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“Well, whatever, Al.”
Eventually, the local and national media shat themselves blind to pay homage to Malone (and soak up a bit of his zeitgeist), as did the inevitable parade celebrity guests (mostly scabflake bands and dead weight like David Lee Roth or Danzig, but also David Cross, Janeane Garofalo, and Margaret Cho, who extolled the virtues of anal sex during her appearance). The center didn’t hold for Colin’s world takeover plans – as of this writing, he appears to broadcast a radio show from the Key Club, one of the Sunset Strip’s most forgettable clubs, and continues to shill himself as a tastemaker for a generation of kids who haven’t the foggiest fucking clue who he is – but for a brief and shining moment, Colin’s Sleazy Friends appeared hit upon a foolproof formula for pop-culture icon status: naked porn stars on free TV. It was like Christmas morning every time you tuned in.
Only thing is, Colin wasn’t the first one to seize upon such an idea. If truth be told, the idea of broadcasting a show about the adult film industry had been brewed up three decades earlier in New York City by Al Goldstein, the notorious publisher of Screw magazine. Goldstein’s program, called Midnight Blue, served as a audio-visual extension of Screw (in fact, an early prototype had been titled The Screw Magazine of the Air) and its editor’s particular politics and interests, which were porn, prostitution, bizarre sex, and debasing anyone who deigned to knock him or something he fancied. Midnight Blue ran for an astonishing 27 years (1975-2002) on Manhattan Cable before imploding under the burden of Al’s paranoia and ego, as well as a series of costly legal battles (all examined in horrifying detail in the Midnight Blue Collection’s fifth and apparently final edition, Porn King). But prior to that ignominious end, Goldstein played not-so-genial host to countless superstars of porn’s Golden Age, fellow smut publishers like Larry Flynt, the occasional Hollywood talent, and of course, any freak who would show off his or her particular bedroom routine for Al’s video cameras. Though Al’s rants and slobbering over whatever actress was unlucky to share a couch with him were definitely the show’s low points (especially when Al, whose weight fluctuated dramatically over the course of the show’s run, was at his most morbidly obese), he was also an intelligent man and a fairly savvy interviewer with a self-deprecating streak that outdid Malone’s, and those particular qualities make his interviews watchable. Also, Al never tarted up the porn industry as a bucket of laughs – if anything, Al portrayed it as in its death throes as far back as the early ‘80s – and made no bones that at its core, adult entertainment was cheap and exploitative and gross. The thing was, those weren’t negative terms in Al’s world. If anything, those were positive attributes, and if you feel the same way – or if you don’t, and can stand two hours of human car wrecks on display – you’ll probably find the Midnight Blue Collection a fascinating peek into the seamiest side of sex.
Volume One in the series, The Deep Throat Special Edition, was released in ’05 to coincide with the mostly okay Inside Deep Throat documentary, and compiles Al’s interviews with four of the principal figures in that historical movie’s production. Chesty blonde Carol Connors, who received no billing as Harry Reems’ nurse in Throat, gets the lion’s share of the footage here, undoubtedly because she takes her clothes off in a long and fairly hot solo dance number. That footage, along with Al’s interview (in which she discusses in graphic detail her likes and dislikes in cunnilingus and cock-sucking, as well as the time she jerked off her dog), got her episode banned from the airwaves, which threw Goldstein and Blue co-producer Alex Bennett into a First Amendment-fueled tizzy. The offending Connors scenes were stitched together in a 1975 episode with other material that offered equally offensive moments, yet had made it on the air; said moments include Bennett getting a ferocious (off camera) blow job from hollow-eyed Brit Tuppy Owens (a Screw contributor), early porn starlet Jody Maxwell singing “Old MacDonald” while blowing an anonymous disco dandy (again, nothing hardcore), Helen Madigan explaining where she prefers to have cumshots deposited on her person, and some dude named Mr. Infinity giving a how-to on auto-fellatio. When seen in its entirety, the Connors footage is a little less graphic than the other scenes, though her vigorous hip pumping in the routine, combined with (as Bennett rightfully points out) the color footage (prior to this, MB was shot entirely in black-and-white) probably raised Manhattan Cable’s hackles. Goldstein and Bennett try to turn this into a rallying cry to viewers to vote against the wave of anti-porn legislation that was sweeping the Supreme Court in the early ‘70s, but really, it’s just a nice chunk of softcore cheesecake for big tit fans, and an excellent introduction into the ADD-and-horny format that typified Midnight Blue.
Goldstein next interviews the supremely well-coiffured director of Deep Throat, Gerard Damiano, who is seen, in footage from ’75 or so, promoting his feature, the amazing S&M fantasy The Story of Joanna. Several sex-free clips from the film are included, and Goldstein discusses the Catholic streak that runs through most of Damiano’s post-Throat pictures. It’s an informative interview, and worth seeing for classic porn “scholars.” Terrifying Super Pimp Chuck Traynor is up next – he was Linda’s husband and manager during the making of Throat, and according to her autobiography, he beat her senseless for years and forced her to make porn at gunpoint. Chuck is glimpsed twice at the opposite ends of two decades – first in the ‘70s, looking very much the velour Satan in his white turtleneck, dropping Van Dyke beard, and chunky swinger medallion, and then in the late ‘80s, in a crappy hotel room at Circus Circus, his creepy vibe burnt away by time and age to a raw, toothy gnarliness, all false teeth and close-cropped male pattern baldness. Chuck exudes pure Deep South menace, the kind of guy who would train his tricks with the nearest tree branch, and whether you believe Linda’s allegations or not, all of Al and Alex Bennett’s hey-buddy interviewing can’t dismiss the image of Chuck as total Werewolf material.
Harry Reems is saved for last – we see him in ’82, having survived a near-conviction for conspiracy to distribute Deep Throat (the first and only time an actor was included in a criminal case for simply appearing in a film), and now back in the fuck fold after a seven-year self-imposed exile. Reems looks healthy and flashes that screwball sense of humor (he and Al seem to genuinely like each other), but it’s clear that he’s back for the money, and finds the industry a lot weirder than when he left it. His interview is full of hints that Harry has lost his moorings – he fails to get it up on the set of his new film, Society Affairs, because he didn’t know the actresses, and claims that he got into the business because the new technology of videotape will revolutionize porn’s usefulness as a sex aid. Al is naturally skeptical at Harry’s bluffing, and it’s too bad that the former Herb Streicher didn’t heed his pal’s suggestion; over the next five years, Reems would spiral into alcoholism and homelessness before bailing out in ’87 and reinventing himself as a Christian real estate agent in Utah.
So, was it Al who created these moments of clarity that allows us to see, for a moment at least, into the souls of his guests? Or did they simply live closer to the vest than most people because of their chosen profession? Again, I refer back to our pal Colin Malone, who rarely tapped anything of substance from his San Fernando Valley friends. Al, on the other hand, nudges gently in his interviews, and gets his guests a little riled, whereupon they assert themselves a bit more to stand up to him – for better (in the case of Carol Connors, who sweetly but firmly debunks Al’s description of her as the “forgotten girl of Deep Throat”) or worse (Harry and Chuck, natch). Now, it’s debatable whether Al really gave a shit about getting his guests to open up – if we can assume anything about him, we may surmise that he was somewhat gleeful if they revealed something personal, all the better for him to use as future fodder – but to his credit, Goldstein delivers more than anyone might have expected from a cheapo cable access show (and vanity vehicle) about the price tag that comes with lust, greed, and human frailty.
Now, if that seems far too heavy for him, you can also just groove on the vintage videotape look of the footage, as well as Carol’s sexy dance number, and Blue Underground has delivered what might be called the “total Midnight Blue experience” with this and all the discs in the series by including the original advertisements that ran during the broadcasts. As befitting Screw’s readership, the ads are all related to some aspect of sex work or porn, ranging from shops like The Underground (“an erotic emporium”), which appeared to specialize in enema accoutrements, to hyper-skanky escort services and mail-order junk like the Orgasmatron (a masturbation device with replaceable rotating heads), to notorious scumatoriums like the Orleans Theater (only $2.49 for three big XXX features!) and the New Plato’s Retreat, with owner/swinger Larry Levensen hyping its new male stripper night (B-list stud David Morris is witnessed grinding away in a leather bikini bottom) and upcoming Halloween ball. And the interviews themselves are supplemented by an on-screen text track which reveals bits of trivia about the episodes, like the fact that Carol Connors is Thora Birch’s mom, or that Chuck was also married to Marilyn Chambers. Oh, and make sure to stick around for the guest advice segment from a grizzled swinger/madam-type named Jackie Park, who gives tips for ladies on how to master the deep throat technique (all you need is a gallon of vegetable oil, a king-sized kielbasa, and a bubble wand…) while griping non-stop about guys hounding the ladies for some down-the-hatch action. The full combination of the ads, info track, and the interviews may be too far down the sleazy rabbit hole for some viewers, but for those with an iron constitution and an insatiable appetite for filth, the Midnight Blue series offers hardcore at its hardest (and ugliest, and weirdest), as well as some excellent historical interviews that should appeal to the casual sin enthusiast.
Oh, and as for ol’
Uncle Al, he’s still around, though Screw is out of his hands (it’s
been relaunched by another party), and he’s endured poverty, rampant
physical illnesses, the death of his longtime supporter Al “Grandpa”
Lewis, and a stint with homelessness to emerge… well, basically the same
old Al, bitching and moaning up a storm, though his own mortality seems to
be the newest flavor in his Baskin-Robbins of complaints. He’s about 250
pounds lighter now, and a blogger these days, penning a column for
something called
booble.com,
and working on his autobiography. As evidenced by the material on booble,
though (which includes recent entries titled “Pedophiles Should Be Fed to
Wild Dogs” and numerous discussions of his penis), there’s still a lot of
Midnight Blue in Al Goldstein.
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When I moved to Los
Angeles back in ’96, one of the city’s most popular scumball delights was
a public access cable show called Colin’s Sleazy Friends. Airing on
West Hollywood and Manhattan Beach cable around midnight or so, the
half-hour, single-camera program was the brainchild and domain of trollish
former stand-up comic Colin Malone, a pathological egomaniac whose one
saving grace was a strong self-deprecating streak. With his mostly silent
sidekick Dino Everett (of the Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs fame). Malone
shrewdly took advantage of the scores of adult film talent that littered
the streets of Southern California and invited them on his show for the
expressed purpose of making him look cool, though the primary goal of any
porn chick’s appearance was to get her to take off her top at the show’s
conclusion. The combination of naked girls and Malone’s speedfreak rants
(which were funnier if you were deeply, deeply narcotized – imagine
BangBus’ Dirty Sanchez at the peak of a weekend-long coke bender and you
have Malone in full cry) made
CSF a must-see for both hipsters and creeps – in short, about 75%
of the city’s population.