Soft Taco Supreme

Sometimes the clouds open when I least expect them to, making way for the soft and cold sun to peak through, and bring my mug of tea from its scalding attitude to an acceptable pleasantry. The phone rings and the voice happens to be that of an antiquarian and rare book dealer in Florida. He happens to have good news pertaining to a collection of books possibly obtainable at a good price and, the content of this material is home-run, all-ten-pins, skipping-the-surface hole-in-one, from a reputable source. "Oh yeah, what's that?" "Some books I think you might be interested in." Right away I feel warm because this dude thought of me when he thought of or came across this particular collector's stash. That young lad needs a sword, I know just the smith to do it! I imagine him saying. This post is dedicated to that rare Floridian: one who, in a state nearly surrounded by water, opts for the dream to operate a business dependent on paper. It's called balls, and I think he's got some to spare.
He turned me on to some books with a lesbian theme, and this post will retain that theme with sleaze, discovery, and hidden reality. My collection is not Lesbian-heavy, and to sift through it for titles and covers I THOUGHT to be in the right was relatively easy, and quick. Easy and quick=the motto for all the characters involved in the titles inhabiting my shelves. They lead easy lives, and when life comes round to rear its greasy mug, they seem to care only for their chances at shagging next. They lead quick lives, and when the wording slows down the lucidity of their perversion, it is inevitable they are only pausing to inhale big and deep before returning to their post. Lesbian titles always seem to lean more towards shock, seriousness, and thought posing. The cover art generally has a woman or two (or five as in the example below) with a look of denial, uncertainty, or subtle intrigue, and hence invoke more imagination than say, nearly every early sleaze title (that period when the market shifted from "Lit to Clit"). Here are a few that have me scratching my head, and thus at the chance to feel the ashamed dykes, the confident 3rd sex, through dimly-lit night reading, the side of the coin upon which it stands upright.

$35 - Very Good
Crest Books number s336, 1959
Barye Phillips, ca. (cover art)

Here are two novels by writers who began in the smut business and have gone on to pen some fantastic, literary crime novels, ranking with the best. Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake are synonymous with early sleaze, roughly before the 1970s when both careers would hail-mary in another direction, a direction quickly becoming a good market for quickly earning money (it seems they never left their eagerness to fill their pockets either, from slime to crime. Block's first novel came in 1958, after a stint of studying lesbian novels and venturing his own take on such (then) taboo topics. Whether he chose "Lesley Evans" at the suggestion of his editor, or due to a lack of confidence in the first go, I dare not speculate. I know that Block wrote under a squadron of pseudonyms, like so many during this time, so the surprise that he chose to pen this one behind the curtain is softened. This novel came at at time when, I deduct, publishers were wondering how to market a Lesbian novel: legit or kitsch? Barye Phillips lent his skill for the cover, however timid (Crest-equals-timid), and the colors and light sources at elegant. The woman in the foreground in pink is dreadfully cute, and her little bob bouffant gives it way. That and the women behind her clutching her shoulders. It warms my heart to know that Block was not as paranoid as Salinger. He kept writing even when the cover art to his books was, maybe, not great. I enjoy the confused gentleman Mike in the background, doing what I do when I discovered Block's baby in my booty. As with many stories in this guise, the plot deals with forbidden sexual preferences and coming into them (and coming out!). Girl moves to the big city, finds a man, then a woman, in a bar (likely Greenwich Village, where a lovely homeless dude pointed my way one day to a small little Jock Joint, to my surprise). I actually bought this from another collector and blogger (Wordpresser). 

$ 75 - Very Good
Monarch Books number 232, 1962
Harry Schaare, ca.

Along the slime tunnels in strange and outcaste lands, tunnels leading eventually to worlds of crime and violence, blood and guts, psychological thrillers and demonic killers, Donald E. Westlake put his words where they would do the most damage, like Lawrence Block a year before him, in 1959. He first penned as Alan Marshall, and the Edwin West name came a bit later. The two writers even published a few novels written in cooperation. This one right away admits that the content contained within its Harry Schaare muralist covers is not condoned by society, and those kinds of headlines really boosted the market (as well as other key phrases, like "First Publication Anywhere"). Again the gals have short, wavy hair, and softer features with gentler costuming and makeup. Is that Marilyn Monroe in the background? One could hope only so much as when confronted with a Robert Maguire cover. Realism is not stressed and instead the impact is reliant upon composition. Schaare has a way with a woman's hair much like Rader, but more in the line of varied colors, less effectively using black levels and more effectively implementing the natural hues hair might presume after a lifetime of sun and fun; witness the blond with a beach towel (it could be a bath towel, I suppose). Both cover artists are, like Maguire, proud of their work in the field, and display thick black lines somewhere subtle yet prominent enough, almost as if to say "For a good time, call Schaare" or "Rader was Here". This novel takes place in and around New York, Greenwich Village a staple.

$30 - Very Good
Midwood Books number F-142, 1962
Paul Rader, ca.

Ever the wizard behind the curtain, an editor at Midwood wrote some novels under the name Sloane Britain. She wrote a book for Beacon Books called "The Needle" about a bi-sexual woman, and a heroin addict at that. Talk about killing two birds! Or, the more modern, double-fisting the world of smut. Erika Hathaway is a psychiatrist (which is good for sleaze, as opposed to psychologist, because it introduces yet another "tag" like so much fodder for alt-paperback publishers of the era: drugs), and women come to her with their confusion...and pent-up sexual frustration. Determining their problems only exasperate her inner turmoil, and she falls headlong like Alice down the rabbit's hole. At hand, Paul Rader's take on the stereotyped short hairdo of from the isle of Lesbos couldn't be better. And, I love Rader hair. His approach to contour is unmatched in the pit of depravity. Being an advocate of cleavage, I couldn't be happier with this cover. Double the fun, as the patient in white gives us the best of both worlds. T and A have never been better represented in one specimen. The scale of our two ladies might be slightly unbalanced, but the interest shown by the butch in the foreground satisfies the bruise taken by our hearts at the despair of the blond in the hindground. Britain struggled with her own sexuality, and her family's denial drove her to suicide. This title was later in her career, towards the end of her life, and was not as poignant as some of her earlier lesbian novels.

$ 75 - Very Good plus
Leisure Books number LB-1195
Robert Bonfils, ca.

To bring this to its knees, and kill this post, I've included this little number, a brilliant contender with wonderful, yet again, Robert Bonfils cover art. Mechanisms abound and, ever the satirist, he denotes the lovelies with perky tits, pouty lips, and vivid wigs. Bonfils could handle scale, and keeps all our honeys well balanced. The nipple on a vintage paperback always arouses more than the penis.  It awakens the passion to discover America and the disappearance of Puritanism. Perhaps none better than Bonfils (maybe Bilbrew) to help that pachyderm across the sky, at once opening a mountain of clouds, and dispelling sun and eyeshadow and lipstick on Dumbo's flapping ears! The nipple made it's first paperback appearance, I believe, on a book called "Helen of Troy," but doesn't receive its full glory until the middle of sleaze production, just about the time hardcore material ran rampant. This represents another tone to lesbian sex, and more hardcore. Vaginas are more aptly described, "cock" is seen on more than one occasion, as well as "stroke," "snug," and "spurts," with threesomes enough to fill a boat, a tugboat. That machine, and the only publication from this era I have seen so blatantly portraying sex aids, this being a penatrative example, has more than one setting, and even seems to have an audio track (see the tape spool extreme left), and entices more than just its operator. A cult of experiments surround the first victim, ready to whet that whistle. I will always love Bonfils and his attentive use of humor, light, bright colors, and curves. These gals, like Bilbrew, have winding contours that make my knees tremble, and plug in my passion for smut. A curse and a blessing.

Here's to that rabid Floridian, taking a cue from that beacon bright in the night sky on the sea of smut, and sending a Land-ho! my way: Make ready, the isle of Lesbos at the bow! Hoist your topgallant mast!

Even Pigsfuck

Recently the market for sleaze has become something of an alien. All, and I do stress, of the markets for retail have soaked to the since-forgotten binary bone. This event makes bibliophiles like me near wet themselves, and their sheets, and their linens and things. The event has enough impact that it unearths certain resources previously nonexistent in their present form: where once was a maid, now romps a maiden. Housewives are having their computer-savvy sons and daughters (mostly sons in this trade) sell the dusty eternal libraries of their recently deceased book-hoarding fathers and mothers (mostly fathers in this trade), and at ridiculous prices. I can't help but be advised of the things pertinent to my happiness. Misfortune settles and yet I smile at the victory shortly following, and one is inclined to feel somewhat sneaky; indeed, the bedrock above which this business thrives, was conceived, and will pass away.


Sex Life of a Cop


We have eaten our own words since we've been able to speak. We have torn up our own script since we've been able to bind it, and continued to do so under many guises. Words hurt. Words attempt to hurt. And words do nothing. But in the early 1960s a sleaze kingpin, Reuben Sturman, would find his way to the iron cage, and he did it with a book called "Sex Life of a Cop." published by Sanford Aday's "Saber Books" subsidiary. There are a few representations of the case, which lasted 20 years or more, on the superhighway, and can be found with some ease, provided you get off at the right exits. At the book shows and fairs of my experience, I have never seen a copy, and upon further investigation, one finds that like many books this one had more than one printing. This was of course common with nearly all of the adult paperback companies, even the ones which weren't "adult." Prices were low to begin with, rose a dime every 8-10 years, and have held steady at Shitty. Or what seems to be that, given the fact that I can find a copy of a book I know to have worth for nearly nothing. Obviously I am not the only one doing research on this area of art, else I would not have discovered the wolf amongst my sheep.  The true first edition of this hardly naughty little novel, with not as much pork as one might wish save the brief effigies of law enforcement on the front covers, is as such: an angry beer-drinking low-impact police chief with a combover reprimanding his bewildered cadets, one of which has pulled his weapon (likely before the chief could pull his).

$350 - Very Good plus
Sex Life of a Cop
Oscar Peck
Saber Books number SA-11, 1959

 Who was Oscar Peck? A pseudonymous writer no doubt the brunt of the publisher's frustration, but yet the shining knight upon which their pride is balanced, enough pride to sent them to prison. That's where all the pride is right? Aday is the Ginsberg of the adult paperback world (they twist their beards and wonder who they'll let slip through the pearly gates one day), and aside from the literary importance of each title, I see no reason why a 1st edition of this title should not be considered with a 1st of "Howl" as contenders in circuit of World Heavyweight Champion of the Paperback Ring, along with such greats as Burrough's "Naked Lunch" and, oh who else?, maybe that one about the hot adolescent femme by that Russian guy, or maybe only everything de Sade had written. Many people saw the inside of a prison because of this very insignificant artifact. The law saw it as a direct slap in the snout, and Aday and his cohorts were not about to relinquish any sort of relish for their dogs to spread; also at a time when government was slipping already. Someone shot and killed the US president, civil rights was in, and so much destruction of past "norms," it only goes that some young fun punk decided to snap the suspenders of the fat cats down at city hall. Copies now are not seen often, and when they turn up they fetch high prices. With respect.

$50 - Near Fine
Sex Life of a Cop
Oscar Peck
Saber Books number SA-11
(third printing, Special Edition)
1967

The second (actually third: the book was retitled shortly after publication, then with the approach of a more relaxed media, re-retitled to its original) edition was labeled "SPECIAL EDITION" probably anchoring on the idea that the general public was open to the recently unfolded court hearings and would be naturally curious and generous (they hiked the price up 60 cents, over a period of 8 years). The angry cop has vanished and a slick and innocent-looking police cruiser with sirens hushed and passengers reclined has resumed. The piggy pinks have left and the cool-to-the touch forrest colors or pride implant the scene:

the moon is there too, how quaint, "Oh nothing to see here, Officer." "All right, Chief, we're goin." "Now, where wear we? Oh I believe I was reading you your Miranda Rights." "Teehemmm! You're not going to pull out your night stick, are you?" "Get the fuck back into the car."

And the cop proceeds to fuck her. It is only to those events before hand that the consuming, and therefore impressionable, public were witness. Oddly, we stumble upon the subsequent "frisking" with the second edition. Important as well, is this edition introduces the actual court proceedings and results, with assumed names and places.

I am not going to guess at the cover artists for both of these editions, and can not attribute them to Saber's oft-commissioned, and GLORIOUS artist, Bill Edwards. His knack for curves and soft colors really presume a regal essence. The first edition, of the two, bares more in resemblance to the work of Edwards than the second, if with regard only to the shading of the figures. Edwards stuck to people too, mostly, like Robert Bonfils, Robert McGinnis, Robert Maguire, and many other Roberts.

This marks an occasion. The occasion is heard popping champagne and the glug of something else, a thickly clouded room of people in ties and button-down shirts and red dresses with lace and phonograph record players and lovely lamps and business men and greaseballs and hot housewives who would have sold this shit themselves had they a computer.

CURRENTS: Denise Bidot, Vanessa Lake, something cooking in the crockpot, and maybe the latest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition. 

I'm aT IT again...

Back at it, the entire process of narrowing and honing and zeroing and compressing. The subject matter is always delightful, and even the hour(s) it might take to fulfill my mental hard-on is well spent. This time we climb the Everest of sleazy cover art, scale a few more miles upward, beyond the valley of desire and passed the small watering hole where possibly birds stop to sup, climbing and gasping for oxygen the whole way, until we reach our summit...or rather, summits. We may have lost a few along the way, succumbing to the elements of flesh, the dangerous curves and dips, the hot valleys where we almost lost our entire supply of H2O, ne'er a rag to sop our sweat, but the Gods of Grease and Lords of Lust were with us from beginning to end. This time they bring us to girls of gold, knelt Heathers, twin sisters from either side of the tracks, and a full-fledged innocent trapped inside a guilty pleasure. Tantalizing and titillating, our next group consists again of four top contestants, each with something different to offer, but all judged accordingly and unbiasedly. Judy Garland moves this moment along, as I type to "The Far Away Part of Town"...

Best of BREASTS FOR OUR GUESTS

$ 75 - Very Good Plus
Virtuoso Virgin
Alan Marshall (most often, Donald E. Westlake)
Candid Reader number CA936, 1968

The first thing to grab the viewer (I assume I can speak for everybody; perks of the position) is the bright color the artist (Darrel Millsap, called in to help Robert Bonfils fill the orders at Greenleaf) chose to offset the somewhat monochrome feeling of his central figures: a still effective black and white. Soon following is the outrageous, proto-pornstar outfit the white-haired hussy dons with a smile. If ever there were a more useful piece of lingerie, sought highly by only the prime of crab fisherman and aquaculturists, we'd be astonished. But it's clear how the stacked slapper keeps the local dredgers from snapping it clean off, the abdominal lace tied up right. The third thing to attract attention is TADA! the splendid rack, which not only captures our attention, but that of the two partying drinkers, as if the classy concubine knows she's the shizit and as if the dapper dude is telling himself she's the shizit. One gets the feeling these two know each other! One gets the feeling they're both happy to be at a pad with such fantastic wallpaper! One gets the feeling they'll both lose their threads after downing that pitcher of martini the virtuous vamp stirs, and perhaps she'll give his so-subtle sky-blue neckerchief a good tug! This cover has it all, from the sweet club Polo on "Steve," to the eye-white mane on "Susan," and the righteous curves "Steve" so lovingly holds onto. Witness the microscopic gumdrop leading us to the author's name in blue.  ALASKAN KING CRAB FEAST (on the house)

$ 75 - About Fine
Good Girl Bad Girl
Don Elliott (Robert Silverbeg)
Nightstand Books number NB1751, 1965

Two for the price of one! A quadruple-whopper double-whammy! Never has so much flesh been so Barbie-like! Our gumdrops are still present, even the black and white simpleness of the accessories, and the full color background. We can wonder if these two broads are at the same party as the two above, or modeling for a mustard-mopped photographer with an entourage and an undying smile. For your consideration, "Susie" and "Ruthie." To all those Susans and Suzannes and Susies out there, my hat goes off, far off and far-out, for you lovelies held many an evening session of masturbatory fantasies for the coterie of professional sleaze writers just trying to make it to the next bottle of Pernod. The two doppelgangers seem somehow sweet, somehow joyous of their precarious situation. Now we know what stiffened up the Tin Man so quickly at the Yellow Brick Road! A good girl and a bad girl. Take your pick. It seems the topmost girl has fallen asleep, and the lowermost is quite proud of her summits. Something makes the viewer yearn for more, as if the naughty knockers were naught but teasers, for what's happening below the waist gets the exocrine glands working overtime. However enticing the stems may be, the buds are always where the elixir sits, where we wait our turn to ask for but a nip at the flavor of life. That flavor comes from a berry with tannins of both good and evil. PS- I love the lowermost's pink panties. FOUR PINK STARS

$ 75 - Near Fine
Heather on the Lawn
Fred Malloy
Nitime Swapbooks number NS425, 1971

A book that took yours truly truly a while to procure. I say a while in terms of anticipation, seeing it in one place, letting it slide, and taking my sweet-ass (oh, and it IS sweet) time to find the only other copy available at the time; there may be another one on the market now, who knows. This "Heather" came to me under no preconceived notions about the art, just that it made my psyche rust solid like Jack Haley on his mettle (see any link to The Wizard of Oz, I won't provide you one). The first thing a seer sees is an odd light source, almost like the moon. It hits Heather's raven-black hair, it his her sapphire dress with the slinking-down straps, her bare calves and heels, and, most importantly, her chestnut chest with the peeking tan lines. I truly dig that Bonfils spends all of his energy on his starlets and the company just comes as an afterthought. But every inch of his art is as integral as the preceding and the proceeding. The two onlookers in director's chairs are having just as much fun as the two on the lawn, they even get to commentate. Witness the pink pretty's sneakpeak of white underthings! Envy the mustard-mopped man at the helm and his observation. A'hole matey! She could be nude beneath, she could not be. Let's speculate instead why she is smiling, how late it is where she is, who does their landscaping, and what nationality our Heather could be; let's leave this party for some bocce ball at another get-together, but let's imprint those tan-lines before we go. MOON MEDALLION

$ 20 - Near Fine
The Golden Girls
Kevin North
Playtime Books number 609, 1962

My last effort at completely womanizing a few selections from my collection of sleaze, completely bastardizing the literary world of illustration, completely kneeling before the cover artists and their models, I'M NOT WORTHY! I'M NOT WORTHY! - comes at a cost. I can not look at this cover without somehow wishing I was horse food. This is what actually happened when a superhuman being landed from the planet Krypton and was stumbled upon by a hapless farmer in a field in the middle West somewhere. The cost is not monetary, it's ancillary. The cost comes not from the wallet but from the gullet, and clutches the windpipes before asking if we're all ready to face the music. AND oh how convenient the wind seems to be churning the grains! Dig the red tresses, dig the long lashes and the boulder opals, dig the upside-down apex at the meeting of her back and ass, and reap the perfect shadow dead-center of our golden girl. These might be the healthiest mamms Bonfils have given history. Apparently this book is actually about female wheat harvesters and their "giant combines." By day they reap grain, by night they reap...well, probably cock. It's obvious what I recognize this cover with. GOLDEN GLOBE