About eighteen months ago, I stopped including full frontal nudity in my montages.

Not because I’m a prude. But because I realized I might get demonetized by Stripe, the credit card processor that powers subscriptions on Substack.

As far as they’re concerned, there’s very little difference between erotica and pornography. When the company that processes your payments doesn’t like the kind of content you like to make, you have to pay attention. So I adapted.

Since I still appreciate the male form in all its glory, my NSFW videos became a lot more focused on pecs and glutes. There are worse compromises in life.

Well, as of Monday, that’s going to change. Again.

Not dramatically. Not recklessly. But enough that I wanted to give everyone a heads up and ask for your help in making this experiment a little safer:

It’s a calculated risk. But so is everything about being an independent content creator.

One of the things I love most about COLLIDE PRESS is that it’s always evolving. I’m constantly tinkering with it. Testing things behind the scenes. Paying attention to what resonates and what falls flat.

• What should I cover?

• What shouldn’t I cover?

• What deserves more attention?

• What can I leave out?

Lately, I’ve been looking at audience feedback and performance statistics with fresh eyes. What I’ve realized is that both my Substack and YouTube channel have been treading water for a while. They’re not failing, but they’re not growing either.

I’m proud of what I’ve built here, and deeply grateful for everyone who reads, watches, subscribes, and supports my work. But appreciation and ambition aren’t mutually exclusive. I love what COLLIDE PRESS has become, and I think it can become even more.

That’s why I’m experimenting.

I want to reignite some of the energy that made this work exciting in the first place. I want to challenge myself creatively. And I want to give people more reasons to share, subscribe, and support my work.

After looking at the numbers, I’m reasonably confident that a little extra skin may help some people discover COLLIDE PRESS.

But the nudity isn’t really the point. The point is freedom.

For the past couple of years, I’ve struggled with the overzealous rules and regulations on YouTube. It’s caused me to second-guess everything I do. Every upload comes with a new round of questions and possible threats. What will get demonetized? What will trigger a copyright claim? What invisible rule am I violating this time?

Over time, that uncertainty has shaped my decisions. The constant fighting with AI bots over stupid shit has exhausted parts of my brain and creative process. So I have started censoring myself before anyone else has the chance.

As a result, I find myself writing more and editing less. Leaning into the things I can control instead of obsessing over the parts and platforms I can’t.

My goal isn’t to become more provocative for the sake of being provocative. My goal is to find a healthier balance between caution and creativity. To take a few smart risks. To trust my instincts a little more. And to stop sanding off some of the interesting edges before I hit publish.

Skin ain’t sin after all. We’re all born naked. So what’s the big fucking deal?

Whether this experiment pays off remains to be seen. That’s the thing about risk and reward. You don’t get one without the possibility of the other.

In the meantime, thank you for reading, subscribing, sharing, commenting, and supporting my little corner of the internet. COLLIDE PRESS continues to evolve because of you…and I’m excited to see where the next chapter takes us.

Thank you for being a friend!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 06-05 = Andrew George Scott (1842-1880) = Irish-Australian folk hero 🌈

• 06-05 = Spalding Gray (1941-2004) = American writer, actor, and monologist 🌈

• 06-05 = Chad Allen (1974- ) = American actor and psychologist 🌈

• 06-05 = Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) = Spanish writer and director 🌈

• 06-05 = Geena Rocero (1983- ) = Filipino-born American model 🌈

• 06-05 = Gustáv Slamečka (1959- ) = Czech politician 🌈

• 06-05 = Johannes von Thurn and Taxis (1926-1990) = German businessman 🌈

• 06-05 = John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) = British economist 🌈

• 06-05 = Laurie Anderson (1947- ) = American performance artist and musician 🌈

• 06-05 = Lisa Cholodenko (1964- ) = American writer-director 🌈

• 06-05 = Suze Orman (1951- ) = American financial advisor, author, and tv host 🌈

• 06-05 = Tony Richardson (1928-1991) = English film director 🌈

• 06-05 = Troye Sivan (1995- ) = Australian singer-songwriter and actor 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“To see you naked is to recall the Earth.”
Federico Garcia Lorca

Way back in 1990, when I was graduating from high school, a dear friend’s mom gave me a copy of Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten.

At the time, I probably didn’t appreciate what a thoughtful graduation gift it was.

Most graduation gifts are about the future. They tell you to dream bigger, work harder, climb higher, and become more. Fulghum’s book did something very different. It suggested that the most important lessons in life weren’t waiting for me somewhere down the road. They had already been taught to me years earlier.

• Share.

• Be kind.

• Clean up your own mess.

• Say you’re sorry when you hurt someone.

• Pay attention.

Those lessons sounded simple, almost embarrassingly simple. Yet the older I get, the more convinced I am that simplicity is often wisdom wearing comfortable clothes.

Fulghum’s book was a collection of personal essays about a life that looked very different from mine at the time. He wrote about family, faith, community, growing older, and finding meaning in ordinary moments.

Our experiences weren’t the same. Our backgrounds weren’t the same. In many ways, we inhabited entirely different worlds. And yet, the book spoke directly to me.

That’s one of the things I’ve come to admire most about great personal writing. The more specific a writer becomes, the more universal the message often feels. Fulghum wasn’t trying to represent everyone. He was simply telling the truth about his own life. In doing so, he gave readers room to see themselves in the story.

As a young writer, I didn’t fully understand why his essays worked so well. I just knew they did.

Years later, after writing hundreds of essays myself, I think I understand it a little better.

• People connect to honesty far more than expertise.

• They remember stories more than arguments.

• They respond to vulnerability more than perfection.

Fulghum wasn’t trying to impress anyone. He wasn’t building a personal brand. He wasn’t optimizing content for algorithms. He was simply paying attention to the world around him and sharing what he found there. Which turns out to be a durable and evergreen formula.

The book has stayed with me for more than three decades now. Not because I can quote every essay or remember every story, but because it quietly shaped how I think about life and writing.

The essays taught me that ordinary experiences are worth examining. That small moments often reveal larger truths. That humor and humanity belong on the same page. And that a writer doesn’t need to have all the answers to say something meaningful.

Most of all, Fulghum taught me that timeless wisdom doesn’t always arrive in grand revelations. Sometimes it shows up while watching people, making mistakes, cleaning up messes, and trying to do a little better tomorrow than you did today.

Looking back, I learned far more from that book than I realized at the time.

Not everything I need to know, of course. Life is far too complicated for that.

But a surprising amount.

And if I had to add one lesson to Fulghum’s original list, it might be this: Pay attention to the books that stay with you.

Books often teach you something long after you’ve finished reading them.

Keep calm and read on!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 06-04 = Angelina Jolie (1975- ) = American actor, filmmaker, and humanitarian 🌈

• 06-04 = Clare Atwood (1866-1962) = British artist 🌈

• 06-04 = Val McDermid (1955- ) = Scottish author 🌈

• 06-04 = Wu Tsang (1982- ) = American filmmaker, artist and performer 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“The world does not need tourists who ride by in a bus clucking their tongues. The world as it is needs those who will love it enough to change it, with what they have, where they are.”
Robert Fulghum

Today is Anderson Cooper’s 59th birthday.

Normally, I'd be writing about his career, his reporting, or the fact that somehow he still looks younger than most people who have spent half as much time in tv news.

Instead, I’m doodling and noodling about insubordination.

Earlier this year, Cooper left 60 Minutes after a long run with the once-great news program. Then this week came the firing of veteran correspondent Scott Pelley after he publicly criticized CBS News leadership, including c-u-next-Tuesday Bari Weiss, and questioned the direction of the organization.

Management reportedly viewed his comments as “inappropriate” and “insubordinate.”

I’ve always found that words like “inappropriate” and “insubordinate” say less about the behavior being criticized and more about the people doing the criticizing.

Sometimes those words describe someone refusing to follow reasonable instructions. Other times, they describe someone refusing to pretend that a bad idea is a good one.

I’ve spent enough time working in Fortune 500 companies to know the difference.

Throughout my career, I've had moments when I probably should have kept my mouth shut. Moments when remaining silent would have been easier for everyone involved. Moments when nodding politely and going along with whatever nonsense was being handed down from the corporate overlords would have been the safer career move.

For better and worse, I've never been particularly gifted at shutting the fuck up.

• When I see something wrong, I tend to say so.

• When leadership makes a decision that hurts people, I tend to say so.

• When someone with power starts confusing their title with wisdom, my internal bullshit detector tends to go off like a smoke alarm.

This has not always worked out well for me. It’s one of the reasons I’m self-employed.

The corporate world is full of people who climb the ladder by mastering the art of strategic silence. They know when to smile, when to agree, and when to pretend they don't see the fire. Sometimes because they're the ones holding the matches.

I was never one of those people. The older I get, the less interested I am in becoming one. That's why stories like this resonate with me.

Journalists spend their careers challenging powerful people. They ask uncomfortable questions. They poke holes in official narratives. They refuse to accept "because I said so" as an answer.

We celebrate those qualities when they’re directed at politicians, billionaires, and public figures. Yet the moment those same instincts get directed inward, toward corporate leadership, they suddenly become a problem.

• Then it’s not courage. It’s insubordination.

• Then it’s not integrity. It’s being difficult.

• Then it’s not speaking truth to power. It’s creating a hostile work environment.

Funny how quickly the language changes depending on who feels threatened.

Now, I don't know Scott Pelley. And I wasn't in the room. Maybe there are details I don't know.

But what I do know is that:

• Every major improvement in my life started when I stopped blindly accepting things as they were.

• Every meaningful change happened because somebody questioned authority, challenged assumptions, or refused to play along with a system that wasn't working.

This applies to workplaces. This applies to politics. This applies to social movements. And this applies to journalism.

The people in charge almost always want obedience. That's true whether we're talking about corporations, governments, institutions, or the self-appointed kings of some miserable office hierarchy.

• Obedience keeps things predictable.

• Questions make people uncomfortable.

Personally, I've become increasingly comfortable making people uncomfortable. Not because I enjoy conflict. Quite the opposite. If anything, I hate conflict. What I hate even more is watching intelligent people stay silent while bad leaders make bad decisions and expect applause for it.

Maybe that’s why this story has been stuck in my head.

Because from where I sit, there are far worse things a person can be than insubordinate. You can be a lying liar. You can be a cowardly cocksucker. You can watch something valuable being dismantled and say nothing because speaking up might cost you something.

I’ve done enough surviving in my life to know that silence has a price too. So if standing up to powerful people occasionally earns you a reputation for being difficult, stubborn, or insubordinate, so be it. Oh. Well.

History has a funny habit of remembering those who speak up for what’s right to those on the wrong side of history.

Keep calm and get your “insubordinate” on!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 06-03 = Alla Nazimova (1879-1945) = Russian-American actor and filmmaker 🌈

• 06-03 = Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) = American poet and photographer 🌈

• 06-03 = Anderson Cooper (1967- ) = American journalist and author 🌈

• 06-03 = Ellen Corby (1911-1999) = American actor and screenwriter 🌈

• 06-03 = George Quaintance (1902-1957) = American artist and illustrator 🌈

• 06-03 = Josephine Baker (1906-1975) = American-born French dancer, singer, and actor 🌈

• 06-03 = Tony Curtis (1925-2010) = American actor 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“A lot of compelling stories in the world aren’t being told, and the fact that people don’t know about them compounds the suffering.”
Anderson Cooper

As a kid, I remember hearing Judy Garland sing “Over the Rainbow” and imagining a magical place where the problems of the world simply disappeared. A place where people could just be themselves. A place where we all belonged.

Of course, reality is rarely that simple.

Like many LGBTQ+ people, I’ve learned that belonging is less of a final destination and more of a lifelong search. We spend years looking for spaces where we can lower our guard, speak honestly, and exist without explanation or apology.

Maybe that’s why I think of that song whenever I think about Gilbert Baker. Not because he created a fantasy, but because he took something as ordinary and extraordinary as a rainbow and turned it into a symbol of belonging. In doing so, he helped generations of LGBTQ people find not only community, but pride in themselves.

What can I possibly say about Gilbert Baker that hasn’t already been said?

By now, most know the basics. He designed the rainbow flag. He gave our community a global symbol. His work has inspired generations and become one of the most recognizable images in modern history. The facts are easy to find. What’s harder to articulate is what that flag actually means to me.

Every Pride Month, I find myself trying to put it into words, and every year I come up a little short. I think about it whenever I see one hanging from a front porch or displayed in a storefront window. I think about it when politicians argue over it, and when corporations embrace it for thirty days before quietly packing it away.

For me, the rainbow flag has always meant something far more personal: the possibility of belonging in a world that doesn’t always make room for people like us.

I especially think about it when I remember the first time I saw the giant rainbow flag flying over the Castro in San Francisco. Circa 2000.

At the time, I was still carrying around a lifetime of messages telling me I was different. That certain parts of myself were better left hidden and unspoken.

Like many LGBTQ+ people, I had become accustomed to scanning every room, every neighborhood, and every new situation for clues about whether I would be safe and accepted.

Then, I looked up and saw that enormous rainbow flag waving against the sky.

Something inside me broke open. It wasn’t just fabric. It was visibility. It was history. It was a soaring reminder that millions had walked this path before me, and millions would come after. For the first time in my life, I felt connected to something vastly larger than my own limited experience.

That is the genius of what Gilbert Baker created. Before the rainbow flag, many LGBTQ symbols were tied to tragedy, struggle, and persecution. They carried vital history, but they also carried deep pain.

Baker chose a different path. He chose a rainbow, a symbol of diversity and hope. That choice was more radical than it may seem today. For generations, LGBTQ people were taught to hide who they were, apologize for who they loved, or feel ashamed of their existence. Baker’s flag offered a different message: you belong, and there is beauty in being exactly who you are.

The older I get, the more remarkable Baker’s achievements seem. The LGBTQ community is not a monolith. We come from different backgrounds, cultures, and generations, often holding wildly different ideas about our collective future. And yet most of us embrace the rainbow flag (or a variation of it) wholeheartedly.

Most flags represent nations; they define borders and separate people into groups. Baker’s flag does the exact opposite. It invites people in. It says there is room here. It says you’re not alone.

I suspect that’s why it continues to resonate nearly fifty years after its creation.

For some, it is a political statement. For others, a celebration. For many, a battle cry.

I don’t know if Gilbert Baker could have fully predicted the impact his creation would have. I doubt anyone could.

On my first visit to San Francisco, a giant rainbow flag made me cry. I didn’t cry because I had finally arrived at that mythical place I imagined as a child. I cried because, for the very first time, I felt seen and part of something bigger.

Few people have given a greater gift to the LGBTQ community than the man who stitched together a handful of colored stripes and created a symbol that reminds us we are better together.

Somewhere over the rainbow, we’re told, dreams come true.

Gilbert Baker’s legacy is a timeless symbol of love and light.

Thank you, Mr. Gilbert!

Keep calm and get your Pride on…
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 06-02 = Andy Cohen (1968- ) = American television host 🌈

• 06-02 = Brent Hawkes (1950- ) = Canadian pastor and activist 🌈

• 06-02 = Gilbert Baker (1951-2017) = American artist 🌈

• 06-02 = Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) = French aristocrat and politician 🌈

• 06-02 = Wayne Brady (1972- ) = American actor, comedian, host, and singer 🌈

• 06-02 = Wentworth Miller (1972- ) = American actor and screenwriter 🌈

• 06-02 = Zachary Quinto (1977- ) = American actor 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“The rainbow is a part of nature, and you have to be in the right place to see it. It’s beautiful, all of the colors, even the colors you can’t see. That really fit us as a people because we are all of the colors. Our sexuality is all of the colors. We are all the genders, races, and ages.”
Gilbert Baker

Whether or not you personally celebrate Pride Month, the LGBTQ community has collectively come a long way, baby.

From the protests and riots of the 1960s to the parades and parties that followed, what began as a fight for visibility and basic dignity has grown into a movement that has changed countless lives.

I came out in 1994 when I was 21. Back then, coming out felt a lot different than it does today. There were fewer role models. Less visibility. Less acceptance.

For many people, coming out still involves risking family, friends, jobs, housing, and community. In some parts of the world, being LGBTQ remains dangerous if not deadly.

That’s one reason Pride Month matters.

It gives us a chance to celebrate how far we’ve come. Not just the big victories. Not just the court rulings and political milestones. But the small victories matter too.

Being able to introduce your partner without hesitation. Holding hands in public. Seeing LGBTQ characters in books, film, tv, pop culture, and public life. Finding community and support without feeling completely alone.

Those things may seem ordinary now. That’s exactly what makes them extraordinary.

Progress happens so gradually that we forget what life looked like before.

I think about the generations that came before mine. Those who marched when it wasn’t safe. Those who fought for rights many of us now take for granted. Those who paid enormous personal costs simply for being themselves.

Many never got to see the changes they helped create. I did. I bet you did too.

That doesn’t mean the work is finished.

Rights can be challenged. Acceptance can change. Around the world, many LGBTQ people still face discrimination, harassment, and violence.

Pride has always been both a celebration and a reminder.

A celebration of progress.
A reminder that progress requires people willing to fight for more.

Fortunately, resilience has always been one of our community’s greatest strengths. We’ve spent generations learning how to support one another better, adapt, organize, and keep moving forward. Together.

That’s worth celebrating.

So this Pride Month…

• Celebrate marriage equality.

• Celebrate greater visibility.

• Celebrate every person who feels safe enough to live openly and honestly.

• Celebrate the teenager who found the courage to come out.

• Celebrate the parent who chose love over fear.

• Celebrate the ally who spoke up when it mattered.

• Celebrate the fact that somewhere, someone is discovering they aren’t alone.

Pride isn’t just about remembering where we’ve been. It’s also about recognizing how far we’ve come and imagining what comes next.

After everything this community has accomplished and endured over the years, I think we’ve earned the right to celebrate. So don’t be tardy to the party.

Keep calm and Pride on!
Clint 🌈✌️

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

MORE PIONEERS + PRIDE

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 06-01 = Brandi Carlile (1981- ) = American singer-songwriter 🌈

• 06-01 = Cleavon Little (1939-1992) = American actor and comedian 🌈

• 06-01 = Ferron (1952- ) = Canadian singer-songwriter 🌈

• 06-01 = Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) = American model and actor 🌈

• 06-01 = Michael McDowell (1950-1999) = American author and screenwriter 🌈

GIRL CRUSH OF THE DAY

“I’m selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I’m out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
Marilyn Monroe

MARILYN MONROE: HOLLYWOOD ICON
(Academy Museum Of Motion Pictures)

After four productive sessions with my new therapist, I’m happy to report that one of his suggestions is working like a charm for me.

His advice was simple: stop focusing on the entire project and start breaking goals into ridiculously small, bite-sized tasks.

I’ve heard variations of this advice before. Most of us have. But for whatever reason, this time it’s finally clicking. And hopefully sticking.

My brain has a talent for turning one task into twenty. Writing a blog post can quickly become “launching a successful publication.” Cleaning the apartment often becomes “Marie Kondo my life.” And answering email can easily become “catching up on every unread email in my inbox.”

No wonder I get stuck. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. Maybe you too, boo?

The problem isn’t usually the task itself. It’s the mental weight we attach to it.

• Lately, instead of telling myself to “write a blog post,” I’ll tell myself to open the document and write the date.

• Instead of cleaning the apartment, I’ll put away five things.

• Instead of tackling an entire project, I’ll spend ten minutes on one tiny piece of it.

Ironically, once I get started, I usually keep on going. The hardest part wasn’t the work. It was convincing myself to start.

Through this process, I’m realizing there are two kinds of breaking down. There’s the kind where stress, anxiety, and overwhelm leave you frozen and exhausted. Then there’s the kind where you break a goal into tasks so tiny it’s easier to do them than not do them.

One leaves you stuck. The other moves you forward.

It’s not exactly a revolutionary productivity hack. It’s more like a minor mind trick. A gentle act of deception aimed at the most stubborn person I know: me.

And so far, it’s working.

Some days, the progress still looks embarrassingly small. A few paragraphs written. A handful of dishes washed. One phone call made. One item crossed off a to-do list.

What I’m learning is that big accomplishments are usually just small accomplishments stacked on top of each other. We tend to celebrate the finished book, the clean apartment, the successful business, the major life change. We rarely see all the tiny steps that made those things possible.

For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m standing on solid ground and moving forward. Inch by inch. And bird by bird.

Keep calm and keep trying!
Clint 🌈✌️

RELATED RECOMMENDED READING

ICYMI = IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

• SUNDAY = Memorial Days/Daze In Palm Springs

• MONDAY = They Served Anyway

• TUESDAY = Moody Blues + Silver Linings

• WEDNESDAY = 'It's Time To Try Defying Gravity'

• THURSDAY = What's Up, Doc?

• FRIDAY = There Will Be...Side Effects

• SATURDAY = Finding Meaning Through Cleaning

• NEW VIDEO = In The Open (NSFW) ▶️

• NEW VIDEO = The Love We Are ▶️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-31 = Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015) = American painter and sculptor 🌈

• 05-31 = Denholm Elliott (1922-1992) = English-Spanish actor 🌈

• 05-31 = Lissy Gröner (1954- ) = German politician 🌈

• 05-31 = Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982) = German filmmaker 🌈

• 05-31 = Walt Whitman (1819-1892) = American poet, essayist and journalist 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“Gray goes with gold. Gray goes with all colors. I’ve done gray-and-red paintings, and gray and orange go so well together. It takes a long time to make gray because gray has a little bit of color in it.”
Ellsworth Kelly

Living and working in a small studio apartment for the past ten months, I have to admit I like it a lot more than living in a bigger house.

There’s less to clean. Less to maintain. Less to lose track of.

The space demands a certain kind of honesty. Every object needs a place and a purpose. At least in theory. There simply isn’t enough room for endless accumulation.

And yet, despite all the advantages of small-space living, I’m still not fully unpacked. And my apartment is still a mess.

Apparently, square footage was never the real problem. I am.

For years, I convinced myself that if I just had the right space, I would magically become more organized. The clutter would disappear. The piles would vanish.

“Future Me” would finally emerge as one of those adults who folds fitted sheets correctly and always knows where important paperwork is located.

Needless to say, “Future Me” remains elusive. Possibly even mythical.

What I have learned is that the state of my space affects me more than I like to admit.

As someone who works from home, my apartment isn’t just where I live. It’s where I answer emails, write articles, edit videos, plan projects, and occasionally stare out the window while telling myself I’m working.

When my surroundings become cluttered, my mind often follows.

Which is why, today, finally feeling myself again, I’m planning to catch up on some housekeeping. Not because I enjoy cleaning. I really, really don’t. But because cleaning helps me find meaning in the mess.

And it offers something that feels increasingly rare these days: immediate results.

• You wash the dishes and the sink is empty.

• You take out the trash and the room smells better.

• You organize a shelf and can actually find what you’re looking for.

Cause and effect. Action and outcome.

There’s something deeply satisfying about that simplicity.

In a culture obsessed with productivity hacks, optimization strategies, and life-changing morning routines, cleaning feels almost embarrassingly basic. Yet it’s one of the first things I return to whenever life starts feeling overwhelming.

Not because it solves everything. It doesn’t. The bills still exist. The deadlines remain. The political chaos continues. The world’s problems don’t disappear because I scrubbed a bathroom or dusted a bookshelf.

But cleaning reminds me that I still possess agency.

I may not be able to control everything happening outside my apartment, but I can wash a coffee mug. I can sort a stack of papers. I can clear a desk.

Those small actions create small wins and order where disorder once existed.

And sometimes that’s enough to change the trajectory of a day.

I’ve discovered that housekeeping can be a surprisingly effective form of meditation. Not the cross-legged, candlelit kind. The active, practical kind.

When I’m wiping down counters or reorganizing a drawer, my brain stops trying to solve every problem simultaneously. My attention narrows. The task becomes the task. For a little while, that hyper-focus is all that matters.

So while I still have boxes waiting to be unpacked nearly a year after moving in, I’ve stopped viewing that as a personal failure.

• Life is messy.

• Homes are messy.

• People are messy.

The goal was never perfection.

The goal is to create a space that supports the life I’m trying to build.

A place that feels functional. Comfortable. Welcoming. A place that makes it a little easier to do the work, face the challenges, and enjoy the good times when they arrive.

Maybe that’s why housekeeping continues to matter more than I expect.

Not because cleaning changes the world. But because it changes the small corner of the world I’m responsible for. In uncertain times, there is quiet comfort in that.

Sometimes meaning isn’t found through grand achievements, five-year plans, or life-altering revelations. Sometimes meaning is found in caring for what you’ve been given.

Sometimes it begins with putting things back where they belong.
And sometimes, it begins with doing the dishes.

Keep calm and clean on!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-30 = Bertrand Delanoë (1950- ) = French politician 🌈

• 05-30 = Christine Jorgensen (1926-1989) = American actor and singer 🌈

• 05-30 = Countee Cullen (1903-1946) = American poet and author 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“From the Dark Tower”
by Countee Cullen

We shall not always plant while others reap
The golden increment of bursting fruit,
Not always countenance, abject and mute,
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;

Not everlastingly while others sleep
Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,
Not always bend to some more subtle brute;

We were not made to eternally weep.

The night whose sable breast relieves the stark,
White stars is no less lovely being dark,
And there are buds that cannot bloom at all
In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall;

So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds,
And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.

Yesterday, I got some good news at the doctor’s office: my blood pressure is finally sitting in a safe and stable range.

Apparently, this is what medical professionals call “an opportunity.”

Because before I could fully enjoy my tiny cardiovascular victory lap, my doctor gently pivoted into, “Well, since you’re here…”

And somehow I found myself agreeing to not one, not two, but THREE separate vaccine shots covering five different diseases.

Rubella. Hepatitis A. Hepatitis B. Plus booster protection for measles and mumps because apparently they’re part of the rubella vaccine. More immunity for me. I guess.

The doctor and nurse both assured me the odds of feeling sick afterward were low.

“But if you do,” they said cheerfully, “just take a Tylenol.”

Easy for them to say.

At the moment, it is currently three hours past my normal wake-up time and I feel like my brain has been replaced with warm pudding. My limbs weigh approximately four thousand pounds. Movement feels ambitious. Thinking feels aspirational.

Honestly, this must be what it feels like when your phone battery drops so low it goes into “low power mode.”

So today’s post is going to be short (if not exactly sweet) because I fully intend to drag myself back to bed immediately after I publish it.

Still, as lousy as I feel right now, I'm eternally grateful to medical science for making these chronic and deadly diseases less chronic and less deadly. Anti-vaxxers and vaccine skeptics are far more dangerous in my book than any side effect.

Anyway, if I disappear for the rest of the day, assume I’m either sleeping or noodling on why my immune system has decided to punish me as a side effect of a few helpful injections.

Science may be beautiful. But it can also kick your ass.

Keep calm and get vaccinated!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-29 = Beatrice Lillie (1894-1989) = Canadian-English actor and singer 🌈

• 05-29 = Gene Robinson (1947- ) = American Episcopalian bishop 🌈

• 05-29 = Laverne Cox (1972- ) = American actor activist 🌈

• 05-29 = Melissa Etheridge (1961- ) = American singer-songwriter 🌈

• 05-29 = Nancy Cárdenas (1954- ) = Mexican actor, writer, and activist 🌈

• 05-29 = Rupert Everett (1959- ) = English actor and novelist 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“Actors make bad lovers. Their most important kiss is for the camera. Not in a superficial way, in a really deep way. They can only give everything if they know someone is going to shout cut!”
Rupert Everett

I need to leave for my doctor’s office soon. And I just don’t wanna!

As the grandson of a licensed vocational nurse, you’d think I would have a healthier relationship with doctors. You might think I would appreciate preventative care, routine checkups, and all the things responsible adults are supposedly excited about once they hit middle age.

But nope. I’ve hated going to the doctor for as long as I can remember.

Part of my disdain goes back to childhood. My pediatricians always seemed annoyed that they had to work with kids. Yes, pediatricians. From my point of view, they were pompous, dismissive assholes who talked over me, rushed through appointments, and somehow managed to make every visit feel like I was inconveniencing them personally.

Their office staff wasn’t much better. Nobody smiled. Nobody explained anything. The whole experience felt clinical and costly.

And honestly, adult medicine isn’t much better.

This morning’s adventure is my six-month high blood pressure check-in.

Technically, my current doctor wants to see me every three months. Technically, they would probably prefer monthly visits if my insurance company would pay for it. But given that my premiums have nearly doubled, my copays keep creeping upward, and the overall cost of living in America keeps skyrocketing, every six months is going to have to be good enough.

You know a system is broken when there are as many (if not more) people handling medical billing as there are actually delivering healthcare.

Entire industries now exist just to navigate insurance codes, deny claims, negotiate payments, and translate the incomprehensible bureaucracy of American medicine. Meanwhile, patients wait weeks for appointments, ration prescriptions, and panic over bills they can’t afford.

And then the media acts shocked when somebody like Luigi Mangione becomes a folk hero to frustrated, exhausted people who feel trapped inside a system designed to drain them financially before it helps them medically.

Meanwhile, we’re all supposed to pretend this is normal.

While healthcare and pharmaceutical companies post record profits, regular people are out here spacing out appointments, delaying treatments, and stretching medications like rationed supplies during wartime.

Thanks, Chump-In-Chief. The brain-dead, greedy, self-serving motherfucker really has managed to make nearly every aspect of American life more expensive, more chaotic, and more exhausting. And it’s not just healthcare costs. It’s everything.

The tariffs. The gas prices. The goddamn ballroom. The constant economic instability that somehow always lands hardest on people already struggling to stay afloat.

Every trip to the grocery store comes with sticker shock.
Every utility bill arrives with the dread of a jury summons.

So yes, part of my reluctance this morning is the usual medical anxiety. But layered on top of that is the financial pressure. The exhaustion, too. Exhaustion from living in a country where taking care of yourself increasingly feels like a luxury purchase instead of a basic human right.

Still, I will go.

Even if the waiting room television is tuned to a “news” station designed to increase blood pressure. Even if somebody coughs without covering their mouth. Even if I leave wondering why a ten-minute conversation costs more than my first car payment.

Still, I will go.

Because high blood pressure runs in my family. Because ignoring problems doesn’t make them disappear. Because despite my lifelong grudge against the medical profession, I’m trying to participate in this radical concept known as “remaining alive.”

I will go. Reluctantly. Bitterly even. Still, I will go.

Keep calm and remember to take your medicine!
Clint 🌈✌️

NEW + NOW PLAYING

FYC = FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

• 7 Queer Spaces That Taught Me A New Meaning Of Home
  (by @ )

• A Review of ‘Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody’
  (by @ )

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-28 = Corine Mauch (1960- ) = Swiss politician 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“I know the one time I tried therapy, I did after a month or two, and I only lasted a few months, because I started to worry about being entertaining. I kept driving there once a week for an hour and I’m thinking ‘What am I going to talk about today?’”
Justin Kirk

“I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”
Vincent Van Gogh

VINTAGE PHOTOS

Read more

For a long, long time, surviving was the only goal I had. Not thriving. Not optimizing. Not becoming the best version of myself. Just surviving.

When my agoraphobia was at its worst, success meant getting through the day without having a complete and total meltdown. It meant managing panic attacks well enough to function. It meant convincing myself to go outside occasionally, even if it was in the middle of the night.

What I didn’t fully understand at the time was that while my mind was fighting to survive, my body was quietly adapting to the self-imposed confinement.

Apparently, my body adapted by deciding we would someday walk like a giant toddler recovering from back and foot surgery.

One of the hardest things for me to admit about being a recovering agoraphobic is how much physical strength I lost during those years in the “cave.” How much muscle disappeared. How much weight I gained.

Somewhere along the line, my mobility decreased to the point that I barely recognize my own body anymore. I used to be big, tall, and strong. Flexible. Capable. Mostly comfortable moving through the world. Today, my body feels big, stiff, awkward, and weirdly unfamiliar to myself.

For a long time, I told myself it was just a phase. That I simply needed to be patient with myself. But at 53, I’m starting to realize patience is not actually what I need. No, I’m realizing I need to start treating myself like a patient.

These days, standing up too quickly makes my knees ache. My back complains if I walk too far. I get winded going up a flight of stairs. Sometimes I genuinely feel like Bambi trying to figure out how legs work in real time.

The truly strange part is that mentally, I feel better than I have in years.

Nobody warns you that muscle atrophy and morbid obesity are possible side effects of agoraphobia. People talk about the anxiety. The fear. The isolation. They don’t talk about what happens to a body that spends years not doing anything and not going anywhere.

In my head, I imagined emerging from the “cave” as this cinematic transformation sequence where the clouds part and suddenly I emerge stronger, wiser, moisturized, and bathed in flattering lighting.

But my actual recovery has been awkward and uneven.

Emotionally, I may be growing. Spiritually, I may be evolving. Physically, though, I still need a break between showering and getting dressed.

It turns out you can conquer fear and still have weak knees. You can reclaim your life and still get winded carrying in groceries. You can absolutely defy gravity emotionally while gravity itself continues kicking your ass physically.

That disconnect messes with me sometimes because part of me still expects my body to instantly catch up with the progress my mind has made.

Tomorrow morning, I have a doctor’s appointment, a blood pressure check-up, which feels appropriate for this phase of life because middle age is basically just a nonstop series of increasingly humbling medical conversations. And because the universe enjoys comedy, tomorrow afternoon, I also have a therapy session. Depending on what my doctor says, I might need my therapist more than usual.

Honestly, the fact that I even made both appointments feels significant to me.

A few years ago, I would have avoided them. I would have canceled. Rescheduled. Ignored symptoms. Anxiety has a remarkable ability to turn avoidance into a lifestyle. I stopped taking care of myself because simply existing already consumed all my available bandwidth.

That’s one of the cruelest parts about long-

term anxiety disorders. They shrink your world so gradually you barely notice it happening. Your routines get smaller. Your confidence gets smaller. Eventually, your life gets smaller too.

And then one day I finally stepped back out into the world and realized my body wasn’t as ready for the world as the rest of me.

Still, I‘m trying not to shame myself for any of this anymore.

Maybe this chapter is not about magically becoming who I used to be. Maybe it is about building something sustainable from where I am now.

Some days that feels meaningful and profound. Other days it looks like stretching carefully before attempting basic household tasks.

But at least I’m showing up now.

• I make the appointments.

• I leave the house most days.

• I talk honestly about the humiliating parts. Especially the humiliating parts.

And maybe that’s what recovery actually looks like once you strip away the inspirational music and movie lighting. No dramatic transformation. No sudden rebirth. Just a guy slowly learning how to live in their body again after years of hiding from the world.

Messily. Imperfectly. Occasionally wheezing a little.

Still moving forward anyway. Defying gravity one unsteady step at a time.

Keep calm and keep trying!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-27 = Allan Carr (1937-1999) = American playwright and producer 🌈

• 05-27 = Chris Colfer (1990- ) = American actor and singer 🌈

• 05-27 = Marijane Meaker (1927- ) = American writer 🌈

• 05-27 = Siouxsie Sioux (1957- ) = English singer-songwriter 🌈

• 05-27 = Vincent Price (1911-1993) = American actor 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“A man who limits his interests, limits his life.”
Vincent Price

There are phone calls you forget five minutes later.

And then there are phone calls that settle so deeply into your nervous system that forgetting them is no longer an option.

I got one of those calls Saturday night.

A dear friend called me in the middle of what I can only describe as a psychotic break. I already knew they struggled with depression. I knew there were dark days and stretches where simply existing had become overwhelming.

What I didn’t realize was that reality itself had stopped being reliable for them.

Our conversation bounced between fear, paranoia, confusion, and fragmented thoughts that made less and less sense the longer we talked. At first, I tried to reason with them and remind them of things that are real. I tried to calm them down. I tried to find the magical combination of words that would somehow restore order to their exhausted nervous system.

But eventually I realized I was trying to apply logic and reason to a mind currently incapable of receiving either.

That realization shook me harder than I expected.

Not because I stopped caring. Quite the opposite. It shook me because it forced me to confront how fragile the human brain really is.

We walk around assuming our minds are relatively stable and dependable. But mental illness has a brutal way of reminding us the brain is a fragile organ. Vulnerable. Exhaustible. Capable of betraying us in ways we cannot always predict or understand.

And honestly, the experience left me questioning my own mental health.

Not in a catastrophic way. More in the quiet way that caused me to inventory my own stress, burnout, anxiety, insomnia, and emotional exhaustion.

It made me wonder how many of my dears, nears, and queers are barely hanging on while performing “fine” well enough to get through the day.

Probably more than I realize.

Which feels especially relevant because May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And while the month is almost over, mental health struggles are not confined to thirty-one neatly branded calendar days.

For many people, mental illness is a 24/7/365 fight.

Especially for us queer people. We are statistically more likely to wrestle with anxiety, depression, isolation, substance abuse, and suicidal thoughts while simultaneously being expected to stay resilient and emotionally bulletproof.

That pressure adds up. And sometimes our brains can’t handle it.

We might be comfortable talking about anxiety when it sounds relatable. Depression when it sounds poetic. Burnout when it can supposedly be solved with self-care and a weekend away. But psychosis? Mania? Dissociation? The moments where someone loses their grip on shared reality?

Those conversations tend to clear the room fast.

Still, somewhere in the emotional aftermath of this weekend, I have been trying to find silver linings.

And I found a few.

For starters, my friend called me and trusted me to hear their version of reality.

In the middle of confusion and fear and psychological chaos, some part of them still reached outward instead of disappearing completely inward. Some part of them still trusted another human voice enough to pick up the phone.

The experience has reminded me how important community is. Not performative social media concern. Actual support systems. Real people. Real check-ins. Real intervention when necessary.

• Circle the wagon.

• Call trusted friends and family.

• Call therapists.

• Call crisis lines.

• Call in the experts.

And while compassion matters deeply, another lesson I’m facing is becoming painfully clear: don’t fall into the black hole of someone else’s crisis.

Support people. Love people. Stay present when you can. But don’t let yourself get psychologically swallowed whole trying to single-handedly rescue someone from an illness that requires professional care and long-term support.

Don’t forget to put your oxygen mask on first, boo. You can’t help stabilize someone else while you’re drowning yourself.

The older I get, the more I realize mental health is not a destination anybody permanently reaches. It is maintenance. Constant maintenance. Sleep. Boundaries. Honest conversations. Therapy. Rest. Asking for help before the wheels of the bus completely come off.

So maybe that is the real takeaway as Mental Health Awareness Month winds down:

• Pay attention.

  • To your friends.

  • To your family.

  • To yourself.

  • To the people insisting they are “fine.”

  • To the people who suddenly disappear.

  • To the people whose pain makes you uncomfortable.

The truth is, some people are fighting to stay connected to reality itself while the rest of the world scrolls past them without noticing.

If you’re struggling right now too, holding yourself together while pretending everything is F.I.N.E. (short for “Fucked Up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional”) I hope you know this:

You are not weak. You are not broken. And you are definitely not alone.

Keep calm and keep in touch!
Clint 🌈✌️

VIDEO OF THE DAY

DEFYING GRAVITY IN A KILT?
Yes, please. And thank you!

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-26 = Alan Hollinghurst (1954- ) = English writer 🌈

• 05-26 = Kim Coco Iwamoto (1968- ) = Hawaiian-American politician 🌈

• 05-26 = Mathilde de Morny (1863-1944) = French noblewoman and artist 🌈

• 05-26 = Sally Ride (1951-2012) = American astronaut 🌈

• 05-26 = Ulrike Lunacek (1957- ) = Austrian politician 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“I mean, there are only so many notes. What makes something original is how you put it together.”
Lenny Kravitz

Before it was the unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day was a day of remembrance.

It wasn’t about mattress sales or backyard barbecues or going to the beach.

It was meant to honor our military personnel who never made it home.

And hidden inside that history are countless LGBTQ service members whose sacrifices have largely been erased from public memory and record.

For generations, queer Americans served this country while being told they were unfit to serve. They fought in wars, flew missions, worked as medics and intelligence officers, and died defending freedoms they themselves could not fully enjoy.

Many lost careers, benefits, and entire futures simply for being gay.

Some were dishonorably discharged. Others were forced to hide who they were for decades just to survive military life. Even after death, many remained invisible. Their partners could not openly grieve them. Their stories disappeared into silence.

And yet they served anyway.

That matters.

Because LGBTQ Americans have always been here. In every branch. Every conflict. Every generation. We were at Normandy, in Vietnam, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan. Part of the American story has always included queer people, even when politicians and pundits have pretended otherwise.

So this Memorial Day, enjoy the long weekend. Enjoy your friends and family. But maybe also take a moment to remember the people who paid for those freedoms, including the LGBTQ veterans and service members who were too often denied dignity by the very country they defended.

And if you are one of those veterans yourself, thank you.
You and your service deserve to be remembered too.

Thank you for being a friend!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-25 = Anette Trettebergstuen (1981- ) = Norwegian politician 🌈

• 05-25 = Anne Heche (1969-2022) = American actor 🌈

• 05-25 = Ian McKellen (1939- ) = English actor 🌈

• 05-25 = Robert Ross (1869-1918) = Canadian journalist and art critic 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“I learned that coming out was crucial to self-esteem.”
Ian Mckellen

“I’m not quite as cool as I would like to be, really.”
Ian Mckellen

Back in 2014, a friend invited me to celebrate Memorial Day weekend in Palm Springs. That was it. No elaborate sales pitch. No carefully crafted itinerary. Just an invitation to spend a few days at the now-defunct Bearfoot Inn, a small clothing-optional resort tucked away in the desert.

Now, I’m not much of a nudist. But when in Rome, even my pale-skinned ass will drop trou and join the festivities. I guess that makes me “nudist adjacent.” Not that anybody cared. Nudity was truly optional, and my friend already knew most of the guests gathered there for the holiday weekend.

After lathering myself in enough sunscreen to protect a small army, I joined everybody at the pool and quickly understood why people kept coming back year after year.

There were only about a dozen rooms, which gave the place the feel of a strange little summer camp for gay adults temporarily escaping real life. The men ran the full spectrum of ages, backgrounds, personalities, and body types. And somehow, over the course of that long weekend, a group of relative strangers slowly relaxed into something that felt weirdly familiar and comfortable.

Maybe it was the desert heat baking away every ounce of stress I’d carried in with me. Maybe it was the poolside cocktails. Maybe it was the bizarrely freeing realization that once everybody is naked, nobody has anything left to prove.

Or maybe it was simply the fact that for one glorious long holiday weekend, the outside world beyond Bearfoot’s locked gate stopped mattering.

No deadlines. No doomscrolling. No endless stream of bad news vibrating in my pocket every thirty seconds. Just sunshine, laughter, music, chlorine, and a bunch of bears and bear-adjacent men relaxing and enjoying each other’s company.

Honestly, it felt less like a vacation and more like accidental time travel.

Back then, Memorial Day weekends in Palm Springs had a very specific energy. The hotels were packed. Every resort had some sort of pool party. Every restaurant had a wait. Every patio had a crowd. And nearly every conversation somehow started with “Where are you visiting from?” before turning into a twenty-minute life story involving ex-boyfriends, real estate, and casual flirtation.

And yet it never felt frantic.

That’s the part I miss most.

Nobody seemed particularly interested in curating content or building a personal brand. People were just there. Existing. Relaxing. Flirting badly. Drinking too much. Dancing awkwardly in their birthday suits. And reapplying sunscreen with varying levels of success.

Social media existed, of course, but it hadn’t yet swallowed every human experience whole. Most people weren’t documenting the weekend in real time for strangers online. We were simply living it.

That first trip also taught me something I didn’t fully appreciate until years later: joy does not always arrive in the form you expect.

Sometimes joy is extravagant. Sometimes it changes your life forever.

And sometimes joy is floating in a pool from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. while a naked man named Rick explains why he left Ohio in 1987 and never looked back.

I went back to Bearfoot Inn several more times over the years because once you find a place that allows your nervous system to unclench, you hold onto it for dear life.

Despite one of the owners being a complete asshole, every visit felt comfortingly familiar. The same dry desert air. The same warm nights. The same slightly chaotic mix of personalities orbiting in and around the pool.

It became one of those rare places where time moved differently.

Not slower exactly. But softer.

And deep down, I think I always knew it couldn’t last forever.

Then came the pandemic, and like so many small independent businesses that served niche communities, Bearfoot Inn quietly disappeared not long afterward. No dramatic farewell. No grand finale. Just another beloved little place erased by economics, timing, and a world that changed too fast.

For me, that’s the strangest thing about getting older. I’m slowly realizing how many of the places that shaped my happiest memories no longer exist anywhere except in my memories.

The bookstores disappear. The bars close. The diners become condos. The weird little motels with mismatched patio furniture and questionable towels vanish into history.

But the memories stay.

And every Memorial Day weekend, part of me still drifts back there. Back to Palm Springs. Back to the desert heat. Back to a lounge chair beside a sparkling pool where nobody cared what year it was, what was trending online, what you were (or weren’t) wearing, or whether or not your life looked impressive from the outside.

For a few beautiful weekends, it was enough just to be alive.

Which, these days, feels like the most luxurious form of time travel imaginable.

Keep calm and celebrate on!
Clint 🌈✌️

ICYMI = IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

• SUNDAY = FYC = ‘June’ (2023)

• MONDAY = The Stuff We Keep

• TUESDAY = So Many Dick Pics, So Little Time

• WEDNESDAY = Ain't Too Proud To...Promote

• THURSDAY = Pardon Me?!

• FRIDAY = Thank You, Harvey Milk

• SATURDAY = An Unexpected Growth Spurt

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-24 = Gene Anthony Ray (1962-2003) = American actor and dancer 🌈

• 05-24 = Greg Berlanti (1972- ) = American tv writer, producer, and director 🌈

• 05-24 = Yoshiko Kawashima (1907-1948) = Japanese princess and spy 🌈

MAN CRUSHES OF THE DAY

“To me, there’s still nothing more thrilling than, every week, people getting to see another chapter in this story that you’re telling.”
Greg Berlanti

“Build it and they will come,” they said.

What they didn’t tell me is the second half of the story:

Sometimes you build something and almost nobody shows up. At least at first. That definitely happened to me. But out of sheer stubbornness, I kept going anyway.

For a long time, the growth was so gradual I only noticed it when I stopped to look back. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, the universe hit the fast forward button.

For the last few months, my Substack has been growing steadily, usually around 5 to 10 new free subscribers a day and, if I’m lucky, 1 or 2 new paid subscribers. Nothing viral or explosive. Just gradual, encouraging growth fueled by curious readers, fellow weirdos, and kind people sharing my work with others.

Then the last 24 hours happened.

Thanks almost entirely to a recommendation from over at , my little corner of the internet has welcomed over 50 new subscribers.

So first and foremost: thank you, Mr. Rettenmund! And thank you to everyone who clicked over and decided to stick around to see what this project is all about.

Which raises the obvious question: What exactly is COLLIDE PRESS?

At its core, COLLIDE PRESS is an ever-evolving offshoot of my YouTube channel, where I create SFW montages celebrating men through the ages: old Hollywood heartthrobs, queer pioneers, historical figures, and the many faces of masculinity across time.

Over here on Substack, things get more personal. And a little less safe for work.

This space has become a motley mix of exclusive NSFW montages, personal essays, political commentary, pop culture musings, queer history, nostalgia, and whatever else happens to rattle around in my brain in the middle of the night.

In other words: it’s a collision. Hence the name.

And honestly? I’m grateful for everyone who connects with me and my work.

There’s something deeply encouraging about realizing that the internet still has room for independent creators carving out their own niches instead of chasing algorithms, outrage, or whatever social media trend I’m avoiding like the plague.

Years ago, I came across a quote from Steven Soderbergh that stuck with me:

“Talent + Perseverance = Luck
Be ready when it happens.”

That feels especially relevant right now.

Because most “overnight success stories” are really just years of quietly building something before the right people finally stumble across it.

So to all my new subscribers and longtime readers alike: thank you for being here. And for being queer. Thank you for supporting independent creatives. Thank you for encouraging me to keep building this strange little world.

I’m looking forward to getting and growing better together.

Thank you for being a friend!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-23 = Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908-1942) = Swiss writer and journalist 🌈

• 05-23 = Guinevere Turner (1968- ) = American actor and screenwriter 🌈

• 05-23 = Lea DeLaria (1958- ) = American comedian, actor, and singer 🌈

• 05-23 = Lotte Hahm (1890-1967) = German activist 🌈

• 05-23 = Maya Keyes (1985- ) = American social and political activist 🌈

MAN CRUSHES OF THE DAY

“There is one thing in this good old world that is positively sure - happiness is for all who strive to be happy - and those who laugh are happy. Everybody is eligible - you - me - the other fellow. Happiness is fundamentally a state of mind - not a state of body.”
Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

“I was only saying to the Queen the other day how I hate name dropping.”
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

There are moments when I realize history is not actually “history” to everyone else.

It is revelation.

I had one of those moments back in 2008 after seeing Milk, based on the life and times of Harvey Milk, with a young gay coworker.

After the film, we went to lunch and cussed and discussed what we had just watched. My colleague was completely captivated by the story unfolding onscreen. The marches. The organizing. The hope. The assassination. The heartbreak.

He looked at me and asked, almost in disbelief, “All that really happened?”

His question stopped me in my tracks and left me staring at him like Nipper, the RCA Victor dog listening to the gramophone.

Why was I so shocked? Because I had spent years reading about Harvey Milk. To me, he was not just a heroic and tragic figure from a movie. He was one of the first openly gay elected officials in America. An activist. A coalition builder. A businessman. A man who understood the political power of visibility long before most of the country was even willing to acknowledge queer people existed.

What fascinated me most about Milk was how he never separated the personal from the political. His Castro Camera was not just a shop. It became a gathering place, an organizing hub, and part of the foundation for a movement. He understood that simply existing openly in public life was radical at the time.

And that’s what made him so powerful.

He wasn’t trying to be the “perfect” gay man to make straight America comfortable. He was loud. Funny. Charismatic. Messy. Hopeful. Human.

He talked to working people, union members, activists, and everyday queer folks like their lives mattered. Because he genuinely believed they did.

That mattered to me when I first learned about him years ago. It still matters now, especially when I think about how many LGBTQ people grew up without seeing anyone remotely like themselves in politics, media, or public life.

When Harvey Milk urged queer people to come out, I don’t think he was naive about the danger involved. He understood something that invisibility was often even more dangerous. If nobody knew us, nobody had to care what happened to us.

That simple realization made a big impact on me when I was coming out.

Milk’s story also taught me that queer rights in America were not handed over politely after a thoughtful debate and a spot of tea. LGBTQ people fought for every inch of progress. Some lost careers. Some lost families. Some lost their lives.

I knew all of that sitting across from my coworker that afternoon. I knew about the Briggs Initiative. I knew about Dan White and the assassinations of Milk and Mayor George Moscone. I knew about the riots and outrage surrounding the so-called “Twinkie Defense.” I knew the AIDS crisis was already looming just beyond the horizon of the story we had watched onscreen.

My coworker, meanwhile, was encountering much of this history for the first time.

And part of me envied his innocence.

Not because ignorance is admirable. But because he had somehow managed to grow up gay without carrying the full emotional weight of queer history everywhere he went. He discovered Harvey Milk through a film instead of through fear, activism, cultural memory, and survival stories passed between generations.

That lunch has stayed with me for years because it clarified something important: Representation matters because memory matters.

For decades, queer people were erased from public life or reduced to stereotypes, punchlines, whispered rumors, and cautionary tales. Entire generations grew up without seeing openly queer adults portrayed as leaders, activists, or fully realized human beings.

Then along came films like Milk.

Not perfect. Not comprehensive. But visible.

And visibility changes people.

I saw that firsthand sitting across from my coworker while he realized this history was real. That Harvey Milk was real. That the movement was real. That the rights and freedoms many of us now take for granted were built by ordinary people willing to risk extraordinary things simply to live honestly.

For me, the film felt like remembrance. For him, it felt like discovery.

And somewhere between all our cussing and discussing, I realized something else: Harvey Milk’s greatest legacy may not simply be that he won office or changed laws. It may be that decades after his death, he is still helping queer people find each other across generations.

One generation remembers the fear. Another discovers the courage.

And somehow Milk’s story still connects us.

That matters now more than ever. Because history has a way of disappearing when people stop telling it. Progress starts looking inevitable. Rights start feeling permanent. The names and faces behind the movement slowly fade into abstraction.

But Harvey Milk was never an abstraction.

He was a real person who chose visibility in a time that punished it. A flawed, funny, stubborn, hopeful man who believed queer people deserved not only equal rights, but equal dignity.

And every time a younger LGBTQ person discovers his story for the first time, that belief keeps moving us forward.

Honestly, I think Harvey Milk, the man and the myth, would have loved that.

Keep calm and fight on!
Clint 🌈✌️

FYC = RELATED + RECOMMENDED

MILK (2008)
Where To Watch = JustWatch

THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK (1984)
Where To Watch = JustWatch

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-22 = Barbara May Cameron (1954-2002) = Native American photographer, poet, writer, and activist 🌈

• 05-22 = Harvey Milk (1930-1978) = American lieutenant and politician 🌈

• 05-22 = Laurence Olivier (1907-1989) = English actor, director, and producer 🌈

• 05-22 = Mark Bingham (1970-2001) = American businessman and hero 🌈

• 05-22 = Morrissey (1959- ) = English singer-songwriter 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“Hope will never be silent.”
Harvey Milk

There are political scandals. There are corruption scandals. And then there are scandals so wildly self-serving they sound like rejected plotlines from a reality tv show.

This week’s headlines about the Chump family’s IRS immunity deal somehow manage to be all three at once:

To be clear, this isn’t rumor, conspiracy theory, or partisan fan fiction. Multiple independent and legacy media outlets are reporting that the Trump administration has granted Donald Trump, his family, and affiliated business entities extraordinary protection from future IRS investigations tied to past tax filings.

The motherfucking audacity.

According to Reuters, settlement language signed by Acting Attorney General (and one of Chump’s former personal attorneys) Todd Blanche states the IRS is “forever barred” from pursuing certain tax claims connected to returns filed before May 18, 2026 by Trump, members of his family, and Chump-related entities.

Forever barred.

Pardon the fuck out of me?!

Even by modern political standards, this feels less like government and more like a mob boss creating a loyalty rewards program for himself.

Think about the sequence of events here. The president sues the federal government he currently controls. His own administration negotiates the settlement. His own Justice Department helps structure the agreement. And somehow, almost magically, the outcome includes sweeping protection from future tax scrutiny for him and his family.

What are we supposed to call that besides the functional equivalent of a self-pardon?

And apparently, this may only be the beginning.

Reports also describe a nearly $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” which critics warn could be used to compensate political allies and loyalists who claim they were unfairly investigated or prosecuted.

So let’s recap.

Average Americans get audited. Trump World gets immunity.

Regular taxpayers stress over paperwork mistakes, online transactions, and forgotten deductions. Meanwhile, the Chump Family Cinematic Universe appears to have secured the IRS equivalent of diplomatic immunity.

And all of this is happening while the same political party continues screaming about “law and order,” “fiscal responsibility,” and “equal justice under the law.”

Sure. Whatever. Fucktards.

What makes this story especially grotesque is the sheer brazenness of it. Corruption usually at least tries to wear a disguise. There’s normally some effort to hide the payoff behind shell organizations, legal jargon, or layers of plausible deniability.

This feels more like someone robbing a bank while livestreaming it and selling commemorative merch (get those t-shirts and hats, y’all!) in the gift/grift shop.

Legal experts and ethics scholars are already warning that the implications could be enormous. Critics across the political spectrum say the agreement raises serious questions about executive overreach, conflicts of interest, and whether presidential power is now being used to shield political elites from accountability altogether.

The most exhausting part is how dumb and numb America has become to all of this.

Imagine if Biden, Obama, or even Bush had negotiated an IRS immunity agreement for themselves and their families while in office. Imagine if Hillary Clinton had created a taxpayer-funded compensation program for her political allies.

Cable news networks would still be melting down twenty-four hours a day while Congress held emergency hearings.

But with Chump, every new scandal just gets tossed onto the ever-growing pile of bullshit and scandals Americans are apparently expected to just normalize.

Mass pardons for political allies. Fine.
Presidential immunity arguments. Fine.
Campaigns built on revenge and retaliation. Fine.

And now a president functionally shielding himself and his family from future IRS scrutiny? Apparently, that’s fine too.

At some point, we need to stop pretending this is normal politics.

This is not conservatism. It is not populism. It is not “draining the swamp.”

It’s banana republic dick-tators and swamp monsters demanding diplomatic immunity.

Washington doesn’t need more strongmen, loyalty tests, or billionaire dynasties demanding special treatment. It needs watchdogs. Transparency. Consequences. Public servants who remember they work for the people instead of the other way around.

I say flush the whole damn bunch down the drain.

Keep calm and fucking vote!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-21 = Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) = German painter, engraver, and mathematician 🌈

• 05-21 = Anika Moa (1980- ) = New Zealander singer-songwriter 🌈

• 05-21 = Frank Kameny (1925-2011) = American astronomer, activist, and Mattachine Society co-founder 🌈

• 05-21 = Frederick of Hohenau (1857-1914) = German aristocrat 🌈

• 05-21 = Harold Robbins (1916-1997) = American author 🌈

• 05-21 = Kathleen Wynne (1953- ) = Canadian politician 🌈

• 05-21 = Raymond Burr (1917-1993) = Canadian-American actor and director 🌈

• 05-21 = Ron Buckmire (1968- ) = Grenadian-born mathematician and activist

• 05-21 = Tom Daley (1994- ) = British diver and television personality 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“Try and live your life the way you wish other people would live theirs.”
Raymond Burr

For the longest time, I felt weird about marketing myself.

Not the writing. Not the photography or videos or the endless little creative rabbit holes I disappear into in the middle of the night. I’ve always loved making things.

The awkward part has always been the promotion. Posting links. Selling subscriptions. Talking about merch. Reminding people that creative work may feed the soul, but it doesn’t always pay the rent or the electric bill.

Somewhere along the way, a lot of us absorbed this idea that artists should remain above commerce. Pure. Noble. Eternally creating for the love of the craft while somehow surviving on caffeine, validation, and ramen noodles.

Meanwhile, everybody else in the world gets to monetize their skillsets without being accused of “selling out.”

Over the weekend, a dear paid subscriber reached out asking where he could find my Pride t-shirts and merch. And honestly? I’d completely forgotten Pride Month was almost here.

Thankfully, I already had most of the designs in my Threadless shop, hidden away like a box of rainbow decorations waiting for June to roll around again. So I reopened it.

And while dusting off the designs and reorganizing the shop, I remembered why I made them in the first place. Not just because they were fun. But because I genuinely love queer culture. I love our flags, our humor, our resilience, our aesthetics, and our uncanny ability to transform survival into art.

We’ve always known how to make beauty out of scraps. How to turn camp into armor. How to create joy even when the world gives us every reason not to.

That’s part of what Pride has always meant to me.

Not just parades and parties and rainbow flags. But visibility. Creativity. Community. The simple but radical act of saying: We’re still here, damnit.

Which is why I’ve always found it a little strange that massive corporations can cash in on Pride every June without much criticism, while independent LGBTQ creators are often expected to stay humble and grateful in the corner while everyone else profits from the party.

Why shouldn’t queer creatives benefit from Pride too?
After all, Pride happens because queer people built it.

People wear Pride shirts because they want to feel connected to something bigger than themselves. They decorate their homes, laptops, jackets, water bottles, and bodies with reminders that they belong somewhere. That they survived something. That they found their tribe(s).

And honestly, queer people have always sold things to survive.

Books. Zines. Posters. Buttons. Photographs. Art prints. Independent magazines. Homemade jewelry. Vinyl records. Drag show tickets.

Long before corporations discovered rainbow capitalism, queer people were creating entire underground economies built around supporting one another’s art, businesses, publications, performances, and survival.

That isn’t “selling out.”

That’s resourcefulness.
That’s community.
That’s Pride.

Especially now, when so many independent queer creators are struggling just to stay visible. Journalism is collapsing. Advertising revenue is unreliable. Social media algorithms reward outrage and nonsense over thoughtful work and genuine connection.

So sometimes a t-shirt sale matters more than people realize.

Sometimes it helps pay for groceries. Or website hosting. Or camera equipment. Or simply the time and space required to keep creating.

So yes, I’m promoting my Pride merch this year. Proudly, actually.

Because every shirt, sticker, mug, subscription, recommendation, and small act of support helps keep independent queer voices alive in a world that still tries, in ways both subtle and obvious, to erase us.

And maybe that’s what Pride has always been about, underneath the glitter and go-go boys, anyway.

Not perfection.
Not branding.
Not corporate slogans.

Just people finding ways to support each other, celebrate each other, and keep showing up for one another year after year after year.

Keep calm and get your Pride on!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-20 = Gregory Gray (1959-2019) = Northern Irish singer-songwriter 🌈

• 05-20 = Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) = French novelist and playwright 🌈

• 05-20 = Karl M. Baer (1885-1956) = German-Israeli author and social worker 🌈

• 05-20 = Omar Apollo (1997- ) = American singer-songwriter and actor 🌈

• 05-20 = Ted Allen (1965- ) = American television host and author 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

If you’ve spent any time on the so-called “dating” apps over the last decade, odds are you’ve received at least one unsolicited dick pic. Probably several. Possibly enough to assemble your own traveling art exhibit called Tom’s Dick Is Hairy.

And maybe you’ve sent one or two yourself. No shame in the game. Technology changes, but human behavior rarely does.

Personally, I’ve never been especially scandalized or even particularly titillated by dick pics. I’m gay. I like men. Penises kind of come with the territory. And apparently, for some people, so does photographing them.

Some people collect baseball cards or records. Some people collect vintage photos. Some people collect what appears to be an endless archive of nearly identical crotch shots taken from the driver’s seat of a Toyota Corolla.

Live your truth. Do you, boo.

That said, I’ve never been much of a sender myself.

Maybe I’m old-fashioned. Maybe I’m paranoid. Maybe growing up queer in an era where privacy still mattered rewired my brain a little differently. But I happen to enjoy a little mystery. A little anticipation. A little “to be continued…”

I don’t necessarily need to see the full monty five minutes into the conversation.

Besides, once you’ve seen enough dick pics, you begin to realize there are only about six camera angles in circulation. At a certain point, it starts feeling less like seduction and more like a catalog shoot for a very specific department store.

And yet, refusing to send one can apparently short-circuit an entire flirtation. The moment I politely decline, some guys disappear faster than a drag queen after hearing “last call.”

Poof. Gone.

No follow-up questions. No more flirtation. No attempt at actual human conversation. Just silence. As though my refusal to immediately provide photographic evidence of my genitalia somehow violated the terms and conditions of modern-day homosexuality.

Oh. Well.

I suppose we all have our dealbreakers.

The funny thing is, I’m actually pretty friendly, frisky, and fun with the right guy. Or guys. I’m not exactly auditioning for sainthood over here. I simply happen to prefer genuine chemistry over parts management.

Call me crazy, but I still think attraction involves more than trading nudes like they’re Pokémon cards.

Maybe it’s conversation.
Maybe it’s humor.
Maybe it’s intelligence.
Maybe it’s energy.
Maybe it’s tension.

Maybe it’s discovering someone shares your deeply unhealthy emotional attachment to obscure 1980s sitcoms. Maybe it’s the tiny spark that happens when somebody slowly reveals themselves instead of immediately uploading their entire sexual résumé before you’ve even exchanged first names.

Of course, I also understand why dick pics became normalized in queer culture.

Historically, queer people didn’t always have the luxury of openly flirting, openly dating, or openly expressing desire. Technology created shortcuts. Signals. Confirmation. Proof of interest. Proof that the person on the other end wasn’t secretly somebody’s aggressively heterosexual cousin looking to “teach you a lesson.”

So in some ways, the whole phenomenon makes perfect sense.

Still, somewhere along the way, the apps started feeling less social and more transactional. Less curiosity. More marketing materials.

Everybody branding themselves.
Everybody packaging desire.
Everybody trying to appear available while pretending not to care.

And honestly, it’s exhausting.

Maybe that’s why I still appreciate mystery. Not because bodies are shameful. Quite the opposite. Bodies are wonderful. Penises included. But mystery leaves room for imagination. For personality. For discovery.

For the possibility that somebody might actually want to know you beyond your dimensions and preferred lighting setup.

Then again, what do I know?

I’m just one gay man wandering through the digital wilderness, dodging crypto scams, thirst traps, couples “looking for a third,” and enough unsolicited anatomy to medically qualify as an honorary urologist.

So yes. So many dick pics. So little time.

And somehow, despite the endless parade of furry chests, thirst traps, unsolicited dick pics, and disappearing dickheads, I remain hopeful there are at least a few guys out there looking for genuine connection instead of just recruiting new lab partners for Anatomy 101.

Keep calm and carry on!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-19 = Charles Sorley (1895-1915) = British Army officer and war poet 🌈

• 05-19 = Gee Vaucher (1945- ) = British artist 🌈

• 05-19 = Grace Jones (1948- ) Jamaican-American singer-songwriter and actor 🌈

• 05-19 = Grethe Jürgens (1910-1997) = German painter 🌈

• 05-19 = John Vernou Bouvier III (1891-1957) = American stockbroker and socialite 🌈

• 05-19 = Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) = American playwright 🌈

• 05-19 = Michael McConnell (1942- ) = American activist 🌈

• 05-19 = Pete Townshend (1945- ) = English singer-songwriter 🌈

• 05-19 = Peter Wildeblood (1923-1999) = British-Canadian writer and activist 🌈

• 05-19 = Sam Smith (1992- ) = English singer-songwriter 🌈

MAN CRUSH OF THE DAY

“The bad part about growing older is I’m going bald. The good part is my nose seems to be getting shorter.”
Pete Townshend

What I’ve learned over the past couple of weeks is that I am a good, if painfully slow, retoucher. And scanner. And editor.

The only thing I seem to naturally do with any real speed is write.

Words have a way of falling out of my fingers. And mouth.

Everything else? Well, everything else will take some time.

Scanning old photographs. Cleaning up scratches. Removing decades of dust and fingerprints. Adjusting faded colors until someone’s face looks alive again instead of trapped beneath a yellow haze of time and nicotine. Even organizing digital files becomes a strange kind of archaeology after a while.

I’ve spent the better part of the past two weeks buried in stacks of vintage photos from my friend DJ’s private collection. Some of the images are beautiful and classic. Some are delightfully degenerate and explicit. And some carry the kind of emotional weight that sneaks up on me when I least expect it.

In my mind’s eye, the photos are physical proof that their subjects were once alive and well. That they made art and posed and documented themselves. They are works of beauty and booty.

To outsiders, collections can look like clutter. Junk. Hoarding. Boxes of old ephemera and photographs taking up space in the closet or garage.

But collectors understand something other people sometimes miss:

Objects carry memory. And not just personal memory either. Cultural memory. Community memory. Survival memory.

I think that’s especially true for queer collectors. So much of our history was never considered important enough to preserve, yet was often considered dangerous enough to destroy.

Entire lives existed in whispers, coded language, underground publications, bars, back rooms, independent theaters, and cheaply-printed newsletters never intended to survive this long.

And yet somehow…they did.

Mostly because somebody decided to keep them.

• Somebody saved the flyer.

• Somebody held onto the snapshots.

• Somebody stored the magazines in a closet for forty years instead of throwing them away during a panic, a purge, or a move.

Now here we are, decades later, scanning and restoring fragments of lives that mainstream culture once dismissed as disposable.

There’s something deeply moving about that.

The older I get, the more I realize I’m a collector first and foremost.

My collections are not always particularly organized or even sensible. If they were, that would imply a level of discipline and reason I simply do not possess.

But nearly everything I display around my home carries some combination of nostalgia, place, emotion, or story. Tiny artifacts connected to people and moments I don’t want to forget.

For me, collecting has become less about ownership and more about stewardship.

Temporary guardianship.

I hold onto things for a while. I protect them. I appreciate them. Then eventually they continue their journey with someone else. Or maybe they outlive me entirely.

Either way, the object survives.

And lately, during all this digital housekeeping and scanning and retouching, I’ve started thinking about how many pieces of history only exist because ordinary people decided certain things mattered enough to save.

Not museums. Not institutions. Individuals.

The weirdos. The sentimentalists. The obsessives. The artists. The queer folks with overstuffed closets, filing cabinets, and shoeboxes full of photographs.

Accidental archivists. I’m proud to be one of them.

Thank you for being a friend!
Clint 🌈✌️

FROM THE ARCHIVES

BORN THIS WAY ON THIS DAY

• 05-18 = Charles Trenet (1913-2001) = French singer and songwriter 🌈

• 05-18 = Don Bachardy (1934- ) = American portrait artist 🌈

• 05-18 = Felicia Pearson (1980- ) = American actor, author and rapper 🌈

• 05-18 = John Koch (1909-1978) = American artist 🌈

• 05-18 = Miriam Margolyes (1941- ) = English-Australian actor and voice artist 🌈

• 05-18 = Patrick Dennis (1921-1976) = American author 🌈

• 05-18 = Pierre Balmain (1914-1982) = French fashion designer 🌈

MAN CRUSHES OF THE DAY

EXPLORING THE LOVE LETTERS OF
CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD AND DON BACHARDY
(The Met)