HOMOTV

we’re back home

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:37:36 +0000

well folks we have returned from our christmas adventures in prague. It was our second time there and it was just as magical a city as ever. Two recommendations to any one considering going there in the near future.

1: Don’t try to ask them for a family ticket at the national gallery if you happen to be a gay couple with a child. the staff there tried to insist that me and tristan got a joint ticket but that Anthony could not be included and would have to buy his own. we even tried holding hands :-) but she rolled her eyes and pointed to me and tristan first while saying “you family”, then pointing to Anthony and saying “you not family!” . Our recommendation would be that you go to the National Museum instead who were more than happy to give us a family ticket and whose displays contain a real stuffed wooly mammoth and a dodo along with many other now extinct animals and birds. (ok, so ethically that may not sound good, but it’s still amazing to see them......................in a non-homophobic environment!)

2: If you use sterling as your homeland currency, do not leave home for the foreseeable future as your money is pretty much worthless at the moment. One example would be a purchase we made at starbucks. two coffees, one drinking chocolate and three muffins, £19.00!!! which up until recently would have been the equivalent of about $38.00

However, a really great time was had by all, and we got to see parts of the city we hadn’t had time to see the last time and it is still our absolute favourite place for shoe shopping. For some reason which eludes us, shoes are incredibly inexpensive there even with the poor exchange rate. so we’ve stocked up with as many pairs as our suitcases would fit.

Thank you for your patience in our absence. J,A & T

site closed for Christmas

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 21:04:06 +0000

as we are off to the freezing cold but very pretty Prague for christmas, there won’t be any updates to the site for the next 7-8 days. we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time to read the blog throughout the year, we hope to see you again sometime after the 28th.

top 15 gay characters part 3

Tue, 9 Dec 2008 17:36:17 +0000

well, here goes with the final part of the 2008 countdown of the gay tv characters who won our hearts. The list consists of those who entertained us, who we fell in love with, who challenged us or who just stood out from the crowd because they refused to pander to a heterosexual audience. in previous days we looked at 15th place through to 5th place and now we will look at the final 4 places which we have populated with 7 characters (ok we couldn’t make up our minds)

so without further ado:

in 4th place we have lloyd who as many of you know
is ari gold’s long suffering assistant in hbo’s
“Entourage”. throughout the seasons we have seen
his character grow from an occassional line here
or there to a central part of the fabric of the show.
he makes us laugh and acts as the perfect balance to
ari’s egomaniacal behaviour. he has redefined the
“gay buddy” role and we want him to come and
organise our lives and our offices.

in 3rd place we have everybody’s favourite gay couple
Kevin and Scotty from brother’s and sisters. For the
1st time that I can remember a gay couple who are
treated like every other couple by the writers. They
aren’t perfect, or funny or making a political point or
any of the other clichés of gay tv world. they are just
a couple who met, got married and enjoy and suffer
the same ups and downs that any other couple experience.
Brother’s and sisters is pretty ground breaking in that
sense. and did we mention that we love scotty like
he was our boyfriend and not kevin’s!

In joint 2nd place we have three completely different
characters

Charlie Sagansky from raising the bar. as this new show
progressed we got more and more engrossed in his character
to the point where the season finally was really all
about him for what was clearly meant to be an ensemble
production he really steals the show. he is complex, has
questionable morals and in a way addresses some of the
issues which salvatore in mad men should have explored.
we can’t wait for season 2 to start next year and it’s all
because of Charlie!

Brother boy from sordid lives. we were initially hesitant
to include brother-boy as “sordid lives” is a cable only show
on the LOGO network and as such was never designed to be
seen by anyone other than LGBT people. but the truth is, he
is just so bloody fantastic we couldn’t leave him out! he is
a character to be reckoned with. tammy wynette “lives
through him”, he constantly battles against the medical
services attempts to “De-homosexualize” him. the character
is played with grace and compassion by the amazing leslie
jordan. an essential part of everyone’s top 15 list.

the final person in joint second place is ianto jones
from torchwood. in season one he stood in the background
lusting after the swashbuckling space crusader captain jack.
in season two he stepped up his game and made is move. since
then he has been the heart-throb of every gay sci-fi fan in
the known universe and the show (which contains really
really really gay content) has surprisingly become the highest
viewed show on the u.s. BBC cable channel....ever!. if any of you
wonder why we didn’t include the captain himself, well..the
truth is we are kind of over john barrowman. it seems he is
on every show see these days in the UK, and enough is enough.

AND THE WINNER of the 2008 homotvcentral gay tv character of
the year is:

LAFayette from true blood. everyone who I know who has seen this series has adored him. he breaks every single mould of what a gay tv character should be. he is brought to us by the same incredible writers who brought us 6 feet under, and they don’t disappoint. he is butch and fem simultaneously. he has more business ventures than one would have thought possible in a 24 hour day. he’s a drug dealer, a rent boy to vampires, a road construction worker, a gay sex website owner, a counsellor, a political activist, an entertainer, a pub food chef and both a lover and a fighter. oh and not to forget the fact that he is really, really easy on the eye. for those of you who have not seen the series I won’t give too much away other than there are a lot of us who are on tender-hooks waiting for season two, so as to find out his fate!

Top 15 Gay characters Part 2

Sun, 7 Dec 2008 22:10:14 +0000

OK so now for the second instalment of Homotvcentral’s new annual top 15 gay characters of the year, where we look back over the last 12 months and sift out the best and worst of how we have been represented on the small screen. so without further ado I give you numbers 9 - 5.

in 9th place we have Marco from “Priviledged”. He’s
feisty and stylish but ultimately very, very two
dimensional. He clearly never has sex and we’re
guessing he spends his life reading martha stewart
publications when he isn’t slaving over the stove.
for a moment we held out hope that he would find
love with the hunky new apprentice chef. but sadly
the script writers appear to have brought him in
as a love interest for rose and it seems that Marco
will remain a gay eunuch for a bit longer.

In joint 8th place we have Justin from ugly betty
and eric from Gossip girl. Both candidates are flying
the flag for gay teens everywhere. both manage to
represent the struggles that many young gay men face
but do it with honour, courage and support of their
friends and family. Great role models without being
preachy. there hasn’t really been characters like them
in mainstream TV since the incredible “My So Called
Life” back in the 90’s.

In 7th place (yes I know it’s technically 6th place but
that’s not the way we roll at homotvcentral) we have
Rodney and felix from the ‘starter wife’. possibly the
worst gay couple ever and consequently they make
GREAT television. Rodney the sensitive, honourable,
and a bit anal interior designer/best friend to the
leading lady and rodney the still in the closet (apart
from when he forgets to take his medication for his
bi-polar disorder) action movie star who seem fated to
never find happiness together, but take their shirts off
an awful lot whilst trying to do so! we love you both!

in 6th place we have brian and steve from the sarah
silverman show. they break every mould of what a
gay couple “should be like” on TV. clearly neither of
them has ever seen the inside of a gym. they worship
heavy metal music, they have no flair for design and
they can’t cook....need I say more. most of all we love
them because as sarah says.....they’re her “Ginger gays”

in 5th place we have Jez from britannia high. we may
have lost maxxie from skins to this show. but its
creation has given us a new gay guy to love and that’s
jez. the all singing, all dancing nice guy with a secret
past. in this years season he gave up his bazillion pound
inheritance in order to continue in his pursuit of
musical theatre, which is about the gayest thing we’ve
ever seen on TV! he then screwed up his chances with a
really cute Scots boy after an embarrassing
misunderstanding in a night club so we feel his loss.
he also showed kids everywhere that it’s ok to be gay
and have acne at the same time.!
looking forward to getting to know him better.

well that’s it for this section of the list. we will post the final 4 tomorrow although technically it’s a final 6 as it contains one couple and one joint place. thank you to the couple of you who have emailed us with suggestions for who should make it into our top 15 we listened to you and you might just be happy with the results

top 15 gay characters of 2008

Sat, 6 Dec 2008 23:26:04 +0000

It’s that time of year again when all the blogs you visit and the magazines you read come up with top 10’s and top 20’s of things that mattered to us in the year that has been. so we here at homotvcentral thought we would compile our own list too.

Ladies and gentlemen I give you the homotvcentral top 15 gay characters/couples in 2008 tv shows:

In 15th place is the lovely bob and lee from
desperate housewives. we like them, but
the truth is they are just wallpaper for
the show. they rarely if ever have any
impact on the shows plot and they seem
to be there for the “oh look at the funny
poofs” factor. could do better!

Maybe next year we will move them up the
list if become more 3 dimensional.

in 14th place we have maxxie from skins,
and before we get innundated with bitch
mail from readers for putting him 14th, let
us just clear something up. we bloody love
maxxie. but he left us for “britannia high”
never to return and we tend to be a bit bitter
about guys who leave us for something better!
Maxxie you will be sorely missed.

in 13th place we have someone who is likely to
get a mail in response too, however this time it
will probably be from people wondering why we
even included him! we admit that Xandir from
Drawn together is a stereotypical and quite
frankly very offensive representation of
gay men. but he is really, really funny and has a
great outfit and a good heart! and when it boils
down to it his character gets treated with the
same disrespect that every other character gets
on the show. And besides, he’s animated, so who cares!

in 12th place we have salvatore romano from “mad
Men” (or “smoke, fuck, drink” as we like to call it).
after spending the entire first season quivering in
the closet, salvatore finally made it out into the
light in season 2. probably a very accurate
representation of gay men in the 50s, but dull as
old dish water to watch. “mad men” is one of those
shows that you love watching but when an episode is
over it’s tough to actually name anything that
actually happened in the 45 minutes. Salvatore is one
of the key “nothing doers”

in 11th Place we have the very cute Calvin from Greek
we have to admit to being really torn on this one.
on one side we have the fact that this show is
marketed at early teens and yet bravely features
more than one openly gay character complete with
man on man kissing on the other side we have the
fact that calvin is an utter asshole with very few
redeeming qualities other than his cute smile and
washboard abs. other more minor gay characters
on the show would have been put on our list more
willingly than calvin, but they just
don’t get enough air-time.

in 10th place we have the very lovely marc from
ugly betty. if we had drawn the same list up last
year we would have placed him higher. but this season
he has had very little coverage and has returned from
his role of boyfriend to cliff and confidante to justin
(or “minihomo” as we call him), to his old role as
general lap dog for wilhelmina. he’s funny, he’s feisty
and we get occasional visits from cliff so we’re
keeping him on the list and hoping for more as the
season progresses into 2009.

tomorrow we will continue our count down of our favourite gay characters for 2008. watch this space. if you have any suggestions as to who should be on it maybe there is still time to change our minds or at least have them added in the honourable mention section. email us at the following link

bloody hell 15000!!!!!

Fri, 5 Dec 2008 00:18:36 +0000

1 year ago when the site under went a revamp, we would never have guessed that any more than a handful of visitors would come to read it in the year ahead. in fact last year we had a total of 2,500 visitors in 12 months and we thought we were doing well to have attracted that many. In the same time frame this year we have managed to hit the 15,000 visitor mark and we can’t thank you all enough for taking the time to support the site.

We recently published our 150th entry into the new look site and we hope that you have enjoyed the material we post here. if you have any suggestions for stuff you want covered in the future, let us know by emailing at the link on the main page. also material for inclusion is also warmly welcomed.

Once again a big thank you to you all, who ever you are. we look forward to trying to attract even more visitors in 2009.

Jonathan

QUEER CHRISTMAS MUSIC!

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 14:54:06 +0000

Well with snow lying outside I thought it was about time to update my music download section on the right hand side of the homepage. “queer music collection for summer” seemed a tad inappropriate! so ladies and gentlemen I give you the “queer music collection for christmas” all performed by openly gay artists. this is the tracklisting:

Christmas In America Melissa Etheridge
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Luther Vandross
Homo Christmas Pansy division
Thank God It's Christmas queen
Blue Christmas dead or alive
Harried Little Christmas kinsey sicks
Christmas Song chris garneau
O Holy Night tracy chapman
Christmas Is Here Bearforce 1
Blue Christmas ann & nancy wilson (ex heart)

I’ll update the music download collection again at the end of january, so get em while you can.

politics gets musical

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 08:51:52 +0000

OK neil Patrick Harris, Margaret CHO, jack black, countless other celebs.......oh and jesus even makes an appearance. There’s singing and dancing and it’s all to make an important point........what are we talking about? “proposition 8 - the musical” of course!

unfortunately it appears to have surfaced about 8 weeks too late....but ..... that being said it’s likely to have you singing along in the isles. Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy the show.

simpsons take on apple

Mon, 1 Dec 2008 17:47:06 +0000

As many of you may know, I love apple and everything apple related. In my view they make great products that for the most part “just work”. But this rather scathing simpsons apple parody is just too good to not include on the site.

the french measure up!

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:58:58 +0000

the french are apparently the hung nation of europe according to a recent poll in which men were asked to measure their manhood and report back. Greek men fared the worst in the investigation. or maybe greek men are just more honest ....who knows

the original article was published at www.telegraph.co.uk and is reproduced below

More than 10,500 men across 25 European countries were asked to measure their penis - and the French came out on top with a claimed average length of 6.09 in (15.48 cm).

This was 1.2 in (3 cm) longer than the Greeks, who had the shortest average measurement in Europe.

The Frenchman's French letter requirements were disclosed during an eight-month study conducted by the Institute of Condom Consultancy, based in Singen, southern Germany.

Jan Vinzenz Krause, the institute's director, refused to comment on how honest he thought the Frenchmen had been in reporting the data.

The purpose of the survey was to educate teenagers about the importance of effective contraception.

The institute also offers online advice about condom size and hosts "Pimp Your Condom" - an annual fair organised in cooperation with the national Aids Trust - with the aim of informing teens about sexually transmitted diseases.

Krause was in the spotlight in the past when he produced a prototype of the "spray-on condom" - an aerosol can which contains latex that creates a perfectly fitting condom.

However, the idea was not developed further.

bjorn borg - “love for all”

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:38:27 +0000

Former Tennis Champion Bjorn Borg has launched his new underware range for men with a challenging television campaign. It portrays a wedding ceremony where the priest gets involved with the action....I’ll let you see for yourself in the video below.

To find out more about the new “love for all” range and to take part in an interactive dating site with a 100% success rate go to the website here

sir eurovision comes to the rescue!

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:47:49 +0000

Oh dear holy lord god! who’s writing this year’s uk entry for the eurovision song contest? None other than Sir Andrew “bloody heck” lloyd webber, king of high camp musical extravaganzas. Will this make up for the fabulous terry wogan throwing a hissy fit over last year’s event?...who knows. But I have to say it does scream of desperation a little! If we don’t get a few” douze point” with SIR ANDREW at the helm then I have a feeling there might be changes a foot for the following year in the scoring system. UK is one of the “BIG FOUR” (founding and funding) countries after all.

Watch andrew camp it up below....thanks to valetta calling for the heads up on this one