Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyMay 8th, 2014
TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Darwin, NT; Kraków, Poland; New Hope, PA; São Paulo, Brazil; Tallahassee, FL.
AIDS Walks This Weekend: Buffalo, NY; Des Moines, IA.
Other Events This Weekend: Purple Party, Dallas, TX; BeachBear Weekend, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Houston Splash, Houston, TX; Big Horn Rodeo, Las Vegas, NV; Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Miami, FL.
TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:
From Christopher Street, June 1977, page 47.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Tom of Finland: 1920-1991. Born Touko Laaksonen, Tom of Finland was famous for his stylized homoerotic and fetish art. Over a forty year career, he produced some 3,500 drawings in his unique exaggerated style. If Barbie dolls proportions represent an anatomically impossible ideal for women, Tom of Finland’s hypermasculine characters were portrayed in similarly fantastical idealizations of manly men, although Tom didn’t see it that way. “All my drawings are grounded in reality,” he said. “I use models, whom I initially photograph and then later refer to when I draw. People complain that I exaggerate. My fantasies often take over, of course, but I want to offer the viewer something that he can’t get in a photograph.”
His style was partly influenced by beefcake and physique magazines which skirted on the edges of U.S. censorship codes in the 1950s and 1960s. But as the codes were struck down in the 1960s over First Amendment issues, his drawings became more explicit and more overtly sexual. They became the definitive style guide for leathermen through his portrayal of policemen, lumberjacks, sailors and bikers, and they’ve inspired such artists as Robert Mapplethorpe (see Nov 4), Freddie Mercury (see Sep 5) and the Village People.
He died of a stroke brought on by emphysema on November 7, 1991. Several examples of his “dirty drawings ” — his unabashed description for them — have been acquired by New York’s Museum of Modern Art. This past winter, works by Tom of Finland and “physique” photographer Bob Mizer (see Mar 27) were featured in a special exhibit at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. On September 8 of this year, his native Finland will honor him with a set of postage stamps which have been described as ” considerably more erotic than those usually seen on any nation’s envelopes.” A documentary film of his life is in the works and is slated for a 2015 release.
Darren Hayes: 1972. The singer-songwriter was the front man of Savage Garden. Their 1997 album by the same name peaked at #1 in Australia, #2 in the U.K., #3 in the U.S. Their biggest American hit was “Truly Madly Deeply.” Their follow-up album yielded another #1 hit in the U.S. with “I Knew I Loved You.” In 2002, he launched his solo career, and by 2005 it was clear that Savage Garden was through.
Hayes married his “childhood sweetheart” in 1997. They divorced in 2000 after he told her that he was gay. After years of public speculation about his sexuality, Hayes came out on July 18, 2006, when he announced that he had entered a civil partnership with his boyfriend, Richard Cullen, a month earlier. In April, 2007, he told The Advocate, “First of all, it took me a long time to even accept that I was gay. And then it took me a long time to be happy that I was gay.” That summer he headlined London’s Gay Pride at Trafalgar Square. You can see his video for “It Gets Better” here. His fourth solo album, Secret Codes and Battleships, was released in 2011. He and Cullen upgraded their partnership in 2013 to full marriage soon after same-sex marriage resumed in California.
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?
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Brad
May 8th, 2014
Savage Garden’s debut album was released in Australia, March 1997. The article states 1987 and is incorrect.
Jim Burroway
May 8th, 2014
Thanks. I’ve corrected the error.
NancyP
May 8th, 2014
I predict that the Tom of Finland stamp will sell out fast. Smart move by the Finnish postal service – it’s like printing money.
GarySFBCN
May 8th, 2014
Just checking to see your petition to denounce Jack Burkman and his efforts to boycott any NFL team that chooses Michael Sam.
Oh that’s right – quislings would never do that.
“NFL Team That Drafts Openly Gay Player Michael Sam Will Face Boycott, Says D.C. Lobbyist Seeking to Ban Gays From League”
http://www.christianpost.com/news/nfl-team-that-drafts-openly-gay-player-michael-sam-will-face-boycott-says-d-c-lobbyist-seeking-to-ban-gays-from-league-119382/
E.
May 13th, 2014
This lesbian will always have a nostalgic fondness for Tom of Finland… the gay bar in the small town where I was living when I first came out had wood-paneled walls that were decorated with framed copies of his prints.
Nathaniel
June 2nd, 2014
Jim, a morbid part of me hopes you will some day add NC’s amendment vote to the Agenda under May 8, as a reminder of the last time a restriction of marriage rights was successfully put to the vote. Of course, in order for it to be a last, we will need a final say on the unconstitutionality of those restrictions, but I do hope it is soon.
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