Mere Duchess

Top 10 Most Beautiful Menz: In a Particular Order

Sat, 05 May 2012 13:59:57 -0400

Well, hello there. It’s been a while, so I invite you to catch up with your favorite queen, King Helene. Let’s see…I’ve been fired and rehired, lost twenty pounds (and gained them back: see previous item) and now suffer from a crippling “Eden’s World” addiction. There…all caught up!

Let’s dive right into the festivities. After much deliberation, and consulting with my fellow judges (mostly my black lab, Otis), here’s my list….

10. Blair Underwood

As far back as “L.A. Law,” I have been on Team Blair. Aside from how amazing it was to see, as a little black kid in the late 80s, a positive portrayal of a black professional man on TV…he was devastatingly handsome to boot! Everything –from his perfect S curl (look it up) to his seemingly endless collection of designer shoes—was on point. Ten years later, I lost my shit again when he popped up on “Sex and the City” as Miranda’s new upstairs neighbor. I’ll spare you the whole “black don’t crack”routine…no, actually, I won’t. Flawless.

9. Benicio del Toro

He probably smells bad and definitely won’t remember your name in the morning. And sure, he knocked up Rod Stewart’s daughter in an elevator. And maybe he now looks like the bloated corpse of his former self. But none of that changes the fact that BdT c. 1997-2000 (“Excess Baggage” through “Traffic”, to be exact) was pure dreamboat. His sleepy eye and mumbled speech made his sort of a postmodern ethnic James Dean. And he has an Oscar! Nothing sexier than an Oscar.

8. John Belushi

This is probably a good time to let you know what you may have figured out already. As a proud bear, I am attracted to other bears. (For the one straight guy reading this, I’ll translate. A “bear” is a larger, hairier gay man. I am one, and am primarily attracted to others like me.) I am also a stoner. The math does itself.

The other level with Belushi is that he was his era. And as tragic as that is, it’s also fucking incredible. He fucked too much, drank too much, and blew too much. But as much as of a mess as he was, Belushi was also incredibly sweet, by all accounts. The ying yang of those extremes only serves to make him more compelling, dark and complex. Plus, he was Albanian and I get week in the knees for Eastern Europeans. It’s like, a thing.

7. Brian Batt

This is one of those “as a character” situations. Brian Batt is a perfectly good looking Southern (did you know that?!) gentleman. He runs an antique store with his partner in New Orleans. He has the essence of a gentle daddy that will love and protect you and let you fall asleep on his hairy salt and pepper chest on a cool summer night. He has the eyes of a wise badger from a cartoon about an elf that lives in a toadstool. But as Sal Romano, he is drop-your-panties hot. I want to take care of Sal, let him know that it’s okay, and that he can have the life he dreams of…with me. Sometimes daddies need care too.

6. Duncan Sheik

I’ll wait until you finish laughing. I had totally forgotten about my infatuation with this guy until Not Susan posted about Jacob Dylan. I just think that this man is extremely beautiful. He looks like he was carved from a marble statue and has a sexy S&M Tom Ford eye. He’s a stone cold fox.

5. Ben Kingsley

Specifically, in “Sexy Beast.” His character is the kind of guy you hate until he’s in you. (Thanks, Seth McFarlane.)

4. John Corbett

You know, I hate when people take pride in being a “Carrie.” That’s fucked up, dude. Carrie shot herself in the foot when it came to guys over and over again, and sabotaged amazing relationships. That’s not admirable…that’s insane. And then the bitch finally gets her Mr. Big, and she’s what…bored? Crushed under the ennui of it all? God, I hate her.

Anyway, my favorite SATC boyfriend was obviously Aiden. He was amazing, and amazing looking. His calm, easy demeanor was a welcome respite from the hip-for-hipness’ sake barrage of labels, clubs, and celebrity cameos into which the show devolved. He was brawny without being too chubby or overly muscular and sleepy eyed without being vacant. Basically, the human embodiment of a hug.

3. Elvis Presley

Duh. And yes, I do mean specifically 1969 comeback special Elvis. I know he was going for a nod to biker culture, but um…it’s very, very leather daddy. Also, he was thicker than in the 50s, but hadn’t devolved into the Buffet Monster he became in the 70s. The apex of perfection.

2. Alec Baldwin

The ultimate bear daddy. And he’s not gentle. Everything about him – the hair, the almost stout stature, the piercing eyes – harkens back to the days when you were a little gay crushing on your friend’s DILF. Maybe that’s why every gay boy from the beginning of time (c. 1985) has had a crush on this guy.

1. Morrissey

The first night that I heard The Smiths, I listened to “The Queen is Dead” on repeat, sitting on my bedroom floor crying. As cringeworthy as that is, it’s also true. I was a living cliché, convinced that this magical Englishman had managed to read my entire soul before it was even formed. It was full year before I bothered to find out what he looked like. (I always pictured him being blond and heavyset, believe it or not.) But when I did, it was exploding hearts and unicorns galloping along rainbows. He was the most beautiful man I’d even seen.

I’m talking about, of course, 80s Morrissey, not current day Moz. Which makes no sense whatsoever, because 80s Morrissey is straight outta Not Susan’s list. But, as ol’ Dino would say, that’s amore-gay. His pale skin, thin frame, dark hair and blood red lips call to mind today’s Teen Beat vampires. His fey mannerisms juxtaposed with the intense sexuality of his lyrics proved enticing and exciting. He was a snake in a broken, lonely bird’s skin. Even if he did look like he needed a sandwich.

10 Most Beautiful: A Gay Lady on Men

Wed, 02 May 2012 08:26:00 -0400

It’s PuddinPies here, sassing around, sashaying up and down and all over the Internet. We’ll dispense with the introductions and other pleasantries, except to say that I’m a gay lady, and this is my list of the 10 most beautiful mens around, in no particular order.

Now, when TeenFrostine asked me to weigh in on this subject, of course I was excited. In a sort of platonic ideal of XY kind of way, not in like a let’s-get-physical kind of way. But, you know, who better to judge?

I’m opinionated on a dude, sure. I certainly have a lady type, which we’ll get to later on; in terms of men, you can probably see echoes of my lady type there. Because I don’t share a sexual persuasion with my personal hero and avatar, Blanche Devereaux, I can safely admire from a distance without setting my lady loins aflame. Which means I can look past things that your average gal can’t seem to see straight around, like bulk or swagger. Are you seriously going to tell me you think Russell Crowe is objectively handsome with all that nonsense all over his face? Really? You seriously would have sex with him even if he beat you with a phone? He’s NOT Naomi Campbell, you know.

But I digress. I like my man candy dark, smart and lanky. An occasional blonde creeps into this listicle, but it’s just because those aren’t the blondes out there having more fun. Those are the blondes that are going to smoke on your stoop, drinking black coffee and ignoring the flowers that sorority sisters are throwing at them left and right. Somewhere upstairs, there’s a postmodernism-reading brunette assembling a perfect poached egg for him, and so he knows better. Also, he’s given up on the idea of love as a thing you can achieve, so he just doesn’t give a shit.

Without further delay, and in no particular order (and totally limited to the specific eras pictured here):

1. Ryan Gosling

Pretty much the perfect man; I’m willing to overlook the facial hair and the dirty blonde thing. Do I even have to justify this? The entire Internet meme-osphere is absolutely obsessed with him, and yeah, so am I. When I look into Ryan Gosling’s eyes, I can imagine all the deep discussions we would totally have. I can imagine driving through the countryside in a beat up, classic Mercedes with him, listening to doo-wop mix tapes. Also, extra cool points for the fact that he has an amazing album of Halloween-themed collaborations with middle-schoolers from Silver Lake.

2. Taylor Kitsch

Look at this beautiful, brooding, dirty little man. Taylor Kitsch, aka Tim Riggins to those of you who know best/better, is sort of unusual for me because he is a little on the muscle-y side. Like the best of butches, Kitsch is the strong, silent type, which I can appreciate and identify with, to a certain extent. Sure, get some Jack Daniels in him and he probably gets even quieter whereas I can’t shut up, but I have a feeling that we could be BFFs. Taylor/Tim also has that hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold thing going on, without all the horse face of a Julia Roberts. I can get behind a man who doesn’t shy away from responsibility, even as he shies away from steady employment.

3. Jake Gyllenhaal

Those eyes! That nose! That mouth! That soft-looking hair! Those fierce, heartbreaking sex scenes with Heath Ledger! Jake Gyllenhaal is every woman’s woman-man dream, especially now that he’s done futzing around with Witherspoon. Witherspoon could not possibly appreciate such a delightful, slightly lispy androgyne like Jake Gyllenhaal. You might take exception with the androgyny assertion, but you’d be wrong. Loving Jake Gyllenhaal essentially means that you love Maggie Gyllenhaal, since they are basically the same thing, only one has a hoo ha. Also, he looks like KD Lang, so. Like I said, you’re wrong.

4 & 5. Zack Morris and Mark Paul Gosselaar

After much debate, I had to combine these two kinda, but not really. Let’s start with Zack, first of all. Despite the fact that he essentially has a If These Walls Could Talk 2 cockatoo hair-do for most of Saved By The Bell, so you know he has a little lesbian sympathy in him, there’s more to Morris than this. He’s the quintessential class clown/boy next door type that all lesbians secretly aspire to be. Now. How does this translate into beauty appreciation? Way before you’re a lesbian to yourself and others, you’re a lesbian first and foremost in your brain,but you still think you are gonna get a boyfriend. That, in fact, was one of my New Year’s resolutions one time, to get a boyfriend. The boyfriend you would want is Zack Morris, until you realize that’s the girlfriend you want to be.The fact that Mark Paul, number 5, is actually a brunette and has that swarthy friend and confidante vibe in his old(er) age, and the fact that I’ll forever associate him with this little class-skipping pipsqueak, means that I’d never turn down a date with him at the Max.

6. Timothy Olyphant

Now. Here is a man who somehow manages to embody that pretty-boy high-cheekboned something AND the rugged, cowboy on the range aesthetic all at once. He’s sinister and I like that. I’m tipping all over the Kinsey scale just thinking about it-but I think one of the reasons why I like him is because of his character in The Broken Hearts Club; he’s even sexy while gay for pay.

7. Josh Hartnett

Here is Josh Hott-nett, a pouty, grubby heartthrob of my pre-lesbian youth. Same sort of thing with the Gyllenhaal mouth & soft hair. I love how in my idea of sexual attraction in men, “soft hair” is on the top of the list. Not thinking of anything else here. We’d get right down to it, lay on the bed and I would rub his hair. Poor men. Sorry, I was honest about my needs.

8. George Clooney

Clooney is beautiful because he’s smart, funny, unbelievably cool, and totally unobtainable, which I enjoy in a man. I don’t like how they cheapen themselves running around with the Witherspoons of the world, something Cloons would never do. I haven’t been up close to him at all, but he looks like he has long eyelashes, too.

9. James Dean

Brooding. Beautiful. Dead, so he can’t talk back to you or burp in your face. James Dean was a tortured soul, and we all know from the music of KD Lang that lesbians are, too.

Which brings me to….

10. James Franco as James Dean

If you had spoken to me on the topic earlier, I easily would have included James Franco on my most beautiful shortlist. Howevs, his behavior as of late has been more irritating rather than endearing. While I do appreciate that he clearly has a sense of humor, wanting to have five hundred postgraduate degrees in every conceivable subject as well as his meta-turn as the artist Franco in General Hospital, I can’t really get past the…thing that he’s become. And as opposed to Ryan Gosling, he has really BECOME the thing he’s become. The world has created a monster in Franco/James Franco, and the only way I can get past this is to imagine him as he is when he’s at his most beautiful, as James Dean. Which is probably saying something about whatever the cipher that is James Franco actually is.

10 Most Beautiful: A Straight Girl on Men

Tue, 01 May 2012 05:56:00 -0400

Long hiatus, huh? We’re back, though, with some fine fluff for all our friends. Over the next few days, we’re going to give you our top ten most beautiful men, and then our women, as told by 1. a straight girl 2. a gay man 3. a lesbian girl (that is: a new contributor—PuddinPies. Peeing your pants yet?)

All culture usually gives you is hottie lists of women by straight men, so those voices will not be heard here.

My type of man. He’s, dark, Jew-y and brooding. Wiry. I’ve been known to have a thing for guys with bad teeth, guys who look mid or post-heroin addiction. I also like Spanish guys (like Madonna), but they’re unfortunately not really represented on this list. I love a sinister eyebrow. And, like, not to hate on Nordic fellas, but I’m just not into blond guys (though blond women are great). Even Jordan Catalano doesn’t make the cut cuz he’s too blond for me. It’s kind of the darker your hair, the better? Though I’m OK on redheads, I think…whatshisname, Jennifer Connelly’s husband (who I once saw in an elevator) Paul Bettany, is hot.

I need something to be off-center with men. Standard beauty works for me with women, but for men, there has to be an angle—whether that’s a crooked nose, a sooty undereye, or a look like maybe you’re gonna stab me, or maybe you just got back from an LSD-fueled wander through the woods.

Also, this goes for men and women—I’m only taking responsibility for the specific eras pictured here. I’m not liable for the bloated, the frosted tipped, the sunglasses with purple lenses of males wafting on the latter day buffet boat of the Hollywood strip. In any case, let’s do this:

1. Jeremy Irons

The BBC Brideshead Revisited is the best thing that’s ever been put on film, and though this is also plainly untrue, I’m willing to claim that this face is at least half the reason why. No man will ever again be as handsome as he was in this series. And the tweed? And the wistful? And love on the high seas. I’ve found myself to be jealous of the actress who plays Julia Flyte the same way I was of Gwen Stefani when she first started dating Gavin Rossdale. I find myself mournful that I’m not watching Brideshead at any particular moment in time, because I’m not seeing this face. Bonus: his naked ass appears on screen. Bonus: his voice. Did you know he was the voice of Scar in the Lion King? I mean and he has that like distinctly British thing of a slight overbite that makes his voice somehow sexy-lisped? Do you know what I’m talking about?

2. Bruce Springsteen

He’s the Boss. Have you heard? He’s a more romantic, more corporal Bob Dylan who will, with strong, brutal painter’s hands smash the burning cage where your heart is trapped, jumpstart a motorcycle to set sail from suburban despair, father and nurture your children, all while making a guitar look like rugged sex as visceral hand-etched images of our National Anguish growl from his wolf/Roman sculpture mouth.

I get upset sometimes I didn’t get to be a teenage girl in the 80s, so I might have thrown myself as a disciple with all the rest of the Jersey girls at the Apollonian God of this perfected man.

3. Bob Dylan

Then there’s the less corporal version of Bob Dylan—Bob Dylan himself. Although he’s quite corporal, actually, just in an androgynous way that moves less like an animal and more like a collection of body parts suspended on gossamer banjo strings in a Lewis Carroll vapor. At a certain point, cool overtakes all matters of appearance, to the extent that who can even say what the fuck Bob Dylan looks like? I know that he looks like a bunch of lines that add up to art. I know that charisma has taken few better forms than it takes in him.

Also, Edie loved him, and maybe had something going on with him, but he remains too much of a gentleman to say. But Edie Sedgwick was mad for him and called him Bobby. I’m big on the beauty of the women in men’s lives being one of the best and most “accurate” measures of their personal attractiveness. It’s a theme, you’ll see emerge, I’m sure, with the girls on my list.

4. John Cusack

When I threw the full weight of my soul and personality at my high school crush, it was because he was the living version of what John Cusack played in movies. Cusack’s one of the worst examples of what happens down the line, and why I’m limiting this list to specific eras, because I’ve heard some frightening reports of the kind of sleaze we’re dealing with now, but whatevs, we’re not talking about that, we’re talking about the skinny kid in The Sure Thing and Say Anything, where he’s a flaneur Holden Caulfield who has just discovered the world of girls, and plays towards us in just the way we want it—terrified, cocky, a little wounded, but brave as a little toaster in his charm. And funny. Funny’s the best. Funny’s really the be all end all, you know? I mean, it’s great when dual funny works and you get a Bogey/Bacall thing going on, but really you want a boy, in high school, to make you laugh, to make you feel like you’re the buttoned up Daphne Zuniga character and he’s going to be the one to unbutton you.

5. Humphrey Bogart

Speaking of Bogey, there he is. There’s something sphinx-like about Bogart’s masculinity. What makes it the most masculine? As a woman, its very inaccessibility is what makes it so seductive. And above all men who’ve ever lived, above stupid James Bond, or whatever the fuck, I understand why men want to be Humphrey Bogart. Whatever it is, it’s analogous to why women want to be Jackie Kennedy. It’s a grace, an unflappability essential to its gender. There’s also the Dylan quality: who even knows how handsome he is when you’re looking at (male) human character perfected? Also, whenever I read Henry Miller, fucking all his bitches, I actually picture him looking like Bogart, not like how he actually looks. That articulates something, I think.

6. Johnny Depp

I like to call him Juan Depp. Listen, it’s like, I always liked boys—starting very young, even kindergarten, I had crushes on boys in my school—but for some reason the idea of having a crush on a celebrity never occurred or happened to me. New Kids on the Block passed me by. I knew I was supposed to like JTT or Zack Morris or whatever, but I was always just playing along until 1993 happened and some fucking where I saw Johnny Depp and Kate Moss in a picture together and it was just such a personal, physical reaction to the beauty and richness of this Now, my now. It’s one of the most formative visuals I’ve ever had the good fortune to grace my eyes. I know for a fact he was wearing that hat. I know for a fact that I am so, so sad they never had babies.

7. Jakob Dylan

It feels embarrassing to even talk about this poor guy when you stack him up among the behemoths who surround him, but give it up for him, you know? I mean I guess he’s what happens when Bob Dylan mates with a Playboy bunny. He’s actually on the far limits of the amount of pretty I’m willing to accept, with those blue razz eyes. But I love the hollowed out sockets that surround them. And I love 1998, and he was as tops as it got in 1998. It was like girls finally got someone so unequivocally handsome that it sort of evened the score for a second next to the banquet of symmetrical beauty men are given every day of their damn lives.

8. David Berman

This is my list, alright? So I’m going to put David Berman. Fortunately for me, my favorite lyricist of my time also happens to meet and exceed all my criteria for male attractiveness. Those angular, Semitic features, that hair dark like a black bear. Stephen Malkmus is not bad looking, but here again, in the realm of looks, Berman is the forsaken prodigy of that pairing. It’s defs like Berman is the John Lennon and Malkmus is the Paul McCartney in all ways, except if John Lennon never got any credit or respect. But looks too, right? Malkmus has a banal cuteness like McCartney whereas Berman/Lennon have the curiosity of feature I consider essential to male beauty. Whatever, yeah. I love Berman’s voice too. It creaks, it wobbles, it’s the perfect medium to suspend his words. And I’ve met him a number of times, and he’s sweet.

It seems lyricists really tip the scales for me.

9. Syd Barrett

Beautiful for me is a lot about you look like this, but your brain is cracked beyond repair.

“Interviewed on Pat Boone’s show during this tour, Syd’s reply to Boone’s questions was a “blank and totally mute stare”; according to Nick Mason, “Syd wasn’t into moving his lips that day”…Before a performance in late 1967, Barrett reportedly crushed Mandrax tranquilliser tablets and an entire tube of Brylcreem into his hair, which subsequently melted down his face under the heat of the stage lighting, making him look like “a guttered candle”.^[15] Nick Mason later disputed the Mandrax portion of this story, stating that “Syd would never waste good mandies”.

10. Paul Newman

I debated putting here, in this last slot, some appropriate admixture of whatever idea of track marked, chip toothed, Kate Moss discard bin men would have fit my teenage ideal of beauty, but the truth is, I’ve gotten more conventional in my golden years. Talking about Paul Newman’s beauty is gilding the lily egregiously. It’s irrefutable. If you took eight different kinds of spirit animals to represent the prismatic spectrum of his resplendent halo, it wouldn’t be enough. Like a parade of lions, eagles, owls, elephants, lambs, turtles carrying the earth, wolves with dogs’ gentleness—that parade would be a start, but it would be trifling and insufficient to capture.

——

So that’s my list, but just for shits and gigs, I’m going to give you a little encore, which is this guy, who I know nothing about, save that Patrice sent this video after Spain won the World Cup the other year, and the back story is that he and the reporter are dating, but it’s still publicly a secret, and, like this happens? And can every man look like him, and can all romantic interaction basically be this?

Don't Dream it's Over

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 19:14:44 -0400

This song is the carpeted waiting room of God’s lobby. Decorated like an upscale motor lodge, but still a lobby for God, and so of heaven. Trimmings of commerce linger on its edges—the smell of mall pretzels, makeup counter ladies spritzing perfume on passersby. Volatile compounds of minted, cinnamon’d gum displays; the sterilized crinkle of prescription bags. A black town car you’re traveling to the airport in—cold and dawn, but the heat’s on in its back seat, you watch the sun rise, you start counting the steps to the door of your heart. You are going up and down an escalator in many locations at once. So many of its phrases overhanging their lines’ meter, dragged over and under the bruleed guitar sounds like tide pulls. Hear it at night and it’s a prom dance, balloons slowly volleying off of dancers’ feet. Hear it in the day and it’s like cold medicine—a cottoned veil over your thoughts, now both wistful and automated. So diffuse; broadcast from underwater transmitters. Argonauts set sail to it. The refrain seems to be written on the walls, on the t-shirts of ghosts you walk among. Don’t let them win.

In the waiting room there are velvet plush pews that smell of Catholic incense and Little Pine car freshener, and you kneel on them for the organ segment, look up through a stained glass cupola in expectation of the crescendo. As you kneel, you commune with every loneliness you’ve ever known, each of them folded together and suddenly sweet, berries studding the strange candied cream of the song.

1 Gay, 1 Blog Post

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:39:37 -0400

We’re going to chat about the show 1 Girl 5 Gays. I know…it’s been on for over a year. But I guess it’s taken me that long to decide quite how I felt about it. And the thing is…I’m still not completely sure. The best I can do is “love/hate”, and that’s not very good, is it?

What contributes to the “hate” part of the equation is pretty obvious, but worth stating nonetheless. I hate that on a show that aims to present a spectrum of the gay community, the panelists all seem like they were scouted at the exact same circuit party. Virtually everyone in the rotating cast of “Gays” is perfectly toned and coiffed within an inch of their life; they’re all copies of the same Ken doll, just clad in different outfits, depending on “type.” To be fair to the cast, a lot of them actually did know each other socially before the show. And, as with many groups of friends, their fashions and opinions tend to run closely with each other’s. Furthermore, as any circuit queen will tell you, fatties tend to not be allowed. Unless, of course, they’re willing to be the token “bear”, which is exactly what young Phillip is on the show.

Having to bear the brunt of representing guys with a BMI over 0 is a daunting job, certainly. There’s no right way to do this; you discuss your weight a couple of times, and suddenly, people think that’s all you talk about. You ignore the issue, and your weight becomes (ahem…) the elephant in the room. But I digress…

The show shouldn’t be called 1 Girl 5 Gays; it should be called 1 Girl 5 Friends or 1 Girl and This Particular Groupa Queens. The fun of 20 questions is that you’re getting a range of answers, from a bunch of different people. (Every college freshman knows that it’s just plain boring going up against a bunch of sluts in a game of “Never Have I Ever.” Why? Because there’s no mystery, no surprise. Anything you can think of, they already have. So it’s best to just chug your entire beer and call it a night, y’know?)

This is not to say that the cast doesn’t disagree; most of the time they do. I just find myself watching and consciously being distracted by how similar most of the panelists are to each other. There are only 3 or 4 Gays of Color (in a rotating cast of 20 or so), only 1 overweight Gay, 0 trans men, 0 fathers, and 0 Gays over the age of 35. Put bluntly, we’re watching a group of like minded friends bicker, and that gets tiresome after a while.

Others have critiqued the somewhat glib tone of the show, claiming that it treats gay men as accessories. Seemingly there is some truth to this as the host, Aliya-Jasmine, is the only cast member present in all episodes. For this reason, it is tempting to view the show as one big exercise in selfish fag haggery, with the “Girl” interchanging her “Gays” at will, configuring them to suit her mercurial whims. I can’t really get behind this argument, though – a cursory viewing of any episode will illustrate that if anyone is there for “window dressing” or to be played with, it’s the female host. The guys prod her, play with her hair, and speak suggestively to her at will. If anything, the Girl v. Gays power struggle is a draw. Still, it is a little troubling that she maintains a steady presence (and therefore establishes the most fully formed “character”) while the men just rotate in and out.

Now, on to the “love” part. I do, believe it or not, love watching this show. Aliya-Jasmine’s questions range from the outrageous and tawdry (ie. Grindr profile pics, preferred penis size) to the sweet and banal (first gay role model, thoughts on having children.) Something straight audiences take for granted is that their (even fairly outré) desires are widely broadcast; from adolescence, movies like Porky’s or American Pie allow them to see themselves on screen and know that they are not alone in their even most pedestrian desires.

Aside from the occasional art house or niche flick, the less than glamorous, messy sides of gay life are still not really explored in pop culture. Our sex is supposed to be either porn star hot, or take place in some Tom Ford Gucci ad. Realistic depictions or discussions of gay sex are really are not as widespread as one would hope. Essentially, I think of 1G5G as filling the gay Porky’s void; it’s a smorgasbord of the naughty and the gross and the erotic, which allows us to say “Oh my God, really? Me too!” I hate to be so easily pleased, but I’m just glad there’s something like this on TV. I’m solidly a member of the any representation beats no representation camp on this one.

Video

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:01:55 -0400

Notes on ditzes

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 12:16:11 -0400

King Helene once told me that Kristin Davis is the best actress on Sex and the City, because it’s harder to act comedy well, but especially hard to play a character like Charlotte—a ditz—where we’re supposed to scoff at her, yet respect the stakes of her existence enough to be moved by her. This has stuck with me for a number of reasons, one of them being that I find Davis’s character to be one of the more three dimensional on the show, in spite of her ditzery. She’s not a drag queen marionette like Samantha, or a bed of lettuce on which to serve harlequin clichés like Carrie, but a vulnerable creature both crippled and created by her geisha routine. She’s a rare locus on the show where femininity-as-performance is queried, and it’s revealing/amusing that it comes in the form of a stock character.
What are the terms of a ditz? She’s attractive (necessarily?), frequently blonde, always well intentioned, usually in a situation of wanting or having to escape the confines of her existence—Lucy trying to leave the house and act in Ricky’s world, Marilyn trying to snag a rich husband, Parker trying to be taken seriously as a librarian.
There’s not quite an equivalent to the ditz in the male world (though something could probably be said of stoner comedies). Men can be absentminded; sweet and dopey strivers—their pratfalls endearing, but there’s a layer of pity or dismissal attached to even leading idiots that seems not to apply to the lady ditz. The ditz, though a cousin to, is something other than the fool. It has to do with a handicap granted indiscriminately to her gender, that makes her bumbling a given and casts any success as a triumph, as this poor, writhing creature tries to squirm out from behind her breasts.
I think of all the ditzes in the world—the real life ones I’ve known, and the fictional ones, and there seems a real possibility that the whole of ditzery is only a trope. The ditz trajectory on film is often that a layer of superficiality is removed, or that a form of greedy, shallow ambition is replaced with a yearning for real meaning. The costumes are toned down, the caper music quiets, and the person behind the ditz is exposed…maybe just momentarily, but exposed.
Ditzes are charming. It could be that the charm is the blundering or it could be that, unlike more composed women who have been trained in the Jackie Kennedy mode to keep their personalities milk-still in a porcelain vessel, the ditz rushes about the world a chipped vase, and the accident of leaving any droplets behind is so unusual as to constitute charm. Either way, the charm permits a veiled feminism—surging ahead doggedly, not in firm (Katherine) Hepburnian strides, but in little hogtied pencil skirt wiggles. It wavers in a half-active/half-passive mode—the ask for forgiveness instead of permission approach.

If you give a mouse a cookie...

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:42:45 -0400

As long as someone’s willing to publish something about Lindsay “It’s Just Water” Lohan, I will read it. I used to deny it, and say that “it’s just sad, now” and then go buy an US Weekly with her on the cover to see which exclusive club/VFW Hall/LA County Jail she was stumbling out of that week. But I’m done with the frontin’ and the lies; you know why? Because you all do the same thing. We love, love, love us some drunk, messy Lindsay. It’s not even a “decline” anymore, it’s simply her natural state. And it’s hilarious.

Failing a drug test the very month that your Vanity Fair cover story (complete with vigorous denials of substance abuse) hits newsstands? Claiming someone poured vodka down your leg, and that’s why your booze-monitoring anklet went off at a VMA afterparty? Posing for a picture (in France) of you next to a plate of coke the very same day you told the judge you couldn’t make it to court due to ”passport issues”?

Girl, please. You are cracking. me. up.

But what’s really funny are the details emerging from her last foray into covergirl-dom. So, Plum Magazine offers this bitch a cover-story and pictorial and exposure on their national media channels. Lindsay Lohan…who hasn’t done anything (besides blow) in years but get paid to make cameos in straight to DVD/limited release-in the bad way- flicks(yes, I know…”Machete”…but it was a glorified cameo…) and at nightclubs, but still bills herself as an “actress”…someone was going to let her talk and listen and put it in print. And do you know what she does? She flakes on the interview.

Whomp.

But at least we have the pictures. You know them by now…the played out side boob shot…

her looking lost and glamorous in a hotel lobby (Did you know she lived in the Chateau Marmont for over two years?! Suze Orman would have a fit!)…blah, blah, blah. Also, this person is only 25 years old.

What’s awesome is that the writer decides that instead of just printing the pics, she’d document the time she spent in the vortex of nuts that is Camp Lohan. Apparently, she got her underage sister drunk, was in tears over a pair of missing heels (don’t you get the feeling she’s the girl who is always crawling around the floor of the club at closing?), and in the best episode, yells “Move that cone. I’m Lindsay Lohan” to who she assumed (and we hope actually was) a parking attendant. Too bad whoever he was did. ‘Cause she definitely hit him up for a twenty once she did the rest of her stash in the lobby bathroom. At least he got to feed her some humble pie. (She then returned to the lobby bathroom and threw it back up, though.)

You can read more in depth about the Lohan crazy here: http://gawker.com/5820809/lindsay-lohan-indignant-that-she-was-not-considered-for-black-swan

Can someone please get this girl a reality show stat?! I need more than vignettes, and photo outtakes and the occassional TMZ video. I need full on, first person narration of the nuts. Because while she’s no longer an actress, she’s one hell of an entertainer.

Video

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:59:18 -0400

Color me stereotype, but I love Gloria Estefan. The word...

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 23:34:48 -0400

Color me stereotype, but I love Gloria Estefan. The word “diva” is overused, and sadly Latin ones rarely get their due…especially when you consider their world wide appeal and commercial reach. (She’s sold over 100 million records!) Little Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan from the Miami barrio grew up to be the biggest thing ever in Latin music, keeping much of the same band that launched her stardom over 30 years ago. That’s right…little Gloria started singing with the Miami Sound Machine when it was a wedding band in mid 70’s Miami.

If this comes off as a (very gay) second grade book report about “Why I Love Gloria Estefan”, it’s because it is…OK? I like that everything she does has an aspect of a pretty second grade teacher who’s gentle enough to read to you during recess but tough enough to fend off you bullies. I feel comfortable with La Estefan. She’s recorded one of the only Latin albums I ever bought (“Mi Tierra”…it’s amazing.)

Full disclosure: Basically, I’m two Leinenkugels into my evening. And she’s the best thing ever if you ever want to be cradled in the security of a matte 1991 sensibility. Also, Gloria is superhuman. She wrote this one year after getting into a (literally) spine severing tour bus collision. They said she might not walk!

I used to playact Award Show acceptance speeches as a kid. ...

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 21:33:00 -0400

I used to playact Award Show acceptance speeches as a kid. Usually, I was winning a Grammy, but sometimes it was a Daytime Emmy - for all of the talk shows I would also be playacting (GI Joe and Ninja Turtle action figures make EXCELLENT audience members.) Usually, a Grammy though.

I’ve decided that it’s on my bucket list to re-enact this entire acceptance speech in full drag. I remember watching it as a kid (yes, I tuned in due to the buzz that she might actually win that year) and tearing up, and I have to admit, I still do. It’s the actual enthusiasm of the audience (everyone’s so damn happy for her), coupled with her faux modesty. It’s how Susan is clutching the shit out of that Emmy, and how you get the feeling she didn’t let it out of her grip for like, months after. Camp value + actual joy + Oprah cameo = this moment, I think.

This song has a fun Fast Times at Ridgemont meets NASCAR vibe,...

Tue, 31 May 2011 21:26:29 -0400

This song has a fun Fast Times at Ridgemont meets NASCAR vibe, somehow.

Here I Stand in the Shadows

Tue, 24 May 2011 12:14:04 -0400

This one is a direct dedication to King Helene.

In high school, my best friend, who—in the grand tradition of my close male friends since kindergarten—turned out to be gay but-I-was-too-dumb-to-realize-it had this thing where we’d sit in the black leather seats of his deluxe SUV smoking Parliaments and belting pop songs together. By ‘together’ I mean to each other, wailing our hearts out, all the pathos of what we couldn’t have in life melting into the warm platonic nest of each other. Our favorites were ‘N Sync, Lil Kim, Britney, but then there was this song, which stood above all others.

In retrospect, I’m pleased as pudding that this was our song because it holds up nicely as a banner of fag haggery in its puzzling, dulcet complexity. There was the fact that both of us would fight over who would get to be the Christina in the duet (understand though: who can resist delivering the “lah-ooooonging to ho-old you” at 3:26?), there’s the campy drag queen/Orlando, Florida quality, there’s the way it’s a kabuki telenovela (yes there is a Spanish language version of this song), but mostly there’s the dominant flavor of this song and video, which is that of two sexually incompatible magnets passionately rebuffing each other in the dark (or actually in an Aladdin castle).

The non-chemistry of these two is the Vegas go-go dancer version of Don and Betty Draper: you’re hot, I’m hot, but I do not desire to put it in you, and there’s something lonely-making yet poignantly compelling about that. Something that glamorizes and throws into relief the sex that happens for each of us, elsewhere, while purifying this space. Something that makes us want to stand around in the vicinity of each other and writhe in a thwarted, masturbatory manner.

There’s the two dynamics: 1. the genial battle for diva-hood 2. the non-threatening mannequin sexuality. It’s a competition of two peers with nearly identical (societally marginalized) standards transposed over an essential apple vs. orange quality that saves each party from ever being subsumed by the other. Competition brings out the best in both without a phallic spear puncturing the bubble.

Watching Ricky paw at nubile Christina makes me think of Holly Golightly’s “He’s harmless—he thinks girls are dolls literally.” Ricky, at the forefront of his maze (“the mind’s mazes”) is a minotaur of a different color, the bestial half stored offscreen. With these two only hand gestures make the scene; they pass among each other as CGI ether instead of into each other as grinding hip motions, which is I think where it’s at with gay/girl friendships—it’s this chance to duet enthusiastically beside one another, inviting only the better angels of each gender.

Pro Blush

Thu, 19 May 2011 02:17:00 -0400

I find this song to be extra fancy. Elegant and odd.

When I was in the UK for a while, this was for whatever reason a blockbuster on the dance floor. Discotheques stood in for fratty house parties for college students there, so it was the kind of thing where you’d be snockered off of e.g. currant juice and vodka under blinking cruise ship lights, and this song would transform the teeming crowd of Top Shoppers into a tearful, swaying mass of jubilance, the way, say, “Livin on a Prayer” does for the Natural Light crowd here stateside. It’s always been one of my more vivid personal references for the way culture decants unevenly over the earth.

The song’s not especially danceable (which made the Brits’ enthusiasm all the more charming) but it does have this lovely lachrymose quality that mimics that sliver-thin edge of inebriation that exists just between its best sincerity and its worst mawkishness. It’s the kind of song to usher in last call with—not a floor closer, but one to start the process where everyone left starts to hunker down and accept that they’re not going home with anybody.

Also, I’d like to do a redo of this song called “Kim Carnes Hair” that would go “She’s got Kim Carnes hair” and it would be about me. Her suit is fierce. Her bone structure and attendant makeup is a way that was only allowed/actively encouraged during Reagan’s first term. Every mannequin that ever wore a shoulder pad was modeled in some way on Kim Carnes. Makes me want a nice firm wedge of burgundy blush to joist my cheekbones.

This video is the common ancestor of “Don’t Come Around Here No More” and “Walking on Broken Glass.”

...And a Patridge in a pear tree....

Sat, 14 May 2011 20:23:09 -0400

This week, I finally broke down and watched VH1s mid-day marathon of “Audrina”. This is what happens when you have Tuesdays off — you and the stoners and housewives watch multiple episodes of a second-string reality star’s spin off show. I’m not complaining, though; it’s just what you do. Anyway, obviously it’s horrible; but in so many ways that it may just have a chance. At the very least, it’s not boring - and that makes it better than say, “Denise Richards: It’s Complicated”, which got TWO seasons!

First off, Audrina’s mom is a drunnnnnnk. Like, perpetually blotto. You’d think she’d clean up her act after the first episode was devoted to the embarrassment Ceiling Eyes had to suffer after Mama Eyes’ booze-fueled rant to the paparazzi the night she got kicked off “Dancing With the Stars.” But you’re wrong. No joke — Mrs. Audrina was drunkenly slurring her words as she apologized to her daughter for the very incident in question. She could also barely keep her head still (drunk wobble-head.) I don’t think we’ve heard this lady properly enunciate a consonant yet, and we’re like 6 episodes in.

Also, Drunk Mom doesn’t get along with Casey, Ceiling Eyes’ tatted-up younger sister that we were first introduced to during “The Hills.” I guess, more accurately, she doesn’t get along with Sister Eyes’ husband. She’s “different when she’s around him”, according to Mama Eyes. (I’m just impressed that she can remember anything, as I am convinced this lady lives in a constant state of brown-out.) They don’t let her babysit the grandchildren, which is smart because you can’t really supervise kids passed out in your own vomit. The three of them, Mama Eyes, Sister Eyes and Eyes-in-Law, have pretty cringe-worthy Jerry Springer level fights about how they can’t stand each other and Audrina and her dad just sit there, nervously grinning. It’s all kinds of awesome.

Let’s face it - it’s impossible to watch this show and not compare it to “The Hills.” Remember, the only reason Audrina isn’t still working as an Administrative Assistant at Quixote Studios is that MTV happened to move Lauren and Heidi into her apartment complex. (Right before filming began, the producers scouted her at the pool and introduced her to Heidi, who introduced her to Lauren; that’s how she wound up on the series.) What stands out to me, when comparing the two shows, is something that’s true about all reality shows, especially docu-soaps. At the core of the beautiful cinematography, and designer outfits and bottle service are a group of incredibly lucky young people. They’re “stars” due to nothing more than being blank canvases on which other young people paint their desires, dreams and fantasies. Being a choreographed version of “themselves” is fun, and editing will take care of the rest.

We didn’t give a shit about Audrina’s past, or Mom or Dad or sister. But she does, and wants to put them on TV too…’cause TV’s awesome ‘cause it makes you famous and famous is good, right?! Wrong. But it would take a sense of self-awareness to know some things won’t be edited out and don’t belong on TV. And Audrina’s charmed existence never let her have a chance to develop a sense of self, not to mention self-awareness.

Cardiac Arrest

Fri, 13 May 2011 14:18:49 -0400

I wanted to say something about how this is a poor man’s “Dancing in the Dark” meets “Boys of Summer” but it turns out this predates those by a good three years, which is impressive, somehow. The dancer at 1:04 is great New Wave punctuation, like a clip art exclamation point (or maybe also a dog’s paw print?)

Also, just cuz:

And why not?:

Generally this cover is no improvement on the original, but the House breakdown part (“wa-oh ah-oh/wa-oh ah-oh”) has the perfect fashion catwalk sound like House of Style/twirling around on a platform heel as Naomi Campbell.

I also totally forgot that Paul Rudd has a role in this pic. Pre-Apatow Rudd is such a dreamboat. How fun to have been a love interest in the two best soundtrack movies of 95/96.

On April 30, 2011, the couple’s third wedding...

Fri, 06 May 2011 17:36:30 -0400

On April 30, 2011, the couple’s third wedding anniversary, Carey gave birth to fraternal twins via C-section.^[192]^[193] The twins were named Monroe, after Marilyn Monroe, and Moroccan Scott, after Cannon proposed to Carey in her Moroccan-style room.

Speed Queens

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:00:32 -0400

So, Raja won, big whoop. As you’ll notice in my previous post, I largely ignored her through out the season. She’s like that ultra-type A kid in High School — they’re so far off the charts that the teacher doesn’t even take them into account when figuring the curve. A big what-ever.

But she had talent (although if I did something for 2 decades, I’d be pretty good at it too…) and simply outperformed the others. It’s too bad she’s a bitchy robot. I’m just really disappointed in this season in general.

Why are the casts seemingly getting more and more catty with every season? Remember the camaraderie of Nina and Bebe? Tossing shade but doing so artfully, and never for the sole purpose of being divisive or clique-y. This season, the Queens (fittingly, I guess) took the cattiness to ridiculous heights, going as far as creating a clique they referred to as “The Heathers.” Now as much as I loved a feather banged Shannon Dougherty, seeing grown men go around being just plain mean to each other was a real turn off. C’mon…this is one of (if not the) highest rated show on Logo and this is what we show of ourselves? Going from being the bullied to the bully? Seriously?!

I will say this, though…Manila handled losing waaaay better than Raven did. Speaking of Raven, maybe she and Raja will get together and eat each other’s souls or something. Wouldn’t that be fun?!

Outro riff is my shit. Also, love how this guy and this...

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:38:00 -0400

Outro riff is my shit. Also, love how this guy and this performance are what happens when you combine Bill Clinton, George Bush II (look at his smirk eye!) and the presidency times of George Bush I.

Video

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 13:23:28 -0400