Keyshia Cole ~ I almost wanna fuck her. To my boyfriend's dismay, I've been running this CD since I bought a few weeks ago. Actually, J loves her too ... he just wishes I'd stop playing it over and over like a damn fool in love. But this girl is NO JOKE. Don't walk ... RUN ... and buy this CD. Unless you have no taste at all, you won't be sorry. ~~ tS " ... Like many young people raised in a tough neighborhood, the 21-year-old songstress endured a tumultuous childhood in Oakland, California, and has fought all her life to keep her dream of a music career alive. Now she's realizing that dream on her own terms with her first album for the A&M label, The Way It Is. It's been a long road for Keyshia, but it's her powerful voice-- a bell-like instrument whose soaring clarity is topped off with a tantalizing touch of soulful grit -- that's carried her through, not to mention the diminutive singer's personal combination of sugar, spice, sass and sex appeal, along with a solid-steel spine. "Being young, you have to be really dedicated to doing it for yourself," says Keyshia, who co-wrote most of the songs on her new CD and cites artists like Mary J. Blige and Brandy as inspirations. "There's a lot of trials and tribulations you have to go through to get what you want, especially if you feel like it belongs to you." Within minutes of catching her boyfriend cheating, Keyshia was in her car driving to Los Angeles in the middle of the night to start a brand-new life...." ~~ Read more of her bio on KeyshiaCole.com

What do you get ...

when you squeeze the wizened George Carlin into the body of a twenty-one year old gay boy with issues?

You get Daniel, author of the best satire on Homosexuality that I've ever read. I just wish I'd written it. Do yourself a favor, check it out, and tell him how much you love him. I did.

And tell him Taylor still wants to marry him.

Being Gay! Oh, Those Issues! @ Rights Now

The House That Jesus Built ~ Or Taxpayers?

Are pastors who spread intolerance of SGL people living in luxury at taxpayers expense? You decide. I believe it's a prime example that religion is the best business ever. Keep those offerings flowin' ... 'cause the Rev needs a new Bentley. ~~ tS

"In 1995, Bishop Eddie Long established a nonprofit, tax-exempt charity to help the needy and spread the gospel. But it was Long, leader of the largest church congregation in Georgia, who became the charity's biggest beneficiary." That's the way the Atlanta Journal-Constitution began an exhaustive report on Bishop Eddie Long's eponymous charity, which reportedly provided him with at least $3 million in salary, benefits and the use of property, including a $1.4 million 20 acre home and the use of a $350,000 luxury Bentley automobile. You may recall that Long is the pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia and led a march against gay rights from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center last year. The damning story in the Journal also mentions that Long was fired from a job for lying on an expense report. The story continues: "In October 2002, Bishop Eddie Long Ministries notified the IRS that the charity was dissolving and pledged to transfer all of its assets to New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. The house was never transferred. Instead, a year later, Long signed papers relinquishing the charity's interest in the home, making himself the sole owner." A church spokesman said Long no longer takes a salary, but instead accepts "love offerings" made by church members, according to the Journal. Long also rejected old-fashioned notions that pastors should be poor. "I would love to sit with you and walk with you through the Bible to show that Jesus wasn't poor," he said. "I'm not going to apologize for anything," he told the Journal. Keith Boykin ~~ Read the Full Article

Sex Party Police ... or Big Brother?

If this shit doesn't scare ya, I don't know what will. Look out ... the Sex Party Police are watching!! This site implores us to report sex parties so that the hosts of these events can be prosecuted for "pimping" ... and the patrons are considered, get this ... prostitutes. That's a hot one. I don't know any prostitutes, but I think its safe to say not many would pay to get into a sex party. I also don't advocate attending sex parties any more than I advocate smoking or heavy drinking. But don't adults have the right to be reckless with their own health?

Who's really behind this site?

Hmmmm ..... I smell a Christian Fundie. Pat ... you feeble old fool, is that you?

Update (08/31/05) ~~ I talented fellow writer has a deeper, and more entertaining take on this issue @ A Life Not So Black & Gay. Check it out!

Dive Barz & Pretty Boyz

It’s funny how you give in to one bad habit, and then equally bad behaviors begin to re-surface and find their own rationales. A slippery slope that once you’ve got some momentum, it becomes increasing difficult to stop. A year and a half ago I quit smoking, a habit which I enjoyed very VERY much. During that time I met my boy, J ... and we've been as happy as Sponge Bob and his boy Squidy living together in domestic Bikini-Bottom bliss. But I've never been one for too much happiness; at some point I always find some obscure way for fuck it all up. Coming home one day from a blessed job assignment (blessed 'cause I'm always just half past broke), wearing my overalls and covered from head to toe in various colors of paint splatter … I ran into an old, but sexier than ever, bad habit of mine. His name was Tim and I was his first. Yeah, I helped him discover his inner homo about six years ago when he was only nineteen. I watched him approach, through the paint speckles peppering the lens of my glasses. He gave me that smile, that sexy red-headed Latino smile that I fell in love with way back when … and as sweaty and as funky as I was … I instantly knew I wanted to cheat on J. I looked like hell. I was wearing glasses. Double hell. And they had paint on them. Triple hell, fuck! If I’d planned our reunion, it wouldn’t have been on the one-hundred degree day I’d spent beautifying million dollar condos on Jersey City’s waterfront instead of moving in to one. Fate has a wicked sense of humor, that bitch. Still … I brought him home with me anyway. As we caught up … he offered me a cigarette and for some reason I took it. He rolled a blunt and I shared that too. Then beer flowed ‘cause it was Miller time, and I thought I deserved it after such a hellish day. And Tim looked so good after spending the last three years, he informed me, in Florida … getting tanned and buffed apparently. I deserved some of that too … didn’t I? Fortunately, I was in no condition for a late afternoon tryst. Although he seemed interested in picking up where we left off … I didn’t think it prudent to subject someone I cared about to the ‘funktitude’ that must be inhabiting my overalls. Maybe fate wasn’t such a harpy after all. I didn’t jump his delicious looking bones … and he didn’t jump my questionably scented ones. I couldn’t get him out of my mind after that though. I bought a pack of Salem Slim Lights and hid them in the fireplace. I started to have flashbacks of my cocaine days … when the drug and wild sex were intrinsically connected in my life. I craved smoky dives and pretty boyz lounged around pool tables, stipper boyz in cages oiled and gyrating for me alone. I was on that slope … and slipping fast. I knew this and still, a part of me wanted to experience that all over again … the thrill of the high, the passion, the sexual abandon … but not the horrible consequences I’d learned came attached to such hedonistic pleasures. Somehow, I managed to control myself, and that wicked horned creature inside that made me do bad things. I confessed all of to J. He understood and we’ve grown even closer. Thank god for him. Yeah. Thank god for him. The cigarettes are still in the fireplace ‘cause that’s one facet of the tale I left out. I wish it was a working one though, ‘cause right about now I need to burn some shit. The cigarettes … my love of artificial stimulants … my weakness for Latinos--especially the rare red-headed variety … and my tendency to grow bored so very easily, and whine when I should be happy. I think I’ll throw that pack away today. I just won’t tell anyone I lapsed; no one really reads this anyway. (What a curious habit we bloggers have, spilling shit we want to keep secret.) Whatever. I’ll still proudly proclaim that I’ve been smoke-free for a year and a half … and dare any of you voyeurs to say different. Yeah, I’m gonna throw them away today … and if Tim calls, tell him that, like Miss Otis, I’m unable to lunch today. Or tomorrow … or the day after that … or …..

Photos courtesy of ZION fridays @ The Gallery ... (formerly Alberts) ... downtown Jersey City.

It's in his Kiss.

Is there anything more beautiful than two men clenched in passion? If you don't think so, then you should take a closer look. 1luv from JerzeeBrothas, asked the question ... Do you and your mate still share long passionate kisses like you used to? Hmmm ... good question.

Kiss passionately? Oh yes, of course. As a matter of fact, when we don't find occasions to make out like teenagers in a basement ... then I know there's something wrong with our relationship. Kissing is the ultimate for me ... the intensity of which lets me know if I'm in love or something less. It seems simplistic but its not. There's a connection made, a sixth sense maybe, that says either he's the one ... or just a quick screw. That song comes to mind ... the one from the movie with Cher and Wynona Ryder, Mermaids. The line goes ...

... If you wanna know

if he loves you so ... its in his kiss ....

So true, everything you need to know is in that kiss. A bad kiss would never get you to second base with most people, myself included. But a great kiss, one gut-wrenchingly slow and passionately exectuted ... well, lets just say ... I couldn't undress any faster if my clothes were on fire. Yeah, if its done just right ... the drawers just leap off the body. No lie. So yeah, in order to remain my mate, my partner, my Boo ... he'd better continually curl my toes with his kiss. 'Cause that's what's up. I, on the other hand, always endeavor to do the same.

History Repeating ?

"As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."

-- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 - (letter to Col. William F. Elkins) - Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY) thanks kibosh 1 for the timely quote.