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| DRUMMER, No 24, October 1978 |
| Color cover actually shot by Robert Mapplethorpe. Cover was designed, cast, and commissioned by Jack Fritscher. The model is Fritscher-intimate Elliott Siegal (then-manager of the St. Mark's Baths in Greenwich Village) whom Mapplethorpe went on to use in other photographs. For more history, see Jack Fritscher's autobiographical memoir of his life and times with Robert Mapplethorpe titled Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera, Hastings House, 1994, 316 pages. In this same issue, the lead photo feature, "Drummer Inspects the Quarters" (8 pages, 20 photographs) was shot by Sparrow-Fritscher. Also, the 9-page feature, "Bondage: Blest Be the Tie That Binds: An Ultimate Reality" uses 13 photographs shot August 5, 1978, by Sparrow-Fritscher (Fritscher is the hooded model suspended because the scheduled model did not show up; the other model is Ed Holder) to illustrate the feature article written by Jack Fritscher after interviewing--by telephone on January 9, 1978--Gary Bratman, the Manhattan founder of S.H.A.V.E. (Shaved Heads And Various Erotica). Richard Locke's interview head-shot photos by Sparrow-Fritscher; Jack Fritscher introduced Richard Locke to publisher Winston Leyland at Gay Sunshine Press so that Richard Locke's autobiography, I Didn't Do It For the Money (see Honcho, May 1984) might see print during those days when the HIV+ Locke was often featured on television news openly carrying AIDS drugs across the border from Mexico. Fritscher's conceptual interview with Richard Locke, reported by the pseudonymous "Eric Van Meter," was the first gay lib reference to erotic glorification of older men as "daddies." During production of this issue, Fritscher developed his original concept which he called "Tough Customers" in Drummer #25 to solicit reader contributions of personal photographs of themselves. Fritscher's "Tough Customers" was so successful as a regular feature that it eventually spun out into its own magazine for Desmodus, titled Tough Customers. David Sparrow himself is featured in this issue in the Jack Fritscher photograph, center, page 76, with arms tied up to cellar pipes. He also appears in the related photograph titled "David Sparrow, Honeymoon Photo Album, July 4, 1969, on page 37 in Jack Fritscher's American Men photography book, GMP, London, 1995. Editor for Drummer #24: Jack Fritscher. |