NAKED IN THE STREET

my friend gifted me these glasses!!!

beach day level up! sun skill +2!
From: abeardedboy

My Date or Trick with Mario in the White Room

From: Boomer Beefcake and Bonding

In spite of my nostalgia-infused memories of West Hollywood as a paradise, it had some big problems.  For one thing, it was completely segregated.  Only 3% of its residents were black, 5% Asian, and 10% Hispanic (compared to Los Angeles in general, 10%, 11%, and 47%). 

You rarely saw anyone black on the streets, and when you did, he was with a white guy, and being charged a hefty cover to get into the bar, or waiting extra-long for the server to notice him in the restaurant. 

But this isn't a story about institutional racism and microaggressions.  It's about a guy named Mario. 

Nearly every day, I stopped into the Different Light Bookstore on Larrabee.  I joked that I was moving the entire stock into my apartment.

And one day I saw Mario browsing in the theater section. 

He was rather feminine, thin and willowy, wearing gold rings, bracelets, and necklaces -- an immediate turnoff.  But he was shorter than me, dark skinned, with glasses that gave him a studious look.  So when he approached me, started a conversation about gay literature, and invited me to dinner at the Greenery, I agreed.

The rest of the story is too risque for Boomer Beefcake and Bonding.  You can read it on Tales of West Hollywood.

Motion Sensor:

 Alex by Wadley Photography
From: Favorite Hunks & Other Things

When a motion sensors detects movement, a light goes on. That is exactly how I would describe the work of Wadley Photography. I have seen Wadley's work before, we all have, even if we didn't connect it to the artist. Wadley's images have appeared in hundreds of magazines and ad campagins, including shooting those amazing images of Alan Ritchson for N2N Bodywear. I first connected artist with image in July when I linked to Wadley's work with Colby Keller. (My Apartment)

What amazed me so much about Wadley's images of Keller, were the unique moments of movement he so beautifully captures. After spending time on Wadley's tumblr, there are pages and pages of color, sexy and dynamic images of men on the move. What I loved so much wasn't just the unique captures of motion captured, but Wadley also how authentically Wadley's images are. Often shots of models moving about appear staged or overly constructed, but the men Wadley captures appear to be shot in their element, not set up or posed for the lens.

One of the reasons for this authenticity may be that many of the men Wadley shoots are athletes or men who have made fitness an passions within their lives. That is certainly the case with Alex. A swimmer, as well as co-founder of BoS Fit NYC aka Balls of Steel Fitness, movement is a philosophy and important part of how Alex lives his life.

Wadley seamlessly and gracefully blends man, motion and location, no clearer example than his images of Alex and the brick wall. The wall is not background, but a part of the images, both as a location and a prop. Alex poses in front of, on and as a part of that wall, not an easy task given that hard brick, and soft skin are not a great mix. We have all experienced, especially when we were kids, scratching or ripping a piece of our body when our skin collided roughly with the abrasiveness of brick.

 Alex however, seems at home on brick. I can only imagine, there are not many surfaces he hasn't climbed, mounted and hung off. That is the nature of athletes. They ways to use, pretty much everything and anything as an apparatus for movement, and it is the nature of great artists, to capture them doing so.


Wadley Photography
Wadley Photography on tumblr

MORE HAIRY ASS

Michael del Buono for JON magazine

 Photographed by Michael del Buono, here’s Elia C. for JON magazine 

Mel Roberts' Photographs of California Men

From: homobilia

Mel Roberts told me he is surprised by the resurgence of interest in his photography. It first appeared in Young Physique magazine in 1963. From the 1950s to the early ‘80s, he used two Rolleiflex cameras to take an estimated 50,000 photographs of nearly 200 models. Most of them were friends. Many were lovers. Now at age 82, his memories of them are as sharp and vivid as the color prints he made decades ago.

They weren’t the perfectly proportioned bodybuilders, hustlers, or professional models common in the magazines of the time and typical of AMG and Bruce of LA. Before the “Nautilus” was invented, working out at the gym was an unusual activity for a young man (gay or straight). Roberts preference was for more natural “everyday” guys, rarely older than 25. Although they were paid, they really posed for the fun of it.

Roberts recalls: “I tried to make it as enjoyable as I could. We’d go off to Yosemite or Idlewild or La Jolla on 2 or 3 day trips.” But he had to know them as friends first. “I could never just come right out and ask them to model. So very often I’d invite them over for dinner. They'd meet my friends and become a part of the ‘family’ before I'd take my first picture of them. When we did ultimately go out into the field they felt so comfortable with me and so relaxed it was reflected in my work.”

This was the vision that distinguished Roberts’ work and brought him rapid success in the U.S. and Europe: Beautiful sun-tanned guys casually posed by the pool, or against the backdrop of Southern California’s stunning natural environment. If their varying states of undress come across as a photographic striptease, it was intentional. The erotic narratives they suggest reflected the reality of their making. Sexual adventure was part of the package and everyone was having a very good time.

It was a different era: Certainly not innocent― but not nearly so cynical as our own. We might look back wistfully at this period of openness and experimentation, before AIDS, before sunscreen, before the 405 became permanently choked with cars. You could hitch a ride to LA, go to a party, pass a few joints, take off your clothes, and have sex, just because you felt like it. One writer called Roberts the ‘Hugh Hefner’ of the gay world. “I always had four or five guys living with me at one time. They had no prohibitions, no guilt about having sex with guys, even though most of them had girlfriends who were also frequent visitors.”

But it wasn’t all fun and games. This was still the “posing strap era” when taking a picture of a naked man could land a photographer in prison. Roberts had to build his own color lab to develop prints because no lab would process the film. The transparencies he sent to Eastman Kodak were returned to him with holes punched through the genitals of the models.

“I knew I was taking a chance. But I thought, I live just a few blocks from the Playboy Mansion, and here’s Hefner showing nude women, so what’s wrong with me showing nude men? I never thought there was anything wrong with being gay.”

But in the 1950s, police harassment and raids were commonplace. Roberts heard about Harry Hay and the Mattachine Society, and started having meetings at his house once a month. Just a few guys at first, but as word got out, more and more men started coming by. “We tried to make sure that guys who got arrested knew their rights: To remain silent, to demand a jury trial, etc. But if your employer found out you were gay, you got fired anyway.”

It wasn’t until 1977 that the LAPD went after Mel Roberts. Under the false charge that Roberts was photographing underage models, they showed up with a warrant and raided his home and studio. They confiscated his cameras, negatives, letters and even his mailing list (which effectively put him out of business).

“We stood in the driveway in handcuffs from 10:00 in the morning to 6:00 at night as they loaded everything into a truck. I couldn’t even return the money my customers had sent me because I didn’t have their addresses.” A second raid followed, 18 months later. The LAPD refused to return his property for over a year, even though no charges were filed against him.

But this pointless harassment took its toll, and besides, times had changed. The California Dream that Roberts’ work epitomized for many gay men was just a memory. His photographs were considered “too tame” to be published. The AIDS epidemic was spreading. His friends started dying. He put down his camera for good. But his story wasn’t over.... more to come.

Maskurbate’s Muscular Jock Junior

From: We Love Nude

 Maskurbate‘s latest young jock may be called Junior, but he’s already a man grown with a hot muscular body and handsome face. Junior appeared confident and charismatic even though this was his first porn shooting ever. He’s that type of guy, who enjoys showing-off his body. No wonder why.