BijouBlog

By Josh Eliot

I spent hours at a time staring across the street at a filthy looking restaurant called the Go-Go Kitchen. It wasn’t the restaurant that caught my attention so much, but the exterior door next to it. A door leading to an upstairs apartment where every shade of rabbit fur coat was walking through it, sometimes with a man, sometimes without. It couldn’t have been more obvious. I’m no fool, I saw Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway starring “Jan Brady” on NBC in 1976. In that movie, Dawn became a sex worker, and she always wore a rabbit fur coat while walking the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. I’m not sure whose name was on the lease for that apartment, but he must have had a lot of “daughters” with a suspiciously similar dress code.

It was 1980 and I was working in the ticket booth at the Screening Room Theater, a place with quite a history. The first full-length adult hardcore feature legally shown in the United States premiered there in 1970, and today there’s a plaque on the building stating so. The film was Alex de Renzy’s Pornography in Denmark: A New Approach. It was billed as a documentary, which helped it avoid legal troubles.

In the 1980s, the Screening Room was a XXX Gay Cinema with live shows on stage. As I sat there analyzing the sex workers' behaviors, I felt two hands begin to rub my shoulders; it was my boss, Frank Ross. In addition to managing the theater, Frank became well known as an actor, producer and director. Some of his features include: Face to Face (aka San Francisco), Black Pack, Black and Bi and Made in the Shade and its sequel. He was a true New Yorker, a bit intimidating, with handsome looks and a tattooed muscular body.

When he interviewed me for the job, he struggled with the idea of whether or not to hire me, because I had just turned 18 the week before. He was very protective of my naivete and took time before exposing me to all the different areas of the theater and its playrooms. As weeks passed and we became more comfortable with each other, he started sharing stories of his sexual adventures. His trysts blew my mind but helped me get more comfortable with accepting myself. I envied my co-worker who was already comfortable in his own skin and would go up to the projection booth and play around with Frank regularly. A dancer named TK, who would talk with me in the booth after the live shows, invited me to go to the Trocadero Transfer with all the dancers. He knew the doorman, so I got in no problem.

It was my first time seeing fan dancers, being in a club this size and bonding through party favors with the dancers. At sunrise, we were all at the beach where TK and I went into a cave by the Sutro Baths and played around. Sutro Baths and Lands End Beach are notorious gay cruising spots. When I came into work the next day, Frank had this shit eating grin on his face, like a proud papa. I guess strippers do kiss and tell. Frank totally patted himself on the back for kicking my ass out of the closet, and I guess after months of his influence, he did.

Frank’s most infamous film as producer was made while I worked for him. He was excited to tell me the details, about a prison guard and convict who are handcuffed together during an escape. “Oh, like The Defiant Ones,” I said, “I love that movie.” He was impressed that I made the connection and invited me to watch them film on the movie set. The shoot was the next day, around the corner at the Bulldog Baths on Turk Street.

 

The infamous bathhouse had a real prison cell set, and he was very excited about it. It was too nerve-wracking for me, so I never went to the set. What a huge mistake! The feature turned out to be Wanted, starring Al Parker and Jack Wrangler. Frank Ross was producing and Steve Scott (Inches, Performance, A Few Good Men, Screenplay) was directing! Let me put this in perspective… this is how I see it: you have Steve Scott who is like the Martin Scorsese of gay porn, Al Parker is the Robert De Niro, and Jack Wrangler is Leonardo DiCaprio. The best of the best for that era, there is no topping that cast or crew. A huge regret not going to that set! FUCK!

I don’t know if my life would have taken a different direction had I gone to that set or not, but after leaving my Screening Room job in 1981, I wasn’t exposed to the Adult Film Industry again until I was hired at Catalina Video in 1987. Sadly, I recently found out that Frank Ross passed away on May 20th 2021, which made me think back about our time working together. Because we worked on different coasts, he never knew that I ended up working in the same industry as him. I wonder how he would have reacted.

But do you know what the real burning question in my mind is?

Are there still girls going in and out of that door next to the Go-Go Kitchen?

Bio of Josh Eliot:

At the age of 25 in 1987, Josh Eliot was hired by Catalina Video by John Travis (Brentwood Video) and Scott Masters (Nova Video). Travis trained Eliot on his style of videography and mentored him on the art of directing. Josh directed his first movie, Runaways, in 1987. By 2009 when Josh parted ways with Catalina Video, he'd produced and directed hundreds of features and won numerous awards for Best Screenplay, Videography, Editing, and Directing. He was entered into the GayVN Hall of fame in 2002.  

Born in Jersey City, N.J. in January of 1951, I spent the early part of my youth in the northern part of the state and my teens at the Jersey Shore. The very beginning of my teens was when I realized that I was gay and enjoyed it at every chance! Also, in my family's move to the shore I made a life long friend, Michael, who was also gay. Although we had no sexual relationship, our friendship made it a lot easier for both of us to better understand our blooming sexualities.

My education was fairly typical for the times. Parochial school for the first two years and then public school through high school. My 2nd grade public school teacher was from France and helped to create a life long interest in the country, language and culture of France. Oui, je parle français!

College years were not productive. I was in the tumult of coming out and exploring my sexuality. I studied engineering and journalism. I did not have the discipline for either of them. During these years I lived in Jersey City and would take the "PATH" train over to Christopher Street and see what trouble I could get myself into. That is where I was "discovered," while cruising the streets, by Man's Image Studios and Lou Thomas. (Lou, with Jim French, started Colt, and later went on to start Target Studios in 1974). Lou and I hit it off and remained friends for years.

 

Realizing college was not right for me at the time, I decided to take a break. I went to work for Eastern Airlines as a flight attendant. I spent two years with them. First in New York at JFK, where I got to utilize my French in flights between NY and Montreal. The following year, I was based in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

After my stint with the airlines, I moved around the country a lot in the '70s. I moved back to NY in '74. I had several more episodes of being "discovered" on the streets. Two of the photoshoots were actually straight. One for a hair magazine and the other for a ladies' magazine, Viva.

After NYC came Tempe, Arizona (near Phoenix). My roommate/friend from San Juan had won a scholarship at A.S.U. and wanted to know if I wanted to move out there with him for the school year. Not tethered to NYC by anything serious, I agreed. My first gig was bartending at the Newtown Saloon and then the local disco - Maggy's, both owned by the same men. That lasted for most of my one year stay in Arizona. My final gig in AZ. was working for a man named Phil in his porn warehouse. He owned most of the "Book Stores" in the Phoenix area. It was interesting to view the workings of the porn industry.

In 1976, I received a phone call from Lou Thomas asking me if I was interested in working on Fire Island for John Whyte. It was perfect timing; Arizona was winding down.

I worked in The Pines for John Whyte for three summers... glorious ones at that! Mostly as a bartender, waiter and life guard; my job was loosely structured to say the least. Lou Thomas imposed on John Whyte to "borrow" me for a few hours one afternoon while I made a flick with Bruno ("Bruno and Will" in Bullet Videopac 6). It was a hot and steamy flick and I went right back to work that afternoon after a quick cleanup! Lots of other movies were shot in a similar fashion on Fire Island. 1976, my first season on F.I., I met Chuck Holmes, owner of Falcon Studio. He invited me to come to San Francisco and work for him. I took him up on that and wound up living in S.F. for 14 years... 3 were bi-coastal with summers on Fire Island.

At the end of the first Fire Island season, 1976, a large group of the guys from John Whyte's "Boatel" moved en masse to San Francisco. I had a job waiting for me with Chuck Holmes.. so I was set! I couldn't believe S.F. - I thought that I had died and gone to heaven! The men, the men, the men! Lots of work with various studios commenced, including working with Al Parker and his lover. This went on for over a decade, intertwined with various other full time jobs including manning San Francisco's first gay gym, The Pump Room, and becoming an electronics maven at Eber Electronics in the Castro, which was my first real selling job.

Shortly after moving to San Francisco, I met the first love of my life, Tom Beebe. He knew exactly who I was and placed no expectations on me in terms of my "film career." We lived together in his small one bedroom apt. in the South of Market neighborhood for thirteen years until he passed from AIDS.

Music. Another big part of my life. During the last year that I worked on Fire Island, I had a wonderful affair with a man named Michael. Michael moved to San Francisco, as well. He was instrumental in creating the club Dreamland. He asked me to be part of the family and work on lighting. I had been making tapes and circulating them around town with success. Eventually, I was asked to DJ at the club. Easter Sunday Tea Dance 1980 was my debut. I played there briefly and then moved to playing music at the bars in the Castro... primarily The Badlands and Moby Dick Bar. I could feel a change coming. On Labor Day Weekend of 1991, I left S.F. and returned to the east coast to start a new version of myself.

After a few brief solo years, I met my spouse Alan in 1995. We met on the dancefloor of NYC's Roxie - a NYC dance club. It was the very weekend I returned from a non-productive year in South Beach. From this point on I rekindled the salesman part of myself as well as the musical part. I sold pianos and organs and taught the basics of organ techniques. I still have and play a massive Allen Theater organ. I also revisited the consumer electronics field in Santa Fe, N.M at The Candyman, where I managed the audio/video department.

Now at 71 and retired in the Southwest, I frequently reminisce about this great adventure called my life!

Bio of Will Seagers:

Will Seagers (also credited as Matt Harper), within his multifaceted career and participation in numerous gay communities across the country in the '70s and '80s and beyond, worked as a print model and film performer. He made iconic appearances in releases from Falcon, Hand in Hand, Joe Gage, Target (Bullet), J. Brian, Steve Scott, and more, including in lead roles in major classics like Gage's L.A. Tool & Die (1979) and Scott's Wanted (1980). He brought strong screen presence and exceptional acting to his roles and was scene partners with many fellow legends of classic porn.

Thank you to Will Seagers for providing the photos featured in this blog.

posted by Madam Bubby

I remember on this Canadian sex advice show Talk Sex With Sue how the host encouraged a woman to give her husband a hand job (while he watched porn). Her advice seemed eminently sensible; one, because rather than the woman complaining her husband watched porn and masturbated, she could participate in the event, and two, this activity certainly added variety to their sex life.

Let's face it: not everyone is necessarily turned on or can even orgasm through penetrative sex. From what I have read, most women don't orgasm from “the act,” often needing clitoral stimulation (orally, manually, or with toys). And the male g-spot (or “p-spot”), the prostate, is often stimulated in the fuck bottom, and can bring the receiver to orgasm, but what if one doesn't probe it the right way, or what if one needs additional stimulation to climax?

And if you don't want to orgasm with your only partner as your own Mr. Hand, why not find the sexy hand of a Mr. Right to bring you ever so slowly, even “edge” you to that climax? And depending on your position, you might even be able to admire other parts of his beautiful body, because you aren't bent over. The possibilities are limitless.

Beyond the factor of necessity, many people enjoy manual stimulation for its own sake. Imagine being tied down and worked over by several hands (much like in a segment of Goodjac Too, whose director Michael Goodwin made a series of movies focused on handjobs). I am getting carried away and must stop. Wait, no, don't stop!

Hands groping Keith Ardent in Goodjac Too

 

On the subject, here at BijouWorld, we just released the hot 1981 Joe Gage classic, Handsome (typically originally written as HANDsome). Though blowjobs and cum-eating are also plentiful in this film, it (as the title suggests) focuses on the eroticism of handjobs and jacking off, full of circle jerks, mutual masturbation, and all things manual.

 

Handsome images

 

For an extensive analysis and historical coverage of the making of Handsome, check out the in depth Ask Any Buddy podcast episode on it, which goes into Joe Gage's fascinating connection to the 1980-established jack off club, the New York Jacks. (The still-active New York Jacks' website also touches on this connection.) And look over our blog on jack off clubs for a little more historical and cultural context.

Find Handsome on DVD and streaming through Bijou!

Greetings P(r)icksters!

Really in a weird space this week. We should be gearing up for 6 big crazy nights for the coming Memorial Day weekend. But we are still shuttered here in Chicago.

For the past 40 years, the International Mr Leather Contest took over our Memorial Day weekend bringing 1,000s of visitors to town. Which made us very busy at Touché with parties night after night and several afternoon functions, too.

We would begin with a welcome party on the Wednesday before the weekend as all the IML contestants, most vendors and others arrived early to prepare for the weekend. Then it was Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights going strong. By Memorial Day many would be departing Chicago, but we still had great crowds that afternoon for our big cookout and even into the night on Memorial Day.

I will miss many friends this year, the guys from Off Ramp Leathers, friends from other bars that have contestants at IML and many others won’t be visiting Chicago this week. For the first time in years, I’ll have Memorial Day off.

In the beginning IML was not this weekend. The first couple of years it was held over Mother's Day Weekend. IML began as a bar event. Chuck Renslow, owner of the Gold Coast, came up with the idea of a Mister contest for Leathermen.

Back in the mid 1970s before IML started, Chicago bars hosted Mister contests as a way to attract a crowd. The old Gay Chicago Magazine helped develop this promotion of Mister contests by hosting the Mr Windy City Contest each spring. During the winter months, various bars would host a contest to select their Mr, who would then go on to compete for the title of Mr Windy City. During my tenure as manager of the old Carol’s Speakeasy in the 80’s (that was next door to the Bijou Theater), I had 2 Mr Carol’s that won the Mr Windy City title.

Seeing the success of this program, Renslow took that idea and morphed it into a leather titleholder contest. Since you only had 3 or 4 leather bars in Chicago, he made it an international competition to allow for more contestants.

In 1979, Touché was also part of Chicago’s leather bar scene, so Chuck Renslow approached Chuck Rodocker, owner of Touché, to team up and sponsor the contest. Basically the contest was held on one night with bar parties at both places Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Back then, Touché only had a 2 am license while the Gold Coast had a 4 am license. Things started at one bar and then continued at the other.

Being 1979, gay events out in public were still rare; not many places were comfortable having a bunch of queers in their place of business, it would scare off the straights. So there was no host hotel, no big dances in ballrooms, no big display of leather gear and sex toys in convention halls. The early weekend was basically cocktail parties at the bars and fuck parties at the baths (Chuck Renslow also owned Man’s Country).

But as a big advocate of his hometown, my boss Chuck Rodocker (no opportunity to shorten reference to either man, they were both Chuck R, both owners of a leather bar, people still get confused between the two of them) had the staff of Touché host some daytime excursions to add to the weekend activities. We did bus tours around town (have you ever tried to mix drinks on a moving vehicle?).

The logic back then was that Touché closed at 2 am (3 am on Saturday) while the Gold Coast was open till 4 or 5 am. The Touché staff had time for more rest to get back out and going early the next day. The problem with this was that while we may have closed earlier, that didn’t mean we would not wind up at the Gold Coast to enjoy the party there and end up closing that bar, too.

So hungover or still up after fucking some of the visiting leathermen, we would be out there herding folks onto a bus or serving up bloody marys while a local leather club or group of clubs prepared a breakfast buffet of some kind. It was a more intimate weekend than it has become.

As I stated, IML was first held on Mother's Day weekend. Again, you have to visualize Chicago in 1979. White flight had left the city pretty vacant around what we call River North today. The Gold Coast and many other gay bars were in the area, the rest old warehouses, business places that were deserted nights and weekends.

Except...... across the street from the Gold Coast was a renowned restaurant, Gordan’s, that hosted a big Mother's Day brunch every year. Folks would line up outside for the opportunity to treat dear old Mom to a nice brunch. And there we’d be in full leather gear piling guys onto buses, drinks in hand. It was quite a show and I loved being part of it.

And once the IML weekend was over, we still had Memorial Day weekend to kick off summer, just not as crazy as it has been these past few years. I’m going to have to figure out what to do with a long weekend of nothing. Kind of hard, as we have already gone over two months without something, anything. Just hoping I don’t get too comfortable with this, hope to be “back in the saddle” again next May.

So while I ponder my Memorial Day weekend plans, grab my P(r)ick this week with a nod to the men in uniforms - soldiers, sailors and marines - and wave your flags.

My first P(r)ick is A Few Good Men directed by Steve Scott. Released in 1983, this is definitely one of the best grunts fuck films of all time. The Philadelphia Gay News raved about the film on its release, "this gay sex film wins the prize for best treatment of two common gay porn themes: the repressed sexuality of an all-male military setting [including authentic costumes and underwear] and the thin line between fantasy and reality. Scott's style is at its most poetic, in both image and sound."

For a second helping check out Seamen directed by Matt Sterling for Brentwood Studios. Its four pre-condom episodes play with the theme of sailors on leave. There's a good deal of spanking, armpit and foot licking and hearty oral and anal sex. The actors' eager performances ought to get you drop-dead horny.

Before I go this week, I do want to assure you that I do get your comments about my writings for Bijou Video, even if it makes you feel some guy from a porn site is smarter than you. I’m not that smart, just curious to learn more. Thanks for the many compliments, responses to my thoughts and letting me know that you enjoy reading these blogs. I get a kick out of writing them and hearing what you have to say..

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend and stay safe, my friends.

David

To order from Bijou, visit bijouworld.com, call 800-932-7111, or email bijou.orders@gmail.com
 

A Few Good Men (D00316) - On DVD and Streaming


Seamen (D00228) - On DVD and Streaming

When I journeyed to New York for the first time in 1994 for the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, I ended up the night before the parade at a wild sex/play party with a hot leather BDSM top I had just met at a dance in the Armory. The location of the party was in some area of the East Village, I think. When I saw the purple and green walls and the coked up bouncer, my first thought was I was in some kind of Fellini movie.

And then I saw it: the orgy. I couldn’t even distinguish the faces, even characteristics of the individual bodies; the guys groping and pulling and grimacing seems liked one writhing body. I was both attracted and repelled. My new friend and I looked at each other curiously; we tried to mask our insecurities in thinking we were above such lowly, ordinary lusts. My friend would have wanted to separate that group, tie up some of the hot ones with the rope he was carrying; he would contain, tame, and dominate that energy, that fervid rhythm. Yes, there would be pleasure, but not equality. He would break any boundaries, and they would follow him, succumb to his power.

Orgy scenes from 10:30 P.M. Monday, Turned On!, The Goodjac Chronicles, and Closed Set

 

Elias Canetti in his profound study of crowd behavior Crowds and Power claims that humans’ instinctive drive to participate in the power of the crowd comes from something at one level simple, something we don’t always think about consciously, rhythm, but the rhythm of footsteps. He makes the observation that we walk on two legs, but the feet attached to the legs strike the ground. A person can only movie if they continue to make this action.

And, those “two feet never strike the ground with exactly the same force.” We are different yet the same, and when persons listen to and in some cases merge into the footsteps of others, including animals that naturally congregate in herds, he was drawn to do the same, feeling that power, that ”invincible unity.”

Canetti analyzes a description of the Haka dance of the New Zealand Maoris, originally a war dance, but now performed by rugby teams as both a warm-up team spirit exercise before the game, and, after the game, a victory dance.

Haka dance - Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/10/14/haka-rugby- world-cup_n_8290712.html

 

What’s interesting is in its original situation as the war dance, the performers were naked. And after much showing off of individual agility, including some form of “perpendicular jump,” the dance escalates to a paradoxically frenzied yet controlled unity of movement; Canetti writes, “it is as though each body was taken to pieces, not only the arms and legs, but also the fingers, toes, tongues, and eyes; and then all the tongues got together, and did exactly the same things at the same moment; all the toes and all the eyes become equal in one and the same enterprise.” They are separate bodies, but it looks as if it one body with many limbs and heads. They are dense, equal, one. Yet ultimately it is a performance, done in times when the culture as a whole encounters boundary moments such as welcoming visitors, funerals, and communal feasts.

The literal hunt for the herd eventually became various forms of the dance, a release of that primal energy that for a brief moment blurs cultural boundaries that deter the power of the crowd, displace and deflect the power away from persons onto computers.

Rather than initiating rhythm from what we heard and felt in those original footsteps, we now try to contain it by digitizing it. It is seen, but we can’t always see who is seeing. Everything becomes a performance, but that means nothing really is one in the new world of Zoom.

Group Zoom meeting - Source: https://www.timeout.com/things-to-do/best-things-to-do-at-home- stuck-inside-bored

 

I just can’t imagine a Zoom orgy, BDSM play party, or even Haka dance. The separate but apart dynamic implodes, and it’s not just because of the physical dimension obviously isn’t there; what’s lacking is that feeling of invincible unity based on rhythm and density. Imagining yourself as a participant of course can evoke that feeling, but it’s like an imitation of an imitation. And you are alone. Not even lonely in a crowd.