Drummer No 021 March 1977

Cover photo, shot by partner/lovers Jack Fritscher and David Sparrow, features famed San Francisco pianist John Trowbridge, nude with hairy torso behind bars with sunlight, shot by Sparrow-Fritscher at bunkers at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge to illustrate Jack Fritscher’s lead feature article “Prison Blues: Confessions of a Prison Tour Junkie,” with 4 photographs of Trowbridge and David Wychoff printed as “negatives.” Additional photograph shot solo at Stanford University by Jack Fritscher: “Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman in Boots,” p. 27.

Historical background: David Andrew Sparrow and Jack Fritscher met on July 4, 1969, and were lovers, partners, and housemates through May 1979, after which David Sparrow dropped completely from publication. In 1970, Jack Fritscher and David Sparrow appeared together as San Francisco’s first leathersex models in *Whipcrack* Magazine, Vol. No. 1, in 34 photographs — including the back cover — shot by Walt Jebe, who owned Castro’s first camera shop, predating Harvey Milk by nearly 10 years. David Sparrow lived from May 7, 1945 to February 20, 1992.

John Trowbridge, cafe pianist, was one of the co-founders of San Francisco’s first uniform club, The Pacific Drill Patrol (PDP), in 1972. Other founding members included: Jack Fritscher, Ed Linotti, Robert Cato, Frank Gonchar, Tony Perles, Bill Livingston, and Lee Smithee (who appears in PDP jumpsuit uniform in the photograph entitled “Undercover Cop: The Secret Co-Efficients of Desire, 1974” on page 17 of *Jack Fritscher’s American Men* coffee-table photography book, GMP, London, 1995). Bill and Lee’s design business, which employed Bob Cato (who crashed his van accidentally into Mary Martin and Janet Gaynor after leaving Jack Fritscher’s house), was burned out during the Barracks Bath House fire, South of Market, on Hallam Street, where the artist Rex lost his studio, as did photographer Mark I. Chester.

Approximately ninety days before this March 1977 cover appeared, Tom of Finland arrived in America (November 1976) and was hosted in San Francisco by *Drummer* Art Director Al (A. Jay) Shapiro and *Drummer* editor-in-chief Jack Fritscher. At this same time, Robert Mapplethorpe arrived in San Francisco, where Jack Fritscher introduced him to the bunker location that figured in several of the controversial Mapplethorpe photographs.

Editor of issue for *Drummer* #21: Jack Fritscher.