Yeah, lookie here! You too can be a meth addict and, if you are lucky and don’t die, grow up and be built and hot like the coverguy glorified in the current issue of “Advocate.”
This from the same gang that vilified the pharmaceutical industry’s advertising showing HIV patients on meds being buff and climbing mountains.
Do as I say…. not as I do. Right, Advocate? What hypocrites! In case you are moved…..
letters@advocate.com
Letters to the Editor
P.O. Box 4371
Los Angeles, CA 90078
Phone: (323) 871-1225
Fax: (323) 467-6805
By the way, this is exactly the kind of crap that Log Cabin Republicans should take a stand on since it is typical of the senselessness of the Gay Left and the images that the gay media uses to portray gay men. But I guess there is too much Massachusetts-partying going on right now over at LCR HQ for them to care about this silly life-and-death stuff.
Oh, and don’t tell me that the issue is about “recovering” from meth and that the Advocate is actually campaigning against it. Remember, a picture is worth 1,000 words.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
Don’t forget they inspiring praise for Judge Rehnquist! They used to make sense and have some kind of backbone. Now, they march with HRC, NGLTF etc…utterly ineffective. Too bad really – maybe under new (Republican) leadership they can come back. Heck they aren’t even in the meeting with Gov Arnold!
Oh yeah, bitching to The Advocate about a pet-issue of a high-priced pharmaceutical executive (Gay Patriot) is more important than the legislature of Massachusetts affirming marriage equality. Pitty LCR paying more attention to that.
I happen to agree with you Bruce, but of all the things you try to get gays riled up about, image is a lower priority.
No matter how they spin this, the fact is, they chose to put an attractive, healthy-looking guy on the cover because that will sell more magazines. When those of us in the Culture of Life talk about the Culture of Death that we oppose, this is exactly what we’re talking about: the systematic glamorization of unhealthy and destructive life choices for the sake of commercial benefit. The Advocate can claim that they are talking about recovery, but their cover-boy is unrepresentative of what meth will do to most people who use it.
Yeah Bruce. Maybe they put a picture of Mr. Delicious on the cover simply because he’s, well, delicious.
Sometimes I think you’re nuttier than some of the right wing nutcases. Nevertheless, I enjoy reading your writing. Aren’t we all a little crazy?
Re: #2 Actually, Gregg, meth use is far more than a pet issue. It is an epidemic destroying large swaths of middle American youth and the gay community. If you’ve never seen the kind of devastation this drug has wrought, count yourself lucky. I’ve watched people close to me fight this demon, some recover, others not.
Either way, none of them look like the guy on the cover of the Advocate, even if they started out that way.
Show an under-weight, circle-eyed, teeth-rotted “model” and they’d be much nearer to the truth.
No masturbates over that though. So, muscle boy it is! Wheee!
So, expressing criticism that a gay magazine is sending the wrong message about a serious health issue within the gay sommunity makes you a “right wing nutcase” now.
Oh, I forgot. No one is ever supposed to critcize a gay institution in any way for any reason. Because frankly and honestly addressing problems within the gay subculture empowers the haters. Is that the theory?
Not to belabor Bruce’s point, but evidently some here need it belabored……
The cover reminds me of those old “public service messages” the cigarette companies used to run, with photos of cool-looking adults smoking, and the text message addressed to teenagers “You’re too young to smoke” or “Wait ’till you’re older”.
Any honest article about meth should be accompanied by grim (i.e., truthful and accurate) pictures of its devastating effects on people.
Wow. Well, if I had bought into anything the Advocate said, I would have been voting Democrat long ago.
I think The Malcontent has it right. Regardless of its popularity within the gay community (or perhaps representative of it) The Advocate is a fringe Gay Left magazine. Anybody who’s spent any time reading it can attest to that.
That its editors choose to glamorize self-destructive behavior should come as no surprise to anybody. It fits the Left’s tableau pretty well: Do whatever you want, you’re not responsible for anything you do, and if you “overcome” what you’ve done to yourself, you’re some sort of hero.
What ColoradoPatriot said makes me wonder if there oughtta be a magazine for gay conservatives. Except printing with ink on dead trees is kind of second wave. Maybe a more 21st century approach would be an on-line weblog with multiple gay-conservatives and moderates contributing. It would be like Huffington Post, except with writers who are witty and talented.
This picture would not have sold many Advocates or any of the other sex products (like lube, porn, escorts and poppers) that they advertise.
Pat: Great point. The conscientious publisher would find a way to inspire people who are (or are on their way to becoming) addicted to come off the drugs by showing that you can survive, while also being realistic so as to discourage those who are clean to stay so. While the eerie skeleton photo might be good for dramatic purposes, the one further down the page of the guy on “ice” has more punctuation because it’s real. Surely The Advocate has unflattering pictures in its article, right?
Moreover, a gratuitous picture of a healthy young man is a good idea for selling magazines, so long as it is a realistic image of what you get inside.
V the K, start it up kid! I’m no good for the lengthy articles, but I’ll contribute to the Laughter: The Best Medicine section.
Bi-weekly, of course.
… it takes time to “lift material off of other sites” right Chandler?
V the K, if you couldn’t tell, I was joking. I was just saying Bruce was just as crazy as the right wing nutcases by saying that the Advocate was encouraging meth usage with Mr. Delicious on the cover. Lighten up a bit.
Bruce-
I desperately wanted to disagree…
… then I read the article.
*sigh*
If they were promoting “how you can still be hot while getting your crack craze on” then we should be pretty appauled. But here’s a guy who is beating his addiction. If you were to look at him, you wouldn’t register junky. I think I would be interested in seeing his story and finding out how someone so attractive got caught up in his addiction and how he fought it, to know why someone like that would turn to meth.
I’ve coached someone at different points during his addiction to meth. Lots of phone calls and some scary episodes. You should know you have a problem before the ambulance refuses to once again take you to the emergency room. But he’s beating it. His business thrives, he’s turning his life around, things are getting brighter.
He is a loving guy. Funny, handsome, over-privileged and yet just as messed up as the rest of us. And he probably gets the attitude that your cover boy receives. “You’ve got so much going for you why should I give a damn about your problems when I have problems of my own?”
Stuff down your pride fellows and put the little green monster back in the closet. This isn’t about glorifying meth addiction as it is about jealousy. We should all care enough for a little sympathy and compassion even to those who are cuter than we are, or perhaps richer than we are, smarter, etc. One aspect of someone’s being rarely represents the whole.
“I think I would be interested in seeing his story and finding out how someone so attractive got caught up in his addiction”
Has someone hidden from me the parallel bizarro gay universe where young, attractive gay men dabbling in the drug scene is utterly unheard of? In my apparently strange world, the hotter the guy at the club, the more likely he is to be on god knows what.
#10 Someone should create a gay conservative magazine. I keep dabbling with the idea of creating a site for gay conservative singles, but then I remember I know nothing whatsoever about html.
#5 – I wasn’t refering to meth abuse as Bruce’s pest issue. You misread me. I was just refering to his sniping that Log Cabin had something to say about the vote in Massachusetts, but wasn’t doing a letter-writing campaign to the advocate. The pet issue I was referring to, was pharma ads in The Advocate.
Bruce is right about the cover, but wrong about how an image on the cover of a magazine is of greater importance than marriage equality.
#9 – The Left’s template “Do whatever you want, you’re not responsible for anything you do, and if you “overcome” what you’ve done to yourself, you’re some sort of hero.”
And: We should have generous welfare benefits and socialized medicine to pay for all the consequences, because other people owe you….The world owes you because of the [insert sin here: slavery, homophobia, etc.] of past generations.
#20 — That’s right, the theory of the left is, let’s tax the hell out of people who work hard and make good life choices to subsidize people who won’t work and make bad life choices. There will always be more of the latter, and they will always vote for us.
Oops, I meant #19, agreeing with. I made a bad choice. Somebody give me a grant.
V. Your mistake is excusable. It’s probably Bush’s fault anyway.
BUSH LIED! Oops, I mean, FORTY YEARS AND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS LATER…
He kicked the habit and looks good now. You think, in the first post I read up top, that gay people are jealous of gay republicans or gay conservatives? I think you just want guns like the guy on the cover…
With your hyperbole, I fully expect you to start claiming that the Advocate is selling tina any day now.
Pictures do say a thousand words: “I think I need a bathroom break. Is that possible?”
Concerning the front cover:
Who is Crystal and why is he kicking her?
Monty
Waahhh.
No seriously. I’m laughing my ass off after reading this.
You are one of those people who constantly has to find something to bitch about… some conspiracy that is obviously aimed at making your life hell, eh? Maybe the Advocate was trying to do work a new angle. Everyone has seen the “Faces of Meth” and “Meth=Death” scare tactics and they are losing their shock value. I think the magazine was offering a different approach by giving a little bit of hope to the many people who are already addicted and they are aware of the fact that gay men will buy any gay rag with a sexy beast on the cover. (Hey it looks good on the coffee table!) They probably got the message that recovery is possible to a huge number of people and, just possibly, helped a few. Who cares if Adonis is on the cover?
Besides, you shouldn’t blame the Advocate for being obsessed with beauty, you should blame all of us gay guys who buy it. They are after money and they focus on beauty because it sells. It sells because none of us wants to look at pictures of mediocre-at-best, imperfect, real-life humans like me and you. We can see that crap every day, all day long.