Monday, May 1st, 2000
Personas of Porn
Pat Riley writes on RAME: Let's get the movie in question over first so you all know what I'm talking about:
ALL NATURAL #4 2000-- Rain Productions Producer/Director: Mitch Spinelli Featuring: Jeanie Rivers, Jewel Valmont, Samantha, Isabella Camille, Brick Majors, Frank Towers
This is the first of this series that I've seen but it's basically the same as the White Panty Chronicles and Black Panty Chronicles series using girls who have not been surgically enhanced, at least boob-wise. Spinelli, who you never see, talks to the girls but instead of asking them things like "When did you lose your virginity?" he's more personal, asking them about their boyfriends, their latest shoot, what their husbands think of their work, how they feel about doing porn, and similar.
He can touch on some very sensitive issues such as eliciting in a previous movie that Jeanie picked up an STD from someone in the industry and was only willing to do g/g's now. I bet that thrilled the girl she did the g/g with! Here, he finds out that Jeanie has broken up with her current boyfriend and questions her about why she doesn't move to LA (I presume she just flies in for a round of porn). The answer to the latter is so that she can maintain a emotional distance between her porn activities and her real life indicating that she's not too happy to be doing porn in the first place. So much for the oft-quoted line that these girls are exhibitionists who get off on doing porn.
Also with Jeanie and Samantha he finds out that the director of Dane Productions movies (I presume she's talking about Don Marque) has roving hands (they don't put it quite so nicely) and they really hate it when he adjusts their bra's etc. In previous movies Spinelli has questioned the girls about their worst shoots, least liked companies, disgusting males, etc leading to the conclusion that not too many pornographers watch their competitor's product. Otherwise Spinelli and the girls might find themselves sitting alone at the next industry love fest. Jewel tells us that she has a long-term boyfriend who has a PhD from Berkeley (probably a kommie as soljaris would say) with whom she's in love and who knows about her activities. She doesn't tell him about all the details though because she thinks some of them might upset him (no s---!) and particularly about g/g (I think).
(While all these interviews are going on there's a dog barking in the background, noises of something squeaking, some male assistant yabbering away, and other distractions. Spinelli, using the economy mode of videotaping eschews a separate microphone so while his comments are loud and clear, the girl's are muffled or very quiet (depending on the girl). As a result you have to strain to understand what they're saying and sometimes it's not possible to hear completely.)
Jewel continues to make the point that it's not like she's emotionally involved with the stud du jour so her b/f doesn't have anything to worry about. Seemingly quite intellectual, she discusses her liking for stage plays--she's appeared in some on a purely amateur basis--and her preference for plotted porn (the latter is my interpretation due to the poor sound). I've seen Jewel recite an extract from one of Shakespeare's plays (Macbeth IIRC) from memory in a gonzo movie adding credence to what she talks about here.
Samantha (one of the many but I think this is the one from Ripe #6 and Freshman Fantasies #24) goes on about how she wants to get stoned even waving some implement around--the scene quickly cuts and Spinelli says that there'll be none of that on the set. She also says she's married although doesn't comment if her belly deterioration occurred before or after the nuptials. Her husband hates porn, according to her.
Isabella is one of the Tera Patrick body style types and is apparently European and just in town for a few movies. She too is married but probably due to the language problems she doesn't go into any details about how hubby feels about porn.
If you fast-forward the interviews, which is hard because they intercut some of the sex, you still won't like the movie. Some of the scenes are badly looped, in particular Samantha and Frank and, something a previous poster complained about for one of the Chronicles tapes, the camerawork is very poor: too far away, visions of the guy's face instead of the action, and nonsensical cutting.
For what it's worth: Brick screws Jewel ending in a facial; Jeanie and Isabella do a g/g; and Frank screws Samantha ending in an in mouth cum shot.
Poor value for money given the number of scenes. Frank BTW is credited as Ted Hunter which is presumably an attempt to distance himself from his recent foray into the gay movies.
To my mind this movie epitomizes what's wrong with the whole gonzo genre and with the slavering fanboy approach to porn. In one fell swoop Spinelli has killed off any interest in the sex in this movie and at the same time destroyed the ability of the girls to convince me that they're EVER turned on by sex in any future movie. Their moans and groans and any expression of sexual arousal will always be suspect. They will always be just going through the motions.
To be fair to Spinelli, Jeanie and Jewel have already done that in other movies, Samantha's belly indicates an infant at home and therefore no playing around, and Isabella has the usual European defects of not being even slightly convincing in her scene here, the first I've ever seen her in. For the purpose of this exercise, however, just imagine this is their first movie.
Note that it wouldn't matter if I'd read all this in the print media or in a posting on usenet. It still has the effect of killing believability in any emotional content in any movie they're in. Since almost all porn stars do something silly like this (including the contract girls such as Jenna and Janine) it's very rare that any scene with anyone other than a new girl (less than 6 movies) can ever be erotic.
I've been accused (specifically by lattara) of just liking characters (understand that a character could be the public persona--see below) and while that's true it's not the full story so let's try to put some framework around this.
The word "persona" means the outward manifestation of the character of an individual but I've slightly amended the meaning such that a persona is the various types of personality the performer has. The same goes for any actress; Gwenyth Paltrow has different personas.
There's the real persona. That's what we see here with Jeanie telling us about her boyfriend, her STD's, her problems with bra-adjusting directors, and her distaste for porn (actually promiscuous sex). Except accidentally via someone like the National Enquirer you'll never find out what Paltrow's real persona is like and rightly so. To find it out creates enormous difficulties when she's doing say a love scene with a guy that she regards as too old (Michael Douglas).
The second is the public persona or in the case of a porn performer, a screen persona. What should a porn performer be like? First off, I don't want to hear about any diseases. This is one of the problems with condoms: they imply that the performer has an STD or at least doesn't know if she's disease free. Would you want to screw someone who's diseased?
When she does her sex scene I want to believe she's actually getting off--having an orgasm. How can I believe this when I know that she's cheating on her husband or SO? Unless her relationship is about to go south any emotional involvement with another male is not going to have any feeling to it at all.
Here, Jewel says she's in love with her current b/f and sounds like she means it especially as she follows up with a just-going-through-the-motions statement about the stud-du-jour. So when we get to the sex and she's going ooh/aah and screwing up her eyes in mock ecstasy you can be sure it's 100% fake. It's worse than just fake; it's a lie. If she were to just lie there in rent-a-vagina mode and allow the guy to pound away it would be better--perhaps even erotic. In the latter case, you're transferring your emotions to the male and it becomes very important that he evince a desire to screw the girl. The same problems would occur with him if, like the girls, we listened to long interviews about how he's just doing a lump of meat. Mainstream actresses don't have a screen persona unless they're lousy in which case you get the sort of thing like Lucy Lawless. Will she ever be anything other than a warrior princess? Type-casting if you like.
What you do have for most of them is a very controlled public persona in which the actress will talk about her enjoyment of the role and how she prepared for it by researching the period etc. I doubt you'll find any that will answer questions as to their feelings about a particular actor with whom they do a sex scene (notable exception of Paltrow and Douglas) but then they're not supposed to be doing it for real. Because of the deep characterization of most mainstream movies, I really don't even like to see the actress's public persona. It makes it harder to suspend disbelief and see them as the character they're playing.
The third type of persona is that character persona which really only applies to the mainstream world. Porn performers might try for a character persona (e.g., Jenna as a firefighter) but they're really such hopeless actresses (and to be fair the vehicle is lousy) that they can almost never pull it off. But it's even worse for them: They've established a screen/public persona as something. If it's a promiscuous little cheating whore who just goes through the motions how can they possibly act their way past this picture in your mind? If it's a girl who really doesn't like the idea of casual sex (e.g., Jeanie above) how can you believe a story which has her as (say) a nymphomaniac wife? How can you believe her sex performance in that role?
Vivid to their credit recognized this problem and isolated their contract girls from performances elsewhere but they simply didn't go far enough and they failed to control the leakage. To do it properly they would have to employ a girl who has never appeared elsewhere, doesn't strip or appear in any sexual role, and never lets her private life be known. Of course there's other problems with Vivid girls such as their whorish looks, inflated tits, and prior history in exposing themselves in magazines.
Contrast what happened with the performers from the seventies where we didn't have gonzo and interviews were rare and well-controlled. Abigail Clayton was a popular girl about which I know very little. She appeared in about 18 movies from 1976 to 1980, had a tit job along the way, and probably had a baby. That's all. I don't know if she was a swinger, if she was a free spirit who liked sex and drugs, if she was actually the girlfriend at the time of the males she screwed in the movies, or if like Samantha she was married and was just going through the motions. Therefore I can accept whatever she portrays in the movie (subject to the poor acting). I can even accept the changing roles moving from cute young girl in Dixie to sex surrogate in October Silk, especially as her appearances were spread out and it could be six months in between seeing her (something Vivid also tried to do).
Today: disaster.
Of course there's always one other possibility and that's the quality of the body and face of the girl. Jeanie has a cute face and a lovely little teenager's tight firm body so you could watch her with the sound off and fantasize about fondling/screwing her tight little twat (provided you didn't know it was disease-ridden which you now do) somewhat like the Playboy/Penthouse type tapes. But that's giving the viewer all the work, something you're paying the performer (and director) to do for you. Even at a no-plot-of-any-kind level the sounds of sex are important to your enjoyment of the female. After all she'd be going ooh/aah under you, wouldn't she? But if she's new and you haven't heard about her problems, this is a viable answer. It makes about 1% of porn useful.
So how can the slavering fan boy still be a slavering fan boy? I really don't know but I'm sure one of them will tell me.
And why does a raincoater care about the implied pleasure of the girl in performing sex? Surely if you want to degrade the girl just have her shut up while your surrogate pounds his dick down her throat or covers her face with cum. Even better have her cry or moan in pain (only for the extreme raincoaters, I suppose). Sheesh, the lies of the girls in Max's movies who can't be having any pleasure whatsoever but still go ooh and aah!
Steve replies on RAME: Do you mean that it is difficult to transfer your emotions -- by which I assume you mean erotic emotions (Do you see that as different from sexual arousal?) -- to the man if he evinces no emotional involvement with the woman? Or do you mean that, by describing his on-screen sex partners as "lumps of meat," he has given the lie to the idea that he is sexually aroused during sex scenes?
Granted that I am looking at this from the point of view of someone attracted TO the male and you are speaking from the point of view of someone identifying WITH the male, but it seems to me that the situation for male performers is different from that for female.
While I agree with you that emotional involvement between the characters greatly heightens the erotic power of a scene, I do not believe that it is necessary to prove sexual arousal on the part of the male performer. The stereotype in our culture is that women require emotional involvement with their partner to be aroused by a sexual experience. Your comments fit that view.
However, the same is certainly not true of stereotypes about men. Men can enjoy sex with women (or other men, if that is their orientation) for whom they have absolutely no feeling at all, even women whom they regard as "lumps of meat." If this were not true, prostitutes would go out of business. (Yes, I know that some customers have elaborate fantasies about the prostitutes they patronize, but surely that applies to the more expense end of the business, not to $20, in-the-car-under-the-el quickies.)
Furthermore, with male performers, it is obvious whether or not they are sexually aroused. Erection = arousal. Either they are erect, proving that they desire sex at that moment, or they are not, proving that they do not belong in porn. Again, you are absolutely on target that a scene with a man and a woman who are in love -- or at least strongly attracted to one another in a physical sense -- is far more erotic than a scene where the couple are uninterested in each other.
However, for the male, there must always be at least a spark of interest,
or he would not be able to perform. So, in my long-winded way, let
me ask again: Is your point that you cannot IDENTIFY with the man
unless he clearly feels an emotional attachment to the woman? If so,
well, I see your point, but I didn't know that you were such a romantic
fellow.
Or are you saying that a male who describes himself as being detached from on-screen sex partners has also implied that he is not sexually aroused during sex scenes? I don't think that that is necessarily true (although, if it were, it would be as much of a turn-off for me as the same thing in female performers is for you).
Frank Simms writes on RAME: Obviously Pat, you have a much harder time suspending disbelief than a lot of us. For myself, I find it extremely easy to ignore a girls real personality and believe the screen personality. While I wouldn't want this tape for erotic purposes, I'm glad you gave the extensive review because I find the information included very interesting. But when I'm watching a porno flick, it isn't the actress that I'm paying attention to, it's her screen persona. I guess that's why they don't 'wear out their one-handed welcome' for me like they do for you.
Of course, you are assuming that all raincoaters just want to degrade women. I'm sure that this isn't the case, and some will vehemently deny it. You're also assuming that things you would find disgusting if you were a woman will also be disgusting to all women, which is not a valid assumption. Frx, facials. I like them, but only if the woman receiving them is portrayed as one who enjoys it, I despise the degrading stuff in a bukkake tape where the whole point of coating the woman's face is to demean her. You would assume that no woman actually enjoy it, I wouldn't make that assumption. I suspect (I don't know her, so can't say for sure) that RAME poster Monica Darling may enjoy it, based upon some of the stuff that she has posted. Possibly Peg as well.
Luke: Pat: Are you saying that sites like mine, geneross.com and RAME are bad for industry profits, because they reduce the erotic appeal of porn?
Pat: The people who read your site, Gene Ross, and rame are probably not those most affected by knowing the girl's a whore, or druggie, or just going through the motions.
Lynne writes: Pat Riley, in his commentary on Spinelli's All Natural #4, speaks to the condom issue: "This is one of the problems with condoms: they imply that the performer has an STD or at least doesn't know if she's disease free. Would you want to screw someone who's diseased?"
Assuming that this is a rhetorical questions, Pat seems to be the one who has a problem with condoms, namely that he doesn't understand why people use them. Condoms work to PREVENT STD's. Male porn performers are asked to wear condoms to protect the women, not just the other way around.
When I see people in porn f---ing WITHOUT condoms, I think, "Wow, a director who likes killing women." When I see people in porn f---ing WITH condoms, I think, "Wow, a director who cares about his performers."
The movies I produced were all condom mandatory for the protection of all my performers, male and female. The scenes I did were all condom mandatory for my own protection.
The more promiscuous one is, the more chances there are that one is going to get something. STD's are the occupational disease hazard of porno, and if you make porn (or even f--- around with porn stars), you're gonna get an STD.
If you work in an office, you're gonna get colds. If you take showers with a bunch of other guys in public, you're gonna get athlete's foot. If you work in a coal mine, but you get the point. I wish there were no more stigma associated with STD's then there is with athlete's foot, because it makes it hard for people to deal with the diseases and to seek out treatment.
Chlamydia and gonorrhea can be asymptomatic in both men and women, meaning one can literally not know that one is infected with an STD. Condoms prevent transmission. Condoms also work to protect against herpes, yeast infections, warts, and all sorts of other STD's that one may or may not know they've got. 'don't want.
Pat, you've obviously not had very much experience having sex with men, because you don't seem to know that MEN LIE!!! I don't anticipate having sex again with humans in the near or even distant future, but should I accidentally make the mistake of associating with a male of my own species, HE will wear a condom.
Last February, the last time I had unprotected sex with a porn performer, he KNOWINGLY exposed me to three different STD's. (Some people will do anything to get attention on l-keford.com!) If I hadn't had health insurance through zeboray.com, it would have cost me around $275 for the necessary tests and medications.
Fortunately, the only thing I caught was a nasty yeast infection, and I was only out of pocket $35 for the copay and meds, and $85 for the PCR DNA HIV test (a good idea to have at least once a year anyway if one has been sexually active during the previous twelve months.)
I have embarked on my healthy, celibate lifestyle pure in body as well mind. The Labrador has just had her three-year rabies vaccination and, as long as she takes her monthly flea pill, I shan't catch any more diseases from those I sleep with. The last time I had unprotected sex, back in February, with XXX (a porn star
Luke Gets Mail
Den writes: Who is taylor hayes signed with and making movies with and could you tell me what her latest movie was and is shay sweet going to sign with someone. What is going on with Jenna Jameson ddi she ever finish dreamquest? What do you think of the new blonde pornstar devon?
Luke: Taylor Hayes, an alcoholic, is signed with Vivid Video, a refuge for many a drug or alcohol addicted starlet over the years. Jenna did finish Dreamquest. I don't know what is up with her at the moment. I think Devon, at Vivid, is totally hot.
Ari: Luke I saw the Anastasia Blue segment with someone pissing in her mouth. It is VERY clear that she is NOT interested in what is going on, she is NOT liking it, and maybe she wasn't quite clear as to what was going to happen? She looks like no one has ever pissed in her mouth before, and she has the same reaction that we would all have. She gags and almost throws up at the end.
LT writes: Luke, you recently mentioned Missy retiring from porn. Since she lost the husband, did she also get rid of those breast implants that both she & Mickey G. repeatedly said she wouldn't get? (and from what I understand, she didn't want anyway). She got them around the time of signing with Wicked. So, did she remove her implants?
Luke: I do not know.
Emmett writes: Luke I notice I don't here or see anything about Brooke Ashley anymore. That also includes the other stars who contracted HIV from Marc Wallice. I would like to know how they are doing now. If a porn starts contracts HIV on a video, does the porn company support their medical expenses? I know that Brooke had a kid and her family rejected her porn life and totally rejected her when she tested positive. I know that Tricia Devereaux is living with John Stagliano. Hell, I can't even remember the other two who contracted it from Marc Wallice. Maybe you could give one or two of them a call and see how they are doing now. I think it is a dishonor and mean for the porn world to just forget about starlets who contracted HIV. They should be remembered not ignored and shoved under the carpet.
Luke: Legend owners Jack and Bruce helped Brooke out greatly with her medical expenses as did some other porners.
I've got allegations of drug use at the highest levels of porn. A website devoted to informing people about hallucinogenic drugs and promoting their use was founded by Flying Crocodile owner Andy Edmond.
The website www.ynotsucks.com has been taken down but you can find some insight into Andy Edmond here. The home page for this is http://www.lycaeum.org. It seems to promote drug use.
Andrew Edmond writes: My only comment is as follows: "Everyone knows XXX is Kevin Blatt. I really hopes that Kevin finds something more productive to do with his time... XXX's continued disparaging, slanted, and totally baseless comments around the industry are causing nobody any harm except Kevin, which is sad because I personally really like the guy, and speak highly of him at every opportunity. Most people that know both of us wish he would do something productive for himself... like moving on with his life. This is business, not high school."
Luke: I can't comment on my sources. But I can comment on drugs and porn. They go together like rock and roll. Many porners used drugs. Walter Gernert, who founded VCA, has been a longtime user and advocate of drugs. He remains highly committed to legalizing drugs such as cocaine.
I hear that a couple of ex-YNOT employees have received cease-and-desist letters for supposedly trashing YNOT to me. They replied to Flying Crocodile, YNOT's parent company, "F--- you."
Several ex-YNOT employees signed agreements before they left to not speak or write about YNOTnetwork.com.
YNOT is owned by SexTracker.com, which is owned by 26-year old whizkid Andy Edmond who employs about 150 persons.
Flipper writes: Here, post this photo of Andy Edmond. I am sure he hates to be associated with this heroin chic picture of him. hehehehe.
Luke: I went to Yahoo.com and put in "Andrew Edmond," and the results sent me to a lot of drug sites. Including: http://www.freecyb.com/CATALOG/PSYCHE.HTM
I found this description of audiotapes about the use hallucinogenic drugs. "ANDREW EDMOND is director of the Lycaeum, "The world’s largest online database for information about entheogens." A new world of communication, information and community is being tentively grasped by the entheogenic culture. find out the history of drug information and entheogenic community on the Internet as well as where we ARE HEADED IN THIS AMAZING and remarkably chaotic medium of communication. Andy also explores the potentials of the digital medium to enhance the freedoms of the entheogenic culture."
Johnny Castano Out of Hospital
Veteran photographer Johnny Castano is back home, after spending three weeks in the hospital recovering from back surgery. He could do with calls from his friends. His email is JJCinLV@aol.com.
Johnny: "I really went through hell, man. They just sent me home Friday. And I'm in a wheelchair right now. I had a really serious back operation."
Luke Sends Lynne To Veterinary School
I mailed off this letter of recommendation for Lynne L-patin, so she can enter Veterinary School, and set up a special mission to help animals sexually abused by San Fernando Valley porn stars.
PCC Veterinary Technology Program
Dear Dr. Cock:
It makes me very happy to have this opportunity to recommend to you my good friend and collaborator, Lynne Cori L-patin, for admission into the Portland Community College Veterinary Technology Program.
Ms. L-patin has wonderful nurturing skills that will benefit animals and the people associated with them. I first met her a little over a year ago in the capacity of my work as an entertainment journalist, writing an article about the movie productions in which she and her husband were involved shortly before his death in July 1999. I was greatly impressed with her patience and compassion as she cared for him at home during the final months of his terminal illness.
After he passed away, I stayed in touch with Ms. L-patin, and found her strength and resourcefulness during this stressful time to be quite admirable. Since then, we have worked together on several projects. She shows great attention to detail, works well on "deadline," and has wonderful communication skills. I appreciate her honesty and dedication, which are rare qualities in the entertainment field.
I was very pleased to hear that she wanted to study veterinary science, and believe that that would be a excellent pursuit for her at this stage in her life. She will bring her maturity and experience to a field in which they will be appreciated, and your profession will gain a practitioner with a loving heart big enough for all living things.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if there is anything I can say which would encourage you to accept Ms. L-patin into your Veterinary Technology Certificate program.
Lynne writes: I finished "Slut" by Leora Tannenbaum. This is not a very meaty book, but it discusses something not usually found in print, which is the attitudes of girls/women who have been labeled "slut" by their peers in high school and how they deal with it then, and how it changes their lives. The double standard is alive and well in American high schools come the new millenium, it seems. I know I was one, only I don't remember what happened in high school because of it, maybe because I went to three high schools. At the last one I lived in an institution with lots of other sluts, and we enjoyed ourselves. Most of the girls in the book are not sluts and falsely labeled and thus hurt by it. But there shouldn't be a gender-based double standard -- and there is, even in abstinence based sex education. Boys who abstain are "real men," girls are told to abstain or they'll never have love and marriage. Boys promise love when they want sex; girls offer sex when they want love.
The other book I only got to look at for an hour or so, and hope I can renew it, but I doubt it, because we're doing sociology on feminism and "the beauty myth" and someone is going to want it for their term paper. It is an impeccably researched exploration of what it means to be beautiful, called "Beauty in History," by Arthur Warwick, Thames and Hudson, 1988. It's British and I'm sure I will never see another copy.
I think you would like this book -- it agrees with you, and gives you the documentation you need to prove your point. Some women (and men) are beautiful and some are not, and the standards haven't changed for five hundred years, although only recently has beauty become unlinked from the spiritual. Although the author recognizes misogyny when he sees it, and is well read in feminist literature, he firmly states that beauty is not merely in the eye of the beholder and not a social construct at all.
He is very supportive of your readers, quoting a fellow named Henry Theophilus Finck, a nineteenth century music critic and "Darwinian philospher," as having calculated that women are at the peak of their beauty between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, and men between twenty-eight and thirty-five. Finck was thirty-three when he did this. (You can imagine how that made me feel, but obviously we'd best boot your career in the butt before you get old and ugly, too. Never....)
Laura responds to Mike South over Elian Gonzales: Mike South the bottom line is that no one not a great uncle or cousins has more rights to a child than a parent barring neglect or abuse on the part of that parent regardless of whether we approve of the government he lives under. One can make the argument that with all the violence in the U.S. is this really an ideal place to raise a child? Also there are plenty of horrible countries in the world, worse than Cuba in fact, for instance Islamic fundamentalist countries where girls are genitally mutilated, countries where there is genocide and oftentimes those who flee are denied asylum in this country. If this kid came from Haiti the same way and he had a parent back home he would have been sent back immediately. But Cubans are a powerful political force in America so they get preferrential treatment.
As far as what the mother wanted is concerned she is dead so the only other person that has the right to speak for the boy is his father not a drunken great uncle nor an emotionally unstable cousin or anyone else. Two thirds of the American public understand this and believe he should be with his father are they all pro-Castro or commies?
As far as Newsmax is concerned I'd take anything they say with a grain of salt, it is nothing more than far right propaganda that will go against anything the Clinton administration does. I suppose you too are one of those irrational Clinton-haters that will automatically oppose anything this president or his administration does without regards to logic. Right wing nuts who would deny a father and son their right to be together just to stick it to Castro and Clinton. And BTW Luke/Chaim if you don't want to post my writings because I won't send a picture than fine I will no longer write.
Why Is Luke A Vegetarian?
Chaim Amalek writes: Why are you vegan - health, ideology, or both? Why don't seventh day adventists eat meat? And do you eat honey or wear silk garments (produced, after all, by enslaved silk worms)? Which is the greater sin - aborting a two week old human fetus, or having some veal?
Luke: I am a vegetarian for my health, ideology and habit... SDAs - health, ideology... Yes i eat honey and wear silk... I am no animal rights fanatic. Aborting a fetus is a bigger sin.
Chaim: You do realize, that of all the jews who have ever lived, you are the only one to have converted from Christianity who works on the periphery of porn and is vegan (more or less)? How does the vegan angle affect your interplay with LA jewesses - do they prefer meat eaters? Would you/could you marry a jewess who insists on buying and eating a nice, hard Hebrew National Kosher salami every now and then?
Luke: I've found it easy to be vegetarian. Most Jews do not have a problem with it. It is not important to me that other people become vegetarians. I would not mind marrying a meat-eater.
On his radio show today, Dennis Prager tackled the increase in multiple stranger murders. He discussed the issue privately earlier today with a leading criminologist (probably James Q. Wilson at UCLA). They agreed that this troubling development was in part copy cat, a desire by bad people for their 15 minutes of fame. That all the media attention given to the Columbine killers etc probably exacerbated the random killings.
In Pittsburg on Friday, a 34-year old man who still lived with his parents, shot and killed five strangers.
Prager wondered if we increased the number of carry a concealed weapon permits, that this might deter these stranger murders.
All these murderers are alienated from others.
Caller: "It's because we're addicted to TV. We're not connected to other people."
Prager: "Every society that introduced TV late found that violent crime went up dramatically."
Caller: "We underestimate how much we need to be listened to and connected."
Prager: "Read the book, Bowling Alone. More Americans are bowling than ever, but more people are bowling alone. People don't meet with people when they can stay at home and watch TV."
P referred to this article in today's Wall Street Journal: "Will a day at the races eventually mean a night at the Web site? How will the Net change horse racing?"
P: There's no sense of Americaness left. How will people be tied to their fellow Americans?
P believes in an armed citizenry armed by the police.
Prager decried the end of LA's male choir. From today's LA Times: They vowed to focus on the music, not the impending silence. So on Sunday night, the men of the Ellis-Orpheus Choir lifted their voices for the last time in a final concert before a packed crowd at Riviera United Methodist Church in Torrance.
The 112-year-old chorus, L.A.'s oldest men's choir, is disbanding because it has been unable to attract new members to replace those who have died or lost their voices to age, said choir director Randall Schwalbe. And though the Gay Men's Choir boasts a healthy membership in the Los Angeles area, men's choruses as a rule are fading away...
In his final hour, Prager discussed Sunday's column in the Washington Post, "Unconventional Wisdom."
The size of a tip isn't mostly about good service. It's about touching, squatting, scribbling and other tricks of the servers' trade. And while it's too late for him, Lynn recently described how today's waiters and waitresses can use the fruits of psychological research to boost their earnings:
Introduce yourself. In one California study, servers alternated between identifying themselves by name ("Good morning. My name is Kim. I'll be serving you this morning. Have you ever been to Charlie Brown's for brunch before?") and using the same greeting without mentioning their names. What's in a name? About two bucks: The size of their average tip rose from $3.49 to $5.44, Lynn said.
Slouch. Better yet, squat. In a study that Lynn directed, servers who squatted down next to the table averaged a full dollar more per tip than if they stood. But this probably won't work for everyone, Lynn cautions: "Servers need to exercise some judgment about whether a given table will welcome such informality."
The personal touch works--literally. Researchers at the University of Mississippi found the average tip increased from an average of 12 percent of the bill when servers did not touch customers to 14 percent if they casually touched them once on the shoulder for about a second and by 17 percent if they touched the customer's palm twice for about a half-second each time.
Smile--the bigger, the better. In one study, cocktail servers who gave customers a "small, closed-mouth smile" got tips that averaged a miserly 20 cents, Lynn said. Those who flashed a "large, open-mouthed smile" got an average of 48 cents--a whopping 140 percent increase.
It pays to be attractive--but only if you're female. Good-looking waitresses garnered 20 percent larger tips from guys than plain Janes. Hunky waiters, however, didn't collect more from women, Lynn found.
It's important how you say goodbye. Servers who wrote "Thank you!" on the back of the check got tips that were, on average, 13 percent larger than if they wrote nothing. (A related tip: Drawing a smiley face on the back of a bill boosted tips for waitresses. But waiters who drew ol' Smiley saw the size of their tips plummet. "Too personal, coming from a man," Lynn suggested.)
Prager: These studies comport with my common sense. Good looks don't really matter much for guys in attracting women. What attracts women is more subtle and deep.
As Dr. Steven Marmer says, women want men who are a combination of Alan Alda and Clint Eastwood.
Men who draw smiley faces look wimpy.
Prager noted that men tip far more than women, and give far more charity per income than women.
Extroverts and neurotics tip more, because they want people to like them.
A man phoned in, saying that he'd relied on his good looks to attract women. Now that he's aged, he's found he does not know how to interact with women. He never developed his personality.
Elton writes on the Prager List: "Why is no one here discussing the fact that KABC is at a 40-year low in the ratings and that radical changes are very likely in the next several months? Prager may be gone from L.A.! Shannon thinks that the station may go Spanish! No... you guys just go on and continue to talk about Elian."
Gil writes: In case you haven't noticed Dave, this isn't exactly
a fan club. I've done my part to get Prager to do what he does better
-- but he's the one making the decisions. AAMOF, when was the last
time DP, er, thanked anyone for suggesting how better he could conduct
his show?
The following backs up something Prager has said for years. From today's front page of the LA Times:
For years, studies have backed up the popular assumption that a degree from an elite college puts a student on a path to prosperity with fatter paychecks than those of graduates from less exalted institutions.
Many studies still support that position. But recent research from, of all places, Princeton University, challenges that belief. At least for top students, what really matters is the student's drive, not the school, according to Stacy Berg Dale, a researcher at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation who researched the question with Princeton economist Alan B. Krueger.
"What seems to matter is a person's ambition or self-confidence,"
Dale said. The most ambitious students "will do well in life," regardless
of their alma maters, she said.
