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A Guy's Moleskine Notebook

Thoughts and reflections on works of fiction and literature. Pondering of life through pictures and words. Babbling about gay rights. Travelogues and anecdotes.

  • [1] Annie Proulx: Brokeback Mountain
  • [2] Arthur Golden: Memoirs of a Geisha
  • [3] Yu Hua: To Live
  • [4] Alan Hollinghurst: The Line of Beauty
  • [5] Colm Toibin: The Master
  • [6] Carlos Ruiz Zafon: The Shadow of the Wind
  • [7] William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience
  • [8] Charles Higham: The Civilization of Angkor
  • [9] Graham Greene: A Burnt-Out Case
  • [10] Dai Sijie: Mr. Muo's Travelling Couch
  • [11] Alan Hollinghurst: The Swimming-Pool Library
  • [12] Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita
  • [13] Colm Toibin: The Blackwater Lightship
  • [14] Alan Hollinghurst: The Folding Star
  • [15] Ross King: Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
  • [16] Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov
  • [17] Jonathan Franzen: The Corrections
  • [18] Colm Toibin: The Story of the Night
  • [19] John Banville: Shroud
  • [20] Leo Tolstoy: Resurrection
  • [21] Peter Hessler: River Town, Two Years on the Yangtze
  • [22] Ian McEwan: The Atonement
  • [24] Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera
  • [25] Ignacio Padilla: Shadow without a Name
  • [26] Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose
  • [27] Richard Russo: Straight Man
  • [28] Fyodor Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground
  • [29] Alan Hollinghurst: The Spell
  • [30] Hermann Broch: The Death of Virgil
  • [31] James Baldwin: Giovanni's Room
  • [32] Ken Kesey: One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
  • [33] Xingjian Gao: One Man's Bible
  • [34] C. Jay Cox: Latter Days
  • [35] Harper Lee: To Kill A Mockingbird
  • [36] William Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew
  • [37] Daniel A. Helminiak: What The Bible Really Says about Homosexuality
  • [38] James Baldwin: Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone
  • [39] Kenji Yoshino: Covering - The Hidden Assault of Civil Rights
  • [40] Italo Calvino: If, On a Winter's Night A Traveler
  • [41] Arthur Phillips: The Egyptologist
  • [42] George Orwell: 1984
  • [43] Michael Warner: The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and Ethics of Queer Life
  • [44] Andrew Sullivan: Virtually Normal
  • [45] Henry James: The Wings of the Dove
  • [46] Jose Saramago: Blindness
  • [47] Umberto Eco: The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
  • [48] Dan Brown: Da Vinci Code
  • [49] Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
  • [50] Ken Follett: The Pillars of Earth
  • [51] Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace
  • [52] Michael Thomas Ford: Alec Baldwin Doesn't Like Me
  • [53] Jonathan Franzen: How To Be Alone
  • [54] Jonathan Lethem: The Fortress of Solitude
  • [55] Matthew Pearl: The Dante Club
  • [56] Zadie Smith: White Teeth
  • [57] Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Double
  • [58] Jose Saramago: The Double
  • [59] Andrew Holleran: Dancer from the Dance
  • [60] Heinrich von Kleist: The Marquise of O & Other Stories
  • [61] Andrew Holleran: In September, the Light Changes
  • [62] Tom Perrotta: Little Children
  • December 08, 2006

     

    Cafe Flore III

    Yesterday was not as dreadful as the day before, I could actually sit at Cafe Flore and have an iced soy latte which O made me. It was actually study hall at the cafe, as my friend Rod, who is a PhD candidate in philosophy, was there as well. The guy sitting next to me was working on his paper on Nabakov. As the day shortens and the sky seems to loom downward, demography of Cafe Flore shifts to laptop campers and students cranking for their papers. You see less of the toursy crowd and the fashion-trendy boys whose main hobby is to people-watch.

    I decided I needed a 15-minutes break from the work on thesis and took to reading an interesting article from Gaytimes, an UK publication which I brought back from Asia.

    Brad Pitt said, "Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able."

    Everyone. Right, so that includes us gays.

    While his declaration of solidarity with the gay community may have heartened campaigners for gay marriage rights, I can already see how his speech must have enrage straight women who have been trying to get their men to the altar for years. Straight men, especially the ones who are commitment-phobic, can now quote Brad Pitt to put off the dread nuptials.

    What about us gays then? Gay rights activist groups, which have been striving to overcome religious resistance to gay marriage, might beam at this viewpoint with smugness. But consider the way things are here, commitment-phobia will inevitably become a gay phenomenon too in places where marriage or civil union are legally available. In fact, commitment-phobia has already prevailed in the gay community. Those of us romantics who want to plight our troth with our dreamboat should know better. How many of us can really say we are ready to commit?

    What Brad said is no more than a welcoming complement to the euphemistic (almost cliche) saying: Until I find that special someone, I'll play along. Not convinced? Go check out bigmuscle.com and see for yourself. To call it a jungle is an understatement, it's a meat market out there!

    No sooner had I finished Brad's perspective on wedding bliss for homos than I spot a very hot, familiar looking guy, a celebrity, who saunters into Cafe Flore in an insouciant air. I have to search my memory and to see where I had crossed his path--well; it was more like where I had seen him before. It dawned on me in less than 5 seconds.

    This man (a hot daddy!), in snuggly charcoal t-shirt that hugged his athletic-built body, layered with a black hooded sweatshirt that seems a bit short on him but accentuates his body contour, sports a goatee that looks as if it's just been dyed. His hair is cropped short with streaks of gray. He seems somewhat skinnier, but still commands an air of calmness and charisma, than I last saw him on prints and flicks. He is not too tall, no more than 5'9". He is Cliff Parker!

    I remember he used to be an exclusive of Titan Men, the local video production company that featured muscled, rugged-looking, and butch type of men. Something about his dreamy eyes, somewhat beetling brows, and the stubble-goatee look mesmerized me. He was part of the reason why I was so absorbed by those magazines I talked about in this post. How my heart beat upon seeing his pictures. At least 10 years must have gone by since I discovered Cliff Parker and from a source which I can no longer recall Cliff had retired from the porn industry. Rumor has it that he is back in school.

    It's good to see him, in person. He seems happy.

    5 Comments:

    Blogger Greg said...

    Cliff Parker is quite the hottie. Maybe he'll enroll in a few of your classes??

    12/08/2006 11:02 AM  
    Anonymous Anonymous said...

    OMG you saw Cliff Parker? Did you get his autograph? LOL

    12/08/2006 5:24 PM  
    Blogger matty said...

    I'm always seeing gay porn stars here --- and, it catches me off-guard because I guess they aren't "stars" as such but I see them and I'm like, "who is that? do I know him?" ...and, then I think, "Oh, it's Michael Brandon" ...strange.

    One of our pts does movies. So, now when I see him I think of both cock and teeth. LOL!

    Odd and wonderful city we live in!

    12/10/2006 1:55 PM  
    Blogger mattviews said...

    KalvinThanks for all your thoughtful comments, Kalvin. Likewise, I enjoy reading your blog and your writing style very much. I especially enjoy your crisp, matter-of-factly, somewhat pedantic (see, it's a good thing...!!!) writing.

    I spend quite some time at Cafe Flore because I have befriended the people working at the coffee bar. They take care of me and dole out ladleful of Thai food if they happen to cook some. Afterall, I like the ambience. I always wonder how many people actually *hook up* there?!


    ,

    12/13/2006 3:05 PM  
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