Summer Love, LIterary Style

THe Orlando Weekly's summer reading issue came out last week with two reviews by yours truly, Silver Springs: The Underwater Photography of Bruce Mozert by Gary Monroe and The Fortuneteller's Lay by Lara Dien. Monroe's collection of Mozert's gorgeous photos from Florida's bygone era and Dien's sizzline erotica are both excellent literary choices for the hottest, wettest summer we've had in an age. Check out the reviews, and more importantly, check out the books:
http://www.orlandoweekly.com/features/story.asp?id=12508

Silver Springs photo from Orlando Weekly; Lara Dien cover photo from Wild Rose Press

GTS navigation

Our friend David was recently inspired to invent an acronym that he wants to make part of the lexicon and Goon wants to help. It's GTS and it stands for "Google That Shit." This is what you say to anyone who doubts that you know what you know, i.e.,

"Laurence Fishburne was never on Pee Week's Playhouse."

"Yes he was. GTS."

Or you could say it when you're stuck with a question you don't know.

"So did they ever identify that hideous dino-chicken-turtle-golum thing that washed up in Montauk?"

"What am I, Fox Mulder? GTS, fergodsake."

GTS is the digital age version of "Look it up," since nobody knows how to do that with books anymore but that's 75% of what people are doing all the time on line (the other 25% is reading Goon). Why remember facts when you can GTS and have all that brain space left over for sexual fantasies and revenge fantasies (for when the sexual fantasies fail)?
Anyway, we like it. Use it. It'll be in the Urban Dictionary one day. Then you can GTS.


Image of hideous dino-chicken-turtle-golum thing, that might be good if you Shake n Bake it, came off Unexplained-Mysteries.com

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

Movie Review: The Road Warrior

In 1981 Mel Gibson was not associated with Jesus or “sugar tits” because no one knew who he was and gas prices hit a high of $1.35 (”which, in today's dollars, comes out to $3.10.” according to CNN Money.com.) This was the year of “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.”

Enzian Theater couldn’t have picked a better Cult Classic for our fuel-flummoxed time than this movie. Set in a bleak future where global warming clearly has a chokehold on the planet (though it’s never mentioned), gasoline is so scarce that nobody can get hold of it except the gangs. And when they get it where do they go? To terrorize people and steal their gas.

See what happens when you don’t listen to Al Gore and invest in alternative fuel technologies? You end up getting hunted by homoerotic bikers in the dessert. Now go buy a Prius (and get me one while you’re up).

This was my first viewing of Road Warrior, which is largely about one of those bad-ass gangs trying to get a gas reserve away from a group of new wave hippies aided by Mel Gibson - did you catch that? The hippie-ish commune-dwellers are the guardians of the fossil fuel in this movie. Evidently riding your stupid bike everywhere doesn’t sound so great when it’s really hot and you’re getting shot at by guys with crossbows. So the good guys defend the fuel with their lives. You can tell they are the good guys because they wear lighter colors, honor their agreements and harbor a feral child, a little boy in a big Jessica Hahn wig who throws the meanest boomerang the world has ever seen.

The evil marauders, conversely, are conspicuous due to their bondage wear: leashes, leather masks and harnesses give their tribe the look of either a biker camp or the Mr. Australia Leather competition. The gangs’ leader is a prime example: from the neck brace up he’s Halloween’s Jason; from the neck down he’s kind of like King Leonidis from The 300, the most homoerotic film since “Harald and Koomar go to the Broadway Baths.”

The biker who hates Mel Gibson the most (and he never even saw The Passion of That One Guy) is a burley bastard in assless chaps, a Manic Panic mowhawk and more feathers than Phyllis Diller. His most striking accessory, though, is what appears to be his glam-rock rent boy, a glum blonde who shadows him everywhere. It seems pretty clear they’re an item, though it’s never stated, interesting, because 1981 also saw the debut of “Love, Sidney,” a sitcom notorious for having the first gay lead but never identifying him as gay. So it wasn’t a time of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” - more a time of “Don’t tell but hint like you’re playing Olympic-level Charades.”

No doubt about it - between the crimped hair, stylish leather, the homoerotica and the dumpster-chic that prefigured grunge by 10 years and Kevin Federline by 25, this was one fashion-forward movie and I’m not the only one who noticed. Entertainment Weekly said that “film fashion would never be the same” after this; nor would our vision of the future. In the Logan’s Run / Sleeper / Jetsons vision of the 60’s and early 70’s, the future was spic-and-span, silver and white, sleek and shiny. Then along comes Alien (1979) and the Mad Max films. In a flash the future turned gritty, grotty, dirty, shabby, haphazard, mismatched, aggressive and dangerous no matter how young you were. The world of tomorrow was suddenly ugly and so was everyone in it.

And the coolest thing? After all that vision, progression and creative outerwear the whole damn movie is really about car chases.

But they’re great car chases! I don’t even like that kind of thing and when I left I wished I was driving a couple of Hummers glued together instead of my little Honda, just so I could feel butch. This is pre-CGI, too - you can watch the crashes, the guys getting squished between cars and sliding under trucks and think “how did they do that?” With CGI you know how they did it: they moved a mouse. With the Road Warrior it’s fun to wonder.

Anyway, if you’ve never seen it - or if you have and need a re-view - this is a perfect to watch the The Road Warrior and see how much wit, flair and cultural impact an action picture can have. And if our gas situation is ever going to get bad enough to involve crossbows.


Enzian is doing great with their Cult Classics and I think I know why - people are so broke these days they’re leery of spending money on new movies. With the Cult Classics a) they’re only $5 and b) people already know the movie is good and c) it's really, really fun to see old stuff, especially if it's new to you, on a big screen. So they’re ponying up like crazy. The theater has even extended the Cult Classics to twice a month. Next week - that’s June 3 - they’re showing Rock and Roll High School which means we’re probably in for another lesson in the history of style. C’mon -who didn’t learn something from the those Ramone’s haircuts? Where do you think Toni Tenille got the idea?

Swing Away

Some writers like putting words in combinations they’re sure no one has ever heard before. George Carlin is famous for stuff like “Hand me that piano.” Douglas Adams remarked that no language has produced the phrase “As beautiful as an airport.”

My new favorite unlikely set of words is “ornamental testicles.”

Testicles are many things to many people but on their list of their attributes “ornamental” would limp in at last place, or maybe next to last, just before “steely.” Some people think that penises are ugly - I think they’re quite strikingly beautiful. They are, however, like the cute guy who always arrives at the party trailed by his funny- looking sidekick - think Ricky Ricardo and Fred Mertz. I love men, some more frequently or avidly than others. I think they’re spectacular. But balls are only ornamental like a garnish is ornamental: the main reason anyone swallows up that sprig of endive is because it happens to be right next to the steak.

Balls are reproductively functional. They are euphemistically invaluable. They are a point of vulnerability as crucial as the exhaust port on the Death Star. But the only thing they should ever be found hanging off in an ornamental fashion is a man.

Which brings us to the latest in homegrown Florida idiocy: guys hanging replicas of balls from their trucks and other guys taking the legislative time to try to ban them.

Yes, there are things called Truck Nutz, plastic or metal replicas of testicles, with which some people, presumably blind ones, decorate their vehicles with in a festive manner. In the many stories I’ve read about this dumb phenomenon, not one addressed the obvious question: why? Who could think that a faux nut sack dangling off their bumper is attractive, alluring, instructive, witty, intriguing, suggestive, declarative, funny, pithy, challenging or ornamental? The only conclusion I can come up with is that these guys just love handling nuts that aren’t their own and will find any excuse to do so.

Not everyone loves decorative cobblers, though. In fact, Sen. Carey Baker, (R-Eustis) tried to get them off road, proposing a $60 fine for motorists who festoon their vehicles thus. Baker’s provision was attached to a highway safety bill but, as of May 1, the AP described the balls as being “snipped form legislation.”

And despite the fact that I think truck nuts are the ugliest thing this side of a gum disease pamphlet I’m glad they won’t be banned. Freedom of expression cannot be limited to the expressions we find tasteful and if some people think ersatz nads will perk up their ride, let ‘em have at it. As someone on NPR said this week, “Vive Vas Deferens.”

Besides, this particular freedom of expression might as well be a neon sign that says “Dork,” and such labels are helpful to the rest of us. Gotta love a set of balls that gives you a little extra kick.

(this photo came from a very funny post about Truck Nutz on Rabidmoderate.com)