Out Magazine strikes again . . .

Dear Out,

Can you please stop copying my ideas? (Or at least pay me oodles of money to use them?) K, thanx!

J

Note to self: Apparently I need to be more specific when asking the universe to broadcast my ideas . . . to, you know, at least make sure that I'm the one doing the broadcasting. Damn you common consciousness!

Click here (or scroll down) for MY letter to Mr. Lambert, written Oct. 22, 2009.

A Letter to Adam Lambert

Dear Adam,

Hi! How are you? I hope you've been well. I know that things must be crazy for you now, you know, after the whole American Idol insanity. Honestly, though I think that your voice is an acquired taste to a certain extent, I was very happy to see someone make it so far in Idol who was so obviously a homosexual. I mean, sure, we've had our suspicions about a few in the past (hello Mr. Aiken - need you really take, like, 5 years to come out?), but once the gay rumors started, you didn't deny them. Sure, you also didn't kick down your closet door, strap on some rollar blades and ass-less chaps and start cruising South Beach, but still. All in time, my good man.

Actually, it is because of your semi-recent acceptance of your sexuality in the public light that I am writing to you. As I briefly stated before, I think it is a great thing you are doing, by just saying you are gay. (although I did hear at one point you were "bi"? Bi now gay later? Oh you crazy kids and your denial . . .) I think that in this celebrity obsessed culture of ours, when those of us who are out can use our gay powers and hunt down others like us (mostly we just follow the smell of poppers), and we can look at movies, television and rap music and pick out those of us whom feel up women's asses in public but we just know that when they go home at night they are on Manhunt more than they are on top of said ladies (in much contradiction to what they would have us believe), this obviously leaves a huge gap for finding identity and familiarity within today's gay youth. Granted, the fact that we find our identity through celebrity culture is a problem within itself. However, we as a community strive to find role models, whether they want to be labeled as so or not. Because we have had to deal with such erasure from within our own community, it makes those who are determined to be themselves even more admirable.

Which gets me (again) to why I am writing you. And let me say right off the bat that I am down for all sorts of sexual exploration. We should be living in a time (despite the past 8 years) where we should be allowed to explore who we are without being told that certain things or certain acts demonize us, when for the most part, they are simple explorations that humans (and most higher intelligence organisms) do on their way to maturity. If we want to be poly-sexual, then have at it. Forget the puritans, forget the conservatives- go do what makes you happy.

However.

There is a big difference between going out and doing what makes you happy and then putting that in a magazine, and THEN going even further to having a photo shoot in which a certain slightly gender-ambiguous pop star is photographed having his way with a naked woman in a "straight" men's magazine. Yes, I realize that the jury is still out on how many straight men actually read Details, but the magazine is still regarded as such. I say this mostly because they have articles about how to bed women and they then talk about homosexuals like we should be those distant friends with whom you associate with out of obligation to the advancement of society rather than because one really wants to. You know, the whole masculinity issue and all. And that isn't a rant on straight guys. I know plenty of straight guys who have very dear gay friends. And while I won't make the same stereotype that persists among gay men who are very close, I will say that stereotypes exist for a reason.

However, I digress. So- finally, the LGBT community has an icon that we can look up to- who isn't a singing-straight-female, who isn't an ally, but who is young and hip, and frankly, quite beautiful, handsome and sexy. Then we have him make out with a chick in a men's fashion magazine. I mean, and it would be totally (well maybe not TOTALLY) different, if it was in, say, Out or The Advocate or some gritty porn magazine or whatever. Because then, it would be more of a comment on sexuality as a whole then it would be a comment on the fact that it looks like your publicist told you not to act too gay anymore.

And Adam, I must say, this is slightly disappointing. I give you much kudos for being yourself and trying not to hide who you are. But whether you like it or not, since you are in the spotlight, you owe us as a community. I mean please, how many horny 14 year old boys called up Idol while wearing their mother's eyeliner to vote for the boy who looked and talked like them? How many goth kids did the same? We voted you into Details. At the very least, you could give us some more eye candy and get it on with a naked dude instead of some model. I mean, how revolutionary would that be?! The most you could do? Be true to yourself and to your community, and continue to leave a legacy in which you will be remembered for not allowing your image to be manipulated by the same media that has tried to sweep our image under the rug for so long.

I expect good things from you Mr. Lambert. Please, no more disappointments.

Much love and respect,

Justin

Click here for the rest of the pictures from the Details photo shoot.

"The Newest New Media"

As I have been going through old(er) issues of art magazines that I seem to hoard like a hamster with too many grapes in its' cheeks, it is interesting to view articles, even from only the past couple years, and see how perspectives have changed. Change, of course, is inevitable. The factors of everyday life weigh down upon the "Art World" whether they like it or not, and the greatest factor in recent days has been the recession. As per one of my classes this semester, I went through some old issues and found an issue of Art News from February 2008, the title piece shouting "The Newest New Media" over an avatar from artists Eva and Franco Mattes. Being a new media artist myself, I am often in an awkward position with the medium. On one hand I find it to be incredibly freeing - there are possibilities with New Media that older artists simply couldn't fathom. However, I also often feel like some New Media artists are sometimes quick to disregard Art History - there is somewhat of a disconnect I see between a "canonical" view of art making versus a "low art" view - that somehow because artists are free from the constraints of the physicality of traditional art-making, that this then allows them to be free from the Art World in general. In my view, this does not always make for good art, regardless of a high or low view upon it.

For example, the Art News article starts with Eva and Franco Mattes's pieces entitled Synthetic Performances, in which the duo create avatars of themselves and re-perform (in)famous art performances from throughout the past few decades, in the online world of Second Life. The main question I have with this is why? It's all been done before? Granted, yes, performing the pieces within this "synthetic" environment is new, but I am very hesitant to give an environment like Second Life any validity. It is also unclear as to whether or not the artists want to do the same.

I will also be the first to admit that my main problem with this piece stems from the fact that I do not view Second Life as any kind of life at all. There has to be lines drawn between what is real and what is not, regardless as to how much that aesthetic plays into how one wants their life to be. Going further, it is because of this disconnect that some have with actual reality that leads what is the "real world" into many of the problems we have today - it is because of the fact that people cannot relate to each other that we have conflict; it is because of the fact that people cannot, to put it bluntly and tritely, deal with the happenings of this real world that they then try to seek solace in one in which they create themselves. But my question is what makes this world immune from the same diseases that plague the one we are in? What happens then, we create Third Life? Where is the line drawn?

Besides the fact that creating other realms of reality is some serious psychological shit. If one did that in "real" life and chose to live in it, one would question one's mental health. Does that mean we need to redefine "reality" according to what one person thinks it should be? But I digress . . .

However, adding on to this illusion of what is real and what is not is the simple look of Eva and Frano's avatars. The artists themselves are quite normal looking, especially for artists. They are both somewhat skinny, no real big distinguishing characteristics.

Their avatars on the other hand are a different story. I encourage you to google their avatars. Eva is a fairly busty, tall woman with long blonde hair. Frano is a dark-haired muscle boy, complete with six-pack. This, I find, is the real reason why most people go online. It's not to really create a new circumstance, it's to escape from the one they are currently in. It is the same thing with online dating personals. The internet is the only place where one can exist as different personalities within the same body and not be labeled as schizophrenic.

My other main problem with this piece is that it is very hard to believe that Eva and Franco had to go through the same emotional or physical barriers that the previous artists had to go through for their pieces. Not to mention the fact that the Mattes's didn't have to conceptualize it either. Neither one of them had to stand naked in a door way like Marina Abramovic and Ulay. Neither one of them had to be shot like Chris Burden. Franco didn't actually have to masturbate under the floor of gallery goers like Vito Acconci. Because of the veil that separates the physical world from the cyber, the artists didn't have to endure the physicality that much of the original work was meant to portray. And being that I don't buy Second Life as a viable reality in which to exist, it totally undermines the purpose of the original pieces.

Now it could also be that the artists are doing these pieces to prove just that. However, that wasn't the gist that I was getting from the article. In fact Franco goes on to say that "The very act of calling it a virtual world is wrong. It's synthetic, but it's an actual world that is no less real than the phone conversation we're having right now." He goes on to say that he has known people who have married and divorced because of happenings in Second Life. Really? It would seem to me that if they worked on their marriage in First Life they might not have these problems in Second Life.

Besides the fact that I can't help but associate a religious undertone to all of it.

However, The Mattes's have gotten support from other artists, including Marina Abramovic herself. She says in the article, "It's very interesting, all this separation between our body and mind. It's another world, but sometimes it's more real than the real one." I wrote in the margins of the article "No! No! No!" Yes, the separation between our bodies and minds is highly interesting, but our mind does not exist on a server somewhere to solely engage in cyber-encounters. And at the risk of sounding like one of those people who wants to do away with anything technological and return to a state of feral play in the forests, there has to be some distinction between what is mechanical and what is mental. Yes, I realize that this now bridges over into a whole other realm within this debate. Yet I am very hesitant to allow any state of which makes us uniquely human to exist within a realm that does not require human initiative to operate it.

For the online version of this article: http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2443

Edmund White and Terrence Koh

I find it somewhat disparaging that in a recent issue of Out, they call contemporary artist Terrence Koh the "defining voice of the gay art world" and yet Koh had to Google Stonewall. Granted, the man is Chinese, yet he's been in the states since before 2003. Has the erasure of the origins of gay identity already reached those who are leading us into the future?

The article, which is a conversation between Koh and Edmund White, has many instances where I felt somewhat let down by the gay art world's poster boy and his glib remarks. The most interesting passage came from White, when speaking of the influence of Stonewall: (in reference to the AIDS movement) "So you get this thing where everybody now wants to get married and adopt children - it's sort of dreary. The early gay movement was all about the right to have sex, because it was very hard to find anyone to have sex with in the old days. Stonewall, in a way, was about saying, 'We have a right to have bars; we have a right to get together; we have a right to be visible.'"

Reading this, I can't help but think that 30+ years after Stonewall, yes things are better, at least for us in the US. Yet homosexuals are still being hung in Iran. I mean, the yes I believe everyone should have the right to get married if they wish. But as far as the gay movement goes, I can't help but think marriage is just a big band-aid for the fact that after all these years, we are still fighting for a right to be visible all around the world.

"Edmund White Vs. Terence Koh" in Out, June/July 2009, pages 117-120.

8/29/09 Bitch 2.0 w/ Jade and Shannel Set List

Thanks to everyone who came out to this past episode of Bitch 2.o featuring Jade and Shannel from Rupaul's drag race! I apologize for the minor technical difficulties I had during the night, but I appreciate all of those who stayed to dance until the wee hours of the night and up until the last song! Here is the set list from tonight:

Everything but the Girl - 5 Fathoms

Kylie Minogue - Boombox (L.A. Riots Remix)

The Sounds - Beatbox

Little Boots - New In Town

Elton John - The Bitch is Back

Kylie Minogue - Like A Drug (X Tour Studio Mix)

David McCullen - B*tch (Radio Edit)

Boogie Pimps - Somebody to Love (Main Club Mix)

Gossip - Heavy Cross (Fred Falke Remix)

Freemasons featuring Sophie Ellis Bextor - Heartbreak Make Me A Dancer (Full Length Club Mix)

Madonna - Open Your Heart (Unreleased Original Mix)

Stevie Nicks - Edge of Seventeen (Crash Overdrive Remix)

Junkie XL featuring Lauren Rocket - More

Lily Allen - Not Fair (Shahaf Moran Remix)

Kylie Minogue - Sexual Gold (The Slips Remix)

Janet Jackson - Throb

Peaches - Boys Wanna Be Her (Tommie Sunshine Remix)

Pseudo Echo - Funky Town

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll (Little Vampire Remix)

Madonna - Spanish Lesson

Shakira - Loba (Daddy Yankee Remix)

Nelly Furtado - No Hay Igual

Kat De Luna - Whine It Up (Johnny Vicious Spanish Remix)

A. R. Rahman & The Pussycat Dolls - Jai Ho (You Are My Destiny) featuring Nicole Scherzinger

Timbaland featuring Amar & Jim Beanz - Bombay

Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow (Gasper Remix)

Paradiso Girls - Patron Tequila (This/Is Remix)

Nicola Fasano Vs. Pat Rich - 75, Brazil Street (Radio Vocal Mix)

Pitbull - I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho) [More English Extended Mix]

L'Nee - Up (Full Version)

Ida Corr vs. Fedde Le Grand - Let Me Think About It

Madonna - She's Not Me (Code Remix)

Daft Punk - Technologic

Ida Corr - Ride My Tempo (Grazehopp Club Mix)

Ciara featuring Missy Elliot - Work

Janet Jackson - So Much Betta

Monifa - Touch It

M.I.A. - U.R.A.Q.T.

Amanda Blank - Something Bigger, Something Better

RuPaul - Ladyboy

Goldfrapp - Oh La La

Lady Gaga - Pokerface

Kylie Minogue - Slow (Chemical Brothers Remix)

Hilary Duff - With Love (Richard Vission vs Dave Aude Club Mix)

Lady Gaga featuring Marilyn Manson- Love Game (Chew Fu Ghettohouse Mix)

Britney Spears - If You Seek Amy

Kid Cudi - Day N' Night (Crookers Remix)

Madonna - I Love New York (Thin White Duke Remix)

Janet Jackson - Rock With You (Princess Ann Sleazy Electro Mix)

Michael Jackson - Rock With You

Britney Spears featuring Lil Kim - Kimme More

Beyonce - Single Ladies

Kylie Minogue - Wow (Death Metal Disco Scene Mix)

Rihanna - Breakin Dishes (Soul Seekerz Remix)

Madonna - Vogue (Strike A Pose Dub Mix)

Madonna - Vouge (Sticky and Sweet Studio Mix)

Franz Ferdinand - No You Girls (Foamo Remix)

Franz Ferdinand - Call Me (Blondie Cover Live)

Ida Maria - I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked

Never Trust A Ho.

From Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/09/gingrich-defends-palins-o_n_254926.html

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich defended the bizarre claim by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin that the president's health care plan would result in a "death panel" that could kill her Down Syndrome son.

"You are asking us to trust the government," Gingrich declared on ABC's "This Week." "You are asking us to decide to believe the government should be trusted."

"Communal standards historically is a very dangerous concept," he added.

Reminded by host George Stephanopoulos that there was no such thing as communal standards in any health care bill -- just language that would allow for optional Medicare consultations on end of life decisions -- Gingrich grew a bit flummoxed.

"The bill is a thousand pages of setting up mechanisms," he said. "You are asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there are clearly people in America who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards."

On Friday, Palin posted a message on her Facebook account warning that "death panels" would be set up to encourage euthanasia -- a wild and baseless complaint that has grown popular in conservative circles.

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care," Palin wrote. "Such a system is downright evil."

-------------------------------

Points to consider:

1. Sarah Palin is crazy.

2. Newt Gingrich is crazy. And scary.

3. So excuse me if I'm wrong here, but Mr. Gingrich is telling us not to trust our government. I mean, after 8 years of Bush I don't really think anyone in America trusts their government anymore, but aren't we all, like, programmed to trust our government from 2nd grade? I mean, I did the Pledge of Allegiance every day until middle school. We held our own presidential elections with the students picking who they wanted to win. We had our own Gulf War hero, who pen pal-ed with us in Iraq and came to our school. We are taught all throughout, up until high school, that the US has this infallible and undisputed place in the world, and there are no faults taught, at least in my US History, not even in Vietnam. And that we are goddamned Americans and proud of it! I didn't even know that the US might had a questionable past until I took a current events class in my senior year. Granted, my education in the country might have not been the top in the nation, but still. And the education that I received is probably comparable to most suburbs that don't have tons of money pouring into them and have to question their arts programs with every budget revisal. My point being that, it should be alarming to most Americans that a politician, that has been elected into a position of government at least at some point in his career is blatantly telling the American public not to trust him. I mean, is he going to run for an office again where we can quote him and tell him that we should not trust our government? So there is no hope whatsoever, and even electing him would be like shooting ourselves in the foot from the get go? I really hope that someone brings up this quote during the midterm elections, and the republicans are scrambling and probably fighting an even dirtier campaign that the 08 election, and we have Mr. Gingrich telling us not to trust our government. I'm sure that will do wonders for one of the GOP's "unofficial leaders."

4. The thing is though that we shouldn't trust our government at all, but Americans are too stupid and lazy and ignorant to how the system works, which every politician like Mr. Gingrich benefits from. The founders set up the government so that the American people could take steps to check the government in place to ensure it wasn't corrupt. It's not really surprising to see that as Americans got less-educated and took less time to be informed, it wasn't that long before the corporations in a capitalist society yanked the reigns away from the people and took it themselves. And now, Americans are too stupid, lazy and committed to comfort to realize that as consumers they STILL hold all the power I take this time to point your attention to an essay by Bill Mahr who calls us all stupid with much more skill than I can hope to achieve. Yes we are stupid, and we can get indignant and insulted all we want, but the fact remains true.

5. Alas, that brings us away from the initial point. And that was that Sarah Palin is crazy. And most definitely stupid, just like the rest of us.

Michael Jackson, The Greatest Show On Earth

Let's get a few things out of the way first:  Yes, Michael Jackson was one of the greatest performers ever.  Yes, Michael Jackson broke through the blatant racism in this country and against all odds became perhaps the most influential entertainer ever, and a minority at that.  Yes, Michael Jackson gave a tremendous amount of money to charity and his humanitarian efforts were noble and sincere.  

And yes, even during the monstrosity of a memorial service that took place yesterday, it was clear that the man had a tremendous heart for everyone and anyone whom he came across, especially those impoverished and wrecked by disease in countries that could not give them proper aid.  

But all throughout his final performance, i.e. his memorial service, one thing struck me the most.  When Al Sharpton, said to Michael's children, "Your daddy was not strange, it was strange what he had to deal with," and he received a standing ovation for the remark, it was one of the few moments throughout the service in which I could not believe what I was hearing.  

Excuse me?  The man was not strange?  He slept in an oxygen tank.  He had a pet chimp named Bubbles for Christ's sake.  He had not one, but two child molestation charges brought against him.  Reports coming out now are saying that he was completely bald and that his skin was whiter than a piece of paper.  He had more plastic surgery than Joan Rivers.  His children, whom are most likely to be not genetically related to him whatsoever, bear a strange and creepy resemblance to him kinda like The Adam's Family, and then he made them wear masks and veils in public.  He wore pajamas to court hearings.  He was friends with Liza Minelli.  I think to say that the man was not strange is not only a lie coming from a supposed godly man, but the word "strange" does not even begin to describe Michael Jackson.

Yes, the racial climate that the Jackson's had to overcome was staggering, I am not denying that.  But the thing that gets me is that the defenders of celebrity's weird and, honestly, "strange" actions then want to blame those actions on the fact that they are a celebrity - that their fans and their notoriety drove them to some kind of deluded way of life.  That they are somehow martyrs for their contributions to pop culture and that we, as the celebrity obsessed American public, are to blame for their idiosyncrasies and their behavior.  That we stick the needles of diprivan in their veins, and they died for our obsessions and they saved us all and brought us together through songs like "Bad" and "Billie Jean."  

And yes, Michael Jackson was indeed portrayed as the second coming yesterday.  More blasphemy from such religious people.

The conundrum in all of this is that there has to be a place, within the celebrity status and all the "hardships" that come along with it, that one has to be a human being within a normal mental state.  Just because you have lots of money and have demands placed on you, does not give you a wild card to go out and act like a freak.  If most people around the globe, two weeks ago, were asked if Michael Jackson had a normal mental state, the answer would be much different than what it would be right now during MJ induced post traumatic stress syndrome.   

Despite it's connotations delivered by Rev. Sharpton, "strange" is definitely a word that I would apply for the spectacle that took place yesterday at The Staples Center.  While I wondered whether I was at a memorial or a sermon that blasted me for how much I took Michael Jackson for granted, while I wondered why there was not a separation of church and state in Congresswoman Jackson Lee's contribution to both the service and to the house floor, while I wondered why Mariah Carey had chosen not to rehearse her song bit, I wondered most of all, why was the whole thing so fake?

Even at the most moving moments, from Brooke Shields' eulogy to Jermaine Jackson's "Smile," at one point the camera shot out to a sea of plastic (literally) faces wearing black and in that instance, that shot summarized the entire memorial service.  It was just so shiny.  And clean.  With choreographed emotion and tears cued to the second.  Not one of the members of the family was shown crying throughout the service.  And yet, this Oscar calibre stage show, which was somehow pulled together in a week, is being hailed as having so many "moving moments" with fans calling it the most touching eulogy ever put together, and I am left wondering if we watched the same program.  

It was so void of genuine feeling that it made me wonder just what this man meant to these people.  Sure, you can scream out Michael Jackson's name however many times you wish as the coffin is rolled it's spotlight, but how is this going to change you?  You say that "Man In The Mirror" is a calling to everyone right now to change and to better ourselves - what are you going to do different?  Come, show me how Jackson made you a different person, show me how you truly want to be better because of him.  Because all I see right now is crying and gnashing of teeth with all empty emotion.  You lost a celebrity, whom most of you would have talked shit about not even two weeks ago.

And yet, the most harrowing moment of the entire show, having Jackson's daughter abruptly take the mic, was both haunting and horrifying.  Here was the daughter that Jackson tried so hard to shield from the public and to have out of the tabloids, who in his death was being pushed out into the public for the first time.  It was like seeing some kind of family secret being laid out in the open after a decade of hiding worthy of a Desperate Housewives episode, in public.  I was both taken aback by the lack of care by his family, for what Jackson tried so hard and long to keep sacred and by the fact that this little girl, on a platform being viewed by millions of people, was outing herself to the world as fodder for newspapers, just ten feet in front of the casket of her father.  Who was probably rolling over in it.  

And, not for nothing, but can someone tell Prince Michael II it's not polite to chew gum like Britney Spears in front of a global audience, at your father's memorial service.  

Yes, I might seem like an asshole who is devoid of any public emotion bearing this, so I tried to put it in terms to which I could relate.  Despite the fact that I might sound like the gayest gay man ever, while I was watching the service, trying not to be overly critical, I kept on asking myself how I would be feeling if someone like Madonna died abruptly.  Surely in comparison, there are few people who could contend with Michael Jackson as far as fame and influence, but Madonna would be one of them.  And while the "Queen of Pop" would surely be missed, and while Madonna is my girl, she has her faults too.  If Madonna died, does she become the next Virgin Mary to MJ's Jesus?  Do we get to stand up in front of millions and proclaim that she stripped down naked for most of the 90's because of us, and that she did it for us, and that we are the reason why Lourdes and Rocco couldn't have normal lives?  That we, her fans, hounded her and broke up her marriages and ridiculed her for her vision?  That the patron saint of everything gay died as a martyr for her contributions to Vogueing and coincidentally made hundreds of millions of dollars because of it?  No, because the fact is that while the woman did tremendous things, she is still, in fact, a woman.  Just a woman.  Like all the other women out there who struggle to make a difference, if not on a global scale, than within their own household.  Did Madonna do much for those women in breaking down barriers to be expressive?  Absolutely.  But she isn't the Virgin Mary.  Nor does she claim to be.  

Michael Jackson isn't Christ, nor did he claim to be either.  He just claimed to be Peter Pan.  More strangeness.   He was a man with great influence who died suddenly.  He was a very strange man, who did things that were ridiculed and scorned in the same society that wants to now deify him.  I'm sure he was a great friend to those to whom he was close, and I'm sure he tried to be the best father that he was capable of to his children, just like every other father out there.  But he was strange.  And for all the hooting and hollering that went on, his final goodbye was just as much of a production as his life was.  It was staged so well that some people actually believed that there was something staggering about what went on inside The Staple Center.  

What is staggering is that so many people had faith in this strange and imperfect man.  They put more faith into him than into religion, than into politics, than into things that really can change people's lives.  Being an artist, I know how art can change people.  But I also know empty attempts.  You say that Michael Jackson called you higher.  There are millions of you out there.  You really want to "make a change" like the song says?  You can.  Like MJ said, you can "raise together in one voice."  But if the sentiment behind that change is like the one I saw yesterday, I can't say I'm going to sit here and hold my breath.  

Perhaps I'm a little cynical about the whole thing.  But in all actuality, I'm hoping that y'all will prove me wrong.