BijouBlog

posted by Madame Bubby I was dating a part time fireman in Milwaukee some time ago, and he made a comment that the gay guys in one bar should have gotten out more, rather than sitting inside said bar and listening to Judy Garland. (A rather ironic comment, I might say, as he spent 12 hours Saturday and Sunday inside bars himself, but he of course

posted by Madame Bubby Rick Donovan & Matt Ramsey (aka Peter North) in The Bigger the Better “Hi, Professor. I am for extra help with the assignment, said the young blond jock with the tight buns accentuated by the tight Levis. I think you need more help than that, said the hot daddy bearded muscle hunk professor dressed in a sharp business su

posted by Madame Bubby I was doing my usual scrolling on Twitter the other day, and I came across a news item on a cult I had never heard of before, which masked as a theater company! According to the link above and other sources, the leader of this cult is a former actress, Sharon Gans, who starred in the 1970s film Slaughterhouse Five. In 1978,

posted by Madame Bubby Ok, George Orwell. I had to read Animal Farm in grade school, 1984 in high school, and of my own volition, I read and even identified with the main character the infinitely dreary Keep the Aspidistra Flying (yes, nerdy guys with aspirations to writing and other academic pursuits really shouldn’t try to escape their heteronor

posted by Madame Bubby ‘Porn is not destroying the environment.” – recent tweet by Steven Toushin, owner BijouWorld.com I’ve noticed on Twitter, that is, on my own account especially, a stigma, and this stigma is connected to a larger stigma. The stigma isn’t homophobia specifically, nor is it what I term a type of classism or elitism, or that som

posted by Madame Bubby Once again, after being forced to urinate and defecate in the dull and stinky men’s room in the building at the university where I teach, I think once again about the relationship between not just mansex and the men’s room, but the whole sociology of the bathroom. First of all, the fact I am saying bathroom is significant, b

posted by Madame Bubby I was staring the other day while on the internet at images of 1920s living rooms and kitchens, because I realized how many places I’ve lived in (including my current dwelling) were built in that time period. For example, builders were churning out rows and rows of the traditional Chicago brick bungalow, and, as my grandmoth

posted by Madame Bubby Jim Cassidy Sex Play, which appears to be an early 1970s gay porn “naughty picture book,” features an article by gay porn star Jim Cassidy entitled, “Why Be A Homosexual.” (Cassidy appears in several vintage gay porn flicks - Whatever Turns Ya On, A Deep Compassion, The Light from the Second Story Window, and Chapter 3 - ava

posted by Madame Bubby Surprises abound when sifting through the wealth of LGBTQ archival material at Bijou Video. I picked up an issue of a 1970s vintage gay porn monograph or serial (not sure) called Hard? A Pictorial and Literary Study, which is comprised mostly of explicit gay sex photos, with a running text by one Dr. Jack Muller. In other wo

posted by Madame Bubby I did some family history, and I found out my great-grandmother lived in the Englewood area on the South Side of Chicago in 1940. The place where she lived is now a vacant lot. It’s now a high-crime, low-income area that desperately needs reinvestment and TLC (not synonyms for gentrification). I, her great-grandson, live way

posted by Madame Bubby Last week I wrote a blog on The Jeffery Pub, the oldest LGBTQ bar in Chicago, notable not just for its longevity, but because it is owned and operated by African Americans in a neighborhood far removed from the trendy white gayborhoods to the North. In the course of my research, I discovered another piece of Chicago LGBTQ hi

posted by guest blogger Miriam Webster Image Credit: Tom DeSimone This is the follow up to our previous blog about Tom DeSimone, a major figure in the formation of the adult industry in the 1970s and one of the earliest directors of gay hardcore films during the establishment of the genre. He directed many well-produced and influential gay porn cl

posted by Madame Bubby By the 1970s, the golden age of gay porn in the heady days in the aftermath of Stonewall, already Joe Tiffenbach was achieving a type of iconic status as “grandaddy of gay porn.” Who was this person who encompassed in his life many different roles in the LGBTQ community? In many ways, his life and work is a microcosm of the

posted by Madame Bubby When I was in sixth grade (I didn’t go to a middle school or a junior high), the tougher boys were joking about rubbers. I did not make the connection to condoms until high school, climaxing in the time when, believe it or not, my dad gave me one to put in my wallet. He thought I needed one because I was hanging out with som

posted by Madame Bubby I've written about “this day” in a couple of past blogs, including this one on our website. Sigh. I even posted a tweet on my personal account that I “had no plans,” passive-aggressively playing for sympathy (or maybe a date?). An article I came across in a student publication called the Miami Hurricane makes a strong point,

posted by Madame Bubby “There's one lady barber that made good,” croons Mae West, singing Delilah in the opera Samson et Dalila by Saint-Saens in an attempt to be a high-class dame.   Since my regular haircut lady retired and moved to Florida, I've been searching for a haircut place. After a few unsatisfactory visits to a salonesque male hair

posted by Madame Bubby I was going through the files at the Bijouworld office, and I happened across a packed file for one porn star who does not appear in any of our titles. But the contents of the folder were certainly both enticing (lots of pics from the gay magazines he appeared in) and disturbing. Tim Lowe, a prolific porn star from the 1980s

posted by Madame Bubby Source: Playguy, December, 1986 This prolific “blond jock American bottom” appeared in more than 100 moves from about 1982-2001, also performing as Sandy Shaw, Rob Monroe, and Kurt Reikert. According to Gay Hot Movies, “Cory is part of that pre-condom vintage era of porn that churned out countless stars and even more hot vid

posted by guest blogger Miriam Webster   Bijou Theater exterior and upstairs map I first went to the Bijou Theater in 2008. It was a snowy day that March. I was in my last month of being 21 – quite an eventful year. It was weeks after I met my first real girlfriend, who I would wind up being with five and a half years. At the beginning of my

Posted by Madam Bubby   I just consulted the office's copy of the 1960s chapbook, The Guild Dictionary of Homosexual Terms. These are a few of euphemisms for something you can always do if you are in self-isolation; as Helen Reddy sang, "My best friend is myself," and adding to that, your right or left hand or whatever you use for maximum ple