Celebrities, Film

For the first time I watched Whitney’s “Bodyguard” movie.

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I was really impressed, especially with her emotion.  The writing wasn’t always spot on, but it was a good watch and had some unpredictable surprises.  The most poignant moment for me was the way they weaved the Dolly Parton song in as a country song first.  Having it reworked the way it was to express something so different in such a different genre shows the universality of good music.  I’ve always loved Dolly’s writing and I still think she’s underrated for the genius she is.

I really enjoyed the colorblind casting as well.  This was the first big hit of a movie I believe to do that, but it was in Whitney’s other favorite movie of mine (made for TV) which contained nothing but Rogers & Hammerstein songs that was truly colorblind.  In Cinderella with Brandy as the princess (casting suggested by Whitney herself when she had decided she was too old to play the role herself and instead played a young fairy godmother), Whoopi Goldberg and a white man had an Asian son, for example.  The entire medieval town had people of all shades, especially within families.

I hope people enjoy this picture I include of Whitney which I had never seen until after she died and I found it from what I believe was a European magazine spread.

I cried when she died because like Michael Jackson, she was definitely part of my life’s soundtrack.

Pets

Wherefore Art Thou, Capulet?

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After Bobby came home through the garage (where the dogs generally come and greet us), for what seemed like an eternity, we couldn’t find Capulet (Cappy). I checked in her usual hiding places, like under my bed, and was horrified to see that she wasn’t there. The other day she had inadvertently been locked into the garage for an hour or two, and one time Monte had snuck into the car overnight and very contently remained awaiting me finding him in the driver’s seat the next morning, even though that too scared the hell out of me at first.

So tonight Bobby immediately helped me call for her outside in the rain while I watched cars speed by on our busy street and looked for her in desperation. It was a nightmare, but then I thought to check the nooks and crannies of the house to see if somehow she had been locked into a room by accident, which would have been the most logical explanation. One time at a party she had snuck out to the front porch and just layed down by the screen waiting for someone to come get her. I was so glad to see she wasn’t so curious that she had to run, but that was before she started heat. Now that she has been fixed, I think this will be less of a concern, but she had started heat when she got spayed.

So in the end she apparently had slipped around the babygate to the basement and was sitting on the steps silently waiting for me to see her wagging her tail there in the dark. Needless to say, my heart was speeding, but Bobby was just as concerned and immediately dropped his cooking dinner to rush outside and help me look for her. On top of the rain and the speeding cars, there are also big raccoons that wander our neighborhood.

Anyway, she’s home safe and sound and never really went anywhere, thankfully. Sometimes I wish she was more than five and half pounds!

California, Photos, Travel

SoCal Trip – end of 2011, beginning of 2012

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First I went to Los Angeles (just before the rash of car bombings ).  I mostly hung out with my friend Cody:

Next was Palm Springs (where I am pictured in my friend’s salon):
Lastly (for New Year’s) was San Diego where my host, Craig, took me on some great drives, including to Mount Helix:
Gay

UPDATE: Bearwww Webmaster is a Reasonable Man

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After some good dialogue with the webmaster at Bearwww, I’m happy to report that he has come to see my side of the story and I will document the great ideas that we have been sharing with each other about how everyone can be happy and he continue (hopefully with my help) to improve the community even in parts of the world where men still feel like they have to remain closeted.

I highly recommend that all of those fellow disenfranchised men who thought bear411 was the only site where they could meet men of our ilk, consider just using the bearwww to increase the critical mass there, which is far more rational and just as potentially useful as bear411 is to meeting men locally and transnationally.

California, Gay

How Gay is Trader Joe’s?

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Understimulated with my usual Safeway and Lucky choices for groceries, I decided to splurge a bit and do some really good organic hunting for food (the ketchup remains to be tried for edibility). I didn’t even bother looking through the peanut butters. There are just some things that I think are worthless without corn syrup, sorry!

The moment I walked in, I struck gold (not grocery-wise)! What before my eyes did appear? A woofy fully-bearded man in a kilt — but it gets better! He was an EMPLOYEE. This is Castro Valley, a relatively conservative suburb near a working class suburb that I actually live in, although it’s relatively progressive compared to many parts of the world and the country. Then I started observing that some of the other employees were bearded and handsome and seemed to love working there, and I know one of them did a double take when he saw me. He was a ruggedly handsome, silver-haired foxy cub type and I felt coy when he seemed to followed me down some aisles with the excuse to sort some product, which required that he step away from his register. He was adorning shorts and spandex sleeves (which are pretty sexy). I had never seen attire like that before, but I suspect they were to keep his arms warm while still being able to wear a short-sleeved shirt to mitigate the draft as the registers are right by the automatic doors. It does get brisk in the evenings in California.

We made idle chit-chat and hopefully he noticed I waited in a longer line just to have him be my cashier. Among other things I said, “it looks like it’s fun to work here.” With all the creatively-pierced guys working there, and the metrosexual and gay guys who come in for their macrobiotic food, I can only imagine that it’s a hospitable place for flirtation, even if just an oasis outside of the Mecca of San Francisco across the bay.

Gay

Venting: Closet Freak Imbeciles Are a Dime a Dozen

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So on a daily basis since I first got online at the very beginning of what we now know as the internet and came out, men have contacted me without a face, even though it’s almost impossible not to have a digital image of yourself these days. I usually tear them a new one and go ballistic, and have been criticized for it, but my logic is: I’m never going to meet these people who are that closeted anyway for innumerable reasons, nor is there any chance I’d run into them at any gay venue where they’d have to show their face without adorning a bag over it, and they were de facto rude to me first, so I have nothing to lose by trying to teach them a lesson that their neglectful parents didn’t teach them about common courtesy.

Once in a great while, one of them will understand my humor and come around to realize that they are completely rude and should atone for their contacting me under those shady circumstances, but I won’t hold my breath for anyone who took the time to post a faceless profile and seek me out.

A few days ago I was asked for my email address so that one of these headless torsos could send me his picture. I had started off with my usual, “if your face is too fucking ugly to post and you’re too dumb to even post a private picture that you choose to unlock for me, you are not worth it,” but he was insistent that he could email his face to me (behind his wife’s back, no doubt).

So I feigned acquiescence by providing one of the creative addresses I come up with for these people and for my own amusement, assuming that they would get my point. This time I said:

“Sure! Go ahead and send them to yourmotherisawhore@closetfreak.com”

Would you believe he wrote back “sent”?

Hello from Vallejo, California!