That guy.

We’ve all encountered him at one point or another. A big, swaggering no-neck as full of himself as he is protein shakes and Creatine.

He could be a construction worker, drill sergeant, police officer, lunkhead gym teacher, or gym rat fixture.

He’s vain, ego-driven, loud, devoid of a selfless thought in his head and prone to flaunting his body — all attributes that should make him a complete turn-off. Yet, on some primal level, he arouses us against all reason. While we may hate ourselves for it, that distinct urge to put him over a chair and jack hammer away at his adamantine loins gets the better of us.

Champion bodybuilder Brad Hollibaugh is that guy. At least onscreen. In real life he’s a recognizable name on the bodybuilding circuit, holder of countless titles, a former college wrestler, a father and grandfather, as well as a soft-spoken gentlemen who just happens to be built like Hercules.

Thanks to the cottage industry of self-produced Muscle Worship DVDs, he’s become a bona fide sex symbol, not quite Porn Star, not quite performance artist. His persona comes straight out of Archie Comics and mail order Charles Atlas ads: the dreaded Muscle Bully played to the hilt. Via his web cam and DVDs, we get to experience this unique specie’s daily life, be it measuring his massive biceps, showering languidly, singing his own praises, or admiring himself in front of his mirror, mirror on the wall.

Of course Mr. Hollibaugh’s confirming what we’ve always suspected: the Muscle Monster is a skilled cock tease who just loves to be admired and really doesn’t care who’s doing the eyeballing as long as he’s the center of attention. Hollibaugh actually gets the irony he’s playing at and what makes his act all the more glorious to behold is his genuine wide-eyed rollicking in his own astoundingly pneumatic bod. Few men can claim to inspire such a collective case of blue balls as this man does. (more…)

Big boys and Christmas!

Tis the season when Bears go wild.

Maybe it’s because they’re such hunks of funk –between the beards and the cigars and the barrel chests. Maybe it’s because they’re so obviously loaded with testosterone.

But when Bears let go, they really let it ride, all of it.

At left we have the classic Bear in his excellence, photographed by Bearfighter, who specializes in the Bears of Europe. The Christmas Tree and While House are courtesy of Nightcharm, of course, and Photoshop.

Certainly this gruff-looking number is the dream Bear, with each aesthetic nuance calibrated just right. Natch, he’s uncut, being a Frenchman. Would a dream Bear be any other way?

All well and good for the Bear in Babeland, for the perfect Bear who is at one with Plato’s eternal forms. But what happens in the wilder woods of the real world? After that one eggnog too many? When our Bear is big enough and bold enough? When he’s too legit to quit? (more…)

“I think the human body is a remarkable machine in all its shapes and sizes,” says Portuguese artist HvH.

This refreshing point of view is exactly what drew us to the artist’s graphic celebration of bears and even overweight men.

When we asked if he were attracted perhaps exclusively to bears, HvH gave us the sort of answer that — while it let slip nothing really personal — seemed to embrace all humanity:

“I am linked to the ‘bears movement’ but only because I started showing my erotic work on a bears website,” he said. “Even there, I drew all sorts of characters: young, old — bears, twinkies, transsexuals. Men and women.”

In a world of gay art that magnifies standard perfection and beguiles us with studly impossibilities, HvH strikes out for wider vistas and undiscovered continents, where the natives, with their chunky down-to-earth bodies and odd “imperfections,” are just as hot and universal yet so different from the sons of Tom of Finland that we know and love back home. (more…)

“My models are sort of the strongmen of my dreams,” Michael Alago told us when we first ran a piece on his hot-daddy photobook rough gods.

Now he tells us he’s working on a new book, due out next summer, called road trips. And guess what? — it will feature even more of those big, nasty, tattooed Daddies that made our heart go pitter-pat the first time around.

“Most of the men I shoot are in their 30’s and 40’s,” Michael confides, adding “I love this age group, especially when a mature man has a big hulky body and a daddy-like quality. These men exude sex. They have lived their lives and it shows in the way they carry themselves.”

Ah yes, big-titted pecs and a dirty look — always pure heaven!

And can we make a confession of our own? We can never look at Michael’s men without feeling like a character in Gaywyck, that dizzy homo retelling of Jane Eyre where the prose runs the deepest purple. (more…)

The odds on Vito Spatafore surviving are running 6 to 1 — against. That’s the buzz over at the Pinaccle Sports website, where bets are placed each week on which Sopranos character will be whacked next

Ever since the tubby Mafioso was discovered at a gay bar in leather regalia and ass-out chaps by two thugs, who happed to be there to pick up a kickback, the death clock has started ticking on the Sopranos hitman.

That was a month ago. Since then Vito has disappeared himself to New Hampshire and — straining belief as Vito is weighing in there at a waddling 260 pounds — snagged himself a humpy bi-curious volunteer fireman (below). And this fireman is a piece of work, in the Hells Angels Daddy-o mode, complete with Harley and zippery leather jacket. (UPDATE: But see the discussion of chubbies and chubby chasers in the comment area, below) (more…)

Butch-rugged handsome and nerve-rattling raunchy, foul-mouthed fuck machine Jon Vincent was the Barbra Streisand of queer porn: Always the center, larger than life and fueled by a self-loving vulgarity that made his performances Legend. Like Streisand, Vincent never allowed himself to just “play a role,” he was too intent on topping — and stopping — the show.

His mix of gay for pay ingredients was crazy-making and classic: “Straight,” married and a father — Vincent was a professional baseball player turned competitive bodybuilder who decided to hustle and make porn as something fun to do on the side — and to support his nascent drug habit. His on-set verbal pyrotechnics, merciless ass-poundings and danger-level testosterone made him neon and golden within the grindingly boring world of faked butchness queer porn. It didn’t hurt that he developed a reputation for off camera aggressiveness too, striking terror into mild-mannered co-stars and easy-going directors. Vincent was an unruly handful — and we loved him for it. (more…)

Nasty guys are — and always will be — dynamite queerbait: The fuck-you stances, the big-armed tattoos, the strutting in-your-face dickyness. Capturing the dangerous aura of testosterone that envelopes these men is a tricky business, but Michael Alago, a music producer only recently turned photographer, has done just that in his new self-published monograph rough gods. (more…)

It’s been a tale of two presidents this week in Rome. One is an international rock star, the other a despised yahoo. One was impeached for lying about a blow-job he got in private (a lie that harmed absolutely no one) and the other was re-elected though he declared war based on lies and willful self-deception (a web of deceit that has so far killed 1,500 Americans and wounded 12,000 more.)

Rome, the Eternal City, has seen them come and seen them go, of course. So we shouldn’t be surprised if even in docile Vatican Square, a certain Roman jaundice yellows the eye: (more…)