Jake, Near My Front Door

Here is Jake, famous Chicago-based glbt blogger, NoFo, putting on his running shoes in the foyer of my house.

I love so many things about this photo. I love the angles. I love the color; this photo makes me happy that we painted the walls. I love the expression on Jake’s face. I love that Violent — I mean, Violet — is sitting under the bench. I love Jake’s sexy, muscular leg.

More photos from this shoot will be making their way to my photo site, soon.

Leaving Amazon

By now, it’s likely that you’ve heard (via Towleroad, 365gay.com, and other sources) that this weekend, Amazon.com decided to remove adult titles from its sales rankings (which means, they disappear from search results). However, it seems the only books that disappeared from Amazon were gay- and lesbian-themed — hundreds of works of GLBT literature were removed from Amazon’s rankings, including Brokeback Mountain, Running with Scissors, and works by Edmund White, James Baldwin, and Michelangelo Signorile; as well as non-fiction works like The Advocate College Guide for GLBT Students.

Meanwhile, nothing seems to have changed, at all, regarding straight erotica. You can still find all the Playboy and stright X-rated DVDs you want on Amazon, as well as books about dogfighting and other “adult” material.

Also note that if you type the word “homosexuality” into the search engine at Amazon, your number one result is a book called, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.

I contacted Amazon.com and asked them to delete my account and WishList and encouraged the fans of my photography page on Facebook to do the same. I received the following response from Amazon, which confirmed what bloggers are saying:

Thanks for contacting us. We recently discovered a glitch in our systems
and it’s being fixed.Thanks again for contacting us. We hope to see you again
soon.

Personally, I find their one-line explanation as to a “glitch” that just happens to affect ONLY gay- and lesbian-themed works completely unacceptable. And besides, what is Amazon doing deranking any product, at all? I would understand if they chose to derank their books about, say, dogfighting (since it is illegal in all 50 states and carries a felony charge in most), but deranking anything that’s legal to consume is censorship, plain and simple. I plan to spend today researching Powell’s Books and BarnesandNoble.com, and moving my Amazon WishList items into new accounts on both. Powell’s has been selling books longer than Amazon, anyway.

Please follow suit.

Dreaming

I woke up this morning having a dream that Jay and I had survived a nuclear holocaust, but that we weren’t human, anymore. We had turned into talking dogs — brown Akitas, to be precise. We had joined a pack of other talking dogs, some of which I am pretty sure that I knew, as well. But I can’t remember who they were.

There was a pack of talking coyotes, too. But we weren’t friends with them.

Two Things We Saw on Jay’s Birthday

First, we have this delicious “starter plate” from the place we went for dim sum at lunch. Left to right, you see a small salad with miso dressing, a scallion pancake, and marinated zucchini.

Second, was this boy in a suit, standing in the intersection of 82nd and Allisonville. The back of his sign asked, “Where’s my job?” and also displayed a cell number.

Jay Turns 40

Here are, probably, way more photos from Jay’s birthday party on Saturday than you care to see. But hey, you only turn 40 once. I can’t claim to have taken a single one of these shots — for all the photos I take of my own family, friends, and loved ones, you’d never know that I’m a photographer. This time, I had every intention of documenting the day, but then like always, I got sidetracked. So I can thank Jeff and Dave for being kind enough to download their photos onto my laptop; and Courtney, who’s photos I stole from Facebook.

Sadly, I am missing photos of a lot of people who were here. Maybe I can steal a few more from some friends.

Looking Up

This is the neighborhood; or specifically, the sky over the neighborhood as it was tonight when I walked the dog, just after twilight, as pink clouds made their way out of Orion. I live for walking into moments like this. I didn’t even mind that it feels like it’s about 25 degrees below normal.

Jay’s Birthday Weekend

We celebrated my wonderful partner’s 40th birthday by having several great friends spend the weekend with us (Jodi and Dave from New York, and Jeff and Mike from St. Louis). We had an open house on Saturday afternoon and if I counted right, 43 other people made their appearance to eat cake, drop off presents and otherwise show their love for Jay. (I almost cried — I mean, literally almost burst into tears — when Beau, another New Yorker who we don’t get to see often enough, walked in.) Then we and our house guests all took quick disco naps before heading to our favorite Vietnamese place (where the owner prepared us a fantastic vegetarian, family-style dinner), before going to a night club (where it was clearly demonstrated that despite my rapid approach towards what I call a pre-middle–aged slump, drag queens still love me, and where we were all amused by how many straight people have realized that gay clubs are where the best music and fun is had, as they took over the dance platforms, threw their hands around and bobbed up and down at the knees in an attempt to “dance”).

As for the rest of the weekend, we laughed a lot, ate WAY too much, and slept about 50% as much as normal. It was great, though, but here I am on Monday morning, feeling rather puny and like there is a giant lump in my stomach, missing my friends who don’t live close enough, and fighting off the blues that usually follow a fabulous time by just holding onto the good memories. It doesn’t help that there are snow showers outside and the temperatures are in the 30s. (This is April, right?)

I have said for months now that I want to change this, but I never take photographs of friends, or the events in my life. I probably have fewer photos of my own friends and family than any professional photographer you could find. So I don’t have any of my own images to document this weekend but I did convince two of our house guests to download their own images onto my laptop before they left, and I’ll post a few of those shots later. Just remember when I do that they’re not mine.

Speaking of drag queens, I have had several contact me over the last few years asking for photo sessions. They’ve never worked out, largely because maybe I didn’t act interested enough — it’s just been an area that I’ve never been especially interested in taking my portraiture — but maybe it’s time to change that. I think I could make some good art with some of these queens.

Another good thing to come of the weekend was that, thanks to searching out new and interesting places to take our visiting friends, Jay and I found two new restaurants to add to our regular rotation of places to eat; the Creation Cafe (how did I never hear about this place before? I loved it!) and Khorey’s Greek Restaurant. Both are divine.

Missing from This Picture

It appears that a month before it’s official release, most or all of X-Men: Origins has been leaked online. It seems that Hugh Jackman has a nude scene in the film.

It also appears that a certain part of Hugh Jackman’s anatomy has been digitally removed. (Click for a larger image, to get a better look.)

This bothers me on so many levels. But let’s set aside the fact that I wouldn’t turn down the chance to see Hugh Jackman’s huge jack — oops, forget that. I am primarily bothered as an artist who sees nothing wrong or shameful with the human form and who doesn’t understand the hypocrisy of a filmmaker who would include a scene with a nude man in a movie (which does, it would seem, fit the context of the film and serve a purpose to the plot) but then pretend that said man has no penis.

Why is the United States still this puritanic?

What Would You Do?

I love this series that ABC news has been doing, but I hadn’t seen this segment before. Interesting.