SGALGG & GGALGG: Emmys Edition

Wow, thems were some gay Emmys. Yes, indeedy. From Jane Lynch to “Modern Family” to that all-singing, all-spectacular Gleetastic opening number, the show was a merry and gay affair. Now, digesting the full magnitude of a major award show always takes me two days. The first day is to go over the nuts and bolts of who won this and who said that. Then the second day I can just sit back and devour the pretty. And, kittens, there was so much pretty. Let’s start with the gay gals and their lady loves (sorry, I can’t say lovers – to quote my favorite Emmy loser Tina Fey, “that word bums me out unless it’s between the words ‘meat’ and ‘pizza.’”) and then we’ll progress to the straight gals. But no matter where they stood on the Kinsey Scale, a whole lotta ladies were acting like gay gals at the Emmys. Can you blame them, I mean, we are pretty awesome.

GGALGG

Jane Lynch & Lara EmbryThe love, it burns! I love them together. I love that Jane kissed Lara when she won. I love that she also said “I love you my wife, Lara” on stage. You want to know why gay marriage matters? This is why gay marriage matters. Love.
Wanda & Alex SykesThey look like a fresco of Greek goddesses painted onto an ancient wall somewhere being uncovered by an archeologist who thrills with each brush stroke as she carefully reveals their beauty from underneath centuries of earth and time. Sorry, let me amend that, a smoking hot fresco of Greek goddesses. Hot damn, those girls – and Alex and Wanda look good, too.
SGALGG

Tina Fey & Mariska HargitayThis is becoming like a thing between these two. It is like the mere sight of each other in sleek, sparkly gowns is too much for them to take and then that hand goes from firmly around the waist to, well, firmly everywhere. Maybe Mariska and Tina are the real-life Alex and Olivia. Ship that, people.
[Hat tip, Allegra!]

Sofia Vergara & Julie BowenIf you thought Mariska had a firm grip on Tina, check out Julie’s grip on Sofia . You’d need the Jaws of Life to get her hand off of her. Plus dude in the back is totally, “Hell, yeah.”

Claire Danes & Julia Ormond

Claire looks like she has had a bit too much champagne and has just whispered “Take me home” into Julia’s ear. Also, shoot Julia, where have you been hiding all that gorgeous these last few years?

Christina Hendricks & January JonesI want to say something terribly witty about how they look together, but I’ve forgotten how to form words.

Toni Collette & Julia Louis DreyfusI like to think that the Emmy losers console each other backstage. And by “console,” I mean “make out.”

Padma Lakshmi & Gail SimmonsWhen people say food porn, this is what they’re picturing.

Heather Morris & Naya Rivera

Brittana, you’ve got me wrapped around whichever finger you want to use in whatever situation you feel like using it. Ahem.

Mariana Klaveno, Kristin Bauer & Anna PaquinThe Bill-Sookie-Eric sandwich isn’t the only threesome worth talking about on “True Blood.” Not by a long shot.

Amy Poehler, Aubrey Plaza & Tina FeySpeaking of threesomes, gay sexy vampires aren’t the only ones who look good having them. Let’s make this “30 Rock” meets “Parks and Recreation” very special crossover happen.

Archie Panjabi & the Emmy statuetteShe is going to take it behind the garage door and get it pregnant, Tracy Jordan style.

Bonus I: Best. Emmy. Picture. Ever.Tina Fey, Amy Poehler & Jon Hamm dancing their asses off. I’ll be honest, that’s a threesome I could totally get behind, too.

Bonus II: Best. Tina. Video. Ever.
After dancing her ass off with Amy and Jon while downing what I can only assume was copious amounts of champagne, Tina goes to find her limo. God, that giggle. That hair.

What it looks like when New York gets drunk, y’all. Suck it, nerds!

Griff says: Trivial Pursuits

Keen monitors of the 'Griff says' articles will hopefully remember my previous post about one-woman-band and all round creative marvel Julia Kotowski who operates under the name of entertainment for the braindead. As I made clear at the time, observing the continuous and varied expression of her artistic vision has been an enduring joy for me over the last three years. You can presumably imagine the frisson of excitement I felt yesterday then when I saw her myspace bulletin announcing a new release. It's called Trivialities and as ever it's available as a free download, though on this occasion just at bandcamp.

Perhaps not too surprisingly I think it's wonderful and I'd really like to describe it to you. However, rather than do that I'm going to reprint Julia's own description as I love the honesty and feeling of the following passage and I don't think I can top it:
"Now this is nothing for the Greatest Hits Collection. No excellent piece of craftsmanship, no mentionable artistic value. Just stuff that happened, songs that happened while I was planning on something else, like a comma in the short story that is my life. That's how it rolls, you're designing your career, planning out your steps, willing to create something big and meaningful, and in the meantime there are all those little things going on... friends become strangers, strangers turn into friends, maybe one of them reminds you that life's not so bad or meanwhile you've found comfort in nihilism, and then there's this little ukulele that you've owned for years but rarely ever played... yet suddenly it's overflowing with music.

No experiments this time. No exploration of unknown terrain. No concepts, nothing big.
Sometimes I feel so sick of sounding lovely all the time, of always sounding the same, but then again I can't help it. So, fuck creativity! Fuck belief in progress! Maybe I should be elsewhere already. We always feel urged to move forward, do better shit than yesterday, more accomplished, more brilliant, more fancy, and maybe it's almost considered stagnation in personal development if someone just wants to lean back and play some boring ukulele folk songs to comfort himself. Sure I want to be more brilliant and fancy and better than ever, too, but for now maybe there is no need to reinvent the wheel as long as I'm happy playing my rediscovered ukulele for a while. All the flamboyant shit can wait until tomorrow.
So once more I'm not taking a creative leap forward but rather just sitting down on the very spot I happen to stand right now. But maybe someone wants to sit besides me and listen? "

Phew! Quite a statement of intent and a position perhaps best summed up by another rather more famous German; "Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht Anders tun. Gott hilfe mir. Amen." (Just joking, Julia. You're nothing like him, I don't even think he played the ukulele!)



Personally, I love Trivialities. I think it's a mature return to the magical sounds of Hypersomnia and Hydrophobia. I also love it that, in the passage above, Julia displays such naked passion in defending an art-form (bedroom folk) that's often portrayed as safe and wimpy. The attention-grabbing, toddler tantrum antics of some musical genres has unfortunately meant that music that is gentle and thoughtful is sometimes mistakenly labelled as bland and insipid. Nothing could be further from the truth, this is music with genuine feeling and sentiment. It exists because of the artistic urge. What more are you looking for?



For musos amongst you, Julia has rather helpfully provided an inventory of the instruments used on this recording:
"A soprano ukulele, a bowed guitar, a bluegrass banjo, a mandolin banjo, glockenspiel, one concertina, another concertina, a wooden flute, borrowed drums and a cardboard box, casio mini-keyboard, shaker & tambourine."



I hope that clears that up. Enjoy!

Griff
xx

Grassroots lesbianism

I would officially like to declare this the launch of the “People In Support of Nancy Botwin Embracing Lesbianism” grassroots letter-writing campaign. Yep, the line forms here. Get your pens, get your paper, get your stamps. This is where it starts. We are all going to write into Showtime right this very second to make this happen because Mary-Louise Parker said so. I am very obedient when it comes to these matters. Obsequious, even.

But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself a tad. I can’t help it, what with the excitement. Mary-Louise Parker is talking about embracing lesbianism and I’m rushing the punchline. Let’s back up and talk about how this soon-to-be groundswell of public support began. You see, Mary-Louise did an interview with Vanity Fair. In said interview she talks about many things: never having smoked pot, once having sucked on a pot lollipop, why smart people want to fuck her, why dumb people also probably want to fuck her, why Nancy Botwin likes to fuck rough, how fame is fucked up and not knowing who the fuck Bill O’Reilly is but thinking he “probably comes from a nuclear family and didn’t get enough attention as a child.” God, I fucking love her.

Amid all of that, she also talked about the trailer for the sixth season which featured Mary-Louise offering Linda Hamilton a very personalized down payment, ahem, in exchange for some product. When the interviewer asks if Nancy would be getting any lady action this season, she responds:

MLP: Yeah, yeah, I hear you. But no, that’s not happening. It’s just something they put in the trailer because it’s funny, but it doesn’t actually happen. It’s not a bad idea though. I’ve always thought that Nancy should have sex with a woman. It’d be good for her.

VF: Would it help if we started a letter-writing campaign?

MLP: Like a grassroots sort of thing? Yeah, we should do it. “People In Support of Nancy Botwin Embracing Lesbianism.” Right on.

You heard the woman. Get writing.

~Kitten Wine~#16: Swans Way

By rights we should have hated it!

It was all the NME's fault....and The Face....and Robert Elms! This New Pop infused with light Jazz should really have made us bellicose...but we loved this one particular song that emerged from it. I mean, we REALLY loved it! How come? Let's find out. Jump in the Streetlamp Time Machine and we'll go back to early 1984.

It was a time when the NME was still printed on that thick coarse paper and the ink made your hands black as you pored over every word. Back in those days, Griff and I lived by the NME, and to a lesser extent TV shows The Tube and The Old Grey Whistle Test. There was no Internet then and even MTV Europe was till a couple of years away, so for impassioned little music monkeys like us, the NME was IT!

In those days the NME still adopted a very intellectual pose, it was full of Post Punk and Postcard Records, Jean Cocteau and The Cocteau Twins, articles on French Cinema and Those French Girls, more Jean-Paul Sartre than John Paul George and Ringo.....and we loved it! It was a transitional time for us....we had done the bratty Punk thing in our early teens and now, in our mid teens we found our tastes becoming a little more sophisticated.

In late 1983, early 84, somebody(Robert Elms we suppose) decided that Jazz was (ahem) 'the new thing' and that Pop should be it's outlet. In that immediate pre-Yuppie early 80s, The Face was the Bible of choice for the fashionistas founded by ex-NME journalists and took it upon itself to promote this 'new' music. Suddenly Jazz-Pop was everywhere, from the sublime(Weekend, Fine Young Cannibals) to the ridiculous(Simply Red) with all the lukewarm water inbetween(Sade).

In late 83 as we prepared to leave school and totter out into the big world our music tastes changed considerably, but also we became more passionate about music....a passion that still burns through these Blogs today. And it was moments like seeing 'Soul Train' by Swans Way that lit the blue touchpaper...

God, it was seismic! Like so many other moments from that time, I can remember exactly where I was and how I felt as it played out on The Tube....scratchy cello strings, a mellifluous voice intoning 'It's midnight....Sooooooul Train....Hah!' and we were off into 3 and a half minutes of beautiful, vibrant Pop.

The music moves with a slinky, louche swagger all cellos and brass, but it's the vocals that are SO strong on this track. Robert Shaw is the singer of note here and it's the impassioned longing of those "I try...I try...I try....oohoooohooo" lines that win this listener over. Add to that the call and response style of the verses and the "I'm not strong enough" finale and you have near as damn it a perfect Pop song. Sadly, the public didn't agree and the song only scraped a paltry Number 20 position on the charts. This somehow suggests that there were 19 songs better than it in the charts that week! I would argue that there aren't 19 songs better than it in the history of music!!

In that transitional period of early 1984 as we began to leave the well trodden streets of our youth and move into the bars and clubs of our *cough* Golden Years, we clung to music like a safety jacket....it was everything, and every record, every song was digested, dissected and discussed in minute detail. Some songs became mere 'songs', but some, like 'Soul Train' became the very lifeblood.

We really should have hated it....but we loved it...and still do!

~Gordon~

As an addendum we present Swans Way's follow up single 'Illuminations' which strangely I never heard at the time it was released. Now, hearing it here, I wish I taken this band a bit more seriously. Oh well.....

My Weekend Crush

I’m not sure even if it is possible to be in love with a multimedia project, but I am. The New York Times, the staid national paper of record, ran an exhaustive special package on the women of professional tennis this week. It came with a fairly standard feature story talking about the state of the women’s game. But oh, kittens – the extras. Everything is in the extras. The project included an online photo essay and video gallery. That doesn’t sound like much until I tell you it’s a slo-mo video gallery of the incredibly fit, incredibly toned, incredibly strong women of tennis hitting balls really, really hard. I mentioned it was slo-motion, right? I am not even going to try to count the number of times I watched these videos back-to-back, on a loop, with the lights dimmed. This is porn, porn for muscles.

[See them all at the source.]

Now, I could get into a long-winded discussion about whether an article about the present state of women’s tennis really needs a blow-out multi-media package featuring some of the game’s biggest and most comely stars in flowing, spangly outfits and immaculate, full makeup hitting tennis balls. Objectification, glamorization, etc. etc., blah blah. But this is not the time or place for that. Instead I want to admire, with every fiber in my body, the dedication and drive, strength and sweat it takes to become a professional athlete. I want to appreciate how hard these women worked to be able to hit that hard. I want to leave small sacrificial offerings at the temples that they’ve transformed their bodies into. I want to marvel at the beauty that comes with strength. In short, I want to watch them play. Happy weekend, all.

Fog Warning

How do you make a raincoat sexy? Find a raincoat. Put it on Christina Hendricks. Any questions? The “Mad Men” star has signed on as the new face (and body, mostly – more on that later) of London Fog. Remember London Fog? We all had a boring old raincoat by them our moms made us take to school against our will on days it looked even the tiniest bit gray. Yeah, well, suddenly I’m praying for rain. Because if Christina shows up in said raincoat I will gladly bring protection – against the rain, people, the rain.

Also good? Christina in a trenchcoat. With a tie. With a button-down shirt that is insufficiently buttoned. Never before have I been so happy about someone’s inability to properly button one’s shirt.

Now, I’ve purposely used the behind-the-scenes pictures of Christina’s London Fog shoot instead of the official campaign photos. Because, as Jezebel has shown, those damn mad ad men and women have given her a ridiculous Photoshop treatment. But we’re going to ignore those altered atrocities. Because nothing you could ever create, manipulate, snip or clip in a computer could ever, ever, ever beat the real thing.

Am I right, ladies? Yeah, I know I’m right. Now bring on the rain.

The circle of (lesbian) life

I saw these photos of Kate Moennig a week ago when she retweeted them. And I was, of course, impressed. Yummy, yummy in my tummy. But then in the circular way that both life and my brain works, I came back to them this week and the pieces had all come together. The photos were taken by lesbian photographer Tasya van Ree. Who happens to be dating actress Amber Heard.

And then you dig a little deeper and Tasya knows Michelle Rodriguez. And out supermodel Tasha Tilberg. And, of course, back to Kate. Following the rabbit hole of who knows who and how and when in Hollywood is curiouser and curiouser than Alice could have ever imagined. And so the circle goes on and on.

I’m not very familiar with Amber, other than that she is a very pretty young woman. While she has starred in the “Pineapple Express” and “Zombieland,” the only thing I recall ever seeing her in was an episode of “Criminal Minds” where, interestingly, her crazed stalker was a woman. But she is a welcome addition to what I hope will be a new and expectation defying wave of young gay Hollywood stars. While they’ve been out and about for what appears to be years (or at the very least known each other for years), the couple really made a splash appearing last week at the Prop. 8 rally hand-in-hand with some really fantastic signs.

A year ago Amber told Details:

“I’m open to whoever. I think it is absurd to assume that I have to look in a certain category. A person should make choices—about who they want to marry, who they want to spend time with, who they want to fuck—based on a variety of options, and I hope that one day people will be more open-minded about that. It’s silly to look in one category or another. I would never imagine a mate based on a certain sex or race.”

Of course, actresses saying they’re “open to whoever” is one thing. Having a real girlfriend that you walk the dog with and go to protests with and pose for sexy photoshoots with that’s another.

Next for Amber is the Johnny Depp take on Hunter S. Thompson’s “The Rum Diaries.” The whole thing should be gorgeous because it has Johnny and Amber and is set in 1960s Puerto Rico . I have already put it on my “To Do” list. It makes a difference when someone is out, open, honest. Each person, every time. And so the circle expands.

Tank Top Tuesday

The beauty of the tank top is multifold. Form-fitting, sheer, cool, hot, practical, clingy. It is many things in many ways to many people. But one of its near-magical qualities is its ability to transform the wearer. It’s not about looks, though it does look great, but more about attitude. Sometimes when a woman puts on a tank top her shoulders straighten, her jaw sets, her eyes focus. She has a swagger. She no longer cares about being soft. In short, she butches up a bit. It’s hot as hell. Don’t believe me? Well, that’s why I always bring along photographic evidence.

Jennifer Garner
Cote de Pablo
Scarlett Johansson
Cate Blanchett
Olivia Wilde
Laura Sanchez
Clea DuVall
Rosario DawsonI rest my case.

Kiss and make it better

I had a hell of a weekend. And, to be honest, I’m still recuperating a bit. But there’s one thing that always makes me feel better: Watching girls kissing. So instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour, like I had planned, to try and wake up refreshed and ready for the work week I spent hours engaged in perhaps the biggest time suck known to the universe: Searching for clips of girls kissing on YouTube. And because I’m not greedy, I’m passing my finds on to you. A few of the best TV kisses, just to brighten your Monday.

Callie & Arizona, Grey’s Anatomy

And the trend of lesbian bathroom kisses continues.

Dana & Lara, The L Word

Kisses against lockers…

Naomi & Emily, Skins

…are fucking hot.

Thelma & Cassie, Hex

So, fine, this was just a dream. A very, very good dream.

Alex & Jessica, Mistresses

I know this post is about kisses, but the hottest thing in this clip is the way Anna Torv unbuttons her shirt. There is something tremendously sexy about how she uses her hands, ahem.

p.s. Is it just me, or have the English just had better lesbian kisses on TV? Must be the accents.

~Kitten Wine~#15: Jacques Brel, And The Poetry Of Desolation

It was always inevitable that I would run into the words and music of Jacques Brel one day. He had already been a major influence on some of the artists I admired; David Bowie, Marc Almond, Dusty Springfield, to those I couldn't live without; Momus and Scott Walker. Momus, Walker and Almond had all recorded entire collections of Brel's work, so it was obvious we would collide one day. I just didn't expect it to be such a long strange path to his door....

It all began in the late October of 1989.....SHE had gone, and this time for good, the sting of anguish still hung on me like a fresh tattoo. It was a Tuesday night, the first Tuesday since early April that we hadn't been together. I had a bit of a flu coming on so decided just to stay in with a bottle of Jack Daniels and the four Scott Walker albums I had recently acquired. They had been a bit of a bargain...through Record Collector magazine I had managed to pick up Scott Walker's first four solo albums for £40. This was quite something as I had seen both 'Scott 3' and 'Scott 4' for sale in RC for over £60 EACH.
The rest of my family had gone away on holiday that afternoon so I was alone in the house. I know what you're thinking....empty house, broken heart, melancholic music, Jack Daniels, flu remedy capsules....an accident waiting to happen, right? Wrong....somehow I felt both uplifted and soothed as I listened to the four albums in chronological order. There were certain songs that I felt did the job better than others, and as I perused the sleeve notes found that the songs I connected most with were those written by a certain J Brel(as the label had it). The three song Brel finale of 'Scott 3' especially; 'Funeral Tango', 'Sons Of...' and 'If You Go Away' in particular was simply miraculous. Scott's interpretation of 'If You Go Away' in particular sounded, at that moment, like the greatest piece of words and music combined in all musical history. I played it over and over again. Better than any Beecham's Powders.

I thanked Scott and Jacques for their combined efforts in getting me through the longest night of the soul and made a point to find out more about Brel and check out his own work.

What you have to remember is that back in 1989/90 there were no huge CD reissue campaigns on the go, in fact there weren't really an awful lot of CDs of old music at all, it was all new stuff that was being put out on the spiffy new format. And there was certainly no Internet!
Every time I went to Glasgow I tried to find Brel albums or CDs but to no avail. Then one day, in the late Summer of 1990, in Tower Records Import section....there were THREE Jacques Brel 12" vinyl albums....a kind of 'hits' compilation, a Live In Paris 1961 album, and a double album set of songs he recorded in the mid-sixties. Needless to say I snaffled all three immediately. On the train back to Stirling I studied the sleeves longingly....I couldn't wait to hear them. This was SO exciting!!
Finally I was in my room, the Dansette fired up and I put the first album(the 'hits' one) on.....
The music was like a mix of music hall, cabaret and the soundtrack to Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, then came a big shock....he started singing...IN FRENCH!!!! Huh? Now, get the stupid looks off your faces!! I was genuinely surprised! Somehow I just imagined he'd be singing in English....I mean, how had all my idols understood his lyrics?
But as the album played on, one thing became obvious....it didn't matter that I couldn't understand the lyrics, it was the delivery, the emotion, the timbre....THE TIMBRE!!!! that kept me hooked. As an interpreter of song, Brel is almost without equal....

On 'Les Bourgeois', his attack on the lazy middle classes you can virtually hear him stamping up and down as he vents his spleen on the idle rich...


On the extraordinary 'La Valse à Mille Temps', he seems to fit more words into a song than is humanly possible....


The song 'Amsterdam' has been covered quite superbly by Bowie, Almond and Walker, but check out Brel's own interpretation below as proof that nobody delivers vocal drama like Brel. Look out especially for that moment right at the end where he vanishes from the spotlight....it takes the breath right out of your lungs....


On 'Quand On N'a Que L'Amour' he fills a gentle acoustic ballad with so much emotion, pathos and depth that wonder about all these flouncy singer/songwriter types that faff around these days and the pencil-kneck geekery of it all...


And then there's 'Ne Me Quitte Pas'...the original of 'If You Go Away'. I thought it would be difficult to better Scott's interpretation, but again it's all in the drama....the sobs in the vocal, the moments when the voice all but disappears or where it suddenly bursts into anguished longing. Painful....but, just like a broken heart, that 'good' pain.


Jacques Brel tought me that it doesn't matter if you can't understand the lyrics, a good interpretor of song should move you regardless, and had it not been for Jacques then I probably wouldn't have sought out the music of Juliette Greco, Sylvie Vartan, Meiko Kaji, Amalia Rodrigues, Reiko Ike or even Edith Piaf.

Discovering music when you are at your lowest ebb can often lead to a longtime love affair with certain songs or artists and 20 years on Jacques Brel can still move me to tears without me having a clue why.

Salut!

~Gordon~

Griff says; I'm feeling swooky, s'okee though.

mkf is the pop psuedonym of San Francisco resident, and one-woman creative powerhouse, Maria Kristie Fabila (pictured). mkf released her album 's'okee' on bandcamp in 2008 and it's squarely grounded in familiar 'Griff says' territory. You know the drill by now; quirky, lo-fi pop with a broken-hearted, soft-voiced girl accompanying herself on ukulele. Think Wisdom Tooth, Shelby Sifers, Madeline Ava and a host of other Griff favourites to get the picture. And there's certainly nothing wrong with that picture, let's face it, it's a winning combination. However, in April of this year mkf released a further album on bandcamp entitled 'sunday morning phase'. This short (5 track) recording seemed to promise more of the same, albeit with more polish, until track 4 'Lead Me On' kicks off. All of a sudden we've moved from cute twee-folk and are straying into 60's girl-pop territory with amazingly effective results.

And if you think that's delightful and unexpected, the final track; 'I Wanna Do Stuff' has mkf breaking cover and storming into full-on Shangri-Las or Ronettes mode. I promise you, it's exhilirating stuff. I leapt from my computer chair and jived uncontrollably around the stately Scottish mansion from which Streetlamp broadcasts to the world and, believe me, I rarely do that.
Given the above, I'm delighted to see that this week mkf has released yet another freely downloadable track 'swooky' on bandcamp. This is apparently the first track of an EP to be made fully public in October of this year and it continues wonderfully from where 'sunday morning phase' left off. How would I desribe it? Let's just say that if you've been longing for an outbreak of super-cute, lo-fi, doo-wop, electro-pop to shake up the world of indie then 'swooky' is the answer to your prayers. But don't take my word for it, have a listen:

When she's not shaking up the world of indie, Maria is a freelance graphic designer (available for creative freelance work in the Los Angeles area if you're interested). I mention this as I want to finish off with the brilliantly creative video for her song 'we belong in ____, baby' from 's'okee'.



Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. Now visit bandcamp and support this artist.

Griff
xx

My Weekend Crush

Guinevere Turner was the first out lesbian celebrity I ever had a crush on. Which is another reason I’ll always have a soft, smooshy place in my heart for “Go Fish.” Yes, the acting was bad. Yes, the dialog was stilted. But it, too, was a first. The first lesbian movie I rented and watch and rewatch. And then there was Guin. Beautiful, funny, sexy, gay Guin. That hair, that smile. Fucking hell, those cheekbones. Her career has been an interesting mix of projects, from high profile to avant guard. She seems to know and have worked with every lesbian in the business, possibly the planet. Also, kuddos on her relationship with Tracy Chapman. Now that is one hot couple. And through it all she has been out, proud, unapologetic, inspiring. It makes a difference when you know someone is gay from the start. It did for me. It made my crush on her more real, tangible and in only the strictest anatomical, physiological sense, possible. Like, she was gay – maybe she could like me, too? Hey, stranger things have happened. I mean, she propositioned the hell out of that cabbie on “Taxicab Confessions.” Oh, Guin, because of you the line “I have kind of an urge to see you naked,” might actually work on me. Happy weekend, all.

Gender Fuck Thursday: Tie Me Up Edition

Who doesn’t love to tie one on? A necktie, people, a necktie. Sheesh, bunch of drunks here. As a kid, I loved ties. My father rarely wore them, so when he did we knew it was a special occasion. That, of course, led to their mystique. I had a few hand-me downs my dad gave me to play dress up with. In fact, one of my favorite things to do was to wear one of my dad’s old 60s Lord & Taylor suit jackets (slim-cut, so they almost fit), slick my hair back and put on a tie. Geez, and you wonder why it took me forever to figure out The Gay. I haven’t worn one in a while. But with lovely ladies like Katharine Hepburn as inspiration, perhaps it’s time to give it another try. Now, who wants to show me how to tie a Windsor knot again?

Ellen PageI looked a little like her swimming in my suits back in the day.

Gillian AndersonShe looks a little like she is auditioning for “The Office.” Oooh, maybe she can be the new Michael Scott.

Hilary SwankGod, she makes a handsome boy, doesn’t she?

Janelle MonaeIt is one of my greatest wishes that Janelle will help usher in a trend of women in beautifully cut tuxedos.

Kirsten DunstTaking ties off can be as fun as putting them on. Sometimes more.

Emma ThompsonI believe the word you’re looking for here is rawwwr.
[Hat tip, babsf!]

Clara BowThe It Girl in a tie and suspenders. Now we know what “It” was.

Ingrid BergmanIngrid in that tie is totally worth more than a hill of beans.

Marlene DietrichNo Gender Fuck Thursday is truly complete without her. Period.