I sometimes forget that the characters in my “stories” have had previous acting jobs. Which means that this adorable Brit:
Went on to become this Georgian corpse-killer:
While we can all agree that Andrew Lincoln is totally dreamy (even if he’s grown a bit skeletal himself since he started his Walking Dead stint) I think after tonight’s episode I’m firmly on Shane’s side – if you’re not busting zombie heads, you clearly have no interest in survival anymore.
Yesterday was National Coming Out Day, a great opportunity to stand up and be counted. Sadly, the following people forgot to mark their calendar. Damn! Technically, these boys could come out any day of the year. So here’s hoping.
Warning: Nude dudes below. It’s PG-13 though. You can handle it.
I think they should replace the rest of the Jersey Shore cast with more of Vinny.
He’s even channeling a bit o’ Ryan Gosling a la Blue Valentine with that ukelele. And did I mention he has a blog? He does. Read it, to learn the many trails and travails of being a highly paid reality star.
I found this song apropos, given my current financial situation.
But I meant to pair it with a good-looking picture of Frankie Avalon, and let’s face it, he’s kind of goofy. Instead, I present you with…
Ricky Nelson. Fox. Also a singer of some catchy tunes, such as “Hello Mary Lou,” my personal pick-me-up favorite.
So if you saw tonight’s episode of Mad Men, you know that after cutting her own hair (so transgressive!) Sally Draper is also accused of ‘playing with herself’ during a girl’s sleepover party. This may or may not be true. All the camera really showed was her touching her knees and getting all dreamy-eyed, which is about as delicate a visual interpretation of female masturbation as ‘playing with oneself’ is a silly euphemism for it. As she’s getting off, she’s watching an old ’60s spy show, featuring this pixie-cut sporting stud.
His name is David McCallum. He used to look like this (but now he’s over 70, so cool your jets (I’m looking at you, Sally)).
He’s a Scottish actor, but he plays a Russian-born secret agent in the The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a hot spy show in the ’60′s. Personally I’m not feeling him, but I’ve never been a big fan of those straw-haired Aryan types. I guess I’d prefer his swarthy partner.
But to each his own. Here’s the beginning of one episode of ‘The Man From UNCLE’, in case you’re curious about just how schmaltzy it gets.
If I were Sally, I’d go for a late-night episode of The Twilight Zone. That guy is foxy.
Woof.
Can you tell this movie is exotic? It's got lamps. The Aladdin kind.
Thought I’d take a break from posting sexy pics of Jane Fonda and instead remind you all that Prince of Persia is coming out in two days, and though it doesn’t look like a very ‘good’ movie (i.e. it’s basically a vehicle for showcasing insane special effects involving sand and destruction) it does have Jake Gyllenhaal, and that is reason enough to buy a ticket.
(On a side note, this post may be first in which I use italics! And perhaps the last. Italics are so simpering.)
Anyway, watch this trailer and tell me what you think.
I think I’d watch Jake brushing his teeth for three hours, so if he happens to be all gussied up in faux-Persian gear – I particularly like the heroin chic tourniquet criss-crossing his left arm – so much the better. My biggest complaint thus far is that his female costar seems really boring and lifeless. My second biggest complaint is that his costar is a female and not Heath Ledger. Luckily I’ve got that movie on DVD already.
Alright, no more italics. Also, this is a pic of the Gyll that graced my desktop for all of junior year in high school. He’s also sporting a haircut I’ve tried and failed to get FOREVER. I guess I could bring in the picture to a salon, but I don’t want to look like a loser who ogles shirtless actors. Which I am, because I do.
Jake taught me that it's cool to have some chest hair.
I was up in NYC for New Year’s, and my bff’s roomie showed me this video. At this point, nothing warms my heart more than a hottie who loves Miley and knows sign.
Tell me I’m wrong.
Whoever you are, Stephen Torrence, you’re an eligible bachelor. Are you a bachelor? Well, you’re at least eligible. We can deal with the t-shirt-over-the-collared-shirt thing later. Check out his Youtube page here.
How do I know I’m snooty? None of the DVDs I asked for this year were American films. It’s a good thing Bush isn’t still in office, or I might have the Secret Service knocking on my door right now. Really though. Good stuff comes from Europe. Mostly because they’re not scared of kink and color. I got these three for Christmas, and I’ll probably be cycling through them again and again all spring.
1. La Mala Educacion – Almodovar
Sorry I couldn’t find a version with English subtitles, but that’s OK, the first time I saw it, I didn’t get any subtitles either. I watched this baby in theaters when I was abroad in Spain in 2004, and it’s basically a cocktail of all my favorite themes: Catholicism, homosexuality, boarding school, gender-bending, the 80′s, intrigue, extortion, and Gael Garcia Bernal. It’s also got a killer soundtrack.
2. Satyricon – Fellini
Roman satirist Petronius wrote his Satyricon in ancient times, and it only survives in fragments today. After catching this 1969 movie on late-night TV, I was so enthused I ended up buying a translation of those fragments and giving it a go. There are obvious similarities between text and film, but Fellini was most interested in the empty spaces between the fragments of Petronius’ writing. His version of Ancient Rome is debauched, colorful, bizarre and extremely unsettling. Instead of the trailer, this clip is from the Trimalchio dinner scene (fun fact: Fitzgerald’s failed first draft of Gatsby was titled Trimalchio, named after this legendary host). Best watched with while smoking. Anything.
3. Romeo & Juliet – Zeffirelli
There’s a lot to be said for the Baz Luhrman version, but even Leo DiCaprio can’t dissuade me from choosing Zeffirelli’s 1968 interpretation every time. The film won for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design (the tights get my vote) and the leads, Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, are actually the right age for the characters they play! I think it’s especially cool that before this movie’s release, Hussey and Whiting made the covers of the 1960′s equivalent of TigerBeat, and a whole generation of as-yet-unclassified tweens (and teens) flocked to the theaters. That’s one way to expose kids to Shakespeare.
There you have it. One Spaniard, two Italians, and a whole lotta crazy. Pick up your copies today. We can watch them separately and Tweet about it like the Web 2.0ers we’ve become.
I know, I know, you’re questioning my taste right now. But if you’ll kindly refer to Man Appreciation Post Numba 1: Bear Grylls, you will recall that I am actually a great judge of the hot. (Coincidentally, Bear Grylls is the search term that comes up most often in this blog, usually in conjunction with words like “naked” and “chest-shaving”).
I know, I know. Mel Gibson has fallen on hard times. Maybe he’s under a gypsy curse. Maybe that wacky Catholic sect of his has been sapping the hot from his bones. Also, he’s pretty old now and clearly hits the bottle way too hard. Believe what you will. But there was a time (specifically, 1979) when Mel Gibson was the top-dawg hottest Australian I was not yet alive to crush on. Behold:
Oh Mel.
Are you seeing this? The leather? The scowl? The shotgun? I realize I’m arriving late to the ‘Mad Max’ game, plus I may write a comprehensive post about Mad Max and ALL of its sequels after I’ve done some serious and probing cinematic research. For now, let’s all take a moment to appreciate Mel Gibson when he was a badass in tight leather, as opposed to an anti-Semite in ill-fitting Hawaiian shirts.
And just to change it up with a little vid content, here’s the last scene in the movie. It’s not exactly a spoiler, so just enjoy Mel Gibson’s soulless cool and try to decide if the dudes behind ‘Saw’ are total poseurs.
I would definitely be Mad Max for Halloween, but everyone would confuse me for a leather daddy. May still be worth it.
Dames and sirs, I read a look of books when I was way too young, and this is the best one of them. I remember buying it at 14, because I liked the description and the cover, and got really into it. Before I know that ‘literary journalism’ was a thing, I just thought “Hey, I want to write articles like Joseph Mitchell.”
Then I lent my copy to a friend and lost it freshman year of high school, and have barely thought about it since. Then I saw it in Border last month, right next to a (really fucking funny) copy of “Things White People Like” (no, I don’t know who the hell is in charge of shelving books in these places). I bought it hoping, all Harold-Bloom-style, that I would maybe notice his influence in all my own writing.
I’m so dumb.
Anyway, if you, dear reader, are in your local artsy mom & pop bookstore (or a shitty Borders, like me), the book will look like this:
This is what real reporters look like.
If you see it, you should pick it up, buy it, and run to your Barcalounger, cuz you’re rarin’ for a literary treat.
“Up in the Old Hotel” is actually a collection of four shorter books, which collect the articles of New York reporter Joseph Mitchell, written between the 1930′s and the 50′s. The subjects of his short articles are various and unusual: street corner Doomsday prophets and burlesque dancers, bearded women, Gypsy chiefs, bartenders and bums. What really gets you is his prose: it’s actually detached, but you read so much nostalgia and and loss in between the lines. I’m excerpting my favorite section, here, about Mazie, a ticket-taker:
“Mazie has a telephone in her booth, of course, and in June, 1929, a man whose voice she did not recognize began calling her daily at 5 PM, asking for a date or making cryptic remarks, such as “They got the road closed, Mazie. They won’t let nobody through.” He has been calling intermittently ever since. “I won’t hear from him for maybe six months,” Mazie says. “Then, one day around five, the phone will ring and this voice will say, ‘All the clocks have stopped running’ or ‘Mazie, they cut down the big oak tree’ or some other dopey remark.One afternoon he gave me the shakes. He called up and said, ‘Mazie, I got a newphew studying to be an undertaker and he needs somebody to practice on.’ Then he hung up. A minute later he called again and said “You’ll do! You’ll do!”"
OK I hate italics too, but I had to set off the text somehow. Creepiness aside, his writing is great for its economy, precision and humor. The essays, mostly written for the New Yorker, are so beautifully plotted and described they read like works of fiction. It’s also a lucid modern view of an age far removed from our own. In this New York, there are large bands of Gypsies living in Brooklyn, and women aren’t allowed in some bars. Read it as a novel of the city hidden beneath what’s there today.
Aight aight I’ll lay off the reverance. He’s a baller. AND, I like to think some of his exact prose comes across in my own writing tone. Right. And if all that worship doesn’t convince you to buy the book, check out the dude’s pic:
Hey stranger.
If all reporters looked like that, they could stop flipping out about their dying industry and moonlight as matinee idols.
