DVD Challenge

I have an incredibly small DVD collection; this is probably due my obsession with Netflix.  My Netflix cue is a two page list of Godzilla, Dr. Who, and foreign films.  There are however two TV series I ravenously collect on DVD, Dallas and Absolutely Fabulous.

This week I’m feeling quite smart. The two TV series I collect both had announcements that they are returning to the airwaves. I’m quite the astute collector.

Dallas will comeback in the summer of 2012 as the next generation (DallasTNG?) The series on TNT will have JR and Bobby’s sons taking up the fight for Ewing Oil 33 years after Bobby walked back onto the ranch.

Absolutely Fabulous will return later this year with three specials to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary. Yes, it’s been 20 years of AbFab.

As you can surmise, I’m one happy homo.

I’ve shown you my DVD collection, now it’s time for you to show me yours. That’s right, I want to see what’s in your collection. Take a picture, and send me a link to somewhere on the interwebs I can see it. Blog it. Flickr it. Or simply send me the photo and I’ll post it. Just let me know your DVD passions.

*I categorically deny the existence of the movie Beaches in the above photo.

Blog Challenge

I only have two left. Just two more questions and I’ll be completed with the 64 question blog challenge.

‘member. The Blog Challenge. There has been some shifting here at Stevie blog, luckily I blog by weight not volume, I may settle during handling and shipping.

A lot of shifting about has happened in the last couple of months, “Look at me everybody! WordPress!!!! Oh, shiny!” Then “Grumble-grumble, blog roll won’t do…. the…. thing where it sorts by last update…” Downloads? Platforms? My own hosting software? “Uh, if you need me, I’ll be over at BlogSpot.”

“Look everybody, I’ve moved back to Original Coke.”

Now if I could just get around to answering the two last challenge questions:

62. Talk about the last “random act of kindness” you encountered.
63. The last thing that made you cry.

Right then, on to that….. Let’s knock out 62.

Yesterday I spent pretty much the entire day at my coffee shop. Although, technically not mine I spend a lot of time there to claim ownership. At one point sitting next to me was a gay couple with their stroller. An elderly woman came up to fuss over the baby girl inside. Upon asking the couple, one with beautiful mocha skin, the other with olive skin, what the girl’s name was they responded with beaming pride, “Cloey.”

“Jebus, why do all gay men name their daughters Cloey?” I thought as the grandmother peered in to the baby girl’s stroller. The elderly woman almost stumbled back like Rosemary seeing her baby for the first time. The baby could have been a poster child for Aryan propaganda. Beautiful blue eyes beamed up at her.

Confusion was turning into disgust on the woman’s face. The Dad’s tuned on the charm. They went into total “We’re not going to apologize for how we live, and you’re going to sit there and learn something” mode. By the time they were done, the grandmother was sharing stories of her history and asking questions about cloey’s sleeping patterns.

In my head, it was a complete “random act of kindness” to teach this grandmother that a family with a mocha Dad, an olive Dad and a Aryan girl can be just as normal as any other family out for the day.

Western Civilization

I saw the train wreck coming down the line. It moved quickly and suddenly I found it was my turn.

“Would you be interested in a Wells Fargo account?” The bubbly girl rambled off to me. “You can link it to the school ID and use that as a ATM card.” I had been standing in a very long line for a very long time waiting to take my turn getting in to the campus bookstore. I had attempted to complete the task of buying books in what seemed months ago but couldn’t due to one certain Western Civilization book being on “backorder”. I simply wanted to buy my book and get the hell out of Dodge City.

“No thanks. “ I said to Bubbles. She went on to explain that it will save time and help my student adopt independence. As she said this she was half speaking to me and half to the shell-shocked guy behind me. That’s when the Matrix cam went off in my head. The entire line was parent with kid, parent with kid…. down to me. Suddenly I had a son and I was helping to finalize his book list.

I bit my tongue. I fought the urge to scream “Look lady.. I’m not a parent.. I still sit up ‘till 3AM watching Japanese anima in my tighty-whities. I have a sub-woofer in my car. I collect sci-fi action figures. I listen to techno damn it!” I would of screamed that but, then the rest of the line would starts saying things like “Gee willikers, what‘s that old man yelling about up there? Bet his son is really embarrassed.”

Morning Run

Have you ever decided something was exceedingly simple in your head? Base jumping, easy! Periodontal root planing, easy! Smiling at a girl in the gym a little too long, then as the girl thinks that you’re flirting with her and comes up to move the relationship on to the next level trying to explain that really you’re a huge Mo and you were only staring at her because you thought she was your niece, easy!

I had been avoiding the conversations of “we should run together some time” from friends and family. My sister asked if I’d join her in a fun-run for charity. I turned my head and pretended I didn’t speak English. “Sorry. Nooo runy funy.” Sure, it sounded exceedingly simple in my head. Until I realized that I run like one of the hippos from Fantasia if right in the middle of the hippo dance recital they dropped a big game hunter loaded with a high-powered rifle. The Hunter giving orders that he will give me and the troop a three count head start then he was a-coming for some tutued hippo ass. I run like a hippo, in a tutu trying to flee for its life. Or, something like that.

It sounded exceedingly simple, and then I would imagine my tutu and decline. Until yesterday.

Yesterday morning I pushed myself further on a run than ever before. This was mostly due to a guy we’ll call Mike. Because I never got his real name. Mike didn’t give me a chance to say “No thanks, I’d like to go running… but I don’t speak English… and I’m a hippo you see… and my tutu might get in your way…. hippo…

As I had just completed a warm up lap, Mike came from out of the blue and started to match my stride. We ran for quite awhile without speaking, just ran in the early morning sun. Without realizing it, my tutu was gone. The mad hippo hunter was gone. I ran farther and with a better stride than ever before. Then, Mike was gone. He just uttered thanks for the run and turned out of the park.

Running with someone? Exceedingly simple.

College Boy

Yesterday marked a milestone in my so called life. College orientation. Again.

I’ve blogged in the past about my chosen career and its eventual fading away. I felt it was time to switch gears and as I approach forty to embark on another path. This led me to sitting in a large auditorium with hundreds of people just like me. Okay, a dozen people like me and hundreds of nineteen year olds. Smelly, texting nineteen year olds. I can say smelly because half way through the lecture on balancing your school work with your parents help and me thinking “my parents are eighty, and probably aren’t the best help on Calculus” the skate boarder next to me with the half bleached blond hair started to chat me up. He totally wants to like meet up and totally check out the gym. I responded that it would be totally fetch.

Our mascot is a wolf that looks suspiciously like a furry I saw at pride last year. I received a book bag full of freebies. The best was a window sticker for the back window of my car. Nothing looks classier than that.

My classes start next Tuesday. One is a creative writing class since I bombed that section on my entrance exam. This was exceedingly hysterical to me because 3,388 blog hits last month could have told them that.

Now I just need to bleach half my head blond, stop showering, and buy some skinny jeans.

Big Wheel

When I was five or six I wrote a letter to Santa declaring my love for him.


No, not that I would love it if he brought me toys. That I was desperately in love with him. Since he was the source of all things wonderful in my world I screamed like a Justin Bieber fan on Christmas morning when rushing out to the tree I found the love letter back from my idol.

“Santa” had received my letter and upon delivery of the big-wheel, wrote on the top of the box that he too was fond of me. My fay heart was reeling. It was akin to Zak Spears sending me a letter on scented stationary declaring that he wouldn’t know peace until I was his. But with a big-wheel.

Jebus I was a strange and effeminate little boy. But this may explain why I have a fondness of guys with beards.

When I was just out of high school I found another man that rocked my world in such a complete way as my big-wheel boyfriend. I declared my love for an amateur body builder named JT. Every glance was like Christmas morning. Every time he looked my way it was un-wrapping my big-wheel. But, like my favorite toy from my childhood the time with the body builder didn’t last long. Both were cheap plastic and within months broke. Leaving me broke along with the plastic.

Steve grows up into a well adjusted, contented guy. Who happens to wander around Facebook and stumbles upon his first love. No, Not Santa. The former amateur body builder.

It’s funny how what you yearn for, desire to have forever and ever is just temporary and you can look back grateful that what you wanted never came to be. If I could Say something to my 15 year old self it would be to live by the mantra: All things are in fact temporary.

I’m learning lately that happiness is not a state where you get rid or give up on your desires. Rather, you change your relationship with them. The ability to stay present and to remain open to emotions without getting "hooked" is something I’m learning and increasingly is carried over into my daily life.

All things are impermanent ...not quite the same thing as temporary, but similar. There is nothing wrong with thinking about the past or present or future ... but the goal is to not be hooked by thoughts, as well as to not be hooked by emotions.

Things To Do In Denver...

I came up with one of my genius ideas. Well, my friend DJ Gary and I have come up with a genius idea.

We meet once a week and go have an adventure in our fair city. One of us will think of stuff we always wanted to go do or see in Denver then actually stop the busy schedule for a day and go explore. So far it’s been a great way to spend the summer. I’m quite the gay urban explorer. Okay, so spending six hours in IKEA really doesn’t count. But, other adventures have been exploring and rediscovering Confluence Park, museums, and spelunking at pawn shops. And although Denver has gotten much better at securing their abandoned buildings, there might just be some visiting to “off limits” buildings around town.

Our next adventure will start as all of them, with Chinese food. Then it’s a bike ride around the Highland neighborhood to check out new bars and to scout out any…. off-limits structures to visit. wink-wink.

Damn You Bloggers

I read two separate articles yesterday on topics close to my heart. The first had a topic on the death of personal blogging; the second was on the death of podcasts.


It’s funny how magazine writers need to find a topic then try to exploit its possible fail to make a story. With both topics I’m not surprised that a corporate owned news company would say that two entities that cannot be controlled by corporations are doomed. But, the theme of this “personal blog” isn’t about how corporate news modifies our behavior. Its theme is a personal blog; I’ll keep my corporation paranoia to myself.

The suggested move to only write in 140 characters on Twitter and away from blog posts is overlooking that the early adapters to blogging are now just utilizing twits to just drive traffic to their blogs, it’s a PR move, not the next evolution.

The author suggesting that podcasting has no relevant role in advertizing is correct. That’s the point. The author also clearly isn’t gay. Or just doesn’t have great taste in music. I say this because on my iPod there are a dozen DJ’s podcasts with incredible music. More and more DJs are using podcasts as business cards, a way to demonstrate their mad skills in a way to also build fans. It’s brilliant.

If the theme today is akin to me shaking my rake at the neighborhood kids and telling them to stay off my lawn I’ll just ramble on to say that I think I might be over my WordPress blog. I soon may be moving back to Blogger. The reason? Fellow bloggers. Well, reading their blogs that is. After numerous attempts I cannot get my blog roll to sort by the Blogger’s last update. I can sort alphabetically or by some random order yet is won’t pull an update from the post and sort it by date/time. I’ve submitted help tickets to WordPress but this is equal to placing a sign reading FREE CAT next to a road kill tabby.

*shakes rake*

Cin City

The funny thing about going on vacation, especially when it's to an ordinary place is the reactions you get. The last couple of days where filled with people wrinkling their noses and asking why I was on vacation in their home town.

At first I would offer up explanations about the rich history and the architecture. Yet after the third cashier not buying my story, I said I was in Ohio for work. Funny how you can live in a city yet not know anything about it.

I soaked up Cin City like a sponge. I did every walking tour of anything historic I could find, I spent hours having the history of the art deco Union Terminal train station explained. My history nerd was in full force. At night I repeated the process but with Cincinnati's gay bars. I saw drag shows at Shooters and guys being flogged at The Serpent.




With all the walking and avoiding of drag queens the appetite I worked up was easily handled with local cuisine, like a four way. That's Skyline chili (Cincinnati's famous red chili), spaghetti, onion, and a mountain of cheese. It's funny how easily "Yeah, I'll have a Diet Coke and a four way" came off my tongue. If my palette wasn't satisfied with chili then there was an endless supply if White Castles.

To recoup my energy I spent my non-eating, drag queen dodging, man flogging time lying naked on a pool float at the newly-renovated lesbian Kentucky plantation.

There's something to be said about vacationing in a random city. Although don't get me wrong, give me the choice of London or Lincoln and you'll know my answer.