21 Surprising Facts about Lane

I've been trying to make a coherent picture out of the lives and loves of my ex-boyfriends, first Alan, then Fred, and now Lane, my partner for about ten years and friend for about thirty, But I can't fit Lane into a coherent picture; he's full of contradictions and inconsistencies. Every time you think you have him figured out, there's a new surprise.

Here are the 21 most surprising facts about him.  At least they surprised me:

1.  He's a third generation West Hollywood boy.  His grandparents opened a hardware store there in 1938.  His parents owned a clothing store and two apartment buildings there. His childhood home was Crescent Heights, near Romaine, around the corner from the French Quarter -- his childhood hangout!

2. He is particularly interested in uncut penises.  At Temple Beth El in Hollywood, Gentiles were the enemy, spreading horrible lies about Jews, constantly trying to force them to convert to Christianity.  The forbidden naturally becomes attractive, and the uncut penis, the emblem of goyishe depravity, the most attractive of all.

3. He was a hippie.  At Hollywood High School in the early 1970s, he had long hair, listened to The Grateful Dead, smoked pot, and participated in a sit-in to protest the lack of attention to African-Americans in the curriculum.   But he was also a good Jewish boy, keeping kosher, studying the Torah, attending Shabbat services.  And he was gay, which, he thought, didn't fit into either the hippie or the Jewish worlds.  High school was a time of anxiety and depression.

4. He kissed a girl.  In 1973, just after he graduated from high school, Lane followed his friend Ari, who he had a crush on, to Israel.  But they rarely saw each other and never hooked up, and Lane hated the isolated, heterosexist farm life of the kibbutz.  He became depressed and took to drinking heavily.  One night he cruised what he thought was a young man in a bar in Tel Aviv.  Only after they started making out did he realize that it was a girl!

Lane got on the next plane back to West Hollywood.

See: Lane and the Cute Young Thing of Tel Aviv.






5. He has read every science fiction novel ever published.  He spent his 20s and 30s at the Change of Hobbit, a science fiction bookstore in Westwood, becoming a close friend of owner Sherry Gottlieb and hobnobbing with the visiting writers.  His first real boyfriend was a science fiction writer who won a Hugo Award in 1977.

6. He invites Jane Fonda to Passover every year.  In 1976, when Tom Hayden was running for the U.S. senate, his parents were big campaign contributors, and became friends with his wife Jane Fonda.  They began inviting her to Passover every year (although she rarely came).  After his mother died, Lane continued the tradition.

See: Will the Bondage Boy Hooks Up with Peter Fonda

7. He made out with his brother.  When Lane's father, Aaron, died in 1984, to his surprise, a half-brother showed up for the funeral, a child of an earlier marriage. "Oh, we meant to tell you," Rosa said, "But it was never the right time."

The half-brother was ten years older than Lane, living in Chicago, married with children, but gay, on the "downlow."  He asked Lane to give him a tour of L.A.'s gay life, and one thing led to another...

See: Lane has a three-way with his boyfriend and his brother.

8.  His father became accepting after he died.  Although he lived in West Hollywood for most of his life and had two gay sons, Aaron was rather homophobic, complaining whenever a gay person came into his store, renting to gay couples only after Lane lectured him on tolerance. "I don't care what you do," he said, "But just don't bring any of your 'friends' around here."

A couple of weeks after Aaron died, Lane was in bed in a boyfriend's apartment, when he  felt a strange presence.  He looked over, and his father was sitting in a chair, in a bathrobe, smiling at him, approving.

9. He has had only one BDSM experience.  Lane is into bigger, muscular guys with hairy chests and facial hair, so he started hanging out in leather bars, where a lot of guys are into BDSM.  One day in 1986 he agreed to being the bottom in a scene, but the gag tasted awful, and the blindfold irritated his eyes, so he used his "safe word," ended the scene, and never tried again (although when we were together, he sometimes helped me top a guy).





10. He had a trophy boy.  Although it's mostly bodybuilders, gym rats, and bears, occasionally a smooth, slim twink caught his eye.  In April 1987, Lane began dating Danny, a 19-year old student at L.A. City College, immensely hot but content to do nothing all day but watch Duck Tales, have lunch with his friends, and go shopping.  Finally, after a major shopping spree emptied their joint checking account in May 1989, Lane gave him the boot.  Two days later, he went to the Zone, hoping for a hookup.  Instead he met Boomer.

See: Lane and the Trophy Boy 

11.  He has a tattoo.  Jews are forbidden to get tattoos and piercings, and besides, I find tattoos an instant turnoff.  Yet one day shortly after we moved in together, he decided to get a tattoo on his right arm.  I think he got it just to spite me.

12. He hooked up with Batman, Robin, and the Joker.   In March 1991, Lane had his biggest Celebrity Hookup, with Cesar Romero, who played the Joker on the old Batman tv series.  When he told the story, he added Batman and Robin to the mix.

See: Lane's Hookup with Batman, Robin, and the Joker



13. He rarely leaves Southern California.  For nearly 16 years, from 1974 to 1990, he didn't leave at all, and even today he only leaves for brief visits to other gay neighborhoods. In 1995 I talked him into a cross-country trip to Rock Island to visit my parents, and that was enough.  "Why should I go anywhere?" he always says.  "I'm already here."

14. He envied suburban "straight" life.  Why would someone who never leaves the gay world envy the lives of suburban straights, with houses, lawns, garden clubs, paperboys, and casseroles in the oven?  But Lane did.  In 1995 he started hanging out with Tim, a gay cartoonist who had that sort of life.  I thought they were probably more than friends, so I introduced the cartoonist to Infinite Chazz to distract him.

See: Lane's Bear Boyfriend and the Cute Young Thing 

15. He's the only gay man on Earth who doesn't like San Francisco.  In 1995, we moved to San Francisco, Gay Heaven.  But Lane didn't like it, and soon made an excuse to move back to West Hollywood.




16. He's a closet dancer.  Macho leather men aren't supposed to dance, but when I returned to West Hollywood in 2000 for a visit, he and Randall, the Muscle Bear with the Pierced Penis, took me out to a dance club, and he showed some moves (that was the same night I hooked up with the star of the TGIF sitcom).

See: Randall, the Muscle Bear with the Pierced Penis

17. He's a closet bottom.  When we were together, he wasn't into anal, or said he wasn't.  But when we went to Barcelona, he bottomed for a Catalan guy, and I have it on good authority that he's bottomed regularly for boyfriends and partners since.

18. He disapproves of dating twinks.  Several of my friends have discovered that when they hit 40 or 50, the twinks start following them around.  That hasn't been the case with Lane.  The older he gets, the older his admirers get, and the more he disapproves of dating young guys.

In 2013, I came back to West Hollywood for a visit, and picked up a 20-year old.  Lane has been complaining about that ever since.

See: My Date with a Star of "The Wizards of Waverly Place"


19. He's an Episcopalian.  I'm not sure how or why, but sometime around 2010, after a young adulthood of vigilance toward attempts at brainwashing him to convert, Lane converted.  The Episcopal Church is a pro-gay denomination, heavy on liturgy, with lots of Medieval music playing.  He's still culturally Jewish, but for religion, it's Advent, Lent, baptism, the Eucharist, the whole Christian thing.

20. He's a Grandfather.  In 2015, he married Ben, his partner of 7 years. Ben was then 65 years old, with two sons from a previous relationship, and three grandchildren.  One of them was gay, a new graduate of the the University of Utah with a degree in theater arts.

Maybe that's why Lane disapproves of me dating twinks.  He doesn't want me hooking up with his grandson.  If only he knew that...well, never mind.

See: I May or May Not Have Hooked Up with My Boyfriend's Grandson.

21. Seven and a half inches, cut.  Come on, you know that's the fact you've been hoping for all along.