Holy sacrilege! These pics and GIFs of Jude Law strutting around in a skimpy white Speedo are promotional efforts for his upcoming appearance as the Pope. I didn’t see the first series, aside from this widely-circulated nude scene, and I’ll probably skip out on this one too unless there is another glimpse of Jude Law naked. Until that glorious time, scroll down for an encore of an earlier nude Jude Law scene.
A Monday in September sometimes requires a lighter touch, and an easy-on-the-eyes afternoon post. Hence this fluffy bit of eye candy/guy candy, which gets off to a study start with a shirtless blast of Orlando Bloom. He’s not as completely naked as he was in this post and this one, but this shirtless pose is nothing to scoff at.
For a more hirsute bit of manliness, check out Ben Cohen in various states of shirtlessness and underwear-clad glory.
A great American hero in more than one way, Chris Evans had made quite a splash here time and time and time and time and time again. More than worth a double take of Chris Evans naked, or Chris Evans nude.
Jack Laugher is often seen in the company of Tom Daley, but he makes a nice solo study as well.
Another great pair is Maluma and Ricky Martin.
Finally, an arty black and white shot of Nicholas Hoult to end things on a classy note. (See naked smut here.)
So many nines in the date today, let’s hope they bring us luck. In the meantime, as some fall-feeling nights have snapped us into school-time awareness, we shall look back at the first full week of September, already over, as the rest of the month charges ahead at full speed…
It began in the finest of forms – Maluma and Ricky Martin to be precise.
Morning visitors and afternoon storms.
The category is Tom Daley in skimpy attire.
I ate a hot dog with peanut butter, bacon, cheese, and scallions.
Twelve years ago I found FaceBook and vice versa.
The moody magnificence of Madonna’s ‘Music’ album.
Do I have ‘Google’ written on my ass?
Hunks of the Day included Mark Cirillo, Max Parker, Ryan Russell, Daniel Franzese, James Heatly and Theo James.
Lazy people who ask questions that Google can answer.
I am one of you.
And we are obnoxious as fuck.
We need to stop.
Album anniversaries bring back all sorts of memories, particularly Madonna album anniversaries. This time of year it’s all about the magnificent moodiness of the ‘Music’ album. Casual listeners may only know and remember the banging title track, but Madonna herself proclaimed the album much too moody to hear in the middle of the day. That’s my kind of music. It also brings back all sorts of happy memories, mostly because of ‘Music’ – which came out just as Andy and I were starting to date. I still remember standing near the bar at Mainestreet as a remix of ‘Music’ came on – to this day it’s a thrill when a Madonna song comes on (and it seems to be more and more rare).
Second single ‘Don’t Tell Me’ was an instant Madonna mantra – a song of defiance, a song of love – and sonically cemented the ‘Music’ album’s legacy of electro-folk fusion. It also kept things in the family with a writing credit from Madonna’s own brother-in-law Joe Henry. Keep it together, indeed. While ‘What It Feels Like For a Girl’ was the third single – with its Guy Ritchie-directed video of violence – I preferred the rush of ‘Impressive Instant’ or the hushed drama of ‘Paradise (Not For Me)’ and even the William Orbit throwback ‘Amazing.’ (Orbit also worked on ‘Runaway Lover.’)
Mirwais, who would return for the ‘American Life’ and ‘Madame X’ albums, spun his first straw into gold with ‘Music’ – his tell-tale sound is wailing on the sirens for ‘I Deserve It’ and the vocal distortions of ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ – and it was the world’s first introduction to the chemistry between M & M.
All in all, the ‘Music’ album is a mini-masterpiece, and that was no easy feat given that it was the follow-up to the majestic ‘Ray of Light’. It doesn’t quite reach the lofty heights of that one, but it takes its place proudly in the Madonna canon, probably in the mid to mid-high range – on a par with ‘Bedtime Stories’ perhaps. It came out at the very start of fall, when the days were still bright and the air crisp, when a new beginning was possible all over again, just as one summer season was ending.
How could I be mad at a mosquito at this tender time of the year?
From what I can tell, September 25, 2007 marks the date that I joined FaceBook. Back then our posts were written in the third person, a tactic I loved and still miss. It’s just so much easier to deal with myself in the third person. Crazy people do that, some say. [Alan shrugs.] As for the rest of FaceBook, I’ve taken part and engaged in it mostly on my own terms. Even when they censor my ass – or my dick as is more often the case – I still do exactly what I want within the scope of its admittedly-limited parameters. (I let all of it hang out on this website, so you’ve come directly to the source.)
Twelve years of anything is a substantial chunk of time, and in social media time it feels even longer. There was a time when FaceBook provided a destination and diversion unto itself, particularly in the early years, and a nifty way to cross-promote online projects and such. (To this day, its main function, for my purposes, is to alert people to a new blog post here.) For those without their own personal website, it also could act as a sort of mini-website, where photos and notes and communications could eventually come to coalesce into a monument to oneself. A repository of items that, taken together, comprised a body of work that stood up as some Frankensteinian effigy. Everybody could be a star. Yet in the very egalitarian act of allowing each of us a platform, it worked to negate itself. Everyone was still no one, we just all had bigger megaphones to shout about ourselves. Still, substance and consistency would win out in the end, and quality users who maintained a modicum of originality and interesting content have sustained themselves.
At this point, my use of FaceBook is somewhat limited. I always enjoy seeing what my real-life friends are doing or planning or thinking. In an age where phone calls long ago died out and face-to-face meetings are a quaint thing of the past, FaceBook is where most of us go to keep up with friends and family who have found their way to the periphery of our lives. (And a very welcome reminder of when everyone’s birthday is – the most life-saving feature of FaceBook.) With other social media diversions such as Twitter and Instagram taking up my time – both of which require far less concentration and follow-up – I’m no longer quite as engaged on FaceBook as I once was. That sort of ennui actually bleeds into all of online life of late, which is a much healthier stance, and makes for a much happier countenance. It’s also a sign of summer, when outdoor enchantments take precedence over a computer screen. Fall will shift that a bit, so perhaps it’s time for a FaceBook Renaissance. And perhaps it’s not…
How do they gauge the winds of a hurricane? Are there planes in it? I’m serious. A bit stupid in this topic, perhaps, but serious.
If it’s good enough for Food & Wine it should be good enough for me.
Such was the challenge put forth by this article on the hot dog and peanut butter craze that ran wild a couple of years ago. I just happened upon a post that showed a sad hot dog smothered in peanut butter and someone proclaiming it was time for their yearly treat. Aside from the poor manner in which it was photographed, I was intrigued.
When it comes to food, I’ve always had an open mind. Maybe it traces back to a visit to the Philippines wherein I ate goat bile soup, snake blood, and balut. (And didn’t hate any of them – well, ok, the goat bile soup was a bit tough to stomach, but I held it all down.) Since then, the occasional oddball recipe is usually met with curiosity and, at most, a dramatically arched eyebrow, before I dig in.
The peanut butter and hot dog idea was actually not that surprising to me. Peanut butter has been making appearances on hamburgers in all sorts of restaurants. (At least those that feature a bar scene.) I also grew up on peanut butter and bacon on an English muffin for breakfast – which is still something so simple and miraculous that I urge everyone to try it, even if you can’t stomach the whole PB and hot dog scene. And if you can’t, you are not alone. No one I work with thought it sounded good. But let’s take a moment to think about this rationally and with some reason. I know a bunch of people who love hot dogs. I know a bunch of those people also love peanut butter. And I’m almost positive that 99% of those people love bacon. But that does not necessarily mean that those items will go together, because I also know people who love chocolate ice cream and blue cheese dressing and I don’t think they would work together. However, at the core of this is a question of compatibility.
When you have a hot dog, what do you like on it? Mustard? If so, is it the savory aspect of those two items that works well together? Some people like sweet relish on their dog. In that case, it’s about the combination of sweet and savory then? Which is not far from where peanut butter is coming from. And bacon, well, almost everything goes with bacon, even ice cream. (Think of the miracle that happens when some of your pancake syrup finds its way to the bacon on your breakfast plate.) So what is it that’s so polarizing? Open the mind. Open the heart. Open the mouth.
Food & Wine added bacon and shallots to their version, and this sounded good. For the first endeavor I grilled the hot dog and buttered roll, slathered it with creamy peanut butter, and sprinkled it with bacon and chopped shallots. On one hot dog I added some shredded cheese (a cheddar combo). I went in expecting to experience an unstimulated oral orgasm and was profoundly disappointed. It was all right, but nothing I would call amazing. It tasted decent, but nothing I would attempt more than once. Once again, the build-up did not live up to the result.
I didn’t understand why everyone loved this – and why I didn’t. The individual ingredients were favorites (with the possible exception of the hot dog) and I thought for sure I would enjoy them together. It was the sharpness of the shallots that pushed it into a territory that I didn’t love. In the same way I’m not find of raw onion, these were overpowering the rest of it for me. Purely personal preference, but that’s what food mostly is. I waited a few days and worked up the appetite to try it again, this time with scallions in place of the shallots, and the difference was dynamic. Suddenly, I could see a glimpse of the glory, I could taste a hint of the awesomeness, and I could experience what all the fuss was about. Is it a game-changing dish for me? Not really. Would I try it again when a hankering for a hot dog comes up once every six months or so? Perhaps. Did I convince my husband to try a bite? Not a chance.
I wish we could see the FaceBook peeps who temporarily stopped seeing our posts for 30 days. I feel like they would be my people, my flock. I’ve always loved the ones who want nothing to do with me.
Most people don’t pay much attention to the litter on the street, but that’s where I find a lot of inspiration. At least some fodder for imaginative yarns and make-believe stories. We’ve all seen the errant hair extension or sock, and the other day I found this echo of a shoe in downtown Albany. What is the story behind it? Where did it come from and how did it happen to be in such a state of degradation? What its abandonment intentional or accidental? Ghost items bring up all sorts of deep questions – that’s part of why they fascinate me so much.
As for this shoe skeleton, the merest hint of its structure whispering of pedestrian tales and travails, I wonder at its origin. I’d like to think it was the result of excessive decadence and debauchery, the proof of an evening of glamorous impiety. Yet I fear (desire?) a more sordid and sad tale of hard-won dilapidation. Some sort of fight, some sort of drama – something to make it worthwhile. Something that would have made the life of a shoe matter. Something to mark its expiration with a memory.
So little lasts… least of all a forgotten shoe, no matter how many tales it has to tell.
Shake out your freshly-cut bagels before putting them in the toaster for fewer burnt crumbs later. #FuckingVirgos
This is why Tom Daley has his own category here.
See also Tom Daley Speedo.
See also Tom Daley in a wet Speedo.
See also Tom Daley bulge.
See also Tom Daley shirtless.
See also Tom Daley body.
See also Tom Daley burgundy bulge.
See also Tom Daley basket.
See also Tom Daley hot body.
See also Tom Daley underwear.
See also Tom Daley ass.
See also Tom Daley armpits.
See also Tom Daley full-frontal.
See also Tom Daley crotch.
See also Tom Daley Calvin Klein.
See also Tom Daley skivvies.
At the other end of this day, a storm moves in. Bands of dark gray move toward the backyard and the wind picks up. Undersides of leaves on distant trees flutter and reveal their lighter color. The goldfinches of the still morning have disappeared. Other birds are restless, and a group of crows appears briefly, high in the sky, swirling in the clouds before shrieking and escaping.
I take refuge beneath the canopy. It will be the last year for this one – it’s tattered and torn and had a good run. Not unlike the end of summer. We’re all a little bruised and battered. Work hard, play hard, die hard, and hopefully we are better for it. Summer can be exhausting – the heat, the fun, the activities – and it sometimes seems to go against its own rules of relaxation. There is effort in constantly trying to be lazy.
And so I welcome the storm. The rain begins and the wind picks up. Suddenly the air is cooler. Though the summer wasn’t a lengthy scorching one, it is a slight relief. The garden needs its rest. To ask for it to keep up a continual show would be to ask for too much. And really, I’d appreciate it far less if it did this the year-round.
