By Jeff Walsh
Tales of the City, the musical based on the beloved books by Armistead Maupin, opens in San Francisco tonight. The story is set in the 70s and brings together a magic group of characters for a timeless story of self-discovery, family, and community.
The show fuses Maupin's books with some of the creative team behind Avenue Q, and music written by singer Jake Shears and musician John Garden of the dance pop band, The Scissor Sisters (My review of the show will run later this week).
I recently spoke with Shears during the show's preview run, and here's what we had to say:
By Jeff Walsh
Violet Tendencies is a fun fag hag movie, starring Mindy Cohn (Natalie from TV's Facts of Life) as the hag in the starring role.
The movie, which comes out on DVD May 24, opens on a wedding, as a fag hag is getting married surrounded by hot gay men. The bride notes that she was the last fag left, quickly adding, well... except for Violet.
Violet is so surrounded by gay men that she barely knows how to navigate the straight world, and when she does meet straight guys through an online phone dating service, her gay-tuned candor and humor sends them packing.
Violet's gay friends are all in some state of taking their lives from where they are at present to a next level, whether that is monogamy or adopting children. When Violet finally meets someone interested in her, a Mormon architect with whom she doesn't share much of anything in common, she abandons her gay life for a chance at happiness.
By Jeff Walsh
Nick Adams has been in three of my favorite shows: A Chorus Line, La Cage Aux Folles, and now he is one of the leads in Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, a new musical on Broadway based on the Australian movie. Sadly at this point in time, I've only seen the movie version of Priscilla, which I've adored for years, but that will be remedied as soon as possible.
For those of you unfamiliar with the movie, Priscilla is a road trip picture with two drag queens and a transvestite on a road trip through the Australian outback with a lot of campy bitchery and disco anthems peppered throughout.
Nick, 27, became more visible when he appeared in the revivial of A Chorus Line. He got press when he landed a 2(x)st underwear campaign, landing the shoot over his Chorus Line co-star Mario Lopez, which the media turned into a feud that both actors deny (publicly, at least).
He then appeared as one of The Cagelles in La Cage, where he stole every scene he was in as the odd drag queen out. And now, he recently opened Priscilla on Broadway, landing one of the main roles in the show, as well as the funniest, bitchiest, showiest roles in the piece.
In the movie, his role was played by a young unknown Guy Pearce. There's a good chance that magic will repeat itself with Nick's career.
Nick and I chatted on a spotty phone connection this week, and here's what we had to say:

She always sees me, talks to me, knows my name and the reason for my laughs. She knows everything about me. She's nice but if she knew who I really was, how I really felt, she would hate me, the very part of me that loves, has to be hidden.
Hidden out of sight. Hidden from the world. Hidden from myself.
I wouldn't care if anyone else knew, just her. The very person I want to tell I am too afraid to tell. Because if she knew she wouldn't love me she wouldn't even care. I don't even think she would still want to be friends.
So Last night I told one of my good friends Ruby that i thought i was a bisexual because she is openly a bisexual so i thought that she would understand better:)
It was so relieving to finally admit who you truely are to someone obviously this site has helped, It gave me the courage to tell somebody, but telling a friend and having them hug you and reassure you and help. The feeling is great!

my heart was a street so dark, a small country road where drunk drivers drive too fast, where metal bodies collide with small animals. winter was an unbearable season. on the good days the ice was thick and the cars went right off the road, out of control ; on the worst of them the snow was so heavy to even see and people preferred to stay indoors.

Site appears to be back, but I never heard from adrian that he fixed it (which usually happens), so good chance it broke itself and then fixed itself, which means very likely it will break itself again...
Bass bass bass bass
I rock my head back and forth
headbanging feeling like a badass
bass bass bass bass
music tries to fill the abyss inside
but ive stayed up the whole night yearning
sun rise this pain can't hide
u look around searching for the boy of your dreams
I run around frantically
on hot pursuit to be in your crosshairs
transperancy is me aslong as the wear of those apartheid glasses
contemplating ways to seperate myself from the masses
the lord said that our bodies are temples
I really don't know know what to do.
I came out to her around last Christmas, and she doesn't... she doesn't talk to me about it at all and when I try to broach the subject with her it's all awkward. Lately it seems like she's trying to show more attention toward me like she's trying to show some kind of support, but it doesn't feel like she's accepting me. It feel's like she's trying to humor me and doesn't believe me.

Easter was going nicely for me. My mom's family gathered at my grandma's house for smoked ham and prayers, as we do every year, and my cousins and I were reconnecting after months of barely speaking. Not out of spite or any disagreements, but they're both...adults now. One's in college with a boyfriend, the other has a job and a girlfriend he plans to marry and I can't keep up. But the boyfriend and girlfriend weren't with us for once, so I had my cousins all to myself for the first time in awhile. So we hung out and it was nice.