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.)
Beyond Closer to Fine: Curriculum for Getting into Indigo Girls
A ten week protocol for learning to love Indigo Girls! I hope you can develop that kind of soothing joyful relationship to the Girls like I have.
I am a Pandemic Deadhead; I have Andy Cohen to Thank and I Couldn’t be More Grateful
I always knew I was going to love the Grateful Dead. Andy Cohen created the best curriculum to learn to love them!
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.
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.
(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.
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.
FAT SEX WEEK: Sex Playlists and Fat Appreciation
It is empowering to have an identity. It’s empowering to read about other folks who date fat people in spite of what society tells them is sexy or attractive. It is empowering to recognize that society tells you to be attracted to one thing and to swing your authentic preferences another way and work towards body empowerment.
What I find hard about it is that “chubby chaser” and “fat admirer” are current labels that, to me, seem to be fetishes and not appreciation. I don’t want someone to find me attractive because I’m fat or in spite of being fat. I want someone who is attracted to me because of how being fat is part of who I am and also because I’m a babe. Not because it’s a deviant sexuality to like fat girls.
I love fetishes and open sexuality but since most American women are above a size 14 doesn’t that make us not that unusual?
New Episode of the Lesbian Tea Basket! The Gossip at Terminal 5 Redux!
So I went to the Gossip concert at Terminal 5 in New York City where Beth Ditto et al were celebrating the release of their new album A Joyful Noise on May 22nd.
My friend Bridget wanted to get together to gossip about the Gossip and re-watch the episode of Watch What Happens Live where Andy Cohen gives Beth Ditto a corn dog bouquet a few times (I still have this saved on my DVR). Bridge and I decided to film our gossip sesh as an episode of the Lesbian Tea Basket! We rate a Rooibus Mint iced tea by Rishi and have some cinnamon rolls, too.
Music Monday: Lovers!
You know who will give these feelings in a way that my fellow musical emotional cutters will totally appreciate? Lovers will give it to you in the hurty way–hard and with a tortured look in their eyes. I saw Lovers live for the first time at Michfest a couple of weeks ago and have renewed my love for them from a firey and passionate place in my heart reserved for the most poetic and heart-breaking music.* You know how some music can take you on an emotional journey and relies on the instruments? The way Carolyn Berk sings you can tell she’s feeling every moment.