Whitney Houston: An Audio Appreciation

The death of Whitney Houston over the weekend was a shock.  In response, Facebook and Twitter were filled with all kinds of tributes; of words, music and music videos from her nearly 30-year career.  I rewatched her virtuoso performance of the National Anthem durring the 1991 Super Bowl a couple of times.  20 years later, it is still stunningly beautiful. I would go so far as to say no singer has topped her take on the "Star Spangled Banner" since then. Her voice is simply astounding, clear as a bell and remarkable not only its range but sheer force.

Another video I saw posted on FB is even more remarkable and it's actually not a video at all. It is simply the vocal track from Whitney's recording of "How Will I Know", one of her first dance hits from 1986. Without the sound of the production tracks, her voice is left to stand on its own and it is amazing; clear, strong and unsullied by any autotune or excessive electronic manipulation.  This audio clip only reinforces the tragic loss of her unique talent.  

With SPACE: 2099, The Moon Is Officially Hot

There was an item today on the Hollywood Reporter that ITV is rebooting its 70's sci-fi classic SPACE: 1999.  I loved this show!  It had so much to offer; the moon exploding out of orbit, sexy beige jumpsuits, Barbara Bain, and that smokin' theme song which you could dance to if you wanted.  Oh yeah, and Martin Landau too, who was super cool and kinda cute too. This could have the potential to be the next BATTLESTAR GALACTICA if they put together a decent creative team.  We shall seee....it's in the very early stages.

Lately, it seems, the moon is having a pop culture moment. There was last summer's TRANSFORMERS which started on the dark side, where evil robots had buried themselves. Next up, we have this insane movie below called IRON SKY about Nazi's who've been hanging out on the dark side planning their revenge.  (I thought this was a fake trailer but it's a real movie!)  Also, let's not forget the 110-year-old A TRIP TO THE MOON by George Melies is getting new heat due to its central role in Scorsese's HUGO. And, of course, Newt Gingrich can't stop talking about his ludicrous plans to colonize the moon.

It's somewhat ironic that the moon is having a moment at a time when NASA has no manned space program. At all. But the moon, and our fascination with it, has always been there. Apparently, it's now due for some rediscovery, if only in a fictional way.

Former Indie Filmmaker Directs "Halftime In America"

The only commercial that seemed to get people's attention during this year's Super Bowl was "Halftime In America", an odd 2-minute ad for Chrysler that sounded like a political spot.  With 5 million plus official views, the spot has struck a chord and been a lightning rod for discussion over the last few days on everything from Clint Eastwood's political affiliation to whether it would help Chrysler sell cars.

IndieWire, like many of us in the film community, wondered who was behind the spot and it turns out the director was an indie filmmaker; David Gordon Green. I was a big fan of some of Green's earlier work, the much praise GEORGE WASHINGTON and ALL THE REAL GIRLS. Then he moved to L.A. and started making studio comedies, like PINEAPPLE EXPRESS which was fun.  But now, with this ad, he has turned back to his moody, realist roots to remarkable effect. 

IndieWire calls it something of a "second-coming" of his indie career. I wouldn't go that far....I mean, it is a car commercial! Green himself had no comment on the situation other than to say he is working on a new film which is more like his earlier work, a small romantic drama called Q. 

The New Yorker Reports On Tyler Clementi's Suicide

This week, the New Yorker published a lengthy look at the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a 19-year-old Rutgers freshman who jumped off the GW Bridge in September 2010. Clementi's death, along with another highly publicized teen suicide that month, sparked the It Gets Better movement and increased awareness of "bullying" of gay and lesbian teenagers.

The New Yorker article focuses mainly on Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi.  Ravi famously spied on Clementi via webcam making out with another guy and then tweeted about his roommates' sexuality.  It is a tragic tale all around, as Ravi is now being tried on 15 counts of invasion of privacy, intimidation and harassment and could spend 5 to 10 years in jail.  Regardless of the   judicial outcome, his life will be haunted by this loss forever.

Reading the New Yorker story, the thing that struck me was the lack of communication between these two freshman who, though roommates for nearly a month, did not appear to speak to each other at all.  Legal issues aside, the real crime appears to be that they did not communicate.  There are a couple telling scenes where they are both sitting in their dorm room as they type away about each other on message boards, tweets, and IMs instead of actually speaking to one another about the issues that are coming up. And it's this lack of engagement with each other in the real world that seems to have led to an unnecessarily tragic outcome.

Clearly, Ravi is guilty of spying and then bragging about it on his Twitter account. But the true tragedy of this story and the one that seems endemic of the millennial generation is that these two roommates just did not make any attempt to communicate in real life. That to me is the real failure here and an alarming sign of the digital times as well. I hope this story serves as a strong warning to everyone buried in their electronic devices and living their lives online to look up, unplug and live your life...before it is too late.

Billy Eichner Kills It On CONAN With Super Bowl "Interviews"

Billy Eichner, one of my favorite NYC comedians, killed it on CONAN last night as a special correspondent reporting from the Super Bowl.  He basically ran around the parking lot at Lucas Oil Field, asking hardcore football fans if they were excited about seeing Madonna.  OMG--too funny!

Billy's trademark style of being too loud and too enthusiastic worked brilliantly in the Super Bowl setting.  And his insane excitement about Madonna gets some truly incredulous looks from the diehard football fans. Even better is when he gets on the football field at the end of the game and starts asking Giants players who have just won the Super Bowl what they thought of Madonna's halftime show.

In case you hadn't heard, Billy now has his own show on the Fuse network where he runs around New York City asking people insane questions and giving them money if he approves of their answers. Definitely worth watching!

Madonna Wins The Super Bowl

If you were on Twitter last night during the Big Game, the most trending topic was easily #Madonna.  Not to mention the flurry of opinions and wisecracks that filled Facebook before, during and after her much-anticipated half-time show at the Super Bowl.

Today, there are plenty of post-mortems online about her over-the-top and very entertaining 17-minute show. It has generally received great notices and rightfully so.  If Madonna knows anything after 30 some years in showbiz, it's how to put on a show!

Over at NPR.com, there was a nice appreciation of not only her half-time show but also Madonna in general.  Writer Linda Holmes remarks about the unlikely span and breadth of Madonna's career as an entertainer; one that began in 1984 with "Borderline" and has not let up since.  Holmes points out how many laughed at the Material Girl, expecting her to fade away like many of the neon-colored fads of the day. But the bottom line is that her staying power and her showmanship are remarkable by any standard.  So for all the criticism out there, you gotta admit that Madonna is still here and still putting on an incredible show.

Required Reading: THE STRANGER'S CHILD

One of my favorite contemporary novelists is British author Allan Hollinghurst.  Not only are his books exquisitely well-written (the last one garnered the Mann-Booker Prize in 2005) but they usually focus on gay characters in truly novel ways.

His latest book, THE STRANGER'S CHILD, is an epic 400-plus page look at a British family told over the course of nearly a hundred years in five distinct sections.  At the center of the book is a young Cambridge poet Cecil Valance, who has affairs with men, women and it seems just about anyone he may come into contact with.  What's most interesting about the book is how it looks at Cecil indirectly from varying perspectives, including that of his former girlfriend, lover, biographer, grand neice, etc. creating a curious mosaic of this magnetic figure and the way his unusual life affected those around him for decades to come.

The book is something of a challenging read at first in that the jumps between each section take some getting used to.  The reader is dropped into an entirely different set of circumstances and central characters which take some sorting out.  I half-wish that I had created a family tree for all the relations that come into play.  But as each section adds a new piece to the Valance family puzzle, the book grows more and more intriguing as it begins to delve into the heart of the family's secrets.

THE STRANGER'S CHILD is easily one of the best books I have read in quite some time and I can strongly recommend it to anyone looking for a great, British old-school style read. It has the qualities of a book like BRIDESHEAD and MAURICE, with a touch of the TV show DOWNTON ABBEY thrown in as well.  Surely this will end up on the BBC as a mini-series, as his last book THE LINE OF BEAUTY did (which curiously stars Dan Stevens of DOWTON). Hopefully, on this one, they will do a better job and have an appropriate budget for this epic tale of secrets and lies.

50,000 New Yorkers Arrested in 2011 For Pot Possession

Yes, you have read that statistic correctly.  The actual number of arrests for possessing under 25 grams of marijuana is 50,684 and it is up from the previous year by .6 percent. In fact, that number is more than all the arrests for marijuana possession the city made in the years between 1978 and 1996....combined.

The TIMES metro section reports on this suprising statistic today, revealing that these misdemeanor arrests cost the city an estimated $75 million dollars. In these tight budgetary times, there are certainly many useful things this money could be spent on.  It's very similar to the time/money the city wasted on harassing the Occupy protestors last year.  What is more alarming about these arrests is that the majority of them, 87% in fact, are for black or hispanics while studies consistently show that marijuana use/possession is much higher with whites.

I am usually not one to get rabble-roused but this situation truly bothers me because it's about more than drugs, it's about basic American rights (against illegal searches, for equal justice) that are being violated in New York every day for the so-called greater good. I can only hope this becomes an issue in the upcoming mayoral campaign as it's a discussion about safety vs. sanity that is long overdue in this city.

Is Anderson Cooper Coming Out For February Sweeps?

There was some heat in the blogosphere on this potential story back in mid-December, when Gawker reported that CNN's Anderson Cooper brought his longtime boyfriend to his holiday party.  A flurry of speculation followed as to a potential coming out episode that would be a part of his daytime talk show.  Since then however, there have not been any new rumors or actual facts. But now that today is February 1st and sweeps are upon us, it seems time to ask the question again and be on the lookout for more clues.

The rumors about Cooper's public coming out began last summer and then heated up in November, when the thinking was he would do it to boost ratings for that sweeps period.  His show has not been doing that great so a week-long Anderson Comes Out extravaganza would certainly garner some eyeballs.  However, Cooper has kinda/sorta been living as a gay man and is seen out on the town with his man (Ben Maisani, above in sunglasses), even though he hasn't publicly made any statement on the subject.  Kathy Griffin certainly has tried to do it for him on their New Year's specials!

Anyway, it would be nice to have Cooper make it official, as some another news anchor did recently.  And, at the least, this sort of gesture for The Gays would do a lot to make up for the embarrassing promo-mercial for Spiderman he did in the middle of CNN's New Years broadcast. That was awful!

Queer Country Monthly and A Musical Discovery

On Saturday, I went to something called the Queer Country Monthly at Branded Saloon in Prospect Heights.  I didn't know what to expect but was delighted to find a great lineup of original songs and cover tunes by a nice array of local artists.

I particularly loved a duo called My Gay Banjo, who have been playing around the BK and developing a loyal following over the last couple years. I wrote about them for NEXT magazine's Nexus blog, where I am a semi-regular nightlife correspondent.  You can read my article here and watch My Gay Banjo on YouTube, performing their delicious cover of Dolly Parton's "Jolene".