Fun Down There The defeat of North Carolina’s Republican governor, Pat McCrory, last November ran against the general tide of the election, and his loss was clearly due to his support for the infamous HB2 or “bathroom bill” that bars transgender people from using the public restroom of their choice. The law triggered a boycott of North Carolina venues by sports events and rock stars, resulting in a substantial loss of revenue and jobs. Since then, McCrory has complained that he can’t find a job because he’s regarded as a bigot, and he and his wife have been shunned by former friends. But perhaps the unkindest cut came in the form of a product that you can buy for your favorite public urinal: a screen bearing the likeness of the former governor. There is something Dante-esque about this idea, updated for the times: It follows the principle of letting the punishment fit the crime and uses technology to give everyone a shot at revenge—which in this case is a dish that’s best served warm.
Quicken Dirty The annual convention of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) blew through Washington in March, and again there was a very palpable upsurge of activity on Grindr around the Quicken Loans Arena. We reported last year on this apparent paradox—ultra-conservative men espousing anti-gay policies by day and hooking up with each other in hotel rooms by night. But this year the gay community was ready for them. The Human Rights Campaign took out a local ad on Grindr directly targeting the gay conventioneers with this message: “You can’t be with us in the hotel room and against us in the CPAC ballroom.” It was a brilliant move, since the very act of consulting Grindr confirmed the accusation on the screen: Dude, you are so busted!
Bad Breakup Grindr again! This time the hookup app is being sued by a decidedly dissatisfied customer. Under different circumstances, Matthew Herrick might have been thrilled when he received overtures from no fewer than 700 men eager to hook up. But these replies were not just “Sup?” or “Bored” IMs but actual men showing up at Herrick’s home and workplace, and they came in response to a battery of fake profiles posted by another party. Grindr is being sued for failing to remove the profiles even after the customer filed fifty complaints. Meanwhile, a suspect has been fingered, and it’s none other than Herrick’s former boyfriend, who’s alleged to have posted dozens of phony profiles using Herrick’s photo. The BF must be something of a geek, as he was able to hack into his ex’s smartphone to make it appear that the profiles, as well as the many messages he sent, were coming from Herrick’s phone. The profiles themselves described a guy who was looking for rough sex, unprotected sex, orgies, and drugs. One profile described a rape fantasy, while another assured potential dates that “I say no when I mean yes.” Alleged in the lawsuit is that Herrick was being set up for sexual assault, and indeed he was stalked by several men around his apartment, a man who got inside his flat and wouldn’t leave, and another who came to his workplace and accosted him in the restroom. The lawsuit is pending, the legal situation for the boyfriend unclear, but one thing is certain: that must have been one hell of a breakup.
Blowing Smoke It should have been easy to predict that Milo Yeannopoulos—the gay, Jewish, Republican crony of Donald Trump who spoke out against Muslims and everything “PC”—was doomed to crash and burn at some point. Either he would be read out of the Party, Soviet style, or his head would explode from the sheer strain of his contradictory positions. The fact that he was openly gay served as a useful smokescreen for a party widely seen as intolerant, but then there was the fact that he was openly gay in that very party… Anyway, what finally nailed him was the discovery of a comment he made a few years ago that was seen as an apology for intergenerational sex, something that he himself had experienced as a teenager. The widely quoted soundbite that brought him down was this: “I’m grateful for Father Michael. I wouldn’t give nearly such good head if it wasn’t for him.” If you read the full text, what you’ll find is a rather sober rumination on age-of-consent laws and the possibility that some teenagers, especially gay males, may be able to give consent at younger than the legal age. And he opined that not all teenage boys are necessarily harmed by a sexual relationship with an adult—which is the point at which he lost any residual support among moderates and gays, who roundly denounced him. And once his value as a smokescreen was blown, the Party simply vaporized him, Soviet style.
Marilyn 2.0 As part of its (somewhat inexplicable) American celebrity series, the Central African Republic issued a stamp sporting a likeness of Marilyn Monroe. But—too late—it was discovered that the image is not that of Monroe but rather of female impersonator Jimmy James! It sounds like the stuff of urban legend, but The New York Post’s “Page Six” doesn’t lie about such matters. A little research quickly revealed that the image of James came from a 1991 TV commercial for eyeglasses. And the plot thickens: James is not happy about the situation, so he’s threatening to sue an entire country for illegal appropriation of his likeness. Of course, one might ask whether this isn’t a backhanded compliment to James’ ability to trick the eye. Cher once quipped, probably in Provincetown, that she’d seen Cher impersonators who looked more like her than she did. Perhaps it would be a bit too “meta” to call this a case of life imitating art, since James is already involved in an imitation game of sorts; but it is just possible, as anyone who has seen his act may attest, that he really does out-Marilyn Marilyn.
