Inside the 'Hillbilly Studio 54,' Where Drag Queens Preach the Gospel

In small town Eureka Springs, Ark., at least two differing communities exist: Southern evangelical Christians who probably voted for Donald Trump and seasoned drag queens who, each week, do a little proselytizing of their own while lip syncing gospel songs.

This is the scene for Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher’s documentary, The Gospel of Eureka, in theaters Feb. 8. It tells the story of a one-of-a-kind place in the Ozarks where Christian piety and a thriving queer community coexist featuring Lee Keating and Walter Burrell, proud husband-owners of Eureka Live Underground, a local gay bar they liken to a “hillbilly Studio 54.”

“Just because we serve alcohol doesn't mean that we're perverted and we’re not Christian,” Burrell says in an exclusive clip released to OUT. “And just because you’re Christian, doesn’t really have anything anything to do with who you’re fucking. It has to do with who you’re loving.”

The film, which premiered at South by Southwest Film Festival earlier this year, chronicles how love, faith, and civil rights collide as a community grapples with a bigoted anti-trans bathroom bill on the ballot. Performance artist Mx. Justin Vivian Bond narrates.

‘Do You Hear What We Hear?’: The Sacred Profanity of Kiki & Herb

When I first heard the sleigh bells and screaming that initiate you into Kiki & Herb’s Do You Hear What We Hear? the psychic landscape of my holiday season was changed forever.

I have been a fan of Kiki & Herb – the iconoclastic alter egos of Justin Vivian Bond and Kenny Mellman – since my days as a Midwestern teenage theater weirdo. I emptied my bank account to fly to see their reunion show at Joe’s Pub in 2016, because their explosive charisma and wry take on contemporary culture make for a theatrical experience without parallel. You can imagine my sheer delight when their long out-of-print Christmas album began making the rounds on social media a few years back.

The album is still streaming free from Mellman’s Soundcloud account, and I believe, if you feel troubled by the state of the world but still want to wish Joy to it, it is the only Christmas record that can capture the true essence of this season.

Reasons to Love New York Our favorite New Yorkers share their favorite places across the five boroughs.

Joe’s Pub ― The closest thing I have to a temple. I did a lot of my own wrestling with feelings about gender in there, watching Mx. Justin Vivian Bond manifest rage and radiance that will stay with me forever. —Olivia Laing, author of Lonely Cities and Crudo

The night that changed my life: Olivia Laing on the New York cabaret that helped her discover her queer identity

“I’m trans,” I told a friend on the steps outside, after one of those dazzling nights.

Back in the 2000s, I was obsessed with a film called Shortbus. It was about a queer sex club in Brooklyn, and it was mildly notorious at the time because none of the sex was simulated. I loved it because it was so honest about the difficulties of physical as well as emotional intimacy. I also loved it because of the club’s beautiful MC, a gender-ambiguous chanteuse called Justin Bond, who sang an anthemic song called “In the End”.

A few years later, I was at an American residence with someone who’d starred in one of the orgy scenes. I said something about Justin, how much I loved his voice, and he said, “Oh, but Justin isn’t ‘he’. Justin is called Vivian Bond now, and their pronoun is ‘v’.” It was right at the beginning of pronouns. I knew lots of trans people, but they were all one thing or another. Viv was the first person I’d encountered who claimed the middle ground, the shifty sweet spot between genders. (V also pioneered and campaigned for the non-binary title Mx.)

We'll Never Turn Back

Guitarist Marc Ribot has dipped his toes into no-wave, free jazz and Cuban music, so a protest album for the Trump era was just another surprising addition to his discography. This song features Justin Vivian Bond & Domenica Fossati.

ON THE EVE OF THEIR COLUMBUS DEBUT, THE CABARET PERFORMER TALKS ABOUT THEIR CAREER, IDENTITY AND WHERE THEY FIND INSPIRATION.

Mx Justin Vivian Bond makes their Columbus debut Thursday at 8 p.m. at the Southern Theatre, on special invite of the queer art collective fierce pussy, whose work is on view through March at the Columbus College of Art & Design’s Beeler Gallery.

Bond spoke with Prizm…

Tell our readers how your connection with fierce pussy came about.

I was a fan of FP for a long time, as I was an activist in San Francisco with Queer Nation. When I moved to New York City and met them in person I was drawn to their cause and we were like kindred spirits.

Then I did a solo art exhibition and got to meet Joy Episalla, who interviewed me for a magazine covering the show. Then we were on a panel together, so we became art fans and friends of each other, sharing a similar world view.

So when they were asked to do this new exhibition at the Beeler, they invited me to collaborate with them and be a part of their season there.

Can you ever forgive Richard E. Grant?

The charming co-star of Melissa McCarthy's new movie on playing a tipsy gay grifter, 'Absolutely Fabulous,' and a tricky nude scene

Richard E. Grant told 48 Hills he faced a major obstacle when it came time to portray Jack Hock in Can You Ever Forgive Me, the cinematic adaptation of infamous author Lee Israel’s 2008 true crime memoir. The Hudson Hawk, Spice World, and Gosford Park actor couldn’t find much info about the best-selling-celebrity-biographer-turned-forger’s friend and accomplice to inform his performance.

We Won't Be Erased: 40 Trans and GNC People Sound Off on Trump's Memo

Mx Justin Vivian Bond―To anyone who still supports President Trump and the current leadership of the GOP: I can only hope that due to the privilege you were born into, you are too ignorant or unaware of what so many of your fellow citizens are facing to fully understand how dangerous and selfish you are actually being. You need to know that as a direct result of your actions people's lives are being placed in grave danger and many will die. If you voted for President Trump and his cronies and still support them in spite of the policies they are implementing, you are inarguably and unequivocally a collaborator in the destruction -both literally and figuratively- of innocent lives. I am not exaggerating. Your silence, your vote, and your complicity will make you an accomplice to murder. I beg you to please wake up before it's too late.

'I wanted to break stereotypes': the photographer capturing transgender life over 50

In a new book and exhibition, Jess T Dugan has taken portraits of trans and gender nonconforming people across the US, recording their stories

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon when Detroit-based Bobbi turned to her boyfriend Frank and said: “Oh, I got something to tell you.”

Bobbi told Frank that she was transgender.

“He said: ‘You’re better than any woman I’ve ever met,” recalled Bobbi. “He said: ‘Now, come on Bobbi, we can drop that.’ He didn’t care a damn.”

It’s the story behind just one of 86 transgender portraits taken by St Louis-based photographer Jess T Dugan, released in a new photo book entitled To Survive on This Shore.

The book coincides with an exhibition opening at projects+gallery in St Louis on 13 September, featuring 22 selected portraits of trans people between the ages of 50 and 90, which were taken over the past five years.

Wigstock Returns From the Dead

The outdoor drag festival will feature Lady Bunny and Neil Patrick Harris on Sept. 1 at Pier 17 in Lower Manhattan.

Sometime around 1984, a group of inebriated drag queens left the Pyramid Club in the East Village in Manhattan and wound up at Tompkins Square Park, where a spontaneous performance before a bunch of homeless people turned into a festival called Wigstock.

For a decade and a half, it was an annual rite on New York City’s L.G.B.T. calendar, a “circuit party” for people who wouldn’t normally be caught dead on the circuit. It outgrew the park and moved to the piers along the West Side Highway.

Then something happened, according to its founder, Lady Bunny. “It rained,” she said.

Not once, but two years in a row.

Some of the queens scheduled to perform were annoyed about their running mascara, but the bigger issue was ticket buyers, who largely stayed home. With money reserves depleted and a downturn in night life (as part of Mayor Giuliani’s quality-of-life initiatives), Wigstock died in 2001.

Interview: Kate Bornstein on Their Broadway Debut in Straight White Men

It’s clear that at 70, the trail-blazing author of the seminal work Gender Outlaw is still a formidable force to be reckoned with.

When Kate Bornstein, self-described as a non-binary femme-identified trans person, talks about their remarkable life journey, it’s clear that at 70, the trail-blazing author of the seminal work Gender Outlaw and subject of the documentary Kate Bornstein Is a Queer and Pleasant Danger is still a formidable force to be reckoned with. Bornstein isn’t content on resting on their laurels as a pioneer in transgender rights and acceptance, acknowledging that positions they once held are always subject to reassessment. As the reader will learn from our interview, Bornstein, who’s debuting on Broadway in the new Second Stage production of Straight White Men, is uniquely positioned to broaden our vision on gender in a rapidly evolving world.

Marc Ribot, Steve Earle Protest Trump on New Song ‘Srinivas’

Track appears on Ribot’s upcoming LP ‘Goodbye Beautiful/Songs of Resistance 1942-2018,’ which also features guests Tom Waits, Meshell Ndegeocello

Genre-hopping guitarist Marc Ribot recruited singer-songwriter Steve Earle to front his moving tribute song “Srinivas,” the first sample of a new album of anti-Trump material, Goodbye Beautiful/Songs of Resistance 1942-2018, out September 14th via ANTI- Records. Tom Waits, Meshell Ndegeocello, Justin Vivian Bond, Fay Victor and Sam Amidon will also appear on the LP, among others.

Earle condemns President Trump on the mournful yet uplifting “Srinivas,” which Ribot wrote after reading about the February 2017 murder of two Indian men, Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, in Kansas. “Madman pulled the trigger; Donald Trump loaded the gun,” the singer belts over a strummed acoustic guitar. “My country ’tis of thee.” The track slowly crescendos with drums and waves of post-punk guitar feedback.

5 Ways to Celebrate Pride Away From the Mainstream

This reigning royal figure of New York’s downtown performance scene, who uses the gender-neutral honorific Mx., is joining Le Poisson Rouge’s 10th-anniversary celebrations with two nights of Pride-themed cabaret. “In celebration of the summer solstice, queer spirit, and trans magic,” the event description says, “Justin Vivian Bond will be drawing a circle, raising the cone of power and BRINGING YOU LIFE.” Joining Mx. Bond onstage will be the self-described “trans poptronic princess” Ah-Mer-Ah-Su, as well as other guests to be announced. Mx. Bond’s friends are sometimes famous, and always interesting. Friday and Saturday at Le Poisson Rouge, Manhattan; lpr.com.

Exclusive: John Cameron Mitchell and Cynthia Erivo Are Starring in a Musical Podcast

The Hedwig and the Angry Inch creator shares details about his anthology podcast series Anthem: Homunculus, which will also feature 30 new songs.

Way back in March, during a conversation with Andrew Lloyd Webber in New York, Glenn Close dropped a surprising nugget about one of her future projects: she mentioned she was doing a musical podcast with Hedwig and the Angry Inch’s John Cameron Mitchell. Intriguing, but, alas, she didn’t elaborate and the chat moved on to other subjects.

Well, now we know just what exactly she was talking about: Mitchell is the brain behind Anthem, a new anthology podcast from Topic Studios. The first season—subtitled Homunculus—is comprised of 10, 30-minute episodes with more than 30 original songs by Mitchell, who also stars, and his co-creator Bryan Weller. It will be released sometime later in 2018.

What Makes a Songbook American? Justin Vivian Bond and Rosanne Cash Have a Few Answers

What the heck is the American Songbook at this point? The annual Lincoln Center series bearing that name may not be clarifying matters. The 2018 season started back in January with the country-folk rocker John Paul White, formerly of the Civil Wars, then went on to feature the disparate likes of the Broadway heartthrob Aaron Tveit, Rachel Bloom and Adam Schlesinger of television’s “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” the Blind Boys of Alabama, and Rosanne Cash, who wrapped things up on Tuesday — with, perhaps tellingly, a set incorporating songs from her forthcoming musical based on the film “Norma Rae.” What connects these dots? And if the American Songbook is everything, is it anything?

A Performer’s Most Prized Possession: Edie Sedgwick’s Hat

In this series for T, Emily Spivack, the author of “Worn Stories,” interviews creative types about their most prized possessions.

The artist and performer Justin Vivian Bond, who prefers the pronoun ‘‘they,’’ has been fascinated with Edie Sedgwick for as long as they can remember. When their friend, the music executive Danny Fields, found out, he gifted Bond with Sedgwick’s leopard-skin pillbox hat. Through the hat, which purportedly inspired Bob Dylan’s song “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat,” Bond explains how their fascination with the actress and model has evolved.

Future Lions of New York

Since the legendary chaos of 1970s and ’80s, New York has evolved to the point where the city’s “Disneyfication” is taken as a matter of public record. This is not true, or at least it’s not the whole story. The attacks of Sept. 11 and the Great Recession hit the city hard — as did a tourist-friendly Times Square. And yet New Yorkers remained and innovated. This era’s influencers, more diverse in gender and race than the lions of the past, reflect how the city’s power base has evolved. Here is a partial list of standouts — subject, as always, to change.

Justin Vivian Bond Sings The Carpenters: Note on the Program

The Carpenters, a brother-sister duo known for cheery pop tunes and for love songs overflowing with sweet sentiments, came to prominence during one of the most tumultuous eras in the U.S. both musically and politically. In the wake of the Summer of Love, Woodstock, and the escalation of the war in Vietnam, Karen Carpenter's voice and Richard Carpenter's lush musical arrangements—described by detractors as "saccharine" and championed by others as distinctly smooth and easy on the ears—began to dominate the airwaves at the start of the 1970s. Their breakthrough hit, "(They Long to Be) Close to You" (1970), was penned by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and released nearly a decade earlier by Dionne Warwick to little fanfare. But with Richard's lilting new piano arrangements foregrounding Karen's inimitable alto, the song shot to the top of the charts.