December 2007 Archives

Broad Bait!

By Jack Lynn

160 pp.

© 1960

Publisher:Novel Books Inc.

Series: NB 5014

Special Agent Kevin Kar has a real appetite for the ladies, more than most FBI men and a lot more than J. Edgar Hoover.

Broad Bait opens with a detailed description of the ample bustline of a woman attempting to lure Kevin to his doom. He is on the trail of a ring of gun runners and they would like nothing better than to see him retired from the case permanently.

But Kevin is no fool, not even for love. He doesn't trust women as far as the nearest bed on which to throw them. So when her gun-toting accomplice sneaks up behind him, the G-man keeps his cool.

Kevin uses the young lovely as a human shield. He spins her around and she take's the would-be assassin's bullet between the eyes. He then returns fire, killing his assailant. It's all in a day's work. He never got to score with the girl before he died (and I assume he had no desire to afterward), but the story has just begun and he will have plenty of opportunity as the tale unfolds.

After the murder of a key witness in the case and a couple of attempt's on Kevin's life (including one by a woman he was successful in bedding. Good for him), he travels to Florida to stop the 600 tommyguns from being sent to Castro's rebels in Cuba.

The careful reader might notice that the book was published in 1960, more than a year after the Cuban revolution was a done deal. It seems unlikely that Fidel Castro would be in need of guns as much as ammunition replenishment for those firing squads of which he was so fond. For those put off by this seeming anachronism, try to remember that great literature is not beholden to timeliness.

Kevin arrives in Miami and checks in with Melvin Blake at the US Customs office. Blake is...well, he's some guy named Blake. Kevin is far more interested in Angelica, Blake's secretary who is employed on the side of the law but whose curves defy gravity.

At first, Angelica rejects Kevin's advances but he eventually wears her down with lines like, "But honey, you're in your twenties and have a body that must've been used." Given such a persuasive argument, she relents and our intrepid hero scores again.

That case is cracked but there is still the small matter of keeping the illicit ordnance out of the hands of godless communists. The prime suspect is Paul Jackson, who lives on the Gulf Coast in luxury with no discernible source of income. Since these are the days before RICO, the FBI can't simply move in and seize everything, leaving Jackson to try to prove his innocence in court. Kevin needs evidence.

His methods are unorthodox to say the least. To solve the case, he beds the owner of the local motel, blows his cover by picking fights with the suspects, and roughs up an innocent kid with leukemia. Jackson, not to be outdone, orders one of his henchmen to open fire on Kevin's car after a search of his house turns up nothing. The story climaxes (so to speak) with Angelina, who is in league with the gun runners, giving up her chance to escape because Kevin is so hot in the sack.

In this war on crime, the first casualty is plausibility.

I sometimes walk past a crowd of kids and am treated to barrage of profanity. My inner fuddyduddy wants to say, "Do you kiss you mother or blow your priest with that mouth?" but I check myself. I remember what it was like to be young.

I don't know how old I was when expletives began to pepper my conversation but I doubt it was long after I first heard them. Swearing suited me, as it did most young boys who desperately wanted to be cooler than they really were. My preferred dirty words were standard issue, describing either sex (of which I had no experience), or defecation (of which I had plenty).

Given my past, I'm willing to let kids be kids. However, not everyone shares my sentiments. McKay Hatch, 14 year-old boy in Southern California, has become the media darling of the tight-assed family values crowd with his No Cussing Club. The organization has spread to 49 states in the US (fight the power, South Dakota).

To become a member, girls and boys need to take the No Cussing Challenge:

I won't cuss, swear, use bad language, or tell dirty jokes. Clean language is the sign of intelligence and always demands respect. I will use my language to uplift, encourage and motivate. I will Leave People Better Than I Found Them!

That would be a pretty tall order for me now, let alone when I was his age and thought the campfire scene in Blazing Saddles was the greatest cinematic moment ever.

There is a page on the site where the visitor can leave comments. I briefly entertained the notion of posting one from "cocktip@cervix.com" asking to set me up on a date with his mother, but decided against it for two reasons:

• Picking on a kid, even one I think is wrongheaded, is tacky.
•  Given the popularity of zero tolerance and protecting the children, pranks of this nature are a good way to end up registered as a sex offender. Among law enforcement zealots, talking dirty to a minor is tantamount to penis insertion.

So I'll behave myself. I do have something to say to McKay in the extremely unlikely event that he's reading this.

McKay, I know you think you're doing the right thing and I respect that. And to tell the truth, I'd probably find the gutter talk that you hear from other kids vulgar and boring too. It's stupid. But you see, a little stupidity is OK when you're a kid. As long as the dirty are kept out of earshot of any grownup with authority, there is no real harm done. So lighten up and let the other kids have their fun. And if you hit your thumb with a hammer and have a few choice words to say about the incident, that's OK too. The quest for justice has bigger fish to fry.

I received an unsettling email from my cousin Elmer yesterday:

Dude,

I'm coming to Frisco next week and I'm leaving the wife at home. I figure by the time I roll into town, I'll be bustin' for a fuck so do me a favor and hook me up with some of that fine local tail. Hoo Doggy!

And oh yeah, I almost forgot. Gramps is dead. Bummer (kinda).

CUL8R,

Elmer

I appreciated Elmer breaking the news to me but there were a lot of questions left unanswered. How? When? Without knowing these things, the healing process could drag on for days. I telephoned my cousin to find out exactly what happened.

Grandpa lived in a house on an embankment and had been confined to a wheelchair for years. According to Elmer, teenage pranksters greased the ramp leading from the front door as well as the driveway below. When Grandpa hit that grease, he couldn't stop. He slid all the way to the street and straight into the path of an oncoming steamroller. The old boy never had a chance.

My earliest memories of my grandfather were not knowing which side of the family he came from. For years, neither of my parents would claim as kin. It wasn't until a family reunion with my father's relative that the secret was revealed.

"No use denying it any longer," said Dad. "I admit it. He's my father. Please don't hold it against me."

I didn't. It wasn't his fault Grandpa would shake his fist when he visited, shouting racial epithets and accusing my parents of trying to poison him with my mother's bad cooking. He was different with us children though. He would just calmly tell us that we might as well give up now because with a mom and dad like ours, none of us would ever amount to shit.

That all changed when Grandpa, a lifetime pipe smoker, was diagnosed with throat cancer. After the tracheotomy and the removal of his larynx, there was no more yelling. He just hissed. We liked him better that way.

The last time I saw my grandfather was Thanksgiving dinner at Elmer's house in 2005. Elmer has this dog named Roscoe, a Maltese who is kept away from guests because he gets too excited by their presence and wants to hump them. There was quite a commotion when Roscoe got into the dining room. He charged straight at my grandfather, leaped up, and clamped onto his face like that thing that came out of the egg in Alien.

Roscoe started pumping away. From where I was sitting, I could see the dog's engorged member sliding in and out of Grandpa's throat stoma. After a couple of minutes, Elmer intervened and pried the dog away.

"Fun is fun, Roscoe," said Elmer. "But Gramps needs to breathe. Don't worry, Gramps. You just just got a little lovin' down the wrong pipe. It'll cough up."

Looking back, I'm going to miss Grandpa in a way. I know Roscoe sure will.

It was nine thirty last night when I left the Argus and stumbled home. I had been there for an hour and a half and a band was getting ready to play. I'm sure they were swell, but I had been drinking for five hours and was in no condition to have my eardrums blasted by their amplifiers.

Overall, it was a very pleasant Christmas. The festivities started at Alex's and Gillian's home. As always, they were wonderful hosts and food and drink were in abundance. None of the guests' behavior crossed into the realm of the unacceptable, not even mine. I'll have to try harder next year.

If I had the time and money to spend on a therapist, I might learn why I feel the urge to make a mockery of all things good and decent. I used to blame it on youthful rebellion but at the ripe old age of 45, that excuse is wearing thin. It's probably a waste of effort for me to ponder the cause of my love affair with dysfunction. I'm better off accepting it and keeping it reined in to a tolerable level.

For the most part, I achieved this goal yesterday. My friends are amused by (or at least forgiving of) my hijinks, which gives me substantial leeway as far as behavior is concerned. I cherish them for that and am not about to abuse the privilege.

For example, I knew it was OK to say, "When they're having a sing-along of 'All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth' at the women's shelter, I bet there are some there who don't much feel like joining in." This got laughs from those who know me pretty well and uncomfortable stares from those who don't, but given my reputation, it was perfectly appropriate. If, however, I decided to drop my pants, dangle some mistletoe over Little Caesar, and ask if there are any any takers, that would be bad.

There are boundaries I prefer not to cross. Alex and I have been friends for over twenty years and I'd like that to continue. I found myself disinvited from future Christmas gatherings at his house, I may have no choice but to spend the holidays with my family.

You know the stereotype of the drunken uncle who ruins things for everybody? I would be that drunken uncle. God help me if I ever sink that low.

I'll be back Wednesday.

What a drag it is getting old.

It speaks well of a transit system when one's commute is not a topic of conversation. It has been my experience that BART achieves that goal more often than not. My trip from the 24th Street Mission to Montgomery is accomplished on autopilot. When I arrive at work, details of how I got there are hazy and unimportant.

It's not all blissful oblivion, of course. There are minor irritations, mostly products of my personal quirks, to contend with. I don't like being in close proximity to people I don't know, which is odd for a city dweller but there you have it. BART cars get full, especially during commute hours, with most of the crowding toward the center of the train. To avoid the packed-sardine feeling, I wait on the platform where I can board the first or last car.

This tactic works pretty well and I'm often able to find an open seat. By open, I mean not having to sit next to someone else. I prefer to stand than do that.

Scoring a seat all to myself by no means guarantees that I'll be able to keep it for the duration. People board at other stations and want to sit down, sometimes next to me. Unfortunately, I don't project enough of a "get thee hence" vibe to dissuade them and am unwilling to resort to radical measures like publicly masturbating. BART has their own police force and it would ruin my day if a bunch of cops stormed the train with weapons drawn, shouting "Hey Sicko! You can't jack off here. This isn't Muni."

So you see, I respect the needs of others. If someone really wants to sit next to me, far be it for me to insist otherwise. All I ask is one small favor: no fat people.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all in favor of size acceptance, but I'm also realistic. There is a good chance I will need to exit the train before they do and excessive corpulence can cause problems. Moreover, it has been my experience that passengers' girth is inversely proportional to the amount they are willing to move their knees. It is only a matter of time before one of my attempts to hurdle these human beanbag chairs gets somebody hurt.

Other than that, consider me a satisfied rider. The BART system works very well, until it doesn't.

Delays can arise from mechanical failures, police matters, and the occasional suicide. Once the glitch is fixed, the perp handcuffed, or the front of the train hosed off, service resumes but there is a ripple effect. The number of people waiting on all subsequent station platforms has grown during the delay. Boarding and offboarding takes more time, resulting in even more time lost and surliness over the loudspeaker from the train operators.

After such an experience, I find myself saying uncharitable things about BART to friends and coworkers. I'm really not being fair. Things could be a lot worse, or as my imaginary cop friend so aptly put it, "This isn't Muni."

So extend your leg and let your dog have at it. I'll be back tomorrow.

Come on down to the Oakland Coliseum for one night only. You will be on the edge of your seat as you witness "Celebrating Innocence," a life-size diorama of children at play, get utterly demolished by the meanest monster truck of them all...KIDFUCKER!!!

This is not the sort of thing one should think about, let alone chuckle over, and certainly not during the weekly engineering meeting.

I keep my head down so no one can see me smirking. If noticed, they may ask me what I'm snickering about and that will not do. There is no satisfactory explanation I can give these people, none that would get them to laugh along at any rate. They're grown ups and professionals. I just fake it reasonably well.

My boss is laying out the projects and milestones between now and the middle of January. At least I think that's what he's talking about. Between my daydreams of monster-truck shows, group sex among the developmentally disabled, and man-eating llamas at the petting zoo, there simply hasn't been time to pay much attention.

"So Dave, do you think it's doable?" he asks.

"You bet," I say, hoping what I'm agreeing to are a few bug fixes and features to be completed at a leisurely pace instead of rewriting the entire code base or sucking his dick.

To be honest, there's not much to worry about. He's diligent and driven, but reasonable. Expectations of performance will be realistic. Expectations of fellatio will be non-existent.

As always, I'll try to keep up my end of the bargain. Deadlines will be met and quality of work will be high. I don't know if could be considered a great software engineer but I know I'm a pretty good one. I take pride in a track record of accomplishment rather than disaster. This pride is integral to my continued professional success.

That said, you have to admit that a monster truck called "KIDFUCKER" would be pretty damn amusing.

Assignment: Lust

By Winston Reynolds

192 pp.

© 1964

Publisher: L.S. Publications Corp.

Series: An Original Gaslight Book GL 114

Heroin is not sexy but infiltrating a smuggling ring can be. At least that's true if you buy into the premise of Assignment: Lust. Eschewing techniques such as informants and wiretaps, the authorities enlist the aid of a sexpot journalist and send her to Algeria to investigate.

Indeed, there is nothing that makes the criminal element drop their guard like having a member of the press hanging around.

But never mind the lack of plausibility. The author wants you to direct your attention to Maggie Barton, the curvaceous reporter who enjoys having lots of sex with both men and women. The narcotics-investigation component of the story does serve a purpose though. It provides a reason for Maggie to travel from one exotic locale to another. Without it, all of her sexual exploits would come from cruising restrooms at the airport.

Maggie's itinerary first takes her to Algiers where she meets a local film actor. After they have sex, he reveals by using the code word "primrose" that he is a fellow agent working on the case. He makes arrangements for her to meet Ali Ben Haroud, an old college friend whom he suspects is involved in the drug trade.

She takes a chartered flight south to Haroud's palatial home. There she has a hot sapphic encounter with a belly dancer. Later, Maggie is tied to a pole and felt up by the men of the village prior to being flogged by her host. "How rude, Haroud," you may say but Maggie likes it. A lot.

When she returns to Algiers, the other investigators praise her for reporting observations that confirm what they pretty much knew to begin with. She is offered a chance to continue the mission in Rome and off she goes.

The plot thickens as she beds a guy who used to star in Tarzan movies and then indulges herself in kinky goodness with a whip-wielding lesbian. Next stop is Paris and a threesome with an artist and a male model.

In the end, Maggie's repeatedly being brought to climax results in the guilty being brought to justice. If only the real War on Drugs were this much fun.

For those of us with jobs where we don't have to wear name tags, this is the time for the company holiday party. It is an occasion where we can eat, drink, relax, and temporarily forget what tools most of our coworkers are.

Kick up your heels, but not too far. We've all heard heard the cautionary tales about how excessive drinking and going berserk at these events can cost you your job. So if you get fired for grabbing random asses, dancing naked on the bar, and taking a shit in the CEO's martini, don't say you've never been warned.

Are these take-heed stories really necessary? Perhaps they are for the kind of people who need to be reminded that having sex with a light socket is not a good idea. For the rest of us, they're good for a chuckle and that's about it.

Not that this stops finger-wagging members of the press from jumping into the fray. Gosh darn that demon rum, they tell us in op-ed fluff every year. It can make a festive occasion your downfall.

OK, maybe getting completely hammered is inadvisable, but an evening of sobriety is no picnic either. I've attended enough holiday parties to know that any moment, the sales guys may start wearing their neckties like headbands and forming a conga line. You try being subjected to that without a few drinks in your system. One year, the president of the company where I worked decided to treat the employees to a 45-minute slide show of his children. It was only a steady supply of liquor that kept us from lynching him.

Of course, there are a few guidelines to acknowledge when boozing with coworkers:

• A DUI will not stay a secret for long. Take a cab home.
• Your immediate supervisor does not want to know what you really think of him or her.
• Caution: Objects in beer goggles are fatter than they appear.

That's it. Seasoned drinkers don't have to worry about running amok after a few cocktails. We got that out of systems years ago. The amateurs are the real menace. Leave us responsible lushes alone.

I have never met the man but he seems to be a popular guy. Ruben Patricio apparently had my cell number before I got it in 2004. Since then, I've received countless calls from people looking for him.

Perhaps he won the lottery and hasn't picked up his check, but somehow I doubt that. My guess is that he owes people a whole lot of money. Maybe his cell-phone service got cut off from non-payment or perhaps it was just one part of his plan to step away from an identity that served him but no longer suits his purposes.

That's how I would like to imagine Ruben Patricio, living in luxury on tropical island. With one hand holding an umbrella drink and the other feeling up a frisky native girl, he has accomplished what most of us only dream of. He has beaten the system.

The reality is likely far less romantic. He probably ran up huge debts and found there was no way he was ever going to pay them off. Hounded by collection agencies, getting rid of the cell phone would eliminate at least some of the aggravation.

Is he a deadbeat? Maybe. People often mistake a credit line for free money and behave accordingly. Then again, he could have doing just fine with his financial obligations until he lost his jobs in a massive round of layoffs. There has been a lot of that going on in recent years.

In the past, someone in similar straits would simply declare bankruptcy. You could only do it once every seven years and it put a nasty blot on your credit rating, but it gave you a clean slate. This system lasted until the 1990s when the credit-card lobby started to gripe.

There was a time when a person looking to establish credit was faced with a Catch-22. You needed to have already credit in order to get any. Fortunately, there were ways around this. You could get a family member to co-sign. If none were available, it was easier to get a card from a gas station or a store like Sears. The limits were ridiculously low but after you established a pattern of prompt payment, you were deemed worthy of plastic from the big kids.

Pattern establishing takes time and the credit-card companies proved to be an impatient bunch. They started an aggressive marketing campaign, targeting those they traditionally considered high risk. What could go wrong?

As you can imagine, the bankruptcy rate skyrocketed. With hurt looks on their faces and briefcases full of campaign cash, lobbyists descended on Washington demanding reform. Delinquent debtors were vilified as parasites on the very fabric of society and in 2005, legislation was signed making a clean slate obtainable only after you have been bled completely dry.

The new law was a godsend for the collection agencies. Though legally barred from calling you at four a.m. and threatening to poison your dog unless full remittance is made forthwith, there are plenty of daylight hours for them to harass you using less strongarm tactics.

My credit is good and I have to deal with these swine on a regular basis. "No," I tell them. "I am not Ruben Patricio. I don't know the man and have never met anyone with that name. Please leave me alone." They don't. The only way to get them off your back is to convincingly threaten them with legal action. Even then, it's a partial victory. There are plenty of other collection companies that will jump right in.

So if you're reading this, Ruben, do me a favor. Tell these collectors you can't reached at my number. But whatever you do, pay them nothing. It only encourages them.

It does however pay the bills. When its demands preclude my working on a blog entry, that's the way the cookie crumbles. I'll be back tomorrow.

I didn't drink last night. There simply wasn't time. I had planned to leave work about six and then head down to the Argus for an evening of whiskey and bad jokes.

No such luck. My employers had scheduled the last release of the year for Thursday and my code was riddled with bugs. Since my attitude has yet to degenerate into truly not giving a shit, I was at the office until after nine trying to make it all better.

My friend Alex would laugh at me for bemoaning my long day. Every morning before five, he is up and keeps working until after five in the evening. His schedule is insane and he will probably drop dead at an early age, but he has earned his right to scoff.

After leaving the office, I walked the six blocks of dead city streets to the BART station. The eateries and bars had closed. The after-work crowd had either gone home or relocated to somewhere more festive. The homeless, lacking anyone to panhandle, had likewise given up and left. Until I got within a couple of blocks of Market Street, it was just me and the odd passing car.

Down in the BART there was a four-minute wait until the next train, which wasn't bad. You often have to hang out for much longer at that hour. Most of the people around me looked about as tired as I felt. The exception was a young guy in a furry hat with cat ears, dancing around to his iPod like those silhouetted hipsters in the commercials. I used to have energy like that. I wonder whatever happened to it.

When I got back to the Mission, I was too exhausted to want to go for a drink. Instead, I stopped by a corner store for a sandwich and went home.

Life doesn't have to be this way. I remember a line from an old Clash song: "I empty a bottle. I feel a bit free." There will be time enough for that this evening. If there isn't, I'll make time.

They Came To Sin

By Don Holliday

190 pp.

© 1966

Publisher: Corinth Publications

Series: Nightstand Books NB1806

To enjoy They Came To Sin, I had to rid myself of preconceptions about where the story was supposed to go. Like many people born after 1960, I was raised on a diet of teen slasher films. When presented with a tale of oversexed college kids who go on a trip and veer off the beaten path, I expect most of them to die horribly at the hands of some guy in a goalie mask.

But this is not a flick, slasher or otherwise. These four kids, thumbing their nose at bourgeois morality go on a two-week journey and...who cares? They're annoying and the best parts of the book are enhanced by their absence. Don Holliday seems to agree as these characters make themselves scarce for about half its length. Sure, they arrive at the inn, act smug, and do their share of fornication while there. The real story though, at least what did it for me, was of the people running the place.

Proprietors Mrs. Cabal and her daughter Rebecca hate sin because it is, well, sinful. They are none too pleased about the arrival of their libertine young guests but are content to vent their displeasure with a few derisive sneers behind their backs. When it comes to lashing out at wickedness, the two have plenty to keep them busy without involving outsiders.

Rebecca's younger sister Elizabeth has gone insane, leaving her feral and decidedly lacking in sexual restraint. She is locked in a cage stark naked to keep her on the straight and narrow.

This may seem like an effective tactic but in practice, the victory of family values over indecency is far from total. Ajax, the mute, deformed, and retarded porter visits Elizabeth when his sexual urges get the better of him. Though the young woman is an eager participant, neither mom nor sister condone the encounter. Ajax must be punished.

They keep a whip handy in the basement for just such occasions. While Elizabeth watches and howls like an animal, Mrs. Cabal and Rebecca take turns torturing the man. The daughter is by far the crueler of the two and aims the whip straight for the groceries.

Lest you think that Rebecca is motivated only by sadism, the author gives us a clue that her own shame and guilt over her own lust are at work here. On occasion, she masturbates (gasp) and when she does, her penance for the deed is to leave her door unlocked so Ajax can lumber in and have his way with her. She makes a point of protesting the dullard's advances but not enough to dissuade him. Her words may say no but her body is pulling his neck wallet and begging for more.

Then the story gets weird.

We learn about the father, no slouch himself in the special-needs department, who mistakes his daughter for his wife and does something really inappropriate as a result. Mom walks in on the two of them and he dies in the ensuing battle. We discover what chain of events drives a wedge between the sisters' once sapphic closeness, reducing one to a naked beast in a cage and turning the other into a pillar of sadomasochistic puritanism.

When the guests finally do reemerge toward the end of the book, they understandably find themselves out of their element. College can only prepare you for so much.

That is all.

If I ever get any closer to becoming a restaurateur than knowing how to spell it, there is an eatery I'd like to open. Imagine that it's late at night and you're driving around, absolutely starving. Up ahead, you spot a neon sign:

THE LAST MEAL DINER
"it's time!"

You'd want to eat there, right? Of course you would. You're hungry enough to eat roadkill. You pull over, walk in, and take a seat at the counter. Opening the laminated menu, you see it's full of the names of executed criminals and what they had to eat in their final hours.

You might find this gimmick amusing. You might be offended. Who can say? One thing I do know is that after you leave, you will tell your friends about the place. Even if you're uptight and humorless, others will not be.

Some ideas just market themselves.

This still leaves the task of finding out what society's dregs were noshing shortly before their demise. Thanks to the internet and people whose sense of propriety is on a par with my own, such information is readily available. Texas, a state that serves up so many last meals it should open a fast-food franchise, provides an exhaustive list on a government website. If official sources are lacking, aficionados of this sort of trivia pick up the slack.

Portions will have to be downsized. My research has shown that those condemned who haven't lost their appetites completely from pre-execution jitters tend to go all out. Meals consisting of two large pizzas, a cheeseburger, fries, and a six-pack of Coke are not unheard of. Perhaps there is solace in gluttony.

Equally likely is the theory is that they want to exact revenge by creating as big a mess as possible when they expire and their bowels let go. It doesn't really matter what they eat. From a necrogastronomic perspective, it's all vindaloo and prune juice.

I've come up with a couple of items as they would appear on the menu. Bon appetit.

"John Wayne Gacy"

With victims as young as 14, it's no wonder the erstwhile Pogo the Clown chose shrimp and chicken. Add a side of strawberries (reminiscent of the man's personal fruit cellar) and you have John Wayne Gacy on a plate.

"Timothy McVeigh"

Love dessert but hate the federal government? Look no further. Allow your spoon to collapse this tower of mint-chip ice cream. With each mouthful, you'll feel an explosion of flavor as fresh as it was in the truck that delivered it.

Special thanks to the folks at rotten.com for their fine reference material.

I used to enjoy a holiday tradition that has since fallen by the wayside. I was married to a Dutch woman for a number of years. Every December 5th, we would celebrate the coming of Sinterklaas, the Dutch Santa Claus.

This Saint Nick has nothing to do with Christmas. It is believed the historical figure lived in what is now Turkey but he operates out of Spain in his present incarnation. There is no indication of his ever even visiting the North Pole, let alone living there.

A good thing too, since he lacks the American Santa's girthy insulation layer. He has the beard but is a comparatively gaunt old coot, resembling Gandalf the Grey in a bishop's hat.

There are no elves either. Since slave labor was more abundant than creatures who exist only in folklore, the good saint chose Zwarte Piet ("Black Pete") to be his servant. Well, this may or not have been an actual case of slavery but I'm pretty sure the position is non-union.

Piet does the shit work, lugging around gifts and distributing them to all the good little children. His duties also include stuffing naughty brats into a sack and taking them back to Spain, where the little scamps are forced to endure the company of working-class English on holiday.

The tradition has undergone some changes. The child-abduction element is now downplayed and due to an increase in workload, the singular Piet has become a team of Pieten.

Some of those pondering the political incorrectness of Zwarte Piet (which doesn't require much pondering) have come with a multicultural alternative. Those portraying Piet have their faces made up in a variety of colors, rather than a uniform minstrel-show look. Thanks to such progressive efforts, people from all ethnic backgrounds can feel subservient to whitey.

My first exposure to this holiday came in 1993 during a six-month stretch in Europe. I was sitting in the Cafe de Wetering in Amsterdam, drinking beer and scribbling self-absorbed gibberish in my notebook. In walked Sinterklaas and and his Pieten posse, followed by a bunch of kids. The Dutch, unlike Americans, do not freak out over the presence of minors in a drinking establishment.

The children were served Coca Cola or orange juice and instructed by Sinterklaas to sing for their treats. While Big S basked in the musical glory, his subordinates took up ambush positions and pelted bar patrons with pepernoten (small, hard spice cookies). This suited me just fine as I already had plenty to drink but no dinner as yet. I ate more than my share of the things, many of them off the floor.

One nice part of the holiday is that a short poem is supposed to accompany each gift. The giver pens it under either Sint's or Piet's name and the recipient reads it aloud before opening the present. Meter and rhyme are simple. The tone is light-hearted and often playfully insulting. It isn't great literature but appreciate a gifting process that involves more mental energy than walking into a store, pointing, and grunting at a sales clerk.

Laura and I brought the tradition stateside, inviting our friends Jody and Lisa to join in on the fun. There was more sex and flatulence in the poems than the convention but I think we kept true to the spirit of Sinterklaas by adapting it to our dysfunctional sensibilities.

After the divorce, my active participation in Dutch holidays became a thing of the past. I am now simply an American, content to have a fat Santa with no poetic inclinations.

Last year, I wanted to try something new for the holidays. I threw a Hanukkah party. Betty clued me in on some of the cultural details and I improvised the rest. Overall, the event was successful but I have no desire to repeat it. I wish to spend this December pleasantly inebriated and not having to organize anything.

If someone else decided to throw a Festival of Lights blowout, I'd be happy to attend. There seems to be little chance of that happening as Hanukkah kicks off tonight at sundown and I have heard nary a peep from any of my friends.

So Christmas it is, if only by default.

Don't worry. I won't be spending December 25th sitting in front of a TV dinner with a tear running down my cheek. My friends Alex and Gillian have graciously invited me to their home.

They're not religious in the least but do prefer some level of respect for Yuletide traditions. I will make a concerted effort to comport myself accordingly. This means refraining from raunchy parodies of Christmas carols or jokes about the Wise Men fondling the baby Jesus until all in attendance are roaring drunk.

That ought to take about an hour. Piece of cake.

One Violent Year

By Ralph Brandon

147 pp.

© 1959

Publisher: Fabian Books

Series: Z-129

At the opening of One Violent Year, the narrator Steve tells that he is impotent. According to him, his condition was brought on as a direct result of orally servicing a woman for an eleven-year stretch.

Unfortunately for Steve, that was all he was allowed to do to her. You see, Mary Ellen was a genteel southern belle and he was poor white trash. She considered him a dear friend as long as he knew his place, which happened to be on his knees making slurping noises.

Other youth of his era were able to placate their sexual frustration with the strategic use of National Geographic and some axle grease from the tool shed. Not Steve. He spent his time with his face between the legs of a young lady who sips mint juleps and says "Fiddle-dee-dee" while climaxing. Eventually, his thwarted member threw in the towel.

However, his erectile dysfunction proved not to be a lifetime affliction. It is now four years after Mary Ellen's untimely death and Steve is ready to get his groove back. While working with a crew painting Bobbi's road house, he sees Phyllis, the corpulent owner's hot youngest sister. A long-dormant part of him springs to life.

When it rains, it pours. Before Steve has a chance to get his mitts on Phyllis, middle (in both age and chunk-factor) sister Jeanne makes a play for him. Their brief encounter in the parking lot does not go well. She grabs his head and attempts to shove his face deep in the heart of Dixie. This brings up a lot of painful memories for Steve and he refuses, so she expresses her insistence by putting out her cigarette on the side of his neck. He responds by punching her hard in the stomach and the date's over.

The debacle with Jeanne proves but a minor detour as his romance with Phyllis gets into full swing. Failure to perform becomes a thing of the past as he plow her furrow with both skill and stamina. It seems as if nothing will get in the way of their living happily after.

The couple runs low on money while vacationing, so Phyllis earns some cash by administering beatings to an older gentleman who is into that sort of thing. Steve is not pleased, admonishes her about the slippery slope of perversion, but is willing to accept her story that she derived no pleasure from her sadistic act.

Convincing himself that her transgression was solely due to financial need, he decides that getting rich in the corn-whiskey business will solve everything. The Chavis clan dominate the local market but their stuff is both vile and overpriced. Better add cheaper hooch could be obtained from Doc Hart, a kindly old physician who has amassed a small fortune both by selling moonshine and then performing abortions on women too drunk to worry about birth control. Steve also falls for the good doctor's daughter Alice, whose dominant and sadistic streak appeals to a side of him he'd rather not think about.

He figures he can get rich distributing the shine locally. This of course ires the Chavises, who stage an ambush to get even. With them is Jeanne, who has her own score to settle.

When Jeanne was a girl, she and Phyllis used to play with Lonnie, the son of a black laborer working on their father's tobacco farm. Actually, Phyllis played and Jeanne tortured, subjecting the kid to beatings and electric shock, and demanding oral sex. Lonnie put up with it for a couple of reasons. First, there wasn't much he could do about it. In the pre-civil rights south, African Americans had little recourse against the whims of crazy white people. He also enjoyed the abuse, up to a point. But after Jeanne mutilated his genitals to keep him from fooling around with anyone else, Lonnie had had enough and fled.

He found sanctuary with Doc Hart. Alice assumed the Jeanne role, albeit with less depravity. Her racism kept actual intercourse with Lonnie out of the question, leaving her virginity intact until the advent of Steve and his Caucasian pecker.

Alice's newfound love life was short lived however as Jeanne got even for the stealing away of her beloved Lonnie. After Steve was shot and beaten unconscious, Alice was brutally raped by three of the Chavis boys while Jeanne cut her face off with the same knife she'd used on Lonnie's naughty bits.

Revenge begets revenge. After Doc Hart puts his daughter out of her misery with a shotgun and tends to Steve's wounds, it's payback time. Steve dispatches the three rapists and leaves Jeanne for the doctor's amusement. She dies after three days of slow torture (the first of which consisting entirely of "dentistry").

Steve is now a broken and shamed man who creates his own private hell by becoming fat Bobbi's love slave. One night, he is being forced to watch her and Phyllis abuse a couple of homeless guys. This proves too much for him to bear.

Reaching deep to find his inner real man, he smacks Phyllis unconscious, abducts her, and proposes marriage where refusal means death. She accepts and through will power and denial, the two begin a new life as a normal loving couple.

This is the Ralph Brandon book I've reviewed, the other being Asylum - or Hell? In both novels, justice prevails when dominant women are brought to heel with man's brute force. Love him or hate him, the author had issues. That what makes him so much fun to read. When I'm scanning the dusty shelves of Kay Books, you better believe I'll keep an eye peeled for the name Ralph Brandon.