do honour the guys that made our homo life possible through courageous exhibitionism, visionary entrepeneurship, coupled with a revolutionary fighting spirit back in the sixties and on throughout the eighties.


They only got a deadly desease as rerward, which almost eradicated their generation and those remaining are dismissed by the current ultra-conservative and prudish homo generation. They don't deserve that!

It got even worse when in the late eighties our culture was taken over by the new manager, the Thatcherites, guys without idealism, but only market strategies and dollar signs on their retina. They reasoned that homosexuality was a consumer choice, instead of a destiny. They thought it made sense to hide the dark sides of sexual desire. That portraying us as normal people would make us homos more pupular, would make it easier for the new genertation to come out. It did not work: We are less accepted now then in the seventies and it's popular again to put down extravagant homos, travas, our hedonistic sex saturated parties, as asking for trouble. What market strategy will help us now? Only a strong self conscious community, can and will turn the tide.

One of the great pioneers of the era, who also died tragically and lonely in the early nineties is Harry Bush. Similar to Vincent van Gogh, only after his death came the recognition as the greatest pencil talent of the past century and the sharpest observer of the absurdities within the emerging queer culture. A great book honouring him is now out. And next to the 10 galleries of his work on db/queerart Tom Jones presents some of his never before published and very dear illustrated correspondence as a masterclass Christmas present. We hope it will set some records straight.comment?

Having done the Songfestival did trigger a new wave of research into queer cult history. Here is link back to the trailer of Rob de Vries' film from the entry of september 29th, with a seventies performance of de Softies, when they just did uncomplicated battlesongs about the joys of the uncompromising queer lifestyle. Added are the lirics of the song in Dutch. Click image for english translation.

Tís heel geen kunst om flink te weezen
als nicht in deeze maatschappy
wat heb je immers nog te vreezen
met geld en vrouwen aan je zij

want nichten leven in de nacht
ze weten snel voor je te zwichten
door de politie opgebracht
zooo is het leeeven van de nichten! comment?

we may be going up to christmas, but I am not going to blunt your senses with gay joho and ribbons and canes around dicks. But, maybe you do have someone special that needs to be reminded he's special. I've said it earlier, I'm a fan of masculinity and natural male smells. And If things get too much I mask it with the bottle of Hugo Bosses supermacho Dark Blue so immaculately promoted by my hero Jonathan Rhys Meyers (see entry of 29-9-07).
Anyway
here are two smells I did not try, but theyre french, and the music is compelling:

for some more closeups and Jean Paul himself and Pavarotti to help Callas along we have the making of. And if you cannot take the girls, how about this boy:

maybe you need to watch the tattood sailor now, explaining it allcomment?

Nightcharm already has a section about hot guys in repulsive interiors. I think it could be much nicer, if more difficult, to to hot flesh in even more arousing interiors. A first trial here:


hope this will be the first of a long tradition.

Oh yeah, more COC songfestival on TV-Gelderland from 8 minits.comment?

We here in NL have our SantaClaus on December the 5th. He's not the overweight grandfather type, but a bisshop and he does not ride a sleigh but travels on a white horse, which can walk across roofs. He does not live on the north pole, but in Spain and comes across the sea each year around half november in a steamboat to prepare for package day, assisted by an army of black helpers who are all called Piet.
While this tradition is centuries old, in recent years we seem to get more and more criticised for this tradition, not much by African immigrants, but mostly by American expats. They seem to want to pull the tradition into the realm of the racial equality. This is something thouroughly rejected by most Dutch. The fact that the Piets are painted black has no serious connotation with African blacks. They are more supposed to be Moors, Spanish Arabs, that invaded the south of Spain in the middle ages, they were not that black either; if anything they were slightly darker then the pale whites of northern Europe. They also have never been enslaved by the Spanish; au contraire, they occupied the country!
anyway, I find the argument, shown below and copied from an american entry to an art- maillist, utterly ridiculous:
"despite his colourful image, Zwarte Piet, or Black Pete, is a very controversial character in the Netherlands. He is called Black Pete because of his dark colouring, and while some attribute his skin colour to the soot from the chimneys he slides down, others criticise the character for being an old-fashioned stereotype and racist symbol of slavery."
and:
The past few days have been this horrible emotional downward spiral for me. Horrible lethargic depression, and this extreme fear of going outside. Why? Because Tis' the Season when Blackface is acceptable! I'm so fucking tired of explaining to people that this image is NOT okay. Why do they pretend these images don't stick with kids. When they see a black person they point and go "Zwarte Piet!". What makes the Dutch think that these images aren't going to stick in a society's collective subconscious?"

We here have a political party for the animals. Wouldn't Americans think they are making a fool of themselves when they would protest that the deer have to pull much too heavily loaded sleighs? comment?

As announced on the 15th, it was my turn to cook for my biweekly sunday-dinner-club. The pears and meat worked like a treat, but they were not able to lift the general mood of depression. We are slowly but surely turning into an old men club, and with age come the defects:
One of the guys suffered a heart attack a month ago and is slowly getting up and running again, contemplating what he can do to stay out of the danger zone. I'm afraid that is not much: his diet is and has always been pretty healthy, he's always been pretty fanatic in excercise too; running more then 10 km weekly along the beaches. The second dinner guest had the father of his husband die, also of heart failure, two weeks ago. Which also makes that couple consider what they should do to maintain health. Luckily one of them already succeeded to stop smoking, but the guy whose father died is most likely at greater risk. Then the third dinner guest: He'd been overstressed because some students at the schools he runs had attempted to bomb one of the school buildings, which forced him to mobilize a huge police force and our army's bomb disposal squad. He did not show direct effects of the stress he'd suffered but said he did have to sit down a few times, because he felt his heart racing and was on the verge of hyperventilating. All in all, not a happy gathering.
And where does that leave me? I did not have anything to report, healthwise, or maybe I can refer to the poz page, but that does not affect my current health status in the slightest, and if it does it only seems to influence my mindset in a positive (hey?) way!
All I could report was the progress I'm making with the rehearsals of the songfestival song. Sadly I cannot give away an mp3 or youtube version of the somg yet, as that would play directly in the hands of the competition, but be ready for it around december the 8th, or come visit the weekly open rehearsals fridaynights at 23 h at DWH.

Which leaves me with the image above. I'm sure it makes most of my Dutch readers smile. We all grew up with the Ollie B. Bommel cartoon, which was on the backpages of our Donald Duck for many years, the author died a few years back after winning every possible litarary prize and a long retirement on the, also gloomy, Irish westcoast. I've just made the spash page of my own personal site for december, which is dedicated to more great drawings from Maarten Toonder and his slightly depressive main character.comment?

The discussion made an awful turn when a safesex moron repeated in a multitude of messages that bare fuckers must be the stupidest guys on the planet. He even went further then that: guys who got infected must have low self esteem, must be depressed, must have problems getting it up. Well I think such stupidity is not worth dwelling on; If anybody thinks my pages give off the slightest scent of negativity or depression (maybe just a touch when Dutch or Belgian politics are discussed), let him speak now or forever hold his tongue.


What I do find when selecting sex partners is that guys who bareback in general tend to be of the skinhead, punkers, skateboard type and quite casual about their sexuality. They have an above average knowledge and experience of sexual technique, aren't age morons, (figures: you can only get superior sexual education when you don't exclude the most experienced older generation) and mostly don't run off after cum exchange but enter into quite interesting thought exchange on life, culture, politics.


So guys who'd rather preach hell and damnation: keep spreading your words, by all means, but direct them to furtile grounds, widely available with the easy believers of the religious right.
comment?

Well, maybe not headlines, but it did get itself into the local paper with the remark that it surely must make people smile when they ring my bell.

And it makes me smile, that the guys of the paper have no idea why guys who come-a-ringin have such a wide grin on their faces . . .

The doors looked even funnier until this summer: the green door too had a mouth and yellow eyes that looked up to the other door. They sadly did not survive a recent paintjob.

Yeah, I know, I should cut those weeds, as I should do a multitude of other fall chores, that I can't seem to find time for, like clearing moss and leaves from the roof drains, if I don't want to end up with multi disaster overflooding on the top floor. comment?