In my novel My High School Boyfriend (available at Amazon), Glen and Shannon venture up to the third floor of the Maynard mansion and explore Uncle Alfred's room. There they discover a copy of the magazine Physique Pictorial.
From the book:
“Look at this,” Shannon said.
He was holding up a small magazine, and when I examined it, I was a little shocked. It was called Physique Pictorial and there was an illustration on the cover showing several handsome, impossibly muscular young men wearing revealing tight pants. They were attending a carnival or fair. One of the men was removing his leather jacket so he could test his strength by hitting a high striker with a large mallet. I would later learn the image was created by Tom of Finland. I flipped through the magazine and saw several photos of men wearing nothing but posing straps.
“I didn’t realize stuff like this was around when your uncle was alive.”
“Old Alfred may have been a hermit, but he wasn’t a monk.”
I remember when I was about 9 years old, some distant relatives came to visit my grandparents. Among them was a young man about 25 or 30. Normally I was intensely shy, especially around people I didn’t know, but this man seemed different. He seemed nicer and gentler than the men I was used to being around. Somehow I ended up sitting on his lap.
He allowed me to do this, and shockingly, no one else said anything to me. No one told me to get down. No one told me to stop bothering him. No one told me that I was being girlish. Normally, a “big boy” like me would have been scolded for seeking that kind of affection, especially from a man. But that day, I was allowed to be the gentle boy I was. We were all out on my grandparents’ front porch down on Laurel Creek. He was on one end of the porch swing, and I sat on his lap. I liked doing this. I felt so comforted sitting on his lap.
I remember the next day when we went back to my grandparents’ house, the distant cousins were still there, including the young man that I had been drawn to. But in the interim, I must have come to the conclusion that I had crossed the line the day before, and I was now intensely embarrassed. My face would blush red hot whenever I even so much as looked at this man. Even now when I think about it, there’s this twinge of embarrassment like I did something that was horribly shameful. But I was just a kid who wanted affection, especially from a man, something I hardly ever got. There was nothing wrong with that.
When I was in high school in West Virginia in the early ‘80s, I heard there was a gay bar in our capital city of Charleston. Kids would make homophobic jokes about it. I dreamed of going there wearing pink pants and going home with a guy driving a Harley.
From a very early age, I was browbeaten by homophobia. I was subjected to extreme homophobia every day. "Faggots" and "queers" and "cocksucker" were thrown around all the time. They weren't usually directed at me personally, but the words and the hateful attitude were in the air. It made me afraid to reveal who I was to anyone. I felt I could be attacked at any moment. I was a kid, and I felt like I was in a war zone trying to survive. And that permanently changed how I perceive the world. I will never feel completely at home anywhere because of it. I will never feel truly at ease around people. And I know I'm not alone.
The main part of the house is 35 feet x 20 feet, and the bedroom bump out in back is ten feet x 12 feet. So it’s 820 square feet.
Not a so-called “tiny house” but still small. The floor plan is open with lots of windows.
There’s a fireplace in the living room with a sofa in front and an armchair and a TV on the sides. The TV will be on a rolling cart so that you can move it in front of the fireplace if you want to sit on the sofa and watch a movie, or you can turn it toward the dining table or roll it in front of the bed.
There are two sliding glass doors at the end of the living room, and one by the bed. I imagine there would be a deck or a patio that wraps around from the side of the house to the back.
There would be windows in back of the bed and on the side opposite of the sliding glass door. And windows on either side of the fireplace, above the desk and over the sink in the kitchen. And maybe another small one over the washer and dryer in the pantry off of the kitchen.
The floors will be wide planked pumpkin pine, and the walls will be covered in tongue and groove paneling. Board and batten siding for the exterior.
It will be on a wooded lot outside of town.
September (1987) is not one of Woody Allen’s more popular movies. In fact, it lost quite a lot of money, but Allen went way over budget, so that may explain the financial failure to a degree. Allen fired one of the principle actors early on because he didn’t think he was right for the part, and then he fired the replacement and several others when the film was nearly completed. So basically, he shot the film twice.
Elaine Stritch’s character had a few funny lines, but the film was almost devoid of Allen’s sense of humor. It is straight up drama inspired by Chekov’s Uncle Vanya with a plot twist borrowed from the life of Lana Turner, and Allen wanted it to have the feel of a stage play. There’s a lot of dialogue and a lot of long shots with few close ups. The setting was a country house, but it was filmed entirely on a soundstage. There isn’t a single scene that takes place outdoors or away from the house. So maybe it’s just not cinematic enough, or maybe most found it too sad or slow.
Oddly enough, I have always loved it, and I’ve seen it many times. It is one of my favorite Woody Allen movies. I have to admit that I love the house even though it’s not a real house. They did a wonderful job by adding numerous quaint and charming but realistic details. And I loved how Allen suggests late summer in New England with light, thunderstorms and the sound of crickets and tree frogs.
Mia Farrow plays Lane, the main character. Lane attempted suicide the previous fall, and after getting out of the hospital, she moved to her family’s country house to recuperate. Howard, an older college professor, is her nearest neighbor, and he kept Lane company on many long winter nights. Howard fell in love with Lane, but he kept his feelings secret because Lane was still fragile. At the beginning of summer, Lane rented out her guest cottage to a man who is taking a break from his job in the city with the intensions of writing a novel, but Peter doesn’t make much progress. Nevertheless, Lane idealizes Peter and begins to develop feelings for him. Lane’s old friend Stephanie pays her a visit late in August. Stephanie is married and has two children, but she needed to get away from her family because she’s having problems with her marriage. Peter soon develops feelings for Stephanie. So there’s a lot of tension, frustration and jealousy in the air. And as if all the unrequited love weren’t enough, Lane’s mother and her latest husband drop in for an unexpected visit. Diane is an aging Broadway actress and playgirl, and her husband Lloyd is a physics professor. Diane immediately becomes the center of attention when she enters a room, and she seems completely oblivious to how her antics affect Lane.
In the late ’80s, I was suffering from severe depression, and I strongly related to Lane. Events from her past haunted her, none of her relationships had worked out, and she had not been able to settle on a career. Noting ever seemed to work out for Lane, and Farrow played her in such a way that you could see the stress and heartache she had endured in her demeanor, the clothes she wore, her facial expressions, her tired eyes and the timbre of her voice. Lane looks like someone who has experienced unrelenting and unbearable pain and is close to death. I felt the way Lane looked, and when Stephanie takes away her sleeping pills and asks if she really wants to die, Lane delivered a line that has always resonated with me: “That’s my problem. I’ve always wanted to live.”
I was studying philosophy and religious studies when I first saw this film. That’s because I wanted and needed to know what the meaning and purpose of life is. I was grappling with these fundamental questions and trying to decide what I believed. I feared that life had no meaning or purpose, and this film had a philosophical element that helped me confront the psychological aspects of my intellectual pursuits. As I said, Lloyd, Diane’s husband is a physics professor, and he and Peter have a chilling conversation about physics and the meaning of life one night when the power is out. In the course of this conversation, Lloyd informs Peter that the universe is “haphazard, morally neutral and unimaginably violent.” We have to endure petty betrayals and disappointments and watch everyone around us die as we await our turn, and we have to go inside of ourselves and find hope and a reason to continue because the universe isn’t going to provide us with the answers.
I guess the film does sound rather heavy and depressing, but I appreciate it’s honest attempt to portray the human condition. People usually go to the movies for distraction, and that’s important. We all need to get away from our pain now and then, but sometimes we need to confront out pain or we won’t be able to learn to cope. The country house with the sound of crickets in the background is, for me, like going into a therapist’s office, and there I have the courage to face some of my demons.
My High School Boyfriend is doing pretty good considering hardly anyone has ever heard of me. This is the book I tried to write when I was still in high school, but I couldn't get past the basic concept because I couldn't come up with the details. I didn't know any out gay men, and I didn't have any personal experience to draw from. I wanted a special friend, but I couldn't imagine I would ever have one. Nearly forty years later, I finally wrote this story which began as a kind of half-baked dream when I was still a teenager. This is how it could have been and should have been. I would be very pleased if reading it encourages others to believe in the dream of love.
My High School Boyfriend is available as an ebook at Amazon, Barnes&Noble and Smashwords.
From the book:
