Queer4Decades - Mark H. Freeman
Will Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia make up for his Silence Of the Lambs— and Hollywood’s history of homophobic cowardice? Mark Freeman looks at Movieland’s hidden queer history in this cover feature of SF Weekly from January 12, 1994 ********** OK, I’m gay and I demand movie heroes who are, too. Is that so much to ask? I’ve […]
by Mark Freeman @1994, revised 2021 As a member in fairly good standing in one of history’s earliest immigrant groups—we Wandering Jews—I visited one of our older stomping grounds two summers back. That ground being Spain. The occasion: the 500th Anniversary of the Expulsion of the Jews and Arabs by Ferdinando and Isabella, known as the […]
I met Hannah Sim and Mark Steger through mutual artist friends David Baal and Nao Bustamante, all neighbors in twin storefront apartments on 14th Street in the Mission District. This was back at the cusp of the ’80s and ’90s when rents were already rising above the $300/month average. This was one of the key […]
BAYOU BY THE BAY:TALKING WITH QUEEN IDA IN BERNAL HEIGHTS, ELLIS MARSALIS IN BERKELEY AND DR. JOHN BEYOND THE ELYSIAN FIELDS, MARK FREEMAN FOLLOWS THE MUSIC BACK TO ITS SOURCE. SF WEEKLY MAY 16, 1990 The SF Bay Area loves New Orleans music. This was the first place outside the Crescent City that really welcomed […]
The Stud: Decade by Decade from the original 1994 article by Mark Freeman, updated 2016 & 2020 THE ‘60s: Birth Pangs The Stud’s beginnings can be traced back to Beirut, Lebanon. That’s where George Matson, who was working as a pantomime entertainer met up with former acquaintance Richard Conroy and the two made plans to open a cafe in Las Vegas. […]
Queer Featuring COMING OUT AS AN ACTIVIST IN A GAY MAOIST CELL WHO MOSTLY JUST WANTED TO GET LAID A chapter from “Smash the Church, Smash the State! The Early Years of Gay Liberation, edited by Tommi Avicolli Mecca, City Lights Books 2009 As a not-yet 20-year-old, I was in many of the right places […]
I am a sexual male, not—I think—untypical of my generation, living in and among the various gay communities of the San Francisco Bay Area for the past two decades.
Ever since I discovered what my body can do, and unless I’m feeling really bad, I’ve wanted to have sex about once a day. Though this isn’t always possible with someone else, at least I always have myself as an acceptable, if not ideal, partner.
It is around midnight in Havana, and our room is only a block or so from the gay bar Las Vegas, which did not exist on our last visit here back in 2001. Another few blocks on is a corner—known for some reason as the Big Bang, which in Cuban sounds more like ‘pingpong’—that is gay cruising central, […]