I am not AWOL from my blog or part of the writer's strike! Seems many bloggers both in and out of the GLBT world are recently absent from their post. I have seen a ton of stories in the past few weeks that I wanted to share and comment on but lately my life offline has taken up the majority of my time. Between selling my home and doing all the honey-do's I have been putting off and getting ready for upcoming surgery while running a business; time has slipped by and the days have been a blur. I cannot believe Thanksgiving is this Thursday!
Like many bloggers running a blog with daily content of quality takes several hours out of the day with research, writing, graphics and editing/proofing. If the time can't be spent producing something with some merit or interest then don't waste the readers or your stretched time.
Things are settling down with the projects around the house including painting, plumbing, electrical and some carpentry work. I think we have a water leak in the slab somewhere, God forbid I have people jack hammering up my house inside before I can sell it. Not being one to fear trying something new and challenging I saved some major money doing things myself. Finding water leaks in slabs is not on the list of do it yourself home projects.
There is some recent news I do want to briefly touch on one being a growing problem in the US and the other being a scam sending waves through the GLBT blogging community.
The FBI has released the 2006 hate crime statistics and after a decade low the number of crimes against minorities has jumped 8%. 51% where based upon racial bias and 15% percent based on the victims sexual orientation. This trend shows a dangerous path back toward bigotry and intolerance and must be stopped by passing strong hate crime legislation to protect those not in the majority of American society.
The 7.7 percent increase means hate crime offenses reported in 2006 rose to 9,080, compared with 8,380 incidents the previous year. The number of incidents reported in 2005 was the lowest reported in a decade, according to the FBI. – ABC News
This past week the mystery behind the disappearance of one the GLBT blogging community's most successful blogs was revealed. Brat Boy School, for those who are not familiar with the blog, was a chronicle about a struggling fashion model turned conservative political and social blogger. Think of a gay male bloggers version of Tila Tequila that writes at times like Pat Buchanan and whose only other talent is to pose in various underwear and provocative shots to go along with many of the various blog posts. The model/blogger Ethan Reynolds appeared on the front cover of Internationally syndicated Instinct Magazine, a respected Gay news magazine, with an article saying too many of the right things to a gay male audience and almost overnight what was presented as his blog, Brat Boy School started drawing millions of hits daily.
A following of gay men online world wide started reading daily and in some cases interacting online with whom they thought was the model in the hundreds of pictures over a period of almost three years. With the growth of the blog and the increasing audience Brat Boy School grew to encompass MySpace, AOL and Yahoo chats, Amazon.com, postal mail, broadcast emails, modeling, appearance contracts and corporate sponsors. A blog sold as being created by a very cute Las Vegas blogger about his life, modeling career and conservative political views became a business. The blog went as far as providing a complete background bio and photos before the blog was created. For almost three years the charade continued until one of the online characters involved with the growing business blew the whistle when, according to online accounts, items sold on the blog site never got to readers. An investigation started and personal appearances by Gerald Reynolds, playing Ethan Reynolds the face and body of Brat Boy School started to go wrong.
Turns out Brat Boy School and the character of Ethan Reynolds was the brain child of the 40 something year old room-mate turned manager of a Gerald Reynolds the supposed model in the hundreds of pictures archived on the Brat Boy School site. The 27 year old model never wrote a single word of any of the blog post, emails, online chats, or MySpace correspondence and stayed mum to that fact to the news media and online readers for almost three years.
I was personally scammed into thinking that the online character/blogger was who I thought he was when my blog, T Town Tommy, happened to be featured in a few posts and was put on the blog roll for Brat Boy School. I have been a frequent visitor to Las Vegas since the early 70's when my Grandparents lived near downtown. Never missing a chance to keep up the illusion of blogger Ethan Reynolds the roommate/manager went as far as to suggest to me a fellow GLBT blogger new places to dine during my trips back to Las Vegas but always had an excuse to dodge a face to face meeting. The site is now deleted and the truth is out, caveat emptor has been proven to be truer now more than ever, buyer beware. Brat Boy School is an amazing example of using the internet and the online blogging GBLT community to create a total fabrication and fool millions of people worldwide for not days or weeks but for years.
It looks like a place to meet has been finalized. The 
Recent Comments