The Liner Notes Chronicles, Part 5 — Liberace Edition

I never met Liberace, though I really wanted to.

I can’t say that I was a big fan, though I remember him as early as his black and white television program; the one whose audience seemed to consist totally of grandmothers. His repertoire consisted of florid renditions of popular — and some classical — tunes, which I enjoyed. The “showmanship” aspect didn’t fascinate me much, but the costumes and jewelry that became so identified with him developed with time.

By the ’80s, he was fully established in the persona that’s being exploited in the upcoming (as I write this) HBO movie, “Behind the Candelabra.”

A friend, who had seen him perform in Las Vegas, told me that — no matter what I thought of the quality of his music (by the ’80s, I found it pretty routine) — I should make every effort to see Liberace perform live. So when he appeared at Los Angeles’s Greek Theatre, I was there.

And indeed, the show was pretty remarkable, from the Rolls-Royce driven onstage from which he emerged as his entrance, to the bejewelled capes and numerous costume changes, it was in fact something to be seen — if only once. Elvis Presley had certainly taken note, at least of the costumes. And Liberace’s between-song chat was pleasant and amusing. All in all, a couple hours well spent. Always there, to some degree, my respect for Liberace as an entertainer  was heightened; and it was obvious that he was a skilled musician.

And that aspect of Liberace, I thought, went relatively unrecognized. The press found an easy and relateable gimmick in his costumes, and indeed they were the reason to see him perform rather than just sit an home. listening to any of his many albums.  “Skill” is less of pop stardom for pianists than “style”; and, frankly, there were numerous other pop pianists — Roger Williams, Ferrante & Teicher, and so on — whose records sold better, for whatever reason, than Liberace’s did. Also, if was easier to poke fun — however gentle — at his flamboyance than to discuss anything substantive.

So when Liberace was on the trail promoting something or another, I attempted to land him for the paper. As the music writer, I’d talk to him about music — everything from how he started and how much he practiced to how he selected his repertoire and what he listened to in his off-hours. Whatever came out of it, at least it wouldn’t be like any Liberace piece I’d ever seen.

The assignment went to another writer; good, but (of course) interested in the costumes.

Then, some time later, Liberace died. I never would get that interview; I would never discover whether Liberace was, secretly, a fan of Art Tatum (if he was, I wouldn’t be surprised — the jazzman was noted for his jaw-dropping technique).

Some years later, I received a phone call from the guy who was then running Collectors Choice, a reissue label that among other thing produced their own compilations of material licensed from other companies. I’d created my own little niche there, writing notes for (as I put it) “albums that other writers were too hip to deal with.” I may have fancied myself too hip to actually play some of the records I wrote the notes for; but at least I could give Billy Vaughn, Joe Harnell, George Greeley, and so on the respect they deserved. And The Chief, as I’ll call him, was always helpful — supplying original albums to help me amass credits, for instance — but pretty much left me to my own instincts.

And he never gave me input regarding how I should approach a project. One time, earlier, when I had asked him if everything was OK with something I’d turned in, he shifted into Perry White mode and grumbled, “If anything’s wrong, that’s when you’ll hear from me.”

The assignment this time: Liberace!

In the late 1960s and into the ’70s, Warner Bros. Records signed several acts and attempted to bring them in line with that they considered popular tastes: an album of Ella Ftzgerald singing (among others) Smokey Robinson; Fats Domino’s version of “Lady Madonna” — that kind of thing. And they’d signed Liberace.

The album’s producer had worked with him before; indeed, he was at that point working for Liberace’s manager, Seymour Heller. But the producer, Ed Cobb, had been one of the Four Preps; had produced Ketty Lester’s “Love Letters,” and had written and produced The Standells’ “Dirty Water.” In other words, he knew from contemporary music.

Figuring that people would rather read first-hand accounts than whatever I might have to say, whenever possible I try to interview the artist, which of course was impossible in this case. I also try to interview involved with the artist or the project. Cobb would have been ideal; but, sadly, he had relatively recently passed, himself. Looking at the jacket of the original release, I spotted a familiar name: Emory Gordy Jr.

Gordy, I knew as a bass player, originally from Atlanta, who had played on records from the Classic IV’s “Spooky” to Elvis Presley’s “Burning Love.” He’d also toured with acts including Presley and Emmylou Harris. Clearly a worthy fellow, he also seemed an, er, imaginative choice to be working with Liberace, even on an album that included “MacArthur Park.”

Can’t remember how, now, but first contact was with Gordy’s “people,” in this case a nice woman who explained that Gordy generally doesn’t do interviews. For one thing, he doesn’t like to be asked about Elvis Presley. I’ve known a few former Elvis sidemen who tend to protect him; others, of course, milk their association. I can appreciate either point of view, but assured the woman that I had no interest in talking about Elvis; I wanted to talk about Liberace.

Within a day, she got back to me: Emory would love to talk about Liberace; it’s a credit significant to his career, and one he’s really proud of. Also, I suspect, one most people don’t ask him about.  It turned out that Gordy’s mother had been a Liberace fan, and she considered this credit to be a significant step on her son’s road to respectability. We had a lovely talk. I got my “serious” article about Liberace, and turned in the liner notes without comment from the Chief.

The album was released, and life went on. Though I didn’t get any further assignments from The Chief, who shifted his business elsewhere — to a friend of mine, who once confessed about one middle-of-the-road project “I don’t know why I’m doing this; you’d have been much better suited.”

Eventually, I did get The Chief on the phone. This was a Big Deal, as he was pretty uncommunicative under the best of circumstances. “Why,” I asked, “aren’t you using me any more?”

“You know those Liberace notes?”

“Yeah.”

“They weren’t very funny.”

Liberace: A Brand New Me

By the time he signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1969, Liberace had long achieved world renown. He’d had his first hit single in 1952; and a long-running television series began at about the same time. He’d headlined at Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, and the Hollywood Bowl. In 1955, he became the highest-paid performer in Las Vegas history when he opened the Riviera Hotel for $50,000 per week. He’d starred in a movie (“Sincerely Yours”), and authored volumes including a cookbook and an autobiography. He’d toured the world, performed multiple Royal Command Performances in London, and hosted his own television series in the United Kingdom.

All of this is even more remarkable in that Liberace was a pianist – not a singer – whose repertoire was largely drawn from concert classics by composers including Liszt, Chopin and Tchaikovsky, albeit often in punchy “‘Reader’s Digest’ versions.”

Liberace was dubbed “Mr. Showmanship,” and it was a title difficult to challenge. His stage costumes ranged from a comparatively sedate set of white tails (“So they could see me in the back row”); to a gold lame jacket that would inspire Elvis Presley to commission an entire suit of the same material; to dazzling outfits festooned with jewels, fathers and expensive fur. He’d make his stage entrance stepping out of a Rolls-Royce, and for a while played a legless, transparent “flying” piano, suspended by thin wires.

He was also a charming host, with a winningly self-deprecating sense of humor playing off his ostentatious dress – a combination not lost, no doubt, on young Dolly Parton as she grew up in Tennessee.

But all that aside, Liberace was a serious musician, who’d studied piano from the age of 4, appeared with the Chicago Symphony as a teenager, and attended college on a music scholarship on the recommendation of concert music superstar [Ignacy Jan] Paderewski..

Of course, he’d also accompanied silent movies in his native Wisconsin, and was playing honky-tonk piano in saloons for pay while continuing his classical studies.

* * *

Warner Bros. Records had started with a roster of easy-listening artists, but by 1969 had (with its associated Reprise label) become the home to leading-edge pop acts including Peter, Paul & Mary, Petula Clark, Mason Williams, the Association and Harpers Bizarre; and rockers including the Grateful Dead, Van Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. Somewhere in there was Tiny Tim. In that context, Liberace sounded like an interesting fit.

His manager, Seymour Heller, wanted to broaden Liberace’s appeal, without losing his core audience. The pianist had always included non-classical tunes in his act – his first hit singles included versions of the already-standard “September Song” and the venerable Dixieland number “Twelfth Street Rag” – but this was to be an album of contemporary material, though with the characteristically florid Liberace touch.

Signed as producer was Ed Cobb, a Heller associate who had risen to fame as one of the Four Preps vocal group and had gone on to produce rock acts The Standells and The Chocolate Watch Band; and was behind such more soulful, pop-oriented hits as Ketty Lester’s “Love Letters,” Brenda Holloway’s “Every Little Bit Hurts,” and Gloria Jones’s “Tainted Love.”

The  band Cobb assembled for Liberace’s first Warner Bros. sessions was young, and with a background in rock and roll and Southern soul: guitarist Barry Bailey, bassist-arranger Emory Gordy Jr. , drummer Dennis St. John and percussionist Joe Correro from Atlanta; and keyboard player  “Spooner” Oldham from Memphis. Also on board was guitarist Larry Collins, the Oklahoma-born, Los Angeles-raised guitar-playing half of the ‘50s teen country music act, the Collins Kids.

Gordy, who’d worked with Dennis Yost and the Classics IV and Roy Orbison’s Candymen before moving to Los Angeles, today recalls that Liberace “…was very friendly; a gentlemen. You might think that you couldn’t approach Lee or talk to him, but that wasn’t true at all.

“I think he was underrated as a pianist,” Gordy continues. “Being an entertainer covered up that he was a great musician. He had one heck of a reach on the keyboard, and could sight-read charts.”

Liberace showed up the sessions ready to work. “He came dressed. Not to the nines, but well dressed. He couldn’t make some of the sessions, because he was playing Las Vegas or something. You don’t want to do something featuring piano without a piano, because you might step all over things, so we worked up some of the arrangements with Lincoln Mayorga [whose association with Cobb dated from Hollywood High School and the Four Preps] sitting in. Lee overdubbed his part later – though all the acoustic piano on the album was played by Liberace.” The string and horn arrangements were written by Gordy and Julian Lee, and overdubbed after the original rhythm-track sessions; a new practice for Liberace, who was used to recording “live” with the orchestra.

For A Brand New Me, Cobb chose mostly hits of recent vintage. Gordy was well familiar with “Traces”, having co-written the Classics IV song. “Cherry Hill Park,” originally a hit for Billy Joe Royal, had also originated in Atlanta. (“Echo Park,” the least-remembered of the songs in the “Parks and Recreation Medley” had been a hit for singer Keith Barbour).

 The original version of “Footprints on the Moon,” by English composer-arranger Johnny Harris, had recently been released on Warner Bros.  “Mixed Emotions” was written by another former member of the Atlanta coterie, Harry Middlebrooks (he’d co-written the Classics IV’s “Spooky”), who’d moved to Los Angeles some years earlier and was under contract to Heller and Cobb’s company. The song, with lyrics unheard here, had been written for a film that was never released, and was originally recorded by another Cobb-produced act, Stark Naked and the Car Thieves – their name notwithstanding, more of a smooth-rock act who became fixtures for years in Las Vegas.

* * *

The Neil Diamond medley is significant in that Gordy and St. John later became members of Diamond’s recording and touring band; Gordy went on to record and tour with Elvis Presley and Emmylou Harris, and become a prominent studio musician and producer in Nashville. Correro joined his old Atlanta friend, Freddy Weller, in Paul Revere & the Raiders, and eventually became a respected jazz drummer. Bailey remained in Atlanta, becoming a founding member of the Atlanta Rhythm Section recording group. Collins co-wrote hit songs including “Delta Dawn” and “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma,” and Oldham’s writing credits include such hits as “I’m Your Puppet,” “Lonely Women Make Good Lovers,” “Cry Like a Baby” and “Sweet Inspiration.”.

Whatever A Brand New Me contributed to Liberace’s image, he did include songs from it in his stage act. In any event, his popularity didn’t diminish: he’s said to have averaged more than $5 million each year for a quarter century, and in April, 1985, performed a record-breaking 21 shows at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City. His stand at the same venue, from October 16-November 2, 1986, constituted his final performances.

 Liberace succumbed to congestive heart failure on February 4, 1987, less than four months shy of his 68th birthday. But he leaves behind him the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas – an institution that has funded millions of dollars’ worth of musical scholarship grants — as well as an enormous musical legacy, of which this album is a highlight.

–Todd Everett
February, 2007

1.  A Brand New Me (Kenny Gamble-Thom Bell-Jerry Butler)*

2.  Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head (Burt Bacharach-Hal David)

3.  Parks & Recreation: Cherry Hill Park (William E. Gilmore-Robert Nix)/MacArthur Park (Jimmy Webb)/Echo Park (Buzz Clifford)

4.  Here There and Everywhere (John Lennon-Paul McCartney)*

5.  Holly, Holy/Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond)

6.  Footprints on the Moon (Johnny Harris)

7.  Something (George Harrison)

8.  Traces (Buddy Buie-J.R. Cobb-Emory Gordy Jr.)*

9.  Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (Stephen Stills)

10. Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye (Gary DeCarlo-Dale Frashuer-Paul Leka)

11. Mixed Emotions (Harry Middlebrooks)*

Barry Bailey, Larry Collins: guitar; Spooner Oldham: electric piano, organ; Emory Gordy Jr.: bass, vibes; Dennis St. John: drums; Joe Correro: congas
Strings and horns arranged by Emory Gordy Jr. except (*), by Julian Lee

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Life without — well, not as much — music

I recently remarked to a FaceBook friend that music plays a severely curtailed role in my current life

Truth is, though, I don’t listen to much music at all these days.  I sold 90% of my record collection, and I don’t even have a dedicated CD player (let alone MP3). I don’t think I’ve played a record since I moved here last August. I go out once a week or so, though, but it’s to listening rooms.

When the friend responded that she didn’t thing she could go lukewarm-turkey as I had, I rambled on. Here’s a slightly extended version:

For many years, when I didn’t have the phonograph on, I’d have a music station on the radio. Then I stopped listening to music radio, because it got too hard to find one that played anything I wanted to listen to.

Remember that for many years, music was my life. It wasn’t uncommon for me to be going out five nights a week; and if it wasn’t part of my job, I might go anyway just for the hell of it. That went on for decades. Same goes for records: though I got dozens of free promos per month (and kept maybe 1/3), I’d pay my own money for as many more — generally reissues and imports.

The newspaper I was working for went under in ’89, but I continued to freelance (among other things) a fair about of music stuff. But I wasn’t getting as many free tickets, and prices to everything larger than a club rose above what I could handle. And, of course, I was getting older.

In 2005, otherwise successful brain surgery cut off all hearing in my left ear; age had worked its wonders on my right. Since then, in many situations it’s been physically painful to listen to music in any but the most intimate live environment.

Not that I’ve given up on music.  The places I go these days generally seat (and I mean that I don’t stand anymore) fewer than 100 people, and the bands don’t play loud. I still have trouble with the lyrics. Some musician/friends play here from time to time; I see them. I’ve discovered a few new (to me) acts, and now seen them several times. Hell, I even bought the Salty Suites‘s CD the other night, though I mey never play it, just because I like them so much.

I seldom spend more than $15 cover, maybe a couple bucks for ice tea (sometimes dinner), and there’s always plenty of free parking.

There are exceptions to the “small club”/”must be seated” rule: since moving here I’ve seen The Monkees and Nashville Pussy, though not on the same bill; and a couple hours of the Ventura County Blues Festival — which, this being Ventura County, was headlined by Johnny Rivers and Savoy Brown.

My car radio buttons are all talk stations. While living in Hollywood, I had one for the jazz station, but we don’t have one of those here. I mainly listen to NPR-affiliated KCLU-FM. They play some music, generally late at night when I’m not listening; usually, it’s news and shows that sound kind of like “This American Life” (of which there’s a dazzling number).

I’m happy as can be. Still buy music DVDs from time to time — most recently, “Sound City” and the Eagles documentary. I’ll even watch them, one of these days. But for the most part, it’s TV. And sometimes, I shake my fist at the screen when the closed-captioning doesn’t work right.

The Snakes of Spring Street

I recently received a note from a friend. I should point out that this person is a recognized authority in his field — even quoted in that capacity by the paper in question here — and has written books and magazine articles for many years

I won’t use his name, nor that of the person contacted at the paper. Otherwise, here’s what he wrote:

about a year or so ago I had a very nasty experience with XXXXX XXXXXX of The Los Angeles Times, so rotten in fact that I almost took it to court (where I am 7 and 0, if you count my wins like a baseball pitcher). The dude is a word thief, totally stole a story idea and when I contacted the Times for a correction I got an unusually vile letter from their editorial staff who checks on such thing and I was denied. It was very weird, and I’m still pissed off about it. Any suggestions to straighten this problem out?

I could only reply: “Welcome to the club, pal!”

Back in the days when there were still some second-run theaters in Hollywood, one on Hollywood Blvd. had an unusual and (I thought) commendable policy: instead of booking two more-or-less recent releases that had exhausted their lifetime at the multiplexes, this theater manager would book one of those with a vintage picture to fill the bill — say (and I’m just making this up) “Rocky IV” and “Golden Boy.”

What inspired that decision? What’s the reaction of the studios? How are the audience members (in those days, I imagined, many of them looking for a place to sleep off “lunch”) responding? That sounded like a story idea to me, and the paper I’d been writing for for several years had been closed by its parent company, the Hearst Corporation.

I called a former colleague, who was by that point in a fairly prominent position in the Los Angeles Times’s entertainment section. I figured I had a scoop: then as now, The Times only ventured into Hollywood to cover a premiere or review what they hoped would be considered a trendy restaurant or night club. I told him my idea, and asked which editor I should pitch it to.

His answer was to the effect that I shouldn’t bother: if they liked the idea, they’d just say they were already working on it, and assign it to a staff writer. So I didn’t.

Some time later, I had another idea. Army Archerd, in Daily Variety, had dropped a line into his news roundup column to the effect that Andy Williams would soon be fronting a theater in Branson, Missouri. As a fan of country music, I knew of Branson and environs as a travel destination with country acts as entertainment, but this was something of far broader potential consequence.

This time, I approached The Times‘ travel editor. I had a previous professional relationship with the person; who, in fact, had been (in another capacity) one of the first people at the Herald Examiner to have given me one of those freelance assignments that eventually led to my being hired as a staff writer. Maybe more to the point, by this time, I was in the middle of what would be a ten-year association with the paper, covering the Ventura County theater scene* for the paper’s local edition. I was part of the family. Downtown regarded the regional editions as, at best, an unwanted stepchild**, but I was still family.

I wrote what I remember as a glorious pitch, researched and with bullet points dealing with the area’s history, how much money was being invested in the new venture, and the fact that Andy Williams was by no definition a “country” act (The Times’s attitude toward country music having not yet matured).

I didn’t hear a word. For days. For weeks. I didn’t want to call and check, because I didn’t want to be pushy: this person knew who I was, and that I was qualified.

Months passed, literally. I had pretty much forgotten the whole thing when, one Sunday — Sunday! — afternoon, the phone rang. It was this editor’s assistant, telling me that the article had been carefully considered, and that Branson didn’t meet the paper’s criteria as a suitable destination.

Besides, she added, I wouldn’t want to write for the travel section anyway, because they paid so little (a lot of the travel stuff that isn’t staff-generated is, or at least was, written by freelancers who’d place the same story in several papers; chances are they didn’t spend as much on tickets and accommodations as you or I would).

Keep in mind that I wouldn’t have been traveling to Branson; just making some phone calls. Of course if the paper wanted to send me (they pay for their tickets), I’d have been happy to go.

I hung up, disappointed not only that what I thought to be en excellent subject had been turned, but that my old working-buddy — mentor, in a sense — hadn’t turned me down personally, but assigned it to a subordinate (whose job this would usually be, but the editor and I had a relationship)

The reasons for all of this became very clear, either Monday or maybe Tuesday, when I opened my daily paper. On the front page of the “Calendar” (entertainment) section was a major story on the “new” Branson. The writer was a Times staffer, who’d gone down there to investigate personally.

A coincidence? Perhaps. In fact, under normal circumstances I’d have assumed it to be one; as a long-time reader of the paper I knew that editors of various sections occasionally ran virtually the same story; even, sometimes, on the same day. Clearly, they seldom spoke with one another.

Unless, maybe, if they were sleeping together.

As to “family”: the assistant who had made the rejection call told me at the time that the only reason they bothered doing it at all was because they thought I was on staff. If they’d known I was freelance (which I was, though in the paper at least once every week), she wouldn’t have taken the time to phone. None of the people alluded to in my experiences are still with the paper. Nor, for that matter, am I.

And Branson’s doing OK, too. Why, some Los Angeles Times readers might have visited there.

* more robust than you might think, but that’s another blog entry

** the regional editions held Downtown in equal disdain

The Liner Notes Chronicles — Part 4

I’ve been involved in putting out a number of records through the years; sometimes I’ve had the responsibility of sequencing them.  That, for the few of you who may not know the term, means putting the songs in a particular order: not what songs are included (that’s another problem), but how the album begins, end, and what the middle sounds like — how it flows.

I never gave sequencing much of a thought until I heard my first Beatles albums (“Meet”/”With”) in their U.S./UK incarnations. Pretty much the same songs, but the UK version flowed so much better. Whether or not anybody agrees with that assessment, it was clear that the order in which songs are arranged on an album can make a great deal of difference.

At least, it’s simply a matter of making sure that (as in a good live set), the audience doesn’t get bored. Not too many fast songs in a row; not too many slow ones (even more than the fast ones); not in the same key, one after another. The listener may not know exactly what’s going on, at least if not looking for it, but it can keep an album (or live set) from bogging down.

Front-loading — putting the “hit” single at the beginning of the album — never made much sense to me as a listener. It makes sense to labels and radio stations both; making sure that the “right” song is right there where it’s easy to find and not miscue.

All the albums I’ve put together have been compilations of previously-released material. My method, such as it is, forks off in two — maybe three — directions. The easiest is chronological. “Greatest hits” album often work best that way, if only because an act develops as years go by, and the sound changes along with it. Audiences (at least those who grew up with the band) probably heard I Want to Hold Your Hand before they heard Strawberry Fields Forever, and hearing the in reverse order would jar on several levels.

Still, on the occasions I have gone chronological, sometimes I’ll change the order slightly in order to keep the flow going. Though on one album I compiled, I used a pretty straight chronological order; the kick-off song was, conveniently, a real ‘rouser. Before the album was released, someone at the label decided to lead instead with the act’s biggest hit, which was lazy and slow. I won’t say it ruined the whole album, but (a) any disc jockey who played it would be some college-radio type who wouldn’t need to be guided to the hit, and (b) it really pissed me off — and though I didn’t say anything about it (nor was I consulted before the switch was made), I never worked for the label again. As the old joke goes: they weren’t paying me enough to treat me like that!

The most fun, for me at least, comes when a little creativity is possible (this is easier, admittedly, when the act’s sound is reasonably consistent).  Then, I try to construct a record as I would a live set: opening and closing with something rousing or otherwise appropriate (A Beatles album might begin with Good Morning, Good Morning and end with Goodnight).

Those are generally the easiest choices; filling in the middle, for me, is more instinctive than intellectual: I put together various sequences until I find one that sounds “right” to me. Admittedly, that’s a matter of taste to some degree, but you can bet that three slow songs one after the other won’t sound “right” to you any more than it will to you — unless the act is one of those who find a groove and stick to it, a choice that in most cases would drive me out of the room.

I mentioned a possible third fork. That’s when you try to tell a story. So far as I can remember, I’ve only tried that once. While I was writing the liner notes to a “Hts” album by the Irish Rovers, bandleader George Millar mentioned in passing that he’d like to see “a real, Irish album.”  Though the Rovers (Canada-based, though originally from Ireland) started doing traditional songs like their countrymen The Clancy Brothers, some of their hits — notably The Unicorn — had nothing to do with folk music (it was composed by Shel Silverstein) or Ireland.

When it came time to actually put together “a real, Irish album,” Millar was unavailable, and the song selection and sequencing were left to me (somebody else had done that on the “Hits” record). As I wasn’t compelled to put The Unicorn, Wasn’t That a Party  or anything else in particular on the record, I assembled their earlier albums, listened to them all, and picked the songs I felt worked best.

As I listened, a story began to develop. Briefly, the album (compiled from several that the band had recorder through the years) begins with a number that (whatever its actual provenance) sounds very old — penny-whistles and percussion predominate — follows through with some traditional and traditional-sounding songs, continue into a sequence dealing with Irish emigration to North America (with one about the Molly Maguires, and builds to a bit, but traditional-sounding conclusion with a cute “encore” at the end. I like it a lot, and it’s still available. I’m very proud of it.

My life in porn (a short — er, brief — post)

Over the years, I’ve known a few people who wrote pornography — books, magazines, etc. — between slightly more savory jobs. These were before the days of the Internet; people of limited imagination with no access or budget to patronize local gentleman’s clubs had to resort to the printed page. In a moment of desperation (and with no help from my friends, bless ‘em), I answered a classified ad from a publisher in Mac, an advertising trade weekly to which I, having spent some time in advertising, subscribed.

Rather to my amazement, I got a response. While I was anticipating something like, maybe, writing the letters to the editor in Penthouse or lurid, but brief, novels in a variety of genres, the only stipulation being that there be plenty of explicit sex – the only thing readers were looking for, anyway.

Not so with this outfit, which had offices, as I recall, in Culver City, home of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, the producer of Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. As an audition for this particular position — um, job, the publisher sent me a list of fetishes and asked me to write a couple of grafs about each of, maybe, five of my choosing.

I looked at the list. And while I recognized a couple of ‘em, I didn’t know what many of the fetishes even were. Years would pass, for instance, before I learned — in the John Waters film Pecker — what “teabagging” is. Hint: it wouldn’t become the name of a political movement for a few years. And once members of the Tea Party found out what it meant, they took offense. Which one didn’t have to be a devotee of teabagging to appreciate, and moved many of the rest of us to use the term as frequently and derisively as possible.

So I demurred. It wasn’t because I felt myself above writing pornography — I had applied for the job — and I didn’t really cast judgment on whatever excited people sexually, so long as it was consensual and the participants were of age. My reservation was that I felt I couldn’t write realistically from the POV of someone who was into…pretty much any of those things. Nor did I want to do any research; some of the fetishes appeared to be pretty icky.

So ended my career in porn, unless you count a couple of train trips that stopped (without letting, let alone getting, me off) in Chatsworth, or those eight years as Ron Jeremy’s stunt double.

* * *

In another moment of desperation, I thought I’d be a good publicist; a position not entirely unrelated to writing porn. God knows, as a member of the press I’d known some excellent ones, as well as a whole lot of bad ones. I knew what they did, and I knew that I, as a working newsperson, needed from them.

One of the good ones got me an interview with her boss. This was a big deal; he was one of the people whose names were the same as the company, and it was a multinational organization. The boss was a nice guy, and we seemed to be getting along well. Until some of my earlier experiences with his company came to my mind. I was young, then, and even more impolitic than now.

“I would be happy to spread the good word about our clients,” I told him, as if I already had the job. “If they do something bad, I’ll smooth over it. If they do something good, I’ll shout it from the mountaintop. If they aren’t doing anything in particular, I’ll figure out something for them to do that will get their name in the papers.”

And then, years of re-writing and vetting press releases came to mind. “But,” I continued, “I will not publicize job offers or production deals that don’t exist, nor will I send out tour schedules that I pulled out of a hat.”

The guy pulled back a little; and did I only imagine a tear in his eye as he replied, “But that’s what we do!“

They managed to continue without me. And though I haven’t dealt with them or any other publicists in years, I have no reason to believe that “what we do” has changed a bit.