Freddy Freeman's BREAK THE SILENCE CD RELEASE PARTY
with special guest Sideshow Bennie
Friday December 8th, 2006
Blue Gene..s Back Pocket (aka BLU)
1715 Church St - Nashville, Tennessee 37201
Doors at 8pm - $10

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Is it Rock? Is it Folk? Is it R&B? Is it Blues? Is it
Country? Is it Funk?

Yes.

Freddy Freeman is an artist who knows no genre. He blends all his influences into a rich stew of American Popular Music. Five years in the making, Break The Silence showcases the versatility and talent of a unique singer/songwriter. With songs about the complexity of relationships, the excitement of being young and out on the town, a nostalgic tribute to his hometown, letting go, and standing up to proclaim self worth, Break The Silence takes you along on one man..s journey of self-discovery.

His voice can be a grizzly growl shouting out in defiance or a sweet tone of plaintive intimacy. Bringing together players Freddy has worked with for years, the outstanding musicianship on this album perfectly punctuates and further illuminates Freddy..s songs.

After spending six years developing his sound playing gigs around New York City, Freddy moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he continues to find new ways to grow and change as an artist. His music has been featured on a variety of radio programs around the country, as well as several compilation CDs. He is a proud member of Outmusic, an international network of LGBT musicians, songwriters, and supporters. In 2004 and 2006, Freddy was nominated for Outmusician Of The Year, an award recognizing acheivement in music and community activism.

..(Freddy is) an out gay artist, deftly walking the line between being overt in his lyrics about various personal issues and experiences and ensuring that he creates universal images in his songs... -Larry Flick, Billboard Magazine

The release will be celebrated with a party at Blue Gene..s Back Pocket (aka Blu) on Friday December 8th. Freddy will perform most of the album both with a full rock band and an acoustic ensemble. The festivities will begin with a performance by professional sideshow freak ..Sideshow Bennie... Doors open at 8pm. There will be a $10 charge at the door to cover sound expenses, and signed CDs will be available at a discounted rate. For this special perfomance, Freddy will be joined by local musicians Phil Proctor (drums), Bryant Keith(electric guitar & mandolin), Sam DeGeorge(keyboards), Charlie K. Brown(acoustic guitar & vocals), Tim Toonen(bass), Jay Freeman(vocals), and Abby
McDowell(vocals.)

The journey begins with breaking the silence. Until this happens, there can be no
dialogue. No storytelling. No growth and no understanding. Freddy would like his
audience to hear his pride, his struggle, his pain, and his triumph. Let the journey begin. Break the Silence.

Freddy Freeman's BREAK THE SILENCE CD RELEASE PARTY
with special guest Sideshow Bennie
Friday December 8th, 2006
Blue Gene's Back Pocket (aka BLU)
1715 Church St - Nashville, Tennessee 37201
Doors at 8pm - $10

The CD will also be available at www.woobiebearmusic.com, as well as fine on-line retailers such as CD Baby, Amazon.com, Borders, Waldenbooks, Tower and CD-Now.
For photos, bio, clips, news, and upcoming shows, go to www.freddyfreeman.com

Freddy Freeman
Singer - Songwriter - Producer - Event Promoter
http://www.freddyfreeman.com
Promoter of Bearapalooza
http://www.bearapalooza.com

993 Glastonbury Road
Nashville, TN 37217
(615) 366 0145

Back to the dark ages

I just got my new Out magazine today in the mail. I am always excited when I get another magazine. It's always like I I'm 10 years old waiting for my Boy's Life to come in the mail. Only now, it's Bear's Life and Out, and Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker, and so on. Today almost all of them came in the mail at once, so I was experiencing magazine overdose! What do I read first? I have to flip through Out, then race to read the comics in The New Yorker, then back to skim through the contents of Vanity Fair, then back to Out....

That's when it noticed it: New format on the cover. Was it like this last month? I don't think so. I would have noticed, for sure. The cover is dark this month. Out is in a crimson color, perhaps unintentional. "Out" appears above a charcoal grey backdrop and the emerging James Dorman wants something from all of us that he hasn't had in a very long time. I always love new formats. Except when LIFE magazine re-emerged with their large format version: Didn't like it.

I start flipping through the pages. Dark... dark...dark...HELIO!! Whoa! Dark... dark.... Advertising is getting dark. Perhaps it's because of the fall season, but I think it's more like a throw back to the dark and mysterious days of the late '70's. Night life. Moon light. Shadows. It's rather interesting to see. Apparently editorial input had a lot to do with this look. Are we moving back into the the dark ages?

Whoever is responsible for this look, I like it. But it's raining now. Raining for the second time in over three months here in Las Vegas. I can't believe it. I'm sitting here watching Capote, and I heard the faint sound of rain outside. So I opened the door and looked out. Cool rain. An event. Leave the door open and let the cool humidity come in. The refreshing smell of a long awaited rain. A long awaited refreshment.

hope everyone is having a great Labor Day and to my Malaysian friends, Selamat Hari Merdeka (National Day). These types of holidays are good to relax and have good times with friends and to some of us, reflect on what has transpired over the previous season and make plans for the next one.

This past summer I had a lot of changes in my life. I moved to Las Vegas from Florida and had to start my life over. I have done this type of thing many times before, but the older I get the more uncomfortable it is to do that. Some of you who know me well are probably saying to yourselves, "Finally..." because I have a tendency of moving around quite frequently. My excuse is that there is no one to hold me back. I suppose that is true. I'm like a helium balloon: Cut the string and I fly away.... Then I wake up, scared, like a child, lost in a market place. Such is my life.

But I have met some very nice people since I moved here, and it has been a pleasure to make their acquaintance. I've been crushed also, but I believe that is probably my own emotional irresponsibility. I have a difficult time separating my emotions from my life. I envy people who can just go through life on an even keel. I'm not admitting to OCD or Manic Depression, but my life follows the waves of emotion and my consciousness is ultimately dragged along for the ride. But that is my life and that is my passion and that is what makes me "ME," so I don't have a problem with who I am, although I know I must make others uncomfortable at times. I apologize for that.

I have made a commitment to myself to examine who I am and to accept who I am and to live my life in an authentic way unto myself. I have no fear of being exactly who I am and I have no desire to mask or hide who I am. This is because I have accepted myself for who I am and because I actually enjoy being me. I have a big problem when people try to categorize that I am based on a stereotype or a character or a fantasy. The reason why is because ultimately I am not that person so they are either disappointed because I don't fit into their fantasy or they are overwhelmed because they think I'm so simple and when they find out that I am complex, it shatters the fantasy. This is why, when I meet people I like to talk to them first to see where they are and find a comfort zone to disclose who I am to them. I know, it sounds like I'm patronizing, and maybe I am [...That's Deborah! ~ From the motion picture, Jeffrey].

I've been trying to be good, though. I haven't responded to folks who avow their allegiance to the republican political establishment. I'm not a fan of the democratic party either, mind you, but at least we get some benefit from the democrats. Acceptance on some scale, I suppose. I'm searching for crumbs in a wasteland, ultimately. So I have learned to bite my tongue, put my fingers in my ears and sing, "La! La! La! La! La! La! La!" I avoid watching the news on television at all cost but somewhere; somehow the "news" gets through. Either at a place where you have no control over it, like at a waiting lounge somewhere. I still want to scream. I still want to pull the plug. I still want to yell at the television, "You are full of SHIT!!" But I have learned to control myself. I know that I am not in a controlled environment. I have learned that most people don't really care what's going on in the world and, this seemingly endless loop of propaganda is playing to the ignorant.

I was commenting on this just yesterday with someone who I admire very much. This person had blogged about a recent al-Quaeda video, which was released, and the intention was to stir religious tension, in an atmosphere of politics. Religion and politics: Maybe good for other countries, but BAD for the USA. Our government is too corrupt to fall in line under one religion anyway. It was not founded on that principle and was not set up otherwise, if you care to look at the documents and understand the real purpose of such a setup, it makes a lot of sense. My response was to those who would try to argue for a war of religion / ideology out of what is clearly just a group of imperialist pigs feeding in the trough of oil money. An argument of their own design. A conflict of their creation. However we pay the price for their immoral greed with our incomes and the lives of our beloved. So here is my response:

"Be that as it may, I have to respond that this type of religiosity is simply being used to stir up the folks who would be engaged in such a war. What kind of person could be programmed to forget his or her own humanity and destroy another life for the sake of his or her own beliefs? Someone who is without a soul. It is morally unconscionable for anyone to consider such actions. The real treason is the digression of our nation from moving forward. Thus we move into ignorance, which is endorsed and promoted by all of the political parties in our country. It has many times made me ashamed to be living in this land. Especially when I hear condoleezza rice speak about our foreign policy. Let us not forget for one instant that ghw bush used al-Qaeda to fight the "Soviets" in Afghanistan back in the '80's and that these folks have been in bed together for many decades. We support the Wahabis in Saudi Arabia not for their religious extremism, but because they have maintained the Saudi families power structure. And since the bush's are so into Texas tea, they say one thing and naturally do quite another. It is why the future reagan administration secretly negotiated with the Iranian's to hold the embassy hostages until after the inauguration of our first president with Alzheimers disease. This is the reason for Iran-Contra as well. They're all "good buddies" [to borrow from our trucker friends lingo], and they use each other to promote their own political agendas. I guess that would make them political fuck-buddies. Religious scholars know this, and it is unfortunate that there is no mainstream media outlet even remotely interested in debunking the political propaganda. Some folks are thirsty for power, some are greedy, and to a larger extent, [our, sic.] community have been guilty of sloth for not speaking out more vehemently against the propaganda and the slaughter on all sides. Gore Vidal was so correct when he called our land, 'The United States of Amnesia.'
Note: De-capitalization of names is intentional to show disrespect."

So where do I go from here? It is so hard to say. My intention is to simply try to live my life with a minimal amount of involvement in the political machine as possible. I also believe that one day many people will wake up and wonder why they are playing the game when the end result is their own destruction. But I also feel that it would be impossible to ignore the constant designed ignorance, which is supported, by our global media and all of our political parties.

The Queer Arabs Blog

I suppose the words of our president's speechwriters fall upon the ears of the indifferent. In your commentary on fuel [Fuel Duel, Dorothy Wickenden 05/22/06 The New Yorker Magazine], the facts of history have been repeated once again. Catch phrases like, "Energy Crisis," and, "Dependence on Foreign Oil," have been repeated over and over during the past thirty-five years. Thirty-five years.... My... how little has changed and how much time has gone by. I would have thought by now we would all be riding around in hydrogen fuel cell cars and nuclear, wind and solar sources would produce our electricity. Or at least by majority LNG sources. But, alas... there is no real intention to do anything about this issue. This type of issue is simply cocktail chatter. So much fluff. Sure, it is a real problem, but since there is still money to be made; an actual solution would be... um... "Un-American."

So, we treat this like an infomercial. Something we know is real but.... Say! Have you seen LOST this week? How about America's Top Model?

We talk about "Energy Crisis'" now, but next month it will be something else. Perhaps a terrorist-in-the-box for our America's Most Wanted viewers or maybe a dramatic Iraqi "Insurgent" race across the dessert for our NASCAR folks. The proposal to change the name of our country to The United States of Esso will be overlooked on page 26, along with Senate appropriations for Iraq topping 300 billion dollars. This solution would change our status from citizen to employee, and in this way we can do more for our "national security" rather than just subsidizing oil companies with tax breaks, while they manipulate markets and politicians, rake in record profits and laugh all the way to the bank.

Sometimes I wish they would just be honest about their intentions. They should just say, "Hey, we have all the money so we are more important for our country's national security, than it's own citizens." "We don't ever want you to not be dependent on us, so we will manipulate your energy future by providing all of your solutions." So from our Heroin-addicted present energy state, we can look forward to a future of Methadone-alternative sources with the blessings from our Oilygarky administration, congress and senate

Bombay Mountain

Bruce Newman Says It All!

Sharon Stone brings over-the-top acting to lame 'Basic Instinct 2'

Bruce Newman
Mercury News
Published: Friday, March 31, 2006


Her eyes are the arctic blue of a thousand high-beam headlights, a mixture of hunger, heat and halogen. Her hair is spun from the dreams -- and the shag carpets -- of young boys who sometimes keep their doors mysteriously locked. This blond helmet has been fitted to her like the pharaonic headpiece of some ancient disco queen. (O, Narnians! What a White Witch you might have had if Sharon Stone had swiveled sluttily into her chariot!)

In ``Basic Instinct 2,'' crime novelist Catherine Tramell is the embodiment of rapacious want and addiction to risk, not to mention the dangers of driving with only one hand on the wheel. As unleashed by Stone in the sequel to the 1992 thriller that made her a star, this she-devil plays rope-a-doppelganger with London's top criminal psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Glass.

Her new playmate is a perpetual ``duh'' short of being Michael Douglas, star of the original picture and an actor whose sexual charge is sorely missed here. Caught in Tramell's web, Glass is a fly who's open to the operatic mind game she has in store for him. But in the clammy hands of a Liam Neeson knockoff named David Morrissey, Glass has the irradiated sexuality of a potato.

``Basic Instinct 2'' isn't merely so bad it's good, it's so bad-good that at times it's great. Stone's performance is so deliriously over-the-top that it turns almost every line she speaks into high camp. Sometimes she makes camp a little lower, and while the skin and sin are more talked about than shown in this movie, at 48, Stone is not bashful about unveiling the body God (or whoever it was) gave her. She said on a talk show recently that she stays in shape for this kind of work by doing sit-ups, and apparently she's also been doing sit-ups with her face.

The movie begins with Tramell gunning a Porsche Laviolette that sounds like a jet fighter through the deserted streets of London. In the passenger seat sits a large hunk of manmeat, whose finger she puts in her mouth, then moves in the general direction of the accelerator. Vroom, vroom! This is auto-erotic pleasuring at its fastest, if not its finest, and when the Porsche flies off a bridge and into the river, we are momentarily buoyed by the thought that she might drown. But she swims off, leaving the finger and its 200-pound attachment sinking to the bottom, along with the movie.

At the ensuing police interrogation, she can't seem to wipe the smile off her face. ``You were 'avin' sex at 100 miles per hour?'' asks an incredulous Detective Superintendent Roy Washburn (David Thewlis).

``A hundred and ten,'' she says, smirking smirkily. ``I musta hit a pothole.''

Or maybe that's just the Botox talking. Anyhoo, she is remanded to the psychological custody of ``the crown shrink,'' whose office, naturally, is in the famous Gherkin Tower, Sir Norman Foster's glass phallus -- or pickle, if you will -- erected triumphantly in the heart of London. Entering the eminent loony doctor's office in a low-cut cocktail dress perfect for a little brainslap and tickle, she looks him over hungrily and says, ``This where we're gonna do it?''

Appealing to Glass' vanity, she suggests he might be able to help her. You know, therapeutically. He declines. She insists. He caves. This is the customary cha-cha-cha of forensic psychiatry, of course, and a prelude to their gross-out sex scene later. Glass arrives at a diagnosis of severe ``risk addiction'' after she reminisces giddily about joyriding through the streets of San Francisco in the first movie, arriving at murder scenes where the bodies were still warm. ``You can smell the blood,'' she says, waxing nostalgic.

That, presumably, is what she does when she's not waxing Brazilian. Or preparing for late-night psych sessions in the jacuzzi at her louche London lair, where the walls are all black and the fireplace looks like a gateway to one of the seven circles of hell. Catherine Tramell smiles her vulpine smile, and welcomes you into a movie in which even the camera is promiscuous, seeing just what it wants to see, whether or not that has any relationship to what's really going on in what passes for a plot.

In one of the first imitators of ``Basic Instinct'' -- which had made $350 million just a year earlier -- Madonna set the bar high for lurid trash and peekaboo porn in 1993 with ``Body of Evidence,'' doing the nasty with Willem Dafoe. That was a picture of such epic badness that its director, Uli Edel, never made a feature again, a fate now to be wished upon Michael Caton-Jones, perpetrator of ``BI2.'' Like the gloriously awful movie he has made, his instincts are less often basic than simply base.

This is a cover of a MYSTERY magazine for July, 1934

This is a August 1933 Copy of MYSTERY, previously "The Illustrated Detective Magazine" A Tower Publication.

This rather blurry pic is sporting my DNR (Derek and Romaine.com / Sirius 106 OutQ Radio) bumper sticker. Unfortunately DNR is also a medical abbreviation for Do Not Resuscitate, which, in the event of a serious accident could prove to be problematic. But that's a risk I'm willing to take.

One of my favorite covers from May, 1935. The Actress is Myrna Loy

I just liked this one!

I really don't have much to mention today. I have a Spanish exam that I am worried about but I refuse to study. My feeling is that if I should have to pay to go to school, I should be "learned".

I really don't have much to mention today. I have a Spanish exam that I am worried about but I refuse to study. My feeling is that if I should have to pay to go to school, I should be "learned".

It's all about the shot:

OUT of FUEL

This weekend I went out to Jacksonville with Luis. We had a lot of fun going around here and there. I showed him where I used to live in riverside and we had dinner at Gene's Seafoood Restaurant (on University). I used to live in Riverside. I loved it there. So, we drove around and ended up in "Five Points," at a coffee house called Fuel, that had "leather" flags flying that night. It was a total blast. It all started with our walk from the car to the coffee house. An obvious junkie started in with his "Excuse me... Can I axe you a quesjun..." I cut him short by saying, "NO! The ANSWER is NOOOO!" We pressed on without loosing a step. Meanwhile he went back to a group of kids sitting at their car and I over-heard one of them saying, "We gave you money for cigarettes a little while ago...." When will they ever learn, I thought. But that would be stating the obvious. We finally made it to Fuel.

Now, let me give you a visual. This place is dark, there is all kinds of ameteurish art on the walls and the front section is crowded with worn out black leather sofas from perhaps a hotel lobby rummage sale. Looking around I marvel at how this place could have possible passed any sort of sanitary inspection, but then I come to my senses and remember that I am in Florida and they probably don't have such things here. There is '70's and '80's pop/soul music playing in the background. Judging the age of the crowd here I imagine that it would be the contents of their parents' iPod (if they have one). But, I don't believe that I have ever witnessed a stranger group of folks anywhere. It was like I could just imbed myself in a show of lunatics. Ok, let me set the stage: A coffee house with bistro tables outside and blue/black striped "leather" flags hanging down outside. Seated at the bistro tables were the exotic assortment of youngsters that one would expect at a coffee house (although this one also has a bar, which makes it even more interesting). Men with very long goat-ees and white women with dredlock extensions.

Kinda predictable: But wait! A minivan full of rotund black women pull up in front, and they all jump out and start dancing in the street. A few lesbians from Fuel join in and soon I have the feeling that it's going to turn into a block party. This minivan was not pulled into a parking spot, it was just stopped right in the travel lane of this two-lane street. This goes on for a few minutes until a backup of cars on Park Street start honking and the black girls jump back into their minivan and take off for their next impromptu dance-a-thon. Minutes later a rather drunk guy comes into the coffee house and plops down next two three women who were sitting in some beat-up sofas next to us. We were sitting at a bistro table next to the front window. So this guy starts "rappin'" to these girls and he was hilarious. He said that he was involved in a Christian ministry. He was also a film maker from Ft. Lauderdale. I started joking with Luis and saying that we should take our private heilocopter and fly to a gay resort in Mexico. Soon I was making hand signs to Luis : "M" & "O"= "MO". What happens next: A Domino's Pizza was delivered to the man sitting in the next grouping of sofas. We were rolling with laughter imagining ordering a pizza and having it delivered to the second sofa on the left. Soon these classic "clone" gay men were spotted outside. They were chatting with each other and soon they entered Fuel and sat down behind Luis and I.

I wanted to take their picture [now, mind you, Luis is nearly dying of embarassment from my comments and hand signals]. So I pretend to take Luis' pic but I focus on the clones. Soon Luis and I are taking pix of each other. He was trying to get the classically bearish doorman and I am trying to get a good shot of the clones. Outside a kid with strawberry blonde beard and curly hair to match was trying to take MY pic with his camera phone! So I took his pic with mine as he flashed me the "bird!" We consumed Latte's and quadruple chocolate layer cakes each and later I had a Coke and Luis had a Sprite. What an entertaining evening

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one picture says it all!

Welcome To The United States Of Amnesia

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Perhaps

a lobotomy would be a lot easier, than trying to fish through my Spanish Class. Memorization. Conjigation. What's a poor chile to do?

And

now Microsoft introduces Origami, which is supposed to do all kinds of super dooper stuff, but is still "Mysterious", according to Yahoo News. Aparently this will be revealed tomorrow. I won't be impressed unless it can make me lunch. I hate to make my own lunch in the mornings.

Those

religious fanatics can't wait to chop apart Roe v. Wade. Ok, let's take a giant step backward everyone! But let's not stop at 1973, let's go WAY back! Back to 1492! Lets make divorce illegal and slavery legal! Back to the Spanish Inquisition! Let's go back... go back... go back... go back....

OMG!

I got the absolute worst haircut yesterday! Sure, it was only $8.00, but it was still awful by that standard. I toyed with the idea of going back and getting it fixed. But, I realized that would only make the hair goddesses angry. I'll just wear a hat for a few weeks.... What happened to all the barbers? I can't find one!

A relocation:: Say It Isn't So!

I have been looking around for the best possible situation for myself after this semester. The end result: San Diego.

It is difficult to consider the possiblity of moving again, but the obvious conclusion is that if I want to continue in the direction I have been going with my education it is either one of two locations:: Chicago (Burrrrrrr.....) or Sunny San Diego. I believe the choice should be obvious. The only difficult part will be the move and the choices to make:: Should I just move, work there for a year and then go back to school, or should I just plow into my studies once I get there. The financial problems will be that I won't be getting the same amount of financial aid to offset the change thanks to recent changes to the financial aid structure. It seems we can give hundreds of billions of dollars to Iraq, but when it comes to education in our own country, it is not that important.

Such is the life and times we live in.