There wasn't much street cruising going on in West Hollywood, since everyone drove everywhere. But San Francisco was a walking city, so you could easily stop and talk to someone on the street, and invite them out for dates or hookups.
But the competition was fierce. Forget walking around in a muscle shirt with a gym-pumped physique -- there were a dozen bigger guys on every block. If you wanted to attract men, you needed a gimmick.
There were cowboys and ballet dancers, guys riding unicycles and skateboard, guys carrying pies and leading dogs. An Edwardian gentleman. Santa Claus.
But probably the most creative of the street cruisers was the Martian.
At least that's what we called him. He was a very tall, very muscular black guy, dressed all in white and gold, a gold medallion hanging around his neck. He looked exactly like an emissary of the Galactic Council as envisioned by a "Space Brothers" UFO cult.
When you approached, he gave his name as Darvon, with various last names: Zipp, Klaa, or Euripides. He claimed to be from either "a small planet very, very far away" or "a small galaxy near Neptune" (the nonsensical answer that Betty Hill received during her 1961 abduction).
None of my friends had dated or hooked up with him -- he tended to give Attitude, not speak to or make eye contact with anyone. But according to gossip, his apartment was full of photos of alien spaceships, strange plants that were probably extraterrestrial, a cat that responded to telepathic signals, and a regeneration booth.
This I had to see.
The full story, with nude photos and explicit sexual content, is on Tales of West Hollywood.