Q-Seattle Events: Tacky Tourist Clubs

So, then... we offer the embarrassed video of a lip sync attempt below. Not because it's a particularly good attempt. Not because it's a better dance attempt than what Sanjaya might come up with. Not because we're all that fond of Dolly Parton's 9 to 5.

We offer partly because it's kinda cute to see how embarrased the guy is about doing it at all. But then... he posts it despite his embarrassment.

But, mostly -- let's be honest here -- we post it because the lip sync is done by our all-time favorite in the collection of hunks over in the Rumor Machine, Jonathan Jesensky who we've mentioned (and pictured) before. He is, by all reports, a nice guy, a carpenter, a bar-tender, a model. He was a Marine. He is, above all, an uber-hunk. Find more pictures here and here and here [work warning: The latter two links play audio].

If the name isn't familiar, you might not recognize him in the video with his shirt on and with the glasses. So we offer this reminder:

And so here's the other, innocent view from a post on Jonathan's MySpace blog (at http://www.myspace.com/jesensky since it's virtually impossible to link directly into that place) :

Labels: eye candy, link bites, shirtless hunk, video, youtube

If you were to land here by, oh -- say, clicking on a picture in a search engine -- and also looked around for just a second, you might see that link up above for Rumor Machine. The rumor part of that page long ago became lame, but the other part of it might still hold some interest. There you will find hundreds of pictures of male eye candy. You can make the images show up randomly, or click "Auto Hunk" and go through the whole collection.

And -- as we occasionally do -- we've added a couple of dozen new treats to the machine for your viewing pleasure.

The ever-appealing actor/model Marco Dapper now gets the top spot in image count with nine. With the addition of some shots from his recent DNA shoot, he just beats out the former favorite, model/carpenter/bartender/Iraq-vet Jonathan Jesensky who has eight images in the machine (for now). Want to know more? Check out Jonathan's music-filled site. And here's an interview with Jonathan, who is judged to be "Extremely intelligent, dangerously handsome, and a very nice person.".

He's currently appearing (with the recognizable tattoos) in online ads for Rufskin jeans.

Most of them are, of course, straight boys in the collection, and so it was embarrasing for us to note that we hadn't yet included any pics of the out model and reality-show star J.P. Calderon, who was recently the cover boy of Instinct magazine. We've fixed that oversight with several images.

Calderon's post-Survivor story is an interesting one.

Having just recently learned to accept his sexuality at the relatively late age of 31, J.P. is still plagued by self-doubt. "I don't want to send a bad image to anyone, but sometimes I'm still conflicted. I'm hoping I won't always be, but I don't know." He goes on to share an example about his volleyball teammates and fellow models that has replayed in his mind time and again. "I see them naked all the time. They're my bros. They're my team mates," he explains. "I don't look at them in that way. I never check them out like that. But, I always think, God, if I came out are they gonna start thinking , 'Oh, J.P. is checking me out' or who knows what. That bothers me because they're my friends, my buddies."

There's almost always more just behing the image in the Rumor Machine. Click on the image or the name underneath to browse off to the web source for that image. You'll usually find larger versions there and several other

Labels: eye candy, shirtless hunk, TV

Ya gotta give it to the folks at Ginch Gonch underwear: They know how to promote their product to gay guys. And, hey, with pics and vids like these from the Boy Culture premier party, we'll gladly fall for it.


Ethan Reynolds, Benjamin Bradley and more Gonch Boys were out in force at the premier of Boy Culture [prior post]. The underwear company was a co-sponsor of the party along with The Advocate and TLA Releasing. A "Mr. Nightlife Hollywood" says of the party that was packed not only with packed underwear, but many of the gay-, playing-gay, or just gay-friendly faces in Hollywood:

Hollywood film premieres can be lots of fun to attend, but every-so-often you go to one that leaves you saying "boy, oh boy that was lots of fun" days later. Such was the case with the premiere of the critically acclaimed indie film Boy Culture.

You might ask, "What happens when Ginch Boys come out (out of their brief briefs, that is)?" Fortunately, for those willing to follow a not-safe-for-work link, PartyWithBrandon.com has the explicit but unnamed details.

Wearing limited edition Boy Culture-logo briefs, Ethan and Benjamin also headed out elsewhere on the town, also visiting the birthday party for celebrity gossipist Perez Hilton.


YouTube link

And, of course, there was a photo shoot with the not-available-to-you logo briefs:


YouTube link

But, really. Given our obvious fondness for sailor pictures, we couldn't resist this one from the current front page of the Ginch Gonch site:

Labels: eye candy, gay party, link bites, shirtless hunk

Boy Culture is a gay move that was filmed in Seattle two years ago, made the rounds of the festival circuit (including SIFF), and finally got its premier last week with a splashy tres gay premier party in LA last week. It opened for regular runs in New York, San Francisco, and LA, but won't make it to a Seattle screen until April 27 when it opens at the Varsity.

The film is garnering mixed, but generally positive reviews. New York Times critic Jeannette Catsoulis gives this glowing summary:

Based on the novel by Matthew Rettenmund, "Boy Culture" is a slick and absorbing drama about an attractive gay hustler named X (Derek Magyar), with an extensive investment portfolio and a restricted clientele of 12 wealthy men. When not servicing his "disciples," X conducts a volatile relationship with his two roommates (Darryl Stephens and Jonathon Trent) and criticizes the gay lifestyle in cynical voice-over. Only when he takes on a reclusive and much older client (elegantly played by Patrick Bauchau) is he forced to pay attention to a story other than his own.

Boy Culture stars Darryl Stephens of Logo's Noah's Arc, Derek Magyar, and Jonathon Trent

Employing a thoughtful, probing tone, the screenplay (by Philip Pierce and Q. Allan Brocka, who also directs) is a cerebral blend of insight, wit and raunchy self-awareness.

Gay.com's reviewer reminds readers that the novel author's previous book credits included Hilary Duff: All Access, Totally Awesome '80s and Encyclopedia Madonnica. He warns, "so don't expect that your horizons will be dramatically expanded."

But the reviewer comes around to the film for more than just its display of sexy man-flesh:

Rettenmund describes his novel as "sexy fluff" and a "spanking of gay culture." The book succeeded not only as a comic novel, but also as an observant critique of gay male relationships. In the hands of Allan Brocka, whose first film, "Eating Out," almost played like a gay sitcom, the film version of "Boy Culture" is engaging, deliciously directed and, most winningly, downright sexy.

And there's plenty of sexy man-flesh:

Obviously, Brocka knows what a gay audience wants to see -- plenty of sex, naked asses and bare chests. But he also explores something unique to gay male relationships -- that two men often have double-trouble with commitment.

But, beyond all that, there's the fact that the movie was actually filmed in Seattle and not in Vancouver-pretending-to-be-Seattle like so many TV shows or -- even worse -- LA-pretending-to-be-Seattle like that horny-doctors show.

Before its Seattle festival premier last year, Boy Culture's director, Q. Allan Brocka, explained to Seattle Weekly why he shot the movie here:

The book was originally set in Chicago and so was the adapted script [by Brocka and Philip Pierce]. We found it was incredibly expensive to shoot anywhere outside of Los Angeles. None of us knew anyone in Chicago or really anything about the city, so the budget would've been enormous. I was absolutely against shooting in LA. It just felt completely wrong for the story. Both my line producer and I are from Seattle, and I had always wanted to shoot a film there. When we discovered we could actually afford to shoot there, we happily packed up.

Lambert House helps actor "play gay"

According to the New York gay party paper, HX, which features Boy Culture on this week's cover, local Seattle services even helped one of the film's actors, Jonathon Trent, become comfortable playing Joey -- a character described by the magazine as "a teen twink with just enough space in his cranium for parties and a lusty crush on X."

Trent, who identifies as straight, hadn't played gay before. So once on location in Seattle, Brocka had Trent visit Lambert House, a center for LGBT youth under age 22, where he might meet and observe real life Joeys. Brocka himself spent time at the Lambert House during his formative Seattle years and admits he met a number of real life hustlers there?some of them destitute teens kicked out by homophobic families. "Darryl went along with Jonathan once for moral support and they stopped Darryl [from entering] and said, 'You're aged out.' Aged out!" recalls Brocka with a laugh.

Trent found the experience valuable. "[The gay kids at Lambert House] were kind of similar to Joey in the sense they were on their own, didn?t have a lot of people or family taking care of them," Trent shares. "They were cast out like Joey was. But they were a little more street and edgy and hardcore. I made Joey into someone who was sweet and innocent?or at least playing innocent to attract people."

[More on the premier party underwear shortly.]

Labels: celebrities, eye candy, Gay Seattle, movie

SLOG was (as usual) on top of this (as it were) when the news broke in a military publication: The Marines have added a few unexpected charges after opening an investigation of Cpl. Matt Sanchez who appeared in gay porn features before signing up as a Marine.

The investigation was done by Reserve Col. Charles Jones, a staff judge advocate, who infomed Sanchez of the charges last week.

Jones wrote that Sanchez's participation in porn films was part of the investigation, but that two of the three allegations against him involved lying "to various people, including but not limited to, representatives of the New York City United War Veterans Council and U-Haul Corporation" about deploying to Iraq at the commandant's request.

"Specifically, you wrongfully solicited funds to support your purported deployment to Iraq" by coordinating a $300 payment from the UWVC and $12,000 from U-Haul, Jones wrote.

Sanchez vigorously denied the new charges, calling them "demonstrably false" in an interview with Marine Corps Times. He had earlier argued that what he describes as a "summer job" doing porn shouldn't be of concern to the Marines.

In a March letter addressed to MobCom commander Brig. Gen. Darrell Moore, who will ultimately decide what to do with Jones' investigation, Sanchez said he's never done anything to bring dishonor on the Corps since enlisting and that "my past is behind me."

"The Marine Corps is a conversion experience, what men were before they joined is not as important as what they become," Sanchez wrote.

An earlier story about Sanchez in a sister publication, gave this background.

A Reserve corporal whose star has been rising in conservative circles over the past few months -- including appearing on Fox News and being photographed with right-wing firebrand Ann Coulter -- has acknowledged appearing in gay porn films.

Cpl. Matthew Sanchez, 36, now a member of the Individual Ready Reserve, has made national headlines since, as a student at Columbia University, he stood up to war protesters who publicly vilified him for his military service while administrators there refused to intervene, citing freedom of speech.

Sanchez has appeared on cable television programs such as Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" and "Hannity & Colmes," and penned an editorial for the New York Post. He also wrote a Back Talk column for the Jan. 1 edition of Marine Corps Times titled, "Missing the big picture: Ivy League protesters feel superior to service members."

Prior to the investigation, military officials said that they were not sure how past participation in gay porn might affect a service-member's career:

[O]fficials at Marine Forces Reserve in New Orleans were unable to confirm whether Sanchez had enlisted prior to the end of his film career or if Reserve Marines were prohibited from doing porn when not in a drilling status. ...

Matt Sanchez (center) as Rod Majors. Tom Bacchus has the unedited versions.

...Officials at Marine Corps Recruiting Command were unable to say whether past participation in gay porn disqualifies a potential enlistee because it was unclear how the current "don?t ask, don't tell" policy might apply.

The chain of military papers opened that question to its readers with a discussion forum that poses the question "Should past participation in gay porn disqualify a potential enlistee?" Sanchez often participates in the forum. Several of the posters are less than kind to him. Example:

Mr. Sanchez seems to be suffering from the "have your cake and eat it too" syndrome.

In the big scheme of things, gay porn is much more of a detriment to morale than being gay, which Mr. Sanchez disingenuously (and self-servingly) claims he isn't.

Perhaps Mr. Sanchez isn't gay in the strictest sense of the word. He's not the first man who can justify having anal intercourse with another man and claim that he isn't gay. Hundreds of thousands of men do. Perhaps our language lacks a sufficient construct to describe whatever Mr. Sanchez and thousands like him insists they are: men's men, straight-acting, guys-next-door, who just happen to like to get it on anally with their buds. ...

I don't fault Mr. Sanchez for acting in porn. I fault him for trying to capitalize on his Marine reservist status to advance his own agenda. I fault him for joining the Marines knowing that he did not possess the qualities that a true Marine exemplifies. I fault him for continuing to dissemble in the face of the truth. I fault him for being arrogant enough to think that his case deserves special consideration.

Go to Iraq, Mr. Sanchez. Fight like a Marine. Then I'll fight for your right to remain one. Otherwise, you're just acting -- which is what you seem to do best.

But beyond the usual message-board attacks and counter-attacts, the discussion offers several intriguing posts on the military's "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) policy. Example:

If the military were serious about discharging service members for what it calls "sexual misconduct," there would hardly be a military left. If you've ever had sex in anything other than the missionary position, you're violating Article 125 of the UCMJ. I can't count the number of senior officers I knew who cheated on their wives in Subic Bay, Korea, etc. Yet, Marines only seem bothered by the sexual misconduct they find personally distasteful.

Having sexual relations with a consenting adult, whether it's the same gender, on film or for money is a has no bearing on a Marine's performance of duties in combat. In fact, the same qualities we admire in combat - boldness, ferocity, fierceness etc., are the same traits that cause Marines like Cpl. Sanchez to behave the way he does in his private life. I'd much rather fight with a guy who's daring enough to put himself out there the way Sanchez has than Marines who are too timid to step outside the line once in awhile.

Many of the Corps' most revered "saints" were the ones who broke the rules. The reason they're legends is that Marines happen to like the rules they broke.

Many of you may not be aware of the good Sanchez is doing. Thanks to his efforts, a liberal college like Columbia, in the most liberal corner of the universe (Manhattan's upper west side) has agreed to recognize war vets and build a memorial. He's intervening to help a wounded Marine combat vet gain admission and you can bet he won't stop there.

It's pretty petty and shallow to criticize someone's person or status as a Marine just because you don't like their bedroom habits or personal life.

DADT isn't an issue that Sanchez addressed in his time on the airwaves of conservative broadcasters, but he's now getting an unexpected lesson on the issue. Maybe he'll turn his fundrasing skills to the issue, eh?

Labels: celebrities, DADT, eye candy, news bites, shirtless hunk

Matt and Brian at SeattlePaparazzi.com have added new galleries of pics from the March Gay Bingo party. It was Groovy '70s night, complete with big hair, polyester, and plenty of the usual fun.


And, hey! We heard that, but you're wrong. Those cylindrical things most folks are holding are daubers. That's daubers, used to mark the bingo cards.

If you don't already have your tickets to one of the remaining regular Gay Bingo nights, you're out of luck until June. They haven't yet put up the "sold out" sign for the June 9 Rocky Horror Gay Bingo night. Hurry to make your reservations or drop by the Lifelong Thrift Store [see map]. Other nights are sold out for the year, so you'll just have to find a friend who was wise enough to get tickets early. Or you could get yourself on a waiting list and hope for the best.
But there's another way to get in on the fun at the major fundraising close-out of the games. Tickets are still available for the Black Tie Bingo fundraiser to be held this year at the W Hotel downtown [get directions].

A host committee table that seats ten goes for $2000. "First class" tickets are $200 each. You could get in on the still-elegant "coach class" for $175 each.

The evening includes a cocktail hour+ starting at 6pm. Dinner and entertainment starts at 7:30 pm. You'll be playing bingo in style at the trendy W. Prizes include travel packages to great W Hotel destinations around the country. There will be celebrity callers, unexpected surprises, and, of course, Gay Bingo star GLAMAZONIA.

This major fundrasing event for Lifelong AIDS Alliance is sponsored by W Hotels and Alaska Airlines.

Labels: eye candy, fundraisers, Gay events, gay organization, Gay Seattle, photos, shirtless hunk

We can't speak for others in the blogoshere, but it was, admittedly, schadenfreude (taking pleasure in the discomfort of others) that us to jump quickly onto a story that a handsome marine who was given prominent coverage on News Corp. outlets including Fox News and New York Post was also a former gay-porn star. (That, and the excuse to post a few hot pics.)

On his own blog, that handsome marine, Matt Sanchez, has chronicled the blog+media flurry over the revelation that he once played the part of Rod Majors in porn flix.

(And here, since it hasn't been linked quite as much as other sites, is an old inverview with the "Rod Majors" persona who admits a slight interest in maybe doing a bi video some day.)

But there's a deeper (ahem...) significance to the story of Matt Sanchez that can be drawn from an oddly related story about a group called Soulforce that has, for the second year running, leased buses to take LGBT Christians and their supporters to a number of private religious colleges that place heavy restrictions on LGBT students and staff.

Several Soulforce demonstrators who tried to talk to students at Notre Dame's dining hall were arrested this week for trespassing. A Soulforce bus stopped at Dordt College in Iowa was defaced yesterday with anti-gay grafitti. (As usual, Andy Towle offers an excellent summary.) [See update below]

Last year, Soulforce demonstrators were arrested at Brigham Young University, Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, West Point, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia which is affiliated with Christian Broadcaster Pat Robertson.

But what does any of that have to do with Matt Sanchez? It should be part of the same story if Fox were really interested in fair and balanced reporting.

The marine got his moment of fame on Fox News and the Post by relating a disputed story of an incident last year at Columbia University during which Sanchez claimed that fellow student Monique Dols and a group of demonstrators said mean things to him while he was near a table staffed by students from the ROTC group at neighboring Fordham University.

I figured that a dean so concerned about student inclusion would certainly look into a simple case of student harassment. You see, I had a problem: fellow student Monique Dols.

Back on Activities Day, Dols didn't just lecture me on my stupidity in serving our nation; she also yelled that I was a baby killer. For a Marine, being called a killer is almost flattering -- but for months Dols and her friends had been disrupting pretty much every event I attended.

Most famously, her crowd rushed the stage at another group's event, preventing the guest (from the border-enforcement advocates, the Minutemen) from delivering his remarks, and nearly causing a riot.

Dols claims that Sanchez started the confrontation. After getting a complaint about the incident from Sanchez, a Columbia panel didn't do anything about it, which upsets the powers at News Corp.

Sanchez became a campus activist to encourage better treatment at Columbia for the veterans among its student body -- an admirable task. He's reportedly been successful in getting the school to offer more support for veterans to get through the bureaucratic mazes that are an unfortunate part of academic life. (See the first response to this post by right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin.)

But that's not what Fox News commentators focused on as they gave Sanchez his several minutes of air time.

Despite the sketchy story on which Sanchez's claims were based, Fox News and the Post gave him prominent coverage and the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) gave him an award because they considered his story of standing up to what Fox's Bill O'Reilly called "far-left radicals disgracing Columbia University."

Like Notre Dame, Brigham Young, and Dordt College in Iowa (schools where Soulforce demonstrators were arrested or harassed), Columbia is a private school. Unlike the others, the Ivy League's Columbia has a decidedly liberal bent to its policies. And it is that, rather than any question of academic freedom or freedom of discussion, that seems to be the issue that bothers the News Corp outlets.

Columbia does not allow military recruiters on its campus partly because of the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) policy which is considered to violate the school's anti-discrimination policies. Although the long-standing exclusion is subject to long-simmering debate on campus, ROTC sessions also cannot be held there, but Columbia students enrolled in ROTC can take classes and training sessions at neighboring Fordham University, another private school.

But the problem arises when those who have chosen to serve their country in the military, like Cpl Sanchez are treated unfairly on a campus because of their service. Sanchez has done a good job of highlighting that problem at Columbia even if he does it in the partisan voice that appeals to the radio audiences to whom he's been given extraordinary access because of his activism.

It's a problem that should be fixed even if the majority of students, faculty, and administration at a school think the current war is wrong for whatever reason. Veterans should not suffer because of those views.

But if it's a question of academic freedom as O'Reilly and Hannity suggested it is, then the reaction to Soulforce at conservative colleges should be equally abhorent to the commentators. Accoring to the activist group, the college where the Soulforce bus was defaced counts "sexual activity with someone of the same gender" as possible grounds for "an employee's discharge or a student's dismissal."

It's a kind of discrimination that is usually overlooked at conservative campuses, but highlighted by Soulforce. If a gay or lesbian student wants to be subjected to the kind of education offered by those schools (and there's good reason to want that at some of the schools), then they should be allowed to participate as full members of those academic communities. They should, however, be ready (and even encouraged) to challenge to collective wisdom of what they might hear there about their own beings.

So too, should veterans or those who support contrary views of the military be allowed to participate as full members of the academic communities at Columbia and other liberal colleges.

But here's our question: Where would someone with the same history as Matt Sanchez find a more welcoming academic community? At Columbia, where obnoxious student activists call him names? Or at Dordt College, where he'd probably be kicked out?

How long do you suppose it will be before we hear O'Reilly call for administration at Dordt College or Notre Dame "get out from under their desks and deal with this problem."

Update: Dordt College apologizes

In a sign of the true meaning of Christian compassion, officials at Dordt College have apologized to Soulforce for the graffiti slurs that were painted onto the activist group's bus during a stop at the college.

College officials were "saddened" to learn about the vandalism, said Dordt spokesman Norlan De Groot. The school apologized to the group and the incident was reported to police.

"We don't want to see that happen here," De Groot said.

Labels: celebrities, eye candy, politics

Celebrity rumor isn't our area. (For that we go to some of the sites listed on our Queer Pop page.) But, hey, we have that picture among the hundreds on our Rumor/Hunk Machine page, and we just hate to miss an occasional excuse to bring some of that beefcake eye-candy over here. So here goes...

Country singer Kenny Chesney insists that he is not gay. Really. That's not what his ex-wife meant when she listed "fraud" as the reason for requesting an annulment."

It's not true. Period. Maybe I should have come out and said, 'No, I'm not (gay),' but I didn't want to draw any more attention to it," the 38-year-old country singer says.

We believe him even if he does look like any number of guys at The Cuff's country dance night. Even the tight levis have never set off our (admittedly flawed and underused) gaydar.

The rumor apparently got some traction when celebrity sniffers, taking a brief break from their ANS obsession, discovered that Chesney's ex, Renee Zellweger cited "fraud" as reason for requesting an anullment of their brief four-month marriage.

He was interviewed for 60 Minutes by Anderson Cooper. (wink, wink, nudge...).

Labels: celebrities, eye candy, link bites, shirtless hunk

Gemini, one of the co-producers of the event, has a hot collection of photos by Malcolm Smith now online from last week's Revivial party at Element.

On this BratBoySchool Bulletin, Ethan Reynolds had this to say about their time in town

Once again the Emerald City made us feel welcomed and like VIPs. Our event for Revival Sunday seemed to go quite well. The crowd was packed, the music was great, and the place seemed filled with excitement....

As many of you already know, Seattle is home for Ben. So there is a special feeling when we step off the airplane. His mood is brighter and his laugh is even more infectious. This visit allowed us to dance as Project BE, be a part of a photo shoot, and spend time around his home. I absolutely love his family and enjoy seeing them.

He also noticed I-957 while he was here and likes the approach.

[By the way, those coming from there are looking for the post just below this one.]

Labels: eye candy, gay party, Gay Seattle, photos, shirtless hunk

It's Revival day once again. Seattle's new Sunday party will make its second apperance this evening starting at 6 pm at Element, [get directions], across the street from EMP at Seattle Center. Party until midnight with a cover of only $5.
Tonight's featured guests are go-go boys Benjamin Bradley and his boyfriend Ethan Reynolds. It's a bit of a public homecoming for Bradley who grew up in the Seattle area and graduated last year from Western Washington University in Bellingham.

Bradley got his start in porn when after he met fellow Seattlite Roman Heart. In an interview with Reynolds, his current beau and go-go partner at tonight's Revival, Bradley explained how he first met Heart who was already a noted porn star.

We met through mutual friends. We both grew up in the Seattle region, and I knew of him from the gay community gossip. I knew he did porn, and I had always wanted to meet him to see if he was as beautiful in person as he was in his photos. And he was. We met around Halloween of 2004. Long story short, we both felt instant attraction not only physically but emotionally. Its really hard to describe, but I fell so hard and so fast for him. We always had so much fun together, and felt so at ease in each other's presence. Although we are not currently together, we still have an amazing bond. He is honestly my first TRUE love.

Heart asked Bradley to do a scene with him for the video, Driver. Bradley was hired to do a second appearnce for Falcon Video in Cross Country, Part 1. He then did Sized Up, Little Big League 2: 2nd Inning, and Boot Boy for Channel 1 Releasing. He's currently under contract with Rascal Video which features him in No Cover, The Wrong Side of the Tracks, and Delinquents.



Their Seattle stop at Revival is just one of several stops they're making in a busy schedule of February appearances for Reynolds and Bradley. Bradley said on his official blog that he and Ethan "always have a good time when we do our appearances. That is very important to us. However, we do it with class and style. We know we are hired to do a job and we get'er'done."

He offered this on the blog last week:

This will probably make everybody throw up... but I just want to say that my boyfriend is so beautiful and amazing. I'm really lucky. Just thought I would share.

Who's gonna disagree with that, eh?

Bradley even gets his own entry in the user-generated encycolpedia, Wikipedia. He also has a typically slow-loading (and noisy) MySpace page, but no longer updates it.

Reynolds is founder and editor of the popular website Brat Boy School where he keeps track of models, porn stars, and other hawties.

Labels: eye candy, gay bar, gay party, Gay Seattle, Seattle, shirtless hunk

• We're bound to hear more about this: An Ontario court has ruled that a boy can have three parents: his two moms and his bio-dad. After all, the children of hetero marriages today often have four: a mom, a step-dad, a dad, and a step-mom.
• We probably won't hear enough about this: An Oslo natural history museum is running an exhibit that shows (graphically) just how common homosex is in nature.
• We've been hearing about this for way too long already: The Names Project and the creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt are still squabbling.
• In the be-careful-who-you cruise dept: A Canadian artist has turned his online cruising sessions into a video installation (with permissions, of course) that's been shown throughout the country.
• Confidential to searchers who land here because of that name: Vancouver hottie Taylor Kitsch is cover boy for this month's Men's Health magazine. He offers workout and diet tips. We offer more pics in our Rumor+Hunks Machine.

Labels: eye candy, gay news, news bites

This list-making, as we said, is a popular way to fill pages of papers and magazines during the usually slow holiday news weeks.

Like us, B.A.R. in San Francisco picks marriage equality in a broad sense as its top story.

The status of LGBT relationships absolutely dominated the news throughout the year, with some development popping up virtually every week. While much of what occurred on marriage was discouraging, just about everything short of using that word seemed to be to be positive.

B.A.R.'s Bob Roehr notes that Massachusetts has maintained its equality of marriage opportunity despite concerted attempts by the governor, Mitt Romney, and anti-equality activists to overturn the law. Since Romney will soon be replaced by a Democrat who supports equality and because Massachusetts law makes it hellishly difficult to modify the commonwealth's constitution by initiative, marriage equality there will likely stick.

Court decisions, like the one here in Washington and in New York and New Jersey failed to find a constitutional basis for equality of marriage as such, but urged their state legislatures to find some way to give equal rights to all couples who want to be joined a civil contract.

Editors of Washington's daily newspapers also saw the court decision on marriage equality as a major story of the year. It came in at #7 on their top-ten list.

7. The Washington Supreme Court's divided and contentious decision to uphold the state's ban on gay marriage. In a 5-4 decision, the court said lawmakers have the power to restrict marriage to a man and a woman, and left intact the state's 1998 Defense of Marriage Act.

Both Towleroad and the Washington Blade conglomerate of gay papers took a different tack.

Andy Towle offers a list of the outs, ins, and in-betweens as his contribution to the EOY listmania. All the usual suspects are there: Lance Bass, Mark Foley, Neil Patrick Harris, Ted Haggard, and many more.

The Blade and its corporate brethren think that the continually shrinking closet was the big story of 2006. They note the Hollywood stars who came out and contrast the often easy and unremarkable reaction to that with the often-tortured responses to the more notorious political outings of the year.

Despite his best efforts to squelch rumors about his sexual orientation, Foley was widely considered an "openly closeted" politician, whereas few people seemed to have known about Ted Haggard's double life before it was exposed by a gay male escort. The contrast displays the "different levels of outness" that exist today, Shields said.

The sadness of the Ted Haggard story was that he was a liar and played on people's fears, and couldn't be true to who he was," Shields said. "I think what people saw there was a hypocrisy to the attacks that go on against gay and lesbian couples, and gay and lesbian families."

Former Blade editor Chris Crain, who now publishes a must-read gay blog, mostly agrees with the top-story pick of his erstwhile colleagues, but chastises them for their quotations and their political analysis of the situation.

The Foley story, especially, raised anew questions about when it's justified to "out" someone in government, whether they're holding elective office or not. For Ehrenstein and Rogers, there are no limits to be observed, no boundaries of personal privacy to be respected, and for Ehrenstein at least, dissent is tantamount to complicity. The Task Force's Foreman, as well, though not dirtying his own hands with outings, has publicly said he supports them.

But Crain, like the current Blade/Window Media editors, finds that the dynamics of the closet changed significantly in 2006.

As each new public figure emerges, there remain fewer "firsts" like Ellen DeGeneres in prime time or Elton John in music or Martina Navratilova in sport, to grab the biggest headlines. And so both Neil Patrick Harris ("Doogie Howser, M.D." and "How I Met Your Mother") and T.R. Knight ("Grey's Anatomy") continue to play sexually active heterosexual men in popular TV shows, despite coming out this year in People magazine. As the Blade story notes, popular culture is once again miles ahead of politics.

[If you don't use an RSS newsreader or don't know what that is, you can keep up with the headlines of Towleroad's frequent posts in our Squidoo Gay News lens. Crain is featured in our Squidoo Queer Commentary lens. Although we don't deserve mention in the same paragraph, our headlines are included in our Squidoo Gay Seattle lens.]

Edge, a new group of east-coast gay email/web publications, puts coming-out stories in three of its top-ten spots on their year end review. Marriage equality is their #2 story. But they pick the mid-term elections as the top LGBT story of the year.

At last there may be progress on legislation affecting members of the community that has languished in Congress for the last 12 years of Republican dominance. Gay rights activists are hopeful that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act will pass. The chances also are good that Congress will at least consider a bill to repeal of the ban on gays, lesbians and bisexuals serving openly in the military. Support to do away with Don't Ask, Don't Tell is growing among the public and lawmakers in both parties as the Pentagon finds it increasingly difficult to recruit enough men and women to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And, yes, there were web polls galore. The Malcontent asked their readers "Who's the villain? Donald or Rosie" Over 75% picked The Donald (and most of those votes came before his Mel Gibson moment with the "degenerate" comment in response to her "pimp" salvo).

When gay.com (yes, they offer more than just chat) asked its, umm..., readers (between chat sessions, no doubt) to pick the top stories of the year, they discovered the odd clicking prowess of Colbert Report fans (aka ColbertNation). The voters picked Stephen Colbert as person of the year and the Colbert Report as favorite TV show, surpassing even Project Runway. Gay.com did not reveal how many voters signed up just for that vote.

Finally, the gay.com vote gives us the excuse for that pic at the top of this post (queerfilter.com users who click on shirtless hunk posts gives us the wholly unjustified eye-candy reason [Those who feel cheated should click on the Jake pic or run our hunk-laden Rumor Machine]): Voters picked Jake Gyllenhaal as "Male celeb you most wish was gay". He won easily with 45% of the vote over Ryan Phillippe at 9% and Justin Timberlake at 8%.

Labels: Colbert Report, coming out, eye candy, gay news, marriage equality

Joshua and Jacob Miller, the hunky gay twins from Kalispell, Montana, who starred in a Logo reality series this fall were kicked out of the Jehovah's Witnesses last week. They hadn't been practicing Witnesses, but their family members were.

According to a press release sent out last week by the twins, the action taken last week by their church means that

Our immediate family is to have limited or no contact with us. And all other practicing Jehovah's Witnesses around the world are not to speak with us ever again.

That particularly nasty practice is called "disfellowship" by the Witnesses. But, at least they make official something that is all-too-common in other churches.

If you're wondering what all the fuss is about (or just want to catch more eye-candy), you could -- if you dare -- watch a marathon of all seven Nemesis Rising on Logo next Saturday morning (Dec. 30) starting at 7am (that's Eastern time, but we who don't get that channel assume they might have a west coast feed that shows it here at the same time).

A USA Today pop blogger even rated the show as a guilty pleasure, while warning, "J&J make some of the most watered-down, eardrum-shattering pop music since, oh, O-Town."

And that's being nice. Unfortunately there's already way too much saccharine "nice" in the pop pablum performed by the twins. Their album includes a cover of Nic Gilder's creepy 1979 one-hit wonder Hot Child in the City. And they (or their producers more likely) make the song about a very young prostitute sound nice.

The song from the album that qualifies as their hit, Number One In Heaven [YouTube], shares the same edgeless niceness even though it's a celebration of a one-night stand.

There are clearly some great possibilities in their song selection. But just as they waste the name "Nemesis" they also waste the chance to do something -- anything -- slightly interesting with their performances.

So, we're not sure it's worth even TiVoing the marathon, but you can catch a few video clips on Logo's site. It looks to us that the clip called, Nemesis: Special Episode Part 2 pretty well summarizes all the issues of the show. That clip also includes a live video of their dreadful rendition of Hot Child.

Labels: eye candy, Gay, religion, shirtless hunk, TV, witch hunts

As we mentioned when we posted Toronto speedo pics, we were waiting for this one.

As he does each year, Towleroad now has a rich and varied collection of pictures of the original Santa Speedo Race that was held this weekend in Boston.

The sixth annual race, held Saturday, is a creative benefit for Ellie Fund to fight breast cancer.

A full collection of photos of the race by Patrick Lentz is available on Flickr.

You'll also find more pics on the benefit's own site.

Labels: eye candy, fundraisers, link bites, shirtless hunk, speedos