RUSSO-MANIA!
MUSCLES, CHAINS, LEATHER,
(& SHH!...PISS)!
by Jack Fritscher

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• Author's historical introduction
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DON RUSSO! WHAT A PIECE OF WORK! Rock-hard, handsome, hung, and always horny! He cruised into San Francisco airport like a SMART BOMB! He climbed into my red Ford F-100 pick-up truck. “Hey,” he said. “Who-ah!” I thought. He tossed his GYM BAG full of SWEATY JOCKS and MUSCLE-MOLDED LEATHERS between us. At 27, 180 pounds, this YOUNG BROOKLYN-BORN “GANGSTA” is the kind of WHITE-BOY BODYBUILDER whose SWEATY PITS and BULGING CROTCH make you want to shove your accelerator to the floor.

            “You ought sell your jockey shorts,” I said. “And your socks, jocks, and toilet paper.”

            “I do,” he said.

            (Never kid a kidder.)

            BLOCKBUSTER DON stripped his tank top off his broad shoulders. TWEAKED TITS ON BIG SUCKABLE MEATY PECS. The left one TATTOOED! His neck is a column of muscle thick as an engorged cock. He tossed me his tank top, sweet-tasting, I tell you, when I sniffed his warm summer ‘PIT SWEAT.

            He laughed.

            I laughed.

            We both goddam laughed.

            Don Russo’s sense of humor puts a man at ease.

            WHAT A FUCKING SEX BOMB!

            None of the ‘Roid/Growth-Hormone “attitude” that usually spoils the DROPDEAD GORGEOUS. This dude is human, friendly, playful, approachable. You could take him anywhere.

            I drove him north, through San Francisco, up across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Palm Drive Video Ranch fifty miles up the 101 Freeway. I’d seen his movies. In the flesh, he was as hot as on screen. City-bred, now living in Boston, where he works as the very friendly “BOUNCER” at the PEARLY GATES of the--what else?--PARADISE BAR, Don tripped out on the Northern California country-side spreading out in the summer sunset.

            “Faster,” he said.

            “Harder! Deeper!” I wished.

            We sped up behind an 18-WHEELER TRUCK.

            “Cruise alongside him,” Don said. He had shot three videos for CLOSE-UP CONCEPTS of L. A. in the preceding four days. Drug-free, he is, and always raring to go. HE POPPED HIS 501’s. HIS DICK BOINKED OUT HARD, THEN BOINKED HARDER.

            “It’s SHOWTIME,” he said.

            “You’re a fucking exhibitionist,” I said steading my pick-up alongside THE TRUCKER sitting high in his rig.

            The next 20 minutes was TEASE-4-2. Me AND the Trucker! No shit! This is true. That trucker suddenly got the POSE-AND EXPOSE TRIP of his life! Men who drive America’s highways see just about everything. This trucker trucked right with us. Trucking can be a fucking bore, so he enjoyed the free show OGGLING DON’S PUMPED ABS, PECS, BIG-GUN ARMS, AND RAGING-BULL HARD-ON FISTED UP TO THE MAX. We drove parallel till I hit the gas. The trucker blew his horn three times in salute and probably went home and fucked his old lady silly. Good thing gals don’t know what guys are thinking!

            That kind of SEX MAYHEM is Don Russo’s trademark.

            Too bad for me. As a professional video-maker, I never touch the talent. Keeping the sexual tension of NOT DOING THE DEED makes the SEX END UP ON SCREEN! How we artists “suffer” for art. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.

            “Russo,” I said. “When I was editor of DRUMMER, I’d have PUNCHED YOU UP on the COVER and in the CENTERFOLD. In fact, because the movie option on my leather-muscle novel, SOME DANCE TO REMEMBER, is on, I’d re-write the part of the southern blond bodybuilder so you could play the part. It’s just too bad Robert Mapplethorpe never got you in front of his camera.”

            “His photos are awesome.”

            “We were lovers for three years. Something most people don’t know: his first ever magazine cover was DRUMMER.”

            (“The Mapplethorpe” talent I did fuck!)

            “I rounded up Robert’s San Francisco models. You’d have been great in those LEATHER-HOOD AND PISS PICTURES we shot out at the BUNKERS by the Golden Gate.”

            “PISS is one of my main turn-ons. Can you shoot me pissing?”

            “Glad to. But we can’t put it in the final video.”

            “Shit.”

            “Yeah.”

            At Palm Drive, we spent four days BURNING UP THE GYM, THE WOODS, and a COUPLE OF DON’S CO-STARS. PORN-STAR STEVE PARKER broke his toes in all the excitement, after having shot the PDV video LIGHTING RODZ where he shoves METAL SOUNDS AND CATHETERS down his ENORMOUS COCK. We had to find Don a replacement.

            One phone call. To a gay friend’s straight brother. Problem solved. STEVE THRASHER is, truly, straight: A TOUGH CEMENT CONSTRUCTION WORKER who is California-progressive enough to be open to anything. “Just because I made this video,” Thrasher says, “doesn’t mean I’m gay. It means I’m laid-off work.” His wife said, “Honey, just as long as we pay the rent.” What a couple!

            “Don,” I said. “Thrasher’s, like, STRAIGHT.”

            “Nobody’s perfect,” he said.

            THRASHER ARRIVED SWEATY AND DUSTY from his summer softball league. The two had never met. I threw them in front of the camera. WHAT HORSEPLAY between TWO JOCKS: ONE WITH BODYBUILDER MUSCLE; ONE WITH CONSTRUCTION BRAWN. They fucking tore into each other. Half-way through the shoot, with RUSSO BEATING THRASHER with HEAVY CHAINS, the GUT-PUNCHING shouting got so loud and rowdy, I had to quiet them down. Maybe for both of them, ONE HOMOMASCULINE, ONE STRAIGHT, something unspoken was on the line. (Don’t ask me. I’m only the director.) What went on in their heads when DON FORCIBLY SAT HIS BUTTHOLE DOWN ON THRASHER’S FACE and ordered this YOUNG MAN, SOME WOMAN’S HUSBAND, to tongue out his ass! All I know is that Thrasher shot his BIG UNCUT COCKLOAD!

            “What a trip!” Don said. “I’ve never been on screen with a straight guy before.”

            “I’m not sure what ‘straight’ means anymore,” I said.

            Don slept in our guest room. Showered. Clean. Fresh. Muscles glistening with sweet summer sweat.

            Next up was LEGENDARY EROTIC SUPERSTAR, BRUTUS, who, besides appearing on DRUMMER’S COVER more than any other man, is a CHAMPIONSHIP BODYBUILDER contestant with a MASSIVE DICK measuring close to TEN INCHES, and a VOICE that could do “Shakespeare in the Park.” Brutus also lives with a woman. (Go figure!) He’s never before appeared on screen with another man ACTUALLY having sex. When Brutus arrived, I introduced him to Don. THE BRUTE-STER took one look (“Just one look! That’s all it took!”), grasped the handshake, and pulled DONNY RUSSO TO HIM PECS TO PECS.

            DON RUSSO HAS THE KIND OF FACE & BODY & DICK & MUSCLE THAT MAKE STRAIGHT MEN FORGET THEY’RE MARRIED!

            Think of what he does to gay men!

            My “professional piety” of abstinence from SEX WITH MODELS made me a candidate for one of those LEATHER STRAIGHT-JACKETS that “ROB” offers for sale out of Amsterdam, London, and San Francisco!

            Shit! Shoot!

            The Palm Drive set literally STEAMED. The mirrors clouded up. The still camera lens fogged up. Sweat beaded up on the lens of the Panasonic video camera. BRUTUS AND RUSSO WENT AT EACH OTHER LIKE TERRITORIAL LIONS! I’m not sure it was acting. I think I was directing a MUSCLE TUSSLE, FIGHT-FOR-THE-TOP docu-MEN-tary. The title was inevitable: WHEN BODYBUILDERS COLLIDE!

            Don Russo is quite a gentleman. He speaks only good about his many co-stars and directors, especially JOHN STEVENS of CLOSE-UP CONCEPTS, MIKAL BALES of ZEUS, and the infamous legend LARRY TOWNSEND for whom he has posed for a PHOTOBOOK OF BONDAGE. Russo would make a perfect INTERNATIONAL MR DRUMMER. He has the COMMUNITY CONCERN, the POISE, the LOOKS, the COMMAND PRESENCE, the articulate VOICE that fairly drips with Brooklynese when he assumes what he calls his “Guido, the Mafia Gangster” persona. He’s dedicated to sex. And--sorry, fellas--to his lover. B-U-T...that doesn’t mean he can’t date when he’s on location. If you say your prayers to HERCULES, APOLLO, and DIONYSIUS every night, you might catch him!

            INQUIRING MINDS NEED TO KNOW: Russo causes traffic accidents. Men (and women) fall up stairs. Restaurants go quiet when he enters and all heads turn. But he is unaffected. He is so secure in his BOUYANT MASCULINITY he can make fun of the usual HANDSOME MUSCLE-GOD conceits. He’s quick to tell funny stories about himself, like, when he and his lover were shopping in a Boston mall for dishes, and a woman shopper said, “Young man, your wife is a very lucky woman.” Don grabbed his lover’s arm, and replied, “Darlin’, this man is my ‘wife!’”

            After four days, after three veryVeryVERY separate videos, and after more than 500 gorgeous color photographs, I was exhausted, and DON WAS STILL READY FOR MORE when the time came for his flight back to New York.

            So, hey, Bud, you go buy a video camera!

            FUCK! It’s really HARD to edit Don Russo’s videos. My dick is raw from watching the footage! We entertainers who wrap the meat for you in videos and in DRUMMER have to get off too! So I DO IT in the EDITING which stokes the temp up for you, because I can’t DO IT on the set. I mean: You try to direct and shoot a HOT, COHERENT, IN-FOCUS, MULTI-ANGLED video, with LIVE-ACTION SOUND, while your dick is crawling hard down your leg and you are too professional to toss the camera into the corner, and say, “Fuck video! COME HERE, STUDNUTS!”

            I CONFESS: I also boiled some water, steeped Don’s “Slick Guido” pillow case in the pot, and had me a cup of HOT RUSSO TEA!

            OH YEAH! DON’S PERSONAL TURN-ONS, besides PISS, are HEAVY BALL PLAY, MUSCLE WORSHIP, COCK-SUCKING, SWEATY GYM WORKOUTS, WHIPPING, ‘PIT SNORTING, GUT-PUNCHING, SPITTING, ASS-LICKING, TIT-PLAY, constant JERK-OFF, and HE’S TOTALLY PERVERSATILE!

            HUM-BABY!

            Plus! DON IS A TWIN! Can you stand it? HIS BROTHER is a STRAIGHT PROFESSIONAL BODYBUILDER living in Europe! (And, NO, sorry! Here’s THE SCOOP: they never had S-E-X!) Let’s hear it for THOSE GENES, gay and straight! c Jack Fritscher (Text and photographs) EDITOR’S NOTE: Don Russo’s PALM DRIVE VIDEOS are: 1) ROUGH NIGHT AT THE JOCKSTRAP GYM with THRASHER; 2) WHEN BODYBUILDERS COLLIDE with BRUTUS; and HOMME ALONE (GONNA FUCK YOU UP!). Jack Fritscher’s classic 90’s novel about the Golden Age of the 1970’s, SOME DANCE TO REMEMBER, is available at bookstores, from Palm Drive, as well as directly from INTERNATIONAL DRUMMER’S DESMODUS, INC. 562 pages, $11.

©1993, 2004 Jack Fritscher