The Next Book You Read MUST be Mike Edison’s “Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, book review—but first
let’s talk about
ME, ME, ME!

A link was surreptitiously dropped into the last posting here at The United Provinces of Ivanlandia, during the Dr. Phibes Quiz (hint: “groinal units”), but further explanation is due:
Director and new dad (congratz!) Josh Litwhiler cast me in the electronic press kit (EPK) for the Massachusetts-based band Township—

I play the host/professor of a community college cable access show, and if my perf deserves any praise, equal measure should be doled out to Mr. Litwhiler for being such a fine director and editing the footage to make me look good—not to mention my being in a video with a band that rocks.
Nice tunes and a damn fine concept brought to fruition—CHECK IT OUT!

And now, some more about
ME, ME, ME!

Some of you may be aware of my tenure as an executive editor for the notorious porn rag SCREW magazine in the late-1990s—

Both I and Chip Maloney—
who was my successor at SCREW after yours truly split for a gig with the military-industrial complex—
were recently interviewed on the internet-based “radio” program The Mike & Judy Show
concerning our tenures at The World’s Greatest Newspaper—and a righteous and riotous time was had by all!
GIVE IT A LISTEN HERE!



Some background and disclosure:
The Mike & Judy Show is/are my friends Mike Edison and Judy McGuire—both writers par excel-lance!—with McGuire the scribe behind the sick and humorous book How Not to Date—and why isn't this on your bookshelf yet?--

And on the show, Mike was “interviewing” Chip and me as promotion for his soon to be published book,
Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!: of Playboys, Pigs, and Penthouse Paupers—AN AMERICAN TALE OF SEX AND WONDER

It’s the history of the modern men’s magazines—put into a marvelous context, focusing on The Big Four: Hefner, Guccione, Flynt and Al Goldstein, the former publisher of SCREW—
and my ex-boss.
Dirty! Dirty! Dirty! is a must-read for anyone interested in pornography, the counter-culture, publishing, politics, exploitation, Americana, success, humor and self-destructive behavior leading to utter, absolute and disgraceful failure.

It is the follow-up to author Edison’s mad cyclotron of a memoir, I Have Fun Wherever I Go, and as all over the place as that book was, Dirty! Dirty! Dirty! is laser-focused. Sometimes I was amazed at how much Edison crams in—without making it seem too overloaded.

Edison’s got the shimmy-shimmy-ko-ko-pop to keep things lively and intellectually stimulating—without ever falling into the pseudo-academic distancing that tourists to the Land of Porn use when dealing with the Jizz Biz (David Foster Wallace, I’m looking at you!).

A damn fine historian, Edison has taken a healthy step back—the squack racket don’t put stars in his eyes, nosiree.

And he’s wise in pointing out that Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex & the Single Girl as well as Betty Friedan’s work “helped” the Sexual Revolution more than anything that closet case Hef ever did.

Meanwhile, Larry Flynt’s empire is still a potent force because The Man With The Golden Wheelchair is a businessman first and foremost.
Not to knock the initial business acumen of Hef, Goldstein and Guccione—but after a certain point in their careers, these three publishers had insulated themselves from genuine reality a wee bit too much—
and they began making very bad financial decisions.

This book is the right combination of voluminous research, respectful disrespect, insider insight and zing-bang-boom-rat-a-tat style—and makes for a fitting, if eventually sad epitaph for “The Golden Age of Magazine Porn.”

And after reading Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!, I no longer
HATE
Al Goldstein. I just hate him.

Super-mega-full disclosure: I’m in Dirty! Dirty! Dirty! Only my first name (and just mentioned twice), but still, it’s me! ME!
ME! ME! ME!

That said, Edison’s book is spot on.
Until you buy yourself your copy, grab your 3-D glasses and check out the trailer for Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!, produced by Tricia McLaughlin, my awesome and lovely missus! Yee-ha!



The Real Deal Post #199 (and other mysteries solved)

Baron Otto von Mannix took time out of his busy schedule of strafing the French countryside from his armored zeppelin to point out that we of the High Command in the Imperial Palace were wrong!

It seems that what I thought was the 200th post was actually the 197th post. Which means that right now you’re reading the 199th post of The United Provinces of Ivanlandia. So the NEXT post will be the special second—but really the first—200th anniversary posting.
So there.