When Beauty Equal Pain.

They say beauty is only skin deep and that beauty is pain.  This is especially true if you go for Erbium laser skin resurfacing.  You see for the last couple of years I have declared war on premature ageing.  I refuse to “age gracefully” and I have successfully managed to keep a seven year distance between my perceived age and my real age. My arsenal in this war includes my oils of delay, regular Botox treatments, the odd minor cosmetic surgery and most recently, laser skin resurfacing.  Consequently, I have no frown lines on my face, no wrinkles and no sun spots and I intend on keeping it that way.

For a couple of years now I have had Botox treatments and absolutely love how it works.  Emotional expressiveness on your face is highly over rated and who could not benefit from a brow lift and looking mildly surprised.  Botox is like having had a little vacation in your lunch break that lasts four to six months.  It is relatively painless, takes only a couple of days to start working and if your doctor knows what she is doing you will still be able to move some muscles in your face and look natural.  Besides the anti-ageing benefits of Botox and it also hides one of my tells.  You see whenever I am in a meeting and someone is boring me or talking bullshit I tend to frown.  It’s involuntary and now with Botox I no long can do it either involuntarily or voluntarily.

Recently I noticed sun spots developing on my face.  They were like freckles, but freckles on steroids.  They were scattered all over my forehead, cheeks and multiplying like sex starved bunnies.  So in my last consultation for my Botox maintenance the doctor recommended Erbium laser skin resurfacing.  It’s a procedure that takes roughly 30 minutes and only requires three days down time.  She promised that this will remove the sun spots, smooth out my complexion and fill in any frown lines and/or wrinkles that I may have.  It doesn’t take a lot of convincing to fix a problem on my face or body if it falls within my budget or price range, so I booked the appointment.

Three days prior to my appointment I started with my pre-procedure medications, purchased the skin numbing cream that I had to apply an hour before the procedure and pain medication for just in case.  Whenever any person in the medical profession uses the term or phrase “It may cause mild discomfort” it means it is going to fucking hurt.  Besides if your whole face is going to be penetrated with a laser for a half an hour you'd be silly if you do not expect some pain or "discomfort" as the professionals phrase it.

On the day of the appointment I was rather excited.  But as the time drew closer my excitement turned into a nervous tension.  “What if it doesn’t work and I am horribly disfigured?” I remember thinking when I washed my face at the office.  Just as I was about to leave the office and applied the numbing cream I thought “What if this is the last time I’ll ever be pretty because of some really bad reaction from the treatment or from some nasty infection?”  When I arrived at the consulting rooms I checked in at reception and made a dash to their restroom to apply another thick coat of numbing cream “Better safe than sorry” I tried to reassure myself.

I waited ten minutes and then I was ushered into the laser room by my doctor and her assistant.  I took off my coat, got onto the examination bed and shot up a little prayer “Please don’t let this hurt too much!” Then the treatment started.  Three short burst per area, a slight stinging sensation and the smell of burnt hair filled the room.  The doctor explained that it wasn’t my skin that was burning but rather the hair follicles in my beard that were being scorched.  Half way through I was asked if I wanted a ten minute break.  But being brave and believing that I had a high pain threshold I asked her to finish.  This was a mistake.

When the second part of my face was being treated it hurt like a motherfucker. But just as I thought I could no longer handle the pain it was over.  Like any self-respecting homosexual I asked if I can smoke a cigarette, for a ten minute break and a cappuccino before the second and last laser treatment was done and the repair lotion was applied.  At that stage my face was burning and I looked like a pale Brit who fell asleep on a South African beach and woke up just moments before his sunburn turned into blisters.  I looked and felt like a burn victim.  The burning sensation lasted about an hour and then completely went away.

The next morning I woke up to find my face red and some mild swelling around my eyes, mouth and cheeks.  I managed to wash my face which was rather sensitive and noticed that already pieces of skin were starting to peel off.  To my amazement my sun spots was being wiped away every time I used my cleansing lotion and it seemed like a miracle.  The treatment was working!  The worst part of the laser was not the actual procedure, the burning sensation directly after or the swelling.  The worst part was the not being able to shave for 7 days.  I hate facial hair on myself and I was starting to look like I had an emotional breakdown and was turning into a recluse whose greatest enemy was sunshine and people.

Needless to say, I didn’t venture into public for four days.  Unfortunately for me Sunday was father’s day and hubby and I were hosting it at our house.  Still red and peeling I thought "What the hell it is family after all".  Also, it’s not like I was keeping this a secret from anyone.  When the in-laws arrived they noticed something was amiss with my face but it took some time before the reason my face looked the way it did was discussed.  My sister-in-law (who can be a bitch sometimes) in her not so diplomatic way, said “I do have my opinion on your cosmetic procedures, but it is your money.  If you want to do it and can afford it who am I to judge you.”

On Monday, I didn’t go back to work.  Not because of my face but because I hurt my back.  I ventured into public for the first time for an injection and flurbiproven plasters and nobody noticed anything funny with my face.  My skin already started to clear up on Sunday night and returned to a semi normal color.  I still have three more days to go before I am allowed to shave my beard and it seems like an eternity.  As for the results?  Four days after the treatment and I can already see a 75% improvement and I believe the full effect will be visible in the next fourteen to sixty days.  Maybe now I can extend that seven year distance between my perceived age and my real age to ten years.

Till next time.

Gay Marriage: What's the Big Fckin' Deal?

Dwarf “Mr T” look alike with a short temper has a BIG F-bomb tantrum against gay marriage haters!  If you wish to support the FCKH8 campaign just click HERE.

Why I Love Hate Mail

As my regular readers know, I do get my fair share of hate mail.  In the 3 and a half years since I started this blog I have received hate mail from fanatical Christians, the Phelps family from the “God Hates Fags” fertility, charlatan therapists who claim to be able to cure homosexuality, pastors and most recently fellow homosexuals. In principle I do not mind hate mail.  After all if people are so offended by what you write that they will take the time to formulate their abhorrence for you in an email, you must be doing something right.  Right?  It wasn’t until recently that I realized that receiving hate mail isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I came to realize that I actually love hate mail and this is why.

Admittedly when I started this blog I was rather naïve.  I believed that I would put my mind meanderings down on paper once a week and maybe a couple of friends would read it.  And that is exactly what happened, at first that is.  Soon, almost like it happened over night, it wasn’t only friends and a few family members who read my blog and, to my surprise, I realized that I actually had build up an international audience and that my audience was growing.  This is something that is quite flattering for most bloggers.  But building and growing an audience also comes with a dark side.

You see, when your blog starts to get discovered and your Google search rating goes up, chances are that your blog will also get the wrong kind of attention; the kind of attention that will see you getting hate mail.  I distinctively remember the first hate mail I received.  I was sitting in front of my computer minding my own business.  I had a fabulous hair day that day and it had great volume.  I was in a good mood and looked only slightly surprised at the time because my Botox was starting to wear off.  I downloaded my email and there it was.  The subject line both confused and intrigued me.

“Faggots burn and so shall you” the subject line read.  “Curious title for an email” I remember thinking.  So I opened the email and right from the first line I could tell this was not fan mail.  The gist of the mail was that I will burn in hell and it had a superfluity of Bible verses to substantiate this claim.  As time passed and my subsequent hate mail piled up I became very well acquainted with the Bible’s Leviticus chapters 18, 20 & 22, Romans 1, Genesis 2, Mathew 8 & 19 and Luke 7 (to mention but just a few).  Every hate mail I received from alleged “Christians” folk was like a little Bible study lesson in hatred and intolerance.  And I never did enjoy Sunday School to start with.  But one day one particular hate mail flattered me with my suggested infamy.

The hate mail was titled “The Abomination of Humanity”.  I have blogged about this before; I was that impressed with the new title I was bestowed.  I even considered putting it on my resume and it would have read: Pierre le Roux, Veracity Expert, Profiler, Forensic Investigator, Blogger and The Abomination of Humanity.  I could just see how I was going to be head hunted by Fortune 500 companies.  After all I was not just An Abomination and was THE Abomination, a feat and designation that I think only the dark lord has been honored to have.  I mean who wouldn’t want to hire me when it is eluded that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, just imagine what fury The Abomination of Humanity could release if scorned.  I was considering walking up the people in meetings and going “BOO!!” before handing them my business card.  But it is not just misguided fanatical Christian who has sent me their diatribe, the gays has done so too.

You see, queer folk even though we are suppose to be the LBGT community; we tend to be a bitchy, jealous and spiteful bunch at the best of times.  Some call this our flare for the dramatic, others call it spirited flamboyance, but in it is what it is.  I guess some of the articles I have written perhaps hit a nerve or a few tiaras too many and it encouraged a few limp wristed pseudo intellectual queens to take to their laptops and write me a few hate mails.  Now, one thing you should know is that no one writes better hate mails than gay folks.  Gays are articulate, sarcastic and mean spirited in a way that would make the Nazis’ Hitler envious.

Recently, one of my articles was published on a certain website.  It dealt with all the fucked up people who uses Facebook as their personal sex hookup site or platform to air all their dirty laundry.  It was quite an innocent and only mildly offensive article.  Or at least I thought it was but clearly some queens took great umbrage at the article and decided to comment on it.  When some noticed that I was ignoring their negativity like I ignore a freshly passed bowl movement that I flush away without giving it a second glance, they took to their Gmail accounts and in total I received 14 hate mails.

The first couple of hate mails attacked my writing style because apparently they expect everything they read on the internet to be of Pulitzer Prize quality.  Curious, seeing as their own writing style is on the same standard of twelve year olds.  Just because you know how to use a thesaurus and use big words doesn’t demonstrate that you are intelligent or have the ability to write literature (Just saying).  Then there were the others who attacked me like they have known me for years.  Well, those hate mails were interesting to read but mostly as fiction.  I could only wish that I was as immoral and that even ten percent of the debauchery they suggested I am involved with were true.  However, they did give me some very interesting ideas.

Yes, hate mail can sometimes make for some riveting reading.  Sure if you get them they can be quite disconcerting the first couple of times.  In the beginning they did cause me to behave like an emotional disturbed monkey in a Hello Kitty slasher movie and I did finance a significant portion of Häagen-Dazs’ South African operations.  But as time goes by and you receive more hate mail, you learn to see it for what it is and you can find the humor in them.  If you are a blogger you need to accept that these things will happen and you need to put your big girl panties on and deal with it.  And if you can’t, then there is a lovely river in Egypt called de-nile, it’s best to get yourself a nice felucca and to sail down it blissfully.

Till next time.

The Psycho Who Friended Me

We live in a sick world.  Sure this is not breaking news, but sometimes I have a tendency to want to forget that this is true.  Last week I read an article about a certain washed up gay porn star called Luca Rocco Magnotta.  This sick puppy allegedly killed his boyfriend, videotaped the murder, then proceeded to cut the corpse into pieces and then mailed a hand and a foot to certain politicians in Canada.  You may think this is the worst of it but you’d be wrong.  The worst part of it is that, unbeknown to me, I actually was Facebook friends with this psycho, at least until I unfriended and block him.

Luca Rocco Magnotta also goes under the aliases of Vladimir Romanov or Mattia Del Santo, but his real name is Eric Clinton.  It is believed that he killed his boyfriend, Jun Lin, while videotaping it and then uploaded the video to a certain snuff and gore website.  The video shows a man with an ice pick stabbing another naked, bound man.  He dismembers the corpse and then performs sexual acts with it which can only be described as horrifying.

If you have never been exposed to dead bodies or images thereof I strongly recommend that you do not search for this video or its images online.  It is horrendous and you cannot unsee what you have seen.  There were earlier signs that Luca was not mentally well.  For nearly two years animal activists have been looking for a man who tortured and killed cats and then posted videos of this cruelty on YouTube.  It wasn’t until Lin’s murder that Montreal police released a photo from one such video that clearly shows that it is Luca in these appalling videos.

Luca would take kittens and place them in a clear plastic bag and have them suffocate while he filmed them.  He has drowned cats and kittens in videos and even fed a live kitten to a snake.  Clearly, he is one demented individual who is cruel and have no respect for life.  Lucas was a ticking time bomb whose natural progression would be from animals to humans and Lin tragically became his first human victim.  So how did I learn that I was Facebook friends with such a sick and dangerous person?

Well, after reading the news reports of this ghastly murder I decided to search for Luca on Facebook.  And lo and behold I found his profile and saw that we were friends.  I was flabbergasted!  I don’t ever recall accepting a friend request from him nor seeing any of his status updates.  Was this really him?  I wondered.  So I started reading his timeline and to my further horror discovered it was indeed him.  Even more interesting I saw that, even though he was the subject of a massive man hunt by Interpol, he updated his current location to Paris on Sunday at 18:39.

Not only is he a murderer he is stupid too.  You know the world is looking for you but you go into an internet Café and then tell the world where you are.  Maybe he wanted to get caught.  I was tempted not to unfriend him as my professional curiosity urged me to wait and see what he was going to do next.  But in the end I was overwhelmed with my utter disgust for this man and mortified that I was in any way connected to him.  So I decided to unfriend and block him just in case he felt like fleeing to South Africa and decided to look me and hubby up.  I will not look good dead and dismembered and I really never want to be featured on that disgusting snuff video website.

So in the absence of having sight of his status updates I followed the news closely.  On Monday afternoon Luca was finally apprehended in Berlin.  Naturally he was arrested at an internet Café reading news articles about himself.  An employee of the Café recognized Luca and luckily the police were close by and Luca was arrested without any resistance.  He will in all probability be extradited back to Canada where he will be charged with several offenses one of which will be first degree murder.

It is a pity Canada don’t carry out death penalties anymore.  Luca seem to be a good candidate for execution when he is found guilty.  Unless he can prove that he has a psychiatric disorder I don’t believe that he would be likely to be rehabilitated.  After all he did write on his wall “Once you have tasted human blood there is no going back”.  And I believe him.  He will kill again if he is allowed to remain as a member of society.

Whether I have any other homicidal friends on Facebook, I do not know.  It is just shocking when you read about a horrific crime and then later learn that you have the wanted murderer in your friendlist.  It just once again goes to show how small the world has become due to social media.  Now, not only can you reconnect with old school friends, you can be friends with Interpol's most wanted too.

Till next time.

Top reasons why homophobes are full of sh#!t

So Obama is getting some shit for supporting gay marriage. Homophobes really are full of it.  The good people of FCKH8 have made another over the top video declaring what we all know - homophobes are literally full of shit!

6 Reasons why you should be cool with gay marriage

Did you hear that Obama is now officially endorsing Gay Marriage? Bryan Safi has compiled a thorough list of reasons why you should get on the Obama train and be Pro Gay Marriage as well.  You van follow Bryan on Twitter by clicking HERE.

A Missing Jesus, Junk Mail & a Poor Russian

Admittedly, I have issues.  I will not pretend that it isn’t so.  Maybe it is my OCD or my occasional dyslexia but there are a few things in life that drives me absolutely nuts.  And no, not the kind of nuts where I am only mildly irritated. It drives me the kind of nuts where I want to take a baseball bat and pretend another human’s head is a piñata while humming the theme song from psycho.  I know it’s not normal to get this angry about junk mail, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons and 419 scam or phising emails, but I do.  I can’t help it.  So this past weekend I decided to take a look at the intolerable cruelties I am troubled with, see if my anger was justified and whether there actually is something I can do about it.

Sunday mornings in my neighborhood seems to be the one day of the week when Jesus seems to be missing.  Every other Sunday morning our doorbell rings.  On the other side of the intercom I can usually see two people dressed in their Sunday’s best clothes asking if we have found Jesus.  “What is he missing?” doesn’t always yield the result one would expect and ninety present of the time it only seems to aggravate them.  I have found that there is nothing worse than an aggravated and determined Christian and “Can we come in and talk to you about Christ?” is then also always my cue to hang up.  Sometimes they will press the bell for up to ten minutes, sometimes they get the message and leave.

We live in South Africa and I don’t know any people who would allow total strangers, no matter how Christian like they look, into their homes.  It’s fucking dangerous!  Besides, I don’t allow any person into our property without them being vetted or, at the very least, having done a quick background check on them.  We live in a dangerous world and I have not upgraded our house’s security to that of a fortress only to let two roaming recruiters for Christ come into my house only to rob and molest me.  Call me paranoid but at least my paranoia have kept me alive for this long.  But a missing Jesus is but only one of my bothers.  There is also the junk mail.

There is a reason hubby and I get our mail delivered to a PO Box address.  Just the other day I demonstrated one of the reasons by accidentally opening up my neighbor’s bank statements.  It was lying on the floor in front of our front door.  Without thinking I picked it up, opened it and then with a shock realized it wasn’t ours.  Naturally, I found myself to be in a conundrum:  Do I try and glue it close again and drop in over their wall or do I shred it and pretend I never saw it.  I choose the latter.

Since we moved into our house we haven’t had a mailbox.  We had no need for one seeing as we have a post box, but this didn’t stop the junk mail distributers.  Every day for the last two years we had junk mail stuck in our aloe, glued to our front door, garage door and/or wall.  So in an effort to stop these suburban terrorist from defacing our property’s façade, hubby and I bought a mailbox and spray painted it a bright red and secured it prominently to our front wall.  You would have to be blind not to see it.  This, I thought, would solve all our junk mail problems.  I could not have been more wrong.

Our fabulous mailbox have been on our wall for less than 48 hours and already we have had junk mail taped to it, stuffed underneath our door and glued to our wall.  The fuckers seem to be making a conscious effort to stuff and stick their junk shit everywhere except in our fucking mailbox.  I swear they do this on purpose to drive me crazy, and it is working!

Junk mail and its aversion to mailboxes is one thing, but when I open my email and find that I have won the UK lottery for the infinite time, some princess needs help getting her fortune, my unexpected inheritance from a relative I didn’t know I had, the poor Russian who is stuck on the international space station because they can’t afford to bring him back or the unexpected deposit into my account at a bank I don’t even bank with, I want to scream.

We all know these emails are scams.  We all know to delete them and not open up the links that are contained in them.  We all know this, but yet everyday people all over the world fall for them and lately it feels like every 419 scammer got hold of my email address.  I have replied to a couple of them mostly using really fowl language that would make my mom blush, but when I heard of the poor Russian stuck on the international space station I was particularly amused, so I wrote them back.

In my response email I expressed my concern for the Russian, who had been on the space station for well over a year, and my concerns over his mental and physical health.  I offered to send him a care package whenever they launched another supply rocket up there.  I even suggested some possible ways to get him back which included stealing a spacesuit, thermal parachute, oxygen tanks and a fishing boat.  It wasn’t even a day before the Russian’s benefactor mailed me back saying that they need to raise $13 million to secure his save return, so I offered to give them $13.13 and some Farmville cash.  Needless to say they never mailed me back.

As for the people looking for Jesus, I have found a relatively easy solution.  Seeing as they pitch up only every other Sunday, I now switch off our intercom on those days.  They can ring the bell all they want and we are none the wiser.  The junk mail and the scam emails seem to be problems that will persist.  I have thought of beating the crap out of one of those guys who clearly don’t know what mailboxes are for but I can’t afford to get a criminal record for aggravated assault and/or attempted murder.

As for the 419 scams, I must give it to them some of their emails are quite creative and fantastical and you have to be an idiot to fall for them.  But the world has many idiots, and as long as they are there I guess I will keep on getting these damn emails.

Till next time.

The Crazy Lady from Nebraska & Gay Sex

There is a crazy lady who hates the gays.  Her name is Jane Svoboda and she lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Last week she testified at a non-discrimination ordinance meeting where she made some startling homophobic and inaccurately graphic statements.  Later in the week it was confirmed, by Jane’s family, that she really is crazy and suffering from schizophrenia.  That being said, I thought it appropriate to take a look at some of the statements she made about gays and gay sex and examine whether any of these statements are indeed true.

Jane said that during gay sex the penis goes into the anus, which is fairly accurate.   However, she also said that during anal intercourse the penis ruptures the intestines and the more gay men do this the greater our chances of becoming “a fatality or a homicider”.  Clearly Jane is a size queen and have come across some monster cocks in her life. I assume this because do you know how huge a guy’s dick would have to be to be able to rupture another guy’s intestines?  Besides KY (if used properly) can make anything fit without rupturing the rectum, intestines or an organ.  Besides I have never heard of a gay man that has ever been fucked to death or heard of a gay man being charged with homicide by large penis.  But then again, there is always a first time.  Isn’t there Jane?  But wait there’s more.  Jane also had some insights into paedophilia and AIDS.

Besides homicidal penises and fatal anuses, Jane went further and said that “a huge percentage of gay men in school grounds molest boys mainly because they don’t have AIDS yet”.  Why crazy people always automatically assume that all gay men are paedophiles boggles my mind; isn’t that solely reserved for Catholic Priests?

Sure, there are those gay men who prefer to date twinks but there’s one big difference – the twinks are of the legal age of consent.  As for the AIDS bit, these day there are many people, young and old, who are HIV+ and you cannot assume that just because a person is young that they are not HIV positive. Just as you cannot tell a person’s status just by looking at them.  That’s why there are condoms and a thing called save sex.  But sex with minors isn’t the only thing troubling poor Jane, it is the sex with corpses that really gets her blood boiling.

Jane mentioned something about the “Candida fungus that grows hugely on a corpse and that AIDS is a Candida fungus disease”.  It is true that Candida does grow on a corpse and one of its main functions is to help with decomposition.  But I don’t know any gay men, apart from Jeffrey Dahmer that is, who have sex with decomposed corpses.  Besides it being disgusting and morally wrong it is also illegal.

Here again Jane confused homosexuality with necrophilia.  Sure there are some gay men who suck in bed, just lie there and may as well be a corpse, but they still have a pulse and are alive and well.  Rigor mortis may be a turn on for Jane and Jeffrey, but as for the average homosexual the only body part that we prefer to be stiff during sex is a dick, not a limb.

According to Jane, Hillary Clinton went gay in college.  But don’t all straight folk do that in college anyway?  Personally, I have always thought that Hillary would have made a very respectable power lesbian; just look at the way she dresses and some of her hairstyles.  I am also sure that she is very handy with her tongue as it does get a lot of exercise not to mention that strong and nimble texting fingers.  But I digress…

Getting back to Jane, she said Hillary went lez because her college didn’t have single rooms and single gender dorms.  Well that doesn’t make any sense.  If you are lonely in your own room in a dorm filled with people of the same gender, wouldn’t that actually promote homosexual experiences instead of doing the opposite?  Clearly Jane has not thought this through or watched enough porn or been in enough dorms.  According to Jane dorms can make you go gay and if you are gay chances are, according to Jane, that you are also sadistic.

According to Jane all gays are sadistic and treasonous and she arrived at this conclusion by looking at the Romans.  When I heard this I was both flattered and annoyed at the same time.  But here again the voices in Jane’s head got it wrong.  There are gay men who are sadistic and in the gay world we call them “Masters” and they are the “S” in S&M.  This is a fetish practiced in darken basements, attics and dodgy night clubs and are by no means a mainstream “gay thing”.  There are plenty of straight folk who practices S&M as well; haven’t one of the voices in Jane’s head read “Shades of Gray” yet?

As for the treason part of her zany speech, in history it is true that there were some prolific homosexual spies who betrayed their countries through espionage.  In comparison to our heterosexual counterparts the instances of gay spies are but a drop in the proverbial bucket.  Jane also mentions Judas as another historic homosexual who betrayed Jesus.  It really is a pity that there were no tabloids back then, seeing as in the absence of a tabloid photo, leaked sex tape or the odd masseuse filing a law suit against Judas we have no way of verifying if he was indeed a homo.

Lastly, Jane claims that all bisexuals always become insane and she supports this statement by saying we must read the book of Nijinsky.  Who the fuck is Nijinsky, you may ask?  Well, I Googled him and she must be referring to Vaslav Nijinsky, a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer who were also bisexual, wrote a diary and went insane.  Now, I have never quite understood bisexuals and probably never will, but one can hardly generalize that a whole group of people will go insane just because one individual did.  That would be like saying that all bisexuals will automatically be straight again, just like Anne Heche, if they wait long enough for the mothership to come and fetch them.

I know I really should not be making fun of Jane Svoboda and that mental illness is no laughing matter.  But if mentally unstable people like Jane are allowed to vent their psychiatric delusions in a public forum.  If their caregivers don’t stop them and it is broadcasted over YouTube, well then you are just asking for it.  What makes this worse is that there are people on the internet that will come across her YouTube video, watch it and who will find some resonance with what she said.  In so doing, homophobia will spread and there will be people who believe these lies.  Let’s just hope that Jane gets the help that she so clearly needs and that there are people out there who are smart and psychologically stable enough to know the difference between truth and fiction.

Till next time.

Queers on Wheels

Exercise is something I view in the same light as tofu, diet coke and rice cakes.  It’s not natural.  It’s not appealing and it makes me want to vomit.  I don’t like to starve and I don’t like to sweat.  But when you have to bring a certain pair of cargo pants out of retirement from the closet and a sense of shame and guilt overwhelms you as you stare at the flab where your abs of steel once were, a certain rude awakening happens.  Yes people, my Chinese Diet Pills are not working and I have not lost some of my circumference.  I am the gay version of obese and I do not intend to celebrate a certain thirty something birthday (which is just over two months away) looking like the Michelin Man.  So, I did what any self-respecting gay man would do, I sobbed and then I went out and I bought myself a bike.

This month is our 14^th anniversary.  On 21 May hubby and I would have outlasted 40% of all straight marriages and what a better way to celebrate this anniversary month than for me to try to lose 8kg and get back into shape before my birthday.  After all it is as much a gift for hubby as it is a gift for me.  Both hubby and I deserve for my body to be close to the shape it was in when we first met.  Albeit that back then I looked semi anorexic.  I mean you could seriously see my hip bone back then. So this time around my aim will be for the healthier looking version of me 14 years ago, not anorexic looking me.

So on Monday hubby and I went shopping.  Initially I decided to buy a treadmill.  Sure, it’s nothing more than a hamster wheel but I do prefer sweating, heaving and being red faced in private while watching Chelsea Lately or listening to music.  The treadmill seemed like a much better option than jogging through the neighborhood or running on a treadmill all lined up like a Nazi concentration camp's fitness experiment in the gym. Then I saw how much treadmills cost.

Treadmills are fucking expensive.  A whole month’s salary expensive!  For a brief moment while standing in the fitness shop, with a dropped jaw, I thought maybe I wasn’t really that fat.  Love handles are just more of me to love, right?  Then I remembered the reflection of my flab in the mirror that morning.  Remembered that cellulite is not my friend.  Remembered that even though chubby people have great personalities, nobody wants to see them naked, people get nervous at the pool if it looks like they are going to dive in and realized that economy class seats (the class that I now have to fly due to the economy) are small and very narrow.  I realized that I am chubby and I needed a Plan B.

On the other side of the fitness shop I spotted my Plan B – mountain bikes!  Interesting, I thought.  The last time I was on a bike was when I was 13.  I have fond memories of my red BMX bike and I knew that a mountain bike was my salvation from my every growing circumference, as my Chinese pills so blatantly calls it.  Mountain bikes are expensive too, but not as expensive as hamster wheels.  Besides, at least with a bike we will save money on the power bill, as I think hamster wheels can be heavy on electricity.  And bikes are greener and it will give hubby and I something to do as a couple, let us get out of the house, get some fresh air and get me into shape.  So we went shopping for the right bikes for us.

In a specialty bike shop I spotted the most amazing tandem bike.  It exited me in my loins and as I was pointing it out to hubby all vivaciously, his expression was one of “Yea right.  As if we are not gay enough as it is.  Why don’t we just hang pink tassels on the handle bars, besides I would have to do all of the peddling anyway"  It may surprise you, but yes, my husband can convey all of this in just one look, it’s a skill.  With a tandem bike clearly not being a realistic option we eventually bought two bikes that we both liked, bought pumps, helmets and all the paraphernalia one would need to get started.

My brother-in-law graciously offered to pick the bikes up for us as the boxes they came in would not fit in either of our cars.  For some odd reason I thought that if you buy a bike it comes fully assembled, but they don’t.  You have to do it yourself and for that you need tools.  Fortunately for us, brother-in-law has tools, lots of them and in no time at all, both our bikes were assembled and ready to go.  For the first time in almost two decades I was about to get on a bike, and I did not know what to expect.

Not being in any kind of shape at all, hubby and I decided to ride around the block.  It’s not a massive distance, but we thought it would be a gentle way to ease us into things.  Little did we know, but our block has hills and no matter which way around you go you will have an uphill and downhill.  To make matters worse is the fact that my bike was squeaking and it sounded a lot like it was saying “you’re fat” when it squeaked.  As these Queers on Wheels made our way around the block, people stared and I was dripping with sweat, out of breath and praying that no one recognizes me from under the helmet and from behind my sunglasses.  But we made it!  Eventually. I survived and it wasn’t really a completely unpleasant experience.  So later in the afternoon, we did it again.

The squeaking was later discovered to be the rear brake pads and our hairstylist, who had to see the bikes for himself, quickly identified the problem and the bike now no longer squeaks and calls me fat.  Hubby and I decided to ride around the block every day, each day venturing a little further as our fitness levels increases.  There are a lot of bike trails in and around our town and when we feel ready and know that we will not risk a heart attack we will start exploring them too.  It’s something constructive to do on a Sunday and much healthier than lying on the couch in front of the television eating crisps.

Exercise is never fun, but in the absence of a miracle pill that burns fat and turns chocolate or Hägan-Dazs ice cream into cellulite burning treats, it is unfortunately something I will have to do.  I know many people buy bikes with the full intention of exercising and that many of these bikes either end up as clothing racks or dust collectors in their garages, and many people think this is exactly what’s going to happen to ours.  But I do like a challenge and I do like proving people wrong.  So take that flab, I will paddle my little gay legs off around my little neighborhood and by the 1^st of July, I will have shed those excess 8kgs and be able to retire those pair of cargo pants back to its spot of shame in the closet!

Till next time

The Hunger Games

Reading a good book is somewhat of a luxury to me.  Normally I don’t have much time to sit down and finish a book apart from when I am on holiday and/or on an island somewhere totally removed from technology.  But last week, while strolling around the airport waiting for my flight, I sauntered into the book store.  I had a ninety minute flight ahead of me and I had no intention of making friends on the plane.  Then I saw “The Hunger Games”, a relatively thin book but with a lot of hype surrounding it.  It’s been rumored to become the next “Twilight”.  Being thoroughly sick of glistening vampires, ripped werewolves and nerdy looking sorcerers, I decided to buy it.  The next few days I spent reading it and even ended up watching the movie.

The Hunger Games is a novel written by the American television writer and novelist Suzanne Collins and it was first published in 2008.  The book is part of a trilogy and is written from the perspective of the 16 year old girl called Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a post-apocalyptic world in the country of Panem, where the countries of North America once existed.  The Capitol, a highly evolved metropolis holds power over the rest of the nation.  The Hunger Games is an annual event in which one boy and one girl (ages 12 to 18) from each of the 12 districts surrounding the Capitol are selected in a lottery to compete in a televised battle until only one person is left.  There are no vampires or wizards, just regular kids fighting to the death in the cruelest circumstances imaginable.

District 12, where the book begins, is located in the coal rich region and this is where Katniss quietly carves out a path of meager survival for herself with her younger sister Prim and their widowed mother under the strict control and absolute dominance of the Capital.  On the day of the reaping (when tributes are selected for the games) for the 74^th Hunger Games, Prim is selected to the horror of Katniss who then bravely volunteers, to the astonishment of everybody watching, to be a tribute on her sister’s behalf.  Also selected from district 12 is Peeta Millard, a baker’s son who Katniss knows from school and once gave her bread when she was on the brink of starvation.

After the reaping, Katniss and Peeta are whisked away to the Capitol where they are prepared by the drunken Haymitch (victor of the 50^th Hunger Games).  Even before the games begin, Peeta declares his unrequited love for Katniss, during his public interview, and from there they are known as the “star-crossed lovers”.  Katniss struggles to accept this and questions Peeta’s true motives for declaring his love for her.  After all Katniss does have a love interest back in Disctict 12, Gale, albeit an unspoken love.  Then the Hunger Games begins and bloodshed and mayhem follows.  With unsettling parallels to our present appetite for reality television The Hunger Games is the deadliest reality television show you will ever see.

In an ominous twist of fate or calculated move by the Gamemakers, it is declared midway through the games, that if a boy and a girl survive from the same district, they’d both be declared victors.  This forces Katniss and Peeta to work together, still playing off the “star-crossed lovers” bit to the great adoration of the viewing public.  In a climactic final battle they are the last two survivors but one last callous twist in the game awaits them.  Against all odds they outwit the Gamemakers and both survive and it is a victory won in defiance of the Capitol and their stark rules; a victory that in all probability will have dire consequences for Katniss and Peeta alike.

The Hunger Games is a book about survival, rooting for the underdog and the evaluation of your own moral compass.  What would you do if faced with the same circumstances, would you have the will or the hope to survive?  But one word of warning, do not read this book if you are hungry, a lot of time is spent dealing with food.  I know it is called “The Hunger Games”, and it did have me crave bread and stew on a few occasions.  The book is an easy read and paced well.  Sure it is violent and I did find myself questioning its suitability for the target age bracket for which it was written, but the violence is not gratuitous or exaggerated.

I must admit that I was somewhat disappointed with the movie though.  Many parts of the book were omitted from the movie or certain things changed.  Sure this may have been done for the book to translate better into a film, but there are certain subtexts that went unexplored or unarticulated such as Katniss’s development of feelings for Peeta, how and why she met Rue and the reason Rue’s death affected her so deeply.  The final climatic battle was also vastly different from the book, with the mutants not being the mutations of the fallen tributes but instead being dog like monsters, which contributed little to the trauma and angst of the final battle as depicted in the book.  And the movie is a smidge too long for my liking, so make sure you pee before the movie and have enough popcorn and soda– it’s just over two hours long!

Whether The Hunger Games will indeed be the new Twilight, only time will tell.  For me the book was money well spent for burning 6 hours on a plane round trip, another couple of hours at the airport and for the time spent alone in my hotel room.  The movie was well acted (better than Twilight) and even though it is long I didn’t find myself getting bored or fidgety and it demanded my attention from start to end.  I do recommend that you get yourself a copy of the book and drag your butts to the cinema to watch the movie.  Enjoy The Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favor.

Till next time.

The Hunger Games Official Trailer - Watch more Movie Trailers

It Doesn’t Get Better for Homophobes.

The pro-gay equality group FCKH8 wants homophobes to know that hating gay people will not enrich their lives.  This new in-your-face video comes courtesy of FCKH8’s Tyler Oakley.  Watch , enjoy, SHARE with your friends, TWEET and LIKE on Facebook.  Also support this worthy cause by clicking HERE.

The Gay Panic Defense

Recently I read an article about the “Gay Panic” defense.  It is a defense tactic offenders of anti-gay violence use to try and circumvent getting their asses thrown in jail.  In the “Gay Panic” defense the defended claim to have been the object of homosexual romantic or sexual advances and found these advances so offensive and frightening that it brought on a psychotic state characterized by extreme and unusual violence.  In other words they committed a hate crime in self-defense because they feared being butt fucked by a penis or scissor’ed by a vagina.  It’s a pathetic pretext, if you ask me, and does nothing but distracts from and trivializes the real issue of “Gay Panic” affecting the homosexual community which is far more prevalent and traumatic than what you are led to believe.

“Gay Panic” in the homosexual community is not something we talk about.  To be honest, it is one of those taboos like porn before genital grooming became popular and the darkrooms at certain gay bars.  We all know it exists, we have all seen one, experiences one and none of us are willing to publically admit it.

But if you have ever seen a gay man trying to fit into a pair pants a size too small, realize the new designer couch he just bought is in fact too large for the lounge, been the tragic victim of a dye job gone wrong, or saw the coach of a lesbian softball team watching her them loose, you will know exactly what “Gay Panic” is and what it looks like.  It isn’t pretty.  It isn’t fun and it isn’t an excuse to commit a crime.  Or is it?

Just the other day I suffered from gay panic.  I was driving home from work and decided to stop at the shop to buy some essential items for that evening’s dinner.  As I drove into the parking area I noticed a guy parking in one of the disabled parking spots.  I thought nothing of it, until the man climbed out of his car that is.  The man wasn’t disabled.  He didn’t even have as much as a limp and it pissed me off.

So I did what any self-respecting homosexual would do.  I walked up to him and shouted “Praise Jesus!  Praise the LORD! It’s a miracle!” To which he responded by telling me to go and fuck myself.  Ok, so I didn’t suffer so much from gay panic as I did from gay anger but in circumstances like these they are closely related.  I wanted to key the asshole’s car but I didn’t.  But if I had and got caught I would have used the Gay Panic Defense.

Gay panic can strike at any time and at any place.  It’s especially bad when I take public transport and flying in economy class.  When I am on a plane I like to be left alone and that is why I always insist on either getting the window seat or the window seat.  By doing so I can turn away from the person sitting next to me and pretend they are not there.  If I remembered to charge my iPod it further helps me to exude that antisocial “if you touch me or talk to me you will die” vibe.  But unfortunately there are some people who are immune to this and in one out of every three flights I take, they end up sitting next to me.

A couple of weeks ago on my flight to Cape Town one such immune person ended up on my flight.  She was a recently widowed retired high school teacher, misses her kids who now live in the United States and to fight loneliness she travels and makes friends on planes and at airports.  She had an uncanny fondness for orthopedic shoes, a dog that is a diabetic, is allergic to onions and is a Sagittarius.

When she boarded the flight she was like a little loud tornado which headed straight for me.  I remember praying that she would not to occupy seat 19B.  As she got closer and louder I could feel the gay panic swell up inside of me.  To my horror she was to sit iseat 19B, I checked her boarding pass.  Her ass had not even touched the seat yet before she started asking me questions.

“Sweet heart, can you please ring my phone?  I think I lost it” she asked while rummaging through her handbag which could carry two dead backstreet boys and a medium sized dog through customs without any problem.  “It’s not ringing, it goes to voicemail” I mumbled.  “Oh sweat child, you can call me M’am.  I must have left it at the check-in counter” she said in her annoying old school teacher authoritative voice.  Realizing that there was a real possibility that she might never see her phone again (it was Johannesburg after all) she made a beeline for the cabin crew, consequently delaying our flight with 15 minutes.

As it turns out she did leave her phone at check-in and she spend the remainder of the flight talking to me only pausing briefly to breath.  I wanted to die!  Had I lost it and strangled her with her lilac scarf and got arrested, I would have used the Gay Panic Defense and also blamed the altitude and poorly controlled cabin pressure.  However, I did kill her (a couple of times) in my head and worked out a new ingenious method for in-flight murder involving a seatbelt, the food tray and two barth bags.

 

Sometimes episodes of gay panic can also be predicted.  You see this coming Saturday there is a high probability that I will experience a gay panic of sorts.  You see it is my godson’s baptism and it will be happing in a Catholic Church.  We all know how much I adore the Catholic Church and how much the Vatican loves me.  Holy Sea, Vatican City still pops by my blog every now-and-again and I am surprised that they have not issued an arrest warrant for me yet or at the very least banned me from all their premises.

With the countdown to Saturday, I suspect that I will either be truck by lightening, be kidnapped and tortured by the Corpo della Gendarmeria dello Stato della Citta del Vaticano or worse.  But hey, the day is not about me and even Pope Benedict XVI will concede that making a scene would be in bad taste and not very Christian like.  So in nomine Patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti I shall keep my mouth shut, head down and hide my gay panic as best I can.  All the while keeping an eye out for and staying clear off cars with tinted windows and men in dark blue uniforms.

Yes people, gay panic is a real problem.  We all suffer from it from time-to-time for various reasons.  It can strike without warning on a plane in cattle class, in a parking area at your local mall, in your living room, at your hairdresser’s, next to the sport field and even in Church.  Currently there is no cure for gay panic and it has not been tested in any court of law as a viable defense, but is does exist.  Ask your doctor about Gay Panic today, even though it cannot be cured I am sure it can be treated.

Till next time.

What if Jesus was a bullied high school teen?

Bullies, Punks and a Pontius Pilate Principal are the players in this bullied teen as Jesus Christ music video from New York City based recording artist Danny Blu for his new track "Set Me On Fire" .  Check it out.

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I just love vintage advertisement.  Usually they are a great source of amusement to me.  So imagine my delight when I stumbled across these three ads on Pinterest this morning.  They were too good to keep to myself. (Click on the image to enlarge)

Public Toilets & the Diseases You Can Catch

It is no secret that I detest public toilets.  They are nothing but Germ Incubators used by people with questionable personal hygiene.  I say this because you do not know what a stranger’s hand washing habits are like, whether they are wearing clean underwear and fresh socks or where their hands and butt cheeks have been.  Until proven otherwise it is always wise to assume the absolute worst and wipe every surface that is to touch your skin with antibacterial wipes.  Sure this might sound excessive to you but I promise after you have read what I am about to share, you will view Germ Incubators with the same disgust as I do.

I squirm at the thought of creepy germs that lurk on toilet seats, faucet handles and door handles in public toilets.  For this reason I spent as little time in them as possible.  And during those nerve-wracking moments when I am forced by my bodily functions to venture into one, I usually find myself opening the stall door with my elbow, crouching precariously above the toilet seat while avoiding touching anything and flush with it my shoe.  Sure this might sound a tad neurotic, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

Research have found that the average public toilet could harbor E Coli and the Shigella bacteria, Hepatitis A, the common cold virus and various sexually transmitted organism like Crabs, Chlamydia and Gonorrhea.  To make matters worse, the average person touch their face between two to three thousand times a day and it is possible that you will touch your face in the toilet before you even get a chance to wash your hands, thereby contaminating your face with bacteria, viruses or STD organisms!  That’s right.  You can innocently stroll into the public loo to number two and leave with crabs or the bird flu or BOTH!

Just the other day at my office my bowels needed to move.  Normally my very personal bodily functions are on a strict routine and timed in such a way that I never have to sit on any foreign toilet seat.  But this day my timing was off.  Whether it was due to the Chinese food I had the night before or whether the universe decided my life was too boring and needed some spicing up, I do not know.  Being the public toilet phobe that I am, I ignored it.  You see I function better under pressure and if it wasn’t “I am about to shit my pants” time, I saw no need to expose myself Cholera or the Ebola virus.

An hour passed.  Then it happened and my body gave me the signal that it was time.  So I made my way to our floor’s men’s room.  It should be noted that my department share our floor with the IT department and they have some very nasty fast food eating habits and their eating habits translates into a lot of bad smells and confused and angry stomachs.  In light of this, combined with my Germ and Bubonic Plague Phobia, I approached the restroom hesitantly and with utter dread.

After opening the door with my elbow I was horrified to find that I was not the only one in there.  The stall next to the one I was about to use was occupied.  Another thing you should know about me is that I can’t pee if someone is watching me and I can’t poop if I am not alone.  But my body didn’t care, I needed to expel some waste and I needed to do it now.  After wiping the toilet seat down with antibacterial wipes I sat down and tried as best I could to go quietly.

Half way through my bowel movement I heard the person next to me finishing up.  He opened his stall’s door, flushed the toilet and left without washing his hands.  He just had a shit, wiped his ass and didn’t wash his hands!  While breathing in his feces air particles that were released when he flushed his toilet, I sat there hyperventilating and freaking the fuck out!

“It’s 11:30am and there is a person on my floor touching stuff, touching stuff I touch with feces on his hands!  I am going to have his feces on my hands!  Motherfucker!” I thought with utter dismay.  Who does that?  Who goes to the toilet, takes a dump and then leaves without even washing their hands?  Are people who do things like this raised by fucking homeless people?  If a person does this at work, what the hell goes on in their homes?  The more I thought about it the more disturbed I got.  Till this day I still don’t know who it was but I do have my suspicions.  But this is not the worst of it.

Not washing your hands is one thing but shedding your pubic hair is a whole different story.  You see not only do we have a non-hand-washer and feces spreader to deal with at our office, we also have a guy who sheds his ball hair.  I have found pubes on the toilet seat, the urinal and the basin.  It evokes a similar reaction in me as that time I found dry cum stains on a certain hotel room’s wall.  It’s disgusting.  It should not be there.  It makes me feel violated.  It is just plain wrong.

What if this jungle bush pube shedder catches the crabs or the syphilis?  Are we going to get it to?  Does he even know he is shedding worse than my five cats combined?  Going to the restroom and finding his pubes is upsetting and always serve as just another reminder that I am sharing that space with other people.  People who I don’t always know.  People with questionable personal hygiene.  The same as with the feces hands guy, I do not know who pubes guys is, but with him I too have my suspicions.

Going into a public toilet is like playing Russian roulette at the CDC’s most secure virus vault.  Every time you go in there you run the risk of contaminating yourself with other people’s germ, catching a super virus or helping a new virus mutate.  The worst must be restrooms at airports especially in Muslim countries.  I remember my experience at Cairo’s International Airport vividly.  The floor was wet, stuff was floating around my feet and it smelled like shit.  That’s exactly why I now won’t eat anything strange or spicy before a long trip and why contracting food poisoning by eating crab cakes from a buffet before an international flight never ends well.

Yes, public toilets are perilous places with a gauntlet of viruses, bacteria and fatal diseases you must successfully navigate and avoid.  Sure, public toilets are needed and we sometimes have no choice but to use them but when we do we must try and be safe.  Remember just because you have excellent personal hygiene doesn’t mean the gazillion other people who have been there before you do too.  There are some pretty disgusting people out there and chances are they used the loo before you.

Till next time.