I think In The Life is a great television series, one that remains under-rated and under-viewed. It is a valuable source for the history and current issues facing the gay community. It runs on PBS, and you can check your local listings for the air dates for the current episode.
For the October episode, the have the following description: 40 years after the Stonewall uprising, the LGBT movement is more visible than ever. But many queer people who do not conform to the image of gender, race and class most pervasive in the media, remain largely invisible—even to the movement. This month, we look at how LGBT people living on the economic margins of our society are organizing themselves to find housing, improve their professional skills, and obtain employment and health care.
You can watch episodes online here. To find out when it will be broadcast in your area, click here. Please support this great show.
Friday night's on Sirius radio, Seth Rudetsky has a program live from New York City that covers all the important aspects of life: being gay, Broadway and theater, and life in general. Seth can be a bit irreverent, as can be seen here.
For more about Seth, visit his website here. And for Joy, here is Seth in the Cash Cab in NYC.
I am a real fan of the PBS series In The Life. It is a monthly show that deals with life in the gay community. According to the press release, this month, IN THE LIFE explores what it means to grow old as a gay person in America how a generation once at the frontlines of establishing the modern LGBT movement finds, in what should be their golden years, new challenges living life openly gay. ITS ABOUT TIME highlights the leaders spearheading a national effort to protect the rights of LGBT senior citizens and care for our elders.
Not only are they precious as anything, a couple that is young and in love, Jason & deMarco are Christian boys who firmly hold to their beliefs. So this Sunday morning I offer you Jason & deMarco singing Be The Light at Wallingford United Methodist Church in Seattle.
Also, here is deMarco of J&D singing Ave Maria at the Kansas City MCC Spirit of Hope Church earlier this summer.
You can find the Jason & deMarco website and store here.
This is Levi Kreis singing God Is Here in a church in West Hollywood a few years ago. While the quality of the video might not be too good, it is impossible to question the quality of Levi's singing. Here is his soulful and heartfelt performance.
You can find more on Levi at his website here, or in a post I had done a few weeks ago.
Johnny Hazzard might be best known as a star of countless Chi Chi LaRue films, mainly of the gay pornographic variety, since 2003. But since then, Mr. Hazzard has been branching out a bit, while maintaining his 'position' in the porn world. Late in 2004, Johnny did some modeling at the request of Boy George and went on to be featured in an ad campaign for Rufskin Denim. In 2008, using given name Frankie Valenti, Johnny appeared in the HERE! TV show The Lair, a rather homocentric vampire series. He worked as a music reviewer for Frontiers magazine, Southern California's oldest and largest LGBT publication. And in 2006, he released what remains his one and only music single, Deeper Into You.
As once might expect, it isn't great art, nor is it without innuendo, but I do kinda like it. It's been on my iPod for some time. Call it a guilty pleasure, whatever, but hey, it's my iPod, right? And he is cute as a freakin' button, and from interviews and comments from others, Johnny sounds like a great guy. His friend Boy Wonder [certainly not to be confused with the delightful Wonder Man who has a great blog] had this to say about Johnny, "He was terribly intimidated by all of the other models in the show, which is something I found hard to believe. That's one of the charming things about him. In his mind he's still the little pothead outcast from Ohio." Kind words that also make me laugh.
For more on Johnny [and God only knows, there is plenty more], you can visit his official website here, for his blog site click here, and his filmography [x-rated] could be found at TLA. There are also a couple of YouTube videos of Johnny dancing to the music of others. They are here and here.
Josh Zuckerman is an out rocker who has a new CD coming out shortly - sometime this month. He's rockin', he's hot, and ready to spring some new music on you. He released the first single from the CD, Got Love?, and I bought it off iTunes and really love it. Of course, I have already purchased the last two CDs, A Totally New Sensation and Under The Radar.
Here is the first video from the upcoming Got Love? CD, the single of the same name. It is a flat-out rocker, with some hot guitar licks going on and some amazing chorus vocals.
The next clip is Be Real from the last CD, Under The Radar. This is a ballad, with the starting lines 'Who ever said finding love would be easy?' The music owes a hat tip to the blues., especially some nice guitar and percussion action. Josh's vocals are strong, and take control of this one.
You can find out more about Josh and listen to some music on his website or MySpace or FaceBook pages.
Levi Kreis is an out performer based out of Los Angeles. He is not only a great singer and musician, but he also has performed in the theater, most recently playing Jerry Lee Lewis in a production of The Million Dollar Quartet. This past May he released a new CD, Where I Belong. Well, I am the idiot, because I didn't know it until I was doing this post. Sorry Levi [yeah, like he is reading this]! So I went directly to iTunes and bought it, cause I loves me some Levi Kreis.
Now that I have listened, gotta say it might be his best yet, which is saying something, since I love The Gospel According To Levi. That CD had a pop/rock/soul thing in abundance, and had some fun going on. Where I Belong has less rock, with more of a Southern soul and gospel feel, and maybe a touch of country-fried rock and a nod to R&B. The song This Girl has a feel of an American Jamiroquai, and I mean that in a good way. It, along with several other songs, are uptempo blues numbers, reminding me of old time Memphis recordings. Ain't Nobody is another song that shows what I am talking about.
I love iTunes because of the immediate gratification factor, and allowing me my impulse purchases, but the downside is that until I read Levi's website, I hadn't realized Travis Howard, a previousStr8 Men Need Love Too post, produced not only this album, but also the last. Damn, that boy is more talented than I thought. No wonder I like those, combining my appreciation of two musical obsessions.
Producer Travis Howard (left) and singer/songwriter Levi Kreis (right)
In some ways, I have to imagine The Gospel According To Levi must have been a cathartic experience, freeing him of the baggage of growing up gay in a fundamental religious upbringing, going so far at one point to attend Exodus, a religious group out to convert and 'save' homosexuals. Apparently, that didn't work so well. That said, whatever took to bring Levi to this place, he has put out a fantastic new album. Here is another song from it, Not Afraid.
Some of Levi's other great music is available on YouTube. There is We're Okay, and a song that was in a few movies and TV shows, Hardly A Hero. There is also a clip of him performing The Reckoning on a radio show. His music can be purchased from iTunes, Amazon.com, CD Baby, and apparently, at Best Buy. For more about Levi, go to his website here.
Mika, the floppy-haired singer who rose to fame in 2007 behind the success of the wonderful single Grace Kelly, is about to release his second full-length studio CD, We Are Golden, in September. So, they have released a video for the first single, also called We Are Golden. In the video, the singer bounds around his room in boxers, singing along with his track.
The singer was born in Beirut, Lebanon, after I had completed college and made the move to NYC, making me feel very old. OK, so he is just 25, soon to be 26. But he is adorable and fun, although somewhat reticent to speak of his own sexuality, preferring not to be labeled and instead to focus on his work. That said, he has not shied away from employing gay themes in his music.
He has certainly enjoyed success on both sides of the Atlantic, and is a talented man. He has amazing use of his falsetto, and plays with it willingly. For pure pop fun, Mika is hard to beat.
Longtime Companion was released in 1990. I went to see it while living in NYC, and was so moved it took me a bit of time just to get out of my seat. I had moved to NYC in 1983, and was there for this time frame, reading the news in the Times as well as the NY Native. The movie covers the lives of several gay friends from 1981 to 1989, the start of the AIDS crisis marked by an article in the New York Times to the rest of the decade, marked by love, loss and political action [or lack thereof]. I lost far too many friends and acquaintances to the illness during that period, and in many way felt this movie spoke to me in a way few others have. I sat there in the theater crying, both out of loss and for the joy of the characters. The final scene is as joyful as you can get in a movie.
I just love this movie! It positively drips with charm and grace. Both Henry and Pike are adorable and sexy, and I wanted a SamPa of my own. I have the DVD, and watch it every so often, and it reminds me life is good. Originally released in 2000, Big Eden won awards at film festivals across the country as it played to critical praise and audience cheers.
Starring Arye Gross, Eric Schweig and Tim DeKay and set in a fictional Montana town, it is a touching and romantic movie, with lots of joy to be found for Henry, played by Arye, an artist living in NYC who returns to his hometown to help out his ailing grandfather. There he gets to see Dean, now a father of two, but back in high school something happened that left Henry aching to see Dean again. And there is Pike, the tall Native American man who is so very shy, but manages to make dinners for Henry and Sam. Another character is the gorgeous scenery, and the inherent charm of the cast and themes.
Jake Walden is an artist I discovered thru Tom Goss, first playing on the Rock The Folk Out tour, and then opening for Tom on tour and on the last show I attended in DC. Jake is very handsome, and quite intense while performing.
His CD is called Alive And Screaming. The song We Are, along with the video that follows, are the high points for me. If you like this video, order the CD. You won't be disappointed. You can find out more at Jake's MySpace site.
This summer, it seems perfectly obvious this song by Houston Bernard should be a breakout summer hit. The video is tailored to the gay-club crowd, filmed on Fire Island with lots of pretty boys. It is a catchy tune, a frothy pop/dance number that screams out for another round of shots. I mean, shirtless boys in bathing suits playing beach volleyball or dancing on the beach? What's not to love?
Houston Bernard has more music, although it might not be as inherently hooky as I Feel Gorgeous. The video for Say Goodbye starts out with the handsome singer laying in bed in his undies, and the boy is hot. This song is much sexier, with special effects trying to 'dirty' it up a bit. The video goes a bit off the rails when Bernard's iPhone starts flashing lights and transports people to clubs so they can get laid, once the African American spirit dances them to Mr. Bernard. Yeah. No, really. I couldn't make that crap up. I think the song is better than the video.
For more information for Houston Bernard, you can go to his official website or his MySpace.
Sure, one of the things we can thank the British for is boybands, and one of the big ones that never made the trip across the ocean was Boyzone. The Irish boys were wildly successful for a few years before breaking up in a bit of turmoil. Prior to the bust up, Stephan Gately came out just prior to being outed in the tabloids. After they broke up, singer Ronan Keating went on to success in a solo career, as well as helping to direct the careers of others in British music, including Westlife, a favorite of mine. Stephen Gately had some minor success, especially with the theme song from the movie, Billy Elliott.
A few years ago, there was some interest from the British music industry and fans for a Boyzone reunion. The boys patched up old differences, and come back together, releasing a couple of new singles for a Greatest Hits collection. One of those was Better, a sweet love song with a really good video that created some waves with the depiction of a romantic gay male couple. I can't imagine that happening in the US, even if it were the Backstreet Boys or N'SYNK [yes, that means you, Lance Bass]. Way to support, boys! Credit should also go to the record label for not shying away from controversy.
You can get more information on the Boyzone reunion at their website.
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