Gay Daddy & Bear Blog: Age Appropriate

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest bear of all? The answer just might be Chris Salgardo. As president of Kiehl’s, one of the biggest names in skincare, this bearded beauty is not only blazing a trail in the business world, he’s also giving antiquated ideas of what it means to be butch an extreme makeover.
<!--break-->
With his preference for sporting muscle tees and tight jeans rather than three-piece suits and power ties, Salgardo is hardly your average buttoned-up businessman. But what most sets him apart in our eyes is his insistence on being out and proud in a corporate environment where conservatism—even in the beauty industry—is the name of the game and being openly gay can still cause eyebrows to wrinkle. It’s a decision that Salgardo is anything but apologetic about.

“You have to provide good role models for kids who are struggling, so it’s important to be visible and show the leader of a major corporation can be gay and successful,” he told Out magazine.

Adding to this role-model status are Salgardo’s many philanthropic endeavors. Under his leadership, Kiehl’s has created collaborations with top artists, celebrities, and athletes to raise money and awareness for organizations within its three pillar causes: HIV/AIDS, the environment, and children’s charities.

But it’s Kiehl’s LifeRide for amfAR event that’s pushed the company’s mission of giving back to the community into overdrive. This annual 10–day, 1,800-mile charity...

A friend in need is a friend indeed, especially when it’s 2:00 in the morning, you’re horny, and that friend lives just 5 minutes away. Hey, we’re all about friends with benefits, but what if those perks involved more than just a post-shag baby wipe and a pat on the butt as you headed out the door to go back home? You know, real benefits, like engaging conversation, shared interests, and a shoulder to lean on when you’re down in the dumps?

Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, for many of us, those types of relationships just don’t exist. Let's face it, as gay men, we live in a culture where making “friends” means firing up an app, “networking” is code for getting naked, and hooking up is the new handshake—all of which make it difficult to cultivate deep and meaningful friendships with one another that aren’t rooted in sexual attraction or superficiality. The truth is we need to have these friendships, especially as we get older, but in this age of instant gratification, are we willing to buddy up with someone we don’t want to sleep with?

The answer is yes—that is, if you’re willing to make the effort. In his latest appearance on Sirius OutQ’s “The Morning Jolt” radio show, our resident den daddy, MISTER CEO Carl Sandler, sat down with host Larry Flick to talk about the importance of friendships and offered up some tried-and-true tips on how you can develop them, deepen them, and put them to bed (pun intended!) when they’re not working for you.

Click the play button...

MR. Zachary Quinto this week's Real Man We Admire.

He gave us the creeps in his breakout role as a supervillain on the hit series “Heroes” and scared the living daylights out of us as the twisted serial killer Dr. Oliver Thredson (a.k.a. Bloody Face) on “American Horror Story: Asylum,” but there’s not many other guys we’d rather hide under the covers with than Zachary Quinto.

This tall, dark, and furry browed 35-year-old is one of Hollywood’s brightest up-and-comers, making steady appearances on stage, screen, and TV, as well as working behind the scenes as a producer (he co-produced the critically acclaimed film Margin Call, in which he also appeared alongside Kevin Spacey and Demi Moore). And while his career is certainly soaring, it’s sure to shoot into the stratosphere when he reprises his role of Spock in next month’s Star Trek Into Darkness, the sequel to director J.J. Abrams’ successful big-screen reboot of the iconic sci-fi series, which has blockbuster written all over it. (Psst, watch the trailer here.)

Despite his success, however, it turns out space wasn’t Quinto’s final frontier—coming out was. Never one to shy away from gay roles (he played Tori Spelling’s gay friend on her short-lived TV show “So Notorious” and starred in a 2010 Broadway revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Angels...

MR. John Barrowman is this week’s is this week’s Real Man We Admire.

They say every girl’s crazy about a sharp dressed man, but in John Barrowman’s case, it’s the guys, too! As the mysterious “Well-Dressed Man” on the hit CW series “Arrow,” this Scottish-American actor is making audience members quiver with sci-fi delight.

It’s a genre that’s been very good to the 46-year-old, thanks to his iconic role as alien hunter Captain Jack Harkness on the popular BBC time-traveling TV show “Doctor Who.” The character was such a hit with fans, the network gave him his own spinoff series, “Torchwood,” which ran for 4 seasons and turned Barrowman into a household name in the U.K.

Becoming an overnight sensation might have made any other celebrity think twice about publicly coming out of the closet. Good thing Barrowman was never in one in the first place. In his 2010 autobiography, I Am What I Am, he revealed that when he first got into the acting business, a producer urged him to pretend to keep his homosexuality a secret. His reply? “I really hope you’re not saying this, because I’m not going in the closet for you or anyone. Being a gay man has nothing to do with my abilities.”

The encounter had a lasting effect on Barrowman...