Thursday, October 18, 2007

Don't get me started...

Wait.

On second thought...

DO get me started.

So here's the deal... Tuesday night I went to Buddies In Bad Times theatre to - shock of shocks - NOT troll for boy beav as per usual, but instead, to actually see a show. Can you befuckinglieve that? It's almost too much.

The show in question was the starter of their 07-08 season, entitled "Arthouse". It's essentially a scattered history lesson on queer culture told through cabaret and burlesque. One of my sort-of-guilty, nerdy pleasures is all things to do with the history of queer culture as I find it entirely fascinating, and this certainly didn't disappoint...

I'm not going to break it down in review formation - go here or here or here to read a far better review than I could give/have time for. It was some extremely fascinating stuff and some very powerful visuals... particularly powerful in the visual department? When Sasha Van Bon Bon and Kitty Neptune came out to do a punk striptease in gorilla masks in an ode to The Guerrilla Girls - a group of feminist artists formed in the 80's devoted to creating guerrilla art to promote women and ethnicity's in the arts. WELL... bitches done stripped down to nothin' but theyze gorilla masks and produced two skinny red boas from THEY VA-J-J's!!! Oyoyoyoyoy.

Y'know, recently I've talked a big game about being a spectator of vaginal performance art - I believe I expressed interested in exploring the when's, why's and how's of that Thai woman who can peel a banana with her vagina - but that's all it was... talk. I simply couldn't handle it! AHHH!

Anyway... the entire thing was fantastic, save for some very random, misplaced tap routine set to the funeral address by the Earl of Spencer at Princess Diana's funeral - like what the fuck did that have to do with anything? The musical interludes were amazing - that dude on the piano had a voice like almond butter and resident chanteuse, Paula Wolfson, was dazzling.

There were two things addressed in this glitzy history lesson that I didn't know about beforehand: 1.) I'm kind of ashamed to admit this, but I had no idea who Anita Bryant is/was. I think I had heard the name before, but assumed she was a tennis player or something.

Just who is Anita Bryant? She's a notable torch singer from the 50's, former spokesperson for Florida orange juice and the most notorious female anti-gay crusader in US history. Yeah. I didn't know that either. Back in the 70's, she lobbied to remove an ordinance protecting gays, lesbians etc from hate crimes.

That's her, pictured to the left, to the left... and yes... that sign DOES say "Save our children from Homo Sexualites". Yes! She was successful in doing this and in passing a slew of other anti-gay legislation - including the law against gays and lesbians not being able to adopt in Florida. Anyballs, this supercunt started to spread her seed of hatred and was one of the leading forces in the mobilization of the 'religious right' - a group that founded the marriage between a religious agenda and political agenda.

One of the most seminal moments in queer history came during a televised news conference that bitch held in Des Moines, circa 1977, when one of the most ass-rockingly awesome gay activists ever through a pie in the bitches face...

Afterwards, she's heard to joke that "at least it was a fruit pie". ZING! Good one, Anita. Bitch, youze lucky that wasn't me who baked the shit. Because if I did, it wouldn't be no fruit pie. It'd filled gonorrhea discharge, schmegma and the unfortunate-yet-all-too-inevitable mixture of lube and fecal matter. And it'd be up in yo face. Shiiit.

Anyballs, happy ending to this story. In 1979, a gaggle of celebrities urged people to join in a boycott against the Orange Juice products that she endorsed, and as a result, bitch was dropped. Then in 1980, her husband divorced her ass and she lost her credibility with the Christian right. She's since filed for bankruptcy twice, had a string of nightclub act flops, and I think she was an alcoholic or something. Whatever. I hope she gets violently raped to death by a Mexican wrestler.

Moving on - something ELSE I didn't know about until going to see Arthouse that I found entirely interesting was a story about an experiment performed on toddlers in the 1960's known only as "The Lollipop Experiment" performed by drag performer Stephen Lawson...

No, it's not how many licks it takes to get to the centre, but rather a fascinating study of the Id and character. It's a god damned shame that I can't find anything about it online, but oh well... here goes...

What happened was a bunch of toddlers were gathered together and given a lollipop. They were told that if they didn't so much as touch the lollipop for an undetermined amount of time, they would be given two. They were then left a lone for AN HOUR. Obviously, some of them succeeeded in resisting the temptation, others failed miserably.

YEARS LATER all of these kids were contacted and surveys were conducted to form a profile. What the scientists found was resounding uniformity in that the kids who were able to resist the temptation were leading normal, functional lives, with spouses, kids, houses, good jobs, stability. The kids who ate the lollipop were wayward, restless, moved away from their hometown, transient in their career, still searching for 'something'... etc... then, the drag queen opened a brief case and dedicated a riveting lip-synched performance of Judy Garland's "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" to "all the lollipop children out there". Nice touch.

Anyway... found that interesting...

Also interesting?
Today marks the 20th birthday of one Mr. Zac Efron.

I thought he was like 16 or some shit.

Phew.

This makes the raging boner that I and the rest of the world have for him soooo much less wrong. Hurray.

That's right - I've cracked. I'm over his questionable smug and smarm.

Work it, girl.

Work it.

In other news:
IMMA BE ON THE RADIO TOMORROW!

Does anyone listen to the radio anymore? Because shit, I know I don't. I'm going to be on Proud FM tomorrow morning at 7:40 AM with the morning hosts Ken Kostick and Mary Jo Eustace...

Two things that are going to prove very difficult about this:

A.) Being somewhere for 7:30 AM.

B.) Not constantly dropping Tori Spelling references. If you'll recall, Mary Jo Eustace is the jilted ex-wife of Dean McDermott, who Tori Spelling snatched from right under Mary Jo's snatch. I'm sure I'll slip up somewhere. Which is why you should listen.
PROUD FM!!!
103.9!!!
7:40 AM!!!
--- Aj!!!