Reference in The Canadian Encyclopedia https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/jearld-moldenhauer by Ron Levy – September, 2024

William Blake (Nov. 28, 1757 – August 12, 1827)

“A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.”

”The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity…and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”

Levels and layers. – Is reality the same for everyone and every creature? Of course not. For sure there are endless levels or layers to what we, trapped in our limited consciousness and the parameters of our sense organs call “reality”. Only a few people are tuned in to and capable of perceiving “realities” closer to what I‘ll call the „core“. Obviously our language is the vehicle whereby we describe perception and experience. Close to 100% of the terminology operates on such a superficial level that it nurtures the negation of anything deeper . People who exist on this level (programmed a bit differently in each culture and language) can never understand those operating on a deeper level. And of course it’s frustrating and usually pretty boring for those capable of something more than “small talk” to attempt genuine conversation with most people around us. It’s not so much that they don’t have the feelings and thoughts of a more intellectual nature, it’s more that they suppress them, are afraid of them, and lack the vocabulary to articulate them.

Other basic information about my life:

1.) Current primary activities: botanical pursuits, photography, learning about Philippine and other Asian cultures, attend classes for 1-2 hours daily on You Tube and also use Google searches and Wikipedia to learn many things that were censored or edited out of mainstream media and/or “education”, trying to stay healthy and in relatively good shape for someone my age! As for reading and watching videos, among others still living, I follow a few gay writers such as Stephen Fry, Yuval Noah Harari, Douglas Murray, & Edmund White as well as film director Pedro Almodovar.

Unfortunately I pay too much attention to international news. Events over which there is no control. My own life – having lived in different countries and travelling to many has educated and sensitised me to much of what is happening. From the geological events on Santorini, to the major conflicts between the Ukraine and Russia and between Israel and Gaza. To the protests in Slovakia and the political upheavals elsewhere —in Europe, Africa and Asia. Meanwhile the Trumpian government’s chaotic reign threatens pretty well everything with it’s mindless, hollow bullying war cry, “Make America Great Again”. On the internet one has the opportunity to see, hear and read about everything from any number of perspectives that previously were shut out. That alone has changed so much of the narrative we’ve been programmed to identify with. The old dichotomy between left and right seems far more complicated than we were schooled into adhering to.

2.) Countries I’ve Lived In: USA, Canada, Morocco, the Philippines.

3.) Countries I’ve visited: Afghanistan, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cambodia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechia, Denmark, Deutschland, Egypt, El Salvador, Espana, France, Greece, Guatemala, Holland, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy,Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua , Pakistan, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Syria, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Tuerkiye, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Viet Nam. I also visited the former “Yugoslavia” a few times (North Macedonia and Serbia).

4.) Major Events of the Past Decade: The house I co-owned in Canada was sold in 2017. Until 2022 I lived at Dar Balmira (Falcon House) in the Medina of Fez, Morocco. My travels in Southeast Asia began in 2018. In 2022 I attempted to initiate a small nature reserve by offering to help fund and support the Philippine Eagle Foundation in Mindanao. Rejected, no clear reason offered. Only one I can think of.

In 2023 I met Melvin Disono in Manila and our unconventional relationship began. Age wise, we are 50 years apart. From my experience and observations, such inter-generational relationships are not at all uncommon in several Asian cultures. Mostly based on mutual carrying – looking after each other.

We purchased land on a river in the mountainous jungle of eastern Rizal in late 2023. Most of 2024 was spent developing the land. My efforts were directed entirely to establishing four gardens. Things were going well until two typhoons (in July and September 2024) triggered powerful flash floods that pretty much destroyed everything I had achieved. Presently in a holding pattern to see what the government will do about the access road that was washed away. And also to alter the course of the river to prevent future catastrophic events. There are a few photo galleries on this website that give you an idea what was achieved before the flash floods hit.

I am currently growing an ever increasing number of plants on the balcony of our house. Here are a few photos of particular flowers that I grow & collect. Hibiscus (in Tagalog: gumamela), also Passiflora, and a Yellow Alamanda. Hibiscus are shubs, some are natural species but many of the ones with large showy flowers are hybrids produced here in the Philippines. Passiflora and Alamanda are vines with most species native to tropical regions of Central and South America.

Here in the tropics plants grow much faster than they do in a temperate climate. That means that a careful observer can see actual changes from day to day. At different “speeds” of course. I am especially enamoured of vines because many of them grow several centimetres in a day. And of course many have organs to grab on as they direct their growth according to light and what is available for them to attach to. Something I find weird is how people have so many beautiful plants, but do little to take care of them. One sees countless specimens and species suffering because of neglect. There seems to be this assumption that some force (a god? Mary? priestly propaganda?) looks after everything. If only they could go back to their indigenous roots with an honest and deeper relationship to nature! Alas, Magellan was killed by a native named Lapu-Lapu, but he planted the curse of Catholicism in his wake. The disturbing question that I am not so sure I know the entire answer to, is why it took hold and grew into such grotesque manifestations. I assume the ego’s craving for immortality. The greatest of all lies.

Hibiscus – In Tagalog – Gumamela

Passiflora

5.) Lifelong Major Interests:

Nature – (especially botany, entomology, and ornithology). Gardening became an important part of my life in Canada at the 32 Beaty Avenue house and also at Dar Balmira, my house inside the ancient Medina of Fez. In Canada and in Morocco I raised many species of parrot, as well as toucans, finches and exotic pigeons. In Morocco I raised and released falcons (usually purchased from small boys who stole young birds from the nest), and cared for two species of eagle (both injured by local farmers).

For more than 30 years I enjoyed dozens of canoe/camping trips in the Provincial Parks of Ontario with my canoe/nature photographer partner, Philip Atkinson. A truly talented, refined artist for landscape and close-ups of birds and other creatures. After serving as a witness before the Supreme Court of B.C. in the censorship case – Little Sisters Bookstore vs Her Majesty’s Dept. of Customs & Revenue – I flew north to spend several days exploring the Haida Gwaii archipelago.

In Jordan, Egypt, & Tunisia I travelled extensively in the desert regions, including Wadi Rum (Jordan) and Siwa oasis (Egypt). Living many years in Morocco, I explored most of the country (except the extreme south) by motor scooter, totalling thousands of kilometres, especially in the four mountain ranges (the Rif, Middle Atlas, High Atlas, and Anti-Atlas). South of the Sahara I explored Kenya and Tanzania (including Zanzibar), taking about ten “safaris” inside National Parks. In Kenya, with my tent and porters to carry supplies, I climbed Mt.Kenya.

Highlights of Central & South America include: excursions to the Cascadas de Agua Azul (Mexico), Parque Nacional Rincon de la Vieja, Monteverde Cloud Forest, Parque Nacional Corcovado (Costa Rica), Isla Ometepe (Nicaragua), Nacional Soberania (Panama), Parqu Nacional Canaima (Salto Angel), Mt. Roraima (Venezuela), Amazon River – Manaus to Santarem by ferry, Las Cataratas del Iguazu (Brazil).

Back in the mid 1970’s a friend and I did the trek from Pokara, Nepal toward the base camp of Mt. Annapurna. After 3 or 4 days of walking we met a boy from Scandanavia who was returning from the camp. We were all told by the authorities who issue permits to trekkers, that the base camp was open. The young man informed us that it was completely shut down and he had spent the night outside in the rain, with no shelter. To make matters worse, he said that leeches were all over his body, including his genitals. So of course we turned back, even though we were within a day’s trek of the camp. Still, it certainly was a very unique 6-7 days, climbing up and down muddy leech infested mountains with their stunningly beautiful rhododendron trees.

During my more recent travels in Southeast Asia I have managed to visit Halong Bay in Vietnam, Bali and Komodo Island in Indonesia, Bako National Park and Semenggoh Wildlife Centre (an Orangutan refuge) in Borneo, Malaysia.

Ancient History & Archeology

Altogether I have visited and photographed a few hundred archeological sites & museums. My particular interests are more concentrated on the civilizations of the Middle East (including Egypt) and the Mediterranean basin before the three Ibrahimic religions came to dominate how we view and experience our relationship with our bodies and with nature. My reading preferences always return to Greek & Roman classical literature. Special mention also goes to the giant Buddha’s at Bamiyan, Afghanistan and the ruins of Roman Palmyra in Syria, both of which I visited before they were destroyed by crazy Islamists.

Sexuality

As a founder both in the USA and Canada of what originally was called the “gay liberation movement, thinking about and analyzing the sexuality of Homo sapiens has been a major intellectual subject of my life, always informed as much as possible by legitimate science.. Naturally I draw upon my personal experiences, adventures too countless to ever count, not in just the countries I’ve lived in, but in almost all of the countries I’ve visited . My brief encounters probably number in the thousands (with males of all ages from after puberty onwards) and I have both enjoyed and suffered through some 7-8 long term relationships.

I have my own theories about human sexuality that mostly run counter to the accepted ideas. Yes, I’ve read some of the literature in various scientific fields, as well as the important works of gay history. It’s worth remembering and stating that gay history, including biography essentially did not exist – was intentionally censored by scholarship of academia until gay people started writing and a few publishers embraced the new literature. A few honest references survived in memoirs, journals and autobiographies, but even those were often destroyed by family members. We are left to speculate what Greek & Roman references were lost or destroyed by religious zealots. To be sure, any rather explicit writings would definitely be targeted for the fire, leaving only a few paintings & delightful bits of graffiti, (often chiseled into stone) to go by.

As my own story goes, I started Glad Day Bookshop because Canadian distributors of mainstream American and British publishing houses with the emerging new gay literature did little or nothing to promote them, despite being included in their contractual agreements. Even 3 or 4 years after I started selling gay books, no sales reps contacted me when their catalogs of new titles came out. The absolute clearest statement of prejudice came from the Canadian Booksellers Association after Brian Mulroney’s government put “The Joy of Gay Sex” on their list of banned books. The Executive Director of that organization (to which Glad Day belonged) refused to support our court challenge against the Federal government (and, haha, Her Majesty).

Important personally for my own identity and developing philosophy were Greek & Roman writers, especially of course “Symposium” by Plato. Non-fiction reading began at age 13-14 with the American transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson & Henry David Thoreau. At Cornell and after I read Andre Gide, Freud, Herbert Marcuse, Norman O. Brown, Alfred Kinsey, Donald W. Cory, Wainwright Churchill, R.D. Laing, Vern Bullough, and Louis Crompton. William Blake’s writings are liberating on a level all their own. It seems to me that the serious scientific research has, time and again, been thwarted by the reactionary and religious forces in society.

Music

For most of my adult life (starting about age 14), I obsessively explored western classical music, as well as older musical traditions of other cultures, especially those I visited. I’m not exactly sure how that started, probably a combination of collecting old 78rpm discs that fit my close to zero budget, along with my German language teacher who played bits of Wagner and Beethoven in class as part of the introduction to German culture. I chose my own high school graduation present, a 6 disc LP box set of “Die Götterdammerung” with Kirsten Flagstad as Brunnhilde.

For a few years I showed some interest in the folk and blues music of the USA, but my intellectual and emotional life was far more enriched by many composers whose works I explored and endlessly listened to. Basically I have always been repulsed by the popular music of all cultures. As a few people might remember, classical music was always on at the Glad Day Bookshop I was working in.

Naturally, the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach occupied a place no other composer could ever achieve. Those “others” include Schütz, Telemann, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Puccini, Berlioz, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Janacek, Weill, Britten and Orff, all geniuses in their own right. Special mention also goes to Anton Bruckner whose symphonies and choral music occupied another unique sphere in my intellectual & emotional life. For many years I listened to one of his symphonies, usually the 7th, 8th or 9th, before embarking upon a voyage to a culture and topography new to me. As well during the 1980’s and 1990’s I explored the music of many neglected baroque composers, made possible by the collaboration between certain specialized recording companies and European orchestras dedicated to performing neglected masterpieces of that era.

At Cornell I was fortunate enough to take two classes with Donald J. Grout (Sept. 28, 1902 – March 9, 1987), probably the foremost musicologist in America during the 1960’s and ‘70’s. Like many of my generation I followed the careers of various conductors, opera singers and solo instrumentalists. During the ‘70’s and 80’s I made a point of trying to see live productions of operas. Mostly in Europe and at the Met in New York where often I would stand in line to buy or be given free tickets from people unable to attend. For some reason (bad luck?) I had several friendships and a few relationships with the gayest group of musicians: church organists!

Over the years I inadvertently managed a number of ‘incidents’ and encounters with musical performers. I’m including a few that I can recall. And a special incident at the Canadian National Opera.

During my last year at Cornell my roommates happened to be friends with the French soprano Regine Crespin, famous for her many operatic roles, as well as Berlioz‘s song cycle Les nuits d’été . On one occasion in 1968, we all spent an evening drinking together at the Stonewall Inn. At the 1970 Edinburgh Festival in I had the honour of crashing into Bernard Haitink while crossing the street and a few days later I recall Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau ordering me out of his rehearsal room. The highlight of my visit to the Festival was the opportunity to see four operas by Leos Janacek. Janacek’s works were just beginning to be performed by Western European and American orchestras and opera houses. A few months earlier I had visited Janacek’s house in Brno, at that time a Czech city off the beaten path. As a solo backpacker with some knowledge of Janacek’s music I was surprised to be invited to overnight in the house. A year or two later in Berlin state Opera I found myself sitting next to Jessye Norman in the cheapest balcony seats for a performance „Die Walküre“. We chatted together, both being Americans. She was there to learn the roles of Sieglinde and Brünnhilde.

In Toronto around 1974 I attended a Canadian National Opera another performance of “Die Walküre”. With me was my partner at the time. A couple of young male ushers saw us holding hands and attacked, viciously beating me. I assume because I was a few years older than my partner. Horrified and disheveled I dragged myself into the theatre’s office to report the incident to the manager. His response was equally shocking. He said absolutely nothing. I remember thinking “Is this Canada? What other country could this happen in?” The same thought that crossed my mind when I was fired from the University of Toronto for founding the gay student organisation.

The last concert I attended was in Leipzig around 2013. A performance of Bach Cantatas in the Thomas Kirche, conducted by Nicolas Harnoncourt (Dec. 6, 1929 – March 5, 2016).

A year or so later my hearing deteriorated and I have never been able to seriously enjoy music ever since.

Photography’s Role in My Life. March 6, 2025

My first camera was not a still camera. Rather it was a wind up Kodak 8mm home movie camera. Internet research says that Kodak introduced it about 1955 and it sold for about $25. I probably got mine at age 13 or 14. Basically taking movies of the family – with almost no understanding of the principles of photography. Embarrassing early camera work, but useful as still images I can grab from the digitalized footage. When I say “useful” I am thinking of family history, with most of the people captured on these film clips having long ago departed.

When I graduated from high school I bought myself a Bolex Super 8 mm movie camera. It probably cost about $200. The last time I used it was in 1973 filming the Toronto Gay Pride March. It has since been digitalized by the NFB and bits used in a few documentaries. Not particularly great, but at least I made the effort. Lasts just over 15 minutes.

During my last year at Cornell I took a course in still B&W photography. For my final project I was able to borrow a medium format (6x6cm. negative) double lens Rolliflex camera from the department and decided to take photos of Toronto. I produced a small set of prints in a university darkroom. The professor liked the images and gave me a good grade. That bit of positive reinforcement ultimately encouraged me to continue taking still images. And of course it gave me a technical understanding of the important factors involved in capturing reasonable quality images.

Once I had enough money from my job as a medical research technician at U of T I bought a Bronica medium format camera. At first I simply took quite a few photos of my neighbourhood – the area between College Avenue and Queen Street, from McCaul Street over to the Kensington Market. About half Chinese immigrants, half white working class. One might say that artistically my photography lacked focus as far as subject matter goes. Perhaps I knew more about what I wasn’t interested in, than what I really cared about. My first darkroom was set up in the basement apartment on McCaul Street. I recall having aspirations of selling prints to the local people but I never pursued the business end of things.

At that stage I was trying to come to terms with what really were the subjects that interested me. Definitely nothing to do with commercial types of photography. As for well known photographers whose work I admired, only Cartier Bresson comes to mind. It was clear to me that I was only interested in showing reality, without any manipulation or glossing over. Things just naturally coalesced around the lives of ordinary people, (mostly working class), the natural world and most importantly as it turned out, documenting the early Toronto gay movement that I was involved in.

Ironically, one of the first people to attend a UTHA meeting was also a nature lover with an interest in photography. We developed a solid friendship and eventually became canoeing/camping partners. Still good friends 54 years later. Over the decades we took many trips to various Northern Ontario Provincial Parks were we both concentrated our photo efforts on the local flora and fauna. He is something of a recluse. Very unfortunate because his nature photography is astoundingly intimate, capturing special moments both in landscape and in the lives of our fellow creatures.

As for my gay movement photos? Well, I need to start by saying that I was fully conscious of their potential historical significance. Why? Because I felt that the movement had real revolutionary potential. Initially I tried to capture images of the events and major players. All that became both more obvious and useful after we started publishing „the body politic“ paper. Publishing a gay newspaper was my idea as a way to move forward following the August 28, 1971 Ottawa Demonstration.

If memory serves me right, I did most, if not all of the photography for the paper until my departure from the collective in mid-1974. 1972 & 1973 were the peak years for my gay movement photography in Toronto, including the 15 minute movie of the 1973 Gay Pride March. Unfortunately some of the negatives went missing or were never returned by the printer. A similar story in Boston with a few photos used by Fag Rag.

During my entire adult life, each year I insisted on travelling to new countries. In retrospect, the best trips were those I went on alone. Those allowed me to meet more of the local people and concentrate on photography. There is an obvious continuum between my aesthetic values, my deep personal interests, and photographic subjects, all mentioned earlier in this document.

The downside to being alone with a valuable camera around one’s neck is obvious. It made me more vulnerable to situations that were sometimes dangerous, almost costing me my life in Venezuela, Lebanon and Morocco. In Caracas a young man knocked me to the pavement and put a gun to my head. I gave him my camera. In Baalbek I was lifted off the ground by two thugs and placed in a car, gun to my head. They were members of Hezbollah and stupidly decided that because of the camera I was a spy for Israel. Only after hours of extreme interrogation was I released, dumped out of a moving car. In Morocco I visited the small town of Sefrou to photograph their “cherry festival”. Inside the small old Medina I waited at a fountain to get a drink of water. A crazed young man with a knife attacked me, slicing up my arm holding the camera strap. Soaked in blood, with dozens of people standing around but not one person intervening to help me. I let him have the camera, staggered out of the Medina where a cop called an ambulance. After I was stitched up I somehow managed to drive back to Fez. In India people often tried to stop me from photographing desperate poverty situations, but at least without knives or guns. Despite such incidents, to keep your mind on photography it’s definitely best to be by yourself.

There must be hundreds, probably thousands of negatives from both the trips abroad and the nature oriented canoe/camping trips to Northern Ontario that I have never digitally scanned and worked with. If I live long enough I may at least scan some of those in hopes of finding the best of the lot.

Many are on my website and some people & organizations from European countries (such as Italy, Germany, France, Romania, Czech Republic, and Greece to name the ones I recall) value them and post them on websites and blogs. A few publishers also use them in books or media presentations. The same with some of the early Toronto photos. After 30-40-50+ years many have become part of the historical record from times past. As for homosexuals, mostly images of gay men: writers, activists, partners and friends, several of whom died during the AIDS epidemic. Also a few activist women. Sadly for a number of those individuals it seems that my images may be thew only public records of their lives. I often do Google searches to see what references have made it to the web and often come up with little or nothing.

Asking if there has been much appreciation of my photographic work by the Toronto gay & lesbian community? My Canadian experience has been complicated and somewhat bizarre. Back in 2007, John Alan Lee (August 24, 1933 – December 5, 2013), a Sociology professor at U of T’s Scarborough College approached me as a friend and as someone he considered to be an important figure in creating the Canadian gay movement. Also as someone who somehow seemed to be forgotten, my contributions barely recognised. He suggested an event (a banquet). In response I suggested a photo exhibit. So we worked together to make that happen during gay pride week that year. I printed and framed about 40-50 images that I considered important. A mix of subjects that I photographed over the decades. John approached people in the community who might help support the event financially. Mostly people from my generation or older. People who had some sense of what my life in Toronto had achieved in creating a strong political and social movement, and also were quite aware that I was less than appreciated by the power brokers and narrative spinners. Almost all of the people John contacted contributed.

One special person chose not to. Ken Popert, CEO of Pink Triangle Press told John that my contributions were not worthy of recognition. Being consistent, Mr. Popert’s publications (Xtra and a gay pride week booklet) basically ignored even mentioning the exhibit. None the less, many of the Xtra staff showed up for the opening party and wandered in and out over the week or so in the space that we had booked above “This Ain’t the Rosedale Library” for the exhibit. Sadly, the event was censored by the most powerful gay media outfit in the Toronto (and Canada) gay community.

For me that came as no surprise, because the seizures of books, magazines, films, greeting cards etc. that happened continuously from about 1985-1991 (and beyond) when I ”sold” (actually traded for half ownership of the house at 32 Beaty Avenue) the store to John Scythes received almost no coverage in “Xtra”. In other words, the paper refused to play a role in either educating the public about how censorship operated and therefore did nothing to mobilise the community’s support for Glad Day. All because Ken Popert had declared me a “person non grata” sometime in the early 1980’s. After a certain date even my name was not allowed to appear in Xtra. Perhaps some history academic will verify what I have written, however I will not hold my breath.

When the exhibit was over I presented the framed Toronto gay movement photos to the CLGA. Several large prints as well as a binder containing many dozen 8 x 10 prints. I had hoped that at least some of the enlargements would be displayed on the walls of the CLGA, however I never saw or heard anything about them again. Not even a formal thank you or acknowledgment that I recall.

The last bit of attention I received in Toronto happened about 2018 (?) when the Kathy Acker Foundation (Acker was an American radical feminist writer – 1947-1997) decided to include me in their annual award’s event. I found that very interesting since the foundation was not a gay or lesbian organisation, yet unlike the bloated, co-opted and assimilationist oriented alphabet soup “community”, they had enough insight and perspective to focus on & honor the role I had played in the social and political evolution of Canada.

When they announced the names of the award recipients, a lesbian “artist” in Toronto denounced their decision and told them that she would give back her own award if they followed through. Apparently she had looked at my web site and decided that I am a “pedophile” because there are “too many” photos of boys on the website. The Chinese-Canadian woman who had nominated me actually went to the CLGA to do some research and concluded that I was not a pedo, however that is defined. I don’t know if the “artist” returned her own award or not. I had left Toronto a year or so before, so I did not attend the party or ceremony. But I did send them a photo to project on a screen. Which they did. A photo taken by my partner during a gay protest demonstration in Nuremberg, Germany in 1983. Me on the left, German friend on the right.

This is another example of both sides of Toronto mentality. It’s likely that the dreadful „artist“ would have given Oscar Wilde the death sentence!

My early gay movement photos of Toronto are the most sought after. In recent years, many have been used in documentaries, books, and academic papers. Most of these media outfits and researchers have had the decency to contact me for permission, but there have been (and continue to be) several incidents where some stupid volunteer or staff person at the “Arquives” treats my photos as if they have copyright. This happened over and over again and unfortunately has somewhat strained my relationship with that important organization.

My website “Dar Balmira Photography Gallery” had over 1000 images of Morocco. The house itself had about 300 enlarged framed photos, 40 of which were restored photogravure images of Fez Medina taken around 1915. I was hoping that by emphasising Moroccan history they would help clinch some support, at least from the formal, government connected touristic establishment. But they showed zero interest. The project was a total failure, meaning the number of visitors to the actual gallery was well below any sustainable level. There are other reasons that I think are behind the failure. Basically after trying for a year to network with the tourist industry, I simply gave up. However, I continued to take photos and add them to the website.*

During a 2022 trip to Southeast Asia I met someone special in the Philippines and moved here from Morocco. The house in Fez Medina is being transformed into a cultural institution & guest house by a gay friend from Slovakia.

In the Philippines I continue to take photos of people, cultural objects and nature subjects for my website. So far very few people have bothered to look at them. Doesn’t really bother me that much, especially since things are mostly still in their formative stages. I mostly take pictures for my own personal reasons. A beautiful flower, a beautiful boy. The life of ordinary people. The pleasure is somehow similar to sex for me, very much a part of what I see as my aesthetic adventure.

Most of the time I have been either doing close-up photos of insects and plants (using a Canon EOS 6D with a close up lens) or taking photos of people and the more quirky aspects of life here in the Philippines with an iPhone. When cell phones first hit the market they were the object of choice for street thieves everywhere. Once the market got more saturated and literally everyone had at least one, the dangers somewhat decreased. Given the experiences I had with an SLR camera around my neck, an iPhone with many format options and a good zoom function is the best choice if photographing candid shots of people. My strategy around adding new images to my website? Basically I come up with an idea that has been gestating in my mind after a certain amount of observation, and proceed to take enough interesting images in order to constitute a gallery on my website.

Concluding Remarks

In writing this, as well as other short pieces about my life as a gay man in what once was a “movement”, and as a photographer, gardener and traveler, I’ve tried to convey the vacillating cycle of life’s ups and downs.

In my opinion, fifty-six years after Stonewall, self-oppression still plays a significant role in the lives of most gays and lesbians. Especially in North America there’s a huge gay cultural generational gap that few are even interested in acknowledging, let alone addressing. The gulf between on the ground reality and a vision of “liberation”, as it was for a young radical back in 1970, and the current emphasis on fitting into the framework of the heterosexual world is so enormous that both consciously & subconsciously it no doubt played a part in my decision to move on. Not that life in either Morocco or here in the Philippines is at all “liberated”. But at least the way people experience life and relate to their bodies and sexual needs is a bit different from the narrative the western world trys to impose upon the entire world.

It’s true that as most people age, whatever rebellious edge they had in their younger days subsides and they slowly tend to embrace the status quo. Any interest I had in photographing gay cultural events like protest marches that morphed into Lesbian & Gay Pride and later into “Pride” lost my attention and interest somewhere along the way. Eliminating the word “gay” was an obvious turning point. It coincided with the corporate world slowly embracing the “community” phenomena as a lucrative market to exploit. Many gays nowadays, seem to have lost a special individuality that often expressed itself creatively and was a precious part of our cultural identity. On paper, most western democracies finally came round and granted us a degree of civil equality.

The outsiders (when I was growing up we were classified both as criminal and psychologically defective) have won a place in the herd. Any vision of actually changing our social organisation and liberating it from its religious sackles evaporated even before we could articulate the vision. However the winds of change are more complex than we understand. Once the gay movement got underway and started gaining traction, changing perceptions (the nonsensical and irrational pseudoscientific labelling nonsense), then laws, gaining civil liberties, challenging religiously based discriminations, more and more people had the courage to “come out”, to identify as gay or at least bisexual. However that triggered the first co-optation by the corporate world who identified gay men & lesbian as consumers often with a greater disposable income than heterosexuals. They began sponsoring floats and contingents in what now were called “pride” marches. So proud that they abandoned the word “gay”.

Then people identifying as transgender – wanting to physically change their genders thru various surgical procedures latched onto the remnants of a barely functioning gay movement, co-opting whatever perceived power and momentum it still had and speaking as if we all agreed with and had signed on to their agenda. Ultimately the media and political parties started characterising us as if we were under the same banner. The movement I was a founder of certainly feels compassion toward those identifying as transsexual but our focus was and still is on overcoming the taboos against homosexuality. It is more than interesting that the oppressive theocratic regime in Iran encourages homosexuals to embrace transsexual surgery as a way of “fitting in” to their cruel religious based heterosexual dictatorship.

The AIDS epidemic ended what might be referred to as a culturally spontaneous but scientifically doomed experiment in the gay male world to approximate a genuine sexual liberation distinct from a world defined by heterosexual religiously based status quo concepts. Basically it has generally led to a kind of desexualisation of gay life itself. I remember how Toronto gay leader/businessman/ and politician George Hislop never missed an opportunity to warn the community not to forget that our difference from the rest of society is based upon not just our sexual identity, but upon the real sex we so much enjoy.

Gradually an assimilationist mentality, aping heterosexual society, has almost completely taken over. People like myself are likely seen as relics of the past. Another older better known activist refers to us as “dinosaurs”. Perhaps a misfit or embarrassment in the eyes of the current majority. By then, some of us survivors from the early days refer today’s crowd as „the alphabet soup people“. As if the taboo against the sex of homosex, especially the adoration of male youth, has somehow left the stage (or gone underground), to be replaced by couples raising children, or buying into gender altering surgeries, or as “asexuals”, denying any libido whatsoever. All this “inclusiveness” seems more of a smokescreen to avoid open dialogue about sex, relationships,
liberation from religious nonsense – a vision of a future without society much control and conflict.
There most certainly is room for every possible variation in terms of how we live our sexuality including gender identity. However, as someone schooled in biological sciences I know gender is first and foremost a matter of the chromosomes in our DNA.

Neither of the gay organizations I founded at Cornell (1968) or U of T (1969) have ever invited me to a meeting or event. Except for the John Alan Lee story and your communication, no academics have ever bothered to even attempt a dialogue about anything. Only twice have I had, what might be called meaningful interactions with students about gay history subjects. Similarly, no communications of substance with Glad Day, Xtra, the CLGA. (For a year or so, not sure how long, the U of T group was actually hoodwinked into believing that Ian Young was the founder! How that perception came about I can only speculate. I read about his participation at some U of T pride event and attempted to correct their understanding of history.)

Most media people who contact me for photos usually have little idea of my own role in the movement. Just an assumption that I was a photographer who happened to be there. No problem! It does however, seem a bit funny to be reduced to a single role.

Jearld Frederick Moldenhauer
Antipolo, Rizal Province
Philippines

*The website darbalmira.com (Dar Balmira Photography Gallery) literally vanished from the internet in 2024. The hosting company claims that I had not paid the renewal fee. Examining my e-mails I could find no Invoice message from them. All the images no doubt are stored on various harddrives. Again whether I have the time, energy and motivation to reconstruct the website is unclear.

It seems that with the technological developments of the last 20 years, Generation Z (1995-2012), the Polars (2013 – Present), and a good share of the generations going back to my own (the Baby Boomers) have lost or never had any serious respect for actual science, including the science behind all the technology that dominates their daily lives and perceptions of reality. Again, it shows how easily sapiens is manipulated by whatever forces are loudest and repeating whatever their ‘message’ is, ad infinitum. Sapiens seems determined not to actually learn to think critically and slides easily into religion and irrational social/ scientific/political interpretations of almost everything. The list seems all encompassing: – the endless, ever increasing manipulations of consumerism, the blatant destruction of our natural world, disease phenomena such as epidemics & pandemics, the biological basis of gender.  In societies outside those with some claim to “democracy”, reality is dictated by the state.  And even some of those states undermine whatever meaning the word has and call themselves the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

As a result recent film helped millions of viewers to understand, science made the horror of a nuclear bomb possible.  And although it brought an end to the Japanese initiated conflict of WW2, it very significantly raised the bar of human self-destruction. In the years that followed, scientific research proceeded to improve the lives of the citizens of the country where these advances were made, ultimately enhancing the so-called superpower status of the United States. The list of inventions and discoveries from the late 1940’s through the moon landing of 1969 is indeed impressive. 

Most began in a laboratory and of course took a years before the results reached commercial status or publication. Advances like the first commercial television broadcast (1951), the impact of Jonas Salk’s vaccine in pretty well eradicating polio (1955), publication of the studies (1948 and 1953) of American sexual behaviour by Alfred Kinsey, the 1953 announcement of irrefutable scientific proof that smoking tobacco causes lung cancer,  Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”(1962) revealed the extreme toxicity of DDT and other chemicals foisted on the public to deal with “pests” but which are deadly to man, to bird life, and almost all living creatures. And finally, that era’s pinnacle moment of scientific achievement: the 1969 American landing on the moon.  These clearly scientific events made nearly all Americans stand back in awe of how science can move our world forward. The focus was at the root, and the root was science.

So the question is, why did this focus and respect fade away in the consciousness of a large percentage of the population? While I cannot claim to grasp every facet of this phenomena but I can suggest a few possible reasons.

One may have its origins in the way the tobacco industry responded to the threat to their profits from the enormous hold on the public when the scientific truth about the link to ling cancer hit the media.  The tobacco industry literally created an army of unethical fake “scientists” to counter the tested and retested findings.  And in turn they developed media outlets to promote their lies.  Considering how pervasive cigarette smoking was, and how seriously addictive smoking is, whatever fortunes were spent creating “fake” science and media, it no doubt was a drop in the bucket.  

Fortunately the truth about the deadly connection between smoking and cancer succeeded in dominating the narrative.  But sadly so many people from each subsequent generation have chosen to ignore the blatant warnings printed on each package. And they take up the habit, thinking it makes them “cool” ( a word I have always despised) and that somehow, they will not be among the unlucky ones.

What this particular consumer product drama initiated, the creation of a monstrous strategy by the most powerful corporations dedicated to doing everything possible to hide the truth of the dangers and deficiencies of whatever they are foisting on the public, has become pretty standard practice. Yes, environmental & consumer laws were enacted because of activists like Ralph Nader and groups like Greenpeace. But they are few and lack the monetary and political support needed to push back against multi-national corporations.  

Even if a few more advanced “democratic” countries enact laws aimed at protecting nature and their citizens, these corporations simply push their lies and products in countries where there are few, if any regulations.  For example, if a particular herbicide or insecticide is declared carcinogenic in countries of the “developed world” the corporations take their poisons and sell them in countries where awareness and education are so low that they scoop up the deadly chemicals and even think they have some miraculous quality to assure that their produce will thrive.  For example, sadly I have seen poor farmers in Morocco totally engulfed in some powder they are spraying over their fields.  It may well kill the particular bugs eating their plants, but it will also kill every other insect (especially the pollinators) and over time, the farmer himself.

With globalisation everything has changed, in my opinion, mostly for the worse. These global corporations have the power to play their games in each and every country without regard to anything other than profit which in most cases are not exactly shared in an equitable manner with the people doing the actual work.  An army of lobbyists is ready to set the stage and buy off the officials. And so, it seems that technology (based upon certain scientific breakthroughs) took a leap frog forward, leaving science as the nebulous hinter-ground that gave birth to technology.

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In the spring of 1975, I decided to return to explore more of Turkey and head further east
into Asia. I walked across the main border crossing between Turkey and Iran,
about 30 km east of Doğubeyazit, where I recall little children hurling stones at
me as I made my way through their town carrying my heavy backpack. Although I had made it to the
border by bus and dolmuş (a shared taxi), I had no idea what I would use for
transportation once in Iran. Not spotting any buses or taxis, I decided to try
hitchhiking and within minutes, I found myself in the cab of a large dump truck. Before
climbing into the seat, the driver motioned for me to put my backpack in the empty bed
behind the driving compartment.

Once we were on our way, something both unexpected and unwanted happened. The driver put his
arm around me to draw me closer to him and began to stroke my leg. I laughed, something I usually did in awkward situations, at least as an initial reaction. Of course I was thinking: ‘could this
be true, this burly truck driver, the first person I encounter inside Iran is trying to put the
make on me?’. In a nervous but friendly smiling way, I pulled away from him, trying
my best not to panic lest that create an even more complicated situation. After-all, I
couldn’t just try and open the door and get out since my backpack was in the bed-box and I
would have to climb in to retrieve it.

Fortunately, the driver didn’t force himself on me, and after a few more kilometers, during
which he no doubt mulled things over, he pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and
let me grab my pack and get out. Now, left out in the middle of nowhere, I had
no choice but to put my thumb out again and hope for the best. I was almost totally ignorant of
the history, politics and cultural differences of the countries I was exploring; even at age 29,
especially Asia & the Islamic world, it was all very much a learn as you go experience.

Within a few minutes, a college aged young man on a motor scooter stopped
and I climbed on behind him with my heavy pack. He took me to his house in a small town
midway between the border and Tabriz. Like so many young Iranians at the time, he spoke
reasonable English. (This was when American influence was at its peak, two decades after the US and
Britain had deposed the legally elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mosaddegh, and
replaced him with Mohammed Rez Pahlavi, initially as the Shah (or King) of Iran.- Starting at the border crossing and forever on-wards, there were huge posters of the Shah, his wife ‘Empress’ Farah and their little son Reza.) It seemed that on the day of arrival in Iran I had lucked out, with an offer of food
and a place to stay for the night. However, just after I had spread out my sleeping bag and
undressed, a variation on the earlier scenario unfolded. The student pounced on me and tried
to fuck me. By now, I was already thinking to myself that in sexual matters, the world had
turned upside down.

I knew little about Islam, let alone about Islam and homosexuality, and hadn’t a clue about the
Shia and Sunni divisions within the Muslim world. Nothing of this kind had occurred during my previous two visits to Turkey. Yes, I had been charmed by how the boys seemed
to cling to each other, arms wrapped round each other’s shoulders or simply holding hands
(pretty much every one of them always did that!) And yes, I did wonder why so many
young guys looked at me, often glued to me, either just with their eyes or sometimes
actually latching and occasionally even wanting to hold hands. In those days there were few tourists in Turkey so it partially had to do with surprise and curiosity at seeing a solo young
traveler from another culture. However despite the warm friendliness of the Turks,
no one had been so aggressive as those first two Iranians I had met. So my thoughts were
excited by the possibility that all Iranian males were homosexual.
Like the driver, the student was aggressive but not to the point of rape. Eventually it sunk in
that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with me, so he laid off and let me go to sleep. Of
course he wanted to fuck me: that is the male homosexual sex act in all of Islam. Yes, it’s
definitely linked to the concept of power in their male to male relationships. In any subsequent
experiences in nine or ten other Muslim countries I’ve visited, the idea of switching
roles has never been mentioned. Cock-sucking has always been my thing, and of course all
males like to be sucked off, however no Muslim I ever met initiated oral sex. I’ve never been
receptive to playing bottom to a top. Even the reverse also has almost no appeal to me, but yes, I’ve tried both many times, hoping to get into it and derive the immense pleasure
that many, if not most gay males get from anal sex.

I hit the road early the next day, determined to make it to Tehran, still about 650 km away.
Somehow, I made it, lucking out with a trans- Europe/Asia lorry driver who, thankfully, just
drove.* Once in Tehran, I tried to check into one, and then another, moderately priced hotel, always picking the smaller hotels, the ones ordinary Iranian citizens might choose. The quality of
such places, like my budget, was at the low end, but I was fast learner, becoming
observant and critical of the facilities before committing myself. It was a tough game in
those days, no Rough Guides, Lonely Planets or Let’s Go for backpackers existed,
other than for the most popular countries. I had managed to buy a Baedeker, their
audience being the older & wealthier class of travelers. As well, once you were even slightly off the
beaten track, there were no tourist offices offering any assistance whatsoever. And rarely
could you even find a city map of any kind. Most basic information sources didn’t exist, so you
had to be pretty flexible and tenacious, able to adapt while blundering through a maze of
unforeseen challenges.

Time to talk turkey! … About shitting and pissing … specifically in Iran, and in Islam generally. I was totally exhausted from my ordeal and started to panic when hotel after
hotel told me they were full. How could that be true? And how did I figure out what this was
really all about? Finally, someone directed me to a hotel where all foreign backpack travelers
eventually ended up. Indeed, it now seems unlikely that any of those other hotels I had
visited were booked up. The reason behind maneuvering young foreigners to one hotel?
After shitting, Muslims clean their sphincters using water. Directly – with their hand and a
bucket of water. (Adding a hose to spray water around the anus came a decade or two later.)
Toilet paper is sort of ‘haram‘ (forbidden),since it is not the method prescribed by their
religion. In Tehran, as in most Muslim countries at the time, Western flush toilets did
not exist (except perhaps in the most expensive hotels). The sewage systems were
entirely gravitational. As my certified plumber former housemate repeated ad nauseam, “shit
flows downhill!” No doubt, this the most basic fact for any aspiring plumber. Toilet paper
impedes the gravitational flow of turds down the pipes, likely causing offensive, disturbing
scenarios for hotel managers accepting toilet roll carrying guests. As for myself ? Well, I
had already given up this toilet paper roll nonsense, basically because of space problems
in my backpack. Slowly had came to accept the hygienic superiority of Muslim toilet
habits, eventually reaching the point where I resent finding myself in a bathroom without a
hose or a bidet. Males in Muslim countries also have the freedom to piss outdoors, but in
Iran they must do it in the same way females do in the West – by stooping down as if sitting
on a toilet seat. Perhaps this is a Shia thing since the Sunni in Morocco pull their cocks
out at any perceived semi-private space and let it flow standing up!

My strongest memory of Tehran remains how males on the streets whistled and catcalled me,
the same way guys directed those behaviors at girls when I was growing up. I deduced that it
had to do with the fact that I always wore shorts and the sight of my bare legs turned
them on, resulting in those spontaneous reactions. I decided to see if I could get all this
seemingly widespread, if not universal, overt homosexuality to work to my advantage. Not
just spend my energy warding off unwanted advances by guys interested in fucking a
youngish looking foreigner. After a few days exploring Tehran, visiting the bazaars and the
National Museum, I decided to see what the Caspian Sea coast had to offer. I only knew
that along with the Elburz Mountains (which separates Tehran from the sea), this area was a
popular national summer vacation spot. By late afternoon I found myself in the town of
Babolsar. Fortunately, my concerns about hotels had almost totally relaxed. I figured that
things would somehow always work out. After finding no hotels around the area where the
taxi had dropped me off, instead of panicking,I took my backpack off and sat on the curb on
a street corner. Within minutes, I was surrounded by boys of various ages,
curious to find a solo backpacking foreign traveler in their midst. They figured out that I
needed to find a place to stay and I immediately had several invitations to go with them, back
to their homes. I chose a handsome mature one and followed him.

Iranian homes incorporate their own unique concept of privacy. There is the street, then the
open sewer, a sidewalk, abutted by a solid ugly wall about three meters high. You see
nothing of their world unless you are invited inside. It didn’t take me long to realize that, by
going with this boy to his home, I would suddenly gain entry into a private sphere that
otherwise, I might never have experienced. When the door opened, I entered a compound
resembling a Roman house. A four sided one story building with rooms around a garden. In
this case, it was pretty basic, belonging to a middle-class family, not poor but not
particularly prosperous. The boy spoke almost no English but his three
older sisters were surprisingly conversant in it. During the next two days, there were a
surprising number of rather naïve discussions about our two cultures. It seemed to me that I
was being examined by the young women. I must say that, to a degree, I was taken aback
by their intelligent inquisitiveness. I was also astounded the first time I saw one of them
come through the door from the outside, her floor length chador, with its mesh piece
covering the eyes, was immediately cast off, revealing a woman in a miniskirt with plenty
of makeup and jewelry! This was at a time when the impact of Women’s Liberation encouraged women, back in North America, to do the exact opposite, and cease up in Barbie doll, sex objectification outfits. I found it ironic that, for these Muslim women, wearing a miniskirt with plenty of make-up for them, was a symbol of a woman’s freedom. Even though there were no males to see them dressed as ‘sex objects’ except for their father, brother and the guest from North America.

Meals in Iranian homes take place on the floor. No chairs, just a low table upon which
the various food plates and flat bread are placed. The so-called national dish of Iran,
chelo kebab, appeared far too often and tasted too much the same for me to ever say that I
grew fond of it. Years later in Paris, I was invited to dinner at the home of a wealthy
Iranian gay immigrant and was completely blown away by the elaborate and creative
dishes he served. It made me realize that what people ate in Iran must be largely class based.
Chelo kebab is simply a helping of rice accompanied by barbecued beef kebabs. (This national dish

is somewhat analogous to the Egyptian diet, dominated by ful (fava beans mixed with various spices and herbs) and flat bread). No utensils are used, one eats with the right hand … reserving the left
hand to the sphincter at the other end. Myself, being strongly left-handed (favored for everything from
writing to washing to digging in the garden), ate of course with the same hand. What they think about that, and what Muslim parents do with their own left-handed children is unclear.

Males and females do not eat together, however because I was both their guest and
their entertainment (there was no TV or radio that I noticed), the women were present while
the father, the son and I ate. The father asked me if I liked his daughters. This gave me an
unprecedented opportunity to test his reaction to a subject dear to my heart. One daughter
served as translator. I proceeded to tell him how fine his daughters were and how much I had enjoyed
speaking with them. And then I added something like ‘but I really like your son’. The
daughter translated her father’s reaction. “My father says that he understands your feelings”.
And then, after a minute or two of chattering in Farsi, added “the boy will sleep with you
this night.” His/her words came as a total shock and are forever burned into my
memory. When the time came time, the mother escorted a giggling young man on her
arm to the door of my room. There was no bed, just a mat on the floor. After spreading
my sleeping bag over the mat, I turned off the light. We undressed and lay down next to each
other. Our feet met and rubbed up against each other. Then we nestled together as close as
possible. I draped one leg over his and gently placed my arm around his shoulders. Slowly,
nature took its course. There is nothing on this earth quite so wonderful as sleeping next to a
beautiful youth.

I do have another memory of a gay sort about the town that is worth sharing. I recall spotting
a very modern looking liquor store on the main shopping street, so I went in to take a
closer look. It very much resembled an American liquor store, well lit and full of
displays. As I was standing there, checking out the impressive selection of liquors, two
extremely effeminate men came into view, affecting a high camp act of a sort that was
better suited to a gay neighborhood in New York or Los Angeles. I tried speaking with
them but, alas, their generation (they were about 40-45) had missed out on the more
recent push to learn English. I left finding it hard to believe that this couple could survive
in the Muslim world, let alone run such a high profile liquor store. Maybe this was a sort of
necessary special place since it would have been overrun in the summer months with
people escaping the heat of Tehran.

After the Islamic Revolution, I read about the closing of all liquor outlets in Iran and thought to myself that these poor fellows were very likely executed – for their doubly haram lifestyle.

From the Caspian Sea, I traveled back to Tehran where I boarded a bus for Isfahan and
then further south to Shiraz, the two famously beautiful cities of ancient Islamic Iran. They
both are quite capable of casting a spell over any visitor with their combination of endlessly
fascinating souks and splendid masterpieces of Islamic architecture. Fortunately, in both of
these classic cities, I found reasonable small hotels that even had no problem in allowing the
occasional young man I met into my room. Like most other Westerners, I superimposed a
romanticized gloss over much of what I experienced. An Orientalist veil pervaded the
way we were, and still are, socially conditioned to look at the Islamic world. But
the truth is, before terrible events that began with the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the
Islamic world was much more relaxed, gentle, hospitable and essentially benign. This was
especially true around expressing your homosexual feelings. In a few Islamic
countries it may still largely be this way, but the love that flourished before it was given a name
(through the influence of the western world) and subsequently targeted by fundamentalism
and jihadist mentality in countries like Iran, mostly survives in an underground mode.
Indeed, several of the countries I visited in my youth are potentially dangerous today.

One day, while deep within the souks of Isfahan, I remember coming upon a crowd of
men & boys gathered around a lad of about 16, laying on the ground, eyes shut, seemingly
asleep or near death. He looked so gentle & helpless, dressed in traditional clothes
including a headband or sarband. His face was that of an angel and I felt overwhelmed by the
scene. Not knowing what was happening or what I could do, I was frozen, as were the
onlookers, gazing at his beautiful form, wondering what had happened. I guessed that
he was in the middle of an epileptic seizure and that, hopefully, he would likely come out
of it after several more minutes had passed. For me it seemed like some sort of defining
moment, staring at the form of a beautiful boy lying in the dirt, surrounded by men and boys
who likely also guessed about his condition, but not knowing what to do. Having no common language and overcoming my urge to hold him in my arms, I walked away.

From Shiraz, one can easily visit Persepolis about 60 km to the north. The great palace of
the Persian Achaemenid Empire (sacked and burned by Alexander the Great) was even more
famous at the time since, in 1971, the “Shah” had held the most fabulous party at the site to
celebrate what was dubbed the 2500th anniversary of the Persian Empire. For the obvious purpose of reinforcing his position and power. I was impressed by the reliefs depicting males
holding hands and what appeared to be images of men throwing kisses at each other. Perhaps
I read too much into such images … but then, who knows what went on before religion
changed the rules.

Iran also allowed non-believers into its mosques and religious compounds. The
privacy issues around the residential architecture of Iran (as well as those of many
Muslim countries) are such that it’s easy to travel through a country without ever getting a glimpse into how people actually live their daily lives inside their personal dwellings. It was wonderful that one
could get close-up look at the architecture and elaborate decorative work found in all their
ancient mosques. But it did strike me as odd that non-believers could access holy
precincts, yet privacy issues were looked at much more seriously regarding the architecture and
rules involving in personal residences. No doubt, these are related to Islamic principals, including

how women are generally regarded as property, to be controlled entirely by men. Except in Tehran where, at least at that time, to a degree women could assert their independence, the majority of women wore full-length black chadors outside the home. Chador clad women always appeared to be scurrying from Point A to Point B, whereas the men and boys were just either carrying out their work duties or hanging out, often promenading with other men, usually in close physical contact with each other, most often holding hands.

In fact, it was never easier for me to meet other males … rather it was always a matter of
figuring out what their game was while they tried to figure out mine. Usually, they were
looking for entertainment and foreigners, (both appearing as somewhat exotic creatures
to the other). Being alone, I fit the bill and appreciated the ease with which they expressed interest. Then there is the sex thing. Islamic societies are worlds where males and females generally go
about very separate lives. Boys hang out with other boys and men, girls with other girls and
women. The contact points when and where the two genders interact are few and are
usually controlled within a strict protocol. In addition, in their world the generation gap
often seemed far less severe than in North America. Older people are generally treated with
sensitivity and kindness, something close to non-existent in North American culture.

In the complex around the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, I experienced a potentially life
threatening physical attack, one that I could have avoided if I had learned my lesson about
the volatility of a (young?) male wearing shorts. It seems that both Catholics and the Muslims share their fear of seeing the human body, albeit just a pair of male legs. An admission of and subsequent rejection of desire? So wearing shorts when I entered the ‘holy‘ precinct, with a
medium format camera dangling around my neck I was asking for it! This was likely the same outfit I had on while visiting the mosques in Isfahan and Shiraz. In the hierarchy of holy places for
the Shia, this enormous complex of mosques, mausoleums, madrasahs, including a library and
museum, no doubt attracts the most peaceful of the devout as well as the most fanatic of believers. Fortunately, I had about half an hour walking around undisturbed, admiring the art
and architecture, before a crazed-looking older man with long, disheveled green hair
approached me, started shrieking while proceeding to pound on me with his fists. I
hadn’t a clue what it was all about and I hadn’t even taken a single photo. I did, however, seem to be the only non-Muslim foreigner in the place. Fortunately, a few Iranian visitors pulled him
off me and I quickly fled back to my hotel. It only occurred to me later that I had likely
transgressed both the dress code and potentially one about photography. I’ll end
this narrative here at Mashhad where I headed south by bus on the road connecting
Iran and Herat, Afghanistan.

• I did this sort of marathon road travel a few other times – hitchhiking from Dover to
  Edinburgh in one day, including somehow managing to get through London, a vast city
  of which I had no understanding. And on a trip to Egypt, I managed to play the
  collective taxi game well enough to make it from Aswan to Alexandria in one day.
  Nowadays I’ve come to prefer a much slower pace … and looking back, I can’t imagine being
  capable of traveling such distances and meeting so many challenges in a single day on
  the road.

Feb. 1, 2018

This trip got off to an unexpectedly traumatic start.

I had been methodically both (1) plotting out my travel itinerary (while booking flights and hotels) and (2) slowly packing up the ‘bare minimum’ essentials in all the usual categories. (It is always problematic to fly from a cold climate to a tropical one, as one wants to avoid dragging around clothing – perhaps needed only for a cold night or two – that becomes a weighty burden from that point on.) 

When the day of my departure arrived, I got up around 5:30am and went about the routine(s) of the morning.  Feeling confident in my detailed plans, I found myself dreamily researching hotels in Boracay Island in the Philippines when I happened to glance at my iPhone and, to my horror!, saw that my Ryanair departure from Fez to Madrid was NOT at 3pm (as I had somehow logged into my brain) but was in fact just a little more than an hour from when I noticed the mistake!  An utter panic set in, the likes of which I had never before experienced. Alas, I had been so lost in creating my complex itinerary that I had failed to check/re-check the details of my first simple but ESSENTIAL connecting flight out!

The irony of it all hit me hard.  

Here I was, a sometimes ‘bragging master’ of travel, and yet I had fucked up the very first flight that would launch me into a 6.5 week trip … to a long list of places I had never before visited. An itinerary that already included some 15 separate flights to four Asian countries (plus two nights in Madrid) with changes in both Munich and Frankfurt. 

Once I had (only slightly) calmed down, I tried to analyse my predicament and a possible solution.  I soon set a desperate plan in motion by phoning Zouhir who was having breakfast … somewhere in the Medina.  I asked him to phone Hamouda, my sometimes chauffeur, to see if – against all odds! – he could try to get me to the airport, er, on time.  When Zouhir phoned him, he was still sleeping but he said he would immediately swing into action.  Meanwhile, Zouhir quickly returned to Dar Balmira and we grabbed my luggage and made our way down the narrow alleyways of the Medina to the road at Rcif where Hamouda said he would meet us.  I was sweating, huffing/puffing and shaking, certain that all of this was impossible … and impossibly happening. 

A few minutes after we arrived, Hamouda turned up and, once he managed to turn his car around (in the ever messy anarchic/chaotic Medina traffic!), we jumped in with my luggage and headed off.  The airport was about 18-20 km away and I knew that we would have to pass through some heavily trafficked areas … over some stretches of asphalt that had, literally, melted away during the hottest months of the recent summer.  However, Hamouda proved to be a master of vehicular intimidation.  

As is usually the case in Morocco, there are no rules to obey if one cannot see the police. (Plus the entire system is based upon fear and contradictions between religion, state imposed controls and the raw character of human survival.) And so Hamouda broke every traffic law ever conceived … and, all the while, he somehow managed to keep sniffing ‘taaba’ whenever we stop.  I am not talking about stopping at red lights – those he wormed his way through to the front and then sped through them! – rather these stops were determined by a pile-up of vehicles.  

(About the ‘taaba’: I was once ‘sort of’ addicted to the stuff. I might still be if it had been consistent in quality … enough to always give the user a powerful short-lived high. But I managed to wean myself off the stuff, fearing the possibility of eventual lung-related problems: i.e. cancer.  This is snuff: what men indulged in back in the 19th century … and yet there is still little or no research today as to its ultimate effect on the body.)

Finally, somehow (a ‘somehow’ really beyond my more conventional understanding of reality), we arrived at the airport ‘end point’ for vehicles.  Zouhir dragged my 4-wheel suitcase up the stairs to the terminal door.  And as this is the new terminal in Fez Saiss – the protocol has tightened up significantly in the past couple of years – only passengers with a ticket are allowed to pass beyond this point.  Still, as I was entering the terminal a few minutes after the scheduled gate closing time (!), I had no hope of actually making it onto the plane. 

Because I was sweating and, no doubt, looked like someone in a serious state of ‘meltdown’, people accommodated me every step of the way … until my suitcase was scanned … and I was made to open it.  At first, I had no idea what they were looking for until it occurred to me that it was likely my corkscrew that the X-ray machine had detected. (Is a corkscrew really a potential weapon? Gosh, I think I’ve lost at least 3 or 4 so far to this ridiculous security practice.)  Of course, any ‘card carrying’ Muslim certainly wouldn’t have one to begin with!  

However, the nice thing about these Moroccan Security men is that they’re always mild mannered, even playful.  I recall that, once, when they did a body ‘pat down’, I had even found myself getting an erection … a pretty rare physiological event these days! Anyhow, I unzipped my toiletries’ case and gave up the ‘lethal weapon’ and was allowed to continue on my way.  At the gate, my bag was taken and I assumed that it would be placed in the passenger cabin which I thought might have been the rationale for seizing the opener.  But no, it was placed in the hold … so there was really no reason to lose yet another opener.  Nevertheless, despite all odds, I found myself walking to the rear entrance of the plane as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened.  [The airline (Ryanair), of course, had earlier sent me at least half a dozen e-mails about arriving at the airport three hours before departure and emphasizing their latest restrictions on luggage.]

Thanks, not to Allah but, rather, to a stoned daredevil driver and a bunch of more or less laid back airport officials, I made it on board – even though I arrived well after the gate ‘cut off’ time.  So my long and complicated trip to Asia managed, at least, to get past the starting gate!  And this foolish aging traveler had to face up to his muddled mind, a lesson hopefully not forgotten on the voyage ahead. 

All in all, if I am to make this trip happen without the proverbial train ‘going off the tracks’, I will need to get myself on board about an additional 20 flights … several of which I have yet to book!

Cornell Postscript