Boy Culture: Model Behavior, Gay Travel Blogger on Hantavirus Ordeal, Rare Images of Marilyn Monroe, 'The Devil Queen' Returneth + MORE
MAY 8, 2026
MODUS VIVENDI: This, er, Water Sports Line is certainly a head-turner.
THEM: Gay travel blogger speaks out from hantavirus-plagued cruise ship.
YAHOO! NEWS: In March, Munich’s first-ever gay mayor excitedly kissed his fiancé to celebrate his big win, and promptly went viral.
NEW YORK TIMES: I’m no political pollyanna, but even though Virginia’s Supreme Court deciding that Democrats must always play fair while Republicans are free to cheat is a setback — and a waste of $70M on a statewide vote the court has flushed — Democrats are still going to easily win back the House in November. Bookmark this post.
FACEBOOK: A meaningful win for Dems in Midland, Michigan.
HUFFINGTON POST: Trump’s Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins gets moist talking about depriving needy people of food stamps.
OUT.COM: Linda Perry’s 4 Non Blondes song is the only reason that stupid Nicki Minaj song is popular, but she’s the anti-Minaj:
“The community has always been strong. We’ve been fighting for a very long time. We will continue to fight and we always come up. We always survive. We’re always the underdog that will prevail and be standing here. You know who won’t be? Trump.”
JOE.MY.GOD.: Larry Ellison reportedly offered to fire a slew of CNN reporters to appease the White House and push through Paramount’s deal to swallow Warner Bros Discovery.
POLITICO: Imagine coming out of retirement to try to save Susan Collins, of all people.
LGBTQ NATION: German man accused of ritualistically killing his gay roomie may spend the rest of his life in prison.
ADVOCATE: A federal judge has blocked a Trump plan to probe trans medicine groups, citing the Administration’s “extensive … animus.”
PEOPLE: A contestant won $240,000 in a single The Price Is Right game — must be the biggest check the show cut since Bob Barker went into senile puberty.
PINK NEWS: A gay man has been reunited with his husband 150 days after he was detained by ICE following a routine green card appointment.
PEOPLE: James Haspiel, a fan of Marilyn Monroe’s who became a confidante, is sharing his personal photos with People, which has Marilyn on its cover in honor of her 100th birth anniversary.
JOE.MY.GOD.: Tennessee has eradicated its lone Democratic seat, and one of its reps showed up to vote for this disenfranchisement wearing a TRUMP cape. (Spoiler alert: It’s a cult.)
GLAAD: Meta, YouTube and X sank in their GLAAD ratings in the realm of social media safety this year — new lows.
US WEEKLY: Actress Hayden Panettiere has come out as bisexual.
KINO LORBER: Coming to theaters June 17 is a restoration of the transgressive Brazilian film The Devil Queen (1974). The pitch:
“In the underworld of 1970s Rio de Janeiro, the feared ‘Devil’s Queen’ rules a drug cartel from the back room of a brothel. Draped in green eyeshadow and menace, she commands loyalty with a jackknife that serves equally for shaving legs and slitting throats. Her grip on power begins to falter as rival factions — favela gangsters, drag queens, and sex workers — turn on one another in a violent struggle to claim her throne, exposing a world where those excluded from bourgeois society fight for dominance on the margins.
“Directed by Antônio Carlos de Fontoura during Brazil’s military dictatorship, this lurid tale is loosely inspired by the legendary 1930s gangster João Francisco dos Santos. The film reimagines the figure in a 1970s setting as an early, provocative representation of queerness. As The Devil Queen, Milton Gonçalves delivers a striking performance that destabilizes rigid notions of masculinity, dissolving the binary of macho and queen into something volatile and unforgettable.”
I can’t find all the release info, but here is the info for Brooklyn.
YOUTUBE: If you’d like your IQ to rise by a few points, spend an hour or so watching Barbara Hershey speak about her films and about acting. This conversation is so intelligently and smoothly and organically moderated. (And then the very first fan question is about the dreadful TV movie The Flood.) There’s a quick question about a gay character in there, and the other gay content is Beaches, which is gay because, well, it’s Beaches.
CHARLIE BY MATTHEW ZINK: I’m not paid for this stuff, but wowza, Charlie is — like MV above — a bastion of beautiful models.
GOTHAMIST: NYC board votes to consider a Mayor Mamdani-driven rent freeze.
FACEBOOK: Ritch Colbert put this together for Californians ahead of the June 2 vote — early voting is underway:
