Not In My Back Yard

Horatio writes: Mitchell Andrews read our thought piece about the art of navigating the newsstand and contributed this classic vignette which could only occur on the Upper East Side of New York:

I grew up on the hallowed turf of 79th and Madison, which for those of you who are unfamiliar, is one of the most affluent zip codes in the city, rife with more well-moisturized ladies who lunch, small dogs, and busy, busy plastic surgeons per acre than anywhere else in the nation. You would think that I would have had more than enough pocket money to procure a collection of porn that could rival quantity-wise, the collection of art at the nearby Met. I was eleven and horny as hell. But the honest truth was, a silver spoon only gets you so far. The barrier between me and mountains of nudie mags was that even the newsstand proprietors need to keep up appearances on the Upper East Side and so noone would dream of selling porn to minors with so many eyes on the street. I came up empty in my quest for Penthouse until I came to the newsstand on 86th and Lexington where the guy behind the counter announced loudly with relish that he could not possibly fulfill my request as it was against the law to sell pornography to minors. He then leaned forward, winked and whispered into my ear the magic words "Go to the newsstand on 79th and 2nd and tell them Abdul sent you." As I soon discovered, the foot traffic at that corner was virtually non-existent and Abdul had a well-rehearsed revenue share with the owner there who became my weekly dealer. Thank you Abdul, for giving me a moral education, at a critical age in my development that the means justify the ends, where there is a will there is a way, and whatever that phrase is about the worth of walking a mile in someones shoes.

Rockin' Bhavin

As a freshman in college, your dorm and roommate were mainly luck of the draw. Dorm, I won. Roommate, not so much.

As an 18-year-old on his own for the first time, I was not immediately prepared for Bhavin, the Indian national by way of Kenya who preferred the witty society of engineering students to cold beer. For the entire first semester I don't think I ever saw him leave the dorm except for classes. He had no interest in drinking, women, or much of anything except studying and hanging out in our tiny 10 by 10 cell, made even more cramped by the U-shaped loft we installed overhead.

In a school full of kids from exotic locales like Great Neck and Bloomfield Hills, I bemoaned my fate daily. Where was my beer guzzling, late-night pizza ordering, partner in crime? Woe was me. Little did I know, everything was about to change as I would make the discovery of a lifetime. Or at least of freshman year.

Bhavin, you see, was the son of a successful 7/11 owner and operator. Where I came to college with a duffel bag brimming with Girbaud jeans and pastel-colored Ralph Lauren oxfords, he came with a chest stocked full of beef jerky, Coca Cola, and the most glorious collection of hardcore convenience store porn I'd ever seen in my life!

A bit sloppy with his post-game cleanup one night, Bhavin left a mag sticking out of his chest of goodies. It all became instantly clear. No wonder that son of a bitch never left the room! For the next semester, neither would I. From Jugs to Oui to Knockers, the more I beat the less I left! In what became a ritual of don't ask don't tell, I would go out each night, wait for Bhavin to finish his business and fall asleep, then sneak back in and tend to myself in the semi-privacy beneath the loft.

After Freshman year, Bhavin and I rarely spoke although we were always cordial when we ran into each other. Why wouldn't we be? We were beat brothers!

A Little Something For the Weekend, Sir? Sheena Easton in Miami Vice

Sheena Easton's 1987 appearance as singer Caitlin Davies in Miami Vice was an emotional highpoint for adolescent boys across the nation. Her sexual charisma was so intoxicating that she tamed ace-swordsman and generational role model, Sonny Crockett, marrying him within one episode of their meeting. The five episodes she starred in before her brutal murder marked the apex of a six year journey from squeaky clean virgin to dirty whore under Prince's tutelage. She exploded into our consciousness as a fresh faced perky pert performer in 1981. Her debut single, Morning Train (9 to 5) stormed to the top of the charts, driven no doubt, by the purchases of youths across the country eager to relieve themselves to her video on MTV. We offer it up here so you can relive the stuff of your adolescent fantasies this weekend. The way she handles the signal box with both arms and a rag in hand at 1:58 is powerful, powerful stuff -- enough to make the likes of Ron Jeremy explode in their undies. Sheena, we salute you for the six years of self-pleasure you brought into our lives. And for making a video with an avantgarde concept which has influenced even the likes of Bat for Lashes (same color shirt, same bike)

Thanks to Andrew of the Upper East Side for this nomination.

Wakey, Wakey! Here Comes Snakey...

Horatio writes: Byrd is back, thanks to Kris Cooper of New York City for this beauty:

Great to read about Robin Byrd again. Been far too long since I thought about that lady and the way she used to make me feel. But am wondering if anyone else had the same problem as we did. It was not that we were forbidden to watch it. And I did not lack for a TV to watch her performance solo as we had five televisions in my house. The only thing that stood between me and nightly ecstasy was that the Robin Byrd Show started at Eleven Thirty p.m. and it was just too damn late. Every afternoon I would bid my sixth grade school mates adieu in the same way -- we would laugh like little James Earl Jones' at the prospect of watching us some titty on Robin's show that night. Cut to our homes... a spot of homework, dinner with the family, watching some TV, some Fresh Prince perhaps, or a spot of Atari. Anything to kill the time till that magic hour when Robin would appear before us. Same story every night. I would wake up, two or three in the morning, fast asleep on the couch, with Robin having quietly come and gone, and the only stains I had created coming from the pool of saliva that had emerged from my mouth. I would love to know if I was the only New York narcoleptic or was this a commonly experienced technical challenge?

A Little Something For the Weekend, Sir? Kelly Le Brock

Horatio writes: In a new feature, we will empty the vaults of the wank bank every Friday to offer you blasts from the past -- strands of masturbatory DNA from the seventies, eighties and nineties -- for you to test drive over the weekend. Look at it as our weekly gift to you, a chance to jerk off nostalgically. We start with some classic action from one Mrs. Kelly LeBrock who thrilled us twice, by baring her chest twice in Lady in Red and the strangely under-rated Weird Science. Both unveilings happen towards the end of the movie which was fine in the latter film but excruciating in the former as it meant sitting through an interminable hour and a half of Gene Wilder at his sun bed crisped worst, not to mention the harrowing Chris De Burgh theme song. But once Kelly took over in the climactic bed room scene, she gave a performance that teenage fantasies are made of. Let's face it, if she would do it with Gene Wilder,she would do it with anyone, right? A fact she proved at true by going on to marry Steven Seagal. Enjoy this clip over the weekend. WARNING: Learn to time your self pleasuring so you are not paddling your pickle when Gene Wilder is in frame. If you can't manage to do this, here's a bonus gift.

Camp Tamawack

Art Krugel of Southfield Michigan writes:

It wasn't real. It couldn't be. There we were, huddled around the floor of our wooden cabin, waiting with raised flashlights and baited breath as the greatest competition of our young lives unfolded: who could come the fastest.

The contest always began the same way. Each warrior would take to his bunk and enter his respective sleeping bag. Lubricants and magazines were permitted but were hardly ever called upon. Silence was requested, but not mandatory and rarely achieved. On the count of three the tugging would begin. And then, like crazed butterflies trying to break free of their cocoons, we would witness the cartoonish outline of this epic struggle. Within minutes, sometimes seconds, a winner would grunt out his victory and a triumphant hand would protrude from their sleeping bag, Whoever said the proof is in the pudding wasn't kidding.

But I still couldn't believe it. Late to the game of self-love, I laughed heartily at these alleged victories. Come on, there's no way that's what you say it is! That's hand lotion! Or vaseline. You guys wouldn't really? Would you?

They would. And they did. Later that year, back at home, I finally discovered the joys of me, a pleasure tempered only by the dark realization that what had occurred that summer was only too real. The following year at camp these competitions were not repeated. Nor spoken of.

Twitchin' Beaver

Horatio writes: Thanks to Eddy from suburban Detroit for this moving story.

I believe the case has been made on this website that the world is divided into two kinds of people -- men who read porno for the photographs, and those who love it for the stories. I would suggest that the reality is more complex than that. While I had no time for the stories -- the photographic spreads never did it for me either, unless they were in Hustler's Beaver Hunt feature -- a piece of visionary thinking from the devious mind of one Mr. L. Flynnt, in which he foresaw the explosion of amateur porn which would occur two decades later on the internets and persuaded seemingly everyday damsels from middle America to rip off their undies and show us their down belows. I was the proud owner of six copies of Hustler and the Beaver pages were the only ones I ever turned to in my hour -- more accurately, fifteen minutes -- of need. These were average girls trying their damnedest to look supersexy. Secretaries from Appleton, WS, factory workers from Portland, ME, and best of all, the occasional Mom from Brick Township, NJ -- all were driven by the forces of lust, and desires that only I could satisfy to put themselves on display. Back in those days I had no appreciation of such issues as misogyny, insecurity, or the numbness of repeated dull relationships. The feature served to insert a simple truth in my adolescent head. Beaver Hunt was the female mind laid bare. They wanted it all day and all night -- and that goes for all women. And as soon as I could learn to drive, I could service their desires. Until then, I went about my daily life wearing a pair of Beaver Hunt fueled goggles, imagining that every woman I encountered -- my teachers, dinner ladies, school bus driver -- were just a camera and a tripod away from the pages of Hustler. On weekends, there was nothing finer than to hang out in mall parking lots, approaching girls as they returned to their automobiles and asking them "haven't I seen you before...?" The girl's would look both flattered and confused. And then we would deliver the killer line which never got tired. "... in Beaver Hunt!"