THE BALLAD OF JOHNNY "WAD" HOLMES
February 9, 1998
"Do it, do it, do it 'til you're satisfied
Whatever it is. . ."
It had to happen.
What with Seventies nostalgia in full swing – with everything 70’s now fully metastasized throughout the culture -- it had to come to pass. There is now a niche market for what can only be called XXX porn nostalgia. That is right. It seems the longing for everything Seventies has, in its sweep, brought in with it at least a smattering of folks who pine for the good old days of smut films. Those XXX films are now viewed as artistic, the furtive guys who shot them six at a time in dark warehouses and lofts using junkies and wastrels off of the streets for actors and zero production values are now viewed as auteurs. It just goes to show that anything, anything can be viewed favorably in retrospect, if given the patina of age.
Some make the argument that the '70s films had plots, and the actors were actors, who had nuance and range and were trying to do something artistic between taking off their clothes every five minutes and humping like snakes. These people refer to the current films shown on the Playboy® and Spice® channels as well as those available for rent in the video stores as nothing more than one "cum shot" after another; whereas the 1970’s works were almost Bergman-esque, or at least Fellini-esque, by comparison. Which sounds good on paper. . .
If you went back and actually watched the films, though, I think you would be hard pressed to find any budding Brandos or Newmans or Streeps or Closes (urge here to say budding breasts.). I never was much of a consumer of smut, but like everyone else, I suppose, I came across it from time to time. I know that lo those many years ago I saw at least parts of The Devil And Mrs. Jones and Behind The Green Door, which are considered the classics of the genre, and while I recall several performances that were, well, stimulating, I do not recall anything bordering on what could be characterized as an Academy Award performance. But that is just my view.
Proof that 1970’s smut has “arrived” is that Hollywood is now making mainstream movies about XXX films. Boogie Nights, released last year, is one. I have not seen it, but I have read that the protagonist is based loosely on legendary porn star Johnny "Wad" Holmes, he of The Big 12-Inch. Holmes was, of course, in hundreds of XXX films; along with Marilyn Chambers, he was considered a star of the genre; and, of all the Seventies porn icons, only he and Chambers (and perhaps Linda Lovelace) have had any resonance or staying power in the general culture down through the years.
It is instructive, I think, that Holmes died of AIDS a few years back. And also that the lightweight who was chosen to play him in Boogie Nights, former underwear model and rapper Mark "Marky Mark" Wahlberg, had to wear a prosthetic penis in the sex scenes, just to approximate the breadth and range of a real pro like the legendary Johnny "Wad".
At least Holmes had the honesty to live and die by the rules of XXX, and he only ever used what God gave him. Marky Mark with a fake dick is just that -- fake. Just like Seventies nostalgia. You shoulda' seen the real thing, baby. . .
****
I WANNA BE SEDATED
April 20, 1998
This past week saw the passing of Wendy O. Williams (of Plasmatics fame), not to mention that of Rob Pilatus of Milli Vanilli. Williams was 48, Pilatus 32. They both died by their own hand. And there the similarities end. Say what you want about Williams (and I will say a little bit more here), I will not insult her memory or her life by ever mentioning Pilatus again, and especially in the same sentence with her.
"You wanna play mind-crazed banjo
In the druggy-drag ragtime U.S.A.?
In Parkland International
Hah! Junkiedom U.S.A.
Where procaine proves
The purest rock man groove
'Rat poison,'
The volatile Molatov says,
'Go straight to hell, boys.'"
Some of us are old enough to remember when punk rock came tumbling out of the ruined economy and rigid class system of merry old England c. 1976 and then, about two years after the fact (an eon in punk rock time), washed up on the American shore.
Remember Wire? Killing Joke? Gang Of Four? Or the greatest punk rock band of all, one of the greatest rock bands of all, The Clash? Ah, the good old days.
All the good to great punk bands were English, it seems, and why not? It takes a certain sort of ruined country and blasted hope to produce something like The Sex Pistols. Not too many of the American punk rock bands had much merit to begin with, and who can still remember any of 'em now? The Ramones, okay. New York Dolls? Eeeh. . . too glam, I’m thinking. X? Yeah, X, who made one great LP, Los Angeles. And, oh yeah, The Plasmatics.
I cannot recall a single Plasmatics song, although I remember from hearing many of them at the time that they were mostly unlistenable cacophony and white noise. . . as was most punk rock, at least in its early stages.
The primary attraction of The Plasmatics was visual, and especially the lead singer, Wendy O. Williams, a former stripper and topless dancer who went out and in the great tradition of American garages everywhere, started her a band. The Plasmatics were too vulgar for television, and thus never made it on to The Midnight Special, with Wolfman Jack; or In Concert, with that idiot Don Kirshner. I saw them a couple of times in the flicks we used to go watch at the Gaylynn Theater way back when. . . The ones shown at Friday midnight, which KWIC-108 used to sponsor. Where you lugged in a case of beer in the lining of your coat, and as soon as you sat down, your friends all around started firing up spliffs in great profusion.
Damn! People belittle the Seventies sometimes, but it had some good things, too. Just try that in a theater nowadays and see what happens.
Anyway, what I remember about Wendy O. Williams on stage was a tall, lithe woman with a bleach-blond Mohawk and wearing nothing much more than long black high heel leather boots, a g-string, and black electrical tape placed over her nipples for pasties. This was her attire as she performed, performing various atrocities on her guitar while bleating out unintelligible lyrics. In the background her band, somewhat less scantily-clad, went thrashing about out of synch while doing things like chain-sawing their instruments.
Ah, The Plasmatics. . . great band! I remember someone, possibly my old friend Chris O----, telling me he had purchased a Plasmatics album, and I thought, Why? I could not imagine sitting in a dark room, listening to the music (which was basically unlistenable), with no visuals for reference; and trying to make any sense of it. Comprehending it in a literal sense was totally beside the point, anyway. But then Chris often missed the point, God love him. May he ever rest in peace.
And may Wendy O. Williams rest in peace, as well. I do not know why she chose to put a gun to her head and pull the trigger; possibly there were lingering effects from all the drug abuse and wildness back in those days that stayed with her, long after punk rock and The Plasmatics were long gone. All of us have had to deal, to one degree or another, with the detritus of a wild life long after the wild living and youth was over; and it takes some people longer than others to come to terms with it, if at all.
Wendy O. Williams never made it, dammit, but I do not think any less of her for it. And I will see her again.
I will see her again. In that place where all the punk rockers and hell-raisers are going, when its all over.
Sic transit gloria. Rest In Peace. And keep me a spot warm, baby.
February 9, 1998
"Do it, do it, do it 'til you're satisfied
Whatever it is. . ."
It had to happen.
What with Seventies nostalgia in full swing – with everything 70’s now fully metastasized throughout the culture -- it had to come to pass. There is now a niche market for what can only be called XXX porn nostalgia. That is right. It seems the longing for everything Seventies has, in its sweep, brought in with it at least a smattering of folks who pine for the good old days of smut films. Those XXX films are now viewed as artistic, the furtive guys who shot them six at a time in dark warehouses and lofts using junkies and wastrels off of the streets for actors and zero production values are now viewed as auteurs. It just goes to show that anything, anything can be viewed favorably in retrospect, if given the patina of age.
Some make the argument that the '70s films had plots, and the actors were actors, who had nuance and range and were trying to do something artistic between taking off their clothes every five minutes and humping like snakes. These people refer to the current films shown on the Playboy® and Spice® channels as well as those available for rent in the video stores as nothing more than one "cum shot" after another; whereas the 1970’s works were almost Bergman-esque, or at least Fellini-esque, by comparison. Which sounds good on paper. . .
If you went back and actually watched the films, though, I think you would be hard pressed to find any budding Brandos or Newmans or Streeps or Closes (urge here to say budding breasts.). I never was much of a consumer of smut, but like everyone else, I suppose, I came across it from time to time. I know that lo those many years ago I saw at least parts of The Devil And Mrs. Jones and Behind The Green Door, which are considered the classics of the genre, and while I recall several performances that were, well, stimulating, I do not recall anything bordering on what could be characterized as an Academy Award performance. But that is just my view.
Proof that 1970’s smut has “arrived” is that Hollywood is now making mainstream movies about XXX films. Boogie Nights, released last year, is one. I have not seen it, but I have read that the protagonist is based loosely on legendary porn star Johnny "Wad" Holmes, he of The Big 12-Inch. Holmes was, of course, in hundreds of XXX films; along with Marilyn Chambers, he was considered a star of the genre; and, of all the Seventies porn icons, only he and Chambers (and perhaps Linda Lovelace) have had any resonance or staying power in the general culture down through the years.
It is instructive, I think, that Holmes died of AIDS a few years back. And also that the lightweight who was chosen to play him in Boogie Nights, former underwear model and rapper Mark "Marky Mark" Wahlberg, had to wear a prosthetic penis in the sex scenes, just to approximate the breadth and range of a real pro like the legendary Johnny "Wad".
At least Holmes had the honesty to live and die by the rules of XXX, and he only ever used what God gave him. Marky Mark with a fake dick is just that -- fake. Just like Seventies nostalgia. You shoulda' seen the real thing, baby. . .
****
I WANNA BE SEDATED
April 20, 1998
This past week saw the passing of Wendy O. Williams (of Plasmatics fame), not to mention that of Rob Pilatus of Milli Vanilli. Williams was 48, Pilatus 32. They both died by their own hand. And there the similarities end. Say what you want about Williams (and I will say a little bit more here), I will not insult her memory or her life by ever mentioning Pilatus again, and especially in the same sentence with her.
"You wanna play mind-crazed banjo
In the druggy-drag ragtime U.S.A.?
In Parkland International
Hah! Junkiedom U.S.A.
Where procaine proves
The purest rock man groove
'Rat poison,'
The volatile Molatov says,
'Go straight to hell, boys.'"
Some of us are old enough to remember when punk rock came tumbling out of the ruined economy and rigid class system of merry old England c. 1976 and then, about two years after the fact (an eon in punk rock time), washed up on the American shore.
Remember Wire? Killing Joke? Gang Of Four? Or the greatest punk rock band of all, one of the greatest rock bands of all, The Clash? Ah, the good old days.
All the good to great punk bands were English, it seems, and why not? It takes a certain sort of ruined country and blasted hope to produce something like The Sex Pistols. Not too many of the American punk rock bands had much merit to begin with, and who can still remember any of 'em now? The Ramones, okay. New York Dolls? Eeeh. . . too glam, I’m thinking. X? Yeah, X, who made one great LP, Los Angeles. And, oh yeah, The Plasmatics.
I cannot recall a single Plasmatics song, although I remember from hearing many of them at the time that they were mostly unlistenable cacophony and white noise. . . as was most punk rock, at least in its early stages.
The primary attraction of The Plasmatics was visual, and especially the lead singer, Wendy O. Williams, a former stripper and topless dancer who went out and in the great tradition of American garages everywhere, started her a band. The Plasmatics were too vulgar for television, and thus never made it on to The Midnight Special, with Wolfman Jack; or In Concert, with that idiot Don Kirshner. I saw them a couple of times in the flicks we used to go watch at the Gaylynn Theater way back when. . . The ones shown at Friday midnight, which KWIC-108 used to sponsor. Where you lugged in a case of beer in the lining of your coat, and as soon as you sat down, your friends all around started firing up spliffs in great profusion.
Damn! People belittle the Seventies sometimes, but it had some good things, too. Just try that in a theater nowadays and see what happens.
Anyway, what I remember about Wendy O. Williams on stage was a tall, lithe woman with a bleach-blond Mohawk and wearing nothing much more than long black high heel leather boots, a g-string, and black electrical tape placed over her nipples for pasties. This was her attire as she performed, performing various atrocities on her guitar while bleating out unintelligible lyrics. In the background her band, somewhat less scantily-clad, went thrashing about out of synch while doing things like chain-sawing their instruments.
Ah, The Plasmatics. . . great band! I remember someone, possibly my old friend Chris O----, telling me he had purchased a Plasmatics album, and I thought, Why? I could not imagine sitting in a dark room, listening to the music (which was basically unlistenable), with no visuals for reference; and trying to make any sense of it. Comprehending it in a literal sense was totally beside the point, anyway. But then Chris often missed the point, God love him. May he ever rest in peace.
And may Wendy O. Williams rest in peace, as well. I do not know why she chose to put a gun to her head and pull the trigger; possibly there were lingering effects from all the drug abuse and wildness back in those days that stayed with her, long after punk rock and The Plasmatics were long gone. All of us have had to deal, to one degree or another, with the detritus of a wild life long after the wild living and youth was over; and it takes some people longer than others to come to terms with it, if at all.
Wendy O. Williams never made it, dammit, but I do not think any less of her for it. And I will see her again.
I will see her again. In that place where all the punk rockers and hell-raisers are going, when its all over.
Sic transit gloria. Rest In Peace. And keep me a spot warm, baby.
1 comment:
Oh, so many memories!!! My big midnight movie memory was watching The Concert for Bangladesh at the Park Plaza Twin Cinema in Port Arthur and people passing reefers around the theater. People weren't just smoking, they were smoking pot! Ah, good times, good times. I ended always ended up falling asleep at the midnight movies. I wonder why.
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