Category: Music

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Russian Unicorn

I haven't laughed so hard in ages! The folks at Bad Lip-Reading are Genius:

BTW, if you don't know what a Russian Unicorn is, go here.

I wouldn't be surprised if this video is pulled for copyright infringement, so if you want to save it, better do it soon.

UPDATE: Apparently Bubbly loved it…

(Thanks, RG!)

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Friday Dance Party: Paradise Express – We Are One

…and a story of unrequited love.

Steve Golden and I met in 1979 and had a strange relationship from the very beginning. I think that in another timeline things might've taken a decidedly different course, but in this one, a full blown relationship was never meant to be.  That did not mean, however, that we did not love each other deeply; it just meant that circumstances never allowed either of us to fully move upon those feelings, physically or otherwise.

Steve is now gone from us for twenty years (twenty years!) and is another one of those stories I hope to blog about in more detail at some point, but suffice to say that he was a DJ at one of Phoenix's big gay clubs during the period this song came out.  One night I was down on the floor dancing with Dennis, my partner at the time, and out of nowhere Steve stopped the music (absolutely unheard of), came over the speakers and said, "Mark, this is for you." I looked up to the DJ booth and as he blew me a kiss, played this song.

Unrequited love, indeed.

But if things hadn't gone the way they did, I wouldn't be where I am now, or with who I am now, and that is infinitely better…

 

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Thursday Dance Party: Saint Tropez – Violation

This was the first song I ever slow danced to with another man. David Martinez, August 1977 at The Forum in Phoenix, AZ. I remember being so disappointed when I actually bought the album and brought it home because it wasn't on the same translucent pink vinyl that I saw playing at the club. It wasn't until the late 90s that I finally got hold of the elusive pink version…

I was quite infatuated with David. We dated long distance (he lived in Williams, and I was at school in Tucson). He drove to Tucson one weekend to see Fleetwood Mac with me, and I made the six hour trip (by bus) shortly thereafter to spend a weekend with him as the trees were changing up north. We hiked to the top of Bill Williams Mountain where I took this picture of him:

I had also decided at this point it was time to come out to the rest of my family (my dad had known for some time already), and since I knew my Mom always went through my dresser drawers, I left a copy of the then-seminal Loving Someone Gay in the top drawer on the way back to school. Needless to say, this prompted another trip home the following weekend…

Eventually the pressure of living in two separate cities proved too much for the budding  relationship and David and I drifted apart.  I briefly reconnected with him via email in 2000 and had every intention of looking him up after I'd moved back to Phoenix two years later, but it never happened.

How did this get sidetracked from the Thursday Dance Party?