Shirts and Skins, the newest reality TV offering from
Logo, follows the San Francisco Rock Dogs on and off the court as they
train to uphold their city’s three-generation legacy of tournament
wins. But before the team can contemplate competing at the National Gay
Basketball Championship in Chicago, they’ll have to execute unorthodox
fund-raising schemes, scrimmage a humpy team of fire fighters, and find
time to squeeze in a few practice free-throw shots in between sinking
tequila shots.
With a nod to the granddaddy of all (ostensibly) unscripted television
series, The Real World, the ballers are sequestered in a
mega-million-dollar home complete with their own gym and a
semi-transparent shower that overlooks the living room, which allows
for glimpses of their sudsy post-workout sessions and encourages team
bonding via compulsory exhibitionism. And with a player considering a
stab at ex-gaydom and two cousins struggling to overcome their strained
relationship, the Rock Dogs will need all the help they can get with
giving their interpersonal issues a much-needed time-out.
Luckily for them, former NBA pro John Amaechi is on hand to help ensure
everyone plays nice and to dispense some locker-room perspective on the
greater implications of the team’s mere existence. “In some people’s
minds, being gay is just walking down the street in pumps and drinking
fruity drinks,” he says. “They don’t realize that you can do that and
kick ass on the basketball court.”
-- NOAH MICHELSON Shirts and Skins premieres tonight, September 15, on Logo.
The Olympics ended not even 24 hours ago and already we're missing having the euphoric rush and surge of looking forward to the nightly global competition. That, and lots of twentysomething men in tiny swimsuits showering together. In honor of the two weeks that were the Beijing Summer Olympics, we present a final roundup of the winners and losers of the Games:
> China: Now that the Olympics are over, what will Beijing do, other than of course, consume a ton of leftover Chinese food? The most populous nation on Earth has a lot to be proud of, having stolen the gold medal count from the U.S., proven themselves as real players on the international sports stage, and run a flawless and spectacular games. The fact that these shiny and clean Olympics were the result of a government cracking down on its citizens, shutting down most major industry to reduce pollution, and jailing anyone who so much as attempted to request the right to protest undoubtedly leaves a tarnish on the Bird's Nest. Still, the clear, undeniable signal from China that it wants to be a player on the global stage ought to be applauded. WINNER
> Cuba: With four boxers in the finals and none getting a gold, Castro decided to call foul and blame the failure on a vast-Olympic-conspiracy. What Castro left out? Five of the country's best boxers had defected in the last 18 months. LOSER
> Michael Phelps: Like, duh. It's a shame the text message I received over the weekend that Obama was choosing him as VP turned out to be faked. Then again, we can only hope this means he's still considering the position of Lord and Ruler of All Mankind and the Undersea Realm of Atlantis. Think about it, Michael. WINNER
> U.S. Track & Field: We didn't cover track events that much throughout the games. Partly, this is because we already spend too much time on the elliptical and don't need to be reminded how far we have to go, but mostly, it had to do with the awful, no-good performance from the U.S. team. It wasn't just Tyson Gay, the former world-champ who spectacularly flamed out, failing to reach the finals in any event. The U.S. team failed to make much of an impression at all. Usain Bolt dominated the sprinting events and the Jamaicans carried the rest. If only Michael Phelps could run. LOSER
> The Gays: From the wild pyrotechnics and showmanship the opening and closing ceremonies offered to the eye candy in the Water Cube to Matthew Mitcham's come from behind win (sorry, we couldn't help ourselves), Beijing 2008 were the gayest Olympics ever -- and it didn't even require a sperm shaped Olympic mascot (see Atlanta '96) to clinch the title. The surprisingly respectful mainstream coverage of Mitcham's story took some of the sting out of NBC's frustrating tendency to ignore the sexuality of this Olympics' gay athletes. WINNER
> 33 years after it was released, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is getting remade. The original film, starring Susan Sarandon, Tim Curry (above), and Meat Loaf, has become one of the most beloved cult classics of all-time with screenings -- wildly famous for their interactive component -- still happening around the world to this day. No decisions about the cast or the director have been announced, but Lou Adler, executive producer of the original film, has signed on to produce the remake. He told BBC News, "The Rocky Horror phenomenon has a life of its own that has reincarnated itself in numerous ways since its birth. The original has some qualities that can't be reproduced but a remake could have its own very different strengths and qualities." We're fairly dubious about this undertaking, but we'd like to cast our vote for Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the beloved sweet transvestite from Transexual, Transylvania.
> Speaking of remakes we're dubious about -- someone at Hasbro got the incredibly stupid idea to overhaul the Clue board game. The new version of the already perfect game will include younger, updated characters, new weapons, and new rooms, including a guest house and a spa. The six characters will lose their titles and be given first names and hip occupations. Mr. Green is now Jacob Green, an African-American with "all the ins," and Professor Plum is now Victor Plum, a billionaire video game designer. The weapons cache has been extended from six to nine, and the lead pipe, revolver, and wrench have been replaced by a dumbbell, a trophy and poison. Clue has been updated twice before with a Simpsons version and an "express" version, but this is the first time it's been changed quite so radically. All we can say is that if they even think about remaking the absolutely stunning, wonderfully campy film adaptation, we will be packing up our dumbbells, trophies, and poison and taking a field trip to the Hasbro headquarters.
> Al Pacino was spotted leaving a Beverly Hills restaurant with blue fingernail polish daintily painted on his nails.
The tabloids are going nuts trying to figure out exactly why. He's
just that forward thinking when it comes to style? The handy work of
his seven-year-old daughter? As of yet there's been no comment
from the actor or his publicist. We're hoping the trend catches on and
all of Hollywood -- both the young and the veteran -- start dabbling in
public displays of gender bending. Larry King, there's a stringy pink bob for sale on St. Mark's Place with your name all over it.
> After making a spirited defense that Men's Synchro diving is not super gay, the Chinese men's springboard team proved us wrong by totally fagging out after winning the 10m event yesterday. Lin Yue and Huo Liang, seen above, got emotional after nabbing the gold and, well, you have eyes, don't you? We were all ready to defend the cutaways to the divers in the shower (the water keeps them warm!) and make another stab at selling you on the sport of it all, but while we support hot dudes in Speedos holding each other in any context, we're not going to insult you by trying to say it isn't anything other than super-duper gay with sprinkles on top.
> Even the gay press is confused about how many out athletes are competing at the games. The New England Blade wrongly asserts there are no openly gay Americans competing in an article published today. Not true! There are three: Natasha Kai plays soccer, Lauren Lappin is on the softball team, and her teammate Vicky Galindo is bisexual. While we'd like to see more out queer sports heroes, we want to make sure our American gals get their due.
> Right before every race, you see Nietzschean Superman Michael Phelps sitting on the bench listening to his iPod. What's on his playlist? Often, it's Eminem's "Till I Collapse," which he played before the 400m individual relay, but he's also a fan of Lil' Wayne, Rick Ross, Young Jeezy and Jay-Z. Phelps trivia completionists will want to check out his hometown paper's latest puff piece. He falls asleep watching TV!
> NBC flames it up today by adding a "guess the swimmer by his abs" quiz to their site. What they forgot was a "Whose abs are your favorite?" poll. Let us know your pick in the comments.
What follows is a selection of photos from various Olympic-sized pools, chosen solely for their, uh, visual composition. Some of these people probably set some world records. Is that what you're thinking about right now? I didn't think so!
And if you haven't yet had your fill of synchronized diving, there's more of that after the jump...
The 2008 Summer Olympics kick off tonight in Beijing, marking the one time every four years when you can actually tune into ribbon dancing (and the one time every four years you'll actually find ribbon dancing televised) without feeling a lick of embarrassment. In fact, it's your patriotic duty! To celebrate in our own special way, we felt it was our Popnographic duty to provide you with a few queer tidbits about the Games (besides the above photo of Michael Phelps sporting his new Tom of Finland inspired facial hair):
> Last month a story popped up on OneNewsNow.com, a division of the right-wing American Family News Network, regarding an Olympic qualifying track and field event. An auto-replace feature on the site, which was set to automatically swap out the word "gay" (which is deemed by the site to have too positive of connotations) with "homosexual" (which has that charming clinical pre-1973 "being queer is a mental illness" ring to it) resulted in sprinter Tyson Gay being renamed Tyson Homosexual. To make matters even worse (better?), Gay happened to be facing off against a competitor named Dix.
Once the auto-replace filter had had its wily way with the Associated Press story, it delivered gems like:
--"After the race, Homosexual and Dix looked at each other and slapped palms, then hugged."
--"I'm sore right now," Homosexual said, "'but probably from the victory lap."
--"It means a lot to me," the 25-year-old Homosexual said. "I'm glad my body could do it, because now I know I have it in me."
Confronted with the mix-up, OneNewsNow.com's news director Fred Jackson said, "We don't have the staff to monitor all the Hollywood stories, so we wanted an automated feature." The story was corrected on the site (though you can still read the full uncorrected version here) and Jackson says the word "gay" has been taken off the filter. We're sure pro basketball player Rudy Gay, actress Marcia Gay Harden, and WWII airplane Enola Gay enthusiasts around the world are rejoicing.
> Ever since aquatic Olympic athletes decided to trade in their Speedos for full-body swim suits, we'd just about given up on tuning into anything remotely pool related. But gay Australian diver Matthew Mitcham has us rethinking our decision. The sinewy 20-year-old graces the cover of the new Advocate (shirtless! Hooray!) and tells the magazine that the whole gay thing isn't such a big deal for him -- he's too busy training for the Games. "I just want to be known as the Australian diver who did really well at the Olympics," he says. "It's everybody else who thinks it's special when homosexuality and elite sport go together." He also isn't interested in comparisons to that other great gay diver, Greg Louganis. "We're both gay divers," he says, but "that's about the only similarity -- two things we share out of thousands of millions of qualities and character traits." The entire article is worth checking out, and not just for the picture of Speedo-clad Mitcham mid-dive and bent in two like a jack knife.
After a monthlong assault of rainbows, everything post-Pride can look drab, bleak. Do we really have to wait another whole year for our eyes to bleed glitter again? If only there were some way we could keep the spirit of Pride alive. If only there was an online video game allowing us to reenact the Stonewall Riots that inspired Pride. If only--
What? What's that you say? There is an online Stonewall video game? Well, it's about fucking time.
Stonewall Brawl is a collaboration between Eric Orner, the artist between seminal gay comic The Mostly Unfabulous Life of Ethan Green and Jay Laird of Metaversal. The game promises players the ability to "Stick it to the man using flaming kicks, head butts, martinis, and the anachronistic power of disco!" You can choose to play as a fat dyke, a swishy twink, two different flavors of drag queen or what I think is supposed to be a half-naked Sister of Perpetual Indulgence on rollerblades:
We asked Laird why the world needs a video game where mincing queens get to beat up cops -- and a bunch of other rhetorical questions. If you just want to play the game, click here. We'll wait.
Out.com: How did Stonewall Brawl come about? Jay Laird: When Eric originally sent us his animation "A Little Stonewall Riot,"
we immediately saw the connection to videogames, thanks to his stylized
drawings and character movements. I asked my team (which is roughly
half gay, half straight) if they'd like to turn it into a game, and
everyone got excited about the project. In fact, the excitement around
developing Stonewall Brawl led us to reviving our Burning Village humor
site, which had been languishing because we had no free time outside of
client projects. I'm grateful to Eric for inspiring us to get off
our butts and be funny again.
Has anyone had a problem with a game about beating up cops? After we announced Stonewall Brawl, there was an interesting article
posted on someone's blog about Stonewall, questioning why it is that
our community celebrates a violent incident in our history of all
things. In the time leading up to the game's release I had been
thinking a lot about the ways that we as human beings feel empowered,
and they aren't always pretty. What is cool about videogames is that
you get a chance to explore behavior and consequences in different
situations without actually having to engage in the behavior. My
company uses this principal a lot in our educational games, giving
people a chance to test the extremes of a situation without any serious
consequences, whether it's exploring nanophysics or automobile
manufacturing. Of course, Stonewall Brawl is a lot more about fun than
learning, just as Grand Theft Auto is more about the adventure than
about learning how to stiff hookers.
So, can we expect to see the game on a console some day? We hope people will keep checking back in on the game. Part of
the fun of making an online game is that you can keep updating it.
Since Stonewall Brawl's release, we've added a new, more fabulous
ending,
and we're talking about adding a couple of unlockable characters and
new game features as time permits. We see endless possibilities here,
and who knows maybe next year we'll convince Eric to help us make
Stonewall Brawl 2!
[Ed. note: Maybe all the other chest-thumping, body-slamming antics featured in our Sports Issue haven't been quite enough for you. Here's a trip down memory lane...]
Braver than Borat, funnier than Talladega Nights, more cathartic than United 93, crazier than Apocalypto, and gayer than Another Gay Movie, the feature-length compendium of dick stunts, ass foolery, and masochistic male bonding known as Jackass Number Two was the ballsiest movie of 2006. Nothing in this scatological sequel is too much for Johnny Knoxville and his merry band of skate-punk yahoos -- and much would feel right at home in the freakiest underground fetish porn.
Horse jizz is guzzled, puppet-sheathed cocks are fanged by snakes, and high-speed dildos are launched up the butt, as are large quantities of beer in the immortal Butt Chug routine. Stupid? No doubt. But also an exhilarating assault on homosocial taboos and the most sustained subversion of gay panic ever seen in a Hollywood movie. These mischievous man-boys are loving it -- up the ass, in the nude, on the nuts -- and multiplex America loved them right back. Puerile? Progress!
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