A few years hence, historians will look back to 2015 and declare that sometime during that year, gay condom pornography just sort of petered out. By next September, you'll be hard pressed to find condoms in gay porn, and by the end of 2016, there will a few condom fetish sites (I mean, yeah, there ARE some sexy things you can do with condoms), but that will be it. It all has to do with Neg+Prep; it's happening right now and bareback sex and by extension, porn, won't be the same. Hey, it's still sex, and nobody's complaining, and maybe such discussion will become merely academic. But..along with the condom fetish, there will be more dedicated poz bareback fetish sites, and there will still be chasers and gifters, and conversion parties will become more acknowledged and maybe typical, and the poz bareback cult will intensify, but I'll leave that discussion for another time.
So, the Condom Era lasted from 1989 until 2015 and at that era's dawn, I was a big Falcon Videos fan, and I remember big stars like Jeff Stryker crossing over from bareback (the term didn't even exist then!) to condom, but a lot of big names from the Pre-Condom Era already had their tickets punched for the Big Nowhere. They had been dropping off since the mid-80's, and let me tell you youngins out there, them was creepy times...you gotta remember they were still trying to figure out what the hell AIDS was, much less working on a test or medications. But enough about that for now...the Pre-Condom Era produced some really great stars who will live on forever, thanks to video...and I just can't help thinking: oh what Paul Morris could have done with Chad Douglas, Jon King, Kevin Williams or Chris Burns. Shit! The mind boggles.
So we watched the old Falcon stuff all through the Condom Era, and were aware of names like Rob Cryston but didn't much care. ChiChi LaRue became a millionairess without any help from me. By the mid-90's, things began to change. The advent of new drugs changed life expectations, lifestyles and sex. The Bareback Era started somewhere around late 1997, I would say, with a couple of fisting videos directed by Steven Scarborough and videographed by Michael McKey. I just checked Scarborough's videography on a couple websites where he's credited on about a hundred videos, and Depth Charge I & II are not listed. I could be wrong about giving Scarborough credit, or maybe the politically-correct powers-that-be deleted both Depth Charges. Anyway...both videos were (just about) exclusively barefisting, with a little bit of bareback fucking and one pearl of cum that somehow made it through the editing. Now Plain Wrapped video had been releasing fetish and fisting videos for a while, but wrapped is wright; it was all condom. Depth Charge was bare fisting, deep and real, and we were shocked.
Then Michael McKey, based in Phoenix, produced a few of his own videos; the production values and qualities were superb but his cast of players, all friends and ordinary guys, ranged from semi-hot to butt ugly. Most of them would qualify as bears today (a few were downright obese), but that term was not widely in use in 1998. Cigar fetishist Titpig became the first bareback star to an audience craving more. Around the same time, Bill Gardner and John Singleton, professional cinematographers based out of Palm Springs, started Hot Desert Knights with a video called 'Bareback Buddies' and a guy in San Francisco named Paul Morris produced a little VHS tape entitled 'Raunch Lunch,' featuring a performer with my favorite nom de porn of all time...Wyatt Trash.
It was all shocking to me, based on the climate of the times, but I had been living an insular life for a few years, having unknowingly converted, losing weight, sleeping 12 hours a day, falling asleep at my computer, and not interested in sex...finally ending up in the emergency room (collapsing at work!), then living on a weird schedule of nine pills a day, and abstaining from sex all together, thinking I was just plain gonna die. I just wanted to get through the year and not embarrass my family with an AIDS-related death. It was 1997, a transitional year, and a lot of us were fucked up mentally.
Bareback sex was totally, inarguably and positively taboo. If you indulged in barebacking you were signing your death lease for a condo in the deepest reaches of Hades. It was ignorant, irresponsible and immoral. Barebackers were fucked up shitheads who didn't give a damn. They were ballin' down the highway, a one-way road to Hell. Hell. Hell. Hell. You're gonna die a miserable death and you're gonna end up in goddamned Hell!
So. Escape to video.
Imagine the shock of watching for the first time, Paul Morris' second video, Breed Me, when a dude works his ass with a dildo, and a torrent of sticky, slimy, messy cum just flows out for about five minutes. No sound except the tolling of bells...like at a funeral. Death. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, etc. We were all going to hell, together.
You know the rest. The early porn characters were our sex life by proxy, then an inspiration, then as we gained confidence, role models. Dick Kraver, Mac Curtis, Big Ken, Billy Boyd, Tom Shannon, Will West, Chad Adams, Ray Butler, names that now sound pre-historic. Dawson was still a few years down the trail. Websites were still pretty basic, if they existed at all. And you couldn't buy these videos at the porn shop. I ordered my first TIM video from an ad in one of the many amateur 'zines circulating then, and it came back by mail order. Then Paul would send us a notice of the next video through the mail with a self-addressed stamped (if you can imagine that!!) envelope to his mail drop on Market Street. And of course we ordered them as they came out and eagerly awaited the next. There was an underground aspect to all of this. Barebackers were shameful, nasty, dirty guys and keeping it hush.
Well, I and millions of others are still here. I resumed by sex life in 2000...that's how long it took for me to overcome the fear of barebacking, from '97 to double aught, well, just 3 years...some guys still haven't come to grips with it. Neg+Prep will change all that, too. In the meantime, thanks Paul, Mike, Bill (r.i.p.), and John, for 17 years of adventure, inspiration, exploration and a lot of really hot sex!!
Ah-men.
Showing posts with label Chris Burns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Burns. Show all posts
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Demise of the SF Eagle and Chris Burns Remembered
The news around town is that the SF Eagle, the legendary leather bar, will close at the end of this month. My information is all second hand but essentially, the lease and liquor license have passed on to new hands who have no intention of maintaining the Eagle as we have come to love it over the decades. For me it is the quintessential leather bar, although there are Eagles all over the country and I have been to all the West Coast ones, LA, Seattle and Portland, as well as our own San Francisco...they were united in sensibility but not in management. If somebody visiting from out of town wanted to hit the leather bars, you started at the Eagle.
There was a time when gay bars were supposed to be dark holes and the best ones really were dark holes. The Eagle, its outdoor patio (the place to be on a warm Sunday afternoon) notwithstanding, was a dark hole, especially in the after midnight hours. Now that is not to suggest that it was a dismal, gloomy place for habitues of the twilight netherworld...I recall many happy boisterous times, such as the Mr. Eagle or Mr. Leather talent contests, live rock concerts, some vibratious drag appearances, and notably, when Miss Connie Francis brought down a crowded house by launching into 'Where the Boys Are,' or when the crowd cheered THE Tom of Finland. Dark as it was, with its black walls and stategically placed lighting, the SF Eagle was memorable to anyone who dropped in. Like Danny AKA Chris Burns, the 1980's pornstar and champion analist of the era.
To those of you too young to remember the pre-condom porn era, there was some really great bottoming talent who excelled despite the limited capacity of videotape. Some names easily come to mind: Cory Monroe, Kevin Wiles, Michael Cummings, Brad Mitchell. But the three that really stand out, and all worthy of the Bareback Bottom Hall of Fame were Kevin Williams, John King and Chris Burns. I saw only Chris Burns perform live...and that was a dildo show at the Nob Hill Theater. He was famous for putting his hole to the test; he wanted to get fucked by a horse (he'd already been fucked by everything else) and I heard through the grapevine that he had attained that goal (it's on tape somewhere) but the effect was more comical than erotic. After the death of his longtime companion Jim Ed Thompson, a leather great of high repute, Chris hit the Eagle to find tops to fill that demanding hole of his; dick, dildo, fist, whatever.
Chris usually showed up after midnight, dressed as if he had just worked out: baggy sweatpants and tank tops with armholes that almost reached his waist. With his pumped up arms, his trim collegiate haircut, and sly smile, you knew what the game was. Chris was a predator, looking for a dick or fist that he could control to do whatever he wanted it to do. Chris Burns may have been the first and essential power bottom. In the days of the dark holes, a guy would enter the bar and everybody would turn to see who it was. Even now, after these many years, I have vivid memories of how Chris entered the Ealge and stood there, looking everybody over, who would it be, who was tough enough? To bottoms like me, Chris would give a quick, knowing nod and move on. The guy was in control from the get-go. But actually, thinking back, I never saw Chris leave with somebody...maybe I just didn't happen to wait long enough. But I know what had to happen: his trick would get on the back of Chris' motorcycle and they'd head for Chris' place. He used to buzz around town in a leather jacket and somebody once commented to me, 'there's Chris Burns with a load up his ass,' you have to understand that people didn't talk like that in the '80's...Chris' reputation was secure at the time, not just in retrospect. Chris didn't need a bike to get to the Eagle, he could have walked and maybe he did...he lived in a modest Victorian next door to where Stompers Booth shop is now, on 10th St., two whole blocks from the Eagle. When Chris lived there the house was painted a faint shade of lavender.
So as the Eagle closes its doors, gone is more than a leather bar, and more than a chunk of leather history, gay history, San Francisco history. Gone, too, is a big piece of our lives. At least we'll have stories about people like Chris Burns, as long as there are people to remember and to share with the world.
There was a time when gay bars were supposed to be dark holes and the best ones really were dark holes. The Eagle, its outdoor patio (the place to be on a warm Sunday afternoon) notwithstanding, was a dark hole, especially in the after midnight hours. Now that is not to suggest that it was a dismal, gloomy place for habitues of the twilight netherworld...I recall many happy boisterous times, such as the Mr. Eagle or Mr. Leather talent contests, live rock concerts, some vibratious drag appearances, and notably, when Miss Connie Francis brought down a crowded house by launching into 'Where the Boys Are,' or when the crowd cheered THE Tom of Finland. Dark as it was, with its black walls and stategically placed lighting, the SF Eagle was memorable to anyone who dropped in. Like Danny AKA Chris Burns, the 1980's pornstar and champion analist of the era.
To those of you too young to remember the pre-condom porn era, there was some really great bottoming talent who excelled despite the limited capacity of videotape. Some names easily come to mind: Cory Monroe, Kevin Wiles, Michael Cummings, Brad Mitchell. But the three that really stand out, and all worthy of the Bareback Bottom Hall of Fame were Kevin Williams, John King and Chris Burns. I saw only Chris Burns perform live...and that was a dildo show at the Nob Hill Theater. He was famous for putting his hole to the test; he wanted to get fucked by a horse (he'd already been fucked by everything else) and I heard through the grapevine that he had attained that goal (it's on tape somewhere) but the effect was more comical than erotic. After the death of his longtime companion Jim Ed Thompson, a leather great of high repute, Chris hit the Eagle to find tops to fill that demanding hole of his; dick, dildo, fist, whatever.
Chris usually showed up after midnight, dressed as if he had just worked out: baggy sweatpants and tank tops with armholes that almost reached his waist. With his pumped up arms, his trim collegiate haircut, and sly smile, you knew what the game was. Chris was a predator, looking for a dick or fist that he could control to do whatever he wanted it to do. Chris Burns may have been the first and essential power bottom. In the days of the dark holes, a guy would enter the bar and everybody would turn to see who it was. Even now, after these many years, I have vivid memories of how Chris entered the Ealge and stood there, looking everybody over, who would it be, who was tough enough? To bottoms like me, Chris would give a quick, knowing nod and move on. The guy was in control from the get-go. But actually, thinking back, I never saw Chris leave with somebody...maybe I just didn't happen to wait long enough. But I know what had to happen: his trick would get on the back of Chris' motorcycle and they'd head for Chris' place. He used to buzz around town in a leather jacket and somebody once commented to me, 'there's Chris Burns with a load up his ass,' you have to understand that people didn't talk like that in the '80's...Chris' reputation was secure at the time, not just in retrospect. Chris didn't need a bike to get to the Eagle, he could have walked and maybe he did...he lived in a modest Victorian next door to where Stompers Booth shop is now, on 10th St., two whole blocks from the Eagle. When Chris lived there the house was painted a faint shade of lavender.
So as the Eagle closes its doors, gone is more than a leather bar, and more than a chunk of leather history, gay history, San Francisco history. Gone, too, is a big piece of our lives. At least we'll have stories about people like Chris Burns, as long as there are people to remember and to share with the world.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
What is a Pornstar? Some Comments on the Death of Chad Noel/Donny Price
'I think it's always funny when we call call them pornstars' muses pornstar Damian Ford in Jochen Hick's documentary 'Sex/Life in LA 2:Cycles of Porn' (highly recommended, by the way, if you can find it). 'I mean, what is a star? How many movies do you have to do to be a star? One, in porn.' Right you are, Damian. I haven't seen every bareback porn video (I have an aversion to twink porn, crap like Eurocreme) but I've seen all the good ones (the Knightbreeders have escaped me because I won't do Paypal, the only reason) and I know most of the pornstars. So when there was internet buzz about the 'AIDS-related death of 'pornstar' Chad Noel, I was taken aback. Who? Chad Noel. AKA Donny Price. Who? It turns out Chad was in the Brent Corrigan video that was pulled off the shelves when it was learned that Brent was underage. If you have this video...something about a pool boy and under my radar because it qualified as twink porn, in my book...better throw it away because if it ends up in the wrong hands, you could be in a lot of trouble. But back to Chad Noel/Donny Price...and his 'AIDS-related' death: it didn't take long for the sermonizing do-gooders to get online with their tittering about the evils of barebacking, etc., you know the drill by now. They're out there in droves...these professional humanitarians clogging the circuits with their rhetoric. It turns out that Chad/Donny was indeed HIV-positive, but his death was not AIDS-related...some guys, who've claimed to be his friend, attest that the demise was probably drug-related, which certainly rings true. Drug abuse is the real problem, not calculated risky sex. It's been a while since we've lost a pornstar to AIDS...lately, the deaths have been related to drugs, abusive relationships and alas, that scourge of a younger generation...suicide. All of these causes can be avoided with appropriately-directed sermons. There are some good aspects to the bareback culture which I've discussed in earlier blogs.
Google 'Dead Porn Stars' and you'll find the website that lists all of the departed greats and near greats, and those of you of a certain age, will be taken down a path called 'memory lane.' It's a long list, including the best top in porn history, a guy named Chad Douglas. And the best bottom, well OK, it's a toss up between Chris (Danny) Burns and Jon (Gaines) King. What Bill Gardner or Paul Morris could have done with these guys. As of right now, I have known still more dead pornstars than living pornstars, but I'm constantly working to change that. Nothing brightens up your day more than a pornstar's dick up your mancunt. Yeah. I'd better work.
Google 'Dead Porn Stars' and you'll find the website that lists all of the departed greats and near greats, and those of you of a certain age, will be taken down a path called 'memory lane.' It's a long list, including the best top in porn history, a guy named Chad Douglas. And the best bottom, well OK, it's a toss up between Chris (Danny) Burns and Jon (Gaines) King. What Bill Gardner or Paul Morris could have done with these guys. As of right now, I have known still more dead pornstars than living pornstars, but I'm constantly working to change that. Nothing brightens up your day more than a pornstar's dick up your mancunt. Yeah. I'd better work.
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