Prove it!

As of midnight last night, it was exactly six years since my first post. It's been a tough thing to keep up with a dayjob and outside activities, and just when I think I might walk away, a valuable connection or interesting opportunity or a kind word comes my way. Thank you all for reading me.

Of whom are you more jealous?

Here are my favorite 100+ posts out of nearly 11,000. Please take some time to read (or re-read!) a couple and tweet or Facebook any you like.

xoxo Matt

The pocket pool championships were intense this year

BOY CULTURE

Boy-crazy

FROM BOY TO MAN: BC B.C. (2007): The entire history of my novell and novel Boy Culture as well as the movie version; might be my ultimate post.

Jonathon Trent & Derek Magyar make an Allan Brocka sandwich

BOY ON FILM (2006): An account of the NYC launch party for Boy Culture as it played the TriBeCa Film Fest.

I was left "Reeling" by the experience

FRIENDS AND "FAMILY" (2006): The movie version of Boy Culture hits Chicago.

No one would've mistaken me for Taylor Lautner

RAPT PUPIL (2006): The final night of Outfest with Boy Culture; I was fat but on the other hand got to meet Bryan Singer.

 

MY ART

 

Construction worker (shot this week) vs. James Dean

GUYDAR (since at least January 17, 2008) & ENDS OF THE WORLD (since at least January 13, 2008): Attractive men of the world—I got your backs. Your fronts, too.

i-i-i (phone)

Not totally built

Unaltered iPhone image that still blows me away

"Your pictures suck" (2008): An art critic attacks me, but not without sustaining some hits in return.

Let's call it a draw

DRAWN TOGETHER (2008): How my desire to draw related to my secret desire. One of my absolute favorite posts.

The shirtless one

LOST ANGELES (2009): My favorite photographic travelogue of L.A.

Even then, New Yorkers feared 9/11 was the beginning of the end

ART IMITATES LIFE (2006): My 9/11 and my distaste for grief tourism.

ME

Death of the party—Jeff in high school, already halfway through his life

BURNING MAN (2007): Tribute to my late high school friend and first romance.

Signed, sealed (eventually) delivered

LOST BOY FOUND (2011): There is a book in here somewhere.

Be Italian

CIAO HOUNDS: OUR TRIP TO ITALY (2011): Finally got José to Europe.

Death becomes here

ILLINOIS DEATH TRIP (2007): Ruminations on death while revisiting a past home, and the past.

Life is short...and meaningful

PASSING BY (2008): Mourning the loss of a person I only met once.

Lots more...

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) returns to Congress just in time to help the debt-ceiling compromise pass, 269-161. Something Reagan did by a far greater percentage—and much faster!—than the two Democratic presidents who came after him.

The first photos of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) post-shooting have been released, and she's looking remarkably well just six months after being shot in the head. Great to see her, and to see her smiling.

Vote with your wallet—vote against this "anarcho-capitalist"

If you thought Sarah Palin's "lame map" (per Rush Limbaugh) with crosshairs over Arizona was in poor taste, what about the blog by Travis Corcoran, a Massachusetts-based comic-book retailer? His blog post on the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords is entitled "1 Down, 534 To Go," and reads:

Daniel Hernandez Jr. Is ready for public life at the tender age of 20...he's remarkably composed under national scrutiny and so genuine. A humble hero—the best kind!

Watch him talk with Keith Olbermann after the jump...

I found the memorial in Tucson to be riveting. I was surprised by the cheers (it reminded me of when Madonna talked about "AIDS, the greatest scourge" at a concert and people applauded wildly) but I totally get it; it's defiance against the act of violence and a refusal to be glum and defeated. The sign in the crowd—"We Will Heal!"—read more to me as: "We WILL Heal!"

Sarah Palin doesn't like be accused of having anything to do with the Arizona massacre—fair enough, so issue a statement saying so, but be a stateswoman and say you still regret the crosshairs. Instead, she issues an eight-minute statement accusing her detractors of "blood libel" for suggesting her rhetoric was beyond the pale. Yeah, her rhetoric isn't that bad, she just throws around phrases like "blood libel" to defend herself. (Does she even know what the phrase means? Does she want to be sure no Jews like her at all?)

Based on his mugshot, above, Arizona shooter Jared Lee Loughner clearly slid a long ways from wherever he was MENTALLY when the below was taken. He looks Mansonesque. A close friend recounts how he "radically" changed from when they first met to just a short time later.

...

Sarah Palin's crosshairs ad was reprehensible when it first came out, not only because someone on it has now been shot—related or unrelated. But the person who should really be coming under scrutiny is Jesse Kelly, who challenged Gabrielle Giffords for her seat. His ads and campaign rhetoric were explicitly gun-heavy—he's the chap who ran an ad in June that said, "Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly." I'd like to hear more from him regarding whether or not he feels he went too far with his words and imagery.