Erogenous twilight zones

Reader beware - the links in this post will definitely be NSFW - by all means click on them, just not if your boss happens to be strolling nonchalantly past your desk. Some of the images will be difficult to explain away, especially in front of an industrial tribunal.

Pornography and popular culture have always had something of a quid-pro-quo relationship. In fact, you might even say it's all about give and take.

On the one hand (the one that's free anyway) pornography has exerted considerable influence over the music industry, contributing to what John Whitehead refers to as the "pornification of American culture". On the flipside (don't be disgusting), the porn industry has plundered popular movies for a series of often quite inspired pastiches - the best being 'Rears in Windows' and 'Wetness For The Prosecution'.

However, the sex industry is now reaching out with its well lubed extremities, and taking hold of other, more surprising, pop culture properties.

With depressing inevitability, the talent show format has made its way into the world of pornography, although I doubt you'll be seeing any footage on T4 on Sunday afternoons. Created by porn supremo Dominic Ford, "So You Think You Can Fuck" takes its profane inspiration from the similarly named dance show on TV.

Featuring a collection of 12 would-be stars, the website showcases the talents of 12 men hoping to be voted "America's Favourite porn-star". They're even divided into 'tops' and 'bottoms' to facilitate the decision-making process. After almost a decade of tragic stories about contestants' tough upbringings, a profile that features the quote "I’ve been lactated on, but I won’t go into that…" seems fairly innocuous.

But it's not just reality TV shows that have generated an enthusiastic following, science fiction also has a solid gay fanbase. Even so, it's a little weird to see the work of horror and science fiction author H.P. Lovecraft brought to life in an erogenous sense.

The next time you're in an adult novelty store, browsing the 'batteries not included' aisle, perhaps you'll notice a curiously crafted artefact - one that looks as though it should be used to animate the aggressive nature of tooth decay bacteria. If you do, you'll have discovered the Mythos Art Dildo.

Based on Lovecraft's horrific writing, the demonic marital aid has been designed to represent his Cthulhu mythology. In a way, it's probably mildly appropriate - a creature from the shadowy netherworlds, repurposed as a dildo that's destined to be stuck where the sun most definitely doesn't shine.

When Lady Gaga sang "That boy is a monster..." I'm sure this isn't what she had in mind...

p0pvulture comes of age

Well, it's finally here - the 500th post. When I started this blog it was an experiment to see if I had the discipline to write something every day. And, with the exception of a few days where work or excessive alcohol consumption got in the way, I've managed to stick to my guns.

Of course, I probably wouldn't have bothered, were it not for the comments and encouragement I've received from all the people who, for whatever reason, have clicked on a link somewhere and spent a few minutes with p0pvulture. So thanks to everyone who stopped by, I hope you'll continue to frequent this grubby little corner of the interweb.

I've been trying to think about what today's post should be about. As usual it's something of a slow news day. Kerry Katona's been out and about in a pair of leggings, the youngest Kardashian sister is causing a stir with a sexy, jailbait photoshoot and Lady Gaga's on the front of Vanity Fair alongside some utterly nonsensical headlines that look as though they were written by an 'English as a second language' student. All gripping stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.

But in keeping with the whole "I'd like to thank..." Oscar speech tone of this post, I thought I'd give a few shout-outs to the great sources of information that inspire the stories on here. People often ask where I find 'this stuff', so consider this a peek behind the scenes. I shamelessly use their content in writing the blog (although I always post links to the original stories) but I thought it was worth mentioning them by name. You might even become a regular reader of some of them.

DListed is a snarky, sarcy and hilarious blog by Michael K who, as well as being one of the funniest people I've ever read, is also a bit of a cutie. He's created a whole 'slanguage' of his own, and managed to rename virtually every pointless celebrity that ever managed to score a feature in People Magazine. With countless new stories uploaded every day, he's such a prolific writer that he makes James Patterson look like JD Salinger.

Towleroad is another gay blog, but with less emphasis on bitchy putdowns and more focus on political issues around the world. It's well written, authoritative and the worthy winner of several blogger awards. Great links to all sorts of other content as well, the phrase 'you read it here first' could have been coined by Andy Towle, the site's creator.

Holy Moly (which most of you will already know) started out as an illustrated alternative to Popbitch, featuring blind items, idiotic celebrity quotes and random weirdness. It's now more like the bastard offspring of Perez Hilton and Heat Magazine - no bad thing in itself. Its readers (or at least the ones who comment on the stories) seem to be a fairly misanthropic bunch, wishing all kinds of ill-harm on the celebrities they enjoy reading about. But the copy is always funny, and they seem to get their hands on the paparazzi pictures before anyone else.

Of course, I have to also mention the Daily Mail which proudly flies the flag for bitter, acrimonious, poorly researched journalism. My distatste for the Mail, and everything it stands for, is no surprise to anyone who's spent more than five minutes reading this blog. People often ask why I read its website if I hate it so much - isn't that like repeatedly sticking my head in the oven to see if the gas is still on? Firstly, the Mail does a great job of aggregating the celebrity stories from around the world, even if it does maintain a toxic level of disdain for everyone that isn't Jerry Hall or Joan Collins. Secondly, its editorial style, and outspoken columnists mean that there's always an argument ripe for picking.

Big Hollywood is another resource that's as much an irritant as it is an information source. Established by right wing publisher Andrew Breitbart, the site was intended to offer a voice to conservatives working in the movie industry who feel underrepresented and excluded. In fact, it's a place where reactionary writers and woefully unfunny (we're talking Russ Abbot-levels of humourlessness) comedians come to pour scorn on anything involving the environment, feminism, racial equality, gay rights or non-Christian beliefs. The comments section under each post are worth a look, if only to see how widespread a problem mental instability seems to be in the US.

OK, that's enough negativity. Let's also give thanks for Digital Spy, which is the UK's fourth largest British entertainment website, with over two million unique users. It covers pretty much anything that happens in the world of celebrity, and I do mean 'everything'. For instance, an average day might feature six different 'news' stories about Katie Price, one for every time she opens her mouth. Unfortunately, in the rush to break stories first, the site doesn't always check its sources - so many of its stories open with "it's rumoured that..." or "according to an insider..." As a consequence, Digital Spy has more retractions than a Stanley knife, given that approximately half its 'news' content involves someone repudiating a story that's already run.

A few honourable mentions should also go to chud.com (for interesting, if slightly 'fanboy' film news), AfterElton (gay and lesbian news blog, and a daily picture of men in their pants), Popjustice (the world's best pop music site) and E!Online (which is great for celebrity gossip, despite its unhealthy obsession with the Gosselins).

Writing 500 posts may have been hard work, but it's made immeasurably easier thanks to these great information sources. So thanks to them for the inspiration, and thanks to you for reading. Meet you back here for the 1000th...

The highs and lows of culture

There seems to be a media black-out on anything not related to the ex-King of Pop at the moment. The only celebrity news currently being reported is who's said what on Twitter about their grief for Michael Jackson. But as is always the case when someone is dispatched to the great VIP area in the sky, there are also a number of commentators who feel compelled to analyse the context of the grief and what it says about us as a society.

Usually, these editorials are less than complementary about the hoi polloi, and strive to intellectualise the writer's viewpoint. One such bullshit bulletin was posted on the irritating website bullypulpit.com which claims to be the ultimate destination for 'the most interesting and creative artists, authors and culture creators'.

In an astonishingly pompous posting that epitomises 'shitting on one's doorstep', entertainment writer Lou Carlozo attacks not only Michael Jackson himself, but also the entire concept of 'popular culture'. Given the nature of this very blog, Carlozo's words have a particular resonance that I'd like to address.

Having rechristened Jackson as the 'King of Pop Culture', Carlozo begins by accusing pop culture as "valuing the ephemeral over the substantive". Aside from the fact that some of Jackson's most remarkable contributions to both music and dance are almost thirty years old, who's to say that art must be enduring? Surely an artistic creation is valid, even if its lifespan only lasts for seconds rather than decades. Carlozo also sniffily dismisses Jackson as an entertainer rather than an artist, as though the two concepts are mutually exclusive.

The writer's second concern is that pop culture focuses on the artist rather than the person. Apparently his problem is that not all artists are nice people. Some of them cheat on their partners, neglect their children and focus on their career. He condemns John Lennon for being an absent father and Kurt Cobain for his selfish suicide, but it's often the demons that drive the most creative souls. Whether or not you agree with his worldview, which would imply that Pat Boone was a more worthy artist than Sam Cooke simply because he led a more virtuous life, Carlozo completely misses the point about popular culture. The convergence of celebrity and pop culture means that the life of the contemporary artist is scrutinised more closely now than at any other point in time.

Carlozo then goes on to accuse pop culture of profiting from other people's pain. Apparently, the fact that Michael Jackson memorabilia will likely proliferate on Ebay is a sign that people are looking to make money from his death. Now excuse me if I've got this wrong, but I thought that this is also true of high culture. After all, Vincent Van Gogh struggled with poverty his entire life, and committed suicide at the age of 37. It was only after his death that the true value of his work was realised. Interestingly, in 1990 one of his paintings sold for an astonishing $82.5 million.

His final, and most ridiculous claim is that pop culture "worships the wrong gods". Without any facts or evidence to base his theory on, Carlozo speculates that people crying for dead celebrity don't bother to pray for their own dead friends. In his words, "Music can salve. But it cannot save." Actually, music saves people all the time. It offers them hope, redemption and even a second chance. For example, rapper DMC famously credited Sarah McLachlan's song Angel with saving him from suicide.

You know, it's easy to lay into popular culture and condemn it as mindless ephemera for the unthinking masses. We all know someone who has a TV but refuses to pay for a license because "it's all trash anyway". We all have friends who like films, rather than movies, and will only watch something if it's black and white, subtitled and has been seen by about as many people as can fit into a Renault Clio. And we've all had a conversation with someone who claims to love Fleetwood Mac, but only the Peter Green era.

Pop culture is a broad ranging term that covers all kinds of creative expression, in a context that enables the widest possible audience to access it. And it gives them a universal vernacular that cuts across social, racial, gender and age boundaries, allowing them to connect through a shared experience. I'm proud of my love for popular culture, and if you've read this far, I'm guessing you are too.

Hot 100

Well, I never thought this day would come, but here we are at the 100th post on PopVulture. Thanks to everyone who’s visited, double thanks if you stuck around and read something. And if you came back more than once, then that Faustian pact I made with the Devil paid off after all.

In honour of this momentous landmark (seriously), I thought I’d take a tip from the magazines and do a roll call of the great and the good (not to mention the screamingly awful) who’ve graced these pages over the last 99 posts. Who knows, by the time I make it to 200, some of them may no longer be in our public consciousness. We can but hope. So here (in order of appearance) are the hundred names who’ve been cruelly picked at by PopVulture:

1) Jason Voorhees – hockey mask-wearing teenage euthanizer
2) Pet Shop Boys – miserablist electropop duo
3) Velvet – trashy Swedish pop tart
4) Jonathan Fagerlund – four bookends short of a boyband
5) Alcazar – Hi-NRG ABBA-aping threesome
6) Malena Ernman – Village of the Damned opera diva
7) John Segeant – lumpen-faced Jo Brand impersonator
8) Todd Carty – Walford’s village idiot
9) Colleen Nolan – dignity-dodging girlband relic
10) Eoghan Quigg – X-Factor’s favourite mistake
11) Seth Godin – Marketing blogger and inbox worrier
12) Michelle Bass – hard faced soft porner
13) Sting – Olympic sexing tree-saver
14) Sarah McLachlan – Canada’s least-prolific warbler
15) Sonia – Perma-grinning scouse ginger belter
16) Pete Hammond – Eighties-defining knob-twiddler
17) Alphabeat – Danish S-Club wannabes
18) Michael Caine – Cockney wheezer
19) Ruth Badger – Bolshie brummie bulldog
20) Michelle Dewbury - Apprentice-winning loser
21) Sir Alan Sugar – shouty face painted onto a Weetabix
22) Natasha Richardson – Sonny Bono’s successor
23) Jade Goody – motor-mouthed, empty-headed tragicomic victim
24) Max Clifford – cancer-leveraging moral vacuum
25) John Travolta – scientology-touting alleged heterosexual
26) Chris Moyles – salad-dodging loudmouth with obese ego
27) Christopher Biggins – Pantomime shame
28) Jim Davidson – wife-beating tax-dodging laughter repellent
29) Mr.T – tasteless fool-pitying oven flogger
30) Peter Greenaway – nudity loving surrealist Mail-worrier
31) Craig Philips – MDF-hammering brain donor
32) Russell Brand – Granddaughter humping phone pest
33) Evan Davies – cock-pierced stater of the obvious
34) Chantelle Houghton – zeppelin-chested shell in search of a soul
35) Preston – Ordinary boy made good
36) Prince William – long-faced baldie
37) Madonna – wrinkly-handed baby grabber
38) Josh Freese – sales-incentivising drummer
39) Dr Ted Baehr – fact-fumbling moral guardian
40) Katie Price – mess
41) Rhydian – dead-eyed tune-bellowing smugster
42) Dannii Minogue – frozen-faced second stringer
43) Joseph Fritzl – home improvement enthusiast
44) Britney Spears – car crash fanny flash trailer trash
45) Anne Diamond – lacking lustre
46) Adam Rickitt – gay baiting soap scum
47) Amanda Holden – clap-happy slapper
48) Andrew Lloyd Webber – phantom of the musicals
49) Jay Brannan – underappreciated and over-exposed
50) Geri Halliwell – carrot-topped tune-killer
51) Michael Parkinson – fame-fawning fossil
52) Adam Lambert – Idol-losing rock screecher
53) Bill O’Reilly – fact-fudging psychopath
54) Lindsay Lohan – perpetual part-timer
55) Samantha Ronson – who’s a pretty boy?
56) Susan Boyle – epic fail
57) Ant & Dec – balding cruet set
58) Ashton Kutcher – Tweeting toyboy
59) Daily Mail Reporter – anonymous tag hiding a multitude of sins
60) Nadja Benaissa – risky business
61) Miley Cyrus – gum-heavy herald of Armageddon
62) Simon Cowell – creating judge dread both sides of the pond
63) John Barrowman – jazz-handed and cock-hungry
64) Zac Efron – Ken doll come to life
65) Robert Pattinson – Stephen Fry in a funhouse mirror
66) Catherine Hardwicke – virginity-valuing hack
67) Chuck DeVore – Worst. Satirist. Ever
68) ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic – MTV legend and accordion player
69) Carrie Prejean – gay-hating hypocrite
70) Perez Hilton – petulant fame-whore
71) Jenna Jameson – head for business, bod for sin
72) Jack Tweedy – golf-swinging cabbie-basher
73) Leon Jackson – this Bublé’s gone flat
74) Bea Arthur – deep-throated comedy rectangle
75) Kerry Katona – nuclear meltdown
76) Mark Croft – cash-grabbing knuckle-dragger
77) Catherine Zeta Jones – helping the aged
78) Mia Farrow – hunger-striking perm victim
79) Michele Bachmann – Minnesotan McCarthyist
80) Christian Bale – self-absorbed strop-thrower
81) Michael Jackson – coming undone
82) Jessica Biel – pretty, average
83) Kiefer Sutherland – shark-jumping Torquemada
84) Nigel Lythgoe – talent show Leatherface
85) Liz Hurley – always someone’s ‘better half’
86) Chuck Norris – born again beefcake
87) Mel Gibson – anti-semitic babymaker
88) Sharon Stone – karma’s bitch
89) Marie Osmond – the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth
90) Sacha Baron Cohen – teabagging controversy magnet
91) Danny LaRue – dude looks like a lady
92) Speidi – Celebrities, get them out of here
93) Davina McCall – you make me wanna shout
94) Angelina Jolie – home-wrecking lip service
95) Hollie Steel – tutu-twirling tearjerker
96) Cheeky Girls – nightmare in stereo
97) Megan Fox – bendy, underdressed quote-maker
98) Dustin Lance Black – got Milked, and we all saw it
99) Sarah Palin – gun-toting, child exploiting laughing stock
100) Duffy – straw-haired valleys-girl

Let's get 'serious'

Sad news this week about Natasha Richardson, who had an accident on a learners' ski slope and died hours later in hospital. The news was reported on BBC Breakfast this week, and a theatre critic from The Telegraph was wheeled in to eulogise the late actress.

As you'd expect from a theatre critic, he focused primarily on Richardson's board-treading career, with a couple of obligatory references to her film appearances in Gothic and the remake of The Parent Trap. He also made an embarassing faux pas when talking about Richardson's husband Liam Neeson, saying that it's commonplace for American film actors to be intimidated by well-respected British theatre actors. No-one bothered to point out that Liam Neeson is actually Irish.

But still, he bumbled on (and on and on) repeatedly pointing out that Richardson was a serious actress. She appeared in films, but mostly uncommercial ones. Which means that they went largely unseen. And although she did appear in a couple of 'popular' films, she remained at heart a serious actress. He must have mentioned Natasha's 'seriousness' about five times. And it all became rather annoying. Because what he was really saying (and given that this was a Telegraph critic we should hardly be surprised) is that anything that gives enjoyment or finds an audience is ultimately unworthy of respect. And should not be taken 'seriously.'

OK, so nothing here is rocking any boats, but I felt it needed saying. After all, the whole point of this blog is to talk about popular culture. Art doesn't have to be po-faced and serious. And popular culture doesn't have to be empty vacuous bullshit. Quality comes in all shapes and sizes, and you limit your opportunities for enjoyment if you close your mind to the variety on offer. Seriously.