Okay, anybody who's been coming here for a minute knows how much I love to receive letters from y'all. I love it when my readers, you guys, correspond with me via email, MySpace, Facebook, or even at a club or on the street somewhere. Y'all don't know how many times I've been going through something and wanted to give up and just hearing from some of y'all has given me the strength and encouragement i needed to press on. I want to share with y'all a letter I received from a female reader (y'all know I love my ladies). The letter is not just beautiful, it's more than that, it's "brutiful", it really touched my heart. Sometimes it's just the simple things that mean so much. Here's her letter:

Hi Adam,

My name is Kay!  I’'m a 25 year GA native, who ran across your blog the other day while searching for another subject.  The blog entries of yours that I read were insightful, entertaining and some were hilarious.  Even as a straight female, there were some blog entries to which I could relate.  For example, your entry titled “"I Call 'Em "Boomerang Bitches" 'Cuz They Always Come Back...”" hit close to home, because I dated a trifling guy who disappeared on me after a few dates.  Afterwards, I went through a period of self-evaluation, confusion and doubt.  Then, I came to my senses, realizing how valuable I was, and how far beneath me the guy was.  I later learned that he disappeared on me because I wouldn’'t have sex with him.  Honestly, I saw red flags long before his disappearance, but I allowed infatuation and denial to control my actions.

Congratulations on your new job!  Coincidentally, I received a phone call today from a recruiter who offered me an awesome position!  I had been searching for employment for over a year, while refusing to settle for a position that wasn’t truly of my interest.  The position that I was offered perfectly coincides with my ideal career field (web/graphic design & e-commerce), it's at a perfect location and has great pay.  I start the position this Monday.  Isn'’t it amazing how God grants us the desires of our heart when we’re faithful to Him, even during a recession that has immensely decreased the rate of employment in this country?

I also find it awesome that you'’re devoted to Christian spirituality.  There are so many gay individuals who are resentful towards Christianity, because of ignorant and hypocritical “Christians” who discriminate against them.  If only there were more people like you, who focus on the main points of the spirituality (walking in love, practicing forgiveness, pursuing true happiness in the Lord, etc.).  Although it’'s understandably easy to allow ignorant Christians to affect your view of the religion, it is best to look past those corrupt vessels and focus on Christ himself.

Okay, let me stop preaching, LOL!  I just wanted to complement your work, and share something about myself with you.  You’re also a very handsome guy, and it'’s a shame that more straight men won’t step up their game for us ladies, but that’s a whole other story, LOL!

Have a great evening!

-Kay  : )

Thanks Kay, and welcome to the blog. We look forward to hearing more from you.

-Adam

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Playing In The Background...
"If You Really Knew"
by Out Of Eden
from the album "No Turning Back"
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Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 05:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the most interesting things about starting a new job is observing the people I work with to see how long it takes them to figure out that I'm gay, it's funny. I make a game of it, "The Gay Game" I like to call it. It's like my own personal anthropological experiment and one of the many joys I find in being gay. See, with me it's always been a mix up. I guess because I'm not the really the flamboyant type people can't quite figure it out so easily, if at all. Either way, it's not the kind of the kind of thing you would just blurt out in the morning meeting. Although I'm an out and proud gay man I wouldn't exactly call someone who decided not to divulge their sexual orientation at work a closet case, that is unless they felt the need to lie about it. But with the advent of domestic partner health insurance benefits and other perks companies are beginning to extend to us gay folks, sooner or later we're really not gonna have much of a choice not to tell anymore.

Without lying, I really don't see how someone could keep their sexual orientation under wraps for but so long at work anyway. It's natural after working with the same group of people day in and day out, week in and week out that sooner or later conversation is gonna veer toward the personal. What are you gonna do when the guys from your department invite your gay ass out for drinks and they're all talking about your boss' secretary with the 'big-ass titties' they all wanna fuck and then ask you what you think, or when you're riding the elevator with the new girl from accounting when she decides to bitch at you with your lesbian self about her no good, loser-ass boyfriend who she's only still with because 'he has a big dee-eye-see-kay and knows how to use it' and she looks to you for some sista girl support, or when you're in your supervisor's office littered with pictures of their spouse and kids when they look over at you and ask 'what about your family?' I mean sure, you can give a stern 'I don't discuss my personal life at the workplace' but then you'll come off like a stuck up bitch or a weirdo, neither of which are good.

As for me, I just like to let it flow. If asked I'll answer truthfully, I just don't make any arbitrary announcements, besides it takes all the fun out of watching them try to figure it out for themselves. Watching their brains bubble over as they attempt to put two and two together as they wonder whether it's okay to ask, or whether they're just trippin'. I'm not really sure whether the people at my current job have figured me out yet. Usually females are the first to know. Actually it's other gays and then the females who are usually the first to know. But even some of them don't quite get it. I had a female co-worker come on to me at my last job and I stopped her by telling her that I was gay. She was shocked and so was I, all the time we worked together and she never figured it out? Wow. Straight men are almost always the last to get it, that is if they ever get it. I guess they're too busy chasing pussy or something. Do you know how many straight men I've worked with, gone to school with and have been around on the regular who still have no idea that I'm gay? And it's not like I'm trying to hide anything, they just don't realize.

Two girls I work with have commented on the duffel bag I carry my change of clothes in to work. One of them asked me who was it by and I told her Marc Jacobs (y'all know I love him) and the other day another girl complimented my silver wallet (also Marc) when I had to pull it out for something. Like, what straight man carries around a shiny silver wallet? I think they're catching on to me. We haven't hung out outside of work or have talked much about our personal lives yet, but eventually if the opportunity presents itself I'll bring it up. Someone's bound to ask me if I have a girlfriend. Of course then I'll tell that person "Nope. I'm gay." I love to see people's reaction to it. I'll keep y'all posted.

Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 05:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Eventually, during the course of every relationship it would seem that it's participants would eventually settle into some sort of routine. He likes this so I do that, I like this so he does that, we watch this on Wednesdays, that on Thursdays, I DVR that on Friday nights because he never gets to watch it because he works late, we always eat at this restaurant when we're in Chelsea, that one when we're in the Flatiron, the other one when we're in Brooklyn, and so on. We're open to trying new things but never to the detriment of our old stand-bys. Although our romantic relationship is new, Chester and I seem to have already fallen into a routine. It seems pretty accelerated, but not really. Chester and I haven't just met, we've known each other for years now and as of late our friendship and mutual respect and attraction for each other has evolved into what we have now.

Being a Leo, and just being me, I'm a lover of security. I like to know, what's going to happen next and what I'm going to do next and how those I love are feeling concerning me. I'm not a total planner though, I'm spontaneous, but even my spontaneity is somewhat calculated. In my life there have been very few people that I can actually count on, so I treasure those who I can. I hoard them. In an opposite way, people can pretty much count on me. I'm even tempered that way, I'm dependable, most of my life I've always been the same. I'm not moody and I can't stand a moody bitch. If I love you, I'm gonna always love you as long as you don't fuck things up with me. And even if you do, I'm not mean to you. I just know that I can no longer trust you and I deal with you as such, cordially, yet still excommunicating you from my inner circle. In everything I always aim to be amicable, but sometimes, unfortunately full amicability is impossible, but in everything, I lean toward the most conspicuous, least dramatic responses to those types of situations.

Thankfully, none of this is a worry with ol' Chet. Chester is one of the few people I can count on. He's a Sagittarius, the natural companion to a Leo and he's not moody. If I go to sleep with him loving me I can count waking up with him feeling the same way. It sounds like a simple concept in theory, but in dealing with the homosexuals I've dealt with over the years it's quite a feat.

Like I was saying before we've fallen into a routine and I love it. They say variety is the spice of life but I like my life a little bland and dependable. Spice is overrated. We work during the week and I'll go to his house or him to mine most nights after our long respective workdays. We usually watch something we've DVR-ed on TV and end up falling asleep in each other's arms, usually still in our clothes. On Friday nights we go out for drinks and then to a movie, or dinner. Thankfully, we like most of the same kind of movies and cuisine and even when we disagree, we're both still pretty agreeable. On Saturdays we chill in the house and take care of our respective errands together, haircuts, trips to the supermarket, etc. Sundays are a continuation of that. Our average weekend would go something like this:

Friday night: Drinks with friends, a movie and/or dinner, come home, fall asleep
Saturday: Wake up, fuck, go back to sleep, get haircuts, go to the gym, watch tv, mess around and/or fuck, go to sleep
Sunday: Wake up, talk, go back to sleep, fuck, watch tv, sleep some more, run some type of errand, watch tv, talk about what we watched, mess around and/or fuck, go to sleep

There are some variations but that's pretty much it. This is basically the same stuff we did as friends with a little of fucking sprinkled in there for good measure. This weekend we watched a six-part marathon of this eight-part series on the History Channel entitled, "The Presidents" in which they chronicle the life of each president from George Washington to George W. Bush. His favorite presidents are Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and John F. Kennedy, mine are Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and we both share a jovial admiration for Chester A. Arthur, the party boy president from New York. A few of you may be surprised that we didn't mention Abraham Lincoln, he was no James Buchanan, but he's still not all he was cracked up to be, that Abe.

I know, we're boring as hell, but I love it. We take solace in and cherish being together, doing the little things. We entertain each other, learning and getting to know him better is such a joy in itself. We have a great time just talking for hours, debating about things, life and history and such. We don't always agree, we have had to agree to disagree on a few issues, but it's no big deal. I don't need a big production to be with him and neither does he with me. We can just chill in the house and it's all good. The beauty of routine is not letting external things determine the way you feel about someone. It's going to bed and waking up and knowing that he's gonna be right where you left him, it's finishing each other's sentences, it's being able to close my eyes and fall back knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will catch me. It's beautiful.

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Playing In The Background...
"You Complete Me"
by Keyshia Cole
from the album "A Different Me"
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Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

"Be not dismayed whate’er betide, beneath His wings of love abide, God will take care of you..."
-Civilla D. Martin
from the hymn "God Will Take Care Of You" (1904)

I was supposed to be among the throngs of everybody and their mama's mama at the inauguration of President Barack Obama this morning, but unfortunately, yet rather fortunately I cannot, because I have to work at MY NEW JOB! Yes, finally, the search is over. I found a new job, and not just any job, a great job at the company I really wanted to work for. It's like God was saving this job just for me, scratch that, I know that God had this job just for me.

As you all know for the past few months I'd been looking for work as I'm sure many of us have and it's been frustrating to say the least. Applying, interviewing, making phone calls, most of which you know going in are pointless efforts that you still must make in order to land a job. I've always been old school with mine though. Along with applying for jobs online (which I hate with a passion) I've always been a believer in actually going out to look for jobs. As you know, hospitality is my industry, so instead of just perusing the pages of HCareers.com (which is a really good website for finding hotel and restaurant jobs by the way) I plot out all the hotels I want to work at on a map (including the ones listed online that I've already applied for) and actually stop by all of them, leaving resumes at every one, sometimes as much as twenty in one day. Results this way are no more guaranteed than online, but I figure this way I may by chance run into a hiring manager and be able to make an in person, initial impression or maybe by the hotel having a hard copy of my resume in their possession I may be more than likely to get a call back than if they had to go through the hundreds of applications they get online to get to mine. The only thing with this is that you have to have a really thick skin because the front desk people can be so shady sometimes when you leave a resume, some even refuse to take it and advise you to apply online. But you just have to smile, shake hands and thank them for their time anyway. Usually I just avoid the front desk agents and try to get to the front desk manager on duty. Even if they don't want to they have to alert him because they don't know if you're a guest or not.

Well after having made my last trip to about ten hotels, two of them ended up calling me back. The first hotel, which was the one of the last hotels I walked into that day called me about an hour after I left them, saying that they were very impressed with my resume and scheduled me for an interview. Needless to say I was excited and hopeful and thought that this was the job. This was the one. God sent this one for me. I interviewed there and although I thought I did well, they never called me back. I was crushed. In the interim I'd been interviewing at some of the places i applied to online as well, none of them ever panned out either. i was beginning to think that this whole thing was hopeless. A few weeks later, out of the blue, on the day after Christmas the second of the hotels I walked into called me, funny because this one was actually the first one I physically walked into that day I went out, this was the one in the company I really wanted to work for. They scheduled me for an interview.

The interview went great. At the end of it they went to find a job application for me to fill out. You know, standard procedure, filling out your job history, your social security number, etc., so they will be able to run your background check and check your references for further consideration. Unfortunately, they couldn't find a form for me to fill out so the interviewer asked if he could email it to me and I could get it back to him the next day. Most people would have been happy with that, but me being the person I am I definitely wasn't gonna wait around until nobody's next day. Forget that!

I wandered around downtown, waiting for his email to hit my phone so I could forward it to Chester who works in the area. Chester was gonna print it for me and I was gonna get it from him at his job and take it directly back up to the hotel. I was surely not gonna let a formality like an email needlessly hold back the wheels of progress another day. Upon opening the email and seeing the pdf file he sent I saw that it was only a letter asking for my signature in order for them to run a background check on me. That's all, I expected more, like a full job application, but that was all. So I took the lone form back to the hotel and as soon as I walked in I ran into the interviewer again. I handed him the form and asked why he hadn't sent me a full job application. How were they gonna check my references? He told me that the general manager said that he was so impressed with the my interview that he didn't need to. Basically he said that the background check was a formality and pending the results of that I had the job. I walked back out into the cold and my heart stopped. I could hardly breathe. I just kept repeating "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God." I couldn't believe it. Was this really the end of it? My arduous journey to find a job. The frustration, the anguish, the worrying, is it really all over? My prayers have been answered. In the midst of the worst recession our country has seen in years did I really just walk into a hotel that I have been dying to work at and land a great job that wasn't even advertised? Oh my God, this is some kind of miracle. Thank you Jesus!

Well of course, due to the fact that I don't have even as much as a parking ticket on my record I passed the background check and I got the job. God is so good. So while y'all are down there in Washington celebrating I'm celebrating right here in New York, on my way to work. I trust that President Obama will take our income tax revenue and do great things with it. Thank you Jesus!

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Playing In The Background...
"God Will"
by James Hall and Worship And Praise
from the album "King Of Glory Live In Montreal"
and
"Keep The Faith"
by Faith Evans
from the album "Keep The Faith"
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PS: Those of you still looking for work, be encouraged. I know how you're feeling. I know it's hard out here, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Keep the faith and don't give up. The more you apply and get out there, the more calls back you'll get, the more you'll interview and the more likely you are to get a job. If it can happen for me, it can happen for you. KEEP THE FAITH! God will take care of you.

PPS: Special thanks to Chester for all of your help and support throughout this process. Good lookin' out babe. ;)

Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 04:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

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Pictures:
- Me standing outside the Morris-Jumel Mansion.
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So, it's been a while since I've said this, but I'm dating a new guy. Sure I've dated a little since the last guy that I told you all about, but it's been nothing substantial, nothing worth writing a blog about. So to pass the time I've been writing about random shit, events, music and giving advice. It's all been good, but that personal element was somewhat missing. The Carrie Bradshaw-esque, dating and sex in New York City thing that I started my blog doing. It's been a long while since I've added a new recurring character to the story, this blog, which is my life. For those of you who are relatively new to the blog you missed the days when I used to write about every date I went on and when the people I dated became such a major part of the blog that my readers would ask and talk about them by name, well, by pseudonym. I never gave up real names.

The Saturday before last I went out on a date with Chester, although we're dating I couldn't quite say this was an official date because it was so impromptu. We were in Washington Heights at his barber getting haircuts and I realized that the Morris-Jumel Mansion was nearby. The Morris-Jumel Mansion is the oldest house on the island of Manhattan. It served as a headquarters for both sides in the American Revolution. Chester, like me is somewhat of an American history buff (actually, even more so than me) so I knew that a surprise stop by the mansion was something he'd enjoy, hopefully he hadn't been already.

As we left the barbershop I informed Chester of our detour on the way to the train station. I told him as we turned east on 160th Street that there was something I wanted to show him. Turning north on St. Nicholas Avenue as we approached the stairs at the head of Sylvan Place he exclaimed "Oh wow. I've heard about this place but I've never been." Cool, sigh of relief, he hadn't been here, neither have I. This would be an opportunity for us to learn something together.

This whole thing reminded me of Michael, this guy I used to date back in 2005. I remember having to drag his ass all over Philadelphia to all of the historical sights. If whatever we were doing had nothing to do with Beyonce, he just wasn't into it. He annoyed me so much. It feels nice to finally chill with someone who's into the kind of stuff I'm into, even if it's nerdy. But, i mean, hey I am a nerd at heart.

Inside the house we had a long conversation with the curator there, she'd been working at the house for over forty years. She told us the history of the house and of other buildings in the area. The highlight of our talk was all the Black history she told us about. There is so much Black history in the Harlem/Washington Heights area, even more than we think we know about. She gave us countless addresses of buildings where famous black people of yesteryear lived, buildings we've walked past every single day.

Since we were in the area we also stopped by the site of the Audubon Ballroom on 165th Street and Broadway, the place where Malcolm X was killed, now it's a cultural center. Unfortunately it was closed but through the glass doors we could see that they had erected a statue on the stage right where Malcolm was standing, delivering his last speech. It was so surreal. It reminded me of the movie. At that point I was so ashamed of myself though. I'd been past this building twice before and never paid attention to what it was. I literally walked right past it on the very same side of the street and was never recognizant of all the history that was there. That's the thing about New York, it's an old city (in Western terms that is) that's packed so full of history, so much so that we don't even realize it sometimes.

Needless to say, Chester felt as good about our little impromptu date as I did. It was actually kinda romantic, wandering around a colonial home together on a snowy day, learning stuff with a guy that's just as into it all as I am. I could get used to this.

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Playing In The Background...
"If This Is Love"
by The Saturdays
from the album "Chasing Lights"
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Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 04:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

My favorite brand of jeans are Levis. I know that they're no frills, not as fancy as Paper Denim, Rock & Republic, and Antik Denim, but they're an American classic, like me. The other day I was on XTube.com  (only 'cuz Nubian101.com was too slow) looking for videos, trying to get my porn fix for the day when I ran across this strange video a guy peeing. Now I know all about golden showers and was even asked to perform one on somebody in a bathtub once (which I didn't) and the whole idea behind that is to pee on someone else, and believe it or not, i get that, but the idea of this video I saw was to sit there, camera pointed to your crotch and pee on yourself. It's called jean pissing and upon futher investigation I found that Levis 501 jeans were the attire of choice for this sort of thing.

As I watched the video of the man sitting there relieving himself, the small spot of wetness in his crotch growing from puddle to ocean-like proportions, turning his jeans a darker hue of blue, I wondered to myself, what the hell do people see in this? There's no jerking off, there's no nudity, just a guy wetting himself. There are old people who do this sorta thing everyday and I'm sure that nurses of the world don't get off on it... or do they? There were comments on some of the videos saying stuff like "I love the feeling of warm piss in my jeans" and stuff like that, but if you love the feeling of warm liquid so much, take a bath. It's nothing to fuck up a good pair of jeans over.

Not to judge or nothin', although this is way too freaky for me, it seems the freakiest thing about this and all things that are fetishized I guess is how non-sexual they can be in nature and how people seem to find a way to sexualize them.

In the interest of keeping things relatively clean I will not embed the video here but I will post the link. Check out the video and let me know if it moved you. 

Click here to view the video

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Playing In the Background...
"Queen Bitch Pt 2"
by Lil' Kim
from the album "Notorious K.I.M."
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Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 06:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

A few months ago I read R&B star Faith Evans' "Keep The Faith" memoir. I've been meaning to review it for a while now and since "Notorious", the film depiction of the rise and fall of her hip hop legend first husband Notorious BIG which greatly parallels the book releases today I thought that this would be as good a time as any.

I wanna start by saying that "Keep The Faith" was a great book, not great in the way of "War And Peace" or any other classical literature, but great in that it delves deeper into the life of Faith Evans than what we've read in the magazines and headlines and gives a more personal view of the other players of the Notorious story, Big's mother Violetta Wallace, Sean "Diddy" Combs, Charli Baltimore, Lil' Kim, Tupac Shakur, Notorious BIG, and Evans herself. I like that she didn't depict herself as the martyred widow that many people saw her as, sitting at home taking care of the kids while Big traveled the world rapping and philandering. In the book she talked about her own extra marital affairs, one with a music producer and another with a basketball player whom she names, neither of which are Tupac Shakur. She even talked about her own cosmetic surgery, something which has since become one of the things her arch rival Lil' Kim is best known for. Speaking of Kim, Evans' book and the "Notorious" move both depict Kim as less than the devoted mistress of Big that she has painted herself out to be in her music since Big's death. They both depict her as just Big's jumpoff (for lack of a better word), something which angered Kim enough to vehemently speak out against the movie.

My favorite parts of the book have little to do with her life with Big as superstars. I found Faith's upbringing on the rough streets of Newark, New Jersey, her life as a teenager, the abortions, the venereal diseases, her drug dealer boyfriend, the story of her first child, her start as a writer and a session singer, her friendships and fallouts with Mary J. Blige, Lil' Kim and Missy Elliott much more interesting than the stuff we've all heard about. Also interesting was her life after Big's death, exactly what happened at the funeral, how she divided Big's assets with his mother, how Diddy made her perform at the MTV awards, how she met her current husband, Todd Russaw, how she personally asked Diddy to let her out of her Bad Boy Records contract, exactly what happened when she was arrested for drug possession and what she thinks of everyone involved now.

On another note I would also recommend highly this book to anyone who wants to get started in the music industry. Evans describes in great detail about her start in the industry with the power players of that time, Christopher Williams and Al B. Sure. She even talks about how to receive proper writing and production credits on songs and uses her money mistakes to counsel others.

All in all, this is a great book for any fan of Faith or Notorious BIG or anyone who wants a more in depth look into the "Notorious" story. More than that though it's the story of a woman, a woman who like most of us has made many mistakes (and I mean MANY mistakes), but has not let those mistakes take her out. And even more than that, it's a really juicy read.

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Playing In The Background...
"Keep The Faith"
by Faith Evans
from the album "Keep The Faith"
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Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It seems like everybody and their cross dressing gay mama is throwing together some YouTube something or other nowadays, unfortunately most of it isn't especially good, well usually it's kinda terrible. Yesterday I stumbled upon a YouTube show that's actually good for a change, it's funny, it's written well and even the production quality is decent.

It's called "Drama Queenz" a story about three best friends who have moved to New York, more specifically, the borough of Queens to pursue their dreams of becoming stars on Broadway. The show explores their friendships, relationships, living, loving, etc, you get my drift.

Below I have posted past one and part two of the fourth episode of the show. Check it out.

To check out all the episodes of the show on it's YouTube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/NovoNovusProductions

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Playing In The Background...
"Creepshow"
by Kerli
from the album "Love Is Dead"
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Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 02:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Check out the only woman that could ever make me go straight, Christina Milian, looking flawless as usual in her new music video "Us Against The World."

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Playing In The Background...
"Us Against The World"
by Christina Milian
from her yet untitled forthcoming fourth album
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Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

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Pictures (clockwise from top left):
- Me holding on to my new Marc Jacobs patent leather overnight bag.
- Marc Jacobs, my favorite fashion designer "exposing" the new Stephen Sprouse collection of Louis Vuitton bags in Harper's Bazaar magazine.
- Me in my silver Marc Jacobs jeans at my 25th birthday party last July.
- My dream bag, the Louis Vuitton Stephen Spouse collection green graffiti carryall 50 bag.
- A better view of my Marc Jacobs bag.
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Ever since my post the other day about meeting fellow blogger Xem VanAdams I have gotten quite a few emails about the bag I was carrying in the picture I took with him. The bag was a Christmas gift to myself. It's a textured patent leather Marc by Marc Jacobs overnight/duffel bag. I use it to carry around all of my stuff. For a while now I've had my eyes peeled looking for a stylish, fashion forward, yet masculine bag to carry around (in my hand, never on my shoulder) for daily use. I wanted something nice without it looking like mama's big purse or like some rigid, boxy briefcase. I know some of us homos out here are actually carrying women's purses now, I don't knock it, hey, do you, but that's just not my style. As soon as I saw this bag it was love at first sight and I bought it on the spot. I should have known I'd love it. It was Marc.

I know I've never really talked much about fashion here before and I'm nobody's fashionista, but Marc Jacobs is my absolute favorite fashion designer. He started to pique my interest after I saw him on Oprah last year talking about his rise to fame and his work with Perry Ellis, the creation of his own lines, and his position as creative director for Louis Vuitton.

Upon further research on Marc I found out that we have three things in common. We're both openly gay men and native New Yorkers and we both attended the same high school, the High School of Art & Design, here in New York City. All of which make me love him more.

My first Marc Jacobs piece was a t-shirt of his I found at Century 21, then my silver jeans (pictured above) I bought for my silver themed 25th birthday party last July from his store here in New York and since then I've been hooked, buying more and more Marc stuff whenever I get the chance. Now that bags have become my new obsession I've set my sights on that Louis Vuitton Stephen Sprouse collection one with the green graffiti on it and as soon as I come up with a spare $1,600 I can get it. Until then I'll just dream about it.

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Playing In The Background...
"Stylin'"
by Foxy Brown
from the album "Ill Na Na 2: The Fever"
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Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

I've stated many many times how much I enjoy reading emails that you all, the readers of my blog send me. Believe it or not, I read them all even though I'm not able to respond to some of them as quickly as I would like. Besides the "Ask Adam" advice stuff, which is great, most of the letters I receive are good, praising the blog and my efforts, some are bad, well, bad is not the right word, I should say that some letters are more critical, critical of my blog and my efforts, and even that in it's more constructive dosages is appreciated.

I got a letter yesterday from a new reader who seems to love the blog, but has a viewpoint on the gay community that I don't love so much. What's even worse was that due to our shared sexual role, he thought that I would share his view. Let's read his letter.

Yo Adam,

I just like stumbled on your blog and was checking it out and dawg it's crazy cause I got fucked and sucked dick the first time I met a dude and hated that shit, but he was vers so when he gave me head and ass I've been straight topping ever since. LOL That was when I was 18, I'm 22 now and done slowed down cause niggas catching that shit left and right and I trust no one. I stay strappin' my meat up yo cause these bottoms is wilding out now. They let anyone fuck and becoming flaming queens at the same time. LOL

So by me being a top I agree with and been through a lot of the funny shit you been though. Dawg, I don't hang with bottoms, but as far as having a friend or homeboy you seem like my kind dude I'll hang wit. Shit, I just wish mo niggas was top niggas like me and you cause they all flaming here in [his home town] and I hang with none of them. LOL

Keep it up with the blog yo cause you got these other gay blogs beat you seem more real or maybe cause I'm a top and understand your point of view, but whatever it is keep it up.

Peace!!!!
 -Boy In Timbz

A wise man once told me that everybody lives in their own individual reality and is the star of their own reality show. People tend to take their perception of you and run with it. They see one part of you or take one aspect of your life or your personality and deem you that, that's all you are to them. Each one of us can read the same sentence on the same page of the same book and interpret it billions of different ways. It used to bother me when people would say that this is a sex blog, like people log on and jerk off to my shit. I mean damn, you tell a story here and there, I fucked this one, this one gave me a lil' head, you write about a sexual topic or two and all of a sudden you're the gay Wilt Chamberlain. Anyone who visits here frequently or subscribes to the mailing list would know that I ain't had a down and dirty sex post in a good minute. But hey, it is what it is, I could lay out a whole buffet, but when it's time to eat, folks gon' only take what they wanna take back to their table. In this case I think that Boy In Timbz filled up on the side dishes of my life without getting any of the meat (and not that kinda meat ya Filthy McNasty). For that reason I have decided to address him today.

Dear Boy In Timbz,

I wanted to start off by saying thank you for taking the time to visit my blog. I'm glad that you enjoyed it. There many other places on the internet that you could have spent your time and I am thankful that you have chosen to spend a portion of it here. I also want to thank you for your letter and the effort that you exerted in writing it.

However, your letter, although complimentary and flattering in nature actually ended up offending me a bit in that I feel as though I am what I am, but I am all the things I am in no detriment to anyone else. I'm a blogger, I'm a gay man, I'm a top, yes we know these things, but that doesn't make me any better or worse than someone who doesn't blog, or someone who isn't gay, or someone who is a bottom.

From the tone of your letter I sensed that you as a top have some sort of enmity against bottoms and/or men who enjoy being sexually penetrated by other men. It's a behavior that I have noticed among many other gay men who claim to be tops. Although the stance is common, that doesn't make it any less destructive.

One of the things that I don't like that we as gay men tend to do is adopt traditional male/female gender ideals amongst ourselves, tops being perceived as more manly and bottoms being perceived as more womanly. In the past few centuries or so women around the world have been trying to gain equality to men. For thousands of years women were (and are still in some populations) seen as having less value than that of a man. Perceived sexual promiscuity in a woman is often looked down upon much more severely than that of a man. A sexually aggressive woman is a "ho" and a "slut" while a sexually aggressive man is a "playa" and a "playboy". I'm sure you know the story. That's why your meat should always be "strapped up" regardless of whether the bottom you are fucking is "wilding out" or not. I'm sure that a young, strapping, 22 year-old top such as yourself, even in your "slowing down" as you say, has had quite a few wild out days. Lord knows I did when I was 22.

My wish for future gay generations is that we stop this whole archaic caveman-ish "Me top, me man. You bottom, you woman." bullshit. Yes, we play around with the words, gurl this and Miss Honey that, Daddy this and pussy that, but we ain't trying to live the shit, at least those of us in are right minds. Beneath it all we know that we are all anatomically men (The transgendered and hermaphrodite communities are a different story, but that's another blog post. I got love for them too.) and none of us should look at one another as above or beneath, even if that's the way we have sex. We are all each other's potential life partners, emphasis on partners, and should be seen as such. Men and women have been dealing with this equality shit amongst one another for years and unfortunately women still don't have all the rights they should, so why would we want to drag this mess into our community?

Another theme to your letter was your distaste for the more effeminate gay man. I'm gay, you're gay, half the people that read this blog are gay. Top, bottom, versatile, virgin, whatever, there is something about all of us, even you, that is stereotypically gay and will be looked at by someone else, whether it be a straight man or another gay man as effeminate. Get into it. Often I ask other gay people I know, what the gayest thing about them is. Me, although I don't get up in drags and walk balls and am not terribly effeminate, I have what most people would probably describe as an extremely gay taste in music. I don't like much rap music and all of my favorite artists are women like Janet Jackson, Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Faith Evans, Britney Spears, Ciara, Tamia, Girls Aloud, The Sugarbabes, The Saturdays, Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown, etc. There are hardly any male artists in my iPod. Most masculine quote-unquote "manly" men would look at that and say "Yo! That nigga is a faggot!" Does that bother me? Absolutely not. It's crazy, it's like you're talking to me like I'm Rambo or Arnold Schwarze-negro or somebody. I'm not a flame as you would say, but if you ran into me pumping down 125th Street in a Levi skinny jean with my patent leather Marc Jacobs duffel in hand you'd pretty much know that I was gay. Even if you can't find an obvious outer manifestation of your gayness, the fact that you like to stick your dick in other guy's butts is enough ammunition for someone given that knowledge to be able to call you queer.

I also have to warn you that you are missing out on a lot by purposely disassociating yourself from other gay men that you feel are less masculine than you are. Most of my friends are are way more feminine than I am, some flaming queens even, most of them bottoms and I love them all to death. I'm even sexually attracted to more feminine guys. Queens have to be the most fun people you could possibly be around. They are themselves through and through and are not so stuck on trying to keep up this masculine ideal that they can't let go and have a good time. There is nothing wrong with being masculine, but someone's masculinity or their femininity should be natural, not an act they're putting on in an effort to assimilate, either way. Usually, this isn't an issue for the more fem gay guys, I find that this is the reason why hanging around with some of my more masculine gay male friends isn't as fun. Excuse my language as I seldom use this term as not to offend the female readers of my blog, but when a gurl is cunt, she's cunt, what's it to you? You just be yourself and let other folks be themselves too.

Lastly, that line about you wishing more dudes were tops was some ol' bullshit. You're a top, right? If the gay world were all tops who would you fuck? Why the hell would you want more dudes walking around who aren't sexually compatible with you? If I could have it my way, every gay man on this Earth would be a bottom and I'd be a busy man. LOL

My message to you Timbz is to not let your preoccupation with always being seen as masculine and your insecurities about being gay shape who you are and who you hang around. If you genuinely have an issue with more feminine gay men and choose not to associate with them solely for that reason, that's you, nobody's forcing you to hang out with them, but if you use that as a barometer for who you will and won't let into your life, get ready for a lonely ass life as a gay man. No offense, but as far as you thinking that I or my blog corroborates your views on bottoms or effeminate gay men, you got another thing coming... Miss Honey!

Much love,
 - Adam

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Playing In The Background...
"Stylin'"
by Foxy Brown
from the album "Ill Na Na 2: The Fever"
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Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 04:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

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Welcome to yet another "Ask Adam..." blog post. Where readers of the blog send me their life, love, sex, relationship and other pressing questions. I'll do my best to answer and advise them here on the blog and other readers will be able to weigh in too.

Enjoy.

If you ever want to email me a question, problem or issue to possibly be shared here or just wanna say "Hi." click here to send me an email (try to keep it under 500 words please). And of course whatever you send is anonymous, you don't even have to give your name.
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Okay, from this day on I'ma have to enact a length limit on these letters y'all send me. Some of the letters I receive from y'all are kinda short and tend lack necessary details that would help me get down to the root of the letter writer's problem, leaving me to have to make assumptions sometimes and that's okay, I guess, but every so often I get letters that are way too long, filled with all kinds of superfluous details that convolute and obscure the issue at hand. I know that some of you are hurting, and you mean well, but for efficiency's sake and my own sanity I'm limiting y'all to 500 words or less per advice letter. That's more than enough space to open your hearts to us without getting all rambly.

Today's reader letter was a prime example of one of the longer letters I've received. It gave events and times and dates, and even names (y'all please don't put folks names in your letters to me) which all made for an interesting background story, but never quite got to the root of the problem. Fortunately, the writer of the letter summed things up quite astutely in the last sentence of the last paragraph of his letter. And because this writer's problem is such a universally gay, and probably straight issue I've decided to leave off the details in an effort to open this up to everybody. So only that last paragraph is what I'm reposting here today:

"Dear Adam,

...So now I find myself missing the guy that broke my heart. Not only that, I realized I've compared everyone I've dated to him and that's the reason I left the other guys. I know that was wrong but everything about them felt wrong when everything about him felt right. I find myself crying because I miss this guy so much. And my family tells me to let it go and that I should have been over it. It's been almost and year and I still find myself in love with someone that didn't obviously give a damn about me. HELP! What should I do?

 -Lost & Confused"

Lawdy, lawd, lawd, lawd I've been here before. I sang this song, I starred in the play, and the movie and even scored the soundtrack. As I've said many times before, unrequited love is some ol' bullshit and probably the one of the greatest emotional pains a human being can feel.

Unfortunately, yeah, I've totally been here before too many times. But by the grace and patience of God I think I've finally learned my lesson so I will try my best to impart my newly acquired truths to you. Okay L&C you gotta face some hard facts.

The Hard Facts:

Homeboy, him, the one who left you, he don't want you no more and ain't a damn thing you can do about it. You can cry, you can pout, rehearse shit over and over again in your mind, driving yourself crazy, none of that will bring him back. There's nothing you could have done differently to have made him stay. Ultimately, if he wanted to stay he would have stayed, but he didn't. He is gone, gone, gone. Period. Gone.

He doesn't give a damn about you anymore... and that's okay. Just because he doesn't care about you anymore that doesn't make him a bad person. You are not in a relationship with this man anymore, he isn't obligated to care about you anymore and that doesn't make him a heartless monster. I'm sure you encounter thousands of people each and every day that you couldn't give two runny shits about and I wouldn't call you Hitler. And you aren't upset because those thousands of runny shit people don't care about you. Why? Because unlike homeboy you don't expect them to care about you. You're upset with homeboy because he's not meeting your expectation, an expectation that he doesn't have to meet anymore. Him not giving a damn about you, as you say, should be even more encouragement to let his ass go. I fail to see the problem with it.

You say you still love him, but you are full of shit. It's been almost a year. You are not in love with him anymore, you are in love with "us". You miss the feeling of you and him. You want him back because of how his presence makes YOU feel. Have you ever given thought to the idea that wherever he is now that he may be really happy with that person, that he may have found everything that he was looking for? Doesn't that make you ridiculously happy? Of course it doesn't because you're full of shit. That's why you compare all the other guys you have dated to him, not because you miss him so much, but because you miss the feeling, the high you got from being with with him. Love and infatuation are a high, people. It's all mental, emotions aren't much more than endorphins, pheromones and dopamine. I'm not saying that anyone should become sterile and heartless, but we should become more mindful of who we choose to love and why. So instead of trying to get over him, grieve and heal yourself and quit him cold turkey, you were trying to find a quick fix with other dudes and are frustrated because it's not working.

He has stated with his absence that you don't make him feel the way he wants or needs to feel. That you don't make him happy anymore and if you truly love someone you would want them to be happy, even if it's not with you. Loving someone seldom means that you get exactly what you want, unless in loving someone you genuinely want them to be happy no matter what. And in that same way someone will come along who will love you and genuinely want you to be happy and hopefully they will be happiest with you and you with them. Sometimes the best way to love someone is to let them go. In wanting him back you are being selfish and by holding on to him you're stopping the one for you from coming along.

He is not hurting you anymore, you are hurting you. He has no more power over you than you are willing to give him. And the power that you are giving him he doesn't even want anymore as he's not even around to receive it. He is not the enemy. These hurt feelings that you are feeling you are bringing them upon yourself trying to hold on to something that isn't yours anymore. The relationship is dead, you grieve, you reflect and you move on. You have to move on, you have no choice. He's living his life, it's time for you to live yours.

The lesson that I want you to learn from all of this is that you are more powerful than you think. This whole thing is all about you, not him. He is gone. He is not an issue anymore. He can't hurt you because doesn't exist in your life anymore. It's only in your mind where you have the power to resurrect him and the idea of him in your life. A lot of times in our lives it's not about what happens to us but what we allow to happen to us. In my past when I was where you were, realizing that I was not the helpless victim that I was painting myself out to be and that in many ways I was full of shit my damn self really helped me to snap out of it. It ain't magic and granted you'll think of him and miss "us" from time to time, but like any addiction it's a day by day process, but you've gotta make the initial effort. What have you got to lose? You feel like shit anyway. Homeboy is gone, been gone for a year, it can't get no shittier. So now lets be a big boy, stop being a sissy and accept that he's gone and that that's okay and learn to let this go.

If you ever want to email me a question, problem or issue to possibly be shared here or just wanna say "Hi." click here to send me an email (try to keep it under 500 words please). And of course whatever you send is anonymous, you don't even have to give your name.

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Playing In the Background...
"I'll Find A Way"
by Blu Cantrell
from the album "So Blu"
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Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

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Pictures:
- Me and writer/blogger/filmmaker Xem VanAdams at the K2 Lounge at the Rubin Museum, here in New York last Friday night.
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Last Friday night I had the pleasure of meeting fellow gay blogger Xem VanAdams as he dropped into New York for a quick spell. This blog post is supposed to serve as an intro to him, but I'm sure a good number of you are already familiar with Xem's work, as he has made a big splash all across the blogosphere this past year, getting loads of hits on his YouTube videos and even being featured on MediaTakeOut.com. But even with all of that, thankfully, Xem is just a really cool guy.

Check out his stuff at XemVanAdams.com

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Playing In The Background...
"Papa's Got A Brand New Bag"
by "James Brown"
from the album "20 All Time Greatest Hits!"
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Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Hey Y'all,

I know I'm the last person to say this but I wanted to wish all of y'all a happy new year. I know I was M.I.A. all of last week as I was on a mini vacay, you know, recharging the proverbial batteries and all, but I'm back now and ready to swing into action.

As I've said before, I'm not one of those "new year, new me" people. I'm basically the same dude I was the week before last, just growing and changing, little by little each day, with no regard to the calendar year. I have no major, life changing resolutions this year, well, they're not very dramatic anyway. My goals are to finish and get my book out to the public, be a little better with my money and to take more pictures this year. So many great moments pass by throughout our lives and we fail to document them. That's all.

Thanks so much for reading and supporting the blog this past year and be on the lookout for the second anniversary of the blog in February.

Much love,
-Adam

Posted by Adam Benjamin Irby at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)