Where Do All The Wild Boys Go?

It was the first night of August, 1970. My brother and I shared the same bedroom. At three o’clock in the morning my father came into the darkened room and woke us up. Although the room was pitch black I could tell there were tears streaming down his face.

“Boys”, he said slowly. “Your mother is dead. Prepare for the worst. Nothing will ever be the same again”. And he was right.

In those days if you lost a parent either by death or divorce you were looked upon like there was something wrong with you. Your classmates all looked at you like you were odd. Perhaps they were looking at you for signs of mental decay. It wasn’t something so easily identifiable.

You held the hurt inside you, but it wasn’t really something you could talk about. No one wanted to listen, anyway. My friends had more important concerns, like sports and school. They weren’t even thinking about girls at that point.

Something new was in the air. Even the religious boys in my school couldn’t resist the lure of the new movement called glam rock. I remember hearing a kid or two singing “All The Young Dudes” as they walked to class. It was a long step away from the hippie dream of the past couple years.

Everything sounded differently, and everything looked differently.

Music gave me consolation from the loss of my mother and there was nothing more exciting than the records of T. Rex, David Bowie, Slade, Roxy Music, Sparks and an endless flood of glamour bands all dressed up like spacemen from a kaleidoscopic planet.

The glam club to go to in West Hollywood was Rodney’s English Disco. The club not only played great glam records that drove me crazy but also provided me with a crash course in gender bending. It was one thing to look at pictures of rock stars in eye shadow and lipstick, but to see it in person was something new.

Boys and girls alike dressed in silver and gold lame, bright satin pants with huge elephant flares propped up in sky high leather platform shoes. Every kid looked like a superhero. Not to be left out, I ran out to the Sunset Strip on weekends to get a cheap, affordable outfit to fit in.

Every night there was exciting, even the off nights. You never knew who was going to drop in. On a regular weeknight you could see Iggy pop, Kim Fowley, The Kinks, Rod Stewart or Candy Clark. And the kids dressed like mad peacocks. My hormones were ready to explode.

The next day I made the terrible mistake of telling a friend at school about the new glam club. His name was Artie and he had no capacity for confidentiality, so once I leaked my account of going to this cool pace he very loudly demanded to go, too. Very loudly.

“Let’s go tomorrow night. Field trip!” he practically yelled. Our classmates turned up their noses.
“I heard about that place…Nothing but faggots”.
“You’re going to check out the freaks, Artie? Look no further. There’s Andy”.
I sneered right back.

So friend Artie drove me there the next night. I was duded out in my little glam outfit, but…Artie. He was fairly conservative looking – shirt hair, beard, dressed in faded corduroy, heavy-set, not an emaciated glitter rocker type boy at all. As we hung out in the loud, colorful club all wrapped up in silver, he yelled in my ear.

“Look at that dufus in the make-up! He’s got a dog collar on!”
“Please!” I freaked out. “Not so loud! People can hear you!”
“I don’t care if they can hear me. That guy looks retarded. Ugh! Look at that girl, oh she’s so hot!”
“I’m going to get a drink”, I said, anything to get away from him embarrassing me.

The regret I felt was that my private safe harbor from overbearing religion by bringing in someone who peppered his comments with Yiddish expressions and Borscht Belt humor. Bringing in someone from the Boring World ruined my enjoyment of the Wild World. I wanted to kick myself. What a buzzkill.

I avoided Artie for the next few days at school. In between classes he spotted me and cornered me in the hallway.
“Hey!” he said, diving into a small bag of potato chips, crumbs hanging in his beard. “Where have you been? The kids at the club have been asking about you”.
“What? What club?”
“You know! Rodney’s. They guys from Sparks were there last night. It was great”.

“You went without me?” I was incredulous. “I thought you hated the place”.
“Oh, those guys are okay, They just look funny. I met this really cool girl there last night, and you know, she’s Jewish. We spoke Yiddish for a few minutes”.
“What?”
He continued grabbing chips like it was his lifeline to survival.

“And you know that goofy guy with the carrot topped head? He invited all of us to his hotel room after the club closed. It was pretty cool”.

I couldn’t believe my ears. “They like you making fun of them?”
“Nah, I stopped once I figured they were alright. Hey, let’s go after Shabbos. Josh is coming with us!”
I thought I’d shit. Instead I backed out. The great irony, as I was going to learn soon enough, was that for all my bravado I didn’t change Artie’s life. He was about to change mine.

Rodney’s English Disco closed down a year later. As the rabbis in school taught us, like is mostly about loss. Nothing stays around; everything eventually vanishes. I was still distant friends with Artie, more distant than usual because he kept up his nightclubbing ways. Now he was bragging about a club called the Sugar Shack which played disco.

“It’s just like Rodney’s, Andy”, he cracked open some peanut shells.
“No, it’s not. It’s just a disco. I fuckin’ hate disco!”
“You don’t understand. The Sugar Shack is the coolest club”.

Telling me wasn’t enough. He had to show me.
Picking me up from home one night I asked him, “Hey, what time does Serpico go on?”
“Showtime starts in an hour. I think we can make it a half an hour before it starts”, he promised. I grabbed my coat.

While he drove Artie talked about good times at the Sugar Shack. “In between the disco records they snuck some Suzi Quatro in”
. “Oh”, I was bored. “That’s different. I guess…Hey, I thought we were going to Westwood to see Serpico”.
“What?” he accelerated the car. Suddenly we were speeding.
“This isn’t the way to the Crest Theater. Where are we going?”

Artie’s face broke into a nervous sweat. “Oh, uh, I thought we’d stop off somewhere before the movie. You know, we’re still kind of early”.
“The film’s going to sell out and we won’t get in”.

Artie didn’t say anything. He just turned up the music on his 8-track player and drove even faster. I felt like I was being kidnapped.

Not only were we not headed to Westwood, but we were definitely going east towards West Hollywood, Santa Monica Boulevard in particular. When we reached a club with blackened walls with even blacker windows Artie pulled over and parked.

“Come on, this won’t take long. You’ll really like it. Just like Rodney’s English Disco!” he charged towards the club like a bull. I eyed him suspiciously.

Once I got in I knew I’d been set up. The PA was playing “The Hustle” and “Get Dancin’” at roaring, deafening levels. I looked around and there weren’t platforms to be seen. Just lots of men and more men in denim and open polyester shirts dancing around in the darkness. Not a woman in sight.

I’d seen posters of gay bars whenever I walked around Santa Monica Boulevard so I knew what to expect: a lot of Burt Reynolds and Steve McQueen clones walking around displaying tough macho vibes and betraying it with feminine coquettishness.

“Isn’t this great?” Artie gushed. “I’m getting a beer. How about you?”
“No”, I was steamed. I felt shanghaied into going to this club because he knew I’d never want to go here. I was fit to be tied.

“AND NOW IT’S TIME FOR THE MISTER STUD 1975 CONTEST!!” a voice barked over the sound system. The crowd hooted and hollered. “CONTESTANT NUMBER ONE, PAUL PARKER HE’S LEAN, HE’S MEAN AND HE’S READY FOR ANY SCENE…TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER! PAUUUUL PARRRKER!!!”

An athletic man with sandy blonde hair began dancing to “Boogie Wonderland”. He was barefoot and I thought he was trying to be Tarzan but I was wrong. First he pulled his sports shirt off, displaying his muscular chest. The club roared their approval.

Artie came back with his beer. He was enjoying the show. The dancer then pulled his white denim jeans down. Another big round of approval came up. All he had on left was a microscopic bikini.

The song was almost over so I thought he was done, but he definitely wasn’t. His show-stopper was ripping off the bikini to the screams and swoons of the crowd. Dancing wildly, I saw this tiny dingle swinging up and down furiously to the music.

“Oh my God!” I looked away.
“Ahahahaha!” Artie was choking with laughter.
“Can we go to the movies now?” I whined. Artie ignored me.

Well, we got to see more contestants and more wieners for Mister Stud 1975. There was more frantic stripping to disco records as the night went on, and even Artie got bored after awhile. He took me home and I was fuming with rage.

It was nothing personal, though, I later found out. He pulled the same stunt with my brother and his friends. After awhile I just went to the movies by myself. The gay bar shanghai treatment became his modus operandi every weekend.

I didn’t see Artie for a few months after that. A little Artie goes a long way. Finally he apologized for the subterfuge.
“Could you come with me to this girl’s house? I have to talk to her and I’m kind of nervous”, he worked at a dramatic stammer.
“I don’t know”, I sulked. “I kinda wanted to practice my saxophone”.

“Come on. I’ll buy you a Moby Jack and fries”.
“Well”, I realized it was still daylight so there would be no night club frolics. “Okay. What’s this girl like? You never told me about her before”.
We walked to the car. “It’s weird. I have to deal with her brother before I can talk to her”.

He drove me into West Hollywood, not far from the club. We pulled up to a beat apartment building with an upended plaid sofa on the sidewalk and a bunch of soiled diapers in the gutter. We went up to the third floor and Artie knocked on the door.

“COME ON IN! I’M NOT DECENT!” a voice yelled.
We entered to a messy apartment with an open bed, scratched records all over the floor along with men’s and women’s shoes, pants, bras, fashion magazines, smeared makeup, lipstick containers, and whisky bottles. Lots of whisky bottles. There were about four youngmen in there. Two had clothes on, one only had a pair of pants on, and the last was completely naked. The nude jumped around a lot.

“Hi, what’s happening?” a dressed young man with wavy blonde hair asked. He looked bored and slightly annoyed to see us. “Are you holding?”
“Oh, I know him. You were here the other night”. A brunette with curly hair mumbled.
They didn’t seem to like him much.

“Is Sandra here?” Artie asked nervously.
“Who?”
“Oh, he means Billy. That’s Billy’s drag name”.
“Excuse me, could you not talk while my favorite record in the whole world is playing?”

The nude boy jumped right by us and screeched, “PARDON MY NAKEDNESS!”
“Um, yeah”, Artie stammered. “Sandra Billy”.
“Oh, well she’s at work”, the blonde deadpanned. “She’ll be home soon”.

“What did this guy get me stuck in now?” I thought. It was always some situation. Artie kept telling me he wasn’t gay and I kept getting further and further into the life without even asking for it.

The youngman in only pants had a sad Sal Mineo look about him. He stared at me with his big brown eyes.
“Do you know Billy, too?”
“No”, I said. “My name’s Andy. I just came with Artie”.
“PARDON MY NAKEDNESS!” the nude boy ran around the room.

The blonde laughed. “Look how scared he is. Seeing another naked boy. He’s going to go home and tell his mom. AND YOU! PUT SOME FUCKING PANTS ON!!!”

“I’m not going to tell my mom”, I said. “My mother died four years ago”.
The Latino boy in the pants’ eyes welled up. “Your mother’s dead? Is she really?”
“Yeah”, I lowered my voice. “It sucks”.

“PARDON MY NAKEDNESS!”
“YOU! I SAIDDDDD PUT SOME FUCKING PANTS ON!!!”
The boy began tearing up. “Did you love your mother more than anyone in the whole world?”
“Yes, I did”. I was more nervous than sad.

“I’ll bet she loved you more than anything in the whole world”, he almost burst out crying. “She must have been the greatest woman you’ve ever known. Everybody needs a mother’s love. It’s the most important kind of love there is”
“You’re right”, I smiled sadly.

“PARDON MY NAKEDNESS!”
“GODDAMMIT IF YOU DON’T THROW SOME FUCKIN’ PANTS ON RIGHT NOW YOU NELLY QUEEN I’LL THROW YOUR SCRAWNY ASS OUT!!!! NOW!!!”

The door flew open and a bookish black youngman in glasses came in. Artie spun around.
“Sandra! “Artie gushed. “I thought I’d come by since you haven’t been returning my calls”.
“Oh. Arthur”, Billy scoffed as he walked by us. “I don’t like surprises”.

“PARDON MY NAKEDNESS!”
Billy frowned. “Girl, cover that thing. I’ve seen more of your package than I’ve even seen of mine”.

An hour went by with the five youngmen ignoring Artie and me. They talked as if we were invisible. I was so bored.
I kept whispering to Artie, “Let’s just go. He, I mean she, doesn’t care about you. Forget about…her”.
“No!” Artie was steadfast and proved it by trying to ask Sandra a few things, only to be dismissed.

The dressed brunette jumped up from the crumpled bed and announced, “WELL, I’M HUNGRY! ANYBODY ELSE HUNGRY? LET’S GO TO DANIELLE’S!”
“I’M HUNGRY!”
“I’M NAKED AND HUNGRY!”
“GET DRESSED OR YOU DON’T EAT!”
“LET’S GO!”

Sal Mineo piped up. “Everybody be nice to Artie’s friend because his mother just died”.
“Ohhh, that’s so sad. You’ll get through it, I promise, sweetie”, the naked boy said as he was struggling with a t-shirt that was three sizes too small for him.

We followed the car with the two dressed youngmen, the no-longer nude and Billy. Sal Mineo rode with us. On the way there Artie griped about Sandra to him.
“I’m so nice to her. She seems to like me when she’s Sandra, so I don’t know why she keeps treating me like I don’t exist”.

“Oh, well, she’s the coy type, you know. The coy type! Hard to get. She gets things by playing hard to get!”
“I bought her drinks, I took her to the –“
“Turn here and park!” he practically yelled. He rolled down the window and yelled at his friends. “GET US A GOOD TABLE!”

Dinner at Danielle’s was as good as a dinner can be when the menu is stained and laminated with silverware that looked like it came from a soldier’s rusty mess kit. We got to see two sky-high tall transvestites attack each other in the middle of the restaurant, almost falling over our table.

Sandra/Billy never did hook up with Artie, and feeling crushed he drove me home feeling ejected, dejected and rejected. I was just glad to be home with my saxophone.

Two years later I had my own apartment, where I had a very strange dream. I dreamt I was a baby again and my mother was young, healthy and happy. She was dressed in a Greco-Roman toga in white and bathed me in a small spring. While she bathed me she laughed and sang quietly. It was the most tranquil dream I’ve ever had. I didn’t want it to end. I woke up feeling happier than I had in years.

In the following days after I thought more and more of my dream, and rather than feel happy I was stricken with a terrible melancholy. Life is mostly loss, like the rabbis said.
One night I wearily sat down at the bus stop on the corner of Crescent Heights and Santa Monica. I quietly waited for the bus to arrive.

Two youngmen sat down at the bench by me.
“Oh! That bartender, if he watered those drinks any more than he did you could breed turtles in them!”
“That’s the T, Mary”.
“And that butch door man! Yikes!” They both laughed.

Three more youngmen showed up and just laughed non-stop, probably drunk but harmless.
“I told him to put that thing away!”
“You told him? I think not!! I did. You needed help, bitch!” They all laughed.

A very sullen youngman who looked like Jethro Bodine with a duffle bag walked up to the bus stop sign and slammed his bag down as loudly as possible. He then spread his legs challengingly and folded his arms.

“Ohhhh, my, Miss Butchness”, one boy giggled quietly.
“Yesssss…men at work!” One’s eyes widened.
“Tragedy at work. Too, too tragic!” the other muttered.
“Footlocker daddy, hohohoho!”

My melancholy dissipated as I looked all around me. The bright, colored lights of West Hollywood felt like a carnival that didn’t want to end, ever. By the time the bus pulled up and we hopped on I was smiling.

I was smiling because all the boys on the bus were laughing and some of them had mothers, some of them probably lost theirs, but it didn’t matter because they knew the carnival will never end.

The Day The Mannequins Frowned

Sometimes you get so busy you're the last to know. Case in point: In late June of this year Out Magazine reported the closing of International Male and its offshoot Undergear. I didn't know! I was wondering what happened to all the perpetual emails and monthly catalogs I used to receive in the mail. They just stopped coming, and I never knew why.

People had a good laugh over International Male, and for good reason. A lot of the fashions in the catalog were gaudy and ridiculous, with models striking poses even more absurd than the clothes. Unfortunately there were the odd things here and there which caught my eye. An occasional gem, like the nice black leather pirate coat, which I still have.

There's also a pretty cool pair of jeans I bought from them with big industrial zippers in the front and rear pockets with heavy stitching a la True Religion jeans (at a fraction of the price!). And what can I say about Undergear but that I bought a lot of great bikinis from them.

On the minus side, their mail order was outrageous with exorbitant fees tacked on to your order, i.e. California state taxes, shipping and handling, if ordering more than 3 pieces add an additional $5 (on top of everything else!), etc.

With special charges costing almost as much as the items themselves it was time to look elsewhere like Chi Chi Larue, Showtime and other men's clothing boutiques in West Hollywood. Other customers had similar ideas about blowing off this increasingly out of touch with the times online men's boutique.

I got a kick out of getting those catalogs but I'll continue buying my bikinis from International Jock, Pistol Pete, Nasty Pig and C-In2 mail orders, all of them cheaper than Undergear. And then there's al those great sites from Korea, so goodbye International Male and Undergear. It was fun while it lasted!

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H&M's probably the strongest premium fashion outlet for men (next to the awful Uniqlo) and one of the reasons is their collaboration with high end designers for a powerful limited edition they can sell to their faithful customers. This year H&M chose Balmain as the designer to carry for their limited edition line. Oh, dear.

Before the clothes hit the stores a hokey video featuring a Kardashian-Jenner doing some subway dance was dropped online, like Balmain really even needs to go there in terms of hype. But hype it did and hype it happened.

When the clothes finally lined the shelves in early November endless lines of shoppers hit the stores with many being turned away. H&M's website crashed due to heavy traffic and needless to say, eBay already has some of these babies up for bidding. Personally, I find some of the styles underwhelming and not worthy of all the hype. But, still it's Balmain.

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One fashion outlet that can use a lesson or two from H&M is The Gap, who are already predicting a sluggish final sales quarter of the year. The Gap, just like International Male, is stuck in an old era and shows no signs of updating its image. The last time I walked into a Gap the clothes looked like everything I saw the first time I walked in there 20 years ago. American Apparel's still on its last legs. In terms of clueless outlets, can Urban Outfitters be far behind?

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.

Alec Empire's Empirical Revolution

One of the most exciting artists in music today, Alec Empire has been recording and producing music for over twenty years, and is still more contemporary and alive than most music being produced today. An Alec Empire record could be electronic, it could be punk rock, or it could even be very ambient in the Brian Eno mode. One thing's for sure, Empire is one of the most unpredictable (read: uncategorizeable) artists in music.

My introduction to Alec Empire's brand of sonic skronk came not from his popular band Atari Teenage Riot, but from a wild compilation series of electronic noise, "Electric Ladyland" (no connection to the Jimi Hendrix album). Tracks like "Caucasian Death Mask" and "Naive Fake Jazz" as well as his brain scraping collaborations with New York band Techno Animal got my attention. All this and more guaranteed groove based musique concrete and ear blasting dubstep workouts.

Seeing the name Alec Empire over and over again provoked further investigation into this character and finding out that he also made some insane rock records, like "The Golden Foretaste of Heaven" which features the great "New Man" which sounds like Gary Numan with deranged Iggy Pop vocals (currently on my jukebox to the right) and "If You Live Or Die". There's still lots of great electronics, more of a rock action beat going on, with Empire crooning nihilistically all over the mess.

"Futurist" is a more punk album, giving substance to his Digital Hardcore manifesto. His brand of Digital Hardcore is way more punk than Ministry or Nine Inch Nails. The hardest tracks are "Gotta Get Out" and "Overdose" with his screaming and synth screeching ripping your skull clear off your neck in 3/4's of a second! A completely different release is "Shivers", more groove/dance oriented with the standout track being "Baby Skulls", a cold hard look at the fascist attitude of the United States Government and its overbearing and invasive foreign policy, dressed up as peace and freedom loving. In a pig's eye.

After all this Empire worship I finally decided to go back and listen to his main project Atari Teenage Riot, and while I still find some of the punkism a little too Hot Topic I still think it's more admirable that the band play at Anti-Nazi rallies and every so often the band bust out a wild jam like "Revolution Action".

If you don't know who Alec Empire is I strongly urge you track his stuff down - he's definitely not hiding in a cave, he's out and about on Tumblr, You Tube, Twitter, Facebook and other digital watering holes for your review. The guy's not too shy about switching styles so there's something for everybody to enjoy from him, and if you don't try I'm going to get in your face about Amon Tobin, Kid Koala and DJ Spooky.

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When I think of the Seventies and all the darkness I went through following the loss of my parents which introduced me to my teenage years, two songs haunt me even to this day: Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper" and Steely Dan's "Do It Again". Both songs appeared as if bookends during different sides of that decade, "Reaper" in 1976 (pre-punk) and Steely Dan in 1972 (pre-glitter). This is no coincidence as both songs almost seem to be waiting for those two powerhouse trends to finally manifest and bring on the fun, but until then...we have these two brilliant but sad songs to fill in the pleasure void.

BOC was ahead of their time with the "Agents of Fortune" album, forerunners not only of punk but of goth music as well. Dark themes of ghostly apparitions (The Revenge of Vera Gemini), S&M (Dominance and Submission), black magic and even Joan Crawford were explored by the band and it was a lot less broad than Black Sabbath's take on darkness.

Steely Dan were just plain weird and conjure up so many memories of teenage years going to West Hollywood and meeting hustlers, mentally disturbed teen runaways and trannies - Ricky Don't Lose That Number, indeed - at Arthur J's and The Other Side aka OS and seeing The Deadly China Doll perform. The haunting sounds of "Do It Again" conjures up a sleaze stew equal parts Jean Genet and William Wellman's "Wild Boys On The Road". Sex was still scary and homosexuality was even scarier, naked men with awful sideburns and hairy bodies! Steely Dan captured that cocaine meets that Locker Room butyl nitrate stench down Santa Monica Boulevard groove with "Do It Again", the tale of a loser who dabbles with the seven deadly sins, Drug Addiction, Alcoholism ("you'll be on your knees tomorrow"), Murder, Gambling ("you must put your cards on the table") and the whole damn thing.

With all the talk about the wheel turning round and round and a sitar solo you know there's a Hindu higher power beckoning from behind the curtain, evidence in their rockabilly jazz classic "Bodhisattva". Just think, The New York Dolls were also waiting in the wings to make life fun again. It's all too much!

The Boy of Summer

Global 61 (8943 Santa Monica Blvd.)= I shed a sultry tear when By George! closed on Hollywood Blvd., one of the few “mainstream” boy panties stores in town. How I loved that store with the framed autographed glossy of Andrew Dice Clay (what is it with the name Andrew and their panties?). And George and his partner were cool guys.

I boldly went to WeHo looking for some panties, something nice and original. Most of the boutiques on SM Blvd. were of the dullard Melrose variety complete with old Persian shopkeeper giving you the fisheye.

Global 61 was the exception, the clothes/designs were original, the customers looked like models Janice Dickinson would have gone cross-eyed over, and I found a killer pair of panties: Black sheer mesh designed by Andrew (there’s that name again!) Christian. Price was a bit steep: $30. It also came in white. I wish there was a wider selection in different colors.

Love Connection (8244 Santa Monica Blvd.)= There’s not much to distinguish Love Connection from the other sex shops in the WeHo area, except they don’t blast disco at ear shattering levels, the walls aren’t painted black and silver, thank my gay God, and they sell great panties and things. I bought a great pair of day-glo green fishnet Male Power panties for only $25 and a bitchen tranny crack-pipe torch for $8. Conveniently located right by Circus of Books.

Starbucks (8595 Santa Monica Blvd.)= My favorite Starbucks is the boy watcher Starbucks in sunny WeHo where you can sit out on the patio overlooking cruise worthy Santa Monica Blvd. Stare bears like me can viddy the nightclub commandos in their disco finest. The dagger debs walk on by looking cool and severe, too. It’s all good.

I like the steep hill by the side of the café with your coffee sitting on the table at a skewered angle, Doctor Caligari-style. I like to have the banana chocolate chip coffee cake with my java, and the java needless to say is perfection, same ingredients, magical preparation. WeHo Starbucks, you are the divinous of the divine…and they validate.

In 2 Male (7974 Santa Monica Blvd.)= It all started with a lame dinner at French Quarter Restaurant. I ordered the BBQ Meatloaf with pine nuts in the loaf (blah) and 100 lbs. of broccoli with no butter on the side. Lame. A straight couple were on a first date at the table next to us (in a gay restaurant – was that supposed to be “neutral ground?”). Double lame.

The best thing about the restaurant were the little stores that were strung around it, like a little mall. Now that I liked! Out of the corner of my eye I spied boy panties in a shop window. That I REALLY liked! In 2 Male has a great selection of C-in-2 and (2)Exist panties, thongs and jocks. They also have cool bathing suits, belts, square tank tops and other foxy wear.

My sales guy, a hot Asian gameboi, got worked up over pulling out jocks after I chose one. He seemed very, uh, enthusiastic, shall we say, in helping me find more nut huggers. I also bought a great jumbo grommet belt. Because I paid cash he gave me an ultra-cool special discount. I’m not saying how much off, why should I? Just go down there and make his day.

Will Rogers State Beach (Pacific Coast Highway & Chautaqua Avenue)= Will Rogers once said, “I never met a man I didn’t like”. Well, if you go to Will Rogers State Beach you’ll see that adage being practiced over and over again. I went there for years and never once suspected anything special about it. The one beautiful summer day I went with my friends and the gay one craned his head around like his neck was a spinning top watching the buff roller skaters and bicycle shorts boys. Ah gee,a gay beach. I never suspected. Duh!

As beaches go it’s pretty bad, a big smelly sewage drain leaks out into the ocean there. Sea gulls drink from it and pay the price. I’ve seen a few dead ones all splayed out. The occasional pelican can be seen bopping around with the gulls. Their testicle-shaped bills fit right in with the gayous ambience.

The sand is kind of dirty and littered, too, so take a blanket, take condoms, too.
P.S. There’s a great gay bar across PCH on Channel Road called The Golden Bull. Not that I’ve ever been there, tee hee.

Bummer In The Summer

Well, summer's here and you know what that means: The 2009 West Hollywood LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender) Pride Festival fell on the weekend of June 13 and 14, 2009. This was the third time I attended the festival and most likely the last. There were some pretty radical changes from the last two times we attended, and all for the worst. The three passageways were narrowed down to only one, which created an unbearable congestion of people taking forever just to get to the festival area. Where there were two exits before was now reduced to just one so you had to leave exactly the way you came in, stuck in gay gridlock.

The gay guards at the gate made everyone open up their purse or handbag, and when the big Latino guard saw the leather vested teddy bear in Rebecca’s purse, he squealed, “Have a good time, you leetle queenie bear!”

Once we hit the main campground we realized we were no longer in Kansas, Dorothy: our favorite vendors weren’t around this year, the public service booths like Cedars-Sinai weren’t giving tons of free swag like they do every year, and the Erotic City attraction with the bondage booths had a long line winding around the grounds, so getting in wasn’t the queer cakewalk it was last year.

Saddened, we trudged over to the bandstand where we saw some great shows in the past, but the funny drag queen who usually hosts the show wasn’t on stage. Instead some boring meat puppet from E! Channel was gabbing like a broken record at 78 rpm. He brought Andrew Christian on stage, who whined about getting kicked off some terrible TV contest show before he introduced a boring boy fashion show on stage. The lawn in front of the bandstand was gone, paved over by concrete so everyone was forced to stand and not lie down anymore. Yuck! The only thing that held our attention was an insane plant man creature on stilts who stalked (ouch!) around the grounds. He was awesome!

After a few more dead minutes of watching the world decompose before our eyes, we strolled down Melrose Avenue quietly, and then Rebecca said, “I’m surprised we went this year. You told me last year that you were done with Gay Pride.”
“I did?”
“Yeah, you said that it wasn’t going to get any better than it did last year.”
“Oh, wow, I totally forgot…Oh well, maybe next year we’ll go to Long Beach Gay Pride and we haven’t been to Palm Springs Gay Pride, either.”

The horror continues!

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.

Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade 2007

Openly Gator: “Queer Duck, only you would treat a funeral like a disco”.
Queer Duck: “But everything is a disco”.
-Jm J. Bulllock, Queer Duck (Showtime)

The parade? Well, how disappointing was that? I didn’t see any motorcycle dykes this year and the vivid memory of gay gray leather daddies rockin’ out on a flatbed truck all giving me chickenhawk appraisal is permanently burned in my innocent memory banks. No gray gay leather daddies this year, just a lot of crummy marching bands, wholesome gay kids in white t-shirts marching down the road, dullard Asian PFLAG, etc. I like my gay filthy and nobody was serving it up. There was a bear truck with eyes and fangs but the gays on it were safer than soap.
Debbie, oops, Deborah Gibson rode on a convertible and waved to the crowd sporting the worst weave ever seen. It wouldn’t fool a 5 year-old. Worst Gay Pride Parade, ever.
After all is said and done, I had a great time both days and it was great to celebrate life and laughs with my gay friends. We are fambly.