Issue 185: Gully Queen, Essex Hemphill, Divine, Lego, Cazwell, Fernando Torres, True Blood, Trocadeo, Sean Zevran, Zebra Katz, and more...



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


| ponder this |

> Ten lies black gays tell.

| Gay youth are nearly four times more likely to attempt suicide.

| The new death etiquette: short, shared, shallow. "Outpourings of 'grief' on Twitter are easy to mock, but maybe they're better than saying nothing at all."

| The woman who thinks reducing the male population by 90 percent will solve everything. (Can't really argue with that, can you?)


< Nine surprising facts about plane crashes...

...So, just how odd is a cluster of plane crashes?



| america |

| Thirty-three states don't protect gay students in anti-bullying laws.

| Anti-gay right-wing nut Texas Governor Rick Perry indicted for abuse of power.

| Is the boycott against the Beverly Hills Hotel and its owner the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei failing? 

Michael Brown killing: Ferguson protests, in pictures.

Was it legal for Officer Darren Wilson to shoot Michael Brown?

< Why America's police forces look like invading armies...

...And why do the cops on TV and in the movies bear so little resemblance to America's real police?

| Why is Ferguson’s government so white? Black people don't bother to vote.

| Why are young black men still expendable in America?

| How prison and a shifting economy have held young black men back.

Get out of jail, Inc. America's troubling for profit probation service.

> Eight more unarmed teens still at large.



| Manipulated and exploited by celebrities like Rihanna and Beyonce, what is the state of black subcultures in 21st century America?


< The grotesque spectacle of people taking selfies at the 9/11 memorial.

| Tipping perpetuates racism, classism, and poverty — let's get rid of it.



> Canada: Maurice Tomlinson on why I avoid black festivals in Toronto.

| great britain |

| Two men who lured, blackmailed men on Grindr jailed.


| Remembering East London before you came and ruined it. "I can’t pretend it doesn't pain me to walk by places like Boxpark. Those stacked up shipping containers strike me as the ultimate cautionary tale of the cul-de-sac that culture based on coolness and consumption – which Shoreditch spearheaded – has ended up in. One big slight of hand, all these lifestyle corporations pretending, cuckoo-like, to be somehow counter-cultural: 'Our other branch is at Westfield,' the staff, who look like bearded trolley dollies, invariably tell you. The whole place looks like it could be next year’s X-Factor set, with inescapable corporate RnB-pop piped too loudly everywhere as you jostle past the CGI’d teenagers with the directional hair..."

| The Conservative government claims they've fixed the economy, but "the way the economy has been 'fixed' is based on inequality, personal debt, badly paid jobs and soaring house prices."

> How white hipsters are threatening post-riots east London.


| The curious world of England's street furniture.

| The hidden perils of the English countryside.


| europe |

| France: The new sign on menus.

| Italy: The doomed Costa Concordia returns home to be turned into scrap.

> Russia: Mir diamond mine in Siberia, one of the largest quarries in the world.

| latin america |

| Jamaica: The woman who's trying to help the island's homeless gay youth. Watch the film.

| Jamaica: Watch Young and Gay: Jamaica's Gully Queens.


| Venezuela: Squatters in Caracas's Tower of David relocated after eight years.

| africa |

< Uganda: Meet Nicholas Opiyo, the lawyer who helped defeat the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

> Uganda: Images from the courtroom as gay Ugandans defeated the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

| Uganda: Seven gay people have been stoned to death or burned alive in rural Uganda in the past two weeks.

> Kenya: Leading gay equality activist Eric Gitari announces suit against government's sodomy law.

| Kenya: Talking to Kuchu Diaspora Alliance founder Victor Mukasa about housing, providing health care for, and protecting gay Ugandan refugees in Kenya.

| Kenya: Popular musician Edward Onwong'a Nyakeriga petitions for a law that sentences foreigners to death-by-stoning for "aggravated homosexuality".

> Central African Republic: Thirteen pictures that tell the story of a civil war.

| asia |

| India: Criminalising gays by misusing anti-gay sex law not acceptable, says Mumbai chief of ruling party.

> India: Outrage over "rape" fashion shoot.

| Japan: The era of smartphones and "dumbwalking".

| middle east |

| Israel: On the run from their Palestinian families, living illegally in Israel, gays from the Palestinian territories can’t go home again.

| inside the spaceship |

| Creating child sex robots is a terrible idea.

< Do revolving doors actually save energy?

| The man who invented pop-up ads is very, very sorry.

| DMCA: How it works, and how it's abused.

| art & design |

< Thai photographer and filmmaker Ohm Phanphiroj documents underage male prostitutes in Thailand in his project Underage.

| Pictures of abandoned airports:


| word! |

> Penguin defends "creepy" Roald Dahl book cover.

| America's oldest gay bookstore, Giovanni’s Room in Philadelphia, is to reopen.


< Book review: 1960s Gay Pulp Fiction: The Misplaced Heritage, edited by Drewey Wayne Gunn and Jamie Harker. "A collection of twelve essays... its best essays go a long way toward rescuing gay pulp from historical 'shadows.' Some of the essays that focus on the literary merits, however, can get a little silly."

> Book review: Wilde Stories 2014: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction, edited by Steve Berman.

< Book review: Let Me See It, by James Magruder. "A collection often interlocking stories that follow the lives of Elliott Biddler and Tom Amelio, first cousins who grow up separately in places like Kansas City and Chicago and find each other as they come of age as gay men in the 1980s."

> Book review: O, Africa!, by Andrew Lewis Conn. "Mixing fact and fiction; combining silent filmmakers with Harlem gangsters, and Jewish Americans with ‘Darkest Africa’; and featuring both straight and gay interracial romances, Conn is walking a very fine line with this book..."

< Book review: Returning to Reims, by Didier Eribon. "One of the most alarmingly overlooked issues facing LGBT politics is the impact of social and economic class divisions within the LGBT community..."


I was sold on J. G. Ballard’s High Rise (1975) after the first ten words: "Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog..."

| How to write about sex without being boring.

< John R. Gordon's writer's diary: Vodou writing.

| at the movies |

| Hollywood’s gay representation numbers are depressing — but GLAAD is wrong about how to fix them...

| And this: A new study on racial diversity in Hollywood isn’t depressing at all! (Spoiler: it is.)

Check out the thirty films in the running for the Iris Prize, award given to the world’s best LGBT film short. Left, The Package.

Talking to Chris Mason Johnson about his film Test, which documents the effect of the AIDS crisis in the '80s.

Talking to Jeffrey Schwarz, director of I Am Divine.

Talking to actor Matthew Camp about his film Getting Go.

| Charlie Carver goes from being gay werewolf in Teen Wolf, to gay role in James Franco picture.

> A Kids cast member is making a documentary about Kids.

< Cinema review: Tiger Orange. "'Porn star turned actor' might seem like a stunt, but both [Frankie] Valenti and the film around him are an effective, thought-provoking take of gay life seen through the eyes of two brothers.

> DVD review: I Am Happiness on Earth. Out: "The most ravishing and powerful expression in the history of out gay cinema." Big Gay Picture Show: "On an emotional and sexual level it’s a lyrical, erotic and highly affecting movie that captures the internal conflict of sexuality even if it does flirt the edges of pretension to get there."

> DVD review: The Last Match. "The ending may not be great, but The Last Match’s depiction of the poverty of the slums, people living difficult lives and the complexities of two young men from that background finding love are extremely well handled."

< DVD review: Test. "Well-acted and made, Test may be a little too quiet for its own good in the early stages, but it builds towards a very effective and moving final third."

> DVD review: Eroddity(s). "It’s as if a horror anthology had a baby with gay porn, but the result may occasionally be hot and occasionally quite interesting, but largely it’s just an excuse for a lot of gratuitous male nudity."

< Why the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie fails in every possible way.

| Thirteen of the most ridiculous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles villains of all time.

Read a 1992 interview with Robin Williams.

> Illustrators pay tribute to Robin Williams.

| Edge of Tomorrow gets new title for DVD after bombing at the box office.

| Twenty-five things you didn’t know about Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.

Temple of Gloom. Why was the second Indiana Jones movie so dark?

> Looking back at Suddenly Last Summer, a gay touchstone.

< Are these the ten ugliest movie posters of all time?

| Trailers: Space Station 76; and ErOddity(s).


| telly addicts |

> Queer As Folk writer Russell T Davies wants your sex stories for new webseries Tofu, an online companion to Channel 4’s upcoming gay drama Cucumber, and E4 sister series Banana (right).

< True Blood's Nelsan Ellis slams former co-star Luke Grimes who reportedly quit over gay storyline.

> Basketball drama Hit the Floor surprises with gay affair between star player and his agent.

| New superhero show The Flash will feature two gay characters.

Gays of our lives: The latest from our favourite gays in soaps, with Anthony D. Langford.

< Coronation Street's original outdoor set is to be demolished and turned into flats and offices.

| Why doesn't TV know how to depict texting or the internet?

| beats, rhymes & life |


...And a dancehall scene too.

| Read The High Priest of Jazz, a 1964 essay on Thelonious Monk.




| Cazwell releases first video from his forthcoming album Hard 2 B Fresh, and Zebra Katz is back with 1 Bad B*tch.


| sex |

| Sex in London's public toilets made me the man I am today.

| California's controversial AB 1576 law - which made condom use in porn mandatory - has been struck down.

Scenes from my life in porn. "I experienced a sense of numbness on set - as I would on many others - that I can only compare to accounts I have read of combat. It was the sense of being in a group of people deliberately and methodically engaged in acts of insanity. Unlike in combat, I was not overwhelmed by the horror of it, but by the grand-scale stupidity..."

> Luke-Kristopher Davis explains how he became an accidental porn star.

Talking to legendary director Jerry Douglas about awards, drug-addicted porn stars, and why he’s done with making porn.


| Bruno Knight arrested for smuggling crystal meth in his anus.

Talking to Blue Bailey about HIV, barebacking, and life after porn.

| Bareback gay porn studios now outnumber condom gay porn studios.

| Which gay porn studio will die next?

| Nominations have opened for the 2014 FlavaMen Blatino Awards.

> Perhaps inspired by Sharknado, FlavaWorks recently had a "Pornado" sale.

< In a move that probably won't do anything for gay adoption, MEN names its new series Son Swap.

< Fernando Torres. Fernando Torres. Fernando Torres.

| Pedro Andreas - who with Daniel Marvin was one of gay porn's hottest ever couples - is back.

| Pre-sex interviews: Yay or nay?


| arena |

> Gay Games swimming, in pictures.

| When will reporters stop asking bullshit questions about Michael Sam?

| First out NBA player Jason Collins considering retirement.

| Auckland confirmed as venue for 2016 Asia Pacific Outgames.

< Louis Smith back to buff.

| the human body |

| Sex without fear: How Truvada is reawakening old arguments.

| Is Truvada 99% effective? Don't be so sure.

| Five reasons HIV is on the rise among young gay men.

Why do we have blood types?

| How to avoid getting ripped off by the dentist.

| Could aspirin cut the risk of cancer?

Why sprinters are muscly and climbers are wiry.

| How dangerous is it to use headphones on a bike?


| How sleep changes as you age, and why you'll need even more of it.

Why you always wake up early after a night of drinking.

| Do different kinds of alcohol get you different kinds of drunk?


> Nine foods you might not have realised are dangerous to your health.

| The hidden horrors lurking in your restaurant.


| What is the difference between guilt and shame?

| The unstoppable march of the upward inflection?

| planet earth |


| SeaWorld whales to get bigger tanks, following the Blackfish controversy.

| Are fish far more intelligent than we realise?


...And microplastic waste, the massive (tiny) threat to sea life.

| Scientists were expecting a big El Niño this year. So where did it go?

> California hasn't had a drought this bad since at least 1895...

...So, just how bad is California's drought? Here's a scary, 10-second answer.

| Ten reasons to be hopeful that we will overcome climate change.

< Boffin develops synthetic "leaf" that produces oxygen.

| and whilst you're thinking about that, think about this... |

| The rise of solo dining.

| The down and dirty history of gossip website TMZ.


| The case against time zones: They're impractical and outdated.

| Why is international shipping so expensive?

| How much does one piece of Lego actually cost?

| And finally, Andrew gets serious about depression, Walter discusses the secrecy surrounding HIV in the black gay community, Jacob talks to Devin about gay sex slaves in prison, and Rogue "Marbie" Scott ponders on make-up for darker gals.


 photo postbodytopheaderJuly13_zps0d33646b.png

Issue 185
13 July - 17 August 2014
On the cover: "Passion", by Art Hermetic.
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Read the last edition.


© 2014

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

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