Just throwing these photos up for now until I have time to write captions BELOW.
Tuesday, October 06, 2026
Monday, October 05, 2026
Remains of the Day (10/05)
The Randy Report: Nearly 12,000 books were banned in U.S. public schools last year, with new state censorship laws driving much of the record increase
MetroWeekly: Nike shareholders reject push to drop LGBTQ support
Brian Ferrari: Before Madonna, “Hustler White” and “Sex,” a baby-faced 21-year-old Tony Ward stripped down for “In Touch for Men” in 1985
Mug Shot Monday: Zion Teasley, who reportedly now identifies as a woman, pleads guilty to the 2023 murder of Arizona hiker Lauren Heike, avoiding the death penalty in exchange for life in prison. (Does this mean I'm pan?)
Gr8er Days: Hart Bochner and his epic ass turns 70
Hot Cat of the Day: Josie and the pussy scraps
'Skin' Flick Sunday
Caught a screening of Bruce LaBruce’s “No Skin Off My Ass” at IFC Center last night, having previously seen only “Hustler White” (1996) from his body of work. His 1991 debut follows a lonely gay hairdresser, played by LaBruce, who brings a handsome, seemingly mute skinhead home from a park and becomes obsessed with him -- a punk variation on Robert Altman’s “That Cold Day in the Park.”
LaBruce describes its mix of romance, political satire, fetishism and underground porn as “agit-porn,” with a romantic-comedy premise summed up as “boy meets boy, boy takes boy home, boy discovers boy may be a fascist.”
Like “Hustler White,” the film isn’t particularly good, even on its own terms. (That the skinhead is hot and usually naked is largely what makes it watchable, along with some deft music selections.) G.B. Jones, who plays the skinhead’s radical filmmaker sister, is its only reliable source of humor, bringing a John Waters sensibility that I wish had been more abundant throughout.
Still, there’s something appealing about its indie spirit and the way it treats gay desire as normal rather than shameful. I found more to appreciate in its attitude than in its execution.
By coincidence, I’d watched “Last Tango in Paris” for the first time the night before, and despite their different sensibilities and budgets(!), I was struck by how both make sex and nudity part of the storytelling. (You might be surprised to learn which one had the anal rape scene that used butter as lube.)
LaBruce himself embraces pornography as part of his artistic vocabulary: In a 2018 Interview conversation with Slava Mogutin, his longtime friend and “Skin Flick” collaborator, LaBruce argued that sexually explicit work can also be elaborate and conceptual. It made me think about how readily we treat pornography and serious filmmaking as mutually exclusive.
After the film, Mogutin moderated a short Q&A during which we learned that Klaus von Brucker, who plays the skinhead and is 10 years Bruce’s junior, was his real-life boyfriend at the time, and that a brief fling with a gay-for-pay hustler who later became a neo-Nazi fueled LaBruce’s lifelong skinhead fetish, helping inspire the film. (He suggested that fetish porn is a good outlet for desires we might not want to pursue in real life.)
We also learned that LaBruce and Jones co-founded the gay punk fanzine J.D.s, making her role feel like a natural extension of their shared underground roots. (LaBruce also alluded to a falling-out with Jones, which I looked up afterward: He has said the film’s success sparked accusations of selling out -- lol -- and insufficient credit, acknowledging that Jones had been his mentor and probably deserved a co-writing credit.)
I didn’t stick around for the subsequent screening of “Super 8 1/2” (1994), but there’s more LaBruce to explore at home: The Criterion Channel’s October collection includes “Hustler White” (1996), his campy take on “Sunset Boulevard” set among L.A. male sex workers; “Otto; or, Up with Dead People” (2008), a darkly comic tale of a goth zombie with an identity crisis; and “Gerontophilia” (2013), a tender, sexually frank romance between a young man and an elderly nursing-home resident.
Funny side note: My companion for the evening, the hilarious writer Tim Anderson, recalled renting "No Skin Off My Ass" decades ago while spending a year teaching English in Tokyo, hoping for a little sexual satisfaction so far from home. Instead, he found black bars covering all the “goodies” to comply with Japan’s censorship rules, which my husband likened to selling a cookbook with the measurements marked out. Tim was happy to finally see what he’d been missing!
Friday, October 02, 2026
Remains of the Day (10/02)
Saturday 'Stache: Beach wood
Washington Blade: House Democrats urge White House to confront Turkish government over anti-LGBTQ crackdown
The Trevor Project: The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline has restored its “Press 3” specialized services for LGBTQ youth, more than a year after the federal government eliminated them
Speedo Sunday: Animal attraction
Happy Birthday: Julie Andrews is 91 ... and Greg Brady is 72!
Eugene O'Neill Goes to Equinox: Toxic masculinity, no matter how artful, isn't really my cup of tea. But major props to Jon Beavers (as Yank), Harrison Tipping and the rest of the cast for bringing depth and humanity to the Irish Repertory Theatre's production of "The Hairy Ape," a bleak portrait of a man whose strength is useless against a world that he is convinced sees him as "less than." Tickets HERE.
Barney Greengrass: Now who's the sturgeon king?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
