Ads - Part 25

Iles de Paix

Iles de Paix (Islands of Peace) is a Belgian non-governmental organization.  Their mission is the promotion of sustainable food systems.  They believe that everyone should have access to food.  They work both at the local level, supporting farmers in Africa and Latin America, and the global level, working for food security and resilience in the face of climate change.

This commercial is in French, but you can enjoy it even if you don't speak French.  A naked man walks into a shoe store and calmly proceeds to buy some shoes.  Near the end, a female customer asks, "Do you have those for women?"  The sales clerk answers, "Yes, of course."  The female customer starts stripping, and another sales clerk interrupts to tell her, "No, you don't have to get naked to show support."

The ad ends with text saying, "You are not naked in the face of the injustices of this world.  Being supportive and responsible involves simple gestures.  On a daily basis, you can make the right choices."

Festivals - Part 27

 Buddhafield

Buddhafield UK is a nonprofit organization in Britain, not to be confused with a U.S. cult of the same name.  Buddhafield UK offers Buddhist meditation retreats as well as the Buddhafield Festival, a drug- and alcohol-free event that includes singing, dancing, yoga, workshops and talks.

We'll concentrate on the Lost Horizon solar stage and sauna at the Buddhafield Festival.  It's a portable tent-like structure (above) that we previously saw at the Secret Garden Party Festival.  Lost Horizon is clothing-optional, and that goes for the audience (above) as well as the musicians. 

Here's a band playing in the Lost Horizon stage at Buddhafield 2013.

Here's a flute player at Buddhafield 2015.

And a clarinet player at Buddhafield 2015.

A guitarist at Buddhafield 2015.

I don't know whether this guy at Buddhafield 2015 is singing, speaking, or chanting.

Meanwhile, here's the audience for all those naked musicians at Buddhafield 2015.

The Lost Horizon portable stage appears at other festivals, too.  Here's a violinist playing at the Glastonbury festival in 2015.

This band played at Glastonbury in 2017.

And here's a guitarist and singer at Glastonbury 2017.

We close with a very short clip of a singer-guitarist at the Glastonbury Festival in 2015.

World Naked Bike Ride - Part 29

 San Francisco 2014

We've seen this guy before, wearing a beanie cap and nothing else, at the San Francisco WNBR in 2011.  Here he is in 2014.

As is my practice, I often collect multiple photos of guys who stand out or are otherwise memorable.

And IMHO, whether you like his choice of headgear or not, he's pretty easy on the eyes.

Now, who's that next to him?

It's the tiger guy, who we also saw in 2011.

I don't think this guy was there in 2011.  The words on his chest say "Don't frack with my water."

Here's another view of the Don't Frack guy.

We close with a guy sporting a bit of jewelry in a conspicuous place.  These guys are definitely all unashamed males.

Not the Same Old Song - Part 18

 Anticipation

This song by Carly Simon was a hit in 1971, but it probably became best known when it was used in commercials for Heinz Ketchup in the late 1970s.

I took a short extract from the song and coupled it with a video showing a different kind of anticipation.

Gods, Myths and Heroes - Part 20

 Sodom and Gomorrah

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is another Biblical myth showing the unbelievably bizarre morality of the Bible.  Hint: it's not the men of Sodom and Gomorrah who are evil in this story; it's the "heroes."

First, a bit of background.  Sodom and Gomorrah were two of the "cities of the plain."  The plain is the flat land next to the Dead Sea, which is the lowest spot on Earth at 1400 feet below sea level.  The photo above shows naked men extracting salt from the brine of the Dead Sea.

Geologically, the Dead Sea is in a rift valley where the Arabian Plate and the African Plate are moving apart from each other, causing the land in between to sink (hence the low elevation) and also causing earthquakes, which will come into the story later.

The Dead Sea is extremely salty, which also comes into the story later (hint: Lot's wife).  This video shows the late Kirill Tokarev, one of my favorite unashamed males, floating in the Dead Sea.  The extreme saltiness of the water (over 33% salt) makes the human body extremely buoyant, as seen when Kirill lifts his head to read the newspaper, something that you couldn't do in ordinary water without your body sinking.

The story begins in Genesis 18 with Abraham talking to God.  The video clip above is from the movie Oh, God, in which God appears to John Denver in the form of George Burns.

If you think that's strange, it's nothing compared to Genesis 18.  God has decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness, but Abraham argues with God, persuading God to spare the cities if 50 good people can be found in them, and then, unbelievably, haggling with God like some penny-pinching merchant, lowering the limit to 45 good people, then 40, then 30, then 20, then 10.  God, seeing he is losing this argument, gives up and leaves.

Even if you believe in God, a god who created billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars, how could you think that God is like a small-time merchant who you can haggle with?  But of course, the ignorant people who wrote the Bible had a very different view of God.  Their God was a rather petty tribal god, one among many gods, as evidenced by the First Commandment which says "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," which implies that there ARE other gods.  But I digress.

God sends two angels to Sodom, and Lot invites them into his house.  The angels refuse, saying they want to spend the night in the town square.  Why would the angels say that?  This point seems to have been overlooked by Biblical scholars.

I have to point out that all angels in the Bible are male.  Every single one.  There are no female angels.  So, if angels have sex, it must be gay sex.  Perhaps the angels are looking forward to some gay hanky-panky with the Sodomites before the city is destroyed.  Why else would they want to spend the night in the town square?

However, Lot insists, so the angels go to Lot's house.  There are many artworks depicting the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but very few depicting the angels arriving in Sodom, and they're always clothed in robes from head to foot, as are the citizens of Sodom.  To me, that doesn't adequately explain the sudden infatuation of the citizens with the angels, so I have substituted some modern images.  Let's imagine that the photo above shows the two angels in the doorway of Lot's house.  Now, that might stimulate some interest.

Then all the men of Sodom, both old and young, converge on Lot's house and demand that he bring out the two men who are the angels.  (Above, another modern photo.)

What do they want?  Duh, they're sodomites (see image above).  They want to have sex with the angels.  It seems improbable that every man in Sodom is gay, aside from Lot, but that's what the Bible says.

Unbelievably, Lot responds by saying no, take my virgin daughters instead and rape them.  First, why would the gay Sodomites want his daughters?  (Note: they don't.)   And second, Lot, who is supposed to be one of the fewer than 10 good people in Sodom, is now revealed to be incredibly evil.  Take my daughters and rape them?  Biblical morality at its finest.

After this evil (and stupid) proposal of Lot's, the Sodomites try to forcibly enter Lot's house to get at the angels, at which they do not succeed.  This is the one bad thing that the Sodomites do, but in my opinion, the crime of attempted breaking and entering is minor compared to the evil deeds of Lot and, later, his daughters.

By the way, it turns out that Lot's daughters are married, even though they're virgins and still live with their parents.  Huh?  The sons-in-law refuse to leave the city with Lot and his daughters.  Well, why should they?  We've already been told that every man in Sodom, old and young, was in the mob that wanted to have sex with the angels.  That would include the sons-in-law, which means they're gay, too.  That might explain why Lot's daughters are still virgins.

If this whole story sounds like whoever wrote it didn't think it through, welcome to the Bible.

Anyway, the angels drag Lot and his wife and daughters out of the city, and God rains fire and brimstone down on Sodom and Gomorrah and destroys them.  Above: The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by John Martin, 1852.

Geological note: fire and brimstone (sulfur) are unlikely, because the area is not volcanically active, but it's possible that the story is a dimly remembered echo of some city near the Dead Sea being destroyed by earthquakes, which are common in the region, as we noted earlier.

Lot and his family are told not to look back, but Lot's wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt.  Now, the Dead Sea being so salty, there are salt formations here and there, and this part of the story is obviously a silly childish attempt to explain them.  It should not be given any more credence than Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories such as How the Elephant Got His Trunk.

But the end of the story is bad.  After traveling though the city of Zoar, which was not destroyed, Lot and his daughters end up in the mountains.  The daughters say there are no men on Earth to continue the family line by having sex with them.  These girls are either idiots or liars; they just came from the city of Zoar, which must have had some men in it.  Anyway, on this spurious pretext, on two successive nights they get their father drunk on wine, and they each have incestuous sex with their father.  Above, Lot and His Daughters by Albrecht Altdorfer, 1537.  Each becomes pregnant and their children start two more tribes, the Moabites and the Ammonites.

Need I say that this deed of Lot's daughters is incredibly immoral?  And Lot shouldn't get off the hook either.  Even when drunk, he should draw the line at sex with his own daughters.  But he doesn't.  No, these three are among the most evil people in the Bible.  They certainly deserved to die more than the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, who were merely gay.  But no, Biblical morality says that it's fine to offer your daughters to a mob to be raped, and it's just dandy to have incestuous sex.

Pardon me if I don't agree with these "Judeo-Christian" values.

College Streaking - Part 29

Round 2
Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts

Continuing my second round of photos from the 1974 college streaking craze.

Above, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, from the March 12, 1974 issue of the student newspaper The Emory Wheel.  A rare full-frontal view.  Most contemporary publications only published rear views.

Another Emory University photo from the March 12, 1974 issue of the Emory Wheel.  I previously posted another view of this same streaker.

DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois, March 8, 1974.  From the 1974 yearbook DePaulian.

Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, March 14, 1974.

A video of parachute streakers at the University of Illinois, March 10, 1974.

Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, from the 45th reunion yearbook of the class of 1974.

Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, from the 1974 yearbook Pasticcio.

University of Massachusetts, from the 1974 yearbook The Index.

University of Massachusetts, from the 1974 yearbook The Index.  Note the full-frontal views.

University of Massachusetts, from the 1974 yearbook The Index.  More frontal views.

More college streakers to come.  Stay tuned.

Hiking - Part 24

 The Naked Rambler

Stephen Gough, at left, is known in England as the Naked Rambler.  In 2003-2004 he walked from Lands End, the extreme southwest corner of England, to John O'Groats, the extreme northeast corner of Scotland.  This is famous as the longest walk that you can do in Britain.

He did the whole walk naked, wearing only socks, boots, a hat, and a backpack.  He's pictured here with his then-girlfriend, Melanie Roberts, setting out from Lands End on a second naked walk in 2005.  As the sign says, it's 874 miles to John O'Groats.

Here he is at the finish line in John O'Groats in 2004.  His girlfriend stayed with him for the 2005 walk, but broke up with him afterwards.

Here he is being interviewed in 2004.  It must be at the start of the walk, because he hadn't grown a beard yet.

Fence?  No problem, but be careful of the barbed wire.

He was arrested multiple times for public indecency or "breach of the peace" and imprisoned, sometimes for long periods.  But after being released, he continued walking naked.  Here he is in 2012 after serving 657 days in prison.  3 days later, he was re-arrested.

At a pre-trial hearing, he appeared at the hearing naked, resulting in his being found in contempt of court.  Here he is, being taken away after the hearing.

He was released from Saughton Prison in Edinburgh on October 5, 2012.  Accompanied by reporters, photographers, and a film crew, he was able to walk the 70 miles, naked, to the English border in 5 days.  Above, he walks through Peebles, Scotland, heading south.

This is a short clip from a longer piece called "Fly on the Wall - the Naked Rambler Documentary" showing him talking to reporters and then washing in a stream in the Cardrona Forest, near Peebles, Scotland.  You can see a photographer taking pictures of him in the stream.

And here's one of the pictures that resulted.

But his troubles were not over.  He refuses to get dressed, even when judges or police tell him to.  Here he is being arrested in 2013 in Southampton, England.

For Gough, it's a matter of principle.  He brought a lawsuit in the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that laws requiring him to wear clothing violated his right to free expression, but his claim was rejected in 2014.

Artists - Part 28

 Paul Wonner

Paul Wonner (1920-2008) met his artistic partner and lover, William Theophilus Brown, in 1952 when they were both postgrad students at the University of California, Berkeley.  His early work was in the Abstract Expressionist style, but in the 1950s, Wonner and Brown joined the Bay Area Figurative movement that was reacting against abstraction in art.

(Above: self portrait, Youth and Old Age, Artist and Model and Red Carpet, 2003.)

Figurative art was representational, not abstract.  In the 1950s among all the other abstract artists, this was actually avant-garde.

(Above: Nude and Statue, 1969, compares a nude man to a Greek kouros statue.  Note that the background is still rather abstract.)

Wonner became known for still life paintings that featured traditional subjects like fruit, separated by almost surrealistic empty spaces.  He painted dozens and dozens of still lifes.  I haven't included any examples here, because this is The Unashamed Male, not The Unashamed Fruit and Kitchen Towels on a Table.

But he also painted a large number of male nudes, and I will show you some of those.

(Above: 1970-1975 untitled (nude on rug).)

A favorite theme of his was the self portrait of the artist painting the model.  This is Artist and Model, 2001-2006.

This is Artist and Model with a Rose, 2002.

This is Artist and Model with Red Robe, 2002.

This is Youth and Old Age, Artist, Model, Pots of Flowers, 2003.  There are many more examples of artist-model paintings (I found 19 of them), and in every one of them, the model is a naked male.

Another recurring theme was paintings of bathers in the style of Cézanne.  This is Bathers After Cézanne, 2003.  The difference is that Cézanne's paintings depicted nude female bathers, and Wonner's paintings depicted males.

This is Bathers After Cézanne, 2004.

We end with an undated, untitled painting of a nude man on a rug that exemplifies what Wonner loved to paint.  Today, his works are found in major art museums, including the Smithsonian in Washington, DC and the Guggenheim in New York.