Trying to keep the gays interested in something for more than 5 minutes is like trying to scare away a pack of wild wolves while wearing a 300 pound meat jacket.  This image keeps running through my head as I try and listen to the contestants of Vancouver’s Next Gay Top Model on Thursday night.  Don’t ask me why, but above the clinking of glasses and the roar of voices, I can’t stop thinking about running through the snow with a rib-eye brazier and tenderloin in my arm pits.

The bottleneck of 1181 quickly becomes an over-crowded stuffy space and the acoustics leave much to be desired.  But then again,

I imagine the majority of the audience came more for the ass than the acoustics.

Just saying.

The always debonair Ryan Steele takes intermittent shifts on the microphone as each of the contestants takes their turn spilling their guts to the audience.  The theme of the evening–gossip, a favorite past time of mine becomes a game that the audience and the contestants are supposed to play with each other.  Each of the boys gets up and tells what is supposed to be a story one minute or less.  Unfortunately for all of our attention spans, this limit is sorely abused.  At least we know they can talk… and talk and talk.

Funnily enough after the fifth or sixth apparently truthful tale about sex and booze, I start longing for someone to get up there and tell us a total crock of shit.  Perhaps it says something about the exhibitionist in all of us.  Maybe all of us homos have enough scandalously truthful tales of our own, that there’s no point in trying to make something up?  But where the hell’s the fun in that?  Granted, I’m no stranger to downing liters of vodka and all-night sex marathons, and maybe that’s the thing: it’s all been told before.

I mean, brothers, you aint talking to a room full of nuns here, and frankly you’re going to have to try harder than that to shock us.

But, I’m as guilty as the rest of you; blabbing about  my “walks of shame” and “guilty pleasures,” so I suppose I can’t be all that judgmental of your stance.

Mr. Steele pokes and prods the boys’ stories: like seams he tests for strength.  And finally Billy’s hairy gams are called into question.  I have to say the boy’s look is pretty epic: chili peppers on top and the leg’s of pan on the bottom.  The boys got some guts, or at least a warped sense of fashion.

Speaking of epic,  Joel F’s torso is something of an enigma.  Yeah I said it, it’s worthy, and yeah I said worthy, so what?  I can’t help but stand behind this fellow full-fold.  Maybe it’s my own experience with the rings and the pummel horse, or maybe it’s all hormones, but yeah I’m a little smitten.  I can’t help but nurture that little part of me that wishes I would have stayed on the mats, chalky hands and all, and ended up gaining a torso like that in the process.  Perhaps I could have found out what puts the “pummel” in pummel horse.

So amongst my mind wandering to meat jackets and pummel horses, I finally get what I’ve been seeking: a bloody lie. 

Stephen takes the stage and after some convoluted meanderings about Lance Bass and Facebook we finally hear a little bit about what gossip is supposed to actually entail: pure delicious falsness.

Surprising that it seems to actually take guts to tell a lie in the room.  Well Stephen, I commend you for it.

And with the end of the evening, the festivities take another victim.  Up on stage with Billy–our Facebook champion–Joel G, with all of his moxie leaves the game.

So perhaps I’ve learned a few things this evening:

• Sometimes it takes more guts to tell a lie
• 1181 is a sweaty bottleneck of grabby hands and gossipy queers
• I can’t stop thinking about wild animals and 300 pound jackets made of various smelly meats
• Billy reminds me a little of a hairy gammed Carmen Miranda
• Joel F has a lovely torso
• And, Ryan Steele has nice arms

That is all.

Till next time, check these out:

Vancouver’s Next Gay Top Model

Up Your Alley