As of midnight last night, it was exactly six years since my first post. It's been a tough thing to keep up with a dayjob and outside activities, and just when I think I might walk away, a valuable connection or interesting opportunity or a kind word comes my way. Thank you all for reading me.
RAPT PUPIL (2006): The final night of Outfest with Boy Culture; I was fat but on the other hand got to meet Bryan Singer.
MY ART
Construction worker (shot this week) vs. James Dean
GUYDAR (since at least January 17, 2008) & ENDS OF THE WORLD (since at least January 13, 2008): Attractive men of the world—I got your backs. Your fronts, too.
i-i-i (phone)
Not totally built
Unaltered iPhone image that still blows me away
"Your pictures suck" (2008): An art critic attacks me, but not without sustaining some hits in return.
Let's call it a draw
DRAWN TOGETHER (2008): How my desire to draw related to my secret desire. One of my absolute favorite posts.
The shirtless one
LOST ANGELES (2009): My favorite photographic travelogue of L.A.
Even then, New Yorkers feared 9/11 was the beginning of the end
ART IMITATES LIFE (2006): My 9/11 and my distaste for grief tourism.
ME
Death of the party—Jeff in high school, already halfway through his life
BURNING MAN (2007): Tribute to my late high school friend and first romance.
Signed, sealed (eventually) delivered
LOST BOY FOUND (2011): There is a book in here somewhere.
Last night was the 22nd Annual GLAAD Media Awards; it's always a fun event, if you remember my coverage from last year.
This year was really fun, with one major exception—I was red-carpet robbed by this jerk who was with Ricky Martin. More on that later.
GLAAD was happy with my past coverage, so they granted me an extra body on the carpet—my partner José attended as my cameraman. We were placed just after a large column and between an adorable guy working for AfterElton (Tim O'Leary) with his pretty friend and someone's tripod. I liked our positioning in that we were at the very front of the online media and the column meant no pushing.
But the first star we encountered had been before we even got to our spots—we'd run into Joe Jervis of Joe.My.God. checking in. Joe was a nominee for his blog (the first time GLAAD has nominated blogs...about time!) and was convinced Pam of Pam's House Blend would win. "I'd bet the Powerball on it," he'd confided. (Later, he totally won, as I expected, but he had no idea until some attendees informed him since the category wasn't deemed worthy of inclusion in the actual program.)
Joe rocks (every time someone said "rock" or "Rokk," Rokk Vodka donated $100 to GLAAD)
Considering some of the stars scheduled, I wasn't altogether thrilled with the carpet—Tina Fey was a nominee but didn't walk (come the fuck on, Tina), Patrick Wilson was a presenter but also was a no-show (perhaps wisely fearing being devoured and eaten a la Sebastien Venable) and the Rev. Al Sharpton was on hand to give an award to Russell Simmons but did not do press. Vinny Guadagnino from Jersey Shore? Fuhgeddaboudit.
We made the evening our belated anniversary celebration
But on the other hand, the stars who actually did the carpet were nice and fun, and even Ricky Martin himself did lots and lots of press. Just not me. We're getting to it.
My first carpet catch was 17-year-old Bianca "Nikki" Peet, a dynamic girl who was initially denied the opportunity to form a gay-straight alliance at her Corpus Christi high school but whose perseverance against Principal James Crenshaw paid off—she now has her GSA club! She was the picture of intestinal fortitude in her wheelchair, her eyeshadow as sparkling as her personality.
Next up was Jarrett Barrios, who explained to me how GLAAD decides what's offensive and what isn't; a hard task, I can agree, considering the varied opinions my own occasionally outraged posts sometimes elicit. You think something is duh-obviously offensive—like that Vanity Fair piece casually calling the Glee boys "fags," GLAAD (among many others) points it out, then you read AfterElton sniping that it was no big deal. (In context, the writer was gay and felt it was an ironic or "cheeky" usage...which to me was not as readily apparent as, say, during a viewing Wet Hot American Summer.) I asked him about this more in reference to Ron Howard's "so gay" joke, which I think is a lot more in those troubled waters of nuance where a large part—if not the majority—of the public would not go along with calling it offensive.
Dapper Mike Ruiz, from The Gray List
Mike Ruiz was warm and quite dashing up close—no poodle hair! He was happy to talk about why The A-List: New York seems to have at least as many haters as lovers and to introduce his boyf to anyone who asked.
I'm not a regular The Fabulous Beekman Boys watcher, but José is, and he warned me not to ask about "the pig." I knew it referred to them killing a pig they'd raised, but I imagine, "Don't ask them about the pig!" could be good advice before interviewing just about any reality TV stars.
Boys of the red carpet Zac Young (Top Chef: Just Desserts) & Wilson Cruz
Of course I dirty-love and clean-admire Wilson Cruz—who doesn't, and why don't they? I asked him about the Glee kiss, his recent excursion into shirtlessness in bars and his pet cause (and it's much deeper than that phrase), LGBT teen homelessness.
Gail Simmons of Top Chef: Just Desserts—I don't think it was a boob query
Jane Velez-Mitchell—with her bombshell girlfriend, who she meet at last year's GLAAD Media Awards—was the picture of poise and confidence, picking the Westboro clan as the gay story of the year when I asked her to choose something. The carpet had gotten a bit clogged up, so I almost missed her while jockeying to get some time with the event's host, Andy Cohen.
I'd never met Andy, so wasn't sure what to expect. I think I thought he'd be bubblier or more flirtatious but he definitely wasn't a stick in the mud. I stumped him with a question, but he recovered and was game to talk Housewives a bit. As he departed, he muttered, "My breath is atrocious!" and got some kind of oral relief from his PR walker, but it really wasn't...maybe it was mine!
Laverne Cox of TRANSform Me is as stunning as you'd expect, about eight feel tall and not shy with her "girls" or her opinions—her desire to transform Charlie Sheen was genuine and fierce.
As of midnight tonight, it will be exactly five years since my first post. It's hard to imagine it's been that long, and a lot's changed—the tone and subject matter are different, how often I post, my limits (no nudity in a couple of years due to ad constraints). I've devoted a crazy amount of time and money and energy to this blog for a very small financial return (you couldn't guess low enough), but it's always rewarding to have this forum with which to express myself, keep my writing ability fluid, perhaps influence a couple of people here and there, share obsessions with strangers (in both senses of the word) and learn new things.
Take That's Howard...can you believe this happened onstage at a pop concert?
Here are some of the posts that were most important to Boy Culture's history. For the uninitiated, some of the oldest ones refer to Boy Culture, the movie made of my novel; I started the blog at the time Boy Culture was being filmed as a way to keep people informed of the progress...and it all snowballed from there.
Subtle
Some of these posts are milestones when it comes to the hits they provided but most are filled with original writing and/or photography and video and are just the posts of which I'm proudest. I hope you'll take some time to click on them and send their links around to others—and some time is what you'll need...
MY ART
Boy-crazy
FROM BOY TO MAN: BC B.C. (2007): The entire history of my novella, novel and movie Boy Culture; might be my ultimate post.
From '07, one of my faves. Old iPhones were better because they were worse.
"Your pictures suck" (2008): An art critic attacks me, but not without sustaining some hits in return.
GUYDAR (since at least January 17, 2008) & ENDS OF THE WORLD (since at least January 13, 2008): Attractive men of the world—I got your backs. Your fronts, too.
i-i-i (phone)
TriBeCa is for Boy lovers...
BOY ON FILM (2006): An account of the NYC launch party for Boy Culture as it played the TriBeCa Film Fest.
The scandal over recently crowned Miss USA Rima Fakih's pole-dancing (she competed in a Stripper 101 contests in 2007 for a radio station) has cooled, but Globe (June 7, 2010) is still harping on the "pole-dancing shame of new pageant queen."
The original picture
Funny thing is, they show her most revealing photo...but then PhotoShop it to make it less revealing without admitting their tampering. It actually weakens their argument, so...why do it? The image has been everywhere and while rather unladylike doesn't show more than one might see at a public beach.
Sarah Palin, a failed former governor of Alaska, teamed up with Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona to declare, "We are all Arizonans now!" in response to that state's contemptible new anti-immigration law, a law that clearly mandates racial profiling.
Well, not all of us. When Miss Oklahoma answered a question about the law tossed at her by The Office's Oscar Nunez, she replied that she is a big proponent of states' rights to hoots and hollers from the audience and said she supports Arizona's law. (But, um, like, she's against the racial profiling thingie.) This chick looked like a sure winner until then, but she lost to Miss Michigan, who was proudly pro-birth control, saying it should be free as part of every woman's health care and giggling, "Hi, Mom!" as she said so. Interestingly, Miss Michigan became the first-ever Arab-American Miss USA.
We're not all Arizonans. Not even all Arizonans are, not in this context.
My partner José and I met reigning Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza back in April of 2008 at the Miss USA pageant where she was making an appearance as a mere hopeful. She was very sweet, and at the time I blogged that she was a surefire Top 10 finalist...of course, she wound up winning.
Now, she's come out in favor of marriage equality on Howard Stern's radio show. How the Trump organization allowed a title holder to do Stern's show is beyond me, but I'm glad it happened! And before you pooh-pooh pageant queens, they hold a significant group of people enthralled—their opinions matter more than you might think.
Bonus points for her saying "why should I care?" regarding the opinions of Carrie Prejean, a mere also-ran in Miss USA.
I sure like DailyKos and I sure like feminism, but I sure think Katha Pollitt—quoted there appreciatively by a diarist and of whom I have, I'm ashamed to admit as a well-read person, never heard—sure sounds like a complete horsepill.
Her comments against pro-lifers are a delight, but she goes on to imply that men shouldn't really get to speak on the subject of abortion. At best, she's angry that too many males were used as talking heads in the aftermath of the Tiller assassination.
Worse, she then attacks Andrew Sullivan (about who I myself am ambivalent) for daring to speak on the topic due to his barebacking scandal. Now, I don't think highly of barebacking fetishists. That's pretty much established if you've read my blog at all. But I don't see how one relates to the other. And just to borrow a tried-and-true pro-choice motto for the sake of making a point, isn't it in theory his body?
Michael Musto is not your girl.
Worst of all, she attacks Village Voice columnist and pop-culture guruMichael Musto as a "misogynist" for making fun of Carrie Prejean's breast implants (and other easy targets, double-entendre intended).
Is it a coincidence that both are gay? Is that why they really have no clue about "women's reproductive lives"?
Well fuck you, Katha Pollitt—the day straight people are disallowed for making decisions about gay ons is the day we'll talk about gay men being disallowed to have opinions on women's issues.
Michael told me, "I love a bigot who parades around in fake breasts and did a tittie spread but feels she can justifiably hold up the Bible as proof that gays are bad people. I've used humor to point out her hypocrisies (as well as those of the pageant itself) and as a result was called misogynistic and intolerant by the likes of Bill 'Loofa' O'Reilly and his dwindling followers. That's like the pot calling the kettle intolerant! No, it's like Susan Boyle telling people they should wax their eyebrows! I am deeply amused."
When liberals and conservatives both think you're a misogynist, the only thing you are for sure is a gay man.
On Today, two world-class whiners—Governor Sarah Palin isstill claimingthat David Letterman was denigrating her 14-year-old daughter Willow with a knocked-up joke, not her infamously knocked-up daughter Bristol, all in order to call attention to herself and to continue acting like some kind of neo-(Nazi) feminist. Meanwhile, she required women to pay for their own rape kits and yet is worrying over girls' self-esteem?
It's not Matt Lauer who is "naive," as Palin suggested in her Tom Cruise moment with the admittedly dense anchor.
Fuck you, Sarah Palin. People's kids have always been attacked by comedians and always will be. The litany of tasteless, sometimes funny, sometimes cruel jokes at their expense would include Rush Limbaugh's early lambasting of Chelsea Clinton's looks. You don't give two shits about their self-esteem, and certainly not about the self-esteem of girls in general.
You're the worst thing that's happened to women since men!
Then we have Carrie Prejean, fired for being an uncooperative bitch (her stance on marriage equality—NOT the same as President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton's, BTW—a bonus) and yet convinced the Hollywood lib'ruls did her in for daring to be different. 'How dare you be intolerant of my intolerance?' she seems to be screaming. Her appearance on Today confirms she is a classless, rattled ideologue, something for which she is ill-suited considering she has no idea what she's talking about.
P.S. TodayNBC (in the form of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here)offered Prejean a job? Give me a break! To appeal to what constituency? The fraction of America that takes her seriously? The larger part of the country thinks she's a douche.
"To me, she was the sweetest thing. Everyone else, she treated like shit," Donald Trump now says.
Well, loser,you should have fired her initially instead of continuing to give her a platform to denounce marriage equality and to treat people—who came to you imploring you take action—like shit.
In Star (June 15, 2009), Miss California Carrie Prejean's mother Francine Coppola claims, "I'm not a lesbian," in spite of reports that she carried on an affair with Valerie Vetrano. She says she only met Valerie three times and had no idea that one of the places she met her was a gay nightclub. Yeah...right! Best of all is the gay giveaway, "I love men. I've always been with men."
I seem to remember someone like Rock Hudson saying, "I love women" when cornered about homosexuality. Which, of course, doesn't mean one can't also have sex with the ones they love.
