SPECIFICITY

you can call me lucky (he/him) 30s; queer, poly, t4t puppy dog!! main blog since 2007 🤠 [Started T 2/11/16 // Top Surgery 6/14/18]

[forulz]

[nickyandmikey]

when two musicians sing into the same microphone and lean in very close to each other… like omg are you guys gonna kiss now to relieve the homoerotic tension?😳

[nickyandmikey]

THIS IS NOT ABOUT ONE DIRECTION I DON’T KNOW WHO THIS “HARRY” PERSON IS GO WATCH BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND CLARENCE CLEMONS KISS ON STAGE RIGHT NOW

[irrelevantlyvalid]

op is the only valid person i’ve ever met. everyone else needs to come to the light

[chokolattejedi]

Okay, but this is really important: Bruce Springsteen occupied this really weird place in music history. His songs were all from this pessimistic, nihilistic view of an America that had let him down:

Just like the anti-Vietnam War protest songs that we associate with the 1960s, or the early nihilism that spawned punk music in the 1970s. But he didn’t *sound* like a punk anarchist; he sounded like a country rock singer. When he released Born in the U.S.A. people completely misinterpreted (or possibly ignored) the lyrics in favor of the tone of the music.

Politicians used his music to promote their ‘Murica Yes! brand, and he had to literally explain that that was not what he was about. He’s over here asking when we’re going to have jobs and heathcare, not stanning the politicians who weren’t helping the people.

It was also kind of a big deal that he had an integrated band, because even as late as the 1980s music was still kind of segregated and MTV was straight up racist. They refused to play and promote black artists and then claimed that were no black artists in the first place. Michael Jackson’s record company had to threaten a boycott of their white artists to get MTV to play his Thriller video.

Plus, the first black/white interracial kiss on TV was in 1968 (OG Star Trek). Also it took us until the 70s to get sympathetic gay characters on screen, and the 90s to get gay characters to kiss onscreen. And all of those firsts were met with outrage.

So keep that in mind when you see Bruce Springsteen not just playing with an interracial band, but engaging in an interracial, gay kiss on stage repeatedly.

Passages from American Popular Music by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman

[executeness]

I used to think that Bruce and Clarence kissing onstage was exuberance, showmanship, and telling racist homophobes to fuck off. Like, they picked up a certain kind of audience and went “Racist homophobes? Not in our house!” And started the kissing then but then I actually looked it up and

https://www.gq.com/story/this-fucked-me-up-bruce-springsteen-singing-about-clarence-clemons

It was a story where… we remade the city. We remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place where our friendship and our love for one another wouldn’t have been such an exceptional thing. - Bruce Springsteen

It wasn’t about showmanship or rejecting bigots or anything it was just. Damn right that was one of the loves of his life and damn right he was going to kiss him onstage

It gets me a little that Bruce has had a divorce, that he’s been married twice, but he loved Clarence for the rest of Clarence’s life and will presumably love him the rest of his own

Clemons said in one interview. “Bruce and I looked at each other and didn’t say anything, we just knew. We knew we were the missing links in each other’s lives. He was what I’d been searching for.” In another version of the story, Clemons says “He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we fell in love.”

I’m having some emotions about it!

“He was elemental in my life,“ Springsteen adds, “and losing him was like losing the rain.”

Not just! I love you pure and deep and true but! I am going to love you like that in front of the whole damn world!

We have fewer narratives about taking risks and making statements for platonic love rather than romantic and supposedly it would be easier to downplay this onstage than romance and! They refused! They fucking refused! In front of hundreds of thousands of people, over the course of years! In the spotlight, in word and deed, I love you!

God I’m not okay about it

[ramshacklefey]

Now I’m mad that this is not among any of the things I was ever told about this artist.

[jbbartram-illu]

I knew about this in general (& via all those fabulous photos), but this just adds even more beautiful context <3

[eregyrn-falls]

Just to add to the pile: this was the cover of Springsteen’s break-through album Born to Run, in 1975:

I mean, will you LOOK at this:

This was the pic chosen for the album cover from an extensive photoshoot, too. A few others:

There’s a lot more online if you search. They’re all pretty amazing. But the photographer is right, the one chosen for the album cover just pops.

[footlongdingledong]

rarely do i repost things and especially from shittr but this video is shutting down core partsof my mental processing i think

[hellallamerican]

a ton of people have unexpectedly followed me over the last 2 days so here is my rent-lowering gunshot:

the american south is the most racially diverse and poorest region of the united states, and any political sentiment that treats the south is stupid or expendable is inherently racist and classist. a lot of y'all are racist and classist. the south is also the heart of american culture. argue with a wall. you cannot deny that everybody in the entire world does not emulate artists from atlanta. there is vested interest in keeping the south poor and uneducated BECAUSE this is the most racially diverse region in this country. if you actually give a fuck about progress, you would fight for the south, not mock us.

[silvernevermind]

small town diner waitress voice: Omelas? Oh, oh no, easy mistake, you're in oh - MAY - las right now, with an A. Plenty' people get the name mixed up. Nope, no utopia here, just our small little town. *face gets really grim* We do still.. Okay well we do still have a kid that we... I mean it isn't working but- well- You know. It- It's fine. I'm sure it'll start working soon.

[zxid]

collection

[fishlung8877]

[cheaphalloweencostume]

that one post that ends with “john waters think he the hamburglar” is the best post in existence. i just call it the john waters post because sam levinson and ryan murphy arent even part of it for me.

[cheaphalloweencostume]

i literally say this shit to myself like the fear is the mindkiller screed from Dune

[despazito]

[transmutationisms]

me when im so sweet and beautiful

[transmutationisms]

me when im so sweet and beautiful monday

[magicratfingers]

oh well i guess ill just be fat and hot

[magicratfingers]

guess ill be fat and hot and hot

[iamhavingsomuchfun]

[dogpuppy]

[my-friends-call-me-mcsad]

[vltima]

a number of years ago when I was at Boy Scout Camp, someone shared this bit of trivia. Within days, it had become a competition, the entire camp overrun by elbow licking. See, the thing about it is, if you're aware of the licker, you can feel it. But if you don't know someone is doing it, you legitimately cannot feel the lick. So for the rest of the week, you'd spot kids sneaking up on each other, attempting to lick elbows unnoticed. It was wild.

[karis-the-fangirl]

When my younger siblings were still 11 and 8, our family stayed in a couple of cabins with four other families who had kids in the same age group. So there were a dozen or so kids running around living their best feral lives, and licking elbows became The Activity—double prestige if you licked an adult’s elbow.

So that’s why a bunch of parents rubbed jalapeño juice on their elbows

…and why our family still says ‘these elbows are spicy!! You have to sniff them first!’

[paper-mario-wiki]

in case you're wondering what the greatest AMV of all time is, it's this one from 2008.

[paper-mario-wiki]

[en-tailsgaythings]

y'all need to watch this this pride month

[helpless--romantics]

Transmascs wake up, new bottom surgery just dropped

[segamascott]

[namesofeden]

must rb with this comment

[segamascott]

taylor swift invited a guy who owns and operates an ice detention center to her wedding swifties can pack it up forever now your bitch is awful

[deslizada]

man sometimes friendship really is just "I saw this and knew it would give you psychic damage. please respond with agony" and then they do. and it's great