what from."
Shaun Akanbi
 |
| Photo credit: Urban Shotz Photography. |
THE DAY AFTER Christmas. "Kilburn murder victim identified as Shaun Akanbi," the Boxing Day headline read.
Below the headline, a picture of a boy I briefly dated, several years ago. "A post-mortem examination gave the cause of death as multiple stab wounds to the torso."
I hadn't seen Shaun in years, but we were once close. We were never the love of each other's lives, but for a brief moment in time, we belonged to each other.
Even after we went our separate ways (amicably. No drama. It just fizzled out), I was aware of him, peripherally, out there in the world. He was studying law when I knew him, but he went on to found Billy Boyce fashion, whose clothes media outlets have been at pains to point out have been worn by various celebrities (hijacking a story about a boy who's been killed. Their names overshadowing his). But Shaun was a success, doing what he loved.
 |
| Shaun back in the day. |
No one seems to know yet what happened to him this Christmas. Will knowing the how, the why, make it any easier? No. But it's hell not knowing.
I remember the last night I spent with Shaun, all those years ago. We walked around Shepherd's Bush market looking for a tracksuit for him. Shaun was a tiny little guy, and couldn't find anything to fit. We went into a shop selling kid's clothes, underneath the railway arches, where he found something that fitted him. A tracksuit for a child. It seemed so funny at the time.
I'll always remember that day.
You! Preacher! Murderer! I started to believe in your promises, that we had a chance. What chance?
TIRED OLD QUEEN
at the movies
at the movies
On New Year's Eve, the world turns upside down for the star studded cast of Irwin Allen's classic disaster film The Poseidon Adventure (1972).Gene Hackman leads an all-star cast in this adventure film based on a novel by Paul Gallico and directed by Ronald Neame. Oscar winners Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Jack Albertson and Shelly Winters in an Oscar nominated performance bring to life all the anxiety, terror and suspense involved when a handful of passengers fight against time and the elements to try and survive and incredible disaster. Forget about going out for the festivities and come aboard the S.S. Poseidon for the most riveting New Year's entertainment imaginable. Happy New Year! Steve Hayes
(Syndication is with the kind permission of Steve Hayes.)
She done him wrong
Issue 133: Josh Weston, Louis Smith, Marsha P. Johnson, gay nativity, gay Bible, Detroit, Frank Ocean, Le1F, and drag queen Olympics
a news compendium
with a gay bias
< Team GB Olympian Louis Smith naked, and poppin'. There's an interview with the pretty one here, in which he says, "I'm quite a handful".
> The 50 Most Powerful Coming Outs of 2012. Right, fitness guru Shaun T.||| Why the British government should take responsibility for colonial sodomy laws that were set up by the British empire.
||| Why stereotypes are bad even when they're "good".
||| Why atheists are better for politics than believers.
||| Gay people were everywhere in entertainment in 2012.||| The top LGBT political moments of 2012.
||| 10 gay news events predictions for 2013.
US & CANADA NEWS
< This is 14-year-old David Tran, another gay teen suicide victim. David shot himself in the head at his junior high school.
||| Gay hospital worker jumps in front of New York subway train after paedophilia charges.< The unsolved 1992 murder of Marsha P. Johnson - the "saint of gay life" and "mayor of Christopher Street" - is being looked at again by the New York District Attorney's office. Watch Pay It No Mind - The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson.
> Now some good news. Gay Ugandan Joseph Bokombe has been granted a reprieve - for now - and can stay in San Diego||| Pastor "cures" gay teens by getting them to stroke horses.
||| Pro-gay hacker collective Anonymous unleashes havoc on the notorious Westboro Baptist Church, taking over their spokesperson's Twitter account, organising Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks on their website, and leaking church members private information. The Church had blamed marriage equality in Connecticut for the
tragic shooting spree at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and sang "praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment".< An interview with Ravi Perry and Paris Prince, the first gay male couple to appear in JET magazine's wedding section.
||| What was to be the South Pacific's largest gay cruise - with 2,400 people on board - has been cancelled.
||| Nate Silver - the gay man who predicted US presidential results far ahead of November's election - is Out Magazine's Person of the Year.
||| President Barack Obama reflects on the progress of gay equality during his first term.
||| Cyndi Lauper worries "fiscal cliff" will impact programs for homeless gay youth.
||| Spencer Cox, the pioneering AIDS activist, is dead. He was 44.
< Richard Adams, the marriage equality pioneer, is dead. He was 65. In 1975, Adams brought the first court case seeking to have his marriage to Australian husband Tony Sullivan recognised by the US. The couple's story is the subject of a forthcoming documentary, Limited Partnership.
> Gustavo Archilla, an inspiration for marriage equality, is dead. He was 96. Archilla met Elmer Lokkins in September 1945, and the two men spent six decades together, marrying in 2003.||| Iconic New York gay bar Julius named eligible for State and National Historic registers.
||| The Second Amendment exists, let's deal with it: Legal lessons from Newtown.
||| The Home Office has threatened to ban Ugandan politicians from entering Britain over its proposed anti-gay law.
||| 67-year-old Grace Adeleye found guilty of killing baby in botched circumcision.
||| Government cuts see London's gay charities lose 20% of their staff.
||| Culture Secretary Maria Miller unveils government's marriage equality proposal.
||| Changing the law on marriage will benefit children and gay parents, children's charity Barnardo's say.
||| Muslim Council of Britain demands marriage equality ban.
||| SCOTLAND: More gay people than ever before are being forced into marriage.
||| IRELAND: Gay civil partnerships have dropped by a third since their introduction in 2011.
< FRANCE: Tens of thousands march for marriage equality in cities across France.
||| ITALY: Describing someone as "pro-gay" is now a crime, the country's high court rules.
> The twelve Best Photographs of 2012. Right, the Costa Concordia lists in January.
||| ITALY: Renaissance painter "Caravaggio was not gay, he was normal", Italian newspaper reports.
||| RUSSIA: Amnesty tells Russia's Duma to drop "absurd" anti-gay law.
< RUSSIA: Arts website Colta.ru hits back at anti-gay law with images of gay couples kissing in front of St Petersburg's tourist attractions.
||| KOSOVO: Anti-gay thugs attack launch of Kosovo 2.0 magazine's gay sex issue.
||| TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO: Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar promises to end discrimination against gay people.
> HONDURAS: Activists mark the third anniversary of gay leader Walter Trochez's assassination.
||| JAMAICA: Court to challenge TV ban on pro-gay ads.
< BELIZE: Jamaican activist Maurice Tomlinson is suing the government of Belize over its entry ban against homosexuals. Tomlinson writes about the challenge ahead of him here.||| MEXICO: Teacher Cecila Hernández is fired for showing Harvey Milk biopic Milk to students.
> BRAZIL: This is 20-year-old student Lawrence Corrêa Biancão, who's been murdered by two teenage boys who declared gays are "vermin".
||| URUGUAY: Marriage equality is on its way.
||| PERU: Ban on gay police in relationships cancelled.
< COLOMBIA: Gay couple receive death threats over their "gay" Christmas nativity scene. Blabbeando has an anatomy of the controversy.
 |
| THE BIG PICTURE: Looting in Argentina, 21st December 2012. |
||| US Pentecostal churches blamed for the surge in anti-gay hate across Africa.
||| SOUTH AFRICA: Archbishop and Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu says Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill is like apartheid.
||| SOUTH AFRICA: President Jacob Zuma gives cautious support for marriage equality, despite his vocal homophobia.
> CAMEROON: This is Jean-Claude Roger Mbédé's, who's been jailed for three years for a text message he sent to another man reading, "I'm very much in love with you."
||| UGANDA: Sex-obsessed pastor Martin Ssempa faces off with brave trans activist. Video.
< UGANDA: Pope gives blessing to anti-gay parliamentary speaker Rebecca Kadaga, who pledged to give Ugandans the "kill the gays" bill as a Christmas present. Vile beyond belief.
||| NIGERIA: Nigerian house leader Mulikat Akande-Adeola pledges to pass "jail all the gays" law.
||| THAILAND: Same-sex civil partnership law in the works.
||| MALAYSIA: MP warns Muslims not to be gay.
> NEW ZEALAND: 20-year-old Nicho Allan Waipuka found guilty of the murder of Phillip Cottrell, who he killed because he "looked gay".
< NEW ZEALAND: Jesus was gay, church billboard declares.MIDDLE EAST NEWS
||| ISRAEL: Tel Aviv police announce "significant development" in their investigation into the 2009 shooting at the city's gay youth centre.
> Gay-friendly Queen James Bible launched in San Francisco.
||| Review: Music for Porn, by Rob Halpern... "a linguistic symphony of the fetishization and politicization of the body of the soldier and an exploration of intimacy and desire."
||| 12 gay literary characters who turned straight for the big screen.
||| Check out these incredibly evocative photos of an abandoned Detroit High School - by Detroiturbex - then and now. Heartbreaking.
||| The most controversial photos of 2012:
||| Artists whose work enters the public domain on 1st January 2013.
||| The most spectacular buildings that were never built.
STAGE> Broadway Bares - the annual burlesque extravaganza benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS - announces it's set for 23rd June 2013. Remind yourself of the hotness.
||| So, is it okay to find actors attractive? "New West End shows The Bodyguard and Viva Forever! feature plenty of female whooping at male nudity. Would it be acceptable the other way around?"
FILM< Twilight actor Bronson Pelletier arrested for meth possession at West Hollywood gay bar.
||| Talking to Ian McKellen about vicious old queens, marriage equality and, yes (stifles yawn), The Hobbit.
||| McKellen has also opened up about his prostate cancer shock.
||| Matt Damon talks about "kissing and straddling" Michael Douglas in the upcoming HBO film Behind the Candelabra.> The Rock: Would you hit it?
||| Watch On The Low, a short film by Luter M. Mace "about two high school students discreetly hooking up and what happens when one of them develops feelings for the other".< Check out Will Smith and spawn Jaden in M. Night Shyamalan's After Earth.
||| 12 criminally underrated New York movies.> Behold, the Wicked Witch of the West from the forthcoming Oz the Great and Powerful.
||| Photos from the set of It's A Wonderful Life.< The 30 best movie posters of 2012.
||| The Times Of Harvey Milk to be preserved by US Library of Congress in National Film Registry.
||| Porn mogul Michael Lucas is behind new feature Undressing Israel: Gay Men in the Promised Land. Trailer below!
||| New documentary Kink - by James Franco - looks at San Francisco's BDSM/fetish powerhouse Kink.com.||| Talking to Alan Cumming about his new film Any Day Now, a 70s based gay drama from director Travis Fine.
||| Trailers: Interior. Leather Bar. About the film; Kink; Any Day Now; and Undressing Israel: Gay Men in the Promised Land:
||| HBO orders comedy pilot about three gay friends in San Francisco.
||| How Homeland glamorises torture.
||| BBC "should be bolder" in depiction of gay people, according to BBC-commissioned report.
< Eastenders character Nick Cotton could have had a gay relationship during his initial stint on the show in the 1980s, but when the actor who played the character questioned the decision, he was written out.
> EastEnders: The year in pictures.||| Gays of our lives: All the latest gay soap developments from around the world, with Anthony D. Langford.
||| Anti-gay comedian Jim Davidson signed up for January's Celebrity Big Brother.
||| Katie Price's new boyfriend, former EastEnders' stripper Kieran Hayler (below), is a "gay icon" and has appeared on gay porn sites, according to The Sun newspaper.
||| Watch episode two of EastSiders The Series, and episode two of Freefall.
||| Trends of 2012: The year hip-hop's attitude to homosexuality changed? "From Frank Ocean coming out to Jay-Z backing gay marriage, hip-hop seemed to be shaking off its homophobic mindset this year. But the genre still has a lot of growing up to do."
< Le1f: New York rap deconstructionist boasts tricky skills.
||| Frank Ocean might take time out of music to write a novel.
> Freaky Boiz get into the holiday spirit.
||| Ricky Martin on the "beautiful" experience of coming out.
||| Dolly Parton received KKK death threats over Dollywood Gay Day.
||| Henry Rollins: Gay marriage is punk rock.
||| The year in NSFW music videos, and elsewhere, the 9 Best Music Videos of 2012.
||| Police stop convicted killer's plan to murder and castrate Justin Bieber.
> Madge sucks the youth out of Baby Brahim.
< Listen to Zebra Katz - Winter Titty (Lenkemz VIP Remix).||| Videos: Frank Ocean covers Radiohead's Fake Plastic Trees; Cheyenne Jackson's Don't Wanna Know; Le1f performs Mind Body at Rubber Tracks; and Zebra Katz x Boyfriend - W8WTF, the year's most underrated video.
||| Court throws out Bel Ami's legal case over their models being "thrown off" a gay cruise.
> OMG! Max Ryder ravished by Bel Ami's Kinky Angels! And the Bel Ami holiday trailer that would turn Santa gay.< CockyBoys goes the extra mile again with THE HAUNTING Part II: Into the Woods.
> Johnny Rapid transforms into hairless 1950s mail order sex toy.< Jake Genesis used to be a cop!
||| Sizzling new Spanish porn star Donato Reyes is now on Twitter, and he's got lots to share.
> "Gay" porn star Sebastian Young arrested for the second time in as many months on felony charges of beating his wife.
< Former gay porn star - and 2005's GAYVN Awards Performer of the Year - Tag Adams sentenced to eight years in prison on sex and drug charges involving a minor. 
||| So, how much do porn stars really get paid?||| Cody Cummings: "I'm not gay, I'm a witch".
> The Sword's 58 Most Breathtaking, Amazing, and Unforgettable Images of 2012. Be warned - some of them are very disturbing. Left, the infamous "Coke Float" incident.
||| "Big Eddie" posts more pictures. Really disturbing......And this guy is a bit oversized, too.
||| WTF? Tyson Beckford is 42?!< Hook-up site Manhunt flaunts itself in Times Square.
> Josh Weston, the Falcon porn legend, is dead. He was 39.
||| Federation of Gay Games approves archery, fencing, boxing and more for Gay Games in 2018.
< Team GB Olympian Tom Daley wants a kiss under the mistletoe.
||| Hysterical African press fall for spoof Mike Tyson trans story.
||| Liverpool football player Suso fined for calling team-mate "gay" in Tweet.
||| New York Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard in "fag" Tweet outrage.
||| Talking to straight ally Brendon Ayanbadejo, who Sports Illustrated recently honoured for his gay equality stance.
BODY & MIND
||| Boffins think they have found out why people are born gay. "Researchers believe mothers pass homosexuality onto their sons, and fathers pass it onto their daughters."
||| The larger a gay man's penis is, the more likely they are to have unprotected sex, study finds.
||| UK university cancels screening of AIDS denialist film after student backlash.
||| UK government to review ban on HIV home testing kits.
 |
| These muscle boys may live longer than you or I. |
||| "Retooled" HIV fights leukaemia.
||| Trojan-horse therapy "completely eliminates" cancer in mice.
> Muscle boys live longer, apparently - and we could all achieve an Olympian lifespan.
||| How sperm length affects fertility.
||| Are you a freak in bed?
||| Alcohol dependency: When social drinking becomes a problem.
OUR PLANET, AND BEYOND
||| Amazon's no show on sustainability. "The internet giant has a poor sustainability record, with no regard for its social and environmental impact. Unless consumers protest, there is little hope for change."< Arctic ice flowers!
||| OMG! Giant squid!
||| Rhino horns poisoned, dyed pink, and chipped to deter poachers.
> Spider builds giant decoy of itself.
||| The best nature pictures of 2012. Below, a giant panda at a breeding center in Dujiangyan, China:
THE LAB
< My Ex-Boyfriend the Space Tyrant!||| The real people behind the spam photos.
PARTING SHOTS
> A fond farewell to kaos friend MOC Blog, one of the very best blogs over the past eight years. The good news is Victor Hoff has new projects in the works.
||| Amsterdam hosts the Drag Queen Olympics.
||| 2012 in pictures: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3:
||| And finally, Martin answers your questions, and Davey Wavey wonders if can you make a straight guy gay?
