Issue 241: Gene Wilder, Joe Okonkwo, Lady Chablis, Cakes Da Killa, Colin Kaepernick, Keith Vaz, Pauline Pantsdown, Ginger Minj, Micah Brandt, BHS, and more...

the week's

news

& pop

culture,

with a

gay

bias.

Left & Found

Gay men and sexism: Time to accept responsibility.

What happens when LGBT people are priced out of the neighborhood?

Gay separatist organisation the Gay Homeland Foundation wants to establish an exclusively gay city-state.

Why multi-national corporations could and should, but often don’t, help improve the lives of LGBT people in countries with anti-LGBT laws.

Blame it on the queers. "Doomsayers and the things that definitely happened because of LGBTs."

Correcting the old wrong ideas about Sodom, Gomorrah.

Summer of 2016: Pride around the world.

The Fire This Time shows how far we haven’t come since James Baldwin.

What actually makes white people scared of talking about race?

You may think the world is falling apart. Steven Pinker is here to tell you it isn't.

News

America

America's problems aren't Obama's fault. They're George W Bush's. "The unhinged arguments at the heart of the 2016 presidential election are not really a debate about the outgoing president. They’re about Bush’s legacy."

Confronting the myth that "black culture" is responsible for violent crime in America. "Conservatives are embracing a new book by a veteran criminologist that tries to blame 'black culture' for violent crime. But there are big holes in the idea."

White Lives Matter has been dubbed a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

White Lives Matter is part of a long arc of white supremacy. "America’s racial Pandora’s box, once thought to have been closed by Obama’s watershed presidential election, has been reopened with a vengeance."

Violence against LGBT people is unabating, even in San Francisco.

GAG is no HRC. "Borrowing from the confrontational tactics of guerilla AIDS protest groups ACT UP and Queer Nation, the new Gays Against Guns organization puts the gun lobby in its sights."

Pulse copycat shootings reportedly thwarted in several locations.

Nightline anchor Terry Moran blasts gay internet troll Milo Yiannopoulos for racism and misogyny. "Are you a 13-year-old boy?"

Donald Trump's case that he's the better LGBT ally is unraveling.

How Donald Trump seduced America’s white working class. "An acute insight into the reasons these voters almost found a new messiah in a man regarded as an offensive clown by many, a man who ultimately cannot save them."

What a liberal sociologist learned from spending five years in Trump's America.

The last last summer. "Donald Trump and the fall of Atlantic City."

Why it's time to turn off Trump TV.

Pulse hero Imran Yousuf - who saved seventy people that night - is to be honoured by a LGBT military group.

WATCH  Pulse shooting victim Tony Marrero talks to Ellen about how he survived.

The last survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooting to be hospitalised has been discharged.

Evil Dharun Ravi's conviction overturned in Tyler Clementi case. "Ravi's prosecution under a bias-crime law that has now changed tainted the rest of his trial, an appeals court says. The charge involved webcam spying on Clementi, his gay roommate, who killed himself shortly afterward."

The gay heroes of the terrorist tragedy (October 2001).

This is Mark Bingham (January 2002). "Revisit [The Advocate] 2002 issue that honored Mark Bingham, a gay passenger of United Airlines Flight 93, who helped plan to retake the plane from terrorists."

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has introduced a bill for HIV-positive teens to get treatment without parental consent.

Can homeless kids, voguers, and $9 million change how we deal with HIV?

Queer parents win a battle, not the war. "A New York court ruling expands the definition of parenthood, but doesn't go far enough."

These 102 colleges are the "absolute worst" for LGBT students.

Billboard promoting "ex-gay" conversion therapy appears in Texas.

The stories behind four gay New Orleans landmarks.

Lady Chablis — a fixture in the gay clubs of Georgia and South Carolina before finding stardom in the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and its film adaptation — is dead. She was 59.

Jersey City Pride, in pictures.

Austin Pride, in pictures.

Celebrating and remembering the disappearing lesbian bar.

Opponents of homophobic evangelist Scott Lively are hoping for a full courtroom of LGBT equality supporters when his trial starts 9th November; it will be the first time that anyone stands trial in the United States for crimes against humanity committed in a foreign country.

Phyllis Schlafly, one of history's worst homophobes, is dead at 92.

A lynching kept out of sight. "Pvt. Felix Hall died in the only known murder of its kind on a U.S. military base. How hard did the government try to find his killers?"

Deep in the swamps, archaeologists are finding how fugitive slaves kept their freedom.

Darren Seals, a Ferguson protester, found dead in burned vehicle in St. Louis suburb.

So, who killed him?

Life and death on the lost streets of Chicago.

Why do Americans keep thinking their airports are under attack?

Most terrorist attacks in the US are committed by Americans — not foreigners.

How we learned all the wrong lessons from 9/11.

Why an attack like 9/11 is much less likely today than it was in 2001.

We're the only plane in the sky. "Where was the president in the eight hours after the Sept. 11 attacks? The strange, harrowing journey of Air Force One, as told by the people who were on board."

I helped 9/11 survivors recover. The worst part came 6 months after.

9/11 health crisis as death toll from illness nears number killed on day of attacks.

Which way did he run? (January 2002) "Firefighter Kevin Shea, one of the first responders on September 11, 2001, was 'the survivor who couldn’t remember what no one else could forget.'”

The photo of a couple using heroin with a kid in the car is horrifying. The reaction is even worse.

What’s going wrong with Obamacare, explained.

It’s easy to become obese in America. Here's why.

American obsession: How JonBenét Ramsey gave rise to the online detective. "The killing of a six-year-old beauty queen became America’s first crowd-sourced murder mystery, a phenomenon that continues 20 years later."

BRAZIL  Dilma Rousseff’s downfall won’t cure all her country’s ills. "The impeachment and removal of Brazil’s president says as much about the state of the nation as it does about her."

News

UK

Tabloid exposes MP Keith Vaz as "leading a double life paying young male escorts for sex."

What does the Sunday Mirror allege Keith Vaz did – and is it illegal?

Keith Vaz: One scandal too many for the publicity-seeking MP. "Claims he paid for male escort services follow controversies including a march against The Satanic Verses and the Hinduja passport affair."

Police to assess Keith Vaz allegations. "Scotland Yard looking into whether any crimes may have been committed after drug and sex worker claims."

Peter Tatchell, Paris Lees and Julie Bindel ask, should Keith Vaz step down as home affairs committee chair? "The Labour MP has been accused of paying for the services of male prostitutes. Should this affect his role in policy on the sex trade?"

Notting Hill carnival, in pictures.

What role should white allies play in the Black Lives Matter UK movement? "After nine white activists took part in a Black Lives Matter protest at City airport, Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff and Kehinde Andrews debate whether this is a help or a hindrance."

The Black Lives Matter protesters were right: air pollution is a race issue. "Globally, it’s those who have done least harm to the environment who are hit hardest by its degradation. And that’s true in London too."

Landlords are embarrassed to admit they are blood-sucking sub-humans, apparently.

350th anniversary of the great fire of London, in pictures.

News

World

NETHERLANDS  Summer in Amsterdam, in pictures.

ITALY  On the migrant crisis. "My life was at risk. My wife and brother were killed on the same day."

ITALY  The Supreme Court rules public masturbation not a crime.

RUSSIA  Citizens — and condoms — for HIV epidemic, government claims.

EGYPT  Widespread official persecution of LGBT people continues.

TUNISIA  LGBT equality activist Bouhdid Belhedi attacked in Tunis.

NIGERIA  Police rescue two alleged homosexuals from being killed in Enugu.

ZIMBABWE  Contemplating a future without Robert Mugabe. "After 36 years of the Zanu-PF leader’s rule, his nation is broke and broken."

UGANDA  How a public circumcision ritual was turned into a tourist attraction.

UGANDA  The dark side of the gorilla tourism industry.

INDIA  Nineteen LGBT Hindu Gods.

INDIA  Why the men's rights movement is thriving.

BANGLADESH  London-based Bangladeshi gay equality activist Riaz Osmani has issued a statement seeking the repeal of Bangladesh’s anti-LGBTI law, Section 377 of the Penal Code.

CHINA  Sun Wenlin and Hu Mingliang want to get married.

AUSTRALIA  Offshore refugee processing is no inspiration. It deserves condemnation. "I was denied access to Nauru because of my criticism of Australia’s offshore detention centres there. The secrecy around the camps calls for international attention."

AUSTRALIA  The suicide rate is a humanitarian crisis we can no longer ignore. "The high suicide rate in Indigenous Australia is underwritten by acute poverty, disadvantage and marginalisation that should make no sense in one of the world’s wealthiest nations."

AUSTRALIA  Pauline Pantsdown: Hanson's success will be her undoing. "Contrary to popular discourse about Hanson as a ‘non-politician’, I felt that she was the most constructed celebrity politician I’d ever seen."

Médecins Sans

Frontières

How do gay bears deal with having sleep apnea?

Twelve ways you can pick up an STD without any of the fun that usually goes along with sex.

One in six gay and bi men will get HIV in their lifetime.

HIV survivors face their own Vietnam.

Getting through the emotions of your first poz year.

Kaposi Sarcoma scared me back to my HIV treatment.

Seven silly excuses people make for not doing PrEP.

How scared should I be of breaking my penis?

The audacious plan to save this man’s life by transplanting his head.

How smelling and drinking wine can protect you from Alzheimer’s.

Exercise may offset all the horrors you do to your body with drinking.

You’ll smell better if you eat fewer carbs, boffins claim.

Within a year, antibacterial soaps as you know them will disappear from the market.

The

Box

Why is TV killing its queer women?

The thirteen most unforgettable HIV storylines in TV history.

What happened to the cast of much-loved youth drama Press Gang?

The BBC is to release the lost Doctor Who story The Power of the Daleks, reconstructed as an animation from audio recordings, stills and film clips. The after master negative was "purged" from the BBC’s archive in 1974.

Gays of our lives: All the latest news from gay soapland!

UK soap Coronation Street forced to apologise for character's "racist" remark. "The episode... saw Eva Price, played by Catherine Tyldesley, visit Audrey’s hair salon, where she remarked: 'I have more roots than Kunta Kinte. No idea who that is, by the way, just something my mum used to say.'"

Seven of the most bizarre deaths in soap, from EastEnders car-crushing to Coronation Street's deep-freezing.

Seven outrageous TV shows that definitely wouldn't get made today.

Is it time to allow drag kings on RuPaul's Drag Race?

INTERVIEW  Talking to Ginger Minj about her RuPaul's All Stars Drag Race elimination.

Logo's Finding Prince Charming is a gay twist on The Bachelor, yet Bravo did the same thing thirteen years ago.

INTERVIEW  Talking to Lance Bass about Finding Prince Charming.

Robert Sepúlveda Jr. — the star of Logo's Finding Prince Charming — talks candidly about escort past, x-rated videos.

Stop slut-shaming Prince Charming.

Gay porn blog Str8UpGayPorn threatened with legal action: “Remove all posts concerning Mr. Sepulveda.”

FX’S Atlanta is fucking awesome. Signed ATLien. "The trailer looked dope, the backstory seemed interesting, and the articles I’ve read (specifically those about Donald Glover choosing to employ an entirely Black writer’s room full of novices) tilted me in the support at all costs direction. FX clearly spent dough to make sure that we were going to tune in."

FX's Atlanta is a terrific comedy — and the best new show of the fall. "It’s a Louie-esque series set in the world of hip hop that’s not quite like anything else on TV."

On Queen Sugar, a gorgeous and complex family drama from the director of Selma.

WATCH  New web series Surprise Bitch!; an unmissable case on Judge Lady Red: Shade or No Shade - The Case Of The Spooked Trade; a preview of About Him's finale; a trailer for new web series Dark Horse;

Film

Forever

Brotherhood actor Aaron Eaton dies days after film's release. "Director Noel Clarke and rapper Stormzy among those who have paid tribute to 29-year-old south Londoner."

On Steve Balderson's new film, El Ganzo, which explores the love between a gay black man and a white woman.

A primer on Hollywood transploitation. "Writer Amanda Kerri is less disturbed about a cisgender actor playing a transgender character and more upset by how over-the-top — and generally bad — cinematic portrayals of trans people are."

Black movies that aren’t nearly as good (or even as black) as we pretend they are.

Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation is almost good enough to withstand its controversy. "It’s a deeply flawed, deeply Christian film about overthrowing unjust systems."

Johnny Depp's Tupac and Notorious BIG thriller has the wrong main source. "The theories of former LAPD detective Russell Poole have been called into question by more in-depth research, so why is his story being adapted?"

Superhero movies have become an endless attempt to rewrite 9/11.

Movies, patriotism, and cultural amnesia: tracing pop culture’s relationship to 9/11. "The tragedy caused a dramatic shift in media trends. Looking back on it now is almost surreal."

The 2016 summer movie season was really good — if you knew where to look. "Blockbusters went bust. But smaller films — particularly kids’ movies and horror — had a great year."

The 2016 summer movie season was a bust because Hollywood’s go-to formulas stopped working.

Ben Hur: A history, from Sidney Olcott's 1907 feature, to to 2016's box office bomb.

REVIEW  Why we are locked in the back of Taxi Driver's mind (May 2011). "We will never tire of reissues of Scorsese's New York fever dream because De Niro's mysterious Travis still haunts us."

Confessions of a location scout: Why the New York beloved of the movies doesn't exist any more (May 2015). "There is surely no other city we know as completely from cinema and TV as New York. Yet according to film location scout Nick Carr, what he is often asked to find is anything but the reality of the Big Apple."

Street lights, camera, action: how LEDs are changing the look of films (October 2014). "As cities modernise their lighting systems, reduce glare and replace neon with LED, movies will become time capsules showing how our cities used to glow. Here are five of the best."

From The Godfather to Jason Bourne, why Hollywood loves urban transport (May 2015). "Subway systems, streetcars, buses and ferries appear countless times throughout cinematic history, revealing a lot about our changing attitudes to public transportation – and cities."

Gene Wilder, the actor, is dead. He was 83.

Gene Wilder: A wild, inspired and sensitive actor who ran on rocket fuel. "The singular comic star cooked up a quartet of indelible neurotics which belied great intelligence and whose genius may not yet have been fully appreciated."

Gene Wilder: A comic enigma whose genius shone brightest in collaboration. "Enduring partnerships with Richard Pryor, Gilda Radner and Mel Brooks show Wilder’s gift wasn’t just his own mastery, but an ability to coax it from others, too."

Gene Wilder was right: Gilda Radner didn't have to die, and we need to talk about why she did. "The reality was no one, not Wilder, not Radner, not the doctors who misdiagnosed her, the doctors who treated her (kindly and unkindly) knew enough to help her."

Gene Wilder: A life, in pictures.

Gene Wilder at 39 (December 1975). "You have to be very careful of what you wish for because you just might get it.”

REVIEW  A Young Man’s Future. "It’s a shame more films don’t a take a serious look at mental illness. A Young Man’s Future does just that and when its focussing on that aspects it succeeds, even if there are a few slaws around that."

REVIEW  I'm A Porn Star: Gay4Pay. "If you’re interested in the world of gay porn, I’m A Porn Star: Gay4Pay offers a diverting look into the world of straight identifying guys who have sex with men on screen. It may not answer all the questions surrounding both why guys do it and why others want to watch, but it offers enough insights to be worthwhile."

WATCH  Trailers for Teenage Kicks; Shared Rooms; From Afar; One Kiss (Un Bacio); I'm a Porn Star: Gay4Pay; Seed Money; What's the Matter with Gerald?; and Theo and Hugo.

Shouting

At Night

Come From Away: the musical that dares to deal with 9/11. "The musical tells the story of travellers grounded in the remote Canadian town of Gander on 9/11 – yet despite the sensitive subject matter, it has received huge ovations and is bound for Broadway."

REVIEW  Britten in Brooklyn. "For a household full of the most colourful, politically complex, and glamorous artists of their time, Britten in Brooklyn is broken boring beige."

Art

+

Design

Excavating Experience: The Presence of LGBTQ People of Color, a new exhibition running at Leather Archives & Museum until 8th January 2017.

Alexis Ruiseco's new photo series Reinas, on the Cuban American queer scene.

Zak Krevitt's pictures documenting the human puppy fetish community.

Daragh Soden's pictures of lost young men in South Wales.

Stefanie Moshammer's new photo series, Land of Black Milk, a glimpse of lives in Rio de Janeiro.

Word!

Some lessons for aspiring writer's everywhere.

REVIEW  Jazz Moon, by Joe Okonkwo. "Okonkwo skillfully manages to encapsulate the essence of what it was to exist during that period in history when black artistic and musical culture rose to prominence in Harlem and Paris."

On Archie Comic's first out gay character, Kevin Keller, and his new series.

Where the “comic book font” came from.

On the rag, your weekly look at the free gay 'zines. 1st September here. 9th September here.

Beats, Rhymes

& Life

WATCH  The video for Sia's new single, The Greatest (featuring Kendrick Lamar), features forty-nine dancers to honor the forty-nine people killed in the Orlando massacre.

Cakes da Killa returns with Talkin Greezy, announces debut album.

El Divo de Juarez, the Mexican musician, is dead. He was 66. His legacy as an LGBT Latino icon must not be forgotten.

He's gay. He's a YouTuber. He's Troye Sivan, and here are his leaked nudes.

WATCH  Cakes Da Killa - Talkin Greezy; gay singer-songwriter Lyon Hart's Falling for You; and Mickey Taylor - SirensInChicago.

Red Light

District

It’s the first anniversary of the end of Rentboy.

Why Boys In The Sand was the greatest moment of gay visibility ever. "The synchronicity of porn chic, Wakefield Poole’s enormous talent, and Casey Donovan’s irresistible grin moved the needle forward for gay identity as normal and even desirable."

P-Town's Boys Just Want To Have Fun pool party, in pictures.

Southern Decadence, in pictures.

Southern Decadence official Walking Parade, in pictures.

Sebastian Young charged with raping five-year-old daughter, faces twenty new counts of child porn.

Devon Felix jailed For burglary, resisting arrest, and criminal mischief.

Disgraced porn actor Killian James hurls n-word at black escort in racist emails.

Lucas Entertainment bareback model James Castle: “I’m a porn star, and I’m living with HIV.”

MEN.com has made a Pokemon Go parody, starring the loathsome Johnny Rapid and Adam Bryant.

Bel Ami God Kris Evans papped on an Ibiza beach.

Behind-the-scenes with KAOS favourite Micah Brandt.

Behind-the-scenes with the Bel Ami boys (including Andrei Karenin, above).

Behind-the-scenes with Lucas Entertainment in Barcelona.

WATCH  Davey Wavey talks to Brent Corrigan; and Bel Ami boy beauty Hoyt Kogan broke his nose.

Hell's

Kitchen

Millennials don’t like "dealing with people" at fast food restaurants.

The burning desire for hot chicken. "Three days, three Nashville restaurants, and three revelations about why we love what hurts."

Pete Wells has his knives out. "How the New York Times critic writes the reviews that make and break restaurants."

Rag

Trade

Bruce LaBruce's fashion without apologies, in pictures.

I Own 51% Of

This Company!

Why Walmart became LGBT friendly. "Though it once held our rights at arm’s length, Walmart is now making steady turns toward support for LGBT nondiscrimination. What's driving the change? And are other Fortune 500 companies following suit?"

World Trade Center mall offers chance to reflect on 9/11 – with retail therapy. "On the 15th anniversary of the terror attacks, the new Westfield and neighboring Fulton Center provide the most American of experiences."

Boredom, scavenging and stifling heat: the final days of BHS. "The worker whose diary chronicled the slow collapse of the high-street chain describes how it all ended, with a raucous booze-up and a fruitless wait for Philip Green to get his comeuppance."

How Sir Philip Green made an outrageous fortune and outraged an entire nation. "When Topshop tycoon Sir Philip Green, the U.K.’s answer to Donald Trump, off-loaded the struggling retail chain BHS for just one pound, Britons cried foul. Now, with thousands of BHS jobs and pensions at risk, many in the nation are rooting for his demise. But he believes he’s being persecuted out of envy."

Planes, Trains

& Automobiles

Anatomy of a miracle. "Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger, the pilot who landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River last January, was justly celebrated for his skill and courage. Less has been revealed about other players in the drama: those enigmatic geese, the engines they struck, a pioneering French engineer, and an unsung hero — the Airbus A320 itself."

I fly 747s for a living. Here are the amazing things I see every day.

REVIEW  London Bridge station. The "new concourse is broad and mighty, but for £1bn a little more elegance wouldn’t go amiss."

Tomorrow's

World

The battle over .GAY. "A company wants to establish the domain suffix .GAY as a community resource for LGBT people and organizations, but internet overlords won't let it."

Things you should never say to a HIV-positive person on Grindr.

Facebook had no right to edit history. "The image of a Vietnamese girl attacked by napalm should not have been deleted from my page. We cannot let corporations control information in this way."

Nudity and Facebook's censors have a long history.

The likes of Mark Zuckerberg already rule the media. Now they want to censor the past. "The Facebook boss is the most powerful editor on Earth. So why do we insist on treating him and his fellow tech titans as charming inventors?"

The realisation that Facebook can censor comes too late to publishers. "It’s understandable that independent news organisations hate being censored but automation in news only looks certain to continue."

Amazon is a giant purveyor of medical quackery.

Arena

Three weeks later, still no apology from Nico Hines for his Daily Beast article that exposed gay Olympians.

Is America ready for openly gay male athletes in major sports leagues?

Serena Williams is constantly the target of disgusting racist and sexist attacks.

Colin Kaepernick can protest against racism even if he has white parents. "The San Francisco 49ers quarterback has come under fire for refusing to stand for the national anthem. So what does his adoptive parents’ race have to do with it?"

Kaepernick isn’t too rich to protest. This is America, remember? We only listen to rich people.

Kaepernick didn’t bring politics into sports. The NFL did that by playing the anthem.

Kaepernick has brought meaning back to standing for the National Anthem. "As an 'oppressed' gay man, I'll stand for the Star-Spangled Banner every time and support Colin Kaepernick's right to sit. That's the beauty of America."

The NFL is sociopathic and racist trash. But keep watching, and just know you’re watching trash.

The NFL is 67% black. Diversity hasn't helped white players and coaches understand racism.

Why did Michael Irvin want to slip Dallas Cowboys CEO Stephen Jones "some tongue"?

Reggie Bullock's comments about his murdered trans sister show the importance of coming out. "Detroit Pistons forward Reggie Bullock speaks with love and acceptance about his murdered trans sister, Mia Henderson."

Planet

Earth

We’ve wiped out 10% of Earth’s wilderness in the last two decades.

The Aral Sea was once the 4th-largest lake in the world. Now it's nearly gone.

The oceans are heating up. That's a big problem on a blue planet. "An increase in water temperatures is having a profound effect that, with hidden stores of frozen methane thawing out, will soon start to feed on itself."

Costa Rica has gone 76 straight days using 100% renewable electricity.

Zoology

My rescue dog is a nightmare but we've learned to deal with her mental illness. "Adopting a rescue dog is undoubtedly rewarding but we need to be aware that some may be traumatised. Here are my tips for catering for mentally ill pets."

And Whilst You're

Thinking About

That, Think

About This...

And finally, Andrew Googles himself; Walter reminisces; the Baddie Twinz fight over an orange; and Jacob discusses sex parties with Keaun...

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

Issue 241: 29 August - 11 September 2016

On the cover: The actor Gene Hackman, who has died.

CONTACT KAOS.

FOLLOW KAOS ON

FACEBOOK AND TWITTER.

READ THE LAST EDITION

The Small Print

KAOS is not responsible for the content of external websites.

KAOS is an independent website and is not linked to any of the organisations which are listed within the website or the THE KAOS THEORY ezine.

The mention or appearance or likeness of any person or organisation on KAOS, or THE KAOS THEORY ezine, is not to be taken as any indication of the sexual, social or political orientation of such persons or organisations.

All rights reserved.

Postcript

"You know, we might just as well not have

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

© 2016