Page 367 - Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer - Vol. 1

Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer 347

Johnny Gets His Hair Cut

Written and produced March-April 1977, this photo-fea-
ture paragraph was published in Drummer 16, June 1977.
I. Author’s Eyewitness Historical-Context Introduction
written March 22, 2002
II. The photo-feature paragraph as published in
Drummer 16, June 1977
III. Eyewitness Illustrations

I. Author’s Eyewitness Historical-Context Introduction written
March 22, 2002

Producing both this Jim Stewart photo-feature squib in Drummer 16 as
well as the Jim Stewart photo feature in Drummer 14, I was connect-
ing Drummer, after its arrival in San Francisco, with new local talent
(such as photographer Jim Stewart) and into established local talent (such
as author Sam Steward). Reducing the six degrees of separation among
potential contributors was what publisher Embry had hired me to do to
fill Drummer. Through naming me “founding San Francisco editor in
chief,” the newly arrived Embry meant that I was to be his San Francisco
talent scout discovering a new group of contributors, ideas, and themes
for Drummer orphaned in LA.
Jim Stewart and I had been friends since 1973. When he moved from
Kalamazoo, Michigan, to San Francisco in October 1975, he lived with
th
me and my lover David Sparrow at our home on 25 Street.
Out of the Folsom Street leather culture of the 1960s which focused
on motorcycles and bars, in the early 1970s we began fashioning a kind
of SoMa salon around art in which the motorcycle changed from trans-
portation to icon, and our leather chaps and jackets morphed from safety
clothes to fetish gear. In the early 1970s, beer was 15-cents, pot was $5
a lid, and a comfortable room for rent cost $20 per week. I was thirty,
happy, and in love with David Sparrow who became my photography
partner at Drummer. It was our leather Boheme. South of Market was
glorious. Our new scene was the end of beatniks and hippies and the
beginning of gay men. Peace, love, and granola gave way to sex, drugs,
and rock-n-roll. By 1977, our decade-long sex-orgy fraternity of leather
easily flowed into our Drummer salon.
©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved—posted 05-05-2017
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