Vintage Military - Part 35

 World War II - Philippines

Before World War II, the Philippines had been a Spanish colony, then a U.S. colony.  In 1935 the U.S made the Philippines a semi-independent Commonwealth with foreign affairs still handled by the U.S.  The photo above, taken by LIFE photographer Carl Mydans, shows Philippine soldiers showering in 1941 shortly before World War II broke out.

8 hours after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Japan invaded the Philippines.  U.S. and Philippine forces under General Douglas MacArthur withdrew to the Bataan peninsula, where they held out for a few months.  Japan's conquest of the Philippines is considered by some to be the worst defeat in U.S. military history.  President Franklin Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to relocate to Australia to become Supreme Allied Commander in the Southwest Pacific.  When he left the Philippines, MacArthur famously promised, "I shall return."

After reconquering New Guinea from the Japanese, which we have seen in previous posts, MacArthur fulfilled his promise to return to the Philippines by landing on the island of Leyte on Oct. 20, 1944.  Above is a photo of a second U.S. invasion of Leyte in December, 1944, with supplies being unloaded from LST craft.  To avoid working in wet uniforms, the troops either wore undershorts or worked naked.

Except where noted, all of today's photos are from the amazing LIFE photo archive and were taken by LIFE photographer Carl Mydans, who accompanied the U.S. troops.  These photos were not published in LIFE magazine.  Disclosure: I cropped the photo above to show detail.

This photo from the book My Buddy: World War II Laid Bare shows a sailor lathering up in Ormoc Bay in December, 1944 during the invasion of Leyte.

On S-day, January 9, 1945, the Americans invaded Luzon, the Philippine island containing the capital, Manila.  Again, Carl Mydans was on hand to photograph supplies being unloaded from LSTs.

Above is a cropped and enlarged section of the previous photo, showing a soldier at the front of the LST working without clothes and without concern.

Soldiers bathed however they could.  In a 1945 photo set called The Battle Moves Toward Manila, Mydans showed soldiers bathing with tins of water on the porch of a building.

Others had buckets of water.

Soldiers in the field might bathe in a river.

Or they might take a bucket shower in camp with the help of a buddy.

We end with short video clip from the U.S. National Archives of soldiers bathing in a fountain in Ormoc on the island of Leyte.  This sequence also appeared in a Pathé newsreel.  We think we're more permissive than our parents and grandparents, but people in the 1940s thought nothing of seeing soldiers' butts in a newsreel shown in public theaters.

Manila was secured by March, 1945 and all Japanese resistance in the Philippines was over by June.  After World War II ended, the U.S. recognized the Philippines as a fully independent nation on July 4, 1946.

Not the Same Old Song - Part 23

 Come Upstairs

The title track of Carly Simon's 1980 album Come Upstairs was described by one reviewer as "frisky and seductive."  In the video above, I paired the chorus from the song with some footage that flips the gender of who the song is asking you to come upstairs with.  I think my friend Rick of Sicko Ricko's Crap will appreciate the view of Nick Sandell as he goes up the stairs.

College Streaking - Part 34

 Berkeley Naked Run

Twice a year, students at the University of California, Berkeley conduct a naked run.  It's held during "dead week," the week before final exams each semester.

Students run through the Gardner Main Stacks, part of the Berkeley library.  Above is part of the naked run in 2007.

The next five photos are from the 2011 naked run.

More runners in 2011.

The Gardner Main Stacks is an underground library with four levels.

It was built underground because the Berkeley campus was running out of room for another aboveground building when the library needed to be expanded.

Berkeley's library is one of the largest in the U.S., with over 13 million volumes.

The streakers' route then goes down a circular staircase in the library.  This video is from the fall 2011 streak.

The run ends in the rotunda at the bottom of the staircase, as in this video from spring 2014.

Lots of other students gather to watch the streakers, as seen in this video from December, 2017.  The chant at the end is "Take off your clothes."

Hiking - Part 28

 Lake Powell

Lake Powell is a reservoir formed by the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River.  The dam is in Arizona, but most of the lake is in Utah.  Today's post is not about a "hike" per se, but you can rent a houseboat to explore the lake and the surrounding Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.  The lake extends into over 96 side canyons, so the 186-mile long lake has a shoreline of almost 2000 miles that can be explored.

This post is the story of a trip to Lake Powell in 2017 by three commercial photographers, Mark Grantham, his husband Mike Tossy, and their friend Gordon Nebeker. For several years, they arranged an annual photoshoot  of nude male models on Lake Powell.  In 2017, there were two models: Devin Franco, above ...

and Yorgen.

The rented a houseboat on the lake from Sept. 13-17, 2017.  Here are Devin and Yorgen on the houseboat.

The houseboat also came with a smaller motorboat to explore narrower side channels where the houseboat couldn't go

Normally, on these Lake Powell photoshoots, the spectacular scenery complements the beauty of the male models.

But in 2017 something happened.  The chemistry between Devin and Yorgen started to take the spotlight, leaving the scenic backgrounds, well, in the background.

Devin and Yorgen had never met before this trip, but they quickly made up for lost time ...

Whether playing in the lake ...

Or enjoying a moment in the houseboat's outdoor shower ...

Or kissing during a photo session by the lakeside.  I made this gif from a series of photos of them kissing to show how kissing can affect a certain male organ.

Some further kissing reveals that Yorgen is also feeling the effects.

After all this, the only question in my mind was, who was going to be the top and who was the bottom?  It turns out that Devin is not just a model; he performs in gay porn videos (search for Devin Franco and you'll find them).  In the videos he is usually a bottom, although he's versatile.  This photo suggests that Yorgen is a power bottom.

But his behavior with Devin suggested otherwise.  Here, he and Devin are fooling around, both evidently ready for some action.

And it looks like they went for it.

Are they just simulating sex for the photographers, or are they actually doing it?  I think it's real, for three reasons: first, Devin has done porn videos and is presumably not shy.  Second, they were clearly turned on.  And third, photos by these same photographers of other models at other Lake Powell photoshoots don't show any sex, simulated or otherwise.  So, I think this is Devin and Yorgen doing their thing, and the photographers were happy to be there to record it.

*        *        *

As a sobering postscript, the water level in Lake Powell, as well as Lake Mead, has been dropping drastically due to the continuing drought in the Southwest, probably related to global warming.  Lake Powell is now down to less than 25% of its capacity.  Although the immediate concern is the region's need for water, it would be a shame if, as a side effect of the drought, expeditions like this photoshoot became a thing of the past.

Artists - Part 33

Alfonso del Moral

Alfonso del Moral is a Spanish painter born in 1992.  Above is a self-portrait, 2020.

His work includes many pantings of the Moorish architecture of Andalusia, but he especially likes to paint people.  In addition to conventional face portraits, he has done more revealing portraits such as Levi, 2022, above.

In 2021 the gallery Arniches de Madrid showed a group of his paintings called "Just some fantasies."  The paintings were based on photos that Instagram users had sent him privately.  The rest of the photos in this post are from the "Just some fantasies" series.  Above, a pastoral nude.

A guy posing coyly.

This painting of a selfie evokes the mirror paintings of the Dutch masters, with the elaborate objects reflected – except it's also a nude.

This one is surrealistic.  The multiple arms suggest the Indian god Shiva, while the shadow of one leg somehow grows a foot in the foreground.

This erotic work suggests motion by the multiple superimposed images.

This one does the same thing with multiple images of the eyes.  It's almost enough to draw your attention away from what he's doing.

This is Javier y Daniel, 2020.  Here there are some restrained multiple images to suggest motion, but our attention is definitely not drawn away from what they're doing.

You can see many more of Alfonso del Moral's works on his website http://adelmoral.art.

Protests - Part 30

 Berkeley - Save the Trees

Nudity is nothing new at the University of California at Berkeley.  Above, a group of men from the UC Berkeley Summer School of Surveying having some naked fun at a swimming hole in the 1890s.

In 2007 a group of protesters stripped down for the camera in a grove of oak trees on the UC Berkeley campus.  The university planned to raze the grove to make room for an athletic training center building.

San Francisco photographer Jack Gescheidt organized the nude protest as part of his ongoing Tree Spirit Project in which he photographs naked people in and around trees.

After stripping, the protesters were photographed lying on the ground under the trees.

A few adventurous types climbed up into the trees.

Including this unashamed guy.

Then the protesters got dressed and left.  

The same project also included expending Berkeley's Memorial Stadium, which is located right over the Hayward Fault.  The Hayward Fault is not as famous as the San Andreas Fault, but it's just as dangerous, and it runs through heavily populated Oakland and Berkeley.  A judge granted a temporary injunction to halt the building plan because it did not adequately address the risks from the fault.

In addition to the nude protest, a tree sit-in was held for two years from Dec. 2006 to Sept. 2008.  But in Sept. 2008, the trees were finally cut down.

Another Berkeley nude tree protest happened on July 18, 2015.  50 to 75 people protested a FEMA plan to cut down eucalyptus trees in the East Bay area as part of a fire hazard abatement project. 

The Berkeley protest was held in a eucalyptus grove on the UC Berkeley campus, although these particular trees were not targeted by the FEMA plan.

This protest was also organized by Jack Gescheidt's Tree Spirit Project, and it basically consisted of tree hugging by nude men, women and children.

UC Berkeley holds other nude events, including an annual naked run, but I'll cover that later in my College Streaking series.