TRAILER: I Am Divine

RuPaul's Drag Race Finale Spoiler

This afternoon my loyal photographer Dr. Jeff and I attended a press event for tonight's finale of RuPaul's Drag Race, where the contestants posed for photos and sat down for brief one-on-one chats. Check this post shortly for many more photos and some video shoutouts. In the meantime, stay out of the comments if you're not watching tonight's show.

VIDEO: Finalist Raja shouts out to JMG.


SLIDESHOW: Full screen versions here.

The Sisters Fire Back At Porno Pete

San Francisco's Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have fired back at hate activist Porno Pete LaBarbera, who yesterday circulated a press release denouncing the Sisters' annual "Hunky Jesus" contest. An excerpt:

First of all the Sisters would like to thank Peter La Barbaria for all the free publicity he is providing for our Hunky Jesus Contest. Even in the most reactionary communities and families there are brilliant young queer children aching for something truly revolutionary, a chance to be utterly glamorous, and to royally piss off their uptight, puritanical parents. The Sisters often declare their love for Peter and especially appreciate Mr. LaBabar's effectiveness in getting news and images of the Sisters to those children. Of course we don't hate anybody, but his saying we do is a great way to grab the interest of angry resentful children, and we have much experience in helping GLBT youngsters work through their anger to find a more joyous spiritual path.

However, as much as Mr. La Barbarella is promoting our appeal to rebellious youth, it is not really our intention or purpose to offend Christians. Many of our friends and fans are Christians as are some of the Sisters. It's not even our intention or purpose to offend uptight, humorless prigs, though we often do so by suggesting that the Deity has a sense of humor. After all, God created a garden of paradise for us, declared His/Her love for us, and created such laughably bizarre creatures as the platypus, the naked mole rat, and Sarah Palin. But our mission is not to offend. Rather we are dedicated to the expiation of stigmatic guilt and the promulgation of universal joy. Still, we do understand that any sort of liberating theology is offensive to those who want to keep others under their thumbs. Offending prudes and tyrants is not our purpose, but we consider it a bit of a bonus.

Read the Sisters' full message.

She Wants To Break Free

On the BBC's Let's Dance For Comic Relief, controversial former model and author Katie Price dressed as Freddie Mercury in a recreation of Queen's classic 1984 drag video for I Want To Break Free. Those are her real actual boobies, by the way.

RuPaul's Drag Race - Queens In Space

Stay out of the comments if you haven't yet seen tonight's episode. Otherwise jump in and dish about the challenge and the elimination.

RuPaul's Drag Race Season Three

Stay out of the comments if you haven't yet seen tonight's premiere episode of RuPaul's Drag Race, season three. Otherwise jump in and dish this year's crop of contestants and tonight's challenge. Not pictured above - the surprise second chance of one of last season's cast-offs.

Lady Bunny - Ballad Of Sarah Palin

Kinsey Sicks - Touch-a Touch Me

(Tipped by JMG reader Spencer)

Earth Wind & Fire Reunite At DC Metro

Actually it's the Black Israelites with their usual dreary anti-gay hate speech. But this clip is amusing for the fierce queens who WILL NOT STOP VOGUEING in their faces. Werq!

Human League - Night People

I posted one of the remixes a few days ago, this is the production video. None of the band members appear, possibly due to their ages, which is a shame. Good clip, though.

SYDNEY: Kylie Minogue Flash Mob

Featuring local drag stars Joyce Maynge and Auntie Mavis. Huge number of participants by the end and they even use a snippet of my favorite Kylie track.

Sarah Palin's Tea Party

SPAIN: Drag Queen Heckles Anti-Gay Opposition Leader Mariano Rajoy

Spain's right-wing People's Party opposition leader Mariano Rajoy has filed a constitutional challenge to marriage equality and has vowed to repeal the law should he become prime minister in 2012. A drag queen showed up at Rajoy's book launch to let him know what she thought.

(Tipped by JMG reader Ejaaz)

Obama Had A Gay Nanny Who Did Drag

According to the New York Times, while he was a young boy in Indonesia, President Obama had a gay male nanny who later went on to join a troupe of drag performers.

Mr. Obama’s family rented the guest house inside a compound belonging to a prominent physician. There, according to the neighborhood’s longtime residents, the young Obama, who had already experienced differences in class and religion in his short stay in Indonesia, was exposed to another aspect of Jakarta’s diversity. His nanny was an openly gay man who, in keeping with Indonesia’s relaxed attitudes toward homosexuality, carried on an affair with a local butcher, longtime residents said. The nanny later joined a group of transvestites called Fantastic Dolls, who, like the many transvestites who remain fixtures of Jakarta’s streetscape, entertained people by dancing and playing volleyball.

The Washington Post comments:

Apparently, such a thing is not uncommon, as Indonesia has a relatively advanced drag culture, the Australian newspaper the Age reported in 2003. Transvestites, known in Indonesia as "waria," are particularly prevalent in the tailoring and makeup artist professions, according to the paper. However, not everyone in Indonesia enjoys the drag queen volleyball games. The BBC reported that hardline Islamists broke up a transvestite beauty pageant in 2005.

You know the Freepers are gonna have a field day with this story.

James Franco For Candy Magazine

Copyranter points out James Franco's cover shot for the first issue of Candy Magazine, "the first transversal style magazine." One thousand copies only, street date October 24th.

Ben Brantley On The Future Of Drag

"How much longer can they continue without a fresh batch of bona fide female stars to draw inspiration from? Since the 1960s, such role models have been scarce. Sure, there have been beautiful-freak performers like Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli, with their surreally emotive song stylings (descended from the patron saint of musical drag queens, Minnelli’s mother, Judy Garland).

"But with the feminist movement and the let-it-all-hang out ethos of the hippies that took hold in the post-Kennedy years, heroines in movies started to look more like natural women (to borrow a title from Carole King). In the 1970s and ’80s, Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda and Jill Clayburgh emerged as strong personalities, but they were not obvious fodder for drag shows. In the so-called postfeminist era, women may have stepped back into high heels and makeup as thick and precise as a geisha’s. But now they wear these identities with quotation marks, as female impersonators had before them." - New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley, in an interesting piece on the future of drag. Read the entire thing.

Kinsey Sicks - Bedroom Ants

New from "America's favorite dragapella beauty shop quartet." Rachel's looking rather buff these days!

Drag Jan Brewer Debate Train Wreck!

Designing Women In The Park

One of the more unusual fundraisers to hit my inbox this week:

Men in dresses, drinks in hands... it's summer in Brooklyn as we take to the stage for our second summer production "Designing Women in the Park." Join us on August 15 for an evening of truly classic theater as we *drag* ourselves through an episode of Designing Women. The party starts at 7pm and runs to 10:30, with three shows. Your suggested donation of $10 gets you into the party, a seat (or a stand) to see the show, and a WHOLE LOT OF BEER, lovingly provided by Brooklyn Brewery. Our efforts this evening all benefit RightRides, an organization dedicated to building safer communities by ending gender-based harassment and sexual assault. We'll see you in Red Hook on the 15th!

About RightRides:

RightRides offers women, LGBTQ and gender queer individuals a free, safe, late night ride home on Friday and Saturday nights from 11:59 PM - 3 AM, (early Saturday or Sunday morning) in up to 45 NYC neighborhoods across four NYC boroughs. To call for a ride, the dispatch number is (888) 215-SAFE (7233).

RECAP: Montreal Day 4

Saturday began with a trip to the "24-hour hipster joint and poutine mecca," La Banquise, where my able homo-guide ordered us the traditional version of Montreal's specialty seen several posts below this one. From there we went to Parc Lafontaine in the Le Plateau-Mont Royal borough, where we lounged on the grass and scarfed our fries and curds. Lafontaine seems like a mini-Central Park, with an open-air theater, playing fields, bike paths, fountains, and waterfalls. Lovely.

Next we headed down to the waterfront, as Daniel had promised a jet boat ride around the Island of Montreal. What I hadn't realized is that we were actually going to ride the white waters of the Lachine Rapids on the St. Lawrence, which it turned out are second only in ferocity to the Colorado River. When I saw the safety gear, rubber boots, and giant padded head-protectors on the boat...I very nearly backed out. Especially when the pilot shouted to me, "New York City? FRONT ROW!" I am so not a thrill-ride person, particularly when the pre-ride spiel includes barfing instructions. (Into the hood of your poncho, please.) The ride was actually exhilarating (and terrifying) and I'm glad I did it, even if my shoulders ache today from holding on. BTW, those ankle-length rubber ponchos, haute couture though they may be, are useless when the water is up to your chest in the boat.

After dropping our sopping clothes with hotel housekeeping, Daniel and I joined the Farmboyz for the solo show debut of Blowoff artist Linas Garsys, where local and USA bear-types ogled the artwork and dished about that coming evening's entertainment options. From there we headed to rotisserie specialist St. Hubert for some of that there organic, free range, only-spoken-softly-to chicken.

And then we were off to Mascara, Les Nuit Des Drags, Montreal's Divers/Cite version of Wigstock, where long-reigning queen of the city Mado held court before 25,000 wildly enthusiastic fans in between numerous highly choreographed group drag numbers. Mado is apparently quite hilarious, judging by audience response, but of course I couldn't understand a thing. After a couple of hours, we moved to the other end of Divers/Cite's sprawling blocks-long area to hear legendary DJ Frankie Knuckles work his Whistle Song magic at the Sunset Party (above photo.) As longtime readers know, I consider dancing with thousands of homos in the dwindling light to glorious swirling house music to be one of life's greatest pleasure. Happy happy JMG.

Then it was back to the hotel, where Frankie's final notes rattled our windows from a block away as we changed for our assault on St. Catherine's zillion bars and clubs. First stop was the L'Aigle Noir, where some kind of electric-fetish demonstration was taking place, after which we headed once again to my new favorite bar, Le Stud, where they thoughtfully do not pump the dance floor's audio into the adjacent rooms. I should have hit a lot more of the clubs and bars purely for investigative purposes, but the long lines of youthful clubbers outside places like Complexe Sky and Club Unity dissuaded me from even a casual poke-in. Anyway, more to come on my first visit to Montreal, including some video from Mascara and the Sunset Dance. Big hugs to all the JMG readers who stopped to say hello yesterday! Full-screen versions of the below slideshow are here.