Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.

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the cosas:

1) I went along with John to a dinner of some photographers (of the favoring male subjects sort) as a tag along spouse. While the other men were professionals (in that it was not a secondary job), and while I found the talking & advice on photoshop interesting, and while on the whole they seemed nice enough fellows, and while several gave John advice on selling his work, it was a bit disconcerting that after talking to John about the niche he has built for himself (taking pics of guys to put online, vanity shots, and the occasional head shot), one of these �professionals� suddenly (as in an hour after the party) had notices up at the same sites John uses advertising the same services John provides.

2) Tickets have been bought, so this upcoming Las Vegas weekend will involve the Australian Male exotic dancer show. Part of me is still indifferent; part of me is slowly warming up to the idea.

3) After months of getting extra food and extra friendly service from a certain teenage male Latino employee every time he goes through the drive-though, John has finally had admitted/acknowledged that the kid is flirting with him. I don�t know what is was exactly that made him change his mind and admit that I was right, but it doesn�t matter, because picturing John trying to politely deal with a crushed out teenager young enough to be his son is amusing to no end.

4) During the photographer dinner conversation turned for a little while to body fascism, the near exclusive focus on naired, white, no body fat gym rats in male erotic art, and skirted the idea of what it meant to contribute to the problem. While interesting on a certain level, and while I could have contributed that from what I�ve seen online there is a huge hunger for images of other types of men, I stayed mostly silent on the matter, partially because unlike them I am not trying to make a living of erotic art, and partially because there were some surprisingly sweet strawberries to eat.

I found it unfortunate that one of the guys there had his work rejected by a card/calendar company because his work didn�t look enough like Tom Bianchi, which he discovered meant that the problem was that while he had talent, his work featured men who looked too �real� and real is not sexy.

5) Bought, then quickly read the latest volume of Iron Wok Jan (11, with �only� another 15 or so more to go). The Heaven vs. Hell cooking contest finally finishes, which was good, since I getting tired of this particular battle, and it�s, um, difficult food (peta would not be very happy with what & how certain food is prepared and served). With both Jan and Gogyo being over the top egotistical maniacs, the story was starting to get a bit wearisome, and the other (and at times more interesting) characters were starting to be ignored. It looks like this may change a little bit with the next story.

6) I was on the roof sealing some damage when one of the neighborhood hawks flew by me, swooping past a couple of feet away on large outstretched wings. A half hour later I saw it dive into the top of the neighbor�s palm struggling with something. I initially though it might of been a rat or a squirrel, but it was actually tearing off part of an old palm frond. If for a nest, then hawk nests are made of sturdy stuff.

7) I saw The Cat Returns on a lazy Sunday morning spent watching cosas on TV. It was cute, the usual Miyazaki/Ghibli feature of excellent art, excellent execution, and perhaps relatively weak story, which was fine since there�s nothing wrong with cute fluff merely being cute fluff. Being a cat person probably helped in liking a fairy tale of a young woman learning self-confidence through with dealing magical creatures and the kingdom of cats.

I fast-forwarded through some of the extra features, only really registering that both the original Japanese voice actress for and American actor dubbing the main character Haru commented on how hard it was because Haru spent so much time yelling and screaming.

8) John�s decided to do another backyard show of his work in late April or early May which means I�ve only a month or so to put the back back into some semblance of order. Normally cleaning things up for company isn�t too much of a chore, but with all the rain we�ve had, I�ve mostly ignored the backyard for months now and it�s pretty much a mess of soggy things, dirty chairs, moss and algae. Eh, I�ll pull it together before then.

Hmm, last time John asked me to put together a playlist of music. I wonder what he�s say if for this one I suggested stuff likeFilthy Gorgeous, and Sex on wheels? Hehe.

more later,
nico

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