Cleveland Thomas: Everything is bigger in Texas

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

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

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...

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

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!

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

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? :-) )