Towleroad Guide to the Tube #1587

MIKA: "Boum Boum Boum".

MAMA GIRAFFE: Protecting her calf from some hungry lions.

THE YARNESS: The latest in Bearcrafts.

HAPPY COMBO: A bassett hound, a Porsche, and a GoPro.

For recent Guides to the Tube, click HERE.

News: Triceratops, Rafael Nadal, Polar Vortex, Eileen Ford, Jet Lag

Summertime polar vortex prepares to cool the nation. "This is fall jacket weather, when it should be air conditioner, ice cream truck, and lemonade weather."

Steven Spielberg called out on Facebook for being a cold-hearted dinosaur killer.

Garrett Hedlund gives white T-shirt for Flaunt.

Gizmodo notes that NYC must have really smelled like s**t back in the summers of the late nineteenth century: "Crossing a street could be an unsavory affair. In New York city, by one estimate, horses left behind 2.5 million pounds of manure and sixty thousand gallons of urine every day. That amounts to roughly four hundred tons of manure a year — enough to float three Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carriers and a half-dozen navy destroyers. Forget the smell and mess; imagine the flies."

The universe is 'missing' light: "Observations made by the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, a $70 million instrument designed by the University of Colorado Boulder and installed on the Hubble Space Telescope, have revealed that the universe is  'missing' a large amount of light. 'It’s as if you’re in a big, brightly lit room, but you look around and see only a few 40-watt lightbulbs,' said the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Juna Kollmeier, lead author of a new study on the missing light published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 'Where is all that light coming from? It’s missing from our census.'"

Rafa Nadal hits the beach in Spain.

Justin Theroux does Details.

Supermodel magnate Eileen Ford dies: "Modeling agency founder Eileen Ford, who shaped a generation's standards of beauty as she built an empire and launched the careers of Candice Bergen, Lauren Hutton, Christie Brinkley and countless others, has died. She was 92 and died Wednesday of complications from a brain tumor and osteoporosis, according to Arielle Baran, a spokeswoman for Derris & Co., which handles public relations for Ford and announced the death Thursday."

Matt Barber: Parents should not send their kids to Christian colleges with gay clubs. "Replace LGBT or gay with any other sexual sin. If there's an adultery-affirming club at your potential university where you're sending your kids. Or a pedophilia-affirming club or an incest-affirming club."

Study: Food influences jet lag recovery.

Obama responds to Boehner lawsuit: "There are a number of Republicans, including a number in the Texas delegation, who are mad at me for taking these actions. They actually plan to sue me. Now, I don't know which things they find most offensive — me helping to create jobs, or me raising wages, or me easing the student loan burdens, or me making sure women can find out whether they're getting paid the same as men for doing the same job. I don't know which of these actions really bug them."

Outtakes from Madonna and Katy Perry's sexxxy V shoot.

Third Colorado county gives marriage licenses to gay couples: "Pueblo County joined Denver and Boulder County in allowing gay couples to marry a day after a state judge ruled the Boulder clerk can continue issuing the licenses."

Megyn Kelly calls Nancy Pelosi 'sexist' for slamming male justices on Hobby Lobby. "If Speaker John Boehner made a similar comment about the female justices, she would be crying sexism and that’s what she is guilty of here."

Rob Portman candidacy presents "nightmare scenario" for Republicans: "It’s not hard to imagine that Senator Ted Cruz might offer precisely the opposite case from Portman, making the argument that the party must reaffirm its support for “traditional marriage” key to his GOP presidential primary run. This could come after the Supreme Court has declared a Constitutional right to gay marriage — which Cruz would then be vociferously calling on Republicans to help roll back."

Matt Baume's New Project Shows Gay Gamers in Their Element

Journalist and same sex marriage activist Matt Baume, a self-identified nerd and Mario Kart fan, has been driving across the country interviewing fellow gamers about their relationships both to gaming communities and geek culture.

“One of the recurring themes we found is that games have provided people with the opportunity to broaden their worlds.” Baume related in an interview. “Whether they’re in a big city like Seattle or Chicago or some place smaller like Bakersfield you know, people have this window into a larger gay world through the people that they have fun with.”

In each city they’ve visited Baume and his partner James Morris have met gamers of vastly diverse backgrounds, spanning across a wide spectrum of age, race, and location.

“We spoke to a lesbian mom in Las Vegas. She and her partner are raising their son who is now a teenager and several years ago he wanted to get into World of Warcraft.” Morris explained. “She herself got sucked in. She became a guild leader and now a raid master; she’s sort of the mom to the entire guild and it’s an LGBT guild.”

Baume and Morris’s interviews are part of a larger project to create audiovisual portraits of people who love games and gaming in their home towns.

“We talked to a young man in phoenix who essentially lived on one block for his entire life. He was born on the same block, went to school across the street, grew up in a house went to high school and college on that block.” explained Baume. “He’s just turned 18 and he’s very excited to get out and see the world and GaymerX is going to be one of his first opportunities to be queer gamers.”

GaymerX is an LGBTQ oriented convention aimed squarely at the out and proud geeks amongst us.

Now in its second year, the convention brings together geeks from all walks of life--video gamers, cosplayers, and comic book fans to name a few--in an effort to recreate the welcoming community space that so many queer individuals have turned to.

Events this year range from panels on what it’s like to be a fat gay gamer to a cosplaying contest being hosted by season 1 RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Akashia.

“[P]eople mention that the Venn diagram of the gay community and the gamer community doesn’t always have a lot of overlap,” said Baume. “But at GaymerX you can let the conversation get as nerdy as you want, and everyone’s totally fine with it.”

Watch the project’s promotional video AFTER THE JUMP...

 

Towleroad Pop-Up Summer Camp in Provincetown: Bear Week is Here!

We've been having an amazing time in Provincetown! Follow us on Instagram at TLRD where we have been posting some of our favorite photos from our Camp Cart at the Crown & Anchor and around town.

Headed here for BEAR WEEK?

Make sure to sign up at RSVPtown because we have a whole bunch of tickets and special summer books to give away, plus a deluxe Kiehl's gift box with a generous range of products perfect to groom all that fur. And everyone who signs up can stop by our Camp Cart and say hello, pick up a beach bag featuring deals from local merchants, our Towleroad 'Ptown Hacks' booklet, and a deluxe sample from Kiehl's. And have one of our Camp Counselors Patrick or Elliott take your photo with friends.

Sign up now because we're picking winners tomorrow!

Congrats to Towleroad readers Kenton L., Stephen T., Alan S., Colin S., Ross D., Austin D. Stephen S. James L. Steve N. Michael T. and Brad L. who won our giveaways last week.

ONLY AT THE CROWN:

Those who sign up at RSVPtown have a chance to win tickets to see literary legend Armistead Maupin tell tales from his years as a writer along with some readings from his latest works on July 13th or July 18th.

We also have tickets to Mauled: The Bears of Comedy on July 14, Peter Bisuito's My Big Funny Peter on July 16, and the Atomic Bombshells on July 17th.

SUMMER READING GIVEAWAYS:

To kick your summer reading schedule into high gear we're giving away some of this year's hottest books.

This week's featured book is CARSICK: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America, by John Waters. "A cross-country hitchhiking journey with America’s most beloved weirdo." We have five copies to give away!

We're also giving away copies of THE TALKING DAY by Michael Klein (Sibling Rivalry Press), THE SNOW QUEEN by Michael Cunningham (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and JONATHAN, a journal of gay men's fiction also from Sibling Rivalry Press. Jonathan is a journal featuring short fiction by queer male writers.

You are ONLY eligible for giveaways if you've signed up at RSVPtown and for THE WEEKS YOU INDICATED you would be in Provincetown on your RSVPtown sign up. All giveaways will be drawn at random from those eligible.

KIEHL'S PARTY:

Celebrate Kiehl's in Provincetown with Kiehl's President Chris Salgardo at a special party on TUESDAY, JULY 15, at 2 pm at their new shop at 200 Commercial Street! The first 25 customers in line win a special gift card valued up to $500. With complimentary healthy skin checks, and refreshments. Chris will make a special donation! Don't miss it!

THOMAS WARD:

And if you're in town SATURDAY JULY 12, try to make it over to Sixty Special Gallery at 145 Commercial St. for the opening of our friend Tom Ward's show of Caravaggio-channeling  self-polaroids from 1994. Reception is at 7pm and the show is up until August 3.

COFFEE MEET-UP WITH TOWLEROAD and JOE JERVIS of JOE.MY.GOD:

Join us for our weekly Friday morning coffee meet-up on JULY 18 from 9 - 11 am at the Central House restaurant at The Crown & Anchor Inn. This week's guest is our friend and fellow blogger Joe Jervis who writes Joe.My.God! Come meet Joe along with Towleroad's Andy Towle and Michael Goff and enjoy some coffee to start your Friday!

And thanks to David Mixner for joining us at this week's coffee!

BUT MOST OF ALL, HAVE FUN, BE FRIENDLY, AND FEED THE BEARS!

 

Nash Grier Kisses Gay Fan After Being Slammed For Homophobic Slur: PHOTO

No doubt in response to the fallout from his homophobic Vine that went viral, social media star Nash Grier decided to kiss a gay fan in an attempt to show he has love rather than antipathy for the gay community. The fan shared the experience on Snapchat and later on Tumblr, saying: "To all the people complaining about Nash being a homophobic who’s against gays; He willingly kissed a boy just for a snapchat story on top of apologizing twice."

What do you think of Grier's attempt to kiss and make up? 

Ugandan Police Arrest Five For 'Promoting Homosexuality'

So much for that Foreign Ministry statement claim that the "Government of Uganda … will continue to guarantee equal treatment of all persons on the territory of Uganda.”

Just two days after that statement was released in an attempt to placate countries concerned about the possible human rights violations caused by the recently-passed Anti-Homosexuality Act, Ugandan police go and arrest 5 individuals - two businessmen, a teacher, and two students - for allegedly "carrying out clandestine movements in both primary and secondary schools in the district luring the pupils and students into the practice.” Because for some reason people still think that homosexuality is some dangerous lifestyle one can be "recruited" into like gangs, the Klan, or Scientology.

This is particularly bad timing for Uganda as the World Bank loan and "sinful" foreign aid sanctions that have all been put on hold may be more vital to the country's ability to function than President Yoweri Museveni originally let on.