Queer Beacon

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I'll be back on the West Coast tomorrow and posts will resume!

Meanwhile, Happy New Year!

Double Hotness in Brazil - Twins Flavio and Gustavo

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Xmas in Brazil

Brazil is the biggest catholic country in the world, so, you can imagine how big Christmas is here. 

There are a few interesting facts that make our Christmas a bit different from the Christmas celebrated in Northern countries.  First of all, it is scorching hot all over Brazil.  In Cuiaba, the city where I come from, it is 90F (or 32C) right now.

Food-wise, we usually eat turkey but for some time now other birds have been popular for the special occasion.  My favorite is "Chester" a bird created by Brazilian food behemoth Perdigao in 1982 - I think the bird is far juicier and tastier than turkey.  My mom seems to be favoring Sadia's Fiesta recently, and the woman can cook, let me tell you. 

We also eat ham (here it is called "Tender") and farofa.  Farofa is ground yucca stirred on a frying pan with butter and whatever else people throw in there.  Loves it!

Oh, and there's panettone, a bread-like cake with either chocolate or dried fruits.  Bauducco is the most famous brand for panettone in Brazil, and their chocolate version is my favorite.

The Christmas dinner usually takes place on the night of the 24th, with most eating dinner around midnight.  Kids open their gifts on the morning of the 25th.

One of my favorite things about Xmas in Brazil is the tradition of secret Santa (called "amigo secreto" or secret friend).  Among close friends, it is common for Brazilians to give a secret enemy "gift" prior to giving a secret friend gift, meaning that at the time one is to give someone a secret friend gift, two gifts will actually be given, the first gift given is something meant to embarrass the secret friend (hence the name, secret enemy - "inimigo secreto") and the second is an actual gift (like a shirt, book etc.)  This year, my secret friend/enemy gave me the cute pink heels you can see on the picture on the left, the heels were actually quite decent and comfortable, the shoe is from Capodarte, a nice Brazilian brand, and I had to parade with it for quite a while (most of the night as a matter of fact). 

I gave my secret enemy, who is kinda hairy, an Anal Waxing Gift Card - I bet he loved it.  Most are required to try on their enemy gifts on sight...one of my good friends was required to try on his silk nightie -- he is seen on the quite inviting picture below (he also borrowed my pink heels)...

I am very glad to be able to spend Christmas with my family, but I miss my husband, who is spending Christmas with his family in New York. 

I love you baby and I will see you very very soon.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all my readers!

Abercrombie is Gay Gay Gay!

When I posted about HRC's Gay Buying Guide the other day, I mentioned that Abercrombie was not so gay. 

Well, I just got an e-mail from HRC indicating that Abercrombie is very much gay after all.  The company just scored a 100% on HRC's gay chart (the previous score was 73%, I think).  The e-mail didn't mention what exactly caused the change in score, and I don't really care, I'll take it. 

Here's the relevant part from the e-mail (click for a larger image):

Just in time for the holidays...anyway, for now, I'm just happy we've got another company with a perfect score for gay rights; I will even allow myself to post more pictures of gorgeous men from A&F's site:

QB on The Advocate

I don't know how I forgot to mention this one.  The QB was on The Advocate online a few weeks ago. 

Thank you readers for mentioning me to the magazine! 

You can check out the complete list with 26 blogs after the jump.

Hard Candy (2006) - No Gay Content

Hard Candy sounded pretty interesting, but it's just mediocre.  In the movie, Patrick Wilson plays a pedophile who is in for a big surprise from one of his victims.  The victim is played by Ellen Page.

I didn't like the acting in the movie, and Wilson can be good, he rocked as a trophy husband in Little Children.  I'm blaming director David Slade. 

We had no gay content, except for a brief mention of Jodie Foster by Ellen Page, but I won't count it as lesbian content just yet, I'll wait for JoFo to come out of the closet.

I was glad the pedophile did not prey on boys (Ellen Page did look pretty androgynous though). 

After all the Foley crap, we need all the distance we can get from pedophilia.  Homosexuality has nothing to do with that perversion and people need to see that.

The trailer is better than the actual movie, but be warned that it reveals too much:

Blood Diamond (2006) - No Gay Content

In Blood Diamond Leonardo DiCaprio plays an African diamond smuggler who is interested in this big rock Djimon Hounsou has been hiding.  Jennifer Connelly plays an American journalist trying to uncover the connection between this big European diamond empire and African conflict diamonds.

The movie had its good moments, but it was sadly mediocre.  I think Manohla nailed it in the head: "If films were judged solely by their good intentions, this one would be best in show." 

A subject of this magnitude deserved a better movie, but still, I think the message was delivered.  We see the unbelievable suffering people in Africa are going through because of the interest that people of rich nations have on diamonds. 

The movie has enough footage of human suffering to make you think twice before buying a diamond.  If you want to get more serious about the issue, head over to the UN site on conflict diamonds.  Sad, sad world.

All right, now that I pointed to the seriousness of the issue (it really is serious, folks), let me tone it all down by saying that that Djimon Hounsou is one hot man.  Initially, I felt uncomfortable, self-conscious and shallow appreciating Djimon's hotness on a screen full of suffering of the worst kind.  Kids in arms, screaming moms being parted from their kids. Awful.  But once you see how the movie shamelessly and poorly ties-in a little romance between DiCaprio and Connelly, you give up on taking the movie that seriously.  I bet you won't complain about the many shirtless scenes with Djimon under the hot African sun; and they threw in a little shirtless DiCaprio too. 

But no gay content.  Damn it.

Just FYI, I am at the Miami airport now, and will be off to Brazil in a couple of hours.  I will be posting from there the next few days!

Angry Post - Stefano Gabbana and Self-Hate

I have a little time off from school and thought I might as well use some of that free time for something constructive.  Like hating on a few idiots.

I'll start with Stefano Gabbana.  Look at what he said: "I am opposed to the idea of a child growing up with two gay parents. A child needs a mother and a father. I could not imagine my childhood without my mother. I also believe that it is cruel to take a baby away from its mother." [via Towle]

I am just livid.  First of all, he is wrong on his account of gays as parents.  You can check out many positive references for gay parenting in the comments to this great post by Seattle's Dan Savage (the post is about Mary Cheney's pregnancy, I saw it first on Joe). Children raised by gay parents are just as good as the children raised by straight parents. 

So, my best bet for a comment like the one from Stefano Gabbana is that he thinks he is himself a bad person and will be a bad father, and newsflash to Stefano: this will happen whether you try to have a kid with a man or a woman.  Even worse, he probably thinks that by having a kid with a woman he can still say he is a father (and try to ooze responsibility, maybe?), while avoiding real parental duties.  He will probably be able to dump the kid on the woman, like a straight jerk would. 

The other possibilities I can think of are all just as bad.  He may just be dumb and inconsequent.  We see examples of that dangerous combination everyday.  Do I need to name names? 

Also, Stefano may just be a self-hating gay, and we know there are many of those out there.  You would think that self-hate would not exist in an out gay man, because the out gay man does not have to lie about who he is, does not have to marry a girl, make people suffer etc.  Out gay men tend to live around other gays and see that we are normal people.  Something that would prevent an idiotic comment like the one from Stefano.  So, if Stefano is a self-hater we come to the conclusion above, if he is not a self-hater, we are lead to the conclusion that the gays surrounding Stefano Gabbana left him with the worst impression of the gays.  That would be the reason why he thinks gays should not be parents, because he has a poor, negative bias towards the gays due to his bad and limited experience. 

As I have done before, I invite you to lay out your reason for a statement like that of Stefano.  I'll probably believe it.

Now let's get down to business.  Recently, we have seen haters apologize left and right.  Mel Gibson did it - note though that I have seen apologies for his anti-Semitic remarks, but not for his homophobic remarks, which are older and just as nasty.  Michael Richards is doing it.  Jennifer Hudson tried it, but unsuccessfully I think.  I applaud the apologies.  They are needed.  But, alone, they are far from enough.  They are not enough because they need to be credible, and to me credibility would only attach when those haters donate money, serious 7-figure money, to organizations that seek to diminish and prevent the hate they disseminated. 

To get back to the Stefano Gabbana case, I must say I will only consider even looking into anything Dolce & Gabbana after Stefano (i) apologizes to the gays in general and to all gay parents and kids of gay parents in particular, and (ii) donates handsomely to organizations like PFLAG.

Gays, we need to wise up and care about these things.  Statements like the one from Stefano hurt our rights.  You may think you do not need equal rights now, but you may fall in love, you may want a kid and you might very well suffer without the rights we need to fight for now. 

Addresses and a phone number for Dolce & Gabbana after the jump (the info was provided by a commenter over at Towle).

Wild Hogs - Trailer - Brokeback Scene

I don't think I will see this, but I thought you would like to know about the little Brokeback scene at the end of the trailer:

It looks like Scrubs' John C. McGinley will play a gay cop. 

Man, this crowd is not aging well...John Travolta looks huge...Tim Allen, scary.

Have a Good Weekend - Alexandre Barillari

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