Charing Cross

Art

Skool

Has London's Charing Cross Tube station slipped back in time - to the '70s?

Not quite. These fantastic mock ads currently adorn the walls of the station's disused lower levels, where the Jubilee line once terminated, and which now plays host to filming (from low budget horror Creep, to Skyfall),  and TfL's own Hidden London tours.

Pictures (C) KAOS

What goes up must come down

ART
SKOOL

A  R  T     I  S     N  O  T     A      T  H  I  N  G  ,     I  T     I  S     A     W  A  Y

Puff Johnson

Back in December, I discovered that Puff Johnson had died back in 2013. I had long admired her, and often wondered what had become of her.

The girl from Detroit, who had a couple of hits in 1996 (and released just one album, Miracle), had moved to South Africa in 2009, and it was only there that her death made the news.

But Puff always meant a lot to me. Her hits coincided with my formative teen years, and she was the soundtrack to early entanglements. Her two big hits - Forever More and Over And Over - didn't fade into the mists of time, and I've continued listening to her music in the twenty years since she disappeared.

And so, when I finally heard that she had died (I read about it on Wikipedia: the first line of her page is a dead giveaway: "Ewanya Johnson. December 10, 1972 – June 24, 2013"), I was horrified that no one else cared. No one even remembered her. Not even those for whom '90s R&B is whispered about with reverence. I asked friends. I asked colleagues at work. No one remembered. It was almost as if Puff Johnson was a figment of my imagination.

Then came the news that David Bowie had died. As much as Puff Johnson was a fixture of my teen years, Bowie was an iconic figure for people of a certain age, and '80s kids who liked him in Labyrinth. But I didn't get him. He was someone else's hero.

(When I first arrived in London, I lived for a time directly adjacent to Lambeth Hospital on Landor Road, around the corner from Bowie's first home at 40 Stansfield Road in Brixton. My boyfriend at the time would eventually end up in that hospital, sectioned under the Mental Health Act.)

Endless coverage has been devoted to Mr Bowie. So I'm writing here about Puff Johnson, a black girl from the Motor City who mattered a lot to a teenage boy twenty years ago. Maybe to you too, and you forgot about her. Look her up on YouTube.

She was good.

And when you finally arrive at the land of absence, be silent, don’t say a thing. Ecstasy, not words, is the language spoken there

MASS

in

MOTION
IT'S A MAN'S WORLD AND YOU MEN CAN HAVE IT

Remember when Bluey Robinson went singing on the London Underground? Back then, you were startled by the melodic turn of events life had taken. But not half as startled as you are now by Michael's epic proportions. "The city of Los Angeles is suing Wells Fargo Bank," 22-year-old Michael from London says. "There's no second chances in the land of a thousand dances, the valley of ten million insanities."

Souljah

 review 

 Souljah 

JOHN R. GORDON'S NEW NOVEL, Souljah, comes with an unusual gimmick: A movie trailer. That's because a blistering short film  of the same name (starring Ludvig Bonin and Nathan Clough) has recreated a key sequence from early in the novel. You can head over to YouTube and watch it right now. I'll be waiting here until you get back.

Done? Did you enjoy that? Did it make you want to find out what happens next?

This wonderful little short is just a hint of the rollercoaster ride Gordon takes us on with Souljah, which oscillates between horror, comedy (one of the most grimly funny sex scenes you'll ever read), tragedy, and in the nail biting climax - which takes us on a heart-stopping night chase through London's streets - thriller.

"When violent thug Evill and his drug-dealing South London crew menace Stanlake, a young African refugee, and his mother Poppy, little do they realize that this effeminate youth is a former child soldier, capable of the most extreme responses. Forced to meet violence with violence, Stanlake stands up to his tormentors, only to find himself drawn into a darkly erotic and passionate relationship with the damaged, closetted Evill. As love begins to bloom between the two deeply-scarred young men old evil erupts, threatening to consume them both and compelling Stanlake to face – and move beyond – his past."

Souljah takes us back to when Stanlake was growing up, before, and most gruelling of all, during his time as a child soldier. Anyone who's seen Johnny Mad Dog will know what to expect: a catalogue of dehumanising horrors, that play out in a hyperreal, dreamlike fashion. It's Lord of the Flies, boys doing things they really shouldn't. Author Gordon doesn't allow us to look away from the spectacle, except to juxtapose 21st century London. And it turns out it's no less brutal than the war zone Stanlake is fleeing from.

In a way, Souljah echoes Gordon's brilliant 2012 novel Faggamuffin, which saw a gay Jamaican fleeing "the most homophobic country in the world" (a title now hotly contested by a number of African countries). In that novel, we saw London through a Yardie's eyes. With Souljah, Gordon goes even deeper; Stanlake must find his place in a world that is completely alien to him, and endure the dehumanising process of seeking asylum. It's a privilege for us, the readers, to witness. Painful, but a privilege, nonetheless.

But it's not all doom and gloom. Stanlake's - and his mother Poppy's - observations about modern Britain are often amusing and on the nail, and his slowly blossoming relationship with Evill a joy - albeit one that constantly feels like it might be crushed by the ugliness around it. But Gordon doesn't go in for cheap tragedy, a trope beloved by so many gay writers and filmmakers. Souljah brims with optimism and hope, despite the horrors adeptly recounted within its pages.

So it's a shame that, despite its depth and power, you probably won't hear about Souljah in the gay press. This month's Attitude has previews of books about Oscar Wilde, and the latest from the lady who wrote Tipping The Velvet; The Advocate is similarly backward looking and whitewashed. The stories of black gay men don't seem to be of interest to the gay powerbrokers.

That's a real injustice, because this is a story that deserves everyone's attention. Souljah is truly breathtaking, in scale, and in ambition. At times, the book had me crying like a baby. The book's final act escalated so rapidly I just couldn't put it down. I had to know how Stanlake and Evill's story ended. You will too. Be a soldier for the good guys: go out and buy Souljah. You won't be disappointed.

Souljah is out on Monday 22nd September 2014.

Read our exclusive interview with author John R. Gordon.

Harry Aikines-Aryeetey

LHIS IS 25-year-old Team GB sprinter Harry Aikines-Aryeetey.

Here at kaos, we like to think of him as a living God, or if that's a bit OTT for you, settle for The Most Beautiful Man On The Planet. This London-born superhero (his parents are Ghanaian), "discovered his talent for running fast when a dog chased him in the local park". He describes himself on Twitter as "a bubbly guy who happens to run fairly fast in a straight line".

Harry only bothers with the gym once or twice a week, he says (slacker), and is shocked at the suggestion he could bench press a person (let me be the first to volunteer).

Sadly, we've only managed to track down round 120 pictures of Harry, but there's a bunch of videos after the jump to make up for it.

Enjoy.

The Tube strike, the arts, and gay privilege

Chikonzi writes exclusively for kaos about gay white male privilege. London-based Zimbabwean Chikonzi teaches psychology and sociology.

On Tuesday evening, I went along to the Bush Theatre in West London where my friend Rogue "Marbie" Scott's first ever play, the dark and fascinating Give Me Your Heart, was showing as part of a festival of short plays.

There was much talk about positivity and creativity from director Rikki Beadle-Blair, who made much of equality in his pre-show pep talk. Looking at his Facebook page after the event for pictures from the night, I ended up stumbling instead upon a post from someone who wanted to make a point about a strike on the London Underground, which was into its second day. Its brash entitlement and sheer meanness made it stand out like a sore thumb on Beadle-Blair's otherwise sunny feed, and got me thinking, again, about a certain kind of gay man.

Once upon a time, I was surprised by the fact that there was such a thing as gay Conservatives, but I shouldn't have been, because gay men in cities like London and New York are a breed apart; so often a wealthy elite for whom inequality and prejudice don't exist. Preening mummy's boys who care nothing for the "plebs" beneath them, they are the children of the well-off and the wealthy, entitled (usually, but not exclusively, white) show queens who want for nothing: this city is their playground and their plaything.

Impervious (and imperious) in his cosy arts bubble, actor Craig Daniel Adams (no? Me neither) is one of those men. Striking Tube workers had the temerity to disrupt his golden existence, and Adams was jolly cross about it. A cocktail-swilling Hooray Henry, whose job is playing dress-up for his hipster mates, he is the quintessence of Generation Me. Spoon-fed by Britain's notoriously right-wing media, he sees the striking workers as "militant" and "lazy", and the union leaders, "union barons". He knows this because the Evening Standard (and Mummy and Daddy) say so. Employers (and Mayors who go back on election manifestos) get a free pass, because of, you know, the economy. The likes of Craig Daniel Adams never criticise them; they'd have to get their facts right first. It's just easier to beat down the little guy than face the real villains. That's what bullies do. Why question what's really going on in our society, when you can rant about "lazy" Tube workers who just want the day off? You see, those Tube workers (who don't get paid for their "day off") are merely dehumanised drones, plebs to be trodden on and vilified. But when the likes of Craig Daniel Adams is sipping cocktails in a Soho bar at 3am, the "lazy bastard" he despises so much is waking up after a few hours sleep to man the Tube station other workers - like check-out assistants, cleaners, and waiters - will be filing into at 5am. She's the single mum being spat at by drunks at midnight on Saturday.

Why do so many middle-class English people hate Tube workers so much, I wonder? They are some of the last working class people who still earn a decent living wage, that's why. People like Adams loathe them for that. But its real working people who pay for the likes of Adams to doss around at "uni" for years: it's the taxpayer who subsidises their fees so generously.

Inequality is increasing, but don't look to the arts for help: they've been taken over by the elite. As for Craig Daniel Adams, he'll have another strike to moan about next week. My heart bleeds.

kaos at BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival

 kaos at 
 BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival 

Hawaii

"Eugenio is a young man residing at his uncle’s deserted house in rural Argentina. One day he encounters the homeless Martin, whom Eugenio realises he knew as a child. Charitably employing Martin to help around the house, Eugenio rediscovers his friendship with him, and as time progresses, new and unexpected feelings begin to emerge. What might initially appear as simply an exercise in prolonged sexual tension, soon blossoms into a rich and delicate tale of self discovery and the redemptive possibilities of love."

"Some gay audiences might describe the film as a 100-minute cock-tease while others might find Hawaii's earnest tone laughable or pretentious, or both, but Berger has to be commended for taking a set-up that would normally be associated with the first minute or two of a porno and spinning it into something of feature length," Boyd van Hoeij writes about Marco Berger's Hawaii in The Hollywood Reporter, neatly summing up the premise, and some of what's wrong, with this film.

Somewhat charitably, he doesn't mention how agonisingly slow this film is. It's the sort of movie that features long (endless) lingering shots of people doing things like eating cereal, staring into space, or nothing much at all. The friend with whom I saw the movie said afterwards, "You just don't like slow movies," with the ignorance of someone who doesn't know that my favourite director is Tsai Ming-Liang, the master of slow cinema. It's also the kind of comment only someone who has turned up half an hour late for the movie, thereby seeing a truncated version of the yawnfest, could make. Perhaps if I'd only seen an hour of Hawaii, I might have liked it better, too.

The picture isn't all bad. It's beautifully shot, and Mateo Chiarino is convincing as drifter Martin. But Manuel Vignau's beardy weirdy Eugenio is just creepy. If I were Martin, I'd have run a mile, not fallen for him. But running would require picking up the pace, and Berger's film never does that.

Next: Tattoo

kaos at BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival

 kaos at 
 BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival 

Test

There's a lot to like about Chris Mason Johnson's 1985 San Francisco time capsule Test, but it has its faults, too. (San Francisco. Fault. See what I did there? ... Tough crowd.)

"A wonderfully evocative period drama that explores the telling details of gay life in San Francisco in 1985 with a fantastically upbeat 80s soundtrack. Frankie is a young performer in a modern dance troupe and is constantly berated by his coach to ‘dance like a man’. This mild homophobia is replicated in the wider world beginning to panic over HIV. He grapples with the pleasures and pain of promiscuity and the desire for a relationship. But when the chance to take the first test for HIV comes along, it brings with it a host of issues."

The dance pieces are fantastic, as is the '80s music, but lead Scott Marlowe (Frankie) left me stone cold. Marlowe is a dancer, so although he doesn't miss a step in the dance sequences, he lacks the charisma to really hold the screen. His character is another example of an overused gay film trope: the nervous, introverted boy. I think we've seen all we need of those.

Much has been made of the film's "period piece" status, but it doesn't really feel much like 1985 a lot of the time. Test didn't have a huge budget, but Johnson missed a trick or two for really selling the era. Katherine Wells' Molly has a very 2013 'do, that ought to have been permed, you know, like girls in the '80s did.

Test is interesting, it's the story of the guys who somehow didn't get AIDS back then. And that's kind of a new angle on the story. But the film is at its best with the dance sequences, where dancer Marlowe and former dancer Chris Mason Johnson are most at home.

Next: Hawaii

kaos at BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival

 kaos at 
 BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival 

Age Of Consent

I'm a pretty vanilla sort of guy. Leather, fisting and watersports just don't do it for me. So Age Of Consent, a film about The Hoist - London's legendary leather venue - ought to have been a turn-off.

Instead, Charles Lum and Todd Verow's cum-spattered love letter to The Hoist fired me up. It's a call-to-arms of sorts, against the creeping influence of the heteronormative, aka the "new gay cure": keep the sodomy, but live like a breeder!

Back to The Hoist. You might not like what goes on there, but it's fantastic that it does. I mean, being gay means making your own rules, right? Wrong. In 2014, being gay means conforming, being a "good" gay. Getting married. Having kids.

Tied up (as it were) with the narrative of The Hoist's history, is the history of gay equality in the UK, with a particular focus on the inequality of Thatcher's Section 28, and the battles over the age of consent. We hear from soldiers like Peter Tatchell. The film addresses trans issues (trans people want to visit this men only venue, but it's not easy for them), drugs (they're not what they used to be), and gentrification (Vauxhall is the last "Zone 1" area to have its heart and soul ripped out, and the poor moved out). The future of The Hoist is threatened by all of that, and by technology. Gay bars - what's left of them - are now full of straight women, and the straight men they attract, and that's the fault of gay men who encourage them. Consequently, these venues are less attractive to a large number of gay men (this one included), who chose Grindr instead. (Are lesbian bars packed out with straight men? No, I didn't think so.)

Age Of Consent also addresses the issue of inclusion on the gay scene, which is rarely very inclusive. BFI Flare itself is indicative of that; its audience seems to be comprised of well-off, sneery white (and to a lesser extent non-white) queens dressed by The Gap. I never feel welcomed or embraced by this horrible crowd; thank God for the festival's lesbians, who eschew the attitude of their male counterparts. But that's another story.

Age Of Consent gifts many wonderful surprises: who would have thought that, amidst this Sodom and Gomorrah hell of fisting, we'd get a detailed plot description of the 1976 Doctor Who story The Pyramids of Mars. We did. My heart leapt.

The Q&A session afterwards left me despairing. The lesbians (lesbians at a film about gay men and their quest for casual sex - that's how awesome these women are) asked intelligent questions of the filmmakers. The gay men in the audience acted like braindead harpies. One moron asked why the issue of drugs on the gay scene hadn't been addressed by the film. It had been, decisively. Another, a heavy-set Asian man, decided to have a dig at Peter Tatchell ("for someone slagging off respectable gays, he looks very respectable himself". Several people in the audience laughed. I wanted to die). After the screening, I saw him and another guy nursing a couple of toddlers. They had brought their respectability with them.

For now at least, kids aren't allowed in The Hoist, although one wonders how long it will be before the good gays start demanding a crèche - or the venues' closure.

Next: Test

kaos at BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival

 kaos at 
 BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival 

The Last Match

Warning: This article contains spoilers that some readers may prefer to avoid.

Director Antonio Hens' picture - the festival's midpoint gala - came with high expectations, and it doesn't disappoint. This is a love story about something; too often, gay cinema isn't about anything much at all.

"Rey and Yovsani are two young men trying to get by as best they can in contemporary Havana: one uses his physical charms to make money as a rent boy for rich tourists, the other works for his girlfriend’s father selling a wide range of clothing and general goods but dreams of escape. They meet on the slum football ground where they regularly play; and a chance encounter at a cruising ground shows to each their hitherto nonrevealed sexuality. A passionate affair ensues. They both have girlfriends and rely heavily on family members for help with the basics (home comfort, food and affection) but their focus increasingly and dangerously becomes each other. Rey feels emboldened by easy money and splashes out on clothes but gambling drives him deep into debt. An increasingly desperate search for money makes them both take risks. When Rey is scouted for a major football team he jeopardises everything by continuing to indulge in late-night activities."

The Last Match reminded me of Midnight Dancers (Philippines, 1994) which also follows the lives of young men put out to stud by their impoverished families. Hens' Havanna tale unfortunately also shares the dispiriting trajectory of that picture: Rey and Yovsani's love story ends in tragedy. Similar fates befall the Romeos in Cal, and Children of God; it isn't enough that these young gay men have to suffer through the movie: they must also pay the ultimate price. Killing your leading lady (as it were) might look like an impressive sacrifice on the altar of realism by filmmakers seeking to avoid a fairytale ending, but for the audience, it's often a kick in the teeth.

It's a real shame, because until the disappointing finale, The Last Match doesn't miss a beat.

Antonio Hens had been due to appear for a Q&A at Tuesday's screening with his two young stars (Milton García and Reinier Díaz), but visa problems scuppered that. Instead, programmer Brian Robinson spoke to them over Skype, with Hens translating for the boys. Unfortunately, they had to endure such blistering questions from the audience as "why did you not hire gay actors instead?" There'd be equally moronic questions asked by gay men at Age of Consent the following day. Thank God for lesbians.

Next: Age Of Consent

kaos at BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival

 kaos at 
 BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival 

Big Words

I'm a '90s kid, one who grew up with the sounds of 2Pac, Warren G, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, The Pharcyde, Jungle Brothers, and De La Soul. So director/writer Neil Drumming's Big Words - about the members of a promising (but short-lived) '90s Brooklyn hip-hop group - was bound to be dead cert hit with me. It almost is.

"John aka Big Words was once in hip hop crew DLP. Years later, while trying to impress a girl, he awkwardly confesses that he was in the Down Low Poets but 'there was nothing gay about that, it was the '90s'. In fact while John and Terry, who is still trying to make a living as DJ Malik, are indeed straight, James (aka Jaybee Da Mac) has come out and is living an affluent life with his partner in Brooklyn, filled with fine wine and nice white lesbian friends."

The best thing about this picture is the cast. Firstly, Darien Sills-Evans (as the obsessive DJ Malik, who's literally stuck in a groove) steals every scene he's in. Dorian Missick - as the titular Big Words - also puts in a strong performance, ably assisted by the lovely Yaya Alafia as Annie. Gbenga Akinnagbe is good too, in the pretty thankless role of James, the group's gay member. (Akinnagbe was due to be at the screening for a Q&A, but was otherwise engaged shooting the new series of 24 elsewhere in London.)

It's with James that the film stumbles. We never really believe he's gay, despite meeting his boyfriend Eddie (Amir Arison). I'd have found it easier to believe Akinnagbe's character was a Martian living amongst us to learn our ways. It takes us back years - to the '90s, perhaps - to a time when you could just say a character's gay, but you didn't have to show it. I guess the filmmakers wanted to avoid offending the straight black audience.

Drumming's direction is a bit flat, too, although maybe that's apt for an exercise in middle-aged navel gazing. Watch it for Sills-Evans: he's superb.

Next: The Last Match

kaos at BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival

 kaos at 
 BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival 

Cross My Heart

After the complete abortion that was Saturday's Close Encounter mélange, I approached Sunday's shorts with some trepidition. Would these films also be made primarily for the amusement of the filmmaker, and not the audience?

Fortunately, programmer Michael Blyth's selection didn't leave me wanting to gouge my eyes out in protest. First up was Mathilde Bayle's The Swimming Trunks (France), a bittersweet film about a prepubescent boy's (non-sexual) crush on his friend's father. Films that rely on child actors can be crippled by an effective or precocious kid; fortunately, Roger Manning is neither. 

We're back in high school for Phil Connell's Kissing Drew (Canada, again!) for the (overly) familiar tale of a shy gay kid and his bully. It's accomplished enough, but we've seen this story way too many times before. Please, no more kids in high school!

Julián Hernández's Wandering Clouds (Mexico) will feel familiar to anyone who's seen his work (the mind-blowing Raging Sun, Raging Sky, or Broken Sky [one of the kaos Top 30 Gay Films of all time], or earlier festival entry Bramadero). It features Mexican boys in speedos - need I say anymore?

Laura Scrivano's The Language of Love (Australia) is an accomplished solo piece, written and performed by Kim Ho. It's short and sweet, even if the privileged boys' school setting calls to mind Ja'mie: Private School Girl.

Mark Pariselli's Monster Mash (Canada. Again! WTF? Really?) is a fun love letter (blood-spattered, of course) to horror. Fans of that genre will enjoy it more than the wider audience, but it holds its own, regardless. The shower scene got a big laugh.

Finally, Alex Bohs' Mum (USA) covers new territory, taking us away from the tired tropes of high school and bullying, and the twist is touching.

Both sets of shorts at Flare suffered from a lack of variety: too much high school, too much unrequited love, too much Canada (was it a job lot?) The world - the gay experience - is a much bigger place than we're seeing here. Disappointing.

Next: Big Words

kaos at BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival

 kaos at 

 BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival 

Close Encounters

Veteran programmer Brian Robinson's selection of shorts (for the "connoisseur", he said in his intro) was largely a disappointing, deeply frustrating collation of pretentious film school bollocks. Opening was Stephen Dunn and Peter Knegt's Good Morning (Canada), a fairly slight - yet cute - rumination on gay men and age. It was downhill from there.

David Ealing's What Do We Need? (Spain) wasn't witty, clever, nor, despite some cute boys, sexy. Someone spunks on a crucifix. If you think that's clever, this might be the film for you.

Things perked up a bit with Venci Kostov's The Son (Spain, again), an eventful melodrama (props to Fanny de Castro for her touching performance as a put-upon Spanish mama) which ends up in a depressing cul-de-sac.

The afternoon took a sharp dive with Drew Lint's interminable Rough Trade (Canada, again) an exercise in pointless, self-indulgent w**k. I wanted to curl up on the floor in a ball and pretend I was somewhere better; swinging on a hook in an abattoir, for example. The rapid cut flashes gave me a headache, too. Cheers for that.

Brian had one final gift for us, Christophe Predari's Human Warmth (Belgium). Brian describes it as, "An exquisite poetic short about conflicting emotions where two young men confront unresolved desire at the end of a relationship." It wasn't exquisite.

You don't expect to like everything in a programme of shorts. You can expect to be challenged. But this selection was, simply, f**king atrocious.

Next: Cross My Heart