New Brian Epstein biography suggests homosexual affair with Beatle

Also, I don't believe Brian was the secret to the Beatles success anymore than I think McCartney invented meat and the color blue, so there.

Hard to say, because no one's come out while at their pinnacle of success since Elton John in 1976. All the big-name artists who have come out since then have been on their downward slide sales-wise, the most recent being George Michael and Rob Halford.

At any rate, Drew's point is spot-on and is illuminated beautifully by the quote above:

> Only Lennon and Epstein know what happened on that trip and neither are alive to defend themselves.

That one would be asked to "defend" against such a thing justifies this entire conversation.

uh, what? elaborate please. did Sved willfully omit something in "Space is the Place"? It made perfect sense to me that Sun Ra was pretty asexual, it certainly fits in with his paradigm/mythos....

But also, is it so impossible that they could have travelled as friends without 'arousing'?

I have travelled abroad in the past with girl(s) without becoming sexually entangled with them. That would be seen as a normal thing. Just cause John was a good looking chap, and Brian was gay, does not mean that a liaison was impossible to avoid.

This is, indeed, an old 'story', as well as the beating he gave B.Wooler after his 'funny' joke about it. (He could have been more offended about Wooler being a narrow minded get about his friend. Of course, he could also have been "don't you call me a poof"ing. You choose.)

Dusty Springfield was gay because her fans wanted her to be. Dusty S was a very private person, so she was gay with her girlfriend in private. (I'm not good on her history, so forgive me if that's too simple).

John Lennon was not gay for similar reasons. In private, who knows or cares. He might have tried one time to see what the fuss was about.

I'm only waffling now. Guess who's just got broadband at home.

Your sexuality is most interesting, I think, when it enters your work and attracts no attention. I have in mind Bob Mound, Grant Hart, early Pet Shop Boys, or Imperial Teen. In the case of the PSB their subtext is pretty obvious to a discerning listener, but in any case, not integral to enjoying their work (as in poor Gay Messiah Rufus Wainwright).

yeah, checking out the name of the book, and seeing the niche marketing bonanza represented by the queer dollar (i.e. a population who are hungry for validation and who feel, quoting Duberman here, "hidden from history") it is certainly true that corny cash-in attempts to out people are also going around.
And nabisco's point is well taken that not every "outing" is positive- look at the queer baiting that went on about the D.C. sniper's relationship with his accomplice etc.

I saw a fascinating talk by Heather Love called "Emotional Rescue" which was about this dynamic in queer scholarship in which the historical reclamation of encrypted queerness becomes this wildly overdetermined / impossible activity- I hope it gets published because it really nailed all of the problems in this mode of reading the past for the sake of visibility and social change in the present.

JW: Let me ask you about something else that was in the Hunter Davies book. At one point it said you and Brian Epstien went off to Spain.

JL: Yes. We didn't have an affair, though. Fuck knows what was said. I was pretty close to Brian. If somebody is going to manage me, I want to know them inside out. He told me he was a fag.

I hate the way Allen [Klein?] is attacked and Brian is made out to be an angel just because he's dead. He wasn't you know, he was just a guy.

I remember this fairly vividly, he put it down to Sonny only having one testicle, basically. I forget whether that was due to an injury or if it was a birth "defect".

I'm fairly sure I read this about 6 months before it 'broke'.

Whatever, that's not actually important.

All I ask is that there be no "Fabulous Fab Four" gay pride floats.

In 1963, John Lennon beat up Bob Wooler unto hospitalization when he asked about John's "Spanish Honeymoon" with Brian -- Lennon's lifelong friend Pete Shotton has said that directly afterwards John offered to swap wives with him, how's that for ickily desperate; plus, for some time (did he wise up in the seventies?) he was not above mocking fags and queers, Epstein specifically (the "baby you're a rich fag jew" line of legend).

Lennon's a good case-in-point. Although the evidence had been given public airing before (Pete Shotton's book, in 1983; there may have been others), the moment when it all totally exploded was when it was reported in Goldman's The Many Lives of John Lennon, written by a guy who had been shitting out the most obnoxious gay blood-libel for decades at that point.

Rob Halford was in?

i'm surprised to see no mention of christopher munch's "the hours and times," a short film about this very subject.

Oh, I know *all* about that, believe you me. (Hell, even if I wasn't gay, I'd know that -- the best places to go bird-watching in Central Park also happen to be the best places for anonymous encounters.) Doesn't make it any less sordid in my mind. Better a feller who could sin mightily than one who'd scamper off like a mouse under the floorboards to have his fun...and Ray Monk doesn't even give us *that*, making a pretty plausible case at the end of his bio that probably all W did at the Prater was gawk, if that. Though maybe there's some recent scholarship I don't know about that paints a clearer picture...I haven't kept up.

"Shotton later said that John had told him about the 'Spanish Honeymoon.' 'What happened,' John said, according to Shotton, 'is that Eppy just kept on and on at me. Until one night I finally pulled me trousers down and said to him, "Oh, for Christ's sake, Brian, just stick it up me fucking arse then." And he said to me, "Actually John, I don't do that kind of thing. That's not what I like to do." "Well," I said, "what is it you want to do then?" And he said, "I'd really just like to touch you, John." And so I let him toss me off. So what harm did it do, then, Pete, for fuck's sake?'"

So how does that work as a positive role model? I guess some gay guys might get off on the idea that someone they admire got it on with another dude, but personally as far as role models go, I have higher standards.

(as far as where I'm coming from - I'm gay and a Lennon fan - but this supposed incident has never had any significance for me)

I thought this was interesting enough for a revive, maybe not.

Well, it asked a question, it got a debate, and a fairly conclusive answer.

Can't be bad!