Reader, you have to climb to the top of Mount Everest to get to the Valley of the Ho, Ho, Ho Big Giant. Visual aid at left.

If anyone is living a charmed life, surely it’s the porn stars. And yet, boys, guys, bros, believe it or not, they put on their jockstraps one leg at a time! Just like you and I!

And like the rest of us, porn stars are reporting back to work today, bleary-eyed and a bit unsteady on their pins, the confetti of Times Square and the glitter of 101 morning parties still embedded in the woof (woof!) and weave of their well-tanned flesh.

Ah yes: New year; same old same old. Wouldn’t you know it: they’re just working stiffs, after all — if somewhat stiffer than the temp agency usually sends out.

And in their own way, they are joining the universal chorus or Workers United. But that’s not the Internationale the comrades are singing. No, this is a hip-hop vocalaise, a beatbox anthem to the acquisition of More, More, More. More bling, gaudy and gold and made out of chrome

All together now. Shake those money-makers. Do that thang. And the colored girls sing: Welcome to Hell. Welcome to Hell. Let us show you to your desk. (more…)

Have you ever wondered about the rampant gayface you see on professional homophobes?

Take a look at this gallery of “manly” faces — the simpering Gary Bauer, the Golly Gee eyed Peter LaBarbera, the pudding-faced Robert Knight — all of them spokesman for organizations that freak out regularly over gay civil rights — the so-called “gay agenda.”

In point of fact, it is these spokesman for Christian-front organizations with names like Americans for the Truth about Homosexuality (a one-man operation by nutjob LaBarbera) and Concerned Women for America (odd isn’t it, for a man — pudgy-wudgy Robert Knight — to be the head of a woman-specific organization)… it is these Concerned Morons for Homophobia that have the agenda — a theocratic one.

But that’s not all they have. These Prisoners of the Inappropriate Gayface also possess an oddly fine tuned gaydar that goes off — in full, flaming four-alarm mode — at the first breath of a whisper, at the teeniest hint of gender “confusion” in Barbie dolls, at the “blatant gay militancy” to be found on the cardboard cups at Starbucks , at the softest rustling in the bushes … (more…)

It seems like we scan a thousand blogs each week. Queer blogs especially. It’s an occupational hazard. We understand that. But does the process need to be so painful?

Not everyone, god love ‘em, has the creative wherewithal to pull something together that warrants regular eyeballing — be that journalistically or graphically. Given that folks don’t really read anymore, the importance of an original visual theme for a blog is doubly important. That was our criteria this year for choosing Nightcharm’s second annual Queer Blog of the Year Award.

And the winner for 2007 is: (more…)

Titian. Red Blond. Ginger. Strawberry Blond.

Orange Red. Auburn. Copper Blond. Burnt Orange.

Redheads may come in a variety of shades, but we’ll never mistake that for being prosaic. Only an estimated one to two percent of the earth’s population can say they boast natural red tresses. Scarcity breeds a fetishistic cred.

That’s why we love our Copper Tops.

Running your fingers through a fiery red brush cut. Clasping rippling porcelain flesh. Beholding a golden red trim line south of the navel (now forever known as the Fire Crotch). Having a pair of glacial blue eyes gaze up at you … or down at you … or back at you with wild carnal abandon. These are the few moments in life that can truly be called rapturous.

Though it’s often bemoaned that women are the ones typed by hair color in popular movies, literature and culture at large, men are ultimately just as branded by their locks. Brunets are sultry and intense, while blonds are vivacious and doe-eyed ingenues. Just a passing glance through the last bastion of every hoary pulp convention — the daytime soap — will suffice to evince that maxims are deathless.

But redheads? They’re the wild cards that break from the pack and run the gamut. Down through the epochs they’ve been cast as firecrackers with blazing tempers, fearless and brazen non-conformists, comical rogues, formidable heroes, deviant tricksters and tarty jesters. (more…)

A killer physique. A physique killer…

Few genres can boast the instant familiarity and immediate gratification of the Slasher Film: flat-as-cardboard characters, depthless locales where phones and car engines never function at pivotal moments, masked killers with impossibly convoluted modus operandi and the ability to be in multiple places at once.

It’s a world that thrives on its predictability. Rarely is the formula turned on its head and even less frequently is it even asked to.

The latest variation: hot, ripped bodybuilders in mortal peril.

It’s the inspired premise for Sceamkings.com’s Beef: You Are What You Eat.

The independent studio — known for its focus on young men as predators and prey — dispenses with standard-issue sorority girls and cheerleaders who utter lines like “A job at a summer camp plagued by a history of murders where no one can possibly hear me scream? Where do I sign up?!” and “We’ll never get our comeuppance for that prank we played on that emotionally fragile freshmen!”.

Here the victims are statuesque musclemen short of clothes and on the make for their big breaks. Gone are the slumber parties, prom nights and dorms that drip blood in favor of the amateur bodybuilder arena and aspiring fitness model meatrack.

Even the movie’s resident maniac is neither a masked boogeyman nor a spindly twerp, but a collegiately-handsome (if non-anabolically enhanced) head case hacking his way through an assortment of doomed hard bodies, his identity unconcealed by Whodunit? red herrings.

That scantily-clad male models and a murder motivation that centers around frustrated bodybuilding dreams play integral roles in the plot are enough to propel this low-budget wonder into the narrow Queer Horror niche. (more…)