Brazda Pâtes a Creamy French Onion Chicken

Often we think of French onion as being the beefy variety. Here is a chicken version of this favorite taste. We dedicate this to a brave survivor of the NAZI Holocaust. One of the untold number who were forced to wear the pink triangle of homosexuality. This group is often overlooked, yet suffered unbelievably. More, when the camps were liberated, were forced to stay in prison (since they were “real” criminals).

Here we offer a creamy onion sauce for our chicken and pasta.

Ingredients

2 TBS olive oil, divided

2 TBS butter, divided

1 pound chicken thighs cut into pieces

½ teaspoon salt, divided

½ teaspoon ground pepper, divided

1 large yellow onion (1 pound), halved and thinly sliced

1 small can mushroom bits & pieces, drained

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup low-sodium chicken broth

½ cup half & half

2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

Chopped parsley for garnish

Egg noodles

Directions:

Slice the onion in thin slices carefully with a mandolin slicer. Cut up the chicken thighs into 1 inch pieces and roll in ¼ cup flour with paprika mixed in.

Heat 1 TBS oil and 1 TBS of butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Spread out the onion in the hot oil and sprinkle with thyme and pinches of salt & pepper to taste. Saute this for 15 mins or until browned and limp.

Add the chicken pieces and cook until browned. Remove to plate.

Pour in the chicken broth and scrape up any bits on the bottom of pan.

In a small bowl mix the half & half with 2 Tbs of flour into a slurry. Stir into the skillet. Add the pasta and stir to make sure each piece is coated well.

This is important to make sure it all cooks.

Stir in the mushrooms, and peas.

Lay the chicken pieces on this bed in skillet and cover. Let simmer for at least 20 mins, stirring occasionally until the pasta is cooked.

Serve sprinkled with parsley and Parmesan cheese if desired.

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRvcrWGUmR4 This Old House

So honored to be serving my Master Indy

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTMvia @amazon

Rudolf Brazda

Rudolf was born 1913 to parents originating in Bohemia. The family had emigrated to Saxony to earn a living. After World War I, he became a Czechoslovak citizen, owing to his parents' origins in that newly established country.

In the early 1930s, prior to the Nazis' accession to power, he was able to live his sexuality openly, thanks to relative tolerance in the last days of the Weimar Republic. In the summer of 1933, he met Werner, his first companion. Together they shared a sublease in the house of a Jehovah's Witness landlady, who was fully aware and tolerant of the bond existing between them. In the following two years, despite the Nazi accession to power and the subsequent reinforcement of Paragraph 175, they led a happy life, befriending other male homosexuals.

As of 1935, the Nazis extension of legal provisions criminalizing homosexuality generated a dramatic increase of lawsuits against homosexuals. Thus, in 1937, following police investigations into the lives of his gay friends, Brazda was suspected and remanded in custody. In Altenburg, he was eventually tried and sentenced to six months in prison for breaching the terms of Paragraph 175. Werner was tried and sentenced elsewhere and circumstances led to them losing sight of each other in the ensuing months. Werner is rumored to have died in 1940 while on military duty on the French front, in the battles raging against Britain.

Having served his sentence, Brazda was soon to be expelled from Germany in October 1937. In April 1941, he was imprisoned again on suspicion of homosexual activities, and later charged by a court in the town of Eger in the Czech Republic, following a new trial. In June 1942, instead of being released at the end of his second prison term, he was remanded in "Schutzhaft", or protective custody, the first measure leading to his deportation to a KZ (Konzentrationslager). 

 

 Brazda was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp on 8 August 1942 and remained there until its liberation, on April 11, 1945. He was prisoner number 7952 and started with forced labor at the stone quarry, prior to being posted to the quarry's infirmary. Several months later, he joined the roofers unit, part of the "Bauhof" kommando, in charge of maintaining the numerous buildings that constituted the camp. On many occasions, Brazda saw first hand the Nazi cruelty towards homosexuals as well as other detainees, aware it was not uncommon for sick or disabled prisoners to be executed by lethal injection at the sick bay.

With the help of a kapo who hid him in the early days of April 1945, shortly before the camp's evacuation, Brazda was able to avoid being sent away with thousands of prisoners. These forced evacuation measures turned into death marches for nearly half of them, who were shot on the spot if they were too weak to sustain the pace.

Within the roofers' kommando, Brazda had been able to make friends with other deportees, mostly communists, and in particular with Fernand, a Frenchman from the Alsace province. After finally being released from the camp, instead of returning to his place of birth, Brazda decided to follow the Frenchman to the latter's home country. In May 1945, both eventually arrived in Mulhouse, shortly after VE Day.

In the early 1950s, at a costume ball, Brazda met Edouard "Edi" Mayer, who became his life companion. In the early 1960s, they moved into a house they built in the suburbs of Mulhouse, where Brazda resided until not long before his death. He tended to Edi for over 30 years after Edi was crippled by a severe work accident, until his death in 2003.

In 2008, he heard of the impending unveiling of a memorial to homosexual victims of Nazism in Berlin, he decided to make himself known. Eventually, an invitation was extended to him to attend a ceremony on the morning of the Berlin CSD gay pride march. Brazda was then invited to attend a number of gay events, including Europride Zurich in 2009 and some smaller scaled events in France, Switzerland and Germany.

In 2010, Rudolf Brazda took part in Mulhouse in the unveiling of a plaque in memory of Pierre Seel and others who were deported because of their homosexuality and was a guest of honor at a remembrance ceremony at Buchenwald.

Brazda was symbolically present on the site of the former Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp on the occasion of a plaque unveiling ceremony. The plaque reads, "In Memory of the Victims of Nazi Barbarity, Deported Because of Their Homosexuality."

Brazda was determined to continue speaking out about his past, in the hope that younger generations remain vigilant in the face of present-day behavior and thought patterns similar to those which led to the persecutions endured by homosexuals during the Nazi era. He received the gold medals of the cities of Toulouse and Nancy in recognition of his commitment to bear witness locally and nationally in France.

In recognition of his numerous contributions to public debates, media interviews and research articles, nationally and internationally, not least his involvement in a citizens group promoting awareness of homosexual deportation in France, Brazda was appointed Knight in the National order of the Legion of Honour, in the 2011 Easter honors list. He received his Knight insignia four days later from Marie-José Chombart de Lauwe, president of the French Foundation for the Remembrance of Deportation, in Puteaux (the city whose gold medal he also received on that occasion).

Brazda supported research work by the French citizens group Les « Oublié(e)s » de la Mémoire who made him an honorary member on 3 October 2008.

His original biography, Itinéraire d'un Triangle rose (A Pink Triangle's life journey; currently available in French, Portuguese, Spanish and Czech) is the only book he personally verified and authorized. It is the testimony of the likely last survivor of those men who were marked by a pink triangle and shows how Nazi repression of homosexuality directly impacted his life path. For the first time a book discloses the details of minute police investigations led to convict him and other homosexuals who had come under scrutiny. It also deals with issues such as human sexuality in concentration camps.

A longer, more scholarly German-language biography of Brazda was published later: "Das Glück kam immer zu mir": Rudolf Brazda—Das Überleben eines Homosexuellen im Dritten Reich by Alexander Zinn (Campus Verlag, 2011). The book is currently available in German only.

Brazda died on 3 August 2011, at the age of 98, at Les Molènes, an assisted living facility in northeastern France. Brazda's funeral was held on 8 August 2011 in Mulhouse, France. After a remembrance service attended by approximately 40 people, his body was cremated, and his ashes interred alongside those of his late partner Edouard Mayer, in the Cemetery of Mulhouse.

Immediately following Rudolf Brazda's death, numerous organizations and officials in France paid tribute to his memory.

Obituaries of Rudolf Brazda appeared in publications and on websites worldwide. English-language obituaries published by the Associated Press; Czech Position (Prague); the Los Angeles Times; The New York Times; RFI (France); The Telegraph; The Independent (London); UPI (United States); and numerous other media outlets.

In September 2011, a national tribute ceremony to Rudolf was organized by Les « Oublié(e)s » de la Mémoire. It was held at Saint-Roch's Church, Paris, which houses a memorial chapel to victims of Deportation. Officials, diplomacy representatives, as well as militants and association representatives were in attendance. In the last three years of his life, Rudolf had become a unique witness, and remembering homosexual deportation today remains essential in the struggle against discrimination.

In a statement, Mémorial de la Déportation Homosexuelle, a French organization that commemorates the Nazi persecution of gay people, said that Mr. Brazda “was very likely the last victim and the last witness” to the persecution.

It will now be the task of all LGBT's to keep this memory alive,

Chicken Picante Too

Pronounced (pee-KAWNT) this dish is browned chicken thighs stewed in the tomato sauce with the traditional flavors of onion, bell peppers, celery, and garlic. Originally a Cajun dish, served over rice and very spicy, but this can be adjusted to your preference and fussiness of your insides! Here is presented a calmer meal for those who can no longer afford to turn their guts into flame-throwers.

When you have to give up Cajun spice, you don't have to give up flavor! Here we rely on our friend Old Bay, its not just for fish! Liven up this dish without tearing up your gut.

Ingredients:

2-3 lbs chicken thighs, bone-less, skin-less

½ cup flour

1 TBS Old Bay seasoning

2 TBS oil

2TBS butter

½ onion, chopped

1 green bell pepper, cut into ½ inch pieces

2 stalks celery, chopped

3 garlic cloves, chopped

3 TBS lime juice

1 tsp thyme

3 TBS brown sugar

1 TBS yellow mustard

2 cups chicken broth

2 slices of raw bacon

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Trim the fat off the chicken thighs. Cut each into 4ths.

Mix flour with Old Bay Seasonings:

 

Dredge in flour, salt & Old Bay

Reserve the flour mixture.

Chop green bell pepper into ½ inch pieces. Chop yellow onion, celery, and garlic.

Heat oil & butter in a dutch oven.

Brown in the pot but do not crowd, remove after 4 mins per side, cover with foil.

Into the dutch oven on stove top:

Spoon in the onion, celery, and green pepper. Stir until soft.

Sprinkle with the reserved flour and mix well.

Pour in the stewed tomatoes, (undrained)

Then the lime juice, garlic, thyme, brown sugar and mustard. Stir well.

Bring to a simmer for 15 mins. Using a spatula stir up to loosen any bits of fond on the bottom of the pot. Those bits of brown are wonderful pieces of flavor! Plus this makes the pot easier to clean.

Add chicken broth.

Taste test! If you wish add 2 TBS Worcester sauce.

Return the chicken to the sauce and throw in the uncut raw bacon. (you will be pulling this out before you serve it)

 

 Cover and roast in oven for 45 mins. or a thermometer reads 170°

Remove used bacon, it has given its all!

Serve over a bed of rice. Slave chose to fix long grain rice for this dish.

Possibly a side of plain green vegetables will balance this nicely but that is unnecessary.

What a triumph to serve a dish like this that is not full of forbidden spice yet full of flavor.

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn0-6n_dng4 Lady Marmalade

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet 

Recipes by Dan White 

 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

                                      

 

====================================

Pork and Cannellini Bean Stew

This delightful stew was pulled together with a left over pork steak and a few cans from the pantry. A wonderful aroma producer that is loaded with potassium and magnesium for a healthy heart. But make it for the taste! Tonight we honor a 13^th century Persian poet known as Rumi. It is not often we find LGBT heroes from Central Asian Muslims. Read about this cleric and lover for stimulating dinner conversations.

A stew that helps use up left over meat, and clean up the pantry at the same time. Unique blend of green beans, potatoes, white Italian beans, and red sauce that does its cooking in the oven while you are free to do other things.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. left-over pork shoulder, cut into 3/4-inch pieces

• ½ cup chopped onion (1 medium)

• 2 garlic cloves, minced

• ½ tsp seasoned salt

• 2 cans sliced potatoes

• 1 (19-oz.) can cannellini beans, drained

• 1 (15-oz.) can pasta sauce with Italian seasonings

• 1 (14-oz.) can chicken broth

• 1 (14-oz.) can green beans

• 
  

Directions:

Heat oven to 325°F.

Cut up the left over pork, cover and set aside in large bowl. Open and drain the cans. Mince the garlic, and onion, spoon that into a large bowl with the green beans. Sprinkle with 1 tsp sugar, cover and set aside.

Add some oil to Dutch oven. Heat over medium-high heat until hot. Add the potatoes, cannellini beans, sauce and broth. Mix well. Cover.

Bake covered at 325°F. for 1 hour. 

 

Uncover Dutch oven; stir in cut up pork with the green beans and onions.

Cover; bake an additional 45 minutes or until pork and vegetables are tender.

Dish into bowls to serve.

Top with a spoonful of non fat unflavored Greek style yogurt if you wish.

Some may like to bake a bread but it is not necessary.

Tips

• Cannellini beans are white Italian kidney beans. Their mind flavor is favored for soups and salads.

• Calories: 525 Calories from Fat: 135 Total Fat 15g Cholesterol: 75mg Total Carbohydrate: 68g

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-dOuDt784E Love theme from Flight of the Phoenix

So honored to present this stew for my Master Indy

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White 

 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

======================================== Rumi, a Persian Gay Saint

Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī, more popularly known as simply Rumi was born in 1207. He was a 13th-century Persian poet, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian, and Sufi mystic.

Rumi's influence transcends national borders and ethnic divisions: Iranians, Tajiks, Turks, Greeks, Pashtuns, other Central Asian Muslims, and the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy for the past seven centuries. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages and transposed into various formats. Rumi has been described as the "most popular poet" and the "best selling poet" in the United States.

Rumi's works are written mostly in Persian, but occasionally he also used Turkish, Arabic, and Greek in his verse. His Masnavi (Mathnawi), is considered one of the greatest poems of the Persian language. His works are widely read today in their original language across Greater Iran and the Persian-speaking world. Translations of his works are very popular, most notably in Turkey, Azerbaijan, the United States, and South Asia. His poetry has influenced not only Persian literature, but also the literary traditions of the Ottoman Turkish, Chagatai, Urdu, Bengali and Pashto languages.

 

Rumi love for another man inspired some of the world’s best poems and led to the creation of a new religious order, the Whirling Dervishes. He was born Sept. 30, 1207 in Afghanistan.

With sensuous beauty and deep spiritual insight, Rumi writes about the sacred presence in ordinary experiences. His poetry is widely admired around the world and he is one of the most popular poets in America. One of his often-quoted poems begins:

If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.

The homoeroticism of Rumi is hidden in plain sight. It is well known that his poems were inspired by his love for another man, but the queer implications are seldom discussed. There is no proof that Rumi and his beloved Shams of Tabriz had a sexual relationship, but the intensity of their same-sex love is undeniable.

Some of his more homoerotic poems were not published in English until The Forbidden Rumi: The Suppressed Poems of Rumi on Love, Heresy, and Intoxication was released in 2006. The volume was forbidden both because of its homoerotic content and because it promotes the “blasphemy” that one must go beyond religion in order to experience God.

Rumi’s life changed when he met a man called Shams

Rumi was born in Afghanistan, which was then part of the Persian Empire. His father, a Muslim scholar and mystic, moved the family to Turkey to escape Mongol invaders when Rumi was a child. Rumi lived most of his life in this region and used it as the basis of his chosen name, which means “Roman.”

His father died when Rumi was 25 and he inherited a position as teacher at an Islamic school. He continued studying Islamic law, eventually issuing his own legal opinions and giving sermons in the local mosques. Rumi also practiced the basics of Sufi mysticism in a community of dervishes, who are Muslim ascetics similar to mendicant friars in Christianity.

In 1244 Rumi met the man who would change his life: a wandering dervish named Shams of Tabriz. He came from Iranian Azerbaijan. It is said that Shams had traveled throughout the Middle East asking Allah to help him find a friend who could “endure” his companionship. A voice in a vision sent him to the place where Rumi lived.

Rumi, a respected scholar in his thirties, was riding a donkey home from work when an elderly stranger in ragged clothes approached. It was Shams. He grasped the reins and started a theological debate. Some say that Rumi was so overwhelmed that he fainted and fell off the donkey.

Rumi and Shams soon became inseparable. They spent months together, lost in a kind of ecstatic mystical communion known as “sobhet” — conversing and gazing at each other until a deeper conversation occurred without words. They forgot about human needs and ignored Rumi’s students, who became jealous. When conflict arose in the community, Shams disappeared as unexpectedly as he had arrived.

Rumi’s loneliness at their separation led him to begin the activities for which he is still remembered. He poured out his soul in poetry and mystical whirling dances of the spirit.

Eventually Rumi found out that Shams had gone to Damascus. He wrote letters begging Shams to return. Legends tell of a dramatic reunion. The two sages fell at each other’s feet. In the past they were like a disciple and teacher, but now they loved each other as equals. One account says, “No one knew who was lover and who the beloved.” Both men were married to women, but they resumed their intense relationship with each other, merged in mystic communion. Jealousies arose again and some men began plotting to get rid of Shams.

One winter night, when he was with Rumi, Shams answered a knock at the back door. He disappeared and was never seen again. Many believe that he was murdered.

Rumi grieved when Shams disappeared

Rumi grieved deeply. He searched in vain for his friend and lost himself in whirling dances of mourning. One of his poems hints at the his emotions:

Dance, when you’re broken open.
Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you’re perfectly free.

Rumi danced, mourned and wrote poems until the pressure forged a new consciousness. “The wound is the place where the Light enters you,” he once wrote. His soul fused with his beloved. They became One: Rumi, Shams and God.

He wrote:

Why should I seek? I am the same as he.
His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself.

 

After this breakthrough, waves of profound poetry flowed out of Rumi. He attributed more and more of his writings to Shams. His literary classic is a vast collection of poems called “The Works of Shams of Tabriz.” The Turkish government refused to help with translation of the last volume, which was finally published in 2006 as The Forbidden Rumi: The Suppressed Poems of Rumi on Love, Heresy, and Intoxication.

Rumi went on to live and love again, dedicating poems to other beloved men. His second great love was the goldsmith Saladin Zarkub. After the goldsmith’s death, Rumi’s scribe Husan Chelebi became Rumi’s beloved companion for the rest of his life. Rumi died at age 66 after an illness on Dec. 17, 1273. Soon his followers founded the Mevlevi Order, known as the whirling dervishes because of the dances they do in devotion to God.

Rumi’s stature as a Persian queer saint resists homonormative readings of his life and work.

Andros Stud File Chicken

Tonight's creamy chicken bake is named to honor A special ICON of LGBT history. Known as Phil Andros, he was a poet, novelist, English professor, tattoo artist and pornographer. His notes and writings help define the BDSM dynamic that is still misunderstood by many today.

Cutting the chicken breast in this manor allows it to roast faster in a creamy cheese sauce over a layer of thinly sliced potato. Serve with a green vegetable and possibly some fruit for desert. Take the time to introduce yourself to this fascinating rebel of the last century. It should spark some interesting dinner conversation.

Ingredients:

1.5 - 2lbs chicken breast, Boneless/Skinless

1 can evaporated milk

½ tsp each:

salt

pepper

paprika

garlic

3 Tbs hoisin sauce

juice of half a lime

1.5oz shredded Gruyere cheese

2 Tbs parsley flakes

1 egg

Diections:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Carefully slice the potatoes and onion on a mandolin slicer. Let soak in water for 20 mins.

Then dry in colander.

Lay out the chicken breasts on wax paper. With a sharp knife make cuts only halfway into the meat in a cross-ways pattern.

Mix the marinade: Stir the salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic into the heavy cream well in a large bowl and add the scored chicken.

Cover with plastic wrap and let set in refrigerator for an hour

Line a baking pan with foil and spread olive oil in the bottom.

Line with a layer of thin slices. Let roast for half an hour, then remove from oven.

Lay chicken cut side up on potatoes and pour marinade over.

Bake for 30 mins.

Beat egg with salt & chives in a bowl and shred in the Gruyere cheese. Stir to mix well.

Spoon over top of the chicken then sprinkle with Parmesan and return for additional 15 min. of roasting.

Remove and let rest while you microwave a green vegetable. Serve with slices of tomato. Maybe a dish of fresh fruit for desert.

So honored to serve this to Master Indy.

For our music tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8ROwWf6ZcM Walking

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White 

 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTMvia @amazon

 

 

=========================================== Phil Andros

“He was an absolute masterpiece of living,”

He was a poet, novelist, university professor, a tattoo artist and pornographer. He defined being a sexual outlaw at a time the term was unheard of.

Born 1909 in a tiny village halfway between Columbus OH and Pittsburgh PA this unique icon fought to remain true to his own nature. A dangerous undertaking at any time in history.

Reading about his life I sense he is still mostly misunderstood. Too often writers that can not relate with the BDSM dynamic feel they must portray him as a tortured self-destructive soul. His genius was so much more.

Yes Andros struggled with alcoholism, but by 1949 he managed to overcome his addiction with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous.

He studied at University in Columbus in 1927. Having earned a Ph.D. in English at Ohio State, he spent the 1930s and ’40s pursuing a respectable if patchy career as a man of letters, teaching at various universities including Loyola in Chicago, publishing novels and poetry

Andros gained an introduction to Gertrude Stein in 1932 and began a long correspondence with her that developed into a warm friendship. He paid visits to her rented country home in France during the summers of 1937 and 1939.

In 1936 he was dismissed from his teaching position, at the State College of Washington, as the result of his sympathetic portrayal of a prostitute in his well-reviewed comic novel Angels on the Bough. He subsequently moved to Chicago, where he taught at Loyola University until 1946. After leaving Loyola to help re-write the World Book Encyclopedia, he then taught at DePaul University.

Through the late 1930s and 1940s, Andros maintained a precarious balancing act between his role as a respectable college professor and aspiring writer during the day, and his often dangerously provocative sexual exploits at night. In an era where homosexuality itself could mean jail, disgrace, beatings, and even death, he chose a sometimes lonely and uneasy path that somehow managed to narrowly avoid disaster while being true to an essential part of his humanity.

Born as Samuel Morris Steward he was best known as Phil Andros, Phil Sparrow, and many other pseudonyms. Throughout his life he kept extensive secret diaries, journals and statistics of his sex life.

Through these lengthy writings we now have a wealth of knowledge about how LGBT's lived at that time. His record keeping was unique at a time when this “love dared not speak its name”. It led to his collaboration with known sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in late 1949. He became an unofficial collaborator with Kinsey's Institute for Sex Research.

During his years of work with the Institute, he collected and donated sexually themed materials to the Kinsey archive, gave Kinsey access to his lifelong sexual records, introduced him to large numbers of sexually active men in the Chicago area.

Kinsey and Andros were both: archivists, obsessives, and collectors. Kinsey recorded other people’s sex lives; Andros recorded his own. Each time Kinsey visited Chicago he met Andros, clocking upward of seven hundred hours of conversation, and they corresponded until Kinsey’s death. In 1951, Andros bought one of the first Polaroid cameras and showed the results to Kinsey. Sometime later, he was asked to put together a collection of “sex-related disciplinary devices” that duplicated his own.

Kinsey was deeply sympathetic to Andros, and though it is now thought that homosexual masochism was a part of Kinsey’s own makeup, the relationship was platonic—a rarity for Andros. He regarded Kinsey as an accepting, nonjudgmental father figure.

Kinsey's invitation, he was filmed engaging in BDSM sex with Steve Masters. Andros wrote, “At the end of the second afternoon I was exhausted, marked and marred, all muscles weakened . . . my jaws were so tired and unhinged I could scarcely close my mouth.”

After Gertrude Stein, Kinsey was Andros' most important mentor; he later described Kinsey not only "as approachable as a park bench" but also as a god-like bringer of enlightenment to humankind, thus giving him the nickname, "Doctor Prometheus."

The climate of the postwar years led to an explosion of activity in and around the seedy burlesque houses, transient hotels, and tattoo parlors of Chicago’s South Loop, and Andros found a true home. By the early 1950s, he had taught himself tattooing, and opened a shop-- even as he taught literature during the day at DePaul. In one interview, he referred to himself as “the Mr. Chips of the tattoo world.”

As a tattoo artist, he took the name Phil Sparrow, and called his shop Phil’s Tattoo Joynt. For more than a decade, he was a fixture on the South Loop Skid Row, living his life as he chose, documenting his experiences in graphic detail, and seeking out eligible partners in his diaries and a card catalog called the “Stud File.” In 1964, he re-located to the East Bay near San Francisco, where he became the preferred tattoo artist to the Hell’s Angels and augmented his income by writing erotic gay pulp fiction under the pseudonym Phil Andros.

Some of his early works described his fascination with rough trade and sadomasochistic sex; others focused on the power dynamics of interracial sexual encounters between men. In 1966, thanks to changes in American publishing laws, he was able to publish his story collection $TUD, under the pseudonym Phil Andros.

By the late 1960s, Andros started writing a series of pulp pornographic novels featuring the hustler Phil Andros as narrator. He was especially intrigued by the symbolism of the tattoo needle penetrating the body and leaving fluid behind. But then he got tattooed himself, writing, “The tattoos I have on me ally me with the herd, the toughs, the lower-class, the criminal.”

American society was undeniably repressive, it’s hard to see how Andros could have been any less inhibited. He cruised the streets, bars, and baths of Chicago in search of rough trade, especially sailors. Some of this could be very rough indeed: One pickup led to his spending “a seven-hour ordeal as a sexual captive,” an encounter that, according to Spring, earned top marks in his Stud File.

Tattooing allowed him to put his ink and his hands on a large number of men, many of them sailors, and some of them were happy enough to have sex as part of the process (though as he aged, Steward relied more on paid hustlers).

In 1970, he hung up his tattoo machine and, writing as Phil Andros, concentrated on pornographic novels with titles such as San Francisco Hustler and The Greek Way. In the 1980s, under his own name, he published two “Gertrude Stein–Alice B. Toklas Mysteries.”

In 1978, Andros told an interviewer, “Once someone asked me why I was not ‘politically involved.’ . . . There were no political movements at all. . . . We got all the sex we wanted, but marching?! Where to? . . . The young of today have no conception at all of the lives we had to lead—furtive, hidden—but joyously hedonistic just the same.” It’s hardly news that there were plenty of gay men in America eighty years ago, but who knew that some of them succeeded in finding partners so easily?

The writing continued into the ’90s, by which time he had become a cherished source of anecdote and history for the Bay Area gay community. He died in Berkeley in 1993, at age eighty-four.

That he lived to such a ripe old age is perhaps the most surprising fact of all about Andros. He took enormous risks, legal as well as physical—how he stayed out of jail is anybody’s guess.

He told an interviewer, “Of course, I wouldn’t dare do it, except that my dream all my life has been to be in prison, and to be fucked morning, noon and night by everyone, and beaten.” This must be one of the very few fantasies he failed to live out.

In 1972, Jack Fritscher became the first openly gay writer to unearth and interview Andros; his audiotapes were referenced in Justin Spring's biography of Andros. Starting in 2001, Justin Spring tracked down the archive and began writing the biography Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade, which was published in 2010.

His life was extraordinary for its time,

 but it would have been extraordinary at 

any time.