COSTUME PARADE AT BIG SHOE DIARIES!

We want your photos to show on the blog. What amazing costume did you wear for Halloween? Take photos and send to bigshoediaries@gmail.com before tomorrow morning.

To wet your appetite here's a Big Boyz Bail Bonds ballpoint pin made from duct tape by Baltimore artist and. "friend of Colby," Francis Dempster.

BOY WITH BEARD: BILL ARNING

Studly "Boy with Beard" Bill Arning, his equally beautifully bearded boyfriend, and a crew of talented Texas artists took me to the Lawndale Gallery's annual "Day of the Dead" auction and fundraiser while I dropped in to Houston to visit family last week.  Without their timely rescue, I very well may have lost my last marble enduring the erratic Keller clan's essentric antics.  

A commanding presence at over 6'4", Arning is a native New Yorker and former punk rock musician.  From 1985 to 1996, Arning served as chief curator at the White Columns Alternative Art Space in SoHo.  Arning now serves as Director of the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston-- a site instrumental to my own formative intellectual and artistic development as a teenager.  With a compassionate, gracious and overwhelmingly generous personality one normally doesn't associate with art world heavy weights, Arning also owns a jaw dropping private art collection which I had the sheer privilege to enjoy personally.  He even gave me a stack of art books he'd authored himself as a birthday present!

Suit and tie sex appeal has never looked better.  Eat your hear out Men at Play.  Bring your next board meeting to the art gallery.

LETTER PRESS GRINDR PROFILES

Too little work and too much hurricane leads to some sassy picture making fun in Brooklyn. Justin Jorgensen gets holed up in Brooklyn during Hurricane Sandy with Karl Marxxx
and we started brainstorming on how to get past GRINDR's decency standards and show you what our assets are.

I SEE PENIS: POST-IT NOTES

Don't forget! Penis-shapes posties help you get the job done!

SANDY CANDY

Provided Hurricane Sandy succeeds in turning off my lights tonight you're all invited over to a candle lit orgy!

Until service is restored here are a few sandy bottoms (and one cock) to keep the rest of you company while I'm gone:

Submit your own best beach bum pics or Hurricane Sandy destruction porn to me at bigshoediaries@gmail.com

I SEE DOLLAR SIGNS: VAGINA

As Hurricane Sandy continues to lick my windows clean, I discovered a few more inspiring finds from Ebay: a vagina shaped onion ring above and pocket-sized vaginal ginger.

If your scene tends to veer a little more on the kinky side, there is also the 16 inch Missouri-Nasco artificial vagina equine semen collector:

I SEE PENIS: GREEK PINK

Going back home to Texas to visit the Keller crew unleashed one merciless stress wave after another.  If it weren't for an INCREDIBLE group of newly found friends in Houston, I may have lost my mind entirely.  I just barely made my flight home only to wake up to Hurricane Sandy pounding on my windowsill.

There may be no more soothing stress reliever than spending an afternoon on Ebay, compulsively scrolling through page after page of amazing junk of no conceivable use value.  Who doesn't need a life-size pink Greek hoplite helmet in the shape of a penis!  I certainly do!

Just in case you're inspired, I promise a naked photo-shoot in anything any lovely reader generously feels compelled to donate.  Maybe this lovely ensemble?  Or this authentic Corinthian number? . . Or this one? . . or that one!?  There are just so many Greek helmets I can't choose!

Or this. . . French 1st Empire Calvary helmet of Empress Dragoons.  Holy Mother Saint Ru Paul!  

WTF!  

I have just the jock strap to match this one.

If penis-shaped headgear isn't quite your bag, simply type in "unusual" under the "Cultures and Ethnicities" search box (my all-time favorite category besides the difficult-to-locate "Adult Only": All Categories> Everything Else> Adult only) and you might just be surprised how much racist/homoerotic americana you'll discover.  

I mean, is there really a better way to sell antique slave chains than having a white boy pose shirtless and manacled?   I can't think of one. 

"Air Raid Black Out" 

"Black Boy getting Goosed!!!"

I SEE BUBBLE BUTT: PENIS

This reader-submitted cock shot close up has us all kinda confused at BSD. Is it a butt? A penis? A silicon butt toy? Whatever it is, we love it!

CHAPTER 30: FUNERAL PARLOR

"Only one dozen," I said, sniffing a lavender bud.  "You're slipping."

--p. 114

Chapter 30 of Larry Duplechan's Eight Days a Week:

COLBY DOPPELGANGER: MATEU DE SOTO

A recent New York Times article revealed an important Colby Doppelganger from the world of Art History, and specifically the world of Pablo Picasso.  This is a painting Picasso did of close friend and sculptor, Mateu d Soto and the resemblance is uncanny.  I just wish my mustache would grow like this.

And if there were a word for spiritual likeness in the sense that doppelgangers are two people with visible likeness, then it looks like Mateu and his brother might have also had my own penchant for sexual exhibitionism.  Below is a photo of the brothers with "Anita" demonstrating a keen interest in matters of the bedroom, and potentially matters of gender-bending according to this Telegraph article.

And here is Mateu with an un-named Saint-Lazare Prostitute, confirming his healthy relationship with members of the sex industry. 

a

HELP WANTED

One brave soul . . . just one . . . volunteered to compete in the "Hookers on the Lake" song contest.  Unfortunately, "J" in Chicago can't claim much of a singing voice.  Not that any of us will ever know for sure.  J only submitted written lyrics, not an MP3.  Given the obvious fact I can't exactly dance naked to a music video without music I still need YOUR help.  If you pride yourself on a pleasant pair of pipes (or handily own a vocoder) or even just want to throw down a beat or two purty purty please help J and I fully flesh out the next porn top 40. 

Together, we'll make music.  :-)     

Per J's instructions, the words in regular type are meant to be spoken (I'm imagining something deep and throaty like Leonard Cohen or Johnny Cash), and the ones in italics are meant to be sung to the tune of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat (I had to look it up)."  Personally, since J didn't sing the song himself, I think anyone who contributes should be given permission to improvise as they see fit.  

======================================

Red-hot hookers on the lake,

Ready to give all you can take –

On the dock or in your boat,

Up the ass or down the throat.

            Lake hookers like to go down,

            Go down on cock in the boat.

Boy, what are you waitin’ for?

Yeah…drop your pants and grab your oar –

On the bottom or the top.

These boys’ll do you ‘til you drop.

Lake hookers like to go down,

            Go down on cock in the boat.

Once you’ve had one of these whores.

I guarantee you’ll beg for more.

So hurry up, boy, don’t be late.

A catch like this ain’t gonna wait.

            Lake hookers like to go down,

            Go down on cock in the boat.

            Lake hookers like to go down,

            Go down on cock in the boat.

            Lake hookers like to go down.

            Go down. Go down. Go down.

Go down on cock in the boat.

            Go down on cock in the boat.

I SEE PAENIS: LIES!

Down home here in Texas, a "paenis" is how you might pronounce penis.  I've seen more Romney lawn regalia and heard more outright racist innuendo in the Lone Star State than I feel comfortable admitting publicly, much of it shockingly directed toward the first family (and America's most popular political personality-- Michelle Obama at that).  I buried my head in my hands in sheer dismay at least three times today and that was just before lunch!   Remember Dubya!?  How many dickwads can one state wank out of its oil slicked palm exactly?  

Red state blues aside, what could be more mushroom shaped and pokey and ever-so sparingly magnanimous that a homosexual conservative, like blogger Andrew Sullivan.  Unless of course, you are Andrew Sullivan's apparent political change of faith and attendant graph, which purports to show the great lengths to which propaganda will serve the wrong master.

Thanks to BSD reader Alex for passing Andrew and his pencil-dick graph along.

I SEE PENIS: PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

On September 11, 1998 the State of Texas inaugurated this phallic stone tower to celebrate 150 years of "corrections" in Texas.  The tower is actually an enormous fountain.  A steady stream of liquid slowly trickles down its surface, covering the entirety of the penile penal display in a mournful envelope of slime.  

The monument stands adjacent to the Texas Prison Museum where I spent the afternoon enjoying the  macabre penal delights only American jurisprudence and oversized Texan pride could possibly do justice.  If the shiv collection doesn't scare you straight (and how could it-- enlisted with such enticing proximity to a perpetually lubed phallus only yards away) at least you might hope to lose a stone or two.  The museum also plays host a local Weight Watchers chapter.

"Weight Watchers Meets Here"

A few of my favorites from the collection:

"Piddle" stump

When this black walnut tree was cut down at the nearby Ellis unit, an inmate asked prison officials if he could have the stump to "piddle on".  After receiving parole, he left the stump unfinished.  Eventually he violated his parole, retuned to Ellis and completed the resulting menagerie.   

"Born to Die" body armor

My ultimate favorite: paper body armor colorfully decorated with dragons and studded with a lethal array of real razor blades.  Though the armor unintentionally injured several officers during its confiscation, it was seized before it could be used as intended on other inmates by its incarcerated maker.

Bonnie and Clyde's pistol

A replica of the Walls unit in downtown Hunstville, site of the former Prison Rodeo stadium and the notorious Texas Death Row.

 "Death Row" 

Cell block locking mechanism

Prison tattoo identification chart

. . . From "Texas Mafia" to "Aryan Circle" 

Handmade "hand spikes"

Stainless steel shank

Handmade speaker

Handmade "food processor"

Gavel shiv

Sandle shiv

Handmade pipe shotgun

Wall of shanks

Customized body slicer

"The stinger", a handmade heating device found hidden in a roll of toilet paper.  Behind the stinger is the shoe of former inmate Charles Harrelson.  The shoe contains an intentionally hollowed-out compartment in the sole intended for contraband.  Charles is the father of actor Woody Harrelson (of Cheers fame).

Contraband Coke container

Handmade escape 

Bike used in the recent 2008 escape of inmate Michael McCumber

Handmade paper dumbbells

Toilet paper roses

Devotional soap art

Bizarre clock constructed by inmates

Old ball and chain

"Corrective" bat, used as a disciplinary device by prison officials until the 1940s

The many colorful folk costumes of the Texas Department of Corrections

Prison rodeo clown costume

Prison rodeo chariot  

Initiated in 1931, the Texas State Prison Rodeo had an impressive, albeit brief, lifespan.  Structural problems with the prison stadium forced officials to close the rodeo in 1986.  The state refused to allocate funds for its repair and the rodeo has never returned to Hunstville, despite frequent attempts to resuscitate the once famous state institution.  In 1975, the Rodeo received international acclaim when NASA invited Soviet cosmonauts training in Texas to attend the annual event.  

"Old Sparky"

According to a postcard in the museum giftshop, "Old Spark" operated from 1924  to 1964.  361 men died in the chair, five on the first night it was used.  Four sets of brothers died in the chair, each pair on the same night.  Double executions occurred 22 times.  Triple executions happened three times.  The oldest to die in the chair was 66, the youngest 17."

Presently, the preferred method of prisoner dispatch: lethal injection.  Prison officials inject the condemned with three compounds: Sodium thiopental (a short-action barbiturate which renders the prisoner unconscious), Pancuronium bromide (a muscle relaxant that causes sustained paralysis of the skeletal muscles, including the lungs and diaphragm), and Potassium chloride (a chemical with causes death by cardiac arrest).

The "Last Statements" on display of the 13 Texas prisoners condemned to death in 2011.  In addition to each prisoner's last statement and summary of their offense, artist Barbara Sloan includes a photograph of each victim.  Initially I assumed each photo represented the accused, not the victim.  How could Texas execute more women than men!?  . . . Sad on so many levels.

Souvenirs, including Solitary "ConfineMINTS" at the Museum gift shop.  

The actual Walls unit in downtown Hunstville, home of the Texas State Death Row.