Sunday 29 May 2011

THE TRIUMPHANT MONTREAL HOMECOMING OF SOUL DIVA MICHELLE SWEENEY

Michelle Sweeney headlines two Montreal concerts at House of Jazz, on June 3 and 4 
(All photos courtesy Michelle Sweeney)


(May 29) I’ll never forget the night I got dolled up in my one-inch eyelashes, body-hugging black dress and Austin Powers-era Beyoncé afro-wig to go see my old friend, Montreal soul queen Michelle Sweeney, and her band headline Montreal’s Jello Bar nightclub. I looked nothing less than stunning. I mean, this bitch was ferocious! "I’m a whole lotta woman!" I told this cute guy at the bar, batting my eyelashes.

I don’t think he realized I was in drag until I sashayed past to the men’s room. Then I overheard him tell his friends, "I thought she was a woman!" 

Michelle & Bugs at Jello
Clearly, this dumb-ass was blind. When I stepped out of the men’s can, he and his two friends blocked my way with their muscle-boy arms folded across their chests, and he snarled, "Ain’t you Richard Simmons!"  To which I replied like a snap-queen, "NO! I’m Richard Burnett!"

I then parted those bruthas like Moses parted the Red Sea and when I sashayed past my man, he grabbed my ass.

True story.

So, you see, I absolutely adore drag, can never get enough glamour and worship a worthy diva. And in Montreal no diva – and I mean NONE – come close to that city’s Queen of Soul Michelle Sweeney whom (I also love to point out) owns more wigs than every drag queen in Montreal combined!

The Oxford dictionary says divas are prima donnas. But in the gay lexicon divas have historically mirrored the gay experience – the quest for acceptance, the need to belong and a larger-than-life persona that demands – no, commands – respect no matter how naughty they are. 

Michelle touring Eurasia
“It’s the charisma, it’s the fabulousness and taking pride in what you do," explains Cleveland-born Michelle, who commands respect as a big woman. "I love what I do. My nails and my hair might come off [onstage], but I give it my best. That’s why [gays] love their divas. And I have survived so many things in my life – raising kids as a single mom and all – and [gay audiences] they love a person that’s real. They want you to keep it real [despite] the false hair and eyelashes. My heart and soul is real."

Michelle – who says almost all the great soul singers have come from the church – adds, “I believe God made all of us. I say this all the time when people criticize gay people. Every time I’ve had a gay audience they have always been full of love. It raises you to your feet, the love they give me.”

Michelle cut her teeth playing the stages of Montreal, from co-starring in the Tony Award-winning musical Ain’t Misbehavin’ with local jazz great Ranee Lee (and stealing every scene she was in!!) at Montreal’s much-lamented La Diligence dinner theatre, to co-starring in the 1990 NFB award-winning feature film Strangers in Good Company, to bringing down the sweaty house at gay Montreal discos like KOX and Unity for 15 years! In fact, I rank her 1996 performance at Bad Boy Club Montreal’s internationally-famed Black and Blue circuit party – then drawing 20,000 revelers each year onto the Montreal Expos outfield at Olympic Stadium back when they hired such pop and dance legends like The Human League, Jimmy Somerville, Martha Wash, Ultra Naté and Loleatta Holloway – as that festival’s most breathtaking performance ever.

On this night Sweeney descended from the Olympic Stadium roof like an angel to join the Chorale Ganymède choir singing Reach Out by Sounds Of Blackness. "I had to walk along this narrow [catwalk] high above the stage," Sweeney recalls. "Now I’m not a small woman and here I was – oh my God – looking down at all those people dancing below!"

BBCM media relations director Carolyn Rousse remembers that moment like it happened yesterday. "That was back in 1996, the same year Girlina flew over the crowd in a spaceship and landed on the stage!" Rousse says excitedly. "That was my favourite B&B edition! There are things we did back then that just can’t be done anymore, like [Michelle Sweeney] on that stage coming down from the ceiling. Oh boy, that would not be accepted by the authorities now!" 



Another night, at Montreal’s famed Divers/Cité Festival, when told that her 30-minute set at an outdoor Divers/Cité concert in front of 15,000 screaming fans was being cut at the very last minute because that day’s performers had gone long, and mostly because the headliner, Québécois pop icon Diane Dufresne would not go onstage one second later than 9 p.m., Michelle came to me at a table of journalists backstage. Whereupon, suddenly, Michelle’s band was granted one song at five-to-nine. Beautifully, Michelle did the longest version of I Will Survive in the history of pop music. When she walked off that stage 10 minutes later, the crowd was going nuts. And Dufresne? She still took the stage – 20 minutes later.

Michelle boarding a plane
But after headlining at Montreal’s House of jazz nightclub for several years (check out Sweeney performing Georgia at a Montreal blues festival in the video clip above), in January 2009 Michelle left Montreal to front a touring jazz orchestra across Eurasia. Fittingly, after a concert one night last winter in the Kazak city of Almaty – the centre of Eurasia – Michelle and the band’s entourage accidentally discovered that city’s only gay bar. "When I walked in I was like their Big Mamma!" Michelle says proudly. "Oh my God, they all loved my clothes, my big hair, the drama! It was fabulous! And the woman who owns the bar had me sing I Will Survive."

Which goes to prove there IS such a thing as global gay culture.

That brings me to my final Michelle anecdote, when my partner-in-crime Bicente and I dropped by Montreal’s House of Jazz nightclub in 2006 to see Michelle belt out a few numbers. Now, I have long said of Michelle that she owns more wigs than every drag queen in this city combined – and there are hundreds of drag queens in Montreal!

So when we left the nightclub in the middle of one of her songs to go check out Montreal’s annual Miss Cleopatra Drag Queen Beauty Pageant at Cleo’s on The Main, Michelle stopped her band in the middle of her song and demanded, "Where you goin?" 

Bicente, Michelle & Bugs!
"We’re going to a drag queen beauty pageant!" I replied.

Knives and forks dropped, every tourist in the joint turned their head as Bicente made a beeline for the front door and Michelle – quick on her feet and without missing a beat – cracked, "Now you tell those drag queens I want all my wigs back!"

Friday 27 May 2011

MTL ROCKER JONAS EMBRACES HIS GAY FANS

Montreal rock star Jonas IS the massive attraction!
(May 27)  My mind is completely in the gutter when I ask handsome Montreal rock star Jonas how on earth he and his band came up with their name, Jonas & The Massive Attraction. "We were fucking around with names, doing that old high school thing where everybody goes home and thinks up a name for the band," Jonas says. "We were trying to be subtle but there’s nothing subtle about us! Why try some poor emo name? This is everything we are – rock’n'roll and shameless."

Well, if there’s one thing I know, it’s shameless. So I tell Jonas with his package he could’ve posed for the cover of the classic Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers. "That’s a Jonas cover!" I tell him.

"I’m totally down with that!" Jonas laughs over the phone from his hotel room in Berlin on his band’s recent mini-tour of Europe. "[After] we played the Embassy Club London in Soho [we went] out with a couple of friends – I met a girl who used to be the stylist for The Who. She was also a stylist for the Stones when she was 18 and had all sorts of stories. Then she made a couple comments that way, comparing me with Jagger. You got to take that stuff with a grain of salt, but it was still flattering!"

Montrealers knew Jonas was going places when they first saw him back in 1999 when his band Rubberman (yes, Rubberman!) won the CHOM L’Esprit rock band contest. The young and wiry Jonas had a tight midriff and a "package" you couldn’t miss at 500 paces.

When his first album was released in 2004, the then-24-year-old Jonas told me, laughing, "You work with what you have and sometimes other people can work what you have for you. And that feels really nice. Especially after a bottle of wine."

That was also the year his band opened up for Van Halen’s North American tour. "Their people didn’t want Eddie and Sammy socializing and partying with us. They thought we were going to be a bad influence! But they [Van Halen] were in full party mode. Michael Anthony and I had shots [at the bar] under the stage – that’s like a sign saying ‘Welcome aboard.’ We had a blast the whole tour."

Jonas smooches Bugs at 2006 Juno Awards!
  If Jonas has a knack for band names, he also has a Diamond Dave-style knack for meaty quotes. For instance, at the 2006 Juno Awards in Halifax, attending a CTV VIP party with folks like Pam Anderson, Jonas – as we both proclaimed our love for a fabulous rack – cracked, "It doesn’t matter what you got going on in the fireplace as long as you got a mantelpiece!"

It was also at that party that Jonas first told me about the first time he met Anderson – in an L.A. hotel elevator. "It was Oscar night and I was at this party and Hilary Swank walked in with her Oscar. I walk over to the bar and Tracy Morgan comes over many sheets to the wind and I become his new best friend and we end up in a hotel penthouse afterparty. I’d been drinking red wine and made some pharmaceutically bad decisions and wasn’t feeling very well, so I left. I got in the elevator and two floors down who walks in but Pam Anderson! So in my state, I [actually] said, ‘Hey Pam, what up?’ Then she gets off the elevator and I watch her walk down the hall until the elevator doors began ringing. She turned to look at me and I froze in my tracks! And that was that."


Always the gentleman: Jonas poses on red
carpet with my mom Liliane at Old
Montreal Europa fashion show
This weekend an older and wiser Jonas – he’s now 32 – and The Massive Attraction (featuring long-time guitarist/band leader Corey Diabo, J.S. Baciu on bass, Francis Fillion on drums and Henri "H" Fortier on keys) open for Kid Rock, at Montreal's Bell Centre on May 30.

Kid Rock better watch out too, because Jonas and the boys could easily steal that show, especially on the heels of their hugely successful latest album, Big Slice ("We’re definitely experimenting with our poppier side"). The title track is ZZ Top-style fun and the mid-tempo closing ballad The Deep End also deserves to top the charts. And this time they did it all themselves on their own Big Slice Records label.

"I came out of two years of record label hassles [with Deja Music]," Jonas tells me. "It was great at the beginning but then it was time to get out of Dodge. They sold our contract to DEP and we bought it out from them."

It’s a brand-new start for the Juno-nominated Jonas, who broke nationally in 2005 with his terrific cover of Stevie Nicks’ Edge of Seventeen and still looks hot after all these years on the road.

Straight guys like him because Jonas really is a nice guy. Girls love him because, well, he has a nice package. And gay audiences love him too, as evidenced by the long and loud reception he got headlining the outdoor Divers/Cité stage a couple summers ago. Let's face it: Jonas is hot.

"I love my gay fans because they know out of adversity comes love," says Jonas. "When you’re isolated for being different – I can relate to that on a huge level. I was always different too."

Jonas and I have another thing in common even though he’s straight and I’m not: We are unabashed boobiesexuals. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I admit it. I love a fabulous rack. Tits, bazoombas, bodacious tatas, my world, welcome to it.

"But," Jonas adds, slipping back into rock star mode, "I’m also a bootiesexual!"

Jonas & The Massive Attraction open for Kid Rock, May 30 at Montreal's Bell Centre


Thursday 26 May 2011

INTERNATIONAL DRAG SENSATIONS 2BOYS.TV PREMIERE TIGHTROPE IN TORONTO

Pipi Douleur and Gigi L’Amour – a.k.a. transdisciplinary artists Aaron Pollard and Stephen Lawson (All photos courtesy 2boys.tv)

Montreal audiences have long adored local drag queens Gigi L’Amour and Pipi Douleur – a.k.a. transdisciplinary artists Stephen Lawson and Aaron Pollard – like opera lovers worshipping international divas at Vienna’s Staatsoper. Gigi and Pipi are royalty in this town. But during their three-week run as theatrical sensation 2boys.tv at Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in January 2009, something extra wonderful happened.

 "We were on the cover of NOW Magazine, which apparently is very rare for people in performance," Gigi (Stephen Lawson.) told me afterwards. "So we were very excited! Then we had to move house during the second week [of our run] and we took all our bags out to the taxi. The driver opened up his trunk and," here Lawson’s eyes twinkle, "the bottom of his trunk was lined with our picture from the cover of NOW Magazine!"

Lawson howls with laughter: "That keeps it all in perspective – here today, gone tomorrow!"

Fresh from runs in Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, San Francisco, Glasgow, Iceland and other points afar, Lawson and Pollard premiere their new 2boys.tv production of Tightrope at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre on May 27 - "a high drag spectacle in memory of our forgotten."

"The theme of people who have disappeared kept arising in different communities,” Lawson told Xtra this week. “Whether it was political dissidents in Argentina, drug cartel victims in Columbia or aboriginal women in Canada, the idea kept presenting itself.

“We started to ask ourselves about our relationship to the disappeared in our own lives," he adds. "We were 11 and 14 respectively when the AIDS crisis began and feel quite strongly the absence of that disappeared generation of gay men.”
 
Developed over a three-year period, Tightrope incorporates a live musical element by Montreal performers Alexis O’Hara and Radwan Ghazi Moumneh. Backed by a virtual choir of singers, musicians and drag queens, 2boys.tv summon the shadows, apparitions and voices of the past - "phantoms of a liberationist gay culture that vanished with the onset of the AIDS crisis and a generational amnesia surrounding this loss."

2Boys.tv's Quebec roots make their approach to stage very different. "There is a stagnation in general within theatre in North America, with the exception of Quebec and that’s because Quebec is an aspiring nation-state," Aaron Pollard told me for an HOUR mag 2Boys.tv cover story a couple years ago. "It’s also about language, because artists [in Quebec] have to find a way to tour their work. So, yes, we tailor our work, reduce language in script-based work in order to make it more accessible [outside Quebec]."

"Hence the incredible tradition of contemporary mime, the circus, marionette theatre," Lawson adds. "These are all extremely healthy in Montreal but you don’t see this diversification in the rest of North America."

So what about New York City?

Pollard didn't miss a beat: "Who wants to play in New York? They think they’re so important you have to pay to play." 

Tightrope
At Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre May 26 to June 5
Previews May 26, Opens May 27, Runs to June 5


Monday 23 May 2011

BOYS OF SUMMER: WHY NO PRO GAY ATHLETE WILL COME OUT ON TOP -- THIS YEAR OR NEXT

Which pro athlete will be the gay Jackie Robinson?

Just six gay male athletes from North America’s four major pro leagues – the NBA, NHL, NFL and MLB – have publicly come out and I’ve interviewed four of them:  NFL offensive lineman Roy Simmons, former Green Bay Packer and Atlanta Falcon Esera Tuaolo, Major League Baseball utility player Billy Bean and former NFL running back David Kopay, whom I’ve interviewed several times over the years.

The fifth, onetime L.A. Dodger outfielder Glenn Burke, the man credited with inventing the high-five, died of AIDS in 1995, the year before I started writing this column. And the sixth, former NBA journeyman John Amaechi, came out in 2007. But quite frankly I didn’t particularly want to interview Amaechi then because I’d heard it all before.

It all began with former NFL running back David Kopay – who was first offered a position with the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes before he signed with the NFL – when he came out in 1975 during what can only be called pro sports’ Jurassic era.

Kopay was the first. So I understand him only coming out after his player days. As for the rest of them – well, let me just say that Montrealers adored Jackie Robinson when Jackie broke pro baseball’s colour barrier with the Montreal Royals in 1946 (before breaking Major League Baseball’s colour barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947), and none of these Johnny-come-lately gay guys is a Jackie Robinson.

In fact, if anything, they’re all a bunch of sissies.

I had to hound 1980s and 1990s MLB utility player Billy Bean for three years before he agreed to an interview – on the eve of the publication of his 2003 memoir Going the Other Way, no less. Bean told me, “Jackie Robinson had the support of his organization and the fans in Montreal, though maybe not all of his teammates. Fortunately Jackie was a great baseball palyer because he was subjected to a different standard as a gay player would be.”

More recently, it’s straight athletes who seem to be doing all the gay-civil-rights heavy lifting. NHL New York Rangers forward Sean Avery was the first pro athlete to publicly support New Yorkers for Marriage Equality and when his 30-second Human Rights campaign video (which you can see below) was released in May 2011, the anti-gay criticisms of Avery by father-and-son sports-agent team of Don and Todd Reynolds opened the floodgates. Rick Welts, president and CEO of The Phoenix Suns, came out to The New York Times on May 15 (two years after Laura Ricketts made history as the first ever openly-gay Major League Baseball owner, of the Chicago Cubs), and then former Villanova Wildcats basketball player Will Sheridan (who was out to his teammates) publicly came out to ESPN on May 16.



“It annoys me that they try to act like all us [straight] jocks are going to be homophobic,” former NBA champ Charles Barkley said on a podcast with ESPN's Bill Simmons. “It does a disservice to team sports to say we would not like a gay guy. And that guys wouldn't want to play with him. It doesn't work like that in sports.”

“Dude, we just want guys on our team who can play,” Barkley added. “On team sports, we don't care what colour or religion a guy is, as long as he can play.... You know who I don't want to play with? Guys who suck at their sport.”

As Major League Baseball legend Felipe Alou once told me when he was skipper of the Montreal Expos, “There are too many other things out there to worry about: too many killings, too many robberies, too many lies. I don’t see why a gay player should be a problem in the locker room, and I don’t see why a player’s sexuality should affect his evaluation.”

But the incontrovertible fact remains that just six gay male athletes from North America’s four major pro leagues – the NBA, NHL, NFL and MLB – have publicly come out. 

 The truth has more to do with fan reaction and endorsements. For instance, while it is true tennis legend Martina Navratilova won a ton of prize money in her pro career, coming out in 1981 also cost her millions in endorsement opportunities. “I didn’t gain anything [monetarily] but I never compromised myself,” Martina told me on the eve of the 2006 inaugural World Outgames in Montreal. “Staying in the closet would have cost me my personal dignity. You can’t put a dollar value on dignity.”

And that’s what this all boils down too. It’s all about the money. As Cuba Gooding Jr. screams to his sports agent (played by Tom Cruise) in the Hollywood film Jerry Maguire, “Show me the money!”

 Which brings me back to David Kopay, whose coming out dropped a bomb on the NFL when his autobiography The David Kopay Story topped The New York Times bestseller list for weeks in 1977.

“I do feel special,” Kopay told me. “I went up to Billie Jean [King] once and said, ‘I wished so badly when you were struggling with [your] coming out that I could have helped you.’ And she told me, ‘But if it wasn’t for your book I don’t know if I would have gotten there!’

“That’s still unbelievable to me,” Kopay sighs.

Kopay’s autobiography also literally saved the life of former Green Bay Packer and Atlanta Falcon Esera Tuaolo, who, when he came out on ESPN’s Real Sports in 2002, became just the third player in league history to do so (after Kopay and Roy Simmons). “When David and I met for the first time [afterwards] I bawled like a baby,” Tuaolo explained to me following the 2006 Super Bowl game. “It was like, ‘You saved my life,’ and for David it was, ‘You are my confirmation.’”

This is why gay athletes need to publicly come out, damn the torpedoes. As NFL offensive lineman Roy Simmons rhetorically asked me when his memoir Out of Bounds was published, “You know what I heard? That there’s a secret organization of gay NFL players. Is it true? I’ve been out of the NFL for a long time, but I think it’s too risky for these guys. Why would someone making a big salary, who could be married, why put all that in jeopardy?”

So while closeted pro gay athletes continue to play in silence, the rest of us continue to endure loudmouth idiots like Joakim Noah, centre for the Chicago Bulls, who on May 22 was caught on camera saying “Fuck you, faggot!” to a fan during Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Miami Heat. Noah barely apologized after the game, actually saying, “I apologize [but] the fan said something to me that I thought was disrespectful, and I got caught up in the moment, and I said some things that I shouldn't have said. I was frustrated and I don't mean no disrespect to anybody. I just got caught up.”

Jackie Robinson is rolling over in his grave.

Which is why all gay pro-athletes are duty-bound to publicly come out now.

You know, I only got an interview with former closeted MLB umpire David Pallone after he published his memoir Behind the Mask. Same thing with Roy Simmons (Out of Bounds) , Esera Tuaolo (Alone in the Trenches) and Billy Bean (Going the Other Way).  John Amaechi only publicly came out when his memoir Man in the Middle: My Life In and Out of Bounds was published in March 2007. Sure they all did some good coming out in the end, but they also made a buck from it only when they had nothing else to lose – when their playing days were over.

Personally, I’m with NBA Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban who thinks that, in this climate, an openly gay NBA player would actually clean up. “From a marketing perspective, if you’re a player who happens to be gay and you want to be incredibly rich, then you should come out, because it would be the best thing that ever happened to you from a marketing and an endorsement perspective,” Cuban told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram after Amaechi came out. “You would be an absolute hero to more Americans than you can ever possibly be as an athlete, and that’ll put money in your pocket.”

Cuban continued, “On the flip side, if you’re the idiot who condemns somebody because they’re gay, then you’re going to be ostracized, you’re going to be picketed and you’re going to ruin whatever marketing endorsements you have.”

In fact, Rogers Sportsnet anchor Damian Goddard was fired on May 11 after tweeting in support of the anti-gay marriage stance taken by hockey agent Todd Reynolds. “I completely and wholeheartedly support Todd Reynolds and his support for the traditional and TRUE meaning of marriage,” Goddard tweeted on May 10.

(Xtra reports that while the tweet came from Goddard’s personal account, his profile identified him as a Sportsnet broadcaster and his thumbnail picture showed him at the Sportsnet news desk.)

So my advice to athletes is, if you’re gay, do us all and yourself a favour and come out when it really means something, when you’re still at the top of your game.  

That’ll make you the biggest winner of all.

Saturday 21 May 2011

CLINTON FOR PRESIDENT! STAND-UP LEGEND KATE CLINTON ON THE STATE OF THE UNION

 
Comic trailblazer Kate Clinton headlines The Crown & Anchor in Provincetown May 28 through Sept. 4 (Photo by David Rodgers/Courtesy Kate Clinton)


(May 21) "I think Charlie Sheen is representative of all straight men right now!" legendary stand-up comic Kate Clinton told me just days before Ashton Kutcher announced he is replacing Sheen on the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men

"I love to generalize!" The great Kate Clinton is laughing her head off. 

"But seriously, straight men need to reel him in!" she says. "It’s not making you look good! I think straight men are in trouble and Charlie Sheen is doing them no service at all. They need to do an intervention! ‘Charlie, you’re making us look bad!’" 

This year Clinton celebrates her trailblazing three-decade stand-up career – which specializes in political commentary – with her year-long Glee Party Tour! She also releases Lady HAHA, her tenth DVD collection, next month, and she happily agreed to sit down for my ninth annual Kate Clinton column. 

"For those of you who speak in Roman numerals, it’s XXX, baby!" says Kate, who turns 64 on Nov. 9. "How long have we known each other, Richard?" 

"Almost 15 years," I reply, recalling the Q&A with Clinton I hosted at Montreal’s downtown Chapters bookstore during her summer 1998 book tour for her first collection of essays titled Don’t Get Me Started. I was young and nervous and Kate – a personal hero of mine – put me at my ease and made me feel like a million bucks. 

The former elementary school English teacher – with her always-reassuring voice – did stand-up for the first time in 1981 on a dare, and she has since headlined nightclubs and festivals around the world, and always proudly as an out woman. 

Without Kate Clinton, there is no Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, no Rosie O’Donnell (whom Clinton also used to write for on her old TV show), no out Lily Tomlin. As Kate herself once said, "Lesbian humour isn’t trying to sell anything, it doesn’t have to sell out. Coming out as a lesbian on stage is still a very political act – if it weren’t, more women would do it." 

Kate’s also had several off-Broadway runs and was a regular at Montreal’s Just For Laughs Festival until JFL pulled the plug on their Queer Comics showcase in 2005, a move that hasn’t hurt all those closeted gay comics JFL loves to hire. 

Moreover, in her 30-year career Clinton has helped raise millions of dollars for such organizations as the New York City LGBT Community Center, the Gill Foundation and the U.S. National Center for Lesbian Rights. In fact, working the stage at community events year-round, Clinton has inspired yet another new generation of supposedly "post-gay" activists who have finally forced Obama’s hand over gays in the military and same-sex marriage. 

"They walk the walk about coalition building, they’re very gender fluid, they work in the social media but they also know you still have to go door-to-door with flyers," Kate says proudly. "Every time I go it recommits me." 

While a Sarah Palin 2012 presidential ticket could very well seal a second Obama term, Clinton (not related to Bill or Hillary), says, "I don’t want to get lazy again like I did with George W. Bush. Actually, I was quite bored: ‘Yup, he’s evil!’ 

"Palin would be a comedy gift for me, but bad for ‘us.’ I think she’s a tool, has no clue what’s involved and that’s probably what they [the backroom Tea Party boys] want, another little puppet. I think she’s very dangerous. I [also] think the old-school Republicans are terrified." 

As for anti-gay Republicans Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump making noises about running for president in 2012, Clinton says, "I think the grandiosity of Trump was why he said he was running. And Newt sees himself as an idea man and represents the old guard. I think they’re both a direct reaction to the Tea-baggers. Obama could be going, ‘Yeah, destroy each other!’ but he’s [too busy] running the country." 

Kate also does not believe Hillary Clinton will run for office again. "I saw her [recently] and [my partner, author and activist] Urvashi [Vaid] was talking to her about immigration and international things and I said to [Hillary], "And I’m worried about your jet lag!’ And she replied, ‘Tell me about it!’ I said, ‘I don’t know how you do it. When I get off a plane I’m barely coherent. You get off a plane you have to do a press conference!’ Hillary said, ‘I know!’ I think she’s really tired." 

Kate’s favourite joke these days is, "Sarah Palin found her Jihad spot." 

"I actually take a bow when I do it because I enjoy it so much!" Kate laughs. "When I first wrote it I looked heavenward and said, ‘Thank you!’" 

Does our Kate have trouble living up to being a living legend? "Do you feel obliged to do something legendary every time you step outside?" I ask her. 

Kate laughs, then tells me, "It’s a burden, yes! I need to be able to do that pose in yoga for the people! Actually, I don’t really. I feel like I’m a spokesperson and I know where I come from. I come from the women’s movement, the [black] civil rights movement, the sexual liberation movement, the gay movement. While I never pulled off being straight very well – I felt like a fraud – I do this job very well." 

O

Essential buttplugs Check out Kate Clinton’s daily jokes, weekly video blogs and Glee Party Tour! updates at http://www.kateclinton.com/. Kate also headlines The Crown & Anchor in Provincetown all summer, May 28 through Sept. 4. Surf to http://www.onlyatthecrown.com/.

Friday 20 May 2011

TWO GAY GUYS, A FABULOUS SALMON AND A GALLON OF VODKA! (AND JOAN RIVERS!)

 Buck and Babs - Toronto's fab Two Gay Guys cooking team - enjoy breakfast in bed!

(May 19) Joan Rivers once spent 15 minutes giving me plastic surgery advice for my mother. "You know, Richard," Ms. Rivers told me afterwards, "Why don't I just talk to your mother instead? Why don't you guys come backstage to see me when I'm in Montreal!" In the end Mom decided not to get an eye tuck, after Ms. Rivers told her, "My God, you look too young to be Richard's mother!"

Then some days ago, Rivers made headlines around the world (it was a slow news day, granted) when she "revealed" an old showbiz trick: Spraying on homemade deodorant made with vodka, which kills smelly bacteria. “I always spray my costumes with vodka and water," Ms. Rivers said. "It’s an old Broadway trick — two-thirds water and one-third vodka, spray your armpits and you’ll never smell again.”

Buck, Bugs and Babs riding
vodka-fuelled T-O subway!
So I told my old friend and vodka boozing partner Louis-Michel "Babs" Taillefer — half of the delicious Two Gay Guys video-chef cooking team — that we'd have to try this out the next time I visit his Queen City home with a gallon of vodka. Replied Babs, "Well lets not be foolish now, honey. Just a little dab will take care of those unGodly odors, but the rest has GOT to go down our gullets for good measure!"

Anyway, Louis-Michel and his life partner, award-winning restaurateur and all-around hot chef Derooy Buck — also known as “Chef Buck” and “Sidedish Louis-Michel” — are the instigators behind the very entertaining and often hilarious The Two Gay Guys YouTube cooking channel (think Two Fat Broads, but with hot — and much slimmer — Leather Daddies instead). The cooking segments showcase Chef Buck’s culinary talents and Louis-Michel’s fierce appetite, promising easy recipes and cooking techniques while using a dash of humour (and a great cha-cha-cha soundtrack) to help heat things up in the kitchen. Their latest episode was posted this week and is called Two Gay Guys and a Fabulous Salmon!, which you can watch below.



“If you want to be successful in your own kitchen, you must always be curious and willing to explore new flavours,” says Buck. On the other hand, Louis-Michel is far from being a Julia Child-in-the-making. He admits he can’t cook to save his life: “I’ve actually burnt eggs while trying to hard-boil them!”

But damn, Babs can sure drink vodka! Cheers, darling!

Thursday 19 May 2011

STAND-UP LEGEND MAGGIE CASSELLA ROLLS OUT RED CARPET FOR THE FLYING BEAVER!

 Our Maggie works the red carpet! (Photo by Andrew McNaughton)

 (May 19) If I were a dyke I’d go down on Canadian comic Maggie Cassella! She’s funny, sexy and I love her trailblazing all-gay comedy festival, We’re Funny That Way, which turns a whopping 15-years-old next year! But as if being a stand-up pioneer isn't enough, this year my buddy Maggie (and her business partner Heather Mackenzie) launched one of the hottest new venues in Toronto called - wait for it - The Flying Beaver Pubaret!

The joint serves food and drink on the pub side, and serves up live shows on the cabaret side. "Our wait staff brings you food and drink and does everything for you except go to the loo!" Maggie says. "And we’d do that for you too if we could because we’re aiming to give some great customer service!"

Recent headliners include another showbiz legend, the always very funny stand-up comic and jazz singer Lea DeLaria, as well as comedienne Karen Williams, Tabby Johnson, Sharron Matthews, Billy Newton Davis, Vickie Shaw and Jessica Kirson. And this week award-winning comedian, actress and television host Carla Collins headlines from May 19-21.

But what I want to know is the funniest/craziest/scariest story that's happened to Maggie or one of her performers at the Beaver since it opened?

"You don't have enough room in this column for the reality show that has been our first eight weeks!" Maggie tells me. "Let's just say having the Hazmat unit there before we even opened was both scary and funny. Oh, and I now have 15 minutes of new material."

As for We're Funny That Way, Maggie says, "I'm massively busy but I am looking forward to the 15th WFTW next year. Hoping to do a doc update with David Adkin, and [this year] we're doing our first WFTW Foundation Golf tournament on July 27!"

Maggie will also headline The Post Office Cabaret in Provincetown during Women's Week in October.
Carla Collins

As for Canadian PM Stephen Harper's Conservative Party majority win on May 2, how does Maggie feel? "Afraid," she sighs. "Very afraid."

Carla Collins headlines The Flying Beaver Pubaret (488 Parliament Street) in Toronto, May 19-21. Showtime: 8 p.m.  $20 advance/$25 door. Dinner available before, during, and after the show. Reservations recommended. 647.347.6567. Also, there's a Post-Bunch Tea Dance 4-7 p.m.this Sunday, May 22 (no cover).

Wednesday 18 May 2011

MONTREAL'S FAMED GAY SCENE EXPLODES OUTSIDE THE CITY'S GAY VILLAGE

Tristan Harris at Leg Work on The Main (Photo from Facebook)

Some years ago, the term "post-gay" was coined to describe a world where Gay Pride and Gay Villages no longer matter. Well, in North America, that day is upon us. Pride parades and "gaybourhoods" are redefining themselves and what it means to be gay in urban centres.

Just look at the evidence.

In a widely published 2007 Associated Press story headlined "Gay Villages disappearing," NYC author Don Reuter, researching a book on the rise and fall of a dozen U.S. gay neighbourhoods, rhetorically asks, "What makes these neighbourhoods gay? Not much."

Reuter predicts that outside New York, San Francisco and a handful of other gay meccas like Montreal, neighbourhoods with a significant gay presence will not survive - including, Reuter contends, gay communities in New Orleans, Philadelphia and Seattle.

North American gay communities have managed to save several iconic gay bars from closing in the last few years - like NYC's Stonewall Inn, originally slated to close in August 2006, 38 years after it became an international landmark following the 1969 Stonewall Riots! Others like the famed Boom Boom Room in Laguna Beach and New York's famed Roxy have already closed.

The reason? Entire cities have finally become our playgrounds. Nowhere is that truer than Montreal which because of its enormous number of gay citizens, has both a healthy Gay Village and bustling gay scene outside the Village. Here are some choice events in the coming days:

POMPe Thursdays Montreal's newest monthly dance floor sensation continues to get bigger each month. 300+ homos crammed the ballroom at Espaces des Arts in April! Classic Montreal loft party meets queer club scene, and all on a radical queer budget. Next edition: May 19 with DJ Aleks C and DJ JONNY BONNY ROCK at Espaces des Arts (9 Ste-Catherine E., corner St. Laurent). Metro St.Laurent. Doors at 10:30 p.m. $5 cover before 11:30pm, $6 after. 

BCBG | Beaux Célibataires Beaux Gais | Édition 2011 Montreal's annual gay men singles bash in the Opus Hotel's stylish Suco Lounge (2108 Saint-Laurent, corner Sherbrooke) on The Main. Must come accompanied by another single male. May 20. Doors at 9 p.m. $10.

MEOW MIX - Queer SLOWDANCE Mimproductions and Slowdancers of the World Unite team up for a special Meow Mix edition of Queer SLOWDANCE. You get a dancecard-booklet to set up dances in advance, and Slowdance Night has all slow songs all night long. Designated dancers (10-11pm): Miriam (Meow Mixtress), Ian Poe Kerr (Dukes of Drag), Julie Matson & Dave Landry of Salon Identité, Emilie Leggs (dancer extraordinaire), MJ, Johanna, Anthony Johnson (dog warrior) V. and others TBC! (I was supposed to be there but am attending opening night of L'Opera de Montreal's new million-dollar production of La Boheme. So see you at the next Slowdance!) At Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent) on The Main. Doors open at 9:30 pm. $10. Profits will be donated to a local no-kill cat shelter.

MEC PLUS ULTRA is an out-of-the Village gay event that takes place twice a month to make it easier to meet new people. MEC's get Lucky edition features guest DJ Hatchmatik. Artists that have played at MEC include Diamond Rings, We Are Wolves, Frigid, Mary Hell, Plastik Patrik and B'ugo. Free drink before 11 pm. May  21 at  Le Belmont (4483 St-Laurent) on The Main. Doors open at 10 pm 

GLAMARCHIST LOOKFAIR IV: LIVE FREE/GLAM HARD is a regular benefit queer dance party presented by QTEAM, a radical queer collective/ working group of QPIRG McGill and QPIRG Concordia that came out of the Anti-Capitalist Ass Pirates. At bar Il Motore (179 Jean Talon W), May 21 beginning at 10 p.m. $5 or pay what you can. Wheelchair accessible. 

FAGGITY ASS FRIDAYS Head & Hands and the Playhouse present Faggity Ass Fridays: CAMPING SAUVAGE! Edition, May 27 beginning at 10 pm, with midnight performances by Miss Cookie and Sublimes Rondeurs (Fringe 2011). FAF recently awarded Montreal Mirror's 2011 #2 BEST CLUB NIGHT and was a fave with Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto when he was in town a couple of years ago. At The Playhouse (5656 Parc  Ave).  $10 suggested donation; all money goes to the Sense Project which provides safer sex education in Montreal-area high schools.

IlluZions The renowned Montreal gay choir Ensemble Vocal Extravaganza presents songs from the Middle-Ages through the writers of the Renaissance up to the extravagant Lady Gaga - a show where masks, costumes, and looks will only be IlluZions, at Montreal’s glorious Centre Leonardo Da Vinci (8370 Lacordaire) in St-Léonard. June 3-4-5. Tickets $15-$25 available through LaVitrine Culturelle.

PEOPL is a weekly Sunday party for music lovers presented by Gotsoul & Man Claudy featuring resident deejays Angel Moraes, jojoflores, Robert Ouimet and Christian Pronovost. It really doesn’t get much better than this, folks.

Legendary Montreal DJ Robert Ouimet - house DJ at the Lime Light from 1973 to 1981 - recently told me, "The Lime Light really was better than Studio 54, and that’s [mostly] because it was a fun place for everybody – men, women, black, white, straight and gay... There are really only three [discos] that changed this city – the Lime Light, Business [in the 1980s] and Stereo. But we’re recapturing that vibe at Peopl Sundays where [dance diva] Ultra Naté not only spun [recently], but sang four songs!"
 
Usually held in Club U.N. (390 Notre Dame W, entrance on Rue Ste-Helene, in Old Montreal), Peopl switches to it’s summertime outdoor venue at Terasse Bonsecours beginning May 22.  It starts at 4 p.m. each Sunday, until 10 p.m. GUESTLIST ENDS 7PM AND MUST BE SUBMITTED B4 3:30PM TO MANCLAUDY@GMAIL.COM.

Leg Work Queer-friendly Tuesday nights at The Blue Dog Motel (3958 St-Laurent) on The Main -- disco, cheap drinks, dancing & debauchery with hosts SASS and Tristan Harris. Free cover, cheap booze. Their motto is the Donna Summer quote, "But I think that I'm just a normal girl, you know."

Saturday 14 May 2011

HOW TDB BLAZED A TRAIL FOR SKY GILBERT & BRUCE LaBRUCE + THE TDB ARCHIVES

The 11th Ave website also runs this publicity still of Bugs and Skye from the first season of the reality-TV series Out in the City that ran on the Life Network (2002-2004)

(May 14) The Montreal Gazette's Denise Duguay this week profiles me on her terrific website 11th Ave and - while you all know I'm no stranger to shameless self-promo - I admit I blushed when I read it!

Denise writes in her intro to her monthly Proust Questionnaire 5.0, "I first met Richard Burnett on the pages of the Montreal weekly HOUR, where he wrote the self-syndicated column Three Dollar Bill. But “met” is such a tame word. Bugs, as he is known (“My life is a veritable cartoon!”), is not just “met”, As Richard Burnett the columnist and activist, he provokes, engages and enrages, amuses, shocks, delights and seduces. Impressive and also a little intimidating. When I met the man face to face, to fete outgoing Gazette film critic John Griffin last winter, I was nervous as a triple-espresso chihuahua. But (of course) this was not Richard Burnett the columnist. This was Richard Burnett the “sweetheart”, as I’ve often heard him described, who unsettled only with how hard he watches and listens. He has moved his TDB column to his own website, and long may it prosper in the wake of the crumbling of HOUR."

Last issue of Hour  (April 7, 2011)
Meanwhile, Yahoo! bloggerMarc Weisblott, in a May 5 post about the closings of Montreal's HOUR mag and Toronto's EYE Weekly, and headlined "Canadian alternatives like Eye Weekly adjust their attitudes to remain in print," really missed the boat when he wrote, "[HOUR] relaunched last month as Hour Community, which has emphasized sincerity over snark."

Last issue of Eye (May 5, 2011)
Meanwhile, when Bill Reynolds (now an assistant professor at Ryerson University's School of Journalism) was editor-in-chief of EYE, I pitched them Three Dollar Bill. The paper instead decided to go with someone local, first hiring Sky Gilbert (his loudmouth column was called Pink Panther) and then Bruce LaBruce (his was called Feelings). 

"I love it that I can brag I blazed a trail for both notorious playwright and author Sky Gilbert and infamous underground indie filmmaker Bruce LaBruce," I wrote in a 2009 TDB column interview with Bruce. "Yes, it’s true and, by the bye, when it comes to humility, I’m the greatest." 

Anyway, it's true I have a big mouth, but interviews like the one by Denise Duguay are always humbling. Thank you, Denise!

Incidentally, I've included links below for Three Dollar Bill archives at some of the newspapers the column has run in over the years. Thanks for reading TDB!



COCKTAILS WITH PORN LEGEND RYAN IDOL


Porn superstar Ryan Idol became something of a legend in the late 1990s a couple years after his last celluloid cum-shot. Addicted to booze and narcotics, he dove through the window of a NYC brownstone and slammed into the pavement 3 1/2 storeys below. By all accounts he should have died.

Instead he laid in a coma for five days and, on March 22, 1998, at "4:23 am," had a near-death experience.

"When I woke up I knew within a couple days that i tried to take my life, which I'm really embarrassed about,' Idol - who will greet his fans at a public Q&A session at famed West Hollywood nightclub Micky's on May 12 - told me a couple years later. "My memory didn't really come back until 18 months later in bits and pieces but I realize now that a lot of other porn stars have been successful at killing themselves and I [too] should have died."

Ryan Idol back in the day
(Photo courtesy David Forest)
Idol then says, "I have lived for a reason."

What that reason is, Idol - born Marc Anthony Donias, and star of such gay-porn classics as Idol in the Sky and Idol Country - didn't seem quite sure of.

But what he is sure of - and what his appearance at Micky's tonight underscores - is the great, um, sucking sound of California's multi-billion-dollar porn industry.

When I asked Idol why he moved to L.A. in the first place, in his Boston accent, he began singing Looking For Love In All the Wrong Places.

"I think there's a melting pot of lost souls who gravitate towards the XXX business because it's the fastest way to get a fix," Idol says. "You think you're getting what you need but you're just masking your probelms. I don't have a really tightknit family.I had childhood issues - abandonment, not being loved - and I was a lost soul. That's why I joined the industry. I was looking for family - which I found, by the way - and I learnt nothing in life is easy,that family issues are one of the more challenging things. I was addicted to alcohol and i was using narcotics and i didn't want to grow up. So I dove out a window."

Idol went on to star Off-Broadway in the touring stage production of Making Porn and made his Broadway debut in a 2007 revival of Terrence McNally's play The Ritz, a farce set in a NYC bathhouse (the original 1975 production won Rita Moreno a Tony Award for her performance as Googie Gomez).

Idol's theatre career, I told him, appears contingent on his exposing his big dick onstage. After all, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what audiences want of their idol.

"I don't have a problem with nudity if it's part of the storyline," Idol replies. "I even improvised a part in Making Porn where I whack [my penis] on each thigh. I mean, everybody is so goddamn uptight about sex and I wanted to inject some humour. After all, we were all born nude."

David Forest with Ryan Idol
(Photo courtesy David Forest)
After all these years Idol remains a slick and consummate pro. But his rags-to-riches-to-redemption story sounds like he'd also make a great motivational speaker. So I tell him. After all, maybe that's the reason he's still alive.

"I take that as validation," Idol says thoughtfully. "I once thought I was lacking. Now I know better and have no intention of going backwards."

Ryan Idol appears at showbiz legend and Hollywood porn super-agent David Forest's weekly Thursday evening Cocktails with the Stars Q&A meet-and-greet at West Hollywood nightclub Micky's (8857 Santa Monica Blvd) on May 12 beginning at 6 pm PT (free admission). Forest once claimed when Idol was working in the porn biz that he managed Idol's career as an escort, with Idol allegedly bringing in $1,500 for a four-hour session. You can check out David Forest's porn stars at www.thepremiereartists.com.

Saturday 7 May 2011

STEVIE NICKS GREETS FANS AT NIGHT OF A THOUSAND STEVIES DRAG TRIBUTE IN NYC!


Fans of Stevie Nicks at this year's 21st annual drag-queen tribute Night of a Thousand Stevies (NOTS) at NYC's Highline Ballroom on May 6 were floored when they were greeted by the rock queen herself -- welcoming attendees in a minute-long video that Nicks taped especially for the famed event.

"Just remember, someday, some night, at a Night of a Thousand Stevies, I will be there in such a great disguise that not one of you will know it's me until I walk onstage and begin to sing Edge of Seventeen!" Nicks said in her video message. "But otherwise I will be completely in disguise haunting all around all of you."

Earlier this week NOTS co-founder Brian Butterick (aka NYC nightlife drag legend Hattie Hathaway ) told Three Dollar Bill that he believed Stevie "just might pop by and pay us all a visit. Who can say?"

To kick off NOTS' third decade, live performers last night featured "Legends of Stevie Realness" from every NOTS era, such as Sherry Vine, The Hohos, Basil Twist and Little Stevie, crooner Adam Dugas with harpist Mia Theodoratus (I saw them perform an exquisite version of Landslide at NOTS back in 2009), and others. First-time performers included the all-drag Canadian Stevie/Fleetwood illusionists Fleetwood Visions from Toronto.

Tuesday 3 May 2011

NOTS LANDING! WILL STEVIE NICKS SHOW UP AT NYC's FAMED DRAG TRIBUTE TO NICKS?

 Night of a Thousand Stevies 21: "The Wild Heart," May 6 at NYC's Highline Ballroom

When my boozing buddy Jamie and I made our entrance at the absolutely packed, internationally famed Stevie Nicks drag queen rock’n'roll tribute Night of a Thousand Stevies (or NOTS) at the Highline Ballroom in Greenwich Village back in May 2009, New York City hadn’t seen so much trash since the Teamsters’ citywide garbage strike of 1990.

No, I didn’t trip and slide face-first into the gutter like I did on Bourbon St. in New Orleans one Halloween, but after Jamie and I spilled out of our cab, inside the Highline Ballroom I knew I was in deep trouble when my bartender told me she couldn’t serve me triple vodka-sodas because her glasses weren’t big enough.

"How much for the bottle?" I cracked.

I kept snapping pictures of men’s asses while some woman grabbed Jamie’s butt (I think it was a woman – she looked like Stevie Nicks!) when they danced at the bar.

But the real entertainment was on the stage. This was my first Night of a Thousand Stevies – and yes, folks, I shall be going back for more – so I thought we were going to get a whole lot of lip-syncing.

In Your Dreams drops May 3
Instead what we got were real live performers, notably underground crooner Adam Dugas with harpist Mia Theodoratus doing an incredible version of Landslide; and Heather Litteer (a.k.a. Jessica Rabbit Domination) and her two backup singers rocking the house to Stand Back. Then Goon Squad – featuring Blondie’s Debbie Harry on lead vocals – destroyed the place with their balls-to-the-wall punk version of The Chain.

In two words: Holy fuck!

"The live [set] wasn’t as crazy as other years because we had to co-ordinate everything with the computers at the back of the room, which took some getting used to," says ab-fab NOTS co-hostess Hattie Hathaway (a.k.a. Brian Butterick), who produces NOTS with her fellow Jackie Factory NYC co-founders Johnny Dynell and Chi Chi Valenti. "But I think it was the best audience we’ve ever had – there were over 1,000 people. They brought so much energy, that’s why we kept turning on the house lights. They’re part of the show."
Bugs and his Stevie wig at NOTS

I have been to every major drag event in London, Sydney, Paris, New Orleans, Vegas and Montreal, and I’m telling you, NOTS is hands-down the most fun drag event I’ve ever been to. Revellers get dolled up à la Stevie, including past attendees Courtney Love, Cyndi Lauper and Boy George. Even Jamie and I wore blond wigs.

"I hope next year maybe Stevie will come," Brian told me afterwards.
.
Reveller at NOTS
Then last week the NYC nightlife legend (Brian was also a former roadie who helped debut such acts as RuPaul, Dee-Lite and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and his drag alter-ego Hattie co-founded not just NOTS, but Wigstock back in 1984 with that other NYC drag icon, Lady Bunny) told me after I suggested perhaps Stevie will actually show up for NOTS at their 25th annual edition in 2015, ""Hmmm... it just might be a tad sooner than that. Stevie is doing quite a few shows in the area this year, right around the time we are doing NOTS [this year at the Highline Ballroom on May 6] – and that is something I don't think has ever really happened before. So she just might pop by and pay us all a visit. Who can say?"

Nicks (whose current Heart and Soul co-headliner tour with Rod Stewart continues off-and-on until June 26, when it winds down with an outdoor concert in Hyde Park in London) was scheduled to appear on the Today Show and Good Day NY this morning (May 3) to promote her just-released new CD In Your Dreams, as well as perform at a star-studded event thrown in her honour by her record label Reprise Records at NYC's Webster Hall on May 4.

Audience goes nuts at NOTS
But her publicist Liz Rozenberg (who also handles publicity for Madonna) announced on May 2 that Nicks has had to cancel several upcoming appearances in New York due to coming down with pneumonia and the flu. Nicks' doctor says Stevie must "stay in bed and not fly" until she gets better. Nicks has not, incidentally, cancelled her May 6 concert in Atlantic City.

Meanwhile, over at NOTS, the show must go on. "Stevie loves it!" Brian explained to me some years ago. "NOTS really took off when she mentioned it in every interview she gave, she was so pleased with it. She’s donated boots, a tambourine with a ribbon that she applied herself, and some [of her] artwork was auctioned off and the money given to charity."  

For this year's event, Stevie's record label Reprise Records has donated a ton of Secret Love CD singles and videos, to give away to Stevie fans at NOTS on May 6.

Brian Butterick
 Like Howie Klein – former president of Warner Records – told me over breakfast once, "Stevie is very aware of her gay fans and has donated personal items [that were] auctioned off [for charity] at Night of a Thousand Stevies, which we have encouraged her [to attend]." 

Meanwhile, Stevie's very first manager, Hollywood gay-porn super agent David Forest, told me recently in a comprehensive Three Dollar Bill interview,"Gay men have always loved their dance divas, but Stevie has always appealed to the gay guy rockers. It's the outfits, the twirling, the persona. The gay guys just really dig her."

But will Stevie show up this year? Says Brian Butterick, "Who can say?"

Essential buttplug  The Jackie Factory presents Night of a Thousand Stevies 21: "The Wild Heart," May 6 at the Highline Ballroom (431 West 16th Street). Tickets: $25. Surf to www.mothernyc.com/stevie/

UPDATE: Stevie Nicks greets fans at Night of a Thousand Stevies!