• SCOTT O’HARA
  
  I first met Scott in 1984 on the concrete floor in the warehouse at 10 Rodgers Alley, South of Market, which was used for a short time in the mid-’80s as a meeting place for the San Francisco Jacks.
  
  I didn’t know who “Scott O’Hara” was, but I could tell there was something special about this guy who'd shown up at the party. He was powerfully attractive, and his eyes radiated confidence. Completely aside from that big thing hanging between his thighs, Scott was certainly a hunk. Even completely naked, Scott exuded style and poise.
  
  There was a palpable electricity coursing between us. We circled each other, kind of slowly, our eyes riveted to one another as we jacked off our erect dicks. At some point, we circled in close and made a grab for the other man’s dick at the same moment, the way duelists draw their guns and shoot.
  
  Scott was a passionate kisser. Our tongues pelted each other’s mouths inquisitively and rapidly, while we jacked off each other’s dicks using the club’s plentiful supply of Albolene. I think that was the first time I ever needed *both* hands to do a completely effective job of jacking a guy off.
  
  After fifteen or twenty minutes, I let loose with one of my famous, earth-shattering orgasmic roars. As my ears buzzed, and I drifted back to ordinary consciousness, I discovered perhaps a couple dozen men had circled to watch us. When I looked up, they burst into spontaneous applause.
  
  I think he had dyed his hair black that week, giving him a rather Eurasian cast. That was a period when Scott had a different hair style every time I saw him.
  
  I believe the next time we had any significant interaction was over the window at Theatre Rhinoceros, where I was the box office manager during 1985. We were in the midst of the annual chaos of assigning subscribers to season seats. In walks Scott one afternoon and plunks down $65 cash for a season ticket to opening night. Opening night was just about filled, and the management was being stingy about how the remaining few seats were distributed. Well, Scott had never been one to follow the rules, particularly when they didn’t serve him, and his attitude was, “Well, you’re the box office, I’ve got the money, so why can’t you sell me a subscription now?” I know I looked worried, but I took a deep breath and sold him one of the scarce and coveted subscriptions, hoping I was making the right decision.
  
  Soon after that, he won a seat on the theatre’s Board of Directors -- the first sign I had of Scott's unusual determination and energy.
  
  By that point, I had an inkling that Scott was working in porn or sex work, and soon after that I saw the *Advocate Men* layout of Scott as “Spunk” the punk, lolling with a snow cone-striped mohawk. At that point I hadn’t seen any porn featuring punk guys, so I was tickled to see Scott in a magazine, posing in front of the Xerox-art concert posters I remembered from my frequent excursions into the punk scene in the late '70s.
  
  During the mid- to late ’80s I founded and headed a small, nonprofit theatre company. Soon after our premiere production, we received an anonymous financial contribution from a group calling itself “Peninsula Thought, Mass, & Might.” We produced our second show in Washington, D.C., where I was living at the time, and then redid it in San Francisco. I looked out at curtain call one night in San Francisco and spotted Scott sitting in the audience, on the right, grinning and applauding wildly. That is still one of the most powerful images I have of Scott because it was so surprising to see him there, and also because of the exuberant display of emotion coming from this often quiet, poker-faced man.
  
  When we got another contribution from PTM&M, I decided to send a letter of query about the group. We got back a handwritten note with small, vertical, perfect lettering signed by “J. R. R. Scott.” I finally realized that it was Scott while I was hanging out one evening at Theatre Rhinoceros. There was a Board of Directors list hanging on the wall, and I had one of those “bolt of lightning” flashes -- “PO Box 329” listed for Scott was the same as the return address on the mysterious contributions we’d been receiving!
  
  Working in nonprofit community theatre almost invariably means toiling for years without pay in near-total obscurity, so Scott’s donations and letter of support meant a great deal to me. In fact, I had the beautifully handwritten letter framed and hung on our office wall as proof that someone, somewhere felt that we were doing worthy work. It’s sitting in my lap now as I’m writing this.
  
  After that, Scott moved to his farm in Wisconsin, and I was surprised to receive a postcard from him noting the address change. I didn’t realize that I’d mattered enough to him to merit keeping in touch with. We did stay in touch while he was there. He indicated that I would be welcome at his farm, but I never had the chance to visit.
  
  Fast-forward several years to the 1993 March on Washington. I was staying with a friend, and one of the other houseguests brought back a copy of the premiere issue of “STEAM” magazine, which had been handed to them on the street, gratis. I was surprised to read Scott’s name in the masthead as publisher, and I immediately devoured the entire magazine, cover to cover. I think I’d seen a couple of Scott’s essays elsewhere at this point, and I was pleased that he had a reliable forum for espousing his views on promiscuity and public sex.
  
  Soon thereafter my company ended up providing mail-house services for PDA Press, Scott’s moniker for STEAM and his other publishing projects. “PDA” was a police code for “Public Display of Affection.” I once wondered aloud to Keith Griffith, STEAM’s managing editor, why they’d chosen us when they could have picked any number of more efficient, specialized companies to do their mail distribution. It came down to sympathy. They knew that we would never raise objections to working with their sexual content. True enough, though I do remember blushing furiously as I handed the magazine over to the postal inspectors at the bulk mail facility, who’d thumb through all the hard-dick ads and accept our shipments without a word.
  
  STEAM was very good to us. In the early years of my publishing endeavor, which had far shallower pockets than Scott’s, I was grateful to him for providing us with paying work to help fund our efforts. Once again, I benefited from Scott's unusual generosity.
  
  God, where *didn’t* I see Scott after that? I saw him marching under the NAMBLA banner one year at SF’s Freedom Day Parade (a powerful visual statement that contradicted the NAMBLA stereotype of desperate middle-aged chicken-hawks); we spotted each other happily running through the bushes at Land’s End; and so on.
  
  By then I was managing the "Faerie House" in San Francisco, where Scott would occasionally attend a sex party. I remember the night he walked in with the new “HIV+” tattoo on his shoulder. We had some very pleasurable experiences playing together at those parties. Yet he looked very thin and tired by this time, and I worried for his health. Somehow, though, he always seemed to rebound and resurface. We had a couple of private dates during the last couple of years of his life, which were more amicable than sexual. We did try sex, but the furious chemistry I remembered from jacking him off twelve years previous just wasn’t the same. I knew Scott liked to be fucked, but he was just as adamant about not using condoms as I was about using them, so we didn’t get to do that.  I think he wanted to be held more than anything else, and I was happy to do so.
  
  The last time I saw Scott outside of Ward 5, the night before he died, was about six weeks before he checked in. He’d given me an essay for the “UNSAFE!” issue of *Black Sheets,* the sex magazine I publish. I was delighted to get Scott’s submission, since I knew it would be provoke sparks -- and thought -- about sexual risk. Somehow, though, the diskette he’d left for me at the Faerie House never made it into my hands, so I ended up going over to his place a few blocks away to pick up another copy. I ended up staying much longer than I intended, which means that I got to experience terror in the form of his pet bird, which he let fly free around his room, pecking at my ears and hair. I also got to meet Adam Gillitt, Scott's "computer wizard," who would become very important in the last days of Scott’s life, tirelessly keeping us posted on what was going on with Scott’s health and how to visit him.
  
  After Adam and Scott’s call the night before he died, I spent six hours with Scott and many friends at SF General. Considering how close he was to death, he still had amazing vitality After five years, *Black Sheets* is still a struggling endeavor that seldom publishes on schedule. The first thing he said to me when I walked into his room was, "Is it out yet?" I returned his query with a sad smile and said quietly, "Not yet." I wished I could have handed him a copy containing his article.
  
  The following day, he did get to die at home, which was very important to him. I was grateful for the chance to see him one last time and achieve closure in our relationship, albeit only in a physical sense. As my friend, writer Simon Sheppard, emailed me shortly before Scott died, “Scott is a wonderful person, and when he passes, it will leave us all diminished -- but his spirit, and his words, will always live with us.”
  
  —Bill Brent
  
      San Francisco
  
      March 7, 1998
  
  
  
  In 1992, Bill Brent founded Black Books, a San Francisco-based publisher of books and magazines on underground culture, ranging from sex radicalism to urban street culture to the self-publishing revolution and beyond. In 1998, his company established "The Bill Brent Collection," an archive of underground publishing from the 1960s to the present. The archive is housed in Scott O'Hara's former live/work space in San Francisco. For information on Black Books, the Bill Brent Collection, or other projects, write to Bill at PO Box 31155, San Francisco CA 94131-0155, or email .
  
  
• Rick, I am not a major viewer of porn, but I must say you have created a wonderful web site to remeber Scott by. He would be very proud of you.
  
  
  
• scottohara.com is a beautiful tribute to Scott, which I have the feeling he would have gotten a kick out of as well. Since I knew him for many years, and worked with him, I will always feel a melancholy void in his absence, but, I suspect, it will be hard to hold back a smile at the same time, inspired by his unique outlook, humor, and courage.
  
  
  
• I want to thank you for the beautiful tribute site to Scott O'Hara.  He was the best in hundreds of ways.  Thanks for taking the time and careful effort to put together such a memorial.  Also for the archive of STEAM.  Perhaps bound sets of the complete run could be offered for people to generate doantions in Scott's name...i don't know.  Anyway, the site visit really gave me an opportunity to reflect on Scott, whom I knew through occassional meetings and correspondence, and deal with the fact that he's not on this plain any longer.  I'd love to know where donations should go....
  
  
  
• My name is Bill from Livonia, Mi and liek you I am a saddened Scott O'Hara fan.  I too was stunned when I read of his departing in an on-line news letter.

  My first encounter with fantastic man was the video Sargent Swan's Private Files.  The minute I saw him making love I was swept off my feet.  At that point I tried to get a copy of each of his videos (regretfully I had gave them away - another story for another time).

  I cannot remember how or where it was that I obtained my first copy of STEAM but I was astonished to find that Scott was the publisher.  The copy I obtained was the one in which there was an article about Scott being HIV and having AIDS. I was stunned but not too surprised. I think there was also an article in that edition by Scott about cruising on Hampstead Heath in London, England.  My grandmother was born in Hampstead and I visited there many years ago.  This prompted me to write to Scott to discuss his trip there and his illness.  I was especially impressed with the magazine in that I thought here is a porn star who doesn't have his brain in the head of his dick!

  To my absolute surprise I received a reply from Scott (signed in red - his trademark).  He discussed his trip to England and his health briefly.  I was thrilled that someone of his caliber would take the time to write to me.  But I guess that is what scott was all about.

  Shortly after that I receive a brochure in the mail offering 6 of Scott's videos for $100.  I thought it was a great offer and sent in my $100 (see the big letters spelling sucker on my forehead).  I did receive the 6 videos on two tapes.  They were the worst copies I have ever seen!  I returned them to the outfit and to this day haven't heard zip.  In hopes of alerting as many people as I could of this company I wrote to Scott. I told him I realized he had nothing to do with the company but felt they were exployting his work. Again he wrote back and talked about the illegal copy and sale of videos.  He said that he was going to notify the producer of the sham and appreciated my telling him. Just about a year ago I found a copy of Autophonography in my local bookstore and was delighed with it.  Some friends were going to San Francisco last summer and they have friends who own a bookstore.  I was able to send my copy out with them for a signing session Scott had at the store last July.  I was even able to get a second copy inscribed which I donated to the local Human Rights Committee Silent Auction last fall.

  I am sure it was a standard inscription he wrote, but I trasure the words! "Dear Bill, last night was great!  With a little more practice you'll learn not to gag!  Loads of spunk!  Scott O'Hara"

  Thank you for the site - will be back again and again.