Look, you don't have to be Grunty McFuckring to appreciate how important to our culture* is the gay street press.

Until recently, in the absence of any institutionalised responsibility for recording the community progreass and social monuments, in many cases the gay street press will be the only surviving record of Our Stories. It's our War Memorial. If the War Memorial was dumped in gutters every Wednesday morning for whoever had the energy to bend over and pick it up for free.

But srsly folks, as a rapaciously commercial document aimed squarely at gay men's minds, the gay press is a reliable, if ugly mirror for us all to consider once in a while. CASE IN POINT: check out this ad, included in this week's chronicles:

I can't make sense of this ad. What do those oily young men have to do with anything? They're not the featured DJs, they don't have any thematic relation to "Revolution", they're not even all three from the same photo shoot - the wharfie on the right has shown up in his undies, which I bet made him the most popular girl in school at tea break. At least I think they're wharfies... certainly labourers of some kind... maybe? Backup dancers for Bananarama who can spackfill a gap at a pinch? Anyone?

What's going on here is obvious, of course: the intention is to trigger some kind of pavlovian response in the deep simian gay brain, like we'll buy anything with six tits in a row stapled to the front of it. Really, Grunty, this kind of transparent, base, marketing is insulting. Okay, I bought six tickets and didn't even go, just flicked myself off to the fliers for an hour on NYE.

Grunty's an evil genius.

What if other publications cottoned onto this strategy? 

Why, you could sell just about anything.

*hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha etc