Barry Manilow
Bobby Farrelly
Christy Canyon
Erin Murphy
George S. Clinton
Greg Kinnear
Jason Patric
Joe Piscopo
Jon Gries
Ken Loach
Kendrick Lamar
Krayzie Bone
Mark Linn-Baker
Michael Showalter
Paulina Rubio
Stephanie Rice
Thomas Hayden Church
Tory Burch
Venus Williams
Will Forte
The post June 17th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on The WOW Report.
June 17, 1943– Barry Manilow
He Made It Through The Rain To Sing The Songs The Whole World Sings On June 17th.
Today marks the birthday of Barry Alan Pincus of Brooklyn. He wrote a whole bunch of songs and along the way sold over 100 million records, working as writer, producer, arranger or conductor. He is up there with Streisand, Sinatra, Springsteen, and Michael Jackson.
In 1978, he had five albums on the best-seller charts simultaneously. He has a Tony Award, Grammy Award, and Emmy Award on his trophy shelf. He has been voted into The Songwriters Hall Of Fame.
Maybe Manilow will never be ready to take a chance again. But, during a 2004 concert in NYC, just as he started to sing a duet with fabulous Broadway star, Brian d’Arcy James, Manilow joked to the audience: “Of course, we’re not going to sing it to each other… that would be creepy.”
His own website conveniently omits the fact that he began his career in a gay bathhouse, even though he has admitted ripping off his tuxedo and jumping into the pool at the Continental Baths with a bevy of nude gay men. He blames losing his inhibitions on the drinks and joints that had been passed to him. Manilow:
“That’s such a bit of misinformation. There was just the single bathhouse called the Continental Bathhouse and I worked there for just two weekends with Bette Midler… and that was it. I accompanied her for those two weekends there and then we went on to a lot of nightclubs around NYC, Chicago and LA and she exploded like a year later. So it really wasn’t ‘gay bathhouses.’ I don’t know where that came from.”
On the plus side, Manilow did cancel an appearance on The View because of pretty, charming Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s ultra-conservative stances. Manilow:
“I strongly disagree with her views, I think she’s dangerous & offensive. I will not be on the same stage as her.” When Manilow was being honored in Palm Springs for his AIDS awareness efforts, he stated: “I’ve had four personal assistants in my career since the 1970s, and three out of the four have died of AIDS. My personal assistants have always become my best friends. They are my brothers.”
I also like that Manilow once complained that when Ronnie and Nancy Reagan became his neighbors in Bel-Air:
“I thought it was pretty hot, but the secret service was all over the place. I always know when they are coming home because of all the helicopters. If I am out there sunbathing in the nude, I go, shit, the Reagans are coming home.”
When Elizabeth Taylor asked him the early 1980s for help raising money to fight the disease he was there. Manilow:
“Her friend Rock Hudson had died. She was the first one to try to make the public aware of this disease that was infecting everybody, and she was throwing a big dinner party. She called her entertainer friends, and they all turned her down. I don’t know why. But I got the call and said, ‘Of course.’ But my band wasn’t around. I just went there and played piano and sang for a good hour. It was the first one she had, and it was the first time I had ever done anything like that.”
Not denying his considerable musical gifts and power as a popular entertainer, I have never been, nor do I suspect that I will ever be a Fanalow. Even with my egalitarian and all-encompassing musical tastes, I never did find myself on the Manilow journey.
The closest to an exception was when I was working for ASCAP (American Society Of Composers, Authors And Publishers) in NYC, circa mid-1970s. I was engaged in listening to six hours of commercial radio play and entrusted to identify all the music recorded: commercials, bridges, lead-ins, cues and songs. I would not listen to songs all the way through. I was paid a bonus for finishing more than the six hour tape. Yet, I was very taken with a certain radio hit. I knew the song in the first three notes, but I would listen all the way through. I began to think it would be an effective ballad in my own act. The song was Weekend In New England sung by Barry Manilow.
I think it is unfortunate that Manilow suffers from the same fear of fan rejection as Liberace. It would have been fun to have him be an out and proud gay man. For 30+ years, Manilow has lived with his manager Garry Kief in homes they share in NYC, Bel Air and Palm Springs.
Last spring it was revealed that the longtime couple had married in a small private ceremony at their Palm Springs digs. Already a juicy story, the cherry on that gossip sundae: 1970s television star Suzanne Somers broke the story to our yummy Andy Cohen on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live!. Somers said that Manilow’s marriage to Kief was “freeing” for him. The story gets even better. It seems that Somers was Best Man at the wedding attended by about 50 close friends. Somers:
“Barry’s extremely, extremely private, and I think it was very difficult, and it’s very difficult for me to talk about because I want to do it with complete respect & love. He’s an awesome person. They’re both awesome people, and they’re my dearest friends.”
As if getting married is not exciting enough for the always busy musical superstar, in 2014 he released Barry Manilow: My Dream Duets where Manilow sings along with 11 dead people including Whitney Huston and Judy Garland.
Manilow says he’s not kidding about his current One Last Time! Tour . It will be his final concert tour. Manilow:
“I’m trying to do as many of the well-known songs as I can, hardly any album cuts this time. I’m doing the longest show that I’ve done for a while. The last tour rehearsal we did was over two hours. I’m trying to get in as many of the big hits as I can. Hopefully people will remember them, but I’m going to do them anyway.”
Could It Be Magic?
The post #BornThisDay: Entertainer, Barry Manilow appeared first on The WOW Report.
World of Wonder Productions and all the RDR Queens stand with Orlando. During this chaotic time, we must all stick together and that’s exactly what our Ru Girls did.
WATCH it here:
Featuring: JuJubee, Mrs. Kasha Davis, Kennedy Davenport, Chad Michaels, Mimi Imfurst, Tatianna, Naysha Lopez, Shangela, Joslyn Fox, Vivacious, Madame LaQueer, Kim Chi, Cynthia Lee Fontaine, Bob the Drag Queen, Jade Sotomayor, Laganja Estranja, Tempest DuJour, Naomi Smalls and Derrick Barry.
You can also watch our WOW staff video here.
#WeAreOrlando.
You can support the Pulse GoFundMe here.
The post RuPaul’s Drag Race Queens Make Epic #WeAreOrlando Suppport Video appeared first on The WOW Report.
The time has come, hunties…for ALL STARS SEASON 2!!!
Like Beyonce to Lemonade, Logo dropped the ten queens fighting to take back the crown and we are GAGGING. With no further adou, here’s the new players.
Her make-up is NOT terrible!
2) DETOX
I don’t know why ya’ll gagging?
3) GINGER MINJ
Living!
4) KATYA
Can we get an #UNHhhh?
Can’t pick my jaw up off the floor.
Are you there God, it’s Coco?
7) ADORE DELANO
Til death do we party, okcurr!
We can’t handle this much jelly.
It’s Miss Roxxxy if you’re Nasty!
10) TATIANNA
Thank you, RDR…THANK YOU.
We can’t wait!!!
The post RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 2 Cast RuVealed! appeared first on The WOW Report.
Until now, the blind or visually impaired have had precious few porn options (other than just listening to the groans and imagining the rest). That’s about to change.
Pornhub.com, one of the world’s largest online purveyors of skin flicks, has just created a new category of porn called “described video” that adds special narration to already-existing porn films.
A female narrator describes the setting, the actors, what positions they are in, and even what the actors are (or aren’t) wearing for their visually impaired audience.
For instance, one video begins: “A white woman in a cheap-looking red power suit sits next to a tall, white, lanky, middle-aged man with brown hair, a white shirt, a gray suit and a red-striped tie.”
Hubba hubba, huh? (Apparently it gets much more exciting after that…)
So far, Pornhub.com offers 50 enhanced-audio videos made from the site’s top-viewed straight, female-friendly, gay and bi videos.
Watch a mashup of work-friendly snippets below.
Says Pornhub Vice President Corey Price:
“It’s our way of giving back, and we’re excited to hear what people think. With over 60 million people visiting our site each day, we did feel it important to start to include this type of more-accessible content on our platform though, given the relative ambiguity of the concept and the sheer number of people who are visually impaired around the world.”
Adding descriptions to existing videos was a challenge, Price said.
“We put a considerable amount of effort into having the scripts for the added audio tracks be descriptive and enticing, to add enough while leaving enough space for the video’s original audio and having everything match up just right,” he explained.
Described video is intended for visually impaired porn fans, but Price suspects it may have broader appeal. “Will they like it more than the videos they are accustomed to? You never know. Some just might,” he said.
(via HuffPo)
The post Porn for the Blind? PornHub Is Making It a Reality appeared first on The WOW Report.
Ray (later Rae) Bourbon (c. 1892-1971) was a noted drag performer on the “Pansy Circuit” of the ’30s and ’40s, noted for his shocking and incredibly risqué (for their time) monologues. In the 1950s, he issued several LPs of often bawdy material, which he sold from the trunk of his car. In the late ’50s, he claimed to have had gender reassignment surgery in Mexico (probably a publicity stunt), and changed his name to Rae. Times were increasingly hard as public tolerance towards gay acts waned, and he was often arrested on public indecency and female impersonation charges. He died while serving time in prison, after being convicted of being an accomplice to murder.
His Wikipedia page is beyond fascinating, and reminds us that drag queens have ALWAYS been transgressive and shocking and true cultural pioneers.
By 1932 he was working full-time as a female impersonator, headlining “Frisco’s first pansy show”, Boys Will Be Girls, in San Francisco in 1933 at Tait’s Café. He became noted for his outrageous material, and was later described as “a professional vulgarian, not to be confused with glamour drag.” In the 1930s and 1940s he appeared in hundreds of gay nightclubs across the US, notably in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Miami Beach. He performed his own material, or songs specially written for him such as “Mr. Wong Has Got The Biggest Tong In China”, and occasionally issued recordings, such as Hilarity From Hollywood (c.1945). His accompanists included Chet Forrest and Bart Howard. He put on his show Don’t Call Me Madam: A Midnight Revue in Time at Carnegie Hall in New York to a sell-out audience. In 1944, he was hired by Mae West to perform in her Broadway production of Catherine Was Great, and her show Diamond Lil which toured until 1950.
By the early 1950s he increasingly faced prosecution, as well as declining sales, and his shows were too risqué for a mainstream audience. He issued a series of spoken word albums on his UTC (“Under The Counter”) label, which were available at his performances and by mail order. In Los Angeles, he was arrested on a charge of “impersonating a woman”, and the authorities closed down the club in which he was performing on the grounds that it was “presenting an indecent performance.” After an arrest in New Orleans in 1956 he claimed to have undertaken a “sex change” gender reassignment operation in Mexico. This was probably untrue, and a publicity stunt; he may in fact have had an operation for cancer. However, he used the claim in his material and publicity, releasing an album Let Me Tell You About My Operation, and insisting thereafter on being billed as Rae (rather than Ray) Bourbon.
In 1968 he was accused of being an accomplice to murder. He traveled between performances in an old car pulling a trailer containing some 70 pet dogs; after the car broke down, he entrusted their care to a kennel owner in Texas, A. D. Blount. When Bourbon failed to pay for their upkeep, Blount disposed of the dogs, probably to a research center. Bourbon became convinced that the dogs had been killed, and hired two men, Bobby Eugene Chrisco and Randall Craneto, to beat Blount up. Blount died as a result, and Bourbon was arrested. He pleaded innocence, but was convicted with the two men and sentenced to a 99-year prison term. He died in hospital in Brownwood, Texas, while serving his prison sentence in 1971.
Really, someone needs to make a bio-pic of this fascinating queen.
Listen to Let Me Tell You About My Operation and Forbidden Broadcast, below.
Read further about Rae here and here.
The post #Herstory: Meet Ray/Rae Bourbon, the Scandalous Mid-Century Female Impersonator (and Murderer!) appeared first on The WOW Report.
Edward Bochniak
Alison Moyet
Andrea Evans
Blake Shelton
Carol Kane
Dizzy Reed
Isabella Rossellini
Kerry Butler
Kim Dickens
Kurt Browning
Max Records
Raffaella Carrá
Ray LaMontagne
Renee Olstead
Robin Christopher
Sir Paul McCartney
Willa Holand
The post June 18th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on The WOW Report.
Photograph by Mary McCartney
June 18, 1942– James Paul McCartney:
“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
My first album, not from my parental unit’s collection of Broadway Original Cast LPs, purchased for myself with my own money I had earned from mowing lawns, was Meet The Beatles (1964). My first live concert was The Beatles in Seattle, summer 1966, making my parents drive 300 miles so that I could hear them do 11 songs, but not being able to hear the lyrics over the screaming. Beginning at 10 years old and lasting into my 60s, I have had a major case of Beatlemania. 52 years ago, The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and 73 million American television viewers tuned in, including me. The band and their brand had a significant impact on me, and on our American culture and our public life. The Beatles served as the ideal transition between the structured, staid 1950s and the free floating counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The Beatles brought a message of love with their tuneful songs about the excitement and disillusionment of relationships. They sported hairstyles that drove our parents nutty. The Beatles brought a much needed cultural jolt to our lives. Their songs, style and sensibility liberalized American culture. They celebrated free expression and artistic creativity. As President William Jefferson Clinton perfectly stated:
“If you think the 60s were a bad time, you’re probably a Republican; if you think the 60s were a good time, you’re probably a Democrat.”
The Beatles helped Americans deal with the struggles, sadness and sorrow surrounding the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, taken just three months before the band appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Young people had one icon lost and then we found new icons that they we could easily identify with in The Beatles. Their presence and their music left people my age feeling free-spirited, rebellious, and emotionally charged.
McCartney, who turns an astonishing 74 years old today, was the “Cute Beatle”. John Lennon was the smart one, George Harrison the shy one, and Ringo Starr was the clown. Only in their early 20s, The Beatles had decided on a contract that gave all songs the credit: Music and Lyrics by Lennon/McCartney, although most songs were written by individuals in the band. McCartney penned Yesterday, a song referenced by Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton when she did a kick-off of her campaign a year ago in Brooklyn. McCartney performed that tune alone at a recording studio on June 14, 1965 and it was released later that year on a record, a kind of technology from the last century where music was recorded in analog on flat vinyl disks, I know it sounds zany. Yesterday is the most recorded song in history with more than 2222 cover versions.
His composition, Hey Jude, was number one on the US charts for nine weeks, longer than any other Beatles single. It is also the longest single, at seven minutes and eleven seconds, to reach number one. Hey Jude is the bestselling Beatles single, with sales of over six million.
When The Beatles imploded, McCartney went solo and he eventually formed another band, Wings (in a sad, strange footnote, Henry McCullough, the Wings’ guitarist left this world yesterday). He clashed with Yoko Ono, and married a talented photographer, Linda Eastman, who he lost to that damn cancer in 1998. He became a vegetarian. He fathered five talented, good-looking children, including musician James, artists Mary and Heather, and innovative fashion designer Stella McCartney, perhaps you have heard of her.
Despite a series of rumors that today would have been Tweeted, memed and posted on The Facebook in an instant, McCartney did not die in 1966. Despite all the clues, Paul Is Not Dead. But he did endure that dreadful divorce from Heather Mills, which may have made him wish he were dead. But, instead, he released a live album Paul Is Live (1993) & released more than 30 more solo albums, that is not even counting the ones released by Wings or his first band.
McCartney is a two time inductee to the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame, a winner of 21 Grammy Awards, The Gershwin Prize, a Kennedy Center Honor and an Academy Award. He has written 32 number one hit songs and he has collaborated with Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, Sir Elton John, and Kanye West.
McCartney is rightfully considered the most successful songwriter in history. And wealthiest. McCartney’s vast fortune is said to be more than $1.5 billion.
He is one the Rock era’s greatest vocalists, known for his belting power, versatility, and with range spanning over four octaves.
As much as I loved him 50 years ago, I am not certain I would have predicted that the “Cute Beatle” would go on to be one of the world’s most famous and successful figures, or that he would tirelessly take on the issues: animal rights, seal hunting, land mines, vegetarianism, poverty, and music education, and that he would still be out on tour in summer 2016. Maybe I’m Amazed!
McCartney current One On One tour is traveling across Europe and North America with a new set, dozens of classics from the most beloved catalog in popular music, spanning his entire career as a solo artist, member of Wings and of course as a member of that other band.
Last week, McCartney released Pure McCartney with songs from throughout his solo career and his work with Wings. The 4-CD version has 67 tracks, all top 40 hits.
The day after the horrifying event in Orlando, at a concert in Germany, McCartney draped himself in a rainbow flag and wrote “We stand together with Orlando” on his Twitter page.
The post #BornThisDay: Paul McCartney appeared first on The WOW Report.
Graffiti is illegal in NYC, but there’s one organization that’s advocating for it. Writing On It All is back for its 4th summer of pro-graffiti programming on historic Governors Island, where the group organizes sessions throughout the summer that invite the public to write graffiti in a historic house.
Led by artists like Edwin Torres and group Collective:Unconscious, Writing On It All has teamed up with the Trust for Governors Island and the Historic House Trust of New York to tag the 2016 summer session. Each one has a different theme, and participants are encouraged to speak to that theme in their writings.
A little bit about the program, per its website,
Writing On It All pushes back against inherited beliefs that literature and writing are,or should be, the preserve of a special few. We do this by engaging writers working in multiple genres and media to experiment with literature as an embodied and collective practice. Writing On It All supports writers in developing public arts programming, at the same time offering a platform for building a public, site-specific creative practice.
(via NY Curbed)
The post #TagMe: Legalized Graffiti Is a Form of Self-Expression This Summer On Governors Island appeared first on The WOW Report.
Prince (left) with Larry Gagosian. Photo, Patrick McMullen
Prince has broken ties with the mega-gallery, which started in L.A. in 1980, and has been expanding ever since. Since joining the gallery in ’05, Prince has had nearly a dozen solo shows at its dozen or more (it’s hard to keep track) locations strewn across the globe.
According to artnet News, the tension arose between the artist and the gallery over issues of representation. Prince reportedly was signed to the Gagosian exclusively, he has also had many other solo shows at other blue-chip venues in the past five years, including his former gallery Barbara Gladstone, Blum & Poe, Luxembourg & Dayan, Nahmad Contemporary, Almine Rech, Skarstedt, and Sadie Coles in London.
This appears to be not-so news for Gagosian, since Prince’s market is force to be reckoned with. His “Nurse” and “Joke” series paintings often sell for millions at auction. The current auction record of $9.7 million was set at Christie’s just last month. artnet’s database lists nine paintings that have sold for more than $5 million each, and nearly 50 paintings for more than $2 million each. (You do the math.)
Prince has sparked controversy over his appropriation practice, including a string of copyright lawsuits in which Larry Gagosian personally, and the gallery, have been drawn in to as defendants. Photographer Patrick Cariou sued the artist and the gallery over use of his distinctive Rastafarian imagery, that Prince then used in his highly successful “Canal Zone” paintings, which were shown at Gagosian in 2011.
The Cariou v. Prince case was eventually settled in 2014.
Just last month, another photographer, Dennis Morris, who trailed the Sex Pistols on tour in the 1970s, sued Prince and Gagosian for use of his image of Sid Vicious also in the blown-up Instagram series.
Another source who was aware of the split made light of reading too much into the often fickle artist-dealer relationship. Another Gagosian star, Damien Hirst, “left” Gagosian a few years back, but has returned to the flock.
Is it just about the money. Prince told Hirst in 2009,
“It’s not that money has nothing to do with it… Money means you can buy a better pencil sharpener…“
By now he must have one or two REALLY nice pencil sharpeners!
Prince made his name in the 80s with his appropriation of the Marlboro Man ads
“Back to the Garden,” by Richard Prince, part of a series “Canal Zone” incorporating images by photographer Patrick Cariou
Richard Prince, “Untitled (Covering Pollock),” 2010 incorporated images of the Sex Pistols.
(via artnet News)
The post #PrinceLeavesKing: Artist Richard Prince Has Split From Artworld Powerhouse Gagosian appeared first on The WOW Report.
This unprecedented exhibit of the unknown artist called Banksy, has 150 works from private collections from around the world, spanning the artist’s career that includes original paintings, prints, sculptures, and objects — many being shown for the first time.
The exhibit examines Banksy’s role as a sociopolitical commentator and focuses on his connection with the themes of war, capitalism, and liberty, the primary sources of inspiration for his work.
Curator Stefano Antonelli said in a statement,
“On the threshold of a world living deep transformations, this exhibition analyzes the progress of iconography and performance of these three fundamental expressions of our civilization, through the work of the most controversial and popular contemporary artist and activist: an anonymous British artist who calls himself Banksy.”
This is the first time that the man many consider the best street-artist in the world has been exhibited in a museum. War, Capitalism, & Liberty is at Palazzo Cipolla in Rome through September 4.
(via Mutual Art)
The post #WhenInRome: Banksy First Museum Exhibit Lays Bare “War, Capitalism & Liberty” appeared first on The WOW Report.
Oh, geez, are there words for this? Kids, if you don’t know it Madonna and Sandra Bernhard were a thing for a minute in the 80s. This clip from Late Night with David Letterman shows both as babies, and VERY affectionate with each other. Ah, the 80s.
Watch.
(T/Y Deborah Kass)
The post #80sDuo: Sandra Bernhard & Madonna Run Over David Letterman in ’88. Watch. appeared first on The WOW Report.
The designer Raf Simons is a well-known lover of art. So it makes sense that the Mapplethorpe Foundation reached out to him for a collaboration.
Simons unveiled the results yesterday in Florence, with a collection that were Simons classics: slim black pants, oversized sweaters, tailored jackets, each featuring a Mapplethorpe image.
Simons didn’t shy away from Mapplethorpe’s more explicit images. One vest has an erect penis sticking out of the wearer’s pants. Models wore leather belts around their necks in reference to bondage.
The show was a reminder of Mapplethorpe’s role in bringing gay sex out of the dark and into the eye of a public that wasn’t entirely prepared for it. The New York Times wrote,
“His images were revolutionary, both for the radically inclusive nature of their subjects, and for their meticulous execution.”
Robert Mapplethorpe and his controversial work is having a moment this year with Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato‘s HBO documentary Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures as well as two major retrospective exhibits at the Getty and MoCA.
In her memoir, Just Kids, about their relationship, longtime pal Patti Smith wrote,
“He worked without apology, investing the homosexual with grandeur, masculinity and enviable nobility.”
Several pieces in Simons’s collection featured Smith’s image.
Mapplethorpe’s work continues to force the public to acknowledge and accept the existence of gay men and women. And given the events of this last week, more work is still to be done.
(via Quartz)
The post Raf Simons Uses Mapplethorpe’s Graphic Images on His News Menswear Collection appeared first on The WOW Report.
Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky take first baby Charlotte home
“Marc and I are overwhelmed with gratitude and love as we celebrate the birth of our son, Aidan Clinton Mezvinsky.“
Aidan is the second child for Chelsea and Marc Mezvinsky, an investment banker. Their first, a daughter named Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky, was born on Sept. 27, 2014.
Hillary Clinton frequently mentions her granddaughter, Charlotte, at campaign stops, often saying,
“FaceTime was invented for grandparents.“
Hillary and Bill Clinton said in a statement Saturday that they were “overjoyed to be grandparents again.”
“We are all over the moon as Chelsea and Marc welcome Charlotte’s little brother to the world and grateful for our many blessings. Chelsea and Aidan are both doing well and enjoying this very special time together.“
(via NBC News)
The post #HappyBirthDay: Chelsea Welcomes Baby #2, Aidan Clinton Mezvinsky appeared first on The WOW Report.
Here’s a chance for you to get a glimpse into NYC nightlife HERstory, before former Mayor Rudy Giuliani “cleaned up” the city, and basically changed club culture forever.
Jackie 60 was a Tuesday night party created in 1990 by Chi Chi Valenti, DJ Johnny Dynell, dancer/ choreographer Richard Move, London fashion designer Kitty Boots, and MC Paul Alexander, as an affront to what they thought was the sanitized club-going experience at the time. Mother was the final space that hosted the night, owned by Chi Chi And Johnny. It closed it’s door at the end of 1999. (pic by Michael James O’Brien)
Artist/director Rob Roth, one of the most pivotal members of the Jackie Factory collective, has now put together Night Paving: The Aural History of Jackie 60 & Mother– an audio installation that takes the form of a ‘silent disco’, and presents a soundscape journey of storytelling and music with the producers, performers, and attendees of the legendary space, including stories from Debbie Harry, Anohni (Antony and the Johnsons), Alba Clemente, Basil Twist, Marc Jacobs, Jack Doroshow (aka Flawless Sabrina), Joey Arias, Justin Vivian Bond, Amanda Lepore and more! Night Paving: The Aural History of Jackie 60 & Mother takes place Thursday, July 21, 10pm-midnight at The Highline in NYC, Tickets and more info HERE.
The post #10sAcrossTheBoard: “Night Paving: The Aural History of Legendary NYC Club Jackie 60 & Mother” appeared first on The WOW Report.
Ann Wilson
Atticus Shaffer
Gena Rowlands
Hugh Dancy
Jean Dujardin
Kathleen Turner
Lara Spencer
Macklemore
Mia Maestra
Mia Sara
Paul Dano
Paula Abdul
Phylicia Rashad
Poppy Montgomery
Rebecca Loos
Robin Tunney
Sadie Frost
Salman Rushdie
Zoe Saldana
The post June 19th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on The WOW Report.
June 19, 1566– King James I commissioned what we now call The King James Bible and that version of the holy book is dedicated to him. King James loved men and he had sex with them, lots of sex. I wonder if Pat Robertson thinks about that while on a rant quoting Leviticus.
The title page of The King James Bible boasts that it was: “newly translated out of the original tongues”, but the work is actually a revision of The Bishop’s Bible of 1568, which was a revision of The Great Bible from 1539, which was itself based on three previous English translations from the early 1500s. So, the men who produced The King James Bible not only inherited all of the errors made by previous English translators, but invented some special ones of their own.
Without King James I of England (he was also King James VI of Scotland, but that makes this post even more confusing), the most widely used Bible in Christiandom would never have been produced. When I was in Presbyterian Sunday School as a tot, I wish the teacher had thought to mention that the quoted scripture reading was from the Big Gay Bible.
When Mary Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate, her one year old son James became the King of Scotland. At 14 years old, James fell in love with 38 year old hipster Esme Stewart, a dude, the 1st Duke of Lennox. Accounts from the time claim:
“Stewart was in such love with him as in the open sight of the people often times he will clasp him about the neck with his arms and kiss him.”
The disapproving Scottish nobles forced Lennox to choose between James and his Catholicism. He chose James. Afterwards, Lennox’s life was threatened and he fled to France.
When Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, James became King James I of England. His sexploits with men were well known and snooty Londoners snidely said:
“Elizabeth was King, now James is Queen”.
In 1607, James fell in love while he attended a jousting tournament when got a gander at 17 year old cutie pie Robert Carr as he was being thrown from his horse, breaking his leg. James made Carr a gentleman of the Order Of The King’s Bedchamber. He showered Carr with gifts, among them the divorce decree for the married woman that Carr was in love with. When Carr married her, James gave Carr as a wedding gift the title 1st Earl of Somerset. Carr actually preferred the wife to James, even when it was revealed she had poisoned his BFF Sir Thomas Overbury, who had been very much against their marriage. After she was arrested, in order to save her life, Carr threatened to reveal his own sexual relationship with King James at the trial. Carr didn’t, but his wife confessed her crime and they were both sentenced to death by beheading. James held them in the Tower Of London for seven long years, and then he pardoned them. He even gave them a country estate with their chance to begin anew.
James next fell for hunky George Villiers, whom he later made 1st Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham became very chummy with James’ Danish wife Anne (James had married her by proxy when she was just 14 years old). Anne called Buckingham her “dog”. But she addressed him tenderly in affectionate letters begging him to be “always true” to her husband. Buckingham wrote in a letter to James:
“Sir, all the way hither I entertained myself, your unworthy servant, with this dispute, whether you loved me now… better than at the time which I shall never forget at Farnham, where the bed’s head could not be found between the master and his dog.”
James described the marriage to Anne as: “The greatest earthly felicitie or miserie, that can come to a man.”
In their correspondence, James addressed Bucky as his spouse stating:
“I desire only to live in this world for your sake. I had rather live banished in any part of the Earth with you than live a sorrowful widow’s life without you. God bless you, my sweet child and lover, and grant that ye may ever be a comfort to your dear dad and husband”.
King James I was unashamed of his love for Buckingham and he told his critics:
“I, James, am neither a god nor an angel, but a man like any other. Therefore I act like a man and confess to loving those dear to me more than other men. You may be sure that I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anyone else, and more than you who are here assembled. I wish to speak in my own behalf and not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had John, and I have George.”
Anne left this world in 1619 when she was just 44 years old. James did not attend his wife’s funeral, claiming that he felt sick.
Buckingham was at his side when James took his last breath in 1625. He was just 50 years old and had probably drank himself to death. You can visit him now at Westminster Abbey.
If he had lived, King James I would be celebrating his 450th birthday today, June 19th. He probably would have had a small gathering, serving a special cake made by his French baker plus a little bubbly at Sir Elton John’s place in London’s posh Holland Park neighborhood, along with assembled guests: Simon Callow, Stephen Fry, Lady Gaga Of Manhattan, The Beckhams, Dame Helen Mirren, and my boo, Harry Windsor.
Aside from his translation of The Bible, James’ legacy includes a theme park named Jamestown, located in the New World colony of Virginia. They feature a Mary Queen Of Scots Guillotine Ride and a Bubonic Plague Fun House featuring giant rats.
The King James Version of The Bible is my preferred version of the Christian book, with its powerful and poetic language in the manner and style of William Shakespeare.
The post #BornThisDay: King James I of England appeared first on The WOW Report.
Interior design evolves a bit more slowly than hairdos & fashion. But as you see here, a LOT can change from as time passes decade to decade. House Beautiful details the sleek ’40s, the eclectic, groovy ’70s, the pastels (Pastels?) of the ’80s. So, what was hot when you came into this world? I edited to started with 1940, 1950, 1960 and then 1970 through 1990 every single year (I’m assuming you aren’t younger than 25?) But if you are younger or older than the years listed here, there’s every year from 1929 on House Beautiful‘s website here. Since it’s Father’s Day, look up your Dad’s birth year too, just for fun.
1940
1950
1960
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
(via House Beautiful)
The post Find the Decorating Style the Year You Were Born appeared first on The WOW Report.
Yes, Gwyneth Paltrow, now based in L.A., is selling her bespoke Tribeca apartment. It was designed in conjunction with Roman and Williams and according to her lifestyle website, Goop…
It floats above the cobblestone streets like a pale, dreamy cloud. Pastel silks, hand-embroidered wallpapers, and cool swaths of marble punctuate the space, which balances centuries-old techniques and antiques with a confident, breezy modernism.
The gigantic bed in the master bedroom (so enormous that sheets had to be custom-made) was designed so every last family member can sit together on it, cousins and pets included. Now that the family in question is solidly based in LA, the apartment is for sale —giving us a chance to finally see it.
“Projects like this just don’t come along,” says Robin Standefer, principal at Roman and Williams Buildings and Interiors (The Ace Hotel, the Boom Boom Room in The Standard hotel in New York, the goop MRKT pop-up in New York’s Time Warner Center, to name a few) with her husband Stephen Alesch
A lot of people have a problem with Princess Paltrow –not me. I met her once in Paris with her best friend, Stella McCartney. My old art dealer had a mosaic business and she has just done a bathroom in this apartment and we chatted about that and my work, until pal Michael Stipe showed up and she shifted to him but she couldn’t have been nicer.
But being practically perfect, rich, famous, gorgeous, talented, well-spoken, well-bred, well-connected –if I was a woman her age, I think I might be just a little bit jelly. My question always is, if you have loads of cash and created this beautiful place, why sell it? The answer is, who knows? Maybe she needs the $13 million.
(T/Y Tad; Photos, Bjorn Wallander)
The post #RealEstatePorn: Inside Gwyneth Paltrow’s Non-Goop-y, Digs In Tribeca appeared first on The WOW Report.
This is Texas perfection. Austin is arguably THE most desirable place to live in the state and a house on Lake Austin, the ultimate. The Rockmoor Estate is a huge 60s residence on 660 feet of waterfront with 5 bedrooms and 5 baths, with a private (fenced in) boat dock and a swimming pool.
In the 1960s Gary Morrison and his wife Anna Mae commissioned George Page to design a modern home that would accommodate their expanding family. Grand daughter Anna Lee says,
“My siblings, cousins and our children had the pleasure of growing up there. The home was a place we went to fish, visit our grandparents, enjoy parties, host birthday parties and use my grandmother’s boat to learn to ski.“
It’s certainly a perfect time capsule of that period that looks unchanged in 50 years. It needs some updating but the location needs no improvement. If you can afford the $35 million, you can do whatever you want.
(T/Y Tad)
The post #RealEstatePorn: Austin’s $35 Million Rockmoor Estate Is a 60s Time Capsule appeared first on The WOW Report.
