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Gay porn stars often hit the circuit, making guest appearances at bars, baths, and gay events to meet fans and drum up interest in their flicks. What'll they do now that they have to compete for attention with muscle-bound morticians?

The 2007 pinup calendar Men of Morticians (www.menofmorticians.com) won't hit bookstores till October. But in May, some of its funeral-director hunks were spotted strutting stuff and creating buzz at the Long Beach, California, gay pride parade.

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Long Beach is the home of McKenzie Mortuary (www.mckenziemortuary.com) and its impresario, Kenneth McKenzie. He's a veteran of offbeat fund-raisers that play with matches at the borders of good taste. To raise money for the Long Beach AIDS Walk, for instance, McKenzie threw a charity screening of the "Six Feet Under" season premier. After his sister fell ill, he started a foundation to help women suffering breast cancer pay for little extras-- baby-sitters, movie tickets-- that they couldn't otherwise afford. To fill the coffers, he hit on the idea of a calendar featuring the very guys with whom its intended beneficiaries least want an appointment.

Finding hunky morticians meant advertising in Mortuary Management, and winnowing down a field of dozens of applicants. Those who made the cut received $1000 and a trip to Long Beach for the photo shoot. McKenzie extracted a promise from his models that they'll help promote the calendar in their local markets. If the mortician studs are savvy about The Pink Dollar, that'll mean shaking hands at more gay pride parades and drag shows.

When they come to press the flesh, the calendar's models will have stereotypes to conquer.

"Whenever you hear about a funeral director, it's a guy in a suit in the corner with a hump on their back," McKenzie told Associated Press.

But in fact the nature of the industry probably worked to McKenzie's advantage-- the funeral biz runs in families. So guys don't tend to become morticians after they've been superannuated as football players or bankers-- rather they start in that field and stick with it right through their manly prime.

Take David Fisch, 27, a third-generation mortician with Fisch Funeral Home in Remsen, Iowa. By day, Fisch helps preserve bodies for the hereafter; in his spare time, he pumps-up his own for the here-&-now. "Fisch has twice qualified for the national bodybuilders competition in Las Vegas," the Sioux City Journal reports, "but was unable to go." Death, as they say, takes no holidays. However in April Fisch paused from his work to fly to Long Beach to pose for McKenzie's calendar, before returning-- ego boosted-- to compete in a Sioux City muscle contest.

"Most people get the image of a skinny, gaunt person with dark eyes and pale skin-- that's what most people would assume-- but it's not always true," Fisch related to his local paper about the stock image of his colleagues. "I think that anything that shines a positive light nowadays is a good thing."

In keeping with the "positive light" part, Men of Mortuaries won't show sex or nudity beyond the bare, well chiseled chest and muscular arms forged-- if not by Nautilus-- then in the transport of coffins.

So what do we think about Men of Mortuaries? Forget the charity part-- McKenzie's foundation is a poor substitute for decent national health insurance. But throwing all that positive light and drollity on what's become, in the West, death's overwrought secrecy isn't a bad thing-- or at least throwing light on the guys who help keep death beautifully made-up. Anyway, why should cowboys, lumberjacks, and construction workers bask in all the occupational erotic glory?

Still, it's as certain as death and taxes: no matter how many morticians take to the runways of masculine pulchritude, gay porn stars won't lose their special niche.