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Searching for Beefcake in "Almost Home"
When I was growing up in Rock Island, we drove out to visit my parents' family in Indiana once or twice a year. On the way back, about 20 miles outside of town, there was a sign that read...
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The Bob Damron Guide
You probably think that the Gayellow Pages, published beginning in 1973, was the first gay directory. In fact, there were several earlier directories. The one most familiar to gay men in the 1970s...
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Tales of the City: Gay Guys, San Francisco, Who Cares?
Year after year, people tell me "The Tales of the City books are stupendous! Amazing! Wonderful! The best thing every written!""And they're historically vital! Gay author Armistead Maupin...
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3 Hookup Stories about James Arness, Marshall Matt Dillon on "Gunsmoke"
For a small town, Rock Island had quite a few celebrities coming through. They spoke at the colleges, performed at Wharton Field House or at the jazz festival downtown, and appeared in the annual...
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Michael Copon: Power Ranger, Gay Ally
Born in 1982, Michael Copon got his start on the most recent of the Power Rangers series, Power Rangers: Time Force (2001-2002). He also starred on the evening teen soap One Tree Hill (2004-5) as...
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Sausage Sighting of James Arness
I'm Ali, short for Alika, "Guardian." I was born and raised in Makaha, the surfing capital of the world.Kind of a bummer when you hate surfing.I was a bit of a chubby kid, not at all athletic, and a...
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the Blacksmiths with Brawny Arms
One of the poems parodied on Rocky and Bullwinkle was "The Village Smithy," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1840):Under a spreading chestnut-tree the village smithy stands.The smith, a mighty man is he,...
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Milton Berle: Television's First Drag Queen
In an October 26, 1967 episode of Batman, Batman and Robin ran afoul of Louie the Lilac, who trapped them in a man-eating lilac bush and later got them. . .um. . .all wrapped up in each other (Batgirl...
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The Gay Artist for the Catholic Schoolboy Comic Book
A Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact was a Catholic comic book, published every two weeks during the school year from 1946 to 1972, meant to be given away at parochial schools. Its main emphasis was...
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Steve Cochran: All Man
The Internet Movie Database tells us that Steve Cochran (1917-1965) was "all man," by which they mean "not gay." As evidence:1. He grew up in Wyoming2. He was kicked off his college basketball team for...
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Rory Hooks Up with Ron Howard and Tarzan's Sidekick
Remember Jai, Tarzan's tiny South American sidekick in the 1967-68 tv series? He was Manuel Padilla Jr. Born in 1955 in Los Angeles, he began acting at the age of eight, playing big-eyed, pouting...
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Ishmael and Hagar
You remember the story of Ishmael in the Book of Genesis: he was Abraham's oldest son, born to Sarah's handmaiden Hagar; but Sarah wanted her own son Isaac to be heir, so she had Ishmael and Hagar...
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Searching for Beefcake in Wichita, Kansas, the Land of 1,000 Frowns
I've driven through Kansas, on the I-70 from Kansas City past Topeka, Manhattan, Salinas, and Hays, en route to L.A. It's flat, endless cornfields and rednecks in pickup trucks. No place I would...
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Searching for Beefcake in Orlando, Florida
Orlando, Florida is a candy-colored, sugar-coated, hetero-infested abomination, a noisy, crowded, paeon to Disneyfied inanity, 2,000,000 people and 66,000,000 hetero tourists with small kids in tow...
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Fondling the Biggest Schlong in Hollywood
Hi, Boomer,In one of your stories, you said you didn't think Jackie Coogan would be talking about the gay hookups of his youth with his 12-year old grandson, Keith Coogan.Well, my Grandpa Sammy talked...
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Peter Falk: When Columbo Played Gay
Boomers remember Peter Falk as Columbo, the rumpled, disorganized detective who feigns cluelessness to catch the culprits off-guard; my friend Aaron in high school called him Clod-Dumbo.After...
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Viva Las Vegas: Elvis and Cesare Danova Find Each Other
Viva Las Vegas (1964) is a comedy-drama produced during the height of early-1960s cool, when Vegas still meant gambling, booze, and the Rat Pack. And at the height of the 1960s Italian craze. How...
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The Legend of the Heterosexual Hercules
The ancient Greek hero Heracles (Hercules in Latin) was half-god, super-strong, and gay. He had female lovers, too, but myth and epic laud the male:Iolaus, his charioteer. The three great gay couples...
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David and Goliath: From King James Bible to Gay Men's Bedrooms
The Philistine warrior Goliath was BIG: nine feet nine inches (enough about the nine feet, let's hear about the six inches). His suit of armor weighted 125 pounds. He challenged King Saul and the...
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Dinka: The Nude Tribe of South Sudan
There are 4.5 million Dinka (they call themselves Muonyjang). Their traditional home is along the White Nile in South Sudan, near the border of Uganda. Mostly pastoralists, they raise long-horned...
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