Confessions of a Muscle Growth Lovin' Femme

I hate Jane, and I'm not alone

2011-03-24T12:34:00.000-07:00

You know who royally annoys me? Jane from the Tarzan novels.

What did she ever do to deserve him, anyway? Apart from being the first white woman he ever saw.

The character suffered character-defining irreparable damage in the very first Tarzan book, Tarzan of the Apes, when she was confronted by a lion and fainted. That was one of the first really stressful situations she was ever introduced to, and that was how she was introduced to the audience. There were other books later on where the author, Edgar Rice Burroughs, tried to repair his obvious mistakes by making her a "little toughie," but never, really: Tarzan's sidekick Mugambi, a guy that unlike Jane was an interesting character the book series never did anything with, practically sacrificed himself to save her useless hide in Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. There was even one book where Jane, finally, got an opportunity to help a safari, and that worked out about as well as you'd think it would. Apparently, there's nothing Jane can't ruin.

Jane's sense of privilege kept Tarzan from the things he loved. Tarzan was a misanthrope that hated civilization and its hypocrisies and would rather be away from it in his wilderness where he had the one thing he wants most in the world: freedom. But Jane was too much of a high maintenance Princess to live in trees and whatnot, and insisted that Tarzan wear human clothes like a gentleman and live with her in a giant estate house in Africa. Obviously Tarzan wasn't totally happy but he did it because it pleased her.

This isn't some unfair slant or reinterpretation of perfectly innocuous events. This is exactly what happened!

And it gets even worse! In Tarzan's Quest, Tarzan and his allies obtain the secret of immortality from a race of white savages. Which means she'll live forever and he'll never be free of her while more worthy mates for Tarzan grow old and die alone without him.

Thankfully, I'm not the only person in the world that hates Jane. I'm in good company: Jane Goodall was a big fan of the Tarzan books growing up and thought "she'd be a better mate for Tarzan than that other Jane." This is actually on her website, incidentally. Wow, and I thought I hated Jane. I find a lot of characters irritating but not enough to insert it into my official biography! Actually, Tarzan hooking up with an anthropologist and scientist is actually a really great idea and I'm surprised fanfiction never did anything with that.

(How about it, real person fic writers?)

Not only do I not like Jane that much, but neither did her creator, Edgar Rice Burroughs! Now that's really saying something, isn't it? He actually really wanted to kill her off back in Tarzan the Untamed, when Germans attacked and destroyed Tarzan's home (during the First World War). The whole book was about Tarzan getting sweet revenge on the Germans, history's great villains. However, there was an outcry from the audience (seriously?) and Burroughs revealed her death had been faked and she was actually a prisoner of the Germans.

This was awful, as there were many other women in Tarzan's novels that would have been worthier and more interesting: Bertha Kirschner, a competent, cool German superspy mystery woman that was a match for Tarzan. Because no good people could ever really be working for the Germans in these kinds of stories, she turned out to have been a double-agent all along. (For some unknown reason it's entered into Tarzan fans' heads that Bertha had these Princess Leia buns despite the fact her hairstyle was never really described. Talk about "fanon!")

Then there was La, who is every Tarzan fan's favorite character: a powerful queen of a lost civilization, she was a rip-off of H. Rider Haggard's She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, but this is not unique. An entire library could be filled with rip-offs of She, Dr. Fu Manchu, and Sherlock Holmes. As proof of La's popularity, I submit that I looked up La of Opar on google image search and found approximately five billion pieces of fan-art. Apparently, Frazetta's legacy is alive and well.

And why not? La adds ever-popular bondage dominatrix human sacrifice stuff to a series and concept that is already drenched with sublimated sex and hormones. That's what I always found interesting about Tarzan, that made him different from other squeaky-clean adventure characters: there was an element of sexuality and passion about it all that was made even more interesting by the fact it was all below the surface. The fact the Tarzan stories passed muster as young adult stories through censors despite the fact they were filled with bloody savage violence and barely controlled and not-explicit sexuality is a tribute to how dysfunctionally insane censorship laws are, and how neurotic American culture is on these subjects. Naked women performing human sacrifice on bronzed naked jungle studs is alright as long as no dirty words are spoken.

In one novel, Tarzan loses his memory and decides to live with La, something every fan wants to see. Naturally this was too good to last and the status quo was restored. Amnesia is one of those illnesses that happen a million times more frequently in adventure stories than real life, like Multiple Personality Disorder. Though it does happen in reality. Steve Wozniak, inventor of Apple, got amnesia after a plane crash.

There were strong implications La was, like Ayesha, an immortal. In fact, there were rumors of a legendary crossover story in the 1950s, licensed by the Burroughs estate, called Tarzan on Mars that would have featured Tarzan on the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs's other less famous and less interesting creation, the dying Mars of John Carter. Tarzan On Mars was unfortunately never published, but supposedly it would have revealed that La was from Mars, which would have explained her tremendous longevity as Martians live over a thousand years.

I even liked how the recent animated Tarzan series based on the Disney Tarzan movie made use of La, but it was a thrill to see her. She had outright magical powers, which was irritating. One mistake made in the Star Wars prequels was that the Jedi, who previously rarely used their abilities to the point they had real mystique, had so much less coolness and subtlety when the special effects budget meant they now could hurl rocks with their minds. Though I did like the way they merged La with the Leopard-Men, a cult of African witch doctors that wore leopard skins for murder, an idea that was fascinating in concept but was doomed by being in easily the worst of all the Tarzan novels.

Finally, there was Nemone from Tarzan and the City of Gold, a horrible queen followed everywhere by an evil lion she feeds human flesh. Obviously she was too evil and unredeemable to be a serious mate for him but it is proof positive when I say these books were horny and sex-filled: Tarzan's enemies overwhelmingly tend to be powerful women that want to have sex with him. These books, passed on for generations as popular wholesome adventure literature for boys and girls, are the greatest joke ever played on censorship lovin', uptight American parents.

Incidentally, I always had a fan theory that Nemone's lion was her daemon, like in the His Dark Materials books, a person's soul on the outside of their body. The horrible, bloodthirsty lion reflected who this glamorous but savage woman was at the core. And it would explain why she instantly died when her lion was killed.

Denis Sergoviskiy sighting!

2011-02-12T11:29:00.000-08:00

Unlike most Americans, I didn't watch the Superbowl. Not just because of my workload for my masters thesis, but also because I was far too heartbroken about the Jets crashing and tripping right on the finish line that I couldn't bear to watch.

Starting at 0:20, however, there's a Kia commercial featuring Denis, where he plays some kind of wealthy yacht-owning supervillain. He seemed to have slimmed down a bit, which is a shame. Muscular and humorless, Denis would make a fantastic action movie supervillian, opposing the likes of underdog heroes like Bruce Willis.

I'm trying to figure out what the message of this ad is. If you own a Kia, people will try to steal it? They're trying to brand the Kia with adventure and excitement in our minds, all the while avoiding discussions of the car's actual attributes. Because nothing says adventure like a low-end car juxtaposed with the sea-god Poseidon.

Only I know what's wrong with bodybuilding today!

2011-02-05T04:48:00.000-08:00

I found this video on YouTube a while back and it blew my mind for many reasons.

It brought to mind several points I've had about bodybuilding as a spectator sport for a long time.

1) Female bodybuilding is generally more interesting to watch than male bodybuilding, because of costumes, panache and so on.

2) Bodybuilding in many foreign countries is more interesting to watch than the totally dead and lifeless North American stage, because they supplement their routines with non-flexing, displays of athleticism, dance and gymnastics. Also, the choices of music are more interesting in foreign countries. It blew my mind to see Asian bodybuilders flex to classical music as opposed to Iron Maiden. And bodybuilders from Russia like Denis Sergovisky also double as acrobats with state-sponsored circus and athletic training.

The problem as I see it, with bodybuilding is this: it's booooooooring.

For my American readers, remember the Superbowl a few years ago? It featured the undefeated New England Patriots, a team that got off Scott-free when accused of cheating, the most hated team in sports since the heyday of the Oakland Raiders. The unvanquished Patriots played against an underdog team. And not to spoil it for everyone, but the underdogs beat 'em while the whole country cheered.

That's what's missing from bodybuilding today: unpredictability. This is why people just don't care about bodybuilding.

At the Mr. Olympia this year, I rooted for the underdog Kai Greene. I always thought he was the best looking heavyweight, and a bit of a nut, a real genius eccentric with a lot of likability. But he wasn't going to win ever, so what's the point of my rooting for him? What's the point in even following? Yawn.

A while back I wrote about how in the early 1990s MacMahon created the World Bodybuilding Federation because bodybuilding itself was unbelievably dull and a lot of people were just not happy. What blows my mind is how nothing really changed in 20 years, and attendance crowds for bodybuilding events are dwindling. Don't quote me on this but I strongly suspect that female bodybuilding will evaporate in at least a decade because it has all the problems of a hard to take seriously woman's sport mixed with the problems of bodybuilding. This is a gut-level intuition, but I strongly suspect figure classes are being introduced to eventually replace true female bodybuilders.

When was the last time that a nobody came from nowhere and won a bodybuilding championship? Bob Paris comes to mind - I understand he was homeless at the time of his first victory at 24 years old. Perhaps Finland's Kike Elomaa (remember her? Yeah, I don't either...though she beat Rachel McLish and I understand is something of an object of a cult in her native Finland).

The problem is there's no drama in many ways to bodybuilding contests because it's based on hard work on the run-up to a contest. Bodybuilding contests are often decided weeks before the fact, since it takes years and years, possibly decades, to develop a contest-worthy, winning body. Someone that couldn't win one year is unlikely to win the year afterward because the pace of gaining mass and proportions is so damn slow.

In many ways, bodybuilding reminds me a little of poetry, in the sense that more people write poetry than read and publish it. Most people who follow bodybuilding want to be bodybuilders themselves or work in the fitness industry in some way. I remember an interview with Theodore Sturgeon where he complained about getting fan mail from people wanting advice as aspiring young science fiction writers.

"I don't have any fans. Just 700 people that want my job."

Finally, the last factor that makes bodybuilding hard to take an interest in the fact it's a judged sport and therefore has all the subjectivity problems of judged sports like figure skating. Except even in figure skating there's at least some excitement because of the possibility of someone tripping.

Take a bicep that comes to a point or a peak. This is a genetic thing, and some have it and others don't. Would that add points or subtract? It depends on the judge's definition of the ideal male body.

And then there's the corruption and the role the Weiders play in defining the sport. Every sport has its share of laughable corruption and rigging, from Major League Baseball to the notoriously crooked FIFA, but that's made all the more outrageous and enraging because of the subjectivity and lack of transparency in bodybuilding judging. Cory Everson is a great athlete, beautiful woman and ambassador for the sport, but she won all those times because she was in the Weider's back pocket. No one, realistically, was ever going to beat her for that reason. Then there's the famous and slimy story about how in 1980 the great Serge Nubret was denied his one great chance at the championship over a puffy Schwarzenegger that had looked better and wasn't really prepared.

Finally, I've made the argument before so I won't repeat it in full here, but because bodybuilding has become a niche market, it's started to speak its own language and no longer relates to the greater world. You can see that with magazines like Muscular Development which are all about wink-wink non-endorsement endorsement of juicing. In the beginning, bodybuilding was about having an ideal male body that even outsiders would admire. Something went seriously wrong when it became all about mass as opposed to proportionality, which scares people off (like women - imagine that, right?).

If Ron Coleman's bloated pregnant belly build is what's wrong with male bodybuilding, the problem is a billion times worse with the women. If male bodies that are blocky and massive as opposed to Steve Reeves-esque sleek and attractive are not that great on men, it's much worse with women. I have no idea why Pumping Iron II: the Women isn't more commercially available because it's a documentary that shows the exact moment that women's bodybuilding took a wrong turn. Bev Francis, who came from a powerlifting background, set the worst of all female bodybuilding precedents by being a mass monster, when no woman bodybuilder had ever been that big before. She made sheer size more important than aesthetics and women's bodybuilding has never entirely recovered.

At the end of the day, bodybuilding is about aesthetics as opposed to sheer size, about the ideal male and female body. And in the case of women, the ideal body can't necessarily be confused with size.

(Incidentally, I fully expect most of the responses to take exception to this point as opposed to my saying bodybuilding is boring to follow, because that's pretty much inarguable.)

The bottom line is that if a sport is dull people won't follow and it won't be any more than just a niche. MMA fans, I hate to say this, but your sport will never get a wider audience because it's just plain dull. MMA emerged from full-contact kickboxing, which came out of the dissatisfaction a lot of Martial Artists had with traditional contest judging, which valued form over power and effectiveness. So they married a lot of Eastern martial arts training to Western techniques like boxing footwork and weight training. But the end result of this is just dull to watch because, like most real fistfights, MMA fights tend to end on the ground in a grappling match where nothing moves that resembles nothing more than really bad gay porn. Thirty seconds of explosive movement followed by 15 minutes where you might as well just get up and go to the concession stand.

Paul Wynter, "L'Ercule Noir"

2010-09-03T00:14:00.000-07:00

Handsome, symmetrical Antiguan-born Paul Wynter was, along with Serge Nubret (from Hercules and the Rebel Slave), one of the few black bodybuilders in Sword n' Sandal pictures. Paul Wynter's trademark outfit was his leopard-print bathing suit that called attention to his ethnicity...a gimmick that Scary Spice would later borrow during her pop years in the gay nineties.

Like his fellow Italian Sword & Sandal muscle star Alan Steel, Paul Wynter was also pretty short and it got downright unintentionally funny how the directors and others went out of their way to avoid demonstrating his average height. What Paul Wynter lacked in height he made up for with what is easily one of the most devastatingly chiseled and symmetrical physiques ever.

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride, Paul Wynter played Maciste's brawny sidekick and ally in what was quite possibly the weirdest and campiest of the Maciste films, "Son of Hercules Against the Mole Men."

He was also the very dramatic heavy against Gordon Scott in "Atlas in the Land of the Cyclops," which incidentally, also featured scenes with a baby that would later grow up to be Fabio. Yes, that Fabio.

As an aside, I always wondered why more Peplum films didn't have muscular enemies for the heroes to fight on equal terms, like Godzilla vs. Mothra. As with Westerns made in the same era, one of the problems with Peplum as a genre is that the villains were never as compelling or interesting, and they are very seldom threatening or powerful, especially compared to the handsome muscle hero downright assured of victory against scheming, craven and downright bad foes. At least Paul Wynter's physique gave Maciste a credible, villainous threat.

Typically, it's good storytelling advice that if you want to be a slacker, ignore your hero and concentrate all your industriousness on your villain.

There are some counterexamples to this. For instance, Paul Wynter's leopardskin baddie was more interesting than the hero, and there was the vampiric, shapechanging Kobrak from Goliath Against the Vampires, and the race of identical Atlantean clones made from the blood of Uranus (don't ask) in classic MST3K fodder in Hercules and the Captive Women, who were at least powerful and credible enemies that could mop the floor with Herc. Perhaps it was the power and shock of their introduction, a surprise in an otherwise predictable movie.

Incidentally, Paul Wynter recently received a major award in his native Antigua from the Governor-General. Being of Cuban descent, I know exactly what that's like: little countries do everything in their power to honor anyone that makes it in the bigger world. Us Cubans for instance, never shut our traps about Dr. Carlos Finlay, who cured Malaria during the Spanish-American War.

WBF - World Bodybuilding Federation

2010-07-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

The single most brilliant musician friend that I ever knew wanted to be a pianist, but she loathed the very idea of being a concert pianist, with the two-tailed coat and the white gloves. She wanted to play in t-shirts and jeans and show how piano and classical music could mean something to ordinary people without all the forced, phony conventions that come along with concert music, that it could be something fun and for everybody.

The mentality of a lot of classical concert fans can best be summarized by the sentence "hey, stop having fun, guys!" In fact, come to think of it that could also apply to the dull and stodgy world of bodybuilding.

I was reminded a little of that when I heard about the WBF - World Bodybuilding Federation, a bodybuilding league and competition created by Vince MacMahon, the panache filled huckster and showman responsible for the WWF (and more applicably, the XFL - a better metaphor for this bodybuilding league). A detailed history of the league, and one of the best blog reads in some time, can be found here.

The WBF was an insanely surreal carnival version of broadcast bodybuilding with bodybuilders adopting weird personas. For example, Tony Pearson had been an actual pilot and so his "character" came out with pilot goggles and gloves and so on as he did the usual bodybuilding flex and grind. There were catwalks that glowed, lots of arm candy girls, fireworks, and smoke bombs detonated in the background. Everyone had a "persona." The professional wrestling school applied to the WBF, where lots of effort was made to turn bodybuilders into not just athletes but superstars. And then there was the narration, which can best be described as YELLING, the kind of color commentary expected of Professional Wrestling. It's so different from the two stodgy dweebs in a booth prattling about "symmetry."

Tony Pearson I must admit, was something of a sensation. The narration insisted that he was "drug free," a claim that is usually worth a belly laugh and not much more. Though I am inclined to believe it in the case of the WBF for the same reason I believe it in American Gladiators: they're under far too much scrutiny to not play conservatively.

I hate to admit it, but I kind of like it all. I've often admired bodybuilding in other cultures like Korea because they don't just do the usual, graveyard-boring "stage where people flex to speed metal."

The WBF had a grand total of two competitions, in 1991 and 1992 and Gary Strydom won both. Here's an area where professional bodybuilding and this bizarre carnival converge: people win not so much because they are necessarily the best but because they have the connections. Gary Strydom was approached to wrestle by MacMahon, who had charisma, but Strydom turned him dwn. This is not too different really from the situation in "real" bodybuilding. Cory Everson is a great athlete but she only really won all those times because she was in the Weider's back pocket, after all. In that sense WBF is more like "real" bodybuilding than anyone would care to admit.

Statue criticized for having an enormous penis

2010-06-21T21:04:00.000-07:00

In Jamaica, the "Redemption Song" statue is dedicated to the end of slavery. Instead of chain-breaking and other cliche imagery, the statue chose to show the awe and relief of freedom.

But the guy has a gigantic dick.

Reporters have really filthy minds when they dedicate themselves to it, and they really like to play games...even in the super-serious British press. The first time I realized this was way back with discarded Senator Rick Santorum, who because of his famous anti-gay sentiments received the honor of a gross sex fluid named after him. Man, it was downright hilarious to see newspaper articles work hard to slip in double-entendre phrases like "frothy" and "worked into a froth." It was like the reporters were playing a game with each other: who could put in the most sex references to Santorum without actually getting caught.

The coverage of the statue, when it was unveiled, focused entirely on the immense penis. It was like the reporter was constantly having to hide a giggle.

The thing that makes this so beautiful is that the statue's prudish critics can be accused of penis envy. Count the number of times the word "inadequacy" is used.

"Mutty [a critic of the statue] has an aversion to large penises, and I must say, the penis on the statue is large," wrote Mark Wignall a columnist for the Daily Observer newspaper.

For the most part, the controversy surrounding the statue at its opening has died down and it's a regular part of the city, on every tourist brochure. No one really cares anymore.

Despite the laid-back reputation of Jamaicans for sex, sun and pot-smoking, according to the Guinness Book of World's Records, Jamaica has more churches per mile than any other nation. It doesn't surprise me that the most sexy and interesting monument would come from a culture that at its heart is conservative. There is such a thing as being too casual about sex and bodies, so that all the fun is taken out of it. Ever seen Norway's Vigeland Sculpture Park? There's a nation that is comfortable about sex and nudity that its art is entirely boring, unidealized and straight-up square, with old women and fragile old men.

Visit a Photomanip Blog

2010-05-13T18:24:00.000-07:00

I generally don't like photomanips for the same reason that I don't like most muscle growth themed art: a lot of artists don't quite understand that the best kind of photomanips, the most believable sort, are small, subtle twists for more pleasing proportions, and "extreme" level photomanips fall into the "uncanny valley," where something is obviously fake and your mind rebels against the idea.

Also, with the near-universal availability of programs like photoshop, there are a lot more bad photomanipulators than good ones.

With the blog BigDudes, the very best photomanips are the most recent ones where he just tweaks them for masculine dimensions instead of inflating them grotesquely. It's actually possible to see him improve: the first few images are unrecognizable masses of grunting overstuffed bulges, whereas the recent ones are sleek, unbelievably massive and well proportioned. Perhaps I don't "get" photomanips as well as others do, but I like to think for a woman I'm more visual about sexuality and attraction than normal. However, it is true that with any celebrity or photographed figure, the more they're airbrushed the worse things get.

Visit his work here.

Special emphasis should be paid to some of his more robust muscle posteriors and backs. This blog is definitely one to watch for.

"Weird Science" Muscle Growth Episode on Hulu

2010-05-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

The muscle growth episode of the "Weird Science" TV series is right now on Hulu (first season, "One Size Fits All" if you're looking for it)...as is, for that matter, the entire series. Watch this episode here.

I didn't remember the "Weird Science" TV series...but Vanessa Angel is, surprisingly, a really great comedian with great timing. She's not as spellbinding as Kelly LeBrock, but she is a lot funnier. Supposedly, Vanessa Angel was the original choice for Xena, Warrior Princess, but Lucy Lawless was the last-minute replacement when she became unavailable...which I find hard to believe.

What I find amusing is the choice to play Wyatt's amazonian girlfriend. If she's an athlete and weightlifter, then I'm a Viking Princess.

Here's one of the more choice sequences for all you beefcake pervs:

A friend of mine that understood men as nearly as possible as it is to understand men, once said that every single guy's favorite movie was almost always one of three films: The Big Lewbowski, The Usual Suspects, and Pulp Fiction. If you've seen all three, you can talk with men about nearly any movie. While I liked all three of those films I'd hardly consider them my favorite movies ever, but then again, I'm not the target audience so it doesn't matter what I think.

If there's a female equivalent of the Pulp Fiction/Usual Suspects/Big Lebowski trio, it would probably be the John Hughes high school films. I always operated under the assumption that the John Hughes movies were all set in the same continuity, and that Anthony Michael Hall's character in Weird Science was the exact same guy as the Freshman in Sixteen Candles. After all, he pretty much played the exact same character in both films: a spastic, immature, yet sweet nerd who was totally unaware he was a geek and thought of himself as a cocky, sophisticated ladies man that understands romance and women.

I always thought Weird Science was John Hughes's Return of the Jedi, the weakest of his movies, kept watchable only because of adorable supercutie Ilan Michael Smith as Wyatt, and the absolutely cool and mesmerizing Kelly LeBrock. Add these two to another lengthy list of actors that I'm astonished never really became very big stars.

Bodybuilding in Al Capp's Lil' Abner

2010-05-09T18:31:00.000-07:00

Amazing how some things in pop culture can be totally everywhere one minute and then totally vanish forever the next. Most people that know something about "Li'l Abner" know about it from the Broadway musical, but at one point it was a pop cultural phenomenon.

Essentially, the jokes are all about laughing at the dumb, hick ways of rural poor people - a now radioactively politically incorrect style of humor, which may explain why this isn't paid attention much these days.

This strip is from 1956 and features "Tiny" Yokum, an overdeveloped 15 1/2 year old muscular kid that gets bamboozled by some Charles Atlas type, who exploits him for his overdeveloped hick muscles.

"There's only room for one Toby MacGwire in Hollywood...and that's me...Jake Gyllenhaal!"

2010-05-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

My question is this: who does Jake Gyllenhaal think he's fooling with that goofy "macho" stubble, anyway? It reminds me a little of my grandfather wearing sunglasses, a clear-cut case of trying too hard.

Jake Gyllenhaal gets me juiced like a cranapple (as opposed to his dopier and considerably less sexy doppleganger, Toby MacGwire), so imagine my great delight to hear that a huge chunk of the promotional materials for the movie "Prince of Persia" centers around him bulking up, doing his own stunts and being shirtless a lot. At first I was all prepared to be sarcastic and catty...after all, Hollywood tends to do this a lot with varying degrees of sincerity. Remember how part of Terminator 2's publicity was centered around Linda Hamilton getting "buff?" (That level of muscle wouldn't even get her in a bikini contest, much less Fitness-class.)

But the truth is, all sarcasm aside, the guy does look good! I've never seen anyone get this built for a role, with the possible exception of Harrison Ford preparing for "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."

Apparently, "Prince of Persia" is a real thing. I actually didn't know that. The first place I ever heard of "Prince of Persia" was in Russian author Victor Pelevin's short story "Prince of Central Planning," which showed the life of a Soviet-era drone in a slothful bureaucracy where all everybody does is play computer games all the time, with bureaucrats that live vicariously through their game characters. I thought "Prince of Persia" was as made up as the TV show "Galaxy Quest" until I saw the trailers for the movie and wondered for a minute if I had slipped into an alternate universe.

By the look of things, the film seems like Pirates of the Caribbean 4: an action romantic comedy with rapid-fire dialogue, and even has the Pirates trademark of awkward, totally inappropriate and out of place fantasy elements. For the record, I never liked the Pirates of the Caribbean films after the first: the "ghost story" horror elements were handled so broadly after the first film that they just became awkward and inappropriate, like an episode of Melrose Place that involves time travel. The Jim Henson Creature Shop ship of the dead was especially inappropriate; it felt like something that Guillermo del Toro would have Hellboy encounter instead of Captain Jack.

New York's Own: Javier Datiz

2010-04-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

Lots of muscle guys live in my hometown (second only to L.A., San Diego and Miami as the body capital of the United States), but only a few are from here. Allow me to present the gorgeous Javier Datiz!

What got my attention is that even without his muscles he could be a model. And not a pretty boy model either: look at that square jaw of his, high cheekbones.

I've often found it interesting that men really, really hate it when women like a certain kind of movie star: Leonardo di Caprio comes to mind, as does the massive hate for Rudolph Valentino way back when in the silent era.

On the other hand, men don't mind it when women like men that are very much like how men see themselves: Harrison Ford and Clark Gable come to mind, very masculine, tough and heroic sorts.

I have a feeling that most guys wouldn't object to a girl with a crush on Javier Datiz. He's got a little Harrison Ford by way of Newyorican in him.

Michiko Nishiwaki, the Avenging Angel

2010-03-17T17:43:00.000-07:00

A few people have wanted to hear about some great, sexy bodybuilders of the female sex, and I'm more than happy to oblige as I'm a real muscle omnivore. Especially with someone like Michiko Nishiwaki, who was sort of like Grace Jones, if Grace Jones was a great martial artist and athlete, and wasn't quite so terrifying. Michiko Nishiwaki was not the stereotype of the Asian woman, demure and petite. She was a champion lifter and bodybuilder.

You know, it's a funny thing about Steve Reeves: if anyone knows him at all, it's for his role as Hercules.

Yet, the amazing thing is, Reeves had a career of fifty films and he only played Hercules twice. It's the same thing with bodybuilder, powerlifting champion and martial artist Michiko Nishiwaki. In Hong Kong, she did over 40 movies all through the 1980s and 1990s, but the one movie everybody remembers her from is the Kung Fu cop film My Lucky Stars.

Everybody remembers that one scene where she takes her robe off and it's revealed she's built like a tank. They built to that reveal incredibly well, of course. All throughout the film she was in a kimono as a subservient, stereotypical, petite Asian woman, so when she throws her duds off it's a real shock. She must have the same tailor as Groundskeeper Willie and Ned Flanders.

I just know her from that one movie, so imagine my great surprise to discover that she has a filmography nearly a mile long. She always played the same kind of character: the bodybuilder assassin femme fatale. There were entire scripts were she was menacing and quiet and didn't deliver a single line of dialogue.

One crucial but interesting difference between male bodybuilders and female bodybuilders at the movies is that male bodybuilders are usually leading men and action heroes, whereas female bodybuilders usually are stuntwomen. The list of female bodybuilders in movies is almost entirely a list of stuntwomen: Spice Williams, Faith Minton, and yes, Michiko Nishiwaki: when she came to America, she did stunt work. She was Lucy Liu's stunt double for four movies, and Kelly Hu's for one. Come to think of it, the only female bodybuilder I can think of that didn't work as a stuntwoman was Rachel McLish.

(Rachel McLish is one of those people - like Dave Draper - that I sometimes wonder why they didn't make it as a movie star.)

1968 Mr. America Jim Haislop

2010-03-03T12:29:00.000-08:00

When it comes to impressive mass and proportions, who could possibly top Jim Haislop? What a dramatic v-shape. With that narrow waist, he had a back so wide he could glide with it. His stomach was flat and hard, and he lacks the pregnant belly look of many modern bodybuilders.

You know what I miss about vintage bodybuilders? The fact that they have normal-looking thighs. Sure, they're massive and deeply cut, but his look normal, instead of an enlarged bag with cats keg like Ronnie Coleman's.

Here's my question: why didn't Jim Haislop become a big actor or something, like Steve Reeves did? He was certainly good looking enough. The answer is that he came around in the late sixties and so missed his window to be a bodybuilding movie star - by the late 1960s, the era of Dustin Hoffman, the muscle movie star was already passe, even more so for parody. There was a scene in "Beach Blanket Bingo" that had two men that were objects of fun: a leather jacket wearing, rebellious beatnik, and a bodybuilder. By the late sixties, these symbols of rebellion and virility were just objects of fun.

Periodically, our culture goes through phases of extreme redefinition of hipness, where cultures that were previously cool vanish. One major era of this was the early to mid 1990s, when Seattle grunge rock culture came in.

Here's something interesting: when was the last time you saw any Goths? It seems that a previously ubiquitous hipster subculture is starting to die out.

By the way, check out the old-school issue of muscular development. Obviously it was aimed at a different demographic than bodybuilding mags today, emphasizing great physical attractiveness. "A Greek God" indeed. What, he didn't want to be BIGGERSTRONGERLARGER?

And now a word from our sponsor...

2010-02-08T09:09:00.001-08:00

Is it a requirement that all bodybuilding-themed commercials be either kitschy and dated-looking, or unbelievably weird?

In the second category, I offer up this vid. For those of us that are real connoisseurs of the handsome, crystal blue-eyed Dennis Newman, it's actually quite startling to see him here, because he actually does look like a superhero ought. That hadn't occurred to me before but it makes sense.

Though it is disappointing in one sense: that voice of his makes the Christian Bale Batman voice sound downright underplayed and subtle.

This gym commercial actually played in Staten Island theaters along with Star Wars. What I find interesting is that its' target audience is mainly male: its implicit message is that bodybuilding will help you get laid!

This is downright amazing, considering how these days both men and women go to the gym - though for different exercises and different purposes.

This next one isn't a commercial, but while we're on the subject of youtube vids, I put it up because it illustrates what I've always liked about Asian bodybuilding culture: the slowness, the quiet classical music and so on. I always hated the use of discordant speed metal in posing routines.

Flex, Pecs and Sex: Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel

2010-01-25T23:50:00.000-08:00

"Muscles have really made a comeback in the movies." - Gene Siskel

Ah, if only it lasted!

Absolutely fascinating 1986 documentary that examined muscles at the movies.

Misleading Advertising in Cover Art

2010-01-09T15:57:00.000-08:00

Oh my God!

Do I ever need to say that Gladiator, a novel by Phillip Wylie, a social critic, cynic and misanthrope best known for When Worlds Collide, had absolutely zilch in the way of sex in it? It was, incidentally, a mournful story about how a person with great strength couldn't fit into ordinary society, a story about the way our culture crushes superior people under its heel and mediocrity is the accepted norm. I could hear the tinkly and melancholic piano music from the "Incredible Hulk" in the background. There also was absolutely no sex either.

For those of us that are fans of that controversial pastime, man-on-man love, the cover to "Gay Love" was a...little strange.

For those that love muscles and science together...

2009-12-30T22:39:00.001-08:00

Check it out, an anatomy chart.

For those that like this kind of thing, check out my science blog, Daughter of Hypatia. (Shameless plug!)

Incidentally, "triceps" and "biceps" refer to the entire muscle group, not to just one arm. The correct usage is "biceps muscle."

King of the Stone Age, Part 1

2009-12-22T20:11:00.001-08:00

I haven't written any real muscle growth fiction since a few false starts in the summer of '08, busy as I am with grad school. But I wanted to try my hand at it again.

King of the Stone Age, Part 1 (The Muscle Growth History of the World)

(Note: you have to be registered with musclegrowth.org to see. Don't worry, it's free.)

Essentially, the story is about a girl that flees from her tribe to be rescued by a superhandsome giant cave stud. The basic theory is that in the ancient past, bisexuality was more the norm for men and women. The story has a degree of sexual omnivorousness for that reason: guy on guy, girl on girl, and guy-girl. There isn't any outright sex in the first part, but just wait.

One of the characters is what today we would call "gay," who wears women's clothing. This is a social role found in many societies, notably Native American (Hopi) who have the role of the berdache.

The Twilight Phenomenon

2009-12-16T23:25:00.001-08:00

Every time some guy (and here the term isn’t gender-neutral, it always does, in fact mean men) slams the Twilight phenomenon, I always felt like wincing just a little bit.

Not because I like the books, or it expresses an inmost fantasy of mine or something…in all honesty I read the first book on a plane to Toronto and I was amazed at how fast I forgot it afterward, like most mystery paperbacks. It was harmless, and expressed a common fantasy: the desire to be won over by someone with a possessive and slightly sinister affection. If you get your self-worth from other people adoring you, that’s very powerful.

As readers of this blog will probably know, Edward is too femmie for my tastes anyway, humorless, cynical and vain, he reminds me of a particularly (in retrospect) assholish boyfriend from Williamsburg. While some may see my dating a psedointellectual hipster from Brooklyn as the height of crappy judgment, all I have to say in my defense is that it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Rather, the reason I wince when men slam Twilight is because of the “unfortunate implications” in slamming a mostly female fantasy. I save any and all accusations of sexism for very rare occasions, for when I’m absolutely sure. Here, I’m absolutely sure: there’s a double-standard at work. A goofy female fantasy is seen as fluffy and embarrassing, but goofy male fantasies of virility and macho fighting do not receive criticism for precisely this reason.

Twilight is intimately associated with the female gender. I remember reading a few articles on computer science that bemoaned how few women were going into the field. The article sarcastically asked, “hey, why not put up a few Twilight posters in comp labs?”

(Incidentally, I always thought the problem with comp sci departments is their inability to creatively rebrand. Most biochemistry and genetics departments have been reborn with sexier-sounding names like “systems biology” and “molecular genetics and microbiology.” I can understand trying to get away from reminding people of the nightmarish Organic Chemistry, but still. And don’t ever call an MLS a degree in Library Science – they prefer Information Science, which considering the emphasis on database management over a physical building, that’s not a bad idea.)

You hate Twilight? Okay, fine, I hate James Bond. (Well, except maybe Pierce Brosnan. What a good looking piece of man.) The James Bond movies are the male version of Twilight: an embarrassingly immature fantasy.

Incidentally, it’s worth noting I was actually quite surprised to see a picture of Stephanie Meyer, who was considerably less fat than I was expecting. I guess her soul is fat.

There was one incredible element of the Twilight phenom: the gift of Taylor Lautner, who is one of the most beautiful men at the movies in a very, very long time, and who the directors have the good sense to keep shirtless all the time. Bella says, on first seeing him, “wow, you got buff!”

I can’t seriously believe she’d choose anybody over him. Just sayin’ is all.

Sex in real life is not like sex in pornos

2009-12-16T22:55:00.000-08:00

I love TED talks, the video lecture series by intellectuals and scientists and others.

One of the best argues that, since hardcore porn is widely available and responsible and mature sex education isn't, a whole generation of men have grown up only knowing about sex from porn - specifically, internet porn. This is also dangerous to women as well, who grow up with the expectation that certain sex acts that aren't pleasurable (she uses the example of facials, for instance) are something men demand that must be provided, that she should pretend to enjoy.

She's right; somebody has to set the record straight.

I (Heart) Muscles!

2009-11-23T18:02:00.000-08:00

A swell piece of merchandise from Polyvore.com. Visit the page here to buy!

The Hulk ripping out of clothes is still sexy years later. My one regret about the film versions was they went with a computer animated monster. All it needed was a few Oiliphants and the Hulk would be a particularly deadly agent of Sauron, albeit one that looks like a lime-colored Gummi Bear.

Sure, I know guys with bods like Ferrigno don't grow on trees, but couldn't they have at least made an effort to find some guy that could be a body for the Hulk?

Mario Lopez: please, please, please don't be gay!

2009-11-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

If you're like me, Saved By the Bell was a big part of your childhood. The big question was whether you preferred Zack Morris or A.C. Slater. At the time, I liked Zack, who was so fantastically cool, smart alecky and always trying to get away with something, even if he was a clone of Ferris Bueller and Parker Louis Can't Lose.

I may have to rethink that, considering how cute and dimpled A.C. Slater was, even if he did sport that ridiculous Meximullet. There was this bizarre, hooty, awed audience noise whenever he flexed, which on average was once per episode.

What about Mario Lopez? Frankly, he could go either way: if he turned out either to be gay or straight I'd find either possibility astonishing.

Still, something does definitely set off my gaydar. Perhaps it's that he goes on about how being in Chorusline is his lifelong dream, or the fact he has a superhot girlfriend that he doesn't actually live with.

Every time I watch Saved by the Bell now, I think of that Harlan Ellison story where the sound editor was set to "sweeten" the laugh track of a television series, and used the sound waves to have a conversation with a long dead woman. In the end, the sound track was actually booing and hissing the series!

Jayne Mansfield on her love of muscle guys

2009-11-06T13:30:00.000-08:00

Taken from "The Wide World of Jayne Mansfield." Jayne, with her usual husky, breathy whisper of a voice, talks about how much she loves muscle guys and sexually fantasizes about gladiators.

This campy, frivolous documentary about Jayne's world tour is actually unintentionally bittersweet because it was made a few months before her death.

Hercules Returns!

2009-11-05T21:56:00.000-08:00

For heaping helpings of muscle guys, not to mention that Australian sense of humor that we've all come to know and tolerate, try "Hercules Returns," an Aussie dub of a Sword n' Sandal picture done for comic effect, a la "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist."

I will admit to a love of goofy dubbing effects and their comic value. True story: I saw "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist" the same day I saw the unbearable "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," easily the worst movie ever nominated for Best Picture (at least until The Aviator and Benjamin Button came along!). Perhaps it was high expectations, but I was led to believe by a friend that it was the Martial Arts equivalent of Errol Flynn in Adventures of Robin Hood or Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Boy, was it a disappointment. I had to see another film to wash the taste from my mouth. So I snuck into "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist." And boy, did that film do the trick. It was weird, screwy and funny. What I find most amazing is how almost every scene in the trailer was quite literally the least funny scenes in the film. Predictably enough, the critics didn't "get it." Apparently, none of them played with dubbing equipment when they were growing up.

So, you think you can't be manipulated by advertising, eh?

2009-10-20T19:05:00.000-07:00

Good! That's exactly what advertisers want you to think! The savviest consumers are aware that they can be manipulated and understand how that is possible.

Everyone knows about the test where the exact same detergent was placed into two different boxes, one a single color and one with two colors, and consumers preferred the one in the two-color box as it was better to look at. But what about novel cover art?

The typical formula for it is something like this: there is usually a monstrous threat in the image for the consumer to fear. There is also something that the threat is threatening, usually, sexistly enough, an attractive woman. The third element is a figure for the reader to project themselves into, usually a muscular, good looking and heroic Tarzan type.

Here's the amazing part: this cover art formula actually is proven to work just as well on women as on men!

A real Clash of the Titans

2009-10-13T06:15:00.000-07:00

This incredible photograph came from Clint Walker's own personal website at www.clintwalker.com, featuring Steve Reeves meeting up with Clint Walker. I would kill to know the circumstances and story. There definitely has to be one!

Now for the big question: which would I prefer, Clint Walker or Steve Reeves?

Well, Steve Reeves was the world's most perfectly developed man, but Clint Walker had a deep baritone voice and a masculine chest. Both have startling blue eyes.

I would have to give the prize to Clint Walker at least for right now, because apparently he isn't half-bad a singer. Yes, that sounds silly, but anything to break the tie.

The Original Muscle Growth Lovin' Femme

2009-10-02T21:35:00.000-07:00

I love any response or appreciation to this blog that I can get, but the letters I most appreciate are from fellow femmes with a tooth for beefcake. I guess part of the reason I started this blog in the first place was to get in touch with a few and then say, "hey, I'm not crazy!"

I would estimate that any given time, at least 5 to 20 or so regular readers of muscle growth story websites like www.musclegrowth.org at any given time are women. Some of them keep their gender vague and others out-and-out pretend to be gay men, which has a libidinous element in and of itself for some, I suppose, the "yaoi" factor at work.

I speak from personal experience here because I used to do that very thing! Come to think of it (and this sounds like such a silly thing to be proud of) I was much, much better at pretending to be a guy than anything, as opposed to the usual "chick with a dick" gaypersonator. I suppose it's my brassy personality, or the little bit of the male brain in me thanks to my bisexuality.

At any rate, I really don't have much in the way of a right to call myself the Muscle Lovin' Femme. Why, compared to Jayne Mansfield, I'm a downright poser!

At any rate, in terms of femmes with a tooth for beefcake, the greatest has to be Jayne Mansfield, the only person that in real life that already looks like a zaftig drag queen version of herself.

Supposedly she had an IQ of 163, but our only source on that is Jayne herself. In showbiz, the most misleading of all statistics are the kind provided by stars themselves.

(I'm a little shy on giving any kind of statistic for myself, but I personally was a MENSA member for a few months. At least until I realized that I was basically paying dues to allow socially awkward older men to hit on me.)

After seeing a few of her movies and interviews, I find it a little ridiculous Jayne is that smart, which means one of two things: she either exaggerated her intelligence to be taken seriously...or she's so darn good at playing the ditzy blonde that a genius level intelligence would actually be underestimating her!

Incidentally, I was in fact a fifties blond bombshell for Halloween a few years ago, and the shade of blonde haircolor necessary to get the Jayne Mansfield/van Doren/Marylin look is actually called (I swear I am not making this up) "Playful Minx."

Anyway, Jayne Mansfield made it no secret that she was crazy for muscle guys. She always purred that she loved "big, strong men" and in real life was a regular at Mae West's bump n' grind physique revues. It was at one of these that she met and married former Mr. Universe and Mr. America Mickey Hargitay. Here was one of the trio of 50s blonde Bombshells that had the world at their feet, and she could have gone with any guy in the world, and she went with a good looking former Mr. Universe.

Ha ha! You go, Jayne!

It's no wonder Jayne found him irresistable. He was tall, good looking, and had that craaazy Danny Kaye style wavy hair.

Their offspring is Mariska Hargitay, of Law and Order: SVU fame. She became neither a sex symbol or a bodybuilder, so I guess that's one big strike against nature over nurture right there.

Come visit my new science blog, "Daughter of Hypatia"

2009-09-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing that I love, it's science and science blogging!

Visit Daughter of Hypatia, my new science-themed blog. It's pro-science and anti-bullshit. (Oooh, that's good! I've got to make that a header or something...)

Daniel Dae Kim

2009-09-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

I've made no secret on this blog that I'm a big, big fan of Daniel Dae Kim from Lost, even though the show itself lost my interest with this recent season.

Personally, I find the emphasis on time travel to be absolutely goofy and made a monkey out of what I always thought was the series's best and most unique characteristic, the Twin Peaks subtlety with which the supernatural and fantasy elements were handled.

"That's what all of them had been building towards? Time travel? Seriously?"

My critiques of the show aside, Daniel Dae Kim is a male Selma Hayek, an actor that Hollywood just doesn't know what to do with. I think he has the potential to be a great villain or hero.

Bodybuilders in Good Korea

2009-09-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

One thing that's always interested me is how muscle revues in other countries involve a lot of state-trained athletes who have a lot of skill with agility, flexibility, acrobatics and dance...witness the Las Vegas beefcake show that featured Russian muscle hunk Denis Sergovisky that showed a lot more than just the usual bump and grind but also had tumbling and other displays of astonishing athleticism.

One thing that's always fascinated me is the view of bodybuilding and body image in other parts of the world, and this great vid of a pair of bodybuilders on a variety show in "Good Korea" is absolutely fascinating and sexy, and a direction the sport of bodybuilding should go: bodies as living artwork, to the point their very movements become a thing a beauty indistinguishable from dance, combined with displays of athleticism, agility and strength.

I say all this despite the fact the kitschy production makes Sabado Gigante look like a paragon of dignity and restraint, and the bright colors and loud pop-up text gave me a gigantic migraine after watching it for more than five minutes. Despite all of this, I don't think I've ever seen muscular physiques presented quite so attractively as here. The uninteresting to watch "slab of meat" bodybuilding competitions have a lot to answer for.

It's easy to look at the Koreans as less sophisticated than us in the West because they're obviously blown away by muscles of any kind, ooohing and ahhhing over the muscled couple. But I doubt a reaction on a Western series would be any different, either. Comic books aside, we're just no more used to huge physiques than the Good Koreans are. Come to think of it, even Beowulf's CGI bod was pretty subdued compared to those of the sixties real-life musclemen, and in 1949, Steve Reeves was refused the part of Samson in Samson and Delilah because he was so big the audience just wasn't used to his kind of bod.

One of the more interesting moments (in addition to a neat leverage trick shown near the end) is when they ask our male bodybuilder to slip a piece of paper and grip it between his pecs. Audience members, particularly female ones, looked on in fascination and what was funniest to me (blink and you miss it!) was one older sister or mother who tried to cover the eyes of the young teen next to her when our guy did his feat of strength! It reminds me of why 19th Century carnival strongmen started to wear their distinctive posing costumes, as it was believed the sight of flexing male bodies might cause women viewers to faint.

I Don't Remember Lemuria!

2009-09-23T20:11:00.000-07:00

The John Cleves Symmes post got a good response, and so I thought I might devote some words to another idea at the fringe that time has discarded, as well as an interesting piece of forgotten Americana.

What was the Shaver Mystery? Oh brother, where to even begin…it was a mass movement that was one of the great controversies in the early days of science fiction fandom.

William Shaver was an indigent construction worker with what today looks like a clear-cut case of late-onset paranoid schizophrenia. While at a construction site he claimed the magnetic coil of a drill caused him to experience a vivid hallucination of a torture session at the center of the earth, and periodically he received hidden telepathic messages and even claimed that other mentalities, including one from 24,000 years ago, took control of his body periodically.

The jist of what Shaver came up with was that, thousands of years ago, the Titans, a superhuman race of giants, came to earth and created humans as a ro-race, “ro” meaning designed for work. Because of contamination from our sun, which causes aging and death, the Titans left the earth, leaving behind both their human creations and their wondrous cavern civilizations filled with machinery. The beings that remained in the caverns, the dero (short for destructive robots) took control of the Titans’ machinery because the solar poisons in their brains made them insane, and then used them to destroy all other life. Because of machines like telaugs and telepathy spy-rays, they periodically observe our thoughts from their secret caverns and place in us evil compulsions and aberrant behavior. They also spoke a hidden language called Mantong, evidence of which can be found everywhere as a root language spoken at the dawn of time.

Right here with William Shaver, we have almost all the elements of classic, almost textbook-precise schizophrenia:

Irrational terror of poisons and contamination, especially in food and water;
Themes of paranoia about hidden evil and conspiracy;
Vivid hallucinations;
Enemies that can observe a person’s thoughts and place evil compulsions;
An obsession with identification of patterns;
Figures that periodically take over a person’s body.

Because he had a little more panache than the average schizophrenic, apparently Ray Palmer, for reasons we can never understand, published “I Remember Lemuria!” in Astounding after rewriting Shaver’s crazed, energetic prose.

Read “I Remember Lemuria!” here.

Now here’s where it gets really weird.

Apparently, the publication of this story in 1940 started a wave of mass-hysteria, where dozens wrote in to confirm elements of Shaver’s story and to say they had similar experiences! What. The. Hell.

As a Psychology masters student, I took a special course exclusively on the identification and treatment of schizophrenia. One of the things we’re taught to identify are “ray” delusions. In many neighborhoods there is usually a person that has the typical profile of being isolated and elderly who experiences the delusion that someone, usually a neighbor, is observing their activities with a spy beam and hitting them with a ray that causes hair and teeth to fall out, food to be poisoned, milk to sour and meat to rot. No wonder something like the Shaver Mystery would really resonate.

Shaver Mystery clubs started to spring up all over the country, and Ray Palmer devoted much of Amazing Stories just to Shaver Mystery content. In other words, the Shaver Mystery became a mass hysteria that would eventually only be eclipsed by the UFO phenomenon, for which the Shaver Mystery paved the way. Worse, because Mystery-related stories were profitable, everybody was pushing Shaver for more Mystery content, especially his publisher, Ray Palmer.

Of all the people involved in the Shaver Mystery, Ray Palmer comes off as the least sympathetic. Harlan Ellison once backed Ray Palmer into a corner and got the editor to admit that he personally never believed a lick of it but it sold magazines. Palmer wanted Shaver to continually revisit his hallucinations so his magazine could make money, an “enabler” that exploited a crazy person and prevented him from getting healthy. Worse, there were all these fervent cultists of the Shaver Mystery that defend him unto death. Because of that, Shaver never had anyone in his life that told him how things really were, and there’s something sad about that.

In the meantime you get prose that’s just awkward and sloppy, like this…

They understood concept, and I came to realize that concept had become a frozen thing on Mu by comparison. The Nortans used the truth, for it was the right conceptual attack. Evil has no concept; it is a mad robot to detrimental force. When Evil has power and men must obey or die, then only is it to be feared. But sometimes men fight for Evil unknowingly.

I read the book, and I still have no idea what this means.

Or, looks obviously repetitive and insane to the point of meaninglessness, like this…

The direct need for a greater future for man is strengthening of the general mind by T forces, the growth of a better brain. No progress is truly progress unless man grows a better brain to grow a better brain. That is the pattern of progress—to grow a growth to grow, etc.

…and that’s just what we could read after Palmer edited them extensively!

In fact, I remember reading that Palmer cut out particularly weird and sexually deviant elements from Shaver’s manuscripts, like the obvious S&M of the Dero slave lairs, not to mention uncomfortable, weird stuff like (supposedly) the life machines that cause a woman’s pubic hair to grow three feet long. Palmer once had to excise a 50-page sex scene!

Not only that, but Shaver might have been one of history’s first recorded furries, in the pre-Don Bluth era. The hero’s girlfriend, “Jane” to his “Tarzan,” is a half-human girl with hooves and a luxurious tail that Shaver’s hero thinks is the sexiest feature on earth.

To his credit, however, Shaver was an apt pupil under Palmer with a sincere desire to improve, and the later Shaver Mystery stories were considerably more polished and professional. He did get better, but brother, this stuff was bad.

Having actually read the Shaver Mystery stories, the thing that jumps at me immediately is that they seem like perfectly serviceable, space opera stories where, like many other works of science fiction in the period, you can identify the geneology of its ideas (for instance the race of blonde telepathic giants and cave civilizations with secret knowledge comes from Bulwer-Lytton). Claiming that they’re true or once happened is as laughable as slapping “BASED ON A TRUE STORY” tag on the Star Wars movies.

There’s nothing in there that wouldn’t be able to be produced by someone working in the pulp magazines of the 1940s. It’s almost like reading the always-wrong Immanuel Velikovsky: there’s nowhere I can point to something and say, “a-ha, he anticipated something that someone from that era shouldn’t have been able to predict.”

Besides, this stuff is all too “fifties” to be a real look at an actual culture of the distant past. I mean, God help me…every time I pictured the characters, I imagined them dressed very much like Zap Brannigan from Futurama. The worst is the villain Lord Sathanas, who is too much of a cackling cartoon character, too much of a low-rent Ming the Merciless, to ever make anyone entertain the notion he ever really lived. Ultimately, I think that’s what ended the Shaver Mystery and its various clubs: it was far too "fifties" to be taken seriously, and crank theories are required to keep up with the times. Eventually, it was eclipsed by the UFO phenomenon that ironically, the Shaver Mystery played a role in creating.

Incidentally, Richard Shaver is often given credit for being the “inventor” of the UFO, just like Raymond L. Wallace is the creator of Bigfoot. I simply don’t see it. Much ado has been made of the “rollats” used as travel in the cave world as the prototype flying saucer, but my reading of the story shows them as nothing more than a glorified future space-car of the sort the Jetsons use; to compare vehicles of this sort to "flying saucers" is like calling Chinese "dragons" after their Western brethren: despite the nonexistent similarities, they're both called by the same name erroneously. In fact, in I Remember Lemuria! the actual means for interplanetary travel are the usual forties Flash Gordon-esque penisrockets.

More Dennis Newman

2009-09-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

After all, 6' and 245 pounds is far too big to squeeze into just one post, isn't it?

This one, for some reason, I find amusing. I've seen lots and lots of pics of artificially tanned bodybuilders. Heck, I think I've seen more orange skin than Tropicana. But for some reason this one stands out. I mean, was skin bronzer technology significantly less advanced in 1992? He looks like he's cosplaying as the carrot monster from Lost In Space.

The Un-Swayziest Day in History

2009-09-17T18:26:00.000-07:00

Someone I had a crush on as a teenager is dead, which means that once again, all of you have to hear about it!

Dirty Dancing is the ultimate slumber party movie and its role in the culture can't be denied. Patrick Swayze was a dirty, intense beast, and my Dad, like nearly every Dad I know, hated him and was extremely upset I got into that movie all the while Mom looked on knowingly (she "got it" and Dad didn't). What's amazing is, with the death of John Hughes a month ago, it's like everyone associated with the slumber party film is dying off. I hope that the lady from Flashdance or Anthony Michael Hall are aware the Icy Scythe of Death is inexorably heading their way.

While writing this entry I was surprised to see he wasn't in Big Trouble in Little China, also called Big Redneck in Little China. It was such an utterly Swayzesque part I was amazed it wasn't him, as I remember, and I'll bet anything the script was written for him.

Some mention should be made of Roadhouse, which was so dead-on that it's totally sincere. The catch phrases from that movie have to be heard to be believed like "It's my way or the highway" or "You're my new Saturday night babe!"

I've wondered why it is that a lot of the movies my generation considers important such as the Hughes teenager movies, Dirty Dancing, Footloose, Flashdance, etc. and on the boys' aisle, Back to the Future, Terminator and Raiders of the Lost Ark, were made in the late seventies and early to mid-eighties.

Then it occurred to me: this was the beginning of the current era of movies, centered on the idea of the blockbuster and the big opening weekend. No wonder people of my generation have never heard of any movie before Jaws; Jaws was the beginning of the current moviegoing experience.

Welcome to America: Speak Spanish or Go Home!

2009-09-15T16:41:00.000-07:00

First, a little about me: I speak six languages, and I am fully bilingual in English and Spanish. Some people have remarked how interesting they find it when they see me do mathematics and I jump and alternate between the two tongues!

As a multilingual person, I always found the "English language only" movement to be a meaningless inflexibility that transforms ignorance and provincialism into a point of pride. Sure, English is a great equalizer and lingua franca and all that, and it is certainly important for for new immigrants to speak English well for no other reason than upward mobility, a fact I can support with family experience! Still, that ideal doesn't always match the "facts on the ground," and people that want to meaningfully participate in their communities should do what intelligent and mature adults always do: adjust to their circumstances instead of instead of insisting everyone adjust to them.

I lived for a number of years, while on full scholarship as an undergrad, in Astoria, Queens, a neigborhood that is mostly Greek to the point some restaurants publish menus in Greek only. So, guess what I learned to do? Speak Greek! I can still do it, too. In fact, after a few months with my looks, lots of people I regularly interacted with assumed I was Greek myself! I swear, only in America could lack of knowledge, xenophobia and thickheaded obstinacy become virtues instead of obvious liabilities.

Obviously some may take exception to that characterization, and to that I have two responses.

The first is that the stereotype of the "Ugly American," monolingual and hidebound, is a stereotype that has real longevity because it is unfortunately often true. Before anyone has the right to get offended about a stereotype, they should ask themselves this question: what have you, personally done to contradict that stereotype?

My fellow women: if you don't want men to stereotype us as incompetent and dependent...don't be incompetent and dependent! If you don't already know, learn how to change a tire. Take a higher level math and science course. Jars can be a pain in the ass, but I use a mechanical jar opening kitchen gizmo, and I have a stepladder in the apartment.

Second, there is indeed inarguably a segment of the American population that revels in ignorance and obstinacy. I do not agree with President Obama on everything, but when he said that every American child should learn a second language, it struck me as a totally true, noncontroversial common-sense statement. No one, anywhere, should just speak one language, and the fact that many do is indeed shameful. But lo and behold, some pundits took exception to the idea Americans should have to learn a language other than English! I just couldn't believe it!

Read them here. These links are work-safe but sanity-unsafe.

Obama: Americans who aren't bilingual are an embarassment (Well, it is an embarrassment!)

Neil Cavuto: Obama wants U.S. Kids to Speak Spanish?

ALIPAC - Voters reject Obama's call for bilingualism

All of this is a part of a greater trend in our culture I find troubling, one so masterfully lampooned on the Simpsons: the demonization of intellectuals, specifically, the manipulation of the doubt that drives science into claiming there is a dispute in areas where in reality there is a universal consensus. Of course I'm talking about anti-science positions like creationism and global warming denial. It takes a special kind of chutzpah to deny physical reality.

The most embarassing moment in recent political history was in Bobby Jinda's response to a recent State of the Union address. He complained about stimulus but singled in on the single worst aspect of the entire bill, support to fund volcano research and early warning. The kicker here is that a few days afterward, one of the volcanoes so monitored erupted!

This reminds me of a great Simpsons episode where a giant comet headed for the town but was narrowly averted. An angry mob formed, with the rallying cry "Let's burn down the observatory...so this never happens again!"

Renaissance Man: Morris Mendez

2009-09-10T03:54:00.000-07:00

If you've ever seen a bodybuilding mag in the past five years or so, you can probably recognize Morris Mendez. There's nothing sexier than a bald guy. And best of all, he's as aerodynamic as a car hood ornament! What's even more impressive about Morris Mendez is that he's a true Renaissance Man, with successes not just in natural bodybuilding and modeling, but also in other fields: he's a clinical psychologist that works with disabled kids. You go, boy!

Anyway, he's got the most intense, soulful look ever. He's one of the few bodybuilders you could just look at his face.

"Mathematics Illuminated"

2009-09-10T00:25:00.000-07:00

For those of us with a love and curiosity about mathematics, check out the 13-episode series, available entirely online,"Mathematics Illuminated."

Visit the Series Website

Series like this, that really explored and laid out mathematical functions, are part of what made me a fan of math in the first place. Well, that, and the art of M.C. Escher.

That’s NOT Funny! Review of “Young Hercules”

2009-09-06T23:33:00.001-07:00

Booooooo!

Thanks to Hulu, you can see all the episodes of Young Hercules for free, and they’re worth that, too. The humor reaches near-Battletoads levels of terrible. Just check out the titles like “Lyre, Liar.”

Hey, I can do some Greek-themed puns too:

“A Pita the Action”
“Olive You Very Much”
“Juno What I Mean?”
“The Feta All Mankind”

HILARIOUS!

The jokes in this series are like a mighty Cyclops of myth: you see it coming from a mile away and don’t laugh at all.

QUESTION: where was hunky Jerry O’Connell during all of this? He was big during the nineties, right? He would be my first, second, third and only choice to ever play a young Hercules. He has incredible heart-melting blue eyes and a likeable gee-whiz quality.

I did a double-take when I saw the credits. That couldn’t really be quirky, indie character actor and Academy Award nominee Ryan Gosling as Young Hercules, could it? The star of Lars and the Real Girl, which was easily the best movie of 2008, far and away superior to any other film that year? (I am still outraged that it wasn’t nominated.)

Ryan Gosling plays Hercules as a likeable yet quiet loner. Gee, what a stretch for him.

Also, it seems the actor playing the god Aries is named Kevin Smith, same as the stoner-movie director, and I had to double-check to make sure they weren’t the same guy. I’ve had friends that swear by him (the director, that is), but I’ve never understood the appeal of his obtuse and dimwitted stoner-comedies (actually, I understand perfectly since there’s a segment of the audience that finds jokes about the Ice Planet Hoth to be the height of wit, and since my mother may one day read this blog I’m not going to say whether I’ve taken my share of puffs from the giggle-sticks). His films seem custom made for people that enjoy Family Guy, but wish it was more subtle.

Anyway, Kevin Smith’s Aries is the only guy in the series that’s sporting a little beefcake arms. He has triceps of downright Jamie Bamberian proportions.

The episode I immediately went to was “Girl Trouble,” because contrary to my reputation as an ice-queen with a withered black heart, I do enjoy love stories as much as I enjoy CGI monsters. So why not have them together? And the good-natured, macho joshing between three guys that have trouble getting laid who compete over a woman seems believable. At least until you see the girl they’re fighting over, who, in the words of the movie “Spinal Tap,” looks like an Australian’s nightmare.

Speaking of the antipodes, the best part of this series is the constant struggle of the talent pool to hide their Kiwi accents. To his credit, Sam Raimi thought of filming a cheapie fantasy series in New Zealand long before anyone else, and certainly before Peter Jackson stole the credit for that particular idea in the eyes of the world.

John Cleves Symmes's Globe

2009-09-05T02:52:00.000-07:00

If there's one peeve of mine, it's cranks.

All cranks, whether they insist 9/11 was an inside job, or we never reached the Moon, or there are UFOs that kidnap people, irritate me to no end.

There is one theory that actually is pretty interesting to me, the idea the earth is in fact hollow and there are gigantic openings at the poles. There's something so outlandish and 19th Century and improbable about this theory that it's actually a little charming.

The biggest booster for this crank theory was a guy named John Cleves Symmes, who in the 1850s petitioned Congress for three ships (like Columbus!) to head to what he thought were the openings at the polar regions into the center of the earth. He actually was about to get it, too, until the Civil War happened, which put an end to the whole thing.

Symmes's father was actually a great man, a signer of the Declaration of Independence for New Jersey (which to my mind, explains everything!) and his first cousin was the wife of President William Henry Harrison. Further proof that in Washington, it's possible to fail upwards really spectacularly.

Still, Symmes had made a fabulous one-of-a-kind globe detailing his crank view of what the earth looks like. Perfect for the crazy collectors among us.

Dennis "Inhuman" Newman

2009-09-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

I can't think of a bodybuilder as sensational as Dennis Newman was in the early 1990s, and he was the first bodybuilder I ever knew by name as opposed to image. It was like he was custom-designed for bodybuilding magazine covers: soulful, crystalline blue eyes, he had a masculine and handsome chiseled face like a movie star, youthful and virile with a body like a classical Greek sculpture of a deity. He was so flawless he almost didn't seem real, exemplifying the ultimate male specimen.

His proportions were sensational: an incredible 6' and 245 pounds. No wonder he was often approached to be the "face" of the sport in muscle magazine covers, with one of the greatest physiques of all time. He was a rising star, and had nowhere to go but up...

...until he was diagnosed with leukemia, only ten weeks after getting his pro card and winning the Mr. USA.

Since then, we haven't heard much from Dennis. Nonetheless, I am very, very pleased to announce that Dennis won his battle with Leukemia and is with us today! There is a type of strength that trascends and is far more all-encompassing than just how much you can bench.

For many years when I thought of the perfect good looking guy I thought of "Inhuman Newman." In fact, the first time I read Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame I thought of Newman at every loving description of the ultra-beautiful Pheobus. But as often happens I forgot about him until recently when a reader reminded me of him.

Part of the reason that teenage girls often have their objects of adoration be pop stars that look like teenaged girls is that, as girls are initially discovering sexuality, men, who are often very aggressive, come off as extremely threatening. This is part of the reason for the fascination with pop stars, and is one of the reasons (though not the only one) for the fascination with male homosexuality. I always thought someone like "Inhuman" Newman would be what male idols are like in an alternate universe where there's a lot less anxiety about men.

I've always felt like laughing bitterly at movies that show awkward young guys stumbling as they try to talk to girls. Guys are such crybabies, I tell you. I assure you, nothing could be greater than the real fear women have of boys in early days!

From here on I'll let his photos and videos speak for themselves. What an object of adoration!

Considering his future illness, this video, which talks about his promise as a young 23 year old, is actually unintentionally bittersweet.

Well, what do you know? He was "the captain of the football team," the biggest High School movie cliche of all. Sort of like...(dare I say it)...Jake Ryan?

Also: I got through this entire blog post without a single Seinfeld reference! Woohoo!

Arnold vs. Bear: Hercules Goes to New York

2009-09-03T04:05:00.000-07:00

After my look at Pumping Iron, a friend recommended I give Hercules Goes to New York another glance, a cheapie starring the current leader of the world's 5th largest economy.

The general effect of the movie is actually kind of depressing. Let me explain that. The movie was made is 1970, a full half-decade after the peplum boom ended and the only way that Hercules and other muscle heroes would be relevant is by poking fun at them. It's sort of like how Shatner and Adam West and other irrelevant actors past their expiration date reinvent themselves as self-parodies living up to their campy image.

I don't find this funny...I find it tragic. For that reason, as heretical as it sounds, I never much liked Blazing Saddles. Just look when it came out: 1974, a year after the last truly relevant Western, the sentimental Sam Pekinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, which was the Hollywood Western's funeral, eulogy and last cry of defiance in one. In that context, Blazing Saddles is like a prop comedian seltzer-squirting a widow at her husband's wake.

When parodies are bigger than the actual thing it parodies, it's a sure sign something is no longer relevant. What I find amazing is that Blazing Saddles is often the only Western that people of my generation have ever seen!

I always thought the moment America stopped taking newspaper science fiction strips with any seriousness was with the Mad Magazine parody of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Flash Gordon went from a strip with characters people love, to being an irreverent way for magazine writers to talk about an architectural style.

If you need another example, look at the hilarious Rent parody in Team America: World Police, "Everybody Has AIDS." There's such a thing as a parody that is so spot-on, it torpedoes the effectiveness of its target forever, and I'd definitely put "Everybody has AIDS" in that category. No wonder the ten years too late movie version with Rosario Dawson tanked.

Maybe I'm just not getting the joke of movies like Hercules in New York that reinvent their genre as parody, and instead I'm spending my time mourning the end of the peplum. A Norwegian friend of mine told me that there's much more of the Nordic character in me than the Latin, as Latins are a culture that enjoy life whereas I cry much more easily than I can laugh.

Then again, this movie is so weirdly done that with almost all the jokes you're not sure whether to laugh or not, if something is intentionally funny or just an elaborate translation mistake.

There is one bit of humor in the movie, though it's entirely unintentional. This has to go down in history as the most dated-looking film I've ever seen in my life. The best part has to be Arnold's tan cordoroy jacket/turtleneck sweater combo. Most people can guess when a movie is made (give or take three years) just based on how a movie looks, and this is one of the few films I've seen you can guess it to within the actual year.

Believe it or not, the most effective scenes in the film are actually ones where Arnold and his girlfriend are just walking around New York, enjoying each other. They're simple, quiet little scenes where the character of the city of New York is the star, and they're much to be preferred over Arnold stopping a forklift and going "a fine chariot, but where are the horses?" (THAT'S NOT FUNNY!)

The all-time winner has to be this scene:

I can't even identify the best part: the meat-smacking sounds when Arnold pounds that bear (only Harrison Ford has a more distinctive sounding punch) or the fact that, come the midway point, it's obvious the bear is down for the count and Arnold is just whacking it out of sadism. The merry bazouki music is a very weird, whimsical touch.

There was one scene where some New Yorker friends of Hercules got together and suggested that Hercules was just a demented guy that thought he was Hercules. For some reason, this struck me as a much more entertaining premise than the actual movie itself.

Unbelievable Epic Fabio Movie: I suffered for my art, and now it's your turn!

2009-08-29T21:14:00.000-07:00

Fabio, he of the Afghan hound tresses and solid square profile known for his endorsement of love and romance the world over, actually produced a supercheesy direct to video film back in 1993 called "A Time For Romance." My favorite is the place on the box art where it calls the Fabster "every woman's perfect man." (Hahahahahaha.)

I know that it's always unwise to link to copywritten material on YouTube because it doesn't last very long up there, but my gut tells me that nobody's going to be challenging this particular infringement anytime soon...except for maybe an embarassed Fabio himself.

Remember a while back when I said Zeb Atlas is the kind of guy you admire but can't help but laugh at? Fabio would be "Exhibit A" when it comes to that definition. I wrote my thoughts on his bizarre fame and my one meeting with him here.

But I have to say, at least he's got a pretty striking profile and at least in this particular movie was built at least as big as most of the Herculeses.

"A Time For Romance" is pretty hilariously bad and unintentionally funny at every point. It's great to see when drunk and with your friends. I swear, at no point does this movie ever ratchet back a notch from "11."

As a side note to amuse my fellow Millennials (or Generation Y, whatever we're called now), the heroine in the first Viking scenario is played by Raja Baroudi, the leader of the Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers. What I find even more amazing is this movie isn't even listed on her IMDB page.

A few things to notice:

Fabio, dressed as a Viking, looks like a young version of Vigo the Carpathian.

6:30 - There's no way to ever possibly do a realistic romance story of this type, because actually being a captive of a Viking or pirate reaver...would actually be pretty horrifying.

6:45 - This shot of our heroine's plunging cleavage is pretty bizarre, especially considering the target audience for this film.

1:08 - Why? Why is Fabio shirtless at this point? The only person that compulsively took his shirt off with this much gusto was Shatner.

3:55 - Is that the same dress Karen Allen wore in Raiders of the Lost Ark?

4:20 - You know, I feel kinda bad even saying this because of my own regional accent and I know firsthand how terrible it is to have your intelligence judged on the basis of how you speak, but still...it's almost laughably funny to hear Fabio speak English. Arnold had an accent, but at least it was obvious he knew the words he was saying meant.

8:12 - The matter-of-fact way rape is discussed in this film is one of the most amusing things about it.

My favorite part about all this is the obvious way they're using public domain music like Pachibel to cut down costs.

0:20 - Is he wearing some sort of wizard's robe? Anyway, it's a vast improvement over his previous outfits, which look like he got them by raiding Liberace's closet.

1:53 - Fabio gets beaten at Chess by some random person. How unintentionally realistic!

2:55- Jesus Christ, that is some horny, angry kissing. It's like watching two Klingons mate.

4:25 - You can just see what Fabio is thinking here. "Hey, where's the Power Ranger chick? You know, the one that's considerably less dumpy looking?"

4:40 - Yeah, I can't believe it either, lady.

0:15 - That is one comically huge rose. It's like something Krusty the Klown would give you during courtship.

Final Fun Fact: according to IMDB, Fabio, as a baby, was the infant in "Atlas in the Land of the Cyclops." Apparently, Fabio was selected by DESTINY to be a supercheesy beefcake star!

Black Fantasies for Gays and Ladies

2009-08-29T18:23:00.000-07:00

There's a well known phenomenon among straight women (especially Caucasian and Latina women) and gay men who love black men, and as of yet there is no term to describe that social trend ("Jungle Fever" is more associated with black men that love white women). I have a theory why this is. If you give a name for something, it's an acknowledgment something is going on and exists.

One great contribution by the playwright David Henry Hwang to the language was the term "Yellow Fever" to describe white men that have a thing for Asian women. I remember I burst out laughing the first time I heard the term, because it was something I saw going on around me. For instance, when I first read the ultimate "airport" paperback, "Meg" by Steve Alten, the moment he described his heroine with the magic word "Asian" I knew just what was going to happen next!

I was always amused by Yellow Fever because it seems to happen with men that are unfamiliar with or have close contact with actual Asians. As astonishing as it seems to me at times, not everybody is from New York City. I remember once meeting a guy cousin of mine from Arizona that had a bad case of Yellow Fever, and it came up that I had a Vietnamese friend that had acne.

He was a little astonished. "I didn't know Asians had acne."

I couldn't stop laughing. "Of course they can get acne. They're not some kind of magical elf."

The website Stuff White People Like, in addition to painfully unfunny humor about Starbucks Coffee and the TV show "Friends," has a few gags about Asian women. You know, I can't stand that website. It's a funny thing about self-deprecating parody: it very quickly becomes a coy kind of self-admiration.

Likewise, I'm startled by how many of my gay friends have an extreme (dare I say it?) blackfantasy. I don't even pretend I have enough readers to possibly do something like make a contribution to the English language, but hey, who knows, I just put it out there! In fact, it seems shockingly all-but universal, but almost no one is talking about this phenomenon.

What I find interesting is that, despite the fascination for black men among white gay males, there seems to be a lot of conflict between the two groups. African-American culture, even more so than Latino culture, is notorious for homophobia. Likewise, there's a lot of conflict in New York City between middle and upper class homosexuals and blacks as a result of the "gentrification" of many traditionally black neighborhoods. Many black residents of these neighborhoods see the loss of their neighborhood's identity, and find themselves pushed out by higher housing prices.

Unexpectedly, female sex tourism is a big market, especially in places like the Caribbean, where you have institutions like the so-called "Rent-a-Rasta." Because female sex tourism is practiced by women on men, it shouldn't receive a free pass from criticism as a fundamentally exploitative relationship. It happens in any third-world or developing country there are beaches and lots and lots of underemployed men.

A good place to start for anyone interested in the phenomenon of female sex tourism is with the movie Heading South with Charlotte Rampling, about female sex tourism in Haiti in the 1970s. If you want a double-bill, follow this up with Wes Craven's best movie, The Serpent and the Rainbow, about Haiti in the 1980s, where apparently secret police officers were regularly moonlighting as zombie-creating voodoo priests.

Another good choice would be How Stella Got Her Groove Back, which did for the tourism industry of Jamaica what "Crocodile" Dundee did for Australia. Stella was almost the Disneyfied version of sex tourism.

Read this Reuters article, written about older white women tourists to Africa:

Some choice quotes:

They are on their first holiday to Kenya, a country they say is "just full of big young boys who like us older girls."

Many of the visitors are on the lookout for men like Joseph. Flashing a dazzling smile and built like an Olympic basketball star, the 22-year-old said he has slept with more than 100 white women, most of them 30 years his senior.

Incidentally, I hope everyone forgives me for the totally gratuitous images of the hunky Brazilian Orso Orfeo. But jeez, I'm a size queen, I can't help myself!

Pumping Iron: A Review

2009-08-29T01:46:00.000-07:00

Periodically, a list comes up of the greatest film villains of all time, which contain the usual suspects like Hannibal Lecter, Cruella de Ville and Darth Vader. I'm astonished that Arnold Schwarzenegger never made these lists.

Like any good movie, the reason to see it is for the villain, and Pumping Iron makes you truly hate Arnold. His personality dominates the film, Arnold is goal-focused and very intelligent, a guy that you're not sure whether to be frightened of or admire. When asked what he thought he'd do if he thought the other competitors might be better than him, he says "I'd just talk them into losing."

There was also the detail, the one that almost everyone remembers from this film, that Arnold missed his own father's funeral so as to not lose focus on a contest. There have been debates about whether this was actually staged for the film, but considering Arnold's near-fanatic dedication and general coldbloodedness, it's perfectly in character. Additionally, Arnold talking about how a good pump at the gym is better than sex is the kind of grandiose thing a James Bond villain would say in an over-the-top soliloquy, if a James Bond villain was into bodybuilding.

It doesn't surprise me that of all the personalities in the film that Arnold was the one to go on to fame and fortune. He was clearly the smartest person there, and the most driven to the point of scary ruthlessness. It doesn't surprise me at all, after seeing this film, that Arnold went into politics, either. Arnold running for political office is only surprising to people that don't know him. He is a "great" man, the kind that makes other men seem little in comparison besides him, along with Julius Caesar, Teddy Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin.

What's more, it doesn't surprise me that Arnold got his big break as a ruthless and implacable villain, either. The Terminator was the scariest new movie monster since Boris Karloff played the Mummy. What does surprise me, though, is that Arnold got work afterward as a heroic figure.

If you're someone that's never been a bodybuilder, the movie is recommended as a great insight into what this niche sport is all about...which I think was the original purpose of the old Max Rep Astrotitan comics in M&F. The one thing you're left with is the incredible level of fanatacism needed to compete, the minimal rewards, and overpowering sense these guys are doing something very strange.

At times, us fans of muscular guys are so immersed in our interest that at times we lose perspective, and fail to see that, to a lot of people that "don't get it," the devotion to muscularity comes off as very weird. In that sense, while many people point to Pumping Iron as one of the big exposures of bodybuilding to a wider audience, it probably discouraged and turned away more people to the gym than brought in.

I'd be curious to see a followup. I'm sure the modern sport of bodybuilding is as different as an alien planet to the world of 1975.

Anyway, it was worth it to see a few shots of Serge Nubret near his peak!

Commercial Illustrator Glen Hanson

2009-08-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

The first place I ever saw Glen Hanson was on the back of inexpensive men's fragrance BOD. Which apparently had really stylish commercial art featuring gorgeous guys that are objects of desire by submissive women.

Visit the BOD Website at Parfums de Coeur.

Visit Glen Hanson's Website.

The guy on there immediately got my attention! The fragrance sure as hell didn't: despite the supervirille and provocative names like "Really Ripped Abs," the stuff smelled like the gland secretions of a musk ox in mating season.

Guys, just be clean, okay? This stuff is a turn-off to most women...well, those not from New Jersey, anyway.

Hey, here's a Jersey joke: what's the difference between Jersey girls and trash?

Sometimes, trash gets picked up!

(Ahhh, now I have to go to blogger confessional. "Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I took the easy way out and did Jersey jokes.")

But I've got to admit, while Axe did the ad best, BOD did it first: and I have to admit some of the abs on their ads were really yummy. Check it out:

When I first saw the ads for Axe, my reaction was at first anger, and then it became laughter. The fundamental immaturity of the male target audience is pretty obvious from the advertising, and shows. Like with the equally vile energy drinks, I've never met a man over 23 that touches the stuff.

(On an unrelated note, I can't stand energy drinks, not only because they taste like liquid aspirin or because of the insufferability and immaturity of the target demographic, but also because it troubles me that something as adult as morning coffee or tea could be replaced by something so childish. It was something of a mistake for Starbucks to start to sell coffee milkshakes.)

Now, as for Glen Hanson, he's the kind of guy that you intend to grow up to be when you go to school to become a commercial illustrator: raking in the bread for advertisements and album covers, with a distinctive, immediately identifiable style.

What startles me is how an openly gay artist could do women so well, and with such obvious gusto. I have trouble thinking of a halfway decent, beautiful female sculpture by famous gay artists like Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci for instance.

Over Six Foot and with a Six-Pack

2009-08-14T03:29:00.001-07:00

Some of the greatest bodybuilders are short guys, who look very impressive when they get massive: they have a certain quality of thickness and mass that is truly astonishing as opposed to more elongated and spread-out, slimmer bodies. But there's something to be said for really BIG guys. Like the above Nate Christianson, who is 6'2". Or Steve Reeves, who is 6'1", or Mike O'Hearn, who is 6'3".

Then there's Zeb Atlas, who is one of those guys you admire but can't help but make fun of a little. Depending on where you look he's either 6'3" or 6'4", and when it comes to men, especially those in the entertainment industry, it's good to usually assume the lower estimate is more truthful. On the one hand, he's a hairy chested, virile thick-pec alpha male weighing in at an incredible 250 pounds. His measurements are unreal: 21" biceps, 52" chest.

Look at the stubble in the above pic. Doesn't it look like he just crash landed on that weird island from "Lost" where for some (no doubt supernatural) reason, men are never able to grow full beards, but are never clean-shaven either?

Something stops Zeb Atlas from just being a pure object of desire. Mostly it's the fact he's a gay club go-go dancer (!) and porn star. For men, I think porn star is an occupation temporarily used by bad-boy types like Colin Farrell for bad-boy cred. It's hard to take seriously a guy that does that all the time...even though real porn stars don't have the cheeseball eighties porn 'stache anymore, they have it in spirit...and it's really hard to take them seriously. Especially when they're described as a "club go-go dancer." That's like a code-word for a professional himbo. Still, as far as Man Candy goes he's a big, sensational beast.

Natural Bodybuilder Tuan Tran

2009-08-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

What is it with natural bodybuilders, and why do they generally look so much better off (healthier, less bloat, sleeker, better proportioned) and have much more attractive bodies than, er, the other kind? The examples include Mike O'Hearn, Cleveland Thomas and Ulisses Williams Jr. In fact come to think of it, most of my favorites are naturals.

It may be due to the fact they train differently and is more about proportions, hard work and dedication as opposed to who can blow up like a sponge the fastest thanks to genetics.

Tuan Tran is a powerful, attractive looking bronzed guy that has a certain sort of spunky, working-class quality. He's got a lean, hard and sleek frame that looks like he could be a great acrobat. He's a lightweight, but I can't hold that against him because he's powerful and sleek, like a jungle cat. Besides, I'm a lightweight myself too... :-)

I can't imagine him as Beowulf, but I have a real feeling he'd be a great casting choice for a future film version of the Thief of Baghdad.

"Beowulf" is definitely worth a second look

2009-08-09T15:47:00.000-07:00

I was absolutely startled to see the Robert Zemeckis film Beowulf. For one thing, the animation was so spot-on after a little while you forgot you were actually looking at a cartoon, something I never forgot in the supercreepy Polar Express, where after coming out from the theater with the kid I was math tutoring I got a delayed attack of the heebie-jeebies.

What's even more extraordinary is that the actor that played Beowulf was Ray Winstone, a great Shakespearean stage actor in his forties with a great Lorne Greene-esque "Voice of Doom" perfect for a mythical hero. Thanks to computer technology, they could take an older actor with an ordinary physique and make him look exactly like Beowulf ought, with powerful muscles, the appropriate age, and a suitably heroic height (when the real Ray Winstone is average, around 5'10" according to IMDB).

Does anyone else realize the potential of this animation technique?

Now you can have a well-trained and skilled actor with a great voice play a heroic, muscular character regardless of piddling little details like age, height or the actual shape of their physique. I for one would love to hear Patrick Stewart's sexy voice come out of Hercules, Tarzan or other mythic heroes; nobody else could be quite as vivid. This is a problem that goes back to the beginning of Peplum: Steve Reeves had to have his voice dubbed because he had a rather un-Greek Montana accent. And let's face it, none of those Hercules, Goliaths or Macistes from the peplum boom were great actors (with the possible exception of Mark Forrest, who I have always thought was extremely underrated as an actual actor).

Ask any casting director and they'll tell you that it is all but impossible to find a Meryl Streep or Anne Hathaway type that is beautiful, intelligent and can act! Those three Venn diagram circles very rarely meet together, after all. Nowhere is this problem more obvious than in the camp-classic Flash Gordon, which featured Topol and Brian Blessed, two of my favorite actors of all time, not to mention Timothy Dalton and Max von Sydow, all of whom were perfectly cast and brilliantly acted. The one standout terrible performance is the actor who played the title character, a Playgirl model meathead that was clearly given the part on the basis of his physique, and who couldn't hold his own against the international all-star cast. It's somehow a tribute to what a nonentity he was that right now I just can't remember his name.

In fact, name me one good actor, the kind you can imagine playing Hercules, Beowulf or Flash Gordon, with large muscles. Even the very handsome Dwayne Johnson (the only good-looking professional wrestler in the entire history of that sport) is not that great an actor, though he makes up for it with a ton of personality and charisma that makes him very, very watchable. Still, I can't see him saying "I come for the woman...and your head!" without cracking a smile a little bit.

A good actor is as rare as a good physique, and both are as rare as a good sports star. In fact, come to think of it, that's part of why the WNBA has marketing problems: they want a talented athlete that is also extremely camera-friendly, telegenic and attractive to be the symbol of their league, sort of like how the very beautiful and personable Venus and Serena Williams are to women's tennis or the rugged Joe Namath was to the struggling NFL. But the trouble is, their WNBA players look like...well...WNBA players. Amazing how, in something like ten years, that just hasn't worked out for them. It just goes to show how very rarely talent, personality and looks come together.

As a big fan of Tarzan, I've never found an actual actor that was ever as entirely buyable as the big, bad Mr. T, as almost any given illustration of the character. This isn't a problem anymore with the Beowulf motion-capture technology.

People that talk about CGI near-constantly always say it's the "next big thing" and the next step for film, but I've never been convinced. CGI has a big limitation: no matter how good it gets, you can always tell that it isn't a physical object. It doesn't have a sense of solidity. In fact, the best CGI using blockbuster was the first to use the technique, Jurassic Park, because computer imagery was their last choice and not their first and it was supplanted with traditional techniques like puppets and claymation. Beowulf on the other hand, because everything was animated, no one thing stood out as "fake." It actually did live up to the promise the special effects people offered when they started to use computers for special effects.

Beowulf came out two years ago, and in that time I'm a little astonished that the real significance of this film hasn't entirely been acknowledged, not just technologically (since then no other movie has been made with this technique) but also in the history of animation as well, and how Beowulf represented a shift in the way animation is discussed, something I don't think anyone else noticed. Here's what I mean by that: you can't ever read a book about Fritz the Cat's Ralph Bakshi without them going on about how darn shocking Bakshi's adult and counterculture themed animation was, especially in cartooning "best identified with Disney-style wholesomeness and kids movies." Heck, if you need another example, look at how badly Nelvana's animated Rock n' Rule crashed at the box office.

Whenever anybody does an animated movie that handles very adult themes, almost all discussion of the movie focuses in on that to the exclusion of everything else, the shock that an animated film isn't a "kid's cartoon." But here was Beowulf, a movie that is animated every bit as much as the Pixar stuff, which nonetheless features drinking, debauchery, violence and a naked Angelina Jolie, and yet you don't get the usual shocked expression from the critics or nonsensical statements like "animation has finally grown up!" (I'd like to strangle any journalist that ever typed that phrase.) Yet nobody noticed this. It was absolutely extraordinary, a real turning point for those of us that like sophisticated animation.

My friend and regular blog reader ManofSteel spends his time using a computer to create his disturbingly specific idea of the perfect man, who despite his best protestations is a dead ringer for Christopher Reeve. Personally, I don't have a single perfect man (though Ulisses Jr. comes close), but a range of twenty or thirty guy types, a series of male fantasies that would be absolutely perfect for me: some sweet, bookish and shy, some hunky, dangerous and masculine, some that are black and others tanned or Asian, some curly haired and others straight, some blue eyed and others brown, and so on. But regardless, if you want to have a "perfect guy" in a movie, the Beowulf technique would be the way to do it. Even Matt Damon gets zits sometime, but a computer model doesn't have to.

For all these reasons, I think Beowulf is worth a second look, not just for its vast potential, but for no other reason than it might have started another boom in muscleman movies. Another thing I find extraordinary about Beowulf is that for the first time, people were talking about Steve Reeves again. One really sarcastic New York Times review said that "somewhere, I hope Steve Reeves is watching this and smiling down from beefcake heaven."

(And incidentally, on the subject of traditional animation, I just saw the promo for the Princess and the Frog. Great idea, guys: do the exact same kind of ubertraditional movie that tanked that kind of film in the first place. Apparently it's supposed to be different because the princess here is black, but as my hero Mr. Spock once said, "A difference that makes no difference is no difference." This particularly smarts on a personal level, because I originally started to go to college to study animation and design. I left to study mathematics because incredibly enough, Disney closed its cel-division, an act even then seemed both temporary and shortsighted. With that, I just changed my major...as, by the way, half of my classmates did when they heard the news. I always thought they'd bring their cel-department back by doing something edgy and unexpected the way studios do when they don't have anything left to lose, and I'm extremely disappointed to be wrong here.)

Answers to the Quiz

2009-08-06T01:32:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been a few weeks, and the response to my mystery guest quiz was a loud unimpressed thud. Honestly, these weren't that hard!

The first mystery guest was (of course) Billy Campbell, better known to Star Trek fans as the Outrageous Okona himself.

The second mystery guest was Persis Khambatta, and when I said she'd probably be more recognizable with a different haircut, I wasn't lying.

The third is my fellow Brooklynite Edward Irving Wortis, also better known by his pen name of Avi. I have yet to see a modern young reader novelist as talented as his vaguely autobiographical works like "Don't You Know There's A War On?" and "Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?"

The third is strip and peplum queen Chelo Alonso.

The fourth is Jack Williamson, and his most famous novel is obviously "The Humanoids." The first work of his I ever read was "Brother to Demons, Brother to Gods," which was startling not just because it was an obvious rip-off of Roger Zelazny's best novel "Lord of Light," but also because it foresaw the scariest possibility of genetic engineering: not that we would create monsters, but that we would create gods.

As for the last guest, the business about Kevin Bacon should have been a dead giveaway. His name is Paul Erdos, the most prolifically published mathematician of the 20th Century, who is the subject of a Kevin Bacon-esque game among mathematicians. In case you're wondering, my Erdos number is 3, as I took a class with someone that was published with Paul Erdos.

The Femme vs. Megan Wants a Millionaire

2009-08-06T00:29:00.000-07:00

A while back, I took Howard Beale's advice and bashed my TV in with a Louisville slugger. I don't volunteer this information often because I don't want to be that person everybody knows or has met at some point that doesn't have a TV...and lets everyone know all the time they don't have a TV.

So a friendly blog reader pointed me in the direction of a new series that supposedly premiered recently, Megan Wants a Millionaire. Supposedly, it had a muscular millionaire that was a former male stripper. Now this definitely got my attention and I found the episode online.

If I were an editor of a women's fiction publishing house and a manuscript with a "millionaire/ex-male stripper" crossed my desk, I'd write UNREALISTIC in red ink and moved on to the next bit in the slush pile.

As for the show itself, I could only watch the opening five minutes. Watch it yourself here, if you're sadomasochistic. Not because it was a dating show, or even a reality show (reality shows aren't any worse than any other type of series in and of itself; they're just another kind of documentary) but because I very quickly came to loathe everyone on the series. In fact, I like to think I'm an open minded person. I've never walked out on a movie in my entire life. But this series was so bad I stopped after ten minutes.

First, our large breasted, blonde heroine's startling ambition to be a trophy wife. Yet another case of life imitating the Simpsons, with Megan as a real life talking Malibu Stacy doll and me as a real-life Lisa Simpson. I'd like to get a time machine, go back in time and introduce Megan's present day spray-on tanned self to the eleven year old girl she used to be that wanted to grow up to be an astronaut or scientist.

Also, the tiny accessory chihuahua is a little sad too. I'm no expert on "famous-for-being-famous skank" fashion, but is that even still trendy couture anymore?

Also, the thing I found the most interesting is how apparently all these series are interconnected, sort of like how the Fonz once visited Steve Urkel and there were regular Knotts Landing/Golden Girls crossovers. My jaw hit the floor when I saw Brett Michaels of all people had a reality series. Didn't he stop being famous 20 years ago, when Kurt Cobain smote all cock rock everywhere? Are they going to give a series to the guy that played Eddie Munster next? Frankly I find the idea of a series involving Brett Michaels revolting. I have a feeling if he kissed my hand, I would die 40 minutes later.

Finally, I have some personal experience with the sugar daddy type and they're all loathsome pervs with a patronizing attitude to younger women. Beats me why these millionaire guys would subject themselves to a series like this. I urge them to go to Miami Beach, the Sugar Daddy capital of the world. Or..heck, try any "newly hip" and "rediscovered" part of NYC, like Brooklyn Heights or Chelsea. I remember working at a bar when I was an undergraduate for a semester, and getting hit on by these older rich guys all the time.

Being young looking and short, when asked about myself and I talked about college, I got these snippy, infuriatingly patronizing little comments like "Aw, little honey, you don't need to worry about that sort of thing with me." Gah! Of course I had to smile and be nice, because you never tick off a customer. If a guy invited you to have drinks with him, your response was always supposed to be a noncommittal "We'll see." After a while, those "We'll sees" got more and more angry in tone.

I like playing Gene Siskel about as much as I'm sure everyone else loves to read it, but something about this series got under my skin. I suppose because one of the top priorities in my life is self-sufficiency and self-respect and I get very nervous about a lot of the girls of my generation. I get my sense of pride from working hard and accomplishing things, whereas a lot of them have a mentality that takes pride in not working and getting others to do things for them.

I'm often frightened, disappointed and startled at a diminishment that happens in girls around middle school and high school. Recently, I saw a friend of mine from elementary school again. As kids, she used to teach us card tricks and wanted to be a dog trainer. Now when I saw her, she looked down all the time and only spoke when her boyfriend asked her a direct question. I left that meeting wanting to cry.

Let me tell you about another recent encounter with an old friend: she had an apartment in the Heights, yet she had NO JOB, her toddler was more or less raised by the maid. It came up in conversation that she once dated a guy just so she could have money to get a tooth fixed. She used to say things like "I'm a Queen and I should be treated that way." When I told her I got my Bachelor's degree in Mathematics, she scrunched her nose up as if she smelled something terrible and said, "Well, you always did like that sort of thing, Cristina..."

This is something I see going on around me all the friggin' time, a part of the world I live in, and...well, it frightens me. I guess there is one little upside to being a math and science nerd: I'm the first girl of my generation of my family to graduate high school before getting pregnant.

Children of the Eighties, Unite!

2009-07-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

I have a cousin named "Teela."

Now, I can't prove it, but I suspect she was named after the female warrior action figure. After all, she was born at around the right time, and I can certainly confirm her parents are nuts enough to do something like that.

When I was five years old I remember I had a crush on He-Man, which is proof enough for me that a fascination with muscles and strength emerges extremely early in sexual development.

The animation for the actual series "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" was made with help of actual very limber and agile bodybuilders, both male and female, who were used to create a library of movements they could draw specific figures on later. This is why it seemed like every single person from that series, on that entire planet, was extremely built, from the major characters to the weird bird-beaked guards.

One of the interesting discoveries, according to a He-Man Fansite, are the mini-comics that came with the figures: they actually had He-Man as a massive, jungle-bred hero from a caveman tribe on their vaguely mesozoic planet. Have a look for yourself:

(You'd think that a sorceress would be more effective than having a jungle-man hero, but of course you'd be dead wrong. Interesting to know that the precedent of the Sorceress being totally useless and never doing anything interesting was already set from day one!)

Now, anyone that's ever read this blog knows about my thing for Tarzan, so this is actually an idea I can really get behind. It's much more original and far more "fantasy/science fiction" a concept than the cliche superhero idea that they ultimately used.

Still, I find it intriguing that the Masters of the Universe figures were so massively muscled, almost universally. It wasn't a statement on body image, because for one thing, you could always tell good from evil on the planet Eternia because if you were evil, you were hideous beyond reason, whereas if you were good, you were merely grotesque. Rather, I suspect the reason is because it's a body type that suggests heroic-style adventure. Anyway, everyone had to be hugely built, from a design point of view, because if you make this next figure slimmer, they'd look like a pansy next to his buddies. And how well would the toy sell then, eh?

Of course, it had to be looked at in the context of the times. This was the eighties, the Age of Arnold, when everything was pumped up.

For the record, I never owned any Masters figures (I had a few of the She-Ra dolls, including the peacock woman). I did collect the Jem dolls, mostly because they came with a cassette tape, and I remember occasionally using my brother's Man-E-Faces figure, which apparently every single kid in the United States owned (along with the two quick-changing Transformers).

One last thought: if you slip a Bon Jovi tape into a Teddy Ruxpin, the result is hilarious.

Guess the Mystery Guests!

2009-07-17T03:07:00.001-07:00

Go ahead, try and guess! I did my best to make these as resistant to Google-Fu as possible.

I was the original choice to play Commander Riker on Star Trek: the Next Generation, but most people know me better for some little movie I did in the early 1990s.

I dated Ted Turner, Sylvester Stallone, and Henry Kissinger. My religion of choice is Zoroastrianism, and I was politically active enough that I got death threats from Sikh extremists, and my death was believed to have been foul play. You'd probably recognize me better with a different hairstyle.

Alan Arkin is my first cousin, but I'm best known as a writer of children's books, a lot of them derived on my experiences growing up in Brooklyn.

Che Guevara personally went to Europe to persuade me to return to Cuba. I was an exotic dancer that did my bit on the same stage as Josephine Baker, and I later did plenty of Sword n' Sandal movies, including one with Steve Reeves.

I'm a writer from science fiction's early days that learned to read and write on a farm, and I coined the terms "genetic engineering" and "terraforming." I died in my late nineties. My most famous work was about perfect robots that sought to improve everything for mankind, at the cost of all human dignity.

I'm the most prolifically published mathematician of the 20th Century to the point where I'm a downright joke among mathematicians. See if you can guess my relationship to Kevin Bacon.

Clint Walker, He-Man

2009-07-16T21:24:00.001-07:00

Clint Walker, that roguish, solid frontier He-Man, personified hairy chested American virility and manhood, a big six-foot-six baritone voiced love god of the West. He was a clear-eyed Frontiersman, shy with women, with a big, shirtless frame. Like Shatner, he always found a way to get his shirt off, but unlike Shatner, it wasn't horrible beyond belief to have that happen!

The first thing I ever saw Clint Walker in was not his work with Westerns like the TV series Cheyenne, but a version of the Theodore Sturgeon story Killdozer! Or as I like to say it out loud, Killdozer Exclamation Point. The story of Killdozer Exclamation Point featured a mysterious alien object that possessed a bulldozer and turned it into a killing machine, using cunning to ambush and murder a construction crew. Believe or not, this was considered one of the best stories of science fiction's golden age. And in defense, I can say that it didn't feature the same wisecracking, cigar-chomping badass solving the problem with engineering.

Startlingly, Clint Walker actually did have a pretty good singing voice: he released an album, and to my great astonishment it wasn't terrible. He has a very deep singing voice that emerges from his big chest, turns his whole body into a wind instrument.

I was born into the first generation to grow up without the Western playing any role in our lives. An America in love with the West seems to me, almost like a totally alien planet.

Kennedy Flirts with Mike O'Hearn

2009-07-10T08:43:00.000-07:00

And yet, somehow, this isn't even the most embarrassing moment for MTV veejay Kennedy. Remember when she admitted to having a crush on Dan Quayle? Yes, that Dan Quayle, the intellectual furnace of the American political system.

Was it a rule, or were every single MTV veejay required to have been totally annoying? Remember, Pauly Shore also got his start as a veejay. Not to mention "Downtown" Julie Brown, the high point of her career seemed to coincide with sleeping with Vanilla Ice.

In the vid, Kennedy clutches Mike's pecs and basically feels him up. It's actually kind of hilarious. Even Mike himself is a little confused and tells her to FOCUS!

I suppose part of the reason for my hostility to Kennedy is, women with dark hair and glasses are generally assumed to be smart, and I don't want Kennedy to wreck that idea for the rest of us!

The Surprise of the Century

2009-07-07T23:34:00.000-07:00

I consider it beneath me to share the results of my quizzes, but this one gets the "no duh" prize.

If you're interested in vintage physique photography...

2009-07-07T23:05:00.000-07:00

...visit V-M-P: Vintage Male Physiques right away.

Visiting his blog is like visiting an alternate universe where they invented the internet back in the fifties. I had no idea that physique and beefcake magazines were so salacious. Small wonder that Cyndi Lauper used one to bring herself off in "She-Bop."

The absolute standout from the entire page, at least to me, was Vic Seipke, who I didn't know existed. His physique has a chiseled, professional and developed quality. Maybe I just think that because his pompadour, over-the-top even by terrifyingly low fifties standards, reminds me of Luke Perry from 90210. With that hair, he should consider giving up bodybuilding and either be the front man for Bill Haley and the Comets, or play Buck Rogers on some live-TV serial on the DuMont Network.

Here's the really warped thing about the V-M-P blog: while looking it over, it occurred to me these guys were a little...well, small? Maybe the more outrageous physiques of the superfreaks of today have totally destroyed our ability to accurately judge size and mass in any realistic way, but still. It just makes you appreciate all the more someone like Steve Reeves, as massive as he was well-proportioned. It makes sense he'd be the standout of this particular generation.

Just flip through that blog, then after a while come back here and see some Reeves pics.

(It's alright, I can wait.)

Okay, back? Yeah, see what I mean?

Finally, the guy that runs the blog apparently is Hollywood comedian Bob Balaban. Who, by the way, is a dead ringer for Mr. Smithers. Which explains everything.

Norway's Arnold Schwarzenegger: Gunnar Rosbo

2009-07-07T22:37:00.000-07:00

Bodybuilding is a worldwide sport, and it's interesting to see what countries are represented and over-represented. Gunnar Rosbo is the best product of Norway's bodybuilding culture. He has one of the most startling set of big cannons I've seen, and very impressive triceps. The biceps may get all the attention, but it is the tricep that gives the arm its mass. Gunnar has a very surprising look, like a Norwegian fairytale knight or something.

Unfortunately, Gunnar Rosbo's tale doesn't have a happy ending: last I heard he suffered a nerve injury that meant he couldn't train half of his body that heavily and he left the sport.

I hear politicians all the time say things like, "if we keep these reforms up, we'll turn the United States into Norway!"

Actually, in the case of Iowa and Minnesota, America pretty much IS Norway. If you ever wanted to visit Norway, let me save you a few grand right here: visit Minnesota and I guarantee you won't know the difference.

Despite it all, I respect the Norwegians and Norwegian culture. I like their unpretentiousness, non-showiness, and humility, their "you're not special" attitude. During World War II, King Olaf was known for riding the buses like any other ordinary citizen.

I had an "Iowegian" room-mate in my undergrad years, and I think she was from another planet. One thing she liked to do was have one of those fish oil capsule geltabs each morning. She actually liked to bite down on them and savor the fish juice inside. Being an adventurous type that'd do anything once, I tried doing that myself. It took days, despite my best efforts, to get rid of the taste from my tongue.

There was a great news article about the prevalence of gyms in the new Iraq, for two reasons: previously, only higher-level members of the regime had access to gyms, and disturbingly enough, because a built physique would let them get jobs in Iraq's sunniest and most up-and-coming industry, security and bodyguard work.

Likewise, my friends that are New Zealanders tell me that with Maori, everything is about sports and muscular development. Maori women find muscular Maori men the most attractive, and top athletes and rugby players often have freedom on their schools unbelievable to imagine. Supposedly, they can even enter and use the teacher's lounge at will. It's interesting to note that on "first contact" and e'er after, the British never failed to describe what big, strong bastards the Maori are; early illustrations had them as big, muscular and healthy.

Mike Nelson spoofs Steve Reeves in "The Giant of Marathon"

2009-06-30T01:15:00.000-07:00

Since my academic issues are starting to wind down, I've had a lot more free time (not that much, of course). YouTube has a new Movies channel, with free, high-quality ready to watch films. Many of them are laughably bad ones, but there are a few gems, like Robert Townsend's HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE. Townsend, at first, seemed like a visionary with this movie on the level of Cronenberg or Spike Lee, but alas, 20 years later he seems like the movie equivalent of a one-hit wonder. There's also INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS, one of Roger Ebert's favorite guilty pleasures, that was the screenwriting debut of Nicholas Meyer, a man known to me through two fandoms: he was the author of the Sherlock Holmes novel THE SEVEN PER-CENT SOLUTION and also wrote the screenplay of its movie adaptation, and he was also the screenwriter and director of the best of the Star Trek movies, WRATH OF KHAN.

There are also a ton of the Brucesploitation movies made after the Little Dragon's death, starring Bruce Lei, Bruce Le, and Bruce Li. The best of the lot has to be BRUCE LEE IN NEW GUINEA, which is more like a cross between a Bruce Lee film and Tintin comics.

One of the highlights is also the Steve Reeves camp-classic, the GIANT OF MARATHON. Even with Steve Reeves's physical perfection, it's hard to watch. But wait, what's that? It features a commentary track by Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy where they crack wise! It's like watching a movie with your funniest friends while drunk.

Like I said before, GIANT OF MARATHON is basically a Western set in Ancient Greece, with a clean-limbed hero that loves independence and the wilderness, with villains that are scheming plotters that try to marry the hero's girl as a part of their schemes, and there's even the Persians standing in for Indians, with Steve Reeves leading a cavalry charge that saves the day.

It's worth watching, not just for Steve Reeves but also Mike Nelson spoofing the entire proceedings. His bits on YouTube are a worthy successor to Mystery Science Theater.

Unfortunately, embedding is forbidden so just take the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n43UkxXcVLg

Have a Scien-Tastic Day!

2009-06-27T20:04:00.000-07:00

400 years ago exactly, Galileo Galilei first used a telescope to identify four moons of Jupiter and found the Moon had craters. Thus, 2009 is the international year of Astronomy, and I encourage every science lover to go out someplace and stargaze.

One of the defining points of Summer viewing: look South (southwest to southeast depending on the time of night) and you should catch the gorgeous summer triangle, Altair, Deneb and Vega.

Speaking of science, my childhood hero Bill Nye, the Science Guy returned for an entertaining adult-themed look at scientific issues in his blink and you miss it short lived 2006 series, "The Eyes of Nye." Intriguingly, the show wasn't about the usually science kiddie show tricks like baking soda and vinegar, but about controversial issues that are actually socially important, like "race" and global cooking.

Incidentally, here's some super-rare footage of Bill Nye on the local Seattle sketch comedy series, Almost Live!

Bill Nye has a degree in Aerospace Engineering from Cornell, and parts he invented at Boeing are still used in most 747s. Also, he invented a device that was used on the Mars Rover back in the 1990s. Hats off, Bill!

EXCLUSIVE! Interview with Konstantin Ruzanov

2009-06-23T21:09:00.000-07:00

Imagine my excitement to receive an email from natural bodybuilder Konstantin Ruzanov himself. Not just because it's a friendly message from a famous person that appreciates my work, but also because it means somebody somewhere is reading this and I'm not just shouting at hyperspace like I've long suspected.

One important correction: previously I stated that Konstantin Ruzanov was leaving bodybuilding, which was hearsay. He's big and impressive as ever, and still has the world's best pectorals.

Konstantin was considerate enough to agree to do an exclusive interview with this blog! One that is the first such segment but hopefully not the last.

Esperanto Grrl: What made you get into bodybuilding? What made you interested in muscles?

Konstantin Ruzanov: As a young man of age 16 I was a drummer in a band. Carrying around a heavy drum set required a great deal of muscles. I was very skinny at the time. (5'9 120 pounds) Our manager of the band suggested I go grow some muscles. Jokingly perhaps. But I took it seriously and since the moment I stepped into the gym, the band lost me.

EG: What do you think about the current state of the bodybuilding industry? What can be done to improve it?

KR: I think we need a new big idol, with graceful and elegant shapes. Not bulky and huge. Grace! to show the beauty of males body that would appeal to masses. I can be that idol!

EG: Who are some of your bodybuilding heroes?

KR: Arnold. Bob Paris. Frank Zane.

EG: Since this is a blog about women that like muscular guys, have you had any encounters with women that are fans of muscular guys?

KR: I have. Almost all the women I encountered loved muscles! As long as its presented in a right package.

EG: How do you see your career going? Are you at all interested in acting or movies? Is there any role in particular you'd be interested in?

KR: I would love to get into movies. Any producers out there interested? I see myself as a next James Bond, or some romantic muscular hero.

EG: Are you involved with any other sports?

KR: Not involved with any sports.

EG: Do you have any tips or advice for young bodybuilders, male or female?

KR: Yes. Read my book when it becomes available. I just finished it, it's all there. But in a few words, what you do with your daily life is what you go to become, physically and mentally. [The Book's] philosophy, training, eating naturally, resting peacefully.

EG: What made you decide to stay natural?

KR: Experimenting and seeing the difference in results. State of mind is very important to me. In a clean body - pure soul.

EG: You're from the Ukraine, what made you come to the United States?

KR: The American Dream...

Male Celebs with a taste for beefcake

2009-06-23T20:35:00.000-07:00

A while ago I wrote an article about female celebs with a taste for beefcake, a list dominated by the stellar personality of Mae West to the point where I wrote the article and even I can’t remember who else was on it. After writing that piece I feel like kicking myself for not including many, many others that I've learned about since then, the biggest name being fifties blonde bombshell/sex symbol Jayne Mansfield, who married bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay.

In any case, I thought it’d be amusing to do the converse, an article that was the flip-side version of that one, with male celebs into muscular ladies.

Gregory Hines

Greg Hines was one of the greatest tap dancers in history, and was also a friend of bodybuilding: he would often be seen in the audience of exhibitions. The woman he was engaged to marry at the time of his death was a female bodybuilder, Negrita Jayde.

Jean-Claude van Damme

Who knew that the Muscles from Brussels was a fanboy for female bodybuilders? Apparently, as a weedy teen in Belgium with cokebottle-thick glasses, Jean Claude used to read all the fitness magazines and had a gigantic crush on Gladys “The Tigress” Portugues, one of the stars of PUMPING IRON II: THE WOMEN. With his usual go-getter spirit, when JC first moved to LA as a virtual unknown and penniless nobody, he found out where Gladys was having a photo shoot and tried to woo and win her over…a scenario that sounds like the plot of a B-romantic comedy.

Jean-Claude is someone I have a great deal of sympathy for, which is surprising because in all honesty I’ve never seen one of his movies from start to finish. Except for maybe some of Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks’s pictures or the occasional Western, I’ve never liked action movies, and certainly not the “I’m tougher than you” violent and revenge-themed sort that van Damme made in the late 1980s. Van Damme reminds me of a late-period Steve Reeves, forgotten because Hollywood no longer made the kind of movies he was famous for and totally unable to reinvent himself.

R. Crumb

Underground cartoonist R. Crumb seemed to be a professional deviant weirdo, but one of the biggest cartoons of his was “What to do With a Strong Girl.” Incidentally, if you haven’t seen the R. CRUMB biopic movie, do yourself a favor and see it: it’s easily the funniest and weirdest movie ever. The film’s sense of humor can be summarized with the movie’s opening line: “When I was eight years old, I found I was sexually attracted to Minnie Mouse.”

Alex Daoud

The mayor of Miami Beach during the heady “Scarface” and "Miami Vice" cocaine cowboy days in the eighties when everything Miami was cool. Alex Daoud was a former boxer, a big tough and flamboyant guy that was not only corrupt as hell and associated with organized crime, but also laughably obvious about it, yet who somehow oversaw Miami Beach’s explosion and renaissance into a world-class destination and was easily one of the city’s best mayors. I can think of very few people universally beloved by both elderly Jews and European clubbers.

Somehow, Alex Daoud comes off as much more likeable and interesting than any squeaky-clean do-gooder or political white knight, because here was a man that knew how to TCB. And he was totally into female muscle girls, which makes his book tour all the more surreal, as everywhere he went, he was flanked on either side by foxy female bodybuilders.

Another Ulisses Jr. Sighting

2009-06-23T20:26:00.001-07:00

Ulisses Jr. was spotted as one of several brawny black Adonises at a black and white arty photoshoot with Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen.

Part of the reason photographers love these black-on-white photoshoots is because of how slick the contrast is in black and white film, but also because it courts controversy - just look at what happened to Robert Mapplethorpe. Personally, I don't see the appeal to his work, but anything Senator Jesse Helms doesn't like can't be all bad.

It's getting rarer and rarer to find new pics of the superstudly Ulisses Jr., so anything new is really welcome. I have trouble believing this, considering he may be the handsomest man on earth.

Hexadecimal Clocks

2009-06-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

And you thought “Metric Time” from the Simpsons was just a joke…

For my fellow mathematics buffs out there, several hexadecimal clocks exist. A few just take the existing date and time numbers and convert them into hexadecimal notation, but there are some that have a radically different, base-sixteen way of measuring time. One of them shows time as a hexadecimal fraction (between 0 and 1) expressing how much time of the day has passed, as the advantage is it can be infinitely precise, with as many digits as desired.

To convert between hexseconds and hexminutes, just switch the digit. 3C.2^16 hexseconds equals 3.C2^16 hexminutes for instance. To convert between them, just use this formula:

1 hour = 0.667^10 (0.AAB^16) hexhours

So 1 hexhour is around 1 hour and thirty minutes.

Here's a link to a site that has a hexadecimal clock program.

Here's another link to a site with a true binary clock that doesn't use the 24/60/60 division.

This is almost as interesting as the "hexidecimal dollar" I once got at a mathematics convention, one listed as worth $2.56!

The Filmography of Steve Reeves

2009-04-27T00:50:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest misconceptions about Steve Reeves is his association with Hercules, since Steve Reeves only did a career grand total of two Hercules films. It reminds me a little of the assumption that Mae West and W.C. Fields did a ton of movies together, when in fact they only did one, MY LITTLE CHICKADEE.

The movie where Steve Reeves was at the height of his sexuality was his version of the arabesque the THIEF OF BAGHDAD. This was one occasion where the 1924 Douglas Fairbanks original was far better than the Reeves version.

BATTLE OF MARATHON has Steve Reeves in yet another non-Hercules movie. What struck me about THE BATTLE OF MARATHON (a version of the Greek battle against the Persians of the same name) is that it was a Western with men in skirts. The hero is a straightforward, strong rural man with an uncomplicated view of life and a love of the land, whereas the villains are conniving schemers that use their hold to force a girl to marry them. The Persians are a pretty good stand in for marauding Indians, and Steve Reeves even leads a cavalry charge to save the day with extra Spartan help. At one point, the captive girl was even tied to the front of a ship; I have a feeling they did this because in Ancient Greece there weren't any train tracks. GIANT OF MARATHON had two women, just as in most Westerns: the "bad" woman (usually a prostitute of some kind) and a "good" woman (the schoolmarm).

Here's one of my favorite Steve Reeves stories: Steve Reeves was a part of the original Broadway cast of KISMET in 1955. During rehearsals, Reeves performed an extremely complicated bodybuilding move, and defied anyone in the audience to do the move even a single time.

Bonnie Evans, a dancer that weighed 5' and 100 pounds, said that not only could she do the move, she could do it more times than Reeves could.

"More than 25 reps? Never!"

"I'll do fifty." She said.

And she did! Afterwards Steve Reeves had to scoop Bonnie up and rush her in a taxi to the hospital, but the very next day she went back to doing the peppy Ababu dance numbers. Steve Reeves stood in the background and watched her every move: after that experience, he was a big Bonnie Evans fan.

Keith Hamilton Cobb

2009-04-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

Despite my interest in that kind of drama, I've never watched daytime soaps, since I actually, generally have had to work for a living. So the first place I ever saw the extraordinarily sensitive, "thinking man" strongman Keith Hamilton Cobb was in the potboiler science fiction drama Andromeda.

Here's what I thought was absolutely genius about that series: every TV show from Dynasty to 90210 has a regular cast and guest-stars that are "beautiful people" in stunning clothes, both male and (usually) female. Yet Andromeda was the first series to actually have a built-in reason for explaining exactly why that was: since it was the future and genetic engineering was widespread, attractive people were relatively commonplace. I wonder what Isaac Asimov's notoriously plain, prim creation Susan Calvin would say to that.

Keith Hamilton Cobb's character was something very common in science fiction: a sidekick that was more interesting and compelling than the main hero. His character, Tyr Anasazi, was a smart and selfish Nietzchian superman, cunning, cynical and loyal only to himself, with a deep love of philosophy, especially Ayn Rand and Nietzche. Tyr also has the distinction of being the only person in the cast whose name and character I actually remember. Andromeda wasn't a great series, after all, and my friends that continued to watch it after the first season tell me that afterwards it got exponentially worse. In all honesty, the only reason I watched it for a very long time was for KHC in a mesh muscle-shirt.

I have absolutely no idea why Keith Hamilton Cobb isn't more famous than he currently is. Physically impressive and imposing, he's not just another muscleboy: he usually plays cultured, intelligent men. He has a startling deep voice that is naturally commanding. Maybe that's the reason that KHC hasn't been seen much: thinking men are very much out of fashoin in the action world.

Movies that would have benefitted from a little bulge

2009-04-14T01:54:00.000-07:00

I love movies - love them - and I hope I can be forgiven for blogging about them a little bit

There are some movies that could have stood for a fellow like Victor Mature to be the "and more" for the ladies.

Some movies wouldn't be better off with a few healthy, muscular and virile male leads, however. For instance, the MAGNIFICENT SEVEN had the incredible Steve McQueen to ramp up the flick's testosterone quotient.

(On an unrelated note, I lived for many years in France and Turkey, and I always found it amusing how Europeans (and to a lesser extent, Asians) love and value the Western genre and we Americans tend to take them for granted. With the exception of pseudo-Westerns like No Country for Old Men, Westerns are more or less dead stateside, which is a shame.)

ATLANTIS, THE LOST CONTINENT (1961)

What I find the most interesting about George Pal is how sterling his reputation is, despite the fact that his ratio of hits to misses is of downright Chevy Chasian proportions. Remember how long it took Scorcese and Spielberg to recover, respectively, from the flops of NEW YORK, NEW YORK and 1941, and how totally wrecked Michael Cimino's career was by Heaven's Gate? Pal's Tom Thumb was a poor excuse for family entertainment, his Doc Savage was a lousy campstravaganza in the style of the Adam West Batman TV show (after which, I am certain, Pal died out of shame), and the low watermark had to be Atlantis, generally considered to be George Pal's worst movie.

Atlantis sounds really great on paper: a love story between a Greek fisherman who rescues an Atlantean princess, set around the destruction of a sexy, decadent civilization that looks like a cross between Ancient Greece and the Jabba the Hutt palace scenes in Return of the Jedi.

What I find lacking is the absence of real beefcake and man-candy, especially since this seems to be a requirement for man-sized movies about guys in sandals and little skirts. The male lead was almost as surprisingly uninteresting as Brad Pitt's unfunny and unsexy turn as Achilles in TROY, and it's a tribute to the male actor's dullness in Atlantis that for the life of me I just can't think of his name. It doesn't help the female lead was equally boring and also something less than a knockout: she was like the frumpier, more prudish older sister of a Bond girl.

Atlantis, the Lost Continent is something that almost never happens: the people in front of the camera are unknowns that remained unknown (and lack even the basic cult following of someone like John Phillip Law or Nancy Kovacs), while the person behind is a household name like George Pal. The only other example of this would be the fascinating eighties adventure teen flick Young Sherlock Holmes, which was produced by Spielberg and Henry Winkler and directed by Barry Levinson (prior to his Oscar for Rain Man).

To be fair, Atlantis had more off the wall George Pal innovation, who even in his worst movie had much more imagination than even the better Italian Sword n' Sandal pictures. Take the bizarre Moreau like animal men, and a scene inside an iron-age submarine. What I find surprising is how the Italians did a lot more with less when it came to charismatic and sexy actors that liven up a screen: take the entire career of Steve Reeves, the handsomest and most perfect man who ever lived, or a supersexy exotic showgirl-dancer like Chelo Alonso. I've also seen more than my fair share of Turkish movies, and what Turkish movies lack in anything resembling production value, they make up for with attractive and personable men and women. It's something you don't need a big budget to have, which inexplicably Atlantis lacks. If ever there was a movie that needed a big Greek muscle stud, it would be this one.

On a final note, there was one project of George Pal's that could have saved his reputation, one of movies' great What-Ifs: Time Machine II. The idea of George Pal doing a sequel to his greatest masterpiece should be enough to get any science fiction fan's pulse racing, but also claymation master Ray Harryhausen would have been on board to make all the weird creatures! Why it never happens I'll never understand.

That's my big one: which movies do you think would have benefitted from a little muscle? Fire away in the comments section below.

An interesting comparison picture

2009-04-02T03:54:00.001-07:00

I found this absolutely remarkable photoshop job that compares Arnold and Ron Coleman at their primes.

It's easy to think, "hey, maybe they took one of the best Arnold pics and matched it against the worst of Coleman's and make Ron look bad," right? Actually, the Coleman pic was taken from the 2000 Mr. Olympia, which incidentally, he won.

It just goes to show there's been a transformation in the aesthetics of the bodybuilding world, and it rhymes with "steroids!"

To be as clear as possible: the problem isn't just bad pharmacology, because chemicals have always played a role in bodybuilding and sports. Rather, the problem is how they've transformed the exercise patterns of bodybuilders, how they've gone from a supplementary role to the centerpiece of training. Previously, bodybuilders trained year-round. Now, bodybuilders train for several weeks prior to a competition and pump their bods full of chemicals. The winner isn't the person that's trained the hardest, but the guy with the genetics to blow up like a sponge in a few weeks with heavy training.

The problem isn't just steroids, but how bodybuilding has totally deviated from ideals of health and beauty and has started to speak its own language. Mass and training have become ends in and of itself, and the press (notably the mysoginistic, homophobic IRONMAN) have become so insular. Because of the development of bodybuilding as a niche subculture that speaks its own language, there's an extreme lack of introspection. Nobody ever tells these guys, "y'know, your thighs look like a bagful of cats." A generation or two ago, bodybuilders produced movie stars like Steve Reeves and Lou Ferrigno; it'd be impossible to do this today.

The net result of all this is an unwholesome, bloated, somewhat grotesque appearance with big roid guts. For heaven's sake, look at Ron's calves and compare them to Arnold's: they look like a bag stuffed full of cats.

What happened to the idea of bodybuilding promoting a physically healthy, attractive ideal male body? Ron, the winner of the Mr. Olympia and thus the poster boy for the entire culture, has an unattractive body with an emphasis on mass alone, trained and bloated by pharmacology with a build that is something like the human evolutionary equivalent of a peacock's tail, without the peacock's tail's attractiveness.

It's worth noting the only truly good looking bodybuilding men are the naturals: Konstantin Ruzanov, Ulisses Jr., Denis Sergovisky, Mike O'Hearn.

Galactica ends

2009-03-20T21:03:00.000-07:00

Battlestar: Galactica is ending, which is bad news for fans of smart, dark science fiction. I'd like at least once for them to do the title screen appropriately, with "STARRING JAMIE BAMBER'S TRICEPS." And then, after that, in tiny letters, "ALSO: JAMIE BAMBER." You've gotta love any future society where the required uniform involves sleeveless shirts.

What I find kind of impressive about the series was that the theme song was from the Rig Veda - its a hymn in praise to Savitar, which makes its theme song thousands of years older than the Bible. I watch a lot of Bollywood movies, and the amazing thing is, you watch enough subtitled you start to be able to pick out words: Mata = mother, agni = fire (as in to ignite). If you love languages as much as I do, it's fascinating to examine. North Indian languages are actually close cousins to European ones.

After CHILDREN OF MEN and PAN'S LABYRINTH were extremely popular, I was excited that a lot of the dark, adult variety of science fiction that I like would finally make it to screen. Naturally, this was overoptimistic.

If Iraq taught us anything, the key to understanding events isn't economics, or engineering or metal shop, but social studies. To understand why people in Hollywood make bad decisions, just look at Los Angeles itself: as George Carlin said, "no one reads, and there's cilantro on everything."

Wear the Scarlet Letter

2009-03-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

According to the American Religious Identification Survey, atheists and those with no religious beliefs are now the third-largest group in the United States, and the fastest-growing behind Catholics (who have grown largely due to Latino immigration in the Southwest).

If you subscribe to the idea of a rational world without supernatural elements, wear the "scarlet letter" and come out to your family and friends.

Kirk Morris!

2009-03-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

Kirk Morris is one of the most spectacular profiled, muscular actors to ever play Hercules. For one thing, he looks exactly like friggin' Jake Ryan from SIXTEEN CANDLES. Seriously!

Interestingly enough, Kirk Morris was, along with Alan Steel, one of the few homegrown (and we mean grown!) Italian actors to star in the sixties peplum boom. His real name is Adriano Bellini, and he was a gondolier in Venice when he was discovered by Cinecitta. Presumably, some producer's wife saw him with his shirt off in the Venice canals or something.

His movie, THE WITCH'S CURSE, was a remake of MACISTE AL'INFERNO (which I've written about before, remember?), which was supposedly Federico Fellini's favorite childhood movie.

The first place I ever heard of Kirk Morris was in his film COLOSSUS AND THE HEADHUNTERS, which is only made watchable because it was on Mystery Science Theater 3000, lampooned by Mike and the 'bots with their usual panache. The most interesting scenes are the ones where it's obvious they used extremely short, skinny actors to make Adriano look downright gigantic.

Happy Pi Day

2009-03-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

“If I feel unhappy, I do mathematics to become happy. If I am happy, I do mathematics to keep happy.”
- Alfréd Rényi

March 14th, or 3/14, is a good day to celebrate that most irrational of numbe rs, 𝚷. Pi is a mathematical constant used to reflect the ratio of a circle’s radius to its circumference. It’s a truly magic number – use it to 11 places, and can position a point on the planet earth accurate to a millimeter. Use it to 29, it can calculate the position of a hydrogen atom in the visible universe. In geometry, it’s usually used to figure out integrals that describe radius and circumference of circles, whereas in Calculus, it’s an important part of Gaussian’s integral, and just about any calculation that involves a physical universe.

Visit the Official Pi Day Website!

This website contains Pi up to one million places

I have a lot of good memories related to Pi Day. I was the only girl in my High School Engineering Club, where for the most part our days were spent in a gym, while our teacher showed us taped episodes of MACGYVER.

For those interested in Mathematics, check this great intro-level book out, by Winnie from the Wonder Years:

FACT: Movie star Natalie Portman, a Harvard grad and math student under her real name of Natalie Herschlag, has published several articles on mathematics.

Visit Brian's Drive-In

2009-03-11T04:38:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen it yet, check out this old internet warhorse of a site, Brian's Drive-In, which has been up and running since Clinton's first term.

Brian's Drive-In

He has galleries and images related to fifties beefcake and cheesecake, including profiles of all the actors that have ever played Hercules, Tarzan and Maciste.

Back when I was a Geology major as an undergrad, I heard a professor of mine say that searching for information on the internet is a little like dumpster-diving. I'm often absolutely amazed by very silly people that believe the Internet has made libraries irrelevant. For one thing, the amount of information on the internet is pretty darn shallow, and you need go no further than googling a lot of old b-movie muscle stars. Unless they're a role as high-profile as Tarzan, almost nothing is on about them - just look up Gordon Mitchell (star of GIANT OF METROPOLIS and ATLAS IN THE LAND OF THE CYCLOPS and see what happens.

Look many stars up, the only truly relevant search result is Brian's Drive-In, and even his website can hardly be said to have in-depth profiles on any given actor. And finally, Brian's Drive-In is pre-YouTube, and pre-embedding, so his webpage hardly dances and sings, which adds to its old-fashoined quality.

BOYS BEWARE!

2009-03-10T06:36:00.000-07:00

This 1950s instructional vid on the creeping menace of homosexuality, sensationally titled BOYS BEWARE! has to be seen to be believed.

What's really amazing is, if you make the whole scenario a little less creepy, it can actually double for a gay wank fantasy! Young boy befriends a cool older guy that he becomes friends with and confides in...

Seeing something like this, I come to the conclusion that we're a heck of a lot smarter than our parents' and grandparents' generation was. All through this entire article there are a million points that set off a big flashing red light that makes us go WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! Yet alas, our narrator pays them no mind.

If your parents are boomers (mine came in at the late end of the baby boom), the one thing they've probably hysterically incalculated in you is that EVERYTHING CAN KILL YOU. It takes something like this to show us that the world is, actually, fundamentally safe. Most people that hitchhike actually survive, for instance.

Take the Great American Challenge!

2009-03-03T12:42:00.001-08:00

I've always been a "size queen," so the usual discreet little pinky finger clip-on that slips comfortably in a purse was never really enough for me.

Thankfully, there's "The Great American Challenge," which is the only adult plaything that can also double as a cudgel for use by police officers, club bouncers, and Vikings. No matter how big you think it is, it's bigger, perfect for those of us that fantasize about genital monsters and atom-bomb beasts.

Having handled one with my boyfriend at a high-end couples adult novelty store in Williamsburg, let me say one thing the catalogs won't tell you: it's heavy. So shockingly big that it feels like it's made of lead, and for someone of my size to lug it around a store was something of an exertion.

I'm not making a single cent off of these, just pointing out the existence for the benefit of the readership.

Buy it here.

All this brings up an interesting discussion topic, especially if you're an insecure male: does size matter?

The answer is maybe. Super-size queens are relatively rare. And truth be told, as amused as I am by a toy like this, in a relationship a monster member wouldn't even make the top 20 list of important characteristics. So rest easy, tiny guys!

Unless of course you joust and vanquish your opponent by "penis fencing," the way some species of snails do.

FUN FACT: the animal with the largest penis in proportion to its size is the hermaphroditic gooseneck barnacle, with a penis 40 times its body weight and size. The giant pork sword developed as barnacles are sessile.

Denis Sergovskiy, all 6'1" of him

2009-02-04T14:26:00.000-08:00

An interesting thing about bump-n-grind male revue beefcake dancers from Russia: there are occasions that it's obvious they were trained at Soviet state run circus and dance schools. For instance, at Denis Sergovskiy's old Las Vegas show, "From Russia With Love," they position a female audience member on a chair, over which the big Russian does a handstand right over it...and several lift the chair and hoist it above the air.

As if that wasn't intriguing enough, supposedly they were going to also have an aerial wire-work scenario. It's Cirque de Soleil stuff like that, that really just makes Vegas muscle revues so memorable.

Denis Sergivskiy is a shockingly huge 6'1", with startling symmetry and definition; he's like a Greek statue, if one of them decided to get a little bit more in-your-face massive.

Listen to Denis's strikingly baritone, masculine voice in this vid. Considering other muscle athletes (ahem, Ron Coleman) have voices that are a cross between Minnie Mouse and Mike Tyson, this was something of a relief.

If you don't want to watch this whole thing, just skip ahead to 0:50, for the poolside shots.

The near transparent muscle shirt that Denis Sergoviskiy is playing dress-up with here is actually not just an oddball male stripper prop, but is in fact a real piece of clothing: it's a variation on the Cuban guayabera worn in the Phillippines.

Although Denis, we love your legs and bouncy, tight muscled butt, but please, do avoid the bicycle shorts. You're not going for the Olympic kayaking events.

"Mr. Ukraine" Konstantin Ruzanov

2009-01-29T11:58:00.000-08:00

It's very disappointing when a bodybuilder, especially a very good looking one, walks away from bodybuilding as Konstantin Ruzanov did. He was a "natural" and left the sport when he saw what it took to succeed at the higher levels, chemically speaking.

I say, good one on you, Konstantin! The insane quest for size, the bizarro "hardcore" bodybuilding grunt culture personified by MUSCLEMAG, has to end somewhere. The days are long over where bodybuilding was a masculine, healthy pursuit: it's funny how Reg Park and Steve Reeves outlived many that came after them. Besides, natural bodybuilders look better anyway: better proportions, zero 'roid bloat.

If Konstantin Ruzanov ever made it in movies, I have a feeling he'd play bad guys, or do costume dramas. If he's any good as an actor, he'd make a great Count Vronsky in ANNA KARENINA. On the other hand, I can see him as a "Conrad Veidt" type: a guy best known for playing the Nazi heavy in movies like CASABLANCA despite the fact he left Germany because of the Nazis.

Incidentally, I had a Konstantin Ruzanov pic as my desktop wallpaper for a few days (I change it, on average two or three times a week, and I almost never have beefcake pics). I was working on a research assignment with a fellow grad student, a girl that was the daughter of immigrants from Trinidad.

When I went to show her my work on my laptop, as it booted up, she approvingly looked at Konstantin Ruzanov and said, "wow, now he's a black woman's kind of white guy."

I have absolutely no idea what she meant by that, but it's worth noting that in her own apartment, there was only one "sexy" pin-up poster: a white wifebeater clad Justin Timberlake. Hmmmm...!

A few YouTube vids:

Artist Roundup: Mbbbbb

2009-01-24T13:54:00.000-08:00

Visit his Gallery Here

In the alternate art universe of DeviantArt where sloppy asskissing is the normal means of interaction and true, serious critique is discouraged by all the fragile, insecure young egos of all those teenaged girl artists, it's actually very rare to actually see someone truly improve or get better from the start of their gallery to the end. An exception is the tragically named Mbbbbb, who obviously improves from the start to the end.

His early work is stiff and blocky.

Compare that to how fluid and natural this image looks:

Mbbbbb's focus is on the combination of sheer, intense and masculine massiveness and definition with youth and an almost feminine beauty. Those of us that like muscle guys for the "boy toy" fantasy are often disappointed by the fact that often most bodybuilders are scruffy faced Biker types, often in their forties and older. Arnold once argued that bodybuilding reduces the aging process, but that's only from the neck down, and no amount of muscle makes an ugly man beautiful. For that reason, Mbbbbb's art is a really successful fantasy in that way.

He obviously loves the thrill of domination, of comparison, of a muscle stud overwhelming others with their size and sexual potency and power. He is fascinated by the look of dramatic, jutting pecs and bowling ball sized shoulders in too-tight t-shirts, the wrinkles they assume with excessive tightness to the point of breaking. He loves their effortless success at physical contests.

Mbbbb's faces are simple as his bodies are defined. His drawings could be drawings of anybody, which is a surprise. My favorite part of his less-is-more attitude is the amazing way, after having seen some of these kinds of artists work, that they could do two or three strokes and suddenly they've got an eye. Whoa!

Mbbbbb, like Renaisssance artists, puts most of his energy into his sexual, beautiful men. Most of his women are a lot less interesting, depressing Clydesdale types.

Yes, Pecan!

2009-01-24T13:38:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't be human if I didn't gloat about the Obama inauguration just a little bit.

My favorite part was watching it on the BBC, where the Brits are a lot less mealy-mouthed about these things than we are. When Barack gave that bit about how it is a false dilemma between our values and our security, they cut immediately to a reaction shot of the C-Plus Augustus and the announcer cried with his formal broadcast "BBC English," that "That line was clearly a stinger missile homed in on his predecessor."

Chief Justice Roberts fed him a bad version of the speech, of course, which may be payback for Barry voting against Roberts' confirmation to the court. Other low points included that boring poem that sounds like something I'd write at age 19 read by the least-firebrand orator this side of that teacher from FERRIS BUELLER. If I was freezing my body Cuban behind at the Inauguration, that was the moment I'd pick to get a mineral water at the concession stand. The music by John Williams was particularly limp as well, a soothing panacea for sleeping infants and not at all what I expected from the guy that composed the "Raiders March."

Finally, we had that cool old black preacher busting out into unexpectedly awesome turn of phrase with "yellow getting mellow." You could tell in his eyes that he was thinking "Yeah, motherfuckers, this is what I marched for!"

The same goes for the rest of us too. Congrats, Barry!

Artist Roundup: HelloFriday

2009-01-24T13:13:00.001-08:00

Check out HelloFriday, an artist that fills his youthful stallions with an obvious, intense blue collar manliness and hardness that drips testosterone. He especially deserves credit for his unusual and non-typical poses.

Visit his DeviantArt page here.

Maps of Tarzan's Africa

2009-01-24T13:02:00.000-08:00

Here's something for you fans of the ultimate muscle alpha stud, Tarzan (sorry Hercules - the #2 slot isn't too bad, though). I found these fantastic illustrated maps of his surreal, dreamlike version of Africa, which is clearly as imaginary as Middle Earth. I have to admit, I'm a sucker for these kinds of maps ever since as a girl I got AN ATLAS OF IMAGINARY PLACES for Christmas.

Click on the images to blow them up.

Behold the Men

2009-01-24T12:28:00.001-08:00

Sorry about the long absence. I've had computer trouble that made blogging a real pain in the neck. Now that I've got everything fixed, I should be posting more regularly.

For those of you interested in the psychology of male body image and how the "ideal male body" is created in our culture, read Edisol W. Dotson's BEHOLD THE MAN: THE HYPE AND SELLING OF MALE BEAUTY IN MEDIA AND CULTURE. What I found surprising about this book is that it didn't just zero in on the usual topics: eating disorders, cosmetic surgery, and magazines like GQ and MUSCLE & FITNESS. Rather, the book took a total view on how the male body image is constructed, and talked about a few very surprising things: for instance, the role of the obsession with physical fitness in Nazi Germany and most interesting of all (especially from the point of view of this blog) the creation of men as objects to be packaged and sold in soap operas and romance novels (for women) and gay pornography (for men).

Intriguingly, the book even mentions the vampire phenomenon, although they exclusively link it to Anne Rice (the book was published in 1999). It would be interesting for the publishers to release a revised edition with information on the colossal TWILIGHT phenomenon, which is centered around the desirability of an idealized male figure.

The trouble with the book is, it lacks a certain historical perspective. For the evolution of the male body image, especially from the 19th Century, read HOUDINI, TARZAN AND THE PERFECT MAN: THE WHITE MALE BODY AND THE CHALLENGE OF MODERNITY IN AMERICA by John F. Kasson. The great part about his book is not only the liberal references to our coolest president, Theodore Roosevelt, but also why it argues the male physique became so important in that era. With the West settled and no outlet for men to prove their maleness, the growth of faceless, huge cities that threatened autonomy and individualism, and finally the perceived threat of suffragettes and women's independence to masculinity, the body became a way for men to prove their manliness. The 5'2", 100 pound Houdini sounds like the odd man out in the title, but he really isn't: Kasson argued that Houdini's escapes was a symbol of heroic masculinity, a release from confinement.

One of the biggest and least analyzed historical trends was the idea that a return to the wilderness was necessary for men to really become men. This was the era that saw the rise of Summer Camps, which sought to turn boys into little Indians (hence the Indian names), and the Boy Scouts, that sought to turn boys into little soldiers.

Artist Roundup: Jozef Szekeres

2008-12-12T10:46:00.001-08:00

Boy, haven't done an Artist Roundup in a while. Remember when this was the centerpiece of the entire blog? I suppose the reason it hasn't been around in a while is that great undiscovered muscle boy artists are a little like oil: there's a finite amount and eventually you start to dry up.

Every so often, though, someone new and impressive shows up, just like new oil wells are drilled or discovered.

This guy is Josef Szekeres, who is unapologetic about the beauty and almost androgynous sensuousness of his men. These aren't rugged pioneers with a five o'clock shadow, but etherially beautiful, sensual and youthful men. His favorite artistic subjects are fairy tales, elves, and Mer-Men.

Visit his deviantart gallery here. I highly recommend it. His art is the sort that can't be contained by tiny blogger windows.

Agnes Varda, my favorite French director ever, had a great line in LE PETITE AMOUR, one of her best movies: "Do all women love boys...or just those without sons?" The film was about a divorcee with two girls that makes herself sexually available to a nervous, awkward young man because she wants to revisit her youth. I am reminded of that quote now with his art.

The single piece of his that made me a fan was this one:

Now, I never had a bad thought about a ginger guy before, but the idea of a brawny sauna stud with freckles all over his beautiful torso, arms and legs? Now that's just great. I'd love to count the freckles on his body.

New Ulisses Williams Jr. Fashoin Shots

2008-12-12T02:33:00.001-08:00

I'm sure everybody's tired of me blabbing on about him by now, but it's so rare to find him in new images.

Take for instance, the new Ulisses Jr. shots, an overwhelming ten pages of glamour pictures at Fashoin Stock Photos.

See the Ulisses Jr. Gallery Here

Man Candy: Jason Scott Lee

2008-12-12T02:06:00.001-08:00

Jason Scott Lee, like Charleton Heston, spends the majority of his career without pants on. Good for us, because of his startling legs: they're quick and rhythmic, like a ballet dancer's, that you can just fantize rhythmically making love to you. Thighs like that should be outlawed.

I never entirely bought Jason Scott Lee as Bruce Lee in THE DRAGON STORY, because while Bruce Lee was unquestionably a great athlete and actor, his appeal was that he was a likeable everyman, a working-class sort (which is why he is so very identifiable). Jason Scott Lee, though, is a Greek God, clearly handsome, the hottest guy playing beach volleyball.

The very best movie of JSL's career was RAPA NUI. RAPA NUI (1994) is a fascinating movie about a fascinating time: the last days of the vanished people on Easter Island. The most overused word on IMDB is "underrated," but RAPA NUI really was underrated and unappreciated: it's easily one of my ten favorite dramas of all time. The story was based on class conflict. Two suitors want a woman, one of the high-caste long ears (Jason Scott Lee), the other of the low-caste laborers that build the Moai, the giant stone heads that adorn the island, who compete for the love of a woman in the Bird-Man, a supreme triathlon that challenges JSL's hard, agile muscles.

The story is about the insane drive to build the Moai at all costs, and is easily the strongest performance of Esai Morales's career, his anger and rage palpable at an unjust society. The images from it stick with you: one of my favorites was Jason Scott Lee weeping as he clenched the very last tree left on the entire island to prevent it from being cut down.

Easter Island is a lonely place: no land anywhere for 1,000 miles, the inhabitants see only infinite ocean in every direction, with themselves as the only people on earth. The ecological theme speaks for itself, all the more frightening because it was something that actually happened.

One of the best Jason Scott Lee movies was Steven Summers's JUNGLE BOOK, which is easily the best A-list Tarzan movie ever. Yeah, I know it's about Mowgli, but c'mon. There was no "boy" anywhere here. The story had animal sidekicks, a wild man struggling with whether he was human or an animal, and lots of Tarzan-esque plot threads like wooing a beautiful English woman of society with competition from a handsome but douchey civilized suitor (here, it was Princess Bride's Cary Elywes at his absolute hammy best), and that most Tarzan-esque of all plots, the discovery of a lost city.

Most Asian actors only get "Asian-guy" parts, however, it's interesting to note that Jason Scott Lee played a Mexican (BORN IN EAST L.A.), a Polynesian (RAPA NUI), an Eskimo (MAP OF THE HUMAN HEART), an Indian (JUNGLE BOOK), a Hawaiian (LILO AND STICH, voice only). The only thing he has yet to play is a Swede, but then again he's not dead yet...

Tarzan Lives

2008-12-12T01:54:00.000-08:00

There are certain things that Hollywood can and will do over and over, no matter how many times it's been done before. Every five to ten years there's always another THREE MUSKETEERS, Sherlock Holmes, or Tarzan.

Recently, there are rumors going around of another Tarzan movie, to be directed by Steven Sommers (who did a "stealth" remake of Tarzan with his excellent live-action JUNGLE BOOK, starring the always brawny and charismatic Jason Scott Lee). Now there's something exciting to look forward to. The last halfway decent beefcake movie was the intriguing BEOWULF.

Me, my personal favorite Tarzan was always Gordon Scott, who had a great physique, and one of the most startling v-shaped torsos ever: it's like he was an upside-down cone.

For the handsomest Tarzan, it had to be the extremely dashing, debonair Mike Henry. Wow, what a cutie! Nothing better than those cute dumbo ears of his.

Cleveland Thomas: Everything is bigger in Texas

2008-12-12T01:35:00.000-08:00

In general, natural bodybuilders tend to be better looking and have more symmetrical, healthier physiques than the hardcore non-natural kind, sexier and more aesthetically pleasing. Most of my favorites have been natural: Mike O'Hearn, Ulisses Williams Jr., and so forth. The same goes for big, sexy Texan Cleveland Thomas.

And now here comes the startling Cleveland Thomas, who has easily the best arms I've ever seen: tall and peaked, a massive orange collected in a single ball that rises to a point.

Here, watch it flex.

Here's another of Cleveland Thomas in a striptease. Everything is bigger in Texas.

Despite the name, it's impossible to confuse these two:

And....

BONUS: Here's another Cleveland Thomas video.

Attack of the Fifties-Man Bodies

2008-12-04T21:00:00.000-08:00

In the Classical World, there is nothing more spectacular than the way they glorified the male body, magnificent, muscular, pleasingly well-proportioned and athletic. In fact, the reverse is usually true of the fifties, when blocky Pro-Golfer physiques were everywhere. A good example would be gut-hanging TV joke Adam West.

One of the best and most typical "Fifties Man" bodies would have to have been sported by wrestler Dara Singh in the surreal Bollywood "bakhti" or devotional/religious movie JAI BAJRANG BALI (1976).

Fifties-Man bodies started to go out of style around the time Steve Reeves became popular, and gradually vanished until there weren't any in pop culture come the early 1970s.

Bob Paris

2008-12-01T21:07:00.000-08:00

If they're ever going to do a schmaltzy, triumphant sports movie about bodybuilding, there'd be no better story than that of the devastatingly handsome Bob Paris. He was a homeless teenager that emerged from absolutely nowhere to win the Mr. Olympia at age 23.

Alas, ladies, Bob Paris is one of the few openly gay bodybuilders...as in actually gay, instead of having a gay-for-pay biz on the side to keep them in soy powder and Brazilian horse steroids. Bob Paris fights for civil rights and dignity for homosexuals, which is admirable and makes him one of those "role model" types that "overcome adversity," like Colin Powell and so forth.

There are a few openly gay bodybuilders, natch. Most of them work for Cher.

And now a word from our sponsor...

2008-11-11T21:02:00.000-08:00

I've never understood the objective of milk commercials. Milk is a part of our culture, in everything to the point where it's downright unavoidable (as those of us that are lactose intolerant are aware). Doing commercials for milk is as pointless as doing commercials for oxygen.

Even by the standards of milk commercials, this one is harebrained. "I was a tiny Freshman, but I was huge as a senior a mere four years later?" Egad, what mysterious process has taken place here? SURELY MILK MUST BE RESPONSIBLE.

I guess it all goes back to the zeitgeist, the eighties, the second golden age of muscles. Muscles were like milk: in everything. As movies turned away from director-centered films and onto Spielberg-esque escapism, the musclemen actors (descendants of the rugged Lloyd Bridges mixed with equal parts Eastwood and Steve Reeves) took over macho movies. It's an interesting time to examine from this perspective, something I don't think has ever been done.

YouTube Roundup II

2008-11-05T10:17:00.001-08:00

I'm tiny, so I just need to smell alcohol and I get wasted, which is exactly what happened last night with the Obama victory celebrations. People here in Queens were hugging perfect strangers and cheering.

Thankfully, a brigade of my loyal gay guy friends were able to flank me and take me back without me being taken advantage of. I felt like Louis Farrakhan. Thanks for sending the enforcers, Pink Mafia!

I don't ordinarily comment on politics (at least on this blog), but there is such an overpowering sense of history in the making with my pal Barry getting elected, that to not mention it in this blog would be living in denial of the world around me. Congrats, Barry!

To celebrate, here are a couple YouTube Videos.

Now that's what lats are supposed to look like!

Steve Reeves Forever!

2008-11-02T00:50:00.000-07:00

There is one thing I will absolutely never get tired of, and that's looking at vintage physique photography of Steve Reeves. As an undergrad, when I still lived in housing, I had a giant Steve Reeves poster on the wall above my bed, which I used to give a light "good morning" peck to when I got up in the morning. Classically handsome, chiseled, with a physique like an Olympian god. He was perfectly cast as demigods like Hercules; only when playing mere mortals did he ever seem unbelievable. For actors, usually the reverse is true: it's hard to swallow that they're larger than life beings. I suspect this is why Reeves was so seldom seen outside Sword n' Sandal, a genre that was particularly perfect for him. It's hard to believe Reeves as a Rock Hudson-esque "suitor next door" in a romantic comedy, for instance. He was too blue-eyed, classically perfect and mythically physiqued.

It's hard to believe Steve Reeves turned down the part of James Bond in the original DR. NO, and the Clint Eastwood part in A FISTFULL OF DOLLARS. Sergio Leone's FISTFULL, incidentally, marked the end of the assembly-line S&S movie in Italy, as overnight they switched to producing the "Spaghetti Westerns." I have a feeling Reeves regretted that move, because he was from Montana and he always saw the highlight of his career was his one and only Western. It's funny how lead actors in Westerns and Sword n' Sandal pics are so very interchangeable.

I have no idea if Steve Reeves was approached to play Captain Kirk before Shatner was, but that would have been too perfect. There would be another role they had Reeves in mind that went on to become an institution with another actor. Reeves is the only person that would have been a worse. Actor. Than. William Shatner.

It may sound like I'm a little harsh on Reeves there, but I suspect one of the best-kept secrets in Hollywood is that Charleton Heston was actually a pretty crappy actor. But Heston had a presence that filled a movie. Much the same way Reeves's presence did the same for his films: you didn't pay to see acting, you paid to see a personality.

Healthy, massive, flawless, without roid-bloat, Reeves gets you nostalgic for a different kind of male physique ideal than the current, crazy "size over everything" crowd. I'd have a hard time calling him the handsomest man ever as long as Ulisses Williams Jr. exists, but that is certainly a label that, if it is an exaggeration, it isn't much of one.

Some might complain about the black and white photography, but I think this is missing the point. First, the reason most older physique pics are in black and white is because the world was black and white back then. Second, physique photography is meant to be in black and white. It turned limitation into a necessity by the use of contrast between light and dark on sun-glistening flesh.

Steve Reeves will be missed. I'm especially sad he died before he could make his cameo appearance in Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR. Now that would have been interesting.

I wonder...will the angels ask to feel his arms in heaven?

Jeff Dwelle

2008-10-31T02:22:00.000-07:00

Here's my Halloween treat for you: handsome Jeff Dwelle, who came to my attention with his jaw-dropping M&F cover a few months ago.

The trouble with muscle guys prepped for competition is that they generally look fake. I swear, I've probably seen more orange skin than Tropicana. But Jeff Dwelle actually looks GOOD that way - the only other guy that has skin that reacts that way would be Mike O'Hearn.

I know what you're thinking, because it's the exact same thing I'm thinking: "does he have a brother?" The answer is yes - his brother Richard is also a bodybuilder!

Also: he has massive thighs to die for. Squee!

BONUS TREAT: Johnny Jackson has the most astonishing chest I've ever seen. Watch those things bounce and pop!

Just remember, this Halloween, that the best costume of all is a good physique. If it's good enough, it's recognizable all by itself.

(Hmmm, who could THAT be? :-) )

When does the interest in muscle guys start?

2008-10-27T04:12:00.000-07:00

Here's something I've noticed about people that like brawny, studly muscle hunks, whether male or female: it's lifelong. I've never met anybody that was "turned" to muscle guys, the way Janet was in THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW - it's a lot more hardwired than that.

Most muscle carnivores can't identify a time they didn't like muscle guys, even going back into early childhood. Depending on the age and generation, they can identify responding sexually to a whole variety of things. For me it was cartoons: I remember having a big crush on Lion-O and He-Man from saturday morning television.

Members of the previous generation have similar stories, watching muscleman movies on television: Sword n' Sandal pictures, Tarzan and gladiator pictures, and so forth.

There's a commonly held fallacy in our culture that awareness of and interest in sexuality starts at a certain age, and I think this is intriguing.

YouTube Roundup

2008-10-20T20:33:00.000-07:00

I thought I might kick off a great new section on this blog, "YouTube Roundup" by posting some great selections of muscle guys from YouTube. Unlike a lot of other women, I'm very visual about sex, and one thing that's always been missing from still pictures are the element of movement, the way muscles bunch and slide under the skin like pythons under silk sheets, powerfully clench and tighten and burst like popcorn kernels, flexing rhythmically.

I'm often curious how they get these videos, but I'm betting it involves midget cameramen.

Everybody here knows how much I love Sagi Kalev, one of the most studly and gorgeous hunks in the world, but apparently here's a tape of Sagi training a protoge, youthful, cute and strong Kevin Perod. Wow! He's a big, sexy Texan that could be a movie star, and I expect the best from him.

Keeping with the Texas theme, here's Adam Young. Watch his arms go. This may be the first occasion I'm NOT against gun control!

This one has a bodybuilder yank his shirt up.

Here's a handsome Jason Powell at work. My favorite part is how you can see his pecs move at the slightest motion of his arm.

This guy moves like a cat. Still pictures don't do him justice.

Incidentally, it occurs to me that after a few months, people reading this post in archive form may not be able to see the videos, which is inevitable but tragic...I'm embed linking and that's how the internet works.

Tippy Teen #25

2008-10-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

Continuing the theme from the last post of upbeat Americana (or Mexicana, as it was last time) here's the cover of TIPPY TEEN from 1969:

I've always thought it interesting that on a lot of occasions featuring muscular guys in popular culture, they're often portrayed as vain, sexually disinterested, self-absorbed, and utterly unthreatening to other men.

Now this just took my breath away

2008-10-18T02:15:00.000-07:00

It's interesting how, with some fictional characters, a good illustration is always more buyable than any actor that has played the role. Tarzan comes right to mind, for instance.

One fictional character that definitely comes up when it comes to studly beefcake is the immensely tanned, masculine and blue-eyed Mexican hero Kaliman, whose covers often had a sensationalist, barely contained sexuality like the adventure, crime and pulp mags of the 1940s.

Kaliman is drawn as physically ideal, a composite of some of the best movie stars.

Now, if only some superheroes north of the border could look this yummy...!

Muscle Growth Comic

2008-10-12T22:24:00.000-07:00

My very first blog post all the way back in May was about my good friend, Spanish artist and beefcake artist Chocomus. He certainly has a way with fantastic looking muscle studs, from tight, pert bubble-butts to his thrusting pecs. What I like the most is not only how sensual his proportions are, but also how realistic they are. The trouble with a lot of growth comics is, they always go bigger and bigger, to the point it becomes a little grotesque. He, on the other hand, gets them just perfectly proportioned. Woof! Woof!

My favorite part of the article is Chocomus's guys going commando at the gym. You know, I bet that happens all the time.

It's always disappointed me Chocomus spends so much art time on goofy stuff like leg growth with Dragonball Z characters. It's a little like Michael Jordan leaving basketball for golf. It's good to see Choco back to top form. Kudos!

A few announcements...

2008-10-10T01:24:00.000-07:00

First Announcement: I apologize for not updating in a while - it's funny how, in graduate school, things can just appear from nowhere, and I hope I haven't lost any regular readers. I intend to post at least twice or three times a week now.

Also, my good friend TheMM just announced he has a blog, TheMM: the Serious Side. Visit it here. TheMM is a guy interested in muscle growth and muscle, but he's also bisexual, which means he can find me hot, yet we can gab about guys together. This is something like a middle aged woman finding a guy that's into chocolate, church and cats. It's called the JACKPOT, ladies. If anybody wants us, we'll be in a threesome with an adoring, doting Ulysses Jr. (This is called "The Rotissierie.")

Visit The Serious Side here.

The "Serious Side's" blog's title is an inside joke to TheMM's self-appointed role as a goofball on the Musclegrowth.org forums, where, apparently, TheMM is under the sad deleusion people think he's funny. ;)

Third Announcement: I officially declare October Ulysses Jr. Month!