Mideast Piece

I tried participating, but they wouldn’t let me in without a blonde wig.

In July 2005, some folks in Berkley got together for a protest and some old fashioned exhibitionism. (This link is probably not work safe and you may go blind too.) The protest was called Breast Not Bombs and featured lots of bare chested women. Men got into the action too and dropped their pants for the cause.

These peace protesters weren’t the prettiest naked people I’ve seen, but I guess peace comes at a high price…

The other day I was complaining to a friend about my measurements. I don’t even know what mine are exactly but I am not happy about them. See, I have been searching craigslist M4M listings doing “research” for Mideast Piece. These guys all list their stats - height, weight, - and other, um, measurements. Anyway, I guess I was having a low self esteem day and was feeling down about my body. I am what you’d call a twink. I’ve got a “swimmers body” - but at 5′6″ (on a good day) combined with my boy-ish looks betray my very, very late twenties chronological age. It’s a good thing, I think.

I was sharing this with a friend of mine that I think is just HOT. In a super kind and gentle voice he said, “It’s not that your body is so small, it’s just that your head is so big.” He might not have said “so big” but rather “big” - but either way I felt like some kind of Cirque de Soleil freak puppet. I’ve searched the internet for head shrinking devices with no success at all. Damn, internets. So the only alternative is to make the other parts of my body bigger. Believe me, some parts need no enhancement however. I am sure that I’ll give this up in a few days because I have the discipline of a mutt puppy (although I don’t diddle on the floor anymore unless it’s that kind of party).

Speaking of big heads, Mideast Piece was recently featured in Haaretz. Haaretz is the New York Times of Israel. It doesn’t have the biggest readership, but it’s the most respected newspaper in Israel. You can read the article here. The print article had a super cute picture of me and my big head. I should have made them put my phone number in the paper too. Alas. I went to a party last night at the home of a correspondent for the BBC. Three people in this high brow crowd independently said that they saw my picture in the paper. I felt like a star and I even have the big head to prove it!

Last night television viewers in much of the non-US world were glued to their screens for the annual Eurovision Song Contest, held in Helsinki, Finland this year. Dubbed by some “the gayest pop show on Earth, the Eurovision launched the careers of “gay” artisits including ABBA, Celine Dion and Julio Iglesias.

Israeli transsexual singer Dana International (who won the competition in 1998) summed up the gay interest by saying, “It’s like pageantry, and gay men love pageantry and being outrageous.” In fact, for some Europeans, identifying yourself as a Eurovision fan is a tacit way of coming out of the closet, and the show is often most closely identified with housewives and gay men.

We at Mideast Piece also love the Eurovision because it is a venue where a country like Serbia, the big winner last night, can make international headlines for something positive and trump the French to boot. Goooooooooooo Serbs!!

The 2006 contest was the gayest to date by all accounts. Out and flamboyant Bulgarian singer Azis (pictured below) sang backup for that year’s Bulgarian entrant, Mariana Popova, clad in what appeared to be a floor-length skirt and high heels. Openly gay Swedish singer Andreas Lundstedt (formerly of Alcazar) formed part of the Swiss entry Six4One, and Moldovan entrant Arsenium was outed as a bisexual slave after an ad on a S/M site surfaced.

To learn more about the gayest pop show ever, click here.

Enjoy!

Try to soften up a little. If your skin is too tough, Cupid’s arrows will bounce right off. (A little moisturizer doesn’t hurt either.)

Our friend Simon wrote to tell us about “Swardspeak,” a secret language used by gays in his native country the Philippines:

Two of my favorite words are thundercats (”old people”) and tommy lee jones (”hungry”). Anyone up for some kangkang?

Here’s a little ditty by Yuri Hospodar, a gay poet whose first collection was called “To You in Your Closets.”

Bad Gay Poem

here we lay not a gym card between us
not a six-pack to be seen, but some empties nearby

a misfit fit jigsaws briefly into place