KAOS: March 2010

DISCO
GRAPHIC

BACK IN 1999, you might have found me wandering aimlessly around Manhattan, just like Black Thought in this video.

I once walked from 21st Street all the way home to 93rd and Columbus. I'd come to New York to be with a guy more than twice my age, and it wasn't working out. One night we were at a restaurant owned by P. Diddy, and he'd gone in ahead of me (important people were inside). But the guys on the door wouldn't let me in. Too young, ya see. So I walked home without him.

You Got Me was all over the TV at the time, in between episodes of NewsRadio and The Rikki Lake Show, and it mirrored my mood perfectly - lyrically, musically and visually. "We knew from the start that things fall apart, intentions shatter..." the song goes, and maybe a thirty-five year old knows, but a naive kid doesn't. "...And on the topic of trust, it's just a matter of fact that people bite back and fracture what's intact..."

Uh huh, ain't that the truth.

The Roots' You Got Me is a masterpiece in every way. The video is cinematic, apocalyptic, disturbing, and its climax jaw-dropping. Drum'n'bass on an American hip-hop record? Wow. Erykah Badu, melting into a wall? Damn.

And on the subject of Erykah Badu, it's only now, ten years later, that I've finally figured out what she's saying, having looked up the lyrics specifically for this piece.

Yeah, it helps to know.

It's 1999. It's a nice sunny day in Manhattan. In two years there'd be another nice sunny day - blue skies and blind panic - ending in much the same way as this clip does.

You Got Me... You still do, and always will.

Garçon Reports
a news compendium
with a gay bias

||| Taylor Siluwé (left) announces the follow-up to his well-received anthology Dancing With The Devil. See an excerpt from the forthcoming Something About Sin here.

||| Morehouse College - one the the US's "historically black colleges" - opened its first gay pride week on Tuesday.

||| Washington D.C.: 14% of gay men are HIV positive. The rates in other cities are higher, however, Baltimore recording a grim 40% rate.

||| America's states and cities ranked by penis size. Get me to New Orleans!

||| This sucks. Earlier this week we heard how 18-year-old Derrick Martin (right) was to be allowed to bring his boyfriend to the prom. Sadly, some of his fellow students are up in arms over the decision.

||| Support the gays? Face our wrath! The Catholic Church strikes back.

||| Pope Benedict XVI, a predator priest and 200 deaf boys.

||| US military sees "fairer and more appropriate regulations covering service personnel thought to be homosexual" introduced.

||| Here's the new rules on that. Right, Major Alan Rogers, a gay soldier killed in Iraq in 2008.

|||A wedding magazine just for us.

|||Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives: "The film, its title and its marketing misrepresent the lives of transgender women and use grotesque, exploitative depictions of violence against transgender women in ways that make light of the horrific brutality they all too often face," GLAAD says.

||| Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives: Movieline accuses GLAAD of censorship, "Take a cold shower and count downwards from ten, GLAAD. You don't want to walk down this dark alley. There's far worse things lurking in it than a couple punnily-named trannies with switchblades."

||| Welfare office fierceness...

||| Malawi: Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga's lawyers plot strategies for next month's trial.

||| Malawi: Speaking at the protest was Edi Phiri (video below), a gay Malawian who suffered battery and threats in his homeland. "I urge my President and government to intervene to release Steven and Tiwonge. These two men don’t deserve the way they are suffering in jail," he said.

||| Zimbabwe: Gay rights will not be part of new constitution. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe both showed their immense ignorance in dismissing homosexuality as "madness" and "destroying nationhood". Cartoon via SGL Café.

||| African myths about homosexuality: Homosexuality was imported by European colonists. But in fact, prior to their arrival, it was "acceptable for kings, princes and soldiers to take young male lovers" in what's now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

||| Indonesia: International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association conference cancelled, following objections from Muslim groups.

||| "If you'd kissed a woman, nothing would have happened to you," Italian police tell hate-crime victim. Factually true, perhaps, but not entirely tactful.

||| In Czech Republic, gay porn pays the bills. Report includes video. Left, Czech twins Milo and Elijah Peters perform in a Bel Ami scene.

||| Poland: Gay marriage? No way!

||| Model Bernardo Velasco covers the April issue of Junior magazine.

||| A new homophobic incitement offence became law on Tuesday. The law, part of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, outlaws "threatening behaviour or materials intended to stir up hatred against people on grounds of their sexual orientation".

||| Modern dads: "The fact that I'm gay isn't an issue".

||| Utterly pathetic: David Cameron, the Conservative leader likely to be Prime Minister before the end of the year, shows his ignorance of GBLT issues as he stumbles through this interview, forgetting rehearsed lines and flailing around miserably. Cringe-inducing, and frightening at the same time.

||| MPs gay-friendly? The equality bill has cracked Westminster's veneer of tolerance, writes Ben Summerskill.

||| Still, at least the right wing British National Party is more gay friendly than before. That's all right then.

||| The General Pharmaceutical Council will allow religious pharmacists to opt out of prescribing contraception. Sheer insanity - religion has no place in the workplace.

||| Right, Daniel de Jesus, who will represent Brazil in the 2010 Mr. Universe pageant, held in the Dominican Republic in May.

||| "Ancient Greeks recognized that their 'barbaric' northern neighbors, Scythians and Celts, had lighter skin than Greeks considered normal." This is interesting, as someone who's sick to the back teeth of mental midgets who insist on speaking in terms of black and white. "Deciding who is white has been not only fluid but also heavily influenced by class and culture." Quite...

||| George W. Bush wipes his hand on Bill Clinton's shirt after shaking hands with Haitians. Report includes video.

||| Religiously watch your favourite TV shows on DVD box sets? Careful - it's a slippery slope.

||| Antique sex toys sell for £3,600.

||| John Hicklenton, the graphic artist best known for Judge Dredd, is dead.

||| Australia's tourist board keeps distressed, ill kangaroo caged on a busy Los Angeles street. Why? Advertising.

||| Education, the Japanese way. I've always said parents are the biggest monsters of all (my own Mummy and Daddy excepted).

||| The Big Picture: Haiti, 70 days later, above and below (38 more pictures).

||| Herpes makes you a slut...

||| ...And Facebook will give you syphilis. Or something like that.

||| I'm a big Tetris fan, so this news thrilled me to bits: Playing the game after a major shock can reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Here's why.

||| Goldfish 'breathes air' for seven hours.

||| Wild animals in circuses could be outlawed in future.

||| We've heard of polar bears stranded out at sea before, but freshwater alligators?

||| Your moisturisers, shower gels and creams are polluting the planet. Boycott Unilever!

||| The Big Picture: Robots, above and below (31 more pictures).

||| Wikipedia gets too hot [citation needed].

||| A new campaign, Music Matters, has been launched to remind us "to consume music in an ethical way". Backed by artists, retailers and record labels, the campaign provides a Music Matters Trustmark to websites offering legal music.

||| Okay, so this is from last week, but I can't shake the sheer creepiness of this video from my head, so I'm going to inflict it on you lot. Creepy vocal, creepy guy. And not in a good way.

||| ITV has axed The Bill after 27 years on screen. Having grown up with the once-gritty cop show, I'm not sorry. The Bill has long been dead to me, ever since the infamous producer Paul Marquess took over in the late-90s. Sleazy soap operatics, sensationalism and frequent cast culls (with long-serving favourites replaced by models and former soap stars) became the order of the day.

||| The Bill cancellation: A veteran's view.

||| The Bill cancellation: Former cast members react to the news.

||| The Bill cancellation: The stars who got their first big break in Sun Hill.

||| The Bill cancellation: Over the years, a number of ka-os|theory favourites have appeared: Metrosexuality's Karl Collins (left), Kidulthood's Aml Ameen (below right), Oz's Eamonn Walker (second left), Beautiful Thing's Scott Neal (anyone remember his shower scene?) were all main cast members. ka-os|theory crush Patrick Robinson is a current cast member, and let's not

forget original cutey Clive Wedderburn (third left), who played PC Gary McCann throughout the nineties (and got out before the the show was raped by Marquess)...

||| The Bill cancellation: The titles collared you from the start.

||| The Bill cancellation: "The acting industry is really going to suffer."

||| The Bill cancellation: What killed The Bill? Chronic revamp syndrome.

||| Coincidence, or homage? UK Space Agency's new logo a copy of one drawn up for Doctor Who.

||| Doctor Who splashed all over Gay Times. (Hehe... Sorry, I just couldn't resist.)

||| What is this this naked jock doing in front of an audience of only partly dressed fellow jocks? Don't try it at home, kids...

||| Thirsty?

||| Gay cinema a sell-out; all about "good-looking guys on screen without their shirts".

||| Steve McQueen: EXPOSED. Literally.

||| Why Brad Pitt's got a beard now...

||| ...And Taylor Lautner's chest has its own director.

||| MOC Blog ponders on Diesel Washington's indecipherable musings: "Can We please stop using Interracial??? Its 2010 already!!! Why is it every [time] a Black guy and White guy fuck its Interracial???[ That's] a 1980's term!!! If a Jewish guy fucks a Catholic guy is it [an] "Inter-religion" scene come on guys.......None of the scenes that I filmed were promoted as an Interracial I couldnt stand for it!!"

||| Insecure male vegans rebrand themselves hegans.

||| What can one say about this picture? He's applying bronzer with a little roller brush. I'm stumped. Imagine what the sheets will be like the next day.

||| And finally, a brief tutorial on Grindr. Do I care? No. I just can't stop staring at this boy's amazing tits. Who needs Taylor Lautner?