Click here for SUBSTACK
Living in Bohemia
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.
Jack Kerouac, On the Road
BEARTY TALLLINN ESTONIA APRIL 16 — 19, 2026
https://www.bearty.org/guests-artists/
https://www.bearty.org/guests-artists/les-k.-wright-(us)
How We Live Now
Today is October 13, 2025. Today Donald Trump has flown to Israel to celebrate brokering the current ceasefire in Gaza, claiming it is the end of the war and declaring it “the historic dawn of a new Middle East.” He has been welcomed by an overwhelming majority of Israelis as “the greatest friend Israel has ever…
YOU CAN’T FIGHT IF YOU’RE DEAD
In light of yesterday’s catastrophic staged performance by Trump and Vance for all the world to see live, I need to share about that. It was a moment that “will live in infamy”—bringing shame on America for the rest of history. I think most people, except for the MAGA fools, now have gotten full measure…
I Wanted to Live Like a White Person
Notes on Being Old, Poor, and Gay Les K. Wright When I was one of the disaffected youth of the 1960s Bob Dylan spoke directly to me through his music. Fifty years later “Like a Rolling Stone” still speaks to me personally. When I was young the tone of righteous anger resonated for our generation. Wasn’t…
“The Most Terrible Loneliness” Notes on the Historical “Spoiled” Identity of Gay Men
“We’re creatures of the underworld. We can’t afford to love.” — Harold Zidler (Moulin Rouge) “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” –Oscar Wilde used to teach a literature course to college juniors I called “Foucault for Beginners and Others.” In keeping with academic jargon popular at the time, I described it as readings in…
SURVIVING TRUMP’S REIGN OF TERROR
These are only my suggestions. They are how I am coping and remaining hopeful. Don whatever you find most helpful for yourself. The least useful thing to do is to isolate and live in fear and anxiety. DON’T ISOLATE FIND A SAFE GROUP FOR SUPPORT BE PROACTIVE: DO THINGS THAT COUNTER ANY FEELINGS OF POWERLESSNESS…
UNDOING THE SECOND GILDED AGE
A Response to Robert Reich January 3, 2025 LES K. WRIGHT In his column posted today on Substack Robert Reich uses his best cheerleading voice to rally the troops to end our current Second Gilded Age. My postwar generation was taught about the first Gilded Age back in high school history class. We learned about…
43 YEARS OF “SURVIVING AND THRIVING” WITH HIV/AIDS
WORLD AID DAY 2024 LES K WRIGHT Today I observe my 43 years of living with HIV/AIDS. I was 28 when I was infected. I am now 71. To say I have been “surviving and thriving” is a facile sound byte that doesn’t hint at what that actually means. I am a member of the ‘forgotten…
R.I.P. PHILIP ZIMBARDO
I received the sad news this morning that fellow Billy Philip Zimbardo has passed away. https://www.thebillys.org/memorials/philip-zimbardo/ Philip George Zimbardo (March 23, 1933 – October 14, 2024) was an American psychologist and a professor at Stanford University.[1] He became known for his 1971 Stanford prison experiment, which was later criticized severely for both ethical and scientific…
REHOBOTH BEACH BEAR WEEKEND 2024
Adding a Very Personal Page to Bear History Les K. Wright In a recent article Bear World Magazine named Rehoboth Beach (DE) as one of “6 small bear-friendly cites” in the US. The other five they named are Provincetown (MA), Guerneville (CA), Asbury Park (NJ), Asheville (NC), and New Hope (PA). No doubt there are several other…
THE SOUL BENEATH THE SKIN: BEAR YOUR SOUL RETREAT SUMMER 2024THE SOUL BENEATH THE SKIN:
“Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!” Mame Dennis, Auntie Mame Eleven years ago Freddy Freeman (Goldenheart) put his vision of community—deep, loving, spiritual community—into practice with the first Bear Your Soul retreat at Easton Mountain. I attended it and was filled with joy, finding myself in deep community, a…
I LIKE IT HERE
I LIKE IT HERE Les K. Wright Ralph Arlyck is a groundbreaking American independent documentary filmmaker, who came to prominence when his film Sean received wide acclaim in US and Europe for its frank portrayal of 1960s counterculture. Following Sean (which I reviewed for Culture Vulture in 2004) received similar praise at international film festivals. His latest film, I Like It Here, was…
Provincetown Bear Week 2024
On summer break in August 1976 my partner Dennis and I went to visit friends of his in Boston. I had only recently come out and was just beginning to explore the gay world, a subculture that still existed mostly in the shadows of society. But here young gay men were openly cruising each other–along…
Intimations of Gay Bohemia
“Linking is particularly important in cultural history, because culture is a web of many strands; none is spun by itself, nor is any cut off at a fixed date like wars and regimes.” Jacques Barzun Philosophers and historians give us visions of the world (William James) “There is nothing personal about facts, but there is…
TRANSBEARS
Bear Tracks 14 TRANSBEARS Trans pioneer Lou Sullivan was arguably the first transman to publicly identify as gay. He and I worked together long-distance in the late 1970s when he was an editor at GPU News Milwaukee and I was an aspiring gay writer living in West Germany. We became friends when we both moved to San Francisco…
What is the Butttfuck Dictatorship?
Have you heard of Bill Weintraub or the “Buttfuck Dictatorship”? I only heard of him, his writings, and his political cause yesterday from someone I know here in Syracuse, who was responding to a 2022 article published in The Guardian, which I had reposted from someone else on Facebook. The article was prompted by Grindr’s move…
BEAR TRACKS: THEORETICAL BEARS
BEAR TRACKS 12 THEORETICAL BEARS Les K. Wright Gay liberation and, later, queer nationalism, took as its radical starting point our agency as gay men and lesbians to reject society’s moral, legal, and psychiatric condemnation of us as “sick” and “dangerous threats” to the moral order. We LGBT folks grow up into what sociologist Erving…
CHRISTMAS 2023 REMINISCENCES
Les K. Wright 1. What will you do to celebrate this holiday season? I will be celebrating this Christmas holiday season here in Syracuse, my new home. My plate is already full of social, volunteer, and cultural commitments. I mark the approach of the holiday season with buying Weihnachtsplätzchen (Christmas confections) when they turn up at Aldi’s,…
Bear Tracks: The Life and Work of Leathersex Pioneer Jack Fritscher
Read further here Bear Tracks: The Life and Work of Leathersex Pioneer Jack Fritscher 10th October 2023Les K. Wright Jack Fritscher (b. 1939; PhD, 1967) is best known for his pioneering role in the leathersex community. His presence and work on page and screen—in fiction, nonfiction, erotica, photography, and video — has been ubiquitous in…
HARRY HAY – QUEER ICON
Dragonfly (Les K. Wright) At the recent (2023) tenth anniversary Bear Your Soul gathering at Easton Mountain, I participated in a workshop led by Wildflower (Tyler Wansley) called “Queer Icons.” Wildflower asked us to think about who had been influential in our experience of being gay. The icon could be living or dead, of any…
I Wanted to Live Like a White Person: Notes on Being Old, Poor, and Gay
Les K. Wright When I was a member of the disaffected youth of the 1960s Bob Dylan spoke directly to me through his music. Fifty years later “Like a Rolling Stone” still speaks to me personally. When I was young the tone of righteous anger resonated for our generation. Wasn’t it misplaced trust in American values,…
Love and Regret in Gay Bars
Click here to read more. Love and Regret in Gay Bars By Les Wright on July 19, 2023Here’s My Story Even after the first years following Stonewall, Albany’s gay subculture was still distinctly closeted. Chapters of Gay Liberation Front (GLF), Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), and Gay Maoists had started up on campus my freshman year, where a few…
Bear Your Soul Celebrates Ten Years
“Because of the way that myth takes it for granted that miracles are always happening, the waking life of a mythically inspired people—the ancient Greeks, for instance—more closely resembles a dream than it does the waking world of a scientifically disenchanted thinker.” –Friedrich Nietzsche Bear Your Soul is an annual event at Easton Mountain [https://www.eastonmountain.org],…
BEAR TRACKS 01 The Murky Origins of Bear Culture, Part 1
Click here to read more … BEAR HISTORYBEAR TRACKS Bear Tracks: The Murky Origins of Bear Culture Part 1 29th August 2023Les K. Wright **Editor’s Note** Bear World Magazine is honored and thrilled to be working with Bear historian Les K Wright who has spearheaded the Bear History Project Reboot in order to chronicle and archive current events in…
“The Things You See When You Haven’t Got a Gun.”
Les K. Wright and Jack Fritscher at A Different Light Bookstore on Castro Street.My reading from The Bear Book II, circa 2001.[photo by Mark Hemry.]
Tangled Memories of a Wounded Storyteller: Notes on Bear History and Cultural Memory
Tangled Memories of a Wounded Storyteller: Notes on Bear History and Cultural Memory LES WRIGHT Les Wright is a long-time gay activist I scholar, committed to Iunderstanding and promoting progressive social change. He is a publisher ofthe on-line journal Verisimilitude, and is at present Associate Professor ofHumanities and English at a small New England college. Teaching Trauma very spring term for the past…
The Politics of Loneliness
Read more here The Politics of Loneliness Loneliness is epidemic among older Americans. August 11, 2023 by Les Wright Leave a Comment A funny thing happened to me halfway through the world pandemic shutdown. I suddenly felt no longer lonely. Several years before unforeseen circumstances forced me to leave my beloved California and move back to rural Central…
Les K Wright Announces Official Launch of the Bear History Project Reboot
Read more here Shutterstock BEARSCOMMUNITYFRONT COVERHISTORY Les K Wright Announces Official Launch of the Bear History Project Reboot 4th August 2023BWM Staff During a recent reading of his book Resilience: A Polemical Memoir of AIDS, Bears and F*cking at Ptown Bear Week, Les K Wright went public with the official announcement of the Bear History Project Reboot;…
An Epidemic of Loneliness?
Les K. Wright A funny thing happened to me halfway through the world pandemic shutdown. I suddenly felt no longer lonely. Several years before unforeseen circumstances forced me to leave my beloved California and move back to rural Central New York to live with my sister. My only other option at the time was to…
Doors to the Magic Theater
G.J.’ Gallery and the Central Arms I read Hermann Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf as an undergrad in the early 1970s. I had not heard of the recent riots at the Stonewall Inn. And I wasn’t aware of the existence of gay bars. The most striking and lasting impressions I had of Hesse’s novel were the depiction of free…
“Queer Relationships Are Not Like Straight Relationships”
For me, the saving grace of Bros was this statement made by Bobby Leiber (Billy Eichner’s character). We are different, even if Bros (riffing on When Harry Met Sally) undermines its own message by resolving the story (of two gay men professing their rejection of romance) with the romcom cliché happy ending. Fire Island, another recent queer romcom, also undermines its…
Les K. Wright 