Friday, August 27th, 1999
Lynne L-patin Arrested
Producer Lynne L-patin of Casino Productions was arrested Tuesday night at Dave Hardman's apartment. Dave apparently had refused for two weeks to return Lynne's phone calls. He apparently thought she was stalking him and when she showed up to his place, he called the police.
L-patin was trying to confirm Dave's booking for Lynne's September 2nd shoot, "Dave Hardman: Working Stiff."
Police confiscated Lynne's loaded handgun.
Lynne's husband Bruce Walker passed away six weeks ago.
"I thought we were really really good friends," said a bitter L-patin Thursday morning. "Apparently the fact that I told him that I missed him pushed his panic button... And now he's running around telling people that I'm stalking him.
"The part I want to know is - did Dave know it was me outside? I believe he did. Which makes it crueler. He never apologized. He never said, 'ohmigod, it's my producer.' So we have every reason to believe that it was done deliberately."
Lynne was Luke's inspiration to buy a handgun. We'd talked about it for months. Lynne and I planned to go together to a shooting range Sunday.
Lynne writes: "Luke, my heart has been broken. Evil was done to me deliberately by a sick puppy. As my German buddy Oliver says, I was "betwayed." Sat in jail for hours, handcuffed to a bench with incoherent junkies and drunks, my blood pressure went from its normal 110 to 138. My partner, the attorney, says he will eventually be able to get my record expunged and thankfully its only a misdemeanor rather than a felony, but it was a humiliating, horrible experience and a cruel thing to do to me, especially considering that my husband died just six weeks ago."
At 3PM, Lynne wrote: "My new Assistant Director assures me that there will be no future problems with David, at least as far as completing the movie. My current understanding is that he was so zonked out on valium that he went home and passed out; the neighbors called him saying there's someone in your back yard with a flashlight, and he called the police. Anyway, I'm going to bathe and run up to Western Costume to look at angel wings for the angelic Laura Palmer to wear next week. On the vegetarian front, I've got three beautiful bell peppers to harvest tomorrow. I think I'll stuff them with rice and vegetables and seasonings and bake and freeze them for microwaving later. If that sounds like something you would eat, I'll put your name on one."
Slither Goes Viper
Luke F-rd Wire Services, Ltd.:
Was she one tragic step ahead of the fetish-into-fashion phenom permeating porn today? “Porners just couldn’t deal with the tattoos back then,” recalled venereal veteran Bill Margold, interviewed by occasional l-keford.com operative Krash last spring at New York’s Erotica USA convention. “There was one other tattooed actress doing X videos in the Eighties, Janey Robbins, who just had a dragon on her back. Directors always felt they to cut away from it. Not good for Janey’s career. Today, porn is filled with tattoos and piercings of every kind."
Margold’s old-school sensibilities make him--despite, or perhaps because of, his love for Viper--no fan of voluntary body modification in any form. And it is no secret that Viper remains the most unquenchable passion ever to penetrate Margold’s passion-filled life and times. Thus Margold waxed mellifluous on the parts left out of Gear magazine’s article profiling vanished video vixen viper.
Writing in the Gear article, dated May/June 1999, Mark Ebner exhumes the skin-crawling tale of a former ballerina and nympholeptic ex-Marine--86’d from the military for reasons that “remain officially undisclosed”-- who was destined for immolation on the altar of her own tattoos. Ebner’s high-octane prose depicts how the apple-cheeked female once known as Corporal Stephanie Green became “...a thin, red-headed, green-eyed virago” who “boasted chain piercings, a full-torso tattoo, and a sexual aggressiveness, on-screen and off, that challenged even the most seasoned professionals...”
And of the dermal imprint that destroyed Viper “...a snake [was] poised to strike her left nipple, that morphs into a tiger ... composed of interlaced skulls across her belly, and finally reanimates as a snake snapping at her clitoris.” These tats were the work-product of hard-case, amphetamine-dizzed Philadelphia inker Harry Von Groff--regarding whom Bill Margold related an episode from one of porndom’s darker vaults.
Narrated Margold, “VonGroff had stolen Viper’s soul. Viper said she wanted it back. So I traveled from LA to Von Grofff’s tattoo shop on Arch Street in Philly to get Viper’s soul back.
“This was 1986. The Detroit Lions were in town to play the Philadelphia Eagles. Before the game, Viper took me in to see VonGroff. He was in a wheelchair. He made me watch him tattoo three people. He also made me watch him sell dope--and some weapons. Finally he says to me, “What are you here for?””
“And I answered, “I’m here to get Viper’s soul back.”
“Why do you want her?,” VonGroff shot back.
“Because I like her.”
“And Von Groff said, “If you had said because you loved her, I wouldn’t have given her soul back.”
“The next day was Sunday, and when I came back from the football game, Viper thanked me.”
‘For what," I asked her.
“Viper answered that VonGroff had truly given back her soul.”
“Not too long thereafter, Viper wrote a Von Groff a letter and it came back stamped “Deceased.”
“Somebody had shot vonGroff dead in his own tattoo parlor.”
“There’s a great spirituality to the whole thing. And it’s a cautionary tale to those who would deal in deal in souls. “ Summarized Margold, “Von Groff got exactly what he deserved."
Viper now lives with her family while continuing to ply her body for money.
Jenna Jameson writes Luke: DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND, YOU ARE JUST FEEDING ALL THE PUBLICITY AND FOR THAT I THANK YOU... I'LL ADD YOU TO MY LIST OF SUPPORTERS!! RAGE ON PUNK, J.J.
DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ALL OF THIS NEGATIVE PUBLICITY YOUR GIVING ME IS STILL PUBLICITY? I KNOW YOU LOVE TO HATE ME! I'LL ADD YOU TO THE LIST OF MY SUPPORTERS! RAGE ON PUNK, J.J.
Shaun writes: How's business? We spoke (IM) once, a few months ago, I asked you some questions for Sociology research at Arizona State Univ. ("porno ain't for chicks unless they're on their knees sucking a dick) and you posted it.
Anyway, I bought your book a couple days ago (at the UCLA book store I should add, I've transferred back to California). I've only had a chance to meander through about the first 20+ pages, intro and such. It's, well, it's definitely Luke F-rd. I've read so much of your site that I have more of a feel for your style, I don't feel like an "outsider" reading your book, it seems like an extension from the back of your website, although obviously professional. I'm from CA, and after two years in AZ, coming back and living in Westwood, the book becomes more enthralling and almost more personal. I look forward to the rest of the book, and the time I will have to read on my own.
As far as Jenna goes, I can't go silent. From today's post, I was in hysterics reading how the guy introduced his girlfriend to porn. It's almost word for word what I've had to do. "How about that blonde chick, from Private Parts? Do you want to see HER?" But, I don't understand the extent of the ill intent towards Jenna in the last few days. I do understand that it happens to all famous people, and it happens to the president of the United States, so why not the queen of porn?
Let me tell you what attracted me to Jenna, in no particular order it was her: face, hair, tits, stomach, ass, legs and (yes) voice. Physically, she is a goddess. As far as arguments against her breasts, in a world of implants, she has no scars and they bounce when she gets f---ed, they are big and beautiful. Sometimes I watch girls with implants, sometimes without, big deal. Attitude? I'm not sure how I'd deal with being a female at all, much less being probably the most famous female face recognizable for just getting f---ed. Could this be broken down to "the most beautiful girl who gets gets f---ed on film for a living?" Obviously, this is debatable, Jenna is not my favorite, although one of them and definitely one of the most attractive.
One of the reasons I hear people complain that they don't like Jenna is that they like the girl next door types, not the supermodel types. Something else I hear a lot of is that porn is a fantasy world for most people. I like the girls next door, but the ones who look like the biggest sluts have things Jenna doesn't. Things like stretch marks, scars, acne, cottage cheese...
As I am writing to Luke F-rd, maybe I'll take a second for self-analysis. Maybe I like Jenna because in real life I have a girlfriend with a beautiful body and beautiful face. The one thing Jenna has (physically) that my girlfriend doesn't is implants, and I mean that, the ONE thing. So do I then have a thing for perfect girls? Hmmm. Who cares? It feels good when I have sex with my girlfriend, it feels good when I watch a porn starring Jenna or "the girl next door" while I'm with my girlfriend, and it feels good when I masturbate watching a porn with Jenna or "the girl next door."
Personally, I've only been able to meet/interact with Jenna once. I took hoardes of pictures of her, both by herself and with others; Serentity, Stephanie Swift (and the rest of the Wicked girls), and some of her other gal pals like Jill Kelly and Nikki Tyler. They hammed it up, and were more than courteous. I don't hear much on the light side about Nikki Tyler, but on the personal experience side, I was able to spend time and talk with Nikki and she was sweet, funny, personable and gave me no signs of an inflated ego. She and Jenna were more than friendly (at least to me and those I saw). I don't feel I would be unable to date a porn star, but it would be a lot tougher to date the Wicked or Vivid girls, they are the pursued. That's what makes me want to watch them get f---ed. Porn is fantasy. Buy what you like.
People should give Jenna and Nikki credit for being beautiful and sexual and using it to get what they want. Are Jenna's noises fake? I'll just turn up the stereo. When a girl like Jenna will do more exhibitionism and get closer to me than 99% of the rest of the female population would, I'm not going to complain how and where she takes it. My only gripe would be s---ty camera angle or s---ty editing.
Save Sasha Gabor
New York radio personality Brett Dobin writes : "I first want to say thank you for running my letter about the imprisonment of Sasha Gabor. I just wanted to say that the purpose of taking pen in hand was to just try and help a good friend, not to receive an insult from Gloria Leonard. Gloria has been nice to me in person, and even granted me a 2 hour interview. She sounded to be very defensive about this whole thing. She made it sound like somebody was asking her to pay for Sasha's bail. What I was writing to you about were his legal fees. You had mentioned that he was not able to afford them.
"Yes I am a fan of this industry, and have made some friends, Sasha being one of the closest. This is a man that has always been kind to me and my family, and I just dont wanna see him fall by the wayside and be forgotten like so many others before him. I know that this is an industry where true friends are hard to come by, and people like to turn their backs on others in time of need. Gloria mentioned that she doesnt know if he's a member of the Coalition, or paw, who cares?, the man is a human being that has given this industry alot throught the years. I'm not saying that everybody has to come and rescue him, but those in power could reach out. I have the feeling that Gloria might have been a bit on the edge because Sasha maybe doesnt run in the same circles as her and her wealthy publisher friends, so she says who cares? Taking the attitude "if you do the crime, do the time" is a copout.
"This is a man that everybody knows and is well liked. He should not have to call upon these help organizations, they should contact him. Its one thing to sit back and collect money from performers for assisatance, and another to reach out to them and say "Hey, can I reach out and lend a helping hand"? Perhaps maybe a wealthy industry person will see this and perhaps go try and help him, and they will see that this is a man that has been through alot and has one hell of an interesting life. Everybody has made some wrong decisions in their life, and it just hurts to know that when somebody needs the help of their friends, they dont get it. This industry has long been called "One Big family", and Sasha has been a part of that family since before this industry became as large as it is today. Its like the old saying goes about the rich and powerful "One set of rules applies to me, and another to you". Gene, please post the prison, and maybe the address of Where Sasha is so anybody that wishes to correspond can do so."
Nina Hartley Keeps Her Domain Name
From www.sexreporter.com: Porn star Nina Hartley was in San Jose last week for a gig at the Pink Poodle strip club and brought some good news with her: She won her court battle to maintain the right to the "nina.com" domain name. Last year, Nina Footwear of New York accused Hartley of trademark infringement and complained to Network Solutions--the domain-name assigners--about the actress's website, which has been up since 1995. Hartley tells Eye that "her heart dropped out" when she first received the legal threat. But she ultimately decided to say "F 'em"--her phrase--since she had registered the domain name first. After all, she has used the stage name Nina Hartley for 15 years and appeared in more than 460 adult films during that span. Nina.com features interviews with the porn princess, her upcoming tour dates, essays and educational videos like Nina Hartley's Guide to Fellatio and, for more experienced lovers, Nina Hartley's Guide to Advanced Oral Sex. When Hartley fought back in federal court, Nina Footwear's lawyers backed off and settled. "Justice prevailed here," the well-rounded blond proclaims.
Janine Dances at the Paramount
Vivid girl Janine is dancing at the Paramount Gentleman's Club in Vancouver, British Columbia. BD writes on RAME:
Review Day: Aug 26/99
My buddy and I got there around 7:30. There were good seats available. There are no seats along the stage, just 3 rows of tables in front and a few tables along both side walls. We got a table in the 2nd row, right in the middle.
We were a little surprised that it wasn't too crowded, not like Racquel drew last year. The other thing that we noticed was the number of female customers who were attending with their male s/o. Very much higher than on any given night (at least here in the Greater Vancouver area). One of the dancers passing by us commented to the waitress that she had never seen so many women customers in there before. The scheduled time for her first appearance came and went. No sign of Janine. A dancer sitting at the table next to ours even commented "just get to the feature". We were expecting her to be late, so, it wasn't too frustrating.
My buddy commented that the DJ was terrible. He was talking way too fast and it sounded like he was holding the mic too close to his mouth. The booth is located at the back of the stage. He came out and started mopping the floor and cleaning the 1 brass pole. Another guy came out with towels to dry the stage. This looked like a good sign. I mention this because an amusing thing happened.
The women in the audience started hooting and hollering. I could see some of the house dancers were yelling at them to "take it off", a waitress yelled "duos!". It didn't sound like the female customers said anything. Amusing nonetheless. At 8:45pm she was announced. Well, at least it sounded like he said "Janine ... Club Magazine ... here ..." She came out in black leather pants and a red blouse (with a plunging neckline). She looked great. Her hair now has streaks of blonde and it is overall much lighter than in recent Club pictorials.
The first song was Chris Isaak's "Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing". She strutted around the stage. And that smile. Yikes. Seductive. Alluring. Friendly. I saw her back in 1993 when she came to town with Julia Ann as Blondage. She still looks great. She actually does dance. When I went to see Racquel, it was awesome and I'm the last guy to have anything negative to say when a beautiful woman gets on stage and takes her clothes off. However, all Racquel did was walk back and forth across the stage and take off her clothes. Not really a show.
Janine danced. She looked great. During a lull in the noise, I yelled that I had been waiting 6 years for this. I think she heard me cause she kind of stopped and it looked like she was listening. The people around me heard because they started laughing. More on this later.
While dancing to the left side of the stage (from my perspective) an older bearded gentleman went up towards her. My buddy was dead on when he said that they guy looks like Arn Anderson. He handed her a bill. I'm not sure of the denomination. She accepted with a smile and leaned in and gave him a peck on the cheek. The crowd erupted in cheers.
A little more dancing in the center and right side. She went back to the left and started taking off her pants. She motioned for Arn to approach the stage and remove her pants. He was grabbing them near her knees, but, she kept pointing towards her feet. When he got them off, he folded them up and stood there. She took them from him, again giving an awesome smile. She continued to dance until she was completely nude. She came off the stage and danced on the floor, getting a great response.
The music stopped and it looked like she was done. She went to the back of the stage where a lady handed her a blanket and a bottle. She went to the left, lay down and motioned for Arn again. He came up and she handed him the bottle. I'm not sure what exactly is in the bottle. He started shaking it. She lay down and spread her legs. He positioned the bottle close to her and squeezed. I guess she wasn't expecting that much pressure as she looked startled. She kept smiling, though. She turned over and put her butt towards him. He tried squeezing more, but, nothing came out. She then started gathering her self up and finally he was able to shoot some out, but, he missed completely. The song ended and she went to dry her self off. I thought it was over. But, she came out again and danced.
She came out on the floor and walked to the right of us, towards a table of 4 unsuspecting guys. In one quick motion she knocked everything off their table. The crowd cheered again. She put one leg on the table and simulated grinding the table's edge. It looked awesome. She then moved the table out of the way and jumped into the lap of one of the guys. She took off his glasses, held her breasts and rubbed them all over the guy's face. Yikes. His hands were on her butt. Yikes. She then went over to Arn and knelt in front of him. I couldn't see what was going on as everybody in front of me decided they needed a better look, too. She then went back on stage to more cheers. The music ended. She blew everyone a kiss and went backstage.
The entire show lasted just over 20 minutes. She packed a lot into those 20 minutes.
My buddy and I headed right over to the area where the features usually do their signings. We were about 5th or so in line. She brought 10 different 8x10 pictures. They were $15 each. Polaroids were $25. My buddy got 1 each, plus a polaroid. I picked out 4 that I liked, plus 2 polaroids. In the 2nd polaroid, I wanted to take her picture. Yeah, kind of a fantasy of mine to be a photographer. She asked if she should stand or sit in the picture. I said if she didn't mind, that I would like her to stand. She said no problem and stood. Very nice. She even made me look good in our picture together. You know she has to be good looking to absorb all the ugly I bring. :-)
She asked if I wanted the pictures to be signed to me. I did. She asked the same question about the polaroids. I did. I then asked how her son was doing. She said he's doing great and thanks for asking. I mentioned that I work for a video game company and did her son play video games. She said that he loves Crash Bandicoot. Ah, ha. They have a PlayStation. :-) I said that we mostly made sports games. She said he likes the snowboarding games. We make one of those. :-) I think I can get some games for her ... I mean for her son.
I had also brought 3 magazines with me: the AVN with the Vivid girls on it; Club Aug 98 (Janine on a Harley); and Club Jan 99 (Janine w/ Julia Ann). I asked her if she would sign them and that I was willing to pay. She said no problem and no charge. I then told her that I had about 50 Janine items and that I wanted to get the bulk of them signed, and that I would pay. She told me to bring them in and she would sign them. She just asked that I wait until the end so I didn't hold anybody up. No problem. When Jenna was in town, she made an appearance at a local video store. I took 7 magazines with me (I'm not a huge fan, I just got them incidentally because I was getting them for Janine).
As I kept pulling them out, I started hearing people laugh and somebody said "is the whole gallery in their". I didn't say anything and I was a little embarrassed. I must be such a PL (pathetic loser - thanks to ass-c) that other PLs laugh at me. Yikes. I wanted to avoid this happening, but, as it turned out I didn't escape it totally. When my buddy and I were heading back, I was relaying the Jenna story. He said that while he was waiting for me, some guys did say some stuff. But, that the woman they were with defended me, telling them to layoff as I had waited 6 years to see her again. Small consolation, but, I'll take it.
I also asked her about a private dance. The area is not really a private dance area, but, they call them that anyway. She said that she probably would not do them tonight, that she was feeling a little shy. Possibly tomorrow. Yeah, could be a line. So what. I was planning on going again anyway.
Jack Pepper's Mob Ties
Havana writes: Hey Luke, could use your help. A guy from Atlanta named Jack Pepper comes into the club where my friend works. He says that he wants to photograph her and another girl in a playboy, lesbian, artsy style, as well as put her in his awards show he says he setting up for Las Vegas with Penn and Teller, and has Pauly Shore hosting. If you could find out the truth, it would be greatly appreciated. Next time I'll tell you what happened when Tyffanny Mynx featured there a little while back.
XXX writes: Jack Pepper is right hand man for Jack Gallardi, owner of Gallardi South Enterprises, Pepper books the features for Gallardi's numerous clubs in the South. Jack is no more a photographer than Kid Vegas is a pornographer but Jack does have connections. Just what Kind of awards is Jack putting together? It is no secret that Penn Jillete is a big porn fan ditto Pauly Shore and Pauly's career is in the toilet anyhow. Nothing involving these guys (Gallardi, Pepper) would shock me. Look into a a story that happened in Anderson County SC last September or so. A Greenvilee SC club employee was making a run to Atlanta with the nights drop, he was ambushed on I85 South at around 3AM by what was described as gangbangers in a Black Mustang or similar, cept these gangbangers used fully automatic weapons...yep, machine guns. It never even made the newspapers. Lots of people were questioned about it though. CW has it that it was a hit, the car was torched. Maybe someone wanting to tell Jack G something, but more likely Jack G. telling someone something.
R. Robin McDonald writes in the August 19, 1999 Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
For Vanessa Steele, dancing naked is a business. The fees she commands as a featured dancer at nude clubs across the nation were her livelihood --- until she was disqualified from a national nude beauty pageant at a DeKalb County strip club because, she claims, the contest was rigged.
Blackballed by the club owners who had once hired her to highlight their nude extravaganzas and banned from nightclubs in four states that are owned by the Pink Pony's owner, Jack Galardi, Steele decided to fight back. The dancer is suing the Pink Pony, its Las Vegas owner and pageant organizers, saying they violated Georgia's beauty pageant statute and state racketeering laws. She is seeking triple the amount of money she spent to participate in the contest and her legal fees. Judges' ballots allegedly salvaged from the Pink Pony's Dumpster showed Steele had the highest score among the contestants when she was disqualified from the pageant in September 1997.
"It's rigged," said Steele's Atlanta lawyer, Mark Spix. "The spokesmodel for the Pink Pony won."
The lawsuit provides a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse at the city' s nude nightclub industry, the owners who operate those clubs, and the treatment of the dancers who seek employment there. It is a world in which the nightclubs that industry insiders refer to simply as "gentleman's clubs" are often anything but refined.
"She complained. I'm sure that marked her," Spix said of Steele. "There's an unlimited supply of women. There's not an unlimited number of nightclubs."
By 1997, the "Miss Nude World International" pageant had attracted national publicity. HBO was filming the pageant for its cable television show, "Real Sex," at the Pink Pony. Oui was doing a magazine photo shoot.
For the contestants, the stakes were higher. So was the price tag for participating.
Steele said she paid a $250 entry fee. She said each contestant was also required to buy a $600 advertisement in the pageant brochure.
She invested more than $10,000 for evening gowns, bikinis, clothing for mandatory outings and appearances and two custom-designed costumes for feature performances as the Sun Goddess and the Ice Princess.
She said her costumes were hand-sewn and adorned with Australian crystals, beads and sequins. Her sun goddess cape was stitched from 20 yards of satin. There were boots, gloves, garters, bustiers and bikinis that she would strip away during her act.
She bought promotional materials, T-shirts, posters, buttons, and small gifts for her customers to promote herself. She rented a snow machine for one act. As a contestant in the weeklong pageant, she also performed free of charge.
"They tell you they want you to campaign," she said."Every time someone called, they said you've got to buy this if you truly want to win."
Steele raised her first questions about the beauty pageant when she said she discovered that pageant organizers had billed contestants a $30-a-night surcharge for their motel rooms. Pageant literature warned contestants not to contact the hotel. Organizers told her the billing discrepancy was "an oversight," she said.
She became more concerned after the initial contest rounds Tuesday night. She had polished the number in previous performances and stripped for a Pink Pony audience just two weeks prior to the pageant.
"My show went very well," she said. "The audience was very responsive. When I came off the stage, people were saying, 'You won it.' " When she learned a day later that she had placed third instead of first, she asked to see the judges' score sheets. When Steele added her scores, she said she discovered the totals were wrong and that her real scores were much higher.
Big Clit Alert
Pat Riley writes on RAME: Seeing how much you loved Jail Babes #6
Why Kennedys Suck
From Luke F-rd Wire Service, Ltd.:
When a saloon keeper's son named Joseph Patrick Kennedy crossed the Charles River from East Boston in 1908, he took with him a tradition of bootlegging and barroom politics to which Joe would apply the Ivy League aura of legitimacy. The Kennedy clan, and Joe's future in-laws, the Fitzgeralds, between them controlled Boston's whiskey trade—licensing, importation, distribution—and bride-to-be Rose's father John Francis "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald was a former Massachusetts state senator then serving as Boston's mayor. From the very beginning, the Kennedy worldview regarded conflict of interest as a force of nature, and Joe Kennedy was the persuasive intermediary through which bootlegging's political and monetary force would buy its way into the nation's power elite.
Free enterprise was never freer than it was in those years of whiskey privateering, easy profits and no questions asked. In 1913, Joe Kennedy, only one year out of Harvard, had enough cash on hand to stave off a bank takeover—in exchange for which he was appointed, at 25, the youngest bank president in America. As Joe moved from one increasngly influential appointive post to the next, each with its exclusive trading opportunities, the Kennedy rumrunners were hard at it in the background, unloading their illcit cargo—allegedly on a beach near Plymouth Rock—and then sailing back to Ireland for more.
Joe was never without the ready cash to wager on the many sure bets that came his way. Already bonded to his heriditary colleagues in bootlegging—the Italian and Jewish mobsters—Kennedy's organized crime links were strengthened through his business interests in movies and horeseracing, and his public endorsement of mob-owned resorts. He profited handsomely during the blood-soaked Prohibition years, which alledgedly included a shootout between Joes' Boston-Irish drivers and Meyer Lansky's gang that left 11 dead.
He got a piece of Repeal as well, having used President Roosevelt's son as a go-between in a deal to import and stockpile liquor for "medicinal" purposes while it was still illegal. No American opportunist was ever more attuned to the moral and economic climate of his times than Joe Kennedy, whose meritorious commericial conduct soon found him elevated to high government office, first as head of the newly created Securities and Exchange Commission in 1934—where he would regulate the same stock manipulation techniques he had used to consolidate his own fortune. In 1936, Kennedy was appointed Ambassador to the Court of St. James—a post which he bungled horribly, but not without first allegedly making 20,000 pounds by short-selling Czech securities on the day Hitler invaded Czeochoslovakia.
By 1946, the family buiness that began in Boston's barrooms had become a dynastic mandate to put a Kennedy in the White House, and it was only then—just prior to John F. Kennedy's campaign for Congressman—that the liquor company was sold. However, Joe did not, and could not, divest himself of his long affiliation with the underworld and its celebrity apologists like Frank Sinatra. These forces would be invaluable when the time came, as Joe put it, to "sell Jack like cornflakes."
Joe Kennedy was not only the luckiest of all Irishmen, but the luckiest of all Kennedys as well. In his lifetime, he was never publicly branded a bootlegger. He never posed for a mug shot and never stood before a judge. And unlike four of his own children, four grandchildren including the bisexual John-John, and untold numbers of his business associates....he died in his own bed.
Luke's Site Sucks
TGumm writes: A few questions, First, Is it just me or has Luke F-rd's Site gone down hill? Don't get me wrong, I still read it everyday, but in last few months I've thought he has really Sucked! Secondly, Are there any women who have sites similiar to Luke F-rd and Gene Ross? I'd love to see a woman do a daily report on Porn!! Third, Are there any sites similiar to Luke & Gene, that do daily reports on European Porn Stars?
Mike Smith: I have also noticed a decline in quality and content, its almost as if he is writing things that are only funny to himself. I stopped reading the site a few weeks ago because it is pointless material - if you have been reading it you know what I mean. I used to like the guy but now I know why so many people in the industry can't stand him.
Malcom writes: "JFK Jr. gay rumors. George Bush cocaine allegations. Hollywood celeb "beard" stories. What do these things have in common? They're examples of some of the yellowest journalism I've ever seen and illustrate that you'll print anything, no matter how unsubstantiated. Even as satire it doesn't work. Let me know when you've gotten out of the gutter. And return to writing about porn stars."
Luke: "Interesting. Writing about porn stars is getting out of the gutter."
Luke's Book Sucks
A reader from San Francisco writes on Amazon.com about Luke's Book: The Publisher's Weekly review says it all: let me add that Luke F-rd's "A History of X" must rank as the most poorly written and worst edited book ever published; I cannot recall ever having read a worse book all the way through (yet I did, in widely spaced sessions, read it all the way through -- I did not abandon it, which is one of two good things I can say about the book).
Aside from the author's lack of coherence and a pitiful grasp of syntax, there are numerous errors (Ford simply can't add; when he mentions the passage of time, it is enough to strain credulity). The errors (I am a professional editor by the way) are SO numerous, I started underlining them after the first two dozen pages to calm my rage. An extremely inept writer, Ford uses liberal doses of quotations that sometimes fill half the page (albeit, in different blocks on the same page) as he seemingly is unable to paraphrase or mold source material into his own voice. Ford will present a quote and not even try to interpret it or question its validity. For instance, he uses a quote saying that John C. "Johnny Wadd" Holmes (whose woebegone life inspired the film BOODIE NIGHTS) was a true bisexual who willingly engaged in homosexual acts in his gay films, a questionable assertion; I have read more than once that Holmes despised being reduced to making gay pornos and had "elevator trouble" on the sets.
Other examples of a questionable use of quotes come in his recap of the career of Russ Meyer, the most respected (by the mainstream; I don't know if that is true with industry insiders) pornographer ever to make a dirty movie. In his discussion of Russ Meyer's BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS on pp. 106-7, Ford writes that critics "disagree" (note that he does not use the past tense) with Meyer's own assessment that B.V.D. is his best film. Yet, Leornard Maltin in his "1996 Movie & Video Guide" gives the film three out of four stars and notes that two "prominent critics" picked the film for their 10 best American films of the 1968-78 decade! In other words, this film (which I first saw in Boston 21 years ago as a midnight cult film that brought great guffaws of appreciation from the audience -- the theater was packed!) IS appreciated by the critics (that was why Ford's use of the present tense is important; I don't know if the film was dismissed critically in 1969, but he's flat wrong to say it currently is disdained; I've read that if Meyer's MUDHONEY, a steamy "Tobacco Road" style story had been shot in French, it would be considered a masterpiece; when discussing Meyer, he never mentions his inspirations such as Erskine Caldwell or the cultural background of Calvinistic guilt that the World War 2 G.I. generation confronted, and which likely was old hat by the explosion of hardcore; no analysis of the generation gap here). Ford backs his dismissal of Meyer's film with a quote calling B.V.D. an "atrocious film". (This is EXTREMELY questionable.) What is not discussed is that BVD was a big money-maker for 20th Century Fox, and its success was instrumental in that studio financing Meyer's filming of Harold Robbins' THE SEVEN MINUTES. In 1969-70, the Hollywood studios were reeling financially and the old guard was in shock, fighting a rearguard action against boards of directors and stockholders reacting to the astronomical success of EASY RIDER, which was made on the cheap as were Russ Meyer's profitable softcore movies, which is the reason why 20th Century Fox turned to him. This pivotal background is not discussed by Ford, who seemingly disdains Meyer. He also uses a quote of Meyer on the same page in which Meyer claims that the softcore pornography game was up for him as soon as hardcore became popular, but the fact is Meyer continued to make profitable films for seven years after DEEP THROAT was a national sensation in 1972. Ford's marshalling of quotes makes for a losing battle.
Ford's sense of style and pacing are atrocious: on that I think critics WILL agree. The poorness of this book may be attributable to the wholesale layoff of copy editors by publishers. On page 29, a paragraph relates, in the words of journalist cum pornographer Mike McGrady, how the spoof NAKED CAME THE STRANGER was conceived in a "gin mill," a memorable phrase of my father's G.I. generation. (The quote, about the alcholic consumption of alcohol by writers in that era, is no way relevant to the story, by the way.) However, the force of this turn of language is dissipated when the term gin mill is repeated in the quote in the next sentence (Ford's quotes do run-on, like my own sentences) and is completely obviated when Ford -- now in his own voice -- uses the same phrase gin mill without any irony or consciousness of style in the very next paragraph -- with only one sentence without the now worn-out phrase intervening between McGrady's voice and his own!
This book is a pure excercise in amateurishness in both style and contruction. There are hardly any transitions between the stories his material relates, and there is a lack of interconnecting material to elucdiate for us why two stories are placed next to each other. A HISTORY OF X seems to be a rough draft which never had seen the hands of an editor of any experience, published with little regard to quality (thus mimicking the very genre it chronicles). Sometimes, the material in adjacent paragraphs is not even related to each other.
Factual errors include attributing the production of BONNIE AND CLYDE to the post-1968 dropping of the ratings code (the film, a nominee for Best Picture of 1967, was shot in 1966 and its success, along with that of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, was instrumental in dooming the code) [p.31]. We are told that porn actress Kelly Nichols "did three mainstream films in the summer of 1983....A few years later, Nichols was Jessica Lange's stunt double in the remake of KING KONG" [p. 170]. In the planet I inhabit, as do most readers, the remake of KING KONG that introduced the world to Jessica Lange was released in 1976!!!! (Lange had already won the first of her two Oscars by the time KING KONG introduces her to the public on Planet Ford.)
Then, there is his inability to add: 1980 comes 10 years (rather than a decade, which one could allow) after 1969 [p. 30]. After running through a chronology of Linda Lovelace's life (born in 1950) which brings her up to the years 1969-70, two sentences later she moves to Florida and it is 1967 (what did she use; a time machine?) [p. 45]
I will give Ford credit for the chapter about the Mafia's involvement in the porno business; I was not aware of the extent of its control over the industry (a subject skirted by the film BOOGIE NIGHTS). However, I was irritated about Ford's handling of the Supreme Court's 1973 Miller decision, which applied community standards to porno and put the brake on the whole party until the skyrocketing sales of VCRs in the 1980s. While Miller is mentioned frequently, I never felt that Ford truly elucidated the deleterious effects the decision had on the development of the pornographic film industry or on the arts and entertainment industry in the US as a whole. The decision is just not given the WEIGHT it deserves in the text, though I must concede, this may be an honest matter of different interpretations.
My point is, though, there is precious little interpretation or application of authorial skill to the telling of this fascinating story. A HISTORY OF X is slapdash effort that should shame the publishing house, Prometheus Books.