Bob & Rod

Rating:
Summary: Superior!
Review: Being a relative of Bob I may have bias opinions. However, its a great thing that has happened. Keep up the super work! - Gary Hundley, Phoenix, AZ (originally columbus Indiana

Rating:
Summary: High-class camp porn "art"
Review: This book, like all of Tom Bianchi's books, celebrates the perfect "beauty" of one, two, or several musclebound, narcissistic "hunks" - usually male models, but, in this case, two professional body builders, Rod (what a name!) and Bob Jackson-Paris. The loving couple have certainly pulled off one of the camp extravaganzas of the century with the help of Bianchi's technically flawless photography. It is hard to describe exactly what makes this book so ridiculous - it could be the cliched settings, the needlessly cloying and coy poses, the "Silhouette Desire"-paperback conception of love and romance, or maybe it's just the colossal hubris of the three men responsible for this exercise in total self-involvement. Bianchi's fascist adoration of Arno Breker-like bodies is embarrassing in its slavish, drooling lust, while Bob & Rod's antics will certainly provide inspiration for drag kings everywhere. Buy this book only if you want a reall! y good laugh, along with a product testifying to the sheer vapidity of fin-de-siecle gay "culture." Particularly ludicrous because its adolescent true-love-forever-fantasy has been completely invalidated, alas, by the couple's recent "divorce."

Rating:
Summary: unnatural
Review: This book, like all of Tom Bianchi's books, celebrates the perfect "beauty" of one, two, or several musclebound, narcissistic "hunks" - usually male models, but, in this case, two professional body builders, Rod (what a name!) and Bob Jackson-Paris. The loving couple have certainly pulled off one of the camp extravaganzas of the century with the help of Bianchi's technically flawless photography. It is hard to describe exactly what makes this book so ridiculous - it could be the cliched settings, the needlessly cloying and coy poses, the "Silhouette Desire"-paperback conception of love and romance, or maybe it's just the colossal hubris of the three men responsible for this exercise in total self-involvement. Bianchi's fascist adoration of Arno Breker-like bodies is embarrassing in its slavish, drooling lust, while Bob & Rod's antics will certainly provide inspiration for drag kings everywhere. Buy this book only if you want a reall! y good laugh, along with a product testifying to the sheer vapidity of fin-de-siecle gay "culture." Particularly ludicrous because its adolescent true-love-forever-fantasy has been completely invalidated, alas, by the couple's recent "divorce."

Rating:
Summary: unnatural
Review: What does Bianchi's glorification of genetically "perfect" beings say to the rest of us who don't - and can never - match the looks of such sculptured, preening idols? Yes, I have a few Bianchi books, which I muse over as I would photo albums of Michelangelo Davids. Yet, I must wonder if the message given by Bianchi is a gift or a putdown to the readers who will, naturally, lack in themselves the exacting physical standards and fairy-tale love lives of Bianchi's worshipped man-gods. (Some "fairy tale," since Bob and Rod apparently split up. Perhaps reality DID intrude itself on those clones.) Is Bianchi saying, Look at these gorgeous men with their wonderful lives, you can never come close to this grand existence because your genes didn't work out. By the way, what happens when Bianchi-quality models grow (gasp!) OLD, or reach middle age? Do they simply disappear from the visual landscape like so many discarded wares? Are they dropped in the bargain! basement bin? Perhaps they all jump off a cliff when they reach 40 years of age...