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Mark Simpson śmiało idzie na Comic-Con - ale chce uciekać krzycząc

(Out Magazine, wrzesień 2009 - Uncut Version)

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe" zwierza Batty, beserker droid odgrywa Rutger Hauer pod koniec sci-fi classic Blade Runner. "Atak na statkach wystrzelić ramieniu Oriona. I've watched C-belki glitter in the dark pobliżu Tannhauser Gate .... Tak, ale to jeszcze nic. I've seen ponad 125.000 frajerów w pełnym locie, nozdrza spalony z zapachem gratisy ograniczone figurki problem i możliwość glimpsing Gandalfa po drugiej stronie hali wielkości kabiny załogi Death Star.

A co z włókna mojego ciała krzyczy: RUN! RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIFE!

Ale nie mogę ruszyć. Cali. Jestem całkowicie otoczone. Kto by pomyślał, frajerów były takie zwierzęta juczne? San Diego Convention Centre, wszystkie 615.701 metrów kwadratowych to jest pełna do pękania punkt z ludźmi, którzy opuścili swoje Dank, zabawki, wypchane sypialnie Don swoich ulubionych strojach, krążą setki stoisk i kabiny, niezliczone rozmowy, wykłady, panele, wypełnienie ich "łupem torby promocyjne PAP - a bash nie do mnie.

Ledwo mogę oddychać albo. Kto wie, tak wielu Amerykanów może mieć takich biednych higieny osobistej? W Wielkiej Brytanii, moje miejsce urodzenia, byłoby to niczym nadzwyczajnym, ale ja zawsze wyobrażałem sobie, że w złym US oddech Federalnej przestępczości, BO pozytywnie niekonstytucyjny. Widocznie myliłem się. I chociaż ten ogromny tłum głównie mężczyzn i najczęściej poniżej 40, I'm not getting dużo w drodze tanie emocje z tym wszystkim bliskość nieodpłatne blisko. Poleciałem na drodze do San Diego, domu Floty Pacyfiku, kilka baz USMC, a także ogromny gej przemysłu porno - i poszedłem do Comic-Con. Zręcznie, udało mi się znaleźć wszystkich młodych ludzi w USA nie ochoty One Giant ponad ubrany, spocony strona obwodu unsexiness. Zapraszamy do Nerd World. ( "FREE HUGS wydaje się być popularny T-shirt tutaj, ale mimo że jestem tak bardzo Freeloader jako kolejny journo Nie mogę powiedzieć, jestem dokładnie skusić.)

Comic-Con jest umysł bogglingly ogromne roczne obchody pop kultury, która rozpoczęła się czterdzieści lat temu w prosty swap-meet między maniaków z pola nadwyżki komiksów. Dziś obejmuje on prawie każdego gatunku pop-kultury z gier wideo do gry karciane , anime powieści fantasy i jest ulubionym ziemi depcząc w Hollywood, wyposażony w promocyjnych występów w wielkich nazwisk Hollywood, takich jak Robert Downey Jr, Johnny Depp, James Cameron, Peter Jackson promowanie filmów jak Iron Man 2, Avatar, District 9, GI Joe, Saga Zmierzch: New Moon i Alicji w Krainie Czarów. Comic-Con stała Godzilla pop-kultury i połykać w całości, Hollywood, choć niektóre Starzy obawiają się, że Hollywood and Corporate America pochłonął Comic-Con.

Tłum się porusza, i biorąc mnie ze sobą. Kierunku kilka schodów, że wiązka się złowieszczo do przodu jak nieoczekiwane wodospadu. Średnim wieku, pani nadzorująca schodów jest wrzeszcząc do tłumu: "Krok ten sposób! You Look strasznie TIRED! - Krok ten sposób! - Spróbuj się uśmiechać! "Myślę, że oznacza mnie. Na dole schodów Mijam stoisko sprzedaży" Star Trek Kolonia ":" Tyberiusz "," Khan "oraz" Red Shirt - Bo jutro może nigdy nie przyjść. Młody człowiek ubrany jak Vulcan pyta: "Dlaczego nie zapach Spock? Po Zachary Quinto grał go w nowym filmie on najgorętszych partii!". Pauza. "Albo tak moja dziewczyna mówi mi:" dodaje szybko.

Niesione przez szalony tłum znów ku Lego stoją na środku sali głównej Uderzam do Michała i Cesar, Comic-Con weteranów w początku lat trzydziestych robić to, co wielu ludzi spędza dużo czasu robi tutaj: w kolejce . pytam, czy mogę zawiesić z nimi - i ucieczka z tłumu - i bardzo łaskawie zgodzą. Ale co oni wyciągający do? ". zabawek Limited Edition i książki, wyjaśnia Michał." You kolejce na los na loterię, która to daje szansę na linii ponownie do zakupu zabawki. "

"To nie brzmi dużo zabawy", mówię.

"Ha! Ale to limitowana edycja Star Wars zabawek "

"Chłopaki, jestem osobą, która dostaje spieszyć się rzucać, co dalej. Idea zbierania rzeczy napełnia mnie lękiem. Pomyśl o odkurzanie!

"Ach, jak na skarb! mówi Michael. "I've got FULL garaż dane SW! ponad 3000! i setki samochodów!

"Czy faceci faktycznie bawią się zabawkami?

"Nie", mówi Cesar, "Nie biorę je z pudełka. Zmniejsza ponownie wartość sprzedaży". Cesar jest prowadzenie obrotu w celu zapłaty za studia medyczne. Michaela za jego część zawsze rozpakowuje je: "I don 't sprzedać je i lubię bawić się z nimi trochę, zanim je do magazynu.

Zarówno z San Diego, Michael jest gejem i pracuje jako pielęgniarka administracyjnych, a Cesar jest prosta, żonaty ojciec dwójki dzieci, i studiuje się z lekarzem. Michał jest bardzo przyjazny i mówi bardzo szybko, Cesar, nieśmiały Mexican American podgardla, jest cichsza, ale twinkly ciemne oczy, które zdają się mówić wiele. plecaku jest całkowicie pokryte cute Star Wars znaczki jak "Star Wars Republic Commando", "Rogue Squadron", "Revenge of the Jedi".

Jak Michael wziąć udział w stylu życia nerd? "Mój tata był w wojsku i dyscyplinę surowe. Nie byliśmy bardzo blisko niego. Kupił nas wyłączyć z zabawkami, jak sądzę. Więc George Lucas był twój przybrany ojciec? "Tak, można powiedzieć. Miałem całą kolekcję, kiedy byłem dzieckiem. Sprzedał je, gdy byłam nastolatką, ponieważ chciałem kupić samochód. Ale potem żałował później i kupił je z powrotem. "Więc kiedy stał się człowiekiem można odłożyć dziecinne rzeczy - a potem dostał je jeszcze raz?" Tak ", śmieje się Michał, a nie" dla dorosłych było całkiem co to jest pęknięty się być ". "Można powiedzieć, że znowu mówi Cesar, który jest obecnie w trakcie procesu uzyskania rozwodu.

Prawdopodobnie jest to część kultury nerd dlatego staje się znacznie bardziej powszechne - jeśli nie dominującą. Nerdism jest przejść się i wychodzi. Wszakże w konsumpcyjnym, jednego społeczeństwa mama większość chłopców są ojcem Playstation lub Nike. "Do you like Star Wars? LOTR? zwrócił ulotki promocyjnej i został wydany w I kolejce, aby wejść do Centrum." How about Lost? Harry Potter? Big potwory, rozmawiając roboty i sexy cudzoziemców? Cóż, nie obejmujących prawie każdy w tych czasach? Throw w grach komputerowych, które są coraz ważniejszym elementem Comic-Con (i większe niż przemysł Hollywood, nawet dogania porno), nerdish "odrzuca" z przeszłości stają się normą. Nie jest to tylko taki chłopak już więcej: przyjazd na Comic Con w legiony krzyczących nastolatek dziewczyny na "wydarzenie Twilight" skłoniły niektórych tradycjonalistów Comic-Con chodzić dookoła za pomocą tabliczek oświadczając: "TWILIGHT RUINED COMIC - CON.

Ale po co zajmować się Star Wars dane? Co jest tak ważne o nich dorosłego człowieka? "Przypominają mi, jak się czuję oglądania filmu," wyjaśnia Michael. A co to jest uczucie? "Oh, RAZEM emocje!" Love? "Tak, może!" Myślę o nich jak pamiętnik ", tłumaczy Cesar. "Albo jak sposób, że zapach lub smak może przypomnieć, wspomnień". tle Cesar rodziny jest bardzo podobna do Michała. "Mój tata prowadził restaurację i pracowała bardzo długo. On nie był w pobliżu. kupił nas wyłączyć z zabawkami ".

Wydaje zabawki można kupić kochasz. Cesar i Michael spotkali się z 3 ^rd Star Wars Konwencji w Indianapolis siedem lat temu. "Był na ten sam lot co ja ze swoją dziewczyną", opowiada Michał. "Byliśmy naklejane na fucking asfaltową przez dwie godziny bez klimatyzacji nieszczęśliwy. Dotarliśmy do czatowania - byliśmy oddzielić od tego momentu. W roku 2008 Cesar stanął w moim weselu. On jest rzeczywiście jednym z moich najlepszych przyjaciół ", mówi Michael. piersiowej Cesar pęcznieje widoczny na tego ". Idziemy do wszystkich konwencji razem i są nierozłączne".

Czy Larry męża Michała, czuć zazdrość Cesar w ogóle? "Oh, no!" Larry śmieje się. "Jestem po prostu zadowolony, nie mam iść do tych fucking cyrki z Michaelem! akcji Larry Love Michael's Star Wars i 80. Brit zespołu Duran Duran, ale nie Comic-Con:" Jestem właściwego nerd - Nie robię tłumy.

Michael ożenił Larry przed małżeństwa homoseksualne została zakazana ponownie w Kalifornii w listopadzie ubiegłego roku. Larry, kierownik biura w jego wczesnych latach trzydziestych, ma easy-going postawa i cierpki humor.

SW został ponownie narkotyków wpis: Larry uczestniczył w pierwszym pokazano miał wtedy pięć lat. Tato był USMC weterynarza Wietnamie pracuje jako instalator alarmów, które nie łatwo było dostać blisko. "Nie wiedziałem, który będzie chodzić w drzwiach - najfajniejsza tata na świecie lub odbytem. Miał nam pomóc mu zbudować 25ft model USS Hornet w garażu - z windy pracy. A potem wyrwał że oprócz i zbudowaliśmy w pełnym rozmiarze Apollo kapsułki. A potem F-14 w kokpicie - w którym wszystkie elektryka pracował.

On brzmi nieco maniakalno-depresyjne, proponuję. "Nie był bardzo zadowolony ze swojej pracy. Tak czy inaczej, skończyło się na utrzymanie się z daleka od niego i stał się bardziej zainteresowany zabawek." Podobnie jak Michael sprzedał swoją kolekcję SW kupić samochodu, gdy myślał, którą uprawia się - ale później zmienił zdanie i zaczął je odkupuje. "Być dla dorosłych, cokolwiek jest w tych dniach, nie wszystko to pęknięty się być. Ponieważ mój miły ojciec wykazać.

Biorąc wentylacyjnych na zewnątrz hali konwencji z Michaelem i Cezara, podczas inscenizacji walki dzieje się z udziałem pocenie mężczyzn w słońcu czerwca thwacking siebie głośno z mieczami, pytam, czy Comic-Con rodzaju Nerd Pride ". Yeah, I guess jest w zasadzie "zgadza się Michał." Kiedyś obawiać tych słów. Ale teraz mamy tendencję do korzystania z nich od siebie. Kind of like gejów jako 'queer' i 'pedałem'. I jak gejów nas don't like it so much, gdy inni je stosować. "

"Myślę, że rzeczy zmieniają się tak, że można zobaczyć kilka luzacy w Ts mięśni przybywających do tej imprezy, który wraz z ich koleżanek. Zanim pytam gdzie? Punktów Michaela do miecza thwackers. "Rozumiem, patrzę na kilka faceci pokonując shit out of sobą w plastikowej zbroi i think it's crazy, ale czy to naprawdę tak różne, a bardziej szalony niż zbieranie figurki? Geekiness jest w oku patrzącego.

Touched by Michael i przyjaźni Cesar i zwolniony przez swój entuzjazm i połączyć je w kolejce się w kilka godzin na słońcu, aby zobaczyć "Star Wars Spectacular. Potliwość i oślepiony przez słońce południowej Kalifornii w końcu jesteśmy stłoczeni w ogromnej zaćmi zimny audytorium, gdzie przewidywane na ogromnej ekranu wideo Anthony Daniels, AKA C-3PO, jest na etapie sucking cock George Lucas. przenośni, oczywiście. Nawet camper w ciele, niż w jego słynne dzięki uprzejmości kostiumów Droid, pursing ustach i trzepotanie rękami o Panie Daniels, jest enthusing w bardzo skryptów moda o oprogramowanie Music Tour (głównie: oglądanie klipów z Gwiezdnych Wojen, podczas gdy orkiestra gra na żywo soundtrack). "The size of it!" woła. I nie w pełni sprawę, jak wielki to dopiero Widziałem film o tym potem!

Daniels okazuje się być punktem kulminacyjnym "Spectacular": on po różnych tłuszczów, brodaty No-Neck George Lucas lookalikes z działu marketingu, Lucasfilm's, buczenie na temat przyszłych gier oprogramowanie komputerowe, wprowadzone przez kilka lamely ad libbing mężczyzn i kobiet lokalnych prezenterów telewizyjnych w Luke i Leia stroje. Hype o hype nie zawsze jest strasznie ciekawe. Nawet dla zagorzałych fanów.

Pierwsze Michael Cesar, a następnie zwrócić się do mnie sposób, w połowie i powiedzieć: "This sucks. Chodźmy." A my nie. Naprawdę mam nadzieję, to nie moja obecność Dark Side, że przyniósł je w dół.

***

Adam Maj, nie uczestniczy w Comic-Con w tym roku. "Byłam jedynie na Comic-Con raz," mówi mi na linii ze swojego domu w Atlancie. "Mam atak paniki patrząc na zdjęcia! To przeciążenia sensorycznego dla mnie. "Słyszę". udaje mi się zrobić go Con Dragon tutaj w Atlancie dość często. I oczywiście Star Wars uroczystości. "Oczywiście. Adama, 33, grafik, który opisuje siebie jako" odpowiedź Atlanta's na złe pytanie "jest rozróżnienie jest pierwszym geja figurka Star Wars. wielu jest powołanych, mało wybranych.

Plastikowe obsesji Adam zaczął po raz pierwszy widział, księżniczka Leia. "Carrie Fisher z tych bułek na głowie - to naprawdę było moje pierwsze doświadczenie dla homoseksualistów. "Star Wars pomógł Adam rosną, w pewnym sensie: miał wadę wymowy, jak dziecko, powtarzając Luke Skywalker linie przez cały on sobie pomóc" talk it out ". On też pamięta, że kiedy matka zabrała go aby dziecko kurczyć she'd kupić jego postać. "Byłem latch-key kid." oops ", że moi rodzice nie spodziewali .. Mieliśmy" konto "w sklepiku na ulicy, więc mógłbym dostać wszystkie komiksy i cukierki, które chciałem. moi rodzice nigdy nie powiedział ani słowa na ten temat. "

W przeciwieństwie do moich wrażenie Nerd Świata w jakiś sposób wcześniej seksualnych w post-seksualną świecie, wydaje się że są takie rzeczy jak seks strony Superhero. "Byłam wraz z gejem jednej jako voyeur, wyznaje Adam." I " m not really do przebrania - lub superbohaterów. Moi bohaterowie są w muzyce - jak Morrissey i herbaty James. strony nie są naprawdę out-and-out płeć. Lots of Frottage, oraz w zależności od stroju, jest całowanie, lizanie -- i co jeszcze możesz zrobić ze swoimi ustami. Niektóre niewoli i scenki: Evil Joker uruchamiania Boy Wonder, tego rodzaju rzeczy.

Inne gejów najczęściej cofa się z przerażeniem, ale gdy się dowiedzą, tworzywa zwyczaj Adama. "Zwykle zakładamy jestem jakiś dziwny człowiek-dziecko. I dowcip 80s jingle:" Nie chcę dorastać, R jestem zabawki Dziecko z nami! " była nie tylko brzęk. To było pod przysięgą! ".

Znam wielu kolekcjonerów SW, proste i gejów, którzy odwołują się do ich małżonków wdów SW. Mój partner myśli odrobinę są cool - on nietknięty zabawki premiera Maximus - choć w większości są nudne do niego. But I've dotrzeć do punktu gdzie nie obchodzi, co ktoś myśli o moich zabawek fetysz. Mimo to, ja staram się zachować my gay przyjaciółmi od trzypiętrowym budynku Toy Box. Mam zbiór około 10.000 Action Figures - ze wszystkimi accoutrements, które wykraczają z nich (statki kosmiczne, zestawy gry, światło szable). klatce schodowej w moim domu jest mur, który ma 2 1 / 2 historie półki, piony akrylowe i każdy rysunek oprogramowanie, które Hasbro wykonane.

Wraz z jednej zrobili Adama siebie po tym, jak wygrał konkurs, aby figurka oprogramowanie oparte na nim. Wybrał imię Stormy Sevenspire - anagram Steven P. Morrissey. "Miałem wynajęty make-up artist malować mnie jak chciałem być na podobieństwo figurka. Upewniłem włosy tylko odpowiedniego rodzaju uczesanie na jeża".

Adam wie, tego typu rzeczy może niektórzy ludzie niebezpiecznie zazdrosny, ale nie jest pewien, kto jest najbardziej prawdopodobne "Chwyt go": Fani Morrissey hardcore czy Star Wars obsessives. Watch your back, dude.

***

"Proszę. Znowu. Zakaz używania lamp błyskowych, zawiadamia MC. "To jest amatorski konkurs. Tak więc, jeśli chcemy zachęcić ludzi, aby ubierać się w off-stroje równowagi nie widzą prawidłowo z nas śmiać się za nic -- i myślę, że my - to nie jest dobrym pomysłem, aby ich zabić ".

It's the final night of Comic-Con i jestem uczestniczy słynny bal maskowy z moich nowych przyjaciół najlepszych Michała i Cesar, w którym te nie szczęście zostały przekształcone w postać działania George Lucas musiał to zrobić sami. Z papier mache i lepki-backed tworzyw sztucznych.

Więc ktoś ubrany jak AT-ST Walker łodygi etapie, a następnie nieco później ktoś ubrany jak Luke Skywalker singing "Star Wars Cantina" na melodię Barry Manilow's "Copacabana". Ale moje osobiste ulubionym jest She-Woman konfrontacji Szkieletor z pełnym zespołem wsparcia i śpiewu Britney Spears 'Womanizer "na niego podczas kiwając palcem w terminie do muzyki.

"Tak, jestem pewny, że dowiedział się czegoś z tego" komentarze MC sucho.

Szkieletor nie może zrobić, ale na pewno nie. Byłem mały miffed, że na lotnisku w drodze do Comic-Con: nieokrzesany oficera ochrony portu lotniczego spojrzał mi w górę iw dół, uśmiechnął się i zapytał: "Oto na Comic-Con ? Ale nie muszę się martwić. Nie jestem frajerem. I to nie tylko głos odmowy.

Prawda jest: Nie jestem człowiekiem na tyle blisko, aby być frajerem.

Adam Maj z Star Wars blog

Mark Simpson bierze udział w epickich przypadku UFC i znajduje się włączony do uroków "gay porn prostych ludzi"

(Pierwotnie ukazał się w Out Magazine, czerwiec 2008)

IMAGINE promu kosmicznego startu z naprawdę tłuszczu rur wydechowych lub dostosowane Wizygotów zwolnieniu starożytnego Rzymu z kopaniem rury bass dopasowanych do ich 4-by-4s. Lub 20000 doładowaniem męski orgazm. Jednocześnie. I wiesz, co to dźwięki i czuje się jak w słynnej dziś Montrealu Centre Bell Ultimate Fighting Championship 83, odważny redhead młodych marchwi w krótkich spodenkach szpilki Auburn chłopca na plecach z nogami gdzieś w okolicach uszu. Myślę, że termin techniczny tego jest "pełny mount." Or maybe it's Ground and Pound ".

W rzeźbie i blond czarnego z niskim szorty podwieszane (Cam Gigandet) w ostatnich mieszanych sztuk walki (MMA) wykorzystywanie Flick Never Back Down mówi leeringly do doe-eyed brunet bokser good guy (Sean Faris) nowy do MMA, Dobrą wiadomością jest to, że w tym sporcie można dusić, kopać, dziurkowanie, PIN i przepustnicy, "Zła wiadomość jest taka, że to muszę kończyć Szukasz jak suka na oczach wszystkich." Może to złe wieści dla niego -- i Auburn chłopak w nocy pierścień - ale na pewno nie na 22.000 żołnierzy przeważnie młodych męskiej publiczności za największe wydarzenie w historii UFC.

Ponad 2500 mil stąd, w Las Vegas "udarowych" Brit bokser Joe Calzaghe jest dziś pokonując w wadze średniej Bernard Hopkins na punkty. W dawna świata boksu, jest pogłoska do dawnych tradycji i tajnym nazwie "ożywiać" lub "napiwek" - w której człowiek traci mogą być wymagane później dosłownie oddać to, co stracił symbolicznie. Innymi słowy, fucked gets fucked ... naprawdę.

Nie wiem ile prawdy jest "ożywiać", choć mówić bez tchu kosza współczesnych bokserów dni w okresie przygotowań do walki - "I'm gonna make you my bitch / dziewczynę / punk" -- Z pewnością nie dyskredytuje go. Ale ja jestem dość pewny, że "ożywiać" nie istnieje w "full-contact" Brave New World of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), wszystkożerne połączenie boksu, Freestyle wrestling, judo, tae kwon do, kick - boks, karate, jujitsu i tajskim boksie, które szybko zastępuje nudne tradycyjnego starego boksu, szczególnie wśród młodych ludzi, a sportowej walki. Perk nie jest potrzebne. Ponieważ w MMA Ci perked w "pierścień" na oczach wszystkich. Na pay-per-TV widzenia. "Ożywiać" jest cały perking pkt człowiek. I UFC, zdecydowanie dostawcą najbardziej udanych walk MMA Voyeur TV kablową, jak wygląda niezwykle gay porn prostych ludzi: ultimate fuck pożarów.

W ośmioboczna klatka UFC utworzone przez lód Bell Centre Hokej na rolkach - ośmioboczna może dlatego, że daje wiele lepsze kąty widzenia niż kwadratowy ring bokserski - Mac Danzig jest wciąż na wznak, spoconą, pompowane, prawie białe translucently tułowia należy przepłukać ciepła Auburn, że skóra produkuje Auburn, gdy jest pobudzony. Jego zdyszany, szef pobierania został podskoczyły z klatki przez redhead Marc Bocek jest energiczny walenie, jakby klatki były w rzeczywistości zagłówkami. Bocek nie kochać się jednak, a przynajmniej nie w rodzaju wanilii. Jest młotkiem Living Daylights z Gdańska, podsycanie tłum w coraz większe fale szaleństwa. Chociaż Octagon jest tuż przede mną, I'm watching wszystko to na jednej z gigantycznych ekranach napowietrznych: MMA to najczęściej horyzontalne sportu - taka, która wymaga wielu obiektywów zoom i duży telewizor cieszyć się prawidłowo.

Bocek przerywa na chwilę, aby złapać swojego partnera / przeciwnika biodra, niemal z czułością, a następnie przeciągnij go do tyłu, a jednocześnie klęcząc między jego nogami, nie chce zerwać kontaktu i negocjacji, że trudne re-entry. "To nie jest, choć , z uwzględnieniem jego kolega z cricked szyi. Obawia się, że Gdańsk będzie korzystać z klatki wstać poza płótno - a potem się go w "bitch" pozycji. MMA polega na walce o szczyt. (Albo na dnie bardzo agresywny.)

Niestety dla Bocek, Gdańska uda się wyłamania tak, skoki na nogi i zgrabnie, bezosobowo, Pojawi się kolana i rozbija go z lewej brwi Bocek, która wywołuje inną ryk emocje z tłumu i otwiera się bardzo nieprzyjemnie, że uszkodzony rozlania krwi gorącej wszędzie, płynący w jego oczach, na jego twarz, w dół brodę i splatters całej jego lila-białe piersi - i całej jego przeciwnika. MMA jest zdecydowanie nie bezpiecznego seksu. Ref przerwy walczyć do zbadania oka Bocek's. Jeśli krew uniemożliwia mu widzenie, walka będzie uznana na korzyść Gdańska.

Wracając do mojego pięknie produkowane błyszczące program walki, który zawiera pełną kolorowe obrazy stronie topless bojowników młodych ustawione naprzeciwko siebie, a ich znaczenie statystyki, dowiaduję się, że Gdańsk jest 5 stóp 8 i 155 funtów, 28 i native Cleveland. Jego feisty przeciwnika, Bocek z Woodbridge, Kanada, jest 26, a także 5 stóp 8 i 155 funtów. Jako ktoś, kto ma coś do rude i krótkich osłów, powiedziałbym, że są dobrze dopasowane.

Ref nadal mecz - a dlaczego nie? Blood dobrze wygląda w telewizji. Istnieje tylko kilka sekund, po lewej stronie trzeciej, ostatniej rundzie (UFC walki tylko iść do maksymalnie trzech rund na pięć minut - o średniej długości porno sceny). Bocek, mimo okazało stoły i jego wklejanie i co musi być śmiertelne zmęczenie, jest nadal rozklejanie zdumiewające walki. Ocenę Gdańsk podejmują w dół i porusza się prawie natychmiast, jak mówią w MMA, bezpośrednio do montażu. Bocek "daje się plecami", aby spróbować uratować zniszczony twarz z dalszej kary, ale jest to złowionych "z tyłu Naked Choke "w Gdańsku potężne, śmiertelnie zaprasza na broń. On "krany na zewnątrz" (twierdzi) na 3 minuty, 48 sekund.

Nie wiem o Bocek, ale były to jedne z najdłuższych 3 minuty, 48 sekund w moim życiu. Jestem pobudzany i inspiruje i wyczerpani i zdezorientowani. Na moje pieniądze Bocek wygrała tę walkę - mówi moralnie. Co oczywiście oznacza, że stracił bardzo źle. Jego twarz jest roadkill. He is really fucked. Ale on wyświetlany, że jakość usłyszysz jak inni mówią o święcie w MMA: serce.

Pomimo gore, MMA jest generalnie bezpieczniejsza niż boks - nie mniej ofiar śmiertelnych i uszkodzenie mózgu jest mniej powszechne. Bo walka jest "pełny kontakt", szef nie podejmuje wszelkie przemocy. Kiedy to robi, chociaż, to całkiem makabryczny. Jednak pośród wszystkich Mayhem, jest wzruszający czułość do MMA. Nie dlatego, że patrzy na moje skręcone, dziwne oczy jak seks bardzo surowe - ale z powodu tego "serca" przedsiębiorstwa. Po bout ponad większość przytulić bojowników siebie pseudo-post-coital uścisku, że ponownie wciela wojowniczy przytulić wcześniej, tylko tym razem jest to hug ciepłej braterstwa.

Jest jeszcze jeden ogromny, męskie galijskich huk. Arena na wielkim ekranie jest dostrojony do szatni, smukły młody blond Fighter skinhead nie obrane jego koszulkę, odsłaniając pijany cielesnych walki maszyny. Światła za nim i jego przenikliwe niebieskie oczy, wpatrując się w kamerę, nie wspominając o niskiej pozycji szafki-cam pokój, daj mu odlew półboga. To Georges "Rush" St-Pierre, przystojny, elegancki 26-letni chłopiec lokalnych Montrealu dziś ma nadzieję na przejęcie z powrotem za pas UFC NHL z Matt "The Terror" Serra, 33, no-nonsense kapitana Long Island brazylijskiego jujitsu, którzy wywłaszczonych mu go w zeszłym roku z tym, co niektórzy ludzie twierdzili, był szczęśliwy punch.

Mamy jedynie oglądać hors d'oeuvre. Wszystko to we krwi został właśnie tak dużo gry wstępnej.

***

"Przestań szukać LADIES!" Niektóre zabawny facet na widowni wiadomości. Jest to weigh-in, dzień wcześniej. Ed "Short Fuse" Herman, kolejne 20-boy coś-next-door red-headed, fighter z Vancouver, Waszyngton, jest naga na scenie w centrum uwagi, ręcznik posiadanych przez dwóch pomocników, aby chronić jego "Short Fuse. "Zabawne mało, to w większości mężczyźni, a nie robi panie szukają tu w pełnej sali. Chociaż niektórzy są być może robi więcej niż inni szukają: Skąd jestem siedzącego z boku, udaje mi się dostrzec białego tyłek Eda jak pochyla się nad poślizgnięcie zdjął majtki (dzień później będzie walczył w krótkich spodenkach cheekily reklamy "DEPOT CONDOM" - przez swój tyłek).

Kilka chłopaki musieli podjąć swoich majtek off - do okrzyki. Nie mogę pomóc, ale zastanawiam się, czy urzędnicy UFC do showbiznesu boską, udawać, że niektóre z tych faceci są bardziej zbliżone do limitu wagi niż oni.

UFC wie wszystko o show-biznesu. Według magazynu "Forbes", jego pay-per-pokazuje widok przygotowały ponad 2 miliony widzów, w większości mężczyzn i wieku od 18 do 49. Formidably sprytny, silnik ustami byłego promotora boksu Dana White gospodarze Ultimate Fighter, UFC przebojowym serialu PPV na Spike (mężczyźni tylko Big Brother z zmagają rękawice), które podjęło MMA, głównie częściowo zorganizowane bójce Barroom w '90 , oczyszczone it up, wprowadziła pewne zasady - w tym nie depcząc, nie pluł, nie uderza w gardle, nie uderza w tył głowy, a "nie atakuje pachwiny wszelkiego rodzaju" - i uczynił to w ciepłej, Multiangle wysokiej wpływ PPV towaru.

Opisano pamiętnego przez John McCain w 1998 roku jako "człowieka cockfighting" i pod groźbą całkowitego zakazu MMA stało się inne, bardziej chodliwy, mniej gwałtowne nieustannie rodzaju "cockfighting" w rękach pielęgnowaniu UFC - tak bardzo, że McCain sam niedawno ustąpił: "Sport wzrosło." W miarę, jak dorastał, UFC - dla których właścicieli kasyn braci Fertitta wypłacona 2 miliony dolarów w 2001 roku - dziś jest wyceniana na około 1 miliard dolarów. Kultury poważanie dotarła także w formie niedawno wydanej książce 2.500 dolarów MMA sztuki pt Octagon z przedmową człowieka kochającego prosto dramaturg David Mamet, który napisał i wyreżyserował MMA tematyce filmu Redbelt. MMA to również przyjeżdżających do dużych sieci telewizji : CBS ogłosiła niedawno plany powietrza cztery walki MMA (non-UFC) rocznie - mimo dezaprobaty CBS przewodniczący Sumner Redstone. "Jestem kochanką, nie Fighter", powiedział, być może brakuje sposób UFC przynosi miłości i walki spektakularny razem.

Istnieje wiele pasji kultu bohatera w świecie MMA, nie tyle homoerotycznych jako bohater erotyczne - lub herotic. Hetero mężczyzna fanów i bojownicy sami zadziwi z błyszczącymi oczami na temat "Mój Idol", w taki sposób, że w większości pozostałych kontekstach, będą uważane za zbyt "gejów", aby zachować powagę. Ale może to nie jest tak zaskakująca, gdyż MMA zawdzięcza wiele osób notorycznie Homos wojownik, starożytni Grecy. Mimo dzisiejszego MMA przyszedł do nas przez brazylijskiego jujitsu (niestety, nie przeprowadzono w Speedos, jak sama nazwa może sugerować), wielu uważa za nowoczesną wersję Pankration, połączenie boks i zapasy, które było podstawą szkolenia walki greckich żołnierzy i oryginalne sportem olimpijskim. Z śmiertelne czystości Pankration miał dwie podstawowe zasady: bez oczu żłobienia lub gryzienie. Palce często zrobione off. Czasami śmierci lub utraty przytomności była jedyną formą składania wniosków (a jak w tym roku Demokratycznej prawybory).

MMA na młodszych fanów nie jest w stanie przyznać się do sportu homoerotycznych dziedzictwa. Dla większości z tych młodych ludzi, wielu z nich robotniczych i swooningly in love with męskości gejów oznacza niemęski i pasywnych emasculated - a więc głównymi turn-off. MMA jest gay porn prostych ludzi, ponieważ jego przemocy nie tylko usprawiedliwia intymny , przewlekły eye-popping fizyczności sportowych, ale także zachowuje jego męskości - bardzo rzeczą jaka się wielu jego fanów gorąco. Te myśliwce nie mogą być pedałów - look how fucking tough one, dude! To trochę jak w gay porn "prawdziwe" szczyty nigdy dole - ze względu na dnie oglądać.

Czasami fighter MMA naprawdę jest homo - jak zawodowe MMA fighter Shad Smith, który został niedawno profilowane w New York Times ". Od trudnych niebieskim tle kołnierz, Smith był zdesperowany, aby ukryć swoją seksualność w pierwszej kolejności. "I skamieniał, ponieważ nie chcę nikogo, aby dowiedzieć się," powiedział "The Times". "A ja staram się być najtrudniejszym osoby wokół. W ten sposób nikt nie podejrzanego. Nikt nie powiedzieć. Nikt nie myśleć. "Bez wątpienia istnieje sporo Shad Smiths, który stał się bardzo dobrze, bardzo określone, bardzo zmotywowani scrappers bo nie uciekają z uczelni lub otwarcie salon fryzjerski.

Mocny obraz facet ma coś z iluzji - jeśli porywający i przekonujący jeden. Zaskakująco często zwalczające się okazać wrażliwe, introspektywne samotników - "pedałów", którzy w rzeczywistości nie są pedały - takich jak Mac Danzig, kasztanowe włosy silny-killer, który w rzeczywistości jest weganizm, których głównym zajęciem, gdy nie jest Toczenie innego chłopca twarz w polędwicy, jest fotografia przyrodnicza. To także opowieść o Georges St-Pierre, prześladowane niewielkie chłopca w szkole, który zwrócił się do MMA na zbawienie, który z jego napięty, ciało Wiry, nienagannie schludny prezentacji i ubrania projektantów wygląda raczej metra. Jak ujął to jeden z obserwatorów: "To rodzaj Europunk flash można pomyśleć można wytrzeć podłogę, jeśli natknął się go w barze, ale chcesz być bardzo, bardzo źle".

Podobnie można się było spodziewać walki pomiędzy Serra i St-Pierre jest zapowiadane jako good ol 'USA versus Frenchy "pedałem", ale you'd be wrong. Ponieważ GSP - dać St-Pierre jego marka - jest powszechnie uważane za wyjątkowe, fighter naprawdę doskonałe w kilku dziedzinach, czy może dlatego, że to jest takie medium wizualne, on zaczął wyglądać jak David Beckham z UFC choć kto faktycznie czyta książki i jest forfend nieba!, Interesuje się filozofią (to francuski dla Ciebie). Jego fotogeniczny twarzy i ciała, a jego treningi zostały spryskane przez niezliczone zdrowie i kondycję czasopism.

His opponent, Matt Serra, may be breezily unpretentious and resemble an unpainted fire hydrant, but he is definitely no idiot: “I think they look at Georges as the Crest poster boy with the sparkle in his teeth, the looks, the physique, the body and the athleticism…the real version of what Van Damme was doing,” he's said. “And then comes me — the Joe Pesci–style 'Heyooo!' But it's cool, man. I'm down with it. I fit in those shoes real well. I'm just looking forward to having another good fight.”

When he turns up for his weigh-in, a relentless tidal wave of boos greets him. An Italian-American pocket battleship at 5 foot 6, Serra weighs in at 169.5 pounds; he appears indifferent to the roiling sea of hatred around him. The booing doesn't stop when the host offers him the microphone, and whatever he says is completely drowned out. So he offers the crowd two fingers, meaning “two times” and V for victory – and, perhaps, “fuck you.”

Ecstatic cheers greet his challenger St.-Pierre, who's taller by four inches but in stature by several feet. St.-Pierre fluidly strips down to his tasteful and tastily filled-out black underwear and also weighs in at 169.5 pounds. Offered the mike, he graciously tells the crowd they shouldn't hate Serra and that “I don't fight with angerrr – I fight with my 'eart.” The two men pose for the cameras in a fighting stance and then they hug, GSP kissing Serra's huge neck.

There was no trash talk in the quieter surroundings of the press conference the day before. The fighters had been polite, respectful, even friendly. “C'mon, I've got nothing against the French,” protested Serra when the journalists dug up some “Frenchy” quotes from the past. St.-Pierre, for his part, was touchingly open. “I am nervous and scared to fail but that's normal,” he admitted. “I 'ave butterflies. but I 'ave to make the butterflies fly in formation.”

***

“ AAAYYYYYYYYAYYYYEAAAAAAA-AAHHAAAARGH!!! ”

The Bell Centre outdoes itself as Georges St.-Pierre, surrounded by his lieutenants, makes his way to the stage in a natty red jujitsu jacket. Climbing into the Octagon, he peels off his silky, tight black T-shirt, and then his baggy trousers come off, revealing tight black trunks with just a white fleur-de-lis on the side of his firm right buttock. It matches the arty tattoo on the back of his steely calf.

Cheers turn to boos. Matt Serra has arrived in a baggy black T-shirt with big white lettering: BUY GUNS SELL GUNS – GUNSAMERICA.COM . The stats on the big screen make difficult reading for Serra: GSP is taller and younger and has a longer reach. Worse, he is more popular and better-looking and has nicer pants. He's the favourite in every way.

The bell rings, and they touch gloves. In a flash St.-Pierre has Serra on the canvas. All that frustration, regret, resolve, training — and heart — have exploded. All over Serra. To tire him out, St.-Pierre lets him get up, keeping him within range of his own fists but out of Serra's. Then he takes him down again. St.-Pierre's purposeful, ominous shoulders rise up like medieval armour, like Joan of Arc seriously narked.

End of round 1. Serra's eye is swelling up badly. He looks beaten already.

Round 2. Plucky Serra tries a kick.  St.-Pierre catches it and takes Serra down. After Serra stands up again, St.-Pierre lets fly a barrage of punches. Serra is too groggy to parry them. St.-Pierre — part panther, part lethal ballet dancer — comes in for the kill, easily taking his opponent down again. Serra offers his back, and St.-Pierre knees him repeatedly, athletically in the ribs in a manner which somehow manages to be as passionate as it is impersonal.

The ref stops the match, and it's all over: technical knockout. Canada has won. Montreal has beaten Long Island. The butterflies flew in formation. Terrifying formation. And judging by the noise from the crowd, the entire world and its dad have just climaxed.

A grinning St.-Pierre executes a winning somersault. The crowd chants, “FUCK YOU, SERRA! FUCK YOU, SERRA!” He has been fucked. He was fucked. He is fucked. He is without any doubt whatsoever the fuckee. But he exhibits no resentment. The warriors embrace warmly, another kiss from GSP to that huge, now sweaty neck. Serra holds St.-Pierre's arm up for the crowd, then hoists him on his shoulder, carrying him for a few staggering steps.

If MMA is gay porn for straight men, then tonight a part of me wonders whether, for all its spilled blood and mashed faces, it isn't the better kind.

After all, no one could seriously accuse gay porn of having “heart.”

Copyright Mark Simpson 2009

M ark Simpson on John Hughes' legacy

(Arena Hommes Plus, Winter 2009)

So here's the pitch:  A Hollywood teen movie in which nothing happens.  All day. In a school library. Introduced by a pretentious quote from David Bowie's 'Changes'.  Or how about this: A boy bunks off High School to take his friends to mooch around an art gallery, to the strains of something especially delicate by The Smiths.

What do you mean you'll call me?  Don't you want to invest your millions in these sure-fire hits??

When the director John Hughes died this August, aged 59. much was made of how 'influential' he has been for today's generation of movie-makers.  But it's difficult to conceive of almost any of his classic mid-80s teen films, which included Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off being made in Hollywood today.  Unless you re-wrote them to include slo-mo amputations.

John Hughes movies had great scripts, they had great characters, winsome, quirky actors: all these years later young Molly Ringwald with her red hair and angsty complexion still looks to me like the prettiest, loveliest girlfriend I never had (while Emilio Estevez looks a lot like a lot of the boys I have had – at least in my mind's eye). Hughes movies had feelings, they had intelligence, they had heart – all of which tend to get in the way of films being made today. They also had a view of the world that, while often-times wise-crackingly cynical — 'Does Barry Manilow know you raid his wardrobe?' — wasn't afraid to be lyrical: 'Life moves pretty fast.  You don't stop to look around, you could miss it.'

Just like, in other words, the best British pop music, with which Hughes peppered his films liberally.  In fact his work, although celebrated now, often by a forty-something crowd crying over their spilt youth, looks like fragments of a lost America. A much better one than the one we ended up with – with much superior taste in pop music.

Precisely because of their humanity and wit, Many of Hughes' movies are as startling twenty years on as the Union Jack on the back of Ferris Bueller's bedroom door, the posters on his walls for Blancmange and Cabaret Voltaire – and a glam Bryan Ferry puckering up over his bed. Matthew Broderick's intoxicating mixture of all-American, unblinking, huckstering confidence and very Anglo, coquettish flamboyance is inconceivable in a lead Hollywood actor in a teen movie today.  It would be loudly dismissed as 'TOO GAY!'.

The famous parade scene where he jumps on a parade float and mimes to a 1961 recording of fey Wayne Newton crooning 'Danke Schoen' like a Vegas Marlene Dietrich, and then to the Beatles' deliriously, adenoidally sexy 'Twist and Shout' (from the previous Britpop invasion of John Hughes' own youth) and everyone in Hughes' hometown of Chicago, black and white, male and female, young and old, falls in love with him, is nothing less than a dreamy pop cultural epiphany.

It was a false one, however.  The future, as we now know, belonged not to sentimental, art-loving, anglophile, androgynous Ferris in a stolen red 1961 250GT Ferrari Spyder (which apparently, and quite appropriately, was actually a glass fibre fake with a British MG sports car underneath), but to ruthless career-planner and Reaganite Republican Maverick in an all-American F-14 Grumman Tomcat: Top Gun and Tom Cruise were launched into the stratosphere by steam catapult the previous year, in 1985 – the  same year as The Breakfast Club were chewing their fingernails and wondering, oh-so-deliciously, what they were going to do with their fucked-up lives.

Despite success with the warm adult comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), which once again spoke of a better, kinder America than the one that actually happened, one full of belly-laughs rather than today's comedy cringe, snobbery and sadism, Hughes Hollywood career didn't quite make it into the 90s, never recovering from the frightening success of annoying kiddie comedy Home Alone in 1990, for which he wrote the script.  He later left Hollywood and became a farmer.  Growing things for people to eat was the perfect riposte to today's terminally toxic movie business.

As Ferris in his dressing gown put it, raising a quizzical eyebrow at us: 'You're still here??  It's over!  Go home!'

© Mark Simpson 2009

A decade ago the ban on lesbians and gays serving in the UK military was lifted.  This summer Mark Simpson attended the first gay night on a UK garrison.  For purely professional reasons.  No, really.

There isn't at first glance much that appears terribly gay about Catterick Garrison.

Home to the largest UK Army base in the world, with c. 15,000 men and women based here, Catterick Garrison as the name suggests, owes its existence entirely to the British Army – whose favourite colour is khaki. Located off the A1 just before Scotch Corner in the far north of North Yorkshire, 'Camp' as Catterick Garrison is known locally – usually without irony – is mostly a utilitarian collection of barracks blocks, Nissan huts, barbed wire fences, and MoD housing, with a dilapidated main parade boasting a Spar, a couple of laundrettes and several takeaways.

A Tesco Superstore did arrive here a few years ago, but they don't carry much in the way of their Finest range. Imagine Middlesbrough (about a 50 minute drive away), take away the culture, add lots of bracing fresh air and combat trousers and you've got Catterick Garrison. Little wonder it was the setting for Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's unrelentingly bleak (and not very funny) 2004 sit-com 'Catterick'.

But tonight at Louis, a no-frills nightclub nestling amongst the lines of neatly parked khaki green Army trucks, Catterick Garrison is also the setting for the first regular, and probably first ever, gay night on a British Army garrison: ' It's Catterick GAYrison!!! ' announces the poster on the wall of the place where local single and not-so-single ladies usually go to meet drunken squaddies ('It's a parachute club,' one soldier told me, ''coz you're guaranteed a jump!'). But tonight a different kind of meat market is promised: ' Uniform Optional! ' saucily declares the rubric on the poster, next to a sketch of a muscular young squaddie dancing and grinning with his top off. Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts who first suggested the location for Catterick Camp because of its tranquillity and distance from urban enervations must be spinning in his orderly grave.

'I didn't like Camp at all when I first moved here a couple of years ago,' says Lisa, 32, a sunny-natured out lesbian lass from Blackburn serving in the Army as a medic, drinking Strongbow at the bar. 'The countryside's nice, but Camp itself is a bit isolated. And the nearest gay pub is a long, long drive away.' She loves the idea of a gay night in Catterick. 'It's just what we need. Plus this place is just around the corner from me and I can stagger home! Until this came along there was nothing in the way of socialising for lesbian and gay service personnel here.'

When Lisa joined up twelve years ago homosexuality (and bisexuality) was still banned in the UK Forces: 'they still asked if you'd had any same-sex experiences and I had to lie.'  The ban was formally lifted in 2000 after four former service personnel, drummed out for being gay, won their case against the MoD for discrimination in the European Court of Human Rights ten years ago this autumn.

In the Nineties the idea of a gay night on a UK garrison would have been unthinkable – instead military investigators were known to hang around civilian gay pubs in places like Aldershot and Portsmouth taking photos of those coming in and out. But that was then. Last year the Army joined Stonewall's Diversity Champions Campaign, and this Summer Soldier magazine featured an out gay male squaddie on the cover for the first time . Interviewed inside, Trooper James Wharton, 22, of the Royal Household Cavalry claimed that he had had little or no trouble with his sexuality from other soldiers: 'I came out to the Army before I told my parents, so that say a lot for the Armed Forces.'

Lisa is grateful for the 21st Century equal opps approach of the Army: she lives in married quarters with her civilian girlfriend whom she civilly-partnered last year – with a Guard of Honour: '6 out of the 8 were gay'.  Attitudes didn't change overnight, however. 'In 2004 I was posted to Germany and when they found out I was a lesbian they moved me away from the other nurses and onto my own corridor. I put my foot down and they finally moved me back, but they didn't like it. It's this thing of, “she'll be looking at me in the showers!”.

Lisa thinks this kind of anxiety is the still a problem for many gay and bi males in the Army. 'I know quite a few gay squaddies, and most of them aren't out because they're worried about being bullied and also the backs-against-the-wall-lads! mentality. It's definitely different for gay men in the Army, especially in front-line units like the ones based in Catterick. The macho thing kicks in'.

Perhaps that's why I haven't been able to find any out gay male squaddies here tonight. Instead about thirty local gays and lesbians and their straight friends, and two charmingly tipsy young off-duty (they've left their wigs at home) drag queens from Darlington, Lucy-Licious and Gina Tonic: 'We came to pull a squaddie,' says Lucy, aka Josh, 'everyone loves a soldier don't they, dear? But when,' he asks, looking around eagerly, are they turning up?' Well, quite.

At pub-chucking out time mine and the drag queens' prayers are answered. Sort of.  A large party of drunken squaddies turn up. But they're all straight – officially, at least.  Scots Guardsmen celebrating their return from exercise in Canada and determined to continue their evening at the only nightclub in town. They're not put off by Louis being 'gay' tonight.  The burliest, Steve, 32, a married soldier with two kids, has served 12 years and welcomes a gay night in Catterick. 'It's about time, if you ask me. Catterick really needs this. It had to happen. This is the modern world, isn't it? I mean, my wife was living with a woman for four years before she married me'.

Steve thinks that being gay in his regiment isn'ta problem. 'There are four gay lads in my regiment,' he explains, 'and they don't get any hassle.' But, I suggest, maybe just four gay squaddies in a 600 strong regiment might suggest that most still don't feel able to come out? 'Attitudes have changed a lot, especially with the younger people. But a lot of old school people don't like it one bit. And my Regiment tends to be very traditional.  We didn't have any black squaddies until about ten years ago.  Now we have black officers.  I think things will change a lot on the gay front once the older generation retire.'

Chris, a  local gay civvie lad in his early twenties has parents who are both ex-Army.  'They're very old-fashioned in their outlook,' he says.  'They were in the Army when homosexuality was illegal and don't like me being gay at all.  But they have to put up with it!'  Does he know any gay squaddies?  'One or two, but most of the ones I've met have been drunken horny straight ones,' he says, laughing.

Speaking of drunken straight squaddies, one of them is now dancing and twirling with Gina Tonic on the dance floor to Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun'. Steve comes over; grinning he says: 'Like I said, Mark, attitudes really are changing!'

A little later, the same dancing squaddie walks past and puts his hand on the shoulder of another soldier I'm talking to. It's a friendly gesture that would mean nothing any other night at Louis (when it's not entirely unusual for drunken straight squaddies to snog, grope and pretend to hump one another on the dance-floor). But the soldier I'm talking to looks like he's been electrocuted, whips around and shouts: ''Ere!  You've got the wrong guy mate, I'm straight!” He points emphatically to a wedding ring on his finger. The dancing squaddie then protests, briefly, his own heterosexuality, pointing to a ring on his finger. Bruised egos suitably salved, they shake hands, grinning and slapping each other on the back.

The organiser of Louis gay night, Dave Parker, 36, a Durham lad with what I can only describe as cheeky eyes, is gay himself, and has lived in Catterick Camp for ten years. 'I just thought it was about time we had a gay night,' he says.  'Plus it will help to change attitudes as well as provide a place for gay Army people and locals to socialise. The feedback I've had has all been positive. Though I've heard that one or two have been complaining about 'bloody poofs' – but' he laughs, 'not to my face!'

Some might say that he's set himself something of a challenge. 'It's a shame there were only a few lesbians and no gay male squaddies tonight,' he admits, 'but it will take a while for a gay night in Catterick to take off.' Yes, it probably will. Dave has high hopes for next month though: everyone will be back from leave, and he's booked a male stripper. 'From Down South. Wigan, I think it was,' he says with a wink.

'Mind,' he adds, 'I should have booked one of the local Army PTi's instead. They'd probably have done it just for some free drinks. They love putting on a show, some of them. And god knows they use the tanning salon enough!'

So there you have it. Catterick Garrison. Gayer than you think.

Gay nocy Ludwik Bar, Kitchener Road, Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire. Drugiej wt każdego miesiąca, 8pm do późnych godzin wieczornych.)

Update : The male stripper from Wigan went down a treat. Since this first night back in August there have been two more gay nights in Catterick, each busier than the last. There have even been reported sightings of one or two gay squaddies.

Mark Simpson on the birth of the 'sexual' era (Out magazine, September 2009)

As you may have noticed, the out-and-proud modern gay, born amidst protest, shouting and flying bottles outside the Stonewall Inn in 1969, is now forty years old. But you may be less aware that this year is also the 140th birthday of a much more discreet and distinguished (if pathologized and sometimes pitiful) figure that Stonewall is often seen as making obsolete: the homosexual.

The offspring of Austrian-born Hungarian journalist Karl-Maria Kertbeny, the homosexual was delivered to the world in a couple of pamphlets he published anonymously in 1869 arguing against the Prussian anti sodomy law Paragraph 143 – the first appearance in print of the word.

Kertbeny argued that attraction to the same sex was inborn and unchangeable and that besides the law violated the rights of man: men should be free to do with their bodies as they pleased, so long as others were not harmed. Kertbeny maintained strenuously that he himself was 'sexually normal' (and there is no evidence to suggest otherwise, save perhaps his strenuousness).

Kertbeny's 'homosexual', itself a disapproved conjugation of Greek and Latin, was part of a larger classificatory system of human sexual behaviour he conceived which included quaint terms such as 'monosexuals' (masturbators) and 'pygists' (aficionados of anal sex), most of which have not survived. However, another of his quaint categories has persisted and ultimately proved even more popular than the 'homosexual': the vast majority of people in the US today would happily and perhaps rather too hastily describe themselves as 'heterosexual' – despite the fact that the 'father' of heterosexuality, as Jonathan Ned Katz has pointed out in 'The Invention of Heterosexuality' (1995), seemed to conceive of heterosexuals as more sex-obsessed than homosexuals and more open to 'unfettered degeneracy'.

Words like most offspring have a life of their own of course, and in this case one that worked against the coiner's intentions.  Despite Kertbeny's libertarian if not actually homo-chauvinist sentiments, we might never have heard of the 'homosexual' (or indeed the 'heterosexual') if the word had not been adopted by Richard von Krafft-Ebing a few years later as a diagnosis for mental illness, setting the medical tone for much of the coming Twentieth Century with its aversion therapies, sex-lie detectors and psychiatric water-boarding.

Kertbeny's double-edged legacy isn't just the coining of the word 'homosexual', but helping to invent 'sexuality' itself: the very modern idea that there are different species of people constituted by their sexual preference alone – 'heterosexuals' and 'homosexuals' (and 'bisexuals' as an exception-to-prove-the-rule afterthought). Kertbeny invented the homosexual because he considered the other available terms, 'pederast', 'sodomite' and 'invert' too judgemental. He also saw no link between homosexuality and effeminacy — which he didn't mind being judgemental about: he detested it.

As the brilliant sexual historian David Halperin puts it in his book 'How To Do the History of Male Homosexuality' (2002), pre-homosexual discourses referred to only one of the sexual partners: the “active” partner in the case of sodomy, the effeminate male or masculine female in the case of inversion. 'The hallmark of “homosexuality”…' he writes, 'is the refusal to distinguish between same-sex sexual partners or to rank them by treating one of them as more (or less) homosexual than the other.'

The concept of the 'homosexual', medicalized or not, ultimately made possible the rise of the out-and-proud gay man, regardless of his own 'role' in bed or gender style, and also a gay community of equals. But it also tended to make all sex between men, however fleeting, however drunken, however positioned, 'homo' – along with all the participants, regardless of their sexual preference.

With the paradoxical result that there's probably now rather less erotic contact – or in fact any physical contact at all – between males than there was when the homosexual was born, 140 years ago. The homosexual, in effect, monopolised same-sex erotics and intimacy.

Which is, frankly, a bit greedy.

A column of mine on Out.com , 'Men At Play in Afgrabistan' , gallantly defends the freedom of the derided (and now dismissed) security guards at the US embassy to get naked with one another and eat potato chips from each other's butts in their spare time – even if they're out of shape.  I also point out how everyday and 'normal' homoerotics is for many if not most men – but we don't want to see it, and when we can't ignore it because it's thrust in our face by digital cameras and the Interweb we pathologize or criminalize it:

…the furor is another reminder that we live in a culture where female bi-curiousness is routinely regarded as natural and almost universal while male bi-curiousness is seen as non-existent — or else it is just “sexually confused” (ie they're really gay, but laughably repressed), or it is “deviant hazing” conducted by “sexual predators” that needs to be eradicated.

In reality, to anyone who opens their eyes on a Saturday night on either side of the Atlantic, there's scads of evidence that plenty of “normal” young men who aren't particularly “sexually confused” — especially the most, er, physical types — have a healthy appetite for highly homoerotic behavior after a keg or two. It's what beer seems to have been invented for. In the Middle Ages they thought the cause of sodomy was drunkenness — they weren't wrong. By contrast, I've hardly ever seen such homoerotic horseplay amongst straight women, even despite the invention of alcopops (though admittedly I perhaps wasn't looking as closely.)

Some people have a more violently negative response to the everyday evidence of male homoerotics, literally trying to stamp it out.  In the UK a straight female Canadian martial arts expert attacked and knocked out a couple of drunken British soldiers at a disco for kissing and 'pretending to be gay', screaming 'THIS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN THE BRITISH ARMY!!'.

Living in a garrison town I've seen plenty of similary steamy behaviour from drunken squaddies in pubs and on dance-floors, snogging and humping and groping one another, so I can understand her frustration – I've wanted to get physical too, but not in quite the same way she did.

Sometimes the response is more genteel, but just as vehement.  During the last Rugby World Cup a couple of years ago I was invited on Woman's Hour on BBC Radio Four to talk about homoerotics and rugby.  I thought it a bit odd that Woman's Hour wanted to cover this subject, but the producer enthused: 'The presenter Jane is really keen to talk about it'.  It turned out that neither the presenter, a former female sports journalist, or her guest, another female sports journalist, wanted to talk about it at all.

Both of them refused point blank to countenance the possibility that a game that involves men with large thighs wrestling in the mud over odd-shaped balls, or taking communal baths, or kinky nude drinking games that would shock the guards at the American Embassy in Afghanistan, could be in any way homoerotic.  Only a homo would say such a thing.

'Of course you would say that Mark,' she said at one point, 'because you're gay.'

I paused.  Several things occured to me to say to that.  I could have said that droves of gay men were probably rushing at that very moment to dissociate themselves from what I was saying (they usually do).  Or I could have said, 'Well, of course you would say that Jane, as an uptight middle class woman' (and I wished I had).

Instead I said, 'It seems that some people have a problem with the word “homoerotic”.  They think that it means something 'for gays'.  Perhaps some people would be happier with the word “male bonding”.'

'Yes!' they chorused, 'it's male bonding!'

'But,' I continued, 'it's male bonding with an erotic component so we're back where we came in.'

They didn't like that.

And this just a few weeks after this show had gone out on national UK TV , in which a team of northern rugby players had been filmed getting drunk and naked with one another, snogging, licking each other's nipples - and playing with their captain's 'donkey dick'.  Of course, I couldn't even mention it, as on radio – especially Radio Four – you're not allowed to acknowledge that TV exists.

Again, being radio, and posh radio at that, a nice voice whispered in my headphone just before we went on air. 'Remember Mark, this is a family show so please try not to be too rude!.'   This did hamper my case somewhat, as rugby homoerotics are meant to be rude.  Though it didn't stop me from leaving something tantalising hanging in the air: ”The soggy biscuit game, for example, isn't entirely a myth….'.

'I think we'd better move on,' said Jane rather quickly.  Apparently the Radio Four switchboard was jammed with retired lady callers demanding to know what the soggy biscuit game was.

(This feature of mine from a couple of years back, 'Assume the position' , offers a more in-depth investigation of the culture's crackdown on hazing and male horseplay in general.)

by Mark Simpson (Originally appeared in Attitude magazine, September, 1996)

You might think me obsessed with men's bottoms. And you'd be right. But if you want to know what a real bottom obsession looks like, one that makes my own heavy breathing look positively flirtatious, just visit the movies.

Take the Summer blockbuster 'Independence Day'. Here's a film so fixated on bumholes that it can't see anything but bumholes. Bumholes so big and special-effected that they threaten to swallow up the whole world. Dosłownie.

In this startlingly excremental (figuratively as well as literally) movie, American civilisation is dwarfed by vast, round alien arseholes which saucily postition themselves over the biggest, proudest, pointiest buildings in New York, LA., Washington etc. After twenty-four hours of teasingly hovering above these phallic monuments, they open up their sphincters to dump a stream of shit-from-hell which first demolishes the skyscraper below and then engulfs, destroys and generally wreaks havoc on the nicely ordered American metropolis beneath it. That's some bottom.

In case we've missed the point, the gung-ho US pilots who attempt a counter-attack, talk a great deal about how they can't wait 'to give it to those aliens up the ass!' However, they fail to penetrate the aliens defences with their hot, hi-tech rockets – even the nuclear-tipped babies – because the cheeky Pushy Controlling Bottom aliens have a force-field hymen protecting them from such unwanted attentions.

Fortunately, Jeff Goldblum's wily jewishness saves the day and mankind's reputation as fuckers not to be messed with, by craftily working out that what is needed to lower the aliens' defences is a virus. Jeff infects one of the smaller alien vessels and thence the mother vessel by 'docking' with it, and soon the virus is transmitted to all the alien ships, whose force-fields/immune systems collapse.

This allows Randy Quaid, playing a kamikize love-missile, to fly up the sphincter of an alien vessel opening to crap destruction on a city below, while shouting 'Alien assholes! Up yours!', before exploding and destroying the alien ship, helpfulling showing the rest of the Earth forces 'Where the aliens' weak-spot is.' That is to say: it's in the same place as men's.

You can't get more botty-fixated than this. Except, that is, in last year's Sci-Fi blockbuster 'Stargate'. This film, made by the same team as 'Independence Day', featured basically the same explosive anal ending in which an alien desert despot is destroyed by an American bomb which is sent shooting up the arsehole of his space-craft by Kurt Russell (who is much the same thing as Randy Quaid), shortly after Kurt has uttered the only expletive in this 15 Certificate movie – 'Fuck you, asshole!'.

Men's bottoms are officially meant only to allow one-way traffic, any reminders that it can admit as well as expel tend to make men uneasy – unless they can be projected onto something hated. 'Stargate' was a movie which begins with the discovery of a huge 'ring' in the Egyptian desert which turns out to be a 'portal' to other worlds – which is fine and dandy. But it is also a point of entry to our own – which isn't. So commander Kurt and his men are dispatched to plug that hole good and proper and protect Earthmen's virtue.

As film star Mel Gibson made clear in an infamous interview where he was asked about whether he worried that people might think he was a homosexual because he was an actor, the possibility of two-way traffic in the region of your own posterior must be denied. Pointing to his not uninviting arse he allegedly shouted: 'This is for shitting; nothing else!' All the same, it's just a little odd that his hard, manly, hairy performance of Scottishness in 'Braveheart' against the soft, smooth, nancy-boy English reached its climax in a scene where he was publically disembowelled by the Sassenachs without so much as blinking.

Of course, invasion, enslavement and defeat have long been seen as analagous to anal rape – a form of emasculation. Recent revelations about the sexual-humiliation practises of victorious troops in the Bosnian conflict on their male prisoners have only reinforced this idea. Perhaps this is why in 'Independence Day' Randy Quaid, the man who finally 'gives it to the aliens up the ass' on behalf of all Earth men is an alcoholic ex-Vietnam vet who, we're told, years ago was abducted by the aliens and subjected to 'sexual experiments'.

The ending of 'Stargate' also owed something to recent American history: A T-shirt popular with US forces during the Gulf War, depicted Saddam Hussein – that other scary despot the yanks liberated desert people from – bent over with an American missile up his butt and the legend beneath it reading: “WE'RE GONNA SADDAMIZE YA!'

The direct representation of male violation, like consenting male homosexuality itself, used to be a taboo; in the Seventies the play 'Romans in Britain' was prosecuted for indecency because it featured a simulated male rape scene (defended, interestingly, as being 'a metaphor for imperialism'). John Boorman's film 'Deliverance' (1972) was considered 'controversial' because it hinted rather heavily at male-male sexual assault. Nowadays, however, in the arsehole-anxious nineties, male rape scenes are practically de rigeur in mainstream movies, popping up (and being held down) in films such as 'Pulp Fiction' (1994) and 'The Shawshank Redemption' (1994), while, as we've seen, the theme of forced, vengeful posterior penetration has even become the stuff of science fiction movies ostensibly aimed at kids.

This might just have something to do with the rising visibility of homosexuality and the increasing fascination with male passivity – along with the inescapable fact that, no matter how many aliens the guys blow away at the movies – and in 'Stargate' and 'Independence Day' saving the world is strictly a guy thing – they still keep losing the sex war with the aliens they live with: females.

So, without wanting to come over all Vito Russo, it's probably no coincidence that the 'Stargate' alien is played by Jaye Davidson who also played the tricky tranny in 'The Crying Game' (1992), is surrounded by muscular young men in leather, and flies about in a spaceship that likes to sit on pointy pyramids. Nor is it without signficance that in 'Independence Day', Harvey Fierstein, playing as usual an extremely annoying gay constantly on the phone to his mother (“Oh, mother, it's AWFUL, the aliens are getting more attention than ME!”) is the first character to be killed by the alien attack.  Eliminating early on (but not early enough for my money) the only Earthling who willingly takes it up the ass.

Hollywood science fiction these days is not so much about men's fear of invasion from outer space as that of the invasion of men's inner space. As Kevin McCarthy shouts to the freeway traffic in the classic 50s sci-fi paranoia flick 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' – 'They're here already!'

Standing right behind you.

Gore Vidal speaks to Mark Simpson (Arena Hommes Plus, Summer 2009)

I'm having trouble hearing the last living Great American Man of Letters. He says something else I don't hear and I ask him to repeat it. Suddenly this 83 year old legend is very loud and very scary indeed: 'IS “QUIET” A EUPHEMISM FOR DEAD?!' he thunders in a voice much more Biblical than his old foe the late Charlton Heston was ever able to muster. But then, Mr Vidal is amongst other things, an Old Testament prophet – albeit a Godless, 'pinko' one with a very mischievous sense of humour.

***

'I am Myra Breckinridge whom no man will ever possess.' So announces the opening sentence of the 1968 sensational bestseller 'Myra Breckinridge' about a hilarious, devastating, but always elegant transsexual, by the hilarious, devastating, but always elegant Gore Vidal. Myra, a (slightly psychotic) devotee of High Hollywood, hell-bent on revenging herself on American machismo, continues her manifesto:

'Clad only in garter belt and one dress shield I held off the entire elite of the Trobriand Islanders, a race who possess no words for 'why' or 'because. Wielding a stone axe, I broke the arms, the limbs, the balls of their finest warriors, my beauty blinding them, as it does all men, unmanning them in the way that King Kong was reduced to a mere simian whimper by beauteous Fay Wray whom I resemble left three-quarter profile if the key light is no more than five feet high during the close shot.'

From the right angle, and in the right light of hindsight, Gore Vidal resembles his most famous offspring. Clad only in his wit – and an armour-plated ego – Mr Vidal has, during his long and prolific career as a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, (failed) politician, commentator, movie special guest-star, (gleeful) gadfly, and America's (highly unauthorised) biographer, taken on The Land of the Free's finest literary warriors, who had no word for 'why' or 'because', but plenty for 'faggot' and 'pinko'. Vidal broke the balls – and outlasted – tiresomely macho brawlers like Norman Mailer: he compared 'The Prisoner of Sex' to 'three days of menstrual flow”; later, when he was knocked to the ground by Mailer, he retorted, still on the floor: 'Words fail Norman Mailer yet again'.

And also right wing bruisers like William F. Buckley Jnr., whom he famously provoked into threatening him and shouting 'you queer!' on live national TV in 1968. 'RIP WFB – In Hell' was Gore's very Christian obituary notice last year. (Like that other thorn in the side of America, Castro, Vidal has survived almost all his foes.)

In his spare time, piercing, pointed Gore has taken on the Cold War, the American Empire, what he calls the 'Republican-Democrat' Party, monotheism, and, even more sacred to America (and, for that matter, the UK), monosexuality . He himself has had relationships with both men and women (and what women! He was briefly engaged to Joanne Woodward) and maintains, like the incurable blasphemer he is, that 'homosexual' and 'heterosexual' are adjectives not nouns, acts not identities. Most recently, his impressively unnecessary punking of the venerable, extravagantly charming BBC presenter David Dimbleby – 'I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE!' he barked in his best Lady Bracknell – on live TV on Election Night has become an unlikely YouTube hit.

As he once said: 'Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.' Or was that Myra? Either way, Mr Vidal is more of a man than many of his adversaries sadly mistook themselves for – and, perhaps, more woman than any of them could ever hope to possess.

Maybe that's why, twenty years ago when I was a callow youth, I sent Mr Vidal a fan letter. I also included, as you do, a topless shot: back then, I had Hollywood tits. And who better to appreciate them than Gore Vidal, MGM's last contract writer? Fortunately for both of us, I didn't hear anything back.

I put my tits away, and took to writing. But I was probably still writing fan notes to Vidal, even when I scribbled, as I did from time to time, nasty, Oedipal things about him. Re-reading Myra Breckinridge I can see that far too much of my own work is just footnotes to this forty-year-old novel which more or less invented metrosexuality decades before the word was coined, strapped it on and rammed it where the sun don't shine. (Described at the time on the dust-jacket as a 'novel of far-out sexuality' it now seems, well, all the way in).

But now I'm actually speaking to Mr Vidal. I feel like Michael J Fox in 'Back to the Future' where he meets his teen mother at High School (save my 'mother' is generally agreed to be no pussycat). Am I going to disappear into an embarrassing time-paradox? 'Please forgive my nervousness,' I stutter. 'I'ma Big Fan – though I suppose those words probably strike terror into your heart….'

Without missing a beat comes the laconic reply, in that measured, unmistakable voice: 'They clearly strike terror into yours.'

Later, I hand him another line when I gush, not entirely baselessly: 'To someone like me, you almost seem like the embodiment of the Twentieth Century!'

'On arthritic days I know I'm the Twentieth Century'.

Mr Vidal is speaking today from his American home of the last forty years in the Hollywood Hills. Vidal in the Hollywood Hills makes sense – it is an LA Eyrie; a place where his back is covered and from which he can spy people coming a long way off. His fortress-like house in Ravello, Italy, which he recently sold, was perched atop rocky cliffs, reached only by a steep, dizzying pathway. But Vidal says he chose the Hills because they weren't vulgar. 'Unlike other parts of LA, like Beverly Hills or Bel Air, when I bought this house forty years ago, it did not attract the super rich, wherever they live they build these huge houses. You don't have many of those up here in the hills.'

'Do you survey Los Angeles from your window?'

'Heavens, no! There's no sight uglier than Los Angeles!'

'But at night it can be very beautiful.'

'Well, almost anywhere can be beautiful at night.'

'True. Even a refinery town like Middlesbrough, which just happens to be down the road from my own somewhat less glamorous home. The opening aerial shot of a future, infernal Los Angeles in 'Blade Runner' were supposedly inspired by Middlesbrough at night – the director Ridley Scott grew up round there.'

'Yes, Ridley Scott used to hire my house. I think also during the making of that film. I used to hire it out a lot – mostly to Brits.'

'You're regarded very fondly on these shores.'

'It's reciprocated,' he says, almost warmly. 'The books were read in the UK at the same time as they were in America. Although more easily for the English since, unlike the New York Times, the London Times was not dedicated to attacking me.'

The New York Times, taking ladylike fright at the matter-of-fact way Vidal's second novel 'The City and the Pillar' dealt with same-sex love in the US Army during the Second World War (Vidal enlisted at the age 17), had an attack of the vapours and banned Gore's next five novels. No minor snub this, since the NYT even more so then than today could make or break you as a writer.

Perhaps the NYT was so shocked because this distasteful dissident was a product of the very heart of the East Coast Elite. A cuckoo in a feathered nest. Born in October 3, 1924 at the US Military Academy in Westpoint, his father an aeronautics pioneer and airline tycoon (founding what would become TWA and Eastern Airlines), his grandfather was Thomas P. Gore, the most powerful Senator of the age – and also blind – his mother was an actress and socialite (and a mean drunk). He was christened Eugene Luther Vidal Jr. by the headmaster of St. Albans preparatory school, a school for the DC elite which he was to attend. He later took the name 'Gore' in honour of his grandfather (a leading Isolationist – whose outlook Vidal has remained faithful to), whom he spent much of his childhood reading to, and mixing with the most powerful figures in the most powerful country in the world – just before it was about to become the world.

I'd like to think that Vidal was almost a kind of internal émigré from the East Coast when he arrived in LA in the early 50s as a scriptwriter for MGM. 'Not really,' he demurs, 'I was back and forth between the East and West Coast. I was one of the founders of live drama on television. I must have done a hundred plays during '54 to '57. After the New York Times banned me I had to make a living, and there it was: I never wanted to be a playwright but I found out I was one. Theatre work kept me going for many years.'

A number of his plays were made into movies, including 'The Best Man' (1960), starring Henry Fonda as an idealistic Presidential Candidate faced with one who will do anything to win. It includes a prophetic speech: 'One day there will be a Jewish President and then a black President. And when all the minorities are heard from we'll do something for the downtrodden majority of this country: the ladies.' I mention to Vidal it's being re-released on DVD.

'Oh, they never tell me,' he sighs, 'and I never receive any money from it – it just happens. I mean now I think the rights probably belong to a group of Martian businessmen.' (Possibly a bitter reference to another play of his, 'Visit to a Small Planet', made into a movie starring Jerry Lewis in 1960, in which a delinquent Martian visits Earth – the play's sharp satire of the Washington elite and 1950s American values disappeared in the film version.)

It's a busy Oscar Weekend in LA, but will Mr Vidal be attending any of the events? 'I've been invited to the Vanity Fair Oscar Party but I don't think I'll be going along. I haven't been to the Oscars for years. I really don't have much interest any more.'

'Whatever happened', I ask, 'to the uplifting propaganda for the American Way of Life that Hollywood used to produce?

'Well, there are no longer studios to generate that kind of euphoria,' he replies glumly. 'Money is all powerful these days, and calls all the shots-in Hollywood and pretty much everything else in American life. We watched 'That Hamilton Woman' last night, as it was called in America, the 1941 Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton biopic. It really was a spectacular movie, they certainly don't make them like that anymore. It was the first time that Vivien Leigh and Olivier had appeared together, which caused enormous excitement. London was being bombed and they were making this movie in Hollywood! With Alexander Korda directing and producing. A superb romantic film and great acting. God…!' He trails off in an unguarded reverie.

High Hollywood, the period that Vidal grew up with, visiting the movie theatre almost daily, almost religiously, is one of the few things that Vidal could be accused of being sentimental about. In 'Screening History' (1992) he wrote: 'It occurs to me that the only thing I ever really liked to do was go to the movies.' In 'Myra Breckinridge', the heroine declares: '…in the decade between 1935 and 1945, no irrelevant film was made in the United States. During those years, the entire range of human (which is to say, American) legend was put on film, and any profound study of those extraordinary works is bound to make crystal-clear the human condition.'

No one could accuse most Hollywood contemporary output of being amenable to 'profound study'. High Hollywood was about money too of course, but movies back then often seemed to be the most aesthetic medium imaginable: fashion, art, glamour. How was that?

'The early moguls liked art,' explains Vidal. 'Like Adolph Zuckor who founded Paramount. He cast Sarah Bernhardt, the famous French actress, in Queen Elizabeth, his first feature film. Zuckor aspired to the highest standards of theatre. Then of course Hollywood became very successful and money became all anyone was really interested in.'

'Remember, movies are movies. It's better to do them out here where there's plenty of light without going broke over the electricity. Mind you, the reason that Warner Brothers films were often the best movies made in the 1930s was because they looked so dark – the chiaroscuro quality of WB films was priceless. Bette Davies in The Letter was a great one- from the opening gloomy, brooding shot. How did Warner do it? Well it was because the Brothers Warner were very, very cheap! They'd go around from soundstage to soundstage turning the lights down, so halfway through the day every scene was in darkness!'

'It was said that a British actor, a little on the pompous side came over here for some loot. Addressing some of the old timer American actors he asked: “Isn't it difficult living in a society so unrooted and uprooted, without tradition of any kind?” One of them answered: “Why the Warner Brothers Christmas layoffs are one of our greatest traditions!”' Vidal laughs scornfully.

Vidal is himself a frequent visitor to the UK, 'When I was younger I always made a point to visit Saville Row Whenever in London – though the last time was 30 years ago.'

'How long does a Saville suit last?'

'Forever! I don't believe in fashion. I have no time for it. Versace once told me I looked a state and sent some of his staff to visit me in Ravello and make a suit. And very nice suits they were too. But it isn't something I take an interest in.'

Vidal may claim not to believe in fashion, but in 'Myra Breckinridge' he proved a profound observer of male fashion trends, predicting in effect the Twenty First Century: '…young men [today compensate by playing at being men, wearing cowboy clothes, boots, black leather, attempting through clothes (what an age for the fetishist!) to impersonate the kind of man our society claims to admire but swiftly puts down should he attempt to be anything more than an illusionist, playing a part.'

But when I suggest this to him, bringing up his most famous, most prophetic book, he just says quickly, 'I should read it again.' Making it quite clear that he doesn't wish to discuss it. Perhaps the eccentric 1970 film version starring Raquel Welch left a bad taste in his mouth – it certainly left a bad taste in the critics' mouths.

I ask him when he was last in the UK. 'Just the other week. I had the great joy of addressing the House of Commons in Westminster's Great Hall courtesy of Third World Solidarity to talk about the matter of Cuba and the United States. It was the venom of the Kennedy brothers who were out to destroy Castro because he didn't want to be killed by them. Or invaded. Or taken over. And his revolution erased. The vanity of that family!'

Vidal's vigorous attacks on liberal icons the Kennedys – whom he knew personally – for their warmongering are always value for money, exploding as they do the soft-focus mythology of Camelot. Vidal was one of the few people in American public life to dare to denounce the Cold War as an American invention to keep the politically and economically profitable US war machine turning over after the Second World War ceased trading. 'The thing about Jack was that he actually believed all that anti-communist propaganda – the previous Presidents didn't.' (To which could be added: George W. Bush had much in common with Kennedy's messianic zeal and frothy talk of 'freedom' – he just didn't have the good fortune to be assassinated in his first term.)

Vidal was vehemently attacked for his outspokenness about the Cold War and particularly for talking and writing about something that was as clear as day: the American Empire. '”How dare you!” people shouted,' recalls Vidal. '”We're not an Empire! We stand for freedom!”'

'Recently pretty much everyone has started talking about the “American Empire”,' I observe.

'Well, when we started down the Roman Imperial, dynastic way with the Bush family,' says Vidal wearily, 'it became quite clear it was all wrong whatever it was. Remember, we didn't break away from England, we broke away from the King. That's what the Declaration of Independence is all about. Thomas Jefferson's brilliant propaganda united the colonists against George III.'

'We're the original Evil Empire.'

'Well, you certainly were then.'

'Alas, our empire fell . . ".

'Well, you ran out of money.'

'Yes. As the US seems to be doing now. Are you surprised by the speeded-up schedule of Imperial implosion?'

'I was surprised by the speed at which we lost the Republic, and lost Magna Carta during the Bush Dictatorship.'

'But you see liberal icon Roosevelt as the first American Emperor – decreeing there should be no Empires, save his.'

'I'll tell you a story. Roosevelt was having lunch with Churchill. The Second World War was drawing to a close. They toasted the end of the war. Then Roosevelt gave Churchill a radiant smile, and said [here Vidal imitates Roosevelt's high Patrician voice: he is a great, savage mimic, 'You realize you're going to have to give up your precious India, don't you?' [imitating Churchill's jowly tones “Never!” And they had a quarrel over the lunch table. Many people who happened to be there spread it around. Roosevelt not only won the argument, it was force majeure. Roosevelt said, 'The days of Empire are over, and I trust you realize this.”'

'Churchill said: “What do you want me to do? Get on my hind legs like your little dog Fala, and beg?” Roosevelt said simply: “Yes.” Don't tempt an Emperor!'

'Most people in the UK seem not to have realised the real nature of the 'special relationship' we have had with the US since 1940.'

'Why should they? their lives go on anyway…'.

Vidal is a keen historian, but that most dangerous kind: an autodidact. 'I didn't go to Harvard,' he once boasted. 'I just sent my work there.' Unlike most historians, Vidal has actually had met most of the key players. Or perhaps the other way around – as he has put it himself elsewhere: 'People always say: “You got to meet everyone.” They always put that sentence the wrong way around. I mean, why not put it the right way, that these people got to meet me, and wanted to? Otherwise it sounds like I spent my life hustling around trying to meet people: “Oh, look, there's the governor.”' Wouldn't you want to meet Gore Vidal if you were Jack Kennedy or William Burroughs? Although he is an incorrigible name-dropper, it's probably because his world has been so filled with names that not to drop them would be the pretentious thing to do.

'I used to know Nancy Astor,' he says, launching into a five star anecdote sparked by our discussion of Britain's rather unlikely Imperial past. 'And I asked her about her famous trip to the Soviet with Bernard Shaw. “Well, I was just lookin' out that train window” – she had a Virginia accent – “I was watchin' the whole world go by. And it was pathetic – he kept readin' one of his own books!”

In Moscow Stalin was in charming mode, embracing them, one in each arm. He listened to Shaw go on for a while, then pointed to a map of the world on the wall of his Kremlin office and he asked, “How is it that this little island in the North Sea has ended up with all this??” And he pointed to all the pink on the map. '”Can you explain that to me Mr. Shaw?” Shaw declined to respond. And so he turned to Lady Astor. “Well, ahh think it is becaauuse it was we first who gave the world the King James Version of the Bible.” I asked her, “What did Stalin say to that?” “He didn't say anythin'.” On the way out, Lady Astor asked, “Mr Stalin, when you gonna stop killin' people?”

“Oh, Lady Astor,' replied Stalin, looking directly at her. “The undesirable classes do not kill themselves.”'

'Now,' says Vidal, 'that's a nice story where everybody's in character!'

My audience with the Twentieth Century is winding down. 'Do you think,' I ask, looking for silver linings and sunny endings, 'the latest Emperor, Barack Obama, can rescue the American Imperium?'

'The US is a very racist country,' responds Vidal sorrowfully. 'He will probably be assassinated. Then Martial Law will be declared. The contingency plans are already in place, I'm sure.' Like the Brother's Warner, he's switching off the lights.

'Do you think the American Dream can be revived?'

'No. There was never anything to it. It was always fraudulent.' Off goes another light.

'LA was once the city of the future – does it still have one?'

'No. It's run out of gas.' And another bulb dies. We're now in darkness. Bette Davis had more light in that opening shot in 'The Letter.'

'Do you think America can survive without the kind of brilliant dreams and illusions Hollywood used to manufacture – or without an Empire on which the sun never sets?'

'Of course we can,' he retorts. 'We'll just get on with our lives like everyone else.' And a little no-frills night-light comes on.

All things considered, it was probably for the best that I didn't mention the topless fan letter I'd sent all those years ago to Gore, glorious Grinch of the Hollywood Hills.

Special thanks to Steven Zeeland and DA Krolak

This month's Out features a column by yours truly explaining how my childhood love for early Jerry Lewis made me the man I am today — and why his anarchic comedy partnership with Dean Martin in the 'repressed' 1950s was a kind of queer punk rock before even rock and roll had been invented:

'Their heads were so close together in those tiny '50s cathode-ray tubes — gazing into each other's eyes, rubbing noses, occasionally stealing kisses or licking each other's neck to shrieks of scandalized pleasure from the audience. They were a prime-time study in same-sex love. And they were adored for it — literally chased down the street by crowds of screaming women and not a few men…'.      ( 'In Defense of Jerry Lewis' )

Though these clips below probably explain it all rather better.

They also show how compared to Martin and Lewis, today's much vaunted 'bromance' comedies are more akin to bromide . Lesbian bed death without the honeymoon. Instead of going out of their way to purge their stage romance of any hint of passion or anything physical in the way that annoyingly self-conscious, college-educated 21st Century buddy comedies do (the word 'bromance' itself suggests that any hint of erotics would be akin to incest), Martin and Lewis' blue-collar, mid-century love-affair constantly injects it. Flags it up. And slaps your face with it. Theirs is literally a much more ticklish affair. And a shitload funnier for it.

What's more, it looks very convincing.

(Oh, and yes, it may be that I still feel fond of Jerry Lewis because his telethons never made it to the UK….)

An exploision of D&J kisses in this cheeky and charming clip painstaking compiled by a YouTube fan.

'It's physical attraction.'

The noise made by the audience when Dean falls on top of Jerry in the bath wouldn't be heard again until Elvis shook his pelvis.

Jerry gets some big pricks in the Navy and then sprays everywhere.

Dean and Jerry join the Army as paratroopers. Watch Dean's eyes during the blanket scene.

'I was loinesome.'

Spot a (very tiny-looking) James Dean giving a boxer a rub-down while scoping the competition.

A slightly fictionlised account of how our boys met, complete with closet clinch climax.

Never been kissed… Yeah, right.

Special thanks to the Canadian playwright Elise Moore and Hannah for re-kindling my unhealthy Lewisian love-affair, offering insightful observation – and sending me some really great YouTube Martin & Lewis love.

By Mark Simpson ( Guardian CIF , 30 April 2009)

Who would have guessed the dainty opinions of a Miss America candidate would have been taken so seriously by gays and liberals?

Miss California, a practising Christian, was last week denounced by Miss America judge Perez Hilton on his blog as 'a dumb bitch' and unworthy of the Miss America crown because she gave the 'wrong' answer to his chippy question about gay marriage. Like most Americans – including the current Democratic President of the United States – she believes that marriage is 'between a man and a woman'. Boo! Hiss! Rip her to shreds!

It wasn't just the famously bitchy gay gossip-monger Hilton casting stones, however. For honestly and somewhat courageously answering his question Miss California was roundly condemned as a 'bigot' by hosts of gay and liberal bloggers, and was even denounced by the directors of the Miss California pageant who declared themselves 'saddened' by her views and that they had no place in the 'Miss California family', whatever that is. Most now agree with Hilton's gloating claim that her answer cost her the crown.

Candidate Obama expressed the exact same view during the Presidential Election: “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian, it's also a sacred union. You know, God's in the mix.” Instead of being scorned as a bigot and a dumb bitch, Obama was handed the Mr America crown by liberals and probably most gay voters. But I suppose that being President of the United States is a rather less important title than Miss America.

Branding Christians and traditionalists 'bigots' for being Christians and traditionalists and thus none too keen to fundamentally revise the definition of marriage is a highly unattractive exercise in liberal self-righteousness that makes Miss America look quite sophisticated. Not to mention sounding a lot like pots and kettles rattling. It's faintly absurd to have to even say this, but it isn't bigoted to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. It's just being conventional. And after all, marriage itself is convention and tradition tied up in a big red bow and covered in confetti and sprinkled with Holy Water. Which is exactly why lesbians and gays should have nothing to do with it.

Today's out and proud same-sex relationships are very unconventional and a very new kind of phenomenon. And so are in fact many of today's cross-sex relationships in a brave new world of gender parity. Marriage on the other hand is an antiquated, failing institution based on inequality and traditional roles. Much like Miss America.

Marriage is, whether you like it or not, also based on religious sentiment: 'God's in the mix.' Especially in a very religious country like America. And I have a hunch, based on millennia of violent opposition to sex that doesn't produce more Christians, that God is not going to sanctify 'sodomy' any time soon.

New ways of living and loving require new institutions. Or in the words of the famously unmarried Galilee carpenter and fisher of men: put new wine into new wineskins. And keep the flippin' Pharisees out of it. Or else you'll end up with a tacky mess.

It needs to be said out loud that full civil unions with the same legal rights and privileges of marriage at both the State and Federal level, supported by President Obama and many Republicans and even some right-wing evangelicals – and the large majority of American voters – are not only much more politically achievable in the US than gay marriage, they are also a better fit for most same sex relationships. What's more they represent an entirely dignified way of side-stepping this endless, unsightly domestic between liberal and conservative, secular and religious, metropolitan and rural America.

But instead, gay marriage zealots, many of whom admit that they themselves don't wish to get married, insist on characterising civil unions as 'second class', 'social apartheid' or 'riding at the back of the bus'. I'd like to think it was merely a ploy to make fully-recognised civil unions more achievable, but many really seem to believe their own shrill propaganda. Worse, they've made even more of a fetish of the word 'marriage' than the religious right they rail against.

In the UK, where nationally recognised same-sex civil unions with the same legal status as marriage – called civil partnerships – were introduced in 2004 there is little or no appetite now for gay marriage. In my experience few lesbians or gays feel they are 'riding at the back of the bus'. Maybe because in many ways they're actually riding at the front. It's probably only a matter of time before gay civil partnerships in the UK are made available to all, as they are in France – where the vast majority of applications are now made by cross-sex couples disenchanted with traditional marriage.

What's more, fully-recognised, open-to-all civil unions are a fully-fledged secular institution that helps to shore up a fragile secular society. And make no mistake, it is secularism on which most of the – historically very, very recent – freedoms enjoyed by lesbians and gays are based, along with those of women.

But so far the gay marriage crusade in the US doesn't seem very interested in any of this or lessons it might learn from the experience of other countries. Instead it seems too busy proving itself holier-than-thou. And less sophisticated than Miss America contestants.