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FOR PIZZA New Little Tokyo spot Baldoria, opened this month, is a great stop for bottled cocktails like the mezcal Negroni, but don’t leave without ordering the charred octopus or croque madame pizza. baldoriadtla.com
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After years of busting his dick on-camera, porn god Rocco Steele wants to get you into his drawers FOR A NIGHTCAP
I A new collection of short stories—written by and for gay men—called Speak My Language and Other Stories, edited by Torsten Højer, saw release earlier this month and is a finalist in the 2016 Lambda Literary Awards. (Winners will be announced June 6 in New York.) Among the nearly 600-page compendium’s contributors are those new to the craft and some who have seen international success, à la noted gay author and editor Felice Picano. British multihyphenate Stephen Fry pens the foreword of this anthology, which the Huffington Post calls “one of the most exquisite” of the year. —S.H.
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n the two years since he filmed his first porn for Ray Dragon, Rocco Steele has made an oversized name for himself. Picking up Hookie Awards for “Best Cock,” “Mr. New York” and “Mr. International” and “Best Group Scene” from the Grabbys, the 51-year-old’s rise to the top of the adult film industry has been nothing short of meteoric. Now the in-demand daddy—who launched his own X-rated site last May featuring home video-quality clips with a rotating group of talent—seems to be making an exit. “Porn was always just a stepping stone for me,” Steele says, having filmed with the likes of Chi Chi LaRue, Men.com, Tim Tales and more. “It wasn’t supposed to last more than a year. Because it got really big, really fast, I let it go on a little longer.” As of March, the Ohio native officially took a step in a different direction, starting his own underwear line. Using his porn name, the law school grad launched 10Seven, a line of boxer briefs, via his online shop, RoccShop.com. “I come from a corporate retail background,” Steele says. (Prior to his on-camera stint, he logged 14 years in the fashion and beauty industries working on the corporate and visual merchandising side.) “I always knew that I wanted to sell a product, but I didn’t know what it was. I just knew I wanted it to be easy to make, easy to ship and something I knew something about.” 10Seven has been bouncing around Steele’s mind since he left his corporate job two years ago. In fact, he was already working on designs and had taken out a trademark for a brand under a different name. “Getting into underwear seemed obvious to me, because I was approaching 50 and I was bitching and moaning that I couldn’t find underwear appropriate for me as a maturing gay man. I didn’t want to wear neon-colored bikini
briefs that were out there on the market; they just looked silly on me, and I didn’t feel comfortable.” “We don’t all have go-go boy bodies,” he continues. “We can’t all fit into Andrew Christian underwear.” For those who can’t (or don’t want to), Steele set about designing a pair of boxer briefs that reads both conservative and sexy. He even called in his nephews for advice on what the briefs should look like. The resulting design, which combines elements from some of Steele’s favorite underwear styles, features a medium-rise gunmetal waistband, a classic fly front and cotton blend fabric. “No matter what your build is, these underwear are going to fit you,” he says of the fabric. “If you’ve got a bit of booty in the back, the spandex is going to expand to fit you. If you’ve got a lot of junk in the front, the spandex and the fly front is going to be more comfortable, because the fabric can expand and give you more room.” Eventually sketches weren’t enough, and Steele needed money to launch 10Seven. “Everything that I had to pay for came from a year of selling my dick,” he says. “A year of traveling the world, doing shows, doing videos, escorting; just a full year of literally busting my dick, and the whole time I was putting everything away.” The fruits of that labor are still blossoming, as even though no new work has been filmed for RoccoSteeleStudio.com, it still pulls in revenue. “I’ll never be out of the business completely; I’ll always have a connection,” Steele says. “Merchandise, specifically my underwear, is the new chapter in my life. I want Rocco to be known as the former porn guy who now does underwear.” With orders coming in from places as far-flung as Saudi Arabia,—and a brief style expected to hit late summer—Rocco Steele is definitely hot on that path.
Westbound, newly opened in DTLA’s Arts District, offers up a classy latenight spot (resembling an antique train car) for a cocktail served in a pineapple (!) or foie gras with brioche waffles. westbounddtla.com
FOR BOWLING Spring for Prohibition-era bowling at the recently opened Highland Park Bowl. The sport is made a bit more exciting with the addition of a clever cocktail program and burlesque. highlandparkbowl.com
FOR GYM GEAR There’s no excuse for purchasing workout wear at Old Navy when a place like Kilter—located in Culver City’s Platform complex—exists to sell you practical-yet-stylish fashions your trainer is sure to love and want for himself. kiltershop.com —Tom Paul Jones
STEELE: DICK MITCHELL; BALDORIA/WESTBOUND: ALLEN LIN PHOTO CREDIT TK
By Mikelle Street