Saturday 14 September 2013

STAR TREK LEGEND GEORGE TAKEI ON SOCHI, HOLLYWOOD CLOSET AND WILLIAM SHATNER


George Takei starred as Captain Sulu in the original Star Trek TV series and six movies
Bugs' new interview with George Takei was first published in XTRA. This is the longer version of that interview.

Star Trek legend George Takei has been the ultimate outsider for much of his life. Interned in American “War Relocation Camps” during World War II, Takei later dealt with racism and the Hollywood closet during his Tinseltown years.

Takei is currently advocating for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics to be relocated to a country that respects gay civil rights.

George Takei
“I remember the terrible morning when [I was five-years-old in 1942] my parents got my younger brother and baby sister up early, and I saw two soldiers with bayonets on their rifles flashing in the sun, stomp up the porch and knock on the front door,” Takei, now 76, remembers. “They ordered us out of our home. My mother was the last to come out and she was carrying the baby in her right arm and held a huge duffle bag in  her left hand and tears were rolling down her cheeks. I remember that vividly.”

Takei's personal experiences in WWII internment camps would later inspire the 2012 play Allegiance in which Takei also starred.

“I remember the barbwire fences, but I also remember chasing butterflies,” Takei says. “A child is amazingly adaptable. It wasn’t until I became a teenager after the war, talking with my father, that I learnt how degrading and humiliating it really was for my parents.”

By the time Takei got to Hollywood in the 1950s, he was relegated to playing stereotypes. But Takei told his father, “I’m going to change that.” 

Sunday 1 September 2013

MORE! MORE! MORE! AUTHOR JAMES ARENA PAYS TRIBUTE TO FIRST LADIES OF DISCO


Bugs' interview with James Arena originally ran in Daily Xtra on Aug 31

Gay audiences had torrid love affairs with disco divas well before the mainstream even heard the first strains of Donna Summer’s crossover smash hit “Love to Love You Baby,” which peaked at number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1975.

But according to James Arena, author of the just-published book First Ladies of Disco, the genre’s gay core fan base is very much a North American phenomenon, closely tied to that era’s gay liberation movement.

James Arena (Photo via Facebook)
“The women I interviewed in my book told me that gay audiences don’t dominate their shows in Europe,” says Arena. “Their audience base in Europe is broader and more diverse than it is here in North America.”

Which is also why – with the arrival of HIV – the homophobic “disco sucks” backlash destroyed many careers on this side of the pond. Disco, mainstream America made very clear, is cocksucker music.

But in First Ladies of Disco, all 32 singers that Arena interviewed – including Martha Wash, Anita Ward, Gloria Gaynor, Carol Douglas and Evelyn “Champagne” King – embrace their gay fans.