Nicholas Hoult on A Single Man

My interview with Nicholas Hoult about his role as a gay lad hot for teacher in "A Single Man" is running in some regional LGBT publications. Here's the version from Chicago's Windy City Times.

Avec Cafeine

Canadian indie rocker Xavier Cafeine has a new album out, so while I suss out which tracks I like I'm posting one of his 2007 album's best tracks here... Enjoy!

L

OMG

Holy cripes. This really strikes fear into me.

L

What If? Wha-hat I-hi-hif?

I love Michael Lucid's twisted "What If" skits. Ridiculous hypothetical questions are one of my favorite things in the world, so this is like double delicious!

Thanks Michael!

L

BearCity Meets The Advocate!

Brandon Voss did a set visit on the last day of shooting for The Advocate's website. Take a peek and enjoy!

By the way, it is hotly contested whether I am a "bear" or "cub." Weigh in (pun not intended but fitting).

L

ps - That photo is a Lawrence sandwich with actors Brian Keane and Stephen Guarino, who play couple Fred & Brent in BearCity.

Some Free Madge!

Got this press release today so all you Madge fans get to iTunes tomorrow for that thar freebie video!

NEW MADONNA “CELEBRATION” VIDEO WORLD PREMIERES EXCLUSIVELY ON THE ITUNES STORE AS FREE DOWNLOAD FOR 48 HOURS

Burbank, CA – Madonna’s hotly anticipated new video for her “Celebration” single will have its exclusive world premiere on the iTunes store as a free download for two days beginning Tuesday, September 1, 2009. Madonna is a multi-award winning visionary in the realm of video performance. The “Celebration” video, which contains mind-boggling dance moves, reaffirms yet again her reputation as the master of the “short movie.” The video will be available for purchase on iTunes on Thursday, September 3rd.

The “Celebration” video, directed by long time Madonna creative collaborator Jonas Akerlund (“Ray of Light”) was filmed recently in Milan, Italy and features the Material Girl dancing with her amazing troupe of performers from her current “Sticky & Sweet” Tour. The video also includes cameo appearances by Madonna’s daughter, Lola Leon and model/DJ Jesus Luz.

Simultaneous to the video debut, Madonna’s definitive greatest hits album, “Celebration” which has been totally remastered and includes two new songs, can be pre-ordered on iTunes.

Check out a clip of Madonna’s hot "Celebration" video on the link below (For embedded code, please contact me):

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid4020141001/?bctid=ref:A10302B00009527375

Full video available on iTunes beginning September 1^st.

La Dolce Bears

Michael Musto of the Village Voice did a fantastic bit on BearCity in his new La Dolce Musto column! Check it out, as well as his blog.

Owl City

BearCity actor Will Bethencourt turned me on to Owl City while on the set last week. "Fireflies" is totally addictive, isn't it? Thanks Will!!

L

BearCity Begins

We begin shooting BearCity on Monday - and some notes and news is appearing online. Here's a first peek at the cast, which you can also see on imdb!

L

BearCity the Movie...

The gay romantic comedy I co-wrote, BearCity, is scheduled to begin shooting Monday August 10th!

Please do check out the film's website and Facebook (which include links to the Twitter and Myspace pages)!

Very exciting time...

L

New Pants

Mainland Chinese electro/rock/alternative act New Pants now has their albums up on iTunes USA. Which is great, because going all the way to Beijing/Shanghai to find them is a mighty haul. Let's celebrate with a video for one of their Nu Disco-style ditties!

L

BearCity is Casting!

The folks who brought you "Another Gay Movie" and "Bear Cub are putting
out the casting call for acting talent.

Bear City Movie Casting Call

The new gay, romantic comedy entitled "BearCity" is set in New York City's bear
community. Here's your chance to be part of this "Sex in the City with fur."

There's a little something for everyone!

We're seeking actors of all ethnicities, ages, shapes and sizes in the NYC
area.

For consideration, send your best Headshot/Picture and Resume to
casting@bearcitythemovie.com.

For more information visit www.bearcitythemovie.com.

Ptown Film Festival Redux/Flashback

Sadly, I had to cancel my plans to attend the Provincetown International Film Festival this past weekend - which takes place in the ridiculously lovely and liberal Ptown, MA, a true mecca for both nuclear families and queers unlike any other place or amalgamation I have seen - but last summer's experience there was one of pure joy (a gracious thanks to Jeff Hill and the festival's hopsitality staff!). A few photos to reflect upon... and hopefully I can make it back in 2010...

L

Tori Times Two

I've interviewed Tori Amos a few times over the course of her career. The first was a 1998 piece for L.A. Weekly, a sort of Tori 101 that aims to explain the magical allure she cast over her fans - a mystery to those who weren't into her music. I still hold it up as one of my favorite articles. I just spoke with Tori again for Los Angeles' Frontiers In L.A. magazine (and some other gay regional publications - different versions will be running in each) which is very much current.

Compare, contrast, enjoy both!

L

London-o-Rama

Back from London and working on a couple of articles (plagued by writer's block - argh!)... Meanwhile a peek at the trip... and yes, that's a PIMM's with muddled cucumber and fruit. It's the #1 cup!

L

My Advocate Interview With Zihan Loo

My interview with Zihan Loo - a young filmmaker who's part of the Singaporean New Wave, and queer to boot - is up at The Advocate. He talks about his film Solos (now on DVD stateside) and a while bunch of stuff both political and arts-related. Enjoy!

L

Malaysia-o-rama

A few snapshots from my trip to Malaysia while I eat sticky pudding here in London.

Mancester

My Manchester article is up on LOGO's Tripoutgaytravel.com. Enjoy!

L

My Pet Shop Boys interview

My new interview with Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys is running in a number of gay regional publications, and each version's a little different.

Here is the longest of the bunch, from Texas' Outsmart.

And here is a slightly shorter version from Los Angeles' Frontiers. Meanwhile, HX in NY is running a very short, tight version.

Oh - and my interview with Kirby Dick about OUTRAGE is also in the new issue of Frontiers. Enjoy!

L

Great Scot(land)!

My articles on Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scotland for Los Angeles' Frontiers and the NY Blade are both on stands and online. They're different, so check 'em both out!

And check out Glasgow's pop band Findo Gask if you haven't yet. "Va Va Va" is one of the year's best songs!

L

OUTRAGED at OUTRAGE

Kirby Dick's amazing OUTRAGE documentary on closeted gay politicians who vote antigay is starting to get picked up by the mainstream media - including this completely insane clip from a news show where the host is in a frenzy - and says he'd like to punch one of the film's subjects (who reports on closeted gay politicians). Well worth a look - both the clip and the film!

L

Yes, Pink Has Been Bi Her Whole Life

Perez Hilton is going ga-ga over Pink's recent admission she is bisexual. But she told me pretty much the same thing back in 2003 when I interviewed her.

She had a girlfriend when she was 13, and wouldn't rule out future girlfriends (or at least same-sex shags). Here is that feature, which ran in a few LGBT regional publications...

And by the way, I think it's great she's even more forthright about being full-on bi these days. Go Pink!

L

Pink Think
by Lawrence Ferber

“I just do whatever the freak I wanna do and I do it with kindness,” insists Pink. Smoky voiced - kinda like the cool tough chick in high school who interceded when jocks got too far into your face - and good-humored, the 24-year-old multi-platinum-selling pop star has managed to infiltrate the mainstream with unpretentious punk attitudes, political mindedness, hot tunes, and, well, any hair color she pleases.
“I did it as a joke and kept it,” she notes of her hair’s bubblegum-tone between 2000’s debut album release, Can’t Take Me Home, and 2001’s M!ssundaztood. “But I get bored way too easily to keep shit like that.”
Try This (Arista) is Pink’s third album, and it’s a big ol’ peach. An uber-accessible tasty buffet of pop-rock with electronica (a la Garbage), R&B, soul, and retro/new wave touches depending on which of the generous 14 tracks you’re listening to. Pink reunited with M!ssundaztood’s out lesbian co-writer/producer (and erstwhile 4 Non-Blondes member) Linda Perry for several tracks. Other collaborators include Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, Billy Mann, Damon Elliott (Dionne Warwick’s son!) and “hardcore rap siren” Peaches (on “Oh My God”).
The album, set for November 11th release, is under tight security thanks to scurvy musical pirates, so I jaunted over to the publicist’s office for a leisurely listen on an iPod. Twenty-four hours later Pink’s on the phone, a little weary from the week’s press frenzy but in pleasant spirits, giggling often.
On what sets M!ssundaztood and Try This apart, Pink proffers: “different producers, different time in my life, and the biggest difference I guess is it’s not as painful, as in just bearing my soul.”
“When Linda and I collided two years ago, it started a shitstorm and M!ssundaztood was the child we had,” Pink explains. That “shitstorm” included a massive hit, “Get The Party Started,” which swept awards including a BRIT, MTV VMA, and Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice.
Apparently, Perry’s ace card was the ability to draw out Pink’s deepest personal traumas and emotions (“She handed me beers,” Pink jokes of Perry’s secret technique), resulting in an intimate, personal disc. As a result, some record executives were keen on tampering with Pink and Perry’s labors. “M!ssundaztood was a total fight, a knockdown drag-out fight,” Pink shares. “But you have to fight for something you believe in and put everything you have on the line and it was totally worth it.” In the end, some 12 million copies sold worldwide.
Try This was a far less arduous endeavor when it came to the label suits, emotions, and recording sessions. “Working with Tim I didn’t take as long,” she notes - Armstrong produced and co-wrote most of Try This. “There was no trauma! Three songs on this album were recorded on a tour bus driving down the street. ‘Trouble,’ ‘Oh My God,’ and ‘Save My Life’ -- you can [hear the motor running] - it’s pretty terrible. You have to [isolate] the vocals in order to hear it (laughs)!”
Regardless of the producers involved, many songs on Try This reflect aspects of Pink’s own life, both dark and light. “The Last To Know” chides an unspecified “stupid fuck,” for standing her up. “I’m not telling who!” Pink laughs when prodded for a name. “Save My Life” is a musical cry for help, of which Pink shares: “I actually wrote it about a couple of friends of mine, but I have been there so I know how it feels. I have a lot of friends struggling with depression, loneliness, drugs.”
And “Trouble,” the album’s first single (co-written with Armstrong), is a concept familiar to Pink since her youth. You name it, she’s caused it, she claims. “My favorite thing to do in school was organize walkouts. My whole life I loved to piss people off and make them question their own world and values and rules and all that shit. Nowadays I do it that with my music.”
Born in Doylestown, PA and raised in Philly, Pink (nee Alecia Moore) was first groomed for a musical future by her guitar-playing father. She was raised on Bob Dylan, Billy Joel and Peter, Paul and Mary (and some edgier stuff like 2 Live Crew and Skid Row, thanks to her brother). Come thirteen, Pink was enlisted to dance and sing Mary J. Blige hooks for a local rap group, Scratch n’ Smoove, and began writing her own songs. A year later, she recorded one, and fervently pursued attention at Philly clubs like hip-hop Club Fever, where she landed a five-minute guest spot every Friday night. This gig resulted in Pink’s discovery by an MCA A&R representative, and, respectively, placement in their fledgling black R&B group, Basic Instinct. The experience proved brief and ultimately unpleasant: Pink says her fellow members ousted her due to her skin color. A subsequent group, Choice, followed, which led to Pink’s discovery and signing by Antonio “L.A.” Reid, co-founder of La Face Records.
As for her (literally) colorful nickname? Rumors and origin tales abound, ranging from it’s the color her face turns when embarrassed to, more lewdly, something a boy cried out when she shoved his face, ahem, down there. “Ah, it’s all true,” Pink responds, mildly amused and clearly used to this question. “It was just a nickname people gave me when I was younger. My friends called me ‘Pink.’ It was just like ‘junior’ or anything else, and it’s become a lot larger than it was intended to be.”
Getting back to that trouble-causing habit, Pink’s been putting her personal feelings, voice and ethics to use for social causes. Recently, she shot off a letter to Petco’s CEO, Brian Devine, asking him to do something about what she alleges is the company’s cruel mistreatment of animals - allowing dead animals to rot, freezing live sick ones, overcrowding cages - in its stores (see the letter and details at http://www.peta.org/feat/pink). “I sent a letter to him, I sent a letter to Vogue, I sent a letter to Prince William,” she adds. “I’ve sent a lot of letters recently. And Petco released a statement that said everything I said wasn’t true, but,” she says, “ it’s already been proven that it is true, so all I’m doing is making people aware that that’s how they’re treating the animals.”
Pink’s also lashed out against homophobia, racism, and bigotry whenever she’s witnessed it. “I’m just a tough bitch,” she admits. “I used to get in a lot of fights. Over disrespect. I like respect and I don’t like sexism or all that prejudice and stuff. Most of my fights have been over something like that.”
Since her youth, Pink has mixed with a pretty diverse crowd, including the queer boys. “Right now I’m perfecting my catwalk,” she laughs. “I’m really coming close. I twirl the pussy, yes.” She admits to twirling with lesbianism as well - at thirteen she had a girlfriend, “and she left me for my brother. It was pretty sick!”
Would she date a girl now? “I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t like the word ‘date.’” How about ‘sleep with’ a girl? “It depends.”
It definitely wouldn’t be one of the girls from long-since-dissolved Basic Instinct, though. In fact, Pink doesn’t have many words to spare about those gals.
“I have a tattoo on my wrist that says ‘What goes around comes around,’ so I don’t usually need to say anything to people,” she affirms. “I let karma bite them in the ass.”

Quick Bits

I'm covering the Tribeca Film Fest for The Advocate's website - I'll link when the story goes up post-fest - and tonight attended the amFAR benefit reception for An Englishman in New York. Very very very very cool to meet and have conversations with John Hurt, Swoozie Kurtz, director Richard Laxton, Jonathan Tucker (who graced The Advocate's cover some years back), and Cynthia Nixon. I can't resist - I'm posting two of the photos here in true starf*cker fashion. God, I feel dirty.

Meanwhile, "swine flu" is my new unhealthy (no pun intended) Google obsession (replacing "Palin" at long last!).

L

Crist Almighty!

I just saw OUTRAGE, Kirby Dick's new documentary on closeted USA politicians and the harm they cause - and, when they come out, the good they can do. The film pretty effectively outs a number of sold-my-soul-to-the-devil politicians including Florida's governor Charlie Crist, who sold us out (and continues to) in order to gain traction in the Republican party - first denying his homosexuality, then going out with a series of women when it benefited his public image, marrying one, and then supporting Florida's ghastly Amendment 2 and the ban prohibiting Florida gays from adopting children. Despicable.

Sorry, Log Cabin Republicans, but when a gay republican is doing this sort of shit, they're not affecting change from within.

The film made me furious, made me laugh, and most of all gave another boost to my activist side. The film ends with Harvey Milk telling a reporter how the only way we will ever win is to all come out. When people know or love someone who is gay, they are less likely to support anti-gay amendments and discrimination. So we simply must come out - to friends, family, co-workers, neighbors.

That said... Mr. Crist, enjoy being outed once OUTRAGE hits screens! I certainly will enjoy watching.

L

Flashback

I found some photo folders on my computer today that I hadn't peeked into for a long long while. OK, they're only about 3 years old, from 2006, but still. Some were taken at the year's Philly Int. Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (for which I am a programmer), another of me and filmmaker Jochen Hick in his cool Copenhagen hotel room during that city's gay film fest, a shot of Michael Musto in his apartment taken when I interviewed him, and.... Mrs. Fields in Hong Kong! Love the "extra chewy" cookies they sell there - why not here? Why? Why, Mr. Anderson, why, why?????

L

Gay For... Videos?

I'm actually obsessed now with music videos - and films, etc - that feature flamingly, incredibly, blazingly queer people acting in "heterosexual" ways... that somehow the majority of the general public allowed itself to be deluded by. In complete complicity.

I mean, I have a family member who refused to believe Rosie was a lesbian until she uttered it herself. And how many people refused to believe Clay Aiken was gay, despite the damning evidence that built up.

So... here's a real gem. A video from Limahl. The girl in the video is in for a big surprise, let me tell you. This is like the "DL" 80s UK white boy style! Mind you, Limahl is one of my guilty pleasures. I love his pop goodness!

L

We've Come a Long Way

Today, nobody seems to blink an eye over the insanely can't-even-deny-it-a-little gayness of American Idol's Adam Lambert (well, aside from Bill O'Reilly). Yet 20 years ago, the UK boy band Big Fun, which was so gay your face may as well get slapped by it, caused a big scandal and was shunned after its members were outed.

Ummm... yeah. Shocking that they were gay. You never would guess it from their videos. Or a photo.

Maybe the Western culture's capacity for denial has just lessened a little bit. Or again, we're just putting entertainment value over sexuality. Theories?

L

Israel-o-rama Part 6

A whole bunch of Haifa and a bonus peek at lunch in a Druze home. That mint lemonade was soooo tasty.

L

A Marriott Offer That Benefits GLAAD

Got this press release today. There was/is a bit of a kerfuffle about Marriott and the funding/support of Prop 8. Seems like an olive branch is being extended...

Marriott and Renaissance Hotels of New York Offer “Out In New York” Package

NEW YORK – (April 3, 2009) – Marriott and Renaissance Hotels of New York invite guests to come out to New York, hang out in luxurious rooms, stay out to enjoy the city…and help out, too. When guests book a reservation at a participating hotel in New York City, as part of a new “Out In NY” package, the hotel will donate 5% of the room rate to GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation).*
The Out In NY Package includes guest room accommodations, breakfast for two (plus up to two children under 12 eat free) and a personal copy of The Out Traveler, an over 200-page gay & lesbian travel guidebook to New York City, published by the same publishers as The Out Traveler magazine.
Guests may choose from amongst five Marriott and Renaissance hotels in New York City, including:
• New York Marriott Marquis, Broadway at West 46th Street
• Renaissance New York Hotel Times Square, Seventh Avenue at West 47th Street
• New York Marriott East Side, Lexington Avenue at East 49th Street
• New York Marriott Downtown, 85 West Street between Albany & Carlisle Streets
• New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, 333 Adams Street, Downtown Brooklyn

The Out In NY Package may be booked now, for stays that begin from April 1 through December 31, 2009. Package rates now start at $229 per room, per night, plus tax, based upon availability and room rates do vary by hotel and dates requested.
For reservations go to www.marriott.com/OutInNY (not case-sensitive) or call
1-800-228-9290 and mention code VIQ.

Israel-o-rama Part 5

A little bit of a mix today (and in high-res this time). A tower of spice in Jerusalem's Arab market (don't sneeze near it!), a little bit of graffiti/street art (not quite Basquait but what are ya gonna do?) and... Depeche Mode beer. You'll see your own personal Jesus, or Adonai, after a six-pack!

L

Israel-o-rama Part 4

... and the story continues. First, the Ein Gedi nature reserve, where some young whippersnappers decided to take a little dip in the lovely spring waters. Then Jerusalem - Western Wall, and the market during the pre-Shabbat rush.

L

Israel-o-rama Part 3

Check out the guy with a cross to bear - literally! Mostly Jerusalem (those girls are like anarchist Girl Scouts, selling cakes and cookies on the street), and fresh, plump dates in Tel Aviv...

And Even in Asia...

... they are starting to recognize same-sex marriages. C'mon, America. Can we catch up a little being, you know, the land of the free and all?

L

Israel-o-rama Part Two

Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Cesaria...