For a long time now, Bruce Weber has been one of my favourite photographers. I could spend days writing about him and his various pieces of work, but you’d be better off just popping by his brilliant website to find out more (you’ll need bandwidth!) In the meantime, here’s something fun to tickle your eyeholes with.
Barry Church-Woods
Yes. We went there. We know. We’re supposed to focus on LGBT issues, news and celebrate people of achievement and champions of the community. We get it. But really…This. Is. Awesome.
It’s a rare glimpse at the making of Madonna’s iconic Vogue video with outtakes. Enjoy!
Something wonderful to keep you cheery on a Wednesday afternoon. Plug in your speakers and crank up the volume. Beth Ditto and Gossip will help you Move In The Right Direction!
We were delighted this afternoon to see the David France’s documentary about ACT UP and TAG has been nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary category. This recognition is particularly poignant with the death of one of the films subjects Spencer Cox last month. Let’s hope it gets the win, which will ensure wider international distribution.
Thanks to Dr Lesley Sloss for pointing us towards this brilliant transgender time-lapse transition clip. In the words of the doctor… we love how she gets happier.
Follow @DrLes on Twitter. She’s smart and very funny.
“If there’s anything wrong with me, it has nothing to do with my orientation. I’ve got a lot of flaws. But being gay isn’t one of them.”
Writer, actress, and comedian Jane Lynch is a slim six-feet-tall and usually wears her blonde hair cropped in a pixie cut. Born in Illinois, she went to a public university and got her M.F.A. in Theater from Cornell. Her extensive theater background involved touring with the Second City comedy troupe and playing Carol Brady in The Real Live Brady Bunch.
She also wrote and starred in the award-winning play Oh Sister, My Sister. Originally produced in 1998, the play kicked off the Lesbians in Theater program at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center in 2004.
Lynch’s other stage credits include Tales of the Lost Formicans, Ennui, and Waiting for Iggy.
She made her film debut in 1988 with a small role in the body-switching comedy Vice Versa. On television, she was in the Lifetime movie In the Best Interest of the Children and made numerous guest appearances on sitcoms. After some meager roles in Straight Talk, The Fugitive, and Fatal Instinct, she had the good fortune to join Christopher Guest’s gang of improvisational comic actors. Her breakthrough role was butch Christy Cummings, the personal dog handler to trophy wife Sheri Ann Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge) in the 2000 mockumentary Best in Show.
Over the next two years, she played a government agent in the action movie Collateral Damage, a sarcastic nurse in the ABC medical comedy MDs, and a 1940s-style receptionist in the TNT movie The Big Time. In 2003, she reunited with the cast from Best in Show for the musical spoof A Mighty Wind. She performed her own music in the role of Laurie Bohner, the former porn star and member of the New Main Street Singers.
In 2004, Lynch appeared in Sleepover, Little Black Boot, and The Californians. Over the course of the next few years, Lynch remained one of the comedy world’s best kept secrets while getting steady work in film and television. But that secret wouldn’t be kept for long, because in 2009, after essaying a recurring role on the hit Showtime series The L Word, Lynch madea major impression on television viewers as villainous cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester on the hit musical series Glee — a role for which she was awarded both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.
“It got so bad that one day I was walking and a police patrol car was sitting across the street. The policeman shouted, ‘There’s that lezzie’. I thought, ‘I’m in trouble now. If something happens, who is going to help me?’ I left the town shortly after that.”
MUSIC star Horse McDonald has married her soulmate in a civil partnership – in the same town she fled because of anti-gay bullies.
Horse — real name Sheena — wed Alanna in Lanark, almost a year to the day after they met.
The singer left the town as a teenager because she was picked on for being gay.
And she says the fact that she felt comfortable coming back to exchange vows proves attitudes have changed.
Horse, 54, said: “I am married and I am thrilled to bits. I have had several long-term partners but I just knew Alanna was the one.
“It seems very natural. It is a special thing.
BC-W: This is wonderful but may make you cry at your desk. It did me.
“When I take these photos, the most important thing is I have to believe in that moment. If it doesn’t give me that feeling, then I don’t take the photo.”
Maika Elan didn’t know what to expect two years ago when she knocked on doors at a popular hotel for gay and lesbian couples in Siem Riep, Cambodia. She was surprised when most of the guests — many of whom were foreigners — told her she was welcome to take their portraits.
Ms. Elan, a young Vietnamese photographer, had traveled there for the Angkor Photo Festival to take a workshop with the Magnum photographer Antoine D’Agata. Needing a subject, she found Pink Choice, a Web site catering to same-sex couples traveling together — “kind of a Lonely Planet for gay and lesbian people,” she said.
“These characters are too ‘tidy’ in other ways… there are no transvestites, paedophiles, bisexuals. It is not surprising that a ‘sense of pride emerges”.
Me modelling Madonna’s moves and Celine Dion’s teeth
in 1992.
Barry Church-Woods
Early yesterday morning I received an email from an old work-chum. It announced that Bob Cant, the editor of the book Footsteps and Witnesses would be speaking at the National Library of Scotland at the start of February to mark the 20th anniversary of this trail blazing publication.
The publication in question is a verbatim record of 23 different gay and lesbian people living in Scotland in 1992. The book was published in 1993. It got me thinking about what I was doing at the time and that process brought me back to my letter to my 16 year old self (inspired by the Joseph Galliano collection Dear Me). Here it is.
Dear Barry
I’m writing to you from 20 years in the future, the day after NASA announced the discovery of a new planet that looks likely to be able to sustain some form of life. It’s in the goldilocks galaxy and has a surface temperature of 22C, is twice the size of earth and has a sun about 25% cooler than ours.
As a 16 year old, you are prone to exaggeration and your need for approval will see you concoct some wonderfully naive lies. Fortunately for you, you are telling them to people who will have little impact on your life within the next few months and it’s something you will grow out of very soon.
The weird thing is, the first statement about the new planet is true. And in 2011, we’re using the word amazeballs a lot to refence stuff like this. Start saying it now, you’ll be seen as a trendsetter.
There’s really no point in being able to communicate with your 16 year old self unless you at least attempt a few interventions or words of encouragement, so here they are. Sorry if it sounds preachy.
First off, you are a bummer. I know you are already fairly liberal and carefree about this stuff, but I do also know that at 16 you are pretty terrified of what your future is going to be like. You don’t have to worry too much. Society is about to shift in a few years. It will be gradual and there will always be bigots and homophobes around you. The good news is; you won’t feel the need to invite them to your wedding. To your husband. Who is half Swedish and half Kiwi. Picture that in your head. Now picture the opposite. That’s what he looks like.
It takes a while to get there and I’m not going to lecture you about all the frogs you will need to fuck before you find him, but you should know right now, that what you are doing with that skater is not love. It’s barely even sex. He’s actually just wanking inside you and he will never ever treat you well in public. Ditch him and move on. There are a lot of great people to meet that aren’t ashamed of who they are and they will all contribute to you becoming a fairly well adjusted, compassionate and giving person.
Spend more time with your sisters. They will always love you and make you a better version of yourself.
Enjoy having hair and a flat stomach.
Smoke less grass.
Professionally, I don’t know what to tell you. You’ll study acting and be very good at auditions. You’ll get a lot of work but will rarely be booked again. It’s really not your forte and actually, deep down you already know that you are not cut out for the monotony of doing the same thing day after day. The reality is, you’ll have some wonderful experiences and end up working with people that you currently idolise. You are a much better producer than artist but don’t give up on being creative. Sometimes you’ll surprise yourself.
Try not to get caught up in the glamour of it all. It will make you drop your guard and you’ll end up in some fairly dangerous situations that will haunt you to this day.
Oh, and when you are faced with the choice of doing a play with Richard Demarco or a wee part in a film called Mrs Brown, choose the film.
Now that’s over, I know this is what my 16 year old self really wants to know…
At 53, Madonna is still pretty cool although she did steal some African children and become Jewish for a while. The media persecute her for not being daring enough now or being too old or too female or both. She’s had some work done and sometimes looks like Zelda from the Terrahawkes, though mostly she’s still pretty good at what she does.
And finally, and most importantly of all. You are loved for who you are and YOU WILL ESCAPE LIVINGSTON.
When I first wrote the letter last year I remember being full of hope and optimism. I’m married to the love of my life, have a great job, home and social circle. I remember sitting back and thinking “Was it really so bad?” I’m sure I had a tough time, but didn’t everyone? Wasn’t that just part of being a teenager? Maybe I was overreacting and the times I grew up in were a lot more liberal and understanding. Maybe the real problem was me and paranoia about being different. Maybe those Jim Davidson jokes were funny.
Then I started researching the book. And found a review by David Evans in Scottish Affairs. It stated:
“These characters are too ‘tidy’ in other ways… there are no transvestites, paedophiles, bisexuals. It is not surprising that a ‘sense of pride emerges”.
Yes. In 1993, it was still ok for some academics to compare homosexuality to paedophilia and not be called out on it. It was a flippant phrase in a somewhat poorly structured review, but it was there. Right in front of me in black and white. Could this really be acceptable at any time?
It got me thinking just how far we’ve come in the past 20 years. The 16 year old me would never have dreamed of being able to walk down the street holding hands with my husband, kissing him goodbye as he goes to work. On a daily basis, the 16 year old me was still spat at and called a faggot or bender whenever I went to the shops. The 16 year old me still had to deal with a wanker of a PE teacher that thought it was acceptable to use ‘mincing fairy’ as a motivational phrase. I’m not saying that the majority of people thought like this, but noone can deny that these attitudes were prevalent in 1993 Scots society.
So this book. A collection of stories told by real people. Real people who allowed the editor to use their real names and hometowns. Real people who spoke about things that we consider fairly mainstream today, was a great little piece of history for the Scottish gay community. The bravery of the subjects will never be compared to that of Rosa Parks or Emmeline Pankhurst, it doesn’t even dent the surface of the progress made by Harvey Milk or the Stonewall Riots, but this was Scotland, and about as far removed from San Francisco and New York as the moon and here it definitely formed some of the first ripples in a pool of visibility that allowed people to come out. To live their lives the way they wanted. And for that, I am extremely grateful. Grateful for the progress we’ve made over the past 20 years. And grateful for all the sex I got to have with FULLY GROWN MEN because of it.
Bob Cant will talk about Footsteps and witnesses at the National Library of Scotland on George IV Bridge, Edinburgh on 4 February at 6pm. Tickets are free. Book online or phone 0131 623 3734.
