BijouBlog

 

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.

Blonds have more fun, as the saying goes, and when retro blond god Chris Allen was in his prime, he seemed to be everywhere! Just taking a look at his output on sources like Gay Erotic Video Index is mind-blowing. 

Yet we actually know very little about him outside of his movie and magazine appearances. A couple of sources say he was active (and boy was he active, especially in the eighties) from 1983-2008. So I would assume he is still alive, not a victim of the AIDS crisis that took so many legendary porn stars away from us.

His blond uncut (always a plus, in my humble opinion, and it is 8.5 inches) godhood graces so many Bijou Video classics. Here's a run-down of some his more memorable moments, even in more peripheral roles: 

In Hot Splash, a Toby Ross film from 1985, shows him in full splendor enjoying a sucking the nice-sized cock of David Ashfield, another seemingly omnipresent gay porn star of that period. 

In Getting It, he's part of the “Grand Hotel” cast that pulsates orgiastically around the main relationship in this film, between Jim Bentley and Shawn Michaels. Michaels memorably “attacks” Allen in the toilet, according to the review in Manshots. 

In the Nova film Hunk, Chris has a sex scene with Jesse Koehler (who also appears in a couple of Surge productions including Rangers). 

In The U.N.C.U.T. Club of L.A., he's one of the uncut coterie of guys who live to show off their foreskin. He's here mostly as exemplar of the fetish, but as I said above, his foreskin is a plus, and many guys during the period of his prime, especially Caucasian males, were routinely circumcised. 

According to Gay Erotic Video Index, in this film, Scott Roberts is picked up by Chris Allen and John Andrews on their way to a picnic in the mountains. Scott eats Allen's butt and lunches on Allen's and Johns sausage. Allen rims Scott and then two boys fuck Scott until they cum for desert. 

Lee Landis visits Allen's home and they get out porn magazines and beer for use in front of the fireplace. Lee chooses straight porn and won't let Allen touch him as the two jack off together. 

Allen and Lee set off into the mountains and Allen brings out the porn rags again. They both start to jerk themselves off but then Allen offers to substitute his mouth for Lee's hand. Lee accepts this arrangement. After some oral sex, Allen suggests his ass hole would be better yet so Lee fucks him is several positions. 

Chris Allen is also in the upcoming Bijou Video release, Nothing But the Best (1984), which co-stars Lee Stern, Scott Roberts (again), Sean Williams, Justin Tyler, Steve Knight, and Steve Roberts. 

I discovered, as well, that he appeared in an Old Reliable video called The Professionals, where he,

among other hung studs, jacks off solo. 

Chris also appeared in many magazines of the period, and I found in our files some a photospread from a 1980s Inches magazine.

That spread gives us some personal information about him, that he drove around L.A. In a yellow pick-up, he likes guys younger than himself (he was 22 at the time!), and that while making his movies, he gets so turned on and pulls his pud all the time off camera.

Watch Chris Allen videos on our streaming site!

I recently combed through one of my favorite books, The Gay Decades, by Leigh W. Rutledge. I found this fascinating tidbit about some stars from the Bijou Classics collection. On January 15, 1983 (hard to believe that was thirty years ago), quoting Rutledge: