Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Republished from the pages of National Geographic magazine
Sheli Jeffry is searching for beauty. As a scout for Ford, one of the world's top model agencies, Jeffry scans up to 200 young women every Thursday afternoon. Inside agency headquarters in New York, exquisite faces stare down from the covers of Vogue, Glamour, and Harper's Bazaar. Outside, young hopefuls wait for their big chance.
Jeffry is looking for height: at least five feet nine (1.8 meters). She's looking for youth: 13 to 19 years old. She's looking for the right body type.
What is the right body type?
"Thin," she says. "You know, the skinny girls in school who ate all the cheeseburgers and milk shakes they wanted and didn't gain an ounce. Basically, they're hangers for clothes."
In a year, Jeffry will evaluate several thousand faces. Of those, five or six will be tested. Beauty pays well. A beginning model makes $1,500 a day; those in the top tier, $25,000; stratospheric supermodels, such as Naomi Campbell, four times that.
Jeffry invites the first candidate in.
"Do you like the camera?" she asks Jessica from New Jersey. "I love it. I've always wanted to be a model," Jessica says, beaming like a klieg light.
Others seem less certain. Marsha from California wants to check out the East Coast vibes, while Andrea from Manhattan wants to know if she has what it takes to be a runway star. (Don't give up a sure thing like a well-paying Wall Street job for this roll of the dice, Jeffry advises.)
The line diminishes. Faces fall and tears well as the refrain "You're not what we're looking for right now" extinguishes the conversation—and hope.
You're not what we're looking for …
Confronted with this, Rebecca from Providence tosses her dark hair and asks: "What are you looking for? Can you tell me exactly?"
Jeffry meets the edgy, almost belligerent, tone with a composed murmur. "It's hard to say. I know it when I see it."
What is beauty? We grope around the edges of the question as if trying to get a toe-hold on a cloud.
"I'm doing a story on beauty," I tell a prospective interview. "By whose definition?" he snaps.
Define beauty? One may as well dissect a soap bubble. We know it when we see it—or so we think. Philosophers frame it as a moral equation. What is beautiful is good, said Plato. Poets reach for the lofty. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," wrote John Keats, although Anatole France thought beauty "more profound than truth itself."
Others are more concrete. "People come to me and say: 'Doctor, make me beautiful,'" a plastic surgeon reveals. "What they are asking for is high cheekbones and a stronger jaw."
Science examines beauty and pronounces it a strategy. "Beauty is health," a psychologist tells me. "It's a billboard saying 'I'm healthy and fertile. I can pass on your genes."
"LOVE is a reciprocal torture"-Marcel Proust
God B
Thom C & David P
Friday, October 1, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Thom Collins wants you to join foursquare!
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
IMDb: A Fish Called Wanda
Otto West: Don't call me stupid.
Wanda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?
Otto West: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself." And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up. -- IMDb Quotes: A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
A Fish Called Wanda
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095159/
Sent from the IMDb iPhone app.
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Thursday, April 29, 2010
My heart belongs to daddy
I applaud the article
http://links.mkt335.com/ctt?kn=1&m=2954767&r=OTA2NzEyMTA3OQS2&b=0&j=MTc3NjA1MDEwS0&mt=1&rt=0
and have always wanted to express it and now can. Out at 16, exposed at 17, found my partner of 26+ years to date. Though he and I have had our share of complications one being our AGE difference. I being 17 and he 33. The fact he also had money made it really tough for us being clocked as "Sugar Daddy" and "Chicken". We gays are always applauded for our thick skin/shields if you will as a defense mechanism growing up but why we turn on one another is beyond me when we all know what it is like to be picked on. We are suppose to be full of pride coming OUT celebrating our new family when in fact we are full of shit. Okay maybe this statement was a bit harsh? The jury can decide.
I have retired from what most would call an ACTIVE gay lifestyle in the year 2000 at 34 years old not by choice but by my AIDS wake up call. Yeah I was the one living HIV positive have no time to be Negative until my number was called. Both my partner and I found ourselves starting the new millennium as two gay men living with AIDS. The fact we had both been to hell and back in our relationship didn't matter anymore, what mattered is we had each other. Having a lover, boyfriend, partner, significant other, husband, whatever you labled it I lived it my entire OUT life. Not once was I known for being single only in a relationship or having a boyfriend. So to hear older men whine about being called daddy is nothing short of amusing. It ranks up there with gay men not wanting to be called GIRL.
When did our beloved community and pride enlist the fuck police? I always knew being unfaithful or caught tricking out was a risk I took if and when I decided too. I subscribed to the I love you but I fuck him club. My partner disagreed with a passion. When I found it worked both ways my feelings were a bit swayed. My point is we had to work it out together but now our relationship was fair game in the community. Having to prove yourself or feel the need to earn trust back from a community which really has no business in your affairs who seems to think it does? What would we queens do without gossip? I am the first to admit being one vicious spilling of the tea queens and know as a youngster from the way I was brought out it was part of the package. I liked it then but hindsight is 20/20 and I don't like it now.
The last 10 years have been really hard but also very reflective on life as a gay man of 43 living with AIDS and caring for a 15 year my senior partner who is quicker to get sicker and has almost loosing him twice this last year alone. I guess my perspective on the whole Daddy topic is why does it matter? Youth is so overrated but yet most of us suckers would give our souls to be young, dumb and full of cum again. WHY? Can we not grow as individuals celebrating our age and own it not trying to fight it or escape it because it is impossible to recapture ones youth and folly. I had plastic surgery at 19! Wanting chiseled features, six pack abs sure, popularity you bet but at what cost?
Living as a narcissistic 24/7 sexual predator, going to the gym, tanning, and doing laundry the Jersey lifestyle is not just unsafe when not played right but pathetic, point blank period. I am living proof. When you put all your eggs in one basket and bet the farm with only your looks you will pay and my dear gorgeous young, tight end friends will pay dearly I assure you. When beauty fades and this is all you gave or put out there what will you become? SEX 24/7, really? Okay I liked to play around now and then and by the grace of God maybe this is why 26 years with this disease later I am still here. How many partners is too many? Do you truly value yourself as a piece of meat to be sucked, fucked, and tossed on to the next? Other than the obvious satisfaction, wouldn't you like to know the persons name for once? Maybe try a relationship on for size instead of looking for SIZE alone? Ask yourself are you really happy with your life be it in or out of a relationship?
A relationship will not fix what you think is missing in your life anymore than fucking endlessly will. Get real and honest with yourself and each other, live by example not just the rule. A favorite quote my drag mother gave me years ago was advice I took and it goes something like this.
"It is far sexier to be wanted than had"
Value and treasure what you have don't give it up so fast. Just like the real girls don't give up your flower only to be left with a stick of thorned wood. OUR community is sexually based and I will debate to the day I die the whole we are guys needing to spread our seed and not made to be monogamous theory the straights tell themselves. Youth, sex, and looks are what drives this culture and I don't see it changing anytime soon. I can't imagine what women have to deal with when those rules apply coupled with not eating to fit in. Figuratively, and Literally speaking.
I tend to think of us now older gay men (30-->is still over the hill last I checked)as the first wife syndrome. When the party goes on without your tired ole ass unable to keep up and when we try too we look ridiculous. I am all for getting with a group of guys and playing at a circuit now and then, but the bar on weekends? seriously grow up.Do you really want to subject yourself to the abuse you once dished out? Taking PRIDE in being called "daddy" is so stupid unless of course you are in some kind of role leather play.
I know you youngsters are reading this thinking you did it why can't we? YOU can that is the point. My hope for writing this soapbox of a comment is maybe as your elder you will know the outcome is not always so pretty. Twirling, drugging, fucking, without a care in the world will eventually catch up and it is anything but liberating. To wake up one day in a pool of pity and self destruction, wondering if is was worth it? I wish I had gotten the memo sooner rather than later when it was beyond my control. I do love my community even with it's flaws I wouldn't trade you guys LBT in for the world. I hope as we grow up in this country we will also mature as a community.
To live as a young gay man today with our human rights finally becoming OUR reality making GAY PRIDE a fight we are now winning instead of loosing. Stonewall, Bath Houses, Disco, Drag, Dance, Diva's, Drugs, Dick, and Disease we ACT ed up and not a minute too soon.
http://links.mkt335.com/ctt?kn=1&m=2954767&r=OTA2NzEyMTA3OQS2&b=0&j=MTc3NjA1MDEwS0&mt=1&rt=0
and have always wanted to express it and now can. Out at 16, exposed at 17, found my partner of 26+ years to date. Though he and I have had our share of complications one being our AGE difference. I being 17 and he 33. The fact he also had money made it really tough for us being clocked as "Sugar Daddy" and "Chicken". We gays are always applauded for our thick skin/shields if you will as a defense mechanism growing up but why we turn on one another is beyond me when we all know what it is like to be picked on. We are suppose to be full of pride coming OUT celebrating our new family when in fact we are full of shit. Okay maybe this statement was a bit harsh? The jury can decide.
I have retired from what most would call an ACTIVE gay lifestyle in the year 2000 at 34 years old not by choice but by my AIDS wake up call. Yeah I was the one living HIV positive have no time to be Negative until my number was called. Both my partner and I found ourselves starting the new millennium as two gay men living with AIDS. The fact we had both been to hell and back in our relationship didn't matter anymore, what mattered is we had each other. Having a lover, boyfriend, partner, significant other, husband, whatever you labled it I lived it my entire OUT life. Not once was I known for being single only in a relationship or having a boyfriend. So to hear older men whine about being called daddy is nothing short of amusing. It ranks up there with gay men not wanting to be called GIRL.
When did our beloved community and pride enlist the fuck police? I always knew being unfaithful or caught tricking out was a risk I took if and when I decided too. I subscribed to the I love you but I fuck him club. My partner disagreed with a passion. When I found it worked both ways my feelings were a bit swayed. My point is we had to work it out together but now our relationship was fair game in the community. Having to prove yourself or feel the need to earn trust back from a community which really has no business in your affairs who seems to think it does? What would we queens do without gossip? I am the first to admit being one vicious spilling of the tea queens and know as a youngster from the way I was brought out it was part of the package. I liked it then but hindsight is 20/20 and I don't like it now.
The last 10 years have been really hard but also very reflective on life as a gay man of 43 living with AIDS and caring for a 15 year my senior partner who is quicker to get sicker and has almost loosing him twice this last year alone. I guess my perspective on the whole Daddy topic is why does it matter? Youth is so overrated but yet most of us suckers would give our souls to be young, dumb and full of cum again. WHY? Can we not grow as individuals celebrating our age and own it not trying to fight it or escape it because it is impossible to recapture ones youth and folly. I had plastic surgery at 19! Wanting chiseled features, six pack abs sure, popularity you bet but at what cost?
Living as a narcissistic 24/7 sexual predator, going to the gym, tanning, and doing laundry the Jersey lifestyle is not just unsafe when not played right but pathetic, point blank period. I am living proof. When you put all your eggs in one basket and bet the farm with only your looks you will pay and my dear gorgeous young, tight end friends will pay dearly I assure you. When beauty fades and this is all you gave or put out there what will you become? SEX 24/7, really? Okay I liked to play around now and then and by the grace of God maybe this is why 26 years with this disease later I am still here. How many partners is too many? Do you truly value yourself as a piece of meat to be sucked, fucked, and tossed on to the next? Other than the obvious satisfaction, wouldn't you like to know the persons name for once? Maybe try a relationship on for size instead of looking for SIZE alone? Ask yourself are you really happy with your life be it in or out of a relationship?
A relationship will not fix what you think is missing in your life anymore than fucking endlessly will. Get real and honest with yourself and each other, live by example not just the rule. A favorite quote my drag mother gave me years ago was advice I took and it goes something like this.
"It is far sexier to be wanted than had"
Value and treasure what you have don't give it up so fast. Just like the real girls don't give up your flower only to be left with a stick of thorned wood. OUR community is sexually based and I will debate to the day I die the whole we are guys needing to spread our seed and not made to be monogamous theory the straights tell themselves. Youth, sex, and looks are what drives this culture and I don't see it changing anytime soon. I can't imagine what women have to deal with when those rules apply coupled with not eating to fit in. Figuratively, and Literally speaking.
I tend to think of us now older gay men (30-->is still over the hill last I checked)as the first wife syndrome. When the party goes on without your tired ole ass unable to keep up and when we try too we look ridiculous. I am all for getting with a group of guys and playing at a circuit now and then, but the bar on weekends? seriously grow up.Do you really want to subject yourself to the abuse you once dished out? Taking PRIDE in being called "daddy" is so stupid unless of course you are in some kind of role leather play.
I know you youngsters are reading this thinking you did it why can't we? YOU can that is the point. My hope for writing this soapbox of a comment is maybe as your elder you will know the outcome is not always so pretty. Twirling, drugging, fucking, without a care in the world will eventually catch up and it is anything but liberating. To wake up one day in a pool of pity and self destruction, wondering if is was worth it? I wish I had gotten the memo sooner rather than later when it was beyond my control. I do love my community even with it's flaws I wouldn't trade you guys LBT in for the world. I hope as we grow up in this country we will also mature as a community.
To live as a young gay man today with our human rights finally becoming OUR reality making GAY PRIDE a fight we are now winning instead of loosing. Stonewall, Bath Houses, Disco, Drag, Dance, Diva's, Drugs, Dick, and Disease we ACT ed up and not a minute too soon.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
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