Aybars, shorn but not de-sexed in Raging Stallion's Cowboys. (Photo: Raging Stallion)

Here’s the second and last of my articles about Raging Stallion’s Cowboys. The first elicited comment variously valuable and random. An e-mail from the film’s co-director Chris Ward (working with Tony Dimarco) has helped me more greatly appreciate the art of making porn. I had whimsically questioned the caw-caphony of the birds, and Ward wrote to say this wasn’t an added sound effect. What sounds like background can record as foreground – part of the challenge of filming porn on location. As for the horse in the stable which seems to be voicing an excitement that rises in tandem with the performers’ passion, well, who knew horses were so empathic?

Meanwhile, at performer Colby Keller’s blog, someone named Karl Marxx thinks he’s responding to the predictions I made, but invents from my rather direct statement a new subject altogether. I’m glad I stimulated his thought, but disappointed he doesn’t expand on mine. Keller’s regularly stimulating blog is at www.bigshoediaries.blogspot.com.

Cowboys is a two-parter, with two further companion volumes: Alone on the Range, which offers JO solos from all 11 of the cast members; and Ranch Hands, which offers a showcase for Billy Berlin in three scenes of farmyard fisting. Berlin’s topped in two scenes, by Cowboys cast member Jesse Santana, then Erik Rhodes. The third scene’s surprise has smaller Berlin fisting decidedly bigger Rhodes. Despite my not really being a fan of fisting, I’ve always watched sexy, uniquely beautiful Billy. After a long and intense career as a fetish/fisting bottom, this star turn is a deep-fisting career-capper.

But back to Cowboys. Its eight scenes fill nearly four hours with first-rank cast members who are well-paired. Its mood is consistent, its pacing good. The image is crisp, and the editing fine. It’s entirely well-crafted. Which doesn’t mean it’s always exciting. If you’re a fan, you’ll no doubt like a performer’s scene in Cowboys . But while several stand-out scenes rewarded my expectations, I felt I could have skipped others without any sense of loss; they left me unruffled.

Milky skin, ginger hair: Billy Berlin in Raging Stallion's Ranch Hands. (Photo: Raging Stallion)

The exotic Aybars has not only recently ended his RS Exclusivity to go freelance, but also shorn his hair. Long hair turns me on, but Aybars’ was usually tangled and greasy. Grooming was in order, not shearing. Yet his cropped hair gives him a more crisp and perhaps even more handsome look. And he fucks eagerly, even if his later scene with Leo Forte as well as his opening scene in which he shares bottom Parker Perry with Tom Wolfe are more reportage than rousement.

Mr. Wolfe always seems a little grim to me. Impassive. His involvement doesn’t read, while his personality reads as lack thereof. And he’s in need of lips. Yet I understand the appeal of his robust and finely furred body, with its hefty, slightly up-turned, clean-lined cock. Mostly a top, Wolfe’s ass-plugging is generally more workmanlike than impassioned, as in this movie’s opening three-way. In a subsequent scene, I’d credit Jesse Santana with inspiring him, and I was disarmed by Wolfe’s involvement and vigor. This is a good scene, building well to the climax of Part 1, the scene where even the horse gets excited. In this star-turn finale, Parker London and Colby Keller play forcefully, with particularly gung-ho cocksucking. Colby is overly excited to bury his face and tongue in London’s smooth ass, and he fucks London so explosively that both guys shoot powerful and plenty.

I need hardly recommend Paul Wagner to you; he has a fine scene with new RS Exclusive Adam Champ (the uncut, hair-covered, swollen pec-ed former Colt Exclusive). Champ is also good flip-flopping with Wilfried Knight (the furry, uncut former Lucas Exclusive).

Who else? Chris Porter bottoms for Tommy Defendi and Colby Keller; my notes say “three raunchy fellows.” And Mr. Santana is smashing, torso rippling with muscle as he bounces on the fine cock of Lawson Kane, his cock banging against his belly in a triple speed of BPMs (that’s Bams Per Minute). Kane hasn’t neglected building a taut body, which has the warm, light mocha coloring of Matthew Rush’s, if not that star’s huge size and general air of “Duh.”

Finally, I’d like to praise the movie’s sex talk. Or I should say, the admirable absence thereof. Like Cowboys’ nifty lack of plot, there’s hardly a whiff of pornspeak to break the prevailing mood of men and sexy music. I appreciate that a lot. And check out the nifty 3D effect (and plentiful pics) at www.CowboysXXX.com.

01/26/2012

Porn star Adam Champ, hirsute and home on the range in Raging Stallion's Cowboys, Part 1. (Photo: Raging Stallion Studios)

I predicted two things about porn, and both will be borne out by my upcoming reviews. First, that plotted porn is either dead or dying, and second, that in the future, every sexo will have the same cast.

The former prediction is fine by me. I never cared for plot anyway, with the nigh insurmountable hurdles it poses for both amateur scriptwriters and performers. Plot is being killed off by the surge in VOD, with its need for streamer’s sites to constantly provide new scenes. Serials are just too confusing. So Theme is where it’s at: Men in Suits, Cowboys, Pissboys, Wrestlers, etc. The plan is that when enough similarly themed scenes have been posted, they can be collected onto a DVD for retail sales.

The latter point, casting, is of greater concern. Performers are flitting between companies and leapfrogging between websites. That’s okay if you like a particular performer and haven’t yet tired of him. But shelf-lives are being shredded by the way performers seem to be everywhere at once.

Case in point. Raging Stallion’s ambitious and successful Cowboys bears witness to One Cast Fits All as well as Movies by Theme. As most everything about Cowboys is agreeable, when I talk about some issues it raises, I’m not rejecting the movie. Just discussing things. You’ll recognize the criticism when I get to it.

The good news is that there’s no plot to Cowboys . Just guys in western gear working on a ranch. That works so much more easily than The Plot That Got Away in Raging Stallion’s previous saga of herds and hard-ons, To the Last Man . More good news is that the performers in Cowboys are a Who’s Who of current stars. Problem is, every one of the movie’s so-called Exclusives were Exclusive somewhere else before (with the small irony that cast member Aybars had been an Exclusive for RS and nobody else right up until Cowboys; he became a freelancer shortly before it, making a pair of movies in 2011 for Cazzo). And most of the guys can be currently seen as well on any number of websites. You’ll also see most of them in current Falcon, Jocks and Mustang features, as well as in the RS boutique brands Monster Bang and Hard Friction, making the movies somewhat undifferentiated from one another.

Well. What about the sound effects, and the soundtrack scoring? Throughout the movie, sound effects are none-too-subtle in telling us we’re on a ranch. The birds are especially distracting. The torrent of tweeting in the first scene sounds like we’re in a particularly overpopulated aviary. Either that, or I should have roused the guys from their fucking with a shouted warning, “The Birds is Coming!”

It’s funny how the horses seen in Cowboys only neigh when they’re off-camera, as if the whinny was wafted in by the unseen magic of dubbing. The equine effusions get especially problematic during the movie’s best scene, with the estimable Parker London and Colby Keller nearly upstaged by what sounds like a horse snorting right into the mic. I suppose all that horsey gabble is supposed to mirror the excitement of the guys’ horny gaming, but it becomes laughable.

Equally irritating is JD Slater’s music for the very first scene. It’s so quick, loud and jangly that it seems in competition with the action, and certainly indifferent to it. That’s Slater’s only misstep, though. The rest of his soundtrack music is so good I want a CD of it. It’s slower, sexier, and suitably supportive. And the walking blues that underscores the closing scrawl is a mighty sexy saunter.

I almost always have a problem cramming both movie critique and sex synopsis into my articles. I hate to short-shrift either. One is important, and the other is fun. I’m solving the dilemma this time by holding off the horny stuff til the next article, when I’ll detail the juicy sexploits of Cowboys and its accompanying efforts, the solo JOs of all the Cowboys cast members in Alone on the Range, and the fisting ferocities of a few of them in Ranch Hands . They’re all at RagingStallion.com, but check out the nifty 3D display and lotsa pics at www.Cowboysxxx.com.

01/19/2012

I’m sorry the first review of 2012 isn’t a more lustrous launch for the year. I’ll give TitanMen’s Incubus credit for trying something different. But if the Halloween get-up that Francois Sagat sports on the box cover doesn’t scare you away (the horns are just too hilarious), it’s likely this review will do the job. In allowing Sagat the opportunity to write and direct his first feature (as well as star in it), Titan has honored their commitment to a long-time company fave. The resulting film, however, will win no honors (at least from me), and I’m accepting it as an anomaly to their catalogue.

Although Sagat is named writer and director, Brian Mills is credited as Technical Director. I assume that means the less-experienced Sagat is responsible for the unengaged performances of the sexual encounters, and that Mills can be credited for the actual filming (which further credits five videographers and three editors, numbers which to me don’t assure consistency).

Sagat’s frame of reference as a filmmaker seems to be Bruce LaBruce’s unfortunate LA Zombie, from which he’s cribbed half-baked situations, improbable settings, juvenile make-up jobs and unsettling film techniques. The scrambled, is-it-all-a-dream scenario of Incubus opens with Sagat flirting his drunken way through the crowd at what I would take to be a costume ball, but which is most likely supposed to be a bar (perhaps a Las Vegas leather bar? It seems to me that butch does not encompass such bizarro as this mad-queen, wet-dream couture). As lots of hocus-pocus camera tricks tell us how loaded Sagat is, he grinds against dancing couples and finally passes out on the dance floor. He awakens, naked, on a patch of gravel on some hilly wasteland. Much more Paranormal-by-way-of-Blair Witch camera wooziness tells us how out of it he is as he stumbles about, until he comes upon a countryside pied-a-terre in which he spies Spencer Reed and Shay Michaels making out. Suddenly de-woozed, Sagat makes it a three-way.
Newcomer Trenton Ducati appears in TitanMen’s Incubus. (Photo: TitanMen)

Newcomer Trenton Ducati appears in TitanMen's Incubus. (Photo: TitanMen)

Afterward, he’s sleeping in a lush blue bed (I guess his fuckbuddy hosts put him up for the night) where he’s throttled by the titular incubus (spooky contact lenses, long greasy hair) – only to jolt awake from a nightmare. Walking it off, he finds two guys making out poolside. After observing them through climax, we once again see him in the blue bed awakening from what seems to be the same nightmare. This time he swims it off, only to be attacked and thrashed underwater by – himself! Huh? If I hadn’t been told by publicity descriptions, I’d have had no idea this was his Demonic Twin. Said DT chokes him into simultaneously cumming and passing out.

When he comes to, he’s restrained in suspension bondage in some dungeon, facing a closed circuit monitor on which are seen, alternately, Spencer Reed wearing a tinselly crown and laughing uncontrollably (amateur performers should not be called upon to laugh uncontrollably) and the Demonic Twin, wearing a tinselly headband and reciting who-knows-what in French. DT then commands, “Watch,” and we witness a three-way in which Hunter Marx and Jessy Ares dominate Aymeric DeVille – who, I never would have surmised unless informed via publicity, is actually Sagat in DeVille’s body. Huh? That segues after cum-shots into a completely unintelligible montage showing Reed laughing uncontrollably while Aymeric, wearing spooky contacts, turns into Sagat wearing spooky contacts, who strangles Marx, all of which is superseded by glimpses of these actors as well as others not in the film in scenes also not always from the film.

This might all be tolerable if the sex were acceptable, but each of the three sequences is shorn of potential chemistry by Now Do This and Now Do That and Then Do This. Pity – Reed’s beef is tautly buff, Ares is beautiful, and Aymeric’s unique attributes are captured straight-on. Newcomers Trenton Ducati and Jimmy Durano are potential stars: handsome, muscular and hung. But despite the atmospheric, theatrical lighting of their nighttime poolside romp, they aren’t afforded much of a showcase. I especially go for the rugged Ducati, who is delivered in Titan’s next film, the undoubtedly more fortuitous circumstances of the traditionally modeled Surveillance. I’m looking forward to that as I file Incubus among the forget-ables. By the way, the lamentable horns seen on the box cover do not appear in the film.

www.TitanMen.com

01/12/2012

The 2011 version of my Best of the Year announcements is going to take two weeks. First up, some books and an aside. And then I’d like to give everyone a little Christmas present.

Before I name my favorite books of 2011, however, I’ve got to tell you about one of a previous year’s best books. I don’t know why, but I never got around to reviewing it, and that’s nagged me to the point I’ve got to get it off my chest.

Kris – The Physique Photography of Chuck Renslow (Nazca Plains, paper, $39.95) was published in 2008 by an entirely obscure company. Its advertising budget seems to have been nil, so I’d never known about it until I stumbled on it accidentally, as one of those “based on your past purchases” recommendations at Amazon. Kris is an obvious labor of love by editor Joseph Bean, who has collected in 160 pages a fine selection of Renslow’s work, iconic physique studies of the leather guys, muscle men and just plain butch dudes he favored. The pics were originally published in those small physique mags of the 1950s and 60s, and it’s great to have them here in 8×10 format. Bean’s pertinent Introduction tells us much more about Renslow in a few pages than several hundred garbled pages did in a more recently published biography. Best of all is the inside scoop on the models that Bean elicited from Renslow himself – a commentary of gossipy, juicy tales that’s rich in sociologic and historic impact. Yes, Kris is obviously low budget, and not as glossy as most other past-master photo collections have been. While the B&W pics are crisp, some of the color shots are a little fuzzy. Still, the book’s a big serving, and may be the only Kris collection we’ll get. So I’m mighty thankful to Mr. Bean for the present of these fab photos.

What about the books of 2011? Best Biography is William E. Jones’ Halsted Plays Himself, with its pretty comprehensive view of a talented but conflicted performer and filmmaker – a man who got trapped in his on-screen persona, but whose L.A. Plays Itself is a milestone of gay erotic filmmaking. The Best Autobiography is Susie Bright’s witty and wise Big Sex, Little Death. Most pertinent to me were her adventures as a pornographer, and her thoughts on the subject are enlightening and disturbing. I hope to discuss them further.

The year saw new photo collections from my favorites, with Tom Bianchi’s Fine Art Sex, Mark Henderson’s Poolside, Rick Day’s Players 2, and the near inundation of two books in one year from Howard Roffman, Private Moments and Paradise Found . Each was a valuable contribution in a singular style. But for me, they were trumped by The Jim French Diaries, which surveys a lifetime’s work for Colt Studio. The huge book’s oversize format allows French’s photos an impact their initial magazine-size publication couldn’t. It’s like, Wow.

Karrnal obsession David Griffin. (Photo: StudsOver40.com)

I said I had a present for you, but first I’d like to talk about one that I get. Michael Lucas loves to give gifts, and accompanies most every movie he sends out with a bar of quality chocolate. I’ve wondered – is this a “Thank you for your consideration” gift? Or a bribe? I used to think that getting the movie free was bribe enough (and perhaps sometime I’ll talk about the ways filmmakers can exert influence on my reviews). Now, as a prelude to actual sex, I like chocolate, especially with coffee – pulls the balls up tight, makes em feel fully loaded. Really enflames those lower chakras. But to indulge the combo before watching porn can make me so revved-up twitchy that I just wanna scan forward. No, before watching a sexo, what one actually wants is a joint. I’m not expecting Michael to send me one of those. But he sure hit the mark with his last gift, “A Touch of Sea Salt” dark chocolate. It was yummy. So I say thanks, Mr. Lucas, for considering the effort of a reviewer’s consideration.

Over the years, I’ve found that my articles get more of a response when they’re more personal. So here’s the little holiday gift I promised – two things I’ll tell you about myself. I’m not for sale to minors. And all I’ve ever really wanted for Christmas was David Griffin.

12/29/2011

Sky Dawson and Dick Fisk in Champs, collected in Falcon Studios' 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition. (Photo: Courtesy Falcon Studios)

It’s quite an achievement for any business to prosper for 40 years. It seems even more difficult for a porn company to endure that long. But that’s what Falcon Studios has done, so congratulations are offered. If I may not always have been impressed with the company’s product, I’m impressed with their longevity. I’d been a little at a loss to know how to celebrate their four decades of success until last week, when The Falcon 40th Anniversary Collector’s Edition arrived. Over 15 hours, its six discs collect 50 scenes starring 142 men. Disc 1 covers the 1970s; disc 2 is devoted to the pre-condom 80s; discs 3 & 4 cover the 90s; disc 5, the early Aughts; and disc 6, the last five years.

While enjoying the set’s hopscotch through history, I was bothered that it doesn’t have a printed table of contents. You have to go to each individual disc’s menu to find out what’s on it. That made checking the set’s contents for repeats against what’s been served up in previous anthologies so much of a chore that I only checked out disc 1, the 70s. It repeats two scenes from Volume 1 of the five-disc 1970s Collector’s Edition . But since that set is out of print, you might not mind. Especially since one of the duplications is good (Ron Pearson and two buddies from Style), and the other is entirely memorable – the Dick Fisk/Sky Dawson encounter in a motorboat from Champs. What this means, basically, is that few duplications are expected on the set’s other discs. Browsing through other Collector’s Editions, as well as the five-disc 35th Anniversary set (which does have a printed contents page), I found that whoever puts these things together has done a surprisingly good job of avoiding duplication of material. For example, the 40th Anniversary set has no duplications from the 35th Anniversary set. Thank you, Falcon.

What’s the use of such an anthology? Unless you concur with the taste of the editor, it’s unlikely you’re going to find more than a couple of your favorite scenes among the editor’s choices. That’s why I prefer (and have collected) the Falcon Collector’s Edition sets devoted to a single decade. Five discs devoted only to the 1970s covers a lot of ground, especially when there are two volumes for each decade.

Another thing. You may have noticed the major companies having fire sales of backlog DVDs at very low prices. If you have any prescience, it’s clear that they’re moving away from DVD production toward online VOD. So these anthologies truly are collector’s editions – they are archival, as well as enjoyable. I’m not going to own every DVD Falcon has ever made, so I appreciate these rather comprehensive overviews. I can have remembrances of some favorite performers, while tracking the history of technological and sociological changes porn has undergone.

So what about this 40th Anniversary set? It may be less imperative than the sets devoted to a single decade, but at least it’s not much in competition with them. Like all the Collector’s Edition sets, it’s a limited edition. As keepsakes of your past porn peccadilloes go, this one’s good.

Class action

There’s good and bad to Heroes with Hardons – The Big Book of Class Comics (Bruno Gmuender, hardbound, $43.99). It’s a celebration of all things Class Comics, the famously color-saturated comics that are reproduced on such durable, extra-thick glossy stock that the book looks twice as long as its 144 pages. It covers the entire history of Class Comics, which was founded in 1995 by artist Patrick Fillion. During his elementary school years, Patrick (born in 1973) started writing, drawing and stapling together adventure stories that he brought into his classrooms – from whence subsequently came the name of his company. Fillion’s high school teachers began to advise him the adventures were becoming too racy for campus consumption. Fortunately, that didn’t deter him, and he created a classy operation where over a dozen artists and writers create the most uniquely imaginative and sexy gay erotic comics.

I’ve always gotten off on Fillion’s fancifully salacious world of over-sexed superheroes and outrageous alien beings (I shiver at the multiple penetrations perpetrated by many-tentacled creatures), and love the generous excerpts of the stories that are collected in this book, along with some previously unpublished work. But this potpourri lacks a table of contents or numbered pages. So there’s stimulating browsing at hand, but a complete inability to once again locate your favorite pages.

12/22/2011

So, okay, Joe Gage’s Dad Goes to College is occasionally clumsy in negotiating some set-ups. And it’s almost proudly low-budget. But it’s the sex that matters, and that’s where Dad comes through. Its snappy advert proclaims, “Intergenerational Goes Higher Educational!” That means we get silver-bearded daddy Allen Silver making it with the freshmen class. But that’s not all – intergenerational takes a backseat to intra-familial. That’s right. Dad makes it with his son. Twice.

Seems when Dad returns to school he’s gonna room with his son, played by Connor Habib. Well, Dad voices, “Carpe diem.” Which in this movie translates roughly as, “Fuck me, Sonny.” And since turnabout is so carpe, we also get, “Fuck me, Daddy,” in the father-son flip-flop which provides the movie’s climax.

They get it on in the first scene, too. They share a really long piss by the side of the house (during which they cross arcs of piss as if recreating Liberace’s Dancing Waters), after which Dad admits to feeling tense about returning to school. Sonny-boy Habib has a helpful suggestion. “Why don’t you beat off?”

“What?” stammers Dad after an incredulous pause. Well, this being porn, Dad’s cock is soon coaxed out. When Sonny Boy grasps it, Dad nearly gasps. But, carping that diem, he grabs Sonny-boy’s bazooka right back, and pretty soon they’re hungrily sucking. “Goddamn, your cock tastes good, son,” Dad drawls, adding blasphemy to incest. And it’s not just his son’s cock he takes in his mouth – Papa Silver’s a cum consumer, too.

Matter of fact, guys gourmandize the gonad gold in nearly every scene of Dad Goes to College, but most especially Mr. Silver, who rarely meets a cock-squirt he doesn’t want to swallow. Venerable performer Spike, whose cock is a monument, waves the big thing around at a rural pick-up site. Enter Ben Bach, in suit and tie, lookin’ for some love-muscle on his lunch break. I like Bach a lot. He’s tall and handsome, masculine and self-confident. Then Jake Steel arrives on the scene. He’s even taller than Bach. The vertically challenged Spike comes up to his waist (although Spike’s dick spikes past Steel’s ear). There’s a general dick-feast as they blow each other all around, and finally pump their loads onto Spike’s tongue.

A threeway for Silver, Girth Brooks and young lad Alex Andrews sputters more than it sparks, until Brooks fucks the kid. Andrews is so overwhelmed while getting ass-slammed that he can’t even coordinate kissing Silver.

Husky dude Will Swagger recently made a tasty debut in Pantheon Productions’ Beefcake Daddies. In this, his second film, he’s even juicier. At a roadside hotspot, he cruises tall wonder Jake Steel, who crosses the no-man’s-land between their cars with his wonder cock fully hard. I love seeing guys walk around with boners bobbing, and this is a choice moment. It’s also a choice moment for Bryan Slater to show up. His is not a wonder cock – it’s a downright miracle. So I thoroughly enjoyed the whole lotta peacocking of their cocks the guys indulge, as well as their uvula-displacing cocksucking. But my dick-daze was rudely terminated by a jump-cut into a fuck that’s so quick and lacking in lead-in that we can only surmise who the bottom is. It’s beefy Swagger, of course, into whose ass Steel makes a lasciviously slow entry. Then he gets going, and oh, blessed booty, how he pumps it home. Lucky bottom Swagger gets to sit on Steel’s ass-splitter while sucking Slater’s miracle mile, and even guzzle up the ripped dude’s dream whip.

There’s some mighty impressive cock strutted by Tommy Deluca while he seeks counsel from Student Advisor Ben Bach. Allen Silver is also present, so you know Deluca’s monster wang is gonna get sucked. Surprisingly (and disappointingly), this doesn’t result in an OCS. Silver also forgoes the jizz his son shoots all over after they’ve fucked in the next, final scene. What’s up with that, Mr. Silver?

An in-joke credits Mac Larson with the movie’s editing. Of course, that’s a nom de porn for Joe Gage, which itself is a nom de porn. The director signals his good humor when he puts a bit of Schubert under the opening credits, which helped not to confuse the movie’s low-key approach for lack of oomph. I was smackin’ my lips and shootin’ my load over most every scene.

www.RayDragonMedia.com

12/15/2011

My gift-giving guide this year consists of two books that’ll fit budgets big and small. Both are pretty fuckin’ incredible.

Small first. While I intend on writing further about Susie Bright’s memoir Big Sex, Little Death (Seal Press, hardbound, $24.95) , I had to let you know about it now. It struck me deeply in so many ways. For one thing, she really means the title. She had big sex everywhere she went, all the time, didn’t seem to matter what gender the person was that she was doing it with. She practiced kissing with a girlfriend so she’d be ready when a guy wanted to date her, but neglected to stop at kissing. She and her girlfriend plowed right on. When a boyfriend came along, and for the rest of her life, Susie has been a non-discriminatory sexualist. It’s fascinating to read her feelings about all that, and how her attitude toward sex evolved over the years. It’s equally intense reading when she later, nearly accidentally, became a pornographer. She cultivated heretical, heroic, and hard-on-inducing ideas about the medium. I’ll spend more time on those issues soon. She was at the center of the action in many places, but most especially right here, and she paints an intimate and lurid portrait of explosive San Francisco in the 1980s. Don’t miss carousing with Susie through the provocative political and sexual landscapes of her life.

It’s been my pleasure to write about some impressive photography books this past year, but not one is as magnificent and important as the ultimate tribute to Colt founder and sole photographer The Jim French Diaries (Bruno Gmunder, hardbound). “Important?” I can hear you query. Well, deary, photographer Mark Henderson says it more succinctly in his preface than I could muster up, so listen to him.

“Photographing male athletes and competitive bodybuilders as objects of sexual desire [was] a highly rarified, taboo subject. But not for Jim French, who helped pioneer the depiction of the fully sexualized and aroused male nude as a serious subject for photography, with both commercial and artistic implications.”

Here I paraphrase, and throw in a bit of my own. In applying the sophisticated gloss of fashion photography to the experimental structure and composition of modern art photography, French brought physique photography from the somewhat campy but charming and relatively modest images of Bob Mizer and Bruce of LA to a level of refinement and artistry still influential today. Here is virility, writ big and rendered with sheen and glamour, as well as a daring that titillates on the simplest level, but on reflection reveals itself as a careful elaboration of the compositional framework.

Like French’s whoppingly large models, The Jim French Diaries is a whopper of a book. For starters, its list price is a whopping $122.95 (although it can be found at nearly half that). Its 350 pages measure nearly a foot square. And let me tell you, if you’ve only seen some of these pics in Colt magazines, you haven’t really seen them. Because size matters. It’s clearly and page-after-page thrillingly evident in these large reproductions that French’s technique and aesthetic remain unparalleled.

Local photo-fiend Bob Mainardi spent three years editing the photos and interviewing Mr. French. Transcripts are generously interspersed with photos, so what we get with the See All is a Tell All. French modestly recounts the biographical details of his life – particularly how he wandered into hardcore homosexual erotic photography, and how he practices it. He pays tribute to his mentors and his models, too – both the inspiring ones (there’s a whole section for Ledermeister) and the naughty ones (there’s the dirt on Ray Dragon). French is circumspectly forthcoming with delightful dish about the eccentricities of men who model not merely their physique but their phallus.

Try these tidbits: Mike Timber, afflicted with satyriasis. John Pruitt popped an erection on request, but Nick Chase, who wouldn’t allow himself to be photographed with an erection, just couldn’t get his to go down. And the reason French split from early partner Lou Thomas? “He had taken a lover who was irascible and difficult – and had two Great Danes that he rented out for parties.”

I’m grateful Gmunder has included a model index. And the previously unpublished Polaroid of Wade Neff’s personally requested set-up has me quite lubricated.

12/08/2011

Rafael Alencar, Avi Dar and Kyle King (left to right) in Executives (Gentlemen, Vol. 3). (Photo: Lucas Entertainment)

Executives is Volume 3 of the Lucas Gentlemen series. Do ya like your guys in three-piecers? Then this one’s for you. “Executives are powerful men who know how to get what they want,” says the publicity. “They’re aggressive. They know how to give orders and dominate any situation.” Good news: the movie lives up to its own braggadocio. While not part of the Lucas Raunch line like last week’s Fuck Me Harder (see review of 11/23), Executives isn’t much less raunchy.

If you remember, I’m just avid for Avi. That would be Avi Dar, a handsome, husky Israeli who reminds me so much of my late spouse that it hurts. Avi is a classic endomorph, like Houdini. He’s short, barrel-bodied, stoutly muscled, and thickly cocked (well, I can’t vouchsafe for Houdini’s endowment, but the rest of him sure fits the mold), a particular Jewish type we call “The Lion of Judea.” My, how this lion roars in Executives .

Avi’s partner is smooth, attractive and young muscle-bottom Marc Dylan. This pair o’ pretties looks wonderful together. But their connection doesn’t run so very deep. I think that, like my spouse, Avi is more of a bottom than a top (remember his sensational debut in Men of Israel? He’s an all-star bottom, if ever there was one). He does well enough, but seems more diligent than impassioned. With the exception of his rimming, which is on a par with Adam Killian’s and the climax of his scene. Things are positively passionate as Avi leans forward and kisses Dylan while pumpin’ his Hebraic hard-on into the kid’s ass. Their eyes are locked as they tremble unto the brink, and Avi pulls Dylan into a prayerful kneel, so he can receive a kosher cum-benediction. As Jewish delicacies go, the blessed Avi-load is better than a bialy any day!

Furry, deep-voiced Dirk Caber was a fantastic top in Fuck Me Harder, but he’s switched to a bottom in Executives. He didn’t have a choice, I guess, because he’s paired with Rafael Alencar, who doesn’t bottom, not for no one, no how. Top or bottom, though, Caber’s a full entertainment package. He wolfs down all of Alencar’s humungous cock, gives himself a wild ride when impaled atop it, and, smacking his lips, ingests a mighty load when it shoots. In the three-hour movie’s third scene, I was surprised by Robert van Damme’s return to porn. I wonder if he’s still straight. He’s still mighty handsome, that’s certain. He tops Logan Stevens, who was the exciting bottom for Caber in Fuck Me Harder, and who is gay and always enjoyable. Momentarily upside-down, Logan squirts in his own mouth, and then, righted, sticks a couple fingers up RvD’s bum as the Elder Stud aims his load between Logan’s lips. There’s only a drop or two to be had, so it’s a good thing Logan isn’t dependent on RvD for nutrition.

I’m not much of an RvD fan, so I was more appreciative of the good-natured, rousing encounter of two appealing youngsters, Aaron Blake and Valentin Petrov. Very nice, even though neither chooses to eat the other’s load. Cum-eating seems to be a generational thing.

That theory is blown by the subsequent, strong pairing of Kyle King and Mitch Branson. It’s a surprising disappointment that these guys don’t go for the goo. Both, however, sport hairy chests – they’re more frequently seen entirely shaved smooth – and go for their flip-flop fuck with gusto. On the merry-go-round of porn, we give thanks to LucasEnt for pairing a former Hot House exclusive with a former Colt exclusive. Finally, a note to the Lucas Wardrobe department. Real executives don’t wear clip-on suspenders. They wear the button style, which denotes tradition and class.

What a surprise – I’ve got room left to plug Lucky Fuck. I don’t have to say anything to sell John Magnum topped by Samuel Colt, or currently ubiquitous Marc Dylan topped by handsome Alexsander Freitas. Also to be seen: power-top Ricky Sinz exhibiting his usual, excitingly rude treatment of Preston Steel. And holy cabooses, here’s Avi Dar, looking great, taking on fresh newcomer Eden Sol, and taking on his juicy jism as well.

12/01/2011

Excuse me while I go apeshit. In the raunchy new LucasRaunch movie Fuck Me Harder, Adam Killian’s smashingly hard cock’s got a nice tight leather cockstrap wrapped around it. You know how I feel about the importance of accessorizing. A gentleman should never strip down without sporting the appropriate jewelry. And like pearls on Madam, a cockring on a guy is de rigueur. Says I.

I’m a fan of Lucas movies. Even when Michael Lucas uses performers who have appeared in other company’s films, they’re better in his. I don’t know how he and co-director Mr. Pam do it, but they nearly always elicit a stronger degree of “chemistry” between their performers. Adding to the sympathetic direction of their casts, the porn they produce also has the most cinematic look, with strong atmosphere and caretaking videography. And, not the least in my estimation, Lucas porn has guaranteed oral cum-shots in every film. In Fuck Me Harder, there’s one in every scene but the last. Gentlemen, that’s what I pays my money to see. If I can’t have room service send it up, I wanna see it in a movie. And that’s why I eagerly greet LucasEntertainment films.

There’s hardly anything in porn these days as eager as Adam Killian (my long acquaintance with local writer Kevin Killian means I always have to replace his name with Adam’s when I’m writing; I’m worried about the day I read Adam and have sex with Kevin). And boy, does Adam go at it in this three-hour feature, which promises raunch and delivers. His scene with Kyle King opens the movie. KK is bucking to get out of a dog cage when AK enters in black leather chaps, harness, motorcycle cap, and the mean slick-sauve of black leather gloves. KK pants like a dog, shows his hole when commanded, and generally debases himself in that silly, sexy, currently popular puppy-play way.

And so it goes. A good deal of hole play ensues, with the sort of high-level, happy-demonic sort of rimming that’s Adam all the way. With a thick Mohawk, facial scruff and intensely lascivious twinkling of eye, AK looks Fab-U-Lous. Very hornifying. Man, he pile-drives a fuck into KK, who proves his own stardom with an advanced receptivity accompanied by shouts, moans, gasps, cries, general hysteria and buckets of sweat.

Just when I thought neither KK nor I could take any more, AK pulls out, straddles KK’s torso, and dumps a supreme load in KK’s mouth. I was right – I couldn’t take any more, and joined in with all the dumping going on. Admittedly, in the privacy of my own home. Too bad I’d given my Receptacle the day off; he would’ve barked, “Thank you, Sir!”

Second scene, only slightly more civilized than the preceding. Rafael Alencar abuses Jessie Colter, who pretends well to resist the punishment, thus egging Rafael on to even greater rudeness. Like an anal exploration with screwdriver and hammer, then both tools together, before the introduction of Rafael’s own tool. Then Jessie is hung by his feet from the ceiling, for an upside-down fuck. The guys finish off with a more conventional, though rousingly scenic Reverse Cowboy, leading to an oral cum deposit which Jessie very visibly savors.

I’m not big on the practice of load-lather pushed back out of the mouth. I mean, I don’t need proof it’s in there. I like it swallowed, not frothed up like egg whites in a batter bowl. But that’s just my prissiness, and I understand how the circulation of cum over lips and tongue is a savory sensation that’d get anybody frothed up, like it does in this scene.

Blond Logan Stevens is very nicely paired with deep-voiced, personality-rich Dirk Caber: aggressive kissing, chest-punching, and a flip-flop fuck. I should mention that Dirk sports Oxball’s most attractively functional, wide BullBall ball stretcher, while Logan’s got a black leather cockstrap contrasting with his pale pubes. Logan sits so firmly on Dirk’s face I thought the guy would suffocate, while Logan repeatedly smacks Dirk’s cock with sharp slaps. That produces another OCS; Logan gives an epicure’s reception to this tasty mouthful of Caber-cum.

Then Antonio Biaggi slips on some black rubber gloves to fist Caedon Chase with lubricious dexterity. Yup, there’s another OCS. The last scene features muscle-dude Mitch Vaughn working over muscle-lad Marc Dylan. The scene includes some bondage, an inflatable butt-plug, a big black dildo, and much harsh fucking. “Ohh!” Marc pants. “Push it in!”

www.LucasEntertainment.com

11/24/2011

I’m one of those people who didn’t get it. My expectations some 40 years ago were way off – after all, I first saw Fred Halsted’s L.A. Plays Itself at the Nob Hill, not at some highfalutin Art Film Institute. Even if the setting had been appropriate, I probably wouldn’t have dug the flick. It gave me a headache with its caustic attitude, purposefully disjunct construction, blurred images and distorted soundtrack. Yet I’ve remembered most every inch of it ever since. Pretty effective for a bad movie, huh?

If I didn’t get it, William E. Jones most certainly does. His new biography Halsted Plays Himself (216 pp., hardcover, $24.95) might look scarily academic at first glance, with its centerpiece critique of the legend’s S&M/art-film trilogy, L.A. Plays Itself, Sex Garage and Sextool. Even the publisher’s name is kinda scary: Semiotext(e). But just wait – the book gets down and real dirty.

Jones, whose dust jacket photo shows a kinda cute, bearishly bearded guy, is a longtime porn-biz insider as well as a respected and frequently exhibited independent filmmaker. He’s strongly suited to his project. Matter of fact, his book is so much more than I dared expect, a model of what a gay study can be. Nearly devoid of academic jargon, it’s authoritative, comprehensive, and personally couched.

Jones’ cogent critique of the movies, putting them in the context of their time, with the how and the why of their making, may be more rewarding than a viewing of the movies themselves. Jones lays it right out in his first paragraph, when he admits that L.A. Plays Itself “looks more like an experimental film than a porno.” As an art film, “the disjunction of sound and image come together in an unstable unity that is an ironic inversion of porn.” It was that “disjunct,” “unstable” and “inversion,” coupled with crude technique, that led me to reject the movie as porn, as well as not appreciating it as either experimental or art film. Of the movie’s depiction of forbidden acts, meant to show them as valid expressions of human sexuality, one reviewer wrote, “The erotic subtlety of the act of fist fucking has never been better represented than in the exquisite scene.” Excuse me: subtlety? Exquisite? I’m more in line with Divine, who gaily remarked, “I would eat this film!” Although surely meant as a compliment, it brings to mind what the underground film star is best-known for eating.

Consideration of Halsted’s films segues into a fascinating biographical account. It took diligent sleuthing for Jones to find contacts who didn’t want to be contacted, and elicit from them information they didn’t always want to give. It’s telling how many of Jones’ sources insisted on anonymity. He presents a sad story of a very private person who was brutalized by a very public and misleading persona. Halsted saw his sadomasochism as the result of his childhood rape. Deeply disturbed as an alcoholic adult, he was consumed by guilt and hostility. Bipolar, on the anti-psychotic medication Thorazine, and suffering radical mood changes, he spiraled into final decline as his art-house film fame faded and his commercially intended films were rejected. Within a couple years of the death of his lover, business partner and co-star Joey Yale, Halsted killed himself. Jones reveals for the first time in this book a sad and key element of Halsted’s undoing. When Halsted visited Joey in the hospital where the youth lay dying of AIDS, Joey accused Fred, “You did this to me.”

Jones includes Rosa von Praunheim’s valuable interview with Halsted, reviews of L.A. Plays Itself, and finally, the section where you can start stroking. Rescued from the archives are a generous number of stories Halsted wrote for Drummer and his self-published magazine Package. They’re raw sex splatted on the page, dozens of scenarios just waiting to be turned into hot porn film.

Abundant photographs make this a grim sort of coffee-table book, illustrating most every aspect of Halsted’s art, life and milieu, such as the hustling trade on Selma St. in Los Angeles, a relatively undocumented gay slice-of-lifestyle that’s long gone. Jones’ insider scrutiny of the porn industry, his withering assessment, suggest he should write a book on that subject alone. Finally, did you know Halsted claimed to have invented the term “twink,” derived from Hostess Twinkies?

Are Halsted’s movies plague or prize? Despite its impact and excellence, Halsted Plays Himself makes me think that the most interesting Halsted movie might be one of his life.

11/17/2011