Arts & Entertainment
Lucian Piane apologizes for Twitter meltdown, blames ‘marijuana psychosis’

(Photo via Wikimedia Commons.)
Lucian Piane has apologized for his anti-SemiticĀ and racist Twitter rants calling them a symptom of “marijuana psychosis.”
Piane, 36, posted a series of offensive tweets in October and November including, “If Jews stopped the Holocaust victim shit we would all get along” and “If black people stopped being so ashamed of themselves we could call them n*****s and they would laugh. Backwards shit.”
The music producer and songwriter also attacked his longtime collaborator RuPaul calling him the āwisest n****rā he knows.”
In an Instagram post,Ā PianeĀ apologized for the tweets claiming that UCLA doctors diagnosed him with “marijuana psychosis” during that period. Piane says that he ingested 800mg of cannabis edibles to treat “full body pain” and “terrible fatigue.”
According to Piane, his illness caused him to withdraw as a judge on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and prevented him from working for almost a year.
“I am sorry to have hurt anyone along the way,” Piane writes.
Puerto Rico
Bad Bunny shares Super Bowl stage with Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga
Puerto Rican activist celebrates half time show
Bad Bunny on Sunday shared the stage with Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl halftime show in Santa Clara, Calif.
Martin came out as gay in 2010. Gaga, who headlined the 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, is bisexual. Bad Bunny has championed LGBTQ rights in his native Puerto Rico and elsewhere.
āNot only was a sophisticated political statement, but it was a celebration of who we are as Puerto Ricans,ā Pedro Julio Serrano, president of the LGBTQ+ Federation of Puerto Rico, told the Washington Blade on Monday. āThat includes us as LGBTQ+ people by including a ground-breaking superstar and legend, Ricky Martin singing an anti-colonial anthem and showcasing Young Miko, an up-and-coming star at La Casita. And, of course, having queer icon Lady Gaga sing salsa was the cherry on the top.ā
La Casita is a house that Bad Bunny included in his residency in San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, last year. He recreated it during the halftime show.
āHis performance brought us together as Puerto Ricans, as Latin Americans, as Americans (from the Americas) and as human beings,ā said Serrano. āHe embraced his own words by showcasing, through his performance, that the āonly thing more powerful than hate is love.āā
Drag artists perform for crowds in towns across Virginia. The photographer follows Gerryatrick, Shenandoah, Climaxx, Emerald Envy among others over eight months as they perform at venues in the Virginia towns of Staunton, Harrisonburg and Fredericksburg.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)



















Books
New book explores homosexuality in ancient cultures
āQueer Thing About Sinā explains impact of religious credo in Greece, Rome
āThe Queer Thing About Sinā
By Harry Tanner
c.2025, Bloomsbury
$28/259 pages
Nobody likes you very much.
Thatās how it seems sometimes, doesnāt it? Nobody wants to see you around, they donāt want to hear your voice, they canāt stand the thought of your existence and theyād really rather you just go away. Itās infuriating, and in the new book āThe Queer Thing About Sinā by Harry Tanner, youāll see how we got to this point.
When he was a teenager, Harry Tanner says that he thought he āwas going to hell.ā
For years, heād been attracted to men and he prayed that it would stop. He asked for help from a lay minister who offered Tanner websites meant to repress his urges, but they werenāt the panacea Tanner hoped for. It wasnāt until he went to college that he found the answers he needed and āstopped fearing Godās retribution.ā
Being gay wasnāt a sin. Not ever, but he āstill wanted to know why Western culture believed it was for so long.ā
Historically, many believe that older men were sexual āmentorsā for teenage boys, but Tanner says that in ancient Greece and Rome, same-sex relationships were common between male partners of equal age and between differently-aged pairs, alike. Clarity comes by understanding relationships between husbands and wives then, and careful translation of the word āboy,ā to show that age wasnāt a factor, but superiority and inferiority were.
In ancient Athens, queer love was considered to be ānobleā but after the Persians sacked Athens, sex between men instead became an acceptable act of aggression aimed at conquered enemies. Raping a male prisoner was encouraged but, āGay men became symbols of a depraved lack of self-control and abstinence.ā
Later Greeks believed that men could turn into women āif they werenāt sufficiently virile.ā Biblical interpretations point to more conflict; Leviticus specifically bans queer sex but āthe Sumerians actively encouraged it.ā The Egyptians hated it, but āthere are sporadic clues that same-sex partners lived together in ancient Egypt.ā
Says Tanner, āall is not what it seems.ā
So you say youāre not really into ancient history. If itās not your thing, then āThe Queer Thing About Sinā wonāt be, either.
Just know that if you skip this book, youāre missing out on the kind of excitement you get from reading mythology, but whatās here is true, and a much wider view than mere folklore. Author Harry Tanner invites readers to go deep inside philosophy, religion, and ancient culture, but the information he brings is not dry. No, there are major battles brought to life here, vanquished enemies and death ā but also love, acceptance, even encouragement that the citizens of yore in many societies embraced and enjoyed. Tanner explains carefully how religious credo tied in with homosexuality (or didnāt) and he brings readers up to speed through recent times.
While this is not a breezy vacation read or a curl-up-with-a-blanket kind of book, āThe Queer Thing About Sinā is absolutely worth spending time with. If youāre a thinking person and can give yourself a chance to ponder, youāll like it very much.
-
a&e features4 days agoMarc Shaiman reflects on musical success stories
-
Television4 days agoNetflixās āThe Boyfriendā is more than a dating show
-
Opinions4 days agoSnow, ice, and politics: what is (and isnāt) happening
-
Movies4 days ago50 years later, itās still worth a return trip to āGrey Gardensā
