What to wear for Gay Pride?

Drag and leather are classic, of course. But our favorite look has always been as nude as possible. As chest rippling and ass-out as the law allows.

And each year, God bless ‘em, all the new models come out, showing off their baby-oiled bods and a winter’s worth of crunches, squats and NFL-strength steroids.

Still, not all of us are content with traditional.

Back in the day, when Gay Pride was more march, than parade, the spirit of protest was in the air and everywhere. Laughing in the face of enforced heterosexualism and defying the pearl-clutching propriety of those uptight and always mortified closet cases who imagined they were passing or fooling anyone — yes, that was the fire that lit up a thousand floats.

And you know? Look around. Everywhere your hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy. Cause summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy

And so we draw our inspiration and revolutionary costume this June from that S-T-A-U-N-C-H madwomen of the Hamptons, that lifelong debutante who had a way with any old rag wrapped around her head and fastened with a diamond broach, Edie Beale, as recreated by Christine Ebersole (to righteous Tony- winning acclaim) in the current Broadway musical, Grey Gardens. (more…)

John Calendo: Madame Callas slept here. Madame Callas still sleeps here.

School of Bobby Trendy is how I would describe this bedroom. Leather, as we know, is the lifestyle choice of the drama queen — the queen whose bedroom (cum dungeon, of course) must ever have a hint of the canopy and that certain touch of La Scala, however heavy handed. The gilt frames, the vermilion velvets, the embroidered pillows in delicate fabrics — this giddy embrace of embalmed kitsch brings to mind nothing less than the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas.

Off to the side and just out of frame one imagines a bedside sling, complete with bejeweled manacles and swan-neck supports festooned with cherubim and rose garlands. Oh how those manacles glitter with not quite real rubies, like brilliant drops of blood, when things get into full swing.

And so this brave soul offers himself to the worldwide web:
Str8-Acting Looking for Str8-Acting Only: Wanted — Slave, to worship his boots, ingest his bodily fluids and sing a chaste Mimi to his mean Musetta.

More gay amateur interior design critiques.
YES! — More Lurid Digs…right this way.

OMYGAWD! OMYGAWD!

MONEY QUOTE:
“It is a beautiful moment in the book, full of…RAW…RAW …honesty.”

Of course, this is another wicked spoof from the Onion

Your mother was right when she told you to be nice to everyone.

The people you meet on the way in are the same people you meet on the way out. It’s just that sometimes those people are not exactly the same person but that person’s son or grandson.

In honor of Mother’s Day and the Wisdom of Mothers, we present this reminder.

Bitchy may be cool in a bar if you’re a drag queen doing a dead-on imitation of Bette Davis (right). Cruel but Fair may really hit the spot if you’re a judge stuffed into a black t-shirt on American Idol. But mother leans over your shoulder once again to whisper the cautionary word, to impart the wisdom of survival:

Be nice! O ye fearsome beauties, ye long-limbed youths! Be nice to those many Mr. Wrongs that waste your time. A simple “No thanks” accompanied by a warm, understanding smile is all that is needed.

Be firm, of course; be blunt if you must; but always be (all together now) …

For behold! The Evolution of Hot (more…)

Nobody can screw up a room like a gay man on a mission.

All the mythology about the deft taste of gay men may be great to keep the rubes shelling out the big bucks to home decorators with fire in their eyes — but buyer beware. Lemmings are committed to a vision too.

One thing that gay men have in abundance is taste. Not necessarily good taste. Just tons and tons of vivid taste.

And this aesthetic imperative, this relentless ordering of the world into “pretty” (or “trendy” or “ugly beautiful”) boxes, smacks up against another gay imperative. The swinish male onrush to have sex everywhere and with everyone.

Sex and taste? — when worlds collide! As the film critic Pauline Kael once observed: “Sex is the great leveler; taste the great divider.” And never, never should they play in the same sandbox. (more…)

Straight at last! Straight at last!

Good God Almighty, Pastor Ted is straight at last.

Ted Haggard, of whom we have written copiously (link) (link) (link) (link), has just stepped out of a reprogramming center and has gotten all those filthy thoughts about tweaking and rimming out of his perky blond head. The dizzy little smile has returned in all its Happy Holy Jesus insanity.

From today’s Denver Post [with choice Nightcharm commentary added]:

The Rev. Ted Haggard emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling convinced he is “completely heterosexual” and told an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his accuser.

That is according to one of the disgraced pastor’s overseers, who on Monday revealed new details about where Haggard has been and where he is headed.

The Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur also said the four-man oversight board strongly urged Haggard to go into secular work instead of Christian ministry if Haggard and his wife follow through on plans to earn master’s degrees in psychology. [Pul-eeeze! We're gasping!].

In the [email] message [to members of his church], Haggard revealed that he and his wife, Gayle, intend to leave Colorado Springs and pursue master’s degrees through online courses. (more…)

Join us in our holy crusade to put the triple-X back into Xmas! Here is what we want — what we’ve only ever wanted — for Christmas.

And kids, it’s not peace on earth. (That’s the second thing on our list.)

It’s this fan-tastic coverboy on the 2007 Dieux Du Stade calendar, at left : Julien Arias.

Jesus — the face, the chest, the arms, the ass (unseen, but you can tell!) — and all he speaks is French!

Oxygen, please! The cabin is rapidly losing pressure!

Natch, he’s a French rugby player or something: the Dieux Du Stade series specializes in rough-and-tumble Euro sportsmen, all of whom have L’Uomo faces of the most florid, full-blown beauty, as well as those high-and-tight footballer arses and lovely half-concealed (but we’re sure, uncut) packages.

Oh, it’s a pricey little import, this calendar. Beautifully executed, of course — more like a high-end photobook, with the months divided in half, so you get double the boy for the buck. At about $37, we think it makes a great gift for that special someone. (Surely it’s too deliciously indulgent to give to yourself!)

Below the jump is a vid of the studly Julien from his maddeningly naked photo shoot featured on the Dieux du Stade: Making of the 2007 Calendar DVD. But we must warn you: Not since Kubrick’s 2001:A Space Odyssey, have we seen Johann Strauss’ magnificent Blue Danube Waltz so lushly, so unforgettably complemented. (more…)

“Gay culture has been a feature of seafaring life for centuries,” states the website for Liverpool’s maritime museum. “It is still a hidden one, even today when the Royal Navy actively recruits gay sailors. ”

The Merseyside Maritime Museum, which is dedicated to the seafaring history of that port city, is throwing a light on this hidden culture in an exhibition charmingly titled Hello Sailor: Gay Life on the Ocean Wave.

To promote the show, which runs to the end of March, a series of brief essays have been posted on the museum’s website filled with insider tidbits and an unmistakable first-hand authenticity.

Here we learn that though homosexuality was a crime in Britain until 1967 (sometimes punished by prison sentences, most famously that of Oscar Wilde, as well as the man who broke the Nazi war code, Alan Turing), the “sodomic” tradition was allowed to flourish in the Royal navy as an open secret. It thus endured as a haven for randy middle-class boys who, with often only nominal attempts to pass for straight, joined up to meet men and see the world. (more…)