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The 67th issue of pioneering true-sex-story zine Straight-To-Hell was released with a big bash in the States last month, and now editor Billy Miller is throwing another launch party in Berlin this Saturday night, July 31st from 7—10PM at the Exile Gallery. This latest issue of STH is filled with well-written tales of secret sex around the globe, including cum-filled stories from Egypt, Sudan, Brazil, Spain, and an especially hot tale of mutual masturbation between two big-dicked Cuban men who meet and get off on a crowded plane. There's no shortage of tales about secret American affairs either, but the international feel of this issue is a welcome change. Also at the Berlin launch party: a variety of titillating sex videos from Latino Fan Club's Brian Brennan, AMG, Old Reliable, Slava Mogutin, and Stuart Sandford — all curated by Billy Miller himself.

We were very saddened to hear today of the passing of Will Munro, who was interviewed by Billy Miller in BUTT #24 in 2008. Will, who suffered from cancer, was only 35 years old.

Cruising around the L.A. Art Book Fair to see who's tabling what this year, I discover so many gems — many from some of BUTT's beloved contributors past, present, future.

This creepy YouTube clip depicting mommy's little invasion of privacy is just one of a mishmash of post-post-gay clips to be shown at 'Caught in the Act,' an evening of video screenings curated by contributor Stuart Comer as part of the Fringe Film Fest in London this weekend. Readers will recall the program he created for BUTT at Tate Modern back in 2006.

Last March, the small Parisian gallery 12 Mail devoted itself to a retrospective of one of my favorite publications: Didier Lestrade’s pioneering gay zine Magazine. The walls were collaged with the incredibly influential homoerotic photography and drawings featured in Magazine throughout the course of its seven-year run from 1980 through 1987, as well as framed portraits of legendary interview subjects such as Sylvester, Jimmy Somerville, Divine, Edmund White, Erté, and Tom of Finland. With the younger generation’s interest reignited, Didier has now begun uploading the entire Magazine archive to his website, as a gift to both the fans and the Tumblr crowd, who he hopes will go crazy grabbing pictures and articles for their own sites. After many years working as an outspoken AIDS activist, founding and leading the first French chapter of ACT UP, and co-founding Têtu, Lestrade moved to the French countryside, where he’s busy writing for minorites.org and working on his next book. We spoke by phone last week.

BUTT wanted to do something very special as an alternative to the regular Gay Pride festivities in New York, so on June 19th, 2009 at The Knitting Factory in New York City, we threw BANG!, a pre-gay pride concert, featuring three amazing new acts featured in BUTT: goth-juke band Salem from Chicago, garage punk band Hunx and his Punx from San Francisco, and New Orleans bounce rappers Sissy Nobby and Big Freedia. Zachary Araki of Patent Leather Daddy DJ'd in between sets.

Opening band Hunx and his Punx warmed up the crowd with a short set singing their signature sugary queerpunk tunes. Lead singer Seth Bogart hopped out into the crowd to grope his eager fans. Next up were Salem with their unique brand of super dark and and moody Dilaudid-juke music, which they played under a disturbing collection of home video footage. But the crowd really went from zero to sixty when Sissy and Freedia came out to unleash their ass shaking movies and powerful beats. Despite a few early technical difficulties, the ladies won the crowd over in a matter of seconds, and showed an audience of people who had no idea who the ladies were or what was coming why this ass-shaking duo were the perfect pair to headline our first ever concert event. Billy Miller and Slava Mogutin shot great footage of their performances (click here and here), including the moment when random audience members were brought onstage to shake their butts for the crowd. We also had photographer Miguel Villalobos backstage, Mark Tusk in the audience, and Althea Smith taking crowd photos against an airbrushed backdrop in the bar area.

Thomas Engel Hart is a men’s fashion designer with blond hair who seems to have a special interest in traditional men’s wear: trench coats, boyish high school shirts, uniforms, military pants and such, and his clothes always have a modern twist without being funny. This summer, some days after he presented his Spring/Summer 2004 collection, we met at the Parisian living-roomish restaurant Georget to talk about clothes, husky men, teenage depression and ex-lovers. Thomas has this incredibly juicy American accent, and he has a howling ‘r’ even when he speaks French.