.: September 2008

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Jon

Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Monday, September 22, 2008

A&F - Why I Still Don't Shop There

Walked past the local A&F at Eaton Centre in Toronto and was taken back by a large framed photograph in the stores entrance lobby. I shook my head because I was till shocked to see that A&F still hadn't addressed their image issue. I went inside and all of the other images were similar in nature. Mostly white.

The company was originally established as Abercrombie Co. by David T. Abercrombie on June 4, 1892, as a small waterfront shop at No.36 South Street in downtown Manhattan, New York. Wealthy New York lawyer Ezra Fitch was one of his regular customers. In 1900, Fitch left his law practice and bought a major share into the growing company, thus becoming the co-founder. Abercrombie Co. later moved into larger quarters at 314 Broadway, and Fitch began to implement experimental ideas to renovate the store. In 1904, Fitch's surname was incorporated and so the official name was changed to Abercrombie & Fitch Co. In 1988, Limited Brands acquired the ailing company for $47 million after having success in popularizing Express and Victoria's Secret.

In 2002, Abercrombie & Fitch sold a shirt that featured the slogan "Wong Brothers Laundry Service—Two Wongs Can Make It White" with smiling figures in conical straw hats, a depiction of early Chinese immigrants. The company discontinued the designs and apologized after a boycott started by an Asian American student group at Stanford University. That same year, abercrombie kids removed a line of thong underwear sold for girls in pre-teen children's sizes after parents mounted nationwide storefront protests. The underwear included phrases like "Eye Candy" and "Wink Wink" printed on the front.

More t-shirt controversies occurred twice in 2004. The first incident involved a shirt featuring the phrase, "It's All Relative in West Virginia," a jab at alleged incest relations in rural America. West Virginia governor Bob Wise spoke out against the company for depicting "an unfounded, negative stereotype of West Virginia," but the shirts were not removed. Later, another t-shirt that said "L is for Loser" next to a picture of a male gymnast on the rings gathered publicity. The company stopped selling the shirt in October 2004 after USA Gymnastics president Bob Colarossi announced a boycott of Abercrombie & Fitch for mocking the sport.

In 2005, the Women and Girls Foundation of Southwest Pennsylvania launched a "girlcott" of the store for selling T-shirts that read, "Who needs brains when you have these?", "Available for parties," and "I had a nightmare I was a brunnette." The campaign went national on NBC's The Today Show, and the company pulled the shirts from stores on November 5, 2005. After Abercrombie & Fitch raised its price points in 2004, its products have been described as overpriced. After the company opened its flagship in London, the brand was criticized in the UK because the merchandise that was offered to the customers cost double (or even a direct $/£ swap) the prices found in the United States.

In 2004 lawsuit González v. Abercrombie & Fitch, the company was accused of discriminating against ethnic minorities by offering desirable positions to White American employees. The company agreed to an out-of-court settlement of the class action suit. As part of the settlement terms, Abercrombie and Fitch agreed to pay US$45 million to rejected applicants and affected employees, include more minorities in advertising campaigns, appoint a Vice President of Diversity, hire 25 recruiters to seek minority employees, and discontinue the practice of recruiting employees at primarily white fraternities and sororities. Dwight A. McBride has written Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality, which explores greater American intergroup relations while criticizing Abercrombie and Fitch.

Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Simply Dashing!

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Pier

Monday, September 15, 2008

Summers End Fashion Spread: Beach Bum

No More Solo For Sulu

I was reminded today that I have more than a passing relationship to the Star Trek franchise and that this was something blog-worthy! I completely agree, the cracks are forming in the good old USA and if George Takai can boldly go where few have gone before so can the rest of the world. Why is that I can see Gene Roddenberry smiling?

Where the hell was Shatner and Nimoy? Seems they would have only had a cameo so they didnt bother to show! Shame
Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

At The End Of The Walk

The crowd of almost 4000 is now gone and left are the remnants of the day. Flowers laid in piles in front of the memorial. Long stemmed carnations are carefully weaved in and amongst other flowers on the stainless steel plates that portray the lists of names carefully chronicled by the year. The names of those who died from A.I.D.S. The flowers are a final act by those who gathered to walk and raise money to combat the disease and care for those who live with it today. Its a somber reminder that THIS is not over...not by a long shot, but its also a reminder of all those who have gone before their time. This years A.I.D.S. Walk raised almost $400,000 dollars.

Monday, September 08, 2008

EN Exclusive - Noah!!!

Finally on October 12th we will be getting the long overdue answers to all of the questions that we have had about the fate of Noah, Wade and the rest of the gang! The recent making of video on the Logo wesite we learn that indeed there is a wedding in the mix as the entire cast returns... Ricky has a new BF...what a surprise;-) The wedding takes place in Martha's Vineyard (Filmed in Halifax Canada keeping the filming Canada motif from the first two seasons)

DJ Stacey "Hotwaxx" Hale and Darryl Stephens

L-R The shows creator Patrick-Ian Polk, Darryl Stephens, Doug Spearman, Rodney Chester, Jensen Atwood and Kairon John

Stacey and Jensen

Patrick and Darryl

Jensen at a loss for words...

OK this is Benjamin Patterson better known as that two faced shady Trey stealing Guy who gets busted by the gang towards the end of season 2... So does this mean he's back for more drama!?!

It all comes back to Noah... and needless to say this is a must see movie. I wanted to quote Ramon Johnson from his blog on why Noah's Arc is important: "Image is everything in entertainment. Image has also been the bane of our gay existence. Many of the misconceptions and generalizations about gay men, especially gay men of color, are rooted in the images portrayed in mass media. At a minimum, Noah's Arc represents a medley of personalities, mannerisms, ideals, looks and expressions of gay black men, which is more in line with reality than the standard portrayal of the gay man of color as overly boisterous and effeminate." Something we've know all along!

I so happy to bring these exclusive images to the blog tonight thanks to Detroit DJ Stacey "Hotwaxx" Hale who took these photos at a recent sneak peek at a pride event in ATL! My circle of paparazzi seems to be growing! To know more about Stacey check out her website www.hotwaxxproductions.com I can attest she puts on a hell of a party!

Note: All images are copyrighted by Stacey Hale and Logo. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Get Ready For The Experience!

Coming October 11th...The Black Cat Experience! For here for details.

Mr.KickS

DJ JJ Rock

DJ Quinces

DJ Black Cat
Note: All images were created for The Black Cat Experience by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

The Dance Through Life Project

Photograph project dedicated to capture the Art of Dance within the parameters of everyday life. The project hopes to capture the innate relationships between dance and everyday life. Images of dance performed in non-traditional locales hopefully demystifying dance as being inaccessible and drawing the obvious metaphor that while all can not express life with such movement and physicality, we all love with our own signature grace. Therefore we all dance.

Order your copy today by clicking on the books above!

Through New Eyes: The Photography of Christopher Cushman by Rinaldo Walcott

The Black male body remains an enigma despite its over representation in the public sphere. The dominance of hip hop culture globally, driven in part, but not exclusively by the innovative sounds of rap music have made Black men a standard by which Black men and other men judge themselves in contemporary culture. However, there is a paradox, because despite the prevalence of hip-hop’s popular global impact, Black men are also still some of the most despised men in Western culture. Stereotypes of criminality, disease and danger still abound and organize Black men’s lives, even within hip hop culture. Thus representations of Black men tend to be much more restricted, than open-ended. The struggle to bring Black men into complex open-ended representations has been an on-going historical struggle. One of the most potent forms of representation in the last one hundred and fifty years has been the photograph. Photography has offered the promise to represent the real in a manner that has both seduce its viewers and baffled them with its artifice. Black male photographic representations in the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first have promised to rescue Black men from the confines of mis-representation and stereotype. One of the most difficult and complicated circumstances of Black male representations has been in the realm of representing their sexuality. Black men’s sexuality is still over-burdened by a perceived threat and danger, especially now in the hyped-up era of the downlow. Then along comes Cushman. I first hear of Christopher Cushman’s photography from my boyfriend. He told me of a guy who was taking photographs of black nudes based upon how they wanted themselves to be seen, not how he posed them as his models. When I met Cushman he confirmed that he did indeed work from the models’ suggested posed and not impose his own. The idea is a great one because it allows the models agency in choosing what they believe to be an adequate representation of who they are. While it is now true that in contemporary culture subjects have learned to play for the camera, offering us artifice on command, this artifice can be understood as exposing inner senses of self and being. Cushman’s photography captures and reveals those inner desires. Look at me, many of the models seems to say. But look at me anew, is also what they seem to project and insist on. Cushman’s eye lavishes these Black male bodies with glimmers of light revealing their nuance personalities. While most of the men are naked their individuality comes clearly through. And yet, their eyes too reveal that they belong to a community, a family and possess desires, fantasies and needs. In these photographs, as viewers we are given new eyes to see beyond our inner voyeur. Cushman channels, Robert Mapplethorpe, Rotimi Fani-Kayode and many other artists, commercial and amateur photographers who seek to rescue the Black male body from the disastrous depths of mis-representation, and who almost always fall short. The conversations that his models create between his work and others whether unconscious or not reveal the profound influence of the image in our time. However, in Cushman’s eyes the Black male body is not being rescued, instead it stands on a self-made pedestal, not arrogantly announcing its existence but coolly (its signature) singing its own praisesong as swathes of light and behind the camera love washes over it. In each moment a small but significant revelation is made. Each revelation offers us the opportunity of an Epiphany – to think a thought about a Black man that we have not thought before. Professor Rinaldo Walcott is a cultural critic and Canada Research Chair of Social Justice and Cultural Studies at the University of Toronto. He lives and writes in Toronto.

FIERCE! Being Black, Being Gay in America

"What Chris has done with this important collection of images, Fierce: Being Black, Being Gay in America, A Photographic Essay, is to seek, lift, and affirm the identity and visibility of men-who love-men and express it in many ways. His photographs display Midwest American men from the outlandish and flamboyant, to the subdued and subtle. You’d think these were “ladies who lunch;” muscular men dressed for the “Park” in lace, and floppy hats to give effect for all to see. Brothers connecting in places we know are safe, such as our nightclubs, the discos, and special events targeting our interests.

The importance of Fierce is paramount: all men are created equal, and share a space on earth. These portraits of men have to be recognized as God’s beauty and not His damnation. Time will thank those who were strong and dared enough to express themselves for all to see and appreciate in a manner that’s loving and creative. Time will also thank us for not living in a paranoid state of mind, and afraid of our own shadows. Remember, this cluster of work isn’t Robert Mappelthope’s approach to black imagery, but the approach of documenting men as they wanted to be seen: with and without sexual stimulation, for shock value."

Curtis A. Lipscomb
Executive Director Kick – The Agency for L-G-B-T African-Americans
Detroit Michigan / 2005
www.e-kick.com