Kevin Clarke responds

Kevin Clarke on the Bareback in Porn Controversy.

Director Kevin Clarke started in Gay Porn in 1995, very quickly moving to the forefront of director/producers in this biz. With Rad Video & Delta, Clarke discovered a new generation of Twink Porn models in the late 90's, standouts like Christian Owen , Ashton Ryan, Christian Taylor, Joe Landon and Antonio Madiera

A friend directed me to this Blog and there are so many things to say I do not know where to start. The first time I went to a funeral for an AIDS victim was in 1982 in SF. The casket was closed as at that time funeral directors would not touch the bodies because they did not know yet what the cause was. That was 25 years ago. Since then I can count the people I have lost. There were good friends, Paul Rappoport a founder of the Gay Men's Health Crisis in NYC. GMHC was founded by a group of men who lived in the fear of dying and sadly most of them did.

Anthony Holland a marvelous character actor who used to joke about how he did "The Tempest" directed by John Cassevetes in Greece then went right into "The Lonely Lady" with Pia Zadora. If you go to his IMDB listing you see a life that ends in 1989. His last appearance was at the 1989 Academy Awards in the memorial section. I could list dozens but the point is so many wonderful lives were cut short.My world and my community was decimated beyond anything anyone could bear.

When I started in porn in 1995 part of the reason was to help in HIV education. My first video "Pleasure Principle" was about someone trying to fuck someone else without condoms.Back then medicine was getting better at treating the opportunistic diseases but people were still dying.

I remember seeing director Bill Hunter at the French Market in WEHO wasted away with IV connection in his arms eating and he was dead a few weeks later. Again I could go on and on but the point is coming from that reality there was no way I would ever consider shooting bareback. When I retired it was in no small part because barebacking was taking over the market. I saw HIV enter my company to the point that I had to protect my models from one of my models it was insane.

In fairness there were always slimebags in porn. Now we had a new breed led by Bryan Kocis of Cobra. He took and abused these young men simply so he could make money without regard for their health. He helped set the stage for the current reality where if you talk to a 18 yo they will tell you that unsafe sex is the norm in their life and they don;t get tested sometimes they ask the status of their partners and take their partners word for it when they do ask. It's not like people don't still die.

True not in the numbers they once did but less then a year ago I lost my friend Brandy Dalton of Drance who did the music for most of my video's. He fought valiantly for 15 years before dying. I was talking to my friend Mickey Skee about this and he said it was like I woke up one day and the world regarding AIDS had changed. It was ok to be as extreme as you could. Who cares who gets HIV.

I see twink porn flooding the market from eastern Europe and some of it by slimebags like Dan Komar who could care less about the health of the boys. He like others here in the US are more concerned in being with the boys rather then the boys themselves.

One this is sure this madness will cost lives. Young men will die. Lives will be cut short. Who cares though, some people will make money isn't that all that matters? We have allowed a new generation of gay men to think that bareback is where it is at... We all should be ashamed of ourselves, but we should all be angry, we damm well better get angry because this time we are doing this to ourselves. It is shameful, and despicable, but more than that it is the personification of evil itself. For our pleasure we sacrifice a new generation of gay men.

We can thank Bryan Kocis among others for this wonderful legacy of death and debasement. We can praise people like Chi-Chi and John Rutherford and Steven Scarborough who are trying to hold the line, but in the final analysis this is a battle we have lost because we were not diligent and did not care enough about ourselves to stop this madness.

As long as there are people like Bryan Kocis who are more concerned with fucking their models then protecting them this will go on. The bad guys are winning and the boys will be dying how anyone thinks that is hot is beyond me. I would give anything to have Anthony Holland back but now all I can do is wait for more to go like him. MADNESS

An Army of Dude (Blogging from the War)

Bloggers have an obligation to share and link great Blogs they have discovered and enjoyed. Many of you may be surprised by my blog interests, I read Political (Left,Right and Libertarian) Science, History, Gay,Religious (got to keep up with my OLD fundy friends) and even the odd Celebrity Blog. The real stars of the Blogsphere, are the exceptional writers with the unique perspective unfiltered thru Mass Media Homogenization.

I link many blogs without comment in my Blogroll but when I come across an exceptional "Voice" then a "Shout out" is in order. An Army of Dude is one such Blog, War,Politics,Ranting,musing about Culture and History by Alex a 22 yo soldier from North Texas who just happens to have been fighting in Iraq while Blogging.

Did I say a Unique Voice?

Especially since the Pentagon has tried to FORBID Blogging in order to CENSOR the voices of the Men and Women fighting in Iraq lest the civilian population become "enlightened" never mind they are cutting off many young writers from a legitimate personal activity. Golly Gee good thing the Pentagon Wonks were not in charge of taking pencil & paper from the Civil War era Vets or Ken Burns The Civil War would have been a 30 minute short!

Thank God some young soldiers like their forefathers in WW2 Korea and Vietnam have given a big Fat Fuck You to the Pentagon and its Political Soldiers (Oxymoron?). Don't get me started on the need for military secrecy this new policy was only instituted After Mr.Bush's war went all Mission Unaccomplished! Soldiers wrote home in WWII with operational info REDACTED. The Pentagon needs to deal with a 21st century Culture of Blogging & email, not just pull the plug!

Alex has been writing his Blog under difficult circumstances (Think I mentioned a War somewhere) filling his posts with bits of Iraq,Army life, and yes his strong views on the politics behind HIS War. He has since returned from Iraq and immediately stepped into Rush Limbaugh's phony Soldier controversy. I highly recommend Army of Dude you may get angry, you will certainly laugh, you may get a little teary eyed but you will certainly remember Alex this Blogging soldier from Texas/Iraq.


"Last week I was invited to a dinner,,,,
I retained my 'quiet with a few clever puns' persona and as such, didn't contribute much to the conversation. It felt like I had nothing of relevance to say about the topics that came up. My grasp of news and politics was more than a year old; only the biggest stories made their way across the ocean. By taking part in the biggest thing happening in our culture, I sacrificed being in the culture itself. I refused to be that guy who starts off every sentence with "this one time in Iraq..." But my options are slim. I could recall stories of my trip to Europe in April, but then it would be, "Dude, this one time in Amsterdam." There's only so many times you can regale people with stories about aggressive transvestite prostitutes.

With my Texan accent sticking out like a Dutch hooker's crotch, it was only a matter of time before Lauren's cousin asked where I was from. I told her I had lived in north Texas most of my life and went back to poking around the sausage in my spaghetti. Lauren's mother then gave an updated biography, saying I had just gotten back from Iraq and that I chronicled my deployment in a blog (wink!). After she asked what I wrote about, I launched into a tirade about applying personal experiences of the war to the larger aspect that isn't in the mainstream media. I must've looked silly, talking with urgency and saying more words in one minute than the whole evening prior. I realized the conundrum I was in. The subject I didn't want to come up was the only one I can apply myself to. An elephant in the room that only I could see.

After a month I'm still not quite comfortable with being in small, crowded and loud places like bars. My senses are more refined now. I'm a more attentive driver and I can see and hear things a lot differently. A club with a thousand different conversations used to be collective noise. Now I hear an endless amount of distinct voices and every note coming from the DJ. I'm agitated by people coming too close or brushing up against me like never before. I don't jump, twitch or moan when I hear an expected loud noise. You know the feeling you get when you narrowly avoid a car crash? That's what I get. I'm perfectly fine at first glance, but the blood drains from my face and my scalp tingles. I may or may not break into a sweat at this point.

I don't recall many dreams while I was in Iraq, but now they flood my subconsciousness. In one I'm riding in a bus and hanging out the window. Another bus in the opposite lane passes by, and Jesse Williams is waving to me from inside. I wave back. Another has me on a routine patrol when I find half a body on the side of the road. It's Chevy. His face is twisted but recognizable. His lower half is gone, despite his body being intact when he died.

Despite the hardships we face alone, I feel incredibly lucky to have my family and friends here for me, who understand the best they can. It was fitting I started this entry with Lauren, wise and empathetic beyond her years. A month with these challenges seems minuscule when compared to the month of joy I shared with her.

For everyone else, the nature of this war prevents the public from a full grasp of understanding. In the wars of past generations, soldiers volunteered or were drafted by the millions. In the case of World War II, families endured rations and donated to the war effort. Almost every single American contributed to victory. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, the war is squeezed into a half hour of prime time television. In WWII, in Korea, in Vietnam, we were a country at war. Now we're a military at war, with less than 1% of the population in uniform. Unless you have a friend or family member in the military, it's a separate reality. In airports and in living rooms, you can see for yourself the effect in the eyes of a soldier at war for fifteen months at a time, hidden behind a smile that conceals a secret: you'll never quite understand what we did there.

Like Atlas, we carry the immense burden of the country on our shoulders, waiting for the day seemingly long into the future when the American people say, that will do."

Alex really stepped into a media hub bub opon his return stateside when he got into the Rush Limbaugh phony soldiers flap. His take on phony soldiers is an Acid-filled Satirical Romp which could only be written by a Real Soldier who served in Harms way!


The Real Deal

,,,,,"Of course, this is the same Rush Limbaugh who threw a fit about the Moveon.org Petraeus ad, calling it "contemptible" and "indecent." Apparently anyone in the military is above criticism as long as they agree with Rush's brave belief that we should be in Iraq "as long as it takes." And I use the term 'we' loosely, as I believe the closest Rush has ever gotten to combat was watching We Were Soldiers with surround sound.

When I was a kid I watched Rush with my dad every morning when he was still on TV and always found him pretty funny and clever. Over the years I didn't have a very concrete opinion about him, I just knew him as the kooky conservative radio host who defended Bush at every turn (and hey, so did I). What did Rush and I have to lose when the war in Iraq started in 2003?

I didn't have any family in the military, and all my friends were too young to even enlist. Why not go kick the shit out of a country, as long as someone else was doing it? This was the last time Rush and I would agree on the war, so here's my opinion of you, Rush: you're as smart, selfless and courageous as I was as a 17 year old high school senior.

You make a good point that people who joined the military during the war knew they were going and shouldn't be against it. As I've seen since I joined in 2004, everyone in the military is gung ho to a certain extent, at least in the beginning of their career. I was part of a large group of new guys who got to a unit that just got back from a year long deployment. After our hazing sessions became less and less frequent in the following months, we listened to the stories all of them were telling, of vicious firefights and rescue missions. We all wanted to do our part, we all wanted to get some too. We were going to see what it was like to take a life.

Too bad Rush missed his chance to do so, or maybe he'd be singing a different tune. In 1992, ABC newsman Jeff Greenfield posed a question to Rush, asking if he had ever served in the military during the Vietnam War. Here is what Rush had to say:

I had student deferments in college, and upon taking a physical, was discovered to have a physical- uh, by virtue of what the military says, I didn't even know it existed- a physical deferment and then the lottery system came along, where they chose your lost by birth date, and mine was high. And I did not want to go, just as Governor Clinton didn't.

As a phony civilian hoping to be a phony soldier, I tried to enlist in the military after I graduated high school in 2003",,,,
read the rest here.

I'll warn you its Fierce and Hilarious!

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The video below is a new ad running in response to Rush's comments about "phony soldiers"
once again Alex has the "Real Soldiers" perspective.






We learn that the man in the ad was wounded in a suicide bomber attack while convoying in Mosul in 2003 and suffered traumatic brain injury as well as shrapnel to the head. As you can imagine, he has since become a vocal critic of the Iraq war.

Of course Rush got wind of this ad (a radio version will run during his show in some areas!) and had this to say about it:

"This is such a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, lying to him about what I said and then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media and a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into. This man will always be a hero to this country with everyone. Whoever pumped him full of these lies about what I said and embarrassed him with this ad has betrayed him, they aren't hurting me they are betraying this soldier."

People have been writing in en masse to tell me how I got the story wrong, and Rush supports the troops and so on. But this is what he has been accused of the whole time:
Holding veterans in superhero regard if they support the war to appeal to the patriotic senses of his listeners while simultaneously putting down dissenting soldiers, to appeal to the angry, resentful senses of his listeners.

In 2005 when anti war veteran Paul Hackett ran for the Ohio Senate, Rush called him a military "staff puke," saying he volunteered for Iraq simply to pad his resumé so he could run as a war veteran. A liberal hiding behind a military uniform! I'm sure if he was a pro-war, pro-Bush candidate, the praises would never stop. This strengthens the latest debate on his phony soldier remark last week.

Rush's reactionaries and defenders have been telling me the liberal media (namely Media Matters) has taken his 'phony soldier' quote out of context in a smear campaign designed to make Limbaugh appear to be against any soldier against war policy. The article goes on:
The problem with the exchange, say critics, is that Limbaugh refers to multiple "soldiers." He gets to a conversation about Macbeth about two minutes after referring to "phony soldiers." In subsequent radio shows, Limbaugh attempted to clarify his position, but muddied the waters by editing out a portion of it, prompting outrage from the liberal media watchdog Media Matters, which has been driving this latest controversy.


Now where did this reporting come from? Daily Kos? Moveon.org? The New Republic? Why, none other than Fox News, the last refuge of information for the Rush elitists. How's that for bias?

Apparently Rush has no shame left, comparing Brian McGough to a suicide bomber on behalf of liberal jihadists. I am surprised, however, that he acknowledged someone who was phony in the first place. Thanks for your service, but you obviously have no independent thought Brian. You parrot leftist views while Petraeus, representing the political arm of the military, gives no BS assessments without ulterior motives to pad his resumé.

Now you know how Rush stands, Read the rest including some of the Hate mail from the Ditto-Heads all ChickenHawks most likely ;-)




"There is a core of anger in the soul of almost every veteran, and we are justified in calling it bitterness, but the bitterness of one man is not the same thing as the bitterness of another. In one man it becomes a consuming flame that sears his soul and burns his body. In another it is barely traceable. It leads one man to outbursts of temper, another to social radicalism, and a third to excesses of conservatism."

- WW I veteran Willard Waller in 1944, anticipating the return of the troops from WW II