Gayish.

Taylor Dayne’s “Tell It To My Heart” video

Once I get my mind set on something, I need to bring it to resolution or I’ll just obsess and obsess about it until I drive myself and everyone else around me stark raving mad.

Earlier today, I rattled off a bunch of songs that I was going to listen to on the way back to work in an effort to improve my mood. It worked, especially when I listened to Taylor Dayne’s “Tell It To My Heart” from 1986. I hadn’t seen the video since 1990 or so, but I found a really crappy copy of it on YouTube.

The little hottie I was lusting after back in the day is to Taylor’s right, complete with bleach spilled jeans, leather gloves with no fingers and innocent looks. His short hair (somewhat of a rarity back in ’87) certainly helped matters. While watching the video tonight he kicked off my gaydar a bit too.

Of course Taylor Dayne rocks and now I’m going to go out and buy the DVD with all her videos. The eye candy in her first video won’t hurt matters much, either.

I was surfing around aimlessly on the internet and came across an old crush from my childhood days. Always a huge superhero fan, I had a crush on John Davey as Captain Marvel, from the live action Shazam! Saturday morning show from the mid 1970s.

Here he is pictured with another favorite superhero, Isis.

There were two different Captain Marvels in the three season live action series. Captain Marvel was first played by Jackson Bostwick, who left halfway through the second season and was replaced by John Davey. I never really had a thing for Mr. Bostwick as a kid but I always found Mr. Davey quite “dreamy”. I always admired his firm jaw and hint of 5 o’clock shadow. He was built like a normal guy, not a body builder. When he handed out his pearls of wisdom he seemed comforting.

A little Googling turned up little on what John Davey is up to these days, whereas Jackson Bostwick has his own website. Maybe I need to switch search engines.

This could be a “too much information” entry for the squeamish. If you press BACK on your browser you’ll be ejected from your seat immediately. Thank you.

As I just typed the title of this blog entry I realized that it could be a really good porn video title. Picture it, two men have hired a domestic; a houseboy from Oklahoma who’s never been in the big city before. He cleans only in his skivvies or better yet, completely nude. Well, he can still wear his cowboy hat. He is innocently dusting off a steam radiator, which happens to be leaking steam, bringing beads sweat to his broad, muscular, hairy chest, when we, I mean the guys in the video, happen to spot him bending over to pick up something that has fallen on the floor…

O.k., I better stop now.

Anyways, I sometimes wonder how couples manage to get initmate during the holidays. I really don’t understand how straight couples manage it at all with families to juggle and all that. Kids running around, banging on the door, demanding one last glass of water or a reprive from the boogie man in the closet, where does one find the time?

I’m often chattering in my blog that I’m not a morning person. I’m not. Except when it comes to lovemaking. I love to wake up in the mid-morning, roll over and tap the bear lying in the bed (hopefully it’s Earl!) next to me with a hopeful, aggressive, yet innocent look on my face. Bat, bat, bat go the eyes. That most of the time. Sometimes I like to roll over, shake the bear next to me awake (hopefully it’s Earl!) and say, “I want to ^@*#$ right now!”. You can use your imagination for the verb of that last sentence.

This morning I did the coy routine when I awoke. At least I was about to when some crazy neighbor lady started banging on the door (and he deflates) shrieking about the cat she has in her house. She wants to know if it belongs to us. Earl pads down stairs in his barefeet and informs her that we have our own cat and he happens to be in the house. “Where did he come from? What does he look like?” So Earl shows Tom to the neighbor who proclaims, “Oh, that’s not him.” From there the conversation got really murky. So Earl kind of shooed her off. She is now officially the “crazy cat lady”. She’s the same one that rings a cowbell out on her back porch around 11:30 at night during the summer. We now know she’s beckoning cats.

Anyways, since Earl was now motivated to get going, he threw a load of laundry in the washer and brought up the clothes from the dryer that have been there for two days. That’s why irons were invented, in case you’re wondering. As we start to fold the clothes together, I said to him, “we need to hurry.”

“Why, are we going out for breakfast?”

“No, but yes.”

“What?”

“Hurry up!”

“Why?”

“I wanna !@#&*!” You can fill in your own verb.

Once we got the used Bounce sheet out of the way, we were good to go.

On Saturday night, Earl and I decided to take a drive into Center City Philadelphia to take a look around. We were in town visiting the family for the weekend and the family activities had come to a lull so we figured it was a good time to get out and about.

I’m not super familiar with Philadelphia. Earl is a native of the area, so I let him do the navigating while I drove the myriad of streets in the “gay area” near Antique Row. I always find that area so charming. I particularly enjoy the narrow streets that are barely wide enough for two bicycles to fit between the sidewalks, let alone a vehicle of any size. Walking amongst the centuries old houses in this area is so peaceful. As soon as you enter one of these streets, the sounds of the city seem to fall right away, and there you are in your own little historical paradise, walking down a sidewalk with no traffic coming by. You can almost feel the history as you pass by the homes, a psychic sense of the clap-clop of horses from days gone by, the smell of wood smoke. There are times when I wishe we lived in such a house in Philadelphia. Something off the beaten path, a home rich with history where the doors aren’t particularly square and the glass in the windows is a little wavy. The stairs creak, the plumbing bangs (though is still quite functional of course). A location where I rely on nothing but my feet or mass transit to move about the area, whether its off to work, picking up groceries or meeting friends at the corner pub.

Of course, we haven’t hit the Lotto yet, so I don’t see that coming to fruition any time soon. But it’s always fun to dream.

I was doing a search on Google for some good looking guys (who doesn’t do that from time to time?) and ran across George Eads from CSI. He’s a little too close to the “pretty boy” look for my taste, but nevertheless he is very attractive. Especially now that he’s grown a mustache.

Apparently fans of the show (especially those of the female persuasion) are fit to be tied because their little piece of cheesecake has fuzz on his face now. What a bunch of babies. The man looks great!

I don’t know why there’s this stigma attached to having a mustache. “He looks like a cop.” “He should be a porn star.” I don’t know if anyone has noticed but men naturally grow hair on their face. It’s the way nature intended it. Adult men are not naturally baby-faced and then one day decide to stick some hair on in an attempt to be stylish. It’s work to scrape it off each morning and a task that many men dread.

I once had a boyfriend who threw a fit whenever I grew my mustache. “It makes you look too old.” Who cares? You’re only as old as you feel and quite honestly, I felt better about myself when I had a mustache. So in that respect I was quite relieved when he dumped me. I grew the mustache and didn’t shave it off for a long, long time. When I did shave it off (just to change my look or whatever), I immediately grew it back. I felt naked without it. Years later when I lost a bunch of weight I thought I’d shave it off and go with the trendy “soul patch” under my lip. I didn’t feel trendy though, so I grew my beard.

I have noticed that there is more opposition to a mustache vs a beard. I don’t know why. Food is more apt to be stuck in a beard than in a mustache, so it’s not like there’s men running around with spaghetti hanging out of their mustache or anything. And it makes for such a soft landing spot when you’re planting a kiss.

I am looking forward to future pictures of George Eads with a big, bushy, fireman’s style mustache. I hope he’s an inspiration to men everywhere.

Next time your spouse, boyfriend, significant other, whatever decides to grow a mustache or beard, don’t close your mind to it, encourage him! It’s the way nature intended it to be and at the very least, you’ll save a mint by not buying Mach III blades.

I often pride myself on my gaydar. It’s tuned pretty well. I have a relatively easy time picking gay men and lesbians out in a crowd.

George Takei (Star Trek’s Sulu) however never produced a single blip on my gaydar, shields up or down, but there he is.

Today is National Coming Out Day, the day in which closeted gay men and lesbians are urged to come out of the closet and announce to the world, “yes, I am gay.” The tradition is led by the Human Rights Campaign, which has designated this day to show others that there is a huge support mechanism for LGBT folks.

National Coming Out Day started in 1988, three years or so after I came out to myself and started peeking out around the closet doors. Who am I kidding. I had always known of my attraction to the same sex. It was late in 1985 that I actively began admitting it to myself. I’m not going to go into my whole coming out story this year. If you’re interested in the sordid details, feel free to read last year’s Coming Out Day entry.

I just know that someone, somewhere is doing a Google search on being gay today. Perhaps he lives in a country where he could be shot for his homosexuality. Perhaps she is being forced to marry a man because that’s how she was brought up, when she’d reallly like to marry her female teacher or pal from high school. You’re afraid. You’re afraid that you’ll be shunned by your friends, disowned by your family and burned at the stake at the next neighborhood barbecue. And I’m sorry you feel that way. The world is a scary place and there’s a lot of ignorance in the world. But know that you’re not alone. Know that while there is a lot of hate and negativity out there, also know that there is even more positive energy, love and acceptance, often in places that you wouldn’t expect to find it. We know that you didn’t *choose* to be gay, regardless of what others may say about that fact, and we know that you don’t have to live a certain lifestyle simply because you’re attracted to the same sex. Do what your heart tells you to do. Do what feels right to you. If you’re not ready to live your life “out loud” and admit to everyone and anyone that you are gay (I can just picture Billy Bob stopping Thelma the hairdresser on some rural street and saying “I like those queer boys!”) then just do one thing today, actually go ahead and do two things. Look at yourself in the mirror and be honest with yourself. Look at yourself long and hard, reach for your true inner feelings, without any masks, without any fear, without any worries of reprisal. Then say it out loud. “Yes, I am gay.” Then follow it up with “And that’s o.k.”. It’s a baby step. But you’ll feel better for being honest with yourself. Allow yourself that dignity today.

It’s raining here in Upstate New York on this fine Monday morning. So instead of a little sunshine, I’ll just share a little eye candy.

Pernell Roberts as Adam Cartwright on Bonanza. I’ll be an indian to his cowboy anyday.

I followed a link on my blog friend Terry’s blog that leads to one of the most idiotic pieces of film I’ve ever seen in my life. I’d get mad if I wasn’t laughing so hard at the absurdity of it all.

The feature film is an instructional piece called “Boys Beware”. Judging by the 1959 Impala in the film, I’m guessing it was made around 1959 or 1960. This film was shown in public schools to warn young boys of the dangers of the mentally ill homosexual.

This movie makes me cringe.

Apparently, I’m doing this whole homosexual thing wrong because according to this film I’m sick, perverted and should be stalking young boys at the playground and offering more than a piece of candy. And all this time I’ve been interested in older men or guys my age. Better yet, all the homosexuals in the movie wear bow-ties and/or have a mustache! Sacré bleu!

Mentally ill my ass. It’s so stupid it’s amusing. Small wonder the world is as fucked up as it is.

Please note: If you care to watch, keep in mind that it’s a pretty big download and requires Quicktime. Also, note the extremely ‘gay’ soundtrack. Fruity flutes and all.

If you don’t want to watch, there’s a hilarious write up here.

Earl and I watched an interview with Rosie O’Donnell tonight. She was featured on “Birch and Co.” on the new “Here” network, one of the two all-gay channels we get on DirecTV.

I still love Rosie. I’ve complained about some of the choices she’s made. I thought she sucked up to some celebrities a little too much when she had her talk show. I didn’t totally buy the whole “Queen of Nice” thing she had going on. But overall, she has a heart that’s bigger than most people on this earth and she goes out of her way to help those in need.

Her interview with Ms. Birch was candid and it was refreshing. Rosie is like me in that “she just is” when it comes to being gay. It’s not a big deal to her. Well, maybe she’s a little more refined in that department than I am, so I’m out loud and proud, and she’s just out and proud. Maybe a little loud. She “tried on” being gay at 16 by saying out loud, “I’m gay” while driving in her Volare. I did the same thing in my ’76 Pontiac Astre when I was a senior in high school. It’s just the way she is and its just the way I am.

I grew tired of Rosie’s talk show a little after the Barbra Streisand appearance, but rejoined the fun late in the 5th season. I think Rosie may have tired of it as well. Who knows.

In a way I wish that I could be like Rosie in that I have millions of dollars that I can share with those in need. But alas, we haven’t won the lottery yet so right now “The JPnEarl Foundation” has $55 in it or so. Maybe we’ll donate that $55 to one of Rosie’s charities.

It was a pleasure to see you on television tonight Rosie. I wish that someday I could have the opportunity for us to sit down and have supper with you and your family, but I’m content with the little wave you acknowledged when we were in the audience in 1997 and the brief chat room conversation in AOL back in ’96.

Rosie, You Still Rock!