s your house now…

The original "Breuer 2" house

The original “Breuer 2” house

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The post #RealEstatePorn: Architect Marcel Breuer’s Own Home Is Brought Screaming Into the 21st Century appeared first on The WOW Report.


#Hitched!: ABC’s Gio Benitez Marries Tommy DiDario In Miami

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ABC News reporter Gio Benitez married his fiancé Tommy DiDario in Miami yesterday. It came seven months after a romantic proposal (left) at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. 160 guests attended at Walton House in Miami.

DiDario is a lifestyle and menswear blogger a well as a writer and actor. Many news and media personalities went and the couple is active on Instagram (it’s how they met!), so naturally it was well-documented.

People reported:

Both grooms wore J.Crew tuxes and custom-made ties by David Fin for their big day, with Benitez opting for a midnight navy combination and DiDario donning a chambray charcoal ensemble.

After their first kiss as husbands, the duo got the party started with their first dance to Il Volo’s cover of Can You Feel the Love Tonight from Disney’s The Lion King.

The couple was feted by many members of Benitez’s extended news family, including Sam Champion, Shepard Smith, Martha Raddatz and Kevin Ozebek, Benitez’s best man. Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry, publicist Howard Bragman and Broadway director and producer Richard Jay-Alexander were also in attendance.

Sounds like it was perfect. And what a good looking bunch. ConDragulations, gentlemen!

Ready for the best day of my life. ❤️ #TheLoveStoryOfTG

A photo posted by Gio Benitez (@giobenitez) on

My forever and always. #married #TheLoveStoryofTG

A photo posted by Tommy DiDario (@tommydidario) on

The beginning of Forever. ❤️ #TheLoveStoryOfTG

A photo posted by Gio Benitez (@giobenitez) on

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(via Towleroad)

The post #Hitched!: ABC’s Gio Benitez Marries Tommy DiDario In Miami appeared first on The WOW Report.

#SNL: An Anti-Gay Baker Takes on Religious Freedom In a New Film…

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Screen Shot 2016-04-17 at 9.27.38 AMSaturday Night Live digital short last night took on anti-gay bakers, religious freedom, and Christian victimization in

“a story of liberal elites run wild.”

When a gay couple comes into her bakery and asks for a cake, a Christian baker’s faith is tested. They threaten to sue her and demand that she say three simple words:

God is Gay.

So she sets out to prove to the world that God is straight. (From the makers of Angel in Denim: The Kim Davis Story.) Watch.

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#BornThisDay: Actor, Gavin Creel

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Creel with Jane Krakowski in She Loves Me. Photograph by Joan Marcu

April 18, 1976Gavin Creel

I would do nearly anything outside of kissing Ted Cruz to fly to NYC with hard-to-get-ahold-of tickets to a certain hit Broadway musical. No, not the hip-hop musical about a founding father, but She Loves Me, a perfect bon-bon show from 1963. She Loves Me has a score by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock, the team the brought us Fiddler On the Roof, among other great musicals. It is an adaptaion of the play Parfumerie by Hungarian playwright Miklos Laszlo,  which had already been made into the 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner (1940) starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. It had already been given the musical treatment with the Judy Garland and Van Johnson vehicle, In the Good Old Summertime (1949). It came around again with Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail (1998) with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. The plot revolves around two Budapest retail clerks who, despite being consistently at odds with each other at work, are unaware that each is the other’s secret pen pal met through a newspaper personal ad.

She Loves Me is currently revived on Broadway, winning terrific reviews and sold-out houses, with Laura Benanti, Zachary Levi, Jane Krakowski, and birthday boy, Gavin Creel.

I love this show so much. For realz. It is in my Top Five Musicals Of All Time. I have seen it several times and I was tantalizingly close to being in a Seattle production in 2001. I was cast, to my shock, not as the older shopkeeper, the role I aggressively auditioned for, but as the roué and cad Steven Kodaly, the role Creel will be almost certainly Tony nominated for this season. I ended up not accepting the role. The Husband and I, in a collective nervous breakdown, suddenly departed Seattle for Portland, and I let this one get away.

I don’t know about where you live, but nearly everyone I know in Portland is a hyphenate (lawyer/farmer/author/chicken-wrangler), even I am writer/gentleman farmer/ne’er-do-well. Today’s birthday guy is most certainly a many word hyphenate: activist/actor/singer/songwriter. He is also one of founders of Broadway Impact, an organization of theatre professionals fighting for LGBT Equality.

Creel came out publicly in a 2009 interview in The Advocate. He has been honored as one of Out Magazine’s OUT 100. He has performed and given speeches at events benefiting The Human Rights Campaign. Creel toured with The Cyndi Lauper True Colors concert series & sang on the Capitol lawn at the 2009 National Equality March. Besides all the original Broadway cast albums, Creel has 3 solo vocal albums including Get Out, released in Spring 2012. He is a frequent contributing performer for MCC Theater’s annual Miscast Benefit, where Broadway stars sing numbers from roles in which they would never be cast to amazing results.

Creel was in the cast of the terrific revival of Hair on both Broadway (2009) and The West End (2010). Creel earned Tony Award nominations for Hair and his Broadway debut, Thoroughly Modern Millie (2002). He has also appeared on Broadway in La Cage Aux Folles (2004) and the West End production of Mary Poppins (2007). He’s come a long way since his first stage appearance when, as a high school sophomore, Creed played Sir Sagamore in Camelot; speaking just two words: “and mine”.

Creel:

“Talking about sexuality, sexual orientation and understanding how sexual identity factors into all of our thinking, is a conversation that I believe everyone should fearlessly enter into. It drives me crazy how “gay issues” so often appear to be just for the gays and are therefore relegated to the outside edges of a newspaper or newscast or even election (except when it is conveniently spun into the hot topic to help mobilize people against us for the sake of “morality”. I love who I am, but I don’t see me and my gay friends as a bunch of homos who should be set apart from the rest. I don’t agree with those in our community who think that as gay people we are special and should therefore keep ourselves isolated from certain straight-associated thinking or conventions. If I really am special, I don’t need to separate myself to stand out (yet another thing I would say to the pimple-faced, show-choir-obsessed, teenage version of me). I hope the words are call to everyone: sexy straights, bi beauties, terrific trans people and, of course, us gorgeous gays.”

Although I appreciate him shirtless in Hair, Gavin Creel had to wear a white shirt and black tie as Elder Price in the London production of The Book Of Mormon, for which he won the Olivier Award for Best Actor In A Musical in 2014.

My sources tell me that Creel, who is single, has dated fellow Broadway Babies Andrew Rannells (who originated the role of Elder Price in The Book Of Mormon) and cutie pie Jonathan Groff. Too bad that I am married; I could be Creel’s daddy.

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#SNL: Julia Louis-Dryfus Killed It Saturday With Commercial Parodies Like “Heroin AM” (+Bonus, Nick Jonas!)

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From the Set: Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Nick Jonas

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Julia Louis-Dryfus is an SNL pro, having been part of the cast in the early 80s and hosting 3 times over the last 3 decades. The show can be great or mediocre from week to week, depending on the host and musical guest, as we all know by now. I always say, the structure is so familiar; cold open, monologue, commercial parody, sketch, sketch, musical guest, Weekend Update, etc, that we could all direct the show in a pinch. But Dryfus is SUCH a pro (9 seasons on the best sitcom ever, plus starring in the current best comedy on TV, Veep, doesn’t hurt) that the show screamed along with confidence with her as host. Musical guest, Nick Jonas got a couple of sexy cameos too as the “hot guy”.

But the pre-recorded commercial parodies were the best like, Heroin AM (by the makers of Cocaine PM), the new battery-powered AA Mercedes and the pitch-perfect religious freedom movie trailer for God is a Boob Man. Watch.

The post #SNL: Julia Louis-Dryfus Killed It Saturday With Commercial Parodies Like “Heroin AM” (+Bonus, Nick Jonas!) appeared first on The WOW Report.

MDLNY: Live Broadcasting of an Apartment Tour with Luis Ortiz HAPPENING NOW!!!!

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Today, at 6:15PM Eastern /3:15PM Pacific Eastern, Bravo will be broadcasting a Facebook Live apartment tour with cutie-patootie real estate agent Luis Ortiz from MDLN to promote
the premiere of Season 5 of MDLNY. (Details and links below)

Yes, superstar real estate agent Luis Ortiz will give a live tour of his very own swanky NYC apartment for Bravo and MDL fans. Luis will also promote this fun event via his social network. He’ll be demonstrating some sales tactics he might not normally use on an actual property while shooting the show. And Bravo promises will be surprises and unvarnished real estate insider moments.

Ask him questions here, and tune in to watch!

Thursday night’s premiere of Season 5. Watch the preview below.

The post MDLNY: Live Broadcasting of an Apartment Tour with Luis Ortiz HAPPENING NOW!!!! appeared first on The WOW Report.

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