The guys who give us BEEF Mag (website - articles - profile) are inviting you to their upcoming event - 100% Beef Men's Weekend - which will be taking place in Palm Springs, California during Memorial Day Weekend, which means from May 22nd thru the 25th. From their site - We Got Your Beef - they have quite a few activities planned out, so head on over and from there you can make your plans and register for a weekend full of 'beefy' men.

I received my copy of BEEF magazine last week, issue #41 (cover) for February/March. BEEF (website - articles - profile) is now in full cover and this issue is just as hot as all the others. From their site, they state that they apologize for the delay when it came to shipping #41 because they have switched to a new printer (I gather since they went full cover), and that they are still working out the 'kinks' with this new partnership. Anyhow, I got my copy, and it's looking good.

The following is from BEEF Mag (website - articles - profile):

"Hot off the heels of their recent conversion to a full-color format, 100% BEEF Magazine is excited to announce the release of Issue #41! BEEF was recently voted 'Best Bear Publication' for the second consecutive year in The Complete Bear's Annual 'Best of the Bears' (articles) online poll of everything ursine. And, Issue #41, the magazine's second full-color edition, continues its exciting momentum, celebrating the full range of gay masculine identities through beautiful photography, erotic art, fiction, humor and satire".

The results are in from the 'Best of the Bears' awards, held by 'Got Fur...?'. The best Bear site for 2008 is BearNation.us (website - article). This is the 3rd year that these awards have been held (results for 2006 and results for 2007). This was the 1st time that PlanetBears was nominated, for Best blog and Best Resource, however we didn't win in either (PlanetBears isn't a blog so that makes sense, however we are a resource... maybe next time).

I should also note that 'Got Fur...?' has been bumped around quite a bit in the past while. They went from MySpace to Ning (articles) to now finding their home here at The Complete Bear. Anyhow, here are the results as posted on the Bear Bones blog:

Bear of the Year - Ron Suresha

Best Movie Bears - SF Movie Bears

Best Bear Website – www.bearnation.us

Best Bear Blog – bTalk

Best Bear Podcast - bTalk

Best Bear Porn Site - Butch Bear

Best Bear Video – Bear Oasis (Pantheon)

Best Bear Porn Star – Jim GagBear

Best Bear Business - The Complete Bear

Best Bear Celebrity – Chris March

Best Bear Club/Organization – Northeast Ursamen

Best Bear Run - Lazy Bear Weekend

Best Bear Bar - DugOut (NYC)

Best Bear Fundraiser – Lazy Bear Weekend

Best Bear Campsite - Hillside Campgrounds

Best Bear Accommodations – Hillside Campgrounds

Best Bear Publication - 100% Beef

Best Bear Play Party - Steamworks

Best Bear Resource – The Complete Bear

Best Bear Artist - KillerBob

Best Bear Performer – Elijah Black

The following is from Scott McGillivray (website) the editor for BEEF Magazine (website - articles - profile): "100% BEEF Magazine, the successor to the masculine-identified publishing legacy established by the now-defunct Original BEAR Magazine (website - articles) has just released it's 40th Edition. To mark this occasion, and signal the magazine's exciting forward momentum, BEEF has converted to a full-color format!

'It was time', says Editor and Co-publisher Scott McGillivray in his page one 'From the Editor' remarks in the 40th Edition of BEEF, adding, 'black and white was fun, and it allowed us to transition from where we were, pay homage to our beginnings, and continue the aesthetic of... the magazine from which we came, pretty seamlessly'.

BEEF focuses on the identities and lifestyles of adult, masculine-identified men and Bears. It was launched in May '02 by a group of friends after their swift departure from the hugely popular, but poorly managed and now-defunct original BEAR Magazine. Excited to continue the publishing legacy, but also eager to broaden the definitions and masculine sexual identities which the original Bear Magazine helped to popularize, co-publishers Scott McGillivray and Larry Woolwine forged a publishing alliance titled after the homoerotic term 'beefcake'.

From its first issue, 100% BEEF broke new erotic ground by injecting art, humor and satire into the masculine erotic mix, and by featuring models and materials that, many argued at the time, staunchly challenged some of the rigid parameters which had defined their publishing predecessor's pages".

I got word that the latest BEEF mag is now available (website - profile - poster). It's their December and January edition. They are turning the big Four O... as in, this is their 40th issue. And the other good news is that this magazine is in full colour. In their other issues, some of their pages were black and white, well not in this one. So go get a copy off the racks or order your own subscription via their website.

Hot off the press is the latest issue of 100% BEEF Mag (website - articles - profile), and that would issue #39 (cover).

Some really great looking men in this issue, like Clint Taylor who's been in many a Bear movie, a well known Bear model. Then there's the real hot Devlin Michaels.And on the cover: Bill... triple woof. Bill is a 50 year old Daddy from San Fran. Overall, this is a real handsome looking issue. Oh, and from what I read from the editorial, we might be seeing some more leather... very cool. You can find a copy of BEEF Mag probably at your nearest adult store, or the best way is to simply order a subscription from their site.

It's wild to think of it but another year is about to wrap up very soon. '09 is upon us... this is the 1st New Year party mentioned so far on PlanetBears. If you have an event and run a bar or are part of a Bear group, send in your news and we'll be glad to post it.

From the Bearracuda hunks: "After 2 years of sold out New Year's parties, we are so happy to 'again' give our guys the best bang for their Bear buck this NYE. For the past two years we've brought you great DJ's who have made their mark on the Bay Area. This year we bring you an amazing talent that has never played here. Making his San Francisco debut, we present: DJ Francisco Guerra (check out his podcasts)". This event will be taking place on Wednesday, December 31st at Turk in San Francisco and it is sponsored by Big Muscle Bears & 100% BEEF Mag.

[members - click here] I've been an FOGB for years... what... you don't know what an FOGB is...? It stands for 'Fan of GagBear'... which I've been. Actually, I've been an FOGB for well over a decade... drooling over GagBears' photos and videos that he's produced.

His name is Jim Grrowl yet he's better known as GagBear. I first came across his pictures online back in '95 or so on this wicked site called 'Big Ad'. Now Big Ad was first a magazine with ads from Bears and Chubs, and they were one of the very 1st companies to try and market their product online. They had a great site which they updated every so often with photos of cute guys that were in their mag. Unfortunately the site, as well as the magazine, went defunct (reasons unknown), however I did copy/pasted those photos of Jim GagBear and kept them on my hard drive because these pics were some of the very first 'Bear bondage' photos that I saw on the net.

It wasn't until '02 (7 years later) when I came across more of Jim GagBear's material. This time he was working with a couple of guys who made a few videos under the company name 'Realman Kink Video'. I contacted Jim for the 1st time and he turned out to be one of the nicest and coolest guys I spoke to online. I asked him if he was the same guy from the Big Ad spread, and he said he was, and that's when my admiration for this man began.

At the time I was working on Bear-Pics so I helped him promote their videos, yet the company didn't last long and they ceased production. However GagBear went on to a spread in Beef Mag, photo shoots for BearBound, and lately he has been making his own videos which you can purchase from his site BD Bear Studios.

GagBear has sent me many photos which I used to have up on Bear-Pics and I decided to bring them over to the PlanetBears Galleries. You can see them here (there's just over 200 photos). On a personal note: I've always hoped to work with him on a photo shoot, and we were supposed to meet up at one point in '02, however his schedule didn't permit it, and since he's 3000 miles away... well... sometimes things aren't all that easy to organize. For now, I'll just have to admire GagBear like the rest of y'all; thru the pics he puts out on the net, and thank Heaven for that.

The newest edition of Beef Magazine (cover - website - profile) is out - issue #38, and with each passing edition, this magazine gets better and better.

First off, editor Scott McGillivray (articles) talks about the end of the world which will be December 21st 2012... didn't he know...? Turn the page and you got a great 'BeerCan and Saurus' cartoon by Brutus (YouTube page) - this one is just classic - "it's so nice of you Amish people to give us a ride!"... ok... onto the men... there's Joe and Jake for your viewing pleasure, and there's a feature on the magic of Minoru (website - articles). Pick it up at your local adult shop or get it online via subscription on their site.