From Hunted, a Channel 4 documentary about Russia’s “Occupy Pedophilia” thugs:

Another clip of “Occupy Pedophilia” in action. From the YouTube description:

In Hunted, a pro-gay activist (who’s actually heterosexual), offered an additional theory for the rise in homophobic violence. Said Katya Bogatch: “Right now it suits the state and the regime to organize this witch hunt because our economic situation, our pensions, our salaries, our healthcare, and our education are all getting worse. Understandably people need someone to blame. To stop people from focusing their anger at the authorities, the regime is igniting and maintaining this conflict and hatred. They are making people fight amongst themselves.”

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At long last, 1968 documentary The Queen is widely available — for free, on YouTube. A lot of people toss around the word “legendary” these days, but this film and its subjects are exactly that.

The Queen was filmed in NYC in 1967 and released in theaters in 1968. In 1967 it was illegal for men to dress as women. The documentary follows a 1967 Drag pageant judged by Andy Warhol among others. It stars Jack Doroshow aka Flawless Mother Sabrina, Richard Finochio aka Rachel Harlow and Crystal LaBeija. Crystal went on to start The House of LaBeija pageants which was the premise of the 90’s documentary Paris is Burning. In 1972 Richard Finochio underwent sex reassignment surgery to become Rachel Harlow, she began dating John B. Kelly, Grace Kelly’s brother. The relationship ended when John’s mother said she would disinherit him if he married Rachel. Rachel opened the Philadelphia night club “Harlow’s” in the 1970s. The only person to surface since this classic film was made is Jack Doroshow when he was interviewed by James St. James on YouYube. International Chrysis (1951-1990) can be seen as a teenage boy rehearsing dance numbers. These are the Queens who opened the doors for RuPaul and RuPaul’s Drag Race of today.

Many gay guys would disagree.

FYI, Mystery Man is part of a Super Bowl advertising campaign called “Digital Streaker”. There’s more of him here.

So, I have a boyfriend.

This would not be especially unusual, except that I also have a husband.

And just to make things slightly more interesting/complicated, my boyfriend is also my husband’s boyfriend.

This is not what I’d planned — it’s not what any of us had planned — but I suppose that’s the way life happens.

Out of respect for the boyfriend’s privacy, I won’t go into much detail. I’ll simply say that Jonno and I have always had a flexible relationship. We love each other very much, but we also give one another space, literally and metaphorically. We know plenty of other couples — straight and gay — who’ve had three-way arrangements, but this is the first time that we’ve found ourselves in one.

I’ll also say this: it’s not easy. In fact, it’s a little like Jonno and I rebooting our relationship and starting over from scratch.

For those of you in relationships: remember those early months, after the shiny shock of newness had worn off, after you’d stopped spending every spare minute in bed trying to learn one-another’s bodies, when you really began sinking into each other? When you were trying not to get upset about someone’s habits in the bathroom or their inability to wash dishes or take out the garbage or their tendency to tip up their cereal bowl and drink the leftover milk? (That last one was a pet peeve of a previous boyfriend. To this day, I don’t understand what the big deal was.)

Anyway, it’s like that, except instead of dealing with one person, I’m dealing with two. Getting the balance right is tricky. It requires transparency, diplomacy, strong communication skills, and an ability to read people’s minds.

Oh: and a king-size bed.

So far, so good. But a few sticky issues remain:

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A couple of weeks ago, I saw Skin Horse Theatre’s Nocturnes. It’s a new work, and it’s probably the best thing I’ve seen in years.

Nocturnes was a meditation on space — not architectural space or three-dimensional space, but honest-to-goddess, rocket-boosting, helmet-wearing, air-sucking outer space. It was performed in four or five movements, each in a different style, each exploring our desire to go where no one has gone before.

It was a little like an episode of Space 1999 as performed by Mummenchanz and the Wooster Group, if that makes any sense. (P.S. For your sake, I hope it doesn’t.)

One of the most poignant moments in the show — the thing that stuck with me, the thing that remains on my mind weeks after seeing it — came during the second movement, which was staged a bit like LSD: Just the High Points. The cast was seated at a long table, reciting essays, poems, song lyrics, and other documents having to do with space travel.

And among those tidbits was one I’d never heard about: the transcript of a “lost cosmonaut” named Ludmila.

The backstory is a little complicated, but the gist is that a couple of amateur radio operators in Italy set up a listening station near Turin in the late 1950s. From their bunker — dubbed “Torre Bert” — the two brothers claim to have recorded ground-to-air communications between the Soviets and early cosmonauts.

Their most famous is Ludmila’s recording, which dates from May 1961. It’s a brief clip, only a couple of minutes long. It is the sound of a woman slowly dying — a woman being burned alive as her craft re-enters Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere:

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People are getting antsy.

Thanks to an international army of scientists, activists, therapists, and friends, people with HIV are living long, full lives. In fact, there’s evidence to suggest that some HIV-positive individuals may outlive their HIV-negative peers because they see their doctors more regularly and pay closer attention to their health. (I’ve lost the link to that study: if you have it, please share it.)

HIV treatment options are improving, too. The fistful of medications that patients used to take at precise intervals throughout the day have been reduced to one pill. There’s talk of longer-acting treatments that could be administered monthly or even annually. And every few weeks, we hear of breakthroughs that may lead to a cure for HIV: this week’s centers around a completely synthetic molecule that prevents HIV’s ability to replicate.

And so, people are getting antsy.

They see their HIV-positive friends living normal, healthy lives. They hear about medical advances that make it seem as if HIV will be cured tomorrow or, worst-case scenario, the day after. They think, “Is HIV really that big a deal? What’s all the fuss about?” And then, “Why the hell am I still using condoms?”

It’s understandable. Folks under 30 have never known a world without HIV/AIDS, never been able to express love or lust without the specter of disease looming quietly in the background. Even those of us who are older, those of us who can remember the first few years of the epidemic and the fear of the unknown — even we’re starting to squirm, to willingly forget what we once knew. Which perhaps explains why nearly 60% of gay men have ditched the rubbers and had unprotected sex within the past year.

Now, I’m not here to be a schoolmarm, to tell you, “Wear a condom, or else!” Frankly, I’m not sure that terror is the best strategy in today’s war on HIV/AIDS. And even if it were, I’d still rather people approach HIV from a position of knowledge, not fear.

So, with that in mind, here are a few suggestions on this World AIDS Day:

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1. I am not a dancer, but when I see someone en pointe, I respond by flexing my foot.
2. I hate hearing other people complain, even when I agree with them.
3. I have no problem telling complete strangers to shut up when I’m watching movies or plays. I have a increasing urge to do this outside theaters, too. Eventually, this will land me in serious trouble.
4. When someone criticizes me, my first instinct is to laugh.
5. I have a high threshold for pain. During physicals, I like to pretend it’s even higher than it is, just to watch the expression on doctors’ faces.
6. Though I’m not Catholic, I cross myself and say a Hail Mary any time I see a dead animal on the street or the news or in a documentary. (By “animal”, I mean people, too.)
7. I also cross myself when I hear emergency vehicles: police cars, fire engines, ambulances, and helicopters. Especially helicopters.
8. For years after Hurricane Katrina, I was afraid of thunderstorms. I wasn’t afraid that I’d get hit by lightning or that the house would flood. I was afraid that our house would lose power for days.
9. When reheating and thawing things, I used to have an overwhelming compulsion to stop the microwave at 13 seconds. That’s no longer true, but I do have to stop it before it reaches zero, and I always stop it on a prime number.
10. When my hot tea gets cold, I dump the dregs into the nearest potted plant. The plants don’t mind, but it seems a little like cannibalism to me.

If you’re in New Orleans this weekend and you have some free time on Sunday afternoon, please join me and my friends Allison and Elizabeth at One Eyed Jacks to celebrate the launch of our new book, The French Quarter Drinking Companion!

I promise, it’ll be an entertaining, low-stakes event. We’ll have some hors d’oeuvres on hand (or Chex mix, whatever we can find), and of course, the bartenders will be ready to serve up anything you might need (and some things you probably don’t). We’ll read from the book a bit, and we’ll be signing copies, too, but there’s no pressure to buy — just stop in, grab a drink, and say “Hi”. If I know you, it’s probably been ages since we’ve seen each other. And if I don’t know you, well, there’s no time like the present, right?

That said, we are offering a complimentary Sazerac with every book purchase. So, there’s that.

Hope to see you there!

What: Launch party for our book, The French Quarter Drinking Companion

When: Sunday, September 29, from 2pm – 5pm

Where: One Eyed Jacks, 615 Toulouse (map)

How much: Free nibbles, cash bar

More details on the Facebooks.