KAOS

...out of time

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there..."

THE GAYS IN advertising.

Which is your favourite?

LENSED

"You don't take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it..." LENSED: IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

I'VE FINALLY DECIDED to give up on Windows.

I'm sick and tired of its endless tantrums, off-days, viruses, and general slow-assness. In the words of Siralan, it's a shambles.

So, I'm on the verge of buying a Macbook, but I've never had an Apple before. My friend T recommends this course of action, but for near enough £700, I'd like second, third and fourth opinions. Will a Macbook be safer, faster, more durable and more robust than a Windows laptop? Comments please - and make them constructive! Here's some Shawn Sutton, lensed by Idris+Tony, by way of a bribe.

EVERYTHING LENSED

ELSEWHERE - Idris+Tony

IRAQI GAYS ENDURE ANAL GLUE TORTURE

MORE DETAILS ARE emerging of the atrocities suffered by our brothers in Iraq:

"Iraqi militia have deployed a painful form of torture against homosexuals by closing their anuses using 'Iranian gum.'

Yina Mohammad told Alarabiya.net that, 'Iraqi militias have deployed an unprecedented form of torture against homosexuals by using a very strong glue that will close their anus.' According to her, the new substance 'is known as the American hum, which is an Iranian-manufactured glue that if applied to the skin, sticks to it and can only be removed by surgery. After they glue the anuses of homosexuals, they give them a drink that causes diarrhea. Since the anus is closed, the diarrhea causes death. Videos of this form of torture are being distributed on mobile cellphones in Iraq.'"

Less horrific, but no less denigrating, is the following BBC report.

Source: Towleroad.

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"You don't take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it..." LENSED: IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

WHAT A WAY to start the week: Hot, fresh and exclusive to ka-os|theory - more shots of our favourite London bwoi, Francis, courtesy of Urban Shotz Photography. There's some new faces over at Urban Shotz too - you'll just love Marcus and Jouvan - but you'll have to head over there to feast your eyes on them. Meanwhile, Corey Keith has written a blisteringly honest account of his brutally sexual encounter with a college kid at Forever I Love Atlanta. It puts whole new meaning into the phrase "no pain, no gain"... ELSEWHERE - Urban Shotz Photography ELSEWHERE - Forever I Love Atlanta EVERYTHING LENSED

THE WEEK ACCORDING TO GARÇON STUPIDE

*Hell hath no fury... A student from west London is convicted of setting his ex-boyfriend on fire.

*Amazon wages stealth war on gays - a pretty dumb move, if you ask me, given the power of our pounds (and dollars). "No no no! It was all a mistake!" they protested. A little too much, and a little too late.

*Esquire grovel a bit too, following their earlier act of war.

*The airlines are at it too: "If there was a male flight attendant it would be thought that he was gay and the owner would not tolerate such an individual on the aircraft."

*But we're not taking it lying down - rum dump at Stonewall!

*And Amnesty International is demanding action from Iraq's leaders over the murder of dozens of young men and boys at the hands of Baghdad death squads.

*So presumably, Amnesty isn't spending all its time promoting homosexuality in liberal Uganda. I guess they can leave the distribution of free Falcon DVDs to Unicef and Human Rights Watch.

*Far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders plans a sequel to his anti-Koran film, Fitna. "Unfortunately, there are only a few leaders who are standing up and saying our freedom of speech principles are more important than appeasing Islam." If this is the sound of the far-right, sign me up.

*No gay dorm in Texas - hopes of frat fun fade.

*1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India. Yes, you read it right - 1,500 souls.

*White is right - apparently. The white invaders are still telling the natives what to do with their land, to the detriment of its rightful owners.

*If there's one thing Americans love more than their bibles, it's their guns. Roll up, roll up, it's the NRA vs President Obama! (gee, I don't know if I can decide whose side I'll take).

*I can guess whose side white supremacists are on, however. Is Obama a recruiting tool for right-wing extremists? I wonder if this is what Trevor Phillips meant when he said this.

*Obama could be given the power to shut down the Internet. Well, at least it's Obama. I doubt his predecessor knows what the Internet is.

*The European Commission (oooohh, scary) isn't happy with Britain's failure to protect its citizens from secret surveillance on the internet; launches inquiry.

*Rotherham boy plunges into vat of caustic soda.

*A Slow Down London festival is planned. Organisers say the festival is an opportunity for people to stop rushing around. Do we really need Joe Public to move any slower than it does already? Get me to the nearest agriculture supplier, 'cos I'm gonna need a cattle prod for this.

*A little bit of Tokyo comes to London. But Oxford Circus will always be as close to hell on Earth as you can get, no matter what they do to it.

*The death of the parking meter. A collective outpouring of grief isn't expected.

*The police need a hand.

*Independent Police Complaints Commission remind a power-mad, out-of-control Metropolitan Police that they are our "servants not the masters". Watch the astonishing attack by a Met police officer on a protester here.

*ER writers must be thinking, "Doh! Why didn't I think of that?" You couldn't make it up really: the man with a fir tree growing inside his lung. At least it wasn't a cactus.

*We're all going to die! (Again).

*Boffins figure out how to diagnose cancer from one speck of blood.

*And the award for News I Don't Want To Hear goes to... Wine drinkers 'pile on calories'.

*As many as 2000 Orangutans discovered in a remote corner of Indonesia.

*And on a slightly smaller scale, the community of microbes that breathe iron. They've been cut off from the rest of the world for 1.5 million years. Well, the party's over, kids, mankind's coming to f**k things up!

*Dubai: a city built on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery.

*Polar bear attack!

*Dolphin force field!

*Lego Jesus Christ!

*Spooky snow rollers!

*Marlon Brando gives head!

*Summer of Archie!

*"Chinese views towards black people are not sophisticated, partly because it is not very common to see any in the cities and even less in the country," Beijing residents tell The Times. Introducing Ding Hui.

*Adrian Peterson is a big boy, and he wants to get bigger. Well go ahead, sweetheart, don't let us stop you. (By the way, take your shirt off...)

*...Like plastic boy slut Cristiano Ronaldo...

*...Or naked royal whore Jonathan Rhys-Meyers...

*...'cos Enrique ain't gonna: "I don't look good naked. I've got chicken legs and my balls hang too low. I hear they get lower and saggier as you get older, and that's f**ked up. I'll have to tuck mine into my socks."

*Someone who loves nudity is ka-os|theory crush Roman Heart, who's now apparently all grown-up (i.e. he's now a hunk, rather than a twink). Awwwwww. Falcon claim he's appeared on more magazine covers than any other gay male pornstar.

*But is he the Best Bottom Porn Star? QC Sex Chronicles asks who is. (For the record, my vote goes to Kidd).

*Bad boy 4rgy? Tyrese, Omarion, Keith and Chris (presumably swearing off women - and who can blame him?) play together.

*Boy love in video. Now, that's what I call a music video.

*Deconstructing the racial politics of gay porn: Race Cooper.

*"Advice on how to make sure your kids turn out gay, not to mention your students, your parishoners, your therapy clients, or your military subordinates, is less ubiquitous than one might think." Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, 1950-2009.

ISSUE 05

WAR OF THE BOOTY!

SO WHO'S GOT the phattest azz?

ka-os|theory favourite Shorty J, pictured with bootylicious Rafael Alencar. It doesn't get much better than that.

The boys were at California's Erotic Expo. There's an even bigger wad of photos from the event at Rafael's sexy blog.

ELSEWHERE - Rafael Alencar.com

LENSED

"You don't take a photograph. You ask, quietly, to borrow it..."
LENSED: IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

Walter Kurtz lenses ka-os|theory favourite model Wendel Lissimore. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Oh, and I got asked for ID buying liqour yesterday in Tesco. The woman kind of wrinkled her nose and looked at me funny when I lugged my basket of booze up onto her check-out, but I thought she was just disgusted at my 6 bottles of white (hell, 5% discount on 6 bottles, gur'. I ain't drinking 'em all at once). Then she asked me for ID. I guess my hard drinking ain't taking its toll on my boyish good looks.

Now, where can I buy that stuff for dark rings under the eyes, again...?

EVERYTHING LENSED

ELSEWHERE - Walter Kurtz (Official)

Out of breath

I HATE TO WRITE a negative book review.

The reviews I prefer to write are about books that make a lasting impression, that stand out. Books that deserve a wider audience.

After all, why knock someone who's tried? It's only when it's clear the author has a total lack of respect for his reader (James Earl Hardy) or has a racist agenda (James Earl Hardy) do I feel the need to speak out. In other words, if I don't have anything good to say, I'd rather not say anything at all. Unless I really, really have to.

When I started reading Blair R. Poole's Breathe, I had high hopes. It seemed like a sweet coming of age story. Yes, our protagonist, "quintessential hip-hop teenager", Nafiq, is a cliché, albeit a potentially intriguing and likeable enough cliché. There's the promise of a story: Nafiq is the perfect son, the perfect student, the perfect athlete et cetera. When will the pressure make him snap?

Fortunately, in the world of Breathe, everyone is flawlessly beautiful, sexy, popular and sought after - but only when they're African-American or, at a stretch, Latino. Breathe, you see, is an imitation of the same blaxploitation crap that Poole's apparent inspiration James Earl Hardy peddles: a dreary world of conservative, successful, beautiful black folk who all go to church, preach the value of family, and in the meantime, get up to all sorts of soap opera nastiness on the down low; lying, cheating and sexing everyone and anyone who's flawlessly beautiful, sexy, successful, and, of course, African-American. And deriding white folk at every opportunity is a must, because the wholesale denigration of Caucasians is a badge of honour.

Somewhere along the line in Breathe, the author gets bored with Nafiq's story and decides to cut to Nafiq's sister and her down low fiancée. Her story is an even longer string of clichés, ripped straight from an E. Lynn Harris novel, and even more clumsily told. There's no attempt at insight, no depth. Every negative emotion is depicted along the lines of "he shook his head sadly".

Well, a puppy might droop its head sadly if you tell it off, but if a teenager is shunned by his parents, and kicked out of the parental home, we'd expect a little more in the way of insight. Maybe the author could invest some of the proceeds from the sales of the book in a good thesaurus.

At the end of Breathe I felt truly robbed of my time. I could have been reading something more worthwhile - like a Mills & Boon romance, which would at least have had more depth, probably have made better use of the English language, and not have left such a nasty taste in the mouth. And that's really saying something.

One lesson I did take away from Breathe, however, was a useful counter-argument to the lie that white people are responsible for perpetuating the thug stereotype. Blair R. Poole and his ilk are educated, and - at the least - middle-class African-Americans, who are clearly in the thrall of thug DL culture. Their sole intended audience is the African-American community. Lightweight fluff like Breathe is pure blaxploitation, by black Americans, for upwards of middle-class black Americans, and strictly off limits to whites.

That's fine by me - Mister Poole, you're welcome to keep your hypocrisy, your lies, your church, and your grim stereotypes. It's all yours - I hope you and your flawlessly beautiful, sexy, popular and sought after African-American brothas have a great time with it all.