The Crime Was Bubbles

Welcome back to the Watering Hole. Trump finally said out loud why he took the Kennedy Center, and the answer is a drag queen who blew bubbles at a children's party in 2024, so on Friday a crowd nobody could agree how to count linked hands around the building. Further down, Troye Sivan is a knight in armor and Seattle deleted two words from its civil rights code.

Trump finally told us why he took the Kennedy Center. A drag queen blew bubbles for children. There were lollipops. That was 2024. This week he was photographed holding a poster that says demolish. keep reading →

The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington sang on the Kennedy Center steps on Friday night. Four outlets counted the crowd and got hundreds, one thousand, two thousand, and “thousands.” keep reading →

A Texas city killed a church's Pride festival, asked no questions, and made no comment. Its own planning commission had said yes, 5 to 1. Nobody at the city would say why council said no. keep reading →

Turkey detained more than 150 people outside a courthouse for trying to hold a press conference. The plan was to stand outside and talk to reporters. That was the entire plan. keep reading →

Asked to name his favorite drag queen in Texas, James Talarico did not stall for a second. Alyssa Edwards. Who teaches dance in Mesquite, at a studio the city's own tourism office brags about. keep reading →

The UFC middleweight champion was asked which celebrity he would most like to fight. He said Elliot Page. He called it an easy dub. Page is 39, acts for a living, and is currently a Greek soldier for Nolan. keep reading →

Zack Snyder says he cannot be a fascist because 300 is one of the gayest movies ever made. He is right about the movie. That is a different thing from being right about himself. keep reading →

Katya postponed the tour before opening night, gave no reason, and switched the comments off. Turning off comments is the most articulate part of the post. She is not taking questions. keep reading →

A dying punk asked his brother where the gays in rock were. The answer started streaming today. His brother Marcus died in 2012 without an answer. Lance Black made four hours of one. keep reading →

Seattle wrote consensual non-monogamy into its civil rights code and nobody voted against it. The line nobody is quoting deletes “male or female” from the municipal code. keep reading →

Troye Sivan put Ian McKellen's voice on a dance track built out of Madonna's “Music.” He is a knight. There is cake. The two of them met doing Beckett when Troye was a teenager. keep reading →

Duncan Sheik has died at 56. He wrote “Barely Breathing,” and then he wrote Spring Awakening. Two schoolboys got a love song in 2006, and a generation of theater kids got permission. keep reading →

Three and a half years after Heklina died in a London flat, an inquest has finally said why. Four separate teams of detectives. Two officers mishandled it, the Met's own review found. keep reading →

A novel we will not shut up about, and two things for the first weekend it is cold enough to have opinions about a moisturizer.

Some links here are ShopMy commission links, so we earn a small cut if you buy something. It costs you nothing extra, nobody paid us to pick these, and it has no bearing on what makes the list. The Fruit Fly link earns us nothing at all. We have left prices off this time because we could not verify them today, so check before you buy.

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— Spencer