BSR

I avoid watching The View like I avoid pounding my thumb with a hammer. That said, I do find it interesting that Behar is close friend of conservative firebrand Ann Coulter, something akin to the friendship between Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Antonin Scalia. I always thought that had I been lucky enough to know RBG, I would have liked her enormously. Don’t know if I can say the same of Joy Behar, but who knows?

Out of curiosity, how does Buff Daddy’s manage to combine full bar with full nudity in NYC?

While dancers can come from all over, I assume most of the Adonis & Buff Daddy regulars live in NYC. According to the 1980 Census, NYC’s population was 52.4% non-Hispanic white. By the 2020 Census, NYC was only 30.9% non-Hispanic white.

I heard a fascinating story the other day … the physical therapist who works at my gym comes from a family of Spanish-speaking Filipinos (only some 3,000 native Spanish speakers in the Philippines, most are 80+). He didn't grow up speaking Spanish, but his mother and aunt did. When I mentioned that the Japanese targeted Spanish-speaking Filipinos when they invaded in WWII (because the hispanohablantes tended to be wealthy and powerful), he told me the story of his grandfather and great-grandfather. When the Japanese stormed through their neighborhood, his grandfather and great-grandfather hid by diving into a pile of dead bodies. The Japanese used to thrust swords into bodies just to make sure they really were dead. While his great-grandfather managed to escape this fate, his grandfather wasn’t so lucky and got stabbed in the leg. Don’t ask me how, but the grandfather managed to contain any noise or physical response such that the Japanese left him for dead. Both men managed to survive although his grandfather had a limp for the rest of his life. If it’s a matter of life and death, you do whatever you have to do. I am nonetheless gobsmacked that the grandfather took a sword in the leg without even flinching or uttering a whisper. War really is hell, in countless different ways.

Eek! The handsomest man in the Philippines is back at Starbucks! I wasn’t imagining things or exaggerating, he really is one of the handsomest men I’ve ever seen in my life, in the Philippines or anywhere else. Last time from where I was sitting, I could only see his face. Now I can see all of him: sleeveless T, shorts … Cowabunga, what a body! When I asked my mom what the difference was between tisoy americano and espanyol, she said it was easy to tell because a tisoy americano is usually lighter because the father tends to be of northern european descent whereas a tisoy espanyol looks Mexican. If you plopped Starbucks Babe into the middle of Mexico City, I don’t know if the locals would spot him as foreign. His eyes look an eensy bit Asian but really not much. The brown skin looks like just about every Mexican-American I’ve ever met. In any case, he is drop-dead gorgeous. PS: in case you’re wondering, yes, I checked for his Grindr profile. No, I don’t see him. He’s giving major straight vibes … [heavy sigh]

You must stay at nicer hotels than I do, LOL. I checked out prices for the month of June at the hotel I stayed at in early October (250€/night) and late November (150€/night) last year. Some days are crazy, 400€+, but about half the nights were more than 300€, half less than, with a low of 217€. It’s a nice 4* right next to La Sagrada Família with modern, spotless rooms. That said, I would avoid Barcelona in the summer because it’s just too hot & humid* whereas winter, if you can call it that, in Barcelona is beautifully mild. * Says the guy living in Manila where it’s 95 degrees with 80% humidity every day.

Yeah, but one smokin’ hot chapero at Thermas and all that will be forgotten.

The Tagalog word for mestizo is tisoy. When someone is described as tisoy, the first question most people ask is: tisoy espanyol (Tagalog spelling) or tisoy americano? Apparently Filipinos can tell the difference right away. Don’t ask me. After being in the Philippines for more than 5 months, I expected to miss other races, but I can honestly say I don’t, at least not yet. The only thing I do miss is fur because I love body hair so much. There’s enough European DNA in the mix here that there are certainly some furry Filipinos, but furry and hot very rarely coincide, at least from what I’ve seen so far. As much as I’ve learned to appreciate smooth skin and relative hairlessness, what I wouldn’t give for a romp with a furry latino right now …

I wish I had the guts. Lame as I am, all I did was to rack my brain to come up with one question after another to ask him every day. I did look on Grindr just in case he had a profile — nope [heavy sigh]

I just came back from a week in Boracay (perhaps the most famous of the Philippine beaches). I swear to gawd I’d pay $1,000 to be with one of the guys at reception. He was so handsome that every time I saw him at the front desk, it made my day. But I would insist on 2 hours for my $1G. Hey, it’s the 3rd World!

That first photo … wow!

Andrea Pellegrino …

I saw TDWP2 tonight and liked it but certainly didn’t love it. Pluses: Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci are all terrific actors, even when given a not-great script. The beautiful shots of New York, Milan, and the Hamptons take your breath away. The script managed to work in plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. I loved the glamour of the runway and all the cameos by fashion icons. I liked how they made Miranda Priestly more human, less of a caricature like in the first film. Minuses: The plot is somewhat cartoonish, and when you discover who the villain is, that part of the script comes off like a middle-schooler wrote it. I’m just not crazy about Anne Hathaway in this one, liked her much more in the original. Her love interest is as dull as dishwater, and that whole subplot could easily have been purged without making a whit of difference to the overall storyline. If you’re going to throw in a superfluous romance, at least cast an actor who’s smoking hot, not someone about as sexy as, well, dishwater. Yes, I’m glad I saw it, but I also could have done without the sequel being made. Rewatching the original would have made for a more entertaining evening.

If you took away the cape, which besides being too feminine is just silly, stripped off the makeup (especially the lipstick), and removed one of the earrings (two matching earrings makes any man, any outfit look way too feminine), I think the outfit would work. Yes, the top looks like the cut of a woman’s dress, but with those bulging biceps and delts, I think he could pull it off. Hudson’s outfit is beyond saving.

I actually liked Storrie’s outfit. Or maybe I just liked how it highlighted his hunky arms and shoulders. Yeah, that’s probably it.