Dan Clarendon

freelance journalist, storyteller, aspiring television writer, pilot penner, editor, blogger, Photoshopper, IB diploma recipient, City Year alumnus, Hampshire frog, cat lover, dog whisperer, television buff, mixtaper, colossus, klutz, southpaw, culinary wanna-be, cookie monster, cathedral-builder, punster, unabashed hedonist, frequent couch potato, queer husband


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Teen TV’s Best & Worst ‘Very Special Episodes,’ Ranked

Though social issues have been incorporated into TV shows more organically lately, the “very special episode” was a small-screen staple for decades. These episodes deal with societal woes like drug/alcohol abuse, crime, and violence in PSA-like storylines that were often resolved by the end of the hour or half-hour. And very special episodes were often “cynical marketing opportunities as much as a desire to serve the public," Arthur Smith, a former assistant curator at the Paley Center for Media, explained in 2015.
Remind •

How Paul Newman’s First Film Nearly Ended His Career Before It Began

Paul Newman, who would have been 101 on January 26, turned heads in the 1953 Broadway production of the play Picnic. He won a Theatre World Award and, even more importantly, caught the attention of future wife Joanne Woodward, an understudy in the production. But then came what Newman considered to be a disastrous film debut for the actor—and the worst film of the 1950s—in the historical epic The Silver Chalice.
Remind •

The Controversial ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’ Storyline That Viewers Never Got to See

The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977, broke ground for women on TV, with Mary Tyler Moore playing an unmarried woman more focused on her career in a Minneapolis newsroom than on her love life or a partner. But if creators Allan Burns and James L. Brooks had their way, Mary Richards would have been a divorcée. Moore loved the idea, but CBS wouldn’t have it…
Queerty •

It’s Transgender Awareness Week, and trans folk are sharing their stories

Every November 13 to November 19 is Transgender Awareness Week, a time to educate the public about trans identities and the fight for trans equality and safety, all of which leads up to Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20. As GLAAD explains, trans advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith created Transgender Day of Remembrance in 1999 in memory of Rita Hester, a trans woman murdered the previous year.
Remind •

Whatever Happened to Adam Wade, TV’s First Black Game Show Host?

Adam Wade broke new ground on television with Musical Chairs, a game show that ended its brief run a half century ago, on October 31, 1975. Though the show only ran for five months, it gave Wade the designation of becoming American’s first Black TV game show host. But breaking a racial barrier with that program was just one of Wade’s many accomplishments. This is a man who worked with a famed scientist, who opened for Tony Bennett, and who could be seen across the TV dial in the 1970s.
Queerty •

Pro tennis player João Lucas Reis served a groundbreaking coming out

Reis’ success on the court has coincided with his coming out. Late last year, he went Instagram official with his boyfriend, Brazilian actor Guilherme Ricardo. Reis posted a brief birthday message and declaration of love. “Feliz aniversário,” he wrote. “Feliz vida. Te amo muito.” (Translation: “Happy birthday. Happy life. I love you very much.”) Those seven words made Reis the first player to ever publicly come out on the men’s ATP Tour.
Queerty •

As a queer reggaetón star, RaiNao is challenging norms & leading with authenticity

If you caught Bad Bunny performing “PERFuMITO NUEVO” in the Saturday Night Live Season 50 finale, you also witnessed him trading verses with RaiNao, three years after the King of Latin Trap jumpstarted her career with a social-media endorsement of her track “LUV” and an invitation to his Un Verano Sin Ti tour stage weeks later. And now, the San Juan-raised RaiNao seems destined to follow her countryman to reggaetón superstardom, and she’s repping queer femmes all the while.
Distractify •

Albert Einstein’s Brain Traveled the Country for Decades After His Death

Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein died in 1955, but the story of his brain has continued for years now, all because of one man who took the gray matter into his own hands and kept it for decades, even crossing state lines with the brain. What happened to Einstein’s brain? Believe it or not, it was the pathologist who conducted Einstein’s autopsy who just took the brain without permission, as detailed in last year’s documentary film The Man Who Stole Einstein’s Brain.
Queerty •

Gay men sound off on the need to confront transphobia among other gay men

Hang out on Reddit long enough, and you’ll eventually see transphobic attitudes show up—explicitly and implicitly—in queer communities on the platform. And social media is, of course, a microcosm of a society which some think LGB equality is an acceptable substitute for LGBT equality. One Reddit user recently shed light on transphobia in the gay male population, saying that although he loves being gay and trans, his interactions with cis gay men “[have], by and large, been less than ideal.”
LGBTQ Nation •

Young people are coming out in huge numbers. These families found beautiful ways to support their kids.

Paria Hassouri and her husband were thousands of miles from home, on vacation in Thailand, when they got a call from their daughter’s school. A teacher told them that Ava, then 13, was questioning her gender identity. During Ava’s coming-out experience, Hassouri educated herself about how best to support her daughter. Other parents are trying to do the same, as children and teens are opening up — sometimes even earlier in their lives — about their placement in a galaxy of queer existence.
Teen Vogue •

Gender Affirming Surgeries Are Being Delayed or Canceled Because of the Coronavirus Pandemic

On March 13, the American College of Surgeons recommended hospitals across the country minimize, postpone, or cancel all scheduled elective surgeries because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As many hospitals took that advice and shed certain procedures from the books, many transgender people were left with devastating setbacks as gender-affirming surgeries were canceled or indefinitely postponed as the question of which procedures are “elective” looms.

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