BijouBlog

When the Bijou Theater opened its doors in the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago 46 years ago, let's just say that area was pretty much the Haight-Asbury of Chicago. Think hippies. Head shops. Art house cinemas. Think, according to one nostalgic online poster, a place where one might (and it did happen) actually see a woman walking a goat down the

    The narcissist in me sometimes peruses the M-M missed connections section in craiglist, wondering: did anyone notice me? Was that hurried glance the beginning of a cruise? Now, I’ve never been that perceptive about the cruise dynamic (I remember in college someone grinding their teeth in frustration, exclaiming, don’t you realize tha

  If one watches much porn, it seems like one is usually waiting for the cumshot, or, as some deem it, the money shot, as if one places a monetary value on the climax. More is more, and bigger is better. Or is it?  Now, as many readers by now have figured out, often times (more so in more recent porn, and I am showing my bias for Bi

  What could be significant in exploring the purpose, audience, and content of this magazine is the AIDS crisis? In 1985, AIDS was decimating gays, especially in urban areas. Rock Hudson died in October 25 of that year. AIDS was no longer a gay disease, a disease suffered only by outcasts and sinners, but something that could kill an ostensib

    I've noticed lately there's almost a cult on youtube of people filming antisocial behavior on public transportation. The range of antisocial behavior is wide, but of course obvious brawls accompanied by foul language are almost sure to go viral, or at least get multitudinous views.  Not surprising, this trend, in a world where s

Every day for breakfast, except on weekends: a bowl of cold cereal. For me, the thrill of themed sugar cereals wore off quickly, even the Halloween-themed ones Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry (let's dump sugar and colored marshmallows in milk, yum!).    For a brief while I enjoyed eating Captain Crunch dry, out of the box, as

“326 BCE – Gay/bisexual military leader Alexander the Great completes conquest of most of the then known Western world, converting millions of people to Hellenistic culture and launching the Hellenistic Age.” I found this on a gay timeline someone sent me, and it caused me to wonder. No doubt Alexander managed to conquer most of the known wor

    I've noticed lately there's almost a cult on youtube of people filming antisocial behavior on public transportation. The range of antisocial behavior is wide, but of course obvious brawls accompanied by foul language are almost sure to go viral, or at least get multitudinous views.  Not surprising, this trend, in a world where s

  I am of a “certain age” that remembers prank phone calls, heavy phone books, payphones (do any exist anywhere these days?), and calling the operator. And, gasp, rotary phones. We had two rotary phones, one on the kitchen wall, and one down in the basement. You had to obtain phones ONLY from the phone company at that time. If you screwed up

What I'm going to argue may enrage some readers, and some my argue my analogy doesn't follow, but these gay advice experts remind me of eunuchs in the harem. A eunuch worked in the harem because he was castrated, and thus literally a safe person to keep the straight male's women-property in line. And in today’s society, every woman supposedly need

  Gordon Grant! He's the total rock solid muscle hunk with a 9 inch uncut cock who's featured in several magazines and brochures we carry and on the covers of our titles Pleasures in the Sun and Hot Truckin'. In Hot Truckin', tough-looking Gordon, called Buck, is a handsome deliverman who sucks and fucks blue-collar types while on t

  The online lgbtq magazine Queerty points to footage of a gay pool party from 1945! The story about how this footage came to be is quite fascinating. Apparently after some extensive research on the actual films which were discovered by Geoffrey Story, it turns out the party took place in the back yard of a St. Louis mansion ow

While going through the Bijou Video file cabinets in search of inspiration, George Payne of Centurians of Rome fame (and one of my initial gay porn crushes, ah, those “mesmerizing dark eyes”) reveals all in an absolutely fabulous 1979 interview with Mandate magazine, called “The Pleasure Payne Principle.”    Digg

The facts (courtesy of Back2Stonewall.com): David Ashfield was one of the biggest names of 1980s porn, making dozens of movies and appearing in plenty more as a stunt dick. He was slim, born in 1960, had a huge and thick cut penis and topped (although he started off as a bottom in early Falcon loops).    David starred in movies like

  This scenario is unfortunately all-too familiar: a gay man dies, and his partner ends up having to fight the “blood family” for property, a dwelling place, even a burial space. Unless a gay couple takes extraordinary, expensive legal measures, which in some cases means even adopting each other (see this link for a famous case), they are not

I first encountered Gino Colbert in his youthful glory, in a spanking fetish film Bijou Video carries called Disciplining the Undisciplined Athlete. Gino, playing a short in stature boxer with a chip on his shoulder, and Michael Ryan spank each other. Little did I know Gino was also a phenomenal director and producer with a multitude of porn films

“Pierce is quite stunning and every time I look at him I do get a bit weak. Looking at his photos that night I began to want to see him naked immediately.” – randyblue.com I must say I agree with the above quote, especially after looking at some of the photos in our files.   In 1985, Pierce did a spread for Honcho magazine, challenging the vi

“Come to the cabaret ...” I watched the movie Cabaret when I was in high school under adult supervision (I guess it was beyond my parents to figure out that Sally Bowles was not at all judgmental about her gay friends).   The I graduated in college to the gender bending Victor, Victoria, much of which takes place in nightclubs/gay bars which

In the spring of 1975, states were repealing sodomy laws, though on April 12 the Arizona House passed an emergency measure to ban same-sex marriages, and the Colorado Attorney General ruled such marriages were illegal too. Despite these setbacks the gay liberation counterculture was in full swing, despite so many setbacks, and the gay porn industr

Emily Litella of Saturday Night Live fame might have got this term wrong and called it something like “tanspread” or “manshead or even “sandwich spread;” I am waiting for this term to perhaps get into the Oxford English dictionary in a few years. So what is it? Is it a noun, a verb? Animal, vegetable, or mineral? Bigger than a bread box? It actual