The Best of Binky's Johnny Weir Blog

Monday, July 12, 2010

And We Have a Flag on the Play ...

Another exclusive! What the well-dressed man

is wearing this time of year in Japan:

A flag to go with his perfect pedi...

Dancing With the Stars update: OK, our campaign is off the ground! And in just five days, we have managed to tweet #TeamWeirnoff more than 1,700 times! And we have also managed to create a #failwhale of our very own by deeply annoying much of the Twitterverse as well as people on other Johnny fan sites! Which we did not intend to do!

#reallyreallysorry

Apparently my initial description of the campaign was not quite as clear as I had hoped. #epicfail

So let's review our strategy before some of those ontd_skating people of whom I am in awe because they are totally the cool kids at the lunch table decide to #cuttabitch.

OK. We're asking everybody to please:

*Join the Johnny Weir Needs to Be on DWTS Facebook page! (Motto: "137 People Can't Be Wrong! Wait--Seriously? Only 137?") #needmorefiercebitches

*Join the official Dancing With the Stars Facebook page! (Motto: "1,148,372 People Can't Be Wrong! Unless They Really Think BP Actually Cares!") BTW: This page has gained nearly 24,000 fans since last Thursday when ABC posted that the season premiere is September 20. This audience is a huge opportunity for Johnny! #immafirinmahlazer

*Post comments on the DWTS FB page begging ABC to give us Team Weirnoff next season! So that those other 1,148,372 people might see our posts and decide they'd like that, too! Note: It's most effective if you post on this comment thread, but you also can post directly to their wall. A lot of spam gets posted there, though, so your post might get lost amongst all the "Download the official Facebook layouts!" and "Spend the night with me!" crap. #spammershazastupid

*Respond to this DWTS FB invitation to watch the season premiere! Please include a comment with your RSVP to say that you will most certainly be watching if Johnny is one of the contestants! #willwatchhimdoanything

*Spread the word to the media via e-mail that we want Johnny on DWTS! Johnny-friendly media outlets include Perez Hilton (yes, I know. Just don't read the comments there. Perez is wonderfully supportive of Johnny and has a huge audience on his website and his Twitter); Greg in Hollywood (Twitter); Towleroad (Twitter); Dlisted; and Queerty (Twitter). #eyesglazingoverthisseemscomplicated

OK, so far, so good. Now here's where we ran into trouble: #lolwut

*Follow these Twitter accounts: @ABC_DWTS, @ABC_Publicity, and @TeamWeirnoff (yes! There's already a Twitter account and a cool team name for Johnny and Karina!). #TeamWeirnoff #DWTS

*Start tweeting like crazy to @ABC_DWTS and @ABC_Publicity--and everybody else above--to tell them we want to see #TeamWeirnoff on #DWTS next season!

I think it's the "tweeting like crazy" that was maybe a misstep on my part. #plsdonttakeeverythingisayliterally

This campaign requires a different strategy from the NewNowNext Awards. The goal there was to tweet #realityWEIR as much as possible. In this campaign, ABC is NOT searching for and counting hashtag votes. Instead, we simply want to spread the word across the Twitterverse--accompanied by as low an annoyance factor as possible--so that we get lots of different people tweeting that they'd like to see Johnny on DWTS. We need to show ABC that he has both broad appeal + devoted fans = high ratings for them if he's on the show. #soundslikemathbutimstillonboard

SO:

(1) Please tweet something along these lines just a few times a day (OK to tweet from multiple Twitter accounts, but please limit tweeting to several tweets per account):

@ABC_DWTS @ABC_Publicity Please give us #TeamWeirnoff this season on #DWTS Big ratings 4 U, big @JohnnyGWeir fun 4 us!

@ABC_DWTS & @ABC_Publicity: Big @JohnnyGWeir fan here! Would love to see him paired with @Karina_Smirnoff this season! #TeamWeirnoff #DWTS

@ABC_DWTS @ABC_Publicity: I promise I'll watch every single episode if you put @JohnnyGWeir & @Karina_Smirnoff on #DWTS! I ♥ #TeamWeirnoff

@ABC_DWTS @ABC_Publicity we want @JohnnyGWeir on #DWTS!! #TeamWeirnoff is beautiful, glittery, and special and you NEED them!

(2) Please also keep retweets to a minimum to avoid clogging up the Twitter feed. #ineedaplungerformyTwitter

(3) Please do use the hashtags #TeamWeirnoff and #DWTS in your tweets so that we can track our campaign. ABC is most likely to search for #DWTS as a hashtag to see what the buzz is on Twitter for the show, so if they see that it's often paired with #TeamWeirnoff, that's good PR for Johnny! #imavailableifkarinaisbusy

Our goal is to show ABC how popular Johnny is and what a boost he would be to DWTS' ratings. So, in contrast to NewNowNext, in which we sent LOTS OF TWEETS from a small group of tweeters, for DWTS we need LOTS OF PEOPLE to send tweets. Just maybe not 800x a day. #thinkyouspicybutfromfatitdown

Note: I realize that not everybody thinks Johnny on DWTS is a great idea. Some feel there should be at least one season between Evan's appearance and his; others feel it's beneath him; still others worry that it will distract him from focusing on his return to competitive skating next season. #plsfeelfreetoignorethiscampaign #buthewantsthisnowandhiswishismycommandjustask @NicoFierce andher201followers

OK then! Hopefully we've cleared all that up and we can proceed in supporting Johnny's dream without becoming the subject of a post at ontd titled, "I NEED TO KILL SOMETHING." #johnnyinawhitespeedocalmseverybodydown

And to inspire us all to to get back out there and tweet / post / etc. / #butdontpisspploff, I leave you with the last of the Japan exclusives:

#maybehe'llwearafedoraonDWTSshakingandcrying

#kthxbai

PLEASE KEEP VOTING HERE for Johnny to win

the 2010 Readers' Choice Skater of the Year Award
(voting ends THIS THURSDAY, July 15)!

Hey! You can purchase a T-shirt

in honor of our Ride for Life project!

We exceeded our $7,500 donation goal,

so now we're aiming for $10,000!

We're less than $2,000 away,

and we have until July 31 to get there!

Shirts are $20 each including shipping,

and $10 of that goes directly toward AIDS/LifeCycle!

Everything you need to know about ordering is here!

Very special thanks once again
to a Spectacular Someone
for the exclusive photos from Japan!

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Just This...

... because it makes me smile.

And yes, BB, you are.

Hey! You can purchase a T-shirt

in honor of our Ride for Life project!

We exceeded our $7,500 donation goal,

so now we're aiming for $10,000!

We're less than $2,000 away,

and we have until July 31 to get there!

Shirts are $20 each including shipping,

and $10 of that goes directly toward AIDS/LifeCycle!

Everything you need to know about ordering is here!

PLEASE KEEP VOTING HERE for Johnny to win

the 2010 Readers' Choice Skater of the Year Award
(voting ends July 15)!

Very special thanks
to a Spectacular Someone
for this exclusive photo from Japan!

Friday, July 9, 2010

My Coach Is Going as Neo Sky

First things first.

As I'm sure everybody knows, Johnny announced yesterday that he'll be taking a year off from competitive skating, and he formally withdrew from the Grand Prix events to which he had been assigned.

Moments before his press release appeared, he tweeted, "I love my fans." And soon after the news hit, another tweet: "I am sorry to disappoint you all. I will be back. Don't be sad. I love you so much."

And that did make me feel sad--not for me, but for Johnny, sitting there in his hotel room in Japan where he was supposed to have been asleep hours ago, but instead was still up and tweeting to his fans and worrying that they would be disappointed in him.

And I just wanted to say: BB, don't be silly. No apology necessary. You've made a decision that only you can make, regarding the path only you can travel, about the life that only you can live--with all the passion and courage and heartbreak and joie de vivre that is all uniquely, fiercely, fabulously you.

You don't have to explain or defend anything. Ever. To anyone. But thank you for once again sharing yourself so honestly with your fans. Also: Getting to hear your voice on the audio as you delivered the announcement was a lovely gift.

And all I can say is some variation of what I and about a million other people said yesterday as soon as we all heard:

Oh, Johnny.

You are never a disappointment.

Am just along for the ride, wherever it takes you.

Love love you always. ♥

But it was a bit of a tumultuous day, to say the least. You can read the entire text of Johnny's statement on his official website here, and also listen to the audio file here.

The announcement hit the mainstream press with lightning speed, which was exciting to see, because Johnny's popularity and
appeal--apparently unbeknownst to the remarkably doltish and obstinate-beyond-all-reason USFSA--has so completely transcended and overshadowed the insular, inbred world of competitive figure skating (may I offer at this juncture another polite FU to the USFSA. Because it makes me happy to do so. And I need a little happy right now.)

Among the delights of the actually really evenhanded press coverage was this gem of an interview with Vanity Fair, in which I stumbled across these Johnny quotes that I will now savor for the rest of my natural life:

[Now] I can go into the ice rink at midnight and skate and be free. (Yes, BB. Fly and be free.)

To be honest, I just want to go somewhere where I can wear a white Speedo. (And a big yes to this also. With twitpics on top.)

But it was all a little heavy for those of us who live our lives fully invested in all things Johnny, which means loving him to pieces and worrying about him as if he was one of our own, which he kind of is a little bit because he's just that accessible to his fans.

And so you can imagine my sheer delight when a LiveJournal member known to me only as "leupa" and who shall forevermore be enshrined in the hallowed halls of actual laugh-out-loud-till your-stomach-hurts lifesaving humor, took the time to apply the new "Translate Captions" feature to the audio file of Johnny's announcement on YouTube and then post the results here. Because what could possibly get lost in translation? (besides grammar, syntax, and any actual comprehensible meaning.) And if you haven't been there yet, for the love of Weirsus, I'm begging you: Go now. Not only is the entry brilliant, but the comments are priceless and wonderfully soaked in Johnny love.

And so, just as a refresher, may I offer selected portions of Johnny's announcement once again as only YouTube captions can present them, with some additional commentary / translations by me (because I couldn't resist running the translator again to see if it would say the same thing twice, which no, it's a bit more random than that), and with full credit for the concept and also undying love to leupa.

[Note: this reads kinda like ee cummings on acid. Oh. Sorry for the drug reference.]

my dearest can

there many projects but I'm currently working on

and I watch devote my time too

including my single thirty love

[Michael! he wrote a tennis song just for you!]

and also working on the second season

and make it a reality theory the good job here

(alternate translation by YouTube:

and also working on the second he's in my head

reality series be good johnnie we are)

[yes, we are being good. the second he's in our heads.

which is pretty much every second.]

and of course getting in shows
around the world imprisonment
on skating spectacular
[comment from leupa:

"criminal skater Johnny,

making the world more beautiful

one prison at a time"]

my coach is going as neo sky and

viktor petrenko and mean turncoat

I'd like to thank my family, friends, but most of all

Mike can

I skated for my fantasy

and I'm forever in your that

[yes please. go right on in

and make yourself at home in our that.
with your fantasy.]

I can perform in a way that is bucking week

what has been a match books ernie

[yes. bucking week. can't get enough of that

or match books ernie.]

I still hope to be on the knife is often as possible

training and performing my many fans around the world

[we would love to be trained by you.

where do we sign up?]

I mean if elected music from an expanded program

(alternate translation:

ITN's elected music from a knife and cut the programs)

and I'm already dreaming up costing

thank you to everyone who supported me

hello to be performing for you Gary sims

[so I'm guessing Mike Can, Match Books Ernie,

and Gary Sims are BFFs?]

and I'm very proud of everything I've accomplished so far

my life is the figure skater

[yes, it certainly is, but also so much more]

think you spicy but from fat it down

Yes. My thoughts exactly. "Think you spicy but from fat it down." I think that just about covers it. And is also my new motto.

Along with this: In Weirsus we trust. Especially if he's wearing a white Speedo.

Although for now, we'll make do with this new photo from Japan:

Exclusive! Johnny tries on a costume for Fantasy on Ice--

or at least part of a costume...

Hey! You can purchase a T-shirt

in honor of our Ride for Life project!

We exceeded our $7,500 donation goal,

so now we're aiming for $10,000!

We're less than $2,000 away,

and we have until July 31 to get there!

Shirts are $20 each including shipping,

and $10 of that goes directly toward AIDS/LifeCycle!

Everything you need to know about ordering is here!

PLEASE KEEP VOTING HERE for Johnny to win

the 2010 Readers' Choice Skater of the Year Award
(voting ends July 15)!

Special thanks to mallornleaf on ontd_skating
for the Galina-Is-Neo macro!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Words to Live By--in Special .Gif Form!--and Some Stuff to Do

Johnny enjoys (?)

some sushi in Japan.
I love that the box next to him says "Chanel"...

OK, so I figured out what's wrong besides the fact that my new computer and I are still not speaking and Johnny is in Japan and I'm not. Actually I'm really happy for him to be in Japan, because he's happy to be there, and the Japanese treat him like royalty. Which is as it should be.

But in the meantime we are languishing here stateside, and judging by my e-mail, I am apparently not alone in being bored and out of sorts and just plain bitchy, and also in spending inordinate amounts of time picking with great disdain through everything I own which was apparently purchased by someone else who must have liked it at the time but now feels that it's all wrong. Which I guess is me.

And so I seek distraction from myself by flopping on the couch with the remote, but no matter how many channels I flip through nor how fast and irritatedly I flip, THERE IS NOTHING ON TV.

And then I realize.

This is the dreaded Be Good Johnny Weir withdrawal syndrome.

And I am in the full throes of it.

We knew it was coming. We've analyzed his every facial expression in every scene of every episode; watched the finale twenty times plus every scrap of webisode and outtake video available on Sundance and toudou; and hung on every word of every bit of dialogue all year, memorizing it line for line and embedding catch phrases in our vocabulary that now make us wonder how it was we expressed ourselves coherently before. Even my kids say, when I suggest some unpopular activity, "Wow, Mom. That totally tastes like it has reams of paper close to it." Another versatile favorite: "Don't you know that? Are you stupid?" Plus the new gentle fashion guideline: "When you wear pants and they mark you like this, that means they're a little ... snug."

But now we're in that godforsaken endless barren desert that stretches across some unknowable span of time from the end of Season 1 to the beginning of Season 2--a beginning whose date remains elusive and thus tortures us almost as much as the endless thrumming of will-he-or-won't-he in the backs of our minds.

The only thing that might help is to be able to drown ourselves in the new Mook Book featuring the famed MAC photo shoot of myth and legend--but the machinations required to purchase said book from Japan (cripes! Do the Japanese fans realize how incredibly blessed by Weirsus they are? Actually, I think they do--so no wonder he loves to go there) are akin to ancient forbidden Opus Dei rituals that require an ever-tighter cilice, a sacrificial lamb, and a personal credit reference from a foreign bank--or preferably a foreign head of state--to complete. (Although Facebook fan Gail Turley has kindly gathered some instructions on how to actually order the book and made them available on her blog.)

All of which helped me to arrive at this point:

So after I joined Johnny in repeating this phrase a few times, which made me ridiculously giddy, I went into deep consultation with members of the Haus of Weir, and together we created a happy little fantasy to get us out of our BGJW-less doldrums, which shall be shared here soon ...

In the meantime, here's something with which we can amuse ourselves, a special request that came from a little Twitter bird (just before it had to go help its little birdy friends heave that #failwhale around some more):

While you're busy tweeting up a storm of #TeamWeirnoff and #DWTS and #TeamWeirnoffFTW and #OhDaddyTeam Weirnoff hashtags, please take a moment to tweet some love to the beautiful Yana Rudkovskaya, wife of Johnny's friend Evgeni Plushenko, who as of this writing is rinkside in Japan with Agentress Tara, watching Johnny, Plushy, Stephane, and others at Fantasy on Ice rehearsals and looking for a little Twitter love from fans! Let's show Yana that we can follow the Japanese fans' lead and shower her with good wishes while we try valiantly not to sink back into petulant self-pity because there's no new BGJW and Johnny is in Japan and we're not ...

Hey! You can purchase a T-shirt

in honor of our Ride for Life project!

We exceeded our $7,500 donation goal,

so now we're aiming for $10,000!

We're less than $2,000 away,

and we have until July 31 to get there!

Shirts are $20 each including shipping,

and $10 of that goes directly toward AIDS/LifeCycle!

Everything you need to know about ordering is here!

PLEASE KEEP VOTING HERE for Johnny to win

the 2010 Readers' Choice Skater of the Year Award
(voting ends July 15)!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

What's Next for a Man Who Has His Own Planet? Dancing With the Stars, Of Course!

Actually I'd say Johnny has been

dancing with the stars his whole life.

It's just taken the rest of the world

a while to catch on...

[Readers' Advisory: I am feeling a bit scattered and not a little crabby. Also kinda whiny. It's like when all your clothes fit wrong and Johnny is in Japan but you're not and there's that one strand of hair that just keeps sticking out at a weird angle no matter how much water or hairspray you put on it and Johnny will be in Sun Valley but you won't and nothing tastes good but you keep wanting to snack on everything in sight because you're just so annoyed by the fact that all your clothes fit wrong and Johnny will also be in Lake Placid but you won't and there's that one strand of hair...

Sigh.

Anyway.]

So during the Bluefly.com tweet-a-thon with Johnny last week, Facebook fan BSonTwit asked, "We have been tweeting to get you on DWTS--do u want that?" To which Johnny replied with an emphatic, "Yes!"

And in another interview last week, Johnny mentioned again that he'd really love to partner with Karina Smirnoff on DWTS, and also that "we’re definitely talking to all the right people about Dancing With the Stars. They are definitely talking back to us, so it’s just going to be a matter of time."

Well, time is exactly what we have a lot of on our hands right now, what with Johnny in Japan this week for "Fantasy on Ice," a phrase that certainly fills us with intense ~~mopey jealousy~~ happiness for the Japanese fans. So what we need is a focused mission that involves ~~mounting a foot massager~~ social media to unite us in a common purpose that does not leave us staring wistfully at airfares to Japan and comparing those with the cost of simply FedExing ourselves to Superfan Ikuko and hoping she'll just place us gently on one of the several cartloads of gifts we're sure she'll be dropping off at the hotel throughout the week...

Again with the scattered. Focus, Binky, focus.

All righty then, Johnny! who probably spent the day poking Tara awake with his elbow every time she tried to catch just a ten-minute nap on the plane to Japan. Where I am not. Your wish is our command!

To amuse ourselves while Johnny is out of the country--which always leaves me feeling a bit bereft, because when he's in the US at least I understand the time zones but once he crosses over the International Dateline into tomorrow, I just feel really seriously left behind and all Back to the Future-ish and then I find myself pestering my son to please make me a real flux capacitor if he's not too busy modifying the source code to Windows 7 so it will stop making me all facedesk, and then I can swoop into Niigata in my DeLorean yesterday, which is like next Thursday or something in Japan, and join Ikuko rinkside with additional gifts--let's work on driving the Dancing With the Stars people into absolute deer-in-the-headlights Twitter overload! With bonus #failwhale!

"Let's dance...

put on your red shoes and dance the blues... "

--David Bowie, to whom Johnny has been compared

as a sort of "Man Who Fell to Jersey"

Now when he says "talking to the right people," I have no idea what that means. Although I'm guessing the wrong people would be these. So I'm not exactly sure in which direction our Glitter Cannon o' Love should be aimed. Were it an ordinary cannon, of course I would be aiming it directly at the USFSA. But in this case, I think a multi-cannon approach is advisable. So, in consultation with other fans who also ~~spent most of yesterday tracking Johnny's flight and wishing they were Tara~~ want to make Johnny's DWTS dream come true, we came up with these steps (get it? "steps"? See, that's like a dance pun! A really, really sad one. Especially considering we started out here with a sort of "battle-plan" metaphor complete with cannons, and now all of a sudden we're doing dance steps, albeit awkward ones, because it's hard to dance gracefully with something as stiff and devoid of personality as a cannon. Just ask Anna Trebunskaya) to follow in launching our DWTS campaign.

So we're asking everybody to please:

*Join the Johnny Weir Needs to Be on DWTS Facebook page!

*Join the Dancing With the Stars Facebook page! ("1,124,404 People Can't Be Wrong! Unless They Voted for Bush!")

*Follow these Twitter accounts: @ABC_DWTS, @ABC_Publicity, and @TeamWeirnoff (yes! There's already a Twitter account and a cool team name for Johnny and Karina!).

*Post lots of messages on the DWTS FB page begging ABC to give us Team Weirnoff next season! So that those other 1,124,404 people might see our posts and decide they'd like that, too!

*Spread the word to the media via e-mail! Johnny-friendly media outlets include Perez Hilton (yes, I know. Just don't read the comments there. Perez is wonderfully supportive of Johnny and has a huge audience on his website and his Twitter); Greg in Hollywood (Twitter); Towleroad (Twitter); Dlisted; and Queerty (Twitter).

*Especially start tweeting like crazy to @ABC_DWTS and @ABC_Publicity--and everybody else above--to tell them we want to see TeamWeirnoff next season!

IMPORTANT TWEETING NOTES:
(1) Please use the hashtags #TeamWeirnoff and #DWTS so that we can track our tweets. #DWTS gets a LOT of usage onTwitter, so if we pair that with #TeamWeirnoff in our tweets, we have a good shot at garnering some attention.

(2) @TeamWeirnoff has been tweeting using the hashtag #JohnnyWeirDWTS. But unfortunately, when you track that hashtag, it gets renamed "#johnnyweirdwts," which the eye tends to read as "JohnnyWeirdWTS" and we'd like to put an end to that whole "Johnny Weird" thing he's had to put up with his whole life. So for our purposes, please use #TeamWeirnoff and #DWTS.

(3) Our goal is to show ABC how popular Johnny is and what a boost he would be to DWTS' ratings. So, in contrast to NewNowNext, in which we sent LOTS OF TWEETS from a small group of tweeters, for DWTS we need LOTS OF PEOPLE--or at least what appears to be lots of people--to send (yes, lots of) tweets. Many of our NNN Olympic Tweeters opened multiple accounts, and we recommend that strategy also for DWTS.

OK then! We'll be posting updates on our tweeting and any responses we receive here and on our Johnny Weir Needs to Be on DWTS Facebook page!

We tweeted more than 100,000 votes for Johnny in the NewNowNext awards, hitting a peak average of more than 3,200 tweets per day. Let's see if we can beat those numbers for DWTS!

I leave you with this .gif of Johnny and Karina to inspire you to campaign for them. I'm going to start tweeting right away myself, just as soon as I fix that strand of hair again and update this .gif by carefully replacing Karina's head with my own ...

Hey! You can purchase a T-shirt
in honor of our Ride for Life project!
We exceeded our $7,500 donation goal,
so now we're aiming for $10,000!
We're less than $2,000 away,
and we have until July 31 to get there!
Shirts are $20 each including shipping,
and $10 of that goes directly toward AIDS/LifeCycle!
Everything you need to know about ordering is here!

PLEASE KEEP VOTING HERE for Johnny to win

the 2010 Readers' Choice Skater of the Year Award
(voting ends July 15)!

Special thanks to Facebook fans Lizzy Pine for her art
and Robin Fosdick for her invaluable help
in writing this post (including but not limited to
the phrase, "Glitter Cannon o' Love")!

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Happy Fourth of July!

So is it just me or is anybody else feeling kind of bummed that Gay Pride Month is over?

On the other hand: I live for the day (note: I plan on living into my nineties, but let's not wait until the last minute here, people ...) when Gay Pride Month is no longer necessary.

When being gay is no longer worthy of comment nor seen as an alarming "lifestyle choice"--and a "promiscuous" one at that, like heteros haven't led the world in promiscuity since the dawn of humanity.

When marriage returns to being a religious rite at the house of worship of your choice, and the state recognizes the union of any couple of legal age, regardless of gender, in a civil partnership and affords all such united couples the same legal rights, because the state really has no business sanctioning a religious ceremony in the first place but does bear a responsibility to--and holds a vested interest in, for the sake of societal stability and to at least try to measure up to its ideals--the granting of equal rights for all.

When "God bless America" isn't code for "God bless all the white heterosexual couples of the religious right and help them to have lots and lots of kids so white heterosexuals can remain the majority group--as if just birthing kids guarantees that said kids will grow up to be heterosexual religious bigots like their parents (because hey! at least 10% of 'em will likely be gay!)--and can continue to run this country right into the ground under the ignorant, prejudiced, and infinite idiocy of the likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck."

When it is understood and appreciated by all that "the land of the free and the home of the brave" was bought and paid for by the blood of a variety of sexual orientations. Yes, Rush Limbaugh, you have the freedom to run your mouth to condemn gays because gays have died to preserve that freedom. Even for you.

When "... with liberty and justice for all" really Means. Exactly. That.

So please:

Before I'm too old to hear it--

Let freedom ring.

Hey! Keep celebrating gay pride this month
by purchasing a T-shirt in honor of our Ride for Life project!
We exceeded our $7,500 donation goal,
so now we're aiming for $10,000!
We're less than $2,000 away,
and we have until July 31 to get there!
Shirts are $20 each including shipping,
and $10 of that goes directly toward AIDS/LifeCycle!
Everything you need to know about ordering is here!

PLEASE KEEP VOTING HERE for Johnny to win

the 2010 Readers' Choice Skater of the Year Award
(voting ends July 15)!

Friday, July 2, 2010

Happy Birthday, Johnny!

For the sweet BB you were ...

for the beautiful man you've become ...

for the wondrous child who still lives within you ...

for the beloved fallen angel you are

to hundreds of thousands around the world ...

... I wish much happiness today and always
to a man who exemplifies grace
in every sense of the word,
who has renewed my hope
that the world can be a better place,
and who inspires me to work
to make it happen.

May the gifts you receive
in honor of your birthday
from fans around the world--
including gifts that are out of this world!--
help you to know how much
you are truly respected,
admired, appreciated,
and most of all,
loved.

Because you give yourself so freely to your fans,
there is no greater gift I can offer in response
than my newly enlightened self--
Binky 2.0 / January 2010 edition--
who blogs to spread the word of Weirsus
and his fiercely fabulous
own-who-you-are-take-no-prisoners-
but-for-God's-sake-dress-well-in-the-process
message of love, respect, compassion,
and human rights for all.

But one of these less-lean years
I am going to get you a Balenciaga
in a color that you don't have. :)

Or maybe the moon, to go with your planet ...

May God bless you
as He has blessed so many
through you.

With love and best wishes
on the first anniversary
of your 25th birthday,
and always,

from Binky

Coming soon: More Twitter madness!

Olympic Tweeters, we need you
as we launch our comprehensive campaign
to tweet Johnny onto DWTS!

PLEASE KEEP VOTING for Johnny as Skater of the Year

in USFSA's 2010 Readers' Choice poll

(voting ends July 15)!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Planet Weir. Which Explains a Lot, Actually

Johnny the-"G"-Stands-for-"Galactic" Weir

His lifetime mission: To explode old, outdated gender boundaries;

to strut out in celebration of new life and new challenges;

to boldly go where no man has gone before...

So just in case you missed the intergalactic explosion of glitter last night: Johnny's Russian fans have outdone themselves and everyone else pretty much for all time with a gift to him that was announced "on the eve of his birth."

They gave him a planet.

Which, as birthday presents go, has set a new über-stan/dard that I believe even the Koreans may be unable to match. Because wow. Seriously. A planet.

And yes, to answer the question that everybody asked as they SQUEEING AND FLAILING SHAKING AND CRYING tried to grasp the concept: It's official. It's got official written all over it. Literally.

So technically it's a minor planet/asteroid, according to the official NASA Small-Body Database Browser (I am not making this up, but I am wondering if NASA's technology people could use some help in creating a new naming protocol for their databases that does not inspire inappropriate visuals in the back of one's mind about browsing anyone's body in particular, small or otherwise, while one is trying valiantly to hack through a dense overgrowth of technical information ...).

And its official name is 12413 Johnnyweir (1995 SQ29) / Alternate Designation: 1995 SQ29 = 2141 T-1. Which is catchy but you can't really dance to it. And of course is just the official scientific-gobbledy-gook way of saying: Happy Birthday, Johnny! Here, have a planet!

This official celestial body [insert an endless happy stream of comments about Johnny that include the phrases "heavenly body" and "celestial body" here] was officially discovered in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter on September 26, 1995, by Timur V. Kryachko at the Engelhardt Observatory, Zelenchukskaya Station. See the official list of "Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (10001)-(15000)" (scroll down to number 12413).

"It must be something about this planet's

sparkly atmosphere--he broke out into feathers,

started moulting phallic snakes, then turned

a hideous shade of orange--

but I'm a doctor, dammit, not an aesthetician ... !"

It was actually officially named in Johnny's honor, at the suggestion of his Russian fans, in March of this year, but was kept quiet until now in order to surprise him with this gift whose squee level is literally of astronomical proportions.

Here's the official certificate signed by Nobel laureate Jaures Alferov and by Andrei Finkelstein, director of the Institute of Applied Astronomy Russian Academy of Science, where the certificate was issued.

(click for larger view)

And here is the official awesomely epic video made by the Russian fans to commemorate the gift and wish Johnny a happy birthday:

I love this video. It's well-produced and wonderfully overdramatic up until this part--and I know it's silly but I actually get teary-eyed every time when the music changes and we see:

Because it's just such a beautiful gesture on the part of his Russian fans.

And it's really the perfect gift, as summed up so well in these tweets by alert Facebook fans Karen Weeks and Lauren Ashbaugh:

designsbykaren @JohnnyGWeir is not only a star, he's also a planet! Congrats Johnny :)

blackren101 He is a planet - we all revolve around him ....

Facebook fan Gail Turley also has a great write-up on her blog.

And finally, of course, there is the official macro from the fine folks at ontd_skating:

Now please excuse me while I go e-mail all this to the USFSA, the USOC, and the ISU, with a special asteroid-sized FU attached ...

Yes! Johnny's birthday is TOMORROW!

Facebook fans Wendy Stevens and Li Mann
have graciously compiled all or nearly all of the tweets
from Johnny's Bluefly gig and put them in the Discussions tab
on Johnny's Facebook page!
And you can still watch the video of his closet
on Bluefly.com's "Closet Confessions" if you haven't yet!

Coming soon: More Twitter madness!
Olympic Tweeters, we need you
as we launch our comprehensive campaign
to tweet Johnny onto DWTS!

PLEASE KEEP VOTING for Johnny as Skater of the Year

in USFSA's 2010 Readers' Choice poll

(voting ends July 15)!

Special thanks to Facebook fan Nicole Davis
for "G" is for "Galactic"!