Burt Ward as Robin and Adam West as Batman (promo photo via ABC)
News Round-Up: January 10, 2020
News Round-Up: October 8, 2019
L-R Sean Hayes of Will & Grace and Olympian Gus Kenworthy (image via Instagram)
• KIT212: It’s Tennis Tuesday over at Kenneth’s place where he always finds the hottest tennis players to showcase. Last week’s specimen will be pretty hard to top… 🙂 • Washington Post: The Senate Intelligence Committee, a Republican-led panel that has been investigating foreign electoral interference for more than two and a half years, said in blunt language that Russians worked to damage Democrat Hillary Clinton while bolstering Republican Donald Trump — and made clear that fresh rounds of interference are likely ahead of the 2020 vote. • New Music: Halsey drops the music video (nearly a million views in 6 hours) for her single, “Graveyard,” which has already amassed over 65 million streams since its release. The music video, featuring Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney, begins in Halsey’s bedroom but evolves into a sweet same-sex romp at a carnival. Stereogum praised “Graveyard” as a “strong pop song about depression and co-dependence” and noted, “Halsey… can sing about stark internal stuff and still make the songs sound like they belong in an arena.”
Out Music: Halsey & Lauren Jauregui Perform “Strangers” On The Today Show
Is this the first time two openly bisexual artists have sung together using female pronouns on a major morning show?
This past Friday, Halsey & Lauren Jauregui of Fifth Harmony performed ‘Strangers’ on The Today Show.
The synth-driven uptempo is from Halsey’s sophomore album, Hopeless Fountain Kingdom.
She doesn’t kiss me on the mouth anymore
‘Cause it’s more intimate, than she thinks we should get
She doesn’t look me in the eyes anymore
Too scared of what she’ll see, somebody holding me
During a recent interview on The Zach Sang Show, Halsey said she wanted “Strangers” to be believable.
“It needs to be real,” she said. “So I’m not going to put a girl on the song to sing who’s straight. I’m just not going to do it.”
Halsey’s song “Ghost” was one of my Top 5 songs by LGBT artists in 2016. You can check out “Ghost” on The Randy Report here.
Watch below.
Podcast: The Best Of LGBTQ Entertainment In 2016
Tune in as I share my “Top 5” lists of the best in LGBTQ music, film, theater and more from the year that was 2016. • Top 5 songs from out musicians Ty Herndon, David Hernandez, Jeb Havens, Halsey and Tegan & Sara • Top 5 LGBT themed movies: Moonlight, Retake, Other People, First Girl I Loved and King Kobra • Highlights from Broadway including The Color Purple, Falsettos and Dear Evan Hansen All that and much more. Hit the play button and enjoy!
Out Music: Halsey “Ghost”
I’ve known openly bisexual Halsey’s music for some time but realized today I’ve never shared any on The Randy Report.
Her electronic indie pop reminds me of a darker, more rebellious Ellie Goudling; think Pink – but on a thoughtful, electro-pop landscape.
I figure her music video for “Ghost” (over 29 million views) is a good place to start.
Shannon Keating at Buzzfeed recently wrote about out women in music, and included Halsey in the piece:
Her music video for “Ghost”, released in June 2015, is set in a dreamy but alienating Japan, its aesthetics lifted right out of Lost in Translation. Halsey, in a short blue wig, rolls around on a bed with a woman played by model Courtney McCullough, who wears the same wig in pink. They’re captured in their underwear, in slo-mo, sometimes kissing but mostly just touching each other’s bare expanses of skin.
The woman Halsey’s paired with, played by McCullough, doesn’t quite stand alone as her own person — she functions more as Halsey’s racebent mirror. The neon-lit, futuristic Tokyo setting seems distant, touristic, even otherworldly.
You can check out her song “Castle,” from the film The Hunstman: Winter’s War here.