Poet Sylvia Plath's Son, Nicholas Hughes, Commits Suicide

From Hillel Italie & Rachel D'Oro of the AP (links added by SPS):

When Nicholas Hughes was in his early 20s, his father, poet Ted Hughes, advised him on the importance of living bravely.

"The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated," Hughes wrote to his son, who committed suicide at 47 last week at his home in Fairbanks, Alaska, 46 years after Nicholas' mother, poet Sylvia Plath, killed herself.

"And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all."

From the time that Plath died, in 1963, Ted Hughes had tried to protect and strengthen their children, Frieda and Nicholas, from their mother's fate and fame. He burned the last volume of his wife's journals, a decision strongly criticized by scholars and fans, and waited years to tell his children the full details of Plath's suicide.

And only near the end of his own life, in his "Birthday Letters" poems, did he share his side of modern poetry's most famous and ill-starred couple.

"What I've been hiding all my life, from myself and everybody else, is not terrible at all. Though you didn't want to read it," he wrote to Nicholas in 1998, months before Ted Hughes died of cancer.

"And the effect on me, Nicky, the sense of gigantic, upheaval transformation in my mind, is quite bewildering. It's as though I have completely new different brains. I can think thoughts I never could think. I have a freedom of imagination I've not felt since 1962. Just to have got rid of all that."

"But I tell you all this," Hughes added, "with a hope that it will let you understand a lot of things. ... Don't laugh it off. In 1963 you were hit even harder than me. But you will have to deal with it, just as I have had to."

Nicholas Hughes, who was not married and had no children, hanged himself March 16, Alaska State Troopers said. He was a man of science, not letters, the only member of his immediate family not to become a poet. A fisheries biologist, he spent nearly a decade on the faculty of the University of Alaska Fairbanks as a professor of fisheries and ocean sciences. He left in December 2006, according to the university's Web site.

Hughes' older sister, poet Frieda Hughes, issued a statement through the Times of London, expressing her "profound sorrow" and saying that he "had been battling depression for some time."

"His lifelong fascination with fish and fishing was a strong and shared bond with our father," Frieda Hughes wrote. "He was a loving brother, a loyal friend to those who knew him and, despite the vagaries that life threw at him, he maintained an almost childlike innocence and enthusiasm for the next project or plan."

Nicholas Hughes graduated from the University of Oxford in 1984, and received a master's of arts degree from Oxford, in 1990, before emigrating to the United States and getting a doctorate from the University of Alaska.

Hughes' family history was an "urban legend" that was passed around from student to student. But it was a subject no one discussed with him, said Kevin Schaberg, a former student in a fish ecology class taught by Hughes.

"It was obviously something he did not want to talk about," said Schaberg, who added that he knew Hughes struggled with depression. "I never brought it (his family) up. He never brought it up."

Mark Wipfli, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Alaska and a good friend of Hughes, said that Hughes never spoke of his mother to him, but he talked warmly of his father, who sometimes visited Hughes in Alaska. Even though he had left the university, Hughes remained active in research and was a key scientist in an ongoing study of king salmon.

"I would really like to see him recognized in his own right, not just as the son of two famous people," Wipfli said. "In his own right, he was an incredibly wonderful person."

Hughes not only taught about fish, he also enjoyed fishing and other Alaska pursuits, such as skiing, boating and hunting moose and caribou. What stands out the most for Schaberg, however, is Hughes' vast knowledge of fish, his instant recall of authors, titles and journals on even the most obscure subjects.

"Nick was probably one of the smartest guys I've ever met," he said. "When it came to fish, he was a walking bibliography."

Hughes was only 9 months old when his parents separated and was still an infant when his mother died in February 1963, gassing herself in a London flat as her children slept. A few months earlier, she had written of Nicholas: "You are the one/Solid the spaces lean on, envious/You are the baby in the barn."

Not widely known when she died, Plath became a cult figure through the novel "The Bell Jar," which told of a suicidal young woman, and through the prophetic "Ariel" poems --"I shall never grow old," she wrote-- she had been working on near the end of her life.

The immediate cause of her breakup with Hughes was his affair with Assia Wevill. Plath's legacy haunted her husband, hounded for years by women who believed he was responsible for her suicide and by a procession of biographers and fans obsessed with the brief, impassioned and tragic marriage between the two poets.

Ted Hughes relived the tragedy not only through the constant reminders of Plath, but also through the suicide of Wevill, his second wife, who in March 1969 killed herself and their 4-year-old daughter.

Also: Guardian's coverage and Mirror's coverage

In Memory Of Paul Newman

Paul Newman passed away at the age of 83.

Not Even The Ankh Can Save It

It might delight you to know that I'm a freak for ancient Egyptian history -- and I say 'freak' because any anthropologist, archaeologist, or historian will tell you that Egyptology draws the freakiest of all persons, making Egyptologists the butt of all jokes.

My affection for such study began in childhood, followed me through college course selection, and remains with me today. Back in 1973 I was an ankh obsessed girl -- earrings, bracelets, chokers, you name it, I was covered in it -- so it would have thrilled me then to have discovered The Coven, "A sensational novel of Washington intrigue and witchcraft by Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt writing as David St. John" (Fawcett Crest, printed October, 1973).

The back of the book, sans mention of ankh, would still have held promise to a young me who fancied romantic notions of secret sects:

WHO WAS
ANDREE LESCAULT?

No one really knew much about the murdered songstress except that she had been extraordinarily beautiful, that her singing cast a strange spell over all who listened, and that even sophisticated Washington had fallen victim to that spell. There was talk that some of her tribal chants were really secret rites. There was also talk that a certain powerful and handsome senator with presidential ambitions had a special interest in her. A very special interest.

Jonathan Gault found that out when they summoned him to find her murderer. He had also heard Andree sing and felt the presence of something macabre and evil...

The victim, Lescaunt, was more than an Afro-French chanteuse; the mystical ankh that she and most of her musical followers wore leads the investigation into a cult, of course.

From page 45:

Out of delicacy or ignorance the jeweler hadn't told Ellen a few other details about the Ankh that I was able to learn at the Georgetown Library. The basic form was an oval atop a tau cross. A magical symbol, at its most elemental level it represented a human being. Antedating Christianity, it was believed a precursor of the crucifix. And its sexual significance was explicit. According to Dioscurian legend the Ankh established both the rising and falling currents of life. The symbol abounded on the tomb of Tutankhamon, even as filigree design in the pharaoh's funerary furniture. And wherever it was displayed it signified inexhaustible, all-prevailing potency.

The Ankh. The ansate or handled cross.

An amulet, periapt, magic charm; a talisman for those it touched. Andree Lescaut had worn it, and her enthusiasts as well. Was it a recognition sign among members of some latter-day Egyptian secret society, devotees of a cult? Dedicated to what? African Music?

Aside from the fact that the author stretched his word-count with the behavior of a thesaurus, what else do we learn...

• That black is beautiful, baby -- so long as it comes hither via France.
• That religious things predating Christianity are not only secretive & sexual, but murderous -- especially if linked to another culture's music.

While my thirteen year old girl's loins flush with heat at such simple sentences as "And its sexual significance was explicit", even then I was disappointed that such a ripe sentence not only bore no fruit but, lacking any attempt at back-up, had apparently sprung from nothing more than the author's mind; just another diversionary perversion.

The rest of the novel with Gault as its aggressive and sexually swaggering male lead reads like classic pulp detective fiction, albeit there are a few timely updates such as the reference to Gault's equally aggressive and sexually swaggering female gal pal, Gina. Case in point, this example from page 47:

[Gina] leaned back against the sofa and stretched, catlike. "I can think of things even more interesting--but there I go, seducing you again."

"Women's Lib influence. Equal rights for females."

Yeah, having the ERA referenced by some white male Nixon punk as a means to some sexually aggressive tail is exactly what I enjoy. Not.

In fact, there's really nothing to please me in this book -- not even the romantic ankh loving girl of my youth would have been satisfied with the shoddy writing, stock characters, fade-to-black sex scenes, the poor diversionary perversion of the Ankh, the thinly veiled stabs at Kennedy & youth culture, or anything else in this book. It could have been a sinfully good bit of escapism, as many pulps are, but it missed the mark.

(Curt Purcell at The Groovy Age Of Horror has another review of the book, in case you should want to hear more.)

When discussing Hunt's books, (too) many folks focus on his Washington & CIA experiences, saying, as Tim Weiner at the NY Times did upon Hunt's death, that, "His works followed a formula of sex and intrigue but offered flashes of insight." Poo. That's people wishing to legitimize poor books based on the employ of the author -- when they can't boost the written work any other way.

So why give it so much space here at SPS?

Well, what is rather interesting about The Coven is its author, E. Howard Hunt.

Yeah, yeah, everybody knows that the guy was a criminal. But wanna know what else is creepy? His son's own description of him.

When Hunt died in January of 2007, his son, David Hunt, celebrated the "good to know not everyone thought of my father as evil" sentiments by posting comments to this post about his father's books. When one comment-leaver said, "I have a copy of Stranger in Town, 1st ed., 1947, signed “Howard Hunt”, and inscribed “For Mary with love Howie” - Any idea who Mary is?", David replied:

I would imagine Mary was probably a romantic interest. Only his closest friends called him Howie. My father was quite a playboy back in the day. Being a writer, musician and secret agent he had his pick. He was a smooth operator for sure. We did have a nanny named Mary Trainer for many years in Japan and Spain but I doubt he would use “Howie” when signing something for someone in his employ

Here poor naive David waxes nostalgic on his pa's hero status as a sexual predator, yet manages to turn a blind eye to the possibility of the smooth operator's ability to bonk the nanny.

I don't know the nanny in question or even anything about her, but it seems to me that a playboyesque spy with a penchant for extramarital activities would certainly have the potential to at least be on friendly enough terms with the female help to sign a copy of his book with his nickname.

Reading and rereading David's comment, it sure sounds like married daddy was having affairs... Well, that was his due as a man with "his pick" of women, right?

Or maybe the son just likes to imagine his father as something better than he was, more like the leads in the novels... Triumphing in sexual conquest is the male ideal -- as long as it's not with the nanny.

Do I believe E. Howard Hunt was a playboy & a smooth operator?

I'd say he'd have to be better at that than he was as an author.

Questioning Tommy Bartlett's Sexuality

Reading about Tommy Bartlett's radio fame in Time has me thinking...

Specifically this part of the Monday, July 1, 1940, article:

Unorthodox in the extreme is Bartlett's method of gathering material for his programs. Every day promptly at 2:05 he whirls into the Chicago Home Arts Guild, an institution supported by national advertisers, to lunch and show 100-odd women the sponsors' 100-odd products. Tommie shouts "Hello, girls!" at the assembled matrons. Ten minutes later, after the girls are all in spasms at Tommie, who thinks nothing of rolling on the floor to get them giggling, WBBM technicians begin to record Meet the Missus. Twittering like sparrows, yanking nervously at their girdles, some of Tommie 's girls answer questions about their clothes, husbands, honeymoons, aspirations, frustrations, children, while the rest of them hoot and howl.

Apparently, Bartlett was quite the man; earning 20 wedding proposals and the moniker "housewife’s pinup boy".

Not a bad looking man. And I can only assume that even as his hair whitened and his middle thickened, his wallet's growth from all the Wisconsin Dell's attractions only served to make him more attractive. If girls and matrons once "yanked nervously at their girdles" (and isn't that a delicious bit of vintage imagery!), I bet that once the girdle was banished, the smoothing of hair & skirts, the licking & biting of lips, and other signs of lusty interest continued.

But Bartlett never married.

This would not interest me so if there weren't such a blank in the press about the man's private life. A legendary figure in the Midwest (and beyond), you'd think his exploits would be documented. Even here on the Internet, home of all things imbecilic & impolite, there is no tribute to the man, no home for all things private (let alone pervy) regarding Tommy Bartlett.

How could such a public man lead such a private life?

If he was a playboy bachelor, where are the celeb stalkings? There's no dirt on his wild youth, no dish on his radio hey-days, no smutty speculation on his incredibly wealthy years as a kitsch mogul. Where was the scandal of his will after his death? No rug-rats crawling out of the woodwork for a piece of that pie? And there's virtually no photographic evidence of his life.

Too damn quiet, if you ask me.

So I wonder, was this man gay?

Now I know you're going to accuse me of perpetuating stereotypes. Suggesting the maker of stacked water skier spectacles is anything but hetero certainly seems "typical" of a hetero. But honestly, where's the trail of his romantic life? Only a gay man living the life of such a large local legend would keep so secretive.

If you have any knowledge, news clippings, photos, anecdotal evidence, please spill it.

I'm just dying to know.

This pondering post was the result of reading In Which I Try To Meet The Missus And End Up With Tommy Bartlett, which I may, at a later date, revisit here at SPS in regards to Meet The Missus.

Robert Ryan, As Seen By His Daughter, Lisa Ryan

Lisa Ryan, daughter of Robert Ryan, answers questions at Silver Screen Oasis, where Ms Ryan posted scans of what she thinks is the only letter from her dad she still has.

The letter mentioned Terence Knapp, British actor turned Emeritus Professor of Theatre at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Thinking of Knapp again, Ms Ryan contacted him; here is Knapp's reply.

Lisa Ryan and Susan Andrews, daughter of Dana Andrews, talk about growing up with their famous fathers in Hollywood in the 1950s and more in this Lucy Talks Movies podcast.

Earl Kemp On... Canvas?

Chatter with Earl Kemp continues... If you missed earlier parts of the interview: Intro, on science fiction, on censorship and politics, on reading and writing, on Fandom. (Links added by SPS.)

SPS: Earl, I guess I have several questions regarding the needlepoint...


SPS: They are your works, correct? What started the needlepoint kick?

Earl: Betty Gilmore, in Guadalajara. She produced a coffee table book about the art, filled with many color examples. She taught me to do it to fill in down time. Rosie Grier, a football player, also helped because it was his thing.

SPS: "She taught me", as in personally, or via the book?

Earl: Betty taught me personally. I read his book.


SPS: And it seems to my eye, that Coke is, er, if not the Corporate Devil, than at least a symbol of something -- more than a carbonated beverage choice, at least. So what's the deal with you and Coke?


Earl: It's one of my favorites, especially as Cuba Libre.

SPS: OK, droll commentary doesn't play well here... Are you referring to the drink or the lie?

Earl: The drink, triple por favor....

SPS: The one I was particularly struck by (and covet dearly) is this one -- please do tell me more about it!



Earl: It was designed for me by Jack Bozzi, a big-time NYC artist, now dead. Among other things, secretly, he was also the male figure obsessive artist Adam. As Adam, Jack designed this for me and I then did the needlepoint following his outlines. It is signed EKJB incorporating both our initials.

Kafka's Porn Stash

John Coulthart alerted me to this: Franz Kafka’s porn brought out of the closet.

James Hawes, academic and Kafka expert, reveals some of Kafka's porn stash in Excavating Kafka, to be published this month. Hawes says his book "seeks to explode important myths surrounding the literary icon, a 'quasi-saintly' image which hardly fits with the dark and shocking pictures contained in these banned journals."

Even today, the pornography would be "on the top shelf", Dr Hawes said, noting that his American publisher did not want him to publish it at first. "These are not naughty postcards from the beach. They are undoubtedly porn, pure and simple. Some of it is quite dark, with animals committing fellatio and girl-on-girl action... It's quite unpleasant."

Since I'm all for looking at humans in their full complexity, I can't wait to see/read the book myself -- and will hold off on more comments until then.

(Then again, I've never read Kafka... Must I read him before the bio-outing? I guess that depends upon one's views; reading this to know of the man vs. the myth, risking future reading of his works, or having proper literary framework first.)

The article is excellent -- only out-done in read-worthiness by the comments; here are a few:

Porn is nauseating, no matter who reads it. And in Kafkas time, it was not widely accessible,. It was a more normal, safer world back then, naive as that may sound. Kafka was a disturbed person, and that was the key to his originality. It is a greater achievement to be original, yet a whole person.

Fosse, Oslo, Norway

We have become worse than the Victorians ever were! (And I say that as a scholar of Victorian lit.) The combination of prurient invasion of privacy and hypocritical condemnation is more revolting than any pornography could ever be. Everyone has private fantasies, some are weird. So what?

Carol Siegel, Portland, USA

I love Kafka, and I would definitely pay to read his porn, especially if it's dark and unpleasant. I really hope that this material will be widely released in my lifetime.

Jenna, Tampa,

I don't see what the massive deal here is. As far as some of the material being quite dark, Kafka seemed to be a guy with some pretty dark places anyway. His sexuality wouldn't likely be much different. "Nothing but a pervert" is, I think, inaccurate and unfair.

Laura, Some,

As Coulthart said when he sent me the link, "Can't wait to see the reaction when the book appears."

Related: Franz Kafka tribute of "recomposed photographs".

Earl Kemp On Fandom

Chatter with Earl Kemp continues...

(If you missed earlier parts of the interview: Intro, on science fiction, on censorship and politics, on reading and writing.)

SPS: I can understand your reluctance to return to editing... But a memoir? Or an anthology of your own works? You've been writing for years and have many fans...

Earl: That's the good part about the LA show mentioned separately. Makes me feel huge and significant with people actually wanting to meet me, to look at me askance and, unconsciously touch me. Sure makes me wonder where I was when I was doing all those wonderful things they imagine me doing.



SPS: OK, to recap you think the Internet is wonderful, but you still don't see the possibility of a return to or recreation of the sf community -- or any author/fan family?

Earl: No I don't. It's all part of the burgeoning of the world. Everything is becoming too big, too costly, too unmanageable even by those in power who think they're doing it right and only for the buck. They don't get any of it. They don't want to get any of it. They don't want anything disproving their concepts of what they think of as money-making reality.

The best times are always with the right person/people/group and that is limited, by necessity, to all one can handle.

There are annual World SF Cons...they attract many thousands of people from far too many tangential directions with their own crosses to bare. Multiple tracks of bland propaganda hyping things of no significance. Twenty to 30 program items going on simultaneously in several different ballrooms and, at times, even in several different 4-star, plush, unreasonably expensive hotels, some within walking distance.

SPS: I'll admit I've never been... It's always seemed more for exhibitionists than shared/sharing interests. But hey, I'm now elusive, if not heading for hermit status.

Your points about size are valid; it is difficult to create mass intimacy. Orgies do not satiate when the real point is a connection based on something more than body contact. Yet immense popularity sort of forces the situation, no?

Earl: It certainly forces me to avoid the situation. Otherwise I would find myself spending thousands that I don't have just to sneak around and secretly meet old friends who are doing the same thing and avoiding all else.

SPS: It's a conundrum of sorts... Fans create popularity; yet the more popular the person/work/genre, the less access and connection. In some cases this decreases popularity; in other cases, I think it decreases the quality/care of the work/person. (Then again there's the misplaced idolization of celebrity itself.) Have you any thoughts on how to balance this?

Earl: No. [But] then there is the annual Corflu meeting of fanzine editors, usually less than 200 where everyone knows your face and damned near everything else. A sit down, hash it out, get screwed up, network with your closest friends from all over the world. Heaven! I can hardly wait.



Image credits:

LAPB 2008 photos at NooSFere.

Corflu photo from gsmattingly at Flickr.

Earl Kemp: Acres of Nubile Flesh

In Acres of Nubile Flesh, Earl Kemp exposes the business of finding nude models and actors for Greenleaf projects:

Where do they all come from?

Bodies all over the place, everywhere you looked, stumbling over each other trying to be next in line. Where do they all come from?

There was a while, back during the late 1960s and on into the '70s, when I was buying people by the ton. It sure seemed that way, at least. After Greenleaf Classics began buying magazines filled with photos of naked people packaged by outside contractors, I began growing annoyed with the types of people they were using as models. Somehow, they were doing things all wrong, I contended. They should be paying attention to what those people look like at least, and cleaning up some of them considerably ahead of time.

Naturally, I figured I could pick desirable people out as well as the next guy, and hopefully a little bit better while I was at it. I had no sooner begun contacting Los Angeles area modeling agencies when they started barraging me with telephone calls themselves. I had no idea there were so many modeling agencies in the entire state, much less in Hollywood alone. Each one of those agencies had loose leaf notebooks filled with Polaroid photos of naked people for me to look at…lots and lots of loose leaf notebooks. It was much easier that way, flipping the pages, looking at the naked people trying to smile up at me from within those loose leaves.

Earl Kemp also, literally, exposes himself...



And others too...

Occasionally, and just for fun, I would insert photographs of personal friends without their knowledge, in the nude, into some of our various publications. Then, after the publication appeared, give them copies of it and point them out inside the issue. Without exception, every one of them was pleased with the surprise and passed copies of them around among their friends.

In a similar jest, I would also insert close-up photos of myself without showing my face into those books or magazines. At one time, most of the black cork wall on one side of my office was pinned with tear sheets of just me, and not one person working there knew it was me. I recall taking my cue for this from Alfred Hitchcock, who always inserted himself into each of his productions. I figured I could easily outcock Hitchcock, and I did.

Continue reading this issue of Kemp's fanzine for more on Song of the Loon, the work "that started a mini revolution in sleaze book publishing," the film Adultery for Fun and Profit, and the film's aftermath too -- featuring lots of great old ephemera and lurking federal government guys.

Paging Inspector Clouseau For Greenbaum Case

This "guy" recently discovered that Great Uncle Mutz was The Mutz Greenbaum (aka Max Greene & Max Green) -- and then starts digging through the old photos. Below, Mutz on right, with who is thought to be Peter Sellers.



I don't know whether to smack this "guy" with a rolled-up newspaper for not knowing, or to hug him/her for posting his goodies online. (Then again, maybe they like the smacking thing, in which case we can all win.) Now they need help with identifying the people, films, &/or locations etc. in the photographs.



In his research he discovered that Mutz's father (so "the guy's" Great Grandfather) was Jules Greenbaum. Jules Greenbaum was not only the founder of Greenbaum films, but he produced and patented a number of motion picture equipment, including the Bioscope, the Vitascope, and the Synchroscope, one of the better early synchronized picture/sound systems.


Anyway, if you have any information on the photos, please post/share it.

Earl Kemp On Reading & Writing

Continuing my talk with Earl Kemp. (Intro, on science fiction, on censorship and politics).

SPS: I was reading about Greenleaf and the apparently surprising popularity of gay works at that time... It is said now that many women are fans of such books and films -- straight women are the primary fans of written works and lesbians a large part of film sales. At the time you were producing gay publications for Greenleaf did you notice this?

Earl: I did notice how very popular the genre was, and that it was almost totally forbidden at the time. I also noticed that female writers (even straight ones) of lesbian material were off the wall possessive of their opinions that were often in conflict with our editors and our sales. Also numbers of straight male writers wrote gay novels. Also purchasers of gay material were more willing to pay for quality up to and including the type of paper the books were printed on.

These days, I find very little difference between our '60s books and modern bestsellers. Except perhaps that females use more dirty words and figure more prominently in them...as writers and readers and especially as protagonists on the prowl. Harlequin grown up and no holds barred for female readers.

SPS: Your comments about female reading materials is a bit foreign to me personally... I do know that it's said that women are the majority of book buyers, but as for that formula, it's not really me.

Earl: Locally they appear to be in the majority. Most local men would deny that they ever read any book.

SPS: What's on Earl Kemp's "must read" list?

Earl: I don't have one. I enjoy William Diehl very much. I can tolerate an occasional James Patterson but sure wish he had some Creative Writing classes and an editor and a proofreader. Some of my old friend writers still thrill me these days, notably Lawrence Block and Donald Westgate. Even Hunter did it too until he died, but in all of their books I find myself and our common past and all the things we learned how to do together.

I momentarily forgot (it's difficult to remember quickly and make snappy comments) two of my all time favorites, Elmore Leonard who can write no wrong and Larry McMurtry.



SPS: "Ahh," she said nodding.

I'm not certain I can articulate what resonates about that, nor follow it up with anything. If I were talking my thoughts, I'd open my mouth as if to speak then think better of it; then repeat the process several times. It's rare anyone can move me to such a silence.

Is this, do you think, the same for your dislike of TV, films etc... This lack of being able to find yourself there?

On the other hand, that seems a bit odd for a man who was hooked by other worlds... But then not feeling 'at home here' seems to have been a common theme I hear/read from sf authors.

I realize there is no direct question there. Just a few scattered thoughts. I might have been better off just keeping my mouth shut.

Earl: Oh, no. I always find myself there. At times even before the film begins or the novel opens. I am the original "reader identification" guy.

Of course. I was never "at home there." I was born into a foreign place with a language that I never understood among people doing nothing very slowly. A stranger and afraid in a world I never made. I didn't come alive until around the age of 30 and wasn't born a human until I was divorced. I'm still trying to shake off my teenage years and become an adult.

[As for keeping your mouth shut] You don't learn/exchange anything that way.

SPS: Given that sf was such a 'family' community before, I have to ask about Tiptree...

What did you think of her? Her writing? Did her stand-offishness affect your connection/appreciation? Did her secret affect your opinions of her &/or her writing?

Earl: I have no thoughts about her. She's after my time. I've never read anything by her.

SPS: How can Tiptree be after your time? You're still here. You're still reading. An aversion, perhaps?

Earl: Possibly. I think I explained that when I was a working editor I had not the slightest chance of reading for personal pleasure. Now I do. Now I'm very selective in who wrote it and whatever it is that I think I want to read. Currently around a novel a day with a little nonfiction thrown in for grins.

Images from Earl Kemp's efanzine: Greenleaf's The Man From C.A.M.P. series, Agent 0008 Checklist.

All That Glitters Isn't Goldstein

Or Ron Jeremy either. *wink*


Al Goldstein himself posted this photo.

No, That Dashing Man's Not Gay

With such good looks and publicity which boasted of shopping for antiques in the shop of fellow actor and friend,Eddie Nugent it's easy to think this man was gay.


But Robert Montgomery wasn't gay; he fathered the adorable Elizabeth Montgomery too.

For more on Robert Montgomery, visit the online shrines of Classic Montgomery and Earl Of Hollywood.

Otto Peltzer Really Ran Cross Country; But Then With The Nazis, So Would You

Otto Peltzer was a German track hero in the Twenties, was vilified and jailed for his sexuality in the Thirties, survived a death camp in the Forties, then found a remarkable new life in the Sixties. Tim Pears tells the unknown story of the world-record holder who stayed true to the amateur ideal in Otto the strange: The champion who defied the Nazis.

George Carlin: Sexy Genius

This feels like an obligatory George Carlin post, and that saddens me.

Carlin belongs here because he was one sexy piece of beefcake. Nothing, and I mean nothing, turns me -- and I dare say most women -- on more than a man with a fiercely intelligent sense of humor (a quick wit will often make up for any other short -or quick!- comings a man might have); unless it's a man willing to stand up for what he believes in.



Oh, how I wish he would have met me & showed his belief by standing up at full attention.

He made ponytails on men sexy, damnit. And yes, upon hearing of his death, I used all seven of those words.



I want to do the man right for all the years he's pleased me, but a man of his level has been written about "everywhere" and I feel that mixture of, "What can I possibly add?" and "How won't this bore you, the reader?"

Thankfully, Learning To Share posted this extremely grand post, full of Carlin sentiments I share:

It was a safe bet that we'd see lots of remembrances of comedian George Carlin after his death last weekend.

I've found it a little shocking how much 'official' reportage seemed to really not 'get' Carlin at all - - and yet there they were, using his 1972 'Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television' as a main focus, and missing the breadth of a diverse career that began long before and stayed vital for the 3-plus decades following.

A couple of nice exceptions that I enjoyed were Jerry Seinfeld's short and sweet op-ed piece in the New York Times, and a GREAT post at WFMU's Beware of the Blog that concerns itself with Carlin's early comedy career, from his partnership with Jack Burns and early ventures in television.

Several links are provided to video clips from 1965 through 1972, including an appearance on the game show 'What's My Line', the strange sight of a Carlin introduction from Jimmy Durante, and much more.

It is from those links (specifically here) that I found this great clip of George Carlin on Playboy After Dark.



(Bonus points for Boobie Barbi Benton!)



He will be missed.

And I hope he'll be watching over us.

What The Donges??

I picked up this scrap of paper at a sale recently -- and have become obsessed with it. Dating from no later than the 1920's, it's a promotional piece for an old genteel establishment selling hats & gloves to gentlemen (but as you shall see, there's much more to it!)

Jac. F. Donges
Founder of DONGES BAY
Who has GLOVES to Burn
And some that don't Burn
HATS and CAPS

319 Third Street
MILWAUKEE, WIS.

Now, this is interesting for several reasons... The Jac F. Donges Hat & Glove shop was a Milwaukee institution, only just closed in 2001 (replaced by :gasp: a Subway restaurant). And Donges Bay is a place I have been (hello, Sybaris in Mequon!). But little information exists on the company or the man who founded it &, apparently, Donges Bay.

Heavy research provides us with the fact that Jac and his brother, Charles, founded the area.



Charles, also a partner in the hat business (then called Donges Brothers), died June 28, 1894, and while he managed to be listed in the 1902 Notable men of Wisconsin, he's all but ignored in history and Jac gets all the credit.



Perhaps this is fair, for Jac was quite the character.

In 1842, his parents, Mr. Jacob Donges and his wife, emigrated to Milwaukee from Germany. In 1860 they had a son, Jacob Jr. Jacob Jr. or Jac, as he preferred to be called. Jac inherited the position of janitor at Milwaukee's City Hall from his father and then worked in the garment business for some friends, which led to opening his own shop.

As an entrepreneurial businessman, his financial success led to investments in real estate along the north shore of lake Michigan, specifically purchasing the Basler and Kemp farms along what is now known as Donges Bay. These were lands he'd seen in 1884 calling the beautiful deep ravine with a creek at its bottom empties into the lake "Fairy chasm", and vowed to own. This land, along with land co-owned by friends (such as Fred Usinger, founder of Usinger Sausage Co.), became part of the holdings of the Fish Creek Park Company, established September 13, 1892. The company issued 146 shares of stock, one each for the 146 acres, at $285 per share and offered to mainly friends of Jac's, creating a private summer resort community.

During the first ten years of Fish Creek Park, the stockholders were permitted to use the land in any way they chose, from informal Sunday picnics to the construction of summer homes.

Enter the other side of the old promotional paper.

WITHIN THE LINES
IN THE GOOD OLD U.S.A.
AT
DONGES BAY

ALL'S WELL
AT SCHUCH'S RESORT

I found no information on Schuch's Resort; however, there was a friend of Jac's, John Schuch, who built Chalet on the Lake resort and restaurant in the area, which is now called Mequon. (According to the Fish Creek Park Company records, things got dicey after the first decade, and the community of Fairy Chasm evolved into two sections, North Fairy Chasm becoming Mequon in 1957 and South Fairy Chasm becoming Bayside in 1955. Absolutely fascinating stuff, but I digress.)

Here's a vintage postcard of the dining room, and a platter from the restaurant:




Little else could be discovered about the Chalet, other than Mark Harmon's Dillinger was filmed there (with the location used to represent Little Bohemia) and that it was owned by Jerome Perlson from 1966 until 1990 when he retired and the restaurant was sold, replaced by the development of private homes.

Could this chalet been the Schuch's Resort of the old little flyer? Maybe...

But what makes this all interesting enough to be here at Silent Porn Star is what happens when you fold the piece of paper...


The classic finish to "All's well"... "That ends well." Complete with nude bottoms up in the air as mom, dad, and junior do handstands under the water.

Cute and risque, especially for a gentleman's hat & gloves shop, but I discovered even more.

Holding and worrying over this bit of old paper, trying to find more information on Donges. I read the few lines so many times, hoping for another clue...

That line, "within the lines" stuck out for me. It didn't seem to make much sense. A colloquialism? Mmmmaybe. But being aware of riddles and puns, I then noticed the strange lines about the boy in the water... Was there something within, between them?

My husband says I'm just seeing things, but if you block the image at the one line, and turn it upside down, I see some even more risque antics beneath the water...


Is it just me? Tell me what you see...

And please do tell me if you know more about Jac Donges et al. (I'm itching to get back to the area soon to see what I can research... And stay at the Sybaris, of course. *wink*)

PS Yes, I'm putting this under "Beefcake" because Donges was so wealthy, no doubt he was heavily pursued and likely quite a playboy or other which such privilege allows. At least until I'm proven otherwise.

Swingin' With Sammy Davis Jr.

Sammy Davis Jr, swings, baby, swings, with a dancer on stage; but I love the white chick in the background wearing the "salt & pepper" tee -- she's just dying to swing with Sammy (on stage, or off).


Photo by Eve Arnold, because I'm still not over her or her works.

Bobby Riggs, Male Chauvinist Pig

Also from that article by Gracie I've already mentioned, comes this image of Bobby Riggs, Male Chauvinist Pig.

It's not just us saying it, and we didn't Photoshop it -- Riggs himself wore that shirt.

And he said that he wanted to be the number one chauvinist pig.

I'm just helping fulfill his wishes, helping him with his legend status.

I'm nice like that.

You can find out more about Riggs here, including other cool memorabilia and photos. Like this one of Bobby in drag.

Humor: Kor(Man) Values

Harvey Korman's passing reminds me just how sexy humor is...

And how not sexy are those who are missing a sense of humor, demented or not.

But this is about Korman.

I remember being allowed to stay up late and watch The Carol Burnett Show. Korman was rather dashing to me. I know Lyle Waggoner was supposed to be the stud, "tall dark & handsome"; but Korman was tall dork and handsome, and that won me over.

(Which explains why Tim Conway was put in the pile with Artie Johnson -- funny & cute, but not tall enough for me. Sorry, guys.)

I loved that Korman often couldn't keep a straight face. That somehow made him less imposing and more human, especially to a goofy, dorky girl like me.

Therefore, I don't want to wish Harvey the traditional, "Rest in peace", but a more meaningful, "Go do that voodoo that you do so well!"



In honor of Korman, I recommend watching Blazing Saddles.

Earl Kemp On Censorship & Politics

Continuing my talk with Earl Kemp (Intro, and part one, on science fiction).

SPS: What are you proudest accomplishments?

Earl: Being totally surveillied by law-enforcement for an unbearable ten years before they figured out how to arrange my "downfall." You can't imagine what it feels like to not be able to use a telephone or to receive an unopened and preread letter...to have numbers of people following your every step anywhere in the world. Millions of dollars of public funds spent for...personal amusement of a political few. From Nixon to Mitchell to Rhenquist...criminals all...me no. Much like the Presidential Medal of Honor.

SPS: Was the arrest & time served a relief after all of that?

Earl: Absolutely. Being in prison was extremely rewarding because of the closeup view of what it was really like as opposed to all the myths. Very bad officials doing very bad things for enormous personal profits. Very much like those wonderful people in DC running the world at the expense and lives of others and again only for personal corporate profits and even that for multi nationals...not for the US at all.

Everyone should have the opportunity of gaining such enlightenment.

SPS: Did it continue afterwards too?

Earl: For a while. I can still remember when it stopped because there was such sudden silence and everything felt remarkably as if I had moved to another country permanently, so unlike living under a microscope.

The most difficult part of it all to accommodate was the knowledge that it had taken them ten full years of totally illegal intensely close observation to finally frame a downfall. And all that time I thought they were my best protectors, knowing absolutely every minute thing about me and not being able to find anything actionable. Mindblowing!

SPS: Do you think you are still on lists?

Earl: Isn't everyone? What do you think the Patriot Act is? Homeland Security? Do you follow the news of all the illegal FBI wiretaps nationwide? Do you not know that all email is monitored?

However, my paranoia is no longer in charge but I can still spot an undercover Fed by odor, long before they come into sight.

I lived cross-border US/Mexico and witnessed time and time again Federales handing over drugs to Feds for distribution and mutual profit. Big massive shipments...not your dime bag common prisoner.

SPS: Ever consider moving to another country?

Earl: I lived in Mexico for over 20 years. It was indescribably wonderful.

SPS: If it was so wonderful, why leave?

Earl: A horrible thing called NAFTA screwed it up unbelievably. Forcing it, in just a few short years, to mirror image everything that is bad/wrong with the USA. Gone instantly were most of the local products, customs, including even the cuisine. Now nothing that was good about it remains, all having been replaced overnight with Wal-Marts, CostCos, MacDonalds (they all sell individual bottles of beer through the drive through windows), Starbucks and everything one normally goes on vacation to avoid.

And an incredible amount of red tape, forms to fill out, documents, and finally passports for all US citizens wanting to pass beyond that incredibly ugly, fortresslike wall. "Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall!" The Federales replaced by US Feds, spying on innocent tourists...

I could go on and on but my Mexico no longer exists. It looks like suburban NYC and smells worse.

Not an edible taco in sight.

Every poisonous, forbidden to sell in the US food item, long stored in warehouses just waiting for an excuse to ship them across the border and flood the Mexican market and drive away all those delightful things most people won't remember five years from now.

Reason enough?

It works for me.

SPS: Anything you'd like a do-over on?

Earl: Yes, most of it. I'd be noticeably more aggressive....

SPS: That's most intriguing.

Earl: I was Wimp #1. Naive. Trusting. Commonplace. Patriot.

To be continued...

Resources:

The Illustrated Presidential Report Of The Commission on Obscenity & Pornography, Earl Kemp, editor.

Sadomasochism in Comics: A History of Sex and Violence in Comic Books, Greenleaf Classics, by Hans Siden, introduction by Donald H. Gilmore, Ph.D.

All photos from Earl Kemp & his zine; used with written permission.

Earl Kemp On Science Fiction

Continuing my talk with Earl Kemp.

SPS: On paper, or in this digital age with sites like Wikipedia, "Earl Kemp" begins with science fiction. We hear the 'worked as a graphics artist' and then it's the fanzines, editing, etc.. How do you remember this transition?

Earl: As moving into adulthood and into the real world. Being born again with a view into reality.

SPS: What was it about science fiction which made you so passionate about the genre?

Earl: Just got hooked completely. Still am. Can't escape it.

SPS: Don't play coy; tell me what it was that hooked you. I want to hear about 'the golden age' or 'new wave' from someone who experienced it then -- both in terms of stories and the community.

Earl: I'm not ready to rethink backward for more than half a century. Too much trouble. Too little reward.

SPS: Whatever it was that grabbed you, did so by the heart if not the throat because you've been so passionate about the genre... Surely it deserves an ode, if not a few lines of description, yes?

Earl: Of course it does. But it was mostly the people involved at the time. Vastly different than the people involved today. To begin with, they cared. They involved themselves with each other. There was no distinction between fans and pros. It was family.

It hasn't been family now for...what...40 years. These days it's mostly media hype pushing for profits for total crap. But big profits and even bigger crap. Pros now are isolated from their fans, too aloof even to wipe their own asses. And most of them are in desperate need of talent, editors, and especially proofreaders....

SPS: Does any of what hooked you remain for you in the science fiction of today?

Earl: Good heavens NO. Pale shadow of its former self. For me, little or no adventure. People like Dean Koontz and Stephen King have totally destroyed both writing and sf. Crap abounds.

SPS: So they are the answer to Who Killed Science Fiction? I was taught it was Sputnik. lol

Earl: No, that was strictly the failure of periodical distributors crashing under their own weight. Had nothing to do with Sputnik.

SPS: There is quite a resurgence in sf -- you must be aware of that with all the hands reaching for you. Are there writers/works today you are fond of or at least feel capture some of that whateveritwas which first hooked you?

Earl: Contemporary sf escapes me totally. At the same time I find myself doing far too much reading. I had to give that up as a professional editor because there was no time for me, just for work.

Now I'm rereading lots of old favorites and running the whole gamut of contemporary bestselling fiction. I find most of it to be very formulaic...following largely the formula we created for Greenleaf Classic, as strange as it seems. And with a heavy tilt toward female readers who just have to have a go at that incredibly handsome but somewhat naive hunk, hung like a donkey...who will be totally their's before the last chapter closes.

SPS: What would it take for you to return to editing? Anthologies maybe? You've been writing your memoirs, online; any plans for a book -- a print book?

Earl: Always plans. Just waiting for the right person/thing/happening.

SPS: What would the right thing be? Would it have more to do with feeling part of a community, concern/caring for the work and the genre, or money?

Earl: None of these would be motivational except perhaps money. As prices go up, I have to buy/use less. Plus, at my age I'm much too cynical about my abilities to generate enough energy for any occupation. Only hedonistic motives could push me beyond current resting.

SPS: Do you think there is hope for such a sf community again? The Internet and blogging certainly can help with this, right? Or do you feel that ego/money/personality are still in the way preventing such a thing from happening again?

Earl: All media is different these days. Sort of like corporations running the country. Nothing is ever for the benefit of the writers or the readers any more. Unreadable books, banal television, unwatchable films...all selling like crazy.

SPS: So you don't really see anything positive about the Internet -- offering individuals less expensive voices, & ease in connection? Maybe you just feel that way because it allows any ID hiding slob with an email address to contact you.

Earl: You're mistaken. I think the Internet is one of the best things that's come along in ages. I couldn't live without it. Especially the less expensive part, although where I live, with NO option except dial-up that costs too damned much, really makes me miss big city living with competition and facilities that work occasionally.

I don't like subterfuge of any sort. Even usernames are insulting.

SPS: Personally, I too dislike the dishonesty of usernames. I hide behind mine because of the implications for family. Talking with you makes me feel more than a bit ashamed. Not just your finger waggin' but the life you lived. You didn't buckle or run away; you faced things. But I've tired, already, of being the tallest nail. Like you, I too hum Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose -- only I know that I still have something to lose and I'm not willing to pay that price.

Oh, I know I am on lists. Have been prior to W. My battles were smaller, more personal; yours were larger, more public. I hope someday to appear valiant in attempt if not victorious in action in my own history, a family legend; but you already are a legend.

This is part of The Collective Adoration Of Earl Kemp. Those who reach out to you want to rub the Buddha's belly, hoping some of that moxy will rub off. You don't describe yourself with much aggression and valor, but we see it.

As for the other reasons to from an Earl Kemp Mutual Admiration Society, I think they all lead back to passion. Certainly there was a passion behind standing up for Big Beliefs -- 10 years of government stalking gave you plenty of time to reconsider the personal cost. But there also is a passion for writing, the sf genre and the community. No one can describe Earl Kemp as apathetic. Even while you mock & paint yourself as the tired man of so many years, here you are.

In an age of apathy, what's not to admire about Earl Kemp.

And no, dear editor, I am not missing a question mark.

Earl: Flattery will get you absolutely anything.

To be continued...

All photos from Earl Kemp & his zine; used with written permission. Cover of Sin Chained, via Vintage Sleaze's Greenleaf Catalog.

The Earl Kemp Interview, The Introduction To

Recently I was 'talking' with Earl Kemp. The Earl Kemp. (If you're an ignoramus, check Wiki.)

I had exchanged a few emails with him before, confirming and posting a call he'd made, for example; but this time I became bolder...

SPS: Earl, I'm particularly fascinated by the concept of your status as an icon. As a creator of collectibles and as one who knew/knows so many other legends who did the same, I imagine the annoying folks who want copies, contacts, signatures, questions answered... It's a foreign concept for a girl hiding behind an online ID, living in terror of being attached to 'smut' because of the havoc it's already played in my life. Not that I've served any time for my beliefs -- yet.

I won't proclaim to be your biggest fan -- a pop quiz would prove that a lie lol. But your name & works come up again and again in my research of The Big Picture, and I must admit a bit of crush along with some envy... Not that batting lashes ought to sway anyone; nor gushing like an idiot. It's especially lacking in charm when typed. ;)

It really would be a treat to ask a few questions & share your answers -- so much so that I don't mind exposing myself as an idiot in terms of all that is (at least the public life of) Earl Kemp.

I realize it's a bit of a contradiction, me spouting that I imagine the annoyance of people asking you for things while asking for an interview; but I'm only human and have more than a few such pesky problems ;)

Earl: It is a problem. You wouldn't believe what some people ask for and, apparently expect to get, for free, including people who won't even sign their messages or have real IDs.

Not to worry. These days even I envy whoever it was people seem to think I used to be. What a time I must have had once upon a.

SPS: As I said, I'm very interested in your experiences and perceptions, so let's start there... What do most people want from you?

Earl: Hands-on sexual advice. How can I become normal? Invite me to your next regularly scheduled orgy. Send me nude photos of yourself.

SPS: Here I thought you were besieged with hands grabbing at your papers & publications, your (little black) address book, and, like me, digging in your brain for stories... And here you are, with the folks whose hands are out not for stuff, but to get in your pants. Not that I'm surprised, actually; it's what I'm here after. But I had at least hoped I had a more subtle approach.

Earl: Not exactly. After all, I'm pretty much past that kind of stuff these days, knocking on 80 and tired enough to prove it.

SPS: What (aside from this interview, perhaps) is the most obnoxious request?

Earl: Letters from clergymen on church letterheads asking to be fixed up with teenage or preteen boys. Letters from law-enforcement on letterheads asking for fuck flicks...in each case they were referred to the FBI for handling.

SPS: This is one thing people I speak with are surprised to hear about you. Most of them know of you from the sci-fi pages and they seem surprised to hear of ...For Nothing Left To Lose... Personally, I want to join your cult just for those points of view. (Then again, I'm under the impression that your cult has many other benefits.)

Earl: Sure does. Keeps me off the streets and clean and honest.

SPS: When I show folks For Nothing Left To Lose, a few say something such as, "Oh, yeah, well, I guess three months in the clink for obscenity would do that..." but I'm of the impression that it was just these opinions which led you to your work, which led to the nasty time. Am I right, or are those other folks?

Earl: You are right. I don't have to feel like I'm fighting the whole world, at least the fucked up professional politicians who sold our country out to the highest bidders. I can go along with the flow and play total idiot just like the majority of C-average US citizens, especially the ones in charge in D.C.

SPS: I certainly will share my thoughts on this, but I wonder what you think it is that continues to draw people to you?

Earl: Audacity. Admitting to the human condition and denying religious superstitions and myths as life motivations.

To be continued...

All images from Earl Kemp, used with written permission.

Related: Part Two of the interview, Earl Kemp on Science Fiction.

King of Soho Dies

Paul Raymond, "Britain’s Erotic Entertainment Magnate", died.

Raymond began his entrepreneurial life selling black-market nylons during World War II and went on, in 1958, to own "Raymond's Revue Bar in Soho, the first licensed serious nude strip joint in London.


Self-deprecating about his cultural status, the self-called "spiv" went on to publish various men's magazines; marry and divorce dancer & choreographer for his club, Jean Bradley; and then date porno queen Fiona Richmond for several years.


The story on Raymond's death at DailyMail is more salacious that the first obituary piece linked to (NY Times); but nearly all the 'reports' rely on comments from his ex-wife and estranged son. I have no doubts that the loss of a daughter to drugs and being one of the wealthiest men (with all the trappings and trappers it brings) were troubling, but it's difficult not to read the salt-pouring infliction of the words of those family members he left behind and be a bit cautious, if not out-right suspicious.



I rather enjoyed this quote from Jean Seaton, Professor of Media History and the Official Historian of the BBC, found at TimesOnline UK:

“He was a symptom of a radical change in sexual attitudes which was driven by feminism. What feminism did was put sex on the table and say, ‘This is part of our lives’. But he took that and commercialised it to extract monetary value from it. He made porn mainstream by making men feel less of a failure for needing it.”

While many articles play-up Raymond's (self-professed) cultural deficits, placing the man several paces away from Hefner, that quote puts the real lay of the land rather nicely in context.

Rest in peace, Paul.

See also: My post on Fiona Richmond.

Ivor Novello

The producer of The Man Without Desire sure produces desires...


Actor, composer/songwriter, director and night club owner Ivor Novello, namesake of the Ivor Novello Awards for songwriting, awarded each year by the record industry.

The Sean Young Smoke Screen

You may remember Sean Young as the beautiful replicant, Rachael, in Blade Runner. These days the actress is deemed a joke.

But here's the documented truth about Sean Young and James Woods:

How anyone can lament Young's continued upset over the devastating effects of Woods on her career is astonishing. Labeled a nut-case, a phsyco; black-balled from acting with the brand of "bitch" when she was the victim; what is she supposed to do? Just say, "Hey, that's OK. Lie and treat me like crap and keep me from my career, all because of your twisted ego"?

It's true that women often get the labels while the men get off scot-free -- even if, as in this case, he had to pay a huge settlement. It's the big omission in so many stories, which leads me to believe that something, someone was at work to make sure Young would be left out in the cold & Woods ultimately win.

But what really, really pisses me off is his 'accidental,' "I am sure it is fashionable to bash the guy (yawn) and pity the poor woman."

Amen. And a big YAWN for Woods.

The Cash Value Of Body Parts

When Asylum says it's not unusual to insure your chest hair, you know they're talking about Tom Jones, right?

He's not the first to insure body parts.

Insuring body parts seems to have begun with koogle-eyed silent film star Ben Turpin, who in the 20's bought a $20,000 policy to protect himself from loss should his his signature crossed-eyes go straight. Two decades later, Jimmy Durante insured his signature nose for $50,000 and Marlene Dietrich bought a $1 million policy on her throaty voice. Betty Grable's million dollar legs were insured for just that, while poor Fred Astaire's were a mere $75,000 per leg (additional $20,000 on his wrists and arms).

The insuring of sexual attributes has become standard. Dolly Parton insured her infamous 42-inch breasts for $600,000, and Poh, a Thai transvestite performer, who, when told that if she flew to an appearance in Edinburgh her breast implants could explode at high altitude, insured her breasts for $500,000. It's so common for Brazilian celebs to insure rear-ends that insurers there coined such policies 'bumbum policies'.

Frankie Jakeman, a British stripper, insured his penis for $1.6 million in 1987. Jakeman, who appears to be be this Frank Jakeman from Quality Indigo (see also here and listings at the Promises Agency), apparently was only working in the adult entertainment industry to own his own zoo. This, naturally, after having been a zoo keeper from 1974 until the the late 70's.

Jakeman's book, Being Frank: The Story of Britain's Number 1 Male Stripper, is now on my list. (And if anyone's got/found images/video of Jakeman, please do send/post!)

But maybe Frank should have insured his hair.

Surely now, Tom's chest hair insurance seems less titillating -- but I still want a few hairs for my scrapbook. Don't look at me that way.

For more on insurance policies for body parts see this article at Insure.com.

Rings Around Of Rosies...

Asses, asses, will they all fall down?


Bacchus has found this vintage image he's calling "Ring Of Sodomy" -- and if you know anything about it, please do share!

One lead has suggested the image may be from the Barbican, but they opt for few images on their site... As with this Between the Futons: Japanese Erotica of the Early Modern Period exhibit.

Becoming The Object Of Lust

I get quite a few people who arrive at this blog searching for "where porn stars come from", "making of a porn star" and the like, which I'm guessing leads to some rather disappointed people who arrive here. I mean if you're looking for a how-to on becoming a porn star, this history-slash-collectibles blog isn't likely what you hoped for or expected to find.

But then again, I doubt there's any site which could really tell you, let alone teach you, what you want to know in that regard...

There's no formula to becoming a porn star or any sort of celebrity. You can study your craft, assume the position, be in the right places, and even know all the right people -- for any gig. But to become a star, a celebrity, a legend, well that requires that undefinable 'it' factor that cannot be learned, purchased, nor even, to the chagrin of some, given away should you have it.

People make you popular, and what makes the people want you, like you, and in the case of porn, desire you in that way, is elusive to define. Certainly if there's one thing that's obvious here at this blog, it's that. There just isn't anyway to know for certain why some become the sex symbol, the object of lust, the icon of sex; or why others do not.

To that end I mention Bobby Fischer's passing.

“It was Bobby Fischer who had, single-handedly, made the world recognize that chess on its highest level was as competitive as football, as thrilling as a duel to the death, as esthetically satisfying as a fine work of art, as intellectually demanding as any form of human activity,” wrote Harold C. Schonberg, who reported on the Reykjavik match for The New York Times, in his 1973 book, “Grandmasters of Chess.”

Surely Bobby, as the rock star of chess, had his groupies -- those who knew geek-chic before there was a name for it, those who likely giggled at "Checkmate" or used it as a euphemism.

Heck, Bobby had 'it' before there was even 'porno-chic'. And as such, he deserves at least these passing remarks at Silent Porn Star. Rest in peace, Bobby.

Ron Jeremy, Wherefore Art Thou?

Angela at Zen Fetish has posted a bit of an ode to Ron Jeremy, including some excellent film clips and other cool linkage, with her post Ron Jeremy: Catholic Pervert or Porn Star Super Hero?

I've posted a film challenge there, for you all, in the comments. *wink*

Image of 80's Ron from Patricia Sheridan's Breakfast With ... Ron Jeremy. (Worth the read!)

Ben Casey: The Strength Of His Hands

A Deeply Moving Story About America's Most Exciting TV Personality

A New Novel * Never Seen On TV * First Publication

A Lancer Original paperback, by Sam Elkin, Copyright 1963, Bing Crosby Productions

From the back:

A WISE AND JUST MAN

Ben Casey: He Must decide on the wisdom of writing a book based on his experiences...

Ben Casey: A great humorist has lost the will to live... what can he do?

Ben Casey: Was he falling in love, or was this a superficial attraction...?

Ben Casey: The most exciting television personality of the last decade.

Ben Casey: The Strength Of His Hands: an unforgettable, completely new novel. Never on television! Never before published!

Xavier Cugat: Creative Cool-Cat With All The Kittens

Xavier Cugat, the Rhumba King, is as known for his love life as he is his Latin rhythms.



A notorious womanizer, he married five times:

#1 Rita Montaner
#2 Carmen Castillo
#3 Lorraine Allen
#4 Abbe Lane (In his bands for many years, until their divorce.)
#5 Charo (She & Cugat were the first couple to marry at Caesars Palace when it opened in Las Vegas in 1966.)

Cugat also has many film credits, mainly for playing himself.

From Stage Door Canteen (1943) here's Lina Romay (not this Lina Romay) with Cugat & orchestra, performing She's a Bombshell from Brooklyn:



Lina Romay sings Antonio in the motion picture The Heat's On (1944)with the Xavier Cugat Orchestra.



Cugat supposedly gave Rita Hayworth one of her first jobs, and so later appeared with her in You Were Never Lovelier, but I remember him from so many of Esther Williams films, including the remake of Annette Kellerman's Neptune's Daughter.

Via A Damn Find Product's post we learn that Xavier Cugat was also a talented illustrator. Exhibit A, cover of Game & Gossip, 1932:



Exhibit B, Fandango - Dance Rhythms - IV (from Game & Gossip, 1932):


Perhaps the most fascinating is this fold-out with 74 caricatures of the most popular Hollywood celebrities such as Fanny Brice, Mary Pickford, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Clara Bow, Gloria Swanson, Constance Bennett, Billie Dove, Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin.


For more names, see the list of names and the key; but note the following: Dietrich could not even pose in Cugat's imagination with Garbo, and note how powerful women were -- their names & personalities still awe.

That Cugat would was an illustrator shouldn't be shocking. Golden Age of illustration notwithstanding, Cugat was a bit of a money-grubbing sell-out jack-of-all-trades who's been quoted as saying, "I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve." According to Solid!:

Cugat was often depicted in publicity photos holding a chihuahua and a pipe, even though he didn't smoke. He was never the one to miss out on a good business opportunity, however. He cashed in on this image and began selling his own line of pipes. He also started a chihuahua breeding business which featured documentation certifying that the dogs were Cugat dogs. Cugat never met a marketing deal he didn't like. Over the years he hawked a diverse line of products, including cigarette lighters and shirts, and also owned several Los Angeles-area restaurants. In addition Cugat was a talented caricaturist. His work appeared in newspapers, magazines and galleries around the world. During the 1920s he worked as a cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times newspaper while playing music at night.

Perhaps this is why Cugat was never without beautiful women.

Fanny Brice, Al Jolson & The Seven Lively Arts

As promised in part one, more on Fanny Brice (with a generous dollop of Al Jolson).





This from the The Seven Lively Arts, by Gilbert Seldes, this is The Daemonic in the American Theatre (pages 191-200).

ONE man on the American stage, and one woman, are possessed--Al Jolson and Fanny Brice. Their daemons are not of the same order, but together they represent all we have of the Great God Pan, and we ought to be grateful for it. For in addition to being more or less a Christian country, America is a Protestant community and a business organization-and none of these units is peculiarly prolific in the creation of daemonic individuals. We can bring forth Roosevelts--dynamic creatures, to be sure; but the fury and the exultation of Jolson is a hundred times higher in voltage than that of Roosevelt; we can produce courageous and adventurous women who shoot lions or manage construction gangs and remain pale beside the extraordinary "cutting loose" of Fanny Brice.

To say that each of these two is possessed by a daemon is a mediaeval and perfectly sound way of expressing their intensity of action. It does not prove anything-not even that they are geniuses of a fairly high rank, which in my opinion they are. I use the word possessed because it connotes a quality lacking elsewhere on the stage, and to be found only at moments in other aspects of American life-in religious mania, in good jazz bands, in a rare outbreak of mob violence. The particular intensity I mean is exactly what you do not see at a baseball game, but may at a prize fight, nor in the productions of David Belasco, nor at a political convention; you may see it on the Stock Exchange and you can see it, canalized and disciplined, but still intense, in our skyscraper architecture. It was visible at moments in the old Russian Ballet.

In Jolson there is always one thing you can be sure of: that whatever he does he does at the highest possible pressure. I do not mean that one gets the sense of his effort, for his work is at times the easiest seeming, the most effortless in the world. Only he never saves up-for the next scene, or the next week, or the next show. His generosity is extravagant; he flings into a comic song or three-minute impersonation so much- energy, violence, so much of the totality of one human being, that you feel it would suffice for a hundred others. In the days when the runway was planked down the centre of every good theatre in America, this galvanic little figure, leaping and shouting--yet always essentially dancing and singing--upon it was the concentration of our national health and gaiety. In Row, Row, Row he would bounce up on the runway, propel himself by imaginary oars over the heads of the audience, draw equally imaginary slivers from the seat of his trousers, and infuse into the song something wild and roaring and insanely funny. The very phonograph record of his famous Toreador song is full of vitality. Even in later days when the programme announces simply "Al Jolson" (about 10.15 P.M. in each of his reviews) he appears and sings and talks to the audience and dances off-and when he has done more than any other ten men, he returns and, blandly announcing that "You ain't heard nothing yet," proceeds to do twice as much again. He is the great master of the one-man show because he gives so much while he is on that the audience remains content while he is off-and his electrical energy almost always develops activity in those about him.

If it were necessary, a plea could be made for violence per se in the American theatre, because everything tends to prettify and restrain, and the energy of the theatre is dying out. But Jolson, who lacks discipline almost entirely, has other qualities besides violence. He has an excellent baritone voice, a good ear for dialect, a nimble presence, and a distinct sense of character. Of course it would be impossible not to recognize him the moment he appears on the stage; of course he is always Jolson-but he is also always Gus and always Inbad the Porter, and always Bombo. He has created a way of being for the characters he takes on; they live specifically in the mad world of the Jolson show; their wit and their bathos are singularly creditable characteristics of themselves-not of Jolson. You may recall a scene I think the show was called Dancing Around - in which a lady knocks at the door of a house. From within comes the voice of Jolson singing, "You made me love you, I didn't wanna do it, I didn't wanna do it"--the voice approaches, dwindles away, resumes -- it is a swift characterization of the lazy servant coming to open the door and ready to insult callers, since the master is out. Suddenly the black face leaps through the doorway and cries out, "We don' want no ice," and is gone. Or Jolson as the black slave of Columbus, reproached by his master for a long absence. His lips begin to quiver, his chin to tremble; the tears are approaching, when his human independence softly asserts itself and he wails, "We all have our moments." It is quite true, for Jolson's technique is the exploitation of these moments; he has himself said that he is the greatest master of hokum in the business, and in the theatre the art of hokum is to make each second count for itself, to save any moment from dulness by the happy intervention of a slap on the back, or by jumping out of character and back again, or any other trick. For there is no question of legitimacy here-everything is right if it makes 'em laugh.

He does more than make 'em laugh; he gives them what I am convinced is a genuine emotional effect ranging from the thrill to the shock. I remember coming home after eighteen months in Europe, during the war, and stepping from the boat to one of the first nights of Sinbad. The spectacle of Jolson's vitality had the same quality as the impression I got from the New York sky line-one had forgotten that there still existed in the world a force so boundless, an exaltation so high, and that anyone could still storm Heaven with laughter and cheers. He sang on that occasion 'N Everything and Swanee. I have suggested elsewhere that hearing him sing Swanee is what book reviewers and young girls loosely call an experience. I know what Jolson does with false sentiment; here he was dealing with something which by the grace of George Gershwin came true, and there was no necessity for putting anything over. In the absurd black-face which is so little negroid that it goes well with diversions in Yiddish accents, Jolson created image after image of longing, and his existence through the song was wholly in its rhythm.

Five years later I heard Jolson in a second-rate show, before an audience listless or hostile, sing this out dated and forgotten song, and create again, for each of us seated before him, the same image-and saw also the tremendous leap in vitality and happiness which took possession of the audience as he sang it. It was marvelous. In the first weeks of Sinbad he sang the words of 'N Everything as they are printed. Gradually (I saw the show in many phases) he interpolated, improvised, always with his absolute sense of rhythmic effect; until at the end it was a series of amorous cries and shouts of triumph to Eros. I have heard him sing also the absurd song about "It isn't raining rain, It's raining violets" and remarked him modulating that from sentimentality into a conscious bathos, with his gloved fingers flittering together and his voice rising to absurd fortissimi and the general air of kidding the piece.

He does not generally kid his Mammy songs-as why should he who sings them better than anyone else? He cannot underplay anything, he lacks restraint, and he leans on the second-rate sentiment of these songs until they are forced to render up the little that is real in them. I dislike them and dislike his doing them-as I dislike Belle Baker singing Elie, Elie! But it is quite possible that my discomfort at these exhibitions is proof of their quality. They and a few very cheap jokes and a few sly remarks about sexual perversions are Jolson's only faults. They are few. For a man who has, year after year, established an intimate relation with no less than a million people, every twelvemonth, he is singularly uncorrupted. That relation is the thing which sets him so far above all the other one-manshow stars. Eddie Cantor gives at times the effect of being as energetic; Wynn is always and Tinney sometimes funnier. But no one else, except Miss Brice, so holds an audience in the hollow of the hand. The hand is steady; the audience never moves. And on the great nights when everything is right, Jolson is driven by a power beyond himself. One sees that he knows what he is doing, but one sees that he doesn't half realize the power and intensity with which he is doing it. In those moments I cannot help thinking of him as a genius.

Quite to that point Fanny Brice hasn't reached. She hasn't, to begin with, the physical vitality of Jolson. But she has a more delicate mind and a richer humour--qualities which generally destroy vitality altogether, and which only enrich hers. She is first a great farceur; and in her songs she is exactly in the tradition of Yvette Guilbert, without the range, so far as we know, which enabled Mme Guilbert to create the whole of mediaeval France for us in ten lines of a song. The quality, however, is the same, and Fanny's evocations are as vivid and as poignant as Yvette's-they require from us exactly the same tribute of admiration. She has grown in power since she sang and made immortal, I Should Worry. Hear her now creating the tragedy of SecondHand Rose or of the one Florodora baby who-- "five little dumbells got married for money, And I got married for love . . .." These things are done with two-thirds of Yvette Guilbert's material missing, for there are no accessories and, although the words (some of the best are by Blanche Merrill) are good, the music isn't always distinguished. And the effects are irreproachable. Give Fanny a song she can get her teeth into, Mon Homme, and the result is less certain, but not less interesting. This was one of a series of realistic songs for Mistinguett, who sang it very much as Yvonne George did when she appeared in America. Miss Brice took it lento affetuoso; since the precise character of the song had changed a bit from its rather more outspoken French original. Miss Brice suppressed Fanny altogether in this song-she was being, I fear, "a serious artist"; but she is of such an extraordinary talent that she can do even this. Yvonne . George sang it better simply because the figure she evoked as Mon Homme was exactly the fake apache about whom it was written, and not the "my feller" who lurked behind Miss Brice. It was amusing to learn that without a Yiddish accent and without those immense rushes of drollery, without the enormous gawkishness of her other impersonations, Miss Brice could put a song over. But I am for Fanny against Miss Brice and to Fanny I return.

Fanny is one of the few people who "Make fun." She creates that peculiar quality of entertainment which is wholly light-hearted and everything else is added unto her. Of this special quality nothing can be said; one either sees it or doesn't, savours it or not. Fanny arrives on the scene with an indescribable gesture--after seeing it twenty times I believe that it consists of a feminine salute, touching the forehead and then flinging out her arm to the topmost gallery. There is magic in it, establishing her character at once -the magic must reside in her incredible elbow. She hasn't so much to give as Jolson, but she gives it with the same generosity, there are no reserves, and it is all for fun. Her Yiddish Squow (how else can I spell that amazing effect?) and her Heiland Lassie are examples-there isn't an arriere-pensee in them.

"The Chiff is after me . . . he says I appil to him . . . he likes my type - - " It is the complete give away of herself and she doesn't care.

And this carelessness goes through her other exceptional qualities of caricature and satire. For the first there is the famous Vamp, in which she plays the crucial scene of all the vampire stories, preluding it with the first four lines of the poem Mr Kipling failed to throw into the wastepaper basket, and fatuously adding, "I can't get over it"--after which point everything is flung into another plane-the hollow laughter, the haughty gesture, the pretended compassion, that famous defense of the vampire which here, however, ends with the magnificent line, "I may be a bad woman, but I'm awful good company." In this brief episode she does three things at once: recites a parody, imitates the moving-picture vamp, and creates through these another, truly comic character. For satire it is Fanny's special quality that with the utmost economy of means she always creates the original in the very process of destroying it, as in two numbers which are exquisite, her present opening song in vaudeville with its reiterations of Victor Hebert's Kiss Me Again, and her Spring Dance. The first is pressed far into burlesque, but before she gets there it has fatally destroyed the whole tedious business of polite and sentimental concert-room vocalism; and the second (Fanny in ballet, with her amazingly angular parody of five-position dancing) puts an end forever to that great obsession of ours, classical interpretative dancing.

Fanny's refinement of technique is far beyond Jolson's; her effects are broad enough, but her methods are all delicate. The frenzy which takes hold of her is as real as his. With him she has the supreme pleasure of knowing that she can do no wrong-and her spirits mount and intensify with every moment on the stage. She creates rapidly and her characterizations have an exceptional roundness and fulness; when the daemon attends she is superb.

It is noteworthy that these two stars bring something to America which America lacks and lovesthey are, I suppose, two of our most popular entertainers--and that both are racially out of the dominant caste. Possibly this accounts for their fine carelessness about our superstitions of politeness and gentility. The medium in which they work requires more decency and less frankness than usually exist in our private lives; but within these bounds Jolson and Brice go farther, go with more contempt for artificial notions of propriety, than anyone else. Jolson has re-created an ancient type, the scalawag servant with his surface dulness and hidden cleverness, a creation as real as Sganarelle. And Fanny has torn through all the conventions and cried out that gaiety still exists. They are parallel lines surcharged with vital energy. I should like to see that fourth-dimensional show in which they will meet.

You can read The Seven Lively Arts by Gilbert Seldes online here; or, if you should, like I, prefer paper to cozy up with, here's the paperback at Amazon -- which, you can get a deal on if you purchase it with The Lively Arts: Gilbert Seldes and the Transformation of Cultural Criticism in the United States by Michael Kammen.

I mention the latter as the blurbs about that book have some of the best, clearest, most concise information on Gilbert Seldes himself.

From Publishers Weekly:

In his 1924 book The Seven Lively Arts, Seldes (1893-1970) made the then-controversial claim that popular entertainment and culture should be treated just as seriously, and as rigorously, as the so-called high arts. Krazy Kat and Irving Berlin were worthy of critical attention, he said; and arts criticism in America hasn't been the same since. Kammen, a historian, stresses the "hands-on" aspect of Seldes's long and versatile career. He was a historian, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, scriptwriter, journalism school dean, newspaper and magazine columnist and CBS's first director of television. Although at times Kammen seems curiously defensive, his balanced and insightful account of Seldes's professional life?from the early '20s at the Dial magazine (and the beginning of long-running feuds with both Hemingway and the Algonquin Round Table set) to the 1950s debates on the role of "mass culture"?is a story of a life as well as a history of pop culture on the rise. Seldes, Kammen says, thought of himself as "a highbrow populist" and was a "compulsively candid critic." Kammen weights Seldes's contributions fairly but can be equally candid.

Mary Carroll of Booklist:

Cornell University's Kammen is an astute student of U.S. cultural history; People of Paradox (1972), A Machine That Would Go of Itself (1986), and Mystic Chords of Memory (1991) suggest his scope. It's hardly surprising that he would find Seldes a fascinating biographical subject. Seldes was a major contributor to arts criticism and magazine journalism from the 1920s to the 1960s: edited The Dial when it published T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland; wrote a classic defense of popular art, The Seven Lively Arts (1924), hundreds of magazine articles, a successful Broadway treatment of Lysistrata, and programs for radio and TV; and was founding dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communications. Seldes fought with Hemingway, George Jean Nathan, and Edward R. Murrow and wrestled with issues of current relevance, including "dumbing down" vs. "leveling up" in the mass media and government's role in supporting (or restraining) artistic expression. Seldes shed light rather than heat on significant artistic issues American society has faced.

Also, related, is this piece on The Seven Lively Arts and The Freemasons.

For more on Jolson, the International Al Jolson Society.

Warhol and the Film Factory

Facets Multi-Media, Inc., a non-profit media arts organization located in Chicago, recently had a week long Andy Warhol film retrospective and you can catch clips of Andy Warhol at their blog.

That's where I found this gem:



While Warhol says virtually nothing (and is rather cute in his smug silence), I blame the interviewer for asking simple "yes or no" questions. You'll never get anywhere with those.

UPDATE (later same day): Thanks, Mark for posting this at Boing Boing! (BoingBoingers, check out the rest of the blog!)

The King, by Morton Cooper

The cover of The King, by Morton Cooper reads:

HARRY ORLANDO, SWING, SINNER, MILLIONAIRE, CROONER

HELL ON WOMEN, KING OF THE DOLLS

"STRONG MEAT"
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

"SUPER-SATURATED WITH 100 PROOF SEX" GALVESTON NEWS

BOOZE, BRAWLS, SEX, SCANDAL

"SHOULD BE PRINTED ON ASBESTOS PAPER"

THE KING -- out sexes VALLEY OF THE DOLLS

The back of the paperback:

He's the Bit-Time pop-singer whose sexy saga has "SET TONGUES WAGGING FROM COAST TO COAST." Detroit News

"IF IT'S SEXCAPE YOU WANT, THIS IS IT." Cleveland Armory

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS
sizzled the move queens -
now it's Harry Orlando's turn;
THE
KING

"A BLOCKBUSTER"
Library Journal
"GRAPHIC AND GUTSY"
Worcester Telegram

What's the best about The King is probably what also makes this book the worst. I've not (yet) read Valley Of The Dolls (though I will; I'm such a huge fan of Beyond), so I can't make any comparisons to that work; but it's safe to assume that The King falls into the genre of trashy books. Books, like those by Sidney Sheldon and Jackie Collins, that I salaciously read years ago. Books which once would have been qualified as great beach reads, with saucy romps and glamorous settings; pure escapism. Books which have now been supplanted by chick lit.

However, what's rather unique about The King is that the main character is male, and we see the world through his eyes as well as several other male leads as supporting cast. While women abound (several even with key or pivotal roles) we see little through their eyes; these characters begin and end as female rolls, if you catch my meaning.

I can't say this is a rare peep into the male psyche -- and truth be told, there are little surprises when you read so many trashy books-- but it is more than a bit refreshing to have the bull-shit set aside in terms of pretense. Heck, it was illuminating -- I thought I had heard all the slang &/or derogatory terms for women, but there were a few revelations, like quiff. Apparently this word predates the current use of the word for 'vaginal fart', drawing from the original definition of the word, a prominent forelock, which certainly makes sense. I am not misinterpreting the multiple and near exhaustive (despite a plethora of other words such as quim, snatch, twitch, and gash) use of the word. Take this passage, taken from page 371, where Orlando admires his notches but realizes the emptiness of such conquests: "You've had the Louvre of lovers, the queen of quiffs, and what have you got in your pocket to take home with you?"

And before you feminists get all pissy, it may soothe (or further upset you) to know that Italian-Americans are Wops, blacks are Niggers and well, you get the idea. The 60's, for all the stuff you read about racial equality, weren't the most racially kind times; and this book doesn't even pretend to be. Enjoy a slice of racial stereo-types with your hair pie (though, I'm not certain that 'hair pie' was actually used in this book -- you get the idea, tho, right?)

But now I'm getting ahead of both myself and Orlando.

The King is filled with sex, yes, but it's not the sex we are used to reading about today. Or is it? I don't know what you've been reading, but when I read a 'graphic' and 'sexy' book, both tab A and slot B are described, usually in detail, along with every step of the action. But in The King, well, it's (nearly) everything right up to those parts. It could be the time, or it could be further evidence that it's all about the thrill of the chase. But in any case, if you expect to find your panties wet from all this action, you'll be disappointed.

If, however, you enjoy a sordid tale of celebrity scandal, well, then, The King should fit the bill. Even if most of the celebs it outs are no longer filling our tabloids, or are dead even, this is fun.

Reading The King doesn't require the use of Google to discover that the lead character, Harry Orlando, 'is' Frank Sinatra (who was really unhappy with this book). Nor will you miss the other celebrities of the 60's hiding behind clear plastic retro bubble umbrellas.

Orlando's be-friended political candidate, the one whose campaign he helps at the request of the candidate's powerful father, is the ill-fated President Kennedy, and so covers the connections between entertainers and politicians. Bland actor turned presidential hopeful, Grant Campbell, is clearly Ronald Reagan. There are assorted smaller characters resembling 'a rat pack' if not the Rat Pack. (Interestingly enough, the black comedian on the late night talk show seems to be Nipsey Russell.) And the respected reporter, Bill Temple, could be very loosely based on James Bacon, but the main pivot points of this character focus on the personal & bitter swing Sinatra -- err, Orlando, makes from Camelot to the Republican party.

Since the babes aren't too fleshed-out, or, rather, aren't much more than flesh, it's hard to point to the not-so-cleverly disguised female celebs from that time period -- other than one who clearly, to me, seems to be Monroe. (She would have to appear in a Sinatra tale somewhere; and I bet the softer approach was due to her death just years before Cooper began writing The King. Then again, the women just don't matter here.)

In this work of fiction politics and social change are clearly characters -- as well masked as Sinatra supposedly is. The role of communism is actually played by communism, but the fictitious Friends of Victor Wade plays the Christian Right/Moral Majority or the friends of Falwell, as shown in this passage:

It was Temple, following up on a tip, who discovered that Wade and his friends were more than simply braying anachronisms. It was Temple who tracked down the proof that the executive level of the group was riddled with racists and boobs who were dangerous in their boobism. "Our sole function," announced Victor Wade, "is to educate every loyal, red-blooded American citizen on his inalienable right to speak out against all enemies of freedom. We have no other design." In truth, factions of the group, quietly but definitely directed from the top, had been successful in wrecking mental-health programs in many small communities, had infiltrated PTA chapters with members who persuaded passive majorities that this history book would have to be dropped because its interpretations of American history weren't patriotic enough or that the teacher with the funny-sounding foreign name would have to be bounced because of vaguely dangerous ideas he held. Pressure had been successfully put on librarians and bookstore owners to drop from stock books which, because of their political, ethnic, or moral slants, furthered the subversive cause. An astonishing number of men running for local political offices as liberals or moderates had been defeated, thanks to red-herring attacks by Wade Friends--attacks dealing not with the candidates' liberal or moderate views but with rumors about the candidates' sexual preferences or long-forgotten adolescent rebellions.

(The King, © by Morton Cooper, First Printing, January, 1968, Signet Books, pgs 307-308)

(Fiction or not, you didn't think I'd pass up an opportunity to remind everyone how important it is to not remain passive majorities puppeted by the right-restricting political right -- did you?)

Now that you've got the cast of characters, I see no reason to ruin the possibility of you actually reading this book by giving away too much of the plot. Most of it centers on the 'boys will be boys' stuff of babes, friendships and relationships among men, how men get their power, booze & more babes (or how they perhaps waste their power), all set in the swingin' 60's.

For the most part the juicy-joy of this book isn't about the plot; it's about the retro romp. Highly recommended -- and the cheap thrills can be found cheap at thrift stores, at Amazon, and on eBay.

For more on The King, see:

Time's blurb from Friday, Jun. 23, 1967.

For more on Morton Cooper (aka Morton Cooper Feinberg) see:

A list of short stories from vintage magazines, from The FictionMags Index.

Reviews of his other books, The Comedian (Gold Medal Books, 1953), and The Star-Cross System (New English Library, London, 1973; originally published in the USA by Avon Books under the title of Stop-Over in 1960), from Trash Fiction.

The author's obituary from The New York Times, June 6, 2004.

Russian Bears Schtooping In The...

Baths.



Via Gloria, who got it from Sexblo.gs... Boy, things do spread in a bathhouse.

The Body of a Man... The Feelings of a Woman

I Was A Man
Half-man, Half-woman
...Which way to go?

The Dark World of the Trans-sexual

A Barry Mahon Production

This 1967 film is also known as I Was A Man: The True Story of Ansa Kansas an Hermaphrodite. According to Chateau Vulgaria, the film was screened at the Finnish Film Archive in 2006, but I've yet to see a release on either video or DVD. (Trailers can be found on a few DVDs such as the Run Swinger Run! / Sex Club International Double Feature and Something Weird's Twisted Sex Vol 01 (which is what Chateau Vulgaria discusses in the link above).

Jackson Barrett Mahon, a.k.a. Barry Mahon, was a pilot. After WWII he became the personal pilot for Errol Flynn, then became the actor's manger -- and that's how he began in his career as a prolific film maker.

Having produced a number of Flynn and Gina Lollobrigida pictures, as well as a considerable output of children's programs, Mahon established The Production Machine, a high-tech film production company in Hollywood, making motion pictures for theatrical and television release. Mahon was the first movie producer to adapt and apply computer technology (as well spreadsheet applications, such as MultiPlan) to the breakdown, scheduling, budgeting and financial analysis of feature-length motion pictures and movies-of-the-week for Columbia Pictures.

According to producer/director James Jaeger, who knew Mahon well and worked with him, Mahon assured him that Errol Flynn was not gay in the least. He might have tried it once, but then Errol tried everything at least once.

The part played by Steve McQueen in the movie, The Great Escape (1963), was loosely based upon Barry Mahon.

Movie poster via Vanessa Is.

The Tiny Tim Gold Digger Connection

If someone would have asked me while I was growing up what the connection between Tiny Tim and gold digging was, I would have felt the answer lie in anyone who dated him. (Later on I found Tiny Tim to be nearly as sexy as Emo Philips -- don't mock, he got Judy Tenuta. Which is yet more proof that smart sexy women dig men smart enough to be funny. OK, and it's proof of my age. Moving on.)

The true answer regarding Tiny Tim and gold diggers is the song Tip Toe Through The Tulips With Me.


Image of sheet music via We Have Your Collectibles.

Found (But Still Looking!)

The Homo Erotic Quest post has worked well for Thom. He emailed a bit of a show and tell:

Just thought I would let you know that one of my good blog friends (we comment back and forth every night) was directed to your post about my "Homoerotic Quest", and then proceeded to share a number of fun images with me, including the one I mentioned in your post!!! It was like an answered prayer, and so I have attached it for you to enjoy. It has been close to 20 years since I saw it, so I did get a few details wrong, but it is definitely the same pic! It has been cropped from the version I remember, and on closer inspection appears to be a very clever cut-and-paste job. None the less, I find it fascinating, and no less erotic. So, there you have it!

While Thom is happy with what's been shown to him, I'm sure he'd be even happier with more -- so if you have anything to, err, show Thom, well, email him. *wink*

When I asked Thom if I could share the news/image with you, he wrote:

I don't see why not! I think the more people know that this sort of thing was going on way back when, the better. I mean, really! People often unconsciously cling to societal beliefs, no matter how invalid they actually are. I think it's important for people to know that men were getting each other off in all eras, regardless of whatever was considered "taboo" at the time.

Those words are so worthy of noting all on their own.

Sure, She Got His Autograph; But How Collectible Is It?

While Lauren didn't ask for an autograph from Lexington Steele, The Libertine did get one from Ron Jeremy -- but it was written on her breasts.

I don't know what's more fun to read, her full account of the meeting or the phone call she made to Gracie about it.

Image of Ron via Porn Nation -- check the SK comments for more on Jeremy too.

Band Camp

Homo-Erotic Quest

"My" Fabulon Thom (which is really strange in print, ey?) has a request... Here's our conversation:

Thom: For over a decade I have been on a relatively unfruitful quest for gay erotica from the Edwardian and even Victorian eras. I know it exists, having seen some long ago, and it truly intrigues me (for reasons not soley pornographic, but also sociological). A major interest for me is gay history, how things were at different times and how they helped create the present.

Me: Your interests are similar to mine -- it's not all about the 'porn arousal' (I won't lie and say nude bods hold no interest for me, but it's more than that -- like a sexy partner, there ought to be something to last past the roll in the hay lol)

The Internet offers much, but at the same time, so many dealers list in ways which do not make it findable (don't label images, don't use tags or text descriptions which make it findable in google etc). I mostly stumble into things rather than rely on searches (which can be most frustrating). And heck, how many times do you even know the name of the photographer etc until after you see the item, learn of its existence, to know that information? ;)

Thom: I remember once seeing a very old photo done in some sort of studio set-up, with what appeared to be adult men, a dozen or so, engaged in various acts with younger guys, apparently teens. The men all had handlebar mustaches and garters to keep their socks up. What clothing there was seemed to be some sort of sports uniform. It was quite a turn-on, but mostly it made me curious. What exactly was going on here? How did this happen? Why was this photographed, and how? What's the story? Especially in that day and age, before things were labelled "gay" and "straight". It really sort of blew my mind!

SO---I was wondering if, on your Internet journeys, you have chanced upon any sites along those lines. Usually when I look for photos of the vintage variety, what turns up is old midcentury physique pictorials, which are fine and quite fun but not what I'm really seeking.

And so, here we are ;)

All I can think of is Wilhelm von Gloeden... For photos that is.

There's also Aubrey Beardsley. DelftBoys.com had a general overview of homo-erotic art.

Of course I offered to post a 'help' call, so all you folks can post your leads, sources, and info.

So now, it's your turn... Post &/or contact Thom via email (located in his blogger profile).

F. Holland Day

Eighty years before Bruce Weber rocketed to fame with a shot of pole vaulter Tom Hintnaus in a pair of Calvin Klein briefs leaning against a wall with his head back and his eyes closed, F. Holland Day made a similar photograph of a teen athlete as St. Sebastian.

Via Band of Thebes.

The (Erotic) Boys of Summer

Via Bunny, I discovered Mute Mondays. This week's theme is The Boys of Summer...



Via GayPaintings.com.


Via Steve Jordan.


Via Edwardian Delights.

Men, It's Not The Size Of Your Club But Your Willingness To Share It Which Matters

First of all, I know you've all seen this, so I'm not presenting this Giant Homer Simpson Freaks Out English Countryside as 'news'. (Shocking idea isn't it, the notion that I, a lady bent on vintage porn, historical erotica and sexual history, were to present 'news'?!)

When I first saw this image I guessed it was photoshopped -- or at best a juxtaposition of two images -- an amusing artist rendering for the Wordless Wednesday meme, or other commentary on the cultural division between the young, immature, commercial, crass US and the old, steeped-in-antiquity, classy Brits.

In a way, the article proves my point.

In merry old England, a donut proffering man in his undies is more offensive than a nude man with well-defined, slightly exaggerated genitalia.

The English -- hell, not just English folks, but pagan English folks are outraged by "this darn great eyesore" that is Homer Simpson. In the USA pagan outrage is rather the definition of the moral way, the way things should be here in our God fearing country. Pagans are the ones who would (or would be accused of) putting on grand display human nudity -- and conservatives would freak out.

In fact, the very remedy for nude artwork might be to cover it up with something else... And if a company is willing to pay the expense, well, let it be a logo! (You know, it really wouldn't take much effort to turn the Cerne Abbas Giant into Homer. With just a few additional lines the giant's penis could easily become a pair of Y-fronted undies.)

While we can only guess as to what the nude giant hillfigure means, what he stands (erect) for, most guess he is a tribute to masculinity. For hundreds of years it was custom to erect a maypole within the hillfigure (one can imagine where) and childless couples would dance to promote fertility. They say that childless couples try to get as close as they can get to the giant (being a National Trust, it's the bottom of the hill) to have blessed sex and conceive. And English girls visit the old naked man, praying not to become 'old maids.'

Which makes me think that, in all reality, Homer and the Cerne Abbas Giant are very much the same.

The giant has his great physical prowess noted in his large attributes, his two big clubs if you will. He is both hunter & provider in terms of both food and sex. He is the male virility required for species survival.

Today, Homer represents our version of male virility. He has one small hidden (beneath fat and underpants) penis -- but then we know it needn't be so large to do the trick, and as proof he has three offspring. His other club is the donut. A freakishly large donut that, as he stands there in bloody England, he is willing to share. Homer too can be counted on for our species survival.

Certainly most US girls pray they won't play Marge to their own future Homer husbands. But on the other hand, there are worse things a girl could do.

If the promotional chalk Homer could survive to be 'discovered' by scholars centuries into the future, I'm sure they'd draw similar conclusions. (At least if they had as much knowledge of us here in 2007 as we do about folks in the 17th century.) Then again, what do I know?

Well, I do know that the pop culture figure is not only more well known here in the US, but more likely to remain so than the Cerne Abbas Giant -- even if the giant has been carved into the natural chalk earth and is centuries old. After the promotional chalk has washed away, Homer the character will certainly continue to exist for us. Yet even just a year from now, the ancient "aroused, club-wielding man" likely won't even have become a trivia question.

Yeah, But Did She Get His Autograph?

Lauren Vaughn, aspiring porn starlet, is excited at getting to work "with none other than THE Lexington Steele!":

I'm so giddy that I can barely contain myself. I mean, I used to get off to his porn for goodness' sake! And now little 'ol me gets to be in a real live scene with him???

Apparently the shoot went swimmingly. And the star-struck-starlet said, "I was totally shaking in my boots around Lex and I made the confession - on film! - that I had a little "thing" for him."

So I wonder, did she get his autograph? Maybe it's just me, but I'd think nothing of asking a porn star to sign a porno box... After what he did to her box, how 'rude' could it be? *wink*

Views On Vintage Nudes

Over at Collectors' Quest, Deanna's posted an interview with artists who repurpose/recycle vintage items. One of those interviewed was Tia of Hey Lady! Recycled Cards, who has used vintage pinups and nude photos to make her cards.



While the cards are neat, I'm still a bit torn about using the actual old photos/images themselves...


However, since I was Etsy anyway, I did a quick search for the word 'nude' and this is some of what I found:

Nude with striped socks.
Nudes embracing.
Vintage nude necklace.
Nude male torso.
French doll bag.
Boobie earrings.

Some of these are also made with actual vintage images...



Now that I've shown you some images, please do tell: What are your thoughts on recycling old images?

Jem Of A Find

More from the old Parmount folder of nude art and men's magazine clippings, this time, three pages from Jem magazine.

While only four pages of this issue, there's much to cover because in my research I found many interesting things. Lets start at the beginning.

One of the pages I have is the table of contents, but no cover. Here's what the cover of the first Jem, Vol. 1, No. 1, November, 1956, looked like.


The cover features a clearly recognizable Candy Barr, which is important because while the contents page has a pink-colorized photo of the same model with a rose, I didn't recognize her, nor was she credited.

This is why it's so hard for a collector to see magazines cut up like this -- you can't verify models. Even if the publication didn't credit the models, a good collector can research to find verification of what models were in what issues, but when pages are found loose, you can't even tell what publication they were from. (The contents page only lists Candy Barr on page 15 -- but if I have that page, so far I have not discovered it.)

Back to what I do have and what I discovered...

In November of 1956, Body Beautiful Publications birthed a new baby, Jem magazine. I say "birthed" because publisher Danny Ross compared the starting of the new magazine to having a baby in this, the first issue, under the heading "Diamond Dust" which seems to be the publisher notes section. Here's an excerpt:

Like a baby, a new magazine must be named. And friends and relatives of the Mother-Publisher will come forth with beauts. Among those suggested for this publication were Suave, Debonair, Jewel, Gala, Fiesta, Carnival, Circus and a number of equally eye- and ear-catching titles. The Publisher, however, liked Gem and since it is a time-honored custom to defer to the wishes of those who have just presented the world with a new offsrping it was decided Mother Knows Best, and Gem it was. Until the matter came to the attention of a female member of the staff. She came up with that little touch that would occur only to a woman.

"Why not spell it JEM?" she suggested.

And so JEM it is. Which proves you should never underestimate the power of a woman, or the devastating effect of her touch.

***

At first it was planned to JEM a slogan by which it could readily be identified. Something like "LS/MFT," "It Floats," "Even Your Best Friends Won't Tell You," or "They Satsify." But the best thing we could think of was "All The Nudes That's Fit To Print," so that phase of the project was dropped.

***

Anyway, the new baby is home from the hospital and safely in the hands of you -- its foster parents. We hope you like it. As for the staff, their attitude toward the new baby can best be summed up by what the hen told the square egg: "You were an awful pain, but I finally laid you."

Things to note are:

Of the seven suggested titles, nearly all of them went on to become actual magazine titles with one publisher or another.

By the time this issue hit the stands, Jem had a slogan: Jem, A Treaser Chest Of Rare Spice.

One of the suggested slogans was "LS/MFT," which I had to look up, but didn't explain completely why this would be a good slogan. Perhaps another euphimism lost to time... It's sure been played with, even today.

Also in the "Diamond Dust" section was a "Daffy Dictionary" entry, which I mentioned to Gracie and she quickly made a post about -- beating me to this article myself.

In my excerpt there's clearly a condescending attitute toward women, but it is also delicately clothed in words of worship. However it's important to note Gracie's post because Jem, while a vintage men's mag, definitely pushed the boundaries of condesention into blatent sexist behavior.

In fact, Jem was rather well known for such a sexist editorial policy. This cover of the 1958 March issue is an example of that. Here a topless French maid scrubs the floor while a dapper gent lords above her.


(Image from a private collector who allowed me to share the scan -- thanks DB!)

This editorial slant remained with the magazine (some claiming it even increased over time). Most collectors do agree, however, that the very best issues of Jem were the first few years. During these years Jem had high production standards with wonderful photography and an imaginative, playful design.

One of the reasons Jem was/is a favorite is that it has lots of photos -- and color photos.



Lovely photos of Jayne Mansfield and Anita Ekberg, each "A Jewel From The Jem Box."



In the first issue, the poster babe (two pages, but not in the center like a true 'centerfold') Betty Brosmer is featured as the official welcome to Jem.


Posing in a lovely sheet peignoir, Betty profers a come-hither gaze and champaign for two. The text reads, "WELCOME to JEM with a toast To Gaiety, Beauty, Entertainment from Betty Brosmer."

I must show that this pictorial is clearly different from this image (copied from Java's Bachelor Pad Betty Brosmer featurette).

Note how Betty's face has transformed. The photo used in the magazine seems to have been airbrushed as the copy I have shows less lines on her face and more defined cheekbones. (I'm not saying Brosmer needed such things -- on the contrary, I find it interesting how even the slightest things in such a beautiful woman are 'imperfections' to be corrected.)

In keeping with the birthing metaphore, let's look at bit at the Jem family.

Jem was one of the Body Beautiful Publications, part of the Joe Weider family of magazines and the body building empire.

Betty Brosmer herself married Joe and became Betty Weider in the 60's.





From that point on, Betty, who had been the highest paid pin-up model in the 50's, became a real Weider and virtually stopped modeling and became an active participant in Joe's health and fitness empire.





When most folks think of Joe Weider they think of all his male muscle magazines.


These vintage muscle mags were controversial and even were tested by US censorship laws. From the New York Times dated April 29, 1957:

Magazines Indicted for Indeceny

The Union County grand jury today returned indictments against the publishers and distributors of seven national magazines on charges of conspiracy to sell indecent literature. The true bills are the first of their kind in New Jersey, according to Prosecutor H. Russell Morss, Jr.

Consiracy is a misdemeanor punishable by up to three years in state prison and a $1,000 fine. Among the publishers indicted was Body Beautiful Publications, Inc. (Wonderful Weedy)

(I wonder what Betty thought of this? She herself had refused to pose for Playboy because she of her self-imposed rule to only do chaste cheesecake shots.)

(Photo credits: Tin In Vermont.)

Wonderful Weedy, a not-so-affectionate nick name for Joe Weider, and his publications upset the suposed 'real keepers of the sport of body building,' including Harry B. Paschall, managing editor of Stength and Health. Here's how Harry responded to the news of Body Beautiful Publications indictments:

We are not in favor of censorship as a rule, and we believe in the fundamental freedom of the press, but there are certain cheap publishers who will stoop to anything to make money, even the perversion of children. It is about time some action is taken to stop this sort of indecency.

It is an odd twist of fate that at practically the same time the York Chamber of Commerce was honoring the York Barbell Club and Bob Hoffman with a testimonial plaque, the Union County Grand Jury (where the Weedy enterprises are located) was indicting Mr. Wonderful for consiracy to sell indecent literature. Perhaps the Mills of the Gods grind slowly but they grind exceeding small.

Weedy and his group of unscrupulous hirelings have been spouting for a long time about their idealism and how they were martyrs to the cause of pure, unsullied bodybuilding. They write letters to credulous columnists like Dan Parker (who should know better), of the N.Y. Mirror, telling how Bob Hoffman is the big, bad wolf who runs A.A.U. weightlifting to suit himself. They fail to bring into the open the fact that they themselves are mainly engaged in the business of selling dirty pictures and dirty magazines.

Anyone who takes one look at their current publications, such as Jem, and their small, dirty homo books Body Beautiful, and Adonis, cannot fail to see the category into which such literature falls. Indecency is a mild word for it. Pornography is better.

The Weedy books cannot be sold in their own home city. They have been banned by the League of Decency. Yet thousands of credulous lads, not yet dry behind the ears, take for truth the wild mouthings of these imitation experts, when they read the sensational articles in their trashy magazines.

Perhaps their long career of fooling some of the people some of the time is drawing to a close. Perhaps the Great Imitator (he has recently copied the labels of Hoffman's Hi-Proteen products so closely they can almost be sold as the real McCoy) may be forced by public opinion and the law to go back to his original slum hideway, where he and his pals can still make a living peddling French postcards. Apparently you can take a kike out of the slums, but you can never take the slums out of the kike.

Well, well, wel... If Weider's muscle men mags were dirty and obscene, what should we make of the racism of Paschall?

Sexim is OK; but sexy is bad.

Racism is at least tolerable when one is defending the honor of weightlifting -- something Paschall and Hoffman were quite passionate about.

Gotta love the 50's. No wonder cheesecake and beefcake were so popular; one had to find beauty where they could.

Kiss & Tell With The Bay City Rollers

I didn't even know this existed.





If I had, I'm certain I wouldn't have wanted it. (And Chris Jart assures me it wasn't worth it.)

I was too cool to be boy-crazy about the Bay City Rollers. (I'm not saying that I didn't have silly teen dreams or think of kissing the posters on my walls, I just didn't do this with the Bay City Rollers.)

Sure, I had the album, but who didn't love that ear worm S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT? (If you were a teen in '75 you had to love the "rockin' party anthem." I think it was a law or something.)



Some girls so love the boys in plaid that they swooned over I Only Want To Be With You.


In fact, I had one album (the Greatest Hits) and in the early 80's some guy I dated twice borrowed it.

Yeah, "dated" -- it's not like I let him pick me up in a bar and go home with him. Or called him one a few weeks later when bored just to have sex. A two-night stand is so terrible to admit to. Especially to a short, swarthy little man who you cringe when you think about -- the things I do in the name of honesty here.

He never gave the record back. And I, apparently over that self-loathing low point in my life, never called him to get it -- it wasn't worth it. If the price of leaving the little sweaty troll behind was one Bay City Roller's record, that was the (exceedingly low) price I'd have to pay. While that price was even lower than my standards to hook-up with the guy, the loss of the record doesn't remove the personal blot, the stain on my history (were that as easy to remove as those on my sheets!).

So why am I posting this Bay City Rollers Kissing Kit?

Well, for one, we all had silly celeb crushes and it's fun to mock those of others. :p

Second, it's also important to remember that even as you mock another for their tween-lust of a goofy band or other mistake -- you have bigger mistakes to cringe over.

It's important to recognize your own personal sex history -- including those moments that aren't warm and fuzzy.

That, my friends, is part of nostalgia.

So here's to you, guy whose name I can't remember. Enjoy the record if you still have it.

Ziggy Stardust Comic

This comic book features David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust along with cameos & guest appearances by Elton John, Kate Bush, Mick Jagger, Batman, Freddie Mercury and Ozzy Osbourne.

See scans here.

Tom Jones in Speedos

I have a thing for Tom (someone else already took my "Jones-ing" line), so once I found this pic I had to post it here.

Vintage Male Wrestling Photo Exhibit

From the Wessel + O'Connor exhibit of 1950's Physique photo studio Western Photography Guild founded by Don Whitman:

As one of the top proponents of the golden age of Physique photography, he captured in his work the All-American macho virility that represented every mans fantasy of the Wild West. Even during an atmosphere of extreme sexual repression in 1950's America, his studio flourished, due in large part due to the unique skill and taste he employed in creating his work's "look".

See more photos from the exhibit.