It’s Q-Tip’s Birthday And I Need To Dance!

Here’s the thing…I started writing today’s blog entry about mishaps I’ve recently encountered in on-line dating, specifically with an app I downloaded last week that despite my creating a profile that says I’m a man looking for a man, keeps trying to set me up with straight guys. I tied that into today’s birthday, Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, by saying he’s one straight guy who wouldn’t date me. I quoted lyrics from Tribe’s song “Georgy Porgy.” While I was typing those lyrics, my stomach turned. I had trouble finding the humor in a song that refers to a gay guy as gross, ill, a fag, wounded, weak, a fucking faggot, and then some. The post started out funny but when I got to Q-Tip’s lyric “You can call me homophobic but I know it and you know it/ you’re filthy and funny to the utmost,” I decided I may be funny, but he isn’t, nor is he worth celebrating.

Odd that such a hateful bigot should appear on a record by Deee-Lite, a trio of gay and gay-friendly performers. Q-Tip appears on a lot of good records.

Friday is dance day at Tunes du Jour. Today’s playlist doesn’t celebrate the loathsome Q-Tip, but rather twenty great club tracks, a few of which feature Q-Tip. I’ll fill you in on my dating app experiences later.


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It’s Robyn’s Birthday And I Need To Dance!

Another New York Moment

    In those halcyon days before we thought about skin cancer, when David Dinkins was the mayor of New York City, Kathy and I would go to Central Park to tan. Usually we spread our towels on Sheep Meadow, among our fellow Manhattan sun worshippers, who were not sheep, at least not genealogically.

    One time Sheep Meadow was closed off, so we went to a nearby field to lay out. It was a smaller area, with only a handful of folks taking in the rays. Shortly after we covered ourselves in suntan oil, Kathy and I independently simultaneously peripherally noticed some motion nearby. A gender-discordant couple was enjoying each other’s company. Not in the same way Kathy and I were enjoying each other’s company. Their way was under a thin ratty blanket and involved thrusting. Looking around we saw that our fellow tanners saw what was happening and looked around at all the tanners to confirm their eyes were not deceiving them. It being New York City, nobody bothered them. Not the people there to tan, not the parents walking with their children along the path a few feet from the fornicators, not the NYPD. Live and let live. That’s how we did it in New York.

    They finished their activity and cleaned themselves up with the paper towels they had the foresight to bring with them. These were not amateurs. They were prepared. He probably was a boy scout many many years earlier.

    That was all well and good. However, a half hour later they started at it again. One time, no problem, but a second time? Now that’s rude! Nobody likes a show-off.

    “I’m near the meadow watching you boink her, oh ooh oh.” I didn’t write a song with that lyric that day, but let’s pretend I did, if only to make this segue less awkward.

    In 2010, Swedish singer Robyn released “Dancing on My Own,” which included the lyric “I’m in the corner watching you kiss her, oh ooh oh.” Her song was not about coitus in a Manhattan park. In the song she is stalking her ex, something I don’t recommend doing unless it’s on-line.

    Today Robyn turns 36 years old. As Friday is dance day at Tunes du Jour, we’ll pepper our playlist with some of Robyn’s best, starting with “Dancing on My Own.” Everybody get down (though if you’re in a public park, get down only once per 24-hour period)!


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Clowns Angry At Media (+ It’s Friday And I Need To Dance!)

The new season of American Horror Story features a character named Twisty the Clown. Twisty the Clown is a psychopath who murders people with scissors and imprisons children in a school bus. The character is getting professional clowns’ knickers in a twisty.

Glenn Kohlberger, president of Clowns of America International, is quoted in The Hollywood Reporter as saying “Hollywood makes money sensationalizing the norm. They can take any situation no matter how good or pure and turn it into a nightmare.”

His sentiments are echoed by the United States’ second largest clown trade group, the Society of Clowns for the Advancement of Realistic Expression (SCARE). “Business was going great for me until the autumn of 2001,” said that organization’s president, Slappy bin Laden. “You have to ask yourself ‘Why would business suddenly drop off?’ The answer must be the media’s portrayal of clowns.” Bin Laden points to The Simpsons’ Krusty the Clown as an example. “[Krusty the Clown] is a buffoon masquerading as a clown. He’s not a real clown.”

“Things have not improved since then,” bin Laden continues. “We got a Batman movie in which a clown called The Joker is a sociopath. We got a sitcom called Modern Family in which a clown is actually a homosexual. These portrayals give clowns a bad name.”

“Hollywood is not going to change unless it is pressured to do so.” That is why bin Laden pitched a new sitcom that portrays clowns in a positive, and per bin Laden, more truthful light. Everybody Loves Slappy will premiere on the FX network in January 2015. In the show, bin Laden plays Slappy Hussein, a sportswriter living with his family in Lynbrook, NY. “The show is good clean entertainment. It’s about a clown who works hard and loves his family, though he’s an alcoholic who beats his wife, because all clowns do that.”

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Friday is dance day at Tunes du Jour. You can vogue, hustle or do the twisty. Put on your dancing shoes (or big clown shoes) and hit the floor!

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