November 13, 2007
RIP Joe Romero and Haus Weston
There seems to be an awful lot of gay porn star deaths reported this year. I'm not sure it's been a particularly bad year compared to previous years, instead I think there is just much more media reporting news about the industry. News via gay porn blogs and discussion boards travels faster than ever before. Rather than waiting three months for gay porn news to show up in print, we find out about it in minutes.
When I founded Gay Porn Blog, I was the only game out there reporting this kind of information instantly. I now have millions of competitors with a lot more space to fill, so more items get reported than ever before. If it weren't for the speed and multitude of gay porn blogs and discussion boards, the deaths of guys like Joe Romero and Haus Weston might have gotten passed over if the timing or the space considerations weren't right.
I knew Joe Romero in the late 1980's before he got into porn. I was dating a guy who was managing a bagel shop here in the Castro, and Joe was one of his little twinks working behind the counter. I'd seen him around town for years, and I believe I must have worked on the crew on at least one movie that Joe Romero was in, but I can't remember the occasion.
I do remember Joe Romero got recruited to perform in a big production number when Wigstock came to San Francisco. Cockatelia created dozens of costumes and choreographed a big jungle rhythm number with herself as the star, but all eyes were on the one scantily clad hot guy amid the tired drag queens! Joe was a big hit!
I also remember Joe Romero called me out of the blue in 1996 to help promote his music career. He somehow hooked up with some sort of high tech company that used his music for an interactive CD-ROM and he invited me to visit their booth at MacWorld. Thanks to Joe, I got into MacWorld for free, listened to his pitch, and he gave me an audio cassette of his music. The market for interactive CD-ROMs just never took off. I hadn't heard anything else about Joe Romero's musical career until today, when I dug through a box of old cassettes, and there it was! A 1996 demo tape of Joe Romero! I'll spare you from reproducing it into an audio file for the internets, because at the time, he was adamant that it was only a rough, unfinished demo tape.
As for Haus Weston, I never met him, but I do remember he made a bit of a splash ten years ago when he was discovered by All Worlds, even warranting a compilation video, "Best of Haus Weston".
Both died much younger than they should have, but I have no further details. I ask that you take a look at the body of work left by both of these young men to remember them in their prime.
Posted by lavenderlounge at 1:50 PM
Comments
Dark meat? I find this posting foul and distateful, not only for your brazen bore-all style, but also that you would term any one "dark meat". If you can't provide us with the photos, we don't care.
Posted by: prideforall at October 6, 2004 8:53 AM
Dear Prideforall (a website that does not actually exist):
I thought about it, and I don't think "dark meat" is offensive in this context, otherwise I would edit the entry.
Following your logic, words like "beefcake", "bear", "porn hound" and "sex pig" would also be offensive because it's demeaning to equate the person to the level of an animal.
Your politically over-corrected point holds no weight considering how often Jamie Foxx and the Wayans use the "n" word in public.
As for "where are the nude photos", read the rest of the story.
More comments?
Webmaster
Posted by: Webmaster at October 6, 2004 11:49 AM
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