Monthly Archives: May 2009

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Song of the Day #299: ‘California’ – Rufus Wainwright

posesThree years later, in 2001, Wainwright released his second album, Poses. I remember buying the CD during a trip to San Francisco and listening to it for the first time on headphones in our hotel room. An unaccompanied man buying a Rufus Wainwright album in San Francisco — that’s probably the most conspicuously gay thing I’ve done apart from watching Brokeback Mountain alone in Coconut Grove. And sleeping with that guy that time…

Poses shed a lot of the baroque instrumentation of Wainwright’s debut album in favor of a more polished pop sound. Not that it is mainstream by any stretch… his trademark strings and cabaret backing vocals are present on most tracks.

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Song of the Day #298: ‘Foolish Love’ – Rufus Wainwright

rufusOK, folks… it’s time for all my faithful readers to run screaming. I hope this week’s blog entries reach beyond my usual audience, because I’ve found that I am very much alone in my love of Rufus Wainwright.

Alone in my circle of family and friends, that is. Out there on the interwebs, of course, there are legions of people just like me, people who swoon at the romanticism and theatricality of a man who’s a little Cole Porter, a little Puccini, a little Michael Stipe… and all Rufus.

And yes, I’m secure enough in my sexuality to admit to swooning over a flamboyantly gay man. What of it?

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Song of the Day #297: ‘Low’ – Cracker

crackerI have had this song sitting in my drafts queue for literally all of 2009.

I added it there on the 30th of December, 2008, with the intent of featuring it soon thereafter. But for one reason or another I kept finding new songs to highlight instead. Well, for one reason, really… no need for another: I don’t have anything interesting to say about the song other than that I dig it.

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Song of the Day #296: ‘This Time Around’ – Hanson

hansonOf all the guilty pleasures in my collection, the one that requires the most self-confidence for me to stand up and admit to loving is definitely Hanson’s This Time Around.

Now, to be honest, I reject the concept of guilty pleasures. If I like something, I like it… no guilt involved. I think what that phrase really implies is a degree of shame because you like something that “cool” people really shouldn’t like. But I reject that concept as well, because the way I see it, if you reject this album because of the age and appearance of the people who wrote and performed it, that betrays how uncool you really are.

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Star Trek

startrekTwo weeks into the season and already I’ve seen the summer movie of the year. Hell, the movie of the year in general until something comes along to challenge the throne.

Any fan of Alias or Lost knows that Star Trek director J.J. Abrams is a master of genre storytelling. It never fails when I’m watching those shows that I check the clock and realize there’s only five minutes left, usually when I assume I’m at the halfway point. He has a gift for pacing that makes even the dialogue scenes fly by at warp speed.

And now he has brought that gift to a high-risk, high-profile reboot of a beloved sci-fi series, and he hasn’t missed a beat. Star Trek is as fast, funny, thoughtful and exciting as any of Abrams’ TV successes, with eye-popping big-screen special effects to boot.

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