James Franco keeps me sane

It’s been a week of insanity, with Canada now an international laughing stock. Thanks, Steve!

In other right-wing-idiocy news, 72-year-old Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov spoke at an HIV/AIDS conference and said that condoms don’t work and homosexuality should never be discussed:

“We have banned, and will ban, the propaganda of sexual minorities’
opinions because they can be one of the factors in the spread of HIV
infection.”

I can only speak for the sexual minority propaganda on this blog but I’m sure someone would have emailed me by now if they’d contracted HIV from it. Dick.

Besides, if he read any science at all, Luzhkov would know that HIV has been around a hell of a lot longer than any of us suspected. Or wanted.

Kind of like the Catholic Church, which still inexplicably exists after centuries of murdering women and raping children. Go figure. Now, San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer is trying to mend fences with gay people after his leadership on the California gay marriage ban led to protests:

“Proposition 8 simply recognizes that there is a difference between traditional marriage and a same sex partnership.”

See? Just a difference! It’s like a different water fountain or a different seat on the bus — why so serious?

Meanwhile, the Church is advertising its annual calendar of hot Roman Catholic priests:

It’s like they’re acting out “The Thorn Birds” except that Richard Chamberlain finally came out! Their pathology is off the charts — it makes me crazy!

Movies usually cheer me up but today comes word that Hollywood is working on remakes of 80s favourites like “They Live,” “Arthur” and even “Romancing the Stone.” Kathleen Turner replaced by…who? Anne Hathaway? I go insane!

But a new study says that happiness is contagious — it’s the little things that get us through, like this list of The Top 10 Male Nude Scenes of 2008

 

(Nice to see Jason Segal getting some love!).

James Franco, so lovely and solid in “Milk,” is on that list and a Black Book interview with him cheered me up enormously:



“As soon as I got out of high school, I was like, I don’t care if anybody’s gay. It doesn’t matter. Doing “Milk,” I don’t know if it broadened my mind at all. I like to think that I was as open as I could be at that point.”

Steven Harper, take notes: this actor is smarter and more humane. Thanks, James!

A former editor of the late, lamented fab magazine, Scott has been writing for Xtra since 2007 on a variety of topics in news pieces, interviews, blogs, reviews and humour pieces. He lives on the Danforth with his boyfriend of 12 years, a manic Jack Russell Terrier, a well-stocked mini-bar and a shelf of toy Daleks.

Keep Reading

A collage with colour images of Cole Escola and Anania, black and white images of Gavin Newsom and Bari Weiss, and the numbers 2025 against an abstract pink and white background

Righteous queens and shady bitches of 2025

Here are the main characters that made, and broke, the year in queer
Collage featuring drag performers and the numbers 2025

The top 10 ‘Drag Race’ lip syncs of 2025

International seasons dominate the list of best performances of the year

Silky Nutmeg Ganache on taking a ‘Slaycation’ with Alyssa Edwards

The ‘Canada vs. The World’ star talks the value of a variety of drag TV and Miss Fiercalicious’ desire to be Galinda

2025 was about finding solace in the human-made slop

AI’s got nothing on good quality dumb entertainment—and only people can make that