“Who do you have to f**k to get a drink around here?”

That’s just one of the classic quotable lines from the groundbreaking 1970 gay horror-comedy ‘The Boys in the Band,’ finally out on DVD this week. You’ll laugh at how far we’ve come since then; you’ll cry over how far we haven’t:

Gay men love to see ourselves as tastemakers and arbiters of style but, as that movie revealed, we’re not always quite so classy. Here’s some tragic recent examples:

– who else is going to buy this roughly $8,000 chandelier from Netherlands-based Rock and Royal?

– if you’ve harboured any fantasies of spending time in Lance Bass’s bedroom, prepare to have them shattered. One look at his decorating sense and you’ll see why he wanted to head out into space so badly

– tragedy for demure gossip blogger Perez Hilton: he met his idol Madonna this weekend but was later found dead in his hotel room, having overdosed on exclamation points

– Madonna herself is handling her inpending divorce with her usual grace — The Daily Mail airs her list of conditions for Guy’s visit with the kids:

– and, worst of all, comes the inevitable over-reaction during the angry-but-peaceful gay marriage protests in the US throughout this entire past week. A hateful old woman had her ‘Yes on 8’ sign and giant cardboard cross pulled away and stomped on by the one group of gay men in California with no PR sense. Bad move, boys! Now you’ve given FOX and ‘The 700 Club’ material for weeks:

Fortunately, the majority of the massive protest marches have been peaceful and even witty — I leave you with my two favourite examples of civil disobediance snark:

 

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.

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