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Fall 1966: What's Funny about Kissing a Cute Boy?

October 7, 2015, 3:45 am
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When I was little, I was always being forced to hug and kiss ladies against my will, just because my parents knew them.  For an adult, that would be sexual harassment, but for a kid, it was "cute."

"Come kiss your Auntie June!  Come on, don't be shy -- give her a kiss!"

Ok, I've never seen her before in my life, she stinks of perfume and powder, she's wearing gross lipstick, and she's a girl!  Disgusting!

At least it was only on the cheek.  In the Midwest, we reserve kissing on the mouth for romantic partners.

But still, "Come kiss your Auntie Sadie!" "Come kiss your Auntie Opal!" "Come kiss your Grandma Davis!" "Come kiss your Cousin Beth!"

It was like a kissing booth at a carnival.

I quickly noticed that they demanded that I kiss only women.  Men only got a handshake.

Why didn't I ever get to kiss my parents' male friends?

In Racine, Wisconsin, where I spent kindergarten, first, and second grade, we lived only a block from Lake Michigan, so Mom took me and my baby brother to the beach nearly every day (even though Nazarenes weren't allowed).

One day she started talking to a boy-girl couple, In my memory they're very young, but they were probably in their late 20s, the same age as Mom and Dad at the time.

Rory had shoulder-length curly hair, rather pale skin, and a firm, compact physique with prominent abs.  He was wearing sunglasses, which I thought were the coolest thing ever.

Ruth was wearing a bikini.

While Mom and Ruth chatted, Rory took me by the hand and led me into the surf.  We went so far in that water was lapping against the bottom of my swimsuit.

He let me put on his sunglasses.  The world turned a pale green.

I felt proud to be walking along the beach with a cute boy, like a grownup on a date.

When we returned, Ruth said "Look at the two big, strong men!"

Yeah!  Two big strong men on the beach together!


A few days later, just at dinnertime, there was a knock on the door.  It was Rory and Ruth!

Rory wasn't wearing sunglasses or a swimsuit anymore.  He was wearing a tan short-sleeved shirt with a picture of a man playing golf on it.  His biceps swelled nicely.

Ruth was wearing a tan dress, and had on red lipstick and nail polish.  She was carrying a pie.

Mom took the pie from her, and Dad ushered them into the living room.  They sat on the couch.

I stared.  Rory had his arm around the back of Ruth's shoulders!  They never touched each other at the beach.

Were they like boyfriend and girlfriend?

"Boomer, where's your manners?" Dad said.  "Say hi to your Uncle Rory and Aunt Ruth."

"Hi," I said politely.

"Hi, Squirt!" Rory said, holding out his hand to be shaken.

"Now you know what to do," Dad continued.  "Shake hands with Uncle Rory, and give your Aunt Ruth a kiss."

Ruth pressed a finger to her cheek to point out the spot where the kiss should be deposited.

Suddenly I had an idea.  I climbed onto Rory's lap, grabbed Ruth's small, many-ringed hand, and kissed Rory on the cheek!

Their eyes bulged in surprise.  Rory laughed.

"Boomer!" Dad exclaimed, angry.  "Do it right!"

Mom had returned from the kitchen with some glasses of soda on a tray.  "Sorry about Boomer.  He likes to be funny."

"Kid's going to be a regular Jerry Lewis when he grows up," Dad told them.

I refused to budge from Rory's lap. He took his arm from Ruth and wrapped it around me.  "Looks like somebody needs a hug."

"You'll be a great father someday," Ruth said softly.

Yeah, right, father.  or boyfriend.

I remember Rory and Ruth coming to the house a few times after that, to watch tv or play Yahtzee with my parents.  I always shook hands with Ruth and kissed Rory.  They always laughed.

What was so funny about kissing a cute boy?

See also: I Marry the Boy Next Door.
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Jimmy Cavaretta: 1970s Trapeze Artist and Playgirl Model

October 8, 2015, 1:41 am
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Donny and Marie Osmond weren't the only gay-vague brother-sister act of the 1970s.  They had to contend with Jimmy and Terry Cavaretta.

Born in 1949, Jimmy Cavaretta began training in the circus arts when he was still a toddler, and at the age of 13 started a trapeze act with his younger sister Terry.  The following year his other sisters got in on the act, and he became the "catcher" and the only boy in the teenage Flying Cavarettas.

Not since teen idols David and Ricky Nelson had a trapeze act gotten so much media attention.  There were articles in all of the teen magazines.  They performed on  Ed Sullivan and The Hollywood Palace, and Jimmy got to be one of the "bachelors" on The Dating Game.


They were headliners at the Circus Circus hotel/casino  in Las Vegas from 1968 to 1973.

Then they broke up, Terry to form the Flying Terrells duo, with her husband Ron as the "catcher." Jimmy joined the Flying Medallions, and toured with the Ringling Brothers/Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Jimmy also did some acting and modeling work.  In January 1976, his enormous pecs and other...um, attributes...were featured in a nude photo spread in Playgirl.


The media was coy about mentioning his wife.  They wanted him to be available, an object of desire to the thousands of spectators who gasped at his acrobatics -- and his attributes -- every day at Circus Circus.

Of course, he also became the subject of gay rumors.

In 1976, Terry's husband and partner died in a plane crash, and Jimmy agreed to take his place in the Flying Terrells.  The siblings continued to headline in Las Vegas, and toured in Europe and Australia.




In 1984, they won a Silver Clown Award at the International Circus Festival in Monte Carlo.  The presenter was Hollywood legend Cary Grant.

In 1991, Terry got pregnant and decided that it was time to retire, so the act ended.

But the two continued to perform on occasion through the 1990s.

Today Terry runs the Terry Cavaretta Trapeze Experience along with her husband, juggler Rejean St. Jules.  Jim is retired and living in Las Vegas.
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Not the Marrying Kind: Gay Burns and Allen

October 9, 2015, 3:15 am
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Television was introduced in 1949, just in time for the formative years of the first Boomers (the generation officially started in 1945). Radio performers scrambled to make the transition. Some made it, most didn't.  Burns and Allen, a "married couple" sitcom starring comedians George Burns and Gracie Allen, made it. After 20 years on radio, they transitioned to television in 1950 and stayed on until 1958, stopped only by Gracie's death.

They're shown here with guest star Steve Reeves.

I recently listened to an episode from the end of the radio run, in 1949.

The homophobic silence of Dark Age America was starting to break -- very, very slightly -- as radio sought to compete with television by introducing "racy" content -- hints and innuendos about sex in general, and same-sex desire in particular.  So there are gay jokes.

The plot is about George and Gracie trying to find a wife for painfully shy next door neighbor, musician Meredith Willson (who penned The Music Man). They co-opt singer Eddie Cantor (who was subject to some gay rumors of his own).  He wants to marry off some of his daughters.

"We've found someone for you to marry!" Gracie announces.
Meredith looks at Eddie. "Gee, I had my heart set on a woman," he exclaims.



Later Eddie explains to his potential son-in-law how a wedding works:
"The minister says 'I now pronounce you man and wife, and then you kiss."
"Even if you've just met?" Meredith asks, thinking that he means kissing the minister.

Meredith (or at least the character he is playing) is too shy to talk to women, let alone marry one: "I can't get married if a woman is there."

Again and again, joke after joke brings "it" up. What's going on?

If same-sex desire is really beyond the boundaries of what can be known, then the characters are playing with an absurdity, a play on words like Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First" routine.

But same-sex desire was known, even in 1949. The Kinsey Report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) revealed its existence to millions.  George Burns and Gracie Allen knew gay people, worked with gay people in Hollywood.

Their television series often implied that teenage son Ronnie Burns (or at least the character he played) preferred the company of men.

Maybe that's why Meredith Wilson's character (in real life he was married three times) trips easily over the boundary between "confirmed bachelor" and "gay."

At the end of the episode, everyone agrees that he "should never get married." At least not to a woman.

Even in the darkest of the Dark Ages, there were still hints and innuendos.

See also: Eddie Cantor: The Craziest Reason for Gay Rumors


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My Hookup with an Eskimo

October 9, 2015, 12:47 pm
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Yuri bringing a guy home for me was not unprecedented.  In West Hollywood in the 1990s, Lee and I used to cruise separately.  He went to the Faultline, and I went to Mugi.

We arranged to meet up at 11:00 pm.  If one of us struck out, the other would "share" his hookup.  If we both met someone, we played mix-and-match in the bedroom.

Since the Faultline was for older guys, bears and daddies, and Mugi specialized in Asian twinks, it made for some diverse evenings.

One night I struck out at Mugi, but when I got home, Lee was sitting on the couch with an Asian guy.  At least I thought he was Asian.  Short, bronze skin, round face, military hair cut, shirtless, wearing a leather vest and nipple rings.

"This is Arnie," Lee said. "He's up for sharing."

"Boomer.  Pleased to meet you." I took my place on the couch next to him.

"My legal name is Joseph, but when I came out, I took the name Arnie, short for Arnauyq,  It means 'gay,' in my language, or really 'man who imitates woman.'"

"What language?"

"Inupiaq.  What you call Eskimo."

The rest of the story, and the uncensored photos, are on  Tales of West Hollywood.
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The Hookup of the Magi

October 9, 2015, 12:55 pm
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When the three guys sharing a house are all actively dating and hooking up, you never know who is going to be at the breakfast table in the morning, or wandering around at 2:00 am looking for the bathroom.

Maybe someone you like better than the guy in your bed.

But the Gay Code strictly forbade "stealing" a friend or roommate's date.  You might ask to "share," but otherwise it was strictly hands off until they broke up, and then only with their permission.

Until that night in December 2004.  I always get depressed at Christmastime anyway, and I had just gotten dumped, so I was even more depressed.

"Come out to the Club with me," Yuri said.  "You will feel better when the hot guys start cruising you."

"I'm not in the mood for hot guys, sorry.  I just want to watch tv and go to bed early."

I actually put on my bathrobe and sat down to watch tv, but after awhile, I said, "Yuri is right.  I'm going to a club." I walked over to the Filling Station, and soon got cruised by Tye.  Not really my type: a little too tall and pale, in his 30s but going bald on top.  But he kept going on about how hot I was, and when I groped him, I felt a substantial Bratwurst+, so when he invited me to get coffee, I accepted.

The rest of the story, with the uncensored photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood
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Every Man's Fantasy

October 10, 2015, 4:40 am
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Entertainment journalists like to pretend that no gay people exist, usually with the rhetoric of "everybody's fantasy," that this or that male actor draws the interest of every woman in the world, or female actress draws the attention of every man in the world.  Sometimes with "fade out kiss," the presumption that every story contains a boy and a girl.  Just pick up any issue of People, Entertainment Weekly, and TV Guide.  An issue of TV Guide picked up at random reveals:

An episode of the sitcom Just Shoot Me is about a straight guy who is mistakenly identified as gay.  So obviously the cast is aware that gay people exist.  Nevertheless, guest star Pamela Anderson proclaims, "I'm every man's fantasy!" Every man fantasizes about her, therefore every man is heterosexual.


Eric Mabius may have won accolades as the metrosexual fashion magazine editor on Ugly Betty, but “discerning women have been swooning over him since he made his feature-film debut.”  All women, no men.

When John Stamos, former Full House heartthrob, joins the cast of the medical series ER, he was displayed naked in every episode. TV Guide got the words right: he was “soaking up new viewers for the show,” not “new female viewers.”  But this inclusivity was buried amid endless speculation about what ladies on the show the hunky doctor might be hooking up with next, not to mention four photos of male-female characters being in love.

Then there's the full-page ad on the back cover.  It tells us of Chris, a man who has recently been diagnosed with diabetes.  He checks his blood sugar frequently. His reason for wanting to live a long time: “Maya, my 4 ½ year old daughter.  I will dance at her wedding.”

This was before the U.S. Supreme Court validated same-sex marriage.  Chris undoubtedly means a heterosexual wedding.

But how can he be so sure that Maya is heterosexual?  She is not even in kindergarten, so surely she has not expressed any desire, she has engaged in no sexual practices, and she has not fallen in love with anyone.

Yet Chris can be certain, because he knows that no gay people exist.  He will therefore raise Maya to believe that she is heterosexual, and more, to accept heterosexual desire, practice, and romance as ordinary, as everyday.   She will learn about same-sex desire, practice, and romance much later, if at all, as something bizarre and unknowable, something that intrudes upon her from outside.  If she happens to be a lesbian, she will feel herself bizarre and unknowable, an intrusion into the real world, the only true world, where all fathers dance at their daughters’ weddings.

See also: Gay People Absolutely Do Not Exist.



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Fall 1994: Marshall the Virgin

October 11, 2015, 5:14 am
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When I was living in West Hollywood in the 1990s, I used to work out at the Hollywood Spa with a ex-soldier named Marshall -- mid-twenties, shorter than me, very pale, with a military haircut and a hard, smooth chest.

After working out, we sometimes stopped at the Hamburger Hamlet -- maybe not the best option for after-the-gym, but the hamburgers and fries were amazing!

One night we were talking about old boyfriends, and Marshall revealed that he had never been with a guy before!

"Are you newly out?" I asked in surprise.
"No."

"Terrified of AIDS?" No.
"Self-conscious about your size?" No.
"Suffering from a urological condition?" No.

"None of those things.  I'm just waiting for Mr. Right" 

The rest of the story, with uncensored pictures, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

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Chuck Connors

October 11, 2015, 5:19 am
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Chuck Connors may be forever remembered as the taciturn, loving, and endlessly shirtless Lucas McCain,  Johnny Crawford's dad on The Rifleman, but he had a long career before and after as a screen hunk.  Born in 1920, he started out as a pro ball player -- both baseball and basketball -- before a talent scout spotted him and cast him in Pat and Mike (1952).  Dozens of Westerns, spy movies, and war movies followed, with an occasional comedy thrown in, like the tv series Hey Jeannie (1958) and Love That Jill (1958).










The Rifleman brought him fame, of course, both for his shirtless shots and for the frequency with which he kills bad guys -- two or three per episode.  Fortunately, the kids who grew up on a diet of nonstop violence turned out fine -- the 10 year olds of 1958 grew into the 20-year old anti-war protesters of the Summer of Love.





Immediately after The Rifleman, Chuck moved back to the 20th century to play Porter Ricks in the movie version of the boy-and-pet-dolphin movie Flipper (1963), with Luke Halpin as Sandy; it later became a popular, beefcake heavy tv series.

In the Doris Day comedy Move Over, Darling (1963), Ellen (Doris) is lost at sea and presumed dead, so after five years her husband Nick (James Garner) moves on.  But Ellen resurfaces during his honeymoon.  Hijinks ensue. Chuck plays Steven Burkett, the handsome, athletic, leopard-skin swimsuit-clad man she shared a desert island with for five years.  Nothing happened, however.

Some dramas and Westerns followed, including Synanon (1965), with Alex Cord; Branded (1966-67), about a man unjustly drummed out of the army for cowardice ("what do you do when you're branded, and you know you're a ma-aa-n?"; and Cowboy in Africa (1967-68), which I never saw, but appeared to be about a same-sex couple (Chuck Connors, Tom Nardini) who run a ranch in Kenya and adopt a native boy.  It was based on the movie Africa: Texas Style, starring Hugh O'Brian.



I didn't seem much of Chuck during the 1970s; he appeared mostly in Westerns, which I didn't care for.  But he appeared again in Werewolf (1987-88), which starred hunky Eric (John J. York), a college student bitten by a werewolf; Chuck played evil head werewolf Janos Skorzeny, the object of Eric's quest to free himself from his curse.





Chuck Connors died in 1992.  He was married three times and had four children.  Recently there was a rumor circulating that he did some gay porn during his pro-ball days.  I doubt it; he wasn't part of the Physique Pictorial or Henry Willson crowd, and the footage doesn't really look like him.

But here's a censored full-frontal.  It looks a lot like him.

The uncensored photo is on Tales of West Hollywood.

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My Terrible Year in Philadelphia

October 11, 2015, 7:30 am
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In 2005, when I moved into the straight world after twenty years in gay neighborhoods, I swore that I would soon be back home again.

But gay neighborhoods tend to be in the heart of fabulous big cities that everyone on Earth is desperate to live in, so academic jobs are extraordinarily competitive.  Every opening gets 300 or more applications, not only from the U.S. but worldwide, not only from new Ph.D.'s but from experienced, even tenured faculty.

Still, I kept trying, sending out applications to colleges near gay neighborhoods year after year, occasionally getting an interview but never being offered anything.

Finally, in 2013, my seventh year in the straight world, I got an offer: a small private college near Philadelphia had been stymied on its search for a tenure-track opening, so it needed someone to teach the Freshman Seminar, Research Methods, and "Law and Society"courses for a year while they were looking again.

A one year temporary position.  But in Philadelphia!

Philadelphia's version of West Hollywood is Washington Square West, an 8x12 block square bounded by Walnut, South, Lombard, and Sixth.  It is cluttered with gay bars (The Tavern on Camac, The Bike Stop), bath houses, restaurants, retail outlets, a Community Center,  and Giovanni's Room, one of the oldest gay bookstores in the world,

I was there!

I moved down in August 2013, leaving Troy and most of my stuff in my apartment Upstate. There seemed no point for him to move down for just a year.

I hated it at first, but figured that all new cities take a little getting used to.

Three months later, I was still hating it.

Six months later, I was desperately applying for every job I could, as long as it was nowhere near Philadelphia!

What went wrong?

1. The Expense. I got a frightfully expensive apartment that took up 50% of my take-home salary.

But my apartments in San Francisco and the East Village were frightfully expensive too. 

2. The Crime. It was in a high-crime neighborhood.  I always heard about robberies, assaults, shots fired.  I was afraid to go out at night.

But I used to walk down Santa Monica Boulevard at Highland without giving it a second thought.

3. The Commute.  My college was 11 miles away, about an hour by train, there and back every day.  Seemed like I spent my whole life on that train.

But when I was in grad school, I regularly took the train two hours from my apartment in Manhattan to Stony Brook, took classes, and returned with no problem.



4. The Size. It was one room, only big enough for a futon that doubled as a couch, a small table/desk, and a bookcase.

But my first apartment in West Hollywood was one room, with no bed, a built-in desk, and a microwave but no stove.  

5. The Boyfriend.  Troy was back Upstate, so every weekend I drove up to him, or he drove down to me.  So half the weekends I was out of town.  It's hard to maintain friendships or relationships that way.

In West Hollywood, I spent a semester in Turkey, and another in Nashville.  Then I returned and started right back, with no awkwardness or lost connections.

6. The Lateness.  The bars and bath houses catered to the after-midnight crowd.  Go at 9:00 pm, and you could hear the crickets chirp.  I had to get up at 6:00 am to get to work, and I was too tired to go out.

But I got up at 6:00 am my whole life, and I was never too tired to go out.

7. The Emptiness.  West Hollywood, New York, and Florida had organizations for black, Asian, and Hispanic gay men, gay doctors, lawyers, fathers, runners, Methodists, Episcopalians, Catholics, Jews, gardeners, movie buffs, football fans, Republicans, Democrats, atheists, pagans...you name it.  Philadelphia had a Community Center and some self-help groups.

In West Hollywood I belonged to some groups, but in New York and Florida I didn't.  You could meet men anywhere. 


8. The Heterosexuals.  I lived right down the street from a straight bar with pictures of 1940's pin-up girls on the ceiling  There were heterosexual couples in my building.  I saw boy-girl couples on the street all the time.

There were heterosexuals in West Hollywood and New York, too.  We always shared our community with a few daring yuppies and a few oldsters who had been living there since before the Flood.


9 The Twinks. There were a dozen gay bars, restaurants, and retail outlets within a few blocks of my apartment, all entirely occupied by twinks.  I rarely saw a guy over 30, and almost never over 40.  No matter where I went, I was the oldest person in the room.

But I was a twink magnet.  All of those 20-year olds wanted to get with me.

Remember "Hey, Nineteen"?

No, we got nothing in common
No, we can't talk at all
[But] please take me along when you slide on down.

10.  The Tourists.  The streets were crowded with guys who drove in from small towns, to spend a few hours or a few days dancing, drinking, doing drugs, and hooking up.  We had tourists in West Hollywood, San Francisco, the East Village, and Wilton Manors, especially on the weekends, but then they went home, leaving small towns populated by guys who were survivors, who had escaped from the homophobia of the straight world.  We called it Oz and Heaven, walked around smiling, unable to believe, year after year, that we were finally home.

In 2012, the homophobia of even the most backwards of towns was nowhere near as fierce, and as universal, at the homophobia of 1982, 1992, or 2002.

You could come out to straight people without being lectured at, screamed at, or asked "What do they think causes it?"

You could come out at work without being instantly fired.

The sense of community, the belief that "we are all survivors" was gone.

It was just a neighborhood with a lot of gay people. It wasn't home.
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Alix and Enak: Jonny and Hadji in Ancient Rome

October 12, 2015, 2:00 am
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If the gay kids of Britain had it good, then France must have been a Paradise of beefcake and bonding: bandes-dessinee (hard-bound comic books) overbrimmed with same-sex couples, including Tintin and Captain Haddock, Spirou and Fantasio, Corentin and Kim, and Alix and Enak.

 Alix, who premiered in 1948, was a Roman citizen from the province of Gaul (modern France) who travels through the ancient world,  through Gaul, Egypt, Persia, and eventually as far afield as India, China, and the Pacific, having death-defying adventures in historically accurate settings (give or take a few hundred years) with beautifully detailed backgrounds.






Alix is blond-hared, handsome, muscular, and frequently nude.

That's right, nude.

His creator, Jacques Martin, had no qualms about introducing rear and occasional frontal nudity into his strips.








But that's not all.  Alix is accompanied by his boyfriend Enak, a slightly younger Egyptian, dark skinned, equally handsome, muscular, and nude.

Sort of a Hadji to his Jonny Quest, or a Raji to his Terry.

In the early books, they have no interest in girls; they are devoted to each other, rescuing each other from deadly danger over and over again, saying things like "I won't leave without you!" and "If anything were to happen to you. . . ."

In the books published since the 1980s, they occasionally get girlfriends, but only as momentary dalliances; nothing can interfere with their devotion to each other.

Thirty volumes have appeared, along with some "straight' history of the ancient world illustrated by Alix comics. They have never been translated into English, but you don't need to read French to enjoy the beautifully detailed backgrounds -- or the beefcake.


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Matthew Laborteaux

October 13, 2015, 3:01 am
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Born in 1966, Matthew Laborteaux starred in several movies and tv series, including The Red Hand Gang, but he first drew the interest of gay boys and their straight female friends around 1980, when his character Albert on Little House on the Prairie shifted from cute kid to dreamy teen.  The teen idol treatment followed, with lots of pin-up pictures of Matthew and his brother Patrick (also on Little House).  





Patrick, who had a more muscular physique, may have received even more teen idol attention, though he left Little House in 1981.


In 1983 Matthew became the star of Whiz Kids, which lasted only one season but left an indelible mark on gay teens everywhere.  It was about a teenage computer whiz and his friends who solve crimes, with the help of their newspaper reporter mentor Lew (played by Max Gail of Barney Miller).  Richie (Matthew) was the computer whiz; Hamilton (Todd Porter) the jock; Jeremy (Jeffrey Jacquet) the black kid, and Alice (Andrea Elson) the girl.


There was significant bonding, oddly, between Lew and Hamilton.  In one episode, after Lew has been rescued from torture at the hands of evil record producers, Hamilton sits next to him and tenderly holds his hand.

None of the teen characters express any heterosexual interest, though Lew gets a crush on Richie's mother to explain why he hangs around teenage boys all the time.

After Whiz Kids, Matthew starred in a couple of bad movies and then moved into production and voice work.  He is rumored to be gay, but hasn't made any public statements.


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"He Was Looking at Me!": Assaulted by a Naked Man at the Gym

October 13, 2015, 5:30 am
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I always try to join a gay gym, so I don't have to deal with heteronormative comments and lady-gawking, and so no one minds if I do a little gawking of my own.

During my terrible year in Philadelphia, I joined the 12th Street Gym, only about half a mile from my apartment.

It was an older facility, kind of musty, but crowded with cute gym rats.  Unfortunately it was "gay friendly" rather than "gay." About half of the clientele consisted of gay men, and the rest straight men, who varied in their degree of comfort about being gawked at.

I don't remember even glancing at Duane that day (I never got his real name.)  It was around 7 pm, and the gym was packed with the after-work crowd.  I finished my workout and took a shower.  I remember that the shower room was full.  You had to wait your turn to get to a shower head.    

I toweled off, and walked back into the locker room.

Just as I unlocked my locker and opened the door, I heard a man yell "Stop looking at me!"

I turned -- everybody in the locker room turned.  Duane was rushing across the bare floor.  He was in his 40s, tall, black, bald, not terribly muscular.   Naked, dripping wet from the shower.

You notice weird things at a time like that.  His penis swaying from side to side.  The wet marks his feet made.

"F*** fag, stop looking at me!" 

The rest of the story, with uncensored photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.


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The Kensington Runestone

October 14, 2015, 4:14 am
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Every summer from kindergarten to college (when I decided to stay home), my parents dragged me on a week's camping trip somewhere up north, to Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, or Canada.  Other than the roadside beefcake, it was usually pretty dismal, with no tv, no museums, no historic sites, nothing to do but hunt, fish, swim, and mess around in boats.

But during the summer after eighth grade, we went camping in Alexandria, Minnesota, site of the Kensington Runestone.








Young Swedish immigrant Olof Ohlman discovered the 200-pound slab of sandstone covered with Medieval runes in 1898.  It tells about a group of 30 Vikings who left Vinland "on an exploration journy" in 1362, and somehow made it to Minnesota.  One day some of them went fishing, and returned to find the men they left behind "red with blood and death," probably attacked by Skraelings (Indians).

My junior high history textbook stated categorically that no Europeans made it to the New World before Columbus, so this was a startling discovery, and immediately controversial.  The academic establishment decreed the runestone to be a fake, carved by Ohlman for financial gain.


In 1907, a young historian named Hjalmar Holand bought the runestone, and spent the rest of his life trying to prove it genuine, describing how Vikings could well have made it to Minnesota in books like Westward from Vinland (1940) and A Pre-Columbian Crusade to America (1962). 

The jury is still out on whether the runestone is authentic, but Alexandria loves its claim to fame.  There's a runestone museum and gift shop, and a 28-foot statue of a Viking, Big Ole.

Today, regardless of whether they believe that the Vikings got as far as Minnesota, all historians recognize that they reached the New World before Columbus, and established a permanent settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland.



What's the gay connection?

1. The Vikings who explored Minnesota were all male.

2. Olof Ohlmann was rather cute.

3. My junior high history textbook was wrong.  The adults either didn't know about the Viking exploration of America, or they were lying about it.  What else were they hiding? Maybe the upcoming "discovery of girls" that everyone at Washington Junior HIgh was always evoking was a lie, too.

See also: The Top 12 Public Penises of Minnesota



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The Top 12 Public Penises of Minnesota

October 14, 2015, 4:17 am
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Minnesota is only about a five hour drive from Rock Island, where I grew up, but it's a whole different world.

1. Everybody walks around in t-shirts and shorts, even when it's cold outside.
2. Prime time starts at 7:00 pm.
3. "Dinner" is a noon meal.
4. It's not soda, it's "pop."
5. You have to smile all the time, or people ask you "what's wrong?"
6. You're supposed to talk about the weather.  A lot.
7. There's a surprising amount of nudity or beefcake in public art.



Here are the Top 10 Public Penises:

1. "The Progress of the State" at the Minnesota State Capitol (see my post on Roadside Beefcake)

2. This muscular guy in underwear is on the front facade of Grace Lutheran Church in Mankato.  I think he's the resurrected Christ.










3. Bemidji features a statue of Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox, plus several Indians, such as Nanabozho the trickster god.  Here he is naked.

4. Alexandria features a giant statue of a Viking, Big Ole, plus a giant replica of the Kensington Runestone (see my post on the runestone).











5.  Who'd expect to see this neoclassical Greek sculpture outside the Minnesota Historical Center in Minneapolis?

6. The Minnesota State football team is the Spartans, so Fergus Falls has a statue of a (fully clothed) Spartan.

7. There's another Viking, sword raised, in Spring Grove.










8. The 40-foot tall "Beach Dude" in Hampton has a prominent bulge.














9. "Wings" is stylized, but definitely a male figure with a penis, in the lobby of the Rand Tower in Minneapolis.

10. There's another muscular, semi-nude Indian on the grounds of the Kandiyohi County Courthouse in Willmar.













11. In the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, this sculpture shows a male angel kissing a naked man.  I'm pretty sure they're both men.

















12. It also has a full range of ordinary male nudes, like this drawing of a youth by Benedetto Luti.








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Brock Ciarlelli: The Uncle Tom of "The Middle"

October 15, 2015, 5:44 am
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As a long time fan of the dysfunctional-family sitcom The Middle (2009), I have complained several times about the incessant heterosexism: boys like girls, girls like boys, period, end of story.

Charlie McDermott's Axl has some gay subtext scenes.

I thought that preteen Brick was gay, but no, the minute his character hit puberty, his "hormones" kicked in, and he became girl crazy.

And that's about it.


There is a recurring gay character, sort of: the uber-stereotypic swish Brad, Sue's high school friend.  The joke is: no one realizes that Brad is gay except Sue's parents, Frankie and Mike.

Certainly not Sue, who is unaware that gay people exist.  Not even Brad, also unaware.

Wait -- don't these teenagers watch Glee?  

So who is this person with the 5,000 teeth who has won two Young Artist Awards for his contribution to the erasure of gay people from the world?

His name is Brock Ciarlelli, and he's 19 years old, a Littleton, Colorado native currently studying at Chapman University.


Other than The Middle, he only has two projects listed on the IMDB: a walk-on in the thriller 2.0 (2010) and the tv movie Beth and Ali (2013).

Asked if he minded playing a gay character, he said "no."

Asked about his character's obliviousness to his gay identity, he said: "to me, that says that sexual orientation doesn't matter."

I've got news for you Brock: sexual orientation matters a great deal to the LGBT kids who are told daily that no gay people exist.

Brock and other teen favorites, such as Nickelodeon's Nick Cannon, are involved in an anti-bullying program where they talk to kids in classrooms via Skype.

That doesn't make up for being an Uncle Tom.

Postscript: In the October 14, 2015 episode, Brad comes out to Sue, sort of:

Brad:  "Sue, I have something to tell you.  I'm...."
Sue: "I know."
Frankie (voiceover): "Since Brad had the courage to tell Sue who he was...."

Ok, the word "gay" was never used.  It still must never be spoken, only implied.

See also: Axl in Underwear; Raising Hope/The Middle

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The Satyr and his Boy Toy

October 15, 2015, 11:03 am
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When I moved to Upstate New York in the fall of 2008, my social calendar was soon crowded with invitations from members of the Gang of Twelve, guys who had known each other for years, and who shared everything, from gossip to boyfriends.

All of them told me, "You have to meet the Satyr!" But they all had different stories.

The Rich Kid: he's a muscle bear who used to work in porn movies.

The Truck Driver: he's cultured, artistic, and very romantic.

The Rapper: he's a Sugar Daddy with a fetish for black men.

The Grabby Male Nurse: he's a sexual dynamo, able to keep going all night (thus his nickname).


Date #5. The Satyr

He didn't send any photos or give any stats, so I didn't know what to expect when I drove to old Victorian on the west side of Oneonta.  But I certainly didn't expect Chad, the waiter from the Neptune, to answer the door.

"Hey, Chad! I didn't know the Satyr had a roommate."

"I'm not his roommate," he said with a cryptic smile.  "He's still getting dressed -- come on in and wait in the parlor."

He ushered me into a room cluttered with heavy leather furniture, old black-and-white photographs, bookshelves, a coffee table made out of an old crate.

I was left alone for about ten minutes to leaf through coffee table books on Asian art and try to make friends with a skittish cat, until the Satyr finally came down the stairs.

A tall, husky, bearded bear, around 60 years old.  Broad shoulders, round belly.  And, when he gave me a hug, I felt that he had a baseball bat down there, all revved up and ready to go. 

"Don't take it personally," the Satyr said with a chuckle.  "I'm always like that when I meet a new guy."

The rest of the story, with uncensored photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.
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Joe Penny: A Lifetime of Gay Rumors

October 16, 2015, 4:12 am
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Born in 1956, Joe Penny got his start playing rednecks, cops, Scott Jacoby's buddy in a high school sports drama, and a  werewolf's buddy in a horror movie.

But it was his role as a closeted gay cop on Lou Grant (1979) that brought him notoriety -- and a long career in gay-subtext buddy-bonding roles.










Nick Ryder in Riptide (1984-86)  was a throwback to the Swinging Detective Adventurers of the 1960s who worked out of glamorous locales and came in pairs.  His partner, Cody Allen, was played by Perry King (the one with the muscles), whose resume has a long list of gay and nearly-gay characters.








Jake on Jake and the Fatman (1987-92), a Swinging Detective Adventure in Hawaii, partnered with Fatman William Conrad.

Frank Darnell, head of the Central Security Agency who employs soccer mom Cathy Davis and hangs out with her husband, Jack (William R. Moses) in a series of Jane Doe movies (2005-2008).





Never married, he has often been the subject of gay rumors; and, when he was ill during the 1980s, the rumor that he had AIDS.  Both are untrue, he states; he just hasn't found the right woman yet.

He's only 59  years old.  He's got plenty of time, right?

See also: Don Stroud
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Mohammed Gives Me a Christmas Present

October 16, 2015, 9:23 am
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December  18th, 1987

My second year in West Hollywood.  I was planning to fly home for Christmas the next day, but I woke up sick: feverish, dizzy, headache, sore throat.

"Why do I always gt sick at Christmastime?" I asked myself savagely.  The answer came: Too busy, too much stress, too much fat and sugar, not enough exercise.

I cancelled my flight, and waited to get better.

December 22nd

I could hardly eat anything due to the sore throat.  I called my regular doctor, but he was out of town, so they offered to get me an appointment with a substitute.

The rest of the story, with nude pictures, is on Tales of West Hollywood.
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The Angelheaded Hipster: Craig Hundley

October 16, 2015, 3:10 pm
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If you saw the Star Trek episode "And the Children Shall Lead" (1967),  in which an alien "angel" brainwashes a group of children into taking control of the Enterprise, you remember Craig  Hundley.  He's the tall, lanky redhead in the weird striped smock -- about a foot taller than the others, way too old to play their "chasing each other" game, looking heavily embarrassed.

No wonder -- the others were between 7 and 10 years old, and Craig was 13,

Craig was a busy child and teen actor through the 1960s. He played Captain Kirk's nephew in another Star Trek episode, and he appeared on Ben Casey, Dragnet, The Virginian, Green Acres, Adam-12, and Kojak.  Several of his characters were "oddballs," outcasts, or residents of an underworld easily queered. He plays a mischievous young warlock on Bewitched, and one of the boys who convinces Greg to start smoking on The Brady Bunch.

He's hard to track down, since he went by Chris Hundley as a kid, Craig Hundley as a teenager, and Craig Huxley as an adult


At age 14,  he started a jazz band, the Craig Hundley Trio, with his friends, J. J. Wiggins (now jazz musician Hassan Shakur) and Gary Chase (now a composer and orchestrator for film).

Their Arrival of a Young Giant (1969) portrays them as cute, hip, and well-scrubbed. The back cover even includes their ages and weights, to emphasize their physicality, presumably to a teen audience.  But the music inside:  Chopin, Bach, and instrumental versions of the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, and "The Jet Song" from West Side Story, plus Craig's own composition, "Arrival." Not the usual teen idol fare.

Craig Hundley Plays with the Big Boys (1970), contains  Beethoven and Burt Bacharach.  Old standards for the adult crowd.





Next came an all-Gershwin album.

Jazz musicians are not known for being gay-friendly.  But none of the lyrics of the original songs Craig chose are heterosexist.  In fact, none mention girls at all. Some, such as "The Jet Song" and "The Midnight World," acknowledge a world of men.

He gave up jazz in the early 1980s to concentrate on synethesizer and electronic music, for which he has invented a number of instruments, including the Blaster Beam.  He has produced over 20 albums, including instrumentals for Roberta Flack, Quincy Jones, and Neil Diamond.  But he remains close to Hollywood, composing the music for Forbidden World (1982), Crime of Innocence (1985),  Rock Hudson (1990), and Walker - Texas Ranger (1993-2001), and the soundtracks for the first two Star Trek movies.

No word on whether he is interested in men, women, both, or neither.

See also: Star Trek


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1970s Saturday Morning Beefcake

October 17, 2015, 3:48 am
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During the late 1970s, there was a fad for live-action adventure on Saturday morning tv. Mostly low-budget, sometimes stage-bound, but with lots of cute boys and men for the preteen set.  Occasional shirtless shots and some buddy bonding.  In the fall of 1977, for instance:

At 8:00: Space Academy (1977-78), starring Jonathan Harris of Lost in Space as the headmaster of an academy for kids with paranormal powers.  The main hunk was second-in-command Chris (Ric Carrott, seen here in a later softcore porn flick).  But there was also the super-intelligent Paul (Ty Henderson), the super-strong Tee Gar (Brian Tochi), and their mascot, an orphan boy named Loki (Eric Greene).




At 8:30: Skatebirds (1977-78). A Saturday morning  ripoff of The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, lacking the earlier series’ insightful social commentary or wry wit.  But one of the live action segments, Mystery Island, starred the muscular Stephen Parr , the robot from Lost in Space, plus their two teen companions, played by Larry Volk and Lynn Marie Johnston.




At 9:00: Kids from C.A.P.E.R. (1976-78), about four teenagers working for the Civilian Authority for the Protection of Everybody: the leader P.T. (Steve Bonino), muscular Bugs (Cosi Costa), gentle Doomsday (Biff Warren, left), and intellectual Doc (John Lansing).  They displayed varying levels of heterosexual interest in the girl of the week, and the blond, muscular Doomsday, none at all.






At 9:30: Search and Rescue (1977-78): the Alpha Team consisted of Dr. Bob Donell (Michael J. Reynolds), Katy (Donann Cavin), Jim (Michael Tough, left), and some specially trained animals











At 10:00: The Red Hand Gang (1977-78), inner city kids who fought crime: leader Frankie (Matthew Laborteaux, center, who would go on to star in Whiz Kids), J.R. (J.R. Miller, right), Lil Bill (Johnn Brogan, second right), and Doc (James Bond III, right).

And there were many others with that I missed.

See also: More Saturday Morning Live Action Beefcake


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