Buttfeed

NEW YORK CITY, U.S.A. — I was 19 and had been living in New York for a little over a year. It was technically my second Halloween in the city but since the first Halloween had been right after 9/11, this might as well have been my first Halloween. I was too self conscious to really dress up too crazy; I needed a costume but I still really wanted to look cute and fuckable. I ended up settling on wearing some sort of military jacket and a yarmulke that I had lying around from some bar mitzvah I had attended years ago. I added some swastikas to the jacket and said I was a Jewish Nazi. I'm still not sure why anything about this outfit made sense to me at the time. I mean, I'm not even Jewish. Probably I felt comfortable with the look because it made me look cute in a generic enough way that I could imagine a wide range of men finding me attractive and unthreatening. Also, there's something pathetic enough about the costume that it was just maybe adorable.

NEW YORK CITY, U.S.A. — If you were at The Cock in New York two years ago on Halloween, and you got blown by a hairy ghost in a jockstrap, that was me. I knew I wanted to be a ghost for Halloween for many years, but never really got up the nerve to do it. It's so basic, a simple child's costume, created with a sheet and two holes cut out for eyes. I figured people would think it was lame. But they didn't. I got appreciative laughs all up and down the street on my way to the bar. It was cold outside so I wore black long johns over a jock strap. Once I got inside and felt more comfortable, the long johns came off. And I guess the exhibitionist in me came out. I became a ghost whore.

Being longtime connoisseurs of classic gay porn, BUTT was thrilled when the Ace Hotel approached us to curate a program of gay porn for their adult on-demand service at the Ace Hotel in New York and Palm Springs. In order to create the ideal jerk off experience for the cultured and horny guest, BUTT selected sixteen films that present a historic timeline of the best that gay porn has to offer with an emphasis on our personal obsessions. The films will launch as part of the Ace’s video-on-demand system on 1 November 2009.

Exciting news for all West Coasters (and those visiting): BUTT will be co-hosting a gay pride weekend — Friday, November 6th through Sunday November 8th — at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, California. The always innovative homosexuals from the Ace Hotel invited BUTT to curate the selection of gay porn available on their in-house adult video-on-demand service. The list will include some great classics including Al Parker's Inches, Bruce LaBruce's Skin Gang, and our all-time favorite The Pizza Boy: He Delivers. We'll be unveiling the complete lineup that weekend and holding special screenings. FUN.

A wonderfully hairy back at the Missouri Gay Rodeo at Wyandotte Country Fairgrounds, Kansas City in Kansas.

In BUTT 26, über-collector Vince Aletti confided that he was a great fan of vintage AMG images. The Athletic Model Guild was a studio founded by photographer and pornography pioneer Bob Mizer in Los Angeles. Since its launch in 1945 Mizer (who died in 1992) photographed thousands of handsome men, preferably with huge cocks, first in black and white, later in full-on technicolor, often with hilariously camp studio backdrops.

Ask any gay man in New York who their favorite drag queen is. If they say 'Linda Simpson', consider them someone you should get to know. Linda, for the uninitiated, is the ultimate hostess: a drag queen with no specific gimmick to speak of except for charm, wit, and a fondness for corny jokes. 'There are a few other queens like me,' says Linda, 'but most are more talented.' In the late '80s, Linda (the alter-ego of Les Simpson) began publishing the queer zine My Comrade, a campy chronicle of the East Village drag scene where she found a home. Linda has created many hit parties over the years like 'Slurp' at the Cock and now 'Bingo-Ski', at the Ukranian National Home, a monthly bingo salute to Soviet Russia. Linda also has some fun experiences getting frisky with tranny chasers, which she was compelled (by us) to share.

We recently came across a site called BRIEF Magazine and we just can't help loving it. All it really is is a site full of fairly random images, all pilfered from the www, more often than not of men wearing briefs or less. And every time you hit the 'refresh' button, plop!, the site changes to a new selection of amazing images. (Its tagline is: "Keep refreshing...it's all new every time!") The man who came up with this super simple idea was the talented Topher Sinkinson of Portland, Oregon. For BUTT we asked him to make a selection of some of his current favorites. Below is what he came up with, complete with some rather cryptic captions.

I arrived in Provincetown on a Friday night last month and was trying to find the perfect way to ease into a long weekend. My friend Joe recommended I go over to Enzo's, a small little bar on the lower level of a piano bar on Commercial Street, and check out Billy Hough. Billy's show is called Scream Along with Billy, and the premise is pretty simple - Billy interprets the songs from a classic album each week while wearing a Warholian fright wig, accompanied by musician Sue Goldberg. During the bridges of songs Billy delivers sneering, angry monologues about his chaotic past in a style that calls to mind both Patti Smith and Justin Bond. The night I arrived he was already halfway through with Tina Turner's Private Dancer. He went into a whole monologue about Tina's survival which he somehow related back to himself, and it all sort of made sense in a drunken kind of way. I felt like a local on my first night. Billy's album 'Scream Along With Billy' comes out this week, so I emailed him for a virtual chat.

When I think about what I miss most after moving 2000 miles away from NYC, my friend Daniel's face always pops into my mind. Daniel is one half of MKNG FRNDZ (with Tami Hart), the dance trash party band from Brooklyn. He's just so cute with his bow tie and sweaty bangs and 'stache. On Friday he swept through the Bay Area for about 24 hours when MKNG FRNDZ played Homo A Go Go and I was able to catch up with him in a bathroom stall where he showed me his Golden Girls tattoo and made me touch his hernia.

Artist Terence Koh and his longterm boyfriend Garrick Gott, a very talented graphic designer, were married last week in one of those private ceremonies 'for a handful of their closest friends' that are usually reserved for folks like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Koh wore his mother's wedding dress, to which he'd added 30 feet of tulle, flying in the face of the custom that the bride must be virginal to wear white.

Many, many portraits of handsome Javier from Córdoba, Spain, taken by his American girlfriend Gabrielle Mangeri who is clearly enthralled by his good looks.

A stunning pair of knockers

Sad to hear that Merce Cunningham, one of the greatest and most influential choreographers in the world, passed away last night in his sleep. He was 90 years old. Cunningham was one of the people we most wanted to interview for BUTT. Unfortunately we couldn't make it happen quickly enough. If you're in New York, the Cunningham Dance Foundation and Merce Cunningham Dance Company will receive visitors in the Merce Cunningham Studio from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Meet Eugenio, a cute artist from Rio de Janerio, and his dog Mambo. In an homage to Andy Warhol's piss paintings, Eugenio has trained Mambo to piss on copper-painted canvases every time he said 'ANDY!' For three months, Mambo's 'studio' was the backyard of Eugenio's house, in which he created three piss paintings a day - one each time Eugenio took him out for a walk. Warhol's original piss paintings were inspired by sex clubs and gay bath houses (including The Toilet, an old New York club with tubs and troughs for guys to lie in and get pissed on). Warhol's paintings go for millions and millions of dollars, while Eugenio and Mambo's paintings are available for €400 a piece. Above is a side by side comparison of Warhol's and Mambo's work. Which do you prefer?

Michael Stabile works in the gay porn industry and blogs about it on his popular website GayPornBlog. Lately, he's been exploring his artistic side by taking 'surreal' Jeff Burton-esque behind-the-scenes photos with his iPhone. He likes the way the iPhone renders images flat with a soft-focus glow, describing it as something akin to the aesthetic of early Penthouse magazine. In the photo above Diesel Washington demonstrates a sexual position he invented for a shoot where he poured Grey Goose vodka into Tristan Matthew's ass and did shots. He called it 'The Chalice.'

PORTLAND, OREGON — I spent the last night of my Portland getaway at a certain trendy hotel on the city’s former gay strip, which used to house a leather bar, a strip club, and a bath-house. They’ve all moved to various locations around the city, leaving only a few gay bars behind. Some say development pushed them away, but others argue that spreading the gayness around is more progressive than forcing it all into one area. Either way, thank god that the gay strip club moved instead of ceasing to exist because it’s still as fun and trashy as ever. A group of friends gathered there to watch the 'gay' dancers shake their dicks for a few bucks. We drank a lot and, naturally, invited hotties back to the hotel room for an after-party.

Justin Case (left) and Open Mike (right) have been deejaying and promoting their club night, Pet Shop Bears, since February 2007. Situated in the Kantine of the Berghain, the former power plant in Friedrichshain and reincarnation of the legendary club Ostgut, the Pet Shop Bears have been steadfastly promoting one of the finest gay dance parties in Europe—minus all the hype and hubbub that tends to spoil most popular nights.

I’ve been watching vintage gay porn for the past two weeks as research for a project BUTT is involved in that’ll be announced in the fall. One of my main sources when getting ideas for porno films to watch is the blog BJ Land, run by a jockstrap-sniffing porno-phile who lives in the East Village in New York and whose name is definitely not BJ.

For years, Justin Bond has been known to fans all over the world as the bitter, boozy lounge singer Kiki, the riotously funny character he played as one half of the legendary duo Kiki and Herb. In the time between Justin was first interviewed for BUTT Issue #15 he played Carnegie Hall twice, was nominated for a Tony Award for Kiki and Herb: Alive on Broadway, and then had a split-up with performing partner Kenny Mellman (Herb), which gave him the opportunity to go solo. Now Justin has a 5-song EP titled Pink Slip coming out on July 22nd, so we invited him to come by the BUTT office in New York to have a full-on discussion about his new work, Michael Jackson, the possibility of a Pantychrist reunion tour, and no sex questions, for a change. It was a treat speaking with him, as always.