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Shallow

A Brechtian Stageplay about the emergence of Gay Blogs, starring the new proprietors of “Queerty”

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From Wired News“Queer Blog for the Straight Web”, September 1, 2005:

There are blogs for just about every hobby, interest and persuasion, but why don’t any cover gay lifestyle?
[…]
I can’t claim to have come up with the idea, though. David Hauslaib, 21, who operates gossip blog Jossip, did. Next week he is planning to launch Queerty (a play on Qwerty, the keyboard standard), which will feature the blogging of Bradford Shellhammer (yes, his real name: I checked his driver’s license). Shellhammer, 29, spots fashion trends for JC Report, the online fashion magazine published by Flavorpill Productions, and has written for Abercrombie & Fitch Quarterly, The Baltimore Sun and Gay.com.
Recently I interviewed the two of them at a cafe in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, where they talked about their plans for Queerty.

SCENE: A small brick-walled cafe, colorfully–yet tastefully–adorned with the most masculine of motifs, including Robert Mapplethorpe photographs and rich, transcendently phallic iron sculptures. An isolated table with three chairs stands in the center of the room, at which is seated BRADFORD, a sleek and stylized prototype of homosexuality, and DAVID, a young and cherubically aspirational “gay bloke” who is wiping his face with stock certificates.
DAVID (sighing): Must reporters always be so fucking late? I swear…it’s scandalous how delicate the nature of time is to these people. And time, of course, is money. Gay money!
BRADFORD: Oh, relax. This is his big piece. I’m sure he’ll be here any moment. Give the fellow a break, eh?
DAVID: But we don’t even know if he’s cute!
BRADFORD: David, relax. I am so, so off the market. And he’s just a writer! Hardly big-money-man material. Truly, while a little plug-and-play here and there has never hurt anyone, I am not willing to betray Gus’ confidence in my behavior after that last fiasco in July.

A trim young bespectacled gentleman, ADAM, enters from STAGE LEFT. He smiles confidently at DAVID and BRADFORD and seats himself between the two.


ADAM: So sorry I’m late. I was held up by my editor. His publisher was chewing him out about advertorial integration.
DAVID: Sounds like a media scandal!
BRADFORD (scathingly turning to David): Cut it, junior. (To Adam, giving him the once over) So, you’re our Wired golden boy?
ADAM: The one and the same. Adam Penenberg. It’s just another gig, though. You know how it goes.
BRADFORD: Oh, do I ever. My last A&F piece ran years ago; I had a wonderful gig of my own in-house there, until those silly Christians ran us out of town.
DAVID: Cultural scandal!
BRADFORD: That was years ago, David. Why don’t you buy yourself some dignity, darling?
ADAM (uncomfortable): Ha. We can’t all be so worldly, Bradford. (To David) Especially when we’re talking about such an angelic little mancub.
DAVID: I’m 21. Is that not scandalous?
BRADFORD: Well, you’re clearly old enough to know better than to go down on the hired help, though, right?
ADAM (wincing): So, “Bradford Shellhammer”. It’s like “Brock Landers” meets “Kyle Bradford”, yeah? And is that your real name or are you just willing to fuck me?
BRADFORD: Here, look, it’s my driver’s license. I am nothing if not the Shellhammer.
DAVID: And his finances are no shell game, certainly! I hire him out every now and then. Barry Diller pays top dollar. It is such a hush-hush scandal. That is so off the record, by the way. Even I wouldn’t blog about it.
ADAM (gazing at Bradford’s photograph): You are quite the specimen. 6’1″, 200 pounds? And you’ll be covering lifestyle issues, fashion trends, and social phenomenon on this gay blog of yours? Queerty. So cute.
BRADFORD: Me or the blog name?
DAVID: Because I thought of the blog’s name, you know. I’m versatile like that.
ADAM: You’re both so adorable. But I can hardly expense this coffee tab…what are we to do? My rent is overwhelming, and my stress regarding creditor debts have left me despondently unable to achieve full-fledged erections…How will I ever eat again?
DAVID: Bradford carries Viagra. He buys it wholesale through his numerous industry and political connections. He can fuck for hours, and blog about conflicts-of-interest for even longer. He’s a regular workhorse. I leaked that information to People magazine.
BRADFORD (to Adam): And I do like what I see. Let’s get you wired.

BRADFORD erotically begins to feed ADAM a bushel of grapes and a special ketamine-based concoction, until the two of them are forcefully, thunderously copulating. Tha rafters of this quaint, affable coffeeshop have, until now, never borne witness to such erotic bliss. DAVID takes out his digital camera and prepares thumbnails for his website.
DAVID: The scandal of homosexual finances is unveiled! Bread for the well-hung!