Part of what the LGBTQ community has had to do over the decades was co-opt popular music for ourselves when it wasn’t possible for an artist to be open about who they really were.
I’ve loved this gorgeous, poignant cover version of Whitney Houston’s mega hit, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” by popular out singer Matt Alber for years.
Alber’s brilliant reimagining of the tune reflects a universal feeling many young LGBTQs have experienced forever. Let’s face it – how many of us thought we’d never find someone to dance with?
The lyrics really are front and center in this thoughtful take on the song.
From the single release notes: “I grew up listening to Whitney on my Sony Walkman cassette player while wandering my apartment complex in St. Louis. No one knew I was gay, and I spent a lot of time alone singing along to Whitney, and this song in particular.”
“It’s lonely growing up as a teen in the closet and Whitney helped me express the deeply hidden desires of my heart– I wanted to dance with somebody who loved me.”
A portion of the proceeds from the single benefit Larkin Street Youth Services in San Francisco, an organization directly meeting the needs of homeless LGBTQ youth in the bay area.
• Today’s InstaHunk lead photo was not even hard to decide. Thanks to out pro-wrestler Anthony Bowens for the awesome inspiration. Caption:
“Happy Pride everyone! Let’s spread the love and focus on things that bring us together as human beings rather than our differences. Let’s remember those that have paved the way for us to live openly and freely. Let’s continue fighting for those who have yet to have that freedom and provide hope that they will soon love in a world where they can. How will you celebrate pride?”
• A homophobic prosecutor in Tennessee (do I even need to continue?) says he doesn’t prosecute domestic violence cases involving same-sex couples because bigot.
• Actor Kevin Spacey appeared in court on Monday in Nantucket for a pretrial hearing where he is accused of groping a male teenager in 2016. Spacey’s lawyers say the teen’s mother deleted text messages from his phone (that could help prove Spacey’s innocence) before turning it over to authorities.
• A UK teenager mowed a giant penis shape in the field along the Stansted Airport flight path as a welcome to Donald Trump as he landed for a state visit to London early Monday morning.
• A Florida man is facing a manslaughter charge after deputies say he accidentally shot and killed a woman during an act of foreplay with his handgun. The man told police he and the woman were using the loaded weapon for ‘sexual excitement.’ #smh #straightpeople
• Donald Trump’s campaign held a rally in El Paso, Texas, in February but has refused to pay bills from the city to the tune of more than $470,000. The Trump campaign, using an old Trump tactic, says the city of El Paso is ‘overcharging.’
• The city of Boston, one of the most pro-LGBTQ cities in America, may have agreed to issue a permit for a ‘Straight Pride Parade.’ #IsntThatEveryDay?
Props to everyone supporting the Straight Pride Parade
We know it was tough for you coming out to your parents, getting kicked out of your house, forced to get straight conversion therapy, lost your job, not allowed to marry who you love, and just generally discriminated against
Straight pride parade is just gonna be three guys in cargo shorts in the back of an F-150 one of their bored wives is driving, the Chic-Fil-A cows, and grand marshal Eddie Money who thought he was booked for something else
– Giant AXE body spray – Bag of Doritos – Big Mountain Dew – Tomi Lahren riding a Swastika – Jacob Wohl waving on a Twinkie – Charlie Kirk in a diaper – The curly hair gun girl in a beige leotard riding an AR-15 – Giant Parent’s basement
In 2016, President Barack Obama ordered 7.7 acres of Christopher Street in New York City to be designated as the Stonewall Monument, the first-ever national monument dedicated to the LGBTQ movement.
Today, with generous support from Google, New York’s LGBT Community Center is launching Stonewall Forever, a digital extension of the Stonewall Monument.
“Stonewall is such a big moment in our history,” Glennda Testone, executive director of New York’s LGBT Community Center, told USA Today. “It is what created the modern day civil rights movement; it’s a symbol for LGBTQ equality around the globe.”
And now LGBTQ people all over the world will be able to experience Stonewall Forever, either on a desktop, mobile or augmented reality app.
Google calls the digital project “a living monument to Pride, connecting diverse voices from the Stonewall era to the millions of voices in today’s LGBTQ+ community.”
William Floyd, head of external affairs for Google, shared with USA Today that “the idea was born out of a question: How do you tell the story of Stonewall in such a way that not only illuminates what happened in history, but it speaks to the activism and a movement going on right now?”
In addition to perusing archived materials like letters, photos, or oral histories, visitors can upload their own memories or experiences inspired by the Stonewall riots to the digital monument.
LGBTQ activist Larry Pfeil calls Stonewall Forever “a dazzling, three-dimension, 360 experience welcoming visitors into an audio-visual collection of individual stories erupting into a virtual rainbow of unity. It’s simply awe inspiring, both for the historical legacy it preserves but its brilliant design and presentation.”
In conjunction with the launch of the digital monument, a new documentary directed by Ro Haber, also titled Stonewall Forever, is being released today as well.
Make sure you visit the remarkable Stonewall Forever digital monument by clicking here.
Politico is reporting that the Trump White House instructed two former aides to defy subpoenas issued by a Congressional committee seeking documents related to possible obstruction of justice by Donald Trump.
White House counsel Pat Cipollone reportedly told the Judiciary Committee that the two former West Wingers were directed not to comply with the subpoenas because they “do not have the legal right to disclose the White House records to third parties.”
But one of those aides, Hope Hicks, a longtime Trump confidant who served as White House communications director, has turned over some documents to the House Judiciary Committee regarding her service on Trump’s presidential campaign, according to Jerry Nadler, the panel’s chairman.
He hailed the document production as a show of “good faith” and indicated that the committee will continue to negotiate with Hicks — as well as former White House deputy counsel Annie Donaldson — for the next few weeks as they attempt to arrange public testimony pursuant to the committee’s subpoenas.
Fifty years after the Stonewall uprising, Oscar-winning filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and YouTube personality Raymond Braun travel to diverse communities for an unflinching look at LGBTQ Pride, from the perspective of a younger generation for whom it still has personal urgency.
The results of their efforts is the new YouTube Originals documentary,State of Pride, which explores Pride festivals across the United States, and asks attendees what these events mean to them today?
(images via Michael Fullem/Rogers & Cowen)
Braun makes a point of chatting with some of the younger festival-goers who may be unaware of what “Stonewall” really was and what it meant to our history.
The creators made sure that they visited not only the big city celebrations like in San Francisco, but also smaller, younger events like those in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where organizers are still building their celebrations.
Mayor Mark Chambers is under fire for social media posts calling for ‘killing out’ LGBTQs
An Alabama mayor is facing criticism after posting controversial comments to his Facebook page.
Carbon Hill Mayor Mark Chambers wrote on his Facebook page in all capital letters:
“We live in a society where homosexuals lecture us on morals, transvestites lecture us on human biology, baby killers lecture us on human rights and socialists lecture us on economics.”
Chambers’ constituents responded to the post, but one response from a Facebook friend got the mayor’s attention.
“By giving the minority more rights than the majority,” wrote the supporter. “I hate to think of the country my grandkids will live in unless somehow we change and I think that will take a revolution.”
Having singled ‘homosexuals’ and ‘transvestites’ as the issue, Chambers wrote back, “The only way to change it would be to kill the problem out. I know it’s bad to say but without killing them out there’s no way to fix it.”
“To kill the problem out.”
“Without killing them out there’s no way to fix it.”
Chambers’ original statement on Facebook which was quickly deleted
Initially, the mayor denied posting the comments telling WBRC reporter Brittany Dionne, “I don’t think I posted that, I think that’s somebody else’s post.”
Dionne pointed out she was on the correct Facebook page noting photos of his family and birthday greetings, and asked if someone might be using his identity on Facebook.
Chambers replied with a meek “I don’t know.” When Dionne asked to meet in person, the mayor hung up.
Chambers did call back a few minutes later wherein he admitted to writing the post but argued it was being “taken out of context.”
“I never said anything about killing out gays or anything like that,” he told WBRC. Chambers explained that his comments were in reference to what might happen in a “revolution.”
“If it comes to a revolution in this country, both sides of these people will be killed out,” he said.
During the second call, Chambers also claimed that immigrants were taking over the country and called them “ungrateful.”
The mayor added that the post was meant to be a private message and didn’t intend for the public to see it.
He complained that he didn’t realize his Facebook page was available to the public, and shortly after the call with Dionne, his page went to private status.
• InstaHunk The Griffopotamous (above) is feeling fruity and fabulous this gorgeous Monday.
• The valedictorian for the 2019 Sheboygan Lutheran High School senior class says administrators banned him from speaking at commencement because he mentioned being gay in a draft of the speech.
• A federal grand jury charged a pair of Dallas men with conspiracy to commit hate crimes, kidnapping and carjacking. According to the 15-count indictment, suspects used the gay dating app Grindr to create fake profiles and pose as gay men interested in “dates” to lure gay men to an apartment complex in Dallas in order to commit violent crimes against them.
• Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are the first British Royals to ‘proudly’ celebrate Pride Month on social media.
• A Roman Catholic bishop who admitted last year to being “aware of incidents of sexual abuse” in the church but did nothing to stop them, warns Catholics that LGBTQ Pride Month is “harmful for children.”
• A former West Virginia Republican official who called Michelle Obama an “ape in heels” has been sentenced to 10 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to embezzling $18,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), funds that were intended to help flood victims.
• Don’t look now but there are more naked selfies by former Congressman Aaron Schock circulating the inter webs. Whatever you do, don’t click here.
This is the most tame photo in the latest raft of Schock selfies
A hotel clerk has gone viral after posting a video clip showing him refusing to rent a room to an apparently racist customer.
In the video, the unidentified Black man politely rejects an unseen woman’s pleas to stay at the hotel over and over again as he references an earlier phone call with her where the woman had called him an ugly racial slur.
Woman: “I need to stay here, my mother died.”
Clerk: “I understand that but you called me a f**king n*gg*r.”
Woman: “I’m sorry.”
Clerk: “But you weren’t sorry when you said it on the phone. At the end of the day, in the climate we live in today’s society…”
Woman: “I’m sorry.”
Clerk: “I understand that but it’s above me now.”
Woman: “I need a room tonight.”
Clerk: “Well, there’s the Best Western next door.”
Woman: “Please, I’ve had a horrible day today.”
Clerk: “And I had a horrible time hearing that.”
At one point in the short video, the woman’s daughter enters the lobby and asks why her mother isn’t allowed to stay. When the clerk explains that he’d been called the n-word, the daughter glosses over the issue saying, “My grandma just died.”
As if a dying grandma justifies using such hideous language? The daughter doesn’t even apologize for her mother’s behavior.
She might as well have said, “My mother is upset and forgot to not be a racist bigot in public.”
It’s interesting that they still wanted to be accommodated after such hideous behavior.
Watch the minute-long clip below. Warning – the video contains an ugly racial slur repeated many times.
— michelle greenidge (@Mimi_Greenidge) June 3, 2019
Please tell me it’s a black person working the desk next door at the Best Western and you called ‘em to give them a heads up… pic.twitter.com/unflC4wmcx
What a morning! #ItsAboveMe, Best Western and #sashay are all trending and half the people on Twitter haven’t a clue what any of it means. ❤️🤫…and if you haven’t watched at least one episode of #WhenTheySeeUs…do your homework!
UPDATE: It’s come to my attention that while social media is cheering the hotel clerk (identified by BuzzFeed as Craig Brooks in Austin, Texas) for his calm handling of the “case of the unwanted guest,” it seems he’s also quite transphobic.
Twitter-user Allan Brocka did a deep dive and found that in addition to being gay, Mr. Brooks has tweeted several anti-trans sentiments in the not-distant past.
Out singer/songwriter Mika drops his perfect-for-summer new single, “Ice Cream,” in advance of his upcoming album, My Name Is Michael Holbrook.
The Lebanese-born artist calls the song “a daydream fantasy” that was borne during a sweltering August in Italy. “It shimmers like a mirage, and makes me feel like anything is possible,” adds the 35-year-old singer.
The song came to him near the end of a two-year writing period. After musically exploring some serious, personal issues in his writing, Mika says he felt “lighter and freer” and escape was on his mind.
“I wanted to run away to the sea, or just about anywhere,” says Mika.
Instead, Mika sat down and dreamed about “summer flings” and “the other person I always wish I was during the summer.” But with no air conditioning, Mika mainly recalls the heat, the sweat, work deadlines and bee stings – all of which gets referenced in the bouncy bop’s lyrics.
Mika (photo: Peter Lindbergh)
With a solid bass beat and a hooky, falsetto-filled chorus, “Ice Cream” sounds like the sonic lovechild of 90s George Michael and Prince tunes.
The lyric video is a groovy melange of bold, playful graphics that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Released at the beginning of Pride Month, the timing couldn’t be more perfect as Mika wants his fans to “dare to be the more proud version of yourself.”
“Dare to be a sensual man, dare to express out loud the desires you always keep inside your head,” says the UK-based artist.
Mika first grabbed the spotlight in 2007 when he released his first album, Life in Cartoon Motion. The first single, “Grace Kelly,” went to number one in the UK and eleven other countries, and earned him a Brit Award and a Grammy nomination.
Since then, he’s been certified Gold and Platinum in 32 countries worldwide.
My Name Is Michael Holbrook, Mika’s fifth studio album, drops on October 4. Mika will follow its release with a world tour beginning in London on November 10.
Check out the new track below and let us know what you think in the comments.
