12 Public Hookups

February 20, 2016, 3:43 am

≫ Next: General Whitman and his Cold War Boyfriend

≪ Previous: A Boy, a Man, and a Caribbean Island: Two Stories of Hookups Gone Wrong

Hookup websites list lots of places to meet guys in public: restrooms in shopping malls and on college campuses, heavily-wooded parks, secluded beaches. But I've never understood the attraction. It's dangerous, illegal, and uncomfortable. Why not just invite him back to your apartment?

I haven't had a lot of experience with public activity, but there have been a few times when I gave in to temptation.

High School

1. My second sexual experience, with Tyrone my workout buddy, took place in his car in the high school parking lot.

College

2. In Rock Island a lot of men went cruising at the levee, and did things right there in their parked cars. I was too skittish to do it there, but I did go home with Professor Burton, who held the annual handcuff parties.

3. During my senior year in college, I hooked up with a student in my Photojournalism class. We didn't have anyplace to go -- I lived at home, and he lived in the dorm -- so we went to the stacks in the library -- deserted on a Saturday night, PK section.

4. Trapped at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis later that year, I learned about cruising in public restrooms.

5. When I was visiting India, just after getting my M.A. from Indiana University, Viju took me to Jahanpanah City Forest in Delhi. I met Arshad the Zoroastrian, who took me out to dinner and then on a tour of the spiritual pilgrimage sites in Delhi.

6. Later that summer, on the way to my first teaching job in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, I spent the night in Oxford. Mississippi, and met three country boys in the woods outside of the Faulkner mansion, including Elmer, a University of Minnesota undergrad who came back to my hotel to spend the night.

West Hollywood

7. At a conference at Notre Dame, I met a Catholic undergrad, who took me to a path that went around St. Joseph lake on the Notre Dame campus.

8. In the spring of 1989, during my semester teaching in Ankara, I found that Turkish men were cruising each other constantly, in the park, on the metro, in the hamams. A lot of the college boys cruised in the wooded hills beyond Bilkent University, but I met an older guy there: Turkish moustache, furry chest, thick Bratwurst.

9. During the Great Redneck Roundup of 1995, we stopped at a rest stop near Laramie, and I climbed into a truck cab.

San Francisco

10. One day my effervescent, outrageous friend David tried to get me to pick up a clerk at Macy's in a public restroom. But I wimped out and made a date with him instead.

New York

11. During my summer in Paris, I went to Suam Thai for dinner almost every night, and got extensively cruised by the chef. One night he invited me into the kitchen to discuss something, and one thing led to another. We ended up making out in the supply room.

12. When I was living in Manhattan and commuting to Long Island to work on my Ph.D., I I had three choices: take guys home on a two-hour train ride; borrow Yuri's apartment; or entertain them in my office -- in a secluded corridor in the Social Science Building.

I shared with three other graduate students. But I knew their schedules, so it was safe.

Still, every time I brought someone in, I listened carefully for the sound of a key in that lock.

Nothing in public since 2001 -- I have an apartment with a nice soft bed, only about ten minutes from here, so....

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

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General Whitman and his Cold War Boyfriend

February 20, 2016, 3:45 am

≫ Next: Top 12 Public Penises of the Caribbean

≪ Previous: 12 Public Hookups

When I was a kid in the 1960s, my parents hated books. Comic books were suspect enough -- but full-sized books would brainwash me into believing atheism and evil-lution, keep me away from healthy masculine activities like sports, and "strain my brain"! Maybe they were worried that reading would make me want to escape the future of factory job, house, wife, and kids they had mapped out for me.

So I could only get away with reading only if I could convince them that it was required for school. That made General Whitman's Adventures ideal.

They were brief, 15-page storybooks, accompanied by "adventure maps," written by George S. Elrick (who also wrote tie-in books for tv series like Flipper, Batman, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.). They were published by comic book company Whitman (talk about product placement!).

General Whitman's Adventures in Intriguing Europe

General Whtiman's Adventures in Exotic Asia
General Whitman's Adventures in Exciting Africa

After that they ran out of adjectives, and just had him traveling to Australia, North America, South America, the United States, and Around the World.

General Whitman, a "global troubleshooter for the armed forces," was a thin, middle aged white guy carrying a globe.

In each story, he traveled across the designated continent with his assistant, Lieutenant Scott, on on a top secret assignment. In South America, for instance, he was assigned to inspect rivers that might provide "juice for mission control centers, "and to select likely sites for camouflaged missile silos."

This was during the Cold War, after all.

Meanwhile he pontificated about the continent's history and geography -- with what today seems a very paternistic, Orientalist superiority complex: "Before this continent was discovered, the poor savages were uncivilized."

And Lieutenant Scott expressed constant disgust or amazement over local customs. In Tibet, he exclaimed: "That lady's making a sandwich out of her face!"

"Butter is often used as a beauty aid here," the General explains. "The Tibetans are too primitive to have our modern scientific cosmetics."

Still, it beat National Geographic, with its boring "This country is a study in contrasts, embracing its rich traditions and looking toward the future."

And I could claim "research for my geography class."

And neither General Whitman nor Lieutenant Scott mentioned wives or girlfriends back home. I was pretty sure that they were best men (my childhood term for gay partners).

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Top 12 Public Penises of the Caribbean

February 21, 2016, 4:12 am

≫ Next: Why is a Comic Book Store like a Gay Bar

≪ Previous: General Whitman and his Cold War Boyfriend

When I lived in Florida, people kept trying me to go on cruises on the Caribbean.

But...that would involve getting on a big boat. We've invented airplanes now, that get you there faster.

"But they have beaches. You can lie in the sun."

"Um...we have beaches in Florida."

"Cuba has some of the greatest architectural masterpieces in the world."

"Can't go, American citizens aren't allowed."

"What about history? Columbus, pirates, Haitian voodoo, Ricky Ricardo...."

"Yeah, about that. Antiquated sodomy laws left over from the British Empire, some of the worst homophobia in the world..."

So I won't be going to the Caribbean anytime soon. But in case you do, here are some public penises to look out for.

1. Havana, Cuba apparently has some interesting neoclassical statues, like a semi-nude Neptune on El Malecon, the central avenue.

2. Jamaica is known for its reggae music, its Rastafarians, and its intense homophobia (usually ignored in the travel ads). And in Emancipation Park, one of the most nude of the nude statues of ex-slaves. A symbol of freedom.

3. This statue of Paul Bogle, the Baptist minister who led the 1865 Jamaican rebellion against the British, is a little more sedate, with a sword covering his penis.

4. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Most of the population speaks Haitian Creole, practice the Afro-Caribbean religion of voodoo, and blamed the 2010 earthquake on gay people. But at least same-sex relations are legal.

In downtown Port-au-Prince, this memorial to the Unknown Slave shows a muscleman blowing a conch shell.

5. Moving east to the Dominican Republic, the capital city of Santo Domingo features a surprising aquamarine statue of Enriquillo, the Taino Indian who rebelled against the Spanish from 1519 to 1533.

More after the break.

6. Next on our way east lies the island of Puerto Rico, an American possession where same-sex relations are legal. In San Juan, the Plaza de Armas, an old square, has a number of statues, mostly female, but this fountain includes some muscular male nudes.

7. A little to the east lies two sets of Virgin Islands. In Charlotte Amalie (British Virgin Islands) you can see another Unknown Slave blowing his conch shell.

8. There's another in Frederiksted. on St. Croix (American Virgin Islands).

9, Not much of beefcake interest in Anguilla, St. Kitts and Nevis, Montserrat, Guadelupe, Martinique, or St. Lucia, but Grenada has a creepy underwater sculpture park (65 naturalistic statues, their eyes closed as if they have drowned). Some are getting encrusted with algae and sea creatures, making them creepier still.

It was installed by British artist Jason de Caires Taylor in 2012. I don't know why.

10. We can't get enough of slaves breaking out of their shackles. This nude example is in Barbados, a former British colony in the Antilles where same-sex relations can get you life in prison (although no one has been sentenced for many years).

11. We've hit the coast of South America with Trinidad and Tobago, which has a large Hindu population, and a giant statue of Lord Hanuman.

12. Working westward, we finally reach Curacao, a former Dutch colony that gained independence in 2010. Dutch is still the most common language, along with the creole Papiamento. The Tula Monument commemorates a slave who led a rebellion against the Dutch in 1795.

See also: The Top 12 Public Penises of South America; and The Top 12 Public Penises of Central America.

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Why is a Comic Book Store like a Gay Bar

February 22, 2016, 3:00 am

≫ Next: Getting Spanked at the Oscars

≪ Previous: Top 12 Public Penises of the Caribbean

Remember the Summer of 1976?

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!

Bicentennial celebrations in every city.

Silent Movie, Murder by Death, The Omen

Welcome Back Kotter, Barney Miller, Bob Newhart,

"Afternoon Delight,""You Should Be Dancing,""Shake Your Booty"

The Heritage of Hastur, A Midsummer Tempest, Interview with the Vampire

Camping in Minnesota, where I got on my knees in a cute boy's room.

My first sexual experience, with Todd the Violinist at music camp.

And this issue of Uncle Scrooge, with Scrooge and company traveling to Unsteadystan in search of "The Treasure of Marco Polo."

But it was impossible to get in Rock Island. The price of new comics had gone up from 15 to 30 cents in just two years, and would double again by 1979. Schneider's Drug Store and Readmore Book World no longer stocked them.

If you managed to get a ride to the Mall, you could find a few scattered titles at the Waldenbooks, but nothing reliable - and you had to listen to a clerk's snarky "Going to do a little heavy reading tonight?"

Then I heard through the grapevine that a store specializing in comic books, the Comics Cave, had opened on 19th Avenue in Moline, about a mile from my house.

An easy summer walk.

I didn't have any friends who were still into comic books, so one Thursday afternoon in August, I walked down by myself: 20th Avenue to 46th Street, up to 19th Avenue, across the border into Moline, past the A&W, the Eagle Supermarket, the Belgian Village where we often stopped for Vander Reubens, and finally to the Comics Cave.

A storefront with rows of old and new comics in boxes, and new issues in a display rack. Mostly Marvel and DC, but a whole section of "Kid's Comics," with Archie, Harvey, and all the Gold Key titles.

Plus a box of discards, including a lot of Four-Color Dell titles from the 1950s.

I was in heaven!

I brought a pile of comics, enough to clean out my allowance, up to the counter.

Moment of truth: would the clerk let me buy Archie, Harvey, and Gold Key comics without ridicule?

Yep -- no jabs, no digs, no "got some heavy reading to do tonight?"

I became a regular, stopping in at least once a week, usually on Thursdays when the new issues came out, through high school and college, until I moved away to go to grad school in Bloomington.

There was another reason to go to the Comics Cave once a week: the beefcake

Chad, the owner, wasn't really attractive, a little chunky, with a sharp face, an intolerably big nose, and a red beard.

But the customers were exclusively male. A scattering of little kids and adults, but mostly high school and college-age boys.

A science major in tight jeans leafing through back issues of The X-Men.

Superman.

A skittish football player picking up the latest issue of

Two tall, thin, androgynous guys, obviously boyfriends, making plans to go to the Chicago Comic-Con and meet Stan Lee.

Chad and a cute redhead discussing whether the new Captain America tv series lived up to the comic book.

No discussions of girlfriends, no interrogations about which actress you would like in your bed, no "isn't that woman hot?"

A roomful of guys looking at, thinking about, and talking about muscular men.

It was like a gay bar, without the hookups.

No wonder I went back week after week.

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

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Getting Spanked at the Oscars

February 14, 2016, 3:15 am

≫ Next: Mat Botuchis

≪ Previous: Why is a Comic Book Store like a Gay Bar

I had a friend in West Hollywood, Larry, who had a very nice house in the heart of Old Hollywood, walking distance to Mann's Chinese Theater, and every year he held an Oscar party for 20 or 30 gay men.

We had to mark little ballots about who we thought would win Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Costume, and so on, and the one who got the most categories right won a prize-- a nude photo of Yul Brynner (bisexual star of The King and I), an anatomically correct Oscar statue, or a camp music album like The Odd Couple Sings.

If you got too many categories wrong, you got a spanking, bare butt, one slap on one cheek, by each of the other guests in turn.

The problem is, except for blockbuster science fiction, I saw only movies with gay characters, a promise of gay subtexts, or significant beefcake, so my knowledge was limited. Check the best picture nominees that I had actually seen at the time of the Oscars. And my spankings.

Larry's House

1988: None of the nominees. Winner: The Last Emperor. Spanking

1989: I was in Turkey.

1990: None of the nominees. Winner: Driving Miss Daisy.

1991: Ghost (which I thought would be paranormal) and Goodfellas. Winner: Dances with Wolves.

1992: Bugsy and JFK. Winner: Silence of the Lambs.

1993: Howard's End and The Crying Game. Winner: Unforgiven.

1994: The Fugitive. Winner: Schindler's List. Spanking

1995: I didn't go.

1996: None. Winner: Braveheart. Spanking.

1997: Fargo. Winner: The English Patient. Spanking

1998 and 1999: I was in New York.

2000: Larry didn't do it, but another guy hosted. None Winner: Shakespeare in Love.

2001-2004 I didn't go.

2005: Finding Neverland. Winner: Million Dollar Baby.

4 spankings in 11 Oscar parties!

It wasn't all bad. Some of the guys turned the spanking into a grope, and by the end of the evening I usually had a few telephone numbers.

But still, either I have to start watching more heterosexual dramas, or Hollywood has to start nominating more movies with gay content.

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Mat Botuchis

February 23, 2016, 4:35 am

≫ Next: The Great 2007 Hookup Contest: Midwest Muscle vs. West Hollywood Street Smarts

≪ Previous: Getting Spanked at the Oscars

Born in 1983, Mat Botuchis got his start in one of the martial-arts -craze vehicles of the 1990s, High Noon at Mega Mountain, where he had to flex his muscles and get a girlfriend (1998). He had the look and style to become one of the top teen idols of the 1990s, but he was more interested in serious acting.

He's appeared in MTV's Undressed, The Amanda Show, the gay movie Ten Attitudes (2001), and on the gay-themed tv series Will and Grace (2005-2006). He played the only straight guy working at the Out TV network.

Name recognition still eludes Mat, but hopefully his incipient movie career will change that.

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The Great 2007 Hookup Contest: Midwest Muscle vs. West Hollywood Street Smarts

February 23, 2016, 4:55 am

≫ Next: Simpsons Beefcake: Homer, Bart, and Friends Bulk Up

≪ Previous: Mat Botuchis

West Hollywood, February 2007

I fly from Dayton to LAX for a job interview at Los Angeles City College. After an interview with the recruitment committee, my job talk, and dinner at a Mexican restaurant, I am dropped off at my hotel.

I change into my West Hollywood clothes, and my ex Lane picks me up. We go to the French Quarter for dessert with my old friends Marshall and Will the Bondage Boy, plus Marshall's boyfriend Mark and a Cute Young Thing named Jake, who doesn't seem attached to anyone.

I have two nights in Los Angeles, and I want to go to all my old haunts. The Different Light Bookstore! The Bodhi Tree! The gay synagogue! The Faultline! My old gym!

"I have an idea," Lane says. "Remember the Great Redneck Roundup of 1995? We can spend the night tricking -- pick someone up, bring him home, do him, kick him out, back to the bar for the next guy."

"But we were Cute Young Things back then. I'm 46!"

"So what? I'm 51!"

"And I really wanted to go to my favorite places again..."

"Why not do both?" Mark suggests. "There are five of us. Each will take you to one of your favorite spots for an hour, and whoever can pick up someone wins."

"Are you ready to pitch your Midwestern farmboy muscles against our West Hollywood street-smarts?" Lane asks.

During the next two nights, the Great Hookup Contest takes place at:

1. The Different Light Bookstore, with Mark.

2. L.A. Fitness, with Marshall

3. The Bodhi Tree, with Jake

4. The Synagogue, with Lane.

5. The Faultline, with Will and Lane

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

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Simpsons Beefcake: Homer, Bart, and Friends Bulk Up

February 24, 2016, 4:23 am

≫ Next: Swiss Family Robinson

≪ Previous: The Great 2007 Hookup Contest: Midwest Muscle vs. West Hollywood Street Smarts

The Simpsons is the longest running network tv program of all time, with 547 episodes to date over a period of 25 years, surpassing even The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. I watched religiously for the first ten years or so. Now my viewing is a little sporadic; some episodes are still very good, and others mediocre but worth watching, but most are "been there, saw that!" After 25 years, it's hard to be fresh and innovative.

At first it was queasy about the presence of LGBT people; Waylon Smithers, toady to town billionaire Montgomery Burns, came out slowly, painfully, a running joke over many seasons. The only other gay regular character is Patty, Marge's sister, who came out in a gay marriage episode. There have been a few other gay characters, here and there, over the years, mostly fey stereotypes, but nothing like the jaw-droppingly nasty homophobia of other Fox animated sitcoms like Family Guy.

Plus occasional references to the fluidity of desire.

And tons of beefcake. Shirts come off regularly. Here are the top 10 beefcake hunks:

1. Groundskeeper Willie first ripped off his shirt in "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Badaass Song" (1994), to chase a dog through the ventilation system: "Grease me up, woman!" he orders Lunch Lady Doris. He's repeatedly ripped off his shirt since, displaying an incongruously massive physique. Also a nude backside.

2. Ned Flanders, the Simpsons' fundamentalist Christian neighbor, has another incongruously massive physique, first displayed when he played Stanley Kowalski in the 1992 episode "A Streetcar Named Marge." He has been shown exercising many times since, to the consternation of homoerotically-challenged Homer "Stupid sexy Flanders."

3. Perennial thief Snake tones his muscles in the prison exercise yard, giving "hope to scrawny young men everywhere."

4. The Arnold Schwarzenegger parody, beefcake actor Rainier Wolfcastle, first appeared in "The Way We Was" (1991), and has been a perennial beefcake presence ever since, even giving a buffed-up Homer a job as his personal trainer

5. The Mike Tyson parody, boxer Drederick Tatum, first appeared in "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment" (1991), and has flexed in the ring or soaked in a hot tub 22 times.

5. Bart Simpson? While usually nondescript or fat,all of the Simpsons have bulked up in the series or in the comic books: Bart, Homer, Marge, Lisa. Even Grandpa Simpson has shown major hunkage in flashbacks to his World War II days.

6. Duffman is the heavily-muscled spokesperson for Duff Beer, parodying the former Budweiser catchphrase "Oh, yeah!" He is gay, and in a long-term relationship.

7. Radioactive Man, Bart's favorite comic book character, also has his own real-life comic book title.

8. The gay men Homer encounters tend to be feminine stereotypes, but they also know their way around a gym. Homer accidentally takes Bart to an all-gay steel mill in "Homer's Phobia" (1997), and later he moves in with two buffed, feminine gay guys in "Three Gays of the Condo" (2003).

9. Muscular billionaire Hank Scorpio turns out to be a supervillain in "You Only Move Twice" (1996).

10. There are many, many more muscular, shirtless guys in the background in tv episodes and tie-in merchandise: lifeguards, athletes, college fratboys, boy band members. This is a juggler who performs at the Springfield Squidport in the video game The Simpsons: Tapped Out

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Swiss Family Robinson

February 25, 2016, 1:37 am

≫ Next: February 2016: What Dustin Likes About Older Guys

≪ Previous: Simpsons Beefcake: Homer, Bart, and Friends Bulk Up

When I was a kid in the 1960s, most books were gender-coded, but both boys and girls received copies of Gulliver's Travels and the Johann David Wyss classic Swiss Family Robinson (1812) for their bookshelves. Boys were expected to read it for the shipwreck and savages, and girls for the family setting up housekeeping on the desert island.

I didn't like it much. I had bad memories of The Book of Cute Boysthat my father threw out the window.

At least there was no heterosexual fade-out kiss -- the family encounters another shipwreck survivor, an "American cousin" whom no one bothers to fall in love with. But there was little homoromance, either, with no one on the island but family.

But the tropical setting provided some beefcake potential, so I kept a close watch on the various film and tv versions. Unfortunately, many of them upped the role of The Girl to create a heterosexual romance.

1. Swiss Family Robinson (1975-76). The tv version with Adam-12 hunk Martin Milner and up-and-coming bodybuilder Willie Aames. No girl-craziness, but everyone was fully clothed throughout.

2. Swiss Family Robinson (1960). The Disney version with James MacArthur, Tommy Kirk (left), and Kevin Corcorran. Muscular physiques everywhere, but both Fritz and Ernst swoon over a girl.

3. The New Swiss Family Robinson (1998) is set in the modern era and adds a French-speaking jungle girl (Yumi Iwama), who kidnaps older brother Shane (John Asher of Weird Science). They dive Tarzan-and-Jane style into the lagoon, kiss, and plan a wedding.

But at least younger brother Todd (Blake Bashoff expresses no interest.

4. Stranded (2002), with Jesse Spencer as Fritz. Nuff said.

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February 2016: What Dustin Likes About Older Guys

February 25, 2016, 2:26 am

≫ Next: The Graduate Revisited

≪ Previous: Swiss Family Robinson

Remember last January, when I went to a heterosexual party, and hooked up with the host's 21-year old son, Dustin? (Not his real name.)

Dustin is in college in Minneapolis, but last week he drove out for the long weekend. On Saturday, he was busy with his friends, but on Sunday we went out to dinner at the new Mexican place and saw Deadpool, at the Mall.

The tickets seemed rather cheap. While we were waiting to buy popcorn, I looked at my receipt.

Senior Citizen Discount!

Whoa, I'm only 55. I won't be eligible for senior citizen discounts for at least five years!

"It must be the contrast effect," Dustin said. "The average age of this crowd is about twenty, so you naturally look old.,"

I looked around. Almost all college-age boys, in pairs and groups.

Suddenly I felt very out of place. I tried to concentrate on the pre-movie commercials.

"Anyway, who can tell the difference between 55 and 60? Or 40 and 60, for that matter? There's young, and then there's old, that's all."

"What's that you say, sonny?" I said, hurt. "Why, in my day, we had respect for our elders. When my Dad told me to go out and feed the dinosaurs, by golly, I jumped to it!"

Dustin caressed my knee in the darkness. "Hey, Grandpa Simpson, you got the goods. I'd jump into bed with you sooner than any of these Marvel fanboys. In fact, I'll bet that you're the only guy in the whole theater who has a 100% chance of getting laid tonight."

The full story, with nude photos is on Tales of West Hollywood.

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The Graduate Revisited

February 25, 2016, 4:04 pm

≫ Next: February 2016: The Gay Kid in the Farmhouse

≪ Previous: February 2016: What Dustin Likes About Older Guys

This post on The Graduate (1967), starring gay ally Dustin Hoffman, finds lots of gay subtexts in the tale of the alienated young man who has an affair with his girlfriend's bored Establishment mother.

Gay symbolism aside, I didn't enjoy The Graduate. It was too deadly serious. Everyone was trying way too hard to be depressed. And Benjamin Braddock was something of a twit.

Guess what? It was supposed to be a comedy!

Find me one humorous scene in the gut-wrenching suburban angst!

Find me one joke!

Find me any way at all to read the final scene, when Benjamin and Elaine drive off into oblivion while Paul Simon sings "Hello darkness, my old friend..." as anything but depressing!

But at least we get so see a good deal of Dustin Hoffman's body. He's naked often, and in at least one scene floating in a pool with a phallic beer can protruding from his crotch.

In 2000, Terry Johnson, a London playwright who specializes in the fictionalized meeting of historical characters (Alfred Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Salvador Dali, Sigmund Freud), wrote a stage version of the original novel.

It opened in London, and ran for a respectable 380 performances on Broadway, with Jason Biggs as Benjamin Braddock, Alicia Silverstone as Elaine (the girlfriend), and Kathleen Turner as Mrs. Robinson (the older women).

The reviews were horrendous.

A mish-mash of iconic scenes from the movie, with new scenes that don't make any sense, characters stuck in the 1960s but with modern sensibilities, or stuck with 1960s sensibilities in the modern era.

The gay symbolism is gone. But at least the homophobia of the original novel is gone, too (Benjamin no longer talks about assaulting "queers.")

Elaine is a dolt, Mrs. Robinson veers from skittish virgin to trollope, and Benjamin...well, he's still rather a twit.

I guess the main draw is Benjamin shirtless in bed, played by such hunks as Tom Carmen, Matthew Rhys, Eric Pierce, Jerry Hall, and Brad Burgess.

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February 2016: The Gay Kid in the Farmhouse

February 26, 2016, 2:00 am

≫ Next: Orphan Black: Male Nudity, Gay Characters, and Clones

≪ Previous: The Graduate Revisited

February 22nd, 1986: A Saturday. I'm living in West Hollywood. Alan and I go cruising at Catch One, a club that specializes in African-American men. I meet the wannabe thug T.

February 20th, 1996: A Tuesday. Lane and I are living in San Francisco. I walk down Folsom Street on my way to my part-time job, and run into Mickey, the leatherman who never leaves South of Market, not even to go to the Castro. We have lunch at a gay Chinese restaurant, and I talk him into participating in the youth outreach program at the MCC.

February 19th, 2006: A Sunday. I'm visiting Amsterdam. I have dinner at an Indonesian restaurant, and then go to the Horseman's Club on Warmoestraat, for men with gigantic beneath-the-belt gifts. I meet Azi from Suriname, who has a Kovbasa+ . He invites me home to be a "birthday" present for his college-aged brother, Eli.

February 23rd, 2016: A Tuesday. I live in Plains, a small town in the vast Midwestern wilderness.

Except I'm not in town; I'm at a farmhouse, gazing at the dark vastness of snow-covered fields through the window. (Photo from National Geographic)

And then at the country-kitchen style living room, where heterosexuals are occupying couches and chairs, listening to a middle aged woman named Claire read poetry.

West Hollywood, San Francisco, Amsterdam, farmhouse. How the mighty have fallen!

Her poems are sort of like Spoon River Anthology, telling the story of a farm family during the Great Recession of 2007-2008: middle-aged Jo (that must be Claire), her worry-laden husband, Grandpa and Grandma, her teenage daughter who wants to be a farmer, and her teenage son, who wishes he was a thousand miles away.

Me, too. It's about a thousand miles to the Flex Club in Cleveland. It's probably busy right about now.

Do the poems at least describe the husband's hard muscles glistening in the sun, or dark-eyed farmboys going skinny-dipping in the creek?

Nope. Lots of lines about grandpa smelling soft earth, Jo's smooth skin starting to mottle with age, the husband's inner strength that guides you through adversity, and the son looking up at bluebirds flying to Oz.

Maybe he escaped to the nearest gay neighborhood.

West Hollywood, San Francisco, Amsterdam, farmhouse. Where are the snows of yesterday?

I hated Spoon River, I hate these poems, and I hate farmhouses. What am I even doing here?

The hostess invited me. She's a professor at the University, so it's a good career move.

I look around at the other poetry aficionados. Mostly elderly women, a couple of middle-aged men. A slim, creepy-looking bald guy leading an even creepier-looking bald guy by the arm.

Lovers -- no -- father and son.

At the last heterosexual gathering I went to, I hooked up with Dustin, the host's son. But no cute college boys burst in to fill the room with life and excitement. I am alone.

West Hollywood, San Francisco, Amsterdam, farmhouse.

Years go falling in the fading light. Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight.

Question time. I raise my hand. "Are the son and daughter based on your real-life children?"

"To an extent. But Jane is the one who didn't want to become a farmer -- she's living in New York. Kyle loved farm life."

Didn't he escape to a gay neighborhood? "What's he doing now?"

"He majored in agriculture at the university, and now he's an agronomist up in Yankton."

Someone else raises a hand to ask about the dramatic structure of the poems. My wheels spin.

Evidence that Kyle is gay:
1. He longed to escape.
2. He would be around 30 now, and Claire didn't mention a wife and kids.
3. A reference to Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz.

Evidence that Kyle is hetero:
1. He works as an agronomist
2. In Yankton, South Dakota.
Can you imagine anything more stultifying than standing in a vast field, beneath a blank sky, looking at plants? For a living?

But I really want him to be gay. I want there to be gay people in farmhouses in vast fields, beneath blank skies.

It's easy to look Kyle up: he's one of Claire's facebook friends.

He has indefatigably hetero country interests: Brad Paisley, Lonesome Dove, sports, sports, and sports. But he also likes Modern Family, and he's a proponent of marriage equality. Besides, no wife or kids mentioned.

I friend him with a "Hi, I know your Mom."

The next day, we chat.

Kyle: I see you've lived in L.A., New York, and Fort Lauderdale. What are you doing on the Plains?

Boomer: A job, what else? What are you doing in Yankton?

Kyle: I love it here! It's my sister Jane who's the big city gal. She and her girlfriend live right in the heart of the East Village. Hey, maybe they were your neighbors!"

Jane and her...girlfriend? I was so obsessed with finding a gay boy in the farmhouse that I never thought about the girl: growing up thinking she was all alone, getting crushes on cheerleaders instead of football players, discovering what "lesbian" meant on the internet, plotting her escape to a gay neighborhood in the biggest big city she could find.

West Hollywood, San Francisco, Amsterdam, farmhouse. Et in Arcadia ego.

Well, every story can't be about a hookup.

The complete story, with nude photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

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Orphan Black: Male Nudity, Gay Characters, and Clones

February 26, 2016, 2:28 am

≫ Next: Back to Low Risk

≪ Previous: February 2016: The Gay Kid in the Farmhouse

Orphan Black (2013-) is a Canadian science fiction series about a con artist named Sarah Manning who discovers that she is a clone, created through Project Leda by an evil corporation called the Dyad Institute. There are clones scattered all over Canada, Britain, and Finland. Some are self-aware, some are not. They have monitors to keep them in line.

Along with some of her fellow clones and allies, Sarah founds the Clone Club and tries to discover the sinister reason for her creation, while trying to avoid capture by the evil Neolutionists and assassination by an anti-clone hate group, the Prolethians.

In case that's not enough mythology for you, there are also Castor clones, with suspect motives, secret government installations in Finland, secret alliances, mistaken identities. Sarah has a daughter, the only known offspring of a clone, drawing the attention of even more nefarious corporations, mad scientists, and clone liberation groups.

Oh, and Sarah has taken the identity of her clone Beth, a police officer, so there are police cases to deal with, plus druggie ex-boyfriends and miscellaneous scalawags.

Felix (Jordan Gavaris, left), Sarah's foster brother, is a street kid, hustler, wannabe artist, and gay. He doesn't have a lot of romantic interaction, although he does date the transman clone Tony (Tatiana Manslany).

There is also a lesbian clone, Cosima (also Tatiana Manslany -- these are clones, so one actor plays several characters). A graduate student at the University of Minnesota, she dates several women through the course of the series.

Or you can just watch for for the beefcake. Orphan Black pushes up the nudity factor, in male clones, allies, and kid brothers.

1. Ari Millen (top photo) as the evil Prolethian Mark Rollins and several other clones.

2. Jordan Gavaris

3. Dylan Bruce as Paul Dierden. When Sarah takes on Beth's identity, she has to deal with Paul, Beth's boyfriend and monitor.

4. Kevin Hanchard as Art Bell, Beth's police partner.

5. Michael Mando (left) as Vic, Sarah's drug-dealing ex-boyfriend.

6. Josh Vokey as Cosima's classmate at the University of Minnesota, who eventually joins the Scoobies.

7. Kristian Bruun as Donnie, husband of the clone Allison (Tatiana Manslany).

8. Justin Chatwin as Donnie's drug supplier.

9. Michiel Huisman as Cal, Sarah's ex-boyfriend and the father of her daughter.

10. Daniel Kash as Tomas. It would take too long to explain.

In the U.S., Orphan Black airs on BBC America.

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Back to Low Risk

February 26, 2016, 10:46 am

≫ Next: The Stonewall Movie: Convoluted Plot, Not Enough Beefcake

≪ Previous: Orphan Black: Male Nudity, Gay Characters, and Clones

After three days of being "Medium Risk" according to the McAfee Site Advisor, I'm back to "Low Risk." I still have no idea what caused the flag, but it decreased traffic to the site by 20%.

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The Stonewall Movie: Convoluted Plot, Not Enough Beefcake

February 27, 2016, 5:31 am

≫ Next: Bathhouse Boy #2: In Search of Indios in Tijuana

≪ Previous: Back to Low Risk

I've read books on Stonewall, the riot that sparked the Gay Rights Revolution. I've seen documentaries.

Now I've seen the 2015 movie.

Wow, who knew it was so convoluted.

1. Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine), a clean-cut all-American kid from rural Indiana, gets a scholarship to Columbia, but before his parents can fill out the scholarship papers, they discover that he is gay and kick him out. His boyfriend, disgraced, refuses to talk to him.

So he goes to New York anyway, where everybody -- repeat, everybody falls in love with him.

He lives on the street, and works as a hustler (although the look of pure disgust he gets whenever a client tries to go down on him would probably limit his success).

He hangs out with a group of androgynous gay and transgender street kids led by Ray, aka Ramona (Johnny Beauchamp).

2. They are regulars at the Stonewall Tavern, run by Ed Murphy (Ron Pearlman), who has connections to the Mob and may have murdered a street kid who was Ray's lover.

3. Meanwhile Danny gets involved with Trevor (Jonathan Rhys-Meyer), who picks up twinks by playing Procul Harem's "Whiter Shade of Pale" on the jkebox. Trevor belongs to the establishment-gay rights Mattachine Society, with its ineffectual message of accommodation and "waiting."

Danny hates it; he wants a revolution! But he actually drops out because he sees Trevor using "White Shade of Pale" to pick up someone else. Back to the Stonewall street-kid crowd.

4. There are regular police raids, giving the cops an opportunity to harass, belittle, assault, and arrest the gays. Until the gay-friendly Deputy Pine (Matt Cravan) takes over and orders his men to be nice to the gays. He continues the raids, but only because he's trying to solve the murder, and thinks Ed is responsbile.

5. On the night of the riots, the mob kidnaps Danny and forces him into tricking with J. Edgar Hoover in drag.

6. Meanwhile Deputy Pine realizes that Ed is in the bar, and sends out a squad car to pick him up, letting the gay patrons go. But the cops outside let Ed escape, and that makes the gay patrons so mad that they start yelling "Gay power!,' and Danny throws a brick. The police and some of the patrons rush back inside.

So it wasn't police harassment, it was letting a mob boss escape, that caused the Gay Rights Revolution?

7. Afterwards Danny goes back to Indiana to see his sister, who turns out to be a gay rights advocate, his mother, and his ex-boyfriend. Mom and Sister even come to the Gay Rights March held the next year.

This is the most convoluted, crazy version of Stonewall that I've ever seen. It's not even about Stonewall, it's the boring coming-out story of a Golden Boy who has a perfect body, scrubbed Mormon good looks, and a scholarship to Columbia.

There isn't even a lot of beefcake to keep your mind occupied while you're trying to digest the plot convolutions -- these are all pictures from other projects. Danny and Trevor show some chest.

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Bathhouse Boy #2: In Search of Indios in Tijuana

February 27, 2016, 5:39 am

≫ Next: Fall 1993: Matt and the Bartender Frighten the Horses

≪ Previous: The Stonewall Movie: Convoluted Plot, Not Enough Beefcake

I'm running low on Alan stories, but I hate to let him go. so here's the story of me, Alan, and the bathhouse in Tijuana.

Tijuana, August 1987

It's a sedate cultural center now, but in the 1980s, it was synonymous with sleaze.

Watch your wallet.
Drink only bottled water
Be careful of the bathrooms.
Don't walk too close to alleys.

"We should go," Alan the Pentecostal Porn Star said one day in 1987. "You speak Spanish, so you can impress all the locals. And the bathhouses are still open. Have you been to one?"

"Just once, four years ago in Chicago. My friend Viju took me. I didn't like it."

"They're great!" Alan exclaimed. "Darn homophobic Department of Health closed them down here, thinking we're all having unsafe sex and getting AIDS in them, but you can have unsafe sex anywhere. You just have to be careful, stick to French. That won't be a problem for us, right?"

Alan rarely topped anyone, and I never knew him to bottom. Interfemoral, oral, and sometimes 69, although he was a little too big to do that comfortably.

"Sex with strangers?" I said, dubious. Even casual hookups were frowned upon in West Hollywood.

"It's a foreign country. Our rules don't apply. And we're both single, right?" He paused. "Besides, I know a place where you can meet Indios."

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

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Fall 1993: Matt and the Bartender Frighten the Horses

February 28, 2016, 2:41 am

≫ Next: Petey's Boyfriend in "Cul de Sac"

≪ Previous: Bathhouse Boy #2: In Search of Indios in Tijuana

San Bernardino, Fall 1993

"Ok, mes amis," Matt says, "I'm going to tell you about the time j'effrayé les chevaux."

Lane and I have driven 70 miles to San Bernardino to spend the weekend with my first boyfriend, Fred, and his partner, the 27-year old Cute Young Thing Matt. Their friend Jerome, a Daddy months away from becoming a Geezer, has joined us for dinner, and now we're swapping stories of dates from hell, supersized penises, and fantasy hookups.

I told about how Alan and I hooked up with the kept boy, Jerome told about how he almost had sex with his own father. Now it's Matt's turn.

"You frightened the horses?" I translate.

He nods "When Mrs. Campbell heard that gay people exist, she said 'I don't care, as long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses.' Well, mes amis, right in the bar, right before the very eyes of the scandalized patrons, the bartender and moi...well, you'll see what we did."

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

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Petey's Boyfriend in "Cul de Sac"

February 28, 2016, 3:29 am

≫ Next: Getting Spanked at the Oscars

≪ Previous: Fall 1993: Matt and the Bartender Frighten the Horses

It seems that comic strips I hate, like Blondie, go on and on and on, generation after generation of gags about napping on the couch and burnt potroasts. But comic strips I like are short lived.

Cul de Sac had a syndication run of five years, from September 2007 to September 2012.

Ok, it's not cartoonist Richard Thompson's fault. He discovered that he had Parkinson's Disease, and it's hard to draw with your hands shaking. But still...

Cul de Sac is set in a fascinating, jarring universe, a suburban wasteland on the outskirts of Washington, DC. The star is ostensibly 4-year old Alice Otterlooper, a preschooler who combines adult-level world-weariness and childish innocence.

But I think the real star is her older brother Petey, a neurotic outsider who is frightened by everybody and everything. Her older brother Petey is a classic neurotic. He is the world's pickiest eater. He goes trick-or-treating in a costume consisting of a sign reading "Boo!" attached to his chest. He is a devotee of Little Neuro comics, with a hero who does nothing.

Peter is unique, yet the type of all kids who grow up isolated, alone, hiding their desires and interests to survive.

Like every gay kid in a heteronormative society.

Petey has mild heterosexual interests. A gigantic girl named Viola D'More (a play on d'amore) befriends and bedevils him.

Plus an admirer, Ernesto, who wears a business suit and belongs to the "Future Adult Guild." Petey can't understand Ernesto's interest, and suspects that he is imaginary.

Later in the strip's run, Viola fades away, and Petey makes a "best friend," Andre Chang, at cartoon camp. Andre is as gigantic as Viola -- apparently Petey likes them big.

The two become inseparable, in spite of Ernesto's jealousy, leading one to imagine that Andre is Petey's first real boyfriend.

Unfortunately, the strip ends shortly after the relationship begins.

It's easy to compare Cul de Sac with Peanuts, other children with adult voices, but while the Peanuts kids experience angst, cruelty, and pain, there is no pain in Petey's world, unless you count Mom forcing you to substitute a store brand for your favorite cereal. There is no bullying, no cruelty. No one even comments on Pete's favorite pizza: no red sauce, and cheese on the side.

It's a world I want to live in.

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Getting Spanked at the Oscars

February 29, 2016, 3:29 am

≫ Next: Don Johnson and the Gay Community

≪ Previous: Petey's Boyfriend in "Cul de Sac"

Larry's House

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Don Johnson and the Gay Community

March 1, 2016, 4:54 am

≫ Next: 14 Shirtless Stanleys of "A Streetcar Named Desire"

≪ Previous: Getting Spanked at the Oscars

Don Johnson had a close relationship with the gay community from the start. In 1968 he dropped out of the University of Kansas to enroll in the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and immediately landed the starring role in Fortune and Men's Eyes, a play about a teenager who is sexually assaulted in prison. He moved to Los Angeles to play the lead in the 1971 film version, directed by famous gay actor Sal Mineo (who became his roommate).

And lover (according to the rumor mill). But then, if Sal Mineo really had relationships with everyone the rumor mill said he did, he would have been too tired to act.

Don also played the titular character, who grooves on both men and women in The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart (1970) -- one of the songs, "Sweet Gingerbread Man," was covered by Bobby Sherman.

And a boy at an experimental college, where he was naked and having sex all the time, in The Harrad Experiment (1973). Gregory Harrison played one of his classmates, also naked and having sex all the time.

And a boy traveling through a bleak postapocalyptic world in A Boy and His Dog (1975), who gets captured and used as a breeder in a crazy underground city where the men are mostly sterile. It was re-envisioned in 2010 in Cartoon Network's Adventure Time.

And so on through the 1970s, in vehicles that were sometimes gritty, sometimes surreal, but always emphasized Don's sexual desirability -- to both men and women.

As the counterculture waned, he found himself in conventional heterosexist roles in tv series like The Rookies, Streets of San Francisco, and Barnaby Jones, and tv movies like The Rebels, Revenge of the Stepford Wives, and Six Pack.

He made something of a comeback in Miami Vice (1984-1990),about an odd-couple of vice cops making the scene with fast cars, stylish clothes, and lots of buddy-bonding. Crockett (Don Johnson) was the good old boy who grew up in rural northern Florida and had a pet alligator named Elvis; Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) was the streetwise New Yorker.

The buddy-bonding is not nearly as intense as inStarsky and Hutch a decade before, and interspersed with lots of heterosexual hijinks. But during the homophobic 1980s, it was about all you could expect.

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