Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Cool By Ralph Greco, Jr. & Mike Canger
Here's a very fun piece by my great pal, Ralph Greco, Jr, and his great pal, Mike Canger.
Cool
By
Ralph Greco, Jr. & Mike Canger
Fonzie had it; Frank Sinatra, Elvis … even Martha Stewart can manage it from time to time. It’s the all-elusive attitude, it’s ‘cool’. You can’t buy it, control it, even market it; although God knows MTV failed daily trying, and Shaper Image will charge you a handful for what they try to sell as ‘it’.
See the thing with cool is … if you think you are, your not! Cool is just one of those things, you really can’t push it on yourself or siphon it from anybody else. And God knows a little bit of cool can go a long way as much as it can be dangerous if not handled delicately (you could wind-up Wayne Newton if you’re not careful).
Here’s a few instances when you might start out on the right road, but you don’t watch where you’re driving:
When you’re trying to be cool … but you’re not!
1. You’ve managed to score tickets for a sold-out concert …
… but spend the entire show with your cell phone/PDA held high, speed-dialing friends so they can ‘hear’ the show and during the encore hold the phone flipped open so its light acts as your modern-day lighter.
2. You can afford a brand new sports car …
…. but always activate the alarm by ‘casually’ pressing the key-lock from over your shoulder or from between your legs.
3. You need to be in constant contact with your office …
…. but the weight of the IPone, beeper and “Crackberry” clipped to your belt causes your body to list to one side when you walk.
and a.) to the above: you have a “Crackberry” and “IPhone and a beeper and you’re not a doctor, or even a drug dealer.
and b.) to the above: you wear one of those ear-bud thingies, thinking your connected to everyone and everyplace at any time when in fact the only thing you really are doing is looking like Lt. Uhura from Star Trek (without the killer bod!)
4. You see all the latest movies …
… but refer to them by only their initials; i.e. “Did you see T4? I managed to see it on a double bill with ID4, and H.P. 27, the day after I got out of the hospital after my MRI!”
5.You own a very powerful new computer …
… but the only emails you send are those annoying ‘chain mail’ letters guaranteed to bring the recipients luck if they themselves send it to ten of their friends.
6.Your morning ritual brings you into the Starbucks each day …
... as you order in rapid ‘coffee-ese’ a “Half a Decaffe Mocha, Half-and-Half, Double Shot Grande-Venti” causing the perennial-pissy college undergrad to call you, ‘bro’ as he willing executes your designer drink.
7. You have season tickets to the home football team, and every time they score a big play you turn to the guy next to you and slap a high-five…
... but you didn’t even bet on the game.
8. And of course the big give away …
... you wear your sunglasses at night and you're not, nor do you even know who, Cory Hart is!
Ralph Greco, Jr. & Mike Canger
Fonzie had it; Frank Sinatra, Elvis … even Martha Stewart can manage it from time to time. It’s the all-elusive attitude, it’s ‘cool’. You can’t buy it, control it, even market it; although God knows MTV failed daily trying, and Shaper Image will charge you a handful for what they try to sell as ‘it’.
See the thing with cool is … if you think you are, your not! Cool is just one of those things, you really can’t push it on yourself or siphon it from anybody else. And God knows a little bit of cool can go a long way as much as it can be dangerous if not handled delicately (you could wind-up Wayne Newton if you’re not careful).
Here’s a few instances when you might start out on the right road, but you don’t watch where you’re driving:
When you’re trying to be cool … but you’re not!
1. You’ve managed to score tickets for a sold-out concert …
… but spend the entire show with your cell phone/PDA held high, speed-dialing friends so they can ‘hear’ the show and during the encore hold the phone flipped open so its light acts as your modern-day lighter.
2. You can afford a brand new sports car …
…. but always activate the alarm by ‘casually’ pressing the key-lock from over your shoulder or from between your legs.
3. You need to be in constant contact with your office …
…. but the weight of the IPone, beeper and “Crackberry” clipped to your belt causes your body to list to one side when you walk.
and a.) to the above: you have a “Crackberry” and “IPhone and a beeper and you’re not a doctor, or even a drug dealer.
and b.) to the above: you wear one of those ear-bud thingies, thinking your connected to everyone and everyplace at any time when in fact the only thing you really are doing is looking like Lt. Uhura from Star Trek (without the killer bod!)
4. You see all the latest movies …
… but refer to them by only their initials; i.e. “Did you see T4? I managed to see it on a double bill with ID4, and H.P. 27, the day after I got out of the hospital after my MRI!”
5.You own a very powerful new computer …
… but the only emails you send are those annoying ‘chain mail’ letters guaranteed to bring the recipients luck if they themselves send it to ten of their friends.
6.Your morning ritual brings you into the Starbucks each day …
... as you order in rapid ‘coffee-ese’ a “Half a Decaffe Mocha, Half-and-Half, Double Shot Grande-Venti” causing the perennial-pissy college undergrad to call you, ‘bro’ as he willing executes your designer drink.
7. You have season tickets to the home football team, and every time they score a big play you turn to the guy next to you and slap a high-five…
... but you didn’t even bet on the game.
8. And of course the big give away …
... you wear your sunglasses at night and you're not, nor do you even know who, Cory Hart is!
Ralph Greco, Jr. is an internationally published author of short stories, plays, essays, button slogans, 800# phone sex scripts, children’s songs and SEO copy. Ralph is also an ASCAP licensed songwriter/performer and Internet radio D.J. He lives in the wilds of suburban NJ, where he attempts to keep his ever-expanding ego in check.
Monday, September 28, 2009
"Their primitive minds couldn't accept da truth."
Wiki:Vaughn Bodé (July 22, 1941 - July 18, 1975), (pronounced /boʊˈdeɪ/) was an influential artist involved in and inspirational to underground comics, graphic design, and graffiti. He is perhaps best-known for his comic strip character Cheech Wizard and artwork depicting voluptuous women. His works are noted for their psychedelic look and feel. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame for comics artists in 2006.
He was born in Utica, New York and started drawing as a way of escaping a less-than-happy childhood.
In 1969, he moved to Manhattan and joined the staff of the underground newspaper the East Village Other. It was here that Bodé met Spain Rodriguez, Robert Crumb and other founders of the quickly-expanding underground comics world. At EVO, he introduced Gothic Blimp Works, a comics supplement to the magazine, which ran for eight issues, the first two edited by Bodé.
Bodé’s most famous comic creation is perhaps the Cheech Wizard, a wizard whose large yellow hat, covered with black and red stars covers his entire body except his legs, and big red feet. Cheech Wizard is constantly in search of a good party, cold beer, and attractive women. It is never actually revealed what Cheech Wizard looks like under the hat, or exactly what kind of creature he was. Characters pressing the issue generally are rewarded with a swift kick to the groin by Cheech.
In an early comic, Captured by Morton Frog, 1967, Cheech takes off his hat for a police officer, a priest and a political leader. You can clearly see him holding his hat in his hands, away from the rest of his body. The face is hidden by the speech balloon, but you can see glimpses of hair on top. All three persons witnessing his face fall into cataleptic states forever. Cheech walks away from their fortress claiming that "Their primitive minds couldn't accept da truth". In a later comic, Who is C.W.?, 1974, One of Cheech's lovers insists on seeing his true face. Cheech claims that she will die instantly. or go insane. After having her sign a waiver freeing him of legal responsibilities, he agrees to take off his hat. The comic ends abruptly at mid-page with Cheech saying "Okay! Here goes, but I bet you go blind!", followed by a blank (white-out) panel.
The post-apocalyptic sci-fi action series Cobalt 60 presented an anti-hero named Cobalt 60 who wandered in a devastated post-nuclear land, seeking to avenge the murder of his parents.
Other Bodé creations include Deadbone (The first testament of Cheech Wizard, the cartoon messiah.) the adventures of the inhabitants of a solitary mountain a billion years in the past; and War Lizards, a look at the Vietnam War reflecting the hostile stance of the period's counterculture. It is told with anthropomorphic reptiles instead of people.
Common themes in Bodé’s works include the use of lizard-like creatures as stand-ins for "real" humans (though most of his female characters are quite human) and the use of urban dialects and slang for the speech of the inhabitants of his cartoon worlds. Like those of other underground cartoonists, Bodé’s comics illustrate many aspects of the counterculture: sexual experimentation, drug use, and an overall relaxing of social taboos, just to name a few.
Towards the end of his life, Vaughn Bodé toured with a show called the Cartoon Concert, that featured him vocalizing his characters while their depictions were presented on a screen behind him via a slide projector. The first of these was presented at Phil Seuling's convention on the July 4th weekend at the N.Y.C. Comic Con in 1972. Obsererving the crowd reaction, The Bantam Lecture Company immediately signed him on. This show became very popular on the college lecture circuit, beginning with his debut at the Bowling Green University, in Ohio. He considered it his "good-luck charm" for the rest of his life. He eventually performed his Cartoon Concert at several Comic book coventions, culminating in a show at The Louvre, in Paris. At this time, Bodé's career was managed by David Ferguson who assisted with the abortive negotiations with Ralph Bakshi, for the movie based on Cobalt 60 that later became Wizards. Ferguson was represented in his client's cartoons as Rumplebucks, Cheech Wizard's manager, a lizard with an ever-present dollar sign above his head. Bodé dedicated his final cartoon, which appeared in National Lampoon, to Ferguson.
Though some sources list Bodé's death as caused by a motorcycle accident, his death was due to autoerotic asphyxiation, or perhaps the use of asphyxia as a meditation aid: his last words (to his son) were, "Mark, I've seen God four times, and I'm going to see him again soon." He left behind a library of sketchbooks, journals, finished and unfinished works, paintings, and comic strips. Most of his art has since been published in a variety of collections, most from Fantagraphics.
Bodé's influence continues to be seen today in numerous Graffiti artists copying his lizards, and tributes/ripoffs of his style in many 'rave' graphics and flyers.
Bodé was a friend of animator Ralph Bakshi, and warned him against working with Robert Crumb on the animated film adaptation of Crumb's strip Fritz the Cat. Bodé has been credited as an influence on Bakshi's films Wizards and The Lord of the Rings.
His son Mark Bodé (born 1963) is also an artist, often producing works similar to the elder Bodé’s style. Recently Mark completed one of his father’s unfinished works, The Lizard of Oz, a send-up of The Wizard of Oz, starring Cheech Wizard one more time.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
BDSM By Jude Mason
Here's yet another wonderful new essay -- and a very tasty excerpt -- from my great pal and a wonderful writer, Jude Mason. Be sure and check out her site and her blog.
The stirrings of a young man’s heart when he sees his girlfriend bent over a fence. His thoughts, ‘God I’d love to tie her there.’
A girl sees a sexy movie dude kneeling at the foot of his faux lover’s bed, and that girl’s mind races with ‘bend over, bend over, I want to spank your ass.’
No ages given, none needed, your imagination can take you wherever.
BDSM, bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism. Sounds a little scary doesn’t it? Perverse, abuse, sin, words bandied about to encourage those interested in the genre to hide it away. But, what is it really?
Some of us desire to either be controlled or to control another. It’s like any other passion, any other need. You don’t choose it, you are possessed by it. Why do you crave to be dominated? What makes you want to dominate someone? It’s like explaining why you’re heterosexual, or why you breathe.
There’s the safe sane and consensual aspect of BDSM, and we should all strive to at least understand what that means. Safe, means not to harm your partner so badly they need medical aid. Think about it.
Safe: You want to use a flogger, learn how. Strike over the kidney too many times or too hard and you’re asking for trouble. Use a cane on a person’s spine and you can do major damage. Any bindings should be checked every few minutes to be sure circulation is fine. It’s always up to the dominate to make sure his, or her, submissive is safe.
Sane: Also more or less self-explanatory. Use your head, and that means a sober, non-drugged head. Alcohol is never a good idea if you plan on doing a scene. Possibly a glass of wine with dinner, but definitely not six just before you and your sexy playmate decide it’s time to get kinky. Always, always, think about what you’re doing, before you jump in.
There’s also the issue of, is a person looking for daddy’s approval through BDSM, or something like it. Is the person who wants to be ‘disciplined, sane? Is the person who is doing the disciplining sane? Things to think about before you get into the act. Yes?
Consensual: Both parties agree to whatever ‘play’ is about to take place. Yes, there are rape scenarios where one partner wants to be kidnapped and abused, but it’s always a good idea to at least discuss what that might include. I mean if Joe Swift wants his lady to bash him over the head and stuff him into the kiddies toy crate for an hour before she drags him out and molests his sweet butt for the rest of the weekend, it’d be pretty sad if she simply tied him to the bed and uses a feather on him. It’s not what he wanted and if she’s any kind of Domme, she’ll find out before the play begins. His consent is a must. I don’t mean in writing, unless that’s part of what you both want, but I do mean both partners have to know what’s going on.
Safe words: There’s been tons about this and how important they are. Well, sometimes they are. That depends on the people playing. Yes? We’re back to talking about all this stuff. If Sally wants her butt warmed, and Joe is willing to do it until she cries ‘Spank me no more brave Joe’ then there’s probably not huge call for a safe word. If the couple wants to have one, then go for it. If there’s a chance that the ‘discipline’ might be too harsh, then it might be an idea to discuss it. But, if Sally can yell, ‘fucking stop beating my ass,’ and be assured the Joe will, then they’re cool without one.
Communication is right up there as number one in any of this. But, that’s really true of any relationship, right? If you don’t talk to your partner, then how can you please them? Once you get past that awkward, I hope he doesn’t think I’m a pervert stage, the going should get really smooth and the fun will be even better.
Writing about BDSM! I guess you have to have an interest, whether it’s something you want to do or are simply curious about the whys and wherefores. There are dozens of websites where you can find good solid information, and if you don’t understand something, there are forums where you can ask. Do the research and ask the questions, I’ve found the BDSM community online to be incredibly helpful.
I’ve written about BDSM for years and enjoy it tremendously, even when it’s not a fetish or kink I’m into. For three years I wrote for a breast torture site and learned a great deal about the fetish and why it was so popular. I can’t say I’d want to spend time with needles inserted into tender bits, but I can understand the attraction. I also spent time writing for a spanking site and really enjoyed it. It’s all good, as long as there’s consent and people are safe.
I'd like to also note here, these are my opinions, and nothing more. I don't want to start any kind of fight or confrontation with anyone.
Now for a little tease from one of my books within the genre:
"There you are," Cass beamed. "Let me see what you've brought me." She stopped in front of him; her stiletto-clad foot an inch from his knee, the silky black stockings disappearing up her leg and out of his view. He'd seen no skirt. His erection throbbed noticeably. She bent down, and he managed to catch a glimpse of her as she picked up the flogger. Her tightly waved hair hugged her head like an ebony helmet, and accentuated her cheekbones and the line of her jaw. She hadn't worn a skirt. In fact she wore very little, a black satin slip dress and a red corset that cinched her waist impossibly tight.
A swish of leather close beside him had made him tremble.
"Did you touch yourself today?" Cass asked pointedly.
"No, Mistress," he'd replied in a rush.
"Did you ask the clerk in the store for help?"
Rick felt his face heat up and knew he was blushing. "Yes, Mistress.
Well, not exactly, one of them asked me, and I said I needed help."
"Excellent. What did the clerk look like?"
"Blonde, very pretty. She wore a lot of leather. Her name was Sabine. The other clerk called her that."
"There were two clerks there?"
"Yes, Mistress. The other one was a little older."
"And did one of them try the flogger?"
The heat in his face grew even hotter and traveled down over his chest. "Yes, Mistress, and I told her it was for my Mistress. She gave me a note for you."
"She did, where is it?"
"In the bag the flogger was in."
Cass retrieved the bag and pulled the note out, but didn't read it. "You did well." She stepped back and said, "Lean back, hands on the floor, push your hips up."
A moment later, the rumpled ribbon dangled from her hand and she'd dropped it to the floor. His cock and balls were free for the first time in a day. He desperately wanted to rub himself. His testicles moved upwards, itched so much that his inner thighs twitched in sympathy.
"I want you to have a shower now, and make sure you're shaved." Cass flicked the tip of his erection with a finger, and laughed when it twitched from side to side. His scrotum puckered, and his balls itched even more. "But, make sure you don't masturbate. I'll pop in sometime during your shower to watch. If I catch you playing with yourself, you'll get both a flogging and be denied an orgasm."
"Yes, Mistress," he'd replied.
Cass got to her feet, and added, "On your feet, but keep your legs apart."
Rick had climbed to his feet. He'd curled his fingers into fists to keep them away from his crotch. The frustration mounted even higher when he'd made his way to the bathroom. His genitals swayed, the air wafted around his balls.
He'd showered and shaved, paying special attention to his genitals. Even just being able to touch and pull at the skin eased his torment somewhat. Not enough though, and by the time he'd finished, he was as horny as he could ever remember being. The anticipation of what was going to happen was the culprit, and he tried not to think about what Cass had planned. But the more he tried to concentrate on something else, the more his mind refused, and came back to the days ahead.
Cass had come in, and sat on the toilet watching him as he shaved the stubble around the root of his cock. Running the safety blade over his balls, he'd pulled and stretched the skin, ensuring a clean shave. She chuckled when he groaned, and even offered to help him with his bottom. He'd turned off the shower, re-lathered and bent forward for her, and tried desperately to hold still while she ran the blade carefully between his cheeks. Done, she'd left him trembling and told him to make sure he rinsed well.
While he stood toweling himself, he'd heard the doorbell chime. His stomach tightened. Could he go through with it?
The bathroom door had opened. It was Cass, smiling, eager. "Now is your last chance to stop this. Once I take you out of here, you'll obey me or be punished."
His mind had been numb. Excitement and apprehension warred for a moment while he stood trembling on the white tiled floor. "Kiss me," he'd croaked. For that moment he'd felt vulnerable and alone, but when she came into his arms, his world felt complete and wonderful. She was his soul mate, his lady, and the only person in the world who understood him. She went into his arms, hers wrapping around his neck and pulling his lips to hers. It was his turn to take control, if only for a few moments of sheer bliss. Bodies melded to each other, tongues twined around the others, and breath mingled as they lost themselves in each other. Too soon the kiss ended. Neither moved for the longest time, but then it was as if a signal had been given.
Rick looked deep into his lady's eyes, and said, "Yes, I'm ready, Mistress."
Cass pulled out of his arms and took a deep breath. The bodice of her slip dress showed how erect her nipples were, and her chest above the silk dappled with a flush. "Heel me," she'd said, and turning, left the bathroom.
I hope you've enjoyed the post. I'd really love to hear from you. Your opinions, outlooks or questions would be awesome.
The stirrings of a young man’s heart when he sees his girlfriend bent over a fence. His thoughts, ‘God I’d love to tie her there.’
A girl sees a sexy movie dude kneeling at the foot of his faux lover’s bed, and that girl’s mind races with ‘bend over, bend over, I want to spank your ass.’
No ages given, none needed, your imagination can take you wherever.
BDSM, bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism. Sounds a little scary doesn’t it? Perverse, abuse, sin, words bandied about to encourage those interested in the genre to hide it away. But, what is it really?
Some of us desire to either be controlled or to control another. It’s like any other passion, any other need. You don’t choose it, you are possessed by it. Why do you crave to be dominated? What makes you want to dominate someone? It’s like explaining why you’re heterosexual, or why you breathe.
There’s the safe sane and consensual aspect of BDSM, and we should all strive to at least understand what that means. Safe, means not to harm your partner so badly they need medical aid. Think about it.
Safe: You want to use a flogger, learn how. Strike over the kidney too many times or too hard and you’re asking for trouble. Use a cane on a person’s spine and you can do major damage. Any bindings should be checked every few minutes to be sure circulation is fine. It’s always up to the dominate to make sure his, or her, submissive is safe.
Sane: Also more or less self-explanatory. Use your head, and that means a sober, non-drugged head. Alcohol is never a good idea if you plan on doing a scene. Possibly a glass of wine with dinner, but definitely not six just before you and your sexy playmate decide it’s time to get kinky. Always, always, think about what you’re doing, before you jump in.
There’s also the issue of, is a person looking for daddy’s approval through BDSM, or something like it. Is the person who wants to be ‘disciplined, sane? Is the person who is doing the disciplining sane? Things to think about before you get into the act. Yes?
Consensual: Both parties agree to whatever ‘play’ is about to take place. Yes, there are rape scenarios where one partner wants to be kidnapped and abused, but it’s always a good idea to at least discuss what that might include. I mean if Joe Swift wants his lady to bash him over the head and stuff him into the kiddies toy crate for an hour before she drags him out and molests his sweet butt for the rest of the weekend, it’d be pretty sad if she simply tied him to the bed and uses a feather on him. It’s not what he wanted and if she’s any kind of Domme, she’ll find out before the play begins. His consent is a must. I don’t mean in writing, unless that’s part of what you both want, but I do mean both partners have to know what’s going on.
Safe words: There’s been tons about this and how important they are. Well, sometimes they are. That depends on the people playing. Yes? We’re back to talking about all this stuff. If Sally wants her butt warmed, and Joe is willing to do it until she cries ‘Spank me no more brave Joe’ then there’s probably not huge call for a safe word. If the couple wants to have one, then go for it. If there’s a chance that the ‘discipline’ might be too harsh, then it might be an idea to discuss it. But, if Sally can yell, ‘fucking stop beating my ass,’ and be assured the Joe will, then they’re cool without one.
Communication is right up there as number one in any of this. But, that’s really true of any relationship, right? If you don’t talk to your partner, then how can you please them? Once you get past that awkward, I hope he doesn’t think I’m a pervert stage, the going should get really smooth and the fun will be even better.
Writing about BDSM! I guess you have to have an interest, whether it’s something you want to do or are simply curious about the whys and wherefores. There are dozens of websites where you can find good solid information, and if you don’t understand something, there are forums where you can ask. Do the research and ask the questions, I’ve found the BDSM community online to be incredibly helpful.
I’ve written about BDSM for years and enjoy it tremendously, even when it’s not a fetish or kink I’m into. For three years I wrote for a breast torture site and learned a great deal about the fetish and why it was so popular. I can’t say I’d want to spend time with needles inserted into tender bits, but I can understand the attraction. I also spent time writing for a spanking site and really enjoyed it. It’s all good, as long as there’s consent and people are safe.
I'd like to also note here, these are my opinions, and nothing more. I don't want to start any kind of fight or confrontation with anyone.
Now for a little tease from one of my books within the genre:
Taken from the story, "Pink Ribbon"
one of the stories in my collection, Yes, Ma'am
By Jude Mason
ISBN: 978-1-59426-894-6
Publisher: Phaze
Rick Sebastian, successful attorney by day, eager slave to his wife/Mistress Cass after hours, is caged. He'd spoiled dinner, and while waiting for punishment, reflects on how he'd begun his strange and exciting journey into submission. His memories, and the arrival of Cass' friend, make for an evening to remember.Excerpt:
"There you are," Cass beamed. "Let me see what you've brought me." She stopped in front of him; her stiletto-clad foot an inch from his knee, the silky black stockings disappearing up her leg and out of his view. He'd seen no skirt. His erection throbbed noticeably. She bent down, and he managed to catch a glimpse of her as she picked up the flogger. Her tightly waved hair hugged her head like an ebony helmet, and accentuated her cheekbones and the line of her jaw. She hadn't worn a skirt. In fact she wore very little, a black satin slip dress and a red corset that cinched her waist impossibly tight.
A swish of leather close beside him had made him tremble.
"Did you touch yourself today?" Cass asked pointedly.
"No, Mistress," he'd replied in a rush.
"Did you ask the clerk in the store for help?"
Rick felt his face heat up and knew he was blushing. "Yes, Mistress.
Well, not exactly, one of them asked me, and I said I needed help."
"Excellent. What did the clerk look like?"
"Blonde, very pretty. She wore a lot of leather. Her name was Sabine. The other clerk called her that."
"There were two clerks there?"
"Yes, Mistress. The other one was a little older."
"And did one of them try the flogger?"
The heat in his face grew even hotter and traveled down over his chest. "Yes, Mistress, and I told her it was for my Mistress. She gave me a note for you."
"She did, where is it?"
"In the bag the flogger was in."
Cass retrieved the bag and pulled the note out, but didn't read it. "You did well." She stepped back and said, "Lean back, hands on the floor, push your hips up."
A moment later, the rumpled ribbon dangled from her hand and she'd dropped it to the floor. His cock and balls were free for the first time in a day. He desperately wanted to rub himself. His testicles moved upwards, itched so much that his inner thighs twitched in sympathy.
"I want you to have a shower now, and make sure you're shaved." Cass flicked the tip of his erection with a finger, and laughed when it twitched from side to side. His scrotum puckered, and his balls itched even more. "But, make sure you don't masturbate. I'll pop in sometime during your shower to watch. If I catch you playing with yourself, you'll get both a flogging and be denied an orgasm."
"Yes, Mistress," he'd replied.
Cass got to her feet, and added, "On your feet, but keep your legs apart."
Rick had climbed to his feet. He'd curled his fingers into fists to keep them away from his crotch. The frustration mounted even higher when he'd made his way to the bathroom. His genitals swayed, the air wafted around his balls.
He'd showered and shaved, paying special attention to his genitals. Even just being able to touch and pull at the skin eased his torment somewhat. Not enough though, and by the time he'd finished, he was as horny as he could ever remember being. The anticipation of what was going to happen was the culprit, and he tried not to think about what Cass had planned. But the more he tried to concentrate on something else, the more his mind refused, and came back to the days ahead.
Cass had come in, and sat on the toilet watching him as he shaved the stubble around the root of his cock. Running the safety blade over his balls, he'd pulled and stretched the skin, ensuring a clean shave. She chuckled when he groaned, and even offered to help him with his bottom. He'd turned off the shower, re-lathered and bent forward for her, and tried desperately to hold still while she ran the blade carefully between his cheeks. Done, she'd left him trembling and told him to make sure he rinsed well.
While he stood toweling himself, he'd heard the doorbell chime. His stomach tightened. Could he go through with it?
The bathroom door had opened. It was Cass, smiling, eager. "Now is your last chance to stop this. Once I take you out of here, you'll obey me or be punished."
His mind had been numb. Excitement and apprehension warred for a moment while he stood trembling on the white tiled floor. "Kiss me," he'd croaked. For that moment he'd felt vulnerable and alone, but when she came into his arms, his world felt complete and wonderful. She was his soul mate, his lady, and the only person in the world who understood him. She went into his arms, hers wrapping around his neck and pulling his lips to hers. It was his turn to take control, if only for a few moments of sheer bliss. Bodies melded to each other, tongues twined around the others, and breath mingled as they lost themselves in each other. Too soon the kiss ended. Neither moved for the longest time, but then it was as if a signal had been given.
Rick looked deep into his lady's eyes, and said, "Yes, I'm ready, Mistress."
Cass pulled out of his arms and took a deep breath. The bodice of her slip dress showed how erect her nipples were, and her chest above the silk dappled with a flush. "Heel me," she'd said, and turning, left the bathroom.
* * * *
I hope you've enjoyed the post. I'd really love to hear from you. Your opinions, outlooks or questions would be awesome.
Multi-published Canadian author, Jude Mason, writes in a variety of genres and adores stretching the boundaries. The bulk of her work has been D/s and femdom, but she enjoyed straying into fetish, pulp fiction, m/m. f/f, paranormal and sci-fi, among others.. A picture, a smell, an unexpected glimpse of flesh, or a load of soil in the back of a pick-up, are all fodder for her writing. Her male characters run the gamut from the alpha male ruling his women with an iron fist, to a simpering purple-clad boy-toy, whose only desire is to please. As diverse and as richly depicted, her women find themselves in a myriad of exotic and erotic situations, and are as lusty as their male counterparts, of not more so. Jude has work in print, ebook form and audio
Interested, Google her name, you'll find her. ‘Readers needed: Come, explore with me…if you dare!'
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Childhood Lost By Jude Mason
Here's a fantastic new post by a great pal and a wonderful writer, Jude Mason. Be sure and check out her site and her blog.
When I was a child, I’m talking prehistory here folks, kids were kids. We rode our bikes wherever we went, we had hoola hoops until we began senior high, we obeyed our parent’s and we weren’t rushed to grow up—at least not to the extent the children of the new millennium have been. We respected our elders and police officers were our friends.
The pill changed attitudes. Sex education got its toe in the door of most schools and we children learned where babies came from. (Here’s something to think about: When my mother was born, it was illegal to share birth control information or even explain where babies came from) I remember sitting in our guidance class, boys snickering on one side of the room, girls solemnly on the other, while a blushing middle-aged woman gave us the goods on pregnancy, gonorrhea and syphilis. Talk about an eye opener. And, all using stick figures and grainy film… LOL
To be honest, we didn’t learn much because the poor woman teaching was way too embarrassed to answer questions and she spoke in a whisper. The boys hooted, the girls blushed.
Today, we’ve got AIDS and some diseases we’d never dreamed about in our liberated ‘Free Love’ 70’s culture. Today we have girls 12 years old waxing their legs, and more. There are beauty pageants for babies, youngsters and pre-teens. Pre-teens made up to look like much, much older girls, stuffed into dresses that an eighteen year old would love. Yet, let a boy or man look at these harlequins of maturity and he’s called a pervert. Mothers berate the girls for not doing well in these pageants while plastering more make up on them. Read about a 12 year old who's already a veteran of this insanity.
Oh and let's not forget body image. It used to be married women who dieted to 'get their figure back' after childbirth. When I was a teenager, I don't remember anyone dieting. Now, it's not uncommon for a ten year old to be counting calories. Anorexia was unheard of in my younger years. Today, it's rampant among all ages, even the very young.
Sex sells! Yes, it does, but along with sex comes responsibility. What on Earth inspired a pageant that encouraged young girls to act much older? What parent thought bringing little Sally up as some pretty doll would make her happy, or make the world a better place?
The AIDs scare has made sex a roulette game. Do it and you could die. But, the advertisements and encouragements from ‘responsible’ adults has dragged these kids forward at an outrageous speed. They no longer have time to be kids.
Add the internet, with its free porn and sexually explicit sites, and you’ve got the makings of one hell of a wasted generation. Parent who would like to raise their children properly, discipline them, monitor what the view or who they see, etc., have been handcuffed by idiotic laws that won’t allow them to do it. Touch your child and you could be charged with abuse. Spank little Johnny and find yourself in jail, and Johnny in foster care, which could truly destroy him.
The pendulum has swung too far, one more time. We’ve gone from ‘you can’t explain what causes babies’ to creating miniature sex objects in our children. Explicit sex if fine, but along with it, you need education and maturity. I was a firm believer in giving a child as much knowledge as they asked for. If my daughter, at age three, asked me where she came from, I didn’t go into a long spiel about biology; I told her the hospital in town. If that wasn’t good enough, she’d let me know. It’s up to the parents to take back the control they were meant to have and to use it wisely. If that means we need classes for people, then let’s have them.
I pray that the next generation will find some middle, sane ground and let their children have their childhood, as well as the education they need. What say you all?
When I was a child, I’m talking prehistory here folks, kids were kids. We rode our bikes wherever we went, we had hoola hoops until we began senior high, we obeyed our parent’s and we weren’t rushed to grow up—at least not to the extent the children of the new millennium have been. We respected our elders and police officers were our friends.
The pill changed attitudes. Sex education got its toe in the door of most schools and we children learned where babies came from. (Here’s something to think about: When my mother was born, it was illegal to share birth control information or even explain where babies came from) I remember sitting in our guidance class, boys snickering on one side of the room, girls solemnly on the other, while a blushing middle-aged woman gave us the goods on pregnancy, gonorrhea and syphilis. Talk about an eye opener. And, all using stick figures and grainy film… LOL
To be honest, we didn’t learn much because the poor woman teaching was way too embarrassed to answer questions and she spoke in a whisper. The boys hooted, the girls blushed.
Today, we’ve got AIDS and some diseases we’d never dreamed about in our liberated ‘Free Love’ 70’s culture. Today we have girls 12 years old waxing their legs, and more. There are beauty pageants for babies, youngsters and pre-teens. Pre-teens made up to look like much, much older girls, stuffed into dresses that an eighteen year old would love. Yet, let a boy or man look at these harlequins of maturity and he’s called a pervert. Mothers berate the girls for not doing well in these pageants while plastering more make up on them. Read about a 12 year old who's already a veteran of this insanity.
Oh and let's not forget body image. It used to be married women who dieted to 'get their figure back' after childbirth. When I was a teenager, I don't remember anyone dieting. Now, it's not uncommon for a ten year old to be counting calories. Anorexia was unheard of in my younger years. Today, it's rampant among all ages, even the very young.
Sex sells! Yes, it does, but along with sex comes responsibility. What on Earth inspired a pageant that encouraged young girls to act much older? What parent thought bringing little Sally up as some pretty doll would make her happy, or make the world a better place?
The AIDs scare has made sex a roulette game. Do it and you could die. But, the advertisements and encouragements from ‘responsible’ adults has dragged these kids forward at an outrageous speed. They no longer have time to be kids.
Add the internet, with its free porn and sexually explicit sites, and you’ve got the makings of one hell of a wasted generation. Parent who would like to raise their children properly, discipline them, monitor what the view or who they see, etc., have been handcuffed by idiotic laws that won’t allow them to do it. Touch your child and you could be charged with abuse. Spank little Johnny and find yourself in jail, and Johnny in foster care, which could truly destroy him.
The pendulum has swung too far, one more time. We’ve gone from ‘you can’t explain what causes babies’ to creating miniature sex objects in our children. Explicit sex if fine, but along with it, you need education and maturity. I was a firm believer in giving a child as much knowledge as they asked for. If my daughter, at age three, asked me where she came from, I didn’t go into a long spiel about biology; I told her the hospital in town. If that wasn’t good enough, she’d let me know. It’s up to the parents to take back the control they were meant to have and to use it wisely. If that means we need classes for people, then let’s have them.
I pray that the next generation will find some middle, sane ground and let their children have their childhood, as well as the education they need. What say you all?
Multi-published Canadian author, Jude Mason, writes in a variety of genres and adores stretching the boundaries. The bulk of her work has been D/s and femdom, but she enjoyed straying into fetish, pulp fiction, m/m. f/f, paranormal and sci-fi, among others.. A picture, a smell, an unexpected glimpse of flesh, or a load of soil in the back of a pick-up, are all fodder for her writing. Her male characters run the gamut from the alpha male ruling his women with an iron fist, to a simpering purple-clad boy-toy, whose only desire is to please. As diverse and as richly depicted, her women find themselves in a myriad of exotic and erotic situations, and are as lusty as their male counterparts, of not more so. Jude has work in print, ebook form and audio
Interested, Google her name, you'll find her. ‘Readers needed: Come, explore with me…if you dare!
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Bro. Lingus Will Now Bring Us ....
Wiki:Dave Sheridan (1943 – 1982) was an American cartoonist and underground comix artist. He was the creator of Dealer McDope and Tales from the Leather Nun and collaborated with Gilbert Shelton and Paul Mavrides on The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.
Born in 1943 and raised in the Cleveland, Ohio area, Sheridan had arrived in San Francisco, California by the early 1970s. There he collaborated with fellow midwesterner Fred Schrier on three issues of Mother's Oats Funnies, Meef Comix, the Overland Vegetable Stagecoach (anthologized by And/Or Press in 1975), and a one-shot title called The Balloon Vendor, which were all published by underground comix pioneers Rip Off Press and The Print Mint. His solo work can be seen in Slow Death and Skull Comix and in cartoons he made for the Berkeley Barb. He also did the art for the first mini-album produced by Cleveland area folk singer/songwriter John Bassette, Weed and Wine.Dave Sheridan eventually settled in San Anselmo, California. There, he became a member of the Artistas collective, an artists collective with its own jackets and softball team. During the 1972 Major League Baseball strike, he appointed himself the head of the "Scab League", offering to have his team take the strikers' places for $100 per week and all the beer they could drink. He also befriended and worked closely with comedian Don Novello, drawing the album cover for Novello's Father Guido Sarducci comedy album. A characterization of Sarducci appeared in a Dealer McDope adventure.
In 1974, Sheridan began collaborating on Gilbert Shelton's strips. These were syndicated by Rip Off Press to alternative and college weeklies nationwide, and later collected into comix. His first issue of the Freak Brothers was Number 4, with a many-page story arc entitled The Seventh Voyage of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers: escaping the landlady and her demands for rent, the hirsute trio go to Mexico where they encounter far worse perils, including a Carlos Castaneda parody. Sheridan's detailed graphic style lent itself well to the fantastic imagery needed to lampoon Castaneda's drug-related Central American-cum-New Age sorcery. He then continued to collaborate on the Freak Brothers comix series through issues 5, 6 and 7; the team was joined by Paul Mavrides in 1978 for issue 6.
In 1981, a few months after his marriage to Dava Stone, Sheridan fell ill. Early in 1982 he was diagnosed with cancer, and he died of a brain hemorrhage in March of 1982— just a week before the birth of his daughter Dorothy.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
PuNk, Niguh! By Ily Goyanes
I'm extremely pleased to be able to post this spot-on essay by the very-fantastic Ily Goyanes. Way to go, Ily!
First, I have to make a disclaimer that states my unequivocal position that everyone is entitled to be as stupid as they want to be. I am all for civil rights.
That said, there are groups/subcultures/religions/ethnicities and so forth, that really irritate me no end. And, as I know that I am not alone in this, I am sure that some irritate you as well (even though you might not admit it).
Today we will be discussing the subculture that consists of the modern punk. And, yes, I mean PuNk, as in the anti-establishment, uncreative, monotonous, contemporary punk rocker (at least American ones, but from their "musical" output, I would have to say all geographic locations).
Punk music is all the same. Now before everyone starts debating the merits of using only three chords let me clarify. All punk music has the same sound: A fast, simple beat, semi-shouted vocals, and common lyrical themes. How many times are the following subjects mentioned in punk music? Sex, drinking, and anarchy. Right...I can't count that high either.
The "lifestyle" is even worse than the music-an astonishing fact, considering how mundane the music is. It is okay to wallow in mediocrity as long as you are drinking, fucking, and fighting. How old are these people? Fourteen? You can be thirty-three years old and work as a barista at your local Starbuck's as long as you're giving it to THE MAN!
I once thought that as long as you made enough money to pay your bills, had a job so brainless that you could crawl in with a giant hangover, were able to hang out with your friends every night (read: those on the same highway to Loserville) and get pissed (pissed drunk, pissed off, and pissed on), that everything was all right with the world. I mean, who wants nice things? Those are THE MAN’S goals, aren’t they?
This brings me to the absolute most RANCID aspect of PuNk culture, the philosophy of PuNk: The entrenched philosophy that it is okay to be a loser. Let me pontificate further-a loser is someone with no ambition, motivation or direction, someone who is content to trudge along through life while not living it to its fullest potential. A punk is someone who has no goals other than immediate gratification-get drunk, get laid, and get into a fight. As long as two of those three "goals" are met, the punk has achieved success.
A punk feels that they are "real”. Well, they are…real full of shit. Anyone who wears a uniform (faded band t-shirt and skinny jeans with converse or boots) when not at work, is a total conformist. Punks dislike other kinds of music like pop or electronica because they say those genres are synthetic, and consequently, fake. The true phony is the punk who sits back indistinguishable from all his friends, completely having bought into an image, living his life as an isolated existence while denying the splendor that life has to offer.
Being a punk rocker should be a phase in one’s life, not the life itself. The punk’s nihilistic attitude belies a deeper ignorance. Punk rockers are not giving it to the man…the man could really give a shit. To truly give it to the man one must achieve the man’s status quo and then enact changes in the system. You must be successful and only then can you truly create chaos.
My deepest apologies to The Clash and The Ramones. Fuck you Green Day, The Offspring, and Blink 182.
First, I have to make a disclaimer that states my unequivocal position that everyone is entitled to be as stupid as they want to be. I am all for civil rights.
That said, there are groups/subcultures/religions/ethnicities and so forth, that really irritate me no end. And, as I know that I am not alone in this, I am sure that some irritate you as well (even though you might not admit it).
Today we will be discussing the subculture that consists of the modern punk. And, yes, I mean PuNk, as in the anti-establishment, uncreative, monotonous, contemporary punk rocker (at least American ones, but from their "musical" output, I would have to say all geographic locations).
Punk music is all the same. Now before everyone starts debating the merits of using only three chords let me clarify. All punk music has the same sound: A fast, simple beat, semi-shouted vocals, and common lyrical themes. How many times are the following subjects mentioned in punk music? Sex, drinking, and anarchy. Right...I can't count that high either.
The "lifestyle" is even worse than the music-an astonishing fact, considering how mundane the music is. It is okay to wallow in mediocrity as long as you are drinking, fucking, and fighting. How old are these people? Fourteen? You can be thirty-three years old and work as a barista at your local Starbuck's as long as you're giving it to THE MAN!
I once thought that as long as you made enough money to pay your bills, had a job so brainless that you could crawl in with a giant hangover, were able to hang out with your friends every night (read: those on the same highway to Loserville) and get pissed (pissed drunk, pissed off, and pissed on), that everything was all right with the world. I mean, who wants nice things? Those are THE MAN’S goals, aren’t they?
This brings me to the absolute most RANCID aspect of PuNk culture, the philosophy of PuNk: The entrenched philosophy that it is okay to be a loser. Let me pontificate further-a loser is someone with no ambition, motivation or direction, someone who is content to trudge along through life while not living it to its fullest potential. A punk is someone who has no goals other than immediate gratification-get drunk, get laid, and get into a fight. As long as two of those three "goals" are met, the punk has achieved success.
A punk feels that they are "real”. Well, they are…real full of shit. Anyone who wears a uniform (faded band t-shirt and skinny jeans with converse or boots) when not at work, is a total conformist. Punks dislike other kinds of music like pop or electronica because they say those genres are synthetic, and consequently, fake. The true phony is the punk who sits back indistinguishable from all his friends, completely having bought into an image, living his life as an isolated existence while denying the splendor that life has to offer.
Being a punk rocker should be a phase in one’s life, not the life itself. The punk’s nihilistic attitude belies a deeper ignorance. Punk rockers are not giving it to the man…the man could really give a shit. To truly give it to the man one must achieve the man’s status quo and then enact changes in the system. You must be successful and only then can you truly create chaos.
My deepest apologies to The Clash and The Ramones. Fuck you Green Day, The Offspring, and Blink 182.
An insatiable gadabout, Ily Goyanes rocks out in Miami, Florida. She holds a BS in Legal Studies and Psychology and her work regularly appears in local, national and international publications
Friday, September 18, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Gumming Up The Works By Ralph Greco, Jr.
Here's another great piece by Ralph Greco, Jr. Be sure and check out Ralph's radio show and buy his new book!
Gumming Up The Works
By
Ralph Greco, Jr.
By
Ralph Greco, Jr.
“Anne, I’ll bring the Freshen-Up on Monday, ok?”
I made this announcement in the bustle of a Friday afternoon, in the ‘sophomore wing’ of my high school, fall of 1976. Anne had turned to me, running as she was out the side school door for her ride, smiling with a ‘Ok…huh…what?’ kind of politeness I would come to later realize feigned no interest at all in me or what I was saying. I could hear the spin, shift and mock of those eight words as clear and crisp as if someone had just whispered them in my ear, sitting here now decades later at the brick-wood table in the quad outside my office.
The reason this douche-chill of a moment in my personal disa-story was replaying at precisely this moment, while I enjoyed lunch during what seemed like it was going to be a fine spring Tuesday, was that Anne, that vixen of flaxen hair, big brown eyes and indifference for my gum (or anything else I had to offer way back when I was a chubby, dimpled 15 year old boy) was walking right to me, right then, smiling wide!
From her smile and the purposeful way she was shortening the distance between us, I had first thought Anne had recognized me (I had her!) but I quickly realized in that moment of clenched breath and yogurt dripping that she was matching the smile of three girls who sat grouped behind me. This group (is it a group when there are three or more women or a gaggle, I never know?) welcomed Anne as she simply strutted by me, as indifferent to me and my yogurt as she had been to me and my gum decades before.
I wasn’t insulted, not nearly as much as I was a week after that gum instance when I spied Anne arm-around-waist with Michael Branny in the school café. Then I was crushed and it was only with the council of my good friend Tom, months later as we sat smoking a joint ‘up at the park’, talking over all sorts of cosmic conundrums, that I inquired of the complexities that were the female mind.
With the fourth play that day of Hotel California as our soundtrack, I offered my bespectacled best friend a pass of the roach while admitting my bewilderment over all things woman. Of course my faux pas with Anne was aired, then a good six months old and coughing over much more then just the crappy pot, Tom let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I had been overly solicitous with my wanting of young Anne (not that he used the word ‘solicitous’).
“Shit…” he exhaled. “…the chick just mentions the stuff, and you are buying her packs of it!?”
Tom assessed the situation as only he could, illuminating me to the generally wussyi-ness of offering to buy Anne more of the newly-marketed Freshen-Up after only just stealthily passing her a piece in history class (back in a time when you still had to hide such things!). My best buddy told me then and reminded me on many occasions later- when I was falling hard for one girl or another-not let myself be made the complaint stooge.
Because of Tom’s solid advice and me shedding the twenty pounds of baby fat that decided to stay a little late in the game, my first year of college saw me keeping time with quite a few women. Things were going well for me in those first years of my twenties and I never truly looked back to Anne or any other woman who had rejected me. I put down that gum instance as just one of those we all go through. But here she was so many decades later right behind me, giggling with her friends, unaware not only of the man who sat so close to her, but unaware of who that man (me) was.
Not only had she not recognized me, but I knew, surely better then I had ever known anything in my entire life, that that woman who passed me, who would be hard pressed later to even recall the man sitting so close to her at lunch, let alone remember that there was a man sitting so close to her a lunch, never gave that day in the high-school hallway even a passing thought. It was me who would pursue it to my dying day; Anne had no care to discuss it then…as she wouldn’t even remember it all now.
I knew I could easily introduce my sad self; attempt to jump-start her memory of who I had been in her life; feign interest in same as she did for me (if she’d even be polite enough to try); maybe, if she even allowed me the moment, maybe I could ease into that long-ago day I have ever since been trying to justify. With any luck I might hear Anne remark: “Ah, but we were just kid’s then.” or some other innocuous observation said to ease my pain as much as ease Anne away from me. Maybe she’d even smile and promise to keep in touch, after asking me for my email which we both know she’d never use.
I stood up, turned only the fraction of an inch needed for me to execute a close walk around the table I had been sitting at and stepped to the closest garbage pail not five feet from Anne and I. Throwing my yogurt away, I reached into my pocket to extract the roll of half-eaten cherry Life Savers I always seem to have handy.
I didn’t bother to offer one to Anne.
I made this announcement in the bustle of a Friday afternoon, in the ‘sophomore wing’ of my high school, fall of 1976. Anne had turned to me, running as she was out the side school door for her ride, smiling with a ‘Ok…huh…what?’ kind of politeness I would come to later realize feigned no interest at all in me or what I was saying. I could hear the spin, shift and mock of those eight words as clear and crisp as if someone had just whispered them in my ear, sitting here now decades later at the brick-wood table in the quad outside my office.
The reason this douche-chill of a moment in my personal disa-story was replaying at precisely this moment, while I enjoyed lunch during what seemed like it was going to be a fine spring Tuesday, was that Anne, that vixen of flaxen hair, big brown eyes and indifference for my gum (or anything else I had to offer way back when I was a chubby, dimpled 15 year old boy) was walking right to me, right then, smiling wide!
From her smile and the purposeful way she was shortening the distance between us, I had first thought Anne had recognized me (I had her!) but I quickly realized in that moment of clenched breath and yogurt dripping that she was matching the smile of three girls who sat grouped behind me. This group (is it a group when there are three or more women or a gaggle, I never know?) welcomed Anne as she simply strutted by me, as indifferent to me and my yogurt as she had been to me and my gum decades before.
I wasn’t insulted, not nearly as much as I was a week after that gum instance when I spied Anne arm-around-waist with Michael Branny in the school café. Then I was crushed and it was only with the council of my good friend Tom, months later as we sat smoking a joint ‘up at the park’, talking over all sorts of cosmic conundrums, that I inquired of the complexities that were the female mind.
With the fourth play that day of Hotel California as our soundtrack, I offered my bespectacled best friend a pass of the roach while admitting my bewilderment over all things woman. Of course my faux pas with Anne was aired, then a good six months old and coughing over much more then just the crappy pot, Tom let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I had been overly solicitous with my wanting of young Anne (not that he used the word ‘solicitous’).
“Shit…” he exhaled. “…the chick just mentions the stuff, and you are buying her packs of it!?”
Tom assessed the situation as only he could, illuminating me to the generally wussyi-ness of offering to buy Anne more of the newly-marketed Freshen-Up after only just stealthily passing her a piece in history class (back in a time when you still had to hide such things!). My best buddy told me then and reminded me on many occasions later- when I was falling hard for one girl or another-not let myself be made the complaint stooge.
Because of Tom’s solid advice and me shedding the twenty pounds of baby fat that decided to stay a little late in the game, my first year of college saw me keeping time with quite a few women. Things were going well for me in those first years of my twenties and I never truly looked back to Anne or any other woman who had rejected me. I put down that gum instance as just one of those we all go through. But here she was so many decades later right behind me, giggling with her friends, unaware not only of the man who sat so close to her, but unaware of who that man (me) was.
Not only had she not recognized me, but I knew, surely better then I had ever known anything in my entire life, that that woman who passed me, who would be hard pressed later to even recall the man sitting so close to her at lunch, let alone remember that there was a man sitting so close to her a lunch, never gave that day in the high-school hallway even a passing thought. It was me who would pursue it to my dying day; Anne had no care to discuss it then…as she wouldn’t even remember it all now.
I knew I could easily introduce my sad self; attempt to jump-start her memory of who I had been in her life; feign interest in same as she did for me (if she’d even be polite enough to try); maybe, if she even allowed me the moment, maybe I could ease into that long-ago day I have ever since been trying to justify. With any luck I might hear Anne remark: “Ah, but we were just kid’s then.” or some other innocuous observation said to ease my pain as much as ease Anne away from me. Maybe she’d even smile and promise to keep in touch, after asking me for my email which we both know she’d never use.
I stood up, turned only the fraction of an inch needed for me to execute a close walk around the table I had been sitting at and stepped to the closest garbage pail not five feet from Anne and I. Throwing my yogurt away, I reached into my pocket to extract the roll of half-eaten cherry Life Savers I always seem to have handy.
I didn’t bother to offer one to Anne.
Ralph Greco, Jr. is an internationally published author of short stories, plays, essays, button slogans, 800# phone sex scripts, children’s songs and SEO copy. Ralph is also an ASCAP licensed songwriter/performer and Internet radio D.J. He lives in the wilds of suburban NJ, where he attempts to keep his ever-expanding ego in check.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Hello, Dolly!
Wiki:Hans Bellmer (13 March 1902 Katowice, Silesia, – 23 February 1975 Paris, France) was an artist best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians of art and photography also consider him a Surrealist photographer.Since 1926 he had been working as a draftsman for his own advertising company. He initiated his doll project to oppose the fascism of the Nazi Party by declaring that he would make no work that would support the new German state. Represented by mutated forms and unconventional poses, his dolls were directed specifically at the cult of the perfect body then prominent in Germany. Bellmer was influenced in his choice of art form by reading the published letters of Oskar Kokoschka (Der Fetisch, 1925).
Bellmer's doll project is also said to have been catalysed by a series of events in his personal life, including meeting a beautiful teenage cousin in 1932 - and perhaps other unattainable beauties; and attending a performance of Jacques Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann (in which a man falls tragically in love with an automaton); and receiving a box of his old toys. After these events he began to actually construct his first doll. In his works, Bellmer explicitly sexualized the doll as a young girl. On the other hand, the doll incorporated the principle of "ball joint" , which was inspired by a pair of sixteenth-century articulated wooden dolls in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum
He visited Paris in 1935 and made contacts there such as Paul Éluard, but returned to Berlin because his wife Margarete was dying of tuberculosis.
Bellmer's 1934 anonymous book The Doll (Die Puppe), produced and published privately in Germany, contains 10 black-and-white photographs of Bellmer's first doll arranged in a series of "tableaux vivants" (living pictures). The book was not credited to him, he worked in isolation, and his photographs remained almost unknown in Germany. Yet Bellmer's work was eventually declared "degenerate" by the Nazi Party, and he was forced to flee Germany to France in 1938.
His work was welcomed in the Parisian art culture of the time, especially the Surrealists under André Breton, because of the references to female beauty and the sexualization of the youthful form. His photographs were published in the Surrealist journal Minotaure.
He aided the resistance during the war, making fake passports; and was imprisoned in the Camp des Milles prison at Aix-en-Provence for most of World War II.
After the war, Bellmer lived the rest of his life in Paris. Bellmer gave up doll making, and spent the following decades creating erotic drawings, etchings, sexually explicit photographs, paintings and prints of pubescent girls. In 1954 he met Unica Zürn, who became his companion until her suicide in 1970. He continued making work into the 1960s.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Have A Seat
Wiki:
Allen Jones RA (born 1 September 1937) is a British pop artist, best known for his sculptures.
Jones was born in Southampton and from 1955 to 1961 studied at the Hornsey College of Art (London). He was expelled from the Royal College of Art; from 1961 to 1963 he taught at Croydon College of Art.
His exhibition of erotic sculptures, like the set Chair, Table and Hat Stand (1969), are studies in forniphilia which turn women into items of human furniture. Much of his work draws on the imagery of rubber fetishism and BDSM.
The sculptures in the Korova Milkbar from the film A Clockwork Orange were based on works by Jones after he turned down the request by Stanley Kubrick to design the set for no payment.
Jones designed Barbet Schroeder's 1976 film Maîtresse.
He was elected R.A. (Royal Academician) by the Royal Academy in 1986. He lives and works in London.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
A Perfect Texan
Wiki:Candy Barr (July 6, 1935 – December 30, 2005) was an American stripper, burlesque exotic dancer, actress in one pornographic movie, and model in men's magazines of the mid-20th century.
During the 1950s, she received nationwide attention for her stripping career in Dallas, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas; her troubles with the law; shooting her estranged second husband; and being arrested and sentenced to a prison term for drug possession, as well as her relationships with Mickey Cohen and Jack Ruby.
After serving three years in prison, Barr began a new life in South Texas. She briefly returned to stripping in the late 1960s, posed for Oui magazine in the 1970s, and then retired.
In the early 1980s, Barr was acknowledged in the magazine Texas Monthly as one of history's "perfect Texans," along with such luminaries as Lady Bird Johnson.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Wind Me Up, Baby! Part 1
A late 19th Century quarter repeating Swiss lever with an erotic scene in a gold full hunter case. Gilt three quarter plate keyless movement with going barrel, four armed cam above the plate to actuate the automaton. Plain cock with polished steel regulator, compensation balance with blue steel overcoil hairspring. Club foot lever escapement. Slide quarter repeating on two gongs. White enamel dial with subsidiary seconds, Roman numerals, blue steel hands. Engine turned 18 carat gold full hunter case, slide in the band. The gold false cuvette opening to reveal the erotic scene of an African woman wearing pearls and a man with a dog at his heels. The polychrome enamel figures engaged in an amorous encounter spring to life when the repeat mechanism is activated.Anonymous Swiss
Circa 1900
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Saints Be Praised? By Ralph Greco, Jr
Here's another great essay from Ralph Greco, Jr. Be sure and check out his radio show and buy his new book!
Miracles do happen, they say. Ophra talks about angels. People constantly see the face of Jesus in tacos and fruit salads. Some say we won the war (whatever war it is we purportedly won recently) cause God blesses America. And while all this is hard for a dyed-in-the-wool atheist like me to take, I generally I let it go. Like Mel Gibson said in Signs “Does that bring you comfort?” Whatever it happens to be, have at it man, I say. Just don’t push it, preach it or legislate it in my house or with my government.
But I do so love it when things go awry…
Remember back in January when the skilled pilot and astute crew of Flight 1549 safely landed their plane on/in the Hudson River and we all had to suffer under the 'Miracle On The Hudson' media tagline? Then just a few weeks ago as I write this a small plane collided with a Liberty Harbor Sightseeing Tours helicopter and both aircraft fell into the same waterway, with unfortunately fatal results. What happened? Did God like the people on the first plane better? Was Satan, that ol' wasikly wabbit piloting the second vessels to their doom? Sure, I am happy for the first and saddened by the second, but do we only attribute that hand of the almighty when something good happens?
Or how about this new media darling absolute a-hole fuckwad who was just captured for kidnapping, holding and fathering babies with a woman he kidnapped some 18 years ago?!? Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped at 11 years old and kept locked away in a backyard compound of sheds and tarps by this absolute human filth Phillip Garrido. Not to my surprise Garrido maintained a blog (Jesus, everybody does these days huh?) where he claimed :"the Creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongue of angels in order to provide a wake-up call that will in time include the salvation of the entire world." Ever notice how so many of these jerk-offs have a direct line to the big man; Jim Jones, those nutter polygamist leaders fucking underage girls? Really, as Ricky Ricardo said, somebody's got some "splaining to do"!
Thing is, ya can’t have it both ways (although I know a lot of people who prefer it that way) but all joking aside if you believe in miracles, visions, the supernatural side of the things then you got to take the good with the bad, the tragedy and the triumph, the hand-of-God cures with an Almighty smote. Personally that seems like one wacky deity to be sure, getting' off on idolatry and revenge. 'Why you be such a hater', I say to the big man upstairs? Just give us the good, good, good you can do.
Now that would be a miracle.
Miracles do happen, they say. Ophra talks about angels. People constantly see the face of Jesus in tacos and fruit salads. Some say we won the war (whatever war it is we purportedly won recently) cause God blesses America. And while all this is hard for a dyed-in-the-wool atheist like me to take, I generally I let it go. Like Mel Gibson said in Signs “Does that bring you comfort?” Whatever it happens to be, have at it man, I say. Just don’t push it, preach it or legislate it in my house or with my government.
But I do so love it when things go awry…
Remember back in January when the skilled pilot and astute crew of Flight 1549 safely landed their plane on/in the Hudson River and we all had to suffer under the 'Miracle On The Hudson' media tagline? Then just a few weeks ago as I write this a small plane collided with a Liberty Harbor Sightseeing Tours helicopter and both aircraft fell into the same waterway, with unfortunately fatal results. What happened? Did God like the people on the first plane better? Was Satan, that ol' wasikly wabbit piloting the second vessels to their doom? Sure, I am happy for the first and saddened by the second, but do we only attribute that hand of the almighty when something good happens?
Or how about this new media darling absolute a-hole fuckwad who was just captured for kidnapping, holding and fathering babies with a woman he kidnapped some 18 years ago?!? Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped at 11 years old and kept locked away in a backyard compound of sheds and tarps by this absolute human filth Phillip Garrido. Not to my surprise Garrido maintained a blog (Jesus, everybody does these days huh?) where he claimed :"the Creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongue of angels in order to provide a wake-up call that will in time include the salvation of the entire world." Ever notice how so many of these jerk-offs have a direct line to the big man; Jim Jones, those nutter polygamist leaders fucking underage girls? Really, as Ricky Ricardo said, somebody's got some "splaining to do"!
Thing is, ya can’t have it both ways (although I know a lot of people who prefer it that way) but all joking aside if you believe in miracles, visions, the supernatural side of the things then you got to take the good with the bad, the tragedy and the triumph, the hand-of-God cures with an Almighty smote. Personally that seems like one wacky deity to be sure, getting' off on idolatry and revenge. 'Why you be such a hater', I say to the big man upstairs? Just give us the good, good, good you can do.
Now that would be a miracle.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The Most Amusing Amusement Park In The World: BonBon Land
From MentalFloss:
BonBon-Land is an amusement park in Denmark based on a line of Danish candy. It’s sort of like Pennsylvania’s Hershey Park, except most of the rides involve toilet humor and the giant anthropomorphic candy people have been replaced by topless anthropomorphic hippos.A day at BonBon-Land treats candy-loving Danes to rides like The Crazy Turtle, The Horse Dropping and Hundeprutterutchebane. That last one, which loosely translates to “Dog Fart Switchback,” is a roller coaster that takes riders on an exciting journey around giant mounds of dog poo, while speakers around the track blare fart sounds the whole while.
An Excerpt From Dancer, Daemon By Jason Rubis
Here's a fantastic excerpt from Jason Rubis's story, Dancer, Daemon (available in the Needles & Bone anthology from Drollerie Press). Be sure and check out Jason's great new blog: Pulp Transcendence
Dancer, Daemon
By
This family I have stopped with is not of a philosophical bent. They do not converse during dinner, but bolt their rice and, belching, stare rudely at their guest. Old father. Elder daughter. Younger daughter.
Eventually the old man staggers up, disappears grumbling through the hut’s door to relieve his aching kidneys. The girls, sensing opportunity, come creeping towards me, dirtying knees and palms on the earthen floor. I am cross-legged, calmly drinking tea. Even in this poor place I observe the proprieties expected of a guest. I sit with legs positioned so that my soles are not visible. My braid hangs, as is customary, over my right shoulder. My walking-staff rests against the far wall; near to hand, yet no threat to my hosts, as they well know. Pilgrims on sazai do not rob those they stop with, and no thief hereabouts would dare use the white robe to gain entry to a victim’s home. The countryside is superstitious.
“You a man or woman?” the elder sister asks me. Thick country accent. A thick country girl. I sip from my filthy wooden cup, my hand shaking now.
Younger Sister says, “She told Father she was a Dancer. That’s like Oita told us about. Like they have in the cities.” She’s dusky-skinned like her sister, but smaller, much prettier. She has seen perhaps nineteen winters. The old man might have sold her to a brothel, but her right eyelid droops oddly. Customers would think that bad luck, so she’s stayed home with sister. I’ve seen already she’s a clever, cruel little thing. I imagine her torturing mice.
“Oh.” Elder Sister’s expression does not change. “So a woman, then?”
“Some Dancers are both.” Younger Sister’s small hand strays to my lap. Her fingers fumble there, searching for hardness. Eventually they find a way underneath my robe. I let her touch me. I have to let her touch me.
“Some of them look like a woman, but they have a man’s thing.” Younger Sister is trying hard to prove her words. I have to help her, unfold my legs for her and spread them. I have to put my cup down. She finds the stiffening bundle of my parts, tickles it through the complicated linen wrappings I still wear—no part of sazai, but a memory of my time in the order.
I have been touched many times since I left the Serpent Tower, by men and women of various station. Some knew what I had been. Others, like this girl, know but do not understand. The indignity of it angered me at first. Now, more than not, I take an alarming pleasure in their caresses. I have changed in many ways. On these, the final days of my pilgrimage, I must shave each morning, with my knife. Now the wrappings regularly come undone. I wake in the night and clutch at my stiffness like any just-bearding boy. For every pilgrim, there is a specific humiliation that must be faced daily; this is mine.
“Has a man’s thing but still’s a woman?” Elder Sister demands, suspicious. “How?”
Younger Sister ignores her. “You did something bad,” she tells me. Her eyes—the brightness of one obscured by its malformed lid—smile at me. “Or you wouldn’t be on sazai. Tell me.”
“I made a Daemon,” I say, because it is the truth, and because I hope it will frighten her. It does not. Perhaps it excites her, because she kisses me then, holds my shoulders and slips her tongue in my mouth. A sweet kiss, the breath it carries less so.
But: “A Daemon?” she says, when she breaks away. Still, I can tell she has not really heard me. I might tell her other truths—that the Daemon lives on a mountain very near this place, that tomorrow morning I will climb that mountain and face the thing I— however unintentionally—created. But I learned long ago to not force folk to listen to what they do not care to hear.
“You must be really wicked, then. So you must do what we say.” Younger Sister says this with a practiced tone of menace, as though she has said it before. I think other pilgrims have stopped at this farm in the past.
“Yes. I must do everything you say. Shall I Dance for you?”
I long for her to say yes. What things I could show her then! Even now, as though sensing my words, I can feel the Dance tugging at my limbs. What has been worst for me these weeks of journeying has been my inability to Dance regularly. I am like a bowstring awaiting the archer’s hand.
I am also afraid. Is the Dance in me still? I have been forced to ignore it for so long. If I essayed a simple step and stumbled I think I would die. Certainly I would wish to die.
Younger Sister’s hands stray over her own body, as though considering possibilities. “No,” she says sternly, unaware of what she’s refusing, only knowing that I want it, and so must be refused.
Born in San Francisco, raised in Western Pennsylvania, and has lived most of his adult life in Washington, DC His career as an author of erotic fiction began in the early 90s with a series of sales to Leg Show Magazine. Since then he has made contributions to many web-zines and anthologies, most recentlyLike Clockwork from Circlet Press and Needles and Bones from Drollerie Press, where the story excerpted here first appeared. His work continues to be influenced by pulp and literary traditions as well as his own admittedly unconventional fantasies. He blogs at http://jason-rubis.livejournal.com.
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