Cake on Saturday, plus: total internet domination is almost mine

A lot of people ask me, "Will there actually be Cake?" and "Why is it called Cake?" and also "Oh, I thought it was like the band Cake, I was confused, because I was like, 'Why are they playing at Red Line Tap, why didn't I hear about this?'"

And in response I usually say "No," "I don't know," and "No, not like the band," but in a less curt fashion.

I'm considering baking those booze-soaked cupcakes again if I have time on Saturday, but I'm also cooking up a new cover by request, so we'll see what I have time for.

But really, isn't the show delicious enough already?

Saturday, February 6th 9pm Red Line Tap, 7006 N. Glenwood $5

P.S. - For those of you who haven't hopped on my Facebook profile in a while, J.D. Doyle included two of my tracks on this month's OutRadio mix tape. Also appearing is up-and-coming Broadway songwriter Scott Alan, whose music, coincidentally, is the subject of a show my friend Chris is directing at Davenport's this month.

Last but not least, I've been bumped up to #7 on the OutVoice December charts (they usually run about a month behind). If you would like to help me take over the interwebs, you can vote for The Crater EP here.

Center on Halsted Benefit on Sunday

Right, so the whole "blogging" thing was on hold for a while there. A little down the page, I'll catch you all up, but first an obligatory plug: I'll be playing a benefit show at Center on Halsted on Sunday at 7pm. The show's $25 for general admission, $35 if you want some champagne and dessert afterward.

The Center (Chicago's LGBT community center) has been the literal center of much of my goings-on since my last blog post. The Bailiwick Theater company was in residence at the Center's theater over the summer, and I wound up accompanying a number of shows for them in early August. The Center is also sponsoring a new LGBT Youth Choir that a number of my comrades in the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus are helping to organize and direct -- the aforementioned benefit on Sunday is raising funds to kick-start the choir. EDGE Chicago posted a piece about the youth choir today, which you should read, as it will more eloquently describe how awesome it is that the kids at the Center will have a queer-specific performing group to perform with. And believe it or not, it was relatively unrelated that I started a database/fundraising job at the Center this month, which brings me down there on what feels like a daily basis now.

I think this is proof that I am actually super-gay, as opposed to your garden-variety, I like to dance and sing and not play sports and listen to Tori Amos gay.

What else has been happening?

I noticed that I left off a good two weeks of Rock Camp blogging. (Was I rocking too hard? Yes. Yes I was.) It seems like months ago now because I'm not spending all day with the SoR kids anymore, but there are still some interesting things happening at the School. Our oldest keyboard student just left for college, and there's another one not too far behind him, and the staff is realizing that as a school overall, we need to start training the younger keyboardists now to maintain our current, incredibly high level of musicianship in our performing groups. So I'm in the process of designing a keyboard workshop for the non-keyboardist, to lure them into the world of resonance cut-offs and pitch bend wheels. This will be some of the more unique teaching I get to do at School of Rock because it overlaps a lot with the loop pedal/synth work I've been incorporating into my live set lately.

Lastly, Canasta's final show with our drummer and fellow Obie, Josh Lava, was on Sunday, and we couldn't have had a better month full of shows to send him off to Portland with. We played at the venerable Old Town School of Folk Music, took a field trip to an awesome micro-brewery venue in Michigan, and played the shit out of Simon's in Andersonville. A full news blurb sums it all up for you on Canasta's website.

In the meantime, we're in the midst of auditioning new drummers, several of whom we're very excited about, but we are certainly open to ideas and suggestions. If you know anyone in Chicago who (a) plays drums, (b) likes orchestral-pop, and (c) will put up with me demanding Arby's and Elizabeth playing crossword puzzles in the car, send them to me, please.

MKE Pride Announced, Bad Habits Behind the Scenes

Since I'm swamped with shows this weekend, I'm going to keep this week's update brief and then get back to the pit of the Athenaeum, where the Gays have me tied up for the rest of the weekend. (Entendres intended.)

• It's official: I'm performing at Milwaukee PrideFest on Sunday, June 14th. Details on my calendar, which will also link you to the full schedule of events. There has been some talk among Team Chicago about having a Milwaukee field trip for their Pride since it's on a different weekend from ours. Pros: you probably haven't dated anyone in Milwaukee yet. Cons: none.
• The chorus show's a doozy this time around. We have a blackout scene. There's kissing. Several monks have very little on underneath their habits...
• ...and when that's all over Canasta is at Simon's, near Clark and Foster, on Sunday at 9pm, for two hours of binging on orch-pop and, more importantly, taking some of these new songs for the album on a test run. (We begin recording a week from tomorrow. Aieee.)
  

Feast of Fools podcast feature!

Serendipitously timed with my queerific Cake Chicago show on Saturday, the boys over at the gay fun show, Feast of Fools, featured "Creative Writing Workshop" on their podcast this week. I knew Feast of Fools was one of the most popular LGBT podcasts available, but I just checked their website, and it actually has the largest audience of any LGBT-themed podcast, period. Rock! And it's podcasted from the heart of my old 'hood, Andersonville.

You can listen to the podcast by following this link to their website (no downloading necessary, unless you want to). Go take a listen. It's at the end, kind of like closing credits. Perhaps you can imagine your iPod driving off into the horizon, or something else closing-credit-ish, with little white cartoon hands.

New York Times Faces Prospect of Being an Enclave

"Gay Enclaves Face Prospect of Being Passé" was forwarded to my inbox this morning from two independent sources. (Apparently, it did its job in getting into the Most Emailed list with that precious, precious "gay" keyword.) Once again, what passes for journalism at the New York Times is the kind of specious generalizations one would expect coming from a 10th grade history student, possibly from a remote and isolationist compound in the backwoods of Montana. Has Patricia Leigh Brown never been outside New York or San Francisco? Is she not aware that other "gay enclaves" are available about which to write horrible articles? The headline of "Gay Enclaves..." hints at, oh, I don't know, discussing multiple "enclaves," or national trends, or Boystown, or Chelsea, or Capitol Hill, or Dupont Circle. Taking a handful of unqualified stats from a federal agency is not research, especially when said agency is the U.S. Census Bureau, and especially especially when said agency is panned by LGBT authorities every census-time for its exclusion of accurate sexual identity indices.

Really though, we don't all live in the Castro.

As any queer person who has been to the Castro can tell you, the Castro exists in a bizarre parallel universe where straight people like to come visit our neighborhood, and the prayers you whispered to your Melissa Etheridge CD in high school have all come true. Now, I liked Disneyland when I was a kid, but I sure as hell didn't want to move in to the castle. Using the Castro as a yardstick for gay neighborhoods nationwide gives the article a sense of disconnect with queer culture because it views the Castro as representative instead of exceptional. Many of the gentrification trends first observed in San Francisco and New York simply don't apply anymore to newer "gayborhoods" in cities with smaller queer populations, and there is plenty of sociological research to back that up. The article's defensive analogy to a non-sexual minority (Italians, in this case) leaves much to be desired in terms of relevancy. I fail to see how Italian-American immigration resembles the sexual liberation movement, unless the Times is employing American stereotypes about Italian libidos or penchants for fashionable leather.

Even ten years ago I would have simply appreciated the attention to queer issues, but now I suppose I've become spoiled and have come to expect some tangible facts from my Times articles, what with it being one of the most widely read periodicals in the world.

For the record, the Times' last assault on specificity was mounted in April, when my day was spent emailing with other people who don't live in caves, wondering why the Times ran this article about gay cars. Now, I like my Subaru. I'm glad they advertise in LGBT markets, and like all stereotypes, there's a story of origin as to why many queer folks (mostly women) drive Subarus. (That's for another time...) But digging for the actual subcultural history behind that stereotype was, quite clearly, too taxing for the Times, so instead, the article's sources consisted mostly of four words from a random professor, an unnamed South African website poll (and we all know that website polls have a razor-thin margin of error!) and a list published by a website owned by the Times' parent company. What a solid foundation on which to speculate, wildly.

Dear New York Times: in case you haven't noticed, you are the New York Times. Start writing like it.

The Music Video Clique I Would Like to Join

In the grand tradition of Matt and Ben, there's a new Hollywood-friend-powerhouse in town cameoing in each other's projects with all sorts of homoerotic undertones. But this one's a three-way powerhouse! And this powerhouse is less of a Hollywood trifecta than a YouTube triforce, which gives me an excuse to embed some sweet, sweet video clips on the blog.

...But how did punk-cabaret princess Amanda Palmer, fag hag comic Margaret Cho, and "Kelly" of "Shoes" fame all become friends? Did they meet at the annual Adopted By Queer Audiences Conference, next to Jennifer Hudson's and the Golden Girls' respective tables? And if so, how do I score an invitation to that?

Watch for (very) brief cameos by Cho and Palmer in Kelly's video (there's a long introductory sketch). Cho and Kelly are impossible to miss in the Dresden Dolls video. I haven't found any Cho project with the other Triforce members in it -- anyone else?