BijouBlog

Many many years ago, I was waiting for a bus on a bitterly cold day. Typical Chicago winter. The bus stop was located across the street from the local ABC station, in Chicago known as the Channel 7 Eyewitness News. The weatherguy, Mike Kaplan, emerged and strode resolutely across the street, and before I could say Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up, I was on television. And I didn't freeze up in front of the cameras like Cindy Brady on The Brady Bunch. 

Mike just asked me some general questions about the weather situation, and if there were any issues with the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) that day. I said I had experienced no problems with the buses, and I proceeded to explain my fashion strategy for keeping warm, layering, ear coverings and hat, big scarf around the neck. I said cheekily, “If you want to stay warm, you have to dress like a dork.” 
 

Those who saw me on television later that evening (I appeared on the 6 p.m. broadcast) enjoyed a good laugh, but a couple of years later, when I did a vanity google search on my name, someone said, _____ said he was a penis on the ABC Eyewitness News. 

Yes, dork also means penis. Well, kind of. According to Leigh W. Rutledge inThe Gay Book of Lists, the word dick probably came from the the Middle English word dirk, meaning a small sword. Dirk actually came from the word dorke, which meant the horns (origin of the expression horny?) of an animal. Dirk and dork later became slang expressions for the penis. 

Now, there's some controversy that the work dork means a male penis. It actually means a whale's penis. And it's big. Really big. 
 

So, I am a big penis. And thus I am a small sword, and I am the horns of an animal. I guess I am not what I eat. 

All I know, is the day I wake up without that morning wood, I'll really feel like a big dork. 
 

 

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” 

This year's Pride Parade in Chicago rocked, and I think it was mostly because of the balloons. In fact, I don't remember seeing so many of this celebratory staple (and not just for Pride parades, but practically any celebration), mostly because of some outfit called Balloons by Tommy, which seemed to showcase practically every variety of balloon party fashion. 
 

I was particularly taken with those people who literally wore balloons (How can you breathe? What if one pops while you are wearing it?). 

Now, all these balloons got me thinking, and not just about the foibles of trying to wear them, but when were they invented? What are they made of? 

According to Wikipedia, a balloon is a flexible bag that can be inflated with a fluid, such as helium, hydrogen, oxygen, air or water. 

Modern day balloons are made from materials such as rubber, latex, or a nylon fabric, and can come in many colors. 

Some early balloons were made of dried animal bladders, such as the pig bladder. 

Some balloons are used for decorative purposes or entertaining (the genre of party balloons) purposes, while others are used for practical purposes such as meteorology, medical treatment, military defense, or transportation. 

The rubber balloon was invented by Michael Faraday in 1824, during experiments with various gases. 
 

Again, according to Wikipedia, party balloons are mostly made of a natural latex tapped from rubber trees, and can be filled with air, helium, water, or any other suitable liquid or gas. 

The rubber's elasticity makes the volume adjustable. 

Twisting balloons can be used to create decor centerpieces for events and to create a more unique look than can be provided by foil balloons. 

Often the term "party balloon" will refer to a twisting balloon or pencil balloon. These balloons are manipulated to create shapes and figures for parties and events, typically along with entertainment. 
 

Filling the balloon with air can be done with the mouth, a manual or electric inflater (such as a hand pump), or with a source of compressed gas. 

When rubber or plastic balloons are filled with helium so that they float, they typically retain their buoyancy for only a day or so, sometimes longer. 

Beginning in the late 1970s, some more expensive (and longer-lasting) foil balloons made of thin, unstretchable, less permeable metallised films such as Mylar (BoPET) started being produced. 
 

These balloons have attractive shiny reflective surfaces and are often printed with color pictures and patterns for gifts and parties. 

It's almost gotten to the point where just putting up a couple of balloons up at even something that can be so boring as an accounting firm pizza “party” or a job fair table is supposed to create fun and joy. 

My relationship with balloons has been less than joyful. One time, my brother sat on a balloon to purposely pop it. The squeaking and rubbing noise was excruciating to someone like me who suffers from sensory overload issues. 

And then, to add to the horror, I was traumatized when a balloon I was carrying outside of my Grandma's house popped spontaneously. The neighborhood mean old lady, Mrs. Saha, starting yelling at me. I ran upstairs, crying. Grandma, who loathed Mrs. Saha, was about to go next door and fight her. Yes, fight her. Not just, verbally, but physically. I remember my mother holding her back, saying, “Now, Mom … “ 

Even as a child, I could never get the thrill about those people who made multiple balloons into various shapes. Being a veritable klutz whose relationship to physical reality can be chaotic, I don't possess the manual dexterity to even try that (I also can't blow up a balloon), but, more significantly the squeaking and rubbing noise as the balloon artist forms his animal or whatever, plus the fear of a spontaneous pop, creates physical and mental trauma. 

And it's also very depressing to see a shriveled balloon, a reminder that the party's over, long over, dead, because the breath, which is life, has dissipated. 
 

On the other hand, I remember when I was about 11 releasing a helium balloon at some suburban local park district event with a card attached. Amazingly, the balloon made it all the way to Toronto, Canada, as someone sent the card back. 

Some people get sexually turned on by balloons, which make sense, because as I hope I have hinted at above, they can physically embody beauty and excitement, but also danger, and eventually, death, always connected on various levels with sex. 
 

One example of balloon fetishes in Bijou's catalog is featured in the Michael Zen-directed 1986 gay porn, Mansize, in which Michael Cummings enters a home in disarray from the aftermath of a party, covers himself in balloons and pretends to jerk off a long tube balloon while a blow up doll becomes animate, watches him, and jerks itself off, too!

This scene can also be found in the Bijou Video original compilation and recent release, Strange Sex Volume 1. 
 

Both Mansize and Strange Sex Volume 1 are available on DVD and streaming instantly. 

Long hair … when I was growing up in a white Catholic suburb where moms stayed home, produced multitudes of children, and hung up sheets outside on clotheslines, in the late sixties and early seventies, long hair on men was considered almost evil, a symbol of danger and rebellion. You know, those dangerous hippies downtown with their sex and drugs and rock 'n roll. 

Now, according to one book written long ago in the nineteenth century, now incredibly relevant given the state of our nation, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, devotes a whole chapter to the influence of politics and religion on the hair and the beard. 
 

St. Paul's dictum, meant to be only for local consumption and not a universal maxim, “that long hair was a shame unto a man,” was interpreted literally, especially in the days when church and state were not separate. 

Even before the theocratic ideal of the Christendom, the powerful often dictated men's hair length. For example, Alexander the Great though that beards of his soldiers “afforded convenient handles” for an enemy to grab, as preparation for decapitation. Thus, he ordered everyone in his army to shave. 

Yet, especially in the early Middle Ages (or Dark Ages), long hair was symbolic of royalty or sovereignty in Europe. In France, only the royal family could enjoy long, curled hair. Yet the nobles did not want to be viewed as inferior, imitated this style, and also added long beards. The great Charlemagne sported long hair and a beard, but after the ravages of the Vikings and the political and social chaos that ensured after Charlemagne's death, the nobles then kept their hair short. In contrast, the serfs kept their locks and beards long as perhaps a way of less than subtle defiance. 

This flip-flop continued for centuries. Of course many famous churchmen, such as the famed St. Anselm of Canterbury, were virulently against long hair on men. King Henry I of England defied him by wearing ringlets. Much later in England, during the Civil War between the Roundheads (Puritans and Independents) and Cavaliers (Monarchists), hair became a dividing factor, and not just physically. 
 

The Puritans though all manner of vice lurked in the long tresses of the monarchists (this long tresses later became wigs, and legal authorities in England still wear a variant of these wigs when hearing cases), while the monarchists accused the short-haired Puritans of intellectual and moral sterility. According to MacKay, “the more abundant the hair, the more scant the faith; and the balder the head, the more sincere the piety.” Well, I guess those short-haired macho muscular Christian Mormon missionary guys are closer to God, but then why is Jesus usually depicted with long hair? 

Given the tendency toward fascism unfortunately evident as we approach the second decade of the 21st century, I hope no dictator decides, like the King of Bavaria, to ban moustaches, or more recently, that dreadful North Korean beast who ordered that men in his domain could only have their cut in a limited number of ways. The reasons for both these directives are obscure. 
 

The fascination with hair clearly never loses its intensity. Women's hair has always been hidden or even eliminated in some patriarchal systems because of its association with sexual power; it's interesting to see that men's hair has also suffered restrictions as well for reasons associated with power dynamics. Whatever or however hair fashions change, let's face it, the hair styling and shaving supplies businesses will always benefit! 

Now, by turned on, I mean something more wholistic than sexual, but I think you know, if you grew up in the seventies and stayed home on Saturday night to watch CBS' awesome line-up, to whom I am referring. 

Mary Tyler Moore, whom I remember especially in her television incarnation as the character Mary Richards, that midwestern, Presbyterian, single, associate producer of WJM News in Minneapolis, passed away on Wednesday, January 25, 2017. I join the multitudes of mourners (I feel like I lost a best friend), but I also rejoice that she will always be an iconic presence in the lives of so many people. 

Yes, the character Moore created is a true feminist icon, but I think there's so many other facets not just to the character, but the show as a whole. The situation comedy, I argue, was just as much about people as about issues of equal pay, gender roles, sexual freedom, journalistic freedom, and even, in one episode, anti-Semitism. 

And these were people we all to hang with, to laugh with, and in the case of the admittedly boorish Ted Baxter, to laugh at, but recognizing that beneath his bluster, as his wife on the show Georgette said, “Someone has to love him.” 
 

The phrase in the show's theme song, “Love is All Around You,” became in the show not a sentimental cliché, but a dynamic emerging out of relationships where the characters, following the lead of Mary Richards, accepted each other's human foibles with grace and subtle humor but also knew when and where to assert their own self-respect and human worth. 

As I mentioned above in the case of Ted, even characters like Phyllis and Sue Ann Nivens which could have become caricatures of narcissism and nymphomania, were not, because they were ultimately viewed from the perspective of Mary, and the brilliant actresses who played them understood the show's unique dynamic. 

So many moments on this show exemplify what I am trying to say. One episode that stands out include the first episode where Sue Ann appears, “The Lars Affair.” This predatory “other woman” whose public persona is the Happy Homemaker has an affair with the unseen husband of Phyllis. What makes this episode so interesting is that it's clear Phyllis is the wronged woman, but both Mary and even Rhoda (Phyllis' enemy), actually find an interesting, humorous insight into the situation: Phyllis, who is always trying some newfangled, ephemeral scheme (even encouraging Ted to run for public office at one point), seems to be, because of her quirkiness, more the “other woman,” while Sue Ann with her mom, apple pie, frilly apron persona, looks more like the cliché of the wronged wife. 
 

At one crisis point in the episode, Phyllis tries to emulate Sue Ann by baking an apple pie (with disastrously funny results), bemoans her husband's clothes are cleaner after his nights with Sue Ann. We see Phyllis' combination of narcissism and vulnerability here, and also, the show's emphasis on a community of friends that transcend conventional views of family to whom she can turn in a time of personal crisis. 

Phyllis gets her revenge (a brilliant move using food), but only after Mary intervenes. Mary, always tactful, tried to stay out of it, but she finally took action, telling Sue Ann that Ted knows about the affair, and thus everyone knows, and that an extramarital affair would not exactly be the best image for the Happy Homemaker. Mary does this on the spur of the moment, and her intentions are not vicious (she does not spread the rumor), but she knows that it is time to hopefully do something to preserve everyone's self respect. 

I could go on even more, emphasizing what so many others have done the evolution in Mary's relationship with Mr. Grant (I just knew on the next to last episode when they dated that they would never finish that kiss without laughing), and the show's brilliant use of belly laugh humor in the Chuckles the Clown episode to wrestle with the usually unfunny death and mortality. Ah, that scene at the funeral. Young lady … askes the minister. Young lady … Mary looks back. And then her most perfect Mary Richards (so consistent to the character when she was torn between not making a scene or saying her mind) flustered, plaintive moan. 
 

I mentioned earlier the unique sense of community that the show revealed, in the interactions of Mary with her her neighbors who were also her friends and with her coworkers who were also her friends. I always envied that dynamic, especially later in life when, like many other LGBTQ persons, I had to create my own family, when, like Mary, I moved to the big city to be on my own and hoped to find love all around me. 
 

Yes, Mary Tyler Moore and her character of Mary Richards, you made it after all with an amazing combination of strength and sweetness (and intuitively knowing when to use either one or both), and you gave hope to so many that they could do the same.