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I recievied an invitation from both Chick Young at Trash Aesthetics and Gilligan over at Retrospace to participate in something called a “meme”, but I am so out of touch I have no clue what that is (but that has never stopped me from getting involved before). Seems it originated from Piper and Brian over at Lazy Eye Theatre blog (a couple of the more active LAMBers) and there have been good fantasy film festivals so far by Chick, Gilligan and Barbarella apologist Becca at No Smoking in the Skull Cave. I do not know if Tal at Taliesen Meets the Vampires has contributed as of this moment, but I will plug his excellent site anyway, free of charge. The rules (as laid down by the crew at the Lazy Eye site) are:

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FOUR FINE JUNGLE GIRLS BY DAVE STEVENS

Master illustrator Dave Stevens has a natural gift for drawing sexy women in classic poses and so the jungle girl genre suits his imagination just fine. In these four samples you can see he takes the whole thing to a level that is really unreachable by the guys that started all the Tarzan influenced jungle comics back in the 50’s and 60’s. His Sheena work is perfect and the drawing with the bare breasted girl in the tree at the bottom is so stunning in layout and rendering I just do not get tired of looking at it. In some cases I would say it lacks intensity due to the absence of a lush jungle background but here it works just right the way it is. Takes a true artist to so confidently handle empty space.

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Today, July 26th, is my one year year anniversary of being married to Ivy. I have known her for a lot longer than that and we have been all over China really but right now we find ourselves ourselves in Kunming while she finishes up her master’s degree. We were married in Shanghai last summer and I just want to make sure evreyone knows how important she is to my life.

Above are a few photos from her Picassa Photo Album and I recommend you visit there for some great pictures of us all over China and the southeast of Asia. You can also visit her blog site by clicking on her banner in the sidebar, the one with the guinea pig and rabbit. The top picture is of her in Vientenne Laos. Under that is me with some sun guard on my face in Burma (I never call it Mynanmar since the locals call it Burma and the military junta there came up with the name Myanmar to distance Burma from its past ties with Britain and it’s own monarchy). The last picture is of us in Si Chuan at a relief camp for earthquake victims. These kids may look happy and care free but they have been through hell and back. They are troopers.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY BOO BOO.

A selection of really nice pictures of saultry Tennessee girl Bettie Page (or sometimes Betty Page if you are searching the net). There were really two types of photos from Bettie and one was the cheese cake style that Bunny Yeager did and the other was the “dark” stuff by Irving Klaw that got her into a bit of trouble later on. Some fans are divided on which represented the “true” Bettie while I have always felt both did. I have to admit that I like the dark, bondage stuff with Bettie while I cannot say I usually prefer this style from that period due to the quality. Or maybe I do prefer it but worry what people might say about me behind my back. But some of the dark style images with her were simply great photographs and Bettie’s radiant personality comes out in all of them. Klaw was essentially a “noir” phogograher of sorts but could take good pictures. The bottom two pictures (above images) with the stuffed leopard are from Yeager I believe while the others are from her infamous New York City work. She is simply too sexy for words and it is easy to see why she was 2nd only to Marilyn Monroe in the 1950’s as the most photographed model the US. Below is a link to her really excellent looking and easy to navigate webpage. It has improved vastly since the last time I checked it out.

http://www.bettiepage.com/

Also included are links to pages for Irving Klaw and Bunny Yeager to show the diversity of their work and how they both saw Bettie from different angles that helped create her angel-devil mystique.

http://irvingklaw.com/

http://www.bunnyyeager.com

MORE OF THE LEGENDARY BETTIE PAGE HERE >>

A simple photo tribute to the sexy and statuesque Julie Newmar. I suppose by today’s near anorexic requirements for sex goddess status she may be too flawed but she is perfect in my slim book of requirements. I am not familiar with her work really outside the Batman TV series and the Gregory Peck film Mekenna’s Gold but she was impressive in both of those. She radiated self confidence and it was no doubt boosted by her personal interest in martial arts like Judo and Akido. There are other posts dedicated here at the Cafe if you care to search for them. Have fun.

Note: This little addendum is being added on 13 Dec 2009, some time after this post was created.  Almost a couple years. According to my stats this is my most visited post. I think is a tad ironic that a post I threw together in abut 30 minutes is my most visited. I even made a mistake that a reader just made me aware of. I even put an autographed (!) picture of Lee Meriwether in the batch by oversight Okay not oversight, I screwed up. Some posts I have worked for days on researching and getting screen captures and sweet Julie whips all their butts simply with a photo tribute post. Meoooow.

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I cannot see the insides of these mags and will base my assumption on boyhood memory that the contents were probably mostly black and white on a pulpy paper similar to comic book paper. There may have been a few pages stuck in the middle in color that featured the cover girl or some other nubile tart. The stories were men’s stories of the time: detective tales, how to be a better lover, exposes into the world of crime or drugged up hippies and such. Scattered through the mag were really cool advertisements for all sorts of strange things and I am researching the net trying to find good scans of some of these ad pages. It is not easy. But I will not give up. Read the rest of this entry »

No doubt some of the most entertaining of the men’s “true adventure” covers to be created were the men against ruthless animal covers. As if Bushido warriors, Nazis, assorted dark skinned savages and commies weren’t enough, our hairy chested he-men had to also grapple with out of control varmints from every corner of the world. Now a couple of these covers may almost seem plausible in a far fetched way. For example the cover for MALE where the guy is tearing blood sucking leeches from his flesh in the swamps of Ceylon. The other MALE cover with two tough guys hacking up piranha is not really inconceivable. But it soon takes a turn for the near ludicrous (and therefore more thoroughly enjoyable) when the same magazine portrays some lost at sea heroes fending off a horde of savage meat eating water monkeys from their rubber raft. I am not a zoologist but I have never heard of such a thing happening. It would be a more interesting world however if it did.

Even more stunning a revelation is that the masters of evil the Nazis had trained mandril apes from remote areas of Africa to eat pretty young half naked white girls alive. No fear however since always lurking nearby and out of sight is a stud with a gun. In this case a Tommy gun. Blast ‘em Joe! Not to be out done by their Nazi rivals in evil some stinking red commies tie yet another half naked white girl down with stakes and have a bunch of minks (a cute name for weasels) prepare to rip her flesh to shreds. These Nazi and commie guys were so evil and insidious you almost have to love them.

When it is all said and done nothing compares to the horror our hero on the cover of True Men must contend with. It is a fate we all fear when lost in the wilds of Burma or Borneo but one we tremble to voice. What you ask? Devoured by a Bengal Tiger or gored by a jealous water buffalo? I wish it were that civilized a death he faces. No. I am talking about the most feared and vicious animal in all of the wild kingdom. You may have guessed by now riveted reader what savage beast I am referring to in hushed terms: yes, I am talking about flying squirrels. Meat eating, insane flying squirrels. Imagine the world we would be living in now had Spielberg selected this bloodthirsty beast as the heartless killer of his first film rather than that wimpy great white shark. My God, I shudder to imagine.

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I guess sometimes we just have to stop and look around us and wonder what the hell is really happening to the world. While I cannot say I am an actual fan of extreme metal (grindcore, black metal, death metal, etc… ) I have to admit that I do sort of like some of what is done in those areas. Or at least I have explored it more than most people in my age range have. I really like Testament, more of a thrash band I suppose, whose early stuff sounded like Megadeth (to me anyway). I liked them more later after singer Billy Cobb’s vocals got deeper and raspier. I also like Norwegian black metal artists Emperor and a few other similar bands in moderate doses. I even like Napalm Death, Morbid Angel and Carcass at times, but I am not a raving devotee of these genres in any sense. One thing that makes these bands stand out to me is their seriousness and devotion to what they are doing. There is a definite sense of the theatrical involved and one hopes that these guys can leave their onstage personas there after they get back home. While I do own some of the music I do not endorse most of what they sing about or the ways they lead their private lives (however that may be). That disclaimer being noted, I recently got the urge to download most of the Cannibal Corpse catalog. I also found a site that hosts their utterly outrageous lyrics as well as some FAQs about the band. The link is down below somewhere. Read the rest of this entry »

TAXI DRIVER QUOTES

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One of these days I gotta get myself organizized

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Personnel Officer: (phone rings loudly) Harry, answer that.

Personnel Officer: So whaddya want to hack for, Bickle?

Travis Bickle: I can’t sleep nights.

Personnel Officer: There’s porno theaters for that.

Travis Bickle: Yeah, I know, I tried that.

Personnel Officer: So now what do you do?

Travis Bickle: I ride around most nights – subways, buses – but you know, if I’m gonna do that I might as well get paid for it.

Personnel Officer: So what is it? Do you need a second job? Are you moonlighting?

Travis Bickle: I… I just want to work long hours. What’s moonlighting?

Personnel Officer: Wanna work uptown nights? South Bronx? Harlem?

Travis Bickle: I’ll work anytime, anywhere.

Personnel Officer: Will you work Jewish holidays?

Travis Bickle: Anytime, anywhere.

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