Posts

Posted on

Midday Brain Break: Adorable Wedding Flashmob Dance

(screen captures via Instagram)
Awww… It’s been a while since we saw a flash mob dance at a wedding – but today we get this little uplifting nugget. Fitness guy Brock Dalgleish shared this clip from his beautiful wedding, which took place this past Sunday in Salt Lake City. Dalgleish surprised his partner, Riley Jay, Brock with not one but two dance routines at the end of the ceremony. Socially-distanced guests watched as the dancers knocked it out to Lady Gaga’s “Stupid Love” from her latest album, Chromatica. “This was my dream come true,” Brock told his followers on TikTok. “Wedding flash mob with all of my people.”

Posted on

Campaign Strategy: ‘Stable Genius’ Announces Blue States Have ‘Gone To Hell’

Donald Trump

Here’s a campaign strategy I’ve never seen in presidential politics. Donald Trump took to Twitter today to demonize several states including California, New York, and Illinois. According to Trump, the Golden State is “going to hell,” the Empire State has “gone to hell,” and the Land of Lincoln “has no place to go.” Why would a president of the “United States” attack Americans in such a manner? And by the way, does the Donald forget there are Republicans running for public office in those states?

Posted on

Student Filmmakers Go Indie After Losing School Resources

A team of LGBTQ student filmmakers at the University of Southern California’s prestigious School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) have decided to produce what might have been their senior film project independently in the aftermath of the school’s transition to online instruction and lack of access to school’s resources. Back in April, the team of filmmakers was chosen by faculty to create one of four senior thesis films this fall. Along with SCA’s professional-grade equipment, editing labs, and soundstages, the school also provides the team with $7,500 in funds to help complete the project. But now, without the school’s resources, the students have launched a crowdfunding campaign at Seed & Spark to raise the necessary funds to achieve their educational and creative goals. The students explain their project, titled Anti-Venom for a Snake, will explore “queer love and loss at the height of the AIDS epidemic, within the context of the COVID pandemic.” “The story follows Marcos, the voyeuristic drag artist by the name Evita Envy, as he copes with the loss of his soulmate and his own weakening body,” adds the creative team.

The budding filmmakers aim to use COVID-19 as “a time to pay tribute to the tragedies and experiences of the AIDS epidemic, to sympathize with characters once alienated as ‘sinful’ or ‘other,’ and to connect audiences to the power of queer love in the midst of a global pandemic.” The description for the project reads, “1993, New York. When an upcoming drag queen’s power is shut off, she is forced to deal with the unbearable silence of an empty apartment.” “With Anti-Venom for a Snake, I want to use my own experience with homophobia to connect audiences of all demographics with the power of gay love,” says the film’s director, Cameron Kostopoulos. “Most importantly, I hope to give voice to stories and characters that have long been ignored, in hopes of a more inclusive tomorrow.”

Film director Cameron Kostopoulos (screen capture)
It’s notable that the students, while not blaming SCA for the situation, are stuck in an unenviable position. Ranked as number one among the top American film schools, students attend SCA not only for the prestige of the institution’s pedigree but for the access to expensive production resources. According to The Hollywood Reporter, that includes 10 working soundstages, industry-standard postproduction editing lab, sound mixing stages, a color correction suite, as well as a small armada of cameras, lighting and sound equipment that is used to outfit each student production.” All of that allows the students – who pay undergraduate tuition of $59,260 per academic year – to enter the workforce with finished short films in hand to act as a calling card. Many of the senior films go on to screen at film festivals giving the students the chance to catch the eye of Hollywood players. “Part of the film school and the SCA experience is that you’re promised that when you enter the school you’re going to graduate with tangible films that you can send to potential employers,” Kostopoulos told THR. “Being in a school like SCA is, in a sense, an equalizer,” says Kostopoulos. “We all have the same resources and a support system, and when you lose that, you lose the whole reason you go to film school.”
USC’s School of Cinematic Arts (photo: Joe Mabel – CC license)
Faculty has reportedly suggested to students that don’t own professional-grade equipment to shoot projects using smartphone cameras. Also – even though most classes are now only available online, SCA has not scaled back the cost of tuition. Said one junior, “We are essentially being asked to pay full tuition to make a home movie.” Some students considered taking a leave of absence for the semester hoping to skip the challenges or disadvantages of not having a full ‘hands-on’ experience. But the school warned students that a leave of absence could mean they might not “be guaranteed placement in these courses in future semesters.” And, those courses are necessary in order to graduate from SCA. It’s a tough position for the students and the school, but you have to give it to Kostopoulos and his team who have decided to forge ahead on their own to create the queer love story they want to tell. Their project, which will explore grief and healing as well as serving as a tribute to the AIDS epidemic, has raised $10,195 of the $12,000 goal they’ve budgeted with just under a week to go in the crowdfunding campaign. For more info about Anti-Venom for a Snake – or to make a donation large or small – head over to Seed & Spark.

Posted on

News Round-Up: October 12, 2020

Rob Gronkowski of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers joins fellow NFL players in letting closeted players "When you're ready, so are we."

Rob Gronkowski of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers joins fellow NFL players in letting closeted players "When you're ready, so are we." Some news items you might have missed: • Pink News: The pharmacy chain Superdrug has launched the UK’s first-ever PrEP service and it will be fully remote (utilizing online doctors) in an effort to make it accessible to as many people as possible. Superdrug will, however, require that people accessing PrEP through its new service adhere to blood monitoring tests to ensure that they can safely take the HIV-preventing drug. • Back2Stonewall: It has been confirmed that the new HBO Max reboot series of the Green Lantern will feature the first Green Lantern character, Alan Scott – and, like in the Earth-2 comics, the character will be openly gay. • Instinct Magazine: Current and former pro football players (Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Rob Gronkowski above) took part in this terrific PSA for National Coming Out Day. “Today, on National Coming Out Day, we come together with one clear message,” say the athletes direct to camera. “To all current players who are thinking of coming out, when you are ready, so are we. It takes all of us and you deserve to be all of you.”

• Politico: South Carolina Democrat Jaime Harrison raised a staggering $57 million in the third quarter of this year, shattering the previous record for a Senate candidate as he seeks to unseat GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham. Graham, who has not released his third-quarter fundraising totals, raised $8.4 million in the second quarter and had $15 million in the bank as of June 30. • AP News: Here’s a bit of a warning sign for Donald Trump who won the 65+ vote by 9 points in 2016. The Villages, the nation’s largest retirement community located in battleground state Florida, recently held a 300+ golf cart parade in support of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. • The Hill: Donald Trump’s son Eric told ABC News’s Jon Karl on Sunday his father’s treatment for COVID-19 a “vaccine” that he further claimed the president helped create from “day one.” • Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Eager Georgia voters swarmed to polling places Monday morning for the start of three weeks of early voting before Election Day. Voters filled parking lots and waited in lines to lock in their choices in advance of November 3. As the tweet below notes, 410,000 absentee ballots have already been returned versus a total of just over 200K in 2016.

Posted on

Biden Gaining Strength In Michigan & Wisconsin

Former Vice President Joe Biden (photo via campaign)
New data from the latest New York Times/Siena College poll shows former Vice President Joe Biden leading Donald Trump in the vital battleground states of Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump won the two northeastern states in 2016 with less than one percent each.

Overall, Mr. Biden led Mr. Trump by eight percentage points in Michigan, 48 percent to 40 percent, among likely voters. His lead in Wisconsin was slightly larger, 51 percent to 41 percent.

The new results, along with recent Times/Siena surveys from elsewhere in the Northern battlegrounds, suggest that the president has not yet managed to reassemble his winning coalition across the region. He faces modest but significant defections among white and independent voters, while facing a groundswell of opposition from those who voted for a minor-party candidate or didn’t vote at all in 2016.

The president’s path to re-election is narrow if he doesn’t win either Wisconsin or Michigan. If Mr. Biden puts those two states in his column, along with the states carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016, he will hold 258 electoral votes, putting him on the doorstep of the 270 needed to win.

(image via NY Times)
Click here for a breakdown of where Trump is losing support among voters in the battleground states. Note – This report is not meant to condone complacency or think it’s safe to not participate in the 2020 presidential election. I share this information in an attempt to encourage citizens to VOTE.

Posted on

Man Dies While Attending Unofficial Atlanta Pride Dance Event

(photo by Maurício Mascaro via Pexels)
While Atlanta Pride organizers decided to hold a series of virtual Pride events this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, there were still some unofficial live dance events where video and photos of shirtless men dancing shoulder to shoulder made their way onto social media. One party-goer died early Sunday morning at one of the unofficial events. From The Advocate:

Emergency workers had attempted to resuscitate the man, who was found unconscious at the club BJ Roosters; he had passed out in the venue’s basement earlier in the morning after consuming the drug ecstasy, said his partner. Atlanta police found no signs of foul play, but an investigation is ongoing.

The event held early Sunday morning at BJ Roosters, from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m., was Xion, a gay circuit party thrown by Ga Boy Events. The group had organized several unofficial events during Atlanta Pride weekend, including a Saturday night party at the Underground Atlanta mall with Danny Verde and an event at District Atlanta with Nina Flowers.

One of Xion’s attendees, who asked to remain anonymous, forwarded a statement to The Advocate claiming that pandemic guidelines were not being enforced at the event, which was “packed” with hundreds of guests to “overcapacity at times.”

The victim was apparently in crisis for over 30 minutes with an onlooker performing CPR before paramedics showed up. The witness also told The Advocate that he’d attended parties all over the world and never been to one without EMTs standing by.

Posted on

Happy #NationalComingOutDay 2020

Since 1988, October 11 has been observed as National Coming Out Day (NCOD) in the United States with the idea that the most basic form of activism is coming out to family, friends, and colleagues, and living life as an openly LGBTQ person. Homophobia thrives in an environment of ignorance and silence, and studies show that when people know that they have loved ones who are gay or lesbian, they are far less likely to hold homophobic views. I’ve related my own coming out story (which was really more of a ‘journey’ than an ‘event’) here on The Randy Report, but I wanted to note the other side of this equation – when someone comes out to you. For years, as a gay man, coming out primarily held a place in my head as MY coming out. But some time ago, when I was still co-hosting an online radio show with Candi Fox (The Candi & Randy Show), a regular listener reached out to me and asked if they could call me. I said, “sure.”  What followed was someone coming out to ME, which hadn’t happened before. The listener shared that by listening to the show and reading TRR, my ‘out-ness’ had inspired them to come out – to me. I remember being touched and honored that I was the first person they decided to trust with the news. And this only occurred because they had come to see me as an out, proud gay man. The power of visibility. By the way…did you know that when music icon Diana Ross released her 1980 hit “I’m Coming Out” she initially had no idea the songwriters were writing about queer folks coming out? Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and some other folks tweeted their support about the day. (Don’t bother looking for a tweet from Donald Trump about NCOD, there isn’t one).

Posted on

So, Britney’s Man Is A Trumper?

(image via Instagram)
For the most part, it’s pretty safe to say the gays like Britney Spears and the gays like eye-candy. So, it’s almost a twofer that Brit’s man, Sam Asghari, is easy on the eyes. Like a lot of folks, we’ve occasionally clicked on his Instagram thirst-traps for momentary brain breaks. But, for some reason – and I still don’t know what it is – I was surprised when a Twitter user pointed out that Asghari had ‘Liked’ Instagram posts by Donald Trump. Sure enough, I went to the Trumpster’s Instagram (which I never do) and, when someone you follow ‘Likes’ a post their name shows up, there it was. Huh. How about that…

Now, I want to be clear that a ‘Like’ on an Instagram post doesn’t signal Britney Spears’s “support” for Trump. This isn’t about bashing or calling out Britney. And I’m not saying this is the biggest thing in the world. It’s not like he doesn’t get to like whatever political figure he wants. But for some reason, it did make me pause. Maybe since Britney has spoken out in support of Dreamers, and the Trump administration has gone after Dreamers to such a huge extent, it seems surprising? Maybe we assume couples tend to be like-minded? Or Asghari’s Insta-posts go for that ‘uplifting’ kind of tilt that seems so the opposite of Trump? When folks noticed the ‘Likes,’ Asghari responded in his Stories by making a joke writing, “I get soo many questions about politics and who I’m voting for…Let me tell you how much I know about politics! I think donkey and elephant both need to workout badddd.” He added, “I’m in no position to point out and make statements about politics.” He went on to encourage folks to “do your own research and vote based on that information not based on someone opinion that barely knows who the president is.”
(screen capture)
Fair enough, although it seems like a dodge. I did wonder, though, does Asghari really get a lot of questions about politics and who he’s voting for? Or was he dancing around the Donald in the room? I’m not demonizing Asghari, but the moment did move me to step back and ponder (again) how being good-looking gets some people a pass from some folks. All you gays that keep liking Aaron Schock posts, I’m looking at you. A couple of years ago, I was interviewing an InstaHunk for my podcast regarding a project he was working on, and in the course of the chat, it became clear through a couple of comments that he was a Trump supporter. And he remarked that ‘Russian interference in the 2016 election didn’t really happen.’ While it took me aback at the time before I posted the episode I checked to see if he was good with that being included and he said ‘yes.’ Sure enough, I got emails from listeners – who knew I’d featured the guy on my blog in the past – with some question marks and raised eyebrows. I guess, in our own heads, we make a lot of assumptions about who folks are in their internet Insta-Lives and are surprised when things don’t align? Who knows why Brit’s guy liked the posts? I know I don’t. But I am paying a little more attention to who ‘Likes’ what on the Gram of Insta and then considering why I might be following them. (h/t Boy Culture)

Posted on

Georgia Senate Races Could Result In Run-Off Elections

A prosecutor in Georgia is reportedly in the early stages of investigating Donald Trump for attempting to overturn the election results in the state

A new poll by Public Policy Polling shows the two Senate races in Georgia may well end in run-off elections in January. Georgia is one of seven that require a run-off election if no candidate receives a majority of the vote in a primary election. Not saying a Democrat will necessarily win, but I found this interesting as a possibility.

Posted on

Democrats Mail-In Votes Outpace Republicans In Battleground States

Michelle Obama encouraging voting by mail (photo: Jocelyn Augustino/Obama for America)
We all know Donald Trump has bad-mouthed and demonized voting by mail because Democrats tend to use the voting method more than Republicans. Plus, with the ongoing pandemic, Dems have (in general) been more likely to embrace safety guidelines regarding the COVID-19 crisis than Repubs. Which brings me to these tweets. While we don’t know which presidential candidate received votes in the returned ballots, if the majority of ballots are for the party aligned with the voter, you can see why Trump has been so vocal about mail-in ballots. As of today: • Florida – Democrats 791,730; Republicans 450,447; No Party 287,704 • North Carolina – Democrats 238,789; Republicans 81,913; No Party 142,633 • Maine – Democrats 56,623; Republicans 16,623; No Party 18,502 • Iowa – Democrats 59,768; Republicans 23,247; No Party 12,917 • Pennsylvania – Democrats 198,448; Republicans 42,447; No party 19,448 As Amy Siskind says below, we need to build up these “cushions” because the Trumpers will show up as well.