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Contents
September 3, 2020
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Volume 27 Issue 16
PORTRAIT OF DORIAN
The acclaimed singer-songwriter Dorian Wood creates a soundtrack for resistance and action with two new albums. By André Hereford
MY VINTAGE PORN SUMMER
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Charting an odyssey of classic gay erotica, from Arthur J. Bressan, Jr.’s Passing Strangers to Wakefield Poole’s Boys in the Sand. By André Hereford
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ANALOG GLOW
Thirty-five years and eighteen albums in, Erasure remains a comforting pop presence. By Sean Maunier
THE HELEN HAYES AWARDS p.7 NELLIE’S HEROES LUNCHES p.11 #STAYFRESHATHOME VIDEOS p.17 ANTIBOY p.21 DAUGHTER DENIED p.25 HOT AIR p.26 BUSINESS FOR BIDEN p.28 FOCUS ON THE SANITIZER p.30 POTENTIAL TRAGEDY p.32 JUSTICE BLOWS p.36 LOVE, BECKY p.37 COURTING CONTROVERSY p.39 GALLERY: VIAN BORCHERT p.48 FILM: #UNFIT p.50 RETROSCENE: THE LAST NIGHT AT TRACKS p.55 RETROSCENE: A NIGHT AT MR. P’S p.56 LAST WORD p.57
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Washington, D.C.’s Best LGBTQ Magazine for 26 Years Editorial Editor-in-Chief Randy Shulman Art Director Todd Franson Online Editor at metroweekly.com Rhuaridh Marr Senior Editor John Riley Contributing Editors André Hereford, Doug Rule Senior Photographers Ward Morrison, Julian Vankim Contributing Illustrators David Amoroso, Scott G. Brooks Contributing Writers Sean Maunier, Kate Wingfield Webmaster David Uy Production Assistant Julian Vankim Sales & Marketing Publisher Randy Shulman National Advertising Representative Rivendell Media Co. 212-242-6863 Distribution Manager Dennis Havrilla Patron Saint Casey Donovan Cover Image Boys In The Sand by Wakefield Poole During the pandemic please send all mail to: Metro Weekly PO Box 11559 - Washington, D.C. 20008 • 202-638-6830 All material appearing in Metro Weekly is protected by federal copyright law and may not be reproduced in whole or part without the permission of the publishers. Metro Weekly assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials submitted for publication. All such submissions are subject to editing and will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Metro Weekly is supported by many fine advertisers, but we cannot accept responsibility for claims made by advertisers, nor can we accept responsibility for materials provided by advertisers or their agents. Publication of the name or photograph of any person or organization in articles or advertising in Metro Weekly is not to be construed as any indication of the sexual orientation of such person or organization.
© 2020 Jansi LLC.
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Spotlight
Virtually Rewarding
A multi-night virtual series, the 2020 Helen Hayes Awards makes a powerful move to become more gender-inclusive. By Doug Rule
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'VE BEEN ON SO MANY ZOOM CALLS with people from the community, and it's been such a joy to see all these wonderful theatermakers,” says theatreWashington’s Amy Austin. “It's a tremendous reminder of how fortunate we are to have people who work in this field and work at it so passionately, to tell stories that we can all grow and learn from.” Every year, the organization Austin leads shines a spotlight on the local theater commu-
nity through its presentation of the Helen Hayes Awards. With last spring’s traditional spring evening gala at the Anthem postponed, the 36th annual event was reconceived as a multi-night virtual affair. “There are real reasons to celebrate and honor and recognize this incredible group,” Austin says. “So the decision was to move forward and to lean into the virtual space and not try to recreate what we used to have.” Over the next week, performers and designers SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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are the focus of a series of broadcasts honoring their work in 2019 as nominated by a group of 40 judges. The awards will culminate in a large virtual ceremony, set for Friday, Sept. 25, and are expected to draw 2,000 virtual participants. In addition to showcasing the local theater community, the ceremony will also present awards to the theaters and theater troupes nominated in the various outstanding production and ensemble categories, before ending with a virtual dance party. Beyond the changes necessitated by the pandemic, the 2020 awards further distinguish themselves as the first to recognize local acting professionals in a gender-inclusive way. “That’s a really important change that was too long in coming,” says Austin. “We eliminated the language of Outstanding Actor and Actress in order to say Outstanding Performer.... We’re still nominating the same number of people and giving out two awards [per category], so that the numbers of people who are recognized as recipients will remain the same. “The thing that people may not understand about the change,” she continues, “is that what we were doing before was forcing [trans and non-binary] people to misgender themselves in order to be eligible for a Helen Hayes Award.” In a report issued last month announcing the change, theatreWashington’s advisory Ajudication Committee wrote, “The traditional practice of separating nominees into male and female categories alienates and erases nonbinary artists, and forces them to conform to a system in which they do not see themselves represented. “To help facilitate these changes, the Committee is also working to implement annual anti-bias training for [nominating] judges, addressing gender-inclusive awards and adjudication, education about non-Western theatrical
styles, and broader anti-oppressive practices and policies.” The work will be complemented by additional efforts inspired by this summer’s sustained activism for racial justice and calls for a more equitable society and community. “It's a very difficult time in so many ways,” Austin says. “Not only the inability to gather, which means the inability to do live performance and theater, but also working towards an anti-racist community, and all of the promise of when we come back, having it be a better place to come back to. theatreWashington is really actively trying to work on both of those things — the community come together to talk about the best practices in terms of making sure that organizations make it to next year, as well as learning how to listen and support each other in this critical time when Black Lives Matter, [and when] there’s time and energy to think and to learn about how we can make better choices.” The series of virtual events leading up to the Sept. 25 ceremony was partly designed to draw renewed attention to the many theater artists still struggling with no work or income, and no clear sign of when that situation will change — all as bills mount and new concerns develop. Through the Taking Care Fund, theatreWashington has offered artists in need $500 in microgrants as well as up to $5,000 in emergency medical support. To date, over 900 people have contributed to the fund, with most donations under $100, “so it’s really been a community effort,” Austin says. “We know we will return,” she says. “In the meantime, we need attention and support for artists so that they are still here to return to. I just want to remind people of how necessary performance and theater and art is, [and] actively supporting that while we're in this time when the work is suppressed.”
The 2020 Helen Hayes Awards are being presented in a series of individual award events held on Zoom and posted to YouTube — with upcoming dates Friday, Sept. 4, Tuesday, Sept. 8, Wednesday, Sept. 9, and Friday, Sept. 11 — before culminating in a virtual ceremony on Friday, Sept. 25, at 7 p.m. Free. Follow @theatrewash on Twitter, or visit www.theatrewashington.org for more details and to register. 8
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SARAH ENTICKNAP
Spotlight
IZAAK TODD
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Measure for Measure
COTTISH DIRECTOR PAUL Ireland helms a contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s drama set in modernday Melbourne, Australia, and starring Hugo Weaving as an aging crime boss who does things his way. Co-written with Damian Hill, Ireland’s Measure for Measure centers on the unlikely love affair between Jaiwara (played by Megan Smart), a Muslim university student from an immigrant family, and Claudio (Harrison Gilbertson), a
local musician from a tough upbringing. The lovers’ paths cross after a tragedy occurs in the public housing complex, rife with crime, drugs, and racial tension, where they both live. Daniel Henshall, Mark Leonard Winter, and Doris Younane costar in this tale of love, power, justice, loyalty, and cultural differences. Available as video-ondemand and at digital platforms on Friday, Sept. 4. Visit www.samuelgoldwynfilms. com/measure-for-measure. —Doug Rule SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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Spotlight
Episode 2
Smith
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Gwon
The Signature Show
IGNATURE CONTINUES ITS REGUlar digital series presenting interviews with, performances by, and tributes to artists who have played a part in the company’s many successful productions over the years. The third episode of The Signature Show puts the spotlight on acclaimed actors Bobby Smith (La Cage aux Folles) and Felicia Curry (The Scottsboro Boys), two of the brightest stars in Signature Theatre’s orbit, along with the double-threat actor/musician powerhouse Mark G. Meadows (Jelly’s Last
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Jam) and several up-and-coming talents — actors Christian Douglas (Gun & Powder) and Nkrumah Gatling (Grand Hotel), and composer Adam Gwon (Cake Off). Also featured: the students of Signature’s Stage One musical theater program. The series is produced by Matthew Gardiner, the company’s associate artistic director who got his start with the company nearly two decades ago as an actor fresh out of college. Episode 3, released Aug. 26, is currently available at https://www. sigtheatre.org/the-signature-show. —DR
PHOTOS COURTESY OF NELLIE’S
Spotlight
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Nellie’s Heroes Lunches
WOULD HAVE NEVER THOUGHT TO take our restaurant and deliver meals out to people,” says Doug Schantz, the owner of Nellie’s Sports Bar. Yet that’s exactly what he’s been doing on a regular basis since April: preparing and delivering meals to front-line workers at key institutions around town. And once word got out about the ongoing nature of the restaurant’s meal donations, Schantz says “people started saying, ‘Hey, I want to become a sponsor.’” Now they can do just that through the recently formalized program, Nellie’s Heroes Lunches. A sponsor can sign up to help deliver meals to “heroes in the community that [they] want to recognize,” or they can support more meals for essential workers at key institutions Nellie’s has already honored, including MedStar Washington Hospital Center and N Street Village. Sponsorships start at $200, which covers expenses for a minimum of 20 lunches per delivery, and can come from
either an individual or a group of individuals splitting the cost — such as the JTT Just The Tip Kickball Team, which recently sponsored meals for workers at the Unique Rehabilitation and Health Center. So far, Schantz has signed up 10 sponsorships, with more planning to follow suit, including additional LGBTQ sports leaques. He sees the program as a natural corollary to the kind of in-person fundraisers Nellie’s hosted before COVID (and will do so again afterwards). Yet Schantz doesn’t see the Heroes program ending anytime soon — or really ever. “I’ll continue doing it when we’re past COVID,” he says. “Why not? It’s a really neat program, and is one of the good things coming out of this crazy world that we’re living in right now.” To inquire or sign up for a sponsorship, contact info@nelliesportsbar.com. Nellie’s is at 900 U St. NW. Call 202-332-6355 or visit www. nelliessportsbar.com. —DR SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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Spotlight
PHOTOS COURTESY OF PASSIONFISH
Bahian Shellfish “Moqueca” Stew
Churros & Chocolate
Beef Empanadas
Ceiba Pop-Up at PassionFish Reston
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.C.’S DINING SCENE STARTED GARnering serious national acclaim roughly two decades ago, assisted in no small measure by Jeff Tunks and the chef/restaurateur’s work at several seafood-celebrating downtown hotspots, from Ceiba to TenPenh to DC Coast, the former splashy K Street venture that launched his Passion Food Hospitality. These days, you have to head out to the suburbs for the best catch from the restaurant group — especially so, given that District Commons and Burger Tap & Shake, its two side-by-side eateries in Foggy Bottom, remain closed during the pandemic “until further notice.” Certainly seafood is the star of Executive Chef Chris Clime’s menu at the two locations of PassionFish, including the newer spot in Bethesda. But this weekend, fans of Tunks and Ceiba should head to the original PassionFish location in Reston to relive the glory days of the acclaimed pan-Latin restaurant that stood for 11 years at 14th and G, in the corner space now occupied by Ocean Prime. A Ceiba pop-up will be offered in PassionFish’s private dining room. For $59 a person, diners can enjoy a three-course meal of 12
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Ceiba favorites, served family style, beginning with a first course of Beef Empanadas with spicy romesco dipping sauce, a Sampling of Ceviche featuring Yucatan shrimp ceviche “cocktail” and classic Peruvian with cancha corn, and Grilled Octopus Salad with queso fresco and black olive aioli, to be followed by entrées of Grilled Ribeye Churrasco with chimichurri and cebolla frita and Bahian Shellfish “Moqueca” Stew with Brazilian Lobster, Prawns, and Mussels and served with coconut rice and rum-glazed maduro plantains, and ending with Tres Leches cake and Churros & Chocolate for dessert. Ceiba’s Signature Seasoned Flour Tortilla Crisps with Sikil P’ak Mayan pumpkin seed dip will be furnished at the outset, while bags of Ceiba Caramel Corn will be everyone’s parting gift. Special cocktails are also expected. Available Wednesday, Sept. 9, through Sunday, Sept. 12, from 6 to 9 p.m. Seating is limited especially given “safely socially distanced tables.” Located at 11960 Democracy Drive in Reston. Reservations are required and accepted by phone only. Call 703-230-3474 or visit www. passionfishreston.com. —DR
Spotlight
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Loudon Wainwright III
HE CITY WINERY CHAIN OF CONcert venues has partnered with a new livestream platform aiming to improve the pandemic-birthed experience to make it a more appealing and viable way to experience live music for venues and artists as well as for fans. Called Mandolin, the platform was built with various specialized features to help connect musicians with fans, from watch parties to virtual meet-and-greet experiences, in addition to what is billed as “industry-leading concert-quality audio” and full HD video. Dubbed CWTV, this City Winery exclusive streaming series features shows streaming next weekend from Shawn Colvin, Carrie Newcomer, and the Tim O’Brien Band, but this weekend’s 14
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chief attraction is a “Birthday Boy” livestream in which Loudon Wainwright III will celebrate his 74th birthday by singing “songs of Death and Decay.” Naturally, the famed singer-songwriter, father of Rufus and Martha, has plenty of so-called “Double D” songs to choose from in his repertoire, and among these he’s expected to play are “Heaven,” “My Meds,” “Dead Skunk,” and “Old & Grey & Only in the Way.” Performing from his “lockdown location” on eastern Long Island, Wainwright will also premiere “A Perfect Day,” a new song from his forthcoming album I’d Rather Lead A Band, due in October. Saturday, Sept. 5, at 7 p.m. A link to the livestream costs $12. Visit www.citywinery. com/washingtondc. —DR
GONZO BOJORQUEZ
Spotlight
Portrait of Dorian
The acclaimed singer-songwriter Dorian Wood creates a soundtrack for resistance and action with two new albums. By André Hereford
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HE POWER OF MUSIC TO BRING PEOple together applies quite literally to musicians, who, at the moment, are largely deprived of live venues to reach audiences, to earn their living, and to perform and vibe with friends. Singer-songwriter Dorian Wood, based in Los Angeles, had been adapting to this new normal with a measure of sadness and resignation, when “I felt this push all of a sudden,” the artist recalls. “And this opportunity arose at the same time to do a residency at this space called Human Resources in L.A.” A Latinx LGBTQ+ activist who identifies as non-binary, Wood seized on that opportunity not only to record new music, but to share that creative space with their close friend and longtime collaborator, guitarist Michael Corwin. “We were each very mindful of our own selfcare,” Wood says. “And this was a risk, asking my friend, ‘Would you feel comfortable if we gathered in a space, just you and I, a completely newly sterilized space, in which we would prac-
tice safe distancing and be completely masked the entire time, and recorded this music?’ And when he said yes, I was delighted.” The resulting album, ARDOR, recorded in June and slated for release September 4, “was something that I was feeling at the beginning of this confinement,” says Wood. A tapestry weaving the artist’s original songs with reimagined covers of Prince’s “7” and Chavela Vargas’ “Macorina,” among others, the music creates a rich emotional soundscape from just Wood’s ethereal voice and Corwin’s adept accompaniment. The two recorded the ten tracks in a day, “and most of them are single takes because there is just this beautiful, loving chemistry between us, where we are able to just really fall into the moment. And, you know, I follow him, he follows me. And the album is very much a document of that.” Wood will present the album, their fifth fulllength, with a livestreaming concert from the Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles on SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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GONZO BOJORQUEZ
Sunday, September 6. “It's different from the type of streaming performances I've been giving off and on during the pandemic, where they've just been from my living room,” says the performer. Although there won’t be an audience in the room, “the idea is to try to replicate as best as we can in these times of confinement an actual live performance. And the ICA is a really wonderful, brightly acoustic space, and they've been very generous in lending us their space for this performance.” Livestreaming shows pose a unique challenge, yet, as Wood sees it, the format is “really just one of the many ways that I feel artists are looking to survive this, and improvise and troubleshoot the best way that we can continue having careers in a time when everything has come to a halt.” Another way, for Wood, has been to double down on their purpose in creating music. “We each have, I feel, a role in what's happening today. And I know one of the roles that I have is being an artist, being a musician, an interpreter of music. So what do I do with this?” In addition to ARDOR, Wood created companion album REACTOR, due out later this fall, a solo endeavor they describe as “almost strictly electronic.” “[REACTOR is] more of a vivid reflection of the times that we're living in, in more of a retaliatory way,” says Wood. “Whereas ARDOR, I
wanted to be the first of the two albums because it is really more the focus that we have on reminiscing on times prior to all of this. And I feel the importance of feeding our souls with music that could be familiar to some, but also just a tone that I wanted to convey that is more calming and nourishing, while not negating the times that we are currently experiencing. REACTOR is what follows that. It is really more of a plea to take action and to resist.” Wood calls both albums “love letters to activists, and to all of us doing what we can to survive in today’s times.” “Everything from COVID to Fascism is presenting a new nightmare every single day, and it manifests itself in a different way each week,” says Wood. “I wanted to put out this work that was created in this moment and present in this moment, knowing that come November, the world is going to be vastly different, is what my instinct tells me. And I am hoping that we are all, at that point, continuing to practice self-care, to take care of each other, to acknowledge and strive for what is the right of everyone to live and breathe vividly and arduously, as is our right. “That, unfortunately, is going to involve a fight that we perhaps don't know that we have in us yet, but we're going to have to have it. So I'm preparing music that is going to put us in the mindset of preparing for battle. That's how I see it.”
ARDOR is digitally available on all major platforms. Visit www.dorianwood.com. 16
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Spotlight
Churro Nomi
#stayFRESHatHOME Videos
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ARLIER THIS SUMMER, SAN Francisco’s Fresh Meat Productions, billed as the nation’s largest transgender arts organization and run by acclaimed choreographer Sean Dorsey, launched an online series of short LGBTQ-led video exercises offering loosely defined guidance intended to help make the best of sheltering in place at home alone. The videos posted so far in this #stayFRESHatHOME series have been as quirky and eccentric as you might imagine, right from the start, with the “Seated Dance Class with Churro Nomi.” The drag alias of Fresh Meat’s Eric Garcia, Nomi showcased his five-minute work of seated movement developed “in the stylings of Bob Fosse” — chiefly, the famed choreographer’s jazz hands and rolling shoulders, and none of his sideways shuffling or other elaborate below-the-waist movement involving the hips, legs, and knees. From a seat in what is presumably his living room, Nomi also gesticulates with his hands, sweeps the air with his arms, and even does the Egyptian-styled head slide. It would be a sight for sore and bored eyes (if
not body) even if he didn’t do it all while wearing a gaudy red-sequined dress and a long wig made of carrot-colored yarn, or appeared in the visage of a bearded lady, with an exaggerated degree of facepaint and eyeliner acting as a kind of counterbalance to his naturally thick scruff. Before launching into the first of two rounds of his routine, Nomi stops to invite viewers to join him in donning what he calls quick drag: “If you have a hat, a jacket, stilettos, a wig and makeup lying around, pause this video and get yourself dolled up.” Other videos posted in the series include Neve Mazique singing the Unitarian Universalist hymn “Where You Go, Baby”; a 13-minute stretching and core workout session with Will Woodward, a member of Sean Dorsey Dance as well as San Francisco’s burlesque group Baloney; and Self-Compassion Guided Meditation with Fresh “Lev” White, a self-described self-love and self-compassion meditation coach. All videos are available for streaming on Vimeo. Free, but donations are welcome to support the series and the featured artists. Visit www.freshmeatproductions.org. —DR SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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PHOTO COURTESY OF NMWA
Spotlight
The Tea: Tamika Love Jones MakeHER Summit
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EPTEMBER GETS OFF TO A BANG AT the National Museum of Women in the Arts, as the museum launches a new, free online series focused on women musicians. This series kicks off this Friday, Sept. 4, at noon, with a one-hour session featuring Tamika Love Jones, who will both perform as well as sit for a short interview, conducted over a cup of tea, discussing her creative process. A versatile vocalist, actress, and educator in D.C., Jones will perform selections from three previously released albums, incorporating soul, hip-hop, jazz, funk, and blues, that best showcase her dramatic stage presence, acrobatic vocals, and dexterity moving from one genre to another. In the months to follow, Tashera, Heidi Martin, and VeVe Marley will get the spotlight through The Tea, a series from the museum’s Women, Arts, and Social Change initiative. A week after The Tea debuts, the Women, Arts, and Social Change initiative will host the third annual MakeHER Summit to celebrate and support creative women entrepreneurs in 18
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the culinary industry. Offerings at this two-day event in mid-September include “Fresh Talk: Culinary Justice,” a virtual conversation about gender inequity featuring Angel Gregorio of the Spice Suite spice bar and business incubator, Celeste Beatty of the Harlem Brewing Company, the first Black woman brewery owner in America, professional chef and culinary consultant Jenny Dorsey, and historian Ashley Rose Young of the Smithsonian’s American Food History Project, on Sunday, Sept. 13, at 4:30 p.m.; and a diverse workshop series offering practical tips and resource sharing for those in the culinary arts and creative economy, with sessions led by speakers including Riche Holmes Grant, host of The Riche Life and founder of BambiniWare, Layla Nielsen, a marketing executive and expert in the culture and technology sectors, and members of the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts, all taking place Monday, Sept. 14, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. All events are free with no reservations required. Visit www. nmwa.org/livestream. —DR
JEROME LOBATO
Spotlight
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Yelle
HEN THEY FIRST EMERGED ON the international scene roughly a dozen years ago, Yelle was touted as France’s answer to Robyn on account of having a similar sound and style. It was a superficial comparison to be sure, but it did help the group attract new fans, especially dance music enthusiasts who don’t speak French or regularly listen to any music with non-English lyrics. It almost doesn’t matter what Julie “Yelle” Budet is actually saying in French, she sings in such a generally cheerful and upbeat manner, all while accompanied by the standard uptempo and buoyant synth-pop sonics of bandmate JeanFrançois “GrandMarnier” Perrier. Together, the duo makes playful, party pop — what the group has officially called “primary color disco” — that easily transcends language. That appears to be as true now as ever, six years after the last full-length album from the group. Dropping this Friday, Sept. 4, the new 10-track L’Ère du Verseau, or “Age of Aquarius,” includes the latest single “Karaté,” a propulsive
and hectic dance jam with the simple aim of “invading your brain cells and your body and soul to liberate the karateka dancer inside you,” reads a press release. The set also includes “Je T’aime Encore” (“I Still Love You”), a piano ballad with a characteristic dance flair, courtesy of a brooding bass line and syncopated beat, all to help give off a feeling of bittersweet love — specifically, the artists’ relationship with their native country. “We’re French, and sometimes we’re more understood by American people, Swedish people, or Spanish people,” Budet is quoted as saying. “They feel what we say and the energy that’s in our music, while France is a lot about overthinking, analyzing, and trying to put you into a box.” With a tour throughout Europe on the books for this fall, Yelle promises a North American tour “to come in January 2021.” Such a guaranteed good party can’t come soon enough, although January might be still too soon given the ongoing state of affairs over here. Visit www.yelle.fr. —DR SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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CANDICE GHAI
Spotlight
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ANTIBOY
AYBE IT’S BEST I FADE AWAY,” Harry Hains sings in “Good Enough,” a gothic, glitchy electro-pop song and lover’s lament released earlier this summer under the actor’s musical alias ANTIBOY. The line is especially chilling given that Hains died earlier this year from an apparent drug overdose. Known for his episodic roles in TV shows including FX’s American Horror Story: Hotel, Netflix’s The OA, and Amazon’s Sneaky Pete, as well as the indie films I, Matter and Mirrors, the 27-year-old was immersed in creating new music and material at the time of his death, all of it for the “genderless transhuman being” named ANTIBOY that is said to represent Hains’ “true artistic being.” His family, led by brother, producer Sam Hains, and mother, TV actress Jane Badler, is working to honor his digital creations by
releasing them to the public. Last month, they released ANTIBOY’s sludgy, skittering reinterpretation of the Nancy Sinatra classic “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” as well as a companion video billed as one “that transports viewers into a video game utopia of Harry’s vision for the future free on constructs where art, music, and gaming converge.” The project will culminate later this year with the release of A Glitch in Paradise, a visual music album described as exploring “the virtual world of ANTIBOY as he relives his mistakes in order to try to correct them and find happiness. But ANTIBOY experiences glitches and gets stuck in an endless loop of heartache, inspired by Harry’s relationship with then-partner Mike.” Follow @theantiboy on Instagram, @antib0y on Facebook, and @antiboyvevo on YouTube. —DR SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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JIMMY FONTAINE
Spotlight
Illiterate Light Recorded Live at DC9
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WANNA LEAVE AMERICA, BUT I DON’T know where to go,” Jeff Gorman sings in a frenetic rock banger from Illiterate Light, the Virginia-based duo of Gorman and Jake Cochran. Last month, the band released a video of their performance of the song at its sold-out show at DC9 earlier this year. A partnership with the voter registration organization HeadCount, the release is the latest in the band’s monthly “In The Moment” series, which features a different noteworthy live performance of a fan-favorite song recorded while on tour. Most of the previous videos in the series were recorded from the Golden Pony in Harrisonburg, Virginia, home of James Madison University as well as birthplace of the band, whose members are JMU alumni. The “In The Moment” series will eventually serve as a springboard to a full-length live album. While it was initiated prior to the pandemic, it now exists as a kind of homage to
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concerts in a time when that continues to be a no-go proposition. Watching their recorded concert footage does give credence to the praise music writers, from NPR to the Boston Globe to Billboard, have heaped on the band’s “striking” live show, during which Gorman not only sings and plays electric guitar but also plays the “foot bass,” a device of his devising that adds bass lines through the use of a foot pedal. And all the while, Cochran plays the drums from a standing position next to Gorman. That unusual approach not only makes them stand out, the Washington Post calls it “integral to the dynamic and psychedelic indie-rock sound,” helping the duo rock with the kind of force more typical of a four- and five-piece act, including two clear influences, My Morning Jacket and Wilco. (The band’s name actually derives from a lyric in Wilco’s song “Theologians.”) Follow @IlliterateLight across social media or visit www.illiteratelight.com. —DR
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LAMBDA LEGAL
theFeed
Simone Mize-Gregg, with her parents Derek Mize and Jonathan Gregg
Daughter Denied
Court rules that State Department must recognize gay couple’s daughter as U.S. citizen. By John Riley
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FEDERAL COURT IN GEORGIA HAS ordered the Trump administration to recognize the U.S. citizenship of a gay couple’s two-year-old daughter and issue her a U.S. passport that she was previously denied. U.S. District Judge Michael L. Brown, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, ruled that the U.S. State Department violated the federal Immigration and Nationality Act when it denied Simone Mize-Gregg, a child born via surrogacy in England, a passport because of its refusal to recognize the marriage of her two fathers, Derek Mize and Jonathan Gregg, as legally valid.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, children of married U.S. citizens who are born abroad are supposed to be considered U.S. citizens from birth, as long as one of their parents has lived in the U.S. at some point. But the State Department has been routinely refusing to recognize the marriages of samesex couples, often subjecting them to invasive questioning about how their children were conceived and their parentage, and treating their children as “born out of wedlock.” As such, the children are treated as immigrants and must meet additional, more stringent criteria before having their citizenship SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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theFeed recognized. But Brown, in his opinion, rejected the government’s premise that the Mize-Gregg family has no legal standing due to Simone’s having been naturalized, writing that her naturalization “does not erase Plaintiffs’ alleged stigmatic injury.” “We are so relieved that the court has recognized our daughter, Simone, as the U.S. citizen she has been since the day she was born, Derek Mize said in a statement on behalf of his family. “When we brought Simone into this world, as married, same-sex parents, we never anticipated our own government would disrespect our family and refuse to recognize our daughter as a U.S. citizen. “As a result of the State Department’s discriminatory actions, we have undertaken a long journey to have our daughter recognized as a U.S. citizen,” he added. “But today, that journey is complete, and we are overcome with gratitude, for our lawyers and for the Court, for recognizing us as a family that is simply trying to give our daughter the best possible start, which all children deserve.” Lawyers for the Mize-Gregg family, with Lambda Legal and Immigration Equality, celebrated the ruling as a “resounding victory for LGBTQ families.” “The court has declared baby Simone, the marital child of Derek and Jonny, to be a U.S. citizen since birth and ordered the State Department to issue her a U.S. passport. We are very pleased the court found that the agency’s
policy was irreconcilable with the law and our Constitution’s guarantee to equality because it treated the children of married, same-sex parents differently from the children of other married parents,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, senior counsel and health care strategist at Lambda Legal, said in a statement. “It is time for the federal government to stop defending this unlawful and unconstitutional policy,” he added. “No family should have to face the fear and uncertainty of having their child’s citizenship status be held in limbo.” The Mize-Gregg family’s case is the third such case, and the second this year, to challenge the State Department’s refusal to recognize same-sex marriages. In June, a federal judge in Maryland also ruled against the State Department, finding it had discriminated against another same-sex couple, Adiel and Roee Kiviti, whose daughter, Kessem, was also conceived abroad via surrogacy. Last year, a federal judge in California ruled that the State Department had to recognize the citizenship of the twin sons of a gay couple, Andrew and Elad Dvash-Banks, as U.S. citizens. “We celebrate the court’s decision, which acknowledges what has been true since the day she was born: Simone Mize-Gregg is a citizen of the United States,” Aaron Morris, the executive director of Immigration Equality, said in a statement. “Family means more than biology alone. The State Department should change its discriminatory and unconstitutional policy immediately before it hurts another family.”
Hot Air
Trump’s press secretary says denying gay couple’s daughter citizenship has ‘nothing to do’ with sexual orientation. By John Riley
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HITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY Kayleigh McEnany claimed that the Trump administration’s attempts to argue against granting citizenship to the two-year-old daughter of a same-sex couple 26
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has “nothing to do” with the parents’ sexual orientation. During her daily press briefing on Monday, McEnany was asked a question by Chris Johnson, reporter for the SEPTEMBER 3, 2020,
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a D.C.-based publication. Johnson specifically asked about a recent court decision in which a federal judge in Georgia ordered the State Department to recognize the citizenship of, and issue a U.S. passport to, Simone Mize-Gregg, the daughter of a married gay couple who was born in England using a surrogate. As SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 previously reported, the judge in that case found that the State Department’s policy of requiring the children of same-sex couples to overcome additional obstacles to having their citizenship recognized violated the Immigration and Nationality Act and is a form of discrimination because it is based on the presumption that legal same-sex marriages are invalid. In response, McEnany said that the Trump administration’s arguments against recognizing the girl’s citizenship — and, by extension, its decision to appeal a similar decision in a case involving a same-sex couple from Maryland — “pertains to surrogacy and had nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the parents.” She did not elaborate on what the Trump administration finds objectionable about chil-
dren of U.S. citizens who are conceived abroad using surrogacy. She continued, reading from prepared remarks: “And this administration, [and] President, will proudly stand on a record of achievements, like leading a global initiative to end the criminalization of homosexuality throughout the world, launching a plan to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030, and easing a ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men.” Johnson then tried to ask a follow-up question about constitutional concerns raised in the judge’s ruling, to which McEnany responded: “Again, for anything further, I’d refer you to the State Department.” But critics of the administration have previously complained that the Trump administration’s effort to end the criminalization of homosexuality in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean has bore little fruit, in terms of changing laws — Gabon recently repealed its anti-LGBTQ laws, though apparently with little U.S. input, and Botswana’s laws were only changed by the courts following a lawsuit. Additionally, critics note that the easing of SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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theFeed restrictions, including the reduction of the deferral period for sexually active gay and bisexual men to three months, was done only in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for antibody-rich plasma from people who had survived the virus. The LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD accused McEnany of lying about the Trump administration’s record. “The White House press secretary is wrong and so is the administration’s policy, which has in fact only targeted same-sex parents,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “McEnany also again falsified the Trump administration’s LGBTQ
record — 172 attacks and counting in policy and rhetoric. The administration’s ‘global initiative’ went nowhere. Its plan for AIDS is horrifically underfunded and not serious. And the administration should be calling to completely lift the outdated and discriminatory ban on blood donations from gay and bi men. Press Secretary McEnany should update her LGBTQ talking points. “We will continue to call out the truth about the administration’s attacks against LGBTQ people in rhetoric and policy,” Ellis added. “We’ll continue to call it what it is: abysmal. We’ll continue to question why McEnany thinks it’s a record to be proud of.”
Business for Biden
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National LGBT Chamber of Commerce endorses Joe Biden, calls him ‘champion for inclusion.’ By Rhuaridh Marr
HE NATIONAL LGBT CHAMBER OF Commerce has endorsed Joe Biden for president, calling the former vice president a “champion for inclusion.” NGLCC, the nation’s largest advocacy organization for LGBTQ businesses, said Biden had a “commitment to LGBTQ equality” and would help LGBTQ business owners to thrive and succeed despite “ongoing discrimination.” “The NGLCC is proud to endorse a champion for inclusion. We need to elect a president with a commitment to LGBTQ equality, ending racism and racial violence, promoting small businesses and entrepreneurship, and ensuring a safe and equitable society for every American. Joe Biden is that candidate,” Justin Nelson, NGLCC cofounder and president, said in a statement. “Joe Biden proudly affirms an essential core value of the NGLCC: that we all deserve our shot at the American Dream, and that our economy only succeeds when it is available to all LGBT and allied Americans,” Nelson added. The Biden campaign said it was “deeply honored” to receive NGLCC’s endorsement.
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“LGBTQ+ businesses add $1.7 trillion to the economy each year, making LGBTQ+ business owners central to Vice President Biden’s plans to build a stronger, more equitable economy, promote entrepreneurship, tackle structural racism, fight systemic injustice, and end discrimination against LGBTQ+ people once and for all,” Reggie Greer, the campaign’s LGBTQ+ Vote Director, wrote in a statement. Despite being founded in 2002, the NGLCC has only endorsed one other candidate for president: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during her 2016 campaign. The endorsement of Biden was approved unanimously by NGLCC’s board of directors, citing his record on supporting small businesses and pushing for greater LGBTQ equality. NGLCC said electing Biden as president was “imperative to the well-being of America’s economy and the monumental gains achieved in recent years for the LGBT community, such as recent victories for LGBTQ workplace protections, the passage of the Equality Act in the US House of Representatives, the upholding of
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DACA, and more.” Biden’s economic recovery plan, which aims to rebuild a pandemic-ravaged economy, as well as his detailed plan for reinstating and expanding LGBTQ protections and rights, were both cited as justifications for the endorsement. “The stakes have never been so high for the future of our country and the LGBT business community. Joe Biden is the champion our businesses and our families need to thrive,” Chance Mitchell, NGLCC cofounder and CEO, said. “The LGBT community has come too far to lose its seat at the table, and we are certain that a President Biden will continue fighting for the collective economic and social longevity of America’s 1.4 million LGBT business owners and the more than $1.7 trillion they add to the
US economy despite ongoing discrimination.” Earlier this year, Biden’s campaign announced its “Out for Biden” initiative, which will seek to drive LGBTQ people to the polls in November. The initiative will reach out to and engage the estimated 11 million LGBTQ voters nationwide, with particular focus on those in key battleground states, such as Florida and Michigan, providing advice on voter registration as well as encouraging LGBTQ allies to vote for candidates that support LGBTQ equality. Donald Trump’s allies have repeatedly tried to portray him as the “most pro-gay president in history,” a statement that has led to derision from LGBTQ organizations, which point to his administration’s lengthy record of attacks on LGBTQ rights and equality. SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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Focus on the Family’s Visitor’s Welcome Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado
Focus on the Sanitizer Christian group that believes gay people cause ‘disease’ declared COVID outbreak site. By Rhuaridh Marr
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HE HEADQUARTERS OF AN ANTILGBTQ organization that claims being gay leads to “death and disease” have been declared a COVID-19 hotspot. Focus on the Family is a fundamentalist Christian group based in Colorado Springs, Colo., known for its anti-LGBTQ teachings and promotion of conversion therapy. The group — which spawned another antiLGBTQ organization, the Family Research Council — has said that transgender people are “disconnected from Jesus,” compared being LGBTQ to “sex abuse,” and argued that parents should tell their children that the LGBTQ community comprises people “whose sexuality has been damaged or whose healthy development has been derailed.” 30
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But while Focus on the Family has been busy advocating against LGBTQ people, it apparently hasn’t been doing anything to combat the spread of COVID-19. Colorado has officially declared the group’s headquarters to be an outbreak site for the virus, after three members of staff tested positive, Westword reports. The organization was added to the state’s list on August 21, with another member of staff registered as a “probable” case. Focus on the Family’s status as a COVID-19 outbreak site doesn’t sit well with their assertion that being gay leads to “external consequences like death, disease.” That claim came from an article, in which someone asked for advice after their friend came
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theFeed out as lesbian and said that it was compatible with their faith. In response, Focus on the Family said, “Homosexual behavior is against the design of human nature. Men and women are indispensable to each other; they aren’t interchangeable blocks. “The tree of homosexuality bears bad fruits. Sodomitical acts have not only external consequences like death, disease, and childlessness, but internal ones. Some of the internal consequences are psychological, like loneliness and compulsive behavior. Others are moral, for we cannot violate the human design yet expect things to go on as they were; ‘that road leads down and down.'” Since its founding in 1977, Focus on the Family has amassed a lengthy list of anti-LGBTQ claims and comments, including opposition to samesex marriage, same-sex parents and adoption, and employment protections for LGBTQ people. It has said that transgenderism “violates God’s design” and argued that transgender people are a “myth” and being transgender “doesn’t physically exist.” Focus on the Family even established its own
conversion therapy “ministry,” Love Won Out. Conversion therapy is a widely debunked practice that claims to change a person’s sexuality or gender identity, and usually involves a variety of methods, from talk therapy to more extreme methods such as shock or aversion therapy. Studies have shown that conversion therapy increases the risk of suicide and suicidal ideation in LGBTQ people, and medical experts have noted that other side effects of the therapy can include depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Love Won Out was eventually sold to conversion therapy umbrella organization Exodus International, which was shut down in 2013. Former CEO of Exodus International Alan Chambers, subsequently came out as gay and apologized to LGBTQ people who had been harmed by conversion therapy. Speaking to SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 in 2016, he said that people should be warned against conversion therapy: “This is not something that’s going to work. This is dangerous. It creates shame. It is not something that is going to produce an orientation change in you.
Potential Tragedy
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Man sentenced to four years in jail for attempting to shoot LGBTQ bar patrons in St. Louis. By John Riley
MISSOURI MAN HAS BEEN SENtenced to nearly four years in prison for attempting to shoot patrons of an LGBTQ bar in St. Louis. Chief Judge Rodney Sippel, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, sentenced Freddie Doyle, 32, to 46 months of imprisonment for unlawful possession of a firearm. Doyle, who has been held without bail for about 14 months, previously pleaded guilty to driving to Rehab Bar & Grill, located in the LGBTQ neighborhood of St. Louis known as “The Grove,” on June 27, 2019, with a Bushmaster
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AR-15-style rifle, bipod, scope, tactical light, four full rifle magazines, and approximately 160 rifle rounds in his car. As the bar was closing around 3 a.m., Doyle approached an African-American man leaving the Just John Night Club, another LGBTQ bar in the area, and invited him to his car. According to federal prosecutors, Doyle then grabbed his rifle and aimed it at the man, who fled. Doyle aimed his rifle at the victim and others, yelling homophobic slurs and obscenities, and started a verbal countdown, firing a shot in the
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air when he had finished counting, according to the SEPTEMBER 3, 2020. Police were nearby and heard the shot, but Doyle concealed the rifle and told officers that the gunman had run down an alley, Assistant U.S. Attorney Janea Lamar claimed in court. Doyle was arrested shortly afterward, with police discovering the gun. Police claim Doyle became agitated when the victims of the shooting were brought over to identify him, and he began yelling homophobic slurs at them. FBI Special Agent Jennifer Drews wrote in charging documents that he told police he would “have killed those faggots” if he had more time. The motive for the shooting remains unclear, although prosecutors agreed not to charge Doyle with a hate crime as part of a plea agreement. “All people in this nation have the right to enjoy themselves at a bar and grill without fearing that they will be threatened, shot, and seriously injured or killed by bigoted criminals,” 34
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Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband, of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement in response to the sentencing. “The Department of Justice will not tolerate this kind of hateful violence,” Dreiband said. “The Civil Rights Division strives to protect all Americans from acts of aggression and violence based on their race, color or sexual orientation.” During sentencing, Doyle told Sippel that he had achieved the American Dream in 2014, as a husband and father with a house, cars, and a job he loved. But when he fell on hard times, he decided to fill the void with drugs. Defense lawyer Stephen Williams said Doyle had been under the influence of methamphetamine for an extended period of time, and was struggling with depression, anxiety and ADHD at the time of the shooting. “When you combine that with the drug use, it’s a wicked cocktail,” Williams told the court.
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Trey Hogan (left) using his trombone to drown out a Trump supporter protesting on the University of South Carolina campus
Justice Blows
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Freshman goes viral after drowning out racist homophobe with trombone. By Rhuaridh Marr
FRESHMAN STUDENT AT THE University of South Carolina has gone viral after using his trombone to drown out a racist, anti-LGBTQ protester on the college’s campus. The Trump supporter, dressed in a MAGA hat, held a sign saying “BLM [Black Lives Matter] are racist thugs” and used a megaphone to yell racist and anti-LGBTQ comments at students on the USC campus, WLTX reports. Freshman Trey Hogan, a member of the school band, responded by grabbing his trombone and loudly playing any time the protester tried to start another bigoted rant. “ I was kind of hesitant at first, but then every-
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one supported it,” Hogan said. “He was saying some pretty hateful stuff, and I just didn’t agree with any of it.” His fellow students — most of whom seemed to be wearing masks, while the protester was not — laughed and cheered as Hogan played. Many also captured the amusing back and forth and shared clips on social media, where they quickly wracked up hundreds of thousands of views and countless positive comments for Hogan’s response to the man’s slurs. “I didn’t really expect so many people to react the way they did but it feels really good,” he said, adding, “It shows that we support everyone here. It’s just not okay, and we don’t want that
theFeed on this campus.” Bob Caslen, president of the University of South Carolina, responded positively to Hogan’s actions on Twitter. “The demonstrator on Greene St. today may have a constitutional right to be there & say what he wants, but his words do not reflect the values & principles of our university,” Caslen tweeted. “I applaud our @UofSC students who peacefully voiced their opposition to the hate he was spewing.” After Hogan’s response went viral, hate preachers descended on the campus, with students accusing them of being unmasked and yell-
ing racist and homophobic comments, including allegedly calling one LGBTQ student a “faggot.” Caslen urged students to continue responding peacefully to the protesters. “Students, I share your frustration with demonstrators who take advantage of our public campus to agitate our community,” he tweeted. “Hold fast to our Gamecock values; if you respond, do so peacefully,” he continued. “Our commitment to each other & to the values we hold as Gamecocks will always win the day.” Hogan, meanwhile, responded to the protesters by increasing the number of trombones he brought with which to drown them out.
Love, Becky
Author Becky Albertalli comes out as bisexual in response to criticism over LGBTQ books. By Rhuaridh Marr
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ECKY ALBERTALLI, WRITER OF GAY YA novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, has come out as bisexual. In an essay posted to Medium, Albertalli said that she was addressing her sexuality publicly after facing criticism that she was “profiting” from the LGBTQ community with her work. Albertalli’s award-winning 2015 novel, which dealt with a teenager coming to terms with his sexuality, inspired the 2018 film Love, Simon, and TV series Love, Victor, which airs on Hulu. She subsequently wrote a spin-off novel, Leah on the Offbeat, featuring one of the characters from Simon falling in love with another woman. In her essay, Albertalli said it was while writing Leah on the Offbeat that she began to “question” her own identity. “I’m thirty-seven years old. I’ve been happily married to a guy for almost ten years. I have two kids and a cat. I’ve never kissed a girl. I never even realized I wanted to,” Albertalli wrote. “But if I rewind further, I’m pretty sure I’ve had crushes on boys and girls for most of my life. I just didn’t realize the girl crushes were crushes.
“Every so often, I’d feel this sort of pull toward some girl I vaguely knew from school or camp or after-school dance class. I’d be a little preoccupied for a few weeks with how cool or cute or interesting she was, and how much I wanted to be her friend,” she continued. “It just never occurred to me that these feelings were attraction.” Albertalli said she “didn’t have a frame of reference” for the attractions due to growing up in a “conservative southern US suburb.” “I’d met a few people who were openly gay or lesbian, but I don’t think I met an openly bi person until college,” she wrote. |And even then, my understanding of bisexuality as a concept didn’t entirely track with how I see it now. For one thing, the idea of sexual fluidity wasn’t even on my radar. “And there didn’t seem to be a word for girls who basically liked guys, but were sometimes (randomly!) fascinated by girls. But the girl stuff was always so vague, and it didn’t really fit with how I saw myself. “So my brain did what brains sometimes do. It SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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edited out all the parts that refused to make sense. And for over two decades, I basically forgot those feelings existed. Until Leah on the Offbeat.” Albertalli said the novel was the first time she had written from the perspective of a character who is attracted to women, as well as her first time writing a romance between two female characters, and that she “worried I wouldn’t be able to feel what I’d need to feel in order to write a convincing love story.” “Turns out, that wasn’t a problem — and maybe that should have been my lightbulb moment,” she said. Instead, Albertalli said she put her ease at writing the emotions down to being “immersed in Leah’s perspective,” and though she was “beginning to question things,” she didn’t give it further thought. But things came to a head after the release of Love, Simon and Leah on the Offbeat in 2018, the former being the first gay teen rom com by a major studio and the latter one of the first YA 38
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novels featuring a female/female romance to debut on the New York Times bestseller list. “When Leah debuted on the NYT list, authors I admired and respected tweeted their disappointment that this ‘first’ had been taken by a straight woman,” she wrote, noting that it wasn’t actually the first, but the “attention and scrutiny were so overwhelming, and it all hurt so badly, I slammed the lid down on that box and forgot I’d ever cracked it open.” The criticism, which came from Albertalli identifying as straight in several interviews, led to calls for boycotts of her work. “I was frequently mentioned by name, held up again and again as the quintessential example of allocishet inauthenticity,” she said. |I was a straight woman writing shitty queer books for the straights, profiting off of communities I had no connection to.” She noted that the criticism, and the declarations that Albertalli’s heterosexuality was “obvious” in her writing, caused a “mindfuck” while
theFeed she was trying to come to terms with her own sexuality. “Imagine hundreds of people claiming to know every nuance of your sexuality just from reading your novels. Imagine trying to make space for your own uncertainty,” she wrote, adding, “Why do we, again and again, cross the line between critiquing books and making assumptions about author identities? How are we so aware of invisible marginalization as a hypothetical concept, but so utterly incapable of making space for it in our community?” Albertalli said that her Medium essay was not “how I wanted to come out.” “This doesn’t feel good or empowering, or even particularly safe. Honestly, I’m doing this because I’ve been scrutinized, subtweeted, mocked, lectured, and invalidated just about every single day for years, and I’m exhausted,” she wrote. “And if you think I’m the only closeted or semi-closeted queer author feeling this pressure, you haven’t been paying attention. “And I’m one of the lucky ones! I’m a financially independent adult. I can’t be disowned. I come from a liberal family, I have an enormous
network of queer friends and acquaintances, and my livelihood isn’t even remotely at risk,” she continued. “I’m hugely privileged in more ways than I can count. And this was still brutally hard for me. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for other closeted writers, and how unwelcome they must feel in this community.” Albertalli asked those who had criticized her previously to “make space for those of us who are still discovering ourselves” and “be a little more compassionate,” adding, “Can we make this a little less awful for the next person?” She also thanked others who had come before her, including Gillian Morshedi, who penned her own Medium essay, “AdultOnset Bisexuality and the Passing Dilemma,” about coming to terms with her sexuality after previously ignoring or dismissing it. “Anyway, all of this is to say: I’m bi. Sorry it took me so long to get here,” she concluded, before nodding to Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. “But then again, at least the little red coming out book I needed was already on my shelf (in about thirty different languages). I think I finally know why I wrote it.”
"I’m doing this because I’ve been scrutinized, subtweeted, mocked, lectured, and invalidated just about every single day for years, and I’m exhausted."
Courting Controversy
Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan find love by the sea in controversial drama Ammonite. By Rhuaridh Marr
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HE FIRST TRAILER FOR CONTROVERsial lesbian period drama Ammonite has been released, showcasing Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan finding love by the seaside. Winslet stars as fossil collector and paleon-
tologist Mary Anning, whose findings along the English coast helped change scientific thinking about prehistoric life. Anning was overlooked for most of her life, only getting the recognition she deserved after SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan in Ammonite
her death in 1847. Francis Lee’s film not only gives her the credit she is due, but also controversially gives her a lesbian romance, here with geologist Charlotte Murchison (Ronan). Lee, the director of acclaimed gay drama God’s Own Country, has defended his decision to portray Anning in a lesbian context, noting that his film isn’t a biopic but is inspired by Anning’s life and work. “After seeing queer history be routinely ‘straightened’ throughout culture, and given a historical figure where there is no evidence whatsoever of a heterosexual relationship, is it not permissible to view that person within another context?” he previously tweeted. Lee’s film, set near the end of Anning’s life, has her impoverished and selling fossils on the Southern English coastline to rich tourists in order to support her mother. She meets a tourist who requests that Anning 40
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care for his young wife, Charlotte, who is recovering from a personal tragedy. “Mary, whose life is a daily struggle on the poverty line, cannot afford to turn him down but, proud and relentlessly passionate about her work, she clashes with her unwanted guest,” the film’s bio states. “They are two women from utterly different worlds. “Yet despite the chasm between their social spheres and personalities, Mary and Charlotte discover they can each offer what the other has been searching for: the realisation that they are not alone. It is the beginning of a passionate and all-consuming love affair that will defy all social bounds and alter the course of both lives irrevocably.” Ammonite is set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, with a U.S. release date currently set for November 13.
My Vintage Porn Summer
Charting an odyssey of classic gay erotica, from Arthur J. Bressan, Jr.’s Passing Strangers to Wakefield Poole’s Boys in the Sand.
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By André Hereford
T SOME POINT DURING THE quarantine, a well-curated adult entertainment website approached me, offering access to peruse their voluminous catalog. Perhaps there are those who’d decline or scoff at the opportunity. I dove in. I didn’t just watch porn all summer, of course, but I watched more porn than usual. I also worked from home, at seemingly all hours, and tried to keep up with the world’s deluge of conflict and disruption. I mourned a death in the family, along with the deaths of many I didn’t know. I masked and distanced, marched and protested, hiked through a forest and laid on a beach. The journey down the virtual video aisles of streaming platform PinkLabelTV began with a message from Jenni Olson, filmmaker, film historian, and co-director of the Bressan Project. For several years, Olson and the Bressan Project have worked to restore the films of pioneering gay filmmaker Arthur J. Bressan, Jr., including his landmark 1978 documentary Gay USA, chronicling the LGBTQ rights movement, and the wrenching 1985 drama Buddies, the first feature film to tackle the AIDS crisis. Bressan himself succumbed to complications related to AIDS in 1987, following a prolific period in which the native New Yorker directed ten films in ten years. Two of them, Passing Strangers and Forbidden Letters, represent the plot-driven gay male erotica Bressan is better known for, and are the latest of his films to be restored by the Bressan Project. As of this August, both are available exclusively on PinkLabelTV, either streaming on-demand or 42
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with a PinkLabelTV PLUS subscription. Founded in 2013 by queer feminist producer and director Shine Louise Houston, the PinkLabel platform is a treasure trove of indie adult entertainment, with diverse titles grouped into several appealing channels. Practically all genders and tastes are celebrated in a collection spanning decades, up to some brand-new releases. Lured, however, by the men, the mood, and the attitude of the sexually liberated ’70s and ’80s, I stuck with the PinkLabelTV Classics, billed as “vintage adult film from the silver and golden age of porn.” Bressan’s work was a highlight of my trip back in time, but Passing Strangers and Forbidden Letters were just the beginning. PASSING STRANGERS (1974)
Bressan has the audacity to open Passing Strangers, one of the few sexually explicit gay indies of the ’70s, with a grainy scene of straight sex — revealed to be playing onscreen at a porn theater. Portraying the projectionist that’s running the flick, Bressan proceeds to trash it for a good laugh, ragging on what passes for standard in the XXX industry. “Washed-out color, shitty prints, lousy soundtracks.” The rant provides a smooth setup for Strangers to exceed that standard, which it does as a piece of filmmaking and same-sex romance that just happens to feature plentiful nudity, anal, oral, and orgasms. In brilliant black-and-white, the film follows tousle-haired 18-year old Robert (Robert Adams) and 28-year old Tom (Robert Carnagey) around the streets of San Francisco. Stepping slowly out of the proverbial closet, student Robert
Passing Starngers
ducks inside an adult magazine shop outfitted with private, curtained movie booths. Alone in his parents’ house, he fantasizes being the center of a frolicking sex party, and getting off solo, surrounded by his admirers. Meanwhile, Tom cruises Polk Street in the Castro, bouncing between the bars and the baths, including the city’s iconic gay bar the Stud, in its original location. (During the current pandemic, the Stud actually closed, possibly for good.) Real locations, many of them gone but not forgotten, emphasize these vintage adult films’ value as multi-faceted records of queer lives, history, and culture. After Robert responds to a Walt Whitmanquoting classified ad placed by Tom in the Berkeley Barb, the two court each other through letters (voiced by other actors — Edward Guthmann as Tom, and Bob Middleton as Robert). When they finally meet face-to-face, the film switches to gorgeously restored color, capturing their romance as it blossoms into outdoor sex on Angel Island overlooking the Bay. Although Adams and Carnagey are enthusias-
tic performers, Adams tends towards a pained expression when not in the midst of hardcore ecstasy. Their chemistry is more sweet than scintillating. Still, the film lives up to the implied promise of the first scene’s catty critique, delivering lush color and strong composition. The dynamic soundtrack shifts from Moog synthesizer over sex scenes, to groovy guitar rock, to composer Jeff Olmstead’s keyboard score as the couple bikes through a sunny Sunday montage. And the voice actors, including Jerry Johnson as the projectionist Bressan plays onscreen, are at least as expressive as Adams and Carnagey. To the movie’s credit, the leads fit the bill as two regular guys looking for love, as opposed to idealized porn stars. Theirs is a relatable romance, if overshadowed now by the light of early ’70s nostalgia. Indeed, the era’s history and expression come together beautifully near the film’s finale, as the lovebirds march in the actual Gay Freedom Day Parade of 1974. In the end, love and sex, and pride and celebration go hand in hand. SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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FORBIDDEN LETTERS (1979)
Bressan’s long-unseen gay love story Forbidden Letters originally blazed a trail from arthouse cinemas to its international premiere at the 1980 Berlin Film Festival. More rawly sexual than Passing Strangers, the film is driven by a more suspenseful and involving premise. Dancing again between black-and-white and color cinematography, Bresson unfolds the tale of separated lovers Larry (Passing Strangers star Robert Adams) and Richard (Richard Locke), poised to reunite once mustachioed daddy Richard is released from prison. Until that day, Larry doesn’t wait idly for his man to come home, but rather calms his worries with a series of hookups, anonymous encounters, flashbacks, and fantasies. Adams offers another blank-faced performance, although Bressan works around the
Forbidden Letters
actor’s limitations by handing most onscreen dialogue to costar Victoria Young, playing the couple’s friend, Iris, a tarot-reading happy hooker. Iris advises glum, young Larry to “get out, cruise, go to a movie, do something a little kinky. See a porno flick, get hot, take a Quaalude, sleaze around.” Like a Warhol superstar, but sober, Young injects humor and playfulness, counteracting the earnest folk-pop tunes laid over the man-on-man(-on-man) action. The movie depicts Larry and Richard’s idyllic life together, before prison, via an evocative sequence of still photos, also scored to earnest folk-pop. The one major musical diversion from the ersatz-John 44
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Denver sound comes with a trip to the crowded disco Cabaret on a glittering Halloween night. Yet, even with all the partying, lovemaking, hookups, solos, and threesomes, the prevailing atmosphere is purely romantic. Adams and Locke generate heat in fits and starts, but their sex scenes are stiff and awkward. Rather, the characters’ loving commitment to each other makes a stronger impression than the hardcore action. As Larry writes to his beloved in prison — in letters he’s afraid to send lest he out Richard as gay — he had been searching for the special touch of a man to fill a hole in his life. He found that special sense of belonging with Richard, a bliss of “love, laughter, crashing waves, and sunsets.” And not even prison could tear them apart. UN CHANT D’AMOUR (1950)
Prison brings two stray souls together in Jean Genet’s classic featurette, Un Chant D’Amour (Song of Love), a film banned in France upon its release and censored in the U.S. and elsewhere. Two prisoners in adjacent cells communicate by knocking on the wall between them. The barrier trembles at their yearning touch. Through a tiny hole in the wall, they use a straw to pass cigarette smoke from mouth to mouth. The sensuality is nearly palpable, amplified by the lack of sound or dialogue. The only film ever directed by the famed French writer (a petty thief in his youth), Un Chant D’Amour simmers with sexual tension stirred by the caged would-be lovers and the prison guard who gets off on peeking in on them in various states of undress and arousal. While subtle enough to properly engage the imagination, Genet’s film is strikingly explicit for a 1950 release. The guard enjoys a peep show of dancing hard-ons, free in his fantasies to have his way with whomever he chooses, his obsession betraying a singular desire to control. Approaching one object of lust, he doesn’t bring cigarettes or flowers, but a pistol. Power and menace are all he has to offer, a damning portrait of authority in the face of the prisoners’ pursuit of liberty and companionship.
BOYS IN THE SAND (1971)
From Genet’s seminal French prison noir, to the golden, ’70s-era beaches of Fire Island, it’s just a small step across oceans of time and space to reach Boys in the Sand, probably the second most influential gay erotic film ever made. Writerdirector (and former professional dancer-choreographer) Wakefield Poole’s triptych of hardcore sexual romps, starring blond hunk Casey Donovan, makes excellent use of the natural and architectural beauty that distinguish the island as a few unpaved miles of gay paradise. The visual harmony carries over to the camerawork and editing, abetted by layers of sound
a piece of him. Though, to be fair, everybody in Score just wants a piece. A glam mix of camp, crazy camera angles, and swinging raunchiness, the film joins married couples Jack and Elvira (Gerald Grant and Claire Wilbur) and their dinner guests Eddie and Betsy (Donovan and Lynn Lowry) for a night of seduction. The movie itself seduces with the hook of a bet between Jack and Elvira, wagering which of them will bed Eddie or Betsy first. The tease is drawn out with tongue-in-cheek humor. “Watch it with someone you want to excite,” was more than just a tagline for Metzger’s elegant roundelay — the only film in this PinkLabel catalog that I first saw as its maker intended, on a big screen inside a crowded theater. (No, not in 1974.) It was a late showing at a revival house on a Friday night in summer. I went with friends, each of us single at the time. We all enjoyed the movie, felt a little giddy from it, then went our separate ways, inspired, no doubt. Every one of us scored that night, some more than once. BIJOU (1972)
Boys in the Sand
design transporting viewers to the hot strip of sand and pines, where everywhere Donovan turns, a different macho stranger is eager to man-handle him. A leading man squarely in the Robert Redford mold, Donovan first materializes out of the bay, a nameless, voiceless hero wearing naught but a stainless steel cock ring. The film’s universal lust object, he may not entice viewers so universally, but he undeniably exudes sex appeal. Some people just do, and Donovan brings an ineffable quality to the table that noticeably inspires his partners, and clearly helped inspire Poole to create this genuine milestone of queer cinema.
The prospect of scoring often is pretty much all that’s driving Bijou, Wakefield Poole’s visually arresting followup to Boys in the Sand. Star Bill Harrison and his pornstache stalk a New York City sex club known as the Bijou. Though not an exact recreation of New York’s actual Bijou Cinema, the oldest (still existing) gay porn theater and sex den in the U.S., Poole’s Bijou is a mirrored, fantasy funhouse of wanton lust. As Harrison’s construction worker passes from
SCORE (1974)
Casey Donovan’s varied career, which also included roles on Broadway, swerved into bisexual territory in Radley Metzger’s cult classic Score, where, once again, everybody wants
Bijou
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darkened room to room at the club, Poole stages each successive scene like a movement of dramatically-lit modern dance. The men don’t actually leap and prance, but the action is precisely choreographed. Solos become pas de deux, which become threesomes, and so on, until Harrison finds himself the center of a group sex free-for-all. It’s a remarkably non-diverse group of supposed New Yorkers, even by the standards of ’70s gay porn, although the clothes and grooming make the cast look remarkably like they could have walked right out of the Bijou Cinema in 2020.
and how much has stayed the same, despite the mobile app revolution. Though the Adonis is long gone, it endures on film, in a night that could play on forever. TIMES SQUARE STRIP (1983)
The Adonis’ fellow male burlesque theater, the Gaiety, likewise posed for its film closeup in Deveau’s later go-go boy parade, Times Square Strip. As in A Night at the Adonis, Strip traces the trajectory of the club’s newest, young tight-bodied employee, Darryl (Buddy Preston), as he learns the ropes amidst rampant sex taking place in every nook and cranny of the building — a building that A NIGHT AT THE ADONIS (1975) would be demolished in the mid-2000s. Not as A major point of many of these films’ appeal nicely shot or cast as Adonis, this film nevertheless is their use of real-life queer spaces as actual warrants attention for its glimpse into a vanished locations, or inspirations for production design. gay past, and for a charming tackiness that might Jack Deveau’s loosely plotted light comedy, make even John Waters proud. starring porn superstar Jack Wrangler, is hailed as “a fascinating historical document of the LEFT-HANDED (1972)
Adonis
Adonis Theater and ’70s gay culture,” and certainly captures the tempo and churn of activity in this 1,400-seat playpen where just watching the movie isn’t any man’s plan. More importantly, Deveau presents a fascinating variety of characters floating through the joint — twinks, jocks, and leather men, white, Black and Latino. Nobody leaves empty-handed or underserved. And for good measure, the film even introduces the Adonis Theater’s actual ticket taker Eartha, who viewers with long memories might recognize. Deveau’s film easily demonstrates how much gay cruising culture has changed, 46
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Deveau’s first feature reflects not the buzz of the ’80s, but the groove of the waning hippie era in a sex-laced love story between tattooed, hairy, horny hustler Ray (Ray Frank), and straight pot dealer Bob (Robert Rikas). Ray’s eager sexual conquest of shyer Bob is diced into an adventurous mosaic of closeups and jump cuts, flashes of fantasy and daydreams. Like the free-form jazz that be-bops over the film’s orgy finale, Left-Handed zigs and zags until landing at a surprisingly touching conclusion, one of the few among these carnal classics to deliver a genuine emotional payoff. CENTURIANS OF ROME (1980)
The darkest turn this vintage trip took was to the ancient sex-and-sandals spectacle of John Christopher’s Centurians of Rome. The misspelled title isn’t the only thing off about this expensive-for-the-time epic, starring ’70s gay porn icon George Payne and aptly named Scorpio as Greek peasants abducted into slavery by Roman soldiers. Leading off with a pretty sorry-looking Star Wars scrawl, the film puts its budget on the screen in the form of horses, handsome costumes, and a cast of dozens of
tautly muscled men. The horses appear only briefly, as do most of the costumes, as slaves Payne and Scorpio are held in sexual bondage for the pleasure of their imperious captors. To an unsavory degree, the film fetishizes the slaves’ exploitation, then tries to sell a story of one Roman commander (Eric Ryan) falling for the man he treats like property. Featuring fight scenes and daring escapes flooded with frantic orchestral score, and creepy synths layered over the bondage and domination, Centurians of Rome is hardly good or sexy, but it is weirdly compelling. And the filmmakers did have the good manners to punish the villain, climaxing the movie not with an act of sex or violence, but with a heartfelt declaration of love. KISS TODAY GOODBYE (1976)
Payne also stars in Francis Ellie’s Kiss Today Goodbye, as a randy gay construction worker who becomes involved with a strait-laced, married businessman. The incongruous pair’s trysts start out as merely a powerful, physical attraction that develops into a passionate attachment. Again, that word “love” enters the fray. Like Deveau’s and Bressan’s films, Kiss Today Goodbye dangles the possibility of a whole, fulfilling mind-body connection between men, encompassing all the sex and nudity these flicks show, and the emotionally naked moments they only imply. Still, the vintage gay porn I watched rarely followed through on a happy ending. (Although, the film’s opening credits end on a happy note, listing the best porn name in the business: Peter Zass.) TURNED ON (1982)
Payne eventually kissed gay porn goodbye, delving deeper into his BDSM side within the straight realm of adult cinema, before retiring from the industry entirely. Now 76, the performer managed to evade or survive a plague that ravaged the community and took so many of his former peers, including Colt Studios superstar Al Parker. The performer-turned-producer, who succumbed to AIDS-related complications at the age of 40, is featured on PinkLabel in the cruise and kinkfest Turned On, which
Times Square Strip
he produced. Costarring Sky Dawson, the film by director Steve Scott combines an artfully abstract sensibility with raw sex and explosive cumshots. Following Parker from bar to bathhouse, the mostly dialogue-free boys-night-out escapade was shot on location at L.A. clubs the Sanctuary, the Hayloft, and Mac’s Baths, where Parker encounters dreamy music, steamy rooms, and scenes of auto-fellatio, auto-anal, and a host of more vanilla activities. Turned On reflects the industry’s home video-propelled hard shift from somewhat story-conscious indie gay erotica to the wall-to-wall banging, hotel hookups that predominantly pass for porn these days. Yet, the movie lacks neither intensity nor imagination. Parker produced and directed through his Surge Studios, represented on PinkLabelTV by two additional ‘80s titles, High Tech and Dangerous. Those and more than a dozen other vintage porn features are just the tip of the iceberg of PinkLabel’s vast catalog. Wallace Scott’s 1979 Le Beau Mec, starring rugged French producer-model Karl Forest, is a beautifully lit and shot (though dully transferred) portrait of a narcissistic hustler, and the L.A.-set hustler story Crooked Arrangement (1973) intrigues with its enigmatic depiction of the titular paid arrangment and marathon acrobatic sex sessions. And I haven’t even scratched the surface of the platform’s selections starring ’70s pinup and porn star Peter Berlin. We’d need another summer to catch up with all these new and vintage films — so we’ll just pace ourselves, and take each flick one lay at a time. Watch all the reviewed films (and more) at www.pinklabel.tv. Several of the films in this article are also available for purchase on DVD at www.Amazon.com. SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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Gallery
Sailing the Red Seas
Reflection: Vian Borchert
E
XPRESSIONIST VIAN BORCHERT considers her paintings to be visual poems, with many of those now on display in an exhibition at Gallery Underground, created during the pandemic and reflecting on a new reality and a new normal. Borchert applies a signature painterly style to these works made of acrylic paint on canvas and portraying abstract seascapes and landscapes. Some of the works convey the artist’s yearning for future adventures she hopes to pursue in a non-quarantined, post-pandemic era, while others revisit Borchert’s past travels to distant
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lands where life was simpler and freer. They also reflect the time she spent observing nature in order to try and reach a sense of inner peace and attain moments of zen in these uncertain, trying times. Although abstract in nature, the works are symbolic of a time when the future is unknown and life is a precious commodity. On display through Sept. 25 during gallery hours, Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., or by appointment. Located in the Crystal City Shops at 2100 Crystal Dr., Arlington. Call 571-483-0652 or visit www.galleryunderground.org. —Doug Rule
Birds
Nautical
Spectrum
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Movies
Autocrat-in-Chief
#UNFIT argues that President Trump poses a tremendous threat to the very republic he’s supposed to defend. By John Riley
W
E COULD LOSE IT ALL. WE COULD lose this grand experiment in democracy — I think we’re already halfway there,” says psychologist John Gartner in #UNFIT: The Psychology of Donald Trump (HHHHH), a newly released film that poses the question: Is Donald Trump fit to be president of the United States? Directed by Dan Partland, #UNFIT centers around the premise — as explained by a number of mental health professionals and political figures including George Conway, Bill Kristol, and one-time Trump press secretary Anthony Scaramucci — that the president suffers from malignant narcissism, which makes him incapable of empathy and prone to acts of aggression. It is because of these tendencies, mental health
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experts argue, that they have a “duty to warn” the American public about the risks Trump poses. The entire film is crafted like a thesis statement, arguing that President Trump’s antisocial tendencies, his paranoia, his narcissism, and his penchant for sadism and seeking revenge against those he believes have wronged him make him not only unqualified to govern, but a potential threat to national security. Partland’s film also delves into the danger posed by Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and his violation of constitutional norms — aided and abetted by feckless and craven congressional leaders and an acquiescent judiciary — even invoking the specter of a possible nuclear war. In one segment, certain to rankle some viewers, comparisons are drawn between Donald Trump
PHIL SHARP
Music
Analog Glow
Clarke and Bell
Thirty-five years and eighteen albums in, Erasure remains a comforting pop presence. By Sean Maunier
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RASURE IS ONE OF THOSE GROUPS that always seems to have outlived their lifespan until you hear their latest work. Vanishingly few dancepop groups of the late ’80s can claim the same kind of continued relevance, but between their consistency and gift for crafting tracks ready for the dancefloor, Erasure is a special case. The duo stumbled onto a formula that worked from the very beginning by pairing Andy Bell’s vocals with Vince Clarke’s sharp, expert keyboarding, and it turns out to have been key to their success. Like any formulaic act, the results are not always spectacular, but the two work together so well that even when their output
isn’t especially memorable, it’s almost never bad. For their latest release, the pair have backtracked from the heavier, streak-breaking heaviness of their last album and its overtly somber musings on the state of the world. Clarke has re-embraced the analog synth and Bell is in a noticeably more upbeat frame of mind. The Neon (HHHHH) is what the label promises — bright, flamboyant, club-ready tracks that reorient the duo towards the synthy dancepop they first made their name on. Erasure’s 18th studio album starts strong with two highly impressive lead singles. The opener, “Hey Now (I Think I Got A Feeling),” features a magnetically confident, cocky Bell singing his SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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on-the-nose longing for human contact over thumping, buzzing synths. “Nerves of Steel,” meanwhile, is the most classically and straightforwardly Erasure. The undeniable highlight of the album, though, is “Shot A Satellite,” a punchy, dramatic track featuring plenty of swagger in both its vocals and synths. Ultimately, the album’s highlights are so strong that they end up largely carrying The Neon. The rest of the songs aren’t so much filler as mixed efforts, tracks that had the potential to stand alongside the likes of “Shot A Satellite” but are uneven in execution, suffering from one shortcoming or another. “No Point in Tripping” has a remarkably strong chorus but for some reason buries it beneath low-energy verses that drag on far longer than they need to. “Fallen Angel” suffers from a similar problem. It fea-
tures a gorgeous chorus and some of the most memorable synth work on the entire album, but is ultimately dragged down by excess padding and lyrics that come off as trite. Erasure’s back-to-basics approach is welltimed. If World Be Gone was intended to reflect the chaos and tumult of a world turned upside down, The Neon is more a reaction against it. As angst-inducing as 2017 may have been, the darker tone they struck on their last album looks almost quaint in retrospect. Bell and Clarke instead seem to have decided that rather than a reflective work, a moment of sunny synthpop escapism was what we needed in this moment, and their album is much better for it. With a fresh sound that is of the current moment but still unmistakably Erasure, The Neon is a welcome and well-crafted distraction.
The Neon is now available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music. and the fascists of the 1920s and 1930s, as well as modern-day autocrats like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. While the movie’s deep dive into psychology and Trump’s successful use of “gaslighting” to achieve his aims is insightful, #UNFIT is likely to end up among a slew of “Resistance”themed movies that have emerged since the 2016 election. The movie preaches to the choir of people who already dislike the president, but does nothing to persuade less-fervent Trump acolytes to reconsider their support. The inclusion of foreign policy hawk Kristol, lifelong Republican Conway, and intelligence analyst Malcolm Nance — all of whom are almost as reviled on the Left as they are by Trump devotees — only further narrows the spectrum of people with whom the film’s message will resonate in the era of political polarization. Viewers will be able to easily follow, and perhaps even wholeheartedly embrace, the film’s
central premise, but those with a more critical eye may find themselves wondering about how the tone-deafness and insensitivity of political and cultural elites, our institutions’ natural resistance to reform, the “tone-policing” of the pundit class, and even the prejudiced attitudes of everyday Americans towards their fellow countrymen have enabled Trump’s rise to power. At its heart, #UNFIT means well, serving as an indirect call to action to remove the president from office in order to save the republic. It offers both historical and psychological insight into how autocrats manipulate the public and slowly strip away the freedoms enjoyed by those living in liberal democracies. But the film’s narrow appeal undermines the urgency of its message if most Americans, fatigued and becoming immune to the daily outrages of a Trump presidency, aren’t going to watch. That’s a shame, because, if the United States is truly on the brink of becoming an autocracy, it might be a message Americans sorely need to hear.
#UNFIT: The Psychology of Donald Trump is available on cable, DirecTV and DISH, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and Google Play. For more information, visit www.unfitfilm.com. 52
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RetroScene
The Last Night at Tracks - November 6, 1999 Photography by Michael Wichita
For more #RetroScene follow us on Instagram at @MetroWeekly
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RetroScene
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A Night at Mr. P’s - August, 1999 Photography by Michael Wichita
For more #RetroScene follow us on Instagram at @MetroWeekly
LastWord. People say the queerest things
“ If you love an LGBTQ+ person and you’re planning on voting for Donald Trump in November,
that’s an act of violence against them.” —Country singer KACEY MUSGRAVES, in a tweet. She added: “To each their own but know what your vote means.”
“
While Alex’s loss is disappointing, it proved our community and our allies can respond forcefully in exposing
the dog whistles and stereotypes that too often haunt LGBTQ candidates.” —ANNISE PARKER, president and CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, responding to gay mayor Alex Morse’s loss against U.S. Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) in their Democratic primary on Tuesday. Morse was accused of being sexually inappropriate with students by a chapter of the College Democrats, who later apologized after it emerged that former leaders plotted to entrap Morse.
“I’m doing what Jesus would want me to do.” —TONY JEFFREY, headmaster of Covenant Christian Academy in Dallas, responding to a mother after she asked him why he expelled her son for coming out as gay, the Dallas Voice reports.
“ When the person who writes your favorite series of books about oppressed people decides to start oppressing you
it’s very strange. It doesn’t make any sense.” —CHAZ BONO, speaking with podcast A Gay and A NonGay about Harry Potter author JK Rowling’s anti-transgender tweets. “On a personal note, it just sucked,” Bono continued. “Politically, it’s dangerous because I don’t think people realize that she’s just regurgitating the same things that people are saying about us, that have been debunked for 30 years.”
“ One day, we are going to look back and we’re going to wonder why this was ever a debate, and why this practice was ever allowed.” —Anchorage Assembly Chair FELIX RIVERA, speaking after the city became the first in Alaska to ban conversion therapy on LGBTQ youth. Rivera co-sponsored the measure, which imposes a $500 fine on licensed professionals who violate the ban, and stacks for each day that it is violated.
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