LGBT Culture

This story makes its thirteenth annual appearance on JMG… Grand Central Terminal functions as the mechanical heart of midtown New York City, pumping out several thousand workers and tourists on one beat, then sucking in several thousand more on the next. The rhythms of the terminal are fascinating. Beat. Four thousand, inbound from New Haven. Beat. Three thousand, outbound to …

Bucking the nationwide trend of gay bars closing. The Washington Blade reports: The Baltimore Eagle, the city’s iconic leather bar, may have its long-awaited opening on New Year’s Eve. “We’re doing two inspections this week,” Charles King, general manager of the Baltimore Eagle, told the Blade. “We’re still hopeful of opening even partially by New Year’s Eve. Keeping our fingers …

This will definitely gay up this joint. The San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus closed their Christmas show this week with quite the complexly choreographed number set to Hooray For Our Favorite Son from the 1991 Tony-winning musical The Will Rogers Follies. I’d say they did Tommy Tune proud. Watch below. (Tipped by JMG reader Daniel)

Alas, our annual holiday week at the eternally fabulous Island House is drawing to a close and tomorrow morning we’ll head back up the Overseas Highway to Fort Lauderdale. This year’s visit got off to a bit of a rainy start, but it’s been clear skies and 80 degrees ever since. (And yes, I’ve been noting the 10 degree wind …

From the Indianapolis Star: Gay bars are going out of business fast. Since 2015 at least five have closed their doors in Indianapolis, about half the city’s total. Among the casualties: the venerable Varsity, the city’s oldest gay bar, dating back to the 1940s. In the past six months Talbott Street, long-known for its drag shows, closed, as did the …

Over at Vulture, Brian Moylan today unpacks what he sees as the glittery gay subtext in the 1964 television classic, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. An excerpt from the slightly tongue-in-cheek piece: “For a year the Donner family did a good job hiding Rudolph’s — non-conformity,” the narrator tells us, pausing slightly before landing on the right euphemism. This is the …

Portland’s NBC affiliate reports: The only gay nightclub in Portland is closing. The owner calls it a bittersweet sign of the times. “We don’t have the crowd we used to,” said Joshua Moody, who has owned Styxx for 12 years. It’s in line with a nationwide trend: as more members of the gay community branch out and feel welcomed and …

Back in May, we had quite a conversation about an Infiniti car commercial that satirized (or paid tribute to, depending on your perspective) a young man coming out to his father. JMG reader Bill today tips us to a new ad which is on the same theme, but is for a website that is somewhat more on point. Watch below.

Vulture recaps: Like a nightclub touted by Saturday Night Live’s Stefon, the new film King Cobra offers up a plethora of wild, unexpected delights. This Justin Kelly–directed movie has everything, including James Franco and Christian Slater as rival gay-porn moguls warring over the employment of Brent Corrigan (Garrett Clayton), the industry’s most promising new bottom. It also boasts Pretty Little …

The corporate owners of the popular lesbian pop culture site AfterEllen are pulling the plug after 14 years. Editor-in-chief Trish Bendix eulogizes the site for the Advocate: Here are the facts: Evolve Media purchased AfterEllen from Viacom two years ago. They gave us two fiscal years to become their LGBT property and profit in that space, and they found we are …

Advocate executive editor Neal Broverman interviewed me recently and today published his story about this here website thingy, our commenting community, and how we deal with the growing troll problem that has forced some sites to do away with commenting entirely. Hit the link to read my kind words about you. This is also a good opportunity to suggest that …

Here’s an entertaining pair of videos in which the narrator explores the famed passion that many gay men have for musical theater. Watch below as he examines the careers of Cole Porter, Noel Coward, Lorenz Hart, and other famed gay composers. More from the San Diego Gay & Lesbian News: Mr. Musical Theatre Mash, or as he likes to be …

New York City’s legendary gay nightclub, the Paradise Garage, will be the focus of upcoming film. Electronic Beats reports: Though it closed in 1987, New York’s Paradise Garage night club has left a lasting impression on dance music that can still be felt today. Along with the Warehouse in Chicago and Zanzibar in New Jersey, the Garage was a place …

Rolling Stone recaps: Fox offered up a new trailer for their Rocky Horror Picture Show remake during their Comic-Con panel on Thursday. In the clip, Orange Is the New Black star Laverne Cox – who plays Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the “sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania,” in the film – vamps it up to one of the musical’s signature tunes, “The Time …

Just in via email: Today, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus – with Artistic Director Dr. Tim Seelig- visited the international headquarters of Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, CO. This was part of an outreach extension tour SFGMC is doing, following the quadrennial GALA Choruses Festival, which brings together over 160 LGBT choruses from North America and beyond …

The GALA Choruses Festival took place this weekend in Denver, where the hottest ticket was the performance by the Orlando Gay Chorus. Watch below as the they perform You’ll Never Walk Alone. Halfway through the song, conductor James Rode turned to the audience at the 2500-seat Ellie Caulkins Opera House and motioned for them to stand and join in. As …

German filmmaker Kai Stänicke’s heartwarming Golden made the rounds of LGBT film festivals last year and he’s posted the short to YouTube this week in response to the Pulse massacre. You’ll be glad you spent the three minutes on this.

Veteran music journalist Barry Walters has penned an excellent take on why our nightclubs have always been a refuge for the LGBT community. From Billboard Magazine: Since Stonewall and well before, gay clubs have been our schools, our places of worship. Nightclubs are where we’ve long learned to unlearn hate, and learn to become and love our real selves. They’re …

Gentle readers, I’m rerunning my annual Pride rant for the twelfth year. I wrote this post in 2005 a couple of days after attending Pride here in NYC. In the following years I’ve reposted it in advance of Pride in the hope of encouraging you to attend your local events. Have a wonderful Pride month. Love each other. Watching The …

From the Jerusalem Post: The Tel Aviv Gay Pride parade drew hundreds of thousands of participants to the march on Friday. The parade, which took off from Tel Aviv’s Gan Meir at noon and included music, festivities, speeches and shows, is the largest Pride Parade in the Middle East. This year’s event spotlighted “Women for a Change,” an organization that …