Sleaze: New Additions to My Collection (Fall 2008)

Only the Best by C. Lyon
1970, (1st American edition), UG book, 152 pages
Design & Cover by Charles Barrows. Photo Illustrated.
Not a novel but 2 longer erotic stories: The first is about a man and a woman, not married. The woman does everything to make the man stay with her. She even allows him to whip her regularly. The second story is a psychiatrist’s report about a woman who cannot live without sex. She has affairs with men and women. (Good condition, margins slightly tanned.)

Story one
First sentence: I guess I should have been able to analyze al the reactions – chemical and emotional – and come up with the correct formula way back.
Last Sentence: I started to look round for the quickest way out... but I’d be back!
Story two
First sentence: "The file on your – your next patient, Doctor Clayton." The pretty brunette nurse put the thick file on the desk with an air of worried disapproval.
Last Sentence: "Good morning, Mrs. Clayton!" she murmured, doing her best to make her voice sound professionally impersonal.

Call It Gangbang by Parnell Farmer
1970, Bee-line, 148 pages
Front cover text: Five luscious chicks started out as victims of a weird sex club. But they loved what happened to them – and soon came back for more and more ... and more!
Back cover: Jennifer didn't really want to be raped – but when she was dragged into the bushes, she thought she might as well make the best of it. After all a girl doesn’t get a chance to make love every day! But her attackers were members of a secret club with weird ideas of sexual games – and they actually left their victims wanting more! So Jennifer got together with some of the club's other victims, and they formed a wild club of their own that blew the lid off everybody's inhibitions! (Good condition, paper very slightly tanned.)

First sentence: The indignity of the assault was almost as bad as the attack itself.
Last Sentence: The she cried softly until she reached the bus depot...

Syndicate Sex by Mitchell Criterion
October 1970, Midwood Books (Cameo Editions), 198 pages
Cover Blurb: "Syndicate Sex has become a nationwide best-seller. Its boldness, intrigue, and sensuality are unequalled. [...] another sizzling exposé of the underworld from writer/reporter Mitchell Criterion." Kellerman, Chicago Exchange

Backside: Two scandal-sheet editors had tried to shake him down. They both would up with their heads blown off. Sue Barrett knew no one could shake him. She worked for him. And loved him. Giving herself was only a favor – but a necessary one. One that wasn’t going to end there.... Wherever easy money flowed, the Syndicate took top cut. Wherever easy women moved, the Syndicate had first choice. (Good condition.)

First sentence: The Greek’s was strictly a man’s bar, but swanky in a way that men’s bars rarely are, with red brick façade and a high-peaked roof, the design modern enough to pass for a suburban church.
Last Sentence: Sue sucked him slowly and gently, concentrating on all the ways a woman could be good for the man she loved.

Black Man's Harem by Francis Haverhill
1969, A Century Book, 218 pages
Cover Blurb: "A European novel, in the classic tradition, of two black studs and their stable of rich, love-starved white women!
Joanna is spending some days in Guyana and seduces a native waiter. She wants him to come to England and he does together with his brother Ebony. Joanna’s friend Maria is already waiting for the young black man. After some time with Joanna and Maria the two black brothers meet another man from Guyana, who provides young and virile black men to a circle of rich white women in London. Soon the two brothers earn their living from making it with these horny ladies. (Good condition, margins tanned.)

First sentence: Randolf Malone felt nervous and excited.
Last Sentence: The electric alarm clock was ringing furiously, and in her arms she was clutching a pillow...

The Young College Professor by Marty McCade
1972, A Star Book, 190 pages
Cover blurb: "The Professor took his lessons very seriously. until (sic) one of HIS STUDENTS decided to SEDUCE HIM. He now became the STUDENT and she the TEACHER."
David Walters, a young, naive college instructor, is sexually awakened by a series of encounters with his female students and colleagues. Hungry for new experiences he begins to frequent a bar where he meets Valerie James, a voluptuous young woman with an insatiable hunger for men’s bodies. David is slowly corrupted by Valerie and her friends who introduce him to a variety of strange lusts and perversions. Seeing the crisis in his life, Beverly Tanner, a friend from high school days, begins to fight for him, using any weapons available to her, including her body. (Good condition, margins a little tanned.)

First sentence: She didn't have any pants on!
Last Sentence: It was too late for anything now, except my lust.

First Experiences by Peter Kanto
1969, A Beeline Book, 217 pages
Ray Paul is a teenager eager to learn about sex. From his tree house he watches his brother and his wife Ruby making love and gets turned on. He is seduced by the middle-aged waitress of the local pub and later by Ruby, his sister-in-law. Ray Paul practices his new knowledge with a classmate, but his real love is Debby Sue. She is very reluctant, but he finally succeeds in seducing her and they make passionate love. (Good condition, margins tanned.)

First sentence: Friday afternoon late George came wheeling into the drive in his red convertible.
Last Sentence: "Goddamn nothing, nothing, nothing," Ray Paul said. "Absolutely Goddamned nothing."

Man Called Sex by Peter Kanto
1966 (Second Printing), Brandon House, 186 pages
Cover blurb: He had an appeal to frustrated wives and passionate girls because he was A MAN CALLED SEX
Back cover: Regg Walker had a way with the girls who come aboard his boat: He’d take them to bed for the wildest round of passion they ever experienced! He thought he knew all about sex ... Then he met Evadne, and his carefree world became a nightmare of bizarre lust. (Good condition, margins slightly tanned.)

First sentence: "You stay in this business long enough, you learn how to spot 'em," Regg Walker thought.
Last Sentence: Then Regg took her on a two week vacation-delayed-honeymoon to show her his island.

Culture: Pop Void #1

(Ed., Jim Morton, Pop Void Publications, 1987)

Described by its editor Jim Morton as "a National Geographic for people of another planet," this was the first of what was to be a series of volumes of the publication, but as far as I know, it never went past the first issue.

A celebration to the lower echelons of U.S. Pop Culture, Pop Void #1 features articles of various lengths on such subjects as the artwork of Margaret & Walter Keane, the poetry of Rod McKuen, such popular foodstuffs of the past and present as Funny Face Instant Drink Mix and Kraft Macaroni, the history and development of nudism in the U.S., the phenominon of Lawrence Welk, literary output of the great maker of Bad Movies, Ed Wood, Jr., and much, much more. The quality of the articles and the amount of information they contain vary, but regardless of length or sentence structure, the subject presented is of interest to any fan of obscure Americana tastelessness. Actually, considering the obscurity of some of the subjects, the disinterest in which they are held in by the average public, that any information can be given is almost a surprise.

Easy to read and informative, the Pop Void #1 leaves the reader wanting more, more, more — which makes it all the more a shame that no further editions ever seem to have seen the light of day. A copy of this publication belongs up on every modern person’s bookshelf, sandwiched between some old ReSearch publication and Jeffrey Tennyson’s Hamburger Heaven (a study of the cultural and social implications of the hamburger), and with a Thriftstore bought print of one of the Keene’s pathetically sad big-eyed children hanging proudly on the wall above it.

Look for both, Pop Void and the print, and possess them with pride.

Images:

Top — The cover.

Bottom — A purty picture by the Keanes.

Celebrity: You'll Never Make Love in This Town Again

(Dove Books, 1995, by Robin, Liza, Linda and Tiffany — as told to Joanne Parrent)

The blurb is the back from Gloria Steinem claims that amongst other stuff, this book "explains why woman-hating movies are foisted on the world." Well, she must have read a different book, for You’ll Never Make Love In This Town Again is little more than an overlong and tiring read about the perversions of stars named, unnamed and inferred by four woman of varying likeability who claim to have made their living at times as prostitutes in Hollywood. The goal of Joanne Parrent might be noble, but the book remains nonetheless trashy and, in the end, redundant.

Despite the hefty setbacks some of the four gals had as kids, the odd pride that sometimes infuses their narration of their plied trade takes the punch out of the expose, pushing the book from factual to cheaply thrilling. This tawdry flavor is reinforced completely by the books entire packaging, and its claim to expose "the other side of the industry – equally insidious, twice as intriguing and thricely erotic."

Well, you won't get any hard-ons here, but aside for Robin and sometimes Liza, you won't feel much sympathy either. The stories often reek too much of women who wanted and enjoyed the fun of their exciting and "sleazy" lifestyle but are now pissed off to find out that it included no retirement benefits. You know, you eat too many deserts, you gonna get fat; in the end, the amount of cake – and number of dicks or pussies – you eat is your decision. Simply said, just because it is there doesn't mean ya got to do it. The life that the woman chose exits on many levels in every country, not just Hollywood – but probably only in Hollywood will the stories then include the big names. People do like to putting the blame on something, don't they? Hell, the nature of a one night stand or a fuck-relationship remains the same no matter who it involves; these girls just got drugs and money for taking part in the fun. The rest of the world, well, some who lived the life (but at a different level or different way) lost everything too or moved on to newer, better things (like a job, relationship, kids, bills, high blood pressure and an early death). But, god damn it, we didn't do it with James Cann, Warren Beatty or Shannon Tweed (who?). Drugs and sex can be a fuck-up no matter who is involved; hopefully you learn from the mistakes and move on. If not, well, whine out a book like this and make some money from the cheap titillation….

This volume has since been followed by Hooking Up: You'll Never Make Love in This Town Again Again, which probably is just more of the same but with new names.

True Crime: Death at Every Stop

(Wensley Clarkson, St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 1997)
Let’s give St. Martin’s a loud, appreciative hand for having once again managed to publish the full, factual and deeply insightful story of another contemporary murderer seconds after the echoes of the sound of last victim hitting the ground fade.

The murder of 1997 was undoubtedly that of designer Gianni Versace in Miami, the fifth cold-blooded killing by the HIV-infected, egoistic, narcissistic and decidedly "experienced" Andrew Cunanan. This book, while being no psychological masterpiece, does give an interesting insight into the life of the intelligent, attractive (by U.S. standards) gigolo, a life that slowly but surely led to his total self-destruction. By the end of Death at Every Stop, it is relatively easy to believe not only that Cunanan did the deed—hey, there is always a conspiracy out there somewhere; can you really prove that the CIA didn't do it?—but that he was completely capable of doing it.

Considering the young man’s lively past, the variety of his experiences and his ability to roll with all the prior blows in his life no matter how unexpected or large they were, it is a bit hard to fully understand what finally drove him off the edge. Jealousy, the undirected rage from being diagnosed as HIV-positive, the realization that his desirability was steadily decreasing as his age (wrinkles and grey hair) increased, some unexplainable urge to revenge himself against the world and all those who slighted him or did better than he did.... these and more possible reasons are presented, though by the end of his book, Clarkson strongly conveys the conviction that it must have been a mixture of everything that made Cunanan go on his rampage.

When viewing Cunanan himself, one sees an egoistic, narcissistic asshole whose friendship was probably based on the dollar bill but who was also probably great company. His high-sex, sordid life took a variety of interesting and unexpected turns that make for many an entertaining story, but nonetheless tells the sad tale of a talented man who, due to his own ego and inability to take responsibility, went headlong into his own destruction and, in the end, was fully intent to take others with him. Well, it must have been fun while it lasted.

But in regards to this book, the murder happened so long ago that a better written and more insightful and informative work is probably available. For a buck at Goodwill, why not? But if you're going to blow real dough, get something with a tad more substance.

Images:

(all found on the web)

Top — The book itself.

Middle — "Don't you want me, baby?"

Bottom — Uh, not anymore...