Trend alert! Umbrella hats  are back and you need them NOW.

There was a gorgeous turnout at the Staples Center last night, where fashionistas flocked to gawk Moschino ‘s Creative Director Jeremy Scott‘s 2017 resort collection of hippie-inspired Hawaiian and sixties surfer styles with bejeweled leis, crochet dresses, Guatemalan granny embroidery and all-black Goth lace with – YES! – umbrella hats for the designer’s 2017 resort collection. Very Peter Brady goes wild with Gigi Hadid and they’re doing a kind-of-too-soon-but-probably-retro-early2000-Burning-Man-Chic

But it was clearly ’60s inspired,  as you can see from my Instagram video’s below. The models actually look like Hannah/Barberra cartoon characters.

#moschino #la #resort

A video posted by James St James (@jamesstjames1) on Jun 10, 2016 at 10:03pm PDT

#moschino #LA #resort

A video posted by James St James (@jamesstjames1) on Jun 10, 2016 at 10:02pm PDT

Miranda Kerr  and Alessandra Ambrosio opened the show. Taylor Hill, Devon Aoki, Anwar Hadid, Hailey Baldwin, and Cindy Crawford’s son Presley, modeled in it. Everybody who is anybodywas there, ands they looked FANTASTICK. Katy, of COURSE. And Caitlyn Jenner! And wowlebrities Annie Flanders, Michael Schmidt, and Rose Apodaca. (Pics here by Rose, btw)

The takeaweay, though, is this Instagram photo with lovely ladies Candys Caine, Caitlyn Jenner, and, Katy Perry. We’ve entered into am ultra weird era where everything is just Simmonsiasm.

@moschino show @itsjeremyscott amazing show!!! Thank you love xoxo

A photo posted by @candiscayne on Jun 10, 2016 at 10:58pm PDT

Says Jeremy to the Hollywood Reporter:

“It’s my love letter to Los Angeles — I was thinking about the way I like to dress and the way that I see people dress here, especially the ‘It’ boys and girls storming around Melrose or going to Coachella and doing all of the things that I love to do. I like the eclecticism of all the cultures found here,” Scott told The Hollywood Reporter.

As I was leaving I had a FML moment when after years of desperate stalking I finally had a photo op with my future husband Robbie Rogers, and it ended up being in a place where there was UNDERlighting (WHO DOES THAT AT A FASHION SHOW?), so I looked  really creepy and weird and now probably he’ll never really marry me because THIS was our “cute-meet”.

Also, big shoutout to Kabuki who did runway makeup – Three words: Uh. May. Zing.

The post Pictures! Video! EVERYTHING! from the Jeremy Scott/Moschino Resort Show In LA, Last Night! appeared first on The WOW Report.

Katie Puckrik
Anna Friel
Bambi Woods
Brian Grazer
Charlie Murphy
Cheryl Ladd
Cheyenne Jackson
Christine McVie
Erik Per Sullivan
Gareth Gates
Kristi Yamaguchi
Lisa Nicole Carson
Loni Love
Magoo
Michelle Rodriguez
Natasha Poly
Phoebe Tonkin
Richard Simmons
Topher Grace
Tracie Spencer

The post June 12th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on The WOW Report.

June 12, 1858– Henry Scott Tuke was a British painter and photographer. It is always a lovely jolt of energy when I rediscover an artist mostly forgotten by me. I found a Tuke painting while looking for 19th- early 20^th century paintings of sailors for a lighthearted feature about Fleet Week in Portland, Oregon, happening right now. No matter what you suspect, I was not Googling “Naked Male Bathers”. Yet, that is exactly what came up on my computer screen when I went looking for him.

He was born into a Quaker family in York, England. In 1859 the Tuke family moved to Falmouth, a pretty town on the coast of South Cornwall, where his father, a doctor, set up a practice. Tuke was encouraged to draw and paint from an early age. His earliest drawings, some from when he was just four years old, were published in magazines and newspapers.

Tuke studied at the Slade School Of Art on a scholarship which also provided the funds to study in Italy for a year. From 1881-1883, he lived in Paris where he was encouraged by Jean-Paul Laurens to paint “en plein air”, which doesn’t simply mean painting outdoors, but an entire style of painting formulated in France during Tuke’s era, characterized by the representation of the luminous effects of natural light and atmosphere contrasted with the artificial light and atmosphere associated with paintings produced in a studio.

While studying in France, Tuke decided to move back to Cornwall where the light was especially vivid and where many of his Slade schoolmates and his Parisian friends had already formed The Newlyn School of artists. After exhibiting his work at the Royal Academy Of Art in London, Tuke began to receive commissions that brought him a nice income for a painter.

In 1885, Tuke went home to Falmouth where many of his major works were produced. The happy memories of a childhood spent on the beaches around Falmouth, watching the tall ships coming into the harbor from all over the world, helped his decision to return to Falmouth where he remained for the rest of his life.

In his early paintings, Tuke put male nudes in mythological settings, but critics found these pieces to be too formal and flaccid. Beginning in the 1890s, Tuke left the mythological themes behind and simply painted local boys fishing, sailing, swimming and diving, and also began to paint in a more naturalistic style. His technique became more free. He began using bold, fresh colors. Tuke painted some female nudes also, but for some reason, they were not as successful as his male nude paintings.

He became best known for his paintings of those boys, but he really was a very diverse and talented artist with a variety of subjects and using many media, including the new use of photography.

With his commission money, Tuke bought his first boat, The Ripple, which became a floating home and studio. The beaches of Falmouth were the perfect setting for painting as they faced south, bathed in sunshine. The beaches had interesting barnacle encrusted rocks and shallow tide pools for the models to stand around.

Although Tuke’s paintings of nude young men must have appealed to his gay friends and buyers, his work was never explicitly sexual. His models’ junk was almost never shown, and even in groups, the guys are rarely in physical contact with each other. Most of the paintings have the nude models on the beach facing out to sea, so only their back view is shown.

After a journey in 1892 to an island in the Mediterranean, Tuke returned with the desire to paint the naked outdoors in Falmouth. He tried painting nude bathers as early as 1885 using professional male models brought in from London, but this was expensive and difficult. Instead, he asked the local lads to pose nude for him. Tuke always paid them and treated them with courtesy and consideration, although he sometimes asked them to model outdoors as late as November, so there was a shrinkage issue. He also needed to use secluded, inaccessible beaches as he created his greatest artistic challenge: painting the nude human figure outdoors.

Tuke used rough, visible brush strokes, at a time when smooth, polished finishes were favored by the fashionable painters and the critics. He had a strong sense of color and was especially skilled in the depiction of the soft fragile sunlight of the English summer. Although Tuke often finished paintings in his studio, photographs of him show that he worked mainly in the open air, capturing that freshness of color and the realistic effects of sunlight reflected by the water and on the naked flesh of his models.

Unusual really for the late Victorian era, Tuke’s male nudes sold well with collectors and they were purchased by major art galleries in Europe and North America. But he was also quite famous as a formal portraitist, and he maintained a London studio to work on these commissions. I knew his portrait of gay adventurer/writer T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) before I actually knew of the painter.

T.E. Lawrence (1922)

Tuke was an associate of Oscar Wilde and others in the gay circles of London. He was a friend of my favorite painter of the era, John Singer Sargent.

Tuke was elected to full membership of the Royal Academy in 1914. He had a heart attack in 1928 and left this wretched world a year later. At the end of his life, Tuke knew that his painting had gone out of favor. He left most of his fortune to the men who, as boys, had been his models. He is remembered mostly for his oil paintings of young men, but he was an important maritime artist, producing as many portraits of sailing ships as he did of attractive youths. Tuke was prolific, with over 1,300 paintings in important collections and museums, and more are still being discovered in this 21st century.

Popular in his own era, after his death, Tuke’s reputation faded and he was largely forgotten until the 1970s, when he was rediscovered by the first generation of openly gay artists and art collectors. He is now a cult figure, especially in gay cultural circles, with lavish books with plates of his paintings.

All my research this week, and Catching the Light: The Art And Life Of Henry Scott Tuke (2008) by Catherine Wallace was sitting in my bookshelf all along. One of Tuke’s biggest collectors is Sir Elton John.

The post #BornThisDay: Painter, Henry Scott Tuke appeared first on The WOW Report.

It was about 2 a.m. at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando hosting its regular Latin night, when the music was interrupted by gunfire. On the club’s Facebook page Ricardo J. Negron Almodovar was there and said,

“Shooter opened fire @ around 2:00am. People on the dance floor and bar got down on the floor and some of us who were near the bar and back exit managed to go out through the outdoor area and just ran. I am safely home and hoping everyone gets home safely as well.“

Christopher Hansen who also there said,

“Bang! Bang! Screaming. And loud noises. The guy next to me was shot … when I turned around to look everyone was falling and dropping and screaming.“

The shooting became a hostage situation, which lasted roughly three hours and left an unspecified number of people dead, including the shooter, according to police. At least 42 people were taken to hospitals. According to ABC News, approximately 320 people were inside the club at time of the shooting. Some people reported hiding in the bathroom until law enforcement secured the area.

During a press conference this morning, Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokesman Danny Banks officially classified the shootings as an “act of terrorism.”

The FBI, along with numerous other agencies, was investigating the shooting and it was not clear if it was an act of domestic or foreign terrorism.

Messages on Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter show how scared and desperate everyone was. It the second time this weekend that Orlando was terrorized by a gunman.

When in God’s name are we going to tighten gun control laws in this country? This makes us all sick overtime it happens. And we get sick a LOT lately.

@OfficialJoelF self explanatory video pic.twitter.com/wsIm2IziwQ

— ferhobs (@ferhobs) June 12, 2016

Gunfire exchanged at #pulse nightclub hostage situation in #Orlando. pic.twitter.com/qeF0s6Ien6

— Nic Hornstein (@nichornstein) June 12, 2016

(via USA Today)

The post Shooting at Gay Nightclub in Orlando Leaves 20 Dead, 47 Injured appeared first on The WOW Report.

You can read President Obama‘s full statement on the Orlando mass shooting here. An excerpt is below;

“This is an especially heartbreaking day for all our friends — our fellow Americans — who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live. The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub — it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights.

So this is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American — regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation — is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country. And no act of hate or terror will ever change who we are or the values that make us Americans.

Today marks the most deadly shooting in American history. The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle. This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well.

In the coming hours and days, we’ll learn about the victims of this tragedy. Their names. Their faces. Who they were. The joy that they brought to families and to friends, and the difference that they made in this world. Say a prayer for them and say a prayer for their families — that God give them the strength to bear the unbearable. And that He give us all the strength to be there for them, and the strength and courage to change. We need to demonstrate that we are defined more — as a country — by the way they lived their lives than by the hate of the man who took them from us.

As we go together, we will draw inspiration from heroic and selfless acts — friends who helped friends, took care of each other and saved lives. In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another. We will not give in to fear or turn against each other. Instead, we will stand united, as Americans, to protect our people, and defend our nation, and to take action against those who threaten us.

May God bless the Americans we lost this morning. May He comfort their families. May God continue to watch over this country that we love. Thank you.“

–President Barack Obama, June 12, 2016

The post President Obama says Today Is “An Especially Heartbreaking Day for Our Fellow Americans Who Are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender” appeared first on The WOW Report.

As our hearts go out to Orlando, Florida, we’re happy to report that former drag race contestant Kenya Michaels and Roxxxy Andrews are safe after horrifying mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub last night. Kenya was scheduled to perform after midnight and the shooting occured around 2 AM while she was in the bathroom.

The following was put on social media by fellow racer and friend Yara Sofia:

And Roxxxy Andrews (whom wasn’t performing, but in the area) shared on her Twitter:

Our thoughts are with all the lives that were lost and we’re grateful our Ru girls are safe and okay. #PrayForOrlando

The post Former Drag Racer Kenya Michaels Safe After Pulse Nightclub Shooting in Orlando appeared first on The WOW Report.

It is with a heavy heart that we at World of Wonder have some devastating news…upon the horrifying loss of 50 lives at the terrorist-driven shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, we lost a World of Wonder friend, Eddie Sotomayor – cousin of racer Jade Sotomayor who was a RuPaul’s Drag Race partner with Al and Chuck. He made it a point to make sure the queens we’re taken well care of when they were in town.

We pray for Eddie’s family.

The post #RIP: Jade Sotomayor’s Cousin & WOW Friend Eddie Sotomayor Dead After Orlando Shooting appeared first on The WOW Report.

Rolanda Watts
Ashley Scott
Cheech Marin
Colton Haynes
Corey Clark
Deborah Cox
Didi Conn
Erno Rubik
Fatboy Slim
Harrison Ford
Ida Maria
Ken Jeong
Louise Mandrell
Patrick Stewart
Robert Forster
Robert Gant
Tulisa Contostavlos

The post June 13th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on The WOW Report.

June 13, 1926– Paul Lynde, my favorite anecdote:

In the early 1960s, Lynde was on a transcontinental flight and a rather dreadful child was not being supervised by her parents, running up and down the aisle making noise and annoying the other passengers. The mother obviously thought this behavior was precious. When Lynde could take no more of the tot’s shenanigans, he rose from his seat and approached the mother, emphatically stating:

“Madam, if you don’t control your child this instant, I will have to fuck her.”

Lynde was one of the first personalities that I identified as gay when I was a child, before I ever understood that it meant. I thought his way with a one-liner and his unique delivery was just too funny. I loved him in the film version of the musical Bye Bye Birdie (1963) in a role he originated on Broadway. Lynde was only just barely a closet case with his camp and snarky demeanor and delivery.

He guest starred on nearly every sitcom and variety show in the late 1950s to the 1980s, from I Dream Of Jeannie to Love American Style, Kraft Music Hall to Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. Lynde’s best known sitcom role was, of course, on Bewitched (1964-1972), the gayest sitcom in Television History, as Endora‘s brother, Uncle Arthur, along with fellow gay actors Maurice Evans, Agnes Moorehead and Dick Sargent.

For all his considerable talent, Lynde is most famous as the “Center Square” on the popular game-show Hollywood Squares (1965-1981) and its most iconic star. He began as just another guest, but he was so popular that he quickly assumed the permanent place in that center square, guaranteeing that he would be called upon by contestants at least once in every round. The show gave Lynde the showcase for his very special talent for short one-liners, delivered in his trademark sniggering delivery. Many of these gags were thinly veiled allusions to his gayness. Asked:

“You’re the world’s most popular fruit. What are you?” Lynde answered: “Humble”.

Other Hollywood Squares classics:

Host, Peter Marshall: “Paul, why do Hell’s Angels wear leather?”

Paul Lynde: “Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.”

 

Marshall: “What’s the one thing you should never do in bed?”

Lynde: “Point and laugh!”

 

Marshall: “In The Wizard Of Oz, the Tin Man wanted a heart and the Lion wanted courage. What did the Straw Man want?”

Lynde: “He wanted the Tin Man to notice him.”

Lynde starred in a short-lived ABC sitcom, The Paul Lynde Show (1972), which got the Bewitched slot when that series ended its long run. It co-starred Jerry Stiller and the late, great Anne Meara, along with Alice Ghostly (a sort of female Paul Lynde) also of Bewitched. It lasted a single season and it seems to me that like so many character actors, Lynde’s gift was more apparent in supporting roles. Plus, the network brass at ABC got real nervous about Lynde’s perceived gayness. Still, he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award that year. He was given a once-a-year variety special every year from 1974-1980.

Lynde was a sought after club performer, director, recording artist, and an actor on Broadway, films, television, cartoons, and summer stock. He was also one of Hollywood’s finest chefs, with his own cookbook and a noted gracious host. Lynde:

“I can’t even get 3 weeks off to have cosmetic surgery!”

In 1965, Lynde was involved in an accident where his 24 year old boyfriend fell eight stories to his death from the window of their hotel room in San Francisco’s Sir Francis Drake Hotel after a night of drinking. The event was witnessed by a pair of policemen, but the story was largely kept out of the press.

In 1976, a People Magazine piece on Lynde featured him with his “chauffeur/bodyguard”. In 1978, Lynde was arrested for drunkenness outside of a gay bar in Salt Lake City. After the arrest, he was released from his guest starring role on The Donny & Marie Show (1976-77).

Lynde spent his entire adult life engaged in constant personal struggles, as the tabloids occasionally reported, but he remained appreciated by those in his profession, and his friends and fans, although I understand he could be a real mean drunk. A gifted comic actor and performer, he is still perhaps most famous just for being Paul Lynde. The enigmatic Lynde:

“I don’t know who the hell Paul Lynde is, or why he’s funny, and I prefer it to be a mystery to me. An actor shouldn’t undergo psychoanalysis, because there are a lot of things you’re better off not knowing.”

Lynde was found dead in his Beverly Hills home by his pal Paul Barresi on January 11, 1982. Lynde enjoyed a precarious life of men, drinking and partying. He was just 55 years old when he took that final bow. Seth McFarlane counts him as an influence. Mel Brooks is a fan and said that Lynde was: “capable of getting laughs by reading a phone book, tornado alert or seed catalog.”

The post #BornThisDay: Comic Actor, Paul Lynde appeared first on The WOW Report.

50 roses for 50 victims at The Stonewall Inn

President Obama made a statement on the Orlando mass shooting and said,

“This is an especially heartbreaking day for all our friends — our fellow Americans — who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live. The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub — it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights.“

Queen Elizabeth showed support by tweeting this message;

“Prince Philip & I have been shocked by the events in Orlando. Our thoughts & prayers are with all those who have been affected.“

One World Trade Center‘s spire was lit in rainbow colors in honor of the mass shooting yesterday which was the largest terror attack since 9/11.

The post #LGBTQ: The World Reacts In Shock & Solidarity As the U.S. Mourns the 50 Murdered in Orlando appeared first on The WOW Report.

Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s blockbuster hip-hop musical Hamilton dominated the Tony Awards last night, earning recognition for Thomas Kail’s direction, Miranda’s book and score as well as for featured performers Daveed Diggs and Renee Elise Goldsberry winning a total of 11 awards just one short of tying The Producers that took home a record 12 in 2001.

Miranda offered a poetic tribute to the victims of the Orlando massacre on Sunday in accepting his Tony for the hip-hop musical’s original score. Miranda said in a moving sonnet that brought tears to the audience at the Beacon Theatre,

“Senseless acts of tragedy reminds us
that nothing here is promised —
not one day. This show is proof that history remembers,
we live through times when hate and fear seem stronger,
we rise and fall and light from dying embers,
remembrances that hope and love last longer,
And love is love is love is love is love,
cannot be killed or swept aside,
Fill the world with music love and pride.”

Watch Miranda’s moving speech below.

Early in the live broadcast, host James Corden took center stage and addressed the tragedy that claimed 50 lives early Sunday morning in Orlando at the gay nightclub Pulse.

“Good evening. All around the world, people are trying to come to terms with the horrific events that took place in Orlando this morning. On behalf of the whole theater community and every person in this room, our hearts go out to all of those affected by this atrocity. All we can say is that you’re not on your own right now. Your tragedy is our tragedy. Theater is a place where every race, creed, sexuality and gender is equal, is embraced, and is loved. Hate will never win. Together we have to make sure of that. Tonight’s show stands as a symbol and a celebration of that principle. This, is the Tony Awards…“

Jessica Lange earned her first Tony for the Eugene O’Neill revival Long Day’s Journey Into Night and is just a Grammy short of a coveted EGOT. She acknowledge it was a sad day.

Frank Langella

“I found some words that will mean more to you than a list of names…
When something bad happens we have three choices:
we let it define us,
we let it destroy us,
or we let it strengthen us.
Today in Orlando we had a hideous dose of reality,
and I urge you Orlando to remain strong.
We will be with you every step of the way.”

The Tonys were dedicated to the victims of the attack. Ribbons were handed out before the broadcast to honor those killed.

Here’s the complete list of winners;

BEST MUSICAL
Hamilton

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE IN A MUSICAL
Cynthia Erivo, The Color Purple

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE IN A MUSICAL
Leslie Odom, Jr., Hamilton

BEST REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL
The Color Purple

BEST PLAY
The Humans; Author: Stephen Karam

BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY
Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE IN A PLAY
Frank Langella, The Father

BEST CHOREOGRAPHY
Andy Blankenbuehler, Hamilton

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE IN A PLAY
Jessica Lange, Long Day’s Journey Into Night

BEST BOOK OF A MUSICAL
Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A PLAY
Reed Birney, The Humans

BEST ORCHESTRATIONS
Alex Lacamoire, Hamilton

BEST DIRECTION OF A MUSICAL
Thomas Kail, Hamilton

BEST DIRECTION OF A PLAY
Ivo Van Hove, Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE (MUSIC AND/OR LYRICS) WRITTEN FOR THE THEATRE
Hamilton, Music & Lyrics: Lin-Manuel Miranda

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A MUSICAL
Daveed Diggs, Hamilton

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A MUSICAL
Renée Elise Goldsberry, Hamilton

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A PLAY
Jayne Houdyshell, The Humans

BEST FEATURED ACTRESS IN A PLAY
Jayne Houdyshell, The Humans

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
Howell Binkley, Hamilton

BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A PLAY
Natasha Katz, Long Day’s Journey Into Night

BEST SCENIC DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
David Rockwell, She Loves Me

BEST SCENIC DESIGN OF A PLAY
David Zinn, The Humans

BEST COSTUME DESIGN OF A MUSICAL
Paul Tazewell, Hamilton

BEST COSTUME DESIGN OF A PLAY
Clint Ramos, Eclipsed

TONY AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN THE THEATER
Sheldon Harnick, Marshall W. Mason

SPECIAL TONY AWARD
National Endowment for the Arts, Miles Wilkin

REGIONAL THEATER TONY AWARD
Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, NJ

ISABELLE STEVENSON TONY AWARD
Brian Stokes Mitchell

TONY HONORS FOR EXCELLENCE IN THE THEATRE
Seth Gelblum, Joan Lader, Sally Ann Parson

The post #Watch: Lin-Manuel Miranda Pays Tribute To the Orlando Tragedy, “Love Is Love Is Love…” appeared first on The WOW Report.

Hate is alive and well in America, that’s for sure. America’s deadliest mass shooting ever targeted gay people and not everyone was mourning the fact. If you think this post is just promoting hate, just the opposite really. But let’s not pretend the struggle is over.

Yes, hate is alive and well –but love is healthier and stronger. See gay playwright Tennessee Williams’ quote below, for the antidote to all this hate.

(via Thought Catalogue)

The post #LGBTQ: These 15 Hateful People Cheered Yesterday’s Massacre In Orlando… appeared first on The WOW Report.

Anderson Cooper is a trained newsman, a professional who is used to reporting tragedies and sad news, but reading the names of all the innocent lives lost in the Orlando shooting proved to be too tough an assignment. I’d lose it too.

Watch.

The post #LGBTQ: Anderson Cooper Breaks Down On Air Reading Orlando Victim’s Names appeared first on The WOW Report.

Raja
Alan Carr
Boy George
Campbell Brown
Daryl Sabara
Diablo Cody
Donald Trump
Faizon Love
J.R. Martinez
Jesy Nelson
Kevin McHale
Lucy Hale
Marla Gibbs
Molly Parker
Siobhán Donaghy
Steffi Graf
Traylor Howard
Will Patton
Yasmine Bleeth

The post June 14: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on The WOW Report.

June 14, 1961– George Alan O’Dowd:

“I can do anything. In GQ, I appeared as a man.”

Who among us has not restrained a rent boy to a radiator? I mean you can’t trust them to be left alone in the room. What is a pop star supposed to do?

He claims knew he was gay when he was eight years old and he doesn’t seem to have ever struggled with it.

“Even when I was ten, I just thought: ‘It’s what I’m meant to be and that’s the end of it.’ I never, ever wanted to be straight.”

When he was at the very height of his pop music fame, before the bruising blows of rejection by fickle fans, before the drug addiction, jail time and tabloid infamy, Boy George was the very embodiment of fantasy escapism. All the way back in the zany 1980s, he was a Karma Chameleon, blurring the boundaries of sexuality and gender. Ahead of his time, Boy George was an example of how to transcend our physical limitations and become something other than who and what we are. Using bewitchment, beauty, and bemusement, he proved that you could be anything and anyone and achieve acclaim.

Boy George is a British gay soul singer, songwriter, DJ, Broadway composer, stage actor, Grammy Award winner, Tony Award nominee, fashion designer, sexually ambiguous gender-bending superstar, trendsetter, model, writer, gay rights spokesperson, anti-racism stalwart, jailbird, and an animal rights activist.

In the 1980s, everyone on our pretty spinning blue orb was fascinated by Boy George, with his gorgeous, rich singing voice, plus dreadlocks, dresses, exotic make-up and Hasidic headgear. For a magical moment, he was the most famous person on the planet. On talk shows and in interviews, he was pretty, witty and gay, charming his fans of all ages.

Yet, during those years as a member of the New-Wave band Culture Club, Boy George was helplessly drawn to the drama that came to define that genuinely great 1980s group. The tensions within the band were played out with such flamboyance that they soon resembled a public soap opera, with today’s birthday boy as the ringmaster. At the center of it all was Boy George’s turbulent relationship with bandmate Jon Moss, a relationship that Moss, now a divorced father with three children, spent years denying had even taken place. Moss now says that he is a straight guy who had just that single gay affair.

“There’s this illusion that homosexuals have sex and heterosexuals fall in love. That’s completely untrue. Everybody wants to be loved.”

Boy George enjoyed having hit records and international recognition as a great big celebrity until revelations about his secret hard drug problem hit the tabloids. He was an emaciated junkie in 1986 when Culture Club fell apart. But, at the end of the 1980s he began to rehabilitate and reinvent himself. By the mid-1990s Boy George was back to the drugs, the booze and plenty of trouble. He was involved in a series of scandals, drug arrests and peculiar behavior, but who else could wear an ankle monitor with such finesse?

He was also a sad looking Boy in 2005, when he was convicted of falsely reporting a crime in NYC. He was sentenced to some especially well-documented street cleaning as his sentence. Do you remember that Boy George?  In London three years later, he was jailed for 15 months after that incident with the hustler, Auden Carlsen, who he allegedly chained to a radiator.

“My appetite for self-destruction and misery is greatly diminished. I’m not interested in being unhappy.”

No longer an outsider, freak, or victim, he became an almost respectable figure. He turned to Buddhism, pacifism and vegetarianism. He gave up booze, cigarettes, sugar, even gluten. Boy George claims that he has been clean, sober and happy since 2008, no longer an outsider, freak, or victim. He continues to record music (a new single dropped this spring), DJ at major parties and catwalks, and still make fodder for the tabloids.

“Not knowing when to shut up was one of my greatest faults.”

Boy George has sold over 100 million singles and 60 million albums worldwide. He promises another album. Like me, he seems to own a lot of hats.

Boy George has two terrific, highly readable volumes of memoirs, Take It Like A Man (1995) and Straight (2005).

I have been a Boy George fan from the very start. I remember how he really owned that new cable channel, MTV, back in the 1980s. I know that he is a friend of our World Of Wonder family, which makes me feel super groovy and just one degree of separation from the Boy.

Astonishingly, this year marks the 35th anniversary of Culture Club. Reunited, they are currently touring all over the world, even possibly to your own town. That is A Miracle because I have Missed Them Blind.

“When things are awful, you think, ‘Oh my god, everybody’s hideous.’ Then you encounter someone who’s really amazing and sweet, and you think, ‘Oh my god, people are great.’ We all do that thing of judging other people for the way they look or the car they drive, we all do it. No matter how “spiritual” we are, we still think “Wanker!” & sometimes it’s nice to have your ideas challenged. I like that.”

It had earlier been announced that Boy George would be a contestant, along with Carson Kressley, on a television series called The New Celebrity Apprentice with Arnold Schwarzenegger replacing the original host: a most peculiar, pee-splattered, Cheeto-dusted, Sno-Cone shaped, bankruptcy filing, wig-grabbing, women cherishing, poorly-trained orangutan who is busy as an entirely credible choice for leader of the free world. The show has since been postponed until after the election, but Boy George goes on. He currently is a judge and mentor on the British version of The Voice, receiving good reviews and having a good time.

“The best thing you can do is work on your personality because we’re all gonna get ugly.”

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The killer of a French police officer and his wife broadcast the scene of the attack live on Facebook Monday night, according CNN sources. He reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he stabbed a policeman nine times in the stomach before holding the officer’s wife and three-year-old son hostage in their home.

The man who carried out the deadly knife attack in Magnanville, which is 28 miles northwest of Paris, was Larossi Abballa. On his live Facebook broadcast, he pondered to those watching what to do with the child.

When negotiations failed, an armed police unit stormed the house and shot him dead. The chief’s wife was found dead but their child was rescued unharmed.

The attack has been claimed by ISIS, according to the website of the Amaq agency.

If that link is confirmed, it would be the first militant strike on French soil since the government imposed a state of emergency after the Paris attacks in November that killed 130 people.

French President Francois Hollande says the crime was “unquestionably a terrorist act.” CNN has reported that,

Aballa was convicted in 2013 for involvement in a jihadi recruitment network that sent fighters to Pakistan. He was also suspected by French security services of having links to a recruitment network for jihadis in Syria, the source close to the investigation told CNN’s Cruickshank.
According to Magnanville Mayor Michel Lebouc, Abballa grew up in nearby Mantes-la-Jolie, which has a history of radicalization in its mosques.

In the video, Abballa claimed he was responding to a call from senior ISIS leader Abu Mohammed al-Adnani for the terror group’s followers in Europe and the United States to carry out attacks during Ramadan.

The killings come as France is on high alert for terrorist attacks as it hosts the Euro 2016 football championship, Europe’s centerpiece football event.

U.S. and British officials have both warned their citizens about the potential terror risks of attending.
The country has been under an official state of emergency since the ISIS terror attacks in Paris on November 13 last year, in which 130 people were killed. An ISIS cell connected to the Paris attacks then went on to strike the capital of neighboring Belgium in March, killing 32 people.

The French government has extended the state of emergency until the end of July to cover the Euro 2016 soccer tournament, which is being held in the country, and the Tour de France cycling race this summer.

French authorities appear to be overwhelmed and under-resourced to respond to the threat.

Intelligence officials have previously told CNN that it takes 15 to 20 staff to monitor a suspect around the clock — and France has about 11,000 people on its “fiche S” list, used to flag radicalized individuals considered a threat to national security.

(via CNN)

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This video was posted by my old friend, writer Joe Dolce who last night, along with thousands of others was at a candle light vigil held at gay ground zero, in front of The Stonewall Inn.

As the names of the victims are read… there are no words. Watch.

The post #WeAreOrlando: Video of New York City Vigil, June 13, 2016 appeared first on The WOW Report.

Juan and Chris had been together for two years

It’s just too heart-breaking to contemplate. Just a year ago during Pride month, the Supreme Court ruled same sex-couples could marry. And now a year later, in the wake of the Orlando massacre, this couple who were killed, will have a joint funeral service instead of their wedding.

Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, and his 32-year-old boyfriend, Christopher “Drew” Leinonen, were among the 49 people who lost their lives in the worst mass shooting in American history.

Their heartbroken families now have to plan the pair’s funeral services, laying the two side-by-side. Juan’s father, Juan Ramon Guerrero, Sr told Time,

“I think my son wanted to do that. That’s why. I don’t care what the people think. I don’t care.”

The couple – who lived together – had been dating for nearly two years.

Guerrero’s sister said their family was “really loving and accepting” when he came out as gay to them about three years ago, before remembering her brother’s love for his boyfriend.

It was Christine Leinonen – Christopher’s mother – who first had the idea that they should be laid to rest together, after she made a heartbreaking interview before discovering her son had died.

“They were honestly so in love. They were soul mates. You can tell by how they looked at each other. It’s a little comforting that they died together. If it’s not a funeral, they were going to have a wedding together.“

Juan had planned to be a financial advisor.

“He was so much love and light.”

The family said that they will remember their brother and son in the coming days, as they celebrate what would have been his 23rd birthday.

“My wife will cook all the food he likes. He was a beautiful kid, a hard worker, friendly, sweet person. I lost part of my life.”

(via Pink News)

The post #WeAreOrlando: Juan & Chris Planned To Marry, Now Families Are Planning a Joint Funeral appeared first on The WOW Report.

Samantha Bee opened her show Full Frontal last asking if she could just scream for the first seven minutes in anger over the Orlando mass shooting…

“Now, after a massacre, the standard operating procedure is that you stand on stage and deliver some well-meaning words about how we will get through this together. How love wins, how love conquers hate. And that is great, that is beautiful. But you know what? Fuck it! I am too angry for that. Love does not win, unless we start loving each other enough to fix our fucking problems.”

We can’t constitutionally get rid of all guns, but can’t we get semiautomatic assault rifles out of the hands of civilians? ‘Sam Bee wants to take your guns away!’ Yes — the ones that mow down a roomful of people in seconds. Yes, I do want to take those guns away.”

There is no shortage of troubled twenty-somethings out there. Whether they’re radicalized by ISIS or homophobia or a dislike of movies, we are making it far too easy for their derangement to kill us.”

She took on Florida Senator Marco Rubio for saying this mass shooting could have happened “anywhere in the world” but it was just “Orlando’s turn.”

“Orlando’s turn? Mass shootings are so normalized that we’re taking turns?!“

But then Bee narrowed in on Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott, who has signed many, many bills into law making it a lot easier to access guns. And she eviscerated his response when a reporter asked what Americans could do in the wake of yet another mass shooting tragedy.

“I think the biggest thing is pray. Pray for the victims. Pray for their families. Pray this never happens again.“

Bee punched back:

“You heard the man. The biggest thing you can do to ensure this never happens again is sit quietly in a room with your eys closed, talking to nobody.“

Watch.

The post Samantha Bee on Orlando Massacre, “Love Does NOT Win, Unless We Start Loving Each Other Enough To Fix Our Fucking Problems!” appeared first on The WOW Report.

Again, hate is alive and well in America. A Sacramento Baptist preacher’s horrific sermon praising the attack on an Orlando nightclub that left 49 people dead has the LGBTQ community outraged. His remarks were delivered on Sunday morning, just hours after the attack. Pastor Roger Jimenez sermon of hate surfaced on the Verity Baptist Church‘s YouTube, which has since been removed,

“Are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today? Um — no — I think that’s great! I think that helps society. I think Orlando, Florida is a little safer tonight.

We don’t need to do anything to help. As far as I’m concerned, Orlando is a little bit safer tonight.“

Sandrea Nelson, the Pride director of the Davis-Phoenix coalition, was left in shock after hearing Jimenez’s sermon. He says in all his years growing up Baptist and attending church, no pastor ever spoke of inequality.

“He’s not a man of God. He is not a man teaching a true religion.“

Jimenez’s sermon went on to call for more death,

“If we lived in a righteous government, they should round them all up and put them up against a firing wall, and blow their brains out.“

Nelson says it’s hateful and violent statements like these that keep many in the LGBTQ community shut out.

“Statements like this can cause more harm to our youth and people in the closet; it causes them to feel worthless. Bottom line is to love thy brother as you love thyself.“

Can a get an Amen to that?

(via CBS News)

The post #LGBTQ: Hateful Baptist Preacher Praises Massacre In Video, “Orlando, Florida Is a Little Safer Tonight.” appeared first on The WOW Report.