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Press Releases for Male Models Vintage Beefcake:
December 12, 2014: I interview Emmy and Peabody award-winning television writer/director/producer Richard Kramer in this post on my blog Mike The Content Producer.
Richard connected with me on Twitter. One of the first things he mentioned was our mutual passion for vintage beefcake.
I was delighted when he sat down for this online conversation about his television career and debut novel These Things Happen.
January 24, 2014: I am amazed my blog Male Models Vintage Beefcake has surpassed eight million views.
In January, 2009, I started it to share my collection of vintage beefcake photographs with like-minded enthusiasts.
3,742 blog posts later, I'm delighted by the letters and emails of appreciation from new and old fans, by the numerous collections and books generously shared with me, and by the personal stories related to me by men who clandestinely collected physique photographs and magazines in the 1950's and '60's, when possessing images of nude men was not only illegal in the United States, but would almost certainly guarantee a gay man losing his job and his social standing in his community and church.
In this post on the blog Male Models Vintage Beefcake, you can read about my work on the book, One Man's Collection, with Zach Augustine to tell the story of an unknown man, whose hidden collection of superb vintage beefcake photographs was very nearly sent to a landfill after his death.
Handling, organizing and scanning the images of One Man's Collection has been one of my chief pleasures resulting from Male Models Vintage Beefcake. I've not seen anywhere else many of these photographs.
Zach has been the collection's careful custodian for more than twenty years. I know the book's design could not be in more capable hands than his, as we ready our book for publication.
October 22, 2012: I was interviewed by Jonathan Plombon for his article, "Between Sheets and Ropes: Pro Wrestling and Its Scandalized Sibling Pornography," which appears in the current issue of Exploitation Retrospect
magazine, "the journal of junk culture & fringe media."
Plombon asked me, in particular, about Pepper Gomez, a very popular pro wrestler in the 1950's and 1960's, who also posed early in his career for physique photographers.
Plombon's article is a fun read. Exploitation Retrospect is a cool, strange magazine that's been around since 1986.
August 29, 2012: I was thrilled to see in Volume 8 of 360 Magazine three of Bob Mizer's photographs and an excerpt of my interview with Dennis Bell, the current owner of the Athletic Model Guild and founder of the Bob Mizer Foundation. (You can read the complete interview at this post on my blog Mike The Content Producer.):
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."
July 18, 2012: I was pleased when Dennis Bell's recent Kickstarter campaign raised nearly $13,000. Bell is the current owner of the Athletic Model Guild and founder of the Bob Mizer Foundation. The money will go toward purchasing storage fixtures and materials to properly archive Bob 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 delighted one of Mizer's early, rarely seen photographs appears on the cover of this issue, whose centerfold article I co-wrote with Bell:
http://issuu.com/sanfranciscobaytimes/docs/2012-07-12
June 16, 2012: I tour the massive archives of the Athletic Model Guild and interview its current owner, Dennis Bell, about AMG and his goals for the Bob Mizer Foundation, which he founded in 2010.
You can read the interview at this post on my blog Mike The Content Producer.
March 25, 2012: I was delighted when Goliath Books recently contacted me to ask if I were interested in writing a review of its "Goliath Wallpaper of Fame" magazine book, "Classic Male Nudes," the second in its series of very big, unbound books that open up into poster-size photographs.
You can read the review I just completed at this post on my blog Male Models Vintage Beefcake.
November 2, 2011: I interview popular physique model Rick Alexander aka Rich Sternberger in this post on my blog Mike The Content Producer.
Rick stumbled upon the blog Male Models Vintage Beefcake while searching for images of one of his favorite beefcake models. He was delighted to also find photographs of himself taken by Champion Studio.
I was thrilled when he introduced himself.
We soon sat down for this online conversation.
April 16, 2011: Since I started this blog, several readers have suggested I write a book on vintage beefcake.I am happy to announce I have partnered with Zach Augustine to do just that.
Our book is aptly titled One Man's Collection, since Zach acquired a massive collection of photographs belonging to a man who passed away in New York City in the early 1990's. Zach found the collection stashed in the back of a closet, left behind as garbage.
We donated the photograph you see in this post to the charity art auction, Skeletor Saves, held in New York City on April 7, 2011. The photograph is of an unknown model and was likely taken by Russ Warner in the 1950's.
Since we submitted it to the auction, I've been delighted to see the photograph popping up in blogs, forums and groups dedicated to vintage beefcake. It and the other photographs in the collection have been hidden out of sight long enough - It is a pleasure to work with Zach on this treasure trove of photographs, and I look forward to bringing all of the man's collection out of the closet and onto coffee tables everywhere - where it belongs!
January 19, 2011: The guardian.uk.co links to the blog with the word "beefcake" in its article on Tom of Finland's artwork being displayed in his hometown in Finland.
January 13, 2011: Fab.com's co-founder Bradford Shellhammer features the blog in his post on the Sundance Channel's website.
Go to Male Models Vintage Beefcake.
