BSR

For you to do it, no big. But for the priest to do so leaves me speechless. Did he confess what he did at some point?? The other priest hearing his confession must have dropped a 40-pound cow in his shorts.

Wow … I thought that happened only in porn!

Wow, I’m impressed that you could go back to work with any sort of focus. I worked in Midtown during the Gaiety era. Had I gone there for lunch, I would have returned to work so distracted & unproductive they’da sh*tcanned me for sure. When I lived in NYC part time (90s & early aughts), I went to the Gaiety dozens of times. I loved the big finale on weekends, when they had all dozen dancers come out on stage sporting hard-ons … the most beautiful spectacle I’ve ever witnessed.

Sad but true, plenty (most? almost all?) (semi)famous people get death threats, rape threats, stalkers, the whole nine yards. Every white, Christian, straight male podcaster gets death threats once they gain a decent-sized following. Unfortunately, the anonymity of the Internet gives creeps and psychos an outlet for their sick fantasies.

What other people? There is no apples-to-apples comparison between the Catalans and any other language group, specifically, that Catalans all speak and understand Spanish with the comfort level that comes only from immersion or at least semi-immersion in the language during the critical years between 3-8yo. I would never go to Quebec and assume any random Quebecois speaks English because I know many don’t. Even the Quebecois whose English is excellent obviously speak it as a second language. When I was in Manila recently, I always told people that I don’t speak Tagalog but understand it well. 90% of Filipinos continued to speak to me in only English, but some security guards and cab drivers took me up on the offer and spoke to me in Tagalog. By the way, excellent English is a requirement in the Philippines for all jobs that deal with the public. Just to be a Starbucks barista, they require a university degree in Hospitality & Hotel Management. I am not asking Catalans to address the UN General Assembly or to defend a doctoral dissertation in Spanish. I am asking them to take my order in a bar/restaurant, to check me into a hotel, or to assist me in a retail store — things that I feel comfortable doing as a Spanish-as-a-2nd-language speaker with a C1 level, plus I didn’t know a word of Spanish until my early 20s. As for the conflict between Catalans and the rest of Spain, I see it quite differently: Catalans are wrong to impose their nationalist psychodrama on foreign tourists, especially since Catalan is not taught anywhere outside of Spain & Andorra. As you once said in another thread, all Catalans speak and understand Spanish, although a few like to pretend they don’t. If I run into a Catalan who likes to pretend he doesn’t, bye Felicia. Back on topic, Barcelona as a place to move permanently: housing costs have skyrocketed, the humidity can be sweltering in the summer, sexual assaults have increased 125% since 2013. When I went to Barcelona almost 40 years ago, everyone warned me about pickpockets but it was all petty theft BS. Now people are warning about violent crime and for female visitors sexual violence. Maybe it’s not that bad. I’ll find out for myself because Barcelona is too good to pass up, as a visitor. But as a place to move to permanently? Hell no. PS: @azdr0710, you think that’s bad?? The biggest Karen in Catalunya actually called 112 (Spain’s 911) to report, get this, that a hamburger joint did not post their menu in Catalan.

One thing I love about the Four Seasons in Las Vegas is the quiet. Perhaps because I’ve spent so much time in casinos, I kinda forget how noisy they are. I am nonetheless aware of how much stress that high decibel level causes. But when you leave the racket of the Mandalay Bay casino and enter the beautiful silence of the Four Seasons, you feel the stress whoosh out of your body … almost feels like a drug.

There are 75yo providers?? For me, I’d say 25-45, although I’m certainly flexible. The last guy I saw was 21, and there’s a guy in his mid-50s I’m hoping to catch when I return stateside. Continuing the theme @purplekow started, I had dinner tonight with a smokin’ hot ~40yo cop from Treviso (just north of Venice). He’s here in Madrid for 2 weeks vacation, studying at the same school. When I asked him after the school’s tour of medieval Madrid if he wanted to grab dinner, he jumped at the chance. I think he agreed because he’s quite eager to have any chance to practice his Spanish (he’s just at A2 level). As much as I fantasized about having my way with him, my gaydar was pinging 0 on the Kinsey scale and I was happy just to drink in his spectacular sex appeal. If I had to pin down just one number, I’d say 40 is the sweet spot.

I cannot afford to stay anywhere, certainly not an Aman or even a Four Seasons, although I did treat myself once to the FS in San Francisco, only because they were offering a surprisingly affordable weekend rate. Because I wanted access to a kitchen, I am staying at Airbnbs during this slow travel trip to the 4 cities of the Old Empire (Madrid, Buenos Aires, Havana; I stayed with family in Manila, obviously). But before I started staying at Airbnbs, I used to get hotels thru Priceline. I got some great deals and was never disappointed. Priceline gave me the chance to stay at semi-posh hotels that would otherwise have been beyond my budget.

IMDb lists as co-writer Sigrid Nunez, a born & raised New Yorker with degrees from Barnard and Columbia. I have to think she could have smoothed out any difficulties or rough spots Almodóvar had with the script.

After just 2+ weeks in Madrid, I’ve heard from both of my teachers and a few fellow students that Barcelona has changed a lot lately, much for the worse unfortunately. The school I attend has a branch in Barcelona, and the Madrid staff has heard way too many ugly accounts from their peers in Ciudad Condal. One of my fellow students visited Barcelona 3 times and was robbed all 3 visits (most recently in October). She’s a Brazilian who grew up in São Paulo and currently lives in NYC, comes off as pretty street-smart, and has never been robbed in Brazil or the US. Of course, I still plan on visiting because I can’t imagine being in Spain for 3 whole months without going to Barcelona. Plus I have to make my bucket-list trip to Sauna Thermas! But I will definitely have my antenna up, a bit more than the normal caution one exercises in any big city. I’m also curious to see if barceloneses have indeed gotten too carried away with the whole Catalan thing. They can’t expect an Asian foreigner to speak Catalan, can they? Well, I guess I’ll find out. Any glares will be met with the world’s biggest eyeroll. A friend who grew up partly in Andorra insists that when in Barcelona I should ask first if it’s OK to speak Spanish. My response to her advice was the world’s biggest eyeroll. As for the original topic, I can totally see living the rest of my life in Madrid. The city has everything: history, architecture, nightlife, museums, performing arts, amazing food from cheap eats to Michelin 3-stars, and it rivals any place on earth for gay-friendliness. My only reservation is I have no family here, or anywhere near. Closest family would be ~8 hours to New York or Florida or a whopping 18+ hours to Manila, yikes!

This intro had “gay Penthouse Forum letter” written all over it … *sigh* … a bit disappointing but yeah, it would have been terribly off-topic.

Just googled it, the ferry from Buenos Aires to Colonia is just 1h15m. Thanks for the tip, I’ll definitely try to get there for a weekend (too much for a day trip?) while in BA.

I am licking my chops in anticipation of a possible Djokovic-Alcaraz quarterfinal. Novak has won 5 of their 8 matches and 4 of the last 5. When you’ve won everything there is to win, it’s tough to find motivation, but Novak really shows up for his matches against Carlitos.

One of the best lines I ever heard was on Survivor, when one of the contestants told another how she really felt about him, “If you were dying of thirst, I wouldn’t piss in your mouth.”

Why didn’t I Google it in the first place? Fox News made $3.56 billion in 2024. I couldn’t find the exact percentage, but apparently they make more in cable fees (every channel charges a fee to the cable company, which is then passed on to the consumer in the form of that whopper monthly cable bill) than in ad revenue. Wow, so I guess they can pay such exorbitant salaries. That said, I wouldn’t pay Sean Hannity 45 cents, forget $45 million. The guy is annoying as f*ck and dumb as a post. Watching him kiss his guests’ anuses is ultra-cringe.

Granted, Fox’s ratings are a heckuva lot better than CNN & MSNBC, but nonetheless, those are staggering numbers! Show me the business model and the cold, hard numbers that justify such exorbitant salaries. Does Fox really generate that kind of revenue??

I just don’t get the salaries that these “stars” rake in. Post-pay cut, Maddow still makes $25 million/year. She’s back to 5 nights a week but will return to just Monday nights after April 30. $25 million, 1 night a week … with her ratings?! Anderson Cooper makes between $12-20 million … again, have you seen his ratings?! Even if they bring prestige to the brand, even if they prop up the rest of lineup, there is no business model on earth in which such exorbitant salaries for such ratings-deficient “stars” makes any sense.