It's been almost 13 years since I was fired from Swank Publications, a turn of events that so delighted me, for the next five years I woke up every morning in a state of ecstasy--because I didn't have to go to New Jersey to crank out pornography under ever-increasing deadline pressure.
Swank’s publisher, Lou Perretta, known to some employees as “Satan in Suspenders,” wasn’t the most depraved pornographer I’d ever worked for. (That distinction belongs to the elegantly attired Carl Ruderman, who published High Society before selling it to Perretta last year.) But the atmosphere in Perretta’s offices, situated on the side of a highway in Paramus—Please Ram Us, as some of my former colleagues called it—was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in any job I’ve ever had, in or out of pornography.
Yes, Perretta’s Swank was a boring, depressing, purposefully demoralizing company staffed with people smothered by fear and hopelessness. It was so grim that I used to look forward to going to the dentist if it got me out of work an hour early. But this is how a lot of corporations are run today—business as usual, in other words. What sets Swank apart is that they pushed this modus operandi into the realm of the legally actionable, some of the details of which are documented in the age-and-sex-discrimination lawsuit Joyce Snyder (I called her “Pam Katz” in Beaver Street) filed against Perretta.
I originally wrote about Perretta in the Beaver Street chapter titled “The End of History at Swank Inc.,” describing how a job I once enjoyed had been reduced to “assembly-line toil at its worst,” and “an exercise in postmodern sweatshop drudgery.”
But I didn’t go into more detail because Beaver Street is about the history of pornography, and as the chapter title indicates, that history ended in Paramus.
At Lou Perretta’s Swank Inc. pornography was almost beside the point.
Perretta was a printer who owned Great Eastern—since shuttered—a printing plant in Poughkeepsie that was once that city’s second largest employer next to IBM. He bought Swank and just about every other porn mag in existence as fodder to keep his presses running 24/7.
The story of Swank under Perretta ceases to be a story about pornography and becomes, instead, a tale of the ugliest face of soul-and-job-destroying modern day capitalism. And in light of Snyder’s age-and-sex-discrimination lawsuit, it’s time to examine more closely what went on there.
In next week’s installment, I’ll further explore the toxic atmosphere of Swank Publications under Perretta—a toxicity that went far beyond the mere tyranny common to all porn publishing companies.
The Weekly Blague
The End of History at Swank: Part 2 in a Series
A Mutant Pornographic Genius: Part 1 in a Series
"Pam Katz," an editor at Swank Publications whom I worked with for 16 years, is a "character" in Beaver Street. I describe her as a "mutant pornographic genius with a second sight for recognizing cover shots where nobody else saw them." She also wrote and produced four classic porn movies, Public Affairs and Raw Talent, parts I-III, and came up with the idea for X-Rated Cinema magazine. She was, in short, a great pornographer and a talented editor with a wicked sense of humor and a stringent code of business ethics.
I put “Pam Katz” in quotes because that’s not her real name. In Beaver Street, though all the “characters” are real, I use pseudonyms for all non-public figures. Well, Pam Katz is no longer a private citizen. Her real name is Joyce Snyder.
Last February, after 31 years on the job, Snyder was let go at Swank Publications. In response, she filed an age and sex discrimination suit against the publisher, Lou Perretta.
The legal documents are public record, available online.
In future postings, I’ll be commenting further on this lawsuit. I also plan to describe in even more detail than I did in Beaver Street the atmosphere of Swank Publications under Lou Perretta that led to the lawsuit.
Joyce A. Snyder v. Louis Perretta is significant not only on its own merits, but because with the exception of Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler, Perretta has a virtual monopoly on the porn magazine business, which has become a festering symbol of the festering economy of post-industrial America, where talented, highly experienced people can no longer earn a living wage.
This is class warfare. Stay tuned for further dispatches from the front lines.
The Year of the American Beaver
If you've been paying attention, then you've probably noticed that I've spent the past week reorganizing this Website for the U.S. publication of Beaver Street as a trade paperback and e-book on March 23, 2012. Which is to say that the home page is now completely devoted to Beaver Street; there's a separate Beaver Street page with an excerpt from the book; there's a separate video page; and there's a separate page for my Lennon bio, Nowhere Man, which the Spanish newspaper iLeón recently chose as one of the 10 essential music bios of all time.
Also, as you may have noticed, I haven’t been blogging much lately, choosing instead to devote my time and energy to the book I’m currently working on, Bobby in Naziland. Well, between now and March 23, I’m going to slowly ease back into the daily blogging groove, posting once or twice a week for the time being. So, please check back regularly for updates.
For those of you visiting this site for the first time (perhaps seeking information on porn star Missy Manners) allow me to bring you up to date: Last year, Beaver Street was published in the U.K. to critical acclaim across cultural spectrum. (Check out the blurbs in the right-hand column and links to reviews on the home page.) On more than a half dozen occasions, it’s surged to the top of the heap of Amazon U.K. porn bios, where even on the worst day, it generally resides in the top 20, among the likes of Jenna Jameson, Ron Jeremy, and Annie Sprinkle.
This augurs well as I kick off The Year of the American Beaver, which will begin in St. Louis—yes, St. Louis!—with a launch party hosted by Kendra Holliday, whom you can see in the March 2012 issue of Hustler magazine. Then, we return to New York for a party on Beaver Street, in downtown Manhattan. Stay tuned for details, and I hope to see all of you there.
My Favorite Footnote
A belated happy new year to one and all!
Yesterday I received a couple of copies of the Italian edition of Nowhere Man: Gli ultimi giorni di John Lennon (back cover, right, front cover here).
What most struck me about the book were the extensive footnotes, which are unlike anything that's appeared in any other foreign language edition. The translator, Paolo Palmieri, took pains to explain words and phrases that were impossible to render in Italian without losing some of the meaning. Lennon’s puns and wordplay, Liverpudlian English, and words that rhymed in English but not in Italian were all obsessively annotated.
Here’s an excerpt from my favorite footnote, which appears in the chapter called “Il Lennon Dei Rimpianti” (“Lennon’s Complaint”):
«What did you do to ME fuckin’ cock?»; raro caso cui è possible rendere perfettamente il senso della traduzione operando tra gerghi di lingue diverse: il “me” di Liverpool sta infatti per l’inglese “my”, ovvero viene usata in forma gergale la particella pronominal “me” in sostituzione del possessivo “my”.
What he’s saying, briefly, is that in Liverpudlian slang, sometimes people say “me” instead of “my.” Though I’m sure the Latin mavens among you figured that out on your own.
10 Biografías Imprescindibles
As the year winds down and we move into the holiday season, I'm happy to report that the Spanish newspaper iLeón has chosen Nowhere Man: Los Ultimos Dias De John Lennon as one of the 10 essential music biographies of all time.
The writer, Julio Hurtado, calls Nowhere Man “one of the most sincere and brutal biographies” ever written.
Muchas gracias, España, y toda la gente que han leído mi libro.
Live from New York It's Rew & Who?
Two days ago I made my debut on the Rew & Who? show. If you were unable to watch the live webcast from Otto's Shrunken Head in New York City, here are the two video clips of my interview with Rew and her co-host, Alan Rand.
In addition to talking about and reading from Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon, I also spoke at some length about my new book, Beaver Street: A History of Modern Pornography, which is out now in the U.K. and will be published here in March 2012, and the book I’m currently writing, tentatively titled Bobby in Naziland.
Among the people appearing with me for this tribute to John Lennon and Rew’s brother Richard “Dicky” Kesten were May Pang, whom I haven’t seen since 1981; my wife, Mary Lyn Maiscott, who sang Lennon’s “I’m Losing You” and her own Christmas song, “Blue Lights;” and Hoop, who played guitar for Mary Lyn, and sang his original song about Lennon, “Oh, John.”
You can see clips of all Rew’s guests on YouTube. Read More
Lineup for NYC Dec. 7 Lennon Tribute
The show's called Rew & Who and is dedicated to the memory of John Lennon and Rew's brother Richard "Dicky" Kesten.
Wednesday, December 7
4:00-6:00 P.M. (local time)
Otto's Shrunken Head
538 East 14th Street
New York City
Or watch it live on Internet TV.
Alan Rand is the “Who?”
4:00: May Pang
4:15: Hoop
4:30: Mary Lyn Maiscott
4:45: Robert Rosen
5:00: Adam Bomb
5:15: Violet The Cannibal
5:30: Joff Wilson & David Peel
5:45: Gail/GRGR
Three Days of Lennon
December 8 marks the 31st anniversary of the day John Lennon died. To commemorate the occasion, I'll be participating in three events on two continents. If you'd like to attend any of them, or listen on your computer or radio, here are the information and links.
Wednesday, December 7
4:00-6:00 P.M. (local time)
Otto's Shrunken Head
538 East 14th Street
New York City
The show’s called “Rew and Who,” and I’ll be reading from my book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon. May Pang will also be appearing, and there’ll be musical performances by David Peel, HooP, Mary Lyn Maiscott, and others. It’s being streamed live on Internet TV, and it’s one of my very rare New York readings.
Thursday, December 8
10:00 A.M.-2:00 P.M. (local time)
The Louie Free Radio Show
Youngstown, Ohio
WYCL 1540 AM
The Louie Free Show is free-form talk radio, and my December 8 appearance is a tradition that goes back to 1999. Of course I’ll be talking about Lennon and Nowhere Man, and Louie will be playing lots of Lennon music. But he’s unpredictable, so there’s no telling where the interview will go. The show streams live on the Internet. Check Louie’s website that morning for the exact time.
Friday, December 9, 9:00 P.M.-Midnight (local time)
Centro Giovani
Viale della Resistenza 4
Piombino, Italy
I’m being beamed in via Skype for this major presentation of the recently published Italian edition of Nowhere Man: Gli ultimi giorni di John Lennon. If you want to see it, you’ll have to go to Piombino, a picturesque Tuscan city on the Mediterranean. Rock ’n’ roll expert and author Riccardo Bertoncelli will be hosting the event, and my Italian translator and avatar, Paolo Palmieri, will be answering questions about the book and translating everything I have to say as I field questions from the audience. You can get more information on Facebook.
Hope to see you everywhere!
Volume 50
The Renaissance of Nowhere Man, II
Nowhere Man, Gli ultimi giorni di John Lennon was recently published in Italy, and this poster is an advertisement for a major Italian presentation of the book.
This special event takes place on December 9, in the central auditorium in Piombiono, a picturesque Tuscan city on the Mediterranean, where Nowhere Man's translator, Paolo Palmieri, lives. It will commemorate the anniversary of Lennon's murder, on December 8, 1980.
Since I can’t be there in person, I will be beamed in via Skype, and will answer questions about Lennon and the Beatles.
Also appearing is rock ’n’ roll expert Riccardo Bertoncelli.
So, if you find yourself in Piombino on the big night, perhaps on your way to Elba or Sardinia, please check out the presentation. The Lennon energy in the town is intense, (especially in Il Pinguino café), Paolo will be happy to speak to you, and (it goes without saying) the food in Piombino is excellent.
Hope you can make it!
Broadway Bound Beaver?
When I was in London, I gave a Beaver Street pep talk to the sales force at Turnaround, Headpress's UK distributor. For the finale, I played episode three of Erich von Pauli on Beaver Street, and the reps applauded enthusiastically.
“When are you doing a Broadway musical?” one of them asked.
I mentioned this to Paul Slimak—Henry Dorfman in the book—the actor who plays renegade Nazi Erich von Pauli. He loved the idea of a Broadway musical, and suggested that I write a skit to showcase his musical talents, as well as the talents of his wife, Agnes Herrmann (Diana Clerkenwell), and their voice coach, Kevin S. Foster (Captain Derek Lancashire).
“We can sing Mozart,” Paul said. “Something from ‘The Magic Flute.’”
“Excellent choice, Mein Führer,” I replied, and wrote the script for episode four, Erich von Pauli Sings Mozart, above.
Boy, do these kids ever sing their hearts out—all in the service of Beaver Street!
For those unfamiliar with Paul and Agnes’s long and distinguished acting careers, or should you want to see some of their other work, check out Paul as the Priest in Cookie, as Jay, a john in Working Girls, and famously, as The Weeping Nazi on the premiere episode of Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
Agnes has most recently appeared in The Road, as Archer’s Woman. And next year, look for both of them in Boot Tracks, starring Stephen Dorff and Michelle Monaghan.
Can Beaver Street: The Musical be Broadway bound? With talent like this you gotta believe.
A River of Fire
Kendra Holliday, editor of The Beautiful Kind, has titled the third part of my Beaver Street interview "Sex Is a River of Fire."
I don't believe that sex is a river of fire. Rather, I'm quoting one of the many things Pentecostal pastor Jimmy Swaggart said after being caught up in a prostitution scandal in 1988. And it's typical of what Americans say about sex as they spend billions of dollars per year on pornography and prostitution.
Why is America such a hypocritical country, especially when it comes to sex? That is the question I discuss in the final part of this interview.
The Kendra Holliday Interview, Part 2
In part 2 of my Kendra Holliday interview, "How the U.S. Government Really Feels About Child Pornography," the editor of The Beautiful Kind interrogates me about Traci Lords, Annie Sprinkle, Ron Jeremy, and my literary influences.
I tell her everything I know.
Stay tuned for part 3 on Friday. Read More
The Beautiful Kind of Reader
In the course of my writing career I've done hundreds of promotional interviews. Most of them are a blur of canned questions asked by people who didn't read the book and in some cases probably didn't even read the press release. This is typical. Most writers will tell you the same thing. However, since I began promoting Beaver Street six months ago, I've been lucky. All of my inquisitors have been passionate about the book.
Kendra Holliday, whom I’ve been communicating with by e-mail and telephone, is the editor of The Beautiful Kind. She describes herself as “a 38 year old bisexual mother located in St. Louis,” and “a passionate sexplorer” of “kinks, fetishes, BDSM, swinging, and polyamory.”
Well, I can certainly vouch for her passion, at least when it comes to Beaver Street. She’s the kind of reader every writer hopes for.
I consider myself extremely fortunate that Kendra thought enough of Beaver Street to conduct an extensive interview. Here’s a link to Part 1, titled, “Does Nothing Shock You?”
Toppermost of the Poppermost
Last night, after six months of nonstop promotion on two continents, Beaver Street surged, albeit briefly, to the top of the heap. True, the heap in question is Amazon UK's Bestsellers in Pornography Biographies. But it is a heap that includes such classics of the genre as Jenna Jameson's How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, Ron Jeremy's The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz, and Annie Sprinkle's Post-Porn Modernist.
I’ll take my number ones where I can get them.
This sudden surge, I imagine, can be attributed to my two recent interviews on The Sleazoid Podcast, as well as word of mouth. As I’ve been saying all along, Beaver Street is a page-turner. Once you pick it up, you won’t be able to put it down, even if porn isn’t a subject that particularly interests you. Because the subject matter of Beaver Street goes far beyond porno. Don’t take my word for it. Read some of the Amazon reviews. Or just buy the damn book and see for yourself.
I’ll also go so far to say that this is going to be the first of many number ones, brief and otherwise, in numerous categories both on Amazon UK and Amazon US, when the book is published here in March 2012. How do I know this? I just do. Call me a prophet.
In the meantime, I’ll take a day to quietly celebrate Beaver Street's first visit to the “Toppermost of the Poppermost,” as a certain British rock band used to say. Read More
Gettin' Down and Dirty with the Boys at the Sleazoid Podcast
In the second and final part of my Sleazoid Podcast interview (which is no longer available anywhere on the Internet), I discuss two of the key events at the heart of Beaver Street.
The first is my experience posing for a porn shoot, which I explore in a chapter called "The Accidental Porn Star." This was both an effort to gain insight into a porn star's state of mind, and an experiment in participatory journalism. I wanted to take journalism to a place it had never been before, and no real writer had ever stepped in front of a camera and reported on what it was like to have sex. More interesting than this sordid act of exhibitionism, however, was my colleagues’ horrified and disgusted reaction to what became known as "The Five Dollar Blowjob."
Then I examine America’s sexual schizophrenia in the chapter titled “So You Want to Talk About Traci Lords.” Why, I ask, did the government treat as a victim a juvenile delinquent with a fraudulent passport and driver’s license who systematically sought work in the porn industry, and treat the photographers and filmmakers who hired her as criminals?
The Long March
Allow me to take a morning off from exploring the meaning of the Third Reich and its impact on the good people of mid-century Flatbush, as I've been doing in the book I'm currently writing, tentatively titled Bobby in Naziland, and instead say a few more words about Beaver Street, scheduled for U.S. release in five months, on March 23, 2012.
Those of you who’ve been paying attention to this site’s home page may have noticed that my campaign to bring Beaver Street to the widest possible audience is already underway. Last week, The Sleazoid Podcast posted Part One of their interview with me, and boy, do they ever let me talk—about everything from my days as the editor of a radical student newspaper at the City College of New York, at a time when the energy of the anti-war movement was giving way to an emerging punk sensibility, to my tenure as an editor at Swank Publications during Porn’s Golden Age. They’ve also put together a very cool trailer, above, to promote the interview. Part 2 should be posted any day.
This is how it’s going to be for the next five months and beyond, a long march, blog by blog, reader by reader, as I talk to anybody who wants to talk to me about Beaver Street—an exhausting but necessary process, though one that I welcome and enjoy.
The alternative, of course, would be to stop believing in evolution and promote my book by running for president as a Republican. Seems to work for Herman Cain.
Blog's in Your Court, Ms. Breslin
A few months ago, I wrote a series of reviews about five articles that Slate had cited as "great writing" about the porn industry. Some of these articles, I thought, were hardly examples of great writing, and one of them was barely about the porn industry.
Recently, one of the writers I critiqued responded on her Forbes.com blog to my review of her porn book and to general criticism of her work. In a piece called “This Is Why You’re Stupid, or How to Deal with Criticism on the Internet,” Susannah Breslin took issue with anonymous posters who’ve called her a “c***,” a “f***ing moron,” and a “festering boil.” Her conclusion: Don’t blog if you don’t have a thick skin, and it’s better to get a vicious reaction than no reaction at all. I couldn’t agree more, especially about the thick skin.
I’ve written similar pieces myself, most recently comparing two Nowhere Man reviews that appeared on Amazon the same day, one a five-star rave (in Italian) and the other (since deleted) a one-star hatchet job. I pointed out that this is a microcosm of the type of criticism that Nowhere Man has been subjected to for the past 11 years, that it’s as if the critics had read two different books, and that it’s always the most ignorant critics who post the most vicious comments.
In any case, Breslin devoted a good portion of her blog to analyzing my criticism of her book They Shoot Porn Stars, Don’t They?. She didn’t like my comparing her to the late Andrea Dworkin because Dworkin, she said, was “passionately anti-porn” and she isn’t. She thinks it’s unlikely that Senator Orrin Hatch will use her book as evidence in his anti-porn crusade, as I predicted. She disliked the fact that I called her writing “humorless” because, she insisted, she has a sense of humor. And she said I seemed to suggest that Beaver Street is a better book than They Shoot Porn Stars, Don’t They?.
Well, I’ve reread my critique of Breslin’s book, and I think it still stands up. Breslin might not be like Andrea Dworkin, the person, but her book is definitely anti-porn in a way that Dworkin would have liked. And Breslin’s thesis—that porn is bad, stupid, ugly, and violent—plays right into Orrin Hatch’s hands, confirming everything he says about the industry and the need to investigate it more vigorously. (His crusade appears to have stalled for the time being, which may be why he hasn’t yet presented Breslin’s book as evidence.)
I didn’t say that Breslin doesn’t have a sense of humor. One can indeed be detected in “This Is Why You’re Stupid.” I described the mood of They Shoot Porn Stars, Don’t They? as “grim and humorless”—because it is.
And finally, I didn’t suggest that Beaver Street is a better book than They Shoot Porn Stars, Don’t They?. I said only that Breslin covered some similar material in her book, specifically, “the predilection of conservative administrations, like Bush II, to declare war on porn, often with embarrassing results.”
Ms. Breslin, I feel as if we’re playing tennis, and the blog’s back in your court. But before you return my serve, perhaps you should decide for yourself how Beaver Street stacks up against They Shoot Porn Stars, Don’t They?. U.S. pub date is March 23, 2012. Review copies are available now, and, in my opinion, you’re more qualified than most people to review it. Beaver Street, I might add, is very much up your pink slip and recession alley.
Occupy Wall Street Update
The reason Eric Cantor is calling the demonstrators a "mob" is because they're screaming for the blood of politicians like Eric Cantor, who defend the wealthy at the expense of everybody else--the 99% that the demonstrators keep referring to.
If I were an investment banker, my blood would have run cold when I heard the flag-waving, drum-pounding demonstrators chanting, “Banks got bailed out! We got sold out!” as they marched from the statue of the Wall Street Bull, adjacent to Beaver Street, to Zuccotti Park.
The demonstrators are really fucking angry, and anybody who can’t understand why is willfully ignorant. Most of them are students or recent graduates whose education left them with a crushing debt that they’re unable to even think about paying off because there are no decent jobs.
In Zuccotti Park, now surrounded by police and media, the Spirit of the 60s has been reborn in all its ragged, funky glory.
I’d have been really insulted if Beaver Street hadn’t been checked out of the Occupy Wall Street Free Library. Read More
The Sporadic Beaver
The countdown clock you see here, marking the time until Beaver Street is published in the US, signifies another change in this website and in this blog in particular. As regular readers are aware, I've been posting here five days a week—on Beaver Street itself, occasionally on Nowhere Man, and on whatever might be happening in the world that I feel like writing about, like the riots in the UK and, more recently, the Occupy Wall Street protests.
For the next few months, until the US Beaver Street launch, I’ll be posting here more sporadically, adhering to no particular schedule. Naturally, I’ll continue to comment on any significant Beaver developments, as well as the recent publication of the Italian edition of Nowhere Man. But it’s time for me to focus more of my energies on other things, like the new book I’ve been writing.
So I’d like to send out a big Thank You! to everybody’s who’s bought Beaver Street (and Nowhere Man in any language), to all the critics and journalists who’ve written about my books (or are planning to), and especially to the regular readers of this blog—the ones who’ve checked in every day, and gave me a reason to keep doing it.
Keep in touch, and stay tuned for some big changes.
Temperature Rising
The temperature is rising.
The energy remains peaceful, cooperative.
The free food provided makes the atmosphere seem almost Woodstockian.
The drum circle continues to provide the heartbeat.
There is an edge.
It occurred to me that it wouldn’t take much of a spark to set off something more confrontational, and possibly ugly, as police encircle the park.
At least one liberal New York Times columnist, Charles Blow, disagrees. He said that the occupation “feels like a spark set down on wet grass: It’s just hard to see how it truly catches fire.” In a front-page article, a protester was quoted as saying that the occupation will end when the temperature drops below 50 degrees.
The Times, which depends on companies like Tiffany’s, and real estate brokers selling $5-million condos, for advertising revenue, is never going to endorse the occupation.
I think that when the occupation continues into the dead of winter, the media will begin to draw analogies with Valley Forge. And, if they’re smart, companies like Marmot and The North Face will donate winter clothing, and local stores, like Paragon, will donate camping gear.
I stopped by again on Sunday and donated a copy of Beaver Street to the free library. The librarian—yes, they have a librarian—graciously accepted my donation. I departed with a free copy of The Occupied Wall Street Journal.
A few blocks to the south, near Beaver Street, the Wall Street Bull is now surrounded by a phalanx of bodyguards. He needs them.
You can follow the occupation on their website or on Twitter. Read More
A Radical Idea for Selling Books
Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian novelist best known for his book The Alchemist, which has sold 65-million copies worldwide. What sets Coelho apart from virtually every other working writer on the planet is that he pirates his own work on his own website. Ideas, he believes, should be free, and books should be available to people who can't afford to buy them. The only thing Coelho asks of readers who download his free novels is that if they like the book, and can afford it, they should then buy a copy to send a message to the book-publishing industry that "sharing contents is not life threatening."
I’m a working writer who has an opinion about everything, but when I read about Coelho’s sales strategy in The New York Times the other day, it left me speechless. If I were to call any of my publishers, in any country, and tell them that I’d like to try increasing sales by making Beaver Street and Nowhere Man available for free, I don’t think they’d say, “Great idea! Let’s do it!” Even a radical, freethinking publisher like Headpress.
But I’m not about to make such a phone call. Because as often as I’ve proven that I’m willing to go anywhere and do anything to sell books, and as much as I like the idea of disseminating my work to people who can’t afford to buy it, the idea of making it available for free to anybody frightens me. I’m too cynical to have the kind of faith in the human race that Paulo Coelho has.
And yet, he’s sold tens of millions of books and I haven’t. Which only means I have something new (and frightening) to think about over this first weekend of the year 5772.
'72
Today, Rosh Hashanah, the first day of Jewish New Year, 5772, is one of the two Jewish holidays I acknowledge. My wife and I will go down to the Hudson River with some stale bread and, according to tradition, cast our sins upon the water. Usually the seagulls eat the bread. "What a relief," I'll then say. "They didn’t turn black." The birds, that is.
I like the Jewish New Year because I feel as if I’m getting a second chance to re-live the year designated in the last two digits—’72 in this case. Yes, it’s the ’70s again, and 1972 was an especially interesting year. The energy of the ’60s was still very much alive, and having recently transformed myself into a radical hippie, I’d become an editor on Observation Post, the “alternative” student newspaper at the City College of New York, where the remnants of the SDS and Weather Underground had fused with an emerging punk sensibility.
It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that kind of energy. But I felt it yesterday when I went down to Liberty Square, where the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators have set up camp. Galvanized by both ridicule in the mainstream media and a cop’s unprovoked pepper-spray attack on a woman demonstrator the other day, the motley gathering veritably exuded the Spirit of 1968 (5729). “There’s something happening here/What it is ain’t exactly clear…” is the way Buffalo Springfield put it in those electrifying days.
The demonstrators’ energy was focused around a tribal drum circle on the Broadway side of the park. People were pounding out an infectious rhythm on drums, cymbals, and garbage cans. They were playing tubas, trumpets, and washboards. And they were dancing, while a few yards away, on Broadway, a chorus line of demonstrators held up signs demanding economic and social justice. It was uplifting, hopeful, and magical in a way that’s difficult to quantify, but obvious to anybody who was there.
And take my word for it—these people aren’t going anywhere. Because most of them have nothing to lose and nowhere better to go. They’re serious, angry, unemployed, and dug in for the long haul. Ignore them at your peril.
Happy New Year, Wall Street.
Fat Sex
In the twilight of my career as a porn editor, when the market for print magazines was collapsing in the face of free Internet smut, my esteemed publisher told me to produce two fetish magazines that were the antithesis of what turned me on personally.
As a porno professional, I’d learned to take such assignments in stride. After all, I’d just spent a dozen years editing mags like D-Cup, Stacked, and Bra Busters, which, as the names imply, are devoted to gargantuan breasts. Though my preference is for a slim, well-toned female body, I had no trouble with this assignment. I dare say I even learned to appreciate such oversize appendages, especially when they were beautifully photographed and attached to a gorgeous woman.
This was not the case with Plump & Pink and Buf. Though the former, whose models tended towards more-than-a-little chubby, was tolerable, the latter took me into a world I barely knew existed. Buf models were often 500-700 pounds, were photographed in a purposely amateurish way that tended to exaggerate their least attractive qualities, and they participated in a fetish in which their partners grew sexually aroused by feeding them things like fried chicken and chocolate cake, and watching them grow fatter.
Though the magazine sold well, putting it together made me physically ill.
I mention this now because of a recently published book called Big Big Love: A Sex and Relationships Guide for People of Size (and Those Who Love Them), by Hanne Blank. Though I’ve not read it and have no intention of doing so, the book sounds like a pep talk for fat people and people who enjoy having sex with them. And Blank, apparently, explores the line between fat admiration and fat fetishism, which sounds like the same line that divided Plump & Pink from Buf.
This is all well and good, as there are a lot of people out there, fat and skinny, who are deeply interested in having sex with the overweight. Some of them might be reading this blog. So, if you’re one of them, here’s a link to an interview with Ms. Blank.
Enjoy! Just don’t ask me to edit your favorite magazine.
The Indictment of Carl Ruderman
Carl Ruderman, the anonymous publisher of High Society magazine, posed an entirely different problem. The “Invisible Man of Smut,” as Al Goldstein called him, hid behind figurehead publisher Gloria Leonard and went to great lengths to keep his name out of the media, at least in connection with anything having to do with porn. In fact, as I said in Beaver Street, “an internet or library search for any connection between pornography and Carl Ruderman produces little that’s concrete or substantiated.”
Well, that’s changed since the book was published. In the past year, much that connects Carl Ruderman to pornography has been popping up on the internet. One example that I wrote about a few months ago was an article in the New York Observer that bore the headline, “Porn’s ‘Invisible Man’ Prices His Condos at $13.5 M.”
Yesterday, I found something even juicer: the Justice Department’s 1987 appeal of the dismissal of an indictment against Ruderman for “various federal obscenity crimes in connection with the operation of a ‘dial it’ telephone service whereby persons could call a New York City telephone number and listen to a sexually suggestive, pre-recorded message.”
You can read the entire document by clicking here.
I’ve posted this link for my own reference and as a service to any future researchers who want to cast more light on a man who revolutionized the porn industry but has, for the most part, managed to escape being credited (or indicted) for what he did. Read More
Springtime for Beaver in America
I received word from Headpress the other day that Beaver Street: A History of Modern Pornography will be published in trade paperback in the United States on March 23, 2012. It will also be available as an e-book in all formats, including Kindle.
Beaver People, start your countdown! It's only six months to springtime.
I’m especially excited about the Kindle edition. Over the past few months, Kindle (and other e-readers) has reached a tipping point in New York. Not only do I see more and more of them on the subway, but when I tell people about Beaver Street, their first question is often, “Is it available on Kindle?” Indeed, people have told me that they will only buy a book if it is available on Kindle. (Yes, I know, you love your Kindles.)
I’m also aware that a certain segment of the reading public prefer not to be seen on subways and buses reading a book titled Beaver Street. Well, with an e-book, nobody can see what you’re reading. But please, promise me, when strangers inquire why you’re laughing out loud, you’ll tell them it’s because you’re reading Beaver Street.
Okay, then, I’ve got six months to prepare for the big day. All I can tell you at this point is that I'm going to have a publication party in an appropriately sleazy bar on Beaver Street, in downtown Manhattan. You’re all invited.
On Raves and Hatchet Jobs
The best lesson I've learned about reviews since the publication of Nowhere Man in 2000 is that a vicious review will sell as many books as a rave review. And, God knows, I've gotten enough of both to speak with authority on the subject. In fact, since Nowhere Man was published in Italy this week, two more reviews of the book have been posted--a five-star rave on Amazon Italy (in Italian) and a one-star hatchet job on Amazon Germany (in English). These critiques serve as a microcosm of what Nowhere Man has been subjected to for the past 11 years.
What I find fascinating about such divergent opinions is that the reviewers appear to be talking about two entirely different books. It’s a perfect illustration of the Oscar Wilde quote from the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray: “Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.”
Antony, the Italian reviewer, described Nowhere Man as an “excellent” book, and a narrative that “portrays a rock star as very sensitive and vulnerable.” He also said that the author and Paolo Palmieri, the translator, “have made John Lennon one of us,” and that it’s “a book to always have on hand, and occasionally to open and read a few lines to understand the simplicity” of life.
Dulce Erdt, the German reviewer, however, said that Nowhere Man is “confusing” and “revolting,” lacks “sensitivity” and “respect,” paints a “too negative” portrait of Lennon, and then insists, “We all know that John Lennon was not a ‘nowhere’ man, why is this author trying to tell the world the contrary?”
The other good lesson I learned about reviews is to never argue with critics, especially ignorant ones, like Dulce Erdt. But sometimes their ignorance is just too overwhelming to ignore. Which is why I will take this opportunity to point out to Fraulein Erdt that some of us are aware that Lennon’s song “Nowhere Man” is autobiographical. In other words, I didn’t have to tell the world about Lennon’s “Nowhere Man” status. He beat me to it by 34 years.
Take a Sad Song and Make it Better
If you've read Beaver Street (or Nowhere Man for that matter) then you know that my interests range far beyond pornography and rock 'n' roll, into such areas as the rule of law and government corruption. And though I don't know enough about the Troy Davis case to render an informed opinion about his guilt or innocence, I do know enough about capital punishment to say with assurance that it's a barbaric, racist, and deeply flawed practice, and that the United States is the only country in the industrialized Western World that executes prisoners.
Last night, the state of Georgia, in the name of the American people, executed Troy Davis by lethal injection for a murder he was found guilty of committing 22 years ago. I won’t go into any detail here about the hundreds of thousands of people, including many staunchly in favor of capital punishment, who had grave doubts about Davis’s guilt. You can read about it on the Internet if you want to know more.
But I did watch the drama play out on TV, as the Supreme Court considered, then denied, a last-minute stay of execution. Then I heard the news that Davis went to his death proclaiming his innocence.
It sickened me and made me ashamed to be an American.
That’s all I have to say for now about this case in particular, or capital punishment in general. But I would like to share with you the above video, “Song for Troy Davis,” by Nellie McKay.
This Just In…
Having had my John Lennon bio published this week in Italy, and hopeful that Beaver Street, which is about pornography and politics, will soon follow suit, I've been keeping an eye on any news of sex and politics to emerge from the declining Roman Empire. I found this:
Porn star Cicciolina (real name Ilona Staller), who made her hardcore debut in 1983 in a film titled Il telefono rosso (The Red Telephone), starred in 40 more XXX-rated movies, and was then elected to the Italian Parliament in 1987 and served one five-year term, has ignited a bitter uproar in her adopted country.
The Hungarian-born former MP, who was once married to artist Jeff Koons, and offered to have sex with Osama bin Laden if he’d renounce terrorism, will turn 60 in November and begin collecting a taxpayer-funded lifetime pension of more than $53,000 a year.
Though this is a standard pension for any one-term MP, ordinary Italians are furious, as they believe Cicciolina did nothing while in office except attempt to pass a dozen sex-related bills, such as one to set up “love parks and hotels.”
Parliament, meanwhile, recently passed an austerity package, and politicians—while they continue to collect an annual salary and expense package totaling more than $335,000—are now asking the rest of the country to make painful sacrifices to prevent a Greek-style financial crisis.
Cicciolina, however, feels she earned her pension and is as proud of her government work as she is of her sex work.
A Few Words About a Headpress Book I Didn't Write and an Author Who Isn't Me
There's no question that this blog can often seem self-obsessed, but, really, if I don't promote my work, who is going to promote it? That's just the nature of the book business, where it's every author for himself. And in city like New York, where everybody is self-obsessed, and the book-publishing industry is not exactly known for its generosity of spirit, it's a survival strategy.
Which brings us to my fellow New Yorker Shade Rupe, author of the Headpress book Dark Stars Rising. Shade, whom I’ve spoken to on the phone and occasionally communicate with on Facebook, but have never actually met, has managed to get my attention on two occasions this past month. The first time was when I was buying tickets to see Tree of Life at the Sunshine Cinema on East Houston Street. There was Dark Stars Rising on display in the box office—the first time I’d ever seen a book of any kind on sale in a movie box office. “Well done,” I thought, happy to see the Headpress logo in such an unexpected place.
The second time was yesterday, when I saw Dark Stars Rising in the window of Shakespeare’s, the independent bookstore on Broadway, in Greenwich Village. Having never looked at the book, I went inside to check it out, and was greeted by a Dark Stars Rising poster hanging on the wall, near the entrance. But the book was sold out, except for the copy in the window, which a clerk retrieved for me. I didn’t have time to thumb through all 568 pages, but I did read part of Shade’s interview with Divine, which was compelling.
So, Shakespeare’s, what are you waiting for? Order more copies of Dark Stars Rising. There’s money to be made! And again, well done Shade and Headpress. Can’t wait to see what happens when Beaver Street lands on these shores in 2012.