Bobby Pyron Was a Friend of Mine

Bobby aka Lee Ryder

 30 years ago on July 11th 1991, my friend Bobby Pyron passed away. We were not great friends with an enduring relationship or anything like that, but we were always very friendly toward each other and had a good deal affection for each other. Bobby picked me up at a gay chicken club in Hollywood called the Odyssey. We left the club and drove all the way down to his place in Laguna Beach where I ended up spending a couple of days with him. Bobby was about a year older than me and I was 18 at the time. His worldliness was about 1000x mine though and he was completely at ease being gay. I always looked at him as something of a mentor. He took me around Laguna and completely scandalized me by wearing jeans with cuffs in them. I thought that was the gayest thing on the entire planet and how could he possibly be flaunting himself like that? Nobody gave a shit. Bobby was conventionally very good looking, sort of on the rugged side. While he was obviously gay the minute he opened his mouth -- he didn't even have the gay voice -- it was obvious that his rugged good looks are what sold him. That and That Thing.

Bobby apparently lived in Huntington Beach for awhile which explains how he ended up knowing some of my high school classmates. He introduced me to Kenny Thornton who I had seen at school and was just utterly in lust with. He was a blond gymnast, lithe and strong. Kenny and I boinked a number of times but our paths were very obviously going in different directions as he was into the Hollywood entertainment scene of which I had no interest in. He also introduced me to Greg Martin who became a running buddy of mine, usually sniffing around for coke and getting in trouble in Hollywood. We even somehow wormed our way into Alan Carr's place in Malibu. Greg was really good looking too, but I always got the impression that he was sort of a gay-for-pay type. We fooled around a few times, but not much. Bobby later told me -- probably in 1990 -- that Kenny had died of AIDS. Greg and I drifted apart and I never knew what happened to him. Did he die of AIDS too? Did he get a wife and have kids? Maybe both? Who knows.

Bobby knew all about the goings on in Laguna. He was rather dismissive of the A-Gays there calling them "tacky queens". The fledgling gay porn industry made possible by the invention of VCR's was centered there with Catalina Video. He told me that quite a few of my classmates rotated in that universe but was really protective of me not to get caught up in it. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that Huntington Beach would be fertile ground for gay boys going at it on film because there were lots of us and there were some ridiculously good looking surfer boys. Bobby and I drifted apart as he moved around quite a bit, but we'd bump into each other from time to time and were always friendly to each other if not affectionate in brotherly kind of way. 

I had started my career when I was about 21 and was super busy, especially 1985 onward. Unbeknownst to me Bobby had become Lee Ryder in 1984, joining the industry he made sure I kept away from. Apparently he was very well known and it's hardly a surprise because That Thing was huge. I never knew if he was a total top because it's a lot easier to catch HIV as a bottom, but I'm sure that's the only thing he did in porn. His stuff is still out there with the magic of the internet and I'm not going to lie that he was good at what he did, just pummeling bottom boys. It's really weird seeing it though. I'm not certain I knew he was doing porn while he was alive -- most likely  -- and I am positive I never saw any of it while he was alive. I didn't care of course, because to me he was just Bobby.

I saw him every once in a while in Laguna. I knew he ran a flower stand, but I never visited it. When I saw Bobby the last time around 1990 I knew that he had it. It was probably the time he told me that Kenny had died. He had The Look which you can't hide. He was probably the first person that I knew firsthand who had AIDS which is pretty amazing but that was how the suburbs were: unlike the city where you went to their funerals, in the burbs people just disappeared never to be seen again. I don't remember how I found out how he died. I think he died up in LA so I would have no connection.

It's funny how people who you interact with only a little can have an oversized influence on your life. Bobby was like that for me. He set me on a course of getting over my internalized homophobia which was severely at odds with the guys I had the hots for which was pretty much the gayer the better. Most people will only know Bobby for being Lee Ryder but I knew him for being out, proud, sarcastic and sassy, and being an altogether nice guy. Love ya, hon.