Planet Homo

The Newly Wed Game

The New York Times Magazine investigated the state of young gay men getting married in the newest issue. Author Benoit Denizet-Lewis reports: Young gay men today are coming of age in a different time from the baby-boom generation of gays and lesbians who fashioned modern gay culture in this country — or even from me, a gay man in his early 30s. While being a gay teenager today can still be difficult and potentially dangerous (particularly for those who live in noncosmopolitan areas or are considered effeminate), gay teenagers are coming out earlier and are increasingly able to experience their gay adolescence. That, in turn, has made them more likely to feel normal. Many young gay men don’t see themselves as all that different from their heterosexual peers, and many profess to want what they’ve long seen espoused by mainstream American culture: a long-term relationship and the chance to start a family. Read the entire article here.

Hollywood Reporter Redesigned

After 78 years,the venerable, Hollywood Reporter is getting a new look. Gone is the scripted "Hollywood", replaced with a very condensed san serif font. Here's what the designer had to say:

"Good design is not about making things look better, it's about making them work better."

That was one of the guiding principles for James Reyman, the New York-based designer whose team spent the past eight months reimagining The Hollywood Reporter as a 21st century publication.

His approach to a rethink of the almost 80-year-old paper involved the belief that all great publications are a product of their time.

"Readers don't have as much time as they once did for reading their favorite magazines," he said. "They need their information fast, accessible and easy to get through. People today are constantly on the move; multitasking is a natural part of their daily lives."

Together with the publisher, the editor and the top designer at the paper, Reyman set about last summer to forge a new path for readers with a strong interest in the business of Hollywood.

"It was," he said, "about creating a strong visual identity for a publication of distinction."

One of the first things to get right, he pointed out, was the creation of a new logo: The idea, he said, was to be "authoritative, accessible and immediate." The one eventually adopted by THR staff is, he said, "projects leadership in the industry. It's easy to remember and is identifiable whether on a magazine cover, television screen, computer monitor or cell phone."

Among the other major elements that Reyman introduced was the choice of a new versatile contemporary typeface with classic lines. "We eventually settled with sturdy, eminently readable faces designed by Cyrus Highsmith of the Font Bureau." The reader will also, he added, see a variety of beautiful illustrations and portraits by leaders of contemporary design.

We Get Male

I work with Jeffrey Sanker and his White Party in Palm Springs. Last weekend the Cocky Boys ran WILD at all the parties. I wanted to share some photos with you!

A Message from The White House

On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your correspondence.

We appreciate hearing your views and welcome your suggestions.

Due to the large volume of e-mail received, the White House cannot respond to every message.

Thank you again for taking the time to write.

Hard Candy for A Sweet Tooth

Madge’s new album, Hard Candy, crackles with sweetly contagious beats and power-pop melodies. Already, the Justin Timberlake and Timbaland-fueled single “4 Minutes” is a huge global hit. The disc continues apace with tantalizing tunes like “Give It 2 Me,” featuring Pharrell Williams’ and The Neptunes’ high-energy influence, and the giddy, sure-to-be-dancefloor-fave “She’s Not Me,” with its Chic-era disco.
The album hits on April 29th. Modern Tonic is holding a contest to give away two free tickets for a Madonna concert on April 30th at Roseland in New York City. Now if they would only fly us there if we won...

Uncanny

The poster of the Festival de Cannes 2008 is a photograph by David Lynch, adapted by Pierre Collier, a cinema poster artist.

This tribute to the talent of David Lynch provides the tone for the 61st Festival de Cannes.

Not very inspiring.

On the Way to Voting....

V Figures out how to publish on the web

It took a while for someone to figure out how to make magazines work on the web. Fantasticsmag.com has done a tremendous job of packaging stories in a unique and and graphically compelling manner, but with the new digital edition of V magazine, the state of online publications just got prettier. The technology isn't new, but with the Spring issue of V, we get to actually an entire magazine, click on its pages, and, more importantly, to advertiser's—the ads are even there. The company that packages online magazines is texterity.com, and they have already created online editions for Spin, Martha Stewart Living, and course, our favorite, International Gymnast Magazine. Print isn't dead, it just got digital.

Walk in Warhol's Shoes

How ironic. Andy Warhol began is career as an illustrator who drew shoes. Later, he of course would apply everything: accidents, faces, bananas, electric chairs to canvas and become famous for much longer than fifteen minutes. With Summer a mere tanline away, what better than the "grata Warhol thong" with Warhol polaroid portraits? Made by the stretchable Royal Elastics, who make some of the best footwear to be found, this thong is but one of eight variations of a Warhol theme. Check them out.

Things Seen While Driving

Perez Knew All Along

From June 25, 200y, the Oracle Perez Hilton predicted the true the coming out of Luke McFarlane.

With his website back up and working, Perez Hilton reveals that his "impeccable" sources claim "Prison Break" star Wentworth Miller is seeing actor Luke McFarlane.

McFarlane allegedly was T.R. Knight’s boyfriend and appeared on the ABC show "Brothers & Sisters" says Perez.

Perez's snitch says: “Wentworth and Luke have been secretly dating for almost six months now...They’ve been very quiet about their relationship, obviously, as Wentworth is not out of the closet.”

“They spend a lot of time at each other’s houses,” says Perez's "mole". “Wentworth has been pretty reclusive since he’s become famous and he’s been even more of a shut-in since he started dating Luke.”

Allegedly McFarlane accompanied Miller to Asia to film some recent commercials according to Perez.

“Wentworth’s become very difficult to work with,” a 20th Century Fox "insider" tells Perez, adding to the froth. “He’s been cutting back immensely on the amount of press he’s doing for Prison Break. He’s very nervous about reporters asking him if he’s gay.”

Luke MacFarlane was never out publicly until today, in an interview with Canada's Globe & Mail:

"Though no secret to his family and close friends, Macfarlane has, until now, been guarded about his personal life as a gay man. Over lunch in Los Angeles, where he lives, he initially insists that he has no concerns about his public revelation - but a few seconds later he is shifting nervously in his chair, and concedes that he is 'terrified.' ... 'I don't know what will happen professionally ... that is the fear, but I guess I can't really be concerned about what will happen, because it's my truth. There is this desire in L.A. to wonder who you are and what's been blaring for me for the last three years is how can I be most authentic to myself - so this is the first time I am speaking about it in this way.'"

One Less Planet

From Media Daily News, Erik Sass gives this analysis of Planet Out's failure to succeed.

The fortunes of Out and the Advocate have plummeted in a dizzying fashion, especially compared to the broader consumer magazine business, where even struggling titles usually keep their losses to single digits. By contrast, the Advocate saw ad pages drop 27.6% in 2007 compared to 2005 to 572, as Out tumbled 17.6%. And that was actually a recovery--at one point in the middle of 2007, the Advocate was down 41.9%, and Out was down 20.4%.

These downturns were especially noteworthy because overall ad spending on gay media is booming.

According to the 2007 edition of the Gay Press Report, produced by Prime Access Inc. and Rivendell Media, ad spending in gay and lesbian publications reached $223.5 million in 2006--a 205% increase from 1996. Observers trace this increase to a new understanding among advertisers that appearing in gay media can build intense customer loyalty. Indeed, the Gay Press Report notes that "as a group, gay and lesbian consumers hold greater brand loyalty than do their straight counterparts." Overall, gays and lesbians dispose of about $641 billion in spending power.

So why were the two most recognizable publications suffering?

Rivendell and Prime Access track a number of different kinds of publications, in addition to national magazines. They found big increases in spending for local newspapers (24.7%) and resource guides (116.7%). Both publications appeal to local advertisers that want to reach this niche community. Out and The Advocate may also be losing ground to other national magazines, like Genre and Instinct, which tend to be somewhat racier. The Gay Press Report pegs ad pages in gay national magazines growing 91.6% since 2005.

The magazines also face competition from the Internet. Gays and lesbians are early adopters of online media, including social network-style sites on the Internet. Nobody knows this better than PlanetOut, which is essentially an Internet company with a number of popular Web sites, including PlanetOut.com, Gay.Com and Kleptomaniac.com. Of course, after the failure of an online company's foray into LGBT magazine publishing, it's unclear whether a television network can do any better.

A Good Read

On Brokeback Mountain: Meditations About Masculinity, Fear, and Love in the Story and the Film provides a close, detailed, comparative discussion of the short story and the film in relation to ways of understanding masculinity and love between men in American culture. It uses analytical ideas from gay and lesbian/queer studies, American studies, social history, film history, and literary history, but avoids specialized theoretical language in order to be accessible to the many people interested in the story and the film. Original, interdisciplinary, and engaging, On Brokeback Mountain is intended to be not only useful to academic specialists but also accessible and readable for any interested, educated reader.

The two versions of Brokeback Mountain are significant for taking readers and audiences inside the perspectives of men who love men, showing what physical and emotional passion, and hostility toward that passion, may be like for them. The story and the film help in understanding the many men who love men and who don't fit stereotypes of gay men or participate in the gay/queer worlds of urban/academic communities, especially men in rural areas and in working class contexts. This book examines the presentation of friendship, sex, and love between men in Brokeback Mountain, as well as the depiction of homophobia and its effects on men who love men and their families. It relates the story and the film to the literary tradition of the homoerotic pastoral, the literary/movie tradition of the Western, and the tradition of the tragic romantic love story. Available here.

Pornography Part Too

It is safe to say that we spend an enormous amount of time looking at erotica and or pornography. What once required a trip to a bookstore is now readily available. Not just readily, but immediate and constant. It has changed us. It has changed the way we interact, how we see ourselves, and how others may see us. We have learned some things that we weren't sure of, but suspected: most men have average penises. Men ejaculate in a variety of ways; there are drippers, spurters, shooters, droolers and some men have an enormous amount of ejaculate. Men spend a lot of time with their penis. Video cammers are known to spend hours, sometimes days in the relentless stroking of their penis. This is usually encouraged through chemical use. Some men are into electronics with something called Electro-Stim, where an electrical current is sent into the penis shaft forcing an involuntary orgasm. There is something called "sounding", which is the curious act of inserting a thin metal rod into the urethra of the penis for sexual pleasure. It doesn't look pretty. Xtube will reveal videos where some men can accommodate very large objects into their anus. Circus large. It was one thing to show yourself, who hasn't posted a nude of themselves somewhere, but with the advent of streaming media websites, we now can make movies of our sex life. And people do. Three-minute episodes of manic stroking are very typical. And becoming more typical is the posting of your bottom abilities, or top abilities, depending. We have become porn stars in our own self-produced, self-lite, single POV camera angled mini movies. Tops like to show the world their prowess, stamina and athletic hammer while bottoms explore a symphony of excited sounds such as, "ah, ah, ah!" while revealing their vacuum-like abilities to “suck it in.”
It’s fun, of course.
Pornography seems to be dished up into two flavors, fantasy and comparison. We imagine sex with the featured player, or we compare our own abilities, bodies to theirs. This has always been the secret shame of pornography: we got off, but we felt also felt shorthanded. Without the help of editing, reality was far shorter.
But with so much nudity, pornography, erotica and visual stimulation at some point there is saturation, and ennui. Ok, maybe it’s age. But we inquired on some younger fans, and they too felt the ennui. Nudity has lost its power to shock. Sex, once only seen on movie screens or home screens is now as quickly available as your bank account. And this is maybe not a bad thing: Ennui. The other side of that is addiction, and it is safe to say that the Internet revealed an addictive side to most of us that was heretofore quietly sleeping. At some point, a penis is a penis. Beauty is beauty. Hot is hot and so what? We grow comfortable with the nude body, and the various sex acts, but like the Moons effect on the tides, testosterone swells and recedes. We will always come back for more.

Here Buys PlanetOut

Gay and lesbian media portal PlanetOut Inc. agreed to sell its magazine and book publishing business to Here Networks for $6 million in cash.

San Francisco-based PlanetOut signed a letter of intent with Regent Releasing, an affiliate of New York-based Here, which is a gay and lesbian television network. A formal agreement should be done by April 30 and the deal should close by August 31. The price in the letter of agreement is $6 million, with $1 million coming on April 30 or sooner, if the agreement is finished earlier. Other $1 million payments will be made on the 15th of the month from May through September.

The letter, signed by PlanetOut CEO Karen Magee and Regent CEO Paul Colichman states: "The funds shall be treated as prepaid advertising, to be applied as the marketing occurs." The ads must run by March 31, 2009.

Regent also agreed to pay $500,000 in cash as a put/call payment when the deal closes.

PlanetOut publishes magazines like Out and The Advocate, but wants to return its focus to its web sites gay.com and planetout.com, which have been contributing a smaller percentage of its revenue recently.

The company's online segment has been contributing less to its revenue for each of the last three years. In 2005 it accounted for 87 percent, in 2006 54 percent, and in 2007 51 percent. Magazine publishing's portion of total revenue rose in each of those years, from 13 percent in 2005 to 46 percent in 2006 and 49 percent in 2007.

Under this deal, PlanetOut can start looking for new tenants to sublease New York and Los Angeles space held by the magazine business on May 1.

Last week, PlanetOut (NASDAQ: LGBT) put Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE) in charge of travel booking on its web sites.

The company also hired Allen & Co. in January on a three-year contract to help it with strategy, including a possible sale of the company. It said today it is still working with Allen & Co. on further options.

In February, PlanetOut reported a $51.2 million loss for 2007. The company's accumulated deficit on Dec. 31, 2007 was about $89.5 million.

As part of a private placement in July 2007, through which PlanetOut raised $24 million after fees, the company was obliged to try and sell off what it calls "our adult businesses," but it has so far been unable to sell them. The company needs more money, but said in a March regulatory filing that "raising additional financing will be very difficult, if it could be obtained at all."

The company had 237 employees at the end of 2007.

"don't be such a lesbian"

How ironic is it that the most intellectual conversation about politics in America occurs between two foreigners. I watched the program on the Sunday, and felt a deep affection between the two men, I'm not sure what, "don't be such a lesbian" means but it was funny. Clearly Sullivan took no offense. In these high and mighty morals times it surely is the jest which suffers.

Absolut Nonsense

In an Absolut world we would all be alcoholics and size queens.

Calling itself the "preferred brand of vodka for gay and lesbian consumers," the Absolut Spirits Co. says it's targeting homosexuals for the first time with a campaign "embracing both the humorous and socially conscious."
"Absolut challenges the status quo by presenting a bold and optimistic world view that speaks directly to gay men and women," the company said in a news release. "The campaign visually answers the questions 'what if everything in the world were approached with the same ideals that Absolut approaches vodka?'"
Frankly, it's a little old queen and completely fulfills the stereotype about homosexuals. So thanks Absolut for the very narrow vision.

HIV/AIDS

Best Gay Blogs which reminds us a little of Cybersocket magazine, in that there is a considerable amount of porn and flesh to tidy up the minute editorial, nonetheless offers a revealing look at how gay men perceive HIV in 2008. In their extremely small sample, most respondents thought that having HIV was a death sentence.

Recently, Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force  (www.thetaskforce.org), the nation’s oldest gay rights group, made the statement that HIV/AIDS is a gay disease at the organization’s national conference in February.
  Foreman’s controversial statement about AIDS surprised even many of the conference attendees. He told them, “Folks, with 70% of the people in this country living with HIV being gay or bi(sexual), we cannot deny that HIV is a gay disease. We have to own that and face up to that.”
  That simple admission sparked a flurry of commentary from pro-family groups like AFA and Focus on the Family. For example, Gary Glenn, president of AFA of Michigan, said in a press release: “Despite medical data identifying homosexual activity among males as by far the largest single source of HIV infection in the U.S., homosexual activists have routinely condemned conservative and public health organizations for characterizing the disease as being predominantly associated with and spread by homosexual behavior.”

Charlton Heston Dead at 83 or 84

Actor Charlton Heston, who won an Academy Award in 1959 for his starring role in the film epic Ben-Hur, died today at the age of 84.

Heston died at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side. Family spokesperson Bill Powers declined to comment on the cause of death or provide further details.

"We knew him as an adoring husband, a kind and devoted father, and a gentle grandfather, with an infectious sense of humour. He served these far greater roles with tremendous faith, courage and dignity. He loved deeply, and he was deeply loved," said a statement from his family.

With his barrel chest and baritone voice, Heston portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other heroic figures in films of the 1950s and 1960s. His film credits include The Greatest Show on Earth, El Cid, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Ten Commandments, and Planet of the Apes.

A prominent civil rights activist during the 1950s, Heston was president of the Screen Actors Guild for six terms and received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian award.

He was also known as an outspoken opponent of gun control in the U.S., serving as president of the National Rifle Association lobby group from 1998-2003.

In 2002, he revealed that he had symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease, saying, "I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure."

Something for a Friday

Call to Action

The explosive growth in our nation’s aging population coupled with the recent housing market crash has set the stage for a major crisis. No one has addressed how this issue is impacting gay and lesbian seniors, individuals who have long been denied fundamental human rights and often struggle to make ends meet. No one has sought to give these individuals a voice, until now...
Join us in the making of A Place to Live, a historic documentary that will chronicle the journey of seven brave individuals as they attempt to secure a home in Triangle Square, the nation’s first affordable housing facility for LGBT seniors.  Your financial support will be instrumental in helping us complete this very important film and will ensure that these incredible individuals are not forgotten. 
We need your help in order to share these intimate, thought provoking stories with our community. Please consider joining us with a gift in support of this very significant project.  Together, we can make certain that those who fought for many of the rights we enjoy today are guaranteed a voice in the struggle for non-discriminatory affordable housing. The documentary, A Place to Live is that voice.  www.nocomediagroup.com/aplacetolive