Issue 240: Frank Ocean, Angel Colon, Gays Against Guns, Rio, RuPaul, Red Skin, Jaden Smith, Lou Pearlman, Ken Ott, and more...


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

 photo strip post a 16 Aug 2015_zpszx5bv5jp.png

Left & Found

Homophobic male university students unconsciously favour gay images and activities, study finds.


Why some straight journalists need a reminder on the reality of LGBT life.

Have you sent someone a dick pic recently? Bad luck: that person probably showed it to their friends.

The insult and intimidation of black women is as American as apple pie.

Why asking black people about "black-on-black crime" misses the point.

The Superman crossover that perfectly explained white privilege decades ago.

Fractured lands: How the arab world came apart. "This is a story unlike any we have previously published. It is much longer than the typical New York Times Magazine feature story; in print, it occupies an entire issue. The product of some 18 months of reporting, it tells the story of the catastrophe that has fractured the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq 13 years ago, leading to the rise of ISIS and the global refugee crisis."


News
America

Busted! Apple’s gay CEO donated to elect Republicans to Congress. "Tim Cook and eight other executives at Apple — which has staunchly supported LGBT rights — gave a combined $45,900 to a PAC to reelect House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans to Congress. Current Republican leadership has blocked LGBT-friendly bills while advancing anti-gay legislation."


Anti-gay Christian protester cruelly laughs as gay man grieves for husband.

"Christian warrior" arrested for threatening terrorist attacks against "gays, faggots and lesbians."

Pulse survivor Angel Colon has walked unassisted for the first time since the attack two months ago.

The victims of the Pulse massacre "got what they deserved," according to Georgia Pastor Ken Adkins. Now he's in jail, accused of molesting a child.

Florida hospitals are absorbing the medical costs incurred by victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting.

Former president Bill Clinton has visited the Pulse memorial in Orlando.

INTERVIEW  Talking to Pulse survivor Angel Santiago.

Gays Against Guns lead protest outside NRA office...

...And then they staged a die-in in the Manhattan offices of BlackRock, to protest its "gunstocks."

The former Portland black chapter of PFLAG, the only one of its kind in the nation, declares independence.

Broadway dancer Marcus Bellamy (leftcharged with the murder of his boyfriend, 27-year-old Bernardo Almonte (right) after confessing on Facebook: “Forgive me. I did it because I love you. I love you all. I loved him also. He told me love and hate are the same emotion. Forgive me. I know not what I do. I did it for love. For god [sic]. On high.”


This gay couple went looking for a third on Jack’d, then brutally murdered him.

Martin Blackwell sentenced to forty years after pouring boiling water on sleeping gay couple.

Hasidic men 22-year-old Pinchas Braver and 42-year-old Abraham Winkler get off with probation for the 2013 homophobic attack on Taj Patterson. As reader Nicole L. Smith commented, "If it were Patterson who beat beat Pinchas or Winkler the outcome of the punishment would have been completely different. Patterson would have received three years in prison. To be a Hasidic man in New York."

Manhattan resident Omar Villalobos claims New York police officers ignored his homophobic attack.

Father posts heartbreaking message for the bullies who caused son to take his life.


Vandals in Salem plant fireworks inside the newspaper box of The Rainbow Times, the largest LGBT publication in New England.

Russell Wilson (a quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks) and singer Ciara moved their wedding from North Carolina in protest of House Bill 2, the state's anti-LGBT law.

Gay conservative Milo Yiannopoulos - who has been banned from Twitter for racist and sexist tweets - is facing scrutiny over his scholarship fund for white men.

California ballot initiative Prop. 60 would allow the public to sue adult film performers who don't use condoms.

Target is to install gender-neutral bathrooms in all of its stores.

Delta Airlines jettisons Chris Rock's 2008 HBO comedy special Kill the Messenger over homophobic slur.

Charlotte Pride, in pictures.

Provincetown Carnival, in pictures.

Boatslip Beach Club tea dance, in pictures.

Sun, sex and sculpted timber: How architecture shaped Fire Island Pines.

The boom and bust of Heartbreakers, North Dakota’s only gay bar.

Remembering Los Angeles's Black Cat bar, site of a pre-Stonewall gay equality protest.

Kentucky’s hidden gay history emerges, from drag queens to Revolutionary War vets.


The Republican Party is officially anti-LGBT. Actual Republicans? Not so much.

How most states allow discrimination against LGBT people.

The original underclass. "Poor white Americans’ current crisis shouldn’t have caught the rest of the country as off guard as it has."


Three years of nights. "Violence convulses the city after dark. Reporting on it leaves its own scars."

Secret cameras record Baltimore's every move from above. "Since January, police have been testing an aerial surveillance system adapted from the surge in Iraq. And they neglected to tell the public."

The ballad of Rocky Rontal. How do we forgive the unforgivable? "Rocky’s older brothers, Richard and Speedy, were in juvenile, California Youth Authority. A white guy got stabbed at a party, and Richard was convicted. Then it was Speedy’s turn: He pummeled a tecato, a heroin addict, who ratted on one of his homies. And then he was gone, too. Now Rocky was the man of the house."

CANADA  Montreal Pride - where Justin Trudeau has became the first sitting prime minister to walk in the Pride march - in pictures.

CANADA  The town where 100 young people have tried to kill themselves. "When Justin Trudeau came to power in Canada, he promised to repair the country's relationship with its aboriginal people, after centuries of discrimination. A disproportionate number of indigenous women have gone missing or been murdered in recent decades, and suicide attempts have risen dramatically in some communities."

ANTIGUA & BARBUDA  Cabinet decides that “the buggery law will remain unchanged”.

VENEZUELA  Hard times breed malaria as desperate flock to mines. "As jobs and food disappear, formerly middle class Venezuelans are descending on gaping illegal mining pits, some as deep as fifteen stories, searching for gold but often finding armed gangs and malaria."

BRAZIL  The Olympics left Rio with a few improvements. And a frightening police violence problem. "The victims are mostly young and black. During the games alone, police killed eight people."

Can Brazil be saved? "Colossal corruption. Political chaos. The worst recession in its history. The Olympics won’t rescue the once-booming nation. But all is not lost."


News
UK

IRA activists died for gay equality, openly gay Sinn Fein senator Fintan Warfield has said on the 35th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike.

Drag Queen wears tiara coated with HIV+ blood in bid to "end stigma and fight bigotry".

Does London's drag scene have a race problem?

On the £1million London Lesbian and Gay Centre that didn't last a decade.

Gay men defend Birmingham councillor who agreed LGBT people aren’t normal.

A blackmailer who threatened to expose closeted gay men using Grindr has been jailed, with Judge Richard Foster declaring his crimes amounted to "the attempted murder of the soul".

Manchester Pride, in pictures.

"It’s not our pride, faggots." Manchester United fans turn on club for celebrating gay love.

The Queen's Head, one of London’s oldest gay bars, is to close.

Londoners only see what they want to see. The night tube won’t change that. "As I bedded down among the capital’s homeless community, revellers rushed past searching for sex, drink, skunk or home. We were completely invisible."

Here's how the Human Rights Act being scrapped would actually affect you.

Secrecy and firing squads: Britain’s ruthless war on Nazi spies. "During the second world war, the government fought a secret campaign against German spies. Now, new letters from the MI5 archive reveal the true story of Jose Waldberg, one of the men who was executed."


News
World

IRELAND  Trainee priests to be "supervised" at meal times to stop Grindr use.

GERMANY  Why gay men are seeking reparations for a homophobic Nazi law repealed in 1994. "German persecution of gay men continued far after the Nazis' defeat in 1945... more gay men were convicted under Paragraph (§) 175, Germany's former anti-sodomy statute, in the first two and a half decades of the Cold War than ever were under Nazi rule."

UKRAINE  The city of Odessa has held its first ever LGBT pride march.

TURKEY  The shocking murder of trans activist Hande Kader says much about Turkey today.

IRAQ  Four more "gay" men killed by ISIS, including two members.

IRAQ  Tales of the tyrant (May 2002). "What does Saddam Hussein see in himself that no one else in the world seems to see? The answer is perhaps best revealed by the intimate details of the Iraqi leader's daily life."

EGYPT  Police use Grindr to hunt gay men.


SOUTH AFRICA  Christo and Theo Menelaou make history as both father triplets.

SOUTH AFRICA  First gay streaming TV channel - PrideTV - launches.

INDIA  The caste system is alive and kicking – and maiming and killing.

JAPAN  "I have no choice but to keep looking." "Five years after the tsunami that killed tens of thousands, a husband still searches the sea for his wife, joined by a father who hoping to find his daughter."

PHILIPPINES  Why secret gay language Swardspeak has gone mainstream.


AUSTRALIA  Man been arrested at Sydney gay sex club for filling a lube dispenser with hydrochloric acid.

AUSTRALIA  Pharmaceutical company Gilead accused of overcharging for PrEP.

AUSTRALIA  Hundreds of gay couples are already getting married at British consulates, despite same sex marriage remaining illegal.

AUSTRALIA  The LGBT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders doing amazing work in their respective fields across the country.

AUSTRALIA  Pauline Hanson can't be dismissed this time. One Nation is bigger than it looks.


Médecins Sans
Frontières

Did HIV kill the dinosaurs? "HIV-related retroviruses may date back as far as 60 million years — which puts their emergence to around the time dinosaurs died off."


When HIV activists hijacked the Olympic rings at Atlanta's 1995 Olympic games.


On London's chemsex syphilis crisis.

The cancer side effect we don’t talk about: losing masculinity. "As cancer continues to change and compromise my identity, understanding what it is to be a ‘real man’ has been added to all the other daily struggles."

UK tea company Tetley claims that by 2026, it will be be able to produce a range of “Remedy Teas” “enriched with medicines” to cure everything from sore heads to hair loss and erectile dysfunction.


WATCH  What happens when flies land on your food.



Ghetto
Romance

Why I’ll never date a man whose skin looks like mine. "Growing up gay in India, I was bullied mercilessly by my peers, and fantasized about the out-and-proud white men I saw in movies. They’re still the only type I can love."

I celebrated my honeymoon at Berghain's notorious gay sex club. "When we found out about Lab.Oratory, a sex club in the basement of Berlin's internationally renowned Berghain nightclub, we knew we had to go — that taking part in a bacchanal 300-man orgy was the perfect way to celebrate our bond."

How do I stop bickering with my partner?

Gay men can identify the armpit odour of other gay men, study suggests.


The
Box

Is television failing young people?

On Red Skin, the new LGBT web series from the creator of Freefall.

Which three About Him cast letters would win your medals?

Ten reasons to get down with The Get Down.

Jaden Smith gets the gay kiss his father never had.

Jaden Smith knew the world wouldn't understand him, even when he was a baby.

On The Night Of, a masterful HBO drama that's almost too painful to watch. "Riz Ahmed is prime suspect in a gruesome murder in this slowly unfolding police procedural, which invites us to check every last scene for clues."

INTERVIEW  Talking to RuPaul about Trump, the Emmys, Black Lives Matter, drag kings, and his belief in a higher power.

INTERVIEW  Talking to RuPaul. "The entertainment business is a business, and the bottom line is about money. If any group wants to have a niche in the industry, they have to buy the tickets. It's not a moral obligation that Hollywood has, it's a monetary obligation. People mix that up too much. They say, 'well it should be this, it should be that.' If you want it to be that, then buy a fucking ticket and you'll make it that. The industry is not a human with a consciousness—it's corporations with a bottom line."

Lou Pearlman's life story to become limited TV series.

INTERVIEW  Talking to Amy Schumer about racist jokes and what’s "gross" about being Hollywood’s "cool thing".

Andrea Tantaros calls Fox News a "sex-fueled Playboy Mansion-like cult" in lawsuit.

Lord Cashman to reprise EastEnders role after 30 years. "Actor-turned-Labour MEP hit the headlines in 1987 when his character had the first gay kiss in a British soap opera."

EastEnders loses its beloved long-serving extra Michael Leader.


Why Game of Thrones' sexual violence isn't "nonsense".

Robert Zemeckis is making Noah’s Ark in Space for NBC. (Doctor Who did it already, in 1974.)

Nine major TV characters who vanished.

Channel 4 dating show Naked Attraction features gay contestant.

RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars 2 is the show at its best — and most self-aware.

WATCH Oxygen debuts Strut, a new reality series about trans modeling agency. Trailer:


Deal Or No Deal axed after eleven years.


Are You Being Served? returns for the BBC's classic sitcom season. "Essentially tribute-band TV, full of familiar riffs and double entendres."

Critic-proof TV: From Mrs Brown's Boys to The Big Bang Theory.


How Superstore, NBC's comedy about bored employees at a big-box store, became The Office's rightful heir.

The BBC test card: inside a cult YouTube obsession.

WATCH  The latest episodes of About Him; Street Behavior; and a new season of BoyDrama.

Picture
House

Gay people made Hollywood, but you wouldn't know it from the movies. "As 50s heartthrob Tab Hunter points out, Tinseltown’s phobia of gay men in leading roles isn’t a thing of the past. Who is the industry afraid of offending?"

INTERVIEW  Talking to Pedro Almodóvar.

Pedro Almodóvar says that if he had directed the film adaptation of Annie Proulx’s short story Brokeback Mountain his film would have had a lot more gay sex than Ang Lee’s.

Ben-Hur a biblical failure at the box office. "The film, which courted Christian viewers and abandoned the gay subtext of the 1959 classic, could lose up to $100 million."

As the wheels fall off Ben-Hur, where next for the Hollywood blockbuster? "The summer season has seen more than its share of box office flops, and nervous studios are already looking for the next big thing."

Ben-Hur "gay sub-plot" not necessary in 2016, claims the flop's star Toby Kebbell.

Ben-Hur couldn't have been worse. "The movie entitled Ben-Hur, which is opening this weekend, has so little in common with the sumptuous 1959 Charlton Heston epic of the same name, it barely qualifies as a remake. It barely qualifies as a film."

Seven terrible movies that deserve reboots.

Actor Nate Parker's "sorrow" over rape accuser's suicide...

...But does his past raise questions of how courts handle rape? "A rape accusation against Birth of a Nation director Nate Parker has recently resurfaced as Fox Searchlight prepares to promote the film, which will be released in October."

Usher's booty stars in the new film Hands of Stone.

Twenty-two LGBT documentaries you need to watch.

On El Canto del Colibrí, the new documentary exploring the relationship between Latino immigrant fathers and their LGBT children.

INTERVIEW  Talking to Andrew Ahn about his new film Spa Night, which focuses on a gay Korean-American teenager who struggles with his parents’ expectations, while exploring the underbelly of gay Los Angeles.

REVIEW  Boys On Film 15: Time & Tied. "Another great selection of gay-themed shorts. Indeed, this is one of the strongest Boys On Film release from the past couple of years, with a fascinating selection – ranging from the sexy to the thought-provoking – that’s well worth your time."

REVIEW  Liebmann. "While it has some great moments and there’s a charm about Liebmann, it undermines itself by initially making the central character seem pretty dull and a tad annoying."

Why Noel Clarke's "hood" trilogy remains a vital snapshot of Britain. "As Brotherhood hits cinemas, it’s time to say goodbye to a series that represented urban youth culture in an important and reflective way."

How Boyz In The Hood beat the odds to get made — and why it matters today. "When John Singleton first approached Ice Cube to be in a movie, the rapper didn’t take him seriously. But soon the novice actor, along with Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishburne, and Angela Bassett, realized Singleton’s script about South-Central Los Angeles was unlike anything that had come before it. A quarter century later, the cast and crew talk about making the revolutionary film."

The new Star Wars documentary that invites you to unlearn what you have learned about the widely derided prequels.


WATCH  Here's the trailers for Spa Night; El Canto del Colibrí and Hurricane Bianca;



Shouting
At Night

Robert Whirry — a writer of the upcoming play Anita Bryant's Playboy Interviewon why it's so important to know your enemies.


The agony and the ecstasy of men's competitive pole dancing, in pictures.


Art
+
Design

Russia-born performance artist Mischa Badasyan had sex with a different man every day for a year, for art.

Marina Fini's pictures of The Ronalds.

What it was like to set up Andy Warhol's iconic factory studio in the 60s.


Dark tower (September 2013). Decay inside africa’s tallest apartment complex.

China opens world's highest and longest glass bridge.

London Olympicopolis: The design we might’ve had. "Plans for the cultural hub to be built on the site of the 2012 London Olympics have been called ‘dull as ditchwater’. It could have all been so different, judging by an inventive, rejected proposal seen here for the first time."

How London might have looked: from Regent St monorail to a straight Thames. "The London skyline has been saved from some questionable designs over the years – including a massive stone pyramid in Trafalgar Square."


Word!

Frank Ocean wrote a poem titled Boyfriend for his newly released zine, Boys Don't Cry.

Frank Ocean: What kind of writer is he? "Four authors unpack the singer’s literary aesthetic."

How one novelist is fighting gay conversion therapy in Ecuador.

Mills & Boon: zero shades of feminism. "Val Derbyshire is right to nail the snobbery directed at romance literature. But the truth is, a genre that revels in forced seduction does nothing to empower women."

INTERVIEW  Talking to Colson Whitehead about Ferguson, fiction and acclaim vs. bad reviews.

READ  An excerpt from the new biography of reality TV trailblazer Pedro Zamora (the openly gay AIDS activist of Cuban descent) which asks what his life would be like now.

REVIEW  Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was, by Sjón. "A work rich in allegory and larger political ramifications, Moonstone is a compelling meditation on queer identity, one that earnestly argues for the recognition of one country’s forgotten gay history."


Literary fiction readers understand others' emotions better.

On Boom! Studios' new series The Backstagers, the comic book for all the queer theatre geeks.

On Taschen's new two volume 1000 Model Directory.

On the rag, your weekly look at the free gay 'zines. 19th August here. 26th August here.


Beats, Rhymes
& Life

Inside the world's biggest record collection. "Brazilian businessman Zero Freitas owns over six million records, a collection which he intends to catalogue for public use and transform into a vast listenable archive."


Frank Ocean’s Blond: Six things to know.

Frank Ocean: On Crystal LaBeija, the iconic drag queen behind Endless.


Frank Ocean’s Nikes music video is a queer masterpiece.

Frank Ocean's Blonde release was hardly covered in gay magazines — why?

Frank Ocean: Kanye West begs radio stations to play the new album for the good of music.

Frank Ocean: So, let’s talk about this Blonde/Blond album.


Frank Ocean: Blonde first-listen review. "[His] second release in three days isn’t the pop album some had predicted. But beneath the subtlety lie indelible hooks."

The best R&B of 2016 has nothing to do with Frank Ocean. "The release of Blond threatens to overshadow that this year has been a vintage year for R&B with artists from KING to Abra pushing the genre’s boundaries."

Bette Midler apologises for supposed transphobic Caitlyn Jenner tweet.

Country singer, The Voice judge and Gwen Stefani’s boyfriend Blake Shelton issues an apology of sorts for homophobic Tweets.

Kyle Falconer, front man for Scottish indie band The View, is facing allegations of homophobic abuse.


Blood Orange: "I don’t want people to immediately like my music. That's scary." "The London-born producer builds dense modern pop with roots in hip-hop, R&B and NYC culture. He says he wants people to be intrigued, not infatuated."

How grime gave a voice to a generation. "A new music evolved in east London in 2002 – the sound of an angry but optimistic black Britain."

When neighbourhoods spawn new forms of music (April 2014). "Be it east London's grime scene, the birth of trip-hop in Bristol or Mersey beat in 60s Liverpool, sometimes sound and place are inextricably intertwined. So what are the magic ingredients for a neighbourhood musical revolution?"


A history of grime, by the people who created it (December 2012). "In 2002, two schoolboys in east London helped change the face of electronic music using computers they were given for their homework. Ruff Sqwad's Rapid and Dirty Danger look back."

Lou Pearlman, who spawned the careers of N*SYNC, The Backstreet Boys, O-Town, and more, is dead. He was 62.

Lou Pearlman: Mad about the boys (November 2007). "Until he fled the country in January, accused of embezzling more than $300 million, Lou Pearlman was famous as the impresario behind the Backstreet Boys and 'NSync. Turns out his investors weren't the only victims, colleagues reveal: Pearlman's passion for boy bands was also a passion for boys."

Lou Pearlman's prison interview. "The Backstreet Boys impresario tells wishes he hadn't stolen a half a billion dollars from 1,700 investors and claims his fellow inmates never hassle him about the molestation accusations: 'They realize that none of that can be true.'"


Lou Pearlman: The great and terrible boy band architect and ponzi schemer.


LISTEN  Gryffin (featuring KAOS favourite Bipolar Sunshine) – Whole Heart.

WATCH  Kaoz - Overtime; KillASon - Shine; and Rayvon Own - Don't Let Me Down;



Red Light
District

Provincetown Carnival, in pictures.

On the launch of Naked Sword's indie arm, Naked Sword Film Works, which aims to "produce and showcase new work from independent film directors with an eye toward the provocative, the experimental, and the explicit."

How gay porn completely changed my life – for the better. "I was treated better in porn than in the fashion industry."

Condom advocate Nick Capra has shared a bareback sex video.

Jed Athens reviews the models he has worked with.

Here's a gratuitous shot of new model Bryan King.

KAOS crush Ken Ott now has a YouTube channel.

(Female) reality show slag dry humped on-stage by naked male fan at G-A-Y Porn Idol: "We literally had sex."

Matt Null, the former Corbin Fisher model who appeared for the company as "Austin", is dead. He was 34.


Arena

ESPN retells the story of gay rugby player and 9/11 hero. "Mark Bingham was a gay rugby player from Cal who helped start a worldwide movement of gay rugby players. He also helped save the lives of countless Americans on United flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001."

Outsports founder apologises for branding closeted athletes cowards.

Why wasn’t Derrick Gordon invited to try out for the NBA? “I didn’t get a fair shot... because of the fact that I’m gay,” he says.

The 40th Gay Softball World Series, in pictures...

...And pictures from the first three days, when it rained.

It's not easy being a gay athlete in Brazil. "A semi-closeted volleyball player has seen the struggles of LGBT athletes but finds hope with the Olympics in his country."

Rio 2016: Team LGBT's Olympic medal count beat every country that criminalises gay sex. "Not even the anti-gay country of Jamaica, with its 11 medals, could come close to the performance of publicly out gay, lesbian and bisexual athletes at the Rio Olympics."

Rio 2016: Jamaicans quickly reject anti-gay slurs aimed at gold medalist Omar McLeod.

Rio 2016: Usain Bolt's Olympic goodbye the perfect ending for sprinting's greatest. "Usain Bolt has confirmed himself the greatest, most compelling sprint athlete of the modern Games by completing his third straight Olympic sprint double."

Rio 2016: Out Team GB boxer Nicola Adams wins gold, repeating her 2012 performance.

Rio 2016: Team GB athlete slams Olympics intersex rules after Caster Semenya wins Gold.

Rio 2016: Caster Semenya's grace under pressure. "Journalists tried to focus the conversation on testosterone levels. The out South African runner pushed back."

Rio 2016: Inside Rio's Pride House.

Rio 2016: Danell Leyva wants to 'Make America gay again,' supports trans rights. "Olympic gymnast doesn't shy away from his support of the LGBT community with a big bold gay T-shirt and some strong words about equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans people."

Rio 2016: The US falls out of love with Ryan Lochte, the ultimate "bro".

Rio 2016: An Olympic tale of gold medals and white privilege. "[Ryan Lochte] may not have turned the Rio pool green. But the US swimmer’s frat boy antics have left a nasty yellow streak all over the Games."

Rio 2016: How Ryan Lochte is the worst type of “white boy bro,” explained.

Tokyo 2020: No Phelps or Gatlin – but USA have a wealth of young talent for Tokyo 2020. "The pipeline looks solid in the pool, gymnastics should be strong as ever, and soccer and basketball will be fine. Expect USA to prosper in four years’ time."

Rio 2016: Olympic pole vault penis claim denied by Japan athlete Hiroki Ogita.

Rio 2016: Thirteen lesser-spotted oddities of the Olympics.



Rio 2016: On Canada's Olympics, and the Bolt-De Grasse bromance. "The Summer Games are often overshadowed by their winter counterpart. But Rio 2016 provided plenty of thrills for Canadian viewers."

Rio 2016: Greco-Roman wrestling, in pictures.

Rio 2016: Men’s Freestyle wrestling, in pictures.

Rio 2016: The incredible moment New Zealand and American runners help each other after collision.

London's Olympic Park, four years since the Games left.

The Bennett Brothers vs. everyone. "Michael and Martellus Bennett tend to perplex people. This becomes clear when we stop for lunch at a West Hollywood café, the kind of crunchy, actressy place that serves food on wooden boards. The brothers split up as soon as they walk in. Michael circles a display of expensive sweets ('I don't eat American chocolate,' he sniffs), and Martellus hovers near the entrance, offering health and safety advice to customers as they leave the restaurant. 'Wrap it up,' he counsels a man walking out the door. The guy stares at him, trying to deduce why a stranger is telling him to wear a condom."

Sweden to reconsider deporting gay Liberian soccer player Andrew Nagbe. "Gay soccer player Andrew Nagbe was hours from deportation when the Swedish Migration Board decided to reconsider his case based on safety concerns for gay people in Liberia."

Vile Premier League footballer Andre Gray's homophobic Tweets.

And in other Premier League news, Richard Chaplow has received a two-game suspension for alleged gay slurs against out player Robbie Rogers.


Hell's
Kitchen

Why the science of nutrition is so messy.

The “natural” label on your food is nothing but a marketing ploy.

Americans should eat less meat, but they’re eating more and more.


Rag
Trade

Urban Outfitters bares all. "We venture inside the secretive $3.4 billion empire as it reaches a crucial crossroad."



Betta
Work!


Working in London hotels is a stressful, demoralising nightmare.


I Own 51% Of
This Company!

Walmart’s out-of-control crime problem is driving police crazy. "The retailer’s aggressive cost cutting has unintended consequences."

BHS closes its doors for the last time. "Scores of bargain hunters turned up at the last shops over the weekend, with queues forming outside some branches."

Everything must go as BHS Wood Green closes its doors for the last time.

After BHS closes its doors, what will take its place? "After 88 years, the retailer is about to shut up shop, leaving thousands jobless, a £571m pension deficit and big holes on the high street that may never be filled..."

...Or could they? BHS could return to high street thanks to new Qatari owners. "Doha-based Al Mana group, which bought the historic retailer, is considering opening new branches in UK."

Rhyl Sun Centre: no more waves in the lagoon pool. "The home of Europe's first indoor surfing pool, which also boasted a monorail and hosted an entire series of the Rod and Emu Show, is facing the wrecking ball. The plan to demolish Rhyl's Sun Centre has evoked vivid memories amongst those there in its heyday."


Planes, Trains
& Automobiles

Here's TransPennine Express's gay Pride train.



Car hacking is the future – and sooner or later you'll be hit. "Security is finally being taken seriously but the fact that we are increasingly entrusting our lives to self-driving cars creates unease."

Why cars went from boxy in the '80s to curvy in the '90s.


Tomorrow's
World

Wikileaks outs rape victims, LGBT and HIV+ people in places where they could be killed.

Hookup app: Pay up or drop dead. "The parent company of Manhunt and Jack'd cockblocked the Los Angeles LGBT Center's efforts to combat a deadly meningitis outbreak."

WhatsApp users to receive adverts.

Torso junkie. "Unlike the bare-chested men they imitate, Grindr spambots have no 'preferences' and no problem liking you."


We were sometimes bullies at Gawker – but we held the powerful to account. "It was callow, it was unkind, and together we did some pretty ignoble things. So why am I sad to hear that after 14 long years, Gawkerdämmerung is nigh?"

The internet can harm your productivity by making you sad – here's what to do. "Following a few simple tips should protect you from the subtly depressing influence of social media, keeping you both happy and productive."


Vintage computers restored to their original glory, in pictures.


Planet
Earth

July 2016 was world's hottest month since records began, says Nasa.

Are We Losing the Grand Canyon? "On a 650-mile trek, two adventurers faced danger and hardship—and saw how development could spoil an American icon."

America’s most remote site – the undiscovered side of Yellowstone. "To access the farthest point in America from a road, Mark Jenkins spent a week backpacking through rugged terrain populated by some of the backcountry’s most fearsome animals."

Fear of the light: why we need darkness. "Light pollution conceals true darkness from 80% of Europe and North America. What do we lose when we can no longer see the stars?"


How aluminum changed the world.


Zoology

How therapy dogs in court make the wait for a verdict "more human".


And Whilst You're
Thinking About
That, Think
About This...

What’s the “blackest” last name? Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, or Jenkins?

And finally, Jack & Ben ("your friendly interracial gay couple") debate sex on the first date; Rogue "Marbie" Scott expounds; Andrew struggles with friends trying to put it in his butt (we've all been there); and Walter talks aout Broadway killer Marcus Bellamy.

See you kids next week - it's been emotional! Zee Jai

 photo strip post a 16 Aug 2015 b_zps8nxf4wcy.png

Issue 240: 15-28 August 2016

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

© 2016

 photo BLATINOAWARDS2014NOMINEE_zps9373e2c4.png

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