MAN ABOUT TOWN

Greetings from overcast Sydney. Yes, Sydney, the Sodom of the South, home to this: And this: As well as this: And of course not forgetting this: I flew up here at 7am, in order to meet with the Sydney branch of Evolution Publishing, owners of the gay and lesbian community newspaper MCV , as I'm taking over as the paper's editor next week. So far I've met with seven people in a row, and my head's in a bit of a whirl - not to mention crammed full of exciting and daunting new information. Flying home later this afternoon, where new changes await: I'm getting a flatmate! Yes, after six years of living alone, my good mate No Necked Monsters is moving in, which is going to require some repositioning of bookcases, couches and other furniture - not to mention getting used to having someone else around on a regular basis (note to self: don't walk around naked or masturbate in the lounge-room any more!) but I think it's going to be great fun. I've been far too so...

I think I want to buy someone flowers. I think I want someone to buy me flowers. I think that hacking off the sex organs of plants and placing them in a vase is either perverse or delicious, or possibly both. I think that when David Attenborough dies, I will not weep; I will bawl my eyes out. I think that having a sense of wonder about the world is more important than wondering what pointless luxury to spend your next pay cheque on. I think that raising children is a privilege that too many people take for granted. I think that art tells me more about life than television ever will. I think that John Howard is a political genius, which makes his decision to use his power to divide people, instead of uniting them, all the more despicable. I think that laughter is more important than a flag. I think that snuggles and whispers and late night kisses beat even the best sex hands down. I think I want to buy someone flowers. I think I want to buy someone flowers.

...two of my neighbours are having extremely noisy sex - another is loudly playing a Patti Smith album. You can probably guess which I'd rather be listening to at the close of a long, sunburnt-nose inducing day. SHUT THE FUCK UP AND FUCK QUIETLY!

As I stepped inside Carlton ’s iconic La Mama for the first time this year on Saturday, I was struck by the realisation that the small, two storey building is the theatrical equivalent of Doctor Who ’s TARDIS . It is bigger on the inside than the outside (entire worlds have been staged within its walls) and it is, in a very real sense, a time machine, which on the weekend transported myself and my companion for the evening back to the halcyon days of England in the years before (and after) the First World War. The Object of Desire , a biography of the charismatic bisexual Scottish artist Duncan Grant (shown in a 1926 self-portrait, above right) is presented by Fly on the Wall Theatre as part of this year’s Midsumma Festival . Written by the prolific Julia Britton , and directed with aplomb by Robert Chuter , it features a relatively large cast for a La Mama production, and a memorable set by Anthony Breslin (based on elements of Grant’s country house, Charleston , if I’m not very ...

1. People who live in the Ghetto of Hate throw excellent shindigs. 2. I had forgotten how much I miss the sound of rain. 3. Midsumma theatre is very hit and miss. 4. Yesterday the Edinburgh Gardens were too festive for words. 5. Abe Books is porno for bibliophiles. 6. I have no idea which bands I want to see at the Big Day Out tomorrow. 7. I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) hosted the Victorian premiere of the newly-restored 1906 film The Story of the Kelly Gang on Thursday night, with a crowd of screen culture luminaries (and at least one freeloading blogger) in attendance. Introducing the night, ACMI director Tony Sweeney commented that while some people might think an evening at the tennis was the best way to kick off the Australia Day long weekend, for him, watching a classic Australian film such as that we were about to view struck him as eminently more appropriate. I found myself nodding in agreement, because The Story of the Kelly Gang is more than just a landmark Australian film. Directed by theatre entrepreneur Charles Tait, it is widely regarded as the world’s first feature-length narrative film. As recently as the 1970s The Story of the Kelly Gang was thought lost forever, but in recent years, scraps and fragments of the film have gradually emerged, including footage found on a Melbourne...

I didin't make it to the 12th annual Melbourne Pride March on Sunday afternoon, but here are some pictures nonetheless...

How about we all fly this flag instead?

Our Glorious Leader (who my late paternal grandmother referred to as 'that little cock-sparrow' on account of his resemblance to a diminutive bird with its chest puffed out) has weighed in to the debate over an attempt by Big Day Out organisers to discourage anti-social use of the Australian flag at the event this year, in an effort to curtail any Cronulla-like displays of racist national pride. "Flags don't have legs and arms," Mr Howard wisely opined . Give the man an elephant stamp - he's clearly a genius! Personally, I'm much more surprised that the media haven't caught on to the wicked, pro-drug message that is plainly being promoted on the front page of the BDO site , which requires the viewer to take several bites of a no doubt psilocybin-rich mushroom before they are transferred via a shimmering, psychadelic vortex to the main section of the website. For shame, Lees and West, for shame! *removes tongue firmly from cheek and skips happily away ...

Last week, in my 'Art of the City' column in Beat magazine, I wrote a piece entitled 'Poetry ain't trivial' which attempted to mock some people's poor opinions of poetry and spoken word by using negative cliches about the artforms in a deliberately over-the-top way, and that I thought would clearly be read as firmly tongue-in-cheek. Instead it appears that my words have been taken seriously by some people, and consequently I've ended up offending several Melbourne poets who I have nothing but respect for. Oh dear. That so wasn't meant to be the case. Sorry, guys, it was a joke. Or at least it was meant to be. Maybe I'll just stick to reporting the facts from now on...

Friday night witnessed the opening night of Midsumma, Melbourne's gay and lesbian cultural festival, at Federation Square. I've never been so glad to have been invited to the VIP opening drinks in my life, given that they were held in airconditioned comfort, as it was a horribly hot, muggy and humid night. Hurrah for being a media slut! The opening itself was, I can happily say, the best Midsumma opening I've ever attended, with live bands, comedy and roaming performers entertaining the masses (although your more conservative gay types seemed slightly confronted by the live bands). Afterwards, in the company of three lovely gentlemen - Graeme , Mick and Cam - we drove down the coast to Blairgowrie , on the Mornington Peninsula, where Cam's parents have a holiday house at which our mutual friend Glen was celebrating his birthday. What a lovely weekend it was! There was drinking, drinking games, swimming in the surf at the Portsea back beach despite the rain, ridiculously...

A. B. C. Q. 1. Please study this photograph of three babies. One of them will grow up to undermine decent human values and threaten the social fabric of modern Australian society. Will it be: A) A gay man? B) A Muslim? C) John Winston Howard? Q. 2. What is 'homophobia'? A) Fear of mad dogs? B) Fear of water? C) Fear of display homes? Q. ...

... I spoke with artist Andrew Baines, who's looking for people to participate in a 'living surrealist human sculpture' at St Kilda Beach at 6am this Saturday January 20. You'll need to wear a black suit, white shirt and colourful tie, and walk into the surf reading a newspaper, together with 200 or so people dressed identically. The finished work will look something like this: It's not the first time Baines has created work of this nature, as you can see if you visit his website at www.andrewbaines.com - which is also where you can find all the registration details for this Saturday's event... My other guests on SmartArts today, which was my first program for the year after a three week break, were: Actor Gerry Sont, who is playing Bloomsbury Group artist Duncan Grant in the play 'The Object of Desire' at La Mama Theatre as part of the Midsumma Festival , from Jan 24 - Feb 11. Curator Leanne Fitzgibbon, from the Bendigo Art Gallery , about the exhi...

Right, wrong, what to do? Someday it will come to you Hostile indians We named our summer camp for you I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to say I'm in utter dismay I've got nothing to say Harmless children We named our soldiers after you Don't be a coconut God is trying to talk to you We could drag it out But that's for other bands to do I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to give Got no reason to live But I will fight to survive I've got nothing to hide Wish I wasn't so shy I lied to urge I'd like to read I'd like a part I'd like the lead But I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to say I've got nothing to give Got no reason to li...

Myself, a rather sleepy Mike and my girlfriend Lisa met up at ACMI last night to catch a screening of the 1941 classic The Maltese Falcon . If you haven't seen the film before I highly recommend it: Humphrey Bogart (shown left) at his tough-guy best, matched only by his performance in Casablanca , and a startling cinematic debut for director John Huston . It's the film that gave birth to film noir , a cinematic style that refuses to be confined to a single genre, and of which I am utterly enamoured. For many people noir is synonymous with detective films and crime stories, but there is also western noir and melodrama noir , to name but two other genres that embraced the noir style in its heyday from 1941 - 1958. Film noir is a bubbling cauldron of influences, from the shadow-heavy images of German expressionist cinema to Italian neo-realism. Then-contemporary, post-war fears about the roles of women emerged in noir as such iconic femme fatales as Phyllis Dietrichson, B...

You know, there's something quite delicious about beefcake that's at least 50 years old - if only because you know you're admiring or fantasising about a person who is now old and (at least traditionally) unattractive - or possibly even dead. If I was more alert and brain-engaged I'd now craft a metaphor referencing the light of long dead stars and the the transient nature of lust and infatuation, but it's late and I'm tired, so here are a few JPG's instead... Brooding, Bad & Beautiful It may not have been deliberate, but the homoerotic aspects of the relationship between Plato ( Sal Mineo , left) and Jim Stark ( James Dean ) in Rebel Without A Cause (1955) are inescapable today. A couple of years ago I toyed with the idea of reworking the plot of the film as a young adult novel, with the working title Rebel , that would bring the film's queer subtext into the foreground, ending with Judy (Natalie Wood) dying and the boys finally united, instead of P...

Mel Gibson's fourth cinematic outing as director, and his third historial epic to date, is set in Mesoamerica in the 16th Century, and was filmed on location in Mexico. As with his fact-twisting Braveheart (1995) Apocalypto concerns itself with an honourable man struggling against almost overwhelming odds. In this instance, instead of an idealised William Wallace fighting the forces of a rapacious England, our hero is a jungle-dwelling hunter, and the enemy is the once-great Mayan Empire. As an aside, I think it's fair to say at this point that we can now clearly see a common theme uniting the four testosterone-soaked feature films Gibson has directed to date, namely the individual's struggle against the forces of injustice and bigotry that have been brought to bear against him. This theme was present in The Man Without A Face (1993) his directorial debut, and it was certainly the key element of his fundo-porno splatter epic The Passion of the Christ (2004). Given Mel...

Does anyone who knows more about HTML than me have any idea why, as my various sidebars continue down the side of the page, ie Blogs, Gay Blogs, Smut etc, they seem to march more and more to the right?

From the penultimate episode of UK tv series Torchwood , which I've been blogging about a lot lately... [spoiler alert] ...starring John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, and Matt Ripey as Captain Jack Harkness....

If you want to get married in Clark County, Ohio, in the USA, you will be asked, "Do you solemnly swear that you are not transsexual?" Ohio law only recognizes birth gender. Thus, a male to female (M2F) transsexual may only marry another woman in Ohio, and Clark County wants to ascertain that everyone is abiding by that restriction. To date, in Clark County, no one has ever answered the transsexual question in the affirmative.

Oh, get your minds out of the gutter. Cried. Twice.* Once while watching the penultimate episode of Torchwood , with its romantically doomed slow-dance and man-pash. Again while watching the final episode of the series, when everyone - characters and viewers alike - thought our favourite character was deceased. Said tears transmogrified into tears of joy as a consequence of the final scenes. Happy tears are the best. I love a drama that can actually make me feel , not just provide a manipulated approximation of real emotion via sweeping music and clever editing. *Actually I take that back, I cried a third time - well, sniffled anyway - reading the latest blog entries of a certain happy couple . Oh, love love LOVE! We now return you to cynicism as usual.

Given that I'm interviewing the curator of The World's Most Photographed , an exhibition currently displayed at the Bendigo Art Gallery on SmartArts in a few weeks' time, I thought I'd take the opportunity of a quiet weekend to head up to Bendigo to see the show. It was a quick trip, as while there I convinced myself that I absolutely, positively had to rush back to Melbourne in order to get to the Victoria Police Museum before it closed, in order to buy a copy of a a local history of the wallopers (it's a research thing). Of course, once back in Melbourne, I found out that the museum isn't open on weekends... Doh! A little known fact about the train trip to Bendigo: some genius built the city just far enough away from Melbourne that the duration of the roughly two-hour train journey is the perfect period of time required to read The Saturday Age properly, rather than my traditional time-poor skim through its pages. How lovely. Arriving at the gallery, the f...

I've spent most of this uncomfortably hot Friday sitting at my computer, and taking notes on daily life in the 1940s, especially the daily lives of gay men in that era. While my main focus is Melbourne in the winter of 1942 (the period in which I've decided to set my new novel) I have been taking the odd detour into other periods and places as I browse the web. Not surprisingly, I've also occasionally been distracted by beefcake and pin-ups as the day progressed. It's rather amusing, and touching, to consider that some of these images were once considered titillating, even controversial. Ah the joys of earlier, more innocent days... Tortured and brooding movie star Montgomery Clift Just good friends: Tab Hunter (left) and Roddy McDowell . The best in B-movie beefcake: Guy Madison Just good friends: Guy Madison comforts Robert Mitchum in Till the End of Time (1946) Good clean fun! More good clean fun! Healthy body, healthy mind!

Down The Shops and Asphodel Films in conjunction with the Midsumma Gay & Lesbian Festival are calling for queer short films and music videos to be screened as part of the 2007 Opening Night Party at Federation Square on January 19th, 2007. Successful content will be screened as part of "Q-Tube", providing entertainment on the main stage and various screens at Federation Square as part of the Midsumma Festival's opening night event. If you have a film no longer than six minutes that you would like to see on the big screen please send a miniDV (preferred) or DVD copy to: Q-Tube @ Opening Night C/O Midsumma Festival Inc. C1.17 / The Abbotsford Convent 1 St Heliers Street Abbotsford VIC 3067 Please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope if you would like your film returned.

It's back! This Life + 10 BBC Media Release Date: 20.09.2006 A decade ago, This Life premiered on BBC TWO and changed the face of television drama, whilst gathering legions of faithful fans as well as industry acclaim and awards. To celebrate its tenth anniversary, the original cast, executive producer Tony Garnett and creator and principal writer Amy Jenkins reunite for This Life + 10 , an exclusive, 90-minute, one-off episode to be broadcast on BBC TWO. BBC TWO viewers became obsessed with the turbulent lives of a group of twenty-something lawyers who lived, loved and played hard whilst sharing a house in London. Thirty-two episodes were broadcast over two series during 1996 and 1997 and the final explosive instalment left its devoted audience begging for more. Fast forward a decade and This Life + 10 re-introduces Miles ( Jack Davenport ), Milly ( Amita Dhiri ), Warren ( Jason Hughes ), Egg...

Happy 2007, everyone. I hope your New Year's Eve was wildly enjoyable, or at least moderately so? It is, I freely admit, an overrated evening, when dull suburbanites cut loose and go wild in a desperate attempt to have the sort of night out that they can boast about for the next few weeks - the sort of night that myself and many other jaded and drug-addled inner-urbanites have every weekend. I think I stopped enjoying NYE at least a decade ago, as a consequence of DJ'ing in clubs on the night in question for too many years in a row. Nothing like a spot of repetition to take the edge off! My faux-supercilliousness aside, I had a great night this year, at least for the majority of the night. My composer friend David had a house party, which was where I began my evening. From there I headed off to meet up with Graeme and Josh (ho has a blog but I don't know what it's called) at The Arthouse, where we were splendidly entertained by the raucous queer hardcore of US band Limp...