Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Awakenings
It doesn't matter if you're gay, straight or bisexual, all of us experienced that moment in life when our sexual awakening began to take place. Whether it was a certain page in the Sears catalog, seeing Lynda Carter in her Wonder Woman outfit or Although I've blogged the overwhelming attraction I felt for the young actor Timothy Gibbs, who caught my eye in the film "Just Between Friends" back in '86, I recently had a flashback to an even earlier moment, when I still wasn't fully aware of what it meant to be gay, but I knew something really exciting was happening to me.
This wasn't the first time I'd felt this way -- I was inordinately interested whenever Lyle Waggoner and John Schneider came on TV in the late '70s -- but it stood out because it was the year I was turning 16. It was the summer of '83 and it was my best friend Mark's turn to visit Arizona. (We alternated between Phoenix and Detroit each year.) I had been an absolutely OBSESSED "Jaws" fan as a kid in the '70s -- at age 8, I managed to get my step aunt to take me to see the rather "adult" film, I read the Peter Benchley novel, I had a huge "Jaws" poster hanging on my bedroom wall, and I even did an oral book report on Carl Gottlieb's "Jaws Log" -- so when "Jaws 3-D" came out, Mark and I decided to we had to check it out.
Although we didn't make it halfway through the film -- the 3-D wasn't working (at least not on me) so we demanded a refund telling the manager of AMC's Fiesta Village the show was more like "Jaws Negative 3-D" -- there was a scene near the very beginning in which Sean Brody (played by 21-year-old John Putch) gets seduced by Kelly Ann (film newcomer Lea Thompson) on a lagoon beach at SeaWorld.
After getting discovered by Sean's older brother Mike (played by an equally dreamy Dennis Quaid) and Mike's girlfriend (played by Bess Armstrong, who delivers one of the most cringe-inducing lines in movie history over a bullhorn: "You turkeys got any ID?"), Sean and Kelly Ann emerge from the water dripping wet, at which point we are treated to the strapping young buck's tight body in nothing but a pair of skimpy blacks briefs. For years afterward, this image replayed in my head, over and over (there was something about seeing something that I was "supposed to" that made me crazy). Nearly 30 years later, the image popped into my head again last week so I Netflixed this film over the weekend. Perhaps not surprisingly, it didn't quite have the same "effect" on me as it did when I was 16. (The testosterone racing through my body isn't what it once was, after all. The same thing happens to me now when I watch "Dirty Dancing" and say to myself, "WHAT was I thinking?!") Still, John Putch is as cute as ever (this was way before the Internet, so after seeing this object of my affection on-screen, I don't think I ever learned his name and don't recall ever seeing him again; I was tickled to learn just now that he is Jean "Edith Bunker" Stapleton's son). Once again, I only made it through the first 30 minutes of the film. But it still made me smile to revisit my ultimate teen lust moment. I'd love to hear from you in the comments section who starred in your earliest sexual fantasies. If and when I finally get my hands on those Avon catalogs from 1981 that featured two hunky male models in the Wild Country cologne section, I will have an addendum to this post that I'm convinced is as hot as I remember it to be ...
A face more than a mother could loveUPDATE:
This is what John Putch looks like today.
Men Behaving Madly
Might have to see this one. Ben Brantley of The Times calls "The Temperamentals," a new play by Jon Marans that chronicles the creation of the Mattachine Society, an early gay-rights organization, an "eminently likable docudrama about gay identity in the age of Eisenhower." Michael Urie, left, and Thomas Jay Ryan star.
Music Box: Blondie
So long as I live, I don't think I ever will tire of discovering new memorabilia from my favorite band, Blondie. Grabbed these two shots off photographer Phyllis Stein's Facebook page -- that's the notorious (and some would say controversial) Valentine featuring Debbie in a see-through top Private Stock released in 1977 to promote the band's eponymous debut, plus Deb's cover of High Times later that year. Even better is this 1979 interview with Debbie in which she discusses her fashion influences. A rather adorable Stephen Sprouse joins her toward the end, followed by a fashion show starring Debbie, two girls and a cute shirtless guy.This behind-the-scenes mini-documentary about the making of "Videodrome" is something I'd never seen. In it, Debbie discusses her childhood dreams of movie stardom -- making the age-revealing point that "rock star" hadn't been invented yet when she was a kid!
And this rare footage of "Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes," the show he filmed for MTV shortly before his death in 1987, is something I've been hoping would come out on DVD for ages. In addition to Debbie -- who was also the announcer on the show -- this episode (23 minutes in) features Jerry Hall, John Oates, Robin Leach, Dweezel and Moon Zappa, Tama Janowitz,, Paulina Porizkova, Sally Kirkland, the American debut of the video for "Misfit" by Curiosity Killed the Cat, plus a trip to the Pyramid Club.
And as if all this nostalgia weren't enough, Bob Gruen recently snapped these new photos of the band up in Woodstock where they're recording their ninth studio album.
And the new Blondie merch just keeps coming, like these snazzy new Converse sneakers, which I would have killed for as a kid.
Monday, March 01, 2010
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