Dim the Lights for Joan Rivers!

There’s been an upset recently about the decision not to dim the lights on Broadway for Joan Rivers. After many complaints, that decision has been reversed, but I think it’s interesting because some claim that Rivers was never known to be a Broadway Star. She was nominated for a Tony, but the bulk of her career, and what she always did best, was stand up comedy.

This is how The Broadway League originally saw it before the decision was reversed:

‘Under our criteria people need to have been very active recently in the theater, or else be synonymous with Broadway – people who made their careers here, or kept it up,” the Broadway League’s executive director Charlotte St. Martin told The New York Times.

Several well known Broadway stars have been outraged by this and have taken to Twitter to rant about it, including Harvey Fierstein.

But the most interesting thing is they did, in fact, dim the lights for Robin Williams and he only appeared on Broadway twice and was never nominated for a Tony.

I can’t even believe this became a topic of conversation. Rivers earned that respect and no one was a bigger advocate of Broadway than Joan Rivers.

Frankly, I think the concept of a Broadway musical about the life and times of Joan Rivers would help make Broadway a little more relevant…unless, of course, there’s another endless revival of Westside Story coming up. Feel free to steal my idea. I’m not writing it.

You can read more here.

Morning Erections

The morning erection is an interesting thing. You don’t see it coming, and you don’t know what to do with it when you have it…especially when you’re running late in the morning. This article talks about the science behind the morning erections, in proper scientific terms so it is SFW.

Here’s one reason why we get them:

As for why? Well some argue that it’s the body’s way of protecting your junk. Erections oxygenate the penile tissue, and in turn keep it viable and prevents erectile dysfunction.

It mentions nothing about being just plain horny, or about how to stand three feet from the toilet in an attempt to aim properly with a morning erection. But there you are. You can read the rest here.

As usual, the comments are worth checking out.

Male Sex Workers

Or rent boys as they are more commonly known in the gay community. Please don’t get PC with me on this. I don’t think the term rent boy is off limits…at least not yet.

There’s a new book out that talks about male sex workers throughout history, Male Sex Work and Society. I’ve always found it interesting because there seem to be so many facets that go along with any kind of sex work, many of which include the demons within the sex workers themselves.

The article talks about the book and gives several interesting facts:

During the Depression, around 1932, so many men took to prostitution that the “straight-acting” hustler became the new norm on more popular strolls (also walked by down-and-out soldiers), pushing out the effeminate streetwalkers known as “fairies.”

There’s more here.

School Teachers on Kickstarter

There’s a school teacher named Christopher Locke who is looking to raise $6,000 on Kickstarter for a book he’s trying to produce that is focused on personal portraits he draws while he’s in school meetings to pass the time faster.

Locke, a school teacher and artist, keeps himself focused in meetings by making drawings on Post-It notes. With the new school year, he is looking for a project and a way to teach his students about commitment to a long-term endeavors. For the Sticky Note Portraits project, Locke will draw portraits of donors who give $20 or more and publish them all into a collection. His goal is to draw hundreds of people.

You can read more here.

The part about him drawing during meetings is interesting. I wonder how teachers feel about students drawing little pictures to make money on kickstarter while they’re lecturing??