Page 453 - Gay Pioneers: How DRUMMER Magazine Shaped Gay Popular Culture 1965-1999

P. 453

Jack Fritscher Chapter 18 435

6, page 14, Embry blasted: “The reason the Democratic Convention is not
being held in Los Angeles is the instability of its chief of police.”
Editor-in-chief Jeanne Barney poked jokes at the arresting officers, who
nicked her at the Slave Auction, because their names were “Peters,” “Bare,”
and “Gaily” (Drummer 9, page 4). Robert Opel satirized one “E. Davis”
endorsing Opel’s porno mag, Finger (Drummer 9, page 43); Opel frightened
the LAPD Vice Squad’s morality enforcement by stirring up the urban leg-
end that there was, based on the reputations of Fred Halsted (Sextool) as well
as Roger Earl and Terry Legrand (Born to Raise Hell), a hidden “underground
gay movie network” in LA shooting porn-sex movies in gay theaters after
closing time (Drummer 3, page 11); wanting to get a rise out of Davis, Embry
showcased both those leather S&M films on the first covers of Drummer.

2. AGAINST LAWYER/PUBLISHER DAVID GOODSTEIN
& THE ADVOCATE

Beginning with a hardon for The Advocate, and its publisher, David
Goodstein who had bought it for $300,000, the insolvent Embry retaliated
in his first feature after his arrest by Ed Davis in “Drummer Goes to a Slave
Auction,” Drummer 6, pages 12-14: “the...Advocate was even more inac-
curate [about the Slave Auction arrest], loading its columns with attacks on
Southern California Gay leaders and the Leather Community.”
Embry continued in Drummer 9, page 43, insulting Goodstein in a
taunting display ad. Blacklisted by The Advocate, Embry created his own
Blacklist as a response:
• Primarily because The Advocate 189 (May 5, 1976) had trashed
leather culture in Judy Willmore’s “The Great Slave Market Bust,” an article
that gave Embry no empathy in its cherry-picking of lurid quotes from
the prejudicial police report; nor did Goodstein’s “Trader Dick” editorial
column, “D. A. Claims Four Slaves Were Pandering,” and its companion
piece, “To ‘Free the Slaves’ L. A. Plays Itself. Again,” both in The Advocate
190, (May 19, 1976).
• Secondly because The Advocate, taking vengeful fun fucking with
Embry, reported on the Slave Auction without once mentioning the com-
mercial word Drummer; that omission of identity deprived Embry of the free
publicity and empathy he craved from other gaystream media, such as the
offbeat Advocate competitor, Gay Times #43, in its sympathetic cover story
written and photographed by Robert Leighton, who had been present at the
event: “Free the Slaves: Full Coverage of the L. A. ‘Slave Auction’ Raid and
Its Aftermath.”

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