Table of contents for August 2017 in OUT

COURTNEY LOVE When the Hole singer recently returned to the recording studio to work on a new album, she enlisted queer hitmaker Justin Tranter to co-write several tracks, and connected with his stories of being an outsider navigating the mainstream music biz. For this issue, Love interviewed Tranter about his experiences (“Pop’s Secret Weapon,” page 64). KAI Z FENG Though he’s had some wild times photographing pop stars like Nicki Minaj, Feng kept things chill when shooting this issue’s cover stars, Emma Stone and Andrea Riseborough. “They were so down-to-earth—and so fun,” says the Los Angeles–based lensman, who immediately picked up on the actresses’ chemistry. “You can see the connection between them in the images.” Feng’s work has also appeared in Vogue, GQ, and Vanity Fair. THOMAS ALLEN The illustrator’s…

1. Fred Savage The dude formerly known as Kevin Arnold is all grown up—and playing gay on the craziest new sitcom of the summer. Three decades after he became a household name playing Winnie Cooper’s baby-faced bae on The Wonder Years, Fred Savage is still getting by with a little help from his friends. On the brilliant new Netflix comedy Friends From College, he stars as Max, a late-30s gay literary agent reliving his glory days with his writer pal Ethan (Keegan-Michael Key) as they try to pitch a YA book about sexy werewolves. JASON LAMPHIER Friends From College is about six friends living in New York. What would you say to viewers expecting a modern-day Friends ? Friends was very forward-looking. It was about…

Tea aficionados don’t need to be reminded of the virtues of their favorite drink, but now its soothing properties are infusing the world of men’s grooming. A slew of new products featuring tea and ingredients like ginger, mint, and cardamom bring a sense of serenity to your daily regimen. Penhaligon’s latest fragrance, Agarbathi, is a voluptuous, smoky blend of spices, while emerging brands such as eShave, Skinphonic, and Tatcha use the natural power of black and green tea leaves in their ultra-moisturizing face masks and under-eye remedies to create the same detoxifying effects as a warm cuppa. No steeping required.…

THIS SUMMER, those in need of a cold, creamy fix are looking beyond Mister Softee for treats that tickle untapped areas of the dessert palate. Given the wealth of savory gourmet ice creams popping up, the go-to trifecta could one day become chocolate, strawberry, and...burrata. At least if Dominique Ansel has his way. “I wanted to create a vanilla alternative that was creamier, more flavorful, and also less sweet,” says the famed pastry chef of his cheese-inspired soft serve, which is dished out all summer from a window at Dominique Ansel Kitchen (DominiqueAnselKitchen.com) in New York’s West Village. The nuanced concoction arrives in a cone topped with balsamic caramel and bright sprigs of micro basil. The result? Instead of a sugar high, you’re hit with a cool, sprightly freshness. The…

THIS PAST SPRING, Anthony Romero, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union, gave a TED Talk at a conference in Vancouver. It had been a few months since Trump was elected, and Romero was there to provide some hope to the audience that things could change. So he turned to one of his passions: Italian Renaissance painters. On a massive screen behind him he projected Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s “The Allegory of Good and Bad Government,” a series of frescos that depict what can happen when those who rule are held accountable to the masses, and what can happen when they become tyrants. Romero zoomed in on Lorenzetti’s representation of a tyrant. After a laugh line, when he pointed out that the tyrant’s hair looks like it takes an inordinate amount…

1. RACHEL MADDOW TV Host, Political Commentator Donald Trump has been really good to Rachel Maddow. In February, her show hit a ratings high in its nine-year history, with an average of ›.› million viewers an episode—a phenomenon that Maddow partly attributes to a “surge in civic interest and engagement.” It may also be that MSNBC understands that millennials, in particular, don’t consider balance to be virtuous, especially in the era of Trump. Maddow’s pointed, dumbfounded critiques of the White House align with the way we speak on social media. Accuracy is important—pretending to be impartial less so. Having come of age as an AIDS activist in San Francisco, Maddow understands that on some issues, at least, there is only one side worth taking. On Trump’s ties to Russia, in…

It is the worst of times. It is the best of times. It is Donald Trump. It is Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump. For every new Russian link leaked to the press, for every civil right under renewed threat, for every head-scratching decision made in the name of America’s future greatness, there is a withering meme, a devastating insult, or a brutally spot-on skit that reminds us to laugh, all the while echoing an uncomfortable truth: This isn’t normal. By skewering the Trump administration in all its dangerous, divisive absurdity, these uncivil servants speak truth to ridicule power—their wit precise and possessed of a palpable urgency, aimed squarely at the guy in the big white house with a KICK ME sign on the back of his luxuriously cheap suit. “DELETE…

1: ANNIE HALL (1977) In maybe the greatest romantic encounter in film, Woody Allen’s Alvy Singer meets Diane Keaton’s Annie Hall while playing doubles tennis with friends at the Wall Street Racquet Club (since demolished). Keaton’s awkward and nerdy charm is a bona fide match winner. 2: PAT AND MIKE (1952) Spencer Tracy stars as a sports promoter, and Katharine Hepburn as a golf- and tennis-playing athlete, in this romantic comedy by gay director George Cukor. Challenging gender roles, it depicts Hepburn rejecting the constraints of marriage in order to develop her talent. 3: MATCH POINT (2005) More Woody Allen, this time a philosophical thriller set among the English gentry, with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as pro-tennis player-turned-coach, and a…

Bomes Away When Andrew Rannells interviewed his longtime friend Matt Bomer for our June/July cover story, the conversation had the ebb and flow of an old reunion, with topics both light and serious, and laughs peppered throughout. Touching on Bomer’s past career highlights (like his stint as a soap-opera serial killer on Guiding Light) and his latest turn as the lead in Amazon’s The Last Tycoon, Rannells got the actor to talk shop before prompting him to open up about coming out. Bomer admitted that, after writing a coming-out letter to his conservative parents, he was met with months of silence until an in-person “blow-up” finally led to a healing process. Bomer’s personal story connected with some, but certain readers’ eyes were at war trying to split focus between the…

 When it comes to watches, we now have more options than we know what to do with. But in a market flooded with ultramodern wrist candy, the old standards still reign supreme. Your best bet: a classic black-and-white timepiece. It goes with everything. It serves its purpose without getting in the way. And most important, people will notice it. Tiffany & Co. and Hermès offer luxe, well-crafted models, but the great thing about simplicity is that you don’t have to spend much to look like a million bucks. So let the amateurs chase after their futuristic gadgets. The best way to tell time is to look timeless doing it.…

Another very welcome dessert trend this summer? Alcoholic ice cream. Bucket & Bay (BucketAndBay.com), in Jersey City, N.J., offers a tasting flight of five scoops of gelato, each infused with a different type of whiskey (watch out: the last one’s a doozy). Austin’s Prohibition Creamery (ProhibitionCreamery.com) pours coffee-flavored Patrón over its smoky mezcal ice cream. North Hollywood cocktail den BarToni’s (LittleTonis.com), known for its neo-1950s drinks, blends vanilla ice cream into its take on the grasshopper (think mint chocolate chip for adults). And New York’s Tipsy Scoop (TipsyScoop.com) delivers the most decadent of pairings, mixing bacon into its bourbon ice cream. Meanwhile, if you’re bold enough to try making something of your own, pick up Fany Gerson’s new book Mexican Ice Cream (Ten Speed Press), which features recipes for flavors…

It is a petit mort in the middle of a murderous afternoon threesome. THE GAY DUO in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 Rope are told, “Mind your p’s and q’s.” It’s cheeky advice for Brandon (John Dall) and Philip (Farley Granger), who have just committed a murder and had the audacity to hold a dinner party with the buffet set atop a cassone containing the dead body. The idea of a desecrated marriage chest is a naughtier Hitchcock joke than the male flirtation in Strangers on a Train. And Rope is more than suspense—it still provides a knowing, tickling fascination 70 years later. Rope is famous in film history for Hitchcock’s single-camera illusion (the film contains ingeniously hidden editing cuts) that holds the characters’ movements in space like a dance. But the…

In October 2014, into a world of binge-watching, the first season of Serial arrived. It was an instant phenomenon, a landmark podcast that millions ravenously consumed at a weekly, ritualistic pace. Following a familiar conceit—a fascinating character study that hooks audiences with an alluring central mystery—Serial hit upon a cultural nerve, and left it exposed for two more podcasts, S-Town and Missing Richard Simmons, with queer figures at their centers. Though driven by the impetus of small-town murder, S-Town served to dust off the life of John B. McLemore, a gay character in the grand, Southern Gothic tradition of Williams or Capote. But unlike those men, McLemore languished on the vine in Woodstock, Ala. (the "Shit Town” as he lovingly called it), his life progressively emptier as he pushed those…

“In equal parts, I never envisioned it, and envisioned it so hard my nose would bleed,” says Chris Kelly of scaling the Matterhorn of comedy to become a head writer of Saturday Night Live, where he recently wrapped his first season. “When you’re little, you’re like, ‘I want to write for SNL,’ but in a fake way, like you’d never actually do it.” He ultimately did it one better: Not only was Kelly the first openly gay head writer for the show, he presided over the most-watched season of it in 23 years, thanks to slam-dunks like Alec Baldwin’s Trump-baiting commander in chief and Melissa McCarthy’s apoplectic Sean Spicer, an instant classic. There were also the Oval Office meetings with Steve Bannon depicted as the wordless Grim Reaper; Kellyanne Conway…

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“Yes, I was gay married, and yes, I got gay divorced. I’ve done it all! I got on the bandwagon early, and I got off early.” ED DROSTE, founding member of the indie group Grizzly Bear, has no time for apolitical artists. “Some people are like, ‘Don’t mix music with politics!’ and I think that’s the biggest load of shit ever,” he says, making his way down a busy street in Los Angeles. “It’s like, the world’s burning! Say something!”  Does he suspect that any of his fans are Trump supporters? “I think so,” Droste says. “When I was actively engaging in politics, some people were protesting. I was like, ‘Well, if you’re going to be such a die-hard Republican that you can’t engage in anything liberal, then maybe you should…

Multimedia artist Slava Mogutin is widely known for his hyper-erotic tableaux of rough trade wrestling or sniffing jockstraps—perhaps his reaction to the homophobia he experienced back home in Russia. In his new book, Bros & Brosephines, the provocateur-in-exile showcases the diversity of his oeuvre. The book is a compilation of Mogutin’s photo commissions, collaborations, and magazine work—such as Bros Blowin’ Shotties, a Vice editorial with male models shotgunning weed smoke into each other’s mouths. Its highlight is his dreamy series SM Collider, in which nudes appear as light sculptures (think robot Maria from Metropolis, reimagined as gay porn). Mogutin started his career as a poet in Siberia, but was booted by the Kremlin for “exceptional cynicism” and “extreme insolence.” His work remains sexy and voyeuristic—and it’s more poetic than ever.…

“OUR POINT OF VIEW IS THAT WE'RE TRYING TO MAKE THE ULTIMATE CASUAL LUXURY BRAND EXPERIENCE. IT NEEDS TO FEEL INTRINSICALLY AMERICAN, AND EASY AND LIVED-IN AND ANIMATED.IT NEEDS TO HAVE ATTITUDE.” THE first time Aaron Levine visited the Abercrombie & Fitch corporate campus, 20 miles outside Columbus, Ohio, it was spring. It’s easy to see why he fell in love with it. At that time of year the compound is surrounded by lush greenery, strewn with bleached-wood cabin-style buildings, like a quaint storybook village nestled in the woods. The day I was there, in May, the verdant backdrop was practically glowing, and at lunchtime, local food trucks filled the parking lot where cargo-shorts-wearing guys and girls in flirty camisoles and denim cutoffs lined up for artisanal tacos. It had…

According to the Cabaret number made famous by EGOT-ing national treasure Liza Minnelli, “Money makes the world go around.” Have truer words ever been sung, particularly in a fake German accent? When it comes to effecting change, signing petitions, protesting in the streets, and hounding your local reps may be standard practices, but when all else fails—make the world stop spinning. Corporations control public policy as much as, if not more than, the government, and since (according to the law) corporations are people, you have to talk to them in a language they understand. With almost a trillion dollars in purchasing power, the LGBT community represents a highly valuable sector of the American population. Over the years, we’ve proven our ability to use the power of the pink dollar to…

WHEN JUSTIN TRANTER was awarded Songwriter of the Year at the 2017 BMI Pop Awards, the queer musician used the moment to demand the industry put more women and LGBTQ people in songwriting sessions. It was a simple, straightforward request, but it took the activist and artist his entire life—battling a straight, conservative industry—to have his words taken seriously by music’s biggest names. The former frontman of New York glam-rock outfit Semi Precious Weapons, Tranter never experienced commercial success as a performer, despite touring for years (at one point SPW opened for Lady Gaga during her Monster Ball tour). It was only when he retired his glittery heels and eyeliner for a career behind the scenes that Tranter’s lyrics finally made it onto mainstream radio worldwide. After signing a publishing…

Ball Play We’re more than halfway through tennis’s annual Grand Slam, which begins in January in Melbourne; moves to Paris in May; touches down in Wimbledon, London, in mid-July; and concludes in Queens, N.Y., in September. Get into the spirit with our celebration of tennis in movies and song—and if that doesn’t conjure your inner Billie Jean King, we’ve got the accessories to help you (minus this fetching ball boy, sadly).…