Billy Booth Comes Out on the Set of "The Twilight Zone"

Billy Booth was playing on his Little League team in LaCrescenta, California, about 20 miles from Hollywood, when an agent approached his mother and asked if he would be interested in doing some tv commercials.  A decade of tv and movie work followed: The Snow Queen (1957), Goodyear Theatre (1959), The Slowest Gun in the West (1960), Donna Reed (1964), and Andy Griffith (1964), plus a recurring role as Tommy on Dennis the Menace  (1959-1963).

But his favorite role, the one he would remember forever, was "Short Boy" on The Twilight Zone, when he was 11 years old.

"A Stop at Willoughby" (May 6, 1960) was one of many episodes about harried business executives who escape to what narrrator/writer Rod Serling thought of as the kinder, simpler world  of the 19th century, with people riding on penny-farthings and bands playing "Beautiful Dreamer" in the park

In this case, harried ad exec Gart Williams (41-year old James Daly) escapes from his obnoxious boss and harridan wife when his commuter train makes an unexpected stop at the small town of Willoughby, July 1888.

For the rest of the episode, he tries desperately to return.  Finally he succeeds.  In the twist ending, it turns out that he jumped out of the train to his death, and "Willoughby and Sons" is the name of the funeral home.

Billy played one of the two barefoot boys walking toward the fishing hole, then returning to town later. The older (Butch Hengen) tells Williams that "the fish are biting."  Williams says "I might go with you tomorrow."

That's all: two walk-ons, shot together on a single afternoon, uncredited, no lines.  But what happened after stayed with Billy forever.

After his scene, he expected someone to take the fishing pole and fish prop from his hands, but no one came.  He started walking, but took a wrong turn and got lost, still dressed like Huckleberry Finn.  The hard ground hurt his feet.  He was getting a little worried, when suddenly Jim Daly was beside him.

"Are those real fish?" he asked, smiling

"Yep. Boy, do they smell!"

"We'd better get them back to props.  Come on, I'll show you the way."  Jim put his hand on his shoulder and steered him in the opposite direction, back across the Willoughby set.

Jim was very big and tall.  Billy felt like a big man just walking next to him, like they were pals.

"Do you think you'd like to live in a town like Willoughby?"

"Naw -- it sounds real square.  No tv, no movies, no comic books!  But I liked working here.  Butch is cool -- me and him, we're going to the beach tomorrow, if his Mom says it's ok."

"That's fine  That's all you need, really, in this life -- one special friend.  They're hard to find."

"Oh, I got lots of friends."

"Sure, but do you have a special friend?  Someone who makes you smile whenever you look at him, who makes you sad when you have to say goodbye."  Jim was staring straight ahead, reciting as if remembering a scene. His words made Billy feel warm and happy inside.  "Who you don't want to say goodbye to, ever -- you want to spend you life with him."

"That's pretty cool, Mister Daly.  Is it from a movie?"

"No, it's from real life.  Or at least, how I wish life could be.  Maybe it will be, when you grow up."

They handed the fish and fishing pole to the prop master, who snarled "It's about time!  I thought you nicked it!"   Then Jim walked Billy to where his mother was waiting.  They shook hands and said goodbye.

Billy never saw him again.  But he remembered the warm hand on his shoulder, the distant, faraway look, the sadness.

One special friend.  

Billy's next job was on an episode of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.  Dwayne Hickman and Bob Denver were both nice to him,  but the only cast member who made him smile just by looking at him was Mike Burns, a cute teenager with big muscles and a hairy chest.  But Mike ignored Billy, or talked like he was just a little kid.

One special friend.

Jay North, his costar on Dennis the Menace?  Nice, but not very cute.

Mickey Sholdar on The Farmer's Daughter?  Cute, but not very nice.

Like many child stars, Billy found acting jobs scarce once he hit puberty.  But he didn't mind: he could go to a regular school with regular kids, and do normal things like ride bikes and go to the beach.  He started fantasizing about cute guys climbing into his bed, hugging and kissing him, touching him down there.

A guy from his biology class; his gym teacher; Robert Vaughn, the Man from Uncle;  Mike Burns; and Jim Daly, who (in Billy's fantasy) had muscles and a hairy chest, big hands, and a gigantic penis.

In high school Billy began dating girls.  His favorite dates ended with him and a friend dropping off the girls and then parking and going down on him, feeling a buff guy's cock thrust against his tongue and throat.  But it was just a physical release -- his friend could never be a special friend.  He was too busy thinking about girls.

Billy graduated from LaCrescenta High in 1967- and enrolled at USC.  Some of his classmates were growing their hair long, smoking pot, and joining in the anti-war protests, but Billy never did.  He was a good boy, quiet, respectful, studious, a square.  Besides, with their long hair and beads, hippie boys looked like girls.  He liked "real men," strong, masculine, powerful.

Like the football jocks he invited to his dorm room to beat off while looking at Playboy.  Sometimes he went down on them, but again, it was just a physical release.  They were both supposed to be thinking about girls.

In 1974 Billy graduated from USC with a degree in political science.  He moved to San Francisco to go to the Hastings College of Law, and met gay people for the first time.  Men who acted like women, flouncing and sashaying down the street.  Not a problem -- he was open-minded -- but with no connection to his life at all.  Instead he started dating Kathy, a Berkeley undergrad majoring in English.

She was certainly a friend -- they had a lot of fun together.  And they had sex - it was simply a matter of closing his eyes and fantasizing about a muscular guy with a hairy chest.  That desire to touch her, to be touched by her, was absent, but it was probably just a childhood fantasy -- it didn't exist in the real world.  Kathy must be his special friend.

In June 1977 they married and moved to Los Osos, California, in San Luis Obispo County.  They bought a house near the beach.  Billy started a private practice in business and real estate law, and Kathy worked on her writing.  In October she announced that she was pregnant.

Billy was 28 years old, with everything he was supposed to want in life: house, job, wife, child on the way.  This was the life everyone wanted.

Wasn't it?

Well, wasn't it?

He had never been so miserable.

One day on a whim, he tracked down James Daly, who remembered their brief conversation 17 years ago!  He got an invitation to visit.

Kathy didn't understand why he wanted to cross the country to visit someone he met once, but she wasn't about to pass up a trip to New York, so in January 1978, shortly after the New Year, they flew out to Nyack.

Daly was 59 years old, graying but still big and tall, still acting in local theater and taking the train into Manhattan every weekend.  They went shopping for antiques, and walked on the beach even though it was in the 20s outside.  Nearly the first thing he told them was: "I'm gay."

He grinned at their shock -- you didn't just come out to near-strangers in 1978!  "For the last six months I've been telling everyone.  You'd be surprised how healing it is. Such a blessing to finally end the lies."

"How long have you known?" Billy asked.

"Oh, since I was a boy.  But when I was young, we thought it was a mental disorder.  [My wife] Hope and I tried all sorts of therapy to 'cure' me before figuring that it was hopeless and divorcing.  Even then, I stayed in the closet."

"Have you ever had a companion?" Kathy asked.  "Someone to spend your life with?  A special friend?"

Billy stared -- he had never used that term in front of Kathy.  How did she know it?

"Lots of lovers, but I'm afraid that the happiness of a special friend has always eluded me.  I think because I came out of the closet too late."

"It's never too late," Kathy said, glancing over at Billy.

They waited until their son Devon was five years old to divorce.  Billy continued to live in Los Osos and practice law, stayed close to Kathy and watched Devon grow up, but he was down in Los Angeles most weekends.

He had brunch at the French Quarter.  He visited the gay synagogue.  He had many boyfriends and lovers, and a partner who lived with him for 12 years.

Billy Booth died on December 31, 2006.  His family suggests that, instead of flowers, you can best honor his memory by calling an old friend.

Donnie's Gay Sex Party with Jack Wild and Sid Kroft

Jack Wild (1952-2006) was the teen star of the Saturday morning life action show H.R. Pufnstuf, about a boy trapped in a distant magical land with a friendly dragon and a cranky old witch.  Gay subtexts abounded, and Jack, short, slim, androgynous, and cherubic-cute, became every gay boy's fantasy boyfriend.

After Pufnstuf, Jack's star quickly faded.  His later years were plagued by poverty, depression, alcoholism, diabetes, and finally cancer.  He was apparently heterosexual, with two long-term marriages and no gay hookup or dating stories, until this one, which is really about Sid Krofft:

Born Sydas Yodas in Greece in 1929, Sid became interested in puppeteering at an early age, and by 1948, he was touring with a  one-man puppet show, "The Unusual World of Sid Krofft," across Europe and the United States.  In 1957, while opening for Judy Garland, Sid found that he needed another puppeteer, so he enlisted his younger brother Moshopopulos or Marty (born 1937).

Soon they were busily working their puppeteering magic in film and on tv.  Given an opportunity to develop a Saturday morning children's series, they decided to make antagonists of H.R. Pufnstuf, a "friendly dragon" they introduced at the 1968 World's Fair, and the zany witch Witchiepoo from their stage play.  The two forces, good against evil, would be fighting over control of a lost boy and his...um...magic flute (Sid was a big fan of magic flutes).

Watching a rough cut of the movie version of Oliver! (1968), Sid decided that Jack Wild, the Cockney child actor playing The Artful Dodger, would be perfect as the young boy.  But how to get him to move to America for an extended commitment?

"I'll be his guardian in America," Sid offered.

"Not a chance!" Marty exclaimed.  "Your pad is not a suitable place for a young boy."  Although Sid was 39 years old, he had fully embraced the youth counterculture.  His four-bedroom "pad" in West Hollywood had psychedelic posters, strobe lights, and lava lamps, and it was constantly crowded with long-haired, tie-dyed Cute Young Things of both sexes.

Marty didn't ask which, if any, Sid was shacking up with.  He loved his brother, of course, and he had a live-and-let live attitude toward sexual oddities, but...he didn't need the details.

"I'll be his guardian," Marty offered.  "I have a wife and young children.  It will be a stable family environment."

Marty lived to regret that decision.

The 16-year old arrived in Hollywood in the summer of 1969, moved in with Marty, and proceeded to raise hell.

Jack was cheerful, energetic, and very cute, but a handful.  He came and went as he pleased; on the night of his 17th birthday, he skipped his party and stayed out all night!  He never followed house rules.  Marty had young children in the house, and he didn't like Jack bringing his hippie friends in to drink and smoke pot.

Hollywood, December 1969

Donnie was a 19-year old UCLA student, working as a gopher for the Kroffts: he got coffee, delivered scripts, and acted as best friend/handler to Jack Wild.

Today Jack would probably be fired for multiple instances of  sexual harassment.  He put the moves on everybody, male and female, young and old -- he even kept "accidentally" groping the H.R. Pufnstuf puppet, with a mortified Roberto Gamonet inside.

"You and me, yeah?" Jack said once, putting his arm around Donnie's waist and "accidentally" hitting his butt.  "Two mates, a little snogging.  Nothing wrong with that."

"You're only 17.  I'm in college. Besides, I'm not queer" Donnie said.  He was gay but not out, and he didn't want to get outed by tricking with the unpredictable star.

Jack flew back to England for Christmas, but returned on the 28th -- Donnie had to pick him up at the airport.  The next day, he dropped in to Sid's house to get his approval on something or other, and the Cute Young Thing who answered the door directed him to the master bedroom.

It was well after noon,so Don assumed that Sid was working in bed.  He thought nothing of it -- he knocked once and went in.




The room was semi-dark, light coming from a flashing strobe light.  All the sheets and blankets were torn off the bed, leaving a bare mattress.  Sid was lying on his back, between two Cute Young Things. One was going down on him -- Donnie could see only the back of his head.  The other was beating off while Sid cuddled him -- Jack Wild, the star of the show.

"What the hell!" Donnie exclaimed.

Jack looked up, grinned, and held out his penis. "Welcome back party, right?  Room for one more."

Donnie was a little worried that if he didn't demonstrate he was "cool" by participating, Jack would get him fired.  But to be honest, he was majorly turned on. Ever since the proposition, he had been fantasizing about the young star and his equipment -- a very hard 6-incher.  So after a moment of thought, he walked forward, knelt, and went down on Jack.

"That's it," Jack said.  "Do it like that, mate.  You're good, man...bloody good, you know that?"

After a few minutes, Jack pushed his head away.  "Too much for me, man.  Do Sid, while I watch."

Donnie wasn't attracted to old guys, and Sid had a very thick 8", bigger than he had ever been with before.  So after licking the head for a few moments, he tore off his shirt and pants and went down on the Cute Young Thing -- thin, short brown hair, a couple of tattoes, ruddy uncut 7".

Sid had his arm around Jack and was beating him off.  Donnie thought it odd that they weren't kissing; to give them an example, he raised up, pushed the Cute Young Thing down on the bed, and kissed him.  Soon they were doing the Princeton rub.

"Oi, a coupla lover-birds," Jack said.  "But you forgot the job I gave you.  Sid needs some attention, right?"

 Donnie reluctantly left the Cute Young Thing and went down on Sid.  The 8" gagged him; he started to cough. He resorted to sucking just the head while masturbating the shaft.  After a few minutes, Sid unexpectedly spurted down his throat.

Donnie ran down to the bathroom to spit out his load and wash his mouth out, and returned for his clothes.  Jack had finished and was wiping off with a sheet. The Cute Young Thing, still aroused, was smoking a joint.

"Give me a ride to Spiro's, that's the bloke," Jack said.  "And maybe there'll be some naughty bits waiting for you later."

But Donnie didn't hook up with Jack again, or with Sid.  He was too worried about being arrested -- gay sex was illegal in California until 1976 -- or losing his job -- or being outed as "queer" to his family.  And a couple of months later, after finishing the last episode and cobbling together the H.R. Pufnstuf feature film, Jack Wild was back in England.

Donnie stayed with the Kroffts during his last two years at  UCLA, through the Bugaloos and Lidsville, and he sometimes dropped in to say "hello" when they were working on Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, and Land of the Lost.  He noticed with some amusement that all of their tv series starred cute gay or bi boys.

Was Donnie Telling the Truth?

This story is actually from a friend of my friend David in San Francisco, who dated Donnie during the 1980s.  So it's third hand, and fifty years after the fact.

Sid Krofft has never been linked with any romantic partner, male or female.  He's probably gay: in 2006 he opened a nightclub on the corner of Santa Monica and Larrabee, the heart of West Hollywood (where the Different Light Bookstore used to be), featuring muscular go-go boys in cages.  

But an orgy with the 17-year old star of his tv show, basically his employee, is another matter.  Jack Wild's autobiography says nothing about any same-sex activity.

Could it have been someone else, transformed into Jack Wild through years of retelling?  Or did Jack's wild past involve sex with the boss?

See also: Pufnstuf

March 1975: Could a Man Have Sex with a Man?

 

Rock Island, around 1975

I'm 14 years old, growing up in the Midwest, and although Stonewall was seven years ago, nobody knows that same-sex desire, behavior, relationships, or gay people exist.  Or if they do, they pretend not to.  All I see on tv, all I hear in the classroom or in church or from my parents or friends, with anxiety or smug assurance, everbody and everything tell sme that jeterosexual desire is universal human experience.

 Even the "fairies," those poor pitiable boys who pretend to be girls, long for girls.  

Every boy who ever lived, or who ever would live, or who ever would be written about in a book or shown on a tv screen, aches with desire for feminine curves and smiles. 

 I don't not yet, but everyone I know is certain that my "discovery"is  imminent.  One day soon, I will see The Girl walking in slow motion across the school yard, her hair blowing in the wind, and in an instant I will know what everyone else in the world knows.   From that moment on, I will devote my life to the pursuit of the feminine.

But what about the "Best Men" who inform my life, Doug, Dan, Bill.  I imagine us growing up and living together forever, finding a "Good Place."  What about my flurry of excitement over Bomba the Jungle Boy, Peter Brady, David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman?  My Book of Cute Boys from before kindergarten?

They do not signify same-sex desire, to me or to anyone else.  Same-sex desire is simply beyond the boundary of what can be imagined.  No boy ever touches another boy, except for brief ritualistic gestures like shaking hands.  If they touch by accident, they spring away, too disgusted for words.  Boys enjoy and desiredonly the touch of a girl.  

But there have been hints throughout my childhood, looks, gestures that didn't fit into this heteronormative universe.

Hippie leader Charles Manson wanted to get revenge on Terry Melchior, a record producer who had rejected his songs.  So on August 8th, 1969, he sent his is "family" to kill everyone in the house.  Melchior was no longer living there; the hippies killed actress Sharon Tate and her houseguests.  The next night, they killed the LaBianca family to throw the police off their trail.

Manson did not actually commit the murders, but ordering his disciples to do it was enough: he was found guilty of seven murders, and sentenced to death (later changed to life in prison).  

Tonight I'm up late -- my brother is out.  I'm flipping through the channels on the small black-and-white tv -- not difficult, there are only three -- when I chance  upon long-haired, long-bearded hippie in a prison suit being interviewed on a late night news program.

I was only eight years old at the time of the murders, so I didn't hear about them, and I don't recognize the man as Charles Manson was.  Just a long-haired, long-bearded hippie in prison.

"What do you miss most about life on the outside?  The interviewer asks.  "Sex?"

"Sex? No!" The hippie scoffs.  "There's lots of sex in prison."  

Then he stares menacingly at the camera, and the interviewer goes on to the next story.

Sex in prison? But...it's all men.  How could you have sex? 

Could a man have sex with a man?

But...men spring away from the slightest touch.  How could he put his penis in another man without being overcome with disgust?  And where would he put it?  

And why was it never mentioned?  All of the dozens of times I 've heard about "making love" from family, friends, on tv, in movies, it is always men and women.

I decide that women must sneak into the prison to have sex with him, or else there are male prison guards.  Problem solved.

But still the question haunts me.  Could a man have sex with a man?

See also: I Learn About Oral Sex in the Church Parking Lot

A Hookup with the Surly, Crazy-Eyed Guy with the Mortadella+

Philadelphia, March 2013

I'm at the gym at my job in a small private college near Philadelphia, having a bad day  (actually, most days in Philadelphia are bad.  Not nearly as bad as Hell-fer-Sartain, ugh...Texas, the worst place in the world, but bad...).  And now the guy on the butterfly press is just sitting there, playing with his cell phone.

You're supposed to rest about a minute between sets, but not on the machine.  Get up and walk around, or better yet, go do a set for another muscle group.

But the undergrads at the campus gym often just sit there for 5 minutes, rendering their weight training useless and jamming up everybody else's work out.

It's annoying.  Besides, I like to do my sets in a specific order, alternating upper and lower body, and working down from the big to the small muscle groups, so I can't just walk away.  I always walk up, motion for them to unplug their earphones, and ask "Can I squeeze in between your sets?"

They always get up and let me "play through."

But today when I ask, the guy on the butterfly press glares at me, eyes wide, teeth set.  "I have two sets left," he growls, ready for a fight, daring me to make a move against him.

Nobody ever has had that reaction before!  This guy must be crazy!

I should probably retreat, but I'm annoyed by the territoriality.  "Well, how about if I squeeze between the sets, while you're resting?"

He grumbles...but says ok.  He jumps up and stands there glaring at me while I move the weight to double what he was doing.  And keeps glaring during my set.

You're supposed to walk around, or at least look away.

So after my set, instead of walking around, I stand there, getting in his face.

He's an older student, senior or grad: mid-20s, tall and thin, tattooed, shaggy black hair, short beard, deep-set eyes.  Crazy eyes.  Wearing a black t-shirt and silken gym shorts that show no basket.

Suddenly I find him very attractive.  

He's not at all my usual type.  Maybe it's his surliness  -- you're into guys who aren't into you.  Or maybe it's because I'm approached by twinks all the time.  Finding one who doesn't cruise me, who displays no interest, is refreshing.

Or maybe it's just the challenge.

He says "It's all yours," jumps up, and moves to the preacher press.  I finish my next set and move to the calf press next to him.  I put on four 50-pound weights.  He pretends not to see me.

"Hey!"

He takes off his earphones and glares.

"If you want the full benefit, you should take it slower, and go down lower.  Let me show you."

He glares at me.  "Just my luck.  I finally get up the nerve to go to the gym, and some muscle-bound Bob Paris wannabe tells me I'm doing it wrong."

Hostility, and a veiled compliment? And he knows Bob Paris, the gay bodybuilder -- must be gay himself.

He doesn't object as I walk over, put my hands on the bar to show him, and "accidentally" touch his hands.

"I can see you have a lot of potential -- your biceps are already firm and tight, and you have a nice chst. You just need a little instruction to get things going."

He glares.  "I'm doing just fine, thanks.  I don't need any $100 dollar an hour personal trainer pestering me."

I touch his shoulder.  "I'll give you some tips for free.  A public service so you don't hurt yourself.  You can buy me a coke afterwards."

He flashes his crazy eyes but says "Ok."

I show him how to use some of the machines and free weights, touching him several times in the process.  He continues to glare with his crazy eyes.  This guy is crazy.

Then we shower -- he's on the other side of the locker room, so I don't see anything -- and walk down the street to a burger place.

"Ok, if you're serious about weight training, you need to lead a healthy lifestyle.  That means no drinking, no drugs, and a low-fat, low-sugar diet."

He smiles for the first time.  "I don't use drugs, and I was planning to order the turkey burger anyway."

His name is Aaron.  He graduated five years ago, but he can use the gym on his alumni card.  His degree was in music -- he wanted to become a singer, and still performs at open mike nights -- but his real jobs are in the campus cafeteria and a pizza place downtown.  His schedule doesn't leave a lot of time for socializing, so he doesn't meet many guys.

We go back to the tiny apartment he shares with two straight guys and a large dog.  He leads me immediately into the bedroom, and stands there, glaring with his crazy eyes, waiting for me to make the first move.

I run my hand over his smooth, tight chest and down to his crotch.  He's still glaring.

Well, he didn't say no...

I unzip him and go down on him.

Whoa, a gigantic Mortadella+!

 Soon we're on his single, unmade bed, naked, kissing.  He pushes into interfemoral position to finish, then goes down on me.

Afterwards he rushes into the bathroom to wash off, and then returns to me in bed.  We cuddle.  Suddenly he gets aroused again.  But he's still glaring.

I have to say something.  "You know, you're very hot, but there might be something about your demeanor that's off-putting to guys.  You should expect the best in people, not the worst -- you shouldn't go into an encounter looking all defensive, this glaring..."

He glares.  "What are you talking about?  This is the way I look when I'm attracted to a guy."

See also: Yuri and the Unhung Hippie; My Textbook Rep is a Porn Star.

Fangorn's First Hookup, with Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky

San Francisco, November 2010

I'm living in Upstate New York, but back in San Francisco for a conference, staying with my friend David.  We meet some guys at the Red Jade Restaurant on Church Street:  Matt my ex-boyfriend's ex-boyfriend, a South Asian Daddy named Tutor, Seth the Chemist, and his new boyfriend Fangorn.

(I'm not kidding -- he was named after the forest in The Lord of the Rings.)

They live in Santa Rosa, about an hour's drive north of San Francisco.  Seth teaches at Sonoma State, and Fangorn grows onions.

They make quite a pair.  Seth is slim, blond, sharp-jawed, clean-cut, and Fangorn a big, hairy, husky nature boy with long hair and a beard.

We discuss the usual gigantic penises, dates from hell, and celebrity hookups.  Matt tells about his date with Bronson Pinchot, star of Perfect Strangers.  David tells about hooking up with Skyler Stone, who we know from Raising Hope.  I stick to Michael J. Fox.

"Do poets count?" Fangorn asks, "Or do they have to be on the boob tube?"

I hate anti-tv elitists!  I start to roil.

"Sure, poets are fine," I say through gritted teeth.  "As long as they're famous."

"How many famous poets are there, that were alive in the last fifty years?" David asks.

"William Carlos Williams?" Matt suggests.

"Allen Ginsberg.  Back when I was a college kid, still named Dennis.  In fact, my first gay experience was with Ginsberg and his lover, Peter Orlovsky."

We all know Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), the Beat poet whose Howl was required reading for anyone coming out in a homophobic society:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked....
who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,
who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may,
who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword

He became a guru to the youth counterculture of the 1960s.  

He was gay, in a life-long and presumably monogamous relationship with fellow writer Peter Orlovsky (1933-2010.  I've seen them both naked in many films and photographs, and read their homoerotic poetry, but I've never met anyone who hooked up with them.

Boulder, Colorado, July 1975

Dennis was 20 years old, tall and slim, a Creative Writing major at the University of Iowa, a would-be poet desperate to see his stuff published in chapbooks and in little magazines.  

"What a coincidence!" I exclaim.  "I'm from the Quad Cities, just down the road from Iowa City. Did you ever go to the gay bars in Rock Island?"

"No, I wasn't out yet."

He was a lapsed Lutheran, not a pagan yet, and, as far as he knew, straight, although his sexual experience was limited to fumbling around in the car with his date on the night of the senior prom.

He loved the Beat poets, especially Allen Ginsberg, so in the summer of 1975 he enrolled in the Jack Kerouc School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

It was a primitive school with no classrooms, no dorms, no buildings at all, meeting in various rented spaces in Boulder, including an old bus depot and an apartment over a Chinese restaurant.  But the intellectual and spiritual energy was amazing: not only Allan Ginsberg but Chongyam Trungpa Rimpoche, Anne Waldman, Ram Das, Gregory Bateson, John Cage, and Gary Snyder were lecturing, performing, and holding classes on such topics as Buddhism, Earth religions, social movements, and poetry. 

There were 1,500 students from all over the world, all ages, staying 8 to a room in hotels and apartments, and sleeping in tents in North Boulder Park.  

Dennis enrolled in Allen Ginsberg's class in the History of Mahayana Buddhism, and Peter Orlovsky's class in Poetry Writing.

Ginsberg was 49 years old, balding, bearded, chubby.  Orlovsky was 42, slim, with long hair and intense eyes.

"They never said anything about being gay.  I didn't even know that they were lovers until someone told me." 

The classes were something of a disappointment.  Ginsberg lectured on historical sources like any professor, except that he was cross-legged on the floor, and occasionally chanted a Sanskrit text.  Orlovsky had students sit in a circle and discuss each other's submissions, the standard creative writing class you could get in any university.

And Naropa wasn't all about spiritual enlightenment and the unspeakable visions of the individual.  There were fist-fights and drunken brawls.  Two naked hippies rushed into a classroom and began tearing off a girl's clothes, screaming about "breaking free from the shackles of capitalism."  The Rimpoche invited a dozen girls and a handful of boys to his house every night for Tantric orgies that lasted until dawn.

In contrast, Ginsberg and Orlovsky seemed positively sedate. They didn't participate in the drinking or the orgies.  Every night they returned to their quiet, nondescript home near downtown Boulder, exactly like a middle-aged heterosexual couple.

Dennis had never met anyone gay before.  He expected flamboyance, camp, and nonstop sexual come-ons. But neither Ginsberg nor Orlovsky ever propositioned him.    

Not that Dennis would accept, of course -- he was straight.  But...from everything he had heard, gay men weren't picky -- they would try to get into the pants of anyone with a penis!  Didn't they find him attractive? 

What was wrong with him?

He started coming to class with his shirt off, hoping his bare chest would draw their attention.

Nothing.  

He stuffed a sock into his crotch.

Nothing.

He positioned himself next to Orlovsky in the writing circle, and casually rubbed his foot against Orlovksy's calf.  

Still nothing.

Finally Dennis decided to take a more aggressive approach. He caught up with Orlovsky and Ginsberg as they walked home for the evening, pushed between them, and put his arm around Ginsberg's waist.  Ginsberg didn't push away.  Instead, he wrapped his arm around Dennis.  Orlovsky looked over, smiled, and wrapped his arm around Dennis, too.

But were they propositioning him, or just being affectionate?  Dennis had to know for sure!

"I have a question.  I hope it's cool.  How did you guys know that you were...um..gay?"  He had never said the word aloud before.

"I think you already know the answer to that question," Ginsberg said.

"What -- no!  I'm just asking.  I'm straight.  I never been with a guy before, and I don't want to."

"Then why are you here?"

"Please master can I touch your cheek," Orlovksy recited.  "Please master can I kneel at your feet.  Please master can I loosen your blue pants.  Please master can I gaze at your golden haired belly..."

Dennis had never heard that Ginsberg poem before.  The image it evoked was tantalizing.  But he said "No!"  and broke away.

"We're going to go home and get naked," Ginsberg said.  "You can join us, if you like.  Or you can wait.  We live thousands of lives -- you have plenty of time."

A few moments later, he was going down on Ginsberg's average sized penis -- still, it made him gag -- and then trying Orlovsky's thin Bratwurst.  Then he bottomed for Ginsberg while Orlovsky went down on him.  They giggled and pawed, and cracked jokes -- to them it was just play.  

But to Dennis it was a transformation.  

San Francisco, November 2010

"Many gay men still think of sex as play, a form of recreation," Fangorn says.  "They don't understand how much spiritual power it has.  It can transform you."

"So...," David says... "I guess you and Seth won't be sharing our out-of-town guest tonight?"

"Let's not be hasty!"  His hand falls into my lap.  "Sex can transform you, certainly, but it can also be a pleasant ending to an evening of dinner and conversation."

Seth laughs.  "Fangorn likes three-ways better than one-on-one sex.  I guess you're always trying to replicate your first experience."  

"Great!" I exclaim.  "My first experience was with an incredibly well-hung high school violinist.  Fangorn, can you live up to his lofty standards?"

He did.

See also: On My Knees in the Teaching Assistant's Office; Desperatly Seeking Kevin the Vampire; The Gay Beat Generation.

Will the Bondage Boy Hooks Up with Peter Fonda

West Hollywood, April 1993

Every year Lane's mother Rosa hosted a huge Passover seder.  Her house on Crescent Heights was packed with relatives from New York, friends from Temple Beth El, employees, neighbors, and minor celebrities.  I went twice as Lane's roommate or boyfriend (depending on who asked).

Rosa died last year, so Lane has the responsibility of hosting.  Fifty people will never fit into our small two-bedroom apartment, so he's paring down last year's guest list, deleting Rosa's old housekeeper, the great-uncle that he only saw once a year, crotchety neighbors, and the elderly ladies from the Hadassah League.

"What do you think?" Lane asks.  "Should we keep Jane and Peter Fonda?"

I look over his shoulder at the guest list: Jane Fonda and Ted Turner. Peter and Portia Fonda.  "Rosa knew them?"

"Sure. They met when Jane's husband Tom Hayden was running for Senate. She's been to seder several times, [Her brother] Peter only once that I can remember, but Mom invited them every year."

The 1960s counterculture heroes sitting down to Passover dinner with Lane's elderly, kugel-baking mother?   It seemed bizarre.  But, I remembered, Rosa's politics were very liberal.  When she was younger, she wrote for a radical Zionist newspaper.

"Should I continue the tradition?  It means four table settings, and they probably won't come.

"Go for it.  I'd like to meet them."

A few days later, at lunch with Will the Bondage Boy, I mention the Jane and Peter Fonda guest list.

"Can I get an invitation?" he asks.  "It would be fun to see Peter Fonda again.  I wonder if he remembers our trick."  [Trick was our word for a hookup.]

"You tricked with the star of Easy Rider?  Why haven't you told this story before?  You always tell about Keanu Reeves."

He shrugs.  "Nothing to tell.  We tricked, the end.  A jealous-lover bondage fantasy with Keanu Reeves is much more interesting."

"I'll be the judge of that."

Tijuana, April 1978

Will was 20 years old, a sophomore at Occidental College, a Cute Young Thing ready for action.  This was before the fear of AIDS shut down all the bathhouses in Los Angeles, but he was afraid to go to them, lest someone from school see him and have him expelled.  So one weekend he and a friend went to a bathhouse in Tijuana, a seedy affair with musty showers, damp corridors, and leering drug-addled downlow men.

Will recognized Peter Fonda immediately.  He didn't find him particularly attractive: pushing 40, tall and thin, with a receding hairline, a long face, and a Tom Selleck moustache.  But who would turn down the chance to trick with Captain America of Easy Rider, whose homoerotic buddy-bonding gave the 11-year old Will his first glimpse of gay potential?

They went back to his room and collapsed onto the seedy, stained mattress, fondling but not kissing.  Peter went down on Will, but he was too star-struck and couldn't concentrate enough to get aroused.  After awhile, he gave up and moved to go down on Peter.



 Peter was enormous beneath the belt, a good 9", and thick as a beer can.  Will could only manage to get his mouth around the head; the shaft took two hands.  Still, Peter was impressed, groaning, whispering "Oh, yeah, that's great!  Feels great!"

He finished with a monumental spurt and, sweating and out of breath, drew Will into a hug -- still no kissing.  "That was outta sight!  Do you live in L.A.? If you have a place where we could crash, we could make this a regular thing."

"Sure, I have a place," Will said, thinking of his dorm room.  He could put a tie on the door handle to signal to his roommate that he was having a "girl" over.

"But don't tell your friends about me, ok?  I have a reputation of being a macho action hero, and I don't need any rumors ruining it."

"Ok."

Peter wrote his telephone number on a piece of paper and handed it to Will, then dressed and left.

West Hollywood, April 1993

"I felt like I should call, just because he was such a big star," Will says.  "But he wasn't that cute, and he wasn't that good in bed, so I gave it a miss.  I'm probably the only guy in history to dump a celebrity after the first date."

"No, I've done that, too,"  I say.

"See?  Not nearly as interesting as Keanu Reeves.  The only interesting part was his 9", and I've been with bigger guys since."

Will gets his invitation to the Passover seder.  The Fondas don't come, but Lane gives him Peter's address and telephone number from Rosa's address book.   I don't know what happened after that.

Was Will telling the truth?

1. Most celebrity dating and hookup stories make the the celebrity gorgeous, and the sex energetic and passionate.  Making Peter unattractive and the sex mediocre gives Will's story a ring of truth.

2. But being starstruck over Peter Fonda rings false.  He's not a big star.  During the 1970s and 1980s he starred mostly in car-chase actioners like Race with the Devil and The Cannonball Run.  In 1978 his only movie role was High Ballin', a Canadian attempt to cash in on the trucker craze, with Peter driving, brawling, and picking up a girl conveniently named Pickup.

3. Peter has been married to women three times, and has two children, Justin and Bridget.  He was with his second wife, Portia, from 1975 to 2011.

4. He's a gay ally.  He claims that he chose a black motorcycle jacket for Easy Rider to become an icon in the gay community.

See also: Will and Scott Have a Wild Night with Keanu Reeves; 21 Surprising Facts About Lane

Six Degrees of Separation: From Fred to Fred's First Lover

They say that everyone on Earth is connected to each other by, at most, six degrees of separation, networks of "a friend of a friend of a friend."  That's especially true in the gay world, where men move from gay neighborhood to gay neighborhood, seeing the same faces, seeking the same hangouts.

So look carefully at your next date or hookup: chances are you, or someone you know, has been with him before.  If you dig deeply enough into the histories of your lovers, you will run into your ex lovers there, a chain of emotional and erotic experiences that extends back through history.

1. Fred, my first boyfriend, We met in December 1979, during my sophomore year in college, when he was a 28-year old intern at the United Methodist Church in Rock Island.  We dated for a few months, lived together during a disastrous summer in Omaha, and then stayed friends for the next thirty years.

2. Matt. While working as a mental health counselor in Kansas City in May 1987,  Fred met Matt, a recent graduate of Harvard University, snobby, elitist, and crazy, with the habit of talking constantly during sex, in three languages.  "Oh, mon etalon...nearly there..soon, soon...ich werde kommen...."  They stayed together for ten years, in Claremont, California, then San Bernardino, then Fresno, breaking up in the fall of 1996.  Then Matt moved to San Francisco and started a housekeeping service.

















3. Seth.  A graduate student in chemistry, later a chemist, who taught a horribly heterosexist lab section, before Kevin the Vampire and I convinced him to lay off.  And hook up with us.

Seth dated Kevin after we broke up, and then moved on to Matt.

That's right, the ex-boyfriend of my ex-boyfriend dated the ex-boyfriend of my ex-boyfriend.

4. Fangorn.   In 2009, Seth moved to Santa Rosa for a job and met Fangorn (named after the forest), a white-bearded nature boy, pagan, and fan of The Lord of the Rings.  He had a farm near Santa Rosa, where he grew mostly onions (and marijuana).

I don't know what the eminently empirical scientist saw in the aging hippie, except maybe his Kielbasa beneath the belt.  But they were together for a couple of years.

5. Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky.  Back in the 1970s, when Fangorn was a Cute Young Thing named Dennis, he enrolled in the Naropa Institute in Colorado.  He and Beat poet Ginsberg and his partner Peter Orlovsky enjoyed romping about in the nude.










6. Justin.  In the late 1950s, when Peter Orlovsky was a student at Columbia University, he dated a young Classics major named Justin.  Who went on to graduate study at Harvard, got his Ph.D., and for some reason chose to teach in the Midwest, Knox College.

7. Fred.  Where, twenty years later, with a beard and a belly, he taught -- and dated -- the theology student who would become my first lover.

See also: Fred's Nine Lovers; The Blue Power Ranger Dates Fred and Matt