#121

a news compendium

with a gay bias
 WEEKLY | Issue 121 | June 2012 | FREE | be.told.

 OPENING SHOTS 

< Erik Rhodes, who has died aged 30, was as painfully honest and open about his life as he was self-destructive. The sex biz has lost one of its great characters, and a true performer. More on Rhodes later.

> The return of D'Angelo - but what really went wrong over 10 years ago? GQ has a fascinting profile of the great man. "26-year-old D'Angelo, naked from the hip bones up, staring straight into the camera, licking his lips and writhing in ecstasy. The video propelled him to super-stardom — but it claimed its pound of flesh. D'Angelo struggled mightily with the way his body threatened to overshadow his music... As [he] began to fall apart, the video would be the only thing many fans remembered."

...Which brings us neatly to the fetishized object's survival guide. "He finally continued, 'I just have always thought of you as a sex god, not as boyfriend material.' He smiled at me bashfully, as if he'd just paid me a great compliment..."

 US & CANADA NEWS 

< Darnell Young, the openly gay student expelled from high school for firing a stun gun in self defence, following a relentless campaign of bullying, has hit the news again. This time, Darnell - pictured here with his twin Darell - was attacked at a local mall by a man twice his age.

||||| The Indianapolis Star also ran an opinion piece on Darnell's case, "Don't leave the drastic remedies to the victims."

> Guilty pleas entered by two men accused in brutal attack of gay Atlanta man Brandon White.

< Canadian soldier Jason John Ouimet jailed for just five years for the 2010 murder of 21-year-old Duane Lacquette.

||||| Pentagon announces gay pride ceremony in recognition of troops.

||||| Jay-Z on marriage equality: "I've always thought it as something that is holding the country back... what people do in their home is their business. You can chose to love whoever you love – that's their business. It's not different than discriminating against blacks."

> "Have you ever read the Gospel and heard Jesus say anything about homosexuality? Black folk can't even deal with homosexuality because we got issues with sexuality. And because we got issues with sexuality we can't have a healthy discussion about homosexuality. Why, why do you get so upset?" Dallas Pastor Frederick Haynes rips his congregation for opposing gay marriage.

||||| Catholics, gays and a parallel universe called Canada.

||||| The gay Americans who cross the pond for marriage.

< Retailer Target's gay pride t-shirts anger anti-gay groups.

||||| Hate crimes against gay community highest in 14 years.

||||| Why New York City's "Stop and Frisk" policy is a gay equality issue, as well as a civil rights one.

||||| The Human Rights Campaign has published the largest-ever study on the lives of gay teens.

> West Hollywood gets rainbow street crossings.

||||| Japan's tsunami dock washes up in Oregon.

 UK NEWS 

< Birmingham's Rhinestone Rhino unveiled in the city's gay village.

||||| Air France pilot refuses to deport gay man from UK to Cameroon.

||||| Church of England claims proposals to legalise gay marriage could "undermine its status".

||||| Church of England's argument dissected. "It is inconceivable that a court would force any religious institution to perform a same sex marriage."

||||| Progress v the pulpit. "The church lies strewn perilously across the tracks of progress."

||||| Rabbi: gay marriage opponents taking "pick and mix" approach to scriptures, and "might as well support stoning and slavery."

> The Daily Show mocks the "orgy of excitement" that was CNN's coverage of the Queen's Jubilee.

||||| So, why won't the Queen embrace the queens?

||||| Back to the workhouse. "In all the debate about jubilee stewards sleeping under bridges, one big fact is being overlooked – Britain's army of unpaid labour is growing bigger each month."

< Why the 2012 Olympics are seeing many gay pride festivals across the UK cancelled.

||||| Why the 2012 Olympics will bring more prostitutes.

||||| SCOTLAND: Winning the gay marriage fight. An in-depth look at the fight for same-sex marriage in Scotland – a battle with important lesson for equality campaigners worldwide

||||| Mike Buonaiuto talks about the short film he made for the Coalition For Equal Marriage.

||||| NORTHERN IRELAND: Homosexual prejudice worsens over past six years.

||||| Little Britain: why the UK is no longer a superpower. "Economic crisis apart, the United Kingdom is still a major player on the world stage, right? Wrong."

 AFRICA NEWS 

> SOUTH AFRICA: The flood of gay refugees into South Africa find an unsafe haven awaiting them, with a creaking asylum system exposing them to corruption, homophobia and the risk of attack.

||||| SOUTH AFRICA: Failing gay asylum seekers.

||||| MALAWI: UK, IMF announce increase in aid, following President Joyce Banda's decision to decriminalise homosexuality.

||||| KENYA: Gay man stoned to death outside Nairobi.

||||| NIGERIA: Gay lecturer arrested for allegedly harassing a male student.

 MIDDLE EAST NEWS 

< ISRAEL: Tel Aviv Pride 2012, in pictures.

> ISRAEL: Israeli military accused of staging gay pride photo. "Image of two male soldiers holding hands on Israel Defence Force's Facebook page is said to be misleading."

 BODY & MIND 

||||| Why the HPV vaccination should be extended to gay men.

> Restrictions on gay male blood donors putting lives at risk. "A monogamous gay man may be banned from giving blood, yet a promiscuous straight man isn't. It makes no sense."

||||| Why are people taking more food risks?

||||| WHO: Diesel exhausts cause cancer.

||||| Is it dangerous to bleach your butt hole?

||||| The case for avoiding the sun.

< The top six tips for getting washboard abs!

||||| Gay "cure" myths busted.

||||| The top 20 most miserable countries in the world.

 THE PLANET 

> Animal pictures of the week. Right, Sulawesi crested macaque mothers cradle their babies.

||||| Australians were naive. Dingoes are versatile predators. "The conclusion of the Azaria Chamberlain case reminds Australians that we cannot control nature."

||||| We ignore the shocking decline of birds at our peril.

||||| The angry lizards who start fights for no reason.

||||| How "depraved" sex acts (sexual coercion, sexual and physical abuse of chicks, necrophilia, non-procreative sex, and homosexual behaviour) by penguins shocked polar explorer.

 WEB & GADGETS 

||||| The cutest printer in the world.

||||| UK government proposes measures to force websites toidentify trolls.

||||| Is Grindr really a great example of gay pride?

||||| How Seinfeld predicted the coming of social networking sites.

 PRINT & VISUAL 

||||| Here's another chance to hear ka-os|theory favourite Diriye Osman's short story Pavilion ("transphobia – between the skin-head from Stoke & the dreadlocked sadist"), read by the author himself.

> Diriye (left) reads his story Shoga ("about a Somali teenager living in Kenya with his overprotective grandmother, Ayeeyo. When Ayeeyo hires a charismatic houseboy called Boniface, the two men embark on a dangerous affair that threatens to upend their lives") here.

||||| 90% of books reviewed in the New York Times in 2011 were by caucasian writers.

||||| Ray Bradbury, the author, is dead. He was 91.

||||| In Taiwan, sales of gay-themed books are surging ahead by 30% more than in the past.

||||| The Fan Who Knew Too Much, by Anthony Heilbut, a new book examining gays in the black church.

||||| Newspaper comic strip Funky Winkerbean adds gay plot in celebration of its 40th anniversary.

||||| Batman comic writer Grant Morrison says caped crusader is "very, very gay".

< X-Men character Northstar proposes to boyfriend Kyle.

> Spandex: Fast and Hard, by Martin Eden, the all-gay superhero team. Visit the official site.

||||| The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art - New York's first gay art museum - gets $US10 million gift donation.

< Room Portraits, by German photographer Menno Aden.

||||| What's it like to live near a skyscraper?

 STAGE 

||||| Review: Torch Song Trilogy. "However pioneering it once was in its advocacy of gay family life, Fierstein's trilogy now seems to be pushing at an open door."

 CINEMA 

> Young, black and lame: The New York Times finds a lot to dislike in Patrik Ian-Polk's The Skinny. Read the ka-os|theory review.

||||| Disney's gay studio chief Rich Ross ousted after massive box office failure of John Carter.

< It's a story of gay twins, Dolly Parton and a road trip: Hollywood to Dollywood chronicles Gary and Larry Lane's cross-country adventure and received the blessing of Parton herself.

||||| Watch the trailer for Corpus Christi: Playing With Redemption, a documentary about the play which depicts Jesus and his apostles as gay men living in Texas in the 1950s.

||||| Openly gay actor Matt Bomer talks about taking it all off for stripper film Magic Mike.

||||| Of the film, Channing Tatum says, "With Joe Manganiello naked in a movie, I think even straight guys are going to be, 'I need to see that. That man is a specimen.'"

> Thoughts I had while staring at the Magic Mike poster.

||||| Magic Mike: As sexy as "a block of cheese".

||||| My obsession with Andy Milligan's cult horror movies. "Why the notorious Drive director paid £16,000 on eBay to buy up Milligan's films and bring them back to life."

< Review: Boys On Film - Cruel Britannia. "Erotic, engaging, exciting and most of all entertaining, this compilation makes you proud to be British."

||||| Review: This Is What Love In Action Looks Like. "Haphazard in its editing style but its subject matter is deadly serious and worthy of being outed."

> Review: American Translation. "Disturbing, intense and unsettlingly erotic, this is a film that shines a light on the darkest recesses of the human psyche and isn’t afraid to show us what it finds there."

< Review: ECupid. "Seriously underpowered and underwhelming, this is a film that has a chronic case of anaemia."

||||| Review: Private Romeo. "An interesting, ingenious experiment, but not an entirely successful one."

> Review: Absent. "Intelligent, artful and intense, the film is just a hair's breadth from being perfect."

||||| Trailer: How To Survive A Plague. Directed by David France, it's in cinemas September.

||||| Ann Rutherford, the actress best known for playing Scarlett O'Hara's youngest sister Careen in Gone With the Wind, is dead. She was 94.

 TV 

||||| Gays of our lives: All the latest gay soap developments from around the world, with Anthony D. Langford.

< Sandra Bernhard joins the cast of exciting new gay drama DTLA. There's a new trailer for the series here.

> Gale Harold laments about missing Queer as Folk reunion in Germany, tells fans: "I hope you will all understand and forgive my absence."

||||| Read an interview with Randy Harrison (Justin). "I don't think that Justin and I would really like each other. But we also wouldn't not like each other. I think we wouldn't really care about each other. His implicit will to follow hetero-normative examples of roles and relationships is not who I am. Bullshit like that bores me."

||||| There's pictures from the reunion here, and plenty at the Thea Gill (Lindsay) Facebook page. Kinnetiks also have a huge gallery of shots.

||||| A report from the opening day of the convention...

...And a report from the final day of the convention (left).

||||| NBC orders its "gayest sitcom" since Will & Grace; The New Normal comes from Glee creator Ryan Murphy.

||||| Daytime soap actress Joanna Johnson comes out in real life as her character in The Bold and The Beautiful is also revealed to be gay.

> Scottish soap River City features gay domestic violence storyline.

< Coronation Street set refused listed status ahead of its closure next year.

||||| OMG! A Tyson Beckford sex tape is out there! Somewhere.

< Shemar Moore "bulges" on Miami beach.

 MUSIC 

||||| Zebra Katz, Cakes Da Killa and the rise of queer rap. "In New York, a wave of fearless young gay rappers are claiming their space in the homophobic world of hip-hop – and the mainstream wants a piece of it."

< Sizzling gay hip-hop duo Freaky Boiz announce the recording of their first official video - Bounce - in New York on 15th June.

||||| Oh oh. Former B2K boybabe Raz B is set to release his memoirs, entitled This Boy's Life, in which he goes into detail about those allegations of molestation he suffered at the hands of manager Chris Stokes, and talks about "forced orgies involving other members of B2K". He also apparently outs Chris Brown (fresh from a Twitter bitchfest with Brian McKnight), Bow Wow and Lil Wayne.

||||| Brown, of course, has hit back at the claims.

||||| Marques Houston claims Raz is on drugs, attention seeking.

||||| Tyrese Gibson acquires rights to Teddy Pendergrass bio-pic.

||||| Romeo Miller - aka Lil Romeo - strips for People's "Sexiest Men Alive" issue (video below).

||||| Cyndi Lauper honoured for gay advocacy.

> Time Out Hong Kong interviews newly-out popstar Anthony Wong.

||||| Jamaica reggae star Beenie Man now backs gay rights, apparently.

||||| 63 reasons why boybands were better in the '90s.

||||| Westlife singer Shane Filan declared bankrupt.

||||| Justin Bieber: "Glass, how does it work?"

||||| Openly gay singer Will Young's first single, Evergreen, has topped a list of the bestselling singles of the 21st century.

||||| Videos: Will Young - I Just Want a Lover; Cazwell - Rice and Beans; Uriel Yekutiel - PRIDE.

||||| Donna Summer, the musician, is dead. She was 63.

 THE SEX BIZ 

< Erik Rhodes has died. Falcon Studios confirm in a statement, "Erik died of a heart attack in his sleep this morning at 5:30 AM EDT."

||||| Erik Rhodes: Falcon Studios' official tribute page.

||||| Erik Rhodes: From The Advocate, "The death of a porn star shouldn't be cast aside. The loss has a lesson for our community that it for too long has ignored."

||||| Erik Rhodes: From SFist, "He wrote about his life as a porn star and prostitute, never sparing anyone the nakedly honest details of his depressions, his abuse of party drugs like GHB and meth, and the ups and downs of his relationships, including one with a boyfriend of four years which ended earlier this year. Most interestingly, he was always glad to take criticism from 'fans' and have public dialogues in the comments on his blogs, and to try to make people understand his dark sense of humor, his nihilism, and how the persona of 'Erik Rhodes' contrasted with his actual self. All of it felt like an art project at times, a critique of gay male norms and body image issues, in which he, himself, was the medium and the subject."

||||| Erik Rhodes: From The Sword, "There was a lot to love and appreciate about him, but the one thing I loved and appreciated most about Erik Rhodes was that he 'got it.' 'It' being the ridiculousness of fame, the ridiculousness of the industry he worked in, and, at the risk of sounding obtuse, the ridiculousness of life in general. He loved what he did on camera, but Erik Rhodes never took 'Erik Rhodes' seriously. Erik Rhodes was humble, full of humility, and completely self-aware, perhaps to a fault. Ironically, he was more grounded in reality than most of his peers, and especially his detractors."

||||| Erik Rhodes: From Initial Public Offerings, "Of all the people in the world, he reminded me the most of Marilyn Monroe. On the inside he was all small town Norma Jean Baker, but on the outside, he was larger than life, sex writ large. Like Marilyn he could have turned away from his public persona at any time, but he chose to ride it out to its inevitable end. He knew that the monster he created was too big to control and he was filled with the kind of sadness that often comes with excess. Too much of a good thing, as they say."

||||| Erik Rhodes: His last Tumblr post. "My cycle right now... 3000 mg of Test Enanthate a week, 2500 mg of Nandrolone Decaonate and 300 mg of Trenbolone Acetate. With 5iu of Human Growth Hormone everyday. I'm waiting until i pop. Or my liver to fails... which ever comes first."

< Erik Rhodes: The covers. "The only thing Erik Rhodes didn’t pose for throughout his decade-long career was a mugshot."

||||| Erik Rhodes: "He's of course not the first to die from all of that too young, but he's maybe the first whose pain was so fully documented (and discussed) online."

> Erik Rhodes: Meet his (straight) twin brother.

||||| Erik Rhodes: Happier times.

||||| Louis Theroux on porn: The decline of an industry. "For many performers, the movies are now a sideline and a kind of advertising for their main business of prostitution. While the wages stagnate, and the jobs dry up, the pressure on the performers continues."

||||| Anthony Romero exits Next Door Studios, writes scathing exposé of the "gay for pay" purveyor.

||||| Austin Wilde fired by Next Door for refusing to appear in an orgy with "gay for pay" models.

||||| Harry Louis quits porn to be with millionaire boyfriend Marc Jacobs.

||||| Heterosexual white male James Huntsman: "I'm a minority."

< WTF? Treasure Island Media giving away dark chocolate with every purchase of Bruthaload.

> OMG! Tyler Trenton (in red socks!) and Manny Baby, doing laundry.

||||| The Sword to launch "gay porn mega studio with over 700 different sites, 250 themes, and 5000 different gay porn star exclusives".

 SPORT 

< Louis Smith strips for Cosmpolitan UK's Olympic Centrefolds. Smith recently took silver on the pommel horse, at the European Championships.

||||| Louis Smith's fitness tips!

> Openly gay gymnast Josh Dixon has been selected for the US National Team, and will now compete at the US Gymnastics Olympic Trials at the end of June.

> America's youngest ever diving hopeful - 13-year-old Jordan Pisey Windle - has two gay dads.

||||| Greg Louganis: The toughest sissy in the world.


< NFL players - like Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III, left, - tell Outsports they would support a gay teammate.

> Jaw-dropping (or something...) pictures of Heisman Trophy finalist Tyrann Mathieu have been plastered all over the net by a woman scorned. Saggers have the best (most explicit) shots.

< New York Giants star Victor Cruz poses for Latina. Cute.

||||| Former NFL star Wade Davis: "If I could do it all over again, I would come out while I was playing. I now understand the impact that would have had."

> OMG! Plastic boy toy flashes his abs at the Champions League Semi Final between Real Madrid and FC Bayern Muenchen.

||||| Italian footballer Antonio Cassano "hopes" there are no queers in the national team.

||||| Openly gay Swedish player Anton Hysen responds, "It is sad. I don't understand how he can say that."

> Maneo release anti-homophobia poster ahead of Euro 2012.

 PARTING SHOTS 

||||| Ukraine or the Ukraine: Why do some country names have 'the'?

||||| Sinners, Repented: From the NBA's Mark Cuban, to Cardinal Francis George, the top 15 gay insults and apologies.

||||| Today in Tumblr: White trash men.

< Penis pants.

||||| And finally, It Doesn't Get Better - for gay haters!

Issue 121: 16 April - 15 June 2012

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