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Greatest American Hero

March 21, 2016, 6:35 am
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None of the science fiction comedies that filled the airwaves in the 1970s and 1980s (Automan, My Secret Identity, The Powers of Matthew Star, Misfits of Science) were entirely heterosexist; the bumbling hero is usually "allergic to girls" or "shy around girls." But The Greatest American Hero (1981-1983) went even farther, portraying not only a lack of heterosexual interest but intense homoerotic buddy bonding.

It starred curly-haired blond William Katt, who had previously displayed ample buddy-bonding (and a pleasantly muscular physique) in Big Wednesday (1979) and the Broadway musical Pippin(1981).








He played mild-mannered teacher Ralph Hinkley.  The show premiered on March 18, 1981, and on March 30th, a man named John Hinkley tried to assassinate President Reagan. Skittish producers fudged on his name for the rest of the season, and finally gave up and changed it to Hunkley.

While driving in the desert, Ralph and FBI Agent Bill Maxwell (Robert Culp of I Spy) encounter a UFO.  Its occupants assign them the task of fighting evil, and give Ralph a special flying suit.  Unfortunately, he loses the instruction book.

Plots veered between the realistic and the ridiculous.  The kids in Ralph's class get a piece of the action, as does attorney Pam Davidson (Connie Selleca), who eventually marries Ralph.  But in spite of the "fade out kiss," Ralph's main emotional connection is with Bill.  And since Bill doesn't have any superpowers, he gets captured by the bad guys quite often, prompting a daring rescue and a "my hero!" moment.



Since Ralph was always putting his uniform on and taking it off, there were many shirtless scenes, revealing a physique quite a bit more muscular than one would expect for any mild-mannered schoolteacher.  Katt appeared fully nude in Playgirl magazine in 1982.

In its second season, Greatest American Hero was put in a Friday night time slot -- when teenagers were usually out -- and opposite the mega-hit Dallas -- so ratings declined, and it was cancelled.

Robert Culp was not dismayed -- he had already been on tv for many years.  William Katt went on to star in the buddy-bonding horror movie House (1986), plus several  Perry Mason movies (his mother, Barbara Hale, played the attorney's secretary in the original series).  He's still working constantly, with eight projects in 2010 alone.
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The Sausage Sighting at the Film Festival

March 22, 2016, 5:52 am
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The Plains, Spring 2015

When I lived in the gay neighborhoods of Los Angeles, New York, and Fort Lauderdale, there were annual Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals to attend.

In the Straight World, not so much.  You can go to mainstream film festivals to see an occasional gay-themed piece (mostly about gay teens being bullied at school) amid the many selections about lonely, isolated heterosexuals and melancholy children:

A woman tries to keep the rattling suitcase of her dead husband closed.

A young boy walks through a deserted city to a house where a little girl is ballet-dancing.

A man chases a balloon through a subway station.

A young girl collects fallen leaves.

There is occasional beefcake.  Graham Patrick Martin, who played a gay hustler on Major Crimes, plays a guy who hires an "authentic girlfriend," and instead of sex, gets a nagging harridan.  But at least he takes his shirt off.


















Buffed Polish actor and dancer Rafal Iwaniuk, who has posted a "like" of a gay sauna in Warsaw on Facebook (unless it's another Rafal Iwaniuk) plays a tough who sits next to a guy on a train and makes him feel threatened.

The festival of short films here on the Plains last year was sponsored by the University, and held in three venues downtown.  Most of the shorts I saw were held in a t-shaped theater with folding chairs and couches.

My date (Jimmy the Boy Toy) and I sat on a couch on the left side of the "t," where we could see the screen and the projection booth, a narrow room separated from us by a curtain.

The projectionist stood and walked into the "t" to adjust the sound and so on.  Otherwise he slouched on a couch just in back of the curtain.  He didn't realize that I could see his legs and crotch perfectly, especially when the screen lit up with a bright scene.

The rest of the story is too risque for Boomer Beefcake and Bonding.  You can read it on Tales of West Hollywood.

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Madame's Place: TV's First Drag Queen Sitcom

March 22, 2016, 8:28 am
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In 1982, I got my B.A. in English and Modern Languages and moved to Bloomington, Indiana, to study for a M.A. in English.  I wasn't planning on an academic career; I thought the M.A. would assist me in reaching my career goal in publishing.

I was taking courses in Old English, Victorian Literature, Fiction Writing, and for some reason Chinese, working in the dormitory cafeteria, listening for gay subtext songs on the radio, and reading the Gayellow Pages, so I didn't have much time for tv.    In 1982-83, I watched a few old-standby sitcoms: The Boomerersons, One Day at a Time, Alice, Taxi -- plus The Powers of Matthew Star(with Peter Barton, left) and Madame's Place (1982-83).











Gay actor and puppeteer Wayland Flowers (1939-1988) began voicing Madame in the 1970s.  She was a new twist on the drag queen persona, an elderly former movie star who had a potty mouth and told outrageous stories about her exploits with men.

Baby Boomers used to thinking of the older generation as skittish, easily-scandalized, and sexually repressed found Madame's bawdy humor mesmerizing, and soon she became the most famous puppet since Charlie McCarthy.

Wayland and Madame were everywhere in the 1970s and early 1980s, on  Andy Williams, Merv Griffith, The New Laugh-In, The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show, Playboy's Roller Disco and Pajama Party, and Solid Gold.  They hosted the 1982 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  They were regulars on the Hollywood Squares game show.


A tv series was inevitable, a throwback to the old "celebrity home life" sitcoms of the 1950s, with Madame as a talk show host asking inappropriate questions of real celebrities like William Shatner and Peewee Herman.  At home, she interacted with her butler (Johnny Haymer), uptight assistant (Susan Tolsky), dumb-blond niece (Judy Lander), and kid next door (Corey Feldman, left).

There were no references to gay people, but it was easy to imagine Madame as an aging drag queen.  In fact, it was expected.

 It's not on DVD, but you can see clips on youtube.

Wayland never actually came out, for fear that a public statement would end his career.


He died in 1988, but Madame has recently begun a new act with drag entertainer and Liza-specialist Rick Skye (who is out).





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Wahlburgers: 4 Seasons, No Underwear

March 22, 2016, 1:44 pm
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Marky Mark Wahlberg, who rose to fame as a pants-dropping rapper and later spun his mega-buffed physique into serious dramatic roles, is now in his mid 40s, and the star of a reality series, Wahlburgers (2014-)

32 episodes so far in two mini-seasons per year, in the spring and summer.

It's actually about Wahlburgers, a "family" restaurant run by his brother Paul, back in Boston. Of course, Mark gets into the act, as well as two other actor brothers, Donnie and Bob, plus various wives, children, and family friends.

Plots involve scouting out new restaurant locations, scoping out the secret sauce, helping friends get their careers off the ground, and various family squabbles.  Pretty dull stuff.

You weren't that big a star, Marky.


Still, there are the physiques...

Mark is fabulously, built of course, and Donnie, a New Kid on the Block back in 1990, now a regular cop/soldier/tough guy in tv series like Blue Bloods, is not bad.

Unfortunately, neither disrobes.  And the other brothers are less than droolworthy.





Family friends/investors look like they belong on the set of Cheers.  They're either Cliff or Norm.










Most of the brothers' children are still preteens.  Donnie's sons, Xavier Walhberg and Elijah Hendrix Wahlberg, are 23 and 15, respectively, but do not appear on the show.

That leaves Brandon, son of sister Tracey, an aspiring actor who works at a warehouse.  He had a Marky-style physique.

But he doesn't take his shirt off on camera either.  This photo of his impressive arms is from his twitter page.







Well, at least the food looks good.

See also: Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.












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Beefcake Alert: Shirts vs. Skins Basketball in the Campus Gym

March 23, 2016, 3:17 am
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Since time immemorial, I've run at 2:00 pm Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.  Three or four miles outside in the summer, sometimes five, and in the winter, a quick three miles plus warmup on a treadmill in the campus gym, plugged into Bob's Burgers or Judge Judy

But lately I've been going at 4:00 or later, and skipping the treadmill to run around the indoor track, so I can look down and see the show. 

Basketball, either intramural or recreational, down on the gym floor.  





I'm not at all interested in basketball, but I'm very interested in ten guys running around on the floor, five of them shirtless, their chests, shoulders, abs, and arms available for anyone to gawk at.

Sometimes there are two games going on down there.

That's twenty guys, ten of them shirtless.

Occasionally even three games.

Thirty guys, fifteen shirtless, the sound of thunder, the smell of testosterone and sweat. 

They're much closer than these pictures would suggest -- I'm only a few feet above the players.

I try to gauge my pace so I run past the basket where they're trying to block and throw the projectile.



Each game involves two baskets on opposite sides of the gym.  Sometimes they're running in the opposite direction.  

But I have lots of chances.  The indoor track is only 1/10th of a mile around.

Three miles, thirty laps. 

Plus I need to walk a few laps before and after my run, right? 

The players keep changing.  There's always someone new to look at.

The ginger boy with a dusting of chest hair and a glory trail.

The swarthy Middle Easterner with thick hair and dark eyes and smooth, marble-hard abs.

The baby-faced freshman who reddens easily.

The skinny guy with thin arms, a narrow chest, and an innie belly button.

The short black guy with massive shoulders and pecs.

The long-haired, bearded Jesus Christ, with a hairy chest and a cross necklace.

The blond boy with a beautiful physique who yells "Aright!" when he makes a basket.




The chunky geek with a huge basket that keeps shifting around in his sweat pants.

The later I arrive, the better the show gets.

I've been coming in on my weight-training days, too.  I have to do a few laps to warm up, right?  And after my workout?

None of the other runners has yet noticed me slowing down when I'm near the players, and then zipping around the deserted regions of the gym.

None of the players has yet looked up and noticed me looking, or if they do, they just think I'm into basketball.








It's late March, warm enough to run outside, but I think I'll give the campus gym a few more weeks. 

How can I miss the show?






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Do Levis Show Bulges Better Than Armani Wool Slacks?

March 23, 2016, 11:06 am
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When I was a kid, my family was distinctly working class.  Dad worked in the factory, and Mom worked at the mall.

Our house was about the size of small apartment.

90% of dinners consisted of spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, tuna casserole, fried eggs, or -- shudder -- chipped beef on toast.

My parents' friends and relatives were distinctly working class, too.  Not a college graduate among them.  A lot of pick up trucks, country-western music, and Goodwill t-shirts and jeans.

Fundamentalism.

Right wing politics.

Country western music!

So it came as a shock to discover that I am related to one of the wealthiest families in the world.

In 1982, when I was in grad school in Bloomington, I found out that Dad was adopted.  His biological father was the "black sheep" son of a wealthy northern Indiana businessman.

More research revealed a connection with the McCormicks of Chicago.

You know, Interntional Harvester, the Chicago Tribune, McCormick Place, McCormick School of Engineering, McCormick Theological Seminary, the Art Institute of Chicago, Villa Turicum, the House-in-the-Woods?

A vast dynasty of industrialists, publishers, politicians, and philanthropists descended from the eight children of Virginia inventor Robert McCormick (1780-1846)?

It's a complicated genealogy: I can give you the details if you're interested.  But it turns out that I had a 3rd cousin named Justine McCormick Grossman, 73 years old, daughter of a senator, granddaughter of the U.S. ambassador to Russia and France, living on a farm near Wolcottville, Indiana.

It was only a few miles from Rome City, but Aunt Nora didn't know her.  I guess when you're adopted, you have enough trouble keeping up with your biological father, no time to worry about second cousins.

A relative who was wealthy, sophisticated, a world traveler, who listened to Mozart instead of Willie Nelson, who went to the opera instead of Nazarene revival meetings, who served beef bourguignon instead of chipped beef on toast!  And who, I assumed, was gay-friendly.  After all, weren't rich people tolerant of eccentricities?

So I called.  It took a few minutes to impress upon her who I was, but then she began to reminisce about life in the 1930s:

"Your grandfather was quite a scandal in our family!" she told me in a scratchy voice.  "He ran off to become a singer in a music hall, of all things!  And then he married his...his housekeeper, who was young enough to be his daughter!  My, how tongues wagged!"

"So -- when his wife died, and he wasn't able to take care of his kids by himself, why didn't...um...someone in the family adopt them?"

That is, why didn't you take in my Dad and his sisters, and raise them in luxury, and send me to Harvard?

"Oh, he wanted nothing to do with us.  He preferred to spend his time with riff-raff, actors and artists and music-hall singers.  Like that Lloyd Davis."

My Grandpa Davis?  Hey, I thought rich people were accepting of eccentricities and foibles!

I was starting to rile up a bit, but I calmed down when Justine began describing her two children and four grandchildren.  Her grandson Cyrus, named after the original Cyrus, was a theater arts major at Indiana University.  He went by his middle name, Michael.

My cousin, the scion of the ultra-wealthy McCormick family, was walking on the same campus as me?

He was probably more liberal.

Maybe we would become friends.  We would hang out in House-in-the-Woods or Cavigny, sail on his yacht, fly over to London and Paris, chat about caviar...

Or we would become lovers.  He no doubt had a handsome, aristocratic face, dark hair, a gym-toned physique, and an enormous Mortadella beneath the belt.  I knew from my doomed pursuit of Richie Rich that virgin wool slacks show baskets a lot more effectively than our working-class Levis.

I fantasized about spending the night with him in the  gild-and-wood bedroom where he once prepared for polo matches and studied his Latin lessons.

Cousin Justine was mistaken -- there was no one named Cyrus Michael McCormick Grossman Hawthorne on campus.

"Oh, maybe he graduated already," she said.  "You know how time flies when you get older.  I think he's in Philadelphia now.  Let me look up the address for you."

The address was around the corner from a Philadelphia gay bar listed in my Gayellow Pages.  Michael was obviously gay!

Still, too far to go for a rich relative, gay or not, so I forgot about it until the summer of 1983, when Cousin Justine died.  Her daughter found my name in her address book, and had her assistant call me.

It was an odd prospect, going to the funeral of someone I'd never met and only spoke to twice. But, I figured, it would be a chance to meet other McCormicks, including my fifth cousin, the gay Philadelphia theater arts major named Cyrus Michael.

In July 1983, I drove from Bloomington up to an Episcopal Church in Elkhart, Indiana for the funeral.  The reception was held at the home of Justine's daughter and son-in-law: an English Tudor with sculpted grounds.

As I mingled among the McCormcks, Grossmans, Hawthornes, Dressers, Jacksons, and Bialis, I heard the same right-wing politics as among my working-class relatives.  Maybe worse.

But at least Cousin Michael was gay.  Tall, lithe, rather feminine, with glasses and a short beard.

"I grew up on stories of your grandpa's dirty tricks," he told me.  "I always thought it was so cool to be able to do your own thing, without all the obligations that come with being a McCormick.  In fact, I think that's what gave me the motivation to become an actor."

"Besides," he added with a grin, "Hanging out with the working class has some advantages. That manual labor builds biceps, and those Levis show baskets a lot better than Armani wool slacks."

The grass is always greener....

The uncensored post, with nude photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.
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Top 12 Public Penises of South America 1: The East

March 24, 2016, 4:25 am
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Since I was doing the public penises of Central America and the Caribbean, I thought I would South America as well.  I visited Colombia once, 30 years ago, but otherwise it is completely uncharted territory.

But it looks like most countries in South America match Europe in the size and complexity of their gay communities, and in the legislative response: no sodomy laws, same-sex partnerships, anti-discrimination laws.

And, especially in the countries straddling the equator, ample beefcake.

Here are the top 12 public penises of South America:

1. If you work your way down from the public penises of the Caribbean, the first country you hit is Venezuela, In Maracaibo, a buffed Saint Sebastian is falling out of his clothes as he's pierced by arrows beside a concrete tree.















2. Next come three colonies or recent colonies. Guyana is the only South American state that still has sodomy laws (what do you expect from a former British colony?).

This monument in Georgetown depicts Kuffy, the leader of a slave revolt in 1763.  He's not doing what you think.










3. Suriname is a former Dutch colony, so Dutch is still the official language.  A muscular freed slave named Kwakoe, is the symbol of the city of Parimaribo.  He's regularly dressed by clubs and organizations, and the Surinamian community in the Netherlands holds an annual Kwakoe Festival.














4. Guiana (not to be confused with Guyana) is a department of France.  The capital is Cayenne, but the economy has nothing to do with pepper.

At the entrance to the city, three people holding up a pyramid symbolize the African, European, and Indian races who constitute Guiana.  The Indian apparently has quite an endowment.











5. Also in Cayenne, you can see a statue of French abolitionist Victor Schoelcher freeing a grateful slave in a loincloth.

More after the break.

















6. So far we've been straddling the Caribbean.  Next on our way south is Brazil, one of the largest and most populous countries in the world, and as my old geography textbooks used to say, "a study in contrast." First stop, Manaus, on the Amazon, the gateway to the territories of protected and uncontacted rainforest tribes.

Manaus itself is a modern city with skyscrapers and an international airport.  It also has its share of neoclassical architecture, like this semi-nude lamp outside the Teatro Amazona

7. There are also some neoclassical nude males in the theater district of Sao Paulo.







8. But the most intriguing of Sao Paulo's statues is Event Horizon, Anthony Gormley's series of 27 fiberglass figures of naked men placed at strategic locations to illustrate the isolation of modern life.  They were in London and New York before making their way to Sao Paulo in 2012.









9. Strangely, I didn't find a lot of beefcake art in Brasilia, the capital, but Argentina, to the south, more than makes up for it. Like this monument to work, Canto al Trabajo, in Buenos Aires.  It seems to be praising mostly nude male workers.














10. I don't know what this is.  Maybe the same monument.
















11. And El Arquero de San Sebastian, "The Archer of Saint Sebastian," by Alberto Lobos.
















12. Puerto Madryn, in Patagonia in the deep south of Argentina (and actually the deep south of the whole world), features this monument to the Tehuelche Indians. They wore few clothes, even though Patagonia is quite frigid, and were reputed to be giants.

See also: The Top 12 Public Penises of the Caribbean; The Top 12 Public Penises of South America 2: The West.





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Fall 1993: Cruising East of Alvarado

March 25, 2016, 1:52 am
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West Hollywood, Fall 1993

"Where are all the Hispanic guys?' I asked Lane one day. "The population of Los Angeles is about 50% Hispanic, but you never see any here.  We don't even have a Mexican restaurant."

"I can buy some Old El Paso at the Safeway if you want," Lane said, "And make tacos tonight."

"I'm serious.  We bring home lots of Asian guys, and lots of Anglo leather bears, but no Hispanics, except for that waiter that we met by accident."

"What do you expect, when you cruise at Mugi, and I cruise at the Faultline?  If you want to meet Hispanic guys, you have to go where they are."

He was right.  The Hispanic gay population of L.A. had its own distinct culture, predating the white-middle class-male "gay" culture of West Hollywood.  If I wanted to meet them, I had to head east of Alvarado.

So on Saturday night, I dropped Lane off at the Faultline for his weekly cruise, and drove a mile farther to the corner of Sunset and Hollywood, and a bar called Basgo's.

The rest of the story, with nude photos and explicit sexual content, is on Tales of West Hollywood. 














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It's Garry Shandling's Show

March 25, 2016, 2:31 am
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I was saddened to hear of the death of Garry Shandling, the 66-year old comedian best known for The Larry Sanders Show (1992-1998), and before that, It's Garry Shandling's Show (1986-1990).

In West Hollywood we watched It's Garry Shandling's Show on Showtime every Wednesday night.

It was a precursor to Seinfeld and a throwback to the old radio sitcoms where the characters were aware that they were characters and commented on their own plotlines.  Garry played "himself" as the star of a sitcom about a comedian.


His George was the nebbish next door neighbor Pete (Michael Tucci), who had a wife and a nebbish teenage son, Grant (Scott Nemes).

His Elaine was "platonic" neighbor Nancy (Molly Cheek), who dated and eventually married Ian McFyfer (Ian Buchanan).

His Kramer was Leonard Smith (Paul Willson), the owner of his condo.

There was a steady stream of other friends and associates, including a lot of Garry's girlfriends, and a lot of celebrities playing themselves: Rob Reiner, Tom Petty, Martin Mull, Red Buttons, Chevy Chase, Norman Fell, Jeff Goldblum, Gilda Radner.




Plots were mostly about "nothing." Garry babysits.  Garry gets a pet.  Jeff Goldblum visits.

Sometimes they were elaborately self-referential:

Grant wins a trip to Hollywood, where he goes to a taping of the show.

Grant is accused of beating up a kid at school, but the a member of the studio audience saw what really happened, and tells the principal.









Not a lot of beefcake except for an occasional bulge, and no explicit gay content, but lots of subtexts.
1. Garry and Pete had a nice bromance going on.
2. Grant rarely expressed interest in girls, and often came across as a gay kid.  Notice his obvious interest in Garry's basket in this shot.

Besides, it had a great theme song:

This is the theme to Garry's show, the theme to Garry's show. 
Garry called me up and asked if I would write his theme song. 
I'm almost halfway finished, how do you like it so far?
How do you like the theme to Garry's show?

See also: 10 Things I Love and Hate about Seinfeld.
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Adam West: Playing Gay before Batman

March 26, 2016, 6:04 am
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In the 1960s, when my friends and I watched the camp superhero series Batman (which, by the way, we didn't realize was camp), we zeroed in on Burt Ward's Dick Grayson/Robin, because he was a teenager, and because of incredibly bulgeworthy costume.  We all but ignored Adam West's Bruce Wayne/Batman.

During the decades since Batman ended, Adam West has had a substantial career playing quirky, out-of-touch parodies of himself on everything from The Adventures of Pete and Pete to Family Guy (where he plays "himself" as the Mayor of Quahog). Delightfully quirky, but not much in the muscle department.



But before Batman, the future Caped Crusader was a bona fide beefcake star.

Born in 1928 in Walla Walla, Washington, West started his career in comedy, as the host of a live children's show in Hawaii and someone named "Ham Ector" on the Philco Playhouse, but in 1959 he moved to Hollywood to join the beefcake craze -- dozens of hunky actors, many discovered by Henry Willson, were tearing up the screens with shirtless and swimsuit shots.

He became very busy immediately, with 10 roles in 1959 alone, notably in The Young Philadelphians, as a man who cannot consummate his marriage for unspecified reasons (i.e., he's gay). He rushes off and dies in an auto accident.  His wife has sex with someone else, and his "son" grows up to be Paul Newman.



 During the next few years, West guest starred in Westerns -- Sugarfoot, Cheyenne, Bronco -- notably fighting "Tarzan" Jock Mahoney on Laramie.  He starred in swinging detective dramas and sitcoms, and in 1961 he got his own tv series, The Detectives.  His movie credits included Tammy and the Doctor, the gay-subtext classic Robinson Crusoe on Mars, and the hunk-meets-feral-girl Mara of the Wilderness.










Then came Batman, and everything changed.  Beefcake roles were hard to come by: West played Cleander opposite William Shatner's Alexander in Alexander the Great (1968), and a two-fisted adventurer in The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1969), but his presence alone made them campy.

Like many men of his generation, West is somewhat homophobic; in the 1980s, he was flown to London to appear at an event, but when he discovered that it was gay-themed, he refused to appear.  More recently he has commented on the gay undertones of Batman: "gay, straight, whatever.  Add them to the ratings.  If gays like the show, wonderful!"

See also: Lane's Hookup with the Joker.

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16 Naked New Yorkers

March 26, 2016, 9:11 am
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I lived in New York from 1997 to 2001, while in graduate school at Long Island University: a year in a graduate student apartment on campus, and three years in the East Village, sharing an apartment with Edward the Art Appraiser.  It never felt like home, in the way that West Hollywood was home; I always felt like a visitor, dropping in on other people's lives.

But the hookup opportunities were enormous.  Maybe we knew so much about safe sex that anonymous encounters no longer seemed risky, or maybe  the East Village never developed the "date first, bedroom later" culture of West Hollywood, but cruising was constant, and intense.

Here are my top "bedroom first, dating later" stories from four years in New York.






Year 1

1. Conrad, who came to my room to fix my computer.

2. Dustin, who invited me to an all-nighter after a meeting of the New York Bondage Club.

3. The fireman who came by when my crazy roommate left an open can of tuna in his room during Christmas break.  We thought something died in there.

4. The Lebanese guy I met online, who asked "do you want to hang out?" by which he meant come to my room for oral.






Year 2

5. The older bear who lived only a few blocks from my parents' house in Indianapolis.  I dropped in for a "quickie" on the way to the bars.

6. The unhung hippie who Yuri and I shared after a conversation of about five minutes.

7. I was conducting a research project that required me to interview gay men.  Carl refused to be interviews, but agreed to show me his Kielbasa+.

8. Prasert, the chef in a Thai restaurant in Paris.  I ate there almost every night.  One night he invited me into the kitchen to show me a "new recipe." In the stock room.





Year 3

9. Barry, on the night we exorcised the homophobic demon.

10. The Man in Black who cruised me on Christopher Street.

11. When Yuri came to Manhattan for the weekend, we went cruising at the Eagle, and he was approached by a Korean gym rat.  He was reluctant, having heard that Asians are small beneath the belt, but I talked him into it.

12. When I was visiting Zack in Providence, we went to a bar that had a little enclosed patio, the equivalent of dark rooms in European bars.  I went down on a guy while he was staring straight ahead, pretending to not even know I was there.  You can't get more anonymous than that!






Year 4

13. I broke every rule of cruising, and followed Jorge out into the cold, dark night with only an exchange of first names.

14. Shen the Chinese history major.  We spent the whole evening in his room, watching tv.

15. Carey, the Football Player Who Got Unstuck in Time.

16. The NYU undergrad who came to my apartment in the rain and refused to leave until the sun was out.  The next afternoon.

The uncensored list, with nude photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.



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Lane's Date with Batman, Robin, and the Joker

March 27, 2016, 3:01 am
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West Hollywood, Spring 1991

Everybody in West Hollywood had a good celebrity dating story.

Older guys claimed that they had dated Marlon Brandon, Cary Grant, or Rock Hudson.

Younger guys claimed hookups with Scott Baio, Johnny Depp, or Keanu Reeves.

Everybody claimed sausage sightings of Rob Lowe, Tom Selleck, and Sylvester Stallone.

Since nearly every actor was closeted in those days, and vehemently denied any "accusations," it was hard to tell which story was real, which an exaggeration of a casual meeting, and which just wishful thinking.

But Lane didn't have any good stories.  Oh, he had dated some actors: a minor cast member of M*A*S*H, the star of a Saturday morning tv show, a guy who played a Klingon on Star Trek.  But nobody really famous.

For someone who grew up a stone's throw from Paramount Studios, it was downright embarrassing.

"You can have my Celebrity Boyfriend," I told him one day.  "We broke up a while ago, but I'm sure I can arrange some sharing."

"The guy who starred in one tv show that nobody watched?  I'd rather stick to my M*A*S*H story."

"How about Michael J. Fox?"

"I don't want a getting-coffee story.  If I'm going to do this, I want at least a sausage sighting out of it!"

Then I had an inspiration:  "How about Cesar Romero?"

Lane frowned.  "The guy who played the Joker in the old Batman show?"

"You mean Sophia's boyfriend on The Golden Girls," I corrected him.  "And also the Cisco Kid.  And a Latin lover in about a hundred movies.  He was a big heartthrob, back in the day."

The rest of the story, with nude photos and sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.
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Top 12 Public Penises of South American #2: the West

March 28, 2016, 3:11 am
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Our Public Penis tour of South America left off with Argentina.  Next stop: Uruguay.

1. Greetingman, a 20-foot tall blue naked man, bows in Buceo, Uruguay to demonstrate friendship.  He is the creation of Korean artist Yoo Young-ho.















2. A monument to the last of the indigenous peoples of Uruguay in Montevideo.














3. Working our way north, we come to Paraguay, the only nation in South America where an Indian language, Guarani, has official status.  Parque Ybycui, about 60 miles south of Asuncion, has a statue of a semi-naked gladiator.

4. Next comes Bolivia, the only nation in the world with two capitals, La Paz and Sucre.  In Lapaz, this muscular Unknown Soldier lies prostrate on the ground.




5. But you may be more interested in Cabezas, a small town in the Gran Chaco region, where Father Francisco de Pilar is leading a buffed, loincloth-heavy Indian to Christ.















6. In Santiago, Chile, there's an interesting statue of Dedalus mourning a prostrate, naked Icarus outside the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes.

More after the break.








7. And Capoulican, the military leader of the Mapuche, who led an uprising against the Spanish from 1553 to 1558.

8. If you go all the way south to Punta Arenas, Chile, the monument to Magellan features more semi-nude Indians.














9. I definitely want to visit Peru for Machu Picchu and other Incan archaeological sites, but there's not a lot of beefcake art.  Unless you count this statue in the Museo de Historia y Arqueologia in Lima.
















10. North to Colombia, the only country in South America that I've visited in person, to help build a church in a suburb of Medellin.  The most famous artist in Colombia is Fernando Botero, whose distinctive style of squat, hefty naked people is called Boterismo.

Many of his paintings can be seen in the Botero Museum in Bogota, but there are also a number of statues, including this one in Medellin.











11. And this one in Bogota.  Even the horse is sculpted in Boterismo style.

















12. If you prefer your beefcake art a little more svelte, visit the Cathedral of Salt, an underground church carved out of the salt mines in Zipaquira, about a 1 1/2 hour drive north of Bogota.

There's a naked miner at the entrance, one of the few fully nude pieces of beefcake art in all of South America.

See also: Top 12 Public Penises of South America 1: The East and Me and the Gay Cannibal.
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Easter at the Bath House

March 28, 2016, 5:38 am
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Columbus, Ohio, April, 2007

My boyfriend Paul was devout Catholic, so he did the works: Ash Wednesday, then Lent, for which he gave up soda.  Then Palm Sunday and Holy Week: services on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.

Fasting on Friday, which meant only one meal, in the evening, after church.

Having had nothing to eat all day, we drove to Columbus, to the Holy Cross Catholic Church on Fifth Street, in the gay neighborhood of Germantown.  It wasn't exactly gay-friendly, but there were lots of almost-open gay people in the pews.

The Good Friday Service is almost as painful as the Jewish Rosh Ha-Shanah, two hours of brow-beating, followed by the Veneration of the Cross in a darkened sanctuary and a silent communion.

Very dark and depressing.  I think I would prefer the live-action crucifixions they hold to celebrate Easter in the Philippines.

When the service ended at 9:00, we rushed about a block west to the El Camino Inn for cheese burritos and avocado salad, and then drove up to Club Columbus, a bathhouse near the Ohio State University campus.

It had a gym, a video room, and a very large steamroom-maze where guys often met.

I rented a small "cabana room," and Paul got a locker.

The rest of the story, with nude photos and explicit sexual content, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

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13 Writers and Artists of the Romantic Era That You Didn't Know Were Gay

March 29, 2016, 3:05 am
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When I was studying for my M.A. in English (1982-84), I had to select two adjacent historical eras for my Comprehensive Exams.  The problem is, gay content seems to go up and down, a homophobic wasteland (Medieval, Restoration-Augustan, early Victorian) followed by a period of homoerotic exuberance (Renaissance, Romantic, late Victorian).

For my first period, I chose the Restoration-Augustan Era, mostly because the professor of my graduate seminar, Dr. Singer, was gay -- or at least we thought he was.  For my second period, I chose the Romantic Era (1770-1830), because the poets were young and cute, and their lives seemed informed by homosocial and homoerotic bonds.  Later I discovered that several were gay in real life. 

The top 13 gay or gay-subtext literary figures:

1. Hugh Walpole  (1717-1797), who built a pseudo-Medieval castle, Strawberry Hill, to entertain the A-list gays of the early Romantic era.

 2. and 3. The Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Charlotte Butler (1739-1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755-1831), who eloped, set up housekeeping, and entertained many of the artistic and literary greats of the era.

4. Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), who forged a series of Medieval poems during his teens, and upset over his lack of recognition, committed suicide.  Many of the other Romantic poets revered him as a beautiful youth martyred by an uncomprehending world. He has only appeared on screen once, in a 1970 German movie, played by Ulrich Faulhaber.

 5. William Blake (1757-1822), who advocated for "free love" and illustrated his poetry with lovingly-detailed, super-muscular male nudes

 6. William Beckford  (1760-1844), who built his own pseudo-Medieval castle, Lansdowne Tower, where he kept his huge art collection. 





7. William Wordsworth(1770-1850) and 8. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), who roomed together and walked across England together (in the company of William's sister Dorothy).In Pandaemonium (2000), they are played by John Hannah and Linus Roach.






9. George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), who hung out with attractive men, especially Greeks and Italians, and shared a house in Rome with fellow poet Percy Shelley. I hadn't yet read Byron and Greek Love (1985), but I thought Manfred highly homoerotic.  In Gothic (1986), Byron was played by Gabriel Byrne (seen here holding hands with Shelley, played by Julian Sand).

10. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), who cohabitated with Byron and wrote Adonais to mourn the death of the beautiful young poet John Keats (check out the beefcake in the Star Trek episode "Who Mourns for Adonais". Besides, his wife, Mary Shelley, wrote Frankenstein.  In Frankenstein Unbound (1990), a scientist goes back in time to meet Shelley (gay performer Michael Hutchence, top photo) and the real Victor Frankenstein (Raul Julia).

11. Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), who introduced the gay-coded Dandy to England.

12. John Keats (1795-1821), whose love for Charles Armitage Brown overwhelmed his love for Fanny Brawne (which was never consummated), and wrote of pure beauty much more often than the beauty of women.  In Bright Star (2009), which makes the romantic triangle overt, Keats is played by gay actor Ben Whishaw (left), and Brown by Paul Schneider.

13. Gay artist Henry Fuseli.

Frankenstein, vampires, gay subtexts, and beefcake.  What's not to like?
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Spring 1990: Bedroom First, Socializing Later

March 29, 2016, 3:18 am
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West Hollywood, Spring 1990

Lane and I have been dating for almost a year.  Almost every night, he stays over in my house near Sunset and San Vicente, or I stay over in his apartment on Hacienda, about five blocks away.

But we still cruise.  On Friday and Saturday nights, if we don't have a dinner or party to go to, we go to Mugi or to the Faultline.

On Sunday afternoons we go to the beer/soda bust at the Faultline.

Of course, we never bring anyone home directly from the bar.  Only disgusting sleazoids stoop to hooking up, or what we call "tricking.  When we meet someone, we make a date with him for 3-4 days later, then go out to dinner or to a movie, and finally, bring him home to "share."

Tonight I have a sore shoulder, and I don't feel like cruising.  After dinner I tell Lane that I just want to stay in  and watch tv.

"Do you mind if I go out by myself?" Lane asks. "I'll come over afterwards to spend the night."

"Only if you bring me something," I say.  "Or somebody," I add as a joke.

He drives off at 9:30 pm, after the Golden Girls.   I watch tv, read a book.

The rest of the story, with nude photos and sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.
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The Patty Duke Show

March 29, 2016, 6:28 pm
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I was saddened to hear of the death of Patty Duke today, at age 69.

The actress was a long-time friend of the gay community, supporting gay rights and AIDS research, and appearing in a number of gay-friendly productions, such as By Design (1982), in which she played a lesbian fashion designer, and Hail to the Chief (1985), about the first woman president of the U.S., with a gay Head of the Secret Service ("The deadliest fairy you'll every meet").

Two of her sons, Sean Astin (born 1971) and Mackenzie Astin (1973), are actors.  They have also appeared in gay-positive productions.  Mackenzie is bisexual.

Of all her memorable performances on tv and in the movies, Baby Boomers remember her most fondly for The Patty Duke Show (1963-66).  It was before my time, but I've seen episodes on youtube.

Patty Duke plays Cathy Lane, a sophisticated, urbane Scottish teenager "who's lived most everywhere, from Zanzibar to Barclay Square," but comes to America to live with her uncle.  She has a cousin, Patty Lane, a typical American teenager who "loves to rock and roll, a hot dog makes her lose control."

Guess what: Patty Duke plays both girls!  They're identical cousins!

Ok, there's no such thing.  They must be sisters -- there's more going on in that family tree than meets the eye.  Better not to ask.

We also shouldn't ask about what happened to Cathy's parents.  Better leave it open, like Mike and Carol's exes on The Brady Bunch.

Cathy sets in to become Americanized, and the standard sitcom complications ensue:
Patty gets a crush on her French teacher.
Cathy tutors a basketball star.
Patty becomes the editor of the school paper.
Cathy gets a date with Sal Mineo.

Looking through the episode synopses on Wikipedia, I find few instances of the girls masquerading as each other.  I guess the novelty of seeing Patty Duke playing two characters at once was enough to fuel the plots.

The family was rounded out with a mother and a father (William Schallert, Jean Byron), a kid brother (Paul O'Keefe), and a series of boyfriends and crushes, notably Eddie Applegate (Richard, who appeared in 88 episodes), but also just about every young adult in Hollywood: Ronnie Schell, Steve Franken, James Brolin, Frank Sinatra Jr., Bobby Vinton, Richard Gautier, and Daniel J. Travanti.

Celebrities like Frankie Avalon, Sammy Davis, Jr. Troy Donahue, and Robert Goulet played themselves.  Chad and Jeremy and the Shindogs performed.

No gay specific characters, obviously, but the show was memorable for not trying to push people into a heteronormative box.  Patty and Cathy's classmates included science nerds, movie buffs, artistic types, athletic types, boys who weren't interested in girls, girls who weren't interested in boys.

William Asher, who co-created the program and wrote most episodes, went on to the gay-subtext filled Bewitched.


In 1999, 33 years after the series ended, many of the cast reprised their roles in The Patty Duke Show: Still Rockin' in Brooklyn Heights.  The family reconvenes to prevent the destruction of the old high school.

Patty is a drama teacher, divorced from Richard, with a grown son (Alain Goulem) and a granddaughter, and Cathy is a widow with a teenage son (Kent Riley. left).

Neither of them is immersed in the heterosexual nuclear family box.

See also: Mackenzie Astin; Sean Astin






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Spring 1984: Dumped by the Rich Kid

March 30, 2016, 3:17 am
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Louisville, Kentucky, Spring 1984

I was in Bloomington to get my M.A. in English, but on a campus that offered Elementary Lithuanian, Sufi Poets, Mongolian Civilization, and Serbo-Croatian Epics, who could stand still for dull William Wordsworth?

In the fall of 1983, I enrolled in Tibetan Culture (for both graduate and undergraduate students), and one of my classmates was Richie Rich.

Not his real name, of course.  .

A slim, tanned blond who was majoring in Central Asian Studies, mostly to annoy his Dad, a state senator who played golf with President Reagan. and consistently voted anti-abortion, anti-Russia, and anti-gay.

Richie was vehemently opposed to his father's politics, but he didn't mind the infinite wealth.  He spent every summer at the beach house on Cape Cod.  He drove a new Jaguar.  He spend hundreds of dollars on bohemian-chic fashions.  He always looked like he was trying out for a road tour of Fame.



He had just discovered Bullwinkle's, where he chatted up guys but rarely hooked up; no one ever saw him taking anyone home.

Richie wasn't really my type: he was tall, thin, and blond, and even in 1983 I preferred short, dark, and muscular.

But he was interested in religion, and he was...well, rich, two points in his favor.

I wouldn't mind discussing Buddhism, Hinduism, and Zoroastrianism while tooling around in Richie's Jaguar, or spending the week in his summer house on Cape Cod.

So I cruised Richie Rich at Bullwinkle's.  He was attentive, even flirtatious, allowing me to grope him and fondle his chest.  But before I could go any farther, he said "Well, see you in class," and vanished.

I invited him to my Halloween party in October, but he didn't come.

He was a Unitarian, so one Sunday in November, I visited his church -- no Richie Rich.

The next day in class, I said "I went to your church yesterday."

His eyes widened.  "What for?"

I took Russian Folklore instead of Tibetan in the spring 1984 semester, but, having just broken up with Jimmy the Bodybuilder on Crutches, I was even more eager to land a new boyfriend, preferably Richie Rich.

But what would attract his attention?

He was interested in religion.   How about the Metropolitan Community Church?

A church founded by and for gay people!  Richie wanted to see that!

The nearest MCC was in Louisville, Kentucky, about two hours south of Bloomington.  Roy the Farmboy and I visited last year, and I spent the night with the preacher, Brother Reid: a tall, bearded bear in his 40s.

Brother Reid was into Cute Young Things, and would certainly cruise Richie.  To avoid the competition, I rented us a hotel room for Saturday night.

We would drive up on Saturday, have dinner, go to the bars, spend the night, then get up on Sunday, go to church, and head for home.

Foolproof, right?  I would certainly have Richie Rich in my bed, where my superlative physique and expert sexual technique would win him as my boyfriend!

The trip down to Louisville went great, except that Richie insisted that we take my car -- he didn't want his Jaguar to get dirty.   We talked, laughed, discussed Buddhism, flirted with a local boy at a rural gas station.

We checked into the very elegant, very expensive Brown Hotel downtown -- fortunately, Richie paid. I put my arm around him the moment we set down our suitcases, but Richie said "Come on, let's go on a tour of the town, and find someplace to eat."

We had dinner at a Mexican place, and then went to the Discovery, a gay disco.

Mostly gay men, a scattering of lesbians and what looked like one heterosexual couple.

We hit the dance floor, and I tried to hug Richie again, but he moved away from me.

After awhile, I saw him dancing with an older guy, Brother Reid's age, a husky muscle bear with a black beard and a thick mat of chest hair, damp from dancing.

They had no problem hugging -- and kissing!

I went to the bar, bought a coke, and pulled Richie from the clench.   "Here's your drink."

"Thanks," he said, taking it from me while gazing into the eyes of the bear.

"Hi, my name is Boomer.  You guys are really hitting it off."

"Pleased to meet you," the bear said without looking at me.  They went back to kissing.

Hey, Richie is my date!

Jealous, outraged, I rushed to the nearest guy, a balding but buffed sleazoid in his 30s, and started cruising him.  After a moment, I looked over to see if it was having an effect.

Richie and the Bear were both gone!

I waited for an hour.  There were no cell phones in those days, so I couldn't call.

There was nothing to do but invite the sleazoid back to my hotel room.

Richie appeared in the morning, just as I was getting ready to call the police, all blustery and happy about the guy he tricked with last night.

I was furious.  You don't just dump guys at a bar.  Especially your date!

Ever since then, I have had an unbreakable rule: when you go out with someone, friend, boyfriend, hookup, or date, you stay with them to the end of the evening.  You can make dates for later, or you can share, but no abandoning them to pursue some guy.

You're probably wondering how church went.

He cruised Brother Reid.

The uncensored post, with nude photos and sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

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Fall 2004: Wade the Beachboy Cruises for Hawaiian Men

March 31, 2016, 7:01 am
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Wilton Manors, Summer 2004

"I read an interesting article in the Gay News," Wade and Yuri's hookup says.  "It was about the gay traditions of kanaka maoli, traditional Hawaiian society. "

With three housemates dating and hooking up regularly, you never know who will be sitting at the breakfast table, especially on weekends.  This morning there's seven: me, Barney, our dates from last night, Yuri, my ex-boyfriend Wade, and Ricardo, the Cuban-American dance instructor they "shared."

"The aikane, or male bedmate, was a standard part of the culture," Ricardo continues.  "Every guy had a wife and an aikane." 

"I always thought of Hawaii as a 'good place,'" I say, "Where same-sex desire is open.

"Me, too!" Wade exclaims.  "I applied to the University of Hawaii for my undergrad degree, but my parents talked me into staying home in Canada.  I should have gone!  Hawaiian men are so hot!"

"And I'd love to hear the Hawaiian language spoken."

"You could get your chance," Ricardo says.  "According to the article, there are 400,000 native Hawaiians on the mainland, most of them right here in Florida."

"That's 200,000 men," Barney calculates, "100,000 adult men, 10,000 adult gay men.  Nice odds!  You could get an aikane easily, if you plan your strategy right."

The rest of the story, with nude photos and sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.
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We Got It Made: 1980s Sitcom with Gay Actor Tom Villard

April 1, 2016, 12:00 am
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When I was at Indiana University studying for my M.A., lots of the guys in Eigenmann Hall watched the sex comedy We Got It Made (1983-84), about two nerds who hire Mickey (Teri Copley), one of those ubiquitous 1980s servants who provide joie de vivre along with the housework.   I watched because it was stuck between the must-see Mama's Family and Cheers.  It wasn't awful.

1. The odd couple, button-down attorney David (Matt McCoy, left, John Hillner) and goofy salesman Jay (Tom Villard), had a nice gay subtext going on, in spite of the cheesecake maid and their respective girlfriends.




2. A hot bear cop, Max (former pro wrestler Ron Karabatsos), lived downstairs, with his teenage son Max (Lance Wilson-White).

3. Like Three's Company, it was all about thinking people were having sex, sex itself: Mickey sleepwalks and ends up in the boys' bed; Mickey and Jay work on a screenplay, and David thinks they're having an affair; Mickey's diary entry makes everyone think that she wants to have sex with David; Mickey sleepwalks and ends up in the boys' bed.








4. Tom Villard (right) was gay.  In the mid-1980s, I occasionally saw him at Mugi, the gay Asian bar in Hollywood. He came out as gay and a person with AIDS in an Entertainment Tonight interview in February 1994, which at the time was career suicide; but he thought that speaking out was more important.













He was one of the nicest guys in Hollywood.

When he died in November 1994, his partner,  production designer Scott Chambliss, set up The Tom Villard Foundation to provide assistance to people living with AIDS.
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