The movie "MILK" uses the framing device of Harvey Milk making a tape to be played in the event of his death by assassination. The following short film is called "575 Castro St" directed by Jenni Olson. It has a series of static video shots of Harvey's old camera shop (as it was recreated for  "MILK") with an edited down version of the original 13 minute tape. I had heard of this tape on a few occasions, so I was intrigued when a friend sent me the link to this. You can see the director's notes here.

In celebration of the opening of the new movie "MILK", we are excited to share this amazing piece by Steve Beery. Steve was a writer and gay activist who died of AIDS in '93. He met Harvey Milk when he was 25 years old and Harvey was 48. Harvey was a daddy who definitely appreciated younger men. This piece was provided to us by Armistead Maupin (my wonderful husband), who met Steve at Harvey's memorial service and remained his closest friend until his death.

My Month with Harvey

by Steve Beery

I was suffering from a typical San Francisco ailment – costume claustrophobia. My tights were riding up, my fake-satin cape was itchy, and beads of sweat were rolling down behind my eye mask. I was dressed as Robin the Boy Wonder at the 1978 Beaux Arts Ball, and I was being unmistakably cruised by a man I knew but had never met.  The man was Harvey Milk, the first openly gay city supervisor – a man I respected and admired.

We’d smiled and nodded on Castro Street several times that year.  I like Harvey’s wide-open grin, and I’d wondered whether the attraction was mutual.  Now it looked like maybe it was. Nervously I straightened my cape, checked my trunks, adjusted my gloves. The supervisor, at ease in his rumpled grey suit, extended his hand and uttered the corniest pick-up line imaginable. “Hop on my back, Boy Wonder, and I’ll fly you to Gotham City,” he said, almost keeping a straight face.

The line was corny, but effective. Harvey had a gift for persuasion, a way of making you believe he could do anything. We swapped phone numbers and got together the next night.  The thing that impressed me most was his laugh, explosive and uninhibited; that, and the slightly daffy look in his eyes, like an overgrown kid’s. At 48 he was nearly twice my age, but full of boyish mischief.

It didn’t take me long to realize that Harvey was a nut, a screwball, a wild card. He was also a satyr, a gleeful disciple of Eros who’d found a way to marry his essential craziness to a set of well-ordered work habits. He insisted on being on call to his constituents 24 hours a day. No problem – from towed cars and trash pickup to tree pruning – was too small. Despite his hippie, flower-power, Summer of Love experience, there wasn’t an ounce of “California mellow” in Harvey. His native New York aggression, undiluted by the amiability of Castro Street, was always spoiling for a fight.

I was surprised, on our first date, to find out how strong he was.  He didn’t have a gym-toned body; he was built more like a big bull, rangy and muscular.  Within his first two minutes at my apartment he picked me up and dumped me unceremoniously on my bed.  He liked to do things fast, at double speed. He walked fast. He talked fast. He even ate fast.

Sexy young stud James Franco, one of the stars of "MILK", talks to Letterman about kissing Sean Penn then plants one on Dave.

Just think, if you had been Antinous (pronounced an-tin-oh-us), you could have said, "my gay daddy is the most powerful man in the world"... and it would have been true. Many don't realize that one of the Roman Empire's greatest rulers was an openly gay man. The first time I heard about Hadrian and Antinous I was daydreaming in my Roman and Hellenistic Sculpture course in college. Professor Connelly brought up the bust of a Roman Emperor on the slide projector and I thought to myself, "hmm... he looks like a sexy bearded daddy".

Truth is, that's one of the reasons I took the course. I love all those sexy sculptures of the hot daddies. I used to drool over the Farnese Hercules and the Laocoon, and a host of other sculptures of gods, philosophers and emperors. Unlike our culture, the Greeks and Romans really celebrated an older ideal, not just youth.

The professor brought me out of my daze as she said, "Hadrian was gay and had a young lover named Antinous". Wow, a gay Roman Emperor. I knew that the Greeks and Romans were a little less uptight about gay sex, but I didn't know it was possible to have that much power as an openly gay man.

Hadrian was born on January 24 in 76 AD. After his parents died he was put under the care of Trajan who was a cousin of his father and happened to be Emperor at the time. In 117 AD he was named emperor and he ruled until his death in 138 AD.

Hadrian has been described as the most versatile of all Roman Emperors. Trajan was a warmonger, but Hadrian ushered in a time of peace. Hadrian was also an intellect, a patron of the arts, and quite a great architect himself. Among his accomplishments were building the Pantheon and Hadrian's Villa.

The Pantheon is my favorite piece of architecture anywhere. Hadrian built it as a temple to all the gods. It seems that his intention was to create a symbol of unity to bring different belief systems together. The dome is 43.3 meters in diameter and holds the record for the world's largest un-reinforced concrete dome. Modern architects and engineers are still baffled at how he achieved this feat nearly 2,000 years ago. Michelangelo designed the dome in St. Peter's to be 1 meter smaller than the dome in the Pantheon in deference to Hadrian. He didn't want to overshadow his hero's great architectural triumph.