Well, I have finally joined the millions of Americans to throw down some hard earned cash to watch Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain. I made the decision on a whim, packed up my Groucho Marx glasses and fake mustache, strapped on my trench coat and headed out to check out the best "gay cowboy movie made by an Asian guy" ever.

The saga begins with "The Twenty." For those of you not familiar with The Twenty, it's an absolutely shameless twenty-minute commercial for mindless crap that will be coming to a t.v. screen or theater near you thinly disguised as entertainment news. I hate the twenty. I hate it more than AIDS (which, will come into play shortly), but anyway, on to the film.

I decided to make this a main post for two reasons:

1. Brokeback Mountain, for all of it's acclaim, is fairly disappointing.

2. Having made it through yesterday with my heterosexuality in tact I now know that I'll never be swayed to the other side, despite the Gestapo-style gay police patrolling my streets in pink storm trooper uniforms attempting to convert helpless heterosexuals Clockwork Orange style (I can't help myself, I hear "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" and I want to KILL!).

So, I sit watching this film. The sheep are flocking, the guitars are plucking, the cowboys are... eating beans and shooting elk... and then I notice something....

-Quick back story-

Several months ago I found a snakeskin belt with a mule belt buckle in my apartment. Desperately needing a belt at the time I picked it up, tried it on and whaddya know, it fits! So, for the past six months or so I've been wearing it, assuming the entire time that it belonged at one point to Casey Johnson and I'd get it back to him when I got a new belt of my very own. A week or so ago I was mentioning the mystery belt to my friend Rachel when she announced that it was her belt, she'd lost it and I could just use it for as long as I needed. Now, it's by no means a girly belt, in fact it's made by the Justin Boot Company, but at one point it did belong to a girl.

Meanwhile, back in the theater...

I'm sitting in the dark, watching this film and attempting not to doze off when I notice something... the belt (which does this from time to time due to it's age) had managed to come undone. When this belt comes undone, the buckle swings widely out from your pants and it's quite obvious to anyone in the same TOWN that your belt is undone. This presents a rather interesting dilemma. I'm sitting next to my dear friend Brinton (of course with the "I'm really quite straight seat" between us), so perhaps fixing the belt during the show isn't the best idea, after all, it's not going to be fun convincing him that all that fiddiln' with my crotch during Brokeback Mountain was a belt repair... even as I type this it sounds like the worst excuse I've ever heard. Then there's the alternative wherein I wait until the end of the film and just fix it during the credits. However, that will require an entire theater of people seeing me stand up after that specific film fastening my pants... also not a good look.

Figuring that I could probably explain the crotch-fiddlin' to Brinton with more ease than the entire theater I decide to RE-ADJUST THE GIRL'S BELT THAT I'M WEARING DURING BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN.

Why do I tell stories like these on myself? I guess because they're funny.

So, we leave the theater fairly unexcited. Brinton points out that the gay sex caught him off guard, making Brinton the only person in history to be surprised by the homosexuality in Brokeback Mountain (ok, he wasn't surprised by the homosexuality, but rather the sudden 0-60 pacing of the cowpoke fornication... but I just wanted to say that). We catch a quick bite to eat, I head to Target to pick up some household items, then decide to just bite the bullet and pick up a copy of RENT on DVD.

I made it back home, watched a musical about AIDS awareness, then the Daily Show and to bed. For the record, RENT is far more gay than Brokeback Mountain. I dunno, maybe Brokeback Mountain didn't strike the chord with me that it was supposed to. Maybe it's because I'm just accustomed to gay cowboys and their sausage...