Former Member

Oh, I forgot Elton John’s The One! ;–)

Discuss… ;–)

There have been all sorts of songs adopted by the LGBTQ community as anthems. Some are written or performed by heterosexuals but have lyrics that we identify with, and others are written or performed by family. Some are claimed by the whole community, but others just by segments of the community. We Are Family, Beautiful, Glad to Be Gay, YMCA, I’m Coming Out, Smalltown Boy, Yes I Am, the list goes on and on. Do you have any suggestions?

We can’t conquer the entire world with our army, so we’ll do it more subtly. We’ll export our culture through our movies, music, and food. We’ll convince you to buy iPhones, Mochachino Grandes, Big Macs, California Rolls, and pizza! Muahahaha! ;–)

I’ll have to remember to wear my Matthew Shepherd Foundation ‘Erase Hate’ t-shirt when I do my grocery shopping on Friday ($5 Fridays at Safeway).

That sounds like two other topics to discuss: fictional characters and songs! ;–)

"Coming this October to the Kern Theatre, it's Jason, the Musical! Get your tickets now."

Our Sweet Little Dusty™ still has a job and housing. He also has his health and he’s not an addict. Dustin may seem like he’s hit the bottom, but there’s plenty of room below for him to sink further. Trust me, I’ve been unemployed and homeless (but I’ve never had an addiction problem) – I’ve known plenty of people worse off than Dustin! ;–)

When I was growing up, it seemed like my parents’ favorite sentence was, ‘It’s too expensive, we can’t afford it.’ It didn’t matter if we asked the other parent, they said exactly the sane thing. I was telling that to a young mother on the bus one day and she sounded shocked! ‘You can do that?’ she asked. Yes! And you should do that! Just because a kid wants something doesn’t mean you have to get it for them. There are often priorities that are more important than just spoiling your kid – like food or rent! A PSA (Public Service Announcement, not Peugeot-Citroën) points out that you need to put away your cellphone or tablet and actually interact with your child! Talking and reading to a very young child helps them do better in school later. Have them count things when you take them grocery shopping. Have them find fruits and vegetables in different colors. It’s even better if you can teach them more than one language when they’re around 6 or 7 or younger when they can learn them the easiest (the US doesn’t need yet another generation of monolingual adults). ;–)

How does the old saw go...? JSB Snoot: "Bach only wrote two piano concertos." JSB Fan: "Two is all he needed to write." Thanks for posting this, Parker

First of all, thank you! I always intended this thread to be a forum, where opinions and music can be shared (as opposed to a mere bulletin board to tack videos) So I really appreciate your comments. Secondly, in the vid of the full performance of Démophooon, her later scena is also well worth checking out. It starts at 2:39:01. As for acting, I have noticed most of the statings recorded in Italy in this era eschew any real movement on stage. Perhaps they felt it would cheapen the action to mere melodrama (or plain soap opera). But in any event, you can see it over and over again, particularly in the films made at la Scala. Opera staging was known to be staid in general, and think -- 1985 is exactly the time Peter Sellars was coming to the fore with his (now commonplace style) shakeup of opera settings. It's all a process; someday placid, statuesque staging will be back in vogue. As for Caballé being a ham on stage...aren't they all?

Cleve was one of the four who inspired the major characters in the miniseries, When We Rise. This series was intended to provide a brief overview of LGBTQ history for heterosexuals and young LGBTQ kids who wouldn’t have learned it in school. For those of us who lived through at least parts of the period, it wasn’t either complete or detailed enough, but we weren’t the intended primary audience. As the responses to this topic suggest, we have a vast and varied history to explore! ;–) A young Cleve was also portrayed in Milk. ;–)

In the role of angry old man, San Francisco has Cleve Jones… ;–) And then there’s Armistead Maupin, author of the Tales of the City series. A man who gentle humor became a must-read when his stories were serialized in the local newspaper beginning in the ‘70s. The fist book was turned into a miniseries that was, at the time, PBS’s most watched miniseries ever. It also became the target of venom and vitriol in Congress, being an early excuse to cutoff funding for PBS. The second and third books were also turned into miniseries and were shown on Showtime. Netflix is set to premiere a ten episode continuation of the series in 2019 with Laura Linney, Olympia Dukakis, and Barbara Garrick returning – Ellen Page will play a grownup Shawna! The book series one of the 100 best novels on PBS’s The Great American Read.

Since I’m not a historian, I watch them for educational or entertainment purposes. KQED (San Francisco’s PBS station) broadcasted many documentaries that explained LGBT history to me. Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival, has shown me even more and in a much wider variety than KQED ever did. I’ve learned about all sorts of segments of our community that I didn’t know anything about. Many have been from countries not usually seen in the LGBTQ context (except, in some cases, as a place to visit on vacation). In the last couple years, I’ve seen documentaries from Waziristan in Pakistan, Jamaica, Japan, and the Kingdom of Tonga – even one mostly filmed in the foreign (to me!) land of Atlanta! Over the years, I’ve seen many movies about the experiences of Trans people. A year or two ago, there were several about the legalization of Gays in the UK more than 50 years ago. I learned a whole lot more about the four Lesbians who were elected to California’s Assembly, paving the way for the Gay men and other Lesbians who followed in their footsteps! One lesson I learned from all of those documentaries (and fictionalized historical narratives) was that Trans People, People of Color, women, and effeminate Gay men were often fighting for our rights while less obviously Gay men ‘passed’ while hiding in the closet. We need to acknowledge our actual history, not just the whitewashed version that some try to pass off as accurate. I appreciate what our forerunners did to make my life easier and safer. We need to pay it forward!

There are two documentaries about Marsha P Johnson. Pay It No Mind – The Life and Times of Marsha P Johnson (2012) and The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson (2017). The newer one follows a Transwoman as she investigates Johnson’s murder.

Back in the ‘70s, I had no clue that Freddie Mercury was Gay even though his group was named Queen. Of course, I was still in high school and still in the closet at the time. I didn’t realize that his mustache was part of the Castro Clone look. I had no idea what Queen implied. ;–)

I’d reveal where I learned the info, but it might be a Spoiler… ;–)

In the US (and possibly Canada), the pumpkin-everything is probably more related to Thanksgiving. Canada’s Thanksgiving is today and US Thanksgiving is at the end of November. Pumpkins are not just associated with Halloween. ;–)

In the Bay Area, The Castro used to be the place to go on Halloween (and even the weekend before the Holiday – because they spent so much effort on their costumes they needed to show it off more than just the one night!) – in costume, of course. They used to shutdown several blocks to traffic, including Market St. But more and more non-costumed heteros started showing up to gawk and cause problems. There were a few shootings by out of town troublemakers before the event was shut down for good. :–( I remember eating at The Patio Cafe back in the ‘90s. Suddenly, a guy in a blue gingham dress and a shepherd’s crook ran into the restaurant and yelled, ‘I’m Little Bo Peep and I’ve lost my sheep!’ And then he ran out again! Everybody had been startled into silence, but then we all started laughing when we realized what had happened. ;–)

The mascara isn’t considered makeup? ;–) In addition to most of them names mentioned above, I’d add Neil Tennant, Holly Johnson, Tom ‘Glad to be Gay’ Robinson, Sylvester, Jill Sobule, kd lang, and Melissa Etheridge. And honorary members of the LGBTQ family including Annie Lennox, Billy Bragg*, and Madonna. And then there are all the LGBTQ movie & TV directors and LGBTQ writers… * How many other straight guys wrote and sang lyrics like this in the early ‘90s? Trust 🎶 He's already been inside me And he really didn't say And I really didn't ask him I just hoped and prayed He's already been inside me And I really don't feel well I keep looking in the mirror But it's hard to tell Will he stay by me and take my hand And hold me till I sleep Or will he crumble and fall to the floor And weep Oh feeble man, oh evil man He's already been inside me Would he have told me if he cared? I know I ought to find out But I'm much too scared He's already been inside me And I know it can't be good Nothing feels The way it should Will he hold me in his arms again And wipe away my tears Or has he already taken My best years Oh evil man, oh feeble man 🎶

I hope you left your pliers in the toolbox! ;–)

Yay friends… Scottie is really lucky that Devin is willing to give him a second chance. He doesn’t really deserve it. Maybe Scottie will think before he reacts next time. It seems to be mandatory that Comments begin with that phrase, so I edited mine to add it! ;–)

Whenever things even remotely begin to settle down for Dustin, disaster happens! And not just one problem at a time, multiple catastrophes, one after another! It’s very easy for us to see what sorts of things Dustin could do to start to solve his problems, but he is overwhelmed by all the chaos in his life and cannot see a way out. It would be nice to think that being hospitalized will be the beginning of Dustin’s improved life, but he’s not that lucky. @jkwsquirrel likes to torment our Sweet Little Dusty! ;–)

Oops! Wrong early Don Johnson movie. The nude scene is in The Harrad Experiment (1973). ;–)

What happened to Benjamin Usher? Was he a victim too? How does an office like that keep operating? They must be constantly hiring new employees! ;–)