Objects In Mirror

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

by James Killough

Now that we have this sort of informal alliance with Tuttle’s friends over at Ohlalamag.com, as a content creation shop, PFC has to comment on the effect they are having on our readership.  In a nutshell, Alek and Steph, the primary photographers and editors of that site and a few others, including Bello Mag, are some very powerful homo sapiens.  A mere sentence about us in their “Linkalicious” section will send hundreds swarming to this site.

They have something like over fourteen thousand unique hits a day.  That’s called pimpin’ your blogs, yo.

I was lost in the mass of male pulchritude on Ohlalamag, then I found Benjamin Godfre and I thought, "I'd hit that".... no, I mean, "I want that body." For more pix of Godfre, click on the image.

I keep thinking how disappointed Ohlalamag readers must be when they find few semi-naked male models here, but rather these dense, dark, snarky essays, peppered with lots of grotesquely large penises, still by far our biggest draw.

I’m not into male models, or male modeling, or even men’s fashion, so I’m not the average Ohlalamag/Bello Mag reader.  Tuttle is.  I am not fashionable, but I’m somehow stylish, despite my regular smackdowns with penury.  I also work a lot with the fashion world, and have my entire career, so while I might not pay much attention, it doesn’t mean I’m not appreciative of it.

A damned fine photo spread from Bello Mag. Well styled, interesting.

The worst thing about flipping through Ohlalamag looking for images of men I like is I am reminded that I have gained some weight.  No, it’s not just Ohlalamag that reminds me, it’s the fact I have to unbutton the top button of my jeans as I sit here typing.  I have gained ten real pounds — not bloat pounds — in three months.  This is entirely because I’ve been eating and drinking every day like a fat bitch at a wedding in Chiapas, Mexico: margaritas spilled down my front, chicken quesadillas with mole sauce smeared across my face, my breath reeking of cigarettes and pico de gallo.

So glamorous.

The real culprit is the booze, of course, because I tend to have a pretty balanced diet.  However, if you want to drink like a fish, you have to eat like a bird, and preferably throw that up, too.

I love my food.  I cook well, I eat well.  So it’s au revoir booze, sayonara hangovers.  See you in a few months.

Much as I hate leaving the glamour of hard drinking, I could never match La Lohan for showing us how it's properly done.

“The mirror is the enemy of middle age,” someone I can’t Google once said (so, fuck it, attribute it to me).  And two things about the middle-aged mirror: a) objects in it are older than they appear; b) objects in it are fatter, too.

It’s not just the top button on my jeans that lets me know it’s time to go back to viewing a burrito de carnitas de pato as a weekly treat rather than everyday lunch.  The real wake-up call comes from what I call my Mustache Belly Wrinkle (MBW).  If it weren’t so un-Ghey, weren’t so un-Ohlalamag.com, were less slightly dirty old man, I’d be rather fond of my MBW.

The MBW is this crease that’s created by the overhang of my belly, which isn’t that prominent, but because I sit at a desk much of the day and my skin is losing elasticity faster than Oprah’s sweatpants — it now takes a full hour for the impression of the sheets from the night before to completely clear my face — that crease becomes a full-on wrinkle when I’m portlier than a size thirty-four, and because it’s in one of the few places on my torso that has any hair, it looks vaguely like a mustache.  Ergo Mustache Belly Wrinkle.

The MBW doesn’t lie.  If it’s twitching at me in the morning after my shower like Hercule Poirot about to reveal whodunit, there is no point trying to suck things back and fool myself.  I need to diet.  I need to lay off the fat-bitch margaritas, because the booze is more responsible for MBW than the food.

I just cannot pass up another image of Lohan tying one on. She's like Ann Margret in "Tommy," isn't she? Wait, she's like Ann Margret in every movie she was in.

The reason Gheys can feel reasonably safe that extremists like Michele Bachmann’s husband, Marcus, and his cronies won’t exterminate us is because we are covertly protected by the liquor industry.  (Aside from the fact that the stridently anti-Ghey are in fact closet flamers themselves.  Check out this video on Wonkette of Marcus Bachmann mincing about like the big ol’ Nancy he is.)

Everyone knows that if we were wiped out like flies by, say, a quick swat of the hand of the god that allegedly hates us, or even worse reformed as ex-Gheys by a swishier-than-thou Marcus Bachmann, Seagrams would go out of business.  The Country of Sweden, owners of vodka, says so right on the bottle, would go the way of Greece.

It’s very simple: homosexuality is about sex, and most people on either side of the playing field need to be drunk or stoned to have sex, especially as often as younger Gheys are obliged to have it, and as anonymously and so spur-of-the-hook-up.  Those lucky ones in relationships usually have to drink more just to drown the ennui or stifle the rolling existential crises.

As we all know, losing weight isn’t just ignoring the twitch of your MBW, it’s actually controlling your diet and adding cardio to your workout.  I recently moved from Hollywood to Echo Park — goodbye schizos!  hello hipsters! — not far from the famous Baxter Stairs.  I actually had no idea they were famous until my neighbor pointed them out to me with that adjective, “famous.”  She also said, “Try walking up those ten times, see how you feel.”

I made it to three rounds, and then felt I should push myself to four on another day.  Grunting up the Baxter Stairs isn’t the same as hiking around Hollywoodland with Tuttle, commenting on the houses and who is screwing up which gorgeous old pile, and waving to Moby.  Only Rocky in full adrenaline-addiction workout would like the Baxter Stairs.  They’re hideous and monotonous, early World War II bunker grey concrete.  It’s too much LET’S DO CARDIO, DAMNIT! for me, MBW or no MBW.  But the Baxter Stairs do lead to something delightful: Elysian Park.  It might not be the Hollywood Hills or Griffith Park, but so far it’s a decent place to hike.

The ugh-ful Baxter Stairway. There must be a better way.

So, yes, I’ve moved away from Gold’s Gym Hollywood, too, to the branch downtown.  It isn’t until you stop working out there that you realize just how Gay Old Loony Douchebags on Steroids it always was.  I am glad that Tuttle’s article last week is singlehandedly weaning Gheys off the juice and onto more natural bodies, MBWs and all.

Tuttle would like me to mention an event happening tomorrow night that he’d like everyone in the LA area to see (I’m guessing from the address it’s in Los Feliz).  Here’s the write-up:

“Shells Show” is a funny, offbeat, constantly evolving evening with Michelle “Shells” Hoffman, senior analyst by day and downtown cabaret idol by night.  During the course of the show, she’ll sing some tunes, share some stories and probably have an emotional breakdown or two.

Direct from New York for her first Los Angeles engagement. Wednesday, 22 June at 8pm.  Show at Barre is located at 1714 N. Vermont, L.A. 90027

Show info: http://www.shellsshow.com/

Tickets: http://showatbarre.inticketing.com/events/152886/Shells