“NPH Pal-ance”
Wednesday — September 1st, 2010

“NPH Pal-ance”

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Doctor? I hardly know her.

I know that “30 Rock” coined the term “fruit blindness” for when a woman doesn’t see that her beau is a homosexual, but is there a term for when you believe a guy is gay for a couple of small reasons and refuse to see it any other way? Other than “wishful thinking”, of course.

I have a crush on my dermatologist. He’s unlike any doctor I’ve ever had as he is tall, handsome, young, funny and cracks little jokes with you in an overly familiar way. During my first visit, as he was running through his standard ‘first visit’ questions, he asked “Are you sexually active?” and “Men, women or both?” After I responded, “yes” and “men”, respectively, he started calling me “kiddo” and giving little playful frat punches to various areas of my body.

One day, while walking through midtown I was admiring the rear end of a guy walking briskly in front of me — it turned out to be him. And then, more recently, while strolling through Piers Park on the Hudson, he rode by on his bike and waved. Was the universe trying to tell me something? Is this some corny romantic comedy or a contrived episode of “Queer as Folk”? The days leading up to my follow-up appointments are kind of like prepping for a date; going to the gym, picking out a little outfit, practicing my laugh in the mirror, douching.

During my most recent visit, I was waiting in the lobby amongst, a bunch of old women undoubtedly waiting for their restalyne injections when my dreamy dermy emerged, all dental perfection and tall, handsomeness and… another male patient allegedly called “Corey”. They casually chuckled about spray-on sunscreen while Doc looked for some free samples. “GASP!” I thought “He gives ‘Corey’ free samples too??” I eyed ‘Corey’ from behind my three month old US Weekly. Tan-ner, young-er, dressed scantily-er in a gray wifebeater with orange piping (I totally have that top) with a silky bandana tied around his head in a (somehow) masculine way. “I bet HE doesn’t have to remind himself to sit up straight to make himself look thinner when he’s in front of the doctor.” I smirked. “Whatever”.

My dermatologist is a slut.

Currently Watching Listening to: Dimitri from Paris, Return to the Playboy Mansion
Currently Wearing: Purple American Apparel polo, Gray John Varvatos slacks, Brown Florshiem lace-ups

Dying is Easy, Abdominals are Hard

I was pleasantly surprised by “Death at A Funeral” this weekend, which I only put in my NetFlix queue because I knew James Marsden’s rear end would be in full view, and it was, but unfortunately, the camera does not linger, and only shifts down when it absolutely has to. It is the least gratuitous nudity you will ever see in a movie. Frown-y face.

I saw Marsden being interviewed on “The View” where he goofily claimed that he was only comfortable with being naked when it was used for comedy. Who does he think he is, Will Ferrell? Rigid bodies with no fat are a lot of things, (enviable, awe inspiring, lickable, etc) but… funny. I don’t think so. I think Marsden is allowed to be comfortable with nudity because his body is amazing. ‘Nuff said.

Also, I have officially become a fan of Zoe Saldana, can I just BE her?

Currently Watching Listening To: “Tweet Me Harder”, s1/e10
Currently Wearing: Gym shorts

Hidden Fortress

Because I have recently begun to turn down invitations for all night drinking binges at various downtown gay bars and upper west side shopping trips, a friend commented recently that I was “detaching”. Frankly, I’m surprised anyone even noticed, but I have been making an honest attempt to make better use of my time in hopes to get ahead on some projects and maybe even complete some of the damn things.

But after about a week of staying in, hunched over the drawing pad, I begin to feel a little anxious. So, I’ve adjusted my expectations a bit and make the effort to do something with someone for at least one day out of the week. I think isolation is an important thing to the creative process, but so is influence, which comes from interaction with outside forces. It was Machiavelli that once said that fortresses, which are of small spaces are vulnerable to contagious diseases and plagues.

I have managed to get a month ahead on my NSFW mini-webcomic, ’12″ Roommate’ and I can’t tell you how much clarity I have obtained because of this. I am free to take a little extra time to get a drawing right or warm up with reference and not worry about whether or not a strip will go up on time. I would like to get something like that for Abel Boddy. Most likely, not a month, but a couple of weeks would be nice.

Currently Watching: “Royal Pains”, s2/e10 on Hulu.com
Currently Wearing: Black Banana Republic t-shirt, Seersucker cutoff shorts & Green Nike tennis shoes.

Green Light


I was re-watching the movie, “Go” and loving the hell out of Scott Wolf and Jay Mohr, who play a gay couple/soap opera actors who are roped into helping the authorities catch a drug dealer to skirt their own illegal substances charge. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a darling little indie film from 1999 about a group of kids, a rave and a non-linear storyline.

Now, the roles that Wolf and Mohr play are not groundbreaking in anyway — its just two straight actors playing a couple that never show any physical affection, but it doesn’t stop me from loving them as that couple.

My two favorite moments as they speculate on each others fidelity with each other come from Wolf when he states that he will not share the name of his affair because “…there will be DRAma.” and when critiquing another guys oral skills “…I had to correct years of bad technique by grabbing him by the ears and re-training him from the throat up!”

I don’t know if I mentioned it here already, but I’ve been watching all my DVDs in alphabetical order, it’s my way of turning something as simple as watching your movies into an all-consuming project. The goal is to thin out the collection, and I have jettisoned a few of the titles and reminded myself why I bought some of them in the first place.

Speaking of movies, I actually went to the theater twice in the last 30 days or so. This is unusual for me as movie theaters in New York can be a real hassle and they’re expensive. However, I do not have a television so I tend to miss movies entirely since I never see commercials for them.

The two movies I saw were “Toy Story 3” and “Inception“. And while I know that this opinion will not win me any friends, I did not believe them to be the masterpieces everyone claimed that they were. I thought the former was, like most Pixar movies, manipulative and over-sentimental and the latter was visually literal and had painfully complicated content. But please don’t mistake that for me saying the movies don’t have any value, because I do not believe that.

I noticed that some controversy arose on Rotten Tomatoes when only a small percentage of critics gave both of these movies poor reviews. This is the problem when critics are ultimately relegated to “good/bad” overall ratings; film criticism is not that simple and as Rotten Tomatoes proves, most film critics suck. Even if they write a positive review. What tends to happen now, in our “user generated content” era of comment sections and blogs, is a witch hunt for people that do not agree with us. At times, I long for the days when you had to mail in a letter to comment on something like a movie review, because at least then you have a better chance of getting a real, intelligently worded opinion.

Currently Watching: “Timer” on Netflix
Currently Wearing: Black wifebeater, burgundy Nike shorts

Boy’s Life

It’s kinda sad that after discovering, “Slings and Arrows”, the Canadian show about a Shakespearean theatre troupe on Netflix instant, the only thing I really cared about was when Sloan, the Iguana loving, motorcycle racing, dimwitted boytoy was going to remove his clothing.

In an early episode in season one, he emerges from the shower for a night with his leading lady, cougar girlfriend and I went straight to IMDB -as I usually do- to see what other opportunities I would have to see actor, Matt Fitzgerald in the near nude. At first I was surprised that he had only three roles under his belt. And then I wondered “Wait, why am I surprised??” Fitzgerald, is your run-of-the-mill, milquetoast, white, model-ly gym guy-actor who was most likely cast because he could play dumb and spends 20 hours a week in the gym. And my first reaction to his not having many roles is surprise that this has not gotten him farther in his career.

Fitzgerald completely brings out the adolescent fascination with male nudity that I cultivated in my pre-teen years. He’s that guy that I would have religiously watched a show just because he was on it, clothed or not and after all these years, not much as changed. The value of a show for me can be based entirely on how much manmeat it may offer; I dedicated six more hours of time to watch the rest of “Slings and Arrows”, season one in hopes that Fitzgerald would whip that shirt off again.

He doesn’t.

But he emerges in the flesh for the second time in season two, before being written off the show entirely.

Currently Watching: “Mission Hill”, s1/e2 (1999)
Currently Wearing: Grey and Orange H&M tank top, Orange American Apparel briefs, black & white Adidas slides.