I’m pretty sure I told you, a long time ago, that I’m a collector. I’ve even repeated myself, which is one of the most awesome things about getting older. That and losing the ability to read without glasses.

Oh, and the ability to shoot a load. I still cum, mind you…but the days of bouncing that wad off the back of my chick’s head whilst hittin’ it doggy came to an abrupt halt in 2004, yo. Now I’m lucky to launch one over her butt.

My latest obsession are old photos. Anything from, say, 1930 to 1970. So much so I’ll stand over a box of them at a flea market for hours, picking through the thousands of shitty ones for A Score. I’ll sift through all the stupid baby pictures, the crummy portraits, the family-standing-in-front-of-the-new car shots, the presents-under-the-Christmas tree muck, through all the birthday parties and weddings to find that one shot of say, the drag race from 1954. Or the perfectly composed shot of some street musician holding his accordion from that same time. People playing sports, kids playing with obsolete toys, the man in black face crooning the lovely young debutants at the cotillion…you get the idea.

And the weirder the better: a ventriloquist’s dummy with a baby in a carriage; the all-negro, six-man boxing battle royale, a large group of people in someone’s back yard, huddled around their deceased love one in an home-made open casket.

Or the very nice lipstick lesbian I’m showing you now, smoking in bed, reading a copy of Nancy Morgan’s lesbian pulp fiction City of Women. Published in 1952, it tells a lurid Sapphic tale: “a hundred young women came to paradise and a hundred young angels fell.” She’s smoking in a cheap room on a hot night, and the bull dyke who took that picture is about to walk over and peel that little outfit off her and perform the lesbian equivalent of bouncing a load off the back of her head.

At least that’s what I’d like to think. Which is why I like these weird old pictures so much. I catch myself trying to imagine what it’s like living in these pictures.

Anyways, I went to New York City last month, only cause it’s the greatest city on Earth, and I hit a couple fleas down near 26th and Broadway. There’s a good one in a blue parking garage, and in all that August heat and humidity I stood over piles of pictures and picked and sweated my ass off.

And here’s what I’ve learned with the dudes who have the boxes of shitty pics: whoever owns them is too lazy to do what I’m doing, but a lot of times they know old pictures, so when I pull a winner, Dude will pull it from my hand, scrutinize it for a long second, look at me and say something absurd like, “twenty bucks.”

“Are you serious?! You didn’t even know it was in there. I’ll give you three.”

Sometimes they won’t even dignify my offer a counter; other times they will. It’s part of the game.

Then there’s the dealers. No junkie pics to wade though. Tons of amazing stuff…but nothing’s cheap. They’re not piled in boxes, either; instead, pictures are categorized and some even slipped into protective sleeves. And they’ll always ask once you start in, “Whacha looking for?”

To which I respond, “Anything weird and unusual. Cheesecake stuff from the 40’s and 50’s. Bettie Page obviously. Kids in halloween costumes. Race cars and boxers. Anything sporty, really.”

“Military?”

“Nope.”

“I don’t have much of the cheesecake stuff, but I do have some of the hardcore nasty stuff…if you’re interested in that sort of thing.”

To which I responded, “Nope. I do that for a living, so that’s really the last thing I wanna collect.”

I’m to the point now where I tell people what I do for a living, cause I no longer give a shit what anyone thinks. I really don’t. I used to, and back then when anyone asked, I’d say “web design” or “back end coding” or “web sales” or something equally dumb. Now when they pop the question, my standard reply is, “I make dirty movies.”

Which totally piqued Dealer’s interest. “Oh yea! What kind?”

“Internet stuff,” I shrugged, making it obvious I didn’t really want to delve any deeper.

“Gay or straight?”

Before too long, I was delving deeper, mainly cause it might get me some cheaper prices. Cause this Dealer had some serious shit. Really good photos. “Sure you’re not into military? Here’s Hitler getting out of his limo, taken by his personal valet.”

Yes, no Hitler for me thanks. But he had tons of cool stuff, and I quizzed him on a bunch, and we talked about Bettie Page and Irvin Klaw and he could tell I was serious, cause all of a sudden he says, “wanna see something really rare? Something you’ll probably never see again.”

Oh boy. I’m wasn’t too sure if I was gonna like where he was about to take me, so I said, “as long as it’s legal.”

“They’re legal now, but not when the pictures were taken. And if you possessed them, or produced them, or were in them, it was a for-sure death sentence. As in they’d put you against a wall and shoot you, and probably without any sort of trial.”

Quite possibly the best closing statements I’ve ever heard in my life by any sort of salesman. I didn’t care what they were, but as long as they were legal to possess, I certainly wanted to see them…and, I’m sure, buy a few, too. But they weren’t for sale — not at any price (I tried) — and they lived up to his hype. I won’t even make you guess what they were; I’m just gonna tell you.

Gay Nazis.

Nazi homoerotic images.

Nazi fags.

I didn’t think such a thing existed, and I suppose he was 100% correct — if I was a Nazi in, say, the mid-to-late 1930’s (when these were taken) and I got caught by an officer with these in my ruck sack, I’m sure said officer woulda put a bullet in my head on the spot. Or maybe waited til he had an audience to do it.

Let me say this again, in case it didn’t sink in. Dealer had pictures of Nazi fags in full uniform (and some not) doing all sorts of queer things: two Nazis, one sitting in the others’ lap, both facing each other with their hand up their flys. How about the “injured” Nazi, laying face-down in the field, pants pulled down to his ankles, getting a bare-assed butt rub from his comrade with the ear-to-ear smile on his face? Kissing Nazis! And the best might have been the shot of 7 or 8 Nazis in a barrock’s bathroom, clad only in jock straps (with daggers tucked in straps), giving the “Hail victory!” salute.

My jaw dropped. “How much…seriously?” I pleaded.

He stood firm. Not for sale. “I’m trying to get enough to make a book. But so far I’ve only need able to secure a couple dozen. They’re so rare. I’ve got a guy in Berlin who manages to find one every four or five years. Another scout in Amsterdam who looks for them, too. So far he’s been able to find a couple.”

“Can I take a picture of this one with my cell phone,” I asked. I held up the jock strap Sig Heil picture. “Cause if I don’t get a picture of one of these, no one’s gonna believe this.”

“Can’t, sorry. I really keep these kinda tucked away, if you know what I mean.”

“But I really want something good. See, I got a blog, and it’s a blog about my business, and I guess you could call it a sex blog, too, cause, um…I try and talk about this sort of stuff, too!” He could tell I was desperate for my homoerotic Nazi fix, but his no was final.

“Hmmm. Got anything else I could show my readers as demented as a Nazi fag?” I asked.

And that’s when he handed me the picture of the three nuns.