For the longest time, I felt weird about marketing myself.

Not the writing. Not the photography or videos or the endless little creative rabbit holes I disappear into in the middle of the night. I’ve always loved making things.

The awkward part has always been the promotion. Posting links. Selling subscriptions. Talking about merch. Reminding people that creative work may feed the soul, but it doesn’t always pay the rent or the electric bill.

Somewhere along the way, a lot of us absorbed this idea that artists should remain above commerce. Pure. Noble. Eternally creating for the love of the craft while somehow surviving on caffeine, validation, and ramen noodles.

Meanwhile, everybody else in the world gets to monetize their skillsets without being accused of “selling out.”

Over the weekend, a dear paid subscriber reached out asking where he could find my Pride t-shirts and merch. And honestly? I’d completely forgotten Pride Month was almost here.

Thankfully, I already had most of the designs in my Threadless shop, hidden away like a box of rainbow decorations waiting for June to roll around again. So I reopened it.

And while dusting off the designs and reorganizing the shop, I remembered why I made them in the first place. Not just because they were fun. But because I genuinely love queer culture. I love our flags, our humor, our resilience, our aesthetics, and our uncanny ability to transform survival into art.

We’ve always known how to make beauty out of scraps. How to turn camp into armor. How to create joy even when the world gives us every reason not to.

That’s part of what Pride has always meant to me.

Not just parades and parties and rainbow flags. But visibility. Creativity. Community. The simple but radical act of saying: We’re still here, damnit.

Which is why I’ve always found it a little strange that massive corporations can cash in on Pride every June without much criticism, while independent LGBTQ creators are often expected to stay humble and grateful in the corner while everyone else profits from the party.

Why shouldn’t queer creatives benefit from Pride too?
After all, Pride happens because queer people built it.

People wear Pride shirts because they want to feel connected to something bigger than themselves. They decorate their homes, laptops, jackets, water bottles, and bodies with reminders that they belong somewhere. That they survived something. That they found their tribe(s).

And honestly, queer people have always sold things to survive.

Books. Zines. Posters. Buttons. Photographs. Art prints. Independent magazines. Homemade jewelry. Vinyl records. Drag show tickets.

Long before corporations discovered rainbow capitalism, queer people were creating entire underground economies built around supporting one another’s art, businesses, publications, performances, and survival.

That isn’t “selling out.”

That’s resourcefulness.
That’s community.
That’s Pride.

Especially now, when so many independent queer creators are struggling just to stay visible. Journalism is collapsing. Advertising revenue is unreliable. Social media algorithms reward outrage and nonsense over thoughtful work and genuine connection.

So sometimes a t-shirt sale matters more than people realize.

Sometimes it helps pay for groceries. Or website hosting. Or camera equipment. Or simply the time and space required to keep creating.

So yes, I’m promoting my Pride merch this year. Proudly, actually.

Because every shirt, sticker, mug, subscription, recommendation, and small act of support helps keep independent queer voices alive in a world that still tries, in ways both subtle and obvious, to erase us.

And maybe that’s what Pride has always been about, underneath the glitter and go-go boys, anyway.

Not perfection.
Not branding.
Not corporate slogans.

Just people finding ways to support each other, celebrate each other, and keep showing up for one another year after year after year.

Keep calm and get your Pride on!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-20 = Gregory Gray (1959-2019) = Northern Irish singer-songwriter 🌈

• 05-20 = Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) = French novelist and playwright 🌈

• 05-20 = Karl M. Baer (1885-1956) = German-Israeli author and social worker 🌈

• 05-20 = Omar Apollo (1997- ) = American singer-songwriter and actor 🌈

• 05-20 = Ted Allen (1965- ) = American television host and author 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

A while back, I accidentally jumped the gun and wished an early happy birthday. Very early. Two months early.

Thankfully, today is his actual birthday, which gives me the chance to finally get it right: Happy birthday, Mr. Maupin! May all your wishes come true.

Few writers have captured the messy beauty of human connection quite like he has. Through humor, heartbreak, friendship, sex, loss, and chosen family, his words have painted vivid characters and emotional snapshots that made countless LGBTQ readers feel seen.

Especially those of us who grew up searching for reflections of ourselves that weren’t hidden in shadows or reduced to punchlines.

His stories didn’t just entertain. They comforted. They challenged. They reminded readers that queer lives deserved to be more than just supporting characters. As a result, his work is filled with humor, heart, and happy endings.

That kind of legacy lasts far longer than any candles on any cake.

Here’s wishing him a happy, healthy celebration and many more birthdays to come.

Live long and prosper, Mr. Maupin.

And thank you for being a friend!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-13 = Alan Ball (1957- ) = American writer and director 🌈

• 05-13 = Armistead Maupin (1944- ) = American writer 🌈

• 05-13 = Cheryl Dunye (1966- ) = American filmmaker 🌈

• 05-13 = Réal Ménard (1962- ) = Canadian politician and lawyer 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“The world changes in direct proportion to the number of people willing to be honest about their lives.”

I remember the first time I “met” Keith Haring.

I was ten years old, parked in front of the television, watching Dan Rather on CBS Evening News. That alone was unusual. Because, in our house, the nightly news was usually delivered by Peter Jennings over on ABC World News Tonight.

But for whatever reason, on that particular night, we switched channels. And that small, random deviation from our regularly-scheduled programming ended up changing more than I could have understood at the time.

Because that was the night I was introduced to Keith Haring.

I didn’t have the language for it yet. I couldn’t have told you about pop art, or graffiti as cultural resistance, or the democratization of art. I was just a kid. But I knew what I liked. And I liked what I saw.

Haring’s figures were simple. Bold. Alive.

Radiant babies. Barking dogs. Dancing bodies that looked like they were vibrating right off the canvas.

Even then, I understood something instinctively:
These weren’t just drawings. They were messages.

Haring’s work first gained notoriety in the New York City subway stations. He turned empty ad panels into canvases, chalk in hand, creating art in real-time for commuters who might not otherwise step foot inside an art gallery or museum.

Strangers rushing to work became his audience. The city itself became his gallery.

To my ten-year-old brain, his art felt rebellious and joyful at the same time. His work looked like modern-day cave paintings to me. But instead of telling stories of survival, they told stories of energy, connection, and pride.

As I got older, I learned what I couldn’t fully grasp back then. That beneath the playful lines was a sense of urgency and weight. Haring worked during a time when New York was alive with creativity and also reckoning with crisis. His work took on themes of love, sex, power, and the AIDS epidemic. It was activism disguised as accessibility.

He made it impossible to look away, even when the message was uncomfortable.

That’s what made Keith Haring and his work so powerful. He didn’t separate art from life. He didn’t wait for permission. He showed up, again and again, and made the work where people already were.

Looking back, that moment in front of the TV wasn’t just about discovering an artist. It was my first understanding that art didn’t have to live behind glass or inside quiet rooms. It could be immediate. Public. Alive.

Art could meet me exactly where I was.

Decades later, that still feels like the lesson.

Because those lines, as simple as they were, didn’t stay contained. They moved. Across subway platforms. Around the world. On public walls and in private art collections.

Haring’s work found a ten-year-old kid in a living room who wasn’t even supposed to be watching that channel. And it burned a hole in my imagination.

Keith Haring was here. And his legacy lives on….

Keep calm and keep his candles lit!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-04 = Keith Haring (1958-1990) = American artist 🌈

• 05-04 = Lance Bass (1979- ) = American singer, dancer, and producer 🌈

• 05-04 = Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996) = American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, philanthropist, and New York City Ballet co-founder 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“I don’t think art is propaganda; it should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further. It celebrates humanity instead of manipulating it.”
Keith Haring

Every once in a while, I run across a name from LGBTQ history that feels bigger than the person attached to it. Lawrence Ferlinghetti is one of those names.

For a long time, I’ll admit, I didn’t know much about the man or his work. I had heard his name in passing, but that was about it. But if you care about poetry, publishing, independent bookstores, free speech, or San Francisco, sooner or later you hear his name spoken with a kind of reverence.

City Lights. The Beats. Howl.

At first it almost sounds like literary folklore. A half-remembered story from another era when poetry somehow mattered enough to get people arrested.

But the more you learn about Ferlinghetti, the more the myth gives way to something clearer. His life mirrors the long arc of the twentieth century.

He was born in 1919. His father died before he was born, and he spent much of his childhood moving between relatives and foster homes.

During World War II he served in the Navy and later witnessed the aftermath of Nagasaki. Seeing a city flattened by an atomic bomb left a permanent mark on him. That shadow runs through his poetry and his politics for the rest of his life.

After the war he studied literature in Paris and eventually landed in San Francisco, a city that has always had a gravitational pull for artists, outsiders, and people who just don’t quite fit anywhere else.

That’s where his real story begins.

If you’ve ever spent time in San Francisco, there’s a good chance you’ve wandered into City Lights Bookstore in North Beach. Even if you didn’t know who Ferlinghetti was, you’ve hopefully felt the energy of the place.

City Lights is not just a bookstore. It’s a cultural landmark. Its shelves are packed with political manifestos, experimental poetry, independent zines, international literature, and more than a few ideas that might make polite society a little uncomfortable.

In 1953, Ferlinghetti co-founded City Lights.

In 1956, City Lights published Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems.

Today, it’s hard to fully explain how explosive that poem was at the time. It was raw, angry, queer, ecstatic, and completely uninterested in behaving itself. Ginsberg tore into the machinery of American conformity with a voice that was too honest for the authorities’ taste.

So they arrested the publisher. For publishing a poem.

The obscenity trial that followed became one of the most important free speech cases in American literary history. After nearly a year of legal wrangling, the judge ruled that Howl was not obscene and, in fact, had redeeming social importance.

The decision loosened the grip of censorship on American publishing.

Ferlinghetti never seemed interested in being the hero of that story. Through City Lights Publishing, he created the Pocket Poets Series, small, inexpensive books designed to put poetry directly into people’s hands. You didn’t need a university degree or membership in a literary club. You could carry a poem in your pocket.

For decades, he published writers who were experimental, political, queer, immigrant, or simply too strange for mainstream publishers. He believed bookstores should be places where ideas collide, not quiet retail spaces where nothing uncomfortable is allowed to happen.

And he kept at it. For more than seventy years.

Ferlinghetti lived to be 101. His life stretched from the final years of World War I to the digital age. Through it all, he wrote poems, painted, protested wars, and defended the fragile ecosystem that allows art and free thought to survive.

I’ve been thinking about the kinds of people who make creative worlds possible. Not just the artists. But the connectors and risk-takers. The people who build the spaces where ideas can meet.

Ferlinghetti was one of those people. He understood something simple but powerful: Culture rarely grows in isolation. It grows in places.

City Lights was a home for restless minds. A place where poets, outsiders, and troublemakers could find each other. A place where someone could walk in off the street, pick up a thin paperback of poems, and suddenly realize the world might be bigger than they thought.

The more I think about it, the more I suspect that’s the kind of legacy most creative people secretly hope for.

Not fame. Not myth.

No, what most creatives want to be remembered most for is opening doors for the next generation.

Keep calm and read on!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 03-24 = Bob Mackie (1939- ) = American costume designer 🌈

• 03-24 = Jim Parsons (1973- ) = American actor and producer 🌈

• 03-24 = Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021) = American poet, publisher, and City Lights Bookstore co-founder 🌈

• 03-24 = Margarethe Cammermeyer (1942- ) = Norwegian-American officer 🌈

• 03-24 = Tig Notaro (1971- ) = American comedian and actor

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“I think if there’s a great depression there might be some hope.”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti

“We were just a one-room bookstore; we didn’t have any money for lawyers.”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Some artists don’t just create. They detonate.

Two such trailblazing artists were born this way on this day:
Alexander McQueen and Rudolf Nureyev.

Different mediums. Different eras. And yet the same shared instinct to disrupt, to provoke, and to refuse the limits handed to them.

They didn’t just push boundaries. They made new ones.

Different worlds, yes. But the same kind of energy I’ve always been drawn to and, if I’m honest, a little intimidated by.

I didn’t grow up around high fashion or ballet. My awareness and understanding of both men came later, pieced together through documentaries, clips, and late-night research rabbit holes.

McQueen’s theatrical runway shows were what first pulled me in. They weren’t just presentations of clothes moving down a runway. They felt more like fully realized worlds, each one built around a clear and uncompromising point of view.

And Nureyev? It was the same kind of feeling, just in a different form. Even through a small screen, decades removed from when he was actually on stage, there’s a kind of power and presence that comes through immediately. You don’t need to know the story of the ballet. You don’t need any technical background to understand what he’s doing. You just feel it.

What strikes me now isn’t just their talent. It’s that neither of them seemed interested in asking for permission.

Nureyev didn’t dramatically defect to France to win new fans.
McQueen didn’t stage provocative runway shows to make people comfortable.

They weren’t chasing applause or approval. They were responding to something they couldn’t ignore. An instinct, a vision, a kind of creative pressure that demanded to be expressed, whether or not it was accepted or understood.

It’s easy to romanticize creatives like them. To talk about disruption and legacy and genius without acknowledging the weight that often comes with it.

Neither of them had easy paths. And I don’t think that’s incidental.

• There’s a cost to not playing it safe.

• To being the one who pushes instead of preserves.

• To insist on your own vision when the world wants something familiar.

I don’t pretend my stakes are the same. But even though I’m not about to start designing haute couture or training for the ballet, I recognize the creative urges.

What I take from McQueen and Nureyev is something less visible, but more useful:
Permission. Not the kind you ask for. The kind you take.

• Permission to trust your instincts, even when they don’t align with expectations.

• Permission to let your work be a little messy, intense, and hard to categorize.

• Permission to believe that pushing boundaries, even in small ways, matters.

From both men, I’ve learned to be a little braver.
A little less concerned with getting it right.
A little more willing to follow an idea wherever it leads.

So today, on their shared birthday, I’m less interested in celebrating what they did and made, and more interested in who they were and how they moved through the world.

Thank you, Mr. McQueen and Mr. Nureyev, for blazing those trails.

Keep calm and keep those candles lit!
Clint 🌈✌️

NEW + NOW PLAYING (ON SUBSTACK)

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 03-17 = Alexander McQueen (1969-2010) = British fashion designer 🌈

• 03-17 = Alice Austen (1866-1952) = American photographer 🌈

• 03-17 = Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) = American activist and organizer 🌈

• 03-17 = Robert de Montesquiou (1855-1921) = French artist and writer 🌈

• 03-17 = Rudolf Nureyev (1938-1993) = Russian-French dancer and choreographer 🌈

MAN CRUSH(ES) OF THE DAY

“Of course I make mistakes. I’m human. If I didn’t make mistakes, I’d never learn. You can only go forward by making mistakes.”
Alexander McQueen

“You live as long as you dance.”
Rudolf Nureyev

Last August, one of my favorite writers of all time, Armistead Maupin, and his talented photographer husband, Christopher Turner, joined Substack. Their newsletter-vlog, Barbary Lane Dispatches, quickly became a regular fixture in my feed and in my life.

It still feels a little surreal to hear from one of my literary heroes in real time, still telling great stories about his life and about our community.

For years, I only knew Armistead Maupin through his characters and his books. Now I get to see the storyteller himself, still observing, reflecting, and sharing with readers. It is a reminder that the voice behind the Tales of the City series hasn’t faded with time. If anything, he’s found new ways to delight, educate, and entertain.

Because to me, Mr. Maupin is and will always be a great storyteller. The medium does not really matter. The platform does not really matter. The era does not really matter. Give him a place to publish and an audience to engage with, and he does what he has always done: tell stories about living, breathing human beings, fictional and real-world.

Tales of the City began as a newspaper serial in the San Francisco Chronicle in the 1970s. Day by day, installment by installment, readers were introduced to the unforgettable residents of Barbary Lane. Characters like Michael “Mouse” Tolliver, Mary Ann Singleton, and the magical-mysterious Anna Madrigal felt less like literary inventions and more like people I knew. Or at least people I wished I knew.

For many readers, myself included, those characters and stories were more than entertainment. They were proof of our collective humanity. At a time when queer lives were rarely portrayed with warmth or humor, Mr. Maupin wrote about all kinds of people simply living their messy, funny, loving, and oh-so-human lives.

Over the decades, Mr. Maupin’s stories have moved from the newspaper page to bookstore bookshelves, and have been adapted for four miniseries and a musical. Different media. Different audiences. Same storyteller.

Which is why seeing Mr. Maupin show up on Substack feels less like a surprise and more like a natural continuation of what he’s always done. For me, his storytelling’s come full circle.

The technology may be different, but the rhythm feels familiar. Short dispatches. Personal reflections. Short stories delivered directly to readers who are more than happy to hear them from him.

I have to admit that sharing the same platform with one of my literary idols still brings a smile to my face. I don’t fanboy many people, but I can’t help but be a fan of the man whose writing helped me see a life outside the closet. A life filled with what he so beautifully calls “logical family.”

There is something wonderfully strange and delightful about publishing in the same digital neighborhood as a writer whose books still sit on my nightstand.

In the long tradition of literature, storytelling always finds a way. Newspapers, novels, newsletters. The formats may change and the platforms may evolve. But storytellers keep telling stories.

And few do so with as much warmth, wit, and humanity as Armistead Maupin.

So today, on his birthday (two months early), I want to say thank you:

• Thank you for the stories that helped expand the world for so many readers.

• Thank you for the characters who felt like friends and neighbors.

• And thank you for continuing to show up and tell stories.

Happy (Early) Birthday, Mr. Maupin!
Clint 🌈✌️

ICYMI = IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Barbary Lane Dispatches

Heroes: Christopher Isherwood

Listen now

9 months ago · 39 likes · 5 comments · Christopher Turner and Armistead Maupin

Barbary Lane Dispatches

I Found Myself in 1970s San Francisco

Here’s a transcript of the video…

Listen now

3 months ago · 590 likes · 47 comments · Christopher Turner and Armistead Maupin

Barbary Lane Dispatches

My Relationship with Rock Hudson

Here’s a transcript of the video…

Listen now

5 months ago · 296 likes · 20 comments · Christopher Turner and Armistead Maupin

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 03-13 = Bill Cunningham (1929-2016) = American fashion photographer 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“Sooner or later, though, no matter where in the world we live, we must join the diaspora, venturing beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us. We have to, if we are to live without squandering our lives.”
Armistead Maupin, Logical Family: A Memoir

I have no idea if Edward Albee and Jack Kerouac ever met.

For all I know, even though they moved in similar professional and social circles, their paths never actually crossed. No shared dinners. No chance encounters at a party in New York. No smoky, late-night debates about art, language, or the meaning of life.

But in my mind, they were friends.
And in fact, they were birthday twins.

Both men were born on March 12. Different years, different worlds, different artistic callings. One became a towering voice of the American theater. The other helped ignite a literary movement that reshaped modern writing. But every year, at least in theory, the calendar gave them something in common: a birthday.

I like to imagine that somewhere along the way they noticed this strange little coincidence.

Maybe Albee raised a glass one evening. “Here’s to Kerouac…Happy Birthday!”

Maybe Kerouac scribbled something about it in a notebook while riding a bus across the country. A quick thought about sharing a birthday with a playwright who wrote sharp, uncomfortable truths about human relationships.

Of course, there’s a 50-50 chance that none of this ever happened.

Still, the idea amuses me.

Kerouac, the wandering spirit of the Beat generation, chasing experience across highways and rail lines. His most famous novel, On the Road, turned restless movement into a kind of spiritual practice. Motion was the point. Life was something to be lived quickly, intensely, and in real time.

Albee worked in a very different lane. His characters were not usually racing across the country. They were more likely trapped in living rooms, circling each other with words that cut like knives. His landmark play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? turned a long night of cocktails and conversation into one of the most brutal dissections of marriage ever staged.

One writer ran toward the horizon. The other locked the door and forced everyone in the room to talk.

Different energies. Different art forms. But both men were deeply interested in truth. Not the polite version of truth we show strangers. The messier kind that leaks out when people stop pretending.

Kerouac chased it through experience. Albee cornered it through confrontation.

And both left behind work that still rattles around in our cultural imagination.

Which brings me back to their shared birthday.

I like to imagine that somewhere beyond the practical details of history, the two of them celebrate together every year. Maybe not with candles and cake, but with a nod of mutual recognition.

One raises a glass. The other scribbles a line.

Two writers. Two powerful voices. Two birthday twins of the page and the stage.

Keep calm and read on!
Clint 🌈✌️

NEW + NOW SHOWING

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 03-12 = Edward Albee (1928-2016) = American playwright 🌈

• 03-12 = Eric Stenbock (1860-1895) = Swedish writer 🌈

• 03-12 = Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) = American writer 🌈

• 03-12 = Patricia Campos Doménech (1977- ) = Spanish coach and pilot 🌈

• 03-12 = Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950) = Russian dancer and choreographer 🌈

MAN CRUSH(ES) OF THE DAY

“One must let the play happen to one; one must let the mind loose to respond as it will, to receive impressions, to sense rather than know, to gather rather than immediately understand.”
Edward Albee

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”
Jack Kerouac

• 01-04 = Dot-Marie Jones (1964- ) = American actor and arm wrestler 🌈

• 01-04 = Gianni Vattimo (1936- ) = Italian philosopher and politician 🌈

• 01-04 = Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) = American painter and poet 🌈

• 01-04 = Michael Stipe (1960- ) = American singer-songwriter 🌈

• 01-05 = Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) = American dancer and choreographer 🌈

• 01-06 = Gábor Szetey (1968- ) = Hungarian politician 🌈

• 01-06 = Joan of Arc (1412-1431) = French martyr and saint 🌈

• 01-06 = Kate McKinnon (1984- ) = American actor and comedian

• 01-06 = Nancy Ruth (1942- ) = Canadian Senator

• 01-06 = Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) = French writer and philosopher

• 01-07 = Caster Semenya (1991- ) = South African runner and activist

• 01-07 = Chester Kallman (1921-1975) = American poet, librettist, and translator

• 01-07 = Christian Louboutin (1963- ) = French footwear designer

• 01-07 = Jann Wenner (1946- ) = American publisher and Rolling Stone co-founder

• 01-07 = Michaela Jaé Rodriguez (1991- ) = American actor

• 01-07 = Michael Sam (1990- ) = American football player

• 01-08 = Cynthia Erivo (1987- ) = British actor and singer

• 01-08 = David Bowie (1947-2016) = British singer-songwriter and actor

• 01-08 = Edward Perry Warren (1860-1928) = American art collector and curator

• 01-08 = Gilbert Passmore (1942- ) = British artist (Gilbert & George)

• 01-08 = Jack Andraka (1997- ) = American inventor, scientist, and researcher

• 01-08 = Kerwin Mathews (1926-2007 ) = American actor

• 01-08 = Nacho Duato (1942- ) = Spanish dancer and choreographer

• 01-08 = Prince Albert Victor (1864-1892) = English royal

• 01-08 = Winnaretta Singer (1865-1943) = American heiress

• 01-09 = Lucy Hicks Anderson (1886-1954) = American socialite

• 01-09 = Simone De Beauvoir (1908-1986) = French philosopher and writer

• 01-09 = William Johnson Cory (1823-1892) = English classical scholar and poet

• 01-10 = Sal Mineo (1939-1976) = American actor

ICYMI = IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“I made some good pictures, and I made some bad ones. I wasn’t trying to build an image, though; I was trying to build a life for myself.”
Sal Mineo

• 12-28 = F. W. Murnau (1888-1931) = German filmmaker 🌈

• 12-28 = Lili Elbe (1882-1931) = Danish artist and model 🌈

• 12-28 = Manuel Puig (1932-1990) = Argentine writer 🌈

• 12-29 = Billy Tipton (1914-1989) = American musician and bandleader 🌈

• 12-29 = Dylan Mulvaney (1996- ) = American actor and media personality 🌈

• 12-29 = Elsa Gidlow (1898-1986) = Canadian-American poet 🌈

• 12-29 = Katherine Moennig (1976- ) = American actor 🌈

• 12-29 = Lilly Wachowski (1967- ) = American filmmaker 🌈

• 12-29 = Paul Rudnick (1957- ) = American writer 🌈

• 12-29 = Paula Poundstone (1957- ) = American comedian and author 🌈

• 12-30 = Beauford Delaney (1901-1979) = American artist 🌈

• 12-30 = Paul Bowles (1910-1999) = American composer and writer 🌈

• 12-30 = Titus (39 BCE-81 BCE) = Roman emperor 🌈

• 12-31 = Diana Sacayán (1975-2015) = Argentinian activist 🌈

• 12-31 = Jennifer Higdon (1962- ) = American composer 🌈

• 12-31 = Joe Dallesandro (1948- ) = American actor and Warhol superstar 🌈

• 12-31 = Orry-Kelly (1897-1964) = Australian costume designer 🌈

• 12-31 = Taylor Mead (1924-2013) = American actor and poet 🌈

• 01-01 = E. M. Forster (1879-1970) = English writer 🌈

• 01-01 = J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) = American law enforcement administrator and 1st FBI Director 🌈

• 01-01 = James Hormel (1933-2021) = American philanthropist and diplomate 🌈

• 01-01 = Joe Orton (1933-1967) = English playwright 🌈

• 01-01 = Martine Rothblatt (1954- ) = American lawyer, author, and entrepreneur 🌈

• 01-01 = Toupie Lowther (1874-1944) = English tennis player 🌈

• 01-02 = Charles Beaumont (1929-1967) = American writer 🌈

• 01-02 = Christopher Durang (1949-2024) = American playwright 🌈

• 01-02 = Lynn Ann Conway (1938- ) = American scientist, engineer, and activist 🌈

• 01-02 = M. Carey Thomas (1857-1935) = American educator and linguist 🌈

• 01-02 = Todd Haynes (1961- ) = American filmmaker 🌈

• 01-02 = William Haines (1900-1973) = American actor and interior designer 🌈

THE END OF YEAR + BEYOND

There’s something about this final stretch of the year that invites introspection.

The holiday rush has mostly passed. The noise has softened. The calendar keeps ticking, but the urgency has loosened its grip. Time feels less like a taskmaster, demanding output, and more like a meditation guide, reminding me to breathe.

So I am giving myself permission to keep taking it easy through the end of the year. Though I’ll be around, doodling and noodling, I won’t be officially back to work until January 2, 2026. No dramatic resolutions this year. No pressure to reinvent my life just because the calendar changes.

This in-between time matters.

These are my favorite days to daydream. To let ideas drift without demanding immediate results. To jot down notes that don’t yet know what they want to become. To follow curiosity instead of productivity and see where it leads. Some thoughts will fade. Others will linger and quietly ask for more attention later. Both have their place.

Right now, I’m gathering ingredients. I’m revisiting old ideas with softer expectations. Entertaining new ones without worrying about timelines, algorithms, or whether they’ll translate neatly to the outside world. I’m clearing mental clutter. Noticing patterns. Paying attention to what keeps resurfacing.

This is the work beneath the work.

The quiet organizing.
The spacious thinking.
The pauses that make forward motion possible.

Rest, for me, isn’t disengagement. It’s recalibration.

I’m still showing up—just more gently. With intention instead of urgency. With curiosity instead of pressure. I’m tending the soil so the next season has something sturdy to grow from.

Because what comes next is already taking shape. In my mind anyway.

And I want to meet it rested. Clear. Open.
Not dragging the weight of 2025 into 2026.

My hope for the year ahead is simple, but expansive: to be productive and prosperous in ways that can’t be measured on a dashboard. Creative. Sustainable. Joy-forward. Built on ideas that feel aligned, not rushed.

So if I seem a little slower right now, please know that’s by design.
I’m not stalling. I’m preparing.

Here’s to moving gently through the end of the year.
To dreaming before doing.
To trusting that quiet seasons still count.

As 2025 is winding down, 2026 is already winding up.

Keep calm and keep clear!
Clint 🌈✌️

PORTRAIT + QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The only real freedom we have left is the home. Only there can we express anything we want.”
William Haines

• 12-21 = Michael Tilson Thomas (1944- ) = American conductor and composer 🌈

• 12-22 = Jean–Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) = American artist 🌈

• 12-22 = Marc Allégret (1900-1973) = French screenwriter and film director 🌈

• 12-23 = Mary Rozet Smith (1868-1934) = American philanthropist 🌈

• 12-24 = Brenda Howard (1946-2005) = American activist 🌈

• 12-24 = Galba (3 BCE-69 CE) = Roman emperor 🌈

• 12-24 = Lee Daniels (1959- ) = American filmmaker and tv producer 🌈

• 12-24 = Ricky Martin (1971- ) = Puerto Rican singer-songwriter and actor 🌈

• 12-24 = Stormé DeLarverie (1920-2014) = American drag king 🌈

• 12-25 = Albert Cashier (1843-1915) = Irish-American trans Union Army soldier 🌈

• 12-25 = Ismail Merchant (1936-2005) = Indian-English director and producer 🌈

• 12-25 = Quentin Crisp (1908-1999) = English author and illustrator 🌈

• 12-26 = David Sedaris (1956- ) = American comedian, author, and radio host 🌈

• 12-27 = Desiree Akhavan (1984- ) = American filmmaker, writer, and actor 🌈

• 12-27 = Guido Westerwelle (1961-2016) = German politician 🌈

• 12-27 = Lisa Kove (1958- ) = American civil servant and retired combat veteran 🌈

• 12-27 = Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) = German-American actor and singer 🌈

• 12-27 = Martha Shelley (1943- ) = American activist, writer, and poet 🌈

• 12-27 = Wilson Cruz (1973- ) = American actor 🌈

WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON?

Two weeks ago, I got back from my first solo cruise wrapped in warm fuzzies and an afterglow of joy. I was a little tired. Insomnia and I are long-term frenemies, so that did not set off any alarms.

I unpacked. I napped. I told stories. And life started to roll on.

Or so I thought.

What followed was a slow, sneaky plot twist. The kind I didn’t see coming until I was already deep down in it, Nine Inch Nails style:

At first, I was just sleepy. Aggressively sleepy. Sleeping through alarms. Sleeping through entire days. Sleeping so much it stopped feeling restorative and started feeling wrong.

Then things got stranger.

My thoughts felt scrambled. My emotions became unpredictable. I felt disconnected from myself in a way that’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it. Not sad, exactly. Not anxious in my usual way. Just…off. Unmoored. A little scary, if I’m being honest. There were moments when my brain was breaking up with me.

Long story short: the problem turned out to be some prescription interactions.

It was a perfect storm of medications that when taken individually were fine, but when taken together slowly turned my nervous system into Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory.

Thankfully, the morning things tipped from “this is concerning” into “what the hell is happening to me,” I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor. I walked into her office exhausted, foggy, and no longer fully trusting my own perceptions. But I did my best to describe the symptoms. I didn’t minimize them. I didn’t joke them away.

Once we looked at the full picture, it was clear something wasn’t right. Adjustments were made. Medications were discontinued. A plan was put in place. And the spiral slowly, over the course of days, stopped spinning.

I’m sharing this not for drama or sympathy, but for clarity. For myself. And for anyone who has ever thought, Why do I feel like I’m losing my grip when I’m doing everything “right”?

Sometimes it’s not burnout.
Sometimes it’s not mindset.
Sometimes it’s not a personal failing.
Sometimes it’s just chemistry, y’all.

I don’t love realizing how delicate my internal chemistry can be. I don’t love losing days to sleep I didn’t choose, or to thoughts that don’t feel like my own. And I really don’t love how quickly self-doubt creeps in when your brain is having technical difficulties.

Right now, I’m stabilizing. Slowly coming back into myself. Drinking water. Sleeping less (but still a lot). Paying attention. Being gentle instead of judgmental.

If the past couple of weeks have felt quiet from my side of the screen, I hope this helps explain why.

If nothing else, let this be a friendly reminder: if something feels off, trust that feeling. Ask questions. Advocate for yourself. You deserve to feel like you in your own head.

More soon. And thank you for the patience, the grace, and the quiet understanding.

Keep calm and push on!
Clint 🌈✌️

Today marks the birthday of the late, great author and poet Paul Monette, a writer whose words still burn with truth, tenderness, and fury.

I first discovered his award-winning memoir, Becoming A Man: Half A Life Story, while I was coming out in the early 1990s. The book felt like both a confession and a call to arms, a beautifully written account of one man’s fight to discover himself in a world that demanded he stay hidden.

To say Paul Monette’s story and storytelling moved me deeply would be an understatement.

What struck me most then, and still does now, is the way Monette wrote with equal parts love and rage. Love for the men he loved. Rage for the years stolen by shame and silence.

Monette knew that by telling his story, he might help others live theirs more freely.

All these years later, Becoming A Man remains one of those rare books that feels alive. Urgent, human, and heartbreakingly honest. It reminds me that all our stories matter. That even in the face of loss and grief and fear, we can choose to live as fully and truthfully as possible.

Today, on his 80th birthday, I remember and pay tribute to Paul Monette. I light candles to honor his courage and his craft, his love and his rage.

Thank you, Paul, for shining your light and helping so many find their own.

Keep calm and remember on…
Clint 🌈✌️

P.S. A few months ago, I was honored when a dear subscriber—hi, Victor!—reached out to share his memories of Paul Monette and his circle of friends and lovers. Paul and Victor were close friends until Paul’s bitter(sweet) end. I’m so grateful to have heard a few of their shared stories.

P.P.S. LGBTQ history rarely makes it into textbooks, so I think it’s up to us to document as much as we can…for ourselves and for the next generations.

FYC = FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

• The Art Of Writing It Down ()

• Interview w/ Ballroom Icon Milton Garcia Ninja! ()

ON THIS DAY = OCTOBER 16

BIRTHDAYS

• 1758 = Noah Webster = American lexicographer

• 1854 = Oscar Wilde = Irish poet and playwright 🌈

• 1884 = Rembrandt Bugatti = Italian sculptor

• 1888 = Eugene O’Neill = American playwright and Nobel Prize laureate

• 1890 = Paul Strand = American photographer and director

• 1903 = Big Joe Williams = American singer-songwriter

• 1925 = Angela Lansbury = English-American actor, singer, and producer

• 1926 = Charles Dolan = American businessman and HBO founder

• 1928 = Mary Daly = American philosopher and theologian 🌈

• 1938 = Nico = German singer-songwriter, model, and actor

• 1940 = Barry Corbin = American actor and producer

• 1945 = Paul Monette = American author, poet, and activist 🌈

• 1946 = Suzanne Somers, American actor and producer

• 1947 = Bob Weir, American singer-songwriter

• 1947 = David Zucker, American filmmaker

• 1948 = André Leon Talley = American stylist and creative director 🌈

• 1958 = Tim Robbins, American actor, director, and screenwriter

• 1960 = Cressida Dick = British police commissioner 🌈

• 1961 = Scott O’Hara = American porn performer, writer, editor, and publisher 🌈

• 1962 = Flea = Australian-American bass player, songwriter, and actor

• 1969 = Wendy Wilson = American singer-songwriter

• 1971 = Paul Sparks = American actor

• 1977 = John Mayer = American singer-songwriter

• 1975 = Kellie Martin = American actor, director, and producer

• 1980 = Jeremy Jackson = American actor and singer

• 1980 = Sue Bird = American professional basketball player 🌈

• 1983 = Andrew Santino = American stand-up comedian and actor

EVENTS

• 1912 = Arnold Schoenberg‘s Pierrot Lunaire, sung by Albertine Zehme, premieres at the Berlin Choralion-Saal.

• 1916 = Margaret Sanger opens the first family planning clinic in the United States.

• 1923 = Walt Disney and his brother, Roy, found the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, today known as The Walt Disney Company.

• 1950 = The first novel of the The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was published in the UK.

• 2002 = The Bibliotheca Alexandrina opens in Egypt, commemorating the ancient library of Alexandria.

HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES

• LGBTQ History Month (October 1-31) 🌈🧐📚

• National Dictionary Day

• National Liqueur Day

• National Sports Day

• Spirit Day 💜💜💜

• World Food Day

PORTRAIT + QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
Oscar Wilde

My dear friend Victor recently asked if I had seen the exhibitions currently at the Getty Center: “Queer Lens: A History Of Photography” and “$3 Bill: Evidence Of Queer Lives.” I hadn’t. Both exhibits are closing this weekend, so I’m going today.

Thank you, Victor!

Before the pandemic, I used to keep tabs on local galleries and museums. Openings, closings, art fairs, and obscure group shows. I was on top of it. But like so much else, that rhythm fell away in 2020 with the start of the pandemic. For a long time, the idea of spending the day in a museum felt foreign, maybe even frivolous. But after a five-year absence, it’s time to return to the art world again.

The Getty Center has always been one of the most visually and emotionally expansive places in LA. The architecture, the gardens, the views, the way the light moves across the stone—it’s hard to visit and not feel some sense of wonder. And even though I’ll admit that much of the Getty’s permanent collection doesn’t speak to me (Baroque overload, anyone?), what keeps pulling me back are exhibits like Queer Lens and $3 Bill. This is where the Getty surprises me—in the best way.

QUEER LENS: A HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

From what I’ve read, “Queer Lens” promises to feel like stepping into a long-overdue conversation—one I’m more than ready to be part of.

The exhibition brings together the work of LGBTQ+ photographers who don’t just document queer lives, but actively frame them through a queer way of seeing.

It’s not only about who’s in front of the camera, but who’s behind it—and how that perspective shapes what we see, and why.

I’m especially looking forward to the range: intimate portraits, raw documentary images, surreal moments, and everyday flashes of queer joy and connection.

It doesn’t sound like a show that’s trying to pin down a single definition of queerness. That, to me, will likely be one of its greatest strengths. If anything, it sounds like the exhibit celebrates the beautiful, the messy, the political, the tender, and the mundane.

Apparently, the exhibit weaves together iconic names with emerging voices, which is one of my favorite curatorial approaches. I have a feeling some of these photographs will stay with me—not just for their visual impact, but for the ways they might shift how I see and feel.

I’m expecting “Queer Lens” to be as thought-provoking as it is moving.

Location: Museum West Pavilion, Lower Level

$3 BILL: EVIDENCE OF QUEER LIVES

A few buildings away, in dialogue with “Queer Lens”—”$3 Bill” dives headfirst into the world of LGBTQ artists and queer pioneers who explore sexual and gender identity.

The title alone ("queer as a three-dollar bill") sets the tone: playful, subversive, and ready to challenge everything we think we know about pride and representation.

What excites me most about this show is how much it leans into the performance of both drag and photography. Both mediums are about constructing an image, staging a self, transforming the ordinary into something theatrical—or maybe even mythic.

I’m expecting to see artists playing with persona, exaggeration, gesture, costume, and light in ways that blur the line between documentation and invention.

I’ve heard it’s sharp, funny, even campy—but also layered and at times disorienting, in the best way. Like drag itself, this isn’t a space for comfort or predictability. It’s about reinvention, defiance, spectacle, and truth told through artifice. I’m bracing myself to laugh, to wince, and to look twice. And maybe more than twice.

Location = Research Institute Galleries

A PERSONAL RETURN

More than anything, visiting these two exhibitions is reminding me of what I love about museums: art that commands my attention, challenges my assumptions, and invites me to slow down. To look. And to feel.

It’s been over five years since I last set foot at the Getty Center, and today these two queer exhibitions are pulling me back up the hill. I have a feeling they’ll be more than worth the trip: thoughtful, subversive, and moving in ways I can’t yet predict.

If you’re in LA this week, try to see the exhibitions and let me know what you think. Take the tram. Wander the travertine-clad buildings. Step inside and see the world through a queer lens — and a three-dollar bill.

And if you happen to be there today, don’t be shy: say “Hi!”

Keep calm and create on…
Clint 🌈✌️

ON THIS DAY = SEPTEMBER 23

BIRTHDAYS

• 1852 = James Carroll Beckwith = American painter and academic

• 1889 = Walter Lippmann = American journalist and The New Republic

• 1897 = Walter Pidgeon = Canadian-American actor and singer

• 1920 = Mickey Rooney = American actor, singer, director, and producer

• 1926 = John Coltrane = American saxophonist and composer

• 1930 = Ray Charles = American singer-songwriter and actor

• 1943 = Julio Iglesias = Spanish singer-songwriter

• 1947 = Mary Kay Place = American actor

• 1949 = Bruce Springsteen = American singer-songwriter

• 1954 = Charlie Barnett = American actor and comedian

• 1956 = Peter David = American author, actor, and screenwriter

• 1959 = Jason Alexander = American actor, singer, and voice artist

• 1961 = Chi McBride = American actor

• 1963 = Alex Proyas = Egyptian-Australian filmmaker

• 1965 = Manvendra Singh Gohil = Indian royal 🌈

• 1970 = Ani DiFranco = American-Canadian singer-songwriter 🌈

• 1976 = Robert James-Collier = English actor

• 1978 = Anthony Mackie = American actor

• 1985 = Hasan Minhaj = American comedian, actor, and tv host

EVENTS

• 1962 = The Jetsons premieres on ABC. It was the network’s first color series.

• 1984 = The first Folsom Street Fair takes place, organized by the San Francisco BDSM and Fetish community.

• 1994 = The Shawshank Redemption is released in theaters.

• 2002 – Firefox is released by the Mozilla Organization.

HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES

• Celebrate Bisexuality Day 🩷💜💙

• National Checkers Day (aka Dogs in Politics Day)

• National Great American Pot Pie Day

• National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15)

• Restless Legs Awareness Day

PORTRAIT + QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed.”
Bruce Springsteen

“I have spent my life judging the distance between American reality and the American dream.”
Bruce Springsteen

In my ongoing effort to avoid the endless churn of current events and commentary, I’ve been digging for gold (and the occasional gemstone) that keeps me entertained and inspired.

Books, films, long-forgotten interviews, and obscure documentaries tucked away in the far corners of the internet have become my refuge.

YouTube’s algorithm has become my co-curator and research assistant.

Instead of doomscrolling, I have been “joyscrolling,” allowing its suggestions to guide me toward quieter, stranger treasures. The latest discovery is a small but sparkling documentary called Between a Frock & a Hard Place, which revisits the making and the legacy of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Released in 1994, Priscilla follows three drag queens on a road trip across the Australian outback in a battered bus they christen Priscilla.

What began as a low-budget Australian film blossomed into a global phenomenon—an unapologetic celebration of queer identity and resilience that reached audiences around the world.

With its sequins, sharp wit and enormous heart, Priscilla became a lifeline for LGBTQ audiences who had rarely seen themselves reflected on screen.

The 2015 documentary does a lot more than just offer behind-the-scenes anecdotes. It also shows why Priscilla mattered. It reminds us of the political and social climate of mid-1990s Australia, where homophobia reigned supreme. And had a body count.

Narrated with grace and gravitas by Terence Stamp, the documentary shows how a battered, broken-down bus became more than just a prop. It became a rolling stage that carried drag, camp, and queer stories from the margins to the mainstream. A road-trip story about three drag queens turned into a cultural journey that reshaped how the world saw both Australia and the LGBTQ community.

What moved me most about the documentary is seeing how many of the people involved describe the film as life-changing. Cast and crew, gay and straight alike, speak about how profoundly it changed their lives and careers forever.

Nearly three decades later, Priscilla still sparkles with its defiance and fun.

THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT (1994)
More Info = IMDb + JustWatch

Watch = Amazon + AppleTV + The Roku Channel

If you are feeling overwhelmed by the noise of the present moment, I highly recommend letting YouTube’s algorithm guide you to more films and videos like Between a Frock & a Hard Place. Counter-programming can be a powerful and healthy form of relaxation and even a quiet act of resistance.

For me, the documentary is more than nostalgia. It is a reminder that art can shape and shift culture in ways big and small.

Who knew three cocks in frocks on some rocks could change the world?

Keep calm and documentary on!
Clint 🌈✌️

P.S. Don’t forget to put on your mask first and recharge your batteries as needed, boo.

ICYMI = IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

• SUNDAY = Summer’s Last Stand

• MONDAY = Sick + Tired Of Being 'Sick + Tired'

• TUESDAY = 26 Reasons To Keep Your Devices Updated

• WEDNESDAY = In Search Of Less Frazzle + More Dazzle

• THURSDAY = Can You Feel The Love...?

• THURSDAY = Found Photos #6

• FRIDAY = Echo Chambers + Echocardiograms

• SATURDAY = Slowly But Surely, Sharon

ON THIS DAY = SEPTEMBER 21

BIRTHDAYS

• 1640 = Philippe I, Duke of Orléans = French royal 🌈

• 1849 = Maurice Barrymore = American actor

• 1866 = H. G. Wells = English novelist, historian, and critic

• 1912 = Chuck Jones = American animator, producer, and screenwriter

• 1918 = Karl Slover = American actor

• 1931 = Larry Hagman = American actor, director, and producer

• 1934 = Leonard Cohen = Canadian singer-songwriter

• 1935 = Henry Gibson = American actor

• 1943 = Jerry Bruckheimer = American film and television producer

• 1944 = Fannie Flagg = American actor, comedian and author 🌈

• 1947 = Stephen King = American author and screenwriter

• 1948 = John D'Emilio = American writer and educator 🌈

• 1950 = Bill Murray = American actor, comedian, producer, and screenwriter

• 1954 = Julia Grant = British activist 🌈

• 1956 = Marta Kauffman = American screenwriter and producer

• 1957 = Ethan Coen = American filmmaker

• 1959 = Dave Coulier = American actor, comedian, producer, and screenwriter

• 1961 = Nancy Travis = American actor and producer

• 1962 = Rob Morrow = American actor

• 1967 = Faith Hill = American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor

• 1968 = Ricki Lake = American actor, producer, and talk show host

• 1969 = Anne Burrell = American chef and TV personality 🌈

• 1969 = Billy Porter = American actor, singer, writer, and director 🌈

• 1970 = Rob Benedict = American actor and screenwriter

• 1971 = Alfonso Ribeiro = American actor, director, and comedian

• 1971 = Luke Wilson = American actor, director, and screenwriter

• 1972 = Liam Gallagher = English singer-songwriter

• 1973 = Edgars Rinkēvičs = Latvian politician 🌈

• 1983 = Scott Evans = American actor

• 1987 = Ryan Guzman = American actor and model

• 1989 = Pavel Tchelitchew = Russian-born painter 🌈

EVENTS

• 1915 = Cecil Chubb buys the prehistoric monument Stonehenge for £6,600, which he later donates to Great Britain.

• 1937 = J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is first published in London.

• 1955 = In San Francisco, four lesbian couples, including Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, found Daughters of Bilitis, the first homophile organization exclusively for women.

• 1981 = Sandra Day O'Connor is unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate as the first female Supreme Court justice.

• 1993 = NYPD Blue premieres on ABC.

• 1998 = Will & Grace premieres on NBC.

• 2001 = America: A Tribute to Heroes is broadcast by over 35 network and cable channels, raising over $200 million for the victims of the September 11 attacks.

• 2010 = Dan Savage and husband Terry Miller up-load their first It Gets Better video on YouTube.

HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES

• International Day of Peace

• National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15)

PORTRAIT + QUOTE OF THE DAY

“For me, life is about being positive and hopeful, choosing to be joyful, choosing to be encouraging, choosing to be empowering.”
Billy Porter

I can still remember sitting in front of the TV in 1996, watching Rudy Galindo take the ice at the US Figure Skating Championships. His free skate to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake was nothing short of breathtaking.

At the time, I didn’t know much about his story.

I didn’t know he’d grown up in a trailer park in San Jose, or that he’d faced so much grief—the death of his father, his brother, and his coach; the heartbreak of losing so many family and friends to AIDS, and the loss of his longtime skating partner, Kristi Yamaguchi, when she left pairs competition to pursue singles.

Their separation nearly ended his career, yet it also forced Rudy to stand on his own and discover the brilliance of his solo voice on the ice.

I didn’t know then that he was stepping into that arena as an openly gay Latino man in a sport that rarely embraced outsiders.

Even without knowing all the details,I knew I was watching history being made. His performance wasn’t just athletic—it was raw, powerful, defiant, and beautiful.

When I read about Rudy’s background and all the obstacles he overcame, his performance took on even greater meaning for me.

Rudy wasn’t supposed to win. He wasn’t supposed to be a champion in a sport so often associated with privilege, money, and a very narrow image of who could succeed. Yet there he was, skating with both grace and grit, claiming a space that wasn’t designed for him.

For me—and for so many LGBTQ people—Rudy’s victory became more than a medal. It became proof. Proof that being openly gay doesn’t mean dimming your light. Proof that your background doesn’t have to dictate your future. Proof that authenticity, even in the face of prejudice, can be its own reward and triumph.

Rudy went on to turn pro, performing around the world for years before becoming a beloved skating coach.

There’s a beautiful coda to Rudy’s story: years after he and Kristi Yamaguchi parted ways as skating partners, life brought them back together when Rudy became the coach for Kristi’s daughter.

From loss and separation to reconnection and mentorship, it’s a full-circle moment so poetic it almost feels like fiction—but it’s real life.

When Rudy raised his arms at the end of Swan Lake, he wasn’t just finishing a program. He was telling every queer kid watching that they, too, could stand in the spotlight and be celebrated—not in spite of who they are, but because of it.

That night, Rudy Galindo didn’t just skate into history. He skated into our hearts as a trailblazer, a survivor, and a symbol of what’s possible when you refuse to hide.

Keep calm and skate on!
Clint 🌈✌️

ICYMI = IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

• MONDAY = Remembering Labor Days Past #3

• TUESDAY = Back To Life...Back To Reality

• WEDNESDAY = My Life As A Former Caveman

• THURSDAY = The Virus Of Virality

• FRIDAY = Come On, Get Happy (Hour)!

• SATURDAY = The (Mighty Real) Life + Times Of Sylvester

ON THIS DAY = SEPTEMBER 7

BIRTHDAYS

• 1860 = Grandma Moses = American painter

• 1894 = George Waggner = American actor, director, and producer

• 1909 = Elia Kazan = Greek-American actor and filmmaker

• 1912 = David Packard = American engineer and Hewlett-Packard co-founder

• 1913 = Valerie Taylor = American author 🌈

• 1917 = Jacob Lawrence = American painter and educator

• 1923 = Peter Lawford = English-American actor

• 1925 = Laura Ashley = Welsh-English fashion designer

• 1926 = Don Messick = American voice actor (died 1997)

• 1926 = Samuel Goldwyn Jr. = American director and producer

• 1932 = John Paul Getty Jr. = American-English philanthropist and book collector

• 1936 = Buddy Holly = American singer-songwriter

• 1937 = John Phillip Law = American actor

• 1939 = Latimore = American singer-songwriter

• 1943 = Gloria Gaynor = American singer-songwriter

• 1947 = Peter Wheatley = English Anglican bishop 🌈

• 1950 = Julie Kavner = American actor

• 1951 = Chrissie Hynde = American singer-songwriter

• 1954 = Corbin Bernsen = American actor

• 1954 = Michael Emerson = American actor

• 1956 = Diane Warren = American songwriter

• 1956 = Michael Feinstein = American singer and pianist 🌈

• 1957 = Jermaine Stewart = American singer-songwriter 🌈

• 1964 = Eazy-E = American rapper and producer

• 1966 = Toby Jones = English actor

• 1967 = Leslie Jones = American comedian and actor

• 1969 = Angie Everhart = American actor and model

• 1969 = Rudy Galindo = American figure skater 🌈

• 1970 = Tom Everett Scott = American actor

• 1973 = Alex Kurtzman = American filmmaker

• 1973 = Shannon Elizabeth = American model and actor

• 1976 = Oliver Hudson = American actor

• 1978 = Devon Sawa = Canadian actor

• 1980 = J.D. Pardo = American actor

• 1984 = Ben Hollingsworth = Canadian actor

• 1987 = Evan Rachel Wood = American actor 🌈

• 1988 = Paul Iacono = American actor 🌈

• 1989 = Jonathan Majors = American actor

• 2006 = Ian Chen = American actor

EVENTS

• 1630 = The city of Boston, Massachusetts, is founded.

• 1911 = French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and put in jail on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum.

• 1921 = In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first Miss America Pageant, a two-day event, is held.

• 1927 = The first fully electronic television system is achieved by Philo Farnsworth.

• 1979 = "Video Killed the Radio Star" is released by the Buggles as a single.

• 2001 = One of the world’s first LGBT-focused channels, PrideVision TV, is launched in Canada. It is now called OUTtv.

HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES

• National Beer Lover's Day

• National Grandma Moses Day

• National Grandparents Day

• National Grateful Patient Day

• National Neither Snow Nor Rain Day

• National Salami Day

PORTRAIT + QUOTE OF THE DAY

“As hackneyed and cliche as it sounds, follow your heart. We are all given intuition and instincts, and sometimes it is hard to follow those instincts with the fears and pressures that surround us - but you have to do it.”
Michael Feinstein

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed I reference Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” on a regular basis.

Part of it is that I’ve been boogy-ing my woogy to that song since I was a wee lad. But it’s a lot more than simple nostalgia. To me, Sylvester is way more than a disco diva—he’s a legendary queen who blazed trails for generations of LGBTQ folks.

He showed us how to “color outside the lines,” how to live boldly and beautifully, and how authenticity and joy can be not only liberating, but also radical acts of resistance.

Long before “gender-fluid” or “non-binary” were part of the mainstream lexicon, Sylvester was living it—fabulously, fearlessly, and fiercely.

Born in Watts, raised in the Pentecostal church, Sylvester turned gospel roots into glitter-soaked liberation. His voice? Otherworldly. His style? High camp meets high fashion. His presence? Electric.

And, of course, Sylvester didn’t do it alone. He surrounded himself with powerhouse talent. Take The Weather Girls—Martha Wash and Izora Armstead—who sang backup (as Two Tons O' Fun) before storming the charts with “It’s Raining Men.” Or his deep friendships with legends like Etta James, who befriended the young Sylvester.

These connections weren’t just about music. They were about chosen family, about finding and creating community in a world that wasn’t always ready to embrace him.

What I love most about Sylvester’s story is that it’s never just about disco or nightlife—it’s about a life lived out loud. He used sequins and falsetto as both armor and art, a glittering declaration of identity: This is who I am. And in doing so, he gave the rest of us permission to do the same.

Sadly, Sylvester was one of the first major artists to share his AIDS diagnosis. That courage, in the early days of the crisis, is part of his legacy too. But I don’t want to dwell only on the tragic loss of his life. I want to focus the mirror ball on his light—the glamour, the grit, the music that still makes us move…and still moves us.

Gone too soon, yes. But Sylvester remains timeless. Every time I play “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real),” I feel his candle still burning. Bright. Bold. Unafraid.

So here’s to the “Queen of Disco.” Long may he/she/they reign—on the dance floor and in our hearts.

Love and light!
Clint 🌈✌️

ON THIS DAY = SEPTEMBER 6

BIRTHDAYS

• 1757 = Marquis de Lafayette = French general

• 1860 = Jane Addams = American social worker and Nobel Laureate 🌈

• 1879 = Max Schreck = German actor

• 1885 = Otto Kruger = American actor

• 1899 = Billy Rose = American composer and manager

• 1900 = Julien Green = American writer 🌈

• 1913 = Julie Gibson = American actor and singer

• 1917 = John Berry = American-French actor and filmmaker

• 1925 = Jimmy Reed = American singer-songwriter

• 1930 = Charles Foley = American game designer and Twister co-creator

• 1935 = Isabelle Collin Dufresne = French actor and author

• 1937 = Jo Anne Worley = American actor, comedian, and singer

• 1939 = Brigid Berlin = American actor, painter, and photographer

• 1939 = David Allan Coe = American singer-songwriter

• 1940 = Elizabeth Murray = American painter and illustrator

• 1943 = Roger Waters = English singer-songwriter

• 1944 = Swoosie Kurtz = American actor

• 1947 = Jane Curtin = American actor and comedian

• 1947 = Sylvester = American singer-songwriter 🌈

• 1950 = Tseng Kwong Chi = Chinese-American photographer 🌈

• 1964 = Rosie Perez = American actor, dancer, and director

• 1967 = Macy Gray = American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor

• 1969 = CeCe Peniston = American singer-songwriter

• 1970 = Rhett Miller = American singer-songwriter

• 1971 = Dolores O'Riordan = Irish singer-songwriter

• 1972 = Dylan Bruno = American actor and model

• 1972 = Idris Elba = English actor

• 1972 = Justina Machado = American actor

• 1972 = Anika Noni Rose = American actor and singer

• 1985 = Lauren Lapkus = American actor and comedian

• 1999 = Nicholas Alexander Chavez = American actor

EVENTS

• 1997 = The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales takes place in London. Well over a million people line the streets and 2.5 billion watch around the world on television.

• 2018 = Supreme Court of India decriminalised all consensual sex among adults in private, making homosexuality legal on the Indian lands.

HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES

• National Hummingbird Day

• National Play Outside Day

• National Read A Book Day

PORTRAIT + QUOTE + VIDEO OF THE DAY

"Oh God, don't ask me how I got started or how old I am or about The Cockettes. Let's just say that I came from an upper-middle class Black bourgeois family in Los Angeles, and that I left a boring nine-to-five job to move to San Francisco. Better yet, let's say I was the first test tube baby."
Sylvester

Born on this day in 1928, Andy Warhol changed my life in ways I never could have imagined when, as a curious kid, I first encountered his name. And his work.

Before Andy, the art world felt off-limits to a working-class kid like me. Museums were cold and unwelcoming, and abstract paintings left me unmoved. “Fine art” felt like something happening behind closed doors—exclusive, aloof, and frankly, not all that appealing.

That all changed when I was about thirteen and stumbled across Famous for 15 Minutes: My Years with Andy Warhol, the autobiography of Factory fixture Ultra Violet. The book cracked something open in me. It was my first real glimpse into Warhol’s strange and shimmering universe—the original Factory and its constellation of so-called Superstars.

Warhol wasn’t just my introduction to the art world. He was my parasocial guide, my Wizard Of Oz, my time machine, my wake-up call.

A commercial illustrator turned “King of Pop Art,” Warhol created work that felt alive, immediate, and electric. Art that stared back at and shimmered with contradictions: mass-produced yet strangely intimate, polished yet raw, superficial at first glance but profound if you lingered.

Through Andy, I learned that art didn’t have to be polite, refined, or even conventionally “beautiful” to matter.

And it wasn’t just the Campbell’s Soup cans or the Marilyns or the Brillo boxes that hooked me. It was the world he built. I devoured every book I could find about Warhol and that silver-painted Factory—a mythic clubhouse of outcasts, dreamers, and beautiful disasters. A place where glamour met grit. Where performance and persona blurred. Where people became art.

I was especially obsessed with Warhol’s Superstars, the larger-than-life figures Andy plucked from the fringes and made unforgettable. Joey Dallesandro, all raw magnetism. Holly Woodlawn, fierce, funny, and heartbreakingly vulnerable. These weren’t polished, traditional celebrities. They were messy, complex, and magnificent—and Warhol saw them. Celebrated them. Immortalized them.

Looking back, I think that’s what truly drew me in: how the radical act of paying attention could change the world. The way he saw potential in the outcasts and outliers. He seemed to say, “Art matters. You matter.”

Andy Warhol helped me realize that art could be anything…and anyone.

Through his lens, I became a fan of art itself. I started noticing brushstrokes. Color. Compositions. Shadows. Moods. I began to wander into art galleries and museums without feeling like an impostor. I gave things a second glance. And then a third.

For me, my artist’s eye all started with Andy.

So today, on what would’ve been his 97th birthday, I raise a metaphorical can of tomato soup in his honor. Here’s to the strange ones. The shiny ones. The ones who make us look twice—and look differently.

Happy birthday, Andy. Thank you for being a friend and for opening the door.

Keep calm and keep creating!
Clint 🌈✌️

ON THIS DAY = AUGUST 6

BIRTHDAYS

• 1809 = Alfred, Lord Tennyson = English poet

• 1848 = Susie Taylor = American writer and first black Army nurse

• 1881 = Louella Parsons = American journalist and gossip columnist

• 1911 = Lucille Ball = American actor, producer, and businesswoman

• 1912 = Richard C. Miller = American photographer

• 1917 = Robert Mitchum = American actor

• 1923 = Jess Collins = American artist 🌈

• 1926 = Norman Wexler = American screenwriter

• 1928 = Andy Warhol = American artist, photographer, filmmaker, and publisher 🌈

• 1930 = Martin Duberman = American historian, biographer, and playwright 🌈

• 1932 = Howard Hodgkin = British artist 🌈

• 1938 = Paul Bartel = American actor, writer, and director 🌈

• 1948 = Steve Endean = American activist and HRC founder 🌈

• 1950 = Carole Pope = Canadian rock singer-songwriter 🌈

• 1957 = Jim McGreevey = American seminarian and politician 🌈

• 1962 = Michelle Yeoh = Malaysian-Hong Kong actor and producer

• 1969 = Elliott Smith = American singer-songwriter

• 1970 = M. Night Shyamalan = Indian-American filmmaker

• 1972 = Geri Halliwell = English singer-songwriter, dancer, and actor

• 1972 = Jason O'Mara = Irish actor

• 1973 = Vera Farmiga = American actor

• 1976 = Soleil Moon Frye = American actor

• 1981 = Leslie Odom Jr. = American actor and singer

EVENTS

• 1926 = Don Juan, starring John Barrymore, is released by Warner Bros. It’s the first public screening of a sound film using the Vitaphone process.

• 1956 = After going bankrupt, the DuMont Television Network makes its final broadcast, Boxing from St. Nicholas Arena.

• 1965 = POTUS Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.

• 1991 = Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW makes its first appearance as a publicly available service on the Internet.

HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES

• National Fresh Breath Day

• National Root Beer Float Day

• National Social Engineering Day

• National Wiggle Your Toes Day

PORTRAIT + QUOTES OF THE DAY

One hundred and one years since his birth, James Baldwin’s voice remains as urgent, eloquent, and essential as ever. His legacy lives on in the ways his life and work continue to echo through every conversation about race, identity, love, art, and power.

The world has caught up to some of what he tried to tell us.
But much of it, we’re still struggling to truly hear.

So today, on what would have been his 101st birthday, let’s keep his candles lit—and do our best to listen. Baldwin’s calls for basic human rights, reason, and respect are as vital now as they’ve ever been.

Whether you’re revisiting his work or discovering it for the first time, I offer you this curated list of books, essays, and videos to help illuminate Baldwin’s brilliant legacy:

BOOKS

• Notes of a Native Son (1955)

• Giovanni’s Room (1956)

• The Fire Next Time (1963)

• No Name in the Street (1972)

• If Beale Street Could Talk (1974)

ESSAYS

• "Letter from a Region in My Mind" (1962, The New Yorker)

• "Redefining James Baldwin" (2024, The New Yorker)

VIDEOS

• James Baldwin Debates William F. Buckley (1965)

• James Baldwin Discusses Racism With Dick Cavett (1969)

• James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket (1989)

• I Am Not Your Negro (2017)

Baldwin left us a roadmap for confronting the deep roots of historic and systemic racism—not a simple path, and certainly not a comfortable one. His work challenges us to face hard truths about injustice, identity, and the American dream.

Yet even as his POV is unsettling, it’s also inspiring, illuminated by his unmatched clarity, moral courage, and a fierce, enduring beauty. His words don’t just expose what’s broken. They invite us to imagine what could be healed.

So on what would have been his 101st birthday, please take some time to read his words. Please take some time to watch and listen to him speak. And, if you’re so moved, please do your part to carry his legacy forward and keep his memory alive.

Keep calm and carry on!
Clint 🌈✌️

ON THIS DAY = AUGUST 2

BIRTHDAYS

• 1892 = Jack L. Warner = Canadian-born American film and Warner Bros. co-founder

• 1899 = Charles Bennett = English director and screenwriter

• 1905 = Myrna Loy = American actor

• 1914 = Beatrice Straight = American actor

• 1916 = Alfonso A. Ossorio = American painter and sculptor

• 1917 = Wah Chang = American artist and designer

• 1922 = Betsy Bloomingdale = American philanthropist and socialite

• 1924 = Carroll O'Connor = American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter

• 1924 = James Baldwin = American novelist, poet, and critic 🌈

• 1932 = Peter O'Toole = British-Irish actor and producer

• 1935 = Hank Cochran = American singer-songwriter

• 1939 = Wes Craven = American filmmaker

• 1942 = Isabel Allende = Chilean-American writer

• 1945 = Joanna Cassidy = American actor

• 1948 = Snoo Wilson = English playwright and screenwriter

• 1951 = Andrew Gold = American singer-songwriter

• 1951 = Joe Lynn Turner = American singer-songwriter

• 1953 = Butch Patrick = American actor

• 1959 = Victoria Jackson = American actor and singer

• 1964 = Mary-Louise Parker = American actor

• 1970 = Kevin Smith = American actor and filmmaker

• 1976 = Sam Worthington = English-Australian actor and producer

• 1977 = Edward Furlong = American actor

• 1992 = Charli XCX = English singer-songwriter

• 1994 = Cr1TiKaL (aka MoistCr1TiKaL and Penguinz0 = American YouTuber and Twitch streamer

EVENTS

• 1776 = The US Declaration of Independence is signed.

• 1784 = The first British mail coach service ran from Bristol to London.

• 1790 = The first United States Census is conducted.

• 1870 = Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway, opens.

• 1873 = The Clay Street Hill Railroad begins operating the first cable car in San Francisco's famous cable car system.

• 1932 = Carl David Anderson proves the existence of antimatter with the discovery of the positron, for which he later receives a Nobel Prize in Physics.

• 1937 = The Marihuana Tax Act is passed in the US, the effect of which is to render marijuana and all its by-products illegal.

• 1971 = The English rock band the Who released Who's Next, their only album to top the UK charts.

• 1982 = The Helsinki Metro, the first rapid transit system of Finland, is opened to the general public.

• 1985 = Weird Science is released in theaters.

• 1989 = Parenthood is released in theaters.

HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES

• National Coloring Book Day

• National Play Outside Day

• National Sunflower Day

• Roma Holocaust Memorial Day

• Sandcastle Day

PORTRAIT + QUOTES OF THE DAY

When I first “met” Tim Gunn on Project Runway, I immediately wished he’d been one of my professors in college. Calm, wise, articulate, and genuinely invested in the success of others, he radiated the kind of mentorship I had only imagined. His signature blend of tough love and thoughtful encouragement was exactly the kind of guidance I always craved—the kind that stays with you long after the final critique.

So on his birthday, it feels only fitting to celebrate the man who taught me to “make it work” in fashion and in life.

FROM ACADEMIA TO A-LIST

Timothy MacKenzie Gunn’s career is proof that success doesn’t always arrive with a spotlight. More often, it’s earned through consistency, quiet discipline, and a deep respect for craft.

Before he became a household name, Gunn was already an accomplished academic.

He began his career at his alma mater—the Corcoran College of Art and Design—serving as director of admissions. He then went on to spend over two decades at Parsons School of Design, first as a faculty member, and later as chair of the Fashion Design Department.

At Parsons, Gunn was a reformer. He advocated for a more structured curriculum and pioneered critique sessions that reflected the real-world pressures of the fashion industry. His teaching style was nurturing yet exacting, compassionate but candid. Through it all, he maintained a rare sense of grace—one that didn’t just help students pass, but helped them thrive.

PROJECT RUNWAY AND THE RISE OF A MENTOR

Everything changed for the respected academic in 2004 with Project Runway. As the show’s mentor and moral compass, Tim Gunn quickly became its heart and soul.

While others courted drama, Gunn brought clarity and calm. He reminded contestants—and viewers—that fashion is about far more than just surface aesthetics. It’s about storytelling, discipline, vulnerability, and intention.

His now-iconic catchphrase—“Make It Work”—became a cultural mantra. But beyond being quotable, it’s a mindset: a call to adapt, rethink, and persist in the face of challenge. Where others demanded perfection, Gunn championed progress and resilience.

Off the runway, Gunn’s media presence grew. He hosted Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style, co-hosted Making the Cut with Heidi Klum, and penned several books—including Gunn’s Golden Rules and Tim Gunn: The Natty Professor—offering life lessons delivered with equal parts wit, empathy, and intellect.

A STYLE ICON WITH SUBSTANCE

With his impeccably tailored suits and old-world charm, Gunn is as much a style icon as he is a teacher, media personality, and creative director. But he’s never been about chasing trends. His look—polished, classic, and unapologetically elegant—reflects his entire approach to life: thoughtful, deliberate, and grounded.

He’s also been refreshingly open about his own insecurities and identity, speaking candidly about his self-esteem struggles and his (a)sexuality. His decision to remain celibate for decades is just one example of how he redefines vulnerability—not as weakness, but as quiet strength.

THE SUBTLE ART OF SUCCESS

In a world obsessed with overnight fame and viral moments, Tim Gunn represents a different kind of success—one built on patience, integrity, and an unwavering commitment to helping others find their light and spotlight.

His success didn’t come from being the loudest voice in the room.

It came from showing up, day after day, with humility, consistency, and care.

From listening. From mentoring. From making it work.

So here’s to Tim Gunn—professor, mentor, author, icon. Happy birthday to a man who has helped countless people find their voice, their style, and their confidence.

In fashion and in life, he reminds us that with a steady hand, a clear eye, and a compassionate heart, we can all make it work.

Keep calm and carry on!
Clint 🌈✌️

ON THIS DAY = JULY 29

BIRTHDAYS

• 1892 = William Powell = American actor and singer

• 1905 = Clara Bow = American actor

• 1905 = Dag Hammarskjöld = Swedish economist and diplomat 🌈

• 1906 = Thelma Todd = American actor and singer

• 1930 = Paul Taylor = American choreographer 🌈

• 1933 = Lou Albano = American wrestler, manager, and actor

• 1933 = Robert Fuller = American actor and rancher

• 1938 = Peter Jennings = Canadian-American journalist and author

• 1950 = Jenny Holzer = American painter, author, and dancer

• 1951 = Dean Pitchford = American actor, director, screenwriter, and composer

• 1953 = Ken Burns = American filmmaker

• 1953 = Tim Gunn = American academic and tv personality 🌈

• 1955 = Jean-Hugues Anglade = French actor, director, and screenwriter

• 1962 = Kevin Spirtas = American actor 🌈

• 1965 = Dean Haglund = Canadian actor, producer, and screenwriter

• 1966 = Martina McBride = American singer-songwriter

• 1972 = Wil Wheaton = American actor, producer, and screenwriter

• 1973 = Stephen Dorff = American actor and producer

• 1974 = Josh Radnor = American actor and musician

• 1981 = Fernando Alonso = Spanish race car driver

• 1982 = Prince Abdul Azim Of Brunei = Bruneian royal 🌈

EVENTS

• 1567 = The infant James VI was crowned King of Scotland at Stirling.

• 1836 = The Arc de Triomphe is inagurated in Paris, France.

• 1945 = The BBC Light Programme radio station is launched for mainstream light entertainment and music.

• 1948 = After a hiatus of 12 years caused by World War II, the first Summer Olympics to be held since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, open in London.

• 1957 = Tonight Starring Jack Paar premieres on NBC with Jack Paar beginning the modern day talk show.

• 1978 = Village People’s first major hit “Macho Man” disco single debuts.

• 1981 = An estimated worldwide tv audience of 750 million watched the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul's Cathedral in London.

• 1987 = British PM Margaret Thatcher and French President François Mitterrand sign the agreement to build a tunnel under the English Channel (Channel Tunnel).

HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES

• International Tiger Day

• National Chicken Wing Day

• National Lasagna Day

PORTRAIT + QUOTES OF THE DAY

When I hear the name Nikola Tesla, I think of glowing coils, wireless electricity, and futuristic inventions decades ahead of their time.

I also think: Damn, he was a handsome devil!

Born in 1856 in what is now Croatia, Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, and physicist who changed the world with innovations such as the alternating current (AC) electrical system, radio wave transmission, and early concepts of robotics and radar.

But behind Tesla’s high-voltage legacy lies a far more mysterious current: his private life. He was famously reclusive, never married, and openly admitted to having no interest in romantic entanglements with women. This has led many historians and biographers to speculate about the inner world of this dapper, sharply-dressed man who was as enigmatic as he was brilliant.

WAS TESLA GAY?

There is no definitive historical record to confirm Tesla's sexual orientation. Some suggest he may have been asexual or celibate by choice, channeling all of his emotional and creative energy into his inventions.

However, in modern times, LGBTQ historians have re-examined (and re-imagined?) Tesla’s legacy, wondering whether his deep relationships with certain male friends or his lifelong bachelorhood might hint at something more.

We do know Tesla was close to several influential men in his life, including poet Robert Underwood Johnson and politician Richmond P. Hobson.

While there’s no direct evidence of romantic or sexual relationships, the idea of Tesla as a queer figure has gained traction, not necessarily to revise history, but to open it up to interpretation—and to reclaim space for people who, like Tesla, may not have fit neatly into the romantic norms of their era.

THE DAPPER ENIGMA

Tesla was a striking figure: tall, impeccably groomed, and intensely charismatic. He dined at the finest hotels, walked the streets of New York City with a certain aristocratic flair, and had a reputation for being both charming and eccentric. Though he was something of a loner, he was never without admirers—male and female alike.

Tesla’s personal elegance, combined with his obsession for cleanliness and order, helped shape his public image as a modern Prometheus in a well-cut suit.

CELEBRATING A LIFE LIVED DIFFERENTLY

Whether Tesla was gay, celibate, or simply uninterested in romantic love, his story likely resonates with anyone who colors outside the lines.

In an age where conformity was often expected, Tesla stayed true to himself—unapologetically brilliant, frequently misunderstood, and completely unforgettable.

In celebrating Tesla today, we celebrate not only the genius who lit up the world but also the mystery of the man behind the mind.

Was he a queer pioneer? Perhaps.
Was he a dapper visionary who saw the future more clearly than most? Definitely.

Keep calm and carry on!
Clint 🌈✌️

ON THIS DAY = JULY 10

BIRTHDAYS

• 1856 = Nikola Tesla = Serbian-American engineer and inventor 🌈

• 1871 = Marcel Proust = French novelist 🌈

• 1899 = John Gilbert = American actor, director, and screenwriter

• 1905 = Thomas Gomez = American actor

• 1920 = David Brinkley = American journalist

• 1921 = Harvey Ball = American illustrator and Smiley creator

• 1922 = Jake LaMotta = American boxer and actor

• 1926 = Fred Gwynne = American actor

• 1928 = Bernard Buffet = French painter and illustrator

• 1931 = Jerry Herman = American composer and lyricist 🌈

• 1931 = Nick Adams = American actor and screenwriter 🌈

• 1934 = Jerry Nelson = American puppeteer and voice actor

• 1939 = Mavis Staples = American singer

• 1941 = Robert Pine = American actor and director

• 1943 = Arthur Ashe = American tennis player and journalist

• 1945 = Ron Glass = American actor

• 1948 = Ronnie Cutrone = American painter

• 1954 = Neil Tennant = English singer-songwriter and Pet Shop Boys co-founder 🌈

• 1958 = Fiona Shaw = Irish actor and director 🌈

• 1963 = Zoe Dunning = American naval officer and activist 🌈

• 1965 = Alec Mapa = American actor, comedian, and writer 🌈

• 1969 = Alexandra Hedison = American photographer and actor 🌈

• 1969 = Gale Harold = American actor

• 1972 = Sofía Vergara = Colombian-American actor and producer

• 1976 = Elijah Blue Allman = American singer and guitarist

• 1984 = Vanessa Selbst = American poker player 🌈

• 1991 = Angel Haze = American rapper and singer 🌈

• 1998 = Angus Cloud = American actor

EVENTS

• 1962 = Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.

• 1970 = The Austrian Parliament decriminalizes homosexual acts between consenting adults.

• 1972 = Ann Arbor, Michigan becomes the first U.S. city to pass a broad gay civil rights law.

• 1973 = The Bahamas gains full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.

• 1981 = Escape From New York is released in theaters.

• 1985 = Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is released in theaters.

• 2002 = The Massacre of the Innocents, a painting by Peter Paul Rubens, is sold at a Sotheby's auction for £49.5 million (US$76.2 million) to Lord Thomson.

• 2012 = The Episcopal Church USA allows same-sex marriage.

• 2019 = The final Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the line in Puebla, Mexico; the last of 5,961 "Special Edition" cars will be exhibited in a museum.

HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES

• National Kitten Day

• National Pina Colada Day

PORTRAIT + QUOTES OF THE DAY

When you think of iconic American architecture, Phillip Johnson's name is hard to miss. From the pristine minimalism of the Glass House to the bold postmodernism of the 550 Madison Avenue, Johnson reshaped the American skyline.

But beyond his architectural marvels and the iconic glasses, Johnson was also one of the first prominent architects to live openly as a gay man—a fact both groundbreaking and, for much of his life, quietly managed.

In an era when homosexuality was criminalized and routinely pathologized, Johnson’s visibility and success were, in their own way, quietly radical. He didn't wave a rainbow flag, but he didn’t hide either.

Johnson’s sexuality was an open secret in the design world. He lived with curator and art critic David Whitney at The Glass House. Their relationship, which began in 1960 and lasted until Johnson’s death in 2005, was a quiet yet enduring partnership that defied mid-century norms of what love could look like.

Together, Johnson and Whitney built more than just a life; they cultivated a cultural haven. The Glass House wasn’t merely a modernist masterpiece—it was a salon of sorts, where art, architecture, and queerness collided in conversation and curation.

While Johnson’s work was sometimes criticized as style over substance, his influence was undeniable. He mentored and promoted the careers of other major architects, helped curate the first architecture department at MoMA, and shaped both public taste and private commissions for generations.

As LGBTQ histories become more visible and integral to cultural narratives, Johnson's life demands inclusion. He was a trailblazer not just in concrete and glass, but in living a queer life of influence, visibility, and contradiction. He showed, without fanfare, that gay men could design skylines, shape taste, and live lives that were both modern and deeply human.

In the end, Phillip Johnson's greatest legacy may not be the buildings he designed, but the life he lived in full view: reflective, refractive, and unapologetically his own.

Keep calm and carry on!
Clint 🌈✌️

FOR YOUR (SUBSTACK) CONSIDERATION

• LGBTQ+ Burnout… ()

• Rest Is Rebellion ()

• The Apollo Fates Interview ()

• Donnie Russo, Porn Legend ()

• New Music from Sarah McLachlan… ()

ON THIS DAY = JULY 8

BIRTHDAYS

• 1831 = John Pemberton = American chemist, pharmacist, and Coca-Cola inventor

• 1890 = Stanton Macdonald-Wright = American painter

• 1906 = Philip Johnson = American architect 🌈

• 1908 = Louis Jordan = American singer-songwriter and actor

• 1926 = Elisabeth Kübler-Ross = Swiss-American psychiatrist and author

• 1930 = Jerry Vale = American singer

• 1933 = Peter Orlovsky = American poet 🌈

• 1935 = Steve Lawrence = American actor and singer

• 1951 = Anjelica Huston = American actor and director

• 1952 = Marianne Williamson = American author and activist

• 1958 = Kevin Bacon = American actor and musician

• 1962 = Joan Osborne = American singer-songwriter

• 1965 = Lee Tergesen = American actor

• 1968 = Billy Crudup = American actor

• 1968 = Michael Weatherly = American actor, producer, director, and musician

• 1976 = Silvia Modig = Finnish politician and journalist 🌈

• 1977 = Milo Ventimiglia = American actor, director, and producer

• 1993 = David Corenswet = American actor

EVENTS

• 1776 = Church bells (possibly including the Liberty Bell) are rung after John Nixon delivers the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

• 1889 = The first issue of The Wall Street Journal is published.

• 1947 = Reports are broadcast that a UFO crash-landed in Roswell, New Mexico in what became known as the Roswell UFO incident.

• 1992 = Melrose Place premieres on Fox.

• 1996 = Spice Girls release their debut single "Wannabe" in the UK.

• 2018 = Tab Hunter died in Santa Barbara, CA, at the age of 86.

HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES

• Cow Appreciation Day

• National Chocolate with Almonds Day

• National Freezer Pop Day

• National Raspberry Day

PORTRAIT + QUOTES OF THE DAY