Clone

Rating:
Summary: Threw this in the Dumpster --
Review: -- immediately after our hero tells us how he found his rape at knifepoint, at the age of 15, to be exciting and stimulating. Knowing survivors of sexual violence, I found this totally unacceptable. One could almost say Okun/Parker got what he deserved. No apologies.

Rating:
Summary: compelling portrait of porn pioneer
Review: As a long-time admirer of Al Parker, I was delighted to stumble across this account of his life. The author's access to intimate details of Parker's youth made for compelling reading, especially the macabre accounts of Al's losing his virginity to a knife-wielding psychopath! Al's experiences at Woodstock were a hoot. I also found the story of his entry into the porn world with the encouragement of his lover to be very interesting. I had always imagined Rip Colt to be as hot as the men he photographed. What an eye-opener that was!

The background info on the films themselves was very welcome to an aficionado like myself. I've seen them all a hundred times and the insider gossip and behind-the-scenes details make for interesting reading.

Most of all, I was delighted to discover just how ordinary this sexual icon of gay liberation really was. To know that he was involved in a serious relationship that spanned fifteen years, all the while fueling fantasy fires across the gay spectrum was quite a turn-on for me. It was also gratifying to read about his pioneering efforts in bringing safer sex to the gay, X-rated video screen.

While checking out this site, I couldn't help but notice that a couple of people had just the opposite opinion of this book. All I can think is that they didn't read it carefully, or that they expected Al Parker to be what he seemed to be on film. From all I gathered from the book, Drew Okun was a great guy. I wish I could have known him.

Read the book and you'll have a better sense of the gay porn industry from its early years through the AIDS crisis. Kudos to Roger Edmonson for giving substance to a legendary figure in underground gay culture.

Rating:
Summary: Easy Reading
Review: I was amazed to read how hungery Al Parker was for sex all through his life. This book is well written except for the ending. At the end of his life, Drew spent a lot of time raising money for people with AIDS and doing other community service events. Very little is said about this and the final days of his life. So little in fact, it seems the book ends too abruptly.

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly dull
Review: The 1970s were a time of sexual freedom and optimism for the gay male community in the United States. Having broken out and found a sense of identity and pride in the wake of Stonewall, gay men celebrated their sexuality, many to excess, in a brief explosion of gleeful hedonism before the scourge of AIDS swept all before it.

Roger Edmonson, having profiled an icon of this lost era, Casey Donovan, with fair success, attempts the same with another star of gay male pornography from the same period, Drew Okun, or Al Parker. This book is not up to the standard of that earlier effort, partly because, when it comes right down to it, Drew Okun led a remarkably humdrum life for a porn star. Unlike Donovan, who traveled a lot, acted on stage, and knew famous people, Okun seems to have been basically a homebody, quite content to live with his longtime companion Richard Cole (who also acted in porn films with Okun under the name Steve Taylor, a fact which Edmonson oddly forgets to note) on the California coast and run his production company, Surge Studios.

Edmonson does not help his cause by superficial writing and research. Interesting facts about Okun/Parker's life are mentioned almost in passing and never explored in depth, or even mentioned again. One would like to know more, for example, about Okun's estrangements from his elder sister and from Steve Scott, who directed some of his best films, but revelations are not forthcoming in this rather slim volume, which spends a lot of time describing Parker's films which are, for the most part, readily available and better seen for oneself anyway. Even the photographs included are disappointing. In short, this volume succeeds neither as serious biography nor as guilty pleasure.

Rating:
Summary: A basic life story of a classic gay star.
Review: This book is a quick knockoff, derived from the autobiographical notes Drew Okun left of his life and times, with a few interviews of friends and family thrown in. So many quotes are unattributed that I had to guess where the author got much of his material. The resulting biography is adequate to establish the basic life story of the man who became "Al Parker" (named by "Rip Colt"; almost everyone in the porn industry is pseudonymous). Drew developed a conflicted relationship with "Al," making his life story a Jekyll/Hyde affair. Drew didn't mind, as he was spaced out on marijuana nearly every waking hour of his adult life. The most interesting material is the first half, when Drew was becoming aware of himself as a gay man and establishing himself in California. The Playboy mansion episode is a hoot, although the ghost story thrown in is farfetched. Treatments of the films and videos are superficial -- little more than porn-style descriptions of each film's action. Since it's unlikely anyone else will do a full biography of Okun/Parker, this one will have to do. For gay men curious about the Parker legend, this book is not a bad place to start. The value and meaning of Drew's film career, as well as his position as an icon of gay masculinity, is territory others should tackle.

Rating:
Summary: A basic life story of a classic gay star.
Review: Thoug the topic should be highly interesting - the gay icon of the pre-AIDs-era - the author does not come close to creating a general interesting interpretation of Al Parker's life. After reading I felt he must have been a pretty bland and almost boring guy. Nothing is said about his compulsive sexual behavior which kept him going to the very bitter end, and...other demons. His relationship to his father is left totally unclear with contradictive statements by Mr Parker himself and his father. The various conflicting statements about him don't give a coherent picture of him and the author does not sort them out. Sometimes Mr Parker decribed as a good business man, sometimes not. No one seems to say anything critical of him, everybody just says what a nice guy he was, which becomes pretty boring after a while. you don't get the feeling this man had any kind of substance.
In the hands of a better writer I am sure there would have been a better biography that could have made for fascinating reading but Mr Edmonson was not up to it. I much preferred Charles Isherwood's "Life and Death of Joey Stefanoe" for insight into the porn business and writing skill.

Rating:
Summary: Boring -- An overblown magazine article
Review: What was so baffling about this biography of the biggest gay male porno actor of the pre and post-AIDS era was the fact that there weren't very interesting things to be said other than that Drew Okun was a gay porn star.

The graphic portions are gratuitous by their nature, and the author didn't generate a great interest in his subject. I was struck by how mundane the star and the writing were. I would only recommend this biography to hungry fans, but I believe that there is another writer that may have been able to do this better.

My guess is that Al Parker was a generally wholesome guy that was successful in the porno business. For my money, this was all tease.