Walpurgisnacht 2023

 Walpurgisnacht

Tonight, April 30, is Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis night), when, in German folklore, witches gather on the Brocken, a mountain in Germany.

Tonight is also the night before May Day, which is International Workers Day in much of the world.  In Berlin, it's a day to protest for the rights of workers, and the protests often begin the night before.  Above is a naked protester on Walpurgisnacht in Berlin in 2004.

Here's a Berlin protester on Walpurgisnacht in 2005, deliberately trying to provoke the police.

In Germany, Walpurgisnacht is also known as Hexennacht (witches night).  We've previously seen this painting called Hexennacht by artist Michael Breyette, depicting two guys in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We're not interested in female witches in this blog, but we wouldn't mind seeing a sexy male witch, or warlock, like this one ...

Or this one.

Of course, witches and warlocks can't really do magic, but that doesn't mean that magic doesn't exist.  Above is Channing Tatum in Magic Mike.  If that's not magical, what is?

Calendars - Part 35

Bears Illustrated 2010

The Bears Illustrated calendar is an independent illustration project featuring twelve unpublished artworks from artists around the world, available for free download and free of censorship.  Today we see some images from 2010, the first year the calendar came out.  Above is January by Charlie Hunter from the U.K.

February by Alvaro Barruylle from Chile.  Some drawings are more explicit than others, and some don't show nudity at all.  I'm showing you the ones with nudity.

March by Tabo Ayala from Spain.  OK, this one isn't nude, but I like it.

April by Kenzie Lamar from San Diego, U.S.  This is my favorite of the 2010 calendar images.  Click to enlarge.

June by Rodrigo from Spain.

July by Fuzzbelly from Canada.

August by Victor/apbear from Spain.

If you like these, I can post more in the future from other calendar years.  You can see them yourself on the website www.bears-illustrated.com.  Unfortunately, they don't come out with a calendar every year, and there is no 2023 calendar to download.

Performers - Part 36

Kotiteollisuus

Kotiteollisuus is a Finnish hard rock and heavy metal band formed in 1991.  The name means "cottage industry."  Above is the cover of a book of photographs about the band, described as "Kotiteollisuus in pictures with clothes on and without."

Above is part of an interview with guitarist and lead singer Jouni Hynynen for Finnish TV, showing Jouni in the sauna looking at that book.  The background voices are Jouni and a female interviewer.

This is from a short video of Jouni called Hullaannuta minut taas (Drive Me Crazy Again), showing Jouni coming out of a sauna in the woods, sitting for a moment, then going for a dip in a lake, naked, of course.  A very Finnish thing to do.

This is an extract from a music video called Kone (Machine), featuring Jouni naked, although there's no frontal nudity.

But there's plenty of frontal nudity in this extract from the music video Pappi puhuu (The priest speaks).  Don't drop the soap!

We end with a homemade video of Kotiteollisuus playing at the Ruisrock music festival in 2010.  The whole band is naked.  Unfortunately, this amateur recording has horrible audio distortion, so you might want to turn the volume down and just enjoy the view.

Gods, Myths and Heroes - Part 30

 Noah's Ark

The story of Noah's Ark is a children's favorite, but it is one of most absurd stories in the entire Bible, and that's saying a lot.  It also demonstrates the twisted morality of the Bible: God destroys every living thing in the world, including innocent children and animals, because he gets pissed off at some wicked men.  Obviously, God needs to go to anger management classes.

Here's my take on the story of Noah's ark.  I will intersperse quotations from the Bible (King James version) with my own telling of the story, which will include a conversation between Noah and God.

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. (Genesis 6:8)

My comment: yes, Noah is pretty easy on the eyes.

God's actions are so bizarre in this story, the only way we can make sense of them is to imagine Noah and God talking, much like John Denver does in the movie Oh, God (above).

God: "Make thee an ark of gopher wood ... The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits."  (Genesis 6:15-16)

Noah: "Um, what's a cubit?"  (Note: a cubit was about 18 inches.)

God: "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female." (Genesis 7:2)

Noah: "Um, you do realize, don't you, that seven isn't divisible by two?  So you can't have seven beasts where each male is paired with a female."

God: "Well, math isn't my strong point."

Noah (under his breath): "Yeah, neither is morality."

God: "All right, you figure it out.  Just get two of each.  Like two lions."

Noah: "How about these two from the Cardiff Lions gay rugby team?"

God: "Whatever.  You handle it."

Noah: "Great.  I'll also take these two tigers from the Detroit Tigers."

(Photo: World Series finale, 1945, by LIFE photographer Scherschel.  Tigers star Hank Greenberg is drinking beer in the locker room.  I added the color.)

Noah: "And of course we need two bears.  Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!"

Noah: "Hey, God, am I supposed to take two of every kind of insect, too?  You know, there are over 350,000 species of beetles alone."

God: "Don't bother me with these details."

(Photo: a dragonfly on the penis of a guy called Zuerigay.  We'll see him in a future post.)

Noah: "How about plants?  You know, if the whole Earth is flooded, all the plants are going to die, too.  Something tells me that you didn't think this through."

And the rain was upon the Earth ...

forty days ...

and forty nights. (Genesis 7:12)

Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail, and the mountains were covered. (Genesis 7:20)

(Illustration: The World Destroyed by Water by Gustave Doré, 1866)

Note 1: fifteen cubits is about 23 feet deep, hardly enough to cover mountains, but it would have been a huge flood on a flat floodplain like Mesopotamia (modern Iraq).  The Biblical story of the flood was cribbed from earlier Babylonian flood stories from Mesopotamia, including a newly-deciphered (in 2014) Babylonian cuneiform tablet that not only tells a flood story, but has the animals going into a boat two by two.  This Babylonian tablet dates from about a thousand years before the Bible was written.

Note 2: No matter how much it rained, although there might be local flooding, mean sea level would not rise an inch, let alone enough to cover Mt. Everest.  This is because of the hydrologic cycle, which kids learn about in elementary school.  Water evaporates from oceans and lakes to form clouds, which produce rain, which runs back into the oceans and lakes.  The total amount of water is constant.  Obviously, whoever wrote the Bible didn't know about the hydrologic cycle.

You don't think the Bible is the word of God, do you?  If it is, then God is both a plagiarist and an ignoramus.

Another note on why this story is idiotic: it assumes that nobody in the world except Noah had a boat, so everyone else would drown.  Obviously a false assumption; at the very least, fishermen would have boats.  Thank you, Rick, for posting a meme pointing this out in your blog Sicko Ricko's Crap.

(Photo: Boats on Lake Travis, Texas)

We resume our story:

And the waters prevailed upon the earth for an hundred and fifty days. (Genesis 7:24)

Noah: "A hundred and fifty days?  What am I supposed to do on a boat for a hundred and fifty days?"

God: "I'm sure you'll think of something."

[Noah] sent forth the dove out of the ark; And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. (Genesis 8:10-11)

(Illustration: The Dove Sent Forth from the Ark by Gustave Doré, 1866.  Except the dove isn't finding an olive leaf; it's only finding rotting dead bodies.)

And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. (Genesis 8:4)

Noah: "Hey, God, how come we had to land on this desolate mountain top?"

(Photo: Bighorn mountains, Wyoming)

Noah: "I mean, the whole Earth was covered with water, so we could have landed anywhere.  Why didn't we land somewhere nice, like Hawaii?"

God (ignoring Noah): "Be fruitful and multiply." (Genesis 8:17)

Noah: "Did you say be fruity with multiple guys?  OK.  See ya."

(Photo: Shipwreck beach, Lanai, Hawaii)

World Naked Bike Ride - Part 39

 Brighton 2016

Here's a guy who caught my eye at the 2016 WNBR in Brighton, England.  He's getting something painted on him.

At right, you can see what was painted on him  ""My eyes are down here."

Here's a closer look.  It was the paint that caught my eye, but he's worth a look even without the paint.

And on his back: "My other bike is a Harley."

Here he is with his bike that's not a Harley.  Brighton is an English seaside resort, and the  WNBR in Brighton always ends at the seashore, where riders can go for a dip.

Our boy runs across the pebbly beach toward the water ...

And comes back all wet ...

To rejoin the other riders.

A closeup of his tattoo reveals that it's the insignia of Clan Gregor, with the motto beneath, "MacGregor despite them."  Historically, the Scottish hero Rob Roy was born a MacGregor but lived under another name because the English king had banned the name MacGregor.  His gravestone says "MacGregor despite them."

So I think it's safe to say that our boy is a MacGregor.

We'll end with this closeup view of Mr. MacGregor.  Hey, he wanted us to look at his eyes down there.

Instruments - Part 29

 Bugle

The bugle, trumpet, and horn are all descended from a common instrument, shown here on an ancient Greek vase described as Battle of Greeks vs Amazons with Trumpeter (late 5th to early 4th century BC).

This painting, Dream of Human Life, by Alessandro Alori, 1570-1590, is copied after a drawing by Michelangelo.  It shows a naked man surrounded by the deadly sins (gluttony, lust, avarice, envy, wrath, and sloth).  For some reason pride is missing.  A naked angel blasts a trumpet into his ear.  It's supposed to be an allegory, but don't ask me what it means.

The main feature that distinguishes a bugle from a trumpet is that a trumpet has valves to allow it to play different notes of the musical scale.  A bugle doesn't.  So these ancient "trumpets" could be called bugles, since they have no valves.

These are French soldiers standing at attention in 1914, with a bugler at right.  Finally we see the bugle in its modern shape.  The long tube of the bugle is bent around into a loop, so it's just as long but the instrument is more compact than the yard-long ancient trumpets.

Because the bugle has no valves, it can only play one note plus its harmonics, giving the series of notes that make up familiar bugle calls such as "Reveille" and "Taps."

Another vintage photo of soldiers with a bugle, thought to date from between the world wars.  I got this photo from Vintage Muscle Men.  Thanks, Jerry!

This statue of the Second Transylvanian Hussar by Lajos Petri, 1935, is in Budapest, Hungary.  The hussar, naked except for his helmet, holds a bugle.

This is our clearest picture yet showing the shape of a bugle.  But maybe you weren't looking at the bugle.  This is Mike Stern in a photo I got from Bob's Naked Guys.  Thanks, Bob!

Is Mike playing Reveille, to wake us up, or Taps, to send us to bed?  Considering where he's sitting, I think he's inviting us to come to bed.

Poem of the Day - Part 35

 The Arrow and the Song

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

                                        I shot an arrow into the air, 

                                        It fell to earth, I knew not where; 

                                        For, so swiftly it flew, the sight 

                                        Could not follow it in its flight. 

                                        I breathed a song into the air, 

                                        It fell to earth, I knew not where; 

                                        For who has sight so keen and strong, 

                                        That it can follow the flight of song? 

(Above: Christopher Owens singing using Seth Bogart's cock as a microphone, from the X-rated version of the music video Lust for Life by the band Girls.)

                                        Long, long afterward, in an oak 

                                        I found the arrow, still unbroke; 

                                        And the song, from beginning to end, 

                                        I found again in the heart of a friend.

(Above: Christopher kissing Seth, from the same video.)