The Amazing Lea DeLaria Talks Pop Culture, LGBTQ Social Change, and the Radical Power of Big Boo and David Bowie

July 16, 2015, 8:43 am

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This post was co-authored by Bryan S. Rosenberg, a doctoral student in the Sociology of Education at NYU Steinhardt.

"You guys didn't think I was going to be this smart, did you?" was one of the first things the ridiculously talented, warm and generous actor, comedian and singer/musician Lea DeLaria said to us when we met last fall in a Brooklyn diner to interview her for our book on the connection between pop culture and LGBTQ social change. Our response: Actually, we were certain you would be!

DeLaria's entire career is dedicated to social change. Her commitment plays out first and primarily through her comedy. She confronts language, taboo and politics in her standup. Also, as an actor, DeLaria chooses roles that challenge stereotypes and raise visibility. On the activist front -- to give just a few of many examples -- Lea was arrested at the 1993 March on Washington for LGBTQ social change, she has been an outspoken advocate for marriage equality and, most recently, she and some of her cast mates from Orange Is the New Black joined New York's Pride parade last month. DeLaria is an inspired artist, and the powerful connection between her artistic expression and her political sensibility commands attention.

We had a chance to catch up with DeLaria again last week to talk with her about the third season of Orange Is the New Black, her new jazz album House of David, and her sense of hope for the modern queer movement. (Our conversation has been condensed and edited a bit for flow here.)

Bryan and Lisa: Congratulations on everything this year! On the new season of Orange Is the New Black, Big Boo got her backstory (in episode 4) and it was incredible. We'd love to hear you talk about the reaction to the show this season and the reaction to Big Boo's story.

Lea: It's been kind of amazing, frankly. I'm a tad shocked by it because I'm used to being punched in the face for being a butch dyke. So I'm a tad shocked, and also joyous that people's concepts of what it is to be a butch dyke have changed so much. People are hugging me on the street now. I hope this episode will do for the butch world what episode 3, season 1 did for the transgender community: Maybe help people understand a little bit how difficult it is to grow up butch in this society, ostracized not only by society at large but our own community.

The tweets I get from all the young butches, the tweets and the Instagram messages from all over world, just saying, "Thank you, I've seen myself on television." I've never seen myself on television before. I've never seen a really positive portrayal of a butch dyke. And here it is.

It's been a complete party for two weeks since the SCOTUS [marriage equality] decision. Between the stuff with Orange and the SCOTUS decision -- as a queer person, I'm jumping up and down. And hoping to get laid. Hoping to get laid.



We don't know how we can follow that up, but we're going to try! How do you explain the artistic and the political space that has been created for these Orange episodes?

Well, first of all we've been fighting the good fight for many years and we've made progress. You can see that we have. You know at first we were just politically trying to gain our rights, but recently I feel that we've turned our attention towards winning the hearts and minds of people. And the show that I'm on, Orange Is the New Black, I believe has done more for that than my entire life's work. And that comes from the writers room, it comes from Jenji Kohan, and it comes from the commitment to what they're trying to do in creating an interesting piece of art and media that we want to watch.

So, personally, besides the big long fight that we've been fighting politically, I think there's been a cultural movement that seems to have changed the hearts and minds of people, and I think that's what creates that space.

I hope that it also does that with our own community, too. Once again, I gotta say, I still feel like Boo feels in that episode: that I'm kind of the dirty secret of the queer community. They would rather not see me as visible as I am. So I'm hoping that that episode will do even more than changing the hearts and minds of the heterosexist society at large but will also deal within our own LGBT community.

How does the rejection from within get communicated to you?

From moment one as a performer and just as a human being on the street. I mean there's this great line said to Big Boo in episode 4: "Well, what do you expect when you're the poster child for everything butch?" That's kind of what the community is like.

This is the most distinct way that I can put it: I remember being on stage talking about being butch at a show in Provincetown, and at the end of the show this big monster dyke -- she made me look like a little girl with a pink dress -- walked up to me and she goes, "Goddammit, DeLaria! Why do you gotta portray all lesbians as butch?!" And I looked at her and went, "Do you own a mirror?!" The whole line of other people that were buying CDs and t-shirts burst out laughing when I said it, and she got really horribly offended. But the reality is: Why have such self-loathing for yourself?

It comes from the fact that people in our community are telling you: "Listen, if you could just make yourself more palatable to the masses, you know, it might be easier for us to gain our rights." That's been something that's been going on for a long time. So I always say, it's the middle class, mainstreaming, assimilationist people that are involved with this movement that tend to think that way and portray us in a negative light. You know the ones I'm talking about: The ones that always go to every Gay Pride and talk about how we're like everybody else. Really annoys the shit out me. I love when they say that and then a six-and-a-half foot tall drag queen walks by and opens their butterfly wings.

In episode 4, Boo has the conversation with her dad about refusing to be invisible and that's the hashtag that you've taken up recently: #refusetobeinvisible. Can cultural visibility help make these changes within the community?

Yes, absolutely. I think it is happening. As we accept transgender people and nelly queens, we're starting to turn that around. I really believe that. There's still a lot of those kind of conservative queer people out there, right? But, I personally have felt a renaissance for being butch and nelly. It's happening especially in the younger generation, which I love. I find our youth incredibly active and political and not as complacent as they used to be. Back in the '90s somewhere along the line there was this attitude that kids adopted that was like, "Oh, I'm over everything. Been there done that." This generation out there now, they're fighters, they're warriors, and I take great heart in that.

So there's another line in the episode, where Boo says that her mother used to say that she shouldn't be a salmon, shouldn't always swim upstream. That really resonated with us. Have you ever gotten that message in your career?

Absolutely! Every step of the way in my career. Every step of the way in my career from every individual, be they agents, managers, other performers, producers. Every step of the way in my career I've been told not to be who I am. There was a time where I tried to wear lipstick, because lipstick lesbians were like the thing. And I just thought, you know, "Will it kill me?" And for about maybe a month, if I went on TV or something, I wore lipstick. And I looked at myself one day and I said, "What the fuck is this? Where the fuck did this come from? Why am I giving in on this? It's stupid!" It just felt so false. It felt so false for me to do that. I don't know what else to say. They slap me down and I get back up. That's why Orange Is the New Black is so refreshing. Not only did they not want me to change who I am, they want me to be way more than I am.

You must have heard that salmon message from people that cared deeply about you.

Oh yeah. Well, I definitely heard that from my parents. But here's the thing, and I think it's really important to say this because I think that episode 4 dramatizes a common occurrence in our community: People who are ostracized from their families and never make it up. It is a common occurrence. But let me tell you the other common occurrence that is my experience. At first there was great tension with me and my parents. But my parents listened to me. They didn't want me out of their lives and I didn't want to be out of their lives. And, they learned. They changed their minds and they grew to accept who I was.

I knew not to cross certain lines with them. For example, my mother hated the word "fuck." You could never say it around her. When she passed away I would say it in front of my dad all the time. But there were certain things like that. Like that's a no-brainer: I'm not going to swear around my mom if she doesn't want me to swear around her. But, I'm also not going to wear a dress because she wants me to wear a dress. I'm also not going to wear makeup because she wants me to wear makeup. I'm also not going to come home with the man of my dreams. It's not going to happen, right?

I get that I'm one of the lucky ones. But I just want to let people know, the kids out there, especially, that are dealing with the crap. I know, I dealt with it. But, just to let them know: Things can change, this can work out for you.

In the episode, sadly, Boo's story with her parents doesn't really have a resolution.

I think that's probably the basic difference between Lea DeLaria and Big Boo. Lea DeLaria would have gone into the room, dressed as she was, to say goodbye to her mother. And even Boo says that at the end: "I should have said goodbye to her."

Let's talk a little bit about your new album, House of David, which is such an amazing tribute to David Bowie. What has David Bowie meant to you?

I've had a connection with David Bowie my whole life. To grow up in the '70s like I did in the Midwest, you know, to turn on my television and see David Bowie in a skirt singing "TVC 15." Are you fucking kidding me? It was like heaven! Just the avant-gardeness of it combined with the punkiness of it combined with the, you know, guy in a dress queer thing that was going on. All of that. He completely spoke to me. In fact, he probably was one of the first people to teach me to be exactly who I am and not to change for anybody, including people in the industry. He was one of the first examples of that, I think, creating what you want to create and following your own path. So he's always spoken to me in that respect. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I grew up in this tiny little town in the Midwest. We'd never seen anything like that, and it was awesome!

This particular project of mine has been a pet project for about four years. I've been working on the arrangements for a very long time, choosing exactly what tunes to do, which ones spoke to me. You can do almost every one of his tunes in the language of jazz. Finally we whittled it down to the twelve that we ended up. I'm incredibly pleased with the results. I think the record itself looks amazing. The design, photography, the art direction -- it looks amazing. Without a doubt, the sound of it, it's the best CD I've ever put out. This'll be now my sixth CD. I'm just really excited that people seem to be downloading it. And, I've got my record release concert on the 18th of July at The Cutting Room. It's going to be a big show. So I hope people show up.

Can you talk a little bit more about how you think about the connection between artistic work and social change? It's something that's so central to you and your career.

Every major political movement always had a kind of cultural component. You can talk about comedy here. It's one of the reasons why I love comedy so much. We can go back in time and, you know, the feminist movement had Lily Tomlin and many others. Before that we have the hippie movement that gave us people like George Carlin and Lenny Bruce (although Lenny is more of a Beatnik). And, you know, what happened in World War Two to Jews gave us the rise of the Borscht Belt comics. And then we have to think about the acoustic guitar playing with the folk movement craze and again the hippie thing and the psychedelic music that came out this is as all part of the cultural movements involved with political concepts that have literally changed the world. So why wouldn't we as gay people have this, right? That sort of artistic endeavor with a minds eye towards creating change has proven to work very well. And that's why we look to our "dykons." There's a difference between a "dykon" and a "celesbian." I always tell my fiancée that I'm the dykon and she's the celesbian!

In other news of this busy past month: Pride and the SCOTUS marriage equality decision!

Two things that happened at Gay Pride spoke volumes to me. So I'm in my Gay Pride cart and we turn on to 8th Street there on our way down to Christopher Street and we go by a balcony and Larry Kramer is standing in the balcony. I was doing the Huff Post Instagram, so I took a picture of me pointing at him. But you know when I saw him I waved to him because Larry Kramer and I have known each other for a ridiculous amount of years -- since the late '80s. I waved to him and he waved back and honestly we both started to tear up, because it was such a big thing. I can assure you that neither Larry nor I ever thought that we would achieve what we've achieved in our lifetimes.

I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime. I never thought that what has happened in the last month would happen. And by that I mean everything I'm talking about Orange Is the New Black, I'm talking about the SCOTUS decision. I'm looking at a SAG award. I'm sitting here looking at a SAG award on my mantel, you know, and I'm me! Do you know what I mean? There has been terrific change in people, in the way people view us.

But then, on the same token, when I look at my posts on Huffington Post when I took over their Instagram, the hatred that was spewed at me and at gay people in general.

What did the SCOTUS decision mean to you?

I think we're incredibly empowered by the SCOTUS decision. Even the most apathetic gay, queer person out there feels empowered by this decision. I mean look at the attendance at Gay Pride in New York City. Look at what happened as soon as the decision came down. Look what happened on Christopher Street. Every gay person within a 300-mile radius came to Christopher Street at eleven o'clock in the morning. They left their jobs. They left, you know, because everybody just needed to be by Stonewall. We all just needed to be by Stonewall. I did it too. That decision has empowered us in a humongous way.

I had no expectation of gay marriage. I didn't expect that at all to happen in my lifetime. It wasn't until the last few years that I realized it was achievable. But I always envisioned that for us.

Unfortunately, humans are an enigma. You know you're never quite sure what a human's going to do. It's our job to remain close and tight as a community and stick together. If we do that, we win. We beat them every time.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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'Bosch' Is Binge-Worthy Watchable

July 16, 2015, 1:06 pm

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TV Review - Jackie K Cooper
"Bosch" (Amazon P{rime)

Some of us are late to the party when it comes to the TV series adaptation of some of Michael Connelly's books. Bosch Season 1, which has been available on Amazon Prime for some time now, is based on three of Connelly's Harry Bosch novels: CITY OF BONES, ECHO PARK and THE CONCRETE BLONDE. They are seamlessly woven into a collection of ten episodes that manage to capture the spirit and the sense of the books. And for those of us who love the "Harry Bosch" books this is saying a lot.

When I decided to binge-watch Bosch I did so with a sense of trepidation. Harry Bosch is a man of complex thoughts and emotions. Connelly has built him up over the years into a moody but mythical police detective. He is a man who plays by his own rules and goes through life with a mist of sorrow hovering about him.

Titus Welliver has the star-making role of Harry Bosch, and he plays it to perfection. He may not look or sound like your pre-TV image of Harry might have been, but he surely captures the essence of the character. He has the rugged swagger mixed with the soulful eyes. From this point on he will be the image of Harry Bosch whenever you read a new Bosch story.

Also good in the cast are Sarah Clarke as Harry's ex-wife Elinor and Madison Lintz as his daughter Maddie. The character of Maddie is the emotional core of the series. Harry's awkward attempts at parenting are in conflict with his prioritization of job over family. Watching his job win out time after time over Maddie's needs are agonizing to watch.

Bosch captures the feel of the city of Los Angeles and Harry's stilt standing house is perfectly lifted from the books. Add to this the jazz that constantly plays on his record player and on his car radio and you have the mood model for Harry's other world, a world that seeps over into his real one.

You can love Bosch even if you are not familiar with Connelly's books. It stands on its own merit. A knowledge of the books just makes it better. Connelly's hand is involved in the production of the show and it is evident in the look and feel of the series.

Some shows are perfect to be binge-watched and Bosch is a prime example. It isn't too late to set aside ten hours and go thru it from start to finish. Just head over to Amazon Prime and let it rip. You will soon be lost in the world of Harry Bosch.

Jackie K Cooper
www.jackiekcooper.com

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

8 Times We Wished We Were Friends With the Seinfeld Gang

July 17, 2015, 10:51 am

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By any normal standards, the Seinfeld four aren't always the best of friends to each other. But despite their often questionable morals, sometimes we just can't help but wish we were part of their circle. Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer are admittedly hysterical, and they're not afraid to tell it like it is. Their brutal honesty and misguided shenanigans make for a gang that we expect would be endlessly entertaining to roll with. So here's a list of the top 8 Seinfeld moments that make us long to be a part of the group.

1. When the gang compared hands after George became a hand model
Season 5, Episode 2 - "The Puffy Shirt"



While we could have harped on how fun it would be to make fun of Jerry's puffy shirt with the rest of the gang, this classic episode provides another great reason to make us wish we were part of the group: George's (short-lived) hand modeling career. When George shares the news of his new gig with Jerry, the two compare their hands in an attempt to figure out what makes George's so model-worthy. Then Kramer joins in, telling George his hands are "smooth, creamy, delicate, yet masculine." It makes us wonder how our hands would hold up against George's.

2. When the gang guest starred on Kramer's version of the "Merv Griffin Show"
Season 9, Episode 6 - "The Merv Griffin Show"



It seems like a normal day when Kramer and Jerry are walking down the street, chatting about how Kramer broke Jerry's blender making gravel - but suddenly, Kramer spots the old set pieces from "The Merv Griffin Show" in a dumpster. To the rest of the gang's surprise, they enter Kramer's apartment later only to find that he has recreated the entire "Merv Griffin" set -- and, even better, he starts pretending that they're guests on his show. This episode makes us wish we could push Jerry, Elaine, and George out of their seats to sit next to Kramer for an interview.

3. When the gang practiced a line for a Woody Allen movie
Season 3, Episode 11 - "The Alternate Side"



Of all the outrageous experiences that Kramer stumbles into, having a line in a Woody Allen movie is possibly the greatest. And of course, when he announces his not-so-prominent role, the rest of the gang all have to give their 2 cents on how he should deliver his only line: "These pretzels are making me thirsty." While George's exasperated attempt at the line, yelled out the window at the noisy New York City traffic, is one of the best, we feel confident that if we were part of the gang, we could top it. We'd at least like a shot at it.

4. When Jerry recruited from the gang to chaperone his date
Season 6, Episode 1 - "The Chaperone"



In the Season 6 premiere, Jerry finds himself at a Yankees game, sitting across from a slew of Miss America hopefuls. After flirting with Miss Rhode Island, Jerry scores a date with her -- but is disappointed to learn of the Miss America pageant rule that all contestants must be chaperoned when going out. And to make things worse, Miss Rhode Island's chaperone can't make it-- so Jerry turns to the gang for help. His only choice of chaperone: Kramer. We can't help but wistfully watch Kramer as the hilarious third wheel (until he hijacks the date and makes Jerry feel like the third wheel), wishing we could be part of a group where chaperoning your friends' dates is a thing.

5. When the gang debated what to bring to a dinner party
Season 5, Episode 13 - "The Dinner Party"



Without context, deciding what to bring to a dinner party doesn't sound like an interesting moment that makes us wish we could join in. But when it's with the Seinfeld gang, it's infinitely more remarkable. Mostly because George thinks it's totally appropriate to bring Ring Dings and Pepsi to the host. But also because Elaine finds the perfect cake to bring (the infamous chocolate babka), only to have it stolen by line cutters. And because the whole ordeal spawns Jerry's philosophical insights on black and white cookies. Preparing for a dinner party with the gang would be even better than the dinner party itself.

6. When the gang collectively cringed at Elaine's dance moves
Season 8, Episode 4 - "The Little Kicks"



One of Elaine's greatest quirks is, without a doubt, her pitiful, embarrassing dance moves. Described by George as "a full-body dry heave set to music," Elaine's signature dance is a weird mix of kicks and thumb gestures. Even better, the rest of the gang's reactions to seeing her dance for the first time are probably just as priceless as the moves themselves. As part of the Seinfeld group, we would be entitled to feel great about your own pathetic dancing in comparison to Elaine's. And that's reason enough to be their friend.

7. When the gang tried out volunteer work
Season 4, Episode 17 - "The Old Man"



We never thought we'd see the "Seinfeld" gang being charitable, but this episode proved us wrong...kind of. When George and Jerry find out that Elaine is volunteering to spend time with the elderly, they want in too -- but only to feel good about themselves, of course. When they each visit their respective assigned elderly partners, they all leave with excuses as to why they can never return. So much for being good Samaritans. We like to think that if we were part of the gang, we could have shown them up and stuck it out...or more realistically, quit on the first day with them. Come on, it's just a goiter.

8. When the gang made a scene at a piano recital
Season 3, Episode 14 - "The Pez Dispenser"



It's amazing that Jerry, George, and Elaine are allowed out in public together, given their track record for offensive and disruptive behavior. At a piano recital for George's girlfriend, Jerry casually places a Tweety Bird Pez dispenser on Elaine's lap, which spawns an unprecedented giggle fest. Unable to control herself, Elaine bursts out laughing in the middle of the concert, and has to leave the room. This moment embodies everything that your core group of friends should be: hysterical to each other, but unbearable to the general public.


Watch the entire series, now streaming only on Hulu!


-- Johanna Gruber

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'Happy Days' Actor And Big Band Singer Donny Most -- He's Still Got It!

July 22, 2015, 4:36 am

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Donny Most is hot!

The "Happy Days" veteran is taking his (musical) act on the road, and the timing couldn't be better. Ralph Malph -- the show's "class clown" -- is nowhere to be seen when Don takes the stage with the (wildly talented) Donny Most Orchestra. (Okay, maybe at the end of his second set... little surprise, the audience might see that infectious smile uttering the familiar "I've Still Got It!" catch phrase.) But, the "it" is much more than we ever suspected. What a (singing) voice!! What energy! Who knew? (Move over Michael Buble.)

Through the years, Donny (aka Don) has acted and directed, but his dream has never wavered -- singing jazz standards, and covering the likes of Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and -- his all-time favorite -- Bobby Darin. (I'm not doing a review here, but, if he comes to a venue near you... trust me -- run, don't walk, to see him perform!) Donny kindly sat down with the Huffington Post to answer 12 questions.

Everyone knows you as an actor -- most notably as Ralph Malph on "Happy Days." I'm betting most people have no idea that you can sing! I was actually blown away when I saw you sing at McLoone's Supper Club in New Jersey recently. Why didn't you come out singing in 1984 when "Happy Days" ended?

A couple of reasons. First, I was very focused on getting other acting roles. Roles that would help me break away from the typecasting problem that you face when coming off such a big hit show. Secondly, the kind of music I'm doing -- the Jazz Standards, songs from the Great American songbook, and Swing -- was not as much in favor as it is today. It was viewed as our parents' and grandparents' music, so there wasn't as much receptivity towards it as there is today. That changed when singers like Harry Connick, Jr. and Michael Buble came on the scene, along with Tony Bennett on MTV... and now with Lady Gaga, and singers like Natalie Cole, Diana Krall, Steve Tyrell and others.

I loved the story you told on stage about going to [show creator] Garry Marshall in the early days of "Happy Days" asking him if you could sing on the show. Can you share that anecdote?

During the first season of the show, Anson Williams (Potsie) had gone to Garry and convinced him to have the guys form a band at "Arnolds." Anson tells this story really well in his excellent book, "Singing To A Bulldog." After this happened -- and Anson was doing all the singing -- I set up a meeting for me and my manager to go into Garry's office to plead my case for me to do some singing as well. So I'm in there telling Garry that I had been singing professionally before I even started acting, and went on about how I thought I should get some songs, etc. And Garry's just looking at me, and listening... and then in his own, inimitable way of speaking, he tells me: "If I were producing an act, and I had a juggler, I wouldn't need two jugglers." I wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but it was clear that he didn't want two singers. So that was pretty much the end of that. (Laughs.)

You told the audience you have been singing since you were in your early teens. Did you ever want to be Elvis -- pursuing singing solely instead of becoming a successful actor? In other words, did you want to be a rock star when you were young?

I wasn't really interested in being a rock star. I was more interested in doing what Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra, and Sammy Davis Jr were doing... and people like Nat King Cole, and Joe Williams, and other great jazz singers.

When you put your act together, how hard is it to round up such a talented seven-piece orchestra?

I had worked with Willie Scoppettone about five years ago when he had put together a doo-wop show, and asked me to be emcee and also perform. We hit it off right away, and I really liked the way he had put together the band, and handled all the music. So when I decided to put my own act together, I thought of him to be my musical director and saxophonist. So Willie put together the players in the band and they are great!

You go out and mingle with the audience after your show. What is the most asked question you get from your fans?

That they had no idea I could sing like this...sing this kind of music...and why didn't I do it before.

How much do you perform as a singer now? How can people find out where you are performing?

It varies as to when I do shows. Sometimes they're lumped together, and other times it might be every three or four weeks. People could go to my website: www.donmost.net. There is a calendar section which will have the dates and locations of my shows. My next show is on July 25th, in Port Jefferson, NY (Long Island), at Theatre Three. We will have about five cameras there, and it will be streamed live on the Internet. So people all over the world could actually see the show live, as if they were there. So on July 25th, at 7:30 P.M. (EST), you just have to go to: MadHouseTV.cleeng.com. It's $4.99 a ticket and a portion of the proceeds are going to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's and Blessings In a Backpack.

You cover Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Bobby Darin in your act. I think you do the best rendition of Bobby Darin's "Clementine" that I've ever heard... and "Mack The Knife." You said you are a huge Bobby Darin fan so have you thought of doing a whole set of just his songs?

Thank you very much. That means a lot to me. And yes, I have thought of doing just that. I definitely want to do that somewhere down the road. It would be great fun. The toughest part would be picking out which songs to do.

You mentioned that you met Bobby years ago. Can you elaborate how you were in a position to meet him? How did you feel when you walked up to him to introduce yourself? Was he nice to you?

I was about 18 or 19 and I was going into NYC for a commercial audition. It was the summer, and in Central Park they had concerts at night. I heard on the radio that day that some band had to cancel, and at the last moment Bobby was going to fill in. So there was no way I was not going. I got done with my audition early, so I wandered over to Central Park and looked for the venue. I heard music and realized that they were doing a sound check and/or rehearsing. So I got as close as I could to the stage to see what I could see. Then it got quiet, and I realized it was over. I waited around and saw Bobby walking down a path with his son, Dodd. I felt funny approaching him, but at the same time I was so excited that I couldn't help myself, and found myself walking towards him. I tried to be as polite as possible and started to talk to him. He was very low key, and kind of quiet... but very nice. It was a tremendous thrill for me, and I'll never forget it.

How hard was it for you when they taped your last episode of "Happy Days?" And who do you still keep in touch with from the show?

For me, at the end of the 7th season, I didn't know if it was going to be my last show or not. I thought it could be, but it was far from being a definite thing. So it didn't have that kind of emotional impact. It wasn't until several months later that I had decided officially not to renew my contract. I speak with Anson, probably every week. We live about 20 minutes from each other and are constantly in touch. It's great! I also speak to Henry periodically, and we get together as well. Ron [Howard] and Marion [Ross] came to one of my shows about six months ago, and that was terrific! Ron is obviously a busy guy, and I maybe only get to see him about once a year but we stay in touch by email.

One of the best catch phrases in sitcom history is "I've Still Got It" from Ralph Malph. Was that your idea or the writers'?

It was my idea to say that line in an episode, but I actually stole/borrowed it from our director, Jerry Paris, who used to say that all the time after he would successfully get us to laugh at one of his jokes. I just decided to put it in without telling anyone I was going to do it, and everyone loved it. So then the writers started interjecting it more and more.

You have to share the great story of how you met your beautiful wife, Morgan.

Morgan was cast in a guest role on "Happy Days" during my last season on the show. I actually left the show after my contract ran out in 1980. I was smitten with her right away. Evidently, she shared some of that sentiment, as we talked a lot during the days she was on the set. We went out to dinner prior to the filming of the show. We continued dating, and got married about two years later.

You've been married 32 years which is an eternity in show business. What's your sweet secret to a long, happy marriage?

I think that I am very lucky, and that in some way we were meant for each other. Not to sound corny, but maybe we're really "soul mates." When I think of how a kid from Brooklyn (me) wound up with Morgan -- who grew up in Bel Air and Beverly Hills... all the circumstances that led to that -- it really makes me think that it was fate. 

Donny's Web Site: donmost.net
Follow Donny on Twitter: @most_don

Earlier on Huff/Post50:

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Why Trans People Need to Be Involved in Telling Trans Stories

July 24, 2015, 8:55 am

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In 2014, Jared Leto received an Oscar for portraying a transgender woman in Dallas Buyers Club. When the director, Jean-Marc Vallée, was asked whether he ever considered casting a transgender actor to play the role, he promptly responded, "never."

It is exciting to see our stories being told and winning awards, but should we be concerned that transgender people have little involvement in the story telling?

Jeffery Tambor plays a transwoman in the critically acclaimed show Transparent, a series that has brought national attention to transgender issues. This begs the question: is any and all publicity beneficial since it is raising awareness about transgender identities, or are there issues with cisgender people (i.e. people who do not identify as transgender) portraying a transgender narrative?

Whenever this issue of cultural appropriation comes up, a common argument is that writers shouldn't be restricted to writing their own narratives just as actors shouldn't be restricted to only playing roles of characters that resemble themselves. Art is supposed to transcend reality, not be confined by one's social identities. Additionally, most of these stories portray a (more or less) positive picture of transgender people. How could anyone be upset?

To be honest, I don't usually get involved in this debate. As a transgender person and a writer, I can understand both sides of the argument. However, after working on a project about transgender issues created by cisgender people, my opinion has slightly shifted.

A few months ago, I was asked to participate in a photo shoot that would highlight the beauty and vulnerability of transgender identities. Initially, I was hesitant since it was a nude photo shoot, but I wanted to support the mission of the project, so I let them photograph me.

Around the same time, I became a blogger for Huffington Post. Eager for content and article ideas, I asked the PR team producing the project if I could write a post for the photo series. I wrote a narrative piece about my experience with the shoot, and how I was incredibly anxious, but still overcame my apprehension for the good of the project. In the first round of feedback, the PR team said that while they enjoyed the narrative style of the piece, they wanted the article to be more about the project and a little less about me. Of course, this feedback was more than fair. Admittedly, I can be a bit of a narcissist. They also wanted me to mention the PR firm since they were the ones producing the project. Also fair.

In my rewrite, I added a paragraph about how and why the PR firm created the photo series. I also rewrote most of the piece to include the experiences of some of the other transgender participants. After all, I probably would have bailed on the photo shoot had it not been for their incredible support and courage.

I sent in the new draft, excited for their feedback. After a week of little communication, someone from the PR team sent me a version of my article that he had rewritten, claiming that his version was more centered around the project's mission than mine was.

In his version, the article was about how a PR team (with no transgender individuals) came up with a brilliant idea to start a conversation about transgender identities with this photo shoot. He had minimized the paragraphs describing the experiences of the other transgender participants to make room for him to explain his vision for the project. There was a part in the original version where I had talked about how nervous I was posing nude next to a Crossfit trainer who was incredibly fit, but was then comforted when the trainer shared with me his own insecurities about his body and being trans, highlighting why the idea behind this project was so important-to celebrate our bodies in a world that wants us to feel ashamed for our gender. In the PR guy's version, that moment changed to me confiding in him, our self-proclaimed "in-house cheerleader and quarterback" who said exactly what I needed to hear in order to do the shoot. (And I thought I was narcissistic!)

As I was writing my response to the PR guy, explaining why it didn't make sense for an article introducing a project about transgender identities to be focused on the people who aren't transgender (i.e. the PR team), I decided it was better to drop out of the project altogether. While I do believe that part of them sincerely wanted to help the transgender movement, their truer intentions had moved to the forefront. I realized that I couldn't continue to work on this project without feeling like I was, in some way, betraying my community.

The issue with projects like this one and Dallas Buyers Club is that the transgender narrative inherently devolves into a polite caricature. Especially now that transgender stories are becoming profitable, these "artists" are so eager to put their content into the world, and are so caught up by their own egos, that they usually don't bother to consult with an actual trans person.

I later found out that one of the transgender photo shoot participants had suggested to the PR team that it would be more powerful for us to pose clothed in some of the garments we were forced to wear before coming out, demonstrating the juxtaposition between who we are and who society demanded we be. Unfortunately, her suggestion was immediately shot down. They wanted us to be naked to show that underneath our clothes "we were just like everyone else."

The obvious solution would be for these projects to involve transgender people in the telling of our stories. Believe it or not, some of us are artists, writers, photographers and actors. Jill Soloway, creator of the Transparent series, has taken this step by hiring Our Lady J, a transgender woman, to come on as a staff writer for the second season. Perhaps if we continue to push back on cultural appropriation, we will be able to continue such progress.

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True Detective Star Colin Farrell on the Pitfalls of 'Purge Acting'

July 27, 2015, 9:52 am

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Tonight I'm joined by Golden Globe-winning actor Colin Farrell. The talented and versatile star of films like Minority Report and the dark comedy In Bruges is now leading an all-star cast in the second season of HBO's hit series True Detective. On the show, Farrell plays Ray Velcoro, a troubled police detective with conflicting loyalties who finds himself entangled in a bizarre murder case.

In the clip below, Farrell shares how he has learned to resist forcing too much of his own life experiences into a performance, so as not to make it an exercise in what he calls "purge acting."



For more of our conversation, be sure to tune in to Tavis Smiley on PBS. Check our website for your local TV listings: www.pbs.org/tavis.

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Enough People in the World Make You Feel Like Sh*t. Don't Help Them.

July 28, 2015, 9:20 am

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By the time I turned 30, I had written 17 episodes of an iconic television show ("Lizzie McGuire"), been nominated for two Emmys, had an agent, a manager and a size-6 body that I could cram into all sorts of fun outfits.

By the time I turned 35, I was near-broke, hadn't had a writing job in 18 months and was working the front desk of the spinning gym that I had formerly been a customer at.

"Drugs?" one of the clients asked me.

Had I been inhaling too much of the shoe disinfectant? Excuse me?

"Someone told me you used to be a TV writer. And now you work here. Was it cocaine?"

I handed her a towel and smiled. "Nope," I told her, "I never earned cocaine money."

She waited, hoping that I would spill my secret to my failure. Con artist boyfriend? Affair with the married boss? Pyramid scheme?

"Have a nice day," I told her, and helped the next client in line.

The years 2006-2009 were a vast wasteland of work. There was a manager who gave me the overall note "rewrite it for Ashton Kutcher." There was the agent who got offended at an abortion joke in a script and stop returning phone calls. My bosses who had previously hired me were out of work themselves. There was the Writers' Strike. A perfect shitstorm.

Still, I was lucky. I had just married my husband. I had insurance. We had a cheap place to live, even if it was in a moldering, mouse-infested apartment under our landlady who was a hoarder.

But I was no longer a professional TV writer.

Total Number of Writers Reporting Earnings in 2009: 4522
Total Number of TV Writers Reporting Earnings in 2009: 3166
(Source: WGA 2014 Financial Report)

I scoured the Internet for writing jobs. Entertainment Careers, eLance, Craigslist. I submitted bids, took writing tests. I scored a ghostwriting gig which had me churning out a book in eight weeks. I wrote a comic book for a Nigerian billionaire who took eight weeks to pay me $200 because he was waiting for investors. I wrote press releases for a bipolar business owner on a drug binge  --  he did have cocaine money, though always had an excuse why he couldn't pay me.

I felt like a failure. I probably looked like a failure. Let's just say I was a failure. But with every new humiliation, at least you're writing.

I continued to blog. I got a Twitter account. I got on Tumblr. I heard that a network executive thought I was "girl funny" but couldn't write for boys. In retaliation, I wrote a spec script called "Max & Trevor" about two teen dorks who just want to touch a boob. I didn't have representation. I emailed it to the last few people I knew, who patted me on the head and said nice job. I knew it was a long shot, so I tucked it away and went back to spraying rented spinning shoes. You'd think that people who earned enough money to pay $20 a spinning class would cough up $100 to purchase their own pair of spin shoes, but you'd be wrong. Instead for $2 they'd rent shoes, which were like bowling shoes that someone had run a marathon in.

My old "Lizzie McGuire" boss called me up and asked me if I was still doing "that Internet thing." During my years on "Lizzie" I had been blogging, and was always being dragged into meetings regarding Lizzie's digital presence. "Yes, I am," I told him. "I may have something for you," he responded.

The project was called "Valemont," and he wanted me to write all of the online material, as well as an ARG. I nodded. I could totally do that.

When I went home, I googled what an ARG was.

I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew that I had about eight to 12 weeks to figure it out, quick. I worked 12 hours a day. When the project went live, I worked 15 to 18 hours a day.

My boss sent my work to an agent he knew. He passed. My boss' assistant said she knew a manager who was looking for new clients. I got a meeting. The manager worked for herself. There was no fancy office, no plush carpets and walls of thick glass, no assistant whose heels clicked over the marble as she offered you a bottle of water.

She had read "Max & Trevor," a script I never expected anyone to see. She wanted to represent me. I said yes.

"Valemont" won awards for the online component. I was asked to speak at conferences at MIT, in New York, in Sweden.

I was still unemployed.

I worked on a couple of more online projects. While I had the contacts, my manager made me a deal that was much better than the one I would have made on my own.

I continued to write.

I got a meeting at a production company who had was waiting to hear about a show pickup at Nickelodeon. The show got picked up. The exec told us it was a long shot. The EP was hiring most of the people he knew from other projects.

I got a meeting.

The EP told me he read five pages of my script, then put it down, knowing that he had already decided to meet me. When he was done going through the slush pile, he told me I went back to your script because I wanted to see how it would end.

I got the job on "How to Rock."

"How to Rock" ended and then I got a consulting job on "House of Anubis."

I got an email  --  a producer friend of mine was reading my Twitter and thought I was funny  -- was I interested in appearing on the Brit List on BBC?

I developed with Disney Animation and Cartoon Network. I pitched shows to Amazon, to Dreamworks Animation, to Disney Channel, to Nickelodeon. I had a project optioned at Hasbro. I worked at Mattel on Monster High and DC Superhero Girls. A producer brought me a book that I adapted into a screenplay pitch that has a production company on board. I developed a movie with my old "Lizzie McGuire" EP and Disney Interactive. I punched up friend's pilots. I have a super-secret project that is about to be pitched that may have everyone flipping their collective lid.

But none of these things could end up happening. Because life.

There is an arbitrary line in the sand that we give ourselves:

By [age] I will have figured out [giant, important thing.

By 26 I will have figured out my career.

By 32 I will have figured out my love life.

By 41 I will have figured out my health.

This is a mathematical equation that is near-impossible to solve. Because all of the big stuff: work, love, health, involves hard work, yes, but it also needs a little bit of luck to make it through. (It bears noting that a heaping spoonful of privilege -- that I, as a cis white woman have -- also helps a ton.)

Total Number of Writers Reporting Earnings in 2014: 4899
Total Number of TV Writers Reporting Earnings in 2014: 3888
(Source: WGA 2014 Financial Report)

This is far from a cautionary tale. Partly because my tale is far from over and partly because there wasn't really anything that I could have done to pull out of the nosedive that my career took in the mid-2000s. It was a Rube Goldbergian series of unfortunate events that landed me in a dark cubby spraying rented spin shoes for the 1 percent.

William Goldman famously said about the entertainment industry that nobody knows anything. They still don't. The only thing you can do is do the work. Write like nobody's watching. Because chances are they aren't.

Until they are.

Anyone who says they've got it all figured out is just trying to make you feel bad. And there are enough people in the world who want to make you feel like shit. Don't help them.


This post originally appeared on Medium.

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5 Lessons I Learned About Writing from the Girls of Gugulethu

July 29, 2015, 10:47 am

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Sisters Sive and Olwethu in Gugulethu. (Credit: Kimberly Burge)

When I went to South Africa in 2010 to lead a creative writing club for teenage girls, I made sure to emphasize that word: club. I had never taught writing before, didn't have a teaching assistantship as I earned an MFA in nonfiction. I would not be correcting their grammar, nor assigning homework. Besides, how could I persuade girls to spend their Saturday afternoons in a writing class?

As it turned out, they did not need persuading. Every week for a year, anywhere from four to 22 girls showed up at a community center in Gugulethu, a black township about 10 miles outside Cape Town and a place where schools often lack libraries. The girls would spend a couple of hours writing, reading their words aloud, and listening to their peers do the same. I offered a prompt -- a word or phrase, a question, a poem or song lyrics -- to get them going. Then everyone would write for a set amount of time, whatever came to mind, wherever the prompt led. This forum was meant for the girls to discover what they had to say, what they thought and believed. It was a chance for them to hear their own voices.

I knew early in this undertaking that I would use the experience to write my first book, a narrative nonfiction account of these girls growing up as the first post-apartheid generation. South Africans call them the "born frees." The book would incorporate the girls' prose and poetry. That's another reason I wanted to form this club. I wanted to find out what they believed, how they saw themselves, their country, their generation, all in their own words. Then it fell to me as the book's author to make these girls and their stories come alive on the page for readers.
The lessons I took from our Saturdays together -- and from the time I spent with many of them outside the club -- traveled home to Washington, D.C., with me as I wrote the book [The Born Frees: Writing with the Girls of Gugulethu, W.W. Norton, August 2015]. Five ideas in particular carried me forward:

1. Listen.
I knew that writers learn how to write dialogue best by eavesdropping. That was easy to do in this case; I can listen to South Africans talk all day. The country has 11 official languages, and each produces its own distinct accent when English is spoken. Most of these girls learned Xhosa as their mother tongue, and English when they went to school, an education denied many of their parents and grandparents under apartheid. The girls would also pepper Xhosa words into their conversation. I might not understand what exactly they were saying, but I saw the ease with which they flowed between languages, the ways they were bridging their country's cultures. By listening to where writing took them, I also learned the deep stories they held inside and sought to tell. Months after I met her, when I offered the writing prompt, "I wish someone had told me...," I learned that Gugu, the bounciest of 16-year-olds, still grieved the father she had lost two years earlier, something she hadn't mentioned.

2. When inhabiting another's life on the page, honor particulars and reach for universal.
By the time I met her when she was 18, Annasuena had lived a life I could only imagine. She was born to a mother who was a famous pop star, who would be the first South African celebrity to announce she was HIV positive and who died when her daughter was 10. Annasuena grew up shuffling between homes and families who were sometimes not her own. She is now HIV positive herself. None of these experiences mirrored my own, and yet I felt like I understood this girl. I recognized her swings between bravado and despair. She rolled her eyes at anyone or anything she found ridiculous, as I did at her age. (As I sometimes still do.) When we were together, Annasuena would keep up a running monologue. She had so much to say, and few available to listen. I knew that feeling as well. Whenever I lost my place in writing the book, I returned to Annasuena's story. There I found my footing again.

3. Learn when to be a critic and when to be a champion -- of your own work, too.
Sharon, the eldest in our group at 20, took naturally to these roles. For a few weeks I asked for volunteers to read their writing out loud, until Sharon made it compulsory. This was not a workshop; the girls didn't pick apart one another's writing. But she wanted to see each girl own her work, her words. Sharon would be the one likely to push a girl to say more, write more, as we talked together in our circle following each reading. She could also sense when a girl needed encouragement. With my own writing now, I listen to Sharon's rich voice urging me to dig deeper. I also recognize the days when I need to hear her -- hear myself -- say, "Well done," for just putting words on the page.

4. Find courage equal to that of your protagonists.
I did not set out to write a memoir with this book. But I'm in the story, and so readers needed to know more about me and my life, why I ended up in South Africa in my early 40s leading a writing club. As publication day draws near, I'm fighting off pangs of fear at feeling so exposed. Perfect strangers will now know some very personal things about me. Worse, so will friends, colleagues, acquaintances. I felt these fears as I wrote sections of the book. I nearly cut many sentences in order to protect myself. But I had already asked these young women to expose their lives to me so I could, with their permission, tell their stories to others. I wrote about girls who have been raped by family members, who struggled through depression, who returned to abusive boyfriends. I owed them nothing less than the same microscope on my own life, as thorough an examination of my motivations and failings, my secrets, as I asked of them. Their bravery in telling their stories heightened my own.

5. Help another find her voice and you just might find your own.
Eighteen-year-old Ntombi hated hearing herself talk. She has a gravelly voice that can be difficult to hear until you grow to know and understand her. She held out longest against her friend Sharon's order that everyone read aloud. But over the months, Ntombi couldn't stop herself. She had things to say, and her voice grew loud and strong. Her hand often shot up first to volunteer to read. Writing a first draft, for me, usually feels like torture. I try too hard and force out words that sound nothing like what I would write. But like Ntombi, I had to overcome cringing at the sound of my voice on the page. I believe this is a book I was meant to write. So I kept going and my voice began to grow on me, began to sound like me. Some days, I even liked it.

At our first meeting the girls brainstormed for a name of the writing club. They came up with Amazw'Entombi -- "Voices of the Girls," in Xhosa. A friend pointed out how close "amazwi" sounds to "amazing." From the beginning, the girls of Gugulethu chose their words well.

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For TV's Funny Women, Younger Isn't Always Hotter

August 1, 2015, 9:13 am

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Young female artists hate being lumped together in the same category, as if their vaginas have the same effect on their art, like the moon tugging at the tides. In the words of Tina Fey, "Women don't exist only in relation to other women." But three New York-set comedies created by young women have something in common beyond anatomy. Amy Schumer, star and creator of Inside Amy Schumer; Lena Dunham, star and creator of Girls; and Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, stars and creators of Broad City have all expressed a similar sentiment: They're spelunking into their early adult years for inspiration.

If it feels like the gap between real, flesh-and-blood young women and the way they're represented on the small screen is beginning to close, that's largely because a handful of women in TV are creating honest, often unflattering, characters based on their younger selves.

Ilana Glazer has referred to her character on Broad City as herself "at the height" of her former Nicki Minaj obsession. In a roundtable interview to promote the most recent season of Girls that I attended earlier this year, I asked Lena Dunham if she thinks her character, Hannah, is a good writer. She responded, "In my mind Hannah's always been the version of me that was in college and couldn't get myself to sit down and actually do anything." And on Inside Amy Schumer, Amy Schumer takes aim at Hollywood and the media for insisting that young women be forever sexy and "cool with it," but also at the women who play into this stereotype--and she's readily admitted that she used to be one of them.

In part, these shows are about women trying to survive in a crappy economy, on their own terms, and finding that compromises seem to pop up like Whac-A-Moles. They're about the things that young women do to survive, to break through to the next level of their lives--where they won't have to remove pubic hair from gym bathrooms like Abbi on Broad City, or float from one unfulfilling relationship to the next out of some combination of anxiety, obligation, and boredom, like so many of the women on Girls.



The truly revolutionary thing about these shows isn't that the women allow themselves to be humiliated for laughs--that's nothing new. What feels fresh and exciting is the fact that these women don't spare their own kind. It feels like something is being made for us, by us, even if the image reflected back at us on our screens is not the most flattering.

Speaking to Rachel Syme for Grantland earlier this year, Glazer told an anecdote about an interviewer who asked whether she and Jacobson fight. "I asked, would you ask Key and Peele if they fight?" Glazer said. "And people have said, you were so right to tell that guy off. And I'm like, no, baby, that was a woman doing that interview. Women can put you in a box just as much as men can."

Inside Amy Schumer's very first sketch was one in which Amy (playing a version of herself), a male producer, and another young, pretty woman hash out the details for a "two girls, one cup"-style viral video. The punch line is simple: young women will climb to unimaginably disgusting heights for a shot at fame. "I definitely need more on-camera experience," Amy chirps. Schumer skewers the media for insisting that women be sexy and cool at all times, but also the women who play into this stereotype. The women who take the bait, and ruin it for the rest of us.

There's a telling piece of data from a report released this year by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, based out of San Diego State University. At 59 percent, the majority of female characters on prime-time, broadcast TV in 2014 were in their 20s and 30s, while the majority of male characters (also 59 percent) were in their 30s and 40s. Not terribly surprising, considering the film and television industry has never been kind to older women.

But Inside Amy Schumer, Broad City, and Girls offer a corrective to the assumption that women are at their most appealing when they're younger. These shows offer decidedly unglamorous views into the lives of young women. From a woman's perspective, youth doesn't always look so hot. Turns out her twenties is perhaps not the best time of a woman's life. Maybe a better time comes later, when the aftertaste of all the shit you ate during your twenties starts to become unbearable. That's the place from which these shows mine their comedy, and it's a satisfying reversal of Hollywood's insistence that a woman is at her prime when she's young and ripe.

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10 Things You Didn't Know About Countess Luann

August 1, 2015, 12:46 pm

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Ten with Tom
10 questions in 10 minutes

Countess Luann de Lesseps is one of the Real Housewives of New York City, a favorite and an integral part of the Bravo TV show. Every season there seems to be a break-out star, and this season I think it's the Countess. I had a chance to ask the Countess my "10 With Tom" questions. Here they are.



If you weren't part of the Real Housewives of NYC, which other franchise would you like to be a part of?  

Beverly Hills because I love L.A. and California.



You are spending the summer in the Big Brother house. Who would you take to the end with you as the final two? Ramona, Sonja or Bethenny?  

Bethenny, because she is so clever and Sonja because she is so much fun.



Celebrity Crush?  

Hugh Grant



Who would you like to see come back to Real Housewives of NYC? Someone that was a cast member in the past?

Kelly Bensimon



Quinoa or steak? 

I like to be healthy but I love steak.



Which comic strip would you like to crawl into and spend the day?  

Garfield, because I like whiskers.



Do you drink Skinny Girl when not being filmed? 

Yes I do. Skinny Girl Cucumber Infused Vodka is my fave.



Best neighborhood in NYC?  

Upper West Side, the parks are gorgeous



Have you read Ramona's memoir yet? Will you? 

I'm living life on the Ramonacoaster, but yes, I will get to read her book.



Money can't buy you class and what else?   

Real friends.



Thank you Countess.



Besides working on Bravo tv's "Real Housewives of New York," which can be seen through August, Luann's Countess Collection line of apparel is featured on Evine.com she she will appear on Evine Live with her newest collection on August 25. Her song "Girl Code" can be found on iTunes and Spotify. In the fall Countess Luann will launch a line of jewelry as well as infused vodkas. For all Luann info, visit luanndelesseps.com and follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @countessluann.

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'Boyhood' Is a Sitcom, Compressed

August 3, 2015, 9:14 am

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A few weeks ago at Comic-Con, a Simpsons showrunner revealed that the long-running cartoon would devote a Christmas episode to spoofing Richard Linklater's much-gushed-over Boyhood.

The Simpsons is know for its spoofs and skewers, and considering the splash that Boyhood made upon its release in 2014-- it was nominated for six Academy Awards, won the Golden Globe for Best Feature, landed on the American Film Institute's top ten list, won Best Picture at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards, was named Best Film by the New York Film Critics Circle, and has been nominated and awarded the best film of 2014 by almost every film critics' society you can think of--a Simpsons homage was inevitable. But plunking a version of Boyhood on a half-hour comedy is particularly fitting, because the acclaimed film shares a surprising amount of DNA with that little-engine-that-could: the sitcom.

Boyhood is essentially a family sitcom compressed into two and a half hours. An unwanted haircut at age eight stands in for the feelings of powerlessness and humiliation that accompany life at that age. A night spent wandering around Austin, Texas with a high-school girlfriend, ordering one more bowl of queso at a greasy spoon, replaces the sex talk. A brief shot of Patricia Arquette lying facedown on the garage floor, sobbing, with her new husband standing off to the side, tells you everything you need to know about the abusive relationship. It isn't too hard to re-imagine each of these incidents--with vastly different dialogue, editing, and lighting, of course--as a sitcom episode.

The magic of Boyhood is the compression of twelve years into two and a half hours. The film is like a good tomato sauce that's been simmering for so long that it's been reduced to its delicious, tomato-y essence. So much of what has attracted critics to Boyhood is its treatment of time as something that just happens to you while you go through the motions, shaping you into the person you're about to become even as you're too distracted to notice. It speaks to something about life that feels real and universal: where has the time gone?

But the very thing that makes Boyhood such a critical marvel is the same thing that we take for granted week after week on TV. Following a sitcom loyally over the years, you don't really notice the changes until you go back and look at that first season, and realize that Leslie Knope's hair was so much more yellow back then, and when did Jake on Two and a Half Men become a whole man? The opening credits to Roseanne's eighth season--it would last one more before going off the air--illustrates this gradual evolution as it shows the cast members morphing from their youngest selves to the present day.

The experience of watching a group of people grow and change over a long period of time is essentially the experience of loyally following a sitcom over several years. If someone were to compress a twelve-season long TV show into two and a half hours, the results might be just as moving and surprising as Boyhood.

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Actor Josh Zuckerman of The CW's Significant Mother Secretly Enjoys What...?

August 3, 2015, 2:13 pm

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Twitter: @illbezucked , Instagram: @zuckermanjosh
Josh's Website
Photo By Vince Trupsin.


I love this guy Josh Zuckerman. Not only does he have a cool name, but he forced me to look up big words that were never mentioned in my SAT prep courses. Now I can take these words and perhaps finally beat my hatchlings at Scrabble!

You're the lead in The CW's new comedy "Significant Mother". Describe your audition.

I was on location in New Orleans and had just finished filming my last scene in this movie. I called my manager and said, "What do I do now, I'm unemployed again." She replied, "Actually you're not. You just got an offer to play the lead role in a CW web series." (At the time, our show was intended to be just for the Internet). My response was, "Are you sure they offered it to the right Josh Zuckerman?" So I went back to the hotel and read the three initial scripts that were sent over to me and I believe I wrote back an emphatic "yes" that very day.

How long did it take from your initial audition until you officially were given the role?

Because this was a fortuitous instance where I was offered the role, I never physically met anyone involved in the project until the day I flew out of Los Angeles and up to Portland. That was about two weeks after I returned from New Orleans. I was really lucky to have our show land in my lap. It just happened to be that I had worked with the production company Alloy Entertainment in the past and they knew my work and knew me. In fact, I was told that before I was ever cast they had a photo of me up on their pitch board when they pitched the show to the CW!! I am fairly confident that had our show not initially been for the Internet, it would have been a lengthy audition process with callbacks and producer sessions and tests. Who knows if I would have made it through those hoops. So I am so thankful that it all played out the way it did.

Do you consider yourself a geek?

I am pretty geeky, yes. I like odd sub-culture activities, I am often socially inept, I wore glasses in high school. But I am a modern geek. Geek chic? I play the banjo (cool and geeky), I abhor germs, I play chess, I like 1000 piece puzzles, I am reading Harry Potter for the first time... And being geeky has become cool, no? At least that is what people assure me of. I feel like nowadays everybody I know has a smidge of geek in them. In other words, they have some odd niche or some obsessive tendencies.

What do you secretly enjoy?

I secretly enjoy being alone -- hiking alone, skiing alone, walking along the beach alone, going to movies alone. Do not get me wrong, I like sharing my life with other people but sometimes I really enjoy being as alone as possible. Apart from that, strawberries and peanut butter.

Share a story with us about one of your childhood family vacations.

Has anyone ever said no? I will not do that but just curious. Let's see...my family consistently lacks punctuality. I think my Mom missed the Pope once because she was curling her hair in the hotel. Anyway, one time we were traveling from Norway to Denmark on this overnight cruise-liner type ship. We drove our rental car into the belly of the ship along with hundreds of other vehicles. We walked around the ship, had dinner and went to bed knowing that we will have to be in our car and ready to drive it off the ship at 8 a.m. Instead, we awoke in our cabins at 8:10 a.m. with the command over the loud speakers, "Start your engines!" It was a scramble and we may have pissed some Danes or Norwegians off but we made it to the car and off that boat. [NOTE FROM AUTHOR: Josh, no one has ever said no to me because I'm adorable, except my hatchlings when I want them to get out of the pool.]

The Kyle XY and Desperate Housewives fans adore you. Why do you think that is?

Gosh, that is very sweet. Maybe with Kyle XY it's because I played a good loyal boyfriend to April Matson's character who happened to have a fun sense of humor. With Housewives, perhaps it is pity adoration for that long mop of hair. That and that my character in Housewives was emotionally damaged and sympathetic despite being a serial strangler.

Who do YOU adore?

In entertainment, I adore Ricky Gervais in Derek. His performance is unbelievably charming, funny and poignant. In life, I adore my girlfriend. She is the most adorable person I have ever met -- from her silly jokes to her cute teeth to her little drawings.

Motorcycle or boat?

Boat. 100% boat. Sail boat preferably. It is less smelly and more adventurous to me. Call me old school but I would rather travel a thousand miles over the ocean almost entirely on wind than a thousand miles over a landscape just on gasoline.

Did you ever think you'd be doing interviews when you first decided to go into acting?

Never even crossed my mind. I mean maybe I thought people would ask me a couple questions about world peace like I was a Miss America contestant but that is it.

Were you confident as a kid?

Not at all. I definitely used to lean into my shyness when I was younger. I have it now as well but I always try to push myself to make social efforts and overcome it.

Did you ever graduate from college? Tell us about Princeton University.

I attended Princeton for one year. I almost dropped out after the first semester because I missed acting but my parents convinced me to finish out the year and put up a play to tide me over. So I did just that. Eugene O'Neil (another Princeton drop out, just saying) characterized his time at the school as the three B's: Booze, Books and Broads. I think that most succinctly summarizes my experience at Princeton. True to its reputation, it is an amazing (and gorgeous) academic school with terrific teachers and classes and opportunities. But it can also socially be a bit like Hollywood's representation of "ivy league".

Significant Mother is shot in Portland. What's it like being away from home?

It is like camp but with a lot of homework. You make a new group of friends and share this unique time together and then go your separate ways once your parents (or in this case, the town car) comes to pick you up and take you home. It is exciting to be on location but depending on the project you don't always have the time to explore wherever you are. The other thing about being away from home for me is that you can lose track of what is important to you. You can lose perspective. That is why it is important to keep in contact every so often with your friends and family while away so you do not forget that your life is bigger than that project you are working on. Side note, Portland is a fantastic place to visit. The food and the natural beauty in and around the city is absolutely worth the trip.

Tell us about your environmental causes.

I am a long time supporter of organizations like NRDC, EarthJustice, Global Green, and Environment California. And I am also a big advocate of individuals doing everything they can on a daily basis to limit their negative impact on the environment. To me, it comes down to respect and awareness. When we cultivate respect for our environment and our resources and we become aware of how our choices can affect the world around us, then we can make choices with our pocketbooks, our voting books, our talking points, and our habits that help preserve our planet.

What was it like working with Ellen DeGeneres on The Ellen Show?

Ellen was wonderful to me. I had this bit non-speaking role and she came up to me after we had filmed it, thanked me for being there and then said that they were going to write a line for me. She essentially upped my role from glorified extra to co-star in one kind gesture.

Did you get to meet Alan Rickman when you worked on the film CBGB?

Oh yes I did. And let me tell you, he is everything you want him to be. I have a couple stories about Mr. Rickman but the most colorful was a night where I joined him and some other cast members for a drink after work. At some point the conversation turned to ice cream and the famous Savannah, Georgia ice cream Parlor Leopold's came up. We all decided we'd like some ice cream but Leopold's had just closed. Au contraire. Apparently Rickman had a connection to Leopold's so he called them up and they reopened for us to come in and have some sundaes.

Anything else you'd like to say?

Hi Mom!

Also, Significant Mother is a terrific show. From our co-creators Erin Cardillo and Rich Keith who wrote such hilarious and smart material, to our fearless director Tripp Reed, to our jaw-droppingly talented cast: Krista Allen, Nathaniel Buzolic, Jonathan Silverman, Emma Fitzpatrick and Jay Ali. I'm very proud to be a part of it. And I'm excited for people to see it. We premiere Mondays starting August 3 at 9:30/8:30 central on CW. Twitter @cwmother and Instagram @cwsignificantmother

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

On 'Rectify,' There Is No Cure for Solitary Confinement

August 4, 2015, 10:55 am

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HBO's Oz, set in a fictional maximum-security prison in upstate New York, used twisted, shocking violence to gain its reputation as, in the words of one TV critic writing at the time of its premiere in 1997, "the most violent and graphically sexual series on TV."

There are plenty of shows that have premiered since the late 1990s that might give that critic a run for his money. But the show that digs the deepest into America's troubled criminal justice system isn't particularly violent, sexual or otherwise. It's not even set in prison.

Rectify, created by the character actor Ray McKinnon, follows the plight of Daniel Holden, who is thrown on death row as a teenager for the rape and murder of his 16-year-old girlfriend, then released nearly two decades later, when new DNA evidence vacates his previous judgment. Currently in the middle of its third season on the Sundance Channel -- it's already been approved for a fourth -- the show is not your typical summer fare: slow, meditative, visually arresting, and with not much in the way of sex and violence, Rectify has hewn close to its core cast of small-town folk living in Paulie, Georgia.

The first two seasons dealt mostly with Daniel's gradual adjustment to life on the outside, as well as his family's adjustment to life with Daniel. In the years Daniel spent rotting in the confinement of a tiny white cell, his mother has re-married and and gained a stepson, who has taken over the family business.

Its current season is more explicitly about the difficulty--the impossibility--of living a normal life after prison. Prison, specifically solitary confinement, has robbed Daniel of the chance to live a full, meaningful life.

We hardly need a reminder this summer of the particular cruelty of solitary confinement. The catastrophic death of Kalief Browder last month--he was sent to Rikers Island at age 16 for allegedly stealing a backpack, spent nearly two years in solitary confinement, and hung himself two years after his release--has only added to the growing sense of outrage at the criminal justice system's willingness to throw lives into tiny boxes, shut the door and turn its back. Days before he became the first American president to visit a federal prison, Obama spoke at an NAACP conference, where he asked, "Do we really think it makes sense to lock so many people alone in tiny cells for 23 hours a day, sometimes for months or even years at a time?"

Speaking to a reporter for The New York Times, one former inmate who spent a decade in isolation compared his experience to that of a dog kept in a kennel. "Let that dog out of that cage and see how many people it bites," he said.

Social psychologist Craig Haney has studied the effects of solitary confinement for over 20 years--he visited one group of inmates at California's Pelican Bay State Prison in 1993, then returned 20 years later to interview them again. According to the Times, Dr. Haney wrote in his report, "The passage of time had not significantly ameliorated their pain."

Rectify suggests there is no cure for the punishment of solitary confinement. The body and the mind don't adjust when you put them in a situation that could never exist in nature. Daniel is a black box, a prisoner of his own tortured mind -- but the viewer has no access to that mind, just as Daniel's family struggles to understand what he's thinking and feeling, and how they can possibly make up for the lost time and sanity.

Daniel seems to be constantly on the verge of self-sabotage. On last week's episode, he fails to return a form to his probation officer, explaining that he just lost track of time. He takes a job painting a pool at his sister's apartment complex, where he's staying, and works through the night to finish. Then he ruins his work, tipping a can of white paint into the empty, sky-blue pool, silently watching as glossy white streaks run down its length.

Daniel is broken, and it's unclear if anything on this earth will be able to fix him. In that same episode, he compares himself to Humpty-Dumpty. "Who will I be," he muses, "when they put me back together again?"

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This Is What a Latino Looks Like, Kelly Osbourne

August 6, 2015, 9:24 am

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Querida Kelly,

As you can most likely tell from my byline, I am a Latina. I am also an immigrant. I was born in the Dominican Republic. My parents left the island for a better life, arriving in New York City in the winter of 1990; I arrived the following year.

Now, my parents -- like many Latino immigrants before and after them -- were not people of means; to say they struggled when they first arrived in this country would be an enormous understatement. Without a set home, they jumped from apartment to apartment, using the wonderful hospitality afforded to them by relatives, friends or friends of friends until, finally, they settled in The Bronx in an apartment shared by other members of our family who also arrived in the United States chasing the ever-elusive American Dream.

Now, my parents hustled. And I mean HUSTLED. They busted their asses for my sister and I in a way that I truly never appreciated until recently, as a 25-year-old.

My dad bussed tables, drove cabs and sold fruit. My mom balanced being a young mother and hustling right alongside my father. One of my favorite stories is hearing about how she sold yun-yunes, or flavored ices, on the streets of the Bronx. (Check them out here if you're not familiar with this delicious summer delicacy.)

Along with all of those hustles, my father also drove and still drives trucks. He drives six out of seven days a week, barely sleeps and only sees his family on weekends.

Now, throughout ALL of that work, these Latino parents put two daughters not just through private schools from pre-K all the way to high school; they also got us through college. And along the way, they provided us with all the resources they believed we would need for our future: books, school supplies, clothes, shoes and uniforms for the various sports we played.

They also managed to allow my sister and I to explore the many, many fleeting careers we envisioned for ourselves. We were Girl Scouts, swimmers, hip-hop dancers and even Jimi Hendrix-wannabe guitarists.

They did all of this while essentially working every single day of their lives, with no vacations.

Now, you were trying to refute Donald Trump. I get it. You really believed you were proving a point when you stated: "If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilet, Donald Trump?"

You really believed that you were being much more open-minded, much more attuned to the Latino community than Trump could ever be.

But see, that's the thing with microaggresions; you think you're being helpful, but in reality, you're not. At. All.

Microaggresions, defined by Psychology Today, "are the everyday verbal, nonverbal and environmental slights, snubs or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership." And that's what you did there with your comment. You insulted Latinos by conveying an extremely negative stereotype. On air.

And yes, many of us have cleaned toilets -- my mom and other members of my family have. But that's not all we are. Because, check it out, it's not just the stories of my parents and other working class Latinos. There's Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina Supreme Court Justice in the United States; Junot Díaz, a Pulitzer-prize winning writer; Jorge Ramos, journalist and author; Dan-el Padilla Peralta, Ivy League humanist who recently wrote a book on growing up undocumented in the United States.

In case those names don't seem familiar, have you heard of Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek, Eva Longoria or even Narciso Rodriguez? The list goes on and on.

What I hear when you made your comments wasn't someone correctly refuting Trump; what I heard was yet another person trying to comment on a community they have no association with. For you to imply, for whatever reason, that all of us, undocumented included, are mere cleaners, you put yourself on the same level as Trump. You showed us that you do not truly understand the Latino community in the United States. And the fact that your voice was heard, on air, shows the unwitting privilege you have -- just like Trump's.

If you were truly so opposed to Trump's stance on immigrants, you would have done some research and learned that Latinos don't just clean toilets. If you were truly so concerned with defending our community, you could have let Rosie Perez, the Puerto Rican host of the show you appeared on, speak; you would have listened to what she had to say. And it would have been OK to just listen, to admit that you could not speak on the types of jobs Latinos have.

Instead, you chose to refute racism with racism.

And here's the thing: Latinos are so many things. We're cleaners, lawyers, doctors, truck drivers, mothers, fathers, athletes, daughters, sons, actors, pilots. I know this because I see this firsthand in my community; I see this firsthand with my parents; and I see this because I am a Latino writer, adding to the growing list of roles my fellow Latinos are more than capable of occupying.

And if you didn't know any of this before, just check out the #QueridaKellyOsbourne posts now forming all over social media.

Cordialmente,

OS

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The One Authentic Relationship on 'UnREAL'

August 6, 2015, 1:18 pm

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Despite the recent, dismal report on the lack of diversity in the 100 top-grossing fictional films between 2007 and 2014 -- among other depressing statistics, only 30 percent of speaking roles belonged to women -- girl-on-girl friendship on TV is thriving. Broad City revels in its main characters' love for each other; the central relationship on USA's Playing House, which just began its second season, has been called "the most authentic female friendship on television"; Girls demonstrates that love between gal pals can be just as complicated as any romantic entanglement; and on Orange is the New Black, a solid friendship -- like the ones between Taystee and Poussey, Boo and Nicky, and Flaca and Maritza -- is a lifesaver.

Sarah Gertrude Shapiro and Marti Noxon -- creators of the summer's surprise hit, UnREAL, which just wrapped up its first season on Lifetime -- may not have been close friends before they teamed up for the series, a behind-the-scenes dystopia set on a Bachelor-type reality dating show. But their creation has added another entry to the growing list of TV shows in which the central tension is placed not on any romantic relationship, but on the interplay between female friends.

According to feminist advocate Rachel Sklar, female friendship is having a "moment of visibility" in the media. From Amy Poehler and Tina Fey to Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers, there's no shortage of famous women who derive obvious pleasure -- not to mention professional success -- from their platonic relationships with other women.

On UnREAL, relationship between producer Rachel Goldberg (Shiri Appleby) and her boss, showrunner Quinn King (Constance Zimmer) is embattled from the start: Within the first few episodes, we discover that Rachel has been hauled back to the set for another soul-crushing season of Everlasting only because Quinn has something on her: Rachel had an on-set meltdown during the previous season's taping, sabotaging the finale episode, and Quinn will only agree to drop the related charges if Rachel returns to work her smooth-talking magic on the new crop of contestants.

Rachel -- in many ways a stand-in for Shapiro, who worked for six seasons as a producer on The Bachelor -- is full of self-loathing over her job, which entails feeding lies to the eager contestants in order to manipulate their behavior. It's a job that, unfortunately, she's pretty damn good at. Quinn, on the other hand, is less scrupulous about the realities of her job, merrily handing out cash bonuses for "nudity, 911 calls and catfights." She's unapologetic: what the girls endure on the show "is no worse than what happens to them in real life," Quinn tells one horrified producer.

By the season finale, Quinn is at the height of her cynicism about love. She's been having a years-long affair with Chet, a married producer who finally leaves his wife and proposes to her--before she finds him receiving oral favors from a 19-year-old production assistant. In the last episode, she admits to Chet, "I think that I actually started to believe the crap that we sell here." "What?" he replies. She looks at him squarely. "Love."

Except there is one final affirmation of true love left in the finale, and it's not between the bachelor -- or "suitor," as Everlasting calls him -- and his betrothed. Laying on cushy lawn chairs after the season has wrapped, Quinn pours Champagne for herself and Rachel, who's been crushed by heartbreak herself: In the penultimate episode, she and suitor Adam plan to run away together, only to have Quinn once again interfere and nix their plans. "Love is swell," Quinn tells a morose Rachel, "but it's not something you build a life around."

Then, we finally get the honest declaration of love we've been waiting all season for. Chin quivering, eyes filling with tears, Rachel looks over at Quinn and says, "I love you. You know that, right?" Quinn looks away. "I love you too," she mutters, glancing briefly at Rachel before lying back down on the lawn chair. "Weirdo." The camera pans to an overhead shot of the two of them lying side by side, miserable fools in love. Their friendship may not be made of rainbows and kittens -- it's certainly not healthy -- but it's their anchor, the only real thing in a world of manufactured love.

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Being a Freak on 'America's Got Talent'

August 7, 2015, 10:11 am

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Many times as a kid I watched contestants as they were harshly critiqued on shows like "American Idol" or "America's Got Talent," and told myself, "I would probably kill myself if that was me." This past Tuesday, it was me.

Growing up in a Persian-American, single-parent home I learned early on that fitting in to the small, conservative, Southern town where I grew up just wasn't in the deck for me. I ran to New York City and found a haven in this beautiful, gender non-conforming, queer, art, nightlife scene where everyone was a kid feeling like they fit into something for the first time. Nightlife really was kind to me as it allowed me a paycheck, artistic learning grounds, a place to explore my sexuality and learn about celebrating queer culture. Quickly I rose from performer to scene king to event producer and was starting to get opportunities to be in magazines, including Paper, Interview and Italian Vanity Fair, as well as appearing in commercials. I was like, "Wow, it's true, just be yourself and fight for your individuality and life can be rewarding" -- which it still is, by the way!

Not only was I able to be celebrated for choosing to be myself, I got the chance to share my story with great platforms such as The Huffington Post, where I partook in a queer art's weekly column written by JamesMichael Nichols. After our interview was published, James wrote me that a producer from "America's Got Talent" was interested in having me "audition" for the show.

I had been asked to be on the show a year earlier by a former producer, but graciously declined; I had fears because a couple artists from my community, Narcisister and Leonid The Magnificent, had been on the show and were not treated so nicely. This time around I decided to speak up to the producer about my concern. I thought someone finding me through a series about queer nightlife definitely had to be somewhat open minded to the issues. I had a great conversation with the producer who assured me the show was not about bullying any longer and that was not what America wanted to see. I felt good and decided to be a contestant on "America's Got Talent."

For the next year, I had great emails with this very polite producer and was asked to film for the show's intros as well as the producer auditions, which are a preliminary round of auditions to decide which acts will go before the judges. Everyone was being super cool and I was feeling really good about this move.

The day came for my audition on the first televised round in front of a live audience and the judges in all their glory. My mom and sister flew in, and my fiancee coordinated the dancers and joined me on stage. It was a chance to share my artistry with the world and prove to my loved ones that I could take my art to the next level, even if I didn't pass this round.

In full, amazing looking and amazingly uncomfortable stage look, I waited through 10 hours on set. During interviews, I was really excited to share my story and struggles with growing up and self acceptance but the producer wouldn't let me be serious. When she said to keep it fun, I felt for the first time that this could be a trap. The producers kept me for the last performance of the day, it was all or nothing at this point.



My first act was never televised. Howard Stern and Howie Mandel really liked me, and although I complimented Heidi Klum on her NYC Halloween parties, she felt my voice was not there. Mel B was on the fence. At this point, jokes started about my hair and outfit, which I can take. But when I mentioned that one of the dancers, Anna, was my fiancee, Howie started making fun of our relationship and asked if her parents had met me. Anna replied that her parents had met me, love me and are very proud of me. The audience quit laughing and applauded, which was a great moment.

During the vote, Heidi said no. Howie said yes, he thought what I do is "funny and weird in a Tiny Tim kind of way, which isn't bad." Howard said YES, he wants to see me in bigger and crazier outfits, and swing vote Mel B said yes. It was awesome! After putting so much effort and really having to defend myself on stage it was a victory.

Receiving a "yes" from the majority of the judges does not mean that you will make it to the next round. It is really up to the producers. I was told I would be notified in a couple of months. After much anticipation I was sent a generalized email explaining that I would not be sent to the next round. I was disappointed but at least felt good for having made it so far.

A week later, I receive an email from a producer asking if I was still available for the Judgement Week cuts. I dropped everything I had going on and said YES, I would make it work. By the time production approved a song, I only had one week to prepare. I reached out to my friend Lily Maase and she was able to get a tight band together. After finding talented dancers and of course looks for everyone, I quit panicking and thought okay, we can do this! NYC is an amazing place among artists and the kids had my back, as they say.

To arrive on set by 9 a.m., my fiancee began doing hair for the dancers and band 14 hours earlier while I traveled back and forth from set filming interviews with the team. (Major props to Anna!) We left our home at 7 a.m. in full looks to travel the long distance to set on no sleep. I was grateful that this time, "AGT" sent a van because for the first round, I paid $500 out of pocket to transport myself, the dancers, our props, and my family to and from set in New Jersey during a blizzard. ("AGT" compensates performers solely in exposure.)

I arrived to the more intimate set and noticed the stage was awesomely designed. The audience was a bit smaller than the first taping, but really looked excited. The producers agreed on "You Spin Me Right Round" and I was ready to spin on that stage! Between makeup and costume time before we had to arrive on set, plus me having been to this set to tape the day before, it already felt like the day was over though it was really just beginning.

In the first audition, they had me meet with a vocal coach and had a tech rehearsal before my performance. This time, the team said they did not have time for it. My fear started to kick in because playing with a live band and dancers, singing live and wearing long cape, I knew that a performance without a tech rehearsal would be a disaster. I put my foot down. I was not going to step on that stage unless they at least gave us a tech rehearsal. The producers made 10 minutes for me to get the band with equipment, dancers, instruments and myself in place.

After this we were sent back to holding to be extras in B roll shots for other performers. My nerves were definitely kicking in. I had this gut feeling that it really didn't at this point matter to the producers if I did well or not although I was still very much so grateful for the opportunity to be part of the show.

Being a NYC performer, I'm used to things falling, instruments not working, etc., so I knew I could make this work. As I came down the steep glass stairs everyone was clapping strongly; the "clap signs" I am told by my friends were on at this point. What an entrance, what a welcome. But one thing was wrong. Howard kept calling me by a name other than my own. The first time I thought this was a joke; after the third time I realized something was off. Also Howie kept saying this guy is really funny, wait till you see. After telling Howard that my name is Kayvon, he asked production what sheet they were on and boom, papers ruffle and it felt like one of those Disney movies where a curse is put on a kingdom and the mood changes.



I'm asked a couple questions, I cue my crew and get to it. We were full on and I gave it my all! At the end of the performance I noticed three X's which I did not hear during my performance. At the first audition I was X-ed, it was so loud I could hear it, but with the live band and not having proper monitor placement, levels and sounds were all over the place. I could barely hear myself let alone the three buzzers. I had a feeling at this point it was going to take a turn for the worst as the surprise guest judge for the night was Piers Morgan.

The judges critiqued and they were definitely out for blood. I knew this was a part of the competition and the producer with whom I'd been working told me before I went on to defend myself to the judges and fight to go to lives no matter what happened. When Howie told me I was a horrible pianist, I did this very thing and played. I knew my piano skills were something I could prove, as vocal timbre, genre and performance style are all subjective. Although the audience loved it, Howie insisted I was merely a comedy act and smashed the fourth buzzer, ending the competition for me.

After mean and petty banter I thanked the judges and decided to walk off and Howard asked me to come back. Howard told me he thought I was like Alice Cooper or Marilyn Manson, although he thinks they're talented and I am not. The conversation shifted to Howie again insisting I can't possibly take myself seriously. I referenced artists including Madonna and Lady Gaga, whom I believe are talented artists who don't take themselves too seriously, and said I am similar in that regard. Anything I had said at this point would have been booed, it was clear. The audience is taught ahead of time to cheer or boo.

I tried to get some constructive criticism from the judges. I told Mel specifically I had always felt the need to work on my voice and took six years of lessons. I asked her what she didn't like about my voice; I asked her if it was my pitch, my tone, if I was sharp or flat. Howie challenged us to a sing off. Everyone laughed but she didn't reply. I told Mel that I thought she was talented, and ha a great career, but that she was no Whitney Houston. I do not feel that Mel is one of the best singers in the world, nor do I feel this way about myself.

At this point, Piers called me a little brat. It all felt like school yard bullying. I realized everything the producers promised me in the beginning wasn't a reality. My mic was cut off so I couldn't defend myself any more, and I just walked off the stage with my head still high. As soon as I got off the stage a woman approached me saying she was the in house psychiatrist and she is worried about me. I'm not sure why, but this hit me so hard. Was it exhaustion? Was it that I had been ganged up on by a live studio audience whose behavior was instructed by judges and producers? I started crying like I hadn't in years except when I lost my dog. I felt so used and manipulated. I tried so hard to be respectful yet everything coming out of my mouth was treated like I had no right to speak. Cameras are still rolling although I asked them kindly to let me be as I was hurting. This is actually normal of reality television; I have seen many shows were cameras just won't leave unless you are heading for the rest room. After about an hour with the psychiatrist and with the producer I realize it is time to put on my big boy underwear and just head home and thank my team for standing with me.

The next day I collected my thoughts and I sent an email to the producers:

Yesterday definitely ranks in one of the most hurtful experiences in my adulthood. When I was contacted by Brian Updyke initially, reminder I didn't reach out to you guys, I was very vocal about how "AGT" was not the kind of show that I wanted to part take in as I dealt with a lot of bullying growing up. Brian reassured me that the show was no longer mean spirited as that was not what America wanted to see any longer. He mentioned the voice, which you guys should really learn from as they make amazing tv without having to hurt ppl and bully them. To know I was setup to fail, ppll being told to clap, and boo on command, knowing that obviously my storyline was to be humiliated and made a mockery of. To see me in tears as I was told to leave the stage and having cameras follow me as I ask them kindly to let me be was horrible. I still can't fathom how this company puts their head to rest at night. I put so much effort and the little money I had into this hoping it could be a platform, but instead my efforts, hopes, and hard work were scripted to be used in a way to make me appear as I have no talent. Why target eccentric ppl like myself in the LGBT community to appear as clowns and bully them with forced crowd response and scripted hate? Why not have someone like myself or from the community be shown in a positive light, bc clearly you guys think it's more profitable to laugh at ppl who struggle to remain true to themselves than to encourage and embrace their spirit. Not really sure what there is to stay in touch about. You know how I feel, u saw a grown man and his partner in tears last night. I think it's apparent how I feel.

I reached out again after a week because I hadn't gotten any response, and the producer reiterated to me that "AGT" is not about ruining people's lives. After a few weeks, the season finally premiered, but my first (more positive) audition was nowhere to be found. The producer promised I'd be happy with the edit of my second performance; that I had performed and come across great in the episode. Every week, the social media team emailed reminding all performers never to say anything negative about the judges.

On Tuesday night, I was very nervous, excited and kind of sad but I really hoped that it was going to be good for me. Finally my segment started, "Vogue" by Madonna is playing. Like any queer artist, I love Madonna. I thought awesome, my theatrics and fun are really coming through! Then I heard the band and my vocals. I knew here that it was going to go left. My performance was edited down, my piano volume was brought down and edited to just a couple of scales. The response of my eyes to the buzzer was faked; I never even heard it, but they had edited everything so amazingly that I was starting to doubt my own vision.

I watched the judges' deliberations and kept being that person who is on a reality show and telling myself, "Wait, I never said that when this person said that to me." Mel never said that here, Howie never commented on that, Howard said that later. Lastly, Piers calls me #obnoxiouslittlebrat and the hashtag is shared on TV. Immediately the hate starts. I am receiving death threats, harassment, being told how ugly I am, how much I suck -- you name it. (My social media is still full of hate as I write this.) Then I received an email from their social media person, "Your video is up"! I click and the title is "Obnoxious musician Kayvon Zand ..." I am in shock. What happened to the whole we are not about bullying anymore, we want to help people, you will be happy with your edit? I could not believe how gullible I had been. With the "AGT" staff, including on air personalities pushing this bullying hashtag, it's been made out that I deserve all this hate.



In the long run, my career and ego don't matter. What really hurts is the message America sends with shows of this nature: if you are weird, if you're not a celebrity or person of privilege, your opinion holds no value next to theirs. Why scout a person from a minority group that's already second class citizens in America? The question is really about what someone like myself represents in our society. Many hate comments have questioned why I even got this far in the competition, and the ugly truth is that as long as others can celebrate their lives by laughing at me, I have value. The producers knew from the beginning that I don't live my life by the gender norm and I cannot take this off when I leave the stage to blend in and be a normal person and that life in general is a struggle because of this.

Yesterday I received a phone call from the head of social media giving me what he arrogantly referred to as a "hand out." I was told that if I made a video apologizing to Mel B, mentioning that she was in one of the greatest girl groups of all time that they would put the video up as a way to redeem myself. A producer has confirmed to me that the show is scripted, and told me not to think of is as a talent show, but a game show. I didn't go in with the intention of playing games. I decided not to film their apology video, and instead come to the Huffington Post as a new blogger to tell my story! I also recorded a response track this morning called "U Ain't Better Than Whitney" in which I say I'm gonna stand up. I would rather stand as a freak than be a heartless celebrity judge or producer on a "game show" called "America's Got Talent."

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After Jon Stewart, Can We Find the Funny?

August 7, 2015, 11:10 am

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I had a colleague at Chicago Theological Seminary, Dr. Phil Anderson, who used to teach a class called "Humor as Healing and Grace." The premise of the class was that the world hurts and harms us so much that finding the funny, finding the humor, is crucial for finding a spiritual center and healing from these wounds.

Last night, at the end of his last "Daily Show" program on Comedy Central, Jon Stewart told his audience and viewers that they were the ones who had to carry on the work of finding the humor in the hypocrisy of the world. The world shovels out a lot of bad smelling hypocrisy (Stewart used a pithier metaphor), and it is now the job of everyone to sniff that out. "If you smell something, say something," Stewart instructed, at the same time ridiculing the paranoid security culture in which we all now live.

Can we do it? Somehow, we must. Comedy is essential to combating the true soul poison of a constant barrage of bad smelling hypocrisy and outright lies.

On MSNBC, John Fugelsang, comedian and radio host of Sirius/XM's Tell Me Everything observed to host Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, that what has made Stewart's comedy great is truth. "If there's not an element of truth to a joke, people won't laugh. That's why people trust comics more than journalists or politicians." Fugelsang himself remarkably combines political and cultural critique, humor and what I can only call the 'real politics of Jesus.' One of Fugelsang's favorite lines is, "Jesus never called the poor 'lazy,' fought for tax cuts for the wealthiest Nazarenes or asked a leper for a copay." Fugelsang is finding humor as healing and grace, in the same way Dr. Anderson taught.

But did Jesus do comedy?

Though it is actually never recorded in scripture that Jesus laughed, the Gospels do say that he cried. The Buddha, on the other hand, is said to have laughed all the time. In between these religious poles lies the truth of the human condition. There is plenty of cause for mourning in human life, but sometimes the best thing you can do to puncture your own inflated sense of self-worth is to laugh. Jesus and the Buddha knew about good and evil--and that makes laughter and tears part of the same religious response.

But what will we do without Jon Stewart and his particular blend of truth, humor and political insight? 1999, Stewart took over The Daily Show and gave it a more political bent than had been the case on other Comedy Central shows. With the invasion of Iraq, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart became a source of profound criticism of this pre-emptive war and the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction when "embedded" journalists of the mainstream media were unable or unwilling to provide critiques.

From "Rubble Without a Cause" (04/08/03) to "Moment of Zen: Iraq Weapons" (01/27/04), to several segments called "Farewell to Arms," in both 2003 and 2004, Stewart was the constant war critic the rest of the media lacked.

Stewart also repeatedly did segments on torture, including "Headline: A Few Bad Men" (05/04/04) and "Moment of Zen: Donald Rumsfeld" (05/06/04) when torture was under-reported, or misreported as just 'enhanced interrogation.'

Comedy can help foster critical thinking and self-awareness that is, in a universal sense, a response of conscience. It can be especially effective in puncturing the balloon of over-whelming human self-confidence and inserting healthy doubt. Indeed, comedy can more accurately reveal the convoluted relationship between the human capacity to reach and create, and the human temptation to overreach and destroy. It sometimes does this far more better than straight-faced analytical articles or even blog posts like this one.

It was wonderfully ironic that Stewart's last show followed the Fox News televised primary debates of Republican presidential candidates. Angry bombast was the affect of the majority of the candidates. John Oliver, when a "reporter" on The Daily Show, offered a revealing insight into why there is so much anger in politics. Oliver explained that the emotionally unstable relationship of uncertainty in the country is directly related to the amount of angry protestations of certainty. "The amount of certainty you have is in inverse proportion to how stubborn you are and how angry you get," intoned Oliver in a segment called "Solving the Economic Crisis." Oliver's humorous observation perfectly explains this conservative bombast--there are no easy answers to the country's problems today. They know it, you know it, and nobody in among these GOP candidates wants to admit it. So they yell a lot.

So perhaps Jon Stewart is not unique, as we do have John Oliver, John Fugelsang, Stephen Colbert and other comic cultural, political and even religious comedians to carry on. Jessica Williams is a rising comedic star, and Stewart is succeeded by Trevor Noah. From Chris Rock to the late Robin Williams, comedy has been repeatedly torn from pain and made into consciousness.

Yet, as individuals, I think we should answer Stewart's challenge and try ourselves to become the 'comedians we have been waiting for.'

Just not today. I can't find the funny.

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Pretty Little Liars Transphobic Writing Is Hackneyed, Harmful

August 12, 2015, 5:05 pm

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For six seasons, the ABC Family tween-drama Pretty Little Liars has been leading up to a reveal of who the hiding-in-plain-sight-all-along arch-villain was. Tuesday, the show revealed the psychotic antagonist to be Charlotte "CeCe" DiLaurentis.

Born Charles DiLaurentis. Who is crazy, and transgender, and crazy because they're transgender and spent time in an asylum because they're crazy. Because transgender. While the show's producers have done a hand wave saying that CeCe comes from a crazy family and that all this has nothing to do with her being transgender, this claim is simply not credible. The rest of the "crazy" family aren't doing the things that make CeCe the "Big Bad" of the show.

First, this "twist" was already cliché when Ace Ventura did it in 1994 four years after Silence of the Lambs did it in 1991, 11 years after Dressed to Kill and 31 years after Norman Bates cross-dressed his way through Psycho. Using transgender people and their transitions as a twist, and a way to explain psychotic behavior, is just plain lazy writing and has been for 50 plus years. It's the "big-bad unmasking" equivalent to revealing that all of the 9th season of Dallas was all just a dream.

If George Lucas had made Jar-Jar Binks a crack dealer, it still wouldn't be as hackneyed and offensive as what Marlene King and her writers have created. Even the name they chose is insensitive: CeCe McDonald is a transgender woman of color who went to a men's prison for 19 months defending herself against a drunken Neo-Nazi.

So let's look at all the stereotypes they hit:

Transgender people are crazy. Check

Transgender people are deceivers. Check.

Transgender people's identities aren't real (because they're crazy). Check.

Transgender people are dangerous. Check.

It's impressive really. They managed to create a character that simultaneously exemplifies all the negative stereotypes that prevent transgender people from getting jobs, receiving health care, finding housing and being accepted as who they are by their families. It did manage to reaffirm the messages transgender people are probably dangerous, should be locked in asylums, are lying about who they are and are an acceptable target for violence.

The producers of the show managed to reinforce the talking points of every right wing, anti-LGBT hate group working against the basic human transgender people in the US.

Great job. Have a cookie.

What's worse is that the producer should know better. From the 1870's onwards, the concept of "female hysteria" was used to dismiss anything women thought, did or said, as well as their objections to being labeled as such. Donald Trump's odious comments about Megyn Kelly echo those 19th century labels, and demonstrate that when you categorize an entire group of people as mentally incompetent, it sticks around for generations.

It's also not as if the writers weren't warned this was a really, really bad idea in feminist online media content months ago. It was noted that the show had already handled pronouns badly, and clearly had no idea how transgender people live, given the character they were speculating about.

And therein lies the problem. It isn't as if there aren't tons of transgender people to talk to. It's not like transgender studies, journal articles, blogs, authors, actors, activists or reality TV shows are hard to find these days. The shows' writers weren't interested in telling a new or different story, they were telling the story that people want to hear; the story that they have heard over and over before.

There's comfort in people who are different than you being uncomfortable and dangerous. Them versus us. It's an easy narrative, and it's one transgender people can't fight back against. Everyone knows transgender people are mentally ill, right? Or are a threat to women and children. Of course crazy people deny being any of these things.

Is it any wonder we can't find jobs when such stereotypes predominate and have been pushed out by lazy hacks for decades? Or can't get housing? Or medical care? Or that our families forsake us? And when we're broke, homeless and completely alone in the world when we choose to end our lives, you look at us and say, "Well that's just what crazy people do."

It's this sort of crass logic that lets the privileged look at everyone else in America who is suffering from systemic violence, oppression and silencing and say, "they probably deserved it."

Because looking at yourself in the mirror and saying "I'm part of the problem," is much harder than labeling others whom you see as broken, inferior or deserving of what befalls them as a class.

And you, Marlene King, are a part of the problem.

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Pretty Little Payoff - After Years of Commitment, a Disappointing Finale

August 13, 2015, 11:14 am

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Warning - spoilers ahead!

Pretty Little Liars, loosely based on the book series of the same name by Sara Shepherd, premiered on June 28th, 2010. It was the summer between grade 8 and high school for me. I was just 14 years old, and PLL gave me insight into a thrilling world that I have nothing to do with but am strangely drawn to, and (somewhat worryingly) inspired by.

The Liars always looked put together. Even when "A", the somehow ubiquitous yet unknown villain of the show had the girls in an underground bunker, they looked perfect. I loved all the unreal problems that these girls had to face I wished my life was that exciting. Year after year, impossible thing after impossible thing happened on that show. I stopped finding it interesting somewhere in the third season and yet, I stuck by it, because dammit - I wanted to know who "A" was.

Imagine how delighted I was when I found out that it was finally "ending" - when I read online that Pretty Little Liars' producer I. Marlene King had announced that we would find out who "A" is in the summer finale of season 6, I put it in my calendar. Seriously - no way was I going to miss finding out the identity of TV's most nefarious tormentor of teen girls.

However, August 11th came along, and I spent most of the hour between 8-9 p.m. going "Huh? What? Wait... what? That doesn't make any sense! Oh, god, no!" with my friends.

Pretty Little Liars did this finale all wrong. I. Marlene King would've been better off perusing the hundreds of fan theories on Tumblr and just choosing one to go with instead of running what ended up being the most disappointing TV finale I've ever watched.

So, CeCe Drake is "A." Personally, I don't think she appeared in enough episodes to have an impact sufficient enough to please fans of the show. There are so many things wrong with the fact that the show's writers made CeCe "A" - the biggest one being that they made it clear throughout all of the season "A" is Charles, a man.

The alarming thing about the fact that Pretty Little Liars' writers made the ultimate villain on the show a trans character is that CeCe was institutionalized for most of her life. Cece being trans, as well as "A", a cruel and manipulative criminal, enforces a dangerous narrative that only mentally ill people can be transgender.

Writing trans characters the way that Pretty Little Liars did sensationalizes the challenges of being transgender; making a character trans for the sake of shock value displays lazy writing and a lack of creative ideas. Also, it's just plain mean (I saw a couple of tweets after the show joking about "A" really being Caitlyn Jenner. Sigh.)

Pretty Little Liars isn't actually over now that we know who "A" is. The last few minutes of the summer finale showed a 5-year time jump, meaning that the rest of this season as well as season 7 - apparently the last - will show the Liars' life after college.

For me, the show might as well be over. I don't think that any ending to Pretty Little Liars would have been completely satisfying; the story was much too complicated for that. While few shows have given me finales that wholly satisfied me, even fewer have given me finales that wholly dissatisfied me. However, PLL is up on the wholly dissatisfying list now.

Okay, also, what the hell happened to the Liars' mothers?! The Rosewood moms are arguably one of the best parts of Pretty Little Liars and after what happened to them in the penultimate episode of season 6a (someone, probably Cece, locked them in a basement), I was surprised that they weren't in the finale at all.

So, how do you deal with the heartbreak of a bad finale? Alternate theories, of course! I would've liked to see the show end after revealing that Charles DiLaurentis had been living amongst everyone as "Jason" for years while Rhys, that dude from the Carissimi Group, was the real Jason DiLaurentis, and had been covering for his brother Charles all this time while also supplying him with the money and resources he needed to do all his complicated "A" stuff. I think I'm just going to pretend that's what happened.

The mystery that I dragged along with me to, through, and after high school has been solved, but for pretty little payoff.

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Brothers in War

August 17, 2015, 8:30 am

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I have just watched an amazing documentary about a company of draftees sent into the Mekong Delta in 1967 as part of the 9th Infantry Division. Like The Price They Paid, the film focuses on a single unit and the hellacious combat the troops encountered, the bonds they forged and the losses they endured.

Unlike my book, Brothers in War weaves together latter-day interviews with the soldiers and remarkable archival footage, including home movies and the work of Army combat cinematographers, to show viewers what the men faced in the rice paddies, muddy canals and hamlets that were  the fighting fields south of Saigon. The year, 1967, was a dreadful  time for American  forces fully  committed in a  country they didn't  understand and a  type of warfare they hadn't  learned to fight. Sadly, it does not  follow the lives of  the men after the  war.

The images from that time and the voices of the now-gray survivors of Charlie Company, 4th Battalion/47th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division, offer the closest approximation I have seen of what it was like to go to war. The film attempts to convey the drama, pain, chaos, confusion and occasional horror of that year for those grunts. It also shows some of the lighter moments of their band of brothers: How they lived, looked out for each other, how they played and how some died. It is not pretty, but it is a beautiful effort.

Based on a book, The Boys of '67, by Andrew Wiest, a history professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, the Emmy-nominated film made by Lou Reda Productions, a small producer in Easton, Pennsylvania,  is practically impossible to find on the Web or TV. It was shown on the National Geographic Channel in March but was quickly buried under dozens of that channel's titles offering cheap thrills and hokey "reality" shows that seem to be the key to snatching ratings and selling commercials.

I did find it for sale on Amazon.com for $14.47. It's worth it.

There are a few stills and a rather dull clip, but National Geographic's link to the film itself has been removed from the Web. Maybe the full two-hour special will be shown again if Brothers in War wins a well-deserved Emmy In September for Outstanding Historical Programming.

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