Review: The Big Penis Book / Peacock Room Tonight!

Hi Everyone!

I'm so happy and so pleased to be in the Orlando Weekly again and can't think of anything better for a comeback assignment than a review of The Big Penis Book by Taschen Publishing.

Review: The Big Penis Book!

I had so much fun writing this that I want to share it with the world, so come see me at The Peacock Room
TONIGHT 6-13-08
I'll bring the book so you can see it - you'll want one, of course, and it should soon be available locally at Fairvilla Megastore.
This is not just about that, though - I'm so happy to be doing some work for the OWeekly again and can't think of a more fun assignment to have started with.
:)

Sub Text

Not long ago I got an interesting proposition via the web: "You seem like an open-minded woman," said this gentleman, whom' I had never met. "Would you be in the market for a slave?"
I've never been asked a question like this before and it rang a little strangely in my ears, like George Carlin's "Hand me that piano." But I surprised myself by thinking..."You know what? Maybe I am." It would be nice, I thought, to have a guy do what I say....but then I realized it would even be nice to have a guy do what HE says he's going to do, never mind listening to me. Follow-through, by both men and women, has come to be more scarce than self-service gas stations. It's a sad commentary, but if it takes a leather corset to get someone to act right I have three words to say: Lace. Me Up.
Admittedly, though, I was nervous about contacting my new lapdog. This was a big, leather-booted step into a brave new world for me and I adapt as well as the beetle (IOW: unchanged for 300 million years). Besides, I'm not used to pushing people around. Under all this flash, brassy pink icing, I"m really just a cupcake.
"Go ahead! You could use someone to wash your car," said one friend, who I guess thinks I have a dirty car.
"Go ahead!" said another, "It will be the most empowering thing you ever do."
"Go ahead," said the rest, "if it doesn't work out at least you can write about."
Three guesses why I'm writing about it.

Before long I grew a pair and texted the guy. He texted back immediately - I almost fell off my new stilettos. Most of the time when you call people and it's not about money you're lucky if they reply before you get Alzheimer's and forget who they are and why you called. Maybe, I thought, this is my destiny.
We chatted for awhile - nothing too hair-raising, but I was getting getting comfortable with the whole idea. Very comfortable. Enthusiastic. Excited. About 20 minutes in I got this (paraphrased):.
"Can I talk to you online? I'm in jail and we're not supposed to use cell phones."
Get it? Cell phones!!
The problem was he was serious.
"No," I said, "No, you can't."
Jail is a deal-breaker for me, deal-breaker being the adult word for "cooties." Unless you're a political prisoner, like Neslon Mandela or Joan of Arc, it's kind of a turn-off. I never even found out why he was in jail. I didn't care.
"I understand," he said and that that. I was worried I might have a stalker on my hands, but he never contacted me again. This jailbird submissive respected my wishes, which is more than I can say for many.

I wondered briefly what curse I must be under that i couldn't even make something work with a submissive, who, by definition, should have been primed to please. But on reflection I felt worse for him. He should have been in a submissive's paradise, after all, ordered around and bullied to his heart's content. So why bother responding to me?
The answer could be as simple as "Cuz you're a woman," but I think it just underscores the fact that everyone is hungry for something, even the people you think oughta be rolling in it. You have no idea what it is that other people want. Most of the time we're just too busy filling our own holes to notice where other people are empty.
So, I had a micro-adventure and didn't get stalked. That, in 2008, passes for happily ever after.

Review: Rock 'n Roll High School

Since I had waxed so poetic about seeing "The Road Warrior," at Enzian's last Cult Classic night two weeks ago and since my BFF is the biggest Ramone's fan ever, only death would have excused my absence from "Rock and Roll High School," and it would have had to have been my own. Good thing I wanted to go.
Three years ago at Enzian I'd seen "End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones," an illuminating documentary that showed just what a hard-ass Johnny was, how sensitive Joey was and played segments from Dee Dee's cripplingly bad rap video as Dee Dee King. Dee Dee King is the kind of person Dee Dee Ramone beating the shit out of in happier, simpler times.
"Rock 'n Roll High School" is a whole other ball game, a teensploitation flick with the usual 30-ish-looking-actors playing high school kids, the evil authority figure (played by the born-to-be-a-dominatrix Mary Woronov), the goofy teacher (which the late) Paul Bartel did so beautifully he could have easily been a character on "The Office") and the youthful-rebeliion-about-pointless-crap winning out at the end. The Ramones are the featured attraction of and while I have as much allegiance to them as anyone who was young and somewhat alert in the 80's, I have to say that the real star of the movie is P.J. Soles.
P.J. Soles ("Carrie," "Halloween," "Stripes") was a 70's / early 80's standout - you can't say "She was the Cameron Diaz of her day," because she had that one-of-the-boys quality, but she wasn't that glamourous. You can't say "She was the Jennifer Anniston of her day," because she had that girl-next-door thing but she wasn't that famous. She was charmingly pretty in a bright-eyed and wholesome way - but with a suggestion of happy kink about her - the kind of girl who would roll her eyes a sexual innuendo but who you suspect would be a tigress behind closed doors. Maybe she was the Rose McGowen of her day. That's the allure of P.J.
P..J is the life and soul of Rock 'n Roll High School as Riff Randell, the rebel DJ queen of her class, determined not just to go see her heroes, the Ramones and bring them the song she's written for them, but to get her whole class into the show as well. Of course there's a lot of teen-love-quandrangle intrigue, though a lot less sex than movies like "Porky's" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Vincent Van Patten plays gorgeous bore in love with Riff and a shockingly young Clint Howard is the profiteering matchmater who plans to set him up with her.
Riff, however, only has eyes for Joey Ramone. "He's so tall and handsome," or maybe it was good-looking, but whatever it is, P.J. says it with the dreamy conviction of true love which made members of the audience LOL with ironic abandon. She should win a retroactive Teensploitation Oscar for this moment alone.
Don't get me wrong. I love Joey. Everyone loves Joey. I have been part of seances held by people who wanted to talk to Joey after his passing. But first of all, I'm not sure most people have ever seen his face and those who have will admit that he's no Viggo Mortenson. He might not even have been a Clint Howard. Anyway, appearing entirely convinced that Joey Ramone was Cary Grant, PJ Soles deserves a statuette.
If Joey's charisma didn't lie in his looks....well, it didn't lie in his eloquence, either. The few lines Joey does have when he finally meets his biggest fan are handed over with such a mush-mouth delivery that, I'm told by fans that they had to rewind the VHS half a dozen times before understanding what he says.
Nontheless, Joey was Joey and he had enough charisma to be a huge part of making that legendary band what it was and it was fun to see them being completely out of place in a teensploitation film. If Rock 'n Roll High School didn't have the script, the cast or the inspired look at teen issues that its peers did, one thing it has, was born to have, is the best soundtrack of any teensploitation movie ever made.

Check Enzian's calendar at www.enzian.org for the next Cult Classic

Image of PJ Soles from Classic-Horror.net