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Alan and the Kept Boy
West Hollywood, March 1986When I was growing in the Nazarene church, not only was alcohol forbidden, we couldn't even go into a venue that served or sold alcohol, for any reason. My Sunday school...
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Li'l Abner, the Musical: Gay Anxiety in the Cold War
You'd expect a lot of beefcake in the musical Li'l Abner (1956), which was made into a movie (1959) starring Peter Palmer. 1. It was based on the popular comic strip which featured a super-muscular,...
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The Battle of the Nude Men
More evidence that artists generally draw nude men only when they're about to kill each other:I found this painting at the Art Institute of Chicago. The heavily-muscled men are naked, grimacing as...
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The Footlong Hustler of Bourbon Street
New Orleans, March 1985When my Grandma Davis died in 1975, she left $5,000 to each of her 12 grandchildren, as a "wedding present," to be bestowed upon them on their wedding day. In the spring of 1985,...
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The Tomorrow People
During the "British invasion" of the 1970s, I got a taste of British science fiction on PBS: Doctor Who, The Tripods, Timeslip, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Space: 1999, UFO, and The Prisoner....
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On My Knees in the Teaching Assistant's Office
San Francisco, May 1997I liked chemistry class in high school -- or rather, I liked the fact that it was 90% cute science nerds who carried calculators with the logo "Chemistry is Chool."But in...
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Pierre Puvis de Chavannes: Beefcake Art in the Third Republic
Here's another painting I found at the Art Institute of Chicago. The Fisherman's Family (1881), by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.Ok, there's a bare-breasted woman, a baby, and an old guy sleeping on the...
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The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie
When I was in junior high in the 1970s, the anthology series The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie grabbed kids and teens (and sometimes adults) from live-action sitcoms and put them into badly-animated...
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Three Terrible, Horrible, No Good Days of Cruising in Chicago
Chicago, November 2016I'm in Chicago for a conference. I've been here many times, but not recently, and never to the heart of downtown, across the street from the Art Institute. Day 1It's a rough...
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Hunt Bowman, the Conan Clone of Planet Comics
During the 1940s and 1950s, a Flash Gordon-Conan clone named Hunt Bowman appeared in Fiction House's Planet Comics series. In a ruined post-Apocalyptic Earth control;ed by evil Voltamen from the...
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10 Reasons Why Thanksgiving is the Gayest Holiday
If you're not from the U.S. you might not be familiar with Thanksgiving, a holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November (it's also celebrated on different dates in Canada, Liberia, and...
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In Search of Books and Boyfriends in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas
Hell-fer-Sartain, November 1984I'm a big bibliophile. When I move, it takes 30 boxes just for my books.The highlight of visiting a new town is checking out the bookstores. If I walked into this scene,...
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Saturday Morning with Joel and the Bots
During the 1990s, when I was living in West Hollywood, we watched a show called Mystery Science Theater 3000 every Saturday morning, before gong off to buy groceries or go to the gym or do whatever...
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An Interview with Spartacus: Gay Characters, Gay Subtexts, and His Wife
Spartacus (111-71 BC) was a gladiator who led a slave revolt against the Roman Republic, and became an inspiration for rebels of all sizes and shapes, from Toussaint Loverture to Bulgarian soccer...
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Christopher Knight/Peter Brady
I was saddened to hear of the death of Florence Henderson, who played (among other roles) Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch, surrogate mom to millions of Boomers. Every Brady Boomer had every episode...
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My Cousin Phil's Boyfriend
Rome City, Indiana, Thanksgiving 1971A week after my 11th birthday, we are back in Indiana for Thanksgiving.Grandma Davis, Aunt Nora, and Dad got up at dawn to fuss about in the kitchen, stuffing the...
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60 Movies I Will Never See
There are 6 basic emotions, 1 positive (happiness), 3 negative (sadness, anger, and disgust), and 2 which could be either (surprise, fear) The function of a movie, book, song, or other work of art is...
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Ron Glass: The Gay-Vague Cop at the Gym
I was saddened to hear of the death of Ron Glass on November 25th, 2016, at the age of 71. As a kid in Rock Island, I loved Barney Miller (1975-1982), a "hip sitcom" about the quirky cops and...
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O Brother, Where Art Thou: Yet Another Coen Brothers Mess
Last night my friend and I were channel-surfing on Netflix, when O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) appeared."Next!" I exclaimed. "It's by the Coen Brothers. Their movies make no sense.""You have to...
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A Sleepover, Sausage Sighting, and Fondling of My Cousin Phil
When I was growing up in Rock Island, we traveled to northern Indiana once or twice a year to visit my grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins. We always visited my Aunt Nora and her family,...
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