WILL 2020 BE A ROYAL RUMBLE? Between the scenes on The Daily Show “if you don't believe someone is fit to be president, they don't become fit because they beat you. They're unfit.” #BetweenTheScenes
UNBIELEBABLE Justin Bieber just launched his own fashion line says I-D.
Called Drew House, it takes its name from Justin Drew Bieber's middle name, dropped yesterday, but for fans of both streetwear and Biebs, the hype has been building for quite some time. On Christmas Day Justin posted an Instagram pic of himself wearing slippers featuring Drew House's Nirvana-inspired smiley face logo and surrounded by some seriously bedazzled Drew House custom jewelry. His wife, Hailey, also lent a bit of publicity to the label, sharing a photo of her new husband's slippered feet on her Instagram on the same day.
HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT Hornet reports that the Dragon Dads are an online Community Offering Support to Fathers of LGBTQ Kids.
Created by Jake Abhau after his son came out, Dragon Dads is a secret (meaning unsearchable) Facebook Group and community that allows dads of LGBTQ children to ask questions, share advice and learn from each other on how to best support their kids.Originally created by and for men following the Mormon faith, it has now expanded to over 110 members that joke that “it's okay to be a beer drinking, football loving, Jeep driving dad who loves their gay kid.”
These dads have created a community around loving their LGBTQ children “because you shouldn't feel alone because of the way that you want to love your kid.”
THERAPY YOU CAN USESocial media is stirring up standoffs, spreading false information and creating conspiracies. Neal Brennan slides in to break down why society could benefit from applying common-sense gun control strategies to smartphone and internet use.
THE DAILY KENWORTHY DISPATCH
POETIC JUSTICE I've always found it poetic that gay Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughe's birthday kicked off the month honoring the decedents of slaves in America.
Folks, I'm telling you,
— Langston Hughes (@langston_poems) February 1, 2019
birthing is hard
and dying is mean-
so get yourself
a little loving
in between.
PRINTED MATTER Gay mags love the Super-Bowl puns.
WILL DUNE FINALLY BE DONE RIGHT? Director Denis Villeneuve is doing an ace job drawing out the casting announcements on his Dune movies — My New Plaid Pants has been unpacking reveals and teasing its readers. Today's piece — Javier Bardem! He's going to play:
“… Stilgar, a leader in the Fremen tribe who takes Chalamet's Paul under his wing after his family is betrayed and the survivors are on the run in the wastelands of Arrakis. Stilgar is a major character in the novel, one who helps shape Paul into a leader and acts as his general as they take the fight directly to their enemies.”
ICYMI Spider-Ham Mulaney talked to Jimmy Fallon about his super secretive and profanity-laced outtakes while voicing Spider-Ham on The Tonight Show.
THE KENWORTHY DISPATCH Late Edition.
my life is now defined as pre & post this photo https://t.co/SJmFr329TQ
— Gus Kenworthy (@guskenworthy) February 1, 2019
AIN'T IT HARD KEEPING IT SO HARDCORE A Star Is Born fans will be delighted to know that Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper are officially confirmed to perform their song “Shallow” at the 2019 Oscars!
The song is one of five nominated for Best Original Song.It was previously rumored that only “Shallow” and Black Panther‘s “All the Stars” would be performed during the show, but after much criticism online, the producers have invited all of the nominees to perform. There are more rumors swirling that each song will only be getting 90 seconds and Gaga‘s fans are already tweeting to the Academy that they better allow all 216 seconds of the song!
Cooper. Gaga. “Shallow.” #Oscars
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) February 1, 2019
A STAR IS GONEBrian Butterick, aka Hattie Hathaway, one of New York City's most illustrious drag queens and a staple in the city's downtown demimonde as a performer, poet, and club runner, has died. He was sixty-two years old.
Art Forum reports that in addition to shaping the East Village's queer nightlife as a producer and performer at venues such as the Mudd Club and Mother, Butterick was an early collaborator with and lover of artist David Wojnarowicz. He was also a member of Wojnarowicz's New Wave band, 3 Teens Kill 4 (Butterick played the drum machine). In the late 1970s, Butterick posed for several of the artist's iconic “Arthur Rimbaud in New York” photographs.
Around that same time, Butterick got a job doing security at the influential queer cabaret and nightclub Pyramid, eventually becoming its creative director. He also coauthored a history of the club titled Secrets of the Great Pyramid: The Pyramid Cocktail Lounge as Cultural Laboratory in 2015. It was there, in the early 1990s, that Butterick developed his Hattie Hathaway alter ego, named for his grandmother and Nancy Kulp's Miss Jane Hathaway character on the CBS sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies.
In the mid-'90s, Butterick became a coproducer of Jackie 60, a weekly party at Mother, a nightclub in Manhattan's Meatpacking District. He also coproduced—with Mother's Chi Chi Valenti and Johnny Dynell—and performed at “Night of 1,000 Stevies,” the enduring annual festival where partygoers celebrate and dress as Stevie Nicks. With Lady Bunny, Butterick cofounded the outdoor drag extravaganza Wigstock. He also served on the board of Howl Arts, a nonprofit focused on preserving and maintaining the underground culture of the East Village.
“There was such a beautiful cross section of people [at Mother],” Butterick told Paper magazine in 2016. “And don't forget the '90s is when everything started to get compartmentalized—‘this is a gay club, black club, tranny cub, goth club, club for people with short hair, long hair.' We never did that at Jackie. It was very old school that way.”
JOBS! Employers added 304,000 jobs in January, which the Wall Street Journal says was more than expected. The unemployment rate rose to 4.0% and average hourly wages for private-sector workers grew 3.2% from a year earlier, continuing their steady rise.
NEW BOOK SAYS NOT DATING ACTORS IMPROVES LIFE QUALITY Gisele Bundchen tells DListed that she split from Leonardo DiCaprio when she got sober .The ring leader of the “Let's bring Kendall Jenner down a few pegs” clique, Gisele Bundchen, has a book to hawk. Called Lessons: My Path to a Meaningful Life, I was surprised to learn that the book wasn't just a steno pad where she wrote “Make millions, wear couture, and sleep with athletes – all meaningful!” Instead, Gisele's path to a meaningful life was fraught with panic attacks, claustrophobia, and even considering a jump off her mom's high-rise balcony. Luckily, she didn't do that and quit the sauce before splitting from Leonardo DiCaprio.”
“No longer numbing myself with smoking, drinking and too much work, I was becoming more and more aware of things that I'd chosen not to look at. Was I alone in wanting to do some serious soul-searching while he stayed the same? In the end, unfortunately, the answer was yes.”
TASK FORCE DEMANDS DELTA APOLOGIZE TO DEAF COMMUNITY You may have seen in USA Today/Detroit Free Press, ThinkProgress, and on NBC News or elsewhere, a story about two deaf individuals that Delta Airlines refused to board after they attempted to ask if they could sit together. A Delta airline worker called the police. You may be familiar with the story, but you might not know the two deaf individuals were traveling because they were attendees of the National LGBTQ Task Force‘s Creating Change conference. The Task Force has released a statement demanding Delta's rectify the situation immediately:“No one should have to fear that Delta will call the police on them for simply being deaf, blind, or disabled. Delta should take immediate steps to prevent future incidents from occurring. We expect more from Delta. The airline must immediately apologize to Socorro Garcia and Melissa Elmira Yingst, and reimburse them for the additional travel costs they had to incur, and provide new strong protections and guidelines for working with deaf, blind, and disabled passengers. The National LGBTQ Task Force's Creating Change Conference has been one of the most welcoming and accessible conferences in the country for over 30 years. This year's 31st Creating Change Conference in Detroit closed with a brunch on Sunday honoring 50 years of LGBTQ activism since the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969. What should've been a day of celebration and reflection became a day of confusion, fear, and anger for two of our participants.
This type of discrimination happens all too often to people who travel while Black or Brown, deaf, queer, and/or transgender. This incident underscores the need for education, training, and policies to protect deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, and disabled people from discrimination and violence. Policy changes and education are needed for all airline, airport, and airport security.
It deeply pains us that Socorro Garcia and Melissa Elmira Yingst ended the conference with this unacceptable incident. The National LGBTQ Task Force will always work to do better. We encourage Delta to work harder on its own journey towards disability justice.”
ABOVE: The “infamous” Deaf airport discrimination experience happened to us tonight with Delta Air Lines, Delta airlines at DTW. No one in our community is immune to this kind of oppression. Video Description – Melissa and Socorro are both wearing green shirts and are seated in front of a blue wall with lights.
BEY FOR LIFE Beyonce will give away “free tickets for life” if her fans try to go vegan says Celebitchy. “Beyonce is either entirely vegan or mostly vegan. With her money, she has private chefs and food delivery services which guarantee that she can eat well, eat healthy, eat “clean,” and eat almost entirely vegan. She's been doing that for years now, although I don't remember hearing her talk about it for a while. She started another conversation about veganism this week when she used the offered the Beyhive a chance to win free Beyonce tickets for life… if they gave veganism a go. Who do you love more, Beyonce or BACON?”
IT'S HAPPY HOUR SOMEWHERE RIGHT? The virtual pub is open.
THINKING OF JUSSIE #JusticeFor Jussie
