Issue 260: Trelino, TaetheDoug, Micah Brandt, Pearl Mackie, RuPaul, Better Call Saul, Omar McLeod, John Waters, and more...


the week's
news
& pop
culture,
with a
gay
bias.

 photo strip post a 10 Jan 2017_zps7ksvqdtn.png

Left &
Found

The latest case of a gay man taking aim at trans lives.

We have many enemies. Janelle Monáe is not one of them. "Some objected to [her] proposal of a sex strike for women's rights, chiding it as heteronormative. [But] Monáe should be commended for using her platform to criticize the patriarchy."


Bigoted Christians are the most special snowflakes. "The Religious Right likes to say that LGBT people are now granted 'special rights,' but they're actually the ones getting exceptional treatment by the government."

Telling children "hard work gets you to the top" is simply a lie. "I know about social mobility: I went to underperforming state schools, and am now a barrister. Could somebody take the same route today? It’s highly unlikely." (Image)

If you’re working class, these public spaces won’t welcome you. "As I’ve found, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris is far from the only space to discriminate against people from poorer backgrounds."

This one small language tweak could change our views of refugees. "It’s easy to stoke fears of faceless refugee masses. Here’s a small way to fight back."


News
America

Pulse killer Omar Mateen's widow Noor Salman persists with claim of ignorance, pleads not guilty.

As Christians disrespected Pulse victims, these activists persisted. "D.J. Hudson and other Soulfource members protested the recent National Religious Broadcasters conference in Orlando, facing down right-wingers, police, and jail time."

The Orlando Sentinel newspaper gets Pulitzer citation for Pulse gay club massacre coverage.

Homophobic pastor Kenneth Adkins, who said Orlando victims "got what they deserved", found guilty of sexually molesting boy and girl.

Idaho man Kelly Schneider (left), who left 49-year-old gay man Steven Nelson (right) to die after stripping, beating, and robbing him, has been jailed for twenty-eight years to life.

Williamsburg gay couple subjected to homophobic attack in which a brick was thrown at them by teens.

Two Chicago men who said gays should be slaughtered arrested on terrorism charges.

Charges dropped against man accused of homophobic hate crime at Madison Square Garden.

Two men jailed for thirty years for trafficking gay sex-slaves. Since 2012, Gabor Acs and Viktor Berki kept up to eight Hungarian men in their 20s as sex-slaves, first in New York City then in Miami.

Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the trailblazing judge who expanded LGBT equality, has been found dead in the Hudson river. Abdus-Salaam was the first African-American woman to serve on the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, and the first female Muslim judge in the US.

No, we can't just wait for conservatives to die. "Many assumed that the march of time would take care of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny. If only it were that simple."

Meet Andrew Niquette, the gay Democrat agitating for change in South Georgia.

Every Republican in the Texas Senate voted to attack marriage equality.

Anti-LGBT North Carolina lawmakers threaten college sports conference.

The Justice Department has withdrawn a suit over North Carolina's HB 2 following the law's "repeal" - but activists say it's yet another Trump failure on LGBT equality.

A trans teen talks about surviving the shit show that is North Carolina.

The Human Rights Campaign urges Rex Tillerson to address homophobic violence while in Russia.

Seattle mayor Ed Murray denies claims he sexually abused three men. "Murray, a supporter of same-sex marriage and increased minimum wages and opponent of Trump, has said a lawsuit will not deter his bid for re-election."

Homophobic, "family values" Alabama Governor Robert Bentley resigns over extramarital affair cover-up.

Official who purged gay employees in Bush White House gets job with Trump.

On the disastrous consequences of defunding Planned Parenthood.

How LGBT Americans are reshaping the fight for assisted reproduction.




Trump's pivot is real — he's more right-wing than ever.

Trump sued for not releasing White House visitor logs.

Vile Donald Trump Jr. mocks "triggered" college students opposing a Chick-Fil-A on campus.

Eric Trump revels in corruption: "Nepotism is a beautiful thing".

The Americans volunteering to watch executions.

Buying a $500 House in Detroit: bidding on the soul of my city. "At 23, Drew Philp bought a crumbling Detroit house at an auction and spent years making it livable again. In the process, he also learned to look out for his neighbors."

CANADA
Mark Wainberg, the AIDS researcher who discovered one of the first antiviral drugs, is dead. He was 71.


News
UK

Gay teen hospitalised after thugs throw brick at his head.

Hundreds protest outside the Russian embassy in London against Chechnya's "gay concentration camps".

Nineteen-year-old Abdullahi Tarabi stabbed to death in Northolt, North London.

This is 16-year-old Karim Samms, who was shot dead in North Woolwich.

Three gang members jailed for stabbing a man in the head at a Tesco petrol station in West London (Ed: my local shop, this is just around the corner from KAOS).

Passenger disarms knifeman on London bus.

London councils force homeless families out of capital as "social cleansing" takes hold...

...in places like Southwark, where every flat in a new development has been sold to foreign investors, after the 3000-home Heygate estate was offloaded to developers on the cheap.

Voters for rightwing United Kingdom Independence Party are most supportive of bestiality.

The tobacco industry has lost its appeal against sludge-coloured cigarette packets.

Falkland Islands introduces full marriage equality.

NORTHERN IRELAND
Stained glass window honouring the Belfast LGBT community proposed for City Hall.


News
World


FRANCE
Le Pen’s young backers say only she cares for them. "A generation feeling let down by traditional parties and excluded from opportunity are putting their faith in Front National victory."

NETHERLANDS
The suspect in the attack on a gay couple in Amsterdam has surrendered to police.

NETHERLANDS
Vast majority of Dutch MPs vote to punish schools that don’t teach LGBT awareness.

SWEDEN
Why rightwingers are desperate for Sweden to fail. "Of course Sweden isn’t perfect, but those who love to portray it as teeming with terrorists and naive towards reality, are just cynical hypocrites."

HUNGARY
Town’s gay and Muslim ban deemed unconstitutional.

CHECHNYA
Gay men are being tortured and killed. More will suffer if we don’t act.

CHECHNYA
Chechens tell of prison beatings and electric shocks in anti-gay purge: "They called us animals". "Up to several hundred gay men are feared to have been rounded up and some killed in ultra-conservative Russian republic."

RUSSIA
UN human rights experts warn Russia to end the abuse and detention of gay men in Chechnya.

RUSSIA
Journalists fear reprisals for exposing purge of gay men in Chechnya.

ITALY
LGBT organisation DiverCity defends its version of the Last Supper, which features Jesus and his 12 disciples in various forms of undress, kissing and even engaged in oral sex.

Embracing figures at Pompeii could have been gay lovers.

TURKEY
How the LGBT community is preparing for a history-making constitutional vote. "If Turkey's constitution is amended, nationalism could rise – and the already imperilled queer community may bear the brunt of what follows."

BARBADOS
Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite claims the LGBT community doesn't face discrimination.

TUNISIA
End forced rectal tests for homosexuality, watchdog says.

TUNISIA
Police make LGBT arrests based on Facebook.

SYRIA
The Syria catastrophe. "The response required at this late, desperate stage is neither anti-Assad nor anti-ISIS nor even anti-imperialist — it is antiwar."

SYRIA
The war, and how it became America's problem, explained.

CAMEROON
Arrested a year ago, abandoned today. "A life of rejection and isolation awaited Hervé after his arrest a year ago in Cameroon on homosexuality charges. With his case still unresolved in court, Hervé clings to a hope that someone will help him."

NIGERIA
Lagos slums are being razed to make way for luxury properties. That’s Nigeria. "The poor are relentlessly subjugated while the ruling class inhabits a world of privilege. It is not only morally wrong, it’s economically unsustainable."

INDIA
Parliament has made it illegal to deny work, housing, and other services for people living with HIV.

INDIA
Hundreds turn out for Lucknow city’s first pride parade.

NORTH KOREA
Let's stop calling North Korea "crazy" and understand their motives. "The world knows little about the palace politics in North Korea, the world’s most opaque country. Yet it seems like Kim is acting intelligently."

INDONESIA
Two gay men caught having sex face one hundred lashes with a cane.

INDONESIA
Anti-LGBT discrimination is losing Indonesia as much as $12 billion every year.

PHILIPPINES
Court upholds conviction of US Marine jailed for killing trans woman.

PHILIPPINES
Model Pietro Boselli accused of racism after he uses a Filipino man as his workout equipment for his latest workout video.


Arena

Gay gymnast Jake Martin wins top Big Ten honour.

These four gay college teammates are competing as a winning 4x400 team.

Gay high school wrestler Liam Ball came out to his team, then reached the state final.

WATCH
Talking to Omar McLeod.



Art +
Design

Manhattan Sunday, Richard Renaldi's series of early-morning photographs, in pictures.

Ike Bittencourt's pictures of life on the margins of Rio.


Word!

Gay man (Edward Enninful) named editor of British Vogue. What we can expect.

Five reasons we need LGBT books in schools!

On children's book Blacky, by Terrence Terrell, which encourages kids to celebrate their melanin.

Fairytales are not just harmless, innocent fun. They need to be interrogated.

REVIEW
A Queer Love Story: The Letters of Jane Rule and Rick Bébout, edited by Marilyn R. Schuster. "These letters are precious artifacts. Both Rule and Bébout chafe at mainstream and LGBTIQ cultures, particularly in the realm of heteronormative monogamous marriage."

REVIEW
The Inexplicable Logic of My Life, by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. "A gorgeous coming of age story that deftly tackles grief, friendship, and the struggles of young adulthood."

REVIEW
Melodrama: An Aesthetics of Impossibility, by Jonathan Goldberg. "A kaleidoscopic consideration of this cherished queer genre."

Here's the latest instalment of Zulu, the comic from Alverne Ball following the life of 16-year-old Lazarus Jones, who becomes possessed by the spirit of warrior king Shaka Zulu while visiting South Africa.

On the rag - the week's gay weeklies.


Shouting
At Night

Angels in America: How Tony Kushner's gay fantasia moved heaven and earth. "Twenty-five years ago director Declan Donnellan brought Kushner’s great play about the Aids crisis to London. Its latest revival at the National is a reminder of its profundity and wicked wit."

Romeo and Juliet recast as gay footballers in play at London's Union Theatre.

REVIEW
Romeo and Juliet. "The direction and adapted script fails to find the importance and gravitas behind the root of the passion which brings the young lovers romance to fruition."

REVIEW
Romeo and Juliet. "Awkward and unaffecting. There's some respite in Abram Rooney's brooding Romeo and Jack J Fairley's Geordie Mercutio."

REVIEW
Gently Down The Stream. "If there were one voice associated with the past 50 years of gay history, it may very well be Harvey Fierstein’s signature gravelly rasp — cynical, campy, and not easily forgotten. In Gently Down the Stream, a new play by Martin Sherman, what begins as an online hookup between 60-something Beaugard (Fierstein) and 28-year-old Rufus (Gabriel Ebert) results in a sort of oral history project — and a years-long relationship."

REVIEW
46 Beacon. "This bedroom drama about a man who steers a gauche student towards sex misses its chance to explore the problems of nostalgia for a pre-Aids past."


Film
Forever

The end of independent film as we know it. "Twenty-five years ago, films emerging from festivals like Sundance disrupted the movie business, producing subversive filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and insurgent forces like Miramax. Now, thanks to Amazon and Netflix, the disruption is coming for the indies. Filmmakers talk about the shift, and what it means for the future of movies."

Indie film Landline makes history after getting licensing blessing from Chicago Cubs.

INTERVIEW
Talking to John Waters. "Isn't being an outsider sooo last year? I mean, maybe it's time to throw caution to the wind, really shake things up, and reinvent yourself as a new version of your most dreaded enemy: The Insider. Like I am."

Hollywood's new blockbuster model, as explained by Fast & Furious action scenes.

The great actors who slummed it in dumb movies. "Helen Mirren’s appearance in the Fast and Furious franchise is a bit of a surprise. But virtually every notable actor – from Welles to Brando to Blanchett – has cashed in an easy paycheque for a mindless franchise or a duffer."

REVIEW
You'll Never Be Alone. "There is anger and emotion in this look at the fallout of homophobia and how people are sold an idea of life that may not be achievable, but it’s sometimes a little too uneven for its own good."

WATCH
Here's the trailer for Landline.



The
Box

RuPaul's Drag Race: This week's rankings.

RuPaul’s Drag Race star Charlie Hides breaks down over "blackface" criticism.

RuPaul’s Drag Race season five finalist, Detox Icunt (aka Matthew Sanderson) slaps lawsuit on former managers.

A Survivor player cruelly outed another as transgender for “strategy.” It backfired on him, hard.

INTERVIEW
Talking to Black Ink Crew: New York tattoo artist Kevin Laroy about getting inked and coming out.

Read the "Yep, I'm Gay" Ellen DeGeneres interview from twenty years ago.

Girls took a toxic view of female friendships. "In showing women to be mercilessly cruel to each other, the final season of Lena Dunham’s comedy solidifies toxic beliefs about female relationships."

Better Call Saul: a methodical look at what causes a man to become a cockroach. "This prequel to Breaking Bad explores how the show’s bent lawyer Saul Goodman started out as a good guy, Jimmy McGill."

Better Call Saul is notoriously glacial. Here's how to speed it up. "Over two whole seasons, Jimmy McGill has so far managed to make an advert and tamper with a document. Here’s a wishlist for giving the new series of the Breaking Bad prequel a bit more oomph."

Why China is lapping up glossy TV corruption drama In The Name of the People.

INTERVIEW
Talking to Pearl Mackie. "When I was little there weren’t many people like me on TV."

On The Brittas Empire and the curse of the dream sequence. (August 2014)

Six off-screen soap scandals that led to bizarre on-screen exits.

WATCH
Here's the latest episodes of Skin Deep the Series; Shadows; Steam Room Stories and Just Us.

Beats, Rhymes & Life

Has pop finally run out of tunes? "Ed Sheeran has reached a £16m settlement over his song Photograph in the latest claim over pop plagiarism. So are songwriters out of ideas? Time to call in the musicologists."

INTERVIEW
Talking to out Christian singer Trey Pearson.

LISTEN
Here's Frank Ocean's latest, Biking, featuring Tyler the Creator and Jaz-Z.

Serpentwithfeet: The ecstasy of exorcism. "After years of not expressing the queer, melancholy feelings inside of him, New York City singer Josiah Wise finally embraced his true self—by getting a pentagram tattoo on his head and making the most ominous music of his life. He couldn’t be happier." (July 2016)

Serpentwithfeet: The tattooed occultist who's reinventing gospel. "By blending the sensual with the spiritual, musician Josiah Wise has revived the genre. 'It’s such romantic and decadent music,' he explains." (September 2016)

Ludacris defends his... ludicrous CGI abs.

God complex: how religion became the bedrock of modern rap. "From Stormzy to Kendrick Lamar, rappers are referencing Christianity in their music more than ever before – but it’s not just about bravado."

A slightly premature full length discussion about Kendrick Lamar’s new album, Damn.

New York is killing me. On the unlikely survival of Gil Scott-Heron. (August 2010)

WATCH
Here's the video for Locke's Rendezvous.

WATCH
Here's the video for KillASon's Wrong.

WATCH
Here's the video for Mykki Blanco's Hideaway.

WATCH
Here's the video for Halfbrother's Love Letter.

LISTEN
Here's Slow Motion Replay from Thrillers.


Red Light
District

Hot House advertises Alexander Gustavo - who killed himself last year — as a “cum shot target”.



Helix relaunches twink studio 8teenBoy.

Bel Ami settles suit waged against Teens-Boys-World.

The cast of Falcon's Earthbound: Heaven To Hell 2, in pictures.

Behind-the-scenes with Micah Brandt, Corbin Colby, Skyy Knox, and more.

Tyson Beckford flaunts it with the Chippendales.

Ridder Rivera flaunts it Tim's Tales. In pictures.

Matthew flaunts it for Latin Boyz. In pictures.

WATCH
An interview with Jason Vario and Michael Roman.

Ghetto
Romance




New data reveals how long people spend looking for a date while at work.


Hell's
Kitchen


Baltimore gets new gay bar, G•A•Y Lounge.

The surprisingly cutthroat business of communion crackers.

How to make a chicken last a week.

The decline and fall of broccoli’s nutrients.


Betta
Work!


More people are employed than ever before. But the headline disguises a reality of low-paid, insecure work.

What it's really like to work in an abattoir.

How to treat waiters, according to waiters.


I Own 51% Of This Company!

Toshiba files unaudited results, future in doubt.

UK fashion retailer Jaeger collapses into administration.


The forgotten shops of Derby, in pictures.


Tomorrow's
World


LGBT LiveJournal users in the US have been forced to agree to abide by homophobic Russian laws after the blogging platform's servers were transferred to Russia. LiveJournal was bought by Russian media company SUP Media in 2007.

The FCC’s plan to kill net neutrality will also kill internet privacy.

Here’s how to civilise Uber, and make the other ‘death stars’ work for us too. "If we want the tech behemoths to start behaving themselves we must tear our transfixed gaze from their exploits, and start using our brains instead."

Turn off notifications and break free of your online chains. "We fret about distraction, yet choose to allow a device in our pocket to beep or buzz whenever someone else decides it should."


Ten things from the first-wave internet that no longer exist.

WATCH
Gays in video games.

Médecins Sans
Frontières


The top twenty STDs, how to avoid them, and if it's too late, how to treat 'em!

Poppers might permanently damage your eyes, boffins warn.

I was blinded by my contact lens. "When Irenie Ekkeshis's eye started to itch she assumed it would soon settle down. It didn't. Before long, she found herself in excruciating pain and lost her sight in that eye. And the cause may have been nothing more than handling her contact lenses with wet fingers."


Boffins identify parts of brain involved in dreaming.

Immortality: not for the faint-hearted. "The faithful and the futurologists imagine life without death. But living forever may not be all it’s cracked up to be, and then what?"


Planet
Earth

The ecological disaster that is Trump’s border wall.

The “super bloom” in California’s desert after the drought, in pictures.

Could this drinkable water bubble could kill the plastic bottle once and for all?


Zoo


Mexico’s "little sea cow" - the world’s smallest porpoise - is being pushed to the edge of extinction.

The week in wildlife, in pictures.


Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Illegal drum'n'bass rave takes place on London Underground’s Bakerloo Line.





And
This...


Goodbye things, hello minimalism: can living with less make you happier? "Fumio Sasaki owns a roll-up mattress, three shirts and four pairs of socks. After deciding to scorn possessions, he began feeling happier. He explains why."

Finally, Walter gives his views on HIV Undetectable = Transmissible; TaetheDoug has some advice; DaveyWavey on coming out to strangers; Jontavion and Brandon try it hands free.

Issue 260: 08-14 April 2017
On the cover: Trelino in Falcon's "Earthbound: Heaven To Hell 2".

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

© 2017

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