Ladies: if it’s your first time and you’re wondering if you’re drunk enough, the answer is no, you are not. Drink until you’ve forgotten how to wonder things.
Posts Tagged ‘alkyholism’
Movie Millisecond: the Sandlot
July 22, 2011
The Sandlot (David M. Evans, 1993).
Since you won’t stop asking*, here are the rules for the Sandlot drinking game.
Wendy Peffercorn will take you down to Cougar Town.
I’m not even going to bother listing some of the others we’ve come up with over the years. There is even a version I designed where you pick a character and have character-specific instructions (e.g., drink on “Yeah-yeah,” or, for beginners, drink whenever Bertram actually has a line). But really, I can’t in good conscience even keep going. Those rules are sufficient. Drink lots of water out there, dudes.
Conversely, I also have a long explanation of why this is an excellent model for Christian values and highly suited for use in a parochial school classroom. I’m a complex mirror maze of a woman. Not a “hot mess.” Complex mirror maze.
*completely untrue. it has never come up.
Movie Millisecond and The Way They Were: William and Audrey edition
June 3, 2011
William Holden and Audrey Hepburn as David Larrabee and Sabrina Fair(child).
Isn’t that always the way of it? Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954).
William Holden and Audrey Hepburn fell in love on this set and began a very passionate affair.“Before I even met her, I had a crush on her, and after I met her, just a day later, I felt as if we were old friends, and I was rather fiercely protective of her though not in a possessive way.
(William Holden, qtd. in William Holden: A Biography. Michelangelo Capua. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2010. p. 79.)
“She was the love of my life. Sometimes at night, I’d get a portable record player and drive out to the country to a little clearing we’d found. We’d put on ballet music. Some of our most magic moments were there.”
(Ibid. p. 81)
Audrey and William on location in Lower Manhattan for Sabrina, 1953.
Supposedly Holden wanted to officially leave his wife Ardis, from whom he was separated for the majority of his marriage, and be with Audrey, but she turned him down because he’d had a vasectomy and being a mother was essential to her. I’ve never really seen that 100% substantiated. In any case, Audrey allegedly announced her engagement to Mel Ferrer at a party the Holdens were hosting. And you thought you’d been through bad break-ups.
Audrey married Mel Ferrer in 1954, Holden became an alcoholic who grew difficult to insure on pictures, and they did not see each other for a decade, until they were paired again in 1963 to film Paris When It Sizzles.
“I remember the day I arrived at Orly Airport for Paris When It Sizzles. I could hear my footsteps echoing against the walls of the transit corridor, just like a condemned man walking the last mile. I realized that I had to face Audrey and I had to deal with my drinking. And I didn’t think I could handle either situation.”
(William Holden.)
He was right in that assessment. Hollywood legend has it that William Holden tried repeatedly, with horrible results, to win back the woman he cited as the love of his life.According to scriptwriter George Axelrod, Holden often showed up on set drunk and, on one occasion, climbed a tree by a wall leading up to her room. Hepburn leaned out the window to find out where the noise was coming from when Holden grabbed and kissed her. He then slipped out of the tree and landed on a parked car below.
(Martin Gitlin. Audrey Hepburn. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 2009. p. 72.)
Audrey’s interest in men, according to the few who got to know her intimately during her career, though strong, was intermittent. She had affairs when passing through emotionally tense times. She had a preference for men who made the first move, who were bold, … and [who] didn’t appreciate her rare nature. Observers were surprised at Audrey’s tolerance of her lovers’ habits, their bluntness and sometimes crude languge: the opposite of her composed nature. Perhaps that was where their attractiveness lay.
(Alexander Walker. Audrey: her real story. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. p. 90-91.)
Audrey died of cancer January 20, 1993. As for William Holden,
On November 12, 1981, Holden was alone and intoxicated in his apartment in Santa Monica, California, when he slipped on a throw rug, severely lacerated his forehead on a teak bedside table, and bled to death. Evidence suggests he was conscious for at least half an hour after the fall. It is probable that he may not have realized the severity of the injury and did not summon aid, or was unable to call for help. His body was found four days later.
(the wiki.)
R.I.P. to both.
Movie Millisecond: Baby wants her booze
May 11, 2011
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (Robert Aldrich, 1962.)
I watched this movie the same day I watched Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, on a lazy Saturday when I was about seven and my mother was out of town. I don’t know what the hell my dad was thinking renting those two videos, but I’ve never forgotten either one.
Holly Jolly Christmas Day: Art of the advertisement, Take two
December 25, 2010
Pretty sure they mean a case to give away as gifts, not to drink by yourself.
Yesterday’s News and Burroughs Month: Double inaugural editions and an introduction
September 9, 2010Mexico, September 8, 1951 — The Daily News reports that, in a drinking game which turned tragic, writer William S. Burroughs accidentally shot wife Joan Vollmer fatally in the head. He was aiming for the glass of gin on top of her head.
William Seward Burroughs, 37, first admitted, then denied today that he was playing William Tell when his gun killed his pretty, young wife during a drinking party last night.
via Le Revérénd Docteur right here on the wordpress.
Apparently William S. Burroughs was also a heroin addict and later threw out being bi and went whole-hog homosexual, being one of the first to identify as “queer” and reclaim the word as positive. The latter I’m way down for and think is great, the former …? — I don’t get how people can be addicted to heroin and still live long and functioning lives. Heroin addicts, clue me in on how this is possible? Seems so inescapably destructive a drug that it kind of puzzles me. I suppose having a lot of money helps. Then you don’t engage in all the risky behaviors poorer addicts do in order to acquire money to buy the drug. This is speculation: I am neither well-off nor a heroin addict. I like to try and take a “never say never” approach to life but I feel safe asserting that I will probably never be either.
I’ve used this picture before, but I cannot get enough of Burroughs’ delightfully priggish and pedantic expression. Looking straight down his nose at Kerouac and no doubt both laced to the gills. 1953, Greenwich Village.
I say “apparently,” about those factoids from his life story because, you guys, it’s super embarassing and inexplicable, but I know pretty much zip about William S. Burroughs. I don’t know how it happened, but seriously — virtually zip. I don’t even know if I’ll like all that I plan to read by him, but I was idly flipping through my millions of pictures and run across the scan of the newspaper clipping. I decided that the coincidence of a) searching for someone new to focus on this month; b) toying with an idea for a feature called Yesterday’s News that would be news out of history that had also literally been printed the day before the present date, rather than the more hackneyed “on this date in history…” etc, and c) finding something on Burroughs that’d been published yesterday in history* was too much synchronicity to ignore. So today marks the beginning of Burroughs Month. Welcome!
To be clear: Joan Vollmer was killed September 7. The article is dated September 8, and is the “yesterday’s news” to which the category will henceforth refer. This is partly a “how good am I at searching archives” challenge as well.
edit: Please read the comments, where DaveW takes us to school in re: heroin and Ms. Vollmer. Thanks for the info and insights, Dave!
Girls of Summer: Delores Wells, Miss June 1960
August 31, 2010
Photographed by Don Bronstein.
Delores Wells, Playboy’s Miss June 1960, shares her October 17th birthday with the anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, which stopped the World Series and collapsed the Cypress Structure on the Nimitz Freeway and part of the Bay Bridge, and with the birthday of my dearest old friendoh Big Ben, who I’ve gotten to see twice this month and am super glad of it (a much more cheery connection).
At the time of her Playboy appearance, Ms. Wells was living in Chicago, like a lot of the early centerfolds. She worked as a bunny in the Chicago club. Sources suggest that Ms. Wells made $1,000 per week working at the club, but that her payment for this pictorial was only $500.
The above picture did not make it in to the original spread because Ms. Wells’ pubic hair was slightly visible, which god forbid — until the Pubic Wars of the 70’s.
Ms. Wells eventually wung her way west and appeared in several of the surf-rock propelled, beach party movies that were popular in this era: Beach Party, Muscle Beach Party, and Bikini Beach.
Beach party movies came up for us recently in the context of Sharon Tate’s Actual Life Awareness Month, but I had not taken the time to discuss them because I was trying to stick to my self-imposed edict of keeping the spotlight on Ms. Tate. In this post I am beholden to no such stringency and will tell you all about it.
American International Pictures produced the first “beach party” movie, titled, go figure, Beach Party in 1963. I do not count the Gidget movies. Wikipedia does, but I do not. In my opinion the AIP beach movies were too different to give Gidget inspiration credit, and had a totally different market and theme in mind. Also I have been a huge Connie Francis guy since birth, and even though I know it is stupid and pointless, I bear a grudge against Sandra Dee for being the one who got to marry Bobby Darin. Yes, I know: stupid and pointless.
Following the success of Beach Party, AIP cooked up more films featuring beachy monkey shines, about seven in all, which mainly served as frontispieces for selling the motion picture soundtracks with appearances from popular musicians of the era. (You know — like Shrek movies.)
Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon starred in the majority of the AIP beach party flicks, and players like Ms. Wells appeared regularly as the same “Type” of person, though sometimes with different character names from film to film. The important thing was their recognizable persona. You know, the giggly flirts, the schoolbookish types, the buffed dimwits, etc … and, of course, the ne’er do wells. In the AIP beach party movies, the ne’er do wells were the comically inept Rats & Mice.
Oh, the decorative sex*. Hands-down my favorite shot.
The villains of the story were usually biker Eric Von Zipper (played by comic actor Harvey Lembeck as a parody of Marlon Brando in The Wild One) and his inept gang the Rat Pack, or “Rats & Mice”.
(the wiki)
The most popular running gag of the beach party series is “The Himalayan Suspender” technique, originated by Professor Sutwell in Beach Party, in which the forefinger is pressed against a certain part of the skull, rendering the victim paralyzed. The victim of this move (aka “The finger”) was always [Rats & Mice leader] Eric Von Zipper, who learned it from Sutwell and threatened people with it in subsequent films, calling it “The Rats’ Revenge.”
(Ibid.)
However, Von Zipper’s finger never worked on others, only himself. Once Von Zipper became paralyzed (usually with a big open-mouthed smile on his face), the Rats & Mice would carry him out and declare “Eric Von Zipper will return!”
(Ibid.)
I am pretty sure one of my girlfriends in high school lay “the finger” on our other friend as he knelt between us in Math class trying to coax my friend to share more of her large water bottle full of vodka mixed with orange juice, from which we’d been healthily improving our outlook on the late morning for at least a half hour. We told him to go away before he made it obvious what was going on, but he was having none of it.
I was particularly concerned about “maintaining” because I was not the kind of student who got in trouble, living a very weird double life in which I outwardly exemplified a golden student and banner citizen and genuinely cared about service to others and studying for tests, yet I also secretly ditched school, drank, and smoked. I was too young at that time to reconcile those behaviors with one another. I was also worried because I was better friends with his sister than with this guy, though he too was a friend, and I looked up to her as a role model, and my opinion at that time was that the less he knew about my bad behavior, the better.
A close contender for favorite shot of the spread.
Exasperated and sympathetic to my worries, my girlfriend made hoo-doo signs in the air over our annoying friend’s head and elaborately pressed her index finger to the middle of his forehead, and he did a method face plant from his knees in to the carpet of the classroom.
We thought this was hysterical.
I have no idea how any of this was going on while a teacher was in the room, but that shit would never fly with me. My covertly misspent youth is a mixed blessing for my students: I am empathetic to their desire to break the mold and be bad, and party down and word up and whathaveyou in the process of living their life, man, but I am simultaneously wise to their shenanigans. The hell you are flashing a pack of Marlboros in here, young lady — if the girls’ bathroom during passing period was good enough for me, it’s good enough for you; and you may save your joints for behind the tennis court like everyone else since time out of mind, mister.
Coda about the three characters in this anecdote, as we stand fifteen years later. My girlfriend in this story’s son and my daughter were baptized together five years ago. She works as a physician’s assistant. The guy on whom we lay the finger and I got high a few years later on the state seal the night before he went to join the Marines, or maybe the Air Force. I’d gotten over my hang-up about fearing too greatly the judgment of people I cared about. We stumbled to the Hard Rock Cafe and ate our weight in onion rings, and he told them it was my birthday even though it wasn’t, so we scored free dessert. Later he worked as the music teacher at our Catholic high school in town and is now pursuing a full-time career in Los Angeles as a musician.
I am now substitute teaching at the very church at which we all met, and drive every day past the high school in the story. All that time I wanted to drink and smoke away the trapped feeling of the pressure of living in this town, which shrinks the longer you live here and the more people you know, so that a town of 215k or so can start to feel quite small indeedy, and now I like it just fine. Did I mellow out, or did I sell out? I think the former.
One of the above pictures has made an appearance here before, in the inaugural “Showdown!” edition. I’ve totally dropped the ball on “Showdown!”s. Those were fun. All apologies: will remedy it soon, promise.
Coda to Ms. Wells’ story: the very lovely and talented Ms. Wells continued to work in film and television in Los Angeles. Later, she worked for a while as personal secretary to the late Linda Lovelace, controversial star of Deep Throat. They met at a party at the Mansion in Holmby Hills. I assume her time with Ms. Lovelace ended before Ms. Lovelace’s denunciation of the pornography industry.
Ms. Wells is still alive and kicking and will celebrate her 73rd birthday this coming October 17th, which brings us full circle to the beginning of an entry that it’s taken me four days to write. Again, all apologies — had a lot of dogs in the fire, Stanimal. No reflection on marvelous Ms. Wells or the AIP beach flicks. This post has now reminded me that I need a movie moment on both Deep Throat and the magnificent camp parody Psycho Beach Party. I’ll try to get to that, I swar to gar! All y’all keep on rockin’ in the free world and please forgive me my absences.
*Phrase borrowed with amused admiration from chainedandperfumed right here on the wordpress, then googled and found to be of even more apt camp and vintage. Thanks for the loan, c&p. Truly you are the O.G. of this biz.
Movie Moment: Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman
July 10, 2010Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman (Nathan Juran, 1958).
Credit for all these great screencaps is due to meltdownclown on the lj.
Oh, no, it’s a giant lady and is she pissed. I think everyone should see this movie so I will only give you the barest bones of the lowdown and let the caps do the convincing, here. I think I’ll blather about Allison Hayes after a brief plot summary.
Allison Hayes plays Nancy Archer, a wealthy but unhappy wife with a dick of a husband who drives her to drink. All that dandy Harry, played by William Hudson, wants to do is hang out at the bar with his trampy girlfriend named (wait for it) Honey.
Honey is played by the lovely and talented Yvette Vickers, who we will see much more of, well, ALL of, later this month in her Girls of Summer appearance.
Besides Honey and Harry pissing her family money away on gin and poorly rolled cigarettes in a van down by the river, Nancy has other troubles too, as ladies sometimes do, such as spending time in sanitariums and getting hit with rays from alien orbs that make her huge.
When Nancy sees evidence of aliens landing and insists on her story’s truth, Harry decides it’s the perfect opportunity to get her committed for good, the better to spend her money and bang Honey free of nagging.
Because it’s hard to ask your husband where he’s going or how come a check bounced when you’ve got that clampy-downy-so-you-don’t-bite-off-your-tongue-while-the-jokers-make-an-epileptic-of-you electroshock mouth guard thingy in your mouth. Better living through electricity. Tell a friend.
Honey and Harry, because they are good and god-fearing people, flirt with the idea of just o’d’ing Nance on her sedatives, but it’s too late! The most repressed and angry drunk in town, pretty much the last person you’d ever want to grow into a strong super-giant, has — grown into a strong super-giant!
Oh, shit, you did NOT expect her to come down to the bar and wreck the joint. And even if you thought it was a dim possibility, you probably didn’t picture her 50 feet tall.
Nancy’s well-deserved rampage doesn’t come until nearly the end of the film and is sadly brief at that, but she does manage to kill both Honey and Harry, so that’s a check in the win column.
Allison Hayes (née Mary Jane) was labeled by Life magazine in one of the few other before Fifty Foot Woman pics I found of her as “Miss Washington 1949,” confusing all the way around because she was really Miss District of Columbia and it was as a Miss USA candidate, NOT Miss America. More on Miss USA in a sec.
According to the wiki she was also crowned Miss Dixie in 1951, which pageant has come up before in our Valentine Vixen post on Nancy Jo Hooper. The lovely and talented Sophia Loren lookalike Ms. Hooper was runner-up in the 1962 Miss Dixie pageant. Remember?
To refresh your memory on the super-fair and reasonable rules of the beauty contest, via pageantopolis: “Each contestant was judged on five qualities: intellect (5%), personality (10%), appearance in evening gown (15%), talent (30%), and appearance in swim suit (30%).”
“The judges each picked the girls they rated from first to seventh in each classification of competition. The girl with the highest cumulative point score became Miss Dixie.”
You may sneer at the low rating of intellect on the judging scale and I agree it’s not entirely amiss. But if you are ruffled by the equal weight of “talent” and “appearance in a swimsuit” please remember that the Miss USA pageant continues not to have a “talent” portion at all.
Let’s give credit where credit is due: kudos to the Miss USA organization for not sugar-coating the fact that this is a contest where what really matters is bikinis.* Let’s call a spade a spade and make no bones of this thing — leave your cello at home, honey, because what we want to know about you is how you look in a “formal” dress that would make a pimp blush.
*The Miss USA pageant organization and its sister organization, Miss Universe, provide women with the opportunity to travel, further their education and serve the international community through philanthropy. Charities aligned with the Miss USA organization include the Susan G. Komen for the Cure® Foundation, the USO, and, most importantly to me, Gilda’s Club.
I’m not knocking Miss USA herself nor any titleholders or competitors past or present. They’re hard working good looking gals and that’s great. I’m just saying — a talent portion would make the pageant look better. Also, no more Donald Trump and reality television programs built around it would help.
Ms. Hayes was lifelong close personal friends with the quietly wonderful fag of our fathers Mr. Raymond “Perry Mason” Burr, beginning with the time of filming 1954’s Western film Count Three and Pray. After her own tv and screen careers started petering out, Burr wrangled her 5 separate guest appearances on Perry Mason.
That makes so much sense cause everyone knows that gay guys love beauty pageants, am I right. Hey everybody it’s mildly-hateful generalization day! mildly-hatefully generalize with me! Black guys like purple. Chicks like shoes. Irish people unilaterally drink.
I’m sure you will be shocked, given the care and craft evidenced in these photos, to learn that Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman was made for only around $88,000. The picture was a huge hit and talk of a sequel was shopped about but never materialized.
There was a 1993 remake by Christopher Guest (Best in Show, Spinal Tap) for HBO that was rated a critical failure. I disagree but I am widely known for my devotion to its star, one Miss Daryl Christine Flyass Mothafuckin’ Hannah!!!, so I admit to enormous bias.**
**Flyass Mothafuckin’ is a family name. If she was a boy it would have been her first name, not her middle. Girls in the family are named Daryl and boys are named Flyass Mothafuckin’. Did You Know?***
***This is the opposite of true.
In the 1993 update, the Nancy character is not so much an alcoholic, though she is neurotic and repressed. There is also the addition of a really overbearing father and her husband is bossier with her too. As with the original, when she gets her “day,” you are pumped as shit for her.
I like this type of story. I always liked to see the quiet kid with glasses ignoring his lunchroom tormentors just up and flip the fuck out and go nuts and bloody noses and make rich kids cry. But the truth is, the couple times I’ve seen something similar, and I am this way as well, come to think of it so I’ll switch to “we” on this one — it never quite works out.
We hold-it-all-in types are so out of practice at being expressively furious that we tend to sputter when we try to swear at our oppressors, and somehow we do not entirely break things that we throw at the wall even if we thought we threw it pretty hard.
Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman has been widely satirized and paid homage to, I hope I am convincing you justly.
As a few examples, the image of Nancy in her white dress from the poster pops up on album covers for alternative bands now and again, and on people’s walls in movies a lot. The shot of her next to the power lines (to demonstrate her shocking height!!) has become fairly iconic because it’s a great composition.
In the recent animated film Monsters vs. Aliens, the character of Susan, voiced by Reese Witherspoon, is an obvious parody of Nancy Archer. When Susan first becomes Ginormica, she is exactly fifty feet tall, although she grows slightly larger a few times throughout the film.
Susan/Ginormica’s character backstory is also similar to Nancy’s. She is a sweet, self-sacrificing girl who is put upon by her arrogant, grandstanding fiance, and frequently represses her own feelings in favor of giving his primacy. She does not consider herself strong and generally relies on others to rescue and advise her.
By the end of the film, she has become resolutely strong and self-sufficient, and it’s a very enjoyable transition to watch. I think I might have to give it its own Movie Moment one of these days, because it is also hilarious.
Subject jump. The mind is such an extraordinary thing. My grandmother has been having a terrible Bad Day, and keeps insisting I take her home and that we are in Idaho and not California, and that I am her cousin and not myself and she is sad because she keeps remembering that all of her brothers and sisters are dead and she just wants to see her dogs, and it has basically been a heartbreaking afternoon —- but as I was putting this post together and selecting the pictures for it, she came by and stood behind me (probably to ask me again to take her home, which we are driving to Washington/Idaho next week to do but likely only to clean it up and sell it, I hope to God that does not sink in).
She saw the pictures on the monitor and said immediately, “Oh, Lord, I remember that at the drive-in! That must have played all Summer after it first came out. What’s her name? Hayes, Hayward?”
I said, “You got it. Allison Hayes.”
She laughed and shook her head and said, “Fifty foot woman. My word. I think everyone in Spokane probably saw it three times each.”
Now she is on the phone with my mother patiently explaining that when she comes home from work, could she please just run her home because Priest River is not so far from Spokane and then she could sleep with her dogs tonight.
I hate what’s happening to her. I think I hate it enough to maybe need a book about how to deal with it or a meeting to go to or something.
Girls of Summer: Jean Jani, Miss July 1957
July 4, 2010
Photographed by one-of-a-kind supafly sweetie pie Mr. Peter Gowland!
The lovely and talented Miss July 1957 was Jean Jani, from Dayton, Ohio.
Although Playboy implies in her write-up (emphasis on the lies half of that word) that Ms. Jani was a stewardess, she was actually a reservations clerk for United Airlines. Will explain shortly.
We were winging our way to a busy week of conferences with authors and agents, and our mind was filled with thoughts of the loftiest literary calibre. So lofty were they that we scarcely heard the dulcet voice of the stewardess requesting us to fasten our seat belt. She repeated the request, and we looked up into the brown eyes of petite (5’3″) Jean Jani of Dayton, Ohio.
(“Cloud Nine.” Playboy, July 1957.)
Barf to blarney and banana splits. Yay to little lookers.
Texture and busy-ness combine in contrast with Ms. Jani’s crisp features throughout the compositions in this spread. Top-notch, complex, and beautiful eye-catching work.
She told us she is saving money to buy a T-bird, her favorite drink is a Vodka Gimlet and she is the proud possessor of a pile of Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte and Jackie Gleason platters
(Ibid.)
Excellent musical tastes if that part is true. As for the Vodka Gimlet part, I have never had a gimlet of any stripe, but I think one of my friends, I am almost positive Mr. Kite, was recently deciding that Gimlet was the new retro drink of choice. I have strong faith in his trendspotting abilities, so I wager this will come to pass.
You know, like the way Singapore Slings sort of swept last year, at least in my tiny knowledge of central California circles — understand these are things I merely overhear up at the bar while ordering myself a beer.
My friends are really creative with mixed drinks, especially Christo and Gorgeous George, and Paolo and Miss D, either of which pair can find themself spontaneously hosting a party and expertly assess what they have on hand to come up with cramazing cocktails suited to the meal, occasion, and weather, but I am afraid I’m all thumbs at reckoning anything like that — I am also not so great at drinking hard alcohol, period.
For me, beer does the trick and almost never throws me any ugly curveballs. It is usually reasonably priced and you never have to worry about the bartender not knowing how to make it or mixing it too strong.
Beer puts me on familiar footing in what is usually an admittedly uncomfortable situation for me: public socializing. If I have safe, friendly, non-judgmental beer as my co-pilot, I know at least one part of the night will go well.
Like me, beer is a “what you see is what you get” kind of a thing. I feel a kinship and loyalty to beer unmatched by my feelings about any other type of alcohol. When I find something I like, I stick with it.
I like the case of her disappearing, reappearing mole. Like, “Disappearing, reappearing nuclear physicist husband” — Clue. The weird thing about that recurring line is that the nuclear physicist husband was the one Mrs. White beheaded and then cut off his dick; the one who disappeared was actually her first husband.
Without googling the script, I can tell you the conversation between Mrs. White and Wadsworth goes exactly like this (believe me, I watch this movie in my head all the time and I audio recorded it when I was a kid and listened to it on tape while walking around town — don’t you judge me):
“But he was your second husband. Your first husband also disappeared under, shall we say, ‘mysterious’ circumstances.”
“That was his job. He was an illusionist.”
“But he never re-appeared.”
(Spreads her hands and smiles) “He wasn’t a very good illusionist.”
Favorite shot of the spread. Peter and Alice are such wonderful and fun photographers. Man, they’re cool.
I’ve always wondered why those lines about “disappearing, reappearing nuclear physicist husband” were kept in despite being inaccurate. I think Clue might’ve gone through some rewrites and shit got forgotten. Anyway.
Back to marvelous Ms. Jani and the case of her on-again, off-again beauty mark!
“I’m sorry, Sire. It’s just … your mole. Wasn’t it on the other side?”
“I have a mole?!”
(Robin Hood: Men In Tights.)
Full of movie references today, jes.
If being a brunette knockout wasn’t enough for her, every so often Jani would put on a blonde wig [above] and do photo shoots under the name “Joan Brennan.” She retired from modeling in the mid-1960’s in favor of a more domesticated existence.
(Java’s Bachelor Pad: Jean Jani. Swinging Bachelor Productions, 2008.)
Java’s also reports that Ms. Janiwas portrayed as a sexy stewardess for United Airlines in the pages of Playboy, but in actuality she was a reservations clerk. Regardless, her appearance in Playboy cost her her job.
(Ibid.)
After more photoshoots with the Gowlands and with Ron Vogel, whose name you may remember seeing in the credits for many of the playmates highlighted on this journal, Ms. Jani embarked on a successful full-time career as a pin-up model which spanned the decade of mid-50’s to 60’s.
Jani appeared in several issues of Adam and Modern Man as well as other titles in the late 50’s and early 60’s.
She was also responsible for the jaw-dropping cover of Adam Bedside Reader #2 where she is wearing nothing but a red ribbon. This was a gal who was not afraid to show off her assets.
(Ibid.)
According to The Playmate Book, Jani forgot about her Playboy experience until her grown daughter gave her a copy in recent years. She has since embraced her pin-up past and become involved in the convention circuit.
(Ibid.)
Once more, enormous, immeasurably phat big-ups to Java’s Bachelor Pad for the credited shots and info above and for the hot tip about Jeanohs’ wigohs — her blonde alter ego, Ms. Joan Brennan. Your site is awesomesauce! Muah. Thanks a mil. ♥
March Madness: Fran Gerard, Miss March 1967
March 17, 2010I was fortunate enough to stumble over the entire original layout and spread of the Playboy issue featuring the very lovely and very talented Ms. Fran Gerard, Miss March 1967.
Photographed by Mario Casilli and Gene Trindl. (Color work by Casilli, B&W shots by Trindl, according to the orig. spread’s credits)
We predict a sparkling future for our heavenly-bodied Miss March. Generously configured Fran Gerard is a girl for the stars. “We’re forever searching the cosmos for new meanings.” (“Stars In Her Eyes,” Playboy, March 1967.)
The specs-sporting young Ms. Gerard worked as an astrologer’s assistant (zodiac quackery rears its head AGAIN) in L.A. at the time of her appearance, so they made a big deal out of that.
But the main thing of her is that she is tied right up there with Janet Lupo, Cynthia Myers, etc, for the largest natural breasts ever to be featured in Playboy.
As it was quite sometime before Janet, Cyndi, Roberta Vasquez, Alana Soares, et al came along to potentially unseat Ms. Gerard as undisputed mammary queen (I am not bothering to list the silicone sweethearts whose plastic racks match the numbers in name only and never rate so high in the eyes of the lord), she has understandably enjoyed long-lasting and tremendous fame in the Playboy world.
A “little looker,” her Playmate data sheet reports she was just 5’2″ tall at the time of her appearance in the magazine at the alleged age of 19. Holy chumbuckets, I cannot even imagine the back trouble the girl had to have had by age 30. Sorry if that deglamourizes things, but dang. That’s some serious rackage to haul around for a chick that only weighed around 110.
More than just a pretty face hovering over likely-uncomfortably-giant knockers, Ms. Gerard was a genuinely swingin’ chick with a good head on her small shoulders. And great taste in music!
Our plenipotent Playmate is as versant with combos as with cosmos: “Charlie Parker’s ‘Ornithology’ was the greatest single ever made,” says Fran, “and I think E.S.P. by Miles Davis is the best LP.” Sinatra is her favorite singer, especially “Cottage for Sale.” (Ibid.)
She says, “[I] like artists Marc Chagall and Salvador Dali. They capture so much of the glory of the universe in their work, but I don’t think I’m being stuffy: I like ‘Batman,’ too!” (Ibid.)
“Batman”? Heyoooo! Actually, I have also always liked Chagall’s work, especially this one piece he did that told a Russian folk tale, if I’m remembering rightly… Maybe later this week I’ll throw up some stuff about him.
Fran credits another favorite, a book, with being the source of all this happiness and satisfaction. “It’s The Magic of Believing by C. M. Bristol. It helps you to think positively.” (Ibid.)
Fran’s favorite book is still in print. It is also available for purchase as an ebook. Here’s an excerpt from the first few paragraphs:Is there some force, or factor, or power, or science—call it what you will—which a few people understand and use to overcome their difficulties and achieve outstanding success? I firmly believe that there is, and it is my purpose in this book to try to explain it so that you can use it if you desire.
Around 1933 the financial editor of a great Los Angeles newspaper attended lectures I gave to financial men in that city and read my brochure T.N.T.—It Rocks the Earth. Afterwards, he wrote, “You have caught from the ether something that has a mystical quality—a something that explains the magic of coincidence, the mystery of what makes men lucky.”
(source, and please do not consider the link an endorsement)
Wow, what is amazing about that is it could have been written, like, yesterday, except replace “1933” in the suspiciously specious and detail-lacking anecdote with “2003.” I did not think people were marketing murky bullshit that long ago, but I live to be surprised. I should’ve known, I suppose, given all the snake oil salesmen and shenaniganizers who’ve always walked this earth conning money out of suckers. Like the rightly revered Msr. Barnum observed, there is one born every minute.
I think I will try my hand at tossing off a few sentences. A few years ago, I was addressing a colony of junebugs at an annual meeting. After the meeting, a junebug who had just been raised to upper hive-management approached me and invited me to have a drink. He told me that he had seen me speak at a junebug team-building conference near an abandoned swingset only six months earlier, and had returned to his nest eager to apply the Simple Principles that I teach. Within just a few months, he had already been promoted above his boss and was handling new junebug regions of management!
Like so many countless others that I have been happy to help, this junebug told me in that hotel bar that he would have never believed the success and accomplishments he would achieve in such a short time just by following these three simple steps to harnessing the power of YOUR potential to do Great Things!
(E., Right Here, Right Now.)
How did that sound? Would you buy my shit? No? I’m huge in junebug circles, picking up sales in bee hives, and keep it between us but I think I’m about to crack the highly elusive ladybug market. (What I am saying is that I think this is all fishsticks and curried potatoes, this malarkey. Positive thinking is very powerful, yes, and important to your overall well-being, but so is hustling your buns to earn a simple living and have rich relationships with loved ones rather than sucking down cultish nonsense like coca-cola and craving weird amounts of power through ESP. Mad love and respect to Ms. Gerard, but come on.)
I think this is the best shot of the lot.
The positively smashing Miss Gerard’s idea of a perfect man? Clark Gable. “Remember him as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind? He was too much,” says Fran appreciatively. (“Stars In Her Eyes.”)
Yes, I particularly enjoyed the scene where he got ten kinds of drunk and told Scarlett he was going to crush her head like a walnut, slapped her around a little, and then took her upstairs for some rough sex. You’re probably thinking that is some feminist, critical statement mired in sarcasm: you are sadly wrong. I’m messed up I guess, but I think that saucy Scarlett needs slapped around pretty much every goddamned minute of the day and Rhett was born for the job. They are a nasty, scheming, firey-eyed match made in hell and I think it makes an excellent and exciting love story, in a very dark and ugly way for which it seldom gets credit. So, today I say to you, Margaret Mitchell: Well done, sir.
The man who did the b&w work for this spread, Gene Trindl, was best known as a photographer for TV Guide. He shot over 800 spreads for them, and 200 covers. Dang, right? He died of pancreatic cancer June 29, 2004, two years after my cousin Tom and thirty-seven years after Jayne Mansfield. RIP, Mr. Trendl.
TURN-ONS: High fashion, antiques.
TURNOFFS: Arrogance, people and their trivial problems.
(Playmate datasheet.)
Um … you hate arrogance, but you also hate people and their “trivial problems”? Okay. The kettle called … said something about how you are the black one? No need to call back.
DID YOU KNOW? I’m an assistant to astrologer Jack Gemini.
PEOPLE I ADMIRE: My parents, for the great job they did raising me.
FAVORITE MUSIC: Jazz.
(Ibid.)
I have googled the crap out of Jack Gemini, John Gemini, LA Astrologers in the 1960’s, and am coming up triple goose eggs. If you got a line on him, I’m interested.
So many thousands of thanks to my usual sources but in this case also special singling out for lovin’s to dear Fabrizio, an awesome and generous moderator over at the vintage erotica forums, from whom the majority of these great shots came!
Bello, sono incredibili, e grazie sempre per tutte immagini meravigliose. Molti baci, ♥ mua-mua! I owe you big-time, my good man, and I strongly encourage readers to swing over to the forums. They’re free, well-moderated, full of fun, and they won’t give your computer any wack infections or the hantavirus. Enjoy!
Here are the scans of the original b&w article accompanying the gatefold and color spread.
St. Patrick’s Day: Welcome to March Madness, an explanation
March 17, 2010Still feeling Ways About Things. Historically St. Patrick’s Day weighs on me pretty heavily. It is fraught with a lot of particular memories and I am pretty sure is the reason I had nightmares all night. As I always say, breasts are like a spoonful of sugar in that they help the medicine go down, and this is a day of bad medicine for me.
via topherchris on the tumblr.
So screw a bunch of sitting around moping like a woman. I declare today to be my own personal March Madness — and I can think of no finer parade to celebrate than a cheery bracket of my favorite of the Miss Marches of yore from that there ol’ Playboy. Only the cutest, funniest, best-shot, or most historically significant need apply. Let’s get this party started!!
That went well.
March 6, 2010Just came from lunch with the o.g.b.d. No repeat of the well-understandable bottle thing of the last visit. I told you it would work out! Kidlet took ill halfway through our mutual lunchtime and demanded to be taken home. While swinging the o.g.b.d. back home after dropping her past the house, the o.g.b.d and I stopped off for “a coffee,” which is a trite phrase that in this case means “a pint.” (Now you are speaking our language.)
We came clean about a lot of sadness through which we’ve both been paddling, essentially rudderless, and, I think at any rate, ultimately the topics upon which we touched in our rambling but wonderfully amicable chat basically agreed with the age-old saying that is one of the ones I have always loved best. “Seek the headwaters of the river of pain.”
I think that we discovered that for both of us we are for one other indeedy some of the chief of those there ol’ headwaters. And we are forgiving each other first, ourselves second, and figuring the godforsaken rapids of the fallout out together, in the best and most platonic of ways. Absent of the prospect of sex and the agony of romantic entanglement, it turned out we had all manner of wisdom and laughs to offer one another. It was an amazing talk. I have great hopes for the future. Thanks for the vibes!
I’m packing now and gearing up to scootch down to C-town to have a gal night with Miss D and the LBC (I travel armed with Mean Girls, Josie and the Pussycats, and Anchorman — my go-to feel-good flicks) and then in the a.m. we are driving to Famoso for the last day of the drag races to ring in Gorgeous George’s 30th with Geo, Paolo, and the Gentleman.
I am feeling really upbeat and positive about the future. Always room for another friend in the circle, even in the most unlikely of circumstances. I am really excited to welcome someone back in to my life that I cared deeply about. So thanks again, and catch you on the flip!
Never throw out anyone
March 6, 2010
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. — Audrey Hepburn.
We’re having lunch with the o.g.b.d. again today. I really hope it goes well. I mean, it went well last time, actually: the bottle only concerned me because I don’t want him to be feeling dissolute or inconsolable in general, and I know he’d hate to accidentally go too far in front of kidlet. That would hurt her image of him, and I know ultimately he would regret that terribly. I don’t want either of them to have to go through that, but particularly not him, because he does not need to hate himself on top of everything else he must be feeling right now with his breakup with his wife. I don’t want him to have to deal with that and compound any unhappiness he is already having to go through.
I want to tell him that I know what it’s like to have that inconsolable sense that life, taken straight, is intolerable; the feeling that you have to physically “take the edge off” of the knife blades of your thoughts and shield yourself from the “muchness,” the crazy coming-at-you-from-all-sides agony of crushing reality. I know the necessity of the filter: how it is to shield yourself and to see things through a veil in order to keep from seeing all of it at once, because you couldn’t take that because you feel too deeply about all things, and fearing the overwhelming magnitude of the difficult emotions you’re working through.
We have always been two peas in a pod in our way of being lost in this universe, oversensitive and underattenuated to proper socialization, and so of course we have brought suffering on ourselves, and of course we have both of us had terribly abusive relationships with anything that will alter our moods. I understand that alcohol and drugs are a handy, popular, easily attained crutch (long-term health and usefulness: debatable; short-term-pain-dulling and turn-to-able-ness: undeniable) that can help you come at your emotions sidewise, do that little crab scuttle over to them that keeps them from smacking you in the face and knocking you out. I know that.
But I know that it doesn’t work forever. There is always an ugly day that you face on the natch and you have this gnawing desperation and anxiety that mounts and mounts, and everything is unbearable and your eyelids are crawling and you just want to scream — but then that day passes. And then the next one, and another, and pretty soon you get in to the swing of mainly sobriety and it is not so bad, and you have the side benefit of not despising yourself quite so much.
I have no plans and particularly no grounds to get preachy: I just want him to know that I get it, and that he will want to set boundaries for himself around the kidlet, or he will regret it and hate himself all the more later. And I want him to know that I’m here for him. That’s a trite expression that in this case means I am physically willing to go pick him up from somewhere, or spend a long while on the phone, with disregard for personal inconvenience, talking him down from a ledge. I am actually here and present for him in a way that I never was when we were together, and I think that we have chanced in to a situation where we have a unique opportunity for renewal and redemption: where we can truly both benefit from one another’s company.
Please send vibes that I will find the right words and the convincing gestures to express to him my very ardent sincerity and my genuine love and concern without saying anything that turns him away.
Music Moment: The Song Remains the Same — Nina Simone, “I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl”
March 3, 2010Nina covers Bessie Smith.
Nina Simone – I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl
I want a little sugar
in my bowl
I want a little sweetness
down in my soul
I could stand some lovin’
Oh so bad
I feel so funny and I feel so sad
I want a little steam
on my clothes
Maybe I can fix things up
so they’ll go
What’s the matter, Daddy,
Come on, save my soul
I need some sugar in my bowl
I ain’t foolin’
I want some sugar in my bowl
You been acting different
I’ve been told
Soothe me
I want some sugar in my bowl
I want some steam
on my clothes
Maybe I can fix things up so they’ll go
What’s the matter, Daddy,
Come on save my soul
I want some sugar in my bowl
I ain’t foolin’
I want some sugar – yeah – in my bowl.
A few weeks ago, the o.g. babydaddy treated me and the kidlet to lunch at the Soosh Gardino. He and his wife are mysteriously on the outs this month, I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’ve been trying to be neutral and supportive. They’re not living together any more, though, so I’m not sure what to make of it all.
I drafted her a friendly and supportive Valentine’s card and left it at a place where I knew she had a gig that night; a few days later she wrote me thanking me but then added some surprising stuff about “needing time as newlyweds.”
This was confusing to me because I had just talked to kidlet’s father the day prior and he said in no uncertain terms that he would only take her back to avoid living with his mother … then the next day he phoned and I asked if they had patched things up and he said sort of, but not really, then the following week he said they had certainly not, and were still living apart, so like I said, I am just staying out of it. Because I truly don’t know what’s going on.
I wish there was a way for me to wave a magic wand or wish on some special star and make things perfect for both of us, but I don’t have those kinds of means at my disposal, and I have never been much of a great shakes at relationship stuff.
Apparently neither has the o.g.b.d., for which I can vouch at least during our time together lo five years ago, and also because he asked me abruptly on our way to the Gardino, “Can I ask you something? It’s bad.” He is in the habit of blurting things out so I wasn’t as surprised as I would’ve been with someone normal. I said okay and he asked me, “What happened? With your marriage?”
My stomach lurched but as my kidlet’s father and knowing he wants to support her and be able to be a sounding board for her anxieties and dreams just the same as I do, so why would I not arm him with all information possible in order for him to succeed?, I felt like he deserved a specific reply and not my usual shrug or head shake. I answered as best I could without going in to too many details, but as directly as possible because the o.g.b.d. has a lot of tics and one of them is a strong dislike of roundabout bush-beating. I’ve always thought that was a fair bugaboo and done my best to respect it. I wound down my short explanation as we pulled in to the lot of the Soosh Gardino by saying:
Woman as banquet.
“You know how it is.” (he does) “Growing up, people like us don’t plan on someone loving us, because that means letting them know us. I thought I could let someone in and it didn’t work out. For right now, I’m just not interested even at all in trusting another person, not like that. The jury is out for me on the human race.” He made a tsking sound and started to shake his head, and I held up my hand and said, “Just for now. We’ll see. But maybe I was right, all those years; maybe I am supposed to just be alone.”
Still from Pierre le fou.
I had just parked and killed the engine so I was able to look him in the eye when he suddenly grabbed my hand. He said urgently, “No. Beth — don’t say that.” This is not a story about how I got back together with the o.g.b.d., or how there is still some unwritten chapter about us. I just realized that might be inferred.
That’s not at all the way of it. You don’t know him — everything he does is spontaneous, overemotional, and urgent. He can’t even brush his teeth without doing it slightly “off” like he is coming down off of heroin or flashing his eyes around like Rudolph Valentino. He’s an intense guy, that o.g.b.d. It was one of the things that attracted me so strongly to him when we were together: he is not like other people. He’s more vibrant. Like other people are watercolor and he is painted in oils.
Rudolph Valentino smoking a cigarette with probably much greater restraint than the o.g.b.d. might — less wild gesticulation and hair pulling — but the eyes are the same.
What this story is about is this: You are pretty low when your recently-split, moving-back-in-with-his-mother, hated-you-for-years ex feels sorry for you. I thought, “Wow. Maybe we are moving in to a new phase of our lives where he will be a good friend and confidante to me. That would be pretty unexpected and neat!”
After lunch, we went to a park and it turned out he’d been drinking sub rosa from a fifth of whiskey all day. I was kind of bummed that I’d thought we’d been doing so well and it might have not really been heartfelt on his half. Quelle surprise, I guess. I will never learn, it seems. I don’t want to sound pathetic, I just felt pretty stupid for thinking someone gave a crap about me.
I found this out when he took a hit out of the bottle in his pocket. In front of a bunch of kids. I said, “Um, no thanks, dude.” He said, “Oh, I know. I wasn’t offering. You’re driving.” He had me there: I was indeed driving. And it was a visit we were both in charge of. And he’d literally split from his wife the day before. And the day before happened to be Valentine’s. So I’m not going to judge or flip out unless it happens again. “Everybody gets one,” right, Spider-man on Family Guy?
The point is: Yep. Probably meant to be alone. At least for a good long while.
It’s lonely to want some sugar in the bowl, sure, but the trouble is it’s tough to tell the sugar from the rat poison. Better safe than sorry.
Valentine Vixen: Sally Todd, Miss February 1957
February 6, 2010The lovely and talented Sally Todd first appeared in Playboy in June of 1956, in a clothed pictorial about girls in Las Vegas. She was asked back to be the gatefold model for the February issue in 1957.
Photographed by David Sutton and Ed DeLong.
When Sally was 19, she entered and won a beauty pageant in her hometown of Tuscon at the urging of her mother and began doing local modeling gigs.
A few years later, she wanted to take a trip to Canada but had only saved enough for Los Angeles, so she went to Hollywood. She had studied drama in Tuscon and was spotted while shopping by a scout for 20th Century Fox. He had her in for screen tests and a very nice B-movie career was born! Fox billed her as “a young Lana Turner and much prettier than Marilyn Monroe.”
Being a young Lana I can somewhat see; being prettier than Marilyn I have to put my hands in a “T” and call bran flakes and cheese sticks on. Sorry. No dice. That is total chicanery. But I’m a big Marilyn guy from way back, whereas I’ve only had li’l Stripey Butt here saved on the computer for around six months, so I suppose I am a biased judge. Ms. Todd starred in, to name some highlights, The Unearthly, Frankenstein’s Daughter, and Al Capone, as well as guest-appearing on a slew of television shows.
She became a regular Hollywood fixture, often popping up as the hot date of various popular actors and landing herself in Walter Winchell’s gossip column. As a cross-connection, Winchell also narrated the 60’s era television hit “The Untouchables,” on which Sally appeared both in front of camera and behind, dating a few of the stars.
Unlike some of the other playmates, who mainly did not do much actual real-life modeling, in addition to her screen credits Sally was a genuine full-time model. She did modeling both of clothing and of products, first in Tuscon and then with great success in Los Angeles, where her blonde wholesome looks landed her in the Los Angeles Home Show, which is actually a pretty big event. Beginning in 1955, Ms. Todd modeled on Johnny Carson as one of the Carson Cuties, and by 1956 she was television’s highest-paid model. Not bad!
Of course, the Tinseltown high life does take its toll from time to time. On August 26, 1958, Ms. Todd caused a Hollywood freeway accident involving five cars. It’s estimated she was going around 70 miles per hour when she lost control and collided with four other vehicles. She didn’t die — this isn’t one of those right-curve-bummer-ass posts that I sometimes do on the playmates, don’t worry.
She suffered some bruises on her left wrist, fingers, and right knee when she went flying through the window of her sports car and was thrown out onto Barham Blvd (with a seat belt, she’d probably have been completely unscathed). After failing an intoxication test at the scene, Ms. Todd was booked for drunk driving by the LAPD.
She spent the night in jail and on August 27th was informed she’d be charged with felony drunk driving. Ms. Todd’s story, to which she stuck, was that she’d had two drinks with a girlfriend and was en route home when the car went out of control as she stepped on the brake. Apparently the story worked. On September 2, 1958, Ms. Todd appeared in court expecting to be formally charged with felony drunk driving, but was told to return in eight days, when the DA’s office had their case more prepared.
She never was charged with anything, in the end. At the time, she was on-the-downlow-dating married man and popular local figure Jack Webb, of television’s Dragnet. Webb had creator credit on the show and widely touted the importance to him that the show be “realistic;” he insisted on lots of police consultants and was in general a gladhander of the cops all-around. (When he died, they gave him a funeral with full police honors and the LAPD retired badge #714, which had been Sgt. Joe “Just the facts, ma’am” Friday’s number on Dragnet). So, you know. Boyfriend with majah LADPD pull. Felony charge that disappears. Do the math.
Ms. Todd actually had quite the full dance card with some big names for a lot of years, but I want to go read this book called Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Will There Be Enough Room with my kidlet, so I’m afraid I’m putting the kebosh on what could have been a lengthy walk down lovers’ lane.
Bonus factoid for historical stalkytimes: the articles from this incident also list her as living at 11060 Fruitland Drive, North Hollywood. I think it is batshit bananas that papers used to print addresses, because I don’t think people were any more trustworthy with personal information then than they are now. Probably got shitloads of folks harassed, burglarized, or worse. Scandalous.
Once again, as was the case with Ms. Kubert’s issue, Jayne Mansfield is on the Playboy cover. Don’t worry, I am not neglecting her — she is an extra-special Valentine Vixen who will appear later this month.
Final quick thought: why did they keep making her put that stupid straw in her mouth? How is that even a Thing? Is she supposed to look like a hayseed, but then the next second she is at the beach? Really inconsistent. Weird. Anyway. Catch you on the flip!
Movie Moment: Une femme est une femme (Godard, 1961)
January 11, 2010Anna Karina as Angela in Jean-Luc Godard’s first color film, Une femme est une femme (A Woman Is A Woman), released in 1961.
Turns out cough syrup bums me out. Like I’m walking underwater past all the things I normally try not to think too much about. Good thing I’m not one of those funky religions where that’s my only outlet for getting a buzz on. But I will not get beat down. I’m too old for emo folklore (but never too old for drinking and pretentious film school shenanigans, not ever). As soon as I’m well, I’m going to find resurrection at the bottom of a bottle or two of Pacifico with the friendohs, and I am sure things will be looking brighter then.
Daily Batman: Friendohs!
January 6, 2010
Cesar Romero as the Joker and Lee Meriwether as Catwoman/Miss Kitka (remember, Jul-Newms was washing her hair, so a former Miss America stepped in as kitteh-lady) in the 1966 film version of Batman.
Dearest and weirdest old friendohs with common interests — they are a Thing!
Ghost post; I’m pubbing it up with the Cappy right now. Woohoo!
Calendar Girls Day: Campari Edition
December 27, 2009The Campari calendar is similar to the Pirelli calendar in terms of history and intent, albeit Campari’s is ostensibly promotional photoshoots for alkyhol and not auto parts. But they both still heavily feature naked famous beautiful ladies, shot by artistic and internationally famous photographers. Don’t you just love the way Italian marketing works? Italians know how to Sell It. You are so jealous right now that you’re not Italian. Don’t front.
Salma Hayek by Mario Testino for Campari, 2007 calendar.
Eschewing the blonde stick aesthetic, Campari has traditionally featured calendars solely modeled by luminary multi-ethnic beauties known for their bodies, such as Eva Mendes, Salma Hayek, and Jessica Alba. This year’s Campari model is model-actress Olga Kurylenko, native of the Ukraine and the latest Bond girl (she played Camille Montes in Quantum of Solace). I’m a little bummed because she’s airbrushed within an inch of her life and she seems to have gone on some kind of crash diet since her Bond turn, with the result that I’ve had boyfriends with bigger tits. See below:
So they are moving a bit away from their hourglass lasses of the last few years. Don’t get me wrong — Olga Kurylenko still looks very beautiful, though, and recognizably feminine. The calendar is totally worth checking out. Here is another large example:
See? Classy and hot in that sophisticated, kind of uppity Euro-glam way. If stuff like that there is your thing, then swing by the Gruppo Campari official site to ogle some more, and consider giving their new drink Red Passion, which is what this calendar issue is allll about promoting (Olga K is from a former soviet-bloc country: “Red” passion; get it? you know I’m on board!) a tipple or ten. Again — click any picture to see it enlarged!
“Olga was a natural choice: an international actress, with great charm, grace, elegance and sensuality that represents the perfect incarnation of the Campari brand.” (message from Bob Kunze-Concewitz, CEO of Gruppo Campari.)
Besides promoting Red Passion, the calendar’s 2010 theme is Campari Milani. It was shot on location in Milan by native rising star, experimental fashion and portrait photographer Simone Nervi, whose vision and composition Campari obviously does not respect highly enough not to airbrush the unholy fuck out of his work.
“I have a great passion for life and for the work that I do, I enjoy being constantly active. For this reason, I feel a sense of affinity with Campari, which like me is dynamic, passionate and cosmopolitan.” (Olga Kurylenko)
Put-together as Hay-ull
December 6, 2009Most of the time, I do not much consider myself very badass or even particularly put-together as an adult, because I am mainly fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants and not terribly interested in grown-up rules, but sometimes that immaturity and disorganization goes so far out there that it comes back around in to Being Awesome. It hit me hard when I was making dinner for me and the kidlet tonight.
Yep. That’s right. Dinner was cartoon-character-shaped macaroni and cheese, chardonnay for me, milk for her, and a split Snickers. The kidlet had this Madonna-wannabe headband on and she had fluffed out the lace and pulled it around her face like a fascinator and was lecturing me in a very fancy voice with her hand on her hip about opening the packet of powdered cheese, licking my finger, and sucking off the cheese. She was very chic. I was impressed enough to almost consider not eating more of the cheese.
(Later, instead of digging up a tablespoon, I just eyeballed how much milk and butter I figured I needed. Totally overestimated on the milk. So when it didn’t set up right, I drained and poured some of the runny mix in to a plastic cup from the Olive Garden. I meant to pour it down the sink, probably, but I instinctively drank it instead.)
We’re eating macaroni and watching the live action Scooby Doo now, because kidlet loves the dog and Mommy loves Matthew Lillard. (Did you know he was The Fat Kid growing up, so everyone made fun of him, and it affected him very deeply? Because I know, because I love him.) Sometimes we play Scooby Dooby Doo in the bathtub — she is Scooby and I am Shaggy. The tub is the Mystery Van and we drive in it to solve crimes and say “like” a lot. Not gonna lie: we’re pretty awesome.
Daily Batman: That bat can dance!
December 6, 2009Adam West works what his mother gave him, Pulp Fiction style, with a comely redhead.
Dig his drink order: “Fresh orange juice, please.” No vodka in there for this wholesome crimefighter! What a guy.
The Thought Experiment 