International Auto Show

Ah, Spring. It is the time of year when a young man’s thoughts turn to love. Well, most men anyway. My thoughts turn to the upcoming International Auto Show. Like the swallows returning to Capistrano or gay men booking gay cruises, spring signals that it's time for new vehicles to be drooled over at the annual auto show, coming to town this weekend.

I’m not sure who started the rumor that gay men don’t like cars? Whoever said that gay guys aren’t butch enough to be Gearheads needs a good smack in the head with my Prada bag. Now, granted that most gay gearheads may not want to get down and dirty with gear ratio or pressure displacement, but if you want your bearings packed, look for a gearhead gay. It’s not that we, as a people, don’t necessarily like to work on cars, it’s that we have better taste and lust after cars for the aesthetics along with performance. Ask any gay to name Ford’s line up verses Audi’s nameplates and you’ll see.

This is why, coming weekend, the auto show at the convention center will become the hottest pick up spot in town. The gear-moes will be out in force, shopping for, or just drooling over their new crushes. Of the four-wheeled and two leg kind.

If you need me this weekend, I’ll be sitting in the cabin of the new F-250 Diesel. Or maybe the Dodge Ram 2500. I like them big.

 
 
To check out more information about the Denver Auto Show, click here.

Spring Break

I slammed my eight pages of writing down on the Professor’s desk and suddenly it became Spring Break.


In my creative writing class I started to hang out with the cool dudes. I think this is funny because sitting with the dudes would never have happened in my past rounds of education. I like to think it’s because I’ve connected to a couple of them in the gym. Most likely it’s because of our group projects. I like to actually read our assignments and give feedback during class discussions.

As one of the cool kids, last Thursday, we sat in the back of class discussing what we were going to do for Spring Break. There seemed to be a theme of non-shower sittin’ on the couch chillaxin. There was also a lot of mountain road trip talk. This is when I would have said “finally starting the Erik Larson novel and replacing the garbage disposer.” Something told me that this sounded lame even in my standards. Something in my head just clicked; I whipped out the iPhone and my HRC credit card. Finding the Best Western in Santa Fe that some friends were staying at, I booked two nights. Just in time to say, “I think I’m going to head down to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a while, chill out there.”

As I crossed over into the state of New Mexico, I started to giggle. I love road trips. Live for them actually, yet I couldn’t remember the last time I took one. The nineteen year old dudes in my class think they are pretty smart using me to do the majority of the class work, but they don’t realize that I’m using them quite a bit more. I used them to realize that when you get a Spring Break, you should use that time and enjoy life.

Demolition Man

There was just enough room between the last pole of the chain link fence and the side of the house. The fence was festooned with warning signs. “Keep Out” and “Guard Dog on Duty” but I knew there weren’t any dogs. At least I didn’t think so, at any point a couple of muscled watch-dogs could have leapt from the old Victorian house. I stopped halfway between the fence line and the massive edifice, hearing only my heartbeat and Interstate 25 humming off in the distance, I trusted that if there were dogs, they would have attacked me by now.

In my youth I did this almost nightly, just to look inside the hulking manors before they were ripped from the ground. My motivation was to be the last human to walk the decks of the Titanic before the rust and water pressure turned the iron to dust. Back then I would wander around theses houses thinking of the Silver Barons that built the brick and mortar, and within days the reception parlor and massive staircases would be gone from the Earth. These 1890’s monuments, sitting in the city’s once finest neighborhood were replaced by condo buildings to overlook Interstate 25 and downtown.

Now it seems the tide of obliterating our Victorian history has turned. The thinned out herd of massive mansions, with their stone and wrought iron filigree, do not get hunted down and murdered as they sleep anymore. Some survived. Somehow. In our new, enlightened and mature sense of preserving the past, the houses that once sat in the finest neighborhoods turned skid-row has now returned back to the city’s finest neighborhood.

“I hadn’t done this in years.” I thought as I pulled a sheet of plywood from a back window. I guess I didn’t need to. “They hadn’t torn down a Victorian house in ages.”

As I made my way through the house I could see a considerable change, this particular mansion wasn’t set for the chopping block; it was being prepped for “restoration.” Fifteen years earlier I explored the house that once stood next door. In a gaping hole in the upstairs bedroom I jerked off watching the city below me. Now condos “priced in the mid-300” have taken its place.

The feel of this house was different somehow. In the dozens of house I’ve explored I felt the Green Mile death walk sensation, this feeling was one of anticipation. Looking out of an upstairs window, out at the city, I started to jerk off. As I glanced over at the next-door condo building I met the eyes of one of the tenants on their balcony.

“Guess it’s all changed.” I said to the front parlor room as I kicked out the plywood on the front door. I ducked into a homeless shelter-turned-hipster club as the cop car turned the corner.

My Furry Happy Weekend

We had three great days of sunny, warm weather over the weekend. Maybe our first truly warm days since fall, fell. You can tell that everyone was jumping on the chance to enjoy the great weekend by the hordes of people spilling into the park and jumping at the chance to go out on the town for dancing and mischief-making. Visitors to Cheesman Park were trying their best at soaking up the sunny weekend, not knowing when they’ll get the chance to feel it again. The running path in Cheesman was crowded as runners gave up the treadmill and ventured out into nature.


I watched all this unfold from behind the plate-glass of the coffee shop on 9th and Downing Street. I spent my weekend writing a paper on the topic of homosexuals and how they were portrayed in mid-century media. How movies and literature portrayed homosexuality as a sickness, something to be feared or pitied. As I typed away on the topic of self-loathing in the GLBT community, two twenty-somethings sat at the next table hatching a plan to raise funds to bankroll an awareness campaign for our local meal delivery program for people living with HIV.

I did put down the lap-top long enough to attend Bearracuda: A fun, friendly party for Bears, Cubs, and other wildlife. It’s like a circuit dance party for the happy, furry set. I’ll blame the weather, but I had an amazing time. My good friend Gary Givant was DJing and it's always a great to dance to his tunes. Gary is a Billboard.com DJ and constantly has his feelers out for new tunes; he seems to always have new, upbeat songs before anyone else. My opinion may have been skewed by the hot muscle dudes tromping around, but it seemed like just the perfect prescription to top-off the weekend.

The thesis of my paper was how our GLBT community had their identity originally formed by fear mongering, agenda driven media types. This was an attempt to drive self-hatred down into our very collative soul. It may have worked for a while, yet this weekend proved to me that we have come a long way.

Blog-shy

My first thought of Twitter was that it was just randomly shouting into the dark. Spurting 140 characters then watching the traffic of porn stars and early adaptors speed past. I didn’t understand the attraction, why were all these porn stars and narcissistic celebrities just blurting out “I forgot how much I love pickles!” for the known-world to read?


The first Blogger.



In my eternal quest to be one of the cool kids, I trudged on trying to “get” the avant-gardeness of being a Twit? Tweetaphile? Twttererererer? Like jumping into a swimming pool in Florida; there’s always the chance that a wayward alligator may be resting at the bottom, yet you jump in anyway. With my Über social awkwardness tucked under my arm, I jumped in and began to see it as a way promote myself, a billboard for all things… blogger me. I quickly realized that Twitter was just a series of advertisements for people, a 1984 Apple commercial for people’s egos. But, for me it has become a place to hang out virtually with the “my dudes” talking dirty, and flirting.

If Twitter is hanging out in the garage, getting dirty with your buds, and Facebook is sitting with your family in the living room, blogging must be spending time in the study. Relaxing on the couch, talking one on one. Laughing and retelling old stories about each other. So, it was odd to find myself last night stuttering at a simple question.

“What’s the name of your blog?”

This was asked by my English Professor. We were discussing my thoughts on the Mormon Church, and he asked if I ever thought of writing my story. Without thinking I mentioned that I have a blog and write about it ad nauseam.  Now, I have never shied away from telling people about my little backwards corner of the net, without getting too metta, I clammed up.

There is a place for everything, twitter with its unruly rugby team mentality, blogging, and English class. At that moment I stood frozen, like trying to pee next to François Sagat. You know he’s going to look over, and he has seen a lot of other dicks…. This was the very first time I felt guarded about my blog. It was a strange feeling. A feeling I don’t really care for, yet it was the same feeling I had when my niece asked if she could follow me on Twitter. Having an English Professor read your formal term-paper is one thing, sitting with him in the study as he does it is quite another.

Logo TV

I’m sure you have heard the news. The bell tolls for the death of Logo, the gay TV channel. It won’t be a nice peaceful death, covered in olive oil, reposing in a Beverly Hills’ Hotel bath tub. No. The corpse of the little gay TV network that brought us Rick and Steve and Jeffrey and Cole will be gutted, and reanimated like Frankenstein’s Monster. The Network will arise from the slab attempting to look like so many overly processed Housewives on the Bravo Network.

If you read my blog for long you’ll notice that I stay away from anything political, there are much better and more astute bloggers for popular news stories. That being said, when I read about Logo changing its platform, I felt as if RuPaul had just told me to “sashay away.”

Logo has decided to attempt a Bravo Network format. This grabbing at Bravo’s Housewives franchise will be mixed with some Lifetime channel and other female centric shows, along with reality shows just to make the train wreck “fabulous.” If the channel’s inauthentic reality show, The A-List was the canary in the networks coalmine. The bird is dead.

I will miss my Logo channel. It won’t pass peacefully and much as it will be murdered.

America will have a new source for faux reality shows about the housewives of mobsters, forcing their toddlers to compete in pageants as tables get flipped in arguments over the bidding of abandoned storage units. Must avoid TV.

For a short time we had a channel for us. Like when MTV showed music. My hope is that young gays will be able to grow up remembering how this channel helped them come out and not remember how The A-List made inauthentic stereotypes of our community.

Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for gayTV...

Crunchatize Me Cap'n!

I have been craving huge amounts of cereal this week. I’m finding that it doesn’t matter what kind, just cereal. I have ventured to the grocery store several times trying to find the next brightly colored box to get my fix.

Yesterday I stood in the middle of the seemingly endless breakfast food isle. A parade of cereal cartoon mascots mocking me for the staring contest I foolishly instigated with Tony the Tiger. Keeping my gaze fixed on the buff tiger, I pulled out my phone. I dialed my ex boyfriend. I was about to ask him if he remembered that type of cereal I loved to eat back…. eight years ago? Because... that’s a normal thing to phone your ex boyfriend and inquire about.

I lost the staring contest with Tony as it hit me; I needed to listen to my body. It was trying to tell me that I was in serious need of something. I did know it wasn’t a carbohydrate craving. I know how those urges that make me want to be number two in a human centipede with the Krispy Kream conveyor belt feel like. This wasn’t a carb-hole, my body needed something more. Whole grains? Fiber?

After exploring dietary nutrition information, reading about the benefits of fiber, and re-reading my multi-vitamin bottles, it dawned on me. It wasn’t my body that was making me crave whole grains, it was my head. The happiest way to escape stress has always been for me to sit in my underwear, eat Cap’n Crunch, and watch Superman cartoons.With my work and school stress this week, my head was urging me to have some underwear clad cereal time.

After going for a run, finishing a paper on Shakespeare’s, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and finishing my monthly reports for work, it will be time to unplug and watch some serious amounts of Cartoon Network. Time for me to just relax in my Under Armour with the Cap’n.

Leap Day

Today is February 29^Th. A special day on our calendars that happens only every four years. Why we have this unique day has its origins going back to the Roman Julian calendar. It was born in plot by a roman civil servant named Sosigenes of Alexandria, and his get rich quick scheme. Sosigenes, convinced Caesar to add on an extra 24 hours every four years to the Julian calendar. This was just to mess with everyone’s calendars for all time.

Alexandrians, being notorious jerks, were also cunning enough for the Caesar to fall for the plan. Caesar never connected Sosigenes to his Alexandrian headquartered calendar making company. To this day the North African empire is solely driven by making all the world’s calendars.

For me, this day marks the anniversary of moving from Dallas, Texas to Denver, Colorado in 2004. Marking eight years I  living on the base of the great Rocky Mountains. Here are some other historical Wikepedia events:

1720 – Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden abdicates in favour of her husband, who becomes  King Frederick I.
1936 – February 26 Incident in Tokyo ends.
1940 – Finland initiates Winter War peace negotiations
1960 – Family Circus makes its debut.
1988 – Svend Robinson becomes the first member of the Canadian House of Commons to come out as gay.
1992 – First day of Bosnia and Herzegovina independence referendum.

It is uncanny, the strange occurrences that seem to happen on this, Leap Day. I for one, will always remember where I was on the February 29, when I heard that the Tokyo incident had finally ended.

So, go forth and make your own wonderful memories today! Attempt your own coup d’état on your own Japanese ruling party.* Go witness the strange and awesome site of a day that only comes but once every four years.




*The staff of the Nice to see StevieB blog, its affiliates, and/or Stevie B. neither advocate nor
  claim any right to overthrowing the Japanese ruling power in a romantic and/or
  sexy Yukio Mishima kind of way.

Choosing the Right Family

In the summer of 1993 I stood in the middle of my Mother’s hotel room. Six months earlier I had come out to her over the phone, and this was our first face-to-face meeting. Purchasing a couple of books, I had hoped to give them to her on her visit. This was my attempt in some way to help her deal with the fall out of her nice Mormon son “turning” gay. She spoke of damnation and conversion therapy. I handed her Don Clarks’s book, Loving Someone Gay as a starting point to bridge a gap in communication and understanding. She picked up the hotel wastepaper basket and tossed the books inside.


I closed the door to her room slowly; as I did I realized I was closing another door. As I walked down the badly decorated hallway to the elevator and out the castle themed hotel, one thought came to mind:

“My Mother is a raging A## hole.”

This is when I learned the meaning behind the Maya Angelou quote, “The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.” This is also around the time that I began to formulate my theory that you make your own family.

Out of the blue today, Dalton the BFF, sent me a text from his office in mid-town Manhattan. He needed a hug while working on a stressful proposal to revamp the image of a mens clothing line. It got me thinking; true family isn’t in titles, it’s in actions. True family isn’t how often you see each other in the bar, or link to each other on Facebook; it truly is in walking the walk. The idea that when something goes wrong, like your car breaking down, family will stand next to you and give you unsolicited support. The concept that you will get unconditional and never-ending ending support when you need it, or even when you don’t want it.

Those are the relationships that make up the family you choose.

iDench 4S

You want to see Dame Judith Dench’s breasts? Sure, we all do…

As part of my literature class, this semester, we are deconstructing classic literary works. Yesterday we discussed Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As the group of nineteen year old girls that comprise the majority of this college course struggled to comprehend the classic, the professor decided to just play the movie.

Much to my happiness, it wasn’t the version with Calista Flockhart’s one grab at a movie career. The movie our Professor ordered up was the BBC’s 1968 version. I was excited because it featured a very young Diana Rigg as Helena. Secretly, I hoped she would just karate chop the hell out of some Athenian ass. It didn’t happen. Around the time that a young Judith Dench appeared I noticed that her perky breasts were bouncing around on screen. At this point I realized that I’ve never needed to see the boobs of James Bond’s boss.

Since I figured we were just watching the bouncy bosoms of a Dame for the benefit of the nineteen year old girls, I tuned out and mulled over my plan for an iPhone 4S. There comes a tipping point where your friends start to get better technology than you. I was more than content with my iPhone 4. Until, I received a call yesterday from the two friends stating that they are new parents of the latest version of the Apple phone. I realized that as much as I love my phone, a new and shiner one is out there for me to desire.

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

I started to mull over the benefits to upgrading to the new version. Okay, there’s Siri. Do I really NEED to spend money to get a girl to talk to me? The other reason is the camera. Yes, it has three more megapixels than my iPhone camera, but every picture I’ve ever taken consists of me holding the camera in front of my face, in the bathroom mirror, showcases my t-shirt. Do I really need larger images?  Should I stay with my current phone and await the great iPhone 5 (which I hear will have a beverage dispenser) or upgrade.

Lord, what fools these iPhone zombies be.

As the class ended, I realized that I had daydreamed the whole class away pondering over a silly phone.  I also had eternally linked my lust for a new, shiny phone to the naked chest of Dame Judith Dench.

May the Thule be with You

If asked to complete an online dating profile, I’d say I was the “outdoorsy” type. Running, biking, and pretty much any type of activity that involves Lycra. Running is easy, a new pair of Pumas, a trip to the park and Voila, you're running. Cycling on the other hand is getting pricey to enjoy.


When I traded in my SUV for fuel savings, I didn’t think twice about where my mountain bike would ride. I simply thought I’d buy a rack, strap it onto my new sleek sports sedan, and away I’d go to the mountains. As last summer approached, I purchased a trunk mounted bike carrier. I then proceeded to spend the entire summer watching my rear view mirror as my bike bounced around on the back of my car. I’m not sure what frightened me more, the bike scratching the car’s paint, or the carrier letting loose and seeing mountain bikes bounce down the highway behind me.

I hear that spring will come sometime soon; if it does, I’m sure I will have the urge to head out and bike the trails. This year I decided to give up on the trunk mounted bike thing-a-ma-jig with its straps and clamps and buy a roof rack. They look so simple, every Whole Food’s parking lot in the world is just jammed with late model Audis all sporting Yakima or Thule bike racks. How hard could it be?

Quite. Apparently. First I had to get lost on the sleek Thule inc. bike carrier website, trying to decipher styles and pricing. I gave up and headed to our super-sleek downtown sporting goods store. The outdoor aficionado’s supply store with its fake pine trees and rock climbing wall inside of it. Patrons can climb the 50 foot high fiberglass rock wall, in air conditioned comfort. If I’m going to take up rock climbing, living in the Rocky Mountains, forget nature, give me this rock wall. I want to fall four stories onto my head in full air-conditioning and with a string version of Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill playing softly in the background.

What I was looking for was a bike Jedi Master, what I found was Kip, (yes, that was his name.) I asked about their line of Thule brand car racks. Kip was nice enough to correct me that it’s pronounced too-lee not (and he signed heavily) thoo-lee. It was not, a “bike rack,” but a bicycle management system for automobiles. When I explained to Kip, that I didn’t want to “manage” my bike, just ride it, Kip suggested the website. I suggested he might take a trip off the rock wall.

Finally I did what any guy like me would do; I followed the instructions of a Lesbian Jedi Knight I found YouTube. The force was strong. Leave it to a woman who looks like she just walked out of an On Our Backs spread to simply explain a bicycle management system, It’s funny, she starting out by calling it a bike rack.

Corvette Gets Married

You get to a point in your life where have seen your high school friends get married, have families, and pretty much just grow up.

I understand that my situation was atypical for my generation, openly dating my first boyfriend during my senior year of high school after dating other boys in school.  Today it seems that it is just part of everyday high school life. Your first love, however is universal. The person you waited for after class, eating in the lunchroom together, making out in the student parking lot before school.  The horribly written love poems where I tried to compare his beauty to Pete Burns. You never forget your first love. But, you graduate, grow up, and somehow stop writing horribly written love poems.

I believe it would be cathartic for anyone to watch a high school sweetheart get married. To see them amazingly happy on the day designed to celebrate finding the love they sought. Your high school love is the person who first broke your heart, or you theirs,  yet taught you that broken hearts helped you grow up into who you are now.

I believe it a little strange; however, when your high school sweetheart’s marriage ceremony shows ups on the gay society column of Towelroad.com, a premier gay news blog.

View the link and video here:

 http://www.towleroad.com/2012/02/gwvaaroncorvette.html

And before you ask… yes, his name is Corvette. In the video he was in the blue tux… and…the red dress.

Yes. It is cathartic to watch your high school sweet heart get married. It reminds me of the kid I was in high school. The type of unguarded and immature love we have in our high school years. Maybe I should go write some horrible love poems.  

Just Keep Running

It happened for the first time. I got called young looking.


Every once in a while I have an overwhelming urge that I need new Puma running shoes. I found myself the other day needing a Puma fix, nothing serious, just a pair of running shoes to get me through the monotony of February. After ogling the Puma website I headed to Cherry Creek Mall for some serious shopping.

My old pair of purely running shoes are so incredibly nasty and dirty they have their own bag in the trunk of my car. I sit on the curb of Cheesman Park and change out of my street shoes and into these shadows of former running shoes. Mud, muck, and torn fabric. It was time for new, shiny running shoes.

Dizzy from the enticing Puma fumes as entered the store, I made my way around the amateur shoppers to the men’s section. I zeroed in on the pair I had been hunting for and asked “Billy” (the ever-smiling shop boy) if I could try on the pair of brightly colored neon striped kicks. As I laced the runners on, I half-heatedly mentioned that all the cool nineteen year olds at school are wearing neon shoes and that I’m finally going to be one of the cool dudes at the age of forty.

“Oh-my-God. You so totally don’t look forty!” Billy exclaimed with too much enthusiasm.

I tried to quickly move the conversation away from the next statement the zero percent body fat, hipster bearded homo was about to speak and back on the quality of the shoe. I spoke of the fit, of the comfort. Anything to stop “Billy” from making his next statement.

“You look really great… for your age."

There it was. A twenty-two year old baby homo just said I look good. For my age. The smooth skin on the face of the twenty year old beamed at me. This broke my stride until I reached into my pocket to pay for my new neon striped bits of happiness. I handed Billy my credit card with its massive line of credit. I may be old, Billy, but with age comes a massive credit score.

“So… hopefully… I’ll see you out running sometime…” Billy slyly said as he handed me my bright red bag.

I Choo-Choo-Choose You!

Whitney and Emily

I had one goal for the weekend.

Write a five page essay for my American Literature class. This quest started with abandon when I jumped out of bed on Saturday morning texting an all-points bulletin to everyone I knew asking to go to breakfast. I would have a little pancake action, and then sit down to write five stunning pages on Angie Dickinson… or Emily…. I confuse the two all the time.

My breakfast plan quickly changed to lunch after I slid through a round-a-boot/traffic circle and smashed into the very hard curb. I spent the remains of the morning doing my best Chrissy Snow impersonation as my friend and hero, Mike the gracious mechanic replaced my bent outer tie-rod So… really, I couldn’t write about Angie or Emily in a dealership’s alignment bay?

After a thank you lunch for Mike, a quick trip to Old Navy…. and a trip to another friend’s house to re-tell my story of tragic icy roads, it was time to write. After a nap.

Upon waking I heard a twitter buzz--when Whitney died--

I sat in a coffee shop reading the works of Emily Dickinson (because there isn’t a lot of literature on Police Woman) thinking about the tragic life of Whitney Houston. She was my first gay boy dance diva crush. The first record I ever bought. As my cassette tapes of her music were worn out, I bought them again on CD. I purchased Whitney’s albums again when iTunes started selling downloadable music. We started, as I started to like music.

Emily’s fascination with dying and death creped from the page. I found myself wanting to don all black Victorian garb. I wrote a five page critique of Emily Dickenson, yet it was really about my love of an aging pop star.



Because She could not stop for coke—
It kindly stopped for her—
The hotel held but just our idol—
And Immortality.


I would have been better off writing about Angie Dickenson's role on Police Woman.

Justin Utley

Have you heard Justin Utley?

Justin Utley

From his mission travels for the Mormon Church, Justin spent years involved in the Church's same sex attraction reprogramming or “conversion” therapy program. During this time, his life was as a Mormon singer and songwriter, touring America singing to mostly religious and faith-based audiences.

Considering my own struggles with the Mormon Church I was amazed and excited to read Justin’s journey. Justin became an activist for civil rights and for GLBT equality. He began to speak out against the Mormon use of "conversion therapy" as he toured America again, this time as a role model for anyone struggling with the Church and spreading the truth about the sham therapies that faith based religious groups dispense.

I first experienced this hunky, muscled performer at Denver’s Pridefest and have been a fan ever since. Check out his website for tour dates and links to buy his albums, like his new one Nothing This Real. He is also on Facebook.

 
JustinUtley.com  
Justin Utley on Facebook

Ellen and JC Penney

I went shopping at JC Penney today.

I guess didn’t realize that there was a store, literally, down the street from me. I wanted to say thank you to the department store for supporting Ellen DeGeneres and standing up to the campaign brought on by the angry conservative organization, One Million Moms in their attempt to have Ellen dropped as a spokesperson.

Why this angry organization chose JC Penney and not the entire ocean of other things that Ellen has endorsed is beyond my understanding. I guess the hate group’s boycott on Blue Tang didn’t have as much headline grabbing sensationalism. I was ecstatic to see that JC Penney arose to the battle cry and stepped up to support Ellen.

The best way for me to support this, after calling JCP and thanking them, was to do what I do best, go shopping at the one hundred year old chain store, headquartered in Plano, Texas. The funny thing was that this “boycott” put JC Penney back on my radar. I never really realized that they had a nice new store ten blocks from my house. Now, it’s on my list of neighborhood stores.

Yes, I’ll admit that I had to think about what the heck I’d buy in a Penney’s until I spotted the Sephora counter and stocked up on Philosophy’s microdelivery exfoliating wash. I then wandered around and was surprised at what a great store the Ellen had introduced me too. Now I have clean skin, Sweet and harmless Ellen is more of a role model of what is right in America, a corporation stood up to yet another bigoted, angry hate group, and most importantly JC Penney has a new customer.

Click here to go to GLAAD.org and show your support of JC Penney and StandupforEllen. Or Make a personal phone call to JC Penney's customer service department. Their numbers are 972-431-8200 (customer service) and 972-431-1000 (corporate headquarters) and say "thank you" for doing the right thing.

Snow Horse

When the television news announced, Thursday afternoon, that there was a massive storm heading towards the tri-county area, and that the storm front was to dump massive amounts of snow, I giggled with glee. Late Thursday night, I sat in Chili’s watching the snow began to fall.


I really do love snow storms. The best part is when the television news shows “those crazy runners” out in Washington and Cheesman Parks, running in the snow. Layers of Lycra and fleece keeping them warm yet sinewy. I want to be one of those sinewy, stretchy runners gliding through the snow packed streets.



What I imagine...



The snow fell for fifty-two straight hours. I was chopping at the bit to suit up and head out. After homework was done, that is. My chances to tromp through the falling show fell through as I watched the sun come out through my office window and I still had a textbook in my hand. “Fine! No big deal, I’ll complete this four page essay and then head out.” On Sunday afternoon I sat at my coffee shoppe, proof reading my essay. I had one eye on the page, the other on the people running by, coming from the park. I couldn’t take it anymore as I slammed shut the computer and headed to my car to suit up.

 

What I look like...



Changing like superman into my lycra super suit I bolted up the city blocks to the park. The streets were almost dry and I was giddy with excitement as the thirty degree air burned my nostrils. I jumped onto the parks running trail and was quickly met with packed snow. “No problem,” I thought, “this is soft to run on, like the bounce of a treadmill.” Soon I found that the packed snow had melted somewhat then re-frozen as other runners have tramped it down. The divots and uneven surface made it harder and harder to run smoothly. Halfway around the park I begin to feel like War Horse, running through the muddy trenches of No Man’s Land . One wrong step and I might have twisted an ankle. Or thrown a shoe.

Exhausted of the uneven stride, and the horse analogies, I clomped back to the main street and made my way back to my car. What lesson did our protagonist learn? Go for a run first. Before every other runner has time to pack down the snow, homework can wait.

Escape from Boys Town

I spent most of yesterday working at my remote office. Meaning, I spent the day shopping for Puma branded items at the coffee shop on 9th and Downing Street.

At some point, when I was lost in a world of trail running performance shoes a gentleman named Don walked up to me to strike up a conversation. Although, I know Don very well he started the conversation the way he always does, “I can’t remember your name, hi I’m Don.” He has started his conversations with me like this for eighteen years. Give or take a year.

When I was a skinny ingénue-like twenty-two year old, I needed to find a new apartment and in a quick manner. I can’t remember the details of why I was so under the gun to find a place, but there you have it. A boney kid in search of a new pad. On my hunt, I responded to Don’s advertisement in the back pages of the Westword newspaper. I showed up promptly at the appointed time and tried to disguise that I had taken that day’s shower in a McDonald’s bathroom sink. Don owned a row of tiny apartments and after a lengthy tour and being interviewed he explained that I didn’t have enough provable credit to get the apartment. He then proceeded to start stroking his bulge through his pants. I would have provable credit if I proved my credit. I did not prove anything that night.

Ever since that night, around once a year, Don randomly approaches me as if it’s our first meeting. For eighteen years. Yesterday, as I dreamed of new Pumas, he again tried to “stroke up” a conversation. I calmly started to reminisce about how it seemed like just yesterday I was a kid in desperate need of an apartment, and how he was in desperate need of me presenting my ass. I then inquired if he was still a landlord. Like a “Boys Town” kind of landlord.

I wonder if next time, he will remember my name.

Dream of P90X

“Come on! Do it with me! We can totally do it together and no one will know. We’ll share the pain. “

Somehow I had fallen asleep during the afternoon. I usually don’t nap, can’t nap actually; however, on this lazy day I managed to fall asleep fully clothed in the middle of the bed. Stretched out like a swastika. What I was not aware of, at the time, was that I had fallen asleep to a never ending, relentless, P90X commercial. Two hours of a P90X announcer with his smooth subliminal stimuli communicating under my threshold of conscious perception. Without being aware, I became a P90X zombie.

Now, if you don’t watch the “higher channels” of US cable programming, or have not been trapped next to a P90X zombie at a party, P90X is a workout program they sell on the idiot box. This workout program bombards you with images of normal people that look just like you using the system and within 90 days end up with washboard abs.

“Must have washboard abs” I started to chant in my sleep. The zero percent body fat “Jim Jones” leader of this cult is Tony Horton. His smooth talk and ease of explaining the process had me awake and reaching for my credit card to hold up to the screen. “Here! Take my money! All of it, just give me those abs, I must be beautiful!” I slammed my Visa against the TV screen, “Dear God, affirm me and firm me.”

I stopped. Startled awake, I found conscious standing with my face pressed against the Television. Credit cards scattered around me. Tony Horton still bouncing around on the screen explaining how his six pack is actually very easy to get. I then did what I always do in these situations. I texted Patrick of Pacspad.blogspot.com and started to convince him to do the program with me.

“Come on! I’ll do it on my side of the country, you can do it on your side of the country and it’ll be just like we’re doing it together.” Before I knew it, I was back on my bed texting away to Patrick on how groovy we were going to look in our new six packs. How we were going to walk around on some gay beach and have all the boys stare at us. Before I knew it, the infomercial that was going to change my life was done. The Forever Lazy infomercial started and Patrick and I moved on in our conversation as well.

Patrick and Steve on the beach this summer.  



Weekend Wrap-up

My Birthday weekend started out with a visit to my favorite breakfast restaurant to load up on carbs and gravy.    

The carbs were needed for the marathon tour of three amazing museums.

At the Museum of Contemporary Art, a cushion called me fat.

After an amazing day out with friends, I came home to find that Britain’s Queen had sent me yet another birthday present. It’s embarrassing; really, I still haven’t sent her a gift for her 132^nd birthday.

I couldn’t dwell on my social faux pas, as it was soon time to head to dinner.

My new favorite drink.



It goes by many regional names; in these parts it is called a Colorado Bulldog. It’s a White Russian with Coke.

 
 
Just thirty-seven of my closest friends. It’s like a “Where’s Waldo” more like a “Where’s Steve?”

Dinner was amazing.



By the time Sunday rolled around I was still in my whirlwind. A run in the park, breakfast with buds, then off to the mall to shop for some new Pumas using my stack of Puma gift cards.


Running through the mall with the new kicks.


 

 
 

Driving to the next engagement.

I finally had time to relax at a friend’s get-together.  That was when I discovered that my cocktail thought I was handsome.



It was a truly awesome birthday. Now I need a nap.

Le StevieB

Birthdays for me have been a day to live if I was on another continent. This is one reason I drag my friends to the same restaurant every year. Every year on my big day I eat my birthday dinner at the same French restaurant in Denver, Colorado. The restaurant itself holds amazing memories going back to my childhood.

Back in the 80’s my family would drive by this Downtown restaurant. I would stare out of the car window and gaze at the building as if it were the Eiffel Tower itself. I would spend hours dreaming that Dack Rambo would fall in love with me and take me to this French Restaurant to express his undying love for me. What? I was twelve. And hopeless in love with Dack Rambo, or at least his jeans. In high school I would have to change buses near the corner where Le Central stands. During this time it wasn’t Dack Rambo but, Scott Bakula who would profess his undying love.

Today I turn forty, Dack Rambo has been dead since 1994, and Scott Bakula destroyed our love with Enterprise. But, the idea that I’m still here and can still dream of far off places and far off faces is still very much alive. The friends will gather around for my annual pilgrimage and together we will celebrate another year of us.

"Patience, Grasshopper"

I’m trying to be very Zen about the growing stack of boxes on the dining room table. The Femail Man came to drop a new one everyday for the last three days. They sit there, mocking me. They are soldiers awaiting the battle. A battle they will lose tomorrow. When their spilled guts will be my birthday presents. I can barely walk by them, unable to make it through the dining room without their low call. “Your birthday presents are right here! Trapped inside us!”


Torture. Tomorrow, will be my release.

The boxes arrive.

They get placed on the table.

Ripped open tomorrow.

My Personal Essay

I’m becoming a real college student. Well, returning to my old college ways. I completely forgot to do my homework, due tonight, until this morning. Read three chapters on “Writing a Personal Essay.”

Just look at that hat! Is
that not just the
sexiest looking thing.
Man, I love that hat.

I believe that learning how to write a personal essay will benefit me in some way… maybe it will help you stomach my blogging more than benefit me. Only time will tell. My path away form the corporate world, to its new degree and education will someday take me to the glamorous life of Forest Management. This requires a massive amount of science, once I've completed my last couple of classes in English. When I think about the amount of classes in ecosystems and natural science what motivates me, really, is the uniform. Is it wrong to pick a career based on a really cool hat?

I have a personal essay due on February 2nd, maybe I’ll write about how much I think US park rangers’ uniforms are amazingly cool. Keep me motivated. Or, maybe I should pull some obscure story form my past. I guess that’s the good thing about being a blogger, built in archives.

The Big 40

On this coming Saturday I will turn forty. I am honestly thinking nothing of it. Well, about the age thing anyway as I always revel in my birthday. For me it’s a day of luxury, to indulge in boisterous festivities.

Since this year the big day will fall on a Saturday, my adventurous day ‘bout town can be shared with friends. We will make the annual pilgrimage to my favorite Cajun style restaurant for breakfast, and then spend the day on a walking tour of museums in the city. I will be joined by friends and relatives on different stops along the way.

You are Sixteen, going on Forty...

Spend your birthday wandering around museums? Yeah, it’s crazy to think this, taking a perfectly good birthday and blowing it inside a stuffy museum. I would have thought this as well. I guess I’ll chalk this up to being forty. Isn’t this was old people do? When I was sixteen I wouldn’t have dreamed that I’d even make it to forty, much less spending it looking at art. It would be such a boring, un-cool way to waste your time. But then again at sixteen I spent my days lounging in the grass of Cheesman Park, eating nothing but gas station nachos. So really who was I to judge? Shut up, sixteen year old Steve!

My fortieth year will find me in a museum gift shop. This really is why I go to museums in the first place. You get to play with cool stuff in the gift store, and act like a sixteen year old.

Gymuary

We are past the mid-point of Gymuary. The newness of going to the gym has worn off and this week begins the tipping-point where it’s easy to teeter on dedication. The gym shoes may be forgotten in the trunk/boot of the car and instead of coming to the gym, something “more important” maybe thought up as an excuse to not put these new cross trainers on and hit the gym’s rubberized floor.

For the last three weeks the gym has be filled to the breaking point with new members. Whole new waves of preferred members start to stagger in right after January first. This group made New Year’s resolutions to dedicated their time to the gym and pump some iron. This is always done in the effort to start anew on a workout routine and finally get their bodies in shape. The gym calls these folks “preferred members” because they pay the joining fees, then after thirty days never come back to use the facilities. No surprise, the gym prefers it this way.

For three weeks dedication ran high. When a gentleman unracked one side of a bar throwing the bar and its remaining contents onto my foot, I commended his dedication. When pausing between sets on the Preacher Curl Bench and a guy stepped in front of me to toss an empty bar onto the very bench I was using, I applauded his commitment to showing up and swearing his allegiance to the gym. Everyone makes mistakes when starting on a new path, never let it sidetrack resolve.

This will be the week to test the metal. With loyalty wavering, will the gym shoes be left in the trunk of the car? Will Gymuary end and February find these devotees have moved to Preferred Membership, or will they join us? The few, the proud, the Dudes at the gym. I for one, implore you to pull the shoes out of the trunk, strap them on and hit the weights. Before you know it, the excuses will fade and your half-hearted New Year’s resolution will simply be a way of life.

Tina Louise will Never Forget Saab

Saab Automotive has declared bankruptcy. Those selfish Swedish jerks. What are upper-middle class gay Homos going to drive now?

There was a time when you would walk down Cedar Spring Avenue in Dallas, Texas and you would find the streets lined with Saab Convertibles. Row after row of boxy, vapor-locking convertibles. The running joke at that time was the easiest place to pick-up a sun tanned gay boy wasn’t the baths, but the Saab service waiting area.

My realization that there was a tendency for the Mo’s to drive this unique vehicle came after my first date of the third guy I dated upon moving to Dallas. As he pulled up I realized that he was sporting exactly the same car as the last blind date. And the same car, in a different color as the one before him. Like a gay boy’s Groundhog Day.

Strangely, the three Saab dates were as photocopied as their cars. On the last, I sat in the leather covered passenger seat trying to retain my ingénue aloofness as the early evening humidity enter-twined with gas fumes and circled around us. A quick joke about every gay man in Dallas having bleached blonde highlights to match their bright yellow Saabs was still lingering between the seats. To change the subject I ask about his hobbies, outside of highlighting his surfer blonde hair. His remark about loving Tina caught me with surprise.

As we turned onto the highway, I started to dissect his statement about Tina over and over in my head. I found myself turning into James Lipton, if he were to interview an actor in an open-top on a busy beltway. Why would this guy be so adamant over his love for Tina Louise? Sure we all loved her as Ginger on Gilligan’s Island, and when I adamantly agreed with how much joy Tiny had brought into my life, my date responded as if he’s found a kindred spirit. I just didn’t understand what this guy saw in an aging television actress.

After that date, I made a pack with myself to never date another guy who drove a Saab convertible. My third date in a new city and I was already judging men by the cars they drove. For quite a while I was hard on myself for being shallow, that not associating with Saab owners and Tina Louise fans was just me not opening my horizons. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that the date with the Saabs had taught me countless lessons. Less about the type of cars that people drive, and more about people who are desperately in love and hopelessly devoted to Tina Louise. And, yes. It was a full three years later that I learned that Tina was slang for crystal methamphetamine.

Working (or not) From Home

I believe that I need to be wholly done with working from home. No, not that my job is going anywhere, it’s just that I might just have reached the end of my rope with the “home office” thing. When the bosses announced that they were closing the company’s local office and setting everyone up to work from their homes, I applauded the decision. That was June. Now I find myself stir crazy to the point of missing cubicles and noisy office mates.

As an early birthday present I finally bought a web streaming DVD player. At the time of purchase I didn’t calculate how, given my personality, I might never leave the house again. The ability to access Netflix movies and TV shows, gives me the opportunity to watch every DVD on the planet without ever having to walk down the drive and retrieve discs from the mailbox. Other than the gym and Jack in the Box, I might cocoon myself into my own little world.

Since everyone has been speaking of Downton Abbey, I summoned up the first series on the shiny DVD machine. Dear God, it’s amazing. But, I now find that when I’m reformatting spreadsheets and calculating monthly reports, I’m beginning to think about how easy it would be to just walk down the hall, push play and watch another episode. I’ve started to think “I don’t need to go to the gym today. I worked out yesterday.” It’s quite possible that, given my druthers, I just wouldn’t leave the house. Aluminum foil over the windows and keep the streaming crack coming.

Did you know that Dominoes has an app for your iPhone? It’s very handy for shut-ins in need of home bound substance. By evening time, I am just wired enough from the liter of Diet Coke the Dominoes delivery guy brought with the cheesy goodness that anyone trying to formulate social interaction gets hit with a tidal wave of pent up frustration. The frustration that comes from being trapped inside all day wondering if the Younger Countess of Grantham will break the Estate.

Six months of working from home and I thought I had a routine. Work a little, go work out, maybe a run, then an early afternoon of TV before school. I think I need to change it up a little bit. Get more social interaction in my day; because I never realized that a day without face-to-face interaction was going to affect me in a way that was detrimental to... well anyone trying to speak to me.

Martin Luther King Day

Today we celebrate Martin Luther King Day here in the US.


Today is actually my favorite Federal Holiday. This is because of all the bank observed holidays on the calendar, MLK day is one that I can actually connect with. Maybe it’s just because Dr. King was more recent in our collective experience. His ideas and concepts were filmed; two clicks and you can hear his own voice echo through YouTube. You can see for yourself the pain and determination in his eyes. It’s more than just his life on film, it more likely the fact that he was the first man to stand in front of us as a country and state that we should judge ourselves on our character, not the color of our skin and mean this declaration.

It seems that my day will be quiet and peaceful; it makes me smile to see our local parade on the television. I can just sit back and enjoy the televised speeches. This hleps me remember that every year I would join in the parade in Civic Center Park, downtown Denver. They call it a “Marade” half march, half parade. This was never truer than the year that the Klan came to town.

There was a time when every elected official in this frontier town was a Klansman. The city was owned, stock and barrel by the KKK. On this most memorable MLK Day, I was amazed to see that from the 1930’s to the 1990’s we, as a people, had grown. The Klan attempted to demonstrate as the peaceful citizens gathered to celebrate Dr. King’s dream. What they didn’t realize was that the city itself gathered to make it clear that the white hooded hate mongers were not welcomed in our city.

As the demonstration progressed the police had to stop bussed in neo-Nazis from causing havoc. The tear gas clouds wafted through the park as riots were stopped. I attempted to make my way back to the front lines to take a stand, while the gas forced my eyes shut. Barely able to breathe from the fumes, I joined the hundreds of demonstrators as we linked arms and stood our ground. The KKK and neo-Nazis were not allowed to make any ground. On that day or any other.

Take some time today to watch some YouTube. Might I suggest this…