Yeah buds, I know I have plugged that fabulous quarterly covering the best of the gay and lesbian internet, CYBERSOCKET MAGAZINE, several times already. And I'm sure I've urged you dudes to run out and pick up a copy. But considering that my growing legion of AAARRGH!!-a-nauts hail from far and wide, from Australia to Amsterdam, Mexico to Mauritius (maybe not quite that far), I feel a certain obligation to reprint my contributions to that esteemed publication. So let me take a few pages to introduce you to my writings for CYBERSOCKET, and maybe next issue you'll be that much more motivated to search it out. By the way, their website and directory is AWESOME, as well, check it out at http://www.cybersocket.com.
First, one of my fitness columns:
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Health and Fitness by LEN WHITNEY "Build mass--get lean!" "Turn back the clock!" "Restore youthful vigor!" "Supercharge your sex life!" The ad claims shriek. Instant youth! The internet businesses know how bad we want it, and how much they can make us pay. Read the muscle mags long enough, and you'll see that the public demands newer, bigger, better silver bullets every year. In the fifties it was brewer's yeast and iron pills, in the sixties yogurt and protein powder. A few years ago chromium would solve all your woes, then it was boron, or Mexican sarsaparilla. After the supplement companies make their initial killing on each new fad, they move on in a hurry as the consumer begins to see through the smoke and mirrors. That said, some of the latest magic pills do seem to work. Quest for Anabolic Condition, at http://www.qfac.com, discusses all the latest metabolic wonders, as does online muscle mag MESOMORPHOSIS, at http://www.mesomorphosis.com, in a technical jargon aimed more at the iron-pumping crowd. But their elusive promise of lean muscle and a hormonal kick in the gonads should appeal to the Dorian Gray in all of us. Chemically known as Dehydroepiandrosterone, DHEA was the tabloid sensation a year or two ago, a prohormone that is, like compliments and sexual vigor, richly supplied in youth and a bit lacking in our silver years. Witness the sharply lower prices and remaindered bottles on the shelves at Pic 'N Save these days, and you'll see that we aren't putting as much stock as we used to into its miraculous rejuvenating effects. Enter androstene, DHEA's younger,
prettier sister. One step further down the metabolic line, this former
"secret of the Eastern bloc athletes" definitely does boost your body's
testosterone levels. Or rather, spike them, up for a few hours, then
Newer and better still is nor-androstene, specifically 19-Nor-4-Androstenediol. Instead of testosterone, norandrostene converts in the liver to an anabolic (growth-enhancing) substance called nandrolone, lasting longer and without the nasty side effects. Of course, this comes at a higher price, but what's money when you're talking a leaner and meaner look? And athletically-minded women, as well as men, can share in the bounty (without turning into hairy behemoths). If you're gullible, avoid looking for information about human growth hormone (hgh) on the web. Page titles like "Be Youthful", "Rejuvenate", "Anti-Aging Secret" and "Young4Ever" can send you right over the edge, while glowing testimonial "research" from doctors at obscure facilities like the "Palm Springs Life-Enhancing Institute" steers you right to the company sales pitch. In a ghoulish 1960's Hammer horror movie twist, hgh in years past was harvested from cadavers for glandularly imbalanced children (and clandestine society matrons willing to brave illlegality and astronomical prices to smooth a few wrinkles and quell jiggling underarm flab). Though the stories have a certain Countess Bathory charm, and have spawned new urban legends about bodybuilders getting fatal diseases from HORMONES OF THE DEAD, current supplies of human growth hormone are grown in biotech labs from bioengineered plant sources. And hgh does appear to increase muscle, strengthen skin tone and promote youthful vigor to a certain degree... so where's the catch? It's not legal! Human growth
hormone is a Class III controlled substance available only by prescription,
a fact buried deep in the fine print on the supplement company ads.
But they aren't even trying to sell the real deal. What they actually
sell
Budget steering you away from these radical new fountains of youth? Exercise is the cheapest and most effective age-defying secret of all, and the only major investment is your blood, sweat and tears. The Internet is chock-full of all the free advice you can handle about beefing up your daily workout. The Health and Fitness Network, at http://www.healthfitness.com, even offers daily emailed motivation from James Your Pesonal Trainer. If your solitary workouts lack that certain stimulation, check out the online chat "locker room" at MuscleNet, at http://www.musclenet.com. So where's the holdup? Whether your quest for perfect youth takes the chemical or old-fashioned iron-pumping route, the resources right at your keyboard can get you on your way. Now about that "stenographer's spread" from sitting all day at your computer?... BIO: West Hollywood fitness
trainer and Pop painter Len Whitney dishes up exercise
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Now here's a change of pace from what you may expect from me, my feature story from the first CYBERSOCKET:
| "Would you like to try Netscape
AOL Instant Message? It's already installed on your computer, and
best of all, it’s free!..." Of course, it started innocently enough.
Crossing the great digital Rubicon began with sticking one tentative foot
into the water. I'm old enough to remember when people actually
wrote letters to each other, and not just Xeroxed "Little Jimmy has
grown so big" newsletters with the Xmas card. The nineties and the
inexorable march to the new millennium keep bringing newer! brighter!!
faster!!! ways of connecting to our friends, cohorts, and total strangers,
and now even email seems as quaint as the quill and inkwell.
For the other two people left in the world who don't know about videoconferencing on your desktop, it's here and you better get used to it. AOL Instant Messenger, now built into Netscape Communicator 4.5 or a free download at http://www.newaol.com/aim, is an easy and benign place to start. Whenever you're online with your computer, you can sign on, and the little window tells you which of your specified "buddies" is online. Double-click on their name, and whatever message you type into the chat window appears instantly on their screen for a little impromptu chat session. You can restrict your incoming messages to your "buddy list", or if you want a little walk on the wild side, you can allow anyone with your email address to use it to find your Instant Messenger screen name and drop in unannounced. It’s pretty harmless, like a free phone call to someone you know is sitting right next to the phone. Sharing virtually identical technology, but sporting a community-based worldwide interface, is the ICQ ("I seek you", cute,huh?) network. Surf on in to http://www.icq.com for the full spiel and a "limited-time free demo download" that the company admits is free and lasts until they decide they want to start charging for it. Remember campside singalongs of
"Kumbaya" and the 1980's feelgood nonevent "Hands Across America"?
ICQ has that same underpinning, "reach out and touch" like-minded people
around the world. The tacit undercurrent is the tantalizing erotic
possibility of chatting with a stranger who has already indicated that
he shares your "interest". There are hundreds of ICQ communities,
including "alternative lifestyles".
My fitness-oriented website includes a link to the "ICQ Gym", at http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/2104/index.html, where bodybuilders can meet and chat one-to-one with other bodybuilders. Believe me, they're not all talking about forced sets and training plateaus. Profiles of gay men and women online, from healers to hookers, routinely include ICQ numbers. Your ICQ# is a noncommital code. Unlike geographically revealing mailing addresses or telephone numbers, ICQ allows you to reveal as little or as much as you decide to the caller at the other end. ICQ seems safer and less obtrusive than publishing your phone number on a public list, but potentially more annoying than receiving email and reading it at your leisure. The flashing ICQ red flower button on your desktop is like a ringing phone. Someone wants to talk to you, and talk to you now. Care to pick it up? A big leap up from ICQ and the internet chat rooms and channels is White Pine Software's CuSeeMe (all platforms), and Microsoft's NetMeeting (only for Windows, so Mac guys like me are left out in the virtual cold). Here is real videoconferencing -- for the small investment in the software and a desktop video camera, you're in virtual coffee shops, cafes and conference rooms with a window displaying your live video image along with those you are talking with. And that includes real talking. Though it eats up bandwidth from the video stream, you can forego the typed chat and let your microphone upload actual voice communication. The newer and better your software, camera and modem, the less choppy and grainy the video (which in the last few generations of CuSeeMe has supported color camera transmission). To test the free evaluation software I downloaded from http://www.cuseeme.com, I went to the gay supersite Badpuppy, at http://www.badpuppy.com. Under their "teleopup" option, I located their three resident conference rooms, the g-rated "Patio", and the more "let's get down to business" XXX-rated Badpuppy "Lounge" and "Playhouse", where nudity is permitted (expected). The live, full-video circle jerk at Badpuppy is what's really in the back of most gay men's minds when they contemplate or purchase a QuickCam or CuSeeMe. The conference room takes the form of a user-friendly configuration of windows that display the screen nicknames and videocam stream images of the participants. You can display more or fewer images, but bigger and more windows translates into choppier, lower quality video. In a crowded room like the Badpuppy lounge, you drag and drop the names of the most promising exhibitionists (or eager voyeurs) onto the conference room video windows to check out their camera images. Don’t like shy "Pegaysus"? Drag and drop "Brit Boy" or randy "Alex" over his window. The text-based chat window is just below, and you can direct your comments to the room in general or chat privately to anyone online in the "conference". At Badpuppy, "showing off" is the name of the game, and few participants bother to include their faces in their testosterone-fueled display. But like most demimondes, this world has its distinctive cast of characters, including "lurkers". Some guys want to catch the show, but won't let anyone get a look at them. They turn off their cameras and just watch -- for every enthusiastic wanker at Badpuppy and similar uncensored gay CuSeeMe conferences, there' s a big audience who just wants to look in. Built in to CuSeeMe is the ability to go 1-to-1 with another participant. If you know or can find out someone's IP server address, you can call them for your very own dirty phone call with pictures. The quality is slightly lower on 1-to-1 calls than conference sites, but the tradeoff of privacy and control appeals to many users. The conference rooms at a sexed-up site like Badpuppy and the dizzying whirl of image and chat can be intimidating, even for home-grown exhibitionists. If what you're looking for is a nice, old-fashioned guy over the 'net, check out these online stats: "6'tall, 185 lbs, 29 years--fun boy, sexy smile. I am warm, caring and affectionate. I insist on mutual respect. I live on integrity. I crave adventure. I embrace constant change and everything the future holds". Just the kind of solid, unassuming, wholesome Midwestern guy to take home to Mom, right? Maybe, but sorry to blow your mind. Those words are straight from the mouth of Jeff E. Popp, the newest breed of 21st century showman. At http://www.jeffypop.com, Jeff, a sweet, affable SoCal surfdude with a hi-tech edge, welcomes videoconferencing voyeurs to his twice-weekly scheduled live webcam sex-show. Tune in and see more than just a jerkoff. Jeff uses props, on camera "buds" and an engaging, real-guy enthusiasm that lets him rise above choppy, one-frame-every -thirty-second technology limitations. True, the limited bandwidth does reduce the 45-minute show to a series of hot blonde beach boy "French postcards", but Jeff likes to show off, and he keeps fans eager, and coming back for more. Welcome to the new and exploding world of the guycams. Check out the ranked and rated webcam lists at sites like Gay Male Cams, http://www.gaymalecams.com, or Brien's World Live Guys Index, at http://www.briens-world.com/liveguy/liveguyindex.html, and witness dozens of cottage-industry web broadcasters. Some are obviously commercial, with monthly membership fees and blazoned ad banners across every page. Others, like Jeffypop and Brad & Rick's (at http://www.gay-diner.com), really seem to do it for their own enjoyment and personal growth. Another breed are the millennial performance artists with their 24/7 home webcams, who entice viewers with occasional nudity or a flash of the webguy scratching his balls as he goes about his day-to-day life. Almost without exception the homecam guys demur "I don't do requests. This is everyday uncensored life." Yeah, and Garbo "vant"-ed to be "ullone". Lots of guys get off on watching everyday life with brief moments of "spontaneous" titillation, but I find it about as gripping as French philosophy. Look at an empty couch long enough, and I guess a guy in his underwear smoking a cigarette does start to look like entertainment. So where does this all lead? As the technology improves and ISDN and cable replace our rickety Model-T modems, streaming tv-quality webphone video and HDTV virtual love teams are on the horizon. But for now, why wait when you can get in on the ground floor. Reach out on ICQ, show and tell on CuSeeme, and applaud for the hard-working webguys and their proto-cams. Then you can always tell tomorrow's kids that, back in the twentieth-century, you remember when... BIO: For the time being LEN
WHITNEY confines his erotic exhibitionism to the canvas and the workout
floor. Check out his fitness rant and pop art at AAARRGH!! superhero
training, http://www.aaarrgh.com
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Hope that whetted your appetite... want MORE CYBERSOCKET
stuff? Click HERE! for PART TWO (SUMMER/FALL
'99) or HERE!! for PART THREE
(JANUARY/MARCH 2000)
What is AAARRGH!!? /Choosing a trainer /
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