Page 129 - Folsom Street Blues: A Memoir of 1970s SoMa and Leatherfolk in Gay San Francisco

Folsom Street Blues 113

scatological scenes. While he chatted with them on the set, they
continued to snack on the faux-feces of chocolate and nuts. Stein
concluded they did not feel “damaged.”
When first released, Salo was banned in most places through-
out the world. In San Francisco the tiny Cento Cedar Cinema,
near Geary and Polk Streets, had the courage to screen the film.
To the shock of some viewers, they found themselves turned on
by certain aspects of the sadistic sex scenes.
Paul Hatlestad, a friend of mine who saw Salo at the same
time I did, returned from the lobby with popcorn and sat in the
wrong row. Thinking he was sitting next to Steve Barnett, the
man he came with, Paul reached over and placed a man’s hand
on his hardening cock to indicate he was turned on by the film.
But it wasn’t Steve’s hand. Steve Barnett thought it was a great
pickup move.
One night I picked up a man at Allan Lowery’s Leatherneck
Bar at 11th and Folsom. I brought him back to The Other Room.
After we finished our fantasy—I forget now if it was Coach &
Jock or Frat Boy & Pledge Master—we started talking film.
Wakefield Poole’s name came up.
“Have you ever seen any of Poole’s films?” I asked.
“I sure have,” Paul said.
“I’ve only seen Boys in the Sand,” I said. “I’d love to see some
of his other work, especially Bijou or even Bible.” Bijou, starring
Big-Dick Bill Harrison, had been critiqued as having a certain
sexual film noir quality about it. Wakefield Poole’s Bible was his
only soft-core straight film.
“I might be able to arrange something,” Paul said.
I wasn’t quite sure what Paul meant. We exchanged phone
numbers and drove down to Castro Street for early morning
cocktails. We slipped into The Elephant Walk, a bar at 18th and
Castro that had a beautiful large stained glass work over the bar.
It was of a charging elephant, reminiscent of the Rock Hudson-
Elizabeth Taylor film of the same name. It somehow survived the
cops’ revenge attack on the Castro during the White Night Riots.
I found out later it was the work of Michael Palmer, my roommate
for a while up at the Russian River.