"I Am Always Remembering..."

HE'S A HANDSOME FELLA ISN'T HE

The other day, I had the strangest experience... While gathering images for the blog, I happened to scroll past this one and I stopped and scrolled back up to this familiar face. I now know that his name is Mackie Alcantara, but even though I didn't know his name until this morning, I felt like I knew him as soon as I saw his face. And it was a very strange experience indeed. Running across his face felt kind of like I'd expect recognizing a porn star in public would feel.  So for clarity, Mr. Alcantara is not a porn star (at least not in the classical sense), but he is a former Australian lifeguard turned fashion model. And I knew him from the days when he was my favorite J.C Penney catalog model.

I guess I had a serious crush on Mackie, now 53. Whenever a new catalog arrived, I couldn't wait to discover what pages he was on. And, in those eight years between my failed heterosexual marriage and my finally accepting the truth of my heart and coming out in 2004, Alcantara was shall we say, "My goto guy for needed 'inspiration'" if you know what I mean. Yes, I'd seen some gay porn, but my delicate sensibilities didn't care for most of it. I was always looking for love, and porn was just sex. But the sight of Mr. Alcantara smiling from those glossy pages while running down the beach in a pair of $15.99 Stafford swim trunks was more than enough to light my fire and feed my fantasies. 

In fact, I was so taken with him, that at one point in the 1990s (when he and I were both much younger), I literally bought one of every color of a City Streets suit he modeled in one of the big book Penney catalogs. The funny thing is, I still have one of those suits. Although it doesn't fit me anymore, I couldn't part with it and I kept it as a memento when I gave the others away. I think I probably bought almost every thing he modeled from pajamas to underwear to shirts and work pants; isn't that weird? What makes it even stranger, is that I don't even wear pajama, or anything else in bed, so I still have several sets, unworn and in their packaging.

So, this a another (stranger and funnier) part of my story... 

I am always remembering, and this time, it was a pleasant journey down memory lane.

You can see more of my catalog crush here: Mackie Alcantara, circa 2012