Care of The Sword’s tireless editors, we bring you this roundup (byOur heavily editorialized listings after the jump…
The end of the week always seems to bring news of gays getting arrested in a foreign country. This time, it’s Saudi Arabia, and it appears that someone arranged for an underground drink-n-drag fest on a farm near Qatif in the eastern part of the country, the cops caught wind of it and they arrested all 55 guests (including a couple of queens on stage “dancing in makeup”). The news seems to have leaked out via the Philippine embassy in Saudi Arabia who are currently trying to free a pair of Filipino nationals who were among those arrested.
Athletic Model Guild’s Bob Mizer found some true stars over the years, even if they never became huge names. One who we think deserves another look is Tico Patterson. He did a few star turns in Man O’ Man and Bi-Coastal. But he’s perhaps most fetching in pictures, naked but for his moustache and the occasional prop–we especially love the 70s jogger-pirate one with the pistol aimed at his pistol and the one of him as a football jock with leg cast and missing teeth.
You could say the first-half of this decade was a golden age of sorts for gay porn stars. Not only could they hawk their soiled skivvies for princely sums, but they could also get rich by charging people recurring monthly fees in return for access to their personal websites. Back then, joining usually gave you access to little more than a few sets of images, a message board, and their journal.
Are reprimands and consequences worse for senators who are outed as gay than for those who are found out to be corrupt? In an opinion piece on Bloomberg.com today, Margaret Carlson says, without a doubt, yes. She analyzes the reaction of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to recent corruption charges against Ted Stevens and compares this to McConnell’s reactions to charges against Larry Craig in that hilarious but comparatively forgivable (in some peoples’ eyes) bathroom incident. As we noted back in February, the Senate Ethics Committee tried to steer away from slapping Craig’s wrist for the actual soliciting of airport bathroom sex and said it was Craig’s actions following his indictment, and the apparent dishonesty in his switching of pleas, that brought “discredit on the Senate.”
They admit that it’s linkbait, and we’re biting! The guys over at URLesque have compiled this list of bloggers on whom they’re ‘man-crushing’ (read: occasionally jacking off to but staying discreet about it ’cause it’s AOL). We have to admit to a serious, long-standing crush on Gabriel Delahaye of Corporate Casual fame (he unfortunately digs the pussy), and we wouldn’t kick Zach Klein (College Humor) or Michael K (Dlisted) out of bed either (we’re pretty certain the latter is the gay). However we’d have to take issue with the assessment that Andy Towle has “stripped ‘gay content’ of yappy, splashy gossip” and become “the go-to resource for realistic analysis of the ever-changing policies effecting the gay community.” WhatEV. He’s just as infatuated with Chace Crawford as we are.
This is just the kind of news we like to see on that faithful snooze-flash aggregator that is 365gay.com: Customs agents in Sydney yesterday seized over 150 containers of performance-enhancing drugs, including testosterone and deca durabolin, which were labeled “gay lube oil.” This was apparently a ploy by a “highly sophisticated” Thai drug cartel to avoid detection by way of making customs agents point, laugh and ignore. The ruse was discovered in gay-friendly Sydney, where the customs guys were probably hoping to take home a case or three of free lube to their gay hubbies, but all they got was some lousy testosterone.
Our very own lover and friend mr. Pam directed and shot this new porn flick from Black Scorpion Video, ‘Sex Hiker,’ and we must say the trailer is really kind of arty!
While all of you are out there tonight in the shitshow getting fucked up and trying to find something, animal or mineral, to shove up your butts before bed, a legion of brave, battle-scarred young men (and the occasional gal or tranny) is working hard for the money to provide you with your good times.
While hate crimes are certainly nothing to laugh at, we were more than amused by this clip from 90s Aaron Spelling soap Melrose Place in which Kimberly (Marcia Cross) defines the term for gay martyr Matt (Doug Savant).
Today we bring your attention to this blog, Gay Men’s Social Crisis, edited by a recent NYU graduate named Colin Fitzpatrick with help from some friends and adorned with a spoofed GMHC logo. He’s funny. (To wit, the About section: “Serving biscuits with trouser gravy daily for men feeling disenfranchised by today’s popular gay culture.”– a man after our own hearts.) He hates Margaret Cho and Kathy Griffin. He loved Mamma Mia and Wall-E. He lampoons hipster girls in Williamsburg. And he was with us in being fairly confused and irritated by that whole New/Old Gay business.
Don’t worry fags… she’s not dead yet. We just decided, because it’s Wednesday, to unearth this classic performance by the tranniest bio female to ever walk the stage, Carol Channing, as The White Queen in the 1985 TV-movie-musical, ‘Alice in Wonderland.’
Our stalwart correspondent from down south is back with this dispatch from gay LA, in which he explores the upstairs/ downstairs dynamic of a pair of parties and interviews clubland godfather figure, Wayne Castro.
The dispatch, after the jump, comes c/o Kid on the Ball at GayBarCulture. Thanks, kid.
Is the world of Gay Porn ready for another monogamous couple with a cutesy dual name? OK, well what if they wear matching tank tops? Meet “The Tristans.”
Does your jealous lover check lube levels, too? Then you may relate to this clip from Jet Set’s masterpiece Doggie Style: Get Some Tail. It features some of the best porn b-roll dialogue we’ve heard in a while:
Tom: “It’s the 21st century, Shane, and you’re a monogamous dinosaur.”
Shane: “And you’re an alcoholic slut.”
(That would be Derek Cruz as Tom, Shane Collins as Shane and Anthony Martinez, pictured at left.)
A Fort Lauderdale condominium development with the very drag-queeny name of Poinsettia Landings is using the same model in their final “closeout” advertising push as ClassifiedEscorts.com. We all know the real estate market is hurting, especially in places like Florida, but does sex really sell everything? Even condos? It smells a bit of desperation, but we suppose it isn’t that much of a stretch. Real estate agents are bigger whores than anyone who ever sucked a cock for a hundred dollars.
The evidence, after the jump.
Late last week at the Huntington Beach 2008 “Teen Vogue Fashion LIVE!” event, 18-year-old pro-skater Ryan Sheckler made the innocent choice to remove his t-shirt, unwittingly causing a din of shrill screams from approximately 35,000 eleven-year-old girls. The wall of noise was so thunderous it caused seismic plates in southern California’s coastal region to shift violently, resulting in this Los Angeles-area earthquake early yesterday. When we pressed our fourteen-year-old niece for comment, she questioned Ryan’s hotness with a dismissive hair flip: “I used to think he was hot, and then all my friends started to think he was hot and it was kind of annoying, but now he’s all buff and like…not as hot. Okay, he’s pretty hot still!!”
We’ve finally pulled together all our footage from mr. Pam’s travels in New York and Roma’s roamings around San Francisco Pride last month. Pour yourself an adult beverage and press play.
Just when you thought the revival of disco hits and the wave of Studio 54 recreations was something we all got over in 1999, the era is rearing its sex-crazed, poly-blended, bloody nosed face again like a cracked out tranny after her morning bump. News arrives that Showtime has a new series in development, from writer Chad Hodge (Runaway) and Hairspray producers Craig
Zadan and Neil Meron. In a brilliant move, the creators are opting not use “54” in the title-since that was already taken with a certain Ryan Phillippe/Mike Myers vehicle from 1998-but are instead going for the marvelously simple “Studio.” While that earlier film was kind of lame and while we love the 70s in general and Steve Rubell stories in particular, we can’t help but yawn at this idea.
Twink sensation Brent Corrigan isn’t normally known for his modesty, but the barebacker-turned-savvy studio head donned a pair of blue boxers and ran across his adopted home town as part of San Diego State’s annual Undie Run clothing drive.
Although we thought we’d seen it all — especially after this weekend, it looks like we our declarations may have been premature. Something’s blowing in the wind: malodorous trend that we first caught whiff of a few months ago is getting stronger: Yes, the fart fetish is gaining momentum (and has us running for the Febreze).
For a heterosexual designer (an oxymoron, we know), Raf Simons seems eerily talented at choosing the industry’s cutest male models for his shows. With their aloof expressions and austere, unattainable beauty, Raf’s boys have been putting angst in our pants since he manipulated us into buying $500 hoodies so that we could look perfectly punk and homeless in 2002. Six years later, our favorite fashion figure is not only rivaling Miuccia Prada as menswear’s biggest force in forecasting movements in the style
tides, but is also stewarding the minimalist German house of Jil Sander
into exhilarating new directions.
Dore Alley wasn’t all seventy-year-old men with spiked thongs, however. No celebration of sexual perversity is complete without porn stars, and whether they were there on duty (Steve Cruz presiding over Naked Twister at the Steamworks Bathhouse booth) or on leave (Alex Chandler enjoying the scenery with a gentleman friend), they all dropped by to say hi.
We spent endless hours trying to figure out the best way to capture Dore Alley’s je ne sais quoi, but with the endless parade of cowskin and foreskin, even the most colorful he-she disappears into the background. Our solution? The Sword built a make-shift Sears portrait studio and pulled our favorite Dore hellions in for a photo shoot. Say cheese! While the local leather scene has withered in recent years, there’s a new movement to bring more boys to the riding crop, and judging by the crowds of twentysomething men in skinny jeans and colored frame sunglasses, they might just have a chance. Perhaps it’s just a matter of finding chaps that’ll go with Converse.
In response to pressure from LGBT organizations like the HRC, and perhaps to this open letter in AdAge, both Nike and the Mars corporation are pulling advertisements deemed offensive to gays. We noted last week that this Snickers ad, featuring Mr. T taunting a speedwalker and shooting candy bars at him so that he’ll “run like a real man,” was actually kind of funny in an adolescent sort of way and though we could see both sides of it, it didn’t much offend our eyes. The Nike ad (featuring a crotch landing in a basketballer’s face with the slogan “That Ain’t Right”), admittedly, is just kind of dumb-perhaps appealing to the same teenage, macho posturing, gay-phobic sensibility, but we (almost arbitrarily) think it’s dumber and less compellingly funny.
If there’s one event we love unconditionally, it’s San Francisco’s Up Your Alley street fair. All the freaks that are relegated to the sidelines at Pride-think old nude men in with cock-rings, human dogs on leashes, stumbling unpretty trannies-come out for the raunchier, dirtier, gayer cousin to the already controversial Folsom Street Fair.
Granted, none of us here at The Sword are they type of rabid Madonna fans who fork over a mortgage payment for floor seats to her concert without thinking twice, but it’s sort of impossible to be gay and not hold her in some sort of esteem. But recently surfaced photos of her looking like her face was starting to cave in on itself have made us stop and take pause. Madonna, if you’re reading this (and we know you are), please don’t turn yourself into Amanda Lepore.
The webs sure are a wonder, no? Magazines are all going digital, right, and perpetually enigmatic everymagazine Vanity Fair has seen fit to let this guy write a blog about gay cars called Stick Shift. What’s a gay car? We don’t know. He doesn’t know either. He says something about “the subtle semiotic signals that register on my GayCarDar” and also “while we will, by necessity, trade in stereotypes, we wish to remind readers that it’s all meant in fun.” Terrific. We just doubt it’s going to be fun-ny. But New York Magazine‘s Daily Intel came up with a pretty funny list of their top 10 gay cars. Our fave is definitely #9. “The Kia Amigo: There’s a drag queen with that name who hangs out at The Slide.”
Jay Brannan claims to have written this song yesterday and then picked up La Cho on the sidewalk to come on by and sing it for YouTube. It’s sort of cute. Best rhyme: “Never met a dick I couldn’t milk / My esophagus is lined with silk.”
Side note: Cole Escola, one half of that VGL Gay Boys duo, is apparently obsessed with Jay Brannan if we’re to believe this cheeky back-and-forth in the new HX.
RELATED:
VGL Gay Boys on Gay Marriage
As much as we love our three dedicated readers (Hello, Peoria!) there’s been no shortage of debate lately as to whether we’re actually homophobic, self-loathing sad clowns applauding the latest hate crime while humming “Another One Bites The Dust.” As homosexuals who love homosexuality (if not all homosexuals), we were thus encouraged to see the New York Observer take a few licks from the gay and gay-ish press over some new homosexual nomenclature. After all, anything that confuses the village elders at AfterElton.com has to be good, right?
In recent weeks there has been an apparent crackdown by police on public sex acts in the dunes around P-town. The Boston-based Edge reports that increased policing follows a major jump in citations last year-132 in 2007 versus an average of 70 in the previous few years. Last summer there were a few instances of straight people “stumbling upon” orgies on semi-secluded beaches, including a whale watching boat that happened upon a group of 20-30 naked men near Wood Lighthouse. While we doubt that there has been much increase in sexual activity among the P-town gays, this piece from July 14th in the Boston Globe discusses some increased tension between the gays and a perhaps growing number of straights coming to the area.
There are only so many times we can pass by the self-help promises blaring from the cover of Cosmo before we started thinking, You straight ladies have everything: diet tips, sex tips, hair tips. Where’s our magazine? Who’s going to tell us gays the important things in life? Now, we’re not talking about diet, sex or hair because frankly, bitches, we’ve got those bases covered. What we want to know are the important things in life, like How Do You Know When It’s Time to Break Up with Your Dealer?
It’s Dore Alley weekend in San Francisco, and boy howdy, we don’t know where this year has gone! Why, it seems like just yesterday we took that pic of that fresh bottle of piss lying in wait in the gutter for someone to enjoy. Anyway, for those of you in SF and NY, here’s a roundup of gay stuff going on this weekend in the two meccas we currently have the bandwidth to cover.
We’re not even sure you could call him C-list these days, but there once was a moment when Casper Van Dien’s naked torso commanded a lot of attention. Nowadays he’s starring in Starship Troopers 3: Marauders, and we don’t know anyone who even saw Starship Troopers 2 (although the first one, for realz, is a classic piece of cinema). We’ve collected some screencaps for you from the original Starship Troopers, as well as a few from this Tarzan movie he did, and a TV movie called Partners. Do with them what you will.
It hasn’t been that cool to be gay in Iraq, like, ever, but it has been especially bad since the fall of Saddam because Islamic fundamentalist militias have been targeting gays for both torture and assassination both because homosexuality violates Islamic law, and because homosexuality is seen as a Western import. CNN has a feature story that’s making the rounds of the blogs, including interviews with two young gay Iraqis who are using the pseudonyms Kamal and Rami. At age 16, Kamal was thrown in the trunk of a car by armed gunman, held captive and repeatedly raped for several days until his family rescued him with a $1,500 ransom. The motive for the rape and torture was his sexuality.
Aussie actor Jaason Simmons, who spent a good chunk of the mid-90s wearing nothing but red swim trunks and letting his long blond locks blow in the breeze on Baywatch, officially came out of the closet back in March in an Aussie magazine called New Ideas. The photo spread included Jaason’s boyfriend of eight months, Irish actor John O’Callaghan, and their adopted Ugandon son, and the accompanying article revealed that the two were planning to get gay-married up in Canada, even though they call Los Angeles home. Well now, wouldn’t you know it, they can get gay-married in California and by god they’re gonna! Given that no one in the States really knows who he is, Simmons remains a celebrity only in the Australian press (SX News anyone?), which refers to his upcoming project’s costars Jennifer Tilly and Andie McDowell, hilariously, as “luminaries.”
News surfaced recently that he popped Elvira’s cherry back in the 70s, so we thought we’d do a little pictorial retrospective of that old sex bomb Tom Jones. Our moms (or at least our moms’ trashier friends) thought he was sexy, and we guess we can see the appeal, if it weren’t for the afro and the crucifix. He’s no JFK Jr., that’s for sure. Anyway, if you can see past the faults, he apparently is really well hung, and we do have a shot (which proves nothing) of him in a Speedo. Enjoy.
Porn stars are a small handful of people in the world who have the luxury of choosing their own names. One would think that they’d not only choose names that are sexy and easy to remember, but also check Google beforehand. In many cases the names they choose are already in use. Take the real Jeff Stryker: in a piece he wrote for Salon, the former executive director of the federal National Commission on AIDS, is positively indignant about having his identity usurped.
Here’s an idea we can get behind: a social networking-based content site dedicated to cataloging the parties and bars beloved by the gays in all the major gay meccas: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Miami. Occasional Sword contributor Kid On the Ball created GayBarCulture.com on Ning, which allows for people to register as members of the GayBarCulture community and contribute listings of their own. The site has particularly good coverage of LA right now (where the Kid is based), and we love the Kid’s wry sense of humor about all the scenes he encounters in his drunken travels.