Fergie @ Blender

Fergalicious Fergie is Blender Magazine's Woman Of The Year and she is looking quite Photoshop-licious too! I do like Fergie and I think she's got it going on and is quite good at what she does. At the same time all this air-brushing that celebrities go through when they appear in the print media is getting out of control. It must be tough for all these acclaimed beauties to live up to these high expectations when not even they look like themselves in "real life"! They end up coming out looking like beings from a difference planet with their pore-less flawless even-tanned skins, toned bodies and glossy hair. Don't get me wrong, if I had to be featured on a magazine cover (I wish) I'd want to look my best ever, even if I had to cheat with some digital image editing.

Via Egostatic

What Is This C*nt Doing Here???

I can't believe this! Help, help! Ann Coulter invaded Little-Pumpkins!!

That vile-mouthed Queen of Hate popped up as an ad on my blog via Google Ads and I am SOOOO pissed right now!! The "best-selling author/lawyer/TV political commentator" is a Hater with a capital H and she has no right to post an ad here of all places. She hates gays, Jews, Democrats, immigrants and everyone that isn't a "Pro-life Christian right-wing Bush-loving white Republican. Whenever she has a new book coming out she will spew her venom to spike sales like she did not too long ago by saying that "Jews needed to be perfected by turning Christian" and famous for calling John Edwards "a fag". She also believes that by taking away women's right to vote no Democrat would ever be elected president of the USA again. Bright, huh?

To hell with you Ann Coulter and get out of my blog!

Tom Ford's Naked Photo @ OUT Magazine

Tom Ford is the coverboy of new issue of OUT Magazine and he exposes more than his opinions in it's pages. In a boxing-themed photo shoot by bad-boy photographer Terry Richardson, the ex-Gucci front man appears au naturel in a shower scene next to two young men, with his glorious backside in full view. Tom is slapping one of the guy's equally naked ass with a towel. How cheeky!

Tom also has a few of his two-cents to share:

On being gay

"I have to say that I don't think gay is the most attractive word; If I were art-directing the creation of a word that would describe homosexuals, I think I would have tried to find another one. Gay makes us sound silly and frivolous, which is probably where it came from originally - it was first used in a Cole Porter song in the '30s - and I think it was probably a bit derogatory, and so it's not a word I necessarily like, but it's what I am, whatever."

On women:

"I love women, I just don't fall in love with them, but I'm attracted to them, I find their bodies beautiful, and I can relate to them as the persued, because of course as a gay man you understand what it's like to be taken - to be an object to your partner - as well as what it's like to be the aggressor."

Click here to view Mr. Ford's white booty - Warning- NSFW

Via OUT

Revisiting Boston

Being in Boston always feels like home, specially since I lived in Bean Town for almost as many years as Rihanna is alive. It was nice to be back and be able to view it through the eyes of an outsider again, rediscovering sites & sights that - because of their familiarity - you end up taking for granted once you see it on a daily basis. This same thing happened to me in Rio and it made me appreciate and endear myself even more to the places that were "always there".

Boston is an easy city to move about. You can pretty much walk to most of it's famous spots of interest or simply hop on the T, USA's oldest subway system, and get to wherever you need to be in a matter of a few stops. Many of America's most significant historical moments were set in Boston, and still are to this day. Gay marriage, anyone?

Though through the eyes of most New Yorker's Boston is just too "sleepy" and boring of a college town, the city's lifestyle and lay-out allows to to have a small-town feeling with all the amenities of a major city. The restaurants here are amazing, great cultural life, international grade high-end shopping and excellent quality of living. Oh well, nightlife does suck here, I have to agree, but for how long do you really want to club-hop? You can just jump on an Amtrack and be in NYC in under 4 hours, get your club fix, and return to a where home is. The weather is another set back, specially if the idea of shovelling snow is not your cup of tea. Rents here are almost as high as NYC but at least our trash cans are not year-round displayed in front of our buildings. Apples & oranges, right?

I was glad to be back for a few days but other shores await me...

Kid's Beauty Pageant Images - Cute or Creepy?

These creepy-cute images from a kid's beauty pageant can make you go from ohhh to yuk in a matter of seconds. They look like mini-adults, precociously "sexualized", fit to a tee to a pervert's wet dream. Little prosti-tot Barbies. They do look happy to be there but we all know that their overweight stage moms are the ones behind it all. Haven't parents learned anything after Jon Bennet? These days, even in Brazil you can hear about kid's pageants, specially in the South, as I saw recently on a variety TV show. The kids were always crushed when they were not picked, though most weren't even sure why they had to win. When you're 5 the concept of a beauty pageant can be a bit blurry. What most little girls wanted was just to get a sash because that's what made their mom's happy.

Via Curious & Funny Photos

Ms Olympia 2007

The Ms Olympia contest was held in Las Vegas this past weekend crowning Iris Kyle as the 2007 winner. Say what you may say, the 15 contestants must be commended on their dedication and perseverance to achieve such unimaginable physics. I can't even commit to a 5-time-per-week gym schedule or low-carb regimen, so anyone that devotes that much effort and time to any physical activity gets my kudos. But they still look freaky...

Via Iron Man Magazine

Miscellaneous Images - Volume One

I've been amassing way too many interesting images lately, as I always have my little Sonny camera on me when I am out & about. I have to say that I've been "rediscovering" Rio de Janeiro - and Brazilian culture in general - after so many years living abroad. Maybe I see the city with a tourist's perspective now or simply just am photo obsessed, not sure. These pictures here are a few (of many) that I keep around looking for the right post to use it in. As the "right post" may not show up anytime soon I decided to group them in "miscellaneous" and publish them anyway. All of these were shot here in Rio, mainly downtown and in Ipanema, and they illustrate a bit of my current experience here.

The Saggy Jeans Debate

Some American counties are outlawing those oversized saggy jeans, often worn bellow the buttocks with the underwear on display.

A style popularized in the early 1990s by hip-hop artists, are becoming a criminal offense in a growing number of communities, specially in the racially dived American South. Starting in Louisiana, an intensifying push by lawmakers has decided that pants worn low enough to expose underwear poses a threat to the public, and they have enacted indecency ordinances to stop it. Behind the indecency laws may be the real issue - the hip-hop style itself, which critics say is worn as a badge of delinquency, with its distinctive walk conveying thuggish swagger and a disrespect for authority. Also at work are the larger issue of freedom of expression and the questions raised when fashion moves from being merely objectionable to illegal.
Sagging began in American prisons, where oversized uniforms were issued without belts to prevent suicide and the use of belts as weapons. The style spread by way of rappers and music videos, from the ghetto to the suburbs and around the world.

According to Andrew Bolton, the curator at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, fashions tend to be decried when they "challenge the conservative morality of a society." Like past fashion bans, the prohibitions on sagging are seen by some as racially motivated because the wearers are young, predominantly African-American men.

Personally, I deeply dislike the whole look but I am strongly opposed to any type of censorship at the same time. When I was younger dressing-up was an insintric part of who I was. This "personal statement" was what I stood for and what I didn't want to be associated with, at least in the mind of an young man. The idea of a court ordinance prohibiting my fashion choices seems too dictatorial and old-hat. If politicians can decide what you can or cannot wear, where will it stop?

I see the image below as "threatening to society" as saggy jeans. Where are the ordinances against that?

Via International Herald Tribune

Road Trip (Part 1)

This past October I took a torturous road trip from Boston to Miami, along with my pal Booboo. This treacherous drive that was supposed to take 18 hours turned out to be a never ending driving nightmare. I believe I drove over 26 hours to get there, getting stuck in every single major traffic jam on the East coast. After the first 12 hours or so I had to get some rest and ended up at the not-so-lovely and restful Reste Motel somewhere in Virginia. Keep it in mind that I needed pet-friendly accommodations because of the pooch and I couldn't be so choosy. The place was a dump and I felt like a character in one of those American road movies that you drive up to your room door. I did peek through the shades several times through the night whenever I got spooked by a weird noise, waiting for the serial killer to show up or the hit man with the silencer on his gun. I recalled that betrayal movie "Grifters" with Annette Bening, Anjelica Huston and John Cusack and wasn't really the greatest image to have in mind at that particular place. "Pulp Fiction" also had some bloody shooting death at a road side motel just like the Reste. I double locked the door and propped a chair against it, just in case. Flipping through the TV channels I almost choked coming across hardcore porn on my screen. I am not a prude, believe me, but that was not what I expected to see so readily available. The motel attendant either just assumed I wanted to watch porn & masturbate or couldn't care less about it to have it blocked. Keep it in mind that the following morning I saw kids and families leaving the motel on their way back to the long highways. I hope their porn channels were not live too. All pictures taken at the Reste Motel, October 10 2006.

Sex on The Streets

One can't help to notice, when walking around anywhere around Rio, the sheer amount of sexploitation that is rubbed on your face at every moment of the day. This cool character above is advertising a sex shop on a very busy intersection of downtown earlier today. Besides selling the usual dildos and vibrators, they also home deliver! By the way the guy is on stilts so you can't really miss him.




Most newsstands also display an enormous amount of nudie magazines with quite scandalous covers for American standards, mostly straight stuff. In Brazil you can buy hardcore porn and DVDs in plain sight next to your daily papers and M&Ms. They also prop these card board displays against their stands advertising the new issues of the fancier girlie publications, like Playboy. The brunette is a bimbo on a TV parody show, you know those that just stand there in bikinis, all smiles and no lines. The blond is a new semi-celebrity famous for being "the hick" on Brazilian Big Brother, but because of her big booty she supposedly earned US$350,000 to drop her panties for Playboy.