1987

‘Hello Derek.’
‘Hello. I’m writing in my diary about James Anderton. What a ghastly man.’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s saying we’re living in a cesspit of our making. I mean, how absurd. What a horrid little man. How the supposed Chief Constable of Manchester can say such vile things. It just makes me more determined, you know what I mean? I want to make a film about it.’

Film was personal and political for Jarman. While most most cinema during the 1980s was vacuous, empty, full of sound and fury, Jarman made films that were infused with his life, his thoughts, his passions, his politics—even the biopic Caravaggio mixed-in elements from his life to that of the Renaissance artist.

Jarman was a painter who made movies.

1980

In the Shadow of the Sun is an extraordinary collaboration between Derek Jarman and Throbbring Gristle. It is a more personal work for Jarman, which mixes elements from 3 of Jarman’s Super-8 movies: Journey to Avebury (1971), Tarot (aka The Magician) (1972) and Fire Island (1974), into a dream-like film, filled with magick and ritual, which Throbbing Gristle’s music matches perfectly.

In the Shadow of the Sun was premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 1980. It contains many of Jarman’s favorite leitmotifs—mirrors, fires, dance—which he returned to again in the more political, The Last of England. 
 

Lear photographed by David Bailey for the December 1971 Dali-edited issue of French Vogue.

The glamorous Amanda Lear in her first TV commercial appearance, circa 1967, for Révillon’s Detchema fragrance.

The music is by cult figure French soundtrack composer, François de Roubaix.
 

Even at their most reactionary, superhero comics are still sooooo gay!
 
Orson Scott Card is considered one of the greatest living science fiction writers, with his Enders Game series one of the most influential franchises in the genre.

He’s also a practicing Mormon, a crazypants homophobe, and a member of the board of directors of the National Organization for Marriage!

So it’s kind of baffling that DC comics just hired him to write two issues of their brand new digital Superman comic.

Here are some of his interesting views on gay marriage:

Calling a homosexual contract “marriage” does not make it reproductively relevant and will not make it contribute in any meaningful way to the propagation of civilization.

In fact, it will do harm. Nowhere near as much harm as we have already done through divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing. But it’s another nail in the coffin. Maybe the last nail, precisely because it is the most obvious and outrageous attack on what is left of marriage in America.

Oh what the hell? Let’s throw in some crazy heteronormative, borderline eugenicist social Darwinist bullshit, for fun!

Monogamous marriage is by far the most effective foundation for a civilization. It provides most males an opportunity to mate (polygamous systems always result in surplus males that have no reproductive stake in society); it provides most females an opportunity to have a mate who is exclusively devoted to her. Those who are successful in mating are the ones who will have the strongest loyalty to the social order; so the system that provides reproductive success to the largest number is the system that will be most likely to keep a civilization alive.

Now it’s one thing to read a classic by an artist with bad ethics morals, or politics—we consume art all the time we know to be problematic, and we can still enjoy it without compromising our critical eye. It’s another thing entirely to hire a well-known bigot activist and expect his literary reputation to supplant his awful crusade.

In a 2008 editorial in the Desert News, Card threw this down:

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.

Nice! Clearly comics have their own problematic histories, but do DC comics really think it’s a genre that can succeed in a homophobic context? Do they not have eyeballs or live in this century?

Some comic stores are refusing to stock Card’s Superman issues and a petition has also been started to get DC to drop him.

Come on DC. Really? I mean really?

 
Most of us do it everyday without thinking. Tell that someone special we love them. But do it in Cameroon and you could end-up in gaol.

That’s what happened to Roger Jean-Claude Mbédé, who was sentenced to 3-years in prison in 2011 for sending another man an SMS that read:

“I’m very much in love w/u.”

Mbédé was detained by Cameroon’s Secretary of State for Defense (SED) on “suspicion of homosexuality.”

He was formally charged with “homosexuality and attempted homosexuality” on March 9th, 2011.

He was then tried and on April 28th, 2011, Mbédé was found guilty on both charges and sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment at Kondengui Central Prison.

His sentencing was condemned by Human Rights Watch, who described it as “a gross violation of Mbede’s rights to freedom of expression and equality.”

In prison “many suspects were tortured or otherwise treated poorly in custody until they gave confessions, which were then used as evidence against them.”

In 2011, 14 people were prosecuted for homosexuality, 12 were convicted.

Roger’s 3-year conviction led to a campaign by Amnesty International and Rights activists, which saw Roger provisionally released on bail in July 2012, on health grounds. However, an appeals court upheld the 3-year sentence against Roger.

All Out is running a campaign to help release Roger from jail:

Roger still has to serve 2 more years in jail under horrible conditions, but Cameroon’s President Biya could free Roger from this sentence and end the anti-gay laws that jailed him in the first place. Biya has made statements that could indicate he’s evolving ont his issue and he knows that Cameroon’s reputation is at stake.

All Out have started a petition to President Biya, and Justice Laurent Esso which reads:

TO: PRESIDENT BIYA AND MINISTER OF JUSTICE LAURENT ESSO

We call on you to free Roger Jean-Claude Mbédé, who was jailed for sending a text message, and to place a moratorium on Cameroon’s discriminatory anti-gay laws.

These laws deny basic human rights to many Cameronians like Roger and create an environment of hostility and fear. End the use of laws that make it a crime to love who you choose and encourage their permanent repeal.

If you want to help with getting Roger released from prison then please sign and share this petition. Thank you.
 

 
Christian radio host Janet Mefferd cuts to the heart of the gay rights matter and says out loud what many will not: Many conservative Christians simply do no want to be forced to look at gay people.

Whether the homosexual activists like it or not, and I know this isn’t politically correct to say this, but not everybody wants to see that. I know that that’s offensive to the activist crowd, they want us all to see it, they want us all to approve of it, they want us all to call it blessed and okay and rejoice and have parties and throw confetti in the air over this whole thing. But the fact of the matter is it’s a moral issue. You will always have Christians who will disagree with this and why should the rights of the activists trump the rights of Christians?

By this same logic why should the rights of the black people have trumped the rights of Southern slave owners?

Got an answer for that one, Janet?

I’m sure you do. I’m equally sure that it’s fucking stupid and decidedly unscientific.

(And what about people who are offended by low IQ idiots like Janet Mefford, don’t we have any rights?)

Advice to Janet Mefferd from the Holy Book itself:

If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.

That’s right, Janet, gouge your own eyes out if you’re offended by gay people. The Bible IS the inerrant word of God, isn’t it? Out they go!

Barring that, stay at home and keep the door locked and the TV off. The 21st century is gonna really suck for you otherwise, doll.

Send a message to Janet Mefferd on Twitter.

Via Right Wing Watch/Joe.My.God.

 
Two of the earliest things that I read by William Burroughs were The Job, a book’s worth of interviews conducted by Daniel Odier, along with some shorter pieces that focused on revolution (and revolutionary technology for lack of a better term) and The Third Mind, his enigmatic collaboration with painter Brion Gysin about the “cut-ups” literary technique, and its occult implications. The cuts-up technique holds that if you randomly rearrange words via chance operation, that you’ll find their “real” meaning or encourage some sort of prophecy to leak through. Sort of like those “Magnetic Poetry” refrigerator magnets used as a Ouija board, to put it simply…

The “occult Burroughs” is my favorite aspect of his work. When the topic veers towards the use of occult technology in the employment of revolution, I prefer that even more (like “The Revised Boy Scout Manual”).

Burroughs had a strong interest in the occult all of his life, but aside from his own writings, there were precious few interviews where he’s speaking openly about his magical interests. The interviews that come to mind immediately are the ones Vale did in RE/Search #4/5 and a late in life Q&A that (I think) was conducted by the great Kristine McKenna around the time of Burroughs’ big LACMA art show in 1996 (I can’t find it online). Burroughs’ major biography, Literary Outlaw by Ted Morgan, barely touches on the subject, as if a major component of his subject’s worldview had sailed right over Morgan’s head, although Barry Miles’ more sympathetic El Hombre Invisible is much more satisfying in this regard.

Below, William S. Burroughs lectures to his writing class at Naropa University, on “wishing machines,” the paranormal, synchronicity, propaganda and dreams. You can hear Allen Ginsberg’s voice in a couple of places. Taped in Boulder, Colorado on June 25,1986.
 

Speaks for itself, does’t it?

(I dedicate this post to Tennessee State Sen. Stacey Campfield, the closet-case numbnuts who introduced the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Call Ted Haggard, Stacey, he can help you!)

Via Joe.My.God

Isn’t that a face you’d just like to punch?

The newest version of SB 234, Tennessee’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill—which would prohibit any mention whatsoever of homosexuality to Tennessee students in kindergarten through the 8th grade—includes an updated provision requiring teachers and guidance counselors to tell parents if their child self-identifies as LGBT.

What could possibly go wrong in a state where idiots turn in their “gay” dogs to be euthanized?

Remarkable, isn’t it?

The same closet-case dickhead who authored the first bill (which was introduced in 2011 but died) State Sen. Stacey Campfield (NATURALLY A GODDAMNED REPUBLICAN), reintroduced SB 234 this time as well. Campfield is, yes, the very same fucknut who proposed cutting welfare payments when kids get bad report cards just last week!

“The act of homosexuality is very dangerous to someone’s health and safety,” says Campfield.

From the new bill:

The general assembly recognizes that certain subjects are particularly sensitive and are, therefore, best explained and discussed within the home. Because of its complex societal, scientific, psychological, and historical implications, human sexuality is one such subject. Human sexuality is best understood by children with sufficient maturity to grasp its complexity and implications [...]

A school counselor, nurse, principal or assistant principal from counseling a student who is engaging in, or who may be at risk of engaging in, behavior injurious to the physical or mental health and well-being of the student or another person; provided, that wherever possible such counseling shall be done in consultation with the student’s parents or legal guardians. Parents or legal guardians of students who receive such counseling shall be notified as soon as practicable that such counseling has occurred.

WTF???

As Think Progress points out:

Family rejection is a serious risk for LGBT youth. Kids who are LGBT often face alienation, if not outright abandonment, because they come out. Forty percent of homeless youth are LGBT, and many of them report that the reason they left home was to escape an environment hostile to their sexual orientation. LGBT youth who experience family rejection are at high risk for depression and suicide.

Annoyed that his opponents dubbed the first go-round the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, this year Campfield called it the “Classroom Protection Act.”

“Protection from who?” asked Chris Sanders, chairman and president of the Tennessee Equality Project.

“It’s kind of like ‘Don’t Say Gay’ on steroids,” Sanders told The Tennessean. “He’s listened to the objections and ended up making it worse.”

Campfield is known as a particularly bellicose, arrogant and ignorant conservative Republican, the kind of combative not as smart as he thinks he is loser who’s one rung lower than, say, former Tea party-backed congressman Joe Walsh, with about half of Walsh’s wit, charm and intelligence (Walsh possesses none of these attributes, of course). There was a debate last year about whether or not to remove Campfield’s photo from his former high schools Wall of Fame. This guy is a dick.

If you’d like to give Stacey Campfield a piece of your mind—he’s obviously got none of his own—you can do so here. A Facebook page was also set up to organize getting rid of this jackass who seems intent on giving Knoxville a bad name. Here’s his phone number—(615) 741-1766—and his email address: sen.stacey.campfield@capitol.tn.gov

Below, a (flaming) ignoramus speaks his tiny, tiny little mind:
 

 
Some witless asshole dropped off his male pitbull/American bulldog mix at the Jackson Rabies Control Animal Shelter in Tennessee yesterday because he deemed his dog as “gay” for mounting another male dog (by that criteria ALL dogs would be “gay”!). Apparently the fucking idiot owner didn’t want a “gay dog.” The pooch, who displayed no signs of aggression, was scheduled to be euthanized today at 1pm!

Good news, though, a kind soul on Facebook who goes by the name “Jackson TN Euthanasia,” shared the hell out of this poor pup’s story and photo and got this doggie a new home. The dog was lucky, but the old owner will probably always be stupid.

Via BuzzFeed

 
The excellent blog Spectra Speaks reports that award-winning African artist Shishani, has just released a video for her new LGBTI Equality anthem “Minority”.

Award-winning acoustic soul artist, Shishani, has just released the music video for her latest single titled, “Minority”, a catchy, upbeat, acoustic track that calls for freedom and equality for all people despite perceived differences.

Shishani got her big break when she performed at the 2011 Namibian Annual Music Awards in the capital city of Windhoek, where it’s still illegal to be gay. And though, she says, she’s made no real attempts to hide her sexuality, she hasn’t come out as an “out lesbian artist” till now.

“I wanted people to get to know my music,” she says, “Sexuality doesn’t matter. It’s like pasta — asking if you prefer spaghetti or macaroni. It just doesn’t matter… I’m an artist first, before being a gay artist.”

Nambia is one of several African countries where Homosexuality is illegal, and “LGBTI people risk harassment and violence due to a strong culture of stigma in part reignited by religious leaders and government officials.”

As an African musician who identifies as being a part of the LGBTI community, the lyrics of “Minority” no doubt challenge the infamous meme “Homosexuality is unAfrican.” But, Shishan insists, her song is about much more than being gay.

“In Namibia, it also makes a difference what ethnicity you are. “Minority” argues for equal rights for all people regardless of their cultural backgrounds, economic status, sexuality, religion,” she says, “There is so much systemic discrimination against people, for so many reasons.”

The release of “Minority” is timely; January is the month in which outspoken Ugandan LGBT activist, David Kato was bludgeoned to death in an anti-gay attack three years ago, sparking an outcry from fellow African human rights activists. January is also the month in which people in the U.S.–perhaps even all over the world–celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a powerful civil rights leader and icon. His call for freedom and equality of all people has been taken up by activists all over the world, including Shishani, whose lyrics echo his principles of love and unity.

“Homophobia all over the world comes from the same place; colonialism, apartheid, racial segregation. All our struggles are connected.”

Read the interview with Shishani at Spectra Speaks.

Follow Spectra Speaks on Twitter. Shishani on Facebook.
 

 
With thanks to the wonderful June Millington