Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

ManCrunch and Millions of Dollars of Free Advertising

Hey, I'm a gay man in the ad business. A single man, seriously looking to find a partner to settle down with. So I like to think I know what online dating services are out there — and whether they're any good or not. Except that last week I learned about ManCrunch — without them spending a dime on media advertising. That doesn't mean they weren't on the airwaves, or all over the net.

As just about all gay men who pay attention to media representation know, ManCrunch submitted a TV spot to CBS for the SuperBowl. They had to know it wouldn't be accepted. I doubt they even had the budget to run the spot even though the company claims they offered a cash payment. But the attendant media firestorm around the submission and turn down got the spot play on websites and cable TV comedy shows nationally.

This is a brilliant strategy of playing the media. And Reuters nails it in a story about ManCrunch and GoDaddy. Now if there were only a brilliant strategy to find a guy online for something serious. And believe me, I'm not looking for someone who wants to watch the Super Bowl with me. Unless it's to fast forward to the advertising.

The NFL Super Bowl meets Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo

The Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo has been doing their amazing parody of Swan Lake for years. Did you ever think you would see the concept adapted for a Super Bowl tv commercial, complete with NFL players in the role of swans?

In the background, much like the Trocks, the players are in tutus. After years of homophobic ads broadcast to subconsciously defuse the homo-eroticism of the games, this spot is a welcome departure, if a shameless rip-off.

W.H.Auden, Cute Butts and Bicycle Seats

This TV Spot from the ever amazing team at Euro RSCG Paris brings to mind the couplet by W. H. Auden:

I've often thought that I should like
to be the saddle of a bike.

Exactly.

Gay Athletes, Oral Sex and Advertising

There's a provocative headline to introduce this rather amusing print ad for a gay bar in Prague. The Gym Sports Bar down on 8th Avenue in Chelsea has never done anything this playful. Of course given the history that many gay bars in NYC are basically still run by organized crime, it's no surprise the ads are simply about the beef, with hardly any playfulness at all (btw that's no reflection on the ownership of Gym Bar, which I've been to all of once and decided, uh, this is why I hate straight bars, why have a gay bar like this?).

Kudos to EuroRSCG for this ad, posted, as usual, at adsoftheworld, where the ad posted next to it, presented an even more amusing juxtaposition as you can see below. Perhaps the guy eating the Snickers bar needs more practice taking it all. All the more interesting is that the ad is for Snickers — the controversy surrounded that homophobic advertising debacle was chronicled over at joemygod.

It's raining men. Chinese men. Hallelujah.

Well, actually, the photos that follow this are rather disturbing — it's a series of photos the Boston's Globe's blog called The Big Picture published showing the Chinese Army doing anti-terrorism exercises in preparation for the Olympic Games. These pictures scare me. (Though the photos on the Segway are both hilarious and terrifying at the same time.)

Mind you, it is indeed raining Chinese men. Remember, the one child policy and the preference for male children has led to a wild imbalance in the male/female ratio in China. So there are literally millions of men who will not find a wife. That's a lot of frustrated men in the armed forces — which to me seems like  a recipe for worldwide military disaster.

Where is the international homosexual conspiracy to convert when you need it?

Now I have to admit it — I have in fact cavorted with a member of the Red Army. Well, the Red Army Ballet Troupe. One day walking down MacDougal Street in NYC I met the attractive eyes of Jin Xing, a choreographer, dancer and colonel in the Chinese Army's famous ballet corps (shown here at left pre-op). Later — after our own pas de deux — I learned that he had been in Japan earlier that year where he had a met a friend of mine there who it seemed no matter who I met when I lived in Tokyo, he had met the guy already. And it was still happening after I'd moved back to NYC! Well...in any case, Jin Xing went on to become rather famous as China's first MTF transexual. Personally, I think it was a pity. While many sex changes are for deep internal reasons, I believe this is not so different than what happens in Iran today, where gay men prefer to endure sex change operations (which is acceptable) rather than be identified as gay — and thus subject to death under Islamic law. I seem to have wandered far afield...

So getting back to the men on the field above, I suspect that very few of them would turn up at The Web Bar in New York should they find themselves magically transported here (or part of an invasion). But I have to say, that might well be a solution for many of China's population and social problems. And who knows, I might get a boyfriend out of it. Not.

The Rat Race & The Race For Rats: Welcome 2008

For those of you who haven't been paying attention to Chinese astrology, 2008 will be the year of the rat. Here in NYC, home of the rat race, it makes sense that one of the premier events to welcome in the new year is in fact a race — The New York Road Runners' annual Emerald Nuts Midnight Run in Central Park (and the sponsor is Emerald Nut rather than a comment on what happens to the male anatomy during a run in freezing weather)  will be jammed and includes or all things a costume contest and parade, dancing and fireworks following the four-mile run. As Lily Tomlin once noted, the problem with winning the rat race is that you're still a rat.

Meanwhile AFP is reporting that in Moscow pet shops have run out of rats to sell as Muscovites in hopes of good luck in the New Year hope that the qualities of the rat year will rub off on them. As opposed to say, the hanta virus. As if Moscow didn't have enough problems:

Veterinarians have warned of the possible consequences of this new craze: "Not everyone is going to be delighted to get a real rat as a present, and those that can't house them will either return them to a shop, or release them in the streets," one Moscow vet said.

Too bad it's too late to send them some of ours. I am sure there's a Taco Bell in lower Manhattan that would like to export their little rodent problem. Well. With that, I share a marvelously snarky bit of New Year's greeting created by art director Alexei Zagdansky (a Russian emigré in NYC who is no doubt laughing at his former comrades):

With that I wish you a most happy new year. Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu. Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu.

Yes, but what happens in the locker room?

This print ad is part of a campaign for a modeling agency. What is odd however is that so many male models today could very well have come from a soccer (or rugby) team (what do I know about these sports anyway?) since the trend is for highly athletic bodies and men who look straight (whatever that means). The stereotype of the posing fey gay boy does not really represent the models used by most men’s fashion houses nowadays, or for that matter, this modeling agency. So why a modeling agency would make fun of the very people they are trying to attract is beyond me.

On a personal note, I prefer a fey boy to a rugby player any day.

Athletic Support

Adfreak cites research by Harris that shows people seem just as likely to be influenced by out gay sports celebrity spokespeople as by any sports spokespeople. That being queer shouldn't exclude you from being on the Wheaties box.

Rumors of his being queer is what kept Olympian Carl Lewis from his breakfast moment. But it does not seem to be getting in the way of John Amaechi, who is appearing in advertising. Of course, let's keep it real. Here's what the NY Times reported that the CEO of HeadBlade, which is using Amaechi, had to say:

Mr. Amaechi ''is the perfect storm,'' said Todd Greene, chief executive at the HeadBlade Company in Culver City, Calif., which specializes in products for bald men, because ''he's African-American, a basketball player and gay, and those are all huge demographics for us.''

''And he uses the product,'' Mr. Greene said, adding that he learned Mr. Amaechi was a ''HeadBlader,'' as Mr. Greene calls his customers, while deciding whether Mr. Amaechi would make an effective spokesman.

In other words, the target market is gay. Nice that the Harris poll shows opinion trends moving in a good direction. But I don't see Amaechi on the Wheaties box yet. I did see him at the GLAAD Media Awards the other night though, and he is really larger than life is many ways (get your head out of the gutter). Sure, he's big. But he is clearly big-hearted, and like another former basketball player I admire, Bill Bradley, smart in a way that gets attention. Maybe he should do what Bill did and run for office someday. It's better than being on a cereal box any day.