FRIDAY 6/24

Film: Something Fishy

Rock Hudson is living a lie! The well-groomed San Francisco resident works in retail, has an unseen fiancee named “Tex” (hmmm), and even calls himself “a fraud.” Why must he keep his hidden identity a secret? Why must he deceive everyone about his true proclivities? We’re talking, of course, about fishing, the subject of Howard Hawks‘ erratic 1964 farce Man’s Favorite Sport?, which caps SAM’s three-film salute to Hudson as part of Pride Week. With a boozy, leering sensibility that’s a cross between Field & Stream and Playboy, the movie stars Hudson as a sporting-goods salesman who’s written a best-selling fishing guide yet never cast a line in his life. Forced into a fishing derby, he’s tutored by a perky PR woman (Paula Prentiss), who naturally falls for him. Hudson must endure countless pratfalls and indignities (at one point, a bear steals his moped and rides off with it. Yes, a bear . . . the real kind of bear), but he maintains his signature cool. His emotions, like his whole Hollywood-manufactured façade, are neatly ironed into place. Even Prentiss’ flighty flirtatiousness can’t ruffle him. Hudson is too polite to get irate with her, and, in the movie at least, too decent to continue his charade. He’s closeted, but elegantly. To one customer, while testing a fly-fishing rod, he counsels “very little wrist movement.” That’s right—no swishing! Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., 654-3100, seattleartmuseum.org. $8. 7:30 p.m. BRIAN MILLER

Nightlife: Oooh, Baby, Baby

Most people remember DJ Spinderella from her heyday as a member of the groundbreaking female rap trio Salt-N-Pepa. But the Brooklyn native can hold her own in a rowdy nightclub. Unlike those new-school laptop DJs, she works the turntables with zeal, licking her fingers and flicking her wrists as she mashes up classic R&B and old-school hip-hop hits, e.g.: Public Enemy, Run-D.M.C., and Rick James. Visiting town for Pride Week, Spinderella will be spinning vinyl at the Red Women’s Dance Party and probably signing a few autographs, too (if you ask nicely). I’m hoping she also indulges us Salt-N-Pepa fans by stepping up to the mike for a live rendition of “Push It.” (Also note the alternate Red Men’s Dance Party at Neumos, featuring DJ Brian Gorr, same time tonight.) The Baltic Room, 1207 Pine St., 625-4444, thebalticroom.net. $20–$25 (21 and over). 10 p.m. ERIKA HOBART

Music: The Backstreet Boys Are Back

The term “boy band” emerged in the ’90s to describe the crop of prefab groups that followed the massive success of New Kids on the Block. But to be fair, the negative connotation doesn’t take into account the legacy of, say, the Temptations or the Ink Spots or even the Bee Gees. In its Pride Week omnibus program Heartthrobs, Seattle Men’s Chorus celebrates the awesome music created by all-male bands by shunning snobbery and performing an eclectic repertoire spanning five decades, including hits by the Beatles, Queen, and even the Jonas Brothers and Menudo. With SMC’s costumes and synchronized dance moves, this unabashed cheese-fest is sure to be crammed with catchy tunes and guilty pleasures from your iPod. (Note that tonight’s concert is followed by a dance party, with cash bars and DJ Stacey Cooks.) McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), 388-1400, seattlemenschorus.com. $20–$55. 8 p.m. (Repeats Sat.) ERIKA HOBART

SATURDAY 6/25

Comedy/Me, Me, Me!

Chelsea Handler has made a big career out of having a big mouth. Whether performing stand-up or hosting her E! late-night show, Chelsea Lately, the blonde and brassy Jersey-bred comedian is as much at ease divulging details about her personal life as slamming the Kardashians. She’s equally candid about her affair with rapper 50 Cent, her friendship with Jennifer Aniston, and (perhaps consequently) her loathing of Angelina Jolie. Handler is the girl we all knew in college—the one who drank too much at parties and had a million crazy stories to tell you in class the next day. Her current comedy tour is named for her book, Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me (Grand Central $24.99), and it’s as cheerfully self-obsessed as anything David Sedaris has ever written. As a consequence, too, Handler has developed a not-insubstantial gay following, which should make this a popular show during Pride Week. Tonight she’s joined by three cronies from her TV show (Brad Wollack, Josh Wolf, and Heather McDonald), but Handler is the one who will demand your attention. The Paramount, 911 Pine St., 467-5510, stgpresents.org. $65–$85. 7 p.m. ERIKA HOBART

Music/Shake Your Azz

A forerunner of “sissy rap,” a New Orleans sub-genre of bounce music featuring exuberantly gay, cross-dressing male DJs, Big Freedia has put new meaning to “Shake It Like a Salt Shaker.” Freedia, aka Queen Diva (né Freddie Ross), performs almost nightly in and around NOLA, and is renowned for over-the-top performances that become huge dance parties. Bounce music typically features sexually infused call-and-response–style chants and has been sampled (or mentioned) by rappers Lil Jon and Lil Wayne. Though the Queen decorates homes by day, Big Freedia rules New Orleans by night. Singles like “Gin in My System” and “Azz Everywhere!” have helped propel Diva into the national spotlight. (How many queer musicians can put “Opened for Snoop Dogg” on their resumes?) This ought to be the hottest, sweatiest concert of Pride Week, like a moist hurricane blast from the Gulf Coast. The Wild Rose, 1021 E. Pike St., 324-9210, thewildrosebar.com. $15. 10 p.m. JOE WILLIAMS

Books: Tall Tales

The ’70s are considered the “Me Decade,” but count author Armistead Maupin among those whose efforts made it the “We Decade” for gays, lesbians, and anyone else wandering left-of-center. Maupin’s episodic Tales of the City novels, first serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1976, warmly and often outrageously outlined the idea that everybody was grappling with how sex, gender, race, class, love, health, and happiness could be defined. (And this was long before such concerns became fodder for oddball story arcs on cable, let alone network, television.) Prior to waving to adoring throngs as a marshal of tomorrow’s Pride Parade, Maupin today holds court for a more intimate audience while reading from Mary Ann in Autumn (Harper, $25.99), his eighth and latest Tales book. The San Francisco misadventures have spawned three miniseries, with Oscar nominee Laura Linney, no less, as bewildered Midwesterner Mary Ann Singleton in each of them. In Autumn, the now-ruminative 57-year-old title character is reconsidering the city and friends she abandoned 20 years ago. If there’s anything else for which Maupin is due credit, it’s for illustrating that people can, indeed, evolve—both in literature and, thanks in part to the towering popularity of his amiable storytelling, in life. Seattle Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., 386-4636, spl.org. Free advance tickets required through brownpapertickets.com. 3 p.m. (Maupin also appears in tomorrow’s Pride Parade.) STEVE WIECKING

SUNDAY 6/26

Parades: The New Normal

Maybe it’s just me. No doubt it’s just me. But when did Seattle’s annual Pride Parade change from a energizing, empowering assertion of individuality in the face of a hostile world to a comfy ritual? Look around—it’s all moms, dads, strollers, and dogs, as cozy and samey as a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving, as a box of Nilla Wafers, as your 50th bedtime reading of Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse. In one sense, of course, this sort of reassuring unremarkableness is just what gays have been fighting for for decades—the right not to be unusual—but on the other hand this is a parade, and year after year we dutifully spend two hours watching it without being surprised by a single thing we see. Yes, there will always be new arrivals from Twisp, Sequim, and Yelm who thrill to it, and the subsequent Seattle Center festival, as that dazzling wonderland of homofabulousness they only dared dream of. But for those who think “I wish every day could be like this!”—careful what you wish for. Because, at least for one Sunday each June, every day is like this. Route begins at 11 a.m. from Fourth Ave. & Union St. to Denny Way. Parade ends at Seattle Center, where free festivities follow from noon–8 p.m. See seattlepride.org and seattlepridefest.org. GAVIN BORCHERT