KAOS: 2008

In Pictures: 2008 By Garçon Stupide

January: Barack Obama announces that his favourite TV show is The Wire (the seminal cinema experience of this decade), and that his favourite character is Omar Little. Well, that should have made Mister Obama my favourite politician, like, ever. Except he added, "That's not an endorsement. He's not my favorite person, but he's a fascinating character," which yours truly decided to interpret as a wholesale attack on the gay community. I'm a bit silly.

February: Keyontyli and Taleon Goffney, known to boys (and maybe even a few girls) the length and breadth of the world wide web as gay porn twins Keyon and Teyon, are arrested for a series of alleged robberies. The juicy details of the story are widely reported, but no one seems interested in delving into the real heart of the matter. Who are these young men, and what happened to them, for it to come to this?

March: Serapis Kephra, a.k.a model and stripper K-Rock, is taken by cancer.

May: Left-wing, pro-gay, pro-green, pro-diversity Ken Livingstone is ousted as London's Mayor. Conservative toff Boris Johnson, infamous for his quips at the expense of gays and ethnic minorities, is voted in. Within weeks, one of his deputies is demanding Afro-Caribbean Londoners go back where they came from, whilst another resigned following financial irregularities.

June: BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF (or to put it another way, the most exciting forty-seven seconds of television this year).

July: The story of Kamal, a young gay men in Iraq, makes for gruelling reading. Rape and torture are rife for our brothers (and sisters) in that country. I wonder where Kamal is now, and what 2009 holds for him?

August: I love animals. They're much less disappointing than people. I especially like dogs, so the BBC's expose of the pedigree dog industry sickened me. Man's inhumanity to man? Man's inhumanity, I say.

September: D'Angelo, D'Angelo, D'Angelo... You been gone so long, and after reading David Peisner's incredibly informative article in Spin, I finally understand why. They say the Voodoo man will be back in 2009. I really hope he is.

October: The justice system claims my bff, my ex, my rock, or as R. Kelly (hmm...) once said, my homie, lover, friend. Losing him was like losing a limb, and I was angry. I lost it, and I haven't really recovered yet.

November: Nabeer Bakurally is the 28th - and last - teenage boy murdered in London in 2008. Shaquille Smith, left, was killed in August, at the height of the murders. The loss of so many bright, beautiful young men is horrific. I mourn them all. We were once them.

December: Religion sucks. God is a lie. December sees the Mumbai terrorist attacks, and the marriage of an eight year old child in Saudi Arabia to a middle-aged man - fully sanctioned by an Islamic dictatorship (meanwhile, the Pope compares Us to the holocaust).

Gay? Islam Condemns You. Paedophile? Islam Embraces You

Welcome to the wonderful world of religion, kids. Yes, it's true. Homosexuality is Wrong & Bad, (allegedly) according to various imaginary cult figures like God (that's Dog backwards, didntchaknow), Allah (that's Lah La, as in lalalalalala, whatever) and Percy Sugden out of Coronation Street. No, in all seriousness, in those countries where religion is allowed to seep like a cancerous, toxic sludge, into government, into law, things turn pear-shaped. Look at Afghanistan. Hell, look at America. And bless their cotton burkhas, just look at Saudi Arabia, where man can lie with child and get away with it. Gary Glitter, why did you bother with Thailand? Why didn't you just convert to Islam and emigrate to Saudi Arabia? You could have had all the pre-teen kiddies you like, and the courts - dominated by Sunni clerics - would have gladly rubberstamped it. For in the kingdom, an eight year old girl has been married off by her father to a man of fifty-eight. She cannot file for divorce until she reaches puberty. Human Rights Watch say: "There is confusion in Saudi Arabia over the fundamental question of what constitutes adulthood. There is also vast judicial discretion." Clearly. It gets even better. The marriage cannot be consummated until the child reaches eighteen - but that's only a verbal condition set by the child's father. SGL Café has video on this story. Read The Guardian article here.

Eartha Kitt

Eartha Kitt has died aged 81. The singer, best known for Santa Baby, passed away on Christmas Day. Ms. Kitt continued to work right up until her death. The Guardian obituary is here. Santa Baby can be seen below. The world loses another real splash of colour, and class, and joy.

Gore: Eau De Mort

Oh, innit nice: a perfume that smells like rotting flesh, by PETA. It's a response to the Burger King gimmick whereby you could run around smelling like a whopper, presumably with a pack of drooling canines in tow. PETA says: "Most cows killed for fast-food burgers are castrated and branded without any painkillers, fed a diet of hormones and antibiotics, and often transported to slaughter without food or water in all weather extremes. At slaughterhouses, they are strung up by one hind leg before their throats are cut and their skin is pulled from their bodies – sometimes while they are still conscious."

More here.

Jail Trade Unleashed

Belasco, the artist responsible for the erotic comic of the same name, and the comic book The Brothers of New Essex: Afro Erotic Adventures (a collection of ten years worth of art), has a new work out:

"Jail Trade Unleashed is the story of lovers, Eldon and Emilo, and what happens when an ex-con from Eldon's past reenters his life. Written and drawn by Belasco, author of 'The Brothers of New Essex', Jail Trade Unleashed is a story of intense passions and sordid secrets all lovingly drawn with Belasco's detailed ink renderings."

The book can be downloaded (or purchased as a paperback book) from Lulu.

The Brothers of New Essex appears to be out of print.

Make sure to visit Belasco's blog, where there's plenty of very cool and very sexy art to enjoy.

Women Fighting!

There's nothing better than middle-aged (straight) women fighting. I don't mean yelling - I mean hardcore, physical action. For example, just imagine how fun politics would be if Condoleezza Rice and that bird who runs Germany had a bitch-slapping catfight. Don't tell me they don't have it in them - those bitches are gagging for a non-verbal altercation.

With that in mind, here's a look at the moment when rough-as-a-navy's-arse-cheek Shirley floors Stupid Sexy Voice (according to a ten year old boy) Suzy. It happens on Boxing Day in EastEnders.

Shirley - played by Linda Henry - is, quite frankly, the Best Character On TV Ever. You can see more of Linda in one of the Greatest Gay Films Ever, Beautiful Thing.

Doctor Who, Middle England and a Hackney Boy in Spain

Not all of my good friends are in prison, or working in PR (which is conceivably worse). Some of them have legged it overseas, like my beloved Sanya, a young actor with the voice of Patrick Stewart and the face of a CocoDorm model. He ought to have been sectioned years ago, both for his own good and that of the general population, but instead he's decamped to the continent - specifically, Spain, for which he has some strange fetish, and from which he writes a tronco de web muy bueno. No, I don't know either. His latest blog isn't about Spain at all, which is something we can take up with consumer affairs at a later date, but about the possibility of the delicious, I-wish-he-was-my-best-friend's-naughty-uncle Paterson Joseph, taking on the role of the Doctor, in Doctor Who. I actually beat Sanya to it by writing about this on November 1st, but Sanya's written a much better article than me, so we'll leave it at that.

He raises some very interesting points on the subject of a black Doctor, the first of which is that the Doctor is quintessentially English - and does quintessentially English include Middle England? Well, no, I don't think it does. Middle England, like Middle America, is banal and narrow, a dreary world of Heat magazine, Hollyoaks, Argos, Asda, Jeremy Clarkson, The Sun, lager, fags, moral outrage, the Daily Mail, Strictly Come Dancing... everything that's mediocre and grim. 'Quintessentially English' is much, much, more than that. It's cool, sophisticated, a bit silly, intriguing, weird, wonderful, big and bold. It's eccentric and exciting, full of strange lunatics and old school camp. It's the juxtaposition of the very, very old and the new. It's a NO to convention and the Establishment. And it's also tradition, convention and the Establishment.

It most certainly isn't Middle England. I think Sanya underestimates the audience Doctor Who currently enjoys. "Could the Couch Potatoes in need of Vegetable Food handle seeing a darkie's head pop out of the TARDIS?" he asks. That's an interesting question. There would certainly be a strong resistance from a minority of hardcore fans; but they will cry foul at any change: the casting of comedy actress Catherine Tate caused consternation, but few fans would criticise her now after a sterling performance throughout season four.

Doctor Who is no longer cult viewing. Since it's relaunch in 2005 it has become one of the BBC's powerhouses - for better or for worse. The series four finale this year was the most watched programme of the week, attracting 11 million viewers. Drama rarely attracts those sort of figures, and science fiction never does. That's important because a mainstream audience - which is what Doctor Who has - won't care about the Doctor's skin colour. Only the diehard, set-in-his-ways fan will care, and he is very much in the minority. The BBC don't care about the diehard fan, they care about the mainstream audience. They proved this with the inclusion of John Barrowman's Captain Jack, and his numerous gay kisses in what is, essentially, a family show. If the BBC were at all worried about diehard fans, then we wouldn't have seen Captain Jack kiss the Doctor in series one. Is a gay kiss with the series lead less controversial than casting a non-white actor in the lead role?

Like Sanya, I want Paterson Joseph to be the next Doctor. More than that, I have my heart set on it. There's absolutely no reason why the Doctor cannot be black - within the series' own fiction, a Timelord can 'regenerate' (take on the appearance of) into anyone. He doesn't even have to be English - the seventh actor to play the role, Sylvester McCoy, was Scottish. Nor is it a question of positive discrimination - a black Doctor just for the sake of it. Paterson Joseph is the right man for the job, and, for the sake of its soul, Doctor Who needs him - as Sanya says, much more than he needs Doctor Who.

Brookside: Sold

The cul-de-sac which was home to the soap Brookside for twenty-one years, until 2003, has been sold for a mere £735,000. Not bad for thirteen houses that cumulatively represent a little piece of pop culture history. You'd be lucky to get a single semi-detached house in London for that much. The buyer of Lot 307, 43-67 Brookside, West Derby, Liverpool, Merseysi

de, L12 0BA, was anonymous. As I mentioned here, and here, the set, a real street in a real suburb, but effectively cut off from the real world, has remained dormant since the series ended in 2003, and slowly gone to wrack and ruin. Dean Sullivan, who appeared in the soap as Jimmy Corkhill, was said to have attempted to secure a bank loan to buy the set, believing the show was coming back. Given that the show first appeared at a time of real economic woe and crippling unemployment, it's easy to see why.

Are You MAOA?

What sort of a drunk are you? Aggressive, silly, soppy, amorous?

Boffins in Finland seem to think that those of us who get a bit irate when they've had a few too many might have an "overactive gene" that's responsible. 'The MAOA gene produces an enzyme that breaks down brain chemicals involved with mood,' apparently. When alcohol is combined with the enzyme, it all goes a bit pear-shaped and Bad Things Start To Happen. It's not all bad news; it seems the effect diminishes with age - so there's hope for Amy Winehouse yet. The full article is here.

Racial Purity and Deformed Mutants, Part II

Back in August, the BBC screened an expose on the disturbing tactics employed by pedigree dog breeders in Britain, and the part played by the Kennel Club and Crufts, the world famous pedigree dog show. Check out the original story here. The BBC has announced that it won't screen next year's show, the first time it's missed covering the event in forty years. The decision follows a collapse in talks over what to do about those breeds at risk of serious health problems - brought on by decades of inbreeding. "We need to be confident the measures being taken now and planned for the future are effective in addressing the issues raised about the health of some pedigree dogs before we return to broadcasting the event," said George Entwistle, controller of BBC Knowledge.

The Kennel Club had this to say: "The Kennel Club regrettably had to refuse to comply with the unreasonable demands insisted on by the BBC, to exclude certain breeds of dog from the group competition at the show. These demands took no account of the measures the Kennel Club has in place to improve the health of pedigree dogs." All a bit late in the day - if the Kennel Club were at all concerned about the health of the dogs, then they wouldn't have waited until their obscene practises (such as the mating of mothers and sons, and brothers with sisters et cetera) had been exposed on national television before taking action. And how, exactly, do you reverse the effect of decades of inbreeding anyway? Remember, there's around 10,000 pugs in Great Britain, but they only have the equivalent gene pool of 50 individuals. Pugs are susceptible to serious eye damage simply from bumping into things - and that's just one example of a breed in trouble. Pet food brand Pedigree has withdrawn its sponsorship; the RSPCA and the Dogs Trust have both cut their association with the show.

Scissors Cut Paper, Paper Wraps Stone, Stone Blunts Scissors

So-cute-you-could-eat-her Irene Monroe, a woman who knows what she's talking about, is a key voice in the Proposition 8 debate - particularly on the subject of its descent into racial blame-mongering. "The same-sex marriage debate [has been] hijacked by a white upper class queer universality that not only renders these marginalized queer communities invisible, but - as it is presently framed - also renders them speechless," she says in her latest article. I largely agree with that; there's a yawning chasm between them and us. But just who is us and them? Even enlightened souls like Ms Monroe insist on casually using the term "white" to generalise Caucasians. Well - newsflash! - not all white people are the same. I assume Ms. Monroe is referring to financially comfortable WASPS (the Bad Guys) and not "minority" Caucasians (Irish, Poles et cetera). Minority, or ethnic, Caucasians have historically been victimised by WASPS just as much as other ethnic minorities. In fact, my own immediate family suffered violence and discrimination at the hands of WASPS in Northern Ireland over the last several decades; I personally suffered the indignity of racial abuse as an immigrant in Australia. So it's particularly galling to hear "white this, white that" as if the suffering of Afro-Caribbean’s is so unique and acute that license is granted to lump all Caucasians together and denigrate them wholesale. Two wrongs make a right in the world these people inhabit. Now don't get me wrong, I don't count Ms. Monroe as one of those people; the woman needs to be heard by us all. I'm just calling her on the use of the term white. (As an aside, it's definitely worth looking at the devastatingly beautiful Qaadir Howard's incisive, razor sharp argument, below, against the use of the term black in reference to people of Afro-Caribbean descent).

Ultimately, the gay community is dominated and controlled by exactly the same people as the mainstream: monied, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. The difference is, in our community, they're gay. But let's allow Ms Monroe the last word - she's smarter than me and much, much cuter: "[It's] not surprising because the larger queer movement has distorted, if not erased, its own history when it come to the Stonewall Riot of June 27-29, 1969 in Greenwich Village, New York City, which started on the backs of working-class African-American and Latino transgender patrons of the bar. Those brown and black queer people are not only absent from the photos of that historic night, but they are also bleached from the annals of queer history and gay pride events."

Twelve Months Is A Long Time In Walford

I can't remember what happened twelve days ago, never mind within the last twelve months, and that's doubly true when it comes to the old telenovellas.

Fortunately, help's on hand with digital spy looking back over the Year In Pictures 2008: EastEnders.

So with all that in mind, here's to a thoroughly doom laden, depressing, wallow in misery on Christmas Day - bring on the tears, the shouting, and the catfights!

Boys You Wouldn't Want To Pick A Fight With

Move over Oprah - you've been usurped, and he's younger, prettier, hotter and even more vocal than you!

Qaadir Howard is a singer with a lot to say, and highly specialised techniques for making you sit up and listen!

As a boy - and as a girl - Ms. Howard is very, very beautiful, and he has the voice of an angel.

Much, much more of Qaadir on his YouTube channel.

Gays Make The Best Parents

Tell us something we don't know - and now it's been proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, at a zoo in China. A pair of gay penguins were given eggs of their own after trying to steal those of straight penguins (who had to get their wings dirty and mate with a female - UGH!).

"They've turned out to be the best parents in the whole zoo," one of the keepers said. Now, how they measured the parenting skills of the gay penguins against those of the straight ones I don't know, but quite frankly, attempted theft of someone elses unborn baby doesn't seem like a good start.

According to the Mail Online, the picture shows our clucky couple "quarrelling with another male over stolen eggs."

Right. That's according to the qualified penguin interpreter, is it?

The full story is here.

SEX: Brazil. Men. Brazilian Men. Uh huh

It's a bit like asking which cube of sugar from the bowl tastes the sweetest, but try and answer this conundrum anyway: who is the hottest Brazilian of 2008? That's the question Made In Brazil is asking, and they've a gallery of man-flavoured boy candy for you to chose from (a gallery lacking in the diversity factor). Now, I'm seen City of God, so I know Brazil is full of many more shades of skin than what's on offer here, but there you go. Carlos Freire (left) gets my vote, but Miro Moreira (right) isn't a bad looking lad either. You can vote here.

LENSED: Marcus Lloyd

Dear God, Cathy... Yes, it's Marcus Lloyd again, shot by Karl Simone. More at Red Models.

No, Dizzee, No!

There's dumb rappers, like DMX, and smart rappers, like Lupe Fiasco. Dizzee Rascal, the boy from Bow, is a smart rapper. So I read this with dismay. And no, my dismay is not due to his arrest for possessing an offensive weapon (er, a baseball bat; it's not even British). My dismay is that it happened in Sevenoaks. Sevenoaks. Why, Dizzee, why?! Then there's Seal, for whom I once had so much respect. I tried to overlook the (yawn) showbiz (yawn) marriage to some Eurotrash stick insect, but this has done it. Shut up, Mr Seal. Please, just shut up.

The Pregnant Man

No, not really. Ricky didn't give birth, he had a womb with legs make them for him. See - women do have their uses! The two baby boys were born in August but they're appearing on the cover of today's People magazine. "Adoption was one option," Ricky says, "but it's complicated and can take a long time. Surrogacy was an intriguing and faster option. I thought, 'I'm going to jump into this with no fear.'" Jump into what, exactly?

(Oh, fatherhood. I thought he meant something else). Aw, Ricky and his two boys, and not a fish in sight. Now that's what I call domestic bliss.

I can't really think of a way to tie in the second picture, except to say that everyone deserves to see it. There's a whole series of Ricky and his friend on the beach, doing calisthenics (is that what they call it these days?) Sigh.

PIGS

This article has been updated and moved.

You can find it here.

LENSED

You would, wouldn't you? Joseph Bleu photographed Zack.

More Naked Footballers (Well, It Fulfills Me, Anyway)

If there's one thing sport (and religion) are useful for, it's providing backstory, texture and colour to porn, or even ones own mental erotic meanderings. Hot on the heels of the Italian football gay sex orgy (oh, that sounds so good, don't it?) comes this dicklicious tale from Only In America. It's not really as exciting as everyone seems to think, but hell, it's a naked footballer in a locker room!

Sex, Football and a Rent Boy Named Victory

Ho ho ho, Santa's come early with a story so juicy it counts towards one of your 5 a day! Get this, kids: a third division Italian football player claims to have been paid for sex by at least thirty footballers, around half of which are said to be "top flight" international stars. He's known only as Victory, and he has this to say: "I have about 30 clients who are footballers and I would say that a dozen are Serie A and national team players - several times I have been asked to take part in group sex sessions. Players from the same team and my friends and it is always just for sex. They all know I am a footballer as well but they like me because I am discreet. A lot of them are bisexual, they are married or have girlfriends. They have a respectable image but none of them will ever admit to being gay, not for the time being anyway." On the surface it might sound a little too sensational, a bit too much like the plot of a porn movie, but should only provoke a "Is anyone really surprised?" shrug from you. It's simply common sense that some footballers are gay or bisexual, and that they'd go to any lengths to hide the fact. But at the same time, footballers are also bored, over-indulged, overgrown schoolboys with hugely inflated incomes, and egos to match. So don't hold your breath waiting for names to be named. The clubs and the players can buy anything - sex, and silence...

Is D'Angelo Coming Back?

D'Angelo will release a new album in spring next year, nearly eight years after the release of the seminal neo-soul record Voodoo, numerous sites and blogs are reporting. Hopefully this isn't another Maxwell - Black Summer's Night, the album that will be released next spring, next summer, next autumn, next winter... maybe next year, or the one after (does anyone actually believe that record will ever drop?) No word yet on the album's name or concrete release dates, but there's talk of a single before the end of the year (which year is that, exactly?) The album may include the leaked track Really Love. Read my feature on D'Angelo's rise and fall here.