CarolinaAsh

I'm so late with this response but I just saw that, I came here for another reason... but we had bagged milk in Upstate NY too, in the schools. It was a pain in the rear. It looked like this:

ANYWAYS! I wanted to know if anyone visited #DeadRaccoonTO because I thought of you lot when I saw the news thing on my facebook. I love it. It's awesome. Poor raccoon.

Mika's first tweet was referencing this poem - Warning by Jenny Joseph

 

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick flowers in other people's gardens

And learn to spit.

 

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

 

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

 

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Love that poem. It inspired the Red Hat Club. Of which I will one day be a member. For now I shall wear pink and lavender as belies my relative youth...

Oh wait. If Mika says 32 is when you can start wearing those then I only have 2 months.

I imagine he did that for his own benefit, not Gaga's. I know he is an icon in the UK but he is long irrelevant in Canada and I imagine the US even moreso. We hear about his personal life once in awhile because he married a Canadian and that's it.

I dunno. I mean we don't hear much. I didn't even know he did a duet with Gaga though it doesn't surprise me. He still can make news here though but it's usually when it's slow and more because he is so classic and also I think they like to say "Sir Elton John" but mostly I remember him with Eminem on I think the MTV awards as the last big thing.

Floppy earssss

I found this on Twitter, about gay influences in pop music in America.

It's on fire with love for Mika and NPIH, and says. "His songs will be sung a generation from now".

I don't know how to post the scan, but here's the link.

 

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/there-gay-aesthetic-pop-music-180956253/?no-ist

I love this piece!

I translated this back to English with google which I know isn't accurate but oh em gee. what? Like... Are there maybe some mistaken words here? Or does it really read like they were on something when they wrote this?! Especially this bit:

Wanna cry.

"it is about everyone" - not about everyone in italy, but about everyone. sorry, but for me this is proof enough that he doesn't want to exclude anyone. plus, they've "explained" it in an english press release, which keeps popping up in british gay media today. do you also think that i shouldn't read or comment on gay media, just because i'm not gay? or that mika purposely excludes germans when he tweets in english? it's pretty much the same imo. after all, it's public tweets - mika could post geotagged on fb if he wanted to target just a certain country. ofc it's up to you to mute ppl on twitter if you feel bothered by what's going on in your TL. but if you call me and others intrusive, because we're also interested in mika's tweets in other languages than english, that's just something i can't accept.

Where can I read this press release? This is the first I've heard of it.

Sorry, I'm not translating that one! I'm not even sure what language that is. Though I can tell kind of what it's about.

Aww he has cheat sheets...

And guys, lets be honest. Mika is not one to shy away from standing up for what he believes in. Sure, he may not have said anything if it hadn't gone so viral, but it's not like he hasn't done things on his own before. From his songs, to his pictures and messages with Fedez for Milano's pride, to when he attended the rally for JeSuisCharlie. That last one really made me nervous for him admittedly. He's very brave, not just with his personal life and open-ness more recently, but with his courage to take a stand on public matters. Heck even his tweet about Cecil the Lion!

Ok i get a bit more how it all worked then. I did not see the italian manager's message as i have no single idea who he is xD

Anyway what makes me so uncomfortable about this all is that for me it has nothing to do with people standing up against homophobia... It's only people standing up against Mika being attacked on a personal matter which is a completely different thing... It's pointless.

I can see how some of it is that way. People only thinking "how dare they attack my precious Mika!" (Nooo I'm not being snarky at all right there!  ) But there are some, and enough, that are using it more as another means of starting a dialogue about the problem. That's a good thing. But I haven't participated in the hashtag. Because I don't know anyone Italian who isn't a Mika fan lol. However his comments afterward are what really get me. About his instinct being to run and him fighting it and that love cannot be controlled. That speaks to me on a deep and personal level. I imagine it does to so many others as well. Not just about homophobia and LGBT issues, but just in general standing up to bullies and realizing love isn't something you chose. I can only hope some others see his comments from this and find them as inspiring and true and relevant to them as I do to me.

well, he talked about paps taking pics inside his room, and at least, there are not pics of this kind... they are taken in the pool of the house

Oh boy. What I would give for a pool right now... lol.

It's a tabloid magazine called Gente (people) and it doesn't say anything new... just Mika staying with mother brother and boyfriend in a luxury house in Sicily.. . With few pics of him and the other people (I admit that this pic....is nice )

Is it one of the pics he was upset about in the Belgian article I just translated? 'Cause he said that incident happened in Sicily.

But this is nothing like any of the things you describe, it is not an act of violence. The person who scrawled the graffiti is the one who made a loud statement and amplifying their statement by ensuring it receives an even wider audience is not breaking any silence. You are just giving them exactly what they want.

 

Surely there is a more effective way for Mika to lend his support to a gay rights movement in Italy than to wind up a bunch of his fans on Twitter with a hashtag that seems nonsensical to me. He is preaching to the converted about an issue many of them have zero say in anyway since they don't live in Italy.

Him cancelling his concert would be giving them what they want. And he tweeted in Italian, so he's clearly aimed it at his Italian fans who do have a say and can spread the word. Plus it's received media attention there now; not only the act of vandalism but his response. So the word will spread and give people a reason to talk about the topic. Sure hash tags in general are silly and I am not a big fan. However, they are useful when following topics of major importance or significance to a person. And while it's not life changing at this exact moment and hasn't shown any direct results of changing minds it is something in a positive direction that is simple enough to do. Plus his elegant statement about going against his instinct to run and the nature of love is inspiring not just to those in Italy facing the same persecution but even others in difficult situations. So while it may not change the society's views and Italy's homophobia it could be just the encouragement that some young person living there needed to go on fighting their struggle another day.

Sure, you and I can't do anything about it. But I don't think it was intended for us.

I do have to say though that the vandal may have gotten their word out or whatever but they're a coward hiding behind illegal (I assume in Italy it's still illegal?) graffiti. If they had truly wanted to fight for their cause they would have... I won't say because I don't wanna give anyone ideas.

How is scrawling something in huge black letters on a poster "silent"? It's there for all to see and that's what the person who put it there intended. I don't understand this at all. Everyone knows there is homophobia in Italy - and everywhere else in the world, to some degree or another. What is the purpose except to wind up a bunch of Mika fans?

I think Charlie means that people are silent about the treatment of homosexuals in Italy. Not reporting assaults, harassment etc. Not standing up for them. Because it is so bad. It sounds like so many things in the past and present here. From people averting their eyes during desegregation because they don't want to be involved in any investigation to even campus rapes and sexual assaults not being reported because of some places having a mentality and system that makes it hard on the victims to get justice. It's a shame. That's the silence to be broken, no longer letting people getting away with vulgar, hurtful, vicious and violent acts against humanity just because people are scared to speak up. But together the silence can be broken. With a support system. Also someone, somewhere, almost always knows something about who what when and why etc. And they need to break the silence. (That last bit comes from personal experience. 2 years ago a young girl who had worked with my dad went missing here. They still have not found her body. They did find enough evidence to charge a couple with her kidnapping and murder, but no body yet. Her dad actually runs a print shop and makes the fliers and banners and such, and the big slogan has been Break The Silence because someone knows something. They just either won't come forward or don't realize what they know.)

That is a brilliant translation. Way better than Auntie Google's version. Thank you.

No problem. It was kind of fun. Except a couple of words. One I knew the meaning of but knew it'd be blocked here hence the []. Then the word used in the bit about the binoculars was "flipper" and it took me some serious rearranging and searching for double definitions and how it may be used in slang to figure out he meant flip out. At one point I even almost gave up that word thinking the article had a typo lol. Didn't help I kept picturing a dolphin.

Alright my french bilinguals, how'd I do? Edit: Also, I haven't compared to the Auntie Google version... so not sure if it's a huge improvement or not? and I'm too tired to do so now...

 

DH.be

Published the

Wednesday 05 August 2015 at 18h13

- Updated

Thursday 06 August 2015 at 07h49

 

Mika: “The church wedding, it's not for me!”

http://www.dhnet.be/...yA6ZXd8.twitter

 

 

Mika will soon be in concert with us. Confessions of an artist whom has nothing to hide.

 

Mika is as one imagines, as one has seen for two seasons on the talent show of TF1: adorable. Will he continue the adventure of The Voice in 2016? The singer, in full tour (a few months after the release of his album No place in heaven), smiles and responds: “That, I can't say...”

 

We would like to say he's like everyone else, Mika, because he loves to flip the pages of a gossip magazine (“I hope there is not a photo of me in a bathing suit on the beach!”) but that would be boring... and mostly false: he likes “cultivating the differences.” Mika claiming “I want more! We must protect it and value, the differences. It's the only thing that provokes creativity, progress, reactions. I think we're becoming a generation a little too homogenized, and it's stupid.”

 

When did you understand that the differences could be your strength?

 

“When I was 11 years old, I was kicked out of school. I had an abusive teacher who tortured me and others in the class. It was truly horrible. I returned to another school. I learned to sing, I had jobs and my life is divided in two. On the one hand, the normal school life that was hard where I was treated like [crap]. On the other hand, I had a job, responsibilities. I was paid to do something. My differences were developing. On the other hand, my differences made them attack me. At school, there always are those who feel the worth of the differences and they attack because of that. We forget perhaps what people have told us exactly at that time, but we don't ever forget how it felt in that time. And we don't ever forgive people who treated us like this.”

 

Has your view the differences changed with the success?

 

“At the beginning, I was doing something very intimate, I wrote songs in my bedroom. And suddenly, my public life had completely passed my private life. It had evolved ever faster. My private life was found behind. It took time, for my private life to catch up to my public life. Now, I am a little more in balance. And my life is very simple.”

 

It's easy,nowadays, finding balance?

 

“Honestly, yes. I find myself much lighter. When Voici published a few months ago photos of me and Andy (his companion, Editors Note), photographs in the street, everybody told me it was scandalous, I had to take legal action. Which I responded no. There was nothing scandalous inside it. We simply saw these photos of two people walking down the street. If it were a man and a woman, no one would say anything. But because it's me with another man, it was seen as a scandal. Not at all! You have to be reasonable, it's nothing at all! It's just noise.”

 

And if the photos of you had shown you kissing?

 

“It depends on context. When I was in Sicily this past week, we came across people, perched on a wall, taking photos through the windows. That, it's severe! That whether a public person or not, it makes you flip out seeing people looking in your room with binoculars. It's revolting. But if we were on a street, it's different, it's a choice.”

 

Do you see yourself married, having children?

 

“Get married in a church, no! I don't feel a part of that tradition. It's not designed for me. I am rather more discreet. It's how I've always lived. And in this discretion, I find a freedom also. But in the sense of being faithful to the person I am with, to keep my promises, that commitment is of course very important. As to children, It's the most selfish choice I could make nowadays!”

 

“I pray... even though for an extremist I am nearly the Devil!”

 

In the title song No Place in Heaven, Mika addresses God. He tells God that they haven't talked in a while. “Religion, I think it's something very important. It's something I need to have in my life for me to be able to fight things. And it also makes me peaceful in difficult moments. I belong to a generation which gives the possibility to chose what it finds good in spirituality and reject what it finds not modern enough. I find the new pope intelligent, accessible. He continues to say that he will be killed... that, it's a little scary! Before going on stage, I pray. Even if I am a person, for extreme Catholic Evangelists, very nearly the devile! (laugh) Me, I consider the extreme evangelists of the Catholic religion and the extremists of the Muslim religion are the same people.”

 

A Belgian designer for his decors.

 

Mika is not only an artist of singing. He likes to create his universe. “All, for me, must have meaning. But it shouldn't be overdone. Everything must be connected emotionally. I know I don't do the most commercial songs for the radio. For me, it's the whole show that matters. I don't have a hit machine behind me. My show, it must be like a piece of theater. Even the clothes count. It's a collective work.” The other day, Mika was up until 4am sketching with his friend Job (Smeets of Studios Job). “A great Belgion designer. We made sketches for my new tour. I like to travel with my friends. I have a clan that comes with me. It's funny.” And when he's not traveling with his friends, he drinks beer with them. “When I'm not singing, of course. These are the small moments of life.” For once, like everyone else.

I tried.

Oh I wantttt.

My post had a mistake on it. That was because I couldn't correct it. After I clicked on EDIT, his box came up where you actually type, and stopped me being able to type. It was something about improving the translation. I couldn't get rid of it, so I couldn't correct the typing mistake.

I hate technology. I can't use it. But I like when Auntie Google translates things for me. However, the translations done by our lovely team, always make more sense and flow much better.

Yup. There's a part of me that wants to try and translate it as practice for my French. What do you guys think?

LENA MACHU, thanks so much for your pictures. I'm the photographer in one of them.

 

I haven't finished editing all of my pictures yet, but you can already find several in this album: Pop Up Live - Mol. On that page I also posted a quick portrait that I took of Mika and Christoff backstage.

As soon as I'm done editing all the pictures, I'll post the link in this topic.

 

Quick preview of two pictures (there are more in the album):

 

Great pictures and also dang those are some good looking people.

Here are some pictures I made:

AWESOME! In Image 8 he's looking right into the camera/at you! Lucky ducky!

Great reports, looks like he had a good time, LOTS of laugh pictures. Can't wait to see the video.

That's lovely. Auntie Google translated it for me. It's a great interview. Thanks for posting.

He says he's not an artist Who sings. HCreates a Universe That Is connected. He mentions working with people --other and That it's fun.

Auntie Google was drinking too much. Yikes. I get the general idea though. and I like it.

The difference between you and young fans is that when I tell you it's not real you just accept that as fact. If you tell a 16 year old they don't want to believe it, so they need proof

 

What YouTube account are you talking about? I know he has a Vimeo but a YT account he had years ago is gone now.

LOL They just can't handle the proof. Okay that was a bad pun. It's the MikaVEVO one(the REAL one, i know there's a fake of that too), I just posted about it. 3 hrs ago they posted a new audio track video.

SO PROUD check out my sister Zuleika's jewellery work for Christian Louboutin!!! farida_khelfa's photo https://instagram.com/p/5_7PHYxT9H/ 

• MIKA official ‏@mikasounds  8h8 hours ago
  My sister Zuleika designed and made this Lipstick Necklace for Christian Louboutin! Modelled by… https://instagram.com/p/6AEhjQziPM/ 
• mikainstagramJewlery piece designed and made by my sister Zuleika for Christian Louboutin. Modelled by Farida Khelfa proud! #ZuleikaPenniman

MIKA official ‏@mikasounds  5h

I was a child standing on the Champs-Élysées! I saw her go by singing on a float!!! farida_khelfa's photo https://instagram.com/p/5GukDVxT1T/ 

Meet my sister Zuleika! Here she is in the street! #ZuleikaPenniman mahoneysfashion's photo https://instagram.com/p/2mXjqUEkrR/ 

And this was posted to the MikaVEVO youtube just 3 hours ago. Next single perhaps???

And this was posted to the MikaVEVO channel this morning