We are all Jane Fonda this morning.

The legendary actress/activist/fitness guru was on the Today Show this morning with her (equally legendary) co-star Robert Redford to discuss their new movie Our Souls. They had the misfortune of being interviewed by morning show newbie Megyn Kelly, who seems to be putting her foot in her mouth on a regular basis (at only three days into her tenure. Good God).

In the clip below, Megyn asks Jane about aging and her plastic surgery and Jane responds with THAT FACE, saying: “We really wanna talk about that now?” Clearly, she was OVER this interview, and quickly tried to steer the subject back to her movie and GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE.

Watch now.

Screen grab via The Today Show on Youtube.

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Above: Amanda Lepore, Nyakim Gatwech and Grae Drake, three models for a nurse-themed blood drive promotion, “All Types Welcome,” for the latest “Saw” movie. The campaign was designed to push back against restrictions on L.G.B.T. donors.

So the torture porn series Saw returns Oct. 27 with the R-rated eighth installment of the series. To help promote the film, Lionsgate is taking aim at the ridiculous restrictions on America’s blood donations.

Via The New York Times:

On Sunday, the studio’s chief brand officer, Tim Palen, began rolling out an online ad campaign called “All Types Welcome.” The campaign has eight social media stars with large gay, bisexual and transgender fan bases — including Shaun Ross, an openly gay model, and Amanda Lepore, the transgender night life diva — dressed as off-kilter nurses and encouraging people to donate blood in preparation for “Jigsaw.” The blood drive starts on Oct. 5 in New York and expands to 25 cities in the following weeks. (More details are available at JigsawSaves.com.)

“All Types Welcome” is a condemnation of blood donation rules set by the Food and Drug Administration that prohibit most gay or bisexual men from giving; before donating, they have to forgo same-sex sexual encounters for at least a year, a contentious precaution resulting from concerns about H.I.V.

“It’s exclusion, and it’s ridiculous, and it’s discriminatory,” Ms. Lepore said in an interview.

Mark Burg, the producer who has helped steer the “Saw” franchise, was even more blunt. “We want this policy changed,” he said.

The Red Cross, the nation’s largest blood supplier, has also drawn fire for its approach to transgender donors. Until recently, federal guidelines recommended that trans people be required to register at blood centers under the gender they were assigned at birth.

While the idea of nurse mascots for the “Saw” blood drives isn’t new (they’ve been doing it for years), the nurses have usually been white and cis. Not so this year.

“Now we have different races, genders, ages and sexual orientations,” Palen said. Joining Ms. Lepore and Mr. Ross as twisted nurses are people like Nyakim Gatwech, a Sudanese model; a YouTube and Instagram star named Mykie; and the sexagenarian event producer Susanne Bartsch.

Cool! The shoot, itself, sounds like it was quite the fun part, too.

Mr. Palen, took over a cavernous stage for two days — complete with a D.J. and an open bar — this time around. As the Pharrell Williams song “Marilyn Monroe” played toward the end of the second day, Ms. Lepore teetered on a stack of metallic boxes in white spike heels. “Sexy, fetish nurse doll” is how Mr. Palen had described her look.

“Amazing,” he murmured, standing on tiptoe to take her picture.

When Mr. Palen was done, the 16 people in the room clapped, and Ms. Lepore did a little curtsy.

(Top photos by Tim Palen via Lionsgate)

The post In New “Saw” Ads, Nurse Amanda Lepore (and Others) Protest Rules Restricting Gay Men From Donating Blood appeared first on The WOW Report.

OMG, it’s the biggest season of Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles EVER!

It was JUST ANNOUNCED that Season 10 will premiere on Thursday, November 2 at 9/8c.

The deals are more jaw-dropping, the mansions are grander, and, you know what, the drama is bigger, too.

And if all THAT isn’t exciting enough, a brand-new agent has been added to the block: super-shark Tracy Tutor Maltas, who is one of the top agents at Douglas Elliman.

“Don’t be fooled by her charisma; she’s a boss,” Josh Altman teases in the above trailer.

We’ll see Tracy’s fierceness as she slays the real estate biz, as well as her more nurturing side as a wife and mom.

But WAIT! There’s MORE!

Speaking of parenthood, Josh Altman will find that juggling life with his new baby girl and the demands of his career will prove to be quite the challenge. And no, your eyes didn’t deceive you; that was Josh Altman’s wife, Heather Bilyeu Altman, reuniting with her former boss Madison Hildebrand. We wonder what that’s all about. But since Madison is having great success at work and in his personal life with his new boyfriend Cody, we doubt that anything can get him down.

Business is also booming for beloved Brits James Harris and David Parnes. But even they won’t be able to escape the drama this season. In particular, James finds himself playing referee as Josh Flagg and his then-fiancé Bobby Boyd seem to have their biggest fight ever right before their wedding. Emotions have never been this high among the MDLLA crew.

Check out the super-tease below!

The post Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles Returns This November: Get Your First Look at the Newest Agent, Tracy Tutor Maltas! appeared first on The WOW Report.

September 27,1962 – Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring is published, inspiring an Environmental Movement and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Silent Spring is one of the 20th century’s most influential books.

It didn’t really make the news at the time, but in 2013 there was a five-mile-long oil slick on the California coast near Santa Barbara, an unfathomably gorgeous stretch of the West Coast.

Scientists have said that 15 million metric tons of plastic were dumped in the planet’s oceans in 2016, enough to cover every foot of coastline on our pretty spinning blue orb. What’s more, it is predicted that the amount will more than double in the next decade.

Rachel Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose books make her a sort of godmother of modern environmentalism.

She became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us brought Carson financial security and much critical praise as a gifted writer. Her next books The Edge Of The Sea (1955) and Under The Sea Wind (1957) were also bestsellers. Her Sea Trilogy explores ocean life, from the shores to the surface of the bottom of the deep blue sea.

In the late 1950s, Carson turned her attention to the environmental problems caused by pesticides. On this day in 1962, Silent Spring was published. It became an unusually popular book about our environmental concerns, and brought enraged denial from the big chemical companies. Chemical giants Monsanto, Dow, and Velsicol vilified her as an emotional, hysterical, anti-American writer, a childless “spinster” who had “no business being interested in genetics” and who was “probably a communist.” Time Magazine claimed that she was the most dangerous person in the USA.

But, Carson’s bestseller brought the USA into a sort of reversal in our national pesticide policy, including a ban on DDT. Her books gave birth to the first grassroots environmental movement and helped bring about the EPA, the Clean Water Act Of 1972 and the Safe Drinking Water Act Of 1974, which our paprika colored POTUS and his cronies are currently in the process of dismantling. They simply seem as disinterested in the health of the planet as they do the health care of its citizenry. Concern with the oceans is a job-killer after all. They look backwards to when America was made great with non-regulated pesticide use. Carson is not a hero to the GOP, but she is to me. It is so sad that the work that Carson’s books inspired will now be unraveled.

Attacks on Carson by Climate Change deniers and Fox News commentators continues. Discrediting science is all about making money. Understanding science would require corporations to change their practices, and the government to implement necessary regulations. The GOP hates regulations.

Carson:

“If the Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be secure against lethal poisons distributed either by private individuals or public officials, it is surely only because our forefathers, despite their considerable wisdom and foresight, could conceive of no such problems.”

In 1953, Carson moved to an island off the coast of Maine, where she became acquainted with Dorothy Freeman. The two women started a relationship that would last the rest of Carson’s life. Freeman was a summer resident of the island along with her husband. She had written to Carson to welcome her to island life. She had read Carson’s work and was pleased that the famous writer would be her neighbor. The pair loved nature and they loved each other. They wrote letters when apart. They continued their love affair every summer for a decade, until Carson died, ironically, of cancer in 1964.

The prescient Carson probably would not have imagined an America where corporations are now legally people, replete with human rights, endangering the rights of ordinary noncorporate humans whose right to live in the un-poisoned world Carson bravely defended.

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.“

Photograph of Carson: U.S. Department of Agriculture

The post #OnThisDay: 1962, Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” is Published appeared first on The WOW Report.

There’s a hard-boiled lesbian private eye, a hot dame in peril, a nutty drag queen who is the ring-leader of a bizarre underground cactus scene, and a baby who shoots laser out of his eyes… and that’s just the beginning of Todd Selby’s queer short film Redmond Hand, Private Dick. 

Via NewNowNext:

The Wire’s Felicia “Snoop” Pearson stars as Red Hand, a detective with a love for hard liquor, condo fires, and soft women. It’s that last one that gets Red in trouble, though, when a sexy damsel in distress struts into Red’s office with a sob story about a missing cactus.

“You and me gonna be wrestling around in some Pottery Barn sheets before we know it,” Red assures her. After all, the private dick admits, “I’ve done weirder shit for some pussy.”

That’s when Katya enters the picture, leading our private dick to a wild Echo Park party where trippy-looking hipsters exchange diamonds for stolen cactuses between increasingly nutty quips (“I don’t have to lease my boner” says one bewigged partygoer. And: “If my son turned out gay… I would want him to be a top”). Then things really get weird.

I’ll leave you to discover what happens next.

The post Katya Is a Crazed Cactus Thief in the Lesbian Film Noir Parody “Redmond Hand, Private Dick” appeared first on The WOW Report.

In a disturbing new PETA ad, vegan pop star Dawn Richard (aka D△WN), of Danity Kane and Diddy-Dirty Money fame appears to be crawling away from an unseen assailant, while hands rip a large chunk of skin away from her nude buttocks.

“Leather is a rip-off” screams the text. “That leather jacket or upholstery was someone’s skin.”

Ouch. And OH MY.

What do you think? Effective? or TOO MUCH, PETA!

Watch the making of video below.

The post Wanna See the Extremely Graphic and Disturbing New PETA Ad? – If So, CLICK HERE appeared first on The WOW Report.

Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine has died.

Though he was most famous for Playboy, Hefner played in all forms of media, including hosting his own TV show, beginning with Playboy’s Penthouse. He followed that with Playboy After Dark, with more rock n rollHefner headquarters and home, The Playboy Mansion, the 22,000-square-foot house in Los Angeles where he lived for more than four decades was sold for $100 million in August with the provision that Hefner be allowed to live there the rest of his life.

Hef, as he was known, became the unofficial spokesman for the sexual revolution and was a staunch supporter of abortion – including helping to finance the landmark Rowe v. Wade decision in 1973 — and more recently was an outspoken advocate of same-sex marriage, and his dedication to such issues (along with his distribution of pornography) made him a pariah in some religious circles. He wrote in ’63 that,

“By associating sex with sin, we have produced a society so guilt-ridden that it is almost impossible to view the subject objectively.”

Hefner set out to create his media empire at a particularly low point in his life when he was despondent over a marriage he knew wasn’t working and a career that had stalled. He recalled in 2004 that he stood on a bridge in Chicago in the dead of winter thinking,

“I’ve gotta do something.”

Playboy, though, was Hefner’s bread and butter and his first love. He borrowed $1,000 from his mom and $7,000 from more than 40 other investors for a publication he was set to call Stag Party until he discovered a magazine called Stag already existed. He bought a picture of Marilyn Monroe that was taken before she was famous and put it on the cover and the first issue hit newsstands in December ’53, although he didn’t bother putting a date on it because he was doubtful there’d be future issues.

It sold 54,000 copies – 80 percent of the total he had printed and that issue, needless to say is a MAJOR collectable.

In 2011, Hef told The New York Times that he had already chosen and paid for his final resting place — a crypt next to Marilyn Monroe’s in Westwood.

They often say it but in case, boy is it ever true.

“What a life!”

Hugh Hefner was 91.

(Photo, Wikipedia; via THR)

The post #RIP: Hugh Hefner appeared first on The WOW Report.

In “Viva Maria!” directed by Louis Malle, 1965

September 28, 1934– Brigitte Bardot:

“I started out as a lousy actress and I have remained one.”

When Bardot retired in 1973, at just 39-years-old, she had already appeared in more than 50 films. She walked away from fame and adoration and into seclusion at her home in Sainte-Tropez where she dedicated herself to animals. Bardot seems to have only left showbiz to protest in favor of Animal Rights and make some dreadful comments about immigration. But, she has always been true to herself: honest, outspoken and completely natural. Bardot still carries her authenticity. She calls out those who live by hypocrisy, caution, calculation or premeditation.

When Bardot first came on the scene in the early 1950s, the world was not prepared for a woman like her. When she was 18-years-old, she married film director Roger Vadim, who cast her as the amoral Juliete in And God Created Woman (1957). Her very essence embodied the breaking sexual revolution that the public had not anticipated. Bardot’s character of Juliete was a woman with an unsuppressed sexual appetite. The scene in which she dances barefoot with her hair loose and her skin shining with sweat was a defining moment in film history. The NY Times film critic at the time, Bosley Crowther, wrote:

“In fact, it isn’t what Mademoiselle Bardot does in bed but what she might do that drives the male characters into an erotic frenzy. She is a thing of mobile contours, a phenomenon you have to see to believe.”

The film caused a scandal in the puritan USA. Its success and the shock it provoked bounced back to Europe. In 1959, in a famous essay about Bardot called The Lolita Syndrome, French intellectual Simone de Beauvoir wrote about Bardot’s controversies, calling Bardot the “locomotive of women’s history”, comparing her position in French culture with Existentialism, and defining her as the most liberated woman of postwar France:

“When Marlene Dietrich exhibited her silk-wrapped thighs while singing in her husky voice, she was casting a spell… Bardot doesn’t cast spells; she acts. Her flesh doesn’t have the generosity that symbolizes passivity. Her clothes are not fetishes and when she undresses, she reveals no mystery. She simply shows off her body, which is in constant movement. She walks, she dances, she moves. In the hunting game, she is both hunter and prey. Males are an object for her, as much as she is an object for them. This is precisely what hurts males’ pride.”

Feminists might have disagreed that Bardot was the very symbol of the liberated woman, but Bardot was totally liberated at a time when most women were never allowed to be. She threw conventions away, living the way she pleased, dressing as she wished, with the freedom to be very, very provocative. Bardot’s naturalness was more perverse than any sort of sophistication.

Bardot married four times and broke hundreds of hearts. She had a child and then discovered she wasn’t cut out to be a mother, leaving her son to be brought up by his father. But she wasn’t just acting out her rebellious impulses.

De Beauvoir:

“Bardot is neither rebellious nor immoral; this is why morality hasn’t got a chance with her. Good and Evil are part of the conventions she wouldn’t even dream of respecting. She doesn’t try to shock or provoke. She makes no demands. She has no idea what her rights or her duties could be. She follows her inclinations. She eats when she’s hungry and makes love as simply. She does what she pleases and this is what is so troubling.”

Bardot is an Existentialist icon. Her best quality, in typical French fashion, was that she doesn’t care much. She didn’t really want to be an actor, a singer or a sex symbol, it just happened. The woman she was in 1956 was already a modern woman. Her beauty and honesty made her very subversive. Religious Conservatives claimed that her films contributed to the breakdown of society.

Film director Louis Malle:

“When we were filming together in a shopping arcade in Lausanne, a woman in a fur coat came up while Bardot was acting, spat full in her face and screamed ‘You are undermining the bourgeoisie’.”

Bardot turned away from films because of her love of animals. She established her Foundation For The Protection of Distressed Animals in the mid-1970s. In 1987, she founded The Brigitte Bardot Foundation For The Welfare And Protection Of Animals. Her work has led to Europe banning the importation of seal fur and the French government banning ivory imports.

“Animals have never betrayed me. They are an easy prey, as I have been throughout my career. So, we feel the same. I love them.”

Here’s the bad part: Bardot has also had to appear before the French courts over the years for making anti-Muslim remarks. Partly she was protesting the ritual slaughtering of sheep by Muslims as part of the festival of Eid al-Adha. In the 21st century, she has faced French judges five times for allegedly inciting racial hatred and paid a lot of money in fines to the government.

Bardot denies reports that she is prejudiced against LGBTQ people, claiming her best friends, as well as most of the men working for her, are gay:

“Apart from my husband, who maybe will cross over one day as well, I am surrounded by gays. For years they have been my support, my friends, my adopted children, my confidantes. Homosexuals are human beings like any other with qualities and faults.”

But, in her memoir A Cry In The Silence (2012), Bardot writes:

“Gays jiggle their bottoms, put their little fingers in the air and with their little castrato voices moan about what those ghastly heteros put them through.”

Bardot is being honored on her birthday with an 8 foot statue in Sainte-Tropez where she filmed And God Created Woman. She moved in 1958 and has lived in a villa there ever since. The statue will live in front of the local film museum, Le Musée de la Gendarmerie et du Cinéma.

Now a recluse, Bardot will not attend the dedication ceremony herself, instead sending her husband Bernard d’Ormale. Nevertheless, she handwrote a note to the citizens of Sainte Tropez:

“With tears in my eyes, I’m writing to you all to say a big thank you from me for giving me this immense honor of a magnificent statue that immortalizes the woman that God created in Saint Tropez!!”

The post #BornThisDay: Actor / Activist, Brigitte Bardot appeared first on The WOW Report.

“If you remove all homosexuals and homosexual influences from what is generally regarded as American culture, you’re pretty much left with ‘Let’s Make A Deal'”

Fran Lebowitz

Photograph by Christopher Macsurak via Wikimedia Commons

The post #QueerQuote: Fran Lebowitz appeared first on The WOW Report.

Warning: Extremely disturbing details of the crime below.

Authorities have charged four people in connection to the grisly murder of 17-year-old Ally Steinfeld (below), whose remains were discovered in a burn pile near the mobile home of one of the suspects, as well as in a bag inside of a chicken coop.

Andrew Vrba, and his girlfriend, Isis Schauer, both 18-year-old Houston residents, have been charged with first-degree murder, armed criminal action, and abandonment of a corpse. Briana Calderas, 24, of Cabool, is charged with first-degree murder and abandonment of a corpse. (Steinfeld — who came out as transgender in May — was dating and living with Calderas. The 18-year-old suspects also lived in Calderas’ home, Steinfeld’s mother said.)

James Grigsby, 25, of Houston, Missouri, has also been charged with abandonment of a corpse and tampering with evidence in the death of Joseph. Grigsby is being held without bond.

Shauer and Calderas have told authorities that Vrba gouged out Steinfeld’s eyes, repeatedly stabbed [her] in the genitals, and later bragged about the killing.

Texas County Prosecutor Parke Stevens Jr. said the investigation is ongoing.

“It is a grisly terrible series of heinous acts by the accused,” Stevens said.

Ally’s sister Ashleigh Boswell told Springfield News-Leader:

“We honestly don’t understand why they done it. It just don’t make any sense.”

Boswell said [Ally} was “a very loving, outgoing person” who “didn’t like conflict whatsoever.”

When asked if the family thought [Ally’s]’s gender identity might have been a factor in the alleged killing, Boswell said they didn’t know.

If you’ve been following this story, you may recall earlier in the week Missouri authorities investigating the murder were not considering it a hate crime.

I’m sorry, WHAT?

That’s ridiculous.

HuffPo points out:

Steinfeld’s murder makes her the 21st known transgender person murdered in 2017. Transgender people ― particularly trans people of color ― face disproportionate violence compared to the rest of the LGBTQ community. GLAAD reports that 2016 was the deadliest year on record for the transgender community, with 26 reported murders ― almost entirely transgender women of color.

A GoFundMe has been set up to help Steinfeld’s family with funeral expenses.

The post Four People Charged in Grisly Mutilation Death of Trans Teen Ally Steinfeld appeared first on The WOW Report.

We’re so honored by this!

Last night was the 8th annual Sentinel Awards presented by Hollywood Health & Society and we were honored with an award for our documentary Gender Revolution: A Journey With Katie Couric!

According to the HHS website, we were honored with a Sentinel Award because:

“The Sentinel Awards recognize the exemplary achievements of television storylines and movies that inform, educate and motivate viewers to make choices for healthier and safer lives. Each entry is screened by Hollywood, Health & Society staff for eligibility. Qualifying entries are evaluated in two rounds of judging.”

Even though Katie Couric couldn’t make it to the awards, she sent in an awesome video (below) thanking the Sentinel Awards with the honor they bestowed upon Gender Revolution.

At the awards that night, however was Executive Producer, Jeremy Simmons, who accepted the award on behalf of World of Wonder, Katie Couric, Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, National Geographic, and everyone else involved in the amazing project!

Check out our pictures from the 2017 Sentinel Awards below!

Congrats @katiecouric and @WorldOfWonder for your #SentinelAwards honor for #GenderRevolution! https://t.co/BFYOfPvrOD pic.twitter.com/5oc5aU2q6e

— Nat Geo Channel (@NatGeoChannel) September 28, 2017

Here’s @solitarycameraman with our #SentinelAward for Gender Revolution with @katiecouric!

A post shared by World of Wonder (@wowreport) on Sep 27, 2017 at 9:36pm PDT

The incredible @katiecouric sent a clip to thank the #SentinelAwards which honored our documentary #GenderRevolution!

A post shared by World of Wonder (@wowreport) on Sep 27, 2017 at 8:54pm PDT

We’re at the 2017 #SentinelAwards where our documentary ‘Gender Revolution: A Journey with @katiecouric’ is an honoree among @greysabc, @sesamestreet, #BornThisWay, & so many amazing others! We’re so honored!

A post shared by World of Wonder (@wowreport) on Sep 27, 2017 at 7:10pm PDT

Thank you so much to the Hollywood Health & Society for the 2017 Sentinel Award!

The post Our Documentary ‘Gender Revolution: A Journey With Katie Couric’ Is Honored At The 2017 Sentinel Awards appeared first on The WOW Report.

Manila Luzon, Aja, Laila McQueen, Shea Couleé, Gia Gunn, Laganja Estranja, Milk, Trixie Mattel, India Ferrah, Kim Chi, Detox, Phi Phi O’hara, Peppermint, Acid Betty, Venus D’lite, Bob the Drag Queen, Darienne Lake, Jiggly Caliente, Miss Fame, Mrs. Kasha Davis, Violet Chachki and Sasha Velour answer the burning question of the day: “What would you say to President Trump if he came to RuPaul’s DragCon?”

A quick sampling of responses:

Says Laganja: “You can continue spreading hate, but honey, love will always win.”

Manila: “If he were to come, he couldn’t use any of the bathrooms and he’d have to sit on the other side of the wall. And he could kiss my ass!”

PhiPhi: “Go back to Party City where you belong!”

Venus D’Lite: “Sashay away!”

BOB: “If he was into it, I’d have a long discussion (with him) because he is either unreasonably crazy or strategically nasty. First of all, do you believe what you’re saying? Are you aware that you’re dividing the country? And do you actually think you’re not a racist?”

Darienne Lake: “I would have a sit-down with him and make him realize that what we’re really about is love. And you can’t kill love.”

Miss Fame: “He’s an ego-based demon and he needs to be nurtured every day by hearing his name in the masses. So he’s playing us and we’re feeding into it…”

And Mrs Kasha Davis: “First I would try to give him a hug, because I think that’s part of what he needs. He needs love, right? Sometimes we want to just attack back with hate – and trust me I don’t like what he’s doing – but I think if we look at it that way, maybe a little bit more love, maybe. I’ll have him over for a little cocktail or something like that. If we try to understand where they’re coming from – doesn’t mean we have to actually like it – try to understand with compassion and love from both sides, we will get somewhere else.

Watch all the thought-provoking responses below:

The post #DragIsResistance: What If Donald Trump Came to RuPaul’s DragCon? (ft EVERY QUEEN EVER) appeared first on The WOW Report.

I don’t know. I don’t get it. I didn’t even crack a smile during the David S Pumpkins sketch on last year’s Halloween SNL episode. Sure, it was “America’s dad” Tom Hanks just letting loose and being a nut, which I’m sure he enjoyed, but that’s as far as it goes. It certainly doesn’t merit it’s own special!

But Hollywood being Hollywood, they have decided to milk that one-note premise and give David S Pumpkins an animated Halloween special where he “shows the true meaning of Halloween to a young brother and sister (while obviously not answering any of their questions).”

via Deadline Hollywood:

Set for Saturday, October 28 at 11:30 PM ET/PT, The David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special is based on the popular “Haunted Elevator” sketch from the October 22, 2016 SNL episode. The sketch featured a pumpkin-suited Hanks as mystery man David S. Pumpkins, on an elevator with two skeleton-dressed dancers played by Mikey Day and Bobby Moynihan.

Also voicing characters will be Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage and sketch creators Day, Moynihan and SNL writer Streeter Seidell.

“It’s scary how quickly the original SNL sketch caught on, and we’re thrilled that Tom Hanks is back to keep the fun going,” said George Cheeks, President, Business Operations and Late Night Programming, NBC Entertainment and Universal Television.

Hanks will appear on camera at the beginning of the half-hour, as well as voice the animated character.

Set in a small suburban town on All Hallows’ Eve, the special centers on David Pumpkins and his skeleton sidekicks who show a young boy and his sister the true meaning of Halloween, answering none of their questions along the way.

What do YOU think? Funny or wtf? A new Halloween classic? Will you be watching?

The post SNL’s David S Pumpkins Is Getting His Own Animated Halloween Special, Of Course appeared first on The WOW Report.

In 2003, World of Wonder sat down with the late Hugh Hefner to talk about the beginnings of the sexual revolution in America, how he started Playboy as a response to the repression of the times, and his first exposure to hardcore pornography…

…And that’s just the first three minutes of this free-wheeling and far-reaching conversation!

Other topics include: The Playboy Philosophy, fighting government censorship, stag films of the ’20s and ’30s, The Kinsey Report, when pubic hair could finally be shown in Playboy, and a really funny Talulah Bankhead anecdote…

Watch below:

In addition to the Hefner interview above, Inside Deep Throat features scenes from the film, news of the time and interviews, both from archive and purpose-made, with director Gerard Damiano, actor Harry Reems, actress Linda Lovelace, Gore Vidal, Larry Flynt, John Waters, Camille Paglia, Dr Ruth, Annie Sprinkle, Erica Jong, Mafia money collectors, and other people involved or just commenting on the film. Much of the material was compiled from approximately 800 hours of interview and archive footage collected by the filmmakers.

It’s a fascinating documentary about a fascinating time in pop culture, and if you still have a dvd player, you can get a copy here.

The post WOWExclusive: Hugh Hefner Talks Sexual Revolution & the Founding of Playboy for “Inside Deep throat” appeared first on The WOW Report.

Adore Delano
Andrew Dice Clay
Anita Ekberg
Bryant Gumbel
Erika Eleniak
Gwen Moss
Hamish Bowles
Ian McShane
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jill Whelan
Ken Weatherwax
Les Claypool
Luke Goss
Natasha Gregson Wagner
Nathan West
Nicholas Winding Refn
Roger Bart
Robert Benton
Stephanie Miller
Zachary Levi

New music video link for #Whole9Yards now available in my bio.

A post shared by Adore Delano (@adoredelano) on Aug 21, 2017 at 2:51pm PDT

The post September 29th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on The WOW Report.

Caravaggio by Ottavio Leoni, 1621.

September 29, 1571– Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

The Husband and I have a fervent fondness for this painter. We stood in awe before his frescoes in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice and his paintings at the Uffizi Museum in Florence and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. A big book with color plates of his works sits on our coffee table.

During his short life and even after his death in 1610, he was dismissed as a populist. His paintings depicted insolent boys and rough peasants in the guise of Roman Gods or Christian Saints. The figures are often portrayed as if emerging out of darkness, with part of their faces and bodies strongly illuminated and the rest in black. He invented this style to get noticed. It worked; it works still.

Born Michelangelo Merisi in 1571, but better known to posterity by the name of the town outside Milan where his family owned property, Caravaggio.

The artist’s early works won him the support of Cardinal Francesco del Monte,  a sugar daddy and one of the period’s most influential arbiters of good taste, a patron who seemed especially appreciative of, and whose own tastes encouraged, the homoerotic elements of Caravaggio’s painting style. Caravaggio’s other patrons were as much fascinated by his realism as they were offended by his refusal to idealize his religious subjects.

He quickly became one of the most important and controversial painters of his era. His personal life proved as original as his art. His involvement in a series of street fights and resulting legal problems ended in a brawl in which he killed a man. Caravaggio can’t be definitively described as gay; that designation did not even exist back in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the painter spent his time in this world painting the male body in the sexiest light possible. Plus, Caravaggio couldn’t be openly homosexual in an age when you could be burned alive for the crime of sodomy.

Reclining John The Baptist, 1610

Still, in 1594, he met Mario Minniti, a 20-year-old dude, and took him home. Minniti stayed and lived with him for years. Caravaggio probably had flings with other guys, maybe the models he used for his paintings, but the relationship that Caravaggio had with Minitti is the only one where you might call them a couple. Minniti was most likely the model for his John The Baptist paintings. Caravaggio had a real thing for John T. Baptist.

From 1600-1606, Caravaggio was brought to trial eleven times for a variety of offenses, most involved violence. It is interesting that, despite his reputation as a homosexual, and his endless run-ins with law enforcement, he was never charged with sodomy.

After his trouble with the law, Caravaggio was forced to flee to Genoa, then to Naples, and eventually he sought refuge on the island of Malta, a place known to be friendly to guys who liked guys. There he was inducted into the politically powerful Order Of The Knights Of Saint John Of Jerusalem, which was not an indie band, but a secretive organization that protected him until another scandal involving a liaison with a male servant forced him once again to go back on the run.

Cardsharps, 1594

Despite his always being on the run, he always managed to go on painting, often without a proper studio of any sort. His paintings show that he was a man of profound religious convictions, of a humble heart, and with a fanatical devotion to his art. His fundamental ideas were always clear, yet he continually changed and improved his techniques. He believed in realism, and he always painted from life, dragging poor people in from the street to pose. He became a great realist by painting flowers and fruit, in a variety of lights, sometimes just as still lifes, but usually with street boys, probably hustlers.

While Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo both made their passion for male beauty explicit and put it at the heart of their lifestyles, Caravaggio lived later and at a time that was more perilous. Still, his art reflects on theirs. He takes the noble image of idealized love for male beauty proclaimed by Michelangelo and Leonardo and makes it dirty and dangerous.

Amor Victorious, 1602

Caravaggio left this world in 1610. His exit was under murky circumstances while on a return journey to Rome, possibly dying of malaria, but maybe the victim of revenge from the family of the man who he had killed in Rome all those years before, whose forgiveness he may have been duped into thinking he had finally won.

Caravaggio lived much of his life surrounded by poor and ordinary people, when other painters were hanging out with Popes and Royals. He painted for them and from their perspective. In the end, he was buried among them, in an unmarked grave. He was just 36-years-old.

After he was gone, Caravaggio was mostly forgotten, only to be rediscovered in the 20th century. Post-Stonewall Gay Popular Culture embraced Caravaggio’s work. Why wouldn’t we? His aggressive male sexuality, that refuses to apologize for itself, has made the images from his paintings popular again. You can find them in museum shops on tote bags, tee-shirts and mugs.

Only about 80 paintings by Caravaggio have survived, but some lost works surface from time to time. You might want to check your grandmother’s basement. The Calling Of Saints Peter And Andres was recently authenticated and restored; it had been in storage in Hampton Court, mislabeled as a copy. In 2011, a previously unknown Caravaggio painting of Saint Augustine from 1600 was discovered in a Jesuit residence in Dublin.

In his 1986 film about Caravaggio’s life and creative processes, queer director Derek Jarman presents the painter as the quintessential gay artist, the cursed poet with brilliant yet unconventional artistic vision and with an intense personal life that outraged society. It’s a great film. Look at young Tilda Swinton! Seek it out.

The post #BornThisDay: Painter, Caravaggio appeared first on The WOW Report.

Photograph from Minnesota Press

“Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique, and not too much imagination”

Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986)

The post #QueerQuote: Christopher Isherwood appeared first on The WOW Report.

It’s the celebrity feud nobody saw coming. The eternally elegant Lynda Carter and frequently problematic director James Cameron have become involved in a high profile social media war. You might recall, last August Cameron randomly critiqued Wonder Woman as an “objectified icon.” He then doubled down like a Trumpster this week in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter saying

the summer hit was a “step backwards” for female representation in Hollywood because, in comparison to his gritty protagonist Sarah Connor in Terminator, it relied on familiar tropes of sexualizing female characters to attract male audiences.

He told the British newspaper Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman was an “objectified icon,” adding that “it’s just male Hollywood doing the same old thing” and that “Sarah Connor was not a beauty icon. She was strong, she was troubled, she was a terrible mother, and she earned the respect of the audience through pure grit.”

Well. The original Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter, was having none of it and took to Facebook to tell Mr Cameron he doesn’t know WTF he’s talking about:

To James Cameron -STOP dissing WW: You poor soul. Perhaps you do not understand the character. I most certainly do. Like all women–we are more than the sum of our parts. Your thuggish jabs at a brilliant director, Patty Jenkins, are ill advised. This movie was spot on. Gal Gadot was great. I know, Mr. Cameron–I have embodied this character for more than 40 years. So–STOP IT.

Yes, Cameron. Just STOP IT.

Don’t fuck with the OG Wonder Woman, dude. She will clock yo ass.

(Photos: Pacific Coast News)

The post TV’s Wonder Woman Lynda Carter Goes OFF on Director James Cameron: “Stop Dissing Wonder Woman!” appeared first on The WOW Report.

Just in time DracConNYC tomorrow, I’m posting this absolutely fascinating interview I did Sasha Velour about a week after her historic Drag Race win, then promptly lost on my computer desktop. Whoops. In our far-ranging discussion, we touch upon her recent birthday, the multitude of projects she’s currently involved with, and most interestingly, the production of her drag ‘zine Velour. I hope you enjoy it.

James: Well, first of all, condragulations! I bow down to our new bald overlord!
Sasha: (laughs) Yes, it’s the take over of the baldies.

J:You just celebrated your 30^th birthday too, didn’t you?
S: Yes, on Sunday – on Sunday of New York Pride. I was on the float waving to people.

Well that sounds like the best 30^th birthday, ever. Right?!
It really was, I couldn’t think of anything better.

Then you performed that night in Brooklyn?
Yea, I put on a little “thank you” show to the whole community and used some of the performers that I’ve been working with for years. Along with Peppermint and Ongina and we kind of had a big celebration all together.

Have the other girls been just absolutely wonderful to you since your win? Is everything in the honeymoon period right now?
(laughs) Yes, it is. It’s all sunshine and rainbows.

And how do you think your life has changed since the finale?
There’s definitely been an influx of positivity and encouragement. I get the thing that people are really curious about what I’m going to create this year so I’m just driven to put stuff out there as quickly and as high quality as possible.

And speaking of high quality things you’ve put out there, there’s your magazine, Velour.
Yes, indeed. Velour, Issue 3

Issue 3. Can you believe it? I just found a copy of VYM, the first issue, on my desk the other day.
You did? Yes! We’ve been sending them to you every year.

Let’s talk a little bit about how it started as VYM and how it evolved into Velour
It started as a tiny little stapled ‘zine that we printed at a local copy shop using just the drag performers we knew and the visual artists that we knew. I’ve always kind of thought of myself as “the matchmaker” of this little project – so I try to pair up people who I think can create cool collaborative projects about drag together. And then I do all the layout and design because that’s what my day job was before I started doing drag full time. I did layout for books and magazines…

Oh! I did not know!
… but this magazine was kind of my passion project. I got to focus on this thing that I loved- drag- and I got to be a little more experimental and out of the box with the type of design I was doing instead of the kind of the corporate graphic design that I had to do for my job. And when we put together the first stapled issue, it just exploded. There was so much interest from both the drag side and the visual design side that we decided to create a fully, beautifully produced first issue. That’s the one I think you have in your office.

It is.
We ended up doing a Kickstarter for that issue. Basically, just friends and family and people in the community contributed to this really modern little publishing project and then it’s kind of grown a little bit every year. Last year, I started to learn a little bit more about my business fish qualities and I renamed it Velour. (laughs)

A little branding.
Exactly. So I think it’s just continued to a place where it is now – which I think is very… not just focused on the Brooklyn scene…. not just limited to the artists we know… but it’s a project that brings together all the people.

It seems like there is a lot of drag history in there. And a lot of just really thoughtful, interesting pieces… It’s not your usual drag fan ‘zine.
Exactly! We’ve always wanted to have something you could teach in classrooms as well as enjoy on the toilet. You know, the full spectrum.

I know that you have mentioned that (’90s-era drag ‘zines) My Comrade and Pansy Beat were real inspirations to you and that you’ve had the chance to talk to (their creator/drag legend) Linda Simpson. Tell me a little bit about that.
Yeah, I love that self-publishing and drag kind of go hand in hand because it’s the same idea of kind of creating your own world and not being limited by the financial limitations and just using what you have. Using the resources that you have to create something fabulous and treating it, perhaps, grander than it really is.

It’s also sort of a yearbook of the drag scene and in 10 years I bet you’ll be glad you have all these. I think they’ll be real collector’s editions.
Exactly. Yeah, it’s kind of cool to document drag outside of Drag Race, too. We have to write it into the history books.

So far, you’ve been publishing Velour twice yearly. Will you even have time to do it this year? I mean, I imagine things are at an accelerated pace for you right now.
I’m going to make time even if I lose sleep over it. The good thing is I’m going to meet all kinds of new people this year traveling around, so the opportunities for who can work on the next issue just multiplied overnight.

Is advertisement free? Don’t you need to compensate some of the artists? How do you subsidize it?
The good thing is costs are pretty low if you do it smartly. The sales of the issue can go directly to the artist. We take very little for ourselves just to make sure we can keep up with printing costs. The rest all goes to collaborators. You know, we have people shooting these drag performers on real film. So we pay for the development fees & all the materials. We do travel, we’ve had a couple of photo shoots where we have champagne and strawberries. We like living the full assemblance of the Vogue lifestyle for our people.

I love thinking of you as the drag Anna Wintour.
(laughs) I’ll take it!

Actually, you might be a little more Diana Vreeland…
There you go, yeah!

The theme of the current issue is “Sisters.” Tell us a little bit about the issue.
Yes! It’s about the idea of sisterhood in the drag world. I think the idea that queer people build their own families is kind of this magical bond that sustains us and helps us grow as artists and also protects us in certain ways from the kind of stresses of the world. So we looked at the way that people form those bonds. The way those bonds enrich people. The way that drag queens and drag kings and their brothers and sisters share certain things. It’s a nice entry point to talk about community.

It’s funny because when I’m doing Transformations, I start to notice little drag families around the country and how, like, there will be a little pocket of queens in Mississippi and they’ll all do their eyebrows the same way-
Yes, I love that!

I love how everyone influences everybody but it’s still kept in a tight circle of queens. That’s always so fascinating to me.
Yeah, I love that. I think they’re surface markers that you are a part of a tribe. That’s really beautiful.

One more quick question: Where do you see yourself this time next year and how are you going to change drag and what is happening with the future of drag?
Oh my God! Oh, just a small question. (laughs) I don’t know if I’m capable of changing drag but I definitely want to start some conversations about the directions that drag can go and the kind of conversations I’ve had with my people for a long time. I think that people are ready to talk and to ask questions and to argue, if need be in loving ways. I think that this magazine and the shows that I produce can help to do that and I’m excited to see how they can transform on a much larger scale.

Okay. Love it! That was very succinct!
(laughs)

Thank you, And next time you’re out here, I do want to have you in for Transformations. I would love to sit down and really noodle around in your brain
I already have, like, five sketches of your face.

Well, you basically just look in the mirror and subtract thirty years!
(laughs) I love it!

Thank you so much for giving us a little time!
It was lovely to chat!

Love you! Bye!
Sasha: Bye!

Be sure to check out Sasha’s booth at DragConNyc and pick up a signed copy of Velour!

The post EXCLUSIVE WOW INTERVIEW: JSJ Chats with Sasha Velour About Winning Season 9, Her Magazine “Velour,” and the Future of Drag appeared first on The WOW Report.

From Hollywood Boulevard, it’s The WOW Report for Radio Andy on SiriusXM! That’s right WOWers, World of Wonder Co-Founder Fenton Bailey, Executive VP of Development Tom Campbell, and WOW Report Editor James St. James have collaborated with reality TV guru and friend of WOW, Andy Cohen, on a weekly Top Ten Countdown of the things from the past week that make us go…WOW!

It’s a pop-culture obsessed hour complete with colorful diatribes, opposing opinions, and a dissection-like discussion that will make your drive home from work more fabulous!

You can now WATCH us recording the WOW Report in our gallery storefront on Hollywood Boulevard, just across the street from Hollywood’s oldest restaurant Musso & Frank!

We air TODAY at 4PM EST on SiriusXM, and again at 4PM PST (that’s 7PM EST). You can also catch it on the SiriusXM app!

Let’s get started…

10) Is Battle of the Sexes a Winner? 

Tom went to see the new film Battle of the Sexes starring Emma Stone & Steve Carell about the famous 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.  Battle of the Sexes is in theaters nationwide.

Skip forward to Is Battle of the Sexes a Winner? @1:06

9) Diva Doc – Gaga: Five Foot Two 

We discuss Gaga: Five Foot Two – Lady Gaga‘s new documentary that is currently streaming on Netflix. Is this Gaga’s Truth or Dare? Listen and see what we thought.

Skip forward to Diva Doc – Gaga: Five Foot Two @7:36

8) Two Incredible Edible Eggs! 

Fenton enlightens us on what’s going on in the world of eggs! Two big developments: scientists have developed a vegan egg called a V-egg-ie, and Taco Bell uses a fried egg as a taco shell in their new breakfast offering – the Naked Egg Taco – available at Taco Bell’s nationwide!

Skip forward to Two Incredible Edible Eggs! @14:06

7) Oprah Clocks in at 60 Minutes 

Oprah joins the team at 60 Minutes as a special contributor, but is this one-time media messiah as effective at getting through to the masses as she used to be?

Skip forward to Oprah Clocks in at 60 Minutes @20:47

6) Hot Doc: American Vandal 

American Vandal is Netflix’s new whodunit mock-umentary about a high school vandal who defaces cars by spray painting giant penises on them mocking their own hits like The Keepers and Making a Murderer. Watch it now on Netflix.

Skip forward to Hot Doc: American Vandal @26:12

5) Oreo Taste Test Part Deux 

If you’ve been a long-time listener of our show, you may recall us doing a segment last year where we tasted exotic flavors of America’s favorite cookie – Oreo – and tried to guess what they were. Fenton brought in a new round of fall-flavored Oreos for us test out! Who do you think guessed the most flavors correctly?

Skip forward to Oreo Taste Test Part Deux @31:30

4) Can I Be Me? Whitney Houston’s Heartbreaking Doc

She was a gorgeous model turned powerhouse diva with an even more powerful voice.  The Showtime documentary Whitney: Can I Be Me tells the story of Whitney Houston‘s extraordinary life and tragic death. Watch it on the Showtime app.

Skip forward to Can I Be Me? Whitney Houston’s Heartbreaking Doc @37:57

3) Teen Wolf Peen 

One of the stars of the recently wrapped Teen Wolf on MTV has had his nude pics leaked…AGAIN! Which one? You’ll have to listen to find out.

Skip forward to Teen Wolf Peen @43:43

2) Das Book: Soviet Bus Stops Volume II

From Amazon:

After the popular and critical success of his first book, Soviet Bus Stops, photographer Christopher Herwig has returned to the former Soviet Union to hunt for more. In this second volume, as well as discovering new stops in the remotest areas of Georgia and Ukraine, Herwig turns his camera to Russia itself. Following exhaustive research, he drove more than 9,000 miles from coast to coast across the largest country in the world, in pursuit of new examples of this singular architectural form.

Get Soviet Bus Stops Volume II on Amazon.

Skip forward to Das Book: Soviet Bus Stops Volume II @49:18

1) #TakeAKnee 

We discuss the #TakeAKnee movement in the NFL started by hottie Colin Kaepernick.

Skip forward to #TakeAKnee @52:42

Listen in at 4:00PM EST and again at 4:00 PST (7 PM EST) on SiriusXM! Or listen whenever you want on the SiriusXM App!

And be sure to give your ears the gift of THE WOW REPORT on Radio Andy SiriusXM EVERY Friday.

Do something this weekend that makes YOU go WOW!!!

The post Gaga’s Doc! ‘Teen Wolf’ Peen! #TakeAKnee! The Top Ten Things That Make Us Go WOW for Radio Andy! appeared first on The WOW Report.