Manhattan Offender

Caption this ...

George W. Bush during a fundraiser for Marilyn Musgrave, a true enemy of the gays. Via Yahoo News.

I'm every homo, it's all in me

The 2005 HX Gift Guide is out, focussing on the major homo-stereotypes to suggest gifts for The Twelve Gays of Christmas. Instead of creating an interest in the gifts presented, it was more intriguing to attempt to put myself into a one of the twelve homotypes:

1. Gym Bunny
2. Holiday Drunk
3. Tranny
4. Well-Groomed Gays
5. Activists
6. Corporate Queen
7. Alternative Hipster
8. Leather Daddy
9. Techie Boys
10. Design Freak
11. Culture Queen
12. Naughty Boys

As a member of two gyms (1) who is known to go to excess on occasion (2) - although never during the occasional venture into drag (3) - and with hair done by Lower East Side hair god Arnulfo (4), this endorser of Brian Ellner (5) that used to work for a Fortune 100 company (6) enjoys himself not only at Fischerspooner concerts (7), but at the Eagle (8) as well, in between the time spent blogging (9), obsessing over furniture placement(10), going to galleries (11), or getting it on with Mister Offender (12). Obviously, I've failed to commit.

Perhaps this explains my strange diversity of friends, many who cannot understand the presence of the others when the too rare gathering occurs. For 2006, perhaps the choice should be made to become less well-rounded. A full-blown something.

Via Queerty.

Chasing Farrah away from the gays

"Half of the things she says doesn't connect to anything", says one of the bit players in TV Land's new 'reality' show Chasing Farrah. Which is more of a statement about the show than about Farrah. Which is unfortunate as I love Farrah; from the earliest of days until today. She displays every aspect that one would be typically found in the iconic gay females throughout the ages. Unfortunately she is too attached to the straight male mythos to have ever been claimed in full by the gays.

The reality show reinforces this belief of mine. She is surrounded by straight male producers and television executives. The majority of fans seem to be straight men. Her hair and makeup are done by women!?!

Get David Geffen, Barry Diller, Marc Jacobs, and Francois Nars on the phone. Ms. Farrah needs a gay intervention, stat.

Stuff that stocking: TV-B-Gone

Too often you are in a shop, a bar, or just a public space in total comfort but you notice that something is amiss. Instead of having their eyes on you, the crowd is staring into the infernal idiot box. As if determined to squelch conversation and dumb-down the aesthetic, televisions are a too-frequent addition to many rooms. It doesn't have to be that way.

With TV-B-Gone you are in control of your environment. Use is simple and discreet. The device is small enough to be a welcome addition to your key chain and causes no excess pocket bulk. Once pulled out of the pocket, TV-B-Gone is pointed at the offending set and within seconds, the box is silenced.

Available in red, green, purple, and, of course, black, TV-B-Gone is a bargain at $19.99 and can be purchased online. An extra bonus: the inventor of this nifty little device, Mitch Altman, is one of the gays, and was featured among the OUT 100!

Holiday Party Panic: The Theme

Deciding to throw a holiday party is stressful. The plethora of choices to be made involving food, decoration and whom to invite (or not) is mind boggling. The tension only grows if these decisions are made independent of one another. Without proper planing one ends up with either the incongruous mix of elements, or, worse, a hopelessly generic hodgepodge. To avoid an unmemorable holiday happening, start with a theme and let the other decisions spin out from there.

First off, take your assemblage of Martha Stewart Living magazines, gather them together in a well defined pile, wrap twine around them, and walk them to recycling pile. Next, place your cable remote in your hand and put a parental block on The Food Network, The Style Channel, and, especially, Discovery Home Network; these channels will guide you gently along the path to plain (see image at right), and frankly, you are better than that.

With these distractions out of the way, now remove all unnecessary clothing, dim the lights and close the eyes. Consider what is on your mind and what you and your friends have in common. Explore thoughts of what has made you laugh in the past year. Write down all of these thoughts, and, with a thick red marker, write a large "X" through the page. The ideas you have just written down simply are not surprising enough. Your party must be epic and unforgettable.

At this point you have eliminated all distractions and can begin the process of word association needed to arrive at your theme. Perhaps your process could be as such: "Iraq. Troops. USO. Performers. Strippers. Britney. Federletus." BOOM! You arrive at your theme: "Preston's First XMas!" Suddenly your food and decor choices are abundant, vivid, and fun. But maybe you're "classy" and wanting to try for something else. "Iraq. Bush. George. Jeb. Noelle. Xanax. Laura. Eyes of Laura Mars." BOOM: "Ghosts of Xmas Future!" Again, your futurist theme will make the related decisions a breeze.

The Offender household in this year having our sixth annual tree-trimming brunch. The great thing about a tree-trimming is that you have a tree that is filled with a variety of ornaments from your friends. After several years, we can still remember each ornament and from whom we received it. Using the process above (thus explaining the clothing removal step), themes have varied from year to year. Viva Las XMas featured playing cards and poker chips mixed into the decor with a Vegas-style buffet. A Very Stepford XMas (before that Nicole Kidman nightmare, thank you) was frilly and femme with an overkill of casseroles. Last year's Ho' Ho' Holiday was a sextravaganza in decor and naughty nibbles.

This year brought deep reflection of our origins: Mister Offender's Mexican heritage combined with my own Whitetrashian, "taco" and "cracker". Finding a theme that touched upon both took us to a key moment in 1982 when Dutch singer Taco released his remake of Irving Berlin's "Puttin' on the Ritz". Add to this the over 100 recipes available at the Ritz cracker website for food and the simply the idea of 'the Ritz' for decor and dress. Thus was born "Puttin' on the RitzMas," the 2005 edition of our annual event.

Whether your party follows a similar method of construction or the more traditional route, don't be afraid of pushing boundries and stretching beyond the traditionally defined themes that surround the holiday season. Pink and silver are just as festive as red and green, if not more so. There is no requirement to serve the traditional yams and turkey, and your guests have probably had their fill of these already at all of those 'other' parties. The key to making your party memorable is to personalize. If your guests leave with just one thought, let it be this one: "Wow. That #$@#$ is out of their mind."

Binge. Purge. Binge. Binge. Purge. Binge. Purge. Purge.

A Post-Thanksgiving Weekend Recap
Binge: The Offender household is caught up on it's TIVOing. We are up to our gullets with Tyra, Oprah, Christina, and other assorted women ending in 'uh'.
Purge: The Manhattan Offender Yardsale concluded, with only the leather Levi's producing revenue. Poor Madge. She can't go to the Salvation Army.
Purge: Never again will anything related to those talking monkeys on the Today show ever grace our television screen. Quickly switching channels while gussying up Thursday morning, we overheard Katie, Matt, and Al relate an obviously scripted piece in which they sung the praises of M&M's, noting that the footage on-screen was from a previous year. Later that day NY1 was reporting that the balloon we had seen that morning was actually launching a candy-coated terrorist attack on Times Square as the QVC NBC "news" anchors were singing their praises.
Binge: Again, to our hosts for Thanksgiving. WOW. When we left at 5 a.m. we really should have packed some takeaway.
Binge: Officially, completely caught up on all of my fave blogs.
Binge: Rediscovered Fresh Direct this weekend in an attempt to cook more at home. But the delivery guys are not as hot as we remembered.
Binge: Being late on the curve, we saw Jesus is Magic!, but many of the punch-lines had been given to us in the weeks previous.
Purge: Long weekends provide that time for housecleaning that never seems to get done. What is really needed is one of those guys that gets off on cleaning that would do it for free, just for the gratification of pleasing us.

ADulation

With a sublime Thanksgiving meal coursing through the innards, the expectation of confrontation was low. But then the tryptophan buzz-buster came: "I can't look at your website from my cubicle at work anymore. Not with those half-naked men in the ads!" Which to me seems a bit silly as there are more torsos at the Macy's website than here anyday. (Granted, it seems that gratuitous beefcake would probably boost the traffic, but it would have to be my kind of guys (hmm ...).)

Indeed, the 'MO is now accepting advertising. (How else to pay for the necessary expenses of nightlife reportingand cameras?) Please make a point to visit these cool places:

• Malco-vision: Visiting this site eliminates the need for a television, as they have everything that you're wanting to watch here.
• OhLaLaGuys: Don't tell Mister Offender, but seeing all the hot guys on this site almost makes me wish I was single. (Just almost though; Mister Offender is the bomb.)
• Queerty: Once upon a time, my self-assessment regarding matters of the faggotry was expert; then Queerty came along and now schools me on a daily basis.

Hoping your Thanksgiving is a sexy one ...

The Union Square Christmas Craptacular!

Once a quaint group of shops, placed respectfully off to the west side of Union Square, the holiday market has grown stretching across the entire front of the park. Sidewalk space has been minimized and getting to the main subway entrance is now a challenge.

Although the shops are not yet open, the expectation is for the same proliferation of scarves, hats, silver and stone jewelry, and 'crafty' holiday decor. Retailing 101 would dictate that shops be placed in classifications, but, as the merchandise (assuming the content of previous years will predict the present) will be too similar to place together as the shops would fail to differentiate from one another. Instead there will be the repetitive string: warm-wear, jewelry, craft, warm-wear, jewelry, craft, and on and on.

It needn't be like this, but in the tradition of "milking a decent concept to indecency" it will probably continue to do so. The advice in a nutshell is that you can maximize your profit better by being selective in the shops that you allow into the array of red and white booths, rather than bastardizing and cheapening one of the better parks in the city by merely maximizing the number of shops.

Really, Union Square, do you want to become an oversize, overlong street fair? You're just one Mozarepa stand away from doing so.

The Manhattan Offender Interview: Alia, the amira masreyi

Number twelve in a series.

1. What's your secret to staying so beautiful?
   My secret is sleeping 12 hours a day.
2. Is it true what the tabloids are saying about your relationship?
   Absoloutely true, I'm a born again Virgin.
3. This new project of yours is certainly taking everyone by surprise. Tell us about it.
   I'm going to change the world one crappy sports bar at a time.
4. Who are you wearing?
   I  am wearing cellulite enhancing sweats by Mobaco (Egyptian brand).
5. Would you ever do a role that required nudity?
   I perform nude everyday, walking from my bathroom to my bedroom and back because I forgot my towel on my bed.

Wandering what an 'amira masreyi' is?  Here's a hint:  knowing arabic will help!