ISRAEL- LIVE

( the late neo-romantic beauty- JOHN HARP- circa 1980-
photo courtesy~ IVY NEY)

there's been an ongoing chat about the late JOHN HARP on facebook.
john was a los angeles local during the late 70s early 80s. he was a fixture @ the early neo-romantic club called THE VEIL. he was also an early goth.

here's a few samples of the back & forth facebook banter about john harp.

Yesterday at 2:19am-

Syd Curry- John RIP

Ivy Ney oh.. damn! thnx Syd

Rick Castro- john harp

Bryan Rabin- OMG one of my best girlfriends....taught me the ropes.Ms. Kate Fear or Jean Sharp of Hollywood
what a piece of work.........

Jon Sidel- great memory!

Kari Lee Krome- teenage piss elegant.

Eddie Jack- awe......john....thanks Byran....that just flooded me with so many happy and BEYOND funny memories!

Jason Pollock- This is from around the time I first met him.Good friend(if you could look past the stealing) Horrible bitch of an enemy.. I held his hand as he drew his last breath.... He was something else.. miss him..

Kat Vinegrad- wasn't he gorgeous!

Julie Rosenberg- so beautiful...

Chico Rey- YO JAY HE WAS A GREAT GUY LOVED MY COOKIN

Lola Ehrhart- Pretty Johnny... RIP

Rick Castro- back in the day,(1980) i had the biggest crush on john harp, to the point where i bought a mirror from him, (that he over-priced) just to have an excuse to visit him.... didn't see him again for many years. 10 years later there he is at oufest with his best friend- ricki lake!

Joseph Brooks- He was my meanest door girl ever and pocketed tons of cash I am sure. But as Syd says the image of him dancing in that NR outfit to Israel will endure forever, he was the first one to dance that way that was copied by so many.

Syd Curry this song will forever remind me of dancing with him at the Veil-

AIDS

june 5th marked the 29th anniversary of the CDC's identification of what is now known as AIDS.

there were no parties or celebrations, there was no congratulations, no awards. i didn't even blog it until now, and was reluctant to do so. i decided in memory and dedication to all the loved ones we have lost, i would blog now and include the monumental photo by Therese Frare of david kirby and his family.

A Picture That Changed the Face of AIDS
In November, 1990, LIFE magazine published a photograph of a young man, David Kirby- his body wasted by AIDS, his gaze locked on something beyond this world - surrounded by anguished family members as he took his last breaths. The haunting image of Kirby's passing (above), taken by a journalism grad student named Therese Frare, became the one photograph most identified with the HIV/AIDS epidemic that, by then, had seen as many as 12 million people infected. Now, 20 years after her photograph helped transform public perception of the disease, LIFE spoke with Frare about that picture; the international controversy it sparked when United Colors of Benetton used it in a 1992 ad; and the never-before-published photographs she took before and after David Kirby's death -- photos that reveal the untold story behind one of the 20th century's most heart-breaking, indelible images. READ MORE-

AIDS was first reported June 5, 1981, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recorded a cluster of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (now still classified as PCP but known to be caused by Pneumocystis jirovecii) in five homosexual men in Los Angeles. In the beginning, the CDC did not have an official name for the disease, often referring to it by way of the diseases that were associated with it, for example, lymphadenopathy, the disease after which the discoverers of HIV originally named the virus. They also used Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections, the name by which a task force had been set up in 1981.

In the general press, the term GRID, which stood for Gay-related immune deficiency, had been coined. The CDC, in search of a name, and looking at the infected communities coined “the 4H disease,” as it seemed to single out Haitians, homosexuals, hemophiliacs, and heroin users. However, after determining that AIDS was not isolated to the homosexual community, the term GRID became misleading and AIDS was introduced at a meeting in July 1982. By September 1982 the CDC started using the name AIDS, and properly defined the illness.
The earliest known positive identification of the HIV virus comes from the Congo in 1959 and 1960 though genetic studies indicate that it passed into the human population from chimpanzees around fifty years earlier. A recent study states that HIV probably moved from Africa to Haiti and then entered the United States around 1969.
during the early plague years- 1981 thru 1986, then president ronald reagan would not even say the words- AIDS, until rock hudson's death in 1985.

In 2010, former US President Bill Clinton said that countries receiving aid to combat the epidemic should redirect funding to local organizations who could spend it most effectively and efficiently. He said,
"In too many countries too much money goes to pay for too many people to go to too many meetings, get on too many airplanes."

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photos courtesy~ Neil Cui Cui

GOTHS IN HOT WEATHER

my new fave blog~ GOTHSINHOTWEATHER.COM
check it out~

CAN I SPEAK TO YOU BEFORE YOU GO TO HOLLYWOOD

i just had to post this rare LABELLE song~ CAN I SPEAK TO YOU BEFOR YOU GO TO HOLLYWOOD.

circa 1974- Written by Nona Hendryx, and performed by LaBelle~ sarah dash-nona hendryx & patti labelle, this song is said to be about a Mohair suit-wearing 70's Elton John who, after having worked with the group for years, brushed Patti off after becoming successful. An exceptional, breathtaking performance by the first ladies of rock-soul-funk-gospel-and R&B~ LABELLE.

YOU TURN ME ON

in a ROLLING STONG interview- circa 1974, nona hendryx talks about how the energy would get so high between the 3 divas that they would simultaneously have orgasms running down their tights.

STEVE REVES~ LEGEND

HOLLYWOOD ON HIS KNEES

i see this guy everyday, and always wondered if he was homeless.. now i know his backstory. great article courtesy LA TIMES

Walk of Fame polisher is the keeper of the stars
John Peterson has kept the Hollywood emblems gleaming for 14 years. With 2,412 stars, that's 110 a day and a full-time job.

John Peterson, 61, polishes about 110 stars a day along the nearly three-mile stretch of Hollywood. (John W. Adkisson / Los Angeles Times

By Bob Pool, Los Angeles Times
July 24, 2010

If anyone can restore Hollywood's luster, John Peterson figures it's him.

The one-legged man has spent 14 years polishing celebrities' stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

With 2,412 of them along nearly three miles of sidewalk, it's a full-time job.

"Chewing gum should be banned globally," says the 61-year-old, scraping a dirty clump of the stuff off actress and singer Cass Daley's star near Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. "It's not recyclable, it's not biodegradable, it's not good."

Once Daley's star is gleaming, Peterson stows his bottle of Brasso metal polish and the paper towel into a plastic shopping bag. Hoisting himself up by his arms, he inches along on his knees to the next star, dragging the bag and his crutches along with him.

His next stop is 1940s-era character actor Gene Lockhart. Pulling out the towel and the polish, he swabs the movie-career emblem and sprays Windex over the star's pink terrazzo surface to remove scuff marks.

Peterson's work has given him a sidewalk-level perspective of Hollywood that few people have.

That has convinced him that the Metro Red Line subway, which some have blamed for causing the Walk of Fame's terrazzo to crack and chip, is only partly at fault.
READ MORE-

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i find this photo amusing... what do you think?

photo courtesy~ Sergey Vasiliev

THE LOOK OF THE NUDE

(eduardo lucero)


presents
THE LOOK OF THE NUDE
male figure art as seen by

MIGUEL REYES
EDUARDO LUCERO
BIL DONOVAN
STEVEN BLANK


(miguel reyes)

(bil donovan)

(steven blank)

opening reception

AUGUST 6TH

6-9PM
$5 cover

on exhibit thru september 1st
gallery general hours- wednesday thru saturday- 1-7pm

salons-
sketch class hosted by miguel reyes- august 15th
sketch salon hosted by eduardo lucero- august 22nd
camera club hosted by steven blank- august 29th

antebellum
1643 n las palmas ave
hollywood, ca 90028
323 856-0667
www.antebellum.us.ms
antebellum@earthlink.net

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photo courtesy~ Nos Están Mirando & Devendra Banhart

MY LITTLE REUNION

( JD samson- le tigre- moderator-barry morse- played- roger V. deem, rick castro- co-director & writer, matt johnstone- played student driver & glen meadmore- played stew blake)

we had a "little" reunion last night for the screening of
HUSTLER WHITE, my first feature film and a milestone in my life. presented as part of the LEGACY PROJECT of OUTFEST, the film screened @ the DIRECTOR'S GUILD OF AMERICA, a mere 14 years after it's original screening which was also @ outfest- 1996.

(barry morse- played- roger V. deem, rick castro- co-director & writer, matt johnstone- played student driver & glen meadmore- played stew blake)

i was informed by legacy coordinator, kristin pepe that HW was the only film in the festival to sell out. that my 14 year old film can still draw a crowd is very pleasing indeed..... perhaps a theatrical re~release is in order... are you listening strand releasing?


the screening was hosted by dyke icon- JD SAMSON from LE TIGRE, who chose hustler white as her favorite film of all time. she talked about how it formed her as a young queer and made her what she is today.. i must say for a film created on no- budget, with an all male, hustler, pornstar cast. without any women in the entire film, including the background. to have a young feminist lesbian tell an audience that this resonated with her shows we were able to crossover and reach many people.

this is very rewarding for me. i know i'm doing something right.
" rick castro brings fetish to the mainstream"

I TOLD YOU SO

i don't want to say i told you so, but i did.
the huffington post has an article about the person behind immigration laws in arizona.

JASON "JT: READY is the arian man of the hour-

PHOENIX — Minutemen groups, a surge in Border Patrol agents, and a tough new immigration law aren't enough for a reputed neo-Nazi who's now leading a militia in the Arizona desert.

Jason "J.T." Ready, (that name, give me a break) is taking matters into his own hands, declaring war on "narco-terrorists" and keeping an eye out for illegal immigrants. So far, he says his patrols have only found a few border crossers who were given water and handed over to the Border Patrol. Once, they also found a decaying body in a wash, and alerted authorities.


But local law enforcement are nervous given that Ready's group is heavily armed and identifies with the National Socialist Movement, an organization that believes only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals should be American citizens and that everyone who isn't white should leave the country "peacefully or by force."

"We're not going to sit around and wait for the government anymore," Ready said. "This is what our founding fathers did."
READ MORE-

and here is the blog i posted about russell pearce and his association with "JT", way back in may, 2010-
http://antebellumgallery.blogspot.com/2010/05/russell-pearce.html

("JT" READY & RUSSELL PEARCE- NAZI LOVERS)

I'M A KING OF KINK?!

oh wow, cybersocket has an article about the movers & shakers of gay erotica, and they listed me! YAH!

here's the repost courtesy CYBERSOCKET-

THE KINGS OF KINK

The history of gay erotica has been shaped by countless visionaries and it isn’t limited to just photographers and film directors of the last half century.
By Dave Steinmetz

In our April issue, we began an ongoing look at some of the artists who have had the most profound impact on gay erotica and kink. We covered mostly visual artists from the last 60 years, including photographers Ulli Richter and Robert Mapplethrope, artist Tom of Finland, performer Peter Berlin, and director Van Darkholme. The history of gay erotica has been shaped by countless visionaries and it isn’t limited to just photographers and film directors of the last half century. There are also writers, poets, painters, and sculptors who have all played important roles in shaping our ideas about gay erotica. This month, we’re going to jump back and forth in time as we examine everyone from painter Charles Demuth and writer Jean Genet to modern legends such as Director Chi Chi Larue. Although artists such as Larue are in the driver’s seat today, artists of the past continue to inspire and to inform their modern counterparts as they reshape our ideas concerning what’s hot.

BOB MIZER
(1945-1992)
In December of 1945, Bob Mizer founded Athletic Model Guild. At a time when it was still illegal to produce male erotica, Mizer got around the prohibitions by recruiting his friends (both gay and straight) to pose for “fitness” photographs. Most fans understood it for what it was, despite the fact that it didn’t go beyond being suggestive. Despite numerous scandals, AMG survived and adapted each time new regulations were established. At first genitals were obscured, but eventually posing straps and then finally actual nudity were allowed. Mizer is said to have shot over 10,000 men during his career and he discovered quite a few future stars, including Joe Dallesandro and California Governator Arnold Schwarzeneggar. In 2004, physique photographer Dennis Bell purchased AMG. 2010 marked its 65th anniversary. Mizer’s archive (much of which was previously thought lost) is now being organized, digitized, and released under a new AMG Film Classics label. New films are being made, too – and spinoff label AMG Brasil is helping to keep the AMG spirit alive. For more info, check out the AMG Website.

JEAN GENET
(1910-1986)
This controversial and revered novelist, poet, political activist, and playwright led a life that was as wild as his famous novels. After a troubled early life and various prison sentences, Genet met Jean Cocteau in 1944. Cocteau helped Genet to publish the novels that ended up making him famous. At about the same time, Genet was being threatened with a lifetime jail sentence after his tenth conviction. Luckily, the French President set the decision aside after being lobbied by prominent art figures of the day such as Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Pablo Picasso. Because of the graphic and provocative portrayal of homosexuality in his books, they were banned in the U.S. by the early 1950s. In the 1970s, he was invited to the United States by the Black Panthers, where he gave lectures and wrote for their journals. He also supported Angela Davis and George Jackson, spent six months living in Palestinian refugee camps and meeting with Yasser Arafat, and became involved with a tightrope walker named Abdallah who committed suicide in 1964. No, Im not making this up – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg concerning Genet’s colorful, eventful life. In 1950, Genet directed Un Chant d’Amour, a short film about the fantasies of a gay male prisoner and his prison warden. In 1982, director Rainer Werner Fassbinder released his film Querelle, based on Genet’s novel Querelle de Brest. Other novels and plays by Genet have also been made into films. For more on Jean Genet’s life and work, visit GLBTQ.

CHARLES DEMUTH
(1883-1935)
Hailing from Pennsylvania (where he remained a life-long resident) Charles Demuth spent time studying at the Académie Colarossi and the Académie Julian in Paris. He became part of the avant-guard art scene in Paris, where his homosexuality was readily accepted. He had his first big shows in New York in 1926. He developed a form of painting known as Precisionism, a cross between the exacting realism of botanical observation and Cubist abstraction. He worked with watercolors early in his career and switched to oils later. Although his repertoire is diverse, he’s known for many of his famously homoerotic paintings, including his provocative self-portrait (at a Turkish bath) and his clearly gay-themed images of sailors. To see examples of his work, check out the online Demuth Museum.

RICK CASTRO
Rick Castro is an American Photographer known for his work focusing on bondage and sado-masochistic sex. He was born in Los Angeles in 1958 and began his work as a fashion stylist and clothing designer. His clients over the years included Bette Midler, Tina Turner, Herb Ritts, and magazines like Interview, GQ, Rolling Stone, and Vanity Fair. Castro first became a freelance photographer at age 30 in 1988, with his work appearing in Frontiers and The Advocate. His first solo exhibition happened a year later at A Different Light Bookstore in Silverlake, CA. Over the years he has had numerous exhibitions and in 1994 his short film of hustler interviews inspired Bruce LaBruce to make his film Hustler White. The two collaborated on the project and it was a great success internationally. Today Castro lives and works in Los Angeles, where he serves as L.A. correspondent for Studio Magazines (publisher of the nude male art magazine Blue) and also owns and runs the groundbreaking Antebellum Gallery, which is dedicated to fetish art.

CHI CHI LARUE
Since 1988, Chi Chi LaRue has directed hundreds of gay porn films. In addition, LaRue branched out in 2003 and began directing straight porn films. For a long time, LaRue worked concurrently for Vivid and his own Rascal Video label. In 2006, however, LaRue stopped working for Vivid in order to take a stand against the unprotected sex that they were filming. LaRue has continued to champion the safe sex cause ever since, even filming his own public service message. Chi Chi LaRue is co-owner of Channel 1 Releasing, which now encompasses Rascal Video, All Worlds Video, Dirk Yates, Elektro Video, and Catalina Video. In addition, C1R and Chi Chi LaRue opened their first company store, Chi Chi LaRue’s, in West Hollywood, CA. in 2008.
READ MORE-

FEEL FREE TO USE WHENEVER NEEDED...

SIMPLY CUT & PASTE , THEN SEND TO APPROPRIATE PARTIES

BLAST FROM THE PAST

another LA trio- SYD CURRY- GILDA GIRL- PONY PRATT- circa 1979.

i met the three of them in line @ the B-52's concert @ the roxy- summer of 78. we all became good friends. i have history with each of these dolls. unfortunately i heard that gilda is RIP.

OUTFEST-2010

i've been having losta fun this week going to various screenings @ outfest2010. here's a pic of me and the mouse- from MOUSE'S BIRTHDAY, a short very cute film by BARRY MORSE.

BLAST FROM THE PAST

classic los angeles trio

RON ATHEY~ CLARE GLIDDEN~ EDWARD STAPLETON~ CIRCA 1980?

THE WILD WILD WEST

does anyone remember the 1965-TV series- the wild wild west?
featuring hunk~ robert conrad continuously kidnapped, tied up and placed in precarious situations. somehow he would always end up bare-chested and strung-up in ropes & chains. great pre-puberty fantasies for this, (at the time- 7 year old) pre-kink.

LABELLE

before there was anyone there was LABELLE-
nona hendricks, sarah dash & patti labelle= LABELLE-
circa 1973 on don kirshner's rock concert.

Labelle - Chameleon
The phases of the moon are changing much too soon
we'll be devoured by the sun
and if you find me there, protect the love we shared
pretend you never cared and carry on
and sing the song
Come with me if you believe
Chameleons sing and pray that they will see the day that night falls and colors set them free
It's such a crazy game--your sighs, your face your name determines who's the same
should we believe we've been deceived?
I do believe that I've been deceived



Labelle - Going Down Makes Me Shiver- possibly the only mainstream song ever written & sung about giving head.

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(what's that fist for?)