Towleroad Talking Points: Danger Down Under

PHOTO OF THE DAY: Tokyo Disneyland hosts a lesbian wedding! 

BY SAM GREISMAN

A look back at today's top stories

GAY ISSUES

Sydney may be known for hosting a can't-miss party, but there was a shockingly violent incident of police brutality at the city's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras on Saturday that has people demanding an investigation. There was also a disturbing story of hate from right here on our home shores where a gay couple was apparently kicked out of a mall in California for kissing. One more reason to steer clear of malls. 

On the flipside there were a couple pro-gay rights stories making the rounds today. Carly Rae Jepsen has joined Train in backing out of the Boy Scouts Jamboree because of the group's discriminatory policies. And a DC Comics illustrator has decided not to do the artwork for homophobic sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card's Superman comic. 

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ENTERTAINMENT

Anderson Cooper had Lisa Rinna on his show today and they discussed his GLAAD award and the gay icon who will present it to him. Staying with Cooper, in a preview for an upcoming episode of 60 Minutes Sports, Anderson takes a wild ride on the back of a jetski. Also check out the rocking trailer for Iron Man 3. 

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WINGNUTTERY

Uh oh, anti-gay haters have solved the problem of dwindling support! They're reaching out to the youths with this cool new thing called rap. That oughta get them! It's kinda like when an inner-city substitute gets through to their students by showing them that Shakespeare is just like Jay-Z. Also conservative freak Bill O'Reilly got one of his minions to harass Colorado's House Speaker and implied that he supports child molesters (because, you know, he's gay). 

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VIDEO OF THE DAY

Attention San Francisco area residents! Starting tonight, and lasting for two years, the Bay Bridge will be one giant light show. 

The Proper Way to Use the Word Gay: VIDEO

Lesbian and LGBTQ advocate Ash Beckham tells Ignite Boulder how it's done.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

(via reddit)

DC Comics Artist Refuses to Illustrate Homophobe Orson Scott Card's 'Superman' Comic, Leaves Project

Artist Chris Sprouse won't be illustrating a DC Comics story written by uber-homophobe sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card because of public outrage over Card's involvement, AND, the story has been pulled from the first issue, USA Today reports:

"It took a lot of thought to come to this conclusion, but I've decided to step back as the artist on this story," Sprouse said in a statement released Tuesday. "The media surrounding this story reached the point where it took away from the actual work, and that's something I wasn't comfortable with. My relationship with DC Comics remains as strong as ever and I look forward to my next project with them."

Due to the creative change, the Card story will not appear in the first collected issue out May 29. Instead, it will feature a story by writer Jeff Parker and artist Chris Samnee, as well as a tale by Jeff Lemire and one by writer Justin Jordan and artist Riley Rossmo.

DC is also looking for a replacement illustrator for Card's story.

DC Comics said it supported Sprouse's departure and is looking for a replacement.

Towleroad Guide to the Tube #1320

TEGAN AND SARA: "All Messed Up".

HOMO ECONOMICS: A new approach to...something...

RESEARCH CHIMPS: Going outside for the first time, touching the ground, seeing the sky.

PERSPECTIVE: What it's like being aircrew on a KC-130J.

 

For recent Guides to the Tube, click HERE.

News: Mars, Venus, Gay Web Series, Dexter, Pony, Mumbai

Tyler Clementi's family wants an apology from NOM.

Boston Globe highlights the inequalities faced by same-sex military couples.

Comet headed toward Mars could hit it: "It would be an event on the same sort of scale as the impact that drove the dinosaurs extinct 65m years ago."

This is one fierce pony.

Illinois LGBT advocate Dawn Clark Netsch dies: "Former Illinois Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch, a longtime state senator and the first woman to win the Democratic nomination for governor, has died. She was 86...Netsch was a professor emeritus at Northwestern University School of Law and was known for her support of the gay and lesbian community. She was married to the late architect Walter Netsch, who died in 2008."

Here's what Venus looks like from Saturn.

Mumbai police officers assault, extort gay man: "The victim, a pharma firm employee from Vasai, was travelling home late on February 22. He boarded a Virar-bound local from Dadar station around 10.45pm and reached Vasai an hour later. He then went to a lavatory on platform 2 to relieve himself where two men accosted him. They taunted him over his homosexuality and thrashed him. Later they took the victim to an ATM outside the station and forced him to withdraw Rs 25,000 in cash. The victim did as he was told, withdrawing the amount in three transactions."

SB Nation acquires Outsports.com.

Are Jeremiah Brent and Nate Berkus having a baby?

Belonsky in the Guardian: Gay web dramas flourishing.

Tom Cruise was a Catholic before he was a Scientologist: "Tom Cruise was a blank slate when he took Hollywood by storm in 1981 — but his success came despite an abusive father, troubled teen years and all-consuming infatuation with the Catholic Church that ended when he was apparently asked to leave for stealing booze."

Press, fans discovering Justin Bieber is a brat?

Transgender woman gang-raped in midtown NYC hotel: "The attack occurred about 2:15 a.m. in a hotel on 57th Street, in the Midtown North Precinct, according to the NYPD. The woman, 27, was in the hotel room with one of the men, but she kicked him out after an argument, cops said. The man returned moments later, carrying a gun, and he brought two other men with him. The three men then sexually assaulted the victim as one brandished the firearm and threatened to shoot the woman if she did not stop screaming, police said."

Call Me a Hole: Carly Rae Jepsen meets nine Inch Nails.

California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano introduces transgender bathroom rights legislation: "Discriminating against transgender people already is illegal in California, but the bill's supporters say AB1266 is necessary to ensure that school districts do not deny students opportunities to participate in activities or to feel welcome on campus."

Next season will be Dexter's last.

Andrew Harmon on the disturbing Lisa Miller abduction case: "This afternoon, [Ken] Miller is scheduled to be sentenced for his role in the parental kidnapping of a young girl who disappeared more than three years ago. Her name is Isabella Miller-Jenkins, known in court documents simply as "IMJ," and for most of her life, she's had the misfortune of being at the center of a custody fight that has played out on the national stage. Isabella is now 10 years old and believed to be hiding in Nicaragua with her biological mother, Lisa A. Miller, a woman who fled the United States penniless and arguably delusional, having renounced her former homosexual life and having blocked custody visits between Isabella and her other parent -- Miller's lesbian ex-partner of many years."

Amy Herzog’s ‘Belleville’ Opens Off Broadway: REVIEW

BY NAVEEN KUMAR

From the wail of a passing siren to the hiss-and-clack of a radiator, every sound in Amy Herzog’s superb new play Belleville, which opened Off-Broadway Sunday at New York Theatre Workshop, echoes with subtle menace. They underscore a vague yet permeating sense that the young American couple occupying the sparsely furnished Paris apartment on stage doesn’t quite belong there—at least not together.

Abby and Zack met in college and married young. They skipped his graduation from med school and moved to Paris so Zack could take a job at Doctors Without Borders. Abby traded in her hopes of becoming an actor and became a yoga teacher instead. “I can have the trappings of a person I hate and still be a person I like, right?,” she asks no one in particular. When the play opens, it’s clear they’ve been in Belleville for some months—reasonably settled, but not quite comfortable.

An issue with their travel visas prevents them from returning home unless they don’t want to come back again—so, they’re stuck. The isolation of living as foreigners abroad only tightens their already desperate grip on each other. Within minutes of the play’s opening, it’s clear that Abby and Zack’s emotional lives have twisted into a codependent knot too tight for either of them to untie. And there’s a faint uneasiness in the air suggesting they might soon have reason to try.

As Abby and Zack, Maria Dizzia (In the Next Room…) and Greg Keller (Wit) give the sort of rare and remarkable performances that are at once exacting and seemingly effortless. Every moment on stage reveals further proof of their fragile mindsets and increasingly troubling relationship. Each time one of them retreats behind a closed door—to the bathroom for a shower, or the bedroom for a phone call—the tension of their momentary separation feels palpable, even somehow dangerous.

Phillip James Brannon and Pascale Armand are excellent as Alioune and Amina, the couple’s French-Senegalese landlord and his wife. In the opening scene, Alioune and Zack (friends as well as neighbors) hang out and smoke weed, though Alioune has to broach the uncomfortable subject of Zack being more than a little behind in the rent. It’s the first evidence of secrets Zack keeps from his wife, but for whose protection?

This New York production brings together the original cast from the play’s world premiere at Yale Repertory Theatre last season. Under the expertly nimble direction of Anne Kauffman (Detroit), they’ve shaded in every contour of their characters and work together like a well-oiled machine. 

At ninety-five engrossing, intermissionless minutes, Herzog's play is tighter and more fully developed than her previous outing this season (The Great God Pan at Playwrights Horizons). A gripping portrait of intimacy on the edge of collapse, Belleville unfolds carefully and subtly—until it suddenly, frantically unravels. 

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Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar (photos: joan marcus)