< PreviousJack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK 68Jim Stewart walk at the same time? The most powerful man on Earth? Not the POTUS who fathered those hot sons who go camping nude?” “The very same.” President Ford had been caught on camera stumbling down the steps from Air Force One. Despite the fact he had been captain of the University of Michigan football team in his youth, and still kept his athlete’s body buff, he had earned the reputation of clumsy. The press had also caught the First Sons on a camping trip, where one appeared to be naked, in the bushes. “Have you washed your hands since you shook his?” “No.” I realized where this was going. The young hippie con- tinued to caress my right hand with his while he reached over for my left hand and brought it down to his now very evident hard-on. “We’ll go to my place,” I said. “It’s only a couple of blocks away.” It didn’t take us long to get to The Other Room. I told him to strip. I stepped out of the room and removed the Harris Tweed jacket. I replaced it with a dark blue pinstripe vest. I kept on the gray flannels, oxford shirt and black knit tie. As I came back into the room I saw my young hippie naked, on the floor. I lifted his head up by his long hair. He watched as I slowly rolled up my right sleeve to my bicep. “There are those,” I said, “who believe that great power can be transferred from male to male just by body contact.” I paused while I formed an elongated fist with my right hand and slowly stroked it with my left. “You know when I shook hands with POTUS I absorbed power from him. Right through this hand,” I said, as I held up my right fist. “Would you like some of his power too?” I said, as I arched my eyebrows and stared into his dark eyes. Young Hippie nodded his head affirmatively. It sent ripples cascading down his long dark hair. I gently pushed him back onto the mattress on the floor and knelt between his legs. He placed them on my shoulders. I spit in my right hand and gently began to massage his hairless pink male-bud. We started our own inaugural ball and the transfer of power from man to man. By beating a drum roll with my left fist on my right arm, the vibrations carried the power of POTUS from one man into Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK Folsom Street Blues69 the very core of another. Sometimes men are totally unaware of the power they pass on through just two degrees of separation. Perhaps that’s why ancient chiefs sometimes buried their excre- ment in secret holy places to prevent their enemies from stealing their power. Christmas was coming. It was my second Christmas in San Francisco. The previous Christmas, from a house in Marin County that overlooked the Pacific, I had watched whales migrate south. A black leather cat-o’-nine-tails played over my bare butt and back. After moving to San Francisco, I’d learned of endor- phins and the pleasures of pain. It wasn’t unlike the runner’s high I had experienced while jogging. Receiving pain, I learned how to give it. Because it was Christmas I got to keep the cat-o’-nine-tails. I also got to keep the grand gift of knowledge it brought. This year, Christmas would be more traditional. I already had my wrapping paper and name tags. The paper I found in the printer’s dumpster on Clementina Alley. It was a roll of rejects: large sheets of sepia-tone photos of run-down motels, mom-and- pop diners and other roadside attractions in Arizona along a stretch of what was once the Father Road, Route 66. Half were printed upside down to the others, so when folded in a folio, they all turned out right. They made great giftwrapping paper. The nametags came from the 1941 Alameda County Fair. I bought a box of blue ribbons for a buck at the flea market. Every- one’s a winner this year, I thought. It was 1976. A friend of mine from Michigan had moved to San Francisco. Joelle, like me, had been in a straight, child-free marriage. She divorced and moved to San Francisco, to see what else life had to offer. She was single. It was her first Christmas in the City. While I did not plan to introduce her to the pleasures of pain, or even watch migrating whales with her, we did want to do something special; something neither of us had done before. Joelle, Luc and I would go to Grace Cathedral for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Grace Episcopal Cathedral sits atop Nob Hill in its neo-Notre Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK 70Jim Stewart Dame de Paris splendor. Although it took over half of the 20 th century to build, it exudes the mystique of what Luc called the “old stones” of Europe. The services there are noted for their inclu- sion of universal extra-Christian beliefs. Rampant rumor had it, a secret Christian cannibal cult inhabited the nether regions, as well as the soaring vaulted raf- ters of Grace Cathedral, in a sort of Hunchback-of-Notre-Dame meets Phantom-of-the-Opera fantasy. The Cathedral boasted, in the centuries-old Anglican tradition, one of the finest men’s and boys’ choirs this side of the Atlantic. In short, it was perfect for a special Christmas Eve in San Francisco. Midnight Mass at Grace Cathedral would be the best show in town. Christmas Eve Mass started at 11 p.m. The three of us took a cab from Clementina Alley. Luc and I wore the outfits we had worn to President Ford’s fundraiser: Parisian dandy and elbow- patch professor. Joelle wore a slightly dyke-y navy linen suit with white jabot and sensible librarian shoes. Her short blond hair and whisper of makeup said she’d been around and could go down. Elegantly. We arrived at the cathedral on California Street a little after 10 o’clock. The main entrance was closed. Off to the side, a not- so-long-line was filing through a small door. We followed the line and soon were inside. The nave was packed. We were able to squeeze in on the end of a pew by a side aisle. As our eyes adjusted to the dim interior that seemed to be lit solely by candlelight, we started focusing on who was there. People-watching is a great pastime anywhere, but in San Francisco it is a fine art. There were scores of handsome young men dressed in their Sunday best. Most came in pairs, accompa- nied by a well-groomed matronly woman. Mothers, I thought. Mothers here to visit their gay sons for Christmas. Were they the ghosts of musical comedies past? Joelle leaned over and whispered in my ear. “I hope nobody thinks I’m your mother!” Luc, sitting on her other side said, in a very French-accented stage whisper, “Mama, are you enjoying San Francisco?” I stifled a laugh as a matronly woman in front of us turned Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK Folsom Street Blues71 and glared. The organ music shifted as regal strains of “O Come All Ye Faithful” sounded throughout the cavernous sanctuary. Male voices in holy harmony filled the cathedral with Latin verse, as the Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys slowly made its way past us on the side aisle, before they turned into the central aisle to approach the altar and the choir stalls beyond. As they passed, I inhaled deeply. The slight smell of seminal musk filled my nos- trils. Their voices rang out in harmony. Adeste fideles laeti triumphantes; Venite, venite in Bethlehem. In its ecumenical way, the Episcopalian cathedral must have considered Latin still acceptable for Christmas mass. I joined them under my breath for the chorus. Venite adoremus, Venite adoremus, Venite adoremus, Dominum. That was about all I could remember from high school Latin. Incense (once thought to purify the air and drive away the evil spirits from the unwashed medieval masses who packed the ancient basilicas on high holy days) followed the clean-sweat smell of the all-male choir. It mingled with the smoke and beeswax smell of holy tapers, whose light glinted off the rich gold and silver embroidered stoles and white lace surplices, as all proceeded through the ancient rituals proclaiming the glories of an immaculate birth. It was indeed the best show in town. When it ended, we took a cab back to Clementina Alley. We had the driver let us out at the corner. Luc headed down Clementina to the flat. I needed cigarettes from the Lebanese mom-and-pop store on the corner. Joelle came with me to the store. Mom and pop had two incredibly handsome eastern Medi- terranean sons. Even though it was well past midnight on Christmas Eve, the store was still open. It would probably stay open until 2 a.m. when liquor sales were cut off by law. Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK 72Jim Stewart The younger son was behind the counter, in front of the ciga- rettes and liquor. I had flirted with him several times and when he was alone he would flirt back. “Merry Christmas, Amiel,” I said. They were Lebanese Chris- tians. “Two packs of Marlboros, please.” I smiled at him and he smiled back fetchingly. “Jim,” Joelle said, “Let’s get a bottle of Courvoisier. It’s Christmas Eve.” “And a pint of Courvoisier cognac,” I added, pointing to it on the shelf behind the counter. Amiel looked at Joelle, then back at me, then smiled at Joelle. “Are you sure a pint will be enough?” he said, with a devilish smirk. “It’s Christmas,” I said. “Give me a full bottle. There are three of us.” “Three!” Amiel laughed. “You naughty man!” He reached behind him for a full bottle of Courvoisier. “Merry Christmas.” Joelle burst out laughing as we left the store and headed for Clementina Alley. Luc was an actor. He had studied acting at a private school in Switzerland. He played many roles in his travels, including that of a young lover for a Bedouin chieftain, during a caravan trip across North Africa. When he settled in London for awhile, when it was the swing- ing capital of the western world, he formally studied acting again. After he moved to San Francisco he had trouble finding parts. He was once asked if he would like to join Our Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of “drag nuns,” just to keep his hand in some sort of acting. He declined. Luc did keep abreast of off-Broadway and experimental the- ater productions in the Bay Area. He auditioned for anything he thought he had a chance at. As a result, we ended up attending a lot of small theater productions. Long before Derek Jarman’s film, we saw Marlowe’s Edward II in what seemed a leatherman’s dungeon. There were benches for about 30 people. We all sat packed and sweaty with anticipation Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK Folsom Street Blues73 as the play unfolded from a stage set of the ass-end of a semi- trailer parked on a foggy loading dock. Welded chain curtains, like those found in such rigs, divided the space for various scenes. After this Teamsters’ production, we returned to the flat on Clementina to reenact the roles of Edward and Piers Gaveston. Off-off-Broadway stage and The Other Room melded into our own personal performance space. Another play, Wolf Lodge, I believe, perhaps in honor of Jack London, took place in an isolated B&B lodge under the redwoods of Sonoma County. Once the guests all retired and the embers burned low, the “wolves” came out to howl, dance, and play with pulley, hoist, and leather sling. Luc and I also followed this pro- duction with an encore in The Other Room on Clementina Alley. One day, when I was in the darkroom, printing sets of photos of my Keyhole Studio models to send to sexually starving lonely men in the hinterlands, I heard Luc come up the stairs and into the flat. “I got the part,” he hollered through the door. “Which one?” “Count Orlov!” “I’ll be right out.” I finished and came out of the bathroom I had set up as a darkroom. “There’s only one thing,” Luc added as we headed for the kitchen in the back of the flat for coffee and cigarettes. “They want me to shave my head.” “Great,” I said. “You’ll look hot with a shaved head!” “I don’t know…” “I’ll tell you something about a shaved head, Luc. When I had my head shaved I instantly became so-hot-got-to-have-you for a whole gang of guys that hadn’t even looked at me before.” “Well…” “Of course there were those who acted like they didn’t know me after my head was shaved.” “Maybe they didn’t. That’s what I’m afraid of.” “Luc, I’ve never known you to be afraid of anything in your life. You’re going to be as hot as a billiard ball up Sal Mineo’s ass.” “Will you shave it for me?” “Damn right I’ll shave you. We’re going to do it in the Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK 74Jim Stewart playroom as a three-way. I’m going to take pictures. Who’s the hottest man you can think of to be on third?” “Malcolm,” Luc said, without a moment’s hesitation. “Hot damn! Malcolm is perfect.” I had done some carpentry and plumbing work for Malcolm at his house in Bernal Heights. He was about 6-3 and had a natu- ral-muscle body. I saw a picture of him once when he had been on the university rowing team at Stanford. It was one of those sports group pictures. All the crew members were in singlets or shirt- less, with their arms around each other, thrusting their baskets in tight shorts toward the camera lens. Malcolm was a standout to say the least. With his dark complexion and short-clipped curly hair, he might have been mistaken for Harry Belafonte’s younger brother. Hot. When I worked for Malcolm, we had always hinted at a sce- nario. He would come home from the office early one day. I, the carpenter, would be caught in a compromising position. It had never happened. Shaving Luc’s head while in a three-way with Malcolm in The Other Room was my idea of perfect personal per- formance theater, where the performers and audience were one. “I’ll call Malcolm.” It was a perfect performance. To peel Luc’s scalp, I used a pair of barber scissors and a World War I army issue safety razor in a khaki kit I found at the Alameda flea market. The coup de grâce was performed by my great-grandfather’s Victorian straight razor. It was sharpened with a leather strop that performed many additional duties that night, and provided stac- cato sound effects that punctuated the rhythm of the fuck-tape. I was right. Luc looked hot with a shaved head. Not a nick on it. The best photo of the night was one I shot of Luc, very tentatively touching his shaved head for the first time, as if discovering a new self he had never known before. When John Eli and I had our heads shaved at the Slot bath- house in 1976, we left the door open. All could see and be turned on by what they saw. Jack Fritscher directed, for those who wanted to participate. In the parlance of the day it was “A Happening.” I took photos of the Slot shaving that were published in Drummer magazine, Issue 16, 1977. Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK Folsom Street Blues75 Luc’s head shaving, in the privacy of The Other Room on Clementina, a year later, was a personal piece to embrace the “joy of now.” When I shaved David Wyckoff’s head on top of a white metal hospital bed, with piss collected in an army canteen in the Leatherneck Bar, in 1978, while Greg Coats shot Caravaggio tableaus in color, it was “performance art.” By 1981, when the Drummer bar, Gold Coast West, opened a barber shop for body and head shaves, done to the soundtrack of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and videocast live to screens in the main bar room, such shavings had crossed over into the mainstream of leather life South of Market, as it was nudged into what would become SoMa. It all was captured on film. Luc played his role of Count Orlov well. With his shaved head, he looked and acted the Russian count, ousted by the Bol- sheviks, and exiled to British bourgeois drawing rooms between the wars. It was a vapid play, produced on a small rehearsal stage at the Palace of Fine Arts between the Marina and the Presidio. It got Luc back on stage. I took pictures. Luc kept looking for roles that fit his dark fetching looks and universal European accent. He never found them. We did discover a lot of interesting theater along the way, however. Fort Mason, built during the Civil War near the Marina, was the debarkation point for thousand of servicemen bound for the Pacific Theater during the Second World War. By the 1970s it had been taken over by the National Park Service, as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It was converted into an arts center with a view of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. The Magic Theatre of Berkeley was one of the first nonprofit groups to move into Fort Mason. Its production of Sam Shepard’s Inacoma was a must-see for Luc. Inacoma was based loosely on the real-life case of Karen Ann Quinlan, a brain-dead woman whose parents went to court to have her life support system turned off. Shepard’s play evolved as a joint production of actors and jazz musicians. The musicians would stand behind the actors who Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK 76Jim Stewart could not act until the musicians would play, and conversely, at times the musicians could not play until the actors would act. Theatergoers left humming the closing song, “Breathing Forever.” I left the theater convinced Shepard’s work was similar to the personal performance pieces I had begot in The Other Room on Clementina Alley. I had asked Max Morales to make a tape for me, from his vast and varied music collection. I called it “fuck-tape.” I wanted it to build from foreplay to climax within an hour, and then automati- cally replay at the same building pace. This way I could keep track of the time for those guests in The Other Room who tipped by the hour. I did not want the popular disco tunes of the day. The more esoteric and exotic and erotic the music, the better. Max, who had been making tapes for clubs and happenings for some time, knew exactly what I wanted. His tapes were superb. I could impro- vise the trip in The Other Room according to the music and the people involved. It was what Sam Shepard was doing with Inacoma. Max, who had gone to the Fort Mason production with us, agreed with my comparison. The big difference being our productions were staged privately, South of Market, for a more select group. Shortly before Luc moved to New York, we decided one night to visit a little gay cabaret on Polk near Bush Street. It was a hole in the wall, with a dozen tiny tables at the most. The tables were just big enough to hold drinks for four people. The show had received good reviews in the gay rags. The performers had live music. They were live drag. No lip-synch. And, as in Cabaret, “every one of them a virgin!” Even though there was no cover, no minimum, the place was nearly empty when we arrived in our full black leathers just before 11 p.m. We got a table next to the slightly raised stage. We ordered our drinks. We were both good at nursing a drink. The first act was almost finished when there seemed to be a flurry of activity behind us by the door. Suddenly the owner was at our table.Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved HOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS WORK Folsom Street Blues77 “Gentlemen,” he said, “a special guest and his party have just arrived.” I turned to look near the door, but it was too dark. Four figures loomed just outside the aureole of light from the stage. “If you gentlemen would be willing to move to the table right over there,” he nodded to another small table, further back from the stage but still in a good location, “your drinks will be on the house for the night.” Drinks on the house for the night? I looked at Luc. He had already stood up and was following the waiter carrying our drinks to the other table. Four men in suits were seated at the tiny table we had just left. My eyes adjusted to the darkness away from the stage while its light illuminated the faces of the “special guests.” I nudged Luc. “See anybody who looks familiar?” I said. Luc turned around . “Is that the mayor?” he said. “In the flesh.” We had just given up our table in a hole-in- the-wall gay night club to Mayor George Moscone and three of his pals/bodyguards. It was an open secret that the mayor and his pals often prowled the seedy side of the City, looking for secrets of the senses. How could anyone govern a city so full of secrets? There was no nursing of drinks that night. When we got back to Clementina Alley, Luc had a gift wait- ing for me. I carefully removed the plain brown wrapper. There was the antique painting of the bound hands and halo of St. Sebastian we’d seen in the gallery on Polk Street that day we went to the Cordon Bleu for Vietnamese five-spice chicken.Next >