We’re just crazy for this guy’s …

… wait for it …

Eyes!

The last time we saw eyes this dark and soulful was in a painting by Ingres.

It’s the sort of gaze known as penetrating.

Penetrating, indeed!

He seems to look so deeply into us that our spine begins to tingle.

For starters.

And then there’s that name. Bam Bam So nice you have to say it twice!

It’s a nickname for sure, but we don’t think it has anything remotely to do with The Flintstones. It’s the kind of name a guy sort of acquires. A name given to him by other boys. Actions, you will recall, speak oh so much louder than words.

Now readers of these pages know how often we feature … um .. college boys and … cough … fratmen. Bam Bam is also enrolled in a university of sorts. The university of the streets — “the floating world” to use Mishima’s lovely phrase for it. Here today, gone tomorrow. Making his own way in the world. Living by his wits.

And, we’d like to think, by the kindness of many strangers.

We wish we could tell you more about our new discovery — beyond, say, that we’ve accepted him as our personal savior. But really what more is there to say of Bam Bam? Only the most profound thing of all:

He makes us happy. He puts the bop in the Bop Sha-bop Sha-bop. He puts the ram in the Rama Lama Ding Dong.

Bam Bam is the latest — oh, let’s call him Seeker of Truth — to join our gallery of Seattle Boys. He’s waiting in our Inner Circle to penetrate much more than your soul.

(MEMBERS / non-MEMBERS)

Why is this man smiling so damn hard? Hanging on to that shiny happy glow like his life depended on it?

In many way, it does:

Pastor Ted, head of a megachurch in Colorado that has become the most politically connected church in the country, a man who has the President’s ear in weekly telephone chats, an organizer and instigator of anti-gay legislation across the country — and not just anti-gay marriage, that’s too easy, anti-gay civil unions, anti-gay benefit coverage for domestic partners, anti-gay rights to parent your own child if you are the gay spouse in a divorce — Pastor Ted Haggard had to resign as president of the National Association of Evangelicals last night after a male escort claimed he had been having a 3-year sex-for pay relationship with the minister.

Haggard denies the accusation but took an immediate leave of absence from his church while a panel of church elders investigates the matter. The escort, who said he was prompted by Haggard recent anti-gay activity, has released tapes of phone messages (you can hear them here) that a voice expert has certified as scientifically matching up with Haggard’s vocal signature. (more…)