Gentlemen, your body is a follicular battlefield.

The male identity conundrum of the moment is body waxing. When to do it? How much is too much? Should we even be bothering at all? Is the aesthetic pressure placed for centuries upon the female form striking back at us like a livid rattlesnake clutched by the tail?

The full-throttle nether region wax — dubbed “the Boyzilian” in beauty industry vernacular — is not unlike the Gaza Strip: sacred ground for those male specimens stridently opposed to intimate grooming and an area destined for occupation by those keen on altering the lay of the land. The struggle for manly self-definition may at last be reaching a tipping point; more men are apparently opting for yea rather than nay.

David Beckham — he of the blissfully unthinking visage and Neoclassical physique — and his recent underwear-clad Armani fashion spread have only made the trend that much more discernible. The footballer’s silky bikini line has accrued as much scrutiny as his cod piece-worthy groin. With the heartthrob-of-the-moment and other depilitated notables caught in the flash bulb going flush below their equators, salons are reporting an influx of men from all walks of life following suit. Not just your uptown Patrick Batemanesque power brokers either. Construction workers and other hands-on types are reported to be the most surprising converts. (more…)

Most of us know the frustration of finding that every guy who piques our interest already has another draped over his shoulder, in what looks like romantic bliss, leaving us high and dry. The question, “why are the good guys taken?” seems to be a conspiracy of fate.

Granted, a universally-desirable man (if there is such a thing) should have an easier time finding a mate quickly. But shouldn’t there be a constant supply of new men arriving on the scene when they reach 21? And it begs the question — does the fact that we’re still single mean that we’re not one of the “good” ones?

There’s a more familiar form of the adage, though; one that lets us know the phenomenon is mainly a matter of perception. It states, “why are all the good guys taken — or gay.”

To straight women, dating is tough, but that elusive otherworld of clean-cut, sensitive, articulate homosexuals - to them tauntingly out of reach - is full of opportunities they would be lucky to pursue, or so insists the joke. Gay men know it doesn’t work quite that way; we aren’t partnering up with ideal mates at the snap of a finger. We aren’t seeing perfection pop out ripe between the cantaloupes in the supermarket. And we don’t quite fit that description ourselves. Some sort of “the grass is always greener” scenario is at play. (more…)

“I have seen the future and it does not work…”

The ’70s were the decade when America officially lost faith in the myths of the Eisenhower Era. They had it all: an energy crisis, contentious battles over civil rights, religion encroaching upon government, a futile and ill-conceived war, a rancidly corrupt president, and The Gong Show.

In the Double ’00s, everything old is new again.

The way forward is the way back and all the answers to our current plights are a NetFlix click away: the failed aversion therapy of A Clockwork Orange, genocidal race wars of The Planet of The Apes series, King Kong enslaved as Big Oil’s unwilling corporate spokesmodel, and Charlton Heston (of all people) playing a corporate whistle-blower in Soylent Green and the emancipator of an Earth-inheriting group of… the brown people… in The Omega Man.

And then came Zardoz.

Thousands of years after global wars have nearly eradicated humanity, Earth’s vestiges are divided into two factions: the Brutals – lowly, debased agrarians whose numbers are held in check by Uncle Tom members of their own ranks dubbed the Exterminators – and the Immortals, a ruling class of intellectuals dwelling in decaying opulence within a green zone called the Vortex. God has (finally!) made himself physically manifest in the avatar of an immense levitating head called Zardoz.

The Ten Commandments can suck it now that the world’s flimsy pretense of social order has crumbled. All the Bible-thumping fire and brimstone bullshit has lashed-back on itself. Murder really is the answer to dealing with our conflicts. Zardoz may be divine, but he sure has some earthly vested interests, mainly in having in the Brutals’ crops shoved into his maw as tribute. Best of all, the meeting of peen and snatch is now the ultimate sin, each new birth an abomination in the eyes of Zardoz. (more…)

When I accepted an Obama pride sticker from a campaign volunteer at Denver’s Pridefest in June 2007 — in my first interaction with the campaign — I said, “I’m probably voting for Hillary, but Obama’s cool.”

Over a year later after proudly toting Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope, supporting Barack in the primaries (with a pang of regret for Hillary Clinton), spending hundreds of hours following news as a political junkie, volunteering at the Obama campaign office and canvassing for Obama with a different organization this fall, I’m watching the country stand ready to elect Barack Obama president.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that 40 years after the end of legal segregation and just 5 after the launch of the war in Iraq — a day when compassion and intelligence were reviled as dangerous ideas — could we as a nation be where we are today, with a man named Barack Obama in reach of the presidency. (more…)