The Coming of Beaver Street

Robert Rosen (left) with Headpress publisher David Kerekes in London, June 2009.

By Robert Rosen

Leo: The new moon on the 16th is the time to launch the new plans that you’ve been thinking about obsessively for far too long.

I don’t often read horoscopes, but the one above, by Katharine Merlin, astrologer for Town & Country magazine, spoke to me, and I listened. That’s why I’ve chosen today, November 16, 2009, to announce that my investigative memoir, Beaver Street: A History of Modern Pornography, will be published next year in the UK by Headpress.

Beaver Street is my first book since Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon, which was published more than nine years ago. For those of you who’ve read it, you may recall the crucial role that the T&C horoscopes played in Lennon’s life.

Without going into too much detail about Beaver Street, let me just say that it’s based on diaries I kept while working in porn for 16 years as an editor for magazines like Swank, Stag, High Society, and D-Cup, as well as on extensive research, and that I define “modern pornography” as the fusion of erotica and computers. This first occurred at High Society in 1982 with the advent of “free” phone sex.

In Beaver Street, I explore the hidden nexus where cutting-edge technology meets raw sex, generating vast fortunes for the largely anonymous men who run America’s “adult entertainment” empires. It’s kind of a Tropic of Capricorn for the digital age, as well as a serious history that reads like a comic novel. If you’ve read Nowhere Man, then you’ll have some idea of what I mean.

I’ll be posting more information here as it becomes available. But if you’d like to get more of a sense of the book’s flavor, you can read an interview I did in 2003, when I was in the middle of writing it.

I do want to extend a heartfelt thanks to everybody who’s read Nowhere Man and has expressed an interest in this long-awaited “next book.” Though the subject may be very different, I feel confident that if you enjoyed Nowhere Man you’ll enjoy Beaver Street.

For now I’m going to celebrate with a cup of British tea.

Ship of Fools

“The Count” (Philip Seymour Hoffman) bakes over the UK with rock ’n’ roll on his illegal late-night radio show.

Pirate Radio

Forget about the multiple intertwining plots: lovable longhaired outlaws vs. repressed government officials; DJ vs. DJ; boy’s search for father; boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Though occasionally affecting, they’re frequently clichéd, and they’re so all over the place, it’s as if writer/director Richard Curtis couldn’t decide what this movie was really about and didn’t have enough confidence in any one story line to stick with it. And though the acting ensemble—especially Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Count, Tom Sturridge as Young Carl, and Bill Nighy as Quentin—is wonderful, the best reason to see Pirate Radio is for the soundtrack, which is skillfully interwoven to reflect the various plot points. And, indeed, the energy and exuberance of the knockout opening sequence with Brits of all stripes dancing to the Kinks’ “All Day and All of the Night” as it blasts from the radio is hard to top. It’s rock ’n’ roll! It’s outta control!

What we have here is, perhaps, one of the best music videos ever made. Set on a pirate radio ship anchored off the coast of England in 1966, at the height of the British Pop phenomenon, when the BBC broadcast only two hours of rock per week, a wild and crazy crew of outlaw DJs and their helpers beam round the clock to a rock-starved nation such soon-to-be classics as “I Can See for Miles” and “My Generation” by The Who, “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum, “Sunny Afternoon” by The Kinks, “Sunshine Superman” by Donovan, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by The Stones, “For Your Love” by The Yardbirds, “Eleanor” by The Turtles, “This Guy’s in Love with You” by Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass, and a few dozen other songs of equally outstanding pedigree.

The soundtrack is so good you might not even notice the assorted anachronisms and the absurd absence of The Beatles. And—SPOILER ALERT!!!—you may even be willing to forgive an ending so Titanic-like, you’ll probably find yourself looking for Leo, Kate, and the iceberg. —RR

Jewiest Movie I’ve Ever Seen

Larry Gopnick (Michael Stuhlbarg), left, tries to act “adult” with Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), his wife-stealing colleague.

By Robert Rosen

A Serious Man
A film by Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed, Sari Lennick, Adam Arkin, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus, and Amy Landecker
105 Minutes

Yes, I include Yentl, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Ten Commandments in the above statement. Which is not to say these films aren’t ultra-Jewy (perhaps I should mention here that I’m Jewish)—they are, but in a fairy-tale-like way. They take place long ago and far away, either in shtetls in the “old country” that no longer exists, or in the ancient Holy Land.

While A Serious Man does indeed begin in a shtetl as the Coens channel Isaac Bashevis Singer with a story about a dybbuk—the wandering soul of a dead person who enters a living person—it quickly switches to the New World: a nameless Midwestern suburb circa 1967, which could be anywhere in America where Jews and Gentiles (called goys in the film) live side by side, if not exactly in harmony, then with a surface tolerance that, to interpret the dreams of the central character, Larry Gopnick, a physics professor, only covers up the murderous hatred the goyim feel for their Jewish neighbors.

In fact, all the adult characters are covering up turbulent (if not murderous) emotion by speaking in a flat and disaffected way that ultimately becomes irritating, making A Serious Man a movie about annoying, repressed people who tend to wear thin long before the film ends.

When Larry Gopnick’s wife, Judith (Sari Lennick), tells him she’s leaving him for his pretentious colleague, Sy Ableman, she expects Larry to take it in stride, act like an “adult,” move into a motel, and take his freeloading brother, Arthur (Richard Kind)—who may be a bum or a genius—with him. Gopnick does, and then sets out to seek in Jewish tradition the answers to unanswerable questions. As his world collapses around him, Gopnick consults three rabbis, and deals with a divorce lawyer (Adam Arkin), a hot neighbor (Amy Landecker) who sunbathes in the nude, a pot-smoking son, Danny (Aaron Wolff), whose only concern seems to be the quality of his TV reception, a dissatisfied daughter, Sarah (Jessica McManus), who wants a nose job, a student who’s trying to bribe him for a better grade, and an impending decision on his tenure.

Yet, amid all this turmoil, A Serious Man’s depiction of modern American Judaism makes it almost documentary-like in a way that for me—in 1967 I was approximately the same age as the Gopnick children—is hyper-real. I’ve never seen a fictional film detail, often with lingering and loving close-ups, such things as numbingly repetitive Hebrew school lessons, the words on a Torah scroll, and the playing of a Haftorah record during a Bar Mitzvah lesson.

Like all the Coen brothers’ films, there are indeed hilarious moments, though the funniest bit is a disclaimer in the final credits: “No Jews were harmed in the making of this movie.” And like all their movies, A Serious Man is dark, with the smell of death always in the air.

While An Irritating Man would perhaps be a more accurate title, the film is, in the end, rescued by its offbeat quirkiness. There are no other movies I can think of where a great rabbi quotes Grace Slick, of the Jefferson Airplane, as if he’s quoting Holy Scripture. Still, a Hebrew/Yiddish glossary, like the one provided in the press material, may be required for full understanding.

The Boys Are Slack

Still comin’ at ya: Drama (Kevin Dillon), Turtle (Jerry Ferrara), Vince (Adrian Grenier), Eric (Kevin Connolly), and Ari (Jeremy Piven).

Entourage: Season 6

By Mary Lyn Maiscott

As I cannot justify to myself paying for both HBO and Showtime and I love Weeds, I’ve only recently switched back to HBO and begun watching Entourage again (since Weeds is over for now, though Entourage may have to go when Showtime’s Californication comes back on Sunday—yes, I realize you can rent these shows but then you have to WAIT). Here are a few observations on and puzzlements re The Boys after my hiatus:

1) Has Eric picked up Vince’s “whatever” attitude toward life and especially women (unless, with Vince, inexplicably, the woman is the bland Mandy Moore)? He seems to hook up, cancel dates, get mad without really getting mad, walk away, come back, and walk away again without ever getting flustered. (And why, by the way, are these gorgeous, complicated women so into E?) Suddenly, Turtle—who has a serious thing going on with Jamie-Lynn Sigler, playing herself (perhaps helped along by, in a case of life imitating art, the two actors becoming a couple)—is the one who seems mature. Turtle?

2) A mean-spiritedness still occasionally rears its ugly head on this show. Last season Drama made a reference, supposedly humorous, to what amounts to sexual abuse of a girlfriend during adolescence that I wasn’t sure I fully caught but didn’t want to think about too much. This season’s examples are less troubling but more obvious: the gang laughing about how Seth Rogen is “too ugly” to get the pretty girl (this went on for a while); one of Eric’s young lovelies asking, “Who’s the fossil?” of his 70ish female receptionist. (Eric did tell her not to be mean, but didn’t take the hint that perhaps this was a girl to be avoided.)

3) Most important, über-agent Ari may be the first shark to have jumped the shark. He used to be the best thing about the show, his rarely tamped-down rage and ambition providing the kinetic energy Vince’s crowd lacks. Now Jeremy Piven (is it the mercury poisoning?) has lost whatever elusive quality it was that made Ari’s Type Ultra-A personality funny, and without that his spewing, demanding, abrasive ways are only dark and grating—just ask Lloyd.

Barack in a Bottle

Click pic for closeup.

By Mary Lyn Maiscott

Hey, it’s summer. So let’s take a little wine break—and how about some politics with that Cab?

Remember Obama’s reaction to a hieroglyph in an Egyptian pyramid a few weeks ago—“That looks like me! Look at those ears!” (See video below.) We could almost hear him saying the same thing at NYC’s Warehouse Wines & Spirits recently when we spied the mask-like symbol of “silent wisdom” on the label of an Argentinean Cabernet Sauvignon. (Click photo to see it close up.) The wine, called Misterio, sounds a bit like Obama himself in the description on the back: “friendly … easy but sophisticated, full of mystery”—or maybe mystique? A strange slogan, however, also on the back, could be a bit discouraging for someone with such an ambitious agenda: “Working in silence … for years.” (Note to Barack: Ever consider ear piercings? Note to readers: It’s not bad, with a punt taller than you’d expect for $5.99 [at WW&S]! Note to selves: Send case to White House!)

Melissa McClelland Gets Her Kicks on Route 66

Near the entrance of the Chain of Rocks Bridge, part of Historic Route 66.

By Mary Lyn Maiscott

Last fall my brother, my sister, and I hiked across the Chain of Rocks Bridge in Missouri, where we grew up. Now for pedestrians and bikers only, the bridge, completed in 1929, was once part of the legendary Route 66. A beautiful steel truss bridge (amazingly photogenic, from many angles) with an unusual bend in the middle, it allows for expansive views of the Mississippi as it winds up to the St. Louis Arch. Everything about it speaks of “once upon a time,” including the fairy-tale-like water towers emerging from the river below—like tiny castles constructed by naiads—and the Route 66 memorabilia, such as a “66 Auto Court” neon sign and a Texaco gas pump, displayed along the way.

Having seen this and having seen the Canadian-by-way-of-Chicago singer Melissa McClelland in action, I’m not surprised that Melissa has heard the siren call of what is now Historic Route 66. Her bluesy songs, delivered in a clear, confident voice, have a tone, both musically and lyrically, that harks back to another time. Even her demeanor (calm, poised, thoughtful) and her clothes (almost prim yet sexy dresses) seem retro. No wonder that the sole cover she performed during a recent set at the Living Room in NYC was Randy Newman’s “1903,” about a gentler era, when being connected meant calling across a backyard rather than twittering on a BlackBerry. Introducing her song “God Loves Me,” Melissa explained that it was inspired by the Luna Cafe, on the Illinois side of the Chain of Rocks Bridge, where she and her crew were served peach liqueur in jars and told about the prostitutes that once lived in the rooms upstairs. “Of course,” she said, “then I had to stay there.”

A couple of years ago, Melissa drove Route 66 from beginning to end, Chicago (her birthplace) to the Santa Monica Pier, stopping at such places as the Pig-Hip Restaurant, the Blue Whale Swimming Hole, and the Wagon Wheel Motel to talk to people who still remember the route as a main thoroughfare and the sudden changes its closing brought about. Along the way, Melissa paused to strum her story songs (“I try to bring it down to the details of a moment,” she says of her writing) while sitting with her guitar on railroad tracks, picnic tables, and the Chain of Rocks Bridge itself. Director Luke Hutton recorded the trip for a colorful, absorbing DVD called Pedal to Steel: Melissa McClelland’s Route 66.

If you can, check out the DVD. But if not, get a taste with Melissa’s video (below) for the gritty, slow-grooving, gets-in-your-blood “Passenger 24.” Her new CD, Victoria Day, produced by Luke Doucet, both her soulmate and bandmate, is being released by Six Shooter Records. (By the way, Melissa can’t seem to get enough: the night I saw her play in New York, she told me she was meeting her mother in Chicago to drive part of Route 66 together.)

Michael Jackson: More Than Skin Deep

By Mary Lyn Maiscott

I wrote this piece in March 2001 for the website New Media Music (now defunct). In light of Jackson’s death yesterday, we’ve decided to reprint it here.

Last week, when I was rooting around the music news looking for something funny to write about, I came across several items about Michael Jackson. Jackson had made a speech at Oxford University in connection with his new charity, Heal the Kids.

The comic and bizarre elements were nearly irresistible: Jackson’s partner in the charity is the media-savvy Orthodox rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who wrote Kosher Sex and Dating Secrets of the Ten Commandments. The pop star had come to London to be best man at the wedding of super-psychic Uri Gellar, known mainly for telekinetically bending spoons. On the night of his speech, Jackson hosted a dinner at the imposing, this-must-be-England Blenheim Palace, but the red carpet supplied by the Duke of Marlborough had a gloss of disinfectant to prevent foot-and-mouth disease. Jackson himself must have hobbled down that carpet on crutches, because his broken foot was in a cast (further protecting it from the highly contagious disease, I guess). His address was made to the esteemed Oxford Union debating society, whose past guests include—I will leave it to you to figure out the criteria—Jerry Hall, Richard Nixon, Mother Teresa, O.J. Simpson, and Albert Einstein. (Jackson allowed, rather cutely, that he had never reached the scientific heights of Einstein, but that Einstein was “really terrible” at doing the moonwalk.) And, of course, reporters were latching on to the irony of someone once accused of child molestation heading an organization to “heal the kids.”

And that gave me pause. Child molestation, obviously, is not funny. Being accused of such abuse—Jackson settled out of court but maintained his innocence—is not funny. The need for organizations to urge parents to treat their children well—also not funny. And that’s not even getting into the entertainer’s speech, a tearful account of a hard-driving father who “never” showed him love.

The Man in the Mirror

So I had already abandoned the idea of a humorous little piece when I clicked on—merely out of curiosity—a recent close-up photo of Jackson that Salon.com couldn’t help hilariously commenting on. It was indeed weirdly fascinating. The huge doe eyes, the Pinocchio (before the lies) nose, the red asymmetrical mouth—all against preternaturally alabaster skin. As I was staring at it, a colleague stopped at my cubicle to stare too. After a moment, he said that he thought Jackson’s children (Prince, 4, and Paris, 2) might bring him the unconditional love that he apparently craves, and that perhaps one day he will find a romantic partner who will do the same.

I felt very touched by his words, and later I realized why. How often do you hear anyone—aside from hysterical fans and celebrity friends like Elizabeth Taylor—say anything kind about Michael Jackson? Ever since his first nose job, he’s been fodder for the late-night comedians. How could they resist? The chimp Bubbles and the rest of the menagerie, the Neverland ranch, the hair ablaze, the jeweled glove, the Band-Aids (did I make that one up?), the high-pitched voice, the brief marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, the ever-whitening skin, the ever-mutating features—these are parts of a mysterious life that seems almost designed to bring on ridicule.

But how often do we wonder what drove Michael Jackson, now 42, to cling to a Peter Pan existence and to so radically change his appearance? It brings up all kinds of identity and self-esteem questions. Couldn’t it be a cry for help, this frequent surgery (and what physical pain it must entail)—something like those people years ago who underwent procedures to make themselves look like Janis Joplin and Elvis Presley (as though they were happy).

In his song “Man in the Mirror,” Jackson, perhaps tellingly, does not see a body when he looks at his reflection, but rather the spiritual side of himself: “I’m starting with the man in the mirror/ I’m asking him to change his ways.” The song is that of a person asking himself to be better, more caring. With his events on behalf of his charity (he also recently spoke at Carnegie Hall), he may be emphasizing to his public that he is doing something to “make a change,” and that that’s more important than the way he looks or the latest tabloid report.

The Meaning of Rock

Jackson made it clear in his Oxford speech that he suffered as a child, belying the image of “the cheery five-year-old who belted out ‘Rockin’ Robin.’” Even then, long before the cosmetic changes, what we were seeing was only the surface. Obviously, he has not forgotten this emotional hurt; it still lurks inside of him. Creative people often express their pain in their art, but it’s hard to tell how much of a release his music is for Jackson, since he feels his father robbed him of his childhood by pushing him and his brothers to perform.

Nevertheless, he’s bound to feel honored on March 19, when he’ll be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—putting him in the company (this year) of Aerosmith, Paul Simon, and Steely Dan, among others. The hall of fame’s website says of Jackson: “There is no question that for the generation who came of age in the ’80s, Michael epitomizes what rock is about.”

Rock has always been about—whatever else—rebellion. In a society that tends to go for the shallow judgment, the shallow answer, the shallow value, rock ’n’ roll has often delved deeper. If this is what we get from our best artists, can’t we sometimes give it back to them?