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Summer Beach Reading: “Which Cult Should I Join?: A Choose-Your-Own Guidebook for the Spiritually Bereft” by Jo Stewart

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Obviously our big three religions aren’t doing their job. They’re the cause of almoooooooooost all of the problems we face today, and, frankly, I’m fed up. I’m thinking its time to explore some of the other options out there. Options that don’t, say, want to zap the gay out of you or blow you up on your way to work.

Here to help you decide which direction to go in life is the new book Which Cult Should I Join?: A Choose-Your-Own Guidebook for the Spiritually Bereft by Jo Stewart.

Via Amazon:

A lighthearted—but factual—look at some of the craziest cults in modern history.

Do you prefer applesauce (Heaven’s Gate) to Kool-Aid (Peoples Temple)? Do you think carrots are “the food of the Masters” (Church Universal and Triumphant) or that swimming and joking should be forbidden (the Fellowship of Friends)? This is the book for you! We help sort your E.T.-loving Raelians from your Moonies, your snake-handling Church of God with Signs Following from your Branch Davidians.

To make the path to the reader’s chosen cult easy, Which Cult Should I Join? is structured like a Choose Your Own Adventure book—in that the reader makes a series of decisions along the way to come to their chosen cult. And with forty of the most high-profile modern cults covered, we have one to suit every reader.

See you at the Great Leader’s compound!

 

The post Summer Beach Reading: “Which Cult Should I Join?: A Choose-Your-Own Guidebook for the Spiritually Bereft” by Jo Stewart appeared first on The WOW Report.


Derrick Barry on Hey Qween! Elle Bradford’s Summer Look Book! Nipple Play with Watts the Safeword! And MORE! New Videos From the WOWPresents MCN!

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Check out the latest videos from our WOWPresents Network! Hey Qween, Elle Bradford, Watts the Safeword, The Ryan & Amy Show, Paul Richmondand SO MANY MORE all have new videos from the WOWPresents Network!!! Watch all these and more right now on the WOW Report!

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






















The post Derrick Barry on Hey Qween! Elle Bradford’s Summer Look Book! Nipple Play with Watts the Safeword! And MORE! New Videos From the WOWPresents MCN! appeared first on The WOW Report.

May 26th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!

#BornThisDay: Singer / Composer, Peggy Lee

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May, 26, 1920Peggy Lee:

“I knew I couldn’t sing over them, so I decided to sing under them. The more noise they made the more softly I sang. When they discovered they couldn’t hear me, they began to look at me. Then they began to listen. As I sang, I kept thinking: ‘softly with feeling.’ The noise dropped to a hum; the hum gave way to silence. I had learned how to reach and hold my audience- softly, with feeling.”

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 and she was hot.

It now seems just too perfect 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 and have a ball… if that’s all …there is.”

I decided to take the singer’s advice.

Lady And 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 and she had voiced several of the characters.

With Judy Garland (1964)

As a kid, I totally dug her albums: Black Coffee (1956), Dream Street (1957), and I Like Men! (1959). But as I became a callow youth I also became a fan of The Beatles, The Supremes, and The Kinks. I forgot about the parental unit’s album collection as I favored my own. Then one afternoon in 1969, I heard Is That All There Is? on the radio and I was hypnotized. I bought the single and played it over and over, sometimes stealing little sips of my father’s whiskey from the forbidden liquor cabinet.

The enigmatic, existentially bleak Is That All There Is? was written by the great songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. For me, it’s about how everything ultimately is anticlimactic in life. There is a line of that song that devastates me: “And then one day he went away and I thought I’d die, but I didn’t.” I loved it as a young teenager, but it really is a perfect song as an old person, questioning the meaning of life and wondering if a lot of it had been for naught. Lee’s recording magnifies the question. Lee was one of the ultimate truth-tellers.

Lee’s Diva behavior behind that cool jazz exterior places her as one of the true great Gay Icons, in the same league as Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, and Liza Minnelli. Lee was one of the greatest interpreters of American popular music; a singer, a songwriter, an actor and an innovator. Her popular music is a map to the best of Jazz, Blues, Swing, Latin, and Rock. She recorded over 650 songs and released 60 albums. Lee is best known these days for her smooth, sultry 1958 cover of the 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 and #2 on the jazz charts in 2001.

Lee was one of the few of the traditional pop singers to successfully embrace the songs of the kids, with recordings of songs by: The Beatles, Randy Newman (who served as arranger and conductor of Is That All There Is?), Carole King, and James Taylor. From 1957 until her last recording in 1993, Lee routinely released two albums a year including standards, her own compositions, and 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 an Academy Award for her performance 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, and with extraordinarily expressive minimalism. She uses vibrato and volume sparingly. Lee was not known to be spontaneous. She liked to rehearse, and every gesture, lip curl and lifted eyebrow was planned. She kept detailed notes of lighting, costume, cosmetics, and choreography.

There is detached mystery and coolness to Lee’s recordings. Even with all of those kitschy wigs, over-the-top costumes and drag queen-ish makeup, there is still something so cool about her. She mythologized herself to an extravagant degree and she padded her life story, but I can’t think of an example of a record where she ever sang an untrue word or emotion. I don’t know of a more honest singer. A lonely woman with too much man trouble, she lived her love life on stage, singing it to strangers. I find that very touching.

Lee carried a great deal of pain. Anger was a major source of creative fuel for her. So were rejection and abandonment. Lee had a rough childhood, four miserable marriages, diabetes and a drinking problem. Her life was troubled, but Lee never comes across as a tragic figure to me. But, she does seem nutty. She once insisted to Truman Capote that in a past life she had been a prostitute in Jerusalem and that she remembered the crucifixion:

I’ll  never forget picking up the Jerusalem Times and seeing the headline ‘Jesus Christ Crucified.'”

Lee had a date with producer Quincy Jones, but as he kept her waiting she drank so much that when he arrived she was passed out and she was wearing black face! Once, when her limousine broke down in route to an awards ceremony, she rolled her way down Wilshire Boulevard in a wheelchair in full Peggy Lee drag: Cleopatra wig, huge dark sunglasses and a white gown trimmed with lots of white fur.

But not too nutty, she famously sued Disney Studios for royalties from her contribution to Lady And The Tramp and won $2.3 million. Lord, I hope Disney doesn’t do a live-action remake of this one!

Again, that voice, it is extraordinary how much her singing manages to accomplish while seemingly doing so little.  There is mystery in that voice, sly and inaccessible, yet natural and simple. Her minimalism is used to create big effects. Lee is the antithesis of today’s overwrought American Idol style of vocals.

I think we are ready for a quality biopic about Peggy Lee. In 2014, I heard some buzz that Nora Ephron’s screenplay was going to be filmed by Todd Haynes with Reese Witherspoon in the lead role, but it did that Hollywood thing where the project became an puff of smoke.

Lee continued to perform into the 1990s, sometimes from her wheelchair. She left this world in January 2002, taken by diabetes at 81 years old. She was cremated and her ashes are buried at The Garden Of Serenity in Westwood Memorial Cemetery in LA. Her marker reads:

 “Music is my life’s breath.”

The post #BornThisDay: Singer / Composer, Peggy Lee appeared first on The WOW Report.

#FlashBack’67: Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”

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May 26, 1967Respect Goes To Number One On The Pop And R&B Charts

In the mid-1960s, a not-quite-so-famous gospel singer, Aretha Franklin from Detroit, had a career that was just starting to take off. She had two R&B singles that cracked the Top 100 in 1965 and 1966 with the songs One Step Ahead and Cry Like A Baby, and she was also reaching the Easy Listening charts with the ballads You Made Me Love You and (No, No) I’m Losing You. Franklin had even booked appearances appeared on Rock N’ Roll television shows like Hollywood A Go-Go and my favorite, Shindig!. But, the execs at Franklin’s record label, Columbia, didn’t really see her potential, and did not understand how to use Franklin’s early gospel background to grab an audience. Columbia’s biggest acts at the time were Simon & Garfunkel, Barbra Streisand and Bob Dylan.

In January 1967, Franklin chose not to renew her contract with Columbia after six years with the company, and she moved over to Atlantic Records. As soon as she signed with Atlantic, she traveled to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to record at the famed FAME Studios to record a song that she had personally chosen, I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You), live, with the musicians of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. The song was released in February and reached Number Nine on the Billboard Hot 100, giving Franklin her first Top Ten Pop single. The song’s b-side, Do Right Woman, Do Right Man, missed the Pop charts, but reached the R&B Top 40, peaking at number 37.

Franklin went to a NYC to try to jump-start her career. No one could have known at the time, but the next song that Franklin recorded would go on to become one of the greatest recordings of all time.

It was produced by Jerry Wexler, the visionary record executive behind the careers of Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, and Dusty Springfield. He chose it to open the album

In the liner notes he writes:

“Aretha Franklin has the qualities of the superstar. When we recorded this album, there was one unvarying reaction: Every time Aretha began a song, the musicians would shake their heads in wonder. After each take was completed, they would rush from the studio into the control room to hear the playback. Producers, engineers and musicians alike were entranced by Aretha’s purity of tone, her tremendous feeling for inspired variation and her unparalleled dynamics.”

If Franklin’s force-of-nature vocals on Respect aren’t impressive enough, she also simultaneously accompanies herself on piano.

Respect hit the top of the charts in May 1967 and turned Franklin into a Soul Queen and a Feminist Icon. The track was a clever gender-bending version of a song by Otis Redding, whose original had reinforced the traditional family structure of the time: The man works all day, brings money home to wife and demands her respect in return.

Franklin’s version blew that structure apart. A huge difference was that in Redding’s version, he doesn’t spell out “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” like Franklin does. It also doesn’t have the backup singers and their cool “sock-it-to-me” answer to Franklin’s lead. So much of what made Respect a giant hit, and an empowerment anthem, came from Franklin’s own arrangement of the tune.

Franklin:

“My sister Carolyn and I got together. I was living in a small apartment on the west side of Detroit, piano by the window, watching the cars go by, and we came up with that infamous line, the ‘sock it to me’ line, and some of the girls were saying that to the fellas, like ‘sock it to me’ in this way or ‘sock it to me’ in that way. It’s not sexual. It was nonsexual, just a cliché line.”

On a wave of luscious horns and funky electric guitar and those cool back-up vocals, Respect became Franklin’s first Number One Hit.

Franklin’s version of Respect was a transformative moment in cultural history, for the Women’s Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movement. And, it made Franklin a star.

Despite those royalties, Redding wasn’t all that happy about Franklin’s take on his song. But, he came to accept that Respect no longer belonged to him, and he changed the way her performed it when he did it at the Monterey Pop Festival a few weeks later in June 1967. He went onstage and announced:

“This next song is a song that a girl took away from me…”

But, he used her arrangement.

Just two days before Franklin had recorded the song, President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on the 158th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. He called for an end to racism, which he condemned as:

“Man’s ancient curse and man’s present shame.”

Right after the record’s release, LBJ signed an executive order that expanded affirmative-action legislation to cover sexual discrimination.

In Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs, they name Respect one of the Top Five Greatest Songs Of All Time, saying:

“Franklin wasn’t asking for anything. She sang from higher ground: a woman calling an end to the exhaustion and sacrifice of a raw deal with scorching sexual authority. In short, if you want some, you will earn it.”

Two decades later, Franklin went on to become the first woman inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall. So far, she has sold more than 80 million records, won 18 Grammy Awards and scored more than 44 Top 40 singles.

The post #FlashBack’67: Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” appeared first on The WOW Report.

Tickets for the RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 9 Finale ARE NOW AVAILABLE!!!

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Omgomgomg, WHAT a season! The drama! The lewks! The shockeroo eliminations! Has you ever experienced the nonstop nuttiness of this year’s episodes? I’m still gagging over Gaga, the clubkid challenge, “Teets and Asky,” 9021HOCharlie‘s final moments, Valentina‘s final moments, and poor, sweet Eureka‘s bum knee(to name just a few standout moments). Can you believe it’s all coming to end? Yes, June 9 is the taping of the season 9 finale, and you KNOW you want to be there! Here’s how you can be a part of HERstory…

The RuPaul’s Drag Race Grand Finale season 9 will be held at the Alex Theatre in Glendale and TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE NOW!

See you there, squirrelfriends!

And remember, it’s NOT JUST a finale, there’s also the fabulous pre-show audience warmups with superstars like The Haus of Edwards, and other surprises!

The post Tickets for the RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 9 Finale ARE NOW AVAILABLE!!! appeared first on The WOW Report.

‘American Gods’ Goes Full Frontal! Can We Forgive Billy Bush? And More! The Top Ten Things That Make Us Go WOW! for Radio Andy on Sirius XM!

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From Hollywood Boulevard, it’s The WOW Report for Radio Andy on SiriusXM! That’s right WOWers, World of Wonder Co-Founder Fenton Bailey, Executive VP of Development Tom Campbell, and WOW Report Editor James St. James have collaborated with reality TV guru and friend of WOW, Andy Cohen, on a weekly Top Ten Countdown of the things from the past week that make us go…WOW!

It’s a pop-culture obsessed hour complete with colorful diatribes, opposing opinions, and a dissection-like discussion that will make your drive home from work more fabulous!

We air TODAY at 4PM EST on SiriusXM, and again at 4PM PST (7PM EST). You can also catch it on the SiriusXM app!

Let’s get started…

10) CW’s Dynasty Reboot Makes Us Slap Happy

The trailer for the rebooted Dynasty has it ALL! Some things my have changed – the show is now set in Atlanta and Sammy Jo is a male to name a couple – but one thing remains the same…THE DRAMA! We’ll be tuning in this fall when it premieres on the CW on Thursdays after Riverdale.

9) American Gods on Starz Goes Full Frontal

James St. James has been watching American Gods on Starz, and he’s obsessed. Can you blame him? There are hot guys, an awesome cast (Kristen Chenoweth, Gillian Anderson, Crispin Glover), and there’s even penis! Watch American Gods Sunday nights at 9PM on Starz or on the Starz App.

8) Are K-Pop Sensations BTS Bigger Than the Beatles?

Many of us here in the USA had never heard of BTS before Sunday night’s Billboard Awards, but they won the social media vote BIG TIME with 300 MILLION votes! So even though we haven’t heard of them here in America, that doesn’t mean the rest of the world isn’t already K-Poppin’ to their hits!

7) Can We Forgive Billy Bush?

We haven’t heard much from Billy Bush since the fallout from Trump’s “P*ssy Grabbing” tape got him fired from his gig at The Today Show, but he’s finally breaking his silence. Read what he had to say to the Hollywood Reporter, and then listen in to the show to see what we think about it.

6) We All Scream for Alien: Covenant

We discuss the latest film in the Alien franchise, its gorgeous design elements, and weirdly homoerotic robots (played by Michael Fassbender). Alien: Covenant is in theaters now.

5) Get Me Roger Stone is the Sinister Forrest Gump

We discuss the Netflix documentary Get Me Roger Stone about the evil man who has wanted to see Donald Trump as President of the United States since the 1980s.

4) Million Dollar Listing New York Adds a New Hunk!

Million Dollar Listing New York returned last night with Ryan Serhant, Fredrik Eklund, and new real estate agent Steve Gold. Did we mention he is GORGEOUS? Tune in to MDLNY Thursdays at 9PM on Bravo.

3) Is Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” Transphobic?

That’s what the University of Guelph in Canada thinks. They even apologized to their students for playing the song because it was “hurtful to our friends in the trans community.” We discuss how we thought Lou Reed meant it as a celebration of his friends, and how WOWlebrity Holly Woodlawn, who’s mentioned in the lyrics, absolutely loved the song.

2) Netflix’s Casting Jon Benet Provides a Different POV

The documentary Casting Jon Benet is about the famous case of the young slain beauty queen Jon Benet Ramsey, but instead of trying to solve the case, the film makers filmed actors auditioning for the roles of the Ramsey family and key players from the trial. Watch it on Netflix.

1) Monica Lewinsky and the Culture of Humiliation

Longtime wowlebrity and anti-cyberbullying advocate Monica Lewinsky wrote movingly of her experiences with FOX news in the wake of former former Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes death, remembering him as the man who built a media empire on the back of her affair with former President Bill Clinton. She also noted, quite correctly, that our whole “culture of humiliation” – of cyberbullying and chyrons, trolls and tweets – was forged on FOX news in 1998, during her very public takedown. It’s your must-read of the week.

Listen in at 4:00PM EST and again at 4:00 PST (7 PM EST) on SiriusXM! Or listen whenever you want on the SiriusXM App!

And be sure to give your ears the gift of THE WOW REPORT on Radio Andy SiriusXM EVERY Friday.

Do something this weekend that makes YOU go WOW!!!

The post ‘American Gods’ Goes Full Frontal! Can We Forgive Billy Bush? And More! The Top Ten Things That Make Us Go WOW! for Radio Andy on Sirius XM! appeared first on The WOW Report.

In Honor Of Andy Cohen’s ‘Love Connection’ Revival, Here’s 10 Dating Shows That Should Also Make A Comeback!

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(Image via Andy Cohen’s Twitter)

Did you watch Love Connection last night?!?

As many of you, I’ve been anticipating FOX’s Love Connection revival, hosted by our very own Andy Cohen (does he ever sleep?!?), for, like, forever! The show premiered last night, Thursday May 25th, at 9/8c, and it was pretty brilliant! Thank you, Andy Cohen, for reviving this masterpiece!

As I watched last night’s episode, and was inundated with promotion after promotion before that, it totally got me thinking about all the juicy stories that are destined to come from this season.

You know what else the episode inspired me about? What OTHER iconic, dating shows are there that could be revived in addition to Love Connection! There are SO MANY.

Here’s some of my favorite 2000’s dating shows that I think should totally be revived immediately!

10. Dismissed

Dismissed had a simple concept. One dater, two potential lovers, and time out cards for individual make out sessions. One potential lover gets dismissed at the end of the episode. A winner and a loser are all you need to make a perfect show.

09. Change of Heart

Can I pitch an idea? I’m pitching an idea. Get the James St. James to host a Change of Heart revival immediately. Can you imagine?! The savage face of the Changer, the devoured face of the Keeper…James’ reaction! This needs to happen!

08. Date My Mom

Squealing over how addicted to this show I was! There was always that one mother, in each episode. One was put together and sane. Another deliberately would state the reason to not date her child. Finally, there would be an entirely delusional mother who would convince the Dater to choose her child…someone who was essentially fan fiction in a mother’s heart. I’d love for a Date My Dad…but I’d probably be considered a father snatcher afterwards.

07. Joe Millionaire

While Joe Millionaire‘s still-hunky Evan Marriott has openly spoke about his troubles post-reality television, I completely ship another season of Joe Millionaire. I highly doubt anyone applying for dating shows now was old enough to have watched the show during it’s first run, so they wouldn’t know there is a chance of “dating” a fake millionaire…unless they’re reading this article. With Social Media running our lives, it’s possible for anyone to fake or be a millionaire. I’d get easily fooled!

06. Parental Control

If you ran home to grab a snack after school and watch Parental Control, we’re automatically friends. The premise once again involved parents, but this time, the parents choose contestants to compete with their child’s current significant other. In conclusion, the parent’s kid gets to select their current partner or someone their parents recommend. At the end of the day, you still find out your parents despise the person you’re dating. THE DRAMA! Bring this back!

05. Room Raiders

We’ve all seen the Zac Efron‘s appearance on Room Raiders. You’d be lying to the world if you wouldn’t bust out of that genky van and run into your room to be with him! Room Raiders literally grabs you from your bedroom and forces you to sit with two other people as your potential new lover goes through your room, discovering the tissues you’ve been using to stuff your bra or…clean up with. This show definitely had it’s “Holy Shit!” moments and for those, we need this in our lives once again!

04. Blind Date

Have you been living under a rock? Then you haven’t heard of the brilliant, dating show, Blind Date. A couple would meet simply based off of a producer’s recommendation. Then, they are sent to have awkward car rides, arousing mini dates, and finally a dinner that ended with glasses being thrown or disrobing in a hot tub. The best part of Blind Date: the sarcastic pop-ups that are featured throughout the shows run. They say exactly what we are thinking.

03. NEXT

The premise: One dater awaits five potential loves who sit on a bus anonymously. The longer the potential suitor stays with the dater, the more money they earn. In the end, the suitor gets to decide if they want to continue the date or keep the cash. The hilarity of NEXT was genuine! From making actual connections to getting Nexted immediately after stepping off the bus.  NEXT needs to be revived and I will be first in line to audition and await my Next-ation.

02. 5th Wheel 

“…Where strangers become friends, friends become lovers, and lovers become bitter, suicidal exes all on the same show.”

Formerly hosted by WoWlebrity, Aisha Tyler, 5th Wheel takes the flawless idea of setting up dual-blind dates. After the daters mix and match through various adventures, a sultry, slutty fifth wheel is invited to try and steal one of the original foursome. In the final moments of the episode, the daters select their picks and someone is almost always left walking away the sole loser…and it was usually never the fifth wheel. I’m shipping Michelle Visage to be the revival host. She would chew the scenery..and hopefully a few of the daters!

01. Elimidate

One dater would take five, potential suitors on a variety of dates. After each date, someone would get eliminated until there was only one remaining and a love connection was made.

The competition was always heated, the characters were always ridiculous, and this was the best dating show that hasn’t been revived yet! PLEASE! Hear my call! REVIVE!

Need more Andy Cohen in your life? You catch him hosting Then & Now on Wednesdays at 10/9c on Bravo!

The post In Honor Of Andy Cohen’s ‘Love Connection’ Revival, Here’s 10 Dating Shows That Should Also Make A Comeback! appeared first on The WOW Report.


18 Obvious Signs That Prove We ARE Getting Dumber

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You might have seen that Trump, while on his Middle East trip told Israelis that he

“just got back from the Middle East.”

This is the President of the United States. So, it’s no wonder that it seems, if you look around there are signs that we ARE getting dumber. Note below, as well as the fact that we elected Trump POTUS. #Sad

(via Sad and Useless)

The post 18 Obvious Signs That Prove We ARE Getting Dumber appeared first on The WOW Report.

Spoiler Alert! RuPaul’s Drag Race S9 Ep 10 | John Polly’s Extra Lap Recap “Makeovers: Crew Better Work”

May 27th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!

#BornThisDay: Impresario, Allan Carr

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Carr (R) with Steve Rubell and Olivia Newton-John at the opening of Grease

May 27, 1937Allan Carr was a True American Original. Mostly forgotten now, he once was a top power player in that business we call show. Certainly in Hollywood, Carr was the only power broker who was out of the closet in the 1970s.

As a manager, Carr controlled the careers of Ann-MargretMarvin Hamlisch, and Joan Rivers. He was responsible for taking a chance on unknowns: Mark Hamill, Michelle Pfeiffer and Steve Guttenberg.

I proudly indulge in camp whenever possible, and I’m not talking about sleeping outdoors. I get dizzy for a really good bad film: Valley Of The Dolls (1967), Roadhouse (1989), Terror In Tiny Town (1938) are all on my list of movies so ridiculous that they transcend crummy to become truly iconic cinema experiences. Showgirls (1995) is my number one Good Bad Movie, but Can’t Stop The Music is right behind it. The 1980 musical epic was the only time The Village People starred in a film, proving that it takes a village. Producer Allan Carr cast Can’t Stop The Music with a lot of ex-boyfriends, but on the set they got out of hand and Carr issued an edict:

 “Anyone caught having sex on the set will be fired!”

Nothing says 1970s hedonism like an Allan Carr Production. But then there was nothing else like the very ostentatious, obese, ornate caftan-wearing Carr.

He built a fortune by betting on showbiz possibilities. While still in college, he invested $750 in a Broadway production of The Ziegfeld Follies, starring Tallulah Bankhead. The payoff was handsome and Carr continued to reinvest his winnings in hit after hit, making tons of dough. He also produced events and premiers, including an infamous formal-dress party hosted by Truman Capote at the LA County Jail in 1963.

Allan Carr Enterprises, formed in 1966, managed the careers of: Rosalind Russell, Dyan Cannon, Nancy WalkerPeggy Lee, Mama Cass Elliot, Paul Anka, Frankie Valli, George Maharis, and Herb Alpert. He personally looked after Ann-Margret, producing a string of television specials for the star in the 1960s and 1970s. He insisted on casting her in the film version of Tommy (1975), one of her best roles, bringing her an Academy Award nomination. Carr produced and promoted the films: Grease (1978), Grease 2 (1982) Where The Boys Are ’84, Tommy (1975), and the Broadway production of the gay dream team Jerry Herman’s and Harvey Fierstein’s musical La Cage Aux Folles. Grease remains the highest grossing musical film of all time.

The Broadway version of La Cage Aux Folles (based on a 1979 French film) was a critical and box-office sensation, sweeping the 1984 Tony Awards with six wins, including for Best Musical. The show, about an aging gay couple, ran at the Palace Theater on Broadway for five years and has been revived on Broadway in 2004 and 2010, each time collecting more Tonys and packed houses.

Carr also produced the 1995 presentations of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Cyrano de Bergerac and Much Ado About Nothing on Broadway and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. The productions earned a total of 10 Tony nominations, including two for Carr as producer.

Carr always kept busy hosting exclusive extravagant events with guest lists that included showbiz legends and those that loved them. The invitations to the gatherings at his opulent mansion, with nine bars, a disco, and plenty of private rooms where guests could indulge in cocaine and sex, were highly coveted even in the homophobic Hollywood of the 1970s.

He titled his parties as if they were films: Roman Polanski’s Rolodex Party, The Rudolph Nureyev Mattress Party, The Mick Jagger Cycle Sluts Party, Truman Capote’s Jailhouse Party. He invited rock stars and Hollywood royalty to his affairs. At a Carr fete you might rub-up against Elton John, Groucho Marx, or the pool boy. To promote the opening of the film Tommy, Carr held the opening-night party in the NYC subway.

Carr’s fall was as dramatic as his rise. He was banned from the Academy Awards after producing what is fondly remembered as the Worst Oscar Broadcast of all time, with a tone deaf Rob Lowe and Snow White singing Proud Mary. Carr had hired Steve Silver to produce the opening number inspired by Silver’s long-running San Francisco musical revue Beach Blanket Babylon. Like BBB, the opening act featured dancers wearing giant, elaborate hats. In a setting designed to resemble the Coconut Grove nightclub, Golden Age Hollywood stars Doris Day and Cyd Charisse were featured, while a very gay Merv Griffin sang his 1949 hit I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts. Watching the broadcast, I felt certain someone at the Academy Awards watching party I attended had slipped me some angel-dust.

Gregory Peck, Julie Andrews and Paul Newman signed a petition forever dis-inviting Carr from all future Academy Awards. Disney Studios sued the Oscars for copyright infringement over the use of their Snow White character. A Breakout Superstars Of Tomorrow segment in the program’s last half featured 12 minutes of young actors like Christian Slater and Patrick Dempsey writhing at the foot of a giant Oscar statue as if it were the Golden Calf. It took a lot of guts and a lot of cocaine to come up with a show this demented… and Carr gets the credit.

Soon after, the showbiz establishment shunned the sizzling sex and the drug scandals, and the sordid lifestyle of the flamboyantly gay Carr. Grease may have been the word, but nothing opened-up Carr like pretty parties, pretty caftans, pretty drugs and pretty boys. After appearing in Carr’s Can’t Stop The Music, Bruce Jenner was left gender-confused. We know how that turned out.

In 1999, Carr left this party for good, taken by that damn cancer. His ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean by Ann-Margret in front of his former Diamond Head Estate on Oahu.

 

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#LGBTQMustSee: “The Good Fight” Has a Sharp Lesbian Edge

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I didn’t watch The Good Wife (2009-2016) when it first started to air. It took Stage-4 Cancer and an extended stay in the hospital to make me a fan, when in a rare hour of quiet, I watched an episode and I was gobsmacked. Of course, I was also on a Morphine drip.

When I was at last back home, The Husband and I watched 133 episodes to catch up, starting with the pilot, sometimes watching four a day. I began a list of Broadway actors who were making guest appearances, some with a story arc that lasted for several episodes, some returning from time to time, several who are series regulars and some just doing tiny bits.

Here is the list, incomplete because I ran out of steam at some point.

David Hyde Pierce

Malcolm Getz

Tovah Feldshuh

Craig Bierko

Kate Burton

Boyd Gaines

Laura Benetti

Denis O’Hare

Jerry Adler

Dick Latessa

Joanna Gleason

Martha Plimpton

Karen Olivo

Linda Emond

Ana Gasteyer

Bebe Neuwirth

John Glover

F. Murray Abraham

Jane Alexander

Edward Herrmann

Joe Morton

Fred Weller

Michael Cerveris

Mary Beth Peil

Alan Cumming

Nathan Lane

Anika Noni Rose

Kelli O’Hara

Dallas Roberts

Stockard Channing

Steven Pasquale

Audra McDonald

Leslie Uggums

Harvey Fierstein

Kristin Chenoweth

When the series wrapped-up its seven-year run, I wasn’t so disappointed. It left at a good time, never equaling its roller coaster ride of a fifth season, but always engrossing.

I was not unhappy when it was announced that there would be spinoff of The Good Wife. The Good Fight picks up where its legal procedural predecessor left off. Diane Lockhart (Broadway’s Christine Baranski) decides to retire, leaving behind the law firm she helped start to move by herself to France and write a book. But, everything changes when old friend, Henry Rindell (Paul Guilfoyle), loses her retirement savings in a Ponzi scheme. The press labels Rindell the “next Bernie Madoff.”

I am just zany for Baranski, and it is wonderful to have her back on series television only months after The Good Wife had ended. But, smartly the spinoff focuses on new characters.

Leslie and York

Maia Rindell is played by Rose Leslie, who you might recognize from Game Of Thrones and Downton Abbey. She has just started at Lockhart/Agos & Lee, the law firm Lockhart is leaving. When her father is arrested, Maia is harassed by strangers who blame her for their misfortune. Even Diane, her godmother, can’t look Maia in the eye. It is a clever beginning. In its pilot, The Good Wife starts after Peter Florrick (Chris Noth), the State Attorney for Cook County, is accused of misusing public funds to hire prostitutes. After going to prison, his stay-at-home wife, Alicia (Julianna Margulies), is forced to return to her law practice. She is shunned in public.

The pilot for The Good Fight echoes its predecessor, but, unlike The Good Wife, it focuses on a same-sex relationship from the start. Maia’s girlfriend is Amy (Heléne Yorke), also a lawyer. They are introduced to the audience as they passionately make-out in the shower after Maia passes her bar exams. It is just a small moment but a big step for television.

Lately, LGBTQ characters have been well represented on primetime television: Luisa (Yara Martinez) on Jane The Virgin, and Connor (Jack Falahee) on How To Get Away With Murder. There have even been queer characters in the leading role: Kenny (Noah Galvin), a gay Catholic high school student on the just canceled The Real O’Neals; and Annalise (Viola Davis), a bisexual law professor are among the very few who are the center of a show. Last year, GLAAD found that only five percent of characters on network series are LGBTQ. But most of these characters remain supporting or guest roles.

Maia’s storyline is the focal point of The Good Fight, and that is revolutionary. Executive producers Michele and Robert King, took some heat when The Good Wife’s best character, Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi) teased the audience with being bisexual. Panjabi was the first member of the main cast to win an Emmy Award, playing the emotionally remote private investigator with a thing for a leather wardrobe. But the series never found anything interesting for her to do with her sex life as the show progressed, often throwing Kalinda into bed with the nearest character, male or female.

The Good Fight seemed so promising that I upgraded my Apple TV so I could subscribe to CBS All-Access, the streaming service that offered the 10-episode series. You can’t catch it on traditional network airings. Still, streaming services like Amazon and Netflix allow for LGBTQ characters to go farther than any others shows in the history of broadcast television. CBS All-Access will also stream Star Trek: Discovery later this year. It is set to feature a black female lead and gay crew members.

Amazon’s Transparent and One Mississippi and Netflix’s Orange Is The New Black feature queer protagonists in complex, nuanced relationships. Transparent is about a transgender woman and has two generations of LGBTQ women with storylines.

There are more LGBTQ characters on streaming services than broadcast television, even though that are fewer shows. GLAAD claims 65 queer series regulars and recurring characters on Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. CBS aired the first episode of The Good Fight on network television to entice viewers to make the switch to streaming.

The terrific and terrifically named British actor Cush Jumbo is also a lead on The Good Fight, reprising her role as Lucca Quinn in the Good Wife. Gay Icon Bernadette Peters has a recurring role. Cutie pie Justin Bartha, who played gay on Ryan Murphy’s The New Normal (2012-13) has nice supporting role, as do gay actors, Jane LynchJohn Cameron Mitchell (as a thinly disguised Milo Yiannopoulos), John Benjamin Hickey, and Anthony Rapp, all Broadway veterans.

John Cameron Mitchell, Photograph by Elizabeth Fisher/CBS

Most of The Good Wife’s regulars are back, but Julianna Margulies’ Alicia Florrick does not appear, although she has hinted that she might show up next season.

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#NSFW: The Hilarious Jenifer Lewis Sings About Her “P*ssy Bone Broke” By a Camel!? Watch

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Award-winning composer Marc Shaiman (Hairspray) is on some sort of world tour with his husband, Lou Mirabal, and the incredible (and hilarious) Jenifer Lewis (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). Somewhere along the way there was an incident with a camel. Shaiman said on the Facebook post (that’s so far gotten, over 3,000 shares and 200,000+ views),

“The story of Mongolia can finally be told. This song is not safe for work, women, children, goats, yaks, nomads, certain body parts or – and especially – camels.”

Watch.

The post #NSFW: The Hilarious Jenifer Lewis Sings About Her “P*ssy Bone Broke” By a Camel!? Watch appeared first on The WOW Report.

Helen’s Mirren Pokes Trump, Warning Graduates, “No Good Can Ever Come From Tweeting at 3 A.M.” Watch

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Dame Helen Mirren gave the commencement address at Tulane University last Saturday and in between dirty jokes and Trump digs, she got to some pretty serious stuff, like feminism. But she also hoped that graduates remember in the future that no good can ever come from tweeting at 3:00 A.M. And…

Today’s speech will contain advice for any of you born in England who decide to become Shakespearean actresses, and end up doing nude scenes in 10 films. I mentioned that just to see if any of your fathers are getting out their cellphones now to Google me. Dads. Stop. Inappropriate. Put it away…

I mean the phone!”

An excerpt is the first clip and the full speech below that.

Watch.

The post Helen’s Mirren Pokes Trump, Warning Graduates, “No Good Can Ever Come From Tweeting at 3 A.M.” Watch appeared first on The WOW Report.


The New Yorker’s Barry Blitt Imagines the Post-Presidential Work of Artist Donald J. Trump

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After his time as POTUS was over, George W Bush took up painting with mixed reviews. The New Yorker‘s Barry Blitt (man of 80+ covers) imagines what artist Donald J. Trump‘s work might be like next year after he leaves the White House. I know I’m being optimistic, but one can hope.

All of his greatest hits and misses are here – mad Melania, Bill O’Reilly hanging’ around, money and cake and Ivanka in the shower. I have to disagree with one image though. I don’t think he can see his feet.

(Illustratons, Barry Blitt; The New Yorker)

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Ariana Grande Announces Benefit Concert in the “Incredibly Brave City” of Manchester

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A vigil in Albert Square near the Manchester Arena, the day after a bomb explosion killed 22 people

Four days after a deadly terror attack claimed the lives of 22 people and injured scores of others at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, the pop star has announced she’s hosting a benefit concert to raise money for the victims and their families.

In an open letter shared on social media she said,

My heart, prayers and deepest condolences are with the victims of the Manchester Attack and their loves ones. There is nothing I or anyone can do to take away the pain you are feeling or to make this better. However, I extend my hand and heart and everything I possibly can give to you and yours, should you want or need my help in any way.

The only thing we can do now is choose how we let this affect us and how we live our lives from here on out. I have been thinking of my fans, and of you all, non stop over the past week. The way you have handled all of this has been more inspiring and made me more proud of you than you’ll ever know. The compassion, kindness, love, strength and openness that you’ve shown one another this past week is the exact opposite of the heinous intention it must take to pull of something as evil as what happened Monday.”

Grande revealed she plans to return to the “incredibly brave city” of Manchester for a benefit concert, suggesting that she’ll be joined by other musicians, who have yet to be announced.

In the wake of the attack, the singer canceled all dates on her Dangerous Woman tour until June 5, while the fate of the rest of the tour remains in limbo.

From the day we started putting the Dangerous Woman Tour together, I said that this show, more than anything else, was intended to be a safe space for my fans. A place for them to escape, to celebrate, to heal, to feel safe and be themselves. To meet their friends they’ve made online to express themselves. This will not change that.

Red the full letter below;

Mourners at a vigil near the Manchester Arena, the day after the explosion

Flowers and messages of condolence for the victims of the Manchester Arena

(Photos, Pacific Coast News; via Huffington Post)

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Melania Trump Steps Out in a $51,000 Dolce & Gabbana Jacket (& the Internet Flips!)

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Dolce & Gabbana has been one of the only fashion houses to embrace First Lady Melania Trump and she took advantage and went out in Sicily on the first day of the G-7 summit wearing a bright, floral jacket that retails for $51,500! The jacket isn’t even available in stores yet, but it’s already sold out on Moda Operandi, where you have to put down a $25,750 deposit.

Designer Stefano Gabbana gushed about Melania on his Instagram page, posting pics with hearts #DGWoman. She also wore a sparkly custom Dolce & Gabbana outfit (below) to a concert by the La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra.

D&G were also the designer of choice to her meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican.

During the NATO summit in Brussels on Thursday, Melania wore head-to-toe D&G to a meeting with Queen Mathilde of Belgium.

The designers have been nothing but proud of the first lady’s preference for his clothing — which she wore for her first official portrait — even as critics have attacked him on social media.

On his Instagram he posted,

“Isn’t it weird? Yesterday at 11pm we had 13.7 million followers. Today at 12 AM after all the people saying ‘unfollowing you’ we have 13.7 million #DGHaters #boycottdolce&gabbana #DGLAVERITA,’”

I don’t know anybody that wears their clothes (unless it’s free.) You can be their old pal Madonna won’t be wearing it in public anytime soon.

#Repost @stefanogabbana @flotus ❤❤❤❤❤🌸🌸🌸🌸🌺🌺🌺 #DGWoman #melaniatrump #Taormina ❤🇮🇹 THANK YOU

A post shared by Dolce & Gabbana (@dolcegabbana) on

#Repost @stefanogabbana @flotus ❤❤❤❤ #melaniatrump ❤ #DGWoman #DGStyle ❤❤❤🇮🇹🇺🇸 THANK YOU

A post shared by Dolce & Gabbana (@dolcegabbana) on

#Repost @stefanogabbana @flotus ❤❤❤❤ #melaniatrump ❤❤#DGWoman THANK YOU ❤

A post shared by Dolce & Gabbana (@dolcegabbana) on

(via NY Post)

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#HistoricalHottie: Alexander Graham Bell

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Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)

He invented the telephone and, just as amazing, also the metal detector! He was just so damn sexy. Look at that beard. He looks like he should be playing bass in a hipster band in some tiny Portland bar on a stage lit only by party lights and the broken dreams of the performers. I bet Thomas Watson got all horny when he heard those first words, whispered huskily through the mouthpiece: “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” Hawt.

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You Won’t Be Able To Stop Watching Yannis Mashall’s Tribute to George Michael –It’s Just “Too Funky!”

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Yanis Marshall says the late George Michael was one of his big inspirations. In his latest dance video, the choreographer paid tribute to Michael with the track “Too Funky.”

Marshall said the choreography for this number was made up on the spot and features dancers from his classes at Broadway Dance Center in New York.

Watch.

And if you can’t get enough of it, here’s the original…

(via NewNowNext)

The post You Won’t Be Able To Stop Watching Yannis Mashall’s Tribute to George Michael –It’s Just “Too Funky!” appeared first on The WOW Report.

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