Adam in Malaysia

HuffPo ran a story (I think it's the AP story) about Adam's decision to perform in Malaysia sans stage kiss, rather than cancel his show there.  I was shocked at the comments that the story generated.  I suppose it's just a handful of hateful bigoted people, but to see it in writing, at HuffPo no less, was disheartening.

And of course, some loser made the predictable "I'm sure he'd love going to prison" comment, but HuffPo deleted that one.  You know how I love him, so it breaks my heart to see people be so hateful to him.  I can't imagine what it's like for parents to see their child bullied or be the object of hate.

In a press conference in Malaysia yesterday, Adam noted the hate that he sees in the comments section of news stories about him:
"[I]f you go down into the comments section, there's a lot of hate.  But you know what? If I focused on the hate and let it affect me, I'd be letting that hate win and I refuse to do that.  I'm going to focus on the positive, focus on the love, and ignore all the hate."

Here's the press conference, in which he could not be more charming:


His Malaysia show was finished a couple hours ago.  He blew the audience a kiss in "Fever" instead of kissing Tommy.  All reports are that his vocals were insane (as judged by people who've seen video of every song in every concert this summer).  Over 16,000 Malaysian fans attended and showed him love.

Update 2:20 pm  Perfect commentary from peacevehicle via Twitter

Adam singing Fever in Manila

In follow-up, here's a video of Adam singing Fever in Manila last night. This is my favorite song on the FYE album. It's the only song on the album that includes a male pronoun; rumor has it that that is enough to scare US radio stations from playing it. It's currently topping or climbing charts in New Zealand and Singapore, though. It's during the tour performance of this song that Adam kisses Tommy and I offer it for context. And beauty. And fun!

This video (like most that I've posted here) is taken by Suz526. You can tell she's quite experienced at videotaping this song since she gets the close-up of the kiss, but then moves to the wider shot by the time the dancing begins.

Islam vs. Adam (with bonus bullet casings)

I've found a story relevant to both Michael's and my blogging interests: Muslims behaving badly (Michael) and Adam (me).

Malaysia's Islamist opposition party on Monday demanded that authorities cancel a planned [October 14] concert by U.S. glam rocker Adam Lambert that they say is promoting "gay culture" in the mainly Muslim country.

"Adam Lambert's shows... are outrageous, with lewd dancing and a gay performance that includes kissing male dancers, this is not good for people in our country," said PAS Youth leader Nasrudin Hasan. Homosexual sex is a criminal offence in Malaysia.

Pretty much every night, Adam kisses Tommy Joe Ratliff (not a dancer, but the bass player) on stage, much to the screaming delight of fans. The nightly kiss is a much-celebrated bit of stagecraft. I suppose it "promotes gay culture" but it probably does more to spur the market for homoerotica.

Apparently, Adam's concert in Kuala Lumpur will go on as planned, though he's required to "dress appropriately and not remove his clothes". He never removes his clothes, unfortunately, so he should be safe. (Some contract drafter in Malaysia is going to lose his/her job for forgetting to get Adam's promise not to pantomime ~pleasuring Tommy's bass.)

Finally, for gun lovers: one of Adam's dancers had some trouble clearing security at an airport (not sure if it was in Manila or Hong Kong) a few hours ago because his outfit or accessories included bullet casings.

Update moments later: Taylor's bracelet made the news. Surprising how many airports that bracelet has made it through without problems.

Update 10:30 am: Adam's story mentioned on NYTimes Arts Beat blog.

Update 3:16 pm: Adam tweets

Update 3:24 pm:  And then Adam tweeted some more:

Update 3:33 pm:  And some more.  (Adam, maybe a column in the NYT would be more efficient.)

Update 4:14 pm:  And then Adam's dad, Eber Lambert, tweeted.

Update 10/12/10, 6:16 pm: PRI's The World covers it, with audio from Adam.

Update 10/13/10, 10:17 pm:  Adam tweets before the Malaysia show:

Because it just gets better every time he sings it...

Adam singing Sleepwalker, from Manilla last night (preceded as always by the fab dancers on tour: Terrance Spencer, Taylor Green, Sasha Mallory and Brooke Wendle):


Update: 10/12/10:  And in Hong Kong last night.

I know how Michael enjoys metaphors from the card table

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones offers a critique of Mankiw's assessment of how proposed income tax changes (letting Bush's deficit-enhancing tax cuts expire on high-end incomes) would affect him:

Do you see the card he palmed? Basically, the effect of letting the Bush cuts expire is so tiny that the only way to make it noticeable is to compound it over 30 years, which reduces his eventual payout from $2,000 to $1,700.