Issue 207: Maricóns, bears, albinos, Anne Kirkbride, Kamrun, Wagstaff, Tootsie, Looking, Empire, Hustlaball, and more...

the week's

news

& pop

culture,

with a

gay

bias.

left & found

Dear queer kids...

...It really does get better. (Image)

Queer Chicano culture and the reclamation of "maricón."

Less invisible: LGBT images in Latino media in 2014.

Making space for each other in this black gay digital landscape.

On being black, HIV-positive and statistic resistant.

A dad dropped his son off on a date and it restored my faith in humanity.

How far LGBT equality has come, in one tweet.

The death of the suburbs turns out to be a total myth.

Eleven myths about homelessness in America.

Teenagers in prison have a shockingly high suicide rate.

I slept with my school teacher and it sucked.

This study obliterates the myth that Muslims are more violent.

Young, gay and religious – how are LGBT youths reconciling their identities?

news from america

Hanging out at New York's sex-free, alcohol-free bear den.

The Deep South is being hit hard by HIV/AIDS.

How white flight ravaged the Mississippi Delta. "For generations, plantation owners strove to keep black laborers on the farm and competing businesses out of town. Today, the towns faring best are the ones whose white residents stayed to reckon with their own history."

Canada | The perfectly preserved home that was abandoned for decades.

news from europe

England | How former TV weatherman Fred Talbot staged a naked orgy with ten drunk schoolboys on a canal barge.

England | 15-year-old Ayomindy Bile and 18-year-old Jesse Quaye were each jailed for fifteen years for brutally stabbing 20-year-old Connor Barrett (far right) to death in May last year.

England | Boom: Inside a British bank-bombing spree. "They were an ordinary pair of small-time criminals in the UK. Then they figured out how to blow up an ATM."

England's lost theme parks...

...And railway stations.

Germany | The twins of Auschwitz.

news from africa

Anti-gay Robert Mugabe appointed chair of African Union.

Tanzania | How albinos are being hunted down like animals and sold by their own families for thousands of dollars. Witchdoctors claim their body parts "bring luck" in a sick trade "fuelled by the country's elite."

art & design

Resurrecting the gay history of the Holocaust. "New York–based photographer Pacifico Silano's stunning and devastating exhibition Against Nature, on view at ClampArt until February 14, explores an often overlooked and frequently forgotten period of LGBT history: the persecution—and eventual slaughter—of gay men by Nazi Germany."

Talking to the artist John MacConnell.

The art world’s patron Satan. "Stefan Simchowitz has supported dozens of emerging young artists. Why do so many people hate him?"

Toy trains from the past 200 years.

word!

Talking to Jill Leovy about her book Ghettoside, and why Black Lives Matter.

Review | Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe: A Biography, by Philip Gefter. "Just as Wagstaff himself had trouble separating his love of art from his love of the artist (especially if said artist was male, young, and attractive), Gefter is adept at weaving intimate details from his subject’s personal life in with the historical facts to keep everything moving along at a quick clip."

Review | There Goes the Gayborhood?, by Amin Ghaziani. "Ghaziani’s prose is a journey worth taking and serves as a friendly reminder to those of us who do live in these historically gay cities and neighborhoods to appreciate the spaces we occupy and the places we call home."

Review | Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It, edited by Graham Kolbeins, Anne Ishii, and Chip Kidd. "Massively hot, massively entertaining and massively informative."

shouting in the night

Cabaret star Joel Grey comes out as gay, aged 82.

Out actor Tituss Burgess to star as the Witch - a role traditionally played by a woman - in the upcoming production of the Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine musical Into the Woods.

Review | My Night With Reg. "Kevin Elyot’s script still feels entirely real and current, and there’s not a gay man out there who should miss this gem."

at the movies

Talking to Jay Bernard, the newest programmer at BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival.

Why Tootsie is one of the finest (and most important) comedies ever made.

Selma, Boyhood, and the futility of comparing great films.

How Selma got screwed.

White people are flipping out because Selma isn’t about them.

Whitesplaining Selma: A hall of shame.

Why is Hollywood only making one film about Latinos in 2015?

Eleven stars of classic '90s teen movies: Where are they now?

The funniest MPAA ratings descriptions of all time.

Physical entertainment formats continue to prosper.

the box

Talking to Looking's Jonathan Groff about Patrick’s AIDS Panic, and his character's complicated relationship with Agustín.

Watch an interview with Looking's Raúl Castillo on sex, race and class.

Looking season 2 gets gay romance right — but is that enough?

Being gay and black on TV will never be the same. "Director Lee Daniels 'holds up the mirror to us as human beings,' said Jussie Smollett, who plays a young black gay character on Empire."

Empire's ratings show that America wants television diversity.

Empire: "An addictive, Shakespearean soap opera set in the world of hip hop."

Empire: "Daniels has fallen into the expected trope of filmmakers who move into TV. The visuals are dazzling. The Kehinde Wiley and Basquiat paintings radiate the themes of blackness, wealth and pop culture as high art. Terrence Howard’s ever-changing slickback seems to be a barometer of his mood for each scene just as much as his embroidered blazers do battle with Cookie’s fur coats. The script itself, though, leaves much to be desired."

Sorry, Lee Daniels, I tried. "Black people, especially, have fully embraced Empire after only a few episodes... But just like Shonda Rhimes’ Scandal and Kenya Barris’ black-ish, these shows tend to depict elements of black life through imposed standards of white supremacy. Daniels’ inclusion of the gay character Jamal (Jussie Smollett), proved no different."

Watch Jussie Smollett perform No Apologies on Empire episode two...

How to Get Away with Murder, explained in thirteen charts.

True Blood's Alan Ball, together with Elton John and David Furnish, is developing a new HBO show. Virtuoso is a period drama about musical prodigies set in 18th-century Vienna.

Talking to David Simon, the creator of The Wire. "On the set of Show Me a Hero, Simon’s new Oscar Isaac–starring HBO miniseries, the creator of The Wire is as impassioned, cantankerous, and uncompromising as ever

Anne Kirkbride, the actress, is dead. She was 60. Kirkbride is best known for her role as Deirdre Barlow in Coronation Street, a part she played from 1972 until her death.

Anne Kirkbride obituary.

Deirdre Barlow: An appreciation. "The girl who arrived in Coronation Street – and didn’t leave for 42 years."

Deirdre Barlow: Disaster turned to comedy at her touch. "She smoked, she courted disaster at every turn – and never learned to cook. But, somehow, she became a role model anyway."

Anne Kirkbride's last Christmas Day: The final photograph of the Coronation Street actress laughing with family, just weeks before her death.

Anne Kirkbride: A life of drama.

TV soaps just don’t ring true any more – where are all the people staring mutely at their iPhones? "Anne Kirkbride’s funeral is a reminder of a lost era, when Coronation Street and EastEnders showed our changing times back to us. Maybe it’s become hard to depict Britain on screen because so much of British life is now conducted in front of one."

Gays of our lives: A round-up of everything gay in soap.

Netflix’s refusal to say how many people watch its shows is the future of TV.

How 3D glasses could make televisions obsolete.

How The CW went from near extinction to surprising success.

The CW's president "would hope to have" a new TV series of Star Trek.

A long lost interview with the first actor to play the lead role in Doctor Who - William Hartnell - has been recovered in part by the BBC.

From Woody Allen to Bill Cosby, can we hear survivors and still honor legacies?

beats, rhymes & life

Sam Smith, and how to get away with pop music plagiarism.

Empire shows that commanding the dying music industry is an impossible task.

Talking to spoken word performer and rapper George the Poet.

Vinyl record sales in 2014 were the highest they've been since 1993.

Vinyl isn't the future of music. This chart proves it.

VH1 turns thirty this month. Celebrate with ten great pop up videos.

A hit song is usually 3 to 5 minutes long. Here's why.

Video | George The Poet - Grinding...

sex

Kamrun (real name Anthony Johnson), the veteran porn star, is dead. He was 42. Director Chi Chi LaRue, model Rémy Mars and blogger Papi Chulo led tributes on Twitter.

Read an interview with Kamrun from 2013.

Gay porn and the gutter butt era.

Why are whites always the bottom in interracial porn?

Becoming a Power Bottom 101.

The twelve most powerful women in gay porn, ranked.

“Dead” gay porn star Philippe Delvaux resurrected.

Why did NextDoorBuddies stop shooting bareback porn?

Sean Cody has been sold to Men.com. What's going to change? Nothing, apparently.

Corbin Fisher 11th Anniversary Party, in pictures.

Gay porn power couples, ranked. Above, KAOS favourites Diego Lauzen and Wagner Vittoria.

Twinks Of Our Lives: Evan Parker’s current boyfriend just fucked Evan Parker’s ex-boyfriend’s current boyfriend.

Talking to Liam Riley talks about leaving twink porn, taking his mom to porn award shows, and aspiring to be Paris Hilton.

Read the police report that landed Johnny Rapid behind bars.

Gay porn star mug shots, ranked.

Bel Ami models - including Johan Paulik and Kevin Worhol - file suit against the blogger responsible for the site BelAmiGossip.

Ten people react to the insane hotness of Kris Evans and Hoyt Kogan.

Hustlaball Las Vegas pre-party, in pictures. Here, here, here, and here.

Hustlaball Las Vegas, in pictures. Here, here, here, here, and here!

Mid-Atlantic Leather weekend, in pictures.

David McIntosh flaunts it in Sydney.

Liam Riley wants you to love yourself.

st. elsewhere

Is cancer random?

Heartburn could be a sign of stomach or oesophageal cancer.

Sitting all day increases risk of disease, even with exercise.

The six questions every good doctor should ask you.

Antibiotics: US discovery labelled "game-changer" for medicine.

Ten things I wish people understood about suicide.

Nine myths about PTSD.

Dementia linked to common over-the-counter drugs.

hell's kitchen

The shopping basket through the ages.

Boffins discover how to "unboil" eggs.

How to tell if a wine is faulty, or merely funky.

Shake Shack rocks McDonald's to its foundations – but which is better?

zoo

A young swan apparently drowns itself in distress after the death of its mother. So, do animals commit suicide?

The cruelty of Beijing's black market for dogs.

Animal pictures of the week.

planet earth

Greenland’s meltwater rivers "the largest contributor to rising sea levels."

Kacper Kowalski's breathtaking pictures of a Polish forest.

When lakes explode.

inside the spaceship

The recurring Facebook privacy hoax.

WhatsApp users can now chat from their computer using Chrome.

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

Eyeball tattoo, anyone?

And finally, Rogue "Marbie" Scott realises age ain't nothin' but a number; Andrew on the dating long distance; Walter uncovers more Black Gay Men; and these twins. I know. I know...

Issue 207: 01-31 January 2015

On the cover: Anne Kirkbride.

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Postcript

"You know, we might just as well not have

bothered to come. The whole thing's been ridiculous."

© 2015