Everything was bigger in the ’80s.

The greed. The hair. The shoulder pads. The himbos.

The Me Decade was all about proving you had enough cash to provide you with leisure time, and the fads it introduced are aptly era-specific to a tone set by the excesses of A.L.F., Xanadu, and American Psycho. Dad frequented the sports bar, Mom had her aerobics classes, and the kids played Laser Tag at the video arcade.

Even the strip club became a legitimate business venture in Reagan America. Gone were the days of low-rent joints with seedy-looking women doing the Pony while having the DTs and just-out-of-the-joint ex-con rough trade shimmying to sleazy disco tracks; the men had their upscale gentlemen’s clubs where doctors, brokers, and lawyers could take in the buffet as they scoped out single mothers, dental hygiene students, and touring porn stars on the pole. (read the full article)

Nensha, bitches.

It’s a term I tangentially referred to in an earlier post this month, and a theory I’m frankly fascinated with.

Its essence is this: the human mind with all its untapped power has the ability to psychically impress or burn an image into our physical reality, and thus alter it irrevocably. Post-War Japanese researchers devoted much effort into proving its existence — it would later serve as the basis for the nation’s much-praised film Ringu and its equally effective American remake The Ring — but the doctrine was for decades deemed merely a The Men Who Stare At Goats-type of new age hokum. A flight of fantasy. A failure.

All that changed in 1999 when Nensha was revealed to be a wholly factual (and utterly terrifying) phenomenon brought about not to revolutionize telecommunications or create a super soldier, but from sheer corporate music industry greed and folly.

An affront to Nature of the highest order. (read the full article)

He’s gay, and boys, he’s OUT!
The Broadway Star We’d Most Like to Co-star With:
Cheyenne Jackson

George Orwell once said that a man has the face that he deserves at age 50. And while I’d agree with that sentiment as it relates to just about every single post 50-year-old walking the planet today — think Dick Cheney — I’d have to take exception with how that curse applied to Michael Jackson.

Dead at 50 and possessing a face with which no one should ever have to contend. Mike’s adult face was actually a mask. A direct creation of self-hatred, plain and simple. That and the way our own ghoulish fascination with his self-loathing spurred him on. An obsession that was prodded, secretly I think, by that part within each of us that dislikes parts of ourselves: wrinkles, sags, spots, dots; imperfection. Given unlimited wealth and time, Michael could nip, tuck, tweak and freak to his heart’s content. Only he could never get away from the self-loathing.

But enough bummer talk. Michael was a true blue puer aeternus … and no self-respecting puer, worth their essence in gold records, should ever live into his fifties. Michael was just taking leave on cue, true to his mythology. It makes perfect sense to me. (read the full article)

I Just Want to Fucking Dance, Part III
Part II
Part I

“Softness in his eyes, iron in his thighs, virtue in his heart, fire in every part – of the mighty Hercules!”

If the above lyrics from the Speed Racer-esque early ’60s cartoon The Mighty Hercules have a special place in your heart, then you are clearly both A) gay all the way, and B) a connoisseur of the countless costume epics churned out of Italy devoted to the heroic exploits of the famed demi-god Hercules.

In a time when legal hardcore porn was a good eight years away from becoming a reality, and people had to resort to more abstract forms of stroke-off fodder, the Sword and Sandal genre — christened Pepla in the land of its origin — was all the rage when it came to turning people on across the board.

Yes, the arena’s ostensible selling points were its gaudy period detail and awe-inspiring feats of manly prowess, but adults and kids alike were really grabbing groin at the sight of all that chasmic cleavage. And the ladies racks were nice too. (read the full article)

It’s like this for me:

Filed under: Gay Politics | Showbiz |
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