Linky fever

[rootbeer1]

OK, I keep seeing young women on the bus and other public transportation, with tiny little jewels pierced on their noses, cheeks or chins.
[Poll #891913]
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How odd to be talking with friends in other parts of the country, and when you mention how cold it is (39 degrees Fahrenheit!), they come back with how the high for the day, where they are, is zero, and that’s not even counting wind chill. So, why are we in the bay area complaining?

Don’t they realize now that 39 degrees in San Francisco is like -40 degrees where they are? They get zero degrees every year! They should be used to it by now!

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For those of you who knew Chris Nelson, author of The Bear Cult book and one of the founders of Bear magazine, I finally found an obituary. I only knew Chris slightly -- he dated Ed, a co-worker of mine, several years ago, and I saw him on BART occasionally. Many of our lives would be quite different, and quite likely more emotionally-impoverished, if Chris hadn’t been around to help lick that inchoate bear-whelp of an idea into a real bear community.

From Wikipedia:

Photographer and researcher Chris Nelson and his partner Richard Bulger started "Bear Magazine"--originally a xerox-copied flyer--from their home in San Francisco's North Beach in the 1980s. Richard and Chris took the magazine to a high-gloss format which was distributed throughout the world. Blue-collar, working-class men often appeared in the magazine, which usually did not depict gay bodybuilders or leathermen.

Comments

[bearbrat.livejournal.com]

Some of us like facial piercings...

[rootbeer1.livejournal.com]

It's the teeny-tiny ones that don't look right to me. If it's so small that you can't even tell it's a jewel or a bit of metal, then it comes across as a zit or a crusty bit of skin. Makes you want the owners to go wash their faces.

But that's just me. I want everyone to go wash their faces.

[bearbrat.livejournal.com]

I've had people over the years tell me that I have something stuck to my beard. My response is to tell them, "Yes, there is. There's supposed to be." The look I get is priceless. ;-)

I had mine done almost ten years ago. I wanted to do something that was different but not too out there. I'd seen maybe one or two other bear types with a labret and liked the image of the jewlery floating on the beard.

I'm wondering tho', are these true piercings or are they glued on fakes? At least I had the balls to get a needled shoved through my lip.

[sunbeam-bears.livejournal.com]

...if ONLY my acne for all those years, manifested in the form of jewels! By now, I'd be fabulously wealthy, with some left over for fabulous earrings!

[joebehrsandiego.livejournal.com]

Steve - thank you for discovering and posting Chris' obituary. I has missed news of his death, and until now knew nothing of his professional life (said lack sad in and of itself).

I have to agree with your assessment of his 'Bear' work. Whatever carping one hears about the current state of the "bear community", it has done good things for me and I'd be the poorer for its lack.

Thank you for the card, BTW - and please thank Jack and give him a hug for me.

[poohbearjim.livejournal.com]

Ed, as in my roommate Ed? He hasn't mentioned it if it is.

[rootbeer1.livejournal.com]

Yep, that Ed. This would have been around 2000-2001.

[bearfuz.livejournal.com]

Wow. And a heart attack, too. Gee whiz.

In other absolutely irrelevant news, I was once "massaged" by Jim, the coverman. I am also very good friends with a very sweet and attractive Florida man who once dated Jim very seriously. The relationship eventually ended when neither one was willing to relocate permanently for the other. All this is merely to say that it is certainly a small world. :-)

Tiny little jewels

[ursine1.livejournal.com]

They are even popular here, 10,000 km away from the Bay Area.

Chuck