BijouBlog

1978 was a seminal year in LGBTQ history, mostly because it was the year Harvey Milk was elected in San Francisco to the Board of Supervisors, one of the first openly gay political candidates in United States history. He was elected on January 8, but he was assassinated 10 months later by Dan White, on November 27.
 

An article in Gay Life, a Chicago gay periodical of that period, reacts:

"Gay people all over the United States reacted with shock, dismay and outrage to the murders Monday of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Before their deaths both men have proven themselves to be strong advocates of equal rights for gay men and lesbians. Milk, the first open homosexual elected to citywide office in San Francisco, was widely regarded as one of the most visible and influential leaders in the American gay community. Moscone during his term as mayor had been an active supporter of gay rights ..."

Some other news in this volatile year, showing both progress and regression, with a focus on Chicago:

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected an application by Gaysweek magazine to register its name, claiming that it is “immoral.”

The Chicago Gay Pride Parade, according to a statistics compiled by its now iconic mover and shaker, Rich Pfeiffer, boasted an attendance of 10,000. The increase in numbers built on the previous year's increase, mostly because of the anti-Anita Bryant protests that took place at Medinah Temple.
 

Gay porn movies (and probably playing at the Bijou Theater) released that year included El Paso Wrecking Corp. (the famous Joe Gage movie) with Fred Halsted and Richard Locke and Hot Truckin' featuring Nick Rodgers and the muscle god Gordon Grant. Also released were A Night at the Adonis with Jack Wrangler and Malo show us the inside of the gay sex palaces of that time period, and Dune Buddies (also starring Malo). Jack Deveau of Hand in Hand Films was producing some of his best work this year!
 

We are always researching LGBTQ history and culture. Check out the blogs on our website, and we always welcome your comments and feedback!

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 owned by the wealthy Buddy Walton and his partner. 

Buddy was apparently a famous hairdresser (yes, well, a cliché, but that's what many gay men did during this time) to stars like Rosalind Russell and Lana Turner, and another famous person: Abigail Van Buren of Dear Abby fame. 
 

And Buddy and his partner (pictured to the left, with his partner Sam Micotto and dowagers of St. Louis society) were wealthy, and they possessed the resources, most conveniently a large, private estate, to create havens for their lives and the lives of those like them who loved men. 

After the complex social experience of serving in WWII, many guys and girls from rural areas and small towns (America at that time was still a little less than 50 percent rural) interacted with so many different people (even people of different races and ethnicities, unusual for that time) and often to their surprise and shock discovered their true sexuality. 

The experience was life-changing, but the cultural norms that shaped the social environment of small town American remained, and the emphasis after the war was on heterosexual home and family, getting back to “normal.” The Cold War and the ensuing fear of communism threw up more barriers and exacerbated by a fear of the “other.” The Hollywood where Buddy Walton found fame was a target as many actors and actresses were blacklisted, accused of being threats to America. 

Still, these guys managed to be gay in a world that was not always allowing them to be both gay and happy, that is, pursuing their American right to happiness. They put up the pennant of different colors and in their own way get back to nature. Because who they are is fun and lovely and natural in the deepest sense. 

Enjoy the links, and enjoy more pool parties and guys kissing at BijouWorld.com, BijouGayPorn.com, and on our YouTube channel full of vintage gay porn clips, including this one on classic gay romance!

 

It seems like every month there's a megamillions or powerball lottery ticket craze, and even though the chances of winning are apocalyptic odds (I think it was one in three million), people buy tickets. I bought one, which was miniscule compared to the many who play every day and calculate odds and pick numbers using esoteric formulas. 

Ultimately, it's a matter of luck, who archetypally has been characterized as a woman, the Roman Goddess Fortuna. She is related in function to the Greek Three Fates, who determine the course of events by the slightest thread, literally, as they are depicted as spinners. Clotho spun the “thread” of human fate, Lachesis dispensed it, and Atropos cut the thread (thus determining the individual's moment of death). These figures eventually became the Lady Luck many invoke as they gamble at casinos! 
 

These goddesses were so powerful that even Zeus, king of the gods who became the source of law and order and justice, submitted to Fortune and the Fates. 
 

The Hebrew YHWH, like Zeus, supposedly the source of justice, tells Job, who thinks he is the victim of a horrible fate he does not deserve, that basically the way the universe works is a mostly violent mystery, and gives images of a nature “red in tooth and claw” such as sea monsters and lions. 

Maybe those who think they can somehow beat the odds are influenced by science and mathematics rather than superstition, because I've heard that the “numbers don't lie.” Well, maybe in a math problem in itself, but even though scientists have discovered certain inexorable natural processes, like gravity (thank you, Isaac Newton), someone like Einstein came along to blow the “God is in his heaven, all's right with the world” Deism apart with this theory of relativity. 

On the social level, our obsession with celebrity feeds into our desire to beat those supposedly insurmountable odds. So many think they are talented and want to be discovered, and shows like American Idol with its elaborate (and public) audition process are part of that explosion of “everyone can be famous,” and everyone can be famous if his or her youtube video goes viral. These seekers of fame and fortune may think they are beating the odds, but I think it just emphasizes that a person is one in a multitude in the cyberuniverse, which changes by nanosecond. 
 

Gone are the days when someone like Lana Turner (a Hollywood sex goddess of the 1940s and 1950s) was discovered at a soda fountain, when a discovery was really a one-of-a-kind event, which I think made the Susan Boyle phenomenon, who blasted into fame on Britain's Got Talent, so different and thus more exciting in our age of one-second, often meritless fame. 
 

 

And speaking of breaks, just think about how some of the most famous gay porn stars of the past made their way in a genre that didn't enjoy during that time a wide public audience. The pioneering directors and producers like Arch Brown, Steve Scott, and Toby Ross were discoverers themselves, not just of talent, but of expressing a sexuality that has been so long hidden. 
 

But the gay porn stars of the past, like many of the Hollywood legends, often came from humble, obscure origins but got that break (of course, they were, and again, a matter of luck, a generous endowment granted by the Fates). Al Parker worked as a butler and an aide to Hugh Hefner before making his debut in Brentwood's Challenger and going on to become a porn superstar and, later, director and producer. 
 

In many cases, the desire may not have been, hey, I want to be a porn star, but if one has a great body and a certain size dick, and is stripping in a club (likeJamie Wingo and Scorpio), maybe that venue would be the “big break.” In fact, Scorpio tried to get into modeling, but his stripping gig, according to him, killed his chances. 
 

Yet Fortune, capricious, is still inexorable, and AIDS decimated so many of these men. Science and medicine discovered the cause, while a culture of homophobia claimed the virus was God's justice and blamed the victims. Both interventions were too late for so many. Since then, as in so many other crises, we've changed the future (we are so close to a cure), but at the tragic cost of the past. 

Never again, we say, about so many natural and human evils, but ultimately, but even what turns out to be good is often a chance discovery. 

All I can say, is, may luck be a “lad” for you, as was the case with me, when I met my late partner totally by chance in a bar, and that night I wasn't even there to meet anyone. He actually went home with someone else, but the next day he called me, and the rest for both of us became our history.

Summer in Chicago, the season of construction, is also the time where the masses finally divest themselves of jackets and coats and sweaters (pretty much de rigeur from October through April), fret about their beach bodies (or the lack thereof), and try and live outside (but ultimately end up fleeing into air conditioned quarters because of the humidity). 

June 9-11, is the Andersonville Midsommarfest, now in its 52nd year. The Andersonville neighborhood, was originally Swedish (very few Swedish places remain now, especially now that the famous Swedish bakery has closed), then Middle Eastern, then the lesbians entered and it became “Girlstown,” the gay boys followed in their wake, and now the married couples roll their strollers (same-sex couples now included) on the gentrified thoroughfares around Clark and Foster. 
 

Midsummer celebrations held throughout the United States are largely derived from the cultures of immigrants who arrived from various European nations since the 19th century. Midsummer, also known as St. John's Day, is the period of time centered upon the summer solstice, and more specifically the Northern European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice or take place on a day between June 19 and June 25 and the preceding evening. 

For example, Geneva, Illinois, hosts a Swedish Day (Swedish: Svenskarnas Dag) festival on the third Sunday of June. The event, featuring maypole-raising, dancing, and presentation of an authentic Viking ship, dates back to 1911. 

In fact, many midsummer celebrations around the United States hark back to Scandinavian origins, especially in the Midwest, home to many descendants of immigrants from that part of Europe who came to farm the plains and prairies in the nineteenth century. 

In Sweden, Midsummer is such a big deal that it ends up being a de facto public holiday, with many shops and offices closed. It's usually a Saturday between June 20 and June 26, but the actual celebration is on the Friday evening before. 

In Sweden, yes, the phallic maypole is a very important component of the celebrations; in earlier times, small spires bedecked with greenery were erected, in honor of the Norse fertility goddess Freya. 
 

Given the usually lethal relationship of LGBTQ persons with Christian religious establishments (which, especially after the Reformation, banned many of the midsummer rituals obviously taken from paganism), many now embrace the festival as more than just a boozy time at a street festival. Midsummer is also the same month as Pride Month, but the neopagan and Wiccan movements which attract many LGBTQ persons laud this as a time called Litha, when, as William Blake says, when the “doors of perception” expand to reveal a wondrous, life-affirming energy in every blade of grass, every erect cock: 

“There’s a powerful juxtaposing of realities going on right now: one is the world as we know it, with an ethos of fear and scarcity, and an ugly underbelly that’s so evident in the horrific news of recent weeks; and the other is a life-centered ethos revealed in Nature’s emerging summertime landscape of stunning beauty and overflowing abundance.” – Karen Clark, “Three Lessons from the Summer Solstice”