More radical statements from the extreme right from the former half-term governor of Alaska.
Ah, Sarah Palin. The gift that keeps giving…
Interview: Singer/Songwriter Tom Goss “Lost Songs and Underdogs”
 |
| Singer/songwriter Tom Goss |
I’ve been a fan of singer/songwriter Tom Goss since the release of his first CD “Naked Without.” Since then this guitar-toting troubadour wielding heartfelt lyrics, hooky melodies and quirky charm has earned a dedicated national following.
A top-shelf music artist in the LGBT world, Tom has performed across the country in hundreds of concert appearances ranging from Pride festivals to smaller, more intimate performances. He has a big following due not only to his big pop songs like “It’s All Over” and “Come Around” but his ballads like “Lover” as well.
Tom is an unabashed romantic, known for his songs about love (many inspired by his husband Mike, whom he married in October 2010) and longing.
Tom is committed politically as well, having released songs and videos in support of marriage equality and the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
I recently had the opportunity to interview him with my radio show co-host Candi for “The Candi & Randy Show.” Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
How would you say this album is different from your earlier CDs?
Yeah – It’s very intimate. A lot of these songs I started a long time ago, and they just never made it to a CD before because they didn’t fit those projects. It’s very much a departure for me.
I invested in some recording equipment this summer, and was tooling around with it all – an hour here, an hour there. But I realized it wasn’t getting done. A friend of mine has a cabin in the middle of the woods, so I disappeared into the woods for a while. No telephones, no computers. Just super intense sessions. It was really cool.
It was funny too because when it gets dark, it gets DARK. And I’m the only one for miles. Unless there happens to be, like, a psycho killer. So I covered up all the windows and I told myself it was for sound purposes, but it was really so I wouldn’t see like “the man with the bloody meat hook standing outside the window.” I figure if someone is going to kick in the door with a shotgun I can react to the situation as opposed to seeing them approach and having this dramatic fear… I’m a big fan of naiveté and ignorance (laughs).
Let’s talk about the song “I Do” on the new CD. You got married fairly recently – was this written around the time of the wedding?
Yeah, I got married in the fall of 2010 and that was I song I wrote for our wedding. I’ve written a lot of songs for Mike in the past and in preparing for the wedding I thought about putting together a CD collection of some of those songs as gifts to the people who attended the wedding, so that’s what I did.
But in writing this song I got to thinking about love songs and how ridiculous they can be sometimes in the sense where they only focus on the positives and disregard all the negatives. So I wrote a song about Mike and all the things he does that drive me up the wall. And in the end it turned into one of those “everything’s happy, squeaky clean” love songs because as much as I wrote about the things that annoy me, all those things I’m really in love with as well.
Didn’t you get married on a miniature golf course?
Yeah we got married on a mini-golf course. It was amazing. And then for our honeymoon we went to a place out in Bisbee, Arizona called Shady Dell where you can stay in these vintage trailer homes. It’s like a hotel but with trailers. It was like stepping back in time. It was very cool and fun.
The song “The Dawn Of Man” on the new CD has a sense of timeless wisdom, and even seems to have a bit of Gregorian chant in the bridge. Can you talk about where the song comes from for you?
The album has a lot of dark and sad stuff on it. And I wanted to end on a note that talks about truth and rebirth which is why “The Dawn Of Man” comes at the end of the album.
When I wrote it I was thinking a lot about the allegory of the cave by Plato. In the allegory the people are living in a cave and all they know are their shadows on the wall. It’s so dark they don’t even see each other. So they think that “the world” is the shadows on the wall. But if someone came to you and said “take my hand – there’s something that I want to show you” and you stepped out into the light and saw that there was an entire world there, then you would be awakened to all these new truths. It wouldn’t mean that the truths that you knew before weren’t true – it would just mean that they were changed.
And so I got to thinking about what we believe to be true and how it changes throughout our lives. It doesn’t mean that we were wrong before; we just didn’t have all the information that we needed. Even now I hope that in 10 years I’ll look back and think I’ve become more right. The song is about walking out into the world and seeing the good and the bad, and really not passing judgement on it – just enjoying the beauty of it.
It sounds like the process of creating this album was different this time around. Did you learn something new during the process?
I think that in some ways I’m a bad artist because I tend to not struggle with my art. I tend to write a song then move beyond it. And then I pull really great people around me to help make the songs what they need to be.
But in many ways that takes responsibility off me. And so, for this record I really wanted to have all the responsibility and see what would happen if every single note came from my finger tips. And there are things on that album – including that “gregorian chant” section – that, before I went into that cabin in the woods, I would have told you I couldn’t do. Even through the recording of that piece (‘The Dawn of Man’), it sounded like shit. It wasn’t that it was bad. It was that it wasn’t mixed properly. So I had to keep telling myself through the whole thing “follow this through and it’s going to sound amazing.”
And that’s what I really value most about this record – that it taught me to be confident in my ideas and what I have to do and what I want to do in my vision. It taught me that I CAN do it. Of course when I get back together with my collaborators for my next big pop record it’s going to be that much better because I have that confidence now.
How about some “get to know Tom” questions? What is your idea of a romantic evening?
(Laughs) I don’t know. I guess… I’m just really happy when I’m with Mike. That may sound silly, but we spend so much time apart; so for me the idea of being at home, eating dinner together, laying in bed together… that’s really romantic to me.
If you could have dinner with anyone anywhere, who would it be and where?
I really don’t know. Would it be a philosopher, or a religious figure or an artist? There are so many people I’d want to talk to and now you’re telling me I have to choose a place too (laughing)???
I think the really great thing about what I do is that I meet so many people. The music that I play and the way I perform – I work really hard to be an open book, be honest about who I am, what I do, who I love and what I’m passionate about. And I feel like as a result people do the same to me. So we kind of meet each other where we’re at.
And to me that’s my favorite thing to do. So I’d really like to meet everybody – where they’re at, when they’re there and hopefully be on the journey of life with them.
To listen to the entire interview, click here.
Tom’s latest CD, Lost Songs and Underdogs, will be released April 3rd.
However it is available for purchase and instant download on his website right now – www.tomgossmusic.net
Pennsylvania: proposed bill to amend state constitution outlawing marriage equality
From Equality Pennsylvania: A vote on House Bill (HB) 1434 is scheduled for TUESDAY, MARCH 13 in the House State Government Committee. Now is the time to let your voice be heard. HB 1434, proposed by Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, would not only amend the Pennsylvania Constitution to define marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman, it would invalidate any other type of legal union or one substantially equivalent. That means any discussion of civil unions or domestic partnerships would forever be off the table for consideration.
Passage of this legislation will also forcefully terminate benefits currently provided to thousands of employees in municipalities or state owned schools or facilities that offer domestic partnership benefits.
Pennsylvania residents – contact your legislators by clicking here.
Get more info on how you can make your opinion known by visiting Equality Pennsylvania.
UPDATE: The Pennsylvania legislature has put on hold discussion of a proposed bill that would bar in the state Constitution recognition of same-sex marriage, according to the blog PoliticsPA.com.
Billboard Album Chart for week of March 12, 2012
For the week of March 12th according to Nielsen SoundScan
2. Whitney Houston – Greatest Hits
Conservative news sources: Obama not to blame for rising gas prices
Recently, Newt Gingrich laid blame for rising gas prices at the feet of President Obama saying “The price of gasoline when Barack Obama became president was $1.89. All of this gigantic increase came from his policies.”
But the conservative Wall Street Journal countered by saying:
“U.S. gasoline prices, like prices throughout the advanced economies, are determined by global market forces. It is hard to see how Mr. Obama’s policies can be blamed.”
“Mr. Gingrich ignores the basic fact about U.S. gas prices: They are largely fixed by the price of crude oil, which is determined by global supply and demand.”
“When Mr. Obama was inaugurated, demand was weak due to the recession. But now it’s stronger, and thus the price is higher.”
“What’s more, producing a lot of oil doesn’t lower the price of gasoline in your country. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Germans over the past three years have paid an average of $2.64 a gallon (excluding taxes), while Americans paid $2.69, even though the U.S. produced 5.4 million barrels of oil per day while Germany produced just 28,000.”
In addition, the Koch Brothers funded Cato Institute had this to say:
“Is President Obama responsible for spiraling price of gasoline? Republicans say yes, but the facts say no. Despite the popular perception of President Obama as anti-oil, domestic oil production is increasing for the first time since the Johnson administration…. Unfortunately, presidents get blamed for world market changes that occur during their time in office … but generally, they do not cause them.”
Chief strategist for McCain campaign on Sarah Palin: “Manifestly unprepared to take the oath of office”
Steve Schmidt – chief strategist for Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign – is a plain-spoken and direct man. This morning he appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and asked for his thoughts on HBO’s movie “Game Change.”
With blunt honesty, Schmidt spoke about the selection of Sarah Palin as McCain’s vice presidential nominee and his role in that decision:
“It’s a story of when cynicism and idealism collide, when you have to do the things that are necessary to win to try to get in office to do the great things you want to do for the country,” Schmidt said. “And I think it showed a process of vetting that was debilitated by secrecy, that was compartmentalized, that failed, that led to a result that was reckless for the country. And I think when you look back at that race, you see this person who is just so phenomenally talented at so many levels, an ability to connect. But also someone who had a lot of flaws as someone running to be in the national command authority who clearly wasn’t prepared.”
“Politically, she was a net positive to the campaign,” Schmidt said of the former Alaska governor. But she was a “net negative” because “someone was nominated to the vice presidency who was manifestly unprepared to take the oath of office should it become necessary and as it has become necessary many times in American history.”
“For me and the experience I had on this campaign is that there are worse things than losing,” Schmidt said. When he was asked to spell that out, he said, “When a result happens that puts someone who’s not prepared to be president on the ticket, that’s a bad result. I think the notion of Sarah Palin being president of the United States is something that frightens me, frankly. And I played a part in that. And I played a part in that because we were fueled by ambition to win.”
Andrea Mitchell asked Schmidt whether he thought Palin had a future as a national leader in the GOP:
“I hope not,” he said. “And the reason I say that is because if you look at, over the last four years, all of the deficiencies in knowledge, all the deficiencies in preparedness, she’s done not one thing to rectify them, to correct them. She has become a person who I think is filled with grievance, filled with anger who has a divisive message for the national stage when we need leaders in both parties to have a unifying message. . . . The lack of preparedness was a bad thing and the total disinterest in being more prepared and rectifying that is something that disqualifies.”
(source)
Blake Shelton on his “bromance” with Adam Levine
Get More: Blake Shelton, Music News
Blake Shelton joking about his “bromance” with fellow The Voice judge Adam Levine:
“All I have to say is, it’s true: I have a man crush on Adam. It blows me away people can pick up on that just by watching that on television. I want to kiss him. I want to kiss him so bad. I don’t care if it’s mutual or not. Can you honestly tell me that you don’t have a little bit of a crush on Adam? He’s sexy, is the word I’m using.”
Happy birthday Liza Minnelli
From her Emmy Award winning TV Special “Liza with a Z”
Happy birthday to a great star.
Trailer: May I Kill U?
Upcoming new dark comedy starring Kevin Bishop (who’s currently starring with Olivia Newton-John in the hit comedy “A Few Best Men”).
I had the chance to meet Kevin earlier this year and he’s one of the funniest, most talented actors I’ve met. During the days I spent with him, he was on an almost constant Robin Williams kind of stream of consciousness comedy spree.
I’d see Kevin in anything. He’s going to be very big in the US soon.
Please remember I said that 🙂
Ricky Martin on returning to Broadway in EVITA
Exceprt from Ricky Martin in The Advocate:
Until this year’s guest appearance on Glee, Martin hadn’t acted since Les Misérables. Glee cocreator Ryan Murphy, a fan of Martin’s, had pursued the singer and wrote the episode specifically for him. “He has such star power,” Murphy says. “Even the straight boys in the cast were just gob-smacked by his confidence and said if they ever turned, it would be for Ricky Martin.”
The pleasant experience Martin had on Glee makes him wonder why he’d waited so long to return to acting. “I was very busy with so many things that I didn’t realize I missed acting,” he says, before adding with a laugh, “This had to happen.”
Martin is referring to the Broadway revival of Evita, which will open this month. The performer, who made his debut on the Great White Way nearly 16 years ago (as the love-struck Marius in Les Misérables), will headline this reportedly sexier restaging of Evita as Che, the rebellious voice of the people and antagonist to Argentinean first lady Eva Perón.
Che’s conflicting emotions are appealing to Martin. “I get to feel many things. I can go from anger to love to uncertainty within 30 minutes of the show,” he says. “That’s amazing because that’s what my life has been about for the last three years—feeling. Not sabotaging any kind of emotions. Letting everything just come through me and verbalize it. It’s a very spiritual exercise that I’ll do every night.”
But it’s the common cause Martin finds in his character’s desire to correct social injustices that really inspires him. “The man I’m portraying is all about the people and working for human rights,” Martin says. With the Ricky Martin Foundation, an organization committed to ending human trafficking and the exploitation of children, Martin too has been working for human rights. “And since I came out, I’ve been verbal about the importance of equality and what needs to be said. That’s what Che is about too. That is going to be my inspiration, my motivation every night.”
Read more of the interview at The Advocate.
|
| Ricky Martin for The Advocate |