Election becomes farce becomes comedy and suddenly it’s interesting again. And purely because of Mad, Bad and Dangerous-to-have-your-party-associated-with Thatch. The most amusing part of the whole article is the photography, which is designed to make everyone look as ridiculous as is humanly possible – which would be entertaining if only it were possible to make Hague seem more absurd. For god’s sake – get Portillo in. We all know he’s evil, but at least he’s plausible.
Davo has put up the guide to the Big Gay Blogmeet this evening. And he’s chosen a charming shade of pink. How pleasant. This is an open call to any of the people who read this site and who happen to be gay, as well as those people who maintain their own weblogs – come along, meet some new people. And you know, they’ll all be gay, so it won’t be like when you came last time and the only person you fancied was Matt Interconnected who’s been going out with some woman since dinosaurs roamed the earth. Cool?
I was visited by my mother and brother yesterday. We met at 11 at the British Museum so I could have a look at the new Central Court, then went shopping down Oxford Street, had Italian for lunch and ended up at Selfridges. I got to explain the Acropolis and the Rosetta Stone to my brother. He seemed interested. At least that is how I chose to interpret his sighs and eye-rolling.
There is a gay webloggers meet this evening. What I don’t understand is why it’s not listed on meets.gblogs.org.uk. Mostly likely no one informed the person concerned. I think it’s upstairs at Comptons tonight from seven. Why it’s at Comptons I don’t think I’ll ever understand. I hate that place. I’ve only been there three times, but I’ve hated it every time.
My head is full of zine at the moment. It’s all I can think about. I’ve been up until three in the morning three nights in a row now, trying to assemble something that works – trying to make absolutely the best use of my free time in order that I should be able to assemble a functioning, elegant content management system for Barbelith. I’m stunned by how intelligently put together Greymatter is. Every time I think I’ve hit an omission and will have to fudge something together, I discover a neat way to do it. I can only hope that after all this effort someone decides to write for the damn thing.
Reverse correlation Mentioned in Guardian one day, next day can’t think of anything to talk about. That can’t be right.
You know, days when you are not in the paper are way less fun than days when you are. I should point this out to my MP. Then maybe we could all be in the paper every day.
Last night I went to see Tigerland with Nick H and Scott – two gay friends of mine. I’ve been trying to persuade people to go for a while, but with a certain lack of success. “Not a Vietnam movie,” someone said. “I’m just not in the mood,” said another. So I considered it a particular triumph to have managed to get two young gay men, who were both hoping to go clubbing, to sit in a cinema and watch a film about war, violence, men and aggression. Then, of course, I saw Colin Farrell and everything became clear.
Tigerland is not a particularly revolutionary film. It’s got elements of M*A*S*H in it, but really it’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in Boot Camp. There’s nothing wrong with that of course – it’s an admirable height to aspire to, and for the most part it doesn’t go that far wrong. In fact the only part that didn’t sit right with me was the last twenty minutes or so, when they finally reach Tigerland itself.
But there was something about the film that perturbed me from the offset, and fairly swiftly I realised what it was. There was a heavy eroticisation of the male bodies on display. There are shower scenes, shot from below to make the actor look more athletic, taller and imposing. There are a couple of confrontations in underpants. And the sheer amount of arse on display is enough to make even the hardened fan of the male body raise a quizzical eyebrow. Whether or not this is to do with the reknowned homosexuality of director Joel Schumacher or not is beside the point – although let us remember that it was under his auspices that Batman and Robin suddenly developed nipples. The whole thing reminded me just slightly too much of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue…
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Yesterday I put out an appeal for stories of first love, inspired by ember.org and my decision to add my own experience to plasticbag.org. Here has been the response so far:
“I don’t remember much else about that day. I remember later he told me I had beautiful hands. I remember meeting him for lunch, and how he kissed me in front of the building where I worked. When I got embarrassed, he said the people watching could get their own girlfriends.” [more]
“We understand each other, we can’t fool each other, we still fawn all over each other when we’re together. It’s a powerful, curious dynamic that’s hard to miss.” [more]
For Sale: Web Guru, 28, slightly soiled. Ex-Production Editor of TimeOut.com – responsible for various community, editorial, design and coding matters. Now seeks stimulating role with online publisher / content site or in the development of new exciting web enterprises. Will code for food.
