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News Round-Up: May 28, 2021

Chuck Norris models 'Action Pants'
Chuck Norris models 'Action Pants'
Chuck Norris models ‘Action Pants’

Some news items you might have missed:

• BrandedInThe80s: I have no idea what “action pants” are. The above image is apparently photoshopped, but Chuck Norris did reportedly front a line of stretch jeans back in the 80s.

• Kenneth-in-the-212: Hit the link to check out Kenneth’s weekly round-up of the what’s what in LGBTQ publications like the latest issue of DNA Magazine featuring cover guy Airon Mallars.

Airon Mallars covers DNA Magazine (photo: Antony Kozz)

• Edge Media: A new poll from Gallup shows that 66 percent of people favor allowing openly transgender people to serve in the military. However, 62 percent of Americans say trans athletes should only be allowed to play on sports teams that correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth.

• The Advocate: Internet sensation and renaissance man Leslie Jordan made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry last weekend sporting a custom-made electric blue suit with fringe and hand embroidery. The appearance was in support of his gospel album Company’s Comin’. Said Jordan, “I grew up in the shadow of the Grand Ole Opry. So you know, it’s like a mecca to me. To be invited and to get to do three songs, it’s a big deal.”

• OUT: In a video clip that went viral, a 13-year-old trans teen was viciously attacked in the hallway of her middle school in South Florida by a bully. Equally disturbing, other students circled around the teen laughing and kicking at her while she struggled to stand up. The school and police say they are investigating, but a week later no disciplinary action has been announced.

• JoeMyGod: The last on-air liberal has left Fox News as former DNC chair Donna Brazile and Juan Williams of “The Five” have both departed the right-leaning network. The New York Times reports that “Fox News has adapted to the post-Trump era by moving in a single direction: Trumpward.”

• Pink News: A furious ‘Karen’ demanded to speak to the manager of the entire airport and got the response she deserves. The woman went from “I’m a women in a dress” to “You F’off” in a nano second.

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LGBTQ Critics Honor The Best In 2020 Cinema

Don't miss the Dorian Film Toast 2021 this Sunday, April 19 at 8pm ET/5pm PT

Don't miss the Dorian Film Toast 2021 this Sunday, April 19 at 8pm ET/5pm PT

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has its Golden Globe Awards, the Screen Actors Guild has the SAG Awards, but now its time to find out what the queer entertainment critics thought represented the best in cinema this past year.

GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics will present its first-ever Dorians Film Toast 2021 awards special Sunday, April 18 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on the free LGBTQ+ streaming service Revry at revry.tv.

Hosted by gay entertainment and broadcasting veteran Karel, the Dorians Toast offers a queer-centric twist on the standard awards show combining tributes, interview segments, music, and comedy. Plus, members of GALECA take part in lively round-table discussions on nominees in several categories.

Those categories include Best Film, Best LGBTQ film, Best Documentary, Best LGBTQ Documentary, Best Unsung Film, Campiest Flick, ‘We’re Just Wilde About You!’ Rising Star Award, Wilde Artist Award (To a Truly Groundbreaking Force in Entertainment), as well as honors for best actor and actress in leading and featured roles.

Best Film nominees this year include First Cow, Minari, Nomadland, Promising Young Woman, and Sound of Metal.

Among those nominated for Best Director are rising Hollywood firebrand Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman and actress Regina King for her feature film directorial debut in One Night in Miami.

Emmy Award winner Leslie Jordan (“Will & Grace”) will receive the Society’s Timeless Star career achievement honor, and transgender writer-director-actress Isabel Sandoval accepts the inaugural GALECA Trailblazer Award.

For a full list of nominees, click here.

Presenters for the virtual event include director Lee Daniels (The United States vs. Billie Holiday), Cheyenne Jackson (Call Me Kat), Rosanna Arquette (Pulp Fiction), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious, Antebellum), Jharrel Jerome (Moonlight, Concrete Cowboy), Rafael Silva (Fluidity, 9-1-1 Lone Star), Harmony Valle-Ramirez (Room To Grow), comedian Margaret Cho, the legendary Charo, and more.

Dorians Film Toast 2021 is coproduced by Brandon Riley Miller (Life in Segments, High) and John Griffiths for GALECA. In order to be eligible for the Dorians Film Toast 2021, films were required to have a theatrical or digital theatrical release from January 1, 2020, to February 28, 2021.

Don’t miss this year’s Dorians Film Toast 2021 on Sunday, April 18 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on the free LGBTQ+ streaming service Revry at revry.tv.

Founded in 2009, GALECA (formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association) boasts a membership of nearly 290 professional LGBTQ journalists covering film and television.

GALECA hosts two Dorian Awards events during the year – one honoring the best in film and another acknowledging the finest in TV – from mainstream to LGBTQ fare. Last September, the organization celebrated their Dorians TV Toast 2020 with appearances by Billy Porter, Dan Levy, Hugh Jackman, Shangela, Thomas Roberts, Bruce Vilanch and many more.

Note: I’m a proud voting member of GALECA.

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Podcast: Leslie Jordan, Joshua Sade James, Gunnar Montana, EU, Queer As Folk Reboot

The Randy Report podcast delivers the week's top stories in a quick, convenient podcast - 'the 60 Minutes of gay news - only shorter'

The Randy Report podcast delivers the week's top stories in a quick, convenient podcast - 'the 60 Minutes of gay news - only shorter'

In this week’s podcast:

• The European Union’s Parliament overwhelmingly approves a resolution declaring all 27 member countries an LGBT ‘Freedom Zone’

• GLAAD has launched the Biden Equality Accountability Tracker which will monitor the Biden administration’s executive orders, legislative support, speeches and nominations that affect LGBTQ people and rights

• After the success of It’s A Sin, could a Queer As Folk reboot could be in the works?

• Philadelphia performance artist and dancer Gunnar Montana celebrated National Barbie Day in a ‘Super Gay’ way

• Love in quarantine – Joshua Sade James‘ new song “I’ll Wait For You” sings out for separated couples during the pandemic

• And Leslie Jordan wants the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, to know ‘The gays have your back’

All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report

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Podcast: Leslie Jordan’s InstaStardom, Idaho Challenged On Anti-Trans Laws, All-Star Celebration Announced For Sondheim’s 90th

The Randy Report podcast delivers the week's top stories in a quick, convenient podcast - 'the 60 Minutes of gay news - only shorter'

The Randy Report podcast delivers the week's top stories in a quick, convenient podcast - 'the 60 Minutes of gay news - only shorter'

In this week’s podcast:

• A Texas couple tragically dies within hours of each other due to COVID-19

• Idaho’s new anti-transgender laws are already being challenged in court

• Actor Leslie Jordan has become an Instagram sensation surging from 80K to 3 million followers. Find him on Instagram here.

• The new Netflix documentary Circus of Books chronicles the journey of a middle-class, straight Jewish couple from everyday entrepreneurs to accidental LGBTQ activists

• A vintage photo of two men named ‘Tommy’ and ‘Buzz’ has captured the romantic imagination of gay internet

• Huge stars will perform on the streaming event, Take Me To The World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration, on April 26

All that and more in this episode of The Randy Report

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News Round-Up: April 20, 2020

Joe Blizzard (via Instagram)

Some news items you might have missed:

• InstaHunks: Woofy Joe Blizzard (above) proclaims he’s in “dad bod mode.” I think someone needs to explain the term “dad bod” to Joe cause that ain’t no “dad bod.” Follow him on the Gram of Insta here. #grrrr

• Pink News: Piers Morgan apologized to Lady Gaga after her One World: Together At Home concert raised more than $127 million for the World Health Organization’s coronavirus relief efforts. The Good Morning Britain host was among those who dismissed Gaga’s involvement with the World Health Organization (WHO) when it was first announced in early April.

• NY Times: From surgeon-quality personal protection to the home-stitched square and the bandit’s bandanna, New Yorkers pulled on a newly essential accessory and ventured into a landscape that changed yet again on Friday as masks became mandatory beginning last Friday.

• LiarLiarPantsOnFire: I can’t watch the White House press briefings on the pandemic live anymore because Donald Trump’s lying and self-aggrandizement are too much for me to stomach. But this moment today with PBS Newshour’s Yamiche Alcindor takes the cake.

• The Gaily Grind: Anti-LGBT televangelist and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson linked the deadly COVID-19 pandemic to same-sex marriage on Monday because, of course.

• The Tennessean: Gov. Bill Lee announced Monday that his stay-at-home order will not be extended past April 30, and that some businesses around the state will begin reopening next week. A governor-appointed, 30-member economic recovery group is working towards some businesses reopening as early as Monday, April 27. Lee said this office has not yet determined what types of businesses will be targeted to reopen first next week.

• The Advocate: Actor Leslie Jordan (Will & Grace) has become an Instagram sensation since adjourning to an Airbnb not far from his mother and sisters in Tennessee last month. The actor catapulted from about 80K Instagram followers to 3 million in the span of a month thanks to his homespun videos in which he exercises with a back scratcher, then uses it as a baton, does yoga (as only he could), and engages in “pillow talk” dishing about Hollywood luminaries.

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Supercut Of ‘Will & Grace’ Frenemies Karen Walker And Beverley Leslie

L-R Leslie Jordan and Megan Mullally (screen captures)

As NBC’s hit sitcom Will & Grace begins its run down the final stretch of new episodes, the powers that be give us this supercut of hilarious moments between quintessential frenemies Karen Walker (Megan Mullally) and Beverley Leslie (Leslie Jordan) over the years.

“Karen Walker – I thought I smelled gin…and regret.”

“Shouldn’t you be in your tree making cookies?”

“Well, well, well…”

Originally debuting in 1998, Will & Grace has been nominated for 91 Emmy Awards, winning 18 of them, including Outstanding Comedy Series. The series has also earned seven SAG Awards and the show is one of the few in TV history where each member of the cast has won an Emmy.

Watch Will & Grace Thursdays 9/8c on NBC.

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Emmy Winner Leslie Jordan: “I Wanted To Be The Gay Version Of Hugh Hefner”

Leslie Jordan (image via Facebook)

In a new interview with Attitude Magazine, Emmy Award winner Leslie Jordan says he’s enjoying playing it straight on his Sky TV/UK series, Living The Dream, because he’s been the ‘go-to gay guy’ for so long.

In Living The Dream, Jordan plays ‘Aiden,’ a resident of a caravan park in Florida. The character is straight, which Jordan finds refreshing.

“I like it because it’s different,” says the 63-year-old. “This season I have a flirtation with Paula Wilcox. Last season, I was desperately in love with Jen, played by Lesley.”

“I like that because I tell you, in the US I’m the go-to gay guy,” he adds. “The all-gay men, the all-gay queen. You need an old sissy called Leslie? I’m there.”

Jordan also likes that the casting director took him to lunch and pursued him (“That doesn’t happen a lot”).

With appearances on Will & Grace (“We’re doing more”), his new FOX TV series The Cool Kids, plus Living The Dream, Jordan candidly declares, “I got rich for the first time ever. I got money.”

Attitude follows up on that imagining the “rich” part would have come with Will & Grace?”

Nope.

Sean Hayes & Leslie Jordan on 'Will & Grace'
Sean Hayes & Leslie Jordan on ‘Will & Grace’

“I was making $7,500 an episode which is starting salary,” says Jordan. “And they were making $750,000 – I made one per cent.”

Even though he won the Emmy (“I didn’t win the Emmy until the show was off the air”), he laments that he didn’t get to cash in on the big success of the show.

And Jordan had some big dreams.

“When I got to Hollywood, I wanted a big house up in the Hollywood Hills and I wanted to be the gay version of Hugh Hefner,” the actor told Attitude. “I wanted seven twinkly blond boys in their thongs all over me and I wanted everyone to come to my house on Sunday and have brunch. But my life is so not that!”

That’s ok, Leslie, I think you are “so that!”

Living The Dream returns to the air in UK January 8 on Sky TV, and The Cool Kids airs Thursdays on Fox at 8:30pm.

(h/t Attitude)

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Leslie Jordan Faces Down Young Homophobes At West Hollywood Starbucks

Here’s a life lesson for homophobes: do not head into the gayest coffee shop in the gayest neighborhood in the world and start trouble with an Emmy Award-winning queen in attendance.

She will cut a bitch.

Apparently, late Wednesday morning, three young men in their 20s walked into the Starbucks located on Santa Monica Blvd right in the heart of West Hollywood.

For some reason, the three started throwing out antigay slurs at customers who, by all accounts were deep in thought over their $5 lattes.

Queerty has the details:

“You will die, fucking faggots!” one of the men allegedly announced to the entire store.

Joseph Daniels, who was waiting in line at the time, told WEHOville, “It was very scary and unexpected.” But he wasn’t going to let a group of d-bags get the best of him. He walked over to the men and told them their behavior was “rude.”

Then the manager came along and told them to get the hell out.

The thugs refused to leave and proceeded to call everyone in the store “faggots.” And that’s when things got really heated. Because unbeknownst to the homophobes, Leslie Jordan happened to be there.

Yes, the Leslie Jordan.

The 4’11 Southern gentleman approached the men, fuming, and told them to “Get out of my house!” before chasing them out the front doors.

Once outside, the men continued screaming antigay epithets. But Jordan wasn’t having any of it.

“The guy lunged at Leslie to hit him,” Daniels said of one of the men. “Then Leslie threw his drink at the guy. Then (another) guy threw his drink to hit me.”

Police were called. They advised Jordan and the other patrons not to file charges against the homophobes, saying that if they did the men could accuse them of assault for throwing coffee at them.

Daniels told WEHOville that the three men stormed away, but continued screaming “faggots” and making obscene gestures.

“He provoked it,” Daniels said of one of the three men. “He spewed hate crime words against everybody and threw a drink at Leslie. Why couldn’t he have been charged with disorderly conduct?”

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Cult hit “Sordid Lives” to be released on Blu-ray and digital platforms

Cult hit movie “Sordid Lives” will finally see a Blu-Ray release on September 30th.

Plus, on August 29th, the flick will be available on digital platforms like iTunes and WolfeOnDemand:

From WolfeOnDemand:

In this cult classic comedy from writer-director Del Shores, a gay West Hollywood actor returns home to his small Texas town for his grandmother’s funeral. As we meet the three generations of his dysfunctional family, the hilariously trashy truth of their “sordid lives” is revealed.

Sordid Lives features an all-star ensemble cast, including Olivia Newton-John (Grease), Delta Burke (TV’s “Designing Women”), Bonnie Bedelia (TV’s “Parenthood”), Beau Bridges (TV’s “Masters of Sex”) and Leslie Jordan (The Help) as the Tammy Wynette-obsessed institutionalized gay uncle, Brother Boy. The soundtrack features such country standards as “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” “Stand by Your Man,” and “Get off the Cross, We Need the Wood.”

Based on a long-running hit play by Del Shores, SORDID LIVES became a hit movie where it had a record-setting 96-week run at the Camelot Theater in Palm Springs.

The movie became a TV series for LOGO TV in 2008 which ran for one hysterical season. Lack of payments to the parties involved led to lawsuits ending in Shores and cast being owed lots of money.

Big shame because it was a fun project.  “Sordid Lives: The Series” is available on DVD from Amazon.

Olivia Newton-John in “Sordid Lives”

(h/t Queerty)