Gay Bloggies

Hope everyone had a fab weekend! We did over here at QCHQ. Woof! It's getting so cold!!! Thankfully my fur coat is growing longer-er by the day.

Those Important Moments were poignant, aren't they? Thanks for sharing, you guys.

But it's that dreaded time again, and Toby must dish out the results. At the end of Challenge 8: Most Important Moment here are our bottom 3 (in no particular order):

D.Michael, CitizenDangerX
Fausto Fernos, Feast of Fools
Craig, Puntabulous

The blogger with the lowest votes this round and therefore eliminated from the competition is:

D.Michael, CitizenDangerX

We are sad to see Michael go. =( We are getting down to the wire kiddies, and anyone who gets booted out at this stage will be painful as the mighty could begin to fall! Michael we will be in touch with your 5th place prize info soon! But before we get too maudlin, it's a great achievement to be in our Top 5. So hearty CONGRATULATIONS to Mike!

The year is coming to a close. Looking back at the year, share with us your most important moment of 2007.

2007 held a number of important moments for me. Most of them were happy, some were not. I lead a fairly full life, though certainly the most robust moments weren't always the best and certainly not the most important. It is hard to take a stock of the past 500,000+ moments and pick just one.

This year I traveled. A lot! Many of those trips were important to me. Building connections, seeing new places, experiencing different parts of this great planet we live on.

I got a promotion this year. I am somewhat defined by my work. Any of my friends can tell you that. I work way too much, and I take it very seriously.

I had significant changes in my family. My grandmother died. This was a pivotal moment for me. And it is hard to think of it as not being the most important moment, as she raised me and was certainly my closest confidant and most loyal friend, and even fan. She is one of the only people in my life who I felt really loved me unconditionally.

Early in 2007 I had my 30th birthday. Much carousing. Great friends around. All the usual birthday pomp. But birthdays are what they are. A celebration of making it this far. A toast it making it twice as long.

I suppose what i would put down as the most important moment was something that happened that was much bigger than any of these singular areas, though is colored by all of them. At some point in the past year, some singular moment, something clicked and for the first time in 30 years I truly felt like a man.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't felt all girly or anything. I just haven't always loved or accepted what it means to be a man, versus being a guy, or a dude, or a boy.

I see many things from such a different place now. Where I used to find only black and white I can now see shades of gray. My capacity for understanding, my desire to be understood, my willingness to absorb as much as I can have all increased.

My capacity for love, to love, to be loved and to love myself have increased too, and that last part is SO IMPORTANT because my body continues to change. I am hairier each day. I feel some of the aches and pains that just 5 years ago I would have mocked some of my older friends for. I sleep a lot. I need a good, strong shot of espresso to get me going in the morning. I can't party all night, or at least not as often. I am having to work out harder than before to fight back the tummy fat. And speaking of shade of gray- have you seen my sideburns!?

Oh, boy! That photo is a hot mess! But it is all good! I love it! It is real and real is great! Now... am I just going to give-up and get frumpy? FUCK NO! 30 is the new 20, and apparently the 20-somethings have gotten the memo! I have lots of young guys after me! Heck, I have gone on a few dates with a 19-year old! WTF? Nothing like dippin' your stick into the fountain of youth. OMG I JUST TYPED THAT!

And while it's not so sexy to realize that you have to retire body-shots of tequila in favor of flu shots, I realize that growing up, becoming a man was not only inevitable, it was necessary.

So there it is. My most important moment of 2007. The moment I let go of the trappings of the bullshit vanity of youth and decided to love the man I am becoming.

Gray hairs and all.

p.s. These photos are part of my exploration of what it means to love the body I own. Lemme know what you think.

I'm not sure how long Alexyss Tylor's Vagina Power public access show has been on the air, but the moment I watched her for the first time on YouTube (April 17, 2007), I knew I would never hear so much wisdom from one person ever again. It was, in fact, the second most important moment of 2007.

One of my favorite quotes:

"We're hooked on the Penis Power and this man won't even buy you some shrimp from Long John Silver and that plate's what, $2.99? But he can give you a mouth full of sperm and a rectum full of sperm. We have to see what our issue is, because a man like that does not respect a woman."

The importance of the Vagina Power YouTube video for me was only surpassed by that of the dance remix, which I discovered a couple weeks later (May 1, 2007):

I listened to the remix on repeat until I entered a meditative trance. And when I woke, there was absolute clarity and the message of 2007 was running through my brain: "dick'll make you slap somebody."

Talk about an important moment! I will carry that lesson in my heart even when 2007 is a distant memory.

Of course I don't have to tell all you avid readers of !! omg blog !! and Queerclick anything about the power of the penis. But I will tell you that I'll share my entire porny prize with you all if you give me the thumbs up to keep me in the game! Non-stop contests till the porn is gone, but only if I win. xo Frank

Settle down kids, I'm going to tell you a story. It's not for the faint of heart, so I'll understand if you need leave halfway through. (But if you have to leave, at least go down to the bottom of this post and vote thumbs up for me first.) I also recommend having a box of tissues handy. No, it's not that kind of story. Sheesh. Perverts.

SETTING: Work

TIME: Random Morning in 2007

PLACE: Elevator

STORY: So I got on the elevator at the Lobby level. There was already a coworker on there with one of his clients, who came up from the Lower Lobby. Me and this coworker never really got along. People like me. People like him. But for whatever reason, we never meshed. We would often bust each others balls for no other reason than because we had nothing else to say to each other.

This time, we were making fun of each other's hometowns. He was making fun of Long Island and I was making fun of Connecticut. Lame, I know, but this is how idiotic our working relationship was. We stopped at the 14th floor where he and his client were going to get off while I was going to continue up to the 18th floor.

As the doors closed, I heard him say to his client: "And in Connecticut we don't have any fags."

Yup. He said it. And as the doors were closing no less. Loud enough so I could hear, but not to my face, and not in a way that would allow me to defend myself. I knew he was going to a meeting, so calling him wouldn't work, so when I got to my desk I e-mailed him and asked him if he said what I thought he said. I never got a response and from that point on he started looking away when we passed each other in the hall.

MORAL:

He's a DICK for saying it.

He's a PUSSY for not owning up to it.

He's a DICK and a PUSSY so he should just FUCK HIMSELF.

So why is this my most important moment of 2007? Because it taught me some very important lessons:

1. There really are gay people in Connecticut. Really! I googled it just to make sure!

2. No matter how nice (and adorkable) I am, people are still bigots.

3. I'm fairly awesome and if people don't like me, it's because of reasons outside my control. (You know, because of that whole Nature vs. Nurture thing.)

PREDICTION FOR 2008: My coworker will be found tapping his foot in a shady public bathroom.

The year of 2007 was a big blender of emotions, podcasts and dazzling glitter spinning around in my head. We have made a lot of important achievements in the podcasting world. The Feast of Fools: Gay Fun Show had a lot of fun and excitement this year. We won the People's Choice Podcast Award for "Best GLBT" podcast for a second year in a row, but were also nominated for "Podcast of the Year." This was the first time ever a gay-themed podcast has been nominated for the prestigious award. We were so excited going to Los Angeles for the awards ceremony-- everyone looked fabulous!

This year we also launched our video podcast "Show Me Now" which just got nominated for a Queer Verve "Best Video Blog" award. I also managed to land an interview with THE supermodel to the world, RuPaul. It was like a dream come true when she personalized her famous mantra for us by shouting "You Feast of Fools Bitches Better Work!"

And work we do: I put out a new talk show five days a week because I see it makes a difference in my audience's lives. The Internet is wonderful way to bring people together. When I came out of the closet at 18 I only knew a small handful of gay people. But now our audience alone shows the wide range and variety of gay life that is out there and accessible to everyone.

Our daily talk show provides entertainment, comfort and insight about the gay experience to many different kids of people. We share with our audience the joy, wonder and laughter of a journey of discovery.

We got a letter from one of mature lesbian listeners, Barbara who lives out in California. She wrote to say that she sees the positive impact our show has on young people. She donated to offset our production costs saying, "you may not be a charity, but you do good work."

But the most intense moment of 2007 for me personally was my father passing away. In the middle of March my elderly father was moved into intensive care for problems with diabetes and was obviously not in good shape. Knowing this would be my only chance to say goodbye, I took a couple of days off work and jumped on the next plane down to Puerto Rico.

I will never forget looking into my father's sad eyes, both of us crying, knowing it would be the last time I would ever see him alive. I'm so thankful that I was able to tell him that I loved him and that I owe so much of who I am to him. I thanked him for being my dad. My dad was never very close with any of his sons, but I told him that I forgave him for any distance that there was between us.

I returned to Chicago and several days later I got a call from my sister that my father was about to die. My partner Marc and I tried to fly right back to Puerto Rico but a volcano explosion on the neighboring island of Montserrat delayed our flight. Of all the things in the world, who would have thought that a cloud of volcanic ash would have kept us from flying that night? The next morning we took off only to discover that my father had already passed away by the time we got there. I was OK though, I had said goodbye.

Years ago my father picked out for his service one of the strangest funeral parlors in Puerto Rico, the Celestium. Maybe he discovered it in a local architectural journal because of its unusual structural design: a monolithic domes, arranged in a triangle. A monolithic dome is a structure that is built much like a large-scale piñata, where fiberglass rods are glued onto a large inflated bubble and upon curing are reinforced by spray-on concrete. Not only is it cheap to build, it also withstands hurricanes and looks a like a fabulous concrete spaceship.

My father, the architect and UFO fanatic, would have been enthralled!

This unusually designed crematorium was was home to an equally strange staff: a group of Puerto Rican new-age lesbians who could have even been off-worlders themselves.

My father surely would have loved the "Sleeping Beauty" like plexiglas case in which he was displayed. His glass coffin was guarded by a butch female attendant who would pull back a lace shroud allowing you to peer inside. A gutsy folk singer sang proudly with her guitar songs of lost love and forgiveness.

When my sister Talia and I were in our teens, one day after school my dad looked at us in the eye and said with a very serious tone: "My children, when I die I will go on to live on other planets in outer space and enroll in the great University of the Cosmos in order to learn about many wonderful things." As you can imagine, my sister and I were stunned. But that day, it totally made sense. My father would have enjoyed seeing us mourn his death in the spaceship Celestium slash funeral parlor, contemplating whether he indeed made it to outer space and what wonderful things he may be learning.

I remember my father by doing my talk show. Whether here on Earth or in Outer Space: to love, learn, entertain, inform and raise consciousness is the most important thing of all.

First things first, a big thank you for Derek and Romaine for the airtime they gave my third world ass yesterday night. You guys are hilarious! You'll be the first one to know when I buy my first vibrator or when one of my favourite designers throw some swag my way.

Now.

A lot of things happened to me this year. Like most people, I also had my share of personal highs and lows. On top of the usual family problems, one of my best friends moved back to Australia. An ex-boyfriend passed away. Blah blah blah, yaddi yaddi yadda. In the fun spirit of this site, I won't bore you with sordid tales of my life so let's focus with my personal highs instead.

1. Imelda Marcos
Leaving political issues aside, it's not every day you get to have dinner with one of the world's most high-profile women and when I got invited to join Mrs. M on a little rendezvous, I said yes! Contrary to what everyone thinks, no, she does NOT eat little children for lunch. She's really nice, sweet and truly fabulous.

2. New York Post
One of NYC's popular rags, the New York Post named me one of the hottest internet celebs. I know I'm the last one who made the list -- and unless I'm mistaken, I'm probably the only non-American on there as well. SOMEONE FROM THE USA SHOULD JUST FUCKING ADOPT ME SO I CAN MOVE THERE!

3. Marc Jacobs
I know, I know, I should fucking rub it in, right? It truly is a dream come true, especially for most people into fashion. Let's face it, for a lowly nobody in the third world, it's not every day you could pick the phone up at 4 in the morning to speak to one of the most amazing and talented designers of our time.

So what is my most important moment of 2007?

Well, it has nothing to do with buying the latest IT-bag or meeting famous, fabulous people or being mentioned in the press or having one-on-one phone time with one of the world's iconic designers.

2007 is the year I discovered myself.

Not in a masturbatory way, of course. Duh. I discovered that bit when I was 10.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that in the past few years, I've spent an awful lot of time discovering other people, seeking their approval, attention and validation and trying to please them. I wasted so much time worrying about what other people think of me, correcting what they think of me, etc.

I'm always the first one to admit that I'm one of the most insecure bitches on the face of the planet. Every day is a battle with my insecurities. Am I fat? Am I ugly? Am I this or that? What does X think of me? What would X, Y, Z think if I did this? What would A, B, or C say if I do that? People come in and out of my life the way people go through a revolving door. I make new "friends" as fast as I lose them. It's pathetic, I know, but that's just the way it is. But you know what? Screw other people! The ones who are worth it are the ones who make the effort to know you better and stand by you through good times and bad times. People can be vindictive and vicious (heck, I'm probably vicious, too) but at the end of the day, fuck them all, you know?

If there is one MAYJAH thing I learned this year it's to be at peace with myself -- and try my hardest to keep it that way. It's no easy feat, of course, but I realized that everything in this life is temporary. Most of the good things are 'icing on the cake' as they say.

I think it's better to create your OWN little world and anyone you meet becomes part of it instead of you becoming part of theirs. Don't you think?

Time to back off the vodka red bulls. I hope I made sense with what I said. Hah!

I love you all!