Manhattan Offender

Breakfast burrito

• They'll need to open an extra bathroom at The New Yorker since Sascha Frere-Jones was just ripped an extra excrement exit.
• Sick of hearing about Brokeback Mountain?  Know any straight people?  The Brokeback Mountain DVD comes out next Tuesday and it's recommended that you buy one, find a straight friend, and beat them with it present it to them as a gift.
• Lady Bunny is busier than you.  (nsfw)
• But since Bunny is not safe for work, just go here, click the link and turn your speakers on full blast.  It's Friday and, hell, you've been buying their daughter's Thin Mints for how many years now?
• Here's an idea:  an actual recipe for a breakfast burrito! 

Live-blogging Oscar

7:40pm - A pot-luck for the Academy Awards?  Okay.  But, um, where are are guests?  Roro is what?  Sick?  And the others are on their way?  But I'm hungry.

7:45pm - There was just a video montage of romantic movements of nominated films in the past year.  It was okay to see with a PROSTITUTE and her trick.  It was okay to show a romantic scene with a woman and an APE.  But no romantic scene with two men.  It's going to be a long night.

8:02pm - First shot of the stage.  The font for "Oscar" looks like a soda logo.

8:04pm - Billy Crystal and Chris Rock?  George Clooney in bed with Jon Stewart?  It's gonna' be the gayest Oscars ever.

8:10pm - Charlize Theron may be the best looking woman of the night.

8:12pm - Brokeback Mountain joke count - 1 (a big one)

8:20pm - George Clooney just arrived on the stage and the music is already playing?  What is that about?

The Oscar ballots are in

Last night ballots for Academy Award nominees were due.  The votes will be counted and on Sunday, the winners will be announced.  As we did for the Grammy Awards, we'll be having some of our people over to view the festivities.  Last-time it was a tailgate party; this time a pot-luck.

And of course, for some reason, this will be live-blogged.  Honestly, it seems an attempt of my friends to keep me busy so that perhaps my mouth will occasionally not be wildly flying.  Or maybe they think that it will keep me sober.  The fools.

After the jump, the list of all nominees, with my retarded picks in bold.  (Really, they are retarded.  Only five or six of all the movies listed even found my eyes last year.  And where is Thumbsucker or Gay Sex in the Seventies or any of the other films I actually did see, anyway?)

Weekend ketchup

• Coming soon to a limewire near you.  The Colin Farrel - Tatum O'Neal sex tape.
• Everyone knows that Wonder Woman is named Diana, which is in no way related to Diane.
• Slowly but surely, Kylie is coming back.  (Via Pink Is The New Blog)
• If your Mexican food contains ketchup you are so white trash, or, um, German.
• Forget Ciara, is that Elizabeth Hurley?  J'adore.
• Big Brother never really caught on in the U.S., but Norway seems to have figured it out.
• And lastly, Spongeback Mountain:

Gay cowboys: movies yes, comics no

Given the success of Brokeback Mountain the archetype of the "cowboy" has received more attention in the media than it has for years. From large scale films and television to new books the genre has seen, if not a come-back, at least a big blip on the radar. Last Friday, Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada discussed an upcoming summer 'event' in which the comics line would be drawing from their stable classic western comics characters. What was notable in this announcement though, was the absence of one cowboy - a gay one.

In 2003, Marvel published The Rawhide Kid, a mini-series about a gay gunslinger. The books received wide attention in both the gay media and the main-stream press and received moderate critical recognition. The story essentially was that a large gang of outlaws had overrun a town and that our hero came to town to clean up, fairly typical western fare with the twist that the hero was gay. The story was fairly humorous and dependent much on double-entendre with no violent or sexual content. The book was labeled "MA", directing retailers that the book was not for children.

Explaining why Rawhide Kid would not be joining Two-Gun Kid, Kid Colt and the Black Rider for the summer western showcase, Quesada explained, "if we were to go with the gay Kid we would have had to label the books MAX and that's not what we wanted for this event". Essentially a comic featuring a gay character is required to be noted as "Adults Only".

Other comics, however, have featured gay characters that did not include the adult rating. Prominent among them is another book from Marvel, Northstar, a mini-series about a gay mutant published long before Rawhide Kid.   Published before the Bush administration took office and the christian right's emboldened offensive, the book carried nary a warning.

Not all publishers seem to see gay as an automatic ticket to "Adult Content".  A new lesbian character is rumored to be coming soon from DC comics, and it won't be a some minor character. The new homo-heroine is part of the large Bat-family of characters and her name should be an eyecatcher: Batwoman.

So the question is that if straight characters can be shown jumping around in tights and if Clark Kent and Lois Lane can be shown in bed together (yes they are married, but a mention of more minor characters, say Starfire and Nightwing, would label your writer as a total nerd), then why, oh why, can't a gay cowboy play shoot-em-up without his publisher proclaiming prurience?

Next ask him if he bought the new Paris Is Burning DVD.

Coming soon to a buddy booth near you, post-holiday edition

The holiday blockbuster season has ended and now the winter dreck hits the screen.  Again begins the progression from big screen to DVD to bargain bin to their final resting place:  the porn knock off. 

As was done for the summer, now is the time to preview the future films from Michael Lucas Seymore Butts:

• Good Night and Good F*ck  _{Good Night and Good Luck}
  
• In Her  _{In Her Shoes}
  
• Two for the Money-Shot  _{Two for the Money}
  
• Dominatrix  _Domino
  
• Lezzy Town  _{Elizabethtown}
  
• Do Me  _Doom
  
• Fist Piss Gang Bang  _{Kiss Kiss Bang Bang}
  
• Cockgirl  _Shopgirl
  
• The Leatherman  _{The Weatherman}
  
• Chickenhead Little  _{Chicken Little}
  
• Goodhead  _Jarhead
  
• Get Trade or Die Tryin'  _{Get Rich or Die Tryin}
  
• Hairy  _{Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire}
  
• Rentboy  _Rent
  
• Queeriana  _Syriana
  
• Yours, Mine:  Four Hours  _{Yours, Mine and Ours}
  
• No Reflux  _{Aeon Flux}
  
• Trans America  _Transamerica
  
• Bareback Mountin'  _{Brokeback Mountain}
  
• The Chronic Hos of Narnia  _{The Chronicles of Narnia}
  
• Memoirs of a Gay  _{Memoirs of a Geisha}
  
• King Dong  _{King Kong}
  
• Fun with Dick  _{Fun with Dick and Jane}
  
• Flippin Ovah  _Casanova
  
• Woof Crack  _{Wolf Creek}
  
• Snatch Point  _{Match Point}
  
• The Matted Whore  _{The Matador}

Perfunctory Brokeback Mountain post

After seeing article after article about the movie for the past several months, it was with little surprise that I paid my ten and change to see Brokeback Mountain last night.  As it was a known quantity that Ang Lee never disappoints (Hulk being an aberration), an effort was made to not read much of the write-ups, as surprise is highly valued. 

In the appreciation of this value, don't look for details of the movie here, as it is better to let the experience wrap around you.  The strength of the storytelling here is that you are shown much and told little, more effectively bringing you into the story.  In short, the recommendation is to not wait for the DVD and to see this now.

As the credits began to roll, the biggest surprise for me was the blooper reel my companions were out of their seats and ready to go just as Ang Lee's name appeared on the screen.  Being a total wreck in public is never one of my goals, but here I was, coming out onto Third Avenue, sniffing and wiping my eyes.