Thursday, February 13, 2025

On the Rag, Vol. 846


Fresh ideas for your favorite Valentine; marriage equality turns 10; empowering black LGBT businesswomen; and more in this week's rag 'n' mag roundup BELOW.   

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

When Frank and Mia Got Married


Dear Prudence: I’d like to introduce you to my Auntie Mame.

These delightful Sinatra-Farrow wedding-party photos got me thinking about Mia's younger sister Prudence -- who was born Jan. 20, 1948, in Los Angeles to film director John Farrow and actress Maureen O'Sullivan. Prudence Anne Villiers Farrow Bruns is an author, meditation teacher and film producer. 


From left: Rosalind Russell, Patrick Farrow (brother) and wife Susan, Mia and Prudence


Prudence Farrow (front left) with Ringo Starr (center) and Paul McCartney (right) and their wives at an Indian ashram in March 1968.

She was the subject of the Beatles song "Dear Prudence," which references her time studying Transcendental Meditation in Rishikesh, India, with the Beatles in early 1968.


Prudence Farrow and Robert Durst 

What many don't know is that like Mia, she also has great taste in men -- having been Robert Durst's other woman at the time first wife Kathie McCormack Durst "went missing" in 1982, never to be seen or heard from again.

The New York Post reports that she too was married (to Albert Morrill Bruns) during the three-year affair and lived in a Durst-family-owned brownstone on West 43rd Street. 


Prudence Farrow (far left) -- seen here with the Beatles, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and others in March 1968 -- recalls her interactions with the Fab Four in her memoir, 'Dear Prudence.'

“Prudence wanted Kathie to give Bob up,” Eleanor Schwank, a college friend of Kathie’s, told the tabloid in June 1982. She wanted him all to herself, friends said. Prudence is lucky Kathie refused as she might be one of the few women to be intimate with Durst who lived to tell about it.

Although Durst was never charged in his first wife's disappearance and was acquitted even after admitting dismembering onetime roommate Morris Black in 2003, the real-estate heir was convicted in 2021 of murdering longtime friend Susan Berman and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, at which point Woody Allen probably started to look pretty good. 


Follows appreciated on Threads, Bluesky and Instagram.

Remains of the Day (02/12)




Phonogenics: Discussing Deborah Harry's "Def Dumb & Blonde" track by track; my thoughts on what's considered her best solo effort HERE.






Brooklyn Vegan10 weird and wonderful music videos directed by David Lynch, including the original one for Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" 



Hot Cat of the Day: Doja cat, meet Doha cat ...


Photo by Karen O'Connor: Margo Price, Emmylou Harris, Joan Baez, Rosanne Cash, Bonnie Raitt and Lucinda Williams at the “Sweet Relief Musicians Fund” concert event on Feb. 8 at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco. Sweet Relief Musicians Fund provides services and financial assistance for career musicians and music industry professionals. Grants are earmarked for medical and vital living expenses, including insurance premiums, prescriptions, medical treatment and operative procedures, housing costs, food costs, utilities and other basic necessities. Rosanne has more wonderful pictures HERE.



UPDATE: 


SHE'S BAAAACK ... and she may have a fur(ry) ball of her own!

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Names Nominees for 2025


I think we've all come to realize the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is problematic: Jann Wenner's outsize influence; who decides what is and isn't rock 'n' roll?; decades of misogyny; etc.


Vote HERE.

But if there's going to be one, I definitely want to see my favorite artists inducted. (Even Chrissie Hynde thought better of snubbing the honor, knowing how much it meant to her elderly parents.) 

So three cheers, and hopefully many more votes, for Joy Division/New Order and Cyndi Lauper -- and obviously Chubby Checker, Mariah Carey and Joe Cocker belong in a music hall of fame. 

And here's hoping the Bangles and B-52's finally get the recognition they so richly deserve. Anyone else you're rooting for? 

UPDATE:


OK, you caught me. I fan voted and couldn't not include Billy "Hot in the City" Idol! 

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Remains of the Day (02/11)




Stolen HolidayDirected by John Brahm

Mug Shot HottiesPaul Newman at 21  







Hot Cat of the Day: Move over, Pizza Rat 


Reading List: "Passionate Outlier: Gay Writers and Allies on Their Work" features interviews with Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, Felice Picano, Martin Duberman, Salman Rushdie, Gore Vidal biographer Jay Parini, lifelong Vidal friend Michael Mewshaw, John Rechy and others -- and an afterword by Christopher Bram


Tennis Tuesday: Robert Hays


I've had a crush on Robert Hays since I was a boy -- first as Donna Pescow’s hunky hubby on "Angie" and then as Ted Striker in "Airplane!" (Surely, I can be serious!) Recently I blogged about my post-election television therapy and I can tell you those bootleg "Angie" DVDs were the best investment I've ever made, as evidenced by these screenshots of Dr. Brad Benson in his tennis whites. Plenty more plus his hot son BELOW.