Diggin her heels

This week was the fabled Tuesday before Halloween. You DC'ers (should) know what that means:

The High Heel (Drag) Race!!!
(pic: JR's, the bar that hosts the event)

One of the pure-fun things of the year. What could be more entertaining than a host of professional and amateur drag queens (DQs) and the once-a-year dabblers putting on their femme finest and charging down three blocks of 17th St. NW amid thousands of cheering fans, str8 & gay alike.

This year's winner was none other than (hold on to your wimple) Sister Chlamydia Parker.

The combo of rain & darkness made it tough to get too many really fine photos. I didn't really get any usable ones of the race itself at all. Thank God for digicams; I can't imagine how much film woulda been wasted if I'd been shooting with my 35mm "real" cam. But here's a look - through my eyes - at the spectrum of the spectacle that is the High Heel Race.



Points for originality: "Hurricane Katrina" and "Hurricane Ophelia"!

"Princess Di" and her entourage. "Condie Rice" was there too, but for whatever reason I couldn't get a good pic of her.

The good, the bad, and the "fuckin' a, take that shit off and don't ever try that again!"

That's me, having wandered into a new episode of "Absolutely Fabulous" with "Edina" and "Patsy" (but sorry, I don't know which is which - never really got into that phenomenon.)

Ummm... a metaphor for the whole event, I guess! (Not that 17th Street could be any other way.)


After the race I finally caught up with my friend Frankie ("Victoria") after (s)he left me with his/her bag before the race started. (S)he has a thing for black when dressing up for these things; must be that "Cher" thing.

Here's legendary DC DQ Lena Lett with some waitress that showed up to work drunk about 4 years ago, got sent home but never got there, and is still wandering around aimlessly (who also made a move on me in the bathroom at the bar where we ran into this bunch of peeps, the fabbo Halo on P St.).

Despite it being a rainy evening, all in all it was one of the better & more memorable HHR outings of my DC life. Kudos to all the fine (and even the not-as-fine) men who had the guts and the inner glam to make this the spectacle it was. You go, girls!!!

Ricky's back.

I mean, he did sort of "leave" for a while, right? (Not that long, for some of us who bought "Jaleo" and still listen to it now and then.)

Anyway, the muy caliente Rickster is back with a new mostly-English album.

I haven't decided whether to buy it yet or not. I really prefer my Enrique en español, if you know what I mean.

Still -- the album cover and the associated first video, I Don't Care -- that poor boy's trying so hard to be butch, but he can't erase the pretty and now he just looks like rough trade. Bring back the Ricky of "She Bangs", bien?

Oh, Robbie!

Robbie Williams is too cool.

Find out why.

Musings & stuff

Just a mental dump for anyone who cares...

Madonna (I say "Maddie", others say "Madge", she say "Esther") stormed the clubs in NYC last weekend! (Even as her old pal Junior Vasquez was slumming in DC at VelvetNation) Oh, that would be almost as good as winning the lottery!

No matter how much they beg, never follow your straight friends to a gay club, especially if you like any of them even a little bit "that way". It's a recipe for disaster. Especially if these are also people you work with.

Found a blog today that sounds like I ought to be reading it, if not appearing in it (as IF!). Check out Club Whirled. It's a "reality show" set in my neighborhood, starring people (some thirtysomething white urban fags) I've probably seen on the street. Major drama,minor reality. Maybe, though, reading it will hit closer to home than Real World: Philadelphia did...

iPod Nano defective, lawsuit alleges Early adopters, take THAT!!!

Still loving my TiVo. I'm gonna capture the new Madonna documentary this Friday off of VH1 and then try to burn it to DVD. (First-ever TiVo "best quality" recording for me.) And there just happen to be some fun horror-movie-related documentaries on this week, *2* about The Exorcist! (one of the few movies that still summons dread in me even though I've seen it innumerable times)

Had a short, but really enjoyable, weekend with Mom & Dad last weekend. Hung out with each of them separately, and each time I do this I manage to cherish them more. Yes, they're nuts, but they are so much of what makes me "me". I start detecting that more & more each time I go home. Dad's doing better emotionally and physically, chvala Bohu. Nobody deserves physical suffering (well...) but he's near the bottom of the list. I so hope his strength & everything recovers enough so that he's back on the golf course and maybe even the dance floor (with Mom) by spring.

Have you seen the adorable guy from the BestBuy bus commercial?
Check out the commercial here.





And your ridiculous tabloid-produced laugh of the day:

Oh, darling. Just give in to your inner fag. Kathy Griffin (a fag-hag extraordinaire) doesn't call you "Gayken" for nuthin'.

From the blogosphere: fun, freaky blogs

Awful Plastic Surgery
the good, bad, and ugly of celebrity plastic surgery

Wirthy.com/MyDrunkThoughts.com
"I get drunk and then I type shit."
(I especially dig the graphics.)

The Restroom
A journal of design oddities in public restrooms

Richko collides with the TiVo revolution

Yesterday I welcomed a new tenant to my home. A little box by the name of TiVo. I got a super-sweet deal on it from Amazon.com: $40 off the regular price AND a $150 rebate! Final price: $110, plus a $13/month service subscription. (Keep in mind that in 2 1/2 years in this apartment, I had yet to hook up my old VCR, so if I wasn't here to watch a show, I was SOL.)Ain't technology grand? I just polished off the first of many programs captured by my new tenant. That would be Will & Grace, recorded at High Quality, scheduled by Season Pass, category: Sitcom, "Keep until I delete."

Woo-Hoo!!!!

Here's what else I've taped already.

• Joey
• Night Stalker
• ER
• Drawn Together
• South Park

and on top of that, I'll be getting all of:

• The Daily Show
• Nip/Tuck
• Lost
• Invasion (best. show. ever.)
• The Simpsons

Not The O.C. right now, though. Can't record 2 shows at once, and it conflicts with Joey & Will & Grace. (Why am I recording Joey, for fuck's sake? Cause of W&G - and it would make no sense to record only the 1st 1/2 of The O.C. So I'll just hafta watch The O.C. live, I guess.)

Which brings me to a startling realization. I watch a helluvalot of TV, and this device is probably gonna make it worse. I mean, can you imagine my squeals of delight when I saw the whole slew of horror movies that are on basic cable between now and Halloweenie? There's no way I'll have room to record all this stuff I want. Yikes!

This device seems to provoke some really strong emotions in people. There's the fans, of course, who have gone to great lengths to make this wonder-box even cooler:

and there's some other peeps who've been turned off by it for whatever reason (I hear the setup can be a bitch, even though it was pretty much of a breeze for me); still -- yikes!


But for now, after Day 1,

I {heart} TiVo!!!

Rainbow Parents

Parents of LGBT Catholics speak out
Eric Johnston, PlanetOut Network
(October 14, 2005)

Calling Vatican policies regarding LGBT people "spiritually abusive," dozens of Catholic parents of LGBT children issued a statement Wednesday on the steps of a cathedral in St. Paul, Minn., rejecting church teaching on homosexuality.

"We are here to do what we believe Jesus would have us do. Jesus challenged the authorities to change the rules that oppressed the marginalized of his day," said Myrna Ohmann. "We are here to challenge the church and society to rethink and adjust their attitudes."

The protestors are members of a group called Catholic Rainbow Parents. They reject church teaching that declares homosexuality is "objectively disordered" and "evil."

"The effects of such language are profoundly dehumanizing and spiritually abusive of these persons and those who love them," said Mary Lynn Murphy, who has a gay son. "Additionally, language of this kind fuels the fires of bigotry and places LGBT persons in physical and emotional danger."

The group's "declaration of wisdom and love" included the following passage: "Throughout its history, the church has been known to change its position on various issues in the light of increased understanding of specific realities. The time is long overdue for members of the church hierarchy to be open to the realities of LGBT people's lives and relationships."

Members of the group delivered a copy of the statement to their local cathedral and also sent copies to the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Debbie Weill is the executive director of Dignity USA, a group dedicated to respect and justice for LGBT people in the Catholic Church. "We're certainly encouraged by the work this group [Rainbow Parents] is doing," she told the PlanetOut Network. "Their protest is right on target. The church's understanding of sexual orientation is very juvenile and certainly doesn't reflect God's teaching and God's love."

Catholic Rainbow Parents formed this past July. Its members hope to distribute their declaration throughout the country, to "share with other Catholics the wisdom and love gained as a result of their experience of being parents of LGBT persons."

The protest comes in the midst of a thorough review of U.S. seminaries that aims to identify gay students and alumni and a soon-to-be-released Vatican document that will limit gay seminarians, allowing only those who have been chaste for three years.

Eddie Invasion!

OK boys (and gals with good taste), hold on to your hmmmmmmmmm...

My fave new show of the 2005-2006 season is definitely Invasion. (It comes on after Lost, which I'm still lovin', but Lost is kind of dragging so far this season.) The storyline is compelling (and a bit too timely, what with a hurricane hitting Homestead, Florida to set the stage) -- a bit of the X-Files mixed in with a smidge of Lost (more the former than the latter). And the star is, well, a bright star in my book.

May I introduce you to Eddie Cibrian, aka Russell Varon:


Now, I know what you're thinking: "Dude, Eddie Cibrian was like, so 3 years ago!" "Um, wasn't he on that Third Watch show or something?" Right yunz are. How is it that I was unaware of the magic of Eddie until now?


Oh, man... what a HUNK!!! Hunk-a-rama! Honey hunkitude!!!


He wasn't the reason I started watching this show, but once I did and he caught me eye and my (ahem!!), I just couldn't look away. In episode #2, he went to get in an outdoor shower, and when he ripped off his shirt, I almost fainted!!!

(Man, do I need a boyfriend... or something. Anything. Alcohol? Close enough.)

God bless you, Eddie, sweetheart, you've really given me something to look forward to. Every Wednesday night at 10! (or whenever; my new TiVo's on its way!)

Priest banned from naked calendar

Oh, puhleeeeeze! Don't act so shocked, people. And I'm sure the bishop is one of the owners of the limited edition :-P
-----------
Priest banned from naked calendar
(BBC, 7 January 2001 - yeah, old news, but it WAS Russian Christimas...)

A calendar featuring a naked priest has been shelved at the request of the Bishop of Galway, who branded the stunt "inappropriate".

Father Olan Rynn, 27, was pictured wearing only his clerical collar and covering his modesty with a bible for the calendar, to raise money for cancer and cerebral palsy research.
Although Fr Rynn spoke to his bishop before posing, Dr James McLoughlin said he was "surprised and dismayed" when he later discovered the curate would disrobe for the occasion.

Photo withdrawn

The bishop said in a statement: "I did not appreciate the type of calendar which was envisaged and, thinking it to be a straightforward fund-raising project, I gave Fr Rynn permission to participate in this venture.

"On reading a report in a local newspaper, I was surprised and dismayed to discover what the actual content of the calendar was going to be.

"As it is clearly inappropriate for a priest to appear in such a calendar, I immediately approached the promoters of the project to discuss the matter with them.

"They have graciously agreed to withdraw the photograph of Fr Rynn from the calendar."

Apology to churchgoers

On Sunday an apology from the curate, currently away on holiday, was being read at all masses in his Salthill parish.

The calendar also features former Galway hurlers, singers and other celebrities in similarly semi-nude poses.

Fr Rynn, said to be one of the most attractive of the models who took part, posed sitting in a leather chair with his legs crossed.

The bishop stressed that Fr Rynn was "a valued priest of the diocese and is in good standing with me".

In the statement, Fr Rynn apologised for any offence caused and conceded he had made a misjudgment in posing for the calendar, called Bare Shakers 2001.

"I wish to apologise to those who were offended," he said.

"On reflection, I made an error of judgment, albeit with the best of intentions - to help raise funds for research in the area of child cancer and cerebral palsy.

"I apologise for any hurt caused. I understand that my photo will not now appear in the calendar."

'A bit of craic'

Sunday afternoon drinkers at O'Leary's bar, opposite the Sacred Heart church where Fr Rynn works, were aware of the bishop's view of the matter. But few appeared to share his annoyance.

A barwoman said: "I can't imagine too many people being that bothered. It is just a bit of craic.
"I do not think anyone should get their backs up over it, especially as it was done for charity. Maybe some of the more devout types might be a bit offended."