Why Is This Man Smiling?

Why is Gore Vidal smiling? Simple. He knows he has now outlived his three greatest enemy-rivals: Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, and now, at last, the odious William F. Buckley Junior. (Which must, I'm sure, be a great source of sadness to William F. Buckley Senior.) Always gracious, Gore has said, "It's not enough to succeed. Others must fail." Now he's learned a Great Truth: Survival is the best Revenge.


Little Dougie is a longtime fan of Gore Vidal. I mentioned back in my 2007 death wrap-up (Which was much more inclusive than The Oscars Death Montage, which even excluded Charles Lane, despite his being a FOUNDER of the Screen Actor's Guild, and his having appeared in more movies than all the other dead stars combined.) that Little Dougie hadn't read any of Norman Mailer's books. (Not quite true. He read the first 20 or so pages of Ancient Evenings before tossing it aside for a Stephen King book.) Well Dougie has read almost all of Gore Vidal's books, fiction and non-fiction alike. Further, he has met and spent a little time with Vidal on a number of occasions going back 35 years, and Gore, notorious for his waspish tart tongue, has always treated Dougie with friendly warmth and charm. Could it be that his image as a nasty curmudgeon is all just a pose?


Dougie was kind enough to give Gore a signed copy of my autobiography, My Lush Life, last year. Gore hasn't called to comment on it yet, by which I can only assume that my literary brilliance has left him cowed and humbled; that, or he just tossed it in the trash when he got home, and since that's unthinkable (Which begs the question: how did I think of it?), it must be the former!


Oddly, I have never had an affair with Gore, let alone ever married him. I can't imagine why not. He's known everyone worth knowing. Here he is with his old pal President Kennedy, whom he's teaching the basics of how to be limp-wristed. Jack never did get it down.



Gore and Truman Capote just never did get along. Tru once famously said of Myra Breckenridge, "That's not writing; it's just typing." This was during the period between Truman's writing In Cold Blood and his death, during which Tru wrote - what was it again? - oh yes, nothing, although he kept saying he was writing a book titled Answered Prayers. Well, he did write one chapter of it, which lost him most of the handful of friends he had left. During this period Gore wrote 9 novels, and a lot of non-fiction also. Oh, and did I mention that Myra Breckenridge is one of Little Dougie's all-time favorite comic novels?


On the other hand, no one ever won an Oscar for playing Gore. But the person who really should have gotten an award for his performance as Truman Capote was Truman Capote. It was a lifelong performance. Here's Gore, Truman, and Tennessee Williams in happier days, when they were all three alive.

Gore and Norman Mailer's often fierce rivalry (Which I understand, was not over women.) was interrupted by periods of friendship, as in this photo of them together at one of Norman's birthday parties. But they were most fun going after each other's jugulars on TV back in the 1970s.

By the way, is it just me, or did Norman star on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Lou Grant?


But for real, genuine enmity, you can't top Vidal vs Buckley. Their televised political debates forty years ago have never been forgotten. They were witty, elegant, nasty, and had a clear hero (Gore) and a clear villain, (the evil Buckley). The next addition to The Good Riddance List is William F. Buckley Junior. Richard Lowry, editor of The National Review, the Satanic publication founded by Buckley, said of Buckley today, "Without Bill, there'd be no conservatism as we know it today." No punishment is adequate for that Great Crime. What has conservatism as we know it today brought us? George Dubya Bush, Dick Cheney, 9/11, The Iraq War, our latest Bush recession, $4 a gallon gasoline, a raped environment, an economy in ruins, death and destruction on a global scale, and world-wide misery.


Enjoy Hell, Bill, as we are all stuck in the Hell you crafted for us.



Gore has given the movie world so much. For instance, without Gore's play Visit to a Small Planet, we would never have had the Jerry Lewis movie Visit to a Small Planet. I know we're all grateful. And I know just exactly how proud Gore is of that movie.

What other great movies has Gore's work given us? Well, there was the biggest, big-name porn movie of all-time, Gore Vidal's Caligula, not to be confused with Caligulee, Caligula, a 1960 movie from Italy's Pastafazool Films starring Steve Reeves and myself. You probably know Gore Vidal's Caligula as simply Caligula, since Gore had his name taken off it. I guess he didn't care for Malcolm McDowell's performance in it, or Helen Mirrin's as Caligula's sister, Queen Elizabeth. Or maybe he just didn't care for all the hardcore, onscreen sex, or at least the hardcore, onscreen straight sex. Malcolm McDowell fisting a young man at his wedding reception? Fine. Malcolm performing cunnilingus on Helen Mirrin? Ick! Yet without Caligula, we might never have had Shortbus, which, unlike Caligula, is a good movie.

And of course, Gore collaborated with Walt Disney on Walt Disney's Gore Vidal's Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln, you may remember, is a fictional character from Vidal's 1984 novel Lincoln, about a robot who saves the Union before being shot by Booth Tarkington during a Sondheim musical. It's a very complex work for a theme park attraction.

And of course, there's the movie of Myra Breckinridge, starring Mae West as me. Oh wait, Gore repudiated that movie also, and says he's never seen it, though how he could know it's terrible without seeing it, I don't know. It is terrible, but how could he know?

Of course, if it had only starred me, it would have been as great as the book. Sadly though, I retired from the screen just before shooting commenced, but the proof that Gore wanted me for the film can be seen from the cover of the recent Penguin paperback edition of Myra Breckenridge and it's sequel Myron. (Myron is, if anything, an even better book!) The picture is from my 1945 film classic The Siren of the Congo, in which I played identical triplets, one good, one evil, and one wishy-washy.

Myra and Myron are great books. I'm proud to be on their cover. Gore followed that satirical line into the wonderful, hilarious books Duluth, The Smithsonian Institute, and especially Live From Golgotha. Those are some good, funny reading. When you finish reading this flogging, pick one of those up and read it. It will annoy the hell out of Buckley's shade in Hell.

Meanwhile, my phone is ringing. It's probably Javier Bardem again. With his penchant for smooching with old lady movie stars, he's been making obscene phone calls to me all week. I hope this is him again.

Hello Javier? You beast, and I mean that caringly. You want to do what to me? How gross and disgusting! Your place or mine?

Cheers darlings.

The Scariest Oscars

As the sexy and hilarious Jon Stewart pointed out, this year, The Oscars were going to psychos, serial killers, murderers, and fiends, and the acting awards went to people who played psychos as well. They even gave an Honorary Award to Robert Boyle (Look out Bobby; that award means you're DOOMED!), Alfred Hitchcock's production designer, the man who designed Mount Rushmore! (It is, after all, just a movie set.) They were the scariest Oscars since the year of The Silence of the Lambs.

Stewart incidentally, said that to figure out your Stripper Name, you take your pet's name and the name of the street you grew up on. This makes Little Dougie's Stripper Name Godzilla Palos Verdes Drive West. I spent my childhood on the road in vaudeville, so my Stripper Name would be Snatches Route 66.

I saw Wesley Snipes in the audience, nice to see his bail was extended.

Let's get to the good news right away: overwhelmingly sexy Spanish superstud Javier Bardem won Best Supporting Actor. Here he is, enjoying his award.

Now that's an award I can get behind! Or in front of. Which ever he prefers.

Javier was babbling obscenities to his Mom in Spanish from the stage (I'm assuming they were obscenities, as my Mexican housekeeper, Contracepción, fainted dead away as he said them.), which seems an odd way to accept an award. But not as odd as then making out with his mother on international television, in front of millions of viewers worldwide. Ew! Put those tongues away, Bardems. Actually, Javier's mother, Pilar Bardem, is a movie star herself, with over 100 film credits in Spain. I like that Javier is willing to make out with elderly female movie stars! I think he should be encouraged to make out with elderly female movie stars, the older the better! He should come over to Morehead Heights and make out with this elderly female movie star all night long! But not with your mother, Javier. In fact, if your mother is anything like mine was, biting would be more appropriate. Anyway, a note to Regis Philbin: Rege, it's JAVIER Bardem, not Xavier Bardem, as you blunderingly called him to his face at the beginning of the show. I know you're old Rege, but I'm older, and I know his name. It's Oedipus Bardem.

Now I am normally loathe to agree with Faux-President Dubya about anything, but maybe he's right about immigration. Perhaps a fence should be erected, or some other drastic steps be taken, to keep foreigners out of America, because last night ALL the acting awards went to foreigners! What's the matter Oscar, don't you think Americans can act? Maybe Oscar needs a trip to Guantanamo Bay, to have his patriotism tested.

When they ran the Oscar history montage, and we saw Charlie Chaplin again accepting his honorary award, Little Dougie pointed out that that was the same year Jane Fonda won Best Actress for Klute, or as he put it, when Charlie Chaplin won an Oscar for playing a little tramp, while Jane won for playing a big one.

Dider Lavergne and Jan Archibald won Best Make Up for making Marion Cotillard convincingly look French, which would be more impressive if she weren't actually French. At least it prevented us from seeing ads that referred to "The Oscar-Winning comedy Norbit." I shudder at just the thought. Fortunately, Eddie isn't stewing at home, awardless. He picked up three Razzies on Friday. Congratulations Eddie. Well earned all.

Amy Adams sang Happy Little Working Song, a parody of Whistle While You Work, without the animated animals who are the whole point of the song, thus allowing us to see that, without the animated animals, it is completely pointless and unfunny. I'll give her this, she didn't look nearly as embarrassed as she should have.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson presented an award wearing a tuxedo that completely covered up his talent.

Of course, we all enjoyed the dream montage gag, where we saw a number of people wake up screaming. Oddly enough, each and everyone of them was waking up from the same dream, one in which they find themselves hearing the dreaded words "George Dubya Bush has just been re-elected to a third term!"

The second nominated song, Raise It Up, was energetically performed by the Not-Mormon Tabernacle Choir. You can tell they're not Mormons, because black Mormons are rarer than honest Republicans, or liberal Mormons.

When The Mozart of Pickpockets (Who, incidentally, is hated by The Salieri of Pickpockets.) won Best Short Film, Phillippe Pollet-Villard began speaking in French to Javier Bardem's mother, but she wouldn't give him any tongue. That's all for her boy.

The annoying Jerry Seinfeld Bee from that movie no one over three years old saw gave Best Animated Short Film to Peter and the Wolf. I must again point out that Walt Disney made this film in 1946, so they took their sweet time about it. Stop-motion animator Hugh Welchman went up on stage to accept Walt Disney's Oscar holding his Peter in his hand. Why didn't Javier do that?
Here's a picture of Dustin Hoffman admiring Tilda Swinton's agent's butt! Watch out WGA. Tilda ad-libbed a speech funnier than most of the evening's scripted banter.

When Josh Brolin was reading the nominees for Best Screenplay Adapted From Another Medium, he mispronounced novelist Ian McEwan's last name as "McKuen," instead of saying it correctly: Mc E Wan, exactly as it's spelled. It is, of course, Little Dougie's last name also, so he was bitching and moaning, saying, "Do you know how insulting it is to have one's name mispronounced on The Oscars by Barbra Striesand's step-son? Fuck you, Jock Broling!"


The annoyingly helium-voiced Christian singer Kristen Chenowith sang another nominated song from Enchanted, (A film I grew less interested in seeing every time one of it's songs got trotted out.) the first line of which (and entire premise of) is "How does she know you love her?" Well, I've always found that his erection is usually a large clue. And if it isn't, then who cares if he loves you?


Halle Berry and Sir Judy Dench presented Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing. (Does anyone besides sound men understand the difference between these two awards? Is there a difference?) Halle and Sir Judy both looked the best they have in years, and Sir Judy has even grown a nice little beard, so people will stop mistitling her as Dame Judy. Both awards went to The Bourne Terrarium, so obviously the Academy can't tell the difference either.


Nice to see that Colin Ferrall's hair has grown back since he shot his sex tape. In fact, it's grown back too much. Colin, a little trim would look nice.


It became obvious that Best Actress was going to go to the Frenchwoman, when the award was moved up 90 minutes from it's usual honored position near the end of the show, to be sandwiched in between the sound Oscars, and the editing Oscar, three awards that ought to be given out at The Technical Oscar Ceremony (So-called, because they're only technically Oscars at all), the non-broadcast awards better known as The Boring Awards. If they keep giving Best Actress to French women in movies no one saw, they will end up getting moved to The Technical Awards Ceremony as well.


Incidentally, Best Editing (That's the award they give out while you're in the bathroom.) also went to The Bourne Aquarium. Who could have seen that sweep coming? For a few minutes, it looked like Jason Bourne's movie might pull off the biggest upset of all time, and win Best Picture even though it wasn't nominated. But by now, Jason Bourne would have forgotten all about it.


They ran a montage of clips from every one of the 79 previous Best Picture winners. What the hell is The Greatest Show on Earth doing in that list? That movie blows! For that matter, Mrs. Miniver, Going My Way, The Sound of Music, Oliver, Rocky, Ordinary People, Dances With Wolves, Braveheart, and Gladiator, are all, to varying degrees, lame also. Gone With the Wind, COULD have been a great movie, only they ruined it when that whore Vivien Leigh was miscast as Scarlett O'Hara instead of me. I will never understand the Oscar given to Hamlet, an incomprehensible Scandinavian ghost story, the only foreign language movie ever to win Best Picture. By the way, did you know that Billy Wilder's Best Picture winner, The Apartment, is known in England as The Flat?


Gray's Anatomy's Dr. McDreamy was introduced as "The versatile and handsome Patrick Dempsey." I had no idea that Dempsey sometimes bottoms!


The laugh was on the winners of Best Documentary Short Subject. The award was announced by American soldiers in Baghdad. The winners had to go to Iraq to pick up their awards. Then the award went to a film about lesbians, which means the army shouldn't have been asked, and shouldn't have told. I see dishonorable discharges in the future. But how lovely to have an award presented to a film about anti-gay discrimination by members of an organization that officially discriminates against gay people. It was a good thing the American soldiers didn't also announce the winner of Best Documentary Feature, since it was about the use of torture by our boys in Guantanamo Bay. "And the winner is a film about what inhuman fiends we have become under George Bush."


I'm pleased to announce I was not included in the Dead Stars Montage once again. Sadly, neither was Emily Perry, Brad Renfro, nor Roy Scheider. Oh well, it's not like Roy was ever in any good or successful movies.


Okay, about Diablo Cody, winner of Best Original Screenplay for Juno, a movie about my Internet server. First off, am I supposed to believe it says "Diablo" on her birth certificate? Why not just name the kid Satan? But maybe it's her Stripper Name. Maybe she has a kitty named Diablo, and lives on Cody Street. Hey, if Little Dougie could perform a decent lap dance (Isn't "Decent Lap Dance" a contradiction in terms?) he might have a film deal too. You have to love her tasteful tattoo, and her good taste in wearing a sleeveless gown so the whole world could enjoy her soft-core, pin-up, arm-porn. Anyway, here she is, showing the class synonymous with strippers, by fellating her Oscar for the cameras. Gotta love the equally tasteful skull-and-crossbones earrings too.



My favorite Diablo moment was when Harrison Ford offered her the envelope with her winning name card, and she snatched it from his hand, turned her back on him, and strode offstage. I couldn't do that no matter what Harrison Ford was handing me. He's Harrison Fucking Ford! I'd at least shake his hand! Preferably, I'd grab him, drag him backstage, and show him what he's missing with that bundle of sticks, Calista. I suppose that, as a former (I'm assuming the "former") stripper, she's used to meeting stars, but this wasn't Jeremy Piven or Andy Dick. This was HARRISON FORD! Oh well, pearls before writers. At least she's a writer who gets laid. There's a rarity. And it was classy of her to thank the other nominees, I assume for losing.

Well, class was reestablished a moment later, when Queen Elizabeth knighted Daniel Day-Lewis with his second Oscar.



Best Direction? Do I have to do that joke again? The winner was "Down," which is the direction Cody and I prefer to go.


Extremely openly gay producer Scott Rudin not only thanked his male lover, but called him "Honey" from the stage. Perhaps this is why he won for producing a movie which, in my hastily scribbled notes, is called merely "No Cunt". Hmmm. Someone should have said that to Jane Fonda a week ago.


I need some sleep - well - some vodka, and then some sleep. Wake me for next year's ceremony.

Cheers darlings.

R.I.P. Emily Perry

This is a sad day, darlings. Dear, sweet, charming, talented, funny Emily Perry has passed away in England. She was 100 years old, a mere child, or at best, a teenager from my POV.

She found international fame and adoration playing Dame Edna's bridesmaid and constant travelling companion, Madge Allsop, making millions of people laugh the world over.

Little Douglas met her twice. Below is a souvenir of their first meeting, when she signed his copy of Dame Edna's autobiography at a taping of Dame Edna's Hollywood, in Burbank in 1992. She was a mere slip of a thing, barely 85, at the time.

I wrote about her last June as her 100th birthday approached, in a column titled Emily Perry. Click on the link to read it.

Her fame came courtesy of two things: her great talent, and the genius and generosity of Barry Humphries, so rather than me prattling on about her again, here is what Barry had to say about Emily in the press today.

I met Emily when she was aged 75 and I was auditioning people to play the part of Edna's rather brow-beaten bridesmaid, Madge Allsop. I had seen a lot of actresses. Some of them sang songs, some did "bits", but they were all being very camp and very arch and, well, wrong. Emily had been sent to me by mistake and she had never heard of Dame Edna. She hadn't the faintest idea who I was and she didn't really know what she was meant to do.

All I knew about her was that she had been in a lot of touring productions going back to when she entertained troops during the war. Subsequently she had been nursing her mother for about 25 years, and later started a small kids' ballet school in Crystal Palace, south London.

She came along completely unprepared but, as soon as I saw her, I knew she was exactly right. She became incredibly popular very quickly.

People who are fans of Edna always ask me: "How's Madge?" Within six months of working with me on television in England, she had met most members of the Royal family and done a fashion spread for a Sunday supplement.


Perry's character was often the butt of Dame Edna's jokes And, because the character was supposed to be from New Zealand, when she came to the country on tour she was treated like royalty. They even named a tank after her!

On quite a few occasions we were alone and touring, and she was the most amusing company - a very intelligent and very interesting woman.

She was also a confirmed spinster who loved men. Particularly young, tanned beach boys. Once, we were in Los Angeles to do some TV shows and we stayed in the same hotel. I was very concerned she would find herself in alien territory, but I looked out of my window down to the swimming pool, and there I saw a figure in a pink leisure suit, holding a drink with many umbrellas, reading an autobiography of Errol Flynn. Of course, it was Emily!

Although the character was mostly mute, she did get a word or two to say on occasion. But I remember one time when she came down the staircase in a dress designed by Vivienne Westwood. The audience loved it. She completely upstaged Edna.

In one of our last TV appearances, she was discovered by Edna in bed with Ozzy Osbourne. Later, she said to me: "Who was that funny man? He seemed very nervous." She didn't know who he was, she just knew that he trembled a bit!


Madge first appeared on ITV's Dame Edna Experience in 1987. She lived alone in the Crystal Palace area - she always had a poodle. The first was called Madame, and the last was called Star.
She was, at the end of her life, obliged to live in a retirement home in Croydon. I went to see her and she was with a lot of other old ladies, many in stages of dementia, being - I thought - carelessly looked after. She was lined up against the wall with these ladies, turned towards a TV screen with the sound off. I went up close to her and she said: "I'm in hell". We used all our powers to relocate her in a comfortable home for retired theatrical folk. It was a wonderful place and, thanks to her later agent, Phil Dale, we got her in there. She was in the Frankie Vaughan memorial suite in this lovely place and that was where she spent her last days.

I was unfortunately touring at the time of her 100th birthday. She received my greeting long distance, and she got her greeting from the Queen, too.

I'm very saddened to hear of her passing. She is absolutely irreplaceable. But it is wonderful to think that, in last 25 years of her life, she became a star.

I think if Dame Edna was to pay tribute, she'd say: "I wish I'd been nicer to her."

Rest in peace, dear Emily. Sharing the planet with you was a joy. Take your place with these other immortals. You will be missed. Emily was recently quoted as saying, "My memory's gone; I've been all around the world with Barry and I can't remember a thing." Well Emily my darling, we will NEVER forget you.

Cheers darlings.

The Wilde Oscars

Next Sunday they hand out the silly Oscar Awards. Look for my review here on Monday. But last night they handed out some much more meaningful awards, the 10th annual Gay Video News Awards, commonly known as the GayVN Awards, in San Francisco of course, which is to gay porn what Hollywood is to mainstream films. Now, these are the awards they should call Oscars, or rather, Oscar Wildes.


The adorable gentleman at the top of this column is bottom boy porn puppy Steve Cruz, a fan, and a friend of this flog. (And a friend of my official portrait artist, the remarkable Glen Hanson. If you haven't yet clicked on Glen Hanson.com over in my Social Drinking list, do so after you finish reading me. He's brilliant. Period.) Check out Steve's unsolicited blurb over in my Fan Worship list. Steve had more nominations than anyone else, but in an upset almost as big as The Simpsons Movie not being nominated for Best Animated Feature, Steve only won one award, for Best Group Scene, and he has to share it with Brendan Davies, Johnny Hazzard, Matt Majors, and Joe Strong. But then, given what he's already shared with them, the award is small potatoes. If you want to see it, it's in Link: The Evolution, from drag queen/porn director Chi Chi LaRue. Darlings, compared with Chi Chi, I'm Loretta Young - albeit on a three-day drunk. This is not an award where people say, "Just being nominated is an honor.", but when your category is Best Group Scene, what award can be as fulfilling as the work itself? And in the cases of bottoms like Steve, I mean literally fulfilling.


Another opus Steve is in that also won an award was Steve's film (Also directed by Chi Chi.) When Bears Attack, which was honored as Best Specialty Release (Bears). Thinking this was a nature film, I bought this one, and it is a scorcher for fur fans.



It has a plot that is simple, yet carries an important lesson for would-be campers and hikers: a young man, Johnny Hazzard (That's him in the middle of the cover; the only non-hairy man in the movie, like Stephen Baldwin among the hairy Baldwin Brothers.), goes up to spend a night in a cabin in the woods. He is so turned on by the beauty of nature that he gets a little carried away with himself in the flatbed of his pick-up truck, and ends up getting a bit of - let's say His Posterity - on himself, which he wipes up with his shirt, but makes the mistake of leaving the shirt outside on the truck. Never leave food outside in the woods. Sure enough, the scent of the - ah - shirt attracts bears, i.e. very hairy gay men who live in the woods, and they first have a small orgy in the truck (Steve is the center of attention in that scene), and then that evening, invade the house and treat Johnny to the best night of his life. Those six men are animals! At least, I think that's what I remember happening. Maybe I should watch it again, just to be certain I have the facts right.

__________________


I'm back. My gracious. It's two hours later. Well, busy hands are happy hands. Here's the only photograph I have from the movie which I can show you. It's the Three Bears who have the scene on the truck. From left to right, that's Hungarian sex god Arpad Miklos, a former Hunk of the Month here, and a veteran of over 60 gay porn movies, Little Stevie in the middle ("Little Stevie is, as you can see, short, but he's not really "Little" where it counts, believe me!), and Cole Ryder, a tremendous talent who should drop by Morehead Heights for some personal fan worship.


The big winner of the evening is a video called GRUNTS: THE NEW RECRUITS, a drama about basic training in the army, and all the gay sex they have to have to prepare to defend America. They should use it as a recruiting film, because it made me want to sign up. It won 9 awards, including Best Picture. Take that, There Will be Blood! Steve is in it, but he didn't win for it.


The biggest individual winner was lovely Jake Deckard. This is Jake.


Sadly, I can't show you a picture displaying his largest talent. Let's just say that for pure sculptured perfection, Jake's is a masterpiece. He won Performer of the Year and Best Actor. Here he is, acting his brains out. I'm convinced by this performance.



Little Steve made his porn debut last year in Lords of the Jungle, which contained a scene where he and Jake appeared to be - well - very friendly. That's Entertainment!


The GAYVNs are certainly more egalitarian than the Oscars, as well as rewarding films that are more entertaining than the ones Oscar honors. For instance, Best Threesome went to Nickolay Petrov, Jesse Santana, and Jason White, for a picture called Just add Water. I haven't seen it, but what makes this award stand out is that Little Nickolay Petrov, whose real name is Edmon Vardanyan, is in jail in Sarasota, Florida, charged with "traveling in interstate commerce with intent to kill, injure, harass or intimidate another person." Apparently Little Nickolay moonlights from gay porn as an enforcer, as he was allegedly hired to threaten a married couple in their late 60s into paying a debt. According to the police, he did this by beating and kicking the husband into unconsciousness, and attacking the wife with a hammer. According to the police, he has admitted this, and also admitted to discussing with his "Employers" (His THUG employers, not Jet Set Productions.) killing the couple for an additional fee, what in my business, we call a "bump." This is the sort of person who could give pornography a bad name!


Here's a look at little Nickolay, just so you know who to watch out for in the unlikely event he gets out of jail before 20 years have passed. He's going to be very popular in prison.

You know, I've let the occasional bill lapse unpaid too long. They do sometimes slip one's mind when you're deeply drunk, but no one has ever sent me a male porn star to collect before. Humph! Maybe if I let my porn bill lapse....


You know, at The Oscars, when someone isn't there to pick up their award, the booth announcer usually says something like, "Michael Caine can't be here to collect his award because he's on location making a movie.", or "Sir Judi Dench can't be here to accept her award because she's hiding in England, afraid she'd lose.", or "Woody Allen isn't here this evening because he has a clarinet gig, and he doesn't give a rat's ass about The Oscars." But I've yet to hear "So-and-so can't be here to accept his award tonight, as he's in jail for hitting an elderly woman with a hammer. Accepting the award for him is Robert Blake."


When Elia "The Rat" Kazan was up for a Lifetime Achievement Oscar a couple years back, many people protested this disgusting man, who ruined people's lives during the Red Scare of the Fifties out of craven cowardice, being honored merely because he was the most talented and influential director of the 20th Century. Many in the Academy felt that his being a shithole human being should outweigh his undeniably great work. But The GAYVNs don't care if you're a violent thug who beats old people senseless for money. If your scene was the biggest turn-on, you win. If you can fuck great on screen, it doesn't matter if you're fucked up offscreen. They're all about the craft. That is a true meritocracy!

Cheers darlings.

Natal Felicitations Barry Humphries

Here's a lazy posting for you. February 17 is Barry Humphries's 74th birthday. I wrote a long, lushly illustrated piece on his birthday last year. You can access it by clicking on this link: A Barry Happy Birthday. Barry has had a rough 2008 so far, having to cancel his American tour which would have been going on right now. This is sad for Barry, and tragic for America, which, after 7 years of the Bush-Cheney Administration, has had enough tragedy for any country. Lighten up!

Barry had an emergency appendectomy on December 30th, and then had a severe case of peritonitis which came close to killing him, and required additional surgery to save his life. Little Douglas had an email from Barry a couple weeks ago, which said in part: "I am now out of hospital after a horrible time and look forward to a healthy year ahead. We have had to reschedule the short tour that i had planned, but it will happen." So, as you can see, we all have reason to hope.

So everyone, have a gladdie and a slice of cake, and celebrate Barry Humphries's birthday. He's a World Treasure. Let's celebrate him while we can.

My postings will be light this month, as I am busy helping Little Douglas with a new book. This one IS about ME, so unlike his current boring tome, The Q Guide to Classic Monster Movies, available in stores and online now, or by just clicking on the link, this one will be worth reading. In any event, I will be here next week with my review of the paltry Oscars. Don't miss it.

Cheers darlings.

Happy St. Valentino's Day

Happy Saint Valentino's Day darlings, the most romantic day of the year. I hope someone is slipping you a big one and pounding it in deep and hard today and tonight, but then, I'm just a hopeless, mushy romantic that way.

The gentleman displaying his manly titties above is Rudolph Valentino, the man this holiday is named for, the Great Hollywood God of Love, circa 1925. Rudy was Italian, like all great lovers, hence the Ancient Proverb of Wisdom: "If he ain't Italian, he ain't no stallion." (Proverbs: 35:4) His birth name was Rodolfo Alfonzo Raffaelo Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla, (Actually, that was more of a birth-to-death name, as even if you began saying it as a infant, by the time you'd said all of it, you were dying of old age.), so he changed it to Adolph Hitler. When this choice tested badly, he changed it to Fred Alfonzo Raffaelo Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla, but that one also failed to catch on for unspecified reasons, so he changed it again, this time to Mary Alice Hayworth. This still tested badly, so finally he just edited his real name down to Rudy Valentino, and began making movies that had to be silent, because any soundtrack would have been drowned out by all the moaning and screaming of the women in the audience. Remember how the audience sounded while The Beatles (A musical group from History.) performed on The Ed Sullivan Show? They were a restrained version of females watching Valentino tango.

I made one movie with Rudy, Son of the Shriek in 1924. Although Rudy was far too old to be a believable love interest for me (He was a full three years older than I. Isn't that outrageous?), our combined sexual wattage made the film a scorcher. Here you can see Rudy trying to show me his tits. Rudy just felt a deep need to share his nipples with the world. Hence his acquiring the name Saint Valentino.



There was another factor to Rudy's sanctification. All his wives were lesbians, so clearly he wasn't in it for the sex. But then, most wives are lesbians. This is The Great Secret of Civilization: There's nothing like actually marrying a man to turn a woman into a dyke, and I speak as Tallulah Clytemnestra Morehead Knight Thalberg Tepes Karloff Towers Herkert Borgnine Bronze Rockwood Van Owen Berman, a woman who knows a thing or two about being married. This is why it is so important for married women to have affairs. It's the only way for a wife to remember why she used to like penis in the first place.

That was one of Rudy's functions also, to remind married women that men who aren't their husbands can still be hot. Rudy was Mrs. America's Tennis Instructor.

If you happened to see The Legend of Valentino, a 1975 TV movie about Rudy, in which Franco Nero (Who was, let's face it, even hotter than Rudy) played Rudy, and Suzanne Pleshette played June Mathias, a screenwriter/lover of Rudy's who pushed his career, you'll remember the famous last scene, when Suzanne woke up in bed next to Rudolph Valentino, and told him about the horrifying nightmare she'd had, in which she'd been married to a bald, stuttering, asexual psychologist. And then Rudy married a lesbian, and Suzanne married the handyman from her dream husband's dream-within-the-dream. TV movies. Go figure.

Rudy died ridiculously young, at 31. What could have caused his perfect, athletic body to drop dead so young? I can't imagine.



But, seeing as Rudy has been dead for almost 82 years now, I may well be the only woman left alive who has had one of Rudy's Power Pokes. I guess the time has come for me to move on, and send a Valentino's Day wish to my One True Love: Gollum! Oh Golly darling, I thought you were going to give me a ring, but you threw it away. And my heart crumbled like the Dark Tower. Raise me up again, Golly, and I'll do the same for you. Gollum, please be my Valentine. (And to that Andy Sirkis person in England. Call me again, and I'll call the cops.)



One last piece of business. Today is the birthday of Little Kent Levine, a friend of this flogging. That's Little Kent, one of his literate pals, and I, at a recent Hollywood Social Event. I won't say how old Little Kent is; just that he is 3 and a half months older than Little Douglas, so he's probably on his last legs, particularly after three months of marching around in a circle, and then picketing. Anyway, happy birthday Kent darling. Get good and plastered for me, as I will for you.

Cheers darlings.