Because it just doesn’t feel like a gym unless there’s neon. I know I haven’t seen gains like I used to since my dumpy third World Gym tried to go upscale and removed their neon and the mural of the squatting gorilla.

I spotted this at Scheels, the worlds largest sporting goods store - the one with the Ferris wheel and President mannequins inside. Their website lists their departments: Hunting, Fishing, Camping, Boating,  Biking, Fitness, Skiing, Skating, and Fudge.

Two firefighters were treated for frostbite after fighting the fire in -30 wind chill. Why they didn’t just let it burn, I have no idea - there’s nothing around it. It was closed at the time and the only injuries came from exposure to the weather not the fire. The back area still smells like tacos.

My uncle considers the snow outside his front door:

I had this Tyvek paper jacket in high school and wore it to every geography and history test. Teachers would hide the globes, roll up the maps, but no one ever noticed my jacket. Where’s North Korea? Let me scratch my elbow. What’s the capital of Paraguay? I’ll check my belly. I always did well on those tests and I’m sure the kid behind me did too. Found it at that shop on Melrose that used to be Aardvarks.

But a warning to cheaters:  I don’t know if it was the jacket, the teachers edition of the history text book I stole that had all the answers to every quiz, or the test I snatched off the teachers desk - xeroxed - and put back, but until recently I’ve had recurring dreams/nightmares that some “error” was discovered that voided my whole adult life and I had to quit work and go back to finish high school. (Friends have recounted similar dreams - what does it mean?)

Finally, when I was 32, the teacher in this one dream (who was my same age) looked up from her desk and noticed me taking some test with the rest of her class, and said, “What are you doing here? You graduated. You’re done.” And I got up all embarrassed, and left. I’ve never had the dreams since.

This year I’m teaming up with two other centaurs and we’ll see if our friends mingle or melee. Stop by if you’re local - Try the famous flaming “Toasted Marshmallow” - it’s a bonfire, dessert, and drink all in one! BAR INFO: http://www.myspace.com/bigfootlodge

(And I’m not too old to deny I love getting presents: AMAZON WISH LIST.)

This happened months ago but I’ve been to busy to bitch blog about it ’til now.

So I’m at this big publishing convention, Book Expo America, here in LA when I see Tashen’s Big Penis Book, a title that excites me very much, but I can’t buy it ’cause it’s just an industry show.

So I look on the Taschen website and see there’ll be a little launch party for the title in a few weeks and of course I have to go. I figure I’ll bring a few copies of my book to give to the editor Dian Hansen and Chad Hunt who’ll both be there signing.

The party is at 7 on a Thursday night in West Hollywood which means driving through Hollywood during rush hour to get to a part of town with no parking. What I’m saying is: this effort better be worth it.

I find the small shop where the event is happening and there’s a couple people in line. I park and hike back to the shop and the line is gone and I’m the only one there.

I ask the door twink if Dian is here signing but he doesn’t know who she is or if she’s here. (Hint: this party is for her book.) He asks my name and I tell him and he says I’m not on the list.

“Yeah it wouldn’t be, I didn’t RSVP.”

“I can’t let you in if you’re not on the list.”

“But the Taschen site didn’t say anything about a list or even RSVPing. It didn’t say it was a private party.” I looked down at the black envelope I was holding with my books in it. “So…that’s it?”

“Sorry.”

“Ah oooookaaaaay. I…guess…I’ll…just…go…then?” And I turned and hiked back to my car in shame shame shame. When I got home (late that night after going to a bar, bitching about said event, going home with this nice artist guy I’m now good friends with, blah blah blah) I re-checked the Taschen website to verify that there was, in fact, no mention of the Big Penis Book party being a private event. It was even promoted on some local blogs as a fun thing to do that night. I emailed Taschen about the issue and never received a response, so that was a nice, second “fuck you.”

Now, I had planned on blogging favorably about this penis book party, it had potential for great wackiness as there are very few parties celebrating volumes about large genitalia. But no. Instead I will blog about something I found a week later when I bought a Taschen book about Jujol, a designer who worked with Gaudi.

A single blurb on the back of the book printed at almost headline point size read: “TASCHEN has design all figured out. They know what’s good, has value, lasts, engages, indulges, uplifts, and is new…”

And who is credited with this glowing bit of verse? In microscopic type: “-Reader’s comment, amazon.com” Seriously? Crediting your (own) praise to an anonymous, unverifiable amazon shopper? Oh how I’ve been expecting more from you Taschen.

It’s $70 from Span of Sunset - I saw it there today. Two more colorways will happen.

This top image was part of a concept for the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, done by designer Rolly Crump around 1965. It always reminded me of an Erte, and that’s who did the second image - not sure on the date but probably 1920’s or 30’s.

And this is by Aurel Schmidt in 2006. Her drawings are obsessively detailed and pretty amazing.

And I just found this 1990 Armani dress in the book Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy.

Those Todd Oldham body pillows Target used to sell are great if you’re like me and sleep alone but like wrapping your arms something big, soft, and pretty. I bought two and keep the extra in the closet for when my current one wears out.

[If u didn’t know: Obscene Interiors is my collection of real online male personal ad photos. I gray out the men to allow an undistracted view of the setting, so we may better study how men really decorate.

Obscene Interiors: Hardcore Amateur Decor is also a fun little gift book you can order direct from me - and I’ll sign it, or get it from Amazon.com or any cool bookstore.]

I was just in the tub reading the latest Interview - the art issue - when I found this bon bon - photographer Taryn Simon asked Disney if she may photograph the utilidors underneath the Magic Kingdom park in Florida. The response she got read in part, “Especially during these violent times, I personally believe that the magical spell cast on guests who visit our theme parks is particularly important to protect, and helps to provide them with an important fantasy they can escape to.”

I’m not surprised she was denied but Disney has published a photo or two of the tunnels before, I guess during less “violent times”.

When I was in Jr. high back in Fargo, I was all excited when I heard the high school we’d be going to the following year had a pool. I thought all pools had water slides and fake rock waterfalls. I WAS WRONG. Worse, having a pool, a non-fun kind used for doing laps and stuff, meant swimming would be a required part of gym class and that got a big OHELLNO from me and the others in my loser/fag/nerd group.

We knew while we were swimming someone would either steal our clothes, throw our clothes out in the snow, or throw out clothes in the pool. I’d already begun planning an emergency back-up change of clothes to store in my regular locker should this or other garment-related attacks happen. But then I heard we could take gym as a summer school class, which sounded way more fun anyway, so I did, and as luck would have it my summer school gym teacher wasn’t a certified lifeguard so we were the one class that didn’t have to do swimming.

But anyway, so we’re halfway through 10th grade, in the middle of winter, when all the other kids start the swimming part of gym class, and sure enough one of the spazzy class-clown kids gets his clothes thrown in the pool. He manages to save his red sweater that only got half-soaked. BUT there was so much chlorine in that pool it bleached the bottom half of his sweater and one sleeve white. He sat there in class next to me as the color literally dripped from the sweater.

Can I tell you about the bitch fit I would have thrown if that happened to my oversized purple Claiborne sweater! Actually I wouldn’t have thrown a fit. It would have quietly pushed me deeper into my suicidal circle of despair orbiting around a festering pressure cooker of hatred for all humanity just waiting for a reason to explode. But anyway, this shirt reminded me of that because it looks exactly the way that kid’s sweater did.

Oh and the next year we moved to Minneapolis where their much more progressive attitude towards education didn’t require gym in the curriculum so I never had to endure the high school locker room or dodgeball game again.

Sidenote: That same winter as the sweater dunking incident, a gay friend and I were using a pool (for fun swimming - not laps) at a local college on their family night because his parents worked there. One night we got there late and were changing in the usually empty locker-room. This wasn’t scary to me because I thought these guys were older and not like immature high school students. That night, a couple college guys were in there changing too and the one says to his friend, “Dude, why do you always come so late?”

“To avoid the fags”

“You ever seen any?”

“Yeah. One time in Minneapolis.”

“Really? What’d you do. You beat ‘em up.”

“No - they were, fuckin bigger than me.”

If you’re stumped for wall decoration maps are a safe stand by. They give a smart vibe without being turn-off smart like displaying the periodic table. That is, if used correctly, as in framed. When a map is crookedly pinned to the wall it says, “I’m lost. And I need to be reminded where I am. Every day.”

If u didn’t know: Obscene Interiors is my collection of real online male personal ad photos. I gray out the men to allow an undistracted view of the setting so we may better study the candid reality of modern home decor.

Obscene Interiors: Hardcore Amateur Decor is also a fun little gift book you can order direct from me - and I’ll sign it, or get it from Amazon.com or any cool bookstore.