Antonio Sabato, Jr.: Spiralling Downward.

Last Saturday, I was at the gym, on the treadmill machine, and as I was scanning the eight monitors on the wall for the TV show that would accompany me in my twenty five minutes of exercise, I spotted Antonio Sabato, Jr. Of course, he was not in the gym himself (or else I would have fell, been dragged by the machine, and in the hospital right now instead of blogging). He was on TV. He was on a soap opera, The Bold and the Beautiful.

ASJ, as I fondly refer to him in my dreams, thoughts and occasional drooling, is arguably one of the finest male specimens ever to have tried his luck in Hollywood. He is one you'll call a total package. He has the face, pecs, arms, abs, nose and voice that a moviegoer would want to see and hear on the big screen. And while he is certainly not in the same category as Matt Damon, Edward Norton or Mark Wahlberg in acting, he has the same range of facial expressions as Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Matthew McConaughey.

So, the question to ask is: Why is this guy still doing soap?

He had the momentum to make himself a superstar, an A-list actor, a real player in Hollywood. He had every girl and woman take notice of him when he started soaps in the 1990s. Then he made every gay guy want him and every straight man envy him when he took over the Calvin Klein underwear campaign from Marky Mark. His giant billboards in New York, Paris, London and other key cities not only sold a lot of boxer shorts but ignited millions of libidos. Yet, in spite of having that much potential and publicity, his career went nowhere. What happened?

One factor that I think contributed to why his career suffered a failure to launch is that he was an ambivalent sex symbol. Although every potential moviegoer has made his name and image synonymous to both sexy and sex, ASJ was reluctant to embrace that fact. He was afraid to be typecast as the romantic Mr. Right or be appropriated by the gay community as their own leading man. So intead of going through the same paths that Brad Pitt or Matthew McC treaded ---the former coyed up in Thelma and Louise, shamelessly paraded his bare ass in The Legends of the Fall, Twelve Monkeys and even Troy (made when he was already Brad Pitt) and kissed Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire--- Antonio made forgettable, low budget action films such as Operation:Wolverine and Seconds to Spare and sappy dramas like If Looks Could Kill. Those were dumb choices.

Alas, realization came to him a little too late. When he finally decided to do a film for his gay market (think Testosterone) it has lost its interested in him. Thus, when he finally did a full frontal nudity in that movie, it hardly caused a stir. We have been waiting for him to do just that a decade earlier and he failed to deliver. When he romanced a guy and ultimately showed his family jewels, we have moved on to Jake Gyllenhaal, Orlando Bloom and Tom Welling. Even CK had moved on to Freddie Ljungberg. Nevertheless, we borrowed the video just to see what he has deprived us all those years. And we dismissed the film and his nudity and quickly forgot them. It was like anticipating a new jacket in Christmas only to receive it on your birthday, in the middle of summer. What's the use?

So, he is back doing soap. Truth to tell, he is banished forever and his star will never shine as it should have. He made the choices that caused his career to spiral lower and lower, the consequences of which are both lamentable and cruel.

Antonio Sabato, Jr.? Wow, he was a great looking guy, perfect almost. Wasn't he a Hollywood actor? Yes. What film was he in? Silence.

American Idol 5: Encores.

A couple of months after American Idol Season 5 wrapped up, my copy of the Encore CD arrived last night. I purchased the item over at eBay and by this morning I have to listened to all the tracks at least three times.

To my listening ear, four renditions stand out in this collection. In the following order, the best recording performances were given by: (1) Ace Young for Father Figure; (2) Chris Daughtry rocking to the tune of Wanted Dead or Alive; (3) Paris Bennett singing Midnight Train to Georgia; and (4) Elliot Yamin crooning to Moody's Mood for Love. Eventual winner Taylor Hicks also made a respectable version of Takin' It to the Streets ---his voice is really soulful--- but I have heard him sing better and this recording just doesn't compare to his other electric performances during the Idol telecasts.

As if to cement its status as the best season of Idol ever, Lisa Tucker, Melissa Mc Ghee and Kevin Covais gave surprisingly laudable (and audible) renditions of Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours), What About Love and When I Fall in Love, respectively.

Of course, like any other album, Encore 5 has its share of disappointments. These came in the forms of Bucky Covington (Superstitious) and Kellie Pickler (Walkin' After Midnight). On the other hand, there is nothing special in Mandisa's rendition of I'm Every Woman Woman and Katharine McPhee's take on Think. They are far cries (no pun intended) from the versions of goddesses Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin, respectively.

I read on the net that Kellie Pickler has signed up to do an album with the same producers of American Idol. She becomes only the fourth Season 5 alumni to ink a recording deal after Hicks, McPhee and Daughtry. To me, this is bad news. The last thing that the music industry needs right now is another Jessica Simpson. Another dumb blonde doing albums for the simple reason that she can slut her way in an MTV. Elliot, Ace, Lisa and Paris are more talented than Kellie and they are more deserving of that recording deal.

----oOo-----

I opened my blog today to find out that I have just received my first comment. The comment is courtesy of "buff" and this is what he wrote:

"Great studs you pointed out. And they can act. Thanks for sharing. A super blog post and hunky pics."

He is reacting to my first Manscape blog featuring Mark Wahlberg, Pavel Novotny and Chris Evans. I totally agree with him that all these three men can act. Mark Wahlberg has been overlooked by the Oscars twice, first for Boogie Nights (lead actor) and again for I Heart Huckabees (supporting actor). On the other hand, Pavel Novotny stands out from all other porn stars by giving the best facial expression when sucking and being sucked and fucking and being fucked on film. As for Chris Evans, I think I've said enough of his acting in the previous blog.

Thanks to your kind words buff. It is nice to know that someone out there has taken his time to read my blogs.
-----oOo-----
Since I totally enjoyed his version of George Michael's Father Figure, I have decided to insert in this blog a photo of eye candy Ace Young. Ace, here's toasting to your first album!!!

SpeciMen 01: Mark Wahlberg, Pavel Novotny and Chris Evans.

Every month, I will run in this blog a feature entitled Specimen. Specimen will spotlight the various men who through their unprecedented sex appeal, gorgeous good looks, unparalleled talent, contribution to humanity, unquantifiable sexiness or simple firmness of the pecs or tastiness of his cock grabbed my attention and are worth the time to write about and upload their photo. In sum, the criteria is threefold: (1) looks; (2) talent; and (3) excellence. Bottomline: If God appeared to me and commanded me to build an ark and choose the men who will survive the second great flood and populate the earth thereafter, these are the perfect specimens I will usher, salvage and spend the cold days with while waiting for the waters to subside. I wanted the first guy in Manscape to be very special, so after a careful deliberation, I decided to feature Mark Wahlberg (or the rapper-underwear model formerly known as Marky Mark). I have loved Mark since the first time I saw him on the cover of some teeny-bopper US Magazine. He was still Marky Mark then, a white rapper who delights the crowd by doing his musical numbers sans a shirt. I was about twelve or thirteen years old at that time and if I weren't still gay at that moment, it made me one. I was ambivalent to buy that magazine, but after two or three trips back to that store, I eventually bought the magazine. From then on, I was his and he was mine. I followed his career, from the rhythm of Good Vibrations to the glossies of his Calvin Klein pictorial, to his transformation to a bona fide movie star.

I have seen every single one of his movies. I watched him start out in The Basketball Diaries and Fear, swagger a prosthetic penis in Boogie Nights, remake Planet of the Apes, Charade (The Truth About Charlie) and The Italian Job, experience man-to-man sexual tension with George Clooney in The Perfect Storm and Three Kings, and play various other roles in Rock Star, The Big Hit and I Heart Huckabees.

Nowadays, Mark has been reluctant to remove his clothes in front of the camera. Seeing him even shirtless in a movie is like catching the Halley's comet's rare appearance. Nevertheless, in my mind, Mark Wahlberg will always be that shirtless guy who defined my sexuality and the guy who would always have me beholden.

Next stop: Pavel Novotny aka Jan Dvorak and Max Orloff. To me, this guy is Adonis reincarnated. No other man I've seen could even compare to him in terms of physical beauty (well, I confess, there is Antonio Sabato, Jr. to rival him). Pavel has the perfect body and the thickest and juiciest dick. He is also a porn star and fucks men. Well, he also allows men to fuck him, so that makes him really incomparable. He has appeared in Bel Ami's Coverboys, Julian, and Team Play and other videos such as The Jan Dvorak Story and Under the Big Top. The last man in this first installment of Manscape is Chris Evans. Very few people are born to play comic book characters. Christopher Reeve (as Superman) and Hugh Jackman (as Logan) are two cases in point. Still, very, very few comic book heroes are created to be played by an actor on screen. Watch Fantastic Four and see that Human Torch was meant to be played by one actor and one actor only: Chris Evans. He was more than perfect for the role. He actually made the movie worth watching (and for me, worth watching four times). Remove Chris Evans or imagine some other actor play this character and the movie automatically becomes dull, dour and dreadful. Chris Evans brought humor, vigor and sexiness both to the role and the film.
I was so enchanted watching Chris Evans in Fantastic Four. Afterwards, I had to scour for his previous films, including The Perfect Score, Not Another Teen Movie and Cellular. Hollywood should keep this guy employed.

My History of Porn.

One of my vices is pornography. During my years of puberty, access to and use of the internet were not as widespread. As such, the only sources of porn were the print media and home video.
I could not enjoy videos as much as I would like to since our only VHS player was located in the sala (family room). I had to wait for everyone to be out of the house before I could sneak to play triple X movies.
On the other hand, I could handily enjoy porn magazines in the privacy of my bedroom. I started out borrowing porn from my high school classmates. It was an all-boys school, so the ready and popular materials were Playboy, Hustler and High Society. We would take turns bringing home these sleazy magazines. Eventually, we called them “scripts”, to turn away suspicion from the prying ears of our teachers and holier-than-thou classmates.

I remember buying my first porn magazine. I was in 3rd or 4th year of high school, the guilty pleasure was Hustler and I considered it a birthday gift for myself. I bought it at A&A Magazine, which was located on the entrance of SM department store in SM City. A lot of my classmates got their similar reading materials from that store. Hustler was such a raunchy magazine and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was plastered with photos of lustful blonde and brunette women, solo or coupled with men or another woman, caricatures and sex cartoons, informative articles and very suggestive fiction. The letters to the editor were also very stimulating as they consisted mostly of the weird or problematic sexual adventures of the Hustler readership.
Eventually, I realized that I enjoyed more looking at the form of the naked Archie than at the exposed bosom of Betty and the hairless pussy of Veronica. So from Hustler and International, I made the leap to Torso. But the first gay magazine that really captured me was a 1997 issue of All Man with Scott Randsome on the cover and centerfold. From then on, I was hooked.
More than a decade of buying and collecting porn, I have now about two box-fulls of dirty magazines. I have dozens of Freshmen , with sprinklings of All Man, Torso, Honcho and Mandate and about a hundred Playgirls. Throughout the years, I’ve had my favorites. But featured in this blog are some of my early favorites: Billy Marshall (Torso), Mikal Janos (Freshmen Man of the Year winner) and Matthew Anders (also from Freshmen).

[Note: From top-right to bottom - Billy Marshall, Mikal Janos and Matthew Anders]

Playgirl: The Daily Fix.

One of the first things I do when I open my computer every morning is to click on the web page of Playgirl at www.playgirl.com and check out their daily fix.
The Daily Fix is Playgirl’s own version of other sites’ girl of the day, or the daily cock, or beaver of the hour ---depending on the site you visit and your sexual preference. Starting each day by visiting this site gives me a tinge of anticipation, excitement and, of course, pleasure. How would seeing Chris Allen’s erection, or Breck Orshal’s equally turgid cock not give me a smile on my face when I open my computer? How about Jamie Gable's yummy physique? Or seeing 2002’s Man of the Year Matt Kenney fresh from the shower not make me equally wet?

Playgirl’s The Daily Fix is the next best thing to Playgirl having its certainly voluminous archive of naked men, boys and in-between available to web surfers without the need of shelling out the hard-earned bucks for that precious membership. A daily fix, indeed.
I just hope that Playgirl would keep this feature available to its casual visitors. A photo each day of its delicious men and gorgeous models has not doused my yearning to purchase the magazine each coming month.

Purefoods Chunkee Giants: 2006

All Filipino Champions.

I was able to drag my friends to the Araneta Coliseum last Friday night, 21 July 2006, to watch the sixth game of the PBA All Filipino championship match between Purefoods and Red Bull. To my utter delight, Purefoods won.

I did not plan to watch the game that night. We were in Araneta Coliseum two nights before to watch Game 5. I went home disappointed as Purefoods lost despite the surprisingly great game had by Richard Yee (17 points in the first three quarters but hardly used in the final period). But I suddenly found myself having a lot of free time in the office Friday afternoon and decided to go to Ticketnet to check if there are still tickets available. As fate would have it, I was able to purchase one of the few tickets left.
With this win, Purefoods claimed its fourth franchise All Filipino crown and its seventh title over-all. It is also the first championship for the team in the post-Alvin Patrimonio era. Alvin Patrimonio retired in 2004 after being the team captain, the heart and soul, and the anchor on offense of the team. This time, the team was led by Kerby Raymundo and James Yap (2006 MVP) in offense and Marc Pingris (Finals MVP) and Roger Yap in defense. Injured player Eugene Tejada and Zandro Limpot, who was on a quest for his first ever PBA title after being in the league for about 13 years now, provided the inspiration. Rey Evangelista, who took over as team captain, provided the leadership off the floor. Noy Castillo didn't score much, nor played much, but he provided the crucial shots by converting three-point shots when Red Bull was threatening to cut or take the lead, or break away.
The post-game was a bit funny. The Red Bull team did not have the courtesy of returning to the court to claim its runner-up trophy. Kerby Raymundo, when interviewed, pulled out a long list of people to thank. However, notwithstanding his "preparation" all he could blurt was a thank you to "everyone". Marc Pingris showed genuine surprise when it was announced that he was honored as Finals MVP. Like everyone else, Pingris thought that the choice of MVP would be narrowed to between Kerby and James. However, I agree with the choice of Marc as MVP since he made the difference in the finals. He was a terror inside the paint, forcing Red Bull players such as Enrico Villanueva, Junty Valenzuela and Lordy Tugade to change their shots or commit errors.
Anyway, in the post-Alvin Patrimonio era, I've been smitten with Richard Yee. I've seen him a number of times in the malls. He is so handsome and neat.

Congratulations, Purefoods Chunkee Giants for winning the 2006 All-Filipino championship!!!!

TJ Austin.

TJ Austin is one of the sexiest young men I have ever seen. He reminds me of all the schoolmates I had in high school whom I violated, devoured, satisfied and salivated over in my private thoughts.
He is the boy scout who shared a tent and cot with me during a camping. He made me hardly get some sleep that night, keeping me awake with a moral dilemma. Do I keep my hands to myself or let them crawl to the other side of the cot and feel him while he slumbers soundlessly?
He is the teammate I watched dressing and undressing after our basketball game. I would remember how white his brief was, all the while trying get a glimpse of how his cock makes a trace on his underwear. He is the jock I cheered for during intramurals and varsity games. In my mind, I kept a record of his hardcourt moves. In my heart, I both hated and envied the many girls who flirted with him. I joined the school newspaper to be able to interview him, thus have a plausible disguise to talk to him in private.
He is also the friend on the other side of the swimming pool I observed as water dripped from his hair to his shoulders and raw stomach, as he leaves the pool. I remember, one time, I asked if he could carry me on his back around the pool. To my utter surprise, he agreed. I clung to him, feeling the strength of his shoulders, feeling the firmness and softness of his chest, and smelling the mixture of chlorine and his musk hair and skin.

He is also the reason why I brought extra paper, pen and art materials. I happily placed them in my bag the night before but counting on nothing in return but the expectation that he will be asking, me, for them during class. Nevertheless, he showed me his gratitude. Several times he carried my bag for me and walked me home. Their family driver fetched him late, around 6:00 p.m. This gave us ample time to trade stories while we walked to our nearby house. I tried to extend those moments, always coming up with silly questions and old stories that he has heard before, if only to see the whitenss of his teeth and the glimmer of his eyes a few seconds more. He is the smile on my face whenever I am moved by nostalgia and reminisce my high school life. He made every day of school worthwhile, every assignment a cheerful task, each school activity an event to look forward to.

Alvin Patrimonio and Hollywood Hotties.

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Last night, my friends and I watched Game 5 of the current PBA finals featuring Purefoods and Red Bull at the Araneta Coliseum. I purchased the tickets a week ago, Patron B. Purefoods is up 3-1 and I really believed that it would clinch the title that night.

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I went there to cheer for, of course, Alvin Patrimonio - my first boyfriend. He retired from the league in 2004 and is now serving the team as its Team Manager. I instantly melted when I saw him on the team bench. At 39, not only is he the sexiest team manager in the league but he is also still the sexiest man alive for me. From my seat, I admired his still smooth face and bulbous butt. He hardly smiled the whole game but constantly cheered his team on.

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Purefoods led for most of the game, leading by as much as 11 points at the end of the first half. Red Bull, however, was able to tie the game exactly at the last-two-minutes mark. From then on, Red Bull slowly built a 2-4-5 points margin that Purefoods was not able to come back from. James Yap , trying to play the hero, made the crucial mistake of cockily firing a three point shot when two points would have been enough to keep his team on track. Richard Yee, also delicious, played the game of his life by scoring 17 points, all in the first three quarters of the game. Purefoods lost. The final score, if I remember it right, was 93-88.

Opened msn today to read them name 2006's Hollywood Hotties. Among male Hollywood, the distinction went to Wentworth Miller, Brandon Routh, Jake Gyllenhaal, Brad Pitt, Josh Holloway, Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Jamie Foxx, and Adrian Grenier. I totally agree with the inclusion of Jake G, Routh and Orlando. Whoever thought playing Superman, Johnny Depp's sidekick or a cowboy hand could be so sexy?

The female honorees are: Angelina Jolie, Jessica Alba, Eva Longoria, the Pussycat Dolls, Scarlett Johansson, Nelly Furtado, Keira Knightley, Rachel McAdams and Katherine McPhee. I think Jessica Alba stands out from them all. I like her a lot. She is so sexy.

Julian Fantechi.
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Got this photo (along with 40 others) of Julian Fantechi today from justusboys.com. Really made my day. Julian is in the midst of gay porn nowadays, gracing the August issues of both Playgirl and Men magazines. I understand he was earlier featured in the November 2005 issue of Playgirl. Can't find a copy of that issue anymore.

Julian will certainly warm my bed in the nights to come.