Issue 251: James Baldwin, Moonlight, Awol Erizku, House of Labeija, Corbin Colby, Max Schutler, Cakes Da Killa, and more...

the week's

news

& pop

culture,

with a

gay

bias.

Left &
Found

On the gay midlife crisis.

More than half of gay men hate their body.

Bisexual college student Allen Pham's frank and inspiring letter about his struggles with masculinity.

How can men support feminists on social media and beyond?

Every insult the right uses to troll liberals, explained.

What the left can learn from the alt right.

Hate Trump supporters? Hate liberals? Here's why. "Deep in the brain, your amygdala generates a knee-jerk response to political enemies and other threats. But experiments show the divide can be bridged."

Why we don’t have White History Month. "A sociologist explains why it would be ridiculous."

I regret transitioning.

What I learned after banning screens from my home for a month.

News
America

On Crimes By White Americans, the website showcasing the real threat to American democracy: white people.

Pulse gunman Omar Mateen's wife Noor Salmon helped him scout potential targets, including Disney, prosecutors allege.

This is Mantej Sandhu. He and his boyfriend Bryson Beier were assaulted by around ten men in Columbus.

Thousands swarm Stonewall Inn to protest Trump divisive executive orders. In pictures.

Philadelphia Commission on Human Rights reprimands eleven local gay bars for providing “preferable environments for white, cisgender male patrons.”

A gay bar opens upstairs. Downstairs, Burger & Beer Joint loses its franchise.

Creationist theme park lights up Noah’s Ark permanently to "reclaim" rainbow from gay people.

School sued for $50,000 after football team forced to perform sex acts as hazing ritual.

Virginia House passes homophobic "religious freedom" bill.

How Trump could undo LGBT equality gains even if he doesn’t repeal Obama’s orders.

Trump's executive orders: Divide and conquer at the stroke of a pen.

Trump's courtiers bring chaotic and capricious style to White House. "Two weeks in, the new administration resembles the court of a Renaissance king, with favorites infighting and Steve Bannon a Cardinal Richelieu in cargo pants."

Google, Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Intel and Uber join slew of companies to take legal action against Trump.

WATCH  Jake Tapper grills Kellyanne Conway over White House lies about terror coverage.

Trump's list of seventy-eight terror attacks the media didn’t cover is another big lie. But Trump’s lies are not the problem. It’s the millions who swallow them who really matter.

Trump the least popular President in US history.

On Trump’s strange appeal. “He’s what a lot of Americans would be if they had a billion dollars.”

Ten possible places Trump found the random group of niggas with him during his Black History Month press conference.

Former FBI agent: We must get to the truth on Russia and Trump.

Trump lapdog Peter Thiel is looking for a PA.

Rabid homophobe Mike Pence claims he backs Trump’s supposed LGBT support.

Six inspirational Steve Bannon quotes.

Queer Muslim women from the south: "We exist and we’re fierce."

I'm a Black gay man living with HIV in the South. My story is universal, and it's time we talk about it.

Keep Michael Johnson out of prison - he needs our help.

Michael (Tiger Mandingo) Johnson changed sports for me.

Why don't more African Americans become organ donors?

The history of Nasa’s black female scientists. "The diversity of Nasa’s workforce in 1940s Virginia is uncovered in a new book by Margot Lee Shetterly. She recalls how a visit to her home town led to a revelation."

Johnny Gosch, the original "Milk carton kid", is still missing.

The unimaginable, infamous case of Pam Hupp. "A tangle of lies, greed, sex, and death — and a surprise arrest."

Two men arrested at Bed Bath & Beyond for sex on display bed infected responding officers with scabies.

CANADA  Montreal photographer refuses to shoot gay couple’s wedding.

News
UK

50-year-old Stefano Brizzi, the meth-addict who murdered and ate gay police officer Gordon Semple, has died in prison.

Gay nurse Amin Abdullah died after setting himself on fire outside Kensington Palace after suffering a “mental breakdown” over how his NHS employers handled his dismissal, inquest hears.

New HIV infections drop by a third.

Over a third of LGBT Londoners are suffering with mental health issues.

Royal Vauxhall Tavern, Britain’s oldest LGBT venue, saved from redevelopment - but it's still being sold.

The National Trust and the National Archives are to recreate a '30s gay bar based on photographs: “Freud Café, which is close to the original site of The Caravan, will be transformed in March for the Queer City project celebrating London’s gay scene between 1918 and 1967. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the passing of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which decriminalised homosexuality in England and Wales.”

19-year-old Zakaria Bulhan has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of US tourist Darlene Horton in London last year.

Record number of LGBT children ask Childline for help.

This is what the Turing Law pardon means - and why this pardon for Britain’s gay men is so inadequate.

Partnered gay men earn less than straight counterparts, but lesbians earn more.

John Bercow, the Speaker of the UK Parliament, launches stinging attack on Trump - and bans him from speaking in the House of Commons.

MPs in the British Parliament vote to progress a bill to initiate Article 50 to leave the European Union.

Why are twice the amount of black women imprisoned for drug crimes than white women?

London's air is killing us.

Traditional retail markets and the battle to stay afloat. "British markets are seen as a microcosm of the city or town in which they are based, encapsulating the diversity of communities and skills a place has to offer. But with some being sold off due to their prime locations and others fighting for their existence amid the rise of discount supermarkets and online retailers, will generations to come be able to enjoy them?"

The London shopping arcade with a river running through it.

What life looks like at the end of the line: Cockfosters.

News
World

Refugee agencies move quickly to transport needy LGBT refugees to the United States as Trump slams the door in the most vulnerable.

European Parliament backs EU-wide recognition of same-sex adoptions.

IRELAND  Men convicted of historic gay sex offences from before the decriminalisaion of homosexuality in 1993 could be pardoned.

GERMANY  Three killed after fire rages through Berlin gay sauna Steam Works - and the venue may not reopen.

GERMANY  Hitler states his "moderation" at press interview. "I have been represented as having made bloodthirsty and firebrand speeches against foreign countries, and now the world is surprised at my moderation." (February 1933)

SWITZERLAND  Lifetime ban on gay men donating blood lifted.

HUNGARY  The village aiming to create a white utopia.

LEBANON  Court rules that homosexuality is natural, and the law against “intercourse contrary to the order of nature” does not apply to same-sex intimacy.

SYRIA  Assad’s slaughterhouse defies description, but it’s horrifyingly real. "According to Amnesty, Saydnaya prison is an extermination centre where starvation and torture are the prelude to mass hangings, up to 50 at a time."

CHINA  Archaeologists discover what could be the world’s oldest dildos.

AUSTRALIA  Police review nearly ninety deaths between 1976 and 2000 - they could be reclassified as anti-gay hate crimes.

Out of many, one people: Jamaica in the 1890s, in pictures.

WATCH  How punks in 1980s Cuba injected themselves with HIV so they could be quarantined for a better life.

JAMAICA  On Beyond Homophobia, a symposium recently held at the University of the West Indies.

GAMBIA  LGBT activists celebrate the exile of former president Yahya Jammeh.

KENYA  Last year, Steven fled from Uganda to Kenya to escape anti-gay violence. This year, days away from reaching safety in the United States, his travel was blocked by President Trump’s executive order suspending admissions of refugees for 120 days. Because of that executive order, Steven is now homeless, living on the streets of Nairobi, begging for food.

TANZANIA  Arrest of three men accused of promoting homosexuality ordered in homophobic crackdown.

SOUTH AFRICA  Devastating impact of meth in the womb exposed in schools. "Extent of crisis becomes clear as children of women caught up in tik epidemic struggle with hyperactivity and aggression."

Arena

The Big Gay SuperBowl LI, in pictures.

Hillsborough: A day that began with hope and ended in avoidable tragedy. ""Author Kevin Sampson was among the Liverpool fans who attended their FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest in 1989. In an extract from his latest book, Hillsborough Voices, he recounts the unfolding horror of that fateful afternoon."

On WAFFLES N CREAM, Nigeria’s first skate crew.

Art +
Design

Awol Erizku was hot long before he photographed Beyoncé's baby bump.

Whose Streets? Our Streets!, a new photography exhibit “ordinary New Yorkers as they rallied, marched, and demonstrated.”

Raymond Dakoua's pictures documenting the lives of LGBT people in Côte d’Ivoire and Mozambique.

REVIEW  Revolution: Russian Art – from utopia to the gulag, via teacups.

"The building creaks and sways": Life in a skyscraper. "From Chicago to Dubai, Manchester to Melbourne, our cities are climbing above the clouds. What’s it like to live on the 64th floor?"

What happened to Newcastle's dream for a vertical city? "In the 60s planners reimagined Newcastle as a 3D multi-level city, but what remains is now being closed off or demolished. Guided by architecture professor Stephen Graham, Karl Whitney explores this disappearing city."

Word!

James Baldwin's queerness was inseparable from his blackness.

James Baldwin, in pictures.

READ  Minotaur, a poem by Justin Phillip Reed.

REVIEW  The End of Eddy, by Edouard Louis. "This is no misery memoir; it’s a candid, necessary call against conventional definitions of masculinity and the fear of difference."

REVIEW  Country, by Jeff Mann. "[He] demonstrates the necessity of being honest about our lives with ourselves and with others, but also the need for LGBT individuals to tell their own stories, literally and figuratively through literature, music, and art."

REVIEW  History is All You Left Me, by Adam Silvera. "A heart-filling story of grief, loss, and the path to finding oneself again."

REVIEW  Eros and Dust, by Trebor Healey. "A collection that tosses out nuggets of insight."

Black History Month reading list: The essential recent releases.

Forty-five queer and feminist books you need to read in early 2017.

Navigating rewrites and sex scenes: A week in the life of writer Christina Cooke.

The man who loves books too much. "Notorious thief John Gilkey has built a vast collection of rare works, most of which he will never read and no one will ever see. Why?" (January 2008)

INTERVIEW  Talking to X-Men writer Dennis Hopeless about his historic gay storyline for Iceman.

Snagglepuss reinvented by DC Comics as a "gay Southern Gothic playwright".

On the rag, your weekly look at the free gay 'zines.

Stuart Timmons, the gay author and historian, is dead. He was 60.

Shouting
At Night

INTERVIEW  Talking to Mark Gatiss and his husband Ian Hallard, about The Boys In The Band, new threats to equal rights, the Sherlock backlash – and their dog-sitting issues.

WATCH  Here's the House of Labeija.

Film
Forever

Falling DVD sales put boot into profits at Sony Pictures. "The rise of streaming, in a golden era for television drama, has spelt trouble for traditional film studios."

INTERVIEW  Talking to I Am Not Your Negro director Raoul Peck about James Baldwin's legacy, politics, and the ever-presence of history.

INTERVIEW  Talking to Moonlight director Barry Jenkins. "He had a hand-to-mouth childhood in a rough neighbourhood, then went to a football college. So how did the 37-year-old end up making the film of the year?"

INTERVIEW  Talking to Moonlight writer Tarell Alvin McCraney. "The playwright tells how growing up in the Miami projects inspired his view of America."

Matthew McConaughey on Trump: It's time for Hollywood to embrace him.

Judy Garland fan pays over $15,000 to be buried beside her. There's just one problem with that.

On Who Took Johnny? "Noreen Gosch has been searching for justice for her missing son Johnny for more than 30 years. A new documentary about her battle to find her son makes its theatrical premier in Iowa next week." (April 2015)

REVIEW  Strike A Pose. "This watchable documentary, focusing on New York as the crucible of gay liberation politics, brings together performers from the Truth or Dare tour."

Ghost in the system: has technology ruined horror films? "Well-dwelling Samara gets streamed in Rings, an HD reboot of The Ring, yet the genre has shown that a tech update doesn’t always lead to more scares."

Five cult films audiences hate to love.

INTERVIEW  Talking to Taraji P Henson. "After years of bit parts, low pay and a breakthrough role in Empire, Taraji P Henson is taking the lead as a Nasa scientist."

Groundhog Day: A brilliant movie, summed up in one brilliant gag. "I Got You, Babe will never be the same again."

The pop culture legacy of Groundhog Day. "The 1993 movie inspired a popular trope that continues to exist throughout film and television."

The films critics walked out on: "There was no way in hell I was going back in."

REVIEW  Jonathan. "Although it has a few problems, Jonathan is still an intriguing family drama. It has a few issues handling it emotions, but pulls through with good performances and interesting character dynamics."

REVIEW  Campfire. "These four Bavo Defurne shorts aren’t a collection for everyone, but if you’re interested in something a bit challenging and which cannot help itself but train its camera lens on the beauty of youth, you should find plenty to appreciate."

WATCH  Here's the trailer for Marco Berger's Taekwondo; A Little Lust; and It’s Only the End of the World, the latest from Xavier Dolan (Tom At The Farm).

The
Box

Colony, USA’s alien invasion drama, is accidentally the most relevant show on television. "The series, set in a dystopian oppressive regime, feels a little less escapist with every new episode."

Matthew Herrick (of the short-lived but much-missed DTLA) sues Grindr after fake account sends seven hundred men to his home - and work.

Gay comedy series Please Like Me has been cancelled.

Could out gay actor Ben Whishaw be the next Doctor?

Thirty-five LGBT characters who redefined family TV.

The Real World's Pedro Zamora became the face of HIV for an entire generation and his death made AIDS feel personal to fans. Co-star Judd Winick — and others — reflect on Zamora's legacy.

Here's the first queen to be "RuVealed" from the upcoming ninth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

This: RuPaul’s Drag Race LEGO.

REVIEW  Deep Water. "[It] certainly isn’t a jolly series, but it’s an entertaining and intriguing one that keeps you guessing about what’s been happening in Bondi’s gay scene in both the past and the present."

New CBS comedy Superior Donuts has something better than laughs: A compelling theme (the rise of gentrification in America).

How The Good Place helps normalise interracial relationships.

For $400 you can own a flawlessly detailed tiny replica of Seinfeld's apartment.

INTERVIEW  Talking to documentary maker Reggie Yates.

INTERVIEW  Talking to new EastEnders star Zack Morris.

Eleven of the biggest ever soap blunders, from Coronation Street's forgotten death to EastEnders' live mishaps.

Gays of our lives: Your latest from gay soapland.

Vloggers and YouTube stars are the subject of new BBC Three comedy Pls Like.

Down with clean eaters and ab blasters! TV takes aim at lifestyle vlogger hell. "Peppy superstar vloggers are ripe for parody. Enter comedians Liam Williams and Tim Key with their new BBC mockumentary Pls Like."

Why Deep Space Nine and Voyager may never get full HD releases.

Five TV tropes that need to die. "From eccentric scientists to sexy dead women, television is full of repetitive motifs that must desist immediately."

WATCH  Here's the trailer for gay Singaporean series People Like Us.

WATCH  The latest episodes of Fallacies; and Steam Room Stories.

Beats, Rhymes
& Life

Frank Ocean sued for $14.5 million by his own father.

This is Bahamian performer and activist Romano Johnson. He's HIV-positive.

INTERVIEW  Talking to Australian musician Brendan Maclean about the thinking behind what he calls "a light-hearted, extremely explicit look at the world of gay semiotics".

LISTEN  Let's Get Lost, the new track from Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant and Chrissie Hynde.

REVIEW  NxWorries - Yes Lawd! "Another accomplishment in Anderson .Paak’s continued rise, a beautiful beat tape made with the producer Knxwledge that nods to classic Stones Throw duos."

INTERVIEW  Talking to Rae Sremmurd.

WATCH  Here's Cakes Da Killa.

Red Light
District

Chi Chi LaRue teases follow up Falcon Studios’ legendary blockbuster Heaven To Hell.

Corbin Colby. Corbin Colby. CORBIN COLBY!

Michael Lucas says he’ll “end” porn star Logan Moore’s career in threatening voicemails.

Communist Colby Keller on supporting Trump.

HustlaBall Las Vegas 2017 VIP Party, in pictures.

Bearracuda Underwear Night at the Seattle Eagle, in pictures.

Jorge Schmeda, the model who appeared under the name Max Schutler, is dead. He was 35.

Ghetto
Romance

Confessions of an aromantic: What it’s like to just not be interested in love.

Médecins Sans Frontières

A HIV check-up in a prom dress.

One in ten HIV-positive people also have diabetes.

We're one step closer to a single-dose HIV vaccine.

Does having an infection increase the odds of developing mental disorders?

Four behaviours that may cut the risk of cancer by 30 percent.

WATCH  Rodrigo Alves can't breathe normally after fifty cosmetic surgery operations.

Ten questions you’ve always wanted to ask a plastic surgeon.

A few too many. "Is there any hope for the hung over?"

How to actually curb your drinking for the rest of the year.

Depression steals your soul and then it takes your friends. "It's so easy to cut off a friend who is persistently difficult, self-absorbed, nasty, and decidedly 'other.' Especially if they cut themselves off first."

Hell's
Kitchen

The sixteen best gay clubs in America.

WATCH  Fanny Craddock cooks.

Rag
Trade

Stop calling everything made by black designers "streetwear".

Will buying a leather jacket make it look like I’m having a midlife crisis?

Betta
Work!

Below deck. "Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers. It’s a good job. Until it isn’t."

When it comes to being out at work, some things haven't budged in thirty years.

We need to talk about the class pay gap.

I Own 51% Of
This Company!

US pharmacy Walgreens releases new campaign featuring HIV-positive genuine customers.

Six reasons we're sad Kmart USA isn't Kmart Australia. (July 2016)

The drama at Big W and Target could make Kmart the last man standing. (November 2016)

Planes, Trains
& Automobiles

The beautiful Tube stations of London, in pictures.

They found the Nazi submarine portrayed in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Tomorrow's
World

Finland - the world's first nation to publish its own set of national emojis - has added a Tom of Finland emoji to its collection.

Pornhub launches online sex education centre because no one else is doing it.

Amazon Web Services: The secret to the online retailer's future success. "AWS was launched as little more than a way to buy space and time on Amazon’s computers. Now it powers Netflix, Airbnb and the Ministry of Justice."

Net ​nostalgia: The online museums preserving dolphin gifs and spinning Comic Sans. "Archivist Jason Scott has made it his mission to record digital culture for future generations. But why are we so keen to relive the days of Geocities websites and 56k modems?"

Is Snapchat the new Facebook?

Vending machines to revolutionise the way we have a cuppa. (February 1957)

Planet
Earth

Why the sun's spinning too slowly.

Faultlines, black holes and glaciers: mapping uncharted territories. "In the era of satellites and Google Maps there are still areas that remain a mystery."

Is America's most common pesticide responsible for killing our bees?

How carnivorous plants developed a thirst for blood.

Zoo

WATCH  Bison reintroduced to Canada's Banff National Park.

Why climate change is good news for wasps. "Their numbers vary enormously from year to year, but warmer weather will provide wasps with more favourable conditions."

Why dolphins are deep thinkers. (July 2003)

The week in wildlife, in pictures.

And
This:

Why chewing sounds make you want to flip a table.

Meet Mr. White, the elementary school teacher with a different dap for each student.

Finally, driving with Andrew; King Neutral go to IKEA; Rogue "Marbie" Scott gets a surprise; and Kenneth reveals he was never in the closet.

Issue 251: 01-07 February 2017

On the cover: James Baldwin.

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Postcript

"You know, we might just as well not have

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

© 2017