Snippets of ambient dialogue from the Folsom Street Fair:

— “Yeah, Brock, I totally learned this knot when I was in the Merchant Marines. It provides the security you need, but without the unsightly chafing, all the while accentuating the delicate curvatures of the torso and the sinewy undulations of the arms. I find the Hajime Sorayama aesthetic — the juxtaposition of the supple, pliant quality of flesh against the unyielding grip of the bonds — to be the most conceptually pure approach. Plus this hemp twine is both eco-friendly in form while durable in function!”

— “Tell me about function, Dan! These thigh-highs were not meant for prolonged periods of standing. I should’ve gone with a sensible pair of Bettie Page platforms like you did. Aw, well. They do make my ass look great! Fuck I’m thirsty! Are you thirsty? Do me a fave and gimme a sip of my Diet Coke, will ya? I’m gonna be here a while. My master’s having a major hissy because I hooked up with that muscle queen in the fishnet body stocking — the bitch!”

— “All I wanted was to get a caricature done, Tom! Maybe buy a souvenir snow globe! This is nothing like the brochure! And now that guy’s supermodel legs are making me feel all hippy! Take me home!”

Memo to Right Wing blowhard pundits: when your parody habitually outmans you in every department, admits his persona is an irredeemable narcissist, and looks like Gay Superman on an Aspen vacay while doing it, you’ve probably descended into utter irrelevance.

Representation.

It’s that pesky issue in politics, media, and athletics that daunts the minority figure; with visibility comes acceptance, and the lack of it only further ghettoizes difference. The military is in the spotlight currently, but it isn’t the only diffident macho setting that we give the collective side-eye to whenever a claim of being queer-free abounds.

I’ve personally never followed sports (when asked recently whether I would be tuning in for the Superbowl, I proceeded to hesitantly ask, “Now, that’s for baseball…right?”) because I can’t approximate grown men’s wide-eyed obsessions with the incredible ability to throw a ball through a hoop or a hit it with a stick.

Still, when it comes to the Winter Olympics, my only real interest is the speculation of who is, who isn’t, who’s in, who’s out, why it’s an issue, and why it shouldn’t be.

OutSports’ recent close-to-the-bone piece on the thorny path of the in-or-out gay Olympian has a myriad of salient points that casts the Athletic sector as the civilian equivalent of the military or the Boy Scouts: a “No Girls! No Fags!” club house that remains one of the last strongholds of little straight boys’ grown-up fantasy selves, the sort of Boys Own setting that would be somehow compromised if queers slipped in under the radar and showed they could compete in a real man’s world. Undercutting the cliche that with every token gay you get a defiant activist or an unruly upstart, the article — with its tellingly anonymous source — drives home how simply being an athlete without the G-modifier is just one more thing we can never simply take for granted. (read the full article)

OK, so as a sport, curling may rate up there with shuffleboard, and the exhilaration of watching men sweep may be lost on us, but goddamn if the Norwegian curling team’s incredible, triptastic, kaleidoscopic hipster pants don’t suddenly make it all watchable.

Is it simply a daring fashion statement? A gloriously Scandinavian sartorialism that’s all the rage in the streets of Oslo? A sly means of distracting opponents?

Some blessings are better left unquestioned.

Hat tip to Tara

Tonight’s Double Feature: Who’s Nailin’ Paylin and the, ahem, forthcoming Getting Levi’s Johnson.

Because it was inevitable.

It sounds so dated now, like Trickle-down Economics.

You know, because they both involve pissing on someone you think is beneath you.

“Opponents of this message, they’re seeking to marginalize this movement. They want to paint us as ideologically extreme and the counterpoint to liberal intolerance and outrageous conspiracy theorists aimed at our own government and unethical shameless tactics like considering a candidate’s children fair game. But unlike the elitists who denounce this movement — they just don’t want to hear the message — I’ve traveled across this great country and I’ve talked to the patriotic men and women who make up the Tea Party movement. And they are good and kind and selfless and they are deeply concerned about our country. And today I ask only this: Let’s make this movement a tribute to their good example…”

– from Sarah Palin’s Keynote Speech at the Inaugural Tea Party Convention

…and Alice just left the fucking table.

Now available on DVD.

And with that, the Doomsday Clock now reads 11:55.