urbanTechnocrat

J-Hud vs. Beyoncé

How the hell did I miss JP Calderon

OK, so I'm about a month behind this story, but I just started watching the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency (JDMA) yesterday on Oxygen OnDemand. Speaking of that, have you noticed that the women-focused channels all have shows the gay men want to watch? I'm almost sure these companies know this and specifically market and target gay men. Smart, very smart.

So, back to Janice and then on to J.P. Calderon (both already have entries in Wikipedia).

Janice, Janice, Janice... the woman is a bi-polar supermodel slash photographer slash entrepreneur out in LA with her own reality show and modeling agency. This is the second season of the show but my first exposure to it and for some reason, I've already fallen in love with it. One minute she's a raving bitch that's degrades her models and the next minute she's sweet as pie and giving some great life advice to a man coming out as gay in a national magazine. Maybe that's why I love her. LOL!

Anyway, that gay man is John Paul Calderon, a professional volleyball athlete, former Survivor contestant, JDMA model and now a prominent, out gay man. I'm still catching up on JDMA and yesterday I watched the the episode where Janice approached JP about doing a cover shoot for Instinct, but the catch was he had to be gay. She approached the topic very well, in my opinion, by wanting to provide him the opportunity for national exposure without trying to pry into his personal life. And before he could answer, the show ended and there weren't any more I could watch via OnDemand. So, I started taping all the repeats of the show to make sure I was able to watch the next episode. LOL!

I watched that episode tonight. JP... wow... brave guy I'd have to say. He had a lot of legitimate concerns for being afraid to come out, especially in this way, since he works a lot with kids. He was afraid this would somehow damage the coaching relationship he has with the kids and their families. And unfortunately, that is something real that people have to worry about these days. Sad, but true.

If you've been reading this blog regularly, you'll know that I have an aversion to crying over television shows (particularly Amazing Race and Ugly Betty). And this was no different. I don't know if it was dramatized or not, but JP was really dogging himself about this. He suddenly had zero confidence in himself, became self-conscious, and started spouting similar rhetoric to Lance Bass around the "I'm gay, but I act straight and don't fit a stereotype" crap. I can see how this can come from fear... fear of losing your job, fear of losing friends, fear of effecting family and every other relationship important to you. But I feel like Janice really came through for him... she was SUPER supportive, trying to get him out of that whole "if I'm gay I'm not masculine" bullshit and really tried to help him get a grip on reality... to make him realize this was the best thing to do not only for himself (by not living a lie) but also for his family and friends who would respect him for being honest with them and himself. Janice said:

"I just wanted to tell you how fucking proud I am of you. Coming out yesterday must be really hard, and then being on the cover of a national magazine the next day? … It’s really, really good...Live for yourself, not through other people’s eyes and the way you think you should be in their eyes, otherwise you would be a very unhappy old person. Trust me."

Go Janice!

While I haven't yet read the Instinct article, a portion of it is posted online. While he is still very critical of himself, I think he'll grow out of this and realize, like the rest of the gay community, that we are all very different. Just as there are different shades of skin color, there are different magnitudes of being gay. You're not more or less of a person or a man based on some scale. You are simply you.

And I'm Back... I think

The blogging thing has become more of a chore to keep up with than it used to be. Possibly because I feel like I don't have much to talk about these days. The reality is that quite a few things have been going on. But, I think the stress of it all has just caused me to retreat into a shell a bit.

There are big changes surrounding my job these days. I'm moving onto a brand new team where I have little experience with the client's business or the technologies we're using to support them. But, by jumping in head first it nearly guarantees me a promotion next April, as long as I perform as amazingly as I have been on my current team. I wasn't eligible for one this round because I am missing a key component of the next level's capability model even though I outshine other people higher than me in other areas. Hopefully though, I'll see a raise in the next few weeks that accurately reflects all of the hard work and energy I put into my work.

Next Monday is when I switch to the new team. I have quite a lot of reservations, but I'm trying to go into it with a clear mind and no predictions about what it will be like. We'll see how it turns out...

So yeah, I'm back from my funk and will try to post more often. Besides, there's a lot of good TV on these days that I'm sure I'll want to talk about.

Ugly Betty introduces tranny character

Well, if this show hadn't already broken a few boundaries, it just broke one more tonight. Ugly Betty introduced Alexis Meade formerly known as Alex Meade, the brother that was presumed dead since the beginning of the show.

Rebecca Romijn plays the part of Alexis; I never thought she looked tranny-like until tonight. LOL!! Anyway, I'm not exactly sure how long this character will be on the show (at least 2 episodes though), but its quite interesting that this storyline actually made it to primetime TV.

Minus "All My Children," are there any other shows that have done this before?