Tarhearted.

DIVAS.

This is your new favorite video. Watch it forever.

 

 

YOUNG FOLKS.

I adore Larry Kramer. He scowled at me at MoMA once, and it was like a little gift from baby jesus. He is one of my idols and I know that I'm forever in his debt, but...

This open letter is pretty awesome.

I'm forever defending my generation, both in LGBT rights circles and in the arts as well. I like my generation. I'm proud of my generation.

 

 

Here's a stock photo of some millennials, crackers all.

 

QUOTES.

Oh, Larry! You have my heart. You really, really do. Even when I saw you out and about and you scowled at me, my heart skipped a beat. Here you are again, playing my fucking jam, man.

Via Joe.My.God.

"I am a gay person before I’m anything else. I’m a gay person before I’m a white person, before I’m a Jew, before I’m a writer, before I’m American, anything. That is my most identifying characteristic and I don’t find many people who would say that. The polls say the same thing: People do not identify themselves as gay. And that’s too bad. In fact, it’s tragic. It will prevent us from ever having what we deserve, I believe." - Larry Kramer, in an interview with Salon.

BOOM. Totally. I feel the exact same way.

Now I must begin work on my musical version of Faggots.

EDIT. Also from Joe:

"I'm sure other people in the business have considered reasons why they're doing what they're doing, but I do think that if you're gay you have a responsibility to come out." - Rachel Maddow, in a profile by the UK's Guardian.

Again, yup.

JENNIFER HARDER: MUSE.

Daddy is nursing a serious hangover today as a result of the Innovative Theatre Awards last night. My congratulations go out to Jennifer Harder who won Best Featured Actress for her turn as Linda in MilkMilkLemonade.

Jennifer has been one of my main collaborators since I was cast alongside her in The Management's second show, Aloha, Say the Pretty Girls- way back in 2004. Since then I've written two roles specifically with her in mind.

The first was Penny in The Chalk Boy, an angry 15 year-old Wiccan in Washington State. Her performance set the standard for the character. Jenny imbued the character with a sense of danger and an under current of sadness that seemed so, so real. Her performance was so definitive that the early sketches of the upcoming graphic novel adaptation have the character looking just like her.

I also wrote the role of Linda the Chicken in MilkMilkLemonade, and was worried that she wouldn't want to play it. What pretty blond girl wants to play a chicken with a Brooklyn accent who does lousy stand-up? (God, I do awful things to actors.) Thank goodness she took the role. Again, she brought depth to a character that didn't necessarily call for depth. Or so I thought, as the self-deprecating playwright. Turns out Jenny understood the character better than I did.

We don't always agree. We fight and then make-up like siblings, but I always have a deep respect for her, her talent, and her friendship. Jennifer Harder is one of the most generous, bold, and coo coo crazy actresses I know. I can't think of anybody I'd rather see get this award.

Here's to a lifetime of collaboration!

MilkMilkLemonade TRADING CARDS.

Better get ready, Queens!

Astoria Performing Arts Center's production of MilkMilkLemonade, with the original cast collected, is coming your way. Check out the cute (and collectible) post cards.

Collect them all!

59 AND FEELING FINE.

Happy birthday, Elvira!

GOODBYE, GLENN.

Actor Glenn Shadix, best known as Otho in Beetlejuice, has died. Bummer. Otho was everything I wanted to be when I was a little boy watching Beetlejuice: gay, tasteful, a New Yorker.

And I would be remiss if I didn't point out how amazing he was as the minister in the best teen film of all time, Heathers.

Goodbye, Glenn! You were truly beautiful. Let's just hope he's rubbing noses with Jesus.

WENDY, WENDY, CAROL.

The Fiance and I stumbled across an episode of The Wendy Williams show last night and, I have to tell you, I'm so glad we did. It must've been a fag special because her guests were Kathy Griffin and... wait for it... CAROL CHANNING!!!

It. Was. Heaven.

First of all, I'd never watched this show before. The first part is just Wendy talking to her audience and it seems unscripted. Do you have a friend that talks too much and is really, really vain and not that interesting but you like them anyway? That's kind of how Williams is. Also, I loved her even more once Carol came out and she was moved to tears.

I would be moved to tears too, Wendy.

Let's talk about Carol's outfit. She was wearing a red leather jacket a la Michael Jackson in the "Beat It" video. Her hair was up in a pony tail-ish thing, like Pebbles from the Flintstones.

Wait, I found a picture:

Amazing, right? And then, Carol brought it home, saying, "Doesn't it look like an atom bomb going off?" Ha ha ha ha ha! Then Carol and Wendy spent the ENTIRE FIRST SEGMENT talking about Wendy's make-up artist. That queen, whoever he is,  must have been backstage just glowing.

Then (oh god, I can hardly type this) they have a discussion about race. Carol shares a story about her parents worrying that she might have a black baby. Carol then says that would have been fine since, "She could've been an Alvin Ailey dancer." Then, THEN, Wendy Williams names Carol Channing an honorary black person. What the WHAT?

I ate this show up like candy. I'll tell you one thing, Carol Channing and Wendy Williams will both be in my heaven. 

P.S. It's really hard for me to not call Wendy Williams Wendy O. Williams, who was the lead singer of The Plasmatics and star of the seminal film, Reform School Girls. I kind of think that would make a better show.

WITCH SONGS OF MY YOUTH.

It should surprise nobody that I was completely obsessed with witches when I was little, and there was a certain song we used to sing in elementary school music class. I've been trying to get anyone and everyone I can think of to remember it over the years, but the only lyrics I could remember were something like, "...Stir it in my witches brew. I've got magic. Ali-cadabra-cadoo."

Now, thanks to Dlisted of all things, I know that it was Hap Palmer's "Witches Brew." Mystery solved! the internet wins again!

 Check out these hot lyrics. I wish Lady Sovereign would cover this shit:

Dead leaves, seaweed, rotten eggs, too.
Stir them in my witches’ brew.
I got magic, Alakazamakazoo.

Spider web, moldy bread, mucky mud, too.
Stir them in my witches’ brew.
I got magic! Alakazamakazoo

ooo - My witches’ brew - ooo
What’s it gonna do to you?
Boo!
Floor wax, thumb tacks, purple paint, too.
Stir them in my witches’ brew.
I got magic, Alakazamakazoo.

Finger nails, lunch pails, apple cores, too.
Stir them in my witches’ brew.
I got magic, Alakazamakazoo.

ooo - My witches’ brew - ooo
What’s it gonna do to you?
Boo!

Wrinkled prunes, mushrooms, motor oil, too.
Stir them in my witches’ brew.
I got magic, Alakazamakazoo.
I got magic, Alakazamakazoo.

Thank GOD that's solved. Now I have to get that on my ipod along with Mrs. Garrett singing my other favorite witch song from The Worst Witch, "My Little School."

Beat on it, Delilah!

BORN TO BE CHEAP.

If only youtube had existed when I was a teenager. In order to see Female Trouble and Pink Flamingos in tenth grade I had to mail order them by catalogue from a video store in Philadelphia. (I lived in rural Washington State.) I think my mother (goddess bless her) even had to put down a deposit because these VHS tapes were super out-of-print. It took longer than a week for them to arrive and when they did my mom let me skip school to watch them. I managed to hook up an old VCR to the new VCR so I could make illegal bootlegs and subsequently turned all the neighborhood kids into John Waters fans.

I loved those nights. We'd all sit in my basement smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey and shouting and watching the antics of real stars, like Divine and Mink Stole and Edith Massey. There was little else to do besides this. The alternative wasn't pretty either. At our most bored we'd get high by taking entire boxes of cough medicine or breaking into the summer homes of rich Seattlites who wouldn't be back for months. We were so beautiful then! Is it wrong that I wax nostalgic over juvenile delinquency?

These kids today are so lucky to have youtube. I can enter "Divine" and I'm immediately treated to a veritable treasure trove. Did you know sexy, sexy Alan Thicke had a  late night chat show called Thicke of the Night and that Divine performed her wonderful single, "Born to Be Cheap" on it?

It's wonderful. Thicke is so uncomfortable:

 

I googled "sexy Alan Thicke" and found this old Playgirl cover. If this is not a fake I will pay ungodly sums for it: