SAN FRANCISCO - Fans and industry insiders were at a loss to explain two-time GAYVN Performer of the Year and GAYVN Hall of Fame inductee Michael Brandon's quiet disappearance from the gay-porn radar in October 2007. The Raging Stallion co-owner, star, producer and director had been among the ultimate gay cocksmen, due in large part to his 10-inch endowment that was a star in its own right. Brandon's member even had its own name, Monster, and its own blog at the fan-focused website that won the Cybersocket Web Award for Best Porn Site three years running.
Brandon and Monster starred in more than 150 gay adult movies in the seven years between 1999 and 2006 ... and then he was gone, seemingly vanished into thin air.
The mystery of Brandon's disappearance was solved Tuesday when SF Weekly ran a first-person account of a reporter's accidental encounter with the missing star inside a San Francisco courtroom. Brandon, who had been arrested in June, was there to be arraigned on three felony drug counts after police caught him dealing meth, speed and Ecstasy.
"It was like a remake of a bad movie," SF Weekly reporter Ashley Harrell wrote. "Though Brandon had been on top of his game for the past eight years, he had spent most of the '90s in Orange County, addicted to crystal meth. From those days, he had two felony convictions from two separate arrests. He had spent more than three years in state prison, and had no interest in going back."
Yet that may be exactly where he is headed.
Brandon pulled himself out of the self-imposed drug-induced haze of the '90s and eventually became the spokesman for San Francisco's prominent public relations campaign to defeat meth use among gay men. He attracted the adoration of porn fans and industry insiders alike with what Raging Stallion's Marty Rosenthal called "the warmest, most caring, most welcoming, most down-to-earth personality you could ever meet."
Brandon himself once famously wrote, "I'm walking, living proof that there is life after crystal meth. Folks don't need to lose their mind, end up in jails, hospitals, on the streets, or turned away by family members. I've already been there for you."
And then he hurt his back. In October 2007, he reinjured it, Rosenthal said - and that's when the trouble started.
"He had horrible, horrible back problems," Rosenthal told GAYVN.com. "I know that's what started all of this. He was in such pain."
According to Harrell's SF Weekly story, Brandon initially took a few days off work at Raging Stallion and popped painkillers to deal with the back problem. Then days turned into weeks, and eventually no one expected him to reappear, although he remains one of the owners of the studio.
"We tried and tried and tried to contact him with no success," Rosenthal told GAYVN.com.
Reportedly, the few adult-industry insiders who knew of Brandon's re-involvement with drugs kept the secret out of respect for a universally loved industry icon. Now, the universal sentiment seems to be "Michael, we love you and miss you. Get healthy again."
Brandon reportedly is free on bail while he awaits trial.
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