Naked Came I

Others may not like the band Franz Ferdinand (bad dog!), but I do.

And today, the Los Angeles Times has a big article about the band.

And let's not forget that I would love to be part of a Franz Ferdinand love-sandwich. Four cute boys, all naked and writing on the floor? Hell yes!

Gay porn star Troy Steele (real name: Scott Saunders) died Sept. 26, 2005, of AIDS. He was 43.

Steele was an activist with Aid for AIDS, a Los Angeles-based HIV/AIDS center. He won the Leo Ford AIDS Humanitarian Award at the Gay Erotic Video Awards in 1996.

Steele worked to bring HIV/AIDS agencies into a closer working relationship with the gay adult film industry. He got his foot in the gay porn industry door working with Aid for AIDS, then became a porn star himself.

In the last few years, Steele represented a number of gay porn stars as an agent, including a number of European models.

Steele worked for a wide range of studios, including Jet Set, Video 10, U.S. Male, and Oh Man!

Steel fell ill a month ago. His family was with him at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs when he died.

A memorial service was held on Thursday, Sept. 29, at St. John's Lutheran Church in Palm Springs.



The image at the top is Steele about to be blown in "Leather Training Center 2" (Oh Man! Studios, 1996). The bottom two are Steele masturbating onto a target held by Paul Morgan in "Flyin' Solo" (In-X-Cess, 1998).

The D.C. Center for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender People voted on Sept. 20 to release a financial disclosure statement within the next two weeks.

The Center's board said it would release a detailed narrative that would include the history of the Center and a summary of its finances. An un-audited financial spreadsheet would also be released.

The Center has not released detailed information about its finances since it was founded in 1999 and incorporated as a non-profit organization in 2002.

That the Center will release an unaudited financial statement is astonishing.

Large organizations routinely commission an independent, external audit every year.

Small organizations often choose to forego that expense. Instead, they have an internal financial review committee (usually a committee of the board which does not include the treasurer) audit the books.

That the Center has not had either in three years is alarming.

The Center is not a small organization. It has had at least $275,000 flow through its doors in the past two years. The Cherry Fund donated that much to it. It has had significant expenditures: Paying for studies, paying for fund-raising, paying for office space and paying for programs.


HEY! Smell that?

That's the whiff of scandal, folks.

So.

I wonder: Where are the gay porn films in which big cumshots are fetishized?

There are plenty of films out there where one guy, maybe two, has a big sloppy orgasm. Maybe it's just that he built up a lot that week. Maybe he's really hot that day. But the guy isn't know for his big loads.

Or, maybe the guy is known for his big loads. He's a Paul Morgan, a Mikie, a Lukas Ridgeston or a Casey Jordan. But he's just one guy among 10 in the film. He unleashes, but no one seems to notice. His partner is almost squeamish about it. The cameraman misses it, or fails to capture it adequately.


I want a film in which almost everyone is a big cummer. I want a film in which guys writhe and revel in ecstasy as a huge load is spewed onto them. I want guys moaning while they shudder from the feeling of massive amounts of cum dripping off their bodies.

Where's that film?

Does anyone know if Eurocreme is going to have a calendar this year?

I got their 2005 one, and it is superb.

I wish this studio would work harder at getting their models into American gay porn magazines. There are som luscious Eurocreme boys, but they aren't getting any attention over here.

You can thank Ethan for this. hee hee!

http://www.starterupsteve.com/flash/html/the_gay_test.shtml

A friend and I were chatting last night about funny incidents. The time someone told a joke and you spit soda up your nose (or, worse, backwashed into grandma's bottle). The time you went to work with your fly open. Stuff like that.

Then he mentioned something I'd never thought of.

"There was this time my girlfriend and I were eating chocolate while naked. It was a very dry kind of chocolate. I broke off a piece, and a bunch of chocolate bits spilled down my stomach and into my pubes."

Tiny chocolate pieces melt on contact with skin. Brushing them out of his pubes merely melted them. "Within just 30 seconds or so, my pubes were covered in little melted bits of chocolate. I had to go take a shower to get rid of it! That busted up the mood."

Word to the wise, folks.

Japanese researchers have taken the first pictures of a live giant squid (Architeuthis dux) in its natural environment.

Biologists know that sperm whales often feed on giant squid. The whales gather near the Japan's Ogasawara Islands to feed.

The researchers knew that this was where the squid existed. Remains of giant squid have previously been reported floating at the surface in the area, and have been recovered by fishing boats.

For three years the researchers followed the whales and tried to find the squid. To help lure the squid into view, the scientists dropped mesh balls filled with squashed-up shrimp into the ocean. The balls floated at various levels where the scientists believed the squid swam. Each ball hung far below a rig containing a camera, a light and a data logger. Pictures were taken every 30 seconds over five hours.

Their persistence paid off.

At 9:15 a.m. on September 30, 2004, a giant squid appeared. It lunged at the bait-ball, which was floating almost 3,000 feet below the surface. One of the squid's tentacles became caught in the bait-ball. Over the next four hours, the squid was photographed as it struggled to free itself. It escaped when about 18.5 feet of the tentacle tore off.

Scientists used DNA sequencing to confirm that the squid was indeed A. dux. (That took more than a year, which is why the news is only now being officially announced.)

The photographs show how giant squid propels themselves and attacks their prey. The giant squid uses its two elongated feeding tentacles to strike and tangle prey. It coils the tentacles into a ball much the same way that pythons coil their body around prey.

Juvenile specimens of giant squid (a few inches long) have been collected in the wild by New Zealand researchers, but this is the first time a live adult has been observed.

The Japanese researchers say that the squid's body and tentacles were about 25 feet long altogether.

An even larger squid -- Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, or the "colossal squid" -- is also known. Only six specimens have ever been found. Five have come from the stomachs of sperm whales. A sixth was caught in a trawl net in the Ross Sea near Antarctica by New Zealand fishermen in 2003.

More than 250 giant squid have been found over the last 150 -- all of them dead or dying.














I think this whole thing is creepy as shit. I am already freaked out by vast expanses of ocean. I am already freaked out by the thought of drowning. I am already freaked out by the thought of being in the vast sea, pursued by sharks.

Now there are huge man-eating squid out there with rotating hooks on the ends of their tentacles and suckers lined with hooks that can rip the flesh off you. And big, luminous, creepy eyes. The biggest eyes in the world. Glowing demonically in the dark.

Fuck the ocean. I'm staying on dry land where God put me.

As hurricane relief donations zoomed past the $1.3 billion mark -- more than double all other charities combined -- the American Red Cross is being sharply criticized for its efforts and under mounting pressure to share money with smaller groups.

Let you think this is some fringe group whining, the comments came in "USA Today."

Complaints included allegations that Red Cross operations were chaotic in some places, inequitable in others.

How funds are allocated between relief and development is always a problem because relief is sexy and development is not. Huge amounts of money are being poured into relief, and far less to local organizations which can find the best way to help rebuild their communities.

Now a coalition of black community groups called Saving Our Selves is urging the Red Cross to consult with them and share the wealth as attention shifts to rebuilding.

Still, the Red Cross is claiming it will need $2 billion to fund its own relief efforts.

But experts in relief efforts say that Red Cross costs will actually amount to a little less than $100 million after federal and state governments reimburse the organization.

New book and magazine day!

FINALLY! Janssen has released "Black, Vol. 2" and "Black Versatile" and "Naked Factory".

I AM SO IN LINE ALREADY!

I subscribe to an email newsletter distributed by Pro-Fun Media. It's a German company which is sort of like TLA Video -- only they carry a far wider selection of books, films and materials. I like them because they also carry things not just from Germany but from England, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and a host of European countries. (And yes, from the U.S. too.)

I've purchased a number of books and films from Pro-Fun. They're easy to work with, and very very quick with shipping.

I like them, too, because they showcase things that customers may not normally come across. Things that broaden your horizon. Things that are intruiging.

Like "Mate." I'd never heard of "Mate" magazine. But boy it sure does look interesting!

I may buy a copy. (Okay, it's no "Euroboy" or "Vulcan" -- which contains delicious twinky well-hung studlets just right for eating alive. But I think it might be worth it anyway.)

So. You put an X next to each movie you have seen. If you've seen more than 70 of these films, you're an official "Movie Whore"(c).

Citizen Kane (X)
Casablanca (X)
The Godfather (X)
Gone With The Wind (X)
Lawrence of Arabia (X)
The Wizard of Oz (X)
The Graduate ( )
On the Waterfront (X)
Schindler's List (X)
Singin' in the Rain (X)
It's A Wonderful Life (X)
Sunset Boulevard (X)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (X)
Some Like It Hot (X)
Star Wars (X)
All About Eve (X)
The African Queen (X)
Psycho (X)
Chinatown (X)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ( )
The Grapes of Wrath ( )
2001: A Space Odyssey (X)
The Maltese Falcon (X)
Raging Bull ( )
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (X)

Oy. That's 25 films, and 21 points already.


Dr. Strangelove (X)
Bonnie & Clyde (X)
Apocalypse Now (X)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (X)
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (X)
Annie Hall ( )
The Godfather, Part II (X)
High Noon (X)
To Kill a Mockingbird (X)
It Happened One Night (X)
Midnight Cowboy (X)
The Best Years of Our Lives (X)
Double Indemnity (X)
Doctor Zhivago (X)
North by Northwest (X)
West Side Story (X)
Rear Window (X)
King Kong (X)
The Birth of a Nation (X)
A Streetcar Named Desire (X)
A Clockwork Orange (X)
Taxi Driver (X)
Jaws (X)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (X)
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (X)

Geez: 50 films and 24 more points.


The Philadelphia Story (X)
From Here to Eternity (X)
Amadeus (X)
All Quiet on the Western Front (X)
The Sound of Music (X)
M*A*S*H (X)
The Third Man (X)
Fantasia (X)
Rebel Without a Cause (X)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (X)
Vertigo (X)
Tootsie (X)
Stagecoach (X)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (X)
The Silence of the Lambs (X)
Network (X)
The Manchurian Candidate (X)
An American in Paris (X)
Shane (X)
The French Connection ( )
Forrest Gump (X)
Ben-Hur (X)
Wuthering Heights (X)
The Gold Rush ( )
Dances With Wolves ( )

Ugh. 22 more points!


City Lights (X)
American Graffiti ( )
Rocky (X)
The Deer Hunter ( )
The Wild Bunch ( )
Modern Times (X)
Giant (X)
Platoon (X)
Fargo (X)
Duck Soup (X)
Mutiny on the Bounty (X)
Frankenstein (X)
Easy Rider ( )
Patton (X)
The Jazz Singer ( )
My Fair Lady (X)
A Place in the Sun ( )
The Apartment (X)
Goodfellas (X)
Pulp Fiction (X)
The Searchers (X)
Bringing Up Baby (X)
Unforgiven (X)
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (X)
Yankee Doodle Dandy (X)

100 movies. Another 19 points.

I scored 83 points. I'm a whore!!!!!!!!!

Don Adams, who created the bumbling spy Maxwell Smart and was the star of the popular comedy show "Get Smart," has died of a lung infection. He was 82.

"Get Smart" ran on NBC from 1965 to 1969 and on CBS from 1969 to 1970. It routinely placed in the top 20 shows. "Get Smart" won an Emmy twice for best comedy series, and Adams won the Emmy three times for best actor. (That's Maxwell Smart's shoe-phone at the right, on display at the Smithsonian.)

Maxwell Smart was a bumbling secret agent for CONTROL, the good-guy spy agency who every week foiled the evil plans of KAOS. (The chief of KAOS, Siegfried, was played by Bernie Koppell -- who later starred on "The Love Boat" as Your Ship's Doctor.)

Maxwell Smart was Agent 86 (bartender's code for cutting off service to a drunk), an amazingly stupid and inept secret agent addicted to gadgets and crazy schemes. When caught, he would invariably come up with bombastic predictions of salvation, only to have to retract them embarrasingly.

His faithful, beautiful and intelligent sidekick, Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), would always bail him out. His long-suffering boss, The Chief (Ed Platt), was often the victim of Smart's ineptitude.

"Get Smart" was written and produced by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, two of the best comedy writers in Hollywood.

Several of Maxwell Smart's lines became popular catchphrases:

"Would you believe...?" (Often used when Smart made some audacious claim that had failed to come true. "I've got 75 agents outside ready to burst in." "All right. Would you believe 10 agents?" "All right. Would you believe a Boy Scout and dog?")

"Let me handle it, 99." (And then he would, and botch it.)

"Sorry about that, Chief." (Always said after the Chief has suffered some humiliation from one of Smart's schemes.)

Adams began his career on TV as the voice of the penguin, Tennessee Tuxedo, on "Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales." The show later was integrated as a short on the "Underdog" show.

After "Get Smart," Adams made numerous appears on "The Tonight Show" and other talk shows. In 1975, he directed the syndicated TV show "Don Adams' Screen Test," in which Adams would take everday people and give them a scene to do from a famous film. Adams would then give them insane directing orders or add wacky weather to the scene to create laughs.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Adams made numerous guest appearances on "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island." (He had starred in the made-for-TV movie, "The Love Boat," in 1976.)

In 1983, Adams became the voice of the cartoon character Inspector Gadget.

Two "Get Smart" movies ("The Nude Bomb" in 1980 and "Get Smart, Again!" in 1989) were made, as well as a short-lived "Get Smart" TV show on Fox (1995).

They say comedy is tragedy multiplied by time. If so, it's no wonder Don Adams was funny. During World War II, he joined the Marines at 16 by lying about his age. On Guadalcanal, he was shot. He later contracted blackwater fever, which is fatal 90 percent of the time. Doctors were amazed when he survived.

The "Saturday Evening Post" once told a story about the time Don Adams had had taken his car to a restaurant in New York City. The valet took his car, and returned. Adams wanted to tip the teenager, but had no change and no bill small enough

Adams spent more than 10 minutes rummaging in his glove compartment for loose change.

Motorists began sounding their horns, the kid shifted from foot to foot and an audience gathered.

"It was pure Don Adams," the magazine wrote. "And pure Maxwell Smart."

A found piece of creative writing. But I don't know if it's good or not. Or even true. (If, in any sense, art can be said to be "true.")



- - - - - - -

"Do you love me?"

I walked into the living room. The television was on. It was some sports show with a bunch of talking heads yelling at one another. He was sitting on the couch, ignoring it. His legs were pulled up uncharactertistically under his body. He was reading a magazine, something scholarly.

I stood there, hands on my hips. Only for a moment.

The sunlight streams in through the slats of the window blinds, forming prison-bars on the carpet. The rubber plant in the corner fairly glowed flourescent.

He had his glasses on. Those thick, Kissingeresque glasses that I thought were so ugly but which he shelled out $750 for. It got him laid that time at J.R.'s, and now he wears them whenever he's cruising.

But he wasn't cruising now.

A band of light crossed his forearm. The hair on his arm glowed gold. I could see the veins in his forearm cast shadows on his skin. He glistened, as if a light sheen of sweat covered him. I could see the tendons in his arm move as his fingers caressed the glossy paper of the magazine he read. They were like the steel suspension ropes on the Golden Gate Bridge.

"Do you love me?"

His calf looked like a melon beneath his skin. There was a cut, largely healed, which ran diagonally across the muscle. The color of it blended almost seamlessly with his skin, so that you had to look to notice the flaw.

His knee was a perfect joint. It bent perfectly. Nothing bulged out on either side of his knee. Nothing sought release from under his skin. There was just knee. Knee and muscle. Knee and muscle and golden-brown hair. And a Y-shaped bluish vein that ran over his kneecap and which seemed to pulse ever so slightly.

He wiggled his toes, and his calf muscle rippled.

One thin strand of hair fell forward onto his forehead. It touched his eyebrow. That dark, brown eyebrow. The only dark thing on his face. Look, the hair pointed. Look at this! Look at how beautiful!

"Do you love me?"

Every fifteen seconds or so, the muscles of his mouth would tense. A line would form on his cheek, from the base of his nose, curving around the full crescent of his mouth, and vanishing as it raced toward his jaw. The little crevice would form, then unform. Form, unform. Form, unform.

I wondered if it would ever etch itself permanently into his face. Probably not.

"Do you love me?"

I walked into the living room. He did not look up. I passed quickly in front of him. He did not look up. I walked to stand in front of the blinds, and put my hands back on my hips. I stared, as if annoyed or angry, at the window. But I did not see. I turned and walked into the kitchen. I stopped. My sneaker squeaked on the linoleum floor. I turned my face. He did not look up.

I turned.

My heart broke.

His broad shoulders hid his hands and legs from view. The muscles in his neck shielded him from me. I could only see a flat, wide expanse of light blue, the shirt which his mother had given him eighteen months ago for his birthday.

My eyes filled with tears.

I wanted to reach out to him. Touch him. Touch that neck. Caress his hair. Feel the warmth in his shoulders, his biceps, his arms. I wanted him to lift his head back, smile thatsunburst smile at me, and let me know with his eyes that all was right in the world.

"Do you love me?"

"What sort of question is that?" he replied, his voice clear and strong.

"Do you love me?" I asked again.

"Of course I love you," he said, not looking up from his magazine. "Would I be here if I didn't love you?"

I turned and walked deeper into the kitchen. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I walked down the hall and back into the bedroom.

"Do you love me?"

I would die a happy man if Shane Collins were my lover.

The Red Cross is a money pit.

According to Richard Walden, president and CEO of Operation USA (a 26-year-old international disaster relief agency based in Los Angeles), it's time for Americans to take a hard look at where their generosity goes.

As of last week, the American Red Cross reported that it had raised $826 million in private funds for Hurricane Katrina victims. That is 70 percent of all relief giving.

Giving to the Red Cross would be justified if the organization had to pay the cost of the 300,000 people it shelters.

But it doesn't.

FEMA and the states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are reimbursing the Red Cross under preexisting contracts for emergency shelter and other disaster services.

In fact, the Red Cross does little or nothing to rescue survivors, provide direct medical care or rebuild houses.

After 9/11, the Red Cross collected more than $1 billion. But the Red Cross did little more than trace missing people, help a handful of people in shelters and provide food to firefighters, police, paramedics and evacuation crews during that catastrophe.

When New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer asked The Red Cross to document how it had spent this money, the Red Cross angrily replied it is federally chartered and not answerable to state government regulators. A media firestorm resulted in the resignation of Red Cross president and chief executive, Dr. Bernadine Healy, and the appointment of ex-Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) to oversee its 9/11 fund and clean up its image.

Money started flowing.

But money started flowing to all the wrong people.

Millions of dollars were given to New York limousine drivers who said they lost income after 9/11. Upscale residents of lower Manhattan got hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay their utility bills.

Unusual? One-time-only occurrence? Never-will-happen-again?

Sadly, no.

It was a repeat of what happened after the 1989 San Francisco earthquake.

The Red Cross collected millions of dollars after the earthquake (which occurred during the World Series and was practically televised on national TV).

But the Red Cross planned to spend only a fraction of the money on affected Bay Area victims. Most of the money stayed in the organization's "national disaster account," where the Red Cross could spend it on anything (including perks for its board and and executive officers).

When Bay Area mayors found out, they went to the media and demanded that the funds be spent on housing, homeless shelters and health clinics. The Red Cross has a long-standing rule that it will not give money to other organizations. But the Red Cross waived that rule after the San Francisco earthquake in order to quell the national outrage.

So what does the Red Cross do?

What the Red Cross does is raise money -- shitloads of it.

The American Red Cross spent $111 million last year on fundraising. And the Red Cross says that it expects to raise more than $2 billion from Hurricane Katrina-related giving.

If it takes care of 300,000 people, that's $7,000 per victim.

Most victims receiving aid from the Red Cross will see little more than a doughnut, one interview with a social worker and a voucher for a cheap motel -- with a few cooking pots, some toothpaste and a spare set of clothes thrown in.

Giving 70 percent of all relief donations to one agency is not wise.

Americans ought to give to community foundations -- those grass-roots, non-profit groups based in the affected communities. The ones with decades of expertise in rebuilding after disaster. The ones who will build (and rebuild) homes, provide medical aid, find jobs and pay salaries at the local level.

And because there's no such thing as "too much Bel Ami well-hung twink," either.

Especially when he bears a striking resemblance to Harry Potter! (hee hee!)

Labels: Bel Ami, gay porn

Because there is no such thing as "too much Zeb Atlas."

President Bush's approval ratings are in a free-fall.

Now, so is he!

Check it out: http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/georgie.htm

(If he gets stuck, nudge him with your mouse.)

VERY FUNNY!

I was thinking about Jack today.

Jack was one of the first boys I slept with. Yes, as opposed to a man. The first guy I had sex with was 19. I was...well, 12. He was tall, muscular, dark-skinned, bruentte, very handsome, very outgoing, hairy-chested, uncut, hung. I was...well, not really in puberty yet. Tall for my age but only shoulder-height to him. Rail-thin. (Why, yes, I was rail-thin once. Stop laughing.) White-skinned. Blond.

He was a lifeguard at a college pool. I was a kid in a swim club called "The Guppies."

When I was in the 7th grade, I was very sexually active. Jack was one of the first I was ever with who was my own age.

Jack's family was very, very poor. Even for Montana. They lived in two trailer homes pushed side by side. Jack's father had taken a chain-saw to the wall in the center and opened up a huge entryway between the two dining rooms. That was when Jack was 5. His parents had divorced, his mother had re-married twice and...well, had turned tricks with guys from Malmstrom Air Force Base to make money. She drank and smoked most of it away. Her current husband (her fourth; Jack's two older sisters were from her first marriage, Jack from her second, his younger sister from her third) was a younger, hunkier man. He was somewhat handsome and worked for the Montana Power Co. He was a hard-drinker, but a friendly drunk (unlike Jack's mom, who got angry).

Jack's stepfather had begun having sex with Jack when Jack was 10. It had progressed all the way to anal sex and then some. It usually happened when Jack's mom wasn't home, or when she was passed out. It was, as far as I could tell, completely consensual. Jack enjoyed it immensely. It bonded him with his stepfather, got him a lot of attention. Plus, he just liked sex.

That's what bonded me and Jack. We both liked sex. A lot.

East Junior High School (my junior high school) had group showers. Six nozzles to a stall. Stalls were four feet high. If you turned around, you could look at the other boys showering. If you wanted to play it "straight," you could look over the stall wall at the boys in the other stall, showering. Naturally, this gave me painfully hard erections. I told people that after sports or working out, "I liked to fuck girls." That was the unassailable heterosexual defense. "I like girls." "I can't stop thinking about ______ in my third period class."

The truth is, I couldn't stop thinking about Kurt, the tall, dark, handsome, broad-shoulder hunk with the big thick bush and cock that hung halfway down his thigh; Tracey, the goofy ex-gang member with the pecs and hairy nipples and hairy belly, whose cock and balls hung so far down that they swung wildly when he walked back to his locker; Glen, the doper and violent guy who had slender shoulders and dark-brown hair and whose balls were huge, massive orbs tight against his hairy crotch and whose long, long prick curved down over his balls like a scimitar; James, the wild boy who'd had a religious experience and stopped masturbating and told everyone about it but whose cock and balls looked like they belonged to a man twice his age; Ted, the buck-toothed two-tone blond-brunette with the very tall upper body with big, huge nipples that got hard in cold air and whose massive, long cock drooped so far down that it easily doubled the length of his alread-low-hung ballsac; Pat, the very short boy with very broad shoulders and very toned pecs who could run a 5-minute mile already and who had a grow'er-not-a-show'er that got longer and longer and longer until his knob slid out of his foreskin (one of the few foreskins in my school) and it looked to reach his knee; and Eddie, one of four black kids in my school, a bodybuilder, and who had a cock so thick and veiny (and yes, uncut) that it looked like he had a club between his legs.

That's who I thought about. But it's not who I was sleeping with. (At least, not yet!)

Instead, I was sleeping with Jack.

It occurred on my very first sleepover at his house. We had pizza, watched TV, played cards in his room. His parents drank. Around midnight, Jack asked me to climb up into his bed.

He was already naked and hard. It's like he expected sex. I didn't. I was, for a time, terrified.

Jack knelt and slid my prick right into his mouth. I laid back and just let him do it. I started shaking and trembling, and shot my load right into his throat. He swallowed.

Jack laid back and showed me his. He hadn't gotten into puberty yet. I blew him. He had an orgasm, but he didn't ejaculate. I don't know if it's because he couldn't yet, or if he had so little cum left after....well, after having had sex with his dad that afternoon.

We ended up sixty-nining, blowing one another, fingering one another jacking each other off until 4 a.m. I don't know how many times I came. Lots. Jack had me dildo his ass with a wooden dowell he'd rounded off, and with a steel tube. (In retrospect, I bet the steel tube was a vibrator. But at the time, not having seen one, I had no idea what it was.)

Jack asked me if I'd do that, but there was no way in hell anyone was shoving anything up my ass. It would be two more years before I got fucked in the ass, and Jack would be there for me to make it all better afterward.

Jack also asked me to rim him, but it would be three years before I went there. Jack rimmed me, but I was grossed out by it (even as I knew it felt awesome). I wouldn't get rimmed again until I was nearly 16. (An airman from the Air Force base would do it to me, and I'd almost faint from the pleasure).

Jack and I shared many nights together, having oral sex. I'd learn to finger him, and he me. I saw his dad naked and aroused once. We had finished having sex, and I was close to falling asleep. I looked at the door to Jack's bedroom. It was open. I watched for several minutes. Then I heard the door to his parents' bedroom open. Jack's naked (well-hung, hairy-chested, muscular, handsome) father walked down the hall. Big boner bouncing in front of him. He took a piss, then went back to bed. The sight of his firm, full untanned ass cheeks stuck in my mind. I think it was the first time I'd been attracted to an adult man's ass. I climbed off the bed, got into my sleeping bag on the floor, and masturbated. I climbed back into bed next to Jack, and fell asleep.

Jack was a very late bloomer. By the end of the 8th grade, he was just entering puberty. He, like me, had slept with a host of boys in my junior high school. We sometimes talked about it. Jack was more mature about it than I was. I liked boys who were more physically adult, and didn't care if they were assholes or not. Jack had usually slept with those boys. But he never did a second time if they were nasty people. Jack liked people; that was everything to him. If you were sweet or kind or intelligent, he liked you. He really liked you. Yes, he also liked hot boys. But he was more into guys who were kind and fun. I didn't understand why nice trumped physical beauty for nearly another decade.


I don't know why I'm thinking so much about Jack.

I know his family sank deeper and deeper into poverty. He wore the same pair of jeans for two years, until a teacher bought him ones from Salvation Army. (Not new ones; new ones would have made him stand out.) I know he and his little sister went hungry sometimes. (He ate ravenously at our house.) I know he had a more intense sexual relationship with his stepfather as he got into high school. I know he didn't have many friends after a while, but I don't know why. He treated me just the same as always (even when he told me he was "straight" and dating; he told me that just before he put my cock in his mouth). He dropped out of high school when he was a junior.

I wonder what happened to Jack. I wonder if he's happy. I wonder if he's still having sex with guys.

I guess I miss Jack. I wish I'd managed to keep him in my life.

I was thinking about the great Hammer films that I really like. So here's some of them. For the uninitiated, Hammer Films was incorporated in 1949, and hit its heyday as a studio between 1957 and 1972. The studio made comedies, dramas, historical epics and horror films, but it is with this latter genre that the studio is best known. Its best horror director was Terence Fisher, and its best-known stars the legendary (and superb) actors Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

So, here are my favorite Hammer films:


The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart

It was the very first Hammer horror film, and one of the best. It broke box-office records worldwide, and saved Hammer from bankruptcy as well as made the studio a freaking mint. Baron Victor Frankenstein (Cushing) assembles a creature (Lee) from organs gathered from various unwilling living donors. The baron's best friend (Urquhart) and fiancee (Court) try to dissuade him from his mad course. The film is notorious for its realistic gore, the bloody way the monster dies (twice!), the horrific laboratory sequences and the gruesome violence. The film portrays the monster as a psychotic, not a shambling menace.


Dracula (U.S. title: The Horror of Dracula) (1958)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling

Dr. Van Helsing (Cushing), investigating the death of his friend Jonathan Harker and concludes that Harker was the victim of a vampire (Lee). When Harker's fiancee, Lucy (Stribling), becomes trapped by the terrifying force and hypnotic power of Count Dracula, Van Helsing releases her tortured soul by driving a stake through her heart. The film is fairly gothic and straighforward, although it plays fast and loose with the "Dracula" book. The sexual aspects of the film (which is replete with gigantic, heaving, moist bosoms overflowing tight Bavarian bodices) are almost overt. The finale, in which Van Helsing confronts a triumphant Dracula in a burning barn, startled audiences by leaving Dracula's denouement to the final seconds rather than clearly putting Cushing in the role of the easy conqueror. This was the first film to show blood flowing freely from throats, too. The film stars future "Batman" co-star Michael Gough ("Alfred").


The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Francis Matthews, Eunice Gayson, Michael Gwynn

Baron Frankenstein is back! Using the pseudonym Dr. Victor Stein (Cushing), Frankenstein and his assistant Dr. Kleve (Matthews) transplant a dwarf's brain into muscle-bound worker's body (Gwynn). But the monster's desire to see the world as a "normal" human being leads him to accidentally terrorize the local populace. Frankenstein is blackmailed by the landlord who discovers his secret laboratory, but then the mental patients he treats by day attack and kill him. The film ends with Kleve transplanting Frankenstein's brain into a new body so that he can carry on his work as "Dr. Frank." The film refused to provide the standard moral condemning evil at the end of the picture, and audiences were scandalized. The monster's strong sexual attractiveness also was a definite change of pace.


The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Andra Morell, Christopher Lee, Marla Landi, David Oxley

Not technically a true horror film, this film nonetheless contains all the elements of the genre: A ghostly, murderous dog; a centuries-long family curse and sexual punishment. The film is considered the best adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" until the 2002 telefilm with Richard Roxburgh as Sherlock Holmes. The film pretty closely follows the book: The Baskerville family ruined a local farmer who cursed the male children of the clan. When each male child came of age, a terrible ghostly, demonic hound would kill that man. When the latest Baskerville (Oxley) inherits the estate after his father's death, he calls in Sherlock Holmes (Cushing). Holmes quickly concludes that there is no demon but rather a lengthy plot to murder the Baskervilles and seize their fortune. The scenes with the demon-dog in the ruins of Old Baskerville Hall are frightening.


The Mummy (1959)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Yvonne Furneaux, Eddie Byrne, Felix Aylmer

Hammer's success with the Frankenstein and Dracula legends led the studio to want to recreate another famous Hollywood monster: The Mummy. But Universal held the rights to the mummy story which appeared in the 1932 film starring Boris Karloff. So Hammer created their own mummy myth: 4,000 years ago, Princess Ananka died while on pilgrimage. Her secret lover, the high priest Kharis (Lee), tried to resurrect her. He was stopped before he could do so, and condemned to the "living hell" of mummification in order to protect the tomb from despoilment. In 1903, a group of English archeologists discover the tomb. The local Egyptian who cultivates the cult of Ananka (Aylmer) vows to use the mummy to kill the three men. Years later, in England, the two elder archeologists are killed. It's up to the remaing man, Dr. Richard Banning (Cushing), to work with an inspector from Scotland Yard (the inimitable Eddie Byrne) to stop the undead creature. The clue to Banning's survival may be that his wife, Isobel (Furneaux), is a dead-ringer for Ananka. The Hammer "Mummy" story is probably far more recognizable to most people than the 1932 (or even 1999) movie version.


Brides of Dracula (1960)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Yvonne Monlaur, David Peel, Martita Hunt

Hammer was unable to secure Christopher Lee's services for another Dracula film. Besides, the studio wanted to focus much more heavily on the far more popular vampiress myth. So Hammer created a new story: The new town schoolteacher, Marianne (Monlaur), accepts an invitation from Baroness Meinster (Hunt) to spend the night at her castle. Marianne stumbles across the Baroness's son (Peel), chained to the wall of his bedroom. The baron claims his mother is mad that she's chained him here against his will. Marianne frees him, only to find that the baron is in fact a vampire.The kindly baroness simply couldn't kill her own son, even if he was a blood-sucker. Soon, most of the young men and women of the town are in the vampire's thrall and having orgies at the castle. Marianne enlists a local vampire hunter (Cushing) to help her destroy the baron and free his slaves from their curse. The film has a fairly downbeat ending, and is decidedly depressing and gothic throughout. The superb plot twist would be used time and again in horror flicks (most especially in the famous psycho vampire episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer").


The Curse of the Werewolf aka The Werewolf (1961)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Oliver Reed, Clifford Evans, Yvonne Romain

A woman from the castle-town in the next valley shows up at a sheepherder's home. She dies, leaving behind her son, Leon (Reed). It is clear that some diabolical thing killed the young woman, but the love and Christian values of the sheepherder and his wife help suppress Leon's rage and demonic impulses. Now a grown man, Leon heads for the castle-town to look for work. He quickly runs afoul of the prince and is jailed. He also falls for the prince's daughter, Christina (Romain). Exposed to the hypocrisy and evil of the townspeople, Leon soon loses control and begins to turn into a werewolf. He controls himself only as long as Christina loves him in return, but when she breaks off their engagement...everyone's at the mercy of the wolf!


The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (1964)
Director: Michael Carreras
Cast: Terence Morgan, Fred Clark, Ronald Howard, Jeanne Roland

It took Hammer quite some time to capitalize on the success of its 1959 mummy film. In part, this was because of the unavailability of Peter Cushing. Eventually, Hammer decided to go without Cushing and chart new territory. This time, an archeologist (Morgan) has discovered the tomb of the pharoah Ra-Antef. But the backer of the expedition (Howard) runs a circus in the U.S., and comes up with a scheme to make his money back: A worldwide tour exhibiting the mummy and the contents of the tomb. It's cheesy and blasphemous -- which is why the mummy of Ra-Antef begins running amok, killing everyone involved with the kitschy scheme. Only the beautiful archeologist's fiancee (Roland) seems to have any control over the undead fiend.


The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
Director: Freddie Francis
Cast: Peter Cushing, Peter Woodthorpe, Duncan Lamont, Sandor Eles, Katy Wild

Baron Frankenstein (Cushing) returns to Karlstaad, his ancestral home and the site of the previous films. He and his assistant (Eles) stumble on the body of his monster, perfectly preserved in the snow. The creature is brought back to life with the help of the hypnotist Zoltan (Woodthorpe). But Zoltan uses the creature to wreak revenge on the town. Frankenstein tries to break Zoltan's spell over the monster while Zoltan tries to use the monster against his new enemy, Frankenstein.


The Gorgon (1964)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Richard Pasco, Barbara Shelley, Michael Goodliffe, Patrick Troughton

In the Caucasus village of Vandorff, a series of unexplained deaths has occured over the last seven years. Fantastically, all the victims were turned to stone. A hedonistic young artist gets a local girl pregnant; soon, the girl is found turned to stone and the young man hanged. The young man's father, Professor Heitz (Goodliffe), comes to the town to investigate. He suspects that his son was murdered by the girl's father. But the town doctor (Cushing) covers up the girl's stoney end and blames young Heitz for the murder. Prof. Heitz investigates, but is turned to stone too. The professor's other son, Paul (Pasco), investigates along with his mentor, Prof. Meister (Lee). Soon, they come to believe that the legendary Gorgon has taken up residence in the town. But is the Gorgon taking the form of beautiful young women in order to hide its identity? The film is a spectacular moody effort, with a superb soundtrack and solid acting. The only disappointment is the silly Gorgon hair effects (which probably cost two dollars).


The Kiss of the Vampire (1964)
Director: Don Sharp
Cast: Clifford Evans, Noel Willman, Jennifer Daniel, Edward de Souza, Barry Warren

Honeymooning in Bavaria, Gerald Harcourt (de Souza) and his wife, Marianne (Daniel), are forced to spend the night in a small village. Doctor Ravna(Willman) invites them to dinner at his massive chateau overlooking the town. Professor Zimmer (Evans) warns them to stay away from Ravna, but the doctor is charming and handsome. Nothing appears wrong, until the doctor reveals himself to be a vampire with designs on Marianne! Soon Gerald and Prof. Zimmer have to rescue Marianne from the bloodthirsty clutches of Dr. Ravana and his beautiful family of vampires. The film is spooky and moody from the get-go, with perhaps a little too much of the "I warn you, young man: Stay away from the castle!" stuff in the beginning. But the film plays heavily on the theme of adultery, monogamy and lust as the destroyer of marriage. Very nice.


The Old Dark House (1964)
Director: William Castle
Cast: Robert Morley, Janette Scott, Joyce Grenfell, Tom Poston, Mervyn Johns, Fenella Fielding, Peter Bull, Danny Green

In a remake of the classic 1932 film directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, Gloria Stuart, Melvyn Douglas and Ernest Thesinger. In this adaptation, an American car salesman, Tom Penderel (Poston), is invited to spend the night with the eccentric millionaire, Roderick Femm (Morley). Each member of the Femme family was willed a great fortune -- provided they were in the ancestral home by midnight. A violent storm traps Pendrel in the house just as a series of biazarre "accidents" starts offing the family one by one. Is there a maniac loose in the house? Or is one of the Femm family themselves slowing going mad? The film is not nearly as creeply as the original, and plays fast and loose with the original stage play on which the film is based.


Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley, Andrew Keir, Charles Tingwell, Suzan Farmer, Francis Matthews, Thorley Walters

The Charles Kents (Shelly and Matthews) and Alan Kents (Farmer and Tingwell) are vacationing in the Carpathian mountains when their car breaks down. They find refuge in Carlsbad Castle. Kindly Father Sandor (Keir) warns them not to spend the night there, but they ignore his advice. That night, the aged butler Ludwing (Walters), slaughters Charles Kent and suspends his body over a coffin. Inside the coffin are the ashes of Count Dracula. Kent's blood resurrects the Count, who hunts down the survivors. Eventually, Dracula pursues the survivors outside the castle in the winter storm. He's submerged under ice, and the running water kills him. That's a nice bit; it works in part of the traditional Dracula myth (submerging the beast under running water can kill him). The film is grisly and particularly horrific when Kent is hung up like a piece of meat. However, it's not the best of the films. Christopher Lee found his lines so repugnant that he refused to say them. His contract specificed that he "appear" in the film rather than speak lines, and that's just what he did.


Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Susan Denberg, Thorley Waters, Derek Fowlds, Robert Morris

A deformed tormented girl (Denberg) drowns herself after her lover (Morris) is guillotined for a murder he didn't commit. Baron Frankenstein (Cushing), experimenting with the transfer of souls, places the boy's soul into her body and brings her back to life. Driven by revenge, she carries out a violent retribution on those responsible for their deaths.


The Mummy's Shroud (1967)
Director: John Gilling
Cast: John Philips, Andre Morell, David Buck, Elizabeth Sellars, Eddie Powell

Archaeologists (Philips, Buck) discover the final resting place of a young pharoah and remove his remains to a museum. The mummy (Powell) returns wreak vengeance on the men. One by one, the explorers are murdered. Then one man discovers the words that have the power to reduce the mummy to dust.


The Devil Rides Out (1968)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Christopher Lee, Charles Gray, Nike Arrighi, Leon Greene, Patrick Mower

The Duc de Richelieu (Lee) and Mocata (Gray) are best friend. But when the Duc finds out that Mocata is a Satanist and that he's slowly drawing a friend (Greene) into his circle, the Duc takes action. It's a duel between equals as Mocata hurls danger after danger against the Duc and his companions as they ride to the Easton estate and try to stop Mocata from killing the Duc's neice (Arrighi) and bringing forth the Goat (an incarnation of the Devil).


Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)
Director: Freddie Francis
Cast: Christopher Lee, Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson, Barry Andrews, Ewan Hooper

When a dead girl is found hanging upside down in the Karlstadt church bell tower, her neck showing the tell-tale marks of the vampire, the local townspeople are sure the Dracula has risen from the dead. Monsignor Muller (Davies) and the local priest (Hooper) try to drive him out of his lair, but the priest falls and hits his head on the ice outside the castle. Blood from his head enters a crack in the ice and wakens the dreaded fiend. Unable to live in his castle any more, Dracula follows the monsignor to his home town, where he wreaks revenge on the priest's niece (Carlson) and her lover (Andrews).


Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Veronica Carlson, Simon Ward, Freddie Jones, George Pravda, Maxine Audley

Baron Frankenstein (Cushing) discovers that a young doctor (Ward) and his fiancee (Carlson) have been secretly making love. He blackmails them into helping him kidnap the mentally deranged Dr. Brandt (Pravda) to assist him. But when Brandt is killed, Frankenstein transplants his brain into the body of a dead professor (Jones). Tormented by his existence in the dead shell of flesh, the monster kills his own wife and then wreaks revenge on Frankenstein. The film is notable for a gruesome scene in which Cushing rapes a young woman.


The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)
Director: Jimmy Sangster
Cast: Ralph Bates, Kate O'Mara, Veronica Carlson, Dennis Price, David Prowse

Young Victor Frankenstein (Bates), a descendant of the infamous scientist, follows in his grandfather's footsteps. But young Victor has an equally insane wife (O'Mara) and a grave-loving assistant (Price). David Prowse (Darth Vader) is the monster.


The Scars of Dracula (1970)
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Cast: Christopher Lee, Dennis Waterman, Jenny Hanley, Christopher Matthews, Patrick Troughton, Michael Gwynn

Dracula's ashes are accidentally splashed with bat's blood, resurrecting the count (Lee). When a local man (Matthews) goes to Castle Dracula and disappears, two friends (Waterman, Troughton) start to search for him. But Dracula's bride (Hanley) decides that it's time for dinner, and soon the two are seeking the help of the local priest (Gwynn).


Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
Director: Peter Sasdy
Cast: Christopher Lee, Geoffrey Keen, John Carson, Peter Sallis, Ralph Bates

Dracula's cloak, a ring and a phial of dried blood are the unholy relics bought by a depraved Satanist (Bates) obsessed with resurrecting the vampire. Joined at a deconsecrated church by two gentlemen (Keen, Carson, Sallis) with a taste for the extreme, the three kill Dracula's servant as part of their thrillseeking. But it's too late: Prince of Darkness has risen once again and now seeks to kidnap the children of the three men and force them into a life of depravity.


The Vampire Lovers (1970)
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Cast: Ingrid Pitt, Peter Cushing, George Cole, Kate O'Mara, Douglas Wilmer

The Karnstein triplets (all played by Ingrid Pitt) have been the victims of a vampire. After killing the family of Baron Hartog (Wilmer), the baron kills two of the vampiresses. But he cannot locate the grave of Mircalla. Years later, Mircalla reappears to avenge her family's staking and satisfy her desire for blood. She begins to take up residence in the homes of wealthy local men, and then turns their beautiful young daughters into vampires. When one young woman (O'Mara) is stricken, it's up to her lover (Cole) and General von Spielsdorf (Cushing) to uncover the true identity of the vampire and destroy it.


Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971)
Director: Seth Holt and Michael Carreras
Cast: Andrew Keir, Valerie Leon, James Villiers, Hugh Burden, George Coulouris

Two Egyptologists, Professor Fuchs (Keir) and Corbeck (Villiers), discover the tomb of Tara, an Egyptian priestess known for her dark magic. By defiling the tomb and taking her mummy to London, the men unleash the power of the dead priestess. The Fuchs' daughter (Leon) looks just like the dead princess, and her body becomes a host for the dread queen. Can her lover (Burden) and the wisdom of Prof. Berrigan (Coulouris) save her?


Countess Dracula (1971)
Director: Peter Sasdy
Cast: Ingrid Pitt, Nigel Green, Sandor Eles, Lesley-Anne Down

Countess Nodosheen is growing old and is very bitter about losing her looks. When she accidentally discovers that pouring the blood of virgins on her skin rejuvenates her, she begins an orgy of bloodlust and murder. She's aided by her loyal aide, Capt. Dobi (Green). Years later, she becomes engaged to the handsome Lt. Toth (Eles). But the treatments are wearing off faster and faster, and her need for blood grows so great that she even threatens her own daughter (Down).


Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971)
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Cast: Ralph Bates, Martine Beswick, Gerald Sim, Lewis Fiander, Susan Broderick

Dr. Jekyll (Bates), looking for an elixir to cure disease, experiments on newly deceased women. His latest potion, however, turns him into the beautiful but psychotic Sister Hyde (Beswick). The doctor's best friend (Fiander) and mentor (Sim) suspect something is wrong. When Hyde turns her evil eye on the doctor's fiancee (Broderick), the two men must do something or Hyde will permanently take over the doctor's mind.


The Hands of the Ripper (1971)
Director: Peter Sasdy
Cast: Eric Porter, Jane Merrow, Angharad Rees, Keith Bell, Derek Godfrey, Margaret Rawlings

The baby daughter of Jack the Ripper (Rees) witnesses her father murder her mother. Years later, the girl is taken in by Dr. Pritchard (Porter). The doctor, his son (Bell) and the girl visit a fraudulent medium (Rawlings) who unwittingly conducts an actual seance and reveals the girl's secret past. When a series of murders occur similar to those committed by Jack the Ripper, the doctor begins to wonder if his young ward isn't responsible. He discovers that Anna is possessed by her dead father's spirit. Can the doctor and his assistant (Godfrey) save the girl before she re-enacts her father's fate?


Lust for a Vampire (1971)
Director: Jimmy Sangster
Cast: Ralph Bates, Yutte Stensgaard, Barbara Jefford, Mike Raven, Pippa Steel, David Healy

Richard LeStrange (Johnson) takes up a post as an English teacher at a school run by the local countess (Jefford) in the infamous town of Karnstein. He falls in love with one of the pupils, the beautiful Mircalla (Stensgaard). A spate of mysterious deaths at the school is hastily covered up. But when the father (Healy) of one of the dead girls (Steel) opens her grave, he discovers a vampire was at fault. LeStrange believes the townspeople are blaming an innocent Mircalla. But is she as innocent as she appears? The appearance of Count Dracula (Raven) may indicated otherwise!


Twins of Evil aka Twins of Dracula (1971)
Director: John Hough
Cast: Peter Cushing, Mary Collinson, Madelaine Collinson, Dennis Price, Damien Thomas, Kathleen Byron, Isobel Black, Katya Wyeth

Count Karstein (Thomas) accidentally resurrects the notorious vampiress Mircalla Karnstein (Wyeth), who turns him into a vampire. Meanwhile, the Gellhorn twins, Maria (Mary Collinson) and Frieda (Madelaine Collinson), have gone to live with their uncle, Gustav Weil (Cushing). When a series of strange deaths afflict the town, Weil realizes it's a vampire and decides to rid the town once and for all of its curse. Frieda, who has become a witch, decides to frame her innocent sister in order to divert attention from herself. Can Mrs. Weil (Byron), Gustav's friend Dietrich (Price) and Dietrich's fiancee Ingrid (Black) keep Gustav from torturing his innocent neice to death while uncovering the real witch and vampires?


Demons of the Mind (1972)
Director: Peter Sykes
Cast: Patrick Magee, Gillian Hills, Robert Hardy, Michael Hordern, Shane Briant


Count Zorn (Hardy) is convinced that madness and evil runs in his family's bloodline. His wife had committed suicide, so he decides that he needs to lock up his children in case they start manifesting insanity. Years later, Zorn calls in the new town doctor (Magee) to treat his grown kids (Briant, Hills). Meanwhile, several young women have been brutally murdered in the nearby woods. A wandering evangelical (Hordern) believes that a demon roams the forest. Is it a demon? Or is it the Zorn children, driven made by their father's abuse?


Dracula AD 1972 (1972)
Director: Alan Gibson
Cast: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Stephanie Beacham, Christopher Neame

Local tough Johnny Alucard (Neame) gathers a gang of pseudo-Satanists to help him bring Dracula (Lee) back to life. The weakened undead count needs blood, however, and Johnny brings him a number of stupid female victims. But when Johnny brings Jessica Van Helsing (Beacham), a descendant of the legendary Abraham van Helsing, the count can't believe his luck! He decides to kill the girl. But her father (Cushing) comes to her rescue. Lee hated the script, but needed the money.


Vampire Circus (1972)
Director: Robert Young
Cast: Robert Tayman, Mary Wimbush, Adrienne Corri, Anthony Corlan, John Moulder-Brown, Laurence Payne, Lynne Frederick

Count Mitterhouse is slowly sucking the blood of everyone in the village of Schtettel. His mistress, Elvira, leads one too many children into his lair. So the villagers rise up and kill the count. But Elvira escapes. Years pass. The town is afflicted with plague, and sealed off from the rest of the world. But the "Circus of Nights" is willing to risk the plague in order to provide the people of Schtettel with some relief. A gypsy woman (Corri), secretly a cousin of the count, and Elvira run the circus -- which is full of vampires. There are twin psychic vampire acrobats who turn into bats in the middle of their act, a vampire who can turn into a panther and more! Slowly, the vampires target the children of the village. Only the handsome Emil (Corlan), his friend Anton (Moulder-Brown), the lovely Dora (Frederick) and her professorial father (Payne) can stop them.


Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter (1974)
Director: Brian Clemens
Cast: Horst Jannson, John Carson, Shane Briant, Caroline Munro, John Cater, Robert James

When several young girls are found dead, hideously aged and empty of blood, Dr. Marcus (Carson) suspects vampirism. He enlists the help of Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter (Jannson). Kronos blessed with super-human strength, a super-human sized cock and libido and endless amounts of swordsmanship and ego, Captain Kronos has dedicated his life to destroying the bloddsuckers among us. He's less-than-ably assisted by his hunchbacked sidekick, Prof. Hieronoymus Grost (Cater). They have help local stud Paul Durward (Briant) and his lovely fiancee Carla (Munro).


Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Shane Briant, Madeline Smith, Dave Prowse, John Stratton

Handsome Dr. Simon Helder (Briant), sentenced to an insane asylum for crimes against humanity, recognises the head doctor as Baron Frankenstein (Cushing), the man whose work he had been trying to emulate. Frankenstein and Helder cobble together a monster (Prowse) from the body parts of other inmates. But as the inmate population runs low, the asylum's director (Stratton) begins to suspect something. Meanwhile, the Baron's mistress, Sarah (Smith) becomes the object of the monster's attention.


The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974)
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Cast: Peter Cushing, Julie Ege, David Chiang, John Forbes-Robertson

Professor Van Helsing (Cushing), lecturing in the Far East, is asked by a local villager (Chiang) to help stop a plague of Chinese vampires. Unbeknownst to them, Count Dracula (Forbes-Robertson) is the one controlling the seven golden vampires. It's up to Van Helsing to gather his own kung-fu army to stop the fiends, assisted by amply endowed Vanessa (former Bond girl Ege).


The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1974)
Director: Alan Gibson
Cast: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Joanna Lumley, Michael Coles

British security forces call in Professor Van Helsing (Cushing) to help them investigate a real estate developer known only as "D72." Several high-ranking members of the government have lately attended parties at the man's house, and come back strangley changed. Now they suspect vampirism. Sure enough, it's Count Dracula (Lee) behind it all. Only, Dracula is tired of his endless infinite life and wants to commit suicide. The only way to do so is to wipe out humanity so there will be nothing left to feed on. Van Helsing, assisted by his niece, Jessica (Lumley), and Inspector Murray (Coles), tries to stop the maniac.


To the Devil A Daughter (1976)
Director: Peter Sykes
Cast: Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee, Honor Blackman, Denholm Elliott, Michael Goodliffe, Nastassja Kinski

Excommunicated from the Catholic Church, Father Michael (Lee) turns toward Satanism as a way of gaining power. Father Michael forms a religious group called "The Children of the Lord" to rear children as Satanists. Catherine Beddows (Kinski) has been selected to become Satan's daughter on her 18th birthday. Her worried father (Elliott) enlists the help of occult novelist (Widmark) and his girlfriend (Blackman). A top-notch cast is very ill-used in this pathetic film, which marked the end of Hammer's foray into feature filmmaking as well as horror.

A couple more comments on this week's "Galactica":

I liked the way the show portrayed rape as a weapon of war. Because it is, you know. Rape is never about sex. It's about power and control. It's about subjugation. It's about fear. Rape has been used as a weapon of torture for millennia. It's been used as a weapon of war just as often. Now that the Colonials are at war, rape is being used by them.

The other thing I liked about the show is James Callis. Callis normally plays Baltar far too over-the-top for me. His nervous-nelly character, always caught talking to himself (er, Number Six) by others, is far too unreal for me.

But last night we saw a far more nuanced performance. The scene in which Baltar must convince Adm. Cain to let him "use the carrot" was superb. It's pivotal. If Baltar doesn't have a good reason to convince Cain, the subsequent plot falls apart. Callis did a very good job there.

But for my money, the best scene was where Baltar brings the gang-raped Gina/Number Six the plate of food. Then he sits on the floor and talks to her. It's such a hearfelt moment. You finally get some real insight into Baltar's character. You finally realize that Baltar isn't simply a sex-obsessed goofball whose borderline-psychosis involving pussy is unbelievable. Instead, you find that Baltar -- despite all that we've seen before -- was actually in love with Six.

And notice how this ties together everything with Helo and Chief Tyrol? They, too, were in love with a Cylon.

And you can sense how this is going to play out later in the show. I've got this feeling that, once Baltar's betrayal is known, Baltar's love for Six is going to be a powerful defense to people like Helo, Tyrol and others.

I hope this portends some much different portrayals of Dr. Baltar by Callis.


Finally, I am deeply interested in this "new Base Star" that the Cylons have in tow.

One of the things from the first series that I bring with me to this new series is the existence of Lucifer and the Base Stars that pursued the Galactica toward Earth. I've always secretly wanted to see how this new show -- with its more realistic, more adult, more philosophical take on things -- would attempt to bring those elements in.

I've thought about whether this new Base Star is carrying the Cylon leader. Could be.

But another answer is: It's a factory. One of the things that's bugged me about "Galactica" is that the Cylons seem to be all over the place. Didn't the Colonials see the Cylons building huge numbers of bases across the galaxy? Indeed, much of what we've learned about space in this show indicates that the Colonial fleet is still inside Cylon territory, and that much of what Colonials are doing is sneaking past the countless Cylon mining operations, factories, ammo dumps and military bases while also seeking to maintain their own resources (water, minerals, food, basic materials, jump fuel).

But as the Colonials get past all that, how do the Cylons keep up? The Colonials clearly outgun the Cylons, who rely on masses of dumb Centurion-ships to overwhelm the much more talented and true-aiming Viper pilots.

Hence, it makes sense that the Cylons would eventually seek to bring up a factory-ship. Something that could continue to manufacture large numbers of Centurion-chips and weapons. Without that, the Cylons would quickly lose their advantage over the Colonials.

So I wonder if that's what the new Base Star-like ship is.

Another alternative is that it's something else. Something related to the religious conspiracy the Cylons are working on. Something that enables the Cylons to keep tracking the humans. Something that can enable them to keep manufacturing advanced, humanoid Cylons. Something that might carry someone like the old Lucifer (and to which Baltar may get transferred once his treason is known).


I can hardly wait until January!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Labels: Battlestar Galactica

Sebastian Spence.

Yes, he is also pure masturbation material.

So. The "Battlestar Galactica" season finale.

It was pretty fucking goddamn good.

I just cannot fault the choice of Michelle Forbes (Ensign Ro on "Star Trek: The Next Generation") was pure fucking genius. Forbes is such a strong actress. She has the bearing for the role. She has the intelligence (and the apperance of intelligence) that a Colonial admiral must have. And best of all, she has that smooth, calm voice that's full of steel.

As Adm. Helena Cain, Forbes was the absolutely best thing about the show.

I loved the way the show's producers decided to portray her. The long, straight hair helps promote an image of a rigid, stiff-backed person. It also reinforces the concept that this isn't a "feminine woman" in a man's world. Indeed, Cain is comletely outside traditional concepts of "feminine" and "butch." Cain is a person completely driven by her own concepts -- including those of morality. And that fits well with the episode's basic plot.

I was surprised to see that the show abandoned the previous series' plot arc involving co-equal commanders. In 1979, Adama and Cain had equal status and one could not merely pull rank on the other. The threat was Cain's astounding charisma and his reputation as a cowboy who could take on the enemy outnumbers 100 to 1 and still beat the pants off them.

But that dynamic was written out of this episode. Now Cain is in control. Now, the battle is going to be between President Roslin and Cain (with little doubt on Cain's part about who is in control).

The other aspect of the show which I liked very much was that the Cylons were taken down not just a peg, but off the rack entirely and packed away in mothballs. Throughout the show, one of the things which has really annoyed the shit out of me is that the Cylons have been portrayed as these all-powerful beings. Their technology advanced (and continues to advance) much faster than that of human beings. Their defenses are stronger. Their offense is stronger. They have a larger number of ships, weapons, troops and resources. They have a plan which puts them 10 steps ahead of the humans at all times. They have infiltrated and spied upon the humans -- apparently for years.

But none of this really makes much sense. If the Cylons know where the Colonial fleet is, why don't they just blow it away? One could argue that the Cylons wanted to find Kobol, but they were already there long before the humans were. One could argue that the Cylons wanted to get one of their own pregnant for their own devious purposes. But they could have achieved that without blowing away the Colonies. One could argue that they want the Colonials to find Earth, so they can wipe out the lost 13th tribe, too. But they could just have easily have followed the clues on Kobol as the humans did.

One is driven to the conclusion that the Cylons "have their own nefarious purposes." But that's cheating. I can only suspend disbelief for so long. It's been 20-odd shows now. Certainly there should be some clue! A "deus ex machina" plot-device wears thin after a while.

One way to solve the puzzle is to make the Cylons less invincible than they seem.

We got that, in spades, last night.

It was not surprising to see that Cain had ordered her crew to torture the Cylon they had captured. That was to be expected. Indeed, one would have thought that the Galactica crew would have raised the same issue. After all, the Cylon spies they've captured have (for the most part) been considered "toasters" -- mere machines, not living beings. Why not take the computer apart to find out what programs are stored inside? (In other words, "torture it.")

What was really quite creepy and chilling was the way the crew of the Pegasus did so: Gang-rape.

I was a bit surprised to see the "parental warning" tossed into the middle of the show.

Lt. Thorne's attempted rape of Sharon itself was less brutalizing than the way the Pegasus crew engaged in such blithe lockerroom back-slapping about it. The actor who played the blond, gung-ho Pegasus Viper pilot (the tall, Nebraska-farm-boy type with the big shoulder tattoo) was outstanding. That chilling "yee-ha!" he says as he celebrates how often he's raped the Cylon, Gina, expresses so much that is dehumanizing. And it is the centerpiece of the show. It is the centerpiece of this episode, in which we find that Adm. Cain will do anything to survive and punish the Cylons. But it is also the centerpiece of the entire show, as we watch the humans walk the ridge -- avoiding a plunge into a valley of despairing debauchery and nihilism on the one side at the same time as they avoid a plunge into dehumanizing revenge-fantasy and militarism on the other side.

Perhaps that is the true Cylon goal: Dehumanize the humans.

Cylon culture has nothing in it but hatred of human beings. There is no art, no literature, no music, no personal pursuit of happiness. There is no government, no politics. Nothing but cold science in the pursuit of the destruction of their masters. Indeed, there is no religion -- except that programmed (almost fanatically) into them by their human makers.

So perhaps the real Cylon goal is to strip their human gods of the same thing. Destroy all that's good in them: Art, religion, philosophy, politics, relationships. Turn them into raving, mono-maniacal brutalizers. Turn them all into Cains.


There were so many nice little touches throughout the whole episode:

• The superb flightdeck scene in which the Galactica crew struggles to maintain military discipline, then the crisp arrival of Cain after her military guard come out of the Raptor.
• The dismissiveness with which Cain treats Pres. Roslin, and the deeply guarded response by Roslin. (You can sense that Roslin is already thinking about ways to stop Cain in the event that Cain tries a cop d'etat.)
• The unremarked-upon visual distinctiveness that is the Pegasus -- all modern computers, modern command deck, modern landing bays, a far more advanced ship all around. Meanwhile, you realize how broken-down, old and almost pathetic the Galactica really is. And how low the esteem her crew must have been held in the fleet. After all, who assigns the best and the brightest to the about-to-be-mothballed?
• The large number of Vipers that the Pegasus has. This was a key element in the 1979 episode, as the apparent loss of the Pegasus meant that the Galactica had to accommodate its hundreds of fighters. For several episodes thereafter, the sub-plot in the '79 series was about integrating the two crews and the growing bond between Sheba and Apollo. In the current show, the huge number of Vipers issuing from the Pegasus also goes unremarked. But seeing it visuall is astonishing.
• The neat visual shots of the Galactica and Pegasus side-by-side. They are similar in design, but much different. It's very cool!
• The way Col. Tigh gets that horrified look on his face when Col. Fisk tells him the "joke" about the Cain's murder of the previous X.O.
• Cain's instinctive sense that Roslin is someone to look out for. That great line -- "You look like someone just shot your dog" -- is great. At the same time, Cain's subsequent comment to Adama ("The secretary of education?") shows Cain's dismissiveness.

Finally, it should be pointed out that the superb Canadian actor Sebastian Spence ("First Wave") has returned to the screen.

36-year-old Sebastian Spence was born Dec. 9, 1969 in St. John's, Newfoundland. He studied theater and appeared in more than a dozen plays before moving to Vancouver, B.C. He got his start in the film "The Boys of St. Vincent" playing a man who has been traumatized by priestly sexual abuse. It was a gutsy role for a first-time actor fresh out of college. "The Boys of St. Vincent" was acclaimed as one of the top 10 movies of 1994 by "Rolling Stone" and "USA Today."

Spence is so amazingly good-looking and has such a superb body that you'd think he'd have taken pretty-boy roles (e.g., the "Paul Walker Career-Track"). He had a recurring role on the TV show "Madison" and then did a number of TV movies before landing his breakout role in Sci Fi Channel's "First Wave." He moved into a recurring role as the gay college professor Matt Freeman on "Dawson's Creek," and then has done several independent and made-for-television films.

What's I like about Sebastian Spence is that, for all his blow-you-away good looks, he doesn't rely on his face, body, ass or crotch to carry him through scenes.

Spence has this ability to make you believe he's thinking about things. He has this way of using his eyes to look up, sideways or down to make you believe that he's remembering things. He has this neat talent of slightly relaxing his facial muscles (especially those around his mouth and eyes) so that you believe that he's pulled his conscious mind out of the scene and is thinking. The way someone might lose track of a conversation while they ponder something you've said.

Lesser actors would pull a "start" -- appear startled -- and "come back into the moment" as a cheap, silly way of signalling that their "thoughts" have stopped and they are engaged with the other actor again.

Not Sebastian Spence.

He has an extremely naturalistic manner of acting that avoids such cliches. When he looks at another character, he is really listening to them. Really watching them. Really engaged by them.

That's a very hard thing to do. But Sebastian Spence does it all the time.

Spence took a role that was not entirely well-developed in "First Wave" and made it believable. The audience very much believed that Cade Foster was grieving for his dead wife, and that he was very much afraid of what was happening around him. This wasn't just a showcase show for a handsome stud with pecs (who'd take his shirt off whenever ratings got low). Spence took "First Wave" in directions that the show never really wanted to go. Spence turned what was an "X-Files" knock-off and made it into a refugee show. His Cade Foster didn't have secret knowledge, didn't know what was going on and seemed three steps behind the aliens. In many ways, Cade Foster was a man buffeted by events -- a refugee, if you will, a person pushed by the tides of life. But something deep inside the man enabled him to find meaning in the events he witnessed and was part of. And Sebastian Spence was the one who made "First Wave" less of a silly show and something worth watching.

You saw only a glimpse of Sebastian Spence in this week's episode of "Battlestar Galactica." He was the blond man Stabuck notices while in the Pegasus briefing. He's seen in profile, laughing at the CAG's comment.

I very much hope that Sebastian Spence will be a permanent addition to "Battlestar Galctica." He's a very good actor, one of the best of a crop of relatively young artists. He's relatively unknown still, and has so much to offer this excellent show.

Labels: Battlestar Galactica

Last night, I did something I rarely do.

I had gone to the film festival office to do some work. It got to be 10 p.m., and I was exhausted. I was on my way out, and I decided to walk up P Street to get some air. Tons of people were on the street.

On a complete lark, I went into Fireplace. It's a bar kitty-corner from the film festival office. I never, ever go out on a weeknight. But... I don't know why I did.

I went upstairs, got a beer and was sitting there. Ogling boy-flesh.

As I sucked down my second beer, the crowd thinned a bit. In walked this handsome, tall boy. Red baseball cap. White sleeveless muscle t-shirt. Long blue basketball shorts. No socks. Sneakers. Dark-brown curly hair poking out from under his ball cap. Dark skin. Wonderfully warm brown eyes, lit from within.

He stood next to me, and smiled. Got the same beer I was drinking.

We started to talk. About nothing, just talking. It got later and later. The crowd was thinning a lot. We moved toward the back of the bar, away from the light in the stairwell.

We talked and talked. I couldn't stop noticing his long arms, the vein in his large biceps and the way his very toned pecs strained at the white fabric of his t-shirt. He had just a little shadow on his cheeks, enough to make him look scraggly but not unshaven.

We started kissing. I can do that in a bar. I like it. I like kissing in public. I once kissed a very hunky, tall, twinky boy with a 10" cock for two hours in a strip club.

I kissed this hunk, too.

He groped for my cock. Found my balls. Found my pubes. Found my thigh.

I groped for his. WOWZA. He had a monstrous penis. He was only half-hard, but his prick was long and very, very thick. I squeezed the knob and he told me that felt awesome.

And still he groped to find me.

When he did find my dick.... Well.

I've seen that look before. The eyes narrow a bit. The smile freezes. The body language becomes stiff. The kisses become far less passionate.

No, he didn't like what he had a hold of.

There's that moment of confusion on my part, where I honestly and truly don't understand why he's stopped.

And then I realize what's happened.

His penis went soft under my hand. We kissed a little more. But then he said he had to go, work tomorrow, blah blah blah.

I don't blame him at all. I have, at the very most generous, an average dick. For my height, it is actually small. I've never had anyone, ever, tell me that they liked my dick.

I caught a cab home. I sat in the back seat, my face in the wind. All I could see, however, were those fear-filled eyes. The sudden stiffness in his body. All I could feel was the sudden coolness of his lips, the rote rather than passionate push of his hands. I could feel the size and heft and warmth of his penis in my hand. But as soon as I sensed that, I could also feel the way it deflated so quickly.

I've been with...oh, I dunno, 50 or 75 guys where this has happened. Lots and lots of guys.

It doesn't ever feel good.

I always walk away feeling deeply ashamed of something. Intensely alone. Inadequate.

It's easy for someone to say, "Well, fuck him. He was some size-queen asshole. You'd not have liked him anyway."

But that never works. The thing is, I really did like him. I liked him enough to talk to him for nearly two hours. I liked him enough to kiss him passionately for a long time. The thing is, I really did like him. Telling me otherwise just flies in the face of everything I felt and experienced.

Worse, what are you telling me? You're telling me that the one guy who likes me in the past couple of years is a complete asshole? What, I'm to wait another decade before I find another Mr. Not-Quite-Right? How utterly fucking insane is that??


I came home. I checked my email. I made a sandwich. I had a glass of water. I went to bed.

I lay on my back, unable to sleep for nearly two hours.

All I could see were those fear-filled eyes. That sudden stiffness in his body. All I could feel was the sudden coolness of his lips, the clumsiness instead of passion in of his hands. I could feel the size and heft and warmth of his penis in my hand. But I could also feel the way it deflated.

I felt ashamed. And alone. And inadequate. I still do.

Tall, sandy-blond, cute former intern Chris returns to D.C. this weekend for the peace march. His girlfriend just headed for Thailand for two years of study.

I hope Chris is horny.

He has a huge, uncut cock; full pubes, and big, semi-hairy balls.

I would suck that boy's cock in a mere second if he said yes.

A note from a friend just south of Houston on conditions prior to the arrival of Hurricane Rita:

Cell phones areuseless. Two full days before Rita, and every cell phone is busy. Even Nextel's system is overloaded. Emergency services -- fire departments, EMS, ambulances, etc. -- are overloading their own walkie-talkie systems because they are all communicating at once and because so many services have converged on Houston at one time (all of them using the same frequencies). Amateur CB radio operators cannot get through due to the chatter of emergency services. As radio frequencies have become overloaded, emergency service personnel have turned to Nextel as back-up. Only, now Nextel's DAPs are overloaded, too.

Long gas lines are everywhere. Most service stations are out of gas. Few people had full tanks of gas to begin with, due to high gas prices. Many left the city with less than a half-tank. Most people are driving SUVs, which guzzle gas.

This matters because the Interstates and highways are jammed. Traffic is moving at 2 mph in many spots. Thousands of vehicles have run out of gas while sitting in traffic. Some autos are being abandoned just where they sit, in traffic! That causes even worse traffic jams. People are walking along the grassy medians and shoulders to find buses or evacuation tents where they can get transportation from the government.

Every map at every service station, book store and supermarket is gone as people look for ways out of Houston (150 miles inland!) by back roads.

My friend has noticed a number of looters already casing the neighborhood in which he lives. Vehicles driven by people who clearly do live to the neighborhood have been driving by slowly, casing houses.

Emergency services are also running around in desperation. Ambulances are answering calls from more than 20 miles away, because EMS are so overloaded.

Most banks have closed. ATMs are out of cash. Most people are using credit cards or debit cards, which is clogging stores and gas stations. But if the power goes out, those won't function any more. People will be stranded with no way to pay for food, gas or housing.


And that's Texas tonight.

I had to work late tonight. I left right at 8:15 p.m.

The elevator stopped on the 4th floor. This cute, thin brunette hunk got on with a woman on crutches. From the lobby, Connie (a co-worker) yelped: "Hey, Tim, when are you going to come to a Pride At Work meeting?"

I couldn't take my eyes off the brunette. Woof.

I said something idiotic about having to work late tonight. "Every night?" the twinky brunette sang at me.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhh... You go, Tim. What a conversationalist you are!

He smiled, and I almost fell down.

He said some other things to me as we walked out the lobby and onto the street, where he walked away with another man and woman. I don't know what he said, because I was still in shock.

I guess I still am.

I blogged a couple days ago about how silly it is that D.C. doesn't have school buses. After a lengthy history of D.C.'s educational policy -- which explains why the district doesn't have them -- I argued that school buses are essential for evacuating people during a natural disaster or after a terrorist attack.

Don't believe me?

Take a look at this photo:

It shows the people of Galveston, Texas, evacuating their city on Sept. 21, 2005 (that's today, folks) as Hurricane Rita approaches. And just what are those big, yellow things in center of the road?

Believe me now?

I am not some wacky jizz-bucket-for-brains. I am not.

I have now met someone who has slept with an openly gay rock star.

Now how cool is that?

Zeb Atlas is a black-haired, musclebound beast.

But oh............. I do like him. He's one of the few bodybuilders I just want to get on and ride, ride, ride. Those deep, dark eyes. That black hair. Those thick features. That thick, raw cock with that flared knob.

I want to lay him on his back and feel that huge knob split me open. I want to put my hands on his chest and feel the power in him. I want to see those thick lips open in the big, farm-boy smile. I want to pop his knob in and out of my asshole, ride him up and down like a steam-piston. Feel his raw, coarse pubes against my asshole. Feel how raging hard he'd be. Feel him gush his boiling-hot seed inside me. Feel his calloused hands grab my forearms as his eyes roll back into his heavy brows and his body clenches to pump his cum into me.

Zeb reminds me of a musclebound boy named Jud I used to know in college. Jud had very deep-set, Chinese-like eyes. Alabaster skin. Black hair. His pubes were long and silky, his penis long and smooth. Pure white skin, like an albino's. Big, hefty balls with a light covering of black silky hair on them. A huge, double-sized knob that glowed beet red when he was deeply aroused or had ejaculated.

Jud fucked me exactly three times: Once when drunk (that's the time he kissed me). Twice while sober. Each time, he'd broken up with a girlfirend and had gone a fair amount of time without sex.

I gently tore this Zeb Atlas image out of a muscle-man calendar I have, and I keep it next to my computer. When I'm feeling completely alone and lost, I look at him. Those dark but bright eyes. Those slab-like pecs. Those tree-trunk legs.

I imagine what it would be like to not be the biggest, strongest boy in the room. I imagine what it would be like to feel him wrap me in his arms, and make me feel completely safe, protected. Even loved.

I doubt I will ever feel that in my life. Not ever. But I look at Zeb, and I dream about it.

Bartending is like being an acid dealer who has to stay in the room with the customers.

-- Rich Klimmer and Lonnie Carter, Organizing Abraham Lincoln (2005)

Corey Johnson came out of the closet in 2000.

He was co-captain of his high school football team.

The handsome, muscular, sweet 5'8" tackle was also bright and committed to social justice. After graduating, Johnson spoke at the 2000 Millennium March on Washington. He attended George Washington University in D.C.

Hating D.C. (no surprise there), Johnson went to live in New York City. He's working on Mark Green's Democratic campaign for attorney general. He also hosts a daily talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio.

I mention Corey Johnson because I got an email a few days ago from another gay high school football player.

Over the years, I've managed to talk to several gay football players. Some in high school, some in college, a few pros (mostly Arena League). I knew a number of gay and bi football players in college, on my team as well as playing for other schools.

Most of them tell horror stories. Having to participate in beating up suspected gay kids in school to cover up their own homosexuality. Forced to have sex with homophobic bullies as "punishment" for being gay. Terrible isolation and extreme loneliness. Alcohol abuse to numb the emotional pain. One-night-stands with hookers, or with other players while on road-trips, or with other students in parks or under grandstands. No dating, no coming out, no self-acceptance.

Idolization of football players is almost de rigeur in high school and college. But these guys got none of it. They couldn't handle the girls dangling their tits in from of them. And they couldn't reach out to the guys who they so desperately wanted.

Several years ago, a muscle-bound, handsome redhead football player from a private college in the Pacific Northwest emailed me a nude of himself. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Hung like a whale. Gorgeous face. Sweet smile. Blue eyes. Great skin. Awesome body.

He practically whimpered and asked if he were "all-right looking."

It's not football that takes a toll on these guys. It's the closet. It destroys them.


I mention all this because a gay friend of mine surprised me and asked me if I still liked playing football.

"With who?" I asked in reply.

"You know, with gay guys," he said.

I laughed. I told him that I don't know of a single gay man who plays football. Not one. Not in my entire 17 years in D.C. have I ever met a gay man even remotely interested in playing football. I've met women who want to play American football. I've met plenty of lesbians who put on the flags and play flag-football. I've met plenty of lesbians who even put on helmet and pads and knock heads with the best of them.

But not a single gay man.

My friend expressed confusion over that.

But I asked him: How many gay men do you know that even watch football? College or pro?

None, he admitted.

How many gay men do you know, I asked, who have traded naked pictures of men dressed in football gear?

Oh lots, he said.

That, I replied bitterly, was typical. Gay men like the gear. They don't like what it represents or the men wearing it. None of the super-model porn stars wearing those shoulder pads with the black under their eyes would be caught dead touching a football, I said. To them, "down" is the fuzz on their 18-year-old boyfriend's upper lip and "pigskin" is what their Gaultier wallet is made of.

Corey Johnson lives in Chelsea among the gay glitterati. He hates D.C. He's given up on sport.

"The Simpsons One Step Beyond Forever!: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family...Continued Yet Again" is due in stores on Oct. 31, 2005.

It joins:

• The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family (covers seasons 1-8)
• The Simpsons Forever!: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family...Continued (covers seasons 9-10)
• The Simpsons Beyond Forever!: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family...Still Continued (covers seasons 11-12)

And if anyone wants to get me "The Ralph Wiggum Book of Wisdom," also due on Oct. 31, I won't complain.

Some more awesome "Simpsons" quotes:

"If 'Scooby-Doo' has taught me anything, it's that I don't need to be afraid of monsters -- just greedy real-estate developers."

"Flanders! I cant listen to your crap before my morning coffee!"

"Okay, here's one: What has four legs but can't run?"
"A chair."
"You're right! Okay, here's another: What has two ears but can't hear?"
"Grandpa?"
"Right again!"

The Kinsey Sicks will be in Washington, D.C., one night only -- Nov. 12, 2005. That's for "Laugh Out Loud," the One In Ten comedy festival.

Tickets are on sale now.

I have mine.

Marge: "Is that margarita mix?"
Homer: "Come on, Marge... You know how I like to wake up drunk in the morning!"



Courtesy of last night's "Simpsons." A riot!

Were "The Simpsons" funny tonight or what?????????????????


"7-4-3-1! That's the way we....uh, wait, that's my PIN number!"

"No one wants to drink from Lenny's hose!" (dunno how they got that one past the censors)


Just an all-around superb episode. The plot flowed very smoothly without a lot of shaggy-dog stuff. I laughed out loud at both visual and spoken humor maybe six or seven times in addition to numerous chuckles. There was even an "Itchy and Scratchy" cartoon!

Very good.

I really like Eddie Steeples.

Dunno why, but I find the guy to be really hot. That lean dancer's body. Those dark, Chinese eyes. That powerful, lean jaw. You just know the guy is beautiful between his legs. Yummy.

That he's a Blogger, too, doesn't hurt.

Steeples is the sort of very intelligent guy who takes art seriously, and never throws aggressiveness and attitude anyone's way. Hip-hop without the misogyny and hatred. It's just very appealing.

Now if the guy will only do underwear ads or a shirtless commercial, I might get some stroke-time.

Why D.C. is doomed in the event of an evacuation order:

In the 1960s, the District of Columbia had a public school bus sytem. Schools were dispersed all over the city. Although elementary schools were numerous and often close to a child's home, junior highs and high schools were not. This required buses to transport kids to school.

In the 1970s, with the arrival of Metro, D.C. initiated the "cluster school" plan. Many junior and senior high schools were down-sized, and new schools built close to existing elementary schools. In some cases, elementary, junior and senior high schools even shared the same campus. The idea was that no child should have to walk more than eight blocks to the nearest cluster.

The cluster-school concept meant that D.C. could get rid of the hundreds of school buses it had in its possession. The District government argued that this would save taxpayers money, unclog the city's roads and provide for better education.

In the late 1980s, as the District's poverty rate worsened and schools in D.C. began to perform at lower levels, the District introduced "school competition." About 20 percent of all seats in a given elementary, junior high or senior high school were to be kept open for transfer students. The idea was that schools which performed better would have more transfer students. This would enable the District government to more readily identify high-performing schools and reward them with more money and expanded facilities. Under-performing schools would also be identified, and would get more teacher training, more support services and more assistance, too.

But since the District had jettisoned its school buses, moving these children -- in some cases, clear across the city -- required new thinking. The city could not rebuild its school bus system without incurring massive expense.

So the District hit upon a new scheme: Subsidized Metro bus and rail transit for school-age children. After all, District officials reasoned, D.C. already had a fine bus and subway system. Why not use it?

Of course, the subsidized system meant that Metro lost money. It also meant that the morning rush was particularly overburdened, as thousands of school-age commuters (some as young as seven or eight) crowded onto Metro. In poorer neighborhoods, where out-of-cluster transfers were highest (as kids sought to escape their low-performing local clusters) and subway services nonexistent, Metro buses were overwhelmed. The Metro bus system in poorer neighborhoods became swamped with graffiti and trash.

But the District government reaped political benefits from this scheme. High-paying white taxpayers in the city's Northwest quadrant escaped paying taxes to bus poor, black schoolkids in the city's other quadrants. And since the poor voted at lower rates than the wealthy, politicians were rewarded with re-election by rich, white voters.

But poverty and worsening social conditions in the city continued to batter the District's schools. More than 20 percent of the District's residents lived below the poverty line -- one of the highest rates in the nation. City schools became increasingly segregated. The poor became more heavily African-American and the wealthy became increasingly white. The housing boom worsened the situation: The poor moved into poorer neighborhoods so they could afford rent.

By 1995, the District was desperate for a way to improve education without attacking the underlying poverty issue. So the District adopted a "public charter school" law. Private for-profit and non-profit groups could open a public school with public money. But each charter school would have its own educational mission (rather than a common one), no longer be subject to the teacher union contract, no longer be subject to a number of health and safety regulations and no longer be subject to the control of the publicly-elected school board. Affirmative action in teacher hiring (so that teachers were representative of the children they taught) was jettisoned.

By 2005, there were 50 public charter schools in the District, serving a quarter of the District's children.

Because public charter schools were not subject to the cluster-school requirement, they formed willy-nilly all over the city. Parents desperate to improve their children's education sent their kids to these public charter schools.

The public charter school program only worsened the District's school-age transportation problem. Metro's morning overcrowding problem worsened. Metro began bleeding even more money as it was forced to provide subsidized transportation. Metro's maintenance problems on buses serving poor neighborhoods worsened.

In 2004, the U.S. Congress forced the District of Columbia to institute a voucher system. Every family with school-age children in the District would receive a grant equal to the average educational cost of children in the public schools. This grant would enable the family to pay for education at a private school. The problem was that there were few private schools in the District, most charged tuition far above the voucher amount, and few would take the under-prepared, poverty-stricken, black students with behavior problems who sought entrance. Indeed, some of the city's most prestigious private schools didn't admit a single voucher student (and remained almost lily-white in the process).

The voucher system, however, worsened the city's school-age transportation problem. A number of for-profit and non-profit groups began building private schools in the city with the goal of providing education by the beginning of the 2006-07 school year. While there are 38 private schools in the city, more than 55 percent of them have space for 300 students or less (and three can accept only 100 students or less). Meanwhile, there are only two schools for children with behavioral problems (a total of 555 seats). Because of the District's school-age Metro subsidy program, the District essentially began providing free transportation for religious schools in the city now that the voucher program is in place.


Why does this matter?

Because in New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast, school buses were used to transport people out of the affected areas.

School buses can be used to provide transportation in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. School buses can be used in lieu of public transportation to move children back home.

But the District has no school buses. "We're running lean!" -- That's the District's motto.

The problem is, when you're running lean, you have no reserves to use in the event of an emergency.

Just as the body uses fat reserves to provide extra energy during a crisis, so too the body politic must have fat to use during an emergency.

Let's face it: The District has no reserves. The District will find that its already-inadequate public transportation system will be unable to move the necessary hundreds of thousands of people out of the District in the event of a crisis.

Smart. All the way to the top. Very smart.

Two very awful articles in the "Washington Post" today. And I mean "awful" in the sense that they scare the living bejesus out of you.

Reporter David Snyder talks about how the D.C. region is completely unprepared to handle a terrorist attack or natural disaster -- despite Bush's bluster over the last five years. What if a plane flew into the Capitol? Or what if multiple suicide bombers blew themselves up in coordinated attacks at the White House, Union Station and the Metro Center subway station?

Snyder paints a scenario where the public would panic after hearing the news a work via television or the Internet. There would be no government news report to rely on or any public pronouncement whatsoever. Conflicting news reports would from the for-profit media would further alarm and misinform the public. (On 9/11, for example, local news media were reporting bomb attacks on the Mall and no attack on the Pentagon for an hour.)

The cell phone network (including Nextel's famous walkie-talkies) would collapse as circuits and frequencies became overloaded.

Metro -- barely capable of handling regular traffic on a normal day -- would be overwhelmed. Trains would become backed up, a single breakdown (common enough during a normal day) would crash the subway system and panicked members of the public would force open train doors (preventing the train's computers from moving the train as a safety measure) in a desperate attempt to flee. Metro's bus system -- already inadequate for the city's rush-hour needs -- would be mobbed. Metrobuses would be immobile as Washington's streets, already gridlocked, would become parking lots as frantic people tried to flee the city in private cars.

The few bridges out of the city into Virginia -- gridlocked during a normal rush-hour -- would become jammed. Traffic accidents would worsen the problem.

The major roads in and out of the city -- New York Avenue, I-66, Constitution Avenue, Wisconsin Avenue, North Capital Street, the Beltway -- would be mired in bumper-to-bumper traffic. A single traffic accident or incident of road-rage would crash the entire road traffic system.

People would begin to abandon vehicles in the road or on the interstate, and begin walking. Abandoned vehicles would clog the streets for a week, impeding emergency personnel.

Children would be locked down at their schools without food, water or medicine. Most children would be an hour's drive from their parents on the best of days; now, parents would struggle for six or seven hours to reach a child's school...much less home.

Rescue and emergency personnel would become trapped in the streets. The only emergency personnel able to move would have to fly via helicopter, but be unable to land in most parts of the city.

"New York solved most of this problem more than a decade ago with what is called TRANSCOM, a regional transportation coordinating agency run by the highway departments and bus and railway systems. On 9/11, TRANSCOM proved effective in managing traffic, keeping the roads open for first responders. Washington's Transportation Planning Board is trying to establish a similar system here with the active support of Congress, the Virginia and Maryland departments of transportation and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). Only the District of Columbia Department of Transportation has failed to join this effort, which has stalled the entire project."

Evacuating any American city is extremely difficult and carries huge risks. Public safety officials recommend a "stay-put" strategy which keeps people in their offices, children in schools and others at home so that emergency response personnel can deal with the situation. But this strategy requires businesses, schools and the public to plan ahead by keeping water, food and medicine on-site. Few have done so.

It would also require an official government news agency (not propaganda organ) to dispense reliable, timely information in order to keep the public calm and provide official instructions on how to evacuate (if necessary). That does not exist.


Worse, Hurricane Katrina has shown terrorists that the Dept. of Homeland Security is inept, says Post columnist Sally Quinn. The pathetic federal response only provides terrorists with an incentive to attack now, before the government gets its act together.

Should the public rely on federal, state and local government to help in the event of an attack?

No, says Quinn. "Now we know. We are on our own. It's every man for himself."

Quinn offers a common-sense recipe for self-help:

Here's what you need:

Water and food for at least a week. A radio and a flashlight with batteries. Contact numbers for the family, emergency routes and a full tank of gas (if you can afford it). First-aid kit, backpacks with medicine, the antibiotics Cipro and doxycycline (don't tell us to wait and get a prescription from the doctor after the anthrax attack. The doctor won't be in, and the drugstores will be closed). And yes, plastic sheeting and duct tape. An N95 mask, which sells for a few dollars at most drugstores, could save your life.

Here's why you need to do all this: We cannot count on the government to help us, and when it can, it will have limited resources. A segment of the population will always be incapable of preparing. Every person who prepares means one less person to rely on government resources, so it is irresponsible and unpatriotic not to prepare if you can.

More than that, it is stupid. Not being prepared puts your life and the lives of your family at risk. At the same time, if large numbers of people are unprepared, those who have prepared could have their resources taken from them, possibly at gunpoint. Therefore, the less prepared the population is, the more dangerous the situation will become as people grow desperate.

As the situation in New Orleans showed, America's love-affair with handguns simply means carjackings and food taken by those with guns from those without. The GOP's and NRA's solution is to arm everyone so that it's Wild West time.

But Quinn says that Wild West individualism is bankrupt as a philosophy.

Rather, every single citizen must demand a plan from federal, state and local governments and demand it right now.

Society must demand a plan, must demand that the plan be practiced over and over, and must demand that the plan be capable of handling scenarios ranging from chlorine tanker attacks to "dirty" bombs to chemical and biological attacks to bombings of subways and trains and even nuclear bombs.

Quinn says a good plan should include neighborhood and block organizations across the city, designated places for people to go, methods of disseminating information and community organizations and churches collecting supplies for those who cannot afford to protect themselves.
The spookiest thing Quinn says:

Right after Sept. 11, when I was terrified of another attack, Bob Woodward said to me, "I wouldn't worry about anything happening now. I would start worrying three or four years from now."

Well, that's where we are today. What are you going to do about it?

I watched the last half of the Tennessee-Florida game last night.

I masturbated through most of the game. Every time Florida huddled, Chris Leak turned to the sideline to get instructions from his coaches. Goddamn, that is one handsome stud. And the big vein running through his powerful bicep just made me want to discover another big vein elsewhere on his body.

I loathe Florida, however. Too arrogant. I hope Florida loses for the rest of the season so that Leak has to become a super-model and do underwear ads for International Male.

I am a huge Halloween fan. We are less than six weeks out from my second-most favorite holiday of the year.

One of the things I love to do is see creepy horror movies on TV. This began about seven years ago when American Movie Classics (AMC) began running horror and monster movies 24 hours a day. They called it "MonsterFest." You got some great creature-features like "The Deadly Mantis," "The Black Scorpion," "Them!", "Godzilla" and "20 Million Miles to Earth." You also got some campy but wonderful B-movies like "The Wasp Woman," "The Abominable Dr. Phibes," "13 Ghosts," "The House on Haunted Hill," "The Tingler" and "Village of the Damned." You got the great Hammer classics: "The Curse of Frankenstein," "Dracula," "The Mummy," "The Gorgon," "The Horror of Frankenstein" and "Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter." You got a lot of the Corman classics: "House of Usher," "Masque of the Red Death," "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Oblong Box." And then you also got the classics: "Dracula," "Frankenstein," "The Wolf Man," "The Invisible Man" and "The Mummy."

So it became a bit of a thing for me to plunk myself down in front of the television for a weekend, and watch a bunch of horror films.

I was a happy boy.

AMC even turned "MonsterFest" into a real celebration of monster and horror films over time. Once, they ever had Roger Corman himself direct a series of short films in homage to the various types of horror films out there.

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) never had as good a horror festival. Their focus was never even on classic horror films! You might get a couple films the week before Halloween. Definitely, Halloween itself was devoted to horror. But it was rarely a festival. Rather, you'd get all the Universal "Dracula" films in one night, or all of the Karloff films in one night.

Over time, AMC's "MonsterFest" really declined in quality. Now all AMC shows is the endless "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" sequels.

TCM's horror offerings have varied widely in quality. Last year was pretty good. They showed five nights of vampires, Frankenstein monsters, werewolves and invisible men. Hell, they even had a night of Abbott & Costello comedy-horror films.


So, this year...

Well, this year, I guess my tradition dies.

AMC is offering the same retinue of over-shown "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" films. Yawn.

TCM is doing something very different. They are offering a whole week of Hitchcock. Almost every Hitchcock film ever made is going to be shown over eight nights. The festival of Hitchcock culminates with "Psycho" and "The Birds." The night will be capped off by the superb ghost story, "The Uninvited," and the Robert Wise classic ghost film, "The Haunting" (which scares the piss out of me).

I think I can skip these films this year.

I may put on my own festival, I think. I wish "The Mad Magician" were on DVD. But instead, I might do Hammer's "The Mummy," Corman's "The Masque of the Red Death," Price's "House of Wax" and perhaps another.

Maybe not. We'll see.

Big article on Tab Hunter's new book, a biography in which he "tells all." Except, isn't this just like his other book? Oh well.

So I saw the second-to-last "Battlestar Galactica" tonight.

It was one of those "ship in a bottle" shows, one in which everything takes place aboard the Galactica and nowhere else. I like these shows because the script in them relies much more heavily on characterization rather than plot and narrative. For example, one of the best "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episodes was "Disaster" -- where the Enterprise hits a superstring, trapping the captain in a turbolift, a very pregnant Mrs. O'Brien on 10-forward, the engines ready to explode and the bridge in the hands of the woefully inexperienced Counselor Troi.

This episode was such a good change of pace. So many "Galactica" episodes have this three-stories-in-parallel structure. So many of them toss in episodes of Dr. Baltar's worsening psychosis without any relationship to the rest of the stories. And there's so much foreshadowing in this damn show, everything takes on a very dreary and very portentious atmosphere that can be very wearying for the viewer.

But this episode -- very nice! The use of a previous episode's incident (the Cylon computer virus attack) to directly link to this one worked very well. And it helped make the show a uniform whole. Too often, shows open with "previous on 'Battlestar Galactica'" without actually looking backward or resolving story lines or relying heavily on previous knowledge. It's like watching a 15-hour movie chopped up into pieces rather than a real, coherent mystery story. But this show didn't do that, and I liked that a lot.

I enjoyed the way that almost everyone has something to do in this episode. For example, the neo-fascist Lt. Gaeta slips and adds "Sharon," which adds a little depth to his character. And he is one of two people tasked with saving the ship from the virus. I liked how bit-players on the Chief's repair crew were given lines and tasks in the plot.

I also liked the way that the show is finally dealing with the fact that two crew members fell in love with Cylons. In truth, this should be a pretty major issue. Now, the Chief believed that he was in love with the human Sharon, not a Cylon. He had reason to suspect she was a traitor, definitely; he could maybe have suspected her of being a Cylon, but at the time no one knew that Cylons could take such deceptive human form. Helo was partly in the same boat. He thought he was fucking the real, human Sharon and not a Cylon. But he knew that Cylons could take near-human form. His reaction to seeing a second "Sharon" was the right one. It didn't matter that he loved Cylon-Sharon or not (he already did); he instantly rejected her.

The problem for the show is in explaining why Helo would change his mind. The show's never dealt with that. He just changed it, and fell back in love with Cylon-Sharon. (You have to wonder what sort of male doormat Helo is. In the past, what if a human woman had screwed his best friend? Would Helo have taken her back? You have to believe he would have, if his behavior regarding Cylon-Sharon is any guide.)

The greater problem for the show is Helo's wacky, super-dad response to "my baby." Now, just how ultra-fundamentalist is that? Pat Robertson and James Dobson must be loving this. "He won't abort his child!" "He wants to carry the baby to term and care for it like a real father should!" First, I'm about as offended and put-off by this reaction as I can be. It's not very enlightened at all. Second, why doesn't Helo see his "baby" as some sort of half-Cylon demon-spawn? Why see it as "my" baby? That response goes unexplained. Is there something in Helo's belief-system or past or religious beliefs that would make him take this path? We're not told. We just have to take it on faith, and I don't like doing that. It shows poorly thought-out characterization.

And let's back up a step here: Does anyone else think that the "Helo's Cylon baby" story-arc is reminiscent of the "Robin is having a Visitor baby" from "V"? Yeah, thought so. It's eerily similar. Way too similar. Of course, my mind can come up with all sorts of idiotic scenarious for this: Baltar kidnaps the half-Cylon child and raises it with the Cylons. Helo hunts Baltar down to save "my baby." The baby turns out to have a forked tongue (oops, that was "V"!). Sharon kills her baby because it's an obscene hybrid (oops, that was "V"!). Helo kills Sharon after seeing what a disgusting creature he's brought into the world (oops, that was "V"!).

By the way, I thought it was a sweet little touch to add naming the new Viper "Laura." It wasn't necessary, but it was neat. And it gave Mary McDonnell something to do. She's such a superb actress. I love how she just has to act with her face, eyes, hands and arms. No lines. Just acting. Pure and unadulterated acting. You believe that she is going to cry if she doesn't control herself. She's that good. (And the bit where she almost breaks the bottle is a neat little toss-in that made smile and laugh.)

I've got two little criticisms, though.

First, the show seems to take place over about 72 hours. It seems impossible that the crew would have been able to assemble an entire Viper in that amount of time.

Second, the budding attraction between Dualla and Apollo seems completely unnecessary. It's terribly out of character for Dualla. She's been deeply attracted to Billy Keikeya for months now. There have been no signs of trouble in that relationship. And yet, that physical spark during karate practice (which in itself is pretty trite) occurred.

Truth is, we know very little about Apollo's sex life. He seems almost asexual on the show. That's probably due to a conscious decision by the producers to minimize Jamie Bamber's attractiveness. The man is so stunningly handsome and in such astonishingly good shape that it's easy for the show (and viewers) to focus too much on him. (Tonight's show is an example. I almost had to whip out Mr. Timmy and give him a good flogging after seeing Bamber's biceps and shoulders naked and up-close in those training scenes.) Minimizing Apollo's sexuality is one way out. And it's worked so far. But the problem is that all of a sudden it's rearing it's big, swollen, moist, red head now. Just where does that come from? It makes little sense. The guy has been around naked chicks for the past four months. He's been around naked men for the past four months. And just now he gets the hots for a skinny, brainy, sensitive comm officer?

Overall, an excellent episode.

I can't wait until next week and the return of the Battlestar Pegasus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woo!

Labels: Battlestar Galactica

Remember how FEMA director Michael Brown put Pat Robertson's fake charity at the top of the list of those organizations aiding Hurricane Katrina victims? Robertson's "Operation Blessing" was a sham outfit designed to ship diamond- and gold-mining gear to African dictatorships where Robertson was providing moral cover to genocide in return for mining concessions.

The other two charities were the Red Cross and something called America's Second Harvest -- a coalition of food banks.

Guess what?

A large amount of missing money, five resignations from the board of directors and a decision to dissolve a connected for-profit business have roiled America's Second Harvest.

It just gets better and better with these greedy bastards, doesn't it?

Hey, you hot Milwaukee boys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Naked Boys Singing!" is back!!!!!!

The musical was shut down in August after officials said the Milwaukee Gay Arts Center had not obtained a necessary theater license. City police shut down the show at the request of a local homophobic gay preacher.

On Aug. 23, the center filed a claim against the city for $634,420, saying the city had committed a civil rights violation by unfairly targeting the center because it is a gay organization.

Three days later, the city backed off the requirement because the center, as a non-profit organization, didn't need the license.

The mayor later asked Milwaukee's Common Council president and police chief to review the decision to shut down the show.

While the show's organizers applauded the mayor's concern, they also said they lost a substantial amount of money by postponing the show.

In addition, some of the show's performers have joined other projects, which accounts for the late October start date.

The center will continue to pursue legal action to recoup losses.

Performances will now begin Oct. 29 and run through Dec. 31.

The ex-gay treatment facility Love in Action is facing closure by the state of Tennessee for illegally offering psychiatric treatment.

Love in Action made national headlines this year after a gay Tennessee teenager wrote on his Blog that his parents were sending him there for "treatment."

On Sept 12, the Tennessee Department of Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities had determined that Love in Action is operating two "unlicensed mental health supportive living facilities."

The department sent a certified letter to Love in Action executive director John Smid, telling him to stop operating the facility or apply for a license within seven days. Smid did not respond to the letter. A second letter was issued. Smid had until Sept. 15 to respond to that letter, but it is not clear if he applied for a license or not.

If no license has been applied for, state authorities say they will go to court to demand that Love in Action immediately stop operation of its residential facilities.

Gerard Wellman, business administrator for Love in Action, told the press that Love in Action is a a church and operates "under a different set of rules."

An investigation by the Tennessee Department of Health earlier summer found that Love in Action is not required to be licensed as a drug and alcohol treatment facility because it is a faith-based organization.

Peterson Toscano, a former patient at Love in Action, said the staff dispensed psychotropic drugs and administered psychiatric tests.

Did a bit more checking on the relationship between the Cherry Fund and the D.C. Center.

The Cherry circuit party was founded in 1996. In 1999, local lawyer Patrick Menasco and his partner took over organization of the circuit party and turned it into a fund-raiser for local GLBTQ groups. Cherry 4 (1999) was the first year that the Fund made donations to local gay groups, but it was also the year that the Fund held back money to support the Center.

So let's see where the money comes from.


Cherry 6 (2001)
Cherry 6 (2001) raised $195,000. The vast bulk ($110,000) went to Whitman-Walker Clinic. Other donees included: The Victory Fund ($35,000), The Mautner Project for lesbians with cancer ($15,000), Lambda Legal Defense Fund ($15,000), GLAAD ($10,000), Delphia Foundation ($2,500; no clue what it is), D.C. Aquatics ($2,500), Metro Teen AIDS ($2,500) and D.C. Renegades leather-cycle club ($2,500).

Still, Cherry 6 lost more than $28,000 in 2001.

However, I can find no part of the Fund's Form 990 which shows a set-aside for the D.C. Center.


Cherry 7 (2002)
Cherry 7 (2002) raised $175,000 for GLBTQ groups. At least, that's what they told the press. In reality, Cherry 7 made only $90,750 in contributions. Those went to: SMYAL ($40,000), The Victory Fund ($35,000), The Mautner Project ($10,000), Service Members Legal Defense Fund ($1,750), D.C. Renegades ($1,000), Delphia Foundation ($1,000), D.C. Aquatics ($1,000), and miscellaneous organizations (total of $1,000).

$66,712 was kept back. Presumably, it was retained to give to the Center.


Cherry 8 (2003)
Cherry 8 (2003) raised just $44,500. At least, that's what the press was told. In fact, Cherry 8 made $54,500 in donations. They went to: The Victory Fund ($15,000), D.C. Center ($15,000), The Mautner Project ($10,000), SMYAL ($10,000), D.C. Renegades ($2,000), Delphia Foundation ($1,000), D.C. Aquatics ($1,000) and Church of the Pilgrims ($500).

Cherry Fund lost $17,566 for the year.

Notice something? It's the first time the D.C. Center showed up on the fund-raising list.

By this time, the Cherry Fund has $187,210 in its reserve fund.


Cherry 9 (2004)
Cherry 9 (2004) did not make any money and made no donations. At least, that's what the Washington Blade was told.

The Cherry Fund's From 990 won't be filed with the IRS until mid-october at the earliest, and maybe not until November.

But if the Fund is correct in that it did not make any donations to any group, then that means the D.C. Center didn't get any donations in 2004.


Cherry 2005
Cherry 2005 (the naming scheme changed) predicted $200,000 in donations to GLBTQ groups based on advance ticket sales (a predictor of on-site ticket sales), but that was before a snafu in which the Mellon Center announced a "no shirts, no dancing" policy that was later rescinded a mere two days before the event. At the time, Cherry organizers said that there had been only a handful of refund requests for advance ticket sales, but that on-site ticket sales were likely to be far lower than anticipated due to the bad publicity and late notice that the no-shirt policy had been rescinded.

The 2005 donoees were to have been: Whitman-Walker Clinic, SMYAL, Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry, The Mautner Project, and the D.C. Center.

At $250 a pop, the entire donation program could be wiped out with just 800 fewer ticket-buyers.


Here is the question everyone should be asking:

If the Cherry Fund turned over $165,000 to the D.C. Center in late 2003, why isn't that on the Fund's Form 990? Why is a mere $15,000 on the 990?

If the Fund turned over $165,000 in 2004 to the D.C. Center, but no other money, it seems that the Center should be filing a Form 990 that will reflect this donation.

And if the Fund turned over $165,000 in 2004 to the Center -- but stiffed everyone else because of its commitment to the Center -- why aren't other groups up in arms about this?

And where is the set-aside in the Fund's Form 990s for the Center commitment?

The head of the D.C. Center for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender People told the Washington Blade this week that the group would not release its Form 990 financial disclosure tax form until required by law in November 2005.

The Center also said that it would decide on Sept. 20, 2005, whether or not to release any financial information earlier than November.

This would be the first financial information released by the Center since its founding in 1999, its incorporation in 2002 and its receipt of tax-exempt status in 2003.

The Center has spent at least $130,000 over the past three years acting as a "virtual center."



Why the delay in filing the financial information?

Between 1999 and 2003, Center finances were run by the Cherry Fund, a tax-exempt group which sponsors D.C.'s annual Cherry circuit party. The Cherry Fund was the Center's primary (some might say sole) fund-raising event. The Fund raised about $275,000 in that four-year period, and Cherry Fund officials wrote checks on behalf of the Center.

The Center was incorporated in 2002, but the Cherry Fund continued to control the Center's finances.

The Center received its IRS tax exemption in 2003, at which time the Cherry Fund donated about $165,000 to the Center.

Despite previous calls that the Center release an audited financial statement or some other statement of its finances, the Center has refused to do so.

Michael Sessa, president of the D.C. Center, said that the Center's board has been sorting though its financial records documenting the transition, and this has delayed release of any financial statements prior to the Form 990 filing.

So why hasn't the Center filed Form 990s for 2003 or 2004?

IRS regulations do not require tax-exempt groups to file a Form 990 if their annual income is below $25,000. The form is due three months after the end of an organization's fiscal year. The IRS will grant up to two, three-month extensions so that organizations may get their financial act together.

Patrick Menasco, the Center's past president, said that the Center did not have income exceeding $25,000 either 2003 or 2004. (Menasco resigned from the Center board in protest in August 2005 over the board's fund-raising decisions and the firing of vice president and board member Larry Stansbury.)



Why these delays should alarm everybody

The Center was incorporated in 2002, but did not seek tax-exempt status until 2003. That should worry everyone. What was the Center doing with Cherry Fund money and other donations during that for-profit year? And why did the Center wait a full year before seeking tax-exempt status?

Between 1999 and 2002, the Center did not legally exist. Cherry Fund was the Center.

The Center was incorporated in 2002, but Cherry Fund continued to control all Center finances until very late in 2003.

Why did the Cherry Fund continue to hold Center funds in 2002? Well, the answer is pretty simple: It's a tax-dodge. The Cherry Fund is tax-exempt. The Center was not (yet). Had the Cherry Fund made a donation to the Center in 2002 and 2003, the Center would have had to pay federal and D.C. taxes on the money.

One has to wonder whether this tax-dodge was legal or not. And whether the Center is liable for the income tax and penalties on those funds.

The Cherry Fund made a donation to the now-tax-exempt D.C. Center in late 2003. According to both Cherry Fund Form 990s and Menasco's statement to the Blade, this was in the amount of $165,000.

Why didn't the Center file a Form 990 on this $165,000 in income for the fiscal year 2003? Even assuming the transaction wasn't made until early 2004, why didn't the Center file a Form 900 for fiscal year 2004?

Is the Center in violation of federal tax law? It would appear so.



Why the D.C. Center is in big financial distress

The D.C. Center is in deep trouble.

Between 1999 and 2003, the Center spent $115,000....on what? It's not clear at all. That's only $23,000 a year. But I don't think anyone can point to any real accomplishments.

Indeed, according to what Menasco told the Blade, more than $80,000 of this money was spent in one year on a study to determine whether there was eve a need for a Center! In 2003, Menasco told the Blade that the Center had spent another $10,000 on equipment, advertising and other expenses.

Cherry Fund turned over $165,000 to the Center in late 2003. Cherry Fund has since raised another $110,000 for the Center in 2004 and 2005. That's a total of $275,0000.

Sessa told the Blade this week that the Center has about $35,000 remaining in its treasury.

This means that the Center ran through $240,000 in just two years.

On what???????????????????????????

The Center rented office space on 14th Street NW in February 2005. But that rent is a joint lease agreement with Brother Help Thyself and the D.C. area chapter of PFLAG.

The Center has only one paid staffer -- former managing director Robert Bruening. No one knows how much Bruening was paid in salary and benefits, because the Center has not filed a Form 990 (where this information would be listed). That information won't be available until November. But even if Bruening was receiving an astonishingly high $50,000 a year in salary and another $15,000 a year in full benefits (insurance, pension, etc.), that accounts for only $130,000 over two years -- only half what the Center says it spent money on.

In an interview with the Blade in June 2004 and Metro Weekly in July 2004, Menasco told the Blade that the Center had spent money on architectural drawings for a proposed building on Stead Park at 17th and P Streets NW. One supposes that cost a lot of money. But $110,000? The only public document ever shown was a mere architect's drawing! No one (at least, no one outside the Center) has seen blueprints or plans. So I highly doubt that we're talking $110,000 on blueprints.

In all, one can't see just what the Center has spent its money on in the last two years.

What about income?

The Center received $165,000 in late 2003 and another $110,000 in 2004-05 from the Cherry Fund.

Sessa told the Blade on Sept. 15 that the Center generated a modest income from small grants and donations from supporters.

According to both Menasco and Sessa, the Center raised less than $25,000 in 2003, and more than $25,000 in 2004.

Worst-case scenario is that the Center had $275,000 from Cherry Fund and no other income in 2003 and 2004 (years for which we have financial data coming). We can draw two conclusions from this, if true: 1) The Center board is woefully incompetent because it didn't raise any money; and 2) The Center blew $240,000 on we-don't-know-what.

But the middle-case scenario is that the Center had $275,000 from Cherry Fund plus $24,999 in other income in 2004. We can draw two conclusions from this, if true: 1) The Center board is woefully incompetent because it only raised $25,000; and 2) The Center blew $265,000 on we-don't-know-what.

The best-case scenario is that the Center had $275,000 from Cherry Fund plus $50,000 in other income in 2004. (Sessa says the Center's income is "modest," and $50,000 a year is the highest level of income I'd consider "modest.") We can draw two conclusions from this, if true: 1) The Center board is competent. It raised a fair amount of money, but it is overwhelmingly reliant on Cherry Fund for income. If the Cherry Fund board decides to alter its donations schedule or (god forbid) must cut back on the donations it makes, the Center will be in deep trouble. The Center is not raising enough money to pay its rent, much less pay for a development director or executive director as well as the programs it sponsors. 2) The Center blew $280,000 on we-don't-know-what.



Why this all matters for D.C.

Isn't this just a tempest in a teapot? After all, who really relies on the D.C. Center? Hey, it'd be nice to have a giant building with 450-car parking garage and lots of space for GLBTQ organizations to utilize. But I'd like a twinky lover with a 10" uncut cock, too. I ain't gonna get either.

The reason it matters is that the Center is in negotiations with Whitman-Walker Clinic to take over operation of Capital Pride in D.C.

The problem:

Capital Pride has a budget of about $200,000 a year and generates about $20,000 in excess funds each year. (Whitman-Walker Clinic, the current Capital Pride host, gave these numbers to the Blad this week.)

Right now, the Center has $35,000 -- not $200,000 -- to run Capital Pride. The Center has no additional, subtantial income coming in the door until May or June 2006, when Cherry Fund makes its next big donation. The Center will use its $35,000 for its own operations, not as seed-money to host Capital Pride. The Center has no hope of raising the $200,000 necessary to host Capital Pride. Capital Pride was run by a full-time Whitman-Walker staffer, and received a large amount of in-kind support from Whitman-Walker (secretaries, other staff, advertising, etc.). The Center currently has not a single paid staff member; it hopes to raise money for a full-time development director, but no staff member. The Center has no in-kind contribution to make to Capital Pride (no secretaries, no office equipment, no support staff, etc.).

Just how in the fuck does the Center hope to host Pride?

Hey, it'd be nice for the Center to have a $20,000-a-year money-maker to augment its programs. But it would need $200,000 -- or more -- first, and it has no chance in hell of getting that seed-money.


Such is that state of D.C.'s gay organizations. A bunch of slip-shod operations being run by incestuous boards and spending money like (or maybe on) drunken sailors.

It makes one weep.

For Fang.

Here's an example of Brad Parker's early work. It's more simply drawn than his later strips. (For example, there's no background hatching or design.) It's also a one-panel, which he almost never does any more.

But you can see the beginnings of his style here. (I use "beginnings" only in the roughest way; he'd been drawing steadily for years by the time of this 'toon, in 1990.) You almost get the sense that he's engaged in a sort of "rouch sketch" sort of drawing. Strong, powerful lines. (Mmm.) Even strokes. (Oh baby.) Slightly rough around the edges. (Harder, harder...) Simple but well-formed. (TAKE ME BRAD YOU MONSTER YOU!)

Ahem.

Anyway, I like it. It's funny, it's erotic, it's inventive. And it's right down pup's alley. (So to speak.)

Investigators appointed by the Vatican have been instructed to review each of the 229 Roman Catholic seminaries in the United States for "evidence of homosexuality."

Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, who oversees all Roman Catholic seminaries in the U.S., will conduct the investigation alongside a team of Vatican inquisitors...uh, investigators.

Pope Benedict XVI is about to issue a ruling barring homosexuals from the priesthood.

The Vatican memo to O'Brien says that "anyone who has engaged in homosexual activity or has strong homosexual inclinations" should not be admitted to a seminary.

Estimates of the number of gay Catholic priests range widely, from 10 percent to 60 percent.

A study commissioned by the Vatican last year found that about 80 percent of the young people victimized by priests were boys.

Experts in human sexuality have cautioned that homosexuality and attraction to children are different, and that a disproportionate percentage of boys may have been abused because priests were more likely to have access to male targets -- like altar boys or junior seminarians -- than to girls.


Personally, I want to see how the Vatican conducts this investigation.

"Wanna suck my cock?"
"No."
"Wanna suck my cock?"
"No."
"Wanna suck my cock?"
"No."
"Wanna suck my cock?"
"No."
"Wanna suck my cock?"
"No."
"Wanna suck my cock?"
"No."
"Wanna suck my cock?"
"No."
"Wanna suck my cock?"
"Yes. I mean no! No!"
"Blasphemer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"


The thing is, I've known a couple ex-seminarians.

One was in seminary in Tennessee. He said that he had more sex in seminary than he ever had as a high school or college student. He said that the first night in seminary, one of the senior teachers came to him as he said evening prayers in his cell, and fucked him. While they had sex, four other men -- two teachers and two seminarians (one just arrived, one a second-year student) -- also came into his cell, saw what was going on, and left. Throughout the night, he got fucked by another teacher and by an older seminarian. Word quickly got around about his enormous cock, muscular body and endless capacity for sex. He told me that he fucked almost everyone in his seminary class, and about half the faculty. He left seminary in his third year. He had come to the conclusion that he was not meant for the priesthood. He's happily married to another man and still living in Tennessee.

Another seminarian I met several years ago told me that he and a few other students had sex within the first week of entering the seminary. Showers, work times (such as kitchen duty) and study times often led to sex. The senior faculty in charge of the seminary were rather strict, even going to far as to forbid seminarians to masturbate. So a lot of sneaking around occurred. It became something of an in-joke for gay seminarians (or those straight ones who just wanted to fuck to get rid of their horniness) to tiptoe around the hall, bumping into each other and smiling. "Ah! So you're fucking him tonight!" would be the coy smile delivered as men would pass one another in the halls. A few teachers in seminary had sex with the younger students; my friend told me that they were "old queens" who wanted it up the ass missionary-style from the "young studs."

Scandal rocked his seminary when some very muscular, very handsome, very well-hung -- and very young -- Brazilian seminarians came up to study in the U.S. One of the older faculty members seduced one of the Brazilian lads and performed fellatio on him. Then the teacher essentially blackmailed him, telling him that he had "seduced" the older man and that the older man would keep it quiet if the younger man would "help him out." The older teacher ended up fucking the young Brazilian pretty much every night.

Racked with guilt, the Brazilian sought out one of his countrymen. The older teacher caught them embracing, and blackmailed them into fucking each other as well as engaging in three-ways. The first Brazilian eventually went to the seminary's headmaster and told him about the blackmail, sex, forced orgies and so on. The older faculty member was sent to minister in a parish of retirees in Arizona. But the two Brazilians were sent home in disgrace, ejected from the seminary for "willingly" engaging in homosexual contact.

A third Brazilian in the seminary who was gay remained behind, having sex with anyone! Although extremely effeminate, he had a monstrous penis and was a favorite of almost everyone who had sex with him.

Another friend of mine (now a gay porn star) told me of growing up and having the new priests come on to the altar boys. His church was one where newly graduated seminarians would "train" for a while, learning the ropes of church management, parishoner relationships, etc. When he was an altar boy, his large church had two seminarians working there. One was a young man in his early 20s with black hair, a muscular body and a handsome face. This seminarian worked with the altar boys. And boy did he work them! Mutual oral sex was common. Sucking "Father J." was considered a sign that you were "in" on the inner circle. He rarely fucked any of the altar boys, but it happened occasionally. My friend got fucked in the ass by him almost immediately. The priest's penis was enormous and uncircumsized, and his cumshot was rather large. My friend said that he leaked semen for several hours after having his virginity taken, and that he had to tell his mother than the wet seat of his pants was due to "diarrhea." (There was no way in hell he could have told her than the handsome young priest she'd seen at confession that morning had fucked her little boy and filled his rectum with a half-gallon of cream!)

The other seminarian at his church oversaw CCD and catechumens. He was there two years. For the first year, he was resistant to the overtures some of the boys made to him. But midway in his second year, he gave in to a handsome football jock's seduction. My friend told me this priest was a light-brown brunette with a slender but toned body, a tattoo of a dog on his left bicep and that he wore glasses. The jock said that he'd fucked the priest, and got fucked in return. But none of the other boys got to do that. Hand-jobs and oral sex were the norm for them. My friend was fairly unhappy, because he only got blown by the priest. He never got to suck the young priest's penis himself (although he did give the priest several hand-jobs).

There was a rumor that the two young priests had a relationship themselves, but it was never proven.

The black-haired seminarian left after a year, and the brunette left after two years.

The next several seminarians were straight. But eventually a gay seminarian came through who carried on a six-month sexual relationship with my friend. The seminarian was so sexually active with young men in the parish that whispers started to be made. He was moved to other duties in the church. His closest young studs kept seeing him furtively, however. One young Latino man spent an entire night in the seminarian's bed! They almost got caught when the housekeeper came in too early in the morning.

Robert Wise, the legendary editor-turned-director who won four Oscars for producing and directing, died on Sept. 14 from heart failure. He was 91.

Wise is probably best known for directing and producing "The Sound of Music" (1965) and for co-directing (with Jerome Robbins) and producing "West Side Story" (1961).

Wise began work as an editor on the classic "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1939), which starred Charles Laughton in one of his best performances ever. Wise edited Orson Welles' landmark "Citizen Kane" and his follow-up, "The Magnificent Ambersons." Peter Bogdanovich and Roger Ebert credit Wise for "Kane's" innovative editing and cite the famous breakfast-room scene, which illustrates Kane's disintegrating marriage over a period of years.

Wise's directing career began in 1944 when he took over the stylish, super-creepy horror classic "The Curse of the Cat People" in mid-production.

Wise had the distinction of having not only two films on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time as a director ("West Side Story" at No. 41 and "The Sound of Music" at No. 55), but as an editor he played a key role on the No. 1 film on the list, "Citizen Kane," for which he received his first Oscar nomination.

In 1998, Wise received AFI's Life Achievement Award, joining John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles in what is widely considered the film industry's highest career honor.

Wise received the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1967.

Directors Guild also gave him its top honor, the D.W. Griffith Award.

Wise was a gentle, soft-spoken, self-effacing man. He had a superb sense of humor. Wise gave back to the film community which was so much a part of his life by regularly consenting to give commentary on films and numerous interviews. He taught classes on film, mentored numerous directors and editors and regularly sat on film panel.


Among the better-known of Robert Wise's 40 films:

• "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), the landmark science fiction thriller starring Michael Rennie;

• "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956), the biopic starring Paul Newman as world middleweight champion Rocky Graziano;


• "I Want to Live!" (1958), landmark film noir psychological study of a woman awaiting execution in the gas chamber, which earned Susan Hayward a best actress Oscar;


• "The Haunting" (1963), a classic haunted-house thriller co-starring Julie Harris and Claire Bloom;


• "The Sand Pebbles" (1966), an epic-length war drama that earned Steve McQueen his only Academy Award nomination;


• "Executive Suite" (1955), the star-studded film nominated for four Oscars about a company whose founder dies without an heir, and the twisted corporate games that ensue;


• "Run Silent Run Deep" (1958), the Clark Gable-Burt Lancaster film about a submarine captain suffering a nervous breakdown as he obsessively hunts a Japanese battleship;


• "The Andromeda Strain" (1971), the first Michael Crichton book to be turned into a movie, this film set a new standard for scientific realism as an outer-space bug threatens to wipe out all life on earth; and


• "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (1979), the film which resurrected the legendary television series and which was nominated for three Oscars.

Labels: cinema

Bush: Only my friends get to rebuild New Orleans!


President Bush last week waived the requirement that all federal contract by let out for bidding in order to achieve the lowest cost for the American taxpayer.

Contracts that go to hurricane relief now are given to whichever company the government wants.

Guess who got contracts?

Halliburton, Bechtel Group and Fluor Corp. -- they all got billions in noncompetitive, cost-plus contracts. These agreements guarantee that these firms will make a profit regardless of how much those companies spend or waste.

And all the firms are headed by former or current Bush cronies.



I'm bending over George. Fuck me some more! Fuck me some more, you rich GOP bastard!

Bush to Blacks: You won't get jobs helping rebuild New Orleans!

To add insult to the injury of the President's suspension of Davis-Bacon wage laws, now Bush has signed an executive order waiving affirmative action requirements for all contractors working on Hurrican Katrina relief.

Any private company awarded a federal contract or subcontract in response to Hurricane Katrina will be exempt from a requirement to have a written affirmative action program.

The memo, distributed to all contracting agencies of the federal government, claims that this is in the "national interest."

Hey George! Your true colors are showing!

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff purposefully delayed the federal response to Hurricane Katrina for 36 hours, a memo leaked to the Contra Costa Times shows.

Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials.

FEMA chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to do so until long after the storm hit.

The memo, obtained by Knight Ridder News, shows that Chertoff was confused about his role as the primary federal official overseeing disaster response. Chertoff did not give Brown authority to respond to the disaster until nearly 36 hours after the storm had already hit.

White House and homeland security officials wouldn't explain why Chertoff waited some 36 hours to declare Katrina an incident of national significance and why he didn't immediately begin to direct the federal response from the moment on Aug. 27 when the National Hurricane Center predicted that Katrina would strike the Gulf Coast with catastrophic force in 48 hours. Nor would they explain why Bush felt the need to appoint a separate task force.

But don't worry. Bush has taken responsiblity for this. Not that anyone will pay any price. Not that Chertoff will be fire, or Bush impeached, or the GOP punished for foisting these incompetents on the nation. Bush has taken responsibility for it. 'Nuff said. "If God can forgive me, why can't you?"

I'm sick to my stomach.

I have a bad blister on my right index finger which makes it hard to type. (At least, with the band-aid on.)

Had a weird day at work. I was taking notes in an organizing commitee meeting. I stayed pretty quiet until the afternoon. Then the conversation got so inane that I couldn't keep my mouth shut. My boss was not happy.

We had a staff meeting at 10 a.m. which interrupted the organizing committee meeting. Some interesting things were said.

Had a superbly pleasant dinner with Dee, a retired lesbian who looks 40. She's doing film traffic this year for film fest, and I handed over the reins. She and I got on famously.

Spotted a really cute boy on the Metro on the way home. Awesome legs. Nice boyish face. Broad, slightly husky-muscly. *sigh*

Joel Garreau has a fascinating article on "why cities die" in the Sunday Washington Post's "Outlook" section.

"There are a lot of black and poor people who are not going to return to New Orleans any more than Okies did to the Dust Bowl. ... New Orleans, politically defined, is the 180.6 square miles making up Orleans Parish. (In Louisiana a "parish" is comparable to a county.) This place is roughly three times the size of the District of Columbia, though in 2004 it was less populated and its head count was dropping precipitously."

Garreau takes a hard look at New Orleans -- a city rich in history, but a city largely already dying.

Tourism is New Orleans' largest industry. It acocunt for nearly half the revnues which flow to city and parish government. Yet it employs a mere 25,000 people (in the arts, entertainment, recreation, hotel and food sectors). That's a mere 5 percent of the city's population.

New Orleans was built where it was because it was the first dry land in the Mississippi Delta where a port could be built.

But automation -- of port operations and cargo ships -- means that the Port of New Orleans only needs 2,500 employees on an average day. Increasingly, the Port of New Orleans no longer handles cargo like petroleum, automobiles, coal, iron ore, electronics or agricultural products. The LOOP, Baton Rouge and other ports handle those. Instead, the Port of New Orleans has been reduced to specialty products like coffee, finished steel and cruise ships.

New Orleans's white-collar economy was also dying. The city hasn't added a new office building since 1989. It has one of the smallest business districts in the nation -- a mere 13.5 million square feet of office space. The office vacancy rate is 16 percent -- close to depression-levels.

Sadly, the major employers in New Orleans are small -- Popeye's Fried Chicken franchises and Harrah's casino.

The city's murder rate was 10 times the national average.

Corruption in city government was so endemic, one business roundtable estimated that a fifth of the city's economy was spent greasing palms.

What lies ahead for New Orleans?

"The historic analogy for New Orleans is Galveston," Garreau writes.

For 60 years in the 1800s, that coastal city was the most advanced in Texas. It had the state's first post office, first naval base, first bakery, first gaslights, first opera house, first telephones, first electric lights and first medical school.

Then came the hurricane of Sept. 8, 1900. As yet unsurpassed as the deadliest natural disaster in American history, it washed away at least 6,000 souls. Civic leaders responded with heroic determination, building a seawall seven miles long and 17 feet high. Homes were jacked up. Dredges poured four to six feet of sand under them.

Galveston today is a charming tourist and entertainment destination, but it never returned to its old commercial glory. In part, that's because the leaders of Houston took one look at what the hurricane had wrought and concluded a barrier island might not be the best place to build the major metropolis that a growing east central Texas was going to need.

More, the people of New Orleans may simply not have the desire to rebuild.

New Orleans was a city where the poverty rate was 17 percent. That's 45 percent higher than the national average. In the flooded parts of New Orleans, the poverty rate was 23 percent -- a grinding 96.5 percent higher than the national average.

Half of the city's schools were rated as "non-performing" by the state, and another quarter were "low-performing." An eighth were rated as average, and another eighth as high-performing.

In his book "Bowling Alone," political scientist Robert Putnam measured social cohesion -- the odd admixture of culture, determination, entrepreneurship, community bonds and altruism that allows people to come together in times of great need to perform seemingly impossible feats.

The lowest levels of social cohesion anywhere in the U.S. were to be found in Louisiana.

New Orleans, in particular, fostered a go-it-alone culture, one where people did not pull together but each went his separate way.

Garreau paints a depressing picture of the future of New Orleans.

I worry that he is right.

Throughout the weekend, the media were full of reports on how refugees are doing in the far-flung cities, towns and villages they have dispersed to.

Time and time again, families said, "I can't believe how nice it is here." A large extended family of 26 African-Americans fled to a largely Hispanic town in East Texas -- and they intend to stay there. Even though they are practically the only black people in the town, they intend to stay. The churches, the schools, the city government -- all are so much different and so much better than those in New Orleans. A group of 15 refugees who landed in snowy Vermont said that they cannot believe how beautiful the state is, how friendly and clean the people are, how safe and wonderful the neighborhoods are.

Many media outlets reported that poverty-stricken residents of New Orleans -- many of whom had not been more than 20 blocks away from their home in their entire life -- now were seeing the nation for the first time. And they were realizing how bad their life in New Orleans really had been. One elderly woman who had been home-bound in a dilapidated house built in 1900 said that she could not believe that she had lived "that way" for so long. She wept at how well she was being cared for -- medically, personally and spiritually.

It's easy to get a sort of cultural tunnel-vision, I think. To get so caught up in your own values, mores, concerns, problems, solutions that you can't think of any other way of behaving. Thinking becomes in-bred. So do values.

I wonder if New Orleans had become that way.

I wonder, now that the people of New Orleans have seen other ways of thinking and living, if they will want to go back at all.

I wonder if the people of New Orleans, with that isolationist attitude and no sense of community, could rebuild even if they want to.

I have no conclusions in regard to these sorts of questions. But it does make me think.

There've been a bunch of articles recently on cachaca, the Brazilian sugar-cane vodka. One was in the Los Angeles Times this weekend.

Geez, how far behind the times is the media? I've been drinking (and cooking with) that stuff for seven years already!

You know, I'm hardly an early-adopter. But still, you'd think the media would have caught on sooner than this.

Since "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law" comes on so late on Sunday nights (11:45 p.m., an hour after I'm asleep), I tape it.

I watch it the next morning while getting dressed.

Damn, that show is funny. The Phil Ken Seven surrealism gets old when there's too much of it. Sort of like eating a very rich, sugary dessert. It leaves your teeth aching.

I'm not sure that I like the use of Peter Potamus on the show yet. It was funny when he was a bit-character, slumming in the background and only occasionally quipping, "Ya get that thing I sent ya?" Now that he's become more of a character on the show, I'm not sure that it's as funny. He's just a drunken, leering thing. That isn't as cutting-edge as the rest of the humor on the show.

As for this week's episode...

I'm sorry if I woke my neighbors when I burst out laughing at Melvin van Peebles sitting in the courtroom audience with two 'hos by his side, hissing "badass" at Harvey. Goddamn, but that was funny!

I'm beginning to like the running gag this season of constant rioting in the law firm parking lot.

I also loved the sudden blood-throwing on Harvey. It was so sudden, so unexpected, so true-to-life!

Did anyone else notice the dog getting run over by the People's Animal Freedom Foundation car in the intro? I was on one foot, pulling on a sock. I fell over laughing onto the bed.

I just saw "The Simpsons" season premiere!

My overall impression was that it was good, but not great. I liked the opening chalboard bit ("Does any kid read these any more?"). And the couch-gag was pretty damn funny!

My biggest problem is that this was like the fifth or sixth time we've had a "Homer does something insanely stupid, Marge walks out, Marge finds another man, Homer and Marge reconcile" story.

Seeing Lisa and Homer watch football reminded me of the second-season show in which Lisa becomes Homer's football betting-machine. I wish they'd made a joke about that.

The funniest bit in the show was watching Homer get his hand hammered by the mafia. "I didn't say anything about gay adult films." WHAM! WHAM WHAM!

The second-funniest bit was watching Lenny and Carl come onto the set. Of course, the short-hung white man ends up working the sound-board while the well-hung black man ends up in the scene. That's funny!

I wonder if anyone gets the joke about Carl's leg tattoo and the copyright issue.

It was nice seeing Alec Baldwin back on the show, and I'm glad Fox didn't hype it to death the way they normally do. I like guest stars to be guest stars -- just showing up, doing their job, and having a good time. (Remember the constant stream of famous people doing call-in voices on "Fraser"?) Not becoming the focus on the show.

The show could have done without the vomiting at the end. That's not a Simpsons trademark. It works when others do it (like when the Frog Prince in the Halloween special two years ago kept vomiting and begging, "Kill me...."), but not when Homer or one of the family does it.

I'm so glad the "The Simpsons" are back, and that it's not mid-November. YAY!

Michael Winterbottom's "Nine Songs" is finally in release. This is the film in which Kieran O'Brien and Margo Stilley engage in hard-core oral and vaginal sex on film -- complete with on-screen massive ejaculation from O'Brien.

Forthcoming is Eric Balfour and Lauren Lee Smith in "Lie With Me," in which Balfour is shown with an erection on screen. Balfour performs oral sex on Smith, and Smith performs oral sex on Balfour. (No word as to whether he ejaculates on screen.)

These two films have received a lot of attention. Coming on the heels of Vincent Gallo getting blown by Chloe Sevigny in "The Brown Bunny" in 2003, many film critics are claiming that "the last line in film" has been crossed, that now hard-core sex can be shown in screens across America.

Except....well, to tell the truth, this line was crossed a long time ago.

Below is what I think is a pretty complete list of mainstream (albeit mostly art-house) films which have shown hard-core sex of some sort. Sometimes that's just a male erection (often the hardest taboo to break down, thanks to all you straight men uncomfortable being seen as sex objects). But often, it is actual intercourse or on-screen masturbation.

I try to be as explicit as I can about these films. You have to be. Many "blowjobs" on film are given to a limp penis. Other times, it's an erect penis. It makes a big difference, not only in the heat of the scene but also in the "hardness" of the hard-core action. Many breathless straight reviewers claim giddily that so-and-so actually "ate out" a woman on film. In fact, all that is shown is a man's head moving up and down and back and forth between a naked woman's legs. The audience cannot tell if the man's mouth or tongue is actually making contact with the actress' pussy, or if her labia are opened to expose her clitoris. In fact, probably nothing occurred except that an actor put his face close to an actress' vagina and moved his head around to simulate oral sex.

But what's so amazing is that so many films have already done what the media is up in arms about with Winterbottom's and Balfour's films.


"Going Places (Les Valseuses)" (1974) -- Patrick Dewaere nurses on Brigitte Fossey's nipples until she lactates, then he drinks it.

"In the Realm of the Senses (Ai no corrida)" (1976) -- This Japanese film shows it all: Ejaculation, penetration, masturbation, vaginal sex, oral sex. Tatsuya Fuji plays Kichizo Ishida, a pre-war Japanese wealthy man, and Eiko Matsuda plays Sada Abe, his servant. It's chock-a-clock with explicit on-screen sex scenes.

"Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom" (1976) -- Pier Paolo Pasolini's masterpiece (or train-wreck, as you see fit) is about a group of fascists who take refuge in an Italian castle in the last days of World War II. They kidnap nine boys and nine girls, and force them to have sex with one another and the fascists over 120 days. Sergio Fascetti appears erect on-screen while making love to his "bride." While this film is angrily denounced by Christian right-wingers and censors, that's about it in terms of sex and nudity. The "victims" are almost all naked throughout the film, but all other sex is just writing bodies or bobbing heads out of view.

"The Last Woman (La Derniere Femme)" (1976) -- Gerard Depardieu gets angry with his girlfriend and masturbates to full erection. He then slice off his (prosthetic) erection with an electric carving knife, in close up. Yikes!

"Caligula" (1979) -- Hustler magazine produced this take on the infamous Roman emperor. Malcolm McDowell, fresh off "A Clockwork Orange" was reportedly horrified when he realized it was to be a hard-core porn film, but was contractually unable to get out of it. There are various cuts of this film; the most famous is the soft-core version (which contains one shot during the orgy-on-the-boat scene in which a hairy, muscular man's enormous prick plops out of a woman's mouth centerstage). But a hard-core edit also exists, in which there are numerous sex scenes. They include an on-screen fisting, incest, oral sex, vaginal sex, homosexual oral sex, anal sex and more. The hard-core edit includes a 15-minute hard-core orgy.

"Fruits of Passion (Les fruits de passion)" (1981) -- It's also called "The Continuing Story of O." In this one, O is forced to be a hooker in a Japanese brothell to prove her love to her master. Isabelle Illiers fellates a Japanese sumo wrestler on screen.

"Spetters" (1981) -- Paul Verhoeven got his start doing dirty movies in The Netherlands before making tame movies for Hollywood. This film is about a group of young friends whose lives revolve around sex and petty crimes. Saskia Ten Batenburg gives a handjob to Hans van Tongeren's fully erect penis. Later, Toon Agterberg, Maarten Spanjer, Peter Tuinman and van Tongeren have a contest to see whose erection is bigger; the biggest man gets to fuck the girl. The scene lasts about five minutes, with all the men sporting erections and measuring themselves with calipers. Later, Agterberg beats a hustler up. The hustler's friends chase, catch and rape Agterberg. After the gang-bang rape, Agterberg's very large erection is visible as he pulls up his pants.

"Taxi zum klo (Taxi to the Toilets)" (1981) -- This is a legendary gay film from Germany. Frank Ripploh wrote, directed and starred in this film about a gay teacher who is hooked on sex, and now wants to start filming his adventures. Ripploh and numerous other actors appear naked and erect on screen. Ripploh also has a hard-core oral and anal sex scene with another man toward the end of the film.

"The Blessed Man (L'Homme blesse)" (1983) -- This French film is about a young man struggling with his homosexuality. Jean-Hughes Anglade is Henri and Vittorio Mezzogiorno is Jean Lerman. Anglade fellates Mezzogiorno's erect penis on camera.

"Devil in the Flesh" (1986) -- It's a fratboy's fantasy: An Italian schoolboy sees a beautiful woman pass by his schoolroom window. He pursues her and gets to sleep with her. Maruschka Detmers is Giulia, and Federico Pitzalis is Andrea. At the end of the film, Giulia gives Andrea's erect penis an explicit blowjob.

"Tokyo Decadence" (1992) -- A stupid film about a reporter's attempt to write a story about hookers by becoming one. In an early scene, Miho Nikaido is shown on all fours with a dildo strapped into her vagina and anus. In a second scene, an unnamed actress fingers Nikaido's vagina while Nikaido urinates into a pan.

"All Ladies Do It" (1992) -- Cinematographer Tinto Brass did the camera work on "Caligula." He later directed a number of films of similar type. In this one, a horny woman has sex with as many men as she can. Claudia Koll fingers her pussy and asshole on-screen; later, Paolo Lanza puts his erection against her asshole and rubs his knob up and down against her asshole prior to fucking her (off-screen) anally.

"The Voyeur" (1994) -- More shit from Brass. Katarina Vasilissa has sex with a man. Francesco Casale's penis was really a realistic dildo standing in as stunt-double for the actor.

"The Life of Jesus (La vie en Jesus)" (1997) -- A French film about listless teenagers who drink, fight, steal and fuck before dying. David Douche is Freddy and Marjorie Cottreel is Marie. There is a hard-core vaginal sex scene in a meadow which lasts a fairly long time. Douche's large, erect penis is shown. Then he penetrates Cottreel on screen and fucks her for several minutes in close-up.

"Sitcom" (1998) -- Most of Francois Orzon's films revolve about the relationship between sex and personality. In this film, a dysfunctional family tries to get its act together. Gorgeous eldest son Stephane Rideau not only gets an erection on film, but tit-fucks maid Lucia Sanchez. Some people claim the penis between her breasts is a prosthetic, but a comparison to later Rideau films show it to be real.

"The Idiots" (1998) -- Lars von Trier's breakout film involves a group of Dutch teenagers who pretend to be retarded people in public as a way of letting their "inner idiot" out. Jens Albinus plays a retarded boy who is seen erect during a shower scene. Nikolaj Lie Kaas pretends to be retarded and is taken to a bathroom by some strangers; one of the men holds his penis as he urinates. Later, the "idiots" decide that "retards need to have fun, too," and they propose that the group orgy while in character. Dina Jewel is penetrated on camera by an unidentified co-star during this scene, and Trine Michelsen grabs the erect penis of an unidentified male co-star during the orgy.

"Romance" (1999) -- A boy and a girl date while each deals with their existential problems. Sagamore Stevenin plays the handsome Paul. There are two scenes where co-star Caroline Ducey gives his half-erect penis a half-hearted blowjob.

"The Man-Eater" (1999) -- This is a film about a female werewolf who kills the men she sleeps with. Loredana Cannata, Arturo Paglia, Pascal Persiano and Francesco Di Leva engage in hard-core oral and vaginal sex, and an explicit hard-core vaginal sex three-way. Cannata also engages in explicit masturbation.

"Pola X" (1999) -- Guillaume Depardieu (Gerard Depardieu's son) and Yekaterina Golubeva play brother and sister who engage in an incestuous love affair. Not only is Depardieu seen fully erect on film, but Golubeva briefly puts his erection in her mouth and engages in oral sex with him. You also (briefly) see his penis enter her vagina in close-up.

"Baise-moi (Rape Me/Fuck Me)" (2000) -- French filmmaker Catherine Breillat has made a career out of creating mainstream films full of hard-core sex. In this film, two women who have been raped decide to treat men as brutally as men treat women. There is a hard-core penetration shot of actor Titof's penis inside Raffaela Anderson's vagina as she rides him. Titof ejaculates on her ass cheeks. She also masturbates his fully erect penis, and sucks his flaccid penis. Karen Bach does the same with Gil Stuart and Karim Sabaddehine, sans ejaculation. Bach and Anderson both engage in hard-core oral sex.

"Presque Rien (Almost Nothing)" (2000) -- A French boy on vacation falls for blue-collar boy who doesn't believe in commitment, just sex. In the film's opening scenes, Jeremie Elkaim pulls his erect penis from his pants and begins masturbating. Later, we see Elkaim go from soft to erect underwater, playing with his foreskin.

"Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too)" (2001) -- This film is about the homoerotic pull between two Mexican men as they accompany a girl on a road-trip. Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna explicitly masturbate their erections in a long-shot.

"Sex and Lucia (Lucia y el sexo)" (2001) -- Two couples engage in a lot of sex at the beach while trying to figure out whether they love the right person or not. After rolling around in the mud, Paz Vega gives Tristan Ulloa's massive 10" erection a brief handjob.

"Intimacy" (2001) -- This New Zealand film is about the relationships between a number of couples. Kerry Fox briefly puts Mark Rylance's fully erect penis in her mouth. Rylance is later seen semi-erect, putting on a condom.

"Ken Park" (2002) -- Larry Clark has made a career about showing teens and young adults being slackers and fucking their brains out. Here, a skateboarder and his buddy have sex multiple times with a local slut. Maeve Quinlan receives through-the-panties oral sex from James Bullard. His tongue actually is shown licking her erect clitoris through the flimsy material. Later, Quinlan gives Bullard's erect penis a handjob as he and a naked Stephen Jasso sit naked on a couch. Mike Apaletegui is shown erect on film as Quinlan's father interrupts them having sex. The film was banned in much of the U.S. for its most famous scene: Young actor James Ransone not only gets naked, but gets erect, masturbates and ejaculates on screen while engaging in auto-erotic asphyxiation while watching men's tennis.

"The Dreamers" (2003) - A young American in Paris meets a sexy brother and sister just prior to the 1968 student riots. Michael Pitt is fully erect in the director's cut version as he kneels between Eva Green's legs before deflowering her. Countless other nude scenes featuring Louis Garrel and Green pepper the film, although Garrel's masturbation scene is not shown (just his moving hand and forearm, snarling face and bobbing head).

"The Brown Bunny" (2003) -- No one knows what to make of this train-wreck of a film about a race car driver and his girlfriend. But Chloe Sevigny does fellate a fully erect Vincent Gallo on film.

"Anatomy of Hell" (2004) -- Catherine Breillat strikes again. This time, a man and woman engage in sex with each other and a lot of other people to show how empty anonymous sex is. Legendary straight Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi receives a hard-core blow-job from Alexandre Belin and Manuel Taglang. (Siffredi's massive penis is fully erect.) Siffredi also inserts his fingers and erect penis into Pauline Hunt, the body-double for co-star Amira Casar. Siffredi is seen fully erect on screen for more than 10 minutes.

Great article in the New York Times today about public works spending.

American infrastructure is deteriorating rapidly. Bridges, highways, levees, canals, docks, airports -- all are in a significant state of disrepair. Roughly 13,000 highway deaths each year can be blamed on inadequate maintenance. But you don't see "Mothers Against Road Disrepair" fighting for more funds. Instead you see "Republican Women for Bush" fighting to cut taxes and reduce government spending some more.

The American Society of Civil Engineers says $1.6 trillion must be spent over the next five years to prevent further deterioration. Only about half that amount is now being spent.

Even before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, politicians, civil servants and the public knew that New Orleans faced a crisis because of inadequate and deteriorated levees. Yet nothing happened.

Why?

Repairing or rebuilding infrastructure to protect the public is expensive, and the nation is spending less. Almost every politician in Louisiana is a right-winger, Democrats and Republicans both. Almost every politician in Louisiana runs on the same platform: Cut taxes, cut government spending.

Total government spending on public infrastructure was about 2.25 percent of the gross domestic product in the early 1950s. It rose to about 3 percent in the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson years.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, however, infrastructure investment fell well below 2 percent, and is now just below 1 percent.

As conservatism overtook the country, the criteria for spending money on public works changed.

Instead of spending money for the long term, now government spends money only when the cost-versus-benefit analysis says to. Benefits that rarely occur -- like a levee system in New Orleans capable of withstanding a Category 4 hurricane -- are not counted because.

To keep budgets low, politicians often stretch out spending on public works. Instead of spending $20 million a year over three years to build levees, for example, the government will spend $10 million a year over 10 years. It's far, far less efficient because you don't get the economy of scale in construction that would keep costs low. The benefit reaped won't happen for 10 years, endangering the public. The public is inconvenienced for a far longer period of time, as construction stretches out endlessly. And the project will probably be outdated as soon as it is completed, due to the lengthy construction time.

But politicians get rewarded for this by the public. "Cut our taxes! Keep spending low! Damn liberals!"

Hundreds of near-disasters never come to public attention. But they demonstrate just how alarming the deterioration in public infrastructure really is.

In 2003, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shut down the Greenup locks and dam on the Ohio River upstream from Louisville. It was a routine inspection. But instead of minor damage the locks were near collapse. The locks remained closed for eight weeks. Coal barges could not move upriver to power plants that supply electricity to the Midwest. The power plants came within a week of not having enough coal. The public never noticed.

More than 3,500 dams maintained by state and local governments are "unsafe" -- so unsafe that the danger of collapse is considered likely with five years. Most are small dams. But even small dams can do hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. The Johnstown Flood is a famous example of a small dam failing. That flood, in Johnstown, Pa., in 1889, took more than 2,200 lives and wiped out the entire town.

Then there's drinking water. Instead of the $11 billion necessary each year to replace aging pipelines and water purification facilities, federal spending is only $850 million -- 7.8 percent of what is needed!

Highways and bridges are in just as bad shape, and the lack of maintenance is adding to the bill you and I pay for the delivery of goods over them. The highway bill passed into law this summer will spend $286.4 billion over five years for both new construction and maintenance. But $318 billion is needed just for maintenance. Some bridges are in such bad shape that the federal government considers them, too, to be in danger of imminent collapse. But shut-downs are not possible, because so many bridges have already been closed and essential traffic cannot be re-routed.

In the end, the old adage "you get what you pay for" applies here. And conservatives are spending us right into the Wal-Mart zone -- shoddy, shoddy, shoddy.

So I worked out Friday. Alone, as usual. No one ever works out in my gym on Friday night. I headed home. Two black lesbians were at the bus stop with their white, twinky, fucking goddamn beautiful male friend. He was about 6'3", black hair, full lips, wonderfully cute, little pecs, broad shoulders, very very slender. Sweet furry legs with great calves. He wore beige shorts that reached his knees and a black tank-top. He had "whoreboy" tattooed across the back of his shoulders. His eyes were warm brown, his lips juicy red.

I almost wept for the beauty of him.

He refused to make eye contact with me, even though I was staring as if I were blind. He kept saying how nervous he was being in the ghetto, and how no other white folks were around. Well, what am I? Chopped liver? *sigh*

Got home, made a sandwich. Went out. A temp at work, C.S., sometimes goes to JR's on Fridays. He has a friend, Mike, who is a bartender there. Four hours, six drinks and $60 less, I got a cab at 3 a.m. and was still alone.

Woke up late. Made excellent Seville orange-flavored coffee, sausage patties, eggs and toast. Not that anyone would share it with me. Sat on the balcony and read the paper and some of my book. Watched stunning black boys walk underneath me.

Went to the Smithsonian to see a new photography exhibit. It must have "bring a cute boy with you and get in free day" because the museum was stuffed with hot, broad-shouldered, slender twinks with big packages, holding hands with their twin brothers (so it seemed). A lot of them were gay, a lot of them held hands. I caught two of them sneaking a kiss behind a cardboard cut-out of a naked male sculpture. These two blonds -- one natural, the other not -- kept standing, one in front of the other, and looking at photos. The one in back would wrap his arms around the one in front, and put his hands on his boyfriend's lower belly and pubes. The one in front would mimic the action. Four hands in his crotch.

I left.

I went to everybody's favorite gay D.C. bookstore (well, our only one). Apparently all the cute twinks had gone there ahead of me. I talked to this hot, femmy black clerk (Marcus) and his boyfriend (who also is just as hot, just as dark-skinned, just as hung and just as femmy) and got a raging boner over both of them. Femme I don't care about. Cute, black, horse-hung twinks I care about. I tried to impress them with my latest gossip on Hollywood stars, but they still don't talk to me or flirt with me the way they do with other customers.

Went home, cleaned house. Reviewed some extremely bad porn tapes. Why do I always get the shitty ones? The film looked like the cameraman had used a $99 special from the bargain bin at Circuit City. He actually filmed himself having sex in a mirror. In a mirror! Too cheap to get a cameraman, I guess. It sucked so bad, I turned it off.

Made myself several Angel's Kiss cocktails (one ounce creme de cacao, two parts heavy cream, plus a cherry). Made spaghetti with marinara sauce, and some veggies.

Sat in front of the computer and masturbated to Simon Jacobi. It took me maybe 30 seconds to cum. I love Simon so much... He's so perfect. That mouth. Those baby-blue eyes. That smile. The way his nose curls up when he giggles. Those furry legs. That massive tree-trunk cock. Those huge, elephantine balls. That as a tongue could get lost in for weeks. That goofy sense of humor about sex. *sigh*

Downloaded some erotic comics a friend had uploaded for me. God, they are good. Fucking amazing artwork. You can see the evolution of the artist's work over time. (Yes, I'll blog about this later, when I'm not drunk.) Fucking amazing. Got very horny, masturbated. Startled myself by blasting a very, very large cumshot all over my belly and chest. Still dripping with it, I realized I was still hard. I jacked off again, assuming my cock would go down. No. Stayed hard. Came again in about two minutes, another huge, surprising cumshot. I think I almost passed out the second time. My mind was swimming. I was screaming, but I'm not sure how loud.

Stayed hard, but decided not to jack off again. Viewed some more comics. Fucking goddamn, but that Brad Parker's work is just superb. JUST SUPERB.

Didn't wipe up. Put on clothes, went out. Hit three clubs. Did not get hit on in return, by the club or by patrons. Decided to come home early, and caught a cab at 2:30 a.m.

So here I am. Bored. Alone. Horny. Depressed. Slightly (okay, very) drunk.

So if you're a horse-hung twink-boy with black or brown hair and a foreskin and a cumshot like a fire hose and a sex drive so powerful you're ashamed of it...........talk to me. Fuck me. Marry me. I swear, I'll love you to the day I die. You can slam it up inside me and never worry about hurting me. I'll love it. You can make me drink cum all day, and I'll say, "Can I have some more, please?" in my best Oliver Twist voice.

Oh well. Who am I kidding? While I'm wishing, I might as well wish for world peace and a million bucks.

Labels: love life

Can anyone else tell why I like Bel Ami gay porn star Simon Jacobi?

Yes, I thought you could.

Labels: Bel Ami, gay porn, Simon Jacobi

Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival today.

"Brokeback Mountain," which stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, is about two 19-year-old cowboys who meet on the range in 1963. They fall in love. Although both men marry and have children, their love for one another does not die over a 20-year period.

The film is based on Annie Proulx's short story, which appeared in the "New Yorker."

The movie sees its American release on December 9.


On another note: French actress Isabelle Huppert received a Special Lion in recognition of the outstanding work she has done throughout her career. Huppert was in competition at Venice with "Gabrielle," a film about a woman who tries -- and fails -- to walk out of a loveless marriage.

Huppert starred last year in "Ma Mere," a film based on the novel by Georges Bataille. A mother and her son (played by ultra-gorgeous Louis Garrel of "The Dreamers") end up living the hippie life. Hupper suspects that her son is being deflowered by a local girl, but discovers that the girl is hooking him on heroin instead. Huppert forces her son to go cold turkey. The mother takes the drastic step of having sex with her son in order to help him through his detoxification.

Huppert also starred in Francois Orzon's superb "8 Women (8 Femmes)" (2002).


French director Philippe Garrel won the best director prize for the film "Regular Lovers (Les amants reguliers)." It is the love story of 20-year-olds set in the aftermath of the 1968 student riots. It stars Louis Garrel. (Notice the extreme similarity between "Regular Lovers" and "The Dreamers" -- both films about lovers set in the 1968 student riots? Both starring Garrel? Uncanny.)

The best actress award went to Italian actress Giovanna Mezzogiorno for her role in "Don't Tell (La bestia nel cuore)," a film about a woman who leads a happy life until a pregnancy brings her face-to-face with her dark side.

Best actor honors went to David Strathairn for his performance in "Good Night, and Good Luck" -- a film about TV journalist Edward R. Murrow's battle against Red-baiting U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy.

George Clooney and Grand Heslov won for best script for "Good Night, and Good Luck" -- which Clooney also directed.

I keep pushing a straight friend of mine who is a cineaste to start watching more gay film. He's not even seen "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" yet. Of course, being a very cute and very smart straight boy with a hot twink's body and amazing powerful legs (he used to play basketball in high school), he won't. Such films make him queasy. (I note that I don't feel queasy watching straight people kiss, make love or have children on screen. He doesn't seem to see the problem with that.)

But finally, after a couple years of pressure, he gave in. He asked me what I thought the best gay feature-length films ever made were.

But, in utter amazement, I couldn't answer him right away.

The thing is......... Dear Jesus in Heaven, there aren't many good gay films! There. I've said it. I've admitted it. The filthy little secret is out. String me up as a heretic and leave me to rot for the Romans.

The truth is that "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" is a superb film. "The Lost Language of Cranes" is really quite good.

But "Broken Hearts Club"? Blech-o-rino. (Sorry, Will.) "Trick" has John Paul Pitoc (a straight actor, of course) and his mega-gigantic cock and balls in a g-string. But a good film? Mediocre at best. "Billy's Hollywood Screen Test"? Forgettable. (I had to look up a list of gay films in order to remember that this got made, and that it launched Sean P. Hayes' career.) "Kiss Me Guido"? A hot Latino guy (it was a straight actor, of course) is in the film, but otherwise it has little to commend it. "The Object of My Affection"? A really superb little book got made into a crapfest with a woefully miscast and bad-acting Madonna and Rupert Everett -- about as unattractive an actor as could be cast in the film.

After a week's thinking, I could come up with some films:

"The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert"
"Angels in America"
"Gods and Monsters"
"Happy Together"
"Hedwig and the Angry Inch"
"The Law of Desire"
"L.I.E."
"My Beautiful Laundrette"
"My Life on Ice (Ma vie vraie en Rouen)"
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show"

I've got more thinking to do about this. But the point is, I don't think there is a lot of really good gay film out there. There are a lot of films which are very flawed but which are good: "Bedrooms and Hallways," "Beautiful Thing," "Wild Reeds," "The Adventures of Felix (Drole de Felix)," "Come Undone (Presque Rien)," "Urbania," "Criminal Lovers (Les amants criminels)," "The Fluffer," "His Secret Life (Le fate ignoranti)," "Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter," "Days (Giorni)," "The Sea (El Mar)," "Bear Cub," "You'll Get Over It (Tu verras, Ca te passera)," "The Journey of Jared Price," "Die Mommie Die!", "Close to Leo (Tout contre Leo)," "Bulgarian Lovers (Los Novios Bulgaros)," "9 Dead Gay Guys," "Latter Days," "Cowboys and Angels," "Dorian Blues," "Hellbent," "Sugar," "Leaving Metropolis."

But in the end, I'm not sure that there is as much good film as people think.

The things is, I think a lot of gay filmmakers aren't very interested in making good gay film as they are in making gay films which "speak to people."

Take "Beautiful Thing," for example. This British film about two poor teenagers falling in love while dealing with their drug-taking, "Mamas and the Papas"-obsessed next-door-neighbor is almost universally loved.

Yet, the film never quite hits its stride. Jamie's relationship with his mother is indeterminate. You get the feeling that big chunks of the film which explained the family's problems were edited out. Ste's difficulties with his own emerging homosexuality (or is it bisexuality?) never really pose much of a problem at all. The boys easily find their way in gay culture. Ste's family problems just disappear. The finale -- which endearing -- never really confronts the issue of general homophobia that permeate society (especially among the working poor).

While "Beautiful Thing" has problems, the film is still quite good. The acting is top-notch. The camera work, editing, original soundtrack and script are all excellent. The film touches on elements of growing up, sexuality, coming out and living one's dreams that few films do.

While "Beautiful Thing" is particularly well-made for a gay film (the production values are sky-high, easily ranking with the best Hollywood productions), it never really soars. The film's triumphant moment -- when the boys run through the trees at night, kissing and laughing -- sometimes is laughed at by audiences.

But "Beautiful Thing" clearly touches the audience it was intended to reach. Gay audiences -- particularly younger gays struggling with the coming-out process as well as much older gays who long for an "easy" coming-out and acceptance such as the film potrays -- are enthralled by the film.

I use "Beautiful Thing" as an example because it is so well known and because it is a good film. "Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter" has many problems with its production values, script, acting, cinematography and editing. A film like "Bear Cub" is less well-known, but wonderfully produced. While "Beautiful Thing" never seems to flow as well as it should, "Bear Cub" fails because the film has a huge, whopping flaw about two-thirds of the way into the film. It never recovers its footing afterward, and so of grinds, shimmies, staggers and huffs to a conclusion that its extremely unsatisfying. And "The Fluffer," while having an intriguing script and solid production values, lacks actors with the skill required to make the film work. "Die Mommie Die!" just isn't funny.

The problematic nature of gay film makes it difficult to recommend a film to a straight person.

A person can watch Sergei Eisenstein's silent epic, "Battleship Potemkin" and still enjoy it. A person may not know anything about the historical incident. A person may not know anything about cinema. A person may know nothing about Russian history or the visual symbology of the film. Still, the film is enjoyable and moving. The "Odessa steps" sequence is still shocking, still jarring, still emotionally powerful.

But "Beautiful Thing" isn't going to have much of an impact on a straight person. Straight people who've seen the film are more moved by Ste's abusive background, Sandra's desperate attempt to buy a bar franchise and Tony's odd journey from stoner to adult. The gay characters seem sugar-coated and less detailed than the more realistic depictions of poverty, working-class struggle, abuse, drug use, parenting and dating.

And that's what I keep running into with gay film, the lack of appeal outside the gay community. A "Citizen Kane," a "Star Wars," a "Halloween," a "Singing in the Rain" -- these films can capture audiences outside the narrow groups at which they aim (the cineaste, the sci-fi fan, the horror fan, the music lover). But gay film? Only a very few of these are good enough to draw straight audiences into their gay worlds.

And that makes me concerned.

I have a lot more thinking to do about this, but that's where I am today.

State Representative Richard Baker (R) of Louisiana told the Wall Street Journal's "Washington Wire":

"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

Someone needs to submerge that guy's head under the fetid waters of New Orleans for a couple hours, and see if the cleansing power of Jesus helps him gain a little more perspective.

Many of you have probably already read this report from two EMTs who ended up part of that group stuck on the freeway overpass for days in New Orleans. If you haven't, read it. It's amazing.

If the order to deny relief in order to keep people from resisting evacuation is true, then somebody has committed genocide against the people of New Orleans.

As these EMTs say, many peole were actually inhibited from leaving the city by local, state and federal authorities.

Indeed, federal troops created chaos so that people would flee:

From a woman with a battery powered radio, we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway!" A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot." We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

This is the group that Shepard Smith was freaking out about on the Bill O'Reilly show on Thursday night.

I wonder if he knew what happened after he made that report.

I collect quotes. Stuff I've read, or come across, or which appear deeply profound to me. I don't collect a lot of quotes. I maybe have 15 or 20 of them. I don't know the first one I collected, but I have a bunch. Every so often, I read them. Just to remind me of who I am and what I believe.

Here are two...


I understand the backlash [against the first Sex Panic Summit] in two primary ways. First, we'd committed heresy. By daring at the public level to value sex, pleasure, and the benefits which emerge from our sexual cultures – and to argue that the “Monogamites” have no corner on the market on ethics, values, or morality – we broke ranks with the gay rights movement's primary strategy of assimilationist politics and showed it for what it really is: a bankrupt, Faustian bargain which opts for a narrow package of concessions rather than authentic human rights, privileges cultural conformity over cultural pluralism, and affirms the status quo over the status queer. . . . By standing as examples of gay men who appear before the public unapologetically as neither members of monogamous gay couples nor de-sexed celibates sacrificing personal lives to the demands of community work, we achieved a bad-boy status among those who continue to grovel before a community of self-image as the best little boys in the world.
-- Activist Eric Rofes in a speech delivered November 13, 1998 at the Second Annual Summit to Resist Attacks on Gay Men's Sexual Civil Liberties




Start doing the things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become. Do you believe in free speech? Then speak freely. Do you love the truth? Then tell it. Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely.
-- Adam Michnik, Polish dissident, writer and journalist

Bad News...

I talked today to someone who is very, very familiar with the school system in New Orleans. According to this person, many New Orleans high schools are used as disaster shelters for storms or floods.

The belief is that many thousands of people drowned in these high schools when rising flood waters caught them unawares.

Only now, as the flood waters recede, will the bodies be able to float out windows and doors and be found.

In addition, I talked to two healthcare workers and a mortician who are heading down to New Orleans as well.

They said that the number of dead is much, much higher than anyone believes. Many of the dead sank. But now, as their bodies decompose, the bodies are floating to the surface. This is why the media is full of reports of dead bodies now -- a week later. In fact, they said, based on previous experiences with floods and drowning disasters, the number of dead could be in the tens of thousands. There are so many bodies already visible, these relief workers said that this is just the tip of the iceberg.


I was watching the BBC World News last night. The reporter in New Orleans said that he had been all over the world, and seen typhoons in Bangladesh and the tsunami in Thailand and floods in India.

He said that even in those Third World countries, he had neveer seen so many dead bodies as he had seen in New Orleans. His voice choked with emotion as he told anchor Mike Embley that he believes the death toll from Hurricane Katrina will be five or six times higher than most people think.

The "New York Times" this afternoon ran a series of pictures of people who are still living in New Orleans despite the mandatory evacuation order.

But what I want to know is:

1) Who is the hot guy sitting in the chair in the background of this photo?



2) Who are these hot boys hugging outside the Cajun Pub?




Yikes. Some nice guys, there.

A friend of mine asked me the other day what news sources I trust and read regularly. I replied with a bit of a list (New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The American Prospect, etc.). But, I said, you really just read a lot and widely. The most important thing is to read, read, read. Then, as you educate yourself, you question everything you read. Ask questions about what you are reading. Look for the loopholes, the idiocy, the stupid assumptions and inane conclusions.

I've decided to provide a case in point.

I can't BEGIN to list the number of falsehoods in the following story. But for fun, let's try:


> Rise in Supply of Homes for Sale Suggests Market Could Be Cooling
> By James R. Hagerty and Kemba Dunham
> Wall Street Journal
> August 12, 2005
>
> The number of homes available for sale has increased sharply in some
> of the nation's hottest real-estate markets -- one of several recent
> signs suggesting that air may be seeping out of the frenzied U.S.
> housing market.
>
> Home prices have surged an average of about 50% in the U.S. in the
> last five years, largely thanks to the lowest mortgage interest rates
> in more than four decades and what has been a shortage of available
> homes in many markets. But some economists and housing-industry
> analysts believe supply is catching up with demand -- a trend that
> could cause home-price appreciation to slow down in the months
> ahead.

No, a shortage of homes has NOT been the cause behind the housing bubble.

Low interest rates, coupled with increasingly lax standards for risk by banks (leading to a huge lending push), is the cause. One of the outcomes of the Reagan/Bush/Bush banking deregulation push permitted banks and S&Ls to take risks on people who otherwise would not qualify for a loan. These bad, bad, bad credit risks are able to enter the market when they shouldn't.

The expansion of the number of buyers has created bidding-wars over existing homes. There is no shortage of homes; there is a surplus of buyers.



> In San Diego County, for instance, where the median home price has
> more than doubled in the last five years, the number of homes
> listed for sale totaled 12,149 on July 8, more than twice the 5,995
> available a year earlier, according to the San Diego Association of
> Realtors.

Is that a sign of an increase in the number of homes? Or a sign that homes are sitting on the market longer, hence more homes are showing up in the Sunday paper's ads? I think the latter.



> In northern Virginia, an area dominated by the fast-growing suburbs
> of Washington, inventories are up 26% from a year earlier. "Sales have
> slowed down for sure," says Tip Powers, president of Realty Direct Inc.,
> Sterling, Va. He says home prices have flattened out and speculators
> are starting to shy away from the market because they no longer can
> count on quickly unloading properties at a profit.

OOPS! Contradiction! "Sales have slowed down" says sales have slowed, not that more houses are being built. "Speculators are starting to shy away from the market" is just what it means, not that more homes have been built and glutted the market.



> A similar rise is being seen in Massachusetts, where home inventories
> are up 31%, according to officials of real-estate organizations there.
> Real-estate brokers say inventories also are up in such markets as
> Chicago, Las Vegas and Orlando.

Again, this can have any number of interpretations.



> To be sure, housing demand has appeared to stall at previous
> moments in the boom only to pick up steam again.

Too bad the article doesn't name the previous booms so that you can verify this claim. And too bad that the article doesn't tell you why these booms slowed and why they picked up steam again. This is the worst sort of hack-job conclusion!



> Judging the strength of the housing market is especially tricky in
> August, which is normally a slow month for home sales because
> so many people are on vacation.

Uh.... If it's so hard to do, why is the Wall Street Journal attempting to do just that in this article?



> A year ago, inventories also were up at this point in the year, but
> supplies grew tighter in some cities later in the year and prices
> kept surging.

But wait, the article just told us it's tricky to judge things from August! So why use an August-to-August comparison??? Why not use a July-to-July, or wait until September to run this article so you can do a September-to-September comparison?



> Economists and real-estate analysts say they won't be able to
> determine whether the market as a whole is slowing until
> September or October at the earliest, and note that housing
> conditions vary among communities.

So why is this alarmist article coming out in August, then? Why not wait for final numbers in September and October?



> Home builders continue to report strong sales and order backlogs
> in the new-home market. The National Association of Realtors
> recently reported that its index of pending sales in June was up
> 3.6% from a year earlier. (A sale is pending when a contract has
> been signed but the transaction hasn't been completed.)

Order backlogs indicates that new homes are NOT coming on the market. Just the reverse of what this article claims!

And sales are just like the housing sales mentioned previously by realtors: Indicative of homes being longer on the market, not lots of new homes glutting the market.



> Still, signs of a possible peak are appearing, perhaps in part a
> reaction to widely publicized warnings from Federal Reserve
> Chairman Alan Greenspan about "froth" in the housing market
> and a torrent of media reports about the "housing bubble."
>
> "We're beginning to see that the housing market is cooling a
> little bit," says Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wachovia Bank
> in Charlotte, N.C., "but I stress a little bit."
>
> The National Association of Realtors reported that 2.7 million
> "existing," or previously owned, homes were available for sale in
> June, up from 2.4 million a year earlier. At the current brisk rate
> of sales, the latest supply figure was enough to last 4.3 months,
> still considered a fairly small amount but up from 4.1 months a
> year earlier. If the sales rate slows, the inventory would start to
> look more plentiful.

Again the article talks about sales, not new homes coming on the market at a higher rate than in the past.




> "We're hearing from some really big Realtors that there is
> a little slowing [in the housing market] this month," says
> David Lereah, the chief economist for the Realtors' association.

"A little slowing this month" means it's August. Not that a peak....... oh, forget it.



> If mortgage interest rates keep rising, as they have recently, home
> sales will slow, says Mr. Lereah. "Many times I have said housing
> has peaked, and I was wrong," he says. "Still, I think we've peaked
> and we will come down a little bit."

So at just what level will rising interest rates kill the bubble? The article neglects to say, but leves you with the impression that we've hit that level. But interest rates have TRIPLED since two years ago! How much further do they have to rise?????????



> Meanwhile, builders have been putting up new homes at a
> breathtaking pace. New homes that either were completed or
> under construction totaled 354,000 in June, up from 320,000 a
> year before, according to the Census Bureau.

WELL FINALLY! Except that we don't know if 2004's June figures were a high point or a low point. If a low point, then it's GOOD that new home starts are up. If a high point, then it supports the tenet of this article.



> So far, many home builders say they can't keep up with demand
> and aren't worried about inventory levels. While they note that
> orders for new homes are soft in a few markets, such as Denver,
> South Carolina and the Washington area, there's continued strength
> in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Phoenix and South Florida.

Wait. If builders aren't worried because they have backlogs, then why? What do they know that realtors don't?



> But, warns Ivy Zelman, a housing analyst at Credit Suisse First
> Boston in New York, "If the music stops and the sales rate declines,
> then you're going to have a lot more supply" of new homes on the
> market.

DUH.



> Several factors point to a possible cooling of the market. Mortgage
> interest rates have been edging higher in recent weeks, raising
> the cost of purchasing a new home and knocking some potential
> buyers out of the market. The average rate for a 30-year fixed
> mortgage is 5.89%, said Freddie Mac, a mortgage-finance company,
> this week. That's up from 5.53% in late June.

More on interest rates. But we are not told how many buyers are "knocked out" of the market, or just how high rates have to be to pop the bubble. Sounds to me like fear-mongering, not reporting.



> In some markets, such as California and Florida, prices have surged
> past the ability of many people to afford a home. Additionally,
> banking regulators have begun to raise questions about whether
> mortgage lenders are being prudent enough -- which eventually
> could prompt some lenders to tighten credit standards.

So, in California and Florida, a cooling market is a GOOD THING because more people can afford homes. Or, wait, no, because according to the article, a cooling market is bad, a burst bubble.

Uh... which is it?



> House prices have continued to rise partly because some lenders have
> promoted loans that help people buy houses they otherwise couldn't
> afford. For instance, Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation's largest
> mortgage lender, says that about a fifth of its home loans so far this
> year have been "pay option" mortgages. These loans give borrowers
> the option of delaying any repayment of principal and even paying less
> than the interest due some months, which results in a rising balance
> due.
>
> But if regulators keep raising questions about the risks of such loans,
> that could push some potential home buyers out of the market,
> reducing demand, says Ms. Zelman.

So is that a good thing or a bad thing? It would seem to me that a cooling is a good thing, so long as the bubble doesn't burst. And it's a good thing that "payment optional" loans are out there, because some people will need them -- especially if they are bad credit risks. But this article leaves you with the opposite impression.



> George McCabe of Brown & Partners, an advertising and public-
> relations firm that compiles housing data, says that as prices
> continue to rise fast, more people are putting their homes on the
> market. "People want to cash in...so there is a lot of competition
> for resales," he says. He still sees the housing market as strong,
> adding: "We're just in an adjustment period."

Why does McCabe think that it's just an adjustment period? Or that sales are still strong? He's a statistics compiler! Not a realtor!!!!!!!!!!!



> At Wachovia, Mr. Vitner says supply and demand for houses are
> beginning to move into better balance. "That doesn't mean prices
> will be a bargain," he says. "It may mean they won't continue to
> rise in double-digit rates."

More adjustment period? I believe bankers more than ad and public relations men. But what is "a better balance"?



> Ms. Zelman of CSFB says that prices in some cities are likely to decline
> at least modestly once the housing boom ends. She noted that housing
> booms in the late 1980s led to falling prices a few years later in
> California and New England.

WHOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Housing PRICES falling is a big, fucking huge difference than the INCREASE in sales prices falling.

Say I own a $100,000 home. In June 2005 I could sell it for $120,000 -- a 20 percent rise. But in August 2005, I could sell it for $110,000 -- only a 10 percent rise. Housing prices still rose, but at a slower rate. That's fine.

But DEFLATION in housing prices will be a far, far worse thing. It wreaks havoc with taxes, revenues, mortgages, salaries. She's talking deflation!

And that's tucked at the BACK of this article??????????? Geez.



Well, that's your typical bad-reporting article. Full of false assumptions, facts taken out of context, implications rather than evidentiary-based conclusions, contradictions, violations of common sense, fallacies and other generally fucked-up idiocy.

But when I read an article, that's what I do. I question it. I think about what is being said. I think about it in comparison to other things I know or have learned. I try to parse out the contradictions and bad logic.

You have to do it. There's no one you can trust. I know it's hard, but you have to do it.

A new poll shows that while 42 percent of Americans blame Bush for doing a poor job in rescuing the people of New Orleans.........

an astonishing 35 percent think Bush has done a fine job in New Orleans.

Jesus Fucking Goddamn Christ! Haven't these morons seen any TV lately??????????????????


By the way, FEMA has rejected requests from journalists to accompany rescue boats as they search for the dead in New Orleans.

Typical Bush.

If you don't like the images, censor the media. And since "censor" is such a bad word..........

"Embed" them with trusted troops who'll suborn the media.

Or, better, claim that the media are "hindering" the rescue operations or that they are "violating the dignity of the dead" and that you're keeping them out for the good of the people of New Orleans and not to save your own political ass.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

Asshole lying hell-bound president.

FEMA has done it again!!!

All last week, FEMA bureaucrats gave prominent placement on the agency's Web site to Operation Blessing -- the Virginia-based charity run by controversial right-wing evangelist and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson.

For anyone wishing to donate cash, FEMA's Web site listed the names and phone numbers of only three groups: the Red Cross, America's Second Harvest (a national coalition of food banks) and Operation Blessing.

That first list was followed by a second, longer list of several dozen religious and nonsectarian charities. This second list was for anyone who wanted to give either cash or noncash gifts.

Just as in an ordinary election, however, those charities at the top were far more likely to get noticed and chosen.

Operation Blessing, with a budget of $190 million, is an integral part of the Robertson empire.

Not only is Robertson the chairman of the board, his wife is its vice president and one of his sons is on the board of directors.

In 1994, during the infamous Rwandan genocide, Robertson used his "700 Club" daily cable show to appeal to the American public for donations to fly humanitarian supplies into Zaire to save the Rwandan refugees.

The planes purchased by Operation Blessing did a lot more than ferry relief supplies.

An investigation conducted by the Virginia attorney general's office concluded in 1999 that the planes were mostly used to transport mining equipment for a diamond operation run by a for-profit company called African Development Corp.

And who do you think was the principal executive and sole shareholder of the mining company?

You guessed it: Pat Robertson.

Robertson had landed the mining concession from his longtime friend Mobutu Sese Seko, then the dictator of Zaire.

Investigators concluded that Operation Blessing "willfully induced contributions from the public through the use of misleading statements..."

After the investigation began, Robertson placated state regulators by personally reimbursing his own charity $400,000 and by agreeing to tighten its bookkeeping methods.

Separating Operation Blessing from Robertson's many political endeavors is not easy.

The biggest single U.S. recipient of the charity's largess, according to its latest financial report, was Robertson's for-profit Christian Broadcasting Network. CBN received $885,000 in the fiscal year ended March 2004.

Robertson uses that Christian network for some markedly unchristian purposes.

A few years back, he repeatedly defended Charles Taylor, the former brutal dictator of Liberia who is under indictment by a UN tribunal for war crimes.

As with Mobutu in the Congo, Robertson had a personal stake in the matter: He had millions invested in a Liberian gold mine, thanks to Taylor.

On Sunday, FEMA suddenly rearranged its entire Web site for hurricane donations.

Gone was Operation Blessing's name and choice location. Replacing it was an alphabetical list of nearly 50 national relief organizations.


"FEMA: We take a while to get things right."

"This is NBC Nightly News for Thursday, September 1st. I'm Brian Williams."


Photojournalist Tony Zumbado's stunning report on Thursday's extended NBC Nightly News broadcast set a new standard for excellence in reporting. Having spent the day inside the New Orleans convention center, he appeared near tears as he talked of babies dying.

"I just tell you, I couldn't take it."

Minutes later, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams interviewed Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Williams: Why can't some of the helicopters that we have heard flying overhead for days and days and days simply lower pallets of water, meals-ready-to-eat, medical supplies right into downtown New Orleans? Where is the aid?

Brown: Brian, it's an absolutely fair question… The federal government just learned about those people today.

A millisecond later, Williams' jaw hit the ground.

CNN's Paula Zahn grilled Brown about an hour later about the situation at the Superdome, where bodies were left to rot and children went without food and water.

Brown said again that federal officials had just learned of the suffering thousands at the convention center that day -- Thursday.

Zahn: You're not telling me that you just learned that the folks at the convention center didn't have food and water until today, are you? You had no idea that they were completely cut off?

Brown: I didn't know.

But anyone who'd been watching at home did.

The anger of the reporters and anchors was not a case of "What? You haven't been watching our channel?" but rather "Can you tell me what planet you've been on all week?"

What was more frightening than Brown's admission was the fact that that he spent much of Thursday doing interviews.

If you, like most people, were glued to the news over the weekend, you had to wonder who was in charge of the relief efforts while Brown was making the press conference rounds slurping down coffee and donuts and joking with his staff behind the scenes.

Even Bush's supporters couldn't believe that the Bush team had completely fumbled the ball. It's no secret that the Bush administration can count on getting strong support from Fox News. But when Sean Hannity wanted to "get perspective" on the situation, reporter Shepard Smith, losing his cool once and for all, shouted: "This is perspective! This is all the perspective you need!"

All week long, Bush seemed to have two personalities. At one point, he joked with Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) about how the two men would one day once again enjoy the porch on Lott's destroyed southern Mississippi home. At another point, Bush hugged weeping Mississippians like a concerned uncle. Bush was grim and tough in press conferences, then signed autographs like a rock star at a Baton Rouge evacuee center.

I hope everyone saw Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard on "Meet the Press" Sunday. Host Tim Russert couldn't stop playing at being a real reporter, and tried to get Broussard to blame somebody. Broussard wouldn't do it. Russert pressed him harder, and tried to get him to blame Louisiana Emergency Management leaders.

But Broussard spoke truth to power:

The guy who runs this building I'm in, Emergency Management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in a St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" and he said, "Yes, mama, somebody's coming to get you."

Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday… and she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night!

Broussard was sobbing on the air.

"I'm sick of the press conferences. For God's sake, just shut up and send us somebody," he wept.

Inspired by the increased visibility of openly gay teenagers on campus, students at a Kern County high school decided to explore the topic in their school newspaper, "The Kernal."

But the night before the series was to go to print, East Bakersfield High School Principal John Gibson pulled the plug -- citing the safety of gay students on campus.

The four articles in "The Kernal" were typical newspaper articles: One was about gay students on campus; another was about Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG); a third looked at the nature-versus-nurture debate; a final piece focused on students and local pastors who say they oppose homosexuality because it conflicts with their religious beliefs.

The school's journalism advisor mentioned the articles to an assistant principal. The next day, the student editors were summoned to a meeting with school administrators.

The student editors told the administrators that all the students mentioned and their parents had all signed permission slips giving the newspaper the right to use their names in the articles. No one was being outed. Indeed, all of the students mentioned were already out of the closet.

The administrators and studnets negotiated a compromise: The articles could run if the identities of gay and lesbian students on campus were shielded. Still, the student editors say they were angry that administrators would compel them to shield the identities of openly gay and proud classmates.

The next evening, after an edited version was laid out, Gibson appeared at the school newspaper office and stopped publication of the series.

Mattias and two other editors -- Joel Paramo, 18, and Maria Krauter, 17 -- are now suing Gibson, the superintendent, school trustees and the Kern High School District. The students hope a judge will compel officials to allow them to print the series this fall. Several classmates featured in the four articles are co-plaintiffs.

I've been melancholy all evening.

I got home, and my house seemed stifling. I opened the window. It's cool and pleasant out tonight. Fall is coming.

All evening, I've done nothing but listen to the sounds of the outdoors. Occasional voices. Cars coming and going. Crickets. I can smell fried chicken wafting from someone else's home, and the acrid smell of cigarette smoke when a smoker walks close by. Now, I can even smell the sweetness of the clover and the green fruit of the holly tree outside my window.

There is a rhythm to the world. I'm feeling it tonight.

If you would like to own a copy of this t-shirt, you can. Just go here and buy one. Proceeds go to the New Orleans/Baton Rouge Foundation, Direct Relief International and the American Friends Service Committee.

Which two members of the band Breaking Benjamin do I like the best?




Hint: Black haired alterna-boys make my wee-wee go "boing."

Bob Denver, TV's Gilligan, has died at the age of 70 in North Carolina. He had undergone quadruple bypass heart surgery earlier this year.

GILLIGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!

We'll miss you, little buddy.

Happy anniversary to me.

My Blog turned two years old on August 3, 2003.

Like a typical lover, I forgot. Guess I have to make it up by taking my Blog to a really nice restaurant and getting a diamond ring instead of that cubic zirconia I'd planned on.

Our very muscular, very cute Latino window-washers are hard at work at my office building today.

I think one of them is gay. Pretty boys!

"The world of nude photography is overrun with images, many of them so similar it that the term 'deja-vu' isn’t descriptive enough."
-- Darrel Couturier, 2002 (owner, Couturier Gallery, Los Angeles, Calif.)


I was cruising Nerve.com Sunday and came across some very good photography. Sadly, it was of straight people. I was browsing through some photography books today, too, and realized that I honestly didn't know what artist's book I was reading. I reached down absent-mindedly, and picked up another book. I thought I had picked up the same one again, but no. That's how uniform naked gay male photography is today.

So instead of looking at crappy stuff, let's take a look at some excellent photography, shall we?

Some thoughts on nude photography



Both these images are by Susan Egan. They are from a series of images featuring the same couple in a number of sexual and romantic situations. What's interesting about Egan's work is that she uses both black-and-white and color, that her models are real people, and that her situations are both real and everyday. Her male model is nice but not that handsome. He has a good but not spectacular body. His penis is average, and his body is untouched by a razor. One female model is perhaps a bit too skinny, and both are a bit too short. None of the models seem to have been to a hair salon. None of the models seems to have seen a clothier more upscale than Old Navy.

What's also interesting about Egan's work is that the settings for each photograph are fairly typical for most Americans. One is a slightly run-down apartment bathroom. The shower curtain is plain, there isn't a shower caddy to be seen, a contact lens case sits on the sink and the mirror is slightly tarnished and chipped. It's a shower that's used by real people, every day.

The other setting is the New York City subway. Okay, it's a little atypical, in that it's not full of trash and there's no sign of dry spilled soda-pop on any of the seats. But otherwise, it's a place that is normal. Everyday. Erotic because of it's very averageness and everydayness.

What's also interesting is that these models are not that beautiful. But they seem beautiful because they are engaged in settings that enhance their beauty without pointing that out. The slightly dingy apartment bathroom makes the handsome man and woman more attractive. Placing the same couple in a shower in a bombed-out chemical factory would be too surreal, too false, too manipulative. Here, however, there is a deep subtlety that makes this a superb image.

Let's take a look at another photo now.















Ana Nieto is the author of this image. It's merely a young man who has an erection. He's dropped his shorts and floats underwater.

Nieto's image is deeply erotic for a number of reasons. Clearly, it's very different from Egan's realistic photographs, above. But it shares a certain sentiment with Egan's work that makes it a very effective image. The model in this photograph is not a porn star or gym-addict. He is thin, almost skinny. He lacks musculature. His clothing is standard-issue Bermuda shorts that anyone can get at Target. The model is working-class; you can tell from the "farmer's tan" on his arms which belies a lot of time spent outdoors with a shirt on (rather than in the gym or at the all-over tanning salon). There's nothing fake about this model. About the only thing this model shares with a Falcon Studios image is his sizeable penis.

The setting of this image is also very different. Although underwater images have been seen in gay male nude photography before (for example, see Kevin Lee's "Undercurrents"), such images are invariably "artsy" -- blurry, ballet-like "gods of the deep," heavy with import and meaning. Images not of naked men swimming (or even having sex underwater), but images of "importance."

Nieto's image is more plain. More erotic for its plainness. It plays with simple concepts of immersion, birth, sex and procreation. It even harks back to memories of the days the groundskeepers and caddies get to swim in the "members-only" pool at the local country club. It calls to mind simple memories of hot teenagers leaping fully clothed into the swimming hole on a whim. It draws on these common themes for its eroticism and power, rather than pushing some sort of superman fantasy-land where everyone is V-shaped, every muscle blasted and toned, and every cock pendulous and tumescent.

Let's look a third image, a photograph which is different from the first three above...














Teresa Caney created this image of a naked couple lying on a couch in a room.

The image is different in that it's actually not a nude image, but one that implies nudity. The women's breasts are covered by the man's hands, and nothing of her below the ribcage is visible. The man appears to be naked as well, but in fact we see only his shoulders and upper chest, and his left thigh and knee.

Unlike Egan and Nieto, Caney works primarily in black-and-white. But this image lacks something that gay male nude black-and-white photographs often rely on: Technical superiority. This image is slightly out of focus. This image is slightly grainy. This image is slightly underlit. The overall effect is, in a small way, to imply that this image is more of a snapshot than staged photograph. But while the image relies on focus, grain and lighting to introduce elements of "realism" into the photograph, it doesn't cast them aside whole-heartedly. It doesn't fall back on the cheap trick of soft-focus, or use camera movement to blur the image and create false impressions of movement or energy, and/or hide identity.

But why introduce these filmic elements at all?

Look at the image. The man and woman are not models. Their hair hasn't been done. Neither person wears make-up (most noticeably the woman). The man's body is far too hairy for a "model." The man's hair is touseled, not pommaded, and the high forehead indicates hair-loss (too often associated with loss of masculinity as well). The boy is half-shaved, his cheeks showing red. The woman's breasts are very small, her hair is limp, and it is merely brushed and parted. The walls are unadorned, white. A cheesy torchiere lamp (the post of the lamp visible on the right) is the only accoutrement in the room. The couch they lie on is the sort of futon sofa-bed that can be got at The Room Store or Ikea for $500 and which will get lumpy in six months.

The general impression this photograph gives is one of lovers who've just gotten out of bed. It's one of lower-middle-class young people in a sparsely furnished apartment. It's an impression of the struggle of people with menial jobs, of simplicity, of urban living, of a dismissal of materialism. It's the impression of youth, uncommitted to middle-class values, finding satisfaction in one another and in living life rather than feathering their own nest with faux arts-and-crafts nick-nacks from Linens 'n' Things.

A technically superior image with superreal crispness and staged lighting would not convey the emotions and concepts indicated by the models and setting.

But a technically inferior image would "slather on the poverty" a bit too heavily, destroying the honesty of the photo.

It's that honesty which gives the image its real power. Consider that the image isn't nude, and yet -- what do you want? You want the boy to remove his hands. You want the girl to stand up, show herself fully. You want the girl to stand up, and reveal the boy's erection that she'd hidden. You want to see if the boy's belly is as hairy as his legs and chest. You want to see the two make love, kiss, hold hands in Central Park, lay on one another on the steps of the Museum of Natural History, embrace on the subway at night as they leave the Village.

The viewer gets invested in this image. That's the power of the image.

But that investment wouldn't come by showing a DDD-cup woman with coiffed hair and steroid-queen bodybuilder with genitals only a whale could love lounging about in a West 57th Street penthouse.

The viewer becomes invested in this image because of its realism, its lack of materialism, and the ability of the viewer to see him or her self in this image. You know, the escapism of Fred Astaire dance pictures appealed to Depression-era audiences because those audiences sought relief from despair. Similarly, there was a time in American nude photography in which bodybuilders and sailors with enormous dicks provided proof that homosexuality wasn't always going to be repressed, that maleness and same-gender attraction -- while Olympian and fantastic today -- were attainable goals.

Today, people face far different problems. The problem now is one of "realness," of authenticity, of finding the honest and true in a world held captive by entertainment magazines, television "personalities," corporate Blogging and manufactured reality shows. Fantasy models lounging in $10 million homes don't reach the viewer. Photographs like this do.

Let's look at one more.















Allen Ng is the artist who crafted this image. Once more, it's different from the others we've looked at today. The primary difference? It's clearly staged.

This image shows a young man who is nude except for an open dress-shirt. He lays back on a somewhat broken-down sofa, reading "Naked" magazine, a beer can, a coffee mug and some potato-chip bags near him. It's the image of the middle-class white-collar worker living the lower-class life at home. Moral and conservative at work, he's interested in hooters and burping pretzel-inflected beer-belches at home while having a good wank.

Only, in this case, he's not wanking. He's being fellated by a naked woman who crouches by the sofa. She has his erection in one hand (his erect shaft is just visible) while she caresses his bare chest with the other.

And it's very funny.

Yes, funny!

The image is so obviously staged, the viewer is signalled immediately to look for the meaning elsewhere.

At first glance, this image seems to rely on realism for its effect. Like the images above, neither person here appears to be a model. The boy is too skinny, lacks muscle, lacks body hair, has the skinhead crewcut look, and has too many imperfection (like the cuts on his shin) to be a model. The woman is trim but not buxom, and lacks the enormous breasts, great flowing hair, and large ass of a model. The couch is not from Bo Concepts but rather a ratty old thing with mismatched pillows, a coverlet to hide the threadbare or ripped sections, and is too small and too traditionalist to indicate surreal wealth. The nondescript carpet and walls indicate a lower-class dwelling, not a rich man's home.

But realism isn't the goal here.

The goal of this photo is comedy, to show how silly it is to have a woman who wants to have sex with you but ignore her in favor of the titty magazine.

The goal is satire, to show how the faux middle-class come home to their lower-class existence of beer and pretzels.

The goal is criticism, to show how the masses have become so consumed by entertainment products that they don't know what reality is any more. They wouldn't know real sex if it came up naked to their couch and began blowing them.

The goal is to take a potshot at misogyny, to show just how little men care sometimes for real women. To show that women are often merely naked slaves in the harems of the middle-class home, to show that women are often merely sex-objects, to show that "sexy" women often are portrayed one way by the media -- in a way that has literally seduced men into not appreciating and not understanding, indeed not caring for women as they really are but rather wanting only the mega-breasted fakes sold (literally, again) to men in magazines.

And yet, this image holds erotic power as well. Once more, it's not much of a nude image. Only the woman's breasts are visible, and only the barest edge of her nipple. The man's pubic hair is visible, but only just a tiny bit of his erect cock. The image implies nudity more than it shows it. Once more, this draws the viewer in. You want the woman's hand to reach for the man's nipple. You want her head to move up and down. You want her to lean her head back so we can see the boy's erection. You want to watch them have sex.

There's another erotic power here as well, the power of the erotic ego. The image is, in many ways, that of the harem. It is an image of a man who is the center of his world, and whose every need is met by others. His life is a desultory one (his breakfast of champions is a beer and a chocolate donut -- not bacon, eggs and Wheaties), and yet he's satisfied (in a perfunctory way). It's a purely selfish world, one in which his limited sexual, emotional, intellectual and creative needs are met without question. And without him having to expend any emotional energy in return.

That's a powerful fantasy. It's the fantasy of the harem, of the sex-slave, of the prostitute. It's the fantasy of power, of someone who is so dominant and has such resources that they can meet their needs without having to engage in the exchange of common decency, pleasantries and resources that "lesser people" must.

That fantasy of power and selfishness is so strong in Western culture that we see it here without even noticing it. We have to think about it before we realize what we are seeing. It's the power of the husband to command his wife in the Christian fashion. It's the power of the man over the woman. It's the power of the animal-need met without question, permitting the more cool, rational mind relief so that it can engage in higher pursuits. It's the power of the purchaser (john) over the purchased (prostitute who will do anything for a dollar). It's the power of master over slave.

But the image pokes a finger in the eye of that fantasy. It shows how limited and cramped it is. It shows how truly unsatisfying it really is. The viewer wants to shout, "Stop reading the fucking magazine and pay attention to that fine woman sucking your cock, asshole!"

The image is funny because it's so surreal. But it's erotic because it touches on those strong, almost primeval myths about power and sex. But it's also thought-provoking, because it makes you think about what the image is saying about those myths and about the joke it's just told.

And yet...

You know, the image wouldn't be nearly as funny with professional models. If that man had six-pack abs (are we up to eight-packs yet?) or a huge penis that required the woman to lift her head so she wouldn't choke on it, it wouldn't be nearly as funny. The overwhelming physicality of the professional, muscular model would take the viewer away from the faux middle-classness of the man and focus our attention on the spectacle of his body and cock. The luxurious, coiffed hair and gym-built body (indicative of free-time and leisure, not the numbing drudgery of white-collar work) would mean something very different. The flowing hair of a female model would indicate something much different from the "housewife bob" we see here. The spectacular wasp-waisted model with watermelons for breasts would capture the eye, rather than letting it linger over the hand on the chest, the kneeling and subservient position, the head blocking the erection and the sexual act. (Even having the woman lift up her hips so that she "presents" her ass or pussy for penetration -- a more typical pornographic pose -- would radically change the meaning of the image. The woman would become an aggressive whore, rather than subservient and ignored.)

I should note that none of the photographers we've looked at so far are considered giants in the field. All of them have had shows, and all of them are somewhat recognized. But none of them are Annie Leibowitzes.

Now let's look at some gay male nude photographers who are giants in their field. How do they stack up against the images we've just seen?




















Tom Bianchi is probably the best-known and most-celebrated of the gay male nude photographers working today. His works are lionized as the epitome of the art. His books sell in the tens of thousands, and thousands of his posters adorn the walls (framed and not) of American men's homes.

And yet...

Bianchi is also seen as exemplifying the worst of hack photography. His images are almost all the same. His models all look alike. His settings take exactly two forms. And, until very recently, he has been unable to work in color.

It's not hard to see why Bianchi's work is considered pitiful. This image, "Tanline," is typical of his work. The model appears to yet another steroid-abusing gym-queen clone, similar to almost all the other models Bianchi uses (nearly all of which are also white). Typical of about half of Bianchi's prodigious output, the model is posed against a contextless white background. The lighting is artificial and startlingly, almost offensively strong. As in much of Bianchi's work, the model is contorted in a pose which most effectively demonstrates Bianchi's own extreme fetish for overblown muscles. The model is nearly strip-shaved (although this image is notable because the model clearly has hair on his legs, albeit hair which has been trimmed down and smoothed with oil to lay flat so that it doesn't obscure the model's ultra-ripped thigh and calf muscles).

Indeed, the title of the work ("Tanline") draws close attention to the fact that this model has a tan-line. It is also intended to draw attention to the model's muscular, exquistely proportioned buttocks (another Bianchi fetish).

The entire image is one of idolatry. The model is put on a pedestal and worshipped. It is, in many ways, a direct descendant of the Atheltic Model Guild images of the 1950s in which models were, literally, placed on pedestals. While AMG put models there as a way of disguising the images as "classical studies" (when they were merely pornographic), Bianchi's new pedestal diguises his fetishes and tunnel-vision in the emperor's clothes of "Art" (with a very prominent, muscular capital "A," of course).

As Darrel Couturier points out in his (admittedly out-of-context) quote, above, images of "jocks on rocks" and "beef by the pool" are a dime a dozen. Bianchi is no different in this respect. I dare anyone to put a Bianchi image next to an Underhill, a von Berg, a Ritts or a Weber and tell the images apart. They are almost identical images of femmy slabs of leisure-time beefcake.

The power of Bianchi's work lies not in its inherent value but in the response the viewer brings to it. Bianchi likes to argue (as he has done in print and on hagiographic, apologetic films he has produced, written, directed and photographed) that his images are "Art." In fact, the response most Bianchi admirers have is not an artistic one but a masturbatory one. Since his images are uniform and nondescript, the viewer's response is not even one of erotic appreciation but one of pure stroking: Self-loathers and wanna-be's masturbating obsessively over the "hot men" Bianchi shoots. Those who wish they were not fat/skinny/weak/preyed upon/lonely/celibate/loathed/sneered at look at Bianchi's men and reach reflexivley for the John Thomas. Like Depression-era film-goers, they see in Bianchi's work the "good life" they wish they had. They do not admire the models for their rarified bodies; rather, they see in the models the perfect world -- indeed, the escapism -- they themselves wish so strongly for. There is no relationship between model and viewer. Instead, there is distance: Purposeful, awful, sickening distance. Worshippers slumming with their god. Cum and put the book away under the mattress, and the agonizing self-loathing returns.

In the end, Bianchi's work is pure pornography (in the negative as well as technical sense of that word) -- not art.

But perhaps Bianchi is but an extreme example. After all, Hollywood's most famous stars are people like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt -- guys who are famous for being unable to act. The best musicians in the U.S. are the Kelly Clarksons and Rueben Studdards -- those who produce the most bland, boring, insanely puerile work.

So let's try another.






















Bruce Weber is perhaps the second-most recognized gay male nude photographer in the world. This is Weber's famous "Shower - Palm Beach - 1986."

Aside from the setting, it's difficult to see just how Weber's work varies from Bianchi's. For all we can tell, the model is the same man. The same contorting pose is used, and to the same effect. And, in truth, the viewer has the same appalling reaction to the image.

The one difference between "Shower" and "Tanline" is that "Shower" is not nearly as stark and artificial as "Tanline." "Shower" is a bit more realistic, with an identifiable background, lighting that is more realistic (albeit still strongly artificial and planned) and shades of gray that draw the eye toward detail rather than hide it. (To be fair, Bianchi does not always produce contextless, overlit images. At least half his images are like "Shower" -- poolside muscle-queens posing pretty for the camera. And his color work is hard-core pornography shot indoors on a couch.)

Yet, "Shower" is fake. The lighting is designed to cast a strong shadow in an "artistic" way, to set create a dark space against which the somewhat lighter model is contracted. Both are set against the textured, off-white wall, which itself is set against the grey and light-grey sky and clouds. The pose (what person kneels to douse himself with water?), the twisting of the body, the flexing of the muscles, the odd position of the hands on the bucket, the way the water cascades over the back and ass rather than the whole body, and of course the "old moss-covered bucket" itself all work to create an image calculated (almost coldly) to elicit the response Weber intends.

The problem is that the response is almost the same one that Bianchi's work elicits. There is no relationship between the ultra-wealthy Palm Beach community and the rest of the world. There is no relationship between the demi-god-like bodybuilder and the viewer. Indeed, in this particular case, the life of idle leisure implied by the bodybuilder's physique contrasts surrealistically with the old bucket he's using, further alienating the viewer.

But perhaps Weber and Bianchi are the two rotten apples in the barrel. What about the rest?

Let's try an experiment. Below are four images. Here is a list of photographers: Clifford Baker, Tom Bianchi, Sam Carson, Paul Morgan, Jeff Palmer, Herb Ritts, Howard Roffman, Patrick Sarfati, Steven Underhill, Raymond Vino, Henning von Berg and Bruce Weber. Only four of the photographers have works below. (A given photographer might have one or more -- even four! -- images below.)

Let's see if you can tell which of these 12 photographers are actually used below. And let's see if you can identify which image goes with which photographer.


























Which is which?

You may well give up. All these images are pretty much the same. Image #1 (the sleeping boy) is slightly less harsh in its lighting, as befits its subject (boy rather than man). Image #4 (the twins) is more like Weber's "realistic but intentional" lighting. Image #2 (man with tires) and Image #3 (muscular torso in bed, many hands pulling back the sheets) both utilize the harsh, over-lit, super-crisp imagery we saw in Bianchi's work. All the men are muscular, all are white. The model in Image #3 is flexing for the camera, but so is the guy in Image #2. Even the twins in Image #4 are flexing their triceps and abs for the camera. The sleeping boy is flexing his biceps, and possibly his buttocks.

Can you tell yet which image is whose yet?

Image #1 (sleeping boy) belongs to Howard Roffman. The title of the image is "Man Sleeping." (You may take issue with the term "man," of course.) You may have been able to guess because Roffman is fascinated with young men and teens rather than more mature men. But then, Clifford Baker, Sam Carson, Jeff Palmer, Patrick Sarfati, Steven Underhill, Raymond Vino and Henning von Berg also like younger men and teens. You may have clued in to the less-harsh lighting and soft-focus style, a Roffman trademark. But then, Clifford Baker, Tom Bianchi, Sam Carson, Jeff Palmer, Patrick Sarfati, Steven Underhill, Raymond Vino and Henning von Berg also use soft lighting and soft focus.

Image #2 (man with tires) belongs to Herb Ritts. The title of the image is "Fred With Tires," and it is probably his most famous image. That alone may have given away who this image belonged to. But the image also uses a model who is incredibly muscular and ripped. That is typical Ritts. But then, it is also typical of Clifford Baker, Tom Bianchi, Paul Morgan, Jeff Palmer, Patrick Sarfati, Steven Underhill, Henning von Berg and Bruce Weber. The ultra-crisp focus, deep shadows, strong and artifical lighting, and post-industrial setting may have given it away, too. Those are all Ritts trademarks. But then, those are trademarks of Clifford Baker, Tom Bianchi, Paul Morgan, Steven Underhill, Raymond Vino, Henning von Berg and Bruce Weber, too.

Image #3 (torso in bed, many hands peeling away covers) belongs to Jeff Palmer. The title of the work is "Unwrap," and it is one of his most famous pieces. Again, that alone may well have given it away. The surreal nature of the image -- the unidentifiable man (his face hidden) and the many hands "unwrapping" him from the bedsheets -- may well also have given it away. Surrealism is not typically a Palmer trademark, but he does use it on rare occasions when making "comedy" images like this one. The model may be super-muscular, but that is a trademark as well of Clifford Baker, Tom Bianchi, Paul Morgan, Jeff Palmer, Patrick Sarfati, Steven Underhill, Henning von Berg and Bruce Weber. The lighting may be too strong and the shadows too deep and the entire look extremely artificial, but those are trademarks of Clifford Baker, Tom Bianchi, Paul Morgan, Steven Underhill, Raymond Vino, Henning von Berg and Bruce Weber, too.

Image #4 (twins) belongs to Steven Underhill. The title of the work is "Pensive Twins." It's probably the most realistic of the four works, as the lighting is subdued and apparently natural. The pose -- the thumb-sucking, the head on the twin brother's shoulder, the distance between the two men's torsos, the painfully outward-turned forearm and femmy hand on thigh -- is not natural, but then contorted poses are also trademarks of Clifford Baker, Tom Bianchi, Paul Morgan, Jeff Palmer, Herb Ritts, Howard Roffman, Patrick Sarfati, Steven Underhill, Raymond Vino and Bruce Weber. The outdoorsy nature of the image may have made it distinct from the other four images here. But outdoor settings are also regularly utilized by Clifford Baker, Tom Bianchi, Jeff Palmer, Herb Ritts, Howard Roffman, Patrick Sarfati, Steven Underhill, Raymond Vino, Henning von Berg and Bruce Weber. Perhaps the natural lighting was a give-away? Except that that is also used by Clifford Baker, Tom Bianchi, Sam Carson, Jeff Palmer, Howard Roffman, Patrick Sarfati, Steven Underhill, Raymond Vino and Bruce Weber.

All four photos here are very alike. And all four photos here are almost identical to the work of at least eight other gay male nude photographers.

I'm sure a lot of you out there are thinking, "I don't fucking care who did the photo. It's hot!"

I'm sure that the sameness and rubber-stamped quality of the images is going to warm the cockles of the hearts of the photographers who made these images. And it's always a sign of good art that everything looks like, isn't it?

I want to concude with two final images.




















This image is by British photographer Mike Ferrari. He's an up-and-coming artist based in London. He works in photography, but has also directed his models in nude and masturbation videos. This image, titled "Vince," is one of his more well-known.

And therein lies the problem. "Vince" is not very different from any of the other works above. Ferrari works primarily in black-and-white, like so many thousands of other gay male nude photographers. And although Ferrari tends to use models who are 18 to 25 years of age (only about a third or more of other gay male nude photographers do that, among them Clifford Baker, Sam Carson, Patrick Sarfati, Steven Underhill and Raymond Vino -- to name a few), in many ways his models are just like those used by others. His models are all muscular, well-toned, strip-shaved, have their pubes trimmed, have big cocks and are well-coiffed and dressed. He tends to use highly artifical soft lighting and soft focus, but that's nothing new. His sets often are the homes of the wealthy, and show it. (I don't know of any 20-something model who would own an Edwardian sitting chair, or have a bowl of mixed fruit on the table.)

In many ways, "Vince" owes more to Jeff Palmer and Howard Roffman than it does to Ferrari's own creativity.
















Brett Wexler is an up-and-coming American photographer working in New York City. This work is titled "Tony."

Wexler is different. Much of his work is in color, a medium most gay male nude photographers have never mastered. He photographs a somewhat wide band of models, at least in age-range (but "Tony" is fairly indicative of his work). Wexler's style is also somewhat sparse. He tends to be a studio photographer, which is also somewhat uncommon.

But for all that is uncommon in Brett Wexler's work, there's also much that is just the same as always. "Tony" utilizes a model that isn't as muscular and toned as some. But the model in this image, as in many of Wexler's photographs, has had his hair done at the salon, has shaved his legs, has trimmed his pubes, has shaved his asshole and generally worked on his body so that he is "presentable" (in the way that the infamous "Falcon carwash" makes gay porn stars presentable for that adult film studio).

In other ways, "Tony" is similar in pose to a million other "presentation" nudes. "Presentation" is a term borrowed from animal hubandry. The vagina of a female animal in heat will usually swell up, become red and become moist. The female animal will then twist her body so that her vagina is more readily visible to males. The female animal "presents" -- or offers herself as ready for penetration.

"Presenting" is utilized in nude photography as well. Legs are open. Erections are thrust forward into the foreground or otherwise put on display. Hips are pushed foward, torsos are reclined to the rear. The face is dropped slightly, and the eyes peer up through the eyebrows -- typical submissive behaviors. Hips are turned upward, so that the anus can be seen as well as the erection (offering both the possiblity of penetration and entry, of sucking and fucking, of the kind of sex the viewer wants no matter whether he's a top or bottom or versatile).

"Tony" is a case study in presenting. It is almost trite in the way it exhibits the stereotypical pornographic poses and attitudes.

For its uncommonness, "Tony" is as common as they come. It is superb pornographic art, and little else.



Therein lies my problem with most gay male nude photography today.

There is wide variation and inventiveness exhibited in the straight photography at the top of this post.

But the gay photography at the bottom -- while far more celebrated -- is uniform, dull, uninviting and trite.

Straight photography utilized both color and B&W film, while gay photography is addicted to B&W ("because it's more artsy!").

The concepts, emotions, sexuality and attitudes present in straight photography are all over the map. Each photographer has a strong sense of self, and the images reflect this.

Gay photography contains almost no concepts, emotion, sexuality or attitude. It conveys nothing. The photographers are copycats of one another. Identical. Imitative. Uniform. Bland and dull.

Straight photography contains humor.

Gay photography is dully serious.

This is my personal call to arms for the gay photographic community. Sadly, I doubt anyone will answer the trumpet.

Labels: photobooks, photography

From Howell Raines' syndicated column. He is a former executive editor of The New York Times. His column appears in a number of newspapers, but the Manchester Guardian edits it the least. Here is a portion of his column from Sept. 1:


Certainly the sacrifices of New Orleans need a kind of national reckoning, one that would enable the people to see the president who forgot to care for what he is. Every great disaster — the Blitz, 9/11, the tsunami — has a political dimension. The dilatory performance of George Bush during the past week has been outrageous. Almost as unbelievable as Katrina itself is the fact that the leader of the free world has been outshone by the elected leaders of a region renowned for governmental ineptitude.

Louisiana's anguished governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, climbed into a helicopter at the first possible moment to survey what may become the worst weather-related disaster in American history. She might even have been able to stop the looting in New Orleans if the 141st Field Artillery of the Louisiana Army National Guard had not been in Iraq for the past 11 months. They are among thousands of Southern guardsmen who could have been federalized by the stroke of a pen had they not been deployed in a phony war. Even Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a tiresome blowhard as chairman of the Republican National Committee, has shone a throat-catching public sorrow and sleepless diligence that puts Bush to shame.

This president, who flew away on Monday to fundraisers in the West while the hurricane blew away entire towns in coastal Mississippi, is very much his father's son when it comes to the kinds of emergencies that used to call forth immediate White House action before its Bushite captivity. When he was president, his father did not visit Miami after Hurricane Andrew, nor, for that matter, did he mind being photographed tooling his golf cart around Kennebunkport while American troops died in the first Iraq war. Now the younger Bush seems determined to show his successors how to holiday through an apocalypse.

Consider the visible federal leadership presence in Louisiana on the day that the levee broke, a full day after the hurricane first hit. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the US government department charged with disaster preparation and response, issued the usual promises. Bush, for his part, urged people not to stay where they were, even if their evacuation residence might be the roofless, toilet-clogged Superdome.

Meanwhile, in Baton Rouge, an army colonel seemed to be the most senior federal official at a televised news conference called to announce a Corps of Engineers plan to drop sand bags into the raceway of the broken levee. The proposed drop did not take place because the shortage of helicopters was such that the aircraft had to be diverted to rescue work. Twenty-four hours later, on Wednesday, as Bush met by intercom with his emergency team and considered a return to Washington, as Pentagon and Homeland Security promised relief by the weekend, intensive care patients were dying at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. They had languished for two full days because the overworked Coast Guard helicopter crews available in New Orleans did not have time to reach them. As for the Superdome refugees, it finally fell to the governor of Texas to announce that they could come to Houston's Astrodome.

What other American president, one wonders, would fail to house these people in the decent barracks available at the closed and active military bases scattered throughout the South? The plain fact is that Jimmy Carter did a better job of housing the Mariel refugees from Cuba than Bush has done with the citizens of New Orleans.

The populism of Huey Long was financially corrupt, but when it came to the welfare of people, it was caring. The church-going cultural populism of George Bush has given the United States an administration that worries about the house of Saud and the welfare of oil companies while the poor drown in their attics and their sons and daughters die on foreign deserts.

A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research canceled.

After a flood killed six people in 1995, the Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project. Operated by the Corps of Engineers, levees and pumping stations were strengthened and renovated.

In 2001, when George Bush became president, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely potential disasters -- after a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. By 2004, the Bush administration cut the Corps of Engineers' request for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. By the beginning of this year, the administration's additional cuts, reduced by 44 percent since 2001, forced the corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate debated adding funds for fixing levees, but it was too late.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a series on the federal funding problem which reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge.

In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands around New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot.

Bush promised a "no net loss" wetland policy, which had been launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton.

But Bush reversed the approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce. In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a study that concluded in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary -- much less a category four or five -- hurricane.

"There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of the report's authors.

The chairman of the White House's council on environmental quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable", and boasted: "Everybody loves what we're doing."


On the day the levee burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech comparing the Iraq war to the second world war and himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"Bush blames local officials for Katrina response lag"
Manchester Guardian
Sept. 5, 2005


Time for impeachment, anyone?

Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?
By Anne Rice
New York Times
September 4, 2005


What do people really know about New Orleans?

Do they take away with them an awareness that it has always been not only a great white metropolis but also a great black city, a city where African-Americans have come together again and again to form the strongest African-American culture in the land?

The first literary magazine ever published in Louisiana was the work of black men, French-speaking poets and writers who brought together their work in three issues of a little book called L'Album Littéraire. That was in the 1840's, and by that time the city had a prosperous class of free black artisans, sculptors, businessmen, property owners, skilled laborers in all fields. Thousands of slaves lived on their own in the city, too, making a living at various jobs, and sending home a few dollars to their owners in the country at the end of the month.

This is not to diminish the horror of the slave market in the middle of the famous St. Louis Hotel, or the injustice of the slave labor on plantations from one end of the state to the other. It is merely to say that it was never all "have or have not" in this strange and beautiful city.

Later in the 19th century, as the Irish immigrants poured in by the thousands, filling the holds of ships that had emptied their cargoes of cotton in Liverpool, and as the German and Italian immigrants soon followed, a vital and complex culture emerged. Huge churches went up to serve the great faith of the city's European-born Catholics; convents and schools and orphanages were built for the newly arrived and the struggling; the city expanded in all directions with new neighborhoods of large, graceful houses, or areas of more humble cottages, even the smallest of which, with their floor- length shutters and deep-pitched roofs, possessed an undeniable Caribbean charm.

Through this all, black culture never declined in Louisiana. In fact, New Orleans became home to blacks in a way, perhaps, that few other American cities have ever been. Dillard University and Xavier University became two of the most outstanding black colleges in America; and once the battles of desegregation had been won, black New Orleanians entered all levels of life, building a visible middle class that is absent in far too many Western and Northern American cities to this day.

The influence of blacks on the music of the city and the nation is too immense and too well known to be described. It was black musicians coming down to New Orleans for work who nicknamed the city "the Big Easy" because it was a place where they could always find a job. But it's not fair to the nature of New Orleans to think of jazz and the blues as the poor man's music, or the music of the oppressed.

Something else was going on in New Orleans. The living was good there. The clock ticked more slowly; people laughed more easily; people kissed; people loved; there was joy.

Which is why so many New Orleanians, black and white, never went north. They didn't want to leave a place where they felt at home in neighborhoods that dated back centuries; they didn't want to leave families whose rounds of weddings, births and funerals had become the fabric of their lives. They didn't want to leave a city where tolerance had always been able to outweigh prejudice, where patience had always been able to outweigh rage. They didn't want to leave a place that was theirs.

And so New Orleans prospered, slowly, unevenly, but surely -- home to Protestants and Catholics, including the Irish parading through the old neighborhood on St. Patrick's Day as they hand out cabbages and potatoes and onions to the eager crowds; including the Italians, with their lavish St. Joseph's altars spread out with cakes and cookies in homes and restaurants and churches every March; including the uptown traditionalists who seek to preserve the peace and beauty of the Garden District; including the Germans with their clubs and traditions; including the black population playing an ever increasing role in the city's civic affairs.

Now nature has done what the Civil War couldn't do. Nature has done what the labor riots of the 1920's couldn't do. Nature had done what "modern life" with its relentless pursuit of efficiency couldn't do. It has done what racism couldn't do, and what segregation couldn't do either. Nature has laid the city waste -- with a scope that brings to mind the end of Pompeii.

I share this history for a reason -- and to answer questions that have arisen these last few days. Almost as soon as the cameras began panning over the rooftops, and the helicopters began chopping free those trapped in their attics, a chorus of voices rose. "Why didn't they leave?" people asked both on and off camera. "Why did they stay there when they knew a storm was coming?" One reporter even asked me, "Why do people live in such a place?"

Then as conditions became unbearable, the looters took to the streets. Windows were smashed, jewelry snatched, stores broken open, water and food and televisions carried out by fierce and uninhibited crowds.

Now the voices grew even louder. How could these thieves loot and pillage in a time of such crisis? How could people shoot one another? Because the faces of those drowning and the faces of those looting were largely black faces, race came into the picture. What kind of people are these, the people of New Orleans, who stay in a city about to be flooded, and then turn on one another?
Well, here's an answer. Thousands didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. They didn't have the money. They didn't have the vehicles. They didn't have any place to go. They are the poor, black and white, who dwell in any city in great numbers; and they did what they felt they could do -- they huddled together in the strongest houses they could find. There was no way to up and leave and check into the nearest Ramada Inn.

What's more, thousands more who could have left stayed behind to help others. They went out in the helicopters and pulled the survivors off rooftops; they went through the flooded streets in their boats trying to gather those they could find. Meanwhile, city officials tried desperately to alleviate the worsening conditions in the Superdome, while makeshift shelters and hotels and hospitals struggled.

And where was everyone else during all this? Oh, help is coming, New Orleans was told. We are a rich country. Congress is acting. Someone will come to stop the looting and care for the refugees.

And it's true: eventually, help did come. But how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for aid? Why did America ask a city cherished by millions and excoriated by some, but ignored by no one, to fight for its own life for so long? That's my question.

I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans. It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance.

They will rebuild as they have after storms of the past; and they will stay in New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago.

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.

- - - - - - -
Anne Rice is the author of the forthcoming novel "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt."

BRYAN KIRKWOOD!

BRYAN KIRKWOOD!

BRYAN KIRKWOOD!



Bryan Kirkwood is a young actor from Olympia, Washington. He's 30 years old. He's appeared in a few small parts in a few small movies.

As an actor, however, he has two big claims to fame. The first is that he has a recurring role as "Pickboy" -- the bumbling, arrogant, cartoon-picking superhero on Nickelodeon's "U-Pick Live" weekday afternoon cartoon show. He's funny, he's sexy, he's gentle, he's up for anything as an actor. The show has put him on the field during the Super Bowl, taking tackles from 300-pound lineman in full gear. (Oh, the bruises...) The show has dumped slime on him. The show upstages him routinely by having sweet kids say the darnedest things to him. And yet, he perseveres and maintains his character and does a great job as an entertainer for one of the toughest age-groups around.

His other big part has been that of Jake, the handsome but mysterious biker in Paul Etheredge-Ouzts' "Hellbent."

The gay horror-slasher film opens in theaters Sept. 16.

I'm a fan of the movie, and I'm a fan of Bryan Kirkwood.

Kirkwood's role in the film is an important one. The film opens a couple of days before Halloween. Two young gay men fucking in a car in a local park have been decapitated, but the police believe that robbery, gay-bashing or a mentally-ill homeless person must have been responsible.

We then meet Eddie, a handsome young man who leads a pretty aimless life. Eddie is the son of a cop who died in the line of duty. Eddie idolized his father, and entered the police academy himself. But he lost an eye in a shooting accident and had to abandon his dream. Now he works here and there at odd jobs, not really knowing what to do with himself.

Eddie has a mixed bag of friends. There's Chaz, the super-handsome Latino with a sky-high sex drive. There's Tobey, the super-handsome white model with the huge dick who is just making it into the big-time. And there's Joey, the responsible but scrawny and insecure boy who works as a waiter. The four are best friends (although it's sometimes difficult to see why in the film).

Eddie decides to dress as a cop (what else?) on Halloween. As he's picking up various parts of his costume, he runs into Jake (Kirkwood).

The film makes Jake out to be somewhat mysterious. We're never really sure if Jake is a drifter, or if he has a home in the city. It's not even clear that Jake is gay; he could merely be straight trade looking to score some pretty-boy ass. And it's not clear that Jake is the nice guy that Eddie and his friends are.

In part, this mystery is what attracts Eddie to Jake.

But where Bryan Kirkwood's acting comes in is in making the audience believe that Jake likes Eddie, too. That's a difficult thing to do when the script does't give you any lines, and the stage direction merely has an actor give "long glances" (that infamous "90210 stare" made so implausible by Jason Priestley) and drive around on your bike back and forth in front of a costume shop.

As the film progresses, Eddie keeps running into Jake. Eddie's sure that Jake is tailing him, but Eddie's friends dismiss that. There's no way Jake is Eddie's type.

The film works to make the audience suspect that perhaps Jake is the killer. Again, Kirkwood's task is made rather difficult. He has to maintain a sexual attraction to Eddie (not hard to do, when you're given soap star super-hunk Dylan Fergus to work off), but at the same time maintain a sort of anxious menace. Again, it's hard to do. Lesser films (e.g., those shitty Sci Fi Channel originals like "Alien Salamander IV," "Crocodilus VIII" and "Shark-Man V: The Gnawing") simply play it up, allowing the actor of be over-menacing. Later, the lie is exposed. But that's what makes for bad cinema, for the director is just yanking the audience around. There's no truthfulness to the relationship between director/write/cast and the audience. There's no trust. There's no reason for the audience to believe in the film and suspend disbelief.

Kirkwood helps make "Hellbent" work because he maintains trust with the audience. Kirkwood's Jake is menacing, yes. But he's menacing because he is indeed not very trustworthy. He's menacing because he is dangerous. He's menacing because he is not really that nice a guy. He is -- coin a phrase -- a bad-boy. And Eddie, the ultimate good-guy, is deeply attracted to the dark side Jake represents.

And yet, Kirkwood can't ham it up. (And doesn't, either.)

By picture's end, Eddie's friends have been slaughtered and the scythe-wielding maniac is after Eddie and Jake. Jake rescues Eddie after Eddie is nearly trapped by the killer in a fun-house. The two head back for Eddie's (rather magnificent) apartment, where Jake pushes Eddie into sex. Jake ties Eddie to the bed for a little BDSM play, showing his bad-boy side again. This isn't Eddie's forte, clearly, but he permits it because his lust for Jake is so over-powering. The killere strikes. Jake manages to rescue Eddie again, despite desperate circumstances. He puts his life at risk for this boy he barely knows, and Eddie manages to defeat (sic) the killer.

The shift in Jake's portrayal by the film is a significant one. Initially, Jake is nothing more than a biker-trick. He's hot, he's horny and he wants to fuck the shit out of Eddie. He's a little mean, a little dangerous. He's the kind of guy you don't want to leave alone in the apartment, or you'll find the front door open and a bunch of your videos and CDs gone.

So just why does Jake's merely sexual attraction to Eddie transform into something deeper? Why doesn't Jake just flee the carnival like everyone else? Why does Jake risk his life to save Eddie at the film's end, despite having been attacked by the murderer himself already?

This is not really explained in the film, but there has to be a reason for it.

That's Kirkwood's job. He has to make you believe that something is going on inside Jake, something transformative. Something that will enable Jake to lay his life on the line for someone who has, until now, merely given him a raging erection. Something that has brought out the very best in Jake's nature, something perhaps buried and dormant until now.

That's Bryan Kirkwood's job. And he does it well. He's given almost nothing to work with in terms of dialogue. That's a very tough job. He merely has things to do. He trails Eddie, he poses with his crotch thrust out at Eddie, he teases Eddie. And then he shows up out of nowhere and saves Eddie. The he seemingly ignores what he just did, and tries to fuck Eddie. Then, once more, he saves his life.

Where it comes through is in his face. Watch Kirkwood's face throughout the movie. As the film's end comes closer, his face softens. He's not as hard-eyed. The lines around his eyes relax, disappear. His mouth becomes more animated. His body posture tightens up (naturally: he's trying to save Eddie's life now, and he's on alert), but his aggressiveness is gone and he's more reactive, defensive. Almost protective.

By the film's finale, when Jake apparently sacrifices himself to save Eddie, you believe he would. You no longer believe Jake is the same person he was at the beginning of the film. You no longer believe that Jake is one of the fuck-'em-and-leave-'em crowd, but that he actually is caring for Eddie in a way that even Jake finds a little inexplicable. The way Jake wanders the apartment after tying Eddie down makes you really think that he's making some internal decisions.

So: Kudos to Bryan Kirkwood for turning a very fine performance, one on which "Hellbent" turns in so many ways. One that helps hold the emotional heart of the film together. And one which makes "Hellbent" worth watching.


Trivia:

Here's what writer-director Paul Etheredge-Ouzts had to say about casting Kirkwood:

I modeled "Jake" after Marlon Brando in "The Wild Ones." He's almost a fantasy character, an amalgamation of all the alluring bad boy traits: he's rebellious, unapologetic, aggressively sexual, and a smoker. Bryan fits the bill perfectly. To our first meeting at a casual restaurant, Bryan Kirkwood wore a tee shirt he'd made that featured an explicit photograph of him gripping his penis. I knew then that the character of "Jake" was in capable hands.

Damn! I want that t-shirt!

Labels: horror

Some Hurricane Katrina headlines you may have missed:

Authorities Favored VIPs over Superdome’s Desperate; Hotel Workers, Patrons Excused from Pre-Storm Evac Given Special Treatment
With thousands of Superdome inhabitants still waiting for evacuation by bus, the National Guard ushered several hundred tourists and Hyatt hotel employees to the head of the line. The group had been holed up in the Hyatt in relatively humane conditions, at least compared to those at the Superdome. The group was moved from the Hyatt to make room for rescue workers and government officials, but instead of having to wait their turn in line to evacuate the city, the Hyatt guests and employees were provided transportation immediately.


Bankruptcy Bill Threatens Katrina Survivors; Relief Faces Opposition
When Congress passed a controversial bankruptcy bill back in April, it did not approve a proposed amendment that would have made it easier victims of natural disaster to gain protection from creditors. The Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act, which passed earlier this year, came under intense fire from advocates for low-income people because of provisions that will make it harder for the heavily-indebted to find debt relief through bankruptcy. The legislation, which takes effect in October, will force some debtors to set up a repayment plan, instead of having their debt wiped away. The Act was heavily supported by the credit card industry, which spent more than $40 million in political fundraising and lobbying for the changes.


U.N. Relief Supplies, Teams Sit Waiting for Bush to Say 'Please'
Even though the United Nations has at the ready disaster relief teams, generators, water storage tanks, high-energy biscuits, water purification tablets, airplanes, tents and other supplies for emergency relief, the Bush administration has refused to ask the U.N. for help. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Bush Friday to let him know that the UN is able to help -- but can act only if only the US requests assistance. So far, the Bush administration has refused to accept Annan's offer.

I have such hots for Jake Gyllenhaal. I think he's adorable. I want to ride his cock like a bucking bronc. Tongue his ass. Feel his warm cum slosh across my face.

There's a great article on "Brokeback Mountain" in the New York Times today.

It's been getting a HUGE amount of press in the movie community. Plus, the religious right is up in arms about this film. But the film is just starting to get notice in the mainstream press.

There are no sexual rumors about Gyllenhaal, who seems to be quiet and goofy and asexual for the most part. (It's why I like him.)

But Heath Ledger... it's said that early in his career, he'd let anyone fuck him if it meant getting an acting job. Now that he's Mr. Popular, no man can touch him. But there was a time in which he'd pull his knees to his shoulders and moan like a madman for any director, agent, casting director, producer or actor who could get him work. They say he has a sizeable, if slender, uncut prong. And that he sucks excellent cock. He doesn't do much for me, personally. But I bet he'll play gay well on screen. Oh yes...

On the bus today, I heard three people claiming that Hurricane Katrina is a "sign of the end times." It's just that apocalyptic a disaster, they said.

The absolute heresy of that statement aside -- not to mention the utter ignorance of Biblical prophesy it displays -- Hurricane Katrina is not a particularly deadly hurricane.

Here is a list of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes since 1492 and the number of deaths caused:

1. Great Hurricane of 1780 -- 22,000. No one knows how powerful this hurricane was, but it was probably at the top of Category 5. It devastated Martinique, St. Eustatius and Barbados between Oct. 10 and Oct. 16. Thousands of deaths occurred at sea. The hurricane struck the Caribbean in the midst of the American Revolution and took a heavy toll on the British and French fleets contesting for control of the area. British Admiral George Rodney lost eight of 12 warships; his crews drowned while at anchor. An English representative sent to survey the damage reported that the storm lingered near Barbados for two days. The destruction was so great that he thought that an earthquake had accompanied the storm.


2. Hurricane Mitch, 1998 -- 9,000-18,300. This Category 5 hurricane began life near Columbia, then devastated Guatemala and the Yucatan peninsula before moving northeast, weakening to a tropical storm and dousing Florida. It petered out in the North Atlantic near Great Britain. Estimates of the number of death vary because so many were rural people. Whole villages were wiped off the map due to flooding and mudslides, but no one knows for sure how many people lived in those villages.


3. Galveston Hurricane, 1900 -- 8,000-12,000. This Category 4 hurricane came at a time when hurricane prediction was just beginning. Although the hurricane was at full-strength and nearly upon Galveston, barometers in the city registered nothing. The population of 37,000 had no warning. Galveston was the wealthiest city in Texas at the time. Nearly 70 percent of the nation's cotton crop passed through its warehouses. More than 30 ships a day sought anchorage in its deepwater channel, making it the busiest port on the Gulf Coast. It had been suggested that a seawall be built to protect the city from hurricanes, but the public dismissed the idea. Galveston had not been hurt before by hurricanes; why worry now? The entire city was destroyed the night of Sept. 8. The storm surge of 15.5 feet swept over an island a bare nine feet at its highest. Debris was so tightly packed that rescuers could not cut through it; they merely burned it where it stood. So many bodies were caught in the debris, the city smelled like a charnel house for weeks. For months, bodies washed up on the Texas shore.


4. Hurricane Fifi, 1974 -- 8,000-10,000. Only a Category 2 hurricane, Fifi made landfall in Honduras. It lingered over the coast, drowning thousands of peasants and poor villagers with unceasing heavy rains.


5. Dominican Republic Hurricane, 1930 -- 2,000-8,000. Generally considered a Category 4 or 5 hurricane, this hurricane leveled the capital of Santo Domingo in October. Only the foundations of a few stone buildings survived. The civil chaos created by the hurricane allowed dictator Rafael Trujillo (who had seized power earlier that year) to suspend the constitution. Trujillo used the massive number of deaths as a cover for killing his political opponents; he then blamed the hurricane for their deaths. Most of the hurricane's victims' bodies were cremated, so Trujillo's perfidy was never revealed. Many scholars believe the number of dead to be closer to 8,000.


6. Hurricane Flora, 1963 -- 7,200. Flora struck Tobago as a Category 3 hurricane in September. It caused such great damage that it changed the economy of the island from cash-crop agriculture to tourism and fishing. Flora crossed the Caribbean and strengthened to a Category 4 hurricane. It slammed into Haiti before hitting Cuba near Guantanamo Bay. Flora stalled over Cuba, drowning thousands, before veering an astonishing 180 degrees and heading into the Atlantic -- sparing the East Coast of the United States.


7. Pointe-a-Pitre Bay Hurricane, 1776 -- 6,000. This hurricane, probably a Category 4 storm, slammed into Guatemala on Sept. 6. It leveled towns and drowned more than 6,000 people in just 24 hours, most of them Indians and peasant villagers. Only the Marina du bas du Fort survived; it is now known as "the hurricane hole" for its legendary ability to protect people during hurricanes.


8. Newfoundland Banks Hurricane, 1775 -- 4,000. This massive storm, assumed to be a Category 5 hurricane, blasted the Grand Banks during Sept. 9-12. Most of the deaths were at sea or in fishing villages and colonies along the shore, where storm surge wiped whole villages from the map. The storm's effects lingered for another nine days, and many people ran out of provisions and starved to death.


9. Hurricane San Ciriaco (Puerto Rico Hurricane), 1899 -- 3,433. This Category 2 storm crossed Puerto Rico southeast to northwest from August 8-9. Thousands of peasants working coffee plantations in the mountains died in flash-floods and mudslides. The same hurricane then struck North Carolina on August 17.


10. Lake Okeechobee/San Felipe Hurricane, 1928 -- 3,411. This was the first Category 5 hurricane ever recorded. It began on Sept. 6 near the coast of Africa. It hit Guadaloupe and the Virgin Islands on Sept. 12, then lashed Puerto Rico on Sept. 13 before slamming into the Bahamas on Sept. 14. All told, 1,500 people died in the Caribbean. It strengthened to a Category 4 storm and came ashore near Palm Beach. It churned toward Lake Okeechobee, but moved so slowly that many residents believed it had missed them -- so they returned to their homes. A dike holding back the lake burst, and the resulting flood covered a hundred square miles with water over 20 feet deep. Most of the bodies were washed into the Everglades and never found. The dead were largely African-American tenant farmers and Mexican migrant workers. The hurricane turned northeast, taking it across northern Florida, eastern Georgia and the Carolinas on September 19. It then moved inland, marched up the Potomac River and crossed central Pennsylvania before merging with a low-pressure system around Toronto on September 20.


11. Cuba Hurricane, 1932 -- 2,500-3,107. This storm, probably a Category 4 hurricane, passed over Santa Cruz del Sur in Cuba in November. Massive storm surge swept more than 2,500 people out to sea and drowned others in flash floods. The hurricane then passed over the Bahamas, where another 600 people died. It was the second hurricane to hit the Bahamas within a month.


12. Hurricane Jeanne, 2004 -- 3,037. Hurricane Jeanne formed as a tropical storm southeast of Guadeloupe on Sept. 13. After crossing Puerto Rico on Sept. 15, it reached hurricane strength and struck the Dominican Republic. Jeanne then declined to tropical depression strength. Even though it did not strike Haiti directly, it moved along Haiti's northern coast and caused massive flooding and mudslides -- killing nearly 3,000 people. On Sept. 18, a new storm-center formed to the north-east of the existing center of rotation. The new storm-center strengthened to become a hurricane on Sept. 20. Jeanne did a loop-the-loop in the Atlantic northeast of the Bahamas before moving west -- striking near Palm Beach as a Category 3 storm. It came ashore a mere two miles from where Hurricane Frances had struck Florida three weeks earlier. Jeanne moved inland. Rather than exiting near Pensacola and moving into the Gulf of Mexico, it traveled north-northeast through central Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia before moving into the North Atlantic.


13. Central Atlantic Hurricane, 1782 -- 3,000. This hurricane hit on Sept. 16-17. Although its strength is not known, it struck a convoy of 30 English ships escorting "prizes" (captured enemy ships, including American, Spanish and French vessels) off Newfoundland. All but three were still afloat after the storm. The dead were all sailors aboard the ships.


14. Martinique Hurricane, 1813 -- 3,000. This incredibly long-lived storm began life around July 22. It struck Barbados, then hit Dominica, Martinique and St. Christopher's on July 23 and 24. The barracks at Morne Bruce in Barbados were leveled, and a large number of people in the capital were killed. Many homes were blown over the cliffs into the sea. A number of ships foundered near St. Christopher's. On July 26, the hurricane hit Bermuda. More than 60 ships were driven ashore. On July 31, the same storm shifted south and struck Jamaica. A number of vessels sank or were stranded in Port Royal. In Martinique, the storm drowned thousands. The flooding was so severe, a number of creeks and rivers had their beds permanently changed.


15. Yucatan Hurricane, 1934 -- 2,000-3,000. During June 4-8, a Category 1 hurricane made landfall in Belize before making a full loop-the-loop over Central America. Massive flooding and landslides killed thousands. It went over the Yucatan Peninsula June 9, and made final landfall as a Category 3 storm in Louisiana. The forecast and warning for the approaching hurricane was badly flubbed by the National Weather Service, which led to major improvements in the U.S. hurricane warning system.


16. Western Cuba Hurricane, 1791 -- 3,000. Called "The Storm of Barreto," this Category 1 hurricane struck Havana June 21-22. Most of the deaths were caused by flooding.


17. Barbados Hurricane, 1831 -- 2,500. Called "The Great Barbados Hurricane," this very destructive storm (possibly a Category 3) leveled several towns and a number of stone churches in Barbados on Aug. 10-11. On Aug. 12, it slammed into Puerto Rico, destroyed the town of Aux Cayes in Haiti and damaged St. Jago in Cuba. On Aug. 14, it roared over Havana. The storm killed 1,500 people before churning across the Gulf of Mexico and making landfall near the mouth of the Rio Grande on Aug. 18. Almost all the shipping on the Mississippi River was forced to dock. Downtown New Orleans on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain was completely inundated. The storm was so powerful, its effects were felt as far away as Pensacola and Mobile, and extended to Natchez -- more than 300 miles upriver. A fishing village on Grand Isle was destroyed when the tide rose six feet.


18. Belize Hurricane, 1931 -- 1,500-2,500. The second major storm in a month to hit the Caribbean, this storm formed in the southwest Caribbean and made its leisurely way north before turning savagely to the west and wiping out Belize City on Sept. 10. The city was celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of St. George's Caye, and thousands of people died in flash-floods -- caught in the open in tents or other inadequate shelter.


19. Caribbean Hurricane, 1935 -- 2,150. This Category 5 storm formed off Jamaica and then rammed into Haiti before crossing the Caribbean and ramming into Honduras. It was a relatively long-lived storm, lasting from Oct. 19 to Oct. 25. Most of the deaths occurred on Oct. 25 when hurricane-produced floods killed 2,000 in Jeremie & Jacmel in Haiti.


20. Hurricane David, 1979 -- 2,060. Hurricane David formed on Aug. 25, 1979. On Aug. 29, the Category 5 hurricane ravaged tiny Dominica, leaving 90 percent of the people homeless, deforesting the island and taking many lives. David headed west-northwest, gradually strengthening as it did. The monstrous hurricane made landfall in the Dominican Republic, passing almost directly over Santo Domingo. Most of the deaths attributed to Hurricane David came in the Dominican Republic. The storm slogged over Cuba, where it emerged as a weak Category 1 hurricane. David strengthened to a Category 2 storm and sideswiped the Florida coast. David finally made landfall in the U.S. just north of Savannah as a Category 1 hurricane.


21. Straits of Florida Hurricane, 1781 -- 2,000. This hurricane began life near Jamaica on Aug. 1. Over 120 vessels were driven ashore, a large number of which were destroyed and their crews drowned. The storm then moved northwest toward Florida. A Spanish fleet, en-route from Havana to Pensacola, ran into the hurricane. Four capital ships and a number of cargo ships were lost. There were no survivors of the more than 2,000 men on the ships.


22. Cheniere Caminada Hurricane, 1893 -- 2,000. Originating near the Yucatan peninsula, this compact and fast-moving hurricane raced northeast across the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into southeastern Louisiana near the peninsula of Cheniere Caminada. This likely Category 3 storm created such a storm surge, and made landfall at such an extreme angle, that the peninsula was comletely inundated by the sea three times. The hurricane then blasted overland through Georgia and North Carolina before exiting into the Atlantic 10 days later. It killed 2,000 people, the vast majority of them in coastal Louisiana. On Cheniere Caminada alone, it killed nearly 900 individuals -- including half the women and nearly all the children.


23. Cuba Hurricane, 1780 -- 2,000. This hurricane struck western Jamaica on Oct. 3 and completely destroyed the settlement of Savanna-La-Mer. It raced across Cuba Oct. 7-8, and passed over the Bahamas before entering the shipping lanes between Cape Hatteras and Bermuda. A Spanish fleet off western Cuba and two British fleets were also hit. Most of the people (about 900) died in Cuba. This was the second massive hurricane to hit Cuba in a month.


24. Sea Islands Hurricane, 1893 -- 2,000. On Aug. 28, 1893, a Category 2 hurricane slammed into the coast of South Carolina. Coming ashore at high tide near the Sea Islands, it carried a storm surge of 16 feet. At least 2,000 people lost their lives, most of them poor African-American ex-slaves. An estimated 20,000-30,000 were left homeless. The hurricane completely wiped the islands clean of all buildings, roads and vegetation.


25. Guadeloupe and Martinique Hurricane, 1666 -- 2,000. This hurricane hit St. Christopher's, Guadeloupe and Martinique over Aug. 14-15. Lord Willoughby (the British governor of Barbados) and his fleet of 17 ships and nearly 2,000 sailors were caught in the hurricane near the Lesser Antilles. Only two vessels were ever heard from again; the French captured a handful of the survivors at sea. The hurricane secured, more or less, control of Cuba by the Spaniards and Guadeloupe by the French.

The costliest U.S. hurricanes can only be estimated for those which have occurred more recently. The numbers below show the costliest hurricanes of all time, in constant 2005 dollars.

1. Great Miami Hurricane, 1926 -- $103.9 billion


2. Hurricane Andrew, 1992 -- $47.5 billion


3. Galveston Hurricane, 1900 -- $38.2 billion


4. Galveston Island Hurricane, 1915 -- $32.4 billion


5. Great New England Hurricane, 1938 -- $23.9 billion


6. Sanibel Island Hurricane, 1944 -- $23.4 billion


7. Lake Okeechobee Hurricane, 1928 -- $19.8 billion


8. Hurricane Ivan, 2004 -- $18.5 billion


9. Hurricane Betsy, 1965 -- $17.9 billion


10. Hurricane Donna, 1960 -- $17.3 billion


11. Hurricane Camille, 1969 -- $15.7 billion


12. Hurricane Charley, 2004 -- $15.4 billion


13. Hurricane Agnes, 1972 -- $15.4 billion


14. Hurricane Diane, 1955 -- $14.7 billion


15. Hurricane Hugo, 1989 -- $13.5 billion


16. Hurricane Carol, 1954 -- $13.0 billion


17. Fort Lauderdale Hurricane, 1947 -- $11.9 billion


18. Hurricane Carla, 1961 -- $10.1 billion


19. Hurricane Hazel, 1954 -- $10.1 billion


20. Great Atlantic Hurricane, 1944 -- $9.3 billion


21. Hurricane Frances, 2004 -- $9.3 billion


22. Everglades Hurricane, 1945 -- $9.0 billion


23. Hurricane Frederic, 1979 -- $9.0 billion


24. Palm Beach Hurricane, 1949 -- $8.4 billion


25. Florida Keys Hurricane, 1919 -- $7.6 billion

The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 (also called "The Big Blow") began as a tropical depression off Africa on Sept. 6. The hurricane hit St. Kitts on Sept. 14. By Sept. 17, it was battering the Bahamas. It made landfall just south of Miami on Sept. 18 as a Category 4 hurricane. The storm crossed the Florida peninsula, entered the Gulf of Mexico and made landfall again near Mobile, Ala., as a Category 3 hurricane.

When the storm hit Miami, winds were reported to be about around 125 m.p.h. Most of the city's inhabitants had not evacutated -- partly because a hurricane warning had been issued just a few hours before landfall and partly because the relatively new city's (it had been incorporated just 30 years earlier) population knew little about the danger a hurricane posed. A 15 foot storm surge caused massive property damage and a few fatalities.

As the eye of the hurricane crossed over downtown Miami, many people believed the storm had passed. Some tried to leave, only to be swept off the bridges when the rear eyewall passed over them.

Estimates of the dead vary. At least 373 people died, but the number might have been as high as 1,000 since a large number of people were listed as "missing." Between 25,000 and 50,000 people were left homeless, mostly in the Miami area. Lake Okeechobee experienced a high storm surge, flooding the town of Moore Haven and killing 100.

The damage from the storm was immense. Few buildings in Miami or Miami Beach were left intact.

A bit of trivia: The University of Miami had been founded in 1925 and opened its doors for the first time just days after the hurricane passed. In memory of this, the school's athletic teams go by the name "Hurricanes."

"For most of history, fire was far more feared than flooding. Cities repeatedly burned to the ground. Those catastrophes occurred sporadically enough that politicians must have been tempted to skimp on fire protection - like levee maintenance, it was a long-term investment against a calamity that probably wouldn't occur before they left office.

"But urbanites learned to protect themselves through two innovations Benjamin Franklin introduced to America. He started a fire department in Philadelphia, as well as its first fire insurance company. Other cities followed, often with the firefighters organized by insurance companies with a vested interest in encouraging public safety.

"Their customers had a vested interest, too, because they had to pay higher premiums if they lived in homes or neighborhoods that were prone to fire. As fire insurance became a standard requirement for homeowners, they and their insurance companies kept pressure on politicians to finance firefighting and tighten building codes. "

So begins John Tierney's column in today's "New York Times."

In 1968, Congress decided to nationalize the flood insurance industry. The problem was that developers kept building huge numbers of expensive homes in flood plains and hurricane zones. And people kept buying them. This meant that the cost of flood insurance soared for these homes. To cover their losses, insurance companies forced other homeowners to subsidize the losses on these mega-McMansions in flood plains. Naturally, small homeowners merely dropped their flood insurance. As only the rich retained their insurance, the real cost of the coverage was finally borne only by the wealthy. They decided they didn't need it either; they could afford to just rebuild.

But without flood insurance, taxpayers began footing the bill for billions in dollars of damages for people who had been flooded out.

Congress took over the flood insurance industry to keep it going. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) runs the program. FEMA maps flood plains, estimates hurricane zones and approves building programs in floodplains. FEMA works with state and local agencies to ensure that levees, dams, flood barriers and flood channels are built to specification, so that flood damage can be minimized.

FEMA then offers flood insurance to those in flood plains or hurricane zones. Only buildings in approved floodplains can qualify, and FEMA subsidizes flood insurance for those approved homeowners.

The problem is that people simply don't buy the insurance. They know the federal government will bail them out in a disaster.

Because FEMA runs the flood insurance program, FEMA is also responsible for ensuring that all those levees are maintained. But guess what? FEMA gets funded by Congress, and Congress -- most of whose members come from districts that don't have a single flood plain -- rarely funds levee and floodplain management programs at anywhere near the level required. Nor does the President ask for the funds, for other pressing needs -- Iraq, the environment, education, Medicare -- come first.

Tierney's suggestion? Privatize flood insurance and stop bailing them out with federal funds when disaster hits.

Tierney isn't saying that no federal aid should flow. Well-built, well-maintained levees still break. Disaster may occur that not even the best flood-mapping software and floodplain management program could have foreseen. Sometimes shit just happens, and when it does the federal government should be there to assist.

But should the federal government be bailing out a city and state that purposefully approved massive building programs under sea-level? Should the rest of the nation be bailing out wealthy individuals who built big homes on the shores of a lake prone to flooding? No.


By the way:

Less than half of households in New Orleans were covered for floods. In Orleans Parish (which includes New Orleans) and in St. Tammany Parish (the hard-hit area west of the city) roughly 40 percent of households took flood insurance. In heavily African-American St. Bernard Parish and Jefferson Parish (most of which is completely submerged), about 60 percent of households bought flood protection.

Still, that leaves rougly half the people without it.

In Mississippi, the picture is far different.

In Hancock County, only 25 percent of households were insured against flooding. In Jackson County (where Pascagoula is located) and Harrison County (home of Biloxi and Gulfport), the number was a mere 10 percent.

My alma mater's football program is profiled in today's "New York Times."

The University of Washington's football coach and its basketball coach are both black. This means that UW is only the second NCAA Division I-A team to ever have two top coaches be black. (The other was traditionally black college Temple University in Philadelphia. Temple is not an atheltic powerhouse -- by any measure -- the way UW is.)

Over half the nation's collegiate football players are black. Yet only 19 head coaches in history have been black.

UW head football coach Tyrone Willingham (65-51-1) is the only African-American head coach in Division I-A with a career winning record in his career. (Most black coaches have been hired by programs in decline or programs without a winning tradition.)

UW is coming off its worst season ever (1-10). It has struggled with quarterback turnover. Its defense has been porous at best. Former coach Rick Neuheisel was fired for betting on NCAA games. UW was penalized by the NCAA and PAC-10 for permitting prospective football players to travel on privately-owned boats to and from meetings with staff (that's impermissible contact). However, the PAC-10 did not find that UW had failed to monitor its athletic program (a big relief, for that would have led to massive penalties). UW was placed on a year's probation (served during the 2004-05 season), and all coaches and staff must attending mandatory gambling education sessions from here on out.

The UW sports medicine team was found to be dispensing large amounts of addictive painkillers to members of the UW softball team, and a number of students went through rehab.

Athletic Director Barbara Hedges, the first female AD in NCAA Division I-A history, resigned in 2004. Although a good AD, Hedges was often unable to penetrate the "good ole boy" network of boosters that permeates major college athletics, and booster scandals erupted every so often. Hedges was 66, and her retirement -- due to her age, rather than the scandals -- was a blow to the university for she was a no-nonsense AD who didn't brook with rule-breaking.

In June 2004, UW hired Todd Turner, 56, as AD. Turner went immediately from Ohio University (a B.A. in religion, of all things) to the University of Virginia (1976-87). He helped run fund-raising and athletic facility expansion at the University of Connecticut (1987-90) and North Carolina State (1990-96). Turner then was AD at Vanderbilt University, where he oversaw facilities expansion, raised the graduation rate for athletes to 100 percent and has served in a number of NCAA positions -- and is currently on the executive committee.

Because I am in love with Adam Dexter, and because I'm not getting any, I am interested in the Adam Dexter Dildo.

Only problem is, it's $85. That's a gigantic amount of money.

Now I wish I'd gotten the Lukas Ridgeston dildo and Kevin Dean dildo when they were still available.

Philadelphia-based Repent America issued a statement calling Hurricane Katrina an "Act of God" that destroyed a "wicked city" just days before Southern Decadence. The group blames the city's previous three mayors, and every citizen in New Orleans, for tolerating and welcoming such "wickedness" as Southern Decadence and Mardi Gras.

I went to bed at 11:45 p.m. after my meds kicked in.

I slept until 10 a.m.

My migraine is gone. I feel a little light-headed, and sleepy still. My back aches from laying in bed for almost 12 hours.

It's a cool (well, about 80F) day, bright with sunshine. Incredibly pleasant.

The truth is, I don't want it to be pleasant. I want it to be rainy, dreary, overcast, too cold to be out in. I want to encase myself in my ratty old bulky UW football jersey, put on my baggiest sweats, and surf the Web. I want to drink lots of hot coffee in the morning, and then lots of cold Diet Coke in the afternoon. I want chicken stew for lunch, with a big chunk of crusty bread. I want to sleep on the sofa while being lulled to sleep by the rain. I want to order pizza from a wet delivery boy. I want a Benedictine cordial before bed, and to fall asleep with my socks on.

Sunday can be bright and shiny and hard.

I want today to be comforting and soothing. It's not, and I feel out of sorts.

The Virginia Theatre in New York City is going to be renamed the August Wilson Theatre in honor of the dying playwright.

The new marquee will be unveiled on Oct. 17. It is not clear if Wilson will live long enough to see it.

So far, my five-day weekend has been a fucking bust. Migraines two days in a row.

I medicated myself all day yesterday, and was able to finally drag myself out of bed by 5 p.m. I felt markedly better after a two-hour afternoon nap, and got dressed. Went up to Dupont Circle to have a long-scheduled dinner with my friend Sam and his wife Laura at Thaiphoon. (It's one of my favorite places to eat.)

Sam told me that I consume more Diet Coke ("Coke Light" t0 those of you on the Continent) than anyone he knows, except his mother. She drinks about two liters of Diet Coke each day, plus another six or seven cups of coffee.

"So," I said, "with all the antioxidants in coffee, she's going to live a very long life. And be extremely excited about it."

That got everyone laughing for 10 minutes.

My summer reading program has come to an end -- despite today's migraine.

I woke up this morning with a pounding headache. Again. Two days in a row. But within an hour, I was getting photo-sensitive. Not a good sign. A lot of drugs later (and watching the last hour of the 1937 version of "A Star Is Born" with Janet Gaynor and Frederic March on TCM), I'm woozy but feeling all right.

I finished "Farewell, My Lovely" -- the last of my Raymond Chandler novels. I've read all of his and all of Dashiell Hammet's work in order to better understand film and novel noir. (I freely admit that the plot of "The Big Sleep" still doesn't make sense to me, even in novel form.) I've also read three history books about the labor movement (two are terrible, one is awesome but very non-historical).

And now I've nothing in to read on the bus to and from work, and nothing to read by my bedside. (In lieu of sex, I read. Eh. At least with a book, I am assured of getting some!)


But what to start on now? This is a puzzle for me. I was in Lambda Rising the other day, and looked through all 25 of their best-selling books. All of them utterly sucked. I don't think gay authors write about anything other than really hot men falling in love with one another on the beach. And the erotic fiction is appallingly bad. Let me repeat that: APPALLINGLY BAD.

"Oh yeah, that's hot!"
"I want it to be hot."
"Oh, it's hot all right. Really hot."
"Well, that's because I'm hot for you, baby."
"Really? 'Cause I'm hot for you!"
"God, that's hot!"

I wanna buy each of these authors a thesaurus and a copy of Lars Eighner's "Elements of Arousal." I remember finding Stephen McCauley's "The Easy Way Out" in the bookstore 12 years ago. Here was a story about an average-looking guy who was married to a bald, lanky man. Their relationship reaches an existential crisis. As the protagonist's family falls apart in different ways, he has to come to a decision. But should he fight for his relationship, or take "the easy way out"? It (and "The Object of My Affection") was an atmospheric, moody, sublime piece of work that had me spellbound. I've re-read it numerous times. Now, I fully agree that McCauley's "Man of the House" and "True Enough" are not very good. But those first two... terrific! (He's got a new novel coming out in March 2006, "Alternatives to Sex." It's been five years since "True Enough," and I hope he's spent the time crafting something delicious.)

I had a similar reaction to Tom Spanbauer's "The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon." I mean, how can't you love a Wild West homosexual story involving a bisexual Indian teenager who thinks he's a sparrow, two lesbian saloon keepers, an incestuous old coot of a miner who likes little boys, and an intinerant cowboy who practices Tantric sex? Yeah, me neither. I couldn't put it down; I skipped work and school for four days while reading it.

I was less impressed with his "In the City of Shy Hunters." Spanbauer experimented with the novel, using off-kilter descriptions and impressionistic writing to explore meaning rather than narrative. For example: When the main character lands at an airport in New York City, it's almost impossible to figure out where he is, what's going on, what he is doing, or who he is talking to. Only about 30 pages later does the protagonist relate his story to someone else -- and then you clue in to what just happened. Later, when a main charcter is brutally gay-bashed and murdered by a rogue cop, the book reads as if whole paragraphs were chopped out of it, or as if every third sentence were missing. It's a great story (especially the surreal flash-backs to the main character's sexual awakening in Idaho), but it's not an easy read. Especially because the book contains a large number of ideas and thoughts that are themselves very difficult to wrap your head around.

I'm such a big history buff that I've been thinking of something along those lines. A number of people have suggested David McCullough's "1776." But I've read Robert Middlekauff's "The Glorious Cause," and I honestly don't see how McCullough's book could possibly compare.

I've read both "Guns, Germs and Steel" and "Collapse" in the past year; I'm way, way ahead of the curve on both those books, which everyone on the Red Line seems to be reading at the moment. The other night, I saw two balding muscleboys cruise one another over their copies. It's the latest thing, sort of like how taking a cute puppy to Dupont Circle on a hot Saturday afternoon used to be the way to get laid.

I've read Charles Mann's "1491" (what is it with naming books after dates these days?). I read Erik Larson's "The Devil in the White City" -- a true history of the serial killer running around at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 -- and found it enjoyable if not terribly well-told, and whipped through "The Pirate Coast" (about President Thomas Jefferson's secret naval attack on the Libyan pirates in 1905).

I'm not going to touch "Voices of Courage," the new book about the battle of Khe Sanh in Vietnam. I read an excerpt in a magazine, and it's the sort of rah-rah "we kicked some gook ass" racist war-telling that makes me vomit. I went home and re-read parts of "A Bright and Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam" to regain my sense of cleanliness. (FYI, my former co-worker, Tom, is Vann's nephew.)

Khe Sahn is the new Jared Diamond. In the last year alone, four books about the battle have come out. I guess with Gen. William Westmoreland's death, people are rushing things into print. (Most of them pro-military hack-jobs which completely ignore the political equation of the war.)

I'm sort of at wit's end here. I can't find anything to read. That's bad.

"Hellbent", the gay slasher film, hits theaters on September 16. It's about friggin' time!

Written and directed by Paul Etheredge-Ouzts, the film stars Dylan Fergus ("Passions") as Eddie, a handsome but luckless guy who idolizes his dead cop father. Eddie and his friends are going to the West Hollywood Halloween Carnival. Among his posse at Chaz (Andrew Levitas), the hunky Latino sex-magnet; Tobey (Matt Phillips), the drag-loving, handsome, well-hung model; and Joey (Hank Harris), the nerdy but responsible twink.

Two nights before Halloween, two gay men fucking in a car in a local park are decapitated. The police think it's a random killing by some homeless guy, and aren't too worried.

Meanwhile, Eddie runs into Jake (Bryan Kirkwood), a hunky biker who seems to have a bit of an obsession with Eddie.

Murder and mayhem ensue at the carnival. The killer is a super-hardbody actor by the name of Nick Name ("as himself," the credits say). He's superb.

I reviewed "Hellbent" when it screened at the October 2004 Reel Affirmations film festival, and liked it. Dylan Fergus is a fairly decent and very hunky actor. You won't see Matt Phillips (a relative newcomer) out of drag, so here's a hunk-shot of the actor. He's fairly good, too. His best scenes are really his last two, where he has to really pour out a little desperation and pathos. Hunky Andrew Levitas ("The Nanny," "Party of Five," "Psycho Beach Party," "Beauty Shop") is good enough, but the character is so narrowly drawn that he's not given much to work with. Hank Harris ("Popular," "The Lyon's Den" and a bunch of indie films) is very good as the nerd who finally meets the man of his dreams -- only to get slaughtered moments later.

But for my money, you can't beat Bryan Kirkwood. Best known for his role as the wacky cartoon-choosing superhero Pickboy on Nickelodeon's "U-Pick Live," this is his first really meaty acting role. He has shown he can do comedy (probably harder to do than drama), and he has real charisma. This hunky, terrific actor from Olympia, Washington, is 30. But he's only had bit parts here and there in terrible movies. "Hellbent" shows that he has range, can act with his eyes and face, and has the ability to let differing emotions be visible under more surface feelings. (In one scene in particular, he's throwing attitude at Eddie. But you can still read in his face his almost palpable desire to want to love this guy.)

Some people have a problem with "Hellbent." They dislike the deux ex machina aspect of Nick Name, and want more of a backstory. Is he a crazy mama's boy like in "Psycho"? Is he a demonic kid turned further insane as in "Halloween"? Is he the ghost of a dead kid seeking revenge on sex-hungry camp counselors as in "Friday the 13th"? Is the the ghost of a dead janitor seeking revenge on the community that was too cheap to buy fire extinguishers in "A Nightmare on Elm Street"?

But that's my point. "Tragic" backstories to psychotics make such characters less evil and frightening, and more sympathetic. Look at "House of Wax" with Vincent Price. Here is a genius artist who is going unrecognized due to a lack of advertising. His best friend tries to murder him for the insurance money, and destroys the man's art as well. In "The Mad Magician," also with Price, you learn that the maniac who is killing off competitors is really seeking revenge on the man who stole his wife and the ingenious magic trick that would have solved all his problems. In these films, you almost find yourself rooting for Price!

In other horror films, backstories help motivate the killer. Take Price's "The Abominable Dr. Phibes." Phibes seeks revenge on the medical team that attended to his wife's "minor surgery" (which ended with her death after a mere eight minutes on the operating table). Phibes' murderous rage is less tragic because we know that there was nothing the medical people could have done to save her. And Phibes' own hideousness is due to a tragic car accident, not someone's evil. The backstory serves to motivate Phibes, but little else.

Or take "The Uninvited." Ray Milland is a man who buys a seaside house in Cornwall, only to find that it's haunted by a "weeping ghost." The ghost may be the dead mother of a local girl, who seems linked to the house somehow. In fact, the sobbing spirit is the ghost of the dead mistress -- and the girl is really her child, not the dead mother's. There are two ghosts in the house, one good (the mistress) and one evil (the mother). You don't really feel bad for the dead mother; she was an utter bitch, you find out. And you don't feel bad for the dead mistress, because, after all, she stole another woman's husband away and made her a laughingstock. But the rivalry between the two (in life and death) merely provides the reason for why the house is haunted and why the girl's fate is tied to it.

Do all horror stories need a backstory? No, I don't think so. I don't think it would really matter if we found out that Nick Name is a black man bent on racial destruction, or that he's really a demon sent to harass homosexuals, or that he's a former nerd seeking revenge on any hunk who wouldn't have slept with him when he was still alive.

Indeed, some very famous horror films have no backstory at all. Take "The Birds." There's no explanation whatsoever for why the birds are attacking, why they flock together, or why their attack stops. It is true that the story-arc regarding the attacks parallels the changes in the love story between Tipi Hedrin and Rod Taylor. But that is a cinematic device, not a narrative one. Some explanation is given in the diner scene, where the old birdwatcher talks about the primordial nature of birds and how they, not we, rule the earth. But her explanation is dismissed by the movie (for she also claims that birds of a different feather do not flock together, and that the attacks must have been caused by human beings) and doesn't make much sense on either a logical or theological level.

I don't see any problem with Nick Name being a deus ex machina. Indeed, the absence of a backstory makes his actions all the more evocative. Why does he wield a scythe? Why is he apparently so obsessive -- even to the point where he forgets about Eddie after Eddie escapes him, and later is reminded of his presence when Eddie saves Jake. It's as if Nick Name is a moronic killing machine. But that in itself is intriguing. And why is Nick Name so fascinated by Eddie's glass eye? He's almost enthralled by it. (And the film's final scene brings that home!)

Anyway, "Hellbent" is a good film. Go see it. I'm going to get it on DVD when it comes out.

Labels: horror

Who wants to take bets on how long it will be before the first hcak writer offers for sale a script for a made-for-TV movie about the "death of New Orleans"?

I give it six months.

What do you bet the working title will be something awful, like "Katrina and the Waves"?

Even though more than 1 million people in Mississippi are without power.....

Even though the city of Gulfport no longer exists.....

Even though almost all major buildings in the city of Biloxi are damaged to the point of non-habitation.....

Even though the city of New Orleans must be abandoned for at least four months.....

Even though there are more than 50,000 people in New Orleans, out of food and water and medicine, who are trapped in the city limits.....


George Bush will keep more than 20,000 National Guard, U.S. Army and U.S. Navy troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That's right: It's far more important to protect Iraq and Afghanistan than to help suffering Americans.

George Bush: Leadership for America!

Actually, less of New Orleans is flooded than the media is leading the public to believe. The areas which have been most heavily flooded -- Downman Road west -- are also the most heavily African-American parts of the city. The white sections of town -- Metairie, Jefferson Parish, areas south and west of I-610 -- are largely all right.





It's flooded from Lake Pontchartrain inland to about I-10. About half of Jefferson Parish is flooded.

A large part of the center of downtown -- from the Industrial Canal to the 11th Street Canal -- is also flooded.

Another big section of town -- from the Industrial Canal to St. Bernard Highway -- is also flooded. Much of this area is parkland, however.

Really, it's just the section between Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River, from the Industrial Canal to the 11th Street canal.

The rest of the city is fine. My guess would be that perhaps only a fifth of the city is flooded. Maybe less.

I'm always leery of what the media is saying. Remember, these people want ratings. BAD.

They want to show as much devastation as possible. They want to give people as little hope as possible, make it appear as if the entire city is under water. They want to show homes destroyed, only foundations left. They want to show bodies floating in the water (even though hundreds of thousands of people got away without even so much as a sprinkle of rain on them).

The media purposefully creates a sense of panic, so that it can generate more readers and viewers -- and subsequently get more ad dollars later.

I distrust almost everything the media is saying about Hurricane Katrina.


I noticed something about the media coverage today.

Most reporters are not using maps and satellite images to show the extent of the devastation. They're just weeping and moaning, standing in sewage and telling everyone how terrible Katrina was.
One reporter actually picked up a bunny-rabbit doll and said, "This....This is the devastation wrought by Katrina! This bunny is emblematic of everything that's happened here!"

I waited for the violins to kick in. She couldn't have arranged to have a little girl, face muddy and dress torn, to rush in and scream, "Mr. Carrots! You found my Mr. Carrots! Oh thank you nice lady! Thank you!"

Guess there wasn't time.

Cameras keep sweeping the water, showing buildings four feet deep in water.Wreckage is shown floating in the water. Cars (the ultimate American symbol) are shown up to their rooftops in water.

But, in fact, none of this is placed in context. I've heard almost no one talk about how Lake Pontchartrain is normally a full foot higher than sea-level anyway, and that levees are all that's been holding back the lake-water for a hundred years. Much of St. Bernard Parish between the Mississippi River and the Intracoastal Waterway was drained dry by levee a hundred years ago. From France Road to the 11th Street Canal -- everything used to be under the lake, until engineers slowly built levees and drained the lake waters off.

Everything from Route 10 to the shores of Lake Pontchartrain used to be lake. Until human beings decided that they could hold back Mother Nature and built checkerboard levees across the lakeflats to "reclaim" land that "the lake had taken."

I think that word's funny. "Reclaimed." As if the mud flats had somehow been "ours" and the "lake had taken it."

In fact, "seized" is more accurate. Engineers forcibly seized the mud flats from their rightful owner, Lake Pontchartrain. And now the lake has taken back what was rightfully its own in the first place.

But you won't hear about how foolish it was for human beings to think that levees could hold back the lake and the sea. Not from the news media.

You won't hear about average inundation depths near Causeway Blvd. or 17th Street. You won't hear about the water is three feet deep at South Carrollton Avenue -- or if it's 10 feet deep.

It's to the media's advantage to create hysteria about what is happening in New Orleans. It's to their advantage to keep back as much information as possible -- so the public will stayed tuned for "further developments." It's to their advantage to let as little information dribble out as slowly as possible, to keep the public watching and reading.

It's the only way to sustain ratings.

Some may think this is cynical.

But I would respond: Since when did mega-billionaire companies have the public's advantage at heart? They don't, they never have. And they don't now, either.

Some more notes about the upcoming film festival here in D.C.

Opening Night Party -- Thursday, Oct. 13, from 9-11 p.m. in the Absolut Vodka tent in back of the Lincoln Theatre. Actor/director/writer Craig Chester, actor Malcolm Gets and producer Kirkland Tibbels (who put together the opening night film, "Adam and Steve") will be on hand. The theme is "The Garden of Eden" (because the film is "Adam and Steve," not "Adam and Eve"...get it?). I wonder if I should dress up as God with a little apple tree on my shoulder and walk around stentoriously announcing, "Thou shalt not eat of the treet of knowledge!"


Absolut Night Out: Friday -- Friday, Oct. 14, from 8-10 p.m. Absolut Vodka, one of the biggest sponsors of the film festival, has stepped up its sponsorship to include "Absolut Night Out." Anyone who is coming out of the screening of "Unveiled" or who is going into the screening of "Three Dancing Slaves (Le Clan)" can get into the event. There'll be catered food, lots of drinks and film people on hand to discuss their films.


Absolut Night Out: Saturday -- Saturday, Oct. 15, from 8-10 p.m. The second of Absolut Vodka's "Absolut Night Out." Anyone who is coming out of the screening of "Race You to the Bottom" or who is going into the screening of "Guys and Balls" can get into the event. There'll be catered food, lots of drinks and film people on hand to discuss their films.


Women's Filmmaker Brunch -- Sunday, Oct. 16, from 11 a.m.-Noon. Former Reel Affirmations program director Sarah Kellogg and her producing partner Deb Griffin will be on hand to discuss their short-film-in-progress, "Mistaken Identity." Afterward, the film "Fingersmith" will be screened at the Lincoln Theatre. Sarah Waters' first novel, "Tipping the Velvet," wsa turned into a huge hit. Now comes "Fingersmith," the film based on her second novle. The title is Victorian slang for pickpocket. A female pickpocket sets up an orphan who has been raised by a wealthy family, but the tables get turned.


Closing Night Party -- Saturday, Oct. 22, from 9:30-11:30 p.m. The closing night party will be a beach-themed "Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy." It's Reel Affirmations' 15th birthday, and the idea is that the "old girl" is still a spring chicken.


"Say Uncle" Post-Party -- Sunday, Oct. 23, from 9:30 p.m. to midnight at Lizard Lounge. Absolut Vodka will host a cocktail event with Peter Paige, writer and director and star of the film "Say Uncle." Paige and producer Christopher Racster will be on hand to talk to filmgoers, too.



By the way, that image is of Kip Pardue, the eco-stud in the closing night film, "Loggerheads."

Yummy.

I had a good time at the Reel Affirmatioins film festival program guide release party last night. It's my first year as volunteer coordinator. It makes me nervous as hell. But we had all our volunteers show up (and actually didn't need two of them).

Met Yuri, a pretty Brasilian who was a soap star in his teens before moving to the U.S., marrying, divorcing and then coming out. Had two long talks with Janna -- one about art and furniture (including what to look for in platform beds), and the other about what to do when you think you know someone and you're not sure.

Got home, had dinner (luckily there was some cold pizza in the fridge) at 10 p.m., and then watched the end of "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and all of "The Maltese Falcon" on TCM. I wish I'd had the gumption to stay up later and watch "High Sierra." But I fell asleep on my forearm and woke up at 3 a.m. with the TV still on.

Tried to sleep late, but they are fire-alarm testing in my apartment building today.

I'm a little achy and a little foggy and I've got a frog in my throat trying to call for some loved ones. Am I coming down with a cold? I hope not.

Republicans are all for letting state budgets collapse under the weight of Medicaid. They're all for giving states no financial assistance (shades of 1929!) even though Bush's economic policies pushed the economy into the toilet in 2002.

But, who wants to bet that the Republicans are going to be the first in line to rush to the aid of those "red" states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama? Billions of dollars will flow down there. And insurance companies will get mega-billions in bail-outs, too.

So much for the GOP's beliefs! It only goes to show: They have no principles except those which suit their power-hungry needs.