The recent resignation of the revolting Mike Jeffries from the helm of Abercrombie and Fitch, for his remarks about not wanting fat ugly customers in his stores, leaves in question the future of that soft-core gay porn staple of closet-cases everywhere: the Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue.  I was once invited into the office of a client in Louisville, KY to participate in what my brother and I … [Read more...] about LOUISVILLE

Performed in public, discussed in the public realm, regulated by public agency, encouraged or discouraged by design, criminalized, or celebrated with flags, sex in public is a critical component of a queer sensibility, if not actual behavior. It’s the end of May as I write and the big rainbow flags are going up along Market Street, an event that in recent years prompts me to ponder the state of … [Read more...] about SEX IN PUBLIC

Granted, not a real farm; not the source of dad’s income or the family’s living. However, growing up on it wasn’t so different for a kid than life might have been on a real working farm. I knew enough real farmers’ kids to know that. I would get up early, after hearing my mother stirring in the kitchen below through the vent in the floor of the room I shared with my older brother, pull on heavy … [Read more...] about THE FARM

I’ll call him “White Speedos,” which does seem to unfairly objectify him even if it accurately captures my fascination with him as I began to acknowledge my attraction to other boys. After all I need to call him something as I don't use real names in these essays--at least for anyone living--at least for now. They are all however, real people. I'll never forget how beautiful he looked standing … [Read more...] about MENUCHA, Chapter 2

(excerpt from the upcoming MENUCHA) The “pig bucket” was a feature of the dishwashing room at Menucha Retreat and Conference Center. The words sound odd now, but I took it for granted back in the 1970s, after all my own family had raised pigs from time to time. Food scraps were scraped from guests plates into a 40-gallon trash can through a small rubber-lined hole to find its way mysteriously … [Read more...] about THE CHRISTMAS PIG BUCKET

  Lake Tahoe is as much a symbol as a place; it both lives up to its Hollywood image and it doesn’t. I remember cringing at that scene in City of Angels when Nicholas Cage decides to follow Meg Ryan to Tahoe by hitching a ride with a trucker outside that old strip club near LAX, and after a moment of agonizing dialogue: “Tahoe,” “Reno,” “Tahoe,” “Reno,” ”Tahoe,” they pop up to the … [Read more...] about TAHOE

Here in the very quiet Tennis Club neighborhood tucked up against the San Jacinto Mountains, I wake every morning to birdsongs, some beautiful, some shrill. Only after several days here in the desert did I realize that they’re all coming from the same bird, a Western Mockingbird who perches outside my room on the same branch of a big Aleppo Pine Tree, producing a vast range of sounds for hours at … [Read more...] about PALM SPRINGS

Writing about Cazadero from Palm Springs seems weird as I look up at a sunbaked rocky mountainside while trying to conjure memories of that place on Austin Creek deep in the primordial shade of giant Redwoods. Maybe not so weird though as there are some profound linkages to be made between places, and not just that they have both greatly impacted me. There are other things that tie them together. … [Read more...] about CAZADERO