Gay Rap: Clap Trap

The Guardian has run yet another thing about gay rappers and Hip Hop homophobia!

Wow, no-one's ever done that before.
Apart from all the other 127,023 articles.
The moment I wake up, before I put on my make-up, I say a little prayer that someone has written another thing about gay rappers.
IS IT THE LAST TABOO???
IS THIS THE MOST BORING ARTICLE EVER WRITTEN??
Is there anything interesting left to say about this?
Evidently not.
I'm just thrilled to mintballs by the seeming incongruity of a gay rapper - not to mention the usual in-no-way racist subtext that black people must hate The Gays.
Anyway, let's interview some inconsequential people you've never heard of!
In summary: "Frank Ocean #sobrave Missy Elliot probably a lesbian will there ever be a rainbow blah blah blah who do I send my invoice to?"
Editor: "Well, that's this week's patronising and predictable coverage about both gay men and black people done in one fell swoop. Phew!"
Zzzzz....

Update: Didn't know when I typed this the Guardian Guide thought this Ryvita-slight piece warranted putting on the front cover - have changed the image.
I think only a homo-clueless straight person could think this unoriginal fluff was of any interest to anyone.

Frank Ocean: Happy 25th Birthday

Best wishes and the best of luck to you, Frank.
This happy occasion might be a good opportunity to revisit a few points about what became one of the most discussed music stories of the year.
Frank Ocean has never described himself as gay, or as a gay man.
Most of the songs on Channel Orange are clearly about women.
The song Forrest Gump is about falling in love with a man, and he says it's autobiographical.
But he's also said the relationship it describes - "my first love" - is in the past, and suggests it was a one-off (Read his Tumblr post on this here).
As far as I know he's only spoken about the "coming out" circus this gave rise to in one interview (in the UK press, at any rate), with The Guardian Guide. 
Much of the gay media were very excited about all this, though many seemed not to have listened to the album, or to what he's actually said.
The Advocate, America's biggest gay magazine, put him on the cover.
But, perhaps tellingly, Frank didn't give them an interview.
I'm not a mind-reader, and nor do I know him, so I have no way of knowing if Frank Ocean is actually gay (though it would be odd for him to be so candid and then write a load of love songs using the female pronoun).
But I also can't see any reason to try and shoehorn him into an identity that he doesn't use himself.

Update: Independent article on two gay club nights that play Hip Hop, It's A Hard Cock Life and Pac-Man.
Mentions Frank Ocean's "coming out", natch.
Try and guess which leading authority on Hip Hop they ask about it... Peter Tatchell!
Inspired journalism. 

Gaydar Radio: "Amazing"

'Gaydar Radio started life 11 years ago as an audio player in the corner of dating site Gaydar, which operates from the floor above where I am today. The station's ambition was to be little more than background music for users to enjoy while searching out chaps to cuddle. Back then, Robin says, the station was a CD jukebox on a table propped up by a copy of Spartacus International Gay Guide, and the music policy wasn't particularly well-honed, often defaulting to a mix of boybands and divas.
These days the music is a well-defined mix of upbeat, club-based pop in the day, and harder house sounds at night. Robin says the BPM never drops below 128, which strikes me as being one Keanu Reeves appearance short of an amazing film idea. I start to wonder what sound Gaydar Radio would make if it exploded. A Kylie ad-lib, perhaps...'

Peter Robinson does Gaydar Radio for his cleverly titled Radio Daze series in The Guardian Guide. 
Doff doff doff doff etc.

PS I love it when journos call Gaydar a "dating site". 

Justice: Rough Justice

When you're not working, do you still hang out?

Xavier: "We don't really hang, but that's because Justice takes a lot of our time … even when we are not in the studio we are still making stuff for Justice. So we don't have the sense of 'What are you doing? Let's go to the movies!' but that's because we are permanently together. It's a permanent hang-out."

I love the idea of a permanent hang-out!

Xavier: "It doesn't seem gay to us but… "

Gaspard takes out his phone and shows me a manga-style cartoon of Xavier straddling him. It's been made by a Justice fan. Justice fans, it transpires, are fond of writing slash fiction, or making slash art, about the pair and posting it on Tumblr blogs.

"They are so disturbing," grins Gaspard. "The weirdest thing is they are made by 15-year-old girls."

Xavier: "It's great to imagine people taking time to make those drawings and stories. We'd like to collect them all and show them at some point. What have we done to make them do something like this? We'd love to meet them and understand."

Tim Jonze interviews Gallic symbols, Justice for Guardian Guide.
There's some Xavier/Gaspard slash fiction on this Tumblr here.
Actually written, not by a 15 year-old girl, but - surprise - by a grown gay man.

Eastenders: Phil Not Like Gay!

Glummer still was the plight of tiny homosexual Ben Mitchell, whose response to being caught kissing hooded squeeze Duncan was to festoon the Square with swirling wreaths of misspelled accusations ("BIGGOT") and make Patrick's trilby spin with threats of the "watch it, mister!" genus.

Thank Christ, then, for Phil, whose calm in such situations has made him a beacon of reasonableness in a slough of idiocy. "This conversation never 'appened," he snarled at Ben, his tremulous son's disclosure reactivating Phil's hitherto dormant crack-Hulk klaxon. Phil not like gay. Phil fear gay. Phil terminate discussion about gay with extreme prejudice. Tearful Ben reached for his dad's hand but Mr Potato Head was having none of it, stomping towards the door before turning, roaring "GERRORRFF!" and hurling his only son across the kitchen like a bespectacled discus.

Grace Dent's World Of Lather, Guardian Guide.

Thank Christ for the wonderful Ms Dent and that she writes about such soapy stuff every Saturday - and with such wit and verve.
Means I can maintain the pretense I'm covering all mo-related media bases, but don't have to watch tedious old toss like this meself.
Thanks Grace.

NB An eagle-eyed viewer has pointed out this week's World of Lather was actually written by Sarah Dempster, not Grace Dent - thus making me look quite fantastically stupid.
I have left the above blogpost unrevised as penance and as a sign of my almost touching humility.
Good day!

John Waters: A Model Interview

There is, Fagburn gets the feeling, a holy trinity of queens that the broadsheets are always gagging to get interviews with.
Neil Tennant, Gore Vidal and John Waters.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Fagburn loves reading them.
It doesn't matter that Pet Shop Boys records hardly bother the charts these days, that John Waters' films don't get released in this country, or that Gore Vidal now can come over like the thinking man's David Icke.
They'll be given pages in the weekend supplements cause they always give good quote.
The usual function of queens in the media is to do some bitchin', and these three - cultured, clever and ever-so witty - can be relied upon to do it with class.
And they perform another much desired function for the proper papers - high talking about low culture; be it pop, trash or politics.
Mr John Waters has a new book out, Role Models.
Everyone wants a piece of him.
He did The Graham Norton Show last night - alongside Justin Bieber!
He's on Loose Ends on Radio 4 as I type.
He's just made a joke about Johnny Mathis and gerontophilia - bless.
The Observer ran an extract from his book last Sunday;
'When John Waters met Little Richard'
There's a feature in The Guardian Guide today, 'Myths & Butts John Waters tells Jim Shelley about his life, his work and Charles Manson'
Really?
You'll have to forgive Fagburn, but I don't think this is a new interview with John Waters.
Hasn't Mr Shelley just filleted out a load of his favourite quotes from Role Models?
Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Update: Shelley tells me he did interview Waters - and there are original quotes in his piece. Happy to clarify. 

Lip Service: Ladies In Waiting

"BBC3's Lip Service isn't the world's first drama about lesbians," Rebecca Nicholson begins a feature in Guardian Guide.
"That accolade belongs to The L Word, which finished after six series in 2009 – but it is the first that Britain can claim as its own."
Really?
Doesn't Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit count?
Tipping The Velvet? Too costume drama?
How about the wonderful Sugar Rush then?
Okay, the wonderful first series of Sugar Rush - sigh...
Anyway, I'm being overly pernickety - Lip Service is the tale of five everyday lesbians in Glasgow; a photographer, an architect, a struggling actress, a police sergeant and a daytime TV presenter.
Because British TV needs more series about thrusting bourgeois young professionals.
Writer Harriet Braun tells The Guide; "I wanted to show characters who happen to be gay, but their sexuality is completely part of their lives."
Let's hope she decides which before she finished the script.
Will Lip Service be the lesbian Queer As Folk; all modern and sexy and punchy and must-see?
Sadly it's on BBC3, so I wouldn't get your hopes up.

• By the way, it is now ten years since Channel 4's Queer As Folk finished. How many UK TV drama series about gay men have you seen since then?

Joe McElderry: Coming Out - A User's Guide

In the wake of Joe McElderry stating the fucking obvious coming out last Saturday, The Guardian Guide offers a handy cut-out-and-keep (Guardian) guide; 'How To Come Out Of The Closet In The Tabloids'.
It's quite amusing.
But they miss out "Only come out after a tabloid has told you they have some dirt on you."
And the best retort I heard to "The moment I realised was..." tosh is to ask "What were you thinking about when you were wanking then?"
Anyway, Fagburn is off to Brighton Pride - have a great weekend and remember it's a wonderful world...