AccidentalBear.com has announced their Queer Music Summer Tour in support of LGBTQ mental health services at The Stonewall Project (SF), Q Center (PDX), Los Angeles LGBT Center (LA), and the Ali Forney Center (NYC).

I am headlining the tour alongside Conquistador, Big Dipper, Rica Shay, and Darling Gunsel, with a bunch of other bangin’ local acts joining us as openers in each of the cities.

Dates and venues will be announced soon, so stay tuned. We are playing Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and New York City this first round! Gonna be so much fun.

Watch videos from the headliners here:

Logan Lynn

Conquistador

Big Dipper & Rica Shay

Darling Gunsel

For more info on the tour, charity, and Kickstarter campaign, click HERE.

If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, click HERE to download the official sponsorship packet.

Recently I have witnessed a great deal of conflict within Portland’s local queer community online, in the press, and in real life. Much of this seems to come about as a result of heated debates around social issues, sex, politics, art, and the complicated inner-workings of the LGBT community in PDX (and everywhere). I believe there is much to be learned from conflict, but the way some of this has been playing out lately in the public sphere has felt mean spirited and has been difficult to watch at times.

It is my belief that we were all born inherently kind and connected to one another. Each of us was handed our own set of circumstances at birth, which are sometimes pre-destined long before birth, but most babies are not born angry. As kind queer babies are growing up, we sometimes find ourselves mistreated, abandoned, and ridiculed for being different. We are held down by layer upon layer of systemic oppression buried centuries deep in a culture that has its head shoved so far up its own ass it cannot see the part it plays in the cycle of abuse. This is painful and infuriating.

So what do we do with the fury we carry from having this history? How do we reconcile these justified feelings of outrage? Many of us might not feel powerful enough to take on our families, bosses or governments at the root of our feeling oppressed, so we aim lower and end up putting our pain on one another. Instead of queer people banding together to fight external oppression, we end up oppressing ourselves through infighting. It’s a tale as old as time, but all that cutting our friends amounts to in the end is a divided community, and a divided community is not a strong one.

We are still in the midst of a culture war, friends. While many changes have been made in our favor, we cannot forget that we still live in a country that treats queer people like second-class citizens, and in a state that actively perpetuates this discrimination. I fear sometimes Read the rest of this entry »

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 1/28/2013)

New York City cabaret/performance-art/drag icon Joey Arias hits the road next month with fellow East Village art scene veteran Kristian Hoffman for a West Coast tour called Lightning Strikes, so… get ready, America! Borrowed from the title of German countertenor Klaus Nomi‘s song by the same name, Lightning Strikes marks the first collaboration between Arias and Hoffman, both having been dear friends and collaborators with Nomi until the time of his death in 1983.

I had the chance to catch up with Joey last week to chat about music, love, Lady Gaga vs. Madonna, how the gay rights movement has changed and what magic is in store for us as Lightning Strikes rolls into cities across the western United States.

Logan Lynn: As you already know, I adore you. To me, you are everything that matters about New York.

Joey Arias: Thank you, Logan, for that lovely compliment. New York is a state of mind. The Empire State: that’s me! [Laughs.]

Lynn: The last time we saw you in Portland was a couple years back, for the premiere of Arias With a Twist at QDoc: Queer Documentary Film Festival, where you famously performed with Pink Martini frontman Thomas Lauderdale on piano at Mother’s Bistro. How was that friendship formed? Are there more Joey Arias/Pink Martini collaborations in store?

Arias: I guess I love meeting beautiful people. You have been super-sweet to me, as have Thomas and Hugh and many others in Portland. As far as Pink Martini goes, I’d been a huge fan, and it was Kim Hastrieter of Paper mag that introduced us. Thomas came to my apartment and dropped off his CD and hugged me and said how much he loved me, and then he ran away. We caught up that evening at Kim’s for dinner and got into a great conversation. I’ve been invited many times to perform with them. It’s been an honor to grace the stage with them! We’re all so busy, and I don’t know when the next time will be, but I’m sure in the future there will be more collaborations.

Lynn: That is very exciting! Speaking of collaborations, many folks remember your famous performance with David Bowie and Klaus Nomi on Saturday Night Live in the ’80s. Your new tour is named after one of Klaus Nomi’s songs. Is the tour a tribute to your old friend, in part?

Arias: The tour is a celebration of friendship. Kristian Hoffman was part of the original East Village scene. He Read the rest of this entry »