Kurt Gets Serenaded By Dudes On GLEE

GLEE started out a little rough this season and I almost gave up on it.  Then the "Rocky Horror" episode won be back with some great numbers and surprising casting (Merecedes as Frankenfurter!).  But still the show's been a little stuck in second year gear, as it were.  It looks like that could all change this week...big time.

There were rumors that Kurt, the show's out and about choir boy, was going to be getting an actual love interest.  Well, tomorrow night he meets a guy (played and sung by Darren Criss) from a all-dude prep school and gets serenaded by not only him but the entire boys choir....to Katy Perry's "Teenage Dreams" even!  The singing and do-woop dancing is fab but what really gets me is Kurt's reaction to all of it.  Crazy.  Tune in tomorrow at 8pm for all the gay action.....only on FOX.

The Vote Totals Were Not As High As The Rent

The results for the NY state governors race were not much of a surprise: 2.6 million votes for Andrew Cuomo and 1.4 million votes for nutter Carl Palladino.  But Jimmy McMillan of the wacky "Rent Is 2 Damn High" Party nearly quadrupled his total from the 2006 election.  In that year, he received about 14,000 votes whereas this year, due to his inclusion in the gubernatorial televised debate and the national press that ensued, he hit nearly 40,000 votes. 

This apparently is enough encouragement to keep Jimmy going as he plans to keeps running in the future.  Next up is the NYC mayoral race in 2013.  In fact, realizing his simple platform has national relevance given the hard times all around, Jimmy has even been encouraged to run for President.  However, he says he won't do that just now because he likes President Obama too much.  So while the rent may be high,  Jimmy's ego is through the roof.

Ricky Martin on THE VIEW: "God Doesn't Make Mistakes"

Ricky Martin appeared on THE VIEW yesterday to talk with the ladies about his new life as an openly gay man.  And, of course, to plug his new book.  But I was quite impressed with his frank discussion of his own struggle to come out and how his Catholic faith made that difficult.  Now, he's hoping his honesty can help inspire and even help others.

Below is a clip from the interview where, towards the end, Ricky makes an impassioned plea to teens out there who may be struggling with their sexuality. It was sort of an impromptou "It Gets Better" video but one that was clearly heartfelt.

Not The High Turnout They Were Hoping For

In the flood of election news about the Republican wave, there is one little loss that is worth noting. In California, voters rejected Proposition 19 which would have make recreational use of marijuana legal.  One would think that, since the state legalized medical marijuana successfully a few years back, this one would have passed easily.  But apparently the youth vote did not turn out and the measured was defeated by double digits.  The only area where voters were in favor of it was the Bay Area, but only by a slim margin.

The Wednesday morning quarterbacking on this story is that just having it on the ballot was a watershed moment.  I'd have to say that's true.  For years, stoners have joked about making marijuana legal and here was a state, the largest in the nation, seriously considering doing just that.  While lower voter turnout contributed to the loss, there was also the prickly problem of the fact that marijuana would have remained illegal at the federal level.  The legal morass this would have created was probably a turn-off to most law-abiding citizens.

Well, maybe like Prop 8 in 2008, this is only the beginning of an inevitable march toward legalization.  Given the amount of income it could generate from taxes, it could be increasingly hard to resist as state and federal deficits continue to grow.

Uncle Tom's Cabin Is Actually A Kitchen

Back in July, I had posted a story about the original "Uncle Tom's Cabin", located in Bethesda, MD and only a few miles from where I grew up.  Recently, though, it has come to light that the supposed cabin where slave Josiah Henson lived is actually a kitchen for the Riley Farm. And, on top of that, the whole house is not as old as it was promoted to be, built sometime after Henson fled to Canada where his life story inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe's landmark book.


The Washington Post did an expose of this massive history FAIL last month which you can read here.  There's also more in-depth report on this historian website.  All in all, it's a compelling tale about how the Montgomery County government, which spent more than a million dollars to keep the property off the market, ignored historical evidence that countered the years of rumors that had identified the physical property as signficant.  


Though it's still believed that Henson worked as a slave on the Riley Farm in the early 19th century, the actual cabin is not there anymore.  The official website for the site has been updated since but there is no admission of their error.  There is only reference to a public meeting held on October 28th where the name of the site was changed from "Uncle Tom's Cabin Park" to "Josiah Henson Special Park".  Special indeed. And there is a new warning at the end of the main text, stating that "as with all historical inquiries, research is ongoing." 

The Unseen James Bond Auditions of 1968

The new LIFE magazine, which now exists mainly online, has a cool feature about the casting of James Bond after Sean Connery left the franchise. In 1968, the producers got together the five finalists for a Bond-Off studio session in London where they took stills and shot some test footage to see who looked best holding the martini and fondling the girl.  LIFE.com has some great highlights on their website.

A close runner up was John Richardson, a slim/sexy '60's star who appeared memorably in ONE MILLION BC (with Raquel Welch) and ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER (with Babs Streisand).  Too bad he didn't make the cut as he looks quite fine in this shot and others where he's wearing a revealing square cut suit.  However, the role eventually went to George Lazenby who had his one and only outing as 007 in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE.

Toy Story As A Horror Movie

Ever since the "Scary Mary" re-cut of Mary Poppins was put up on YouTube, the trend of re-cutting and genre-swapping movie trailers has grown.  One of my favorites, which is perfect for Halloween, is a repurposing of TOY STORY as a scary horror movie.  Enjoy and have a Happy Halloween! :)

The Return Of My WTC View

I used to have a beautiful view of the World Trade Center from my apartment in the Village. In fact, I wrote a play about it which then became a film called WTC VIEW.  Looking down my street, the twin towers stood almost directly at the end of it roughly 20 blocks away...a landmark that I still miss. The original towers were slightly to the left in this picture, the north tower rising behind WTC 7 (the tallest building in the background) and the South tower rising over the building to the left of that with the water towers on top.

Yet recently, I noticed that looking down my street, the new One World Trade Center (formerly the Freedom Tower) is now visible.  You can see it in this photo, a small crane poking out the top of what is now roughly the 40th floor.  Eventually the building will have 105 floors with a building height matching the original WTC 1 and a massive 400-foot tower on top to reach it's symbolic height of 1,776 feet. Completion is scheduled in April '13.

Tron Sequel + Daft Punk = Hotness

This super cool mini-video was released this week to promote the Tron sequel, TRON: LEGACY.  Seminal French techno-geniuses Daft Punk have done the score for the reboot and, if this is any indication, it's gonna sound awesome.  It also looks totally hot too; the new light cycles are amazing, the glowing Frisbee things are bizarre and there's the neat trick of making Jeff Bridges look 20 years younger.  Not to mention the curious finger-light undressing of his son.  Hmmmm....

Of course, when a movie looks this cool the danger is that it might not make any sense.  We'll have to wait until December to find out for sure. But for now I am rating this TH for  "Total Hotness"!

Tracking Progress On The Second Avenue Subway

I was on the Upper East Side last week for a film shoot and got to see first hand all the construction happening on Second Ave for the new "T" line.  Its been in the news lately as merchants and residents have been complaining loudly about the noise and mess of construction and how it's been bad for business.  This weekend the MTA responded with an comprehensive new plan to address these concerns.  Over at the Launch Box blog, there is a summary of what's going on along with pictures of all the mess on the street.

Also on that blog, they've put together a great Google Map where you can follow the progress of the boring machine. The map also has pictures of the new station locations and some of the major construction sites, like the launch box itself where the tunnel boring machine took off from earlier this year. Currently, it's chewing its way through granite about 100 feet below 79th Street.  It has about 15 blocks to go before it will turn around and start boring it's way back up Second Ave next year.