Don’t streak, get drunk or sleep outside at the Olympics

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BEIJING (Reuters) – Do not sleep outdoors to save money at the Olympics. It is banned to “maintain public hygiene and the cultured image of cities.”

Do not let the stifling summer heat tempt you into streaking, do not get drunk nor set off fireworks nor wave “insulting banners.” Anyone with mental illnesses or sexually transmitted diseases is banned. Smoking is not allowed at Olympic venues.

The rules on the organizers’ official website say it all:

“Foreigners must respect Chinese laws while in China and must not harm China’s national security or damage social order.” The security-obsessed authorities are taking no chances with the 500,000 tourists set to hit Beijing for the Games. A battery of surface-to-air missile launchers are being deployed around the showpiece sites.

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No detail is too trivial.

Lighters have been banned on domestic flights. Commuters are being asked to take a swig from water bottles on the subway to ensure they do not contain suspicious substances.

All public swimming pools in Shanghai will check shampoos and body wash.

Authorities have promised “civilized and convenient” security checks but have been accused of obsessive stage management — visa restrictions have been tightened for visitors and Beijing is being rid of petitioners, the homeless and migrant workers.

Up to 1,000 Chinese families are opening up their homes to Olympic visitors, a move that would have been unheard of before the reform and opening up of China in the 1980s.

But the hosts could still be in for a culture shock.

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Retired school teacher Yuan Xioaoqing, who is opening up her home, said “Foreign students like to stay out all night on the weekend. But in more intellectual and traditional Chinese households there is no way the kids would go out like that.”

Beijing has learnt a lesson from the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Dog meat is off the menu in the Chinese capital during the Olympics in case animal rights groups are offended.

Exotic names and alarming translations abound in Chinese restaurants which are being given a linguistic makeover, though only in select restaurants.

Out goes the traditionally named “husband and wife’s lung slice” appetizer which is being replaced by the more linguistically correct “beef and ox tripe in chili sauce.”

But no mention was made of the many popular establishments that have donkey on the menu.

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The authorities have also worked hard to eliminate “Chinglish” from road signs and menus in the run-up to the Olympics, even if efforts have been a little hit and miss.

Gone is the infamous “Racist Park” signpost for the Ethnic Minorities Park.

Anyone hoping to scoop up a bagful of cheap pirate movies or music could be in for a disappointment. The city has announced a round-the-clock drive to stamp out bootleg sellers, but pirated DVDs are still available if you know where to look.

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Yet however much they are obsessed by security and a burning desire to portray the squeaky clean image of a well ordered society, the Chinese insist the welcome will be warm.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said: “China is a safe place. Please be assured. China is a nation with great hospitality and courtesy.”

Obama Supporter: VP Pick Coming Soon

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ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe Reports: Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said Sunday that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., will choose his vice-presidential running mate soon, but reiterated that it won’t be her.

“I think that all the speculation is going to come to an end soon because at least we’re going to get choices before too long,” McCaskill said on CNN’s “Late Edition”.

The Missouri Democrat said she talked to Obama about the process this week, but she still doesn’t know how soon he will make the pick.

“I don’t honestly know,” she said. “I talked to Barack about it this week and you know what he did? He just smiled.”

McCaskill appeared with Obama on Wednesday at campaign stops in the Show-Me State.

She repeated Sunday that the Obama camp has not asked her to hand over personal documents as part of a vetting process for possible vice-presidential candidates.

“They have not,” responded McCaskill when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer questioned her on Obama requesting personal information. “I’m always honored to be mentioned,” she added.

Kathlyn Beatty Rumored to be Perez Hilton’s Transgender Subject Topic

(Transworld News)

Kathlyn Beatty is rumored to be the topic of Perez Hilton’s recent controversial post about a transgender student at an LA private school.

In his ”Not So Blind Item” posted at 9:14 am on Thursday, Hilton outs the child of a superstar celebrity couple as transgender. “What teenage daughter of a superstar couple is living life as a transgender boy?” asks Hilton.

“Now going by the name Stephen, the teen’s parents pulled him out of the prestigious Buckley School in Los Angeles and are having him home-schooled to keep him out of the public eye,” states Hilton.

According to the comments on Hilton’s blog, many people are identifying Stephen as 16-year-old Kathlyn Beatty, the daughter of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.

Other guesses by the comment posters were Rumer, Scout and Tallulah Willis, the daughters of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore; Isabella Cruise, the oldest daughter of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman; Taylor Ann Hasselhoff, David Hasselhoff’s daughter; Renee Stewart, the daughter of Rod Stewart and Rachel Hunter; and Frances Bean Cobain, the daughter of the late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.

Of the aforementioned celebrity children, Hasselhoff is the only one that attended Buckley, a prestigious co-ed prepatory day school in Sherman Oaks, California. She recently graduated and is attending the University of Arizona, according to Wikipedia.

According to the comments, Beatty just finished 10th grade at Buckley. In addition, her mother’s first husband was named J. Steven White, hence the name Stephen.

Comments said that pictures of Beatty made her look like a boy and fit the description given by Hilton, added to the fact that she attends Buckley as well.

Hidden gay life of macho hip hop stars

(Guardian.uk)

Out and about … US rapper Deadlee is openly gay

American rap music is an industry ruled by machismo. It is a place where reputations are made by shady pasts, the aura of violence and ultra-masculinity. But now an explosive new book is lifting the lid on one of hip hop’s most unexpected secrets: that many people in the business are gay.

Terrance Dean, a former executive at music channel MTV, has penned a memoir of his life and times in the hip hop industry as a gay man. It is an explosive exposé of a thriving gay subculture in an aggressively male business, where anti-gay lyrics and public homophobia are common.

Perhaps not surprisingly, many in the industry are nervous about the book’s publication this week, fearing that it will expose some of the top black names in music and Hollywood as secretly gay. But Dean said that his memoir was not intended as a way of outing famous people. ‘I was never tempted to name any names. The book is not about outing people. I wrote it so that people realise the industry has a gay subculture and we are part of this music,’ he said.

That gay hip hop subculture certainly seems to be thriving. Dean’s book describes a world where many industry executives and some artists are leading secret gay lives, which are often obvious to everyone but rarely talked about. And, despite using some false names, the book contains enough information so that it will undoubtedly spark off a frenzy of speculation as to who some of the characters are in real life.

For example, Dean describes ‘Lola’, a singer who is a lesbian and had to keep her sexuality secret. And ‘Gus’, a male rap artist who appeared on television in typical ‘gangsta’ style yet hid a secret gay life. Then there are the other hints of big-name celebrities close to the hip hop business who are also gay. They include ‘Lucas’, a married A-list movie star, and ‘Kareem’, a leading sitcom actor.

Dean hopes that by bringing out his book he will allow a leading hip hop figure to come out as gay and thus pave the way for the notoriously homophobic industry to come to terms with its secret side. ‘Within the next year I believe a major artist will come out. They are going to have to be brave but I think they can do it,’ he said.

That is no understatement. Leading hip hop artists such as Eminem, DMX and Ice Cube have all been targeted by gay activists for using homophobic lyrics. One of Eminem’s songs famously included the line: ‘Hate fags? The answer’s yes.’ In his book Dean describes a world in which hip hop stars and executives often berate and denigrate homosexuals, and the use of the word ‘faggot’ is common place. He says that too often he let such abuse pass by, and writing a memoir was a way of making up for that. ‘I am a part of this culture. I was getting by, saying it’s OK when those things are said. But then I realised they are actually talking about me too,’ Dean said. (continue reading)

A Romeo & Juliet that asks: What’s in a gender?

(Philadelphia Inquirer)-’I don’t like conceptual shows,” playwright Joe Calarco says of his high-concept, all-male adaptation Shakespeare’s R&J. Mauckingbird Theatre’s production of Calarco’s script is the Philadelphia premiere of a play that had long, successful runs in New York and London (not to mention Japan and Australia). Currently in previews, it opens Wednesday at the Adrienne.
Mauckingbird, which is dedicated to re-viewing classic drama through a gay lens, debuted in January with an all-male production of The Misanthrope, a surprisingly persuasive, as well as entertaining, take on the classic Moliere comedy. But an all-male Romeo and Juliet? The Mauckingbird cast is diverse in many ways – Caucasian, Asian American, African American, gay, straight – except for gender.

The premise: Four unnamed students at a boys’ boarding school are rehearsing Romeo and Juliet. No dialogue has been added to develop the students’ characters, and the original text necessarily has been trimmed since there are only four actors. The only props are a book and a strip of red fabric.

Calarco, who wrote Shakespeare’s R&J 10 years ago but currently is doing more directing than writing, said in a recent phone interview, “I’m gay, and I tried to work against expectations of both the coming-out story and the homoerotic story. I ran in the opposite direction.

“The show is about two things: what it is to be a man – and how men think about women – and theater, the power of Shakespeare’s play, without costumes or props.

“There is lots of storytelling going on,” he said of his play. “This is a director’s showcase, and each production has made different choices. You write it, and let it go.”

He has “let it go” to Mauckingbird artistic director Peter Reynolds, who, though he generally sees his mission as more dramatic than political, nevertheless is more interested in R&J as a gay work, about “four boys in a repressive environment who find freedom through this play.”

“Students 1, 2, 3 and 4 are characters outside of the Shakespearean characters,” he said. “It’s their story. I get a buzz when I see what happens when you look at things through a different lens.”

The part of Romeo is taken by Evan Jonigkeit, who is straight but played Celimene to fine, swishy effect in The Misanthrope. (Reynolds, in a joking aside, says Jonigkeit should include a chapter in his eventual autobiography titled “Boys Peter Reynolds Made Me Kiss.”)

Jonigkeit came to Temple University on a baseball scholarship (he graduated in 2005), and this athleticism suits the playwright’s notion. Calarco says of his play, “It needs muscularity. A pack of teenage boys generates an energy – violence is always possible. Something happens with an all-male environment. There is a kind of mob mentality, a different energy when there are no women around.

“Forget about gender and sexuality: It’s much more exciting if the characters are swept into something monumental and dangerous that was not in their minds – to have the play itself push them to emotional abandon.” (continue reading)