Sam Sparro (born November 8, 1982)

Samuel Falson (born 8 November 1982), better known by his stage name Sam Sparro, is an Australian singer-songwriter, music producer, and former child actor. His stage name was derived from a family nickname, which in turn was inspired by the Sydney radio announcer Gary O'Callaghan's on-air character Sammy Sparrow. He is signed to the British record label Island Records. Sparro is openly gay. He did an interview for Attitude magazine and was featured on the front cover.

Sam Sparro was born 8 November 1982 and raised in Sydney, Australia. Sparro's father, Chris Falson, is a gospel minister and recording artist of Maltese descent who has written music for Star Trek and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. His brother plays guitar professionally while his mother plays organ at a Baptist church. The family relocated to Los Angeles when Sparro was ten years old. His father had signed a deal there and was recording a soul album, he took Sparro to a church in Tujunga to hear some of the genre's singers. Fellow church goers, were the McCrary family. Chaka Khan became one of his early admirers after hearing Sparro's singing through knowing the McCrarys. His first role as a child actor was in a McDonald's commercial.

Sparro left Los Angeles and returned to Sydney, where he lived with his grandparents and worked for a public relations company, before travelling to the UK, immersing himself in the music scene in London. He returned to Los Angeles in 2002, where he took a job in a coffee shop. It was during these low points that he wrote his single, "Black and Gold" with his producer, Jesse Rogg. When growing up, Sparro regularly performed backing vocals at his father's concerts and on his music releases. He states "I'm a spiritual person, but ... not into any religion. I was always kind of a non-denominational Christian" and "a bit of a gypsy".



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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Sparro

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George Solomos aka Themistocles Hoetis (September 16, 1925 – November 8, 2010)

George Paul Solomos (September 16, 1925 – November 8, 2010), also known as Themistocles Hoetis from 1948 to 1958, was an American publisher, poet, filmmaker and novelist.

G. P. Solomos was born in Detroit in 1925, the youngest of five children of Greek-born parents.

The Solomos family were descendants of tobacco tycoon Count Nicolas Solomonee from Venice. They were olive oil producers who settled in Greece before the end of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829). They were relatives of the Greek poet Dionysios Solomos who had lived on the Greek island Zante (Zakynthos) most of his adult life; his most famous poem "Hymn to Liberty" is the Greek National Anthem.

His father had left Sparta because of a family tragedy when he was still a teenager. Having been educated in the English language he decided to make his way to the USA. His mother - also from Sparta - was taken to the States by her two older brothers for similar tragic reasons as his father. His parents were introduced on landing in New York about 1910, and decided to marry and stay in the USA for a while.

George was born and raised in Detroit; a French - American city which became known as Motor City - the centre of the US car industry - as well as a wellspring of much great popular music; from soul to heavy metal and techno. Prior to Motown, jazz had moved from up from the clubs of Chicago to Detroit in the 1920s, and George spent much of his teenage years in jazz clubs. His father ran a large Mediterranean delicatessen and general food store on Vermont and Henry Street, right near to Michigan Avenue.


George Solomos with Asa Benveniste

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Solomos

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John Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674)

John Milton may be the greatest poet in the English language. A political activist and fierce controversialist, he is at once the voice of revolutionary idealism and the icon of Christian humanism, as monumentalized in Paradise Lost (1667). Although he has often been accused of misogyny, his attitude toward women was advanced for his day. Similarly, though there is no doubt that he accepted the biblical condemnation of sodomy, there is reason to think that his attitude toward same-sex relations was enlightened for his age.

In a psychoanalytic study, John Shawcross analyzed Milton's intense relationship with his boyhood friend Charles Diodati, concluding that "The total view of Diodati seen from the extant evidence certainly points to a homosexual nature; of Milton, to a latent homosexualism which was probably repressed consciously (as well as subconsciously) from becoming overt except with Diodati."

There is no evidence that Milton was ever again so attached to another male after Diodati's early death in 1638. In 1642, the poet married the seventeen-year-old Mary Powell and subsequently remarried twice following the deaths of his wives.

Still, his attachment to Diodati may help explain his attitudes toward homosexuality in Paradise Regained (1670) and other works. The homosexual allusions of Elegy VII (1627), the epigraphs on the title pages of the Masque (1637) and Poems (1645), which are from Virgil's homoerotic second eclogue, and the highly charged homoeroticism and homosexual allusions of his elegy for Diodati, Epitaphium Damonis (1638), all suggest both Milton's deep familiarity with the classical literature of homosexuality and his capacity for discovering in it emotions correlative to his own.

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Citation Information
Author: Summers, Claude J.
Entry Title: Milton, John
General Editor: Claude J. Summers
Publication Name: glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture
Publication Date: 2002
Date Last Updated August 14, 2002
Web Address www.glbtq.com/literature/milton_j.html
Publisher glbtq, Inc.
1130 West Adams
Chicago, IL 60607
Today's Date November 8, 2012
Encyclopedia Copyright: © 2002-2006, glbtq, Inc.
Entry Copyright © 1995, 2002 New England Publishing Associates

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Roy Simmons (born November 8, 1956)

Roy Simmons was an outstanding offensive lineman for the New York Giants, and he played for the Washington Redskins in the 1984 Super Bowl. In 1992, three years after he retired from professional football, Simmons publicly came out on The Phil Donahue Show.

In his autobiography, Out of Bounds (written with Damon DiMarco), he speaks of drug addiction, prostitution, and promiscuity.

In 1997 Simmons learned that he was HIV-positive. He became active in bringing public attention to the fight against AIDS, encouraging other sports figures to come out of the closet.

Stern, Keith (2009-09-01). Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals (Kindle Locations 10971-10975). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

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Warren Casey (April 20, 1935 - November 8, 1988)

Warren Casey (April 20, 1935 - November 8, 1988) was an American theatre composer, lyricist, writer, and actor. He is best known for being the writer and composer, with Jim Jacobs of the stage and film musical Grease.

Born on April 20, 1935 in Yonkers, New York to Peter L., a steamfitter, and Signe, a nurse, (Ginman) Casey. Casey received his Fine Arts Degree from the Syracuse University School of Visual and Performing Arts in 1957.

In the mid-1960s, Casey met Jim Jacobs while acting with the Chicago Stage Guild, and the two began collaborating on a play with music about high school life during the golden age of rock 'n' roll in the 1950s. Entitled Grease, it premiered in 1971 at the Kingston Mines Theater, one of the pioneering companies of Chicago's off-Loop theater movement, in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago. Producers Ken Waissman and Maxine Fox saw the show and suggested to the playwrights that it might work better as a musical, and told them if the creative partners were willing to rework it and they liked the end result, they would produce it off-Broadway. Casey quit his day job as a department store lingerie buyer and the team headed to New York City to collaborate on what would become Grease, which opened at the Eden Theatre in downtown Manhattan, moved to Broadway, and earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical. The show went on to become a West End hit, a hugely successful film (for which he and Jacobs wrote additional songs), and a staple of regional theatre, summer stock, community theatre, and high school drama groups.

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Casey

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Rainbow Awards pre-party and 7th anniversary (Day 8)

November 2013 marks the 7th anniversary since I opened my first journal (and yes, I have an itch, but I will scratch it!), on LJ, and the 5th anniversary of the Rainbow Awards. So, of course I decided for a big bash party. 187 authors, all of them in the 2013 Rainbow Awards, have donated or an ebook, or a print book, and I will use them for a Treasure Hunt. Every day, for all November, I will post 6 excerpts (a random page of the book). No reference to title, or author, or publisher. You have to match it with the book ;-) comment on the blog (do not leave anonymous comments, if you post as anonymous, leave a contact email (comments are screened)), you can comment 1 time for more matchings (you can even try for all 6 books if you like, so 6 chances to win every day). Until the end I will not say which matching is right, so you will have ALL month to try. No limit on how many books you can win, the more you try the better chance you have to win. End of November, among the right matchings, I will draw the winners. So now? let the game start!

Be aware that these previous excerpts: 1, 11, 23, 25, 31, have not yet been matched, so if you go back there is good chance to win them!

The books are (Author - Title - Format of prize):

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Previous Post: http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3919856.html

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