Boy Culture Links: 50 & Fab, Colombia Lurches Right, Phil Tarley Interviews 'My Brother's Killer' Director Rachel Mason, Madonna as 'Dee Dee,' Tulsi Gabbard a Cultist? + MORE
JUNE 22, 2026
YOUTUBE: Sydney James Harcourt is 50 and faaabulous, as seen stripping in this year’s Broadway Bares. I’ll offer a longer post on this soon.
USA TODAY: A rare pro-LGBTQ+ op-ed from conserva-USA Today.
G&LR: Phil Tarley writes about Rachel Mason’s new doc My Brother’s Killer, a project that turned into a literal whodunit when her work uncovered the person responsible for the brutal murder of gay-porn actor Billy London. London’s beheading in 1990 had been a notorious cold case — but no more.
Choice quote from Phil’s Q&A with the director, who also gave us Circus of Books:
“To understand the context of Billy London’s death, we really had to situate it in the culture and history of the time. A gay man in 1990 being murdered is what we were dealing with in this film. I wanted to make sure we understood what the gay community was doing in that period. The Queer Nation footage showed the community fighting back … and I think that’s an empowering message for today. You see a marginalized community not willing to roll over when things aren’t going well.”
NEW YORK TIMES: Stupidity is contagious — across Latin America, voters are narrowly going far-right, with Abelardo De La Espriella — a guy with zero experience who promises to be Trump’s lackey — seeming to have narrowly defeated Colombia’s incumbent president. Protests have broken out over a lack of faith in the veracity of the result. The results are being challenged; a challenge has never resulted in an overturning of initial results there.
WASHINGTON POST: The Washington Post has documented “unmistakable” links between Tulsi Gabbard and a Hare Krishna cult:
“Dozens of attached memos appeared to document directives and advice for Gabbard from her time in Congress. Some contained instructions on what legislation she should propose, which policies she should embrace and how she should conduct herself on television. They had an air of authority. A memo about a proposal to partition war-torn Iraq into three states quoted an unnamed person as saying it was ‘time for TG to come up with this idea.’
“Some of the language was harshly critical. One memo I found, from January 2015, contained a derisive assessment of a statement Gabbard was to give in response to President Barack Obama’s annual address to Congress.
“‘In the first place, nobody gives a shit what you think about his State of the Union speech, unless you’re going to say something of interest,’ the memo quoted someone as saying. ‘You’re not even trying. You’ve become really intellectually lazy.’”
POLITICO: Big win for Tim Walz as Trump’s DOJ continues its harassment campaign of him.
AMERICAN RESEARCH GROUP: Trump’s approval is down to 30%. November, get in here!
INTERVIEW: Madonna is quite a character! Specifically, she’s in character as “Dee Dee” for a wild new Interview cover shoot. For the Q&A with its EIC Mel Ottenberg, she spills quite a bit of interesting new info. Permit me to take you on a journey:
EXTRAV: Music icon Clive Davis died Monday in his NYC apartment at 94. He’s survived by his children, grandchildren and his partner, Greg Schriefer, 65.
NEW YORK TIMES: Odious Alan Greenspan has also died. He made it to 100.
KENNETH IN THE (212): A bunch of tennis hotties.
EW.COM: Sounds like authorities investigating Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping fucked up. They reportedly had credible ransom demands but let the deadline pass (why?). Shortly thereafter, another credible demand basically confirmed Nancy had been accidentally killed — and offered to return her remains for $4M. Time and again, we put faith in authorities to know what’s best, and yet even in high-profile cases in which you think there would be total oversight and competence — neither is provided.
INSTAGRAM: Carly Rae Jepsen announces double album for September: Day and Night.
