Happy Independence Day

 

Hope you're having a wonderful holiday weekend, definitely not thinking about how 48% of this great idea of a nation went so horribly off the rails. I will see you on Tuesday. xo

Or if you prefer ...

Page 1 Roundup (04/24)

The Daily News: A maniacal college student obsessed with mass murderers plowed a rental van into a crowd of pedestrians in Toronto on Monday, killing 10 innocent people and wounding another 15 in Canada's worst massacre in nearly three decades

I'll give you one guess what color these women were who had the cops called on them for playing golf 'too slowly'

Statements of suspect in Hofstra grad murder case may be inadmissible because he lawyered up before admission

California cop accused of fatally shooting black man in Walmart parking lot previously charged with hate crime

Rolling Stone: Adam Rippon on his goals after Olympic figure skating

Towleroad: President Obama was right when he said Kanye West was a 'jackass'

New York Post: Police investigating Facebook posts allegedly made by suspected Toronto driver

Man stabbed by Fed Ex worker near Empire State Building

Page Six: Allison Mack allegedly tried to lure Emma Watson and Kelly Clarkson to sex cult

The Decider: Former Nickelodeon child star's raunchy Netflix sex scenes freaking people out

The New York Times: Rand Paul is just as spineless as you thought he was

I will never forgive Wisconsin for 2016, but the fight for it is on as outside money pours into this year's Senate race

I see I'm not the only one who was mortified by the Donna Summer musical on Broadway

THR: 'Search Party' renewed for Season 3

The Washington Post: Senate to postpone confirmation hearing for Ronny Jackson to head Veterans Affairs, White House officials told

Mother Jones: Republicans want to throw the book at Colorado teachers getting ready to strike

The Wall Street Journal: My beloved octopus: Animal memoirs move way beyond cats and dogs

'Summer: The Donna Summer Musical': Would've Loved to Love You, Baby

"Summer: The Donna Summer Musical" premiered tonight on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, with three women stepping into the shoes of the late Queen of Disco. Summer is said to have wanted this jukebox story of her life to be made, having apparently worked on an early version it before her sudden death from lung cancer in 2012 at 63. But there's no doubt she's not dancing with Steve Rubell in Heaven 54 tonight after seeing what they came up in her absence. 

Three faces of Donna: LaChanze (diva), Storm Lever (duckling) and Ariana DeBose (disco)

Now my lukewarm feelings about musicals are no secret. But as a lifetime Donna Summer fan, I went into this excited and with an open heart -- yet I have to be honest when I say it was one of the most cringe-inducing theatrical experiences of my life. And that two of the leads -- LaChanze and Ariana DeBose -- were wonderful performers and the music (obviously) is one classic hit after the next yet the show was still so dismal speaks to just how ill-conceived it was. Apparently writers Colman Domingo, Robert Cary and Des McAnuff never got to the "show don't tell" chapter in their Writing 101 books, because the entire play is one embarrassingly literal monologue after the next, with these three poor women reciting dialogue along the lines like "Then I moved to Munich and there was a lot of art but I was the only black person so it was weird"(!) and "Once you’re on a roller coaster it’s real hard to get off”(!!). And rather than giving any thoughtful attention to the events of her remarkable life -- such as her circuitous rise to international stardom, interracial marriages, decision to leave her newborn daughter to be raised by her parents, substance abuse, childhood sexual abuse, ambivalence about being a sex goddess when she was brought up as a church choir girl, suicide attempt -- let alone her alienating her fanbase at the height of her fame by becoming a Born Again Christian, each detail is quickly glossed over as if the producers were going down a checklist culled from her Wikipedia entry. Things got even worse when Diva Donna spent all of two minutes addressing/brushing off the career-damaging rumor that she had told a concert audience in the early '80s that AIDS was God's punishment for homosexual "sin." In the musical, the whole thing gets truncated to "I made a bad joke about Adam and Steve, but some of my best friends are gay so there’s no way I’m homophobic." (For the record, she denied making any of the statements about gay people, yet the musical has her taking “credit” for the one.) Diva Donna is then forced to say “God made Adam and Steve and Eve and Louise and everybody else” -- an applause line -- yet rather than putting my hands together I felt myself blushing for the actress having to deliver this shoehorned soliloquy.

 To be fair, though, the writers' one major attempt to "show" rather than "tell" -- in this case about an incident involving a violent ex-boyfriend -- saw the cast flailing around to the pulsating beat of "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" (get it?) in what can only be described as the most (unintentionally) hilarious depiction of domestic abuse to date. (I'd go back a dozen times for the camp value of that scene alone if not for the steep ticket prices!) The 100-minute show has no intermission, and I can't help but think this was by design so the audience wouldn't be able to compare notes about what they were witnessing. (About the audience: Summer's hits are so good that a few people seemed to want to clap or get up to dance. But then the dumbfounding monologues would start again, so no one could ever work up any real excitement/momentum.) So rather than wasting your time with this double-knit nightmare, might I suggest spending two hours at home listening to Donna Summer's "Greatest Hits Volumes I and II," "Endless Summer" or her seminal double "Bad Girls" album. Her music has been here all along. But perhaps the one positive thing that can come out of this debacle is that it will encourage people to remember what a true pioneer she was, something "Summer: The Donna Summer Musical" somehow manages to miss completely.

Song of the Day: 'I Don't Wanna Get Hurt' by Donna Summer

Wonderful follow-up to "This Time I Know It's for Real" that should have been a bigger hit than it was.

Song of the Day: 'She Works Hard for the Money' by Donna Summer

Because Donna put it more eloquently than any actress ever could.

I Feel Love ... Finally

So happy to hear that Donna Summer is finally being honored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She will be posthumously inducted in a ceremony that will air on HBO on May 18, along with Heart (yay!), Rush (yuck), Randy Newman, Public Enemy and Quincy Jones. Read HERE.

What's Your Favorite Donna Summer Song?

 

Scene from the Castro

Donna Summer died two weeks ago tomorrow, yet I'm less comfortable with the idea of her not being with us anymore than I was then. Michael and Whitney were self-destructive wrecks, but not Donna. Donna was a church-going wife and mother -- whose mezzo-soprano vocal range made me more likely to believe in God than anything I'd ever heard in church. I spent a huge chunk of yesterday listening to my Donna catalogue, marveling at its variety, sophistication and how influential so much of it was. But more than anything, I was reminded just how much fun it is to listen to over and over, so completely infectious.

The day she died I declared my long-held belief that "Heaven Knows" is my favorite song of hers, but came close to reconsidering a few times yesterday. I would love to hear what YOUR favorite Donna Summer song is -- and feel free to share any memories you have of her music. It's in that spirit that I confess that in 1978 when "Heaven Knows" was riding high on the chart, I mistakenly thought she was singing "Farrakhan"! I was 10 or 11, so this had no political meaning or anything to me. I just thought it was a guy's name, which puts it right up there with "Alex the Seal"!

Please vote in the comments sections.

P.S. One of the things I love about "Heaven Knows" are the backing vocals by Joe Esposito of Brooklyn Dreams, which performed the music. (Donna would later marry band member Bruce Sudano.) Tonight I discovered that Esposito recorded his own version of the song with Donna Summer on backing vocals. It appeared on Brooklyn Dreams' 1979 LP, "Sleepless Nights." Enjoy!

Endless Summer

A kind reader points me to this Donna Summer mural in the Bronx. I feel love all over ...

Dim All the Lights

TMZ has a copy of the program from Donna Summer's memorial service, going on now in Nashville. Still seems very wrong that she's no longer with us. See it HERE.

You Should Be Dancing

Heaven knows if you were ever gonna go to Double-Headed Disco at Nowhere, this would be the weekend. As my friend Chip puts it, "Those boys will know how to treat Donna right." (I can hear some Bee Gees in the distance, too!) Details HERE.

Oh, Donna

Still devastated about the shocking death of Donna Summer, which her family confirmed was caused by lung cancer. Sadly, we've started to slip into the "Fault" vs. "No Fault" death phenomenon, something I wrote about a few years ago. It doesn't really matter what caused her death, what's important is that we remember a woman who brought us so much joy. Since the memorial service in her adopted hometown of Nashville is a private affair, what better way to "feel love" than to share memories with others who adored the Queen of Disco? The New York Times has a great roundup of "some of the last remaining denizens of the legendary New York dance clubs Studio 54, the Paradise Garage, 12 West, Flamingo and Xenon recalled their fondest memories of dancing to Donna Summer. At least, as much as they could remember."

Here's three I loved:

Liz Rosenberg, publicist to Madonna, Cher, Stevie Nicks and, briefly, Donna Summer

“Donna Summer was it. I went to Paradise Garage, the Loft and the Flamingo. Only gay clubs. The music was always better and you always heard Donna Summer. She also put on phenomenal live shows. The show I remember very well was the Greek Theater in L.A. They had this street lamp setup, and all these people who worked around Donna came out in outfits and did ‘Bad Girls’ like they were hookers. It was a big industry audience and it just went insane. I knew at that moment I was at something historic. I could only equate it to Bette Midler in terms of those out-there concert extravaganzas.”

Deborah Harry, lead singer of Blondie “There’s a live recording somewhere of us doing ‘I Feel Love.’ We played it all over the place. I know we did at CBGB at first and then various shows all over the world. I was crazy about that song. You couldn’t help but love it. It was so fresh.”

Ian Schrager, an owner of Studio 54 “The drag queens would get up on stage and emulate her, but they were never as pretty.” Read 'em all HERE.

Last Dance for Donna Summer, Dead at 63

Very sad to read about the death of Donna Summer, who apparently was battling cancer for years before succumbing to the disease today at 63. Although I'm a bit too young to have properly experienced the Donnamania that truly swept the nation in the late 1970s -- my friends' older siblings were going to discos, while we watched in envy -- I was a diehard fan nonetheless ("Heavens Knows" is in my Top 10 singles of all time). And I vividly remembering her late '80s comeback hit, "This Time I Know It's for Real," as being a highlight of my early "out" years. They practically played the video on a loop at JR's on Dupont Circle when I was interning on Capitol Hill!!! But it's her classic songs, like "I Feel Love," "Love to Love You Baby," "Could It Be Magic," "MacArthur Park," "Bad Girls," "Din All the Lights," "Hot Stuff," "Enough Is Enough," "Last Dance," "State of Independence" and, perhaps more than other, "On the Radio" -- the heart wrenching song from the underrated film "Foxes" -- that will live on forever.

I never believed the "Adam and Steve" comments attributed to her, although I guess anything's possible. Even if they were true, I'd still separate her work from her person a la Woody Allen, that's how talented I thought she was. (I even asked my boss if she would be sending us home early today. Although she said no, she was sympathetic to my cause.)

RIP, Donna Summer. You will be missed.