February 2008

Club Amerika

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Gascón 1040
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Every Weekend

It’s the hottest club in Buenos Aires, with resident DJs Luis Vega and Oscar Rodriguez.  Also, they have a nice website.

Sydney Dispatch #3: 5 Things American Gays Can Learn from Australian Gays

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We admit we were a little crabby when we landed, but after three days of
barramundi, wine and cruising, on the harbor and otherwise, we’re feeling a
little bit better about San Francisco’s sister city down under. In fact, we like it so much upside-down here, we think we might
bring something of their gay culture back to the states, and we’re not talking
about the ecstasy hidden in our wig.

Rites XXIX: The Black Party


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The Saint At Large: The Black Party
Roseland Ballroom
New York City

March 29

The darkest night of the year is taking place on March 29th at Roseland Ballroom, where The Saint at Large annually throws both its White Party and Black Party celebrations, in honor and spirit of the legendary LES nightclub that launched many a DJ’s career. This night of nights encourages heavy dress (get out that leather polish) and normally culiminates with some type of full-blown orgy by the following afternoon. What else do you expect from a party with a press release that urges us to “maul each other on the dance floor, in the bathrooms, and anywhere else that’s dark and available”? Click here for more info.

Bette Midler’s “The Showgirl Must Go On”


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Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On
LIVE at Caesar’s Palace COLOSSEUM
Las Vegas

March 1-16

Do you know your divas or do you know your divas? The “amazing” Celine Dion has finally flown the Colosseum at Las Vegas’ Caesar’s Palace resort, making room for a hoarse voice of a different color. The inimitable Bette Midler, perennial gay fave and star of such masterpieces as Beaches and The First Wives Club is bringing her trademark over-the-top cattitude to the Vegas stage, where she performs many of her greatest hits under the guises of several Las Vegas characters (like a mermaid in a wheelchair and the oldest showgirl in town). If you’re looking for something to sate your appetite until Cher comes swinging into town by her sequined thong, maybe something a little less dancey and a little more campy will be just what you need. Click here for more info.

Mardi Gras Film Festival


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Melbourne “Mardi Gras” Queer Film Festival
Melbourne

March 5-16

If the photo is any indication, this isn’t your typical high-art citywide film festival. Melbourne’s annual Queer Film Festival is the biggest GLBT screen-fest in all of Australia, which awards up to $9,000 to winning films. The fact that it all happens in the midst of Australia’s yearly BIGGEST MARDI GRAS EVER (hot on Sydney’s cha-cha heels) means that you’ll be able to span your time hitting theaters in between all of those jello shots (kiwi, of course). Click here for more info.

Art Dubai


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ART Dubai
Dubai, U.A.E.

March 19-22

If the Whitney Biennial bored you to sobs and the thought of attending the hipster-infested Art Basels makes you pseudocidal, why not head for the planet’s new city of opulence, glorious Dubai, for the annual contemporary art fair, Art Dubai? Featuring exhibiting galleries from all over the world, Art Dubai “has become a cornerstone for the rapidly growing art community of the Middle East.” Some of the world’s leading artists, curators, museum directors, and other professionals will meet in the city of never-ending architecture to discuss what will serve to help define art’s future, charity galas will be popping off galore, and although you may not be able to afford a scrap of work, you’re liable to see some pretty jaw-dropping presentations-and we haven’t even gotten to the art yet. Click here for more info.

Red T-Shirt Party

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Club Destination
7 Gongtixilu (Across from Worker’s Stadium)
Chaoyang District
Beijing, China

March 8

DJ Spyglass hosts this party in celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Michael Jackon’s Thriller (oh, yeah, we heard he was really huge in Asia). If you wear a red t-shirt and get there before midnight, you get in free and get a free drink. Also, if you’re Anglo or otherwise European American, you’re bound to be the tallest person there, and you’re bound to get laid. More info here.

Mostra Mercado del Disco


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Mostra Mercado del Disco
Bologna

March 8-9

If you’re a DJ or perhaps just a music-loving queer, head to the now legendary Mostra Mercado del Disco in Bologna the weekend of the 8th to trade in some of your worn-out Pet Shop Boys LPs for something shinier. The Friday before, you might want to also check out the Chalet Giardini Margherita at Viale Meliconi 1, where you can catch the most popular gay dance night in town. Click here for more info.

GAYBALITOURS


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Gay Bali Tours
Lovina Beach

Whenevs!

Bali offers friendly vacation accommodations to LGBT-ites and their families year-round! March may be as good a time as any to head to go where not-even-Collin O’Neal has gone before in the isles of Indonesia, where you can check out some of the most beautiful beaches and hotels that Southeast Asia has to offer, and maybe even check into a detox facility while you’re at it. We’ll take coral reefs and beaches with black sand over a lodge in Utah any day! More info here.

New Study Offers Parents Pointers on Raising the Perfect BDSM Bottom

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US News & World Report, that bastion of scary news as well as annual college rankings, this week informs us that spanking your child may lead to him turning up years later on HBO’s Real Sex drenched in piss with a ball-gag in his mouth.  Murray Straus, a we’re-sure-self-described “spanking expert,” has authored four separate studies proving that spanking can lead to both criminal behavior and deviant sexual behavior in later life, and what’s more is that there is 93-percent agreement among the studies. Pretty convincing!

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival

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London, England

March 27 – April 10

It’s the 22nd one of these things sponsored by the British Film Institute and highlights this year include: Love and Other Disasters starring Brittany Murphy and directed by Alek Keshishian who made Madonna: Truth or Dare; 25 Cent Preview, about a hustler and his partner in SF’s Tenderloin; and a very special series of Lezspoloitation flicks.  More festival info here: http://www.bfi.org.uk/llgff

Lake Tahoe Winterfest 08

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Gay & Lesbian Ski Week
South Lake Tahoe, CA

March 2-9

If you’re vaguely sporty and have the means, head on up to the Sierras to be surrounded by snow-bunny gays and preppy lesbians who snowboard. Gay-event-mainstay Ari Gold will be performing at the Rock Star party on March 7th, which is at Tahoe Underground (formerly Faces, because every town has a gay bar called Faces). More info here.

Men’s Synchronized Swimming (SNL, 1987)

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“I’m not that *strong* a swimmer…” Please watch this classic clip from Saturday Night Live featuring Martin Short, Harry Shearer and a pre-Corky-St.Clair Christopher Guest as the pink-sweatshirted dance coach of the first Men’s synchronized swimming team.

Sunday Beer Bust

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The Eagle Tavern
398 12th Street
San Francisco

Every Sunday, 3PM to 7PM

Whatever you do, don’t wear flip-flops to this weekly $10
all-you-can-slug beer fest–your feet will get stepped on and covered
in sand, and beer… and who knows what else.

Weekend Event Roundup: Feb 29 – Mar 2

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Care of The Sword’s tireless editors, we bring you this roundup (by
no means complete, or even-handed) of stuff going on for those of the
homo persuasion this weekend in the two meccas we currently have
bandwidth to cover, San Francisco and New York.  Check back soon to see
us cover more gay urban centers near you (sorry, Cheyenne, we may never
get to you).

Our heavily editorialized listings after the jump…

Sidebar: Cliff’s Notes on The Bryan Kocis Murder

EveryPoolboy.jpgBryan Kocis was a middle-aged suburbanite who parlayed his penchant for pederasty into a thriving business named Cobra Video—a bareback studio focusing on the Barely Legal twink set.

Match The Porn Star With His Baby Pic

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We thought it would be funny to send out an email to some of our porn star friends asking them to send us their baby pictures. We thought it would be funny because we were drunk at the time. We didn’t think anyone would write back. When they did (some, like, the very next day) we thought maybe we could be onto something. Maybe the only thing we’re onto is shaky ground for putting up pictures of porn stars next to pictures of toddlers—but hey, it just goes to show you that we were all sweet, innocent babies once. Or something.

Behind the Scenes: Dark Alley Media

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In this clip from The Tim & Roma Show from their trip to New York last year, Dark Alley Media founders Matthias vonFistenberg and Owen Hawk talk about the studio’s dimly lit, semi-German aesthetic and about what hard work it is running a porn company.  Owen, once a model himself, has decided that the models need to stop complaining and realize they’re only a small piece of producing a movie.

Sydney Dispatch #2: Margaret Cho Announces Aussie ‘Fag Hag Summit’

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Cho My God. In a swirling vortex of faggotry, the notorious Margaret has
announced that as Chief of the Parade, she’ll be sharing the
Sydney Mardi Gras spotlight with Cindy Lauper, Kathy Griffin and Olivia Newton
John. We always suspect that, like our actual fag hag friends, they loved us but
despised each other. And it’s possible that the Bush-bashing-bush-licking
comedienne was merely setting the stage for a colossal coup in which she lures
her competition onto the stage, only to flip a switch and drop them into
shark-filled harbor below, thus securing fag hag dominance. Or perhaps Kylie is
the culprit (there ain’t a gay party where she’s not, mate) and is preparing to
disappear them, Picnic at Hanging Rock-style.

Soon They Will Be Dead: The William F. Buckley Jr. Memorial List of Conservatives We’re Still Waiting on to Die

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He once had a war of words with Gore Vidal (whom he addressed as “you queer” after Vidal called him a “pro-war-crypto-Nazi”) and he made such condescending remarks about gay rights as, “A homosexual has a right not to get hit by a truck.”  Yes, William F. Buckley Jr., that great charmer of men and founder of conservative soapbox The National Review, is finally dead.  After graduating Yale in 1950, Buckley rose to right-wing fame after penning the book God and Man at Yale, in which he went after the growing threat of “liberal professors” who were forcing their heathen views on unsuspecting students.  He may be responsible, in fact, for popularizing the term “liberal professor” and for turning the American Right into a bunch of anti-intellectual, academia-hating Texans.  More recently he has weighed in on the illogic of the Episcopal Church in trying to canonize homosexuals and spoken in support of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.  He leaves a great legacy of tight-assed stubbornness behind him, and his influence will probably still be felt for years to come.

Boxcover of the Week: Damn Yankers (Jake Cruise Media)


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In the past, we’ve featured boxcovers because of both their composition and their flashiness. But today we’re featuring Damn Yankers by Jake Cruise Media because nothing screams “I’m gay!” to your house guests, family, and/or roommates like a gay porno that references musical theatre. Just imagine if this were the way that someone “found you out”! “My wife threw me out of the house after she found my ‘Damn Yankers’ DVD in my toolbox in the garage.”

“…But I swear I’m not gay!”

Project Runway Finale Looms Closer; Let the Ferocheness Begin

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This being the gayest season of reality television’s gayest series—unless we mean gay as in bad, in which case it’s that stupid show about Scott Baio pretending to be pregnant on VH1—the winner of Project Runway Season 4 is most likely going to be a gay man (sorry, Jillian) for the first time since Jay McCarroll took home the title in 2005. While fags across America scamper home to set their TiVos for the grand finale which commences this evening, we can’t help but marvel at what a gay time we’ve had watching this run, which in truly homosexual fashion consisted of non-stop drama.

Between Jack Mackenroth’s MRSA-staph-and-not- AIDS-related facial swelling meltdown, Chris March’s portfolio of drag queen self-portraits, Ricky Lizalde’s nonstop weeping, Christian’s inability to utter a sentence without including the terms “fierce,” “flawless,” “feroche,” or “barfness,” and the very presence of series judge Michael Kors and his bitchy asides, the show was so infectiously homo-centric that the female contestants felt routinely eclipsed and sole straight male contestant Kevin Christensen might have actually become gay in some sort of nuclear-gay fallout. After the jump, check out some of our favorite moments from this season so far, and then we’ll see you on the runway.

Joan Rivers Still Wants the Last Word on Oscar Fashion, Settles for Last Gasp


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The Academy Awards were three days ago and in internet-time we know that’s a veritable eternity, but now that Joan Rivers has reared her synthetic, scowling head we’ve realized that we’re still not over it. We hate to admit it, but we miss Joan and Melissa’s red carpet coverage. Maybe we’re assholes, but the way in which Joan Rivers would tell the stars they look beautiful and then criticize them the second their backs were turned was easier to relate to than, say, Ryan Seacrest’s strange appropriation of a British accent when speaking “flirtatiously” with Keira Knightley. As predicted, our favorite bitter, snarky duo seems to have managed to set up shop and get a word in edgewise about Nicole Kidman’s botoxed features. Although they chose AOL.com’s StyleList as their venue of choice over L.A. Public Access, that is a dummy red-carpet they’re sitting on, so it’s fair for us to say that we called this one.

Remarkably, and perhaps due to her low-profile podcast and conspicuously shorter running time (clocking in at around 7 minutes, as opposed to the duo’s former half-hour wrap-ups on E!), Joan is more disappointed in Hollywood than ever this year, seemingly spewing haterade at everyone from pregnant Jessica Alba (whom she compared to Barney the dinosaur) to Best Actress-winner Marion Cotillard, whom she responded to by screeching “Jean Paul Gaultier should be shot!”

Normally this dig at Jean Paul would cause us to turn on our cryptkeeper of the velvet ropes with pitchforks and flaming torches, but we can’t help but marvel at how she also managed to echo some of the comments from our very own Oscar party: in reference to Heidi Klum (“What the hell was she doing there?”), John Travolta (citing that his hair looked like a “Chia Pet®”), and Tilda Swinton (“She looks just like David Bowie”) in particular. Our favorite comment from the 7-minutes-in-Joan-and-Melissa-heaven hit when it came Ellen Page’s turn at ridicule. Referring to her dumpy, black ensemble, Joan reasoned that “unlike her character in Juno, she ain’t gonna score tonight.” ZZZZZZZING!

Worst in Gay Marketing: Air New Zealand’s Pink Flight to Sydney Mardi Gras

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What’s worse than a 14 hour flight? How about a 14 hour “gay” flight.

Generally on long flights (like the only slightly less homo-rific one we just took to Sydney ourselves) we like to pop a Valium, order an adult beverage (or two), kick back and drift off to sleep. The less we can be reminded that we’re trapped in a tube 30,000 feet up the better. No such luck for the gay early adopters who are booked on this headache.

As marketing departments scramble for new ways to shake you down for your dual-income-no-kids disposable gay dollar, they seemed to have reached a new low in pandering.

When the Rainbow Is Not Enuf: A Dispatch from Sydney Mardi Gras

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Homosexuals are a hearty, tote-friendly breed and generally eager to escape
Columbus, or Palm Springs or wherever, in search of penis-friendly anuses
in tropical climes. As part of San Francisco’s first “official” delegation to the continent
of Australia, The Sword understands the need to find unexplored cultural
crevasses, and shall give you regular updates on the pre-Mardi Gras
festivities in our Sister City down under.

B-Roll: Mutiny (Dark Alley, 2005)

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Before they made the switch to the dark side, NY-Based Dark Alley Media was one of our favorites and this clip from their auspicious 2005 debut Mutiny reminds us why: their movies had an artsy, gritty edge that no one else could duplicate. While far from perfect, the non-sequitur dialogue, dim-orangey lighting and shaky cameras give the work almost a Dogma 95 feel-but we digress…

Baby Dee, Trans Harpist/Singer, Receives Bloggy Love

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We remember Baby Dee in New York, riding her tricycle-mounted-harp around the East Village, looking a bit like John Lithgow in The World According to Garp and hustling for a solo show anywhere she could get it. She’s come a long way, having taken some time running a tree-removal service in Cleveland, and returning to New York where she now had some indie music cred and connections enough to produce her latest album Safe Inside the Day (Drag City Records). Pitchfork reviewed it last week and the write-up is pretty glowing, with comparisons to Tom Waits and Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons, who Baby Dee also claims as a friend.

When Gay Porn’s Goffney Twins Got Caught Stealing


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Greater Philadelphia’s NBC10 reported last week that Philadelphia twins Keyontyli and Teleon Goffney were caught breaking into a beauty supply store through a hole in the ceiling and trying to make off with all the cash in the business’s ATM-machine. Their methods have them possibly connected with a string of New Jersey burglaries as well, and police officials suspect that the Goffney twins may have been responsible for “at least” 35 similar robberies.

Trailer: ‘The Intern’ (Lucas, 2007)

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Multiple GayVN winner [for Best Sex Comedy, Best Renting Title, Best Supporting Actor (Christian Cruz, pictured at right) and Best Non-Sex Performance- Joe Shepard, (pictured at left as the queeny receptionist)], THE INTERN from Lucas Entertainment follows the rise of Benny (Ben Andrews) from lowly office slave to porn star, all thanks to the enormous surprise in his pants.

Rufskin’s “Roman” Underwear

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Falcon’s concocted yet another way to get rich of the asses of their models. Actually, we can’t imagine that uber-gay label Rufskin forked over any licensing fees for their new Roman underwear, named for and modeled after Monsieur Heart‘s Kardashian- proportioned derrière.

The buttock-revealing, denim bikini-cut underwear are so gay, we have a hard time calling them “underwear” (man-panties might be a more fitting moniker). How gay are they? They come with belt loops so you can hang your thumb off your hip when you want to stand in contrapposto and look sassy at the bar.

Why the Roman and not, say, the Erik? Apparently Roman has a long
herstory with Rufskin, having modeled for them before he did porn.
Since Roman is rumored

CBS Gives Gay Soap Opera Supercouple a PG-Rating, Everyone Else Blueballs


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It has recently been brought to our attention that there is a really hot daytime television gay couple on As The World Turns! Alas, their increasingly sporadic appearances on the broadcast have some fans getting their gay panties in a twist. The first gay-male couple on a soap opera to be given their own substantial romantic narrative, Luke Snyder (played by Van Hansis) and Noah Mayer (Jake Silbermann)-commonly referred to as “Nuke” in portmanteau-have a dedicated fanbase of gays and straights alike who look forward to seeing the stages of their innocent romance unfold in a format usually reserved for more traditional and Christian-friendly plot lines like serial killers, evil husband-snatching twins, the living dead, witches, exorcisms, child rape, and its flagship lurid heterosexual affairs with gratuitous lingerie and softcore makeout scenes.

Slightly Homophobic Clip of the Week: Jimmy Kimmel’s ‘Fucking Ben Affleck’

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Now that it’s so cool and mainstream to be gay, you might think gay jokes weren’t funny anymore. You’d be wrong! The sight of two avowedly straight men pretending to be gay together is still a laugh riot on late-night TV, particularly when the men involved are Jimmy Kimmel and Ben Affleck and one of them is wearing a shiny spandex shirt. We’re sort of impressed/bothered by all the A-List cameos like Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, Cameron Diaz, and a few C-listers like Huey Lewis and Lance Bass who join in a We Are the World-esque recording studio bit.  It may be that, in a few decades, clips like this will start to look like old Al Jolson movies look to us now. Or it may be that, for the crowd that chooses to watch Jimmy Kimmel before settling in for some disgusting and sad heterosexual lovemaking, jokes like this won’t ever get old.

SPOTTED: Chace Crawford and J.C. Chasez Canoodling at Elton John’s Oscar Party


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Good morning Upper East Siders! Although Gossip Girl may be off the air vis-à-vis the writers’ strike it’s refreshing to know that somebody is still snapping photos of the show’s cast for gossip blogs, keeping rabid obsessives such as ourselves at bay. In what may be the gayest curiosity of Oscar-night, purported friends Chace Crawford and former *NSYNC closet-case JC Chasez were spotted getting very cozy at Elton John’s annual Academy Awards bash. Sources claim that the two spent the evening virtually joined at the hip, making us wonder if we should begin playing around with acronyms for a new IT-couple. “Chace Chasez”? “Chacez”? Hit the jump for the photos while we ponder who’s on top and whether or not JC will feel inspired to jump on the “man-bangs” bandwagon for which Chace is (evidently) the lovely and talented spokesmodel.

Homos Won’t Get Groove Back in Jamaica, Might Get Killed

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The New York Times is always particularly good at these sort of newsflashes, but for any gays out there who didn’t already know, Jamaica is not exactly a fun and friendly gay tourist destination.  In fact, if you’re gay and you happen to live in this tropical island paradise and decide to throw a dinner party for a couple of your gay friends, you may find an angry mob outside your house wielding machetes!  Not cool guys, so not cool.

Erik Rhodes Skips Dentist, Takes Too Much GHB, Has Non-Consensual Sex

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Erik Rhodes may claim on his blog to be sad and lonely (and also not to be Britney Spears)
but one can’t deny his ability to live out the porn star lifestyle in all its decrepit glamour.
Last time we had a toothache we spent a half-hour the phone convincing
our dentist that we weren’t just hung over-and that it wasn’t going
to cause us to relapse. Again. Not Erik. After finishing another photo
shoot at Loehmann’s, the man of our dreams goes to McDonald’s and washes it down with a Power Ade and a couple of doses of G.

Ricky Sinz Behind the Scenes: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Stop!”

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Before he
won a GayVN for Raging Stallion’s GRUNTS, Ricky Sinz was an actual grunt in the
US Army. Shortly after leaving the service, the bisexual wunderkind started
making porn with Corkscrew Media, including “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t
Stop!”  Here they go behind-the-scenes on the insurgent shoot, to the
sound of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Skin Flutes” – er – “Reed Flutes,” from “The Nutcracker Suite.”

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