Skin + Bones+Tattoos = SXSW Hotness
South By Southwest is my favorite time of year. Not so much because of the music, though the music is literally what brings me my happiness. It’s because SXSW is the only time of year when our streets are filled with the pale, gangly, pasty-faced boys who set my heart racing. This week Austin is my own little version of spring-break heaven. Can I help it that I like rock-n-roll vampires, out on week’s pass to the real world?
While big-time entertainment has long concentrated on portraying the bronzed all-American beefcake as the most lust-worthy object, I totally disagree. Forget about Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise and their horribly wholesome ilk. Those blokes at LaBare can keep their clothing on, because that isn’t anything I’ve gotta see. When I look at those pumped-up guys, all I can think of is the “Broad-breasted White” the breed of Turkey that usually ends up on holiday dinner plates. I’m vegetarian, so no thanks.
Though I’m a fuller-figured gal, I’ve seldom gone for the beefy guys. I’m more attracted to the lanky fellows whose ribs you can count. Think of the before picture for the old Charles Atlas ads. That’s exactly what I’m looking for. That means I want guys whose bones are so visible that they might be called upon to serve as a model in an anatomy class. As a result of this quirk, I’ve flirted with more than one recovering heroin addict. While they might not be making the healthiest lifestyle choices, at least I knew they aren’t abusing steroids.
However, as vital as skinny is to my personal hubba-hubba meter, pale is also important. Tall, dark and handsome isn’t gonna cut it. Or, as my Boston friend Chris puts it, I like fellows who can easily burn under a forty-watt bulb. Tattoos are optional, but much appreciated. They show up so well on the blindingly pale flesh.
Like a lot of specialty items, the dudes who tickle my fancy are nearly always imported from afar. Mostly they come from places where you have to do a lot of walking. Where the cost of food is high and elementary children have scheduled smoke breaks. Guys who look like they’ve slept in the van. Think of a younger, hotter Keith Richards.
Put one of those skinny pale dudes in a black leather jacket, and I’m halfway to heaven. The black sets off the glaring pallor in such a fetching way.
I can’t explain this odd attraction, except to say that it was maybe an adolescent fixation on Joey Ramone, singer for the seminal punk band The Ramones. Maybe my entire personal history can be traced back to the changes wrought in my psyche by repeatedly viewing the romantic weed-fueled P.J. Soles/Joey Ramone bedroom scene in Rock ‘n’ Roll High School? You know, the one where Riff Randell puts on a Ramones record, lights up, and Joey croons to her in her bedroom? Dreamy…
While I’ve long thought my fixation was out of the mainstream, things might be changing. The New York Times recently did a story on the new skinniness of the male models in high-fashion work. Maybe soon everyone else will be salivating over the Charles Atlas “before” picture!
So, with SXSW in full swing this week, I’ll be having a great time with the eye candy wandering around town. Man, there’s just nothing like the sight of one of these pale, reedy fellows with a concave chest struggling to carry an amp uphill. It’s also nice how grateful they are when you give them a hand with that amp.
SXSW is fantastic for me because this sort of eye-candy really only comes here to visit. Once they move here and actually take up local residence, it’s all over.
Austin is the land of cars, cheese enchiladas, Shiner beer, and the kind of solid cooking guaranteed to put serious meet on your bones. Just as soon as one of those skinny dudes lands here, they start sucking down the giant Turkey legs and the breakfast tacos. Before you know it, they’ve gotten a straight job, regular groceries and they’ve moved up to an extra large. They are by definition an exotic, imported specialty. Like orchids.
Just like a bouquet, these exotic flowers are something that I can enjoy for a week a year, before these pale, fragile bad-boys wilt in the Texas sun. Or they take up yoga.
