The Gay Blade

I went to a book launch at The Women's Bookshop the night before we moved back to Level 3 lockdown here in Auckland. It was packed, a great night, a celebration. And deservedly so.  The books is "Crossing the Lines" by Brent Coutts, and it's excellent in so many ways. Just look at that cover!We've been doing this stuff way before Ru Paul. Crossing the Lines is a book that adds hugely to our understanding of the world of gay men in New Zealand, and it does this by giving us a rich historical context and background to a world few know much about or have thought of. If you think "gay history" seems a bit forbidding, don't be put off. This is fascinating, and more than that, it is in places deeply tender and moving. He is telling real stories of real gay men who might seem distant in time but whose lives I believe are familiar in so many way to our own. He shows us what it was like to be gay, more accurately to be homosexual, the term they used, in New Z...

Why Ban Poppers?  Amyl. Poppers. Rush. Jungle Juice. Leather Cleaner. "Room Deodorizer" (That one always puzzled me in my teens when I'd see that description in gay magazines - why did gay men need to deodorise their rooms so much?). They've been part of gay men's life from before I was around, and I've been around a while. From dance floors to bedrooms, we've had a lot of fun with them, one of the most innocent of all recreational drugs. The rumour is that they used to pump them through the air-con at Alfies in the 80s, but I don't know if that is true. We certainly used to take them out dancing, and of course for sex after dancing. Some dancefloors stank of them. Getting your arm jostled as you had the bottle up to your nostril and getting a dose up your nose was a hazard. I worked on Craccum a bit when I was at University, and I remember another volunteer was a chem student and brought a marmite jar full of his own pure product made in the universit...

Clunky, quirky,  and not exactly easy on the eye, but I'm going to miss it. Long-time editor Jay Bennie announced  that he and his business partner Neil Gibb have decided it's time to retire, which looks like it means the end of Gaynz, the only site of genuine journalism and news that focussed on NZ's LGBTTI+ world. And as a disclaimer, it's only fair to note that I've been published there many times, as well as in Express when Jay owned and ran that so well. The website was definitely past its best-by date. It would seem to go against every cliche there is about what wonderful flair for design gay men are supposed to have. And Jay was generous in the way he covered so many smaller events and gave free publicity to many smaller community groups and efforts. And most importantly, underneath the plain front was real journalism, not just empty puffery for advertisers. Jay is a trained journalist, and he hired trained journalists over the years to edit the...

I gather I'm in a minority, but I really like man-buns. I've heard so many friends put them down. Suffering from GOMS (Grumpy Old Man Syndrome) I think. I always think criticising the hair of a younger generation is a dangerous sign that the speaker is getting conformist, slipping into the same sort of middle-aged attitudes we hated as kids and about to launch into "Back in MY day we never ..." sort of platitudes. I regret that I have never had long hair. When it was in in the 60s and 70s I was too young, and Kings Prep had a strict "no hair touching the collar" rule. Kings College was a little more relaxed, and longer hair had become normal by then. But by the time I left school and could make my own decisions punk was in and my hair was short, and dyed in as many colours as I could find. My hairdresser once stole a lime green from a colleague for me. My older brothers, especially the oldest two, really went for long hair in a big way. I remembe...

So have you heard the news? The American journalist, celebrity (and hottie) has finally come out and said " Yeah, I'm gay - so what ?" It's not really a big surprise; as they used to say, he was dropping hairpins all over the place. He wasn't really all that "in". But he'd never stood up before and said "Yeah, I love men, and... ? " So now he's out. And that's good. I admit, I had a little snarky moment, thinking "Oh gee, you took your time! Wait till it's easy! " but that's not all that productive and coming out is something that people do at their own pace. I am always a bit conflicted on big names when they come out - couldn't they have done more, earlier? But it's up to them. So long as they haven't been active hypocrites working against us. There are  prominent gay men who work desperately to hide any suggestion that they are queer, they hate themselves so much that they will do anythin...

I got a bit of flak about my last blog from a few friends, and other people too. "Don't be a Pride hater" was the message - and I'm not. I just have a long memory. Pride events are happening across the big cities in the Northern hemisphere around this time, and they are positive things for our world. There, I said it. From Istanbul to Chicago, Manchester to Tel Aviv, there will be parades, dances, workshops, fucking, drugs, political debates, drinking, theatre, fucking, film, drugs, coming out seminars, marriage ceremonies, fucking, screaming arguments, book-launches, falling-in-love, poetry-readings, fucking, drinking, all the things that bind us together. That bloody rainbow flag will be everywhere too. Actually I don't mind the flag so much - it's useful when you're travelling to help find a bar or whatever. A rainbow is pretty I guess...in the sky. But I throw up in my mouth a little when people call us a "rainbow" community. ...

So GABA have got their wish and the Auckland Council is going to help fund a new Gay Pride parade! I guess I should be really excited, but... I can remember all the shit that went down with Hero too well, the incompetence, the embezzlement of funds that had been donated, the lies, the promises broken, the way HIV+ people were pushed to the side, and the way the last few parades turned into a succession of advertising floats that had nothing to do with Gay Pride - sigh. And people keep talking about Hero as though it was just a parade - it wasn't. The parade was the last major component. Hero started as a dance party that had a "stealth" public health role as a reaction to how HIV was hitting us in those days - the idea was that if you help build a strong, bonded community they will look after each other and themselves much better. A strong, happy, connected community is a healthy community. Then Hero grew into a festival with plays, concerts, films, debates and ...

Turning 50 seems to have changed my online audience in a way I hadn't imagined. Suddenly I find 20 year-olds sending me lust-filled messages online - I guess I can now officially be put in the "Daddy" category. And I also get guys in their 60s getting in touch - I suppose I seem close enough in age that they feel more comfortable approaching me than they do a 30 year-old. It's been interesting, and some fun as well, and even though their skin is lovely at that age, 20 is just too young for me, it feels creepy somehow. 25 and up I can cope with. And I've had some wonderful hot times with men in their 60s too. Gay men and age though - we don't deal with it that well I reckon. We talk about "the gay community" a lot, but one thing about successful communities is they have links over generations, the older members pass down their experiences and knowledge to the younger ones, and we don't seem very good at that, we're not good at giving...

A few odds and ends that have been running around my head, so here goes. And who will I piss off this time? Firstly - Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as Wilde once said, so perhaps I should have been flattered when my fellow blogger Craig Young pointed out that both my and his blogs were  being used under false names and with minimal changes on an overseas gay community site - I won't name it. I have always been really happy for people to use my blogs, link to them, whatever, so long as I am given full credit, and that continues to be my position. I see them as public. Next -  I pushed a few buttons with my last blog on gay racism. I stand by all I wrote, but let me be clear - I'm not saying we can't have preferences about the type of men we are attracted to - of course we do. I'm just making the point that by saying "No Indians" or "No Blacks" you are using racist language, you are acting in a racist manner even if you aren't...