In the wee small hours of the morning

I found this post in the DRAFT pile and it's a lil' late, but I thought I'd throw it up anyway. Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you had a pleasant and festive Thanksgiving. Mine was good, and it had a lovely and auspicious start. By tradition, I do a morning run and, guys, yesterday's was glorious. When I left, the temp was 28F, so yeah, a nip in the air, and there was also a dense fog. Add that up and you get one of my favorite meteorological phenomena: hoarfrost! For the denizens of warmer climes and hemispheres, that is when everything gets coated with a layer of frozen fog. Even yours truly, coated. After I'd been running for 15 minutes or so, my jacket and pants and hair and eyelashes were covered with hoarfrost. That makes me a hoarfrost-monger, I guess. Fun. If that weren't enough to make the run sublime, I spotted a small group of deer lingering at the edge of a wood. The females tend to run in packs and it's that time of year, if you know what I'm sayin', so they were all tarted up and I swear I could hear them being all bitchy to each other. FYI: A doe can be snarky when in heat. I know the feeling, sista. Your rack is packin' eight points, you say? Bring it, Blitzen.

Your face is jammin', your body's heck-a-slammin'

I've been starving my way back down to my summer fighting weight the last few weeks getting ready for the Christmas ski trip. I have a little over three weeks to go and I hit 162 this morning, so I have time to play a little. How 'bout some PIE? I feel like posting up about someone from my favorite new show, Ugly Betty, and I suppose it should be America Ferrera, its impossibly charming star. She knocks my socks off every week. She, and this show, never fail to delight and amuse. Smart and funny and sweet stuff. Not a bad performance from the whole cast, either. Betty's very, ummmm, theatrical nephew Justin, played by newcomer Mark Indelicato, is by himself worth the price of admission. Check it out if you haven't. Episodes are available free online for the broadband-y amongst you. But I'm not. Doing America, I mean. Instead I'm doing one of the show's producers and current special guest stars, Salma Hayek. One guess why.Kinda two, actually. Step off Teri Hatcher, THESE are spectacular. You wanna fuck 'em, just be honest. Never mind those eyes, that face, that heck-a-slammin' body and the moxy to use her own production company to provide opportunities for other Hispanic folks. She's community-minded, people. Love. Her. So, for reals, you think she's knockin' boots with Penny Cruz?I sure hope so.

PS I deleted the previous post re: lack of nookie, not because I'm embarrassed, but because it was just all too "sad clown" paired with the "hold me" one that came before. I may revisit my dusty-from-disuse genitalia soon, so stay tuned!

Everybody needs a hand to hold on to

I'm a goodly-sized grown man, 6'1" and 163 lbs., but today is one of those days where I need someone to hold me. We could talk about your day or maybe not talk at all. Just rock back and forth a little while sighing with contentment. K?

Midnight, not a sound from the pavement

It's Thanksgiving in the good ol' U.S. of A., y'all. Peace, reflection, feasting, family, blah, blah, blah.....I'll use it as an excuse to post another picture of a queer family, because, well, MELT!

I'm making Giada's Holiday Salad, btw. Yeah, I know. Seems a fairly inconsequential contribution to the day's cornucopia of gustatory delights, but better than the last few years which found me showing up empty-handed, or with a bottle of some naughty wine which I'd promptly drain on my own, as drinky sister (tm) stays in Florida for Thanksgiving, and my Dad prefers to sip from his massive jug of some white (chilled) mess. Anyway, the salad sounds tasty, doesn't it? The sweet/tart of cranberries to counter the bitter of the endive. Did you just say it en-dive or on-deev? The salad (like the wine) is selfish because my Mom's notion of a salad is iceberg lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and a murderer's row of LITE dressings. Am I coming off as pissy to my parents? Huh. Plus, Giada's kinda hot, isn't she?Normally, here's where I'd include some winky sexual allusion using food prep lingo, but they all came off skeevy, even for ME, so today you can give thanks that I left it out.

So here's the real question: CATS, yay or nay? It's in town this weekend and despite (or because of?) how proudly I wear the Showtune Gay mantle, I've never seen it.Not a big Andrew Lloyd Webber fan and not really one of those people who get off on PLUSH toys* (How To Modify Elmo for a More Life-like Feeling....bless 'em!), so what's the point? Or am I mistaken? You can tell I'm still tempted. It's musical theater, after all. How bad can it be?

*is that really two reasons, or just one, restated?

ADDED: I'm feeling a bit bad about dissing my family. Truth is, I've been gaudily blessed like few other people I know. Make no mistake, they can be trying, and they are not always the most open-minded, and sometimes they insist on pleated pants with braided belts, or nylon track suits, but despite all that, they're aces. When the holidays get trying, I look to that modern day sage, Lisa Simpson, for the words to get me through:

It seems that every week the Simpsons go through a situation like this. My suggestion is to just ride it out, make the occasional smart-aleck quip, and next week we'll return right to where we were, ready for another wacky adventure.

Breakin' me out of the spell I was in

OK, maybe I am straight after all. How else to explain my urge to give Ali Larter a tongue bath?I could fall back on the whole retarded "Well, she's PIE and who doesn't love PIE?" argument, but that wouldn't even fly in Mike's World of Delusion, Denial and Obfuscation. Here's the thing, not only would I like to taste her, I'd like to eat things off her. Like my lunch, off her ass.And it never hurts when they like to dress kinda slutty. Seriously, I think she's wearing this in the airport.Plus, she's got the trailer trash vibe going, which, as y'all know by now, really works for me.Makes me pine for home and gives me timber. Her one distracting flaw is the bunny smile.But it just serves to further endear her to me, cuz Lord knows I do not mind a toothy blowjob. If you haven't been watching her in Heroes, you should rectify that immediately because you've been missing the best show of the new season. They've had more PAY OFF in three months than Lost has in two years.

You know I'm just playin' with all this STRAIGHT stuff, right? I'd knock the bitch down and step on her if we were in a race to get some Ronaldo:

I'm on top of the world looking down on creation

As a counterpoint to the humid, ice cream truck melting heat that Andrew is enjoying Down Under, I'm offering you this:When I opened this email, I had a no-touch release, y'all. Creamed. My. Shorts*. This slice of heaven pictured is not where I live, but where I'll be spending the Christmas holiday. Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains, outside of beautiful Vancouver, BC, have received ::pinkie finger to corner of mouth:: ONE HUNDRED INCHES of snow this month. Wheee!

*interested parties should enter "Mike's Panties" into the searchbox over at eBay.

Too long I roamed in the night

I have just heard Wuthering Heights for the first time (thanks, Freakgirl) and I am home. How did I miss this? It's so theatrical. So over the top. So M.E.

In another iPod related note, if we're gonna be friends you should know that I've cued up my Holiday Playlist on the Pod over the last few days, and I own over 300 Yuletide songs, lambs. You heard me.

Finally, you know I'm into gangster rap, right? (Karen Walker) I'm not really, but I did have a phase, mostly inspired by the online manwhore I used to solicit. God, he was so fucking hot. And he would get his tats to match Tupac. Anyway, DMX isn't really gangsta, gangsta, but his Party Up (In Here) came on the shuffle mix this morning while I was in the shower and I was cracking up. And, you know, throwing punches and wildin' and shit.

There's this lil' nugget I love:

Y'all niggaz is characters, not even good actors
What's gon' be the outcome? Hmm, let's add up all the factors
You're wack, you're twisted, your girl's a ho
You're broke, the kid ain't yours, and e'rybody know

Harsh! And then there's:

Sun in to sun out, I'ma keep the gun out
Nigga runnin' his mouth? I'ma blow his lung out
Listen, yo' ass is about to be missin'
You know who gon' find you? (Who?) Some old man fishin'
Grandma wishin' your soul's at rest
But it's hard to digest with the size of the hole in your chest

Full. Of. Gems.

Tonight the picture has no frame

For love, he felt as he watched the Puerto Rican boys unloading soda pop for the Gem Spa on his new corner, love was all in life that mattered; without it, there was no point in having lived at all. And so the last Sunday evening of August 1973 (November 2006?) found him sitting on his stoop like a monk who comes finally to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela--devoted not to Christ, in whom he no longer believed, but love.

Dancer From The Dance by Andrew Holleran

Trite sentiment or the only thing that's real? When writing transports you, it's sublime, and never more than when it brings you, suddenly, to you. Malone is ME. And you. All of us? Over the last few days I've cried often when reading this book. And hollered "Yes!" (in my head) at least as many times.

He fell in love with people he did not know how to meet. He began carrying around with him the momentary faces of men seen in restaurants, on streetcorners, in the subways, and fed on their imagined loves as a roach feeds on crumbs. He knew from the looks on faces he surprised by looking up, that he too was being stored in other human hearts.

I get this. Do all y'all? Is it a gay thing or universal? Man, there's something I recognize on every fucking page of this thing.

There's danger in the air

Have no fear, Bond is here. I think I'm gonna check out Casino Royale this afternoon. I don't care what all those haters say, Daniel Craig is teh sex. This is my new screen background.(click to enlarge...you won't regret it)
Is it just me or is there something about a facial laceration that makes you wanna put your tongue in it?

ADDED: I did see it this afternoon. OMG, you guys. You should know that I was never a big fan of Bond, although I have seen most of the films. This is the best one they've done in the last twenty years. It's kind of in the spirit of Batman Begins. We get the roots of Bond and there are lots of sly winks at what's to come, even if 007 isn't in on the joke yet. So fun. Never mind that Daniel Craig is a fucking SLAB. God. Damn. You've seen the stills of him coming out of the ocean in that squarecut trunk, right?Worth the price of admission. Oh, and it's a good thing I was sitting down, because later he gets a very nice suit ripped off his body. This Bond is low on gadgetry (yay!), high on action (yay!), and much edgier than we've seen in forever. He's always had a license to kill, but now you sense he'd just as soon do it with his bare hands.

From a distance we are instruments marching in a common band

Hey guys!
Well, kinda. The Catholic bishops say it's OK to be gay, as long as you don't have gay sex. Or tell people you're gay. Or act gay.

Eating snowflakes with plastic forks

And with that delicious lyric, I welcome back an old favorite (of mine) to Pipedreams. Big hint: it's Wednesday, right? Who's hankerin' for some PIE? Next week it's all about the pumpkin and the pecan, but for this week we're serving up some Miss Scarlett Johannson. She's all lips and nose and tits and she usually seems kinda whorey, doesn't she? God, I love her. Esquire has tapped her as their Sexiest Woman Alive. Hell, even I'd tap her, and you know what a huge fag I am. It doesn't hurt that she was in my favorite movie of the summer, Matchpoint. Shutup. You still haven't seen that? Seriously, go buy it right now and if you're not completely satisfied, I'll refund your money. Not really, but it's immaterial,because you will be, you know, completely satisfied. She fucks Jonathan Rhys-Meyers in it. Please. Don't even front.Did you hear that she cheated on Josh Hartnett? Good for her. Maybe THAT will open his eyes. So yeah, even if she didn't bring the trailer trash vibe that I adore, which she does, in spades, she was in Ghost World, y'all.

Sucka cocka, sucka cocka, suck it down down

I had a rather spirited session of Krogering this afternoon and was feeling effusive on the drive home. So I really gave it my all when backing up Lionel and the boys on Brick House. It occurred to me that, for as long as I can remember, I've sung the bridge as "sucka cocka, suck it down, down" without a second thought. I considered googling the actual lyric, but why? I can't imagine it'll work any better for me.

What more in the name of love?

Could hating the gays be the common bond that finally brings peace to the Middle East?

Gimme one reason to stay here

While there are a number of valid reasons against venturing out for a trail run on a wintery November Sunday, "My laundry basket is finally empty and it's staying that way" is not one of them. See ya on the other side of this 5-miler. Snuggle me when I get back? Be forewarned though, I will smell like people.

ADDED: Back! I'm so glad I went. It was brisk, yes, but I had one of those runs that make up for the ones you slog through. I know it sounds like most of my runs are kinda awesome, but why would I get my blog on about the bad ones? For the sake of completeness, maybe I should mention the 10K that I raced in October. I was training with it in mind for some months. I got it in my head that I'd race my age. 41 minutes. Yes, it'd be very fast for me, but I was feeling very fast, my brothers. And I would have made it, too, but for that verchacta last mile. I was on pace through 5, not to break 41, but to run in the 41s. Around mile marker 5 my left calf inexplicably seized up and I staggered home in 43:10. For perspective, that's still in my top five for 10K, but it's not what I wanted. Should I really expect so much? Is it really a good thing for our reach to exceed our grasp? What does that even mean, by the way? And am I even getting the saying right? These aren't rhetorical, bitches, I'm asking.

Anyway, as I said, it was very cold and when I got home I had a serious need to pee and no time to waste. No warm up. Kinda pinched. You feelin' me? So I had that thing where you pee when your wiener is really shrunk and you think you're done and walk away and then totally piss down your leg some more. You know that thing, right? That's not a thing? Huh. Well, this just got a little awkward, didn't it?

Oh shutup. Like it's ever intellectual around here.

Memory can fade, it's true, memory can lie

Toni Collette & the Finish : Beautiful Awkward Pictures
I love me some Toni Collette. I'd watch her do just about anything. Did you know she's in a band? If you view the video, it seems banal to start, but stay with it.

Oooh, cheeky, cheeky, cheeky, gimme that, gimme that food

If you're hanging around here, you have some time on your hands. You could do much worse than checking out Oedipus the Movie. In this version, his tale of woe is brought to heartbreaking life by a cast of fresh vegetables. It's eight minutes you won't regret. And lemme tell ya, his mother? One hot tomato.

link via Faustus, M.D., aerobics instructor, go-go boy, and author of Gay Haiku.

I want the pendulum to swing again....

.....so that all your mighty mandate was just spittin' in the wind. Here in Ohio anyway, it was a significant swing. It'll be the first time we've had a Democrat in the Governor's office in sixteen years. And we add a Democratic senator, as Sherrod Brown defeated incumbent Mike DeWine. Bye, Mike. You went from "representing our values" in your campaign (you like pulled pork, too?!) to some of the nastiest, deceptive ads I've seen in a while. All while continuing to perform your duties as Bush's boy-bitch. Take a break now, buddy, you deserve it.

Then there's the smoking ban. Hmmmm. Not sure how to feel about this one. I'm at my most Republican* (which is not much and not often) on issues like this. Even though I think it's for the public health's good that we be smoke-free, I lean toward leaving it to small business owners to decide how they want to run their businesses. Not to be. No more smoking in public places. Are there exceptions? I'm not even sure.

*Old School Republican, I mean. The old "less government meddling" school of thought that I think was an early, long since lost, tenet of the party.

ADDED: But to show that I'm not all about protecting personal freedoms (hey, I'm complicated!), I would vote RIGHT NOW to ban cell phone use while driving a vehicle. In lieu of an actual law, most of you just need to stop it. Tough love time. Straight up, you're really not smart enough to do both, guys.

FINALLY, Britney is gettin' divorced, y'all! Again. Boy, isn't this merry lil' band just a shining example of that sanctity of marriage we've been hearing so much about? She's twice divorced at 24. And that talentless asshat she's about to jettison? Four toddlers by two different baby mommas, and by all indications (Amazon sales rank #2303), he's unemployed. Both will be on the market again soon, free to marry again. Cuz, you know, they're straight so all their connubial shenanigans implicitly carry God's imprimatur. Thank the Lord that America has had the good sense to maintain watchful stewardship over that fine institution.

Lord help the sister who comes between me and my mister

White Christmas: Sisters

Not that I require even a HINT of an excuse to post about White Christmas, but since the lovely Michael Guy mentioned the Singalong he attends, and then so kindly forwarded this video link, I couldn't resist. How much do I love Danny Kaye? And not just because next to his calves, mine look totally jacked.

Where troubles melt like lemon drops

OK, this weekend they are showing The Wizard of Oz accompanied by the full Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra (video with twister!). See ya there, F.O.D.!

It's a crazy world we live in (part two)

 This is one of my favorite pictures from a trip I took to Rome a few years ago. Not as gorgeous or striking as some other shots I took (that's me behind the camera in this photo), but it moves me. I was trying to capture what struck me most about Rome. In one frame, you span two thousand years. Moving from the foreground back, you have the ruins of Ancient Rome, then the churches and homes of Renaissance Rome that sprung up around (and on top of) them, and finally, on the horizon, the massive (and cringe-inducing) Vittorio Emmanuele monument of Modern Rome. That's what I was going for. So not why I treasure the picture, though. What I got was a tender moment in time with the youngest old man I know, a Jewish grandpa only a generation removed from the fearsome pogroms of Russia, and his half-Asian Jewish/Buddhist grandson. Both brilliant, both hilarious, both maddening, and both among the favorite people of a middle-aged German Catholic homo from the Midwest. A few minutes after this was taken, we were all breaking bread and drinking wine in a quaint trattoria with a view of the Coliseum in spring. Crazy, huh? 

It's a crazy world we live in

The epitaph on Leonard Matlovich's gravestone reads, in part:

....they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.

That's noted in Grief, by Andrew Holleran, which I finished this afternoon. It's short in length, but not a quick read. Spare, it packs an emotional wallop. No wasted words tended to make me linger. I'm a big homo, but this is my first exposure to Holleran. So now it's on to Dancer From The Dance, a singular work in gay fiction, finally.

If you really don't give a WHAT?

I trimmed back my coreopsis today and I brought my tender hibiscus in for the winter and I noticed that nothing I say doesn't sound dirty anymore.

I'll be your gay friend

• Ever entertained the notion that you might fancy fucking a Wiggle? It's all about the accent. And those kicky outfits. Primary colors? Hot!
• I know the Omega-3 supplement is good for all manner of what threatens to ail you, but the fishy burps that ensue can't be good for anyone involved. Am I right?
• Today's Oprah was a festival of gay. Herr Berkus, who has long occupied the loftiest tier in my Mad Crush Heirarchy, was on.Oh, was he on. And in. A bubble bath at one point. I knew bitch was crazy successful, but today we learned that, when in New York, he stays at the Soho Grand. Penthouse loft, muthafuckas. That shit goes for 5,000 clams/night, lambs. And I ain't talkin' Canadian. It was an Oprah "BEST" episode, and Nate was singing the hotels praises, so basically he won't be ponying up for that penthouse anymore. Say it with me, y'all. On the house. They also had the tres queer designer Marc Jacobs taped expressing his love for Stan Smith's iconic sneaks. And though he denied being a Product Fag, he's a habitue of the Kiehl's counter for toner and sundries. Finally, and probably the "BEST" part of the episode for me (only because, as is typical of my tribe, I'm so very out with the old and in with the new....sorry, Nate), the sehr snackable Gordon Thompson, creative director at Cole Haan, dished about the new line of comfortable but still fashionable heels he's spearheaded. I just said spearheaded.Look. At. Him. Oh, and they did the best pizzas in the US. Pizza: not gay. And that segment took 20 minutes so all the fabulousness was packed into the last 40. That's a whole lotta homo.
• FYI: If your internet boyfriend sends you an unretouched nearly naked photo of himself, you should gush.
  
• Did you ever jerk off to a picture of Andy Rooney, just to see if you could? I add this because I felt the Wiggles question needed a bookend, and also because I totally did this at lunch. Andy's picture was in GQ. Which was in the bathroom. Sure, I could have used coverboy Clive Owen (like yesterday) but I was in the mood for a challenge. Besides, I work well with what's at hand, guys. Join me for potluck brunch sometime.