Movie reveiw: "Zazel"

      It used to be my opinion that art porn was to be avoided because the majority of the sucking was often done by the writers.

      “ Zazel” (1997) changed my mind about this. A golden somewhat-oldie in the Fairvilla Megastore  staff favorites rental shelf, it’s the story of a famous artist who is commissioned to invent the most sensually arousing perfume in the world, to be called “Zazel,” (which is actually the name of a very powerful angel).  As our heroine loafs around around in high end settings, gardens and galleries jotting notes and drawing pictures to capture her ideas about what the scent is going to be she has some of the most wildly imaginative, bizarre and beautiful fantasies on adult video. Ken Russell, we’re quite sure, would approve.

        The film stars the exotic beauty Sasha Vinni, who plays not only the artist but a number of entities in her own dreams. If you were swift, you caught the word “entities” instead of “people” because the perfumer’s fantasies are populated by angels, demons, goddesses with a little room left over for mere mortals, but damn, the entities are intriguing. Sasha, for instance, plays the breath-taking blue-skinned goddess; with her wide red lips, gold turban and snake-like tongue against her unearthly cobalt skin and long, blue fingers, her writhing around in the water is probably the most striking and memorable looks I’ve ever seen in an adult film, and that includes Paris Hilton and her creepy night-vision sex scene. 

      Speaking of creepy, there’s a segment called “Hell” in which Anna Romero (imagine a pornographic version of Kelly LeBrock, circa “Weird Science”) plays a demon with massive red PVC horns on her head and a red PVC tail lodged as firmly in her butt as a hand up a puppet, and who makes love to the severed head of a woman played, again, by Sasha Vinni. If it sounds savage, it isn’t – it recalls more Aubrey Beardsely than Texas Chainsaw and the sheer weirdness of it makes any pious tizzy kind of level off, almost out of sheer wonder. And there is a segment with angels (as in the title) that has a very ambitious, elegant 90’s feel to it, an other-worldly veneer.

       Another unique attention-getter in “Zazel” is the boots – more seasoned adult viewers than I may have seen these before or since, but several of the women in the film wear boots with PVC dildos that stick out of the heel. Rock back on those and one imagines one cares drifting away. They look like they’d be the perfect perk-up to any tedious kneeling you might have to do to locate a book on a low shelf, clean a floor or go along with the choreography in church.

       Finally, "Zazel" has next to no dialogue, brilliantly dodging the camp-o-licious potential dilemma of what we will call 'porn acting,' which was so well-parodied in "Boogie Nights." Porn acting is actually one of my favorite things about adult films, but my pop culture sensibilities were forged in the fires of the 1980's, when people went to see Ed Wood movies on purpose, so there will always be a bit of me that thinks bad is good. At any rate, not having much dialog as a distraction has its merits.

       “Zazel” has walked away with 13 AVN awards over the years – so the sweet smell it was after turned out to be “success.” Its imaginative beauty certainly justifies all this recognition, so if you have any curiosity about where artistic aspirations meet dildo boots (and in my mind they’re peas on a pod) look no further then Heaven, Hell and the serene pool of the blue goddess.

Big-O Canada

     “I can make the word “Canadian” sound sexy,” said Buddy Cole , aka Scott Thompson from “Kids in the Hall,” and indeed I do love having all those Canadians on top of us (I'm half Canadian myself), but unfortunately sexiness, and preoccupation with same, isn’t something they’re known for. One thinks of the Latin lover, the French kiss, the Indian Kama Sutra, the fleshpots of Amsterdam, the Italian Stallion, German fetishism, Greek Sapphism and Japanese tentacle erotica and well…but for the invention of the We-Vibe and Sue Johanson, the Canadians have never had much to say on the subject.

      Until now.

      Canada – who knew? – has a political party called The Sex Party, which, in the true Canadian spirit of even-temperedness, doesn’t have any delusions of winning elections but just feels like it’s important to have a single outlet and some candidates to bring issues of sexual health, happiness and freedom to the fore. We have that party here, too. They’re called Democrats.

       In all seriousness, it’s brilliant: a party that is free of the burden of winning might actually be able to talk sense, have debates and say something worth saying, rather than just acting like craven, shape-shifting vote toadies. In fact, America could use a Sex Party to help sort out our issues (and jiminy cricket, are we full of ‘em), not to mention a Nerd Party to defend science and get a friggin colony started on Venus. Then both parties can get the hell out of here. (A planet populated solely by nymphos and nerds…it’s a small dream, but I cherish it.)

        Anyway, should America ever have the sense to follow Canada's lead on this I'd be happy to work tirelessly on the party's behalf, provided I get to be either Minister of Batteries or Plug Tsar.

       In the meantime here are a couple of videos on "The Top 5 Sexiest Canadians," made by writer and radio personality Charles Martin during my last trip north. Don’t let the name “Alice the Goon” on the videos confuse you – that was the moniker my blog was under (and it still exists here on blogspot) because I went for the simpler www.lizlangley.com. Making it more streamlined and professional, the kind of place where you can discuss important things like Planet Nerdy Dirty and Jim Carrey’s orgasm face and be assured that someone will take you seriously. (PS: I personally like part 2 the best, but don’t miss out on the dreamy Justin Trudeau in part 1).

Toy Talk: We-Vibe Update

      There's a lot to like about adult superstar Belladonna, especially her enthusiasm. I'm sure I've seen her gush...but never quite in the same way as she does in this clip wherein she discovers the We-Vibe. Switched sent the sensuous star, looking pretty as a pixie in that epymonious haircut, out to the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo where she interviews Canadian inventor Bruce Murison about the little purple wonder that's taking the sex toy world by storm.
       I wrote about the We-Vibe back in March and was pleased to hear that that post was interesting people enough for them to go to Fairvilla Megastore and pick one up, but found a hole in my vibrator story when a young lady wrote to tell me she bought one just prior to a romantic weekend with her husband, got to the hotel several hours away, was all ready to try it out  - only to find the batteries take 24-hours to charge.
        D'oh! Talk about your gadgetary blue balls. But there are two take-aways to this story.
     One: when you buy the We-Vibe, charge the batteries for 24 hours before use.
     Two: Before you are going to introduce ANYTHING unfamiliar to a romantic encounter, give it a run-through if it's at all possible. It could be as simple as making sure you can open the battery door (I've seen someone struggle for five minutes with one of those on a  vibrator before giving up and then actually getting the office IT person to look at it), talk a runway walk in those dominatrix boots you just bought  (Misstress Von Pratfall is not a monicker any bottom will take seriously) or find yourself in the ER when you discover that stripper pole you were going to surprise him with was not securely installed, sending you ass-over-teakettle straight into the bookcase).
     The sex you are about to have is more important than any other performance art going on in your town (and potentailly more well-attended). A quick rehearsal with any unfamiliar props is highly recommended. The feeling Spinal Tap had when they first saw their tiny Stonhenge is not one you ever want to feel, especially when you're naked and your audience awaits.

A Day at the Races

       So - has anything especially fast, slow, theatrical, queeny, nostalgic, crowd-pleasing, hot, aerodynamic, silly or record-breaking ever happened in your bed? I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say it has. So the difference between you and this event is that your spectacle (probably) didn’t happen in front of a mob of drunks on as glorious an April day as you could order out of a goddamn Hallmark calendar.

      This was the scene at the   Fairvilla Megastore Conch Republic Red Ribbon Bed Race down Duval Street in Key West, a benefit for AIDS Help, which took place this past Saturday. More than 20 businesses participated in this charity goodf allism, racing real beds which must be a certain size, have a mattress, four wheels that touch the ground, four runners pushing and be manned or womaned by one person.

            Once you get past the rules the cool thing is outfitting your bed for maximum creativity – there was a coffin bed and a bong bed, and pirate beds, plus the ones sponsored by businesses (which was most of them) stayed true to their form. The Hog's Breath Saloon ferinstnace, made theirs into the biggest, ugliest swine this side of Time Bandits and the Shanna Key Irish Pub & Grill which ran a giant Guiness barrell down the street.
               


      The Fairvilla team, “Iguana Kill You” was meticulously body painted as wicked sci-fi lizards and ran a sleek bed with a super aerodynmic rocket-like nose-cone (no phallic jokes, please). Other teams included a Rocky Horror send-up, a jungle themed bed with a young lady tethered to it ala Jessica Lange in “King Kong.” But one that knocked me off my judge’s bar stool for its memorability was a “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”-style silver shoe, flanked by four drag queens all dressed in silver, like candy in big, shiny wrappers. One of them was a dead-ringer for Amanda LePore (in fact, I’d seen her on the parade route two days earlier, fell in love and deliberately winged some beads at her which she caught quite expertly).

  

          Aside from the Iguanas paint job and the dance-off between the Rocky Horrors and the Desert Queens (below, left), the highlights in my silly ass opinion were wardrobe malfunctions. There were three. Two happened to the volumptuous drag queens of the Priscilla float (second photo from the bottom). The first was one of the ladies with a a low-slung cleavage that nearly vomited forth one of her fake boobies. The other was the Ms. LePore look-a-like …one of her girls made a brief but glorious accidental appearance that would, had it been televised, have lasted a split second and gotten her taken to the cleaners by the FCC.  The most fun, though, was this:

            Now, on a windy Key West day, if you’re running down the street in a kilt, you’re just asking fate to upskirt you and that’s precisely what happened to one of the runners from Shanna Key (on the left are two members of Shanna Key and one from Fairvilla; none of them are kilty). It was just a booty shot (and more’s the pity from what we heard later) but a nicely proportioned little bubble it was and we later saw two, then three, then four women huddled around this strapping young lad and getting their picture taken with him like this was Disney and he was Tigger. When they made the cute gesture of trying to get up to give us another piece of his arse he fooled them by throwing his Scottish skirt over the heads of one of the young ladies who had kneeled to pose for the photo; the scene had gotten so cluttered with admirers that she couldn’t have gotten into a horizontal shot without a Panoramic lens. We didn’t exactly hear her say “Who turned out the lights?” but we do hope she got to yank the switch.

   C.

        In the end the best race was run by the folks at Fat Tuesdays You wouldn’t think a bar with a name like that would do anything in a Spartan manner, but Fat Tuesdays was more austere than a Quaker meeting hall; with a light-looking driver and four strong and serious runners they snatched victory from the jaws of style and took the big prize.

            So Fat Tuesdays made the best time, but everyone else, me included, had the best time. I’m sure I’ll get back to Key West again one of these days. In the meantime, I’m betting Alice went to look for that rabbit hole every day of her life…wonder if she ever found it. If I was her I wouldn’t hesitate to go back to Wonderland.

Love isn't a Battlefield; THIS is a battle field!

       When you have good food, drinks, weather and company, a fabulous view of the rich turquoise sea and a sky so clear you’d swear it was in HD, you never imagine that that next minute the forces of good and evil could clash right before your eyes and that the skies would be filled with toilet paper.

         This was the scene of the Bloody Battle, the re-enactment…kinda….of the day in 1982 when Key West declared itself the Conch Republic, seceded from the US, pelted federal agents with stale Cuban bread then surrendered and demanded $1 billion in foreign aid. The “kinda” is for the fact that in the Battle, the Conchs always roundly defeat the evil pretend oppressor. Yesterday afternoon the Conch Republic Navy and Airforce of clipper ships, sailboats, one yacht, a number of light aircraft --- and one boat with a crew holding a sign demanding “Clothing Optional Beaches” --- took on the Coast Guard Cutters…yes, the actual Coast Guard…in a major food fight on the high seas.

         Cuban bread is still a staple of the fighters, but in the past other foods – rotten tomatoes and hard boiled eggs, ferinstance, were part of the ammo. We even heard a rumor that one year the Coast Guard made piles of shrimp fettucini, added squid ink and left it in the sun for several days to rot before firing it at the unsuspecting Conchs. Not one person who we spoke to on land who had been on a Bloody Battle ship was missing being soaked and pelted.

      Bread, toilet paper and water cannons were the only weapons used in this battle, one in which the Conchs were victorious, with 15 confirmed hits. Viewed from the safety of the Pier House (best conch fritters EVER), the battle is pretty spectacular – the toilet paper streamers winging through the air, three or four water cannons going at once (you can’t see too much of the Cuban bread being heaved from boat to boat but we choose to believe it happened) and finally the red smoke of surrender from the Coast Guard. After the glorious victory, members of the Coast Guard formally surrendered at one of the island’s favorite beach bars, Schooner’s Wharf (not sure which is better there – the atmosphere or the fish tacos – but will take both), where the Captain made a speech about coming to this bizarre island ‘where men are women and chickens are protected’ and deciding they liked it (they were, of course, roundly acknowledged for their real-life role in keeping the island safe for insanity).

         Now normally we focus on sex on this blog – I refuse to make the “Love is a Battlefield” connection because I don’t believe in it – but I will say there is something damn sexy about a place where the most urgent thing you have to do all day is get a good viewing spot for a faux fight – and indeed, about a Coast Guard who gets into the spirit and plays with the locals. There’s an awful lot of sexy things under the sun – especially when there’s this much sun to go around – but a sense of humor definitely brings its own brand of stimulation wherever it goes.

(Photos by Shari Smith Murphy)

         NEXT UP! Fairvilla's Red Ribbon Bed Race to raise money for AIDS Help. Check out last year’s video here: 

Be gentle...it's my first video

I discovered this little bullet vibe The Nite Light at Fairvilla and though I was sadly without a videographer for the first time, just had to show it off. You know it’s pretty damn good if I went to all the trouble, so check it out! Hopefully you’ll laugh, and find a good little toy to boot.

I love a parade....especially if I'm in it

    “Somebody has to pick up Mel Fisher.”

     “He’s dead.”

      “Well, that doesn’t mean he can’t be in the parade.”

     Mel Fisher  is the great Florida treasure hunter who discovered the wreck of the Atocha in 1985, bringing up over 40 tons of gold, silver and precious jewels and causing my mother to say “Today’s the day, I’m gonna find me a gold doubloon,” ten times an hour every time we went 

to the beach. Fisher’s quest took many years and it’s a great story of a kind of adventure that seems almost gone from the world. Plus now that so many people are so down on their luck it feels even more important to know that the pot of gold doesn’t just come to the hero at the end of the movie; sometimes it happens in real life.

            Mel Fisher is also still the official King of the World's Longest Parade , one of the many celebrations going on during the Conch Republic Independence Celebration. And yes, Mel was in the parade.

            It was Bill Murphy of Fairvilla Megastore who got the last word in in the exchange above, and a cardboard cut-out of Mel rode shotgun with Bill at the head of the parade that happened last night in Bill’s award-winning 1950 Willys Overton candy-apple red Jeepster. The hour-long shindig which ran down Duval Street was filled with all t

he classic Key West goofballs, including but not limited to: a guy wearing a hanky-sized swatch of tye-dye over his wang, a drag queen with  the most posh lampshade on her head that I’ve ever seen mat and enough pirates to populate six more Johnny Depp sequals. It was hard not to notice a lot of those were outfitted at Fairvilla, whose selection of pirate wear we talked about a bit yesterday. You can tell a bit about a town from what sells at the sex shop. In Orlando they make a lot of room for fetish gear. Here in Key West, where the parties never end

, the costumes take up about half the store and the pirate costumes have a large and prominent place – we’re not talking about felt hats and fake parrots here, but serious brocade coats by Shrine and corsets that make everything a sexy synch. This is beach town that is indivisible in its desire to

 get dressed up and messed up.

            Joseph Martens, who you may remember from yester

day’s blog and, oh yeah, HIS FREAKING APPEARANCE WITH UFUCKING2 , drove the car I got to ride in and together we winged a good 20 pounds of Mardi Gras beads at the screaming crowd, starting a bead-war with the car in front of us (it was friendly fire, we swear) and generally having the best time anyone was having in Key West at that moment and that’s saying a lot (right - the drinking began 24 hours earlier, myself, Shari Smith Murphy and Joseph with the lovely Key Lime martinis that started the party).

       My favorite part was being flashed by men, none of whom went the fully monty just having guys lift of their shirts and offer some nippage all for the sake of some brightly colored trinkets made me understand the exact moment Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis thought “You know, I could get used to

 this.” Short of just carrying beads in my car and making it generally known that if you flash me you’ll get something shiny, I’m not sure how to parlay this, but I’m sure love will find a way.

            We did  decide that next time, though, since we were

 Fairvilla sponsored and all, we should throw pleasure beads next time.

            Mel is doing fine, by the way. Bill dropped him off at the store where, as far as we know, last we heard, he was watching "Pirates" and couldn’t be happier. It’s good to be the king. 

You say you want a Revolution?

She’s a grandmother.

Her name is Roxy and she’s shown here modeling lingerie at Shanna’s Key Irish Pub & Grill in Key West in a fashion show sponsored by Fairvilla Megastore for AIDSHelp (which took in a spiffy $400). The man who seems so tremendously (and rightfully) proud of sliding a buck into that garter belt is her husband. As far as I’m concerned, this photo, taken by Orlando singer/songwriter. Joseph Martens, is our generation’s version of the nurse and the sailor from World War II. If there was a contest - for anything - Roxy would have won.

      Joseph is here to entertain the Conch Republic troops for the week's Conch Revolution celebration including the Fairvilla-sponsored Red Ribbon Bed Race and we of the LizLangley.com blog will try terribly hard to go easy enough on the rum punches, bloody marys, Key Lime martinis etc., so we can document events for you somewhat reliably as they go. For now we can tell you that all the models were magically delicious (above left is Fairvilla's model buyer Erica in Coquette above-right , AJ, and yeah, that's all him, below, fiery red-head Mary Beth) that did us in, that the guys at Shanna's singing karaoke might...might...give Susan Boyle a run for her money that Joseph (below) managed to get the rapt the attention of a quite-boozy crowd with what's probably the only mash-up of Johnny Cash and "Pinball Wizard."

      One other thing that's impossible to notice, is that while real-life modern pirates might be the scourge of the world, old-world-Treasure-Island-Jack-Sparrow-pirate- fashion is cemented into Key Western culture. New York is the only other place I probably wouldn't be surprised to see people walk down the street in full-pirate regalia and we've already seen a few and a roomful of the most-posh frock coats, sexy wench dresses and puffy shirts at the Fairvilla here on Front Street (a block off Duvall). Amazing how 21st century hygiene acan make centuries-old bad-ass fashion look hot - hot - hot. More to come....

Curiouser and Curiouser: Alice, the X-Rated Musical

         

         Of all the stories that have spawned copious adaptations, “Alice in Wonderland” has to be one of the leaders of the pack. You’ve seen the Disney version, await Tim Burton's take with baited breath (with the lovely Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat, no less) – you might have even gone to the mad extreme of reading the book. But one Alice you might have missed is "Alice in Wonderland, an X-Rated Musical Fantasy" 

         This 1976 treasure directed by Joe Osco in 1976 and starring Kristine de Bell, an adorable blonde and playboy cover girl from that same year ( who also did a guest spot in “David Cassidy – Man Undercover”) is a treasured period piece which I found at Fairvilla on the very night I later attended on the now-legendary surprise screening of  "The Four Dimensions of Greta" at Enzian Theater. There’s no escaping destiny and when the universe wants you to have cheesy 70’s porn, cheesy 70’s porn you shall have. ‘Alice’ is weird, hilarious, embarrassing, clever, dopey, uncomfortable, bizarre, wild film and god help you -  you won’t be able to help getting these dumb songs stuck in your head.

         The X-rated Alice is a grown-up librarian whose boyfriend is pushing her on a variety of matters, including kissing, dancing and essentially coming out of her shell, but Alice is having none of it, happy in her own little world. She muses on how little experience of life and love she actually has, and wonders if she could get a jump on it now. While mulling it over and leafing through a copy of  “Alice in Wonderland” she’s suddenly confronted with a white rabbit (Larry Gelman ) with a thick Brooklyn accent. Once she starts following him, well…let the nudity, hardcore sex and production numbers begin.

         In this version, when Alice sips from the bottle on the table marked “Drink me” (and who among you would do lesss?) and she shrinks down to hamster size her clothes do not shrink with her so she has to run around naked for awhile. After a couple of sensuous encounters with a pair of cats and a talking rock who’s very happy to be sat on by a beautiful woman, she gets her first taste of fellatio via the Mad Hatter and we find, forthwith, that the larger number on his hat band does not indicate the large size of his hat.

         And so it goes, with Alice having a variety of sexual encounters – in fact, she has enough liaisons with creatures that aren’t quite humanoid to give Captain Kirk a run for his money. This whole thing is punctuated by musical numbers that are kind of like a combination of Benny Hill, Ken Russell and “A Chorus Line” if it was all done in your backyard and some of your neighbors understudied for the real cast. It’s fun - not in the sense of “fun” porn usually is - but a hilarious experiment. There’s some brightly cheeky dialog as well like the young girl  who just looks at the camera and says (in French) “Who do I have to fuck to get out of this movie?”

         C’mon – don’t tell me you don’t have days you feel exactly the same way.

          After a Wonderland orgy events begin to wind down and though I won’t tell you how it ends (seriously – you might want to see it one day) I will tell you that for al the wild oats Alice sews she stops short of having actual intercourse with a man and will remind you it’s a fairy tale and those have to end well. It’s the law.

         The X-rated musical Alice is worth seeing as a window on an era, an homage to the kind of free-spirited, goofy, optimistic experimentalism of the 70’s. It was a time when people seemed to think everything would benefit from a little more sex and a little more music.

         And frankly, even the Queen of Hearts couldn’t argue with that.

Toy Talk: Green Vibrations

  

One never wants to think about the end of a good relationship, but it happens – even the best sex toys sometimes pass away.

      Maybe you burn the motor out. Maybe a jelly toy turns an appetizingly weird color on you. Maybe the cat gets hold of a favorite plaything and rips it to pieces, unable to distinguish it from his Bizzy Balls. The point is, nothing lasts forever.

And it can feel a little weird to throw them in the garbage. You imagine this most private of private possessions being gawked at by the guys at the landfill, or having it fall out of the bin, as garbage sometimes do, and end up on the side of the road being mocked by strangers. That’s no way to let a beloved thing go to its final glory, but you can’t bury it like a fucking goldfish, either. What to do, what to do?

     Enter Dreamscapes, a green adult-product company in Tampa that has developed a sex toy recycling program . You send them your old friends and viola! They clean and disinfect it, take it apart and send the appropriate pieces to various recyclers.

      "Say it's a programmable multispeed vibrator," CEO David Kowalsky told me in an interview for Alternet.org in February. "The plastic shell is removed. The silicone computer chip is taken out, the motor is put into a separate bin, the rubber or silicone is separated from that, and then after we have 100 weight of different materials, we send it off to recyclers." Dreamscapes is certified by the Institute for Green Business and does, indeed, let all their recycling clients know where the parts they offer are coming from.

      So instead of sending your friends to an ignominious end, send them to Tampa (and no, it’s not the same thing). They’ll die with dignity and you’ll have done something for the environment – it’s a lovely way to end a beautiful relationship.

Monday, short and funny: Doris Day's "Sugarbush"

Last week I got to introduce the classic film "Pillow Talk" at Enzian Theater's Popcorn Flicks in the Park; it a perfect 70-something-degree evening for watching a perfect 50’s film. The only drawback was getting the title song stuck in my head like the frigging sword in the frigging stone. The only way to wedge it out was with more Doris Day music (she did sing like an angel). 

       The woman who was synonymous with squeaky clean, G-rated sweetness had at least one song with some rather interesting lyrics. “Sugarbush,” is a duet between Day and Frankie Lane and all involved in its prodcution were  probably innocent of the lascivious meanings anyone in our day would assign it (Doris Day:
”Oh, Sugarbush, I love you so
I will never let you go”; Frankie Laine:
”So, don't you let your mother know.
Sugarbush, I love you so”). The song itself makes no damn sense – I thought it was probably from a movie that would explain it no such luck. Here's a link to it on Lyricszoo , which provides the rest of the incriminating poetry along with a video sleeping pill of someone playing it on a gramophone.

         But wait! There's more! The B side of "Sugarbush" was called – I couldn’t make this up – "How Lovely Cooks the Meat" and is all about a husband’s slavering anticipation of coming h a big manly man’s meat-filled dinner which is lovely wife is about to louse up.

         You know, “Pillow Talk” is so pretty and funny  it could almost make you believe love used to come with easy-t-follow instructions: meet, marry, live happily ever after. Then you hear this song and thank God you have so many choices you’re as dizzy as a bug in a cocktail shaker. 

Green Dayl

Earth Day is coming up and in trying to think of why it isn’t yet on the holiday A-list, we decided it’s because it doesn’t have a holiday special. Here we recommend one…and a few other things to chew on. Enjoy! (and thanks, as ever to Matt Reyes for the great videography - twitter him @motorbikematt) AND thank you Chas for the better headline. :)

Who is that Mask Man?

There’s no better company to be in than that of a person who loves their job. Maxx Empire seems as custom-built for his work as the masks he makes are for their potential owners. He’s a craftsman and a showman who takes his job personally, who invented this career because the one before it – jousting – was getting a little too painful. Anyone with that resume is worth getting to know.        

         “It takes away all your inhibitions,” he says of the “fiercely whimsical” masks he hand makes out of custom tanned leathers and a litany of other materials, depending on what he wants or what you want: Swavorski crystals, feathers from non-endangered birds, wood, steel, precious metals and many others for clients that have included MTV and Cirque du Soliel. He also does a lot of conventions, like Dragon Con in Atlanta, the biggest sci fi / fantasy / multi-media con in the US and loves watching the people who come into his tent.

         “It’s so much fun to actually watch them try it on. I’ll have people come and try on every single masks (up to) 300 of them – and they’ll do different things in each one of them,” he says. “People who would never dance in public are suddenly wiggling around – they’re checking out their profile. That’s what masks do – allow you to be drunk without alcohol.”

         The best part: “Invariably they’ll try the very first mask they tried on… It’s the one that called to them”   

         There’s another reason, however, that a person might instantly bond with a particular mask.

         “What’s different bout my masks (is that) I don’t use a mold; it’s just my hands forming everything.” With a mold all the masks would fit the same, but with his “One nose might be  little thinner one nose might be a little wider.” When a person puts on a unique creation and it fits perfectly it’s what Maxx calls “snicking” together.

         “Some (masks) will stay on without a string; it snicks to their face. They might like the look of a mask and when they try on one that fits their facial structure perfectly it’s magic.” You’d think style-plus-snicking would happen rarely – actually it happens several times a day.

         Maxx really was a jouster until the stress of running his own jousting company and the physical burdens of the job caused him to decide a hiatus would be a good idea. had worked with leather making costumes and saddles as a jouster so when he got the idea to make masks as a source of income it came pretty easily. His favorites to make are the Dread Mitra masks, with wild dreadlock-style “hair.”

       “I like the strength that comes down – I basically create a leather puzzle. Those are free-flowing art forms and I don’t know how it’s going to turn out and since I’m using so many different pieces of leather and so many things for hair, that lets me expand my horizons a little bit.”

         My personal favorite is the Elaborate Masks worn by Lisi Tribble-Russell, wife of director Ken Russell, in ourvideo a few posts back (4/10/09). It’s called the Athena, “after a fetish model who first modeled it for me,” he says of the very fantasy, feminine mask. “I free hand-cut every one of them so they’re all a little bit different.”

         One of the most majestic of Maxx’s masks is intriguingly paired with one of the silliest. These are the champrons, the horse masks which were made for a London museum curator for historical jousts they were recreating. There was the dragon and then…the cow?

         “My horse modeled for those pictures,” Maxx says. “I swear he felt he was cool in the dragon one and I swear he felt it was utter disgust that he had to wear the white cow.“

         So he was kind of a mad cow.

         There really is a transformative feeling to putting Maxx’s mask on that you don’t get from an ordinary, mass-produced kind; it doesn’t feel like you-in-a-mask, more like another aspect of your personality that gets revealed to you. His creations can be found at his website MaxxEmpire.com, and at Fairvilla Megastore , mainly in the Orlando and Key West locations.

     Take a note of the first one that really catches your eye – that will be the one that follows you home.

Marilyn Chambers

No one could have brought together in our cultural mind – without a hint of irony – the concepts of pure Ivory Snow and hardcore porn except Marilyn Chambers. More than even Hef’s bunnies she seemed to typify the girl next door who just happened to get naked a lot (and she was, indeed, the young mom on the Ivory Snow box - 99.44/100% pure). She came up in the adult industry when it  entered mainstream consciousness with a bang, in part due to her appearance in the Mitchell Brothers' “Behind the Green Door,” a surreal sexual fantasy of a woman who is kidnapped and taken to a voyeuristic sex club. The plot was taken from an anonymous short story circulated by carbon copies; the title from a 1956 song by Bob David and Marvin Moore about a mysterious night club which the singer is just dying to be allowed into.

         “Green Door” was Marilyn’s big claim to fame, but I remember her more from a flick called “Up and Coming,” about a country singer trying to make it in the music business, a remarkably normal story that just had sex integrated into it, just the way its integrated into every day life, no special effects, no overkill – I remember it having  a straightforward appeal, exactly the quality that was so likeable about Marilyn Chambers. She was the perfect person to usher in that moment in time - the 70's -of openness and experimentation and of sex, not as something to be separated into a loop reel, but part of our daily reality and our wildest dreams.

         Marilyn Chambers passed away this week at the age of 56 of as-yet unknown causes. She will always be remembered as beautiful a symbol of her era.

         (Above is a clips from “Inside Marilyn Chambers,” and below some audio of The Cramps covering the inspiration song “The Green Door.”)

Toy Talk: Gliding through Tax Day

Yesterday I had some fun at the expense of the tea baggers, but though we may not agree with their politics most of us have, at one time or another, felt screwed by taxes, especially when you read  some story about how you probably pay more in taxes than corporate America.  Seriously. Even a fucking Vulcan would be resentful.
     Which is why I wrote in my post from February 24 that if you're going to take it up the ass on tax day you might as well enjoy it and learn a little something about buttseks via digital experimentation (and by digit, I mean finger) or with a nice strap on you can use with a partner. 
      Having given it quite a bit of thought I've decided that comparing taxes to anal sex does a disservice to anal sex. The only way they are really similar is that both are easier if you relax, but that's true of everything. This anal sex we're talking about is consensual, which paying taxes isn't. You won't face auditing or jail time for failing to have buttseks. Anal isn't tough to figure out how to do; taxes are so pointlessly complicated that they can send you flying into the arms of your local booby hatch within minutes of sitting down with your receipts. And of course there is nothing fun whatsoever about taxes.


      Anything that makes taxes easier is either costly (getting someone else to do it), irreversible (lobotomy, dying) or only effective in the short term (getting so drunk you can't work a spork). Aside from learning to relax the pertinent muscles, the one thing that makes anal easier (in fact, it's a necessity) is lube, lube and more lube. Fairvilla Megastore has about a zillion brands - so many we decided to limit our testing to the non-flavored/scented brands for now and to only a handful of those (we tested these on our hands, by the way; otherwise we might not have finished this post til 2011). We asked a lot of questions and tried a lot of options and of the things we tried the ones we liked or that came the most higly recommended were as follows:
     - "Some people are allergic and some are sensitive and prone to yeast infections," sales associate Sean says and if that's the case it's best to use something glycerin-free (glycerin is a sugar-based compound) like the Pink line. Pink Water, the water-based variety and Hot Pink, a warming liquid, are both super slick and wonderfully light to the touch; we also liked ID Glide and Astroglide.
     - Silicone-based lubes, Fairvilla's Aline says, last longer because they're thicker, and last longer; she likes the Jo brand. Our colleage Mel adds that silicone works better in water, i.e., "shower, bathtub...swimming pool," she laughs. The silincone-based I liked best at the store was Pjur Eros, a German brand, so slick it feels like it has ball-bearings in it - two of us who tried it couldn't stop rubbing our fingers together for the next half hour.
     - The drawback with silicone is that you can't really use it with silicone toys - "You have to clean it off immediately," Mel says, "or the toys start to deteriorate," plus, if you have a toy that's somewhat intricate (a realistic penis shape with lots of veins and ridges, or an animal vibe, like a dolphin or rabbit), silicone based lube is harder to clean off of it.
          - Oil-based lubes (petroleum jellies, massage oils and Crisco, among others) are a definite no-no with condoms, according to Planet Out's Dr. Omar Minwalla who says "Petroleum and oil wear down laytex and cause breakage," and if you're using laytex condoms, don't use oil-based lubes, "period," says the doctor. Period.
           - Water-based lubes are safe with laytex condoms, Dr. Minwalla says adding that silicone lubes are fine with laytex and polyurethane also; Mel doesn't feel too sure and prefers the "better safe than sorry" route of just using water-based lubes with condoms.  About.com's Contraception page says that silicone-based lubes are okay, lists some of their pet choices (including Pjur Eros) and also notes that the better brands will have dimethicone listed first among ingredients.
           - Of course, there's always good ol' KY, which most of us are familiar with because it's quite conveniently thrown into your shopping cart with the bananas and the jumper cables (we're picturing you at Super Target...buying lube, bananas and jumper cables. Pervert.). Nothing wrong with that, but if you are at an adult toy store where there is a greater variety of experiences right there on the shelf it's a prime opportunity to see what else is available to you. 
           See, you don't get this many options with taxes.  And, unlike taxes, another advantage of all these explorations is: no deadline. Take your time. As Maude once said to Harold. "Stroke. Palm. Caress. Explore." 
          (We'll have more on natural-ingredient lubes coming up in future posts so stay tuned!)