Goth queen for days
Save for Fleetwood Mac’s 2003 Say You Will, Stevie Nicks has been a bit off the radar until this spring. Now she’s on tour in support of her newest album In Your Dreams. The feathered and frocked queen of classic rock maintains her goth flair but still manages an air of relevance.
DEETS: With Michael Grimm. Verizon Theatre, 1001 Performance Place, Grand Prairie. 8 p.m. $35–$250. Ticketmaster.com.
Last night we ventured out to the Clay Aiken show at Verizon Theatre. To be honest, I am not a big fan of his music, but I’m certainly a fan of him. We had a good interview for this piece in this week’s issue which started endearing me to him, but when he turned on the ‘tude last night and chatted up his elder audience, he had all the makings of a sassy queen. Several precious moments were to be had as he threw people under the bus, made fun of top 40 radio and took delight in the lack of men in the audience — or at least had fun with it when he cited only six men in the front rows.
“Did she drag you here?” he would ask. Pretty great.
My apologies to any people behind me as I tweeted the night away, but hey, I wasn’t holding my phone up videoing the guy. Here are my tweet-thoughts from the evening and current thoughts (in bold) the day after (after the jump) along with my colleague’s take on the evening.
With all the attention focused on the Super Bowl and groups like Prince coming to play that weekend, you may have missed the fact that in March, you can see Queen.
Of course, that’s kinda hard since lead singer Freddie Mercury died of AIDS nearly 20 years ago. But it is the next best thing, as the above photo can attest.
Gary Mullen and the Works perform the show One Night of Queen, re-creating the flamboyant musical style of one of the signature bands of the rock era. In the vein of Beatlemania, the concert is a tribute mirror of the original.
The performance takes place March 27 at Fair Park Music Hall. Tickets can be purchased from Ticketmaster.com.
1936′s San Francisco starring Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy.
Happy 2011 everyone!
If you spent last night away from a television set, here are clips of CNN's celebration with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin, MTV's Snooki drop at the Jersey Shore, Bravo's Wig Drop with Andy Cohen, Kim Zolciak, and a bunch of drunk housewives, and Key West's drag queen Sushi.
Watch, AFTER THE JUMP…
Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin clips:
MTV's Snooki drop:
Andy Cohen and Bravo ring in the 2011 with some kissing and Kim Zolciak:
Key West's shoe drop with drag queen Sushi.
A-List star Reichen Lehmkuhl is none too pleased that an editor for New York’s gay nightlife guide Next Magazine called him and boyfriend Rodiney Santiago “vapid queens,” sending an email to the editor and likening his words to “bullying.”
Advocate.com: Daily News
Such awful news. The world of music has been enriched so much by Aretha Franklin.
Aretha Franklin, hospitalized twice in recent weeks, has cancer, a relative confirms to Detroit television station WJBK after the National Enquirer earlier reported that the Queen of Soul has incurable pancreatic cancer.…Franklin is doing “okay,” the Franklin relative tells the TV station, but her family is asking for continued prayers and support. Pancreatic cancer, which claimed the life of actor Patrick Swayze last year, is not typically detected early and spreads fast, so it has a low survival rate.
I tear up just watching this and thinking of the contributions of the Queen of Soul. May her remaining days be free of pain and that she knows how many feel for her. Her music in the 60s was an essential part of my childhood and always reminds me of my late aunt Judi (photo), who played Aretha’s songs on 45s down in the basement of her home in Queens for us to listen to.
Related:
* Memorial: You are home with mom, Judi
Pam’s House Blend – Front Page
The name California comes from a sixteenth century conquistador fantasy of a formidable island inhabited by free-loving black Amazons. They were led by a brave queen:
Know th[ere] . . . exists an island called California . . . populated by black women. . . [L]ike the Amazons was their style of living. The[y] were of vigorous bodies and strong and ardent hearts and of great strength; the island itself the strongest in steep rocks and great boulders that is found in the world; their arms were all of gold . . . [W]hen they had peace with their adversaries, they intermixed . . .There ruled on that island of California, a queen great of body, very beautiful . . ., desirous in her thoughts of achieving great things, valiant in strength, . . . Queen Calafia. (from Dora Beale Polk, The Island of California, U. of Neb. Press, 1991)
California’s founding myth derives from a siege on sexual and racial diversity. Despite the state’s reputation as a stronghold for live-and-let-live tolerance, its tolerant spirit has been contested and has suffered as many shameful defeats as victories. Whereas the state attracts people who are drawn by the promise of social freedom and possibility, it also draws those who mainly seek riches and wind up trying to domesticate and dominate the spirit that others cherish.
I like to think of Calafia as the avenging defender of sexual minorities, feminists, native peoples, blacks and sexual, ethnic and racial diversity in general. I imagine her with the suffragists when California women won the right to vote in 1911. I picture her guiding the California Supreme Court when the state was among the first to repeal its anti-miscegenation law in 1948. I see her taking over Alcatraz with Native American students and marching with Cesar Chavez. She would have been by Harvey Milk’s side when he led the defeat of the Briggs initiative, and with Gavin Newsom when he recognized same-sex unions in 2004.
Calafia has suffered a number of defeats over the years, too, of which Prop 8 is the most recent. The laws robbing Chinese of their constitutional rights and the internment of Japanese-Americans are just two examples.
This election suggests that Calafia has regrouped and might once again be on the ascendancy. November was a good month for California LGBTs, anyway. Gavin Newsom won his race for Lieutenant Governor. Barbara Boxer, one of only fourteen senators who voted against DOMA in 1996, won her senate race. Jerry Brown, the attorney general who refused to defend prop 8, won the governorship, and our new attorney general, Kamala Harris, has vowed not to defend it. Victoria Kolakowski became the first openly transgender judge in the country. Perhaps most satisfying of all, the author of prop 8, Andrew Pugno, lost his race for state assembly. These victories demonstrate that it is possible for politicians to fight for principle and win. With the Prop 8 hearings scheduled on December 6, 2010, I’m hoping that Calafia is at peak strength.
Spain’s right-wing People’s Party opposition leader Mariano Rejoy has filed a constitutional challenge to marriage equality and has vowed to repeal the law should he become prime minister in 2012. A drag queen showed up at Rejoy’s book launch to let him know what she thought.
(Tipped by JMG reader Ejaaz)
