From the ‘Baby-Boy’ file, the November issue of Vanity Fair profiles Lou Pearlman, the ‘inventor’ of the boy bands *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. Pearlman is in jail because of some very shady business deals but the Chicago Tribune (Oct. 22), looking at the same materials, says there are more irregularities in his career: ‘Pearlman’s love of the bands was commensurate with his apparent affection for some of the male singers, portraying him here as a sexual predator with some aspiring boy stars seeing compliance as a price paid for possible fame.’
From the same file as above, the Chicago Sun-Times (Oct. 21), in a story about ‘good’ TV kid stars, talks of Mark Indelicato, 13, who is the first ‘almost openly gay child on a TV show’ who is being ‘positioned as a [future] flamboyant gay man to come.’ He seems to be just right for the part.
From what conservatives might call the ‘Witchcraft-And-Now-This!’ file, The Chicago Tribune (Oct. 22) has author J.K. Rowling announcing that the wizard Albus Dumbledore of Harry Potter’s school, Hogwarts, is gay. To those who argue it’s not evident in the books, remember, the writer is the ultimate repository of any back story and that author is the richer-than-the-Queen Ms. Dowling.
And here’s another from the ‘Fairy Tale’ file: As reported in The Chicago Tribune (Oct. 15), Monsignor Tommaso Stenico of the Vatican is not, not, not gay. Yes, he was on lots of online gay chat rooms, met with lots of gay men and was secretly filmed by a newspaper making advances to a young man—but he said that he was ‘just doing research to gather information about ‘those who damage the image of the Church with homosexual activity.’ ‘ Is Stenico gay? Is the pope Catholic?
Lastly, The New York Times (Oct. 22) says that Charles Busch is ‘slithering, bouncing and stomping through’ the drag role involved in his new play Die Mommie Die! It also says to see him because he is likely the last of his kind, the apres-vaudvillean drag queen. The role and the plot are pastiches of 1960s ‘diva-with-an-ax’ flicks—think Davis, Crawford and Bankhead. ‘Angela,’ a 1940s songbird, wishes to off her killjoy hubby but her long-in-the-tooth boytoy, her daddy-loving daughter, her cross-dressing son and her Bible-thumping housekeeper disapprove. What is a girl to do with all these forces of Goood arrayed against her? Charles Busch shows us in many, many hostess outfits.