Photo: public domain February 19th is a significant date for Japanese-Americans. On this day in 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which gave the U.S. Army the authority to remove civilians from the military zones established in Washington, … [Read more...]
#OnThisDay: 1943, The Nasty Nazis Execute Members of the White Rose Movement
February 22, 1943- Those damn Nazis execute the members of the White Rose Movement who actively opposed Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. It is probably the most famous civilian Resistance Movement in Germany and against the Nazis. Most of its members paid a terrible price for … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Actor, Veronica Lake
November 13, 1922 – Veronica Lake: "I never did cheesecake; I just used my hair." With her peek-a-boo hairstyle and sultry looks, Lake had a string of broken marriages and, after her career declined, she had long struggles with money problems, mental illness and alcoholism. … [Read more...]
Escape Room LA: ‘The Theatre’ is Spooky Fun!
Escape Room LA, which I've written about before on this very blog, has a brand new room that Thairin and I recently had the … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Songwriter, Billy Strayhorn
November 29, 1915- Billy Strayhorn William Thomas Strayhorn is a major musical figure for me, & he is a considerable contributor to the world of jazz, as well as an imperative Gay Icon. He is the composer of one of my most admired songs. I have chosen a clip of Lady Gaga's … [Read more...]
Escape Room LA
I had the absolute pleasure of participating in the Escape Room LA this week. Escape rooms have been popping up all over the country and all over the world in the last few years. I only first heard of … [Read more...]
No Manscaping Allowed in Kill Your Darlings
In the video, above, the film's director John Krokidas tells Daily Xtra how he kept things authentically 1940s in the sex scenes in part by banning Daniel Radcliffe and … [Read more...]
Flashback 1940s: Nazi Yoga
Eva Braun doing urdhva dhanurasana in her bathing suit at Lake Konigssee, a few miles from Hitler’s mountaintop retreat, Berghof. … [Read more...]
Putting Boys on a Pedestal
Back before Jeff Stryker, before John Holmes, before the peep-show booths that showed 8mm film loops there was Bruce of LA. Bruce Harry Bellas came to Los Angeles in the mid-1940s hot to shoot the musclemen of Venice Beach. The Golden Age of Physique Photography was … [Read more...]
Kubrick’s Pics
Back in the 1940s, when Stanley Kubrick was a poor kid from the Bronx working as a photojournalist for Look magazine (the youngest staff photographer in the mag's history), he shot almost 10,000 black-and-white pictures in and around New York City, oftentimes surreptitiously with … [Read more...]
