On the 55th anniversary of the NYC bar riot at which everyone over 75 now claims they threw the first bottle, I thought I would post this piece about the expiration of gay bohemianism in the 1980s. More a series of not terribly well-integrated notes than essay, it was originally… Read More »1989: The Year the C20th & Gay Bohemianism Ended
Mark Simpson gets mixed messages on the High Street (Another ‘lost’ Attitude column – this one from 1999) It was one of those indecently mild winter days. The sort that makes everyone feel a little bit naughty. As if you’re bunking off school or cheating on your partner. Walking… Read More »Cruising the Streets
Mark Simpson tests Essex’s coastal defences against gentrification (The Times Magazine, 2001) Whitstable, Broadstairs, Brighton and most of Suffolk have gone already. Swept away forever under a tsunami of renovation. These once proudly tatty towns have been lost forever to the unsmiling, unfriendly, label-dressed invaders who prey on coastal towns… Read More »Fight Them On The Beaches
by Steven Zeeland I wouldn’t normally do this kind of thing, but Mark Simpson made me. Write a preface, that is – for the following journalistic essay “Killer Queen” on “gay spree killer” and “Versace assassin” Andrew Cunanan, my erstwhile love rival who once offered to kill me. It was… Read More »Killer Queen: Andrew Cunanan, My Love Rival
The famously homoerotic ’80s fly-boy flick used to be totally no-homo (Originally published in the Daily Telegraph May 12, 2016) Thirty years ago today, the stars of Top Gun were taxiing the red carpet at the premiere in New York. The film, which features Tom Cruise’s ‘Maverick’ and Val Kilmer’s ‘Iceman’ competing… Read More »How Did Top Gun Get So Gay?