Sofia Vergara looms like a giantess over Times Square!

Maybe it’s the early warm spring weather here in NYC, but as much as I want to continue to write more “memories of the porn trade” for you, lately I keep wanting to stay in the present and progress into the future.

I guess at my age I may be something of an elder statesman of erotica, or maybe make that “elder sleazeball” if you wish; but as a freelancer in today’s economy I have to hustle and keep moving forward just like the young turks of the trade. And there are so many younger writers and creators fashioning the porn scene of today.

Ironically, what I have to work on today is an article about vintage men’s magazines, which will take me “back in time” to the early 1960s. I do historical research and then write about a vintage publication in the light of its era.

Nowadays, people are looking at the mags that I used to work on back in the 70s and 80s as “retro” and “vintage.” Ironically, what I consider vintage is the stuff from before my professional life, in the 50s and 60s. And going back as far as the 20s, 30s, and 40s as well–when I can find mags like that, which are scarce and usually dilapidated.

But before I get in my “time machine” for a few hours, let me share with you a few photo treats from 2012…

Walking around Times Square recently, I saw sexy billboards that only go to show that far from being “cleaned up,” the neighborhood still has much potential to stimulate the gonads.

Case in point, a giant Sofia Vergara hovering over Broadway:

Britney Spears, in demure 1950s clothing, once did a charming soda billboard that stood in almost the same spot.

The photo is very large, so it had to be sized smaller to fit in the blog. But if you click on it, you can see it in all its enveloping “you are there” quality.

Likewise, a few blocks down I saw this great leg shot of Glee starlet Lea Michele:

This amazing billboard (as of March 2012) stands on top of Midtown Comics at 40th and Seventh Avenue.

And last but not least, somewhere east of Times Square I found myself tempted by this poster of Jennifer Love Hewitt, one of the great busty babes on today’s entertainment scene:

Be sure to click on the photo to enjoy Jennifer's inviting allure!

My theory is that one reason they “cleaned up” New York was to give more room for sultry advertisements featuring celebrity hotties! Which certainly provides photo ops for me, since I’ve been taking pictures like these for years.

Too bad there aren’t REAL celebrity giantesses walking around the area. That would be even better. But these billboards are the next best thing, I suppose! 😉

Boy, I’d sure like to meet a beautiful Asian girl about twenty-five feet tall!! 🙂

 

MOMMY’S LITTLE DUNCE gets the lesson he deserves!

I hope you had a Happy St. Patrick’s Day last weekend. Me, I stood in my kitchen with a shot of Jameson and raised a toast to Mr. Joyce, Mr. O’Connor, and Mr. Farrell. The whiskey went down so smooth and lovely, I don’t think it ever tasted quite as good.

Now, as I’ve explained here before, I am actually of Romanian-Russian-Jewish descent. But my Irish-sounding nom de porn is a tribute to the Irish writers who inspired me to become a scribe in the first place, way back in college. There were many other writers of other ethnicities from whom I learned, but it was the short stories of James Joyce, Frank O’Connor, and James T. Farrell that set me firmly on the road to devoting my life to, in the words of  Welshman Dylan Thomas, this “craft or sullen art.”

I was first introduced to Jameson by my porn writer compadre Lou Meyers, with whom I used to bend an elbow at the late and lamented Tin Pan Alley bar on 49th Street near Broadway. He suggested I try it, and I’ve liked it ever since. He also introduced me to Player’s Navy Cut cigarettes, which I enjoyed for good while too although I haven’t smoked now in many years (and miss it everyday).

Tin Pan Alley was a basement level bar where porn writers (among its varied clientele) would repair after screenings of new sex flicks in the days before video. Yes, we actually went to screenings, and the worse the movie, the more we critics and reviewers were plied with booze and food. But nothing beat the after-screening post-mortems of these sinematic transgressions which often took place at Tin Pan Alley, only a stone’s throw away from the old screening rooms around the corner on Broadway.

I wish I had some photos of the old joint, but I don’t. But I seem to remember that the men’s room had blue walls, and stunk to high heaven. I also remember that one New Year’s Eve I picked up a girl in the ladies room, which apparently was unisex that particular evening. These were the days before barricades in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, back in the early 80s.

My buddy Lou wrote a lot of good stuff, ranging from porn films to short stories to adult novels, from interviews to on-the-film-set pieces to screenplays for sword-and-sandal and war movies. And, of course, he introduced me to Jameson. I know I just said that, but such an act of good fellowship bears repeating.

———–

I wonder what Mr. Joyce, Mr. O’Connor, and Mr. Farrell might think of Mr. Neil’s prose accomplishments. Mr. Joyce, being rather kinky himself, with fetishes for ladies’ bloomers and flatulence, might actually have found it amusing. I can at least say I emulate these gentlemen in the coherence of my craft. My stories hold together and make sense…not always the case in the world of erotica. And a good example of my carnal coherence is my newest ebook, MOMMY’S LITTLE DUNCE, the story of a porn writer who goes to a special therapist to deal with the guilt he feels over writing smut instead of “literature.”

It is a tale of mind-fucking by a compassionate yet stern female named Ms. Foster who knows her way into the vulnerable male brain. She readily gets the self-described “dunce” of the tale to submit to the punishments she prescribes for the improvement of his mental and emotional outlook. From standing in the corner to laying across her lap for a spanking, he goes on a journey that brings a new dimension to the OTK (“over-the-knee”) and maternal discipline sub-genres of femdom erotica. I originally wrote it for Leg Show when the magazine was edited by Dian Hanson, and it was published in the March 2001 issue, which is now scarce and hard to find. So now I’ve released it with very slight revision with a brand-new illustration on Kindle. (The original illustration was done by Sardax, but I don’t have the publishing rights to that.)

So I hope you’ll check out MOMMY’S LITTLE DUNCE at the Kindle stores in the U.S., UK, Germany, France, Spain, or Italy. You don’t need an ebook reader, either; you can download the free Kindle software and read it the ebooks on your Mac or PC. And if you do take the plunge into the world of MOMMY’S LITTLE DUNCE,  leave a comment here or on Amazon to let me know how you like it! Thanks.

Amazon U.S.:

http://www.amazon.com/Irv-O.-Neil/e/B005KA6DZQ/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Irv-O.-Neil/e/B005KA6DZQ/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Amazon Germany:

http://www.amazon.de/Irv-O.-Neil/e/B005KA6DZQ/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Amazon France:

http://www.amazon.fr/Irv-O.-Neil/e/B005KA6DZQ/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Amazon Italy:

http://www.amazon.it/s/ref=pd_rhf_dp_s_1?ie=UTF8&search-alias=digital-text&keywords=Irv%20O.%20Neil

Amazon Spain:

http://www.amazon.es/s/ref=sr_gnr_fkmr0?rh=i%3Adigital-text%2Ck%3AIrv+O.+Neil&keywords=Irv+O.+Neil&ie=UTF8&qid=1327901175

 

Porn writers versus “real” writers!

An occupational hazard–at least with smut scribes of my Baby Boomer generation who didn’t grow up with the Internet-spawned notion that porn is just another part of mainstream culture–is a feeling of inferiority because the mainstream world does not recognize us as “real writers.”

I confess to having felt this myself over the years. Makes widdle Irv feel vewwy bad…

A porn writer sets himself (or herself) up for disappointment if he expects to get approval for his horny work.

This can lead to a “fuck you” attitude toward the mainstream world, and a desire to rub the noses of the “civilians” (or non-porn people) in the outrageousness of our work. This has always struck me as the modus operandi of people like Larry Flynt or Al Goldstein.

On the other hand, there are some porn folk, like myself, who internalize the feeling of inferiority and get depressed. But depression can lead to some interesting work as the feelings are dramatized in stories.

Which brings me to my newest ebook release,  MOMMY’S LITTLE DUNCE, which will be available tomorrow in the Kindle store.

This nice lady makes a porn writer stand in the corner until he loses control of his bladder. Bad porn writer! Baaaadd!! 😉

I wrote this story in 2000 for Leg Show, and have only slightly revised it, tweaking little things here and there. Otherwise, I present it in its original form, with a new cover illustration that faithfully captures the spirit of the lady in the tale. (The original terrific magazine illo was by the great Sardax, but I don’t own the rights to that. But check out his site here, because you should know his work if you don’t already! Adults only, of course.)

Readers of my blog, and folks on search engines, have been looking around for this story, which until now has only been available in vintage and hard-to-find copies of the original magazine. I’m happy to present it in the Kindle format, available in English in the Amazon stores of the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain!

Writing a good story always improves my mood!

And what, you may ask, is MOMMY’S LITTLE DUNCE about? It tells the fictional tale of a porn writer named Dexter Bloom–I’ve been writing about various “Dexters” since the mid-70s when I lived in a residential hotel called the Dexter House on New York’s Upper West Side. Dexter feels very naughty and like a “dunce” because he has not achieved his goals of achieving “real writerhood” while busy scribbling dirty stories for adult magazines. He goes to see a special “esoteric therapist” named Rachel Foster who specializes in helping creative people overcome their guilt complexes. The story of how Ms. Foster gets Dexter to design his own dunce cap and stand in the corner of her office in his underpants will show you how important it is to express one’s feelings in order to overcome them…right?

Here is one wild story which is almost a companion piece in perversion to my top-selling LEARNING TO BE CRUEL! And of course, any resemblances to real people, places, persons or events are purely coincidental. 

You’ll be able to find it tomorrow (March 16, 2012) in the Kindle stores at Amazon.

Amazon U.S.:

http://www.amazon.com/Irv-O.-Neil/e/B005KA6DZQ/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Irv-O.-Neil/e/B005KA6DZQ/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Amazon Germany:

http://www.amazon.de/Irv-O.-Neil/e/B005KA6DZQ/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Amazon France:

http://www.amazon.fr/Irv-O.-Neil/e/B005KA6DZQ/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Amazon Italy:

http://www.amazon.it/s/ref=pd_rhf_dp_s_1?ie=UTF8&search-alias=digital-text&keywords=Irv%20O.%20Neil

Amazon Spain:

http://www.amazon.es/s/ref=sr_gnr_fkmr0?rh=i%3Adigital-text%2Ck%3AIrv+O.+Neil&keywords=Irv+O.+Neil&ie=UTF8&qid=1327901175

And getting back to the question of what is a “real writer”? Who cares!

I hope you enjoy MOMMY’S LITTLE DUNCE.

March 18, 2012 UPDATE: Here is a new direct link to the book on Amazon U.S. Click on the pic:

And I say again, enjoy…

 

Femme fatale mannequin…

I like to read 1950s noir fiction, those paperback books about shady women leading men down the path to hell. I like caper novels and certain psychological mysteries, especially if there is a beautiful “dame” or “doll” or “dish” on the cover.

This is the cover of a book I recently read, which I found at a flea market. It wasn’t a great book, but it was a good page turner about a psychopathic killer who pretends he’s a retired British army officer and stalks various females. The title was odd and didn’t quite seem to fit, except maybe for the fact that the officer isn’t on any official military records, because his career is a fake and he’s an impostor.

The cover artist was the great Robert A. Maguire.

I probably wouldn’t have bought the book if it didn’t have this striking, cold beauty on the cover, which was painted by Robert A. Maguire, one of my favorite paperback artists, and whose work can be seen here. I urge you to check out the link!

Nowadays people sometimes say that the femme fatale archetype is one of those stereotypical characters our “post-feminist” society has outgrown, now that women are empowered and have more choices besides being a madonna or a whore, a housewife or a floozy. But I recently saw a mannequin in a women’s clothing store window that reminded me of the Maguire girl above, and made me realize that the paperback villainess of yesterday has now been transformed into the icy shill for ladies garments of today. Because let’s face it–most of the women you see in clothing ads or fashion layouts all have this same vaguely sociopathic hard-edged look. Many of them look like they could be fierce dominatrixes if you got them in the right situation.

She looks as hard and deadly as any girl Robert A. Maguire ever painted.

Cold women for a cold world?

———-

You can find copies of Murder Off the Record at Amazon here, where I found the cover scan. I could have scanned my copy, but I was just feeling too lazy…

 

Why some people look down on erotica…

I believe that all of the best writing, whether it’s erotic or literary or genre or journalistic, takes practice and skill before mastery is achieved. It can be as difficult to learn to write a great erotic story as it is to write a great story of other types. To be able to create your own distinctive universe where your characters meet, talk, screw and/or kink out, is not an easy accomplishment.

One of the earliest magazines I edited and wrote for...each coverline came right from my sexual psyche or pop culture interests.

However, in one important aspect erotica is a less demanding form of fiction writing for the simple reason that it doesn’t take all that much to turn people on, if you are basically giving them what they’re looking for. For example, if you hand a poorly written femdom story to a submissive man, it still might turn him on if there are nuggets in the tale that capture his fantasies.

As an editor, as well as a reader of online fiction written by any number of anonymous souls, I’ve been constantly amazed at how weakly written amateur stories can be really hot in spite of their poor grammar or structure. But it makes sense, because it is the stimulation of body rather than the mind that is the primary goal of porn, erotica, smut, or whatever you want to call it, and the body is easily titillated. A single apt turn of phrase in an otherwise crummy tale can do the trick.

If a person, not necessarily a trained writer, puts down his or her fantasies honestly, or at least passionately, and with a modicum of intelligibility, there are bound to be some people out there who will get aroused when they read such jottings.

On the other hand, if an unskilled scribe attempts to craft a mystery, even with honesty, passion, and intelligibility, the odds are high that it will excite nobody, because the challenges and complexities of writing a mystery are usually too much for the novice. In this sense it’s harder to write a mystery than an erotic story, for the simple reason you can’t fall back on the biological urges that can so readily be triggered by the right smutty passage in an otherwise lumpy pile of pornographic pulp.

Attempts by tyros at most other literary categories, from literature to westerns to thrillers to romance, are often hopelessly bad with no available fallback on the libido, as in erotica. Of course it doesn’t mean that, given time and effort, beginners in all these fields can’t develop the necessary skills to succeed.

Most people understand all this instinctively–even unconsciously–about erotica, and from this comes their attitude that somehow erotica is not “real” writing…or at all challenging to write. Everybody knows how easily and quickly our individual arousal buttons can be pushed by the right words or images, and so they figure it doesn’t take all that much skill to write horny material. Unfortunately, they can be correct.

But–when you read a great piece of horny prose, the skills utilized are obvious to the discerning eye.

Still, all this is one big reason for the never-ending condescension of the civilians (as some of us pornsters call people outside of the business) toward the art and craft of erotica writing. Such condescension and misunderstanding are occupational hazards to be encountered at parties, family gatherings, or wherever such civilians gather. “You write what? Oh, I didn’t know magazines actually paid people to write stuff like that.” (Snicker, titter, smirk, gasp!)

On the contrary, they did–and sometimes very nicely indeed.

...and one of the more recent. The main covergirl is like the 1950s paperback femmes fatale that I love.

———-

I found the covers of the magazines at the great online source for vintage publications, OldMags.com. I don’t work for them, but I love to browse in their site and scroll through more than thirty years worth of titles I worked for. So visit OldMags.com sometime.