360 Magazine, Bob Mizer and the Athletic Model Guild

Even a casual reader of my blogs surely notices my passion for the photographers and studios producing in the 1930's through the 1960's what we today call vintage beefcake photographs.

When you jump to this post on the blog, you can read my interview with Dennis Bell, the current owner of the Athletic Model Guild and founder of the Bob Mizer Foundation. I was pleased when Bell's recent Kickstarter campaign raised nearly $13,000, enabling the Foundation to purchase storage fixtures and materials to properly archive Mizer's massive collection of photographs, negatives, prints, slides, films and other ephemera.

To promote the Foundation and its Kickstrater campaign, I pitched to the publishers of the LGBTQ newspaper, Bay Times, articles featuring Bell, Mizer and the Athletic Model Guild.

I co-wrote with Bell the article appearing on page 26 of the paper's Gay Pride issue, which came out the Thursday before 1,000,000 people descended on San Francisco to celebrate Gay Pride Weekend and watch its Gay Pride Parade:

http://issuu.com/sanfranciscobaytimes/docs/2012-06-21

I was pleased one of Mizer's early, rarely seen photographs appeared on the cover of this issue, whose centerfold article I co-wrote with Bell:

http://issuu.com/sanfranciscobaytimes/docs/2012-07-12

And today I was thrilled to see three of Mizer's photographs and an excerpt of my interview with Bell appear in Volume 8 of 360 Magazine:

http://www.the360mag.com/issue.html (Flipbook version)

http://yakinworks.com/360AnE2012PDFdl.pdf (pdf version)

The two pager starts on page 188, but I suggest you take the time to thumb through this gorgeous magazine dedicated to fashion, art and entertainment.

It is gratifying to see a mainstream magazine acknowledge the trailblazing work Mizer and his contemporary physique photographers did in the commercialization of male beauty - before them, there was no such thing as a "male model."

Business Manager at the San Francisco Bay Times

UPDATED April 30, 2013: From March, 2012 to March, 2013, I was the business manager at the biweekly LGBTQ newspaper  Bay Times, whose emphasis is on articles about the LGBTQ community written by LGBTQ people living in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.

In April, 2012, I used an iPhone to take this photograph, which appears in the newspaper's May 3, 2012 issue.

I captured this moment during a recording of the Bay Times' monthly podcast at Cafe Flore, a very popular cafe in the Castro. Seated are Mark Leno (campaigning to be re-elected as a California State Senator), co-publisher Betty Sullivan, Tom Ammiano (campaigning to be re-elected to the California Assembly) and columnist Manny Apolonio. Standing on the left are musician John Steiner and Gary Virginia (Cafe Flore manager and a Grand Marshal of the 2012 Gay Pride Parade), while co-publisher Jennifer Viegas has her arm around Manny's shoulders.