Customer Reviews

Speeding: The Old Reliable Photos of David Hurles

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I read a write up for this book in "OUT" Magazine a few months ago and could not wait for the book to come out. So as soon as I found out it was available I ordered it from Amazon.

If you are a fan of this particular subject then you will not be dissapointed in this book. As a young, teenage boy, in the few 'dirty' magazines I managed to get my hands on I would often see the small black and white add's for the "Old Reliable" men. Small as the adds and pictures were they still popped out at me. I wanted to see them bigger, closer, but at my age then I could not afford to send away for them.

These are the types of men that were in my thoughts, not the pretty boy, perfect types.

They are pretty and perfect, but not in the traditional way. The men in the photographs are very street tough and the hard, toned, muscular bodies are not from working out in a gym, but just from working.

So if you were a young gay man in the 1970's and 80's, this book will take you back. It is very well put together.

They ONLY real dissapointment in this book is there is next to no information about the men who were the models. For the most part it gives the first name of the model, but tells you nothing biographically about them. Of course being the type of guys they were and the times being what they were then, perhaps there is not information on them.

Not the best coffee table book I've seen, but worth having at the right price. It's a photo history of "rough trade" going back to the '70's, of men found on the street or in bars of San Francisco and Los Angeles willing to pose nude for David Hurles. It contains some interesting characters and some hot men.

No pretty boys here! I had seen Hurles' photos for years, often not knowing anything about them. It was fun to learn the history and some of the names behind those photos I remember so well. My only complaints are that the essays are just a little too short and a tad on the fluff side and that the photos are printed in black and white instead of color.

David Hurles photos collected here may one day be viewed as the last great expression of homoerotic Rough Trade in America. Situated mostly in the 1970s through 80s, these photos represent the author's and others' fascination with the world of hard-edged, hard-bodied working class and mostly -- though not exclusively -- white men on the fringes of society. The harsh realities of these men's lives can been seen in the details of these pictures: prison-made tattoos, young men with prematurely aged faces, bodies whose lean hardness was produced by hard physical work rather than by working out.

This now lost world of hard-edged same-sex male eroticism and sociability was swept away by a New World of "gay" men in which picture-perfect air-brushed Abercrombie and Fitch chiseled physiques are the standard of male beauty, female-identified "gay" men take characters from chick-flics like "Desperate Housewives" and "Sex in the City" as their as their role-models, and in which the professional white upper-middle classes who hi-jacked direction of activism around issues of same-sex desire quashed post-Stone Wall radical sexual politics in favor of "gay" marriage. The kinds of men photographed here would probably have the cops called on them by patrons of the Castro in San Francisco, Chelsea in New York or any other chic "gay" district in any big American city were they to think about frequenting such places today; which of course they would not. Hurles photos will remain as a testament and homage to a vanished world of same-sex male eroticism whose echoes are the parodies of masculinity and virility found in various fetish-scenes in the contemporary Brave New World of "gay" male culture. They are an invaluable historical document.

The photos and accompanying essays by Rex (himself an icon) are an introduction to the vast body of work of David Hurles' Old Reliable. Streetwise, tatooed models such as Tico Peterson, Spider, Champ,Springer, Rod Garetto and the self proclaimed "Miracle man" (whose scraggly beard look best represents the quintessential unruliness of Hurles' models) are showcased in their prime. Unfortunately, the printing quality isn't good and the pictures seem faded at times. If you can get them, the original Old Reliable catalogues (with the tongue-in-cheek comments and out-of-context quotes) are indeed the best showpieces of David Hurles' photography and unique examples of gay americana.

Very disappointing, mostly due to the design of the book. The cover was the best graphically, but inside layouts are amature at best. The designer didn't work with the archival quality of the images at all. This could have been a really special tribute to the Old Reliable video series, but is fell way short. Hence, I returned the book promptly.