“Progress Shark” outside the Australian Museum, ahead of Sydney Mardi Gras/World Pride Festival 2023.
More flags should be inflatable sharks
Ok this is making me go insane because. that’s a photoshop. it absolutely is, someone’s edited a progress pride flag onto the shark.
you can see spots where the red is misaligned with the top of the body and even extends slightly beyond it. the lines of the flag don’t conform to the shape of the shark’s body at all. you can see the gills through it as if it’s at like 70% opacity.
but like. the progress pride shark is real and it looks like this:
yknow. cause it’s a flag wrapped around a model shark.
why was this edited????? it’s a real thing but for some reason someone edited a digital flag over it instead of just using a real photo of the real thing??? why????
discovering the queer country scene has honestly been so healing because most queer musicians i’ve seen recommended for years i just couldn’t really connect with because it wasn’t the sort of music i listened to or had investment in and with queer country it’s like. yes. this is the language i speak in. this is Fuck You, I Belong Here Too, not just as a queer person in the country but as a rural person among (sub)urban queers, and saying it with a laugh. when will my hometown take pride in me, goddamn it
Drop the list!!
FIRST: rachel holst does the adobe & teardrops blog as well as the rainbow rodeo newsletter & zine. look into the black opry also, there are plenty of black queer country/folk/americana artists & there is a lot of collaboration between them and other queer country/folk/americana musicians
my personal list:
adeem the artist (especially the new album, white trash revelry)
paisley fields (stay away from my man is a good old fashioned honky tonk jam about gay on gay violence)
jake blount (the new faith is an afrofuturist album using roots music to explore life after climate collapse, HIGHLY recommend)
sarah shook & the disarmers (especially the album sidelong, ESPECIALLY the songs fuck up & dwight yoakam)
lavender country (everything but especially cryin’ these cocksucking tears. patrick haggerty sadly passed in 2022 and we lost a real one. he self-described as a screaming marxist bitch)
flamy grant (okay so. bible belt baby is Technically a christian album that i was tricked into listening to. but listen. what did you drag me into is an instant classic)
mercy bell (especially who said we were friends. i can’t hear the lyric “mea culpa/here’s a gulpa/my drink in your face” and NOT recommend it)
amythyst kiah (if you haven’t heard black myself by now what even are you doing. go listen to it)
do you want to speedrun a depressive episode as a queer woman who fears you may have too much in common with your father? listen to i drink by mary gauthier now
karen & the sorrows (there is a lot to recommend karen pittelman and the work she has done for queer country artists but i’m a useless lesbian so i’m submitting for consideration a photo of the red dress from the mv for guaranteed broken heart that i think about a normal amount:
There ain’t no possible way that I’d remember to listen to any of these artists on my own so I made a handy-dandy playlist on Spotify with an on-the-nose title for all the other cowpokes who need to save/bookmark something and come back to it later.
It’s basically the most recent album of all the artists listed above. It’s about 7 hours long so have at it, y'all
