Ragtag grab-bag
Here’s a short but wonderful blog post about the Satyrs Motorcycle Club, featuring some terrific photos of the members relaxing at the beach — a far cry from the image of a gay leather gang. Check out the rest of the site, too, to find out more about the club and its history.
Also, check out this short video on the Satyrs
Drummer, vol. 1, no. 6, 1976. Mine at last! I have been trying to get my hands on a copy of this for years, ever since that cover first caught my eye. So graphic, so totally unlike any other magazines of its ilk. Honestly, seeing a small image of this planted a seed that would eventually led to Pink Mince.
For a fetish magazine, Drummer was so playful in its early days, but that eventually gave way to a more typical vibe.
There I was, happily doing some research at the Center here in New York, digging through the Donald Mashburn collection, when I had a nerdgasm. I was looking through an archive of flyers for gay nightclubs and sex clubs, with a fair amount of porn catalogues in the mix, but it’s safe to say that I’m pretty jaded about adult material at this point. I was trying to pick out things from the ’70s or ’80s that had a certain graphic sensibility about them, with a vague sense of collecting material for a future issue of Pink Mince.
But then I saw it.
I interviewed Charlotte Richardson Andrews, organiser of London’s first ever Queer Zine Fest that’s taking place in December – Beth Siveyer
What was your main motivation/inspiration for hosting a queer zine fest?
I got sick of trawling through stacks of heteronormative zines at all the usual fests (as great as they are) in search of zines that reflected my experiences. I thought if I felt like, it was possible that others might feel like that too. I decided a festival organised by queers, for queers, in a queer-friendly space seemed like the most obvious, productive and exciting response to this. Queers have been a bold presence in the zine world, shaping the culture and innovating it, so I felt like it was time we had our own fest. I want QZFL to be a space where queer stuff is central and celebrated, rather than an incidental presence. QZFL was also about feeling more personally connected with fellow queer zinesters and overcoming isolation. I’m a freelance writer/journalist by profession and a lot of the work/writing I do is solitary, labouring over a laptop, muttering to myself, walking around in pajamas, obsessing on the internet. Writing, collaborating and contributing to zines is my favourite incentive outta the hermit work bubble. I heart the life-affirming community that zine scenes affords, the cultural validation and the friends I’ve forged through it.
How many/what kind of stalls are confirmed so far?
TONS! (Check out Facebook and Tumblr for full lists) We have distros from London, Leeds, Manchester, solitary zinesters, first time tablees, old hands, imported zines from as far a field as New Zealand and a number of previously out-of-print stuff getting a special reprint just for the fest (mainly courtesy of the Old zines For Old People table being run by Bill Savage and the Unskinny Bop peeps). I’m also super proud to say we’ll have material by queercore legend Larry-bob Roberts (of Holy Titclamps and Queer Zine Explosion) at the fest, along with wares from QZAP.com (Queer zine Archive Project), one of the most indispensable queer zine resources on the net. Bookmark them!
QUEER ZINE FEST LONDON – Sat 8th Dec: First round of distros confirmed Queer Zine Fest London
Headsup zinesters! We’ve been pretty busy at QZFL HQ, and are proud to announce the first round of distros who’ll be tabling with us on Sat Dec 8th:
- Cinnamon Buns https://www.facebook.com/CinnamonBunsFanzine
- Riots Not Diets https://www.facebook.com/riotsnotdietsbrighton
- Pink Mince http://pinkmince.com
The leather bars kept pushing farther and farther uptown until they reached Twenty-First Street and Eleventh Avenue with the Eagle’s Nest. There all the men seemed older and bearded and muscular and over six feet tall. At five foot ten I’d never felt short before except in Amsterdam. Now I was a shorty in my own city. To get from the West Village up to the Spike and the Eagle, gay men had to go past three blocks of projects on Ninth Avenue starting at Sixteenth Street. Gangs who lived in the projects would attack single gay men. We started wearing whistles around our necks to summon other gay men to our defense — a fairly effective system. I thought back to the fifties when everyone was a sissy boy with straightened hair, cologne, and a baby blue cashmere sweater and penny loafers. Back then we would have been terrified of gangs. Not anymore. Now many of us were taking judo classes.
— from City Boy by Edmund White
WHOA. It’s astonishing that such a random old ad — spotted on Dionne Warlock — could tap into such a well of memory. It’s not mental memory, really: I can’t really recall anything about where or when I would have seen this ad. Maybe it was in that one random copy of GQ i bought when I was about 13 or 14, or a catalog we had around the house. It’s kind of an emotional memory, I guess. I just remember this feeling of being utterly fascinated by these handsome men, at a point when I was way too young to make any sense of that. I stared at this picture A LOT.
I had a particular fascination with the guy on the left, who Google reminds me was Jeff Aquilon, a dude who is apparently considered one of the first male supermodels. He’s certainly handsome, but in a way that doesn’t inspire the same vivid reaction it did back when I didn’t quite even know what attraction felt like. It’s so weird to be reminded, in a gut sort of way, what that was like.
Oh! But here’s another ad I similarly recall, with a different guy, from the same source:
I bet I kept these in a scrapbook at one point. I can’t really remember, but I’m sure I must have had something like that when I was a wee lad.
Update: Another! 1983? Sounds about right. These must have all come from the same magazine, and I must have had one from the same time, if not the same magazine. This is really all too vivid.
I was a little obsessed with this movie and book during my formative years, for reasons I couldn’t — or wouldn’t — quite figure out at the time. I learned about sex by reading some incredibly graphic Outsiders fanfic written by a girl in my class when we were 12, which tells you a lot about how many stories you hear about Catholic school have some basis in fact.
Similarly, I was secretly fixated on this cover for this book, by the same author:
Robert Mapplethorpe and friends hang out in the West Village in 1978, as caught on film by amateur photographer Leonard Fink. Part of a set of images Fink captured of men at rest and at play around the West Village in the late ’70s, featured in the most recent issue of Pink Mince.
And let me be shameless here for a moment: please try an issue of Pink Mince, whether it’s this recent one or one of the back issues. Each is a stand-alone exploration of theme. I’m very proud of the work by so many talented people I’ve been able to gather for each issue, but the whole project is a drain on my resources and every little bit of support will help keep it going.