Loretta Devine at the 2016 HRC Houston Gala
Daily Archives: May 24, 2016
Leave Madonna Alone! Five Other Times Well-Intentioned Gay “Divas” Have Butchered Live Performances
Leave Madonna Alone! Five Other Times Well-Intentioned Gay “Divas” Have Butchered Live Performances
Madonna got a ton of crap this week for her tribute to Prince during Sunday night’s Billboard Music Awards. The Queen of Pop belted out the late singer’s song “Nothing Compares 2 U” before being joined onstage by Stevie Wonder for a joint rendition of “Purple Rain.” But many Prince fans didn’t appreciate the musical homage. And some were downright offended.
Related: Internet Responds To Madonna’s Butchering Of Prince’s Greatest Hits
We’ll be honest and say it wasn’t Madonna’s best performance. But it also wasn’t her worst. And plenty of other singers have had “off” nights during their careers. Nobody can be perfect all the time.
Scroll down for five other times well-intentioned gay “divas” have struggled with hitting those high notes…
Britney Spears
Perhaps what makes this particular performance so tragic isn’t Britney’s actual voice but how hard she is trying.
Mariah Carey
Each December, Mariah Carey puts on a new red dress and snowflake earrings and makes an appearance on national television to sing her perennial hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” In 2014, someone pulled a nasty holiday prank and posted the isolated vocals of her performance during the Rockefeller tree lighting. The result was anything but bright.
Jennifer Lopez
OK, nobody really believes Jenny from the Block has any technical singing ability, but just in case there was any lingering confusion…
Beyoncé
This wasn’t so much of a vocal fail as it was a special effects fail. While belting out her song “Halo,” Beyoncé accidentally got her hair caught in a fan. Amazingly, she managed to keep singing. And she barely missed a note. Well done, Bey.
Christina Aguilera
Who can possibly forget the time Christina Aguilera forget the lyrics to the National Anthem whilst screaming the song before millions of people at the 2011 Super Bowl?
BONUS: Katie Holmes
OK, this one is a bonus because she’s not actually a singer… which is precisely the writers of Dawson’s Creek never should have written that scene where she performs a rendition of “On My Own” from Les Miserables during a beauty pageant. Come on, guys!
Spanish Police Help Neo-Nazis Banish Kissing Gay Couple
Spanish Police Help Neo-Nazis Banish Kissing Gay Couple
A gay Spanish couple tried to single-handedly take on a crowd of neo-nazis this weekend, and things didn’t exactly go well for them — although given history as a precedent, it certainly could have gone worse.
Their names are David Fernandez and Gregor Eistert, and they never intended to take a stand against fascism. They were just on a date in Malasana, a trendy little neighborhood, when an anti-immigrant stormed past.
At that point, David and Gregor decided to make out. And sure, what could be more romantic than a crowd of dangerous-looking men screaming about keeping out foreigners and brandishing photos of Franco?
As one might expect, the neo-nazis got a little perturbed when they spotted two gay men kissing. Eventually a policeman wandered over to tell them “that’s enough” and made the two men leave.
So there you have it! Love wins! Except it doesn’t, since the gay couple were the ones forced to leave and the neo-nazis were allowed to continue on their way.
Then again, what if they’d been allowed to keep kissing and the crowd grew violent? Obviously the nazis are the bad guys here — it isn’t even necessary to clarify that point — but were David and Gregor ready to go to the hospital (or worse) for the sake of a two-man kiss-in? Sometimes you have to pick you battles, and one little make-out session was probably never going to be powerful enough to force the dissolution of a racist rally.
Next time, organize an orgy!
What To Watch On TV This Week: Finales for ‘Real O’Neals’ and ‘Nashville’
What To Watch On TV This Week: Finales for ‘Real O’Neals’ and ‘Nashville’
Check out our weekly guide to TV this week, and make sure you’re catching the big premieres, crucial episodes and the stuff you won’t admit you watch when no one’s looking.
— It’s prom time TV Tuesday night when The Real O’Neals wraps its first season Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC. The O’Neal kids are getting ready for an unforgettable night, starting with planning the perfect prom-posals.
— Our favorite sexually-fluid model/dancer/hunk Nyle DiMarco is still in the running for the disco ball trophy on Dancing With the Stars. See if he’ll be able to claim another reality-TV championship Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern on ABC.
— ABC’s country-music drama Nashville says happy trails with a series finale. What will happen at the series’ curtain call for Rayna (the brilliant Connie Britton), Juliette (Hayden Panettiere) and the gay country singer Will (Chris Carmack)? Find out Wednesday at 10 p.m. Eastern.
— R-E-S-P-E-C-T for the sharp, young minds competing at the 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Catch the finals Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern on ESPN.
— It’s time for Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer) to make her walk of shame on Game of Thrones Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO. The Sparrows might be in for a rude awakening when the Tyrell army swoops in to save the queen the humiliation.
What are you watching on TV this week?
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Adam Lambert Explains Why It Got Better For Him – WATCH
Adam Lambert Explains Why It Got Better For Him – WATCH
Adam Lambert talks about his experience growing up gay, coming out to his family, and learning to love who he is in a new video in which he explains how life ‘got better’ for him after coming out.
Originally founded by Dan Savage and husband Terry Miller in 2010 in response to a spate of LGBT youth suicides, the “It Gets Better” Project was intended to prevent suicide and provide comfort and solace to young people struggling to understand their sexual identity
Lambert reveals that for him, it was around puberty when “everything got kind of strange,” and he quickly realized he was different from most other boys his own age. That feeling of being different and not seeing any visible out gay men who could serve as role models left Lambert isolated. “It makes you feel like an outsider, for sure,” he says. “I kind of hid. I hid from being my true self. Because I knew I was going to be a target if I did that.”
As he moved into high school and started finding a community in choir and theatre, Lambert also began to see positive representations of LGBT people in media, namely Pedro on The Real World and the sitcom Will & Grace.
Of coming out, Lamberty says it was his mother who outed him. And after coming out to both his parents, he had a sense of relief. “It’s so funny because in my head as a teenager it seemed like such a big deal,” Lambert recalls. “When it all finally happened, it was kind of like, ‘That was easy.’”
As Lambert began pursuing a career in entertainment in Los Angeles, however, he still found that people were not willing to accept him. When he appeared on American Idol, rumors began to swirl about his sexuality and pictures of him kissing boys also emerged. When asked about it on the red carpet of the Idol premiere, Lambert said, “That’s me and I have nothing to hide.”
Lambert believes that owning his identity and bucking what others consider “normal” has been a huge part of his success. He hopes that LGBT youths currently struggling with their identity will eschew self-consciousness in favor of self-confidence.
“For the one kid maybe who’s searching for some sort of answer or some sort of confidence, [who’s fighting] fear of, ‘What are they gonna say? What are they gonna think?’ You gotta let that go. That’s the thing that’s in your way.”
Watch, below.
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KKK Distributing Anti-Transgender Fliers to Residents in Alabama: ‘Use a Tree in the Back Yard’
KKK Distributing Anti-Transgender Fliers to Residents in Alabama: ‘Use a Tree in the Back Yard’
The Ku Klux Klan is reportedly distributing fliers to residents of Dothan and Mobile, Alabama, urging people to join them to “boycott this abomination.”
The fliers quote Deuteronomy and reads: “These freaks are jeopardizing the safety of bathrooms all across the nation for our women and children. This needs to stop.”
They also contain the sick advice: “If your (sic) confused and don’t know what sex you are today USE A TREE OUT IN THE BACK YARD.”
While they seem to be suggesting that trans people use a tree to go to the bathroom, the allusion to lynching is not lost on anyone, particularly those commenting on Facebook, where an image of the flier was posted.
Police are investigating, the Dothan Eagle reports:
Capt. Will Benny, the supervisor of CID, said a man made a report to the Dothan Police Department on Monday of having received a flier from the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) at his home. Benny said the man, an east Dothan resident, also reported his neighbor had received one too.
“It appears to be against transgender and transgender bathrooms and it was basically a recruitment flier,” Benny said.
Benny said there was actually no crime committed in the distribution of the flier, which he said also solicited donations from the public. Benny said the KKK flier and report were forwarded to the FBI as intelligence information.
Capt. Stacy Robinson also said the flier was forwarded to the FBI as a precautionary measure.
“Obviously any time you get hate-related material there’s a reason to be cautious and to investigate it,” Robinson said.
Similar fliers were also left in Mobile, the paper reports.
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Was St. Louis Fight an Antigay Attack or Drunken Brawl? (Video)
Was St. Louis Fight an Antigay Attack or Drunken Brawl? (Video)
Derrick Glasby says when he tried to intervene in an antigay attack in downtown St. Louis Friday morning, he ended up on the recieving end of violence.
www.advocate.com/crime/2016/5/24/was-st-louis-fight-antigay-attack-or-drunken-brawl-video
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Arkansas TV Reporter Gives Perfect Response To Viewer Who Can’t Stand His ‘Gayness’
Arkansas TV Reporter Gives Perfect Response To Viewer Who Can’t Stand His ‘Gayness’
As the old saying goes, “you can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” What’s missing is this modern update: “Ignorant bigots will never be pleased about anything so you just have to do your best not to let their grating nonsense burrow too deep underneath your skin.”
An Arkansas TV reporter recently put this lesson to the test with excellent form after an irate viewer wrote him an email about how his “gayness” was a problem.
Mitchell McCoy, a reporter for KARK-TV, shared the ugly correspondence via Twitter:
I get many emails but this tops it. I’ve dreamt of being a reporter since I was 9 and I won’t stop on your behalf. pic.twitter.com/gyFCRHfPHi
— Mitchell McCoy (@MitchellMcCoy) May 23, 2016
“I watched KARK before you joined and it was a reputable broad cast [sic] until now,” the viewer, who signed the email “kark Channel 4 Fan,” begins. “I have been holding back for months but I can’t stand your gayness.”
“You are on television every night and our children should not be watching people like you. You are a disgrace to Arkansas and I will be asking your boss to take you off.” That’s just rude — you don’t see McCoy coming around to your boss and telling her you’re unfit to be making Dairy Queen chicken strips.
The “fan” concludes, “Do not be offended but society is not ready for gay men reading news.”
McCoy had the perfect response, keeping things light, bright and gay:
“I get many emails but this tops it. I’ve dreamt of being a reporter since I was 9 and I won’t stop on your behalf.”
He added:
With that said, no matter who you are or what you believe in – dream loudly and don’t let anyone get in your way. The minute you stop…
— Mitchell McCoy (@MitchellMcCoy) May 23, 2016
…is the minute you stop being who you are. It’s not worth it. #DreamOn #StepUpStopBullying
— Mitchell McCoy (@MitchellMcCoy) May 23, 2016
Just for reference, here’s a reel of McCoy being a damn good TV reporter:
h/t RawStory
Freshmen Strip Down for Naval Academy’s Greasiest Bonding Tradition, the Herndon Climb: WATCH
Freshmen Strip Down for Naval Academy’s Greasiest Bonding Tradition, the Herndon Climb: WATCH
Hundreds of Navy plebes enjoyed an annual tradition at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis yesterday, the annual Herndon Climb. The challenge involves balancing a midshipman’s hat on top of a giant obelisk (the Herndon Monument) greased with lard and covered in water.
Although the plebes appear to be having a great time, the event seems to have been created as much for the enjoyment of spectators.
“Friends and family cheered and jeered from the audience with every step and slip. After several changes in strategy, the mission was complete. Clocking in at one hour and 12 minutes, Chris Bianchi staked a claim on the monument…The shortest time was in 1975; those plebes did it in 20 minutes. In 1998, it took the class four hours and five minutes.”
Photos and video below:
plebes at #USNA complete Herndon Monument Climb up lard-covered obelisk. pics: Kevin Dietsch t.co/iteF499n55 pic.twitter.com/MSikLSX1ZX
— William Creighton (@wlliamcreighton) May 23, 2016
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