Maybe Return To Brokeback Mountain?

In today's Sunday Times, there was a "Men's Fashions of the Times" supplement. Mostly, it made me sad. On two counts. First off, all of the suits hanging in my closet are suddenly unwearable. I knew this about my double-breasted guys from the '90s, but this new "slim suit" thing that has taken off means that even my sharp two and three button suits are no longer... sharp. And, the clothes are awful. Dopey sportswear on models with teenage bodies. Neither what I want to look at or wear.

But there was this...

An interview with Richard Gere.

*sigh*

Before there was Vin "Chained At My Feet, Soaked In My Piss" Diesel, there was Richard Gere.

When I was in high school, I saw the remake of Breathless with Richard Gere taking the Jean Paul Belmondo role. Instead of a jazz soundtrack, there were songs by the seminal LA punk band X, featuring the amazing vocals of Exene Cervenka. And Richard Gere came right down off the screen and into my heart. From the opening sequence, where he's seen struggling to read a Silver Surfer comic, his handsome face all screwed up, his lips moving.

I think my hardon lasted the entire ninety minutes of the movie.

When I moved to NYC, I heard that the rumors had long circulated about Richard Gere. Everyone knew someone who knew someone who had seen him at the Spike.

My saying to my first NYC boyfriend something along the lines of "Of course I want to be faithful to you, but if Richard Gere were to present himself and say, "Let's get it on!", then you have to realize that I'm just a fallible human being" brought about a huge fight.

Ahhh... Richard Gere.

I came to believe that Richard Gere was, in fact, heterosexual. Or at least a heterosexually leaning bisexual. And moved on.

(The jury is still deliberating on Vin "Chained At My Feet, Soaked In My Piss" Diesel.)

But now, in the Times Men's Fasion Supplement, I read this:

Interviewer: What was the first movie you remember?

Richard Gere: I remember watching Italian muscleman movies on Saturday-afternoon TV with characters like Hercules, Samson and Ulysses. As a kid, I liked those archetypal, heroic, muscular guys. Big, silent men. I still like those epic dramas: I'm thinking of doing a western.

Uh huh.

I swear he really said that.

Attention Richard Gere:

If you happen to google yourself (and who doesn't?) and read this, I want you to know that I love you and I've always loved you and I'm a good guy with a lot to offer and I bet you're a deep, insightful person who I would never grow tired of listening to and just hanging out with you would be great and I realize you have your career to think about so no one has to know about us and that's totally okay with me because our love would be something so precious and rare that the world couldn't begin to understand it anyway and you just let me know where and when you want to meet up and so we could get to know each other over coffee or something and then maybe sit in my jeep after the Starbucks or wherever closes holding hands and talking and talking and finding out about each other and all the things we have in common and then you could just sort of lean over and kiss me and I'd kiss you back and you'd tell me out of the side of your mouth "start the car, drive, I'll tell you where" and we'd go to your place in Manhattan and rip the clothes off each other and you'd stretch out on the bed and say, "I want you in me so bad" and I'd spit lube and lie down on top of you and slowly feel you open up for me and wrap my arms around you and we'd both be making a lot of noise and after we both shoot at the same time we'd just hold each other, all sweated and everything and both of us getting a little teary eyed because it was just so good and like there for hours listening to each other's hearts beating and then we'd see the sun coming up and we'd go out for breakfast somewhere with you wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses that famous people always wear and it would just be so perfect.

So get in touch, Richard Gere, okay?