Mexico City lawmaker proposes same-sex marriage law: "Mexico's Roman Catholic Church opposes the proposal. The church defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, as does current law.
Lawmaker David Razu says the changes he is proposing would give same-sex couples the same rights heterosexual couples have regarding social security and other benefits.
The local legislature sent the measure to committees for consideration Tuesday. No date was set for a vote."
UK college welcomes Islamist preacher who endorses killing of gays. "In 2007, the Channel 4 programme, Undercover Mosque, recorded Mr Usamah
saying: 'Do you practise homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual
man and throw him off the mountain.'"
Pager intercepts from 9/11 published: "From 3AM on Wednesday November 25, 2009, until 3AM the following day (US
east coast time), WikiLeaks is releasing over half a million US national
text pager intercepts. The intercepts cover a 24 hour period surrounding the
September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington."
Robert Pattinson uses his man scent to ward off the paparazzi. "He's smart, because if he doesn't change his clothes and the paparazzi get pictures of him in the same outfit all the time, then they can't sell the pictures."
Rolling Stone prods Taylor Lautner about gay rumors: "In a bold move, the mag also raised another question with the young
actor – asking if Taylor was still figuring out his sexuality. 'Another
possibility is that maybe you’re just sort of discovering yourself,'
Rolling Stone asked. 'OK,' Taylor said.' …As a young person trying to
figure out his sexual identity in the world,' the mag continued. 'OK. I
see where you’re going,' he said during the interview. 'Interesting
choice.' 'It is a possibility,' the mag said. 'There’s a lot of rumors
out there,' Taylor said."
UK police officers disciplined for homophobic emails to officers in the force choir: "They were just nasty attacks. They sent messages to
staff in the Gay Police Association, slagging them off, and the police
choir, basically implying they were gay because of that. This was homophobic
abuse."
Howard K. Stern settles lawsuit with Rita Cosby: "Stern was seeking big bucks for several blockbuster allegations in Cosby's Blonde Ambition: The Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death that he insisted were outright lies.
Cosby falsely claimed Stern engaged in sexual romps with Smith's baby daddy Larry Birkhead and also suggested the former paternity foes hatched a secret deal in which Stern agreed to support Birkhead's eventually successful bid to gain custody over Dannielynn in exchange for the celebrity photographer backing Stern to remain as executor of the late Playmate's estate."
The editors of Modern Tonic present a weekly music update here on Towleroad. The rest of the week, they scan the pop culture landscape for movie, TV, book and Web recommendations in their daily email. TODAY’S FEATURED NEW RELEASES:
We’ve been riding Lady Gaga’s disco shtick since the release of The Fame last year. The woman born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta has shot to the forefront of gay consciousness with a combo of cheeky post-Madonna dance grooves and a sartorial sense that makes Björk’s Oscar night Swan dress look like a gingham hand-me-down. Gaga’s follow up, The Fame Monster, features 8 new tunes sold as a single disc or packaged with The Fame. (A super deluxe Fame Monsterbox set — to include a lock of her hair (!) — will be available December 15.) Highlights include the single "Bad Romance" (does Gaga have any other kind?), the Spanish-flecked "Alejandro" that’s like half Abba’s "Fernando" and half Madonna’s "La Isla Bonita," and the hi-NRG club jam "Telephone" featuring none other than Gaga’s latest BFF Beyoncé.
For once, the press was right. Christened 'Glambert' for his theatrical preening on last season's American Idol,
Adam Lambert brought a sexually ambiguous charisma to a set of stellar
pipes that knew how to sell chestnuts from not only Queen and Zeppelin,
but Foghat and Tears for Fears. No longer ambiguous — he came out
publicly following the end of the season — Lambert juices up his debut For Your Entertainmentwith
a powerful sexual allure. He gets help from Pink with "Whataya Want
from Me," one of her trademarked tracks that's tough on the outside and
tender on the inside. And from the multi-tracked falsetto of opener "Music Again" to
the flamboyant "Soaked," a ballad that sounds like an Arabic showtune
by Muse (written by Muse’s Matt Bellamy), it's one blue-rinsed
highlight after another. And we mean blue as in profane – this is one
proud gay boy who’s not afraid to tell you what he wants, as we saw on the AMAs last night. "Open your
mouth, open it wide," he teases on the stealthy "Strut." On the
pounding title track he’s a decisive topman with one thing on his mind: "Can you handle what I'm 'bout to do? / 'cause it's about to get rough
in you." Well, bring it on, baby. To quote Nirvana — here we are now,
entertain us.
Is it possible to listen to Rihanna's fourth release Rated Rand not think about the domestic violence incident that transpired earlier this year between her and then-boyfriend Chris Brown? Not really, though you’d be looking for that proverbial needle in the haystack to find a song that point blank addresses the issue. (The closest she comes is “Stupid in Love.”) But, boy, is she angry, which translates to lots of hard rock moves, from Slash’s guest guitar on "Rockstar" to the punk-metal opening riff of "Fire Bomb." Elsewhere, she gets breezy with Jeezy on the island-hip-hopping of “Hard” and stretches out on the mid-tempo Justin Timberlake co-written "Cold Case Love."
MUSIC NEWS:
Seventy-seven-year-old music mogul Clive Davis on the re-launching of Whitney Houston's career, American Idol artist album sales and the music business's rough transition from CD to digital.
Sony has announced plans to launch the creatively-titled Sony Online Service to compete with iTunes. It's expected to sell music, films, games and books. No date is set yet.
Angie Stone, a sistah from the old skool of R&B, releases Unexpected — 12 sexy slow-ish jams that’ll rock your rump vertically or, oh yes, horizontally.
Beyoncé gets cozy on the 2-CD/DVD I Am Yours…An Intimate Performance at Wynn Las Vegas. Her voice is deeper and stronger live, especially on some inspired medleys, including an extended set of songs from a little band named Destiny’s Child. Also released today: a deluxe edition of I Am…Sasha Fierce, which includes the remix of "Video Phone" with Lady Gaga.
The frumpy Scottish church lady Susan Boyle releases her debut in the aftermath of her Britain’s Got Talent buzz. I Dreamed a Dream
includes that star-making song, her pristine version of The Rolling
Stones' "Wild Horses," and more easy listening tracks.
Shakira, Colombia's biggest export after coffee, gets the heart racing faster than caffeine on her latest English-language release, She Wolf, with help from The Neptunes and Wyclef Jean.
Patrick Wolf: "Damaris" From his superb The Bachelor, this sensual, pagan clip teases the sacrilegious undertones from Wolf’s dramatic telling of Saint Paul’s conversion of Dionysius’s wife.
David Gray and Annie Lennox: "Full Steam" Old Wobbly Head and Ms. Eurythmics are lovers on the lam in this gansta-land clip set in an industrial wasteland. Best effect? Lennox’s industrial-strength pipes — still a thing of wonder after all these years.
Charlotte Gainsbourg featuring Beck: "Heaven Can Wait" Filled with incongruous images — a skateboard with burgers for wheels, a man with a stack of pancakes for a head — Gainsbourg and L.A. freak Beck take us on a jaunty stroll through a surreal day in suburbia.
Valley Lodge: "All of My Loving" (video NSFW) And the award for best use of human beings as furniture goes to Valley Lodge, who, as far as we are concerned, one-upped Brüno. We especially like the bed!
Federal judge rules that gay couple denied benefits should receive compensation: "U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt deemed the
denial of healthcare and other benefits to the spouse of federal public
defender Brad Levenson to be a violation of the Constitution's
guarantee of due process and discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation, which is prohibited by California state law."
Mary Cheney and Heather Poe welcome new baby: "Sarah
Lynne Cheney was born Wednesday morning at Sibley Hospital in
Washington, weighing 6 pounds and 14 ounces. She is the seventh
grandchild of the former vice president and his wife, Lynne."
Incoming gay Detroit City Council member Charles Pugh talks of AIDS crisis in city: “There needs to be more money targets at the crisis areas."
David Vitter won't comment on the Louisiana justice who refused to marry an interracial couple because he isn't familiar with Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court case which lifted the ban on interracial marriages.
Anti-gay evangelicals met with protest at Syracuse University: "Pesto, a junior from Westchester County, said he saw the Deferios’
signs earlier in the day. It made him uncomfortable, he said, so he
made his own sign. 'Corduroy skirts are a sin,' it said, referring to
what Michelle Deferio was wearing. 'I was just making a gay joke,' he said. But friends saw him and joined in, standing with him and making signs of their own. Other students came and, by 6:30, there were about 70 people at the scene, holding signs, cheering and challenging the Deferios."
Mall Santas and doctors neckties are to be avoided if you want to escape the flu.
Gay couples blast DOMA in new court filing: "DOMA marks a stark, and unique, departure from the respect and
recognition the federal government has long afforded to State marital
status determinations."
Lutherans upset over gay clergy split to form new denomination: "Leaders of Lutheran CORE said Wednesday that a working group would
immediately begin drafting a constitution and taking other steps to
form the denomination, with hopes to have it off the ground by next
August. 'There are many people within the ELCA who are very
unhappy with what has happened,' said the Rev. Paull Spring, chairman
of Lutheran CORE and a retired ELCA bishop from State College, Pa."
The editors of Modern Tonic present a weekly music update here on Towleroad. The rest of the week, they scan the pop culture landscape for movie, TV, book and Web recommendations in their daily email.
TODAY'S FEATURED NEW RELEASES AND FREE DOWNLOAD:
It’s hard to be Robbie Williams. A gigantic star all over the world, he's ignored in the U.S. (where he currently lives — in Los Angeles — with actress Ayda Field. Sorry, boys). So here comes Reality Killed the Video Star (out digitally today, on CD 11/17), his 8th studio album, and the speculation starts again: will this be Williams' rocketship to American stardom or another one-way trip to Planet Oblivion? Sure, he's got a stateside cult following, but boy band refugee Williams deserves a Justin Timberlake-size audience. The good news? Reality's the best thing Williams has done since his U.S. debut compilation, The Ego Has Landed. Produced by Trevor Horn — the former Buggles main man — Reality, a pun on Horn's "Video Killed the Radio Star," plays to Williams' strengths from start to finish. First single "Bodies" (FREE DOWNLOAD OF FRED FALKE EXTENDED REMIX HERE) layers monk-ish chanting over an Art of Noise robot groove. "Blasphemy" is a theatrical ballad that sounds like Williams' audition for the roadshow of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. And "Starstruck" confronts Robbie's lack of U.S. commercial respect head on. As longtime fans we're used to our fellow citizens' deaf spot, but the reality is we'd like it to change.
Tori Amos used to be a "Cornflake Girl" (to quote a hit title), and sometimes she’s been just a flake —From the Choirgirl Hotel anyone? But as an interpreter of others' songs she’s been damn near peerless. Her take on Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"? Inspired. Covering Eminem on Strange Little Girls? Ballsy. And now the woman who suckled a piglet at her breast in the booklet for Boys for Pele brings us a juicy Christmas morsel called Midwinter Graces. This being Amos, a straight-up holiday album won't do. She mixes obscure traditional tunes like the Victorian "Candle: Coventry Carol" with seasonally-inspired originals such as "A Silent Night with You." It’s a gift from a "Snow Angel," to quote an Amos original, that’ll sound just as delightful long after the holidays have passed.
On her debut The Bridge Melanie Fiona, the Toronto-based child of Guyanese parents, layers Motown-flavored R&B over sharp-edged lyrics that mix the bitter with the sweet in finger-snapping harmony. The results? 12 potential singles as catchy as a Raphael Saadiq retro jam with extra-added hip-hop attitude. First single "Give It to Me Right" anchors the hook from The Zombies' "Time of the Season" to a non-stop plea for slamming sex. "Bang Bang" is even more lascivious, wherein Fiona wants to "introduce ya to my Lucy" to a beat that can only be called shagalicious. And when you treat her bad, you better "Walk On By," a tune that channels Mavis Staples' earthy soul squeals in a tale of hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned. Perhaps that’s Fiona's way of warning you that The Bridge is one that you won’t want to burn.
MUSIC NEWS:
Susan Boyle will perform the song that changed her life ("I Dreamed a Dream") on tonight's "Dancing With the Stars." She is also scheduled to perform live on NBC's "Today" show on November 23, the day her debut album, also titled I Dreamed a Dream, is released.
Britney Spears made her Australian concert debut last Friday, and (surprise!), a whirlwind media frenzy surrounded it.
Aussie media has made a big deal about her partial lip-synching and how
fans have stormed out of the concert because of it. Apparently, Britney
is "extremely upset" over the controversy.
Hot Chip have announced a release date of February 10, 2010 for their next album, One Life Stand.
Swedish Electro-pop trio Miike Snow will be touring the U.S. next spring. Two of the band's members, Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg, have written and produced songs for Britney Spears (winning a Grammy for "Toxic"), Madonna and Kylie Minogue, among others, under the name Bloodshy & Avant.
Green Day's well-reviewed musical, American Idiot, based on their 2004 album, now winding down a successful run at California's Berkeley Repertory Theater, is confirmed to open on Broadway. No date or theater has been announced yet.
A threesome of compilations in ten years is a bit much, but since Britney Spears is high on "3" these days we’ll give her a pass, especially when The Singles Collection includes that hot track and 16 more of Spears’ single releases. (The single CD version is released today; a deluxe box set — pictured — will be released November 23).
If it’s change you want out of Washington, D.C., Obama’s not the only brother who’ll make you say 'Yes We Can.' Rapper Wale's (pr. wah-LAY) debut joint Attention Deficit — on Mark Ronson’s label — finally drops after years of well-regarded "mixtapes."
Snow Patrol's the band mainstream alternative didn't know it was waiting for. Their super-catchy arena anthems ("Hands Open," "Chasing Cars," etc.) are collected on the two-disc best-of Up to Now, as well as lesser known tunes from 1998 up through their 2003 breakthrough "Run."
Mini Viva: "I Wish" From the Xenomania production powerhouse comes the frothy duo of Frankee Connolly and Britt Love. “I Wish” is Euro-pop and proud, with an L.A.-set video that adds extra digital color to the land of Hollywood dreams.
Massive Attack: "United Snakes" A sinister tune from 2006 gets a high-tech new video from Massive Attack. Black-and-white geometric shapes morph into menacing configurations on this creepy, provocative clip with vocals from 3D.
Jamie Cullum: "Don’t Stop the Music" The jazzy Brit makes a sexy swing of this Rihanna track, while his baby grand piano, over-stimulated by Cullum’s “jazz hands,” experiences an explosive climax of its own. From new album The Pursuit, due in February.
Pixie Lott: "Cry Me Out" The latest U.K. thrush advises her ex to cry her out of his system in this gorgeous black-and-white homage to ‘30s Hollywood glamour, complete with an Esther Williams synchronized-swimming segment.
Teen talk: My parents don't know my boyfriend's parents are gay. "My mom is asking to meet
Robby's 'mom and dad.' She has spoken with one of Robby's dads on the
phone but she doesn't know another dad exists. I don't want this to
come between my parents and Robby. Should I just break up with him now
and avoid doing this or lie and tell my mom that his parents don't want
to meet?"
Self-assessment, right of gays to donate blood at issue in Canadian court case: "Kyle Freeman, 36, relied on his own self-assessment that he wasn't
infected with any sexually transmitted diseases when he lied about
having sex with men on a donor-screening questionnaire...Freeman
is suing the agency, claiming he didn't answer the question truthfully
because Canadian Blood Services violated his Charter right to equality
regardless of his sexual orientation when it asked him whether he had
ever had sex with other men, even once, since 1977. The
discovery Freeman had syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease that can
damage the heart, brain and eyes if left untreated, was made only after
Canadian Blood Services screened his donated blood."
15 gay TV characters who never came out of the closet but should have.
Edgar Allen Poe to get funeral he never had: "On Sunday, Poe's funeral will get an elaborate do-over, with two
services expected to draw about 350 people each - the most a former
church next to his grave can hold. Actors portraying Poe's
contemporaries and other long-dead writers and artists will pay their
respects, reading eulogies adapted from their writings about Poe."
Several prominent Twin Cities religious leaders speak out for marriage equality: "Retired Bishop Lowell Erdahl of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America and Rabbi Jared Saks of Temple Israel in Minneapolis are among
those speaking at a Capitol news conference."
Romanian-born German novelist Herta Müller wins Nobel Prize for Literature: "Announcing the award in Stockholm, the Swedish Academy described Ms.
Müller, 'who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of
prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed.' Her award comes on
the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism in Europe."
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