Robin F***king Black!

Glammer Robin Black gushes about his new band, his inspirations, and how he wouldn't mind makin' out with a dude...that's why we love him!

1) How, when, where and why did Robin Black and the Intergalactic Rock Stars form?

I moved to Toronto in 1998, and found 4 like-minded glam rockers.... we started playing in late '98. We just wanted to be the kind of flashy, good time, exciting band that you just never saw any more.

2) Do you still perform with the boys? Why/Why not?

I still play with "Starboy" Chris Cunnane, the last original member. I have a great new band coming together to tour Canada this spring and the UK this summer. Over time, being in a band is like being married to 5 men of questionable hygiene; you develop different goals in your life. I really appreciate everyone I've played with before.

3) In the song "More Effeminate Than You," do you feel that the message is misrepresented in the heterosexual sense or do you not mind how your fans interpret it? To be honest, as a gay man, I thought you were singing about being more of a queen than your supposed boyfriend and absolutely loved the message of "take me as I am!"

I think it's cool that you see it that way. It was used in the first episode of the North American version of "Queer as Folk" at the moment when the kid (Justin) was outed at school, with "faggot" spray painted on his (Brian's) Jeep. It was very powerful, and I was very moved how they used it. The way you viewed it, as a gay man, is exactly how most straights view it.... that you are more "femmy" than your partner ... for straight guys, it's about being femmier than their girlfriend ... Actually, Starboy wrote most of the lyrics and I usually want to write my own lyrics for his songs, but those were so powerful, and I loved the sentiment, so I just added some of my own...

4) Do you get labeled as "gay" or "bi" at all because of the way you dress and act?

I've been called "gay" thousands of times. I happen to be a (mostly) straight guy who wears make-up and nail polish and dresses flashy... Rednecks and idiots use the term "gay" as an insult, but I sure as fuck don't take it as an insult.

5) Have you ever had a hot experience with a member of the same sex? Who was it with? Do you regret it? Would you do it again?

There have, in the past, been alchohol-fueled evenings where many people were naked in the same room/bed. You often wondered whose hand was where, etc. I remember, in flashes, a guy watching me roger his wife once. Man, crazy times. But, I haven't had the man on man experience. I'm pretty into girls. I can't help it. I was born that way. But I wouldn't rule it out.

6) Please give an average Joe some fashion tips as to how to achieve your look on a regular basis: Glam rock is about cool clothes and hair, eye make-up, etc, but it is, most importantly, about expressing yourself freely. DO YOUR THING! That's my tip.

7) How's the marriage going? How'd you meet your blushing rocker-bride? Any kiddies in the future?

Marriage is tough. I've been married before. Didn't work out. We are actually going through a turbulent time. I am a very driven guy who always puts my career (the entertainment business) and my dreams first. It's not super conducive to great relationships. I am also a hopeless romantic.

8) Please give advice to anyone in the GLBT community who is struggling with who they truly are:

It's tough to be different, but living your life the way you want, instead of by others rules, is worth it no matter how hard it is. Fuck, think of the alternative. DECIDE that you will not spend your years here living for other peoples expectations. Wake up every day and celebrate who you are.

9) Who's your biggest inspiration in the wonderful world of music and glam rock? Is David Bowie aka Ziggy Stardust one of them?

I love Bowie, I love T. Rex. As a kid, I wanted to be just like Billy Idol.

10) Comment on how you thought Velvet Goldmine represented the glam rock era? If you didn't see it, what movie correctly portrays the genre that you perform in?

I loved the look, I loved the music. I thought it really, really felt like the gendre-fucked drug-fueled glam rock days that I imagine in the 70's. I fucking LOVE Hedwig. And Phantom of the Paradise.

11) What does Robin Fucking Black have planned for the future?

I am developing a TV series right now, Writing a new record. Touring canada this year. Touring the UK and Germany in August. I am also fighting my first professional Cage Fight in Ottawa, Ontario on July 26th. Don't ask. ;) Just hoping to keep life an adventure!

-interview conducted by giuseppe - please note all content is copyright material -

Ronnie Kroell Does Commercials

Did you know that the soon-to-be supermodel was in this commercial? He still looks cute, but kinda straight haha. Hopefully an interview with him coming soon!

Notes From The Concrete Jungle: The Case For Belief

In early June one event shocked the world more then anything the news agencies were reporting. Screens across America were filled with the sight of a cozy diner, the sounds of a door jingling open and Steve Perry singing “Don’t Stop Believing’,” and then the worse: the screens went black. Total consuming black. Now, no, a blackout didn’t just suddenly roll across America all at the same time. Something far greater just took place: the ambiguous end to one of the nation’s most watched cable programs. To say the public was upset would be putting it mildly. To say the nation was in a total uproar, well, that might be a little closer to the truth. See, we love endings. That’s why we love sports and wars and lottery winners. We love the completeness that comes from knowing that there’s an end, a clear-cut, finality to it all. Yet, the nation’s beloved television program didn’t offer that. It offered a far greater lesson though: Belief. Since I was a child I was taught to believe in something greater than myself, an embrace of the unknown if you will. Something out there was bigger and greater than myself, and if I prayed (or thought) hard enough, then the wishes and desires I wanted would come true. Thus the seed of faith (or hope, or belief) was born into me. Now, cynics will say - and have said - there’s no need for belief in a world of numbers and logic. After all, one look at a series of numbers and the answers to the world’s largest problems can supposedly be solved. The national debt is into the trillions, so if person A. pays this much and person B. pays this much, etc., etc., the national debt will eventually be repaid. This is the way of numbers and logic and how we live much of modern lives. Nevertheless, not everything can be solved by numbers and logic. Sometimes, we need something greater then ourselves to understand the problem. We still need belief, in ways great and small. Belief in a better world and the better natures of Man - large. Belief in finding a date for the party on Saturday night - small. Belief is weaved into our very fabric. Our forefathers once believed and hoped for a greater future. I believe, for the most part, we’ve got it. Now it’s our turn to believe in a greater tomorrow for our children and our children’s children. Perhaps it’s time to put aside our total reliance on numbers and logic and throw a little more towards belief. Maybe, just maybe, we should step outside the conventional and into the unknown. To paraphrase a popular slogan: To think outside the known. Besides, doing so taps into another primal human desire: the need for adventure and risk. Is Tony Soprano dead? Perhaps. Perhaps not. If nothing else, Mr. Chase - the show’s creator, writer and director - has challenged us. He’s forcing us to reexamine our understanding of the known and the unknown. In essence, we need to return to believing - before our own screens cut quickly to black.

Texas

20th Century Boy...

...in prep for Robin fucking Black's interview...

Robin Black: Why Don't You Love Me?

Please "stay tuned" for an exclusive interview from this hott glam rocker!

Notes from the Concrete Jungle: Cheaters Anonymous

I’m a Southern Boy, I can’t lie about that, even my accent won’t leave me. Yet, as a Southern Boy, there is one thing I hate. In fact, I loathe it. Care to know what it is? Well, even if you don’t, I’ll tell you - County Music. Seriously. There’s an old joke my father told me many times when I was a kid. It goes something like this… “What do you get when you play a Country Music song backwards? The guy gets his house, his dog, his wife, and his kids back.” Now, the joke got me thinking just a bit. What happens when one lives gay life in reverse? See, I’ve noticed something in gay life; our relationships are a bit short and quick. I don’t know if it’s by nature, or if there is a specific reason, but it seems to be true. So I’ve been thinking, if we live our life in reverse, does that mean we get to keep all our dreams? You know, kids, husband, family, good job, and all that? Sadly, one look at our culture tells us we are not living it in reverse, but seem to be stuck in permanent fast forward. Our culture is built upon the age of porn ads and disposable boyfriends. Maybe (and this may just be the cynic in me) we’d be better off with the fully pose able, automated G.I. Joe figures from our youth. At least he won’t leave you, and if he does you can always just introduce him to some Independence Day style action and strap him to a bottle rocket and send him whizzing off into the clear blue skies. Ah, wouldn’t that be a wonderful miracle? Sadly, that is not an option, not even remotely. Well, I guess it MIGHT be an option if you’re the sadomasochistic type. And even then there are about a gazillion laws that protect him from you. So what’s a modern boy to do with an age old epidemic that seems to be plaguing our culture in alarming numbers? After all, infidelity, or “cheating” in layman’s terms, is a plague. So what are we to do? A bit of a back-story here: In October of 2004 I had this boyfriend who I’d been dating on and off over several years. With us it was always the same old story of two people eventually going their separate ways when our roads would part, get back together when they merged, etc. etc. ad nauseum. The last time, and I do mean the last time, we were together things between us seemed to be going very well. At that point in time I was in a decent job and things in my life seemed to be moving forward. One night, as I was sitting around the house waiting on him to come home (yes, we made the effort to live together), an IM box pops up on my computer. It was a mutual friend asking if my boyfriend was around. Of course, my boyfriend hadn’t arrived yet so I asked my friend what was wrong. The box was silent for several moments, then the familiar ding, and then words blazed across the screen. “He’s cheating on you.” Silence. Was it a joke? Maybe. I tried to take into account that my friend was a bit of a practical joker. I tried to brush it off; after all we were the perfect couple in a lot of ways. We didn’t fight. He had his friends. I had mine. We didn’t generally annoy the hell out of each other. I mean, it wasn’t perfect, but it was comfortable. There in lies the problem: Comfortablity breeds blind eyes. Over the course of the next several hours I learned of my boyfriend’s… lack of better judgment… through saved e-mails, conversations, and a few-well placed phone calls. I became a mini-detective gold mining all my friends and usual haunts for information. Yes, I’ll admit it was a bit stalkerish, and a tad overboard, but I wanted to have all my information in place before I confronted him. I mean, I did have the best information in the world. The guy who told me he was cheating, well, that was the guy my boyfriend was cheating on me with. Eventually, days later, when all the information came into place, I confronted my boyfriend. His excuse for doing it - “I don’t know.” “I don’t know?” How do you explain throwing away something good with “I don’t know?” And thus begins the decent into the maelstrom of trust issues, doubt issues, and the oh so lovely self-esteem issues. I’m sure you know the whole stream of questions, “ Am I not good enough? Am I not attractive enough? Has he told me the truth on this, that or the other? Why? Why? Why?” The world suddenly becomes an endless series of questions, and not a damn one of them has an answer to it. And friends, well they are about as useful as a heat wave in July. Wait, I take that back. They were more helpful then I give them credit for, but that was in the long run. But at that particular moment in my life, well, they weren’t exactly the most helpful group of people ever invented. When I asked them why my boyfriend might have done it, I’d get the same generic answers. Answers I’ve could have read for myself on the net (which I did too - by the way). You see, studying infidelity, specifically gay infidelity isn’t anything new. Clinicians have been studying it since the early 70’s. Type in “gay male” and “infidelity” in your search bar and the whole spectrum of reports will appear at your fingertips for you to browse, shop and research on your own. What do all these reports have in common? They don’t give a Southern Boy like me an iota of information into the male psyche I didn’t already have. All of them pontificate the same jaded dated reasons as to why men cheat. Amusingly enough, there are some real amusing reasons that run the gauntlet from boredom right down to the classic “I want to fit in” syndrome. And while these may be valid reasons accepted by doctors and the like, these are NOT valid reasons for your lover or mate. You see, in all honesty, that little desire to cheat destroys something incredible precious and damn near rare in this world. Think of it this way: In every relationship there is a precious gem, trust, and it’s the most rare and purposeful gem in the world. You can hardly find it or see it, but when you do the damn thing shines brilliantly against all odds. Now, when cheating enters into the picture, that little gem gets a bit discolored, or worse, shattered. It’s damn near impossible to rebuild. In the wake of infidelity you’re left holding a gem made of the shattered and bruised egos, a relationship in need of repair, broken trust, and boundaries forever crossed. And in that shattered wake, the little pieces of trust shine and reveal just how broke you really are in new and scary ways. This is why fidelity is a virtue. Fidelity breeds something of its own. Trust. And with trust, all things are possible. So, before signing off this week, I’m going to pose an open question, and in the coming weeks, post some of the comments and respond to them. I’ll ask a few fairly simple questions. 1.) Have you ever been cheated on? 2.) Did you or did you not take them back? 3.) Why? 4.) If you’ve never been cheated on, do you think you would take them back if they did? And why? I’d like to see some answers to this and in the coming weeks, we’ll explore it a little further. For now, enjoy time with your friends, lovers, mates and what have you. As for me, I’m going to go curl up next to Rog and pass out for a little while. - Texas

NEMESIS: Number One In Heaven

Just remember, it's ALWAYS your turn to shine!