Yes, an actual series has a group of highly-functioning, super enthusiastic, oh-so-well-rounded young men — including a poet, two musicians, a jock, a gymnast, a martial artist, two former cheerleaders, and a Jersey Rapper — vying for the title of best human approximation of a Mattel icon.

“Genuine Ken” is an oxymoron for the ages. I read once that if Barbie with her physical proportions actually existed in reality, she’d be unable to stand upright and would have to move about on all fours. As for ladies’ man Ken, he was always more of a lifestyle accoutrement than an actual love interest, just Barbie’s illegitimate daughter Skipper had to live the lie of being passed off as her sister and black friend Francie was only a token curio. Phony white bitch.

Not sure what’s scarier — the idea that there are really damaged, infantile women who hold a Ken doll up as their ideal mate (that’s what Real Dolls are for, gals) or the realization that it’s this easy to assemble so many men who give off unsettling Andrew Cunanan vibes in one place.

Having said that, I’d still do Blockhead, Hairdo, and Eyebrows just for the hell of it.

There’s a traditional image we hold of Dad.

Clean-cut. Well-shaven. Khaki-clad. Ruggedly handsome without being hard-edged.

Tradition is one part expectation, one part wish fulfillment, and one part convenient denial.

The truth is, not every kid’s dad is a banker, car salesmen, or policeman. Some put food on the table by working as roustabouts, bounty hunters, cage fighters, bouncers, leg-breakers, and fetish porn models, and it’s long past time that we accept that reality. Some men just find being in suits suffocating, and it’s hard to list choke holds and roundhouses as bullet point skills on a resume. Should little Jimmy feel abashed when he delivers a report at school about what Dad does and reveals he carries brass knuckles instead of a Blackberry?

One man’s livelihood comes down to the mercy of the NASDAQ, the other knows all there is exists on the edge of a blade.

And yes, water parks emphasize proper attire to be worn by parents. T-shirts emblazoned with “Bros B4 Hos” or “Ass — The Other Vagina” are discouraged, but how can management ever hope to politely deal with the array of gang, biker, and prison tats turning up with increasing frequency on big, swaggering Dads with shaved pates and aggressive facial hair — all looking ready to headline Biker Pigs From Hell or Folsom Prison? As photographer Marc Fischer shows, it’s not as if they can just cover their Aryan iron eagles, pec swastikas, “Thug Life” gunslinger ab brands, and Devil’s Pentagram tattoos.

This is probably one of those instances when it’s best to simply defer to the instincts of those patriarchs with a ken for “keepin’ it real.”

You met him online and he seems like a real stud.

One thing leads to another and before you know it you’re building fantasies all over this guy. You’re nervous to arrange the date but his deep, masculine phone voice is everything you’ve been looking for from your ultimate fuck buddy.

It’s not until you enter his apartment that you’re confronted with the reality of your predicament: peach-scented candles, a collection of Gone With the Wind commemorative plates with certificates of authenticity from the Franklin Mint, a pastel-blue yarn toilet seat cover.

It’s too late to turn back, friend. You’ve entered the world of a Lurid Digs contender.

Of course if you’re lucky, Romeo will have posted images of himself online with indicative clues to his lack of taste before you ever arrive on the scene.

Each month, the readers of our sister site, Lurid Digs send us so many horrifying photos of their past, present, and potential online lovers surrounded by the type of carnage that we do so love to hate… it’s impossible for us to publish them all, but we sportingly keep trying.

It’s our mission to let the world know that no matter how hot a man is, if there is a giant pile of orange dog puppets behind him when he takes the shot for his profile, he’s probably not safe from scrutiny.

Visit the world of Lurid Digs now.

You’re going to heaven, bitch!

(read the full article)

It’s important to take a moment, sometimes, to admire the creativity of our fellow man. To smell the roses, among other things.

Here, a man celebrates his almost maternal, umbillical connection to a favorite feline friend. We aplaud his earnest tribute.

Also of interest: John Calendo’s Voluptuous Horror of Cats.

Herman smiles and Lilly drinks the blood of the 9/11 widows as the Kingdom of the Dead glitters below them.

Today the roles of Herman and Lilly will be played by right-wing blowhard Bill O’Reilly and the Funniest Ghoul to ever pollute the national dialog, the “beautiful” Ann Coulter. Is this your first meeting with The Munsters? Are you really that young, pumpkin?

Take our hand, child, and we will lead you to the Wikipedia. “The Munsters was a late 1960s American television sitcom, depicting the home life of a family of horror movie monsters.” Herman was modeled on Frankenstein and he towered above his weeds-dripping wife, Lily, modeled on Vampira. “Much of the humor,” continues the Wiki, “derived from the fact that they did not have the slightest idea that they were in any way different from their neighbors.”

Is this not a perfect description of Bill-o and the Sweetheart of Transylvania? (read the full article)

Ever wonder what the Salem witch trials must have looked like when the young girls went into mass hysterics? Screaming and tumbling and being fed upon by invisible black “witch birds?”

Or what Bedlam might have sounded like when the lunatics were hosed down for the entertainment of guided tours?

Behold our evangelical brothers and sisters in the grip of something called “Holy Laughter,” led by Reverend Kenneth “Papa” Hagen.

Beyond Beyond! (Hat tip to the Evangelical Right website.)

Prepare yourself to scream!

MONEY QUOTE: “…Until the day I give myself as a wedding gift to my husband.”

RUNNER UP: “You know, Dad, I don’t need boyfriends…”

There is an unmistakable grandeur to this photo and we are not sure at first if — but, of course, it is – a man.

It is titled Barcelona, most likely because that was the name this arresting creature went by. Certainly the photographer, Christer Stromholm, was associated with the sleazy-chic lowlights of Paris, circa 1960, and Madame Barcelona may have been one of the twilight demimondes on parade.

How she does gaze at us! The world-weary hauteur of it.

And while this picture certainly speaks one thousand — if not one million — words, Ian Jeffrey, the gifted blurb writer for The Photo Book, where it appears, manged to add a few devastating words of his own: (read the full article)

Aren’t babies beau-ti-ful?

Don’t you wish you could have 10 of them! All those little bundles of joy screaming in the adorable way they do? And they grow up to look just like you! What a tribute!

Only Diane Arbus, a photog- rapher with an eye for the gothic in ordinary life (whose pictures you see here), could capture the rude humanity of it all.

Ah, marriage and bay-bees!

Yeah, and the heteros can keep it, say we.

Tom Cruise, for instance. Katie Holmes, for another. What a couple! But Katie — is that a beach ball you’re wearing under your maternity top or have you just been going all Britney on the spare ribs? We loved how Defamer deconstructed a recent photo of Mama Cruise — or as they describes her, the “Scientology war bride”: (read the full article)