Arts & Entertainment

Michael Ian Black says his mother’s coming out was tramautic

comedian says his mom underwent shock therapy

Published

8 years ago

March 28, 2016

Mariah Cooper

(Screenshot via YouTube)

Comedian Michael Ian Black spoke with Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” in promotion for his book “Navel Gazing: True Tales of Bodies Mostly Mine (But also my mom’s which I know sounds weird),” about his mother’s coming out and being cast in gay roles.

Black, 44, says that his mother came out as a lesbian when he was about five years old.

“…That broke up my parents’ marriage, not that it was on very firm footing to begin with,” Black told Gross. “And then she entered a very long kind of abusive relationship – which is the relationship that I grew up within – with a woman I call Elaine in the book. We talked a lot about the traumas of her sexuality, and a lot of it was traumatic. Her parents forced her to undergo shock therapy when she was in her late teens … to ‘un-gay’ her. In fact, it kind of wiped her memory clean of a lot of her early life.”

As a teenager, Black says his mother and her partner assumed Black was gay.

“I was probably 13, 14, something like that, and I was mortified and infuriated and it was so presumptuous of them and crossing so many boundaries,” Black says. “I didn’t even know how to respond. I was just sputtering with rage when they said this to me. In retrospect, I get it. I do understand why they thought I may have been gay, and the answers are because I was interested in theater and because my friends were mostly female and because, I don’t know, I maybe expressed myself a certain way or spoke in a certain way.”

The comedian also says he’s been typecast in gay roles.

“I’m almost always hired to play gay. Like, it’s never left, that whole thing. My first movie role was in ‘Wet Hot American Summer,’ where I play a gay counselor. I’ve played gay in so many things. It’s like with anything else, you just kind of make peace with it at a certain point. I can do that for you. I can do other things and hopefully people will see me and let me do other things, and they have thankfully, particularly in recent years. But yeah, I always get hired to play gay,” he said.

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FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM

Nightlife

Ed Bailey brings Secret Garden to Project GLOW festival

An LGBTQ-inclusive dance space at RFK this weekend

Published

2 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Evan Caplan

Ed Bailey's set at last year's Project Glow. (Photo courtesy Bailey)

When does a garden GLOW? When it’s run by famed local gay DJ Ed Bailey.

This weekend, music festival Project GLOW at RFK Festival Grounds will feature Bailey’s brainchild the Secret Garden, a unique space just for the LGBTQ community that he launched in 2023.

While Project GLOW, running April 27-28, is a stage for massive electronic DJ sets in a large outdoor space, Secret Garden is more intimate, though no less adrenaline-forward. He’s bringing the nightclub to the festival. The garden is a dance area that complements the larger stages, but also stands on its own as a draw for festival-goers. Its focus is on DJs that have a presence and following in the LGBTQ audience world.

“The Secret Garden is a showcase for what LGBTQ nightlife, and nightclubs in general, are all about,” he says. “True club DJs playing club music for people that want to dance in a fun environment that is high energy and low stress. It’s the cool party inside the bigger party.”

Project GLOW launched in 2022. Bailey connected with the operators after the first event, and they discussed Bailey curating his own space for 2023. “They were very clear that they wanted me to lean into the vibrant LGBTQ nightlife of D.C. and allow that community to be very visibly a part of this area.”

Last year, club icon Kevin Aviance headlined the Secret Garden. The GLOW festival organizers loved the its energy from last year, and so asked Bailey to bring it back again, with an entire year to plan.

This year, Bailey says, he is “bringing in more D.C. nightlife legends.” Among those are DJ Sedrick, “a DJ and entertainer legend. He was a pivotal part of Tracks nightclub and is such a dynamic force of entertainment,” says Bailey. “I am excited for a whole new audience to be able to experience his very special brand of DJing!”

Also, this year brings in Illustrious Blacks, a worldwide DJ duo with roots in D.C.; and “house music legends” DJs Derrick Carter and DJ Spen.

Bailey is focusing on D.C.’s local talent, with a lineup including Diyanna Monet, Strikestone!, Dvonne, Baronhawk Poitier, THABLACKGOD, Get Face, Franxx, Baby Weight, and Flower Factory DJs KS, Joann Fabrixx, and PWRPUFF.

Secret Garden also brings in performers who meld music with dance, theater, and audience interactions for a multi-sensory experience.

Bailey is an owner of Trade and Number Nine, and was previously an owner of Town Danceboutique. Over the last 35 years, Bailey owned and operated more than 10 bars and clubs in D.C. He has an impressive resume, too. Since starting in 1987, he’s DJ’d across the world for parties and nightclubs large and intimate. He says that he opened “in concert for Kylie Minogue, DJed with Junior Vasquez, played giant 10,000-person events, and small underground parties.” He’s also held residencies at clubs in Atlanta, Miami, and here in D.C. at Tracks, Nation, and Town.

With Secret Garden, Bailey and GLOW aim to bring queer performers into the space not just for LGBTQ audiences, but for the entire music community to meet, learn about, and enjoy. While they might enjoy fandom among queer nightlife, this Garden is a platform for them to meet the entirety of GLOW festival goers.

Weekend-long Project GLOW brings in headliners and artists from EDM and electronic music, with big names like ILLENIUM, Zedd, and Rezz. In all, more than 50 artists will take the three stages at the third edition of Project GLOW, presented by Insomniac (Electric Daisy Carnival) and Club Glow (Echostage, Soundcheck).

Out & About

Washington Improv Theatre hosts ‘The Queeries’

Event to celebrate queer DMV talent and pop culture camp

Published

3 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Tinashe Chingarande

The Washington Improv Theatre, along with the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington DC, will team up to host “The Queeries!” on Friday, April 26 at 9:30 p.m. at Studio Theatre.

The event will celebrate Queer DMV talent and pop culture camp. With a mixture of audience-submitted nominations and blatantly undemocratically declared winners, “The Queeries!” mimics LGBTQ life itself: unfair, but far more fun than the alternative.

The event will be co-hosted by Birdie and Butchie, who have invited some of their favorite bent winos, D.C. “D-listers,” former Senate staffers, and other stars to sashay down the lavender carpet for the selfie-strewn party of the year.

Tickets are just $15 and can be purchased on WITV’s website.