Blue Tile Skate

”It became a worldwide cultural moment,” host Jeff Probst told the audience at the live “Survivor: Game Changers” finale, referring to the disappointing and shocking moment when Jeff Varner randomly outed fellow contestant Zeke Smith as transgender on the April 12 episode. 

The emotional tribal council was heartbreaking for Smith, who had not publicly come out as trans at that point, but it ultimately led to an important discussion about supporting people who are trying to be their authentic selves. 

“I was really scared because I didn’t know what was going to happen to my world. I didn’t know what the reaction was going to be,” Smith said during Season 34’s reunion show on Wednesday night. “What this experience has shown me is I have so much love in my life … I’ve never felt as loved as I do right now.”

The 29-year-old from Brooklyn, New York, was blindsided by the outing, but has since come to realize that the moment has only made him stronger. 

“When I transitioned, I was hit with a pretty big bout of depression, like a lot of people are, and I almost failed out of Harvard, I was living at home, I was alone, I was pretty helpless. And I started watching ‘Survivor,’ and I binged 20 seasons, and it took me away,” Smith said. “I got to go on an adventures with Ozzy [Lusth] and Cirie [Fields[ and with Sandra [Diaz-Twine] and it got me through. And, slowly, I got to put my life back together, but there was something ― there was a courage and a boldness … something inside of me knew I had to go play ‘Survivor.’ And I found that courage and that boldness in Fiji. I found it on the beaches. And in so many ways, ‘Survivor’ has given me my life back.”

As for Varner’s thoughts on the backlash, he, of course, knows he was in the wrong. “This has been very difficult. I got hit hard,” he said. “It was really ugly for a period of time.”

But then, as Varner explained, it changed after he admitted to his mistake and turned it into something positive.

“There’s a book in the works that I’m working on, it’s entitled Surviving Shame,” he added, to the surprise of some of his castmates. “And you get the first copy,” Varner told Probst. 

“I love that you’re turning this into something positive,” Probst concluded. 

Let’s hope more meaningful conversations continue. 

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Another successful season of “Survivor” has come to an end ― and the last person standing no doubt deserves the $1 million prize for their gameplay. 

After 39 days of intense competition, Sarah Lacina was named the winner of “Survivor: Game Changers” following a tribal council that switched things up a bit, focusing on each player’s strategy through outwit, outplay and outlast Q&As. Sarah earned the majority of votes from the jury, beating out runner-up Brad Culpepper and third place finisher Troyzan Robertson.

Tai Trang, Aubry Bracco and Cirie Fields were voted out earlier on in the finale episode. Cirie’s exit was particularly memorable as her torch was snuffed after a record-breaking three idols were played during tribal on Day 36. Not one person wrote her name down, yet she was sent home since Tai played two idols ― one for himself and one for Aubry ― Troyzan played his idol, Sarah played her legacy advantage and Culpepper won the immunity challenge. Technically, Cirie ended up being the only player who could be voted out. 

After the four-time player left, host Jeff Probst told the jury and the remaining five contestants, “A ‘Survivor’ legend goes out in legendary style.”

Despite it all, real-life cop Sarah, who admittedly “played like a criminal,” had a stellar run this season, managing to backstab the best of the best. “Game Changers,” of course, featured esteemed past players including Sandra Diaz-Twine, Tony Vlachos, Ozzy Lusth, Malcolm Freberg and Andrea Boehlke.  

A teary-eyed Sarah told host Probst during the live after-show, “I’m very proud of the game I played, I’m not proud of how I treated people.” 

Well, the jury members didn’t seem to mind the blindsides, Sarah. Congrats! 

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Like a moth to the flame, Blanche DuBois, opens the show as a curious creature drawn to a single light bulb; a stunning piece of imagery for a stunning ballet. “This vibrant adaptation by Scottish Ballet of the classic Tennessee Williams tale, A Streetcar Named Desire, brings the heat and music of New Orleans straight to The Music Center. The definitive Pulitzer Prize-winning drama is transformed into a powerful and emotional ballet that not only excites, but further enhances the story’s suspenseful take on lust, desire and betrayal that can only be conveyed by the honesty of dance.  In collaboration with director Nancy Meckler and choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, the production explores the boundaries of narrative ballet through a range of dance styles. Accompanied by a specially commissioned jazz-inspired score by Peter Salem that accentuates the sensuality of the dancers, Scottish Ballet’s  A Streetcar Named Desire is a one-of-a-kind take on an American classic.”

In this beautiful and dynamic production, Scottish Ballet pushes the limits and takes audiences on an emotional and chilling journey through the life of Blanche DuBois. “Our storytelling, unlike Williams’ play, begins by relating the story of Blanche DuBois while she is growing up in America’s Deep South. The year is 1935, and the lifestyle of the landed gentry is in steep decline. Blanche is a beautiful young girl with her life ahead of her”. Her life drifts in and out of ecstasy and turmoil. Finding out that her husband had been having an affair with another man resulting in him committing suicide and leaving home after the death of most of her family traveling to the sex-crazed; jazz filled streets of New Orleans night life scene. After being run out of town for seducing a young boy, she finds comfort in her only living relative, Stella who has taken up with Stanley Kowalski, an aggressive bad boy we know so well because of Marlon Brando.

The dancers of this company are stellar performers. According to an interview with Neckler Meckler, the dancers also went through some acting training to give voice the characters of Tennessee William’s play without words. It is truly a company of beautiful dancers that are quite focused and passionate about their art and conveying a story. Eve Mutso(Blanche) and Sophie Laplane(Stella) stole the show with pure energy and heart-wrenching performances.

“Scottish Ballet is Scotland’s national dance company. The esteemed company has built its reputation on strong bold work and vast touring. It regularly presents at premier theatres and events such as Sadler’s Wells and Edinburgh International Festival, as well as leading venues and festivals abroad including Europe, Asia and North America. Scottish Ballet continues to build on its heritage as a bold, adventurous company with ambitious creative programmes and touring, working with groundbreaking choreographers such as Ivgi & Greben, Bryan Arias, David Dawson and Crystal Pite.”

Make sure to check out The Music Center website for upcoming performances!

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Turns out President Donald Trump’s taste in art is just about as refined as his taste in suits.

During Wednesday’s visit to the Vatican, 45 exchanged gifts with a dour looking Pope Francis. His holiness’ awesomely unsubtle gifts to our president included the pontiff’s 2015 treatise on climate change along with a large medallion reading, “I give this to you so that you can be an instrument of peace.” 

Trump, in return, gifted the Pope with a bronze sculpture of lotus flowers that just screams dentist waiting room. Seriously, the seafoam green figure makes Dale Chihuly seem like Auguste Rodin. 

The piece, called “Rising Above,” is the work of Florida-based artist Geoffrey C. Smith, whose sculptures often depict various species of plants and wildlife. “Art is important. It was man’s first form of communication and still one of the most powerful forms today,” Smith quotes himself as saying on his website.

Too true. Could Smith possibly let Trump, who’d like little more than to defund the National Endowment for the Arts, know?

According to the White House, Trump selected the sculpture because the sacred flower “evokes two universal values: unity and resilience.” In comparison to the Pope’s pointed presents, however, the floral arrangement seems to evoke the universal value of sleepiness. (From which Trump is probably suffering.)

It’s hard to gauge exactly what Pope Francis is thinking in the photo below, though we wouldn’t be surprised if a good friend of the Holy Father’s winds up with something very similar to the lotus sculpture come Christmas time. 

H/T artnet News.

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As news of the devastating concert attack in Manchester broke, people around the world turned to social media to share words of sorrow, fear and hope.

One popular message came in the form of a poem called “Good Bones” by writer Maggie Smith.

“Life is short, though I keep this from my children,” the powerful poem begins.  

“Good Bones” first went viral on social media last June following the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando and murder of British parliamentarian Jo Cox in the U.K. After the 2016 presidential election, the poem made the online rounds again with posts from celebrities like Alyssa Milano and Megan Mullally. 

The Washington Post declared that Smith’s poem “captured the mood of a tumultuous year.”

Smith lives in Ohio and has a 4-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter. “I wrote the poem in 2015, thinking about how to spare my children from the harsher parts of the world, at least while they’re so young, without lying to them about it,” she told HuffPost. “How do we stay honest and also stay hopeful? Sometimes it’s hard enough to be optimistic, let alone project optimism to others.” 

Watching her poem’s rise to internet fame has been an interesting experience for Smith. “I was just telling Jen Benka, the executive director of the Academy of American Poets, how strange it is that when my mentions start blowing up on social media, I know something bad has happened somewhere in the world,” she said. “That’s when people start sharing ‘Good Bones’ again.” 

The poet said she found out about the Manchester attack Monday night through Twitter. “It breaks my heart that women, girls, and the LGBTQ community were targeted,” she told HuffPost. “I have a daughter who is 8 years old, and I’m sure someday I’ll take her to a concert as a special night out, just the two of us. I can’t imagine what those parents must be feeling. My heart is breaking for the families in Manchester.”

Because her kids are young enough to have limited access to the news, Smith plans to keep the Manchester attack from them while she can.  

Smith, whose upcoming book of poetry, Good Bones, will be published this fall, says she has mixed feelings about the titular poem’s role in the aftermath of public tragedies. 

“It’s incredibly gratifying and moving to see the poem travel so far and touch so many people, but it’s also heartbreaking and strange that when the poem is being shared widely on social media, it’s because of a tragedy or injustice,” the poet explained.

Still, she added, “All in all I’m glad that the poem is bringing people comfort or at least helping them see a bit of light in the darkness.”

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Justin Bieber might need to brush up on his Spanish.

The Canadian singer remixed Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s global hit “Despacito” last month. The new version shot to the top of the U.S. charts last week and became the first Spanish-language song to be No. 1 in the country since the “Macarena.” 

The remix marked the first time Bieber had sung in Spanish on a track. And according to E! News, he appeared to forget some of the lyrics to the hit song during a performance at the 1 Oak nightclub in New York City on Tuesday. 

Videos of when Bieber replaces Spanish lyrics with intelligible sounds or phrases like “I quit smoking ciggies” surfaced on Instagram on Wednesday. TMZ also posted a video of the performance. 

During an interview with AOL Build, Fonsi explained that the remix came out quite suddenly and was recorded in the span of about four days. The Puerto Rican singer also said that Bieber had insisted on singing in Spanish and learned the lyrics phonetically. 

“He wanted to sing the chorus in Spanish, we had lyrics for the whole song in English but he’s like ‘uh uh uh’ I’m doing it in español,” Fonsi said during the live interview on May 17. “He went there and he learned phonetically ‘Despacito.’ He did his thing, let me tell you.”

Watch Bieber do his thing in the videos above.

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Jacqueline Boxx is a burlesque performer, dancer and cat-owner. Oh, and she also happens to be disabled. 

The Scene recently featured Boxx in a short documentary where the burlesque dancer discussed her love for performing and how she deals with her disability on and off stage. 

“As a disabled person, I have a body that isn’t often celebrated,” Boxx told The Scene. “A lot of times it feels like disability means that your body should be hidden. Like I shouldn’t be pleased and happy and feel sexual as a disabled woman.”

When Boxx was in college, she was diagnosed with a rare and incurable syndrome called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome which makes the joints in her body dislocate easily. She had always been a dancer, and was actually teaching dance at the time of her diagnosis. Boxx had to stop dancing and accepted the fact that she would never perform again.

It wasn’t until a few years later that she went to a burlesque show and remembered how much she missed dancing.   

“I went to a burlesque show and I thought how much I missed being there,” Boxx told The Scene. “I remembered the glitter and the rhinestones and how powerful I felt; and I thought ‘Man, it would feel really nice right now to feel powerful.’” 

So, Boxx started choreographing a burlesque performance ― from a wheelchair. She quickly found out that performing burlesque made her look and feel damn good.  

“When I’m performing I am showing that I love and accept my body as it is,” Boxx told The Scene. “The way in which burlesque is so in-your-face-aggressive about owning your body is inspiring. I think that the time has come for that to include disabled bodies.”

Boxx hopes viewers take away two things from the video. For disabled people, she hopes they can “start viewing their own bodies as sensual and sexual and confident.”

And for everyone else? “I don’t necessarily want to be know as the disabled burlesque performer,” Boxx said. “I want to be known as a burlesque performer who is a disabled women who lives authentically and encourages others to live authentically.” 

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Deepen your mind while you deepen your tan.

Microsoft founder, philanthropist and avid bookworm Bill Gates has a few book recommendations for the summer. Each of the titles, which he listed in a blog post on Monday, are meant to help readers better understand the larger world around them.

“Some of these books helped me better understand what it’s like to grow up outside the mainstream,” Gates wrote. “As a child of mixed race in apartheid South Africa, as a young man trying to escape his impoverished life in rural Appalachia, or as the son of a peanut farmer in Plains, Georgia.” 

He adds, “I hope you’ll find that others make you think deeper about what it means to truly connect with other people and to have purpose in your life. And all of them will transport you somewhere else — whether you’re sitting on a beach towel or on your own couch.”

One book Gates recommends is Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah of “The Daily Show,” which details the comedian’s life growing up in apartheid South Africa.

“I loved reading this memoir about how [the] host honed his outsider approach to comedy over a lifetime of never quite fitting in,” Gates wrote.

To find out Gates four other picks, just watch the video above. Happy reading!

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There are a lot of things to be said about the new “Baywatch” movie starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Zac Efron. Yes, it’s absurd. Yes, there are cringeworthy moments. No, it’s not as bad as “CHiPs.”

As The New York Times put it in their review of the movie, out May 25: “Like its source material, ‘Baywatch’ is sleazy and wholesome, silly and earnest, dumb as a box of sand and slyly self-aware. It’s soft-serve ice cream. Crinkle-cut fries. A hot car and a skin rash. Tacky and phony and nasty and also kind of fun.” 

This ability to be self-aware is what sort of saves the movie from falling into the trap of the stereotypical, sexist comedies we see as of late. Jokes that worked 10 or even five years ago no longer have the same effect. Women don’t want to be in nude scenes while their male counterparts get away scot-free. 

The creators behind “Baywatch” know that ― so they tried their best to add in some role reversal. 

“I think it was very important for all of us ― the cast and obviously the producers and director [Seth Gordon] ― to create female characters that weren’t just dumb and funny because they were dumb,” star Alexandra Daddario, who plays Summer in the film, told HuffPost during a Build Series interview on Wednesday. “The point was that Baywatch takes itself very seriously ― we’re all like CIA operatives but on the beach ― and all the women are very tough and strong and I think that made a lot of sense in the context of this film, and I think it actually makes it funnier. It’s a little cliché to just have the women there as eye candy ― part of the joke is that we’re all supernaturally hot, but that’s not just what it is.”

Jon Bass, who plays the “chubby” techie trainee Ronnie, echoed those sentiments, proving the point by saying he’s the only person who’s naked in the movie. 

“We do a really good job of sort of flipping the script and making sure that, yeah, the guys get their due. Because it’s 2017,” Bass told HuffPost.

“The essence of ‘Baywatch’ in and of itself is, you know, is sexy. It’s sexy, it’s beachy and it’s fun ― and we’re not throwing that out, we’re saying, ‘Look, that is a part of this movie, but we also know how absolutely hilarious and ridiculous that is.’” 

Ridiculous is the right word to describe one scene in particular that kicks off the film. Ronnie, clearly smitten with lifeguard C.J. (Kelly Rohrbach), accidentally gets himself caught in a tricky situation after an incident on the beach. 

“He gets his erect penis stuck in a beach chair,” Daddario revealed, laughing while explaining that the scene is one of the reasons she signed on for the project. “I felt that it was pushing the envelope and was just laugh-out-loud funny and ridiculous and I think that was the right tone for a film like this.” 

As for Bass, he’s privileged to join the likes of Ben Stiller and Jason Biggs on the list of actors who “get their dicks stuck in things.” (Yup, he went there.) But in all seriousness, he’s happy to be a part of a movie that pushes the boundaries without being self-serious. 

“I remember reading the script and just being like, ‘This is going to be just such a fun movie to be a part of,’” Bass said. “We had so much fun on set; we had so much fun every scene that I got to shoot with every one of the cast members. It was like a fun day at the beach. It was like summer camp.” 

Camp being the word to remember before seeing “Baywatch” this weekend. 

Watch the full Build Series interview with Alexandra and Jon below. 

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A new animated short film is in the works that tells the story of a gay boy falling in love with the most popular boy in school.

“In A Heartbeat” follows Sherwin, an awkward young teen who is unsure of his sexuality. After crossing paths with Jonathan, a classmate, Sherwin’s heart literally pops out of his chest and chases after his new Prince Charming. Sherwin then has to try and stop his heart from revealing its true feelings ― not only to Jonathan, but the entire school.

Slated to be completed and then debut this summer thanks to a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $14,000, “In A Heartbeat” is a completely dialogue-free and created by Esteban Bravo and Beth David.

“When we first started working on this film, we knew that we didn’t want it to be preachy,” the pair, both filmmakers at the Ringling College of Art, told HuffPost. “There isn’t even dialogue, so we never have the characters speak to persuade the audience of anything. We simply wanted to show the audience what growing up was like for us through this story about a sweet, red-headed boy who feels just as confused and scared about his feelings as we did. Hopefully, it’ll resonate with those who identify with this character – and for those who don’t, we hope they’ll gain an understanding for people who go through this experience.”

We can’t wait!

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