Trenton Duque, Nancy Pelosi, William Booher, Baby Jabba, Matthias Vriens, Picard’s Enterprise-D, Bug Chasers, Unseen Warhols, Les Mots à La Bouche is Closing, and MORE: #GAYNRD DAILY #MLKJrDay

Savas Abadsidis January 20, 2020

PICARD is finally coming this Thursday! CBS All Access’ second Star Trek series, Picard debuts Thursday and we couldn’t be more excited (that’s Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan at the Picard premiere in Hollywood last week above via Instagram). The last trailer for the new series even features a slightly retconned and streamlined Enterprise D in a blink and you’ll miss it shot, from the latest Picard “Blue Skies” trailer.

Like the original Enterprise’s re-design in Discovery season 2, this one just takes and builds on the best of the original. I really love this though because I always hated that TNG‘s starship looked like it would topple over when seen head on. The new trailer doesn’t reveal much new stuff in terms of plot but does suggest that Picard is indeed reinstated as a Star Fleet captain to take on his new mysterious mission.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4DZqDgJl_M

EMMY AWARD winning comedy legend Leslie Jordan opened for Sampson McCormick in Vegas Saturday night. Says Sampson, “We ROCKED that joint!! Sold out audience. Thanks to everybody who came out.”

WHAT A BOY WANTS “I want this so bad OMG.”

I WANT THIS SO BAD OMG pic.twitter.com/pWMARm0faS
— daniel ☁️ (@danielbeckman_) January 18, 2020

POLECATS The Buttigieg Campaign moved a fundraiser over a dancer pole. “Pete Buttigieg’s husband just canceled his appearance / fundraiser tonight at the Dark Lady in Providence, Rhode Island because the “gay bar has a dancer pole!” Sorry this event is no longer happening this evening. We guess this is what the gay candidate does to the gay community.

WPRI reports: “The event had been widely promoted on social media, including by City Council President Sabina Matos. … Buck Asprinio, the general manager of the Dark Lady, said members of the campaign who arrived at the venue ahead of the event said they asked staff members to remove the ‘dancing pole’ in the middle of the club. They refused to do so. A spokesperson for the Buttigieg campaign did not deny the Dark Lady’s version of events, but declined to provide a reason for the relocation.”

The event was reportedly moved at the last minute to the Hotel Providence.

Said Asprinio of the pole: “It’s been here since we opened and it’s not going anywhere. The dancer pole is part of who we are ─ if you want to dance on a pole, we’re the place to be.”

#MEGIXT Prince Harry defended his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and spoke about the “great sadness” he feels about stepping back as a senior member of the royal family during a speech at a charity dinner on Sunday night. “I want you to hear the truth from me as much as I can share. Not as a Prince or a Duke, but as Harry, the same person that many of you have watched grow up over the last 35 years⁠—but with a clearer perspective,” he said during a speech at a Sunday dinner for supporters of Sentebale, a charity he co-founded in 2006 to help people in Africa affected by HIV and AIDS.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B7hGUztJA0F/?utm_source=ig_embed

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. is honored this day. Yet according to an early 1968 Harris Poll, the man whose over half-century of martyrdom we acknowledge today died with a public disapproval rating of nearly 75%, a figure shocking in its own day and still striking even in today’s highly polarized political climate. King’s unfavorable numbers were at least 25 points higher in 1968 than in 1963.

An excerpt from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail: “I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens’ Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

“I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured. …

“I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: ‘All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.’ Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”

HUMANITY FIRST Andrew Yang isn’t a politician. He’s an entrepreneur who knows how the economy works—and he’s terrified about the growing automation of American jobs. That’s why he’s running for President as a Democrat in 2020. America has lost its direction, and it’s time we put humanity first. Andrew wants to get America back on track—to be a nation of opportunity, freedom, equality, and abundance. It all starts with the Freedom Dividend, $1,000/month for every American adult over the age 18, no strings attached.

MEME OF THE DAY Michal Cera’s Robin from Lego Batman is always funny.

BABY JABBA? Baby Jabba first hit the internet in late November and eventually, it reached Reddit.

#BabyYoda might have some serious competition from this viral #BabyJabba fan art:https://t.co/deUMSYvMBi pic.twitter.com/mK26fAMzH2
— ComicBook.com (@ComicBook) January 20, 2020

That’s where X-Men: Apocalypse alum Olivia Munn saw it and instantly had to share it on her social platforms, taking to Instagram Sunday night to oogle over the adorable little guy.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7hBuHwAIL4/

Rather than going super screen-accurate, much like another attempt at a Baby Jabba from a different concept artist, Viti’s (@leovitiart on Instagram) take on the character took a more rounded approach to the space slug. Full of slobber, Viti’s work shows Baby Jabba as the world’s cutest little chonker, something that’d absolutely start a Twitter war should the character ever make the leap to live-action. Check him out in the epic video below.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5kid5Ej1R-/?utm_source=ig_embed

UNSEEN WARHOLS Check out Interview Magazine‘s “THE UNSEEN PHOTOS OF ANDY WARHOL: PHOTO BOOTHS, BARE BUTTS, AND A SEWING MACHINE.” When Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery announced a “new major exhibition of Andy Warhol’s photography,” aptly titled Andy Warhol Photography: 1967-1987, it’s easy to wonder if there was anything new to see from Warhol’s oeuvre. Read the interview with Shainman here.

TWINK UPGRADE by Trenton Duque.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7jl266Hcd0/

CATWOMAN is 80 years old this year. Selina Kyle first appeared in Batman number one in 1940.

As played by Julie Newmar, she was my second favorite of the TV Batman villains after Eartha Kitt’s take on the character.

Superstar illustrator, George Perez appreciated Newmar too (see below).

ADAM RIPPON asks, “is this a haiku?”

Is this a haiku? pic.twitter.com/cIMsndConP
— Adam Rippon (@AdamRippon) January 16, 2020

MEME OF THE DAY 2 What if Star Wars fans were… nice to each other?

THE BIG TEXAS PODCAST features William Booher. As #GAYNRD readers already know, Booher is a global strategist who returned to his roots in Harris County and is now running to become the Republican nominee for Senate District 13. He’s also a gay Black man who isn’t afraid to be a character and challenge traditional tactics when it comes to taking on a career Democrat politician.. In this episode Booher talks about rising to become a graduate of Yale, working on Wall Street, and how he would change the approach to representing the Texans in Senate District 13.

REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER returned this past Friday featuring non-other than Speaker of the House Nacy Pelosi.

MEME OF THE DAY 3 A funny take on that “Flash of Two Worlds” scene from The CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover.

DO YOU BUG CHASE? Bug Chasers are men seeking to get infected by HIV. Tiffany Polzin wants to hear from you, please take her survey here.

BIZARRO is always right.

P.O.V. Our favorite.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7eKZ2mguL8/?igshid=106rztpxk5sf8

FRANCE’S TOP LGBT bookstore is being driven out by sky high rents.

La librairie “Les Mots à la Bouche” sera remplacée par une chaine de vêtements. Paris doit agir pour protéger les lieux LGBT+ !
Avec @RaphaelleRL future maire de #ParisCentre, nous continuerons à défendre Paris comme ville de culture, de diversité et de tolérance. pic.twitter.com/uvLdxXCDxY
— David Belliard (@David_Belliard) January 13, 2020

According to The Guardian, “Les Mots à La Bouche, a 40-year-old Paris institution, is the top LGBT bookshop in France and considered one of the best in the world – a focal point of Paris’s historic gay neighbourhood in the Marais district. But as property speculation in central Paris reaches dizzying heights – it is estimated that at certain times of year there are more Airbnb rentals than residents in the Marais – the bookshop is being forced out by rising rents. … The shop, which has been in the Marais since 1983, is open seven days a week until 11pm and stocks more than 16,000 titles. But like many historic gay bars that closed under pressure from rising rents, the shop has been given until March to find a new location elsewhere in Paris.”