My Crush on a Radio Station: CBC Music Radio

I think CBC Music Radio will be a good influence on you! Day after day I would turn on the radio for Biscuit Reynolds and enjoy what was playing. Started listening to it on my own. Realizing that they play exactly the right thing at the right time of day. Incredibly genre diverse!

The Summer I Fell in Love with Brandi Marie Carlile

Brandi Carlile is so easy to love but it took me two decades. Don’t hesitate to jump in with both feet! (When I become an ancestor please play the Dolly/Brandi duet of I Will Always Love You at my services.)

Fun Home The Musical is Totally Awesome

I was offered press tickets to see a preview of Fun Home, the new Broadway musical based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, Fun Home. Alison Bechdel is famous (to me and to every lesbian from the 90s, as the author of the famed comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For.

I thought the musical was great. It was super tender and distilled the important parts of the book for me. It was brilliantly staged in the round, with furniture moving up from the floor and around through holes in the stage. It struggled to flesh out the mother’s character, who I thought had a bigger part in the book.

Click here to read the whole article.

Introducing Hell’s Bells, Handbell Butt Choir

Last month Damien started getting a bunch of packages and I was wondering what they were. She casually said, Ariel [Speedwagon] and I were thinking of creating a handbell butt choir. I responded, “Oh, really?” But didn’t get to all of my questions about it. Which were many. How are you going to get the handbells to stay in the butt? Do you know how to play the handbells? (Damien has churchy origins so I figured some time in a youth handbell choir was likely.)

Then the night came when Ariel was over (and Lizxnn) and the handbells were opened and I could hear them in my bedroom… clear as a bell. And this was clearly a thing that happened.

So much work went into this choir. Figuring out the mechanics of making butt plugs out of handbell handles. Casting the bell ringers–finding people who were okay with Christmas stuff, playing a handbell with their butt, and at lease slightly musically inclined, plus the more difficult aspect, whether their schedule permitted both performance dates and a couple of rehearsals. Artists in NYC are busy, especially during the holidays!
Click to read the whole article–and see the video of the performance!

How Dolly Parton Taught Me to Have Faith the Size of a Mustard Seed

If I had given up when it seemed hard, impossible or a waste of my vacation day to wait in line for the chance to see her, I wouldn’t have had that experience. During a year in my life that proved to be the most difficult, with one crisis following another, it was the perfect time to be reminded of the power of faith. As much as I’ve admired Dolly for so many reasons, she is a model to me for perseverance and believing in yourself, in spite of all of the Doubting Thomases in the world.

Click here to read the whole article.

(Let’s Pretend We Don’t Have) Feelings–New Music Video from GAYmous!

I adore the duo behind GAYmous, PizzaCupcake and FxBoi. They are incredible, talented and super rad people. And when I first watched their new video for “(Let’s Pretend We Don’t Have) Feelings” I couldn’t help but smile. Watching fun queers dancing around, many of whom you’ll recognize from my blog in years past and my travels to San Francisco, and listening to the incredibly catchy tune. It was morning when we watched it and my girlfriend was singing it in the shower a few minutes later.

Click here to read the whole article!

New Body Love Video by Mary Lambert

Mary Lambert, the hot tattooed queer singer brought to the stage of the Grammy’s by singing the hook on Macklemore’s “Same Love,” song has released a new video about Body Love!

It’s a gorgeous piece of spoken word about loving your body and finding your value within and I was super stoked to see lots of different types of bodies in it, including a trans*gentleman lovingly stroking top surgery scars.
Click here to read the whole article.

New Lovers Album ‘A Friend in the World’ out Today!

It’s hard to describe Lovers’ sound, but I would say kind of electronica sweetness with a steady groove. What I’ve always loved so hard about them is that Carolyn Berk, the lead singer, kind of plays her emotions like an instrument. Like I go on a real emotional roller coaster with Carolyn. My collection of Lovers albums is one of my go-tos for those moments of emotional cutting when I want to just really FEEL something, you know? It’s really gorgeous to watch Carolyn perform live because she just closes her eyes and looks like she’s right back in the corner of that empty house weeping and gnashing teeth over that lost love. I mean, that’s what I imagine it to be and art that gives me such a visceral reaction and colorful imaginings.