A recent Daily Jocks ad, with a N2N speedo-style Stars and Stripes swimsuit for Memorial Day, yesterday, also looking forward to Flag Day on June 14th and Independence Day on July 4th (with my caption):
Young, hung, lean, pale,
Patriot through and through,
Peter swims in the
Stars and Stripes.
Peter can be purchased at fine men’s stores throughout Southern California.
The Google Doodle for today, viewable here, with this screenshot of the endpoint of an animation in which a gay flag is assembled from strips of material:
(#1)
(Hat tip to Ellen Seebacher.)
Yes, eight stripes. That was the first version. Story from the Vox site today, “Gilbert Baker created the LGBTQ Pride rainbow flag. Here’s what his creation stood for. Today’s Google Doodle commemorates Baker’s 66th birthday — and the flag that made him famous” by German Lopez:
The original Rainbow Flag had eight colors, each with an individual meaning: pink for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for the sun, green for nature, turquoise for magic, blue for serenity, and purple for the spirit. “This was the hippie, 1978 meanings for the thing,” Baker said.
Over time, the flag was cut down to six colors. First, pink was cut because the dye for it was apparently difficult to obtain at the time for mass production. Then the committee organizing the 1979 Gay Freedom Day Parade cut turquoise to give the flag an even number of colors, so it could be flown as two halves in San Francisco.
And it gets us down to six primary colors.
You can assemble the flag from strips of fabric, or you can assemble it from six pieces of clothing on separate people, as in the underwear ensembles in the May 24th posting “Dressing for June” (images #2-4); or in this grouping of men from the 2016 San Francisco Pride Parade:
(#2)
Well, two-thirds of the flag. Paging Mr. Orange and Mr. Purple!
(The parade is on June 25th this year.)
(Photographs of men in very little, but otherwise not alarming.)
For a month that has both Pride events and Fathers Day in it, two extremes of clothing for men: (2) high-macho sexy bodywear and (3) adaptations of women’s casual clothes — which will take us to (4) the gay rapper Cazwell, a study in outrageous, minimal, and sportsfan dress.
First, as lead-in, (1) a visit to the 2017 International Mr. Leather competition in Chicago on March 25th – 30th.
1. A Pakistani-American at IML. Young Muslim, teaching sociology at Long Beach City College, self-described as “very, very gay”. And pictured here in chaps — the link to what follows:
(#1)
On chaps, leather pants without a seat, see the section in my 12/24/15 posting “More harnesses”. In the next section of this posting, I’ll turn to what you might call chaplets: leather shorts without a seat.
But first some words about the enormously engaging Ali Mushtaq, from “Pakistani-American From California Blazes a Gay Leather and Fetish Trail” by Erik Piepenburg in the Style section of the 5/31/17 NYT (hat tip to Terry Bartlett):
Chicago — It was the Friday before Memorial Day and Ali Mushtaq was in his room at the Congress Plaza Hotel, dressed like a votary in the church of Tom of Finland: skin-seizing bluejeans, lace-up cuffs called gauntlets, disciplinarian jackboots and a belted leather strap that crisscrossed the defined chest of his 5-foot-6-inch frame.
As he looked in the mirror, Mr. Mushtaq, 27, who calls himself “very, very gay,” held a necklace against his dark and hairy chest. It was given to him by his mother when he was a teenager, and on it hung a tiny pendant with a word, rendered in stylized Arabic script, that Mr. Mushtaq knew would enchant some men and utterly enrage others.
The word: “Allah.”
“My presence here is an anomaly,” Mr. Mushtaq said. “My presence shows that people that look like me, that are Pakistani, that are Muslim, are here for peace. We are the sex symbol. We are the people that everybody wants to hit on.”
… Mr. Mushtaq, who competed as Mr. Long Beach Leather, was not the first Muslim contestant to compete at I.M.L., as the event is commonly known. But he was the first Pakistani-American contestant, and in the leather community his presence at I.M.L. was a big leap out of the pitch-black closet for Muslim men who are not only gay, but also into leather fetish.
… Mr. Mushtaq was born in California to Pakistani immigrant parents and came out as gay in high school in conservative Orange County at 15. But it wasn’t until he attended California State University, Fullerton, that he discovered he was “bored being gay.”
“I wanted to be more edgy, the libertine that everyone gossiped about and called a slut,” said Mr. Mushtaq, whose chatty, giggle-prone personality may seem at odds with the stereotype of an order-barking leatherman.
Today, Mr. Mushtaq sexually identifies as an impact-play and bondage switch, meaning he is comfortable assuming the dominant and submissive roles in the infliction of pain. His preferred tools are flogs and a whip he has named Wally. (“It’s the kinkiest thing I could think of.”)
… After several days of dress rehearsals, interviews and, of course, parties, Mr. Mushtaq took his place to compete with 62 other men from around the world. As it turns out, Mr. Mushtaq didn’t win or even make the first cut of 20. (The title went to Ralph Bruneau, who competed as Mr. Gay Naturists International Leather.)
But Mr. Mushtaq was far from crushed. After the competition, he went back to his hotel room, had pizza and made plans to return to his job as an adjunct professor of sociology at Long Beach College. He also wants to continue to spread the message that “visibility makes people secure.”
2, Buttboys in leather (and soft cotton/lycra). More appreciation of men’s bodies.
Mushtaq is in chaps above. Now I turn to two photos contributed by Kirk Bruce Pierce to the Stealthy Cam Men site:
(#2a)
(#2b)
Like chaps, but they’re shorts. Well, jockstraps are backless by nature, and there are also backless thongs, backless briefs, and backless singlets, as well as backless pants, and all of these things are available in leather, so why not backless leather shorts? Indeed there are — I suppose we can call them chaplets — and on the Ducati motorcycle guy in #2, they’re very fetching.
(Other senses of chaplet, from NOAD2:
1 a garland or wreath for a person’s head. 2 a string of 55 beads (one third of the rosary number) for counting prayers, or as a necklace. 3 a metal support for the core of a hollow casting mold.
Maybe we could call the garments chapslets.)
On to something similar, but softer, from the WhiteyTighties site:
(#3a)
(#3b)
The HardCore Street Gluteus Boxer Brief is made of soft cotton/lycra fabric with a backside design to perfectly cup your cheeks. This low rise boker brief trunk has a 10″ side seam along with spacious front pouch to cradle your boys in comfort as well as stretch pleather contrast trim around the legs.
There are corresponding garments (in all these categories) that are crotchless as well as backless, for an even bolder display of the masculine body.
3. Lacey sheer pastel shorts. Or: you could cover your butt and crotch this way, flaunting the feminine:
(#4)
On the Independent (UK) site yesterday, “See-Through, Pastel Shorts Are Dividing Opinion About What Is Acceptable for Men to Wear” by Kashmira Gander (hat tip to Kim Darnell):
Anyone still reeling from the thought of men wearing patterned playsuits [brand name RompHim] needs to brace themselves, because pastel-coloured, see-through lace shorts and shirts are here to shake you to your core.
The playful garments were designed by LA-based brand Hologram City for rapper Cazwell to wear in his video Loose Wrists.
Cazwell unveiled the lacey shorts and cut-sleeve shirts on his Instagram, alongside a photo of him and four men in pastel blue, lilac, yellow, pink and green shades of the outfit. The caption read “Yup. Lace WILL be in this summer.”
The reference to patterned jumpsuits takes us to another Independent article, here, with this example of a RompHim playsuit:
(#5)
4. The Cazwell connection. The instigator for the lacey sheer pastels was the white rapper Cazwell, who’s openly and outrageously gay (with macho flourishes, as in #4 and #5). On Cazwell, see my 8/20/10 posting “Exuberant morphology” and my 6/20/15 posting “Screaming for ice cream”.
From the photo album on Cazwell’s own site, three photos (it’s hard to pick just three):
(#6)
— On the loose with his big pink gun.
(#7)
— Cazwell in the eye of the Tiger.
(#8)
— And Cazwell with his Manhunt buddies.
The man is a fanatic for the Yankees and the Knicks, as well as hot guys in their underwear.
From the BBC America on-line store, a hoodie ($49.98) and a baseball shirt ($24/98):
($1)
(#2)
A police box that will take you not only through space and time (though perhaps unreliably), but also through gender and sexuality.
… including the logos for all the Major League Baseball teams, available through the MLB clothing site in caps and shirts. Apparently the line of clothing came out in 2015, but I missed it — and then Aric Olnes posted the SF Giants Pride logo on Facebook today:
(#1)
and I checked the (registered) logo out.
From the NewNowNext site on 5/22/15, “Major League Baseball Launches LGBT Pride Line Of Shirts, Hats”:
Major League Baseball has launched an entire line of team-specific Pride hats and t-shirts, with logos for the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and other teams colored in rainbow hues.
The SF Giants logo is particularly handsome — roughly, the more complex the logo is, the more attractive the overlaid color bands are, and the SF logo is one of the most complex, but they’re all attractive, even the Boston Red Sox plain B. A few samples:
(#2)
A New York Yankees cap, an LA Dodgers shirt
(#3)
A St. Louis Cardinals shirt
(#4)
A Boston Red Sox shirt, as simple as it gets
(Lots of background colors, styles, and sizes, of course.)
At first, both Aric and I took the SF logo to be a bit of local pride / Pride. Of course, the Giants would have a rainbow version of their logo; I mean, it’s fruit and nut city San Francisco, right?, and the team has been suitably LGBT-supportive for some years, and they have tons of LGBT (and female) fans, so it all fits.
Now we both find it heartening that the Pridewear is MLB-wide.
… and the boots are unisex. Public transit and footgear for the season. The Dublin Bus and the Chicago Transit Authority, plus some really cheeky boots.
Earlier today it was London Transit. Now we travel across to Ireland and then to the American Midwest.
The Dublin Bus. From Rod Williams, announcing that “Dublin Bus is not to be outdone” (by London Transit):
(#1)
From the JOE site (Irish LGBTQ news) on 6/20: “Dublin Bus adds colourful new addition to its fleet to celebrate LGBTQ Pride 2017”.
The CTA. From Roger Phillips, linking to the Chicago Transit Authority’s Facebook page:
(#2)
We’re showing some Pride this year by debuting four ‘L’ cars wrapped in the rainbow flag!
These colorful cars will be in service on our busiest line—the Red Line—for Pride Weekend in celebration of Chicago’s diversity and to show our commitment to equality and inclusion.
It’s important to us that everyone—no matter who you are, how you identify, or where you’re from—feel comfortable and confident riding transit in Chicago. Our message is simple: You are welcome here!
Pride boots. For wearing to Pride, or just as a social fashion statement: these LGBT Pride rainbow unisex boots from Deal Clever, currently on a 50% off sale (going for about $90):
(#3)
(Hat tip to Katie Schmitz.)
Consumer note: these are emphatically NOT camouflage boots.
(There will be discussions of men’s naughty bits and pictures of these barely covered. Sometimes celebratory, sometimes silly, but not at all (I think) arousing. Still, if that’s not you want to read or see, pass on to something else.)
It began with this arresting photo from Carson Link on the Stealthy Cam Men Facebook site on the 24th, dated “Yesterday New York, NY” [that is, on the 23rd]:
(#1)
Link’s text:
Caught him off guard they were getting ready for a parade from the E. Village [Tompkins Square Park] to the West Village
If Link has the dates right, then this was the annual NYC Drag March, from Tompkins Square Park to the Stonewall Inn (note the guy in heels on the left) — though the central figure in the photo looks like he came from the June 11th Body Pride Parade (also annual), from Tompkins Square Park to Washington Square Park, and everyone in the photo looks like they’d find a place in the big Pride Parade on the 25th (for which there are many sub-celebrations).
In any case, Sock Man on Parade is, um, remarkable, as a piece of living sculpture, if nothing else.
Background 1. On put a sock in it. BrE colloq. ‘be quiet, don’t make so much noise, shut up!’ (because a sock gags the mouth). GDoS has put / shove / stck / stuff a sock in it from 1921 in Notes & Queries, indicating prior use. The idiom illustrated:
(#2)
Background 2. On put a sock on it. A safe-sex slogan based on the idiom put a sock in it and the metaphorical use of sock to mean ‘condom’, as in this Durex ad:
(#3)
From a site with innovative condom ads:
Some men think that wearing a c0ndom is like wearing a sock, but not with Durex … apparently. They are playing up on the fact that you can get full protection with the ultra slim Durex c0ndoms. It’s a great selling point, because men like to be able to feel with their banana.
That’s metaphorical sock. But the sock in #1 is literal.
Background 3. On the Stealthy Cam Men site, men post photographs of hot guys they have surreptitously photographed or videotaped. Even if you admire the objects of this exercise, the premise is creepy. Sock Man on Parade, however, is displaying himself intentionally in a very public place, so I have no qualms about posting the picture.
Background 4. Gay? At least one commenter on #1 noted that the context is an event with significant gay content, but in the commenter’s opinion Sock Man on Parade is only questionbly gay, because his cock sock doesn’t match his foot socks. I object: the two sock patterns are complementary, with the yellow and navy bands reversed, and that points to a high degree of fashion sense, worthy of a certifiable queer.
Background 5. NYC Body Pride. From a NYC calendar of events, for this year’s (June 11th) march:
You have a body, be proud of it!
The Body Pride parade is for all those who have a body and are not afraid to show it.
We will gather at Tompkins park at 12:00pm and march to Washington sq. There will be looping, there will be drum circles, there will be casual nudity.
We will bring large signs we can paint body positive messages on. If anyone else wants to bring signs, glitter, paint and art supplies please do!
At 2:00pm we march!
If you have a drum or other musical instruments please bring them too!
Recommended that you travel light and have a bag that will easily fit all your belongings.
We will rally by the basketball courts, then spontaneously remove articles of clothing and proceed to march!
This year’s theme is «Just got ONE body!». Be extravagant, be courageous, be proud!
Though rainbow features are not uncommon at the parade — rainbow thongs and the like — the emphasis of the event is exposing the body, as in this (rather contrived) mass photo from the march a few years ago:
(#4)
The intended message is that all bodies should be celebrated: female and male, old and young, flabby and fit, fat and thin, black and white, gay and straight, trans and cis. And add some body paint and glitter.
Background 6. NYC Drag March. On the 23rd. Calendar notice:
Beglitter your beard, cram into your platforms, or feel your gender illusion any way that feels right at this annual march from Tompkins Square Park to the Stonewall. This year’s joyous, body-positive celebration honors Drag March founder and Rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker.
From an earlier Drag March:
(#5)
Background 7. Penis sheaths. The cock sock in #1 functions much like the penis sheaths of New Guinea: it protects the genitals, it conceals them, and at the same time it ostentatiously calls attention to them. The device in #1 does not, however, index the wearer’s cultural group, as decorations on New Guinea penis sheaths do. From Wikipedia:
(#6)
Penis sheath from western (Indonesian) New Guinea
The koteka, horim, or penis gourd is a penis sheath traditionally worn by native male inhabitants of some (mainly highland) ethnic groups in New Guinea to cover their genitals. They are normally made from a dried-out gourd, Lagenaria siceraria, although other species, such as Nepenthes mirabilis, are also used. They are held in place by a small loop of fiber attached to the base of the koteka and placed around the scrotum. There is a secondary loop placed around the chest or abdomen and attached to the main body of the koteka. Men choose kotekas similar to ones worn by other men in their cultural group.
Think of the designs as analogous to club ties or gang insignia.
Background 8. Modern cock socks. In a 6/14/11 AZBlogX posting “Today’s remarkable underwear”, a series of undergarments that cover the genitals while simultaneously calling attention to them (in the case of the first set, displaying them quite visibly through a light mesh fabric).
Actual socks and sock-simulacra. The guy in #1 is using an actual sock as a penis sheath. He could have used an ankle sock (which would have done the job of minimally covering his junk), and he could have chosen one in a neutral solid color (drawing as little attention to his junk as possible), but instead he used a kneelength sock (so that lots of sock dangles in public) with a eye-catching pattern. Like a koteka, it exaggerates the size of the wearer’s penis and draws attention to it through a colorful design. It’s a covering and an advertisement.
A digression. In the New Guinea highlands, men of native groups traditionally don’t wear pants / trousers of any sort. They’re bare-assed in what looks to Western eyes like extremely minimal underwear. (The Indonesian government has gone to great lengths to force native men into wearing pants and native women dresses.)
But in the U.S, generally, going bare-assed in public counts as public indecency, as does going about in your underwear, especially minimal and genital-displaying underwear. Laws against such public indecency may be suspended in certain places and on certain occasions, but in general guys are expected to wear pants with both front and back panels.
The Drag March and Body Pride Parade are two NYC events (among a number) in which the usual strictures are lifted.
The guy in #1 is wearing an actual sock on his cock, but the modern cock socks alluded to just above are cock-simulacra, undergarments that fit on a penis the way a sock fits on the foot. There are two types: cock socks primarily designed to provide warmth and protection; and those primarily designed to display the penis.
The first type are sometimes given playful names, like willy warmer and peter heater, and they’re usually knitted, often in fanciful phallic forms (resembling a banana, pickle, elephant’s trunk, etc.). My favorites are those in rainbow colors, like this set:
(#7)
The second type is made of much lighter material, as in this collection of cock socks:
(#8)
Cock socks of this type in use:
(#9)
As minimal as minimal gets.
Minimal cock socks need some scheme for keeping them in place. The ones in #8 and #9 depend on firm elastic around the base of the testicles — not a reliable device at all. The knitted ones have ties for this purpose — also not reliable.
The guy in #1 has a better solution: a light harness to hold his sock up, just as suspenders would.
A cock sock can be stabilized by a more substantial strap, yielding the mankini, or slingshot thong:
(#10)
Alternatively, a cock sock like those in #8 and #9 can be partially stabilized by suspending it from an elastic waistband, as in the cock socks from Pikante:
(#11)
However, unless the elastic around the base of the testicles is very tight, the garment is still not very stable, since the sock can easily slide off. To solve this problem, just add a buttocks strap, and you’ve got the classic thong:
(#12)
So many, many ways to put a sock on it, for parading about in.
(Warning: Another underwear ad, with a sexual text.)
The main image from today’s Daily Jocks sale ad, with a parody text from me, set in Fire Island Pines:
In the Pines
My guy, my guy, don’t lie to me
Tell me me where did you screw last night
(#1)
In the dunes, in the dunes
On the sand, under the moon
We would screw the whole night through
A take-off on an American folk song. From Wikipedia:
“In the Pines”, also known as “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” and “Black Girl”, is a traditional American folk song which dates back to at least the 1870s, and is believed to be Southern Appalachian in origin. The identity of the song’s author is unknown, but it has been recorded by many artists in numerous genres. Traditionally, it is most often associated with the American folk and blues musician Lead Belly, who recorded several versions in the 1940s, as well as the American bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, who helped popularize the song (in a different variant, featuring lyrics about a train) among bluegrass and country audiences with his versions recorded in the 1940s and 1950s.
The song, performed by The Four Pennies, reached the UK top twenty in 1964. A live rendering by the American grunge band Nirvana, which reinterpreted Lead Belly’s version and was recorded during their MTV Unplugged performance in 1993, helped introduce the song to a new generation.
The crucial words from the Lead Belly version (parodied above):
My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me
Tell me where did you sleep last nightIn the pines, in the pines
Where the sun don’t ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through
Hauntingly sad.
Three performances, from hundreds. The first: one of Lead Belly’s (briefly on Huddie Ledbetter, who performed as Lead Belly but is often referred to as Leadbelly, on this blog here), which you can listen to here.
The second, a twangy version by the Louvin Brothers, with Bill Monroe’s extra train-oriented verses, you can listen to here.
(On the Louvins, from Wikipedia:
The Louvin Brothers were an American musical duo composed of brothers Ira Lonnie Loudermilk (1924–1965) and Charlie Elzer Loudermilk (1927–2011), better known as Ira and Charlie Louvin. The brothers are cousins to John D. Loudermilk, a Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member.
The brothers wrote and performed secular country music, as well as fire and brimstone Gospel music. Ira played virtuoso mandolin and generally sang lead vocal in the tenor range, while Charlie played rhythm guitar and offered supporting vocals in a lower pitch. They helped popularize the vocal technique of close harmony in country and country-rock.)
Finally, the Nirvana live performance, which you can watch here.
(On Nirvana, from Wikipedia:
Nirvana was an American rock band formed by singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1987. Nirvana went through a succession of drummers, the longest-lasting being Dave Grohl, who joined in 1990. Despite releasing only three full-length studio albums in their seven-year career, Nirvana has come to be regarded as one of the most influential and important alternative bands in history. Though the band dissolved in 1994 after the suicide of Cobain, their music maintains a popular following and continues to influence modern rock and roll culture.
Cobain used the Lead Belly lyrics.
Sex on the beach. A recurrent theme in gay porn, with a whole subgenre devoted to sex at Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove. On Gay Fire Island, from Wikipedia:
Fire Island Pines (often referred to as The Pines, simply Pines, or FIP) is a hamlet in the Town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County, New York, United States. It is located on Fire Island, a barrier island on the southern side of Long Island.
Fire Island Pines along with the adjoining Cherry Grove, are the areas most strongly associated with the gay community on Fire Island.
Men in the Fire Island dunes, but during the day:
(#2)
The trailblazing FIP film was Wakefield Poole’s Boys in the Sand; on this and other Poole films, see my 9/25/15 posting “Boy in the sand”. More recently, there’s a whole series of Michael Lucas Fire Island Cruising videos. The cover of one:
(#3)
Meanwhile, gay cartoons, like gay porn (and real-life gay encounters), are sometimes located on the beach, especially in the dunes. On this blog, from a 1/14/16 posting “Kike Sorroche, ilustrador homoerótico”, with
cartoons about the character Aday … [and] Aday’s adventures at the beach, mostly cruising in the dunes. Un chico entre las dunas is an allusion to Wakefield Poole’s landmark gay porn movie Boys in the Sand.
Sorroche may be Spanish, but he appreciates the dunes of Fire Island.
Or: Happy Trails to You.
It starts with a Richard Oliva photo in Steathy Cam Men on the 28th, with the caption “Hello, sexy daddy man!”:
(#1)
In leather singlet, displaying his furry pecs and treasure trail.
(As with my previous Stealthy Cam Men photo — #1 in this posting from the 26th — the subject is flagrantly displaying his body in a public place, so I have no compunction about passing on a picture taken surreptitiously.)
Two notable elements of this display: the treasure trail, and the wrestling singlet, cut low and crafted from leather, to make a piece of athletic apparel into a piece of fetishwear.
On treasure trails, from a 11/15/11 posting “Annals of anatomical vocabulary”, quoting from Wikipedia:
… hair grows in a vertical line from the pubic area up to the navel and from the thorax down to the navel. Slang terms for this line of hair include “snail trail”, “happy line”, “happy trail”, or “treasure trail”. (link)
Note happy trail. I’ll get to that in a litte while.
Then on gay singlets, from a 12/3/15 posting with a section on wrestling singlets and their adaptations as fetishwear:
Homowear singlets are scooped way low, below the navel, to display the whole torso; they are pouch-enhancing; they’re likely to be made of sexy materials (faux leather, shiny fabrics, camo fabric, fabrics in intense colors); and sometimes they have open rears, offering the wearer’s butt as well as his crotch … They are for fun and display, not athletic competition.
The Treasure of the Singlet Padre. An elaborate play on the title The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, playing on the treasure of treasure trail, substituting singlet for sierra, and replacing madre ‘mother’ in the mountain range name Sierra Madre by padre ‘father’, to make it all masculine, in grammatical gender and in sociocultural gender too (like the guy in #1).
On the movie, from Wikipedia:
(#2)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a 1948 American dramatic adventurous neo-western written and directed by John Huston. It is a feature film adaptation of B. Traven’s 1927 novel of the same name, about two financially desperate Americans, Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and Bob Curtin (Tim Holt), who in the 1920s join old-timer Howard (Walter Huston, the director’s father) in Mexico to prospect for gold.
Happy Trails. The alternative title. A play on the anatomical happy trail, plus an allusion to the song title “Happy Trails”. From Wikipedia:
“Happy Trails” by Dale Evans was the theme song for the 1940s and 1950s radio program and the 1950s television show starring [Western movie stars] Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Rogers, always sung over the end credits of the program.
You can listen to Rogers and Evans singing their song here — and, if you wish, view a slide show of the couple through the years. The chorus of the song:
Happy trails to you,
Until we meet again.
Happy trails to you,
Keep smiling until then.
If you take happy trails to be anatomical, then this is slyly racy. Meet you at the end of the trail!
The alternative reading has not been disregarded. For example: a sexy romp on BuzzFeed on 9/8/14, “23 Breathtaking Instagram Happy Trails Everyone Should Follow: Because they all lead to happiness”. A lot of them have been removed from Instagram, but several steamy images remain, like this one:
(#3)
Homo eroticus on the hoof, head to crotch.
But wait! There’s more! There’s a titular spin-off of the song title “Happy Trails”. From Wikipedia:
(#4)
Happy Trails is the second album of the American band Quicksilver Messenger Service. Most of the album was recorded from two performances at the Fillmore East and Fillmore West, although it is not clear which parts were recorded at which Fillmore. The record was released [in 1969] by Capitol Records in stereo.
Ride a cowboy!
(About men’s bodies; some readers may want to exercise caution.)
The Michael Lucas (gay porn studio) Fourth of July sale for this year:
(#1)
They are covering their junk with the Stars and Stripes (and their hands): the flag as fig leaf, or modesty shield.
Covering your nakedness. The minimal protection for your genitals is what you already have available: your hands:
(#2)
Or you can hold some fabric — a washcloth, a towel, a sock, a shirt, whatever — over your junk as a modesty shield, as here (genderfuck performer Sinon Loresca):
(#3)
Or you can hold or suspend some object over your crotch. Like a football (rugby player in a Dieux du Stade calendar):
(#4)
Or a guitar (Peter Sellars in the nudist colony scene from A Shot in the Dark):
(#5)
Or a top hat (Neil Patrick Harris):
(#6)
For longer-lasting, hands-free concealment, you can use a garment designed to be minimal, but still junk-covering: a g-string, some kind of thong, a cock sock. or a jockstrap, all of which have been illustrated on this blog.
Now, if you’re going about in public naked except for some kind of modesty shield, then, yes, you’re concealing you naughty bits, but you’re also calling attention to them. There is a fine line between modesty and cock teases, and to me, #1 seems clearly over that line. Enjoyable (if you’re into men’s bodies), but not at all modest. Instead, it says: Independence Day is Dick Day!
A messier interpretation. Maybe the three guys in #1 are using the flag not to conceal their junk, but to mop up after ejaculation. Ick, the Stars and Stripes as a cum rag (aka cum-rag, cumrag, or come rag). For Desecration Day.
On this sense of cumrag, from Wiktionary:
A piece of fabric [this is a bit too specific, since cum rags include items of clothing and paper tissues as well as bits of fabric] used by a male to clean semen from himself after masturbation: Socks make great cumrags.
You can buy labeled cloths for this purpose:
(#7)
(Towels labeled jizz are also available for purchase.)
For more improvisatory guys:
(#8)
A chart ranking types of cum rags, from the thefrisky.com site (directed at women):
(#9)
Note that actual rags, in this sense from NOAD2,
noun rag: a piece of old cloth, especially one torn from a larger piece, used typically for cleaning things: he wiped his hands on an oily rag | a piece of rag.
don’t figure in the cum rag chart. That is, the compound cum rag is non-subsective: a cum rag is not, in general, a rag (though a rag can be pressed into service as a cum rag). Instead, the compound is resembloid: a cum rag is like a rag, in that it’s a piece of clothing, fabric, or paper tissue that looks like a rag and is used for a similar purpose.
As far as I can see, cum rag and its variants don’t appear in standard dictionaries, even the scholarly multi-volume slang dictionaries (GDoS and HDAS) and the OED, though all these big dictionaries have come / cum shot. Maybe I’ve just not searched carefully enough.
In any case, the compound, in the sense above, is in widespread vernacular use.
Then it turns out that there’s a second sense of cum rag, involving a semantic extension from a piece of material to a person serving a purpose like that of the piece of material: someone who enthusiastically mops up semen — that is, a cum whore / slut / fag. From Wiktionary:
A person who engages in sex frequently and receives semen inside or on them: John is a total cumrag when he wants to be.
This brings me to another t-shirt:
(#10)
The shirt in #8 has the label this shirt on it, referring to the shirt on which the label is printed. But the shirt in #10 has no demonstrative in its label, opening the way to (at least) two interpretations: one in which cum rag refers to the shirt on which it’s printed (roughly, ‘This is a cum rag’), one in which cum rag refers to the person wearing the shirt (roughly, ‘I am a cum rag’). The second understanding is almost surely the one most people are likely to get, since t-shirts identifying the wearer are not at all uncommon, even in matters of sexual preference and identity.
For instance, I posted on 2/27/15 about a line of Curbwear singlets and underwear bearing labels for gay male sexual preferences, among them:
POWER BOTTOM – POWER BTTM – BOTTOM – TOTAL TOP – TOP – VERSATILE – ACTIVE
And on the Usenet newsgroup soc.motss on 5/16/04, I told this t-short story (lightly edited):
Some years ago, with the collusion of an Ohio auto registrar, I obtained a Queer Card from the state of Ohio: I wore my QUEER QUEER QUEER t-shirt, and she got it into the frame, and then I had that for five years. About this time, a friend on soc.motss had Queer Cards printed up for us all, but *I* had a photo ID.
A piece of the shirt (made by the Don’t Panic company, but apparently no longer available from them):
(#11)
The two interpretations in #10 are familiar from another labeling context, namely the labels on medicine bottles. The ‘This is a cum rag’ interpretation is parallel to the understanding we give to Child-Proof on a medicine bottle (the bottle is child-proof); and the ‘I am a cum rag’ interpretation is parallel to the understanding we give to Adult Strength on a medicine bottle (the contents of the bottle are adult strength).
(The classic reference here: Jerrold M. Sadock, Read at your own risk: Syntactic and semantic horrors you can find in your medicine chest. Chicago Linguistic Society 10.599-607 (1974).)
Everybody’s got a Fourth of July sale going. Here’s the Daily Jocks entry, with my caption:
Twinkdependence Day
Put the package in stars,
Wrap the rump in stripes,
Fly it all on a pole.
I’m not sure why the display is so pallid, but that’s the way it came from DJ. Maybe the boys got bleached in the bright summer sun.
Thanks to this Zippy strip, it’s been a fedora morning:
(#1)
Fedoras, trilbies, homburgs, and more.
Johnny Depp in a dark brown fedora:
(#2)
Then a white Borsalino — a brand of fedora whose name has become recognizable on its own as a style of hat:
(#3)
From Wikipedia:
Borsalino is a hat company known particularly for its fedoras. Established in 1857, Borsalino produces felt from Belgian rabbit fur at its factory in Alessandria, Italy.
Then on the name fedora, from OED3 (June 2015), rather hesitantly:
Origin: Apparently a borrowing from French. Etymon: French Fédora.
Etymology: Apparently < Fédora, the title of a drama (1882) by Victorien Sardou (1831–1908) and the name of its heroine, played in early productions by the French actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923), although the precise connection is unclear.
The soft felt fedora was originally marketed as a men’s hat, and no contemporary evidence has been located which connects this style with the male members of the play’s cast. The name of the play and its heroine appear to have been adopted slightly earlier for various items of womenswear, including hats, and it is possible that the name fedora was applied to the men’s hat because of its general fashionable associations.
orig. U.S. A low, soft, felt hat with a curled brim and the crown creased lengthways.
(The first cites are from 1883 and 1884.)
The fedora is minimally different from the trilby. Sean Connery in a trilby:
(#4)
From Wikipedia:
A trilby is a narrow-brimmed type of hat. The trilby was once viewed as the rich man’s favoured hat; it is sometimes called the “brown trilby” in Britain and was frequently seen at the horse races. The London hat company Lock and Co. describes the trilby as having a “shorter brim which is angled down at the front and slightly turned up at the back” versus the fedora’s “wider brim which is more level”. The trilby also has a slightly shorter crown than a typical fedora design.
The hat’s name derives from the stage adaptation of George du Maurier’s 1894 novel Trilby. A hat of this style was worn in the first London production of the play, and promptly came to be called “a Trilby hat”.
Then three more men’s hat styles, bearing a family resemblance to the fedora and the trilby. The bowler, pork pie, and homburg, shown here in versions available from the Stacy Adams company (see the cartoon in #1) — still in business, but now focused primarily on men’s shoes:
(#5) Victorian bowler
(#6) Rocker pork pies
(#7) Homburg
Wikipedian notes:
Bowler: The bowler hat, also known as a bob hat, bombín or derby (USA), is a hard felt hat with a rounded crown, created originally during 1849. The bowler, a protective and durable hat style, was popular with the British, Irish, and American working classes during the remaining 19th century, and later with the middle and upper classes in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the eastern United States.
The bowler hat is said to have been designed during 1849 by the London hat-makers Thomas and William Bowler to fulfill an order placed by the company of hatters James Lock & Co. of St James’s., which had been commissioned by a customer to design a close-fitting, low-crowned hat to protect gamekeepers from low-hanging branches while on horseback at Holkham Hall, the estate of Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (seventh creation) in Norfolk. The keepers had previously worn top hats, which were knocked off easily and damaged. (link)
Pork pie: A pork pie hat is one of three or four different styles of hat that have been popular in one context or another since the mid-19th century, all of which bear superficial resemblance to a culinary pork pie dish.
The first hat to be called a pork pie was a hat worn primarily by American and English women beginning around 1830 and lasting through the American Civil War.
… The pork pie began to appear in Britain as a man’s hat not long after the turn of the century in the fashion style of the man-about-town, but its resurgence in the United States in the 1920s is credited to the silent film actor Buster Keaton, who wore them in many of his films. (link)
Homburg: A homburg is a formal felt hat characterized by a single dent running down the center of the crown (called a “gutter crown”), a stiff brim shaped in a “kettle curl” and a bound edge trim.
It was popularized by Edward VII after he visited Bad Homburg in Hesse, Germany, and brought back a hat of this style. He was flattered when his hat style was mimicked, and at times he insisted on being copied. (link)
Sir Anthony Eden was famous for favoring homburgs, as here:
(#8)
Following up on yesterday’s “Fedora days” posting, about hats — the fedora, trilby, pork pie, bowler, and homburg — Benita Bendon Campbell produced this wonderful photo:
A carefully staged re-creation of a scene from the 1930s — with Denver councilman Kevin Flynn in vintage costume. Wearing a bowler hat, known familiarly as a titfer.
From GDoS: noun titfer (also titfa) abbr. for tit for tat ‘a hat’. First cite from 1932 “Stick yer ‘tit fer’ on yer ‘Uncle Ned'”, that is, stick your hat on your head. (In the working-class British context, this would almost surely have been a bowler hat, as in Flynn’s picture.)
GDoS has the Cockney rhyming slang tit for tat ‘a hat’ from 1925, in a list of soldier and sailor slang (and also from 2002, in AuE, for “a rat, i.e. a non-trade unionist”).
(Another underwear ad, with my caption. Steamy topic, but not, I think, over the line.)
(#1) The company darling
Eddie found the company’s
Dress code peculiar, but he
Loved wearing the silky blue
Hooded lounge robe and
Scanty briefs at his desk.
Daily Jocks ad from the 10th, featuring, in the new Edison line from N2N Bodywear, a lounge robe and brief. On the robe:
Sexy sleeveless robe w/belt. Super silky feel. Full hood. 92% Polyester 8% Spandex. Made only in Los Angeles. US$46.
N2N will help you dress for success.
DJ’s pitch for the company, which has been featured on this blog a number of times:
N2N Bodywear from Los Angeles has created sexy, unique and well fitting apparel for every kind of man. N2N provide a range of collections including underwear, sportswear, swimwear and their playful wrestling range.
The company is, um, adventurous in its offerings and unabashedly pitched to gay men.
For the Pride Month of June, the company altered its usual logo to a rainbow version:
(#2)
— which I’ve made more intense by exchanging the white background for black:
(#3)
Now there’s a butch logo.
(Men’s bodies, underwear, snarky captions, and some slang.)
A recent offer from Daily Jocks, SUP BRO t-shirts from the Australian company Supawear:
(#1)
That’s my shirt bro
It comes from A U
I’m Buster Brown
Look for me down there too
The Supawear firm likes to play on its name — as here, with the play on AmE slang ‘sup, bro?, short for whassup, bro?, a casual-speech variant (probably originally from black street speech) of what’s up, bro?, combining the informal idiomatic query what’s up? with the address term bro, which (like ‘sup?) has diffused from black street speech into much wider use among young men.
From GDoS:
what’s up? (also ‘sup? wassup? whassup? wha’s up? what up? whazzap? wuzzup? ‘zup?) 1 a general enquiry or greeting [first cite 1855] 2 what’s the matter? esp. in what’s up with you/her? etc. [first cite 1837] 3 what is happening? what’s going on? [first cite 1912]
what’s up, G? (also what up G?) (orig. US black) a greeting [1991 cite as campus slang; other cites from black sources] with [generic address term] G (derived from ‘Gangster’) ‘Whasup G?’
The main entry lists syntactic variants (what up?, with omitted auxiliary, alongside what’s up?) and phonological variants (what’s up?, wassup?, ‘sup?; variation between /a/ and /ʌ/ in the variants of what; variation between /s/ and /z/ in the reduced auxiliary) and possibly mere orthographic variation. The full range of facts about the variants and their contexts of use is extremely complex; a dictionary can’t be expected to go much beyond cataloguing the variants that occur in texts and mentioning a few of the social parameters that seem to be relevant.
Bro is complex as well. From a 4/28/16 posting:
The story of the address term bro in relatively recent years begins with its use by black men to black men, roughly (but not exactly) like the widely used American buddy — a term of male affiliation. It then spread into the wider culture, serving as a mark of male solidarity. This is what I called in a 4/12/16 posting “good”, positive, bro. But male solidarity tends to come with a dark side: rejection of anything perceived as feminine, played out as sturdy misogyny and homo-hatred in general; and the elevation of boys’ clubs (formed for whatever reasons) to boys-only clubs, aggressively hostile to women and to men perceived as inferior. When these guys use bro to address (or refer to) one another, then we’ve got what I called “bad”, negative, bro.
Regular use of bad bro between men in groups, for instance by fraternity boys and so-called brogrammers, has led to a steady pejoration of the term for people outside those male groups; bro is now a tainted term for many people, calling up unpleasant images of aggressive masculinity.
Bro has made its way to Australia, where it seems to fit in well with the macho strain in the culture. The Supaware ads play on it as a marker of male solidarity and combine that edgily with the homoerotic currents of premium men’s underwear advertising in general, and Supaware in particular: the advertising is offering underwear, swimwear, and gymwear, but it’s also offering the model’s bodies as objects of desire.
Here’s the model in #1 displaying his body in Supawear Rainforest briefs:
(#2)
In the Cairns
Rainforest,
Buster became a
Fruit bat.
A frontal offer, of a smoothly masculine body. Another frontal offer, from the European firm Code 22, this time a scruffily masculine body:
(#3)
El Caimán
Lays in wait for
Spanish boys in
La laguna azul.
On to the often outrageous Canadian firm PUMP! From a 9/2/15 posting about
[PUMP!’s] larger catalogue, which tends to feature underwear models “projecting steamy desirability” (as I put it in my Rafael Nadal posting) — in fact projecting a male-hustler persona while teasingly flaunting the pleasures of their bodies.
And on 11/9/15:
PUMP! specializes in gym-oriented images (pumping iron and all that), though they also have a few pretty-boy models and a lot of models doing the slutty rentboy look
Their models do front displays in bodywear that sets off their pouches strikingly, and several models specialize in rear displays — for example:
(#4)
(#5)
L’Ami en Rose, from his
Tattoo and the song, sometimes
Le Miracle de la Rose, from the
Rosebud of his body, à la Genet.
(Men’s underwear, bodies, and fetishes, so not to everyone’s tastes.)
The Daily Jocks ad from the 19th displayed this vision from Cellblock 13 / CellBlock 13 / Cell Block 13 (plus my caption):
(#1) Commando jockstrap and neoprene harness, in camo/red
Over years, bit by bit, Butch
Stripped his clothing down to the
Bare minimum.
DJ’s sexy suggestive copy:
These days, it’s not only gay men who take obsessive good care of their bodies. Straight men and women are also looking for clothes that show off their hard work in the gym and on the playing field – and maybe even signal their deep-seated desires.
Well, people harness up for a variety of reasons, including displaying their bodies (for commando and bulldog harnesses, highlighting the pecs) and enjoying the feeling of being constrained.
By the same company, but offered by International Jock rather than DJ, this remarkable garment:
(#2)
Lucian dreamt he was a
Sex kitten in his
Silky Covert Harness.
The ad copy:
The Covert Harness tank by Cellblock 13 is made of sporty mesh fabric and features a slick and stretchy black Liquid Skin material detail on the shoulder straps and back. Perfect for those times you wish you were in a harness but can’t be.
Note: my caption for #2 is a take-off on the long series of “I dreamed I Xed in my Maidemform Bra” ads from the 50s and 60s, like this one:
(#3)
(Men flaunting their junk, codpieces, prehistoric creatures, superheroes, language play, and more. Use your judgment.)
On the 21st, a posting on Cellblock / CellBlock / Cell Block 13 garments, featuring a young man in a commando harness (plus a jockstrap). Then in yesterday’s mail, a Daily Jocks ad with another remarkable CellBlock 13 costume (plus my caption):
(#1) X-Wing Harness and X-treme Hybrid Short, in red
Vic the Prick, cynosurus,
Caught every eye at the
Reptile Ball.
The clothing. The harness — with X-crossed straps in back — is designed to show off the wearer’s shoulders (in back) and to frame his pecs and abs (in front).
The hybrid shorts — a cross between (nylon/spandex) sport shorts (tightly hugging the wearer’s buttocks in back) and a jockstrap (thrusting his pouch out in front) — are in fact extreme homowear. From the Jockstrap Central description of the garment:
It’s the ultimate short with secret weapon both front and back. Made with a tough by luxuriously smooth skin-tight Nylon/Spandex fabric with lots of stretch. It’s a short with a length ending a few inches above the knee… Secret #1: There’s an opening in the crotch – it’s where the body hugging, cock gripping and detachable Jock Armour Cock Ring sits and attaches to the frame of the jock brief via a series of fasteners. An outer pouch snaps on over the works. Secret #2: There’s a fully functional zipper in the rear – when you’re open for business, simply unsnap the front or unzip the rear or both for full service. At the top is Cellblock 13’s signature one and half inch wide comfort waistband with sports striping and Cellblock 13 logo front and center. Includes two metal rings at the top of the waistband to attach the matching X-treme Hybrid Harness
When the front is snapped up and the back is zipped up, the garment looks like a pair of (skin-tight) cycling shorts / bike shorts, so a guy could in principle go out in them in public (while being always ready to step into private for sexual action in front or back) — well, he could if he was comfortable being out and abroad in a what amounts to a codpiece.
I’ll get back to codpieces in a moment. First, ad copy for the bodywear company, from Daily Jocks:
CellBlock13 is the raunchy big daddy to its founder Timoteo. Created with a unique style for the man that likes to get down and dirty in his underwear choices, you’ll love CellBlock13’s risqué and seductive designs.
Fantasy homowear for Vic.
Codpieces. On this blog, two notable postings (both with illustrations):
on 4/17/11, “Bulges”
on 11/17/15, “Alaskan cod-pieces”: The codpiece is cousin to the jockstrap, the thong, and pouch-enhancing underwear — all clothing focusing on a man’s package (and so related to the lack of underwear in the practice of freeballing, aka going commando, which encourages the development of visible packages: moose knuckles).
Add to this the celebration of Batman and Robin’s packages in the 1997 movie Batman & Robin:
(#2) George Clooney and Chris O’Donnell in B&R costume
Clooney and O’Donnell are both wonderfully amiable and sexy men (for an appreciation of O’Donnell, see this posting), but they’re wasted in this movie (as are others, in particular Uma Thurman, playing one of the menagerie of villains, Poison Ivy), which attempted to be kid-friendly by reverting to the over-the-top jokey style of the old Batman tv series.
The caption. My caption for #1 introduces the noun cynosurus, a portmanteau of two remarkable words, cynosure and cynosaurus — the first notable because of its etymology, the second notable because of the prehistoric creature to which it refers.
On the noun cynosure , from NOAD2:
a person or thing that is the center of attention or admiration: the Queen was the cynosure of all eyes. ORIGIN late 16th century: from French, or from Latin cynosura, from Greek kunosoura ‘dog’s tail’ (also ‘Ursa Minor’), from kuōn, kun– ‘dog’ + oura ‘tail.’ The term originally denoted the constellation Ursa Minor, or the star Polaris that it contains, long used as a guide by navigators.
(I suppose you could see Vic’s package in #1 as the embodiment of a dog’s tail or a little bear.)
As for Cynosaurus (‘dog lizard’), it’s is an extinct genus of mammal-like reptiles, known from fossils in South Africa. Some closely related creatures:
(#3)
(Pronunciation note: both cynosure and cynosaurus are pronounced with initial /s/ in English. It’s canine with a /k/, but cynic — yet another ‘dog’ word etymologically — with an /s/.)
Yesterday’s morning name was the Mexican Spanish nickname Chuy (for Jesus). I’m pretty sure it got into my head from a friend who recently ate at a Chuy’s restaurant in Texas, so I’ll start with that.
But the real topic is Mexican Spanish nicknames: Chuy or Chucho for Jesus, Pepe for José, Che for Ernesto, and Pancho or Paco for Francisco, in particular (with a note on the linguist Viola Waterhouse, who was a student of such things). That will take me to Pepe Romero, Che Guevara, Pancho Villa, the linguist Paco Ordóñez, Paco Rabanne (the man and the fragrances), and from there to Nick Youngquest in the buff, which will supply a moment of gay interest.
Chuy’s. From Wikipedia:
(#1) The original Chuy’s on Barton Springs Road in Austin TX
Chuy’s is a Tex-Mex restaurant chain established in 1982, by Mike Young and John Zapp. The company currently has 86 locations and 8 locations … currently under construction, as of July 2017. Chuy’s currently has restaurants in 19 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Missouri, and Ohio.
Chuy’s strives in serving a distinct menu of authentic, made from scratch Tex-Mex inspired dishes. Chuy’s highly flavorful and freshly prepared fare is served in a fun, eclectic and irreverent atmosphere. Each location offers a unique, “unchained” look and feel, as expressed by the concept’s motto “If you’ve seen one Chuy’s, you’ve seen one Chuy’s!”.
Every year on Elvis Presley’s birthday, January 8, most locations host the Elvis’ Birthday Bash, during which an Elvis impersonator visits the restaurant. Chuy’s also annually hosts a Green Chile Festival at its locations, celebrating the harvest of the Hatch Green Chiles from Hatch, New Mexico.
Nicknames. Chuy is a common nickname for Mexican or Mexican-American men named Jesus; Chucho is an alternative. A contributor to Urban Dictionary suggests that in joking contexts, Chuy can also be used as a generic address term for a young Mexican-American man (with Concha as the female counterpart).
I am ignorant of all the sociolinguistic details here. Among other things, I don’t know how much the nickname Chuy is used outside of Mexican and Chicano contexts — in other parts of Hispanophone Latin American or indeed in Spain.
It is clear to me that the other male nicknames I’ll be talking about — Pepe, Che, Pancho, Paco — are more widely distributed, though they are indeed common in Mexico, and the sources most easily available to me are about Mexican Spanish specifically.
[Side note. The sociolinguistics of nicknames, pet names, and address terms is invariably exquisitely complex and hard to study in detail. For a brief discussion, generally the best you can do is a broad-brush account of the variants and their users, such as I’m giving here.]
From a column by “the Mexican” (Gustavo Arellano) in the Dallas Observer on 1/1/09 (a repeat of a column from 2007) about Mexican nicknames, I was pointed to Viola Waterhouse’s “Mexican Spanish Nicknames”, in the 1981 anthology Linguistics Across Continents: Studies in Honor of Richard S. Pittman. VW provided a rich compendium of such names, but without extensive comment on their histories.
A nickname is an abbreviated version of some source name –often, however, extended by hypocoristic morphology (Will for William, and then Willy as an alternative). Nicknames can often be seen as conventionalizations of child phonology (/b/ for /w/ in Bill and Billy), sometimes including echoing of consonants or outright reduplication.
VW’s compendium of Mexican Spanish nicknames illustrates all of these points, plus a strong nickname preference for the Spanish palatal affricate spelled CH (which is the source of the initial consonant in Chuy, a consonant that’s then echoed in Chucho, which also has the masculine-gender theme vowel -o added).
[Etymythological side note. Predictably, someone has come up with an acronymic derivation for Chuy. In a 9/4/14 response to a Quora query about the name (lightly edited for typos here):
Luis Fernando Mata Licón, Being Northern Mexican since I was born.
After searching in Google I couldn’t find any viable source, only forums and one article in a history of nicknames page; they say Chuy means:
“Cristo Hijo Unico de Yahveh” (Christ only son of Yahweh). This comes from Jesus Christ and the bible.
For me it seems that the acronym came after the nickname and not before. But I don’t know for sure.
The commenter wisely suspects etymythology.]
[Side note on VW (1918-1997; there’s a brief Summer Institute of Linguistics memorial site for her here). I was previously unaware of her piece on nicknames, knowing her only as the authority on Oaxaca Chontal. From Wikipedia:
Oaxacan Chontal, also called Tequistlatecan, consists of two related but mutually unintelligible languages, Huamelultec (Lowland Oaxaca Chontal), and Highland Oaxaca Chontal. There has been speculation that the languages may be part of the Hokan family of California, or perhaps the Jicaque family of Honduras [but otherwise OC appears to be a language isolate]. The name “Chontal” comes from the Nahuatl, meaning “foreigner” or “foreign”, and is also applied to an unrelated language of Tabasco.
Oaxaca Chontal was VW’s life work.]
[Final note on Chuy: hat tip to Ryan Tamares.]
The nickname Pepe. Another nickname quite distant phonologically from its source, José, though it shows echoing in both its consonant, /p/, and its vowel, /e/. Though Pepe is a common nickname in Mexico, the most famous bearer of the name is Spanish by birth: the classical and flamenco guitarist Pepe Romero. (Romero’s family left Franco’s Spain in 1957, when he was in his teens, to settle in San Diego CA.)
Pepe Romero is of interest here in that he apparently was given the name Pepe as his birth name, thus illustrating another feature of nicknames: that they are sometimes converted to regular names, becoming, in effect, orphan nicknames, parallel to orphan initialisms (both unmoored from their historical sources). So in English we get people whose legal names are Kate. Jack, Meg, Will, and the like.
The nickname Che. As in Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Argentine revolutionary. Definitely a nickname, but not any kind of abbreviation. Instead, it’s an epithet. From Wikipedia:
Che … is an interjection (i.e. a vocative expression) commonly used in Argentina, Uruguay, and in the Spanish autonomous community of Valencia. In the Southern Cone (especially in Rioplatense Spanish), it is a form of colloquial slang used in a vocative sense as “friend” and thus loosely corresponds to expressions such as “mate,” “pal,” “man,” “bro,” or “dude,” as used by various English speakers. As a result, it may be used either before or after a phrase: “Man, this is some good beer,” or “Let’s go get a beer, bro.” It can be added to an explicit vocative to call the attention, playing the role of “Hey,” for instance: “Che, Pedro, ¡mirá!” or “Hey, Pedro, look!” Che is also utilized as a casual speech filler or punctuation to ascertain comprehension, continued interest, or agreement. Thus che can additionally function much like the English words “so,” “right,” or the common Canadian phrase “eh.”
Che can also be found in some parts of Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia, as a result of their close vicinity to Argentina. In other Hispanic American countries, the term che can be used to refer to someone from Argentina [that is, to convey ‘someone who says che’]. For example, the famous Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara earned his nickname from his frequent use of the expression, which to his Cuban comrades in the Cuban Revolution was a curious feature of his idiolect.
Apparently, from Che used as a nickname for Ernesto Guevara, some Mexican Spanish speakers have come to use it as a nickname for other men named Ernesto.
The nickname Pancho. An abbreviated version of Francisco, with a lost syllable, /fr/ shortened to /f/, which is then converted to /p/ in child phonology; plus the CH thing again.
From GDoS on the noun Pancho:
[the stereotypical Mexican name] (US) 1 a derog. form of address to an anonymous Mexican man [1962 Terry Southern quote: I think you’ve probably picked the wrong crowd this time, Pancho.] 2 a Puerto Rican [1994 Abraham Rodriguez, Jr. Spidertown If he gets away with that, every li’l pancho be dickin’ me up the ass.]
(I’m not sure if ‘Puerto Rican’ is the best gloss for subentry 2; ‘Latino’ might be better; Mexican ‘Latino’ is quite common in AmE.)
The most famous Pancho is surely the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa: born José Doroteo Arango Arámbula, he adopted the name Francisco Villa and so became a Pancho.
The nickname Paco. Also for Francisco, but not so strongly associated with Mexico. Two examples here, both from continental Spain.
First, among the many Francisco “Paco” Ordóñezes, a colleague in linguistics, of Catalan origin: Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics at Stony Brook Univ., with an undergrad degree from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of CUNY. From his Stony Brook web site:
Francisco Ordóñez was trained in the study of formal linguistics. His specialization has been the comparative study of the syntax of Spanish, its varieties and other Romance languages such as Catalan, French, Italian and Occitan dialects. His present research involves the study of the syntactic differences of the dialects of Spanish spoken in Latin America and Spain.
(but everyone knows him as Paco).
Then, Paco Rabanne. From Wikipedia:
(#2)
Francisco “Paco” Rabaneda Cuervo, (more commonly known under the pseudonym of Paco Rabanne) (born 18 February 1934) is a Spanish fashion designer of Basque origin who became known as l’enfant terrible (unruly child) of the 1960s French fashion world.
He started his career in fashion by creating jewelry for Givenchy, Dior, and Balenciaga and founded his own fashion house in 1966. He used unconventional material such as metal, paper, and plastic for his Metal Couture and outlandish and flamboyant designs.
Rabanne is known for his costume designs for such films as the 1968 science-fiction film Barbarella. Françoise Hardy was a big fan of Rabanne’s designs. The popular French singer Mylène Farmer continues to bring the extravagance of Paco Rabanne to her live concerts.
In 1968, he began collaborating with fragrance company Puig, which resulted in the company marketing Rabanne’s perfumes. In 1976, the company built a perfume factory in Chartres, France.
An ad for his INVICTUS fragrance for men:
(#3) With the sportif model Nick Youngquest
From Wikipedia:
Nick Youngquest (born 28 July 1983 in Sydney, New South Wales) is an Australian model and former professional rugby league footballer. [Substantial coverage of his rugby career here.]
… In 2006 Youngquest posed nude for the Naked Rugby League Calendar 2007-08, stirring controversy after his revealing pose – in which one hand is placed partially over his genitalia.
(#4) One of many titillating Youngquest body shots
… In late 2012, Youngquest decided to step away from rugby to pursue opportunities in modeling, appearing in a campaign for Abercrombie & Fitch shot by Bruce Weber. He currently resides in New York City. In 2013, he became the face of the new masculine fragrance INVICTUS by Paco Rabanne.
For obvious reasons, Youngquest has a big gay male following, which he welcomes. In addition, though straight, he’s a visible supporter of LGBT causes.
Earlier today, the posting “I sing the body elastic”, about Mikey Bustos’s parodic hymn to Speedos, the skimpy elastic men’s swim suits — with a title playing on “I Sing the Body Electric”, a poem from Walt Whitman’s 1855 Leaves of Grass, celebrating the human body. Beginning:
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
On the noun charge here, from OED3 (June 2008):
4. fig. Suddenly exciting, thrilling, or intense, as if caused by an electric charge or shock; stimulating; charged with tension. [first cites 18th c.]
In section 2 of the poem, an appreciation of the bodies of men (especially workingmen), as expressing their natures, their character, indeed their soul:
The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
Then in section 9, in a long Whitmanian catalogue, of the parts of the body:
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud
This blog hasn’t shrunk from the appreciation of men’s bodies, as expressions of character and also, yes, as attractive pieces of meat. On this latter path, checking out images of shirtless workingmen, I was led to a 2/1/14 Daily Mail (UK) piece “The best Diet Coke break EVER: Host of bare-chested hunks gathers to celebrate 20 years of the iconic adverts”, reporting on the men who’ve performed shirtless for Diet Coke over the years. Beginning with the first, Lucky Vanous, in 1994:
(#1) A screen shot; you can watch the whole ad here
‘Break’ The original ‘Diet Coke Break Hunk’, Lucky Vanous, kept a group of admiring women in an office building glued to their window, as a shirtless construction worker on a building site.
Lucky Vanous landed the Diet Coke Break ‘Hunk’ role when he was married and attending Fordham Law School. After appearing in the first ‘Diet Coke Break’ ad, Lucky also appeared in the lesser-known 1995 spot ‘Magazine’ – where he plays a male model brought to life on the pages of a fashion magazine after a girl opens an ice cold Diet Coke.
More on the man, from Wikipedia:
(#2) Lucky in a posed shot
Lucky Joseph Vanous (born 11 April 1961) is an American model and actor. He became nationally known in 1994 after appearing in a series of commercials for Diet Coke.
Vanous was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and served in the United States Army 1st Ranger Battalion. Upon discharge, he studied at University of Nebraska at Lincoln. He was discovered while visiting New York City, and he moved there to model and continue his studies at New York University and Fordham University.
I spent much of Tuesday putting together material for my posting on Mikey Bustos and his parody “I Wear Speedos” of the hit song “Despacito”, by Puerto Rican pop stars Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee. That led me of course to the great Puerto Rican pop star Ricky Martin, who’s been steadily on public view ever since he joined the boy band Menudo back in the 1980s.
So I had a day experiencing several versions of “Despacito”, many times over, and also returning to the pleasures of Ricky Martin’s performances, starting with “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and going on from there through his oeuvre (with digressions to Enrique Iglesias and Shakira).
Then yesterday to lunch at the Mexican restaurant Reposado, where they play pop music in Spanish as background. As I sat down, I recognized RM’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca”. Which was followed immediately by Fonsi & DY’s “Despacito”. How unlikely was that?
Synchronicity at work.
Synchronicity, then a lot of Ricky Martin (sometimes shirtless, once in a Speedo), with a digression on Mexican tripe stew.
Synchronicity. From Wikipedia:
Synchronicity (German: Synchronizität) is a concept, first introduced by analytical psychologist Carl Jung, which holds that events are “meaningful coincidences” if they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related.
Jung seems to have intended something here more substantial than the human inclination to seek (and find) meaning in everything, plus the fact that coincidences are much more common than people imagine.
But I’m content to believe that the La Vida Loca / Despacito recurrence was in fact nothing but coincidence, involving as it did the appearance on a Latino music service of possibly the most famous piece of Spanish-language pop music ever together with the currently most-listened-to piece of Spanish-language pop music. It was just an accident that I’d been listening to and thinking about these two songs the day before.
(I note in passing that if you’re going to suffer from earworms, “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and “Despacito” aren’t at all bad as aural irritants, especially if you can visualize the canonical videos, which are full of life and energy.)
Ricky Martin. From Wikipedia:
(#1) RM in a concert performance of “Livin’ La Vida Loca”
Enrique Martín Morales (born December 24, 1971), commonly known as Ricky Martin, is a Grammy Award winning Puerto Rican singer, actor, and author. Martin began his career at age 12 with the all-boy pop group Menudo. After five years with the group, he released several Spanish-language solo albums throughout the 1990s. He also acted on stage and on TV in Mexico, where he achieved modest stardom. In 1994, he appeared on the US TV soap opera General Hospital, playing a Puerto Rican singer [with long, wild rock-star hair].
In early 1999, after releasing several albums in Spanish, Martin performed “The Cup of Life” at the 41st Annual Grammy Awards show [you can watch the official video of “La Copa de la Vida” here], which became a catalyst in bringing Latin pop to the forefront of the U.S. music scene. Following its success, Martin released “Livin’ la Vida Loca”, which helped him attain enormous success worldwide [you can watch the official video here]; it is generally seen as the song that began the Latin pop explosion of 1999 and made the transition easier for other Spanish-speaking artists to move into the English-speaking market. Since its release, the song has sold over 8 million copies, making it one of the best selling singles of all time. His first English-language album (also titled Ricky Martin), has sold 22 million copies and is one of the best selling albums of all time.
A bit more detail on “La Vida Loca” (from Wikipedia):
“Livin’ la Vida Loca” is generally seen as the song that began the Latin pop explosion of 1999 and made the transition of other Spanish-speaking artists (first Enrique Iglesias, then later Shakira, Thalía, and Paulina Rubio) into the English-speaking market easier. Before this time, most non-Latino Americans had never heard of Martin until what CNN reported was a show-stopping performance of “La Copa de la Vida” at the 41st Grammy Awards show, which became a catalyst in bringing Latin pop to the forefront of the U.S. music scene.
Menudo moments. The boy band and the tripe and hominy stew. From Wikipedia:
Menudo was a Puerto Rican boy band that was formed in the 1970s by producer Edgardo Díaz. Menudo was also one of the biggest Latin boy bands in history, releasing their first album in 1977. The band achieved much success, especially during the 1980s, becoming the most popular Latin American teen musical group of the era. The group disbanded in 2009.
The band had several radio hits during its course. Their success led them to also release two feature films: Una Aventura Llamada Menudo and Menudo: La Película.
The band was a starting point for both Ricky Martin and Draco Rosa, who were members around the mid-1980s during their youth.
Menudo’s original line-up consisted of two sets of brothers: Fernando and Nefty Sallaberry from Ponce, Puerto Rico (Fernando was born in Spain) and the Melendez brothers, Carlos, Oscar and Ricky Melendez; the latter three are Diaz’s cousins.
Specifically (also from Wikipedia):
(#2) RM in the middle
Can’t Get Enough (1986) is the 23rd album by Menudo. This is their third album in English and features Charlie Massó, Robi Rosa, Ricky Martin, Raymond Acevedo and Sergio Blass.
By all accounts, Menudo was a tough life for a teenager, with a heavy schedule of performances and very strict control by the managers.
Then there is culinary menudo (for which the group is named). From Wikipedia:
(#3)
Menudo, or pancita ([little] gut or [little] stomach, from Spanish panza “gut/stomach”) is a traditional Mexican soup, made with beef stomach (tripe) in broth with a red chili pepper base. Usually, hominy, lime, chopped onions, and chopped cilantro are added, as well as crushed oregano and crushed red chili peppers. [That makes menudo essentially tripe posole.]
Menudo is usually eaten with corn tortillas or other breads, such as bolillo. It is often chilled and reheated, which results in a more melded flavor.
… Menudo is traditionally a family food prepared by the entire family, and even serves as an occasion for social interactions such as after wedding receptions where the families of the groom and bride go to either family’s house to enjoy an early morning bowl of menudo. In popular Mexican culture, menudo is believed to be a remedy for hangover.
Since menudo is time and labor-intensive to prepare as the tripe takes hours to cook (or else it is extremely tough), and includes many ingredients and side dishes (such as salsa), the dish is often prepared communally and eaten at a feast.
Back to RM. RM projects immense energy and sexiness, with big smiles and first-class pop-star hip action. And a body he enjoys showing off, in performances and in posed shots. Shirtless here:
(#4) RM channeling George Michael
(#5) RM rocking a Speedo; cf. Bustos’s “I Wear Speedos”
RM has always had a big gay following. Eventually, he came out as gay himself. While he’s sexually attracted to both women and men, and has had extended relationships with both, he says that his affectional attachments are to men, and he’s now engaged to be married to a man, artist Jwan Yosef. (His position here is much like his position on nationality. He now holds dual citizenship, in the US and Spain (no doubt he could get Mexican citizenship if he wanted to), and he has a home in Madrid, but says that his emotional attachments are to Puerto Rico.)
In 2008, he became the father of twin boys, through a surrogate mother, and entered what amounts to a second career as a publicly visible sweet daddy. Recent photo here:
(#6)
Just as there’s a trove of shirtless photos of RM, there’s a trove of photos of RM with his sons (and often with Jwan Yosef as well); in fact, there are sites entirely devoted to these two themes.
Status report: RM is 45, Yosef 32, and the kids 8. The men are currently failing to get their wedding plans together, largely (it seems) because of their multi-national attachments: you could make a case on RM’s side for a wedding in (in descending likelihood) Puerto Rico, Madrid, Miami, or Mexico, and Yosef’s side is no less complex; from Wikipedia:
Jwan Yosef (born 1984) is a Syrian-born Swedish painter and artist of Kurdish and Armenian ancestry. He specializes in plastic arts and is based in London, England.
So: Sweden, London, or someplace in the Syrian, Kurdish, or Armenian diaspora. (Syria, Kurdistan, or Armenia would probably not be a good idea.)
They could just pick some other place entirely: Hawaii, Tuscany, Paris, the Iguazú Falls, Rio de Janeiro, Bali, Cape Town, Santorini, wherever.
You can find lots of photos of RM and Yosef together, in formal wear, in casual clothes, or on the beach. But Yosef is, like RM, a hot guy in great shape and perfectly willing to display himself, as here:
(#7)
Welcome to the world of highly talented multilingual multicultural gay hunks.
