Saturday Sinema: My Big Gay Jewish Conversion

Like a conversion, hey!

Is Israel really the best place in the world to be gay? And is Judaism the one mainstream religion that accepts homosexuality? Meet Simon, a gay Catholic man from the West of Ireland on a quest to find out. Simon has never truly felt accepted by his own church, a problem that Matthew, his Jewish boyfriend from North London, has never had to face. Simon begins to wonder if the grass may be greener, and considers converting. He starts with a trip to the local Rabbi where they chat, among other things, about getting 'snipped', but Simon is itching to get to Judaism's homeland: Israel. He hops on a plane and first hits the streets of Tel Aviv, 'the gayest city on Earth', where he meets gay people from all walks of life, including gay soldiers in the IDF. Then he heads to Jerusalem, where the story here is very different. Extreme views towards homosexuality are rife and Simon encounters this at an uncomfortably close proximity. Then, it's crunch time. Faced with the facts, will Simon jump ship and become Jewish?

Order Here: https://mvdb2b.com/b2b/s/MVD2730D

Get Some "Spicy" Ass With Cazwell

Cazwell
It's All About That Ass

Cazwell has shot some hot ass on an iPhone for his tamale of a new song Spicy, like, duh. 

Today the video for the song drops here is all the what there is and what you should know about this endeavor. Happy December 1st the countdown to Christmas begins!

Shot entirely on an iPhone 6, Cazwell’s music video for "¡Spicy!", the latest track from his Hard 2 B Fresh album, is fun and psychedelic with lots of bright colors and playful visuals.  It mixes Mexican and Catholic imagery into a gay version of outer space filled with porn stars and rainbow burritos with transsexual icon Amanda Lepore sitting on the moon. “Its not your typical music video about a cute Latin boy,” the artist concedes.  But not much about Cazwell is typical.   Where most gay men with a predilection for hombres focus on the size of the Latino penis, Cazwell’s interests lean to the rear.  “I definitely have an ass fetish”, he admits, adding,  “I think it’s time Hip Hop paid homage to the guys’ culo.”  Cazwell’s  "¡Spicy! " is available on iTunes now.  

“I was seeing a guy that was very spicy,” continues Cazwell, discussing the inspiration for the song. “He was passionate with a capital P: extremely loving and affectionate and great in bed.  But passion has its negative side too. He was very jealous and quick to snap.” Cazwell explains his songs’ intentions further, “Being ‘spicy’ certainly is not limited to just one race or ethnicity. A lot of it just has to do with your own personal swag, how you carry yourself and how you communicate with your bae."

After writing the lyrics for the song with frequent collaborator Big Dipper, Cazwell worked with Denver-based producer Craig C. on the beat and called in his favorite side chick, Cherie Lily to lace the hook. They wanted Pitbull meets MIA with heavy Latin inspired percussion and horns. “I needed this to be the song on my album that spiced shit up,” Cazwell says.  He also wanted to do something a little different and experimental with the song’s music video.  He brought in 19-year-old Bob Bottle, a video director he worked with previously on the music video for “Downtown”.

                                                              "Spicy!"

"A lot of the times when I do a video, I’ll shoot in a day and then hand off the footage to the director to edit. I wanted Bob on this video because we’re friends.  We communicate daily.  I wanted the video to be a true collaboration.”

Bottle and Cazwell share an interest in images, animations, designs, and videos that live in their own universe of highly saturated color, homoerotic imagery, and sparkling galaxy textures.  These images were the main inspiration for the “Spicy” music video.

"When I was planning out this video with Bob, we wrote down a list of the things that had been inspiring us artistically lately. A lot of it came from Mexican culture, Christianity and the show, Ancient Aliens. We decided to try to find a way to combine all three and make it work for the video. It was very organic."

For more information, visit Cazwell.com and PeaceBisquit.com.

Exclusive  "¡Spicy!“ Tumblr here: http://cazwellspicy.tumblr.com/

"The Day The Light Went Out" The Strange Familiar, Returns

The Strange Familiar

The Pop/Rock Band The Strange Familiar are back! After the success of their album "Chasing Shadows" the group took some down time for various reasons. That down time went on to shape their new, and in my opinion best effort yet, "The Day The Light Went Out."

I caught up with the band front woman, Kira Leyden Andrea to get the 411 on their latest, and the things that life throws at you...

MS: Hi Kira, I was watching a "Pretty Little Liars" rerun before you called I remembered when songs  from TSF's "Chasing Shadows" were featured prominently on a previous season. What about songs from the new CD? Do you think they will be heard on the show?

KLA: I hope so, I believe the music supervisor for "Pretty Little Liars" has a copy of the album. I'm hoping they'll use it, I think they are kind of waiting for something super emotional and dramatic to happen, but hopefully they will. (laughs)

MS: "Pretty Little Liars" is always super emotional and dramatic so I am sure it will happen. (laughs) While listening to the album last night all I could think was: "Wow, this is really good."

KLA: Awwwwww, Thank You!

MS: Reading some of the comments you guys made about the album, like how much more personal and deeper it was than your previous efforts, "Well, yeah." Talk about that.

KLA: We did the songs on the album at two different times and somehow they ended up fitting together. The first couple of songs we wrote were "Surrender" & "Painkiller" we had those for a little while, we played them live, sort of "road tested" them you might say, we noticed they were getting a great reaction from fans. The songs were totally a different direction than what we had done on "Chasing Shadows" in the sense they were coming from darker places.

"Painkiller" is asking the question about going through life and living it numb and letting all of these things pass you by. It started with those two songs, then when we went to do the second half we had "Rain" which we didn't even think we were going to end up using. We were really short on songs, honestly (both laugh) we had a few that we liked and we thought were good, and solid, we knew we needed more and it needed to fit with the other stuff. But we didn't know if the producers would go for it, we showed all these songs to them including "Rain" and they said this is definitely going on the album, I thought: "Really?" We really thought of it as just this cute little song, this little lullaby - we kind of went with it. I like the song on the record because it does fit. It talks about being in the desert, and it talks about being in a dark, tough place in your life that someone is bringing you through. It's a cool thing.

We went through a lot of that too, like having the baby and when I was sick for a while...you  know I was in intensive care after I had the baby, and it was scary. I was really, really sick with an abscess and I think that plays into the rest of the record. That's "The Day The Light Went Out" so, yeah.

MS: I remember seeing that on your Facebook page, I believe your husband Jeff posted it, about how ill you were. One can definitely see how it influenced the album, sometimes the best stuff creatively comes out of the most challenging of times.

Kira And TSF's Latest CD

KLA: To me the message of the album is you can experience horrible things and tragedies in your life, but out of those, that's where you really become who you want to be. It's where you become stronger and you grow so much, while you're in it, it's like: "Whoa!" But when you look back at it, you think I wouldn't be who I am today without that, believe it or not it's a good thing actually.

MS: If you actually make it through you do become a different and better person.

KLA: Yeah, I think so.

MS: Me too. What was it like being in the hospital for you?

KLA: Well, you are really going in and out of morphine la la la feelings. (both laugh) In my situation I did not know how big my abscess really was. You can't see it and you feel horrible. One day I remember this one Doctor came in, one I had never seen before and said: "Where changing your antibiotic" and he did to this really super strong one, and I'm like, Okaaaaay. I was freaking out about all these antibiotics, and the Doctor says: "You have to you are in intensive care and you are really sick." That's when it started to sink in that "Dang this is serious." We were scared and it was a really dark time, I just wanted to go home and be with my baby, I feel like I can appreciate things so much more, there are people who are stuck in the Hospital who don't get to leave for months. You can relate and empathize more with them. That's part of what feeds into the album and it's title, "The Day The Light Went Out" a lot of it too does have to do with my faith.

Because I am a Catholic, a Christian, I just like to be honest the song does have to do with that. You don't have to believe anything I believe - to appreciate the message of the song that out of something horrible and dark can come something beautiful.

MS: One of the things I like about you guys is that I get the message you put out there is an inclusive one.

Hey Everyone, It's Us!

KLA: Yeah, it doesn't matter at the end of the day we are all human beings. We are all going to go through suffering, experience loss...we can all relate to each other and that is the message I want to bring to as many people as I can.

MS: It's a good message. All the songs do fit together well, "Surrender" was a particular favorite of mine.

KLA: Very cool, that's actually my favorite. We are going to shoot a video for that one, that is our next big thing, to try and get that video done. (laughs)

MS: "Surrender" is the perfect choice for a video! So let's talk about something a little lighter, (both laugh) how is your daughter Rayne?

KLA: She is great! She is so full of life and so fun, the happiest little child. She is starting to talk and walk now.

MS: My goodness, that went quick!

KLA: She's a total person walking around, she says Mama, Dada, door...(laughs) Also she has to say "Hi" to every person she sees.

MS: It so much fun to be around kids because they see the world so differently.

KLA: Everything is exciting, everything is an adventure and everything you do is fun when you are a kid. (laughs)

Turn and face "The Strange Familiar" on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thestrangefamiliar
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tsfmusic
Own The Strange Familiar Here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_srch_drd_B00199RF86?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=digital-music&field-keywords=The%20Strange%20Familiar