…when I stumbled across this, courtesy of Towleroad. (My name is Richard, and I am a multi-tasker.)

Is it just me, or is the faux-chivalrous crap that this preacher spews about “I take authority over the principalities of powers of Hell” taken right from the pages of every low-rent Tolkien knock-off? (Though I wouldn’t accuse even Piers Anthony of using such terrible grammar.)

My theory — and it’s only in the early stages — is that wingnuts like this really just need a way to vent their inner “Round Table” monologue.  And if they had a place to do that — say, a renaissance faire, or World of Warcrap, or maybe some live-action thing like that Mazes and Monsters movie Tom Hanks did 30 years ago — they’d be a lot happier. Hell, they already love paintball; just substitute swords for airguns and let ’em hack it out.

AT ALL.

[via DangerousMinds]

I have never been able to draw.

Conceptually, I understand light and shadow and stuff, but I can’t translate that into a water pitcher and a bunch of overripe grapes. And that’s okay. Because I have loads of friends who are very good at such things, and as Mussolini once said, “I can’t do everything well, but I keep people who can very close at hand. Generally in prison.” (I paraphrase.)

Anyway: my friends who draw should pay attention, because Class Comics has launched a contest to create a superhero out of the hunky, muscly, go-go box-friendly Gay Comic Geek (at left). It’s kind of like making a costume for a paper doll, except this paper doll threatens to shove a bottle of poppers under your nose and rip into you like a sailor on three-day leave.

And just to make things interesting, they’re offering two versions of the character for you to dress — this one, which is technically clothed, and another, fully nude. Because a gay superhero is always (a) superendowed and (b) superhorny, I suppose.

The prizes include a lot of free comic books and — for the winner of the naughtier contest — a print of your costume concept as rendered by gay illustrator extraordinaire Patrick Fillion. Maybe that’ll get your gray matter fired up.

Anyway, more details below. Bonne chance.

How often do you have the chance to create a superhero? Well, this is it! Help us to Gear Up the Gay Comic Geek!

The Gay Comic Geek, Fanboys of the Universe and Class Comics have teamed up to bring you one super contest that will get your (creative) juices flowing!

Your job is to design your vision of a unique costume for the Gay Comic Geek in whatever format you work best in!

Use Photoshop on the computer, print the entry out and use pencil, ink and markers, blow it up on a canvas and paint in oil colors, or sew, knit and stitch together felt, leather and feathers!

The only catch is you have to use the Official Contest Images as the basis for your costume and submit it electronically.

It’s not just about getting the right color of spandex! There is so much more for you to be creative with. It’s about developing the alter ego and all the possibilities that come with it!

[full details at ClassicComics]

I can’t be the only one who’s confused by this, right?

Colby Brin, 31, and his mother are best friends.

They chat on their cell phones several times a week, debating politics and sports. They catch up over pasta and salad at their favorite Italian joint tucked in New York’s Upper East Side. They consider themselves travel enthusiasts and once explored Paris, France, together.

Just like any thoughtful best friend, who can be nosy at times, his mother relentlessly seeks the perfect woman for him. She sets him up on dates. She brags about him to friends who have daughters his age. This month, the 63-year-old launched “Date My Single Kid,” an online dating site to expand the scope of potential suitors for her son.

“We aren’t trying to start a scientific matchmaker service like eHarmony,” says Geri Brin. “We are doing it like a mother would do it. You know what your child wants. I know what Colby wants 100 percent.”

Embarrassing? Overbearing? Annoying?

Some critics of matchmaking parents may think so, but Colby Brin lauds his mother’s active participation in his dating life. He estimates she set him up on at least 30 dates before her site went live. Some dates went well. Others lacked a spark, like a girl from an art gallery he dated recently….

[it goes on; full story at CNN.com; all emphasis totes mine]

Sebastian Horsley, an eccentric British dandy who once was crucified in the name of art and whose life of unabashed debauchery and drug addiction caused him to be barred from the United States, died June 17 of a heroin overdose at his home in London. He was 47.

His death came days after a play about his life, “Dandy in the Underworld,” based on his autobiography, opened on the London stage.

Mr. Horsley led a life of scandal, notoriety and high style, strolling the streets of London’s Soho in elaborate velvet suits, fingernail polish and a stovepipe hat. He was born into wealth and invested shrewdly in the stock market, but he spent much of his fortune on prostitutes and drugs and, as he put it, squandered the rest.

“I’m an artist — depravity is part of the job description,” he told The Washington Post in 2008.

Mr. Horsley was a painter who had occasional exhibitions, but with his epigrammatic wit and writing style — modeled after Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh and Quentin Crisp — he found a niche as a sex columnist and chronicler of the London underworld. He expressed some concern that his newfound writing career might ruin his reputation.

“Don’t tell my mother I work as a journalist,” he told one reporter. “She thinks I’m a prostitute.”

In fact, Mr. Horsley did briefly work in the sex trade, but he was better known as an enthusiastic customer. He claimed to have enjoyed the company of more than 1,000 prostitutes, saying, “I can count all the lovers I’ve had on one hand — if I’m holding a calculator.”

[full obituary at Post-Gazette.com, via Hector]

I know. It’s either the worst copy ever written or a stroke of genius.

Uh, smear of genius.

Advertising Agency: The Campaign Palace/Red Cell, Darlinghurst, Sydney, Australia
Art Director: Cameron Hoelter
Copywriter: Kelly Putter
Photographer: Ian Butterworth

Advertising Agency: The Campaign Palace/Red Cell, Darlinghurst, Sydney, Australia
Art Director: Cameron Hoelter
Copywriter: Kelly Putter
Photographer: Ian Butterworth

Seen here in an episode from the first season of Being Human, which was probably the most homoerotic thing my living room has witnessed since that documentary about the pizza delivery boys of L.A.

Also, in crappy iPhone form:

Yes, I know it’s out of focus. Does that really matter? Can’t we all just get along?

[via Towleroad]

Among the painful things I have had to witness today: this clip of a “guerrilla burlesque” artist doing…well, something for a bunch of tourists in Montmartre. Blasé Parisians would probably be more interested in a “gorilla burlesque” artist. I know I would.

You can thank Honda for that. Luckily, other parts of the campaign aren’t so bad: