Happy Birthday, Frances

Thanks to my dear Stephen at Post Apocalyptic Bohemian, I am reminded that today marks the birthday of probably the single most identifiable gay icon of the 20th Century, Judy Garland.

As someone who spent his adolescence in the late 70's, I've never fully embraced the whole Judy thing. I mean, I get it. She was a beautiful and talented young woman tragically exploited and enabled by the studio system into a spiral of self-destruction. A story we see again and again in real-life Hollywood. Does no one learn from the past?

According to LGBT mythology, the Stonewall riots were an almost direct result of Garland's death. The Stonewall was supposedly packed with fans who had come to mourn the loss of their heroine when the infamous raid and resulting riot took place.

I think this is the thing: Dorothy never really feels like she belongs, throughout the whole movie. When she's home in Kansas, she's dreaming of somewhere far away. But when she ends up somewhere far away, all she wants to do is go home. She makes new friends; has a glamorous makeover; kills two witches and exposes (well, her dog does, anyway) a fraud, while helping her new friends discover they've already had their fondest wishes, all along. Is there any one of you out there that cannot relate to at least one aspect of this story? I doubt it. No wonder gay men embraced this movie (and Garland) so much. And let's not even mention the Ruby Slippers...

Personally, I think Garland's best performances came well after The Wizard of Oz. I am especially enamored of her in Meet Me in St. Louis, in which she sang several of her signature songs:

And then of course, there's this from 1950's Summer Stock:

If you're a Baby Boomer, I hope you get it. If you're a Gen X'er or younger... well, you have no idea what you missed.

More, anon.
Prospero

The Gayest Things I've Ever Posted?

Alright, some of you youngin's might not recognize the two ladies to your left (which is a terrible shame), though folks of a "certain age" (i.e. Uncle P and his friends) can tell you that not only are they both show biz legends and gay icons, but between them have slept with more gay men than most gay men do (and that's a lot of gay men).

And if you really need to be told, that's Liza Minnelli and her mother, Judy Garland. Many say that Judy's death was indirectly responsible for the raid on the Stonewall and the consequent riots, which reportedly took place while legions of gay fans had gathered to mourn their Diva's passing. That may or may not be documented somewhere, but I'm too lazy to look it up tonight. It came to me apocryphally, and so I now pass it on to you, in the same way.

Anyway, Punchy Players (via) have a very weird, but very funny commercial parody for Cream of Wheat, starring the mother/daughter superstars, both of whom are voiced by someone credited only as "Jeff." It's pretty damn gay:

Personally, I think Mario Cantone's Judy & Liza are better than Jeff's, but that weird photo animation lent it something that took the bizarre to whole new level.

Here's Mario's take:

And that took the gay up almost 3 levels... Let's see if we can't even the scales a bit.

You may have heard about this new little Internet phenomenon called Chatroullette. I would love to go on it, but you need a webcam, and I'm not going there. But people are starting to record and edit their sessions rather cleverly. I believe it is the very first music video made using Chatroulette. Gay because the music is Gaga and features a very funny guy in increasingly bizarre drag; bizarre because of the increasingly bizarre drag (and his facial hair) and hilarious because of some of the reactions, which range from horrified to hysterical to participatiorydancing. Ladies and germs (also via), I give you the Chatroulette version of Lady Gaga's "Telephone" (may be NSFW):

It's hard to know exactly what to say after watching that, isn't it?

Was I right? Are those the gayest things I've ever posted? If nothing else, they're all kind of weird (though that's not really anything new around here, now is it?). Kisses or venoms; applause or rotten tomatoes; thumbs up or down (and can I hear a sad little sigh for the end of "At the Movies" from all of you, please? The balcony is closed... ); agree, disagree or just want to share lewd limericks, then leave me a comment. I love hearing from you.

Last night I was working on both my screenplay and a critique of a play by a young friend, and time just got away from me. I really didn't have much to say, anyway (if you can you imagine such a thing). Tonight, I had a wonderful dinner at the Lambertville Station with three of my very BFFs (I've known Q, K and Dale for most of my adult life), which was what I hope will be the start of a wonderful weekend.

Of course, tomorrow also starts Phase II of The Great Plumbing Disaster of 2010: The Bathroom. The same problem that forced my kitchen renovation in January, also caused some damage to the wall in my bathroom (to save on plumbing, the builders put the bathroom and kitchen behind each other, so they shared water and waste lines in a single wall). And since it really also needed it anyway, my amazing contractor, Sam, will be replacing the tub with a shower unit; replacing the damaged wallboard behind the toilet and sink and re-tiling the floor. He's promised to have it done in three days. I'm guessing it will be Tuesday before I get to take a proper shower again. Looks like it's washcloths, baby-wipes and kitchen sink shampoos for a few days. You never learn to appreciate anything until you don't have it, I suppose. Yes, I always like to end on a cliche. It's so soothing...

Anyway...

More, anon. Read me tomorrow at the Zombie Zone.
Prospero

He DOES Own a Shirt!

Regular readers will remember this young man from two previous posts here and here. While researching the real topic of this evening's post, I came across the following video in which our young actor appears actually rather sane, and wears a shirt:

But who I really want to talk about tonight is Amy Walker, an actress, singer and teacher with some truly remarkable talent. Here she is singing "Over the Rainbow" as Judy Garland through the ages. It's truly amazing:

And here she is singing "Poor Unfortunate Souls" from The Little Mermaid:

Oh, how she makes me want to direct her. Amy's first big YouTube video was "21 Accents in a Row," in which she proceeds to demonstrate exactly what is advertised. You can see more of her work here. Amy, please come act for me!

More, anon.
Prospero