Warning... this is an adult site. If reading or viewing things about what gay men do sexually with one another bothers you - you should not read this blog. This blog is a reflection of my adventures and thoughts. Some are fun, some not so pretty. I won't name names, or kiss and tell... but I will live to tell. And baby, trust me - I am gonna spill it all over your pretty little party dress. Enjoy!
In my big gay church there is a wing dedicated to The Divas Who Represent. They're not all flashy or cocks of the walk - in fact, some never officially came out of the closet during their lifetime - but they are all extraordinarily gifted, sharing their songs, music, and insights, allowing the world at large to learn, in the most subtle of ways, what it's like 'being green'. Thanks to their gifts and their bravery, they help make the world a little more gay every time their voices are heard. And that's been their true super power all along... their voice; they were heard. They mattered. And, whether they liked it or not, they represented!
One such talented renegade soul?
Kim Petras!
Hailing from Germany, this diva has captured the hearts and minds of numerous nations.
Seems her pop won't stop... for she keeps writing - for herself and others. In the process, she's become one of the most sought after musical collaborators. Established acts looking for something fresh and tasty? They turn to her.
Now a household name, with a Grammy award and an iHeart Radio Music Award, two MTV music awards and a Queerty Award, this gay icon is here to stay.
And she's done it all on her own terms.
So expect to hear a lot more from this talented beauty, for she's just getting started.
The gospel according to her?
Well, here are three from the hip, dropping from her lips.
The topic? Unapologetic Pop.
"Pop music means everything to me. I've been listening to pop since I was kid, running home from school to watch Britney Spears and Spice Girls and Christina Aguilera music videos, and it felt like it was a world to escape to for me personally."
"...I hated school and ran home to watch Britney Spears videos. I just felt like I could forget about the stuff I didn't like about my life and listen to pop music and escape."
"I'm just trying to make the kind of music that I'd listen to as a teenager and forget about all my problems. I definitely always took my problems and turned them into music, and the more I can make myself feel happy, the better. But yeah, I definitely feel like music was always a place for me to, like, escape to. I just love songs that are fantasy."
"People started noticing my singing on YouTube, and then I came to L.A., and I lived on a studio couch. I wrote songs every single day with whoever I could write songs with."
"I'm always working with other collaborators."
"A lot of writing depends on being comfortable around the people you work with. I want it to feel like I'm working with friends."
"I thought I was just going to be a songwriter for other people! And now I get to put out my own music, which is amazing."
"I want to become one of the songwriting greats. That's my number one goal."
"I write my own lyrics; I can incorporate my own ideas. And yes, apparently, people think it's cool. That's pretty awesome."
"There's something about making a song that everybody can sing and remember, and when you listen to it the first time, you already know the words by the second chorus, like you've always known the song. I'm obsessed with that idea."
"People started recording my songs. Later, I was offered songwriter contracts. And then, finally, I could take the time to work on my own project. I worked hard for this all by myself."
I Don't Want It At All - Kim Petras
The Future Starts Now - Kim Petras
When We Were Young (The Logical Song) - Kim Petras
w/ David Guetta
And one last parting shot...
"I don't know - a lot of people think it's a really negative thing to do bubble gum pop, but I love it. I, like, want to own it."
"I sing pop music that I like and that is completely unapologetic - which is actually the term: it's called 'unapologetic pop."
When it came to this subject, I found so much to share, I had to split it into two parts.
Lots of cross-dressers, today. But some not-so-fun. And some not-so-pretty.
Some of these men become women in order to avoid detection. though a number of them have deeper psychological issues at play.
And some?
Some are real killers.
Let's take a stab at it, shall we?
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Murder!
(1939)
"Who killed Edna Druce?"
(Hitchcock wrote this with his wife and another gentleman, based on a novel, Enter Sir John. It involves a cross-dressing actor who has a secret he wishes to keep to the point of murder. He does so disguised as a woman, accidentally framing an actress in his troupe who is convicted and sentenced to hang for it.)
(This was Hitchcock's third talkie. A German version, using German-speaking actors was filmed at the same time, using the same sets.)
(Hitchcock based the character of Sir John on his friend, actor Gerald du Maurier, father of Daphne du Maurier, whose works (Jamaica Inn, Rebecca, The Birds) Hitchcock would later adapt for the screen.)
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Charley's Aunt
(1925)
"From the play that made millions laugh."
"The funniest farce in forty years."
(For the sake of simplicity, I've grouped all these versions together. Based on Brandon Thomas' 1892 classic farce, Charley's Aunt is the comedy that keeps on giving. Not only are there nine film versions in various languages with that title, there are also numerous variations on the theme. Why, Mrs. Doubtfire couldn't exist without it.)
(This one stars Charlie Chaplin's older brother. A silent film, it is, however, not the first big screen version. That was filmed in 1915!)
Charley's Aunt
(1930)
"Enough to make a cat laugh out loud."
(Personally, I believe cats are laughing at us all the time.)
Charley's Aunt
(1941)
"What a break for Benny... when he becomes one of the girls!"
"He's 1941's glamour girl!"
"Gala $2.20 Hollywood premiere at Grauman's Chinese, July 31!"
Charley's Tante
(1956)
(His... what??)
(Oh.)
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I Was A Male War Bride
(1949)
(Grant plays a French officer who must disguise himself as a woman in order to sneak into the US as part of his beloveds division of the US Women's Army Corps.)
(Due to various illnesses, it took eight months to complete the film. Anne Sheridan contracted pleurisy which developed into pneumonia, Hawks developed a severe, unexplained case of hives all over his body, while Grant came down with hepatitis complicated by jaundice. Even with the delays pushing the budget over the $2 million mark, the film turned out to be 20th Century's biggest earner that year.)
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Where's Charley?
"Bowls 'em over in..."
"She's a he and he's a howl!"
"All the delight of that ever so bright marvel of merriment and melody ...from Warner Bros.)
(1945)
(Here's an early variation of Charley's Aunt. A British Warner Bros. productionbased on the stage musical of the same name and starring Ray 'Scarecrow' Bolger.)
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The Black Sheep Of Whitehall
(1942)
(A British war comedy full of Nazis, mistaken identities, and efforts to undo a plot designed to derail a peace treaty. Considered actress Thora Hird's screen debut.)
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Glen or Glenda
(1953)
"Strange loves... of those who live and love but can never marry!"
"What am I... male or female!"
"The strange case of a 'man' who changed his sex!"
(A docudrama directed by and starring Ed Wood, the film also features his girlfriend Dolores Fuller and friend, screen legend Bela Lugosi. Originally conceived by producer George Weiss as a biography of Christine Jorgenson, when Jorgenson turned down an offer to appear in the film, Wood turned it into a movie about transvestism and a need for tolerance.)
"I changed my sex!"
(The film came in a bit on the short side, so the producer padded it with various erotic scenes, including a BDSM/whipping scene, strip teases, and a rape - all culled from various grindhouse films.)
I Led 2 Lives
"Based on the lives of Christine Jorgensen."
(Despite Jorgenson's refusal to have anything to do with the film - and the film not having anything to do with her - the producer went ahead and used her name to promote it. There is a second part to the film, titled Alan or Anne. It was included in order to meet the distributor's demand for a sex change film. Using stock footage, it tells the story of Alan, a pseudo-hermaphrodite who fights in World War II wearing women's underwear. After returning home from the war, he undergoes surgery to become 'Anne.')
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Some Like It Hot
(1959)
"Marilyn Monroe and her bosom companions..."
(The screenplay, by director Billy Wilder and I.A. Diamond, is based on the 1935 French farce, Fanfare Of Love.)
Fanfare Of Love
(1935)
(From Wikipedia: The film was produced without approval from the Motion Picture Production Code/Hays Code, because it features LGBT-related themes, including cross-dressing. The code had been gradually weakening in its scope since the early 1950's, due to greater social tolerance for taboo topics in film, but it was enforced until the mid-1960's. The overwhelming success of Some Like It Hot is considered one of the reasons behind the replacement of the Hays Code.)
(A female impersonator, Barbette, was hired by the studio to school Lemmon and Curtis on the art of gender illusion for the film. The role Jack Lemmon played was originally offered to Frank Sinatra, but he refused to come to the audition. Danny Kaye and Jerry Lewis were also considered. Wilder initially wanted Mitzi Gaynor for the part of 'Sugar,' however, once he got wind that Marilyn Monroe wanted the part? Well, good-bye Mitzi!)
(Monroe's pill addiction was so severe, she had trouble memorizing the simplest of lines, resulting in each line requiring 40-45 takes. The film had to be done in black and white due to the ghoulish appearance color filmstock gave to Lemmon's and Curtis' drag make-up.)
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Psycho
(1960)
"A new - and altogether different - screen excitement!!!"
(This Hitchcock classic is adapted from a book by Robert Bloch, which was inspired by the case of Ed Gein, a convicted murderer/grave robber who lived a solitary life in rural Wisconsin. He dressed in women's clothing and had a domineering mother in whose honor he sealed off a room of his house as a shrine.)
(Paramount was not excited about the project and did all they could to kill it. Finally, Hitchcock produced the film himself. He took a 60% stake in the film negative and forfeited his quarter of a million dollar directing fee, in order to get Paramount to distribute the film.)
(Psycho was filmed in black and white in order to keep costs down, but also to prevent the infamous shower scene from appearing too gory. Norman Bates' house was modeled on an Edward Hopper painting; House by the Railroad.)
(According to Hitchcock, Bernard Herrmann's score accounts for "33% of the effect of Psycho..." Initially, Hitchcock insisted on a jazz score, but Herrmann refysed, using a string orchestra in order to maximize the type of sounds that could be achieved. Surprisingly, Hitchcock also ordered that there be no music created for the iconic shower scene - another order Herrmann ignored, supplying one of the most recognizable ostinato-laden musical sequences in the history of film.)
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Gunn
(1967)
"Gunn explodes in his first big screen color caper!"
Directed by Blake Edwards, this was intended to be the first in a projected series of Peter Gunn films, but that never happened. In this neo noir mystery, the killer is revealed to be a cross-dresser.
(The score? By Henry Mancini, of course.)
--- ---
Goodbye Gemini
AKA: Twinsanity
(1968)
"You'll feel four hands reaching for you... when the Gemini twins arrive!"
(This one has it all... fraternal twins, incestuous fascination, cross-dressing, anal rape, blackmail, sexual slavery, drugs, strip clubs, a brothel, and a teddy bear which serves as a surrogate parent - all with Swinging London as the backdrop.)
"Enter the weird terrifying world of the Gemini twins!"
"I am you when I love you, love."
"You are me when I kill you all!"
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Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things
"A twisted mind snaps... and a wave of terror begins."
(Paul and Stanley, two criminals involved in an implied homosexual relationship, move to the suburbs to lay low. In order to avoid suspicion, one of the pair dons a wig, house dress and sensible shoes, becoming 'Aunt Martha.' Aunt Martha does not approve of Stanley bringing girls into the house or his lifestyle, and Stanley freaks out whenever one of the girls makes a move to unbuckle his belt. Drugs are involved, of course, and... well, Aunt Martha does indeed live up to the promise implied in the film's title.)
In my own personal big gay church there are many wings. In one such wing reside those who have forged careers by marching to a beat only they can hear. They are originals - unlike any other. Their styles created archetypes upon which many careers were built, but it all began with them. They created it. They own it.
One such brave soul...
Kacey Musgrave
She's country. With a twist.
She's all inclusive. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is included.
That's not how it's always been done, but then...
This woman is not about adhering to the status quo.
Informed, educated and whip-smart, she's blazing a new trail, writing songs from her unique point of view, with a sassy sense of humor and a great deal of love.
A staunch ally of the LGBTQ+ community, this is one diva who is looking to forge a long and distinguished music career.
The gospel according to her?
Well, here are three from the hip, dropping from her lips.
The topic? Her Own Brand Of Country
"Undeniably, I'm a country singer; I'm a country songwriter. But I feel like I make country music for people who like country music and for people who don't."
"I see my fans as music lovers. I really love that. There's no age group or demographic. It's people of all ages and backgrounds. Country people and non-country people. I wanted to make music across the board."
"When I started out, I wanted to be the kind of artist who could play the CMA Music Festival and then turn around and play Bonnaroo, and I've managed to do both."
"Too many people focus on writing what they think they should write, what should be in a song, what radio would want."
"A lot of what gets on the radio isn't saying anything other than somebody wants to be famous and will do whatever they're told to get it."
"I write my songs and just play them, so there are not a whole lot of fireworks. As long as the music comes first, it's OK to have some fireworks. But not the other way around."
"If the lyrics are something new, then maybe I want to give it a more traditional form, or the other way around, but not have all one or the other."
"I think if you're everyone's cup of tea, that probably means you're a little bit boring, or you're not pushing yourself. Creativity happens where it's dangerous and scary: where you're not comfortable."
"I don't push buttons to push buttons. Throwing the rebel card out there is really cheap."
"I'm just observing. I don't ever want people to think I'm preaching at them or wearing them out."
"Certain kinds of people will always have an issue with my music. But that's fine; it's OK. I don't want to be the McDonald's of music. I don't want to not turn anyone off. If you were everybody's cup of tea, you'd probably be boring."
"I'd rather have 100,000 people who really get what I'm doing and like it for what it is than a million who can take it or leave it."
Follow Your Arrow - Kacey Musgraves
Rainbow - Kacey Musgraves
Merry Go 'Round - Kacey Musgraves
And one last parting shot...
"One of the biggest compliments, hands down, that I've ever gotten in my career, was a gay country fan saying, 'You know what, you have made me feel like I'm finally invited to a party that I've never been invited to.' And that killed me... in the best way possible."
"Because, as I see it, country music is a genre that was built on stories about real life, about real people, and I don't know why that would exclude anyone's perspective. Because we're all made of the same things, we all want the same things, we're all driven by the same emotions. It's just wrapped up in a bunch of different bows,"
Bullying is no fun. Not for the one being bullied.
So today is not so much 'fun' as it needs to be honored.
But you know what is fun?
These celebs? Love 'em? Despise 'em? Don't care about 'em?
Whatever.
While their participation in this campaign could be cynically viewed as just another PR opportunity, their commitment to the cause is real... and enough to earn my respect.
This campaign.
NOH8
It was quite the fashion statement for awhile.
I thought it would be fun to revisit these photos. And, yes... they are iconic.
Let me unpack that word for those of you who feel it is overused. It doesn't mean or imply what you may think.
Iconic: widely recognized and well-established, as in a brand name or style, widely known and acknowledged especially for distinctive excellence
These photos? Instantly recognizable and incredibly unique; the type of thing I expect, 80 years from now, to appear as an exhibit in art museums as an example of activism during the dawn of social media.
Please enjoy this tiny sample of those who participated.
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