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Randy Rainbow Sings a Lament To Marco Rubio’s Campaign, “GOP Dropout”

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Yes, the only moderately cute GOP candidate in recent memory, Marco Rubio dropped out of the race for the White House last night. I guess Randy Rainbow is either psychic, or stayed up all night to give us this sweet little ditty. Watch.

I’m not one to kick a girl while they’re down, but here’s a Blind Gossip item if you care to dish some dirt on Little Marco. (T/Y Tad)

The post Randy Rainbow Sings a Lament To Marco Rubio’s Campaign, “GOP Dropout” appeared first on The WOW Report.


#WOWExclusive: Constance Cooper Dishes on Robert Mapplethorpe, Holly Woodlawn, and That Bald Drag Queen from American Horror Story

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Mapplethorpe muse and drag legend Constance Cooper stopped by the studio this week for a wild chat about sex clubs in the ’70s, what she did with her original portraits, how she met Holly Woodlawn, and what she REALLY thinks of Ryan Murphy for putting a bald drag queen in charge of the hotel bar on his show American Horror Story.

Constance is currently featured in the Sundance hit Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures (coming to HBO April 4th)

The post #WOWExclusive: Constance Cooper Dishes on Robert Mapplethorpe, Holly Woodlawn, and That Bald Drag Queen from American Horror Story appeared first on The WOW Report.

Fashion Photo RuView: Bitch Perfect

March 17: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch!

#BornThisDay: Dancer, Rudolph Nureyev

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rudi

March 17, 1938Рудо́льф Хаме́тович Нуре́ев

I remember my mother sitting me down and explaining who he was when he defected from the USSR in 1961. If Rudolph Nureyev‘s story had been already been made in to a film, it would have been a preposterously pedantic piece directed by Ken Russell. It would be nearly unbelievable as fiction.

Nureyev grew up in the USSR in extreme poverty during WW II, and yet, somehow he had this sterling single-mindedness of spirit and strength to get himself out of his small town and flee to the West. Nureyev played a role in so many of the major historical and cultural events of the 20th century; his life was absolutely Forrest Gump-ian.

I knew and understood who he was from an early age. His image was seared into my young teenage consciousness by a photo on the cover of After Dark Magazine (you kids probably don’t remember After Dark. It was the best friend a boy in the closet could have).

Nureyev was the friend of Jackie Onassis, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithful, Andy Warhol, Freddie Mercury, Bobby Kennedy, and Madonna. Soviet Prime Minister Leonid Brezhnev personally tried to thwart his career. He was the very pretty face of the Cold War, an icon of the 1960’s sexual revolution, and a representative of the new popularization of celebrity personality as high culture. He was lordly, lusty, obsessive and opinionated. Nureyev was one of the 20th century’s true geniuses and the life he lived is a record of that era.

Nureyev consorted with royalty and with gay hustlers. He was a dancing contradiction: defiant of authority, but an unmatched disciplinarian in the studio, needy and nonchalant, pious and promiscuous, cruel and charitable.

Nureyev had an intimate, intriguing, tumultuous affair with Erik Bruhn, the very beautiful blond Danish ballet star a decade older than Nureyev. He remained the great love of Nureyev’s life even after their relationship ended.

Back in the aughts, I supervised fifteen 20-32 year olds, several who were gay, and when I tried to explain what he meant to our culture, not one of them had even heard of Rudolph Nureyev. Crazy, because it was just a few decades ago that he was everywhere & now he seems nearly forgotten, probably because dance is that most ephemeral of art forms.

Thousands of screaming fans used to wait for him at the stage door after his performances. Nureyev was on the cover of Time and Newsweek in the same week. Like Nijinsky, he was a dance star and a pop star.

That film of his life will have to feature a classic suspense sequence: while dancing with Kirov Ballet, the Communist Party and the KGB didn’t trust Nureyev’s political loyalty, plus he angered them by associating too freely with Westerners while the Kirov Ballet was on tour. He was at the Paris airport with the Kirov Ballet, ready to fly with them to London, when he learned that he was suddenly being sent back to the USSR. Flanked by KGB agents, Nureyev made an urgent appeal for help to a Paris friend, Pierre Lacotte. Lacotte brought in another friend, Clara Saint, who rushed to the airport. Posing as an adoring girlfriend, she convinced the KGB agents to let her say goodbye to Nureyev.

While kissing his cheeks, she whispered the plan into his ear. Then she rushed away and got the French airport police, telling them that a famous Russian dancer wanted to stay in France. The police agreed to protect Nureyev if he could get away from the KGB and into their custody. They accompanied Saint into the airport bar where the KGB was guarding Nureyev. She approached him one last time, whispering that he needed to get to the police across the room. Nureyev bolted from his chair and leaped to the bar, a distance of a few yards. He yelled: “I want to stay in France!!!”. The KGB agents lunged after him. The Paris police, as promised, protected him.

That literal leap to freedom made Nureyev famous, but his stardom really came from his impassioned, impetuous, impulsive, inspiring, intense dancing. Male ballet dancers in that era were virile and vigorous, but they were deferential to their female partners. Nureyev gave the audiences animal attraction, allure, and astonishing sexuality onstage. As a young gay guy, I was cold-cocked and riveted by Nureyev’s hip, flamboyant charms.

“The main thing is dancing, and before it withers away from my body, I will keep dancing till the last moment, the last drop.”

Nureyev took his final bow in 1993, taken by complications from HIV. He was just 54 years old. Newsweek Magazine ran its second Nureyev cover with the headline: “AIDS & The Arts: A Lost Generation.”

The post #BornThisDay: Dancer, Rudolph Nureyev appeared first on The WOW Report.

Fran Leibowitz on How She’d Improve New York (& Why It’s Still the Greatest City)

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Fran& Andy outside The Factory, Union Square, 1983. Photo, Curtis Knapp

Fran& Andy outside The Factory, Union Square, 1983. Photo, Curtis Knapp

Fran in '81, cover by Richard Bernstein

Fran in ’81, cover by Richard Bernstein


The best thing about Interview was always in the title. Before I moved to New York, I learned about the city through Interview magazine (& SNL.) Warhol is gone, but one of it’s earliest writers, the always seriously funny Fran Leibowitz is still around. She started out writing B-movie reviews in 1972 and is in the current issue talking to old friend, artist Francesco Clemente. She still loves New York and Francesco asked her a few questions about how to save the city that has changed SO much in the last 30 years…

CLEMENTE: I know you follow politics, and I always thought you would make an excellent mayor of New York.

LEBOWITZ: I have thought that, too.

CLEMENTE: If you were going to run for office in New York, what would be your program, and what kind of qualifications would you declare you have?

LEBOWITZ: The first thing I would do is say, “I don’t care if New York avoided bankruptcy by substituting tourism for the garment business,” which is what happened. These four guys figured out how to lift New York out of this dire financial condition with the campaign,

“I Love NY.”

I hated this thing. They used the big Big Apple sign to lure these people who hate New York—because everyone hated New York then—to New York. And in order to do that, you have to change it so they like it. Obviously, I was opposed to this, and I still am. The other day I read that last year 58 million tourists came to New York … where a puny eight million people are trying to live. Unless they own a hotel chain, I don’t think a single one of these eight million people are happy about this. Without these tourists, New York would be fantastic. I don’t want them to come. Stay home! I have a double policy, which would also solve immigration: I would stand at the border of New York City and I would say,

“You can come here to live, but you can’t come here to visit.”

If you’re coming here, you better be immigrating. Immigrants are good, tourists are bad. I would stand at the border and say,

“You’re coming here to live, really? With one suitcase? No, you’re not. Go back.”

I think that would solve both problems. And just think how fantastic New York would be. The housing problem would be solved completely. Bloomberg was always bragging how many hotels were being built—I remember seeing him on the news, saying,

“And this is the nine millionth hotel in Queens.”

Queens! Because it’s everyone’s dream: “Someday I’m going to go to New York and go to Queens.”

Every place there’s a hotel, there’s one less apartment building. So just think, if there were, say, only 10 percent of the hotels that exist now, there would be all these apartments for people who live in New York, as opposed to people visiting New York. And then all this junk in the theater, we would no longer need the kind of stuff that tourists like. People say,

“Well, what would you do with Times Square?”

And I always think, “Gee, I don’t know. There could be butchers and bookstores.”

Like a city. Things that New Yorkers need. There’s no reason why it has to be the way it is. People say,

“Oh, did you like New York better when it was filthy and dangerous?”

No. But why do these things have to be either/or? Couldn’t it be clean, or cleaner. I mean, New York’s not exactly antiseptic. It could be clean and less dangerous, and not horrible, not under a tidal wave of tourists.

CLEMENTE: You failed to describe your qualifications to be mayor of the city.

LEBOWITZ: Here are my qualifications: I am a New Yorker. I like New York. And I like cities. And it’s not my desire to make New York more suburban. I would personally just like to vet each person. The way the admissions director of Harvard decides who goes to Harvard, I’d like to decide who comes here. I’d like to be the admissions director of New York. And you know what we have enough of? Bankers. I’m sorry, we’re full up. No, no, no. You have an idea for an app? Go to California.

CLEMENTE: There was a brilliant article by Régis Debray—he was a guerrilla guy with Che Guevara—saying that, since the election of the American president has an effect on the life of every citizen of the planet, all citizens of the planet should vote.

LEBOWITZ: Well, you know, so few Americans vote that we may not even notice it. It’s very important who the president of the United States is. America is a great idea, so that’s why it’s a great country. China is not a great idea: capitalism and a dictator. It’s like the two worst possible things you could imagine together. It’s a very bad idea. And it’s also not a modern idea; dictators are an old-fashioned idea. Capitalism, pretty old-fashioned, too. But it’s important who the president is. And even when America is not working that well, it still works better than other places. For instance, I, unfortunately, take the subway a lot. It’s not my preference, but it is my lot in life. You sit or stand in the subway, and you look around—I do, because I don’t have a phone so I’m not playing a game—and you see people. You see a young girl wearing a headscarf, and standing next to her is a Hasid. And if you asked them,

“Do you like that Jew?”

She would say, “No, I hate him.”

“Do you like that girl in the head scarf?”

“No, I hate her.”

But here’s the great thing about New York: They leave each other alone. So in New York we have zillions of different kinds of people, many of them hate each other, but violence based on that hatred is really uncommon here. This idea that people have to love and understand each other is absurd. It’s not human nature. But this idea that people cannot kill each other? It actually works here. More than it works in any other place. We have something here that you don’t hear about anymore; we have tolerance. Tolerance is really a better thing than understanding. Because it doesn’t agitate against human nature. Like love does. Or acceptance or understanding. Not only don’t they not understand people different from them, they hardly understand themselves. It’s placing too great a burden on the average intelligence. So forcing people into a situation where they’re supposed to adore each other is probably bad. But letting people get on and off the 6 train without stabbing each other, that’s good.

There’s a LOT more of great interview you can read here. If you live in New York City, you can see her live in conversation with the New York TimesFrank Rich at BAM this Friday the 18th. Ticket info here. (via Interview)

The post Fran Leibowitz on How She’d Improve New York (& Why It’s Still the Greatest City) appeared first on The WOW Report.

After 25 Years LGBTQ Groups Allowed to March in NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade

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Protests for being excluded have gone on for years. (Of course, we're in front of Prada!)

Protests for being excluded have gone on for years. (Of course, we’re in front of Prada!)

FINALLY, the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Fifth Avenue will mark a “day of history and hospitality,” said a leading LGBT activist who will be among the hundreds participating for the first time in the march after decades of boycotting.

Parade organizers announced earlier this month that they were lifting the long-standing ban on openly gay groups. This ends an era of acrimony that began 25 years ago, in 1991, when gay and lesbian community members marching with then-Mayor David Dinkins were mocked and doused with beer.

Brendan Fay, founder of an Irish LGBT advocacy group marching in the parade, Lavender & Green Alliance, said that day changed his life. He said he’s been arrested at least a dozen times protesting exclusion at the Manhattan parade. Fay told Newsday,

We have been part of a movement in cultural hospitality,” adding that the parade will be “transformed as we cross a historical threshold.

About 250 people, including Mayor Bill de Blasio and openly gay City Council members Daniel Dromm and James Van Bramer, will march behind the Lavender & Green Alliance banner. The mayor will march twice in the parade, first with NYPD and FDNY members and then with the alliance. de Blasio said,

It’s a moment where some real healing is happening and some real progress has occurred and having watched over this last quarter century with pain . . . it’s amazing when people find a way to overcome divisions.

The Fifth Avenue parade is the world’s largest and oldest St. Patrick’s Day march and is in its 255th year. More than 200,000 marchers will participate, including students from Long Island and government officials from Ireland.

So, it IS a Happy St. Patrick’s Day! (via NBC News)

The post After 25 Years LGBTQ Groups Allowed to March in NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade appeared first on The WOW Report.

Ellen Uncovered a Lost Commercial for Trump University You Have To See


Hot Messages with Tom Goss: The Little Engine That Could

Henry Cavill Proves New Yorkers Are Oblivious To Superman In Their Midst

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Henry Cavill (AKA, Superman) shared a video on Instagram yesterday proving that New Yorkers are oblivious to his presence in broad daylight. A video montage of the man himself standing in the center of Times Square, currently plastered with advertisements for Batman v Superman, with apparently NO ONE recognizing him. He tells us,

“Dear Doubter, The glasses are good enough. Regards, Superman.”

You can follow Clark, (AKA Henry) on Instagram for future alerts. Watch.

Dear Doubter, The glasses are good enough. Regards, Superman #WhoWillWin #Superman

A video posted by Henry Cavill (@henrycavill) on

(T/Y Tad)

The post Henry Cavill Proves New Yorkers Are Oblivious To Superman In Their Midst appeared first on The WOW Report.

#BornThisDay: Broadway Songwriter, John Kander

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Kander

March 18, 1927John Kander

The celebrated songwriting team of Kander and Ebb were working on the very special musical, The Scottsboro Boys, when Ebb took his final curtain call in 2004, gone of a heart attack. The Scottsboro Boys tells the true story of nine young black men falsely accused of rape in 1931. It opened on Broadway in 2010 to strong reviews and weak box-office. Today is the birthday of the musical half of the famous songwriting team, John Kander.

From The Act to Zorba, for 5+ decades, Kander and Ebb have been Broadway’s top songwriting team, the longest running music/lyrics partnership in Broadway musical history. They’ve given the world some of the great creations of the American Musical Theatre. Their scores have a breathtaking ability to capture the flavor of a specific time and place, with songs brimming with audacity and Ebb’s brilliant, droll, penetrating lyrics. The team has taken on serious, challenging subjects like Nazism, abortion, murder, capital punishment, prison torture, greed and corruption, and gay love with originality and stunning talent. Their work celebrates the love of show biz and making it big, and the passion for performing and entertaining. Their musical numbers mock Fascism and flirt with death. The duo always complemented each other with Kander’s lyricism sweetening Ebb’s wit and Ebb’s cynicism roughing up Kander’s romanticism. Kander and Ebb’s work combine razzle-dazzle with a political conscience, and that’s not that easy to do.

On Kander’s award shelf: Tonys, Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Songwriters Hall Of Fame Awards. They’ve written songs especially for the great performers of our day: Lauren Bacall, Joel Grey, Liza Minnelli, Stephen Rutledge, Gwen Verdon, Frank Sinatra, Robert Goulet, and Chita Rivera.

In 1962, a young singer named Barbra Streisand, had her first hits with two of Kander & Ebb very first songs, My Coloring Book and I Don’t Care Much, and all of their careers were launched.  In 1965, their first produced show, Flora The Red Menace, introduced Liza to Broadway, 50 years and 25 shows later, Kander and Ebb are still at it, even with half the team deceased.

Without his writing partner, Kander’s career has not been limited to theater. He has written scores for several films. These include: Something For Everyone (1969), Kramer VS. Kramer (1979), Still Of The Night (1982), Places In The Heart (1984), I Want To Go Home (1989), and Billy Bathgate (1991). He also collaborated with Ebb for one of their most famous accomplishments, New York, New York (1977). As a duo they also wrote songs for Funny Lady (1975) and Lucky Lady (1975), and although I like the tunes, for me one wasn’t funny and the other wasn’t so lucky.

Their famous anthem to the greatest city on the planet, New York, New York, was composed “in under an hour” when Martin Scorsese, director of the film of the same name, told the songwriters that its star, Robert De Niro, found their original version “too light”. Kander:

“We were pretty pissed off and thought, ‘How dare he? But, De Niro was absolutely right. Now I can’t remember what that original version sounded like.”

The Kander and Ebb musical, The Visit, was worked and reworked many times since its inception at the beginning of this century. It was revived in a new one-act version last season on Broadway, directed by John Doyle, and starring Chita Rivera, a Kander and Ebb muse. The musical received five 2015 Tony Award nominations: Best Musical, Best Book Of A Musical, Best Original Score, Best Performance by an Actress In A Leading Role In A Musical (Rivera), and Best Lighting Design. However, sadly, it failed to win a single one. All the attention was on some rap musical about a founding father.

Kander’s newest musical, Kid Victory had its world premiere last year at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia. It was written with his newest collaborator, Greg Pierce, the young nephew of actor/director David Hyde Pierce who won a 2007 Tony Award for Kander and Ebb’s witty detective musical Curtains.

In 2006, at 79 years old, Kander bravely came out of the closet. He said he had waited so long for professional reasons. I agree, because who would go to a Broadway musical written by a homosexual?!? In 2010, Kander was able to marry his longtime partner Albert Stephenson, who is a Broadway dancer and choreographer.

I have sung some Kander & Ebb songs professionally. I appeared in a Seattle production of Cabaret in 1990 as Herr Schultz, singing a love song about pineapples and a big number about being an ugly Jew. I was simply terrific. I had Mr. Cellophane from Chicago as an audition song in the 1980s; it’s rather perfect for me. My personal favorite of all their tunes is Coffee In A Cardboard Cup from their underrated, unappreciated show 70, Girls, 70.

I am a really big fan. In my Top Ten Musicals Of All Time are two of their creations. When I was 12 years old, Cabaret was the first original Broadway Cast Album I purchased with my own money. Before that, I had only had my parental units’ collection of Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Lerner & Loewe albums to guide me towards my Musical Theatre geekness. In the mid-1970s, I loved the original production of Chicago so much, I saw it six times, including once with Liza going on for an incapacitated Gwen Verdon.

Kander celebrates his 89th birthday today. Here is a list his contributions to Musical Theatre. I like lists:

  • A Family Affair (1962) – lyrics by William Goldman
  • Flora The Red Menace (1965)
  • Cabaret (1966)
  • Go Fly A Kite (1966)
  • The Happy Time (1968)
  • Zorba (1968)
  • 70, Girls, 70 (1971)
  • Chicago (1976)
  • The Act (1978)
  • Woman Of The Year (1981)
  • The Rink (1984)
  • Kiss Of The Spider Woman (1992)
  • Steel Pier (1997)
  • Fosse (1999)
  • Over And Over (1999)
  • The Visit (2001)
  • Curtains (2006)
  • The Scottsboro Boys (2010)

The post #BornThisDay: Broadway Songwriter, John Kander appeared first on The WOW Report.

#LGBTQ: Ellen Page on Her “Gaycation” Experiences; “People Are Preaching Love, But Acting with Prejudice”

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Page & Daniel toured the globe in search of queer culture

Page & Daniel toured the globe in search of queer culture

Ellen Page’s latest project Gaycation, on Viceland series has exposed her to some of the harder experiences the LGBTQ has to face worldwide. She and her best friend, Ian Daniel, explore queer cultures. Speaking to the Huffington Post‘s Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani last week, Page told of the of defeat she felt while filming, speaking with “sweet, lovely lovely” people who are fundamentally against LGBT rights.

The unfortunate part of it is when we’re talking to that family, I do believe I say, ‘You’re such lovely people and you’ve welcomed us here but I know you look at me and your belief is that there’s something wrong with me,’ and that’s hard.

It’s hard when you really try and pour your heart out and ask, ‘Just why does it affect you or bother you so much if I was to want to marry my girlfriend someday?,’ And it is hard when you … don’t feel like there’s an ability to connect.

When you meet someone who’s had acid thrown on them, or a [homeless] girl we met who, this is in Jamaica, … had been shot days before. Or interviewing a mother who’s lost a child to a hate crime. Those are moments, absolutely, where you feel a sense of despair.”

Daniel, the show’s co-host explained the difficult dichotomy they felt with people who may be “preaching love” but acting with prejudice.

We’re just experiencing a wall sometimes. It’s like the energy seems loving but the language and what they’re actually saying is unloving and it’s unaccepting and I just think you’re always going to have that.

Page said she stays optimistic thinking about how far America has come.

I hope that it, absolutely, will change and if we look at the progress that’s happened in this country, it’s been unbelievable. So I think that makes me feel optimistic. That’s what I think I hold onto and thanks to, obviously, all the extraordinary people who’ve fought for equality.

The struggle IS real, and Gaycation is a testament to that. Check it out on Viceland. Watch the interview below.

(via Huffington Post)

The post #LGBTQ: Ellen Page on Her “Gaycation” Experiences; “People Are Preaching Love, But Acting with Prejudice” appeared first on The WOW Report.

RuPaul’s DragCon2016: Come Meet Sasha Soprano!

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RuPaul’s DragCon is coming May 7th and 8th! And with more than 40 amazing panels and dozens of meet-and-greets, it’s going to be THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE! Do you have your tickets yet?

Every day between now and then, we’re going to be highlighting the wowlebrities that will be in attendance! Today, we introduce you to Sasha Soprano!

Sasha-Soprano-DragCon2016

Sasha Soprano who resides in both SF and Beverly Hills has become well known for her acerbic, non-apologetic, straight forward humor. She will say exactly what is on her mind, and will say what everyone is thinking. She has gained quite the following online, and translates her humor on a daily basis through her horribly twisted updates and posts via social media. Sasha is a 4th generation native San Franciscan who also attended Saint Cecilia and Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep located in Cathedral Hill. Sasha has produced and starred in many of her own productions at the Castro Theatre, including: Comedy in the Castro 2009, The Drag Queens of Comedy 2010 & 2014, and The Rolodex of Hate Tour. She has opened for such acts as Loni Love, Pam Ann, and Coco Peru. She is the creator and founder of The Drag Queens of Comedy; the world’s largest and most successful drag comedy festival. She can also be seen on TV, commercials, and music videos. She was the face of Benefit Cosmetics Campaign 2011 for “Take a Picture it Lasts Longer”. She is a fixture at the Castro Theatre and can be seen as her boy self for many productions. What is next for Sasha? Only time and money can tell.

Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook

And check out Sasha with Coco Peru on Hey Qween

The post RuPaul’s DragCon2016: Come Meet Sasha Soprano! appeared first on The WOW Report.

#Legendary: Auction Features Rare Bowie Memorabilia, “The Jean Genie” Handwritten Lyrics

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Paddle 8 online auction site is having a legendary auction. No, that’s the NAME; Legendary. Besides lots of Rolling Stones and early punk treasures (like the Sex PistolsGod Save the Queen original poster!), they are featuring a number of David Bowie bits of rock history that will have fans wishing Daddy was rich. (Although a few things are actually affordable.) But not the handwritten lyrics for The Jean Genie, which start at $43,000. Paddle 8’s head of Rock, Pop & Film, Caitlin Graham says,

Handwritten lyrics are the closest you can get to a musician’s heart and mind. David Bowie’s lyrics for ‘The Jean Genie’ give us a glimpse of the Starman’s experience of a debauched 1970s New York during his first American tour—a meaningful piece of history for any Bowie fan.

You can see more auction items and bid here.

Iggy Pop, left, with David Bowie on tour for Pop's 1977 album, "The Idiot." Photo, NY Times.

Iggy Pop, left, with David Bowie on tour for Pop’s 1977 album, “The Idiot.” Photo, NY Times.

THE SEX PISTOLS "God Save The Queen" Promotional Poster, 1977, $950

THE SEX PISTOLS
“God Save The Queen” Promotional Poster, 1977, $950

DAVID BOWIE Signed Handwritten Lyrics for "The Jean Genie", 1972, $43,000

DAVID BOWIE
Signed Handwritten Lyrics for “The Jean Genie”, 1972, $43,000

THIS AIN'T ROCK'N'ROLL 2016, $1300

THIS AIN’T ROCK’N’ROLL
2016, $1300

GEORGE UNDERWOOD David Bowie Tour Poster, 1972, $1100

GEORGE UNDERWOOD
David Bowie Tour Poster, 1972, $1100

DAVID BOWIE Proof for Withdrawn "Station To Station" Album Cover, 1976, $1400

DAVID BOWIE
Proof for Withdrawn “Station To Station” Album Cover, 1976, $1400

MICK ROCK David Bowie Sax Rip Art, New York, 1999, $5000

MICK ROCK
David Bowie Sax Rip Art, New York, 1999, $5000

DAVID BOWIE Rare "Fashions" Mobile Display, 1982, $300

DAVID BOWIE
Rare “Fashions” Mobile Display, 1982, $300

ANDREW KENT David Bowie, Berlin, 1976, $300

ANDREW KENT
David Bowie, Berlin, 1976, $300

The post #Legendary: Auction Features Rare Bowie Memorabilia, “The Jean Genie” Handwritten Lyrics appeared first on The WOW Report.

#LGBTQ: Salesforce Tech Billionaire Goes To War With Georgia Over Gay Rights

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Salesforce C.E.O. Marc Benioff is getting tough with Georgia governor Nathan Deal over the state’s pending Religious Freedom Bill. It was passed by the Georgia state legislature Wednesday night. This legislation allows “faith-based organizations” to discriminate based on a “sincerely held religious belief” pertaining to marriage specifically.

Benioff tweeted Thursday,

Once again Georgia is trying to pass laws that make it legal to discriminate. When will this insanity end?

Last month Benioff said he would take his business out of the state if the law passed (Salesforce currently has a conference scheduled in Atlanta, and Benioff’s company employs 16,000 people). He posed a question to his followers on Twitter last month:

“Should Salesforce divest from Georgia if the bill is signed into law?”

80% of his followers said yes. Today, the C.E.O. tweeted,

The economy of Georgia is now in the hands of @GovernorDeal as he considers an anti-gay law.

Benioff is doubling down now. Salesforce published a statement dropping the hammer.

“If HB 757 is not vetoed and instead becomes law, Salesforce will have to reduce investments in Georgia, including moving the Salesforce Connections conference to a state that provides a more welcoming environment for the LGBTQ community.”

Mic drop. Your move, Governor Deal.

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(via Vanity Fair)

The post #LGBTQ: Salesforce Tech Billionaire Goes To War With Georgia Over Gay Rights appeared first on The WOW Report.


Be$tie$ for Ca$h: Amp & Bolt from Watts the Safeword

Beyoncé Cast Jillian Mercado, a Model with Muscular Dystrophy, in Her New Merch Campaign

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Jillian Mercado, a model with Muscular Dystrophy, has been handpicked by Beyonce to model her new merch. Jillian shared the news on her Instagram along with a message to Beyoncé.

“So BEYond excited to finally announce that I’m on the official @beyonce website!!!” she writes. “A special shout out to Queen Bee herself and the amazing team behind it.”

Jillian was previosuly seen in Diesel’s Reboot campaign, and since then has landed a contract with IMG and gigs with Nordstrom and CR Fashion Book.

Via Racked:

Mercado says her goal with her modeling career is to change the fashion industry and challenge perceptions. “I feel like the modeling industry has been stuck on this one notion of perfection. But we are all human, everyone has flaws and it’s refreshing when you can relate to someone in an ad,” Mercado told Racked in 2014. “Sometimes these advertising and campaigns feel so distant because you don’t look like the models and they feel far away, it’s a fantasy so you don’t know why you’d even buy the clothes.”

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The post Beyoncé Cast Jillian Mercado, a Model with Muscular Dystrophy, in Her New Merch Campaign appeared first on The WOW Report.

Breaking News: Woman Vanishes on Live TV, Internet Freaks Out

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Is it an alien abduction? Spontaneous decomposition? A g-g-g-ghost? Just what happened to the blonde woman standing at the baggage claim in the background of the shot, below? One minute she’s there. The next…. SHE’S JUST GONE! It happened on Danish TV’s Sports Center show and all of Denmark just FREAKED THE EFF OUT. Check it out and decide for yourself.

View post on imgur.com

See? There she is. Definitely ALIVE. Definitely FLESHY. And HUMAN. Then, a woman walks past her, pushing a trolley. And – POOF! – that’s the end of the woman at the baggage claim.

The clip’s garnered more than 4 million views since it was posted to Reddit on Thursday — and freaked out half the Internet in the process.

HuffPo THINKS it has the answer:

But if you look closer — and we’re talking really close — you can actually see what happens. The woman just coincidentally happens to move off at exactly the same time as the trolley-pusher.

Her blue jeans are visible through the gap between the other woman’s arm and body. You can also see traces of her blond hair, just slightly behind the brunette’s head.

Nah, man. It was C.H.U.D.s. She was definitely eaten by C.H.U.D.s.

Watch the whole clip below.

The post Breaking News: Woman Vanishes on Live TV, Internet Freaks Out appeared first on The WOW Report.

Fenton Bailey Talks to Mapplethorpe Biographer Patricia Morrisroe

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Before his death aged 42 Robert Mapplethorpe worked with writer Patricia Morrisroe on her definitive biography of the artist, originally published in 1995. The long-awaited Kindle version of  Mapplethorpe: A Biography by Patricia Morrisroe is now available (get your copy here).

Mapplethorpe was completely candid with her. He told her everything… even if what he revealed wasn’t necessarily always flattering. Ultimately Mapplethorpe was a documentary artist. He lived to take photographs of his life, and he lived to have others write about it. Of the many writers he befriended Patricia was the one in whom he arguably confided the most in many hours of taped interviews, excerpts from which are featured in our film.

He, he said at the time he thought I reminded him of Patti Smith. but I think it was more the coloring… not the Jersey accent.

He was by this stage seriously ill. Listening to the tapes you can hear the frailty in his fading voice. It’s very haunting.

Following his death Patricia interviewed over 300 people and completing the monumental task took over six years.

When it was first published in 1995, the biography was very polarizing. Some critics loved it, others hated it. Patti Smith hated the book… I think I only had one phone conversation and this was not a happy person and you don’t want an angry Patti Smith on the other end of the line.

We interviewed Patricia for our documentary Mapplethorpe: Look At The Pictures (airing on HBO April 4th). It was a long and fascinating conversation and here are some highlights:

“I interviewed him 16 times from that August ’88 ’til probably a month or two before he died in ’89… and you absolutely saw week by week or every other week a real deterioration. He would always be sitting down in his chair because he did not want to see me—to have me see him shuffling in.

He knew the book was gonna come out after his death. At that point it didn’t really matter to him

He wanted to know if I was Catholic. Being Catholic was very important to him. And I remember at the time he said, ‘Then we understand one another.‘”… I think he really meant, ‘You understand the concept of going to confession, of, of confessing your sins.

I think he recognized that time was running out, you know, and he wanted to start talking.

At one point he looked at me and said, you know, ‘I’m dying,’ you know. You know, what do you say to that? It was just Robert being very straightforward… as if he was reminding himself that he was dying because he knew that I knew very well. I think I said, ‘I know.‘ I don’t think I said I’m sorry because it was a statement and Robert did not want your sympathy… I think it would have gone badly if you had said to him,

Oh, Robert, that’s so terrible.

In the interviews he was always very polite and very nice to me. You know, he’d compliment shoes. He liked my shoes. That said I remember coming in wearing, and I was very proud of this, Romeo Gigli jacket, but the collar came up too high and my hair was down. He said,

‘That looks really confused. I mean you’ve really gotta wear your hair up or, you know, get rid of the collar.’

And I remember going to the tailor because, I mean Mapplethorpe had such an extraordinary eye.

Mapplethorpe was most verbal about his sex life…. Robert lived for sex. Now when he first told me that I thought, “Okay. You know, that’s fine.” But I mean little did I realize how much the man did live for sex. And, as he said to me, sex was more important than the pictures. But that should come as no surprise given the pictures. I mean… was he gonna talk about the flower photographs? I mean I don’t think he knew really a tulip from an orchid. I mean the man wasn’t a botanist.

And I just listened. And I thought, ‘you know I’m writing your biography. You really wanna be telling me all of this stuff?’

He liked me to come on Sundays because many of his friends had country homes and they wouldn’t be around on Sundays, and he wanted company.

I remember going on a trip to Coney Island with him because he remembered Coney Island, going with Patti. And he just wanted to be able to eat a hot dog and he couldn’t ’cause his system wouldn’t be able to digest it. And it was a Sunday and it was a gray Sunday. Often I would come back from these meetings, these Sunday meetings with him just… you know, boy. It was rough.

When Robert was in the hospital he received a beautiful bouquet of flowers and someone had opened the card and, you know, it said, ‘Love, from Mom and Dad.‘ And, you know, Robert was so happy that they had remembered. Well it turned out it was for the patient across the hallway, so I think even at the end he didn’t get exactly what he wanted…

Robert was not a reader. Robert liked to read Page Six of The New York Post, but if he were alive and my book came out he might’ve said,

Hm, it’s a little long.’

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Rich Kid, Peter Brandt, Jr. Arrested at the Airport – His Own Lawyer Says, “He Is an Idiot.”

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Peter Brant Jr., the son of the billionaire Peter Brant and ex-super­model Stephanie Seymour, got arrested Wednesday night for allegedly creating a drunken ruckus and beating up a Port Authority cop at Kennedy Airport.

The 22-year-old sometime model, was waiting in the JetBlue terminal to board a flight for West Palm Beach, Fla., when he became disorderly. A source said Peter was acting “drunk and belligerent,” which allegedly led to a fight with a JetBlue staffer.

Cops were called, but he did not follow their instructions to sit down and lower his voice. He ended up assaulting one of them. He was taken to Jamaica Hospital to be treated for severe intoxication, police said, and will also undergo a psych evaluation.

The billionaire elder Brant was waiting for his son in West Palm Beach Wednesday night. Peter Jr. and his brother Harry were anointed “The New Princes of the City” in a 2012 piece in the New York Times and called “Little Lord Flauntleroys” in a feature piece for Vanity Fair magazine.

Neither of his famous parents have publicly commented on the incident but his own lawyer is apparently less than impressed. Greenwich-based attorney Philip Russell told Page Six,

He is an idiot.

Brant Jr. took to Instagram, where he has 58,000+ followers, to make fun of the situation. Underneath a vintage picture of Joan Collins looking chic beside a pile of Louis Vuitton luggage, Brant wrote:

Airports are a bitch… #allaboutspacretravel #catchmeifyoucan.

It has since received nearly 1,000 likes. As one user advised:

Private jet is the only way to go!

Airports are a bitch… #allaboutspacretravel #catchmeifyoucan 👮🚦🚀🎇

A photo posted by PMB (@petermbrant) on

(Photo, Instagram; via The NY Post)

The post Rich Kid, Peter Brandt, Jr. Arrested at the Airport – His Own Lawyer Says, “He Is an Idiot.” appeared first on The WOW Report.

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