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Indie Spirit Awards: ‘Moonlight’ Sweeps Day, Takes Best Feature – Full Winners List

A24’s Moonlight swept all five competitive awards it was up for at the 32nd annual Film Independent Spirit Awards, wrapping the day at Santa Monica’s Barker Hanger with a win for Best Feature. With Oscar frontrunner La La Land not eligible for these awards (its budget was above the Spirit Award cutoff of $20 million), it was Barry Jenkins’ drama who stole the spotlight, with Jenkins winning for Director and Screenplay in addition to wins for Cinematography and Editing.

Jenkins dedicated his Director award to “anyone who was on the call sheet for those 25 hot-ass days in Miami,” he said. The pic was also awarded the Spirits’ honorary Robert Altman Award, given to Jenkins, the cast and producers.
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BEST FEATURE

Moonlight
Producers: Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Adele Romanski

BEST DIRECTOR

Barry Jenkins
Moonlight

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD
(Given to one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast)

Moonlight
Director: Barry Jenkins
Casting Director: Yesi Ramirez
Ensemble Cast: Mahershala Ali, Patrick Decile, Naomie Harris, Alex Hibbert, André Holland, Jharrel Jerome, Janelle Monáe, Jaden Piner, Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders

BEST SCREENPLAY

Moonlight
Barry Jenkins
Story By Tarell Alvin McCraney

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Moonlight
James Laxton

BEST EDITING

Moonlight
Joi McMillon, Nat Sanders



Read the whole post here.

 

News of the GAP’s new 90’s inspired capsule collection left me and many other 90’s aficionados gagging for a chance to relive perhaps the most iconic style generation.

The campaign featured several celebs, including the legendary Naomi Campbell. But the shine of clothes has been dulled by social media’s reaction to Evan Ross.

People are dragging actor Evan Ross for his pose, which some are calling out as too feminine for a black man.

There’s nothing off about Ross’s photos. He’s rocking a badass sleeveless sweatshirt with black skinny jeans, far from the gender-bending antics of Young Thug. His facial expression and posture are just like any other stoic model, yet he’s the target for a slew of homophobic hate in the comment section.





Both black men and women are denied their full humanity because of racist systems of oppression that still require a greater sense of resiliency for people of color. Essentially, if you are to survive in a society that inherently holds you back then you must be strong. For black queer people, the stakes are even higher, we must contend with racism and homophobia.

The gag is Ross isn’t gay. In fact, he’s a father of one and married to Ashlee Simpson, but even if he was gay, why would that matter? Unfortunately, black men are rarely allowed to just be without the burden of all of black manhood place on their shoulders. This is yet another case of Internet trolls throwing shade to any black man who could be perceived as queer—the worst part is that is coming from within the black community.

Black manhood has been terrorized in this country for centuries, going as far back as slavery to more recent killings of black men (and women) by police and vigilantes. The narrative of the “strong black man,” combined with a patriarchal culture of toxic masculinity creates a performative manliness that does little to actually empower black men.

The idea that black men cannot exhibit in form of weakness is informed by cultural attitudes on race, gender and religion. All three of these factors meet within the black church, where homophobic rhetoric preached from the pulpit reinforced gender binary and heteronormativity. From the Civil Rights Movement to pre-Civil War abolitionists, the black church has played an important role in advocating for the lives of black men and women.

In terms of representation in pop-culture, there are very few examples of black men who have been able to transgress the boundaries of performative masculinity. Prince and Jaden Smith are just a handful of black men who have rejected one-dimensional roles that society ascribes to black men. Also, out celebrities such as Frank Ocean and, more recently, ILoveMakonnen and Taylor Bennett, have shown the diversity of masculinity of queer black men.

Which brings me back to the photo of Ross. Rather than promote discrimination within our community, we need to affirm that all black lives matter regardless of gender expression, sexuality or any intersectional identity.

 

What do you all think? I know this is based in West Hollywood but would you be interested in attending an intergenerational gay dinner?

 

I've looked long and hard for products that don't irritate my sensitive skin when shaving. I think I have come across a few that just might do me right. Someone else out there on the world wide Internets might feel the same. Spread the word. The revolution will not be televised.

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I wish every human being were as introspective and intelligent as these dudes. The world would be a better place for sure.

Andre Holland


Ashton Sanders




Just thought I'd post one of the best scenes in the movie.

 

From Twitter
Roses are red
My heart is fat
Be my Valentine
Or cash me outside howbow dah

 

By my count, Moonlight was nominated for 8 Oscars, including best supporting actor and actress, director, picture, adapted screenplay, film editing, original score, and cinematography.

 

Look, we get it: You're a busy guy, and busy guys have Instagram photos to post, texts to answer, and Tinder profiles to peruse. But when it comes to getting a solid workout in, you're probably better off leaving your phone in your locker. Even if you're not one of those infuriating people who scrolls on Instagram between sets at the squat rack while there are five other people waiting to use it, you're doing yourself a disservice.

That's right: Putzing around on your smartphone puts the brakes on your workout intensity—and it might even hinder your balance, according to brand-new research from Hiram College in Ohio.

In the study, researchers analyzed 45 college students as they worked out while texting, talking, or listening to music. A separate control group did calisthenics and/or cardio without phones, according to the paper, which was published in December in Computers in Human Behavior and Performance Enhancement & Health.

The results? Unsuprisingly, swiping right mid-workout makes it harder to focus on your pushups and burpees. Texting also reduces "postural stability"—a fancy term for how well you can stay balanced—by 45%, the researchers found, and talking on the phone mid-exercise hurts balance by 19%.

Not even master multitaskers are immune: "If you're talking or texting on your cell phone while you're putting in your daily steps, your attention is divided by the two tasks, and that can disrupt your postural stability, and therefore, possibly predispose individuals to other greater inherent risks such as falls and musculoskeletal injuries," lead study author Michael Rebold, Ph.D., said in a press release. (It is important to note, however, that 45 participants is really, really small for a study, so take these findings with a grain of statistical salt.)

The one exception to the phone ban? Listening to music. It's not exactly earth-shattering; music can make HIIT more enjoyable, helping you push through the toughest parts of a workout, according to a study published in the Journal of Sport Sciences.

Our advice: Bring your phone out only when you're doing cardio or exercise too intense to look at your phone. When you're done, toss it back in the locker so you're not tempted by emails, group texts, or calls. Thank us when you craft a killer bod—and just imagine what it'll do for your Tinder game.

Want greater gains? Don't bring your phone to the gym.

 

Watching videos like these really show how privileged I am, but never notice it. Granted there is still a level of Freedom I strive for, however its very humbling to see people still keep pushing on despite such hard conditions. They do really inspire me and they might not know it, but this is how change comes. Little by little their visibility makes others aware and discussions begin.

 

Wardrobe Maintenance For Men 101

 

They're still keeping up the foolishness in a whole new year.













Roast of the Day: Wendy’s Twitter Account is Destroying People Left and Right — Yes, That Wendy’s
Roast of the Day: Wendy’s Twitter Account is Destroying People Left and Right — Yes, That Wendy’s

 

If you're easily offended...please look away.

 

In this podcast Ocky Williams give his commentary on Gay Christians and their hurt feelings whenever the topic of the “sinfulness of homosexuality” is brought up in pulpits...they cry ‘Hate Speech’. They may not have chosen their sexuality but they choose to be Christians.

Romans 1:27
“Likewise, the men abandoned natural relations with women and burned with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”​

Leviticus 18:22
“And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”​

Leviticus 20:13
“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”​

These scriptures are considered by most progressive, liberal, leftist thinking people as “hate speech”. As a person who is on the left or “liberal” when it comes to many social issues, I don’t consider it hate speech.

These are verses from Holy Scripture and that’s exactly how I look at it. I’ve heard these verses accompanied by sermons throughout my whole life.

Now if you do believe this is hate speech, this hate speech has a direct clear source…The Bible.

Listen to the full commentary below.







Read the whole post here.

 

In 1999 Tim’m T West received news that would change his life. A three-letter diagnosis from a doctor in Northern California that, in his words, was “positive, yet anything but positive.” At the time, he was at Stanford University, writing his PhD in Modern Thought and Literature. His interest in race politics, queer discourse and literature had brought him to one of the most prestigious institutions in America. He was a long way from his hometown of Taylor, Arkansas, with its conservative pedigree and modest population of approximately 500 people. But suddenly, faced with a damning prognosis of HIV, his prospects looked bleak. What had seemed like a bright future, fighting for minority rights via the platform of academia, now looked like a bleak void.

That same year, President Clinton stood under impeachment for sexual harassment of his female staff, and trials over the hate-motivated murders of of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr loomed over the national news, a grim reminder of the bigotry and violence entrenched at the heart of America’s social landscape. On the brink of a new century, the United States was racked with socio-political turpitude, with issues of race, gender and sexuality were at the eye of the storm.

The sonic backdrop to this turbulent cultural landscape was hip hop, a genre born some 20 years prior in the Bronx to a mixed parentage of disco, early house, Latin, funk, soul and electro. With punk sensibility, street culture and radical politics as its de facto godparents, hip hop had given a voice to society’s most marginalized and vulnerable. Like blues and jazz in the 1920s, it had opened a creative avenue for talented artists who existed on the peripheries of mainstream middle class America. Yet in spite of its egalitarian roots, hip hop had, by 1999, been adopted by the mainstream, and was coincidentally becoming a genre synonymous – whether fairly or not – with conspicuous consumption, hyper-sexualization, and all the hallmarks of good old-fashioned American bigotry. Dr. Dre’s The Chronic: 2001 and Eminem’s Slim Shady LP were two of the biggest selling albums that year, and both were steeped in a hyper-masculine, anti-gay, violent and misogynistic typology that seemed to echo and enforce the most alarming aspects of America’s seeming inability cough up its constitutional promise of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ to all its citizens, regardless of their identity.


West’s childhood love of hip hop meant that he was well aware of these issues. His academic ambitions had, until now, been a means of arming himself with the intellectual tools to fight against them. But his new diagnosis had sharply pulled focus. He was dying, apparently. In desperation, he reached out to long time friend Juba Kalamka, with whom he had struck up a kinship at a screening of performance artist Marlon Riggs’ seminal art film Tongues Untied, which explores notions of identity among black men in San Francisco’s gay community. Kalamka suggested that they go and let off some steam. So they drove to pick up another friend, Phillip Atiba Goff, and booked a music rehearsal room in Palo Alto. There was a piano and some basic recording equipment, but not much more. Kicking around the room in frustration, the three academics spat free-associative verse, spoken word poetry, and freestyle rhymes, hammering the piano and thumping beats on an upturned bucket. As the session rolled on, they became children again, exploring avenues of creativity that were far removed from their usual academic environment. Playful experimentation quickly developed into jubilant catharsis, confounding the life-sapping news of West’s new diagnosis. It was true hip hop expression, borne out of struggle, frustration and a desire to reach beyond the confines of their current circumstances. West, Kalamka and Goff were fusing their intellect with their rhythmic sensibilities, toying with the style of the hip hop crews they had heard blasting through neighbourhood boomboxes during their youth. In that room, they too were rappers. Not only that, but they were good rappers.

The early hip hop pioneers who had formed the soundtrack to West, Kalamka and Goff’s youth had seldom touched upon the experience of queer America. In fact, they had often disparaged it. In spite of this, many of hip hop’s universal truths had rung true for the three young men. “I was young, black and living in the ghetto in the 90s – why wouldn’t I listen to hip hop?” laughs West.

On his seminal 1994 album Illmatic, New York’s introspective rap superstar Nas had bluntly declared that “life’s a bitch and then you die.” West, at this new juncture in his life, was all too aware of that apparent fact, but ironically it was his damning diagnosis and the sense of his own mortality that had brought the three individuals a sudden rush of creative vitality. That day, a new queer hip hop crew – which would become known as Deep Dickollective – was born. Looking back, West nostalgically muses upon the way his two friends came through for him. “I guess the most natural thing to do for a friend who is dying is create art,” he says.




West, like many prolific African American musicians, grew up with a gospel background. His father was a preacher in and around south west Arkansas, and naturally, Southern Christian conservatism didn’t lend itself to acceptance of queer identity – or, indeed, hip hop culture. But nonetheless he regards his early gospel influence as elemental in the development of his artistry, as well as his emotional resilience to his HIV diagnosis. “I was given a second chance at life. And gospel reflects that in the way that it positively affirms feel-good experiences.”

In the early 90s, hip hop had possessed the same potency. The bohemian, street smart intellectualism of hip hop’s ‘golden age’ saw artists such as De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Souls of Mischief and Queen Latifah releasing now classic mainstream hip hop records that, as West points out, “you could listen to and not have to worry about being badgered because of your identity.” But the late 90s was, as West puts it, “the zenith of hip hop’s capitalisation.” He recalls his disdain for hearing the homophobic rhetoric of his mainstream rap contemporaries, who were still managing to slam its well-paid fist through the soundsystems of gay clubs and supposedly safe queer spaces. To West, the genre had moved from being an artform based around struggle and freedom of expression, into one based around money, power, and prejudice.

So, taking a cue from Bay Area contemporaries and seminal queer hip hoppers Rainbow Flava, Deep Dickollective decided to push their project. The initial fire under their academic careers had been lit by activists like Marlon Riggs, Joseph F. Beam, and black feminist thinkers like Patricia Hill Collins and Angela Davis. Now, the work of those brave forerunners seemed like a call to arms for the three post-grads to expand their reach beyond intellectual discourse, and into hip hop poetry. Starting with performances on Oakland’s thriving spoken word scene, they then moved on to local hip hop clubs, warehouse parties, punk venues, grassroots political gatherings – anywhere that would book them for a show.

“In many ways, we were often able to ‘pass’ within the hip hop community,” notes West, “because we were masculine black dudes with dreads, rhyming about afrocentric politics. But we’d encounter a strange atmosphere at shows where a predominantly straight hip hop audience would hear a lyric about ‘my boyfriend’ or anything along those lines. Sometimes it took people by surprise when they realized that, for us, saying ‘faggot’ was a term of positive empowerment.”

On the flipside, their masculine image also caused them difficulty at times within the Bay Area’s queer scene. West laughs as he recalls an irked feminist accosting him after a show and berating him for his use of the word ‘faggot’ onstage. “I was like, I don’t think you get it – we’re also queer! We just don’t look the way you might expect us to look.” Instances like this reminded the group of America’s deeply ingrained view of the black male body as inherently ‘threatening’, and further fueled their ambitions as queer rappers. The mission was to reconcile their own identities as queer African American men with the negative stereotypes surrounding hip hop culture.

Much of the emphasis in Deep Dickollective’s work was politicized, but hip hop also held the simple draw of creative self-expression that extended beyond the confines of the academic world they had always inhabited. Rapping, says West, was a way of speaking his truth in a way that was more direct and relatable than academia. “I wanted to do songs about love, romance, life, and things that had nothing to do with my queer existence. I wanted the young boys on the corner to say, ‘that’s a gay rapper, and he’s dope!’”


As their reputation spread around the Bay, it was clear that the group needed a record to push at shows. Not only that, but making an album would also be an important artefact. “We needed to have something set down, so that our work wasn’t lost,” says West. “It was important for us to be able to say ‘queer hip hop is happening, and here’s the proof!’” So they cut a record, cannily titled BourgieBohoPomoPostAfroHomo. To the casual listener, itcould easily have passed as ‘straight’ hip hop, alongside releases from their indie hip hop contemporaries. The three MCs tagged in and out of witty, cerebral verses, which juxtaposed pop culture references against academic discourse, playful eroticism against revolutionary rhetoric. Collectively, their rhyme style melded the showboating swagger of traditional masculine battle-rap with their idiosyncratic introspection and intellectual ‘outsider’ insight. It was steeped in the funky eclecticism of early-mid 90s East Coast rap collectives and the Afrocentric eccentricity of Bay Area heroes such as The Pharcyde, Souls of Mischief and Hieroglyphics. The production threw dusty funk, soul and jazz samples together, creating a sonic aesthetic that reflected the iconic pedigree of radical politics, counterculture and beatnik je-ne-sais-quois attached to the Bay Area’s cultural history. In fact, West goes so far as to conjecture that the genesis of D/DC and the PeaceOUT movement could only have happened in Northern California’s misty golden bay, owing to the traditional of revolutionary ideologies and creative movements the area has grown and nourished since the mid 20th century.

But by 2000, the vitality of those movements had faded. The nationwide legacies of the Black Panthers, the GLF, Stonewall and other likeminded social revolutionary movements were well into their thirties. Conversely, hip hop culture was a fresh faced twenty-something, ready to be rejuvenated as a truly egalitarian musical artform. Fortunately, there were enough out rappers in the Bay Area at that time for a tangible queer hip hop scene to grow. Judge ‘Dutchboy’ Muscat, Nikki and Tori Fixx were members of pioneering queer rap crew Rainbow Flava, and like D/DC, helped the flag fly, along with lesbian rapper JenRo and trans male rapper Katastrophe. So the conditions for a growing queer voice in hip hop music seemed increasingly plausible.

As those artists pushed their work in the Bay, the early advent of online social media meant that other queer artists could begin infiltrating the hip hop world, gathering a greater presence in and reaching out across internet blogging platforms. By the early 2000s, web forum Okayplayer, a stronghold for hip hop’s ‘conservative’ old guard, was being commandeered as a space where queer artists could express their love of the genre and share their creative output, often blindsiding their harshest critics with online rap battles and tracks uploaded directly from bedrooms across America, and even the UK. Whereas MCs in hip hop’s early days would have developed their craft and networked at neighbourhood block parties, the internet was quickly becoming a de facto street corner on which queer artists could proudly stand. Flexing their lyrical muscle online, artists like Cazwell, Aggracyst, and Shante ‘Paradigm’ Smalls were sharing ideas and developing the grassroots, community-based spirit that had, since the late 1990s, largely evaporated from hip hop culture under the heat of music industry commercialization. Suddenly you didn’t have to be in the vicinity of a local scene to have your voice heard. You didn’t even need to have a record deal. Across the country, a bunch of uncompromisingly creative individuals were ‘coming out’ once again – this time as rappers.




It was at this point that the idea came to galvanize the burgeoning scene into a tangible movement where queer rappers could come together in person, as well as in spirit. In 2001, Juba Kalamka was approached by Pete King, organizer of Oakland’s East Bay Pride celebrations, with the proposition of setting up a queer hip hop festival. Initially, Kalamka was reluctant. Mainstream Pride events had hardly embraced hip hop in the past, and it had often seemed as though the LGBT majority were happy to leave queer hip hop artists in the gay ‘ghetto’ that they themselves had struggled to escape in times gone by. Why should the scene affiliate itself with the predominantly white, middle class queer majority who had largely ignored their output? For a moment, it looked as though queer hip hop was set to remain a subterranean cult for web-savvy cats, united in their love of the music, but destined to co-exist in isolation from one another. But a terrible thought dawned on Kalamka and West. If they turned away from the opportunity of sharing a stage with other artists who, like them, had struggled to push their work out into hip hop’s hostile landscape, then there remained the possibility of the ‘record’ being wiped clean. So much in the history of queer culture, minority politics, and indeed, the history of hip hop, has been obscured from popular view by the smoke cloud of the mainstream. Would queer hip hop share the same fate?

With this in mind, it suddenly seemed vital to gather the troops from all corners of the country, assemble a platform together, and etch their name into the towering cliff faces of the LGBT community that had met them with indifference, and the music industry that had, more often than not, bashed them for who they were. So, with sponsorship from Oakland’s East Bay Pride festival, they set out organizing Cypher 2000:One, which would lay the blueprint for the next six years of PeaceOUT World Homo Hop Festival. Then in 2003, Kalamka’s DIY record label Sugartruck Recordings teamed up with queer punk zine and record label Outpunk, and were able to co-ordinate and finance the festival independently. Queer hip hop had found its spiritual homeland. Not only that, but it was becoming self-sufficient – a giant leap from the closeted pipe dreams of queer rappers only a few years prior.

To say that PeaceOUT was inclusive would be an understatement. Knowing the struggles of their fellow queer hip hop artists, its organizers made sure that anyone who wanted to perform would be given the opportunity. As West points out, for many rappers isolated in pockets of middle America’s homophobic hip hop heartland, PeaceOUT was often the only time in a year that they could be sure of getting booked for a show. The PeaceOUT tribe met annually for the next seven years, and in 2005 documentary filmmaker Alex Hinton made Pick Up The Mic, a film that charts the origins of the scene and the personal journeys of the individuals who kept it alive. Sadly, in 2008, the festival was discontinued, and Deep Dickollective disbanded to work on solo projects and focus on their individual work as activists and educators. But the availability of Hinton’s film on Netflix pushed the legacy of the PeaceOUT generation out on to a wider platform, continuing to inspire artists all over the country, standing as proof that real artistry knows no bounds.

Over the last few years, a new school of queer-identifying hip hop artists have slowly filtered through to the mainstream. New York rapper and performance artist Mykki Blanco has been making waves since his steamrolling club banger “Wavvy” went viral online in 2012, and fellow New Yorker Zebra Katz has released music with megaproducer Diplo’s Mad Decent label and worked with Busta Rhymes amongst other canonical ‘straight’ rap stars. In 2012, lauded producer and songwriter Frank Ocean came out via a blog post the night before the release of his much anticipated album channel ORANGE – primarily to pre-empt the inevitable media barrage of puzzled questions concerning some of its homoerotic lyrical content. Le1f and Cakes Da Killa are all over our Soundcloud feeds, hetero rappers have somewhat toned down their homophobic disses, and – judging by the critical and commercial success of Blonde – Frank Ocean seems to be doing okay.

So the game is changing. But there’s still a long way to go. West’s main concern about the state of queer hip hop today is that the pop cultural fetishization of queer African Americans potentially reinforces tokenism and racial stereotyping. “I think it’s interesting,” he says, “that the mainstream is now paying attention to artists like Mykki Blanco and Big Freedia, possibly, in part, because of the ‘spectacle’ of black effeminate queerness. In that regard, it’s still important for us to examine our prejudices as a society, even within the white queer population.”

Certainly in the pop cultural subconscious, the recent success of queer hip hop’s new wave may still be looked upon as a camp accessory to hip hop culture. Queer rappers with record deals are often seen by the music media as a post-modern hipster trend, but their artistry speaks for itself. History shows us that when the door to the mainstream is slow to open, decent talent will always find a way to break it down. And without doubt, the legacy of the PeaceOUT movement wedged queer hip hop’s sneakers in the door of the mainstream. Although Deep Dickollective are disbanded and PeaceOUT is no more, the sentiment and prophetic strength of their message still remains. Some of the original figures, like Cazwell, Aggracyst and Jenro, are still rapping. Some, like Shante ‘Paradigm’ Smalls, are rapping and also hold prestigious academic positions. Some are activists. West now works all over the country as an educator, with a focus on LGBTQ youth. He still raps, and has released five solo albums to date.

Hip hop, for these artists, was never about fame, wealth or external validation. For them, it’s part of their identity, and a way of reaching out to the next person who struggles to express themselves. From its earliest origins, the modus operandi of any MC, DJ, graffiti artist or breakdancer was to empower themselves, and uplift their audience. Hip hop is about freedom of expression, personal identity, and collective unification. So too is queer discourse. The parallels between the two seems obvious when placed under this particular light, but needless to say, their relationship has been fraught. In spite of this, a growing number of artists continue to take heed from Public Enemy’s invitation to “Fight The Power”, albeit in a fashion that reflects their own identity. Their integrity, and that of the PeaceOUT generation who bravely raised their heads above the parapet, solidifies two facts: hip hop is, and should be, available as an outlet for anybody who wants to embrace it, and moreover, the queer community will always be a powerful mobilizing force in creating art, and reaching across the boundaries set to limit it in the mainstream. In the words of legendary New York rapper Q-Tip, hip hop is ‘all about the love’, and in all musical artforms – whether it’s jazz, soul, punk or hip hop – a genuine love of music will always find a way to transcend differences in race, gender, politics and sexual identity.

The forgotten history of California’s queer hip hop scene

 

I’d never heard the phrase “tossing a salad” until my college years (that shows how prudish I was). At first, I thought it was about literal salad — Food sex maybe? Or a kinky way of using dressing? But I was wrong, thank God.

Anilingus (or "rimming") is an Olympic sport in my book. We all want to win gold, but sadly many of us never even place. A lot of that has to do not only with a lack of passion for it, but slight hesitation around the fact that it’s somebody’s butthole. That's where fecal matter lives. Who wants to put their mouth near that cave?

Actually? A lot of us. Here’s the truth: rimming has been around for centuries. The fascination with it has been around just as long, and it's gone mainstream in recent years. It's incredibly intimate and it feels great to the receiver. But as more people partake, the question remains — just how safe is it?

Sexually transmitted infections that are spread from skin to skin contact, like Syphilis, can be contracted by rimming, not because of a butthole itself, but because the bacteria surrounding genital areas tends to move around.

“Syphilis bacteria live in active skin sores, or lesions,” Dr. Nicholas Moss, director of the HIV and STD Section of Alameda County Public Health Department, has told Plus, “and can infect other skin it comes in contact with. I’ve even seen one patient who had a syphilis sore on his forehead. People can get gonorrhea of the throat, so that’s another infection that could be spread by rimming. Chlamydia of the throat is not spread orally, to my knowledge. So there’s probably no risk of getting or transmitting chlamydia when rimming.”

While there is no data suggesting that people can catch HIV from rimming, NAM's AIDSMap did report that levels of HIV in rectal mucosal secretions in gay men were higher than those in blood or semen — by about 500 percent more than blood, and 2500 percent more than semen. That’s one reason its always good to use proper lubrication and condoms during penetration. You can also use a dental dam as a barrier between your mouth and the anus. Still, rimming isn't considered a high risk activity when it comes to HIV. According to AIDS.gov, "The chance that an HIV-negative person will get HIV from oral sex with an HIV-positive partner is extremely low. It is difficult to measure the exact risk because people who have oral sex may also have anal or vaginal sex during the same encounter." And if the positive partner has lowered their viral load to undetectable levels, that risk drops down to zero.

To reduce risks of transmission of STIs, always keep an eye out for cuts or abrasions on the tongue, lips, gums, or rectum — as these cuts can become entry points for infection. Additionally, remember to switch condoms before switching partners, and when insert a penis or toy into a vagina following anal sex. If you're having condomless sex with a partner, clean the penis between these positions or it's likely you may end up with a urinary tract infection.

It is also possible to get hepatitis A or B, through contact with fecal matter, which is why it’s important to be vaccinated, or at least know if your partner has been. Again, the issue is that much of these microscopic organisms tend to move around the genital areas, and can linger even when you think you're good and clean.

All that aside, one real problem lies in potential gut infections that come from ingesting bad bacteria. (Yes, there is good bacteria. They live in your gut and help digest food, and — we're learning — play an important role in regulating health.)

We all live with bacteria and other microbes. These microscopic bugs are everywhere: in our mouth, our butts, our genitals, our hair, our fingernails. We can’t escape them. For the most part, if you have healthy bowel movements, bacteria down there won’t make much of a difference when someone is rimming you (so long as you washed the germs away in the shower using antibacterial soap — always clean with antibacterial soap prior to anal or oral/anal sex). But if your partner is having bad bowel movements, it's a good idea to skip the salad tonight.

These bad bacteria often come from contaminated food or other infections: salmonella, E. coli, C. difficile and others. Most people know when they have one of these, because it feels like a stomach bug. More often than not they'll experience diarrhea or stomach pain. But, for HIV-positive people on meds who experience chronic diarrhea regularly, it can be easier for parasitic infections to fly under the radar, which is why it’s more important to take precautions. It's also a good practice to become familiar with the shape of your normal stool — the more solid they are, the more likely it is you don’t have parasitic infection.

So to sum it: Yes, it is possible to get STIs from rimming. (Chances are you knew that anyway, I mean, come on.) Sex by it's very nature is risky. You're always going to be risking something when you get this intimate with another human being (even if it's just your dignity). Sexually transmitted infections are currently on the rise and with the rise of antibiotic resistant superbugs they're nothing to scoff at. Still, there are simple things you can do to make rimming a safer experience. Keeping clean, monitoring your gut health, and staying fastidious about making sure you have no cuts or abrasions near your mouth or rectum will all help keep you from contracting any bugs. So remember: Diarrhea and inner gut issues? Bad. Solid and clean bowel movements followed by antibacterial soap scrubbing? Very good.

Can I Get STIs From Rimming?

 

@DreG @ControlledXaos @alton
This shit had me crying...this muthafuka is gettin it in the grocery store.

 

By Kristin Romey
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 8, 2016

The tail of a 99-million-year-old dinosaur, including bones, soft tissue, and even feathers, has been found preserved in amber, according to a report published today in the journal Current Biology.

While individual dinosaur-era feathers have been found in amber, and evidence for feathered dinosaurs is captured in fossil impressions, this is the first time that scientists are able to clearly associate well-preserved feathers with a dinosaur, and in turn gain a better understanding of the evolution and structure of dinosaur feathers.

The research, led by paleontologist Lida Xing of the China University of Geosciences, was funded in part by the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council.

The semitranslucent mid-Cretaceous amber sample, roughly the size and shape of a dried apricot, captures one of the earliest moments of differentiation between the feathers of birds of flight and the feathers of dinosaurs. (Learn more about the evolutionary relationship between dinosaurs and birds.)

Inside the lump of resin is a 1.4-inch appendage covered in delicate feathers, described as chestnut brown with a pale or white underside.

CT scans and microscopic analysis of the sample revealed eight vertebrae from the middle or end of a long, thin tail that may have been originally made up of more than 25 vertebrae.
Based on the structure of the tail, researchers believe it belongs to a juvenile coelurosaur, part of a group of theropod dinosaurs that includes everything from tyrannosaurs to modern birds.

Feathered, but Could It Fly?

The presence of articulated tail vertebrae in the sample enabled researchers to rule out the possibility that the feathers belonged to a prehistoric bird. Modern birds and their closest Cretaceous ancestors feature a set of fused tail vertebrae called a pygostyle that enables tail feathers to move as a single unit.

"[A pygostyle] is the sort of thing you've seen if you've ever prepared a turkey," says study co-author Ryan McKellar, curator of invertebrate paleontology at Canada's Royal Saskatchewan Museum.
The dinosaur feathers feature a poorly defined central shaft (rachis) and appear to keel to either side of the tail. The open, flexible structure of the feathers is more similar to modern ornamental feathers than to flight feathers, which have well-defined central shafts, branches, sub-branches, and hooks that latch the structure together.

In a report in June of this year by the same research team, Cretaceous-era bird wingspreserved in amber revealed feathers remarkably similar to the flight feathers of modern birds.

The current study concludes that if the entire length of the dinosaur tail was covered in the type of feathers seen in the sample, the dinosaur "would likely have been incapable of flight." Rather, such feathers may have served a signaling function or played a role in temperature regulation, says McKellar. (Could dinosaurs fly?)

The weakly developed tail feathers also suggest that the owner of the Cretaceous tail falls somewhere lower down on the evolutionary tree of theropod dinosaurs, "perhaps a basal [primitive] maniraptoran," Xida suggests, referring to the subgroup of coelurosaurs that includes oviraptorosaurs and therizinosaurs. (See the oviraptorosaur that paleontologists have dubbed the "chicken from hell.")

Destined for Jewelry, but With a Silver Lining

The amber sample—formally called DIP-V-15103 and nicknamed "Eva" in honor of paleobotanist Eva Koppelhus, the wife of co-author Philip Currie—comes from a mine in the Hukawng Valley in Kachin state, northern Myanmar. Amber from this region most likely contains the world's largest variety of animal and plant life from the Cretaceous period.

It was one of more than a dozen amber samples with significant inclusions that were collected by Xing and his research team in 2015 at a well-known amber market in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state. Two of the other samples contained the dinosaur-era bird wings published earlier this summer.

The majority of Burmese amber is used in jewelry and carvings, and the "Eva" sample had already been subject to shaping by the time it was collected by the researchers.

The modification had a silver lining, however: It offered "a nice cross section" through the tail that enabled the scientists to study the chemistry of the exposed surface, notes McKellar.

That study revealed the presence of ferrous iron, a decomposition product from the blood hemoglobin that was once present in the dinosaur's soft tissue.

"The fact that [the iron] is still present gives us a lot of hope for future analysis, to obtain other chemical information on things like pigmentation or even to identify parts of the original keratin," says McKellar. "Maybe not for this particular specimen, but for other [samples] down the road."

Meanwhile, Xing believes that the "nearing end" of a decades-old conflict between the Myanmar government and the Kachin Independence Army, which controls the Hukawng Valley, will lead to increased scientific access to the amber mines and, in, turn, to an increase in spectacular discoveries.

"Maybe we can find a complete dinosaur," he speculates, rather confidently.

 

Record of the Year

“Hello” — Adele
“Formation” — Beyoncé
“7 Years” — Lukas Graham
“Work” — Rihanna ft. Drake
“Stressed Out” — Twenty One Pilots

Album of the Year

25 — Adele
Lemonade — Beyoncé
Purpose — Justin Bieber
Views — Drake
A Sailor’s Guide to Earth — Sturgill Simpson

Song of the Year

“Formation” — Beyoncé (Khalif Brown, Asheton Hogan, Beyoncé Knowles & Michael Williams II)
“Hello” — Adele (Adele Adkins & Greg Kurstin)
“I Took A Pill In Ibiza” — Mike Posner (Mike Posner)
“Love Yourself” — Justin Bieber (Justin Bieber, Benjamin Levin & Ed Sheeran)
“7 Years” — Lukas Graham (Lukas Forchammer, Stefan Forrest, Morten Pilegaard & Morten Ristorp)

Best New Artist

Kelsea Ballerini
The Chainsmokers
Chance the Rapper
Maren Morris
Anderson .Paak

Best Rap Album

Coloring Book - Chance the Rapper
And the Anonymous Nobody - De La Soul
Major Key - DJ Khaled
Views - Drake
Blank Face LP - ScHoolboy Q
The Life of Pablo - Kanye West

Best Rap/ Sung Performance

“Freedom” - Beyoncé ft. Kendrick Lamar
“Hotline Bling” - Drake
“Broccoli” - DRAM ft. Lil Yachty
“Ultralight Beam” - Kanye West ft. Chance the Rapper, Kelly Price, Kirk Franklin & The Dream
“Famous” - Kanye West ft. Rihanna

Best Rap Performance

“No Problem” — Chance The Rapper Featuring Lil Wayne & 2 Chainz
“Panda” —Desiigner
“Pop Style” — Drake Featuring The Throne
“All The Way Up” — Fat Joe & Remy Ma Featuring French Montana & Infared
“That Part” — ScHoolboy Q Featuring Kanye West

Best Rap Song

“All the Way Up” - Joseph Cartagena, Edward Davadi, Shandel Green, Karim Kharbouch, Andre Christopher Lyon, Reminisce Mackie & Marcello Valenzano, songwriters (Fat Joe & Remy Ma Featuring French Montana & Infared)
“Famous” - Chancelor Bennett, Ross Birchard, Ernest Brown, Andrew Dawson, Kasseem Dean, Mike Dean, Noah Goldstein, Kejuan Muchita, Patrick Reynolds, Kanye West & Cydel Young, songwriters (Kanye West Featuring Rihanna)
“Hotline Bling” - Aubrey Graham & Paul Jefferies, songwriters (Drake)
“No Problem” - Chancelor Bennett, Dwayne Carter & Tauheed Epps, songwriters (Chance The Rapper Featuring Lil Wayne & 2 Chainz)
“Ultralight Beam” - Chancelor Bennett, Kasseem Dean, Mike Dean, Kirk Franklin, Noah Goldstein, Samuel Griesemer, Terius Nash, Jerome Potter, Kelly Price, Nico “Donnie Trumpet” Segal, Derek Watkins, Kanye West & Cydel Young, songwriters (Kanye West Featuring Chance The Rapper, Kelly Price, Kirk Franklin & The-Dream)

Best Pop Duo/ Group Performance

“Closer” - The Chainsmokers ft. Halsey
“7 Years” - Lukas Graham
“Work” - Rihanna ft. Drake
“Cheap Thrills” - Sia ft. Sean Paul
“Stressed Out” - Twenty One Pilots

Best Alternative Music Album

22, A Million — Bon Iver
Blackstar — David Bowie
The Hope Six Demolition Project — PJ Harvey
Post Pop Depression — Iggy Pop
A Moon Shaped Pool — Radiohead

Best Rock Performance

“Joe (Live from Austin City Limits)” - Alabama Shakes
“Don’t Hurt Yourself” - Beyoncé ft. Jack White
“Blackstar” - David Bowie
“The Sound of Silence (Live on Conan) - Disturbed
“Heathens” - Twenty One Pilots”

Best R&B Performance

“Turning’ Me Up” - BJ The Chicago Kid
“Permission” - Ro James
“I Do” - Musiq Soulchild
“Needed Me” - Rihanna
“Cranes in the Sky” - Solange”

Best R&B Song

“Come See Me” - J. Brathwaite, Aubrey Graham & Noah Shebib, songwriters (PartyNextDoor Featuring Drake)
“Exchange” - Michael Hernandez & Bryson Tiller, songwriters (Bryson Tiller)
“Kiss it Better” - Jeff Bhasker, Robyn Fenty, John-Nathan Glass & Natalia Noemi, songwriters (Rihanna)
“Lake by the Ocean” - Hod David & Musze, songwriters (Maxwell)
“Luv” - Magnus August Høiberg, Benjamin Levin & Daystar Peterson, songwriters (Tory Lanez)

Best R&B Urban Contemporary Album

Lemonade — Beyoncé
Ology — Gallant
We Are King — KING
Malibu — Anderson .Paak
Anti — Rihanna


Best Pop Vocal Album

25 — Adele
Purpose — Justin Bieber
Dangerous Woman — Ariana Grande
Confident — Demi Lovato
This Is Acting — Sia

Best Pop Solo Performance

“Hello” - Adele
“Hold Up” - Beyoncé
“Love Yourself” - Justin Bieber
“Piece By Piece (Idol Version) - Kelly Clarkson
“Dangerous Woman” - Ariana Grande

See more here

 

The party was like many others in Delmas, a neighborhood in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, with a vibrant gay community — an evening of men in colorful dresses and revealing attire, laughing and catching up.

They sipped Prestige beer and 7-Up, as Beyoncé and Rihanna played in the background. The party stretched into the early morning hours with no end in sight.

Then someone knocked on the door.

On that March night in 2012, a group of men dressed in black and wearing ski masks forced their way into the apartment. Wilkenson Joseph, then 35, was the closest to the front door. Wearing a red sequin dress, a dark wig, red lipstick and high heels, he was a prime target for the group looking to attack gay men.

One of the men stabbed Mr. Joseph in the gut with a knife. His friends picked him up off the floor, blood pouring from his mouth and his side, and rushed him to a hospital.

But a doctor demanded $2,000 before he would provide any care, Mr. Joseph said. For an hour and a half, his friends negotiated a lower rate as he continued to bleed, eventually persuading the doctor to accept $1,000. Mr. Joseph survived, but he lost his appendix.

In a Manhattan office last month, Mr. Joseph recalled his stories of anti-gay violence slowly, softly and in French.

“After the party,” Mr. Joseph said before trailing off, his eyes closing. There was silence as he summoned the months after that party more than four years ago.

He stopped attending parties and dressing up. “It was too traumatic,” he said. “I recoiled from the party scene. I was no longer me.”

Mr. Joseph said it was not the first time he had been attacked because of his sexuality in Haiti, where homosexuality is not a crime, but gay men often hide their orientation to avoid being targeted.

A makeup artist for eight years, he had worked at “Journal de Loisirs,” a celebrity talk show, and often carried a purse and makeup bag to the office. Seven months before the stabbing, Mr. Joseph said, he was kidnapped from his workplace, hooded and taken to an abandoned home, where he was chained to a pole and beaten. Three men threatened to kill him, he said, and called him an embarrassment to his country. They later let him go.

“I always felt threatened,” he said. “And I never said anything back to these people. I was afraid of a violent response. There was always a fear.”

After the 2012 attack, Mr. Joseph applied for a tourist visa to the United States, hoping the country would be as welcoming as it was portrayed on the television shows he had watched as a child, he said.

“It was always my dream country,” Mr. Joseph said. “America is where you can make happen the dreams you envision for yourself.”

He arrived in April 2013 on a tourist visa and settled in New York City. A few weeks later, he attended his first party since the attack, at the Monster, a piano bar in the West Village. Feeling safe, he took the stage to sing “Lumane Casimir,” a well-known Haitian song.

He applied for asylum shortly after moving to the United States, describing in his application the anti-gay abuse he endured in Haiti and his fear of returning there.

“I feel a lot more comfortable expressing myself here,” he said. “I’ve never feared for my safety here.”

Since his visa expired, he has been working on his immigration status for the past two years with lawyers at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, a law firm in Manhattan. He has applied for asylum and has not received an update. They are awaiting an interview date with immigration services.

Mr. Joseph lives on $376 monthly in public assistance, including cash assistance and Medicaid. Through a designation known as PRUCOL, he is able to receive benefits despite not having legal status. Without a job, he has struggled to afford a home, flitting between Florida, New Jersey and New York. Shortly after coming to New York, he found himself on the streets, spending nights riding the subway and shuffling between shelters, always worrying that his visa and passport would be stolen.

He found temporary housing in Jamaica, Queens, through Unique People Services, an HIV/AIDS supportive housing program. He stayed there for more than a year, but the conditions were dangerous, Mr. Joseph said. Drug activity brought the police often. Once, he said, a neighbor robbed him of $150.

Mr. Joseph has found support in Voix Fortes, a French-speaking group focused on self-empowerment. There he met Houda Chergui, a coordinator at the nonprofit ASCNYC, which assists New Yorkers living with and at risk for HIV/AIDS. She recommended he seek help through the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times’s Neediest Cases Fund.

With the help of ASCNYC and the African Services Committee, he was able to move into permanent housing, an apartment in the Bronx, in March; the city’s HIV/AIDS Services Administration covers his monthly rent of $1,100. But the apartment was bare. He slept on the floor and had nowhere to sit or eat. In April the federation provided Mr. Joseph with a $1,000 grant from the Neediest Cases Fund to buy furniture. He decorated his apartment with a sofa bed, a chair and a coffee table.

“The furniture made it into a home,” he said.

Mr. Joseph, who had dropped out of school in Haiti to support his family after his father’s death, longs to continue his education and get a job as a masseur or as a counselor to help others, while sending some money to his relatives in Haiti.

“I want to continue my studies,” he said. “I want to be able to motivate other people in my situation — others in the L.G.B.T.Q. community — to pursue their education. Before respect comes from others, it comes from within.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/nyregion/neediest-cases-fund-haiti.html

 

I think its sad that he doesn't know that he needs me.

 

Don't know how many of you guys are familiar with him. Im in love with his voice. One of my favorite tracks off his album


In this one he sung a tribute to D'Angelo. He sounds so similar.

 

Different versions of this meme have been floating around my timeline. And I get it. "It looks like Drake is getting fucked in the ass, haha...."

A few years back, I would've probably laughed about it and moved on, but now I have to ask, when is being gay or doing gay things going to stop being a punchline? Shit is old and tired. Maybe I'm just being too sensitive, but that's my thought.

 

This global occasion recognized every November addresses issues which heavily impact men. The 2016 theme is "Stop Male Suicide."

 

I recall reading a blog or article about a similar reaction to the gay character in Dear White People involving a larger portion of the audience.

LINK: The Sad, Surreal Experience of Seeing an Audience Laugh at Moonlight

The Sad, Surreal Experience of Seeing an Audience Laugh at Moonlight
By E. Alex Jung



Barry Jenkins’s remarkable coming-of-age film, again. It was a Friday night at BAM, and the screening was completely sold out. Early on, though, one scene made me realize I might have picked a bad audience: It’s in the first third of the movie, where our young hero Chiron is sitting at the dining table with this surrogate parents, Juan and Teresa (Mahershala Ali and Janelle Monáe). He asks them, point-blank, “What’s a faggot?” It’s a moment that feels like a gut punch. When I first saw it, I held my breath, waiting to hear what Juan would say. He explained that it was a negative word used to describe men who liked other men. Then came the next question, “Am I a faggot?” A group of women behind me started giggling at the first question and were full-on laughing by the second — so much so that they drowned out Juan’s response. I was perplexed: Were we watching the same movie?

In the darkness of a theater, no one can see you side-eye. And perhaps emboldened, the laughter only got worse as the film went on. There was a noticeable pattern: Every time there was any expression of gay male intimacy, they laughed. They tittered during the scene where teen Chiron has his first sexual experience on a beach, and they let out wolf whistles when we first meet adult Chiron, shirtless and muscular. (Although to be fair, I thought something similar in my head). And while we got to the film’s emotional climax, the diner scene between Chiron and his grown-up crush Kevin, it was like they were a studio audience watching a sitcom.

The first time I watched Moonlight was at a press screening. As is often the case, there weren’t that many people in the theater, and I was sitting with a couple of friends. It felt like a private experience, the perfect environment to see a movie like this. That first time, I loved the diner scene. It’s sexy — flirtatious and a little tense. The specter of all those years gone by hangs in the silences between the two men. I remember nervously waiting for Kevin to recognize Chiron, and when he did, something came loose inside of me, and I just started crying. I understood it as that moment of being seen by someone else for the first time, and what an electric, disorienting feeling that could be. Indeed, that’s how Jenkins shoots it: The audio doesn’t sync up with the visual for a brief second. It’s like the world is collapsing in on itself.

I was nervously anticipating this scene in the theaters the second time, but I couldn’t get into it. As Chiron imagined Kevin smoking outside the diner, there was too much laughter. The audience thought he was funny, maybe corny as hell. But for me, he was hazy and smoldering, just like a dream. As a gay man who often felt like he had to suppress his desires, I understood that fantasy acutely. And that’s when I became keenly aware that I was a gay man watching the movie around a lot of straight people. Listening to their laughter, I couldn’t help but feel that it was demeaning, a way to neuter and compartmentalize gay male intimacy as a punch line.

This isn’t to say that I think Moonlight doesn’t have its funny moments. In fact, it’s a mistake to think that because a film is about a gay black boy growing up in poverty it must necessarily be a tragedy. There’s joy, love, and humor stitched into the movie, along with alienation and hardship. In fact, there is a beat of humor in that scene where young Chiron asks Juan and Teresa about whether he might be gay: Juan starts to give a caveat, but Teresa gives him a little shake of the head: Not right now, honey. It’s charming and sweet, a moment that acknowledges young Chiron has a lot of life ahead of him.

I realize we all watch movies differently. I myself have laughed inappropriately at a number of films: I guffawed during Saw when one of the prisoners realizes that he can free himself by cutting off his own foot. (Hence the title: Saw.) I laughed when Mel Gibson tells Joaquin Phoenix, “Swing away, Merrill!” to kill the aliens in Signs. Most recently, I laughed during the climactic scene of Stonewall, when the made-up gay white protagonist “starts” the Stonewall riots and screams something about freedom like he’s in Braveheart. I too sometimes find serious things ridiculous, and it’s likely that I ruined someone else’s viewing experience with my own very loud laughing.

Sometimes, you watch a movie with exactly the right audience. Earlier this year I watched Train to Busan, a Korean zombie thriller movie at an AMC in Times Square. It was packed with young Korean students, no doubt enrolled in colleges around New York (I can spot BB cream from a mile away). Watching a summer blockbuster with a bunch of Korean kids made me feel like I was back in Seoul again. The movie was tailor-made for this audience: They screamed and jumped and whooped, and their reactions heightened the joy of an already fun movie.

Ultimately, you never know how an audience — or even you — will react to a film. Each viewer brings their own experience into the film, their own desires and expectations. But part of that experience means moments like this one in Moonlight — moments where the dissonance between audience members becomes distinct — are inevitable. I won’t be able to ever fully understand what the laughter in Moonlight meant, just that it made me uncomfortable. But it’s all fine. I’ll just try not to sit next to you again.

 

Fuk, marry, kill. Pick any 3 members of the boards n go ahead.

Fuk - Everyone knows it's @Nick Delmacy. It'd be hate sex.

Marry - @ControlledXaos. He is 120% husband material.

Kill - nickauzenne...he used to run my nerves into the ground. No shade, Im just keepin it a buck.

 

Basic question. Im starting therapy this week to address my anger. I'm a really nice guy in general, but I have to figure out why I keep allowing ppl to put me into a zone where I want to spazz out. I can go from a customer making me want to jump across the bar to beat the brakes off of them to crying when they play the 'God is Tryna Tell You Something' during 'Color Purple'. I'm either a hot head or an emo water head. Smh.

Any other bro's currently, been in, or thinking about therapy?

@Nick Delmacy @Ockydub @ControlledXaos @DreG @alton @BlackguyExecutive @Cyrus-Brooks @African King @Dante @GNerd2012 @SwagJack @hannibal @cuspofbeauty @NikR @Michael @Fanon @Rico @ColumbusGuy @OhSheit @questforknowledge
@itsumoconfused

 

I real like animation especially shorts that tell their stories real well like this



and this


and this one

 

Barry Jenkins (writer/director):

I don’t believe in tidy resolutions. I do think he’s more himself than he ever is in the film we see ― that, I’m absolutely, 1,000 percent sure of. Whether that’s married to Kevin, I can’t say. He’s a person who had a very difficult childhood and doesn’t have a lot of experience in relationships, so imagine trying to come home to that person seven days a week. What a fucking mess. But I do think, at heart, he’s a good dude, and I think this reconciliation with [Paula, his mother] and Kevin and their story is going to set him on the path toward being the good dude that he is.

Mahershala Ali (Juan, the neighborhood drug dealer who becomes a surrogate father to Chiron):

I see him having softened. He’s had to put on a lot of armor to make it through the crucible of adolescence, but the world, in some ways, is a lot safer as an adult. Being lonely as a child turns into you having the capacity to choose moments of being alone. It shifts as an adult. Once you mature and come to terms with who you are in a different way, you are empowered. As a young person, you really need a lot of help. You need people to usher you through and tell you that you’re OK. If you can make it through that time, as an adult you can begin to understand and have the capacity to take personal responsibility. You can still be victimized as an adult, no doubt ― it’s just a little easier, and I think Kevin has the last relationship or element or piece of information that he needs to finally open up to become who he actually needs to be. I think he will have softened and relaxed and lightened and come to terms with who he is, and for the first time know who he is. I have a lot of hope for him.

Janelle Monáe (Teresa, who becomes a surrogate mother to Chiron):

“Hopefully he and Kevin, hopefully they’re together. Hopefully they don’t have to hide their love for each other and they’re comfortable enough in their own skin that everyone who is also trying to deal with their own sexuality and whether or not to embrace it, especially if they’re gay, will look to them as examples of a positive union.”

Trevante Rhodes (adult Chiron):

I think about love on a scale from 1 to 10. Most of us find a 6 or a 7, and that’s why we have divorce. It’s the truth. We settle for that 6 or 7. But I like to think Kevin is Chiron’s 10. He’s found that and he realizes that there’s no reason to settle for a 6 or a 7 because, “I know this person is my 10. Whether or not this person believes I’m his 10, I’m going to devote my life to this person entirely.” That’s why the line where he says, “You’re the only man that’s ever touched me,” for me, was the most amazing, most beautiful thing I’ve seen in cinema, period. Because that’s what we strive for as people, to find that one person because they’re there. If Kevin doesn’t feel that they should be together, Chiron is just going to die a miserable person because that’s his person and he won’t settle for anything else. But I like to think they’re together, walking in Central Park hand-in-hand when they’re 90 years old.

André Holland (adult Kevin):

In my mind, I don’t know whether they’re going to end up as a couple, but they’re going to live authentic lives. I have this image of them walking along with Kevin’s son and teaching him, either overtly or experientially, about what masculinity is and what it means to be a man, in all the variations that are possible. That, to me, is the magic of it, that there’s a young boy in the world who will grow up with a different idea of masculinity than either of them had.

What Becomes Of Chiron After 'Moonlight' Ends, According To The Film's Cast | Huffington Post

 

This is a pretty good interview.


Years ago when playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney wrote the deeply personal "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue" as a drama school project, little could he have imagined that it would one day be turned into a major Hollywood movie, let alone one that would be generating serious 2017 Oscar buzz. Drawn from McCraney's memories of his own search for identity as a queer youth in Miami's poor and tough Liberty City neighborhood, "Moonlight" tells the story of young Chiron, who despite painfully losing his mother's attention to crack, is ironically taken under the protective and nurturing wing of a local drug dealer and his girlfriend (played by Janelle Monáe). The film also follows the arc of Chiron's relationship with his childhood friend Kevin, a powerful and sexually charged bond that shifts dramatically over the film's three chapters, following them from age 10 to age 16, then jumping ahead to their early 30s.

After creating his original project, McCraney headed to London for a writing residency with the Royal Shakespeare Company and nearly forgot about it, until it was discovered by director Barry Jenkins. While searching for ideas to follow up his 2008 film festival hit "Medicine for Melancholy," Jenkins came across "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue" — and while not himself gay, Jenkins was strongly moved by Chiron's story, especially since it otherwise mirrored Jenkins' own difficult Liberty City upbringing (McCraney and Jenkins even went to the same elementary and middle schools, though they never met as children). With McCraney's blessing, Jenkins converted the story into "Moonlight," and the rest is now cinematic history in the making. Masterfully directed by Jenkins, flawlessly acted by a fantastic cast, and giving an unprecedented glimpse into what it means to be young and poor and black and gay in America, the film is also powerfully universal as the story of one man's quest for identity.

NBC OUT spoke to McCraney — who's also the writer of the acclaimed "Brother/Sister Plays" trilogy, as well as a Steppenwolf Theatre member and the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant — about the phenomenal "Moonlight" on the eve of its Friday opening.

Did you ever envision anything like this when you were writing "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue?"

No. I always knew that it would be better served as a film than a play, but I always thought that it would be something kind of small and independent. Let's just say I could not have expected this to happen. But after Barry showed me one of his first cuts of the film, I did know that there was something beautiful about it. And I also knew Barry could bring to it something that I just could not. I love the art of collaborating, especially with someone as talented as Barry.

I'd been hoping to read your original play before we talked, but I'm told it was never actually published or performed. With the movie's buzz and imminent success, are there any plans for it to be performed or published now?

Absolutely not. First of all, it was never a play [despite rampant reports to the contrary]. It was always scripted in a way that was about the visual life of it. So for example, there are no "Lights up on" or "Curtain opens on" or "Enter stage left" sort of instructions. All of the instructions in the original script "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue" are like "CUT TO: Black washing his face," and "CUT TO: Little standing in the middle of a field." So to try to put that on stage would be — crazy, I think. (Laughs) And would probably have some theaters not ever wanting to work with me again. So one of the reasons I think Barry had such a good time turning it into his own screenplay is that there were things he could just kind of unfold right there. The circular nature of the original script didn't lend itself to the kind of open storytelling that I think Barry wanted, or as clearly as he managed to do so well. So he put it in a narrative linear form, still keeping the same three-part structure, just adding in acts.

So your original work jumped around in time more than the film does?

Yeah, it was simultaneous. So you saw pretty much a day in the life of each character at the same time. But that's why I say it's not a play, because you kind of can't do that on stage. You realize halfway through the script that it's the same life of the same person, but it moves at a swiftness you couldn't do on stage. It was just me trying to figure out moments of my life, and watching how, in very different portions of my life, I was still doing the same things. And you can see a nod to that with Barry's work. There are parts where they [Chiron at different ages] all get in the bathtub, they all rinse themselves in a certain way, they all do this thing in the mirror with water over their face with ice. And there are these moments that reflect — in each section — the other sections, and yet they're three different actors who are playing the same character, doing the same things.

I've seen a lot of gay movies in my day, and honestly, "Moonlight" is one of the most powerful gay-themed stories I've ever seen put to film. But of course it's also an incredibly powerful black-themed story, too. Do you think it does the story a disservice to focus solely on one or the other?

I think whatever way you have into it is valid and right. I think it diminishes something if we only make it one thing, for sure. Because it is not, it's just not. Whether or not it does it a disservice, it's more about what the truth of it is. It is a queer story, it is a gay story, it is a poverty story — you know what I mean? It is a story about drug addiction. Those things existed, and if we try to take them out or just make it about one of those things, I think it's more disingenuous to do that than anything.

Does Barry's film still feel like your own story?

Yep, even more so I think. To see it on the page is one thing, but to see it actually happen is kind of terrifying.
What's it like then to suddenly know that so many people are so moved by your story?

Hmm, I don't really know. I don't know if I've actually taken that part in.

I guess once the film's released it'll be even more apparent.

Well, I've watched the film again and again. I've gone into a kind of meditative state trying to figure out — I mean, these are large questions in my life that I myself haven't figured out. So I think the comfort, if there is any, is that other people are having the same moments of introspection, I'm hoping. And that feels right. It doesn't feel necessarily like a happy thing, because I don't want anybody to have to suffer through stuff. But I think it does feel necessary that other people are having a chance to wrestle with some larger issues, or at least issues that are less simple. When Chiron decides that he wants to become Black, what is that decision-making process like, and why? And what is he actually after, and where are the wrong turns we take? And what does it mean to wait for the touch of a person that also betrayed you — without giving too much of the film away.

Have you heard any reactions from other gay people who grew up in Liberty City?

Yeah. I think everybody in Liberty City, regardless of sexual identification, feels proud to have a movie that's about where we live, and that deals with the issues that we deal with, but doesn't kind of make a miserable portrait of it. I mean, it still looks like a beautiful place. You still see that there are good people there, and people who may do things that are less desirable, but who also have good hearts. I think that's very important.

Was there a Kevin in your own life?

Yeah.

Did the real story mirror pretty closely the Kevin in the movie then?

Well, the third chapter doesn't, for sure. But there are portions of it that are exactly like our interactions, yeah.

And have you been in touch with him? Does he know that the film is about to come out?

Nope.

Do you expect to hear from him?

(Laughs) Nope.

Do you have a favorite gay-themed film?

Most recently I loved "Tangerine," that's sort of a favorite of mine. But my all-time favorite movie is "The Talented Mr. Ripley."

What are you working on now?

I mostly teach at the University of Miami. I started a summer program for young high school women in the arts. I've been doing that mostly, just trying to create more opportunities for young storytellers to really get involved and engaged in the arts as early as I did.


Have you had offers to write more original screenplays?

Yeah, but right now my focus is mainly on "Moonlight" and hoping we can reach as wide an audience as possible. It's thrilling to get that chance. To be able to tell this very intimate story on such a large canvas feels really great, and it's really exciting.

Do you plan to continue to tell gay stories in your work, or do you even think of it in those terms?

I mean, I think my record speaks for itself. I don't think I've created any play that doesn't have at least one queer character in it.

Tarell Alvin McCraney: The man who lived 'Moonlight'