The Men and Boys of Coney Island

Coney Island is a peninsula in southern Brooklyn, about an hour by subway from Penn Station.  It consists of four neighborhoods (Seagate, West Brighton, Brighton Beach, and Manhattan Beach).  Beginning in the 1870s, thousands of New Yorkers tried to escape the summer heat by heading out to the beaches of Coney Island every weekend.

When they weren't swimming, they could walk along the boardwalk for snacks (hot dogs with chili were invented there), and eventually other attractions: side-show acts, carnival rides, burlesque shows, bodybuilders.

Coney Island had its own muscle beach.

Two amusement parks developed, Luna Park and Dreamland, with rides, games, and carnival acts.

It was the place to go for working-class New Yorkers.  They have included fond memories of Coney Island into dozens of movies (Brighton Beach Memoirs, The Wanderers) and tv programs (Seinfeld, The Golden Girls), in songs and poems and novels.



And, of course, photographers roamed the crowds, capturing the joy and pain of the young men who came for momentary relief from the drudgery of everyday life.

These boys are doing some sort of feat of strength on Muscle Beach in 1905.









Why no swimsuit? Was this a spur-of-the-moment outing, or couldn't he afford one?

This guy seems to have lost his pants.  Nice bulge.

Harold Feinstein (1931-2015) was born on Coney Island, and began photographing Coney Island boys and men at age fifteen.

This is Muscle Beach, 1967, aka two guys holding hands.

More after the break.

Hustle

One night I channel-surfed onto Hustle (2004-2012), a British comedy-drama about a group of amiable con artists. Young-gun Danny Blue (Marc Warren) meets Troy (Lee Ingleby) in a bar. They talk for hours. Then Danny says goodbye, starts to walk away, realizes that he doesn’t want to part, and rushes back to Troy again, surely a “falling in love” moment. In the next scene, apparently the morning after their sexual intimacy, Danny is introducing Troy to his colleagues and petitioning to include him in their latest con.

 Throughout, the two display a remarkably expressive physicality, with full-body hugs, arms around shoulders, hands pressed against chests. “Obviously a gay couple,” I thought. At the end of the episode we discover that Danny has just being feigning interest in order to orchestrate a revenge-con against the unscrupulous Troy. But still, the interest Danny feigned was overtly homoerotic, to the point of probably sleeping with him. 

 

I tuned in the next week, and the next. Danny’s job in the con always involves bonding with attractive men, and never flirting with women, not even a receptionist or secretary. When he must pretend to have sex with a female colleague (so the mark can hear them through the wall and conclude that they are a couple), he can barely restrain his giggles. Off duty, he is seen only with guys. He gazes with palpable desire at gang leader Mickey Bricks (Adrian Lester). Obviously scripted as gay, I thought. I even checked online to see if Marc Warren had played gay before (he had, twice). 

 Then, in the fourth episode, Danny is juggling girlfriends from all over the world, using different cell phones to keep track of the lies he used to woo them. Hustle took just four weeks to heterosexualize its gay character.

Clark Brandon: No, we didn't date

The 1970s was awash with androgynous teen idols, soft and slim with wavy hair, pretty faces, and flamboyant pastel outfits, girlish in tone and gesture.  They didn't do a lot of acting or singing, but nevertheless they were featured incessantly in Tiger Beat and Dynamite, and posted on millions of bedroom walls.










Clark Brandon was the prettiest and most flamboyant of the lot.  He didn't have to do much to rate "fave rave" status. He starred in some after-school specials; The Fitzpatricks, a family-angst drama (with Jimmy McNichol); the short-lived Out of the Blue (with Rad Daly).

Mr. Merlin (1981-82) was about a boy who finds the sword Excalibur in a modern-day auto garage, and becomes an apprentice to the mythical wizard Merlin.  The hunky Jonathan Prince played his gay-subtext best friend.

He had a small role in The Chicken Chronicles, with Steve Guttenberg. Later he played the butch Jo's boyfriend on The Facts of Life.

All he really had to do was look pretty, so gay boys and their straight gal pals could discuss his dreaminess.

In the 1990s he moved into writing and directing, a common career path for grown-up teen idols. 

Today he's the Dean of Students at the Arete Academy in West Los Angeles. In a relationship, but he won't say with who.

Friday Fun Day: 3 Hookups and a Flake

After my amazing success with a craigslist ad a few weeks ago, I've been putting the ad up again every Friday, when I don't have to be on campus.   Last week was a dud, but this week was quite successful.  Until I flew too close to the sun.

9:30 am: Chris, 33, 6'0, 160, asks "How do I know this isn't a setup?"

"Gay sex is legal in this state," I answer.

He arrives wearing a dirty orange construction company sweater: scruffy beard, a very smooth, very skinny physique.

11:30 am: Grant, 44, 6'0, 250, say that he was waiting for his nephew to get out of his appointment with his probation officer.


2:00 pm. Wayne, 65, 6'0, 200, from Minnesota, in town for a conference.

I bring him into the bedroom and start kissing him.