Photograph from NPR via YouTube

Aretha Franklin bravely shares, in her music, all the hurt that love can bring. Her voice is authentic, astute, and even at times affectionate. I adore Aretha in a bouffant, an afro, in feathers, in furs, and especially in that famous hat worn at Barack Obama’s first inauguration in 2008.

I love her, and I admire that she pushes her amazing instrument to the limits. So far, Franklin has sold more than 85 million records and won 19 Grammy Awards. In 1987, she became the first female inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Franklin paved the way for all the sisters to be doin’ it for themselves.

Yet, I do not have every single album that she has recorded. That would be 50+ albums! But, I do have my original: The Tender, The Moving, The Swingin’ Aretha Franklin (1962), Yeah!!! (1965), Soul ’69 (1969), and This Girl’s In Love With You (1969) on vinyl. I also own Who’s Zoomin’ Who (1985) on cassette, and One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism (1987) and five volumes of Aretha’s Greatest Hits on CD.

With 112 Top Ten hits, Franklin is the most charted female artist in the history. She is Barbra Streisand’s favorite female singer. With so many songs that I am crazy for, it is difficult to name just one. I thought: I Say A Little Prayer, but then I remember Pink Cadillac, but then there is also her duet with George Michael, I Knew You Were Waiting.

Franklin started out singing gospel at her minister father’s church as a child. His passionate sermons drew in Martin Luther King Jr. and Sam Cooke, whom Franklin toured with as a teenager.

In the mid-1960s, Franklin 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, 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. 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, Streisand and Bob Dylan.

“Shindig!” via YouTube

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. She went next to 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 I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You), with Respect. 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, a Civil Rights Icon and a Feminist Icon. The track was a clever gender-bending version of a 1965 song by Otis Redding, whose original had reinforced the traditional family structure of the era: The man works all day, brings money home to wife and demands her respect in return.

Franklin’s version blew that structure apart. An enormous difference was that in Redding’s version, he doesn’t spell out R-E-S-P-E-C-T like Franklin does. He also doesn’t have the backup singers and their cool ”sock-it-to-me” response 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.

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 in June 1967. He went onstage and announced:

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

He used her arrangement.

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

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

Right after the release of Respect, 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.”

Happy Birthday, Aretha Louise!

March 25, 1906 – Jean Sablon:

”Music is my daily bread.”  

Jean Saboln first came to my attention in the early 1980s, when I was tasked with choosing the music for a restaurant I was working in and where I was noted for my excellent taste in tunes.

Sablon was an elegant openly gay Frenchman, living with his partner, Carl Galm, a U.S. service man, for more than four decades; all while he was a matinee idol and the French housewife’s pin-up of choice.

With Galm, 1941

He recorded in the 1920s through the 1980s; he topped bills in cabarets and concert halls in Paris, London and on Broadway. George and Ira Gershwin and Cole Porter wrote songs especially for him. He helped to popularize swing music in France by teaming up on with French Jazz greats Stephane Grapelli and Django Reinhardt.

His father Charles was a composer and conductor of chansons and theatre music. His two brothers were musicians, and his sister, Germaine Sablon, had a career in theatre and music. In London with Charles de Gaulle during WW II, she launched the Chant des Partisans that became a famous inspirational song of The Resistance.

Sablon studied music and piano as a youngster. In his teens, he was cast in small roles in musicals and light comic operas. In 1923, he made his professional debut at the Theatre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Trois Jeunes Filles Nues (Three Naked Girls).

He began writing songs for other singers, but people found that they were attracted to his deep, very pleasant voice. His career as a screen actor nearly ended with his first film role, in Chacun Sa Chance because Sablon hated himself onscreen, so he gave up hopes of being an actor. But in 1928, he went on tour the Bouffes-Parisiens to Brazil, the country that won his heart.

When he returned to Paris, Sablon became an habitue of the cabaret scene, where he became a close friend of Jean Cocteau and joined with Reinhardt and Grappelli to play and record Jazz. He charmed audiences and caught the attention of Mistinguett, a French actor and singer, at the time the highest-paid female entertainer in the world. She hired him as her partner for her act at the Casino de Paris. She was tyrannical as well as temperamental and ruled her productions with an iron hand. Sablon became a real pro working with her; Josephine Baker taught him to dance, and Damia (Marie-Louise Damien),who sang La Marseillaise in Abel Gance’s film Napoleon (1927) helped develop his singing technique.

Another of his great friends was gay singer / songwriter Charles Trenet (1912-2001) who composed one of my favorite songs La Mer, which he composed while riding on a train in 1943. La Mer has more than 400 recorded versions, including by Sablon. The song was given English words by gay American songwriter Jack Lawrence (1912 -2009) and under the title Beyond The Sea was a big hit for Bobby Darin in the early 1960s.

In 1963, Trenet spent a month in prison, charged with corrupting the morals of four young men. The charges were eventually dropped, but the incident forced him out of the closet. It turns out that actor / singer Maurice Chevalier was the one that ratted him out to the police.

Sablon’s hauntingly sad signature song, Vous Qui Passez Sans Me Voir (You Who Pass By Without A Glance) is by Trenet. Whenever I hear Sablon singing it, it makes tear up. Sablon’s recording was a world-wide success.

Via YouTube

In 1937, Sablon made his first visit to the USA, where he was billed as ”The French Troubadour”. He spent two years in America, singing on stage and on the radio, including on CBS Hit Parade, where he was ranked higher than Frank Sinatra. Except for Chevalier and Edith Piaf, he was the only French singer who had real lasting success in the USA. In France, he was considered a ”chanteur de charme” to which the American word ”crooner” hardly does justice. Yet, he became known as ”The French Bing Crosby” and challanged Charles Boyer as the essence of the gallant, elegant, seductive Parisian lover man.

Ramon Navarro with Sablon in 1933, MGM Archives

In NYC, he made his great discovery: the microphone. He brought one back to Paris with him and became the first person to sing through a hand-held mic on the French stage. It caused a scandal; there was the rumor that he had lost his voice. Indeed, for a while he was called ”Le Chanteur Sans Voix”. Gradually he won over the public with his exceptionally sensitive use of the microphone singing beautiful songs.  He made the microphone a part of his body. He made love to it, cradling it in his hands like a lover’s face, stroked it, whispering to it, smiling at it with his ironic yet tender smile. It was amplification as art.

He had a velvety, warm voice, thrilling in its lower registers and light and playful in the upper reaches he floated out so effortlessly with an intimate delivery and his appealing personality. He possessed a charm that was simply natural. He had a perfect smile accentuated by a world-weary moustache, with big brown eyes which held a mischievous sparkle. The influence of his style could be heard in Rudy Vallee, Jacques Brel and Charles Aznavour.

From 1946-1948, he hosted the popular The Jean Sablon Show on CBS Radio. His voice was heard by 50 million listeners two times each week. Crosby owned all of his records, and Sinatra compared himself to Sablon in interviews. Sablon spent years living in Hollywood where his close friends included Cary Grant and Marlène Dietrich.

In 1950, Sablon had a global hit with C’est Si Bon. In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, Saboln made a series of highly rated television specials in France and Britain. In 1984, he sang Vernon Duke and Yip Harburg’s April In Paris in the popular American miniseries Mistral’s Daughter, which was filmed in France He toured five continents demonstrating his independence and inquisitiveness, the qualities led him to introduce many new musical genres to France: Biguine, Calypso and Bossa Nova.

He bought a ranch in Brazil and visited Japan many times where he was the most popular foreign singer. His elegant sartorial style and moustache were much imitated.

In 1981, around the time I discovered his music, he gave a 75th anniversary concert at the Lincoln Center, but it was in his favorite city, Rio de Janeiro, in 1983, that he gave his farewell concert to a very emotional public awash with tears as he sang goodbye: ”I bow myself out . . .”

Sablon took that final bow in his native France in 1994. He was born 112 years ago, he became the toast of three continents, and the idol of millions. There are boulevards named for him in Paris and Cannes. Now, Sablon is now mostly forgotten, but not on The WOW Report.

Joseph Ferraro
Aly Michalka
Anita Bryant
Aretha Franklin
Bonnie Bedelia
Brenda Strong
Cathy Dennis
Danica Patrick
Daniel Boulud
Édgar Ramírez
Eileen Ford
Elton John
Gene Shalit
Gigi Leung
Gloria Steinem
Jason Castro
Jenny Slate
Juvenile
Katherine McPhee
Lark Voorhies
Lee Pace
Lisa Gay Hamilton
Marica Cross
Melanie Blatt
Paul Michael Glaser
Sarah Jessica Parker
Sean Faris
Wladimir Klitschko

For as long as we have had paper we have had Protest Art. It has been used by revolutionaries, activists and artists for centuries, yet the technological advancements of the 19th century made paper easily available and inexpensive because of steam-driven papermaking machines.

Honré Daumier (1808-1879) was a French artist who was well known for his aesthetic commentary on French political life in the 19th century. His work was received by a wide audience because he printed a weekly journal made possible by the medium’s distributive qualities. Of course, future issues of the journal were censored, and circulation challenged by the French government. Many artists used their art to protest including painters like Francisco Goya, but usually we think of protest posters as printed or homemade and tied to significant moments in cultural.

Daumier “The Uprising”

In the 20th century, it typically started with social constraints, wars and political battles. The urgency and tensions involved in creating protest art to provoke change is nothing new. From local issues like Gentrification, Racism, Police violence, Immigration and Homelessness to national organized resistance, the individuals and groups associated with these movements share a commonality of the use of posters to make their point.

From the Mexican Revolution to the marches against the Trump administration, posters have been used as a powerful form of protest and a symbol of discontent. The skills used to make posters range from folk art to eye-catching graphics done by professional artists and designers, yet the impact and energy really come from how they are utilized once they leave the artist’s studio. Does the poster empower? Does it call others to the cause? At its best, the art is repeated, and the message is multiplied as energy and enthusiasm for the cause provokes meaningful, real change.

Wikimedia Commons

In the 16th century, Martin Luther and followers of the Protestant Reformation posted Luther’s 95 Theses on to church doors. The message communicated a discontent and ultimately provoked a split within Christianity.

1970, Alexander Turnbull Library Archives

In contrast to the patriotic, colorful war propaganda posters of the first half of the 20th century, the 1960s and 1970s brought another type of political poster: The simple, sometimes sobering protest poster. Tacked on bulletin boards and telephone poles, posters served as rallying cries for Peace, against Richard Nixon and the federal government, and tributes to the martyrs of the Civil Rights movement.

In the 1980s with the HIV/AIDS plague, LGBTQ activists created one of the most iconic and lasting images that would come to symbolize a movement: A protest poster of a pink triangle with Silence = Death.

Act Up

The protest poster is a powerful tool. Usually anonymous and for a specific moment in time, protest posters are ephemeral. They are received as a harsh criticism or a call to arms depending on who is being challenged.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel wrote:

“There may be a time when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

Even with social media, protest posters in the 21st century still have impact; they are shared on Twitter, Instagram and other sites. The emotion that is embedded within the words and graphics of protest posters carry a passion for the creative process and a need to make the planet a better place.

Natalie Good

Alexis Lovely

Shepard Fairey

Ben Shahn

Copper Greene (2004)

John Heartfield (1940)

National ArchivesDept

Photo by Leah Millis via YouTube

Williams with Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey (c) photo by James Kavallines, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons

In considering the vile and violent expressions of hatred towards queer people by the Religious Right Wing, I want to scream out: ”Really? You want to live in a world without the contributions of Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Lord Byron, Walt Whitman, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Leonard Bernstein, James Baldwin, Cole Porter,  Noël Coward, John Maynard Keynes, Jasper Johns, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Willa Cather, Edward Albee, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bessie Smith, Stephen Sondheim or Stephen Rutledge, Christopher Isherwood, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Janis Joplin, or Aristotle!?!” Then I pause, take a breath and understand that the Religious Right would find a life without A Streetcar Named Desire to be just peachy. The great gifts given by gay artists could be lifted right out of our culture and the Religious Fanatics could live their lives free of asking questions, their biggest fear.

In his terrific book, Role Models (2010), John Waters wrote that Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) saved his life because Williams put gay desire on stage at a time when it was nearly unthinkable to do so. Sometimes you had to read between the lines to get why Brick and Maggie’s marriage was on the skids in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1955), or why Blanche’s young husband killed himself in A Streetcar Named Desire, or the reason Sebastian Venable was literally devoured by a gang of street boys in Suddenly Last Summer (1958). But the clues are there. If his gay characters are a little troubling, that’s probably because their creator was himself a little troubled. A straight man could never have written these plays.

When Memoirs (1975), Williams’ imaginatively titled memoir was published, The NY Times reviewer wrote: ”If he has not exactly opened his heart, he has opened his fly”. Williams responded by saying that he had been offered $75,000 to write the book and he just assumed he would be dead by the time it came out. In Memoirs, Williams offers advice on sex with hustlers, recommending that ”penetration be avoided as they are most probably all infected with clap in the ass”. He writes about the great love of his life, Frank Merlo, whose death from cancer sent Williams into a decade long depression. He recounts his many casual pick-ups in gay bars. He also talks about his friendships with everyone from Tallulah Bankhead to Candy Darling, everything, in fact, except his plays.

Williams won four Drama Critic Circle Awards, a Tony Award, a pair of Pulitzer Prizes (for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof in 1955), plus the Presidential Medal Of Freedom in 1980. He was also derided by the critics and blacklisted by the Roman Catholic Church, which condemned his work as ”revolting, deplorable, morally repellent, and offensive to Christian standards of decency”. Thank God.

Happy 112th birthday, Thomas Lanier Williams III !

“The early bird can have the worm. Because worms are gross and mornings are stupid.”

Ear blanket

If I had a man … and he had big flappy ears … this would be a morning thing.

Butt made from straws, so you can suck my ass. from r/funny

For when you’re beyond thirsty …

Best plot from r/funny

The plot to every rom com ever.

Possible future bit

… ? … Choices …

No, this is Patrick… from r/funny

I don’t wanna go to werk werk werk werk werk – I just wanna sleep and twerk twerk twerk twerk twerk.

Have a great start to your week all you silly sexy mens, womens, and in betweens =) xoxo!

The Queen of Brooklyn Drag (and BEYOND!) Horrorchata stars in the new music video for Skeleton Head‘s “Split Second” from Sangron Volume 1 – a 10-track compilation of previously unreleased electronic music from U.S. based artists specializing in post-punk, minimal synth and experimental sounds. It’s lush, it’s poppy, it’s decadently divine. Perfect “getting ready for the club” music. Why, this might be my new favorite song OF ALL TIME!

As the press release says: This ‘dissident synthpop’ compilation reflects the current state of the nation – provocative, energizing and moody but dancefloor-friendly.

Founded by Leo Torres, Brooklyn-based singer and composer of the synth pop band Skeleton Head, Sangron Records aims to be a platform for extraordinary electronic artists and ‘music for dissidents.’ THAT’S US!

The compilation is a co-release between Electronic Emergencies and Sangron Records and it’s available now, check it out here.

Comeback kid Kathy Griffin is set to attend the White House Correspondents Dinner on April 28, possibly coming face to face with her nemesis President Trump. That is, if he has the balls to show this year.

Kathy tweeted she would be attending the event as a guest of the LGBTQ news outlets the Washington Blade and Los Angeles Blade.

Honored that I’ll be attending the White House Correspondents Dinner for the first time this year. I’ll be the guest of the great team at the @WashBlade @losangelesblade!

— Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) March 23, 2018

You’ll recall our famously thin-skinned president decided to boycott the dinner last year, but dangled the prospect of attending in the future.

“I would come next year, absolutely,” he told a group of Reuters reporters, including the then-president of the WHCA, Jeff Mason.

Well, it’s next year. Somehow though I can’t see him laughing good-naturedly as comedian after comedian skewered him.

Too bad. What I would give to see Kathy chasing him around with the severed Trump head…

(Photo: Pacific Coast News)

The Chilean version of Drag Race, The Switch, premiered its highly anticipated second season last night – with surprise contestants Gia Gunn and Kandy Ho. Other contestants include: Pakita, Marie Laveau, Sofia Camará, Luna di Mauri, Pavel Arable, Miss Leona, Diva Houston, Arianda Sodi, Luz Violeta, Laura Bell, and Fernanda Brown.

via RuPaul’s Drag Race Wiki:

The Switch Drag Race is a Chilean drag show that aired every Thursday and Sunday on Mega. The show is hosted by Karla Constant and judged by Íngrid Cruz, Juan Pablo González, Sebastián Errázuriz and Nicole Gaultier.

The first season of The Switch aired on October 8, 2015 and ended on January 17, 2016 having Luz Violeta as the winner of the season.

You’ll be able to Season 1 on WOW Presents Plus, details coming soon!

The Switch 2, GRAN ESTRENO HOY! Despues de esperar mas de un año estoy super feliz que hoy comienza este gran proyecto, un proyecto hecho con mucho amor y respeto para todos ustedes. Recuerden que está bien que tengan su personaje favorito pero les pido que sean respetuosos con cada una de nosotras. Los amo y disfruten de este maravilloso reality. @mega.tv @theswitch2cl

A post shared by Kandy Ho’ (@ho_kandy) on Mar 25, 2018 at 8:22am PDT

Están listos para #theswitch2 ? ¡Gran estreno MAÑANA POR @mega.tv #kandyho #TEAMKANDY

A post shared by Kandy Ho’ (@ho_kandy) on Mar 24, 2018 at 5:04pm PDT

Finalmente es el gran estreno de @theswitch2cl Quien es de equipo #GIA ?!! Who’s team are you for #TheSwitch2

A post shared by Gia Gunn Official Account (@gia_gunn) on Mar 25, 2018 at 4:51pm PDT

Quien es de equipo #LaChinaMasLatina : @e_irizarry @edwinirizarrynyc

A post shared by Gia Gunn Official Account (@gia_gunn) on Mar 24, 2018 at 7:01pm PDT

Hoy es el gran estreno de @theswitch.mega y aunque no estoy físicamente en Chile me siento el amor y su apoyo. Estoy bien agradecida por ser parte de este experiencia cultural que me cambió la vida. Por ser Japonesa Americana y compartiendo mi arte en otro país es un gran honor y me da mucho orgullo por estar representado Japón y @rupaulsdragrace Nos vemos muy pronto! ***************************************************** Today is the premiere of #TheSwitch2 and although I’m not in Chile physically, I feel the love and support from a far! I feel so blessed to be a part of this cultural experience that changed my life. I take great pride in being Japanese American and able to share my art in another country and is a great honor to be representing Japan and #rupaulsdragrace Episode will be live on MEGA OFICIAL @youtube 7:00pm PST

A post shared by Gia Gunn Official Account (@gia_gunn) on Mar 25, 2018 at 11:33am PDT

This is so, so sweet, y’all!

Did you catch the premiere episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 10? Christina Aguilera stopped by to be a guest judge and she seriously slayed the competition looking like Farrah Moan.

Well, not only did she impersonate Farrah Moan, but RuPaul decided to be the BEST EVER and fly Farrah Moan to Los Angeles and meet her idol, X-tina! But, we didn’t tell Farrah what she was doing on set… nope she had no idea!

Farrah explained on Twitter:

“Im so excited to finally share this moment. They completely tricked me- I had NO idea what I was doing or why I was there. This is the most special moment of my entire life & I want to thank @RuPaul and @WorldOfWonder for making my dream come true. Xtina youre a legend I love you”

YAY! Surprise successful! Watch the whole amazing moment right here:

Oh, and guess what! The video was trending on YouTube over the weekend and was the #10 trend! AHHHH!

Tune in for a brand new episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race on Thursday night at 8/7c on VH1 followed immediately by Untucked!

Don’t forget, in certain countries around the world, you can watch both shows on WOW Presents Plus!

You’re going to want to bleach your computer screen after this one, I’m warning you.

77-year-old Errol Musk, father of billionaire Elon Musk, just had baby with his 30-year-old stepdaughter, Jana Bezuidenhout. He had married her mother, Heide, when she was only four years old, but they divorced after 18 years and two children. He now says he barely remembers his ex-wife and that he never thought of Jana as his stepdaughter as she was raised away from the family. As if that makes it acceptable.

“One thing led to another — you can call it God’s plan or nature’s plan,” Errol said of the child they share.

When she told him she was pregnant, Errol assumed her ex was the father and insisted on a DNA test. It proved Errol was the dad.

“Jana is a delightful girl and a wonderful mother,” he told the British paper. “She said I changed her life.”

Funny, that’s the exact same wording Woody Allen used to justify his marriage to HIS step-daughter.

Elon has long been estranged from his emerald mine-owning father whom he calls a “terrible human being.”

Last year he spoke of him in a Rolling Stone profile, saying:

You have no idea about how bad. Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done.

via ONTD:

Errol, who once shot and killed three men who he said were attempting to break into his house (it was ruled self-defense), complains of his adult children’s collective reaction to the news of their new nephew/brother, saying they went “berserk” upon learning of it: “They think I’m getting senile and should go into an old age home, not have a life full of fun and a tiny baby.”

Errol says now of his famous son “Elon needs to grow up. He needs to get over himself…He’s having a tantrum, like a spoilt child. He can’t have what he wants and now I am apparently an evil monster…He describes me as terrible. But there are many things he doesn’t know — the work I did to lessen the effects of apartheid for so many years.”

Hmmmm. Think I’m siding with Elon over this one…

And just so we’re straight: Elon is now step-brother/uncle to the child while his father is now step-father/grandfather…

(via Page Six; photo: MediaPunch)

Right wing wackadoodle Matt Staver of the Liberty Council (there’s a list of their hate-filled agenda to get you up to speed here) has decided it’s time to go after Public Enemy Number One, those godless little sluts at the Girl Scouts of America.

In a manic diatribe on the organization’s website, he claims that the Girl Scout’s have aligned themselves with Planned Parenthood, Hillary Clinton, Lady Gaga, same-sex marriage supporters, and advocators of sexual promiscuity for little girls. And the cookies… my god, the cookies… they are a ticket straight to Hell.

Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) has become a politically divisive, pro-abortion organization that has abandoned its mission years ago.

GSUSA also maintains memberships in other pro-abortion organizations such as the Coalition for Adolescent Girls and works alongside International Planned Parenthood Federation, Marie Stopes International, and numerous organizations that push for unrestricted abortion rights. In fact, all Girl Scout councils and individual troops are encouraged to partner with their local Planned Parenthood.

In addition, all Girl Scout councils sell GSUSA’s official curriculum series for girl members, which promotes prominent pro-abortion women and organizations, including Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Population Council and many  others. A list of speeches by “Eloquent Women“ is provided to assist the girls with their public speaking badge. Recommendationsinclude Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s speech advocating for a women’s right to birth control, Lady Gaga and Sally Field both advocating for same-sex “marriage.”

GSUSA encouraged and celebrated girls participation in the Women’s March, a vulgar and profanity-laden event that clearly stated “safe, legal, and affordable abortion and birth control for all people” among its core principles. Across the country, local councils involved the Girl Scout brand and the members in partisan and political advocacy. A 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign ad featuring Clinton and uniformed Girl Scouts, filmed at a Girl Scouts of Kentucky’s Wilderness Road council shop, was widely shared on her media accounts. Immediately following the presidential election, Girl Scouts of Greater New York partnered in protesting President-elect Donald Trump.

Girl Scout cookie sales fund troops, local councils and GSUSA.

“The once great Girl Scouts USA took a tragic fall when it became a political advocacy group that promotes abortion and sexual promiscuity to innocent girls,” said Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver. “It’s important that people understand that the profits from cookie sales go toward harming young girls rather that helping them. I encourage people to say, ‘no, thank you’ to Girls Scouts and support alternatives that encourage Christian values such as  American Heritage Girls. This organization has partnered with Trail Life USA, a rapidly expanding alternative to the Boy Scouts,” said Staver.

Check out all the new episodes on WOW Presents Plus to binge everything you’ve been craving!

Have you subscribed to WOW Presents Plus yet?!? Hunty, do it now! There’s so many new shows going up on the platform every day that it’s hard to keep up!

Don’t worry, we’re here to give you a hand — on everything to watch that is! Watch the queens fail a spelling bee on Wait, What? We find out how Jason met Marco in a seedy gay bar and became a model on Marco Marco’s Models! Jasmine Masters has something to say about all thing relationships from yo mama to your next door neighbor’s dog on Jasmine Masters’ Class. Derrick Barry shares some Craigslist: Missed Connections from adult stores while Peppermint tries to get a Be$tie for Ca$h! We get to learn about the Gaymer Guys favorite video game characters!

Missed any of these shows? Don’t worry, you can watch them all below! If you’re not subscribed to WOW Presents Plus, go sign up now! It’s $3.99 a month or $39.99 for a whole year!

Go watch now! You know you wanna!

Wait, What?

Marco Marco’s Models

Jasmine Masters’ Class

Craigslist: Missed Connections

BE$TIE$ FOR CA$H

Gaymer Guys

Check it out right here & be sure to subscribe to WOW Presents Plus for more amazing documentaries, series, & so much more!

“Sunset Boulevard”, Paramount via YouTube

March 27, 1899– Gloria Swanson

”I had played the part too well.”

Although Gloria Swanson appeared in nearly 70 movies before Sunset Boulevard, she will be forever remembered for her role as a certain faded film legend. On Academy Award night 1951, viewers watched Swanson’s face as it was announced that the Oscar was going to Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday. Swanson always claimed that she was not disappointed, saying:

”People wanted me to care. In fact, they seemed to want more than that. They expected scenes from me, wild sarcastic tantrums. They wanted Norma Desmond.”

Swanson began her acting career when she was 15-years-old, and when she was in her early-20s, she was already in full diva mode. Swanson in 1922:

”I have gone through enough of being a nobody. I have decided that when I am a star I will be every inch and every moment the star! Everybody from the studio gateman to the highest executive will know it.”

1922- Photograph by Daniel Blum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Within a couple of years, Swanson was working for producer / director Cecil B. De Mille. By her mid-20s, she was under contract at Paramount Pictures, and she was known to film fans as the ”Queen of the Screen”. At her apex, Swanson received 10,000 fan letters a week. Paramount paid her $22,000 a week, over $1 million a year, but in 1926 Swanson decided to join United Artists, formed in 1919 by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith. She wanted to produce her own films and release them through UA, but first, she needed money.

Swanson went to Joseph Kennedy, father of John F. Kennedy, for funding and they soon began an affair. She later found out that Kennedy was swindling her. All the expensive gifts Kennedy had bought Swanson were purchased through her own production company.

1919, “Don’t Change You Husband”, public domain

At the height of her popularity, audiences went to her films not only for her performances, but also to see her wardrobe. She was often covered in beads, jewels, and feathers and extravagant pieces of haute couture. Her fashion, hair styles, and jewelry were much copied. She was one of the most famous and photographed women in the world.

Swanson starred in 40 silent films and was nominated for the very first Best Actress Academy Award. She did produce her own films, including Sadie Thompson (1927), The Love Of Sunya (1928) and Queen Kelly (1929).

In 1929, Swanson successfully transitioned to talkies with The Trespasser. She made four more movies and then following the completion of Billy Wilder’s romantic musical Music In The Air (1934), Swanson retired from the screen. Her early sound pictures were not big at the box-office, and she knew she was: ”…a fading star the public had worshipped long enough”.

Swanson moved to NYC in 1938, where she started an inventions and patents company whose sole purpose was rescuing Jewish scientists and inventors from Nazis and bringing them to the USA. She helped hundreds to escape.

She started doing theater and starred in her own television show The Gloria Swanson Hour (1948-1950) where she invited friends to be guests and Crown Theatre With Gloria Swanson (1948-1954), an anthology series that she sometime acted in. She took up painting and wrote a syndicated fashion column, toured in summer stock, and became a Conservative political activist, working for the 1964 presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, and she chaired the New York chapter of Seniors for Reagan-Bush in 1980.

Billy Wilder had been wanting to make a film about Hollywood for several years. His first try was titled A Can Of Beans written with his partner and producer Charles Brackett. It was a comedy about an ageing silent film star who wreaks revenge on her enemies. But, the project morphed into a story about a relationship between the silent movie star and a young man, she, living in the past, refusing to believe her days as a star are gone.

The screenwriters, Wilder, Brackett, and D.M. Marshall, Jr., made an audacious choice: The narrator of the film is a dead man. His name is Joe Gillis (William Holden), who explains himself as: “Just a movie writer with a couple of B pictures to his credit.”

He starts the film face down in the swimming pool of an old mansion located somewhere along the 22-mile Sunset Boulevard. Gillis has a story to tell; it’s a winner, and he’s not going let a little thing like death stop him from sharing it. Flashback to six months earlier, the fateful day he met Norma Desmond (Swanson), an aging, reclusive silent movie star who hasn’t worked in decades.

No one’s buying Gillis’s scripts. He’s broke and behind on his rent and car payments. When a couple of repo men show up for the car, he flees, but a flat tire forces him to seek temporary refuge in the garage of Desmond’s mansion. Gillis’s narration describes it as: “A great big white elephant of a place, the kind crazy movie people built in the crazy ’20s.”

Desmond’s butler Max, played cryptically by silent film director Eric Von Stroheim, lets Gillis into the house, mistaking him for the funeral planner who’s been summoned to plan for the burial of Desmond’s recently deceased monkey. She wants a white coffin, lined in flaming red satin. Desmond declares: “Let’s make it gay!”

Gillis attempts to explain his real reason for being there, and Desmond overreacts and orders him off the property. But, she changes her mind when Gillis realizes that this is THE Norma Desmond.

Gillis: “You used to be big…”

Desmond: “I am big, it’s the pictures that got small.”

When Desond discovers that Gillis is a screenwriter, she proposes that he turn the handwritten script she’s labored over for years into something Hollywood will produce as a star vehicle for herself.

Gillis: “I didn’t know you were planning a comeback.”

Desmond: “I hate that word! It’s a return.”

Paramount via YouTube

With Holden, photo via YouTube

Via YouTube

Desperately needing an income, Gillis agrees to work on her script. Desmond has one condition: Gillis has to move into her mansion, complete with Max, a wheezing old pipe organ, and hundreds of old photographs of Desmond in her prime (actual stills of Swanson from her silent films). Gillis:

“The whole place seemed to have been stricken with a kind of paralysis, out of beat with the rest of the world, crumbling apart in slow motion.”

Gillis stays, grinding out pages for a film he knows will never be made. Desmond begins buying him expensive gifts. His initial reluctance to be a “kept man” ends when Gillis becomes comfortable with the arrangement, right up until the moment he realizes that Desmond has developed a possessive obsession of operatic proportions for him. Who can blame her? He’s so darn handsome and nimble with the quips.

As morally ambivalent Gillis, Holden is excellent. He’s sardonic, raffish and looks fine in a pair of swim trunks. But, this is Swanson’s film. She is too credible as Desmond, a woman who can’t stop rhapsodizing about a career that was over twenty years ago. Desmond:

 “We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces!”

A modern audience gets why her stardom is a thing of the past. Desmond’s facial expressions and gestures are big, broad and highly theatrical. She perfected them for her silent film acting and they become her essence. There is a strident, affected cadence in her voice that’s totally unnatural.

Sunset Boulevard delves into some dark and juicy territory. It moves easily from a satire of Hollywood, to gothic horror. It deservedly earned 11 Academy Award nominations. It won three: Screenplay, Score and Art/Set direction. Holden lost to Jose Ferrer for Cyrano de Bergerac. Swanson’s loss to Holliday was shocking. It was expected that she would win, and that her only real competition was Bette Davis, also playing a kind of monster, in All About Eve. Swanson’s performance is idiosyncratic, risky and smart. It was an astonishing return to films.

Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper and Cecil B. DeMille play themselves in Sunset Boulevard. DeMille is unexpectedly excellent.

It is also very meta. In the scene where Desmond screens one of her silent films for Gillis, Wilder chose a clip from Queen Kelly with real Swanson directed by Von Stroheim, who plays Max. It was a notoriously troubled production. Swanson wanted Von Stroheim fired after a third of the film had been shot. That must have been a weird day on the set.

In a film filled with great dialogue, Holden has one of the greatest lines in Film History:

“Norma, you’re a woman of 50, now grow up. There’s nothing tragic about being 50, not unless you try to be 25.”

It’s one of the best movies ever made about the movies, and Swanson gives one of the all-time great performances. My only real disappointment with Sunset Boulevard was my desire to see Desmond interacting with that monkey. The dead Gillis says: “It was all very queer.”  I agree. Sunset Boulevard is so queer, I can’t believe that straight guys are responsible for it.

After Sunset Boulevard, Swanson’s star faded once more. The only scripts she received featured ageing, eccentric actresses. Swanson:

”I knew that if I accepted such parts I would become some sort of creepy parody of myself, or rather, of Norma Desmond, a shadow of a shadow.”

She did appear in a few more films such as Killer Bees (1974) and Airport 1975, where she plays herself.

“Airport 1975, Universal Pictures via YouTube

When her final credits rolled in 1983, the NY Times called her ”The Last Great Star”. Her ashes are interred at the Church of the Heavenly Rest on Fifth Avenue, in NYC. The ghost of Norma Desmond continues to haunt her still.

Brian Butterick
Dave Mace
Brenda Song
Caroline Winberg
Dave Koz
Elizabeth Mitchell
Fergie
Jessie J
Julian Glover
Mariah Carey
Michael York
Nathan Fillion
Pauley Perrette
Quentin Tarantino
Talisa Soto
Xuxa

O’Hara, NY Public Library Archives

At the conclusion of the opening episode of the second season of Mad Men, the show’s protagonist, Don Draper, buys a book of poetry after being told by a hipster in a Greenwich Village bar that he is incapable of appreciating the writer’s work. The book is Meditations In An Emergency (1957) by Frank O’Hara (1926 – 1966). Draper reads it later that night in his suburban home, and he is captivated by a haunting stanza from the poem Mayakovsky:

”Now I Am Quietly Waiting for the Catastrophe of My Personality to Seem Beautiful Again, and Interesting, and Modern.”

After inscribing the book with the simple message ”Made me think of you”, Draper slips out of the house to post it to a mystery recipient, adding yet another layer to this most complicated of television characters. I was so struck with this detail that I started to read everything by and about Frank OHara. I was only vaguely aware of O’Hara before Mad Men. But now, I continue to read about him and to delve into his poetry.

O’Hara served in the U.S. Navy, and saw battle in the South Pacific (the geographic area, not the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical) and Japan during WW II.

With the funding made available to veterans from the government, O’Hara attended Harvard University where he roomed with gay artist and writer Edward Gorey. Although O’Hara majored in music and did some composing, his attendance at Harvard was irregular and his interests scattered. He regularly attended classes in Philosophy and Theology, while impulsively writing in his spare time. O’Hara was very influenced by the visual arts and by contemporary music, which was his first love. He remained a fine pianist all his life and would often shock his casual pick-ups by suddenly playing a little Rachmaninoff.

At Harvard, O’Hara began publishing poems in the Harvard Advocate, the undergraduate journal of fiction, poetry, art and criticism. Despite his love of music, O’Hara decided to change his major and he graduated from Harvard with a degree in English in 1950. He attended graduate school at the University Of Michigan.

That autumn 1951, O’Hara moved into an apartment in NYC with Joe LeSueur, his lover for the next decade. Known throughout his life for his sociability, passion, and warmth, O’Hara had hundreds of friends and as many lovers throughout his life, many from the NYC art and poetry worlds. Soon after arriving in NYC, he found a job at the front desk of the Museum Of Modern Art (MoMA), and he also wrote more poetry.

O’Hara always remained active in the art world, working as a reviewer for Art News. In 1960, he was named Assistant Curator Of Painting And Sculpture for the MoMA. He also became good friends with the artists Willem de Kooning, Larry Rivers and Joan Mitchell. During his lifetime O’Hara was known as the ”poet among painters”.

O’Hara wrote that his gayness wasn’t just about sex; it was about a love of the freedoms that went with it. O’Hara sought out what he wanted when he wanted it. His boyfriend Lesueur writes in his memoir Digressions On Some Poems By Frank O’Hara (2003):

”Frank had at various times both the desire and the determination to make out with a great majority of the people to whom he was attracted, their diversity being truly mind-boggling: big guys, little guys, macho straight men, flagrantly gay men, rough trade, gay trade, friends, friends of friends, offspring of his friends, blonds, blacks, Jews, and women.”

In his lifetime, O’Hara published six volumes of well-received, positively reviewed poetry. Posthumously, 11 more were published, including The Collected Poems Of Frank O’Hara, which won National Book Award in 1971.

O’Hara was strolling on the beach on Fire Island when he was struck by a man speeding in a beach buggy during the early morning hours of July 24, 1966. He died the next day. O’Hara was just 40-years-old when he left this incarnation.

O’Hara’s poetry is the work of a gay guy who knows that he is gay and doesn’t care what his readers think. But in its breezy affirmation of his gayness, his poetry immediately grabs back at what is universal.

Here is my own favorite O’ Hara poem:

Poem (Lana Turner Has Collapsed!)

Lana Turner has collapsed!

I was trotting along and suddenly

it started raining and snowing

and you said it was hailing

but hailing hits you on the head

hard so it was really snowing and

raining and I was in such a hurry

to meet you but the traffic

was acting exactly like the sky

and suddenly I see a headline

LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!

there is no snow in Hollywood

there is no rain in California

I have been to lots of parties

and acted perfectly disgraceful

but I never actually collapsed

oh Lana Turner we love you

get up

RuPaul’s Drag Race season 10 girls Blair St. Clair, Monique Heart, Monét X Change, Yuhua Hamasaki, Eureka O’Hara, and The Vixen sit down with Vanity Fair to discuss the history of drag in the movies. Included: Some Like it Hot (Blair loved the looks, naturally), Pink Flamingos (Divine gets much respect from the girls), Tootsie (“She looks like somebody’s auntie who would have apple slices in her purse”), Mrs. Doubtfire, White Chicks (a favorite of everybody there), Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Hairspray, and Kinky Boots (“This is closest to what we do in clubs”).

Watch below.

This week on HEY QWEEN! Acid Betty from RuPaul’s Drag Race season 8 stops by to chat with Jonny McGovern over a gambit of topics including political correctness, her fascination with special effects make up, her connection to Sherry Vine and the party scene in NYC. 

Watch Part 1:

Watch Part 2:

Watch Part 3:

Acid Betty also stopped by Hey Qween for an installment of LOOK at HUH where she shares stories about her fellow RuPaul’s Drag Race sisters, spills the T on race chasers and MORE! On this episode Acid Betty discusses Bob the Drag Queen, her sister, Naomi Smalls, Cynthia Lee Fontaine, Sherry Vine, Thorgy Thor, Kim Chi, Bianca Del Rio, Chi Chi DeVayne, Derrick Barry, Sasha Velour, Kevin Aviance & Trixie Mattel.

Watch Part 1:

Watch Part 2:

On last night’s episode of the Italian Dancing with the Stars – Ballando con la Stelle – pop star Anastasia wore a sparkly, barely-there, red-and-gold flapper dress for her salsa routine with show pro Maykel Fonts. Everything seemed to be going right as they twirled across the dance floor. Midway through the number though, the dress rode up to reveal her flesh-coloured tights and underwear. All well and good. However. As Maykel lifted her up and held her upside down, her thong seemed to ride up her ass crack and all but disappear. As they so often do. God bless her, though, she continued with the dance undaunted, looking absolutely exhausted as she finished up the routine to the audience’s applause.

But were they clapping for her expert moves or her lovely derriere? I wonder…

Check out a few of the pics below.

(Photos: Pacific Coast News)

Former American Idol contestant Adam Sanders was rejected after making the top 50 in season 12. Now Adam is Ada Vox, and has returned to the Idol soundstage with a new look, a new attitude, and a boatload of talent to back it all up.

Says Ada:

“I auditioned for American Idol back in Season 12 when I was just 19 years old. I made it through to the top 50. Being told ‘no’ was heartbreaking, but the truth of the matter is I wasn’t ready.”

Life after Idol was tough, though…

“After American Idol I started getting messages on social media every day, people attacked my weight, my sexuality…telling me that I was horrible, that I sucked, that I didn’t deserve to be here, that I shouldn’t be who I am. And I let it get to me in the wrong way. It killed me inside, almost as much as people telling me I should have killed myself.”

“I just kind of disappeared from the world for a while, and in doing that I kind of hurt myself even more. That’s really when I was at my worst, thinking maybe I shouldn’t be here. Maybe I’m not worth the fixing, maybe I’m not worth another try. But through all of the negativity I have managed to build myself up as a new person, as a stronger person. I have recreated myself in ways I could not have imagined.”

Watch Ada’s audition – singing “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals – below.