Charlie

The last time I had one, the anesthetic knocked me out immediately.

One summer a good friend of mine was teaching at the Sorbonne, so he rented an apartment in the Marais. I usually stayed at his flat in London, but that year I took advantage of the chance to really see Paris, and I spent two weeks in the Marais. I was lucky to have friends who did that sort of thing and would invite me to stay with them; e.g., when a friend spent a sabbatical in Copenhagen, I was able to spend a couple of weeks with him one summer, immersed in local gay life there. I also found that taking summer school courses at European universities was a great way to have a local base to get to know a city.

On RM since Sept. 2018 and only one review?

In the 1960s I knew a gay "physique" photographer who lived in a tenement in SoHo, with a clawfoot bathtub in the living room.

One aunt died before I was born and one uncle died when I was two years old. I was never really close enough to the other two aunts and uncles to "come out" to them, but the aunts both knew I was gay and were always friendly toward my boy friends and partners. I have no idea what the uncles thought. Mine was the kind of family in which everyone knew--or guessed--that I was gay, but it was never a topic of discussion. I was an only child, so no nieces or nephews, but my spouse has four nieces and a nephew, and he and I are close to the nephew and one niece. I am actually closest to the nephew's wife, who told me that when her mother-in-law and father-in-law sat the niece and nephew down one day when they were teenagers to explain to them that I was more than "Uncle Joe's roommate," they cringed, because they had already figured that out for themselves, and had no problem with it. At their wedding reception, several members of the bridal party asked us how long we had been together and whether we were legally married. It is definitely a different world from my youth.

I had a 1958 Plymouth Fury with the pushbutton transmission. One of the sexiest cars I ever owned.

I usually respond to PMs or "conversations" only from regular posters whose personas I feel familiar with. However, in the early years of the site I met two of my closest personal friends as a result of PMs I received from members whom I had not previously paid much attention to, so whenever I get an unexpected PM from someone, I go back and look at their posts to get a feel for them before I respond, and sometimes I decide to simply not respond. As Cooper reminds us in another thread today about scams, one should be cautious about conversation invitations from new and unfamiliar posters.

He is obviously working out of a hotel room, the only places that still have that kind of phone.

All they could afford was an Oldsmobile?

What a waste of a glass of scotch--unless, of course, it is cheap scotch.

I have never consulted a psychic, but one time I was having sex with an escort for the first time, and he suddenly seemed to go into a trance, and told me that my late father was trying to reach me through him. He said my father was saying that I should let go of my regret about having been unable to get to see him before he died. Since we had never met before and he knew nothing about my personal life, I was amazed that he could know that my father had died a year earlier as I was rushing to get to him in time to say good-bye. He said that kind of trance often happened to him and he had no control over it. I seem to have some odd psychic quality of my own. On several occasions I have become aware that someone I know has died, at the moment it happens. Usually it happens when I am sound asleep, and I awake suddenly and say out loud, "X is dead." The first time it happened, when I was in my 20s, I didn't even know that my childhood neighbor Marie was ill, and I was shocked when my mother called several hours later to tell me that Marie had indeed died in a hospital just when I had awakened and made that statement. However, once I was walking down a flight of stairs, when I halted and said, "Bea is dead," and sure enough, she had died just then. It is always a woman, and it has happened even when the person is thousands of miles away. However, I have never experienced any knowledge of the future.

At 100, my mother remarked to me that having outlived my father, all her close friends, and almost everyone in her large family that she cared about except me, she didn't see much reason to want to go on living. Nevertheless, she had no choice. I have always thought that if I reach that point, I will find some way to end it, but I probably won't.

I think the guy standing on the left in the second photo may be Robert Mapplethorpe. I used to see him on the street in Chelsea with Patti Smith before either of them were famous.

Love all those outfits with the rolled up jeans, white socks and loafers. The epitome of cool when I was in high school.

Love all those outfits with the rolled up jeans, white socks and loafers. The epitome of cool when I was in high school.

+1 I have also cut my intake of chocolate to about 75g/day. Luckily I have never liked popcorn and always decline the offer.

Eric Ryan was basically a pornstar, but he did escort at times. He was one of my most memorable hires in NYC in the early 1980s. He died of AIDS in 1993.

I definitely prefer dark chocolate. Milk chocolate is too sweet for my taste, but kids probably think dark chocolate is too bitter.

I think you misunderstood Daddy's post, but reading through this old thread was certainly a trip down memory lane. I think the only posters from it who are still here are Oliver and Ben, most of the others either left or were ejected years ago. Anyone who thinks this was a kinder, gentler place years ago needs to read this.

Definitely the Tom of Finland type.

Back in the 80s there were two Italian brothers who started out working together in Connecticut, then moved to NYC and worked separately. Both were gorgeous and built. The older one was gay and the younger one straight but flexible. The gay one was certifiably crazy and scary. I had hired him alone first, and didn't realize until after I had hired the straight one that he was the other brother. When I admitted to him that I knew the older brother, he acknowledged that he had only gotten into the business because his brother introduced him to it, and he was doing it because he liked the money, but he wasn't planning to stick with it, and he soon disappeared. The older one also disappeared, but involuntarily: I learned from an escort friend who knew him that he was imprisoned for murder.

When the two sites--reviews and MB--were one, I assumed that the advertising on the review section underwrote the expense of the MB section. When the sites were split, Daddy still owned both, and I assumed that the review site was still the primary financial support for the MB. The money from voluntary donations from MB members seemed to be a supplement, but erratic personal donations are not a very reliable way to finance an ongoing operation. Now that Daddy is gone, I am trying to understand how an operation like this actually works or could work.

I accidentally posted this new thread twice. How do I get rid of it?!

I have no business experience, and I barely understand the Internet. Can someone please explain to me where the money comes from to run a website like this one, which has no advertising or membership fees?

I have no business experience, and I barely understand the Internet. Can someone please explain to me where the money comes from to run a website like this one, which has no advertising or membership fees?