The 2008 Pantheon of Leather Award

The Leather Institute for Education (LIFE) Detroit was the recipient of the 2008 Pantheon of Leather Award for Small Non Profit Organization of the Year. The awards were handed out in Chicago, IL at the Leather Archives and Museum the weekend of July 18-21. Board member Randall Davis was on hand to accept the award for LIFE Detroit.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to thank our members and all those people who have supported LIFE Detroit, not only in the past year, but in every year LIFE has been working for our Community. This is not an award we could have achieved without everyone's continuing efforts and support. We share this award with all of you-- our friends.

Again, thank you for your efforts and support and we look forward to seeing you all soon.

Jerry Seiling
President, Board of Directors
LIFE Detroit

Our 6th Anniversary Event is Almost Here

Join LIFE Detroit as they honor Frank Blondale, owner of the Detroit Eagle and Cell Block Chicago and Lou Kuc, Director of Al Matta Hall.Saturday, September 13th, 630: p.m. at Al Matta Hall.

Tickets are $25 in advance, $35 at the door.

Get your advance tickets now...

Larry Townsend Passes - 27 October 1930 - 29 July 2008

Spill a drop for lost brothers…

“Larry Townsend was the pseudonymous author of dozens of books including Run Little Leather Boy (1970) and The Leatherman’s Handbook (1972) at pioneer er otic presses such as Greenleaf Classics and the Other Traveler imprint of Olympia Press. Growing up as a teenager of Swiss-German extraction in Los Angeles a few houses from Noel Coward and Irene Dunne, he ate cookies with his neighbor Laura Hope Crews who was Aunt Pittypat inGone with the Wind. He attended the prestigious Peddie School , and was stationed as Staff Sergeant in charge of NCOIC Operations of Air Intelligence Squadrons for nearly five years with the US Air Force in Germany (1950-1954).

Completing his tour of duty, he entered into the 1950s underground of the LA leather scene where he and Montgomery Clift shared a lover. With his degree in industrial psychology from UCLA (1957), he worked in the private sector and as a probation officer with the Forestry Service. He began his pioneering activism in the politics of gay liberation in the early 1960s. In 1972, as president of the ‘Homophile Effort for Legal Protection’ which had been founded in 1969 to defend gays during and after arrests, he led a group in founding the H.E.L.P. Newsletter, the forebear20ofDrummer (1975).

As a writer and photographer, he was an essential eyewitness of the drama and salon around Drummer in which his novels were often excerpted. His signature “Leather Notebook” column appeared in Drummer for twelve years beginning in 1980, and continued in Honcho to Spring 2008. His last novel, TimeMasters, was published April 2008.” This new thumbnail biography, approved and updated by Larry Townsend, is reprinted from the leather-heritage book Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer which, published June 20, 2008, also includes Larry’s “Eyewitness Introduction,” his last published writing."

- Jack Fritscher

Coming Up

Electroplay II - Wednesday, August 20th. Both presentation by boy David at Diamond Jim's Saloon.

LIFE Detroit - Leather Institute for Education

is a Metro-Detroit based discussion and presentation group that meets the third Wednesday of every month for the purpose of sharing knowledge with the Pansexual Leather, BDSM and D/s community.

• We are dedicated to education
• We are a pansexual group - all are welcome: gay, lesbian, straight, bi, male and female, transgendered
• We are tolerant of viewpoints
• We offer support and act as a "hub" of cross-community resources
• We offer nationally known presenters
• We are a neutral group and strive to be non-political

This is a great place to begin to learn about or to share your acquired knowledge with brothers and sisters in the Leather Community.

One reason LIFE Detroit was established is that there is less and less information about where the Leather (and our lifestyles) came from, what it's about, and what it entails. There is less and less transition from one generation to the next. LIFE strives to help educate where there are gaps in knowledge.

It is also an opportunity, where there is no function currently on the books that includes ALL (or as many segments) of the Leather Community locally.

As a learning function, it has a unique opportunity to have a familiar face speaking to its potential constituent communities, both Gay and Straight. That is a very valuable thing from the standpoint of trying to bridge some gaps in how we approach those that maybe "don't like us".

Another reason for LIFE Detroit is that there are so many "grass root" kink-groups locally that few know about. LIFE Detroit has guest speakers, sometimes from some of these groups, who will come in and present information, demonstrations, and discussions from the perspective of their group, or from experience.

The past assumption is that one would have to go to Chicago or L.A. to get this information. The thing that makes Chicago and L.A. and New York work is that the Straight and Gay populations at least acknowledge that there are sufficient numbers that you can't marginalize them easily (and business-wise, they would do so at their own folly).

We in LIFE Detroit feel that there is enough Leather Pride in the Metro Detroit area, and enough resources that we can grow and improve from home.