‘When Memory Fades’
By Nathaniel Chin, MD
c.2026, St. Martin’s Essentials
$30/422 pages

Mom called you in a panic the other day.

She’d lost her keys and by the time you arrived to help, she’d found them. In the refrigerator.

These kinds of things keep happening, not often but often enough, and you don’t know quite what to worry about. But in the new book “When Memory Fades” by Nathaniel Chin, MD, you’ll learn about the journey ahead, for both of you.

You can’t remember why you walked into a room. You got lost last week, going to the bank. Popular wisdom says that things like that are normal as we age, but Chin says that’s not true – although the answer may not be a worst-case scenario, either. Yes, memory problems could just be signs of stress, dehydration, or lack of sleep – or is it time to see a doctor?

Chin says maybe, yes.

He was working his way through medical residency when his father, a geriatrician in Madison, Wisc., was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Chin, now a geriatrician, was blindsided, but that diagnosis also changed his life.

Here, he writes about the brain, and how Alzheimer’s and dementia are diagnosed, explaining that dementia has many faces and, depending on a doctor’s evaluation, memory problems might be slowed or improved. He shares his father’s illness with readers, but he also writes about his mother, a steadfast, steady caretaker.

Her story reminds reader-guardians to care for themselves, too.

Know how to talk the talk, so that you can have “a more productive” conversation with your doctor. Understand that there’s nothing “normal” about dementia or Alzheimer’s. Know the statistics – African Americans are affected with dementia twice as much as whites – and know how to lower your risks. Learn here what questions to ask, how to break the news to everyone, and any legal matters that will be important soon. And know how to tend to you.

Says Chin, “The best action you can take is to educate yourself… The more you understand, the better equipped you are to make sound judgments.”

Something’s off about Dad, just a lot of little things that don’t add up. When is it time to step in? “When Memory Fades” can help you decide.

Wise, wide-spread, comprehensive, and compassionately helpful, this is a book you can read and then take it to the doctor with your loved one. It’s a book that makes sense when nothing else does, and its biggest feature is that it smoothly transitions from easy-to-grasp science and charts, to gentle coaching for caregivers. Author Nathaniel Chin, MD writes with storytelling, humility, grace, and experience from both sides of the Alzheimer’s/dementia issue, and his words are reassuring but also urgent. Learn, but don’t wait, he says. Know how to safeguard yourself. See your doctor, and don’t fear testing. Watch for signs of depression. And never, ever stop asking for help.

Read those last seven words, and find “When Memory Fades” now. It’s a book to have on your shelf, whether you’re 45 or 95 because, as you’ll see, dementia happens and knowledge is key.

‘Qtopia: A Memoir of Love, Land and Liberation’
2026, University of Wisconsin Press
By Juda Bennett

Duffel packed, the new high school graduate could not fall asleep. “On the night before my departure, I stared at the duffel bag as if it were a body bag. We lived close to Dover, where the dead from Vietnam were shipped.” 

It is 1971, and Charles was leaving home to join a hippie commune in rural Virginia. “I kept imagining bodies fitting into the bag and popping out in the middle of the night,” Juda Bennett writes in his memoir, “Qtopia: A Memoir of Love, Land and Liberation.” During Bennett’s high school years from 1968-1971 some 35,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in the Vietnam War, the vast majority processed at Dover Air Force Base. 

Young Bennett was clueless about what lay ahead but he had a commune’s brochure in his pocket, certain his destiny was not in the military. “My father was a walking recruitment center, and my mother could have worked for the USO. Uncle Sam and the Andrews Sisters had nothing on them.” Inspired to find his way out of suburban Wilmington, Del., he boarded a Greyhound bus to Lexington, Va., and communes yet unknown. “Qtopia” is a serious, sexy and joyous memoir about a young man who knows he’s different in search of chosen family and, over coming decades, his own queer Utopia.

“We are leaving; you don’t need us,” was the popular refrain in the day from the Crosby, Stills & Nash song “Wooden Ships.” Communards like young Charles (going by the moniker C.B. with a full beard covering his handsome, androgynous features) were living it. How far this is from urban queer stories of the ‘70s. For this reason alone, it is marvelous reading about hot naked hippies farming together in the country, living and loving in secluded teepees when everything seemed possible. Novels like “Drop City” by T.C. Boyle (2003) and “Arcadia” (2012) by Lauren Groff set in hippie communes had no gay characters, only free-love for straights. When C.B.’s parents arrive to visit his back-to-the-land commune North Mountain bearing gifts like the orange powder Tang and Frosted Flakes, he “maintained” as the saying went.  “It was a great time for visitors to see how hard we had worked—fields of sorghum swaying in the breeze, acres of vegetables in neat rows with beans, tomatoes and peppers hanging down….I was still thin as a matchstick, but I was a strong and muscular matchstick,” he tells the story of his development. By contrast, he had considered suicide before leaving home; this memoir fills in the pain, too.

There are times when C.B.’s voice as a teen communard with a secret is so authentic and rich, it is like reading fictional stories of American innocents on journeys of their own like J.D. Salinger’s character Holden Caulfield or Demon Copperhead from rural Virginia by Barbara Kingsolver. He tells us there was this guy Mark at North Mountain who had been pressuring him to sleep on the mattress next to his. C.B. was known as the only gay at North Mountain. One of the hippie women warned him Mark is “a square, the biggest downer.” Stepping out of the memoir, C.B. directly addresses the reader about the Mark issue, “I don’t want to write about Mark anymore because he’s not important to my story, and I didn’t even like him.” Got it. Hitchhiking with C.B. is like that, too.

“I got my best ride of the whole hike from a truck driver named TJ….If an eighteen wheeler…is willing to stop for you, it is because the driver wants something from you…I will forever remember this trucker as the most beautiful man I could have had sex with if I weren’t so innocent.”

North Mountain required the hippies work one week a month in Richmond to earn cash for the commune. For C.B., this translated into seven communards living in one small apartment on this cultish mission. It was in a Richmond park where he meets a stranger who would sexually abuse him over a month until C.B. ends it. Furious, the man threatens to shut down the commune if he does not obey. In a state of panic, C.B. attempts suicide by overdosing on every pill he can get his hands on. The memoir takes the reader through the author’s horror by deepening the shadows. What was the specific nature of the abuse?  How did this stranger have credible power to threaten the commune? Entitled “What It’s Like to Die,” the chapter is a skillfully told, expressionistic turning point from an innocent’s hell to salvation at the intentional queer Lavender Hill commune in Central New York. C.B. desperately needed to “find my people.” 

He’s a resilient young man after living in three communes by the time he hit San Francisco. His two gay neighbors on Ashbury Street—Crow and Moonsnake—pressure him to get a new “hippie name.” Walking home from Golden Gate Park he zeroes in on a passing streetcar, “North Judah.” Goodbye “Charles,” Judah will be his new hippie name. Crow and Moonsnake, approve: “If that’s what the Universe called out to you.” If you remember the Sixties…

 “Too often,” Bennett writes, “we think of dropouts as withdrawing from life, but in truth, I think they are in a heightened state of seeking their rightful path and purpose. Nothing stays the same.” Juda Bennett remains a believer to this day, “Always putting my faith in my journey to Utopia”.

(Charles Francis is president of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., and author of “Archive Activism:  Memoir of a ‘Uniquely Nasty’ Journey.”)

Greg Araki may not have been solely responsible for the “New Queer Cinema” movement of the 1990s, but he certainly gave it an edge.

From early low-budget groundbreakers like “The Living End” (1992) through his “Teen Apocalypse Trilogy” (1993-97) and beyond, his films have subverted cinematic tropes with queer characters and themes and co-opted them into his own unique brand of filmic storytelling — extreme, campy, and transgressive – in which his queer characters were usually framed as sexual outlaws, flawed and anti-heroic outsiders who disregard not only sexual conventions, but often the law and the social order itself.

In subsequent decades, he’s continued to bring that same fiercely counter-cultural swagger to a surprisingly diverse array of projects, from the melancholy and critically acclaimed “Mysterious Skin” (2004) to the first-ever Cannes Queer Palm winner “Kaboom” (2010). And though it’s been 12 years since his last feature film release (“White Bird in a Blizzard”), he’s brought his twisted talents under the radar to helm episodes of popular TV shows like “13 Reasons Why,” “Riverdale,” and “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”

Now, he’s back to the big screen with “I Want Your Sex,” a new erotic comedy-thriller that proves he hasn’t lost that edge. In fact, he may have honed it to a sharpness that cuts deeper than ever — and he’s aimed it not only at the moralistic posturing of mainstream attitudes around carnality, but at the thinly veiled high end consumerism that drives the world of avant-garde art.

Structured with a nod to “Sunset Boulevard” – it begins with a shocking “face down in a swimming pool” moment that is then explained in flashback – and flavored with the kind of sexual anarchy that rarely manages to penetrate the cultural mainstream, it’s the quintessentially “L.A.” story of Elliot (Cooper Hoffman), a perennially down on his luck 23-year-old would-be podcaster who manages to land a job as an assistant to multi-media artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), known as much for her domineering personality as for her highly sexualized (and deliberately provocative) work. At first, he is just one of a small army of fellow assistants tasked with helping prepare for an exhibition of new work at her gallery, which ranges from writing emails and scheduling interviews to chewing gum for a conceptual artwork depicting her vagina; but something about him catches her eye, and he soon finds himself taking on the additional duty of being her sexual plaything. 

It’s strictly a business arrangement, of course, and all under cover of an NDA he signed before ever being hired; she needs the sexual outlet to keep her focused on her work, and he – thanks to his unsatisfying relationship with disinterested girlfriend Minerva (Charlie XCX) and his desire to finally pay his share of rent for the apartment he shares with BFF Apple (Chase Sui Wonders) – is happy to be of service. At first, it all feels like a dream come true, as he crosses his own boundaries to become enmeshed in a Dom/sub dynamic with an older woman on whom he’s long had a crush; she’s the Dom, of course, and he soon discovers he has more than just a mild taste for being submissive. But as things progress, he begins to “catch” the feelings he was never allowed to have, while Erika’s manipulation and humiliation of him starts to cross lines that threaten to undermine his tenuous sexual liberation, simultaneously eroding the comfortable relationships that have kept him feeling grounded, if perennially dIsappointed, up until now. Needless to say, things get progressively twisted, and Elliott finds himself ever more haplessly  exploited as the story winds back to that “swimming pool moment” with all the inevitability of a train wreck experienced in irresistibly delicious slow motion.

Yes, it’s all deliberately “shocking” in the sense that it takes us places – both sexually and psychosexually – that a lot of audiences might never have thought they’d be expected to go. There’s plenty of nudity, the kinky sex is “explicit” in the sense that we have no doubt about the physical logistics of what’s happening even if we don’t see it, and the overall sense of “ethics” is pretty much “who cares?” In today’s world of “purity politics,” that might actually be the most transgressive thing of all about Araki’s film.

It’s not all just thumb to the nose at 21^st century morality, however; nor is it merely a chance to undermine our faith in concepts like “consent” or suggest that inappropriate sexual dynamics in the workplace are anything other than toxic. Erika is most definitely a kind of beautiful monster – all the more because her angle, from the beginning, is all about increasing the value of her “brand” – but to frame her as a villain is missing a crucial point in what is essentially, despite its coy pretense at being a thriller, a coming-of-age story wrapped in a dark and de-romanticized rom-com.

Central to Araki’s story is the oft-cited observation that Gen Z people, having come of age in a time of social isolation in which private indiscretion can frequently lead to public shame, are afraid of sex. Elliot himself discusses this generational trope, yet he exposes himself to betrayal and humiliation anyway – and while that choice may take him down a rocky road, it also takes him on the journey of sexual self-discovery that he’s always wanted to have. Erika facilitates this, however unethically she may go about it, and even makes some discoveries about herself along the way; and despite the fact the journey ends up with police interrogations, tabloid scandal, and reversals of fortune not even she can see coming, the sex itself is never really to blame. After all, it’s only sex.

Maybe that’s the main point of “I Want Your Sex,” if there is one: all the stigma, all the prudish judgments and standards of moral “decency” become absurd in the face of the act itself, which – for most humans, at least – only comes naturally and, when stripped of unnecessary shame, can be a joyful experience, no matter how “kinky” it gets.

In fact, it’s not so much the sexual “deviance” or betrayals that Araki positions as the driving force in his movie, but the pretensions of a commercialized art world in which notoriety, controversy, and even tragedy can boost fame and fortune overnight – something that savvy artists, like Erika (and perhaps Araki himself) understand and exploit without qualm. One can make judgments about that, too, but in the end, isn’t that just part of how capitalism works?

In any case, “I Want Your Sex” doesn’t make judgments about any of it, just observations – with wit, slyness, and a refreshingly sex-positive attitude. Wilde and Hoffman deliver superb performances, as does the entire cast – which, apart from others previously mentioned, includes Mason Gooding as Elliot’s super-gay co-worker, Daveed Diggs as Erika’s haughty business manager, and Margaret Cho and Johnny Knoxville in admirably deadpan roles as a pair of police detectives. Shrewd, sexy, and all in good fun, it might well be the most fun you’ll have at the movies this summer.

Fans were shocked to witness former celebrity blogger Mario Lavandeira a.k.a. Perez Hilton’s epic crashout on social media. While on TikTok Live, he was harming himself with what appears to be a metal chef-grade spreader. There was blood, gore, and a cry for help that broke the internet. 

Police from Miami-Dade County were called to the scene; he has been hospitalized. The fact that this traumatic incident was broadcast on TikTok brought up the topic of moderation. Hilton’s account has since been banned from TikTok, but by now the cat is out of the bag, and the clip is circulating online. 

It’s hard not to reflect on how Hilton both represents a major turning point in Internet culture, and this incident may be a warning of its potential end. A statement on his blog from his representatives confirms that his family was on the scene minutes before the incident but quickly fled to protect his children and niece from any future trauma. 

Hilton’s agent, Dante Rusciolelli, told Us Weekly in a statement. “Our focus remains on Perez’s health, recovery, and the privacy of both him and his family during this incredibly difficult time…We respectfully ask that everyone continue to honor his privacy while he receives the care he needs.”

A recurring theme on social media is that Hilton, at the height of his fame and media reach, would not respect the privacy of any celebrity. After all, he was one of the regular outlets covering Britney Spears’s famous shaved-head meltdown and part of the “Leave Britney Alone” mythos. 

A Bit of Background

Before Hilton, there were celebrities famous for being famous like Angelyne and Paris Hilton. However, some may say he was the first to monetize it. From his laptop at a coffee shop, he galvanized the Internet by skewering celebrities. 

Nothing was off limits. He outed celebrities like Neil Patrick Harris, Clay Aiken, and Lance Bass. He spoiled the finale of season 3 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and he posted celebrity nudes, including up-skirt photos of teen starlets like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan, the same young women he also cyber-bullied.

Times have changed, and despite his many attempts to rehab his image, including having children, publicly apologizing, and even finding God, nothing brought him back to the public eye. He was recently hospitalized for sepsis and claims to have reflected on his behavior in the past. 

This incident really shines a light on the intersection of mental health and fame in this country. In a post-Kardashian world, being a celebrity is not about talent or professional accolades. It has become about how you can increase your follower count. Whether it is stretching out Marilyn Monroe’s dress, becoming a black Nazi like Kanye West, or even becoming President, it’s about how you can shock, awe, and find your base. 

Los Angeles is a city that lives and dies by television and movies, but social media has shifted how this business works. People are cast from large social media followings. People who do manage to build a following face some of the darker aspects of fame. Whether it’s Chappell Roan’s beef with paparazzi and fans, or Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie having to ask for privacy and respect for their humanity, even if you reach the level of fame, it’s not all roses. 

Add to this the fact that this is all tied to social media. Your fame is quantified by the number of followers, likes, and page views, while people are found in a negative feedback loop of dopamine addiction, clout chasing, and pushing themselves further to find more followers. 

On August 1, Floridian influencer Whitney Lynn was thrown off a flight claiming spiritual warfare when she was disrupting the flight by proselytizing. Was she doing this for social media follows? The Internet is now rampant with people causing scenes in planes, staging pranks and scenarios, and violating people’s privacy all in the pursuit of attention. 

Hopefully Hilton finds the help he needs. This entire incident has called into question the entirety of internet culture. Who is responsible for the trauma that people inflict on other people? At what point do we intercede in Internet use before people have no other recourse but to harm themselves on live? And at what point does the toxic energy we put onto the net bounce back to us? 

Similar to Hilton, Wendy Williams faced her own crisis, and maybe she put it best: “I would ask you to respect our privacy, but please, I don’t respect people’s privacy; that’s why I do the Hot Topics. So turnabout is fair game.”

If you know anyone struggling with self-harm, text CONNECT to 741741 for free confidential support or dial 988 for the suicide and crisis helpline.

Eliot Glazer is a self-proclaimed ‘very bad gay guy.’ It’s a title the man wears with pride; he got his start writing for hit shows like The Boys and New Girl, imbuing every series with the dry, constantly dark humor that has come to define him as a creator. It’s a style of comedy that he carried into his career as a comedian, with the past few years seeing Glazer alternate between writing on hit shows and making audiences laugh through his stand-up. He uses each platform to hilariously describe his many mistakes, commenting on the chaotic gay community while emphasizing how bad he is at fitting in with the rest of his homosexual species. 

While his many fans have heard Glazer speak about this, these observations are often packaged through TV writing or punchlines, rarely getting to the heart of what it means to feel like you’re bad at being yourself. His audience has never gotten the chance to know the moments that forged Eliot as a ‘bad gay’ and what he truly means with this label — until now. 

In his new book, The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay, Eliot Glazer writes a collection of essays that show a side audiences have never seen before. In his own words, it is “a documentation of gay failures” and a “catalog of wrongs and misses,” a vulnerable exposé on the artist that audiences have loved for years. He humorously describes the lessons that built him and the moments that left him feeling distanced from his own community. And, throughout all the laughs (and occasional tears), Glazer makes readers question if maybe they’re a ‘bad gay’ too — and would that really be such a bad thing?

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“[Comedy] is the only language that I speak,” laughed Glazer, as he discussed what made him pursue a career in the genre. “Clearly it’s a defense mechanism…but I also feel like it’s the only way I can communicate with other people.” And he certainly does communicate; each of the book’s essays provides an almost too-relatable anecdote from the man’s life. Whether it’s almost getting outed by a ruthless high school drama teacher or dealing with ‘demon twinks’ on Fire Island, Eliot’s exploits will resonate with most gay men who grew up in the closet and have dabbled in their city’s local nightlife. 

Yet while funny, readers may be shocked at the amount of vulnerability that Glazer offers within each page. Readers quickly learn that his self-prescribed status as a ‘bad gay’ comes from a lack of easy connection with the other gay men around him. Living in larger cities means that he is constantly thrust into loud parties, drug-fueled exchanges, and otherwise boisterous outings that those around him seem to love. He emphasizes that he in no way judges that lifestyle, but that he’s never felt at ease in these bombastic settings, causing the anxiety in these essays…as well as some of the funniest jokes. Because, as Glazer explains, “I just kind of have to find a way to joke about it to keep it from being more uncomfortable than it might already be…it’s just a way to survive.”

In the humor, Glazer offers an uncomfortably relatable image of queer anxiety. He recounts moments most would try to forget, like one heartbreaking scene where of being so nervous about being judged at a party that he suffers a panic attack and never even goes in, leaving before anyone even has the chance to judge him. Eliot expressed how uncomfortable it was to transcribe moments like this — a far cry from his usual comedic writing — but knew that it was because they were so uncomfortable that he had to include them in his book. 

“The more vulnerable you are, the more you connect to people, the more they relate to you,” he said. “I like the idea of reaching other queer people and gay men who don’t necessarily feel the opportunity to share that sense of social anxiety or whatever feelings might bring shame to them, because I do feel like we as a community self-impose a level of pressure that I’m just yearning to break through.”

It’s an unfortunate truth of many gay circles; in the age of social media, countless groups in society have become fixated on appearing perfect, with many gay men desperately evading any chance of appearing ‘cringe’ to their judgmental peers. This is not everyone, of course, but it’s an issue pervasive enough that countless men just like Glazer feel uncomfortable being their genuine selves in gay spaces, not even finding the freedom of authenticity within their own community.

Glazer has faced this issue all his life, but through each essay of The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay, readers watch as the man comes to love himself beyond some pre-set image he’s been told to fit into. It’s a realization that only came from years of self-work, time that Eliot hopes to spare readers by being so vulnerable and inviting them into his own journey through his writing. 

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Eliot lives in Los Angeles and is actually hosting a discussion of the book at BookSoup — moderated by renowned Drag Queen and LA local, Trixie Mattel —on Tuesday, August 11th. He raved about how excited he was, and how he hopes this event will help connect him with anyone else who thinks they’re a ‘bad gay,’ saying, “I want other people to feel the comfort to acknowledge what makes them feel awkward or weird in the world…I do really hope, very selfishly, that I can meet other people who need to express and have catharsis in just also being like me too, me too.”

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And that is the core message of The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Gay: there is no wrong way to be queer. Eliot Glazer invites you to laugh at his many fumbles while reminding you that if you connect with him, that doesn’t mean you’re wrong! Rather, it means you’re not alone. And that for however isolated you may ever feel in the queer community, there are always people like Eliot out there, ready to relate to all of your mishaps and show you you’re not a ‘bad gay’ — you’re just a different kind of queer.

For his second book, local author Rasheed Newson showcases LA queer history, steamy cruising spots of yesteryear, and what it meant to be gay and Black during the golden age of Hollywood.

After a lifelong love of old Hollywood and two decades working in the entertainment industry, “There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood” is a story Newson always wanted to tell. Newson’s writing work includes shows like “Lie to Me,” “Narcos,” “Bel-Air,” and others.

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Following the fictional life of backlot fixer Aaron Toissant, Newson’s most recent novel showcases the glimmering facade of what it means to be successful in Hollywood during this time. 

The novel’s journey follows Toissant’s life and eventual investigation into the suspicious death of fictional closeted Black actor Xavier C. Barlow. The narrative of their intertwining lives is told through Toissant, where he chronicles their journey for the ONE Archives in Los Angeles. 

The novel is set during a pivotal time for the LGBTQ+ rights movement, years before the Stonewall riots and marriage equality, and under the Hays Code era of Hollywood.

The Hays Code governed the U.S. film industry from 1934 to 1968 with a list of restricted topics movies couldn’t include in their subject matter, leading to censorship. During the same time, the Cold War’s Red Scare also contributed to blacklisting and censorship.

These strict guidelines were made after a wave of conservative religious critics threatened to boycott films and values they claimed were “immoral,” according to the 1995 documentary “The Celluloid Closet,” which critiques 100 years of LGBTQ+ depictions in film.

The guidelines were made by a federal motion picture commission, and the code was named after the Republican political operative who helped shape it, Will H. Hays, according to the encyclopedia site Britannica.

A list of things prohibited, according to the film, includes: profanity, sex perversion, open-mouthed kissing, lustful embraces,  seduction, rape, abortion, white slavery (which included prostitution and sex trafficking), nudity, and obscenity.

The Hays Code plays a part in the novel, where Aaron witnesses Xavier and other closeted actors do subtle changes to make the film queer-coded to those in the know. This becomes a central plot point in the book, leading readers to the dark side of the industry.

During this time period, it was illegal to be gay or participate in gay sexual acts, and many states had legal restrictions on people wearing opposite gender clothing. It was unsafe and career-ruining to be an out gay person during this period.

Homosexuality wasn’t decriminalized in California until 1975, with the passing of AB 489, according to the California State Archives.

The heightened level of danger and secrecy plays out in the novel as studio leaders do whatever it takes to protect their investment and monetary returns.

“Hollywood has done a very good job of convincing everybody that we’re this town where anything goes, and we just want to tell your story,” Newson said. “We are actually a very cautious, rather conservative business.”

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Even today, LGBTQ+ representation and being out in the entertainment space remains an uphill battle. 

LGBTQ+ inclusion in film hit a three-year low in 2025, GLAAD’s annual Where We Are in Film study found. This decrease in LGBTQ+ characters disproportionately affects LGBTQ+ characters of color. “Of the 112 LGBTQ characters recorded, 34 (30%) are characters of color, a decrease from the 36% counted the previous year,” according to the report.

Much of the opulence and Hollywood parties featured in the novel are set in the backdrop of real-life Black and queer Hollywood hotspots like the Dunbar Hotel, the Biltmore, Central Avenue, and the Crown Jewel. 

Newson called Central Avenue the “heart of Black Hollywood in the 50s and 60s.”

Deed restrictions and discriminatory practices — like redlining — prevented Black families from living in or making a life in any other neighborhoods, according to the LA Conservancy website, leading to a prevalent Black arts scene in Central Avenue.

“I loved writing about the Crown Jewel (Cocktail Room) and how Black queers had a hard time sometimes getting into white gay spaces,” Newson said. “Even in gay spaces, racism is still a problem. Your average gay white man may not have been any more racially evolved than your average straight white man.”

“That there was segregation among queers is something we don’t like to talk about; it sort of just doesn’t come up in your average queer history,” he added.

Police targeting and discriminatory practices played a key part in the later portion of the novel.

Newson highlighted common practices of the time, including raids on suspected gay bars — which police called “fairy dusting,” according to Newson — and entrapment practices where undercover police posed as gay men to then arrest gay men they seduce or were propositioned by. 

Black and Latino gay men endured especially harsh treatment from police, and lesbians were also subjected to raids in addition to bogus charges, detentions and beatings during this time, according to Atavist Magazine.

Newson also called out Los Angeles Police Department’s then-chief Bill Parker by name in the novel (via Touissant’s character), highlighting his targeting of gay men during his run as chief from 1950 to 1966.

Newson wrote, “his police force operated like a band of slave catchers. They stalked, entrapped, beat, captured, and sometimes killed their targets. High on their list of enemies were sex perverts — namely, homosexuals.”

Additionally, a pivotal point of the book highlighted the Black Cat Tavern raid in Los Feliz.

Predating the Stonewall riots by two years, the Los Feliz raid took place in 1967 on New Year’s Day and was the site of violent enforcement of anti-homosexuality laws and sentiment during that time. 

The peaceful protest that followed a month after was one of the first forms of LGBTQ+ resistance for gay rights in the nation. The still-standing bar, now called The Black Cat, became California’s first LGBTQ+ historical landmark in October 2023.

“It was sort of fun because it rewards you (the reader) for knowing the history, but it doesn’t punish you for not knowing,” Newson said of the inclusion of the raid.

The novel’s local hotspot highlights don’t stop with historical significance. 

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Filled with a mix of deep, meaningful love connections and steamy one-time hookups, the book also highlights LA’s cruising scene. 

Popular cruising spots during this time that Newson wanted to highlight include: Pershing Square, LAX bathrooms, the Subway Terminal Building, Central Library, the Biltmore Hotel’s men’s bar, and Griffith Park.

Newson’s addition of real-life LGBTQ+ history into his fiction writing is not new. His first book, “My Government Means to Kill Me,” did the same while covering a young Black man coming into his identity during the AIDS epidemic in New York.

He is currently working on his third book, based on a Black gay serial killer in San Francisco during the 1970s. 

“There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood” is available now anywhere books are sold.

Disney had a moment of true magic by reviving X-Men: The Animated Series. It was a miracle for 90s kids, and the throngs of people dying to see the X-Men in media. It’s been so long that by the time the MCU has a new X-Men movie, we may be fighting real-life Sentinels. Regardless, that first season galvanized fans everywhere. 

Led by queer showrunner Beau DeMayo, the series managed to bring a more adult spin to the X-Men universe. It tackled major storylines including Inferno, Genosha, Fatal Attractions, and Operation: Zero Tolerance. It brought back that opening theme song that drove countless Saturday mornings for a generation. The series brought back all of the voice actors of the original series to deliver additional stories featuring villains like Mister Sinister, Bastion, and Madeline Pryor. 

Many people have anxiously awaited the return of the series, but the season has been met with mixed reviews. After the unexpected departure of DeMayo, there were concerns over how the show might end up in others’ hands. So how does this season measure up?

There have been some complaints and issues with the pacing of this series. Even in season one, many of these long multiple-title comic book arcs were resolved in less than 30 minutes. This season has each episode capped at 30 minutes, and while there are a ton of cameos and worldbuilding, there is a question of whether this series sticks the landing. 

This season featured 3 episodes resolving the X-Men’s departure through time after last season’s cliffhanger, with Apocalypse serving as the season’s big bad. There’s been the introduction of teams like X-Factor and X-Force to really place us in the 1990s, Jim Lee era of the X-Men. There have also been allusions to later seasons in a way that was deftly handled in season one. 

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Season 1 managed to zoom through storylines, but it all felt in service to an overall narrative, and it felt like it was under the helm of a true fan of the series. It’s unclear what meddling has happened since DeMayo was ousted, but there are definitely far fewer memeable moments.  

There have been some good bits. The iconic opening sequence was rebranded for X-Force was a welcome surprise. There also was an episode that was pitched as a Wolverine/Weapon X-centered episode but quickly became about queer nonbinary character Morph having to realize he’s in love with the wrong man. There’s even something for the ladies with queer-coded Polaris, returning to the X-Men and getting her own central storyline. She’s also being presented as a potential love interest for bishop. 

A welcome addition to the cast includes Naoko Mori from Absolutely Fabulous, Torchwood, and a recent appearance in The Boys’ final season playing Psylocke. But are there too many characters? So far, there’s been a genocide in Genosha, the death of Gambit and another character this season, and the show is zooming through stories and shifting through characters in a way that feels less in service to the first season. 

So how is the show doing? Some of the mixed fan response could be the fact that X-Men content has been so rare and sparse that fans are precious to have to watch the same characters from the Bryan Singer-verse, which are getting their nachos reheated in Avengers: Doomsday.  

It’s also unclear what might have been changed after DeMayo’s departure. After all, quotes like Deathbird’s line “Earth is so ghetto” live on in social media. It’s great that the show has shifted from focusing on Professor X and Rogue to introduce Polaris, Colossus, and Nightcrawler and give them their own storylines. 

Regardless of how you may feel about the pacing or the shift to different characters, you may be lucky because, given its success, the series is likely to continue. Season 3 is already complete and due out in 2027, and Season 4 has begun pre-production. 

Creative Eric Lewald offers some insight into Marvel Executive Brad Winderbaum’s excitement, saying, “Brad’s bursting up and down and you know he wants to do 10 [seasons], and we want him to do 10. We want eight years from now to be having more conversations like this about season 10. With 60 years of comics and all these characters…there’s really no limit.” 

Time will tell if they deliver a satisfying ending, but here’s hoping that the creative team factor in the feedback and build something that truly delivers what fans have been aching for because one startling difference between the original animated series was the sheer number of episodes and the ability to explore storylines even if they did it in a more kid-friendly way. 

Even if we find the latest season mid, we can at least make peace with the fact that Disney is finally delivering on the X-Universe, which has countless characters and riveting storylines and couldn’t be any more relevant than to today’s political climate.

X-Men ’97 season 2 now streaming on Disney+

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key will be on assignment in the Netherlands through Aug. 10. They will be covering World Pride in Amsterdam.

AMSTERDAM — Madonna and 6,000 of her closest friends celebrated World Pride at Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall early Sunday morning. I was fortunate enough to be one of them.

Madonna last Wednesday nearly broke the internet when she said on social media in Dutch that “I got somethin’ I wanna talk about,” referring to an opening line in “Danceteria,” one of the tracks on her “Confessions II” album that has received rave reviews since its July 2 release. The track has been on near constant replay on my playlist since I first heard it.

👀 pic.twitter.com/TeuHcUzNt9

— Madonna (@Madonna) July 28, 2026

MISTR — a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term care that has organized Madonna’s Club Confessions shows in the U.S. and the U.K. — later confirmed the rampant speculation. I woke up on July 30 to an email in my inbox from MISTR and the World Pride Music Festival PR team that said I was on the press list.

Madonna was indeed going to headline the World Pride Music Festival that Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced, and I was going to be there. OMFG!!!!

The gay icon had one more surprise in store.

The Dutch internet on Saturday once again broke over speculation that Kylie Minogue was going to appear alongside Madonna. I was getting ready to leave our hotel in Amsterdam on Saturday night when I saw a video of the two of them together.

“Madonna is now teasing Kylie Minogue on her social media … she may be one of her ‘special guests’ tonight,” I wrote in a text to Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff at 8:46 p.m.

“Have fun! This is turning into the gayest concert ever,” he responded.

I arrived at AFAS Live shortly before 11 p.m. My press contact walked me and two other Dutch journalists into the venue’s cavernous main room known as the Black Box. We made small talk for a few minutes before I started to walk around and listen to Josh Harrison who was on the decks.

Madonna was scheduled to take the stage at 1:30 a.m., but she is known for being late — she is Madonna and she does what she wants. Hayla, a British singer, and Bebe Rexha are among those who performed ahead of Madonna. Thousands of sweaty men — including a group of Australians next to me who were eagerly awaiting Kylie’s anticipated appearance — packed the Black Box and were dancing, anticipating what was to come.

MISTR CEO Tristan Schukraft at one point came on stage and declared Madonna was indeed in the building. The moment for which we were all eagerly waiting finally came shortly before 2:30 a.m.

“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage.

Stuart Price, who produced her “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album in 2005, manned the decks during Madonna’s set.

She opened it with “I Feel So Free” from “Confessions II.” Madonna then sang “Bring Your Love” and “Danceteria” to which this reporter — and everyone else — sang along.

Madonna then teased a surprise before she began to perform “Love Sensation.” Kylie soon appeared on stage. It was nearly too much for my fellow partygoers from Australia. It was indeed the gayest concert ever!

Madonna and Kylie performed “Love Sensation” together. They then sang “Hung Up” and “Sorry” from “Confessions on a Dance Floor” to round out the set that ended shortly after 3 a.m.

Madonna and I share the same birthday — Aug. 16 — and I would like to think she and Kylie gave me an early birthday present. In all seriousness though, it was an amazing night for me and for everyone else who was fortunate enough to be there.

“On the dance floor I feel so free,” says Madonna in the opening of “I Feel So Free.”

For those few precious hours at AFAS Live I did not think about the Trump-Vance administration and the myriad ways it is destroying the U.S. I did not think about the National Guard troops deployed to D.C. I did not think about the pointless wars that continue to ravage Ukraine and other countries around the world. I simply lost myself on the dance floor and celebrated an icon who has always stood with my community.

Thank you, Madonna.

AMSTERDAM — Madonna on Sunday headlined the final night of the World Pride in Amsterdam

The gay icon took the stage shortly before 2:30 a.m. local time (5:30 p.m. ET on Saturday) during Club Confessions, a set that MISTR, a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term HIV care, organized.

“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage inside Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall that can hold up to 6,000 people.

Stuart Price, who produced Madonna’s 2005 “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album and “Confessions II,” which debuted on July 2, DJed the set.

Kylie Minogue made a surprise appearance. She and Madonna performed a new remix of “Love Sensation” from “Confessions II.”

(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)

“Throughout my career, I’ve always supported efforts to fight HIV and AIDS, and that fight begins with education and access,” said Madonna in a MISTR press release. “With MISTR, (CEO) Tristan (Schukraft) is expanding access to HIV prevention and sexual healthcare for everyone. Through this work, he’s helping preserve and strengthen LGBTQ+ spaces while investing in the communities and culture that have long sustained us.”

Minogue in an Instagram post thanked Madonna, Price, Schukraft, and MISTR.

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Madonna appeared at The Abbey in West Hollywood in April. Madonna in June celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York’s Times Square.

Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced the World Pride Music Festival that also featured Bebe Rexha and Paris Hilton, among others.

“Pride has always been about bringing our community together,” said Resnicow. “At a moment when too many people are being told to hide or make themselves smaller, gathering openly, joyfully, and without apology matters more than ever. I couldn’t be prouder of what this festival brought to life in Amsterdam — one dance floor, completely free.”

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers and Photo Editor Michael Key will be on assignment in the Netherlands through Aug. 10. They will be covering World Pride in Amsterdam.

AMSTERDAM — Madonna on Saturday will perform at World Pride in Amsterdam.

She is scheduled to appear alongside Stuart Price, Honey Dijon, and other “special guests” at the World Pride Music Festival at AFAS Live concert hall. The Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade will take place earlier on Saturday.

MISTR, a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term HIV care, is organizing Madonna’s performance.

Madonna on July 2 released her new album, “Confessions II,” to rave reviews.

She appeared at The Abbey in West Hollywood in April. Madonna in June celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York’s Times Square.

“Everyone here is a work of art,” says the World Pride Music Festival performance poster, referring to a line from “Danceteria” on “Confessions II.”