Who's That Queer

Brought to you by Pistol Pete

Johnny Mathis was born on October 31, 1935 in Gilmer, Texas, the fourth of seven children to Clem Mathis and his wife, Mildred Boyd, and is of both African-American and Caucasian ancestry. The family moved when he was young to San Francisco, California on Post Street, in the famous Fillmore district where he was raised.


His first album Johnny Mathis: A New Sound In Popular Song was a slow-selling jazz album, but Mathis stayed in New York to play the clubs. His second album was produced by Columbia records vice-president and producer Mitch Miller, who defined the Mathis sound - he preferred him to sing soft, romantic ballads, initially pairing him with arranger/conductor Ray Conniff, and later, Ray Ellis, Glenn Osser and Robert Mersey. In late 1956, Mathis recorded two of his most popular songs - "Wonderful! Wonderful!" and "It's Not For Me To Say." That year MGM signed Mathis to sing the latter song in the 1957 film Lizzie, and shortly afterward he made his second film appearance for 20th Century Fox singing the song A Certain Smile in the film of the same name. He had small acting roles in both movies as a bar singer. This early cinematic visibility in two successful movies gave him mass exposure. Next was his appearance on the very popular Ed Sullivan Show in 1957 and this helped to seal his stardom. Critics called him the velvet voice.

He has received three Grammy awards. In 1979, his hit duet "The Last Time I Felt Like This" from the film Same Time, Next Year was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Mathis and Jane Olivor sang the song at the Oscar ceremony. This was his second performance at the Academy Awards. He has taped twelve of his own television specials and made over 300 television guest appearances with 33 of them being on The Tonight Show. Through the years his songs (or parts of them) have been heard in 100 plus television shows and films around the globe. His appearance on the Live by Request broadcast in May 1998 on the A&E Network had the largest television viewing audience of the series. Also in 1989, Johnny sang the opening theme for the ABC daytime soap opera Loving.

In a 1982 Us Magazine article, Mathis was quoted as having said, "Homosexuality is a way of life that I've grown accustomed to." Us Magazine later retracted the statement. After more than twenty years of silence on the subject, Mathis revealed in an interview in 2006 that his silence was due to death threats he received as a result of that 1982 article. On April 13, 2006, Mathis granted a podcast interview with The Strip in which he talked about the subject once again, and how some of his reticence to speak of the subject was partially generational.

Source: Wikipedia

Joe Dallesandro in Interview

via Interview, by Glenn O'Brien

...Now Joe is the subject of Little Joe, a wonderful documentary produced by his adopted daughter, Vedra Mehagian Dallesandro, and directed by Nicole Haeusser, which tells Joe’s story, from juvenile delinquent to Warhol superstar to European action hunk to junkie to Hollywoodcharacter actor to charming grandpa living in Hollywood and available for the right part. The film, which was the surprise hit of the Berlin Film Festival, really captures Joe with all his low-key charm. He may have started out as a wild creature, but today Joe is a kind of casual philosopher who really gets it. Joe has often played the wise guy, but here he is a literal wise guy. Here’s a bit from a monologue toward the end of the film: “I think it was because I didn’t have major hang-ups about my body when I was young, and I was so casual about nudity onscreen, that people got caught up looking at the surface. I know what it means to be judged on appearances. I’m a lot smarter than I appear to be. People would tell me I was beautiful, but I never knew what to do with that information. It didn’t register.

I never really thought of myself as a good-looking man. I’m short, I’m stocky—I don’t know where good looks come in. I know beauty when I see it. All I can say is that I had a few good photographs taken where I look better than I do in real life. Beauty is fun. It has a place. But don’t mistake it for self-worth. If you have to be beautiful, do beautiful things for someone other than yourself.”

Read the interview.

Who's that Queer?

Brought to you by Pistol Pete

Keith Haring was born May 4, 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania, and was raised in the nearby town of Kutztown. At an early age, Haring developed a love for drawing, and was influenced by his father’s cartoonist skills and the popular culture images created by Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney.


In 1978, Haring had his first solo exhibition and later in the same year, moved to New York City where he enrolled in the School of Visual Arts (SVA). Haring was introduced to a community of artists that was developing in the city streets and subway stations. During this time, Haring became increasingly influenced by graffiti art and immersed himself among other musicians, performance artists, and graffiti writers including Jean-Michel Basquiat.

As a student at SVA , Haring experimented with a variety of mediums and tied his hand at performance, video, and installation art while always maintaining a commitment to drawing. Between 1980 and 1985, Haring utilized the unused advertising panels that lined the walls of the New York City subway stations. These panels, covered in black paper offered Haring a forum to reach a wider audience. Haring referred to the subway stations as his “laboratory”, where he would create as many as 40 paintings in a single day.


In April 1986, Haring opened the Pop Shop, a retail store in Soho selling T-shirts, toys, posters, buttons and magnets bearing his images. The shop was intended to allow people greater access to his work, which was now readily available on products at a low cost. The shop received criticism from many in the art world, however Haring remained committed to his desire to make his artwork available to as wide an audience as possible, and received strong support for his project from friends, fans and mentors including Andy Warhol.

Throughout his career, Haring produced more than 50 public artworks between 1982 and 1989, in dozens of cities around the world, many of which were created for charities, hospitals, children’s day care centers and orphanages. By then, his work had begun to reflect more socio-political themes, such as anti-Apartheid, AIDS awareness, and the crack cocaine epidemic.

Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988. Soon after, he established the Keith Haring Foundation, its mandate being to provide funding and imagery to AIDS organizations and children’s programs, and to expand the audience for Haring’s work through exhibitions, publications and the licensing of his images. Haring enlisted his imagery during the last years of his life to speak about his own illness and generate activism and awareness about AIDS.


In June 1989, on the rear wall of the convent of the Church of Sant'Antonio in Pisa, he painted the last public work of his life, the mural "Tuttomondo." Haring died in 1990 of AIDS- related complications. During a brief but intense career that spanned the 1980s, Haring was able to attract a wide audience and assure the accessibility and staying power of his imagery, which has become a universally recognized visual language of the 20th century.

Sources: Wikipedia, www.haring.com