BijouBlog

I've lately decried what I consider to be an increasing lack of free choice in one's daily life (unless one is rich). In fact, there's one particular part of one's life, an important one, over which you have no control: your address. I doubt most people would move to a place because they like the name of the street. If one moves there, one is stuck with the address, like it or hate it. 
 

However, in 2009, the residents who lived on Butt Hole Road in Leicester, England, did have the name of the street changed. Apparently they were also sick of the constant mooning pics going on in front of the street sign. In contrast, the people who live on Butthole Lane (also in Leicester, England) like the name and defiantly refuse to change it. By the way, in both cases the word “butt” is either Anglo-Saxon or Middle English, and means a target, not an ass. Oh, well … 

In the United States, the most common street names are mostly numbers (boring!) and innocuous ones named after trees like Maple and Oak. Main and Church are up their in popularity, harking back to the small town culture of America, still predominant up to the middle of the century. 

In fact, according to the link above, “road names are pieces of history. They encode the culture and geography of America. In Arizona, popular street names are Apache, Palo Verde, Mesquite. In New Mexico, Cedar and Pinon top the list; In Colorado, it’s Aspen and Spruce.” For example, in Chicago, I've noticed Native American names like Winnemac and Milwaukee as well as the ubiquitous Lincoln because Chicago is in Illinois, the Land of Lincoln. 
 

So true, but I've often wondered about how one might feel about certain street names in this time of widespread cultural transformation. Words change meaning as contexts change. For example, might an atheist feel upset that he or she lived on Church Street? Or a woman living on King Street? Perhaps now certain gay guys might feel piqued that they live on Queen Street. In this case, perhaps, one could be too “pc.” 

I also found out that some newer housing subdivisions have been able to choose new street names. Perhaps in this case one could buy or rent a place because one like the name. For example, in Sterling Heights a subdivisions boasts street names from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. I myself would love to live on Rivendell Lane. For me, it evokes an image of a pastoral paradise more than the common and boring tree and park-related names one often sees in suburban housing developments. 
 

In the second paragraph, I mentioned that the word butt in those street names did not refer to the ass. Yet the sexual names abound (perhaps not intentionally). I've discovered a Manlove Street and a Cumming Street that intersects with Seamen Street. And Morningwood (again, not intentional!).Broomrape Lane is the address of four families. Really, people, try very hard to get that one changed. Most people don't know it refers to a flower. 
 

So, what is the name of the street where you live? My street is the name of a famous opera where a gypsy seduces a soldier. I don't know if that was the inspiration for the name. It's located between two streets with Native American names, and there's some Scottish ones in the area too. Just be sure to often walk down mine, especially is you are cute and single. 

Words fail me. I've said that phrase so many times in the past few months and especially since Sunday in the wake of the Orlando massacre. 

I write a blog, weekly I do so much other writing in various genres, and I teach writing, but lately it seems that the the situation that should inspire the writing moves beyond words. And I'm not a visual-oriented person, so I'm not really adept at welding words to images or just using images to express an idea or feeling. Again, words fail me. 

(And thank you, Dame Maggie Smith, for giving me that phrase you used indelibly in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel). 

Thus I'm not going to repeat what already has been said, currently being said, and will be said about the unspeakable evil and horror. CNN will do that for you. 

One story really stood out for me as I purposely let the images and words wash over me as the reporting on this incident unfolded. Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, mother of 11, 49 years old, was at the Pulse nightclub dancing with her gay son, Isaiah Henderson, age 21. According to the New York Daily News, Brenda saw the shooter point his weapon at them. She told her son to get down and took the bullet for him. 
 

The obvious response: What mother would not give her life for this way for a child? Yes, the most primeval, powerful instinct was going on here. She died but in doing so made sure a part of her life survived. 

But how many parents who have rejected their LGBTQ children, especially those who do in the name of religion, would do the same? How many parents like this have actually treated said children as dead to them because of a belief system that relies on scapegoating victims and sacred violence? 

Brenda was a victim, but she broke through this mechanism by transcending that cycle of violence because she voluntarily gave her life for the life of another. 

And others in the club did the same, for complete strangers, but whom they saw as neighbors whom they should love as themselves. 

No one who died here was purposely and ultimately falsely seeking a martyrdom like the advocates of sacred violence often do, and none of the survivors are calling for new victims or scapegoats to appease them like one current politician is calling for. 

I've lost faith in a God we've made in our own image who creates destructive boundaries that are built on the sacrifice of victims, but I've learned from the victims and the survivors that we can create hope and love. “All God has is thee,” is an old Quaker saying. It's up to us to find God in each other. Let's start by really beating our swords into ploughshares and choosing life. 

I thought I would do an IML-related piece, the whole leather contest circuit actually began in a leather bar, the famous/infamous Gold Coast founded by the legendary Chuck Renslow. I know one person who remembers this bar; he is in his eighties (hard to believe). Much has been written on this place of LGBT history already; I’ll just add that it seems to be the granddaddy of places where like-minded men could meet others who shared their sexuality. Much of what is perhaps now the traditional dynamic of gay leather bars originated there: the leather biker look, the rough sex and BDSM, the l hypermasculinity revealed in the famous artwork of Etienne aka Dom Orejudos now displayed in the Leather Archives and Museum. 
 

The Gold Coast closed in 1988 (alas, I never went there) at the 5025 North Clark location, having moved from its original location at 501 North Clark Street. Renslow later opened the Chicago Eagle in the 1990s; I remember the entrance being the inside of a truck, and the basement Pit. I actually consider this place my “coming out” bar as a leatherman. I was flogged in public down there, my first big BDSM scene. The Eagle closed in the early 2000s; the last time I went there was 2007; by that time the totally hot Pit had closed. 
 

I also remember another spot, now closed, called Leatherneck. It was located literally in downtown Chicago, the Loop. The upstairs was outfitted as a dungeon, where Windy City Bondage Club held amazing parties. The operator of this building was the infamous (emphasize the “in” in that word) John Birch aka of the now defunct Metropolitan Slave magazine. I could devote a whole other blog to this individual (it might read as a particularly outrageous National Enquirer article), but strangely enough, there’s almost no online trace of him, other than a link to some papers by one Beau Lee James, winner with John Birch of the International Master and Slave contest held by Pantheon of Leather in Houston, Texas, 1994. 

Leatherneck with its distinctive mezzanine opened in 1997; I don’t remember when it closed, but I do remember it being for many people I know more of a hangout place rather than a more serious down-and-dirty place like the Eagle or Touche. 

Now, I’ll end with one more place, the AA Meat Market. It was located next to the famous original Touche (I went there for the first time in the early 1990s; a week later it burned down). In my younger sluttish days, I remember being dragged into the bathroom at the Meat Market to perform fellatio and lick boots. I remember this place always hopping; it closed in 1993, I think, because of the gentrification of that neighborhood by Lincoln and Diversey, though I did hear there was some raid that year for “public indecency.” 
 

Our beloved David Boyer is keeping the leather bar legacy alive at Touche. I hope that these places don’t become memories, but continue to adapt to a world that communicates via phone apps. I know I would rather lick a boot or kiss a hot guy in full gear than stare at a phone app. 

Hope you had a  blast at IML 2016! 

“His appeal is not easily defined; there are men who are hunkier, better hung, certainly younger. But none have that hypnotic gaze. And unlike so many others in the field, Slater can talk.” – Frontiers, September 13, 1991. 

John Duffy Slater appears in two of our Bijou classic movies, In Heat and Roger, but according to the source above, by age 36 he appeared in 150 films.

Interesting facts about him: 

Slater had legitimate stage experience; he worked as a sound technician and an actor, though he has a master's degree in behavioral psychology from Fordham University. 

He appeared in a major off-Broadway production, Short Eyes. He also wrote a couple of musicals, Zounds and Rodney Rocks and the Oral Fixation. The title of the last sounds particularly intriguing. 

He got started in the whole gay porn scene while walking down Christopher Street in New York City. A photographer came up to him and said, “Gee, you wear the T-shirt well!” He then wound up on the cover of the gay rag Numbers. Lana Turner, eat your heart out; you had to pay money to sit at a soda fountain to get discovered. 

J.D. then appeared in Joe Gage's film Handsome. 
 

The last year he was in New York, 26 friends died during the AIDS epidemic, including the director Christopher Adler. 

He specialty was the erotic monologue. He directed a film called Confessions Motoerwhere the guys had sex, and between scenes, the guys talked about themselves. 

He was a drug addict, strung out on speed, but made a successful recovery. 

He made a film about sexual compulsion, Motorsexual, the motor being the sex drive. Quite daring, I think, confronting head-on what the vicissitudes of desire and their relationship to the porn viewer who often watches what he knows he can't ever attain in reality. 

He cast men in his films in their late 30s and early 40s, because they know how to have sex better. Bravo! 

He also deliberately was interested in, as he said, “presenting an alternative to the stereotype of being 22 with a perfect body sitting by a pool.” Bravissimo! 

For the 1990 feature Guilty, he started his own production company, and nearly landed in jail when copies he'd shipped to  England were seized and declared obscene. 

People tended to see him as a top, but he got fucked in about 50 percent of his films. He did feel safe, post-AIDs, when they pulled out before climaxing, but “it was a big enough trial just to get them to get hard.” 

He recovered from testicular cancer which resulted in the removal of his right ball. The ball received a memorial service. 

What a complex guy! He entices with his eyes, making you beg for more, but in the act of begging you are most satisfied. The connection is ultimately mental.

And he is totally comfortable in himself yet also something of a chameleon. His range is from the softest, slickest vanilla to the raunchiest leather. 

I think I am in love. 
 

 

Psalm 133:1-2
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that runs down upon the beard, Aaron’s beard, that runs down to the hem of his garments.

Why am I quoting a psalm from the Bible? We are just released a new porn compilation, Love a Man with a Beard 3, on DVD and streaming, and it's pretty obvious that the passage above refers to a beard. Not just any beard, but the beard of the first high priest of Israel. But something is happening on the beard. Oil is running down it, profusely. Why?

The Talmud makes the connection between these this passage and another passage in the Bible, Leviticus 8: 10, 12. Psalm 133 makes concrete heaven’s response to the actions of Moses and Aaron as they fulfilled their roles as servants of God.

Moses and Aaron were brothers who stood together as one unified presence before God, especially as Moses anointed his brother Aaron for the service of the tabernacle (which contained the famous Ark of the Covenant); together they blessed the people (Leviticus 9:23).

In their culture, blessings were physical: fertility (the end result of sexual prowess in Biblical culture) and wealth, as well as spiritual/emotional ones such as peace and intimacy.

What I find interesting is the amount of oil depicted in the passage. It flows profusely. It drenches not just the beard, but the entire body. The obvious symbolism here is actually more abstract (the oil is a concrete expression of God's blessings of peace and unity) than literal. But oil pressed from the olive tree, a staple of Biblical life, used for practically every bodily function, not just as a food additive.

In another monotheistic religion, Islam, according to the Quran and the Ahadith (sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad) there are multiple references to olive oil.

The Prophet Muhammad is said to have advised his followers to apply olive oil to their bodies and to “use olive oil as a food and ointment for it comes from a blessed tree” (Tirmidi). In fact, for centuries, olive oil was first used on the body, not in it. Olive oil has been used to maintain the suppleness of skin, to heal abrasions, to soften the hair, to strengthen nails, to cure the effects of alcohol (such as a hangover), and to relieve aching muscles.

And there's a definite sexual connection between oil and semen as well.

Olive oil offers a few significant benefits as a lubricant for sexual activity. It’s not water soluble, and as a result, it provides long-lasting lubrication in small amounts. A few drops of olive oil can last for hours. It isn’t very greasy, and most people have a bottle of olive oil in their kitchens.

Recently, there's been research about the connection of extra virgin oil increasing semen production!

In Biblical Hebrew, the word shemen (שמן) is usually translated as "oil," as in the essential extract pressed out of a plant or fruit (such as the olive). Could perhaps the essential extract of a man be his seed (זרע zera ) or semen?: [There is] treasure to be desired and שמן [oil] in the dwelling of the wise; but a foolish man spendeth it up [through lust]. (Proverbs 21:20)

Whether the one who literally spreads his seed rather than saving it for making babies, resulting in cum dripping on a beard or any body hair, is really foolish is of course these days a matter of opinion.