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WOW Presents Clips: Celebrating the Last Days of Britney’s Las Vegas Residency with Clips from “I Am Britney Jean”

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It seems like just yesterday Britney Spears began her record-breaking Las Vegas residency at Planet Hollywood. (Actually, it’s been four years and one day – but who’s counting?).

According to Wikipedia:

The show, which features many of Spears’ hit songs, is performed 50 times per year and was named “Best of Las Vegas” in 2015. As of February 2017, the show has grossed over $135 million with over 980,000 attendees, making it one of the most successful residency shows in Las Vegas.

But like all good things, it’s coming to an end New Years Eve, with a massive blowout and scores of sobbing super-fans and all sorts of special surprises, I’m sure. To celebrate, we’re counting down the days with clips from WOW’s 2013  two-hour E! documentary I Am Britney Jean about the prepping of her residency.

Today, two clips. In the first, Britney sits down with her show director for their first creative meeting!

In the second, Britney meets with her manager to create the setlist for the tour!

More I am Britney Jean clips in the coming days!


#RIP: Showbiz Icon, Rose Marie

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Broadway and television actress Rose Marie, perhaps best known for her role as Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show, died today.

The recent documentary, Wait for Your Laugh tells her story of the longest active career in entertainment. Born Rose Marie Mazetta on August 15, 1923, in New York, she began performing at age 3 by winning an amateur contest that took her to Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Rose Marie worked in vaudeville, Vegas, Broadway, movies, television, theatre, concert halls and nightclubs. Along the way she was known as “the kid” by the mob. She called Al Capone, Uncle Al, opened the Flamingo in Las Vegas for Bugsy Seigel, and had her career protected and nurtured by “the boys.”

Her friends include the best show business has to offer: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Johnny Mercer, Jerry Lewis, Johnny Carson, Jimmy Durante, Milton Berle, Doris Day, Margaret Whiting and Bing Crosby to name just a few.

Rose Marie sang for Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and FDR and toured the night club circuit with Rosemary Clooney, the aunt of actor George Clooney.

She had a career that spanned nine decades and was also famous for appearing for years on the game show The Hollywood Squares in 629 of the show’s episodes.

Rose Marie starred in several of the earliest talking films, such as Baby Rose Marie. According to The National Museum of American History, she donated items to the museum, including her trademark black hair bow and shoes from her radio days.

Rose Marie was 94.

(via CNN)

#BornThisDay: The Amazing Cross-Dressing Musician, Billy Tipton

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Tipton, center standing, with the trio

 

December 29, 1914Billy Tipton. I first became aware of her when she died in Spokane, the city where I grew up, and where the truth was discovered.

Tipton was a woman who lived as a man for 53 years, from 21-years-old until her final curtain call at 74-years-old. Her three adopted sons never suspected a thing. Here is the fun part: Tipton lived with five women over five decades, all of them attractive females, even va-va-vavoom hot. She had intercourse with all five, and yet none of them noticed that her man was a woman, well, number four figured it out eventually. Like her thousands of fans, Tipton’s girls were hoodwinked by one of the greatest performances of all time.

Dorothy Lucille Tipton decided to become Billy Tipton in 1935, ostensibly because it was the only way an aspiring female jazz musician could get work in a nearly exclusively male avocation. The ruse wasn’t really all that difficult. Tipton had a boyish face and a figure that wasn’t what they used to call “curvy”. She did have a big bust, but no waist. With a sheet wrapped around her chest, padding in the crotch, along with a man’s wardrobe, she passed for male. Tipton was even boyishly good-looking. Girls found “him” adorable, plus Tipton was in a band as a talented pianist, horn player, and singer. Girls liked that.

At the start, Tipton was strictly a crossdresser, making no effort to hide her gender during those times when she wasn’t making music. She lived as a lesbian with a woman with the nutty name of “Non Earl” Harrell. Initially they were based in Oklahoma City, but by 1940 the couple had moved to Joplin, Missouri, unbelievably, at the time, the entertainment center of the Midwest. In Joplin, Tipton began to pretend to be a male full-time, a pose she adopedt for the rest of her life.

Tipton and Harrell split-up in 1942. After a relationship of a few years with a singer named June, Tipton took up with Betty Cox, a pretty 19-year-old. They were together for seven years. Cox later claimed that they had a particularly passionate heterosexual relationship. She even believed that she’d had a miscarriage. I sometimes I think I don’t really know my husband, but after the first seven years, I think I figured out which sex he was. Just like my husband and me, Tipton and Cox only made love in the dark. Don’t most people?

Tipton never removed her underwear and she wore a jockstrap that was fitted with some sort of special stuffing. She wore massive chest bindings at all times, supposedly for an “old injury”. She never allowed herself to be touched below the waist. She refused to share a bathroom. Cox may also have been distracted. She dated other men while she was with Tipton.

In 1958, Tipton had her own jazz trio with a growing reputation. She was on the verge of a successful career as a musician. A Reno nightclub offered to book the trio as their house band. But instead, Tipton took a job as a booking agent in Spokane. She also got a regular gig playing with the house band at a club called The Tin Pan Alley (it is still there, but it has been renamed The Bing Crosby Theatre after Spokane’s most famous native). The band played swing standards rather than the jazz that Tipton preferred. Her performances also included sketches where she imitated celebrities like Liberace and Elvis Presley. In some of these sketches, she played a little girl, but she never impersonated a woman, and she made jokes about the queers. Perhaps she feared fame would lead to her unmasking and she felt she’d gone as far as she dared.

In 1960s Spokane, Tipton married a pretty, but troubled stripper named Miss Kitty Kelly. She later claimed that she and Tipton never had a sex life, but in other respects they lived a stereotypical working-class Spokane life. They adopted three boys, but neither could handle the kids when they became teenagers. After a bitter fight in 1980, Tipton moved into a trailer with her sons. From there it was all downhill. The boys split, Tipton couldn’t find work, and she was afraid to go see a doctor.

This is when I read the astonishing story of Billy Tipton in an article in the Spokesman Review newspaper, sent to me by my parental units who still lived there. It seems that Tipton had remained in Spokane, living in poverty, until she collapsed and died in 1989. It was the paramedics who were trying to revive her who uncovered the truth about Tipton. Death must have come as some sort of relief; at that point, Tipton had been pretending for 54 years.

After her passing, Tipton literally became a poster boy for raising consciousness about the confusion around biological sex and gender. Her image appeared in San Francisco on the cover of a how-to book for cross-dressers, transgendered people and transsexuals. Artists appropriated her as a symbol. A group of avant-garde female jazz musicians from Seattle called themselves The Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet. Tipton’s obituary provided the story line for an opera titled Billy. Thinly disguised versions of her story also formed the plots of several plays including Stevie, by Eduardo Machado, that was first staged at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles by gay British actor, Simon Callow, and The Slow Drag by Carson Kreitzer, produced Off-Broadway. Talented singer-songwriter-cabaret artist Nellie McKay performed her biographical show about Tipton, A Girl Named Bill:The Life And Times Of Billy Tipton at NYC’s 54 Below in 2014.

Tipton’s life demonstrated that gender  is a performance; she was an actor, and Billy was her role. Her initial act of cross-dressing was a brilliant, problem-solving prank, but Tipton soon discovered that being taken for a man provided access to almost everything she wanted: music, travel, adventure and the love of good women.

December 29th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!

#QueerQuote: “Money, Pardon the Expression, Is Like Manure. It’s Not Worth a Thing Unless It’s Spread Around, Encouraging Young Things to Grow.” – Dolly Levi

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Photo by Julieta Cervantes, Broadway World, via YouTube

 

For me, one of the high points of 2017 was Bette Midler’s 4.5-minute Tony Awards acceptance speech where she was determined to get every last “thank you” in, and defying the play-off music. Winning Best Performance of an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical, Midler reveled in her time onstage

I love watching the Tony Awards, but I will always remember 2017 as the year Kevin Spacey hosted and mockingly, winkingly came out of the closet. It was his final appearance on an awards broadcast.

Midler started her acceptance speech with:

“I am so privileged, I am so honored to receive this from you all tonight,” the Hello, Dolly! I hope I don’t cry. I have so many people I’d like to thank.”

Then she rattled off a long list of fellow actors, mentors and showbiz types including her makeup artist, agent, and Carol Channing, the original star of Hello, Dolly!.

At one point however, the play-off music started up, urging her to wrap up her 1.25 minute allowed speech, but Midler kept going, overpowering the orchestra and quipping:

“Shut that crap off!”

The audience roared with laughter.

Midler continued with:

“I just want to say that revival is an interesting word. It means that something is near death and it’s been brought back to life. Hello, Dolly! never really went away. It has been here all along. It’s in our DNA. It’s optimism, it’s democracy, it’s color, it’s love of life. It’s hilarity. This is a classic. Come and see it. It’s not just me! This has the ability to life your spirits in these terrible, terrible times.”

Offstage, Midler continued her speech in the press room, apologizing for all the names she had somehow missed during her speech.

Later that night, she tweeted:

“In all the pandemonium tonight I neglected to thank the brilliant ensemble of Hello Dolly!, whom I adore. Please forgive me kids! I’m old!”

Midler returned to Broadway in the revival of Jerry Herman’s much loved 1964 musical beginning in April. It won four 2017 Tony Awards. Twice a week, glamorous Donna Murphy stepped in for Midler. In two weeks, Tony Award winner Bernadette Peters will be taking over the role.

The original production and tour featured a long line of amazing women, and a couple of guys, playing Dolly Levi: Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye, Betty Grable, Pearl Bailey, Phyllis Diller, Ethel Merman (for whom it was written), and Mary Martin. There was also Ruth Gordon on Broadway in the source material, Thornton Wilder’s play The Matchmaker, and Shirley Booth in the film version of the play; and of course, Barbra Streisand in the film version of the musical.

After Bernadette Peter’s steps out of the role, I’d like to see another lengthy list of actors playing Dolly Levi in the current revival. It could run for years; the original lasted seven Broadway seasons, playing when Cabaret, Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar were on Broadway. How about Sarah Silverman, Sandra Bernhard, Glenn Close, Audra McDonald, Patti LuPone, Twiggy, Cher and Kevin Spacey? Oprah? How about Streisand? Eventually, it could become like the revival of Chicago and Scott Rudin could plug-in models and television stars for short runs: Mariska Hargitey, Kerry Washington, Kate Moss?

WOW Presents Clips: The Bye Bye Britney Countdown Continues with Two More Clips from “I Am Britney Jean”

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As we mentioned yesterday, Britney Spear‘s super-successful Las Vegas Residency is coming to an end New Year’s Eve after three extraordinary years. To celebrate the glory that is our golden-haired pop princess, we’re posting a number of clips from WOW’s 2013 documentary I Am Britney Jean.

First up, today: Britney holds auditions to select her dancers for her tour!

Next: Britney and her team make their final selections.

More clips tomorrow!

#WTF!?: Trump Just Fired His Entire HIV/AIDS Council Without Warning or Explanation…

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Members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) got an envelope from FedEx yesterday. Inside was a short letter informing them they had been fired without warning.

Six members of the council resigned in June to protest Trump‘s apathy towards the epidemic and his attempts to take health care access away from people living with HIV/AIDS.

The PACHA was created in 1995 during the Clinton administration to provide recommendations about the government’s response to the HIV epidemic. The Bush administration continued the council’s charter and during the Obama administration the council created and monitored the National HIV/AIDS Strategy.

Scott Schoettes, HIV Project Director at Lambda Legal, wrote in Newsweek why he and five of his colleagues decided to leave the PACHA.

“The Trump Administration has no strategy to address the on-going [sic] HIV/AIDS epidemic, seeks zero input from experts to formulate HIV policy, and—most concerning—pushes legislation that will harm people living with HIV and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease.”

After the news broke that the remaining members had been fired, Schoettes fired off a response on Twitter, writing

“No respect for their service. Dangerous that #Trump and Co. (Pence esp.) are eliminating few remaining people willing to push back against harmful policies, like abstinence-only sex ed.”

Former council member Gabriel Maldonado, CEO of the LGBT and HIV/AIDS group Truevolution, confirmed the firing to the Washington Blade, saying the “explanation is still unclear.”

“I can only speculate.”

Maldonado pointed to a recent news report that the CDC had been banned from using words like “transgender,” “science-based,” “vulnerable” and “diversity.” The CDC director has denied those words are “banned” and said they were suggestions on how to get a project funded under the Trump administration. Maldonado told the Washington Blade.

“I was co-chair of the disparities committee, so much of my advocacy and policy references surrounded vulnerable populations, addressing issuing of diverse communities, specifically looking at the impacts of the LGBT community, namely, the disproportionate impact of HIV and AIDS to people of color, gay men, transgender women. And a lot of those key vulnerable populations are not being prioritized in this administration.”

VP Mike Pence, who has been running the administration behind the scenes as Trump continues his Twitter wars with the media, science, and fellow politicians, openly anti-LGBT and has shown resistance to fighting HIV. He will likely be influential in picking replacements for the now-fired councilors.

As Indiana’s governor, Pence refused to take action as an HIV epidemic swept through the southern portion of the state due to intravenous drug use. State and national authorities begged Pence to institute a needle exchange program and eventually Pence reluctantly agreed to “test” the program after national outcry.

Experts and now-former members of the council expect new representatives appointed by Trump/Pence to focus on failed abstinence-only programs while ignoring the communities most affected by the virus – people of color and LGBT people.

(Photo, YouTube; via LGBTQ Nation)

In a New Interview Trump Mentioned One Word 15 Times -“Collusion is Not a Crime.”

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Yesterday at Mar-a-Lago, Trump decided to sit down and chat with a reporter for The New York Times for 30 whole minutes.

The Times released excerpts of the conversation between Trump and reporter Michael Schmidt. He is OBSESSED with the word collusion. If you ask me, the lady doth protest TOO much.

1. “Frankly, there is absolutely no collusion. That’s been proven by every Democrat is saying it.”

2. “Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion.

3. “There is no collusion.”

4. “I think it’s been proven that there is no collusion.”

5. “I can only tell you that there is absolutely no collusion. Everybody knows it. And you know who knows it better than anybody? The Democrats. They walk around blinking at each other.”

6. “I saw Dianne Feinstein the other day on television saying there is no collusion.”

7. “I actually think it’s turning to the Democrats because there was collusion on behalf of the Democrats.”

8. “There was collusion with the Russians and the Democrats….

9. “A lot of collusion.”

10. “There was tremendous collusion on behalf of the Russians and the Democrats.”

11. “There was no collusion with respect to my campaign.”

12. “But there is tremendous collusion with the Russians and with the Democratic Party.”

13. “He’s a liberal Democrat. I watched Alan Dershowitz the other day. He said, ‘No. 1, there is no collusion.”

14. No. 2, collusion is not a crime…”

15. “…but even if it was a crime, there was no collusion.'”

Wonder, was this all by design, to now have his council reinterate that “collusion” is not a crime?

(Photo,YouTube; graphic, Trey Speegle; via CNN)


That Time George Clooney Surprised 14 of His Best Friends with Suitcases FULL OF $$$$ (Guess How Much?)

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George Clooney recently sold his tequila company pocketing close to half a billion dollars, but even BEFORE he was that rich, he did something SO cool. Clooney’s Casamigo‘s partner, Rande Gerber told MSNBC’s Hardliners the story..

In 2013, Clooney invited of his 14 best friends to his house for dinner and when they got there, they found black suitcases waiting for each of them at the table.

After giving a speech about his gratitude for all of them, he had them open the bags.

We opened it up, and it’s a million dollars in $20 bills. Every one of us — 14 of us — got a million dollars. Every single one of us. We’re in shock. He goes, ‘I know we’ve all been through some hard times, some of you are still going through it. You don’t have to worry about your kids, you don’t have to worry about, you know, school, you don’t have to worry about paying your mortgage.’”

Wow, that must have been the best feeling, for his friends of course, but also for George himself. That’s my new favorite story. (via The Cut)

#Ouch: Annual List of Various Things We Got Stuck in Our Throats, Penises, Vaginas & Butts

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Kids, our year-end tradition continues for the fourth year. Deadspin publishes the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s database of emergency room visits and they always boggle the mind. There are some perennial faves, but always some new surprises. Like..

SWALLOWED STAPLES BECAUSE ‘ALIENS TOLD HER TO’”

And the very unsexy,

WAS HAVING SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH BOYFRIEND WHEN HE PUT PHONE AND MONEY IN VAGINA.

And, you know, which of us has not been…

AT A PARTY HAVING FUN WITH MALE FRIENDS WHEN ONE PUTS A SHOT GLASS UP YOUR RECTUM.

I know you’ll find some cringe worthy, if not LITERALLY gag-worthy. Sorted by orifice, from north to south:

E A R

• BOBBY PIN

• SMALL RED TOY

• “WAS RUNNING WITH A STICK IN EAR; FELL STRIKING WALL”

• BREAD

• BATTERY

• “FELL ASLEEP WITH A PENCIL POKED IN HIS RIGHT EAR, PENCIL LEAD IN EAR CANAL”

• BROOM STRAW

• SLIM METAL ROD

• “STUFFED PAPER TOWEL IN EARS TO ACT AS EAR PLUGS BECAUSE ROOMMATE WAS SNORING, UNABLE TO GET IT OUT OF EAR”

• PUTTY

• A BEAN

• “GASOLINE IN LEFT EAR WHILE CHANGING FUEL FILTER”

• PENCIL SHAVINGS

• STEM OF A PLASTIC FLOWER

• RAIN WATER

• TWO STICKERS STUCK TOGETHER

• “GOOGLY EYE INSIDE HIS RIGHT EAR, AND ANOTHER THROUGH NOSE”

N O S E

• CANDY WRAPPER

• FUZZY ARTS AND CRAFTS BALL

• “SHOVED PLASTIC TOY UP IN BOTH NOSTRILS”

• GUM

• PINK BALLOON

• WAD OF HAIR

• “HOLDING A BOX OF JUICY JUICE AND THE STRAW WENT UP NOSTRIL”

• HEART-SHAPED NECKLACE PENDANT

• “PLAYING WITH A DIME ABOVE HEAD AND LOOKED UP WITH COIN FALLING INTO NOSE”

• “STUCK HAIRPIN INTO NOSTRIL TRYING TO CLEAR BLOOD CLOT FROM NOSEBLEED”

• FISHTANK GRAVEL

• FISHING LURE

• BABY BOTTLE NIPPLE

• ONE MAGNET IN EACH NOSTRIL

T H R O A T

• OPEN SAFETY PIN

• CIGARETTE

• “A COUPLE PIECES OF DECORATIVE GLASS FROM A VASE”

• DIARY KEY

• EASTER EGG

• “SWALLOWED STAPLES BECAUSE ‘ALIENS TOLD HER TO’”

• AQUARIUM THERMOMETER

• “SWALLOWED EARRING IN HER SLEEP THAT WAS IN MOUTH WHENSHE FELL ASLEEP”

• SEWING NEEDLE

• “SWALLOWED A PEN BECAUSE NO ONE PAID ATTENTION TO HIM”

• ANGEL’S TRUMPET SEED PODS

• GRITS

• “A GOLDEN SHINY PENNY”

• “WAS DOING A MAGIC TRICK AND ACCIDENTALLY SWALLOWED A QUARTER”

• GROW CAPSULE

• CONFETTI

• “FOUND AFTER SWALLOWING 1/2 PACK OF GUM IN ROOM AT HOME, EMPTY WRAPPERS EVERYWHERE”

• HOT SAUCE PACKET

• “INJURED AFTER EATING CHARGING END OF CELL PHONE”

• EARWIG

• “SWALLOWED 3 PLASTIC PUSH-PINS IN A DARE AT SCHOOL, WON $15″

P E N I S

• A LITTLE SCREW

• A SHARP TOY

• FOUR INCH LONG METAL SEX TOY

• PLASTIC SPOON

• PIECE OF DOMINO

• PIECE OF PLASTIC SHAMPOO BOTTLE

• “PUT PAPERCLIP THROUGH URETHRA AND PUNCTURED THROUGH THE SHAFT OF PENIS”

• COAXIAL CABLE

V A G I N A

• SCENTED SOAP

• DEODORANT LID

• “WAS CLEANING SELF IN SHOWER WHEN FOUND A TAMPON IN VAGINA. CONCERNED THAT THERE IS ANOTHER TAMPON IN VAGINA”

• BOTTLECAP

• PENIS RING WITH SPIKES ON IT

• A PIECE OF RUSTY METAL

• SILICON BALLS. PATIENT STATES IS FOR “YOU KNOW, FOR WHEN YOUR HUSBAND LEAVES TOWN”

• A BALL

• BIKE REFLECTOR

• “ON PERIOD, INSERTED NON-BIRTH CONTROL SPONGE IN VAGINA SO SHE COULD SWIM”

• HEADPHONES

• HOT TOWEL

• “WAS HAVING SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH BOYFRIEND WHEN HE PUT PHONE AND MONEY IN VAGINA”

• CLAY

• CANDLESTICK

• LOLLIPOP

• “USING MASSAGING URETHRAL VAGINAL STONE BALLS & THE STRING HOLDING 15 BALLS TOGETHER DISSOLVED, CAN ONLY FIND 14 BALLS”

• TOY MAGIC WAND

R E C T U M

• GOLF BALL

• PEANUT BUTTER JAR

• SPRAY BOTTLE

• CURTAIN ROD

• “STUCK A TOY UP HIS RECTUM BECAUSE HE THOUGHT HE WAS CONSTIPATED”

• TOOTHBRUSH

• TOOTHBRUSH HOLDER

• FLOSS CONTAINER

• MOUTHWASH BOTTLE

• “AT A PARTY HAVING FUN WITH HIS MALE FRIENDS WHEN ONE PUT A SHOT GLASS UP HIS RECTUM”

• SMALL WOODEN KNICK-KNACK

• SCREWDRIVER

• PLASTIC FORK

• TOY MISSILE

• PLASTIC VIBRATING DILDO, CAN NOT TURN OFF

• “ATTEMPTED TO DISLODGE A DILDO FROM HIS ANUS USING A LETTER OPENER”

• CIGAR TUBE TO RELIEVE HEMORRHOIDS

• “FEELING LONELY, USED A MASCARA CONTAINER IN PLASTIC BAG, PUT IN RECTUM”

• TIN CUP

• HAIR BRUSH

• “WAS DRINKING WITH FRIENDS AND ‘GOT TO EXPERIMENTING,’ AIR FRESHENER CONTAINER STUCK IN ANUS”

• MARBLES

• A LARGE BOTTLE OF SHAMPOO

• “SAT IN BATHTUB AND FELT SOMETHING GO INTO HER ANUS”

• CAT FOOD CAN

• BAG OF ORAL TOBACCO

• “WATER BOTTLE IN RECTUM, DOES THIS TO REDUCE ANXIETY”

• 3 AA BATTERIES

• 2 AAA BATTERIES

• D BATTERY

• “PATIENT SAID I HAVE A COIN IN MY ASS FROM A MONTH AGO”

(via Deadspin)

#BornThisDay: Writer / Composer, Paul Bowles

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1961., photo by Allen Ginsberg, via YouTube

 

December 30, 1910– Paul Bowles:

“I’ve always wanted to get as far as possible from the place where I was born.”

He was one of the last surviving members of a generation of gay artists whose work shaped 20th century literature and music. In the introduction to Bowles’s Collected Stories (1979), Gore Vidal stated:

“His short stories are among the best ever written by an American: the floor to this ramshackle civilization that we have built cannot bear much longer our weight. It was Bowles’ genius to suggest the horrors which lie beneath that floor, as fragile, in its way, as the sky that shelters us from a devouring vastness.”

Bowles thought of himself first as a composer. His music is as full of light as his fiction is dark. In the early 1930s, he studied composition with gay composer Aaron Copland, with whom he had an affair, and he was also a protégé of gay composer Virgil Thomson. As a couple, Copland and Bowles travelled extensively in Europe during their love affair. They settled for a while in Paris where they hung out with Ezra PoundJean CocteauGertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Bowles nihilistic personality irritated Stein who encouraged both Bowles and Copland to travel to Tangiers. It was a journey that changed Bowles’ life:

“As a result of this arbitrary action, my life was permanently altered. If Morocco had been then as it is now, I should have spent the summer and gone away, probably not to return. But Morocco in 1931 provided an inexhaustible succession of fantastic spectacles.”

Bowles was a musical sophisticate who had a working knowledge of an enormous range of music: Film Scores, American Folk, Jazz, South American, Mexican and Moroccan music, plus many other genres. Bowles music from this period is similar to the experimental sounds of Eric Satie. He composed Operas, Ballets, Orchestral Pieces, music for choirs, and songs.

In NYC in the 1930s, Bowles became one of the most important composers of American Theater Music, producing moody instrumental pieces that enhanced plays by Tennessee Williams and other playwrights. Bowles:

“Climax-less music, hypnotic music in one of the exact senses of the word, in that it makes its effect without the spectator being made aware of it.”

Bowles was born in NYC. His father was a cold, inflexible man who was full of secrecy, characteristics that would mark Bowles’ own life and writing. As a boy, Bowles had few friends and found solace in his writing. He attended college, but academic life did not interest him and he moved to Paris in 1929, when he was just 18-years-old. After that, he would spend most of his life outside his native USA.

Vis Wikimedia Commons, public domain

 

Bowles’ literary reputation focuses on his fiction, but until he was 35-years-old, he mostly composed poetry. Bowles was gifted in a number of literary fields: Short Stories, Autobiography, Travel Writing, and translations of works from authors of the Africa and the Arabian worlds.

In 1930s Berlin, he met the gay writers Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood. Isherwood gave the name Sally Bowles to the main character in his story Goodbye To Berlin (the source for the musical Cabaret) as a nod to his friend.

With Copland, Bowles explored Morocco and the Sahara, Algeria and Tunisia. He was entranced by what he perceived to be the transcendental nature of North African life as well as by a society with a sort of tolerance of homosexuality.

In 1938, he had married fellow writer, Jane Auer, and in 1947, they went to live in Tangier. Jane Bowles had already published the lesbian themed Two Serious Ladies (1943), which became the inspiration for Paul to take up prose as a serious endeavor. She had explored gay relationships in both her private life and in her fiction. He was mostly gay and she was almost exclusively lesbian. They were devoted to each other.

bowles-both

Jane and Paul, from NY Public Library Archives

 

With the arrival of the Bowles, the Tangier ex-patriot community grew. American writers and artists, the literary, the louche, and the loaded came to pay their respects: William S. BurroughsAllen GinsbergTennessee WilliamsRick PeckCecil BeatonMick JaggerTruman Capote, and others, all visited and socialized with the smart, sexy Bowles. The atmosphere of Tangier, plus the experimental drug use and sexual expression, proved liberating and stimulating to the Americans. Life in Morocco was exotic and easy. Tangier was a city where anything could be had for very little money, where homosexuality was forgiven, where drug use was commonplace, and an American could enjoy a lifestyle that was decadently delicious and depraved.

Jane Bowles, given to emotional breakdowns and always on the edge of a sexual scandal, left this world in 1973, taken by a series of strokes at just 54-years-old.

After his wife’s passing, Bowles spent much of his time translating the works of talented Moroccan writers and poets. He lived alone and aloof, looked after by his trusted, loyal manservant. He continued to attract some very interesting personalities to Morocco, and in his discreet way, he gained an even bigger following. He continued to produce a steady stream of amazing work until he left this world in 1999, just weeks short of his 89th birthday. The day after he checked out for good, a full-page obituary was featured in The NY Times.

Although he had lived in Morocco for 53 years, he was buried in Lakemont, NY, next to his parents and grandparents.

Bowles lived most of his adult life in Tangier, and is much identified with the city that he loved. He became the symbolic American expatriate, and Tangier became the symbol of his expatriate status.

Bowles’ great existentialist masterpiece, The Sheltering Sky (1949), was made into a hypnotic 1990 film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, starring Debra Winger and John Malkovich as the American artistic couple Port and Kit Moresby, stand-ins for The Bowles, and with Bowles himself making a cameo near the end of the movie.

In Paul Theroux’s terrific travel book The Pillars Of Hercules (1995), he paints a poignant picture of an old, frail Bowles, an American in an Arab city, still enjoying the illicit pleasures of boys, kif, and hashish jam in his 80s.

Photo by Birgit Stephenson, via YouTube

 

If you are interested in Bowles, and you really should be, try the documentary Paul Bowles: The Cage Door is Always Open. All of Bowles’ books are wrapped in mystery, yet are highly readable.

“If a man was not on his way anywhere… then the best thing for him to do is set back and be.”

 

December 30th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!

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Milo Yiannopoulos Is Lucky His “Unpublishable” Book Got Cancelled –His Editor’s Leaked Notes Read Him to FILTH!

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As you’ve heard, Simon & Schuster cancelled Trump supporting, anti-gay, homosexual Milo Yiannopoulos‘s book deal and he is suing, of course. The court filings for the lawsuit are the deliciously embarrassing editor’s notes on his manuscript, which he calls,

“hogwash”

The book publisher canceled the deal shortly after Milo was knee-deep in controversy after endorsing statutory rape and other vile idea. Yiannopoulos sued the publisher for breach of contract, but Simon & Schuster fired back saying the real reason the deal was canceled was because it was simply

“unpublishable.”

Software engineer Sarah Mei went to the New York county clerk’s website and got a copy of the paperwork after seeing a tweet from Milo and publisher Jason Kinder that included snippets of the comments from editor Mitchell Ivers.

The filings also included a full copy of the manuscript along with the editor’s notes. Ivers says in one note,

“Throughout the book, your best points seem to be lost in a sea of self-aggrandizement and scattershot thinking.”

Another said Milo needed a

“stronger argument against feminism than saying that they are ugly and sexless and have cats.”

The most common editorial remark were demands for citations and proof of assertions.

Ivers calls one particular section of the book “hogwash” and writes,

“You can’t say ugly people are drawn to the left. Have you ever seen the people at a Trump rally?”

Mei continued to tweet the excerpts out gleefully, notes she described as

“things a professional editor never imagined they’d need to tell someone.”

Another says,

“This entire paragraph is just repeating Fake News. There was NO blood, NO semen, and there was NO Satanism. Delete.”

And

“This entire section is the most poorly thought out section in the book. If you want to make the case for gay men going back in the closet and marrying women just to have children, you’re going to have to employ a lot more intellectual rigor than you use here.”

Shade! And is it any surprise, the guy can’t write and has NO IDEAS. One offhand comment sums up Milo, Trump, the GOP and his entire book.

“Delete. Ugh.”

(Photo, YouTube; via LGBTQ Nation)

#QueerQuote: ”The Only Way to Spend New Year’s Eve is Either Quietly with Friends or in a Brothel. Otherwise When the Evening Ends and People Pair Off, Someone is Bound To Be Left In Tears.” – W.H. Auden

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1935, photo via YouTube

With a life filled with contradictions, English poet Wystan Hugh Auden was a moralist who drank too much, a gay man who thought homosexuality was wicked, a subversive who chose to write rather traditional, if superb verse; an eccentric who craved the status quo, obsessively punctual, but sartorially sloppy. He was stuffy and he was campy. He had many affairs, but his greatest love was Chester Kallman, who was 18-years-old when they met, and with whom Auden was sure he could enjoy a lifelong cozy marriage.

Kallman’s infidelities were a profound shock to Auden, who wore a wedding ring. He went so far as to contemplate murdering some of Kallman’s lovers. They broke up on again, off again, for years. Auden and Kallman finally got together again near the end, but without the passion Auden desired.

Auden embraced Socialism as a youth and Protestantism as an old queen. He wrote daily and his output was prolific. Auden’s The Age Of Anxiety (1947) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In 1972, with his health on the decline, Auden left the USA, his adopted country (he had lived here for four decades). He moved to a cottage in Oxford, where he had been teaching part of each year. In September 1973, Auden left this world, taken by a heart attack after delivering a reading of his poems in Vienna, where he had an apartment. Kallman died in 1975, penniless, in Athens.

 

 

#RoyalWeddingSongs: A Gift For the New Year –”Diana” the Musical…

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A Princess Diana musical is coming to the La Jolla Playhouse for the opening 2018-2019 season. Writer-lyricist Joe DiPietro and songwriter David Bryan –who earned a Tony for their musical Memphis– wrote it. Another Tony winner, Christopher Ashley (Come From Away), will direct.

We know that it’ll be beautiful to look at, as Tony award-winning Broadway legend, William Ivey Long is slated to design the costumes.

Simply called Diana, the musical is set in 1981, right before the royal wedding and of course includes the big 3 M’s of the monarchy —media, marriage, and modernity. Broadway.com says that its score is more “eclectic” but includes classical works as well as,

“80s-inspired pop and rock music.”

That could be really great or really awful. More likely, the latter, but don’t worry, just commenting I’m not pre-judging, Judy.

Diana’s life as a musical has been attempted before with mediocre results. Without hearing a note of Princess Diana or Call Me Diana, the graphics alone (below) give me a good idea of the taste level at work.

But unlike those productions, the La Jolla Playhouse has often acted as an incubator for Broadway, and 30 shows created and retooled there have gone on to the Great White Way.

No specific dates announced as of yet, and there’s not any casting news to report, except that rumor has it that the same actress with play both Queen Elizabeth II AND Barbara Cartland.

We’ll keep you posted when we hear more.

(Photo, YouTube; via Vanity Fair)


WOW Presents Clips: More “I Am Britney Jean” Video Clips for Our Bye Bye Britney Countdown

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There’s only one day left to get your Vegas Britney on, as her wildly successful “Piece of Me” residency show at Planet Hollywood ends tomorrow night, New Year’s Eve.

Caesars.com describes the show thusly:

Britney performs all her infectious dance songs… But don’t expect a recreation of her music videos. Her intense performances are way more electrifying – some even dreamlike and daring. Whether Britney’s flying across stage, singing in a ring of fire or dancing in front of multiple mirrors, this shining diva knows just how to work it.

Located inside The Axis at Planet Hollywood, the 4,500-seat theater provides a pulsating Las Vegas concert experience. And with state-of-the-art light and sound effects, the venue feels like a nightclub. The Axis houses the world’s largest indoor projection screen, resulting in an explosive theatrical experience. Get ready to relive your favorite Britney moments and dance the night away.

Britney: Piece of Me proves to be a sexy, action-packed Vegas show from start to finish.

As we prepare to say goodbye, let’s check out these clips from the WOW documentary “I Am Britney Jean.”

First up: Longtime wowlebrity/cutie-patootie Marco Marco fits the dancers in their costumes for the tour!

Next: Britney rehearses on the SoundStage!

Roseanne Continues Her Hillary Bashing & Donald Support –”I Voted for Trump to Shake up the Status Quo”

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As we’ve reported, Roseanne is rebooting her classic sitcom with a spring release, but the question still remains, will it be pro-Trump like her most recent public statements?

During the show’s last incarnation she was a liberal working-class hero, but now her politics have taken a hard right. She supported Trump‘s presidential campaign, as she said to

shake up the status quo

Roseanne tweeted just this week, on December 27,

4 those who wonder-back in the day when I was called a ‘liberal’ by journalists, I used to answer-‘I’m not a Liberal, I’m a radical’ & I still am- I voted Trump 2 shake up the status quo & the staid establishment.

And

ppl hate Trump bc the corporate news tells them to hate him 24/7.

She claims that Trump is “draining the swamp” of treasonous “thieves” who make money off their government appointments, while we all know that he has appointmented millionaires & billionaires to top posts.

Another recent tweet says

actually, a lot of ppl who were pissed that Hillary stole the election from
Bernie ended up voting for Trump & support him bc he is against pedophilia and anti semitism, unlike many dems.

Barr knows her new friends on the right can’t resist her bait…

guys, thanks for helping me show that diversity of opinion is what makes America great! i put all opinions here on my TL bc I LOVE AMERICA!

Yeah, that dumbass that sits in the Oval says he loves America too, as he wrecks it as we all watch in horror.

She is interviewed by Dave Rubin about all of the above, below.

Watch.

(Photo, YouTube; via LGBTQ Nation)

To Do, New Year’s Eve: The Boulet Brothers (and Amanda Lepore! Mario Diaz! Meatball! Kimora Blac! and Others!) at the Globe Theater!

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It’s NEW QUEERS EVE! AMANDA LEPORE has entered the building darling, and will be performing live for you at the Globe Theatre in downtown LA for the NEW QUEERS EVE BALL! The party has no cover and will run from 8PM – 4AM! Entry will be given on a first come first served basis so early arrival is suggested – they will accommodate everyone!

There are a limited number of VIP tables, tickets, and packages available including a $100 OPEN BAR / No Line Waiting ticket that will sell out so snatch them soon if you want that ra-sha-sha experience.

Get your tickets here.

December 31st: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!

#QueerQuote: ”Vodka is Kind of a Hobby.” – Betty White

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via YouTube

 

In a career that has lasted 80 years, Betty White has received eight Emmy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Grammy Award. She was inducted in to the Television Hall Of Fame in 1995.

On “The Mary Tyler Mooore Show, 1973, via YouTube

 

In 2014, White earned her 21st Emmy nomination She was 92-years-old. White is the only female to have received an Emmy Award in all performing comedy categories. She holds the record for the longest span between Emmy nominations, her first in 1951 and last in 2011… so far.

White is a television pioneer, producing her own series, Life With Elizabeth in 1951. Before her career took off doing television, White worked in Theatre, on Radio, and as a model. During WWII, she joined the American Women’s Voluntary Services, delivering supplies via PX truck throughout Los Angeles, but her nights were spent dancing with sailors and soldiers at the Hollywood Canteen.

Even White can’t quite remember the name of the show where she made her television debut in 1939:

“I danced on an experimental TV show, the first on the west coast, in downtown Los Angeles. I wore my high school graduation dress and our Beverly Hills High student body president, Harry Bennett, and I danced the Merry Widow Waltz.”

The Guinness Book Of World Records has White with the title of Longest Television Career for a Female with almost 80 years and counting.

1988, Emmy Awards via YouTube

 

Of course, there was her 2010 appearance on Saturday Night Live, which she hosted after hundreds of thousands of fans signed onto a Facebook campaign demanding it. One sketch hinged in its entirety on her bawdy double entendres about her muffin. She won a seventh Emmy for the show.

NBC via Youtube, L-R: Estelle Getty, Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, White

 

White is now the only one of the four Golden Girls still alive, noting:

 “I was the oldest. The fact that I’m still around doesn’t seem fair.”

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