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5 Teens Who Killed Man By Dropping Rock Off Overpass, Denied Bail

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White and his son

This group of teens, aged 15-17, were arraigned in Genesee County district courtroom after being accused of throwing a 6-pound rock off an overpass near Flint, Michigan, on October 18, fatally injuring 32-year-old Kenneth White.

White was riding home from work when he was struck in the face, head and chest by the rock that crashed through the windshield of the van in which he was a passenger. Kenneth White Sr, White’s father, told CNN affiliate WNEM.

There’s no words to describe it. I’ve buried my mother, my father, and my oldest brother in the last four years and this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

White was engaged to be married and leaves behind a 5-year-old son. A GoFundMe account started by a family friend to help with funeral expenses has raised over $64,000 since last Wednesday.

Amiee Cagle, White’s fiancee, told CNN affiliate WJRT,

He keeps asking about his daddy. And to tell him he’s not coming back has been hard. I try to explain. He’s so young, he’s only 5, he doesn’t understand.

Officials believe Kyle Anger, 17, threw the rock that killed White, but all five boys are being charged with the same counts. The maximum penalty is life in prison.

Anger and Alexzander Miller, 15; Mark Sekelsky, 16; Mikadyn Payne, 16; and Trevor Gray, 15, were arraigned Tuesday and pleaded not guilty, according to Gray’s attorney, Erwin Meiers.

David Leyton, the county prosecutor, said at a news conference on Monday,

To propel the size of boulder down from the Dodge Road overpass to a 70 mph vehicle that’s headed southbound, you ought to know –a reasonable person would know– that that is creating a high risk of great bodily harm, or in this case, death.

The five teenagers are being charged as adults, with one count of second-degree murder each. They are also being charged with conspiracy to commit murder, six felony counts each of malicious destruction of property and two other lesser charges.

You’ve got five children charged with offenses carrying life in prison. One minute they’re looking to going to prom or homecoming and the next minute they’re sitting in a detention center.

(Photos, screen grabs; via CNN)

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#LGBTQ: These Vintage Pics from the National Gay & Lesbian Archives Will Take You Back…

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Five shirtless men pose at the Santa Monica Gymfest. September 1975

Block and J. J. Belanger kissing in a photo booth.
Circa 1953

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives is a resource documenting the history of the queer community. It was founded in 1952, and they recently their celebrated its 65th anniversary as

the oldest active LGBTQ organization in the United States and the largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world.

LGBTQ Nation just posted this fascinating variety of vintage photos that are available in ONE’s online gallery, which features over 600 images.

Have a look and be proud and maybe a little sad too. Given our current POTUS, we’re still fighting for our rights.

Drag quintette, 1971

A Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) protest regarding separation of church and state. August 28, 1974

Harvey Milk speaks at the Los Angeles Christopher Street West pride parade. 1978

Jeanne Cordova and girlfriend Janie Elvin. They met in high school, then met back up at Harvard where they became lovers. Circa 1969

Philadelphia gay wedding. This photograph was part of a set that was deemed inappropriate by a photo shop in Philadelphia and never returned to the customer. Circa 1957

Carolyn Weathers and Denise Crippen kissing on driveway at Morton Avenue. Circa October 1975

Christine Jorgensen, one of the first people to openly discuss having gender-reassignment surgery, signs her biography after speaking at ONE Incorporated. March 9, 1975

Police officers holding hands at the Los Angeles Christopher Street West pride parade in 1972

Dorothy Putnam celebrating her birthday, sitting on the lap of a friend

“Silence=Death” banner raised on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) offices protesting the slow drug approval process. October 11, 1988

(Photos, ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives; via LGBTQ Nation)

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#FirstLook: Margot Robbie is Chilling as Tonya Harding in, “I, Tonya” Watch

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The real Tonya

You remember disgraced ice skating champion Tonya Harding? Well, I, Tonya is one of the most anticipated films of the year and the first trailer has Margot Robbie on the ice, skating to raucous applause, with some hints at shady dealings that need up ruining Harding’s career.

(If you ask me, the beauty is more suited looks-wise to play Harding’s prettier rival, Nancy Kerrigan, but this is Hollywood, kids.)

Craig Gillespie directs. It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, and is set to open in New York and LA on December 8.

Watch.

(Photo, screen grab; via Paper)

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#ScaredFamous: Alaska Isn’t Easily Spooked, “I Spend a Lot of Time with Drag Queens, Which is Pretty Terrifying.”

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Alaska isn’t afraid of scary movies or scary drag queens. (After all, she is one.)

This month, Ms. Thunderfuck appears on VH1‘s Scared Famous as one of 10 reality stars living in a haunted house in Savannah, Georgia and competing in challenges inspired by old horror films. The winner will be able to make a $100,000 donation to the charity of their choice.

Alaska told Bustle that she’s not scared of what’s to come on the series.

I love scary stuff and I’m also not really easily scared because, I mean, I spend a lot of time with drag queens, which is pretty terrifying on its own. So I was looking forward to the challenge.

I always liked Dracula, and I alway wanted to dress up as Dracula when I was a kid because he gets to wear white face makeup and dark black eyes and red lips, so basically Katya’s makeup. He also wears jewelry and a cape and a dress so I love that. I love Dracula, all of his iterations are always very sexy and mysterious.“

The series is hosted by the rapper Redman, with stars from various reality series, like Tiffany “New York” Pollard from Flavor of Love and Eva Marcille from America’s Next Top Model.

The classic horror movies that inspired Scared Famous don’t spook Alaska, but they have inspired her drag.

According to Alaska, Halloween is a door to drag for many,

I think it’s a gateway for so many people because they get to dabble a little bit further than they would ever go. You know they say a billion drag queens are born every Halloween because it’s true. That’s the time when people get to try it as a joke and sort of get their toes wet, and then just see the magic and the power of it.

She says of her time on Scared Famous.

I woke up early I got in drag every single day. It’s weird but it’s also cool being the only drag queen, I like itIt reminded me of what it was like when I was first starting out, amongst my friends I was the only insane person doing drag. So it was sort of like a return to my youth, and I liked that.”

The series was also a chance to raise money for an important cause. Each contestant got to select a charity to donate to should they win, and Alaska chose the the Los Angeles LGBT Center.

I love the LGBT Center, and I think anyone who lives near or around Los Angeles has been touched by the Center in some way. They offer so many resources, especially to young people. I mean these kids, they come out to their families and they are shunned and thrown out of their house and are homeless, and it’s really f*cking hard. The LGBT center is there and they offer so many resources.

VH1‘s Scared Famous premiered October 23. Here’s the first 5 minutes.

Watch.

(Photos, VH1; via Bustle)

The post #ScaredFamous: Alaska Isn’t Easily Spooked, “I Spend a Lot of Time with Drag Queens, Which is Pretty Terrifying.” appeared first on The WOW Report.

WOW Presents Clips: “Halloween” Director John Carpenter Explains What Captain Kirk Has to Do with Michael Meyers

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“WOWPresents: Clips” is our EXCLUSIVE daily peek into the extensive library of WOW shows, interviews, and pop culture ephemera we’ve collected over the last three decades.

Today marks the 39th anniversary of the SCARIEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME OMG, Halloween, so we’ve dug up a 2004 interview clip with the director, John Carpenter from our VH1 show Super Secret Movie Rules: Slashers. In it, he talks about making the film, the story behind the mask, the score (THE TERRIFYING SCORE!), and his favorite scene.

The post WOW Presents Clips: “Halloween” Director John Carpenter Explains What Captain Kirk Has to Do with Michael Meyers appeared first on The WOW Report.

#RIP: Rock ‘N’ Roll Great, Fats Domino

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Photo by Klaus Hiltscher via Wikimedia Commons

Fats Domino was a portly piano playing prodigy from who lived in New Orleans his entire life. His Boogie-Woogie style of R&B made him a true pioneer in the development of Rock ‘N’ Roll with songs such as Ain’t That A Shame, Blue Monday and I’m Walkin’. Domino dominated Pop Music and R&B charts from 1949 through the 1960s.,

He lived in New Orleans’s Lower 9th Ward. He was often spotted leaving his pink mansion and driving his pink Cadillac around the city. When Hurricane Katrina struck on August 29, 2005, and after days of media speculation about whether he had survived, Domino was rescued from his second-floor balcony by a boat. The floodwaters filled his house with mud and debris, washed away his Gold Records, and killed his grand piano. His rescue was the basis for Saving Fats, a tall tale in the late Sam Shepard’s short-story collection Day Out Of Days (2010).

Domino helped break down racial barriers during a career that began in the days of Jim Crow laws that had been designed to keep races apart. He had as many White fans at his concerts as African-Americans. Down Beat Magazine states that Domino’s music was: “doing a job in the Deep South that even the U.S. Supreme Court hasn’t been able to accomplish with its groundbreaking 1954 decision outlawing school segregation.”

Domino:

“As far as I know, the music makes people happy. I know it makes me happy.”

His contribution to the beginning of Rock ‘N’ Roll and his steady stream of big hits was the reason Domino was one of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame’s first ten inductees.

In 1956 Domino said:

“What they call rock and roll is rhythm and blues, and I’ve been playing it for 15 years in New Orleans.”

He was making Rock ‘n’ Roll music before Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Antoine Dominique Domino Jr. was born on February 26, 1928. He played his family’s 78 rpm records on a gramophone that he had to wind up with a crank. When the winding string broke, Domino twirled the records with his fingers. The family bought an old upright piano when he was 10-years-old, and Domino taught himself to play songs he had heard on the radio.

As a teenager, he played at backyard parties and small clubs around New Orleans. His first recording, in 1949, was The Fat Man. It is considered the first Rock ‘N’ Roll record, and it sold a million copies.

In 1955, Pat Boone had a huge hit with a milder version of Domino’s Ain’t That A Shame that was reworked for white listeners. Ricky Nelson recorded I’m Walkin’ two years later. Nelson, unlike Boone, acknowledged the man who first made the song famous and Nelson and Domino sang it together at a 1985 concert.

Blueberry Hill was Domino’s biggest hit, selling more than 5 million records. Blueberry Hill wasn’t new. Cowboy star Gene Autry introduced the song, and Louis Armstrong was among the many other artists who had recorded it. But Domino put his distinctive imprint on that song and everything else he played; it became his signature tune.

Domino had 37 Top 40 singles. Only Elvis sold more records during the 1950s. In 1957, he played 355 live shows around the USA.

The Beatles named Domino as a major influence. John Lennon said Ain’t That A Shame was the first song he learned. Paul McCartney says that Domino was the inspiration for the style of Lady Madonna. How sweet that Domino’s 1968 cover of that song was his last Top 100 record.

He appeared for 10 months a year in Las Vegas in the mid-1960s, but Domino’s sort of sound stopped being popular by the late 1960s and he gave up recording in the early 1970s, yet he kept playing concerts until 2007.

He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987 and the National Medal Of Arts in 1998. Rolling Stone Magazine ranks him Number 25 in its list of the 100 Greatest Artists Of All Time.

His songs have been covered by Elton John, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Bonnie Raitt and Irma Thomas, among many others.

Fats Domino left this world early this morning, taken by natural causes at 89-years-old.

 

 

 

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#BOO!: You Need These Melting Bloody Hand Candles for Halloween

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It’s the perfect gift for Halloween – creepy candles with fingers and palms made of flesh-colored wax on the outside, and blood-red wax on the inside. As the hand melts, a super-icky bleeding effect begins. And when the hand burns away completely, boney skeleton fingers remain, so that you have a skeleton hand to play with! If playing with skelton hands is your thing. I don’t know.

Get your melting hand candles here. Hurry! Halloween is JUST AROUND THE CORNER, OMG.

The post #BOO!: You Need These Melting Bloody Hand Candles for Halloween appeared first on The WOW Report.

The Las Vegas Shooter’s Brother Was Just Arrested for Child Pornography

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That is one seriously disturbed family.

TMZ is reporting today that Bruce Paddock, the brother of Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock, was arrested this afternoon at the assisted living facility where he was living, for child porn. Police were apparently tipped off that it was on his computer, and made the arrest after obtaining a search warrant.

Says TMZ:

We just obtained the complaint, which lists 20 criminal counts, including one for possession of more than 600 images of children in porn, which includes 10 or more of a prepubescent minor. Most of the counts involve sexual exploitation of a child.

Interesting to note that the investigation began before his brother shot up the Vegas music festival earlier this month.

Our sources say before the shooting cops were trying to locate Bruce without success, but after his brother committed his heinous act a tip came in Bruce was living at an assisted living facility.

Wow. And remember, their father was once on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

(mug shot via the LAPD)

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Will Alaska Survive “Scared Famous”? VOTE #TeamAlaska NOW!

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Ten reality stars moved into the Scared Famous house this week and are competing for a chance to win $100,000 for the charity of their choice. DID YOU WATCH? In the premiere episode, the cast had to dig for something in a graveyard with their bare hands (I don’t remember what – vouchers for their charity possibly?). Our girl Alaska Thunderfuck RULED the challenge – she has those damn claws, duh – while others like Yung Joc didn’t fare so well.

I think that bodes pretty well for Alaska’s future prospects on the show, don’t you? She might be on track to win her SECOND CROWN! (If they, in fact, win crowns on this show, I really wasn’t paying attention)

VH1 is conducting a poll to see who YOU think will win. Each week they’ll be updating it, but after this first episode, who do you think will survive?

Go here to VOTE FOR ALASKA, OMG, YAY. Let’s make sure she knows we all support her!!!

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#BornThisDay: Hillary Rodham Clinton

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Photograph by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons

 

October 26, 1947Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton:

“Resist, insist, persist, enlist.”

In June 2000, then candidate for the U.S. Senate Hillary Clinton, marched in NYC’s Gay Pride Parade, the first First Lady to ever march. She walked beside a guy wearing only a pink tutu. Yet, when she first ran for POTUS in 2008, Clinton had the chance to become the undisputed biggest ally for the LGBTQ Rights Movement. But, she didn’t take that chance.

While preparing for a forum on the Logo television network, she asked for advice from her lesbian friend Hilary Rosen, a noted political consultant. Rosen was very frustrated that no mainstream political figures supported Marriage Equality, and she challenged Clinton to speak out for the LGBTQ community that strongly supported her. Rosen:

“We took it personally, You try not to because it’s politics, but in this case, the politics is personal. I know her heart is in the right place.”

Clinton eventually got there, though her change of heart came a year after shifts by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. I don’t fault her for that. I suppose she had to wait until support for same-sex marriage was politically safer. Plus, I don’t care; as long as people do eventually change their minds.

Last year, as the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party, Clinton ran as a strong advocate for the LGBTQ community and a full-fledged supporter of Marriage Equality.

Inauguration Day 1997, White House photograph

 

I also understand why many LGBTQ people were disappointed with the Clintons. William Jefferson Clinton was one the first politicians to reach out to the LGBTQ community for support and as a donor base, but he was unwilling to stand with the community on one of its biggest Civil Rights issues.

The sticking point for many like myself was the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 law signed by President Clinton right before his reelection effort that prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. Hillary Clinton didn’t speak out about her husband’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy for gays in the military either. Maybe, because her influence was so diminished after her failed attempt to fix our health-care system. Still, many LGBTQ activists hoped that she would be the voice for them in the White House. With Republicans threatening to take away funding for HIV/AIDS research, the Clintons offered the best way to have any influence at all.

In 2000, Hillary Clinton said:

“Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and woman.”

Yet, give her props, as a Senator she did oppose George W. Bush’s support for a Constitutional Amendment limiting legal marriage to one man / one woman.  For me, it was confusing to know where she stood on LGBTQ issues.

Jason Collins, the first professional basketball player to come out of the closet, was friends with Chelsea Clinton while living in the same dorm with her at Stanford University. He remarked about just how totally comfortable the Clintons were dancing beside gay couples at Chelsea’s 30th birthday party in 2010. Collins:

“Chelsea kept a diverse inner circle and you know that probably had an effect on her parents’ thinking.”

When Collins come out in 2013, he went to the Clintons for support and advice. Hillary Clinton told Collins:

“There’s going to be a moment where everything is going so fast it feels like it’s moving at a million miles per second. At those moments, just take a breath, and keep going forward.”

When she became Secretary of State, Clinton changed the protocol so that same-sex partners of Foreign Service officers could have the same travel benefits at married couples.

She gave a speech in 2011 where she said:

 “Gay Rights are Human Rights and Human Rights are Gay Rights.”

You didn’t hear Mitt Romney saying anything close, yet, in 2012, when Biden declared on television that he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage, and Obama soon followed, saying: “same-sex couples should be able to get married”; Clinton stayed silent.

With Japanese Foreign Minister Sei Jo Maehara 2013, phto by Master Sgt. Cohen Young, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

In 2013, before the SCOTUS struck down DOMA, Clinton released a video with the Human Rights Campaign stating that she had at last reconciled her feelings and she now was fully behind Marriage Equality. Finally!

I figured that if she could “evolve”, so could I. I openly supported Clinton in 2016, even giving her money. November 8, 2016, was one of the saddest and most freighting evenings of my life. I had suspected that she wouldn’t win, but after PussyGate, I had grown so excited at the prospect of a smart female President who would be a certain ally for LGBTQ people.

Reading about her and watching her for the past year, my admiration has grown.

So, in 2017, let’s let go of the election and consider Hillary Clinton the Fashion Icon. Her 2016 campaign was marked by, among other things, her fashion choices. Every color and style of pantsuit, jacket, and hairstyle was planned, sending a message to her supporters and pushing-back at critics who had been insulting her appearance since she was First Lady. She had to endure comments that even the type of man who wears too-large suits and who uses Scotch tape instead of a tie clip rarely endures. Remember when POTUS wore the pants and jacket from two different suits at a meeting with Senator Tim Scott at the White House in September? Now that was a look.

At an event for International Women’s Day on March 8, Clinton wore a stylish bright red pantsuit, the color associated with the protest as thousands of women marched. I am certain it was meant to show her solidarity with the women and the movement, but she also chose to wear a multi-colored patterned shirt underneath her suit, bolder than any mix of colors that Clinton had worn as a candidate. Maybe solids just do better with independent voters.

Our unstylish, lumpy orange POTUS attacked her as lacking that “presidential look” during the campaign, but he can’t really get away with calling her a pig, dog, or slob when she shows up in a cream-colored wool Oscar de la Renta suit with big chunky gold jewelry like she did at an event last month.

As a guest on Graham Norton’s show last week, Clinton was more relaxed and funny than I had ever seen her. She also had a new hairstyle with bangs, something that wouldn’t have happened during the election unless a major P.R. procedure had been in place. Now, a year later, with a lost election, and some hiking in the woods, Clinton seems to have found a new, bolder, stronger approach to her style and her attitude.

With Graham Norton, SO TV, via YouTube

 

Hillary Rodham Clinton: Secretary of State, Senator, FLOTUS, lawyer and law professor, activist, volunteer, author, mother, grandmother, Fashion Icon. She now dedicates herself to her Onward Together organization, encouraging people to organize, get involved, and run for office. Onward Together advances progressive values and works to build a brighter future.

Clinton:

“Citizen engagement at every level is central to a strong and vibrant democracy. In recent months, we’ve seen what’s possible when people come together to resist bullying, hate, falsehoods, and divisiveness, and stand up for a fairer, more inclusive America.”

“From the Women’s March to airports where communities are welcoming immigrants and refugees to town hall meetings in every community, Americans are speaking up and speaking out like never before.”

“The challenges we face as a country are real. But there’s no telling what we can achieve if we approach the fights ahead with the passion and determination we feel today, and bring that energy into 2017, 2018, 2020, and beyond.”

 

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October 26th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!

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#QueerQuote: Paul Rudnick

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Photo from PaulRudnick.com, ITM

 

“I believe in a benevolent God not because He created the Grand Canyon or Michelangelo, but because He gave us snacks.”

Paul Rudnick

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#OnThisDay: 1977, 40 Years Ago Jean Stapleton and Bella Abzug Announce Big Plans for Women’s Rights

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Photograph from Library of Congress

October 26, 1977– Actor Jean Stapleton (1923-2013) and Bella Abzug (1920-1998), a former member of Congress and chairperson of the National Commission For International Women’s Year, held a press conference on this day. Abzug had been appointed to the commission by President Jimmy Carter. The two women announced details about the upcoming 1977 U.S. National Women’s Conference.

International Women’s Year was part of the United Nations Decade For Women, from 1976 to 1985. The 1977 U.S. National Women’s Conference met in Huston three weeks later and included women from each state in the USA. The conference developed a Women’s National Plan Of Action.

The conference brought hope that passage of the Equal Rights Amendment would be secured. In the meantime, members of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) had pressed for an International Women’s Year with an international conference to address Women’s Inequality worldwide. The USA proposed that this conference not be limited to women, but should be gender neutral, because an all-woman conference would never be taken seriously.

Among the speakers at the U.S. conference: First Ladies Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson, Coretta Scott King, Betty Friedan, Barbara Jordan, plus Abzug and Stapleton. Maya Angelou read the Declaration Of American Women 1977.

An unknown Maxine Waters worked to pass the Minority Women Resolution. Waters spoke of the importance of including minority women’s perspectives in all the planks:

“There is a black perspective in all the feminist issues in the National Plan. Battered women, for example. There’s a special black perspective because of the frustration of men in the black community. Black women have been able to get jobs when black men could not, and are often hired under affirmative action plans because they meet two criteria: 1) as women, and 2) as blacks. The frustration of the men in seeking employment added to other sexist socialization, often leads to wife-beating. When I was growing up, I often saw women beaten in the streets.”

At the end of the conference, Stapleton and Abzug released the National Plan which demanded support for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and more than 100 recommendations for actions to end discrimination against women.

Schlafly, Library of Congress

The Anti-Feminists Movement led by the always charming Phyllis Schlafly had a successful follow-up to the conference. 20,000 conservative women under the direction of Schlafly held their own conference and vowed to uphold Traditional Pro-Family Values. Schlafly’s message that women had everything to lose, and nothing to gain, from Feminism resonated in this increasingly conservative political era. The battles over Reproductive Rights, the Nuclear Family, Child Care, Gay Rights, and the rights of Disabled, Minority and Aging Women, Education Reform, and the Equal Rights Amendment, were the issues most associated by the public about Feminism in the 1970s.

The National Plan Of Action was submitted to the President Carter and Congress, and a month later Carter established the National Advisory Committee For Women. The Senate granted a three-year extension for ratification of the ERA; this unprecedented move was viewed as a major post-conference achievement, despite the final failure of the ERA in 1982, at which point only 35 of the required 38 states had ratified it. Schlafly and her followers helped move the GOP even further to the right and were instrumental is defeating the ERA. Under political pressure, Carter fired Abzug from the Commission. No further action was taken by the Carter or Reagan Administrations or by Congress on The National Plan Of Action. The National Advisory Committee For Women was defunded in 1983.

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It’s the Jay Manuel Beauty Experience – Coming to a Department Store Near YOU!

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Beauty expert Jay Manuel has partnered with his longtime pal Iman and Simon shopping centers to bring his beauty line to brick-and-mortar retail.

According to Women’s Wear Daily:

But instead of inking a contract with a department store or specialty retailer like Sephora or Ulta Beauty, the supermodel and makeup artist have linked with Simon on a series of permanent retail concepts for the makeup line — called the Jay Manuel Beauty Retail Experience — that will be stationed within busy common areas inside Simon shopping centers.

The first location will open on Nov. 16 at the Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City, N.Y. Several more locations are slated to roll out to other Simon properties next year.

The spaces are 20 feet by 20 feet and split into two sections — the “Discover You” side and a “Pro” side (see photo above).

The Discover You spaces are equipped with touch screens on which shoppers can access the brand’s app, which offers free virtual services like shade-matching, color-finding and virtual try-ons. The Pro section is staffed with professional makeup artists who can walk consumers on how to use the products or create a look. Each space is anchored by two monolithic towers featuring screens that play brand videos and stream exclusive content — including FaceTimes with Jay Manuel himself.

Fun!

Says Jay:

“It offers two very distinctive settings — you can go into the Discover You station, self-source and play, do you own makeup and try [products],” said Manuel. Or you can learn from a makeup artist. I wanted to bring the true customer service [in prestige] that has been lost as I’ve found as a consumer myself — you walk into some stores and artists go in and out and it doesn’t leave you feeling empowered. And on either side of the experience all this content is constantly running.”

Why, it’s the future of makeup shopping! Congrats, Jay!

(Top photo of Jay: Pacific Coast News)

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Chloë Sevigny Is the Super-Fab Face of Proenza Schouler’s New Ready-to-Wear Line

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My goodness, she looks all of 21. HOW DOES SHE DO THAT?

Wowlebrity/actress/fashion goddess Chloë Savigny sizzles in the new ad campaign for PSWL, or Proenza Schouler White Label. The ready-to-wear line by cutie-patootie designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez focuses casual lifestyle items like denim, t-shirts, sweatshirts and casual outwear.

The brand says the collection is composed of “everyday wardrobe staples and riffs on a set of references explored in past Proenza Schouler collections: from early Powell Peralta videos to the graphic work of Guy de Cointet, from Harmony Korine’s Kids to the work of friends like Dan Colen.”

And who better to represent that than Kids‘ star Chloe?

Check out some of the campaign’s instantly iconic images above and below.

According to W:

The new collection will officially be available beginning on November 6 at the Proenza Schouler New York stores, its website, and additional online retailers. Prices will start from $195 for printed t-shirts and sweatshirts, $290 for denim and casual trousers, and $575 for outerwear—so you can finally follow in the steps of street style stars and deck yourself out in head-to-toe Proenza.

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WOW Presents Clips: “Thriller” Director John Landis Dishes on the Making of the Iconic Video

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WOWPresents: Clips” is our EXCLUSIVE daily peek into the extensive library of WOW shows, interviews, and pop culture ephemera we’ve collected over the last three decades.

Halloween is just 5 days away, so we’re still sifting through the vault looking for creepy season-related content. And of course, what could be more Halloweeny (HA!) than “Thriller”? Here’s a 1999 interview clip of John Landis from Video Killed the Radio Star: The History of the Music Video, in which he recounts how Michael Jackson approached him for his music video “Thriller,” how they raised the money for the video, and the incredible reception it received.

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#BornThisDay: Writer and Wit, Fran Lebowitz

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Photo courtesy of Steven Barclay Agency

October 27, 1950Frances Ann Lebowitz:

“I am so tired of hearing about what the Trump voters want. I don’t care what they want. How’s that? And you know what? We do know what they want. They want a Confederate flag. We all know what this is about. I’m tired of hearing people, particularly men, explain to me what Hillary Clinton did wrong. Donald Trump didn’t win because he did something right; he won because he did something wrong. We always knew you could win that way — appealing to the worst. You’re just not supposed to win the presidency that way.”

She is one of my writing idols. If you don’t know her, you really should. You can start with the terrific HBO documentary film Public Speaking (2010) directed by Martin Scorsese, a 90-minute talkfest with essayist and humorist Lebowitz explaining almost everything.

“All God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable.”

This Scorsese flick is a sophisticated affair. It is a series of interviews, seamlessly cut, with Lebowitz at the clubby, iconic Waverly Inn in NYC’s Greenwich Village. The film is the world view of this very witty and very cynical New Yorker. She is not all that happy with most of the changes she’s seen in her adopted city since she arrived 45 years ago.

Conversation provided at Lebowitz’s skill level would have been celebrated in another era. Scorsese provides the proof of this with vintage clips that show figures like James BaldwinGore Vidal, and William F. Buckley on talk shows from the 1960s. Lebowitz talks about how she was thrilled and inspired when she was a young person by one of Baldwin’s appearances on the David Susskind Show, pointing out how today’s talk shows are no comparison, with guests that are pre-interviewed and come out to plug their product for five minutes.

“The opposite of talking isn’t listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.”

In Public Speaking, Lebowitz sort of comes out of the closet, to the shock of no one. She seems perplexed that gay people are fighting for MarriageEquality and the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. She says that these issues are the antithesis of freedom and that those are not rights she wants for herself, but she’d vote for them because other gays want them so badly.

Lebowitz is famously paralyzed with what she calls “writer’s blockade” but she has few peers as a public pontificator. Her particular gift for gab has made it possible for her to afford to continue to live in NYC and to hang out with her famous friends.

“Polite conversation is rarely either.”

Born in NJ, her parents owned a furniture store while she was growing up. She was expelled from high school for “non-specific surliness”. Her trademark remains her specialized sneer. Lebowitz decided against college and instead moved to Manhattan. She took jobs driving a taxi and cleaning apartments “with a small specialty in Venetian blinds”.

When she was just 21-years-old she began her column I Cover TheWaterfront for Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine, hired by Warhol himself, before moving over to Mademoisellea few years later.

“Andy Warhol made fame more famous.”

Lebowitz has long promised a novel, Exterior Signs Of Wealth, named for the French conspicuous-consumption tax calculated on the basis of displays of wealth. The novel is supposedly about rich people who want to be artists, and artists who want to be rich people. When asked why the long delay for her first major work of fiction, Lebowitz offers the excuse that she only works on it on the side because “full-time I’m watching daytime television”.

“Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass”

Leibowitz disapproves of pretty much everything except sleep, cigarettes, and fine furniture. Her essays about the difficulty of finding an acceptable apartment to the art of freeloading are classics of social observation. I still re-read her first books Social Studies and Metropolitan Life, both published more than 35 years ago.

Cranky, sardonic, witty and dry; her essays make me think and they make me laugh. She was named one of the most stylish women in Vanity Fair’s International Best-Dressed List, and she is known to wear bespoke suits from Savile Row’s Anderson And Sheppard. On Hillary Rodham Clinton’s sartorial style, Lebowitz states:

“I don’t think she cares. I don’t think she is interested in how her house looks, where her furniture is from, I don’t think she has any visual interests. And there’s nothing wrong in not caring. A man who doesn’t care about what he looks like, he’s applauded. We say, ‘Oh, he’s not superficial!’ I, myself, am deeply superficial.”

Lebowitz had a reoccurring role on the long-running television series Law & Order (1990-2010) as a judge and she has a cameo in Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013). She had the best ever Proust Questionaire featured on the back page of Vanity Fair.

I am mad jealous by the idea of having a successful Manhattan career made from out of a slim pair of volumes of essays and then chatting away for the next four decades. Progress, her first new book in more than 20 years, is scheduled to be published early next year. We will see about that. I think her quips are on a par with those of Dorothy Parker:

“Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he’s buying.”

“If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater suggest that he wear a tail.”

“If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.”

“In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.”

“Romantic love is mental illness. But it’s a pleasurable one. It’s a drug. It distorts reality, and that’s the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw.”

Lebowitz is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, and last year, at the magazine’s third annual New Establishment Summit in San Francisco, Lebowitz weighed in on the election:

“Trump is a poor person’s idea of a rich person. They see him. They think, ‘If I were rich, I’d have a fabulous tie like that. Why are my ties not made of 400 acres of polyester?’ All that stuff he shows you in his house- the gold faucets- if you won the lottery, that’s what you’d buy.”

 This year, she has plenty to say about the impact of what happened on that terrible night, November 8, 2016:

“Every time I see the sentence ‘Paul Ryan is the conscience of the Republican Party’,  I think: What is that? Is that like being the quarterback of the New York City Ballet? But yes, that is where your outrage should be.”

“The worst thing about this is that there’s always outrage over people in show business, who have no actual power. They’re entertainers. We would prefer that they agree with us, and do the right thing. But moral outrage should be reserved for Congress or the Supreme Court. To me, the fact that people can’t tell the difference between these things is why we have Donald Trump as president. People want to be entertained 24 hours a day. And they’re seeking from entertainment what they should be seeking from other branches of life.”

The post #BornThisDay: Writer and Wit, Fran Lebowitz appeared first on The WOW Report.

October 27th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!

#QueerQuote: Andy Cohen

#StrangerThings: Here’s the Soundtrack (Plus) To Get Ready For Season Two Tonight. Listen

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The first season of Stranger Things came seemingly out off nowhere. We love the ‘80s-drenched production values, its fab cast of young newcomers, and that retro, electro-pop soundtrack.

And the timing around Halloween couldn’t be any more perfect for some spooky sounds.

Stranger Things 2 arrives TODAY on Netflix and with this much hype surrounding is it possible for it to live up to expectations? Who cares? I don’t want to know ANYTHING about the new season ’till I watch. For now, just immerse yourself in the sounds of Thriller, Toto‘s Africa and the Jefferson Airplane‘s White Rabbit

“Who ya gonna call? Go ask Barb.”

Listen.

The post #StrangerThings: Here’s the Soundtrack (Plus) To Get Ready For Season Two Tonight. Listen appeared first on The WOW Report.

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