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December 20th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!


#BornThisDay: Designer, Elsie de Wolfe

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December 20, 1865Elsie de Wolfe:

“I am going to make everything around me beautiful – that will be my life.”

Believe it or not, the founder of the profession of the modern Interior Designer was not a gay man. That credit goes instead to Elsie de Wolfe, a lesbian who bounced back from a mid-life career crisis and found a way to make a considerably good living and bring design influence out of her incredible good taste and personal smart style.

De Wolfe was raised in upper-class Manhattan, educated in Europe, and presented at Queen Victoria’s court. After “coming out” into society, de Wolfe moved in with her parents and spent her evenings performing in amateur theatrical productions.

Her father died in 1890 leaving the family with his considerable gambling debts. Just like me in the 1970s, in poverty for the first time in her life, de Wolfe was faced with the choice of marrying well or finding a way of supporting herself. Like me, she wisely chose to pursue a professional acting career. It could not have been an easy decision for de Wolfe, in her era, working on stage was considered a disreputable occupation for a woman. But, it was probably the best decision a young lesbian on the go could make.

Her career as an actor was a scintillating success, not because of her talents, but because of her wardrobe. Audiences would ogle her up-to-the-minute fashions. Her innovative taste in clothing led her from the theatre world to interior design, a profession she more or less invented, at least the way we look at it today. De Wolf’s gift to the world was her introduction of light, airy décor, moving away from the dark, heavy look of the Victorians.

De Wolfe’s taste influenced the very rich and the fabulously famous of London, NYC and Palm Beach, but she also inspired the more common people. Newspapers and magazines dispensed her advice, which was collected into the bestselling, influential book, The House In Good Taste (1913). She advised Americans to throw out their ostentation in favor of simplicity. She recommended that they do away with draperies in order to let in the light, and to replace the deep browns and burgundies with beige and ivory. De Wolfe:

“I believe in plenty of optimism and white paint, comfortable chairs with lights beside them, open fires on the hearth, flowers wherever they ‘belong,’ mirrors, and sunshine in all rooms.”

The interiors of 20th century American homes, wealthy and middle-class, owed everything to de Wolfe’s tastes.

Like de Wolfe, Miss Elisabeth Marbury was also a career pioneering female. She was one of the world’s first theatrical agents. Her clients included Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. Marbury and de Wolfe fell in love and became a couple. They were together for more than 40 years. Marbury was initially the breadwinner of the couple. The willowy, winsome de Wolfe and the rather butch Marbury moved easily in Manhattan society. The gossip columns dubbed them “The Bachelors”.

In 1907, de Wolfe and Marbury became pals with the heiress Anne Morgan, the daughter of banker John Pierpont “J. P.” Morgan. She became an important part of de Wolfe’s and Marbury’s lives for the next two decades. Together, this trio of gay girls undertook the renovation of the Villa Trianon at Versailles. The project became the major showcase of de Wolfe’s portfolio. The gals were called “The Versailles Triumvirate”, and their every move titillated the waiting press. When the threesome bought apartments in Manhattan’s Sutton Place neighborhood, at the time an unfashionable part of town, the NYC gossip rags buzzed with the news that an “Amazon enclave” had sprung up and insinuated that all-female assignations were underway there.

When she was 40 years old, de Wolfe received her first major commission, doing the interiors for famed “American Renaissance” architect Stanford White‘s new women-only Colony Club. After that, she began designing the interiors for residences of the most famous families of her day: The Fricks, The Morgans, The Vanderbilts, and The Windsors.

In her early 50s, de Wolfe stopped designing interiors to become a WW I nurse in France. She earned France’s Croix de Guerre for her gallantry.

Deciding that what she really needed was to have a title, de Wolfe married English diplomat Sir Charles Mendl. Their wedding made front page of the NY Times, because, since 1892, de Wolfe had been living quite openly as a lesbian. The Times article read:

“The marriage comes as a great surprise to her friends. When in NYC she makes her home with Miss Elizabeth Marbury at 13 Sutton Place.”

Shortly after the wedding, de Wolfe scandalized society again when she attended a fancy affair dressed as a Moulin Rouge dancer and made her entrance by doing handsprings into the ballroom. She was 61 years old at the time.

De Wolfe spent her life making the world beautiful, but she had grown up listening to her mother tell her that she was ugly. Sweet revenge, when she was 70 years old, Harper’s Bazaar named her “Best Dressed Woman In The World”.

Besides living such an unconventional, fabulous life, these are some of the reasons why I really love her so much:

De Wolfe had embroidered taffeta pillows made bearing the motto: “Never complain, never explain”.

On first seeing The Parthenon, de Wolfe exclaimed: “It is beige… my color!”

At her house in France, Villa Trianon, she had a dog cemetery in which each tombstone read: “The one I loved the best”. 

De Wolfe is immortalized in song from her era. In Irving Berlin’s Harlem On My Mind, the lyrics profess to prefer the “low-down” Harlem ambience to that “high-falutin’ flat that Lady Mendl designed”. One of the color schemes she popularized was the inspiration for Cole Porter’s song That Black And White Baby Of Mine, with the lyrics: “All she thinks is black and white/She even drinks black & white”.

But, most famously, from the song Anything Goes by Porter:

“When you hear that Lady Mendl, standing up,

Now turns a handspring, landing up-on her toes

Anything Goes!”

In 1941, de Wolfe was forced to leave Villa Trianon as the Nazis marched into Paris.  Wanting to be with the America Royalty, which meant, of course, movie stars, she purchased a home in Beverly Hills and named it: “After All”.

In her dotage, de Wolfe surrounded herself with a series of young gay men, taking them on as protégés, and hence an entire industry was born.

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Because of her sublime exemplary taste, de Wolfe lived to be 90 years old. She made her final exit at Villa Trianon in 1950, attended only by her maid in the place she loved the most.

Her memoir After All (1935), and the bestselling The House In Good Taste are still in print.

“Be pretty if you can, be witty if you must, but be gracious if it kills you.”

The post #BornThisDay: Designer, Elsie de Wolfe appeared first on The WOW Report.

Christian Group Is FURIOUS About These Gay Ornaments Featuring Two Josephs and Two Marys

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Two Christmas ornaments created by Mark Thaler for his Zazzle company Pride and More, are giving a group of religious wingnuts a case of the vapors. One features baby Jesus with two dads, the other with two moms.

“These decorations are a desperate and ridiculous attempt to pretend that homosexual relationships are pure and holy,” says Andrea Williams, the chief executive of the Christian Concern organization.

T”hey blasphemously portray the Lord Jesus parented by a homosexual couple. What depths will the LGBT lobby group stoop in order to try and normalize their behavior?”
God’s design is for children to grow up with a male and a female parent. The Lord Jesus was parented in this way, and this is what is best for children. The LGBT lobby is not interested in the welfare of children but only in pursuing its own selfish agenda. Trying to rewrite the Christmas story is their latest self-deception.”

Thaler thinks they need to take a chill pill.

“‘It’s just an image,” he says. “They need to focus on themselves and not worry about what everyone else is doing.”

However The Daily Mail reports, he’s now thinking of removing them “out of respect for his fellow humans.” DON’T DO IT, MARK!

They currently retail for $18 – but for the life of me, I can’t find a link.

(via Queerty)

The post Christian Group Is FURIOUS About These Gay Ornaments Featuring Two Josephs and Two Marys appeared first on The WOW Report.

Transformations: Duo Raw’s Triumphant Return!

Stewardess Serves Either Shriveled Vegetable or Broiled Dildo to Passenger – You Decide

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On a Qantas business flight from Sydney to Brisbane, a passenger was shocked by the luncheon he was served of six dumplings and something… um… how shall we say… “very phallic.”

“I asked the server what it was … and he told me that it was a root vegetable,” she told news.com.au. “I asked him to pass me my phone so I could take a photo … I never take photos of food but this was too funny to pass up.

“He blushed and was very apologetic, I don’t think he had ever seen anything quite like it … the lady next to me was cracking up,” she said on condition of anonymity.

She didn’t eat the rude-looking root, but apparently found the dumplings “delicious.”

From her Facebook comment section:

“Is that food, or in-flight entertainment?” one user asked.

“Did you ask for a stiff drink to accompany it?” another inquired.

“Definitely a root vegetable they couldn’t serve on Virgin,” a third added.

(via New York Post)

The post Stewardess Serves Either Shriveled Vegetable or Broiled Dildo to Passenger – You Decide appeared first on The WOW Report.

Neil Patrick Harris Talks Bianca Del Rio, Britney, & Magic Tricks In Vogue’s “73 Questions”

Must-Have Sexy Mermen Ornaments

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Over at December Diamonds there are PAGES and PAGES of hot, butch mermen ornaments. Mermen doctors and construction workers and soccer players… mermen in leather and cowboy hats and sequined hoodies…  Fire Island mermen, selfie-taking mermen,  hairy bear mermen… But far and away my favorite has to be the buff UPS delivery merman (above). Now THAT’S hot.

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The post Must-Have Sexy Mermen Ornaments appeared first on The WOW Report.

December 21st: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!


#BornThisDay: Jane Fonda

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December 21, 1937Jane Fonda:

“I loved campaigning with Harvey Milk in the Castro District in San Francisco for Prop 6. He was the most joyous. He was like Allen Ginsberg. He was always smiling and laughing, and he was beloved and he was funny. The most lovable person. I was so happy when I was with him. And it was just so much fun going into those gay bars with him – oh my god!”

Fonda says she was the number-one beard for closeted actors during a time when homophobia in Hollywood was decidedly worse than today.

“When I was young, I was the female that gay guys wanted to try to become heterosexual with. A very famous actor who’s gay, and I will not name names, asked me to marry him. I was very flattered, but I said: ‘Why?’ This was 1964 And I mean, he wasn’t the only one. It’s very interesting. And I lived for two years with a guy who was trying to become straight. I’m intimately acquainted with that.”

Fonda has long been a Gay Rights advocate. In 2013, she said:

“I’ve lived a long time, 20 years of that time was in the south, and I have seen too many lives destroyed and distorted by homophobia. I pray with all my heart that I live to see the day when people can come out freely, safely and be accepted by every strata of society.”

Fonda and her friend Lily Tomlin have given us two seasons of Grace And Frankie on Netflix. I was slow to appreciating the series, even though I hold the two leads in the very highest esteem. For the first five episodes, I found it forced in its comedy, and Sam Waterson and Martin Sheen as the husbands that leave their wives for each other, seemed to be acting gay, instead of being gay. I originally thought the show would be a laugh fest, considering the pedigree; Marta Kauffman was the creator, and she had brought us Friends (1994-2004). Although I melted and fell in love with the series eventually, I still think the two leading women should have switched roles and the whole thing could have been presented like a Ingmar Bergman style Scenes From A Marriage for the new millennium. Yet, I am pleased, and ready, for a third season.

Fonda has spoken out to our gay youth, urging them not give up hope as they come out to their parents, whatever the reaction to the news might be:

“Do not despair, no matter what your parents say. You’ve got to understand it can be very hard for parents to hear that their son or daughter is gay. But it’s their problem. It’s not your problem. Don’t despair.”

Fonda is such a strong LGBTQ ally she recently said she would not go to North Carolina due to its recent passage of anti-gay legislation, including a law that forbids transgender people from using the bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.

Fonda has had many personas: Academy Award Winning Actor, Sex Symbol, Film Producer, Political Activist, Fitness Guru, Trophy Wife, and Gay Icon

She was born Lady Jayne Seymour Fonda. As a little girl, she was enamored of her famous father, Henry Fonda, but apparently, he was too self-involved to notice. She would crave his attention for the rest of his life.

Her mother, Frances Seymour Fonda had wanted a boy, since she already had a daughter from her previous marriage. When her brother, Peter Fonda was born, her mother’s postpartum depression kept her in the hospital for months, and her depression lingered in the form of manic mood swings, which worsened when Henry Fonda enlisted in the Army for two years. Frances once said to her young daughter: “Lady, if I gain any extra weight I’m going to cut it off with a knife!”

In 1948, when Henry Fonda returned from serving in the war, he was offered the lead role in Mr. Roberts on Broadway and he moved his family from Hollywood to Greenwich, Connecticut. A year later he announced that he was in love with another woman, and wanted a divorce. Henry’s rejection ultimately sent Frances over the edge. She was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in 1950. A week later she killed herself by slitting her throat.

Henry Fonda married Afdera Franchetti, a 23-year-old countess, in 1957. Jane dropped out of Vassar to study painting in Paris, where she modeled for Vogue. When she returned to NYC, her friend Susan Strasberg urged her to study with her father, legendary acting coach Lee Strasberg, who had taught Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe.

Fonda made her Broadway debut in 1965 in There Was a Little Girl. She decided that she would be the best actor on Broadway and the prettiest. She purged to stay fit. She took Dexadrine before her dance lessons. She was living with her lover and manager, Andreas Voutsinas, who turned out to be gay and who has written that at the time, her bulimia was out of control. But she harnessed her emotional problems brilliantly for her performances on stage.

Fonda also found work as a model, posing for famous photographers like Richard Avedon and Arthur Penn. She embraced her role as a sex symbol, and producers wanted to capitalize on her look. While working as a model in Paris, Fonda was introduced to director Roger Vadim, who begged her to star in his sex comedy Circle of Love (1964). Vadim had already been lovers with Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve. Fonda:

“I thought my heart would burst. What Vadim gave me when I was young was huge. Huge. He reawakened me sexually.”

Fonda was also drawn to Vadim because reminded her of her father: introversion, moodiness, and a sly seductive demeanor.

They married and three years later they began having three-ways. It was Vadim’s idea; he had confessed to having affairs since they got married, but he insisted other women would never interfere with their love. The trysts were just part of his theories about the sexual freedom exemplified by Fonda’s film persona. She felt that Vadim “validated” her. Fonda writes that the first time he brought home another woman:

“I threw myself into the threesome with the skill and enthusiasm of the actress that I am.”

She would even solicit women in attempt to have some power in the relationship:

“And the women would invariably fall in love with me”.

Fonda made some iconic films during this era, including La Curée (1966), Barefoot In The Park (1967), and, of course, Barbarella (1968). La Curée is Vadim’s over-the-top Technicolor film with Fonda playing a young woman experiencing the pleasures of her sexual awakening. Also by Vadim, Barbarella was based on a French comic strip about a space traveler whose mission to save the universe involves a series of nutty sexual encounters: she simulates multiple orgasms while perched atop a “pleasure-making machine”, performs a strip tease, and crams herself into a tiny cage where she is bait for killer birds that peck off her costume .

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But, she also had Barefoot In The Park with Robert Redford, one of her best performances of her early films. My own favorite from this era is They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), based on a 1935 novel by Horace McCoy. It is a Depression era story and it had absolutely nothing to do with Fonda’s sex kitten archetype that she had been playing. It is a bold, raw performance.

In the spring of 1970, she met Tom Hayden, one of the founders of Students For A Democratic Society. His taciturn personality reminded her of her father.

The next year, Fonda killed it with her no-nonsense call girl in Klute (1972), winning her first Academy Award. That same year, the Vietnamese Committee For Solidarity With The American People invited Fonda to visit Hanoi. She had planned to document the effects of the war in a film, and brought her video camera along while visiting ruined hospitals and schools. She was escorted to an aircraft gun and told it was protecting the city from American airstrikes. Everyone laughed as she climbed atop the big gun, unaware of a camera crew filming her. The next day, “Hanoi Jane” was all over the American press. Fonda:

“That two-minute lapse of sanity will haunt me until I die. I simply wasn’t thinking about what I was doing, I was only feeling innocent of what the photo implies.”

The Nixon White House pressed the US Justice Department to bring treason charges against Fonda. She was vilified by the Right Wingers for the next 45 years. Today, there are at least 7,000 websites dedicated to hating Jane Fonda.

In the early years of their marriage, Hayden protected Jane from the backlash of that trip to Hanoi. The couple would make headlines for the next 17 years.

To make money for Hayden’s campaigns, Fonda opened her own fitness studio, The Workout, where she taught aerobic classes. By 1980, The Workout was making loads of money. She opened two other studios, wrote  Workout books, and made videos that would prove more popular than her films. Fonda’s new success was the undoing of Fonda and Hayden’ marriage. For a revolutionary, Hayden was old fashioned enough to be threatened by a wife that made more money. Plus, she discovered that he was having affairs, having sex with other women in their house.

Ted Turner was as successful as Fonda. He changed the news industry forever with CNN and his other networks and sports teams. They had the same goals, and ambitions. For a while, they made for a perfect power couple. By 1996, they had been married for nearly eight years, but Fonda found herself slipping back into a subservient wife role. She was almost 60-years-old and still struggling with her identity.

In 1997, Fonda became a grandmother and a Born-Again Christian. Turner didn’t like it one bit. They split up, but remained friends. Fonda writes they had mind-blowing sex right before separating for good. Leave it to Jane!

In 2009, Fonda began relationship with record producer Richard Perry. She claims that there will be no fourth wedding. They live together in Malibu.

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From Ancient Greece to Today’s Genderqueer Clubkids, Dorian Elektra Gives Us a Singalong “2,000 Years of Drag”

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Artist Dorian Electra gathers an eclectic group from Chicago’s queer community – including Imp Queen, The Vixen, Lucy Stoole, London Jade, and Eva Young – to sing an oral history of drag culture. From Ancient Greece to Shakespeare’s Globe theater, Victorian freak shows, the Pansy Circuit of the Prohibition era, and beyond –-  each artist writes their own verse and crafts their own look, “thereby emphasizing the voices of queer performers in the age of mainstream drag.”

Says co-director Imp Queen in a press release:

“It felt like an important time to gather a group of queens and transwomen and try to make something about the history of drag and trans culture. But in a way that felt accessible to a straight audience that maybe doesn’t know anything about drag beyond what they’ve seen on TV.”

Watch it below. It gets progressively more interesting, trust me. (The Stonewall section is my fave).

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(via PAPER)

 

The post From Ancient Greece to Today’s Genderqueer Clubkids, Dorian Elektra Gives Us a Singalong “2,000 Years of Drag” appeared first on The WOW Report.

WOW’s Top 10 Queer-Owned Online Stores

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Like me, I’m sure most of us are panicking that Christmas is four days away! I know we are all going to be spending the holidays with our families, but I’m celebrating my HoliGAY a couple days after with my closet queer squad. With this bizarre year coming to a close if you haven’t picked up presents for your favorite Queer friends, here’s our list of the Top 10 Queer online stores.

10. Zazzle 

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9. HauteButch

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8. Rainbow Depot

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7. Genderfreeworld

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6. Nastypig

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5. Autostraddle

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4. Hey Rooney

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3. Pansy Ass Ceramics

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2. Wildfang

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1. Otherwild

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The post WOW’s Top 10 Queer-Owned Online Stores appeared first on The WOW Report.

Janice Dickinson Comes for Kim and Kendall: “They’re Not Real Models, Give Me a Break”

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Frequently combative modeling legend Janice Dickinson let loose (surprise, surprise) on AfterBuzzTV’s The Tomorrow Show With Keven Undergo calling out the Kardashian/Jenner girls for their fake modeling careers and “plastic butts.”

She began by saying Kendall was a “lovely” person before launching into an attack on her career.

“I don’t think she’s a supermodel, I don’t. … Give me a break. You think that’s supermodel? That is not supermodel,” she ranted. “She can’t beat me. She can’t. Apples and oranges.” (Kendall has clapped back at haters and defended her model title.)

Odd, particularly since back in the day, Janice had a very similar coltish, Kendallian beauty.

Compare and contrast below.

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She went on to say she was shocked and disappointed when Kim and Kanye landed their own Vogue cover in 2014.

“Kim Kardashian made the cover of Vogue which made me want to vomit. It was crazy,” Dickinson said on the live broadcast “They’re not models! They’re reality TV stars! You know modeling is extremely hard work you have to have perfect proportions. The Kardashians do not have couture proportion.”

Listen below (the “plastic butt” rant is especially fun).

(via People)

The post Janice Dickinson Comes for Kim and Kendall: “They’re Not Real Models, Give Me a Break” appeared first on The WOW Report.

3 Blind Items: What Short Actor Wants Leg-Lengthening Surgery… What Two Straight Actors Regularly Send Penis Pics to Each Other… Who Are the Stars in a New Fauxmance?

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Oh, I love good blind item. I don’t even care if they’re true or not. The more lurid they are, the more salacious they are, the better. Boozehounds, coke whores, has-beens, closeted actors – Bring ’em on! I’ll play along! Today, we have three fun stories.

#1:

These two men are both famous actors. They have worked together in the past. They both have a good sense of humor.

They like to send each other selfies. Selfies of a certain part of their anatomy.

They’ll text each other something provocative, like “Check out this hot girl I just met!” and then send a photo of their penis. They’ve been doing this a while. They’ve probably sent hundreds of d*ck pics to each other. No, they aren’t gay. They just think it’s funny.

Guesses: Clooney & Pitt? Affleck & Damon? Franco & Rogen? DiCaprio & Hill? Tatum & Hill?… it could be any of them really. And I want to BELIEEEEEEVE it’s true….

#2:

This cute actor has always worked steadily and has landed some interesting gigs over the years. However, they aren’t exactly the roles he wants. He wants to be the leading man.

What’s stopping him? Well, he is short. There are a several short actors out there who have made it big (e.g. Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Kevin Hart) but they are the exception rather than the rule. Sure, there are heel lifts, but our actor wants a more permanent change.

He’s had a couple of casting directors tell him flat out that they just can’t book him as the lead because of his height. He has started looking into limb lengthening, where they purposefully break your legs and then put them in these metal splint devices that pull your leg apart and make it longer while the bone heals. He’ll only have to take about six months off. He figures that even if he can only get to 5’9″ or 5’10”, it will be worth it because he will get offered more of the kinds of roles he really wants.

That sounds very ambitious. And very painful!

Guesses: Josh Hutchinson? Daniel Radcliffe? um, James MacAvoy? I don’t know, I’m out.

#3:

Welcome to the dawn of a new faux romance!

This time we have an actor from a famous film franchise and an actress with serious show biz parentage who is just starting to make a name for herself.

The two worked together on a TV project and became close friends. The romance that they are pretending to have is all publicity fodder. Just in time for the season finale!

Oh, duh, I know this one, but I’m going to let you tell me. Leave your answers in the Facebook comments.

(via Blind Gossip)

The post 3 Blind Items: What Short Actor Wants Leg-Lengthening Surgery… What Two Straight Actors Regularly Send Penis Pics to Each Other… Who Are the Stars in a New Fauxmance? appeared first on The WOW Report.

#12DaysOfGiving: Heifer International Let’s You Give Impoverished Families Livestock to Achieve Self-Reliance

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Have a little extra money this holiday season and want to give back? Looking for a charity that needs your help? We’ve got a daily list charitable donations for you to make this Christmas a special one. Today, we highlight the work of Heifer.org, a fabulous organization that helps impoverished families achieve self-reliance by providing them the livestock and tools they need to sustain themselves. Last year, I gave a goat in my mother’s name (MERRY CHRISTMAS, MOM!), so that a family in Africa (or Central America or the Middle East) could have milk and cheese FOR YEARS to come! It was only $120! FOR A FREAKIN’ GOAT! How great is that?

From the Heifer.org mission statement:

Heifer International’s mission is to work with communities to end world hunger and poverty and to care for the Earth.

Dan West was a farmer from the American Midwest and member of the Church of the Brethren who went to the front lines of the Spanish Civil War as an aid worker. His mission was to provide relief, but he soon discovered the meager single cup of milk rationed to the weary refugees once a day was not enough.

And then he had a thought: What if they had not a cup, but a cow?

That “teach a man to fish” philosophy is what drove West to found Heifer International. And now, nearly 70 years later, that philosophy still inspires our work to end world hunger and poverty throughout the world once and for all.

HOW IT WORKS

We empower families to turn hunger and poverty into hope and prosperity – but our approach is more than just giving them a handout. Heifer links communities and helps bring sustainable agriculture and commerce to areas with a long history of poverty. Our animals provide partners with both food and reliable income, as agricultural products such as milk, eggs and honey can be traded or sold at market.

When many families gain this new sustainable income, it brings new opportunities for building schools, creating agricultural cooperatives, forming community savings and funding small businesses.

Such a great idea. And you don’t have to just get a goat! You can buy a flock of geese, or a water buffalo, or an alpaca… the list goes on and on. Or you can partner with other people and go IN ON a water buffalo together. It’s all really simple.

Go HERE to learn more about what you can do to help inspire change and transform a family.

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FASHION PHOTO RUVIEW: HOLIDAY EDITION ft. Latrice Royale, BenDeLaCreme, Naomi Smalls & More


December 22nd: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!

#BornThisDay: Artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat

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December 22, 1960Jean-Michel Basquiat

Gay History, Art History, NYC in the 1970s and 1980s, all my interests intersect when considering the life of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

He was born in the middle-class neighborhood of Park Slope in Brooklyn. His Haitian father was an accountant and a ladies’ man, his mother was Puerto Rican, and she spoke French, Spanish and English. She took young Basquiat to theater and museums in Manhattan. He began to draw when he was four years old, around the time that he was hit by an automobile. His mother gave him a copy of Gray’s Anatomy while he was in the hospital. He would later make references to the accident and to that book in his paintings.

His father was physically abusive and he once stabbed Basquiat after he was caught having sex with a male cousin. In school, he drew constantly. He was noted as being talented and angry as a kid.

When he was 15-years-old, he ran away from home and lived for a while in Washington Square Park where he found company and drugs. To support himself, he sold painted T-shirts and painted postcards on the sidewalk where he made friends with fellow struggling young artists Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf. Their little trio became part of the East Village graffiti scene in the late 1970s. Basquiat’s graffiti was especially witty and poetic. He used the tag “Samo” and he decorated his work with the copyright logo. Artists loved Samo and Basquiat became an underground celebrity.

He was charming, intelligent, droll and full of energy. His drugs of choice, heroin and cocaine, made him both euphoric and paranoid.

Basquiat’s big break came with a gallery show in 1981. He presented 15 pieces on lumber and foam rubber found in the rubbish. The pieces were filled with childlike drawings of cars and cartoon characters. All of the works sold at the opening. A demand for original Basquiats grew strong and they sold as fast as he could paint them, going for $5,000 – $10,000.

Basquiat lived and worked in his studio where he walked all over his artwork, ate on them, did cocaine off of them, scribbled phone numbers on them, made lists on them.

In March 1982, Basquiat had another sold-out show that garnered good reviews and lots of attention from the press. His output was phenomenal, fueled by drugs. He would do a painting a day, but he was given to rages about the pressure to paint. He would sometimes slash the pieces with a razor.

In November 1982, he had a show of portraits of his heroes:  Charlie Parker, Jackie Robinson, Joe Louis, at Manhattan’s Fun Gallery. He sold everything from this show also, but Basquiat secretly hid some of his best work so it could not be sold. These canvases were found in a warehouse in Washington Heights years after he left for the great studio in the beyond. They were worth millions.

Andy Warhol was impressed by Basquiat’s energy, youth and talent. Basquiat idolized Warhol, who seemed to embody contemporary culture. He desperately wanted Warhol’s approval. The two artists became inseparable, working and partying together. Warhol hated drugs, and he was appalled, yet intoxicated, by Basquiat’s excesses.

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Warhol and Basquiat had a joint show in September 1985. It was a major media event, followed by a crazy, celebrity filled party at Palladium. But, the show received bad reviews. ArtForum said:

“The real question is, who is using whom here?”

Warhol could not deal with Basquiat’s drug taking and pulled back from their friendship.

NYC’s 1980’s art scene was filled with imagination and intelligence, but it was also bastardized by the Reagan era of greed and the cult of celebrity. Basquiat claimed that all he wanted was to be famous, but his dream of fame turned out to be a nightmare and his life began to unravel.

In 1985, he appeared on the cover of The NY Times Magazine. After Warhol left this world in 1987, Basquiat became increasingly isolated, and his heroin addiction and depression became more of a problem. He made an attempt at sobriety on a retreat to Maui. Basquiat died in the summer of 1988, taken by a heroin overdose in his studio on Great Jones Street in NYC’s NoHo neighborhood. He was just 27 years old.

Among those speaking at Basquiat’s memorial service, attended by over 300 people from the art and music world, was the late, great Ingrid Sischy. Fab 5 Freddy read a poem by Langston Hughes. In his memory, Haring created Pile Of Crowns For Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Basquiat’s unique visual vocabulary, filled with graffiti symbols and urban rage, challenged accepted notions of popular art. His vivid paintings incorporated such diverse images as African masks, quotes from Leonardo di Vinci, Egyptian murals, pop culture, and jazz. The critics called his work childlike and menacing and neo-primitive.

Haring:

“Basquiat’s stuff I saw on the walls was more poetry than graffiti. They were sort of philosophical poems. On the surface they seemed really simple, but the minute I saw them I knew that they were more than that. From the beginning he was my favorite artist.”

Several major museum retrospective exhibitions of Basquiat’s works have been held since his passing. The first was at the Whitney Museum in 1993. The show then traveled to museums in Texas, Iowa, and Alabama. Another major, influential exhibition was at the Brooklyn Museum in 2005.

In this decade, Basquait’s paintings have never been hotter. In 2015, Dustheads, a large painting of a black fisherman, sold at Christie’s Auction House in NYC for 49 million dollars. When Basquiat’s father died in 2013, hundreds of his son’s paintings were found at his home in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.

If you are interested in Basquait, and you should be, check out the film Basquait (1996), directed by artist Julian Schnabel, with wonderful Jeffrey Wright playing Basquiat and our dear David Bowie as Warhol. Or try the documentary, Jean-Michel Basquait: The Radiant Child, directed by Tamra Davis, available on PBS On Demand.

My friend, the theatre designer William Fregosi, based the design of his stage set for the Suzan-Lori Parks play, Imperceptible Mutabilities In The Third Kingdom, on Basquiat’s work. Fregosi:

“The playwright and the painter seemed to me to be completely complementary: she a dazzling writer whose work is filled with vibrant visual imagery; he a painter of brilliant, hard-hitting images whose work is full of text. It was one of my happiest production experiences.”

The post #BornThisDay: Artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat appeared first on The WOW Report.

#12DaysofGiving: The Trevor Project, LGBTQ Teen Suicide Prevention

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Every day until Christmas, we are posting 12 great charitable organizations that can use your donations this holiday season.  Today, we’re highlighting the incredible work The Trevor Project does every year on behalf of the LGBTQQIA community. The Trevor Project is a non-profit organization founded in 1998 that focuses on suicide prevention for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and other queer youth. It was founded in by James Lecesne, Peggy Rajski, and the late Randy Stone – creators of the 1994 Academy Award-winning short film Trevor, a dramedy about Trevor, a gay thirteen-year-old boy who, when rejected by friends because of his sexuality, makes an attempt to take his life. When the film was scheduled to air on HBO in 1998, the filmmakers realized that some of the program’s young viewers might be facing the same kind of crisis as Trevor, and began to search for a support line to be broadcast during the airing. They discovered that no such helpline existed, and decided to dedicate themselves to forming what was, in their view, a much-needed resource: an organization to promote acceptance of LGBTQ youth, and to aid in crisis and suicide prevention among that group.

The Trevor Lifeline was established with seed funds provided by The Colin Higgins Foundation and HBO’s license fee. As a result, it became the first nationwide, around-the-clock crisis and suicide prevention helpline for LGBTQ youth. The project also provides online support to young people through the project’s website, as well as guidance and resources to educators and parents.

They have many wide reaching projects one is TrevorSpace, a social networking site for LGBT and questioning youth ages 13 to 24 and their friends and allies, sort of a safe LGBTI Facebook, if you will. You can find out more here.

Plus, you can find out more about their charitable work, how to donate or even volunteer right here.

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Trevor co-founder James Lecesne with Jennifer Coolidge

Trevor co-founder James Lecesne with Jennifer Coolidge

The Trevor Live staff sends a BIG Thank You to all The Trevor Project supports

The Trevor Live staff sends a BIG Thank You to all The Trevor Project supports

James with Youth Innovator Honoree, Jazz Jennings

James with 2015 Youth Innovator Honoree, Jazz Jennings

(Photos, Instagram/ The Trevor Project)

The post #12DaysofGiving: The Trevor Project, LGBTQ Teen Suicide Prevention appeared first on The WOW Report.

#RIP: Ciao, 40 Year-Old, NYC Restaurant Staple, Da Silvano

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1935080_138419162625_2856312_nDa Silvano, has served its last meal. The celeb hotspot and longtime favorite NYC Italian restaurant closed Tuesday night. Owner Silvano Marchetto blaming rising operating costs including rent that’d risen from $500 a month when the eatery opened in 1975 to $41,000 a month this year.

At last year’s 40th birthday celebration, Marchetto noted the rent increase, but told the Wall Street Journal he’d

“be here all [his] life.”

Critic Frank Bruni wrote in a 2006 review,

“Da Silvano, which received two stars in The New York Times from Ruth Reichl in 1998, has been around for more than three decades. Over that time it has evolved from a trailblazing showcase for unadorned Tuscan cooking to something of a downtown Elaine’s, with a proprietor, Silvano Marchetto, practiced at coddling stars and manufacturing his own luster.”

One by one, they all fall down.

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(via Gothamist)

The post #RIP: Ciao, 40 Year-Old, NYC Restaurant Staple, Da Silvano appeared first on The WOW Report.

December 23rd: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!

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