Tag: Playgirl

When We Make Love

Tuesday morning, which oddly is my halfway point of going into the office this week. It’s bizarre and will be mentally disruptive, but Thursday is a holiday and Friday my remote day, so when I leave the office tomorrow night I’ll be heading home for the weekend and not returning until Monday. Very weird, am I right?

Well, the first infusion went well. I was early (of course) but the slightly more than two hours wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad; the chair I was in while getting it was a massage chair that also heated, so I had some nice heat into my back muscles to go with the vibrating. I didn’t have any negative reaction to it, but alas and alack, there was a crisis at work and I was trying to figure out how to fix everything for everyone by communicating through the Teams app, which also helped pass the time and also counted as work; I mean, I was having a medical procedure and was working remotely, you bet your ass I am counting that as work time! I was a bit tired when it was over and throughout the rest of the day, but if that is the only side effect I feel from this, I can live with it. I also treated myself to Sonic on the way back to the office, and it was pouring rain on me from the moment I left the hospital until I got back to the office–which was the cue for every stupid New Orleans driver who can’t drive in the rain to get on the highway. The way people drive, you’d think it never rained here. (Narrator voice: It does, in fact, rain frequently in New Orleans.)

Despite having to deal with a work crisis, I was also able to spend some time reading Summerhouse, which I’m enjoying and is also making me think. It’s a very interesting take on long-term queer couples and relationships1, and the cultural differences between Turkey and the United States–they are discreetly and deeply closeted, but even that aspect of the story makes me think, and there’s also some interesting thoughts bubbling up about gender roles and gay couples that might make for an interesting essay in and of itself; the book is definitely engaging my mind. Thanks again to Kristopher Zgorski, whose review of the book brought it to my attention; I’d have probably missed it otherwise. (He is such a good source for great books!)

I also got to write a guest post over at Christa Faust’s newsletter, and the topic was Sex Workers in Crime Fiction. I wish I had done a better job, but she asked me to do it before I got sick–and then came the sickness, followed by the recovery process (still in it) and my writer brain might not have been engaged enough? I suppose I am not doing a good job convincing you to go read it, am I? But I definitely have strong opinions about sex, sexuality, and sex workers, and I do get some of those across in the guest post. Also, big thanks to Christa for inviting me–and if you’ve not read her work, what the FUCK are you waiting for? Seriously, get thee hither to your local bookseller and if they don’t have them in stock, order them and DEMAND they stock them from now on.

I also got a lovely shout out for Pride from ‘Nathan Burgoine. It’s so hard for me to register that Bourbon Street Blues came out twenty-one years ago…both Scotty and Chanse can legally drink now. Yikes, indeed. I guess I have been around long enough to be considered a sage? Ha ha ha ha, as if.

Also, I don’t know if you subscribe to Matthew Rettenmund’s Boy Crazy newsletter, but he recently wrote a great piece about Soloflex and their first model, Scott Madsen. Matthew does an excellent job of talking about celebrity culture of gay interest, and he also talks about things of gay interest from over the last four decades (he wrote an amazing piece for Esquire about Playgirl that is an absolute must-read). I may write about Madsen and Soloflex at some point myself, but more from a Gregalicious point of view rather than an overarching cultural one the way Matthew does.

Lots of links this morning, no?

The only effect to the infusion that I could tell was fatigue, which was one of the side-effects they mentioned, but not one of the serious ones. Fatigue is to be expected, so after I made groceries on the way home I was pretty wiped out. We watched some more Coyotl, which is becoming more and more fun as we go–although when our hero is the beast, he looks more silly than intimidating, which kind of spoils it a little bit. I do feel a bit tired and worn out this morning and didn’t want to get up, but my coffee seems to be kicking in right now so I am going to ride that wave, hopefully through the rest of the day. The LSU game was also rain-delayed (which is why we were able to watch Coyotl) until this morning with the Tigers up 5-3 in the fourth.

And it’s into the spice mines I go this morning! Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow.

I’m not sure what it says about me as an almost 64 year old gay men but my first thought every time I see this image is “Sure, he’s hot but no one is going to be fucking on that sofa because those stains will never come out.”
  1. Long term relationships are often missing from queer lit, as are gay men in their sixties as the focal point of the story. ↩︎

Seasons in the Sun

Tuesday and back to the office this morning with me. It feels right, you know? Yesterday I was kind of bored and low energy. I did some chores, worked on the files some, did some writing, and reading (Horror Movie is terrific; Paul Tremblay is really a spectacular writer), but overall I was feeling pretty low energy by the time the late afternoon rolled around, and I didn’t have a problem with it, really. I got up early, after all, to get used to it, and I’d done a lot over the previous two days; and everything else that needs to be done in here can be broken down into separate small chores, which is far easier to scratch off the list and a lot more satisfying. Paul had to go out for the evening last night to go to a reading, and didn’t get home until after I went to bed. I slept very well, too.

So I am feeling up for going back to work this morning; I feel very rested and relaxed, and I only have to be in the office for three days this week, and three days next, too. I think I am going to take Friday the 5th off, might as well have another four day weekend when it presents itself this way, don’t you think? I thought it would take much longer to get through the filing, in all honesty, and to be sure, it’s not exactly finished either. But I would have never dreamed I could get so much done so quickly, either. I have another drawer to go through, and then everything needs to be alphabetized…but most of the duplicates have been combined, all the files pertaining to a certain book have been also gathered togetherm and now I have to start finishing books, you know? Tonight I have to get the mail and go to the gym before I get home, which will be nice. There are a couple of chores I started and need to finish–laundry and dishes, as always–before I can settle in to write and/or read tonight. (I suspect I’ll be tired and reading is the most likely option. I do want to get Horror Movie finished so I can start another one.) It also rained overnight–more rain later in the week to come–and so I can probably put off washing the car for another weekend.

We’re also running out of Pride Month, and I have a lot of entries left to complete. Heavy sigh. It’s not easy when you don’t really have a plan. The ones that are left will wind up lengthier than the ones I’ve already done, and I don’t think I’m necessarily the best at winging it, you know? There are a couple that I’ve been wanting to finish for several years now–including one about masculinity, one about old Hollywood and physique magazines (which I want to write a book about eventually), and one about The Children’s Bible, because I looked upon those images inside with desire when I was a child. I should also probably do Playgirl magazine as well. So many potential entries, so few days. Heavy heaving sigh.

But I like the uncluttered look the apartment is now getting. I still want to do the drawers and the cabinets, and of course the attic is a big project I may save for Labor Day weekend. It’s so lovely to be making progress again.

It was also kind of nice that I really did take most of the day off yesterday because of the low energy and it seems to have worked its magic, so on this note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again later.

You Are Everything

Tuesday morning and trying to get awake fully; my mind is awake and my body is, but I still feel a bit groggy. I slept well, which was absolutely lovely, and am sitting here swilling coffee and getting mentally prepared to face the day. I have to run errands tonight after work (prescriptions, mail, gym), and then I am going to come home and just chill for the evening, maybe do a little writing. I didn’t do any last night, because I wanted to watch the regional final (LSU lost in extra innings to the fourth ranked team in the country and could have won), after which I didn’t do much of anything just puttered around the kitchen doing chores until it was time for bed.

The LSU loss was disappointing, of course, but the Tigers made a helluva run in the post season. Just three weeks ago, no one thought they’d even make the post season, let alone get to a regional final. But then they had their amazing run in the SEC tournament, eliminating top ten teams left and right before giving Tennessee a run for their money in the final. So, well done, guys! Sure, another world series run would have been fun this year, but not having one does in no way diminish or undermine how magical last season was, or make it any less wonderful to remember. GEAUX TIGERS, and we’ll see you again next spring….and now it’s time to start gearing up for football season, which isn’t that far off. Woo-hoo!

I’ve been posting my Gay Moments in Greg’s Life entries, which has been kind of fun doing. Right now, I have several drafts in progress about dancing in gay bars, circuit parties, and body culture–which all will be interesting to write–and of course at some point I will probably write about HIV/AIDS. I enjoyed writing my Pride entry and the ones about The Other and Starsky and Hutch; probably will do Robby Benson, Playgirl, and Gordon Merrick at some point, too. I also will probably do some others, but right now I can’t think of what they might be. I’ve also started posting these longer form posts to Substack, too–if you’re reading them here, I don’t imagine there’s any need to read them there–but I think I need to start building up things; I don’t know if social media numbers or Substack followers or anything like that will matter in the long run in publishing. No one ever really knows what publishers are looking for or want; their criteria is ever changing but what isn’t is that the accountants also have their thumb on the scale. It is to my everlasting disappointment that my career started right when the industry began to substantially change from what it had been since the Depression to the disheveled mess it is now. At any rate, I think Substack is the place for me to post my personal essays, which is much easier than trying to find a place to publish any of them. Set a goal of perhaps one per week after the Great Moments in Greg’s Gay Life, or my pride celebratory posts are completed.

Something to consider, any way.

I know Substack is evil, but isn’t everything nowadays? The glory days of social media are, I think, finally past us; Twitter (fuck you, Musk) and Facebook aren’t nearly as much fun as they were over a decade ago, and kind of feel like some pointless obligation and reflex activity that really isn’t what’s cracked up to be anymore. It never really was, to be honest, and it was a horrible waste of time more than anything else, really. It also creates a bizarre illusory reality that bares no resemblance to real life. How many times have I been excited to meet someone because we’ve had a lot of fun interactions on-line, only for them to be like “who are you?” I noticed this early on, back in the days of Livejournal’s heyday when everyone blogged (and here I am, twenty years later–this blog will turn 20 on 12/26/24); you don’t really know someone from on-line social media interactions, and you’re certainly not friends. Needless to say, it was a learning experience (I never have really understood friendship, in all honesty; what I think it is clearly is not what other people think it is, and maybe that’s a me problem–which is why I always have so many walls I can withdraw behind, so many masks I can slip on; when you grow up queer in a homophobic society, you develop lots of coping mechanisms), and I always now just say “we know each other on-line” instead of “oh I love her! We’re friends”.

Now that social media has turned into what it is, I am not on it as much and…I don’t really miss it? And it’s very noticeable how much time I used to waste on it.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Hope you have a lovely Tuesday and who knows? I may be back later.

Goodbye Baby

Tuesday morning and all is quiet at this ungodly hour.

I’m up earlier than usual because I made the decision, whilst I was out of town, that the smart thing to do was get up when I actually wake up, rather than just continuing to lie in the bed awake. It’s comfortable, to be sure, and getting out from under my pile of blankets is never an easy thing to do….but it’s also wasteful of time and staying in bed doesn’t make getting up with the alarm any easier, nor does it make me less tired later in the day. All in all, it’s not going to kill me to get up earlier, so today is my first day trying it (not really, I woke up an hour earlier than necessary yesterday and just went ahead and got up then, so this is my second day of trying this to see how it all works for me). I had errands to run after work last night and I had to write a promotional piece for another blog for A Streetcar Named Murder–there really is no worse timing than having a book coming out as you are trying to meet the deadline on another.

It’s also weird because at the same time I have to try to remember things from Streetcar, which was finished months ago, and of course I’ve moved on to something new that I need to focus on. Heavy sigh. But I think the post I wrote last night is fun and interesting, and hopefully will spark some interest in the book. I’ve also been asked to sign at an event here in New Orleans in January–I want to say ALA, but I could be wrong–and I’ve also agreed to return to the dual Murder event weekend in Alabama yet again. I think this is the fourth time I’ve been invited? I love Margaret and Tammy, and I always have a lovely time at the event.

WE started watching that Hulu series about Chippendales last night, Welcome to Chippendales, starring Kumail Nanjiani as Steve Batterjee. I’ve watched a couple of documentaries about Chippendales and the resultant murder of one of the partners, but I’d forgotten about Dorothy Stratten’s connection to the club before she was murdered (someone really needs to do another series or movie about her life and death; Star 80 was good but…). It’s entertaining enough, and Chippendales also has something to do with the societal change in the sexualization and objectification of the male body that began in the 1970’s (along with the explosion of gay porn and Playgirl, followed by Calvin Klein ads in the 1980s), as well as the beauty standard for men. I recently (it may have been longer ago than what counts as recent, but time has lost all meaning to me now) commented to one of my younger gay male co-workers that “you used to be able to tell if someone was gay or not by how well built they were; if they clearly spent time on their bodies at the gym and ate right to improve the way they looked, they were gay because straight men didn’t give a shit.” Tribal tattoos also used to be a tell that a hot guy was gay. NOT ANYMORE. And the guys today–whatever their sexual orientation–have even more amazing bodies than we used to have back in the day; the definition and the focus on ab development and the absence of any body fat is far more pronounced amongst hot young men these days than it used to be. And they are everywhere. My Instagram and Twitter feeds are often filled with beautiful shots of incredibly handsome young men with unbelievable bodies; some of which I’ve sometimes shared here on the blog. I’ve also been seriously considering going to something else with the blog images, to be honest–I know some people would miss the sexy men images, but it also might be keeping other people away at the same time. I don’t know. But I started using pictures of hot men years ago because when the blog cross-posted to social media it would always show up as with a pale blue square box with a pencil in it, which I hated. When I talked about books, the book cover would come over, so I decided to use images of very hot men that essentially pop up somewhere on the Internet throughout the course of the day and it kind of became an ingrained habit, a default if you will, perhaps even a brand–I hate thinking of myself or anything I do as a writer as a ‘brand,’ and yes, I do recognize that my writing is a product for sale, but it’s not a pack of T-shirts or underwear or a pair of pants hanging on a sales rack. So, do I really want my ‘brand’ for my blog to be sexy shirtless men?

Probably a little late to worry about that now.

The Chippendales calendar–how many years did I buy that? I can remember being deathly afraid to take it to the cash register at the bookstore…but now that I am thinking about it, I don’t remember which bookstores I used to patronize in Fresno. Perhaps a Barnes and Noble at the mall? A Waldenbooks, maybe? But yes, I used to feel my face burning with embarrassment as I tried to nonchalantly buy a Chippendales calendar, all the while thinking the cashier knows I am gay because why else would I be buying this calendar? Now I laugh at the memory of the shame I used to feel. The cashier couldn’t have given two shits about what I was buying, and even if they did, who cares? I had always been attracted more to athletes than any other type of male; I always had a thing for muscles and worked out bodies. Why, I don’t know; whether I was simply wired that way for physical attraction, or if it’s because the first naked bodies of men that I saw were those of athletes in school. Junior high was the first time I ever had to change into gym clothes, shower and be around other naked boys, and I was never comfortable doing so. The locker room before and after gym in junior high was a nightmare, but once I was in high school and on sports teams…the boys I was attracted to were usually athletes. That never really changed over the years as I got older and grew more comfortable with my sexuality–what changed were the bodies. Whereas only athletes and dancers, gay men, and narcissistic straight men used to regularly go to the gym and work out their bodies to build muscle, gradually it became a thing for all men across the board, regardless of orientation. On the rare occasions when I go to the gym now, I see incredibly well-built and well-muscled young men all the time–and while thirty years ago I would have assumed they were gay or bisexual, now I can’t assume anything. I just marvel at the shift in societal attitudes towards men no longer in school who continue to exercise and work out–whether to be healthier or for something to show off and attract women, who knows?

But aesthetically, I appreciate them.

So, the quandary remains. Do I try to rebrand the blog by using other types of pictures, and if so, what kind should I start using? Would people miss the hot guys? Would more people be drawn to the blog rather than closing the browser window as soon as the hot guy loads?

Or do I just not worry about it–as I have never worried about people coming here to read the entries–and keep on as I have been? Decisions, decisions.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I will talk to you again tomorrow.

Mr. Bojangles

Saturday morning in the Lost Apartment, and I am kind of excited about the weekend if I am being honest. It’s nice, for one thing, to be able to sleep in a bit this morning and tomorrow; I do have some things to do today (one is doing something personal for myself; along the lines of important self-care) and of course, I am doing an on-line interview with Spirit of Ink’s Jaden Terrell as well (she’s actually quite lovely, too; I can’t believe how many years I’ve known her now). Tomorrow I have to probably go run some errands–I am hoping after my interview today I will make it to the gym, after which I will come home to curl up with Carol Goodman’s The Lake of Lost Languages with an eye to finishing it. It really is good, y’all; I hate that it’s taking me so damned long to get it done, really. I also have some other blog posts I need to finish and post–I’ve got to stop starting blog entries and then not finishing and saving them as drafts and then never going back and finishing and/or posting them; every time I go to the draft page here those unfinished entries reproach me, and they’re getting MEANER the more time goes by. Like I really need to be shamed and mocked by unfinished blog posts?

Bastards, really.

So, as I mentioned, we finished watching Minx earlier this week. I had started this during my festival widowhood, had some initial issues with it (still kind of have those original issues, to be fair) but somewhere around the third or fourth episode the show hit its stride and I started to really enjoy it. (It’s also a stark reminder that women had little to no rights less than fifty years ago, and thanks to the fuckhead judicial activists on the “supreme Court”–which should now always be put in quotes as the fucking joke it actually is, as well as supreme should henceforth be in all lower-case–those rights are about to be taken away in the service of an incredibly anti-American authoritarian agenda by the party of “small government”…yeah) The premise behind the show is simple: an ardent feminist and journalist wants to launch a new magazine for feminists called The Matriarchy Awakens (yes, that is actually what she is calling it) while working the subscription line at a magazine for teen girls. She believes that women–once they are aware of what feminism is really about–want and need such a magazine, to enlighten them about their own oppression and to learn more about their own power and equality. The show opens with her going to a weird fair where magazine companies take pitches for new magazines (is this something that really used to happen?) and of course, none of the old white men take her seriously or see anything of potential in her magazine. While she is waiting to go inside, she meets a pig of a man who actually produces porn magazines…long story short he offers to publish her magazine with the catch that she needs photo spreads of nude male models inside–“why shouldn’t a woman get to look at a dong if they want to?” Naturally, she is horrified…and then the Burt Reynolds issue of Cosmopolitan comes out and she realizes that it could, indeed, be empowering for women to look at naked men–but the editorial content will have a very strong feminist bent, and that empowering female sexuality should also be a part of feminism. As I mentioned in my earliest commentary on the show, I disliked the trope of the uptight feminist woman who needs to loosen up and enjoy herself–and her own sexuality–more; but it was handled a lot better than I thought it would be; it wasn’t the tired old “she just needs to get laid” thing. There are also a lot of male dongs shown in this; I wasn’t expecting the parade of penises as they look for their first centerfold–but there was nothing salacious or even erotic about the dongs on this show; they were just…dicks. But the show continued to improve with each episode, and it–along with Physical, which we didn’t finish–is a stark reminder of just how shitty it was to be a woman in this country back then (somewhat better now, but not even remotely close to where it needs to be, frankly).

It also made me think it would be interesting to see a documentary about how Playgirl got started and its journey over the years until it finally ceased publication. (I have an idea about a noirish type thriller set in the 1970’s about the struggle against prohibitions on porn called Obscenity, which is part of what I call The Chlorine Quartet.)

We also started watching The Offer last night, which is about the making of The Godfather, from the point of view of producer Albert Ruddy. I knew a lot of this material already–Mario Puzo had already documented the writing and selling of the book, and then the making of the movie, in a long-forgotten book called The Godfather Papers back after the movie was released and hailed as an instant classic; which included his memories, diary entries, and correspondence. I read the book (I mean The Godfather) when I was about eleven or twelve years old; I don’t really remember. My father had the paperback edition with the black cover and the white print, with the image of the hand holding the puppeteer’s strings, and I also recall one summer while visiting relatives in the South one of my cousins had a copy that had all the “dirty parts” dog-eared–so I had read about Lucy Mancini’s bizarre vagina problems before I actually sat down and read the book. I’ve been meaning to go back and reread it; it’s been called a turgid potboiler melodrama, trash, you name it–but if nothing else, it was a really good read. Obviously this is one of the cases where the film was better than the book, and I’ve been meaning to watch the movies again at some point, but it’s such a time commitment…

We also got caught up on this week’s Under the Banner of Heaven, which is twisted and bizarre. I’ve never read the book, despite being a fan of Jon Krakauer, so I don’t know where this is going, and I am very tempted to go back and read the book now.

I slept well last night (as I am sure some of you are wondering about; like anyone really cares whether I can sleep or not) and so feel pretty good this morning. I have a lot of things to get done around here before my appointment at 11:15–the sink is full of dishes; the dishwasher is also full with clean dishes to put away; I am doing laundry; and at some point the trash needs to be taken out–and of course I need to make lists so I know what all I have to get done over the course of this weekend.

Heavy sigh.

And on that note, I’d best head into the spice mines and make another cup of coffee. Have a great Saturday, Constant Reader.

I Woke Up In Love This Morning

Sunday morning and I am still trying to adjust to everything that has changed–primarily the weather change is what has me a bit off-balance this morning. I overslept, as I am wont to do these days now that I don’t seem to have the insomnia problem quite as much as I used to before, this morning–I’d intended to get up early so the six a.m. alarm wouldn’t be quite so horrific tomorrow morning, but best intentions and all that.

LSU won yesterday 28-25 over Mississippi State, but the win wasn’t terribly impressive and the season remains questionable still as to how it will go. A win is a win, however, and as Paul rightly pointed out, LSU lost to Mississippi State last year in Tiger Stadium, so this inevitably is better. The SEC West got a lot more interesting yesterday than it was looking on Friday; Auburn got incredibly lucky to win at home against Georgia State, while at the same time Arkansas was handing Texas A&M their butts in Dallas–the Razorbacks, who’ve been dwelling in the SEC West cellar for quite some time, are now ranked in to the Top Ten with two impressive wins over programs (A&M and Texas) that were supposed to be much better than Arkansas…but next week they are going to Georgia to take on the Number 2 team in the country, so it’s another test for the Hogs. They win that game and they might even jump into the Top 5; lofty heights for their long-suffering fans. Clemson got beat again yesterday, effectively ending any hopes they might have of a return to the national play-offs, barring this becoming another one of those completely weird years, like 2007….and this year is definitely looking like a weird year. Oklahoma somehow managed to eke out another squeaker of a win; any less lucky and they’d be 1-3 right now. Clemson’s out of it already. Ohio State cannot lose another game if they have any hopes of reaching the play-offs, either. Alabama is sitting pretty right now–I don’t know who might have a shot of beating Alabama–and Georgia’s got a tough schedule ahead of them, too, with Florida next month and surprising Arkansas this week. Florida cannot lose another game, either, if they want a shot at the play-offs; Georgia could lose to Florida but still make the play-offs as a one-loss SEC team if Florida loses a rematch with Alabama in the SEC title game. A&M’s loss to Arkansas pretty much ends their shot at the play-offs, unless they run the table, making their game with Alabama a must-win….which is not exactly the best scenario for anyone.

Like I said, an interesting year of college football.

Last night we watched the first three episodes of a documentary called The Curse of the Chippendales, which was interesting. I knew there had been a true crime connection with the strip show, of course; what I didn’t remember (but I had known at one time) was that Dorothy Stratten’s husband/murderer had been involved in their creation, and I had also forgotten how BIG the Chippendales were at their height, with clubs in New York and LA and two tours running at the same time. Chippendales was a social phenomenon that hasn’t really gotten as much attention as it should, given its societal and cultural impact; while the shows were for women-only, they certainly couldn’t control who bought their calendars, posters, and merchandise, or who tuned in when they appeared on Donahue or Oprah or whatever local area talk show would book them on. There was definitely an impact on how we as society and culture see male bodies and male sexuality; Chippendales took what we had been doing to women for centuries and flipped the script, making men the objects of desire, fantasy and lust. Would we have beefcake calendars or as much sexualization of the male body as we have today, had Chippendales (with an assist from Playgirl) never existed.

The Saints play at noon today, but I think I am going to the gym during the game. I love the Saints, but watching them causes me almost too much stress for me to enjoy the game, frankly. I’ll sit and watch LSU stink up the stadium till the bitter end, but I can’t do it with the Saints for some reason. I get too into the game; too agitated and stressed.

I did get some things done around here yesterday–surprisingly enough–and our “new releases” ZOOM thing went really well last night. It also reminded me I should probably be pushing Bury Me in Shadows a lot more than I have been; the book releases in just a few more weeks (preorders ship on October 1, if you order directly from the publisher, hint hint) but I am a lot more nervous about this book than any other I’ve done before, for any number of reasons–which would be something I can actually explore here on the blog to promote it, couldn’t I?

Heavy heaving sigh. And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely, restful, wonderful Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will chat with you tomorrow morning again.