boy culture

The Male Gaze

I'm loving the new Advocate re-design, starting with the cleaner (inspired by Entertainment Weekly?) cover (October 23, 2007). Deserving coverboy is Matthew Rhys of Brothers & Sisters—and he looks good inside, too, just like the magazine itself:

He's my Brother.

The Advocate also offers Bobby Cannavale, who's played gay more often than Travolta's played straight:

Is Bobby your hobby?

Milo Ventimiglia reveals the results of his newfound devotion to his body on the cover of Men's Fitness (October 2007). Sure, he was already a lifelong vegan, but he discovered you can still eat pizza every day as a vegan. He no longer does that and looks great. My Hero!:

The kind of body 18-year-old girls can't resist.

Carmine Giovinazzo of CSI:NY is also featured in Men's Fitness as one of TV's fittest men. There are 14 others besides him, and I haven't heard of most of them but they're much more clothed so no harm, no foul:

If loving his body is a crime...

Finally, Entertainment Weekly (October 19, 2007) offers its Photo Issue, which is stacked with gorgeous portraiture. Nothing tops the "Parting Shot" page—a lingering look at Patrick Dempsey in repose:

McDreamy, McSteamy—just McDoMe.

Oh Fathers

I was watching a special on LOGO about adoptive gay parents and it reminded me of a feeling I once had as a kid while watching some local, televised pitch to adopt animals from a shelter. I remember the shelter had these cats and dogs that were in many ways perfectly cute, but some had issues, such as they were old or were not recommended for households with children or were blind or had medical concerns. I remember it was made clear that if you wished to adopt them, there was some kind of fee to be paid to the shelter—probably just the Humane Society—in the neighborhood of $30 because you could not take them without getting them all their appropriate shots. My feeling as a kid was, "Wait, why would I want some old one-legged cat if I have to do extra stuff to get it, like pay $30, when I can get a perfectly nice, four-legged kitten for free from any cardboard box set up in any yard along my street?" FREE KITTENS was the most commonly seen sign in my 'hood growing up, then I went to college and it was FREE MANDELA and now working as a magazine publisher it's just FREE.

Now, kids are not kittens, but it seems like it's the same catch—there are tons of kids who are already born, some of whom have issues, and even though anyone can crawl on top of someone of the opposite gender and wind up with a kid free and clear, if you want one of these less desirable kids, these kids who agencies practically have to beg you to adopt, you have to go the extra mile. You have to prove to them you have a safe home and one that is conducive to child-rearing; you can't be a felon; you gotta know CPR. I'm pretty sure the percentage of birth parents who know CPR is far lower than the percentage of Americans who would definitely vote for Hillary Clinton (it's 22%...which gave her the highest "would definitely vote for" among Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, by the by), and we all know that felons have babies—lots of them. But because the state is involved and can not be party to a FREE KIDS mentality any more than they can be party to a FREE KITTENS one, all these hoops must be jumped through by prospective parents.

King Day Is Queen's Day

Happy birthday to my mom, Linda, who defies age and decorum with great wit and beauty. This not-that-old picture of us together pretty much sums up her sense of humor. It's Martin Luther King Jr.
Day, which is important, but first and foremost it's my mother's birthday—she didn't do anything to improve racial equality but dammit she's alive! [I stand corrected. My mother claims to have promoted racial equality. So we'll put her somewhere between Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. and call it a (National Holi-)day.]