gay – Page 10 – Brian Ferrari's Blog

John Waters In Blueboy Magazine (1977)

Back in January of 2020, I posted an article written by Armistead Maupin for the September, 1980 issue of Blueboy Magazine. I mentioned that this magazine was part of my collection of vintage male erotica that is large enough to choke a horse – file boxes full of smut that were gifted to me by an old friend when he vacated his New York City apartment after 30 years. I was slowly selling them off on eBay, but that door slammed shut earlier this summer when the company decided that they did not need all the unholy illicit dirty sticky revenue generated by adult items. As of July, they have completely eliminated their adult section.

Sidenote: If anyone can recommend a halfway reputable website to peddle my gay wares, I would be very grateful.

As the end of this selling opportunity drew near, many vendors starting unloading their products at a discounted rate. I went in the opposite direction: Rather than listing these publications for less than their worth, I chose to buy up even MORE magazines at a discount

One of these recent acquisitions was the November, 1977 issue of Blueboy Magazine which featured an interview with The Pope of Trash: filmmaker John Waters.

This interview was conducted just as Desperate Living was about to be released.

Madame Spivy: A Tropical Fish

This is the plea of a poor little tropical fish. It’s very sad and we must be very quiet, please.

Ladies and germs, it’s time once again to visit that celebrated lady of song, Madame Spivy LeVoe. To the uninitiated, allow me to get you up to speed:

Spivy (1906-1970) was a lesbian entertainer, nightclub owner and character actress, Spivy has been described as “The Female Noel Coward” – to which I add “…. if he had been born in Brooklyn as Bertha Levine.” You can read earlier posts about her here:

The Alley Cat
The Tarantella
Auntie’s Face
100% American Girls
I Brought Culture To Buffalo In The 90’s
I Didn’t Do A Thing Last Night
Why Don’t You?
I Love Town

Today we will focus on “A Tropical Fish”, a song was co-written by Spivy with Jill “Billy” Rainsford. The duo also composed the previously profiled The Alley Cat. Both songs were featured on the 1939 album Seven Gay Sophisticated Songs By Spivy.

As with “Auntie’s Face”, Spivy begins this song with her trademark spoken intro “It’s very sad and we must be very quiet…” solemnly intoned before launching into the tune, which tells the story of a tropical fish writing a letter of complaint to Fiorello LaGuardia, the Mayor of New York City (1934-1945).

A Tropical Fish

The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the clerk and the trombone player,
The child on the street and the ultra-elite all write letters to the mayor.
La Guardia’s most conscientious – he tries to grant everyone’s wish
But they went him one better when he got a letter from somebody’s tropical fish.

“Dear Mayor,” the letter began, “I’m writing as fish to man.
Our tank’s overheated and we’re being treated like common sardines in a can.
The way people watch us is quaint. Our privacy’s something what ain’t.
So be a good fella, my dear Fiorella and hear a poor fish’s complaint.

“To be quite specific, the food is terrific.
We’re on the hay diet – you really should try it.
It tastes like the hook – gee, I wish we could cook.
The service is lousy – we have no back-housey.
And it’s some spot to be in with no pot to … cook in.

“The innocent faunas are hiding in corners
Their love life is wearing with human eyes staring…
Why can’t we have covers like those birdcage lovers?
They’re hidden each night ‘til the morning sunlight
Then brought out to bath with no questions asked.

“Dear Mayor, I’ve been very frank… but you don’t know life in a tank.
Believe me, it’s hellish and you wouldn’t relish to sleep in the water you drank.
Now here’s what we tropicals wish: Some bedrooms to give us ambish.
Less public relations and more comfort stations.

Yours truly,
A. Tropical Fish”

Lastly, here’s a syndicated article about Spivy that ran in newspapers across the country in late November, 1948. Note that her last name is mispelled “Devoe” with no mention of Bertha Levine.

WWII Boys Of Summer: St. Mary’s Pre-Flight School

Welcome to our third installment of photos celebrating WWII-era men of U.S. Navy pre-flight training at St. Mary’s College. These images of naked or jockstrap-clad cadets were taken at the school in Moraga, California when it was requisitioned for the war effort between 1942-1946. You can see more photos in our other posts:

Men of St.Mary’s Pre-Flight School
Christmas At St. Mary’s Pre-Flight School, Pt.I
Christmas At St. Mary’s Pre-Flight School, Pt. II
Christmas At St. Mary’s Pre-Flisht School, Pt. III
80 Years Ago: The Men of St. Mary’s Pre-Flight School
More Men of St. Mary’s Pre-Flight School
1944: The Men of St. Mary’s Pre-Flight School

Only the earliest photos – dated June 13, 1942 – feature the men completely nude. An anonymous person offers a helping hand as the men are photographed in profile.

***Comparative photos from June 13 & August 18,1942***

All subsequent photos feature the cadets in jockstraps. In all of the photos, the men stand behind some sort of grid fencing to better illustrate misalignment and spinal curvature.

The photos were taken to measure the fitness progression of each recruit as they underwent extreme physical training. Each picture was accompanied by an index card containing body measurements and physical achievement test results over the course of several months.

This allows for some contrasting images that Weight Watchers might want to consider emulating.

**Before and after a summer of training: June 26 & September 8, 1942**

This installment focuses on photos of cadets as they underwent summer training in the California sun. The results speak for themselves. #tanlines

My collection of photos gathered from around the internet now includes close to 500 different cadets. I have taken my pastime a step further by researching the origins as well as the fates of these brave men. Those featured in this post passed away as young as 22 and as old as 94.

Whether the photos of these handsome young men are literal snapshots near the beginnings of their lives or tragically close to the end, all of the subjects are equally, timelessly captured here in prime physical condition, sun dappled as they trained to serve their country. Nearly 80 years later, we salute and admire their fine forms and dedication.

Tom Ammiano Gets His Letter

Tom Ammiano is nearly 80 years old and recently dyed his hair blue. Not your traditional “grandma’s rinse” – it’s a punk-ass electric blue. It suits him.

If you don’t follow California politics, you may not be familiar with the name of this San Francisco legend who served for years on the city Board of Supervisors as well as the State Assembly. But you may remember him from the Academy Award winning documentary The Times Of Harvey Milk. Or perhaps you caught the documentary See How They Run, about one of his two San Francisco mayoral campaigns. Or his appearance in the documentary To Be Takei. In Gus Van Sant’s movie Milk, he portrayed himself. In the miniseries When We Rise, he was played by Todd Weeks.

Suffice to say he has been in a lot of documentaries. Although he did not make the final cut of the groundbreaking 1977 film The Word Is Out, his 30 minute pre-interview surfaced online several years ago:

“I’ve never taken much shit but I do get the shit beat out of me because of it.”

In short, Tom the school teacher turned activist, politician, stand-up comedian, and pothead is always a compelling interview. His recently published memoir is titled Kiss My Gay Ass – a phrase he once yelled at then California Governor Schwartzenegger. The book reads like a private uncensored conversation with the author.

There’s a story from the memoir that has garnered Ammiano a surprising amount of attention as of late. 63 years ago, he was a 106 lb. effeminate teen trying to fit in at a Catholic High School in Montclair, New Jersey. Although unsuccessful at contact sports, he excelled at track – running from bullies had trained him to be fast. Among those bullies – the football coach who would physically assault him in the hallways along with the other jocks.

By the end of the school year, Ammiano had performed well enough to qualify for a varsity letter. But before the ceremony, the rug was pulled out from under him. The letter sweater – that symbol of athleticism and masculinity – could not be allowed on the back of faggy Tommy Ammiano. The powers that be – namely, the football coach – would not let that happen. So they moved the goalposts: The track meet that garnered him those last few points towards his letter was suddenly disqualified. And Ammiano’s dream of acceptance through that symbol of “normalcy” went unfulfilled.

He writes of the humiliating experience in his book; “Shame. I hate that. I think shame was a very big deal growing up. During those years everything was about controlling you through shame. Then struggling against that shame – knowing, somehow, it was all wrong. But what are your options?”

Ammiano chose to bury it away and move on with his life – getting as far away from New Jersey and the innumerable aggressions and slights that many a “weird” gay kid suffered while growing up. He moved to San Francisco – “Oz” he calls it – and seldom looked back.

But when you write your memoirs, you have to.

Ammiano recounted the story during a radio interview while promoting the book late last year. “It’s something that still hurts,” he said, “even a hundred years later.” A listener decided to try and correct this situation. He wrote to Immaculate Conception High School to request that they award Ammiano his long overdue varsity letter.

Unaware of this , Ammiano was floored when he received a letter from his alma mater in February of this year. “We most certainly would like to ‘right’ this ‘wrong’…… You truly posses the ‘heart of a Lion’…. You are an inspiration.”

Last month, the cameras rolled as Ammiano was presented with his sweater. At age 79, the man of many documentary appearances has one of his very own. Granted, it’s 7 minutes long, but it’s beautifully done. And it’s on ESPN. He must have had a laugh over that.

ESPN also has an excellent article here. See the documentary here:

http://www.espn.com/core/video/iframe?id=31622926&endcard=false

https://sfist.com/2021/06/14/watch-excellent-espn-mini-documentary-shows-tom-ammiano-getting-his-long-overdue-varsity-letter/

Remembering his time on the track team, Ammiano wrote; “I especially liked the long distance runs… I got really good at those.”

He had no idea.

More Dean Martin / Jerry Lewis Shower Pics Surface

Who would have thought that 2021 would be the year that nude photos of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis would drop… and keep dropping?

Well – I guess the guy who is selling them on eBay knew, but the rest of us continue to be surprised by the release of these playful pics. I first wrote about them here in a post that was picked up by a dozen websites around the world, including the Advocate. Since then, two other pics have surfaced.

This photo, which I added to the previous post, sold on eBay for a whopping $1,600:

The pictures were part of a 2018 Sotheby’s auction of items belonging to Frank Branda, Jerry Lewis’s driver and assistant. The auction description listed “4 candid photographs of Lewis and Martin in a steam room and shower, Lewis posing modestly, Martin less so.”

To recap – three of the four recently sold on eBay:

It wasn’t a complete surprise that the most recent photo popped up for auction, as it was partially visible on the Southeby’s website. Cropped, low-res versions of this shot and a couple of others are also on Pinterest, with captions that they were taken at the Palm Springs El Mirador Hotel in 1952.

While I was able to clean up the sauna and first shower shots by removing the eBay seller’s watermark, which was strategically placed over Dean & Jerry’s nether regions, this time around the cheeky monkey has opted for a post-it note on Dean’s dong.

Ah well. Nice pic nonetheless.

**UPDATE:** This photo sold for nearly $4,000.

This appears to be the end of this lot of photos… but it is possible that there are others out there….

On The Life Of Brian… During The Pandemic

Artist / writer Adam Donaldson Powell asked if I would contribute to his latest project, in which he invites artists, writers, musicians, and other performing artists from around the world to contribute essays about their work and lives during the COVID-19 pandemic and aftermath. Here is my contribution:

https://adam-donaldson-powell.blog/2021/05/11/on-the-life-of-brian-during-the-pandemic/

Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis Let It All Hang Out

Photos of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis have recently come to light that are raising some eyebrows. A nude shot of the duo showering together sold on eBay for nearly $4,500 this past week, while a steam room photo sold for a modest $375.

These photos appear to have sold at Sotheby’s in 2018 as part of a collection belonging to Frank Branda, Jerry Lewis’s driver and assistant.

The auction description listed “4 candid photographs (8 x 10 in.) of Lewis and Martin in a steam room and shower, Lewis posing modestly, Martin less so.”

*Martin & Lewis have a schvitz and a smoke. And who are their co-horts?*

While I originally thought the guy on the right was comedian Morey Amsterdam, a reader wrote:

The guy on the right in the sauna photo is Mack Gray, who was Dean’s assistant, and later in life arguably his closest friend. Dean and Jerry met him when they first came to Hollywood; they attended one of George Raft’s parties, and Jerry referred to Gray as Raft’s ‘Man Friday’.

*Dean Martin sharing a meal with songwriter Sammy Cahn as assistant Mack Gray attends. (1958)*

Cropped versions of a couple of these photos can be found on Pinterest, although in poor quality jpegs, apparently scans of photos that ran in a magazine or newspaper at the time. I wouldn’t exactly call Pinterest a reliable source, but if the captioning is accurate these shots were taken in 1952 at the Palm Springs El Mirador Hotel.

I’m the first to call “fake” on photoshopped images found on the internet, but these new photos are very clear. The only pixel anomalies are the results of my attempt to remove the eBay seller’s name, which was strategically plastered across key nether regions, including Dean Martin’s uncut dong.

UPDATE: Other photos have gone up for auction – see a more recent post about those here.

Martin and Lewis in Sailor Beware (1951)

Photographer Lucas Murnaghan Has Died at 45

Dr. Lucas Murnaghan, a celebrated underwater photographer and orthopedic surgeon, passed away in his Toronto home on March 21, 2021. According to his longtime partner Antonio Lennert, Murnaghan succumbed to cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer).

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Lucas Murnaghan (@lucasmurnaghan)

In a Ted Talk posted last year, Murnaghan charted his path as an uptight overachiever following the family tradition by becoming a doctor, coming to terms with his sexuality and the circumstances that led him to become a full-time photographer and entrepreneur in recent years.

I started following Lucas on Instagram a couple of years ago. I knew nothing about him but his photographs spoke for themselves: stark, striking images that often played with what he described as “the balance between vulnerability and confidence, pride and shame, solitude and connection.”

Murnaghan’s photo *Suspended Animation* on the cover of Bruno Capinan’s 2018 CD.

When he began to promote his photography, his initial impulse was to hide his “day job” as a medical doctor, feeling that it prohibited him from being taken seriously as a photographer, or having an artistic point of view.

“I felt like I was entering the art world from the side door. Well, as it turns out, there is no front door. As an artist, that’s all we can do… gather up our entire lives and transmit it into our work. To do anything less than that is to not be honest with ourselves or our audience.”

For more images and information regarding his book Beneath The Surface, please visit www.lucasmurnaghan.com/

About Simon Baker in The Devil Wears Prada…

Sometimes when I’m channel surfing I am convinced that there is a Devil Wears Prada channel – one station dedicated solely to repeating the 2006 film. It is always on.

There are a handful of movies that have enjoyed a tenure of constant cable repetition. Some other favorites: The Notebook, Office Space and The Purge (which seems like a reality show as of late).

The Devil Wears Prada has been the subject of seemingly endless Buzzfeed lists and articles with all sorts of pro and con opinions.

Sample takeaways:

Andy’s friends are ungrateful hypocrites.
She should have never been hired for that job in the first place… and Emily deserved to go to Paris.
The “Cerulean Sweater” speech is really about cultural appropriation.
“$8 of Jarlsberg” is nearly a pound of cheese on a single nauseating sandwich.
Her boyfriend is awful, and
Adrian Grenier is a terrible actor.

*Does this burnt sandwich look like it has a pound of swiss cheese on it?*

Note that none of these observations have anything to do with Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly, which is why we all watch the movie repeatedly and her performance is beyond criticism, ok?

There is one thing that has bothered me since I saw this movie in its initial theatrical release. It distracts me whenever I watch it and I have waited 15 years for someone else to bring it up:

In the party scene where Andy first meets writer Christian Thompson, what the hell is going on with actor Simon Baker’s face?

For a movie that has undergone so much analysis and repeat viewing, I cannot be the only person who has noticed this.

This is only an issue in the first scene in which he appears.

When he comes back later, he has been color corrected and the Botox has relaxed.

This leads me to two theories:

A) Nobody realized what a terrible styling mistake had been made with the leading man until after they looked at the dailies for this party scene. The budget did not afford a re-shoot and they all thought “Well… it’s not THAT bad… onward and upward!”

B) They HAD to re-shoot or add this scene after production was completed and Mr. Baker was off playing a bleached, frozen-faced alien when they called him back to set.

When I started to do some research for this post, I typed “Devil Wears Prada Simon Baker” into Google, which then auto-populated “eyebrows”. So… it turns out, I am not alone in this.

The Detroit Metro Times panned the film and mentions “Simon Baker, whose bushy sage eyebrows look like they might help him take flight and flutter off in search of a better role.”

Other comments I found around the internet:

“Simon Baker’s eyes/eyebrows, especially in his first scene…. there was some weird grooming/Botox mojo going on that really distracted from the narrative.”

“….overly metrosexualized with the strangest blond eyebrows I have ever seen.”

“Simon Baker plays Christian Thompson in The Devil Wears Prada. Good actor, horrible eyebrows. I couldn’t take my eyes off of those creatures.”

I also came across a 2012 interview with Simon Baker in which he says ” “I had despicable eyebrows in that film so I always get comments about that!”

As a person with ample eyebrows myself (although not bleached, as my author photo can attest), I don’t find fault with his voluminous caterpillars throughout the film. It is just that first scene, when they appear to be overly bleached and perched atop a curiously frozen face..

Simon Baker later in the film. I have no problem with this look.

Artist’s Muse: Ted Starkowski

Although photographer George Platt Lynes passed away of lung cancer at age 48 in 1955, it took another 30 years before the majority of his male nude photographs were celebrated and widely released. Virtually every collection of his work now features photos of a model named Ted Starkowski. His nude images are featured on the covers of several collections of Lynes’ work – in solo shots or posed with Mel Fellini:

So who was Ted Starkowski?

Lynes biographer David Leddick wrote:

Ted Starkowski worked the streets. Hustling by night, he regaled Bernard Perlin and George Platt Lynes with his adventures while he posed for them during the day. They created unique images with his cat-like face and lithe body.

Perlin later recalled; “He looked like an old tomcat – you know, after the battle. But he just loved the way he looked…. he was a star whore, he aimed for people with money and he got it.”

(Above) George Platt Lynes photographed Ted Starkowski flanked by Bernard Perlin’s sketches.

Teodor Francis Starkowski was born in Hartford, Connecticut on April 4, 1927- the eighth child of Polish immigrants. When he was 6 years old, Ted was critically injured when he was struck by a car in front of his family’s home. He eventually made a full recovery, but the incident would foreshadow another auto accident forty-four years later.

His Army registration in September of 1945 indicates that he had attended three years of high school and was working at St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield.

After his stint in the military he relocated to New York City, where he became a favorite subject for Lynes and his circle of artist friends, including Paul Cadmus and Jared French.

(Above) Six images of Ted Starkowski by Jared French.

Thomas D. Baynes of The Univeristy of Western Ontario wrote extensively of one particular George Platt Lynes 1954 photograph in his thesis More than a Spasm, Less than a Sign: Queer Masculinity in American Visual Culture, 1915-1955:

Few other photographs by Lynes do as much to cast the model as an actor. In his tight jeans, bulging conspicuously at the crotch, fisherman-rib sweater worn without an undershirt, and workaday watchman’s cap relegated to the status of an ornament, Starkowski looks like a longshoreman snatched from the imagination of Tom of Finland … Lynes’s studio provides only the minimum furniture required to support Starkowski in a posture that manages to be solicitous and pensive at the same time, welcoming an evaluating view despite being absorbed in thought.

This photograph extends rough trade as a portable structure of fantasy that discovers erotic opportunities in ambiguities of dress and pose…. Evidently, Starkowski had a knack for acting like a straight man, or at least like a fantasy version thereof.

*Ted Starkowski as drawn by Paul Cadmus (Male Nude, TS5, 1954)*

*Ted Starkowski as drawn by Paul Cadmus (Male Nude, TS-7a) 1955*

*A reader sent a photo of this Paul Cadmus drawing titled “Ted Reading” – posted with permission.*

Another model who posed for many of the same artists was fellow ex-military man Chuck Howard, George Platt Lynes’ live-in boyfriend. After their split in January, 1951, Howard and Starkowski became involved in what David Leddick described as “a tempestuous affair.” Later that summer, the couple posed for a series of photographs shot by Paul Cadmus and credited to The PaJaMa collective. Taken in and around Carrington House on Fire Island, these photos capture a level of intimacy seldom seen among gay couples at that time.

The year after George Platt Lynes’ death, Starkowski was photographed by Carl Van Vechten. These photos are dated April 3, 1956:

Ted Starkowski by Paul Cadmus 1963 — *Portrait of Ted Starkowski at age 36 by Paul Cadmus. (1963)*

Thanks to a wealthy benefactor, Starkowski traveled extensively in the second half of the 1950’s. Perlin recalled; “There was this old boy who picked him up on 42nd Street. Ted enthralled him – kept him drunk and kept him out of money, with which Ted bought diamonds, which he wore. Both hands glittered with diamonds.”

Leddick relays a story of Starkowski showing off a new diamond ring to artist George Tooker. Asking if he thought it was too big. Tooker replied “Yes, it is too large for a woman to wear.”

And then… the trail goes dark for the next 14 years. If more images or information come to light, I will update this post. What we do know is that on Friday May 13, 1977, Ted Starkowski was leaving a New York City bar when he was struck and killed by a car. He was 50 years old.

An obituary ran in the Hartford Courant the following Tuesday, May 17th. He was buried in Mount Saint Benedict Cemetery in Bloomfield, Connecticut.

It was a sad end to a man who had inspired many artists.

Bernard Perlin recalled, “Despite his nefariousness, he did good in the art world. My drawings are comparatively negligible, but many of George’s photographs are just absolutely wonderful.”

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