Gay Bloggies

We've heard the final 3's new year resolutions. And I guess it is time to say goodbye to another blogger.

NAH! That was a no elimination round! So Craig, Fausto and Frank are all safe!! You can all heave a sigh of relief now. BUT BUT BUT - the votes still count, and here's how we're going to do it. The votes for Challenge 10, along with the final 2 more rounds will all be totaled to determine the eventual winner, 2nd and 3rd places for this year's Gay Bloggies.

The great thing about elimination is you get rid of a fierce competitor. The no-so-great thing is they get to set this challenge for you! We asked BryanBoy to give us a challenge for this round and here's what he came up with:

Challenge 11: Karaoke Superstar!

Lets play karaoke and showcase your VOICE! Record a video of you singing, with your real voice, to an ENTIRE song (start to finish) of your choice. Anything else you want to add is up to you.

Give your ears a good cleaning, folks! Then rock those votes.

This new Challenge is courtesy of D.Mike - Gay Bloggies' sexy Fourth Runner-Up. He wants to know...

What is your new year's resolution for 2008?

Participating in the Gay Bloggies so far has been a great character-building exercise, but during all the self-reflection the contest has inspired, I have come to a troubling conclusion: I think I might be kind of superficial.

Some clues...

This fills me with desire and great sadness:

This excites me:

This makes me laugh:

I like this song so much that I sometimes sing it in public:

I most enjoy political discourse that involves attractive, closeted douchebags:

Did I mention this makes me laugh?

Anyway, hope is not lost. I have identified the problem, and I resolve that in 2008 I will work diligently to ensure that I grow into a better-informed person with more diverse interests.

"But what about !! omg blog !!?" you say. "Is it gonna get all serious and stuff?"

Well you don't need to worry about that. Even as I begin my journey of personal enlightenment, I will keep bringing you the dumbest, most trivial and hilarious things ever along with a generous share of celeb balls and butts. You can't change everything at once.

So for the past 5 years, my New Year's resolution has been to come out to my parents. Turns out 2007 was finally the year! That's great! The bad part? Now I have to come up with a new New Year's resolution! Ugh! What am I possibly supposed to give up? There's so many things I'm doing wrong! Nothing THAT wrong of course. This challenge would be a lot easier if I ate babies or something. Then I could just say that my New Year's resolution was to stop eating babies, and everyone would be like: "That's an excellent idea! Thumbs up!" But I don't, so I need some help.

That's where you come in. I'm gonna go down a list of things that could be my New Year's resolution and you need to tell me which one it should be. To help you, with each resolution, I'll include either a celebrity Role Model or Troll Model to use as inspiration for each of my resolutions.

Celebrity Role Model: Celebrity who I use as an example of what to be.
Celebrity Troll Model: Celebrity who I use as an example of what NOT to be.

Resolution: Give up Manhunt.net.
Discussion: Let's get one thing straight, I don't meet people off of Manhunt, I just like to look at the pretty pictures. And you know, maybe a little flirty flirt chatting, but that's harmless, right? Yeah, but then I start browsing on the train rides home on Mobile Manhunt (which requires a... dare I say it... paid subscription), and that's when I realize that I might have a problem. But keeping myself busy on Manhunt prevents me from falling asleep on the train and missing my stop! That's a good thing, right?
Major Benefit: Less time on Manhunt = More time reading books.
Celebrity Troll Model: Clay Aiken
Why him? Look at the mess he got himself into because of his online debauchery! But then again, if I had sex with someone on Manhunt, and they took it public, no one would care. He'd be all like: "I had sex with Craig from Puntabulous!" and everyone would be like: "Who?" and he'd say: "Craig from Puntabulous!" and everyone would be like: "Who?" It would go on and on for a while, and then people would lose interest. The only major news outlet that would report the story would be Fox News just to show how sexually deviant gay people are.

Resolution: Look up words I don't know in the dictionary when I come across them while I'm reading rather than skipping over them and never knowing what they mean.
Discussion: It's not like I'm reading Shakespeare or anything, it's usually Star Wars novels, so I should be able to understand all the words. Skipping over words is lazy and doesn't teach me anything.
Major Benefit: I'll seem smarter at dinner parties. You know, in case I ever get invited to dinner parties.
Celebrity Role Model: Jodie Foster.
Why her? I don't know for a fact that she looks up words she doesn't know, but she always seems pretty smart. I bet she does. And then maybe she can model herself after me and come out of the closet.
Almost: I almost chose the guy who played The Architect in Matrix Reloaded, but I bet he doesn't even know what half the words he said meant either.

Resolution: Go out more.
Discussion: I enjoy drinking. Why not go out to places that specialize in drinking? Bars! But in order to do so, I must convince my friends that a night together doesn't always have to include Wii or Guitar Hero. But they're all straight. Maybe I should just go out to a gay bar and make some gay friends for once? Ugh, I hate gay people though.
Major Benefit: I could meet Mr. Right!
Celebrity Troll Model: Julia Roberts
Why her? Seems like she hasn't left her house since Mona Lisa Smile. What? Was she too busy to be in Oceans 13? Loser. And now she's back with that stupid looking Tom Hanks movie, and we've long lost interest in her. If I don't leave the house more, that could happen to me! Kinda.

Resolution: Quit sucking (figuratively).
Discussion: This is just a preemptive measure to beat any commenters who feel they need to leave the comment: "Your New Year's resolution should be to quit sucking so much! Assface!"
Major Benefit: No one likes sucky people. Especially agitated commenters.
Celebrity Troll Model: Chloë Sevigny in Brown Bunny.
Why her? She proved that sucking (literally) publicly is never a good thing.

Resolution: Exercise more.
Discussion: It's not like I'd have to start lifting weights or anything. Running would do. Geez, could you imagine me lifting weights? Besides, I look terrible in sleeveless shirts, which I assume I'd have to start wearing if I were to start lifting weights.
Major Benefit: I'll be better prepared when I turn 30 and my prepubescent metabolism slows down and I need to start fighting the bulge.
Celebrity Role Model: Andy Roddick.
Why him? Because as his Men's Fitness cover proves, he is able to grow amazing muscles with the least amount of work on his part. That's a work out (and a tennis player) I can get behind!

So which one do you guys think I should make my New Year's resolution? I'm leaning towards the "Exercising More". Exercising would help me out with most of my other resolutions. If I start running it would 1) give me less time to spend on Manhunt, 2) force me to spend more time out of the house, 3) make me look hot for when I find Mr. Right, 4) make me suck slightly less.

But it wouldn't teach me any new words. Oh the dilemma!

The two-faced bitch I'm talking about is the Roman god Janus. The tradition of New Year's Resolutions, like most fabulous gay events, goes way back to ancient Roman times. The Romans believed a two-faced god, Janus, was a metaphor for looking back in time in order to gain insight into the future. You can imagine how sexy it would be to have a muscular Roman god with two mouths in the sack! I wonder how he looked naked. Woof! Yes, woof indeed!

To this day we celebrate in the beginning of January, a month named after the god Janus, by declaring how we're going to improve ourselves in the coming year.

But what's really going on here? Why do we do this? I think we react to the celebration of the oncoming year by trying to better understand who we are and how to love ourselves unconditionally. To me this doesn't necessarily mean accepting all your personal shortcomings 100%. It means understanding who you are at the moment, knowing where would you like to go and giving yourself the love to get there. It means challenging yourself to change.

As gay folks, I want to know how we can get a little more love into our hearts and maybe into other areas of the body so I opened up the voice-mail line (773) 681-3833 to the listeners to answer the question: "What is something specific that you're doing now to love yourself unconditionally?"

Listen to this podcast of my sweet husband Marc Felion and me, Fausto Fernós as we respond to your voice messages of unconditional love and get some insight from our fabulous friend Marsian De Lellis, a modern-day Truman Capote and fabulous artist. We regularly feature Marsian on our podcast Feast of Fools at the beginning of the New Year in order to get some insight of things to come.

Marsian's a pretty wacky guy who spends most of his time making tragic puppet shows about campy pop-culture icons. He was part of the very first Feast of Fools show ten years ago when it was an odd-ball variety show done here in Chicago. I love his sense of humor and think you might like it too. But I'm warning you, the guy earns his name Marsian.

Click here to download the audio mp3 file (and play on your iPod.)
To subscribe to the Feast of Fools podcast for free using iTunes, click here.

We're featuring some fabulous songs by the sexy indie rock musician Eric Himan. Isn't he just adorable? You can get his album "Everywhere All at Once" here: iTunes | Amazon | CD Baby | MySpace. So what are MY New Year's resolutions? Let's get REAL, most of them are probably the same as your resolutions. Maybe we should all just agree that every year we must all pledge an oath to get in shape, make more money, love more etc. It could be like the "Pledge of Allegiance" but only done on January first. Are you with me?

I think Dolly Parton and Amy Sedaris sum it up pretty well in the video for the song "Better Get To Livin.'"

But really, I do want to be closer to my family and friends, spend more time with them, gain a better control of my finances and get in really killer shape. Washboard abs here I come! Fuck Reichen! I'm so jealous of him. I too want to license my face and hot muscle ass to sell tacky titanium jewelry on the internet and call the product line "Podcast Naked."

In January I plan to expand our regular video podcast that features Marc and me discussing the odd news and social trends that cropped up in the week. I plan to improve our financial situation by securing more regular advertisers. I plan to clean up more, be on time, and make sure that I get to bed early at night.

I plan on doing fun things, like spending more time kissing and hugging my sweet husband Marc.

I plan on doing difficult things, like taking vitamins on a regular basis.

Like you, I plan on accomplishing some things because these are ways I want to take care of myself. I'm being realistic here, I know not everything is going to get done but I sure will try!

I'd love to hear your resolutions, ideas or comments. Let me feel the love.