Tom of Finland Does WeHo, Again

I can't think of a more fitting location for a Tom of Finland art exhibit than the Museum of Contemporary Arts (MOCA) in West Hollywood. West Hollywood, known around town as the abbreviated WeHo, is the Christopher Street of Los Angeles where gays, lesbians and like-minded folk can co-exist freely without societal constraints and pressure. Being a big Tom of Finland fan, I attended the newly opened show that he shared with beefcake king Bob Mizer.

For those not familiar with Tom of Finland, my best description of him would be to call him the gay Bill Ward. His erotic illustrations of sexually virile men is comparable to Ward's depiction of his sexually aroused vixens: both are depicted as enormously attractive individuals with grotesquely enormous genitalia sending them in a constant state of sexual ardor.

A Tom of Finland male proudly and even defiantly wears only the most fetishistic clothes: Navy uniforms, cowboy clothes, motorcycle leathers, police uniforms and denim trousers so tight they almost seem painted on. Bulging, nay, practically fighting its way out of every pair of trousers are biologically impossible swollen pair of testes and endlessly long penises in the history of art. Interestingly enough, the comparison to Ward continues in the way Tom shades his figures in the same style as Ward.

Tom's depiction of sexual situations always maintain a bizarrely cheerful air about them, even when men are being tied up or gang-banged. There's never a display of brutality or even aggression a la John Willie in his erotica. It's as if Tom of Finland's pictures are having a party and it's freaking everybody out!

Tom's artwork graced the covers of a digest-sized magazine for men called "Physique Pictorial" which also employed the brilliant paintings of George Quaintance, another artist who depicted homosexuality as an erotic happyland Utopia, as well. Another regular to the gay digest was popular beefcake photographer Bob Mizer, co-billed with Tom at MOCA.

How can I describe Bob Mizer? If the straights had Bunny Yeager then the gays had Bob Mizer. It is estimated that Mizer shot over a million beefcake shots in his legendary career. Mizer's photography is as meat and potatoes man love as it gets, with a few twists along the way: one naked model is dressed like an Aztec god, another in Superman drag, and of course the mandatory cowboys, sailors and motorcycle boys. Guaranteed crowd pleasers, of course.

To see more of Mizer's work, check out the massive collection "Bob's World", available from Taschen Books. I liked his fantasy photography more than his more static shots, but then again he knew his audience and they wanted, well, you know. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the show, which opened on November 2, 2013 and will run until January 26, 2014.

Cadmus In Cadmium

Paul Cadmus 1904-1999. He died five days before his 95th birthday. He was the most outrageous and overlooked artist of his time.

1. Shore Leave (1933) - Sailors spending their leisure time drunkenly chasing girls instead of helping little old ladies cross the street. "Secretary of the Navy Swanson said, 'the painting represents a most disgraceful, sordid, disreputable, drunken brawl, wherein apparently a number of enlisted men are consorting with a party of street-walkers and denizens of the red light district. This is an unwarranted insult, and evidently originated in the sordid, depraved imagination of someone who has no conception of actual conditions in our service" - Time Magazine, 1934.

2. YMCA Locker Room (1933) - Guys in a locker room in various stages of undress (mostly nekkid) primping and checking each other out.

3. The Fleet's In! (1934) - More gobs drunkenly cutting up with torn-up hookers. "As opponents of censorship we cannot condone Admiral Hugh Rodman's burst of indignation at the striking canvas, 'The Fleet's In!' by Paul Cadmus. Admiral Rodman has had a long and distinguished career as a sailor. That does not make him an art critic. The PWAP show is an art exhibition, not an enlistment bureau for the Navy" - Washington Post, 1934.

4. Greenwich Village Cafeteria (1934) - Hipsters cram their faces with food like wild animals and pick each others pockets. "Something of the bitterness which every unemployed artist feels is evident in this painting entitled 'Greenwich Village Cafeteria' by Paul Cadmus of New York City" - New York Herald Tribune, 1934.

5. Gilding The Acrobats (1935) - a jughead-hat wearin' black kid slops gold paint all over a bitter-lookin' naked circus acrobat.

6. Venus And Adonis (1936) - A blown-out rich dowager desperately clings to a statuesque Gregory Peck-looking tennis player, who's classically naked of course.


7. Seeing The New Year In (1939) - A portrait of a party that's gone on way too long, chicks passed out while sleazy guys undress them passed out, nuzzle them, and there's even a guy in the background putting the make on another guy (!). "The painting doesn't have the air of fantasy. There is a cold, hard restlessness in the drawing that suggests that the artist has been determined to give you the facts and nothing but the facts, but at the same time the artist's complete absorption in every inch of wickedness in the picture attests too great an interest in wickedness for its own sake" - New York Sun, 1939.

8. Sailors and Floozies (1938) - This time the tables are turned: our fightin' heroes are all passed out cold, and the prostitutes, looking manly, suggesting transvestitism, are going through their pockets. A crumpled newspaper on the ground bears the headline, "1000 Killed In Air Raid". The sun is bleakly setting. "Paul Cadmus is on another red-hot naval rampage...painting with brilliant finesse a theme doused in indecency!" - New York Post, 1938.

9. Herrin Massacre (1940) - Strike-breakers are depicted beaten to death by labor union activists in a cemetery, the dead are left bloodied, broken and naked. "Just gory journalism" - Journal American, 1940.

10. The Shower (1943), Point O' View (1945), and Fences (1946) - Male nudes on the beach with dark, midnight lighting. "The Shower was sold before it settled on the hook waiting for hanging. His dealer's main problem is not how to sell the next Cadmus, but how not to play favorites" - Art Digest (1943).

11. Playground (1948) - Tenement boys hanging around the New York playground aimlessly looking around waiting for something to happen.

12. Finistere (1952) - Boys in Euro bikinis hanging out on bikes in beach-side Italy. One even brandishes a big Italian bread!

Discover the art of Paul Cadmus. Audasse, audasse, toujours l'audasse. Audacity, audacity, audacity always!

The 2008 LGBT Pride Festival

Well, it's the first weekend in June and that usually means it's time for Gay Pride in West Hollywood. It was a real assault to the senses...sight, sound, and with a petting zoo, olfactory as well.
I saw more lesbians there than gays, maybe a first since the last few times I've been there. Rebecca thought most of the lesbians at the fest looked like they should be stirring a boiling cauldron somewhere. Some of them did look like witches, but there were old queens who looked just as ghastly.
As usual, I was there for the swag and the cool merch that was for sale. I bought two belts, one metal with little gears on them and one leather with an old 45 RPM adapter belt buckle. Rebecca got the best belt, though: a belt buckle with a removable booze flask clipped on it!

The festival was not without it's carnival vibe, though: we walked into an S&M tent where a man wore a creepy rubber pig's mask and he was sticking another rubber lad into a leather-lined box. In 95 degree weather! There was another dude clad from head to toe in rubber and wore a rubber top molded into a wall urinal. It was sick! I was so hypnotized I forgot to take pictures. Damn it.
A perplexed old queen walked up to me and grumbled, "I've been committed to mental institutions five times. The last thing I want to do is get locked up again!"
"Well, these guys seem to like it", I said.
"They can keep it!" he spat, busting through people on his way out of the tent.

We went to the bandstand and watched a bad Pussycat Dolls-ripoff troupe dancing and acting the way only a nine-year old girl would find sexy.
Then some kid with a skunk striped mohawk talked for ten minutes about how all his songs were originals, and went right into David Bowie's "Changes". Then he performed Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough". His backup singers both looked like they weighed 350 lbs. each. Woof!
Kimberly Caldwell from "American Idol" followed, wearing a hideous t-shirt belted into a dress with the ugliest orangey indoor tan I've ever seen. She performed an all-lesbian set, Melissa Etheridge, then Bonnie Raitt, what a fake, she's doing some guy from her TV show, what's with the dyke beau gestes?

Last year's music program was Eighties rock and I missed that. I think everyone did, too, because the turnout for the musical acts was a lot weaker than last year. Here's hoping next year's program will be a lot better.