YouTube is full of gems. It can turn a nobody into a somebody overnight. Or it can be a place for former reality stars to shamelessly whore themselves out in an attempt to extend their brief few moments of fame.
Scott Herrman of MTV's The Real World: Brooklyn has his own channel on YouTube. Why exactly? So he can provide us with really complicated tips, like in this video, where he explains to us the painstaking task of shaving his chest. No, not just explains, demonstrates, as in the shower.
And we're sure you're already aware, but you can get even more groundbreaking "fitness" tips (others include How to Pick Someone Up at the Gym and a Captain America impersonation) from Scott on his website, scotthermanfitness.com. It's almost as great as laurenconradthinksshecanwriteanovel.com.
Jared Polis, the first openly gay congressman to be elected, chatted with Stephen Colbert for The Colbert Report's popular show segment, "Better Know a District." What ensues is pretty much comic genius, with Colbert playing the role of the homophobe. Oh, and somewhere along the line a beer funnel comes into play. Don't ask, just watch.
Comedian and writer Eddie Sarfaty has appeared on The Today Show, Comedy Central's Premium Blend, Logo's Wisecrack and has been a featured performer on Atlantis Cruises and RSVP Vacations. His first book Mental: Funny in the Head, landed in bookstores July 1st to strong critical and commercial success.
Eddie met Court Stroud while waiting at a bus stop and they started dating shortly afterward. The two of them recently sat down to chat about Eddie's new book, gay comics, depression, and getting laid while working the cruise ship circuit.
Court Stroud: You’re very frank about your sex life, unlike some gay comedians. Why do you think a lot of gay comedians refrain from discussing their sex lives on stage? Eddie Sarfaty: I think it’s a leftover from when you couldn’t be openly gay at a comedy club. Owners worried that audiences couldn’t deal with it -- especially during the AIDS crisis. I mean, it was okay to be “funny gay,” to be the flamboyant decorator or the catty queen, but that’s the equivalent of a minstrel show. If you’re doing that now, it’s a snore. So you bring all of yourself onto the stage? You can go up there and say, “I’ll be the ‘gay comic’ and do a modern Paul Lynde or Charles Nelson Reilly" – who were both brilliant -- but the reason I like stand-up comedy is because I get to be me more than if I’m in a play. Why would I just go up there, tell queeny jokes, and be just another stereotypical fag?
Are there ever times when you hide parts of yourself? There are definitely jokes of a sexual nature that I wouldn’t tell to a straight audience. And it’s different in different cities. I can say things here in New York that I wouldn’t say in Birmingham. But that’s changing, too. People under 30 care much less about whether someone is gay.
Everyone knows that the smaller something is, the cuter it is. Puppies, babies, tiny ears of sweet corn made out of marzipan -- they're all infinitely more adorable than their regular size counterparts. So imagine how smitten we were when we found out filmmaker Keith Louit turned the 300,000 attendees to the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras parade into a human flea circus:
We must admit, we were rather intrigued when we read in the New York Times today this review of a New York–based jazz outfit called Gay Disco Trio. Why would a free-jazz group that sounds very little like disco, even on a song called, well, "Gay Disco," call themselves Gay Disco Trio? (We guess you could also ask why a non-disco band like Panic! at the Disco would name themselves that, as well.) So we contacted band leader Andrew D'Angelo to ask him just that. And guess what? He's a big 'mo! That's why he named the band that.
"Being a gay man in the world of jazz has it's own interesting twist," Andrew wrote us. "There just ain't many of us who are jazz musicians. At least not out in the open. So I decided, since I'm tired of everything happening behind closed doors, to just force the issue out into the public." Plus, he
notes, "Since I was a kid...I have always wanted the nickname 'Disco.'...And you know what else, I keep meeting these beautiful boys on my gigs, and breaching the whole, 'ahem, I'm gay too' issue can be so complicated. Gay Disco band. Issue solved. I love being Gay, I love Disco, I love my band." Andrew, we don't even really know jazz that well, but we already love you.
Learn more about him and his upcoming tour dates here and hear his decidedly un-disco-y music here. And you know what else is cool? He recently seems to have beaten brain cancer without even doing chemo or radiation. Someone cue up that opening piano riff to "I Will Survive," please.
The bleary days of early January are no match for smokin' models in skimpy swimsuits. Luckily, Out's February issue is chock full of them including Andres Velencoso Segura who traveled -- along with photographer Xevi Muntane and Out's Fashion Director Grant Woolhead -- to the Evergaldes for our Buffalo Stance shoot inspired by the late style icon Ray Petri.
Segura may look familiar as his beautiful mug and body have graced the ad campaigns and runways of almost every major label from Louis Vuitton to H&M. And you're guaranteed to see a lot more of him in the near future as just yesterday he was identified by Hello! magazine as Kylie Minogue's new beau.
England's in an uproar! After months of speculation, hard betting, and calculating the odds, the BBC has finally announced their choice to replace David Tennant (fondly referred to as Ten-inch; rumors never confirmed) as the Eleventh Doctor in the longest running sci-fi show, Doctor Who. Matt Smith -- we can hear the echoing "who?" -- will have the honor of carrying on the tradition of piloting the iconic blue police phone box, or the TARDIS, if you'll allow for our inner geek. And with Russell T. Davies, creator of Queer as Folk, replaced by Steven Moffat (the man responsible for bringing the omnisexual I'll-shag-anything-as-long-as-it's-breathing Captain Jack Harkness -- played by the hunky John Barrowman -- to primetime UK TV) as head writer, the possibilities are endless.
At 26, Smith's the youngest actor ever to portray the time-traveling alien, but that's not the only thing that’s got everyone's knickers in a twist. Impossibly he’s been called he's too white, too skinny, too ugly, too hot, too emo, and too sissy looking (is it the Flock of Seagulls-esque hair? the skinny frame? the impeccable choice of shoes?). Confused yet? Us, too. And as far as companions for the dear Doctor go, most are hoping for a male. There hasn't been a steady male co-star in the TARDIS since 1969 and it's about time we have another.
Conclusion: never get between a fanboy (or fangirl) and their Doctor. Love him or hate him, you've got to give props to Matt Smith for stirring up so much controversy six months before a single scene has been filmed. And, hey, we're sure Capt. Jack wouldn't say no to a good snog, which, in the end, is all that really matters.
Here at Popnography, we usually try and steer clear of stridently political fare as much as possible. It's not that we don't find it important, or are afraid of it, or that we're simply too busy blogging about Disco Abs to find the time. It's just that it's not really the purpose we serve.
Still, the very fact that we're made up of queer contributors who live in a world that -- even in the 21st century -- isn't always the most enthusiastic about who we love, sleep with, and/or identify as makes our very existence a potentially political act. As cliche as Carol Hanisch's observation that "the personal is the political" has become, it's no less true then when she coined the phrase in 1969.
Lately we're having a hard time concentrating on any other than President-elect Barack Obama's choice to allow gay marriage opponent Reverend Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation on January 20. We can't figure out why someone seemingly so dedicated to equality and civil rights would pick someone so obviously anti-gay to be present and representative at one of the most exciting and hopeful days in recent American history.
The Reverend has equated gay marriage with incest and beastiality, and as Salon.com news editor Joan Walsh points out in her smart op-ed about Warren, also supports the Iraq war, and, in fact, just gave George W. Bush his first-ever "international medal of peace." (As if!) While some are saying that Obama is merely trying to diversify those involved in the inauguration (and perhaps his new administration), writer Christopher Hitchens asks in a Slate.com column, "Do we want these weirdos and creeps officiating in any capacity at the inauguration of the next president of the United States?"
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