Issue 155: Ken Dahl, Don Lemon, Breion Diamond, Cruz, Rudd, Weiner, Gilbert and George, Giovanni, Flora, True Blood, and more

the destination for the
week's essential news
and pop culture stories,
with a gay bias.

 P O N D E R  T H I S 


THE International Day of Solidarity for LGBT Equality to see protests, marches and kiss-ins take place in cities all over the world, Sunday 8th September, to raise awareness of human rights abuses and promote global gay equality. Check if it's happening where you live.

THE queer politics of discussing race.


> CHRISTIAN and queer. Eliel Cruz walks the line between two opposing communities. He wants them to come together.

WHO will be 2013's Bigot of the Year?

THE left's irrational fear of American intervention. "In Syria, as elsewhere, US military might is the best available means of preventing crimes against humanity."

 U S  &  C A N A D A  N E W S 

A TRIBUTE to fallen soldier Darren Manzella.

INFAMOUS anti-gay pastor Scott Lively - whose persecution of gay people has been ruled a crime against humanity by a US judge - tells Vladimir Putin his anti-gay laws are not enough.

NALT ("Not All Like That") Christians Project launched to challenge the idea that all Christians are anti-gay. Gay Christians upload videos of support, inspired by Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" project. (Hail Mary!)

THE Nazi Party began in a gay bar in Munich, according to Bryan Fischer, spokesperson for the American Family Association. (No news, however, on what cocktails were served.)

> THIS is 23-year-old Jared Olson, who was beaten so badly in an anti-gay hate crime he will require reconstructive surgery.

AND in Cleveland, a gang of twenty attacked 26-year-old gay man Jared Fox.

HAS gentrification of New York's Harlem district stirred up prejudice against gay residents?

< SON of famed Hollywood screenwriter Paul Attanasio (Quiz Show, Donnie Brasco) caught using anti-gay slur.

NEW York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner jams it up to anti-gay dancehall song by Capleton, Bumbo Red. There are videos, if you can stomach it, at Complex.

WHAT are the most corrupt states in America?

ARIZONA goes rogue. "Despite touting a libertarian ethos and gorgeous landscape, the state has become a wasteland for human rights, unsafe for women, gays, and people of colour."


> A FIRST look inside the 9/11 Museum.

CANADA: Homes in Toronto flying rainbow flags struck by anti-gay vandalism.

 U K  N E W S 

FIRST safe houses open in Manchester and London, offering sanctuary to gay youth rejected by their families and facing threats of physical abuse.

COLLEGE students "reduced to tears" after being asked to disclose sexuality on enrolment forms.

< LONDON joins 32 events in over 20 countries around the world to protest against Russia's anti-gay laws.

TABLOID newspaper The ScumSun uses caption branding deceased aide of David Hockney a "bender" under picture.

SCOTLAND: Same sex marriage bill fast-tracked so it is signed into law as early as March next year.

 E U R O P E   N E W S 

IRELAND: Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore speaks out against Russian anti-gay laws, pledging to "explore what actions" they can take.

< SPAIN: This is 25-year-old David Cámara, who is suing his doctor for telling him homosexuality is "unnatural". The GP also recommended a battery of tests as "gay couples are prone to all sorts of illnesses".

> SWEDEN: President Barack Obama affirms solidarity with gay Russians at Stockholm press conference.

RUSSIA: Damage limitation? Vladimir Putin has announced that gay people face no discrimination, and offered to meet with gay equality activists. (We suggest sending Orlando Cruz and Darren Young - the openly gay boxer and wrestler - who can speak to him in the one language Putin understands.)

< RUSSIA: 24-year-old Dmitry Isakov first to be convicted under anti-gay laws. Oh, and his own parents arrested him.

RUSSIA: Anti-gay law emboldens right-wing groups to step up attacks on gay people.

> RUSSIA: Vigilante group's brutal videos fuelling anti-gay campaign.

RUSSIA: Lawmaker proposes bill that would deny gay parents custody over children.

RUSSIA: President Obama meets with gay activists in Moscow, says "I'm very proud of their work."

< GERMANY: Thousands demonstrate against Putin's anti-gay laws in Berlin.

ITALY: National Mr Gay contest awards Iraq refugee prize for bravery.

UKRAINE: Amnesty International condemns Ukraine for wanting to opt out of anti-homophobia laws.

 L A T I N  A M E R I C A 
 N E W S 

< JAMAICA: "I have no specific evidence... that this group is a target group as opposed to the ordinary citizen... I have known individuals who have chosen that lifestyle but they have practised their choices with responsibility and as a result they have not been subjected to any major taboo from the citizens of Jamaica." So speaks Assistant Police Commissioner Devon Watkis...


JAMAICA: Jamaican LGBT News follows up on last month's murder of Dean Moriah.

JAMAICA: Gay community divided over murders.

> JAMAICA: This is the Minister of Agriculture, on a political platform. Maurice Tomlinson writes, "Ironically, the usual claim is that gay Jamaicans are the ones 'flaunting' our sexuality in front of a modest and conservative 'Christian' society. The rank hypocrisy in Jamaica is nauseating."

MEXICO: On the verge of a meltdown. "The drug violence threatens safety and the entire economy. Mexico is at a fragile point as President Peña Nieto knows well."

 A F R I C A   N E W S 

SOUTH AFRICA: Is a gang of anti-gay killers on the loose?

< SOUTH AFRICA: Margarine brand Flora releases ad comparing coming out to your parents to shooting them in the heart. Unilever - which owns Flora - pulls the ad, calling it "offensive and unacceptable".

SOUTH AFRICA: Hate crime legislation planned to protect gay people.

> SOUTH AFRICA: A white family had a month in a township, but what next? "Dipping a toe into racialised poverty is all very well for the Hewitt family, but it should ignite the flame to agitate for social change."

 A S I A   N E W S 

< INDIA: Police raid gay party, arrest three for allowing "obscene acts", in Begumpet, near Hyderabad.

INDIA: First survey on gay love and sex finds 25% claiming they don't have anal sex, debunking the perception that the act defines gay sex.


PHILIPPINES: New HIV cases hit a record high in July, beating the previous record set just a month earlier.

NEW ZEALAND: Marriage equality is only for the rich, Thais discover.

> AUSTRALIA: Anti-gay leaflets distributed in lead up to election.

< AUSTRALIA: Anti-gay protestors shouted down at marriage equality rally.

AUSTRALIA: Doomed incumbent Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gives "answer of the century" on marriage equality.


AUSTRALIA: Meanwhile, "deeply religious" Tony Abbott's latest brag about his daughters' attractiveness is the latest in a long line of sexist language and behaviour.

 M I D D L E   E A S T   N E W S 

> OMAN: Newspaper prints front-page apology for pro-gay article.

SYRIA: Strike doomed because of all the gays in the military, according to the American Family Association.

SYRIA: Ten reasons to vote "no".

THE BIG PICTURE: 10-year-old Issa in a weapons factory of the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo,
7th September 2013, 
where he works with his father for 10 hours every day except on Fridays.

 P L A N E T   E A R T H 

PACU, the "testicle-biting" cousin of the piranha, caught in Paris.

A SKIN-eating fungus is wiping out fire salamanders.

< BOFFINS baffled by "weird, intricate structures that resemble white picket fences surrounding an Isengard-like spire" in the Peruvian Amazon.

 B O D Y ,   M I N D   &   S O U L 

> NEW HIV vaccine successful in Phase 1 human trial.



THE trouble with being tall. "The average height of men has increased by 5in during the past century – and it's no fun being 6ft 4in in a world designed for shorter people. Beware buses, air travel and pine beds with footboards!"

DO left-handed people really die young?

< A GLASS of wine a day may be good for mental health. (Bottoms up!)

HOW food can change the colour of birds, fish, and even humans.

COULD the microbes in your gut actually help you lose weight?


FIVE tricks to beat unhealthy eating habits.


SHOULD my boyfriend and I try an open relationship?

CAN you trust your eyes?


 I N S I D E   T H E   S P A C E S H I P 



 A R T   &   D E S I G N 

> GILBERT & George queer the park, as their 1984 mural Waking comes to the High Line.

THE ugly truth about architecture.

 I N   P R I N T 

< GIOVANNI'S Room - America's oldest gay bookstore - to be sold.


> FROM Tom of Finland to Big Penises, Dian Hanson - "sexy books editor" at Taschen - is on a mission to rehabilitate old-school masculinity.

TEN famous works of literature with queer subtexts.

COLOUR Scheme author John R. Gordon's writer's diary: Fiction shows truth.

BOOK review: Fortunate Light, by David Bergman. "Vastly pleasurable, filled with graceful, vivid, subtle verse, brimming with exquisite imagery and sophisticated, masterful technique."

> INTRODUCING the Teahouse, "where beautiful men and women attend to the sexual needs of the lords and ladies of Ivore. There are plenty of women stomping and sashaying through the comic (a few of them quite badass), but the focus is on male-male romance."

 P E R F O R M A N C E 

> BROADWAY star Bobby Stegger comes out as gay.

WASHINGTON Ford's Theatre to produce 15th anniversary play on murdered gay teen Matthew Shepard.

HIDDEN gay Asian lives come to the surface in UK theatre tour.

< THE male cast of King Kong the Musical strip down to sing for AIDS charity. Video.

> STAGE review: West End Bares (Cafe de Paris, London). In pictures.

 A T   T H E   M O V I E S 

WHAT did Hollywood learn from this summer's box office? The wrong thing, probably.

IAN McKellen to play retired Sherlock Holmes in new film.

< FILM-MAKER Jeffrey Schwarz celebrates the legacy of drag legend Divine in new documentary I Am Divine.


CHECK out Dino Dinco's decade in the making documentary, Homeboy, an in-depth look at the lives of gay gang and former gang members.

HERE'S more on Pier Kids: The Life - last week's cover story - about the struggles of homeless gay youth. Picture source.

NEW York's premier gay film festival NewFest celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, with a diverse and compelling collection of narratives, documentaries and shorts. Trailers galore below!

DVD review: Any Day Now. "There’s no flair or invention in the storytelling, neither on the page nor the screen."

< DVD review: Cal. This is gay cinema with a bite, as Martin continues to push the boundaries of films for the boys in distinctively atypical directions."

> FILM review: 12 Years a Slave. "A scarifying, unblinking portrayal of life as it was for tens of thousands of people less than 200 years ago. It pulls no punches. But neither does it lecture. McQueen chooses to let all the actions and inactions convey their own message."

TRAILERS: The Last Match (NewFest 2013); Free Fall (NewFest 2013); Getting Go: The Go Doc Project (NewFest 2013); Doug Spearman's (Noah's Arc) directorial debut Hot Guys With Guns (NewFest 2013); Test (NewFest 2013); Strangers By The Lake (BFI London Film Festival 2013); Homeboy; and a montage of thirty of this year's best shorts, from the Iris international gay and lesbian film festival.


 T V 


THIS autumn's TV schedule is less gay than last year's. (That this is due in part to the cancellation of the hetero-normative hell that was The New Normal is a bittersweet pill.)

NEXT year's might be worse: HBO has announced next year's seventh season of True Blood will be its last.

> WOULD you still hit it? True Blood's Joe Manganiello loses the beard. (The one on his face, kids.)

MOVIE-style posters for every original Star Trek episode.

> THE newly-discovered draft script for Doctor Who's The Tenth Planet (1966) has a different ending to the now famous first regeneration scene.

HEATHER Peace wants to be the first lesbian Doctor Who, with a member of One Direction for her assistant.

< WELL, I like Don Lemon's hot new 'do.

ARE Modern Family's Mitch and Cam getting wed?

> HERE'S the stomach-churning poster for the forthcoming third season of the deliciously nutty American Horror Story.

< WHY you should be watching Ray Donovan. (And not just because of cutie Octavius J. Johnson.)

SHOULD we mourn the death of the network TV drama?

THE 25 most memorable moments in (American) TV history.

GAYS of our lives: All the latest gay soap developments from around the world, with Anthony D. Langford. Right, George and Vincent get caught by Phoebe in Hollyoaks.

TAGGART at 30: the original Nordic noir. "Taggart, the world's longest-running cop show, was decades ahead of its time. If only it was still around to bear witness to Glasgow's continuing regeneration."

< DVD review: Plays For Britain. Frank Collins at Cathode Ray Tube takes an in-depth look at this fascinating collection. "The subject matter in each of the Plays for Britain is as relevant as ever and watching these again does emphasise how dramas and the single play were used as social and political commentary, of a biased intention or not, in the 1970s. They may look, in terms of their production processes, somewhat old fashioned but the power of the storytelling is undiminished despite certain outdated social and institutional attitudes and behaviours depicted in some of the plays."

 M U S I C 

> LANCE Bass to marry boyfriend Michael Turchin.

SHAMELESS Kanye West plays lucrative gig for controversial Kazakhstan president. (Maybe his beats drowned out the sound of the screams?)

SO just what is it with celebrities and dictators?


< VIDEOS: This week's cover star Ken Dahl delivers his latest super sexy hit, 2nd Virginity; Steve Grand - Stay; Daniel Sobrino - The Power of Us; and Russian singer Igor Dewe's hilarious Sexual Obsession...



 E R O T I C A 

FALCON and Raging Stallion bank on DVD+ to save the industry.


> A state by state map of America's filthy porn searches.

< MICHAEL Lucas on not shooting bareback: "[My films] are important because my models use condoms. I promote safe sex because I believe that young people are first introduced to sex through adult videos. These movies are so accessible and young people are very internet-savvy. I feel it is my great responsibility to show that men can have great sex and enjoy each other while using condoms. And don't forget that there is a severe lack of sexual education, so young men are more likely to see an adult movie than they are to search out safe sex information."

THAT was way, way back in 2012. Fastforward to 2013, and Michael Lucas announces his studio's first bareback - er, I mean "condom-free" - feature.

< ROD Daily: "I'm HIV-positve."

> BREION Diamond officially retires.

Talking to Angyl Valentino.

TYSON Tyler, Jonathan Agassi, Ale Tedesco perform live (fetish) sex show in Tel Aviv.

> DIEGO Lauzen and boyfriend Wagner Vittoria hook-up with Angelo in Prague, for Kristen Bjorn.

> PRAISE Jesus! Matthew Rush is back in His Son's Boyfriend (from the studio that gave us His Mother’s Lover).


< ALADDIN'S big gay orgy!

 I N   T H E  A R E N A 

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) rules out moving the Winter Olympics out of Russia...

...IOC boss Jacques Rogge admits he can't even stop the anti-gay laws during the games.


< Gay football subtitle blunder Irish football match goes viral.

 A N D   W H I L S T   Y O U ' R E 
 T H I N K I N G   A B O U T 
 T H A T ,   T H I N K 
 A B O U T   T H I S 

< KFC is selling deep-fried soup in Japan.

COULD this spell the end of the "mile high club"?

> EIGHT ruined cities that remain a mystery to this day.

DOES pressing the pedestrian crossing button actually do anything?

Talking to Calvin Klein's controversial former boyfriend, Nick Gruber.

AND finally, Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian, has a few words for Vladimir Putin; Rogue "Marbie" Scott fills us in; book making; and Walter discusses his disastrous summer.


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Issue 155
01-07 September 2013

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© 2013

Postcript
"You know, we might just as well not have
bothered to come. The whole thing's been ridiculous."

1 comments:

John G said...

Some great documentaries coming up! Divine, the Pier Kids, the gang-members: all really interesting-looking. I suppose it's perverse of me that I found the man-in-bed-with-the-scorpion kinda sexy... (what will Marbie make of it?)

 
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