California Dreamin’: West Coast Directors and the Golden Age of Forbidden Gay Movies

In American pop art, gangster rap, punk rock, and gay filmmaking, there is a Continental Divide between East Coast and West Coast culture typified by New York and California. This esthetic regionalism may be a moot point to today’s international viewers of twenty-first-century gay porn which is more corporate meat loops than it is the personal kind of visionary film narrative made by the pioneer directors. They created gay cinema. They built their box-office fame with their stories and style, and with their superb casting back in the day when the porn stars they discovered were hot guys with real personalities they knew would make audiences hard no matter what coast or country or continent: Jack Wrangler, Casey Donovan, Peter Berlin, and a host of others. No matter the coast or country, Hot is hot. Some things are universal. Essential. Everywhere. Including interviews with J. Brian, Gavin Geoffrey Dillard, Roger Earl, David Old Reliable Hurles, Jim West, a guest article by cult filmmaker Toby Ross and numerous pages of pictures and photo art by Mark Hemry, Tom Bianchi, David Pearce, John J. Krause, Tom of Finland, Tom Kellie, and other iconic gay artists.