Times Square Comes Alive (Vince Benedetti, 1985)

Leaving your place of residence to masturbate might sound like a chore in today's click, spank, cry, sanitize and refresh universe. But back in 1985, it was an everyday part of life. Sure, there were a number of different ways to achieve moist-adjacent satisfaction during the height of the fingerless glove era without having to resort to public indecency, yet there was something oddly appealing about obtaining an idiot-proof orgasm in an environment teeming with filth and confusion. Even though I never got the chance to personally experience 42nd Street when it was awash with sexual deviance and flexible women named Tasha, still, one can't help but get a little teary-eyed while watching Times Square Comes Alive (a.k.a. Times Sq. 'Cums' Alive), Marc Roberts' touching ode to sex shops, garter belts, self-administered vaginal irrigation and perversion in general. Everyone from the heavy-set fella manning the double-headed dildo counter to the overworked guy in the hardhat (Bobby Astyr, a.k.a. The Clown Prince of Porn) whose job it is to chisel off the crusty chunks of semen that have accumulated on the floor and peepshow glass over the course of the day is given their moment to shine in the stained-illuminating sun. Harkening back to the days when a person (over the age of eighteen, of course) could find cheap thrills on just about every corner, the film, directed by Vince Benedetti, and shot mockumentary style, is a love letter (okay, it's more like an incoherent diatribe written on a soiled napkin) to the adult book stores of yore.

Tactile and oozing an authentic brand of sleaze, sex in New York City is grimy, coarse and always seems to reek of stale desperation. In California, however, specifically, the San Fernando Valley (the place where smut went after being evicted from the Big Apple), the sex always comes across as impersonal and antiseptic. And call me someone with serious emotional problems, but I will always choose foul and unclean over bland and sterile.

Capturing the unsavoury spirit of New York's unofficial red-light district, Times Square Comes Alive is set up as an expose by a television reporter named Christine Career (Veronica Vera), the genial host of a hard hitting program called "69 Minutes." Standing on the street outside a sex emporium, one that is aptly called "The Sex Emporium" (in reality, the infamous Show World Center), holding her trusty wireless microphone, Christine, wearing a conservative dress–one that, no doubt, is shielding us from a wide array of frilly and sheer delights–invites us to come inside and watch as she attempts to undercover the shadiness that lies beyond its garishly adorned doorway.

A moment of unexpected clarity occurs just as Christine is about the enter the emporium when she wonders aloud about the future of such places. She even uses the term "wrecking ball" to describe the fragile nature of these so-called "massage parlours." As everyone knows, the 42nd Street featured in the film is no more, but it was fascinating to see that even the purveyors of porn knew their days in Times Square were numbered.

You won't believe...

what's lurking...

underneath Christine Career's super-long dress.

And there's no way to prepare yourself for you're about to see underneath Christine Career's super-long dress in Times Square Comes Alive. It's the stuff of pornographic legend. Do you thinking I'm overselling it? Nah.

After she finally does enter the scuzzy-looking establishment she's been standing in front of for the past minute or so, Christine, in the most awkward manner possible, approaches four dancers: Nikki (Nikki Wright), the dirty one; Scarlett (Scarlett Scharleau), the brash one; Tasha (Tasha Voux), the flexible one; and Angela (Angela Venise), the soft one, as they're preparing themselves for the sex-filled day ahead of them.

Asking them a series of questions pertaining to their job, Christine tries shed some light on the day-to-day existence of your average sex worker. A tad wary of this overdressed intruder whose entered their midst (if they only knew what wonders lurked underneath her clothing), the scantily clad women do their best to answer her frightfully lame questions.

One of them mentions needing to cleanse themselves with a douche, and leaves the room. I thought to myself, wouldn't it be great if they actually showed her douching herself (sexual intercourse can so pedestrian some times). To my surprise, it looks like we're about to be treated to what no-one likes to call a "front enema." The douche water starts to flow when the wonderfully gap-toothed Nikki, after fingering her clit (her nails are pink and her hands and arms are adorned with black fingerless opera gloves), starts to provoke the opening of the pinkish hole located between her legs with the nozzle of a douche.

Relaxing in a position that is conducive to douching, the soon-to-be spick-and-span blonde pokes and prods at her delicious pussy area in a way that seemed to be more geared toward her pleasure than the purification of her genitalia. But then again, that just goes to show how little I know about the douching process. Douche ignorance aside, it was nice to see someone being cleaned for a change, as there's something rather comforting about the sight of a woman who has decided to start their day off with an irrigated vagina.

Since the film can't be wall-to-wall douching, Angela, the soft one, and, to not to mention, the sexiest woman in the entire joint, gets her pussy pounded by the cock attached to a lumpy man with a faint mustache. Wearing black suspender hose and her hair in a bun, Angela absorbs the brunt of his run-of-the-mill thrusts with a disaffected nonchalance. All the while, Christine and a bunch of creepy gawkers watch from their respective peepshow windows. Speaking of windows, Nikki, douched and ready to go, manages to extract sperm from a man simply by pretending to fellate him (a sheet of glass separates the two participants).

You probably noticed that I said Christine Career approaches the dancers in the "most awkward manner possible," well, that's because everything about Veronica Vera's performance practically screams awkwardness. And I don't mean that as a negative. On the contrary, my perfume scented little douche nozzle, her awkward mannerisms, especially when she tries to interview people, are the film's greatest, non-sex attribute. Okay, maybe her clumsy style of gonzo journalism wasn't as appealing as the sight of the gorgeous Angela Venise prancing around a badly lit peepshow booth in nothing but a pair of black suspender hose, but it was definitely one of the film's strengths.

The scene where Veronica interviews "Billy," the heavy-set man in charge of the emporium's dildo counter, amplifies her awkward temperament. Part of me likes to think that Christine Career wasn't really a journalist, but actually a schizophrenic woman who likes to pretend she's the Diane Sawyer of the porno theatre scene.

Awkwardly gesturing toward some curtains, Christine introduces us to "fantasy theatre," a sort of Café Flesh-esque nightclub where unorthodox sex scenarios are acted out for the amusement of the saps in the audience. The one we're shown involves three sailors, who seem to be working on what looked like a submarine engine. Bathed in smoke and illuminated with this eerie pink light, the sailors are interrupted by three ladies in lingerie (one of which was definitely Nikki, the douche girl). Anyway, the weirdly edited (some moments are repeated multiple times) scene goes on for about eight minutes.

The next scene is interesting, not because it features a skinny dude with floppy hair having sex with a chick dressed like a man (think: Bruno Mars in a satin garter belt) in a room the size of a phone booth, but because the skinny dude with floppy hair is none other than Bill Landis (a.k.a. Bobby Spector), one of the writers of Sleazoid Express; an excellent book about exploitation cinema and the 42nd Street movie-going experience; "Blood Horror: Chopping 'Em up at the Rialto" is my favourite chapter. Oh and the director of this film, Vince Benedetti, is thanked in the "Acknowledgements" section.

Interviewing Nikki, the douche woman, in a peepshow booth, Veronica actually says, "Your p-p-p-p-pussy?!? Is that what you call it? Your p-p-p-p-pussy?" When she said that line I was like, give me a break, women with pierced nipples know exactly what a pussy is. Either way, I love the idea that Veronica pretended to have no idea that people called their vaginas pussies (the way she struggles to say "pussy" was beyond adorable).

(Maybe she didn't really know what a pussy was.) Do I have to say it again? Woman with pierced nipples have to know what a pussy is, it's as simple as that. (Hey, wait a minute, how do you know Veronica has pierced nipples?) She showed them to me. Well, she didn't just show them to me, she shows them to everyone in the audience.

In one the film's greatest moments, Nikki, after being inundated with what seemed like a thousand questions about her pussy, asks to see Veronica's pussy. Reluctantly lifting up her long skirt, Veronica is wearing black stockings that are being held up by these crinkly red garters. The way the tops of black stockings clung for dear life as they pressed tightly against her thick thighs was probably one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

Pop quiz, hotshot. How many one-handed hiking motions does it take Christine Career to lift up skirt until we see the tops of her black stockings? If you said, eleven. You would be not that far off. It actually took twelve separate one-handed hiking motions to reveal her red garters hanging on for dear life as they kept her black stockings aloft. Now, some fans of Times Square Comes Alive will tell you she hiked her skirt seven or eight times. But those people are flat-out wrong. Take it from me, I've studied this film long and hard. In other words, I know exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to one-handed hiking motions.

While Tasha Voux would definitely win the award for being the most flexible dancer in the joint, Angela Vinise is hands down the sexiest. Hold on, I think I already mentioned that Angela is the sexiest. Whatever, I'm saying it again, as it coincides with the scene I'm currently writing about. And that is, the scene where Tasha and Angela, who is wearing her trademark black suspender hose, dance for peepshow customers.

In the next two scenes, a trans man gives a trans woman a blow job in the so-called "Gaiety Room" (no cum shot) and a nurse (Ashley Moore in white stockings) performs an enema on a male patient (no taupe anal water, but we do get a drippy cum shot).

As you can clearly see, this film is not only educational, it features a wide array of sex acts. In the second to last scene, Veronica Vera shows off her red garters one more time as she deals with a glory hole. The way she says, "There appears to be a penis coming out of this hole," blew my mind. Again, she's pretty naive for someone with a nipple piercing. Yet, the world would be a far less oppressive place if we all approached sex with Christine's Career trademark brand of cockeyed wonder.

Mondo New York (Harvey Keith, 1988)

Following the seductive line of enviable filth that snaked along her sturdy thighs with my finger as the muck made its way down the pale nooks and ashen crannies of her pronounced calve muscles was one of my favourite past times as a withdrawn, easily entertained youth. Held aloft in order that the guy from Foetus could pretend to probe her pulsating pussy with a certain degree of comfort, the sight of Lydia Lunch with her brawny legs in the air was a huge influence on me. Looking directly into the camera as she braced for the pelvic onslaught that was about to be unleashed onto her genital flight deck, it was almost as if Lydia's eyes were speaking directly to me as I stared at her lying spread-eagle on the back of the Stinkfist EP ("The push, the panic, the pain, the poison!"). I like to think that her eyes were trying to tell me something. Perhaps something like, stay true to yourself, and maybe, one day, you'll get to penetrate someone like me. People often never ask me, "What's the deal with your obsession with vulgar words and phrases?" Of course, I wouldn't classify my vocabulary that way at all; it's unrefined language expressed without fear. Anyway, hearing this half-crazed woman one night ranting about wanting to destroy the pathetic cock currently seeking shelter and warmth inside her dangerous vagina, I remember my ears perking up in a manner similar to the way they percolated when I first heard the menacing throb of a Skinny Puppy song on the radio. Well, I soon found out that the half-crazed woman spewing verbal diarrhea all over my tinny speakers was Karen Finley, and just like that, my linguistic outlook was changed forever. Oh, and the reason I used the word "dangerous" to describe Karen's second most popular opening had nothing to do with its appearance or reputation as an unstable structure, but because of the sheer conviction of the voice attached to the vagina led everyone who listened to it to respect its raw power.

What, may I ask, happened when you discovered that not all women are like Lydia Lunch and Karen Finley? Did you, like, freak out and stuff? Since my intense shyness has prevented me from meeting an insane amount of people over the years, it's entirely possible that I haven't met this profane angel yet. However, in a universe replete with delusional pop stars who ripoff Madonna for a living and highly paid morons who paint themselves orange for the amusement of smug mouth-breathers with low self-esteem, I'll admit, my chances of meeting an unhinged performance artist, one who is just waiting to slit my throat with human kindness, are pretty slim. In the meantime, I guess I'll have to settle for watching Mondo New York, the only cinematic travelogue to feature lanky drag queens, BDSM, angry poets, human trafficking, and, of course, Lydia Lunch, who looked absolutely gorgeous laying the groundwork for the weirdness about to unfold for the next eighty or so minutes, and Karen Finley, who spends most of her time doing what she does best: railing against yuppies while covered with animal by-products.

Wait a minute, back up the truck (a truck that is hopefully crammed super-tight with defective dildos), you mean to tell me that there's an actual movie out there that features both Lydia Lunch and Karen Finley?!? You better believe it. Sure, so one of the loquacious lovelies is only in the film for forty-five seconds, but forty-five seconds is still better than nothing. Okay, as far as justifications go for the lack of a person's screentime, that shit is pretty weak. But you have to understand, just because you wanna live in a world where the sight of Lydia Lunch slowing asphyxiating a bound Kate Hudson with the mouth-watering circumference of her unclothed derriere, while Karen Finley tries on irregular pantyhose in the background are daily occurrences, does not mean that world will ever exist. Take the scraps of Lydia and Karen you given and be grateful, you pompous prat.

Conceived by filmmaker Harvey Keith and Night Flight creator Stuart S. Shapiro, the film, a veritable hodgepodge of New York cool, focuses on a wide array of artists, poets, musicians, comedians, perverts, criminals, and drug users at a time when being any one of those things actually meant something. Our guide on this tour, a nameless blonde woman in denim (Shannah Laumeister), quietly walks from one unorthodox venue to another, soaking up the city's unique culture over the course of a single day. Yeah, that's right, she walks quietly. On top of having no name, our guide seems to go unnoticed wherever she ends up, despite the fact she also turns heads (her physical appearance meets many of the rigid standards held by those whose populate the male branch of the heterosexual realm of existence). This anonymous temperament, including the overtones that seem to contradict her anonymity at every turn, gave her presence a decidedly non-judgmental air. Of course, I don't mean to imply that she's some kind of mindless observer, on the contrary, our guide does express her feelings every now and then. But for the most part, she simply absorbs what's put in front of her like she were a sponge or a moldy piece of bread.

You'll notice that I mentioned "New York cool" as supposed to just plain "cool." Well, the reason I did that was to keep to the two distinct types of cool separate from another. My coolness, let's get one thing straight, has never been in doubt, yet the cool that existed in New York City circa, oh, let's say, the ten year period between 1978-1988, will intimidate even the most ardent of cool people. Let me put it this way, there's a reason no one has bothered to make a movie called Mondo Etobicoke.

We open on New York City's world famous skyline, it's around 4 or 5 A.M. in the morning, when, all of a sudden, Lydia Lunch enters the frame, which, by the way, is bathed in mist. She doesn't identify herself as a "Lydia Lunch," but we know who she is. Clutching her jean jacket with a feistier than usual brand of determination, Lydia proceeds to tell us all about the hopes and dreams of the residents of the fair city she stands before. You see, apparently there's this giant garbage pile, and the outcasts, misfits, rejects, loser pervert lunatics, gangsters, pranksters, and outlaws all want to claw their way to the top of it. Standing in their way, however, are bunch of neurotics, psychotics, maniacs, brainiacs, hippies, yippies, yuppies, flunkies, and even monkeys. In other words, it's a war zone out there. The very soul of Mondo New York is up for grabs, and only the most self-absorbed of citizens will be able to claim it.

After Lydia is finished with her prologue, we quickly hook up with our red sneaker-wearing guide. Making her way through a crowd of punks and freaks, our guide enters what looks like a concert venue, positions herself amidst the jaded audience, and watches Phoebe Legere writhe about in an erotic stupor while performing "Marilyn Monroe." Even though the lyrics of the song mostly involve singing the deceased movie star's name over and over again, Phoebe's ebullient stage presence more than makes up for the song's lack of lyrical diversity. Sporting one pink opera glove (dig the black frays, girlfriend), fishnet stockings (which were held up by narrow bands of dark fabric), a gold chain belt, and strumming a guitar with a leopard print strap (yeah, I noticed her guitar strap), Phoebe thrusts and heaves her body across the stage like a raving banshee with rag doll ambitions.

Leaving the concert (I guess she'd seen enough of Phoebe's protruding pubic hair for one day), our guide enters a church-like structure, takes a seat in one of the pews, and watches Joel Coleman, performance artist, Richard Speck fan and all round weird guy, bite the heads off two rodents, utter the phrase "syphilic cunt fossils," and lights the firecracker that was sewn into his poncho. Question: If our guide leaves during a performance (she got up and left just as the rodents were about to lose their heads) does that mean we should go as well? Obviously she wasn't that offended by Joel's mouse abuse, because we see her at his apartment moments later, but it does give the audience something to think about.

Animal lovers will want to avoid the aforementioned rodent decapitation scene, the cockfighting sequence (one rooster is killed by another rooster), and the voodoo ritual (a live chicken has its head bitten off). There's a scene that features the always beguiling Ann Magnuson beating a dead horse with a mattenklopper, but the horse she was pummeling was clearly fake. Fans human cruelty, on the other hand, will want to make sure they catch the scenes that show our intrepid guide peeking through a crack in a wall to catch a glimpse of nipples being clamped and asses being spanked and another where she spies on an illicit gathering where women are being sold at an auction. The former was just your average early morning S&M party (lots of leather and some mild heel sucking), it was the latter scene that threw me for a bit of a loop. At first I thought they selling cheongsams. But then it dawned on me, the body-hugging garments weren't for sale, it was the shapely women poured into them that were being sold.

Tired of whips and chains, our guide heads down some stairs to watch a mentally challenged individual, one who took blithering and twitching in a wheelchair took a whole new level of spasticity, get his special needs penis serviced by Veronica Vera (her womanly epicentre eventually wrapped in cellophane) and Annie Sprinkle (her lumpy, bumpy frame covered in body paint), as Sabine Reithmayer (or it could it been Linda Mac) recites poetry.

It's around noon, and our guide is about to get an earful from a random collection of the Lower East Side's most civic-minded residents. Some yell out the standard "I love New York," while others, like one angry-sounding woman, declare, "I will fight for the Lower East Side." A former East Londoner, who now lives in Alphabet City, thinks the fact that you can now get rap music on compact disc is a sign of the apocalypse. Which, of course, will manifest itself when the yuppies inevitably takeover. Walking into a junkyard, I mean, an outdoor art installation (it's hard to tell the difference sometimes), our guide runs into Joey Arias, who, while as dressed like a flamenco-inspired devil, serenades her with a song called "Fish Out Of Water."

Heading over to the fountain in Washington Square Park, our guide finds a seat on the steps and prepares herself for the ethnic comedy of Charlie Barnett (Miami Vice) and Rick Aviles (Ghost). Announcing that he loves a New York audience, Charlie's routine revolves around jokes based on racial stereotypes (white guys walk this, black guys walk like this), while Rick's schtick was...pretty much the same (black gay guys talk like this, white gay guys talk like this).

Since I've already alluded to the Ann Magnuson scene, which takes place in a pastoral field and has her reciting a poem about prime interest rates to a giant turkey (which, surprisingly, isn't brutally murdered), I'll just mention that I regret not including Ann in my opening bit about Lydia Lunch and Karen Finely. If anyone deserves to be drowned in lavish praise, it's Ann Magnuson, especially a pigtail-sporting Ann Magnuson. Quirky fun-fact: The only audible sound our guide makes in Mondo New York are the screams she lets out as a result of being chased by a carpet beater-wielding Ann Magnuson.

Sandwiched between Joey Arias' elegant, jazzy interpretation of "A Hard Days Night" (I loved the mid-song costume change) and an abridged version of "Hustle With My Muscle" by John Sex ("I'll cram your box 'til it's good and smelly"), is the enchanting Karen Finley, whose scathing spoken word piece was, in my opinion, the moment when the film's overall mission statement (the soulless chunks of yuppie scum who desperately want to corrupt the cultural integrity of our beloved neighbourhood must be stopped) was expressed in a succinct manner. In a work called "I Hate Yellow," Karen strips down to her panties (all good performance art involves nudity), covers her body with egg yolk and glitter, and begins to attack the yuppie mindset ("I'm not gonna let you gang rape me, yuppie!"). The gist of her diatribe is that yuppies and their pastel clothing are the bane of human existence. It's not exactly the most groundbreaking concept, but it's done in a such an entertaining manner, that you're willing look past its apparent banality. I liked the part where she scolds the yuppie's children who are, according to her, a bunch of "nine year-olds who only talk through their computers."

Fully enlightened, and probably hankering a pair of chocolate-covered yuppie balls, our guide observes a crowd slam dancing to "New York New York" by Manitoba's Wild Kingdom ("Everyone's an asshole, everyone's a creep!"), and, like most nights in New York City, ends her evening standing before a bald, long-legged drag queen. Unafraid to drink in every square inch of his fabulous frame, Harvey Keith's camera immortalizes Dean Johnson as he performs "Fuck You" with the Weenies. I can't think of a better way to end Mondo New York than to have a rawboned dandy in shades say "fuck you" to Union Carbide and Mary Tyler Moore, as it sums up the film's anarchistic attitude perfectly.

video uploaded by solidspace a.k.a. soviet

...